Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

What is a human being? What is life? Can science give us reliable answers to such questions? The electricity of life. The meaning of human consciousness. Are we alone? Are the traditional contests between science and religion still relevant? Does the word "spirit" still hold meaning today?

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GaryN
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by GaryN » Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:38 pm

From Plato's Timaeus. Not in the correct order, just snippets I had collected that are applicable here. I know very little about Greek mythology, but from what I have read, their tales seem to make too much sense to have just been idle fantasy.

"In the days of old the gods had the whole earth distributed among them by allotment. There was no quarrelling; for you cannot rightly suppose that the gods did not know what was proper for each of them to have, or, knowing this, that they would seek to procure for themselves by contention that which more properly belonged to others. They all of them by just apportionment obtained what they wanted, and peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks, excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of persuasion according to their own pleasure;-thus did they guide all mortal creatures.
....
First, you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the face of heaven.
.....
Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put into their minds the order of government; their names are preserved, but their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children; but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the enquiry into antiquity [The circumstances which gave Athens the luxury of being able to build the Parthenon] are first introduced into cities when they begin to have leisure, and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before."
In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. -Buckminster Fuller

daveycreatrix
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by daveycreatrix » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:46 pm

Hey guys,
Received MiA this morning,
Back soon!
Davey

JohnMT
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by JohnMT » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:27 am

Mankind in Amnesia (MIA) was the culmination of Velikovsky's works.

In the Epilogue of MIA he wrote:

Quote:
"The enemy is time. I conclude with a verse that is not my own, and I do not render it exactly - but the hour is late and I will repeat it:

We are in a race with the Reaper
We hastened, he tarried, we won.

"I hope that it will be that way, and not the other way around".
Unquote.

How true.

John

hex
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by hex » Sat Oct 16, 2010 2:38 am

nick c wrote:hi Davey,
Velikovsky's psychology training was in the Freudian school, his mentor Stekel was a student of Freud. Velikovsky knew Freud personally and my impression from his writing is that he had serious issues with Freud.
Bearing in mind (from my own point of view) that Sigmund Freud's theories say more about his own insecurities
Apparently you agree with Velikovsky. In Oedipus and Ahkhnaton Velikovsky writes a scathing critique of Freud and his work. He basically psychoanylyzes Freud, pretty much agreeing with your statement.
Velikovsky's theory of Collective Amnesia is his own. While Freud and others have explored the effect of amnesia on individuals Velikovsky applied it to the collective. The concept of a collective mind was an area that was examined by Carl Jung. So Velikovsky was not rehashing Freudian psychology, on the contrary he was expanding upon an idea of Carl Jung.
Velikovsky's issue with Freud and "Oedipus and Ahkhnaton" was basically that when Freud attributed the origin of Jewish monoteism to Akhnaton, a non-Hebrew, the reason was, according to Velikovsky, that Freud had problems with his own Jewishness.


from the link you provided:
The phenomenon of racial amnesia occupied Freud’s mind in the last decades of his life, in fact it became his obsession.

Initially Freud claimed that the impressions made upon a child’s mind dictate the child’s future and cause also neuroses in juvenile and adult life. Later Freud reversed his thesis and claimed that man’s destiny is triggered by images which exist within the racial memory, deep within the unconscious mind.
My impression is , based on hazy memories of what I've read ages ago, that Freud indeed speculated about ancient incidents and collective amnesia around them.

One speculation was the Original Patricide in a Primal Horde: Man became a Man, when in a group of ape men, the brothers allied together, killed their despotic father and ate his body. That was in the book "Totem and Taboo", i think.

Then there was a speculation on the origin of the so called Death Drive (Thanatos). IIRC, Freud postulated a catstrophic origin for it, but the catastrophe he was thinking was the Ice Age, that ended the Golden Age of Plenty and abundance.

Cultural transmission of the memories of the past catastrophies in the form of vague myths is easily digestible, but idea, that man has repressed memories inherited from the past, withou cultural transmission is very mystical indeed. It would amount to an inheritance of acquired properties ( a memory inprint in this case ), a big NO NO according the orthodox science.


This is a fascinating subject.

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nick c
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by nick c » Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:17 pm

hi hex,
I pretty much agree with your post.
Cultural transmission of the memories of the past catastrophies in the form of vague myths is easily digestible, but idea, that man has repressed memories inherited from the past, withou cultural transmission is very mystical indeed. It would amount to an inheritance of acquired properties ( a memory inprint in this case ), a big NO NO according the orthodox science.


This is a fascinating subject
Yes I think it is fascinating too, and you are correct that the genetic transmission of experience or acquired characteristics is a big no no. Lamarckism is a dirty word in academia, however, to me it seems obvious that in some form or to some degree it has to take place. I personally observed a kitten that was orphaned at 1 day old. The cat was raised by my friends family, fed warm milk with an eye dropper and occaisionally washed with a sponge, she grew up to be an expert mouser and behaved in every way as a typical member of her species. Something pre installed inside her must have told her how to be a cat. There are many other instances in nature that are more easily understood if one allows from for some form of inheritance of acquired characteristics (such as symbiosis). We use the word 'instinct', but how do we define it?
Velikovsky presented his idea (in the linked 1974 speech at the University of Lethbridge) as a "cultural" amnesia, but there is no doubt that he subscribed to at least part of the condition to genetic transmission:
In the frame of collective amnesia, which is the syndrome I first discussed in Worlds In Collision, the amnesia that occurs in a single victim closely following the trauma is not an exact parallel: the collective mind does not immediately forget what it went through. What occupies us are the two processes in which the heritage was transmitted: the concious oral and later written relay, and the unconcious, racial mneme, inherited and occaisionally activated after some related experiences.
[Psychoanalysis]...not recognizing the importance of the role of biological inheritance of acquired characteristics in mental spheres on a collective basis. Yet, many new possibilities would open up, and numerous of the observed expressions of neurosis would be understood, with some knowledge of what happened to humanity in the past.

Mankind In Amnesia, p33

There is an excellent article by Ev Cochrane, citing some convincing evidence in support of Lamarck:
"Viva Lamarck: Renewed Discussion on the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics", Aeon, vol. II #2
http://www.maverickscience.com/lamarck-vindicated.pdf



Nick
Last edited by nick c on Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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moses
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by moses » Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:10 pm

Yes I think it is fascinating too, and you are correct that the genetic transmission of experience or acquired characteristics is a big no no.
Nick


That was before epigenetics. The expression of a gene can be changed by the environment, and this change of expression can be passed on to one's children. Heaps of research is going into epigenetics because of the possible gene expression drugs that could be produced. Emotional experiences change the gene expression big time. A chain of changed gene expression could act as a memory of the emotional event. Such a memory would work in all the DNA of the body and represent a full body tracing of the original emotional event.

Of course Nick's statement is correct but instead of 'genetic transmission' one puts 'handed down from parent to child' then it would be wrong, because the pharmaceutical companies are backing the opposite so it will become mainstream, if not already.

The implications for 'reliving' psychotherapy are fascinating indeed. One could get a set of genes with changed gene expression such that an ancient experience closely matched this set, so that a chain of gene expression occurs that closely mimics what happened in the past. The gene expression could be reset by such reliving.
Mo

JohnMT
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by JohnMT » Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:25 am

Epigenetics is interesting.

However, on the subject of "WHY WAR?" (Chap V - THE AGE OF TERROR), what I particularly find interesting is the apparent 'repressed memory' condition involving the behaviour of entire nations, born out of certain types of catastrophic 'periodicities' such as the 52-year cycle and the 700-year cycle.
As you all no doubt know, both these cycles refer to the catastrophic interruptions of nature by the wandering proto-Venus, apparently witnessed by the survivors (our ancestors) the memory of which is held deep within their sub-consciences, albeit on a collective national level and subsequently passed-on through the successive generations, because entire nations experienced the same event.The memory appears to have persisted to this day.

If the above is true then perhaps we might be way overdue for the dreaded 'third-world-war' according at least to the 52-year cycle (because since the middle of the second world war, say 1942, sixty-eight years have already passed by!), or perhaps such a war is governed by the 700-year cycle, which would take us toward the end of this century (the last such cycle having occurred in the 14th century AD)

I do believe that such memories are quite possibly inherited...in some manner or other...and that periodically they do rise to the surface on a national level, because such wars have always been prevalent throughout history.
What other explanation could there be for these 'periodic' wars?

John

Joe Keenan
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by Joe Keenan » Wed Oct 20, 2010 5:54 pm

Why posit collective amnesia when I can't remember where I set my keys down? A more likely explanation is authority trumps memory. Authorities establish and maintain the meta-narrative thread, they do so by controlling the terms of debate. Disagree with the established meta-narrative and the powers that be will beat you down by sheer force of authority. As Paddy Maloney puts it, "The winner writes the history, the losers write the songs."

CTJG 1986
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by CTJG 1986 » Wed Oct 20, 2010 7:05 pm

Joe Keenan wrote:Why posit collective amnesia when I can't remember where I set my keys down? A more likely explanation is authority trumps memory. Authorities establish and maintain the meta-narrative thread, they do so by controlling the terms of debate. Disagree with the established meta-narrative and the powers that be will beat you down by sheer force of authority. As Paddy Maloney puts it, "The winner writes the history, the losers write the songs."
In many cases in modern history and the present you are quite right - take the Holocaust for example and the incredible lack of evidence for about 90% of the claims made of it and how anyone who questions that unbelievable lack of evidence is attacked viciously as a 'Holocaust denier'(despite only questioning the extent of the event, not the existence of it), dismissed as a racist, threatened with jail or death, have family and friends threatened with jail or death, have their careers destroyed, etc.

Although there are many photos of it they are not needed as just mentioning the fact that Polish militias(with largely Jewish memberships) in an area of Poland formerly controlled by Germany murdered tens of thousands of German citizens in 1933 forcing Germany to invade to defend it's citizens is enough to warrant those vicious responses. The evil Nazi's are only allowed to be portrayed as aggressors, to suggest they ever even once were just defending themselves or their people is viewed as hate speech even when it's a well documented truth, especially when it concerns the main reason Britain and the Allies declared war on Germany.

I use the Holocaust example simply because it is the largest/most wide spread example of such "editing" of history by the powers that be, though one can of course find hundreds or thousands of more examples just from the United States alone over the course of the last 70 years or so(Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq 2, etc.), never mind all the other powers in the world.

So the winners of wars and/or the powers that be don't just write the history, they invent it whenever it suits their interests and are typically vicious in defending that false history since it could cause the collapse or everything they built out of it.

However in the case of the scenario that is proposed in this case it seems unlikely any unified governing group or force could have survived intact and maintained such control over the people in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic events.

But I certainly don't doubt that elements of the ruling elite of the world today are aware at least on some level of these past catastrophes and today are doing their best to prevent people from discovering the truth. Such global events have the potential of uniting humanity under a global banner and ending the nationalistic war and power games the elites play today, and without the U.S military and government in control of that globalization as is the case with the modern globalization agenda forced on the world by those elites.
The difference between a Creationist and a believer in the Big Bang is that the Creationists admit they are operating on blind faith... Big Bang believers call their blind faith "theoretical mathematical variables" and claim to be scientists rather than the theologists they really are.

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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by Joe Keenan » Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:32 pm

I was thinking more along the lines of control of a recycle compressors seal oil differential pressure (difference between oil and reference gas pressure). It is assumed that increasing the liquid head increases SODP. This is not true, in fact it decreases it. To see why imagine a head of water 20 feet high (240 inches), each foot in height = .442 pounds in head pressure so we have 20 x .442 = 8.84 pounds of head pressure. Well, the specific gravity of the circulating oil is only 80% that of water so the head pressure of a column of oil 20 feet high would be:

8.84 x .8 = 7.04 pounds.

From this we can see that if I wanted to raise the head pressure of the column of oil 1 pound I'd have to raise the height of liquid 1/7 or approx 34 2/7 inches. That the oil level is only ever increased/decreased an inch or so falsifies the initial assumption. Regardless, people believe. Proof is often not found in science but in collective comfort. If 20 people contend raising the oil level 1 inch = 1 pound that's the way it is. The group is comfortable with the agreed upon story so that's the way it is.

p.s. Increasing the seal oil level decrease oil flow to the seals, the gas reference pressure staying the same this decrease in oil flow results in a lower oil pressure at the reference point for the oil pressure. Thus lower SODP.

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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by moses » Wed Oct 20, 2010 9:34 pm

It stands to reason that the ancient astronomers would work out when a conjunction would take place. We see in the old sun-aligned structures all around the world that there was much observation of the sky. So as the conjunctions are the bad guys then certain numbers (like 52) would be massively important at various stages of history. Probably there was a time of gathering and preparation for living underground. Then there is set up epigenetic changes in these people on a cyclic basis. These epigenetic changes, and perhaps a series of changes, would be passed on to us. But why would we all change at the same time ?

Undoubtably there is more to this than just epigenetic changes. But the past experience caused protein changes that are in us now. Most of these changes are undesirable, simply because they refer to functioning in traumatic conditions. And there are nifty ways to alter gene expression lately. But perhaps it is a series of epigenetic changes, and therefore replaying the original event that could accurately match the original epigenetic changes, and so open the possibility of altering the gene expression of all the involved genes in one go. And this explains most of how 'reliving' therapy works.
Mo

spagyr
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by spagyr » Tue Oct 26, 2010 2:16 pm

Genes and memory eh?
You lot are brave, on balance I would tend to agree with Mr Keenans'
eloquent dissertation.

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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by Michael3 » Mon Jan 03, 2011 11:47 pm

Wilhelm Shtekel is known as the father of psychology, the science of the soul and also known as the Jewish science. The three major progenitors of psychological "schools" followed in his footsteps with 3 different foundations to explain the foundation of psychological dis-functionality of the human race. Jung posited a number of archetypes of the soul or psyche, Freud and his school posited some kind of universal life trauma such a birth trauma, sexual development trauma, bathroom functionality trauma, etc., and Velikovsky proposed that serious ancient global catastrophes initiated the trauma resulting in species-wide Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome with its attendant facets of guilt, denial, and amnesia. He also found evidence for a pre-existing Collective Consciousness which was fractured by the intense trauma of a major loss of life and environmental support for it.

Take a look at the spiritual context that we live in today. The 7 billion humans on the earth are separated into over 100,000 identifiable religions, each of which is on some level incompatible with all the others. There is no spiritual majority of any religion, denomination, ideology, group or organization. Nothing but minorities in a raucous spiritual cacophony. Despite the original definition of the word religion, which means to bind together again with reason, the foundational ideas or dogma of these religions are vacuous, fear-based, and illogical. Such as the transcendental nature of god--hear alien--with his ways "past understanding", his law giving dominance, his releasing upon us a superior and vicious antagonist--the devil--, and his unthinkable punishments. Religions of today do not deliver us from the so-called "human condition" but are merely coping mechanisms and are rightfully characterized as the "opiate of the masses". And never has so much been promised and so little delivered. They many times absolutely cripple the humanity of the followers, building rabid, merciless fanatics. And while we want god to do things for us, who would actually want to live with and be intimate with such a person that is the essence of the general religious paradigm?

Meanwhile literary luminaries write millions of plays, novels, and sermons about the "drama", angst, and suffering of the human condition, but don't really set about doing something meaningful about it or even their own fate, that being inexorable aging--losing the 4 Vs of vim, vigor, vitality, and virility--and dying. We are born into a pathological, messy, troubled, dangerous, insane world under a sentence of death where the general response is to beg, to somehow manipulate a reluctant god by praise, hymn-singing, rites and ceremonies, and sacrifice. Some of the more profound books such as Ernest Becker's are simply erudite primal screams. And these "great" luminaries don't even have the courage to take the inward journey to both canvas the dark corners of their own souls and to find out what they REALLY want and need. But what fun to read their pitiful literary expressions! Very impressive--NOT! If I were the creator of human beings I would be very disappointed, and yet wouldn't be an enabler. Knowing that it could all be healed eventually, I would leave well enough alone until some baseline level of sanity were established to work with.

And for those that can see what is taking place in our geopolitical world today, we are actually well on our way to a major war primarily between Islam and Judeo-Christianity. Some of the Islamic countries are beginning to purge their populations of non-believers or infidels. Even the Buddhist priests sometimes kill each other in their temples of peace. What a mess! The above valid perspective ought to inspire us to redouble our efforts to be rational, logical, and reasonable while challenging our own beliefs and thinking outside of the traditional religious boxes. You think?

Royal
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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by Royal » Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:57 am

Illusions are clung on to many because the many don't know they are clinging on to illusions.

The game was made before their births, who are they to question it?

This scientific thought has a very narrow view, and mostly rubbish.
This was particularly an unusual Out of Body Experience...

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Re: Collective Amnesia of Planetary Catastrophe

Unread post by moses » Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:15 am

The above valid perspective ought to inspire us to redouble our efforts to be rational, logical, and reasonable while challenging our own beliefs and thinking outside of the traditional religious boxes. You think?
Royal


In the spirit of Jung, Freud and Velikovsky, perhaps it is not thinking but feeling that we need. Really to know oneself is to access the buried feelings, for it these that compel us. This is the modern 'feeling' psychotherapy, but also the method of the ancient shaman.
Mo

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