Crisis Point
in the Human Journey

 

 

by Jeremy Griffith

written 1995, revised 2007

 

Introduction by the World Transformation Movement

 

This brilliantly contexting and instructive document was first written by Jeremy Griffith a few months after the horrific 1995 ABC-TV Four Corners program and The Sydney Morning Herald feature article were published vilifying Jeremy and denigrating the World Transformation Movement (then the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood).

This slightly revised version was created in 2007, which was still some 3 years prior to the conclusion of the World Transformation Movement (WTM’s) successful court cases against these media organisations — and before the publication of Jeremy’s definitive presentation of his treatise in his 2016 book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition, and summary presentations like Jeremy’s 2020 interview with Craig Conway, which are all freely available on the WTM’s website at www.HumanCondition.com.

While presenting a complete understanding of why the horrible attack occurred, Jeremy lays out here the total, unwavering defiance that he knew was going to be crucial to the survival of the world-saving insights into the human condition that he and the small band of supporters at the WTM were charged with having to defend. As the document concludes: “Those that would project their insecurity upon this humanity-liberating breakthrough, along with those intolerant of it because they hold strictly fundamentalist religious views, as well as those who are intolerant because they are adherents of human-condition-denying, thought-stifling politically correct dogma (namely the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald), must be defied and not allowed to prevail.”

The final triumphant success of this great battle to defend these human-race-saving understandings of the human condition against persecution can be read at www.humancondition.com/​persecution — where you will see that the Sydney Morning Herald apologised to the WTM, and that the ABC Four Corners program was condemned as ‘inaccurate’, ‘partial’, ‘unbalanced’, ‘untrue’, lacking ‘fairness’, not produced in ‘good faith’ and ‘not justified’, and overall described as a ‘hatchet job’.

 

Jeremy’s presentation of Crisis Point in the Human Journey

 

At no time in the human journey to enlightenment is the temptation to abandon the all-important democratic principle of freedom of expression greater than when the final breakthrough in that journey occurs and understanding of the human condition is found and presented. The immense danger is that after millennia of human thought, effort and sacrifice to find knowledge, ultimately self-knowledge, all that endeavour will be denied its fulfilment on the very doorstep of fulfilment.

A crisis point occurs in the human journey. Having sensibly lived in denial of the unbearably depressing issue of our corrupted, ‘fallen’, alienated human condition while we searched for understanding of that condition, when understanding of the condition is finally found our practice of living in denial of it can by then be so entrenched it tries to block the emergence of the liberating understanding.

 

Democracy’s Greatest Challenge

 

The human condition, the issue of our species’ corrupted, ‘fallen’, instinctive-self-or-soul-destroyed, seemingly ‘evil’, angry, egocentric and alienated state, has been the most difficult of all issues for humans to deal with, both individually and collectively.

The following are two extracts from The Human Condition Documentary Proposal, a document I have written that is available to read or print from our website (these extracts also appear in my new book, The Great Exodus, which can similarly be read or printed from our website). The extracts serve to provide a glimpse of just how confronting, depressing and difficult the issue of our corrupted, alienated, soul-destroyed human condition has been for humans. Firstly on page 56 (page 123 of The Great Exodus) there is this deadly honest description of our condition from the great Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing: ‘We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state [p.12 of 156]...​the ordinary person is a shrivelled, desiccated fragment of what a person can be. As adults, we have forgotten most of our childhood, not only its contents but its flavour; as men of the world, we hardly know of the existence of the inner world [p.22]...​The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man [p.24]…​between us and It [our soul] there is a veil which is more like fifty feet of solid concrete. Deus absconditus. Or we have absconded [p.118]…​The outer divorced from any illumination from the inner is in a state of darkness. We are in an age of darkness. The state of outer darkness is a state of sin—i.e. alienation or estrangement from the inner light [p.116]’ (The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, 1967). ‘We are dead, but think we are alive. We are asleep, but think we are awake. We are dreaming, but take our dreams to be reality. We are the halt, lame, blind, deaf, the sick. But we are doubly unconscious. We are so ill that we no longer feel ill, as in many terminal illnesses. We are mad, but have no insight’ (Self and Others, 1961, p.38 of 192).

The second extract from page 58 (page 125 of The Great Exodus) is a description of the extent of our denial of our corrupted condition and its delusion: “While humans will readily focus on a safely sectioned-off area of inquiry or activity, such as solving a maths equation, or mastering a computer problem, or ordering our wardrobe, or polishing our car, or even sending a man to the Moon, we won’t go beyond those safety limits and risk encountering anything to do with the issue of ‘self’, the depressing subject of the human condition. The result is an immense disparity between our superficial outer world and the miles-deep inner world that we won’t go near. The real frontier is not outer space but inner space. This extraordinary, indeed ‘mad’, situation was well summarised by General Omar N. Bradley when he said, ‘The world has achieved brilliance…without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants’ (Armistice Day Address, 10 Nov. 1948, Collected Writings of General Omar N. Bradley, Vol.1). We will apply all our vigour to protesting an environmental cause or the rights of an indigenous race or the demand for peace, or any one of any number of other politically correct causes, but we will not look at the nightmare of angst in ourselves; the real devastation and issue of our own condition and beyond that, the human condition that needs to be addressed if we are to bring about an ‘ethical’ caring, equitable and peaceful world.” Indeed the pursuit of ‘idealistic’ causes has been about making ourselves feel good rather than saving the world; it’s been selfish not selfless, as this quote about environmentalism recognises, ‘The environment became the last best cause, the ultimate guilt-free issue’ (TIME mag. 31 Dec. 1990). The great danger of pursuing idealistic causes for relief from our condition—the profoundly decadent ideology now threatening to take over the Western world—is that it ignores reality and oppresses the deeper questions. Terminal levels of artificiality/​superficiality/​self-estrangement/​alienation is where humanity is headed; a death by dogma. In the following quote, Laing points out the real direction we must take if there is to be any change for the better in the world: ‘Our alienation goes to the roots. The realization of this is the essential springboard for any serious reflection on any aspect of present inter-human life’ (The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, 1967, p.12 of 156).

The human condition is not only the most confronting and thus difficult subject for humans to address, it is also the realm of inquiry where science and religion finally meet and is thus the most contentious of subjects to investigate. At the core of the fundamental question for science of whether life is directional and meaningful, or aimless and random, is the difficulty of confronting our less than ideal condition. An integrative, holistic, teleological, cooperative, selfless, loving, ‘Godly’ theme or meaning or direction or purpose to existence confronts us squarely with our non-integrative, divisive, competitive, selfish, aggressive, apparently ‘unGodly’ reality. A 1991 article written by Australian journalist Deirdre Macken titled Science Friction (view the article at www.wtmsources.com/152) described the resistance to accepting a teleological, holistic, integrative purpose and direction in nature. This article talked about a ‘scientific revolution’ and a coming ‘monumental paradigm shift’, and said that the few scientists who have ‘dared to take a holistic approach’ are seen by the scientific orthodoxy as committing ‘scientific heresy’. Macken went on to say that scientists taking the ‘holistic approach’, such as the Australian ‘biologist Charles Birch’, a long-standing supporter of my work, and the English ‘physicist Paul Davies’, are trying ‘to cross the great divide between science and religion’, and are ‘not afraid of terms such as “purpose” and “meaning”’, adding that ‘Quite a number of biologists got upset [about this new development] because they don’t want to open the gates to teleology—the idea that there is goal-directed change is an anathema to biologists who believe that change is random…The emerging clash of scientific thought has forced many of the new scientists on to the fringe. Some of the pioneers no longer have university positions, many publish their theories in popular books rather than journals, others have their work sponsored by independent organisations…Universities are not catering for the new paradigm’ (Good Weekend mag., The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 Nov. 1991).

Despite the human condition being the most difficult and contentious of all subjects for humans to address, finding understanding of ourselves is the holy grail, the ultimate objective, of the whole Darwinian revolution. As Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson has said, ‘The human condition is the most important frontier of the natural sciences’ (Consilience, 1998, p.298 of 374).

Humans are a conscious thinking variety of animal which means humanity’s fundamental advance over time is in understanding. Understanding, ultimately self-understanding, is our species’ responsibility and destiny. This underlying objective in all human endeavour is encapsulated in the words the ancients emblazoned across their temples: ‘Man, know Thyself’.

In this journey to find self-understanding, in particular understanding of the dilemma of our ‘good and evil’-stricken human condition, the danger was always that when that understanding was finally found we humans would have become so adapted to a life without self-understanding, in particular a strategy of living in denial of the issue of our less-than-ideal, corrupted, supposedly ‘fallen’ condition, that we wouldn’t face and thus tolerate this all-important breakthrough in the journey—despite the admonition of that philosopher of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, that we must ‘Dare to know’.

While any new idea characteristically encounters resistance from the established order, no new idea is going to bring about as much change, and thus be as threatening to orthodoxy as the arrival of understanding of the human condition. The reality is that some people will feel intensely threatened by having the issue of the human condition opened up and will try to stop it by whatever means possible, including all manner of lies, smear, deceit and vitriolic misrepresentation, but this highly irresponsible response must not be allowed to succeed.

It follows that the arrival of biological explanation of the human condition will produce a crisis point in the human journey, a time when the democratic principle of freedom of expression will be severely tested.

In fact, the democratic principle of freedom of expression was arduously formulated, fought and died for and enshrined in law and constitution, ultimately to ensure that when the final critical stage of our journey to self-understanding was taking place, prejudice would not be able to jeopardise the undertaking.

The whole future of human endeavour rests on keeping inquiry free from oppression. In his 1859 essay, On Liberty—a document recognised as one of the philosophical pillars of western civilisation—John Stuart Mill emphasised the extreme danger of oppression of thought, saying, ‘We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion’ and ‘the price paid for intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind’ (American state papers; On liberty; Representative government; Utilitarianism, 1952).

While the temptation to stop the human journey to enlightenment is at its maximum at the very doorstep of that enlightenment, namely at the moment when understanding of the human condition is finally being put forward, it is the one time in the journey when the principles of freedom of expression must be scrupulously adhered to. In fact, the most serious act of oppression of human thought that is possible in the whole of humanity’s journey to enlightenment is the one that can occur at the moment when insight into the human condition is finally being put forward. The survival of the human race depends on this greatest of all threats to enlightenment not being allowed to succeed. It is absolutely vital that the democratic principles of freedom of expression be insisted on and upheld at that moment.

The WTM’s court actions against the two biggest media organisations in Australia, extremely expensive and exhausting as they are for such a tiny organisation, represent this all-important fight to stop prejudice blocking the emergence of the liberating understanding of the human condition that the whole of the human race has been struggling for millennia to bring about.

 

Science Progresses Funeral by Funeral

 

Since the beginning of scientific inquiry those who pioneered the clarification and demystification of the human situation have been persecuted. Only through the immense courage of advocates for free thinking, some of whom paid with their lives, could knowledge replace mysticism, abstract description, delusion, denial and evasion.

Socrates pioneered the development of science when he resolutely stood by the need for logical explanation to replace superstition and dogma. Ultimately for his daring to promote the need to question, analyse, explain and understand—to replace nonsense, non-science with science—he was forced to kill himself by drinking poison. To quote a description of what happened to Socrates: ‘Socrates was the evangelist of clear thinking. He went about the streets of Athens preaching logic…It seems strange to put a man to death for “introducing general definitions.” And yet, if you think what the new technique, when stubbornly pursued to its logical conclusions, can do to time-honoured emotional beliefs, the fate of Socrates is not surprising. To his young and progressive friends he seemed the mildest of men, but he must have been regarded as a trouble-maker by thousands of old fogies and even by many thoughtful, moderate persons. There were two formal charges against Socrates: he did not believe in the gods recognized by the city, and he “corrupted the young.” It is not clear today exactly what Socrates’ accusers meant, but certainly young people loved this old man. The lure of new ideas, the invitation to think for themselves drew them to him, but their parents feared they were learning revolutionary doctrines…Socrates was tried by a jury…and condemned to death’ (Great Lives, Great Deeds, Reader’s Digest, 1966, p.33-34 of 448). Such was Socrates’ defence of the fundamental ability and responsibility that humans have to think, ultimately to think about and understand themselves, that he said at his trial when refusing to accept exile from Athens or a commitment to silence as his penalty, that ‘the only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance’ and ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’.

Journalist Robert Howard described the recent demystifications of our historic ways of fortifying ourselves against the insecurity of our condition when he wrote: ‘Three major blows have dented humanity’s self-esteem: Copernicus showing that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, Darwin showing descent from animals and Freud arguing that the rational, conscious mind is not master’ (The Bulletin, 11 Aug. 1992). Each of these ideas was widely rejected and their proponents persecuted by society as a whole and, in particular, by religious leaders, and even by eminent scientists of the day:

 

• The Copernican model of our solar system, which showed that Earth was not the centre of the universe, was staunchly rejected by the scientific establishment and by religious zealots of Copernicus’s time. In fact, Copernicus delayed publication of his theory until the last days of his life in 1543 because he feared persecution. Fifty seven years later Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for teaching Copernican theory and when Galileo upheld the same belief some ten years after Bruno’s incineration he was also made to endure horrific persecution.

 

The following is a description of what happened to Galileo: Born in 1564 he grew up in Florence and ‘at his father’s insistence he went on to the University of Pisa to study medicine and became a doctor…overhearing a geometry class stimulated his interest [in mathematics] and he started to study both mathematics and science. This change displeased his father…[and] he was forced to leave the university, degree-less, when his father refused to continue to support him…[Years later] he…published a series of letters supporting the Copernican theory…This created a tidal wave of anger among the Aristotelian professors, [who saw their theories being made redundant] …They quickly involved the Dominican [religious] order, who preached against this wave of new mathematics, and soon Galileo was denounced to the Inquisition for…[putting forward ideas that were said to be] contrary to all religious teaching of the day that claimed that the Earth was the fixed centre of the universe as stated by the bible…[Galileo] tried to contain the problem by contacting some of his powerful supporters, and even went to Rome to beg the authorities to open their eyes to change…but the chief theologian had a closed mind and supported the long-standing theories. The Copernican theory was declared “false and erroneous” and Galileo’s book was banned by decree…[Eventually his work was] to pass the official censors and to become acclaimed as a philosophical and literary masterpiece…[However] The Jesuits maintained the licence was obtained by false pretences and should be revoked. This allowed the church to charge Galileo with heresy and despite his age and failing health, he was forced to travel to Rome to stand trial…Under the threat of torture, and after intense interrogation, he finally agreed to recant…His recantment, coupled with powerful connections within the church, saved him from being thrown into prison or burned at the stake for heresy, but he was placed under house arrest for the last eight years of his life…376 years [later], the Catholic Church admitted it was wrong and posthumously pardoned him. They said the case had produced a rift between the Catholic Church and science that would not be repeated’ (quotes from an article titled How Galileo Rocked the Church and Scientists from News Corporation’s file stories on influential people).

 

• In the case of Darwin, he so feared that his theory showing descent from animals would be seen as offensive that he avoided publishing his ideas for eight years. Under pressure, he also allowed the evasive, competition-excusing, ‘survival of the fittest’ phrase to be introduced into subsequent editions. Despite these efforts to comply with the principles of evasion, Darwin’s concept was ‘greeted with violent and malicious criticism’ (The Origin of Species, title page, 1968 Penguin edn). It has been said that the most convincing way to lie is to lie completely and in an example of such a reverse-of-the-truth lie Darwin was even accused of being psychotic. In truth, to be able to wrestle with issues on even the periphery of the subject of the human condition, as Darwin was able to do, obviously requires exceptional soundness or lack of alienation/​psychosis. Resistance from the establishment was such that Darwin finally concluded: ‘I have got fairly sick of hostile reviews…I can pretty plainly see that, if my view is ever to be generally adopted, it will be by young men growing up and replacing the old workers’ (Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, 1902, p.244). Also, the conservative clergy of Darwin’s day said his concept of natural selection was ‘contrary to the revelations of God in the Scriptures’ (ibid. p.238)—the same criticism levelled at Galileo. Over a century later Darwin’s idea is still being resisted in some religious quarters.

 

The following is an account of Bishop Wilberforce’s attack on Darwin and his idea of natural selection: ‘[During the famous debate at Oxford in 1860 about Darwin’s idea of natural selection] Bishop [Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford] spoke for full half-an-hour with inimitable spirit, emptiness and unfairness…He ridiculed Darwin badly, and Huxley savagely, but all in such dulcet tones, so persuasive a manner, and in such well-turned periods, that I [an observer in the audience] who had been inclined to blame the President for allowing a discussion that could serve no scientific purpose, now forgave him from the bottom of my heart…[Bishop Wilberforce asserted that] Darwin’s views were contrary to the revelations of God in the Scriptures’ (Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, 1902, p.236). ‘Darwin’s fiery young champion [was] the biologist Thomas Huxley…As a final crushing blow [Bishop Wilberforce] turned to Huxley. “Is the gentleman,” he asked, “related by his grandfather’s or grandmother’s side to an ape?” Springing to his feet, young Huxley retorted: “I would far rather be descended from a monkey on both my parents’ sides than from a man who uses his brilliant talents for arousing religious prejudice”. A roar of rage went up from the clergy, yells of delight from the Oxford students. The day was Huxley’s—and Darwin’s. All this time Darwin was living a recluse life at his country home in Kent…[where] work poured from his study…[leaving his] critics shuddering in dread of another “ungodly attack” upon the divinity of man…In vain was Darwin’s life scrutinized for the moral weakness that his enemies were sure must underlie his free thinking. All they could discover was a gentle old fellow who passed his days amid flowers and with children—his two greatest delights. Never by any word of his was God denied, nor the soul of man’ (Great Lives, Great Deeds, Reader’s Digest, 1966, p.335, 336). The stresses were actually so great for Darwin having to withstand extreme resistance to his work that one of the reasons he was forced into ‘living a recluse life at his country home in Kent’ is without doubt that he suffered from chronic fatigue. In fact there is currently some discussion about renaming the debilitating ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’ as the ‘Charles Darwin Syndrome’ (Roger Burns, ‘Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Changing the Name’, Sep. 1996; see www.wtmsources.com/123). In my case, the stresses that I’ve had to endure introducing the human-condition-confronting paradigm have meant that I’ve suffered from the crippling effects of Chronic Fatigue since 1999, even travelling to a clinic in America to try to relieve the condition.

 

• Freud gave major impetus to the process of de-throning evasive intellectualism and re-emphasising truthful, soulful instinctualism by acknowledging the existence within humans of a subconscious, innate self that is not under the control of our rational mind. He was a pioneer in exposing the limited nature of mechanistic science’s reductionist, denial-complying ways of thinking and opened the door to the much repressed holistic paradigm and yet for his efforts suffered extreme vilification. As philosopher Sir Laurens van der Post has written, ‘One could perhaps better have measured the originality of Freud’s achievement by reason of the numbers of the highly intelligent, well-informed men who instantly mobilised to attack him’ (Jung and The Story of Our Time, 1976).

 

Each of these giant strides in the journey of demystification met so much resistance that the insights were lucky to survive. Science historian Thomas Kuhn pointed out that there is no guarantee truth will survive prejudice when he wrote, ‘In science…ideas do not change simply because new facts win out over outmoded ones…Since the facts can’t speak for themselves, it is their human advocates who win or lose the day’ (Shirley C. Strum, Almost Human, 1987—Strum’s references are to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edn, 1970). Similarly the earlier mentioned John Stuart Mill, in his essay On Liberty, emphasised that ‘the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.’

Interestingly, Kuhn also recognised ‘that revolutions in science are often initiated by an outsider—someone not locked into the current model, which hampers vision almost as much as blinders would’ (Shirley C. Strum, Almost Human, 1987, pp.164-165 of 294—Strum’s references are to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edn, 1970). Even Charles Darwin was, as mentioned above, ‘a lone genius, working from his country home without any official academic position’ (Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind, 2000, p.33 of 538). The danger of not being part of the establishment is that the ‘outsider’ is an easy, undefended target for those in the establishment who feel threatened by the outsider’s new ideas.

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer summarised the journey that new ideas in science have historically had to undergo when he ‘said that the reception of any successful new scientific hypothesis goes through predictable phases before being accepted’. First, ‘it is ridiculed’ and ‘violently opposed’. Second, after support begins to accumulate ‘it is stated that it may be true but it’s not particularly relevant’. Third, ‘after it has clearly influenced the field [including members of the establishment quickly remodelling/​plagiarising the ideas as their own discoveries] it is admitted to be true and relevant but the same critics assert that the idea is not original.’ Finally, ‘it is accepted as being self-evident’ (compiled from two references to Schopenhauer’s quote—New Scientist, 15 Nov. 1984 and PlanetHood, Ferencz and Keyes, 1988). Note that each stage of recognition is achieved in a way that protects the ego of the onlookers. The extent of the insecurity caused by humans’ corrupted condition is very apparent. Because the ego or sense of self worth of each generation becomes attached to its view of the world, paradigm shifts typically have to be introduced by new generations. The physicist Max Planck succinctly described the reality of scientific progress when he said that ‘science progresses funeral by funeral’ (see his Scientific Autobiography, 1948).

George Bernard Shaw warned of the true nature of progress when he said that ‘All great truths begin as blasphemies’ (from his play Annajanska, 1919).

 

The Arrival of ‘Future Shock’

 

By definition all new ideas threaten the status quo, and since humans find change difficult, new ideas are, as we have seen, typically resisted. However (as explained in ‘C1: The difficulty of taking the truth back into the cave’ in A Species In Denial on pp.147-157), no new idea is as revolutionising and thus threatening of the status quo as analysis and explanation of the human condition. This is because the status quo, or prevailing attitude, has been to cope with the human condition by living in almost complete denial of it.

While the demystifications of our human situation that Copernicus, Darwin and Freud introduced have been difficult enough for humans to cope with, they are not anything like as psychologically confronting as the arrival of analysis of our human condition itself, the actual issue involved in our insecurity.

As mentioned earlier, R.D. Laing emphasised that the issue that had to be addressed if there is to be any real progress in the world is the alienated state of the human condition, but he also pointed out the ‘perilous’ nature of exploring an issue that ‘many people’ are maintaining such a deep denial of that they believe ‘it does not exist’. He wrote: ‘Our alienation goes to the roots. The realization of this is the essential springboard for any serious reflection on any aspect of present inter-human life [p.12 of 156] …We respect the voyager, the explorer, the climber, the space man. It makes far more sense to me as a valid project—indeed, as a desperately urgently required project for our time—to explore the inner space and time of consciousness. Perhaps this is one of the few things that still make sense in our historical context. We are so out of touch with this realm that many people can now argue seriously that it does not exist. It is very small wonder that it is perilous indeed to explore such a lost realm [p.105]’ (The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, 1967).

For humans to have lived in such deep fear and thus denial of the issue of the human condition that they aren’t aware that it exists, it follows that analysis of the human condition will attract resistance, sometimes very strong resistance. In fact, as has been mentioned, the WTM’s legal actions have been necessary to counter some of the more extreme resistance the WTM has encountered.

The arrival of understanding of the human condition brings liberation for humans from the human condition, but it also represents the most confronting step humanity has ever faced. In fact, as has been emphasised, it represents a crisis in humanity’s journey to enlightenment. The crisis is the immense temptation to avoid the previously, but no longer, unbearable self-confrontation and exposure and stay living in the empty, debilitating darkness of denial—which, if the denial continues, will soon lead to unbearable levels of psychosis and then the extinction of humans.

While the historic denials and evasions that humans have justifiably employed to cope with the unbearably depressing subject of the human condition while we lacked understanding of it are made redundant when understanding of the human condition arrives, they are at the same time suddenly exposed, made transparent. It is this confronting exposure and the resistance to it that becomes a serious impasse to accepting the arrival of the liberating understanding of ourselves. Our historic insecurity about our condition threatens to halt the human journey on the threshold of liberation from our condition.

Alvin Toffler coined the term Future Shock and defined it as ‘the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time’ (Future Shock, 1970, p.4). With the arrival of understanding of the human condition comes the real ‘culture shock’, ‘future shock’, ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘brave new world’ we have long anticipated. Having lived in denial of the issue of our corrupted, human-condition-afflicted, alienated, ‘fallen’ state we suddenly face truth day, honesty day, exposure day, demystification day, self-confrontation day—in fact, ‘judgment day’.

When understanding of our corrupted condition at last arrives we can’t help but feel as if the foundations of our existence are being destroyed, despite the fact that these foundations—our old, artificial defences—are actually being superseded by the real support structure, namely the actual understanding of our upset, corrupted, non-ideal state that we have always needed and sought. A Turkish poet got it right when he wrote that judgment day is ‘Not the day of judgment but the day of understanding’ (National Geographic, Nov. 1987).

The real need on Earth has been to find the means to love the dark side of ourselves, to bring understanding to that aspect of ourselves—because that is where the inability to love others comes from. As Carl Jung emphasised, ‘wholeness’ for humans depended on the ability to ‘own our own shadow’—or as philosopher Sir Laurens van der Post said, ‘True love is love of the difficult and unlovable’ (Journey Into Russia, 1964, p.145). Real compassion is ultimately the only means by which peace and love can come to our planet and it can only be achieved through understanding. Drawing from van der Post once more: ‘Compassion leaves an indelible blueprint of the recognition that life so sorely needs between one individual and another; one nation and another; one culture and another. It is also valid for the road which our spirit should be building now for crossing the historical abyss that still separates us from a truly contemporary vision of life, and the increase of life and meaning that awaits us in the future’ (Jung and The Story of Our Time, 1976, p.29 of 275).

The compassionate ‘truly contemporary vision of life’ ‘that awaits us in the future’ is the arrival of the reconciling, ameliorating understanding of our upset, corrupted human condition, which has now, finally, arrived. (For a concise presentation of this all-important dignifying and thus liberating explanation of the human condition see chapter 1 of FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition.) It is this compassionate understanding of our condition that makes it possible to confront the truth about our condition, but again our historic fear of the issue of the human condition makes us not want to confront the issue, even when we finally can.

It is clear that with the arrival of the actual demystification and exposure of the human condition, human insecurity and nervousness is going to be at a maximum. It follows that for this ultimate enlightenment—this ultimate advance in science—to be allowed, society is, as emphasised, going to have to adhere scrupulously to the democratic principle of freedom of expression.

The democratic principle of freedom of expression was established to ward against the effects of personal bias. Despite the temptation, no one should throw out the rule book on fair behaviour and revert to employing any means at their disposal to implement their point of view.

One of the biggest problems is that having lived in denial of not only the issue of the human condition but also the different degrees of denial and thus alienation amongst humans, everyone tends to think their way of viewing the world is everyone else’s way of viewing the world. Since the degree of encounter with the upsetting battle of the human condition varies greatly from person to person, some people have had to live in a state of much greater denial and thus alienation than others. This situation is well described on page 113 of The Great Exodus where leading psychologist Arthur Janov explains why some people have an extreme ‘personal stake in denial of truth’. The danger is of those who have an extreme personal stake in denial projecting their view and believing humanity as a whole cannot cope with confronting the human condition and on that basis deciding to stop by any means available the emergence of analysis and explanation of the human condition. The main campaigner against our work, Reverend David Millikan, said during the making of his Four Corners program, ‘you realise you’re attempting the impossible, you will be fighting to have these ideas accepted right down to the last person on the planet’. One of the other leading campaigners against our work, Charles Belfield, father of WTM member Sam Belfield, has similarly said, ‘you are dealing with the personal unspeakable, shaking the black box inside people, and you can’t succeed’.

Projecting their own view of the world, their own prejudice, some people can decide to try and block the liberating understanding of the human condition from emerging, in effect condemning humanity to a destiny of terminal alienation. As emphasised, ‘judgment day’ is actually a day of compassionate insight, not condemnation. With understanding of the human condition the human condition can be safely confronted, but some people won’t countenance such a possibility. They won’t trust in democracy and fair and open debate to establish what should be accepted by society and what shouldn’t. It will require great courage and restraint by some people to remain tolerant and unfortunately that hasn’t occurred in some quarters. Where intolerance occurs it obviously must be staunchly resisted.

There is corporate crime, corruption, rape, murder, tyranny and even genocide but all these crimes pale into insignificance compared with attempting to deny the completion of the all-critical human journey to enlightenment of our human condition. Those that would project their insecurity upon this humanity-liberating breakthrough, along with those intolerant of it because they hold strictly fundamentalist religious views, as well as those who are intolerant because they are adherents of human-condition-denying, thought-stifling politically correct dogma (namely the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald) must be defied and not allowed to prevail.

 

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To see the final vindication we achieved in this great battle to defend these all-precious, human-race-saving understandings of the human condition against persecution, read the Persecution of the WTM essay at www.humancondition.com/​persecution—where you will see that the Sydney Morning Herald apologised to the WTM, and that the ABC Four Corners program was condemned as ‘inaccurate’, ‘partial’, ‘unbalanced’, ‘untrue’, lacking ‘fairness’, not produced in ‘good faith’ and ‘not justified’, and overall described as a ‘hatchet job’.