I recently watched a YouTube video by a well-known ‘spiritual’ coach who specializes in the Law of Attraction. He was effervescing about the coming of the ‘great awakening’ that will be attendant upon the coronavirus crisis. His source? His proof? A few channeled messages that he read in a couple of books by Dolores Cannon, cross-referenced with a show he watched on Gaia TV. Not much, then, huh? Yet his claims are taken on board by thousands of subscribers to his channel. And there are many like-minded light workers spouting the same message: the great awakening is happening.

What gives this guy, Cannon, Gaia TV, and anyone else professing the advent of a great awakening the right to such ‘privileged knowledge’? What gives these people license to make such sweeping claims: channeled spirits or inter-galactic beings from other dimensions, their intuition, or something they read in a book or watched on the TV?

Or perhaps it is more to do with the fact that many light workers have been waiting for this ‘great awakening’ to happen, because the very idea of it is instilled in us in all the stuff we read, watch, and listen to as we embark on our spiritual journeys. The coronavirus pandemic is a global crisis, so it must be the great awakening, right?

I would like to pose the question: is the coronavirus crisis really the great awakening we have all been waiting for? Personally, I don’t think it is. Rather, I think it is an awakening of sorts, but not the great awakening some people profess it to be. Here’s why.

The duration of the coronavirus pandemic is not, relatively, very long. Two or three months of social lockdown is hardly enough to change the world as we know it. Sure, it may affect the economy for months, even years to come; but will it change our perceptions, beliefs, and values for good? Will it raise the vibration of humanity? Will it awaken the higher self of eight billion people? If anything, two or three months is long enough for people to want to return to their previous reality in order to re-establish some sort of normalcy, routine and security amidst the disruption to their everyday lives. It is not enough to change the world forever, but it is enough to reinforce the importance of what we had prior to the outbreak of the virus.

If it is a question of scale, then the death toll is not extraordinarily high when compared with other pandemics that have afflicted the human race. The Spanish flu, for example, killed upwards of 100 million people. At the time of writing, the mortality rate of coronavirus is around 130 thousand people, which is 0.0016% of the human population. What is more, other pandemics that have spread across the globe in the past — far more serious ones — did not lead to an awakening of our collective consciousness: the Spanish Flu didn’t; SARS didn’t; MERS didn’t; and neither did the Great War, or World War Two, or any international conflict since. Indeed, any global crisis could be seen to be the beginning of a great awakening; but to date, none of them have been, so why is coronavirus different?

A number of spiritual people are jumping on the bandwagon of various, spurious, ludicrous conspiracy theories in order to make the coronavirus seem more significant in order to justify their claims that this must be the great awakening; but what if this isn’t the great awakening after all? What then? It is as if some spiritual people are so desperate for this event to be the great awakening that they are trying to make it so — or make it seem so — by inventing all sorts of wild and wonderful claims, and by inventing all sorts of conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact or reality.

But why?

Since the start of their spiritual journeys, light workers have been waiting for this moment in our human history: the paradigm shift, the shift to fifth-dimensional consciousness, the great awakening or whatever we choose to call it has been instilled in us in the books we read, in the YouTube videos we watch, and in the spiritual groups we interact with, so wouldn’t it be awesome if we actually got to experience this event and, what is more, play a key part in it? After all, isn’t it the Age of Aquarius, which is when the Great Awakening is supposed to happen? That is assuming it actually is the Age of Aquarius, because the thing is, no one can actually agree when the Age of Aquarius started, plus it lasts for 2160 years. If the great awakening does indeed take place in the Age of Aquarius, then the chances are anyone reading this will not be around to witness it.

Moreover, mass, global, cultural change takes generations to take effect. To put it in perspective, to change the ‘culture’ of a medium sized organisation of around 3,000 employees, it takes over ten years, and that is with limited effect. Therefore, even if this coronavirus crisis were the catalyst to our great awakening, then once again we will not be around to see it. So perhaps our focus should instead be on the lessons we can learn for ourselves and for our world right now.

Whether a great, global awakening nor not, it appears that the majority of people within the spiritual community welcome some form of change following the end of the pandemic; they do not want to see a return to ‘norm’, the way things were, because for them it was the ‘norm’ — our behaviours, our beliefs, our perceptions, our habits — that was the problem in the first place. For me, this sweeping perspective does not do the human race justice. For many, a return to the ‘norm’ is welcome: a return to spending time with friends and loved ones; a return to their livelihoods; a return to routine and structure; a return to wellbeing and security; a return to our basic freedoms such as being able to go to the park, a restaurant, a café, or the gym. As things are, the police cannot focus on tackling many crimes as they are deployed for crowd control; healthcare workers are overworked and at the point of burn out; the economy is at risk of collapse with the threat of a subsequent recession that will impact us for years to come. With this in mind, was the ‘norm’ really so bad? For me, the awakening attendant upon the pandemic is simply a lesson in gratitude, for it makes us appreciate what we had: it enables us to appreciate the very ‘norm’ that so many people are resistant to. For this reason, the awakening is more a matter of remembering, and it is not so ‘great’, for it simply serves to valorise what we had before the pandemic, and it helps us to better appreciate it. Gratitude, then, becomes the foundation, the basis, for building something better for the future, whatever that may be.

For those people who do not want to return to the ‘norm’, then they might want to question why: for example, what is it about their lives that they are afraid of returning to. Perhaps some people are so dissatisfied with their existing reality that they welcome the idea of a reborn society, for it provides a different reality than the one they currently have.

The idea of a great awakening, paradigm shift, or beginning of a New Earth — based on flimsy conjecture and with nothing real or robust to back it up — is a less noxious example of the fake news currently being spread by a number of conspiracy theorists who profess to be ‘spiritual’. Put simply, someone invents a wild theory that has no basis in reality or fact, shares their unfounded opinions, which then gains traction on social media, subsequently attracting many like-minded but easily led people to believe it as some sort of ‘truth’; but in reality, their theory is an opinion at best, nothing more: it is purely subjective and is not validated by objective data or fact. Other people believe in it without asking questions and, on a larger scale, we soon find that the invented fictions are more popular than the actual facts of a situation: the news we watch on the television is more ‘real’ than the fake news we read about on social media; but it is the very people who oppose the mass media who are inventing and disseminating that fake news. It is hypocrisy par excellence.

There is an inherent danger, not to mention a sheer lack of responsibility, in making unfounded claims. Let’s take the recent conspiracy theory about the link between 5G wireless technology and COVID-19: many people have fallen for the fake news and, as a result, a series of arson attacks have taken place across the globe whereby fanatics have burned down 5G phone masts. Consequently, vital calls to the emergency services could not get through: perhaps someone had suffered an accident, or had witnessed a crime, or was reporting a fire; but their call for help was in vain, leaving people vulnerable, or even at risk of death. Therefore, these insane and irresponsible arson attacks inadvertently posed a real threat to people’s lives, as if the threat of the pandemic wasn’t enough. When conspiracy theories, which are often invented and disseminated in the name of ‘spirituality’, lead to crime, mindless vandalism, and a threat to life, can we really believe that this is the ‘great’ awakening, when the very people who foretell the awakening are the catalysts for so much unnecessary social disorder, vandalism, and even death? What has it come to when the so-called prophets of the New Earth are inspiring unlawful violence? If this is the awakening, then it is not great. Actually, it is shameful. Arsonists and the like are people who are predisposed to violent, disruptive behaviours, and the conspiracy theory simply gives them an excuse to behave in such a shameful manner.

What is more, these so-called ‘spiritual’ people are highly judgmental of anyone who does not buy into their claims: rather than provide any robust evidence for their theories, they simply brand the unbeliever ‘ignorant’, ‘un-awakened’, or even accuse them of being part of the conspiracy itself. Does that not sound like the ego-centred mindset of the very authorities they claim to undermine and expose? Anyone who claims to be a spiritual person, light worker, starseed, or whatever else must do so with an understanding that people who are lost and searching for answers will look up to them, follow them, even emulate them. For this reason, there is a huge responsibility attached to the claims that we make about the world; but are our claims more about us than about the world itself?

Conspiracy theorists take great umbrage at being called a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for they believe they are the bringers of light and truth; but what truth? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and it is robust, sound, empirical evidence that is so often lacking in validating the conspiracy theorist’s subjective fictions. And so why do conspiracy theorists feel the need to invent such false realities? What psychological, emotional, behavioural, and socio-economic factors determine how they perceive and react to certain events? The recurring theme amongst the majority of conspiracy theories is a desire to expose some form of corruption amongst the powerful, the rich, and the elite: the general theme that there is a mass cover-up, or the authorities are out to get us. Therefore, we might ask ourselves: do we have some kind of unresolved trauma, fear, or experience relating to a person or persons of authority from our past? Perhaps there is an unresolved feeling of powerlessness attached to an early-life experience that makes some people interpret quarantine — which is essential for saving lives — as some form of entrapment, or breach of their human liberty. Unresolved issues from the past can manifest in various ways, and sometimes in the form of conspiracy theories. It is incumbent upon us, therefore, to be mindful of whether the false facts and fictions we invent are to do with the coronavirus, or more to do with ourselves.