Facts are like angular molecules with different faces, like those geometric blocks where every face is made to fit a corresponding face on another molecule. Every 'fact' has at least one face that is not attached to anything, forming an open structure always subject to change or revision. This is the face of uncertainty. Our preconceptions are the operating instructions about which facts are to be joined with which and in what order. Our convictions are the DNA and the glue that holds the world together. We move forward in life through a cloud of anonymous facts and we proceed to assemble the world like an infinitely variable puzzle. What we believe is what we see. 

If we think we are ill then all the facts will point to illness. If we believe in a god then the facts will point us toward god. If we believe in angels or UFO's then our lives will be full of visitations.  If we think that the CIA murdered Kennedy then the facts will build a perfect picture of that case. If we are convinced that 9/11 was planned by the government, we will build a picture in which that also appears to be true, as it appears to 'fit the facts.' 

When we meet another person and get to know them the arrangement of all of our 'facts' is altered and revised as our perception of the universe changes. True and deep friendship thus leads us to profound alterations in our consciousness. True love reshapes our whole world.    

All facts breed their opposites. An 'enlightened' Christian civilization breeds zombies and vampires and apocalypse. Science breeds superstition along with all kinds of unforeseen consequences. Order breeds chaos. An empire built on shallow agreements comes apart like old glue.   

Where do we find the truth in all of this? 

We're suffering a plague of paranoia these days. On one extreme we have believers in cosmic planetary shifts that will snuff out civilization as we know it virtually overnight. This will be the effect of a wayward planet that fast approaches the outer limits of our solar system. Tidal waves will cover the coasts, whirlwinds will devastate cities, sea levels will rise over 100 feet and the safest place to be o this continent is be the Missouri-Arkansas Ozark mountains. The governments of the world know all about this and are moving to preserve their intelligence and military infrastructures by covertly moving them above the approaching tide. We should prepare ourselves by forming groups of at least six well-armed, well provisioned adults (so someone will always be awake), and move to higher ground as far away from major population centers as possible.

 

The local cultural rag for Halloween this week printed a feature called "Apocalypse Soon" that explores various end of life-as-we-know-it scenarios from global weather changes to overpopulation to nuclear disruptions and societal collapse. The article basically employs the device of using our dystopian fears to address the political and social issues facing the nation. The hook is our fascination with horror stories and disaster epics, particularly in a season when we are celebrating our nightmares. Hell, I plan to go see the upcoming 2012 movie by the director of Independence Day because, well, I just like to see big things get blown up. There's something about worse-case scenarios that make for an unparalleled Hollywood roller coaster ride. I'm as fascinated as anyone with all of that Revelations imagery about the end times. Like many of us I grew up with it, and then incorporated it with few revisions into New Age prophecies, from Harmonic Convergence, to Y2K, to the return of the Mother Ship.  

There's now a whole industry on the Internet, and in VFW halls in Bumfuck, Texas devoted to proving that President Obama is planning to disband the Constitution and that the whole Global Warming thing is part of the Oligarchy's plan to distract us and force us into a New World Order of One World Government. This of course, is a scenario partly outlined in the hallucinatory text of the Book of Revelations and illuminated for modern readers by LaHaye and Jenkins in their best selling "Left Behind" books. All of this would be an amusing glimpse at an underlying tendency infecting Christian cultures, except that it's been taken up by the far right as fuel for the fires of prejudice and cultural disruption. Echoes and reflections of this hysterical rhetoric have now become major drivers in the political manipulations of those who feel their power threatened by any serious change. 

Somebody sent me a link to a sprawling documentary called The Fall of the Republic by slick right wing media operator Alex Jones that's an all purpose paranoid summing up of every half-cocked conspiracy theory on the planet. He paints a picture that tells us essentially that any action taken by any government anywhere for any purpose whatever is part of a plot by the shadowy "Oligarchs" to take away our freedoms and destroy the Bill of Rights. "We've got to recapture control of the power centers of society," says an interviewee, and I have to ask, who is this 'we'? Everyone in the film appears to be a Protestant white guy. The 'facts' I'm seeing here are white guys in a panic. A black man is president, the economy is crashing and the government is taking control of large sections of the economy away from the petty thieves that have driven it into the ground. On top of all this, the people who assume cultural superiority and their right to be first in a somewhat segregated line-up will soon be in the voting minority. To the people who see their power fading it appears to be the oligarchs on the Council of Foreign Relations who are plotting to take the power from white folks and spread it around to foreigners. 

Why is all of this surfacing in a tsunami of dread right now? Symptoms of some underlying lunacy appear to be surfacing almost everyday in our arts, politics, the media, religious dogmas and most pervasively on the Internet. 

There appears to be a desperate need to find some simplified map or guidebook in an increasingly complex world, one that shows how all of the puzzle pieces fit together. I can appreciate the attraction of scenarios that feature other dimensions, angels and UFO's, to explain the synchronicity and wonder that offers us guideposts and markers in our lives. The idea of more evolved beings looking on our efforts can be positive, as it may lead us to some improved behavior. Personally, I draw the line at conspiracy theories. I've never met one that I thought worth dwelling on for more than an instant. They all seem ultimately to lead nowhere and those who obsess on this stuff tend to do absolutely nothing constructive with it. Conspiracy buffs are like addicts and their obsession leads them only deeper into endless rabbit holes.  

The darkest side of all this craziness is driven by the engine of apocalyptic thinking. In our belief in the 'end times' lurks both an obsession with, and a fear and denial of death. The crucifixion and the apocalypse are two brackets around christian thought. While the crucifixion dramatizes the suffering of Christ in the incarnate world, the apocalypse promises ultimately an end to all of our suffering as we, the chosen, spend eternity in God's country club. The subsequent determination of who is chosen and who isn't offers endless opportunity for the cynical manipulation of people's most virulent fears and prejudices.  

Christian cultures have been awaiting the end times for 2,000 years, and before that the Jews waited and before that were the Sumerians, and all of this waiting filters down into the undercurrent of civilization so in some sense we are all anticipating that frightening and magical moment when the skies will open. My own sense is that we will keep on waiting endlessly, until by some magical or scientific means we have learned how to overcome death. I'm not counting the years. 

Meanwhile, I will remain a skeptic, and those of you who would try and convince me that some outside force or secret cabal is controlling our world are not likely to get much of my serious attention. My approach to systems of belief has always been, "Know them by their works," and you will have to inspire something much more positive than either 'fear thy neighbor' or 'fear the government' if you want to be taken seriously. If you want me to join your cause or endorse your set of agreements, you better have a vision that promises more than being on the 'right' side, or you are not likely to get beyond my front door. 

Happy Halloween.