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In perhaps the most prophetic work of the 19th Century, Goethe in his great work Faust expresses the despair of living in an existential world. Faust, despite years of study and struggle exploring every arcane art and wisdom teaching, concludes in despair that God has disappeared from the world. And with Him, the meaning of life for Mankind had disappeared. Faust's words echo across the centuries of Western seeking, expressing our feeling of loss, anger, and despair.

In a high-vaulted, narrow Gothic den, Faust, sat, restless in his armchair at the desk.

I have, alas, studied philosophy,
Jurisprudence and medicine, too,
And, worst of all, theology
With keen endeavor, through and through--
And here I am, for all my lore,
The wretched fool I was before.

Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot,
For ten years almost I confute
And up and down, wherever it goes,
I drag my students by the nose--
And see that for all our science and art
We can know nothing. It burns my heart.

Of course, I am smarter than all the shysters,
The doctors, and teachers, and scribes, and Christers;
No scruple nor doubt could make me ill,
I am not afraid of the Devil or hell__
But also I lack all delight,
Do not fancy that I know anything right,
Do not fancy that I could teach or assert
What would better mankind or what might convert.

I also have neither money nor treasures,
Nor worldly honors or earthly pleasures;
No dog would want to live longer this way!

Hence I have yielded to magic to see
Whether the spirit's mouth and might
Would bring some mysteries to light,
That I need not with work and woe
Go on to say what I don't know;
That I might see what secret force
Hides in the world and rules its course.
Envisage the creative blazes
Instead of rummaging in phrases.

Full lunar light, that you might stare
The last time now on my despair!
How often I've been waking here
At my old desk till you appeared,
And over papers, notes, and books
I caught, my gloomy friend, your looks.
Oh, that up on a mountain height
I could walk in your lovely light
And float with spirits round caves and trees,
Weave in your twilight through the leas,
Cast dusty knowledge overboard,
And bathe in dew until restored.

Still, this old dungeon, still a mole!
Cursed be this moldy walled-in hole
Where heaven's lovely light must pass,
And lose its luster, through stained glass.
Confined with books, and every tome
Is gnawed by worms, covered with dust,
And on the wall, up to the dome,
A smoky paper, spots of rust;
Enclosed by tubes and jars that breed
More dust, by instruments and soot,
Ancestral furniture to boot__
That is your world! A world indeed--

Source: Goethe's Faust

Modern Western man stands at the end of a long tradition lead by the Roman Catholic Church in the West-- a tradition which inspired men and women of faith for fifteen centuries. But unrest rose within the church, and the unity which the Church had originally inspired was frayed and began dissolving. For millions, the numinous power of divinity began leaving the symbols of the Church, the Cross and the Faith.

The fracturing church left millions scattered in protestant churches, national churches, and in fundamentalist byways. Religion became ever more dogmatic and literalist. And the departing faithful began shifting their allegiances into ideologies and secular movements. The new gods moving into place became economics, secular humanism,and ideology. For many cut off from genuine religious experience, the soul became lost in materialism and began to signal that something was wrong deep within the psyche, by generating neurosis, depression, angst, anxiety, loss of will and loss of self.

Much of modern America has lost the myths which supported its immigrant ancestors. The purpose of myth, of course, is to connect mankind to the four orders of mystery:

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Who am I, and what is my relationship to the Self?

What is my relationship to this Creation, this Cosmos, this Great Mystery?

What is my relationship to Nature?

What is my relationship with other Men and Women?

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Myth had always answered these questions before the Renaissance. In the Old Times, our religion and our myths were the same. But no myth, and no religion, holds its power forever, leaving the religious institutions behind growing stiff and literalist; and the faithful find that they are worshiping idols only. However, held in place by fear of the old gods and of the ambiguity of maturity, they clasp the old lifeless symbols to their hearts and accuse unbelievers of heresy. The curse of modern man is the absence of living numinous symbols and myths which hold the answers to his deepest questions. The heart hungers for real spiritual experience and to feel a part of the living mystery of life and Creation.

Without a living mythos to answer these questions for Mankind, we are left without anything to stand on and without Meaning, for Meaning only comes when people are living a symbolic life. When the symbols defining the answers to these questions erode, life is without meaning and Man stands alone. The soul sickens and psychological pathologies dominate our lives and lead us nowhere but into suffering.

A dialog is requested with Man by the Soul of the World. Individually, we undertake this dialog in the context of the Hero's Quest archetypal journey..

Unfortunately perhaps, we who wait must understand that only the soul may initiate the dialog. We begin by asking for the dialog that may change our lives entirely and by listening within.

We acknowledge each man's (and woman's) imperative is to individuate and to live out his individual purpose here on Earth. We recognize that modern man must consider how to come to grips with the great archetypal themes of life, including survival, maturation, the struggle for power, dealing with suffering and death.

Earth has been called by some "the Children's Planet." Perhaps Man is finally being asked to grow up. Maturity just might be around the corner, with Mankind awakening to a Universe where he finds that he is alone with his own images. As "mature" residents of this new Reality, he will need to be prepared to stand upon his own need to exist without gods nor meaning. But Self instead. Perhaps, as Arthur Clark wrote, this is the "Childhood's End" of Mankind.
 

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamer of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.

by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

There is work to be done here. Let us sit and talk together about wisdom, lifelines, service, meaning and other topics.