New Book Now Out!

My book ' 'NEW CONSCIOUSNESS FOR A NEW WORLD' is now out and available from all good online retailers, including Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk; and The Book Depository.

A call for a paradigm shift in human thinking in recognition of the
interconnectedness of all things—a new mind for a new world.

• Explains how the instability of our current time is part of a larger cycle of
human evolution that will soon turn toward renewal and regeneration
• Explains how to participate in the process of conscious evolution to
maintain resilience during these transitional times
• Examines new findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the
interconnectivity of all life and how to utilize this for conscious evolution
 

For centuries, indigenous wisdom traditions have talked of an epochal shift on the
horizon, of a spiritual renaissance for the earth and her living family. Now the timelines
are converging and the potential for an energetic “upgrade” for humanity is
here, but first we must survive and evolve through the current period of transition.
Explaining that evolution is not a gradual process but more like a “shock to the
system”—radical waves of transformation after a period of dormancy—author Kingsley
Dennis reveals that we are currently undergoing an evolutionary leap and shows not
only how to survive but also thrive in this period of global upheaval and change.
Examining the nature of evolutionary cycles, he explains that the instability we are
now experiencing—climate change, economic meltdowns, and increasing political
polarization—is the convergence of complex systems that have reached a critical state.
What we need in order to push through to the coming spiritual renaissance is a paradigm
shift in human thinking and perception, a conscious evolution in recognition of
the interconnectedness of all things—a new mind for a new world. Examining new
findings in quantum physics and quantum biology on the interconnectivity of all life as
well as opportunities for us to reawaken our slumbering souls, this book offers a glimpse
of the new global society to come, a renewed humanity for the 21st century, and how
we can each participate during the process of planetary transformation.

The WorldShift Movement

On June 6th I was interviewed by Confluence Media about the WorldShift Movement. Below is an extract from this interview:

What is The WorldShift Movement?
The WorldShift Movement (WS M) was inspired by the work and vision of Ervin Laszlo. WS M was formed in November 2010 by Nicolya Christi as a volunteer, people-focused global initiative. One of the key objectives of WS M is to represent the people, to work with and through people, to empower them to make a shift in their lives, both external and internal. There are six core values represented by WS M:
Peace
Restorative Justice
Sustainability
Compassionate Action
Conscious Communication
Conscious Evolution
WS M is focused upon inspiring and empowering people to be the change for themselves and the world around them.

… there are so many movements. How does The WorldShift Movement stand out?
My personal view is that I consider this as the blotting paper metaphor: you put an ink drop on the paper, the ink starts to spread; you put another drop of ink and more ink spreads – and if you put enough drops it changes the colour of the paper. Different movements are for different people, and not everybody is drawn to the same movements. Different movements cater for different peoples needs and together we can all work towards changing the colour of the blotting paper. There are many movements out there; and WS M does not consider itself to be in competition with any of them – competition is an old paradigm state of thinking. We just have the focus and intention on what we are doing and don’t compare ourselves with others. The change of colour we can all achieve together represents, for me, the shift in peoples consciousness.

To continue reading, please visit the Confluence Media page

The Great Acceleration (Part Two)

The great acceleration that marks our move into a new planetary era suggests a model of greater connectivity and global communication (horizontal), with closer intimacy with earth customs and ethical, moral perspectives (vertical). This acceleration will make many older systems obsolete, as many people have been sensing for some time now, as events in the second-half of the 20th century have indicated. Also, within developed nations there has, over the past few decades, been a significant shift of values in that more and more people are seeking a quality of life that is away from materialism and towards meaning and happiness; towards simplifying their lifestyles (even before the recent economic crashes). So far quality of life for too many people has been provided by raiding the world’s finite energy sources and co-opting other nation’s resources. However, being forced to downsize can be a good thing, turning people’s emphasis away from external status and material possessions and to focus on what is local and meaningful – relations, local resources, working with one’s self and the needs of others. Any form of inconvenience, or even hardship, needs to be taken as a beneficial interiorizing process; a way to developing self-reflexive consciousness. Sometimes in order to gain we must first experience what it is to lose something. Troubled times can lead to an extension or manifestation of empathic consciousness, as we realize the interconnectedness of our worsening situation – just like the war ‘bunker’ mentality during World War 2, a coming together of the people in times of need. 

It is also important to remember that not all of the ‘old models’ of technology will work for us in the future. Our technologies not only need to be more fluid, as in distributed and open source systems, but also more egalitarian and democratic. Technology that aims to dominate will become less efficient and more of an obstacle for us to move forward. People will increasingly demand more transparency and justice in our national and international systems. There will be many more social protests and strikes on the horizon if these systems do not begin to better serve egalitarian and ethical human interests. Further, as the social transition goes through many years of change the world may first have to pass through a period of fragmentation due to energy depletion in the future and/or technological infrastructure problems. A new form of integral consciousness is less likely to embrace a global techno-industrial complex future, despite what some thinkers argue. However, even though there may be initial periods of fragmentation this will not diminish a collectively evolving emphatic mind that will inform a greater awareness for working together; community-building; shared values and ethics; and working towards re-modelling how the world operates. It will not be ‘business as usual’ as most future forecasters seem to predict; many forecasters simply offer a linear view that is just a more ‘planetary’ version of today’s world. This view does not take into account ‘system jumps’; the tipping points, or rather phase transitions, that characterize the energy fluctuations of growth. The future may well be a more mindful, spiritually aware and ecologically-integral period, yet it may also be a more chaotic, fragmented and disturbed global picture as the people of the world – and the world’s structures – learn to reassemble themselves into a radical new form of existence in line with the resources available to us.

This period of psychophysical transformation of life on Earth is likely to include heightened impulses for radical social change and cultural renovation; alongside new discoveries in science, energy, and our knowledge of the cosmos. There will manifest an increased drive for human betterment that will be marked through intensified activism for social, political, and ecological change; and for changes in the balance of global power. Also, large demographic shifts and the active presence of many cross-cultural movements will release much concentrated energy for psychophysical change. Planet Earth is entering a sustained period for historical change, requiring humanity not only to draw on all its physical and psychic resources, of creativity and vision, but to shift into capacities that could ultimately serve to be extremely liberating for the self.

It is certainly no small claim to say that the 3rd millennium will stimulate and nurture a new form of human consciousness. To paraphrase the famous saying of B.S. Haldane, the future of humanity may not be only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. And as Terence McKenna once said, we need to take out our conclusions from being central to our culture and replace them by a sense of the mysterious. The future may open up a greater sense of the mysterious than we have anticipated. Some of this mystery may likely surround the greater capacities inherent within the human. To help us arrive where we are already heading we will have to question, and perhaps discard, many of our belief systems. Rather, we should put the role of direct experience in place of enforced belief systems as these belief systems are self-limiting functions. It is immaterial to have beliefs when the universe is stranger than we can suppose and is thus continually over-riding our beliefs, making them limiting factors if we cling to them. Experience must be made primary; therefore the language of the self must be primary. We need a new language, and in order to have a new language we need a new sense of reality. Rather than consuming ideological visions we need to be the creators of them – to send them out. Let our visions and creativity breed and mutate like viruses in proactive and beneficial ways. Terence McKenna used to urge his listeners to ‘Live as far into the future as you can live’; reminding them also that energy is now rushing into our reality like into ‘the realm of the densely packed’. 

The opportunity is here for change and betterment like never before in our recent history. This means that the responsibility is also here; and these two factors may never be present again at exactly the right moment when they are so badly needed. What the human species may now be witnessing during this great acceleration is the rise of intuition, empathy, greater connectivity to the world and to people, and a sense of ‘knowing’ about what each given situation demands. Further, being nurtured within each person is a growing sense of the greater cosmic whole: the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of great wisdom and meaning. This can serve to impart within humanity a more profound, and acknowledged, spiritual impulse. 

After all, we are already on the way to where we are heading. One can see clearly that Bob Dylan was right when he sang ‘There’s something happening…but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones?’

The Great Acceleration (Part One)

As the second half of the 20th century moved over into the 3rd millennium humanity saw a rapid acceleration in almost all spheres of life. This included an acceleration in environmental degradation: biodiversity loss; over-fishing; deforestation; stratospheric pollution from chemicals; interference with global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles; holes in the Earth’s magnetosphere; ocean acidification; global freshwater decline; agricultural land use decline; topsoil depletion; etc. With the simultaneous acceleration in human populations and erratic geological conditions this could lead us to change from using the term ‘The Age of Anxiety’ to ‘The Age of Disequilibrium’. However, an acceleration of chaotic disequilibrium also has no alternative but to force a species mind-change on a global and perhaps interior level. These changes have suggested a greater shift towards individual autonomy; a deepened sense of self and psychological reflection; an increased perception of inner and outer realities; and a heightened recognition of the sensory nature of human experience. In other words, there has been an astounding growth in the psychological evolution of the human self. 

The manner in which we communicate reflects our own internal processes. It may be that the rise in global information technologies (Internet and mobile phones), which has brought into being a modern age of distributed communications, reflects a new distributed yet participatory consciousness among people. No longer are we the passive audience as during the earlier electrical revolutions of radio and television: the new model is Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and text messaging. The dialogue is now more active; people are onstage and orchestrating their own connections; managing their own forms of voice and self-expression. The turn of the century, as the 1990s tipped into the 3rd millennium, the social-civil body of the planet began to stretch its tentacles. Social networks have matured tremendously over the past decade; the list of global Non-Profit Organizations (NGOs) grows longer with each passing year. This list includes hundreds of active distributed social networks, as well as participatory news sites (such as the Huffington Post). These innovative networks are the forums for visionary thinkers; ideas spread virally through the electronic nervous system of the planet as once fringe ideas go global. A new civil body is being constructed by the distributed contributions of individuals in every conceivable physical location. Talks are broadcasted regularly – such as in the TEDtalks series of innovative lectures – and social collectives form, activate, influence, and stimulate alternative thinking and ideas. A more mature form of collective social intelligence is beginning to manifest in various parts of the globe:

the interconnection of computers around the world and a communications system that is simultaneously collective and interactive, is not an infrastructure: it is a certain way of using existing infrastructures and exploiting resources and is based on an incessant distributed inventiveness that is indissolubly technical and social…the key element of cyberspace isn’t the consumption of information or interactive services but participation in a social process of collective intelligence…

This new distributed model of civil society represents a burgeoning collective intelligence. It is an emerging intelligence embedded within the notion of systems thinking; a result of our increasing interrelatedness, being exposed to a global world of contradictory realities and multicultural perspectives. Within this rising intelligence exists elements of process thinking (Whitehead), ecological systemic philosophy (Bateson), and an élan vital (Bergson) – all the seeds sown during the latest phase of our reflective, psychological consciousness. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin correctly stated, ‘The Age of Nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to shake off our ancient prejudices and to build the Earth’.

The distributed, bottom-up model may be the working model for the future and, like the Internet, can be built to withstand shocks, attacks, and breakages: we re-route, we disperse and re-join at a later point in the network. This is the peer-to-peer collaborative model – a way of greater individualization within a more shared, complex, diverse yet unified field of interactions. Distributed unity may be a new model to make the old one obsolete.

Externally we seem a vast, distant, and separated collection of people, yet the reality may be much closer to home: a dense, intimate, closely entwined species of various races, individual yet sharing a non-local sense of being. The now famous game of ‘six degrees of separation’ may actually be a good working metaphor to express the close connections existing between the human race. And with the rapid rise of physical global travel and tourism to complement our virtual global communications the world has extended its nervous system to expose millions of people to each other, other cultures, and circumstances. Younger generations of people worldwide are growing up with a new expression of consciousness; the 20th century’s exploration of the psyche, mixed with technologies of communication and connection, herald a more reflexive mode of thought. People today are comfortable in expressing themselves with strangers; they explore and express their inner thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas with hundreds of unknown persons online, from various cultural backgrounds. More and more daily interactions are emphatic as we react and share news, stories, and emotional impacts from sources around the world. Empathy is one of the core values by which we create and sustain social life. Exposure to impacts outside of our own local and narrow environments helps us to learn tolerance, and to live with experiences that are richer and more complex, full of ambiguities, multiple realities, and shared perceptions. It is a way of constructing more social capital in our world. We see this happening in modern variations today, such as in open source software (e.g. Linux), or in collaborative tools such as Wikipedia, when a global commons for sharing can work above the individual thrust for profit and commercial gain. Or, as writer Doris Lessing liked to refer to it, the rising of the Substance of We Feeling (SOWF). 

During this accelerating phase of our socio-cultural and human inner evolution we are asked to expand and develop our cognitive, emotional, and perceptual faculties. Harvard professor of psychology Howard Gardner has outlined in his book Five Minds for the Future what he considers to be the five separate but related combinations of cognitive abilities that are needed to ‘thrive in the world during eras to come’ and which we should develop for the future. Gardner five minds, or rather mindsets, are paraphrased here as:

1. To master important subjects rather than simply knowing about them. To stay up to date with the subject and to know how to work steadily over time to improve skill and understanding.

2. To be able to integrate large quantities of multidisciplinary facts and apply them into one’s work.

3. To pose new questions, developing new solutions to existing questions, stretching disciplines and genres in new directions, or building new disciplines.

4. To be open to understanding and appreciating the perspectives and experiences of those who are different from the individual.

5. To do one’s work in an ethical way that reflects responsibilities to others and society; to reflect on the nature of one’s work and the needs and desires of the society in which one lives.

Gardner also refers to a type of ‘existential intelligence’, what he calls a ‘heightened capacity of appreciation and attention to the cosmological enigmas that define the human condition – an exceptional awareness of the metaphysical, ontological, and epistemological mysteries that have been a perennial concern for people of all cultures.’ The psychological impacts we experience will be primary in developing the perceptions necessary for the future. We are today exposed to each other in ways without precedent. The children being born as part of the new millennium (sometimes referred to as the ‘Millenials’) are growing up embedded within virtual social networks that transcend space and time, as well as cultures, national boundaries, and local ideologies. The younger generations are accustomed to send and receive within a field of distributed information in a way that may also help to nourish local networks – and not, importantly, to replace them. This may account for the increasing numbers of young people in developed nations becoming involved in community and social projects and NGOs; taking a year out to help in another culture abroad, to learn and experience, and to offer assistance. Volunteering among the young, despite what appears to be the contrary, is on the increase. Young people are even sacrificing their lives for peace and justice, as evidenced by the actions and subsequent death of Rachel Corrie in occupied Palestine. It is not only a call for equality – it is a loud call for tolerance and justice. These are signs of an emerging relational consciousness, a service-to-others (STO) as opposed to service-to-self (STS).

An Age of Radical Seeking (Part Two)

The half a century from the 1950s to the end of the millennium began with a human howl for substance and inner searching. The poet Allen Ginsberg portrayed this inner rage with his famous poem Howl:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at
dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the
ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

The search for the heavenly connection came through a sporadic surge for experimentalism, for opening new horizons, sometimes creatively, other times throwing caution to the wind. In some instances it manifested as a hedonistic mix of intoxication, exuberance, and illumination, as in the Beat Generation and the creative expressions of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Other times it was channelled through the new growth of interest in Buddhism and ecology as through the work of Alan Watts, D.T. Suzuki, and Gary Snyder. A western counterculture was now emerging through the newfound popularity of eastern teachings (Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, etc), and the experimental playfulness of mind-altering processes. The zeitgeist of the age can be seen through the psychologist and counterculture guru Timothy Leary’s famous dictum: Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out. Significantly, during this period of experimental cultural expression a new form of psychological consciousness was being explored. Through psychoanalysis and the theories of Freud, who had historicized sexuality and exposed notions of self-esteem and the inferiority complex, the 50s and 60s opened up new areas of self-evaluation. People were increasingly exploring their own feelings, self-reflection, and the interior gaze. Timothy Leary was right to suggest that the new era had shifted to ‘the politics of the nervous system’. Likewise, Theodore Roszak, in The Making of a Counter Culture (1968), noted that sociology had given way to psychology and that the trip was now inward, making everything open to question.

The inward trip during the 60s and 70s was popularized by the experimentation with psychoactive fungi/mushrooms, largely given exposure in the US by the ethnobotany of Robert Gordon Wasson. This later materialized into experimentation with the once-legal drug LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) that was initially synthesized by Albert Hofmann and popularized by the antics of Timothy Leary, and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, amongst many others. In the 1970s the anthropological research and writings of Terence and Dennis McKenna were gaining a wider readership in their sober assessment on the role of psychedelic drugs in society. This search for non-ordinary states of consciousness also led to many westerners seeking out a shamanic training. Perhaps most popular during the late 60s and through the 1970s were the various books of Carlos Castaneda which described the authors apprenticeship with the shaman known as Don Juan. The market place was open for experimenting with human potential, as was evidenced by the popularity of the Esalen Institute, founded in Californian in 1962, that offered workshops on such subjects as meditation, Gestalt, yoga, ecology, psychology, spirituality, and holotropic breath work. Transpersonal psychology became a defined field with the publication of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology; notable names in this field included Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof; and later Ken Wilbur; Charles Tart; Stanley Krippner; Claudio Naranjo; and Oscar Ichazo.

Interest in transpersonal issues, of interior realms, and metaphysics opened the door to a dramatic surge in a form of spiritual beliefs quickly labelled as ‘New Age’. These included life after death; past lives; angels; auras; channelling; divination; crystals; I-Ching; spiritual healing; prayer circles; holism; organic foods; spirit guides, etc. Sacred Sexuality too became a focus with people connecting with Tantric sex, Taoist sexual practices, and Native American sacred sex traditions. There was also a surge of interest in the ancient esoteric interests of alchemy, Hermeticism, the Kabbalah, and Gnosticism. On August 16th-17th, 1987, the Harmonic Convergence gathering took place which brought many people together to celebrate the planetary alignment occurring and to facilitate the shift towards a new era on planet Earth.

Planet Earth was now in full focus, especially after the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20th 1969. The first photos of Earth taken from space seemed to galvanize peoples’ ecological awareness, alongside Rachel Carson’s 1962 environmental classic Silent Spring. The ecology movement was spurred by other such notables as Gregory Bateson; E. F. Schumacher; Arne Naess; and Thomas Berry. In 1970 US Environmental Protection Agency was established and the world held its 1st Earth Day. In 1971 Greenpeace was founded; and in 1972 the UN Environment Program was set up. The 1960s and 70s was a period of tremendous change in thinking and attitudes, with the support of feminism, sexual liberation, civil rights, CND, and freedom of expression. Despite the atrocities of the Vietnam War and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, people were still turning on and tuning in to a new energy of change. Large scale gatherings, such as in the music festivals of Woodstock and Isle of Wight, offered a place for community that celebrated a form of neo-tribalism and self-expression. These events later influenced Burning Man, Glastonbury, and other large-scale gatherings now going on worldwide. The power of change brought about the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989/90.

By the 1990s the most popular poet in US was the Persian Sufi Jalalludin Rumi; holography and the holographic universe was a new popular paradigm; the left-right working of the brain hemispheres was a popular subject; the Internet was revolutionizing communications; and notions such as the noosphere, Global Brain, and collective consciousness were almost common place. What a revolution of human thought in such a short span of human history! In-between we saw a flurry of artistic and literary movements including, in no particular order: Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Dada, Modernism, the Frankfurt School, stream of consciousness, and many more than will need a book on its own to recount. A phase of immense cultural, mental, and psychological growth has occurred in the last 150 years. As if to mark the shift, a statue of Giordano Bruno was erected in Roman piazza in 1889 at the same spot where he was burned in alive in 1600. Was this a sign that the human mind had begun to awaken?

The new scientific paradigm has come a long way since Newton’s clockwork universe. Consider that the scientific contributions to human knowledge include: quantum physics; quantum biology; biophysics; holography (holographic universe and holographic brain); string theory (multiverses and extra-dimensions); systems theory; systems philosophy; self-organization; non-equilibrium systems; chaos & complexity theory; Implicate order; Morphic resonance; and many more. Science established the Genome Project; works with nanotechnology, and quantum computing. It even produced the first successful genetic cloning, of Dolly the sheep, in Scotland in 1997. Now the virtual world is fast becoming a home for many - the new non-locality - where time-space contracts, and virtual communities play around with digital identities. Despite the dangers of these new technologies, an acceleration of possibilities marked the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the new millennium.

As a global society we are witnessing a worldwide movement, although diversified and not always united, towards a new age of the interior gaze. This age will impose great questions upon us, and demand of us profound answers, or at least heart-felt replies. A long period of seeking must inevitably conclude in a period of great responsibility. That time is upon us, and is our current challenge.

An Age of Radical Seeking (Part One)

The modern world has witnessed a different type of consciousness emerging over the past 150 years, a post-Industrial Revolution cognitive mind. New technological innovations that helped to alter our perceptions of the dimensions of space and time in the world began to birth a psychological consciousness; a consciousness that wanted to look beyond the borders and horizons of the physical frontier. The end of the 19th century was also a significant period in the rise of spiritualism and mediums, general interest in esoteric matters, and the public emergence of occult movements.

Just to give a broad overview, the 1870s onwards saw a peak in the growth of spiritualism in English-speaking countries. Interest was rife in communicating with the dead, contacting the afterlife and believing in information from the astral plane. By 1897 it was said that spiritualism had more than 8 million followers in the U.S. and Europe, with state and national conventions, lecture tours and summer camps held on a regular basis. By 1880, there were about three dozen monthly spiritualist periodicals published around the world; and in 1882 The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was established in the UK (by 1914 it had 320 registered Spiritualist Societies in Britain on its books). Around the same time as the interest in spiritualism was peaking, the Theosophy Society was established in New York City by Helena Blavatsky, Henry Olcott, and William Judge in 1875. Theosophy heralded a revival in western occultism and in perennial wisdom. It was also a forerunner to later movements that sought to bring eastern teachings and traditions to a western audience. Theosophy has had a large impact upon western mysticism as it brought forth many personages who later found their own individual channels for teaching, most notably Annie Besant, Alice Bailey, Krishnamurti, and Rudolf Steiner (who went on to establish the Anthroposophical Society). By the end of the 19th century, spirits were well and truly out of the closet.

The same period during the late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw the founding of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (known generally as the Golden Dawn), with its first temple in the UK (London) in 1888. By the mid 1890s the Golden Dawn was gaining popularity both in the UK and later in Germany especially. Well-known members include Irish poet W.B. Yeats; authors Arthur Machen and Evelyn Underhill; and infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. In a similar vein the spiritual teacher and mystic G.I. Gurdjieff was spreading his ideas from Moscow to Paris, from New York to London, aided by the teachings of former pupils P.D. Ouspensky and J.G. Bennett. In 1920 Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in the United States and established the Self-Realization Fellowship the same year, introducing thousands of westerners to the art of meditation and yoga. In 1946 Yogananda published the phenomenally successful Autobiography of a Yogi which since its publication has sold millions of copies worldwide. Other personages gathering devotees and spreading teachings throughout the western hemisphere at this time include Sri Aurobindo; Hazrat Inayat Khan; and Sri Meher Baba, amongst others. Now the floodgates were open and a whole range of mystical, occult and oriental teachings began to emerge within western society, as well as creating bridges to eastern ashrams and religious centres.

What this shows is that at this time there emerged a great wave of influence that turned people's thinking towards a more interiorized, as well as a more transcendental, state. It was a great shift from the physical towards a belief in and an exposure to non-physical realms. Coming as it did at a time of on-going industrialization and material expansion one must wonder if the timing is pure accident. Yet the 'inward turn' was not only happening in the occult sphere. In 1901 Canadian psychiatrist Richard Bucke published his now famous work Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. A year later in 1902 Harvard psychologist William James published his series of lectures in the book The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. These ideas were beginning to circulate amongst an educated public at the same time that psychoanalysis, developed in Vienna in the 1890s by Sigmund Freud, were also percolating out into mainstream circles. The early part of the 20th century was a period when the 'collective unconscious' was becoming a conscious part of the collective mind. The theories of Freud, Jung, Reich, and other psychoanalysts were changing how people regarded human behaviour and parameters of human thinking. Early childhood impacts, experiences, repressions, and sexuality were all now being unearthed as contributing to contours of the human mind. What happened 'out there' was recognised as being a manifestation of what was going on inside a person's mind. These developments coincided with the rise of the motion pictures as a cultural phenomenon; a way of projecting ideas onto the external screen. Philosophy too was taking on new ideas about the creative vitality within the human, nature's forming of wholes greater than the sum of their parts, and the nature of flow within the universe: Henri Bergon's Creative Evolution was published in 1907 (in English 1911); Jan Smut's book Holism and Evolution in 1926; and Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality in 1929. Yet perhaps the most revolutionary change in human thinking came about in the realm of physics; specifically the emergence of quantum mechanics, the new quantum physics.

The early decades of the 20th century saw a revolution in physics, from Einstein's publication of his general theory of relativity in 1915, providing the standard theory on our laws of gravity, to the dual state of particles (photons) in 1926, and Heisenberg's 'Uncertainty Principle' in 1927. The people behind these new discoveries are now almost household names: Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, Erwin Schrödingr, John von Neumann, Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli, and others. By 1927 the field of quantum physics was reaching a wider acceptance amongst the scientific establishment. And in 1957 physicist Hugh Everett presented his Many Worlds Theory that postulated an infinity of parallel universes whereby the universe splits every time a quantum system makes a choice, and there are billions of quantum events taking place within each ounce of matter every second. In this model there could be another universe where the dinosaurs continued to evolve -- perhaps they evolved high intelligence and now write books on evolution! Quantum physics then finally presented to the world the concepts of particle-wave duality, non-locality, observer interference, and wave collapse. Suddenly, the world was not as fixed, durable, or mechanical as was earlier thought. It was now seen as an unpredictable, uncertain, energetic sea of chance: God did, it seem, play dice after all.

Information became the keyword for the middle of the 20th century also, with cybernetics (Weiner), Communication Theory (Shannon), and early computing (von Neumann and Turing) all emerging with rapidity. This new information revolution was capped by the eventual breakthrough discovery, in 1953, of the molecular double helix structure of DNA (Crick and Watson). The human mind was now processing information at a faster speed than at any time in known history; and most of these new developments concerned the interior gaze. The 20th century became a time for asking and answering such questions as: What lies beyond life? What is behind matter? What lies behind our conscious thoughts? What lies behind all biological life?

The thrust for human meaning, the age of a radical seeking had been born, and it manifested most clearly through the revolutionary second-half of the 20th century. (Part Two to follow)

Festive Wishes

I would like to wish each and every person a most heartfelt period during these festive days. A time to spend quality moments with family and loved ones; to share love, joy, and the human spirit.

May 2011 bring in a time for great personal upliftment and positive growth. May we all find that which our spirit & hearts truly desire.

Peace & Blessings,

Kingsley

-

War of Consciousness

For long periods of human history there has been active forces penetrating our world that seek to keep humanity ‘asleep’ and distracted from themselves. Also, that these forces are aware of the true power of human consciousness and that the social power structures used to influence and manipulate the masses would collapse if true human potential were to be exercised. Therefore, in the pursuit of control and power certain forces active upon the Earth aim to artificially suppress the natural evolution of human consciousness.

Humanity is caught in a struggle and our consciousness is the battleground. It may come as unnerving news to some to hear that humanity is constantly being bombarded by forces and events beyond our control. This does not make us impotent however; all natural organisms are under the influence of external forces. Yet with humanity there are also other forces at work. These forces are deliberate, more often than not manmade, and manipulate with intent. They aim to persuade if possible, and coerce if necessary. It is these forces that seek to target the remaining spaces where humanity has a modicum of ‘free choice’ and ‘free will’. To some degree these forces are part of the requirements of civilization: to shepherd and organize a burgeoning population. Yet over and above this there exist exploitative forces that work against the laws of conscious evolution. It is these forces, and the need to overcome them, that form a core theme of our times.

The perpetual battlefield is what we know as our everyday lives: our education, our work, our leisure, our emotional and spiritual well-being, and our conscious thinking. Yet the armaments of this struggle are not guns, tanks, airplanes, bombs, or battle-cruisers. It is much more subtle than this. It is less hardware and more software. It is, in effect, a very silent war. And it is a war which, I hope to show, is even more important than the tragic physical scourges occurring on our beautiful planet. It is a war that targets not only the present but also the very long-term future(s) of our civilization. And it has been going on for as long as humankind has existed on planet Earth. What is this war? It is a battle for our minds – how we think. In short, it is the war of consciousness.

Quantum Consciousness 4: Evolutionary Agents – Our Next Quantum Leap?

Various mystics and consciousness researchers have alluded to this by a variety of names; they range from cosmic consciousness, superconsciousness, transpersonal consciousness, integral consciousness, and more. All these descriptions share a common theme; namely, the rise of intuition, empathy, greater connectivity to the world and to people, and a sense of ‘knowing’ about what each given situation demands. Further, such a form of field (non-local or ‘quantum’) consciousness would likely instil within each person a sense of the greater cosmic whole: the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of intelligence and meaning (perhaps even inter-dimensional). This would serve to impart within humanity a more profound, and acknowledged, spiritual impulse.

We can speculate that a variety of forces that include a shifting of the Earth’s geomagnetic forces (as is already occurring); varying solar radiations from each sun cycle; galactic pulses from the centre of the galaxy; our solar system moving through a more ‘energized’ portion of interstellar space; could all in some way result in increased wave patterns (vibrations) entering into the quantum DNA field and catalyzing a shift in the consciousness of humanity. The bridge that divides us at present from another level of living intelligence is in essence a vibratory shift. If such a vibratory shift is a potential means of catalyzing quantum (field) consciousness, this could then lead to increased intuitive faculties and extra-sensory phenomena not only becoming an implicate part of our lives but also to opening up access to greater creativity and inventive capacities for participating in our own human futures. The rise of these attributes in a critical mass could be the key to our next ‘evolutionary leap’. Forms and intimations of these new consciousness patterns are already emerging in the world, but as yet they have not become a part of mainstream research. Such evolutionary ‘mutational’ agents include visionaries, mystics, artists, psychics, intuitives, spiritual Teachers, and what have been termed as the new ‘Indigo Children’. These children (labelled ‘Indigo’ because of their purported coloured auras) are described as possessing increased empathy, creativity, curiosity, and self-will. They are also reported to be spiritually inclined from a young age, and to exhibit strong intuitive capacities. Because of their natural and inherent resistance to authority they are seen as being distracted, rebellious, or alienated in the conventional school system. Yet this is nothing new as throughout recorded history social revolutionaries have felt impelled, and inspired, to resist authority and instigate change (Billington 1998). Many individuals who have felt an awareness of the need to seed an evolutionary impulse into social life have been caught up in revolutionary events and/or been involved in social-cultural upheavals. These human efforts, Krishna notes, come from evolutionary impulses:
I can safely assert that the progress made by mankind in any direction, from the subhuman level to the present, has been far less due to man’s own efforts than to the activity of the evolutionary forces at work within him. Every incentive to invention, discovery, aesthetics, and the development of improved social and political organizations invariably comes from within, from the depths of his consciousness by the grace of…the superintelligent Evolutionary Force in human beings (Krishna 1993: 166).

These indicate efforts, attempts, or social movements to help prepare the ‘mental soil’ for a new consciousness to slowly seed and grow. On the whole social/cultural/material forces are slow to react to the need for an evolving paradigm of human consciousness.

We can say that in order for continued cultural and species growth there are particular periods of human history whereby humanity becomes ready, or in need of, the activation of particular faculties and/or evolutionary traits. It may be that during this critical phase of human culture that humanity will adapt, or be forced to develop, new creative and inspired aspects of consciousness. This transition period – a stage of what I term neuro-genetic evolution – will challenge many of the now-outmoded social structures that have polarized much of human thinking. However, as in all paradigm shifts, old energies inevitably must give way to the new, and it may only be a matter of time before new generations move into evolving consciousness and its physical expressions. It is thus critical that an understanding of spiritual matters begins to permeate through our everyday lives as a counter-balance to our social materialism. It is important in these years ahead that we try to develop a consciousness that is both open to spiritual impulses whilst simultaneously aware and attentive to the latest in scientific research. It is imperative that we revitalize our collective sense of well-being and connectedness – our entanglement – as part of our shared evolutionary development. It is possible that a new state of quantum consciousness will allow humanity access to an unimaginable energetic field of information. This would then open up new vistas of creative intelligence that could be the forerunner to the next stage of along our ascending evolutionary path.

If a person is not sufficiently prepared for these changing impacts then it may cause unbalance and confusion. Personal responsibility means each person must seek to balance the energies of both their inner and outer lives; and to strengthen their sense of connectedness, empathy, and creative vision. These early signs may be the forerunner to an emergence of planetary empathy which, we may hope, will steer us as a global species towards a more viable, fulfilling, and uplifting collective future.

Quantum Consciousness 3: Hyper-Communication & Quantum States

The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev, who has studied human DNA with his research team in Moscow, has found that the 97% ‘inactive’ DNA actually has complex properties. Garjajev discovered that the DNA which is not used for protein synthesis is instead actually used for communication, more exactly - for hyper-communication. In their terms, hyper-communication refers to a data exchange on DNA level using genetic code. Garjajev and his group analyzed the vibration response of the DNA and concluded that it can function much like networked intelligence, and that it allows for hyper-communication of information amongst all sentient beings. For example, the Moscow research group proved that damaged chromosomes (such as damaged by x-rays) can be repaired. Their method was to ‘capture’ the information patterns of particular DNA and then to transmit these patterns, using focused light frequencies, onto another genome as a way of reprogramming the cells. In this way they successfully transformed frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns. Garjajev’s research shows that certain frequency patterns can be ‘beamed’ (such as with a laser) to transfer genetic information. This shows how DNA operates through resonance and vibratory frequencies. It also shows that human DNA can be modified – or altered – through the impact of external frequencies. These research results go some way towards validating the existence of such phenomena as remote acts of healing, and other psychic attributes. It also suggests that DNA is a living, fluid, and dynamic ‘language’ that as a quantum informational field is responsive not only to laser waves (as in the above experiment) but also EM waves and sound – given that the correct frequencies are applied.

The knowledge that human DNA can be influenced and modulated by frequencies (sound, light, language, and thought) is likely to have been known to various spiritual traditions, mystics and teachers, over the ages. This is perhaps why a variety of exercises have existed that utilize thought focus (prayer); sounds (music; chanting; singing); light (specific locations both natural light and produced light such as in stained glass); and language (specific recitations as in mantras and zikrs). DNA appears to function not only as a protein builder (the minority function) but also as a medium for the storage, receiving, and communicating of information.

To support Garjajev’s claims of hyper-communication we can see how similar principles are operating within Nature. For example, the organization of ant colonies appears to make use of a distributed form of communication. When a queen ant is separated from her colony, the worker ants continue to build and construct the colony as if following some form of blueprint. Yet if the queen ant is killed then all work in the colony ceases, as if the blueprint had suddenly been taken off-line. This suggests that the queen ant not need to be in physical contact to continue to transmit the blueprint, yet upon death the group consciousness ceases to operate within a hyper-communicative informational field. We can thus refer to these forms of hyper-communication as quantum field consciousness, or simply as quantum consciousness (since quantum implies non-local field effect).

In a similar manner, such at-a-distance human phenomenon as remote healing, remote sensing, and telepathy may work along comparable lines. On a more basic level we could say that many of us experience this as the sense of intuition and moments of inspiration. We may even be receiving these forms of hyper-communication when we are asleep. There are countless examples of people, artists, and designers etc, who gained inspiration for their work in their dreams. One example here is that of the Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini who one night dreamt that a devil sat beside his bed playing the violin. The next morning Tartini wrote down the piece from memory and called it the Devil’s Trill Sonata. These experiences seem to be on the increase; or perhaps it is because people now feel more open to speak of such experiences. Also, there are indications that the newer generations of children being born are manifesting a higher level of clairvoyance and other extra-sensory capacities. These developments may indicate that a higher form of group consciousness is emerging within humanity and that these abilities are now finding greater expression. In this respect we would do well to return to those practices recommended for centuries by spiritual traditions and teachers: that is, mediation, reflection, watchfulness, and mindfulness, etc. Einstein was famous as a daydreamer throughout his life and he often claimed that greatest inspiration came to him when in such states. Enhanced connectivity between humanity may thus be served by each of us paying more attention to our inner states and to strive for harmony and balance in our lives.

Materials exist to help in enhancing these inner (or ‘quantum’) states, and can be found within many traditions, whether from the major religions (Christian, Islamic, Judaism, Sikh); or from other streams of wisdom such as Buddhist, Tao, and meditative practices. There are also many written materials (books, tales, and poems) that have the function to stimulate right-hemisphere activity. This is the case with many Sufic stories (such as the Mulla Nasrudin tales), as well as famous stories such as the Thousand and One Nights; and poems from Jalalludin Rumi (which are now best sellers in the West). Many of these traditions also encourage group meditation as a way of stimulating group consciousness and quantum connection. It has been shown that practiced meditators can achieve an extremely high level of cross-hemispheric synchronization. Similarly, people who mediate together have been discovered to synchronize their brain activity. Through the use of EEG brain scanning it has been found that brainwave activity is synchronized amongst the participants of the group. We can now speculate that this is a result of resonance occurring between the various quantum fields, as shown by the latest research in biophysics. To some extent this has been replicated by the vast array of hemispheric audio material that is now available on the mass market (at various quality levels). These stimulants act to induce an altered state of consciousness; what some practitioners have referred to as transpersonal consciousness. In these states people have experienced very profound connections with what has generally been termed the collective consciousness. Philosopher Ervin Laszlo refers to this collective information field as the Akashic Field (Laszlo 2004).

For example, as anthropologist Jeremy Narby pointed out, shamans who undergo trance states often seem to be communicating with DNA as a means of acquiring knowledge about plants, healing, and spirit worlds (Narby 1999). Subsequently, Narby explored how Nature is also imbued with this form of living intelligence which acts as survival patterns to enable evolutionary growth (Narby 2006). Shamans, intuitives, and others who are able to tap into this living intelligence find a ‘design’ or blueprint behind all physical structures, which points to a quantum field of living intelligence that acts as an evolutionary impulse within all living systems.

As recent research suggests, DNA might be receptive to particular external influences such as can be manifested through prayer, meditation, and specific sounds/vibrations. This offers startling possibilities for our well-being and human evolution if we are capable of some form of communication with our own living Intelligence (our own ‘Higher Selves’?). We may even have the potential to interact with our own physical cellular structure through focused minds and directed intentions. Changes in present patterns of consciousness may thus be passed on to succeeding generations. This could result in new generations being born exhibiting different consciousness patterns. This may be the initial signs in a neuro-genetic evolution of humanity. These new generations will be the ‘evolutionary agents’ that will lead the way through a social-cultural-human renaissance and renewal.

Quantum Consciousness 2: Empathy & Entanglement

It is fair to say that our global civilization now finds itself at a critical crossroads of development, both in terms of natural resources, material systems, as well as modes of thinking – a physical and psychical criticality. It thus becomes imperative that we orientate our perceptive faculties in favour of the potential evolutionary transformation of human consciousness. In recent years our western societies, at least, have developed in detriment to conscious evolution. This is one of the major reasons behind the cultural failings of our critical times. There has been little preparation, discussion, and research into how humanity, both physically and mentally, can deal with great change when it disrupts both scientific and religious belief systems. In our material age there is a tendency to dismiss spiritual concerns as realms of fantasy; likewise, those people of spiritual leaning often dismiss science as being inadequate to guide us into the future. Thus, a great amount of our energies have been channelled into creating an unstable and radically polarised world. What is required, however, is a reconciliation of the scientists with the humanists (C.P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’) and a combination of research and energy into stimulating a progressive understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of our species. In the worst case scenario we could face a process of devolution; it is my contention, however, that this will not be the case. Part of our dilemma though rests in our blindness over how our mental and perceptual faculties operate.

The human brain as a collection of nerve cells operates like a multi-layered frequency receptor. Due to initial conditionings early on in life each receptor becomes wired to perceive a particular wave frequency. As the brain’s receptors tune-in to a particular pattern of frequency waves a ‘pattern recognition’ response is received by the brain and interpreted according to the perceptions allotted to the frequency. In other words, the act of tuning in involves picking-up familiar frequency patterns out of the ocean of frequencies that surround us constantly. By tuning into the same patterns again and again we are reinforcing a particular reality-set. We are thus tuning into a consensus reality pattern unconsciously and forming our perceptions continually from this. Unfamiliar patterns often get ignored since they do not fall within our receptor remit. Perceptions are thus formed moment by moment as the brain constantly scans the bands of frequencies that surround us; yet we are often unaware that we are filtering from a limited set of perceptual patterns. However, if this pattern-recognition behaviour does not evolve over time our perceptual development is in danger of becoming stalled. The result is that we become fixed – or trapped – within a particular reality. This is why human development requires that we move through various paradigm shifts[1] in order to evolve our collective thinking/perceptual patterns. In other words, our development rests upon simultaneous biological processes as well as psychical. According to noted consciousness researcher Gopi Krishna, the ‘maturing of the nervous system and the brain is a biological process, depending on a host of psychic and material factors’ (Krishna 1999: 56). 

The vulnerability of this process is that we become too accustomed to particular perceptual patterns and ignore other sensory inputs or influences. Also, as a species we have been collectively un-informed about methods obtainable to shift among various frequency bands and patterns. This knowledge has been available within various wisdom traditions (such as shamanism and occult and mystery schools) yet kept out of the public domain. The end result is that we become fixed and dogmatic in our sensory ‘beliefs’ and cling desperately to the small section of reality we perceive as the whole. Yet the human brain, and nervous system, is flexible enough to shift between frequency patterns and to interpret ‘realities’ beyond the consensual pattern. In past generations many mystery schools considered humankind too immature to undertake such training – hence the need for rigorous and strict initiation rituals and testing. This embargo on such knowledge and techniques has helped foster the domination of materialistic science to the point whereby we are taught to dismiss subjective and intuitive impulses and experiences. However, it has now become an evolutionary necessity that our dominant reliance upon material pursuits be balanced with an increase in consciousness research that supports the significant role of a ‘shared mind’: in other words, collective empathy.

There has been much talk on the Internet as to the emerging paradigm of the ‘global brain’ and of the growth of planetary empathy. Systems philosopher Ervin Laszlo defines the global brain as ‘the quasi-neural energy - and information - processing network created by six and a half billion humans on the planet, interacting in many ways, private as well as public, and on many levels, local as well as global’ (Laszlo 2008: intro). On this physical level there is already a great deal of information-exchange occurring at ever-increasing speed. Emerging social networks (such as Facebook and MySpace); collaborative news sites with large commentary base (such as The Huffington Post) are also developing empathy-at-a-distance between worldwide users. In this context there is already underway a transformation in the relations between a significant number of people in the world. Yet now hard-science is taking these developments further by positing that people are increasing not only their emphatic relationships with each other but also their entanglement. This view has recently been corroborated by neuroscience with its finding of ‘mirror neurons’.

A ‘mirror neuron’ is a brain neuron that is activated (‘fires’) when a living being (such as humans and other animals such as primates and mammals) observes the action of another. In other words, if an individual watches another person eat an apple, then the exact same brain neurons will fire in the person observing the action as if they themselves were performing the act. Such neuron behaviour has been found in humans to operate in the premotor and inferior parietal cortex. This phenomenon of ‘mirror neurons’ was first discovered by a research team in Italy in the 1990s when studying the neuronal activity of macaque monkeys. This discovery has led to many notable neuroscientists to declare that mirror neurons are important for learning processes (imitation) as well as language acquisition. In more modern general terms we might also say that this capacity is what ties a person in sympathy and empathy to another’s situation. It may also explain why people become so emotionally attached to events on television, and even cry in response to watching someone crying on the screen. In this way we are emotionally entangled through a mirroring of brain neuronal firing. When we also consider that our bodies are entangled through a quantum field of electrical bio-photon resonance, it explains how we are affected by and from others – via wave/field interference. This information is significant when considering a shift towards heightened empathy between people both near and at-a-distance (via digital communications) as well as the potential for catalyzing future abilities for telepathic communication between individuals. Our bodies then, as well as our brains, appear to function like receivers/de-coders within a constantly in-flux information field. We can refer to this form of ‘field awareness’ as quantum field consciousness, or simply as quantum consciousness (since quantum implies non-local field effect).

However, the manifestations of this quantum-field affect (often referred to as the abstract, or ‘soft’, realm of imaginative insights and visions) are usually left to the eccentric artists, mystics, and fringe creative innovators. Much of our modern minds have been denied their left-right brain full working and pulled into a tight left-brain rational functioning that operates as mechanical, linear, competitive, and narrow. The abstract right-brain, with its magical world of creative visionary thinking, has been mostly sidelined and laid to rest (McGilchrist 2009). Much of this right-brain activity was the source for indigenous wisdom, shamanic practices, and similar traditions that western materialistic thought has sought to ignore over the years. Often our own intellectual training conditions us to think of such ‘magical practices’ as primitive, barbaric, and worthy of little more than western colonialism and/or re-education. Yet those of us in the ‘civilized’ West, with our left-hemisphere dominated brain, live in the everyday world of material things and external attractions. We often picture ourselves as existing as separate forces, as islands in a chaotic sea of physical and natural impacts, and at the whim of random neutral influences. Yet we now know that this is not the case, as new DNA research and ‘hard science’ is showing….[to be continued]

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Quantum Consciousness: The Way to Reconcile Science and Spirituality

I have recently been invited to submit a post on Quantum Consciousness to the Ervin Laszlo Forum on Science & Spirituality. This Forum is a discussion arena (agora) for bringing together varied voices to share thoughts and ideas about the benefits for the mutually existing disciplines of scientific thought and spiritual experience. My contribution is titled 'Quantum Consciousness: The Way to Reconcile Science and Spirituality' and includes the following extract:

Human thought in the 21^st century needs to work towards a new model that immerses the human being within a vibrant energetic universe. However, this need not demand that we throw away what we already have; rather, we can expand upon the tools that have brought us to our present position. There is an eastern proverb that roughly translates as: ‘You may ride your donkey up to your front door, but would you ride it into your house?’ In other words, when we have arrived at a particular destination we are often required to make a transition in order to continue the journey. In this sense we can be grateful to a vast knowledge base of scientific and religious thought for helping us to arrive at where we presently stand. Yet it is now imperative that we move forward. As Deepak Chopra suggested in his opening contribution to this Forum, how we move forward is likely to be centered in our understanding of consciousness.

Our physical apparatus is spectacular; consider that each of us carries around a 100 billion-cell bioelectric quantum computer that creates our realities, with almost all of its neurons established the day we were born. Still, this phenomenal ‘reality shaper’ has undergone monumental perceptual change over our evolutionary history. What is required, at this significant juncture, is again another catalyst of consciousness change. This may come about through discoveries in the field of quantum biology, and the idea, emphasized by Ervin Laszlo in his previous blogs, that the form of consciousness we possess is likely to be the result of quantum coherence.

The post is now simultaneously hosted on the popular Huffington Post website - you can read here.

The blog post was limited to 1,000 words and so is by necessity rather brief and does not go into any significant detail on the points raised. This blog, however, is an extract from a longer paper (7,000 words) that will be published in the World Futures journal. 

Please read and share amongst like-minded friends.

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In Your Body is the Garden of Flowers

Several months ago I finished work on a short piece of fiction that had been lying around over the past 18 months or so. It is a dream-like work that weaves between various stories & storytelling...like a tapestry. A short extract:

In the morning the light shone through the windows as does a hand that shakes a sleepy body. Daylight entered like an honoured guest and rested gently upon the room. I awakened refreshed yet strangely absent to myself, as if I had left so much behind. Now all I carried was my skin, hanging softly in folds like thin curtains. Somewhat relieved that whatever had been so real to me was now leaving me alone, I felt free of debt.

The whole work (30,000 words) can be found (and downloaded) from the 'My Writings (Box.net) widget on the right side of this blog. Feel free to read and share - and hopefully enjoy.

(Please bear in mind Creative Commons copyright)

Post-Autopia as a Dystopian Digital Nexus?

A new paper of mine titled 'Post-Autopia as a Dystopian Digital Nexus?' is soon to be published in an Italian sociology journal called lo Squaderno (under Creative Commons license). A brief summary:

The days of the automobile being the gateway to ‘unfettered’ freedoms and spontaneous ‘get away’ are surely numbered. This concept of the car is likely to be no longer sustainable in dense urban regions given the increase in car users, and the foreseeable increase in road congestion problems in city areas and privatised routes. The sheer complexity of integrated issues, from individual user rights, individualised pricing schemes, car security, identity validation, etc, will require complex systems of informational databases and coded spaces. I foresee a post-autopia that necessitates a move into datastructures as a dominant form of social-sorting within which automobility will be negotiated and ‘permitted’.

This scenario of increased technological interdependency will be a rational and logical outcome from an ongoing development in increased informational processes that are required to control and organize these flows, both efficiently and profitably (Beniger, 1986). The potential emergence of a post-autopia digital nexus may turn out to be ‘not a deliberate form of oppressive control but an institutional - bureaucratic obsession with function, with the smooth flow of goods and services, and with efficiencies of movement and transactional fluidity’ (Wood and Graham, 2006: 182). In other words, post-autopia will require its own digitalisation as a means of mediating its own organisational principle.

 

 I have included the full paper as a pdf download in the Writings (box.net) widget at the rhs of this blog... for those who are interested in reading more about the rise of surveillance and databases in relation to car movement and mobility.


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Planetary Mythologies: 3

Analogy Three

Imagine that you have just discovered a civilization as small as a DNA molecule. You want to establish contact, but since your dimensions prevent you from entering the same space-time envelope, you must search for other means of communication. From observing the civilization closely, you find that there is an informational class that seems to carry messages back and forth among parts of the society, and you observe further that these messengers are actually enzymes of a structure that is isomorphic to one of your own patterns of information. Since you cannot talk directly to the members of the civilization, you decide to talk through a patterning of the bits of information the enzymes carry back and forth. Unfortunately, the very act of trying to pattern an enzyme alters its structure so that a part of your own message is always shifted. It seems that the only time the enzymes are able to carry a high proportion of your own message is when their civilizational structure is either breaking apart or just about to come together again. Fascinated by the problem, you choose your opening and closing epochs carefully and begin to carry on an extended conversation with the civilization.

(William Irwin Thompson) 

Planetary Mythologies: 2

Analogy Two

Imagine a vehicle as large as a planet that began a voyage an aeon ago. After generations of voyaging, the mechanics lose all sense of who they are and where they are going. They begin to grow unhappy with their condition and say that the notion that they are on a journey in an enormous vehicle is a myth put forth by the ruling class to disguise its oppression of the mechanical class. There is a revolution and the captain is killed. Elated by their triumph, the mechanics proclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat and destroy the captain's log, which contains, they claim, nothing but the lies of the old ruling class.

(William Irwin Thompson) 

Planetary Mythologies

Analogy One

Imagine insects with a life span of two weeks, and then imagine further that they are trying to build up a science about the nature of time and history. Clearly, they cannot build a model on the basis of a few days in summer. So let us endow them with a language and a culture through which they can pass on their knowledge to future generations. Summer passes, then autumn; finally it is winter. The winter insects are a whole new breed, and they perfect a new and revolutionary science on the basis of the 'hard facts' of their perceptions of snow. As for the myths and legends of summer: certainly the intelligent insects are not going to believe the superstitions of their primitive ancestors.

(William Irwin Thompson)

The Melon

Travelling, a teacher and his disciple were having a rest. At a certain moment, he took a melon from his saddle bag, he divided it in two and both began to eat it.

While eating, the disciple said:

-‘My wise teacher, I know that everything you do has a reason. Sharing this melon with me perhaps is a signal that you have something to teach me.’

The teacher continued eating in silence.

‘By your silence, I understand the hidden question - the disciple insisted - and it must be the following one: the taste which I am experiencing when eating this delicious fruit, where is it: in the melon or my tongue?’

The teacher didn't say anything. The disciple, excited, continued:

‘And as everything in life has a sense, I think I am close to the answer of this question: the taste is an act of love and interdependence between both, because without the melon there would be no object of pleasure and without the tongue.’

‘Stop it!’ - said the teacher – ‘the biggest idiots are those who think they are more intelligent than others and search an interpretation for everything! The melon tastes good, this is more than enough. Let me eat it in peace!’

Small-scale Innovations

Also on the increase are localized micro-finances whereby communities are issuing their own specific local currencies as a means of promoting local business growth. This is a Depression-era idea and helps to tie-in local consumers with their neighbourhood suppliers. It works by local businesses printing money and then consumers exchanging national currencies for the locally issued one and redeeming them in participating stores. Communities throughout Europe, North America, and Asia are buying food and fuel with such currencies as the ‘Detroit Cheers’ and the Bia Kut Chum. Exchange and credit/barter systems have also been running successfully as in the ‘Local Exchange Trading Systems’ (LETS) that are local, exchange networks that trade goods and services without using a currency. Instead, a credit system is in operation whereby individuals can earn credits by performing services which can then be swapped for gaining the services of others. At present it is estimated that over 400 such schemes operate in the UK alone, with others in France, Australia, and Switzerland.

Such schemes also encourage the interaction and sense of proximity between people and neighbourhoods. We are seeing a shift that utilizes small-scale innovations to replace broader top-heavy dependencies. As elitist Henry Kissinger once famously remarked: ‘Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people’. Such monopolies of control belong to the old paradigm and will find no welcome as people collectively shift towards self-determination. It is predicted that these ‘agents of self-determination’ will emerge as a new social generation of disruptive innovators. A recent UK Report has described this ‘new wave of environmental pioneers’ as bringing in new and unexpected forms of ‘disruptive innovation’. Disruptive innovation is that which is unexpected and arrives, usually from the periphery or bottom-up, to provide services that have previously been monopolised. Such disruptions are highly threatening to the hierarchical status quo, yet often empowering to civil society. The UK Report states that: ‘In short, we need disruptive forms of innovation – cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives to existing products or services often produced by non-traditional players’. It further notes that this is not only a question of ‘new technologies’ but of ‘wider forms of innovation’. There is much disruptive innovation taking place around the world, with many ‘tinkerers’ searching for solutions beneficial for people rather than for profit. And this shall be the new paradigm, the new civic order: a re-organising of the social sphere away from consumerist dependency and exploitation, and towards self-empowerment and community sustainability. People shall be motivated for their families and for other people rather than for profit and those binary digits in a virtual bank somewhere. The fallacy of the old world with its delusional constraints will become transparent and will anger a lot of people. The veil will begin to fall, the curtain pulled back, and Dorothy will see the Wizard as the small grey-bearded man and not as the powerful Maestro. We have been fooled for far too long, and it is time to wake up, to engage with the program of evolutionary change, and to move on. As Doris Lessing wrote:

There is no epoch in history that seems to us as it must have to the people who lived through it. What we live through, in any age, is the effect on us of mass emotions and of social conditions from which it is almost impossible to detach ourselves. Often the mass emotions are those which seem the noblest, best and most beautiful. And yet, inside a year, five years, a decade, five decades, people will be asking, “How could they have believed that?

The time is ripe for a new kind of emergent innovation; one that comes from high energies of experimentation and enthusiasm. Whatever the disastrous social consequences that the world may be forced to live through in the early 21st century, the regeneration will be worth it. Evolution is moving up a spiral and needs to shed some dirty, unclean energies. In short, it needs to get its house in order for the move. And so do we - for we shall be moving too.

A revolution can exist at many levels. It can manifest in physical, emotional, and spiritual change. When that change arrives it is important to accept the uncertain, the unknown. Many people may be forced into action, even if this seems distasteful and unwanted at first. People are often initially afraid of change; afraid of leaving secure territory. Yet we need to change. And when many things are not understandable, the worth of a person will be found not through their wasted thought but through their constructive actions. The next, and final, chapter will discuss some of these evolutionary and potentially radical changes for humankind.

Social Innovations

Frustration and despair can soon shift towards resilience, renewal, and regeneration. When the ground beneath the feet becomes loose, the human capacity to furrow anew comes into play. What is being proposed within this framework of a ‘new civil order’ is that as people are forced to learn new skills, people will take more and more responsibility for themselves. This will manifest also in revitalized concerns for one’s family, friends, and community. A shift of dependency is likely to occur that will take back power that many people had previously given away into external socio-political institutions (and commercial dependencies), and use this to empower themselves. People’s relationship with technology is also likely to undergo a re-evaluation. Instead of being wholly dependent upon complex, unknowable technologies, people will learn to re-design tools to aid and empower them rather than pacify. The view taken in this book is that future years will not see the coming of a super-technological singularity (as envisioned by Ray Kurzweil ), but a re-configuring of our technologies. By this it is meant that instead of technology working beyond us and out of our reach, it will be working for us, and sometimes in more simplified forms. One of the immediate concerns will be energy requirements. Given that a true free-energy revolution is still an uncertainty, alternative energy will need to be harnessed from solar, wind, water, and other natural sources. The corporate red-herring of agro-fuels (mass-produced ‘bio’-fuels) is likely to be rejected by local communities who are seeking to shift to low-carbon alternatives using ‘real’ biofuels. True biofuels are produced from waste such as biogas from manure or landfill or waste vegetable oil. Their development, however, is so far limited. This situation is likely to change once necessity becomes a key factor. Already some local communities are developing their own low-key diesel manufacturing through re-cycling waste vegetable oil. These DIY projects can be developed further by well-organised communities using agricultural processes.

There are a range of oilseed crops, such as sunflower, rape seeds, soy, palm and jatropha, which can be converted into biodiesel used on its own or blended with conventional diesel. A range of cellulosic materials, such as various waste products from crops (including grasses, trees and wood) can be broken down with enzymes and turned into bio-ethanol. Bio-ethanol can also be produced from a number of crops including sugarcane, sugar beet, barley, corn/maize, grain, and cotton. Using cellulosic biomass to produce ethanol would lessen the strain placed upon standard agricultural land needed for growing crops. Butanol is currently a potential second-generation bio-fuel produced by fermentation from a range of organic material, such as molasses left behind by sugar production or whey from cheese production. Butanol has several advantages over ethanol in terms of higher energy output and being easily blended with diesel. In the future we may see regional areas, and localized communities, adopting a bottom-up biofuels market that would serve to create energy-sufficient lifestyles. This can be achieved not only through a supply of recyclable waste but also through citizen-managed low-scale farming. Genuine biofuel schemes could be located within sustainable programs based within active communities and separate from corporate top-down energy suppliers. This would involve a move from mass production to distributed and localised schemes which would aid many communities. It is foreseeable that these, and more, energy innovations will begin to manifest through grass-roots pioneering and newly emerging citizen information networks. The corporate control and monopoly upon such natural resources, and primary human needs, will be rejected for local empowerment projects. Part of the civil revolution will occur when people, desperate in terms of supplying basic needs, will be forced to create these supplies for themselves. Then there will be no going back; no return to former dependencies.

Projects and schemes already underway around the world include gardening workshops for growing-your-own. Information made available for ‘self-farmers’ will encourage food production to be once again a prime aspect of family and civic life. There is currently a growth in the number of urban gardens and communal composting. Neighbourhoods are sourcing water supplies and introducing local permaculture schemes. Social networks are already established that seek to bring home-gardeners together to share tips, advice, and friendship. One such social network - Freedom Gardens – describes itself as ‘a food security movement person to person…A modern gardening era/movement for the 21st century resulting in efforts to become free of foreign oil, corporate controls, contamination and food miles while creating a sustainable future by promoting local food production’. Inspired innovators are currently developing new sustainable alternatives to industrial agriculture that push towards forming a ‘post-industrial food system’ that is less resource intensive and more locally-based and managed. An array of such start-ups include BrightFarm Systems,SPIN-Farming, Virtually Green, Aquacopia, and NewSeed Advisors. Similarly, new networks are emerging of investors, donors, entrepreneurs, farmers, and activists who are committed to building local food systems and local economies.

In a similar manner the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) elders suggest a re-vitalizing of sustainable, locally-orientated cultures; they suggest the creation of 'liberation technologies'. By this they mean technologies that can be created and used by people in a specific locality to enhance self-sufficiency and respect for the natural world. Wind turbines, solar power, biomass plants, and organic agriculture are all examples of liberation technologies. Likewise, Dhyani, who puts forth Cherokee teachings, states that

This age ending has been a time when people have gathered information about building and about inventions to make life better. Now it's time for people to recognize that the inventions are a creation of mind, to put aside such inventions as cause harm, and to bring forth and further develop those activities that benefit all beings and the future generations.

Alternative technologies are arising that seek to bypass traditional dependencies as the civil movement grows in power and determination. There are now markets for rocket stoves, vegetable oil generators, solar fridges, cheap wind generators, and reusable water bottles used as solar lamps. Innovations are also turning shipping containers into virtually cost-free homes. Social information networks are advising people on how to make their own soap, toothpaste, clothes, and much more. Instead of re-cycling there is now a movement towards pre-cycling; that is, training people on how to exist not only on what they have but to transform their conception of necessity so that non-primary needs are taken out of the equation. Individuals and communities are learning how to live more on less. Part of this re-education is a perceptual paradigm (a ‘new mind for a new world’). For many of us, if we don’t choose to think and behave differently in the upcoming years, then we may be forced into change – and perhaps brutally.