(302) Sun 13 Jul 97 15:54 By: Sheppard Gordon To: All Re: Need For Myth 1/2 St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:5a41 22ed7ec0 @MSGID: 1:278/15 00136b34 FEARS AND FERMENT GREET COMING OF 2000 FROM APOCALYPSE TO COSMIC BLISS, `PROPHETS' SEE A TIME OF CALM AND CHAOS 05/30/96 The San Diego Union-Tribune It's not clear whether the UFO invasion is coming before or after the earthquake, or where that comet striking the Earth with cataclysmic results fits in. What is certain is that "prophets" with interests that range from the environment to religion to extraterrestrial life and on to New Age spirituality are going to be making themselves heard in a big way as 2000 approaches. Accelerating interest in millennial prophecies was reflected at the joint annual convention of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association recently in Las Vegas, where the millennium was a hot topic at sessions on New Age and metaphysical concepts and the U.S. right-wing militia movement. Spectacular, mundane Some of the predictions for the new millennium are spectacular -- volcanic eruptions, melting icecaps and the like. Some prophets look into the future and see our heads expanding to accommodate all our increasing brainpower. Other predictions are more mundane. One popular approach to the New Age that will begin in 2001 forecasts a gradual and pleasant increase in human understanding and cooperative behavior. Period. Some of the prophets are encouraged by recent events. When a news wire reported in November that an anonymous California surgeon had removed mysterious foreign objects from the bodies of people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, it fed into fears by UFO believers that the time for extraterrestrials to come down and clean things up on Earth apparently was nigh. Others base their beliefs on ancient religious and philosophical principles, such as the Biblical forecast of a final showdown between the forces of Satan, led by the Antichrist, and those of God, led by a returned Jesus. Midwest up in dust The visions of Gordon-Michael Scallion, editor and publisher of the New Hampshire-based Earth Changes Report, include a huge cloud of dust covering several Midwest states and the emergence of a "Fifth World," spiritual in nature, after a battle between spiritual and material entities. A visionary and writer in Charlottesville, Va., who goes by the name of Solara Antara Amaa-Ra predicts the development of a hidden "island of light" called Ana Ta-an where a select few will live "un-pinned from time and space. " In a telephone interview, Amaa-Ra claims "more than intuitive" knowledge about the millennium, which is bound to produce a "spiritual awakening" among vast numbers of humans. "In my work I travel all over the planet," she says. "A lot of people are aware this is a special time in the history of the Earth. " The current era is "the best of times and the worst of times," Amaa-Ra declares. "It is a time of the overlapping of two reality systems, the one we've known and grown up in and the one based on the opportunities we have before us. "There is widespread corruption, values are changing, politics is corrupt to the core, entertainment is based on violence," she says. "But it's also the best of times in that there is a huge awareness of the system based on oneness. "The concept of this duality has been accepted as fact, but that duality is crumbling. The year 2000 is a big wake-up call, a shifting of cycles . . . In some sense it's the end of the world because it's the end of the world as we knew it." Elevens everywhere If you've been having dreams about the number 11, she said, you're not going crazy. People all over the world have been noticing 11s wherever they look these days. "It means the Earth is going to shed its skin sometime by the end of the year 2011," Amaa-Ra said. "That's when the millennial changes will be in place. Everything is going to be different." Millennial prophecies are based on a basic story that appears in virtually every culture, according to Ted Daniels, a folklorist, director of the 4-year- old Millennium Watch Institute and publisher of the quarterly newsletter Millennial Prophecy Report in Philadelphia. "The story is the Earth is so corrupt and wicked that nothing can change it except divine intervention," Daniels says. "It's beyond the hope of any human cure. What the believers set out to do is make that happen -- get God or however they conceive of God to intervene, clean everything up and bring us back to a state of primal innocence." -> Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Hiya:05Nov94 Origin: ----------> Jack Sargeant, you look fabulist! --- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10 * Origin: MoonDog BBS þ RIME NetHub Brooklyn,NY (1:278/15) SEEN-BY: 112/4 218/701 890 1001 278/15 230 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51 @PATH: 278/230 3615/50 218/1001 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (303) Sun 13 Jul 97 15:54 By: Sheppard Gordon To: All Re: Need For Myth 2/2 St: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @EID:5ab1 22ed7ec0 @MSGID: 1:278/15 00136b36 Calendar or coincidence? Some millennialist believers link their beliefs to the calendar; others don't, Daniels says. "I don't think anybody believes the calendar is causing this to happen," he adds. "But there are lots of prophecies around from lots of traditions that indicate something like this is due about now. "Most of them are perceiving alarming trends," he says. "And the world is changing. Like all changes, it's unpredictable. People don't know what it's going to be like. When AT&T lays off 40,000 people, what are they going to turn to? That's a really unsettling thing." Obsessive thinking about the millennium, of course, can lead to tragic results. Millennialist thinking played a big role in the development of a cult led by the partially blind prophet Shoko Asahara. He is on trial in Tokyo for the killing of 11 subway riders who died in a nerve-gas attack in Tokyo in March 1995, and for the deaths of 14 other people. Asahara published a book in 1992 titled "Declaring Myself the Christ." Defectors from his powerful cult have described him as obsessed with Christian and Jewish prophecies of Armageddon, placing himself as the predestined savior of a corrupt and deteriorating world. Cataclysm cult Fears of cataclysmic millennialism and a "new world order" also may have played roles in the Oklahoma City federal-building bombing, the ill-fated standoff between the Weaver family and federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the deadly confrontation between cult members and federal agents near Waco, Texas, and possibly the ongoing Freemen situation in Montana. American history is filled with examples of conspiracy-minded millennialists preaching a return to an earlier time and an earlier status for the individual, says College of Charleston (S.C.) political-science Professor William Moore, a longtime monitor of American extremist organizations. Armageddon theory dovetails nicely, he said, with fears of a conspiratorial attempt to create an international community that would take the U.S. government away from its citizens. Moore says some militia members express fears that the use of international traffic symbols on American roads, for example, is part of the process of paving the way for the occupation of the United States by a foreign army. Moore and others suggest an approach toward extremist millennial thinkers that recognizes their beliefs as part of a long tradition rather than simple aberrant criminal behavior. Wayne Sneath, a graduate student in the American Culture Studies program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, studied government reports of the Waco standoff and concluded that cult leader David Koresh didn't negotiate so much as try to convert the FBI to his apocalyptic beliefs. While the government treated the standoff as a secular dispute, he says, the Branch Davidians looked at it as a fundamentalist's religious battle -- a lack of understanding that frustrated both sides. The need for myth Diane Sautter, who teaches mythology at Northern Michigan University, says the belief that Earth is approaching a critical time in its history has prompted many people, "in order to discern what our role is going to be at this time of great change," to investigate ancient myths and intuitive forms of knowing. "Because this has been prophesied in many traditions as a time of great shift for the Earth, because the Earth can't handle much of what's going on, with pollution and so forth, many people, I think, are exploring sources of information to discern their role," she says. "They want to know what they can do to assist at this time of change." Millennialist thinking frequently links the behavior of people on Earth with cosmic repercussions. "There's now an understanding of our responsibility, which is fundamentally ethical," she says. "I think significant change is on the threshold. It's not that I hold to any particular date. I just see this as a time of change. I think more and more people are connecting through the heart." -> Alice4Mac 2.4.4 E QWK Hiya:05Nov94 Origin: ----------> Jack Sargeant, you look fabulist! --- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10 * Origin: MoonDog BBS þ RIME NetHub Brooklyn,NY (1:278/15) SEEN-BY: 112/4 218/701 890 1001 278/15 230 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51 @PATH: 278/230 3615/50 218/1001