“The old god is dead, with his little world and his little, closed society. The new formal center of belief and trust is mankind. And if the principle of love cannot be wakened actually within each—as it was mythologically in God—to master the principle of hate, the Waste Land alone can be our destiny and the masters of the world its fiends.”—Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology

  The old god may be dead, but the world that took shape around his conception and belief remains with us to this day. 

  Western science, born of a millennia of inquiry, an inquiry that was prohibited from delving into anything pertaining to Life—for that was the exclusive domain of God and his Christian Apostolic Church—prevails across the globe today. 

  However, science alone as many have warned, unharnessed to a spirit of love and compassion for our fellow human beings, and leaving Life itself out of the picture, threatens our world with the prospect of becoming Campbell’s fiend-ruled Waste Land.

  Today that science, embraced by the majority of peoples around the world successfully clamouring for a foothold in the First World, has partially pried open the doors of all those heretofore ‘closed societies.’ But inwardly, where Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity reside, not to mention the innumerable nationalisms, the doors of societies largely remain firmly closed. 

  And this is where my simple modest attendance here in the Omphalos Cafe comes in. For these days when the conversation turns to the challenges facing humanity and the many conflicts raging across the globe I typically fall silent. “What point seeking and discussing solutions,” I ask myself, “when it is WE who need to reform? When it is WE who need open our hearts to a wider and deeper INWARD realization of our Oneness with all?”

  “And if the principle of love cannot be wakened actually within each…” writes Campbell. 

  I say it can! 

  But it is a longer process than people would have us think. First we need become humble again. Next we need foster and nurture a certain type, the Shaman-Type. For he is the mythological awakener! And this isn’t a one or two year course. It is a lifelong commitment, a calling—from the gods if you will—a vocation. Then comes the apprenticeship, the learning of what has come before and an understanding of where we are at today and how we got here. 

  It may even be a multi-generational process…

  Best get going then…

  Don’t you think?