Mentally step back from the present situation in the world. Whatever conflicts are going on, whatever you see in your personal lives, whatever you see in your country, in your local area, step back. Look at the overall picture of democratic nations in the world. Look at history and how democracy fits into the historical process that you can see. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but if it is not taken it leads to misfortune. There are certain cycles. Very few people have locked in to this. Some have, but very few people have seen that there have always been cycles. This is not something that is a regular cycle, like the times of the year, the seasons that change at regular intervals. It is not something that you can read in the astrology, where the movements of the planets will determine the cause of civilization. This is much more subtle.
Cycles in the historical process
When a new idea is released, it is an opportunity for people to either embrace the idea or to resist it, reject it, or ignore it and so it is with democracy. 1776 is by many people, seen as the start of the modern era of democracy, but democracy actually started earlier than that. It started with the Renaissance, the challenge of science to Catholic doctrines, the Reformation and this entirely new development has started a new cycle in history. Bringing forth something new such as the car requires many individual inventions. Bringing forth something like democracy requires many individual ideas that have to come together to where they can be implemented at the physical level.
Democracy actually started in ancient Athens, but it even started before in other parts of the world by certain ideas, by certain philosophers, the Greek philosophers among them, but also Eastern philosophers, even the Buddha did in some sense contribute to the process that led to the formation of democracy as did Jesus. Of course, Confucius, Lao Tzu and other philosophers also made contributions, ideas that gradually, gradually built a certain momentum, a certain foundation. In 1776, certainly the process of manifesting democracy on earth crossed into the physical realm, the material octave, and so this inaugurated a certain cycle. What happens now is really the process described in Jesus’s parables about the talents—the servants who were given talents and it was a question of whether they multiplied them or buried them in the ground. Democracy breaking through in the physical was therefore giving the people on earth a talent and the question is: “What did they do with it? Did they multiply it or did they bury it in the ground?”
You see some countries that manifested democracy for a time, then lost it because they were taken over by a dictator again, like for example, Germany in the 1930s. You see Russia, not being able to make the transition from the Czarist empire, to the communist empire as a form of democracy, but it became a dictatorship. You saw after the fall of the Soviet Union how there was another opportunity for the Russian people to embrace democracy but instead, they allowed Putin to undermine it. You have of course, seen this in many other nations who have experimented with democracy and not really been able to sustain it over time.
In 1776 a new cycle started. A new cycle started at the physical level and that cycle will last for a time. It will be allowed to run its course. Higher awareness releases certain energies, certain ideas and when they are released, people are allowed to do with the release whatever they want. But there will come a day where there is a day of accountability. What have you done with the talents you were given? This does not necessarily happen at the same time for all nations, for nations were at different levels in 1776 and they have different levels of collective consciousness and so it does not happen on the same date. But it does happen at some point. It is not necessarily a fixed day, but there comes a point where there is a need to say: “America has now had the opportunity to do whatever they wanted with democracy, it is now time to evaluate what have they done. Have they multiplied the talents? Have they buried them in the ground? What has been happening?” The same, of course, with many other of the modern democracies that have had democracy for a long time. What have they done with it?
The challenges of the Cycle of Democracy
In some previous articles, there are teachings about the growth in humanity. This is the need to have democracies grow in their recognition of humanity. Their recognition that all people deserve equal treatment, equal opportunity and that a democracy must protect its own citizens from exploitation by the elite that can be seen throughout history, as always wanting to exploit the population. Some of the nations in Europe, especially Northern Europe, have made quite good use of the opportunity that democracy represents. They have manifested a high degree of social awareness, which has manifested in not allowing a small elite to dominate those countries and exploit the population, at least not as much as it has happened in other nations. There is a certain manifestation of this social responsibility for example, in public health care, where they do not want people dying in the streets because they cannot afford to go to the doctor.
Obviously, these nations still have progress to make and could make more progress. But when you look at the planetary scale, they have made good use, they have multiplied the talents and moved further. America, of course, is not at that level as for example, the Scandinavian countries. There has not manifested that social awareness, the sense that we are in this together. Instead, the American people have allowed themselves to be divided by the power elite. They have allowed themselves to be exploited by the power elite from the 1970s until today, as described in this study of the income inequality.
What happens when a certain cycle of opportunity ends and when you are called to account as to what you have done with the opportunity, this is of course, not something that happens publicly, physically. Instead, it happens by the release of certain energies. The energies go into the collective consciousness and they so to speak, force people to react. They are not forcing them how to react, but they are forcing them to react. This is legitimate within the Law of Free Will. That is why higher awareness can descend to earth in a physical form, because it forces people to react. Will they accept higher awareness or will they reject it? People do not know this consciously so they react many times at the subconscious level and so it spills over to the physical level, of course.
Focus on the material welfare
When you look at democracies in general, you will see that there was a time when there was an entire generation who had grown up in poverty, where they did not have much of an opportunity in their societies to get an education, to climb to a higher position in their jobs. If they were born in the working class, they would live their entire lives in the working class. This can be seen in many countries in the early 1900’s, into the thirties and forties. You saw in America the big depression forced many people to stay at a low level of living standard. But you saw also after the second world war, many nations had a growing economy that raised the workers up to a much better standard of living and there was a generation that knew the contrast between the poverty that was there before and the relative affluence they now had and they appreciated the progress that was being made.
Now this was legitimate. When you look at these democracies, you see that it was absolutely necessary for them for a time to focus on increasing the material standard of living of the people. This was multiplying the talents. But what has happened since then in many nations, including the United States and European nations, including the Scandinavian nations, is that you now have a new generation who has grown up in a democracy, who has grown up with a high level of affluence and they have no contrast, at least not in their own experience. They know, if they care to look at this, that there are other countries where people do not have what they have, but most of them do not bother to look at this. They are so focused on their own lives.
Stepping up to a new clear vision
There was a certain period where the focus was on the material but it does not really matter what the focus was on. What mattered was that people had a goal. Societies had a goal. They were moving towards something. What has happened since then is that the goal has been reached and there has been sort of an anti-climax. You see for example, that there are athletes, who train for four years or more to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal in a particular sport. They set aside their normal lives, they make great sacrifices to improve themselves, because their goal is to win the gold medal. Here is an athlete, he goes to the Olympics, he wins the gold medal and he is at first very jubilant and excited but then as the ceremony is over and he is left alone, suddenly he feels, or she feels: “What do I do now? What do I do with my life? I have reached my goal. What do I do?” This has happened in the democratic nations. There has been this movement in the collective consciousness: “What do we do now? We have achieved more than our parents could dream about. What do we do?”
The real goal was that after you have achieved material affluence, you would strive to achieve psychological welfare, psychological wellbeing, but most nations have not made that transition. Therefore, you see in most democracies, a sense of: “What now? What do we do? There is no clear goal, there is no clear vision of what we do.” In the earlier period, democracies were also facing the fight with first Nazism then communism in the Cold War and so there was also the sense of an outer enemy. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many in America felt: “Well, what now?” Then came 911 but eventually, this also faded away, so “What do we do now?”
There is a certain apathy that has crept in to the democratic nations. In other words, they had a goal, they were working towards that goal and it does not matter so much what the goal was, but they had a goal. As long as they were working towards it, being willing to transcend themselves in order to come closer to that goal, they were multiplying the talents. But when you go into this “what do we do now” state, you are not really multiplying the talents, at least not as much as you could be because you have no clear goal, you have no clear direction. Maintaining status quo, maintaining a comfortable material lifestyle is not a goal. You do not have to multiply the talents to do this.
You see that the first phase of democracy was whether democracy was defending itself against an outer enemy and seeking to transcend the state of poverty that was there when democratic nations were founded, overcoming the inequality and getting everybody to have a somewhat reasonable standard of living. This was a necessary phase and this was a clear goal. But the next phase is of course, to step up to a new goal, a new vision. This is what the democratic nations have not done, including the most advanced of them, such as the Scandinavian nations, who still have this sense that maintaining a good standard of living is all we can really strive for and the level of affluence we have is actually sufficient. That feeling has not been reached by the majority of the American people, but certainly by a big middle class, they have reached this state of being content with their lives—or at least they were for a time.
It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. But contentment is the opposite of invention. Because when you are content, what is the need to innovate? What is the need to transcend yourself? You just enjoy what you have and you strive for more of what you have. You want to have two cars instead of one. You want to have a bigger car. You want to have a bigger house. You want to go on vacations in foreign lands. You want to not only keep up with the Joneses, but exceed the Joneses. You see this quest for status symbols. But you also see if you look carefully, that this does not really satisfy anyone. There may be people for a time, who can be entertained, we might say, by striving for these material goods, but it does not satisfy them because they have a longing for something else. They do not know what it is. And why do they not know what it is? Because neither Christianity nor scientific materialism can give them that sense of purpose of what there is to strive for as a human being when you have all your material needs fulfilled, or at least the majority of them.
What do you do now? We have now moved past this cycle where democracies ideally should have stepped up to a higher vision. “Without vision the people perish.” But they may also perish if they have an incomplete vision, a dualistic vision. The next step and really, the prerequisite for the resurrection of democracy, is the emergence of a new vision: “What do we do now? Ah, this is what we do now.” And it is very much this sense of striving for psychological well-being, and the wholeness and healing of people. Many people in their last lifetimes were involved with the wars you have seen in the last century, have severe trauma they carry with them and it would be to the great benefit not only for the people, but to the nations of these people, that they were healed of that psychology.
Transcending the focus on yourself
This is a goal, but there is something beyond that. Because what is it that happens on the path to higher awareness? There is a stage where you need to focus on your personal growth. You are, so to speak, raising yourself above the mass consciousness. In a sense, you can say that the democratic nations for a number of decades, were on this path, focusing on themselves, their own growth, and raising themselves above the mass consciousness of the dictatorships, the fascists, the Nazis, the communists, the Arab nations, all of these nations where the people were trapped and did not have freedom. The democratic nations had to pull themselves above this in order to manifest a higher degree of freedom than the collective consciousness on the planet had at the time. Again, perfectly in order.
At a certain level, you have to go through this decision process. Will you continue to focus on yourself, or will you focus on raising the whole? Will you look beyond yourself? Will you grasp some higher vision, some higher goal and will you say: “What can I do for others?” Most of the democratic nations have made progress in this area. You see this, in how they are helping other nations, less developed nations. You see it in many different ways. There has been progress made. But this progress has not been what it could be, it has not reached the level that it could reach. Because it is still so that the democratic nations have been functioning with this vision, this goal of what they could be, what they could attain, what could be achieved, what was possible in the world. They have reached a certain level where they started looking beyond themselves, and they have said: “Well, it is our obligation. It is, in a sense, our duty to use our progress to help other nations come up to the same level.”
Grasping a vision of a higher potential for earth
This is, of course, perfectly valid, but there is a higher level and that is what the nations need to step up to, in order for democracy to be resurrected into the next phase. And it is to grasp a vision of a higher potential for earth. In essence, what they need to start grasping is a vision for the Age of Higher Awareness. They need to start grasping these ideas, that there is a higher potential than what any democratic nation has manifested so far. And the potential is, to manifest a world that is at a decisively higher level, in all ways, than what you see in modern civilization.
In other words, democracies need to overcome the sense that modern civilization has reached some kind of apex, some kind of summit, where it cannot go beyond. After all, it takes you a long time to climb Mount Everest, but once you are at the top, where are you going to climb from there? There is a tendency to think that: “What else is there to achieve?” But there is a much higher potential. There is a much higher affluence that is possible than what you see today—a much higher level of affluence. There is a much higher level of technology. There is a much higher level where you have non-force-based sources of energy and therefore, you have what is, by the power elite, ridiculed as free energy. But it is free, because you do not have to pay the power elite to get it.
There are much higher levels of humanity, much higher levels of individual well-being, psychological wholeness, than what is manifest today.
You can look back 100 years and you can say: “Could you take a person who lived in the early 1900s in the working class, and who worked 10 hours a day in a dirty job in a factory—could you have told him what life would be like in 2022 in his country? Would he have believed you? Most likely, he would not have believed you—he would not have been able to grasp that vision. Most people today also cannot look beyond what is manifest today and grasp the vision that much more could be manifest. And that is what needs to happen.
Rising to a higher level of service
The more aware people can do much to help this along by holding the vision, but also look at your own psychology. Be willing to look at what blocks you have that make you think: “Ahh, could this really be manifest? Is this really possible? Or is it just some kind of utopia?” You will see that there is a resistance to manifesting a much higher vision than what you have right now. This is part of the path to higher awareness. There will come certain points on the path where you can look back and say: “Well, I have certainly made some progress compared to when I started the path those many years ago. But is there not more? Is there not a higher level? Is there not a higher level of service that I could rise to? And how do I do it? What do I need to overcome in my psychology in order to rise to that higher level?” And you all face that at certain times.
It is, again, the cycles. You find a higher teaching. In a sense, there is a cycle that starts. What will you do with it? Will you multiply the talents that have been given? What will you do? And then you have a goal that you are working towards, that you can grasp when you first find a path. But there comes a point where you have achieved it, but then can you look higher for the next level of vision, the next goal? It is not that you need to be dissatisfied with yourself. This is not saying that the democratic nations should be dissatisfied with themselves. But can you grasp that higher vision? If you cannot as the more aware people, how do you expect the people in your country to do so? So, be willing to look at yourself, be willing to work with this, accepting that something more is possible, both for yourself, but first of all, for society. Do not be the ones that are resisting progress, be the ones who embrace it.
Widespread dissatisfaction in democratic countries
Back to the nations. There is a cycle that has now come full circle. There is a process where the people in democratic nations are being confronted with this need to step up, they are being confronted with the need to evaluate what they have achieved. Because they are not consciously aware of this (if they were, it would be much easier), they react subconsciously. They react without understanding why they are reacting and this is something that has been building for a time. But it has, of course, been accelerated by the corona pandemic and the shutdown of economic activity that has occurred and now with the rise in energy prices and the threat of war and so forth.
Almost universally in democratic countries, there is an increase in dissatisfaction. People are dissatisfied, but they do not understand why. The question is, how is this expressed? And here, you see that each nation has a certain collective consciousness, they have a certain mentality, a certain psychology that causes them to do it in different ways. Some nations are not acknowledging that they are dissatisfied. In Denmark, there is not a widespread recognition of this growing dissatisfaction. People are still pretending that they are satisfied with their lives and that everything is going well. But nevertheless, you see some upheaval in the political arena and it is just a matter of time before they will have to recognize that changes need to happen.
In England, you saw this manifest with the withdrawal from the EU. It was the growing dissatisfaction where they could not understand where it came from. They did not understand that it was actually their own refusal to transcend themselves (their looking backwards, being traditional, wanting to hold on to tradition, wanting to hold on to old images of England’s greatness) that created the dissatisfaction, because they were not transcending themselves. Instead, they took it out on the EU and said it was the EU that was the cause of their problems and everything would change if they withdrew from the EU. They would get over their dissatisfaction. Of course, they have not gotten over their dissatisfaction because it is not caused by outer conditions, but by psychological, internal conditions.
Now, look at the United States, where you must recognize that contrary to most of the nations in Europe, the United States has much more of a propensity for violence. Why do you see so many shootings in America and not nearly so many in Europe? Because the American people have more of a tendency to express their dissatisfaction, their anger, through violence. You see this in many other ways in America, where there is that tendency to become physical, to become very angry, to project out that it is someone else that is to blame and then to take actions that are forceful or violent against these people.
There was this general dissatisfaction that was building in the American people before 2016. The Obama administration had been in power for eight years. They had not really addressed this and therefore, people wanted a change. Donald Trump comes in, ties into this dissatisfaction, and has the precise psychology that is needed to take advantage of this dissatisfaction and give people a scapegoat to direct their anger towards. So, he gets elected, he runs his presidency by not being the president of all Americans, but only those who support him, naming all the others as the scapegoats and that is why people then go along with his election lies, even though initially, hardly anyone believed in this. Hardly anyone among his supporters really believed that the election was stolen. But they became convinced because it allowed them to continue to scapegoat—to project that it was someone else’s fault.
This is certainly the thing that Americans need to transcend before democracy can be resurrected in America, before there can be the emergence of a higher vision showing that we actually have a goal in America, that there is something, a higher level of society, that we can manifest in America. We have a potential, a much higher potential than we have right now. There is also a much higher level of affluence for all people in America, but only when we do not allow the power elite to steal the people’s money.
The dream of the superhero saving the day
There is another aspect of American psychology that needs to be addressed. There is a concept that you see first in comic books in America, going all the way back to the 1930s and later than that, also in movies. And it is the concept that you do not really find in most other countries, even though, of course, it has been exported by Hollywood and many people around the world have watched these movies. That concept is the concept of the superhero, the superhero who has some supernatural ability and can therefore come in and battle the bad guys and win over them and set things right—save the day, save the nation, save the planet.
You also see in many other movies where you have the hero, often the reluctant hero, who is first exposed to abuse and other people are exposed to abuse by the bad people and then finally, he decides to do something about it and he takes his gun and starts shooting. This also tied in with the Trump presidency, where Trump presented himself as the superhero, the world’s best businessman who could save the day. And it tied in with those who were dissatisfied, did not understand why they were dissatisfied, did not want to even consider that it could be their own consciousness that caused the dissatisfaction. There was a scapegoat that they could direct their anger towards, there was a hero who promised he would save them, and people were blinded by this, they were pulled into this vortex, and you now see the result of it. Are these people any less dissatisfied today than they were when Trump was elected?
Well, let us ask another question. Were they any less dissatisfied after four years of the Trump presidency than they were before? Most of them were not, because Trump is not a superhero, for the simple reason that the Constitution actually makes sure that the president can never become a superhero, as he cannot become a dictator. It limits the powers of the president. Trump made a promise in order to get elected, but he had no chance of ever fulfilling it so how could the people get over their dissatisfaction? But then Trump managed to divert their attention from this, with the whole idea that the election was stolen. Now there was a reason for the dissatisfaction and that is that Trump was not allowed to continue as president. And now you have, again, someone to direct the anger towards.
Americans need to stop scapegoating and projecting out
The irony is that many of these people consider themselves Christians. What is actually the reality of being a Christian? It is that you are willing to do what Christ said, among other things, look for the beam in your own eye, instead of looking at the splinter in the eyes of others. Well, what are people doing when they are scapegoating? They are blowing up the splinter in the eyes of their brothers so it becomes a beam and are making themselves believe that maybe they have a little splinter in their own eye, but it is nothing compared to the beam in the eyes of other people. Therefore, they deserve to be forced.
This is, of course, completely un-Christian, anti-Christian, for those who grasp what the message of Christ is all about. What is the point? The point is, you will never overcome the dissatisfaction you feel as long as you are projecting out that the cause of your dissatisfaction is outside yourself. You cannot escape it. You are trapped in a psychological quicksand, a catch-22. There is no way out as long as you are projecting out. The only way out is to go within, look at yourself and say: “What is it in my psychology that makes me angry and dissatisfied and prone to violence?”
Some of the people who stormed the Capitol building on January 6th have actually done this. Not all by far, but some have done it. It was as if this event shocked them out of the state of mind they were in before and they stopped looking out and then looked at themselves and realized: “I went too far, I became unbalanced—what happened?” And this is what needs to happen to tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people in America that need to stop projecting out. They need to say: “What can I change in myself so that I come to feel better about myself than I do right now. Because the feeling of anger, the feeling of dissatisfaction, it is inside of me and it can only be changed inside of me.” That is the essence of the message of Christ, right there, or at least one way to describe that essence. This is what he said 2000 years ago, it is also what he demonstrated and practiced. It is also what he called his disciples to do, something Peter never grasped. Here you have 1700 years of Catholic tradition that did not grasp it either and does not even do it today, which is why the priests continue to abuse children and the church keeps continuing to cover it up, or ride the storm and think, “Oh, it is all going to go away, and the church will exist forever”.
America’s opportunity is not a free ride
This is a shift that is not only relevant in America, of course, but in all democratic nations. America has this tendency, where the people—when they become dissatisfied, when they become angry—they project out. And this is partly because Americans have taken the opportunity of America for granted. They have thought that they were entitled to it. They have thought that—even though they do not notice consciously—they have thought that the fact that America is such a great country, and has had the position in the world, and the affluence, must mean that they deserve it, that they are worthy of it.
America has been given a special opportunity to manifest a higher awareness, but not because it is already more advanced than others. It is because America has the potential to manifest a higher society. Do you multiply the talents or do you bury them in the ground? And many Americans have not multiplied the talents. They have taken for granted what America had, and now that they realize that their standard of living is eroding, that there is no real goal, nothing to strive for, that things are not going well here and things are not going well there. They start focusing on all the negatives, they become dissatisfied and so they scapegoat and so they become violent. But, what does it mean to bury your talents in the ground? Look at the parable of Jesus. What did the one servant who buried his talents in the ground say? “Oh, I know you are a hard taskmaster. I did not want to risk losing what you had, so I buried it in the ground”. But what was this servant doing? He was scapegoating. He was projecting out that his master was so and so and therefore he had to do what he did. What did the other two servants do to multiply their talents? They transcended themselves.
Higher awareness wants to set an example of what a society can be, so it has sponsored America, but not because Americans were worthy of it at the time, but because they had the potential to transcend themselves and thereby become worthy of the sponsorship. That is multiplying the talents, and many Americans have done this, but certainly not all, and not even a majority.
It may seem as if this is very critical of America. But the law is clear, as Jesus’ parable points out. America has not lived up to its highest potential, is not living up to its highest potential and has instead started to go downhill in what could at some point become a self-reinforcing spiral. You have not reached that point yet, where there is a hurricane in the collective consciousness, but you are moving in that direction. And the more dissatisfaction, the more anger, the more violence, the more animosity and the more scapegoating only moves you closer to that point of no return, where only a violent event will make people think. Some of the people who participated in the violent event in the Capitol building were shaken awake, but many others did not awaken. They are still scapegoating. What is it going to take? How hard do the knocks have to become before people are shaken out of that state of mind, that frame of mind and they acknowledge, “we have to look at ourselves, we have to change ourselves.”
Building an awareness that leads to the shift
What is part of the higher vision that democracies could attain? It is that the real purpose of a society is the growth in consciousness of the people, of the citizens, within the bounds of free will. The goal of a democratic government is to give its citizens the best possible opportunity to grow in consciousness and that is the ultimate shift that could happen in democratic nations. Is it going to happen this year or next year or next decade? Not likely, but the more asware people can hold the vision for it.
Now someone might ask the question: “Where are the results?” It has been said that the darkest hour is the hour before dawn. You can go back to 1775 and you could have asked many people: “Do you think America will become an independent nation and a democratic nation?” They would have laughed at you. For there are always those who are saying: “Show me the results. I want the results now and if they do not happen now, it must mean that my effort is not valid, so I will stop.”
It sometimes takes considerable time to manifest a new trend. There is a need for those who can hold the vision over time and do not get themselves into this trap of the all-or-nothing that “There must be results now or my efforts are not worth it and I am going to stop.” You keep the vision, you keep doing the work, you keep transcending yourself. As long as you are transcending yourself you are gaining every day. How could that not be worthy of your effort, regardless of what happens in the world?
Many people have already been awakened, not fully, but to some idea, to grasp some idea. And they start talking about it, some start writing about it, some start bringing it into their profession, some start bringing it into the media, some into politics and gradually you build an awareness that leads to that shift, where now it suddenly becomes obvious to more and more people. And when the vision is there, well, things will change in the physical, because when there is a shift in consciousness, the physical must follow.