There has been a social and religious revolution in the human environment - as well as in transcendental spirituality - since WWI. The contrast between the displays of modern psychics, since World War I, and the prophecies and oracles of last two thousand years is incredibly striking and actually, in truth, unprecedented as well as highly dramatic.
1. The environment has dramatically and drastically developed and evolved since WWI. The well-known psychologist Kenneth Gergen lays out all the myriad changes in the human environment pretty well. Since WWI (100 years ago - an eyeblink on the evolutionary scale) Communication, Transportation, traditional communities have evolved into transient and hybrid, or "Collage" communities, sexual revolution, marriage-divorce-families have changed, information technology (I see information a thousandfold more now than in the 1960's) the internet. And that was before social media. Most believe that Facebook especially has had a dramatic impact on culture, for better or worse. On top of that Christianity is in a serious decline - and for better or worse - the Christian church has been a mainstay.
All that change could not but place some pressures on "human consciousness" to adapt. It is now known from studies of twins and adopted children that some traits of personality are genetic as well as some characteristics of religiosity. Biologists will tell you that genetic evolution and behavioral adaptation does not happen overnight.
2. Past versus present: if you look at the last two thousand years, including Nostradamus, the Oracle of Delphi, the Old Testament Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, including Jacob, there are a rather limited number of explicit. Ezekiel's prediction about the fall of Tyre was not entirely correct, for instance. As Tim Callahan, the religious scholar, in his book, observed. Ezekiel predicted the destruction of Tyre specifically by the Babylonians. What actually occurred is Tyre eventually came to an understanding with the Babylonians and paid tribute, as I recall. Also, if you take Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years for the end of the exile at face value, then Jeremiah was a bit off (historically there are actually very few predictions/prophecies that accurately indicate timing) about the timing. While many Christians seem to think prophecy is about making predictions, I would argue that God did not put prophets on earth to make predictions. Elisha, (892 to 832 BC) lived during the time that the Aram-Damascus king, Ben-Hadad was waging war with
Israel. Ben-Hadad tried to assassinate the
Israel king Jehoram. However, Elisha warned Israel's King
Jehoram about Ben-Hadad's traps. Ben-Hadad discovered what Elisha was doing and surrounded Elisha's town. But Elisha went out and told them that he was not Elisha but would lead them to him. Elisha then led them into a trap. Then of course there are several stories of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ was with the Samaritan woman at the well, he told her she had had several husbands - which was true. Lastly, there is the time when Christ told Peter,
"Truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times."
(Matt 26:34).
3. Oracle of Delphi: Then if you take the Oracle of Delphi's prophecies, with the exception of the legendary prophecy regarding the legendary Lydian King Croessus, there aren't any really striking prophecies. When Xerxes attacked Greece/Athens the Oracle of Delphi prophesied that Athens would find 'salvation' in wooden walls. Themistocles - who was the master-mind behind the creation of the Athenian Navy interpreted the prophecy as meaning that Athens would find salvation in the Athenian Navy - which turned out to be essentially true. But the wording of the prophecy was ambiguous as much of the Oracle of Delphi's prophecies as well as Nostradamus prophecies were - which allowed for various interpretations. Another example would be the prophecy to the Messinians in their war with Sparta that when the "she goat drank from the river" Messinia would fall. The interpretation if hat was a Messinian leader noticed a particular type of olive tree known in vernacular as a "she goat": bent over with it's leaves touching the water of the river that the Oracle's prophecy would now come true. Messinia did fall - so that much as true.
4. Nostradamus: I went over all 900 plus quatrains of Nostradamus. Since there were no rules, I made up my own which were 1) there needed to be a central action which would be relatively clearly described and one or two specifics. Most of Nostradamus' predictions also were very ambiguous - lending them to flexible interpretation. In any case I ended up with a handful of predictions that qualified - and most them could be described as verbalizations of 'threats to the group (his group was France and Christianity). One good example would be the prediction of the Spanish War of Succession and the Muslim 'invasion' of France/Spain which failed. So, in the end there were a handful of predictions and another handful of tags.
Post World War I
Now since WWI there has been Edgar Cayce who was a remarkable healer. Also, there was Jeane Dixon who ism essentially an undocumented psychic. There are some remarkable anecdotal stories about her. In researching Dixon I found that one of her biographers, by speaking with witnesses documented (quite by accident) the warning of the assassination of JFK and a rather remarkable escape form what could have been a catastrophic car accident. of course there are the remarkable illustrations of "remote viewing investigated scientifically but which are very controversial scientifically. Also there are numerous other psychic and I witnessed a successful demonstration on the Dr. Phil show.
Then there is the TV Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputo. I have seen some of her shows and while nothing she says is earth shaking, she appears very consistent. Generally she comes up with information which she talks about in a fairly straightforward manner - nothing which really could be said to be inherently ambiguous. I did a statistical analysis of her predictions. If you credit each piece of information she comes up with chances of occurring as 1 out of ten, then ten correct illustrations calculate out to having chance occurrence of 1 out of ten billion. Many people say that they are sure many of her mistakes would have ended up on the cutting floor. Being human I am quite sure she makes mistakes - they all do. Now if you figure that for every ten correct pieces of information she makes 100 mistakes - then mathematically that works out to a final calculation of odds to be 1 in 100 million as I recall - which is still highly significant.
Conclusions: Now Theresa Caputo I believe has had minimally at least thirty correct pieces of information - which is more unambiguous displays than all the last two thousand years - that I am aware of. That would definitely be evidence that something has drastically changed in the environment. That is, from my studies of historical and ancient literature about prophecy and psychic, it appears crystal clear to me that the experiences prior to World War could be likened to a very dark night, while the "modern" illustrations of spiritual and psychic experiences should be likened to a blinding bright light - the contrast is that striking and extreme.
Some current events: If you look at the rather unprecedented influences of cults of personality (i.e Trump) and some of the mob mentality as in some Republican rallies in which "Hate Hillary" chanting takes place, as well as the dramatic rise of roughly 25% in hate crimes in 2017 and a roughly 90 % rise of violent attacks against Jews in 2017. The global "yellow jacket" movement which originated in France and Italy is interesting. It began with protests of French President Macron's somewhat over the top environmentally motivated large tax hikes along with some tax concessions for the rich as I understand it. The Yellow Jacket has grown globally, now. The make-up of the Yellow jackets in France is very unusual considering the political origins. The Yellow jackets are made up of like 20% right wing members and an almost similar percentage of far left members. The most recent article I read indicated that yellow jackets are still expending some considerable time in protesting though it wasn't clear to me exactly what they were "protesting."
During one of the protests in Paris groups of Yellow jackets engaged in deliberately (and cognitively) perpetrating acts of vandalism - destruction for the sake of destruction. To me it is reminiscent of the science fiction book Clockwork Orange. From talking with several people my age my sense of it is that people simply do not seem to be as quite as rational or reasonable as the 1960's. My personal experience with some Trump followers is that reasoning and logic is, at times, futile, for example.
So, The question is whether the myriad changes in the human environment along with the rather extraordinary stresses that can accompany changes hasn't put human consciousness under such stress that to some extent people could possibly be reverting to some extent to the some of the more emotional/instinctual processes. That would make sense in that several psychologists like Klinger argue that emotions are critical in the mind being able to grasp and understand meaning.
Content Copyrighted Charles E Peck Jr. Copyright ©
References and Footnotes
Profile of Dr. James Doty: https://profiles.stanford.edu/james-doty
The Center for Compassion And Altruism Research And Education: http://ccare.stanford.edu/
American Psychological Association: https://www.apa.org/
Association for Psychological Science: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/about/links.cfm
Albert Einstein comprehensive website: http://alberteinsteinsite.com/
Albert Einstein Biography: https://www.biography.com/people/albert-einstein-9285408
Godel’s Theorem of Incompleteness: https://www.jamesrmeyer.com/ffgit/godels_theorem.html
John Bargh, PhD: http://bargh.socialpsychology.org/
https://www.rogerdooley.com/john-bargh-priming
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/bargh/index.html
Rupert Sheldrake: https://www.sheldrake.org/
Viktor Frankl: http://www.viktor-frankl.com/
Viktor Frankl: http://www.viktorfrankl.org/
Dr. Harold Koenig: https://spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/index.php/harold-g-koenig-m-d
Dr. Harold Koenig: https://medicine.duke.edu/faculty/harold-g-koenig-m-d
Roy Baumeister: http://www.roybaumeister.com/
Roy Baumeister: https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeisterr/baumeister.dp.php
Dr. Paul Wong: http://www.drpaulwong.com/
Dr. Paul Wong: https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/paul-wong-biography/
Clifford Geertz: https://www.biography.com/people/clifford-geertz-9308224
Carl Jung: https://www.biography.com/people/carl-jung-9359134
Carl Jung: https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/carl-jung-analytical-psychology
12 common Archetypes: http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html
Emile Durkheim: http://durkheim.uchicago.edu/
Emile Durkheim: http://faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Durkheim/index2.htm
William James: https://www.biography.com/people/william-james-9352726
William James: https://study.com/academy/lesson/william-james-psychology-theories-lesson-quiz.html
Tania Singer references: http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Experts/Tania-Singer.htm
https://charterforcompassion.org/discovering-empathy/dr-tania-singer-and-the-neuroscience-of-empathy
Dr Amit Sood Mindfulness: https://www.mindfulleader.org/amit-sood
Dr. Harold Koenig Director, Center for Spirituality,
Theology and Health: https://spiritualityandhealth.duke.edu/index.php/harold-g-koenig-m-d
Dr. Koenig on what spirituality can do for you: https://www.beliefnet.com/wellness/health/2006/05/what-religion-can-do-for-your-health.aspx
Keith Karren – Body, Mind, Spirit:
http://pgrpdf.abhappybooks.com/mind-body-health-keith-j-karren-ph-d-pdf-5716009.pdf
E O Wilson Biodiversity: https://eowilsonfoundation.org/
E O Wilson - PBS on Ants: http://www.pbs.org/program/eo-wilson/
Anthropologist Malinowski: http://anthrotheory.wikia.com/wiki/Bronislaw_
MalinowskiSocial Anthropology - Malinowski: http://scihi.org/bronislaw-malinowski-social-anthropology/
St. Augustine (Catholic source): https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=418
St. Augustine: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine
Konrad Lorenz: https://www.age-of-the-sage.org/scientist/konrad_lorenz.html
Konrad Lorenz: http://www.famouspsychologists.org/konrad-lorenz/
St. Gregory of Nyssa (Franciscan): https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-gregory-of-nyssa/
St. Gregory of Nyssa (wikiorg): https://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_of_Nyssa
Neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/stanislas_dehaene
Imants Barušs, psychologist and parapsychologist: http://www.baruss.ca/
Julia Mossbridge, psychologist and parapsychologist: https://noetic.org/profile/julia-mossbridge
https://sharingthesearch.com/tag/j-mossbridge/
https://www.closertotruth.com/contributor/julia-mossbridge/profile
Friedrich Nietzsche: http://nietzschecircle.com/
Nietzsche biography: https://www.biography.com/people/friedrich-nietzsche-9423452
Abraham Joshua Heschel: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abraham-joshua-heschel-a-prophets-prophet/
Iroquois:
http://www.ushistory.org/us/1d.asp
Greek Mythology: Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi
https://www.greekmythology.com/Olympians/Apollo/apollo.html
https://www.thoughtco.com/apollo-greek-god-sun-music-prophecy-111902
http://greek-gods.info/greek-gods/apollo/
https://www.coastal.edu/intranet/ashes2art/delphi2/misc-essays/oracle_of_delphi.html
https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/7_p1.html
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/pythia-oracle-delphi-001641
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/pythia-oracle-delphi-001641