IMPORTANT SKYWATCH NOTICE: This series is being offered in the leadup to THE UNVEILING—an urgent Defender Virtual Conference event (May 13) wherein experts from around the world will update the public on swiftly developing Human Enhancement / Hybrid Age advances directly tied to ancient prophecy and a coming seven years of Great Tribulation. Are you aware governments are enacting legislation NOW to protect the rights of the coming Human-Non-Human genetically engineered entities? (Early registration discount here).
FROM MILIEU MEMBER: CARL TEICHRIB
Themes of perfection underscore the human longing for order out of chaos, a reminder of what could be.
We long for ideal social and political relationships. We desire the perfect day, the perfect mate and perfect children, the perfect career, and perfect knowledge. Ever-higher aspirations and peak experiences may fit within this greater model, along with a host of other subjects: body images and views of biology, the perfecting of artistic endeavor, ethical and moral expectations, religious duties, ethnic and cultural traditions, and feelings of spiritual arrival. In a way this embodied desire for perfection erodes the common belief in humanity’s inherent goodness. Why seek improvement if we are good already? That we do good things and are often well intentioned is not disputed; that we are good is another matter. Imperfection is the norm.
Transhumanism seeks to find practical paths to human perfectibility—or at least betterment that, when compared to our normal existence, appears radically superior and ultimate. As techno-pagan Mark Pesce elucidated:
Men die; planets die, even stars die. We know all this. Because we know it, we seek something more, a transcendence of transience, translation to an incorruptible form. An escape, if you will, a stop to the Wheel.
We seek, therefore, to bless ourselves with perfect knowledge and perfect will, to become as gods, take the universe in hand, and transform it in our own image, for our own delight. As it is on Earth, so it shall be in the heavens, the inevitable result of incredible improbability, the arrow of evolution lifting us into the Transhuman, an apotheosis through reason, salvation attained by good works.[i]
Biblically, the problem of the human condition is not biological or cognitive or technical limitations, but positional separation from God our creator.
This relational severance occurred when mankind chose to pursue aggrandizement, to be more than man. It was an act opposed to the position God set on noble human existence, to be His representatives or image bearers on earth. Humanity chose, rather, to find a new identity via technique, the intentional transgressing of God’s stated limitations.[ii] We would represent ourselves. This act of disobedience immediately became inherent and is known as the problem of sin,[iii] with moral and physical consequences plaguing every person; we naturally seek to be masters and saviors of our destiny, doing what is right in our own eyes. Whether inwardly or outwardly I lie, you lie; I steal, you steal; I murder, you murder; I commit adultery and idolatry, and you do the same. It is not that we are one, but that we are all broken.
When compared to the transcendent standards of Holy God, our natural state is immediately exposed. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah tells us that even our deeds of justice—our proclaimed righteousness—are “like a menstrual cloth,” and our sins sweep us away as the wind blows the withered leaf.[iv] In the ancient Jewish world, such “filthy rags” were illustrative of being spiritually unclean, an appropriate picture, as menstruation cloth could be washed but would never become perfectly clean. The more such rags were hand-scrubbed, the more the fabric would degrade until it became worthless and discarded. It is an apt picture of our inability, by our own works, to attain positional perfection—to be viewed by God as righteous.
In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul reminds us that Jews and Greeks, all mankind, has fallen under the curse of sin. In reiterating the words of the psalmist, Paul points to the true state of our hearts:
The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, no, not one.[v]
Positional perfectibility remains out of our hands; because of our sinful nature, we are incapable of fixing this dire situation on our own. In fact, that is the point. Yet we long for perfectibility, a return to our previously unfallen state but without recourse to God’s exclusive mandate: salvation through Jesus Christ alone.[vi] So we continually seek ways to save ourselves and reclaim Eden for our own greatness.
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WHY IS “THE UNVEILING” CONSIDERED SO IMPORTANT THAT OVER 2-DOZEN INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED EXPERTS ARE GATHERING TO DISCLOSE DEVELOPMENTS TIED TO THE END TIMES!?
Looking back over the history of technology and religious thought, activist Professor David F. Noble made an astute connection:
Over time, technology came to be identified more closely with both lost perfection and the possibility of renewed perfection, and the advance of the arts took on new significance, not only as evidence of grace, but as a means of preparation for, and a sure sign of, imminent salvation.[vii]
Perfectibility is an inescapable feature of religious philosophy.
Confucianism seeks self-attained perfection through the deliberate engagement of ethical character development, right duty and actions, virtue through education, and social etiquette. Or consider Hinduism as a process, a quest for perfection in the undifferentiated Atman; or the steps of perfection, transformation, and the going beyond as a Great Being in the Buddhist tradition; or the Sufi’s journey to union through the passing of stages, becoming Perfect Man in the flow of God. The Mormon faith emphasizes perfection, impelling the believer to strive for exaltation through proper behavior, temple requirements, and priesthood duties.
The examples in the above paragraph are paths of practical perfection: Do these things, focus on these principles, act this way, or follow these spiritual techniques. Salvation is dependent on your active participation.
Esoteric beliefs add another dimension to the perfection theme. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, arguably one of the most influential occult groups in the twentieth century, encouraged its members through rituals and experimentation “to be more than human, to transcend physical limitations”—“to be more than human, and thus gradually raise and unite myself to my Higher and Divine Genius.”[viii] A spiritually cryptic version of evolution promised a path to ascension and perfection, degree by degree.
Presenting a Masonic interpretation, W. L. Wilmshurst penned the following in his classic, The Meaning of Masonry:
From grade to grade the candidate is being led from an old to an entirely new quality of life. He begins his Masonic career as the natural man; he ends it by becoming through its discipline, a re-generated perfected man. To attain this transmutation, this metamorphosis of himself, he is taught first to purify and subdue his sensual nature; then to purify and develop his mental nature; and finally, by utter surrender of his old life and losing his soul to save it, he rises from the dead a Master, a just man made perfect….
This—the evolution of man into superman—was always the purpose of the ancient Mysteries, and the real purpose of modern Masonry is, not the social and charitable purpose to which so much attention is paid, but the expediting of the spiritual evolution of those who aspire to perfect their own nature and transform it into a more god-like quality. And this is a definite science, a royal art.[ix]
Henry C. Clausen, while Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, hinted at a coming techno-spirituality:
Science and philosophy, especially when linked through mysticism, have yet to conquer ignorance and superstition. Victory, however, appears on the horizon. Laboratory and library, science and philosophy… outstanding technicians and theologians are now uniting as advocates of man’s unique quality, his immortal soul and ever expanding soul.[x]
Theosophy with its blend of Eastern religions and Western occultism, taught that perfectibility could be achieved through directed, spiritual evolution. Those who have so advanced are known as “Adepts or Supermen.”[xi]
According to C. W. Leadbeater, an early theosophical authority, these Supermen maintained physical bodies far exceeding normal men in terms of longevity and capacity. It was also claimed that these Adepts could transition from body to body, temporarily possessing others to achieve a purpose.
Leadbeater presented a general argument for these Perfected Men:
The existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages of their evolution—many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or another are distinctly in advance of us. Since that is so, there may well be others who are very much further advanced; indeed, if men are steadily growing better and better through a long series of successive lives, tending towards a definite goal, there should certainly be some who have already reached that goal.[xii]
This evolution into Perfect Men, it was believed, is part of the drama of incorporation into the Universal Over-Soul, the “great unit consciousness” or Brahma in which the oneness of all exists.[xiii]
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FLASHBACK: Dr. Thomas Horn Discusses Prophetic Implications Of Transhumanism At Strategic Perspectives Conference
The transformation of religion and society through a worldizing process is considered another dimension of this same Great Work. Universal consciousness and human evolution, rising from the lower to the higher, provides the background for an obscure statement in an 1891 edition of Lucifer, a theosophical magazine. In this text, the transmutation was described as passing from “the lower kingdoms of nature, up to the divine trans-human realisation at the close.”[xiv] Roughly twenty years later Russian theosophical thinker, P. D. Ouspensky, described “cosmic consciousness” as “trans-humanizing a man into a god.”[xv]
What was being described from an esoteric position was a type of Singularity, a point when spiritual technique ushers in a planetary transformation, and a time when man ceases being human on the evolutionary path. Such a pinnacle moment has also been portrayed as a great convergence or emergence. The transhuman version, however, sees this primarily as a technical and informational convergence: Machine intelligence exceeding human capacity, which will spur an exponential rate of artificial cognition and force humanity to transform into a Great Being. But debate within the transhuman camp continues as to what the Singularity will be like and what it entails. It is a future oriented prediction with passionate believers and questioning skeptics. Nevertheless, it fits with Chardin’s idea of the Omega Point, that supposed period when science and spirituality blossom into the evolution of cosmic consciousness and the arrival of the ultra-human.
Google’s Ray Kurzweil, a rock star in the transhumanist community, correlates the Singularity to a human-machine transcendence. Kurzweil is religiously agnostic and although his approach is prophetically scientific, his concept amounts to a spiritual translation through technology. The posthuman journey approaches a god-point, producing an existence that would appear deified when compared to our present situation. A few lines from his New York Times bestselling book, The Singularity Is Near, helps us connect the dots behind his big idea:
As a consummation of the evolution in our midst, the Singularity will deepen all of these manifestations of transcendence.…
The matter and energy in our vicinity will become infused with the intelligence, knowledge, creativity, beauty, and emotional intelligence (the ability to love, for example) of our human-machine civilization. Our civilization will then expand outward, turning all the dumb matter and energy we encounter into sublimely intelligence – transcendent—matter and energy. So in a sense, we can say that the Singularity will ultimately infuse the universe with spirit.”[xvi]
Zoltan Istvan passionately expressed his thoughts on the Singularity to those attending the 10th Colloquium on Terasem Island:
I am a person striving to achieve and reach the Singularity.… Who doesn’t want to know what the Singularity really is? Who…wouldn’t press a big red button and say “I want to go there right now” and discover everything there is that far into the future; whether it’s omnipotence, whether it’s just omniscience, whether it’s a perfect hive mind…whether it’s a complete immersion into one, single entity where, one doesn’t even recognize himself anymore.[xvii]
I believe the unexplainable idea of the Singularity and the transhuman quest to reach this fuzzy future is flawed.
Can it be attained or even recognized if we are unsure of what it is, especially something apparently so vast and potent and all-encompassing? Reality cannot be condensed into an algorithm, let alone a formula that equals or surpasses the human experience; machines—even artificial intelligence—remains locked in utilitarian functions, and to push beyond intended capabilities often results in damage and degradation; information is not the same as life; we are unable to define what thought is, and understanding consciousness remains out of reach.
Consciousness and so much of the human experience cannot be qualified or quantified in the material. To be human is more than just occupying “meat space.” There is an immaterial side to existence: our spirits and souls, and the free will associated with relationships, beliefs, values, and our unique personalities. We are not material entities only, but a complex of biology, spirit and soul. We are fearfully and wonderfully made.[xviii]
Dressed in material mysticism—that it is our destiny to somehow awaken the material universe with our material proficiency—the Omega Point or Singularity is an attempt to sell an accelerating technological future based on a model from a non-existent past. It aims to translate what has never been proven: the evolutionary change from one species into an entirely new species, and not just any Darwinian transformation but the arrival of self-deified man through the perfecting of information.
But might we encounter a type of Singularity, the unification of technologies, religions, politics and ideologies, all squeezed into a world system? This would only be possible under the right international conditions of extreme conflict or social tension, providing a planetary gestalt experience and the opportunity to fundamentally restart civilization. The person or entity that pulled off such a feat would be hailed as a world savior, a guiding force to administer evolution. The Singularity would be embodied as the image of the New Man.
Historical patterns give some latitude to speculate as to what an ultimate image of man may look like. Models could include an enhanced United Nations or a replacement institution with far-reaching powers, or a “planetary king” as suggested by Yermentay Sultanmurat.[xix] Theosophists anticipate a coming perfected man, the “world teacher” who is to coalesce all things in the “great work.” Maybe a self-proclaimed higher intelligence from another dimension would be the ambassador of oneness, an extraterrestrial messiah laying claim to the evolutionary imperative by announcing that his race seeded mankind on earth. Or possibly the image is something we manufacture to be subsequently high jacked; an artificial intelligence possessed and “made alive” by a malevolent spiritual entity. All of this is conjecture, the stuff of movies. The Bible, however, describes a coming Man of Lawlessness.[xx]
Using the vernacular of psychological warfare, could it be that the Singularity is a spiritual PSYOPS, the last great deception reflecting the first great deception?
The future, grounded in the distant past, races into our present.
NEXT: Transhumanism: Artificial Salvation, Virtual Heaven, and Synthetic Immortality
[i] Mark Pesce, Becoming Transhuman, a presentation given at Mindstates, Berkeley, California, May 2001; transcript of talk, p. 10.
[ii] Genesis 1–3.
[iii] Romans 5:12.
[iv] Isaiah 64:6, Lexham English Bible (Logos Bible Software, 2011).
[v] Psalm 14:2–3.
[vi] Acts 4:12.
[vii] David F. Noble, The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (Penguin Books, 1997/1999), p. 12.
[viii] Israel Regardie, The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Llewellyn Publishing, 2003, first published in 1937), pp. 10, 135.
[ix] W. L. Wilmshurst, The Meaning of Masonry (Gramercy Books, 1980, originally published in 1922), p. 47.
[x] Henry C. Clausen, Emergence of the Mystical (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction, 1981), p. 92.
[xi] C. W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path (The Theosophical Press, 1925), p. 3. Other names ascribed to advanced soul beings include, “Great Ones, the Planetary Spirits, Great Angels, Karmic Deities, Dhyan Chohans, Buddhas, Christs and Masters.” (p. 200).
[xii] Ibid., p. 1.
[xiii] The concept of the Universal Over-Soul plays out in Terence McKenna’s idea of the Overmind. It is visible in the Rosicrucian and esoteric model of the Cosmic Christ, and in the New Age notion of Cosmic Consciousness. Each speaks to the same value: All is One.
[xiv] H. A. W. Coryn, “Consciousness,” Lucifer, Vol. 9, No. 50, October 15, 1891, p. 125.
[xv] P. D. Ouspensky, Tertium Organum: The Third Canon of Thought, a Key to the Enigmas of the World (Alfred A. Knopf, 1922, second edition, originally published in Russian in 1912), p. 318.
[xvi] Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Penguin Books, 2005), pp. 388–389.
[xvii] Zoltan Istvan, “Transhumanism,” presentation at the 10th Colloquium on the Law of the Futuristic Persons, December 10, 2015, Terasem Island, Second Life. Recording of the event on file.
[xviii] Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”
[xix] See chapter 11.
[xx] 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12.
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