The Asymptote
There is a concept that I have
been wishing to explore on my blogs now for some while, however it is somewhat
abstruse and being rather beyond popular conceptions of reality I have
hesitated for too long. But I must
grasp the nettle.
Firstly let me say that it is my
belief that we should be applying an understanding of mathematical and physical
laws to the analysis of history. The
flow of events which we know as human culture and civilisation is a mass
process which is subject to an immense number of factors. Economics, psychology and environmental
influences are some of the major ones.
While theoretical frameworks and formulae to describe these and predict
their interactive effects are to some degree in their infancy, we can
nonetheless postulate such hypotheses as that fractal recurrences of types of
events may be predicted. By this I mean
that just as in a fractal series such as growing leaves an endlessly repeating
set of shapes that are all slightly different but all having certain key
pattern in common, so in the flow of history there will be recurrent patterns
with similarly structured types of events.
Empires rise and fall. Also, as
with some fractal series, the pattern can jump into new repeating structures
for a variety of reasons. It is my
belief that the history of human civilisation must be subject to these basic
rules of mathematical pattern, and the better we understand that, then the
better we can navigate and ride the unavoidable waves of reality which they
produce.
A related idea I came across in
the work of Robert Anton Wilson some thirty five or so years ago in his ‘The
Cosmic Trigger’ was that human society, invention and activity was increasing
at something like an exponential rate.
He stated then, in 1977, that the graph of this was expected to hit an
asymptote somewhere between 2012 and 2016.
(More about asymptotes in a bit.)
I don’t know where he got his figures, perhaps he was just getting into
some predictive programming, but it happened to coincide with several other
predictions for something around the same date. Ken Carey in ‘The Starseed Transmissions’ said that ‘the gods
would return’ on the Mayan Calendar date of 21 December 2011 (yes, he said
2011). This year was preferred by Carl
Johannes Calleman in his work on the Mayan Calendar. Jose Arguelles who had a lot to do with promoting the Mayan
Calendar concept used the 2012 date. Terence McKenna’s ‘Timewave Zero’ theory http://www.fractal-timewave.com/ also
ended up producing a date of 2012 for a peak of ‘novelty’ and ‘habit change’.
Many other writers have
elaborated on this theme.
I am as much interested in these
as Jungian phenomena as in them as rational or ‘channelled’ information. There seems to be some sort of spike around
that date however one interprets it.
This is where the concept of The
Asymptote comes in. These may be
helpful if you want to understand the maths.
An Asymptote of a curve is a line
such that the distance between it and a curve approaches zero as they tend to
infinity. Fortunately I’m not concerned
with the mathematical niceties of two lines meeting at infinity, or at least
not here and not now. What I am
interested in exploring is what happens to the curve when it passes this. For instance, the graph of the trigonometric
function of tanθ approaches infinity on the Y-axis when the X-axis reaches 90º (
radians).
While we don’t know what went on up at infinity above our heads, we do know
that the moment one passes that point, 90º, the line has gone way beyond
infinity and is returning from a negative numerical direction. That’s mathematics for you folks. Something like this.
Which I found on this site
If you convert the x-axis in your
mind to time, you will see that the moment the clock ticks past the point at
which the graph reached infinity, it
starts to return from negative infinity.
So what has this to do with 2012
and fractals in time?
Consider the curve of the graph
as human activity, novelty or change, and take the 90º point to be 2012, or
thereabouts. One is then left to
consider what the meaning of ‘negative infinity’ would be in terms of human
activity, or new habits.
I’ll leave you to chew on that
for a little as I bring in a conspiracy element. You may, or may not, understand or believe that there are groups
on this planet committed to controlling it by whatever means they find
necessary, but personally I take it as axiomatic. It is quite certain and obvious to me that if such groups or
individuals believed that some cosmic fluctuation, or merely a mathematical
inevitability, would lead to major reversals in human affairs, then they would
likely do all that they could to exploit such an opportunity, whilst at the
same time hiding it from as many people as possible.
Hiding secrets in plain sight is
their preferred modus operandi, and so it would make sense to hide the truth
where it would be best ignored. Whatever
the bona fides of Carey, Arguelles or Calleman, it was certainly the case that
a great deal of interest, of the wrong kind, was generated around the 2012
date, by the likes of Roland Emmerich with his movie of the same name.
I was fairly certain that no
obvious catastrophe or revelation would occur on the 21 Dec date of that year,
and I was unsurprisingly proved correct.
However, I remain interested in the larger picture, and the larger
process. For a start, in the material
world, processes take time to work through into their effects and outcomes, and
so, being as it is a human process that we are concerned with, and not simply a
mechanical one, we might expect that the outcome of reaching this threshold
might take a while to fully express itself.
We may have reached a ‘Tipping Point’ (a book of this name was published
some time before 2012, another Jungian event) but the see-saw takes time to
fall. Perhaps when translated into our
human and material world the instant realignment from positive infinity to
negative this change might take a while, say a few years? So, if we are, or have experienced some kind
of conceptual or human reversal of infinite change, then we may still be in the
middle of the realignment, and not be fully aware of what is actually
happening.
Events recently which have
prompted me to write about this include, amongst others, the simultaneous
tearing down of Confederate flags and the raising of rainbow flags in their
place. Say what you like about the meaning
of the Confederate flag, but it seems an immense coincidence beyond coincidence
to me, that these two, ostensibly unrelated events should coincide in such a
way. Clearly we are supposed to make an
equation in our minds between the emancipation of slaves and the granting of marriage
rights to gays. This is the kind of
instant quantum change that one might expect to see associated with an
asymptote infinity reversal.
In fact the whole collapse of
Western Civilisation in the face of immigrant hordes is a case of infinite reversal
which would have been inconceivable only a few years ago. The Grauniad would doubtless object to the
term ‘hordes’, but when it is the Mongols sweeping across the steppes in a
remote century, it is acceptable. At
least the Golden Horde never reached out shores, although braver nations to the
east had to face them. But now we are
conquered by hordes bearing no weapons and wielding weaponised compassion
against us. Talk about reversals.
And the revision of history which
continually drip drip drips from the Second World War, when 86 year old women
are jailed for asking questions to which they are not given answers.
Everything is back to front,
upside down and inside out.
I remember thinking in the run up
to the 2012 date that it seemed to be the case that the power elites wanted to
set up their own hegemony before the new cycle of history began, but I had
never anticipated that there would be so much social reversal involved.
The point I would suggest here is
that in a temporal singularity such as the 2012 moment may be postulated to
have been, it might be natural for certain characteristics of reality or
phenomena to reverse themselves. The
earth having an electromagnetic pole shift for instance would be an example in
the material world. Indeed the
widespread belief that we may be about to experience such an event may just be
an intuitive interpretation of the actual, more subtle, shift of polarities
within our own human reality.
However, there could well be
those parties who would want to exploit opportunities such this. Perhaps by reversing polarities of human
reality which don’t need reversing or which should not be reversed. It seems that many things are being
overturned and reversed just for the sake of it. We are in a time of great turmoil.
I have recently been reading ‘The
Aquarian Conspiracy’ by Marilyn Ferguson (1981) and am finding it very
interesting. I hadn’t realised during
the 1980s how much the ‘New Age’ had been crafted by the likes of Teilhard de
Chardin and Gregory Bateson. I still
believe that mass changes in consciousness are possible, and indeed happen, but
I don’t buy the kind of automatic transmission and general ‘rapture’ that those
such as Ken Carey predicted. The Hundredth Monkey principle is not a free lunch. Some members of the monkey troupe for
instance took much longer to pick up the new behaviour than others, and some
never got it at all. It's as much about personality as intellect. And I would
suggest that the first monkey on the next island is a special sort of
individual who has already demonstrated some originality. Those who have already put energy in to
their own evolution will be the first to make new adaptations. Energy flows where the easiest channels
present themselves, like water down a scoured out course. It is not instantaneous, and not everyone gets it. That's just how nature works.
And there are those places where
energy will not flow at all, or from where it flows away by the natural lie of
the land.
When I look back at ‘The Aquarian
Conspiracy’ and all that it promised, and then look at the world it has
delivered, I feel cheated.
Yes, the realisation that human
potential could be tapped and activated was truly wonderful. There are still hundreds or thousands or
even millions of ‘Success’ teachers and ‘Life Coaches’ applying techniques to
improve lives. Marvellous stuff, and I
myself have benefited from some of these.
But the weakness of the Aquarian vision is that it sees no dangers. Indeed, it shouts that to see dangers is to
be playing out negative fantasy projections, and casts out those who would say
this. And so it has gone on ignoring
the dangers in the shadows from then until now.
A topical slant on this is the
current migration issue. The book
discusses much the ‘Aquarian Vision’ of ‘One World’ which abandons borders and
refuses to see ‘the other’ as ‘other’.
This wonderful world of ‘fully realised beings’ that was promised has
become the chaotic and predatory world we see today since those who pursued
this vision refused to acknowledge that there was any element of that predatory
nature that they should take account of.
This absolute unwillingness to
defend and maintain our nations and our homelands is a sort of collapse like
the New Orleans levees when Katrina struck.
The absolute inundation which ensued is an example of total reversal,
from land to sea, but the inundation of our peoples is a greater collapse and
reversal.
Will the natural order reassert
itself, or is reality so plastic that a false paradigm can be imposed and
prevail? As reality is turned inside
out and upside down are there enough of those who have found their own true
path through this to help stabilise it all?
The Hundredth Monkey is a seed, a
starting point and a leader but not a Saviour.
One still has to attend, to focus and commit to energies and paths to
make them effective.
The ‘New Age’ has in many
respects been fooled into believing in some of those very things which are its
enemies. Individuality and expression
of genius should not be controlled by the collective. This flowering of human potential as it should have been has been
turned to the promotion of social movements which actually go against human
nature. Human nature is neither good
nor evil, but a composite of survival adaptive drives. If these drives can be carried out and
brought to some fulfilling conclusion within socially acceptable parameters
then that is good. If not, then bad
outcomes will arise. But the more
freely these can be carried out and fulfilled the better. The ‘New Age’ has become a danger to us all
in its collectivising of the world. Our
individuality is at peril.
If this should be a reversal that
we cannot save and remedy then it would be a tragic end to our civilisation.
What is needed is a survival
adaptive drive to find the strength to believe that we can indeed shore up the
levees and assert our identities. It
seems possible to me that in the face of a false hundredth monkey which
hypnotises the crowd to conform to a certain meme or moral concept that
threatens survival, then a far stronger survival adaptive drive is likely to be
triggered.
The politically correct way of
thinking is very Piscean, that is to say dependent on authority fixing things,
and the people complying to the mass consensus. The Aquarian way of thinking would see the solution as coming
from within from responsibility. ‘No
one else is going to do anything to save us, so it is up to us to get down to
it.’
It is not the conforming to
consensus values which will save us but
an emergence of conscious will to act with agency and responsibility. We can no longer be sheep but must think and
act.
As we move on past the moment of
the Asymptote, which I think we have done now, these reversal effects begin to
become clear and we are faced with this dilemma between agency and
sheepdom. Only agency can save us, and
so this must be the seed kernel of what the Hundredth Monkey is. Imagining that we should use this principle
to collectivise the world in its beliefs and behaviour is an error which I
believe many in the New Age movement have made over the years. Collective endeavours are wonderful when
they are embarked on in a sense of willing co-operation, but when one group,
however large, coerces another, however small, to behave in ways against their
will, then such endeavours as these have left the path of wisdom. It is the seed of agency, not that of conformity
which we should be nurturing as we find our way back to balance from the infinite change of the moment of the asymptote.
Explore and follow my other blogs
