The Dramatic Universe (“DU”) was John Godolphin Bennett’s Magnum Opus – a book that attempted to capture the total human situation through a new and integrated cosmology, psychology and anthropology - and clearly influenced by his association with G.I.Gurdjieff, Sufism and Islam, Eastern Religions and Catholicism, and his military and industrial career.
DU’s central thesis was that all life on Earth, in particular human life, has been “guided” by higher intelligences (identified as Demiurges, non-corporeal entities such as Angels, Elohim, Jins) from the very beginning. The last published volume of DU, Volume IV – History, first printed in 1966, provides an interesting appraisal of the future needs of mankind based on its previous guided trajectory.
Bennett’s foresight predicted the cultural, political and technological explosions, and their consequences, that we see today. These include the impact of mass communications on the human psyche (i.e., social media and the internet), pervasion of computing and logistic systems on economic and social life (i.e., artificial intelligence and the Internet-of-Things) and geo-political instabilities (i.e., changes in world order) that would plague the remainder of the 20th Century and into the 21st.
Bennett insisted that these consequences would need to be redressed in line with the conscious and guided evolution of the biosphere within 2-3 generations to avoid global catastrophe, the likes of which would be unprecedented.
The “key” to critically addressing the myriad of consequences was a focus to increase the production of people who have formed a high degree of Soul quality that can mediate and communicate with these higher intelligences. The necessity of communication originates with the inherent risks associated with accelerated global change brought about by uncontrolled, egoistic human activity impacting every aspect of the biosphere.
Averting catastrophe and getting the human species “back on track” requires greater, direct cooperation from intelligences higher than human, but still limited. This is because the compressed time scales as a result of accelerated changes means restoration must occur within a few or less generations and not centuries or thousands of years with a slower pace of change.
According to Bennett, initiation of more overt cooperation commenced circa 1848 A.D., and ushered in the “Synergic Epoch” - that is, the idea of globally organised cooperation that eventually established such organisations as the United Nations (UN), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Health Organisation (WHO).
It also saw the growth of ecumenical and interfaith initiatives and international social organisations across the globe. We now see, particularly through the experiences of COVID-19 and succeeding economic disruption, these cooperative organisations being greatly utilised, for better or worse.
In Bennett’s view, the Synergic Epoch was prepared through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This unique event in human history enabled a special quality of energy (DU’s “Unitive Energy” or “God’s Love”) to begin to flow into human life to make “redemption” - or a personally restored relationship with God (and by default, better cooperative relationships with others) – possible. But, it must be noted, redemption was made possible, not assured, unless the appropriate “inner work” was undertaken.
For the preceding 2,000 years of Christendom, the stage was set for the Unitive Energy of the “Parousia” (the Second Coming of Christ) to work its way through the newly forming Epoch and its infrastructure, much like the entry of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that fuelled the spreading of the Gospel.
It may be that the accelerated unfolding of globalisation and technological innovation, disruptive as it may be, is preparing the establishment of a new world order that could give practical effect to the governing of the Earth through God’s Love. Following Biblical prophecy, things, of necessity, must get worse before they can get better!
Through these trying times, those of steadfast faith in the guiding hand of providence may have the advantage in surviving the stresses and strains until a New Heaven and New Earth are born. This doesn’t mean that “blind faith” should prevail.
On the contrary, the "Age of Soul" has arrived when the survival of our species rests with those who can critically discern the egoistic forces flowing through people and organisations with that of divine origin.
As Bennett indicated in DU, it appears that we are living through one of the most interesting periods in the history of life on Earth!