How Do We Enter A New Age of Progress?

I have an opinion on this and I’ll speak to it simply and directly soon.

I am finishing up a great book by two of my favorite writers Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince called The Forbidden Universe.www.picknettprince.com...

It’s about the contribution of Hermetic philosophy to the renaissance and sceince.
It turns out that ALL the medieval philosophers and scientist from Isaac Newton, who for example, had voluminous volumes on Alchemy, to Giordano Bruno, who was a died in the wool hermetic who wanted to reform the Vatican. Copernicus, and even Galileo Galilei were hermetic thinkers. This is documented and in-fact the scientific progress they made could be just as much dependent of Hermetic thought than the scientific method they knew at that time, which was undeveloped. Of course we know why, and that is because of the repressive Catholic Church who actually burned the great man Bruno at the stake for his Hermetism and forced Galileo to retract his discoveries.

The book traces the origin of the turning point in science as the Copernican heliocentric theory, such theory postulated within the Hermetica that heavily influenced the ideas of Copernicus and Isaac Newton later.

Now my point here is that if we examine this history closely and other eras of great change and progress we always see that progress and change doesn’t occur out of a vacuum.

The contributions of the Arab Muslimeen to humanity came from the Quran and Sufis and the Arabs preserving the knowledge of the Greek masters that they handed to the Europeans.
The progress of the Indus valley came from the Buddhist and Hindu advanced thinkers and mystics.

In the close study of European change in the scientific realm we see there is a spiritual nutrient that subtly fostered that change, such as in this case, the Hermetic knowledge. These great medieval philosophers and early scientists studied closely the Hermetica
despite the oppression of the medieval Catholic Church at the time. Were talking about the 16th and 17th century here.

Amazingly practically ALL the great philosophers in this era were influenced by not only Hermetic Lore but Rosicrucian knowledge as well. Indeed from John Dee all the way to Isaac Newton these men formed an invisible fraternity of knowledge that in the end led to the great scientific method and the intensive discoveries within that burgeoning scientific era we call the renaissance

So what’s my point?

My point is that these men were able to make change and have progress because they had the nutrient of Hermetic wisdom that propelled that change.

The question is
What spiritual nutrient do we have today?

I believe science has run its course and no longer offers any positive nutrient of change, just redundant materialism, even if it ever did, once it abandoned its relationship with the spiritual values of these men I mentioned.

It has become a one-dimensional materialistic black hole of false certainty, imo.

We need something new. Either a new re-interpretation of some of the spiritual classics or a second look at systems, such as Hermetism, Sufism, Qabala, Gnosticism, Buddhism, Vedanta, Integral Spirituality, not in any newagey superficial sense but serious studies where we can find something that can rescue science from itself, and at the same time progress the calcified spirituality of today and invigorate the human spirit into a new level of awareness in a genuine merging and understanding of science and spirituality.

These great men of the past ransacked the classics and absorbed and studied them so closely, the Hermetica for instance, that this served as a vital nutrient to real knowledge and progress despite tremendous odds.

What are we doing today?

Where is our Galileo, our Isaac Newton, our Giordano Bruno, our Mahatma Ghandi, our Jajaludin Rumi, our Pantanjali?

Or more important where is the nutrient that can produce such people in our age?

reply to post by Willtell


Have you discovered 'non duality' yet?

reply to post by Itisnowagain




Years ago

Most mystical schools of thought, Sufism, Advaita vendanta, and Buddhism have elements of it.

I love the concept and abide by it
To me in reality there is nothing but God

Willtell

Where is our Galileo, our Isaac Newton, our Giordano Bruno, our Mahatma Ghandi, our Jajaludin Rumi, our Pantanjali?

Or more important where is the nutrient that can produce such people in our age?

We still have the same quality of minds out there today and more so.

The problem is the institutionalized education that destroying minds by forcing academic results based on repeating what we learn, which many isn't true...and if you don't fit in the mold, well you will never make a lot of money and will be identified as being unfit for society.

The most intelligent people on this earth are probably poor and ressourceless...
just like the best musicians will always be unknown and the best philosophers will never be heard.

We are over-glorifying dead minds, oblivious to the people that are alive right in front of us.

reply to post by Willtell

These great men of the past ransacked the classics and absorbed and studied them so closely, the Hermetica for instance, that this served as a vital nutrient to real knowledge and progress despite tremendous odds.

What are we doing today?

Where is our Galileo, our Isaac Newton, our Giordano Bruno, our Mahatma Ghandi, our Jajaludin Rumi, our Pantanjali?

Or more important where is the nutrient that can produce such people in our age?

These sorts of people aren't the result of some specific training or study or nutrient. There's no common theme among them besides that they liked to think and had time to think. Nowadays, there's no time to think, and some would even do away with thinking altogether, and genius is instead forced to work. This is why philosophy has turned into science, there's no time for the philosophical questions and questioning. They have been removed, and abstract curiosity with it.

reply to post by theMediator


Maybe so, time will tell if this “ civilized” world produces individuals like those I mention, as of now the world from my perception is pretty devoid of such a degree of genius, of course there are exceptions such as you and I.

Seriously though, I do believe in the reality of fruits of philosophy and thought that does nurture the thinker. In other words we inherit wisdom and advance on that.
No man is an island or the originator of thought.

One thing inherent in human knowledge is this principle of growing off those that have come before us, and I think if we look into philosophy, science and spirituality this principle is maintained.

Of course, there is always room for a new perspective and discovery in the evolutionary model of life.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


Everything needs food for thought. You refer to methodology, thinking, an inherent methodology, but to think one has to have something to mull over… a dynamic that sparks the neurons to light, sense, and knowledge.

Without food for thought there would be no eating.

The Greeks learned from the Egyptians, the Arabs learned from the Greeks, the Europeans learned form the Arabs, on and on each group it seems to me had many nutrients that watered their intellect and spirit to further growth

Sciences have almost never been used for social progress. Sciences are not dead, in fact they never had so much potential for social and spiritual progress as today. Today with automation, robotics, 3d printing, artificial intelligence and all the stuff that is going to arrive in the coming years, we will be able to free the human species from the archaic struggle for survival, and that means giving time and psychological freedom to humans which will enable them to evolve, because we cannot evolve if at the same time we struggle to survive.

Willtell

The question is
What spiritual nutrient do we have today?

In a word, comparativism. The fields of comparative mysticism, comparative mythology, comparative religion overlapping with a dash of parapsychology added. As a modern mystical tradition that cuts through both religious fundamentalism and secular fundamentalism.

Willtell
How Do We Enter A New Age of Progress?

First, you have to get as many as possible to agree on what the term progress really means, which really, has been the basis for the struggle throughout the history of humanity, and the reason history keeps repeating itself.

reply to post by Willtell

You have a noble concern and would like to see humanity steering in the right direction. I doubt however that modern-day Galileos, Isaac Newtons or Socrates etc would be stepping out to assist.

Just look around you - a world consisting mostly of zombies with their mind entangled in the virtual world of games, reality TV and consumer goods. It is just not worth helping those who will not help themselves.

Do not worry . This was meant to be. The Aquarian age (age of computer and technology) in already here. In the next hundred years, we have to carve a new spirituality and that takes time. We are no longer god-fearing. Beginnings are always shaky but eventually we will resume progress.

For now, I would suggest that the wise ones stay on the sidelines and observe. Life is becoming easier for them and their children. They will not be drawn into the whirlpool that leads to dehumanisation and the disconnection of the heart and mind. This New Aquarian Age is revolutionary and technological changes are superfast and magnetic and most cannot really cope and have already given up their heart to become as machines.

When the dust settles , many scholars will come forward. I do not know when this will happen. Perhaps in 200 years.