Herd Intuition

Many moons ago, I went to a day/night event at Madison Square Garden in NYC. As the crowd filtered in, it would have been impossible for even the most oblivious observer to not see that that was an ugly environment. Drugs were sold openly, the language from the street folk was vile and confrontational, it smelled like an open sewer… And all in open daylight. Anyway, we got there, and as always, the show was over-hyped. Thankfully, the gala finally came to an end, but then there was that little issue of getting back to the car safely in the darkness. What were nasty streets at 4pm were downright dangerous at 10pm. But as the crowds left the arena something strange happened. Without any coordination or a spoken word, we immediately formed packs – groups of strangers sensing harm coalesced shoulder to shoulder. Each herd moved to its own parking area, and then broke up and left. It was a sort of collective consciousness at work.

I’m getting that same weird karma now about our country and our culture as it interacts with this new reality.

• Every other commercial on TV bellows the importance of gold as an investment, as if American paper money is reaching the end of days.
• The Toob has changed… Long gone are the days of the Sci Fi Channel running cheesy movies about giant mosquitoes – instead they’ve been replaced with “end of the world” stuff involving mega twisters, mega volcanoes, and mega earth faults. The History Channel has taken on the chant of “Hotel Ground Zero”;  “Clash of the Gods”; and probably most emblematic, “Life After People”.
• Video games are… well… frightening. And at this point, we don’t even talk about them. Others might, but we don’t.
• There’s no doubt that Iran will get a nuke while our elected geniuses bandy words with fanatics. (See link below.)
• Just heard tonight that Syria has its own uranium enrichment program going on. (Hell, why not? They’ve got so much conventional WMDs that they might as well join the Armageddon party…) Very little fanfare on the American homeland front though. Do you even know about this, or did you just take it for granted?
• Our economy over the next ten years?
• North Korea…
• Pakistan…
• What’s another car bomb in Iraq or another home-grown terrorist right here?
• Gun sales in the U.S.?
• Gee, Glenn Beck seems a little alarmed too, but who listens to him?

And it goes on and on and on… Lest you think I’m a complete nut (and the facts above don’t make you bristle just a little…) In 1913 (roughly a year before the start of World War I) psychologist Carl Jung dreamt of “rivers of blood”. And British politician Edward Grey had the same premonition of doom.

I can’t put my finger on it, but nonetheless, unless I miss my read, there’s a feeling in our collective gut (just like that night outside Madison Square Garden) that something’s brewing – that something very wicked this way comes. Be honest… Does your “Herd Intuition” tell you otherwise?

Alan Speakman