New Civilization News - Category: Futurism    
 More Prophets8 comments
picture 6 Dec 2002 @ 23:59, by ming. Futurism
Another great day at the Prophets Conference in Palm Springs. Several remarkable physicists for one thing. All delivering, based on straight science, the message that the world of separate, inert, solid objects and separate minds, is all a superficial illusion. In reality, the deeper you go into smaller particles, the more everything is inter-connected and interacting with everything else, and it is all non-local, meaning across all space and time, essentially. The profound consequences of this has not yet been widely understood, particularly not in areas where it is most needed, like politics. John Hagelin is a quantum physicist and the founder of the Natural Law Party. He is a crystal clear voice for bringing what we've learned about the universe into politics and into how we guide society along. Michio Kaku is a physics professor and equally brilliant in explaining complex things really simply, and applying the wisdom across disciplines. He points out that it is not enough to know that everything is one (a unified field) at the deepest level. That's pretty much a given by now. What makes a difference is whether there is harmony between the pieces or not. Are we in harmony with the planet we're living on?

Russell Targ is also a physicist. He was one of the key players in the U.S. government's remote viewing program carried out for many years for the CIA. He did a simple, unscientific remote viewing test with the audience and we did relatively well. The key point, and the hardest part, is the ability to quiet one's mind. And the next point is to take the psychic impressions that appear when one focuses on the target, without succumbing to the temptation to guess, or analyze, or interpret. Typically the real stuff is the stuff one is surprised about, and that one hasn't seen before.

Stanislav Grof talked about his many years of research into non-ordinary states of mind. That is, more fluid, altered states of mind, where one has access to faculties one normally doesn't. Through hallucinogenics, meditation, breathing, ritual, sensory deprivation etc. It started back in the good old days when pharmaceutical companies would send out LSD as product samples to doctors, suggesting they might try it out and see what would happen. Mostly that led to a long exploration into what consciousness is.

The day ended with a small rave party of sorts. Drumming, dancing, stilt walkers, video from the Burning Man Opera and more.  More >

 Prophet's Conference3 comments
picture 5 Dec 2002 @ 19:55, by ming. Futurism
I'm at the Prophet's Conference in Palm Springs for a couple of days. A great group of speakers, and old friends to meet. Sofar, a great talk by John Perry Barlow on "Tending the Garden of Mind". He is just fabulous at weaving things together. This is not really his typical crowd, so it also became a bit of an education for the audience. In short, there are strong forces out there who would like to own the content of your mind, so get educated enough to do something about it. Nobody can own ideas, and it is all the same mind stuff that flows through all of us anyway.

After that there was a panel, with John, and Barbara Marx Hubbard, Gregg Braden, Nicky Scully, and some young people representing the conscious dance culture. Very stimulating fusion of energy there. Talk of more merging of rhythm and art into these more cerebral ideas. Talk of how we're all Natives of the Now, the new indiginous people.  More >

 Los Angeles Futures6 comments
picture12 Mar 2002 @ 04:16, by ming. Futurism
Here is a great little online book from some people I really respect. It is by Paul Glover, who's the inventor and champion of "Ithaca Hours", the alternative local currency system in Ithaca, New York, and it is illustrated mostly by Thomas Slagle, whose work I've really enjoyed in the past. He does large paintings of scenes from alternative futures for Los Angeles. Anyway, the book/website is a detailed vision about a different, much more sustainable, future metropolis.  More >



<< Newer entries  Page: 1 2