Many today feel a vague apprehension that there is something sinister in the air, as if all the current world events and crises are not accidental but part of an orchestrated project. There is a definite telos or end goal toward which the political machinations of world governments, the propagandistic messages of mass media, and even the statements of religious figures are leading.
This is entirely possible and even probable. While often dismissed as conspiracy theorists or worse, not a few brave souls have cataloged these disturbing global trends and the purpose behind them in great detail, providing in-depth evidence to bolster their claims. So I will not do so here. What I do want to say, however, is that there are other forces at work besides those of corrupt human wills. There are spiritual forces at work, forces vast and powerful, that seek an altogether different goal than that which their human instruments profess.
Ask any global leader at this time what their project is about, and one will likely receive the answer that they simply want to build a better world—a world more just, equitable, and prosperous for all. This is the clearly stated goal of the global ruling class. And these leaders probably believe it. Is not, after all, the slogan of countless nations over the past two years to “build back better”? These global leaders are convinced they know what is best for human prosperity and flourishing, and while their efforts to implement their project may involve no small amount of “creative destruction,” short-term suffering, and even tyrannical suspension of human rights, they likewise believe with all the zeal of religious faith that the end does justify the means.
Indeed, if there is one great moral failing these leaders suffer from, it is the deadly sin of pride. By this, I do not mean deadly in an abstract sense, but in a quite literal way. For when the church speaks of deadly sins she means sins which quite literally open us to forces of degeneration and death. And that is exactly what is happening.
The inflation of the global elite, corporate or political, has reached a scale not seen perhaps since the tower of Babel. They seek to build a tower to heaven and bring all the forces of nature under their dominion. Through their pride, which seeks to elevate the human person to the status of a god without God, these corrupt human wills have opened themselves to forces of darkness. They have become channels for forces much greater, more potent, and more sinister than themselves. And these forces of evil have a project all their own.
What is that project? To take us backward through the kingdoms of nature until we become stones.
The father of the early church, St. Iranaeus, famously said, “The glory of God is many fully alive.” There is much to contemplate in this simple statement, but suffice it to say that even the angels are in awe of a human being who has been divinized and become a partaker in the divine nature. A human being whose physical capacities have been fully trained and developed is capable of astonishing things. But still more wondrous is a human being whose spiritual capacities have been fully awakened through effort and grace.
A pilgrim who went to visit the great Russian saint, St. Seraphim of Sarov, reports a glimpse of his astonishing holiness:
After these words I glanced at his face and there came over me an even greater reverent awe. Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling light of its midday rays, the face of a man talking to you. You see the movement of his lips and the changing expression of his eyes, you hear his voice, you feel someone holding your shoulders; yet you do not see his hands, you do not even see yourself or his figure, but only a blinding light spreading far around for several yards and illumining with its glaring sheen both the snow-blanket which covered the forest glade and the snow-flakes which besprinkled me and the great Elder. You can imagine the state I was in!
This is the glory of a human being fully alive, a glory that brings the highest honor and glory to God.
But there is no question forces of evil want to erase this splendorous potentiality. They want to forever extinguish the tremendous light of a grace-filled human being. They want to turn us into lifeless stones, for they love darkness rather than light.
How is this project accomplished?
The human person contains within ourselves the fullness of the four kingdoms of nature. First, the mineral kingdom lives in the dense and solid substance of our bones. Second, the kingdom of the plants exists in the fact that we are living—that is, we have a soul, for the soul, as Aquinas teaches, is but the life of the body. Third, we have the animal kingdom present within us in our ability to experience sensation and act instinctively. And finally, we contain a rational intellect in common with the incorporeal angels. (I will add as an aside, that this intellect does not merely consist of our rational faculties, which are the lower part of the intellect, but also the higher faculty of the intellect which is capable of intuitive cognition. For angels know things directly in themselves. They are not bound by our limitations of stepwise logical reasoning. We too have this capacity for direct intuitive knowledge, but in our fallen state, this is deeply impaired and must be developed.) Thus, we see that the human person is situated midway between the three lower kingdoms of nature and the angelic hierarchies.
Be that as it may, the forces of evil working against the development of humanity want to take us backward through these kingdoms, first of all into the animal state by erasing our reason and causing us to be ruled by forces of instinct alone. This is primarily done through manipulation of education, which is but the training of the intellectual forces. A person who cannot reason can only feel. That is, they are helpless before the instinctual soul-life. And as the eruptions of the mob have increased significantly in recent times, the forces of evil are largely succeeding. When reason, and the higher principles to which it appeals, is eliminated, what succeeds in its place is violence—a vicious class of instinctive forces battling for supremacy. Is it any wonder the world is in flames? We are returning to our animal state, and the law of the jungle reigns supreme.
The next stage in the regression through the kingdoms is the plant state. This plant-like state is life without intellect, instinct, or movement. It is life reduced to passivity; a complete neutralization of the will. Scientists, tech giants, and mass-media magnates have all known for decades that media places us into a mild state of hypnosis. That is a passive state of relaxed concentration and suggestibility. Should we be surprised that a company will pay millions for a thirty-second Super Bowl advertisement? Such a business has the opportunity to implant desires in the souls of millions with these few seconds of rapt attention.
This passive, open, relaxed, and receptive state has much in common with a plant absorbing the forces of the sun. In such a state of mild hypnosis, we become fully present and simultaneously passively receptive to whatever forces wish to work upon us. We commune with forces we do not understand or control, but later, we come to believe that the desires that have been suggested to us are our own. Glance around in any public space, or private space for that matter, at the people present. Those present will no doubt have their attention fully devoted to a screen which is reducing them to a state of plant-like passivity. These consumers of this media soak up forces that work on their unconscious minds in almost a pseudo-sacramental way. If the power of digital media continues unabated, all of humanity will be reduced to plant-like consumers, drawing life from forces we neither fully know nor understand.
Finally, if the forces of evil achieve their end, we will be reduced to the mineral kingdom. Human beings will become stones. What is the mineral state? It is substance devoid of intellect, sensation, instinct—and even life itself. At first glance, such a state may seem unlikely to appeal to any human being. Why, after all, would we seek to extinguish our very life? Is this not contrary to the all-powerful survival instinct? And yet this is the very message of Ray Kurzweil in his vision of the singularity when all human beings “transcend biology” and upload their consciousness into a highly advanced computer. This is the utopian vision of the transhumanist movement that sees the augmentation of the human person with computers as the next stage of human evolution.
And what is a computer? It is a machine built upon lifeless minerals—the mineral of silicone especially. It is a stone that can calculate. A mineral worked upon by electricity so as to conjure the appearance of life. This is the goal of the hierarchies of evil: To reduce human beings to lifeless mineral machines. For as machines, we can transcend our bodies of clay and earth, and in so doing conquer death and attain immortality. Of course, we will do so at the price of the intellect, the soul, and even biological life itself. But surely immortality must come at the cost of sacrifice. It is not true, after all, that eternal life can only come at the cost of a life laid down?
This is the blasphemous anti-gospel of the hierarchies of evil. This is their telos and their goal. This is their promise: Surrender your higher nature and return through the kingdoms of nature to become stones. Sacrifice your divine destiny and obtain eternal life in the machine—turn your living bread into stones, and you will live forever.