What is Michael’s Mindset?

Whenever I’m considering purchasing a book from an author I’ve never heard of before, I like to know where they’re coming from, what ‘makes them tick’. So I thought I’d tell you a little about my mindset – what makes me tick.  And the easiest way to do so is to tell a story.

The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor

The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor

Many of the indigenous cultures of the world share a two-thousand year old prophecy about the eagle and the condor. For thousands of years, South American shamans and elders across the Continent have told that at the beginning of the fifth Pachakuti (a Pachakuti is a cycle of five hundred years) – the era we live in today – a reunion would come to pass between the long separated “people of the Eagle” and “people of the Condor.”

The prophecy story relates that in the beginning all the earth’s people were one, but long ago they divided into two groups and each followed a different path of development. The people of the Eagle were highly scientific and intellectual. The people of the Condor were highly attuned to nature and the intuitive realm.

The story goes on to say that at this current juncture in earth’s history, the Eagle people – the people of the intellect and the mind, people with a highly developed sense of the aesthetic and cognitive skills – will have reached a pinnacle in their amassing of scientific knowledge, technology, and technological tools, expression of high art, and the ability to build and construct.

The Eagle people will even develop tools and technologies that will expand the mind, and they will be producing technical miracles of unimagined power and breadth. The enormous accomplishments and technologies of the people of the Eagle will bring tremendous material wealth to leaders of the eagle world. At the same time, they will be spiritually impoverished to their peril, and their very existence will be at risk.

In this same era, the people of the Condor – people of the heart, the spirit, the senses, and the deep connection with the natural world – will be highly developed in their intuitive skills. They (the indigenous people) will reach a powerful pinnacle in their profound ancient wisdom, their understanding and relatedness with the natural world and the great cycles of the earth, their connection with the great spirits, the animals and the plant kingdom, and their capacities to move through the many spiritual dimensions that they inhabit. At the same time, they will be hungry and impoverished for knowledge that will enable them to be successful in the material world, and they will be disadvantaged in their interactions with the material world of the eagle in a way that their very existence will be at risk.

Western Culture, since the middle ages, has been increasingly dominated by intellect at the expense of other dimensions of the human psyche, such as spirituality and relatedness with the natural world. This one sided development of reason created modern science, credit and technology through which Western culture has dominated the planet. Reason is a very powerful but also very limited tool. Inevitably it seeks overly simplistic models in domains that are too complex for a rational model.

The prophecy says that around the late 1990’s and for the next 30 or so years, the potential will exist for the Eagle people and Condor people to rejoin. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most remarkable offspring, unlike any seen before.  The eagle and condor will fly together in the same sky, wing to wing, and the world will come into balance after a point of near extinction. Neither the eagles nor the condors will survive without this collaboration, and from this rejoining of the two peoples, a new alloy consciousness will emerge that honours the Eagle people for their remarkable accomplishments of the mind, and honours the Condor people for the deep wisdom of  the heart. Together – and only together – the crisis will be resolved and a sustainable future will emerge for all.

“The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle” can be taken at many levels – the standard interpretation is that it foretells the sharing of indigenous knowledge with the technologies of science, the balancing of yin and yang, and the bridging of northern and southern cultures. However, most powerful is the message it offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a time when we can benefit from the many diverse ways of seeing ourselves and the world, and that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness. As human beings we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species.

Intellect’s dominance of Western Culture cannot be overthrown externally. Instead it bears the seeds of its own waning influence. This is starting to happen at many levels. As intellect solves more of the problems that it is capable of dealing with, it expands the scope and importance of problems that are beyond it. For example the enormous improvements of productivity that technology has created are beginning to be a problem. Instead of leading to better lives for everyone, they are concentrating wealth into ever fewer hands, while earning a decent living is becoming more difficult for the vast majority.

It’s clear to me, and an increasing number of others, that our Western world is broken.  There are hundreds or thousands of organisations seeking solutions, but their thinking remains trapped in the world of the Eagle: technological advancement, they say, is what will solve mankind’s problems.  But we’ve been saying that for decades, and the evidence shows us that technology will not be our saviour.

Einstein said it best:

“You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955

So there is a solution to our various predicaments, but it will require a new consciousness: the merging of Eagle and Condor thinking.  But before that can happen, we need an understanding of How Life Really Works so that we know what went wrong and why.

Here’s John Perkins, the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, describing the same prophecy:

I cannot recommend the eOmega Community mentioned at the end of the video – seems too New Age for me, but you be the judge.

So What Does All This Mean?

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations: Why Civilizations Rise and Fall and What Happens When They End

In The Rise and Fall of Civilizations, Nicholas Hagger outlines the patterns of past civilisations, providing a unique interpretation of the dynamics of their origin, rise and collapse, and how one civilisation leads into the next. This profound book helped me understand historical patterns and where our civilisation is headed today. Just as the Egyptian Empire, the Babylonian Empire and the Roman Empires collapsed and morphed into something new, so our civilisation is due to collapse.  The exciting news is that we’re fortunate enough to witness the transition!

So my mindset is simply one of “How can we make the most of our current civilisation, while simultaneously making sure we are ready for the next?”  or “How can we live in this world but not of it”, as so many religions have described it.  Opting out doesn’t seem to me to be the best solution.  We can go and sit on a mountaintop and meditate all day, but how does that help anyone?

Alternate Realities

I’ve spent many years studying alternate realities, parallel universes and whether there could exist a cosmos containing multiple parallel universes, each with its own version of us, and its own laws of physics.  I’ve dabbled in metaphysiscal realities and investigated principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. It’s all fascinating stuff, but completely useless for day-to-day living as it doesn’t help us explain How Life Really Works.

To quote Einstein again:

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955

So How Life Really Works is my attempt to explain how we got to where we are, and a few thoughts on where our current path might lead us to. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

If you've enjoyed what you've read so far, you'll certainly enjoy my big-picture thinking in the booklet The 2012 Manifesto. You can read more about it here or just click on the big-ass Download button below and I'll take you straight to the download page.