Seeking a New Unifying Concept

​A unifying concept is like a life-jacket thrown to a drowning man. We are familiar with the image of the drowning man. It is perhaps the hidden underlying theme, a melody playing softly and almost inaudibly beneath the clamor of events…. until the conductor is obliged to put down his baton. No more … the music is done. Such is the dark or underside of history—the sinking ship, the shipwreck. So what happens next? The masterful Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset said it best: “I am only interested in the thoughts of shipwrecked men.” But why would you listen to the shipwrecked for a new song?


Perhaps it is only the true master of philosophy who understands that when the termites of reason have eaten away at man’s home – his history – it is time to seek a regenerative force. A new song. For what are we? We are parasites – or rather, we have allowed our reason to degenerate into parasitism. Do we know it? Did we see it happening? In the Creation story God dignified Unfallen Man with the gift of Dominion. But … then there was the Fall. But we kept the dominion idea even though it would have been more honest to acknowledge that the Fall had nullified or revoked it. How easily did we slide from stewardship into parasitism!


The late Russian healer Nikolai Levashov (1961-2012) devoted much thought to the subject of parasitism. Biological parasites help to rid a species of weakening elements. But social parasitism, he said, is of a different order -- it undermines or destroys the best elements of society. Social parasitism was a new concept for me. I have found that it illuminates a remarkable range of factors.


Levashov wrote that there are three major signs of social parasitism: (1) the assassination of true leaders; (2) the deterioration of the educational system; and (3) the promulgation of sexual license. He believed that Russia managed to extricate itself from the parasitic system when Communism collapsed. The scene of the world parasitic system shifted to the West, and now America has achieved the supreme dishonor of being the center of the world parasitism.


Hmm. Sounds pretty compelling, doesn’t it, when you see what passes for leadership in America. When you see the hordes of the homeless, the migrants, the obese, the tattooed, milling in our streets today. The lies that pass for news. The shameless corruption, the opportunism, the shallow soullessness, the destruction of the justice system, the obliteration of the concept of honor. I could go on, but nobody needs it. We’ve already been there a million times. But the concept of ‘Social Parasitism’ does seem to give us a larger framework in which to operate. It opens the vista, so to speak. But where did Levashov get this notion about social parasitism?


This is where we will start losing people. For Levashov is not considered altogether respectable—even in Russia. He said that he made it his life’s task to fight social parasitism which, he said, is and has been the ruin of many life-bearing worlds. How did he know? Well, he said he had been there. Transformed his brain and the like. Said the universe is full of life-bearing worlds with intelligent species… millions of them … and that the struggle of good versus evil is universal. In other words, he testified that he was able to perceive other worlds and dimensions not normally available to us, and that he knew or witnessed many wreckages caused by what he called social parasitism.


So here we are again: wreckages. Shipwrecks. And now it is starting to become obvious to us. It seems that our many successes brought about by Reason (science, technology, the ‘Enlightenment,’ etc.) have caused us to lose awareness of the real challenges of life: raising decent and confident children, taking care of the earth and helping to sustain the arts and graces of civilization, and, above all, feeling grateful for our lives. These are not ideas about power and control and domination. Along these lines Levashov once wrote that the technocratic form of life was the most primitive. And now we have world economic hydras and giants of massive corporations foaming over with delight to hurl us into such a world ---forever slaves. Ha!


So what’s going on here? We look at our insane “leaders” in “America,” we look to the megalomaniacs planning, in Switzerland, endless episodes of future havoc for the world – both the above-ground economic rulers and the below-ground hadron colliders – we look at the ruined landscapes we have made. The ugliness, the cars, the utter soullessness of it all. Is it any wonder that we hate ourselves? And to top it all off, we have this dead Russian seer telling us that an advanced technocracy society is the most primitive! Are we to believe a man who claimed to travel to distant parts of the universe, a man not considered altogether respectable even in his native land?


Well, this seems to be what happens to souls in shipwreck--- all kinds of questions come flooding in. So maybe it’s time …


To seek the gift of tears.

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​The gift of tears. It is a phrase taken from the Desert Fathers, whose philosophical writings have a soulful quality and depth so often lacking in conventional Western philosophy. I had finished putting a few of these notes together when I came across an item on the internet called the Morningstar Report. I do not know if it is accurate, but it claimed to be the transcription of a speech that President John F. Kennedy was scheduled to give. It began: “Citizens of the Earth we are not alone. God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit to populate His universe with other beings, intelligent creatures such as ourselves…” And he adds, basing his remarks on the findings from the 1947 Roswell crash—“they are not foes, but friends.”

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The speech? Scheduled to be delivered at 1 pm in Dallas, Texas—on November 22, 1963.

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The gift of tears indeed.