The German word “volkgeist” has some pretty heavy baggage but carries a worthy idea, meaning in English “the spirit of the people.” The word became common knowledge after the Nuremburg rallies in Nazi Germany, where one was infamously filmed in all its astounding and frightening glory in the 1934 epic “Triumph of the Will.” Hundreds of thousands of Germans attended the festivals that ran annually until 1938, along with tens of thousands of helmeted troops, often lit up during the night with blazing torches illuminating giant swastika flags. Hitler’s speeches were nearly hysterical, and the people clung to them like drunken fans at a rock concert. The crowds and the leader were one. They shared a terrifying volksgeist in a frenzy of national unity.
We are all aware of our own segments of volksgeist. A rock concert was mentioned above, but we also feel it at sports games and revival rallies and, yes, political rallies. This feeling of the “folk will” can be small or overpowering, long-lasting or evanescent, dark and scary or light-filled and hopeful. We had our own frenzy of national unity after 9/11, which led to major, even drastic changes in domestic and foreign policy, including the implementation of a few “forever wars.” We are now having these frenzies in a divided nation beneath the shadows of the coming presidential election. Harris benefitted through the Democratic Convention, and now Trump has it, the frenzied spirit, in lieu of a few assassination attempts and what- have -you. It may not last, just as the initial Harris “vibe” did not last.
This thing, this spirit of the people, is hard to maintain through intentional force, although people and groups of people try. Hitler did it very well, aided by a set of disastrous events in the past followed by a startling succession of successful conquests. In such cases, failure is the quickest way to neuter the buzz. In this country today, the opposition to Trump is trying to stomp out the momentum with buckets of everything thrown against the wall in hopes that something might stick. Something might. A buzz is usually not based on tangibles (although Hitler’s initial success was very tangible), and so can rise and fall as easily as notes on an amped-up electric guitar, even on a national scale.
My first realization of a serious national volksgeist came during the most profound era of change in recent American history: the 1960’s. The younger audience might laugh or yawn, but the repercussions were tangible and profound. From sexual mores to government programs to race relations, everything changed, for better and for worse. I wrote about it in the beginning of my hitchhiking autobiography Dream Weaver. For the young, the vibe was magical, a siren call to utopia that was so overwhelming that the impossible seemed inevitable. It fizzled away in the 70’s, but left us with the world tremendously changed.
Fizzled away; to those who were political actors in the 60’s, the volksgeist was purposefully infiltrated and worked out exceedingly well, but for the rest of us young dreamers, the vibe erupted, burped, then slipped into a pair of flared white double-nit hip-huggers to dance the Disco. Yet there was an expectation that this 60’s vibe was the beginning of a new era, the Aquarian Age, described by another German word, the “zeitgeist,” or spirit of the age. This supposedly is to have much deeper roots than the volksgeist and should carry us through the next 2,000 years, just as Jesus carried the age of Pisces, the fish, for the last 2,000. What, though, can we say of the meaning of numbers? While past civilizations thought numbers were magical, we do not; they number things and that is it. 1,000 or 10,000, they are simply human constructs, nothing more than digits that can run through a super computer like pizza through a frat house.
But there are things that are happening that are creating a world-wide vibe at “zeitgeist” levels. We have spoken here before of the supposed words and prophecies of Our Lady (the Virgin Mother of Christ) at Medjugorje in the otherwise bedraggled nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Within the lifetime of at least some of the 6 children who were and still are being given visions, an era-changing event is supposed to happen (the children are now mid 50’s to 60). Supposedly, a sign of Christ will appear in the sky, and everyone will be subject to a life-review, something that is usually given to each of us at our death. Some will die from fright, but others will see themselves as God sees them, and because of that they will fundamentally change their lives. We can only imagine the magnitude of this change. It would truly bring a new era, a new zeitgeist, a new age, just as we felt was certain back in the 60’s, and just as the astrologers have predicted for two thousand or more years.
Predictions are easy, however, and we have seen so many pass by unfulfilled. In the first millennium, whole towns in Europe stopped work and hunkered down for the new age. It did not happen, and it is probable that many starved to death following that cold New Year’s Day. Another end of an era was expected after the bubonic plagues of the 14th century. In retrospect, a new age – the modern era of individualism, secularism, and capitalism - did come to Europe, heralded by the Renaissance, but such changes occurred over centuries as a “process” rather than as a singular miraculous event. There certainly were sudden shifts in places like Milan and Florence, but they did not impress the whole continent as a new age.
Regardless, a millennial-style shift seems to be embedded in our DNA, and such things have occurred. The appearance of the Spanish galleons off the cost of Mexico in 1519 comes to mind. The Aztecs had expected it from their own prophets, just as all of Christendom has been taught to expect a second coming and an apocalypse as well. Such was first predicted by Christ for the Jews, and it did occur with the diaspora and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans some 40 years after his death. But for the rest of the Middle East and Europe, the complete rise of the Christendom – and the new era – was not really fulfilled until the coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day of 800. It took a long time to get there, and I don’t believe it was taken by the masses as a shining new age. Should we expect anything different?
There is more news from Medjugorje. A large group of Catholics went there just weeks ago, many of them friends of ours. One spoke to a priest established there who is known for his great eloquence. Decades before, he had received his M.D. from Oxford and was on his way to a comfortable living when he was mysteriously called to Medjugorje. There, he had various visions and locutions from Mary, along with (if I remember correctly) hauntings from demons, all leading to his becoming a priest and great evangelizer. With such credentials he is well respected and not to be taken lightly. So when he said the following (purportedly) to my friend, she took notice: the great change, he said, the new era, the time of the illumination, all of that spoken of by Mary at Fatima and Medjugorje and Akita (Japan) and Kibeho (Rwanda) and other places will occur within the next 2 years.
Of what we know, the change will not be subtle nor take centuries to manifest. The world has been exposed to the conscience-changing spirit of Christ, and now the time to complete the first phase of this history, this “age of Pisces,” is upon us, which will lead suddenly to a new age. Coincidentally, this would be right on target according to numerologists - almost exactly 2,000 years after the resurrection of Christ and the exposure to the world of the Holy Spirit.
What should we make of this? This prediction is recorded here, and if nothing happens in the next two or three years, we might dismiss our priest’s prophecy. If nothing happens in at most 40 years towards this end, we might be able to discard the whole lot of the Marian prophecies.
So: on the cusp of this great event or great fiasco, I have to ask everyone: do you feel it? Many boomers felt the ‘60’s vibe, many reading this felt the Obama vibe, and we have recently experienced the blip in vibes of our two presidential candidates. But this event is so much bigger. Perhaps we should sense it as wild animals sense the coming of earthquakes. The priest in Bosnia felt it, and I, not gifted in this way, do as well. Many Christians are biased towards this belief, but whose world view isn’t in one way or another? And could not a bias held by so many severally affect reality?
But we are not talking about a movement of social phenomena here. A miracle has been promised, and there can be no taking it back with hedging and excuses. The visionaries of the last century and then some were and are either off their rocker or were and are speaking the word of God through Mary. So I ask again, do you sense the coming of the new zeitgeist? If so, we have been told how to prepare. If not, if it is all hogwash, we will all die someday and should still prepare. That last prediction you can take to the bank.
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