Replying to the article :
"Could the universe collapse into a singularity?"
I report that this was predicted / stated to be true in the book "The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception" of 1912 (?) by Max Heindel.
I was astonished to read that this "Belief Group" simply predicted the Big Bang some 50 years before scientists postulated it.
Heindel states unequivocally:
Our 'Universe' expands from nothing 7 times, before collapsing back into a point and becoming non-existent for a period before re-expanding again. Further, we are currently in the expansion phase of the 3rd explosion from nothing, and in the 2nd part of this phase our universe will once again contract to a point. They give names to each of these 7 expand-contract processes, based on ... ( the planets ! - if I remember rightly).
I think he says ours is the 'Saturn' phase.
Heindel writes didactically, i.e. "These are the facts."
I gather they were acquired by a process of spiritual enquiry or intuition or something of that sort. This was interesting to me as I had started this curiosity path with Carlos Castaneda who successfully inspires the idea that there may be various levels or types of perception of reality, and I was interested in the idea that if you adjust you mind appropriately you may be able to perceive certain facts of this sort.
What is extraordinary is that Heindel states them as discovered fact! I.e. humans have this capacity...
Subsequently I discovered Rudolf Steiner, and learned that he 'discovered' a whole lot of similar 'observed' 'facts' by the same process. Now Steiner is quite convincing. Takes a lot of reading (took me a year to read his "Occult Science" ! ), though. Turns out ( I think - memory not precise ) he states exactly the same thing: 7 cycles, 7 expansions, we are in the expansion part of the third. And named after the planets... He started writing around 1890 I think.
Maybe the Rosicrucians adapted his perceptions. Anyway, be advised that leading 'Spiritual Vision' folk (in Steiner's case, impressively coherent in the use, working and adaptation of the mind) predicted the Big Bang probably pre-1900 and maybe pre-1980 (have to look it up). Need to read a lot more of Steiner - v interesting...