An early version of the phrase appears in verses 620-623 of Sophocles' play Antigone: τὸ κακὸν δοκεῖν ποτ᾽ ἐσθλὸν τῷδ᾽ ἔμμεν' ὅτῳ φρένας θεὸς ἄγει πρὸς ἄταν; translated "Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction." And then, Plato's Republic (380a) quotes a fragment attributed to Aeschylus: θεὸς μὲν αἰτίαν φύει βροτοῖς, / ὅταν κακῶσαι δῶμα παμπήδην θέλῃ; translated "A god implants the guilty cause in men / When he would utterly destroy a house." Interestingly, this idea is found in the New Testament, in 2nd Thessalonians, as follows:
The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned. (2 Thess, 2: 9-12)In my extensive research, spanning over decades and across multiple topics and works, I have often delved into the idea that humanity's hubris and collective insanity may very well be the precursor to its destruction. In "The Apocalypse: Comets, Asteroids and Cyclical Catastrophes," I explored the notion that cosmic forces, beyond our control, have historically played a significant role in shaping the destiny of our planet and its inhabitants. But it is not just the celestial bodies that we must fear; it is the madness within ourselves that may ultimately lead to our downfall because there appears to be a 'stimulus-response' aspect to this cosmic destruction business.
CELESTIAL INTENTIONS
As I read through the piles of books on the archaeology, history (assumed and reasonably reconstructed from data), and especially the input from the sciences such as astronomy, geology and genetics that should accurately parallel the archaeology and history, but usually doesn't for many reasons, in order to collect the material for my various books, the one thing that became increasingly apparent was that, over and over and over again this planet has been bombarded by various types of impacts, the most common being the overhead comet fragment airburst of the Tunguska type. These events have repeatedly brought cultures, nations, even civilizations, to their knees. Dark Ages are inevitably the result, and then, when human society begins to recover, myths are created, religions are born, or re-born with twists and distortions, and always and ever, the facts of the previous era of destruction are covered up in veils of metaphor and allegory.
Why? What sort of madness is this?
It is actually very simple. Historically, when a people begin to perceive atmospheric, geological, climatic disruption and all the ills that these bring on a society, including, eventually, famine, plague and pestilence, they individually and collectively look to their leaders to fix things. That is where the concept of the Divine King came from to begin with: the king was supposed to be able to intercede for his people with the gods. If the king was unsuccessful with his intercession, a solution had to be found. Sacrifices were made, rituals were performed, and of course, if that didn't work, if the gods remained angry, then the king had to die. If the gods are angry, find a scape-goat. Obviously, the most likely scapegoats are those in charge when things go wrong, i.e. the 'king' and the elite. What's more, they know their vulnerability to this reaction instinctively. Postulating that such corruption (and its spread throughout society) is the mechanism by which a civilization attracts cosmic catastrophe, (something like an electric charge), blaming and deposing the elite is a good solution. Obviously, the elite do not want this.
In the end, the people and the elite both seek a paradigm that downplays cyclical catastrophes, but they do it for different reasons. The people want to relieve the enormous stress of a certain but unpredictable major catastrophe, while the elite want to remain in power. The compromise that serves both objectives is the illusion of an elite that is able to protect the people from any disaster. This illusion can take various forms: rituals to appease the gods, revision of history displaying a uniformitarian, uneventful evolution of humanity, and lots and lots of propaganda.
In a paper addressed to the European Office of Aerospace Research and Development, dated June 4th, 1996 and entitled, 'The Hazard to Civilization from Fireballs and Comets', astronomer Victor Clube wrote:
Asteroids which pass close to the Earth have been fully recognized by mankind for only about 20 years. Previously, the idea that substantial unobserved objects might be close enough to be a potential hazard to the Earth was treated with as much derision as the unobserved aether. Scientists of course are in business to establish broad principles (e.g. relativity) and the Earth's supposedly uneventful, uniformitarian environment was already very much in place. The result was that scientists who paid more than lip service to objects close enough to encounter the Earth did so in an atmosphere of barely disguised contempt. Even now, it is difficult for laymen to appreciate the enormity of the intellectual blow with which most of the Body Scientific has recently been struck and from which it is now seeking to recover. [Referring to the impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy on Jupiter in 1994.]The thing is, it sounds surprisingly like our own era, does it not? In fact, Clube draws the direct connection:
The present report, then, is concerned with those other celestial bodies recorded by mankind since the dawn of civilization which either miss or impinge upon the Earth and which have also been despised. Now known respectively as comets (>1 kilometre in size) and meteoroids (<10m).
Confronted on many occasions in the past by the prospect of world-end, national elites have often found themselves having to suppress public panic - only to discover, too late, that the usual means of control commonly fail. Thus an institutionalized science is expected to withhold knowledge of the threat; a self-regulated press is expected to make light of any disaster; while an institutionalized religion is expected to oppose predestination and to secure such general belief in a fundamentally benevolent deity as can be mustered. [...]
There are fundamental paradoxes to be assimilated as a result of this unexpected situation. Thus the perceived culture of enterprise and enlightenment which underpins the two centuries culminating with the Space Age and which led mankind to spurn comets and fireballs may now be seen as the prelude to a profound paradigm shift: the restoration of an environmental outlook more in keeping with that which preceded American Independence and which paid serious heed to comets and fireballs. [Emphasis mine] (Clube (1996))
...the Christian, Islamic and Judaic cultures have all moved since the European Renaissance to adopt an unreasoning anti-apocalyptic stance, apparently unaware of the burgeoning science of catastrophes. History, it now seems, is repeating itself: it has taken the Space Age to revive the Platonist voice of reason but it emerges this time within a modern anti-fundamentalist, anti-apocalyptic tradition over which governments may, as before, be unable to exercise control. ... Cynics (or modern sophists), in other words, would say that we do not need the celestial threat to disguise Cold War intentions; rather we need the Cold War to disguise celestial intentions! [Emphasis in the original] (Clube (1996) op. cit.)There are differences in detail and in scale, but the dynamics of a world gone mad, incredible cruelty running rampant, and global climate fluctuations are the same as we see before us now. We need to ask how our monumental blindness came about?
The lies of the elite in power work well during the periods of calm, however, history shows that when famines, earthquakes and plagues have struck and taken a heavy toll, when volcanoes erupt or comets blaze across the sky or meteor storms and weather anomalies increase, the illusion collapses, the raison d'être of the elites (i.e. protecting the people) collapses and the target has always and will ever be, ultimately, the ruling classes. And they know it. Thus, when anyone mentions these uncomfortable facts, they are silenced by ridicule and defamation, and even death.
The symptoms of an increased cometary activity are systematically covered up by the elites as man-made phenomena. The high jet contrails due to higher concentrations of atmospheric cometary dust are conflated with the 'chemtrails', sprayed by government agencies probably intended to dumb down the population; the ever more frequent overhead cometary explosions are presented as normal, or as missile tests; the weather changes due to changed solar activity or lading of the atmosphere with comet dust is labeled 'anthropogenic global warming', and humanity is blamed for everything that is happening.
By attributing the cause of those cosmically induced events to men, the elites maintain the illusion that they are in control. 'Chemtrails' can be stopped if the 'sprayings' end, missile tests can be stopped if the military can be coerced to do so, global warming can be reduced by controlling man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
However, high contrails triggered by increased cometary activity, overhead cometary explosions, and cosmically induced solar and weather disruptions cannot be changed by the elite. Not only that, if the public realizes this, they may also begin to think that the 'gods are angry' and try to find the real reason, settling ultimately on the corruption and violence of the elite in their efforts to get and maintain greater power.
If the masses of humanity were to recognize the real causes of such phenomena, that would entail recognizing the powerlessness of the elite and therefore the end of their 'mandate from heaven'. Dendrochronologist Mike Baillie comments:
The Chinese believed that an emperor could reign only while he enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven, that is, while he 'looked after his people'; if for any reason he failed to look after their well-being, Heaven would withdraw its Mandate and the emperor and probably his ruling dynasty would be deposed. ... Heaven would have been seen to withdraw its Mandate when the sky darkened, the crops failed and famine ensued bringing death to large numbers of people. The emperor, guilty or not, gets the blame for failing his people. In the aftermath of a calamitous dust-veil event the political upset could easily lead to the deposing of the ruling regime. ( Baillie (1999) p. 62.)Of course, in the beginning of such times of trouble, people want to believe that their government - their kings and ruling elite - are powerful enough, or pure enough, to control nature such that the floods, wildfires, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions cease and all returns to normal. And the ruling elite take advantage of this during such times by trying to find likely scapegoats in other nations, some minority group in their own country, or their personal enemies - including those who are pointing out that it just might be their corruption that is bringing on all the evils - so as to distract the larger populace from their own possible sins of commission or omission. This means that such a period can include protracted wars and the accompanying necessary burden of taxes, persecutions of this group or that group, generally increasing social hysteria and unrest, until finally, one day, the people, as a whole, wake up and see that their rulers have behaved very badly and all the blame gets dumped on them. This is ironic because an anthropocentric worldview where man believes he is in control stops people - even people in power - from being aware of the realities of our existence on this planet which include civilization destroying cosmic events. Victor Clube writes in The Cosmic Winter:
Even before the Black Death came, then, a human catastrophe of great proportions was under way in late medieval times. Indeed, the cold snap lasted well beyond the period of the ... plague. A number of such fluctuations are to be found in the historical record, and there is good evidence that these climatic stresses are connected not only with famine but also with times of great social unrest, wars, revolution and mass migrations. (Clube (1990).)Looking around, one cannot help but see the signs of collective insanity. Political leaders, driven by greed and power, lead their nations into endless conflicts. The media, once a bastion of truth, now peddles lies and manipulates reality, creating a world where facts are subjective and truth is a commodity. The masses, distracted by trivialities and consumed by consumerism, fail to see the bigger picture, oblivious to the looming dangers that threaten our very existence.
This madness is not new. History is replete with examples of civilizations that have succumbed to their own insanity before meeting their end. The Roman Empire, once a beacon of progress and culture, fell into decadence and chaos before it crumbled. Looking back at the history we notice how much like the Roman Empire our present civilization actually is. The Romans were certainly rational and scientific in many respects. They had factories which produced tableware that has been found at the farthest reaches of the Empire, even in peasant homes. They had factories that manufactured roof tiles that covered the heads of even the poorest workers and their livestock. A cache of letters was found in northern Britain where soldiers wrote home to have socks sent to them, which were, apparently, mass produced. The Roman army was superior because it had standardized equipment, produced in mass quantities at factories located in hubs of the Empire. Grain, olives, oil, foodstuffs of all kinds, luxury goods, were mass-produced and distributed throughout the Roman world. Literacy was obviously very widespread, even to the working classes. There were roads, sanitation systems, haute cuisine; in short, everything that we take for granted as essential to civilization. The only difference seems to be that we have harnessed sources of power that the Romans did not have, which enables our civilization to aspire to globalization. But in almost every other way, we are exactly like them. It is only science that has made us bigger and badder, so to say. And, as the saying goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. That fall may be the extinction of the human race.
The end of the Roman Empire witnessed horrors and dislocation of a kind I sincerely hope never to have to live through; and it destroyed a complex civilization, throwing the inhabitants of the West back to a standard of living typical of prehistoric times. Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever, substantially unchanged. They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency. (Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 183.)The Maya civilization, with its advanced knowledge and achievements, mysteriously collapsed, possibly driven to madness by environmental and societal pressures. And now, in our modern age, we see the same patterns emerging.
In my writings, I have often detailed how the manipulation of truth and the suppression of knowledge have been used as tools by those in power to maintain control. This deliberate obfuscation and distortion of reality can lead to a form of collective madness, where the populace is unable to distinguish between what is real and what is fabricated. This, in turn, creates a fertile ground for the seeds of destruction to be sown.
The current state of the world is a testament to this. We are bombarded with conflicting information, half-truths, and outright lies. The rise of social media has only exacerbated this problem, creating echo chambers where individuals are only exposed to information that reinforces their existing beliefs. This has led to a polarization of society, where rational discourse is replaced by vitriol and hatred. At the present moment, Elon Musk has positioned himself as one of the 'elite arbiters of truth'. He has taken the side of the Deep State against Venezuela; he is on the side of the genocidal Zionists against the true Semites of Palestine; he proclaims himself a champion of Free Speech and Truth while continuing to censor and suppress. (I certainly wouldn't want to be in his shoes on 'Judgment Day'. And make no mistake about it, there will be a Judgment Day, just nothing like what religions teach us.)
Furthermore, the environmental crisis that looms over us is a clear indication of our collective madness. Despite overwhelming evidence that the climate IS changing, and it isn't 'global warming' except as a precursor to an Ice Age and its devastating effects, we continue to get everything wrong. Stupid people like Bill Gates thinks he can fool Mother Nature by blocking out the sun, all the while 'green energy' claims that solar power is the way forward; how do you get solar power when the sun is blocked? Our oceans are choked with plastic, our air is polluted, and our forests are being decimated at an alarming rate made even worse by the ridiculous anti-CO2 scam. This destruction of our planet is not just an act of madness; it is an act of suicide. But I think that is intentional. Recall what Victor Clube wrote cited above:
Confronted on many occasions in the past by the prospect of world-end, national elites have often found themselves having to suppress public panic - only to discover, too late, that the usual means of control commonly fail.The elites of our day know this. And so, they seek to decimate the population to make it more manageable. That is undoubtedly at the root of the COVID vaccine horror as well as the efforts to curtail agriculture so that masses of people starve. It's right in their faces and still people don't do anything.
It is as if we are under a spell, unable to see the consequences of our actions or inaction. In much of my work I discuss the idea that there are forces beyond our understanding that may be influencing our behavior. Whether these forces are extraterrestrial or hyperdimensional, the result is the same: a humanity that is disconnected from its true nature and driven to such madness as transgenderism, widespread pedophilia, human trafficking, and worse. Again, the Apostle Paul addressed this:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.That is truly a description of Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat; Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God's decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die--yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them. (Rom 1:18-31)
Is there any hope? Throughout history, there have been those who have stood against the tide of insanity, who have sought to uncover the truth and awaken the masses. Most often they are ignored or killed. I don't think we can avoid the fate that the gods have seemingly laid out for us. All we can do is strive to see beyond the illusions and distractions, to seek out the truth and to reconnect with our true nature in hopes that some will survive the Global Cleansing that is coming.
In conclusion, the saying "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" is a chilling reminder of the path we are currently on. Our collective insanity, driven by greed, ignorance, and manipulation, is leading us towards destruction. Is it too late to change course? I do think that we have the power to change our course, to awaken from our madness, and to create a future that is not dictated by the whims of the gods but by our own enlightened choices. The question is, do we have the will to do so?
Sparks & invokes some frontiers of thought.
Answers are actually known but most people here don’t read outside the programming sources therefore limiting their own consciousness & knowledge - epistemological origins, gnosis - phronesis - sophia pistis.
Hadrian’s Pantheon Oculus already told us. 😎
Thanks SOTT for an article that promotes & provokes some thoughts outside of the box’s rather limited predictive programming.