Doomsday clock - repeated cycles of development and collapse

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Summary

This article explores the concept of the Doomsday Clock, an indicator of global catastrophe, contrasting its scientific implications with the idea of a spiritual apocalypse. It argues that humanity's repeated cycles of development and collapse stem from persistent negative human traits, like reckless disregard for the ecosystem and inhumanity. The text posits that true progress, termed "Upbuilding," has been elusive for humanity, unlike the beneficial cycles observed in nature. Ultimately, it suggests that escaping this destructive pattern requires individual purification and a voluntary shift away from self-centered egotism, potentially guided by new spiritual knowledge, to facilitate a genuine and lasting upbuilding of humanity.

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Prolog

On January 24, 2023, the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” moved the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight. This was done by a nonprofit organization founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the world’s first atomic weapons. The Doomsday Clock, uses midnight as the combined imagery of the biblical apocalypse with the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (i.e. countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the planet.

This Clock is set every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes nine Nobel laureates. The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe caused by man-made technologies.

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It may appear odd to some that a group of eminent scientists are using the imagery of the Apocalypse, out of the purely non-scientific Religious/Spiritual field, to stress and underscore their warning to humanity. But an objective thinker will have to admit that this is not totally out of place, because the outcomes of a nuclear or ecological disaster will have the same effect as the apocalyptic disasters warned about in these Religious/Spiritual declarations. Furthermore, an objective observe would have to admit that the scientific prognosis of the Doomsday clock scenario and the Apocalyptic scenario arise from the same traits in human beings; namely man’s reckless disregard of his place as a member of an existing and ordered ecosystem, as well as man’s inhumanity to his fellow men and other co-creatures inhabiting the ecosystem. In the final analysis, we have to admit that these are the root causes of all ecological disasters, wars and social crisis that have plagued all human societies, as far back as one can see in written or oral history, and which have given rise to the warnings and prognoses.

In looking into the past, we see many repeated cycles of development followed by disastrous collapse. We also we read or hear about warnings that were given by objective observers of events of the times, or of glimpses into the future, by seers, mostly of disasters ahead, also arising from the activities of the humans at the times. For example, Plato, in his work The Republic, connected the unsustainable desire for material acquisition and luxury to resource depletion, which he identified as the ultimate cause of conflicts and wars. Or the prophets of Isreal, and other cultures who saw glimpses of the disastrous future arising from the attitudes and life styles of the leaders and populace of the times.

In effect therefore, humanity has gone through many Doomsday-Clock scenarios, the term that modern man has coined for repetition of the effects of the same negative and, apparently, incorrigible behavior of mankind over millennia. However, coining a new term does not mean that humanity is ready to come to terms with the reality that the root cause of this repeating cycle, lies within each of us.

Thus, it becomes understandable why it is that any development has almost eventually led to a disastrous collapse.

Some would counter that this cycle of development and collapse is not something unique to man, or strictly associated with human activity. They may suggest that it is an attribute of the existing ecosystem, pointing to the cycle of the seasons as evidence that development and disintegration is built into the ecosystem.

This argument ignores a very important and differentiating aspect of the natural cycle with what transpires in the human cycle.

The natural cycle of development, as with the seasons, culminates with outputs that benefit the entire ecosystem. For example, the annual development cycle always ends with the production, in abundance, of fruits and other products that nourish all living creatures. Even the cycle of evaporation and condensation water vapor moves water from one part of the globe to parts that need it, and the cycle of forest fires helps to maintain the health of forests. Here, one can see that development leads to and contributes to Upbuilding. Upbuilding being defined as:- to build up, with the result of establishing, increasing, enlarging, or fortifying.

When we contrast the outputs from nature’s development activities with the output of human activities, it becomes quite clear that the repetitions in human history cannot be seen in the same light. Human cycles seldom yielded anything that helped to selflessly nurture the whole of mankind, let alone the other creatures inhabiting the Earth. In fact, the history of man’s activity can, at best, be described as antagonistic to Upbuilding. Thus, it can be said that human societies are continually returning to the same spot after each disaster to begin the cycle again. In effect, mankind it appears has not successfully gone through a full development cycle, if, as defined above, the end of such a cycle is the successful output of universally beneficial results that leads to Upbuilding.

Unfortunately, focusing on the externals, i.e. the tools that we use to implement our activities, may give the impression of progress. But, when we focus on the objectives or outcomes of human activities over the millennia, it becomes easy to see that man has not made much progress. Thus, Plato’s concerns, voiced over 2500 years ago, are just as current today. Or the warnings of the prophets and soothsayers of old are still as current today. Meaning that mankind in general has not made progress with its own development towards averting the ultimate causes of wars, ecological disasters and others ills that plague human societies. This is in spite of the fact that we have been told over millennia, and can no longer claim ignorance. If anything, it can now be said without doubt that mankind has simply refused to accept responsibility or to change, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of our culpability.

On January 28th 2025, the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” set the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to midnight.

What should this mean to the average person?

Should we simply brace ourselves for the oncoming disaster that many already sense, or see?

Or is there anything that one can do to prepare for this, or perhaps avoid it?

The answer to this question depends on what a person truly wishes or desires.

Those who see the impending disaster as something to be avoided or survived will no doubt device their plans and strategy accordingly.

But those who see the pending disaster as the result of human choices, and wish to break out of the vicious cycle of human tragedy will have to acknowledge how their own inner attitudes and desires support or foster man’s reckless disregard of his place as a member of an existing and ordered ecosystem as well as man’s inhumanity to his fellow men and other co-creatures of the ecosystem.

Many may see this second path as “utopian” because it does not appear to address the immediate situation facing the individual. Others may see this path as the primary responsibility of leaders and policy makers, and that the average person is simply a bystander or passenger on the treadmill of life.

First of all, laying responsibility on leaders and policy makers alone is a delusion. When we benefit from policies that create disturbances in the ecosystem, or cause suffering to our fellow human beings and other creatures, we indirectly foster or support such policies and are equally culpable. Ignorance of this consciousness does not absolve one.

Those who see the suggested path as utopian are missing the most important lesson or cause of the collapse. Simply focusing on ways to survive the collapse does not address its root cause. Rather, the suggested path is the only one that can lead an individual to free him or herself from the viscous cycle. Granted, one may not accomplish this in a life time. But the recognition of the ego (i.e. the Spirit) that has to experience the collapse brings in a different perspective. The Spirit’s existence extends beyond the earthly concepts of time and space. Thus, a Spiritual decision to break out of the viscous cycle becomes the first step on a much longer and bigger cycle of development.

But for one to be successful on this “utopian” path, one need to become informed and conscious of the implications of anything that we enjoy or actively participate in. From this perspective, it also becomes obvious that the only way mankind as a whole can break out of the vicious cycle of development and disastrous collapse is when the majority change their attitude and favor a way of life that is geared towards selfless productive active.

Of course, leaders, in government, politics, business, social affairs, organized spiritual affairs, family, etc., must take the lead in this change in direction. However, the average person can also support their initiative by also desiring the same.

Unfortunately, there is very little doubt that the world will enter into the pending Doomsday scenario, with most people still clinging to the current way of life. If so, the survivors are likely to emerge with the same negative attitudes that would only reset the clock towards another future Doomsday, just as has happened again and again in the past.

However, there are some significant elements that separate the scientific doomsday scenario from the scenario of the Spiritual Apocalypse.

The first is that the Apocalyptic scenario is designed to pave the path towards upbuilding activities by the surviving human beings. This means in effect that only Spirits who voluntarily desire to engage only in upbuilding activities will emerge from the apocalyptic collapse. All others will go through a disintegration process in which they will lose all consciousness, and will be extinguished from life. This process is not to be confused with a simple collapse and resuscitation, as in the past. This entails the complete disintegration or dissolution of the once existing ego - form and consciousness - back into a primeval formless non-entity. In effect the individual no longer exists!

This Spiritual scenario explains that an infusion of energy from outside will be the catalyst for a very different of kind of collapse which will then be followed by a new upbuilding. This infusion of energy will not only accelerate the collapse, but will also compel all human beings to go through a purification process, if they wish or hope to emerge from the collapse. This purification would involve a voluntary decision to shed all of the negative qualities that have consistently led to conditions that have always led to the collapses over millennia.

In the purification process many, if not all, will experience pain from the fallout of the physical collapse, and even more painful will be the inner experiences by the spirit/ego that will crush the self-centered egotism of man, from which all vices and problems arise.

Those who are too bound to self-centered egotism, in not being able to purge themselves, will simply be crushed to death, so to speak. They are the ones described in prophecy as cast into eternal damnation.

But those who, in going through the purification process, are finally able to acknowledge and voluntarily shed their self-centered egotism, are described in this scenario as the ones who having washed their souls clean, though with tears in their eyes, will rejoice will and be allowed to enter into the new Earth that will be reintegrated into the Kingdpom of God.

Perhaps an illustration that describes this scenario to the modern man is one in which the Earth and its ethereal environs should be seen as a garden whose soil has become badly polluted over millennia by the negative forces emerging from human activity. These negative forces have affected not only man, the originator, but is also putting the entire ecosystem in jeopardy. A reinvigoration of the soil is urgently needed if all creatures are not to perish. The infusion of new energy from the outside has the dual effect of accelerating the collapse of the existing negative forces, and all that are attached to them, as well as reenergizing the soil and environment.

A third element in prophecy that is absent from the scientific scenario is that all who survive the purification process will have to relearn what it means to be a Spirit, and to live as a true and spiritually responsible human being. This is what is meant in prophecy, that the survivors will be given a new white garment and a new name. The new white garment representing a purified soul devoid of self-centered egotism, and a new name representing a redirected focus of activity, because in the Spiritual context, a person’s name is a reflection of the nature of their spiritual activity. (As an aside, we see from this information the wisdom hidden in some of the names in cultures like the native Americans.)

A fourth and important part of the apocalyptic scenario is that new knowledge will also be sent to mankind along with the new infusion of energy. Knowledge that those who wish can use to educate themselves about what it means to be a human Spirit, but based on the governing principles of Life. With this knowledge, the one who is serious and sincere can begin to learn, and to gradually adapt themselves to swing in the new energy field that will gradually envelope the entire Earth and its environs.

From this, one can see that the suggested path is not utopian, but the only viable path to true upbuilding for any human Spirit who wishes to survive and continue to exist. Notwithstanding this decision, everyone should expect to experience some degree of purification because, frankly speaking, there are very few on Earth today who can honestly be seen as spiritually to be totally free of selfish desires. However, the infusing power also offers help to strengthen one’s resolve and thus can accelerate the voluntary rehabilitation.

So, the first step for those who wish to face the impending disaster knowingly is to seek the new knowledge that was promised in prophecy. The Grail Message, by Abdrushin is a suggested valuable resource in this regard.