Self-Fulfilling Prophecy/Critical Mass

By Psychic-Magic contributor Frank D'Arcy

Whenever some major event takes place, there are people who find a “prophecy” that predicted it. I wonder, however, if it is a true “prophecy”, or if we are “expecting” something to happen, or even creating the event. Nostradamus has supposedly predicted things such as the rise of Hitler, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, and even the 9/11 attacks, yet there are probably as many people who question the translations and interpretations of the quatrains as there are true believers.

We keep looking at the Nostradamus prophecies as pertaining to our future. What if they were about his future? His immediate future? And what calendar was he using? The Gregorian or the Julian?

For example::
Then, Mabus shortly dying, there shall be
Of man and beast a massacre most dread.
Then suddenly they’ll awful vengeance see:
Thirst, famine, blood, with comet overhead.

This one is usually used when discussing Hitler as an anti-Christ (of which there are supposedly three). But let’s take a look at the year 1532. There was a comet that could be seen in the daylight. The Ottoman Empire had caused a great massacre (killing man and beast), Holy Roman Emperor Charles V pushed the forces of Suleiman I from Vienna. And on October 1, 1532, Flemish painter Jan Grossaert de Mabuse died. Mabuse/Mabus. Sounds pretty close to me.

I do want to point out that, when it comes to prophecy, we may be working with only one side of the equation. Many times in the course of history books were burned; among them books with what might be considered “negative” predictions. These were labeled “heretical” texts, and mankind had to be protected from the untruths contained in them. The book burners might have been more truthful and simply said, “We don’t like what you prophesy, so we will erase your words so no one can read or hear them.” Without contradictory “prophecy,” we are left with only one side of the story.

I wonder if “prophecy” is nothing more than programming. Remember that where our attention goes, our energy flows. The author of Tarot Theory & Practice: A Revolutionary Approach to How the Tarot Works wonders: “What if the events predicted through the Tarot would never have occurred if they had not been predicted?”

A conclusion, therefore, would be that someone put an idea “out there” and at least some of us picked up on it and, through focusing on it, manifested it. And this in turn brings to mind “critical mass”, which the dictionary defines as the term used to refer to the minimum amount of something needed to produce a given effect. Once we have “X” amount of something, we produce a specified result. What’s the minimum amount of sugar you need, for instance, to make your coffee sweet enough to drink? On another level, look at the belief in UFOs. One person believing in UFOs makes no difference to society as a whole. Multiply that by “X” to reach critical mass, and more and more people begin to believe in UFOs. Gives whole new meaning to the term “X”-Files, doesn’t it?

I then wonder if we twist words around to create a prophecy? Do we turn predictions inside out so they predict a recent event? Do we respect a seer so much that we focus on what s/he tells us will happen and, thus, make that event take place?

In one example, Hitler was reportedly told by a seer to go a particular churchyard on New Year’s Eve 1932. He was told to pull a mandrake root from the ground at exactly midnight. If he did this, he was told, he would rule Germany by the following New Year’s Eve. Was this a prediction—a prophecy—or was Hitler’s belief strong enough to manifest its fulfillment?

Virtually every world leader has a “seer” to give advice. Mary Todd Lincoln consulted with a spiritualist to communicate with her dead sons, and Abraham Lincoln is rumored to have attended at least one séance in the White House. President Woodrow Wilson consulted with Edgar Cayce, known as “The Sleeping Prophet”. Richard Nixon’s assistant, Rosemary Woods, consulted psychic Jeanne Dixon, who also consulted to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nixon recorded virtually everything that happened in the Oval Office (except for 18 suspiciously missing minutes), and there is a tape of Woods telling the President that Dixon had told her there was a terrorist threat, and a follow up tape of Nixon relaying that information to Henry Kissinger with great concern. First Lady Nancy Reagan regularly consulted with an astrologer.

From personal experience, I often find it difficult to tell the past from the present from the future in a reading.

If we have a “prophetic” dream, or someone reads for us (tarot, runes, palmistry, astrology, etc.) and tells us “this is likely to happen”, do we accept that as unalterable fact and change the course of our lives (either consciously or unconsciously) to confirm the prediction? This is a form of fatalism: we “know” what will happen and either do nothing and allow the prophecy to come true, or we act in ways that will make the prophecy come true.

I took a class once on Psychic Phenomena. During a discussion on tarot and psychic readings, one student became very upset. When the teacher asked what was wrong, she said a psychic had told her years ago that terrible things would happen to her family. There would be deaths, illness, financial problems, you name it. The teacher and other students tried to tell her that what a psychic sees are usually possibilities and probabilities, not absolutes. She refused to believe us. She recounted a list of terrible things that had happened in her family, and “just knew” that there would be more, no matter what we said. Self-fulfilling prophecy; she knew more would happen, and through this “knowledge”, would manifest it.

Every day we are bombarded with words like “recession”, “gas shortage”, “global warming”—on TV, in newspapers, in conversations. Do we accept those terms as fact, or do we accept our own reality? Are we creating a reality that includes recession, high gas prices and global warming? Can we change that critical mass and turn things around? Can we save the environment simply by changing our thoughts? Can we bring peace by getting enough people to think it so?

One event that seems to prove critical mass is when people meditated on lowering the crime rate in Washington, DC. It was documented that there was an appreciable and measurable decrease in crime in the city during the experiment. Just think what we could do for the economy!

What about the prophecies for 2012? How do we each interpret those prophecies? Some see the end of the world, some the end of civilization as we know it. And there are Native American prophecies saying there are two possible outcomes, depending on what we do to accept or change our fate.

If each of us changed our thoughts, maybe we could. It’s worth it.

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