The Force that Keeps Empires in Place

And how you can use it too

Regular subscribers to this channel may have noticed that I’m not doing much on Substack these days. I’m writing two books concurrently and this seems to give me enough of the daily literary catharsis that I need.

But I still feel myself on quite an inner journey over the last few months and I’m having insights and recollections that it feels appropriate to share.

At the end of the nineties, before I got into the therapy scene, I was involved for a couple of years in Qabalah and Rosicrucianism. In recent months, I’ve found myself drawn back into this world and the work that it entails. I’m reading a few books and doing a nightly meditative visualization exercise, based around an old glyph called the Cube of Space.

I’m also getting memories from the time when I was first in the self-development scene. I can recall when I moved into an Osho community in Dorset, where I ended up spending 17 years. In my first year in the community, there was one line from an old esoteric document, I’ve forgotten which one, that would go through my head on a regular basis. It went something like “The adept has the power to compel the universe to set him free at his leisure.”

It was a funny kind of line, I thought. Compelling the world to set you free, rather as though you could hold a weapon to its head. Reflecting on this line over and over, at some point I had the insight that for me it meant that if I took on work that needed doing in the greater scheme of things, I would receive the energy and insights that I needed to do this. I would get deep development, not from working on myself, but through doing something that was somehow aligned with the developmental needs of the human race.

I decided to give this a try and began to commit more to the community. I stepped up and took on managerial and directorial roles. Energy came. Insights came. The principle seemed to be true. It was as if there was a “grand plan” somewhere for humanity’s ongoing development. And that, if I took a small part of this plan on, I would receive the empowerment I needed in order to fulfill the task. There was a kind of cooperative relationship between the individual and whatever “great architect” might exist somewhere out there.

I had actually never believed in some kind of “god” or directorial agency and still struggle with this notion. But the level and depth of my experience was such that I couldn’t be too dismissive. There did seem to be some deep agency that operated through specific people to achieve certain ends.

Which brings me to the empire bit. Why should it be that, historically, certain nations or races have developed huge empires that were seemingly unstoppable for a while, before later collapsing, never to revive? Why was it, for example, possible for a race like the British to achieve such global dominion from, in many ways, such meagre resources? They were, I submit, piggy-backing on this notion of getting empowerment through doing something currently needed for humanity’s development.

Some great spirit moves through them, and when it’s finished with them, drops them back into obscurity again. Whilst they are needed, they are unstoppable. They seem to remain standing in the face of overwhelming challenge. When they are no longer needed, nothing they do seems to work any more. The simplest challenges, that they would have tackled with ease in earlier times, become insurmountable.

I think that this is how it works.

For me, I am reflecting on this principle, now that I’m no longer helping to run a spiritual community. I feel like I’m still taking on a couple of needed tasks, with my book-writing and online courses, and I feel energy coming to me for those. But maybe there’s a way I can utilize this principle to step up more. I need to be more busy with it.

Maybe there’s a task being presented to you in your life. I think that if it’s truly needed, then you will receive the empowerment needed to see it through.