We continue our series on Humanity’s Salvation. See: Part 1, Part 2. Reposted from Foundation.
Joseph George Caldwell, Ph.D.
Having described Neale Donald Walsch’s basic philosophy in part 2, I will now discuss his philosophy as it relates more specifically to the environmental crisis facing the planet.
Walsch’s Views on the State of the World, and What to Do About It
Each of Walsch’s Conversations With God (CWG) books deals with a realm of human existence. Book 1 deals mainly with interpersonal relationships, Book 2 with global problems, and Book 3 with “universal” issues. In Walsch’s words, Individual Truths, Global Truths, and Universal Truths. The New Revelations (TNR), which is book four of the series, deals specifically with the current crisis the world is facing (as Walsch sees that crisis).
It is apparent from reading CWG Books 1-3 and TNR that Walsch was oblivious to the gravity of the world’s environmental crisis when he wrote CWG Books 1 and 2. Book 2 (published in 1997) purportedly deals with global issues, yet Walsch never mentions the mass species extinction that is taking place and has been the major concern of ecologists and environmentalists and planetary biologists for several decades. At one place, he recognizes (two lines of text) the need to stop the systematic destruction of the Earth’s environment. He did not even mention the destruction of the world’s forests, which, apart from their role as habitat for millions of species, are the source of its oxygen and a primary determinant of weather. He did not even mention global warming, although he does make an incidental remark (in CWG3) that we are “placing dangerous things in our atmosphere.” In CWG3, which was published in 1998, he cites Thom Hartmann’s book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, which was also published in 1998. This book provides an excellent description of the planet’s environmental crisis.
Prior to reading TNR, I imagined that Walsch had been inspired to rewrite CWG2 (“Global Issues”) after being sensitized to the gravity of the environmental issue by reading Hartmann’s book or something similar to it. But that is not the case. The “crisis” that Walsch addresses in TNR is not a “crisis” at all; it is simply current human social issues—violence, abject poverty, human misery, oppression of minorities and women, persecution of homosexuals, and the like. In fact, Walsch seems so fixated on “human rights” that one might easily infer that he is a spokesman for the United Nations! In any event, from the lack of attention that he gives the environmental problem, it is obvious that it is of no real concern to him, whereas other things, such as violence or oppression of homosexuals, are of great concern. This is really amazing, given that an act of violence does not affect mankind’s future choices, but the extermination of a species changes the future and mankind’s options for all time.
Walsch’s view is that the world’s problem is not an economic problem or a political problem or a military problem. It is a spiritual problem, and if it is to be solved it will have to be understood and addressed as such. Walsch believes that it is important to realize that what human society is doing at the present time is not working. But Walsch is clearly thinking only in terms of current social issues, not environmental or ecological ones. He is right that what human society is doing at the present time is not working. It is, in fact, destroying the very planet that we need for our continued existence—although Walsch does not address or even acknowledge this.
Walsch is not very explicit in identifying specifically and exactly what the “world crisis” is. One might conclude what it is from the list of things that a single world government would bring into being: “(1) An end to wars between nations and the settling of disputes by killing; (2) An end to abject poverty, death by starvation, and mass exploitation of people and resources by those of power; (3) An end to the systematic environmental destruction of the Earth; (4) An escape from the endless struggle for bigger, better, more; (5) An opportunity—truly equal—for all people to rise to the highest expression of Self; and (6) An end to all limitations and discriminations holding people back—whether in housing, in the workplace, or in the political system, or in personal sexual relationships.”
At times, one begins to wonder what Walsch really views the “world crisis” to be. It is very evident that he does not consider the environmental issue (environmental destruction, mass species extinction) to be a serious problem. From the large amount of text he devotes to violence, war, and oppression, we might conclude that he believes that that is the problem. But under his philosophy that “nothing matters,” none of these are problems. One might conclude that Walsch simply views that a “loss of spirituality” is the crisis facing humanity. This, of course, is a value judgment. The loss of 30,000 species each year is not—it is an objective fact.
A major point in TNR is that beliefs create behaviors. Walsch therefore asserts that humanity’s current beliefs are responsible for the current planetary crisis, and to solve that crisis it is necessary to abandon those beliefs (religious, philosophical, moral, social, etc.), and replace them with spiritual beliefs that are in line with solving the world’s problems. The world’s crisis will not be solved until humanity abandons the traditional “Right-Wrong” paradigm and adopts the “What Works—What Doesn’t Work” paradigm for deciding on courses of action.
Some of the points made in CWG1-3 and TNR that relate to resolving the world’s current crisis are the following.
Life goes on. “You could not put an end to it if you wanted to. Life will simply adapt to whatever conditions have been created, and continue. Yet if you want life to continue in its present form, if you want life to go on as it has been on Earth, you are going to have to create the adaptation that life now needs to make, rather than simply stand by and watch it occur.”
Evidently Walsch does not distinguish between the “life” of a human being and the “life” of the bacteria turning it into a putrid, rotting mass. Life is life.
“Share enough of the world’s total wealth and resources with all of the world’s people so that no one will want and need what someone else has, and everyone may live in dignity and remove themselves from fear. Create a system for the resolution of differences that eliminates the need for war—even the possibility of it.” Walsch views that the US is in fact such a system, and that a world government should be patterned after the structure of the US government. Really? Pattern world government after the system that chose Clarence Thomas over Robert Bork! Amazing! Walsch should reread Plato’s observations on the great flaws of democracy, e.g., pandering to mankind’s basest common desires, lack of respect for moral or political authority.
“If you are not satisfied with the consciousness of your group, seek to change it.” “Always in life you have before you three choices: (1) You may allow your uncontrolled thoughts to create The Moment; (2) You may allow your creative consciousness to create The Moment; and (3) You may allow the collective consciousness to create The Moment.”
Today’s education is not oriented toward topics that are useful in addressing the world’s crisis. He proposes that schools provide full-length courses in each of the following subjects: Understanding Power, Peaceful Conflict Resolution, Elements of Loving Relationships, Personhood and Self Creation, Body, Mind and Spirit: How They Function, Engaging Creativity, Celebrating Self, Valuing Others, Joyous Sexual Expression, Fairness, Tolerance, Diversities and Similarities, Ethical Economics, Creative Consciousness and Mind Power, Awareness and Wakefulness, Honesty and Responsibilty, Visibility and Transparency, and Science and Spirituality. The “core concepts” of the curriculum should be Awareness, Honesty and Responsibility.”
Walsch proposes a single world government and a single world monetary system (“eliminate money”—or more specifically the “invisibility” of money, and replace it with a single centrally controlled and visible system of credits and debits). He asserts that the United Nations Organization is powerless and useless. He emphasizes the need to share resources and eliminate war. He asserts that every human being has a right to survival. This is a seeming contradiction from his assertion at another point that survival is not a primary concern, since the spirit always survives, the soul lives forever, life (in one form or another) continues forever. He asserts that the primary issue for human beings is not survival, but fairness, oneness, and love.
Walsch’s view is that highly evolved beings live in small communities—”clusters”—not in large cities. “These clusters are not further organized into cities, states, or nations, but each interacts with the others on a co-equal basis. There are no governments as you know them, and no laws. There are councils, or conclaves. Usually of elders. And there are what could best be Ö translated Ö as “mutual agreements.” These have been reduced to a Triangular Code: Awareness, Honesty, Responsibility.” Highly evolved beings do not compete, and they share everything. They do not pollute the air, the water, or the land. An HEB is a steward, not an owner. In highly evolved cultures, it’s the species system that matters: all beings, and all species, in the system. It is clear here that Walsch is drawing from views presented in Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, in which Hartmann discusses the loose structure of tribal social/political organization.
To summarize, Walsch’s view is that the beliefs of major world religions, governments, and other social organizations are the root of the planet’s current problems, and that for the planet’s problems to be solved these beliefs must change. And what they must change to is the “new spiritualism” and the “What Works—What Doesn’t Work” paradigm for guiding human actions. “Return to spirituality. Forget about religion.”
While Walsch gives passing recognition to the problem of environmental destruction, it is very apparent that he does not recognize the profound difference between the nature of that problem and the other woes facing mankind. In TNR he focuses almost exclusively on violence and war as the major problems facing humanity. But violence and war and oppression are, in the long term, irrelevant. The human race can engage in massive and continuing wars for years, centuries, or millions of years, and, as long as mass species extinction does not take place, there are no long-term consequences. All options for the future are still open. The human species is free at any time to renounce violence and abandon war, or choose to do a million other things, and the planet is just as biologically diverse and wonderful as it ever was. The fact that millions of people are killed in a war, or the losers become slaves, does not make a whit of difference to mankind or to the planet in the long run. All of the people killed in a war or forced to serve as slaves will be dead 150 years later, and a new set of people will be inhabiting the planet. What matters—the only thing that matters—is that those new people have a full set of options for life. The fact that someone died 150 years earlier is totally irrelevant. The fact that he was killed in war or served as a slave all his life is totally irrelevant. What matters for the long term is that all options remain open for every new human being—and for his future incarnations—for all future time.
But as long as mankind continues to engage in mass species extinction, the future is drastically and permanently altered, and more so each and every day that it continues. Mass species extinction makes a significant and permanent difference in our future—in the future of every single individual. Violence and war and slavery, by themselves, do not. If a species is made extinct by man’s activities, it is removed from the biosphere forever, and the future of life on the planet is changed—degraded—forever. Yet Walsch concentrates almost solely on war and violence and the “right” of every human being to survival, and ignores the significant, permanent, and long-range problem of mass species extinction. Future human beings, it would appear, in Walsch’s view of the world, do not have a right to enjoy a biologically diverse planet—just to survive on a barren, desolate one.
Multiyear global wars, such as World War I or World War II, have had virtually no impact on the biological diversity of the planet. From the viewpoint of the planet’s ecological health, and the opportunities available to future human beings, it is as if they never happened. The next five billion years will be exactly the same as if they had never happened, since they did not make significant and permanent changes to the biological diversity of the planet—their occurrence has not changed the options available for the millions of generations of human beings to come. The loss of 30,000 species per year, however, has a permanent and substantial effect. It changes things, affects the quality of live, and removes options on planet Earth for the next five billion years. All the war and violence and oppression and slavery in the world, as long as they do not result in species extinction, are irrelevant. They affect only the current generation of Earth’s inhabitants.
Walsch mentions genocide more than once. Some clarification is warranted on this topic (my comments here). The Israelites did not commit genocide in depopulating the Promised Land, and Europeans did not commit genocide in depopulating North and South America after 1492, and Hitler did not commit genocide, and genocide never occurred in Rwanda. But the people of today’s world, by their very existence, are indeed committing genocide—the extermination of 30,000 species per year. You, by being alive, are a participant in genocide. What are you going to do about it?
Walsch fails to make the “main thing” of life on planet Earth the “main thing” of his philosophy or books. He focuses on war as the major “problem” facing mankind. War is not the issue, and war is not a problem, and war is not a crisis. War is a fabulous game—the ultimate game, where the stakes are not only the life and death of the individual, but of whole nations and civilizations. War is fascinating and terrible and marvelous and terrifying and wonderful and glorious and irresistible and necessary. It is also irrelevant. Mass species extinction is the only significant problem facing mankind. Not violence or war or poverty or racial or gender oppression or religious intolerance. None of these will make any difference in the long run. Mass species extinction is the only thing that will make a permanent difference.
Those of you who know my writings know that I am unafraid of war, and that I consider it, along with peace, to be an essential part of human existence. But even I will admit that in today’s world, in which human overpopulation has perverted so many things, war has been perverted, too. In the age of the Greek hoplite citizen-soldier, war was the ultimate test of individual courage and mental and physical prowess. On the African savanna and on the Great Prairie of North America, war was the ultimate test of a man’s character and abilities. But in today’s world of weapons of mass destruction, much war is simply remote killing of large numbers of people, and it is totally absent the opportunity to express bravery and strategy and life-and-death struggle against very difficult odds. Even a woman or a child can press a button and annihilate a large city. It means nothing, and accomplishes no meaningful life experience or spiritual development. Large human numbers and industrial activity have perverted war, just as they have perverted everything else—agriculture, hunting, fishing, geographic discovery. Modern large-scale war is of no greater significance to human spiritual development than is a large sardine-processing operation.
Walsch makes a big thing out of equality of opportunity, yet it is obvious from his context that he is only concerned with equality of opportunity for his current Earth-mates. Mass species extinction denies all future generations the opportunities to enjoy and use the biologically diverse planet that we have today. It is clear that this is totally irrelevant to Walsch. In the words of Garret Hardin, Walsch has “discounted” the value of future generations of human beings and their quality of life to zero.
“You are standing even now at the edge of a Golden Age, the beginning of a Thousand Years of Peace, which could lead to a grander glory for the human species than your heart can now hold the knowing of. This can be your gift to the future. This can be your destiny. You need but choose it.”
Similarities and Differences
I will assume that you are familiar with my views, as I have expressed them in the books and articles at the Foundation websites. Following are the major similarities and differences between Walsch’s views and mine.
Definition of the World’s Crisis. Walsch’s view is that the world’s crisis is a decline in spirituality, and that this has led to much violence, war, oppression, and intolerance. It is the collection of social issues in which mankind is involved that comprise his “crisis.” My view is that mass species extinction is the crisis. The mass species extinction is the direct result of the human population explosion, which has been enabled by access to fossil fuel.
A Spiritual Solution. We agree that the world’s crisis will likely be solved by spiritual means. Walsch’s view is that the problem is a spiritual problem. That may be, but we are dealing with the same human species that lived on the planet for millions of years, and the spiritual development of that species has in fact risen, not declined. The significant change that occurred was that man discovered technology and fossil fuel. The human population began to rise about 1650, when we began to use coal. It has risen from a few hundred million, the level at which it stood for millennia. Man, as all species, reproduces to the maximum extent allowed by the available resources. With the tapping of fossil fuels, human population has soared from a couple of hundred million to over six billion. This human population explosion and the concomitant destruction of the planet are not the result of a decline in human spirituality.
Human spirituality did not instantly and mysteriously decline or change in the past few centuries. The human species is doing what all species do—it is reproducing to match the availability of space and food. And because of the discovery and use of fossil fuels, its numbers are exploding and causing a mass extinction of other species. What is different about the human species, however, and separates it from others is that human beings can recognize what is happening (i.e., the destruction of the biosphere), and they can mobilize to stop it. But they may not. The mass species extinction is the most serious problem ever to face man, and it may mean his extinction or condemnation to a ruined planet. This is a fascinating challenge! The imminent destruction of the planet is not the result of a decline in human spirituality—it is an incredible challenge and opportunity for the human race. It is a life-and-death struggle for the survival of our biosphere-home. The greatest crisis facing mankind is also its greatest challenge and opportunity.
My personal view is that a synarchic world government will solve the problem. Since synarchy was developed and is promoted by spiritualists, it is easy for me to concur that the solution to the world’s problems will be spiritual in nature. Furthermore, if, as in Walsch’s view, the “what works is OK and should be used” paradigm is subsumed into spirituality, then I certainly agree that the solution will be a spiritual one. It may also be that addressing the global crisis will cause a greater awareness of man’s spiritual nature.
The “What Works / What Doesn’t Work” Paradigm for Determining Courses of Action. This approach is in essence the same as the systems engineering approach that I employ.
Economics. Walsch proposes an end to “invisible” money, replacing it with a global and visible system of debits and credits. He proposes limits on earnings and on accumulation and concentration of wealth. I propose to end economics as the basis for human society. Walsch’s views of the world government and economy are very consistent with the Christian “End Times” view, i.e., a single world government, single monetary system, a “Thousand Years of Peace.”
Equality of Opportunity. There is equality of opportunity within the high-technology population and within the primitive population, but not across them. The opportunities within these two societies are totally different. They are not comparable (i.e., like “oranges and apples”), and therefore cannot be said to be equal or unequal. Under a synarchic government, the rights of the individual are secondary to the rights of society, as is the case in all organized societies.
War and Peace. Both Walsch and I envision an end to large-scale, remote-killing war. With the implementation of a minimal-regret population, the primitive-population component will return to war as it always was—waged on a person-to-person level. My views on world peace are probably somewhat different from Walsch’s. I do not view ritualized conflict between primitive tribes as a problem, even when it results in death of individuals. Perhaps Walsch does not, either. I have no problem, either, however, with tribal war, such as the “genocide” as practiced by the Israelites in Biblical times and the Europeans in post-Columbian America, as a means of exploring and occupying better lands. It seems as if Walsch does not have a problem with tribal war, either, as long as it is not what he calls “genocide.” (As remarked earlier, the term “genocide” is often misused. Genocide means the extinction of a genus or species, not the extermination of a subspecies. Genocide is what the human race is doing in tropical rain forests. It is not genocide for one human tribe to annihilate another, since the species is not made extinct. Hitler did not attempt or practice genocide, and what happened in Rwanda was not genocide. If one tribe annihilates another (e.g., when God sent the Israelites to destroy all tribes living in the Promised Land), that is not genocide. A subspecies may have been made extinct, but the extinction of subspecies happens all the time in nature and is unavoidable and very natural. Under normal circumstances it has been estimated that about four species become extinct every year. What is unnatural and cannot continue is for 30,000 species to become extinct every year.)
Education. Our views on education are similar. I would place much more emphasis on social education, as does Walsch. There are a few subjects that I would add to Walsch’s list (given earlier), such as music and the martial arts—and competitive sports!
Theology. The theology of the Church of Nature is natural theology—a theology that might be arrived at by someone raised in a remote area, with no access to world history. The theology of the Church of Nature is similar in a number of respects to Walsch’s theology—God is everything, unitarian view of the universe, no sin, the purpose of life is to be experienced to the fullest. On some issues, such as reincarnation, however, the Church of Nature theology makes no assertion. The soul may continue to exist after death, or it may not. That is entirely God’s choice, not yours, as Walsch asserts. There is little evidence in this physical world to support a conclusion either way. Continued existence of individualized souls and personalities is not at all necessary to realize God’s purpose of enjoying the creation and expression of life, but it adds an interesting dimension to it. Walsch’s view is that the universe consists of only one spirit and soul—”we are all one”—”separateness is an illusion”—in which case it may be argued that the individual soul never existed in the first place. In this case, when someone “remembers” a past incarnation, he is simply getting to view “someone’s” past life, but it is no more “his” than anyone else’s.
Conclusion
Walsch’s “revelations” are presented by him without any reasons or arguments why we should accept them. As you can tell, I have little use for revelation that is not subjected to critical evaluation. (See Rudolf Steiner for more on this topic.) As a result, I would not endorse any of Walsch’s views, based on the exposition presented in his books.
While Walsch presents no arguments showing why any of his views should be accepted, I nevertheless find it interesting that some aspects of his views are similar to some of my views, and that, in addition to the rapid series of coincidences of seeing Walsch’s works, is what motivated me to write this article.
The major similarity in Walsch’s philosophy and mine is the concept of “what works” (what I call systems engineering). The major difference is our views of what constitutes the current world crisis. His view is that the crisis is the widespread violence, war, and oppression, and that this crisis has been caused by a decline in spirituality. My view is that the crisis is the global destruction of the environment and mass species extinction, and that it is being caused by mankind’s tapping of fossil fuels. I believe, as does Walsch, that the resolution of the problem will be determined by what people come to believe, and that the solution will be spiritual/religious in nature.
From the point of view of “what works” to solve the world’s crisis, it is emphasized that Walsch’s view of what constitutes the crisis and my view are quite different. For that reason, our assessment of “what works” to solve the “world crisis” will likely also be (and is) very different. Walsch wants to address current social issues that interest him, with no consideration to what happens to future generations of human being or other species. I want to stop the mass species extinction, so that all future generations of mankind and other species may have the same choices open to them that we (Earth’s current generation) have. What is required to accomplish these very different objectives is not at all the same.
Read more by Joseph George Caldwell at Foundation.
Read Caldwell’s book review of Thom Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.
Visit Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God Foundation.