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| Old men discussing philosophy and religion |
Some people are liable to disagree with much of what I say here. That’s fine. Most of what I write is intended for future generations, who, after much development in the world’s thinking, will look back on my essays and see many of them as prescient.
Every other Saturday at 10:00 am I meet with a group of men for morning conversation. I don’t do much socializing, so it gives me something to look forward to.
The others in the group fit into a narrow demographic. They are Baba lovers, about 77 to 79 years old, college educated, from the East coast, middle class, and white. They are what I would call ex-hippies, and they would be inclined to agree.
While I try to participate in the conversation, I also do a lot of listening. I know that many of them perceive themselves as being engaged in heady ‘philosophical’ thought. What I hear is a lot of pseudoscience and science fiction, which they take as real. It is what I often summarize in my writing as “New Science” and “New Age” ideas.
I would like to discuss where such thinking actually comes from. It has a confused mixture of sources.
Prior to the 18th century, educated people had many wrong ideas, but the source of those ideas were well established and known. They were composed of the classics from literary history: The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Plato’s Republic, etc.
But things began to change at the end of the 18th century. Books such as the spiritualist works of Emanuel Swedenborg, pseudoscience on races by Carl Linnaeus, and Essays on Physiognomy by Johann Caspar (1741-1801), which popularized physiognomy, the discredited practice of assessing a person's character from their outer appearance—especially the face.
Works of this nature sped up even more in the 19th century, with offerings like Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), theorizing the modern idea of Atlantis as an advanced civilization and the capital of an empire, and The Secret Doctrine (1888) by Helena Blavatsky, which purported to synthesize science, religion and philosophy by channeling hidden “Mahatmas.”
But pseudo-science, pseudo-archeology, and pseudo-religion were not the only new influences on thought. The other was science fiction. Many actual developments in science in the 19th century spurred the imagination of writers to embellish what science was increasingly believed to be capable of. Good examples were Vril: The Power of the Coming Race (1871) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and The Time Machine (1895) by H. G. Wells.
In the 20th century all of these streams of influence began to blur, overlap, and converge, especially through television. Too many books on pseudoscience and pseudo-religion came out to mention. Books like Chariots of the Gods (1888) by Erich von Däniken and The Bermuda Triangle (1974) by Charles Berlitz came out with huge success. People literally believed in a real Atlantis, Ascended Masters, Races, and Time Travel. Quackery in science and medicine became commonplace.
Quickly in the 20th century, ideas sold under the broad rubric of “Quantum” began to enter the culture. Multiple dimensions, multiverses, hidden particles, magical substances, and bent spacetime became accepted scientific-sounding polite conversation. Much of this was pure imagination, often proposed as explanations of anomalous physical behaviors. People were gradually dragged down into a quagmire of hyper-superstitious talk that reflected Star Trek more than real life.
By the late 20th century, conspiracy theories took off and entered into the same conversations, people competing to prove they had the most ‘original’ theory. In some cases conspiracy theories that had long been debunked became a litmus test for intelligence. Of greatest importance to people were the 911, JFK, and UFO conspiracy theories — all taken as settled fact even when no two theories agreed. In time, people began to literally consider that we had been ‘seeded’ on Earth by Aliens. All with people thinking they were discussing philosophy.
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