what wonder looks like - fractal swirly thing

Humanity’s Singularity: A New Age for Mankind

Something wonderful is about to happen. I don’t know when, or how, or even what, but I can feel it approaching, like the calm before a sweet summer storm, the thunder gently cracking over the hills.

Yes, something wonderful is going to happen, and the more I read, and the more diverse my readings, the more I learn about science, technology, economics, politics, dreams, shamanism and even the UFO phenomenon, the more a peculiar and brilliant vision of the future starts to come into focus.

By now, many have heard of the idea of a technological singularity, the idea that computers are becoming smarter exponentially, and will soon overtake humanity. These advancements are not limited to technology, but are also available in the fields of interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge and skills. In other words, humanity is on the verge of entering a new spiritual age, with cosmic consequences relating to our knowledge of our place in the universe, and thereby altering our role in the universe.

A Technological Singularity

If you’re not familiar with the work of Raymond Kurzweil, the short version is, he’s an inventor and futurist who has become very rich by positioning his companies to take advantage of new technology in the year it arrives – “going where the ball is going to be”. One notable example was the visual text to speech device, the Kurzweil Reading Machine, which he released in 1975.

Kurzweil states that the growth of technology is now exponential, and so its trajectory is difficult to predict for most of us. Only in 1997 did Deep Blue defeat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a feat once thought impossible. In the near future, perhaps 2045, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence – which will be a very strange point in history indeed.

In fact, exponential advances aren’t limited to technology. The technology is built for humans, and so it must spill into other aspects of our lives. There is more information available than ever before, and people are freer than ever before to explore it and form connections, drawing relationships between ideas which once seemed to have no connection whatever.

Rapid Synthesis of Information

When YouTube started to gain popularity, one key battle of ideas began between two large contenders – Christianity and atheism. Personalities such as The Amazing Atheist and ArmouredSkeptic discussed the arguments, and eventually, in this public arena, atheism won. They demystified the myths, pointed out the contradictions in the Bible, and made a solid case that there is little intellectual evidence for the existence of God.

The backdrop of cold, hard atheism set the scene for a re-analysis of myths by figures such as Jordan Peterson and John Vervaeke, drawing on the works of Carl Jung and others, asking questions like: How is our language and culture still affected by the philosophy of Christ? What rules or other good ideas can we still carry from the old stories and the sages? And how can they even be reinforced moving into the future?

In this age of widely distributed information, where millions of people can use their voice, cultural progression and synthesis of ideas can happen very rapidly. Therefore, it is likely that we will also see a cultural singularity – perhaps a point where all of the major traditions are synthesised. Of course, one could argue that this has already occurred, when Jung and later Campbell described the underlying “monomyth” of every culture.

Angels of Our Better Nature

According to the work of Steven Pinker, the world is consistently getting better. Looking at murders and other violence over the long term, there is a clear downward trend. TV and other media still try to convince us that the world is a horrible place, but more and more people see through that.

We can guess that people now find violence distasteful by looking at the public relations around the industry of violence. The department of war became the department of defense. Torture is now labelled “enhanced interrogation”, and civilian massacres are “collateral damage”. Killing is no longer palatable, and so when it is committed in an official capacity it is often obscured from view.

If the violence is going down, it’s likely that something else is going up. The decrease in violence must mean an increase in things like empathy, friendship, compassion, understanding, rationality – even open-mindedness.

At some point that must also reach some threshold, some singularity of peace. For example, a point where more people focus on making the world peaceful than making it more violent, or where murder drops to zero. There are already 10 countries with a murder rate of zero, including Liechtenstein and Monaco.

The Economics of the Information Age

In the book, “The Sovereign Individual” by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Moog, the case is made that grand political conditions are changing, eventually leading to a world where nation states are no longer relevant. The book, published in 1997, says that the industrial era was given rise by the advent of gunpowder, which made the prevailing military technology – armoured cavalry and castles – obsolete. That allowed the rise of centralised places that were easy to tax, such as factories, that also required protection of a large state.

Now manufacturing has a diminished importance in developed economies, and you don’t need hundreds of employees to form a company. Tech start-ups can build a prosperous business with just a handful of people, and they can also incorporate in a variety of jurisdictions – Costa Rica, Panama, or even using Estonia’s e-residency program.

Companies don’t even have to accept national currency any more. They can decide to accept only cryptocurrency – as predicted in the book – and practising careful security protocols puts their finances out of the reach of any state. That means nation states will be at once powerless to tax, and powerless to protect from thieves. Without those two key factors, it becomes much less likely that nation states will survive – perhaps allowing smaller city states and other corporations to take care of citizens, treating them more like customers than cattle to be placated and milked.

The Sovereign Individual makes the case that we will see secession much more frequently in coming years, with Quebec breaking from Canada and Veneto breaking from Italy by 2025. My esteemed co-host of the Multiversity Project, Arielle Friedman, once lived in Quebec and was involved in radical movements there, and sees that timeline of Quebecois independence as unlikely.

However, Venetian independence has a large amount of public support, with a national poll showing at least 56% public support – perhaps even as high as 89%.

In Spain, there is the Catalan independence movement, along with other smaller movements. Spain began as a collection of kingdoms, and today each still retains its own culture, and in the case of Catalonia, its own very actively spoken language. When the Catalan government planned a referendum to vote for secession, the national government seized ballot papers and mobile phones, threatened fines of €300,000 for polling booth operators, and demanded that Google remove an app for finding voting locations.

The result of the referendum was 92% in favour of secession, though the turnout was only 43%. The Spanish government again responded with force. They arrested several members of the Catalan government, and issued warrants for others. Many fled to other parts of Europe to escape prosecution, including former President Puigdemont who now resides in Belgium.

Although the Catalan case failed for now, the shocking and anachronistic decision to arrest the democratically-elected dissidents, and the images of police violence against voters, highlights how difficult it is for a nation state of 47 million to retain control in this modern world, while maintaining good public relations.

Once one secession movement in the developed world secedes, many others will look to it as a model, or at least take greater confidence from it, leading to a domino effect of secessions – much like runners beating the four minute mile after seeing the example of Roger Bannister.

A subtler form of secession is happening in the United States – de facto secession. Cannabis is prohibited by federal legislation, but in 10 states and some territories, it is legal for recreational use. Furthermore, the cities of Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, California, have decriminalised possession of psilocybin mushrooms, again defying the federation. The more the states openly defy the federal government, the less authority it has in the minds of the public, and in fact.

According to Davidson and Rees-Moog’s case, a change of epochs is afoot, the transition from industrial age to information age. Much power will shift hands, away from centralised and highly hierarchical institutions, and into the hands of individuals and adaptive communities.

Stranger Knowledge

That’s not Meemaw’s recipe for cheesecake

Over the last 100 years, a lot of knowledge which was previously kept secret, or at least out of view, has become more and more public. It runs on a spectrum from knowledge that is seen as completely respectable, to knowledge that is seen as false, weird or plain irrelevant – from accepted scientific and medical knowledge, to spiritual ideas, to bizarre theories bubbling up from the recesses of the Internet.

Just a few decades ago, you had to go to a physician or pharmacist to get medical knowledge. Now lists of conditions, medications and side effects are available for free online. Likewise, previously you had to subscribe to scientific journals to get peer-reviewed papers. Now many are free, either openly on the web’s journals, or for download in more hidden parts.

The eastern martial arts were largely a closed tradition until Bruce Lee opened it up. Yoga, at least forms of hatha yoga, is now an accepted form of exercise, and now many yoga teachers will read the Yoga Sutras to understand its purest ambitions and origins. Zen practice is given a punk-rock perspective in a book like “Sit Down and Shut Up”. Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power Of Now” pushed awareness meditation into Oprah’s book club and into popular consciousness.

Before 1975, lucid dreaming was seen as unscientific myth, and even seen as impossible. Thanks to the work of people like Dr. Keith Hearne and Stephen Laberge, it’s now established scientifically, and thanks to dreamers such as Robert Waggoner and Carlos Castaneda, we can see how it links back to a much earlier tradition of self-knowledge, spiritual knowledge and shamanism.

In 1955, María Sabina revealed the “holy children” to the world, giving magic mushrooms to R. Gordon Wasson in a ceremony, opening the gateway into a sacred tradition. In 1971, Terence McKenna and his party travelled to the Colombian Amazon in search of oo-koo-hé and ayahuasca, and while that expedition wasn’t exactly successful, it was likely a key point in leading many seekers to go to the Amazon to find ayahuasca, and now the medicine can be taken, relatively cheaply, in ceremonies in scores of countries. 

Aleister Crowley published “Magick Book IV” in 1929, again granting a gateway into a sacred tradition. Even though Crowley loved to mislead his readers, in many ways he demystified ceremonial magic. Today you can find teachers such as Jason Louv who offer paid courses in magick over the Internet.

Perhaps the strangest of these branches of knowledge now open for study on the Internet, are things that appear to have little to no historical precedent – things which would have previously gone undiscussed because they seemed too strange to even entertain. For example, the “Mandela Effect”.

There are apparently tens of thousands of people from different countries who claim to have detailed memories of Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s, the subsequent parades, reactions from celebrities, speaking tours by Winnie Mandela and so on. According to history, that never happened. Mandela was eventually released, became president, and died in 2013. Many hypothesise that the Mandela Effect is actually a memory of an alternate reality.

Likewise, people gather on subreddits to discuss “glitches in the matrix”, unusual things such as objects disappearing and reappearing, or “quantum immortality” – cases where someone clearly remembers dying, but finds themselves awake and very much alive, continuing their life in slightly different circumstances.

One group called the Fatum Project or “the randonauts” seeks out points of interest using a quantum random number generator, with the expectation that it will lead people to break routine, and find items or events of personal significance. For example, one randonaut went to a location and found a house with five “Welcome!” signs on their door. He ended up knocking and finding a man who was working on an important presentation, but was unsure of whether he should actually deliver it. He began to pray for a sign, and that was the moment the randonaut knocked.

And of course, people also describe their bizarre near-death experiences in detail, to be catalogued, and again freely available.

Again, this knowledge base is growing exponentially, and so are the connections that people are drawing between these various disciplines. If there is truth to be found in these unusual areas of research, then surely patterns will start to emerge.

McKenna’s Worlds Merging

Terence McKenna reading this article

In one unusual speech, author Terence McKenna describes receiving an unusual vision during a mushroom trip, coming to him over the course of about 15 seconds, something so strange that at first he thought he must interpret it as the plot of a science fiction story.

The story is this, about 2000 years ago our universe was unified. Something happened called a “fractal soliton of improbability”, an event which can only pass once in the history of a universe. When it happened, the universe split in two, branching off in different timelines.

The timelines were separated by one key event. The demiurge who created the universe was able to manifest as Jesus Christ in our timeline, but not in the other, or perhaps did not experience resurrection in the other. The incomplete or misunderstood teachings of Christ lead to the destruction and retardation of human knowledge. In the universe in which Christ was not fully realised, humans prospered, the Greek Empire became more peaceful and travelled to the Americas, instantly finding respect for the Maya civilisation. The civilisations combined into a sort of mega empire, sharing their knowledge of science, mathematics, shamanism and philosophy.

As a result, mankind reached the moon by about 1300. Now, in the present day, this fine civilisation had been exploring its dreams for many years, and now they have learnt about our world. To restore peace and balance, to liberate us from the suffering of our strange and wayward path, they wish to reunite the worlds. McKenna wondered if the two timelines might realign on 21 December 2012, the day that the Mayan calendar begins a new 5,126 year cycle.

It’s easy to dismiss or enjoy T-Mac’s story as nothing more than a compelling mushroom journey, told by a charismatic storyteller. Any rational man would do just that. Fortunately, I’m not bound by such things.

While nothing dramatic happened at the end of 2012, since then there have been things emerging like the Mandela Effect. Assuming ME is real, two worlds merging would certainly account for why so many people appear to have differing memories of the same points in history.

Is it possible that McKenna’s story, wild as it is, may lead us to some underlying reality, or give us insight about coming events? Yes, probably.

Chico Xavier’s Prophecy

Chico Xavier using his mental powers

Francisco “Chico” Xavier was a medium, an author and philanthropist, voted more than once as the greatest Brazilian of all time. He channeled more than 400 books during his lifetime, with many more being released posthumously. Some of the books were from dead Brazilian poets and authors, some from his deceased mother, some describing in detail what life is like after death – particularly in relation to “Nosso Lar”, the afterlife counterpart of Rio De Janeiro.

Some may be skeptical about his otherworldly talents; however, his philanthropy is less controversial. He sold more than 50 million books, and the proceeds all went to charity.

Chico prophesied that humans would go to the moon, and when they did, there would be a meeting of a galactic council. After two world wars, Divinity had decided that it was time for the world to end. However, due to the intervention of Jesus Christ and certain extraterrestrials, humanity would be given a chance to purify and regenerate. If humanity didn’t start another world war in 50 years, then we would be allowed into the greater interplanetary community, allowing us to receive cosmic knowledge.

The case is detailed in the documentary, “Deadline”.

The 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing, much like the 2012 date, passed with some celebration, but no grand spiritual or extraterrestrial revelation. However, it does seem that events relating to the prophecy have been building for many years, some even reaching a critical point in the days leading up to that date, July 20th, 2019.

UFO and ET Disclosure

Steven Greer started the Disclosure Project in 1993, with the intent to encourage governments to release all the classified data they have about UFOs and extraterrestrials. The project led to a grand conference in 2001 where hundreds of pilots, radar operators and military officials detailed their data and bizarre experiences. Greer now runs a program called CE5 or “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind”, where students travel to the desert for a week and attempt to initiate contact with beings of other worlds. In a 2013 interview with Joe Rogan, Greer said every time they had gone to the desert intending to contact UFOs, they had indeed contacted UFOs.

Even after the Disclosure Project’s grand seminar, the UFO phenomenon was still treated as a sort of joke, going largely unnoticed in the mainstream, with many people still willing to write off all of the data without even looking at it. People feel fear when they suspect that there might be beings with powerful technology lurking, and that our very lives may be at their mercy. And after all, only the most dedicated UFO nuts would scour the Internet, looking at case after questionable case to find one that might be legit, read Project Blue Book’s reports rather than just skip to the press summary, or listen through 2 hours of military officials dryly stating their radar records.

As time goes on, the information becomes more accessible. On June 20th 2019 – one month before the Apollo 11 50th anniversary – Bob Lazar appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, arguably the most popular podcast in the world, a modern media institution of the Intellectual Dark Web. Lazar described his experiences working in Area 51’s S4 facility, attempting to reverse engineer extraterrestrial technology, seeing as many as 9 alien crafts, and working closely with one, including its gravity control device.

cover of science wonder stories with a UFO on its side
Sweet ride

Lazar’s case is notable, because he’s clearly not interested in fame or money. He normally avoids interviews, and gives away any cash to the science faculties of local high schools. His story has remained consistent for 30 years. Polygraph and body language experts have analysed him and been surprised when they realise Lazar shows no signs of deceit.

Lazar has also made certain scientific statements which later proved accurate – for example, his knowledge of gravity working as a wave, and his description of element 115 – described by Bob in 1989 and first synthesised by known science in 2003.

It’s worth noting that in Bob’s description of the military-style workflow, scientists were only allowed to discuss projects with their lab partner, and their supervisor. That is almost entirely contrary to the conditions necessary for the rapid synthesis of information – and for the scientific process in general. Many pairs of eyes looking at a case are much more likely to blurt out an idea that leads to a revelation – two pairs of eyes, not so much.

It’s difficult to imagine exactly how the hidden information will eventually be released. For now, the US government seems content to ignore Lazar’s claims. At some point, agencies may make official statements in the form of a “limited hangout” – small admissions which serve to keep the more important data secret. With greater public pressure than ever on these organisations, there is also a greater demand for whistleblowers. Sooner or later, in one way or another, the information is likely to be released. And if a fraction of what Greer and Lazar claim is true, it’s likely to have drastic consequences, such as decimating the world’s dependence on oil, and even enabling interplanetary travel.

Perhaps the grand reveal will have an even greater scope than that, providing a wider context, or a key point, in the rapid cultural and spiritual progression that humanity is currently undergoing – according to that ancient tradition: when the student is ready, the master shall appear.

Something Wonderful

what wonder looks like - fractal swirly thing
This is what wonder looks like

There are many other aspects to this case which I haven’t talked about. For example, astrology and the Age of Aquarius, the Kali Yuga, and how Terence Mckenna’s ideas about novelty relates to the disappearing object phenomenon. The widely-read and imaginative among you will think of many more examples that lend evidence to this case, that mankind is on the verge of entering a strange new world.

One strategy to predict the future is by drawing trendlines between data points, extending them into the future. In futurism, this tends to be a failing strategy, because these facts are merely details about the past – single variables in isolation. Good futurists must look at multiple trends, then imagine how they might interact, and to foresee what is just beyond those trends – what is not yet even present in the data.

What happens next is difficult to predict, because it may be something entirely new to humanity. I can’t say the extent of what is hidden, nor the extent of what may come to light. I can’t say what comes next, except to say, something wonderful is about to happen.