Fractal Ragnarök

The Pattern of the End of the World

"Brothers shall strive and slaughter each other;
Own sisters’ children shall sin together;
Ill days among men, many a whoredom:
An axe-age, a sword-age, shields shall be cloven;
A wind-age, a wolf-age, ere the world totters."

- Völuspá

We’ve seen this all before, I think.

Mankind is not progressing, but we are not regressing either, not really.

We are cycling- spinning, rising, turning, falling, again and again and again.

Garden, Fall, Quest, Citadel, Empire, Pride, Fire, Flood, Darkness… Then reset the board, call up a new cast, play it again and again until Judgement Day.

There is no use in arguing about whether we should look to the past or the future for the answers. It’s all everywhere, the light and the darkness, Paradise and Babylon, eternally in our past and our future. It is cycles and wheels all the way down until the end of the world.

Speaking of which, that is what I want to talk about. The End. Not just the end of the world in a macrocosmic, Armageddon sense (though I’ll get to that), but this eternal cycle of endings, the symbolic “end” that we constantly endure in this fallen world, here in the maw of the Ouroboros.

The Wheel of Time

The Ouroboros, the world-encircling serpent eating its own tail, is the symbolic image of the cyclic aspect of reality. This great dragon, which can be identified with the Leviathan or the Norse Jörmungandr, represents the cyclic nature of the world, specifically the cyclic nature of a fallen world. A world where things begin with good promise and rise but inevitably fall and are swallowed up before a new cycle begins. Things have not always been this way, but ever since we left Paradise, it is all we have known.

The circle that the Ouroboros creates (or rather, surrounds) is also the Sun Wheel. Mythologist Joseph Campbell called the journey along this wheel “The Hero’s Journey,” but Campbell did not invent this structure; it is the universal pattern that all created things follow. It is the pattern the sun follows throughout the course of day, but also the pattern you follow in any action you take, the pattern of any story that is told—and therefore, at the most macrocosmic level, the entire story of our fallen universe can be set within this framework.

Symbolically, the “Abyss” at the winter solstice (bottommost) point of the wheel is where the Ouroboros swallows the sun and the cycle begins anew. That point would symbolize the end of the world, but on a smaller scale it can be the end of absolutely anything. It is at this point where a “Ragnarök” happens.

What is a Ragnarök? It is the name for the mythic Norse Apocalypse, where the gods die in a final battle and a new world is reborn from the ashes. The symbolic and cyclical nature of the story makes it an apt name for the pattern we are talking about.

When anything ends, that is a “Ragnarök,” no matter how small that ending may be.

But reality is not only cyclic, it is also fractal. Meaning some cycles are larger and more meaningful than others and contain many smaller cycles within themselves. Which means that any point in time may be both the beginning of one cycle and the end of another. Or, one point in time may be the beginning of numerous cycles of vastly different scopes that will end at completely different times.

Simply imagine a series of concentric circles. The largest, imagine as the cycle of the entire cosmos from beginning to end. Within that, there is an infinite number of smaller cycles. Now imagine that as a wheel spinning, a seemingly infinite series of cycles growing increasingly tighter while moving up towards a final point. Constant cycles and infinite Ragnaröks all leading up to where all the circles converge and reality folds in on itself- the “Alpha and Omega” point, or the Eschaton. Along this journey to the end of the world are an infinite number of smaller endings. This is what I mean by “Fractal Ragnarök.”

For this reason, it is sometimes difficult to talk about the idea of the “end times” and especially a bad idea to try and predict when they will happen, because “end times” are happening constantly- something is always ending. And if it’s something big enough, like the collapse of a civilization, it may well feel like the end of the world even if it is not. This is especially relevant to us, as we live in a time where the symbolism of the end-times is appearing more and more frequently. Whether or not we are actually approaching the end, people certainly feel like we are, which is relevant all on its own.

Maybe you believe in the Christian conception of the end-times, maybe you don’t. But for a moment, just assume that we really are approaching the end of the great tale, because looking at the macrocosm can often be the easiest way to understand a symbolic pattern.

I want us to imagine, what would it be like to face the final Ragnarök, the final turn of the wheel? If we are really living near the end of the world, what strange things should we expect to see? What happens at the end of a story?

Wheels Within Wheels

Belief in the Eschaton, or a final Ragnarök, is what sets Christianity apart from other worldviews. The belief in a final, macrocosmic end. Mythically speaking, a belief that Thor and Jörmungandr will not mutually slay each other endlessly, but that the Thunderer will one day slay the Ouroboros once and for all.

But the saga of the end-times as told in Revelation is not a stand-alone story, it is the story of all stories. As the macrocosm of macrocosms, it is when all stories ever begun must come to some sort of final resolution.

Imagine you’re reading a novel. At the end of any well-crafted story, you would naturally expect to see returning characters from earlier in the tale, callbacks to important moments, big payoffs, and revelations that certain events early on were of greater importance than you realized. You expect the ending of that story to wrap up not only the immediate events of the final scenes, but to also bring a satisfying conclusion to every story thread that the author has introduced throughout the course of the tale.

God being the ultimate storyteller, we should expect to see the same thing in the real world if it is nearing its end, a sort of callback to previous stories and patterns. When the cycle comes to an end (which is, of course, also the beginning), we should expect major storylines, especially those concerning the beginning and climax of the story, to have relevance again at the ending.

In The Axe is Laid at the Foot of the Tree, I discussed how an end-times narrative is emerging out of the collective unconscious as our old civilizational meta-narrative consensus begins to dissolve. Certain narratives, like the WW2 consensus, seem to be collapsing. Others, like the rise of AI and the New World Order, seem to be rising. These new narratives are coated with end times symbolism, and references to the Book of Revelation in pop culture and on social media are becoming commonplace. It is as if the end times cannot just happen out of nowhere but must first “warm up” in the collective consciousness.

At the same time, we are also seeing old stories and patterns reappear in the culture that are not at first glance connected to the end times. Subjects like Atlantis, lost civilizations, AI being compared to the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and so much more. I do not think this is random. If we are indeed approaching the end-times that Christ and so many of his saints have so clearly warned us of, then I think these stories and patterns are reappearing in the cultural narrative because they are storylines that must be resolved in order for the end-times and the Eschaton to play out. The final end cannot happen with unfinished story threads left hanging. It means that something about all of these mysterious old tales has been left unsaid and is crying out to be resolved. But what about these old symbols and stories is so important, what makes them relevant to the end of the word?

It will be easiest if we create a framework to visualize this pattern. We can plot the storyline of the Bible onto the circle of the Ouroboros and the Sun Wheel to understand why certain stories are becoming relevant again and which ones will be the most important at the end of the world. Imagine a version of this wheel that is an entire picture of human history (and therefore the whole story of creation) at the most macrocosmic level.

We can start by placing a beginning point at the bottom of the wheel, or winter solstice. The fall in the garden. That event begins the story, and from it mankind begins our journey upwards (imagine everything before the fall as existing outside of this framework, outside the rule of Chronos).

The top point, or summer solstice, of the story is Noah’s flood, the fall of Atlantis. This is where humanity achieves its highest level of development, and we can imply it is where we came closest to achieving some redemption, but due to the fallen nature of the world we were doomed to fail and fall back down. The old world is corrupted and God washes it away. The story now descends down from the solstice into the second half of the wheel.

The third major story is the Tower of Babel which symbolizes the Autumn equinox point. This is where humanity descends back into the lower half of the wheel, that is why the story is about the breakdown of a unified culture and the breakdown of communication. All of recorded human history exists within this section of the symbolic story. In the darkest and downward moving section of the solar year, between the autumn equinox and winter solstice.

At the bottom point of the wheel, at the same point as the beginning of the story, we will have Armageddon. Where the cycle begins and ends is the “Alpha and Omega.” The closer we get to this point, the closer we come to a moment that is eternally or macrocosmically significant, and therefore the world will start to look and feel more “mythic”, because we are linking up with a story thread that goes far deeper than the modern world and connects us to all of the mythic events of the past. Imagine it as the moment when the cycle of the current modern age syncs up with the larger cycle.

These major story points along the wheel- the fall in the garden, the fall of Atlantis, and the fall of the Tower of Babel, are the most importance events within the human story, and therefore will have the most relevance at the end of the world. They are the plot points that most need to be resolved. Looking at the macrocosmic story, we can see that it is these three “Falls” that have led us to our current situation, they are the wounds that need to be healed. While I think that many, many more myths and patterns are going to begin showing up as we approach the end times, these stories will be the biggest and it is their symbolism you should most watch out for. Maybe, just maybe, we should not trust our personal black mirrors that bear the mark of the bitten apple…

Atlantis and our fall from Eden will be more relevant than Hitler or AI when the final cock crows to announce Ragnarök.

The framework we’ve drawn above can be applied to any era or story. For example, we are living through the end times of the world order established after WW2, which we can observe in how the aggressively the official narrative is being questioned by the masses. But what about patterns that are still forming, what about future Ragnaröks?

I will suggest that the idea of an AI takeover and a dystopian New World Order may in fact be yet another microcosmic story that will have to be concluded before the real end-times. This may seem confusing, because a lot of people associate those dystopian ideas with the Antichrist. I don’t think that’s a bad association, but it is also not necessarily correct. The issue is that this modern conception of a dystopian world is, well, modern. The idea behind “The Matrix” and everything like it is a meta-narrative that belongs to the modern age. It may be hubristic to assume that the actual end of the world will look like the modern world. Maybe the kind of world we live in is just an odd fluke of history. Maybe “The Matrix” is just how we imagine the end of the world because we cannot conceive of Ragnarök looking actually mythic instead of like dystopian sci-fi. We are more comfortable with AI and robots than we are with dragons. But maybe “The Matrix” will just be the end of our own little cycle, and at the true end of the world the old monsters will rise out of the outer darkness, out of the chthonic waters for one last curtain call.

So while it is certainly possible that our modern idea of a New World Order Matrix-style dystopia is going to be the same story as the Antichrist and the end times, it may be that they are two distinct things.

Another issue to point out is that the entire idea of the Antichrist is not really the end point of the macrocosmic story. We live in the Church age, which Christ Himself came to Earth to begin. That was the beginning of a major cycle, and the Antichrist is the counterforce that will be faced at the end of that cycle. And of course, the Antichrist is a large player in the end of the world in the Book of Revelation. But I think some almost forget who the real primordial enemy is.

I would say that the Antichrist serves as the ending of the Church age story specifically. The actual Dragon is Satan. In Revelation the Beast and the False Prophet (the Antichrist) are defeated before Satan, because the final story to be resolved is not the Antichrist’s deception of the world, but Satan’s deception of humanity in the garden. So it seems that the Antichrist serves as a fractal end to the age we live in, but to find the real ending you have to go all the way back, not to the beginning of the Church age, but to the very beginning of the world. Christ comes back to defeat both the Antichrist and the dragon because there are two major cycles to be concluded. What is symbolically interesting is the question of whether these two foes are fought at the same time.

While I have been saying that the microcosmic patterns will have to play out before the macrocosmic wheel can turn to its end, it may not be that simple. It could well be that these patterns work in a way where many cycles overlap and finish at the same point. So we have to consider a framework where the lines between all of these cycles are quite blurred. There are so many ways the end of the world could play out, and I am sure that whatever the real end will be is beyond our comprehension or imagination.

While I don’t want to be the person making predictions about the end times, here are some symbolic frameworks that may help you imagine how the pattern of Fractal Ragnarök plays out:

1)

• The modern world/era ends with a Matrix-style New World Order story (keep in mind I am not making predictions about how these stories end or who “wins”, as that is not relevant right now), but the Antichrist is not involved. Modern cycles like the WW2 narrative, AI, and transhumanism are all played out before the real end-times begin to essentially clear the stage.

• The true Antichrist comes later, unrelated to the previous cycle or maybe even directly involved in the defeat of the previous Matrix-world order. The modern nation-state of Israel may not even be involved by this point in history. Depending on what direction the world takes after the modern world cycle ended, the final battle with the Antichrist and Satan may look like futuristic sci-fi, or, if the modern world’s little Ragnarök was really catastrophic, maybe the end of history will look more like The Lord of the Rings or Conan. Who knows?

2)

• The Antichrist comes as the leader of the modern New World Order, and all of these patterns come to their culmination at roughly the same time. Old stories like the fall in the garden and Atlantean Nephilim reappear and are dealt with in the guise of modern tech, AI, robots, etc. The nation-state of Israel actually is involved in the story. This is essentially the framework that looks the most like people seem to popularly imagine.

3)

• The patterns end at roughly the same time as above, but not necessarily in the way people expect. The patterns end together and yet separately. Meaning, imagine a world where modern cycles are being concluded while the primordial ones also reappear in more literal ways than modern people want to imagine. A pattern where countless wheels within wheels align and you have countless “Ragnaröks” happening simultaneously. Where the end of the world can look both like the Matrix and the Silmarillion at the same time. This framework is maybe the strangest to imagine, but also perhaps the one that symbolically makes the most sense. The Eschaton is the moment where every single thing has its resolution, the maw of the Ouroboros.

4)

• This is all wrong, and the end looks like nothing I can fathom. Obligatory concession I feel I must make here.

I hope this has made some sense and helped some of you grasp the pattern of endings and the symbolism of the end of the world. It is important. Whether or not modern conceptions of the end-times are accurate, and whether or not they are temporally "close” to us, cosmically speaking they are imminent. We are are in the last stages of the cycle, in the darkest phase of the year, with midnight fast approaching.

“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.