Arrogant Prophecies -- Avoiding Unnecesscary Confusion

My postings on the Arrogant prophecies are not going at all like I thought they would.

I discovered something in the footnotes that had escaped my attention to which I think is quite pertinent that I draw your attention and that is way we take a small detour today.

I was quite aware that the unknown poet from the Third Galaxy had a view on the matter of prophecy different than the commonly accepted. From what that I had received earlier from Ishman, the formerly unemployed angel who has been sent on a secret mission to an undisclosed location, the unknown poet's view is that "Prophets are not 'chosen', for the Great Potato speaks to us all in the same voice -- rather, prophets are simply those who try to listen..."

But, shall I not let the unknown poet speak for himself?

"As I read the story of what we've done and do,
my heart breaks for sorrow, my head bows for shame.
We have killed all our yesterdays and tomorrows
and today is busting into flame."

But what is prophecy? It is a common misunderstanding that prophecy is foretelling the future – it just ain't so. In our culture, the touchstone for prophecy is the Book of the Holy Idaho. However, the Book is not at all prophetic in the sense of telling about future events which are
later fulfilled.

Preachers will tell you fables about "fulfilled" prophecies in the Book. But these were either written long after the historical facts they "foretell", or have to be misread and/or taken out of context. But such shenanigans give no, or what is much worse, can give almost any meaning.

There are those who abuse the Book and pretend to find in it divine screenplays for the End Times, Raptures, Second Comings and all kinds of nonsense of that order. These people are false prophets of the worst sort, that is to say, false prophets as they understand the term!

To write, sing, run, shout, speak, dance – to in some little way to try to tell about the way things really are – here, right now, in the world today – doing this not to gain fame and fortune, or to curry favor from, or out of fear of, the established power structures of the society in which you live – to do this out of love of our common humanity – that is to prophesy.

This is the sense in which William Blake* understood prophecy.

The present is the son of the past and the future is the spirit of the present carried forward – that is, the future is the unfolding of possibilities implicit in the present which are there as a heritage of
the past.

The terrifying thing today, which is almost enough to make a person bang their head against the wall, is the obvious fact that this slide into Arrogance, a world run by criminal negligence is emptying the present of possibilities for a future.
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* The reader may be puzzled to hear William Blake mentioned here -- however, as I have written before, the Third Galaxy is parallel to our own and some things are more parallel than others!