Very interesting topic.
I’d like to point out three things:
Firstly, there are indeed outdated practices. There are stories of Yogis who refused to teach ancient methods because they would not suit the modern consciousness.
Ancient Initiations and methods were way rougher, because the human heart was rock solid and the mind was devoid of empathy and kindness and, thus, needed to be shaken and shattered for it to be freed from inertia. Such practices today would lead to a disproportional (as they say…) “awakening”, which would produce exaggerated emotional response. The practitioner would “feel the pain of the entire world” and would become paralyzed and (ironically) inert.
Another thing that I feel needs to be discussed is the human natural sense of importance. Every generation thinks the world is falling apart because of them, when, in reality, things in the last centuries have become more civilized than before. A person who watches the news will of course focus on the negative and therefore think the “Apocalypse” is coming soon, and they will not notice that humans don’t fight for basic needs such as food and land as often as they did centuries ago. Things have changed for the better because of karma and statistics.
Lastly, we need to get rid of the (not) “mystical” idea of outsourcing human accountability. No “entity” will come to save us or finish us off; we are solely responsible for our own actions. The idea of a Multiverse may be coherent in a few traditions, but in the majority of cases it’s used (consciously or unconsciously) to justify our own mistakes.
This phenomenon can be observed in Christianity, for example. Many people long for a second coming of Jesus so that He can “wipe away” their sins. Well, again??! He has already come and edified a new man over Adam. The second coming means Reintegration, not a higher being coming again to wipe out human errors. Accountability is one of the most important aspects of the mystical path.
However, although I stated the world changed for the better (as it really did), I agree with you that, in times of emergency, the Cosmos acts in incomprehensible manners. I doubt that, for example, in an imminence of nuclear war which could erase human life from the Earth, a strong new wave of esoteric practices/groups/acts wouldn’t emerge out of thin air.
