Shall We Live in our Imaginations?

Yesterday in the news was a piece about “virtual religion.” On the internet site, “second life” someone had set up a church for people to attend vicariously and virtually by having their “avatars” (or alter ego that exists in cyber-space) attend and participate in the online service. One man, whose avatar looked like Puss’n’Boots, commented that in the virtual church he felt accepted in a way more profound than in actual churches.
The piece reminded me that one of the trends that might have to do with what’s upcoming regarding the transformation of consciousness is that we come to live in our minds more than in our bodies. The future of consciousness, to put it bluntly, may lie in out of body awareness or lucid dreaming. In many ways, electronics have supported advances in virtual reality. Here’s one way virtual reality may relate to the future of consciousness, using the noboundaries paradigm of transformation: Both virtual reality, near-death studies, and mediumship dissolve the boundary of what is “real.” There are some other trends that seem to be pushing for us living in virtual reality.
Coming from another perspective entirely, Terrence McKenna, prime spokesperson for the implications of psychedelic reality, predicted years ago that the transformation of consciousness would involve a basic shift in perspective. Whereas now we take the data of our senses to provide us with our connection to reality—physical reality is what we recognize—while we relegate the imagination to a secondary, sub-standard reality. In the coming transformation, McKenna proposes, this situation will be reversed. We will come to live in our imagination, he says, while our physical bodies will be in the subliminal background. Lest we consider this proposition too wild, too “psychedelic,” consider this quote from Teilhard de Chardin, in The Future of Man:
“The more I think about this mystery [how the world will end], the more it appears to me, in my dreams, as a ‘turning about’ of consciousness—as an eruption of interior life—as an ecstasy. There is no need to track our brains to understand how the material vastness of the universe will ever be able to disappear. Spirit has only to be reversed, to move into a different zone, for the whole shape of the world immediately to be changed.”
I’m gathering other tidbits from writers that echo this surprising theme. It could be a part of a doomsday scenario, when the planet’s surface would be uninhabitable, so everyone is below ground on life support, living their lives in their imagination. Stephan Hawkins shows how productive such a life can be. The other fantasy, not involving doomsday so much as simply advances on the planet that remove most of our physical challenges, putting us in a spot where we experience all through a form of dreaming rather than physical participation.
I’m gathering up book titles to present to the many folks who have volunteered to create book summaries to form our manual for our consciousness conference. Even if you are not volunteering to create a book summary, I’d still like to hear from you regarding suggestions for books to summarize. To be a good book for summary, the book should
1) be on topic. For example, a book on near death experiences could be useful if the author draws inferences from the experiences regarding the direction of the evolution of consciousness. A book on near death that simply attempts to show us that there is life after death doesn’t seem that related to our theme.
2) Be by a reputable author. Reputable doesn’t necessarily mean academic/scholarly. Though scholarly books have the advantage of the author having searched the past for relevant material so as not to re-invent the wheel, intuitional or channeled books can provide genuine inspiration. It’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff, especially when it comes to “channeled” material. One measure I use is how popular is the channel, has that channel inspired others to take up related investigations. Cayce, Seth, Hand Clow, Course in Miracles, Steiner, and others I can’t think of right now.

I would appreciate your suggestions. The book list I’m compiling for those who have volunteered include Pinchbeck’s 2012, Fred Wolf on the new consciousness, a Jungian book on The Return of the Goddess, Tarnas on Cosmos and Psyche, Goswami on the Self-Aware Universe. One challenge in selecting these books is to make a decision as to whether the book is primarily bringing up new evidence for an ancient view (Goswami’s thesis that consciousness is primary to matter is an old idea) is whether or not the book makes arguments for why our consciousness may be trending toward having that ancient view be in full conscious, lived awareness, rather than remaining as a background fact available only to the mystically inclined.

Another interesting issue has to do with what I would call fore-runners. For example, I think that the “co-dependent” syndrome is part of a forward action by a group of people who are struggling with something we may all have to struggle with later: How do you distinguish your own thoughts, feelings and needs from those of people around you? It would seem that these folks are anticipating our loss of psychic boundaries. As another example, there is the question of childhood autism. While we may recognize the work on “Indigo children” as relevant to our topic, suggesting that the evolution has already begun and new consciousness is entering via the children, what about autistic children? There has been some suggestions here and there that autism may have some hints about what is coming down the road regarding shifts in consciousness. I’ve found that the challenge in pursuing this with those who claim to be autistic is that they may have trouble putting into words their ideas on this question in a way that will speak to us. I’m hoping to get some good, useable information on this aspect of the trends in consciousness.

I’ve added to the website, www.henryreed.com/indiana some new links, related to book summaries and essays already in hand that could be relevant to our theme.
I look forward to any of your suggestions.

Sincerely,
Henry Reed