New personality types are created during social and spiritual crises of religious, political or economic origin.
     --Otto Rank, Beyond Psychology, 1958.

What kind of “paradigm shift” are we being prepared for in these days? What roles are we playing in this? What’s going on here?

Theologian Matthew Fox writes that the “coming of the Cosmic Christ” is part of a paradigm shift, one that can be anticipated via various actions that are laid out by Thomas Kuhn in his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. These descriptions include seeing “nature in a new way; a shift of vision; a transformation of vision; a conversion; a map or a director for making a map; and a switch in visual gestalt.” Kuhn says this is a “community issue”—one in need of “reeducation…during the era of a paradigm shift,” according to Fox. We are certainly being reeducated during these days, no?

It will require different roles of different persons—indeed it may require an entirely different person (Fox, in The Coming of the Cosmic Christ).

Perhaps the Cultural Revolution in the 1960’s laid the groundwork for what is coming in the next few years. True, a return to the 1950’s-style is in the works now, but wasn’t the 1960’s revolution a result of those very-same 1950’s conservative styles? Have we been given a model, of sorts, in which to bring about another cultural revolution? What did the “Roaring 20’s” follow? A strict, conservative decade of the 1910’s. Perhaps we are indeed looking at a real paradigm shift in terms of a revolution.

The 1950’s saw the American people fighting communism via the “Red Scare.” We, today, are experiencing a similar attack against “the other” via George W. Bush’s “War on Terrorism.” People are frightened in America and have been sold a bag of goods that has left them powerless.

Kuhn writes in The Structure of Scientific Revolution (via Fox):

The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with other.”

In other words,” writes Fox, “a paradigm shift requires generosity, courage, and sacrifice.” Are we prepared for a sacrifice with courage? Fox quotes Rank in regards to this idea of sacrifice being necessary for a paradigm shift:

We are at one of those crises in human history in which once again we must sacrifice one thing if we want the full enjoyment of another….There seems to be a spiritual law whereby nothing can be wholly won or enjoyed without something being given up or sacrificed for it (Rank, Art and Artist, 1975).

I sit here thinking of Rank’s comment regarding “new personality types,” which was written in 1958, and also, his words regarding sacrifice, which were written in 1975. We are now in 2005 and both decades’ of comments from this esteemed psychologist are proper for the “new paradigm” we are now entering.

Why is this new paradigm that Fox writes about in 1988 taking so long to become evident in our culture? Am I missing what is actually taking place? Has this shift already begun, and are we being called to help propel this shift into a new phase—new energy, new momentum, new bridges between cultures and ideas coming through our work?

Perhaps there are new creative ideas coming to us that are part of this new stage of the paradigm shift. Perhaps a more focused effort to heal the planet with a unity of cultures and nations is something that is being brought about in this moment. Fox writes that in times of a paradigm shift, attending to the “theological perspective” is vital. He quotes sociologist Robert Bellah:

No one has changed a great nation without appealing to its soul….Culture is the key to revolution; religion is the key to culture (Bellah, The Broken Covenant).

This is all certainly coming out via religion, art, music, psychology, sociology, politics, truly in the words of Fox, “science, mysticism, and art creating together a vision for existence.”

“A paradigm shift is clearly both a spiritual and a cultural event of great significance,” writes Fox. The war in Iraq; new political powers in Latin America such as Mexico and Brasil; massive weather changes across the world—evident by the tsunami in Asia, the earthquake in Pakistan, hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, strange weather patterns in the United States and South America; all of these Earth-related and culture-related changes are potential signs for a great paradigm shift that involves humans but is also being orchestrated by the planet itself.

Not only is the energy of the Cosmic Christ considered to be part of each human, but it is also part of the planet—and this energy is perhaps being awakened in each of us, and also in the Earth as well. Too much is at stake for the planet not to be awakened for this change.

Does the Cosmic Christ represent a true second coming, an ushering in of a spiritual and cultural renaissance that can heal the most poignant and urgent pain of our time—the crucifixion of Mother Earth? (Fox).

Perhaps, indeed, the messages coming to each of us in our dreams, in our visions, in our experiences with plant medicines—each of these are reminding us of this urgency, of the need to begin healing Mother Earth in a new, creative, innovative way. This is the new paradigm, the shift in our consciousness towards a new way of being.

Maybe each of us has been born into this age in order to serve as vessels, containers, for this Cosmic Christ energy—this is the second coming that modern religion has heralded for ages. “God became a human being in order that human beings might become God,” quotes Fox from the ancient Clement of Alexandria. Maybe the energy within each of us is being awakened now, during these days, through music, art, literature, the plant kingdom, and the healing arts. We each chose to incarnate during this era of time in order to begin what is to be the conscious healing of the planet, and in healing the planet in this manner, we heal ourselves and our society.

But it won’t be easy.