Editor’s note: What follows is a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and out-of-print science fiction writer Kilgore Trout. It was to be their last. Trout committed suicide by drinking Drano at midnight on October 15 in Cohoes, New York, after a female psychic using tarot cards predicted that the environmental calamity George W. Bush would once again be elected president of… return to article
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Reader Comments (57)Page 1 of 1 pagesVonnegut is marvelous; actually becoming better with age or maybe, as Trout opines so teleologically, he is better now because he is working backward from perfection.
Please persuade Vonnegut to write as much as possible before he, too, swallows Drano.
Unlikely as that may be.
Thanks for publishing him.
Al Buono
Posted by Alfred James Buono on Oct 15, 2004 at 1:23 PM Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. Please keep writing and for God’s sake put down the Pall Mall’s! We need you to stick around.
Your work is a whisper of sanity in a screaming mad world.
Posted by Jeff McKenzie on Oct 15, 2004 at 3:17 PM Thank you, Mr. Vonnegut. That was highly entertaining, but please, promise me you smoke no more of that green stuff before you write, ok, it makes the headache worse, it really does. Oh, can you make any sense out of these awesome phrases?
An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind.
Now that the trees are gone, I can finally see the forest.
Posted by Mindi on Oct 15, 2004 at 7:25 PM O yeah, I forgot to add.... I’m a freakin Republican, y’all! I don’t even know how I got on this site. Oh well, WTF.
Posted by Mindi on Oct 15, 2004 at 7:28 PM Mindi,
Simple. If you were to enact revenge on everyone the lashed out against you or something you believed in, and they in turn lash out on you or someone else we would all be rotting corpses. That is in the physical sense. This phrase is implying something intellectual. If you weren’t blind and “O yeah....a freakin Republican” you may be able to grasp this.
Posted by Nate on Oct 15, 2004 at 7:44 PM For God’s sake, what ever you do, don’t listen to the non-smoker’s that want you to quit. As I understand it, it’s the vasillator’s that get the cancer’s—those that try to quit but just can’t.
You are what you are—eff it!
Now, about golf: about eighty percent of American golfer’s use public links and no other activity raises as much money for charity as golfing events. It is true though, that the other twenty percent play a lot more rounds of golf and usually own the lots surrounding the golf courses and that they can afford caddies, and so on—but it that so wrong?
And if you think golf is so insane—what isn’t?
Golf is only a “walk spoiled” if you can’t walk the walk. You have to work at it like anything else, after all. And as my father (a retired pro) always used to say: “You can learn a lot about a person by simply playing a round of golf with them.”
One final word: Dante suggested there was a very special place in the depths of Hell for the vasillator that did nothing when faced with a moral choice.
November 2… it’s a good day to die. Vote, Kerry!
Posted by Tim Christopher on Oct 16, 2004 at 12:13 AM Tim Christopher:
Is your belief that George 2 is a man of “action” based on the fact that he vanished, with is family, on that tradgic September 11th ?
twain
Posted by twain on Oct 16, 2004 at 12:57 AM NASCAR...now, that’s insane. Isn’t it? I believe it was (comedian) George Carlin that said something like: “What’s the big deal?… The same five redneck’s always win.”
Every time I get a chance to enjoy the beach here in Palm Beach County, I read Alan Watts. So then I take this online political quiz, about fifty questions to determine my political GPS, like whether I’m aligned with Al Gore or Margaret Thatcher, and so on, and low and behold: I find myself located just South of the Dalai Lama!
Hey, Twain, it ain’t me… I ain’t no fortunate son--no!
Visit Planet Powerchutes.
Posted by Tim Christopher on Oct 16, 2004 at 1:33 AM Thanks a miiillllliiioooonnnnnn!
Kent Betts, sec.
KV Jr Moscow meetuphttp://www.geocities.com/kbetts76013/vonnegut-moscow.html
Posted by Kent Betts on Oct 16, 2004 at 9:07 AM Brilliant again—and the artwork gets better and better! Any chance Kilgore will turn out not to have drunk the Drano?
We need him—and you—more than ever to scold us and to love us as you do!
Posted by Andrew Pollack on Oct 16, 2004 at 9:28 AM Kilgore Trout is dead? I suppose he’s up in heaven now, giving God an earfull. Good.
Posted by Brian on Oct 16, 2004 at 9:48 AM Seems fitting to me that Kilgore Trout would meet that fate. Wildly depressing, yet right.
Posted by Cody on Oct 16, 2004 at 2:51 PM KV’s one of my heroes. Cat’s Cradle changed my life retroactively. Also with Ed Abbey gone who else is left of that ilk?
Posted by Rick on Oct 16, 2004 at 5:33 PM darn. i’m only 19, and i met your writings just this June. I met mr. Trout the first week of July, when i decided to stop playing video games for a week and read 4 books instead, one of them being Slaughterhouse-five.
and now he’s gone.
so, in order to make him live forever in my mind, i have decided to never blow off my brains. that should do the trick.
...
In other news, thanx for all the clear mirrors Mr Vonnegut. Thank you very much.
... *nintendo time*
Posted by Sergio on Oct 16, 2004 at 10:47 PM Well since Kilgore Trout is a ficticious science fiction writer. It shouldn’t be too hard to have him find a spacetime warp continuum and bypass the moment of his death thereby moving from a spot before his death to a spot after his death and still remain with us.
Can you tell I don’t want him gone.
Posted by Peter on Oct 17, 2004 at 1:14 AM Thanks once again Mr. Vonnegut. You are inaccurate however. Kilgore Trout will live on. As will, probably, Drano. Sorry about your mother.
Posted by Raymond on Oct 17, 2004 at 7:15 AM Ahhh, say it isn’t true. We can’t have the only honest writer of the last 50 years end his own life by taking the easy way out and drinking drano.
Mr. Trout should have waited for the slow death that awaits us all as we continue to destroy our planet’s water and air. As we destroy our species through war, poverty, and injustice. As we destroy each other in the quest for wealth and toys. As we slowly destroy our own morality and ethics by failing to take any responsibility for our actions (or hold others accountable for theirs). Sorry Mr. Trout, it’s not fair that you should not have to suffer along with the rest of us.
But Mr. Trout is also missing an opportunity because this slow death of the species would have provided him with even more writing material because the worse things get, the stupider humans will act.
So we must make all efforts to resuscitate Mr. Trout for his own sake, even if it just his head, and prop him up on some picnic table or in a hammock (that might be easier so he wouldn’t roll off) and he can continue to issue his observations on the human condition. Even a dying species deserves a good laugh or two.
peace
Posted by AG on Oct 17, 2004 at 3:15 PM Top 10 reasons we are in Iraq - www.wordsareimportant.com/codeblack.htm
Where will we be without Mr. Trout?
Posted by AG on Oct 17, 2004 at 3:17 PM I was born in 1958. I gave birth to a son in 1991. My father was a gun-ho warrior “We Fought the Bastard’s Off” navy man from the 1940’s Pacific arena. He reinlisted for Korea. I was not his son.
I was his daughter. He knew war, I did not, first hand. I know the aftermath, which can last for generations, even for the Victors.
The first male voice with which I felt compatriotism was Kurt Vonnegut, and through him I met Kilgore Trout.
I have a photo print of many galaxies(courtesy of the Hubble telescope and our tax dollars) under which I have quoted my favorite from Kilgore:
“The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.”Thank you Mr. Vonnegut, for everything you have done, and have tried to do. Thank you for giving Kilgore Trout a voice. I think I can hear him yodelling, and the echo will cause cosmic waves. Surf’s up.
Cheers, Cherie Harrich, Brisbane, Australia, born and often raised in California, USA
Posted by Mermadame on Oct 18, 2004 at 6:51 AM Hey, whoa, wait-a-minute!! What do you mean Kilgore is dead? I’ve been waiting 30 years to sleep with Kilgore! He could’ve had me years ago! I don’t go to AA--never drank in my life, but I might have to start now--what with Bush getting re-elected and Kilgore dead. Damn! That’s what I get for leading a clean life. Anybody got a cigarette? I don’t smoke either, but this looks like a good time to start.
Posted by Beth on Oct 18, 2004 at 8:03 AM Monday 18 October 2004 a.m. I agree that the American populace is profoundly ignorant about politics/history/current affairs. (For example, one person I talked with recently didn’t know whether the House of Representatives was elected or appointed. That’s pretty ignorant!)
But Vonnegut & Trout make the, alas, almost universal error of equating ignorance with stupidity. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!! Writers, of all people, should get that straight in their heads!!
If we’re so excercised about peoples’ ignorance, it behooves us, in our several ways to do something about it! Whether via our several arts, via teaching, meetings, conversation--whatever.
Thanks!!
Posted by Joanne on Oct 18, 2004 at 8:24 AM Good riddence. What a loser. Too bad Kurt didn’t join in.
You creepy lefties are soooo earnest.
Posted by MM on Oct 18, 2004 at 9:00 AM Well Joanne, when the ignorance seems to be boundless you can only assume that it is fuelled by some heavy doses of stupidity. Looking down from up here I can’t decide if I’m looking at ignorant behaviour or stupid behaviour. Guess you guys have to many guns, cars and televisions to be able to make sense as a collective. In any case your critique is too much in line with “political correctness” which is one of the main reason for people in the united states not addressing their problems effectively.
Anyway, I’ll be watching on the 2nd of november hoping for Kerry to win. So will the rest of the world.
Posted by Þráinn on Oct 18, 2004 at 9:05 AM Wow, only in Cohoes ! Man, it is still ‘home’ in some ways, but… there is something about it that can make you want to imbibe Drano.
There is a creepy thread which runs through Cohoes, check some of the history of homicides there in the last 20 years or so.
Hiawatha met his fate there, I think his ghost must reside there still.
Just my two cents. SL --Cohoes, class of 1990
Posted by Lebron on Oct 18, 2004 at 12:03 PM one thing about the end of time which may come soon the non smokers or quit smokers will finally stop nagging us
Posted by jack on Oct 18, 2004 at 1:18 PM Well at least old Kilgore was turned on by intelligent women. Ain’t nothin’ more alluring than a sharp wit. Ole Kilgore shoulda’ let the drano be and drank in some “killer” women. Let the good times roll......
Posted by monty on Oct 18, 2004 at 8:03 PM Many thanks from abroad to Mr. Vonnegut and all Americans who won’t join KT in his negligence. Please vote and make the world safe for mankind.
Mr. Vonnegut: We’ll miss KT, maybe the news of his suicide (with Drāno!)is just Republican intoxication?
Posted by dr_krempel on Oct 19, 2004 at 9:26 AM Happy to hear that Mr. Trout had enough life in him after his last suicide to kill himself yet again. I’m anxiously awaiting his next self inflicted demise.
Posted by Blair on Oct 19, 2004 at 11:55 AM I sure do love that redand blue color coded map the media always uses to show democrat and republican controlled states. I also love how both coasts are almost entirely blue. I think its high time we seceeded from the entire midwest(red states) and let them have their own crazy version of America. We will retain the title of the United States. It’s not like they wouldn’t have to trade with us too, so us blue states would still get our corn and potatoes and whatever the hell else it is that they make out there. Cowboys belong in western movies, not in the office of President of the United States.
Posted by Ryan Conover on Oct 19, 2004 at 1:05 PM Oh yea, and don’t forget to have your Repblicans spayed and neutered!
Posted by Ryan Conover on Oct 19, 2004 at 1:07 PM I must admit you fooled me. I was looking for some joy and all I found was hatred and mockery (the lowest degree of humor).
God bless you,
Joshua Salik
Salik Games
http://salikgames.home.att.net/wsb/humor/ColaSalikGames.html
“The empty half of the glass is always at the top”
Posted by Salik Games on Oct 19, 2004 at 6:15 PM Mr Salik’s comment above looks suspiciously like “comment spam” to This Little Black Duck.
Grrr.Apologies if it isn’t.
Posted by Epacris on Oct 20, 2004 at 4:21 AM To the question of what do we do without Vonnegut and Abbey.... It IS a good question. Zinn and Chompski can’t live forever either. As much as I hate to say it, I think that leaves the rest up to us! Come on Women! Men! Youngsters and old folks who’d minds haven’t caved in! Its about survival. We can’t let the traditions of the bastards outlive the resistance of the rest of us!!!
Posted by Norm Waldheger on Oct 20, 2004 at 12:35 PM thank goodness kilgore’s romp thru the toxic waste dump(ala ninja turtles)has now given him new super powers and death is only a slight set back
we hope to hear from him soon
Posted by diamon' on Oct 20, 2004 at 5:13 PM Only a stupid man would believe a psychic, fictional or not. Only an ignorant man would type of the midwest that way. Only an ignorant man would believe that George Bush is the reason for the Earth’s environmental problems. I’m sorry, but we are all to blame. We who do what Americans do - drive cars, build houses, etc. Then we reproduce and our offspring do the same, and so on...exponentially. Kerry is not the answer, we are.
Then again, how come life expectancy is the highest it’s ever been? I mean, with the environment in such disarray, why aren’t we all just “drinking the drano” of the air and sea and croaking?
Posted by Michael on Oct 20, 2004 at 5:38 PM God bless you Mr. Vonnegut. Your written voice is one of the few joys left in this terribly damaged world. Long may you run. Thank you to In These Times for keeping the voice of the enlightened American alive, that’s the one we Canadians truly admire. Sorry we don’t always get to say so, it’s harder to get through with the Bush administration making the world angry all the time.
Truth speakers, speak up just a little louder, just a little longer. Silence is their friend, we need the noise that unites us.
Lonely no more!
Posted by Paul on Oct 20, 2004 at 11:37 PM So… was he?
Pregnant?
Perhaps Trout merely reflects on the dream he had back in 2004 about an evil emporer and a really strong decongestant.
Posted by David on Oct 21, 2004 at 10:09 AM People who drink Drano in the future do great things in the past
Posted by Guido Moreira on Oct 22, 2004 at 8:00 AM If you agree with Kurt, you will love this.
www.stopthelie.com
Posted by Buddy on Oct 25, 2004 at 9:02 AM well well well
another fuckin beautiful spasm of light from Mr. Vonnegut.
I am just a splithered with ferment on the jones of credo.
we’re here, dammit, what more can we say...?
thank the stars for Mr. V -> please take it all away, sir.
another ignoramus has just entered the building so I must go...do my dance. “strange days indeed...”
slithering in the ‘southland’
fb
Posted by Fran Battaglia on Oct 25, 2004 at 10:26 PM God bless you Mr Vonnegut,
Many in England wish for an end to this terrible regime in the states. It seems however that our leaders do not, see the following.
UK Troops take over from US troops in the most hostile part of Iraq just before the election - not a political decision apparently…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3957455.stm
Posted by John Dyson on Oct 27, 2004 at 11:23 AM Catching your own spelling errors is not that simple. I need to be reminded of that every so often, too.
Posted by newmoonpuppyhead on Oct 27, 2004 at 8:35 PM Life really is that simple. Thanks, Kurt. I need to be reminded of that every si iften.
Posted by newmoonpuppyhead on Oct 27, 2004 at 8:38 PM Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea....
Reports of the death of science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout, have been greatly exaggerated! He’s not passed on, after all....
Michael Palin, former member of the UK comedy troupe, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, announced today in the British tabloids, that he had it on good intelligence that Trout was merely “pinin’.” And also, that; “David Blaine and [url="http://www.magictricks.com/houdini/"
]Houdini[/url] ‘s’got nothin’ on Trout.”Meanwhile, David Blaine has announced that for his next trick (or treat), he is planning to publicly decapitate himself while in bondage and then magically unite himself for a very special epiphany four years later, on live satellite television. (Pay per view, of course).
In other news....a startling anthropological discovery today, of the bones of an ancient dwarf. How such a diminutive creature managed to survive for thousands of years is baffling the scientific community, as well as the even greater mystery… the dwarf appeared to have been riding a giraffe!
TRUTH: Sometimes stranger than fiction!
[url="http://www.countryjoe.com/crisis.htm"
]A Fixin’ To Die[/url]
Posted by Tim Christopher on Oct 28, 2004 at 12:57 AM Thanks Mr. President!
Best wishes from Switzerland
lwwb
Roger SchreiberSustainable Planetary Management – Patriarchally or matriarchally managed enterprises will in future be superseded by synarchally-oriented forms of organization.
Philosophers and other thinkers have speculated over the centuries as to how human societies can be helped to again attain peace and prosperity and, to this purpose, have envisaged ideal forms of government and organization. Thus, Plato wrote “The Republic”, Thomas More “Utopia”, Francis Bacon “The New Atlantis”, Campanella “The City of the Sun”. Synarchy, the concept of which goes back to Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1848-1909), is understood as a government founded on principles, in contrast to anarchy, a form of government devoid of principles. Synarchy was introduced by Rama 7400 years before Christ; he founded an empire that lasted for 3500 years. Synarchy is a form of government at the head of which a trinity attends to government affairs. The main areas of responsibility (educational system, judiciary, economy) are divided in such a manner as to enable of a harmonious working method.
Interestingly, the form of state organization in Switzerland is in its rudiments comparable most of all to a synarchic form of government. To that let it be said: “Every nation gets the president it deserves!”, or put another way, “The trouble is at the top”. When an elected president makes the wrong decisions, the entire nation shares the blame. It should have subjected its president to earnest questioning before the elections. “But politics don’t interest us”…or…”They are anyway only out for their own interests”…”Football is more enjoyable”…”I have my own problems, and I should go about solving others?” There is no lack of excuses when it comes to carrying on in one’s trite and intact world – to then be suddenly roused from one’s hibernation and find oneself confronted with harsh realities.
In most of the free countries, people are more conspicuous by their absence as far as political questions are concerned than by active involvement in shaping the common good. Similar tendencies are emerging in enterprises. Some countries or enterprises go so far, that dictatorships arise and entire populations or workforces are deprived of all their rights. It is therefore not surprising when very intelligent organisms worm their way into egocentric societies and take advantage of the breeding ground of immature citizens. A present-day example: the nomination of G.W. Bush as U.S. president in the year 2000. It will be seen in the presidential elections this year just how capable of learning the populace is in this respect. Infact, it is not only a national problem of the US, its a worldwide case. In medical terms, the disease is not yet localized. That is to say, once a fungus-like organism has established itself, the host frees itself from the parasite only with great difficulty, for if need be the latter deftly changes its outward appearance in order to carry on undisturbed. In biological terms, one cannot really take offence at the behaviour of fungous parasites, for their task consists in revealing the weak points in the system so as to call attention to the fact that the organism is not functioning properly. To ignore this signal would result in the insidious decline of the entire organism. The parasite will of course continue to spread until the host has recognized its malady and initiated countermeasures.
At the same time, one should bear in mind that an illness always represents an excellent opportunity by which the organism has the possibility to regenerate itself through essential learning processes and in this way lastingly alleviate its troubles. To arrive at a successful treatment, it is important that the organism, whether a human or a confederation of states, a city or an enterprise, an animal, a plant or the earth itself, is viewed holistically. Everything is always connected with everything and forms a harmonious whole. An organism becomes diseased as a whole, not just in part. The treatment of the cause should therefore be given preference over a quick and short-term treatment of symptoms, in homoeopathic as well as allopathic methods of treatment.
We learn from mistakes far better than if we were to act in the right way. Thus, we rather unconsciously elect presidents in whose faces we can already read that they will make many mistakes.
Nature ingeniously reveals our weak points to us so that we can sort out the situation under more or less gentle pressure and in our own interest; as a result there is in most cases a short-term disadvantage and, on the long term, a great advantage. As soon as people again consciously address themselves to the issues of common concern, the wings of those who govern will be clipped so that they once more behave as representatives elected by the populace and support an optimal development of all citizens.
After centuries of phases of trial and error and extensive learning processes on all levels of natural development, we will develop ever more optimal forms of organization that, in the end, are perfectly adjusted to all needs. There is nothing stronger that an idea when its time has come.
Solve et Coagula
Integral management consultancy for marketing, advertising and design. zilstreet 54, CH-9016 St.Gallen, phone +41 (0)71 288 13 46, mobile +41 (0)71 422 13 33, http://www.solveetcoagula.ch
Posted by Roger Schreiber on Nov 2, 2004 at 5:55 AM Not to change the subject or anything.... I’m glad to see [url="http://strindbergandhelium.com/absinthe.html"
]Absinthe[/url] making a comeback in Switzerland. But then, on the down side, sad to see the relationship of St. Bernard and the dogs put asunder, and wondering whether or not it will effect the appeal of this noble dog’s meat to Chinese diner’s.Probably, not.
“To whom but [url="http://www.corpse.org/issue_14/anti_anthropo/sward.html"
] [dogs][/url] can one appeal in the wide and empty world?”—Kafka
Posted by Tim Christopher on Nov 7, 2004 at 5:54 PM To kilgore Trout… glad you found your vocation.
To kurt… I see through the eyes of Harrison Bergeron these days. we need more of the bloke nowadays.
Posted by Nik Safri on Nov 30, 2004 at 10:15 PM Watch out this link:
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/Dawn of Aquarius.html
lwwb
roger
Posted by Roger Schreiber on Dec 11, 2004 at 12:56 PM Sorry, the link didnt work. Here comes the article in full length:
The Dawn of Aquarius
A New People, A New Consciousness, A New Era
BY MEHMET SABEHEDDINAquarius will be the new age, the new life. First there will be disastrous events, gigantic upheavals, turmoil and change of all kinds….
– Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov (1900-1986)The transition to a new zodiacal age is altering the political map of the world. For the last two thousand years much of human history has been determined by events in Europe and the near Middle East. From Greece and Rome, the great power centres of two millennia ago, with their inheritance from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, a distinct civilisational impulse spread westward into Europe, eventually reaching North America. Decisions made in the grand capitals of Europe and, for much of the last century in New York and Washington, have impacted the lives of millions of people in every part of the planet.
The advent of the Age of Aquarius coincides with the emergence of new world power centres. Just as old Egypt, Babylon and Sumeria were eclipsed by Greece and Rome, so too the ‘old world’ of Western Europe and North America will be overtaken by new geopolitical alliances and fresh centres of global influence. And this will be accompanied by a dramatic change in consciousness, as the worn-out Western values and Eurocentric rationalist thought prevailing for the last few centuries surrender to the new Aquarian thinking.
The current turmoil and conflict unleashed on the planet by the United States and Britain is only the beginning of the climax of a struggle between cosmic influences of which most people are completely unaware. Today, America and Britain embody atrophied and degraded Piscean energies. The Anglo-Americans, as the standard bearers of bankrupt Western materialism, are trying to reorganise the world, imposing their imbalanced, egoistic approach to life on all societies. Yet their latest brutal and insane actions, witnessed in the tragic invasion of Iraq, are part of a frantic effort to prolong their collapsing system. Despite all their apparent power and wealth, Anglo-American universalism is in a state of rapid decline leading to death.
A new era, a new consciousness and a new people are on the horizon, as the planet goes through a turbulent transitional period paving the way to the Aquarian Age.
AQUARIAN CONSCIOUSNESS
Whether the earth is shaken by natural catastrophes, or nuclear warfare, or both, earth and the life upon it does survive. More than that, however: A New Age emerges and the devastating changes that have preceded it are understood to have been necessary purgations effecting the transformation of humanity into a new mode of being. By analogy, just as the individual near death experiencer may have to endure the pain and suffering associated with the trauma of almost dying before positive personal transformation can take place, so the world may need to undergo a “planetary near-death experience” before it can awaken to higher, more spiritual, collective consciousness with universal love at its core.
– Kenneth Ring, Transpersonal PsychologistTwo thousand years ago, at the time of transition from the Age of Aries to that of Pisces, there were secret schools, most notably the Essenes, trained and taught to align themselves with the spiritual impulses of the incoming age. These small communities worked quietly, in retreats; but with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we now know they were actually the ‘seedbed’ from which came the original Christian revelation.
These separated mystic communities provided the necessary environment for the message of Jesus the Christ. With their unique synthesis of Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Egyptian and Israelite spirituality, the Essenes acted as a bridge between the ‘old age’ religions and the unfolding new revelation. Above all, they represent the budding of a new consciousness which would impact history for two millennia. The declining Roman Empire’s embrace of Christianity led to the triumph of the new religion in Europe. With the arrival of the Age of Pisces, Christianity became synonymous with ‘Western civilisation’.
Writing a century ago, the gifted Englishman Edward Carpenter speculated about Man’s evolutionary future and the development of a new humanity imbued with a new consciousness. “We do not know,” he observed, “what possible evolutions are to come, or what new forms of permanent place or value, are being already slowly differentiated from the surrounding mass of humanity.” Carpenter noted that “at the present time certain new types of humankind may be emerging, which will have an important part to play in the societies of the future – even though for the moment their appearance is attended by a good deal of confusion and misapprehension.”
Throughout the writings of the 20th century’s most influential spiritual teachers from Charles W. Leadbeater and Rudolf Steiner, to Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh and Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov, we find numerous references to the immanent emergence of a new human type. With one voice they link this new humanity to the dawn of the Aquarian era, which they warn will be ushered in by a major purging of mankind. In the words of Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov: “The Age of Aquarius is fast approaching, and it is going to overturn and shatter all the old forms and values that human beings thought of as permanent.”
According to all the great mystic teachers and seers, the Age of Aquarius is heralded by a time of immense conflict and turmoil never before witnessed in recorded history.
Writing in his book Love and Sexuality, Aivanhov notes:Human beings need to suffer before they begin to wish for harmony and peace and the splendour of the new life. If they are not ground down by all kinds of sufferings, they will never understand or make up their minds to work for the Kingdom of God.
John White, a respected New Age author, observes in Science and Spirit that if modern civilisation is destroyed, “some people will survive, according to the predictions and prophecies. The great loss of life will open up niches in the environment where new life forms can emerge. Those most deeply attuned to cosmic processes will become the seedbed from which, it is said, a new race, a higher humanity will evolve in accelerated fashion.”
The survivors of this ‘great tribulation’ ushering in the Aquarian Age will be those men and women who have not been ensnared by the ‘strong delusions’ of the dying old order.
A remnant, who like the ancient Essenes before them, renounce the ephemeral fleeting attractions of the old era, will also live on to protect the law of the truth and lead the survivors in the new era.
Most professing Christians are looking for the return of Christ who they expect to establish a new age. But how many Christians are willing to prepare themselves, after the manner of the Essenes and the Gnostic secret schools, for this new era? Christians are fighting each other over dogmas and doctrines. They are like the Pharisees of Christ’s day, searching the Scriptures in vain, unable and unwilling to see the plain truth in front of their eyes! Christians spend their time serving the very System of Money and Power which crucified Jesus the Christ and persecuted his early followers. The True God is not to be found in any of today’s Christian Churches. Christianity, a religion of the Piscean Age, has chosen to stay with the old order and will invariably perish with it.
A new community is now being prepared in response to the first impulses of Aquarius. They are the ‘seedbed’ of the new era, a Noah’s Ark of Safety and Light in a time of turmoil, confusion and chaos.
NEW EURASIA
The Truth of Life descends from the world of Eternal Light to illuminate the minds, regenerate the hearts, raise and renew the souls of all the sons of Truth destined to constitute the nucleus of the new humanity of which the Slavs will be the cradle.
– Peter Deunov, Bulgarian Mystic, 1898The inspired Gnostic Master Teacher Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno), who lived in Bulgaria from 1864-1944, prophesied the birth of “a new type of man” on Earth to coincide with the astrological Age of Aquarius. According to Deunov, the final stage of the previous Piscean Age, transmitted by the Anglo-Saxons, was passing. In the new aeon the Slavic people are predestined to play a leading role. Speaking to his early Gnostic students, Deunov announced: “You are the chosen children of truth who were preordained to form the seed of the new humanity of which Slavdom as a family, descendants of Judah, will become the hearth.”
The 20th century, in Deunov’s prophetic scheme, was a preparatory period distinguished by the waxing and waning of Anglo-American civilisation. From this perspective the collapse of the British Empire and the rise of the USA at the end of the Second World War marked a key turning point in history. Anglo-American culture having reached its peak is now in its death-throes, and the first light of the new culture is dawning in keeping with the incoming Aquarian influences.
Russia constitutes the largest Slavic nation, and the last hundred years may rightly be said to have been the time of Russia’s ‘Golgotha’ or ‘crucifixion’. A hundred years of incredible human suffering and enormous national sacrifice claimed millions of Russian lives. Within the first five decades of the 20th century the Apocalyptic Horseman of Famine and War ravaged the vast Russian land. Archaic landmarks swept aside and old values overturned only to be replaced by radical new ways which themselves were soon found wanting. Spectacular material triumphs accomplished at the cost of personal liberty and paid for by human sacrifice. Was such collective suffering a preparation for the new era?
Could it be Russia, a land that has endured so much in the 20th century, will finally find its prophetic destiny in this third millennium? Revolutions, civil war, famine, two world wars, political repression…. were these all part of a cleansing process signaling the beginning of a new era in which Russia discovers her true mission?
Alice A. Bailey, who is credited by many as the founder of the contemporary New Age movement, saw a unique role for Russia in ushering in the new era. Writing at a time when Russia was firmly behind the communist iron curtain, she predicted:
Behind the closed borders of that mysterious and magnificent country [Russia], a great and spiritual conflict is proceeding, and the rare mystical spirit and the truly religious orientation of the people is the eternal guarantee that a true and living religion and culture will finally emerge.
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), who established the Anthroposophical society, believed the Slavic “folk soul” would play a major role in the future development of a new humanity. He saw the Slavs as a bridge between the Orient (East) and the Occident (West). According to Steiner, the religious thought of the Orient belongs to the past; the Occident’s philosophical-scientific thought to the present; the Slavic soul will bridge the two and create a pathway to a spiritual future. More than any other national soul, claimed Steiner, the Russian group soul strives to realise the world of the spirit. In Russia the synthesis of the highest features of both Eastern and Western cultures would one day be achieved.
“Its geographic location places Russia between two extreme, monolithic cultures – between the materialist countries of the West and the passive, world-denying countries of the East. It is appropriate that Russia creatively unite these extremes,” wrote Nikolai Belotsvetov, one of Steiner’s leading Russian followers.
“Our country is a peculiar country, placed between the hammer of Europe and the anvil of Asia, destined to reconcile them in one way or another,” wrote the world famous chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. “It is my deep conviction that Russia is called to allay the age-old hostility between Europe and Asia, to reconcile and unite those two different worlds, and find a proper balance between the progressive but proud and inconsequent individualism of Europe and the sense of social and political cohesion of Asia...”
For the last two thousand years of the Piscean Age, civilisation has traveled the course of the Sun from East to West, reaching its apogee in the modern USA. With the end of the Piscean era, history and civilisation is reorienting. We are seeing a return to origins with the emergence of a new power centre at the cross-roads of the East and West, in Eurasia, the great heartland of Russia.
The history of Russia is not the history of a country, but of a world. It is, in fact, the history of a vast organic whole which had for its cradle the immense open spaces of Eurasia. In the words of one author:
The Eurasian world, as such consists of vast plains which extend, broken here and there by low mountain ranges, between the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific, the Black Sea, the Caucasian Range, the Iranian plateau, the heights of the Pamir and the Hindu Kush, and join up, through the tortuous valleys and foothills of the Tian Shan and the Altai ranges, with the plains of Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia.1
According to the Ancient Wisdom teachings, in remote prehistory a spiritual disaster accompanied by a catastrophic shift in the Earth’s axis caused a great migration to Eurasia from the primal northern region of Hyperborea. Theosophical writers believe that millions of years ago Eurasia was the homeland of the people who:
…later descended into the Indian peninsula those peoples who call themselves ‘Aryans,’ the ‘High Caste,’ who later were divided into Four Castes: Brahmanas, Kshattriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras. From the southeastern parts came later the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Medes and the Persians; and the peoples of Europe, Greeks, Romans, especially.2
Viewed in the light of the Ancient Wisdom teachings, the appearance of Eurasia on the global stage is not only an affirmation of arcane origins but also of the Shambhala influence in our day. Eurasia, the Russian heartland, has long been called “Northern Shambhala” by Buddhist teachers. Having studied Tibetan Buddhism, Nikolai Roerich developed a deep interest in Shambhala and led a scientific expedition through Eurasia to look for traces of the hidden kingdom.3 He later remarked, “The East has said that when the Banner of Shambhala would encircle the world, verily the New Dawn would follow.”
At this crucial period in world history we see the first signs of a Eurasia-oriented geopolitical alliance between Germany, Russia, India and China, as a counter balance to the Anglo-American order. Russia, together with the former Soviet states of Central Asia, constitutes the Eurasian ‘kernel’. In the West this Eurasian alliance reaches to Germany, while in the far East it includes China and north Korea. Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan make up the southern flank of Eurasia. The geopolitical struggles and wars of the first years of the 21st century are the outcome of not only political and economic factors, but of resistance to incoming cosmic energies. All around us we’re confronted with clear proof of the passing of one age and the dawn of a new era in human history.
Britain and the United States represent the final phase of a Western civilisation which succeeded a decaying Rome at the start of the Piscean Age. And like ancient Rome before its collapse, the Anglo-American rulers are desperately seeking to expand what the writer Philip K. Dick termed the ‘Black Iron Prison’. However, the West at its zenith can only be the ‘evening land’, the place where the Sun sets to rise again in the East. To the ancient Egyptians the western lands were, after all, the kingdom of the dead.
THE END & THE NEW BEGINNING
For as the lightning cometh out of the East, and shineth even unto the West; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
– Jesus, Matthew 24:27The time in which we now live is charged with cosmic significance as nations and peoples unconsciously struggle to align themselves either with the old aeon influences or the incoming forces of the new Aquarian Age. The prophecies and predictions of so many gifted seers leave us in no doubt – we are right now in a turbulent, even chaotic, transitional period. Nations who cling to the dying old order will fall, to be finally swept away in the coming cataclysm, eclipsed by new global powers, of which Eurasia is preeminent.
Out of this world catastrophe will come a new era attuned to Aquarius. Now is the time of decision, preparation and separation. People who separate from the old order and prepare themselves by harmonising with the rhythm of Aquarius will form the ‘seedbed’ from which develops a new culture and a new consciousness. Those who today place their trust in rampant materialism and the exploitation of the planet, all the while glorying in their wealth, power and might, will be debased.
One hundred years ago the venerable European monarchies looked safe and secure, impervious to change. The British Empire, on which it was said the ‘sun never sets’, straddled the globe triumphant. Less than a century later the British Empire is no more and the traditional European monarchs a vague memory. A similar fate awaits today’s triumphalist powers. The victims of history will soon be the victors as the Earth is bathed in the Great Light of the Aquarian Age.
Footnotes:
1. Before and After Stalin by Cyril Ielita-Wilczkovski
2. Theosophical Forum, June 1937
3. “Mystery of Shambhala” by Jason Jeffrey, New Dawn No. 72, May-June 2002
Mehmet Sabeheddin is a long time contributor to New Dawn. His past articles examined Nazi Occultism, Middle Eastern mysteries and ancient Babylon. He is currently conducting research into the arcane wisdom of Eurasia.
© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission to re-send, post and place on web sites for non-commercial purposes, and if shown only in its entirety with no changes or additions. This notice must accompany all re-posting.
Posted by Roger Schreiber on Dec 12, 2004 at 4:27 PM R.I.P Monsieur Kilgore Trout
In these times,
I cherish your demise
and laugh in honor of your requiem
and may this be
the epitaph
engraved on your tombstone
amidst the desolate winter landscape
of Pere Lachaise
in my conscience.Nik Abdul Halim
Petaling Jaya
Malaysia
Posted by Nik Halim on Mar 10, 2005 at 12:21 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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Posted by Brad on Oct 16, 2004 at 12:46 AM 
Also by Kurt Vonnegut
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