Prophecy is big business. Politicians, Corporations, scientists, advertisers all use prophecy to their own ends, to the extent that there is no spiritual value in prophecy; such has been the debasement of this sacred principle. However all is not lost.

Making a prediction with the intent to change the behaviour of people is the intent of prophecy. Tony Blair and George Bush used prophecy in their successful attempts to promote the invasion of Iraq. They approached the task with messianic zeal. Every prediction they made was completely wrong. No matter, they still continue with prophecies, unfazed by the failure of the predictions, because they got what they wanted. Certainly Iraq is apocalyptic in ways they never intended. They tried to ‘prove’ the links between the Iraqi regime and terrorism, and that is what they found – except that the terrorists arrived after the invasion.

Prophecy for political change

Prophecy works on the hopes and fears of the intended audience to cause mass social and political change. Prophecy works for the benefit of the group over the person; the group to help will be the ruling enclaves. Prophecy dis-empowers the person – making us weak, unable to influence events, precisely where politicians like us to be. Prophecy is something governments indulge in every day. Look at your news bulletins and note how many news stories that are about ‘Government plans’, the ‘Government intends to…’ ‘the Government will implement…’. Scientists do similar; ‘research shows… by 2010’. All these and similar statements move our perception away from the uncertainties of the present to the certainty of the future. The problem of course is that apart from the kite flying (to judge public opinion), none of the predictions ever come true. Distracting a crying two-year old child is often enough to stop it crying, but not for long, as the child remembers why it cried in the first place, and continues bawling.

Disempowering people

By focussing the audience on the future, the prophet endeavours to make us forget the present, which is usually a shambles. In order to hide the problems of the past, or to give the appearance the government is busy; policy (prophecy) statements about the future intentions, conveniently forgetting that the very same promises were made years ago. Mutton dressed as lamb.

Governments forecasts are covers for draconian measures on the population to remove civil liberties. The argument is simple. In order to protect the population against unknown threats (they are always faceless), the government has to increase police and military powers. It is a win-win situation for the government, for if there is an atrocity in the future (the odds are always that there will be), it is justified in its actions, even though the measures are irrelevant to determined terrorists, and if there are no terrorist atrocities, the government can say that they worked.

The relentless propaganda of cry-wolf inevitably results in public indifference at best, then suspicion and paranoia resulting in conspiracy theories. There is an added complication in that there seems to be an inverse power at work – not only do governments believe their own rhetoric, but they actually carry out plans based upon false prophecy. A graphic example is the terrible consequences in Iraq, created by naïve US government assumptions that the Iraqi population would cheer the invading US and British armies. A particularly good example is the belief that capturing Saddam Hussein would boost security, and yet precisely the opposite happened – insurgency rose to new heights. If I were the USA President, I would put off the trial of Saddam Hussein for as long as possible.

Biblical Prophecy

The Bible is a rich hunting ground for prophecy and prophets, and it is striking to note that how few of the prophecies ever came true. We can safely ignore predictions about the arrival of Jesus Christ, since there is obvious manipulation of the texts for political reasons. In fact, the Biblical Prophets grumble and complain that the populace ignore their imprecations. Nobody listens to prophets, particularly prophets of doom. Let’s face it; an obsession with the future is so miserable that the result is collective depression and gloom. As ever, Monty Python’s Life of Brian has some great scenes of prophets at work.

Prophecy works only to imbue fear or hope into the audience, so it is the response by the audience that counts, not the prediction itself. We are after all, still waiting for the Second Coming. Prophecy is endlessly inventive around the same formula. The Cold War terrified the population with the Red Menace and Nuclear annihilation, and then when the Berlin Wall came down, the security agencies had to invent new enemies to prove their existence, which is why there was a brief flirtation with the Drugs Wars before the ideal faceless enemy full of religious fanaticism, was found in Islam.

The reality is that prophecy does not work, except to further the ends of those prophesying. The future does not exist, any more than the past is a reality. Nostalgia is always fifty years ago. Only the Now, the Present exists as a continuum. We understand the past in terms of the Now; we project our future on the present situation. The history of the past as we see it is always a reflection of the current social religious and political mores of the day. Predictions are always based on what we know now, not we do not know, which is why they are rarely innovative. The inevitable result is that we change the past in the present, and we change the future not by the future, but by the present. If we change now, the future will automatically change. Quantum mechanics tells us that the viewer always has an influence on the object of perception. Ask any physicist and he will tell you that the Arrow of Time is towards entropy.

The Gematria of Prophecy

The Hebrew word for prophet is NBYA. There are several possible roots – NBA to prophecy is one of them. However, there is a view, which I subscribe to, that the root is NBO to flow or gush forth along a channel. Relating to this is ‘hollow’ NBYB, which channels spiritual energy to come, or to bring (BVA). The function of the prophet is to channel spiritual energy through him or her to this world. HThNBA, which means to ‘prophecy himself’, in other words to build up spiritual energy and power within the prophet. Prophecy is an internal process, which requires a clear channel for the Divine energy to flow through the body of the prophet. Any blockages or impurities in the channel will create major problems for the prophet, so he has to improve himself. This downward energy could well mirror the upward kundalini.

The gematria of HThNBA is 458, the number Covenant and clouds, heaven. The prophet is bound to the heavens by a promise. If we were using the Tree of Life, this would not make sense, since we would expect Kether to be the spiritual source. The nebulous plurality of clouds is heresy, but here is a pointer, since the heavens, ShMYM appears in the first verse of Genesis 1, and ChThN means marriage contract, and the bride, which suggests spiritual union, and the possibility of sex magic. Furthermore, the Song of Songs by Solomon is also brought to mind.