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PROPHECY-
No Longer a Dirty Word
by
Roben L Kuhn
T
en years ago you would have
been labeled a nut. a crackpot .
a charfatan, a wei rdo - for so
foolishly or naively dabbl ing at the
edges of sociery. Today you could be
a scientist. an economist. a psychol·
ogist. a theologian -a highly
respectad member of your profes–
sion, investigating the forefront
of human knowledge.
You are a prophet. You predict the
future.
The Fut ure Comes of Age
The future isn"t what it used to be.
lt has invaded the present . What
wi/1
happen has suddenly become ter–
ribly relevant to what
is
happening .
Though mankind has always been
interested in the future, never before
has the future so seriously con·
cerned all strata of society and so
dominated the present.
A virtual tidal wave of future-ori·
ented books have11ooded the mar–
ket : computer simulations.
technological forecasts. scientific
projections. socio-political pre·
dictions. eco-environmental extrap–
olations, innovative futunstic
approaches, wildly original concep·
tual ideas.
trans~endental
philo·
sophical musings. theological
speculations. and even science fíe·
tion
The approaches vary, but the ef.
fects are the same: human beings.
uncertain of their prospects in this
overpopulated, over-missi led world
of the last quarter of the twentieth
century, have beco_!!le obsessed
w •th the future .
In the past decade - really since
the late 1960s- a steadily increas·
ing public interest in the futura has
directly paralleled the advent of seri–
ous interest by professionals in
widely diverse f ields. Physical scien–
tists are predicting what will happen
to the earth's depleted resources; so·
cial scientists are predicting what
will happen to man 's hypertense so–
ciety; economists are predicting
what w1ll happen to man's stagnat·
ing capaci ty to produce goods and
services.
Forecast ing the future has be–
come serious business - and
prophecy is now a respectad mem·
ber of the Establ ishment.
Parapsychology and the Occult
But it's not only in the tradi tional
sciences that prophecy has suddenly
become cu l turally significan!. Trig·
gered by the downfall of man 's total
confidence in technocratic materi·
alism. the past few years have wit·
nessed the strange and paradoxical
revival of widespread interest in the
supernatural.
8oth in parapsychology - the
scientific study of ESP (extra-sensory
perception) - and in many reli·
g ious. quasi-religious and occul t
groups. prophecy is having a pro–
gressively greater impact on the
general public.
In parapsychology the technical
term precognition is used to describe
awareness o f future events or si tu·
ations by nonphysical means . Pre–
cognition is currently being
seriously and in tensively studied by
trained investigators around the
world. As a resul t, the number of
scientists
who believe that the
human mind can nonphysically ap–
prehend the fuíure has been rapidly
growing.
Though the general public is
largely unconcerned with these
technical (and esoteric) studies in
the sciences. economics and para·
psychology. public interest in proph·
ecy is high. lncreasing numbers of
people gorge themserves with the
virtual smorgasbord of occult proph·
ecy- mediums. ouija boards. tarot
cards. 1Ching, the popular prophets
l ike Edgar Cayce. Jean Oixon. etc.•
and especially astro logy. How many
millions consult their daily horo·
scope can only be estimated - but
it surely must exceed by many times
the number of those who read their
Bibles.
For such enormous appeal to
continue. one is tempted to con·
elude that there must really
be "something there.. - and the
accuracy (albeit occasional) of oc·
cu lt prophecies does seem to tran·
scend the physical.
[Note: Accuracy would not
make the occult "good... only real;
and not everything real is good!]
Human beings have an innate de–
si re to know the future . In our day,
this desire has almost become an
obsession .
Prophecy in Religion
Many rel ig•ous organ•zations have
been quick to join the bandwagon.
Some of the "new" Eastern-oriented
religions (really quite old) that have
recently invaded the West have
WEEK ENDING FIOB 8. 1975