To The Editor,
The Age of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a symbol I learned long before the term became synonymous with children’s stories, and in a completely different context. In my view it represents the apprentice being loose in the sorcerer’s laboratory. Wanting to play. Holding tools, potents and information – but missing the sorcerer’s wisdom.
This came back to mind after learning of lab mice being infused with human cells, taken from a live aborted fetus; done with the goal of developing better subjects on which to test vaccines. From an objective viewpoint, it might appear a great idea. From the subjective side, what has been created? A measure of human awareness placed inside a mouse’s body, doomed to endless misery? The sorcerer would have known it is impossible to right some wrongs which should not have been done in the first place.
Similar situations exist with virus\disease development. Virtually every military has research ongoing into biological weapons of war. Making ever more deadly pathogens basically just because it can be done, lacking the sorcerer’s understanding that once the monster is released it must be fed.
The age of the sorcerer’s apprentice is a description of a symptom of humanity during a specific period of time, as laid out eons ago; describing the present period. The last in the ages and changes which take place in the cycle of time, as time and the consciousness of humanity unwind. It is just one of many originally laid out like lamps across a desert. But they shine like beacons these days.
Similar with the writings of ancient Hindu scripts which describe the devolution of human spirituality. Many of those mentioned indicators or symptoms of end times (which if even spoken of today as degradation rather than advancement, would be reason to be banned and mocked) are common in modern society. So I only quote one: Thieves will become kings and kings shall become as thieves.
Meanwhile the four horsemen roam in the background: Endless wars rage in countless countries with new and bigger on the horizon. More than 20 bombs per day on average fell on Afghanistan alone during 2019. (A piece of earth smaller than Alberta.) Locust swarms of biblical proportions are destroying East Africa, bringing with them the spectre of starvation. People the world over, it seems, are ill in body and mind in epidemic proportions, with new diseases threatening ever greater disasters.
I bring this subject up for no other reason than discussion. If time is truly cyclical, then we are in for the ride and nothing which happens on the objective side of life can change its course.
But looking at the world these days, it sometimes appears that many situations are created just because they can, not because they should, bringing mayhem and chaos instead of the imagined glory. As fits with the analogy of the sorcerer’s apprentice.
One person, whose opinion used to be widely respected, stated simply: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
Gordon Fraser,
Champlain
