sent by Peter M Plumley <agadinmar@juno.com>
Hello my friend,
Let me ask you a question:
Do you believe we live in a unique time? I believe we do, and I would like to tell you why.
Speaking as an anthropologist might, for the first time in our recorded history in our 20th century A.D. one of tens of millions of species within Earth's biota passed some simply stunning thresholds. In the past 50 years, a mere nanosecond in the history of the Cosmos, the homo sapiens animal has:
* Completed the mapping and colonization of all habitable lands
on Earth.
* Discerned the ideas and made the tools enabling it to engineer
wonders that once would have been definitively declared to be magic. The homo sapiens is increasingly able to create whatever it can imagine.
* Survived, for the moment, its first genocidal test with
technology in its decision not to incinerate itself with nuclear weapons.
* Glimpsed the nature and function of DNA-based biological forms,
enabling it to heal itself and experiment with the dance of life.
* Taken its first faltering steps toward worldwide unity of
principles.
* Organized the transportation systems enabling vast numbers of
its species to explore every part of its world. * Invented a completely new form of assisted communications for
its species - the "Internet" - which has now engaged the collective mind of its "Western civilization". * Set foot on another world, and imagined what it would be like
to voyage across time
* Seen unmistakable evidence that Earth is not the only
life-bearing world in the Cosmos.
The American public has seen or heard of all of these amazing accomplishments. But due to a somnolent mainstream science establishment, news media that generally provide both trivial and stunning news stories with equal air time, and occasional proactive disinformation, you probably have not heard of the following sweeping revolutions that strike to the very core of what it means to exist:
* We have discovered that the Cosmos in which we live is a field
of intense but mainly uniform energy - in other words, all that you are, touch, see, hear, taste, smell, feel, or think is a pattern of light - a suspension within a single Universal force.
* We have realized that all things have formed through the
function of this light - all ideas, animals, plants, worlds, suns, and galaxies.
* We have leading physicists who are well-grounded in their
belief that gravity is caused by this light - in my words, gravity is like a shadow cast in time by the patterns of space. * We have discovered that the light that makes the Cosmos - this
"seething vacuum potential" of spacetime - is engineerable through electromagnetic devices.
* We have definitively confirmed millennia-old anecdotes of
"unusual" powers of mind. In experiments spanning decades at some of the most respected universities in the world, human subjects have consistently demonstrated the ability to influence truly random events and random number generating machines, through the power of their conscious intent alone. There is growing agreement among experts that there is only one explanation for this: the function of consciousness is a manipulation and manipulator of the vacuum potential that makes all things. Your mind can directly interact with the Cosmos, at a distance!
It would seem then that we and all other things are, collectively, that which has been thought within the mind - a Universal mind that some humans call Cosmos, who others call God.
From an anthropological perspective, the circumstance in which we find ourselves is stunning. In the face of these facts, we must reassess the assumptions that underlie our civilization. Surely we can recognize that the point of the Cosmos is not economics. What is it then? The Earth appears to behave as a coherent living being, with trillions and trillions of cells each playing a vital role. What does this really mean? Is not the web of diversity the very key to life? We are inextricably linked to a fragile biosphere, yet we are qualitatively different than all other forms of life on the planet. What is the long-term future afforded by Nature to a species such as homo sapiens? What is our trajectory? We appear to be stranded in the gravity well of Earth. What if the "stranded" part is not true? Who is the scientist confident enough to declare that no advanced civilization could ever discover the means to engineer spacetime for practical interstellar travel? I will happily debate that scientist in front of a national audience. There is stunningly good evidence that UFO's are real starships, and physics now says that their existence is firmly plausible. Whatever did or did not happen at Roswell in 1947 will ultimately prove to be a "rounding error" when the implications of this phenomenon become widely known.
Many people have asked me "Why ask these questions? Why not simply sit back and stay on the sidelines and watch where the future takes us?" There is a simple answer to this question: on our current course and speed, our children will inherit a spectacularly disastrous world within less than a handful of decades. Think Y2K is a tall challenge? Consider these facts, explored in brilliant detail in Eugene Linden's The Future In Plain Sight:
* Hot Tempered Markets - As the world economy has integrated, it
has become subject to coherent waves of investor behavior that can strip a national economy to the bone in a month. In some countries, people who once were using cell phones are now engaged in riots over food and jobs.
* The Decay of the City - In many areas of the world other than
the U.S., cities are becoming uninhabitable concrete prisons, charring the fragile biosphere and bulging at the seams with unmanageable social challenges. There is nothing but population growth ahead.
* The Ubiquitous Wage Gap - Any economist with a brain realizes
that the growing divide between wealthy and poor is unsustainable, particularly as global communications enable virtual communities to emerge that respect no map. There is no systemic strategy in place to reverse the trajectory of this divide. When the economically disadvantaged cross some critical mass, there will be revolution.
* A Warning from the Ice - Increasingly each month, we are
receiving clues from our biosphere that the well-being of Earth and the trends of humanity are at fundamental odds. The growing environmental extremes, shifts in weather patterns, and global warming are not lying, and their threat is not a bluff. * A Biosphere in Disarray - Species upon species of plant and
animal life are being devastated, never to return, by the environmental hubris of the human animal. Meshed within a delicate web of life, in which diversity is the very purpose of existence, homo sapiens is recklessly tempting biospheric catastrophe.
* Living With Limits - We have built our food production and
delivery systems on a highly engineered model - with ever greater dependence upon ever fewer variety of crops - which is not analogous to the manner in which Nature feeds life. Only through genetically engineered plants do scientists presently imagine any way to meet the food requirements for the projected population of the planet in three decades. Such a gamble is incalculably risky.
* Infectious Disease Resurgent - Pick up any medical sciences
publication and you can read about the resurgence of scourges in increasingly virulent forms. Bacteria, viruses, and other microbes are demonstrating an astonishing ability to transform themselves beyond the reach of our attacks upon them. Combined with the squalor of inner city life, we are flirting with plague. The manner in which humans approach health maintenance must be reexamined.
* Rise of Fundamentalism - Wherever economic tensions rise, the
classic phenomenon of the scapegoat will emerge. People will find targets to express their emotions. Those targets become "enemy". The childish and dangerous battles being waged among Middle Eastern nations and in Yugoslavia are nothing compared to the horrors that would be released if the world was mired in a depression. In this respect, the depth of the crisis in Russia is remarkably absent from the Western agenda. Are there any true statesmen left in the world?
* No "Vent for Surplus" - Torn by war, nationalism, famine, or
just plain numbers, the phenomenon of mass movements of people is almost certain to occur on a much more pronounced scale as any of the above crises unfold.
At the same time that the sweeping and staggeringly hopeful revolutions in its knowledge are coming into view, homo sapiens is confronted with these kinds of fundamental challenges, and one more that perhaps trumps them all: Now that humanity spans the globe, there seems to be no accessible frontiers to fire the imagination of our descendents. What is the frontier - accessible to the common person - which is capable of fueling a second renaissance, or perhaps a rebirth? It is time that these epochal challenges and questions be confronted, considered, and integrated into our consciousness. Many of the new technologies glimpsed within emerging principles of Nature will be able to address the challenges described above in profoundly revolutionary ways. Where this will take us, we cannot yet know, and the path through may even be painful to humanity. But my guess is that the secret rests in knowing ourselves, and that a great advancement awaits us if we have the courage to move forward. What you will find on this site is one person's ongoing quest to identify the trajectory of humanity, beginning as we are found in 1999 A.D. It will evolve however our best understanding of truth evolves, as I and my contributing authors see it.
To the science-minded folks out there, this book challenges you with two subjects taboo to your domain: spirituality and anomalistic phenomena such as UFOs. Recent discoveries in science must give us pause to fundamentally reconsider whether we can dispense with all ancient and recent records of "remarkable" events as simply myth and misinterpretation. It is my contention that there are quickly emerging scientific models that make good room for what once would have been called "miracles" or "impossible". These new models allow a much more beautiful sculpture to be carved by Occam's razor. It is my contention that spirituality - the worship of a God other than money - is clearly an indispensable dimension of the anthropology of advancement for a conscious species. It is my contention that essential truths are to be found in each primary world faith and at least a few of the sects thereof. You can test whether this assertion makes intuitive sense to you easily: simply swap the word "heaven" with "space" and quietly and seriously reread New Testament scripture (pick up a leading-edge Bible, reflecting the best scholarship, such as The New Oxford Bible). Given my exposure to the fields of science and religion for a lifetime (though brief it has been!), Occam's razor suggests to me a common connection between many extremely well documented spiritual events and the type of psychological and physical events that surround the UFO phenomenon. Which of these phenomena is a cause and which is an effect is not yet clear.
To the faithful folks out there, this book will be equally challenging. First, it demands a permanent reconciliation with the methods for acquisition of knowledge found in science. Those who dismiss on religious grounds sciences such as evolution are ill-informed. Second, this book will present, over time, a rigorously unpretentious examination of the history of spiritual movements underlying major religions. In this light, I personally have seen stunningly beautiful and compatible wisdom across Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Sufi, and, most personified, Christian traditions. However imperfectly imparted and institutionalized over time, each of these faiths is clearly inspired by a force well beyond the realm of simple myth. I believe that a man named Jesus did exist and was empowered to do "remarkable" things, for a clear reason. However misappropriated over the centuries, the core truths that he left behind are so absolutely fundamental to human civilization and so beyond their time as to demand a truly Cosmic explanation. Ways to approach an explanation are explored in my book. I should also note, speaking for myself and not necessarily in behalf of my co-authors, that I believe there is genuine truth to the story told by Joseph Smith - the founding prophet of my own Christian tradition, Mormonism. His experiences are in many ways similar to those of some who claim modern interaction with "higher" intelligences.
I hypothesize in this book that science and spirituality should be recognized by each other and reunited - not in their dogma, but in their core principles. In such a reintegration, science will be recognized as the discipline of knowledge, and spirituality will be recognized as the discipline that has molded the knower.
Needless to say, there is plenty of controversy to go around given statements such as these. But only through a global conversation will questions like these - and their underlying meaning - ultimately become clear. As I've said in the past, The Truth is not a conclusion, it is a process. Project Kairos is one search for truth. This first version of the book is simply a skeletal structure, which will be given flesh over time. For those who are interested in studying these issues intensely, I will be providing a recommended reading list soon.
I hope it is useful to you, and I wish to thank again my brilliant co-authors.
Very best,
Joseph P. Firmage
Chairman
International Space Sciences Organization
P.S. I strongly recommend you make two purchases soon, which I had the opportunity to do this past week:
* Look through the pages of the February 1999 issue of National
Geographic Magazine to see the stunning images of God, many of them fading at our hands.
* Read Violence Unveiled, an excellent explanation of the seminal
role of a concept such as Christianity in the anthropological advancement of a civilization.
P.P.S. The International Space Sciences Organization, the umbrella organization for Project Kairos, has many other projects underway. To all of you who would like to get involved, please don't e-mail me yet. The opportunity to get involved and help this movement will be part of the formal unveiling of the International Space Sciences Organization, in May, 1999.
www.thewordistruth.org
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