New Civilization Visions

Issue 8, 12 January 1996

This is a long vision, with several parts, so it gets an issue all by itself.

- Flemming

Gwen Kraft <guinever@interpac.net>, Hawaii.

A Vision of our Future

(working draft as revised 1/2/96)

It is 2075 and the earth is such like a garden that the beings and creatures living upon her are increasingly awed and fed by the warmth of her divinity. In sensorily-perceived waves of bliss all creatures gratefully receive her bounties: not only physical and material bundance, but also intelligence, bliss, peace, joy, and myriad other qualities of earth's rapturous love in which they are daily bathed. These sensations emmanate not only from the earth, but also from all other living things; and the effect is so enrapturing that were it not for our increased capacities in physiology and mental and emotional bodies, we would be consummed by the intensity. Indeed, blissfully consummed we are in spirit!

General Overview:

There are experimental communities of all varieties upon the earth. Transportation is easily accessible, global and inexpensive. People have no need of passports and use thumbprints to electronically register and designate their whereabouts for easy contact by friends and loved ones. However, this procedure is not mandatory and someone wishing to retreat or withdraw may bypass the process by choice. We are self-accountable and self-responsible.

Fuel and energy needs are provided by sunlight and starlight, -- quarklight? -- received and transmitted by crystals coiled in gold, silver, copper and platinum. Tessla coils, electromagnetic generators, semiconductors, nuclear fussion and related technologies have advanced to developments and uses that we could not yet dream of as this vision was first written. Appliances and communications are entirely wireless. Most routine chores and activities are automated or robotized, leaving individuals free to develop creative talents and interests. Health, education, creative employment and housing are provided for all.

People, especially adolescents and young adults, travel frequently around the world, living in communal populations, working/creating according to ability and interest, in return for board, room and apprenticeship or desired growth experience. There are earth gardens, sea gardens, river and lake aquacultures, and forests to be tended. There are healing arts to be learned from master practioners: herbalists, bodyworkers (ranging from masseurs to acupuncturists and adjusters of chi energy, and all varieties in between), aromatherapists, sound and color therapists, and experts in guided imagery and psycholinguistic programming techniques; there are meditation masters, shamans, vision-quest base camps, wilderness journeyers and the like. There are practical artisans and engineers of all varieties; there those who construct and maintain dwellings and serviceable structures, community planners, guides, counselors, and so on who receive incoming visitors and orient them to the community and connect them with their chosen employment or task.

All community participants find some means of service while in the community. When receiving benefits from a community, a person is in agreement to serve in some way. No one is restricted from leaving a community for a personal journey or seclusion or retreat; and there upon the individiual takes personal responsibility for one's own well-being. These things are accomplished without bureaucratic approvals of sabbaticals, etc. Our time and activities are planned according to our individual decisions. Young and old alike travel the world in this manner, learning from one another and appreciating the various climes and cultures. This fosters greater identification with all peoples and increases our humanhood (once called brotherhood.) Furthermore, this offers continual renewal to communities as people take time (from weeks to many years) for varied purposes and return to society refreshed with insights, talents, visions, revelations, and the like. Through this process the hero and heroine archetypes, the shaman, yogi, and wise man, and the wise woman continue to inform society, renewing our civilization in continuous, beauteous transformation. Such individuals are honored and welcomed.

The level of responsibility chosen by a community member brings increased amenities. For example, someone who has chosen a more permanent position in a community and assumed larger duties toward overseeing the care of its members and facilitating the cultural interchange described above, may have access to larger resources to sustain the community. This includes larger and more luxurious housing. There is no concern about such differences, as luxury and abundance is available to all according to the wish each has to be responsible to the material goods one has chosen to possess. In other words, if one wants to journey indefinitely, less possessions are desired or needed. If one wants housing and land and possesions, there is no obstruction to that desire; and one takes the responsibility for its care and upkeep and, our of this abundance, offers service to the community in some fashion.

Education:

A marvelous children's picture book printed in the 1990s called, "It Takes a Whole Village to Raise a Child" foresaw the responsibility that all adults would have toward children in the New Civilization. No one can wash one's hands of the duty to respond nurturingly, and correctively as needed, to a youngster with whom one has contact. Everyone has the duty to consider the influcence of one's thoughts, deeds, and chosen occupation upon the world's children. Whether one is a publisher, an entertainer, an engineer, a space scientist, an educator, an artisan or craftsman, a developer of electronic media, or any other role one has assumed, this obligation cannot be shunned. The loving nurturance of children is a societal obligation. The insights and practices presented in the book, "The Celestine Prophecy" serve as guidelines in this process. The magic and joy of childhood is fostered in every manner possible to ensure that qualities of joy, creativity, playfulness, openness, curiosity, natural intuition, native intelligence, and the like are not lost, but rather expand and thrive into adulthood.

Since the year 2010 schools beyond grades kindergarten to grade five have been dissolved. Boys and girls are educated separately, leading to increased confidence in the abilities of both sexes, and greater mutual respect between them. Children are taught to read, write, and given fundamentals in arithmetic and in information access and retrieval. They are led in non-sectarian meditation (for the development of intuition), singing, community participation, gardening, pet care, and instructed in personal hygiene and daily exercise. As part of an ten or eleven-year-old's personal hygiene instruction, the details of reproduction and pregnancy prevention are given. At the age of conceptual thought development students participate in discussions of aesthetics, values, critical thinking and reasoning, and also in mediation skills for conflict resolution. The youth are instructed in practical matters and logistics of interaction and survival in the global community, including the use of electronic funds which they will begin receiving at the age of 12, (as described in the next section). At age 12 children are considered accountable and are initiated into the adolescent stage of blossoming. In beautiful ceremonies varying by cultural symbols and meanings, the archetypal energies of the hero and heroine are invited into the young person's realm in a more personal way than through the fairytales and myths that they have encountered in their training thus far. Following a formal ceremony the young person spends some time (usually 30 days) upon a personal journey or vision quest to allow this transition into the world of adult accountability to have impact upon the individual. The newly initiated then spends three or four years in various positions of community service, and at age 15 or 16 begins a series of journeys to numerous world communities as above described, or remains in his or her community of origin to begin an apprenticeship with one or more masters of choice. Further education, which is seen as a life-long process is an individual plan devised by the person with the assistance of counselors as desired, and always initiated by the individual.

Money:

Since the year 2010 all persons aged 12 and above are yearly granted electronic funds of $100,000 for use in any manner one chooses. These funds are deposited into the world network of electronic banking and the individual accesses them as needed. There is no restriction as to how they are used. Financial counselors are available for all, and used frequently by those aged 12 through 14 as they enter their first years with access to these funds. Money is finally understood and used in its rightful way....it reaffirms our belief in abundance for all and its availabilty to all, promoting cooperation, participation and sharing. The thought of "not enough to go around" is forever vanquished and hence also the need to hoard and act from greed. Electronic money is the easiest and most delightful way to play this out, while also providing a means to prioritize our goals and measure the value we place upon them. The amount of $100,000 is totally arbitrary and could easily be 100 million or 100 billion. ( Taxes? Long ago an artifact.) The days of accumulation of wealth and possessions, of power over others is gone. The energies of people are focused on creative expression, research, innovation, and the nurturance and soul-advancement of fellow beings and creatures.

Spiritual Life and Human Relationships:

Above all, spirituality is seen as an individual experience, an inner relationship. All beings are beheld as soveriegn individuals, expressions of God and Goddess. There are innumerable gatherings and groupings of individuals for their personal spiritual expression, brought together by similar desires in their approach to the divine or by cultural preferences. There is complete freedom in one's choice to express or participate in spiritual ceremonies or activities. Most find the expression a natural desire because such is the nature of all surrounding creation.

Human relationships and couplings are infused with spirituality and are private concerns inasmuch as their existence brings fruits of strength and beauty to the world. No one is asked to endorse a particular spiritual path or lifestyle or relationship style; and no one has others' preferences forced upon their consciousness in an attempt to gain community consensus. Relationships are private matters. Attempts to make public displays of preferences are met with reminders that as sovereign beings such need for approval, i.e. asking for permission or gaining personal power through the need for ouside approval is unnecessary. Respect is given to all, and dignity in action and behavior is expected of all.

As mentioned previously, the insights of "The Celestine Prophecy" serve as guidelines for relationships in the New Civilization.

Problematic Issues:

Councils made up of members of each community, and rotating on a regular basis, reflect, brainstorm, and more-or-less "think-tank" ideas in creative thought sessions. Problem-solving is handled in a like manner. Small and routine matters are decided by council members. Community input is obtained through electronic network and is sought in large issues. In stalemate, no decision is made until further information can be gathered -- such as guidance from periods of retreat and meditation, networking for input from global consortiums (such as this NCN). Mediation is a process often used to resolve interpersonal problems. All society members have had training in mediation skills. In unusual circumstances, a special council of elder members from sister communities may be invited to meet to address difficult matters.

Dealing with the "Rascals" of Society:

Those with anti-social tendencies are known to have developed their disharmonies primarily from chemicial imbalance or the lack of bonding with a caretaker in early years. The closeness of communities permits the recognition of these problems early on and steps are taken immediately to provide medical treatment and/or parental guidance and assistance. For example, mid-wives function also as community "aunties" and have close contacts with growing youngsters, identifying problems in early stages. Educators (who work 2 days a week in preparation, 2 days a week in instructional settings and 1 day a week in meetings with other teachers and in consultations with parents), observe and address problematic behaviors promptly. As previously described, all adults have responsible roles in child-rearing.

Adult offenders are removed to large working camps in nature where medical evaluations are provided, and contact with the healing forces of nature, care of animals, and the performance of routine duties provide the best means of healing mental, emotional and spiritual diseases.

Parenting Instruction is given regularly in communities; and couples planning to have children agree upon admittance to a community to participate in this instruction, both receiving, and giving instruction in later sessions.

Women deal with reproductive matters privately, being trained in the use of herbs, and learning from and consulting one another. Their intimate relationship with the sovereign divinity within them is respected fully.

Free Speech and Censorship:

Expression in all forms of human creativity and in human speech is encouraged to be as wide-ranging and encompassing as one's imagination can soar. And it is to be coupled with an aim to aesthetic expression. Censorship will not be placed upon expressions that cause no physical, mental, emotional or spiritual harm. This matter is one of the major ongoing considerations of community councils worldwide. There is agreement that monitoring of materials for uninitiated children (under age 12) is acceptable. (Again it is stressed that the nurturing of children is a community responsibility held reverently.) However, it is the primary premise of Free Expression Policies throughout the world that censorship is to be rejected in adult arts, entertainment, communications and publications. More positively stated, Free Expression is to be the rule; and it's corallary is that Aesthetic Expression is to be its standard. It was long ago recognized that free expression, particularly free speech, was sought to allow all viewpoints and equal hearing in social concerns. And, it was equally recognized that all matters, pros and cons, theses, antitheses and syntheses, can be expressed aesthetically and with respect and dignity to and for all individuals. Therefore, expression that does not aim toward aesthetic expression bringing edification to all is not seen as liberating or intellectually freeing. Such expression is discouraged.

This matter is still evolving in human thought. However, it has progressed to the point where, with the permeation of divine spirit in our lives, there is less inclination for artistic expression to be fraught with unresolved emotions which tend to bring disharmony. As human evolution has progressed toward more light so has human expression more light revealed.

Guinevere

Thanks for that, Guinevere. And everybody else, your visions are very welcome. Please send them to ffunch@newciv.org.

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   / \------------------ Flemming A. Funch ------------------/ \
  / * \ World Transformation/New Civilization/Whole Systems / * \
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