In The Wisdom of the Overself it was briefly hinted that the twentieth century was the era of universal human enlightenment. I have been asked to expand upon this point. Just as the nineteenth century was the era of scientific enlightenment, so our own is the century of universal enlightenment. This is taking three forms. First, general education, intellectual knowledge, and scientific discovery will continue to spread throughout the whole world and will not reside mainly in the West. Second, they will become available to all classes and not be confined mostly to the middle and upper classes. Third, religion, mysticism, and metaphysics will reveal their realities and shed their superstitions, will be made more rational and thus will no longer be regarded as being displaced by science but rather as being necessary to complete it. Furthermore, the philosophy of truth, which is the highest kind of enlightenment possible to mankind, will become as easily accessible as it was remotely hidden in former centuries. Because we are at a cyclic turning-point, this is the century when truth will be let loose on the world. Not only ultimate truth which philosophy reveals for the few but also political, economic, social, religious, and scientific truth for the many. The falsehoods which dominate human society, the illusions which individuals and groups hug so fondly, and the lies under which society lives are being--and, we venture to predict, will be still more--shown up for what they are. This is one reason why we saw the phenomenon of a Nazi falsification of every branch of cultural and practical facts on a scale unheard-of in history. For it represents the scum which rose to the surface so that it might be cleared entirely away, the night which attained its darkest pitch just before the first ray of dawn. It also explains why we are seeing a second and similar falsification being attempted by the hierarchs of Communism. It is certain that if the Nazis had conquered, this world-wide illumination could not have spread but instead humanity would have been plunged into a new dark age far worse and far more materialistic than anything it had hitherto historically experienced. The danger of falling into spiritual eclipse was therefore real.
-- Notebooks Category 13: Human Experience > Chapter 4 : World Crisis > # 224
