We sometimes forget that humanity is in the midst of a monumental shift in worldview on a scale not unlike what we went through four centuries back when the Polish astronomer, Nickolai Copernicus proposed that Earth and the other known planets circled the sun rather than Earth, challenging the widely held belief that the Universe was Earth-centered. Fifty years later Galileo, with his improved telescope, “proved” that Earth circled the sun. The all-powerful Catholic Church, unable to accept this new worldview, eventually condemned him for heresy and put this brilliant man on house arrest for the rest of his life. For the previous 2000 years, people had accepted Aristotle and Ptolemy’s worldview that proclaimed the Universe as Earth-centered.
The naturalist Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century introduced the idea of evolution. From his observations he determined that all life depends on survival of the fittest. Coupled with this worldview came the concept of competition being the central purpose of life. At the same time dualism—everything is either right or wrong, true of false, good or bad—continued to hold sway in the Western world. This worldview, controversial as all new theories inevitably are, came to be widely accepted and continues to prevail today in much of the world.
Which brings us to the second decade of the twenty-first century. Just about everyone today agrees, life is changing and changing faster then many of us can fathom. Like it or not, we’re struggling with understanding and accepting yet another new worldview as the various elements make themselves known. Just what are some of these elements?
· Over the last fifty years science, through its research, has come to understand and proclaim that all life is fundamentally interconnected and interdependent, Competition, in some species, is primarily important only in connection with mating behavior.
· With its research into quantum physics, science has also challenged dualism by demonstrating the astonishing phenomenon of both/and, thereby dethroning the reigning worldview that either/or is the sole possibility in every and all situations.
· Thanks to technology, for the first time in known history, anyone on Earth now has the capacity to be in instant communication with anyone else.
· Perhaps as a consequence of or in attunement with quantum reality, humans world-wide have been acknowledging that many complex dilemmas cannot be resolved by the dualistic process. This includes everything from war to education, civil disputes, family situations and everything in between. In the past forty years the ancient practice of Mediation—assisting differing parties in shifting their POV so that they’re able to resolve their differences— has returned to common usage, more and more frequently replacing judicial systems that employ dualism’s win/lose strategy.
These are only some of the more obvious elements of the new worldview that is replacing what some call “The Age of Empire.” I suspect further aspects will be revealed in the coming decades. They don’t include, for instance, the assumption, developed and fine-tuned during the Age of Empire, that everything and all life on planet Earth is a “resource” available for humans to take, and use however we chose. While an increasing number of people are questioning that worldview, it’s still very much in control.
The Age of Empire depends on control as its primary method of gaining and maintaining power. The fact that we’re moving into a new worldview with very different “rules” accounts, in my view, for the reason why our institutions—governments, educational systems, most mainstream religions, corporate systems, and even traditional family structures—have become so dysfunctional. If one reads history, one finds that every time a new worldview is emerging, it tends to create two distinct responses. On the one hand, the ruling institutions tend to react with fear, which usually takes the form of denial followed by repression, restriction and rigidity. They fiercely resist giving up their power. Just as predictably, one finds creative forces—art, music, writing, plus cultural activities of all sorts—tend to burst forth with offerings that look, sound and are nothing like what had previously been considered the norm. Look at the artists, composers, writers and trend-setters from the early decades of the twentieth century. I suggest they were setting the stage for what’s developed in more recent decades.
My own contribution to this shift in worldview began to take form in the early ‘80s, not through any rational, intellectual process on my part, but rather from my intuitive responses to powerful “inner messages” insisting I follow certain paths, previously unforeseen. It took me awhile to understand what was the connecting thread of these messages, but eventually I realized my work was to guide people (starting with myself) to release fear of death in order to fully engage in, appreciate and enjoy life. We were socialized to fear death in the Age of Empire because it’s an extremely effective means to control people and maintain power. Releasing fear of death predictably provides increased energy and appreciation of our interconnectedness. When asked recently where I get all my energy, I heard myself reply, “Talking about death keeps me alive!”
—Jane Hughes Gignoux, Some Folk Say: Stories of Life, Death and Beyond (1998); An Insistence on Life: Releasing Fear of Death to Fully Live (2013) www.janehughesgignoux.com <http://www.janehughesgignoux.com/>