Saving the World

I well remember that fateful day in 2024, when I read Suzanne Taylor’s invitation to write scenarios as if they were in 2050. The idea was to share ideas of how we could create a world where all work together for the good of all. It was an inspired notion. I have always believed that change will only work from the grassroots up, and here was the opportunity to encourage people to think how they might contribute to this co-operative process. Through disseminating the essays, there would be a wide readership and mutual support for everyone involved. It would create a rich resource for people to draw on.

The timing was great for me.  I had just started an educational initiative, with my friend and colleague, Laurel, to evolve education about consciousness within a postmaterialist worldview across the globe, starting with a small group of 12 people.  These 12 would engage in a collaborative inquiry, responding to the question: “How can we, individually and in community, contribute to evolving a form of education that will inspire everyone to live in ways that are of benefit to the whole planet?”  In responding to this question, each of these 12 people would create and facilitate educational processes in their own settings.  And the process would expand out, with an increasing number of people involved.  If every person were to influence the thinking and practice of 12 people, somewhere between levels 8 and 9, the whole of the global population (7.9 billion people) would be reached.  Even if less ambitious, and each person only influenced 6 others, the global population would be reached between levels 11 and 12. This was an amazing possibility which provided a strong motivation for action.

But before talking more about that, let me go back a little.  In 2024, I had for a long time known that real change would not happen from the top down, because people who occupied the highest positions in our hierarchical society were normally more interested in their own power and prestige than in genuinely improving the lives of all.  The ‘politics of knowledge’ told us that power lay with big business, government and the media, and they had vested interests in retaining a society where the wealth and wellbeing of the few were gained at the expense of the many.

So when the invitation came to write an essay in 2024, I decided I wanted to share more widely my belief in working collaboratively from the grassroots up, and that the educational initiative which Laurel and I were just starting was a great way to encourage that.  I had already found this kind of process works.  Collaborative inquiry is a great way for a small group to explore a question in which they have a shared interest.  For example, way back in 2010 I had been asked by an early years specialist, Janice, whether I could help her train some early years practitioners in the knowledge and skills they required for their work.  As an educator, though, I had found that didactic training usually had little impact.  And also, as the practitioners were the people working with the children every day, they would have a knowledge and awareness at least equal to what I had.  So I suggested that we all, with myself and Janice included as equal participants, create a collaborative inquiry, where we responded to the question, “how can we, individually and collectively, improve our practice with children?”

Firstly, it took some time for the practitioners to really believe, and to adapt to the idea that Janice and I were there as equal participants, not as ‘experts’ with a more influential voice.  That we were seeing everyone’s voice as of equal value, rather than taking a hierarchical approach and dividing us into ‘experts’ and ‘lesser beings’.   We all have something useful to contribute, whether that be personal experience or useful theorizing. In research terms, we were all co-researchers and co-participants.

But once the early years practitioners realized that we really meant what we said, the whole process started to fly.  These women (for they were all women in our group) were often so devalued by wider society for ‘just’looking after children. (Hey, isn’t that the most important job in our world?  Aren’t the earliest years the most vital?) But they did in fact have a wealth of knowledge and experience that could be used to the benefit of all.  And through following the principles of Bohm Dialogue, where the listening is as important as the talking, and where people suspend their own internalized beliefs and values in order to truly hear what others have to say, there was wisdom that arose from the whole process that no one individual held at the start.

There was much knowledge that came out of that process, which the early years practitioners presented at a conference held 12 months after the collaborative inquiry started.  The main learning to emerge was actually very simple.  It was ‘Every Moment Counts’.  Every moment counts in the life of a young child.  It made practitioners aware that, if they come into the day nursery feeling stressed because they’ve had a row with their boyfriend before leaving home, and they take that stress out on the child, then the child is likely to feel they have done something wrong. Thus it is crucial that practitioners are aware at all times of the quality of the relating that takes place between them and the child. That one phrase, “Every Moment Counts,” transformed the consciousness of many practitioners during that year and became something of a mantra.

But it did not stop there.  Several years later, I did a follow up study of the impact of that inquiry, which demonstrated that the learning had had a long-term effect.  One person said that not only did she remind practitioners of it daily in her work setting, but she had taken the principle and applied it to her own family life.  It had transformed her relationship with her husband and children, and they were all much happier for it.

So that mantra, “Every Moment Counts”, has since then guided the living of my life.

I ran many collaborative enquiries following that one, each affirming its value of facilitating transformative change. So, returning to 2024, and with the world still struggling with problems that threatened life on the planet, I had been thinking about how the idea of living life as inquiry could become more embedded in society.  We needed ways of bringing people together at a grassroots level, and working collaboratively and democratically in ways that would eventually present a meaningful challenge to existing power structures.  What was actually needed was a transformation in consciousness; a transformation from a materialist to a postmaterialist worldview, which would include a transformation in our understanding of consciousness itself.  There needed to be a realization that consciousness was not limited to the brain and dependent on it for its existence, but that consciousness was in fact primary, meaning that there was a reality beyond this embodied one.  The evidence to support this was huge, including empirically evidenced in out-of-body and near-death experiences, but the embedded materialist worldview in 2024 created a barrier to people being prepared to even consider the evidence.

As an educator, I believed that education was the vital key.  The problem, though, was that schools and universities, financed and regulated as they were by government agencies, were embedded with the same materialist mindset as the rest of western society.  So we had to start with educators who were aware of the limitations of that mindset, and were willing to work together to create educational opportunities that would offer an expanded view of reality to that which was offered in mainstream education.  We had to widen horizons.

So Laurel and I sent out an email to the Scientific and Medical email list, inviting educators to a series of three webinars.  Our aim was to create a Consciousness Educators’ Network, made up of people who were committed to the progression of consciousness education, including the development of curricular and pedagogical support for teaching and learning in a diverse range of settings.  We also want to produce an edited book about the content and processes of consciousness education, to support the learning and practice of future consciousness educators.

We were blown away with response!  Expecting at best around 50 people to register their interest, we had over 270 register to become a member of the Network.  We had 76 people attend the first webinar.  This presented us with challenges.  How to keep that number of people informed and involved when we had limited resources ourselves, in term of both time and budget.

We decided to stay small to start with: do one project well and then build on the learning gained from that. Out of the proposals we received we selected 12 to join us in the first phase of that project. Ambitious as it was, it became highly successful. The individual projects that were submitted as proposals developed well and flourished.

We met online on a monthly basis to share our experiences and learning.  Although each person was engaged with different age groups in different geographical settings, there was much to talk about because of the shared interest in transforming consciousness and ideas about consciousness.  Because this was being approached as a research inquiry, we were – with the agreement of all participants – recording meetings, so that we had the data gathered as a resource for all to draw on.   These meetings were exciting and energising.  Everyone present knew that we were engaged in a most important activity, perhaps the most important in terms of contributing to a healthy and flourishing planet.

What was also wonderful was that, in the different educational contexts that people were in, they could introduce all the ideas that individuals had been generating in their own worlds.  This is where the ideas of the originator of the contest, Suzanne Taylor, came into their own.  Suzanne had put together a fantastic list of suggestions as to what could be done to generate positive change.  Because they were on a website, though, they did not get the widespread attention they deserved.   But an educator introduced them into her group sessions, encouraging participants to choose at least one to implement in their own lives.  Members of her group were motivated to such an extent that they then began to create ideas of their own to add to the list. The educator would share this experience in one of the collaborative inquiry monthly meetings, and then others took her initiative into their projects. In this way, valuable ideas were adopted and spread through diverse places. For example, an Appreciations Page became almost standard in all the schools touched by the project, and contributed enormously to the improvement of the mental health of young people.  And the Circles of Trust, where 8 people met on a regular basis to share what was happening for them, became a great way of creating confidence in individuals, enabling them to work out what they were born to be, and to go out into the world as that person.

Although this project was initiated in 2024 and quickly developed an identity and had some impact, it stayed on the margins for a long while. In the meantime, life in the mainstream was getting worse. The inequalities between the rich and the poor grew ever wider, to the point where they became almost unsustainable.  Even in relatively rich countries like the UK, more and more people went into debt and depended on foodbanks for their survival. Mental health problems of young people were escalating, with medication too often being seen to be the answer. Crime levels were rising, often born of necessity as those with nothing fought for survival.  It was a society spiralling out of control.  In 2024, when things were bad but apparently manageable, a Labour Government had been appointed, with the expectation that they, with their more socialist values, would ensure a fairer society.  However they had too easily absorbed the neoliberal principles of individualism and pleasing those with power and money, with no real idea how to govern effectively so problems escalated. Financial and social crises ramped up, and those who had been relying on a left-wing party to find the solutions they required became utterly disillusioned and feeling helpless. The rich became increasingly anxious as their homes and belongings came under threat.  There were some infamous cases of kidnapping, with ransoms demanded for releases. In 2027, a further General Election was forced, with the Conservative Government promising answers and control.  But the answers didn’t come, and the control did not work. Increasingly, a desperation swept through society. What was happening in the UK was a microcosm of what was happening in other countries. It was a world close to collapse.

During this time, though, the Consciousness Education Project had expanded in the UK and in many other countries. This included as a central message the limitations of the materialist worldview which was responsible for the fragmentation, selfishness, and alienation of so many people.  A postmaterial worldview, with its central notion of the primacy of consciousness, was being written about in many publications. That there was a reality beyond that of the 5 senses, where Consciousness was infinite and eternal with the core qualities of Love and Creativity, was being explored in ever-widening circles. People were increasingly being open about their near-death, out-of-body, and other ‘anomalous’ experiences, realizing they were normal!  Stories of communications with those who had passed were told in conversations. People were becoming aware of the permeable boundary that existed between this embodied existence and a more expanded one.  Something significant was happening!  People were connecting with this wider reality through meditation and other contemplative practices as society was becoming increasingly polarized between those who were struggling and suffering, trapped in materialism, and those who knew a different reality and were working towards the transformative global shift in consciousness that was so urgently needed.

And then it did!

Through a networking of people within the Consciousness Educators’ Network, which had become a worldwide movement, in 2030 the ‘People for the Planet’ was created as a global political party whose founders were from the UK, Europe, USA, South America, and Asia. Within 6 months, local and national groups had been created across all continents.  It was a different kind of pandemic!  The central tenet was that we live life as inquiry, motivated to collaborate with others in the asking and responding to questions related to improving the quality of life for all.  The general message was “the wellbeing of the whole is my responsibility too”.  That was a super-exciting time.

In the 20 years that have passed since the founding of People for the Planet, it feels like the transformational change that in 2024 was so desperately needed has, through the ripple effect of change from the grassroots up, achieved total global reach. It has had positive impact on all aspects of life that were causing us concern. The foundations have been provided by an educational system which is guided by postmaterialist values, including the core qualities of love, creativity, and empathy. The principle of collaborative inquiry encourages an ethos of curiosity and mutual learning. We have become a connected humanity, which has fostered a sense of global citizenship.   Wisdom is now recognised to be more important than knowledge.   Societies are run by inter-generational Wisdom Councils, themselves approaching what they do in the spirit of inquiry where the ideas and energy of the young are seen to be of equal and complementary value to the experience and skill of older members of society. The wellbeing of all people is evidenced by basic needs, like food, water, and shelter are guaranteed to all.  The world’s forests, oceans, and biodiversity hotspots are being restored, and are thriving from concerted conservation efforts and advanced ecological management strategies. Wildlife roams freely in expanded areas, and near-extinct species are being brought back through careful conservation efforts.

In addition, medical intervention is not so much required. Each individual is now valued, and everyone, through family and education, is provided with a safe and nurturing environment which enables them to be the person they were born to be.  Health has improved vastly, through people being fully supported to live meaningful lives that safeguard them from dis-ease. Addictive behaviors, like alcoholism, overeating, and gambling, symptoms of spiritual hunger, are vanishing. Meditative and contemplative practices are common, with levels of anxiety being much reduced.  We are now living in a world where everyone has time to listen and share with each other at a deep level, reducing thus reducing feelings of loneliness and isolation. The time spent on positive mental and spiritual wellbeing has contributed to improved physical health.

As I sit here and reflect, I am conscious that I am nearing my 100^th birthday.  In 2024, I had little hope for a positive future. As a human species, we seemed set for disaster.  And yet, something inside me always knew that transformation was possible. I was, even then, aware that many people were listening to their hearts and living from that space. We were longing for opportunities to connect in meaningful ways with each other, as learning how to inquire collaboratively from bases of love, care, respect, and empathy has helped that to happen.

We still have a way to go.  I still feel that we could learn to communicate more consciously and meaningfully with the spirits that inhabit the unseen world and with the consciousness of those who have passed before us. But watching my great-grandchildren, and how they are being brought up in a family and educational environment in which communication with nature and the wider cosmos is being nurtured from the very beginning of their lives, I believe that humanity is moving towards the next stage of its transformative evolution.  It is exciting, and I wonder where that may take us.  I am sure I will experience it in some way, as I look forward – in the continuing spirit of curiosity and inquiry – to wherever the source of my being takes me on my own personal evolutionary journey.

The period which was once called the pandemic years, came to be known as the consciousness initiation of humanity.  A critical mass became conscious of the fact that the system and its institutions and long-standing structures served to preserve and enrich themselves at the expense of humanity.

Those who perceived the self-serving and predatory nature of the old system began to replace the consumption of negative social and other media with frequencies that elevated (to be elaborated on later) and simultaneously had born in us a vision of a more beautiful, cooperative society, knowing that cooperation and collaboration benefit the collective. We began to gather together, forming new groups, platforms and networks, drawn by both the need to be in contact with people of like hearts, as well as by some deep interior knowing that focusing our conscious attention, connection and communication on the cooperative society we all wanted to experience would itself be part of its creation.

We recognised that, yes, the old system was destructively competitive and divisive; however, we also recognised that we had a responsibility to be the change we wished to see and to embody the energy of this cooperative society. We had to become aware of our reactions and recognise that the restlessness and unease and the need to compete that we experienced in the old reality was the Soul calling us back to Grace. We developed a practice of constantly bringing awareness, kindness and compassion to the places that were still wounded. We used methods such as journalling and stream of consciousness writing (e.g. Julia Cameron’s powerful Morning Pages) as well as feedback from each other to unearth what needed to be nurtured and healed in order to unlock us from these unconscious patterns of reactivity.

To clear out stuckness in our mental and emotional bodies, to release old patterns that were used as a coping mechanism, and to install new ways of thinking and being, we used strategies such as Emotional Freedom Technique (Tapping on meridian points to release old programmes and integrate new more helpful beliefs); Internal Family Systems (becoming the inner parent to the parts of ourself that have become burdened with past traumas and experiences and communicating with them in a way that is loving and accepting; Family Constellations (transforming relationships with family entanglements through internal work); dance/movement) and prioritised things as simple (but not always easy!) as getting sufficient restful sleep. We noticed our nervous systems calming down and a sense of spaciousness opening up.  As we relaxed, we laughed more and were able to be more present to ourselves, each other and the world around us.

No longer driven by a sense of fear or lack, we set ourselves free from the illusion of separation – recognising that we are individuated but not separated – and began building a foundation rooted in love, grace and a deep reverence for the world around us. This is where we gained the ultimate leverage over the old system.

Rather than running from ourselves or trying to fill a void (which we somatically understood to be distinct from Spaciousness or The Void), with proving, striving or material gain at others‘ expense, we learnt the art of stopping, being, appreciating and listening to our Soul. We made it a regular practice to enter the Theta and Gamma brainwave states, mainly through meditation, where we touched the sacred place at our core that hadn’t been wounded or broken and allowed this place of wholeness to inspire and guide us.

While the journey towards the more cooperative society we now enjoy began with each of us as individuals choosing to act with integrity and engage in the liberating practices outlined earlier, we recognised that the vision of a more cooperative society must also be nurtured and sustained by the collective, that it would literally ‘take a village’ to raise and maintain the consciousness of this new more beautiful world.

We drew on indigenous wisdom traditions and adopted philosophies such as Ubuntu that emphasise the inter-connectedness of all life – that we inter-are. I am because you/we are.  We created Circles in which everyone was recognized as an equal and necessary part of the whole. We exchanged ideas, listened and allowed ourselves to be touched by feelings, fears and perceptions that were given space in the conversations. We set an intention to see each person in each moment without labels, judgements or masks and sought instead to extract the divine from each being we interacted with. We established a practice of fierce friendship where we developed the courage to hand responsibility back to each individual for their own journey, no longer trying to fix or please, but to see their strength and capability and support them by honouring it. Intimacy and trust flourished.

In time, fears such as not being heard, not being enough, being wrong or being excluded lessened because, as we witnessed each other without judgment, we each found our place with our uniqueness and with it a capacity to recognize our own potential. We began to see that what we had thought was our weakness was in fact our greatest strength and that our messy vulnerable human nature was, in part, what connected us to each other.

In Circle, we sat, we breathed, and we bathed in the Spaciousness which allowed answers to questions, messages, intuitions and solutions to be perceived and to be acted upon. We paid each other warm attention and made peace with our imperfections.

We began to witness the healing and enlivening effect these Circles were having as community came to be understood as inter-being.  A new culture developed in which we reestablished our connection to the natural world and began a practise of reverent listening, where we could tap into the Earth‘s wisdom, learn about strength and presence from the mountains, harmony and cooperation from the forests, and rootedness and sustainability from the life-sustaining altruism of the mother tree which, through the vast underground mycelium network, shares nutrients, information and energy to surrounding trees who don’t have the same strength or access to sunlight.

We learnt that the true value of the Earth wasn’t in stripping her of resources for commodities but in being sustained by the richness of her beauty, balance, serenity, wisdom, intrinsic inter-being and life-giving energy. Awe, wonder and gratitude became an instinctive repsonse – gratitude for the abundance we enjoy: the wealth of nature and its biodiversity; being able to plant a garden and harvest the seeds; the body’s drive towards balance and health; and by no means least, our ability to relate both to each other and to the Spaciousness.

Each of us also learned to consciously attend to our own physical body and its sensations and perceptions. We began to use practices such as Earthing (Grounding) which, whilst ancient and completely natural, had been lost from the Western lifestyle. Through dance and other physical practices we directed our attention to gravity which we came to see as the mechanism Mother Earth uses to pull us towards herself and connect. This magnetic connection, aided by the clearing and cleansing of old patterns we were engaged in as individuals, created an expanded energy field which not only raised the Earth to a new level of consciousness but activated new abilities and additional senses within the human.

Fortified by the gifts and contributions of each individual, the whole became self-sustaining and resilient with a great vibrancy and capacity for regeneration until we found ourselves increasingly incapable of relating to each other and the planet in ways that were antithetical to cooperative and harmonious flourishing. We noticed that we were no longer reliant on what once controlled us and the old system had become completely obsolete.

In summary, these are some of the qualities of our cooperative society:

• creative abilities are now used for the benefit of the collective rather than for the accumulation of individual wealth

 

• we recognise that we are individuated but not separated and that our actions create ripples in the Field of infinite potential so becoming conscious of our thoughts, actions, reactions  and intentions have become a practice

 

• we learned, and continue to learn, from the interconnectedness of life/ nature

 

• we nurture the sense of belonging each individual craves and practice self-compassion

 

• we cleared out old programmes of lack and scarcity and felt indescribable gratitude for the abundance we already enjoy

 

• we laugh more;

 

• we experience awe, wonder and gratitude;

 

• we have come to experience ourselves as ‘More’ through connecting with an expanded Awareness/Spaciousness/Consciousness

 

• we have replaced the consumption of negative media with frequencies that elevate

 

• we spend more time in and with nature and each other

 

we feed our spirit and nourish ourselves so that our cups overflow and giving, receiving and sharing feel natural and joyful

The new culture generated an energetic Field in which the impulse towards cooperation and the collective good became the dominant vibration, an unstoppable drive, and the beautiful cooperative society we now enjoy, and continue to nurture, was born.

 

Appendix

The Year 2050: How we birthed the more beautiful world

Before explaining what we did to birth this more co-operative society, this  more beautiful world we now enjoy and continue to nurture, we need to explain what we understand the nature of the world to be and how we understand it to be constructed.

Our understanding is that we live in an ocean of energy, what some have called a quantum soup, and what each of us does causes an effect, a ripple in the Higgs Field , also known as the Unified Field.  As we make choices and resonate with those who make choices on a similar frequency, we attract each other and clump together like atoms,  just as we are doing now,  drawn together in the common pursuit of reverse-engineering our cooperative society. We learned from experiments such as the famous double-slit experiment that attention and focus collapse potentialities into probabilities. Biological discoveries found that the reticular activation system, found at the base of the brain, filters out almost 98% of the input swirling around us, knowing what to filter out depending on what we expose it to i.e. what we focus on most.  Combining understandings physics and biological science, we could say that potentialities become stronger or weaker probabilities through strength and repetition of focus and what then manifests in our 3^rd dimensional reality is reflective of our focus.

The idea that we had to ‘make’ things happen became replaced by an understanding that physical reality is an out-picturing (a projection) of our attention and that therefore our work was to align our actions with our intentions, listen for guidance, feel the impulses and allow our intuition to direct our actions.  We came to understand that we live in a participatory universe and if the very act of focusing attention affects how particles (quanta) assemble /show up, then we needed to be very intentional about what we give our attention to (in the domain of our personal ‘reality tunnel’, not suggesting any individual has dominion over how the whole world shows up!)

As a result, we began to hold a vision of a more co-operative society and to speak and act as if it was already so, encouraged by research in 2023 that suggested it only takes 25% of a population, far fewer than at one time thought, to create a tipping point and create social change.  Some researchers spoke of a multiverse in which the more cooperative society already existed in a parallel dimension, and that it’s not so much that we created it as that we shifted into it (tipped into it?) through our collective thoughts, intentions and actions.

Jennifer’s story

Prompted by the symptoms of distress and lack of hope so many youngsters were exhibiting especially since the pivotal year of 2020, my attention turned to the things I could do to soothe and empower them, to create a ripple in the Higgs Field that would connect with other similar frequencies and create a stem change.

• I pursued a long-time fascination with quantum physics and took a deep dive into what in 2024 was an emerging field – Quantum Social Change. I immersed myself in learning about the quantum world and principles of quantum mechanics such as entanglement and the observer effect.
• Using the principle, ‘tend to the part of the garden only you can reach’, with a background in education, training, research and coaching, these are some of the real world actions I took:
• I created programs to train the trainers – adults who worked in organisations whose mission it was to educate (in the truest sense of the word) and empower young people – young people who had either already been excluded from school or who were at risk of being so. These programs alerted young people and their teachers and parents/care givers to the reality that being human is a magnificent thing; that we live in a magical world if only we realize it and use the inner resources (e.g. intention, focus, imagination, intuition) we innately possess to bring our dreams into this 3^rd dimension of material reality.
• I also designed courses for organisations who worked with parents whose children refused to go to school and who were therefore home-schooled (e.g. SquarePeg)
• I facilitated these programs both online and in real life.
• I created relational learning spaces on Sutra’s Transformational Learning Platform
• I wrote blogs and created a podcast called ‘Unshackled’ to spread the word – that we are powerful beings; that division and amplification of differences, rather than a focus on the ways in which we are more similar than different, was a tool to keep us distracted and fighting amongst ourselves.
• I joined Charles Eisenstein’s NAAS and Sanity Project and pooled energies with other like-minded visionaries I encountered there.
• I co-founded an intentions group called Pioneers in Possibility which has been meeting every 3-4 weeks since 2019 and which continues to support intentions for individual thriving as well as for the world at large.
• I co-founded the Contemplative Pedagogy Network which operates within the university sector to advance the use of contemplative/reflective methods in learning – contemplative methods themselves allowing space for a more relational and cooperative philosophy

Geraldine’s story:

• Inspired by Permacultures’ Whole System Design’ which uses deep looking and listening to see the ‘Whole’ and then come up with Systems which support and sustain this ‘Whole’, I noticed that this concept was applicable not just to the Garden and the Planet but also to the individual’s life and the Community.
• I designed my life in such a way that I gave priority to tuning into the Field and allowing myself to be guided. I spent the first 2 hours of my day meditating, doing Tai Chi and journaling. This practice had a profound effect on how I interacted with the World, and I was often blown away by the ripple effect this peace and presence had on the people I encountered.
• I taught adult classes in Creative Journaling and print making and used these classes as a gateway to self-exploration and accessing and expressing the core being that lies beneath all the programming and patterning. The fun and colourful nature of the classes made this work accessible to all.
• I hosted events based on the philosophy of Inter-being, coming together and experiencing what it is to work together, to inspire each other, know each other and help each other. Letting go of competition or comparing, honouring each individual unconditionally and without judgement, we worked as a whole to create a complete piece of art, acknowledging that a true Whole System Design is made up of many unique beings each with their individual contribution which makes the whole stronger and more adaptable, resourceful and creative – and in the process we deepened our experience of what cooperation and community can mean.
• I hosted a number of events called ‘Sacred Circles’ which brought people together to explore what could be created when we pool our energy, gifts and resources.  We drew a circle around ourselves and everything that comes within that circle is sacred because it teaches and evolves us.  In the drawing of the circle we became more conscious of what we were creating, and within the greater circle of the group we were witnessed, acknowledged and supported. We explored together in the forest where we created eco art and circle dances and expressed our journey through art journaling and a finished work of art.
• I taught Botanical Print courses in the National Park and local forests where we took inspiration from the forest system to explore the concept of interconnectedness. Each person printed an individual canvas that became a co-created collective artwork. The events concluded with a final exhibition where each person’s journey was expressed and seen within the collective.
• As part of a permaculture tree planting group, each Sunday I joined with others to plant trees on neighbours’ land. Planting trees gave us a sense of coming together for the greater good and I found the most important part of our Sundays was the pleasure of eating lunch together outdoors, usually made up of food grown organically on our land. Each person was enriched, not only by good food but by the conversation, laughter and inspiration of each individual who had chosen to spend their day in this deeply creative way.
• I created a Permaculture food forest and ran courses on Permaculture and Whole System Design – how this design concept can create systems which are generative and sustainable not only for a garden and the Planet but also for our life and health.
• We set up a small farm shop with a pay what you can ‘gifting’ system so that everyone had access to good health-giving organic food.
• We also instituted seed saving and sharing days and large-scale harvest banquets where we shared with the community the sense of abundance and generosity that can be created in a system that is sustainable and kind to the earth.

 

The story of the mycelium network

Barbara, Geraldine and Jennifer and others like them who met as members of Charles Eisenstein’s New and Ancient Story (NAAS) community and Sanity Project, and who strengthened their connection and contribution to this more beautiful world through the SUE Speaks Network, leveraged the reach of these online communities by tapping into their wisdom and existing networks to gain inspiration and sustenance, using those networks as the mother tree (which,through the vast underground mycelium network, shares nutrients, information and energy to surrounding trees who don’t have the same strength or access to sunlight).

As part of a cohort of committed humans who decided to exercise our agency and choose which reality we wished to inhabit, we chose to speak and act from that vision, taking action each day in service to the more beautiful world.  Some of those actions included taking full responsibility for clearing out our old programming (using a variety of methods such as EFT; journaling; dance; somatic awareness practices) and, as mentioned in the essay, supporting each other, both within Circle and outside, to do the same in order to make us more resonant with the world we were intent on bringing into physical reality.

Each of us committed to share the vision of the more beautiful world with three people; those three then did the same and so on until inter-connections, mutual support and the reality of inter-being took on the form of a sprawling mycelium network.  Together with  fellow visionaries, we sat in Circle, in silence, feeling and envisioning how this cooperative society, this more beautiful world, would look and intuiting how it would feel. Qualities such as love, integrity, empathy, loyalty, being of service, compassion, kindness, care, gratitude, connection, creativity, presence filled our being and sent signals out into the Unified Field which via a feedback loop returned, amplified, and created waves of resonant energy until we began to see and experience the new more beautiful world in our 3D physical reality.

Larger-scale actions played their part as well; however, in order for these to have fertile ground on which to land, take root and spread we needed the combined and cumulative actions of committed humans tilling the energetic soil, sowing energetic seeds and creating ripples in the energetic field.

Sending out waves of the more beautiful world in England, Germany and Ireland, as well as in(to) the Unified Field –  Jennifer Bright, Barbara Stahlberger, Geraldine Woessner 

Letter from the future – Welcome to 2050: I own my own home, enjoy my privacy, the banksters and globalist-technocrats are in jail, we are a world at peace and life is only getting better

Welcome to my home, we have just started a new decade. I own this property, my books, my clothes and various personal possessions but many of the appliances in my home and the car that I use are managed communally and shared when it is appropriate or they need replacing. We have a fairer, broader and more nuanced concept of ownership than the peoples of The Time of Madness[1]; the world has changed in so many ways that it is difficult to know how to begin explaining it. Billionaires no longer exist, poverty and homelessness have been consigned to the dustbin of history, most people own their own home, some own two homes and some live on locally-organised housing cooperatives. Other people live in Non-State Forms (NSFs); intentional communities, eco-villages and/or religious communities of up to 5,040 people (Plato’s number). However, nobody owns multiples homes and rentier-capitalism is no longer a way that people earn their living; and neither is stock broking or currency speculation, for that matter. Once the nature of the state was transformed, NSFs were accepted as necessary parallel structures to states, and the nature of currency was completely reimagined and transformed (no longer loaned into existence bearing debt, but created transparently, with no debt, and under local democratic control) everything changed very quickly.  But how did we make this happen?

My contribution to the changes was threefold; firstly I published my book Postcapitalism: An Alternative to the ‘Great Reset’ (which outlines the changes in the nature of the state, currency, NSFs, psychology, Shadow-work and the healing of trauma, reciprocal aspects of Game Theory – to name but a handful) as my gift of knowledge to the world. Secondly I undertook my own Jungian-Shadow-Work (techniques based on the ideas of psychologist Carl Jung that the mind/psyche/Self is not only multi-faceted but also multi-layered and that dialogue between different ‘characters’ or ‘parts’ is necessary for growth as a human) as my duty to myself, my family and the society at large. And thirdly I stood as a candidate in the UK constituency where I was born (York Inner), for the Independent Alliance and was elected as a Member of Parliament in the city in which five generations of my family have lived.

2024 was a pivotal year; grassroots movements sprang up in many countries which used the existing voting systems in ways which they had never been used before. New candidates explicitly standing against incumbents who were members (or ‘associate members’) of the World Economic Forum (WEF) stood in elections in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. In my own country, the UK, a new party, The Independent Alliance[2], managed to persuade the majority of the approximately 32%[3] of people who did not normally vote, to actually turn out and vote. This was the necessary wild card that helped topple the first domino. It then became the third biggest party in the UK in one fell swoop. With neither the Conservative Party or Labour Party able to form a government on their own and the Independent Alliance unwilling to support either party in government there was a constitutional crisis. This crisis was exacerbated by the release of The Epstein Files, which implicated many politicians, not only in the UK but across the world, and members of the royal family. This resulted not only in a new election and a huge number of arrests, but also major constitutional reform. In the following election the Independent Alliance became the largest party and formed a government.

As a newly elected MP I was now in a position to influence the unfolding events, moreover, the new-found exposure helped propel my book, Postcapitalism: An Alternative to the ‘Great Reset’, onto the New York Times and Amazon Best-seller lists. Sometimes ideas are like the embers of a fire, if they don’t have the proper protection at the beginning they go out, but with the appropriate nurturing and fuel they can burst into a roaring flame. In other cases they are more like acorns, thousands go out into the forest but only a small handful germinate into saplings, and even fewer grow up to become mighty oaks. In this case the embers of my ideas had been glowing for some time but now they burst into flames and were not only discussed widely but came to influence policy. More to the point, the fact that the ideas were now ‘out there’ in the public realm, meant that what had previously seemed ‘impossible’ now became tangible and real; in a way that the four-minute-mile had once seemed impossible but is now considered normal. With this new flowering of ideas in, what was to prove, a period of global paradigm-change, the programming that most people were operating under started to break down. Moreover, it was possible to instigate a new and radical economics policy, one which served the masses rather than being a form of enslavement and pillage of Mother Earth, and a new team, of which I was part, was brought into the centre of government.

We started with reducing VAT from 20% to 5% and a wealth tax, along the lines proposed by Gary Stevenson[4] (the most profitable Citibank trader in 2011 turned radical economist), and this was a resounding success. When people could see the obvious benefits of this it became much easier to acclimatise people to the idea that radical change was not only possible, but in fact necessary, in order to build a better and fairer world. As a member of the economics team I proposed both a radical re-imagining of currency and to instigate an economy based on the ideas in Kate Raworth’s[5] Doughnut Economics. With the space created by the wealth tax and the emergence of a plethora of radical ideas, banking was transformed using the ideas around Copiosis[6], and the proposals of engineer turned economist Thomas Greco.

Although I was a member of government my inner anarchist/libertarian leanings had not disappeared, and I was happy when a coalition of anarchist/libertarian academics and thinkers formed an alliance with those already living in alternative communities, to petition for the right of communities to live outside the control of the state. They already had the weight of experience and academic rigour behind them, and the chapters in Postcapitalism on the nature of NSFs resonated with them, so they knew they would have a sympathetic ear from me. Although initially there was plenty of grey area between how the UK state would relate to these fledgling NSFs, this was viewed as a strength and not a weakness. Flexibility was essential in the beginning, and within five years various documents were drawn up enshrining in law the two-way relationship, with meetings held at least once a year in order to address new issues when they arose.

As many of us intuitively and experientially understand, a crisis is an opportunity for radical and sustained change, and so it proved to be. In a similar way that a ‘mid-life crisis’ is an opportunity for growth and change only if it is seized and has some type of strategy behind it, so too the power vacuum created by the collapse in the traditional power structures, and the subsequent mass break down of programming, required a strategy for it to have been effective and not to have descended into chaos; which certainly seemed like a distinct possibility at many points in the decade following 2024. In addition to the systems’ change to the state, the nature of currency, drug-policy, the arms trade and NSFs, there was also a global psycho-spiritual shift. This shift had many parts, including but not limited to; initiation ceremonies within a protected sacred space with trusted elders, counselling and psychotherapy within a limited time-frame (not open-ended), group therapy, truth and reconciliation committees, entheogen[7]use and Jungian Shadow-Work. Thus the human race not only had the time and space (mentally and emotionally) to undertake both its individual and communal shadow work, but also the opportunity and incentive; a new world was coming one way or another, and better that it was primarily guided by well-adjusted humans and not people suffering from trauma or by psychopaths, as had previously been the case for most of human history.

People need examples of change as well as strategies to change, and so I offered up my own life as an example of how Shadow-Work can help a person heal from trauma, and become a better version of themselves. I can’t pin down exactly when my own shadow work began, but I do know what some of the key planks of it were; raising my daughter, renegotiating the boundaries of my own anger (to reduce the ‘egoic-anger’ and to harness the ‘righteous-anger’ (although actually I prefer the term ‘sacred anger’)), to take a deep dive into my psyche and dialogue with my inner cast of characters using entheogens, meditation and visualising the ‘new man’ I was to become. In my own case anger was a key part of this change. Once I understood that my sacred anger was what allowed me to set and defend my personal boundaries, and was therefore not only useful but actually completely necessary the rest became much simple. The egoic-anger (self-centred anger) naturally reduced when I put myself to service and really ‘nailed down’ my daily meditation routine, it all became fairly straightforward when I understood this. The videos of YouTubers Emerald Watkins and Jordan Thornton were extremely useful in my own shadow work journey. The man I am now in my seventies; at ease with himself, happy with his contribution to the world is a very different one from the late twentieth century man, who had not examined the negative patterns programmed into him by school, family and society and then internalised by the tape loops of his own mind. It is satisfying to be able to face my own mortality with no regrets.

A similar strategy (as has been used in the UK) was used in the USA to persuade non-voters to turn out and vote against the ‘uni-party’ (it having been recognised by many ordinary people that both the Republicans and the Democrats represented the interests of globalist-technocrats, the military-industrial-complex, and other special interest groups such as the prison-industrial-complex). Cornell West and Marianne Williamson won Copresident as independent candidates and things changed quickly after that. Emboldened by the changes elsewhere in the world, and with a political mandate, West/Williamson declared an end to the so-called “War on Drugs”[8] (in actual fact a war on the poor and the working class). Following this countries all over the world abandoned their slavish devotion to the nightmare that a deranged Harry J Anslinger had inflicted on the world due to his own delusion and insanity. In Europe the evidence had already been examined (the Portuguese model, the Dutch model and the work of Professor David Nutt in the UK) and the European nations used these as blueprints for their own drugs policy, which now took into account local cultural factors. Many other nations across the world used this evidence to inform their own citizens and drugs policy was crafted locally in line with the needs, wants and cultural norms of the local community. The DEA was abolished by West and with that the cheerleaders and zealots of the War on Drugs, found themselves looking for new employment.

Once the war on drugs was ended and the DEA and other similar organisations disbanded, many people choose to experiment with entheogens such as magic mushrooms, magic truffles, Iboga, LSD, MDMA, DMT, Peyote, San Pedro Cactus and Ayahuasca. This allowed people to choose from a range of shadow-work tools and healing modalities. These substances were not monopolised by big pharma, but were used under the guidance and advise of shamans in those traditions that had them. In those countries with no tradition of shamanism, such as in the UK, guidance was given by trained mental health professionals or it was undertaken without guidance by people who were aware of the risks and pitfalls that they faced. This helped many people understand themselves, come to terms with their trauma and heal themselves. They certainly helped me, although I recognise that they are not for everyone and that other healing modalities, which do not involve the use of psychoactive substances, exist also.

A contingent of African nations, emboldened by the winds of change blowing through the traditional power centres, pushed for an indefinite moratorium on the arms trade at one of the last meetings of the old United Nations (the UN had also been rocked by the Epstein Files and other corruption scandals), before it went the way of The League of Nations; into the dustbin of history. The measure was passed and despite the fact that the UN no longer commanded political legitimacy, the document that they produced was well thought out, detailed and nuanced. The newly elected politicians all over the world used the documents as the legal basis to arrest various business leaders and former politicians, all of whom had strong ties to the arms trade. Although there were still pockets of fighting in different countries, with the supply of weapons choked off this fizzled out sooner rather than later. This allowed the debate around gun-ownership to be undertaken in a less polarised and intense environment than had previously been possible.

These changes allowed the space for discussion about the values of our societies in an open and honest manner. The healing that occurred meant that the trauma that had driven many people into lives of desperation; homelessness, prostitution and drug addiction being the most common manifestations, could now be examined in an entirely different manner. It was recognised that the dark triad personality types had exploited this trauma as a deliberate ‘divide and conquer’ strategy and that they had imposed their perverted value system from the top down. The space that had been created allowed for a new ‘bottom up’ morality and value system, that respected both individual and group rights while simultaneously recognising that duty and ‘natural-law’ were the intrinsic balance and ‘price’ (not actually a price at all, but something which, while hard work, could result in great satisfaction)  for inalienable rights. In fact the duality of rights & duty are the necessary starting points for the dynamic-equilibrium (the Ying-Yang) of harmonious societies. That’s not to say that everything was smooth sailing or all ‘moonbeams and rainbows’, but that the necessary re-orienting of values was fitted into the jigsaw of change along with the other parts.

I’m so happy that people recognised that the globalist-technocrats of the WEF and the so-called philanthropists, did not have the best interests of the people at heart and wanted to create a two-tier world of Technofeudalism[9]. I appreciate my privacy and understand that paper money allows me privacy that would have vanished under a system of CBDCs. When all is said and done life is so much better than it was. Obesity, diabetes and cancer have all but disappeared, and the pharmaceutical industry is a fraction of its former size because of this. Ending the war on drugs, implementing an indefinite moratorium on the arms trade, accepting NSFs running in parallel to functional states, instituting Doughnut Economics and using non-debt-based currencies to create free and fair mediums of exchange has allowed the ideas of visionary futurists like Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco and Nikola Tesla to become a reality. Society has benefited, I as an individual have benefited, Gaia is now respected and not plundered. There is still work to be done, but I have a song in my heart and the wind in the trees whisper to me.

[1] This is the phrase that many historians now use to refer to the first two-three decades of the twenty-first century.

[2] https://www.independentalliance.co.uk/

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050929/voter-turnout-in-the-uk/

[4] https://millionairesforhumanity.org/the-millionaires/gary-stevenson/

[5] https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics

[6] https://www.copiosis.com/

[7] The word entheogen(s) refers to any psychoactive substance which is used in order to gain knowledge, communicate with a higher power or to heal. It is used here in preference to the ideological materialist-reductionist term ‘halucinogen’.

[8] For evidence of this read; Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari or The Emperor Wears No Clothes: A History of Cannabis/Hemp/Marijuana by Jack Herer or any number of books on the topic.

[9] Technofeudalism is a term coined by Yanis Varoufakis to describe a high-tech surveillance state that has a huge wealth and power gap between the ruling class and the great masses of the people.

2050 – a Look Back

 

Well, we did it! Yes – there were plenty of times when we thought we weren’t going to make it – when it seemed that human nature was so irredeemably selfish and brutish that we could never change. But we did – and at last we’ve made it – out of the playground and into the school of learning. But it was really tough for a while back there. The wars – the cruelty – the suffering – the pain – the hoarding of resources – the inequities in our communities…

But it seems that we had to make things as awful for ourselves as we could – so as to wake up. To wake up to the fact that we have a choice – a choice as to how we create our world, what world we want to create. And we‘ve done it!

We live now in a world of kindness, of bounty, of sharing the miraculous paradise that we’ve created. A world where we work together to solve problems, where we can trust others, and speak freely without fear of consequences, where good health is a given – albeit we still age and die. Where those who are without are supported by those who have, where no-one goes hungry or without shelter, where looking out for the other is the norm, whether sick or needy or the stranger at our gate. And now we’ve tasted the sweetness of such a life, there’ll be no turning back.

So how, you might ask, have we done this, made this evolutionary leap? What could so affect the consciousness of humankind to bring about this transformation, this change of heart both metaphorical and literal? How did we transcend the limits of the narrow self, to live with others in the knowledge that we are truly one – that we are made of the same stuff, that our atoms are held together by the same force, vibrating, resonating together. Or put differently, how did we make what a friend calls the 9-inch drop – from head to heart?

Well with the benefit of hindsight over the last quarter-century, it seems there were a bunch of different influences rather than a single event. But all reflected both a whole-hearted dissatisfaction with the status quo, and a profound desire for and belief in the possibility of transformation – rejecting a world of cruelty and greed, embracing a vision of wholeness and cohesion. You could call it a shift from Shock and Awe to Compassion, Gratitude and Awe.

Managing Conflict

Given increasing polarisation of viewpoints on just about everything, it became critical to find effective ways to manage disputes and conflicts. Strangely it was the courts that drove the change to using dialogue to resolve conflict. The finite resources of civil and criminal justice systems had met the infinite demand of disputes and conflict, and legal systems were collapsing. Civil cases cost a fortune and took forever, criminal cases were prosecuted haphazardly, if at all.

The courts began to promote mediation as a way to reduce delay and backlog and cost. It felt like the fruiting of the work from the mid-nineties when I’d joined others to promote ADR and train mediators. Inspired by a belief in the value of empowering people to resolve their differences themselves, I trained hundreds of the thousands who learned mediation skills. Now justice systems world-wide were sending more and more disputes to mediation to clear backlogs, and even mandating what had previously been a voluntary process. Happily most parties in mediations still found it a quicker, cheaper and even fairer way to resolve their conflicts.

Criminal cases before or after sentence were integrated with restorative justice processes, and appropriate cases were increasingly diverted to RJ from the court system. Facilitated meetings between victims and offenders led to significant benefits – as the research in the 2010’s showed while I was chairing the Restorative Justice Council. Victims who participated in RJ processes had far greater satisfaction than with the criminal justice process, and many experienced a reduction in fear and stress, and a sense of closure. Rates of recidivism among offenders were significantly reduced.

As we became more familiar with these approaches to resolving conflict it became easier to apply them in larger scale disputes. Huge public pressure challenged the old adversarial ways of resolving differences. At the same time the mindset of those driving the conflicts was beginning to change. Leaders were now widely expected to deliver negotiated resolutions. So whether they were in national conflicts, international disputes, pre-conflict zones, even outright war – the individuals behind them (mostly men) became more susceptible to negotiated settlements, particularly when facilitated by a third-party neutral. That’s of course what led to the Gaza Accord and the Two State Solution.

Thus when our inevitable differences with others arose, it became normal to engage with them – in a facilitated safe setting – to talk through what had happened, how we felt about it, and what could be done to put it right. Such meetings became commonplace as a way of resolving differences. Restorative schools sprang up, where education included space for the kids to listen to each other, and be heard, and learn empathy for others – and themselves.

We were also becoming familiar with ways of communicating that didn’t involve doing harm to others. Finding ways to communicate with others using ‘clean’ language was unfamiliar at first. But practice in articulating our feelings and needs and making requests of others, became second nature, reinforced by the positive ways that others responded.  It led people to be more accepting of others, and themselves.

I could see that the seeds of this profound behavioural change were sown by Marshall Rosenberg in developing Nonviolent Communication back in the 80’s and 90’s, and I was proud of the role I’d played back then in introducing him to a wider public, and being able to train others in his method.

So this new language, and having effective ways to manage the natural differences that we had, began to foster a new atmosphere – where listening to others and working with them to meet challenges became the norm. In this new atmosphere, this new vibe, it became possible to talk freely to one another without fear, and without the aggressions that came from fear. Gradually people no longer felt the need to defend themselves with cynicism and judgment of others. Peace broke out.

 

Participatory Democracy

 

Aided by the movement away from an adversarial legal system, the age-old structures of government began to evolve into something more fluid, engaging with communities and with one another in a more collaborative way. Although she only agreed to serve as Prime Minister for a maximum four years, our new leader changed the tone and structure of politics and introduced the Feminine principle into the process of government.

The adversarial process of party politics began to be seen as a colossal waste of energy, when there were obviously better ways of working to solve the complex problems we faced. The advent and spread of the Citizens’ Assemblies showed the way – where groups of us could feed into the political process, in fact communicate directly with elected politicians.

The founding of the CPS Party was a milestone. You could join the Cooperative Problem Solving Party whatever your political stripe or hue, as long as you subscribed to its common purpose – to collaborate together to address the particular challenges we faced, to find pragmatic solutions based on understanding rather than driven by dogma.

The CPS set up Working Groups among the politicians which gradually became more and more the way ‘Government’ was done. Collaboration by elected politicians with communities, assemblies and diverse groups to reach decisions about actions became the order of the day.

 

Power of Collaboration

Another shift in thinking grew among those of us who had been yearning and working for change in our own small corners. We started to collaborate with other individuals and organisations of like mind. Groups of good-hearted people who had been working in charities and NGO’s discovered that joining in larger groups enhanced the power of the collective. Not only did collective action strengthen and fortify practical initiatives, but our voices for change were louder, clearer and had more influence on policy.

More and more of us turned to partnerships and working together to further our determination to escape the collective pain of war and conflict. We discovered that when enough people came together to support peace-building initiatives they reached a critical mass and had a profound influence on political values and direction.

An example of the effect of this networking was the work of Search for Common Ground, the international peace-building organisation that I’d been involved in with for ten years. Their methodologies and experience in ending violent conflict was magnified exponentially when they formed alliances with other NGO’s in the field. This peace-keeping collective was able to extend its activities and its technologies to trouble spots all over the world. And this whole collaborative movement was rocket propelled by the use of AI – to seek out potential partner organisations, harmonise with them and develop strategies for effective joint action.

There were many other examples where networking made individual initiatives more effective than the sum of their parts, where collective action transformed effectiveness. For example the Global Water Partnership, a global action network developing an integrated approach to managing that increasingly precious resource, water. It was able to mobilise government, civil society, and the commercial sector in 180 countries to engage with each other to solve water problems.

Another example was ethical investing. It became more than an aspiration that investing could be socially responsible, whether the funds were Environmental Social and Governance, impact or faith-based. Ethical investment became not just worthy -but a societal norm for everyone from individual shareholders to institutions. The old-school approach of ’invest for maximum profit’ or ‘win as much as you can’, was seen for what it was – selfish, greedy and ignorant of social context.

These changing attitudes went hand in hand with government requirements that businesses’ accounts record their Triple Bottom Line i.e. not only financial profit, but also their social and environmental costs, or put simply, accounting for Profit, People and the Planet. Shareholder activism used the power of investment – and divestment – to help drive the implementation of sustainable business practices.

The proposal that maximum individual wealth be limited to $25 million met a strong reaction and a great deal of resistance. Eventually the limit was agreed at $50 million. Any amounts accumulated over this became public wealth, or could be donated to a charity of choice. At the same time a Universal Basic Income was introduced so that all would receive enough to survive, and no-one need be without the basics of food shelter and warmth.

Resistance

 

However as we quickly realised those who were invested in the status quo weren’t willing to go quietly. These vested interests, from those who were invested in a socio-economic model that was principally for the benefit of the few, were one of the biggest obstacles to change. The resistance was principally from what Eisenhower called the ‘military-industrial complex’ – the soi-disant defence industry and those who profited from it, and the chemical industry, particularly petro-chemical and pharmaceutical. We couldn’t conceive back then how it could be possible to prise loose the steely grip of capitalism.

And there were plenty of other vested interests, of dictators and demagogues, who were intent on clinging on to power and riches, in fact obsessed with it. It turned out however that at the heart of it all they were still human beings – and therefore vulnerable, and haunted by the fragility of life.

Initially there was no single moment when their thinking changed, rather an incremental change over time. Because they were not immune from the pressure of public opinion, not to mention those around them such as partners, lovers, children, friends. And the changing awareness that had a major influence on them included the gradual yet irresistible transformative effects of plant medicine.

 

Plant medicine

The use of plant medicine – although not openly acknowledged until recently – was another major driver for change. By the 2020’s research had established the beneficial effects of psychedelics such as psilocybin on those with anxiety and depression, or suffering from PTSD, also for the terminally ill. Licensed work with other hallucinogens like MDMA, LSD, ketamine was carried out, with similar positive results. The mainstream view about the value of these psycho-active substances and the changes in consciousness that they facilitated was shifting.

At the same time more and more people were using these substances in an everyday context. Some for recreational purposes, many more using mushrooms and ayahuasca as a kind of sacrament, as an aid to greater awareness, to experience non-ordinary states, to have understanding of themselves and others and their place in the universe. Indeed churches were formed in which the sacrament was the mushroom.

A growing number of us undertook these healing journeys, and an interconnection grew between us – like a human mycelial network. The collective mind was inevitably changed by these experiences, by the recognition of a vastly wider universe than we had been aware of, both around us and within us. We had new-found respect for others, and the natural world. It became increasingly unthinkable that we would harm others for the simple reason that we were harming ourselves. And this consciousness generalised out into all living organisms.

Initially it was the leaders of tech corporations who explored these non-ordinary states, then – sometimes under the flag of leadership training – it was taken up by captains of industry and commerce, then thought leaders in multiple fields. The thinking and attitudes of those who ran these different institutions and corporations were as susceptible as the rest of us to this new and more harmonious world that was unfolding.

The natural world

The natural world became more respected and honoured. We became more aware of our place in it as we experienced the subtle energies of the world around us. So it was inevitable that the way that we treated our environment changed. At the same time so many of the initiatives that I and others had worked for from the 2000’s began to bear fruit. The movements for the Rights of Nature, against Ecocide, to promote Environmental Restorative Justice all bore fruit.

The notion that natural features might be afforded the protection of the law as legal entities took a while to catch on. But isolated cases in India, New Zeeland and South America turned into a popular movement as communities got that they could use the law to protect their environment. At the same time our efforts with the EU to adopt an Ecocide (Prevention) Act finally succeeded, and the law came into effect first in the EU, then the UN and then jurisdictions all over the world. The law of Ecocide meant that those causing long-term or widespread harm to the environment faced prosecution and personal criminal liability.

And Environmental Restorative Justice – which we had developed in the ‘20’s in our working group at the European Forum for Restorative Justice – became part and parcel of the justice system, and beyond. Those who harmed the environment were given the opportunity to meet the victims and find ways together to repair the harm. Then it became commonplace in any environmental issues for all stakeholders – including both human and natural parties – to have restorative meetings or stakeholder dialogues to find ways mutually to address the issues.

Our relationship to the natural world was transformed. We began to experience more fully our interconnectedness with ‘nature’, the biosphere, Gaia. We could no longer ignore our interdependence with the natural world and we started actively seeking ways to nurture and coexist with all living beings – at least those that still survived our despoliation of the Planet.

In due course and under immense public pressure, extraction industries slowed their activities, and then ground to a halt. Extensive programmes were initiated to retrain those who lost their jobs, to enable them to work in the new sustainable energy field.

The effect on the environment was astonishing – air became cleaner, water drinkable, food more life-enhancing. We were heartened by Nature’s ability to regenerate itself when we lived in harmony with it.

And with the detoxification of our air and waterways and soil came greater health, improvements in our immune system, more robust organisms. Mental health improved dramatically and we could see how much aberrant behaviour had been caused by poisoning. The microparticles and chemicals that had made their way into our soil and water and air had been having a toxic effect on us, some worse than others.

More and more of us became sensitive to natural ways of healing, much to the consternation of pharma businesses and medical associations. But as the critical mass grew, manufacturers had to bow to market forces and accept what they themselves were beginning to understand – that people’s wellbeing came before profit.

The wisdom of indigenous peoples was revived and honoured. The ‘complementary therapies’ as we called them back then, were acknowledged for the healing they offered, and adopted. Many therapies that had been debunked in earlier times, such as homeopathy and acupuncture, were now seen as fundamental to people’s wellbeing.

Ancient ways of healing were rediscovered with hands-on and remote energy work, the use of sound, of colour and intention in healing. The healing powers of nature, of other creatures, of the mineral world were recognised as real. Nutrition played a big part too, aiming for foods that were healthy and life-giving. To maintain wellness preventative health care became the order of the day, alongside symptomatic treatment when dis-ease struck.

And our overall health responded. As we took more responsibility for our own health, the strain on health systems everywhere eased. In fact when nutrition became part of medical school training, we knew a corner had been turned. At the same time a major contribution to the cost of these slimmed-down national health systems was the simultaneous decriminalisation of cannabis, and the imposition of a 20% Value Added Tax on all transactions related to it.

 

Crop Circles – cosmic doodles?

 

We all knew about UFO’s. Their existence had long been debunked in line with governments’ attitudes, most of whom denied the existence of UFO’s. However reports of sightings had increased, especially since the beginning of the atomic era. With the coming of the age of the Internet, the cell-phone and social media, sightings – and mass sightings – were reported more and more widely.

And then governments had started to drip-feed us information that there were Unexplained Arial Phenomena (that’s UAP’s not UFO’s) that by definition they couldn’t explain. The military started by not-denying some reports of UFO sightings. Then acknowledging they had their own (modestly funded) UFO research programme. Then even publishing their own images of UAP’s/UFO’s.

Millions more were having their own first-hand experiences of UFO’s. By the 2010’s a majority of people believed in their existence – whether extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional, or us time-travelling from the future. Somehow without quite knowing it, we were getting used to the idea that we aren’t alone, and that there are other intelligences, for good or ill, with whom we share this Universe.

In parallel came the extraordinary re-discovery of crop circles. They’d been known about for years, the occasional image popping up on a screen then forgotten. Many had a vague recollection of a pair of hoaxers, Doug and Dave, who said they’d been making the circles with a plank and two ropes. Even though their story raised some problems (e.g. complex circles appearing overnight without sound or light, two or more circles appearing on the same night, or in different countries across the globe) it was an easy explanation to dismiss an otherwise unimaginable phenomenon.

Some of us however looked deeper into it and realised that these designs – now way more complex than circles – were geometrically precise, mathematically sophisticated, harmonious, creative and playful works of art. Articles appeared in academic journals and then mainstream media.

Public debate about crop circles was vocal enough that a three-part TV series was commissioned to explore the phenomenon. David Attenborough agreed to present it. It showed that the force(s) that created the designs didn’t crush the stems of the crop or break them with direct pressure, but bent them so they lay in patterns, and continued to grow. It highlighted the mathematical genius that underlay their symmetry.

Attenborough stated that “the precision of the designs can only have been produced by a highly advanced technology that can instantaneously and gently create a design in the crops.” He concluded: “Seeing these designs not just one at a time but one after another, each more breathtakingly complex and exuberant than the one before, is living evidence of the voice and hand of other intelligences.”

That TV programme galvanised the viewing public and beyond. It awakened a widespread realisation of the significance of whoever or whatever were the makers of the circles. More and more people were driven to the realisation that we really are Not Alone. The understanding of the enormity of this phenomenon spread, helped by social media and the endorsement of celebrities and influencers with millions of followers. The classic videos made by ‘croppies’, like “What on Earth?” by the wonderful Suzanne Taylor, were picked up and went viral.

Who ‘the makers’ were was hotly debated – obviously extra-terrestrial, said some. Others pointed out that with their ability to appear and disappear they were probably from other dimensions. Some took the view that they were angelic messengers from a Divine Being. Some likened them to the sky-gods of just about every ancient culture, that communicated with humankind and passed on wisdom and technologies.

While that debate continued, it was clear to all that whoever had the power and technology to make these designs so precisely, swiftly and silently, was beyond anything we could imagine. And the ‘makers’ – whether he/she/it/them – were interested in getting our attention – which at last they had.

Even the armed forces were eventually driven to declare on behalf of their governments:

an acknowledgment that we are not alone

an amnesty for all the lies told in trying to conceal that fact from the public

acceptance that military control of our airspace was an illusion

recognition that ‘they’ could have destroyed us by now if they wanted

understanding that we needed to negotiate with them

These admissions by the authorities sent shock waves through the world. They had a particular impact on those with their hands on the levers of power. Some simply rejected any story that involved ET’s and little green men, and saw those who believed it as dupes. Meanwhile it was business as usual.

Others recognised the intelligence and technological mastery behind the circles but perceived it as a danger. They recognised a power potentially greater than theirs, that armed force was not able to defeat, and that it threatened their control of affairs.

Just as President Reagan had observed to the UN in 1987 (as he had to Gorbachev in 1985) “…we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

Those who saw the ‘makers’ as a threat found themselves seeking alliances with former enemies to unite against this common threat. In the face of the existential threat, the energy and resources for local wars subsided, as new partnerships were rapidly formed. The internecine conflagrations of the world subsided as if a sprinkler system had been turned on.

And for the rest of us? We thought this was a wonderful, indeed miraculous turn of events, that the wider public was finally able to recognise the existence of these intelligences. We couldn’t wait to get onto the next stage.

Communication

 

Which was to begin communicating with them. There were of course official groups set up to open up a dialogue with the circle-makers. But they spent much time discussing who should represent us, how, where, when, and with what purpose.

A few of us set up informal groups. At first the membership was mainly intuitives and empaths, then others with different skills. Those trained in inter-species communication, as I had been by Anna Breitenbach, were very much at home. Once each group met, we would put ourselves in a receptive state, invite communication, and then listen – for whatever came, in whatever form.

Meanwhile new informal groups were springing up all over. It became important to find correspondences between the ‘messages’ the different groups received. So we standardised a set of questions, a sort of protocol, that each group could ask. We then pooled the answers looking in particular for any correspondences. We observed an uncanny consistency between what each group ‘heard’ that gave the messages a power and authenticity.

We started to pass the messages and information through the Citizen’s Assemblies to the politicians and business leaders, who largely accepted it as ‘wise counsel’. All but the most intransigent started to sit up and listen. But it was all eclipsed by that one message that came through with such force and clarity that it transfixed us all.

The Message

 

One day the same lengthy message was received by most of the members of most of the groups. It came with a title: “Change the World”. In fact it repeated verbatim a 2003 message that Jean Ederman said he received intuitively in communication with benevolent extra-terrestrials. The key passages blew open our psyches:

“…It is not our responsibility to modify your future without your choosing it. So consider this message as a worldwide referendum, and your answer as a ballot…

 

Like most of you, we are in quest of the Supreme “Being” or “State of Being.”

Therefore we are not gods or lesser gods but virtually your equals in the Cosmic Brotherhood.

 

Physically we are somewhat different from you but most of us are humanoid-shaped.

We are not mere observations; we are consciousnesses just like you. Our existence is a reality, but the majority of you do not perceive it yet because we remain invisible to your senses and instruments most of the time.

 

We wish to fill this void at this moment in your history. We made this collective decision on our side, but this is not enough — we need yours as well. Through this message you can become the decision-makers. You, personally. We have no human representative on Earth who could guide your decision…

…humankind’s entrance into the family of galactic civilizations is greatly expected.

We can appear in broad daylight to help you attain this union, but we have not done it so far, as too few of you have genuinely desired it because of ignorance, indifference or fear, and because the urgency of the situation did not justify it…

 

There are several billion of you, but the education of your children and your living conditions, as well as the conditions of numerous animals and much plant life are under the thumb of a small number of your political, financial, military and religious representatives. Your thoughts and beliefs are modeled after partisan interests while at the same time giving you the feeling that you are in total control of your destiny — which in essence is the reality, but there is a long way between a wish and a fact when the true rules of the game at hand are kept hidden…

 

A great roller wave is on the horizon. It entails very positive but also very negative potentials. At this time wonderful opportunities of progress stand side by side with threats of destruction.

 

However, you can only perceive what is being shown to you. The diminishing of many natural resources is inevitable and no long-term collective remediation project has been launched. Ecosystem exhaustion mechanisms have exceeded irreversible limits.

 

The scarcity of resources whose entry price will rise day after day — and their unfair distribution — will bring about fratricidal fights on a large scale, from the hearts of your cities to your countrysides. This is the reason why, more than ever in your history, your decisions of today will directly and significantly impact your survival tomorrow.

 

Hatred grows… but so does love. That is what keeps you confident in your ability to find solutions…

 

There are two ways to establish a cosmic contact with another civilization: via its standing representatives or directly with ordinary individuals.

 

The first way entails fights of interests, the second way brings awareness. The first way was chosen by a group of races motivated by keeping mankind in slavery, thereby controlling Earth’s resources, its gene pool, and the mass of human emotional energy.

 

The second way was chosen by a group of races allied with the cause of the Spirit of Service. Some years ago we did introduce ourselves to representatives of the human power structure, but they refused our outstretched hand on the basis of interests that were incompatible with their strategic vision.

 

That is why today individuals are to make this choice by themselves without any representatives interfering. What we proposed in the past to those whom we believed were in a capacity to contribute to your happiness, we propose now — to you…

 

We can offer you a more holistic vision of the universe and of life, constructive interactions, the experience of fair and fraternal relationships, liberating technical knowledge, eradication of suffering, controlled exercise of individual powers, access to new forms of energy and, finally, a better comprehension of consciousness.

 

We cannot help you overcome your individual and collective fears, or bring you laws that you would not have chosen. You must also work on your own selves, apply individual and collective efforts to build the world you desire, and manifest the spirit to quest for new skies.

 

What would we receive?

 

Should you decide that such a contact take place, we would rejoice over the safeguarding of fraternal equilibrium in this region of the universe, fruitful diplomatic exchanges, and the intense Joy of knowing that you are united to accomplish what you are capable of.

 

The feeling of Joy is strongly sought in the universe, for its energy is divine. What is the question we ask you? “DO YOU WISH THAT WE SHOW UP?”

 

How can you answer this question? The truth of soul can be read telepathically, so you only need to clearly ask yourself this question and give your answer as clearly, on your own or in a group, as you wish.

 

Being in the heart of a city or in the middle of a desert does not impact the efficiency of your answer. YES or NO.

 

Just do it as if you were speaking to yourself but thinking about the message. This is a universal question, and these mere few words, put in their context, have a powerful meaning.

 

This is why you should calmly think about it, in all conscience. In order to perfectly associate your answer with the question, it is recommended that you answer after another careful reading of this message.

 

Do not rush to answer. Breathe and let all the power of your own free will penetrate you. Be proud of what you are! Then do not let hesitation get in the way….

 

For us, the immediate consequence of a collective favorable decision would be the materialization of many ships, in your sky and on Earth.

 

For you, the direct effect would be the rapid abandoning of many certitudes and beliefs. A simple conclusive visual contact would have huge repercussions for your future. Much knowledge would be modified forever. The organization of your societies would be deeply upheaved forever, in all fields of activity.

 

Power would become individual because you would see for yourself that we exist as living beings, not accepting or rejecting that fact on the word of any external authority. Concretely, you would change the scale of your values.

 

The most important thing for us is that humankind would form a single family before this “unknown” we would represent!”

And that’s what happened. It was the tipping point. The message was received by many different groups in many different places, each in their own language. It travelled around the world at the speed of light and reached just about everyone. We – the family of man – did treat it as a ballot as they suggested. And our overwhelming answer was a unanimous “YES”.

And in response to this ‘collective favourable decision’ they did just as they had proposed. Both in the sky and on the ground there followed materialisations of many craft. Among those who witnessed them were many of those leaders who had been resistant to change. When each personally experienced that ‘simple conclusive visual contact’ it was as if a collective fuse was blown. Their construct of reality had to expand to accommodate the existence of intelligences from beyond this world – a ‘rapid abandoning of many certitudes and beliefs’ indeed.

In the dialogues that followed the makers did offer us, as they had said, “a more holistic vision of the universe and of life, constructive interactions, the experience of fair and fraternal relationships, liberating technical knowledge, eradication of suffering, controlled exercise of individual powers, access to new forms of energy and, finally, a better comprehension of consciousness.”

For all of us – including our political, financial, military and religious representatives -the effect was a seismic shift in awareness and consequently behaviour. Those who organised our societies looked for ways to manage our affairs that were harmonious with the needs of the people and the planet. A new optimism was born, an openness to what our world had to offer.

New Energy

 

The coup de grace for the petro-chemical industry – and effectively the death knell for the old economy – came in the 2030’s with the New Energy.

Research into the designs of the crop circles was revealing deep sources of information encoded in them. Some detailed answers to long-standing geometric puzzles. Some had messages apparently for us in binary code, And some had the basic information which once decoded gave the building blocks to harness free sustainable energy – the new forms of energy that had been promised as part of the deal.

Synchronistically one individual, eschewing fame and especially fortune, published on-line his rediscovery of torus field energy using the earth’s donut-shaped electromagnetic energy field. Crucially, he shared how to implement it in low-tech ways. A number of inventors including the mighty Nikolai Tesla, had said they were developing alternative sources of clean energy, but they did not flourish.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       But this new technology was open-source and – as we all now take pretty much for granted – enabled everyone to have access to free and sustainable energy as they needed. No one on the planet had to pay for energy for whatever purpose they needed (and what they did with it is another story…). The need and the use of fossil fuels and indeed nuclear energy became less and less relevant – in fact how could we have thought of using that poisonous stuff?

And the economic systems and conflicts based around control of resources started to crumble, to wither on the vine. We were at last free from the straitjacket of consumerism – free of the death-cycle of infinite growth and finite resources – and able to arrange our lives in a way that is sustainable, nourishing and life-enhancing.

Lawrence Kershen

Thalpe, Sri Lanka

20.2.24

kershen@europe.com

We Begin: The World POEM                                                                                                                                                         Mark Reibstein

It is with boundless joy and love that I greet you – all of you on this lovely Earth, where, today, every living being has triumphed, and we celebrate the most significant turning point in human history!

In 1969, we made a giant leap and landed on the moon. On this day, April 22, 2050, humans arrive here on Earth, for Earth, as never before. Today’s passage of the Global Armistice for Earth Accords (GAEA) joined by every member of the United Nations, and your endorsements of The World POEM’s three planks, mark Adam’s and Eve’s return to the Garden of Eden – no longer as ignorant children, but as wise, compassionate, and powerful caretakers. On this day, we find Shiva, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, Jesus, the great gods of indigenous peoples everywhere, and countless other prophets and sages alive in each other’s eyes. As we recognize our ancestors’ great works and visions, which led us here, we also know how far we’ve come. Hallelujah!

How did we get here? You are how we got here. When, 25 years ago, The World POEM became a political party – The World Party of Emotional Maturity – that was the formalization of something in all of us, which has been reaching out for each other since the inception of our history, as a species – the same primal urge that bonds every mother and child, every pair of lovers, and every friend. Despite fears and limitations, we have been inching towards this moment for millennia. Human civilization – from the smallest village agreement, artifact, and vision to our most global arrangements, games, arts, and communications – has been a step towards species-unity, motivated by fellow-feeling and the wish for mutual thriving. Today, it allows us to recognize Earth as our mother and our fellow creatures as brothers and sisters – to know this as both ancient wisdom and the fruition of scientific exploration and analysis. Modern humans arrive today, to take their place in the family of Earth!

So, while we cannot point to a single person or moment as the origin-point of this journey, let us  affectionately recall recent landmarks along its way, beginning with that playful exercise by an obscure writer of children’s books, which caught the imagination of people around the world. For that world, which was on the brink of ecological collapse, with self-aggrandizing, tiny-egoed, frightened leaders escalating human divisions and hostilities, he proposed a political party of the emotionally mature – it was time, he said, for the adults in the room to step up and link arms!

He proposed, furthermore, its first gathering to take place that July 14, 2024, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Polo Field – the site where, 57 years and six months prior, there had been a “Gathering of the Tribes Human Be-In” – with no purpose other than to gather, in connection. He called the event “A World POEM Be-In, 2024.” It was to feature no speakers, no agenda, and no leaders. Those must emerge, in time, to serve the movement – for this must never be a movement that served its leaders.

Who showed up? About eight thousand people, it turned out – from around the world. Why? What they told the media was that they wanted to save our species – by putting aside all geographic, ethnic, religious, and racial considerations. What could humanity accomplish, they wondered, if it thought and acted as one? The United Nations was founded on a noble idea, but it was bound by all the loyalties and interests, which had justified countless wars, plunder, and exploitation for millenia. They wondered, what could a World Party of the Emotionally Mature – an organization of like-minded people, in defiance of national, ethnic, and religious boundaries – accomplish? As musicians and poets performed in small, impromptu gatherings, people looked for answers to that question, chatting and connecting, both with the others who had come and, electronically, with many others who were at that time merely curious.

I was there. Among us, there was a small sprinkling of those who had been at the Be-In of 1967, and while I was not among those, I was among many who had been alive to watch the lunar landing – and the analogy came to our lips often. There was that spirit of collective endeavor in 1969 – exactly what the Be-In in 1967 had hoped to initiate – a sense of a movement sweeping across the world. The lunar landing, of course, was perhaps due mostly to national competition – if anything, diametrically opposed to hippie politics –  but there was an almost mystical sense of consonance for many of us, when the landing occurred – captured and popularized by the song “The Age of Aquarius” from the musical Hair. “Peace” and “love,”the words on our lips then, were clearly the only rational responses to a world where atom bombs had been dropped and were proliferating. It seemed fitting that we were landing on the moon, when humanity itself so badly needed a leap of cosmic proportions (on a personal note – the Mets, Jets, and Knicks were champions in ‘69 and ‘70 – what other signs of cosmic alignment did a boy in NY need?).

Those of us who attended the World POEM Be-In, in 2024, could already feel that the current we were jumping into was powerful and swift  – one which would sustain and carry us to our needed destination – from our differences to the commonality at our source. We had political discussions – but our goals were never to convince or complain – always to understand and be understood. What followed from that first gathering was a single commitment – continued, yearly, in an increasing multitude of places.

A small band of technology experts, led by Suzanne Taylor, undertook the management of a World POEM site to keep discussions going. A logarithm allowed any group of 150 people, following Robin Dunbar’s “Rule of 150,” to choose places to gather at the following World POEM Convention, in 2025. As sites and groups were shared and finalized, so were procedures and methodologies devised and confirmed, for on-line collaboration. On July 14, 2025, from roughly one thousand sites around the world, the World POEM convened its first political convention – the numbers had increased by more than tenfold in a year. In many cities, the groups of 150 gathered at the same spot, creating happy, harmonious crowds in the thousands and globally replicating the Be-In of ‘24.

And what has happened since? As you well know, exponential growth of our party, every year, in increasingly diverse locations, with an increasingly robust culture of participation, in keeping with its spirit and goals. What happens at these conventions? We share what makes us who we are – food, music, stories, art. Friendships are forged. Love blooms. Games are enjoyed. Meanwhile, on line, we have moved slowly, collectively, and surely, towards a consensus set of platform planks, while successfully fending off those who, for a multiplicity of reasons, would attempt to destroy what was being built with a strength they could not comprehend.

And all that brings us to today: the moment when the number of people who have confirmed their dedication to the three principal planks of our party exceeds one half of the extant human species, world-wide.

I was blessed to be asked to speak on this occasion. I know you are with me, on screens across the globe, as we rededicate ourselves to those planks out loud, together. But I want to take this opportunity to speak a little more, before we do that, to those who might be watching, and who might not be with us yet.

First, I want to explain how we know this is not a movement that is going to recede with the tide of time. “Is not history cyclical?” They ask. “Is not progress a matter of fits and starts – steps forward and sometimes even more, taken backwards?”

Our response is the perfect certainty that what we need is ahead and not behind us, in the human story. Maturity works like that. In idle, regressive moments, we long for childish comforts, but by and large, adult humans love and work as adults, satiating adult needs.

Secondly, I feel I must explain the concept of the 50/50, which is at the heart of the first plank, and without which species-awareness is impossible to experience as individuals or collectively. It involves a personal leap of faith, but that does not mean it cannot be understood rationally within the framework of human cultural history.

The 50/50 has made possible today’s evolutionary leap – a kind of singularity – where the whole of our massed potential far exceeds the sum of our parts. At its heart lies a paradox, which makes us, through World POEM participation, more distinctly free, as individuals. How is that possible? Of course, it is the same paradox at the heart of all religions; but my favorite articulation of it is from two centuries ago, when the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke of something he called the Oversoul, in an essay by that name, which I urge you to read at your leisure.

But a full understanding of the 50/50 requires some psychology  – specifically, a theory of the ego and its relation to lives of purpose and value. What must be clear is that it is the ego’s breadth that is of consequence –not, as many religions have conceived it for so long, its eradication. For millennia, humans believed animals were below us and God was above. We thought our sacred obligation was to rise above the one to find the other – to transcend or sacrifice the ego entirely. Early psychologists suggested, rather, that we must recognize and value the animal self – what Sigmund Freud called the id – and the consciousness of the social worlds we lived in, or super-ego. Our egos, as they conceived them, were merely navigators between those urges and constraints. This correctly dispensed with supernatural deities. But for what purposes did we navigate? Besides pleasure – or escape from pain – and approval, was there any way to distinguish a meaningful, well-lived life from one that, apart from all appearances, might be narrow or malignant?

What that psychological model missed was an appreciation of the ego’s breadth on that spectrum it navigated. We now know that value in life is found to the extent that one goes in both directions simultaneously: satisfying one’s animal self, while expanding one’s identification with others (i.e., loving and being loved). Small egos, which navigate only at the intersection of id and superego, live shallow, mean lives. Egos sustained only by the id are destined for isolation, frailty, apathy, and pain. Those that surrender fully to the super-ego, or collective conscience, may be seen as saintly, but they can no longer experience or give authentically. The challenge is to become a healthy and satisfied animal, feet on the Earth, feeling one’s way towards unity with others through love, service, and sacrifice.

That is the essence of the World POEM’s first plank, the 50/50, a personal commitment to moral discipline as well as a guiding principle for public policy– from our most intimate decisions to our stewardship of nature on Earth, the latter realized in a commitment to the proposal of E.O. Wilson known as “Half-Earth.” The elegance and clarity of the 50/50 is revelatory: take one half of whatever it is coveted for oneself; give the other half away. Seek personal success that is in perfect harmony with public good. Whatever good you do for yourself, do equal good for others. We mine, from what folk wisdom has for generations referred to as “the golden rule,” real, pure gold: our best selves, to drive personal decision-making and public policy.

So – grab a glass of something – clear, clean water is fine – and raise it, as we toast the first plank in the World POEM platform. Please pronounce it out loud, with me, before you take your drink:

Plank #1: Our guiding principle in moral, political, and environmental affairs will be the 50/50. 

And as you drink, I will read aloud the Ancillary Commitments for Plank #1, to which you all have agreed:

→ With no act made without consideration of its effect on others, we commit to realizing, to whatever extent possible, equal benefits and costs between our own interests and the interests of others.

→ Because this extends to our use and care for the natural Earth, we also commit to realizing Edward Osborne Wilson’s “Half Earth” by 2060 and maintaining it in perpetuity afterwards.

Before we move on to Plank #2, I want to respond to what has been said about how the agreement you made to commit to this plank was a personal decision – non-binding and therefore meaningless. Perhaps its power, at this point, isprincipally aspirational, but that is no small thing. This is not a discipline that can be enforced from without; it must be chosen, as it has been, by you. If there is sacrifice realized when the 50/50 is enacted, it must be experienced by you as a gain, rather than a loss, or the practice will not endure and become the habit that it must. In regard to public policy, democratic pressure, it is hoped, will be put on every government to live up to first plank precepts – particularly the environmental regulations and enforcement necessary to realize “Half Earth” before this decade is out. Nations, like individuals, must find their way – and only enlightened individuals can lead them. The first plank is three things at once: economy, morality, and governance. In other words, it has the potential to become the practical religion of a future that suits this coming age of our maturity, here on Earth.

I think we are ready now to raise our glasses again and recite the second plank in the World POEM platform:

Plank #2: From this point on, our politics, sciences, and faiths will be global. 

And as you drink, allow me to review your Ancillary Commitments to Plank #2:

→ We will distrust and discourage national policies that compromise the welfare of other nations. Mutual thriving is our principal goal.

→ Our work in the academies will be motivated by pragmatic concern for the flourishing of all humans and the natural world, with improvements in the education, health, and dignity of all peoples and preservation of Earth and all its life forms prioritized.

→ Looking upon humanity’s flaws as loving parents do their children’s and with reverence for the genius of humanity, we dedicate ourselves to our species’ improvement. Inspired by a faith as deep as any hitherto given to supernatural, superhuman divinities, we will seek to meet or kindle that faith in others.

→ In the face of any policy that runs counter to these principles, we vow to follow the practice first described by Henry David Thoreau and later enacted by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Through civil disobedience, we will withdraw our support from that action, in an attempt to suspend it.

You – individuals in countries throughout the world, committing yourselves to the three World POEM planks above, have made the third plank, which I am very excited to read now, possible. You have raised your eyes above boundaries and divisions of every sort, to acknowledge each others’ presence and the fact of your majority. You have discovered the power of your collective voice – before which, national governments bow and tyrants, sensing their obsolescence, cower. Ultimately, your patience and perseverance will wrest power from the dangerously immature, who would otherwise destroy us and the Earth we love.

How do we know we will triumph? Because, having accessed our own species’ wisdom, we know we must. Every species seeks to thrive. Super-colony species, such as ants, tapped into the power of species-identity eons ago – and they have since thrived like no other beings on this planet, to live in ways that suit them. This is the thrilling dawn of our collective experience – the awesome power of love – and the full realization of our destiny as humans! Our story is not over, though – it is just beginning, as we newly inhabit this place. We are a young species still, but we have finally grown up… and that, of course, is the essence of Plank #3.

So hold your glasses even higher – and sing, even louder, what we want the stars to hear:

Plank #3: “The time has come! We have arrived!”