During the 1960s and 70s there was a renewed interest among young people – the Baby Boom generation in particular – in altered states of consciousness, induced either by psychedelics, meditation, or other rituals involving things like music or flashing lights.
There was also renewed interest in the occult, such that a new classification of insanity made its way into American courtrooms. “The devil made me do it” became an American jive to excuse unbecoming conduct and even criminality. Sometimes it worked.
Ever since our posting for September 4th, 2021, there has come a growing body of scientific literature discussing the effects of solar storms on human health. There is a lot to consider, from the synchronous rhythm of various bodily functions to a person’s state of mind.
Ben Davidson posts reports almost weekly of the latest scientific papers on this subject and summarizes them in his monthly magazine.
In the animal kingdom, the weakening and shifting of Earth’s magnetic fields have caused confusion and even death. Bees, migrating birds, and various sea creatures have been visibly affected.
We happen to know that every magnetic reversal has resulted in a massive extinction event. We are not entirely sure whether it has to do with the reversal itself or whether other catastrophic events are the cause, for which the reversal is merely a signpost. Regardless, sedimentary layers which mark the reversals also contain the remains of instinct species suddenly deposited on a massive scale.
We are increasingly suspicious of the former. We are beginning to discover that the cerebral cortex is dependent upon a stable magnetic environment for the purposes of reasoning, spatial recognition, memory and complex tasks. It is possible that as the magnetic fields weaken, these higher mental functions of our species will be lost and it will be forced into a default mode in which our survival is dependent upon the hippocampus regions of the brain: the instinctual functions we are born with or which have been developed through repetition and habit.
How does one respond to the prospects of a universal Alzheimer’s condition for the entire species, when everyone loses their memory at once, and must rely upon raw instinct to survive? How can the hippocampus alone preserve past life experiences and the important skill sets necessary to rebuild civilization? What does one do, when one morning after the reversal, you no longer recognize your loved ones, where you live, or how to survive? A condition such as this would affect all ages, sexes, races and walks of life.
Do we not find here a possible explanation for the primitivism of past societies? We snicker at their superstitions and are shocked at their crude and cruel rituals. Yet, all that separates us from them are the repositories of knowledge and values which have been lodged into our collective memory. What do we become when those social constructs are suddenly gone and we are forced into a “Lord of the Flies” scenario? When you can no longer spell B-I-B-L-E or sing “Jesus loves me”? When you look in wonder at a crucifix and try to imagine what it means?
In the aftermath of Noah’s Flood, we find strange stories about the patriarch’s drunkenness and hostility toward his son. We find his son’s lust for his father’s concubine and pleasure in disgracing him. Later, in other Apocryphal writings, his descendants discover a monument upon which is inscribed the knowledge which existed before that cataclysm, almost as if someone knew that important knowledge achieved by our species would be lost in the catastrophe . . . almost as if it was anticipated by someone that the minds of survivors would be wiped clean and that they would lose the ability to be civilized.
Persons who suffer from dementia write themselves notes, tie strings on their fingers, and perform numerous other rituals to function while in mental decline. What must a society do when this is expected for the entire species?
Survival Praxis Book II must begin with your need for mental survival. It is not enough to build a bunker and learn the arts of physical survival. How do you protect your mind, not just from the despair which comes from the experience, but the genuine loss of what makes you you? If you experience a condition of amnesia in which you have forgotten who you are, or even how to read, what kind of memorials must you leave yourself to rebuild your mind?
Is it possible to build a bunker with an artificial magnetic field that will preserve your mind? A later Survival Praxis will explore the technology involved with such a device. But otherwise, you must devise a curriculum now while you have your faculties by which you commit to memory pertinent facts that are important to you. Memorize scripture, songs, and family names and faces. If you do not see your family frequently and speak their names, use pictures to perform such rituals of recognition and love. Pray for them. The key is rote repetition of simple words and tasks involving recognition and response.
Cultivate feelings of good will, as Jesus taught us, for our choices begin in the heart. If our hearts are dark with evil, that is what will come out when your mind no longer has the restraint of your higher self. Train your lower nature to act and think according to a higher ethic. In other words, instinct can be trained through habit. Habits are the second nature which teaches us to act in a certain, predetermined way without “thinking” about it.
Advanced skill sets will be a greater challenge. We can leave instruction manuals for maintaining our technology, but if you have lost the ability to read with any comprehension, then such manuals become useless.
Perhaps it has been by God’s grace that our culture has achieved the ability to preserve knowledge in pictures and moving pictures. Collecting knowledge in video devices which require merely the push of a button to activate might enable an “AI” mentoring of the human race. Primates can push buttons, even if out of mere curiosity. Primates can quickly learn to watch and mimic what they see in a video production.
Remember that our alphabets have their origins in pictograph representations of concepts based upon objects or anatomical features.
The Hebrew letter “Aleph,” for example, is derived from the head of an ox; the letter “Shin” represents the incisors of the front teeth. These letters add concepts in the construction of Hebrew words which developed the language.
When I was hospitalized for Covid during the pandemic, the hypoxia impaired my ability to perform simple arithmetic or write in cursive. It took several days to regain that function. My posts to this website during that period were labored. And I have sometimes marveled that I was still able to produce sound scholarship. It was because much of what I have written has been developed over decades of research and contemplation. It became second nature.
Go, and do thou likewise.
— JWS, 10/31/26
