Radical Regeneration

An Evolutionary Bifurcation

This volume brings together four books written in the Trump years between 2016 and 2020: Savage Grace, Return to Joy, Saving Animals from Ourselves, and Radical Regeneration. The authors’ deep and systemic diagnosis is that we face an Extreme evolutionary crisis of our own making and are now up against the collective ordeal of a global dark night archetypally characterised by the Kali Yuga and ‘a growing constellation of intractable crises – authoritarianism in America and abroad, climate change, social upheaval, and spiritual malaise.’ Many commentators recognise only social, ecological and economic factors, and their remedies correspond to this while neglecting the essential spiritual dimension and our shadow aspect that looms so large and of which we are largely unconscious. With great passion and precision, Andrew and Carolyn delve a great deal deeper to draw on the wisdom of mystical traditions in navigating the stages of the dark night leading ultimately to transmutation, illumination and union

They argue that we are in a completely new situation that requires a correspondingly radical approach: ‘1) The need for massive, systemic, and structural economic, political, religious, and social change. Without such radical and comprehensive change, that isn’t the slightest chance of human survival. The only force capable of illumining, guiding, steadying, and fortifying such a change, which needs to be implemented urgently, is the second aspect: 2) Sacred Activism which we now see clearly needs to be deepened and infused by the wisdom, strength, compassion, and joy aroused and installed by the vision of transfiguration and mutation we are sharing here. 3) Such a fusion of what could be called the Evolutionary Trinity – structural change, sacred activism, and the transfiguration or engoldenment process unfolding into the greatest adventure of all, mutation – challenges us all on the deepest levels, as it is divinely designed to do.’ (p. 490) Engoldenment needs to be distinguished from enlightenment as an embrace and transfiguration of matter itself as an expression of the Divine Mother.

Renewal of the world cannot be attained simply by changing external structures and systems, but rather demands a recognition of the inherent sacredness of life and the mystical essence of human being mediating and enabling an upshift in consciousness. Yuval Noah Harari is often cited in the context of the agenda of the World Economic Forum, who have been promoting the Great Reset since 2020, using the opportunity presented by Covid-19 to impose their own massive systemic change represented by the UN Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. It is important to note that this agenda is underpinned by an understanding of the human being as no more than a biological algorithm or hackable animal that has to be tracked, managed and controlled. 

Moreover, the fourth industrial revolution entails a merging of humans with machines on a trajectory towards trans- and post-humanism. The authors quote the important work of Shoshana Zuboff on surveillance capitalism and its system of what she calls instrumentarianism. She refers to conditioning at scale, massively engineered human behaviour, and widespread behaviour modification. However, the authors do not appear to realise that just such behavioural nudging techniques based on fear were widely used during the pandemic as a way of manipulating the public, including the general weaponisation of biosecurity (viz the WHO Pandemic Treaty) and the misuse of such terms as conspiracy theory and misinformation as means to centralise narrative control – maybe this is now more evident in retrospect, and see the work of Mattias Desmet. I see China as Exhibit A of the authoritarian and technocratic digital totalitarianism that represents the WEF and UN desired direction of travel, and one that entirely repudiates the privacy, self-determination and freedom of expression, without which, as Zuboff correctly observes, ‘a democratic society is unimaginable.’ However, we are being nudged along this route by the promise of security and convenience. 

I was struck by the passage quoting from the German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer about the impact of a strong upsurge of power leading to a failure of human capacities where ‘humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position towards the emerging circumstances.’ (p. 459) He comments that slogans and catchwords take possession of people, which is the desired outcome of propaganda widely deployed by the Nazi regime, but now refined with the use of modern technology and its hypnotic repetition of media soundbites. Now, as then, the at once on unifying and divisive shadow psychology of the scapegoat was brought into operation, which CG Jung already recognised in the 1930s. We are still lamentably undereducated in this respect. 

The volume as a whole is a powerful handbook for the living resilience of sacred activism, and it pulls no punches in laying out the stark realities of our situation while at the same time framing and outlining inspiring and constructive sacred responses. The authors outline a process of initiation with its necessary descent before a re-emergence into a transfigured and transmuted consciousness characterised by nobility of soul. Our generation is invited to step into Elderhood, among whose qualities are wisdom, compassion, patience, discernment, joy, beauty, service, and the consciousness of both the Warrior and the Midwife. 

This also requires deepening our spiritual practice and capacity for holding paradox, for presence and intimacy as we navigate these perilous circumstances to give birth to a new human. We need to face what they call the five archetypal patterns of the dark night, including ‘ripping off the mask of evil to reveal the lethal depth of the shadow in ourselves and the now near-terminal moral insanity and corruption.’ (p. 486) And as the Dalai Lama remarked, ‘we need those brave enough to gamble everything, come what may, to build a new world.’ As part of this conversation, he advised us ‘to prepare for the very worst, and to continue to live with joy and creativity and compassion tirelessly for the very best.’ There are millions of people who feel this way, and we now need to find effective ways of coming together in a more co-ordinated fashion to promote collective spiritual awakening and a revolution of love in action.