Adam Blatner

Zordak told me: On your planet humans became fixated on the idea of kings as saviors. Your Western Bible has the interesting story of Samuel warning the Israelites against wanting a king, but to them the idea seemed compelling. They confused of the nature of leadership in military matters and spiritual development. Other peoples did this also, making the leader some sort of god, and using that as a way to abdicate personal responsibility. “He” would do it for us. So your concept of savior became associated with the myth of the hero, but people weren’t ready to take the myth of the hero into their own lives.

On some other planets they imagine that everyone can and should try to become a co-savior of the whole species and ecosystem. Every child (or species-word-equivalent) is “born” with a potential of helping to varying degrees and in varying ways to advance the evolution of consciousness on their planet. (These species realize that consciousness evolves as much as biological structures evolve. Most of the mainstream of your planet’s elite haven’t yet gotten that. It seems pretty obvious to us, but…)

Every parent, relative, teacher, community member, religious or cultural institution speaks to and in a way hinges on this realization of the potential of each new being for helping to raise not just ethical standards, but also any of their arts (promoting the aesthetic experience most readily translated as beauty); the sciences (discovery and invention); business (new ways of spreading the implications of art, science, education, etc.); politics (how best to create the circumstances to maximize creativity in all the aforementioned areas); and so forth.

Every child is imagined as being accompanied by a fairly hefty set of guiding spirits or angels to guide and support the unfolding of their creativity. (Of course each species has different names and notions of how these operate.) Certainly, this belief system, which of course varies among each species and planet, yet there are a fair number of different worlds that share this general insight!, leads to a kind of attitude that—not using English words (and often not even sound-moving apparatus for communication—i.e., “language”)—still gives the sense of the idea: “Every child a potential savior.”

Of course, many children—indeed, most—do not achieve their highest potentials, because their personal evolution is limited to some degree by the level of evolution of their culture and species; and, since most species are only partly evolved, some more than others, some, as for your planet, are in the relatively early stages of what you call “civilization,” so it’s not easy for children to learn all they need to really develop fully. The whole system evolves.

There’s something like your ceremony of Christmas on these other planets, too, also celebrating the ideal and idea of a “fresh start” or new beginning. On your planet (Earth), you have seasons (reversed for your “southern hemisphere), during which you have trees and plants that go through year long cycles of re-birth, flourishing, fading, wilting and hibernation or seeming death. On other planets, too, there are major geophysical and biological cues or symbols that become archetypal images to symbolize re-birth, flourishing, wilting, and preparing for a new cycle of creativity. Each cycle is imagined on these planets to be a symbol of the spiral of creativity, and this spiral or cycle is an occasion for celebration. (On earth the idea of creativity is often subsumed under a delaying cultural quirk that abdicates personal authority and delegates it to that which has already been created—the more ancient the better. When I tell my friends about this distortion of the creative process (or rigid-ification, or institutionalization in the service of promoting the status of a small elite) they shake their head and have trouble believing it!)

When children are raised with the expectation that they will be creators, that they may introduce something new at some point of their lives—even if that means the fruit of their later life wisdom or reflection—, that works for them as a point of meaning. They are helping the species to become, and in a larger sense, some folks in other worlds recognize that in so doing they’re helping in their small way to help the whole universe to become more full and rich.

Raising kids with this attitude of expectation and curiosity (i.e., “I wonder what it is you’ll be creating?”), it leads to a quality of respect in teaching. Teaching is less a matter of inculcating what is believed to be so or what has been created as a cultivation of the skills to create anew. The power of expectation, hope, is itself profound in fostering optimal mental and spiritual growth in children, as if everyone were saying, “I wonder how you will help us all become more wonderful?”

Thus, the image on your planet of a whole choir of angels singing hooray or hallelujah or whatever at the birth of your hero infant might be expanded to grant every child born that same sense of spiritual expectation and excitement! What a cross-cultural Holiday that would be!