The World in Transition: Humanity’s Eternal Cycle
The world as we know it is deep in the midst of change. But this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that humanity finds itself standing at the edge of transformation. History, as popularly presented, tends to cling to a linear narrative; a steady march from ancient mystery to modern certainty. Yet beneath these surface tales, a far older reality pulses: the world is caught in a cycle of destruction and rebirth, every civilization rising only to fall, every age collapsing so a new one may begin.
This profound rhythm is echoed in many spiritual and philosophical traditions, but nowhere more vividly than in the description of cyclical epochs. There, humanity travels through vast epochs of ascending light and deepening darkness. Over and over, societies climb toward pinnacles of wisdom and achievement, only to reach a critical peak; a cataclysmic point where everything fractures. The old order is swept away, and the remnants are left to rebuild, beginning again at the lowest rung, starting the cycle anew. Ascendance inevitably yields to descent, much as day must yield to night.
This pattern is not merely one of material destruction and rebirth, but one of inner and outer captivity. Humanity finds itself not just bound to flesh and blood, laboring under the weight of each new era, but also caught within a more subtle confinement: a kind of cage, a cube; both physical and spiritual. Within this enclosure, every soul is drawn into an endless pattern of reincarnation, living, dying, and returning, unable to break free from a cosmic Eternal Recurrence that offers no true escape. The cycle thus traps not just bodies, but also the very essence that seeks liberation, ensuring that both civilization and soul are drawn, over and over, through the wheel of time.
The Forgotten Civilizations and the Gravity of Legend
What is this world transition truly about? It is not merely a shift in global politics or fleeting cultural trends. Rather, it is the fundamental turning of an ancient and universal wheel; a force that has shaped the rise and fall of entire worlds, long before the linear path of recorded history began. Most of what humanity knows about its past is confined within the limits of what has been written or unearthed, but the truest record lies in the legends that echo through the ages. These legends persist as mere fiction because humanity is bound by a kind of gravity, a weight that limits perception, makes us forget, and allows only the faintest whispers of what once was to survive in myth and story.
Many of the legends we often dismiss as mere fiction, because our modern world and its gravity make them hard to accept as fact, actually tell us about other times; past ages when civilizations struggled to rise out of savage survival. These stories speak of great places, like Atlantis and Lemuria, where once-great civilizations reached incredible peaks of advancement only to be destroyed by cataclysmic events. What remains of these legends, though questioned by mainstream history, points to a recurring truth: it was the survivors of these earlier worlds (figures later remembered as messiahs, enlightened ones, gods, or even otherworldly beings) who helped rebuild the foundations of the next civilization.
It is in these ancient narratives that we hear of societies emerging from near nothingness, slowly crafting culture and knowledge out of brutal, flesh-and-bone existence. At times, isolated pockets of wisdom endured through destruction, allowing new civilizations to suddenly leap forward with advancements that seemed out of place compared to their so-called primitive predecessors. In this way, fragments of past greatness carried forward by those who lived through apocalypse shaped the slow rebirth of human society.
This is why, at certain points in the stories of our world, the past appears more advanced than what comes after. The survivors of former cycles, carrying fragments of lost greatness, sometimes help jump-start the next chain of civilization, imbuing it with glimpses of technologies and understanding that seem out of sequence. From the ashes of hunter-gatherer existence, societies organize into new patterns: agricultural revolutions replace nomadic hardship, then yield in turn to the swelling power of industry, and (eventually) to the digital age.
And always, this cycle moves inexorably toward a climax. As society climbs upward, a few may find escape; some rare souls manage to break from the wheel, leaving the eternal cage of recurrence behind. But for most, the gravity holds fast, drawing them back once more, into the pattern of forgetting and beginning again. Thus, the cycle endures: worlds destroyed, worlds reborn, the souls of humanity weaving through the same eternal maze, yearning for freedom yet trapped by a force that eclipses memory and history itself.
The Nature of Our Present Transition
Unlike much of the forgotten past, the arc of our current transition is recorded in history’s ledgers, etched into the rise and fall of empires, systems, and the enduring struggle of everyday existence. For much of this current timeline, humanity has known life under the shadow of feudalism and slave labor. These structures, both overt and subtle, have been ever-present: from ancient fields worked under the lash to modern cities where survival itself depends on relentless toil. Though the trappings are new, the essence remains the same:a reality shaped by invisible powers, pulling the vast majority back into patterns of subsistence, echoing the primal struggles of our most archaic ancestors.
This force, in modern parlance, can be seen as Archonic; a kind of spiritual gravity that seeks to bind human possibility, mirroring the cycles of flesh and bone with new forms of bondage. Money becomes the medium, not the root, of this power. Like energy, it flows and changes shape, but it also serves as the ever-present cage: a requirement for existence, compelling the many to labor for the few, weaving a modern feudal web that is not so distant from the feudal slave fields and stone fortresses of the past. In this era, most find themselves compelled not only to labor for their bread but to do so on terms set by invisible rulers; rules and systems that reinforce dependence and diminish freedom.
Yet, our age is not merely an echo; it is a cauldron for the new. The technological revolution now rapidly unfolding is accelerating the next phase of the cycle. Automation and digital connectivity are beginning to sever the bonds that have long tied labor to bare subsistence. As machines and networks take over more of the world’s necessary work, the promise emerges (gradually but inexorably) of a world with less imposed toil for mere survival. But the true meaning of this transition is not material, but spiritual.
What is dawning is the possibility of liberation from the Archonic grip that has so long defined the human experience. It begins with the question of purpose: the journey away from a life dictated by need and external command, toward a search for individual meaning. This is not just freedom from imposed rules, but the awakening from within; a call to move beyond being a “beast in the field,” ordered and directed, to becoming a conscious creator of one’s own path. The future, therefore, promises an inner revolution, as profound as any outward change: a journey toward discovering what one truly desires, beyond the gravity of past cycles, and into self-directed emergence.
The void and the new possibility
As this transition accelerates, a profound void is emerging. For many, the structures and systems that once gave life direction (work, routine, externally imposed meaning) are beginning to dissolve. This can be a jarring shift, echoing what retirees often experience after decades of labor; when the work is gone, a vast emptiness may loom, sometimes leading to despair or even early decline as the absence of purpose weighs heavily on soul and body alike. In the society ahead, more and more individuals will be thrust into this uncertainty all at once, collectively confronted by the challenge of redefining what it means to use their time, to “work,” and to find value in daily existence.
The great danger of this period is that, for many, the loss of external structure could feel like stagnation, a slow slide into meaninglessness. Without being told what to do, without the pressures and routines that have driven entire lives, some will flounder in the empty space; adrift and uncertain. Yet this void, for all its pain, holds incredible potential. Over time, and often after much struggle, individuals can come to see this emptiness not as a curse but as an opportunity.
It is in this time of leisure (when old tasks and roles no longer demand all attention) that the deeper journey begins. Instead of falling into stagnation, a growing number may discover an urge to turn inward, to explore the uncharted territory of their own consciousness. Through creative work, personal expression, spiritual pursuit, or the search for new knowledge, humanity stands on the threshold of a new kind of flourishing. True creativity, lost in ages past to the necessities of survival, will have the chance to re-emerge, transforming both individual lives and the direction of civilization itself.
If this inward exploration is pursued with courage and discipline, it can lead beyond the boundaries of flesh and blood, toward vistas once reserved for fable and science fiction. The world of dreams, legends, and limitless realities will be opened not just to a rare few, but to any who choose to walk that untrodden path. New horizons (across the universe, across universes!) may be reached by those prepared for challenge, willing to meet the unknown with an open mind and a bold heart.
This transformation, however, will not be without struggle. Waves of growth will be followed by waves of pain and loss; progress will be threatened by the persistent gravity of fear, ignorance, and the Archonic energies that have long kept humanity caged. At any moment, there remains the risk of falling back—of crashing into another cycle of destruction and survival, forcing the slow climb from unconsciousness to begin anew.
Yet, the hope remains that, in this era, as humanity rises again towards greater heights of being, many will break free from the endless cycles of recurrence. Freedom and expansion (true, lasting liberation) are possible for those who can cross the void and find their own purpose. It is up to each one of us, now, to step forward and discover what waits on the far side of the cycle.
Those Who Have the Potential to Escape
Potential symptoms of those who seek to escape and feel the quickening of change are varied, but at their heart, they experience a deep pull towards unity: a current that manifests differently for each person. Some may feel it as love, an expansive, open-hearted sensation drawing them closer to something greater. More broadly, it is a yearning not for sloth or passivity, but a movement towards less mental clutter and strain, akin to a surfer sensing the approach of a great wave or current.
As the surfer aligns with this flow, they feel an ease; a thrilling certainty coursing through their body that something monumental is about to unfold. This feeling of rising, a delightful surrender to the flow, is the sensations many experience when drawn toward this current of expansion.
Those who feel this pull often show less concern for the petty dramas of the world, less attachment to ego games and battles fought between fragmented selves trapped in invisible cages. To onlookers, they may seem to be retreating, giving up, or disengaging. But the opposite is true: they are excited, energized by an entirely new possibility, one that is far more challenging and rewarding than anything in the old reality.
Their excitement lies in the promise of leaving behind the ego’s limits and stepping beyond the many cages of this world. This unshackling is not about losing the self, but about expanding it; transforming identity into a new mode of being that transcends flesh and blood. If this journey is pursued with intention and courage, it can lead humanity to a realm beyond biological existence, where the true depth of being and infinite potentials await.
Hmmm, I don’t think the quiz button worked. I took the quiz and then hit the button to reveal results but instead of revealing any results, it just revealed the rest of the article and the button changed to say “Hide Article”. In any case, great article and I love particularly the discussion of unity. I do believe (to paraphrase Charles Eisenstein) that we are moving out of the story of separation and are in a space between stories right now but moving into a story, collectively as humanity, of interbeing. Unity!
Sorry Elena, I didn’t mean to imply that the quiz revealed information about your particular answers, but that it revealed general truths about coming changes, so that then you could examine your answers in light of these revelations.
Yes, I would have to agree with you, we do seem to be in a period of great transition, a shift from one kind of world to another to another. We are living in what Sir Austen Chamberlain would call, the curse of living in interesting times.
But these are our times, and this is our story, and as such we are the ones to write it by being alive and awake within it, fully conscious (inhabiting our consciousness fully) as Gurdjieff would say, so that we can become the authors of this unfolding tale.
Hi John,
I have a question about The Way of the Death Defier.
For months I’ve been using the techniques from the book, including the statement beginning with “I am a creature…” This has done exactly what it is supposed to. My perceptions are shifting and I have access to greater power in the present moment point. But some very interesting emotional experiences—for lack of a better term—have come up as I’ve reordered my logos in this way.
For some of these emotions I feel the most powerful alchemical action I can take is to express them.
I’m sharing an example of one such expression below.
Forgive this indulgence. It is not long and I suspect it is something you experienced in your own way perhaps. It is a prose poem you might say that emerged spontaneously the other night. I am sharing it here because it struck me as I wrote that I was expressing my audacious desire, or perhaps insistence, that I have my cake and eat it too.
I think perhaps I’m romanticizing the parts of the archonic cloud that I like…if that makes any sense at all.
So I’m wondering, have you been there? Do you have any thoughts on reconciling such ‘big’ emotions as an alchemist?
The poem is called “White Noise”:
The thing about death that scares me is the thought that I can’t make sound. Everything physical’s gone. I can’t sing along to Heartbeats for the hundredth time. Or remember the taste of cherry chap stick. Or indulge in New Year’s Eve cheesecake. Or get away from the crowd to feel a breeze on my face under the midsummer low light pollution sky, with the stars blinking like curious teenagers trading smiles in history class, ignoring the drone of war stories and imagining supple kisses, who haven’t abused their parents’ prescriptions yet, and don’t analyze their dreams fanning the flames of insane belief that a final answer is imminent, ready to toss themselves upon the rocks of life so they can one day believe in their maturity, and be grateful for incompetence acknowledged, the full circle of life and the perfection of everything, of essence refined through the grinder of time, and of dandelion gliders carried by the wind, kicked by my sandals my mom found at the mall protecting herself from the weight of infinity and beyond—I remember how it felt then. Will I remember when the dream ends? I never want to sleep again. But I want to remember the sound of “wake up sleepy head,” the sound of waves and breath, of my sister’s laugh, of my freedom declared, of the suburbs where I learned to drive, and the white noise of mini van tires on the highway, a family asleep.
Your poem is deeply moving to me. And I understand just what you mean. We can have our cake and eat it too, that is the quest of the inner alchemist. We can create a world where this sparkling joy and sweet longing never ends for us, even after leaving the cycle of life and death. This is our choice, and all those distant dreams and funny little memories can exist and be exalted to an even greater extent, out there in that infinity that awaits us.
When these emotions arise, a fighter feels them, looks at them from afar like an alone but never lonely wanderer stopping at a café for a moments rest, takes the time to watch the people around him go about the beauty of their lives. He sees in them such sparkling joy, such amazing wonder, and within himself he allows this moment of rest and longing. Such beauty such brilliance, and all set against the backdrop of infinity. And then he goes on… Knowing that in offering this moment to the Spirit, he immortalized it in time, and he will see the unveiling in the unfolding of this moment over and over again as he makes his way through that vastness.
Thank you very much for sharing this! That you feel this means you feel infinity, and for that I am happy.
This is a poem, by Pablo Neruda that comes close to this feeling for me:
“No expanse is greater than where we live.
Dust in the wheat, sand in the deserts,
time, wandering water, the vague wind
swept us on like sailing seeds.
We might not have found one another in time.
This meadow where we find ourselves,
O little infinity! we give it back.
But Love, this love has not ended:
just as it never had a birth, it has
no death: it is like a long river,
only changing lands, and changing lips.”
hello
hope this finds you well, i know you’re not ‘allowed’ to give medical or financial advice so this might be tricky to answer but hopefully i can ask the right question…reason being for this intro is i’ve been diagnosed with autism and i suspect it has something to do with my never ending stream of questions and the nature of said questions.
If i was to, in a relatively un-educated( i did read most books,re-read some), attempt to summarize your or ‘the’ whole inner alchemy philosophy/way i would say:”it’s to stop being food to a non organic ‘higher’ being in the food chain of reality, store enough energy and use said energy to become truly free from this place which is an invisible/hidden prison and it’s not guaranteed to escape but hey what can we do give up?’ with a lot of of smaller steps and inner discovery and nuance etc etc…
all this makes sense, what bothers me is a couple of things though:
first thing is, from the first memory of my childhood i have always repeated the question ‘why?’ and i can see how this leads to looking for the truth of reality in occultism since in our human society we have human constructs that are not so universally true but very useful like morality and moral objectivity for example, at least i think so. so i end up feeling like an alien honestly, the only time i feel like i belong somewhere is when i browse the conversations on this website(thank you btw) or read your books, even a family member i consider very understanding and open to new ideas and also closest to me i find sometimes ‘hits a wall’ of personal emotional responses and a little bit of dogma which results a very isolating experience for me to look at the world and think ‘huh, so it is most likely the case that most people will look like blind sheep to you(not to be arrogant, i’m aware of my own cognitive limitations, but i don’t think most people are. in fact i believe they think they have have figured out the ‘right’ way or that there is a right way… and it’s quite sad it’s like plato’s allegory of the cave) and even other ‘lunatics’ like you won’t reveal themselves, and for good reason you probably shouldn’t too.’
i honestly don’t expect a solution for this just wanted to know what you think, is it unfortunately just the way it is for humanity in this era?do i just accept this and keep going? or is there another perspective maybe i’m not aware of?
the second thing is well about life itself, the deeper i go into the first problem the more it starts to make sense why this is considered a prison by inner alchemy, what i mean by this is when i look at the world now all i see is a circus show that you didn’t ask to go to and you’re not allowed to exit.
i mean yeah i made servitors and thought forms and did energy work but then what after all?material/physical gain feels like the biggest ‘show’ in the circus and even those people sitting around you in the audience shrug you off and tell you some fabricated story they believe to be why we are in the circus and then get offended if you dig a little and find a flaw in their worldview(which is understandable, i’ve read the mad logician article and i get that beliefs make us,myself included, feel safe and in control…).
so i guess my followup question would be, and sorry if this me being too lazy to research, but what am i being ‘promised'(for a lack of a better word)? like what’s the end goal here? the books i have read multiple times are overcoming the archon, the magnum opus and the book on thought forms and manifesting prosperity and i didn’t want to ‘go deep’ into the way of the projectionist as it felt too advanced for now. and the goal seems to be to escape this three dimensional cube or prison and stop being food for the archon,so basically true freedom as you call it.. and then what? is it some sort of heaven? do i get to be god and experience every and any dimension i want any time i want?is that satisfying? or is it worse?
i think these are very reasonable questions to ask in spite of their seemingly shortsighted ignorant nature.
thanks!
These are indeed reasonable questions. I must point out that I am not a mental health professional, and nothing I say should be taken as medical or psychological advice. All that I write is for informational purposes only. I am, after all, just a mad logician.
For an inner alchemist, like anybody else, the realization of the average human reality is quite simply, devastating. But instead of falling into yet another trap, this time the trap of self-pity, inner alchemists use that energy to instead become fighters. And by fighters I don’t mean that they go out and fight other people, they instead fight the monkey nature within themselves. They use that energy to realize that they are magical beings, equal to everything else, but nevertheless magical beings trapped. But a magical being can escape the trap, in their own individual way, they fulfill their own individuality, they seek value fulfillment, which for them is freedom.
A person seeking the knowledge of an inner alchemist might, if they have access to “the way of the projectionist”, want to read a little and that book. If they did, they could try to access what I refer to as the third room, and then understanding the fourth room so as to begin to understand what I refer to as the desireless ghost. They may already know some of this to some degree, and if this is the case then they should be proud of such a thing because this knowing takes introspection and personal energy.
As to what you get, you get everything… And nothing. By mastering the third room of the projectionist, you can get everything and as you go through the fourth you discover that the everything of the world is (as you already seem to be discovering yourself) nothing, or worse yet, just another prison. But there is more, and where you go from there is amazing! Uniquely your own journey, and I can say at least from my experience, filled with sites and experiences that leave you breathless. Why? Because you never see them coming, because they are fresh and new and different, because they are beyond all the things you have considered to be reality thus far.
Dare I say it, it’s not complicated. If my books seem complicated, then I am deeply sorry for that!
It’s as simple as closing your eyes, turning off those things that seem out there, those things that a person perceives with their physical senses, and instead just looking within using new (perhaps never used before) inner senses. Turn down one dial, and turn up another. You are magic already just trust who you are.
Also reading comments here is good. In particular A’s comment here might be highly interesting.
John, thank you. Your response means a great deal to me.
It’s a relief to know this is a shared part of the path. The image of the wanderer at the cafe, immortalizing a moment by witnessing it and offering it up, is a powerful piece of alchemy I will carry with me. I can see the unfolding. And I read it this morning sitting in a cafe no less!
The Neruda poem was the perfect icing. Thank you for that gift as well.