New Age Eschatology
Oneness is more than a beautiful word.
Oneness is the energy of love that lies within and connects all of life, enabling us to recognize ourselves in everything. The universe is one being and we are all its cells, all essential and responsible for the well-being of the whole.
Mystics of all traditions have experienced and spoken of the concept of Oneness throughout the ages.
And, now, this idea of oneness is being reinforced by leading-edge science. Scientists now tell us that we are connected in remarkable ways, from the genes we inherit to the air we breathe to the consciousness we share. The worldview in which we are competing for survival is giving way to one in which we are collaborating to thrive….
Whether it’s another person, an animal or a tree in a forest, when you recognize that we truly are ALL ONE, you act with love and compassion towards all your relations.
We notice that crisis precede transformation. Problems are evolutionary drivers. Intensifying pressure leads either to devolution and extinction or evolution and transformation. This is one reason that 2012 might be earthshaking and shocking to some. Furthermore, we see that evolution creates radical newness. Life out of prelife, human life out of animal life. Is it possible that from our species, a new human and a new humanity are now emerging? We can see the sequence from Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo Neanderthal, Homo sapiens, to Homo sapiens sapiens. Why should it stop with us? Is it possible that a new species has been gestating in the womb of self-consciousness through the great avatars, mystics, and visionaries for thousands of years, and that now, due the crisis, this new human is being born in millions of us? It has been predicted as Homo progressivus (Teilhard de Chardin), Gnostic Human (Sri Aurobindo), Homo sapiens, sapiens, sapiens (Peter Russell), Homo noeticus (John White), Homo universalist (my own favourite name). It is possible that the basic shift point in this prophecy is the emergence of the “universal human,” by whatever name it is called, as a “new norm.” Perhaps we will reach critical mass for this human by 2012.
Barbara Marx Hubbard:
Her New Age Christ’s Selection Process
—John 16:2
SELF-described “futurist” and “conscious evolutionist” Barbara Marx Hubbard writes that in 1966 she heard an “inner voice” that came in response to a question she had asked aloud and directed to God—“What is our story? What in our age is comparable to the birth of Christ?” After asking the question she said she fell into a dreamlike state and was given an intense vision of the future.[1]
In the vision, Hubbard saw the earth from a distance. She was made to understand that the earth was a living body and that she was a cell in its body. Feeling her “ oneness” with the earth, she experienced its pain and confusion. When her vision abruptly fast-forwarded into the future, she could see the earth and its people were now surrounded by a radiant light. She watched as the whole planet was “aligned” in “a magnetic field of love” and lifted up by the brilliant light. Widespread healings took place as individuals experienced the merging of their own “inner light” with the bright light that was surrounding them. A tremendous “ force” emanating from the light sent powerful currents of joyful energy “rippling” through the body of humanity. The world celebrated as all the earth was “born again.” The pain and confusion were gone. Love had prevailed. The “inner voice” told her to spread the message of the vision. It said:
Our story is a birth. It is the birth of humankind as one body. What Christ and all great beings came to Earth to reveal is true. We are one body, born into this universe. GO TELL THE STORY OF OUR BIRTH. . . Barbara![2]
In 1977 Hubbard began to hear this “inner voice” regularly. At one point she was told:
Have utter faith in my design. Achieve deep peace. Be prepared for a great force to enter your life to do this work. It cannot enter till you have achieved deep peace. Your reward for peace, which can only be achieved by faith, is contact with the great force and the other forces waiting in the wings.[3]
On Christmas Day in 1979, she had a revelation that the presence in her 1966 vision had been “Christ.”[4] Then in February of 1980, at an Episcopalian monastery in Santa Barbara, California, she describes how in the midst of “an electrifying presence of light” her higher self “voice” transformed into the “Christ voice.”[5] Over the coming months the “Christ voice” gave her more information and insight about the vision she had in 1966 and more first-hand detail about what will one day be taking place in the world. Hubbard understood that it was her mission to continue telling the story of humanity’s “birth.”
Since 1966, Hubbard has fulfilled her commission from “Christ” to tell his New Age/New Gospel story. From NASA to the former USSR to the United Nations, she has spoken to thousands of people and hundreds of groups and organizations about the “planetary birth experience” she had been shown in her vision. In the process, she has become a respected “world citizen,” known and loved by many for her insights about “God” and “Christ” and the future of humanity.
Hubbard is a co-founding board member of the World Future Society.6 In 1976 she seriously contemplated a run for the U.S. presidency.[7] In 1984, her name was placed in nomination for Vice-President at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.[8] Her speech, based on her “ Campaign for a Positive Future,” was carried live on C-Span.[9] Today she is on a first name basis with many world leaders and proudly describes herself as part of the “New Order of the Future.”[10] At least three of her books were funded by her benefactor, the late Laurance S. Rockefeller, through his Fund for the Enhancement of the Human Spirit. She thanks Rockefeller in her books for his generous support over the years. And she specifically thanks him for his “intuition about the ‘Christ of the 21st Century.’”[11]
THE ALTERNATIVE TO ARMAGEDDON
THROUGH the years Hubbard has received voluminous information from her “Christ.” In her 1993 book, The Revelation: Our Crisis Is a Birth (later renamed The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium), Hubbard and “Christ” “rewrite” the Bible’s Book of Revelation. In The Revelation, Hubbard’s “Christ” provides specific instructions on how a united humanity, purposefully partnering with God, can literally re-create the future. This “Christ” teaches that the “violent” Armageddon script described in the Bible does not have to happen, that it is only a “possible” future, emphasizing that a more “positive” future can and will manifest when humanity—without exception—openly declares its “ oneness” with him and all creation. This positive scenario and the means to attaining it is called “the alternative to Armageddon.”[12]
Hubbard’s “Christ” describes how planet earth is at an evolutionary crossroads. He states that the world is about to make an evolutionary leap that will take all creation to a new level. Those who awaken to their own divinity, by aligning themselves as one with God and one with each other, will evolve. Those who continue to believe in “ fear” and “ separation,” rather than in “love” and “ oneness,” will not evolve. Hubbard’s “Christ” claims that with his help most of mankind will choose to evolve, calling this evolutionary leap “the Planetary Birth Experience.”[13] He refers to it as the coming time of “ Planetary Pentecost.”[14] The “birth experience” is a shared event in the future, an “ Instant of Co-operation,”[15] when everyone on the planet will be mysteriously changed in “the twinkling of an eye,” as humanity is collectively born again into a new creation. Those who evolve will actually become a new species as Homo sapiens is collectively transformed into Homo universalis, or the “ Universal Humanity.”[16] The “ Universal Humanity” will live together as a community of “natural Christs” in the “New Heaven” on the “ New Earth” that is the “ New Jerusalem.”[17]
THE “SELECTION PROCESS”
BUT Hubbard’s “Christ,” while describing the “birth experience” and professing his love for all mankind, nevertheless warns that there will be no place in the “ New Jerusalem” for those who refuse to see themselves and others as a part of God. He describes, therefore, the necessity of a “ selection process” that will select out resistant individuals who “choose” not to evolve. This “ selection process” is a “purification” that will be accomplished through “the shock of a fire.”[18]
“Christ” states that those who see themselves as “separate” and not “divine” hinder humanity’s ability to spiritually evolve. Those who deny their own “divinity” are like “cancer cells” in the body of God.[19] “Christ” warns that a healthy body must have no cancer cells. Cancer cells must be healed or completely removed from the body. He describes the means of removal as the “ selection process.” The “selection process” results in the deaths of those who refuse to see themselves as a part of God.
After the “ selection process,” the spirit bodies of the departed individuals will continue to be “purified” in the spirit realm. Hubbard’s “Christ” emphasizes that they will not be given another physical body and they will not be able to rejoin humanity until they rid themselves of all “ self-centeredness.” He defines “ self-centeredness” as “the illusion” that one is “separate” from God. The self-centered temptation to see oneself as “separate,” and not as a part of God, is “ evil” and must be “overcome.” He also refers to self-centeredness, or this illusion of separateness, as “ Satan.”
In this future described by Hubbard’s “Christ,” anyone who refuses to see themselves and others as “God” and “Christ” will be removed by the “ selection process.” Those professing Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour would be subject to this process, as would traditional Jews, Muslims, and all others who refuse to see themselves as a part of God.
THE GLOBAL RENAISSANCE ALLIANCE/PEACE ALLIANCE
BARBARA Marx Hubbard, politically well-connected and extremely influential, is a major figure in the emerging field of New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality politics. Her “ Campaign for a Positive Future” is still going strong. And her formal involvement with Marianne Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, and other New Age/New Gospel leaders in The Global Renaissance Alliance represents a new kind of spiritual activism that is rapidly developing into a social and political movement. In 2005, The Global Renaissance Alliance transitioned into The Peace Alliance. Hubbard’s continued political interests are revealed in an article she wrote in a 2000 book titled Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century. In the article, a woman very close to her own description becomes President of the United States after a successful campaign for a “positive future.” Her character’s campaign embraces the slogan “Resolve to Evolve—The Only Solution is Our Evolution.” This president is unique in that she is the lead person in a first time ever team presidency.[20]
Hubbard, through her writings and lifelong spiritual and political lobbying, continues to implement the teachings and principles she received from her “Christ.” She is presently dedicated to the process of incorporating these New Age/New Gospel teachings into her own local community of Santa Barbara, California. With high hopes that her Santa Barbara “seed group”[21] will become a working model for other communities around the world, Hubbard will no doubt be looking for opportunities to showcase her project.
The fact that Oprah Winfrey has a home in the Santa Barbara area should definitely increase Hubbard’s chances of getting some exposure. In a New Age world that says “there are no coincidences,” it is interesting to note that Marianne Williamson, Oprah Winfrey, and Barbara Marx Hubbard all have houses just minutes from each other in the Santa Barbara area. If Oprah does for Hubbard what she did for Williamson, we will all be hearing a lot more about Barbara Marx Hubbard, her Santa Barbara “seed group,” and the New Age Gospel plans her “Christ” has for this world.
Endnotes:
1. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium (Novato, CA: Nataraj Publishing, 1995), pp. 40–43; Hubbard, The Hunger of Eve: One Woman’s Odyssey Toward the Future (Eastsound, WA: Island Pacific NW, 1989),
pp. 66–68
2. Hubbard, The Revelation, op. cit., p. 42.
3. Ibid., p. 55.
4. Ibid., p. 59.
5. Ibid., p. 64.
6. Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1998), p. 279.
7. Hubbard, The Hunger of Eve, op. cit., p. 150.
8. Ibid., p. 196.
9. Hubbard, Conscious Evolution, op. cit., p. 116.
10. Hubbard, The Revelation, op. cit., pp. 67–69.
11. Ibid., p. 350.
12. Ibid., pp. 264–265.
13. Ibid., p. 298.
14. Ibid., p. 157.
15. Ibid., pp. 243–245.
16. Ibid., pp. 44 and 78–79.
17. Ibid., p. 258.
18. Ibid., pp. 240 and 267.
19. Ibid., p. 255.
20. Marianne Williamson, ed., Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century (U.S.A.: Rodale, Inc., 2000), pp. 381–391.
21. Barbara Marx Hubbard, Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 2001), pp. 118–121.
**Barbara Marx Hubbard, “A Vision for Humanity,” published along with a notification of “Barbara Marx Hubbard Joins Faculty of 2012, Tipping Point Prophets Conference, Vancouver,” at http://www.greatmystery.org/nl/vancouver2012barbara.html and www.greatmystery.org/events/vancouver2012.html. Italics in the terms was added. To catch the significance of this New Age reference to the year 2012, see the following series of posts on Herescope: https://herescope.net/2011/06/new-age-date-setting.html and https://herescope.net/2011/06/doomsday-datesetters-2012.html and https://herescope.net/2011/09/militant-prayer.html