The political and biological situation of the planet has been plunging precipitously for the last few years (decades, centuries, millennia . . . ) so that it has been hard to think about anything else.  So many people are wringing their hands in despair as the planet continues its accelerating free-fall, and they watch, helplessly, as if it all be too far gone for there to be any path towards restoration of the old world we once used to know.  That is, biologically, the world was in pretty good shape about a thousand years ago, but then it all started to go bad, reaching a level of crisis proportions as the Industrial Revolution gave the human race the means greatly to accelerate the pace of destruction.  The Automobile, requiring heretofore unimaginable levels of fossil fuel extraction, and the resulting pollution and global warming caused by all that exhaust, exacerbated by all those freight trains, airplanes, and space rockets (looking at you, Mr. Elon Musk).  And all of this is going on while our poor earth is progressively denuded of its vital tree cover, losing its foundational ability to maintain a habitable planet.  

     So what is going on, and what can we do about it ?  To address that question, I want to elevate once again into the ætherial realms of speculative philosophy.  The cutting edge of Consciousness speculation is represented by such important writers as Ervin Laszlo (vide, e.g., The Immutable Laws of the Akashic Field, 2021).  The basic idea has been a persistent theme in ancient wisdom sources, that the entire universe is a single, living, and conscious Being, not some random accumulation of stray bits of matter and energy floundering around in a sea of chaos.  This will not come as any kind of new idea to anyone who has ventured into any of the ancient sources of religious, philosophical, or mystical thought over the millennia.  Nor will it come as anything new to those of us who have explored the revelations afforded by such modern avenues of inspiration such as LSD, or to readers of contemporary writers in the field of consciousness, quantum mechanics, or the latest speculations on the nature of our world, such as the afore mentioned Ervin Laszlo, or The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot.  

     Yes, of course “we are all One;” and by “we” we do not refer just to the human race, nor do we limit our field of vision to all of life, including plants and animals – we mean the entire ball of wax, Everything.  We do not mean simply that all matter and energy is somehow linked together, but that it really is an inseparable unity, alive and conscious.  Laszlo uses the ancient term “Akashic Field” to show continuity from ancient sources which viewed everything as a single, integrated, and holographic field.  This field is said to comprise a permanent record of everything that has ever happened, and is the medium through which gifted psychics are able to tune in and recover any information contained therein.  It is through the medium of this akashic field that a sensitive mother, for example, can immediately know of an injury to her child, who might be on the other side of the world.  

     The speculation continues, however, to suggest that everything that happens in the universe is informed by this conscious field.  That is, nothing happens “at random” – everything that is known and unfolding is a consequence of this “universal cosmic consciousness.”

     But somewhere around this point, my own speculations diverge from the common narrative.  The usual narrative has the entire world created by this Original Source, the Intelligent Mind of the Universe.  But that assumption has some very slippery consequences.  In the first place, once you postulate any kind of original Source for the extant cosmos, you run smack into the logical paradox of any origin story.  Just as the world was said to rest on the back of a turtle, and that turtle was sitting on the back of another turtle, and, in fact, it was “turtles all the way down,” so you cannot avoid begging the question once you posit anything at all as the primary Source (i.e., where did that Original Source come from ?).  But the concept is unsatisfactory for other reasons, as well.  For example, if you suggest that the entire world were created by some primordial Consciousness, then that consciousness is responsible for its creation.  In fact, I read a lot of very hopeful and optimistic words, such as “we are moving through a major scientific, psychological, social – and hence spiritual – shift as a species” towards greater coherence.  And, “the social and cultural change currently occurring across the planet may well be part of this process, in-forming an extended mind and global connectivity.”  And, “we may witness a grand awakening of a collective expression of consciousness upon the earth – and this may well be the purpose for sentient life, as Akashic agents.”

     As I drily observed in the margin – “any day now.”  I don’t see much grand awakening going on in Palestine, Ukraine, the American political establishment, or the ongoing rampage of fossil fuel extraction and consumption – Nero is playing his fiddle (or cithara) while Rome burns, and the rest of us are wringing our hands in despair.  

     My own divergent interpretation of this idea of the conscious and intelligent mind of the universe (or original Mind of God) is that the universe spontaneously came into being as a single field of energy, and that consciousness evolved along with the rest of the universe, existing potentially from the beginning, and evolving into greater conscious coherence and complexity as it continued to evolve.  The universe coming into being spontaneously may seem to be a rather tenuous assumption, but it is the only logical possibility, and, in fact, I have worked out a metaphysics that accounts for this miracle.  I don’t want to begin to defend that thesis here because it is the most abstruse metaphysics imaginable.  If anyone wishes to look into it further, the idea is propounded in my writings, found in the Selected Articles, Metaphysics and Theology.

     However, if one grants the premise, then everything becomes immediately clear.  For example, the Problem of Evil melts away – how can we believe in an all powerful and merciful God in the face of all the manifest evil in the world ?  Answer – “oh, no; God is not all powerful; We are just doing the best that We can.”  The prevailing interpretation of the Akashic Field as a pre-existing infinite Mind of the Universe seems to allow for a God’s-in-his-Heaven-and-all’s-right-with-the-world attitude of hopeful optimism, whereas the situation as I see it is that this world is out of control, and the consciousness of the cosmos is breaking down into chaos – it is Up to Us to reverse this decline and try to restore an elevating consciousness, if we have any hope of the survival of life on earth.  

     Or, as Paracelsus says, “Clay does not, of itself, become a Pot.”