Who would not like to be able to know the future; that mysterious unknown land that we are propelled towards with each tick of the clock. What obstacles and pitfalls might we avoid in our lives? What advantages could we obtain? For some, the future is one of hope and promise while for others the future is viewed with fear and trepidation. In either case, to know the future would be a blessing. Or would it? How would knowledge of the future really help us today? They say that there are two things that are certain for everyone; taxes and death. Some people try to avoid the former, but there is no avoiding the latter. Death is a certainty with or without prophecy! Prophecy might only give us a time of death.
When I was fourteen or fifteen, my parents gave me an Ouija Board for Christmas. I remember that I was intrigued with being able to ask it all sorts of questions and receive answers. One of the first questions I asked was when I was going to die. The answer I received was that I would die at the age of 34. At that time, 34 years old seemed forever away, so I was not too upset and went on to query about other topics.
As I grew up and got older, that information stuck in the back of my mind until I reached the age of 34. I was not particularly worried about it and was, in fact, quite curious to see if it would come true.
That was the time my vegetarian restaurant was struggling and I decided to close it, sell all my possessions and travel extensively with my wife and young daughter. We traveled first to Europe and then on to Southeast Asia in a nine month odyssey that involved both my death and rebirth. It is what Christians refer to as being ‘born again’. The death, of course, was not a physical death, but the death of my old self and a rebirth into my new spiritual awareness. I recount this time in my book Energetic Awakening. The prophecy of the Ouija Board was fulfilled, but not in a way that I had expected.
There are many stories of prophecy throughout history. The prophecies of Nostradamus are examples that receive widespread attention and then, of course the biblical prophecies with special emphasis upon the ‘End of Days’ prophecies by Saint John. The bible is riddled with passages that prophesized events which supposedly came to pass and events which still are to come. Biblical scholars have pored over these passages for centuries in the attempt to ascertain their validity. Correct prophecy is considered the hallmark in the acceptability of a prophet and thereby, the authority of the complete text. If prophets were shown to be fallible, then who could believe the rest of the message?
With the event of decoding the human DNA and further genetic research, Science can now predict with a high probability if a woman will have breast cancer in her lifetime. In fact, your genetic profile can predict your susceptibility to hundreds of genetic disease conditions that may develop for you in the future. How is that for prophecy! Clearly, you may not contract all or any of those sicknesses depending upon your lifestyle and environment, but the genetic potential is there in any case. Prophecy, like Science is about probability. The higher the likelihood of an event occurring, the more attention will be paid to it. With Science, however, the documentation and evidence leading to a possible prognosis is backed up by hundreds and thousands of case studies and research. With biblical prophecy, there is just faith.
How does the ‘End of Days’ prophecy affect the daily lives of those people who believe it? My mother is one of those people and has incorporated that apocalyptic scenario fully into her belief system. Because she considers herself a devout Christian, which means she follows the doctrine of her Baptist church, prays and believes Jesus Christ is the son of God, she believes that herself and the other ‘saved’ Christians will be taken up to Heaven in the Rapture before the Apocalypse begins. Everyone else will, unfortunately, be left behind and suffer the fury of God’s wrath.
With the annihilation of the human race constantly on the horizon, believers are always in a state of anticipation. Several times in the past, church elders have prophesied that the time was neigh and believers sold their possessions and prepared themselves to depart, only to be surprised when the prediction did not come to pass. Still, those disappointments did nothing to dissuade from the prophecy.
Many people attempt to predict the future by reading tea leaves, consulting the Tarot or I Ching, Astrology charts, the Ouija Board, Numerology, Runes, and a host of other diverse methods. Some feel that they provide useful information, but for most they are only a curiosity. The question remains, ‘Can future events be prophesized and if so, how can it be possible?’ Is the future already determined and we are just experiencing the unfolding of that future like passengers in a car watching the landscape flow by, or is the future yet to be determined, formed by the infinite variability of decisions and circumstances not yet realized? Do the attitudes or belief systems of large groups of people influence the direction of the future, or has the development of those belief systems already been pre-determined in the ordered unfolding of a set future path?
To me it would seem that the future is already determined. How else can a future be prophesied? If that is true, then we don’t need to worry about the future. Our time of death is already set, our future is already laid out and nothing we do or decide will change it. What you think of as choice or ‘free will’ does not exist, because all of your choices have already been made. Obviously, you have already chosen to read this paper, because you are reading it, but have you also already chosen to believe it? Regardless of what you or I believe, what is, ‘is’, and what will be, ‘will be’. Prophecy may or may not provide us with an inside look into future, but I think that when we arrive, everything will be much different than what we had anticipated!
Scott
