November 2020

Whatever corner of the world one happens to live in, the most pressing issues of the day affect everyone: the environmental emergency; war and terrorism; poverty including food insecurity, overpopulation and the displacement of persons; pandemics/epidemics. Such crises cannot be limited by borders or controlled by nation states; no government or corporate power can manage them. They are interconnected global issues and they require a coordinated global response. Drawn together by economic interests or shared geo-political concerns various allied groupings and regional alliances exist in the world. And while they present, in theory at least, the possibility of nations unifying, self-interest, ideology and partisanship dominate the approach taken by governments to global problems: achieving consensus is rare, implementation of agreements even more so. And with the rise of tribal nationalism in recent years, a corrosive development led by major nations like America, Russia and China (all of which are under the leadership more or less of a dictator), the space for cooperation and unity has been further eroded, the major issues of the times ignored, or in many cases enflamed.

The United Nations: What now?

And now there’s Covid-19: In addition to highlighting some of the many weaknesses in the current nationalistic centered approach to world issues, as well as the inequalities of the socio-economic model, the pandemic has emphasized the need for a realignment of purpose in relation to collective need; for nations to work cooperatively in response to global issues, under the coordinated stewardship of an international body — one that is free from political ideology, is non-partisan, and endeavours to build the broadest level of consensus.

Established in 1945 at the end of World War II, The United Nations (UN), with its range of 15 specialized agencies is the obvious body to take on such an expanded, essential role. Not by adopting powers of governance over member states, but through the recognition that certain issues demand unified strategic action and the acknowledgment that the future of individual countries rests upon the health and stability of the whole.

Certainly the UN has its detractors; like all global organizations it is imperfect, but it represents a high point in human achievement and the world is a richer place for its existence. Millions of people have been fed, educated and cared for by UN agencies over the past 75 years. One of the most significant realizations in the history of the UN (and indeed for humanity) was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), proclaimed in 1948. A great aspirational achievement, it includes the right to not be enslaved, the right to free expression, the right to food and shelter and the right to seek asylum from persecution.

Despite the fact the many of the articles remain unrealized the existence of the UDHR is crucially important, establishing a clear set of rights for every human being in the world. And, as we move into a new time, the UDHR could serve as a guiding template for systemic change, in particular the content of article 25, which states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” Under the current socio-economic model these rights do not exist anywhere in the world; creatively explored and developed they could form the basis for a new and just economic system; one designed to ensure that these essential requirements are made available to everyone no matter the circumstances of their birth or their financial status.

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Within the UN there are a range of relevant departments concerned with the global issues outlined, agencies that are overflowing with expertise and people of goodwill. But whether it’s the UNHCR (working with refugees), the WHO or the UN Environment agency, all too often their efforts to act for the benefit of those they serve are inhibited by the narrow self-centered approach of member states, the power exerted by the 15-member Security Council, in particular the permanent five (P5), by lack of funding and a somewhat ambiguous world role.

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Renewed United Nations

Key to overcoming the global issues here outlined is the introduction of sharing, together with a reinvigorated expanded United Nations and a shift in attitudes. Most people and many nations are poor, or poorly off, but the world is rich, overflowing; it is an abundant world and everyone is entitled to benefit from its collective riches.

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All countries are deficient in some areas, but as humanity begins to function as a world community, the needs of all can be met; all that is required is that we respect and acknowledge the needs of all and learn to share. And although the current systems work against such commonsensical ways, through the consistent exercise of goodwill much can be achieved within the existing constraints, thereby deconstructing those limitations and changing the collective atmosphere. Sharing is an extraordinarily potent quality; both an action and an attitude of mind, it is the spark that lights the fuse of fundamental change. It encourages cooperation and cultivates trust, and when there is trust much can be achieved between individuals and groups. Sharing creates a space in which tolerance and social justice may flourish and through its expression, recognition of our innate oneness is made manifest. It is an expression of respect and respect between peoples helps build relationships, and where relationship exists disputes can be congenially discussed and solutions found.

While the outward signs and loudest voices are increasingly divisive, a worldwide shift in consciousness is taking place, an unstoppable momentum for peace, justice, and environmental action is sweeping across the world demanding real change. The major issues of the time can only be dealt with in a united synchronized manner; to this end a strong dynamic and totally independent UN is needed.

In his new book, Pioneers of Oneness, Gerard Aartsen applies the keynotes of the new time to discover what insights a synthesis of science, religion, the Ageless Wisdom and the teachings of the space visitors reveal about the nature of reality. These excerpts show how today’s sharp divisions and almost unbearable tensions may be overcome by facing our own tendency toward separatism, and by seeing them as the birth pangs of a new sense of oneness that is dawning on humanity.

At the juncture of history between two cosmic cycles, we witness the old structures failing, while the structures that will allow humanity to manifest the new cosmic keynotes of oneness and synthesis are not yet in place.

Long-standing dysfunction of political and economic systems always spawns conspiracy myths of secret groups ruling the world, like ‘the Illuminati’ or the ‘deep state’. The latter was cleverly used by far-right activists posing as whistleblowers (‘QAnon’) fuelling public distrust by spreading rumours of paedophilia and other atrocities allegedly committed by the global elite. In times of uncertainty, pandemics of fear, hatred and other viruses are fanned by intolerant and incompetent leaders who create an ‘enemy’ to take control of a system that is breaking down. The insecurities among people that result are then easily projected on ‘the other’ — whether it be the Jews in the 1930s or the refugees and migrants in our time.

Nevertheless, references in the media to “structures that no longer work” are becoming a regular occurrence and reinforce the sense of urgency and the promise of a new world. Seventeen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke in these terms when she said, in June 2020, that society has reached a tipping point where injustice can no longer be ignored: “The climate and ecological crisis cannot be solved within today’s political and economic systems. That isn’t an opinion. That’s a fact.”

Not surprisingly, this sense of anticipation is embedded in the Ageless Wisdom Teachings for the new age, but it is equally present in the information coming from space. In his contribution to Crop Circles — Harbingers of World Change, one of the first books about crop circles, archaeologist Michael Green outlines the connection between the UFO and the crop circle phenomena. He makes various references to the work of H.P. Blavatsky and Alice A. Bailey and concludes his chapter by saying that various great cosmic powers have been released on humanity: “This process constitutes, I believe, the formal beginning of the New Age, or ‘Second Coming’ in Christian parlance. The crop formations are the visible sign to humanity that the Kingdom of God is upon us.”

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The Center for Strategic and International Studies* reported in March 2020: “We are living in an age of global mass protests that are historically unprecedented in frequency, scope, and size. (…) The size and frequency of recent protests eclipse historical examples of eras of mass protest, such as the late-1960s, late-1980s, and early-1990s. Viewed in this broader context, the events of the Arab Spring were not an isolated phenomenon but rather an especially acute manifestation of a broadly increasing global trend.”

In fact, says Benjamin Creme’s Master, “Many there are today who, in their hearts, renounce the iniquities of the present materialism which pervades the planet. They long for justice and peace and march and demonstrate for their fulfilment.”

And although protests sometimes escalate into violence or descend into plunder, studies show that protests should not be feared or shunned for such excesses. In one, social psychologist Amber Gaffney, from Humboldt State University in California, found that polarisation is a perfectly human response to our fallibilities and flaws. She says: “When people are highly uncertain of themselves and their motivations,” [that is, when they are out of touch with their soul, the core of their being] “different types of leadership become more attractive, like autocratic leaders in democratic societies” who play on this uncertainty using rhetoric like ‘We’re losing who we are’. Yet, some of the biggest positive social changes, she says, “have been the result of minority groups with strong cohesion and a clear identity. When we see positive social change, it comes from a minority. Think about the civil rights movement, women’s vote. They are all incredibly positive, but they started with minority groups — they were the outsiders working against the norm.”

Many who have been working for decades to spread the message of the Space Brothers, as others have for the Emergence of the World Teacher, may lament how long it is taking for their hopeful vision of the future to materialize. The closing words that Major Hans Petersen wrote in his report of George Adamski’s European tour in 1963 could have been written for our time: “And so you are alone — perhaps treading your own lonely path — in a world where contrasts meet more sharply than ever before. (…) Depression is great, as never before – murder, violence, crime, accident, swindle, sickness and stress, all to an extent so great that one cannot think that it could be worse. But the plan — which follows with the presence of the flying saucers in our atmosphere and the space people’s work among us — will soon begin to be seen. When that happens a great many things will be changed; and then the pace will quicken. Progress will roll in over us, and the law of cause and effect will adjust the balance and equilibrium in our world.”

From: Gerard Aartsen, Pioneers of Oneness. The science and spirituality of UFOs and the Space Brothers. BGA Publications, October 2020; 276 pages. ISBN: 978-90-830336-0-0.

[*The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a think-tank based in Washington, DC in the United States. CSIS was founded as the “Center for Strategic and International Studies” of Georgetown University in 1962. The CSIS conducts policy studies and strategic analyses of political, economic and security issues throughout the world, with a specific focus on issues concerning international relations, trade, technology, finance, energy and geostrategy.]

In 2001, American environmentalist, entrepreneur and author Paul Hawken began questioning experts about how global warming could be halted and reversed. By that time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had published three reports warning that global warming would have damaging future impacts. Hawken wanted to know the most effective solutions, their potential if scaled up, and how much they would cost. He quickly learned there was no such inventory.

Fast forward to 2013, after Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth had rattled the public and further climate reports implied that it might be ‘game over’ for the planet. Always the optimist, Hawken preferred to see it as ‘game on,’ and in 2014 he co-founded the non-profit group Project Drawdown with environmentalist Amanda Joy Ravenhill.

Drawdown refers to the time when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline, thereby stopping catastrophic climate change. The co-founders’ goal was to identify, measure and model 100 substantive solutions toward achieving drawdown to see what could be accomplished in 30 years.

In 2013, the most widely stated climate goals were to slow down or stop greenhouse gas emissions, but to Hawken those were necessary but insufficient goals. “If you’re traveling down the wrong road, you are still on the wrong road if you slow down,” he opined. The only goal that makes sense is to reverse global warming, he thought — and there was no roadmap for that. ProjectDrawdown would become that plan, but in a unique and holistic way.

Hawken and Ravenhill gathered the elements of a roadmap from humanity’s collective wisdom, as demonstrated in widely available practices and technologies that were economically viable and scientifically valid. Their sources were individual farms, communities, cities, companies and governments. For data collection and analysis they pulled together a coalition of researchers and scientists who compiled a comprehensive list of climate solutions. From that list they chose those with the greatest potential to either reduce emissions or draw down and store carbon from the atmosphere, reviewed the literature on each solution, and devised climate and financial models for each. Then outside experts evaluated inputs, sources and calculations.

Drawdown — the book and website

A summary of the findings was published in 2017 in a book edited by Hawken: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming. Surely as comprehensive as the subtitle asserts, it presents 100 ecologically sound ways to ‘draw down’ carbon from the atmosphere by working in co-operation with natural systems. The intention was to organize the information in useful ways, distribute it widely, and invite readers to amend, correct or add to the information, which was simultaneously placed on the drawdown.org website.

Both book and website are organized into eight sections: Energy, Food, Women and Girls, Buildings and Cities, Land Use, Transport, Materials, and Coming Attractions.

Every solution entry contains: information on its history and science, some examples, a ranking in terms of its global emissions-reduction potential, an estimate of how many gigatons of greenhouse gases it avoids or removes from the atmosphere, and its costs.

Updated regularly on the website is a summary of all the solutions and their relative rankings in terms of effectiveness in reducing or drawing down carbon. These rankings are perhaps the most surprising part of the work of Project Drawdown, in that the most effective approaches are not what we would expect. Who would have guessed that refrigerant management and alternative refrigerants would both be in the top 10? That reducing food waste would be number one? Or that educating girls and family planning would be the second most important way we could reduce carbon emissions?

Since the book was published, Project Drawdown’s research has continued, and just this year they published the latest update — the Drawdown 2020 Review — available for free download from their website. They also produced a report linking achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with Project Drawdown solutions. Ultimately, we can build a regenerative society, because when we implement natural solutions to solve the climate emergency, we produce a plethora of cascading benefits to human and planetary well-being as well. Necessary requirements will be a new paradigm of co-operation, a vision of possibility and the collective will to address the issue. (…)