About Backlash – Soul Ages and Change:

Mitt, Mohammed, Teachers, and Tension

Hasn’t it been a tumultuous 2 weeks? Anyone reading this article and keeping an even a sideways glance on world events, presented in mainstream and alternative media alike, knows that the Arab Spring has become the Arab storm. And, in the US, the controversy about a home made film depicting Mohammed, the founder of Islam, as a lecher and pedophile, which ignited tensions and religious intolerances ready for such a spark, has also brought the discussion of America’s First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion and freedom of speech into poignant debate. While teachers in Chicago assert their rights of workers to bargain collectively for fairness, members of the powerful seek to stifle their rights to free speech denigrating the strike as a blow to children. What a shaming? Then, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney employs a New Age-ism as a slur about half the population of the US, calling them victims who feel entitled to government support. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Mr. Romney apparently has never heard of the historic concept of the social contract. Apparently, the only contracts he concerns himself with are the ones he breaks with employees of the companies he gutted at Bain (bane?), or those oaths of allegiance to his has pledged to his ultra-wealthy constituents.

From time to time, situations like these arise that so cause this channel concern, that a more in-depth conversation with the Michael’s becomes urgent. Such is the case with the widening gap of political polarities and the acts of extreme speech and mob violence they spur.

Why have so many pockets of reactionary elements arisen in the US, and elsewhere, surfacing at this juncture in human affairs? While no one single answer defines every instance or explains each circumstance, a categorical answer might prove useful to put into context the shifting attitudes of world populations. As the pressures to grow beyond the familiar mounts upon traditional attitudes, societies, and sub-cultures within them, that vulnerability produces anomie. Michael has used a term many times previously in relation to such events which bears further contextual explanation: the term is backlash.

A backlash is a reaction to pressure. It resists change which might follow, fearing a loss of equilibrium. For groups called traditional Baby Souls (BS) and Young Souls (YS), the Mature Soul (MS) paradigm acts a mounting energy push as it attempts to evolve and displace its predecessor the (YS) paradigm. A cognitive dissonance arises in both the individual and cultural parts of the psyche. Identity is challenged and shaken. At the same time, those same pressures lay conditions for, in contrast to reactive backlash, creative inventions known in evolutionary biology as emergent behaviors. They are raising new forms in an attempt to both initiate and adapt to change. Above all, it should be noted that unlike previous Soul Age transitions, which occurred more gradually and with fewer conditions impeding them, the deeply entrenched Young Soul paradigm is built upon beliefs almost diametrically opposed to the emergent (MS) one. Thus this transition represents the most divisive tipping point in human history.

What follows is Michael’s elaborations…

“In more common parlance, the Young Soul orientation toward “me first” is up against what it perceives as the grating insistence of the Mature Soul “we first” demand.  With little imagination one can extrapolate, that the (YS) primary assumptions about economic rights and rugged individualism embedded in the Young Soul’s most ardent institution expressing these values, Capitalism; conflicts with the reality, as Earth’s resources shrink and human population grows, that more people want a piece of the pie that seems increasingly consumed by a small cabal of world society. Not merely the 1%, but the 1% of the 1%.  This planet’s real estate and natural re(sources) are finite and not subject to any trick of intellectual interpretation, and everyone is feeling the squeeze at the instinctual level.

The attitudes which bolster each paradigm have both originated with and are a culmination of human thought and awareness up to that period. With that in mind, we remind you of a seldom acknowledged element in this transitional period. It is the influence and the disruption upon the remaining Baby Soul (BS) attitudes still prevalent in the world today. Beliefs of this Soul Age are rigidly ensconced in most religious doctrines: “boss first, then me.” And note, while most might claim that God is boss, it is the Ayatollah’s, Rabbi’s  and Popes who like Mafia bosses, damn the unholy, proclaim the righteous, and bark the orders to those supplicants seeking favor. In our teaching of course, we have replaced historic notions of God, Jehovah or Allah, with a more omnipresent, less rigid, and non-gendered version, barrowing its name from the Chinese concept of TAO. By doing so we posit the reality that the Universe is infinitely diverse and in motion – a verb, rather than the noun, God. But at its core is a presence of complete wholeness and stillness. TAO is both conscious of itself and its creation. And like a scientist conducting a massive experiment it observes how things unfold and rarely manipulates variables nor intercedes overtly en-masse, since that interrupts the play of free will. Of course, Baby Souls (BS) proclaim a narrative or theistic dominance which Young Souls pay public lip service, while most often acting contrary to it. No matter what (BS) narrative is offered as doctrine, most (YS) experience a truth which is less sacrosanct but in more accord with one of our primary assertions.

TAO acts, instead, through the agency of individual sparks of itself: human souls (i.e. you!)But even such an emergent view as this and similar secular ideas which push younger souls to incredulity, their need for a stable world view ignites the backlash rallying to a greater dogmatic literalism and more extreme reactionary conservatism.

The détente between the Young and Baby Soul mindsets and the institutions in which they collaborate, weave together a truce whereby some of the most heinous of human cruelties and indiscretions are overlooked; or justified under the pretext of God’s favor, anointing some as saintly and others as damned sinners. Placing these labels upon Young Soul caprices has assuaged Baby Soul predilections toward absolutism, and maintained a workable quid pro quo between those dominant norms. Thus, Capitalistic usury, exploitation, and annihilations have in every segment of human history, been sanctified for the glory of God. In the West under Christianity and the Bible and in the Near East by Islam and the Quran, offer the most evident examples of this. Yet, in every Baby Soul culture some version of a deity and its doctrine, reign. All demand worship and conformity, while status is bestowed under the imprimatur of a human theocratic hierarchy.

By contrast, the more egalitarian Mature Soul principles place greater emphasis on building institutions which establish more leveling of rights and empowerments. The current forms which have arisen from the Great Depression and then again in the 1960’s and 70’s have emerged during a period of MS experimentation. Mr. Romney, a (YS) cannot comprehend any of this approach and sees it as a threat the very existence of he and his peers.  It challenges the hegemony of Young and Baby assumptions and practices, shaking the foundations of both their social and individual identities. MS emergent attitudes and practices, confront the YS-BS Ego structure pushing them outside accepted norms. 

Those Ego structures are designed to preserve stability and predictability. To them, these emergent circumstances thus seem uncontrollable and they interpret what they see with fear, labeling it chaos; or worse, the work of the Devil. Ironically, actual chaos is not the cause of their actions like those unleashed on American embassies; instead (BS) incite chaos in the form of mob violence; justifying their actions as self defense. The Young Soul’s backlash, represented prominently by Wall Street, appears as boldly though more legalistically, as they ramp up their no-holds-barred undermining of business regulations and citizen rights. They interpret moves toward equality as threats to their perceived status. Both examples share the common feature of exhibiting backlash strategies resisting, and attempting to thwart, a coming change.

Fear of change, rightly ascribed as the most ubiquitous and corrosive foe of progressive action and conscious evolution, called the Chief Feature Stubbornness by us, is most activated at times of social and spiritual evolution. Using our Overleaves terminology as a frame of reference, remember that Stubbornness, may be defined concurrently, but with a slightly different meaning, as fear of the unknown. This CF resides under the Assimilative Axis because its function is to inhibit digestion or transition from one state to the next. Stretching that metaphor a bit further, the world of human consciousness has gorged Baby and Young soul dictates for so long that it has become rigidly addicted and thus inadaptable. As a result, that stagnation has ushered in international institutional decline, and from that instability both backlash and emergent behaviors. This is how Soul Age transitions actually work over a prolonged period.

But the TAO’s design is always the advance of human consciousness and what is evident in the current milieus of human dramas, is the seeking of fairness, justice, and equality for the majority of souls. Hence, the mobs in the Middle East and the attack that  killed the US ambassador, can be better understood if we view it through the lens of where Young Soul treachery utilized the rigid and fear-based simplicities of Baby Soul belief structures. And standing on the sidelines, attempting to arbitrate these disputes, or create new solutions are Mature Soul institutions like: the United Nations. Additionally,  private charities and NGO’- non-governmental organizations like: Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, Green Peace, Planned Parenthood,  Democracy Now, the Open Source movement in computer science; and more informally – the Occupy Movement calling themselves the 99%. These are not organizations formed to contend with backlash, but emergent institutions ushering in the new ethos at the fringes of social consciousness. As for those entrench beliefs in backlash, you see them slog about erratically, as one might expect from babies throwing a tantrum (BS), or calculated for selfish ends as one might expect from a bullying adolescent t(YS) staking its claim to other people’s possessions.

Facing change with creativity instead of upheaval is itself a part of the new paradigm associated with Mature Soul consciousness. Innovation and negotiation seek to circumvent conflagration and top-down authoratarianism. Yet, it should be reiterated that Soul Age advance is cumulative and inclusive, which means strategies of all previous stages are employable when necessary. This merger into more comprehensive frame of reference liberates diversity and creativity instead of suppressing it or putting it under the yoke of a narrow objective.  On the world stage, there are few in positions of actual power (as opposed to academic credibility or moral suasion) who innately understand this reality (sans the use of our terminology of course), than the US President Barack Obama.

The 7^th Mature Priest has walked a tight rope made of razor thin distinctions and other times fallen off the threadbare wire of his “liberal-ness” by making concessions to the financial industry (YS). But like monarchs of old (BS), he has been as ruthless behind the scenes with covert military operations like the one that killed Osama Bin Laden, and has continued to put prisons before education, appeasing the Baby Soul elements to be brutal and autocratic. Ironically, these concurrently permissive and authoritarian tactics have so effectively confounded many on the Right (Young and Baby – but a some Mature and Old as well) as to rob them of underlying facts to their talking points. His assimilative approach is the hallmark of the Pragmatist he is. And it shows. Masterfully! But even with the passage of the Health Care bill (Mature Soul) and some financial regulation and mortgage bailouts (although many would argue weak) they still auger his Soul Age and tip the institutions toward more equitable distribution of resources.

Socialism, as he is charged with, and is indicative of the dogmatic and self serving, ego protective mechanisms that denial and ignorance are, for those who actually read the theoretical structure of it, realize that Socialism (Mature Soul) is far from totalitarian Communism (Baby Soul), but is a fusion of regulated Capitalism and democratic decision making. Whereas, by contrast, what was the (YS) hallmark of 20^th century Europe, Japan, and many parts of Africa and South America; and is again making a play for the American power structure: is Fascism. It rewards megalomania and mechanical efficiency elevating anything that produces advantage and power, usually in the form of profit, to the level of holy. This is why the YS Sage, Ayn Rand has achieved near sainthood in conservation circles. These extremes may seem bizarre to the Mature and Old Souls whose nature is less focused upon dominance or acquisition. But for the Baby and Young Souls, dominance or acquisition are at the center of their world views.

To reiterate, the rise of corporate power, financial capitalism, intellectual property, and institutional consolidations called “too big to fail” and the astronomically inflated importance of such inanities as: fashion, celebrity, wealth, and conspicuous consumption represent the apex of the Young Soul ethos in backlash to any and all attempts to dislodge it from its existential place as king of the hill.

In this essay, we have shied away from saying that any specific ethos is “bad.” Or that the emergent strategies are “better than” those in backlash to change. All we have asserted that the world of human consciousness is in a dynamic shift of orientation that at the same time, depending upon Soul Age orientation, is construed as: chaotic, opportunistic, potentially progressive, or a crucible of philosophy. This latter one of course, is the most likely assessment made by Old Souls themselves. Instinctively, seeing once again from their accumulated memories of past lives spanning millennia, (OS) recognize current events as repeating historic patterns of human nature recurrent and persistent in their affairs and dramas. This awareness may act at once to inspire curiosity, engender despair, or annoy with boredom. Because the Old Soul can understand all of these points of view from review of their own prior Soul Age experiences, they realize these beliefs operate concurrently in the humanities collective unconscious.

This last statement is meant to denote what is possible as the potential of a clear and awake Old Soul. This “potential” can be reached regardless if the (OS) know of this teaching, or seek out philosophical study, or care at all about anything that might be labeled “spiritual.” But because Essence and Personality of the (OS) have fewer barriers of disconnection, the persistent throng from the ever louder presence of Essence (inner voice of witness and conscience) no matter what they name it or how they categorize it for themselves, makes their personality sensitive and its perspective wide. This is often frustrates Ego, who wants simplification and certainly, because of Essence’s innate capacity for seeing all sides of an argument. Driven to find a modicum of peace, even one borne only by living in the integrity of one’s personal truth, an inner compulsion exists which is unavoidable. Thus the Old Soul, innately saddled with many lifetimes of experience and tending toward lethargy, acts upon this drive seeking not so much to lead a movement, but to raise their vibration into true personality and simply lead by example. A difficult task for many an Elder essence, since their operating credo, while idealized as “live and let live”, often devolves into a detachment, alienation, or aversion to human affairs which we have expressed more tersely as: “you do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

Tolerance is not necessarily predicated upon the same innately-driven, idealized equanimity of the Mature Soul, it is instead a strategy towards allowing oneself the widest possible degrees of freedom or uninvolvement. By contrast, that base attitude is in itself is an expression of the Old Souls’ inculcation of elements from each of the previous Soul Ages. This is an amalgamation that may act as a stimulant for learning and exploration, or overdose the Old Soul mind into a stupor of spiritual and philosophical musings. Said in the idiom of today, it could be called “mental masturbation.” In a way, this latter condition is an Old Soul form of backlash. It appears as disengagement through spiritual contraction from a psyche overload with confusion and dissonance, creates a frozen stagnation. Then attempting to quell their spiritual unrest they rationalize a fear-sanctioned withdrawal that is justified by a spiritual superiority, arrogance (fear of vulnerability). Then to compensate for the (OS) dissonance, a deep self deprecating voice shouts “I can’t handle this.” The act of retreat is validated for the Ego. Yet, because of Essence’s deep drive for truth and evolution, that strategy is at best a only a temporary palliative, an unsustainable as a psychological equilibrium.

The Old Souls contribution in this era is that of the integrator. In these modern times, their (OS) emergent behaviors and hence evolution (because you ain’t done yet) are to recognize, name, embody, teach, and integrate into his/her practice two principles often cast in conflict but in fact are complementary. First, to acknowledge that there is a constructive place for competition. That is produces rigor and ignites the thrill of self realization that happens when one overcomes challenges or adversities (and sometimes adversaries). Within it lies the solution to an age old dispute encountered in every venue of human experience: equality! Simply said, given a specific context some attributes make one person “better in performance than” someone else. Yet, all are equal in rights, values, and dignity in their humanity. No Essence is superior to another! That is what Thomas Jefferson meant by “all men are created equal.” Talents differ, ambition differs, innate interest differs and so do intended Life Task, Karmas, Overleaves, and Soul Age add virtually infinite variation. Equality at this level is of being, not doing.

The second proposition, which seems juxtaposed to the first, marries the Mature Soul idea that cooperation and integration for a common good does not eliminate the right to, or value of, achieving personal good. Both can coexist, and as Nature reveals, are intricately interwoven. The bastardization of Karl Marx by Soviet Communism, shamed individual achievement for personal gain substituting it with a Baby Soul enforced anonymity and invisibility. Oppressive and spirit killing, the CCCP could only operate in a top-down intimidation way, since it failed to acknowledge the positive differences of individuals and reduced everyone to interchangeable drones. That is why it failed. But, modern states like Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Britain, and yes, today’s Viet Nam, embrace individualism in varying degrees by permitting reward and entrepreneurship, but make it an agent for the common good; not only for individual enrichment and dominance over others. Old Souls must learn how to integrate these factors for themselves,  and innovate new and effective ways to offer alternatives (Mature), not impose rules, (Baby), nor manipulate with bribes with deception, (Young) to share these propositions with others. Under a Mature Soul model, commerce exists for the benefit of society. In a Young Soul framework, society serves the interests of business.

Yet, in the short run, the next 50 years, an amalgam of these three styles will be evident in various venues for various goals. Remember, Soul Age paradigms generally take centuries for conversion to happen! And they are cumulative! One does not replace the other, but instead incorporates the most dynamic elements of the prior and expands consciousness, not eliminates parts of it. Soul Age paradigms occur in succession; their ethos, perspectives, attitudes, and energetic orientation rise incrementally. Progress advances and retreats until the newest iteration finally reaches the level of predominance in the collective psyche. Such is the case for the transition that humanity currently finds itself in; attempting to emerge from the Young Soul paradigm into the Mature Soul one.

This era of history possesses is the most dynamic, radical, complex, interesting and option filled period ever to have been present for human souls to participate. During the baby boom of post WWII, the largest contingent of Old and Mature Souls ever chose to incarnate. They have congregated on Earth in order to suckle growth and expansion from a time of technological and geopolitical milk and honey. As such, each soul personally achieves divergent experience densely packed into one lifetime, exploring countless opportunities. At the same time and consistent with the model you are here to teach, each of you contributes to the larger forces moving the entire race into the Mature Soul paradigm. It may not be glamorous for the personality, but Essence gains experience either way. However, for the personality, acceleration or retardation of the process varies with your participation or abdication of it.

But unlike previous Soul Age transitions, this fundamental shift is a tipping point of unparalleled scope. The contrast between these two Soul Ages is so wide that numerous forces of backlash and emergence are unleashed simultaneously. The sheer number of which dissolve certainty, and releases confusion and instability. This is what is happening most dramatically in the Arab Middle East. Many instinctively experience this as a tearing apart of the fabric of their culture and national, but also their individual and collective identities.

And indeed, in one interpretation, it is!  The psychological gap between the attitudes of exclusivity founded in the Young Soul attitudes of “me first and do it my way,” are so deeply ingrained as the virtues of this (American) culture, that they do not give way easily to the more inclusive attitudes of the Mature Soul. Hence the sheer density of human beings on the planet itself, and the wide range of issues confronting any individual at a given time, create a convergence of forces (a perfect storm) that press a personality and social structures to the breaking point. It is all part of the TAO conducting its passion play, a reference of course to the last Soul Age transition from Baby to Young, and the man Jesus who embodied the Infinite Soul ushering it in. In milking this transition for every bit of diverse experience which results, TAO occupies its position of ultimate concerned noninterventionalist. But unlike the Baby Soul notion of Apocalypse or Armageddon, any battle to be fought will first be one within. A drive to balance the opposing forces, those of personal needs and the conflict between interdependency with and the fear of, others.

The TAO then reaps benefit from whatever collective choice humanity, (part of its creation) decides for itself. If any commonality exists in our telling of this Soul Age evolutionary moment, and those 2^nd Coming or End times stories, it is this: a choice is before you! Act with courage to lovingly embrace change, proactively, or retreat into fear, worshipping whichever force you declare preeminent: God or science or mysticism or human dominance. From that place, whichever form the fear takes, it will make a clenched fist and strike out, painfully battering itself and others into exhaustion. There is no God which will reign down any destruction onto human beings. No! Ironically, as one of the choices available to you, humans tend to bring destruction (BS) and employ deceit and betrayal (YS) to each other rather handily; needing no help of a divine agency. Yet, all this is a harvest of experience for the TAO, it does not judge, it just accumulates.

Hence, this Soul Age transition is reasonably assured. How long the backlash resistance to it lasts, and how quickly and assertively emergent solutions are embraced, is completely volitional. The Earth and her populations of all beings, ensouled and hive alike, will continue to enact the dominance-oppression-victim paradigm of existence, until it is realized, in both humane and practical ways, that cooperation[1] is absolutely necessary and not a luxury or a weakness. Only then will the compassion-engagement-empowerment paradigm (MS) take hold.

This new (MS) model is installed and implemented one person at a time. If you choose to confront backlash within you and from those who display it, then sometimes “tough love” is required. Especially with oneself! It also goes by the code name: self-discipline. But shaping oneself with greater loving devotion to ones health, principles, integrity, and those people and thing one loves and values, cannot include the strategy of denial!  Either, of your own needs or the folly of your ways.

We hope this has opened your field of understanding relating to these issues.” Michael