Natural Catastrophes That Change History

Description

THE INSTITUTE FOR THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES, LTD.

AUTUMN LECTURES 1962 

J.G. Bennett

FIRST SERIES –

#1      NATURAL HAPPENINGS AND HISTORICAL EVENTS

#2      NEW LIGHT ON ATLANTIS AND THE EXODUS

#3      THE HYPERBOREAN CULTURE – ITS ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION

#4      THE COMING ICE AGE

excerpt from “The Coming Ice Age”:

” … it brings me back to the original theme, the theme of this whole series of lectures, and that is of the connection between natural events and human events. Of the evidence that there is a providential connection that what happens in nature – and under the laws of nature – which of course we do not really know – has something behind it, some pattern, some providential working that connects it also with what is happening to the life, to the Earth, to life on the Earth, and especially to the life and history of man.

I think that this providential connection between the events of the material world and the events of human history can be found in quite small things – even in our everyday lives – in sudden and extraordinary catastrophes – such as I have spoken to you about in the first and second lectures – in the longer-term changes that have resulted in, for example, the concentration of cultures, such as appear to have originated the appearance of the great languages of the Earth, and also at certain times probably outside the present range of our present historical vision but perhaps within range of our future vision; or at least that of our children, there has been a providential action on a very great scale, on an Earth scale, in order to bring human history back on to its predestined course. Actions that in part are on the Earth, in the natural environment, part also within the human psyche, the human experience. We must not think of these two as quite divorced, unconnected with one another, as if what happens to the Earth has no significance for human life except as forming the outward, indifferent environment of human history. On the contrary, I think that our environment and we ourselves are so intimately connected that what is happening to the one is bound to be influenced by the other, and both of the two are being guided by providential action that is certainly far beyond our human understanding.”