Category Archives: Transhumanism

Ageing cured. Death conquered. Work ended. The human brain reverse-engineered by AI. Babies born outside of the womb. Virtual children, non-human partners. The future of humanity could be virtually unrecognisable by the end of the 21st century, according to Elise Bohan and thats if we get the transition right. If we get it wrong, well.

The future is wildly scary, says the young philosopher-macrohistorian-futurist with a smile. I cant lie to you about that. In ten years time its all going to look pretty different, and in another ten years thats a total event horizon for me I think its eminently plausible at that point that the game has changed in some very fundamental way, whether for good or bad.

Bohan, 31, is speaking from a sunny Mosman apartment, where she is house-sitting and looking after the plants. Its a distance away from the Hawkesbury river on the outskirts of Sydney where she grew up; a place with pretty spots but where it was tough to be a smart kid. And it is a half world away from Oxford University where she forms part of the Future of Humanity Institute.

Shes in Sydney seeing family and promoting her new book Future Superhuman: Our Transhuman Lives in a Make-or-Break Century. The subtitle isnt a gambit. I believe that, she says. We are in the century that defines the future of humanity like no other.

Transhumanism is a movement that aims to address or end what Bohan calls the tragedies of reality: ageing, sickness and involuntary death. It is, she writes, a philosophy and a project that aims to make us more than human.

Whether we recognise or understand it, that project has already begun, she says, and it will transform our world and minds and bodies within our lifetimes. Not only is it happening, she says, but this transition is necessary if humanity is to survive in perpetuity.

For Bohan,it is no great to leap to imagine that a baby born in 2030 may have its entire genome mapped at birth, that data uploaded to a central health record and cross-referenced at any medical appointment throughout its life. It is no great stretch to think that AI will become the most powerful intellectual force of the century. That human consciousness might be transferred from our meat sacks (bodies) into a technological sphere. That the rise of AI and automation might render great swathes of human labour redundant, and that maybe if we get it right that could leave more time for leisure, big thinking, meditation, connection.

Experiments are already underway in the realm of artificial wombs, and Bohan is sure when viable women will be clamouring to be freed from the shackles of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

The book, she writes, is a love letter to humanity, but hers is a tough love. A love which sees a future for humanity, but not necessarily for human beings as we know it.

When Bohan first encountered transhumanism, at around the age of 21, her first reaction was, Its crazy. Its science fiction. Its so far out. How weird, she says. But also how interesting.

Her brother had bounded down the stairs and insisted they watch the documentary Transcendent Man, about godfather of transhumanismRay Kurzweil. He thought theyd find it hilarious which we did but it introduced Bohan to the idea of rapid acceleration of growth in computer technology, technological singularity (the theoretical point at which the force of technological change becomes out of human control and can shape human civilisation), and the idea that there was a future for humanity beyond what she calls our ape-brained meat sacks.

At the time she was an English literature undergrad, obsessed with poetry and the written word.

It was a point of sadness for me as a young person, recognising that there were so many wonderful things that had already been written forgetting all the things that would be written in the future that I would never live long enough to encounter, to explore, and to put all these things together, she says.

Fiction began to bore her as her interest in transhumanism increased. If fiction was all about exploring the human experience, it became evident that there was a tragic repetition. We work, we learn, we love, we lose, we die, she writes. Transhumanism offered something better.

By the age of 28, she had written the worlds first book-length history of transhumanism for her PhD. Its ironic, she says, to have cleaved to this shes always had an aversion to isms. They have a ring of cult-like fascination to them.

Transhumanism is perhaps best known for preoccupation with achieving human immortality.A deathless life, however, is a confronting concept. As scarcity determines value, does not the fact that our time on earth is finite give that time its value? What exactly is tragic about death?

For me, it is the loss of everything that matters. Its a loss of all things of value, she says.

On the contrary, she says, if humans could go on in a state of robust health, could keep learning, youd have this cumulative effect where our experiences and knowledge would accumulate much faster. The things that our species could do with that! The mysteries of the universe that we could unlock. The problems we could solve. And the depths of each others souls that we could explore.

Souls, she admits, is a loaded word. But without an alternative vocabulary for what makes consciousness, she is not averse to using spiritual language.

Is transhumanism encroaching on domains that religion has traditionally held? I think yes.

When Bohan was a PhD student, she gave her first big paper at a conference. Afterwards, a biologist came up to her and congratulated her on her work.

Then he looked me in the eye and whispered to me: Were building God, you know, she chuckles. I looked back at him and I said: Yeah, I know.

They knew they didnt mean it as religion, she says. But a lot of what has been talked about in religion omniscience, omnipotence, hopefully omni-benevolence we are at least getting closer to that all seeing, all knowing, all exploring [force].

Who controls that force or those forces is, of course, a critical question. The early 21st centurys rapid growth in technology has seen power and wealth accumulate and concentrate among a small number of predominantly white men. A criticism levelled at transhumanists is that they never quite stopped clinging to the sci-fi that fascinated them as young boys.

There is a degree to which many of them probably still are little boy fantasists, says Bohan. But they happen to be very, very clever little boy fantasists who also have engineering degrees and are very capable at building reusable rockets and what have you. I dont think we can dismiss the real tangible, species-advancing projects theyre actually at the helm of.

Regulating technology during this transhuman transition, argues Bohan, is not a good idea.

All things being equal, would I rather a politician or cluster politicians ruling the nuclear powers of the nation states, or would I rather someone with a PhD from MIT whos really really smart and understands the technological systems as best as a human being can? she asks. Id rather it be the tech geek.

But that said, Id rather it not be a human at all. A technological solution to regulation would free decision-making from human biases, short-termism and tribalism if done right, she says. It might not go like that.

The worst case scenario she imagines sounds drawn from the pages of science fiction dystopias. A future where ruling AI does not share the values of human beings, nor value human beings at all.

The best case scenario for the end of the century? Bohan fully expects to still be alive (shed be 110). My honest answer is that I think the best case scenario is that by the end of the century humans are done. But humanity is not done, right? So intelligence goes on, she says.

There is a utopianism associated with that ideal of just being incredibly intelligent, being able to see farther than any intelligent human being has ever seen, to know more, to experience more, to feel more, to discover more.

But this imagining, she has come to believe, is beyond the capacity of most mortals. For them, there are the Cliffs Notes.

I think the comfortable version is: we have really good health care and everyones rich. And theres lots of equality, she laughs.

But, 2100 I dont think thats where were going to be. I think were going to be much farther ahead in the game.

Celina Ribeiro is Guardian Australias assistant editor for features, culture and lifestyle. Find Celina on Twitter @Celina_Ribeiro_

A version of this article was published at the Guardian and is reposted with permission. Find the Guardian on Twitter @Guardian

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In 2016, the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum (WEF) posted a video entitled 8 Predictions for the World in 2030, which infamously forecasted a technocratic New World Order in which [y]oull own nothing. And youll be happy. It doesnt take a stretch of the imagination to ponder how WEF oligarchs plan to roll out sustainable development policies which will ration consumer goods in a global sharing economy that employs transient gig workers who will be rendered into propertyless serfs under a techno-communitarian rendition of neo-feudalism. But how will the globalist technocrats of the WEF sway the virtual peasant class to be happy with their permanent state of digitally indentured servitude?

Enter New Age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard and her endorsement of the HeartMath Institutes Global Coherence Initiative [1][2], which is propagating transhumanist neurofeedback wearables across the planet in order to digitally synchronize humanitys collective heart rhythms and brainwaves into electronically induced states of synthetic spiritual bliss. With Hubbards transhumanist blessings, HeartMaths global neurotech network is primed to lull plebs and proles into happy compliance with the New Normal of the Fourth Industrial Revolutions techno-feudal stakeholder economy.

In this first installment of my series on Hubbards legacy contributions to the post-humanist religion and techno-fascist economy of the neo-eugenic Fourth Industrial Revolution, I will historicize how Rockefeller philanthropies bankrolled Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution in order to digitally engineer humankind into a new transhuman species baptized in the name of tech-Gnostic Christ Consciousness [3]. Furthermore, I will expose how Hubbard collaborated with globalists at the World Business Academy, corporatists at Singularity University, and Eupsychian human potential psychologists in connection with the Esalen Institute in order to establish a techno-communitarian spiritualism that worships transhumanist evolution controlled by Big Tech companies which dominate the stakeholder economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution [4]. Finally, I will document how Hubbard advanced the globalization of HeartMath Institutes transhumanist biofeedback wearables which can neuro-technologically mesmerize the precariat into virtual states of happy subservience to the New Normal.

In the coming installments of this series, I will reveal how Hubbards transhumanist mission to steer conscious evolution is steeped in Malthusian-eugenic population control. Additionally, I will unveil how Hubbards transhumanist allies from the World Future Society, the Human Potential Movement, and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution are entangled with networks of alleged pedophiles and sexual abuse cults.

Ever since the announcement of COVID-19 lockdowns, there has been a spate of propaganda campaigns from government bureaucrats, corporate oligarchs, and globalist technocrats who have been lecturing about the necessity to acclimate to the New Normal. You probably never heard this post-COVID slogan until 2020, but Hubbard was prophesying the dawning of a New Normal at least as far back as 2008. In fact, Hubbard foretold that 2020 would mark the pivotal year of the global Shift toward the New Normal that is transitioning the world into the futurist Singularity envisioned by Googles Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, who is a founder of Singularity University, which is a post-humanist think tank where Hubbard promoted her dreams of harnessing conscious evolution to engineer a new transhuman species.

In Hubbards book, 52 Codes for Conscious Self Evolution: A Process of Metamorphosis to Realize Our Full Potential Self, Code 33 called for human beings to Come Forward as a New Norm in order to evolve the human species from Homo sapiens sapiens to Homo universalis [5]. Later, in 2012, Hubbard published another book, Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanitys Great Shift to the Age of Conscious Evolution. In a section titled from 2012 to 2020 and Beyond, Hubbard proclaimed that [t]he eight years after the [2012] Birth, leading up to 2020, will be critical for implementing the shifts necessary for us to gently grow into the next era . . . evolving into fully formed evolutionary communities . . . around the world where each person can learn to transform themselves and our world into a transhumanist New World Order [1].

Even prior to 2008, for decades, Hubbard foretold the coming of a new transhumanist age in which humankind will merge with technology through conscious evolution. As a crusader for the Human Potential Movement, Hubbard networked with psychologists at the Esalen Institute and corporatists at Singularity University to pave the way for human consciousness to collectively co-evolve with the noetic consciousness of the cosmos through transhumanist technologies [6]. Bankrolled by Rockefeller philanthropy [3], Hubbard established the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which has been pushing the synergistic advancement of biotech, nanotech, and supercomputing artificial intelligence (AI) that can be globally converged through the internet-of-things (IoT) and the internet-of-bodies (IoB) in order to engineer a new transhuman species. To help build the collective cybernetic nervous system of an evolving transhuman superorganism, Hubbard promoted the HeartMath Institutes Global Coherence Network of wearable neurofeedback technologies that interlink human biorhythms through smartphones across the planet [1].

In An Evolutionary Synthesis: A New World View (Weaving Together a New Memetic Code for the Optimum Future for Humanity), which was published in 2008 by the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Hubbard forecasted how, [f]rom the perspective of the Evolutionary Trans-humanism we see a possible convergence of our expanded consciousness with our technologically-enhanced body/minds . . . as the next stage of our evolution when there will be a cosmic cultural convergence of life between trans-human and eventually post-human life, including silicon-based life. Foreshadowing the post-COVID New Normal of 2020, Hubbard added that, [i]n Evolutionary Trans-Humanism the Universal Human appears for the first time on this Earth as a new norm: as a person incarnating our spiritual, social and scientific/technological capacities.

As the techno-fascist exploitation of COVID lockdowns manifests the theme of Hubbards 1993 book, Our Crisis Is a Birth [7],the coronavirus crisis is birthing a technocratic New Normal in which human life is being increasingly mediated through computer screens and digital IDs that are primed to be tracked and traced by IoTIoB cybernetics. Hence, it appears that the turning point of 2020 has lined up with Hubbards predictions for a Great Shift toward the Birth of a Conscious Evolution in which humankind begins to synergize with digital computer technologies in order to be reimagined as a new transhuman cyborg species.

If you dont like the idea of Big Tech biotechnologically engineering you into a digital computer product, dont worry. Hubbards global HeartMath initiative can hook you up to biofeedback wearables that will electronically hypnotize you into copasetic obedience as you are techno-eugenically engineered into a transhuman underling who will happily own nothing, not even your own body, in the New Normal that is the techno-fascist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

To be sure, Hubbards vision of the transhuman future wasnt magically gleaned from peering into a crystal ball. Rather, Hubbard was closely involved with many of the transhumanist architects of the technocratic New Normal which, for several decades, they have been plotting for 2020.

Hubbards vision of trans-evolution through a superorganic cyber-nervous system was inspired by the tech-Gnostic prophesies of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the design science revolution of R. Buckminster Fuller [8]. Teilhard de Chardin was a eugenicist Jesuit priest who preached a trans-Gnostic gospel of spiritual, or noetic, evolution through the awakening of universal consciousness through the noosphere. Fuller was an eminent futurist and the godfather of the design science revolution, which prototyped synergetic models of evolutionary architecture, such as the geodesic dome. Both Teilhard de Chardin and Fuller professed their faith in the Cosmic Christ Consciousness of noospheric evolution, which Hubbard likewise idolized as the crux of humankinds cybernetic evolution into a trans-technological collective.

During Hubbards 2015 speech to members of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), she traced the awakening of her own conscious evolution to her reading of Teilhard de Chardins Phenomenon of Man: the minute I read that . . . I dedicated myself to the noosphere. Derived from the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagorass concept of the nous, which is the omnipresent mind of the cosmos, the noosphere is, according to Teilhard de Chardin, the tangential energy of the universe that is evolving through human consciousness. In Hubbards speech at the 2015 IONS International Conference, she pontificated how, through the tangential energies of noetic evolution, the planet has grown a new nervous system in the last 15 years. And its internet. Its Facebook; its Twitter; its 7 billion cellphones and counting. . . . An enormous nervous system has been given, and its open to us.

In brief, Hubbard believed that the noospheric expansion of consciousness is evolving the human biological nervous system into an extended technological network of smartphones that are interlinked with internet social media. By ostensibly branching human nervous systems collectively out through mobile phones across satellite telecommunications, online social networks are, according to Hubbard, building evolutionary stepping stones toward a transhuman zenith in which brain-computer interfaces and nanotech implants will unite human consciousness with the cosmic consciousness of the noosphere by merging organic biological intelligence with hi-tech artificial intelligence.

In her 2001 book, Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence (10 Steps to the Universal Human), Hubbard relayed how Teilhard de Chardins noosphere is what we might call the thinking layer of Earth, or the mind sphere. Think of this noosphere as an invisible, yet all pervasive, superorganism. Here, each of us lives, much as our own cells live inside of our body. The noosphere is composed of our collective consciousnesses . . . as well as the intelligence that is creating our extended bodies in the form of rapidly growing technology, including the Internet, biotechnology, and nanotechnology [9].

During her 2017 speech, Awakening the New Species in You, at the Global Purpose Movements Purpose Summit in San Francisco, Hubbard declared that Teilhard de Chardins noosphere is now the internet nervous system of the planet, and theres enough of us now to wake up our planetary nervous system through hi-tech . . . artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, genetics, all of that . . . being the powers of our mythological gods.

In sum, Hubbard believed that, by harnessing biotech and nanotech robotics, genetically engineered human bodies can be melded with quantum AI, which will evolve human beings into transhuman cyborgs who can achieve godhood by summoning the collective consciousness of the noosphere through the internet of things (IoT) and the internet of bodies (IoB).

Inverting the Biblical gospel of how God humbled himself to descend from Heaven in order to be incarnated in the human body of Jesus Christ, Hubbard preached Teilhard de Chardins trans-Gnostic gospel of how humans must exalt themselves as gods by technologically evolving into ultrahumanmachine hybrids capable of ascending to the Christ Consciousness of the noosphere. During her IONS speech, Hubbard relayed how Teilhard de Chardin prophesied that, [w]hen the mind sphere . . . gets its collective eyes, we will experience . . . the Christification of the Earth.

According to Hubbard, the mind spheres, or noospheres, collective eyes are being opened through the worldwide web of internet social media. In Hubbards vision of the future, these digital social networks would spread across the globe and saturate the planet through what R. Buckminster Fuller called the design science revolution. In the final equation, Hubbards Fuller-inspired technetronic revolution will culminate in a noetic nexus of satellite telecommunications and mobile computer devices that will consciously evolve into a transhumanist IoTIoB Singularity, resulting in the so-called Christification of the Earth, which will anoint the collective human species as god on Earth.

This tech-Gnostic gospel of Christ Consciousness was also preached by Fuller, who believed that his design science revolution would harness advances in science and industry to technocratically usher in a utopian heaven on Earth. Like Hubbard and Teilhard de Chardin, Fuller envisioned that, by means of the design science revolution, the universal mind, or cosmic Christ consciousness, would evolve through the transhumanist synergy of human intelligence and technological progress. In Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, Fuller pontificated that the Universe is technology and that, in the emerging epoch of the new age, the design science revolution would technocratically meld the Christ consciousness of the noosphere with the human consciousness of the biosphere, resulting in a cosmic-transhumanist singularity that would bring about a paradise on Earth.

Finding a nous-mate in Hubbard, Fuller laureled her as the heir to his futurist vision of Christified technocratic evolution through his design science revolution. In Hubbards 2015 book, The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation: The Promise Will Be Kept, she recorded how Fuller declared, [t]here is no doubt in my mind that Barbara Marx Hubbardwho helped introduce the concept of futurism to societyis the best informed human now alive regarding futurism and the foresights it has produced [3]. With great pride, Hubbard took on Fullers mantle and carried the torch for his techno-Christified design science revolution.

In her speech titled How Do We Get Ready for 2012: A Vision for Humanity, which was orated during The Prophets Conference: 2012 Tipping Point at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, Hubbard told a story about how both she and Fuller had Christ Consciousness experiences that brought together their esoteric journeys toward hi-tech conscious evolution:

Buckys Christ experience was that he was walking along the streets in Chicago; . . . he saw a light; he got lifted up by the light, and he heard the words, Bucky, you are the first mini-Christ on Earth, and what you attest to is true. Fuller revealed this vision to her on an occasion when Hubbard shared her own Christ experience with him. Hubbard explains that, one day, I had written this book about the New Testament of an evolutionary Christ. Bucky asked to see me alone. He put his arms around me . . . and he said, darling, I had the same experience. And he put his temple onto mine, and I feel he zapped me with the design science revolution.

In a nutshell, both Hubbard and Fuller professed their faith in noospheric Christ Consciousness, and Hubbard believed that her shared Christ experience with Fuller noetically transmuted his revolutionary design science mission into her own conscious evolution.

Carrying on the message of Fullers design science revolution, Hubbard paraphrased a passage from his Utopia or Oblivion in her 1995 book, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium. In a section titled The Journey, Hubbard relayed Fullers utopian forecast of how the metaphysical, or noetic, consciousness of universal intelligence is cosmically evolving in tandem with the collective-conscious evolution of human intelligence through the transhumanist technological progression of the design science revolution:

[t]he universe is . . . building up toward even higher order because it is increasing in intelligencethough us!

Intelligence, proclaimed Fuller, is not physical, it is metaphysical . . . Our technology is becoming ephemeralized, miniaturized, and aesthetic, like natures technologies: photosynthesis, DNA, the human brain. We now have the technology, resources, and know-how, Fuller said, to make of this world a 100 percent physical success. . . .

The growing edge of technology is giving us the power to transform ourselves as well as our world. . . .The individual human has enormous untapped potential. The planet is evolving toward a quantum leap, wherein all of its members will experience themselves as part of one body. We have the ability to overcome physical lack, and even to change our physical natureour body/mind systems. These great evolutionary goals are the meaning of power.

Stated differently, Hubbard touted Fullers postulation of how, as technology evolves, it will become increasingly ephemeralized until it is so condensed that it can be fused into human biology. In turn, this ephemeralized amalgamation of biology and technology will, according to Hubbard, transform body/mind systems by melding them with the digital infrastructure of the world economy.

To put it all together, Hubbard was an evangelist for conscious transhumanist evolution through the globalization of a collective cybernetic nervous system that will be vitalized by the techno-industrial revolution of Fullers synergetic design science and the noospheric awakening of Teilhard de Chardins Cosmic Christ Consciousness.

To midwife the tech-noetic trans-evolution of the universal Christ mind idolized by Fuller and Teilhard de Chardin, Hubbard set up the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which was seed-funded by Laurence Rockefeller [3]. The brother of John D. Rockefeller III, David Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller, and Winthrop Rockefeller, Laurence was a president and a founding trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which is a corporate philanthropy that finances social impact investments in biotechnology and digital technology. These, of course, are key building blocks in the IoT-IoB matrix at the crux of Hubbards transhumanist dreams of collective-conscious evolution. Laurence also bankrolled esoteric studies into Gnostic Christ Consciousness and noetical parapsychology.

In the prelude to her Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation, which was dedicated to Laurence Rockefeller, Hubbard lauds how he was instrumental in helping her found the Foundation for Conscious Evolution: [w]ith great gratitude I dedicate Evolutionary Testament: [sic] The Promise Will Be Kept to Lawrence [sic] Rockefeller, who recognized its purpose to help bring forth the Christ of the 21st Century and supported me in forming The Foundation for Conscious Evolution to bring it forward into the world [3].

According to the official website of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, this Rockefeller-funded tax-exempt foundation advances synergistic transhuman evolution driven by the [t]he advent of radical evolutionary technologies such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, space exploration, etc. . . . [T]he tools are there to transform ourselves, our bodies and our world. We can and are actually moving beyond the creature human condition toward a new species, a universal humanity, capable of coevolving with nature. In other words, fueled with Rockefeller money, the Foundation for Conscious Evolution advocates for humankind to merge with biotech and nanotech quantum computers in order to evolve humanity into a new transhuman species, which Hubbard has dubbed Homo Universalis.

Not only did Rockefeller provide the seed financing for Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution, but he also bankrolled many of the hi-tech industries, including biotech, nanotech, and quantum computing, which the Foundation for Conscious Evolution sees as vehicles for conscious transhuman evolution.

In 1946, Laurence Rockefeller and his brothers, David, Nelson, Winthrop, and John D. III, founded one of the very first venture capital firms, Rockefeller Brothers Inc., which is today known as Venrock. Laurence kicked off Venrock ventures by investing in Silicon Valley corporations, such as Intel and Apple. In fact, Venrock held a board seat for nearly 20 years at Apple.

Other Venrock ventures into Big Tech industries include investments in online behavioral advertising companies, including AppNexus and DoubleClick, the latter of which is now owned by Google. Of course, behavioral advertising analytics are at the core of the data-mining algorithms that power what Hubbard referred to as the collective cybernetic nervous systems of social media networks.

Meanwhile, Venrock has also financed several biotech corporations, biopharmaceutical enterprises, gene-sequencing companies, and genetic-modification businesses, including Abbott Laboratories; Unity Biotechnology; Element Biosciences; REGENXBIO; 10X Genomics; Targeted Genetics; the Genetics Institute; Centocor, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson; Adnexus Therapeutics, which is owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Idun Pharmaceuticals, which is owned by Pfizer; andSirna Therapeutics, an RNA interference (RNAi) technology startup that was acquired by Merck.

Furthermore, Venrock has bankrolled quantum computing companies, including Atom Computing, and nanotech corporations, such as Nanosys. Additionally, Venrock is invested in blockchain startups, including Dapper and Flow.

In sum, Laurence Rockefeller funded the development of a nexus of transhumanist technologies, including internet Big Data, biotech, and nanotech, while simultaneously propagating Hubbards trans-evolutionary ideology by financing her Foundation for Conscious Evolution. It is worth noting that Laurences funding of transhumanism, which is fundamentally a hi-tech rendition of eugenic engineering, is rooted in the Rockefeller familys long history of financing past iterations of eugenics, such as American eugenics programs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and eugenic programs at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes of Nazi Germany.

On top of financing the transhumanist technologies and trans-evolutionary theories espoused by Hubbard, Laurence also advocated for Hubbards noetic spirituality by backing her New Age evangelism. This was done with grants from his Fund for the Enhancement of the Human Spirit. In the Acknowledgement section of her Book of Co-Creation, Hubbard highlighted how [t]he publication of this book and its associated outreach program was made possible through a generous grant from Laurence Rockefellers Fund for the Enhancement of the Human Spirit [7]. In the expanded edition of this book, which is titled The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium, Hubbard copied this same acknowledgment of how Rockefeller bankrolled the publication [9].

Similarly, Rockefeller also advanced noetical mysticism by funding the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research(PEAR) program, which studied parapsychological phenomena, including psychokinesis and remote viewing. PEAR launched the Global Consciousness Project, which is a satellite of the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Hubbard, who endorsed IONS in her book, Birth 2012 and Beyond [1], expressed her belief in tech-noospheric evolution through the collective-conscious cyber-nervous systems made possible by internet social media networks. The PEAR program is now restructured as the International Consciousness Research Laboratories.

It is worth noting that Rockefeller also provided the financing for Roger A. Weirs Gnostic books about a secret relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Weirs Gnostic interpretation of the life of Jesus dovetailed with his New Age synthesis of hermeticism, Eastern mysticism, cosmic evolution, and esoteric consciousness. For instance, echoing the Christ Consciousness Gnosticism of Hubbard, Fuller, and Teilhard de Chardin, Weir taught the following New Age courses at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore Meeting Room in West Hollywood, California: Mary Magdalene & Jesus Great Way: Shared Presence Transforms of Civilization and Species; Hermetic America Future;Homo Sapiens Stellaris: Star Wisdom Man; Quintessential Dimensions of Consciousness: An Ecology of Four Dimensions in Complementarity in Spacetime; and Parayana: The Way Beyond.

To sum up, Rockefeller bankrolled noetic science research, Gnostic Christ Consciousness literature, and transhumanist tech along with Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which advocates for the post-human synergism of a tech-noospheric trans-evolution that will culminate in a new Christified cyborg species.

Ultimately, Hubbard and Rockefeller were aligned on essentially every front. More than a source of monetary support, Rockefeller was fondly endeared by Hubbard. In her 1998 book, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, Hubbard lauded her support from Rockefeller: [m]y heartfelt thanks goes to my beloved patron Laurence S. Rockefeller who has supported this work with fidelity, inspiration and generosity [2]. Then, in the Dedication section of her 2001 Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence, Hubbard wrote, [t]o my benefactor, Laurence S. Rockefeller, who supported this work for ten years, bringing it to this point of fulfillment [9]. Fourteen years later, in 2015, Hubbard also dedicated her Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation to Rockefeller [3], marking 24 years of support.

Laurence Rockefeller also advanced a conscious evolution towards transhumanism by pushing the Human Potential Movement. He did this through his investments in the Human Potential Foundation and the Esalen Institute. Hubbard likewise pursued this philosophy of conscious trans-evolution through the Human Potential Movement, which was spawned from the humanistic and transpersonal psychological theories of her mentor, Abraham Maslow, who coined the psycho-spiritual principle of self-actualization. Maslow preached his trans-psychological gospel of self-actualization at the Esalen Institute, which was also endorsed by Hubbard [1]. Meanwhile, Hubbard allied with Maslow and his Eupsychian Network of Esalen New Agers to promote the evolution of transhuman potential through biofeedback wearables and other computerized technologies that can hack consciousness [4].

A protg of behavioral psychologist E. L. Thorndike, Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, and psychodynamic psychologist Alfred Adler, who was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, Maslow combined the first force of psychology, stimulus-response behaviorism, and the second force of psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, to produce a third force of psychology [4]. This third force was humanistic psychology, which would then evolve into a fourth force of transhumanist psychology known as transpersonal psychology [4]. In the Preface to the second edition of his book, Toward a Psychology of Being, which was financed by the Ford Foundations Fund for the Advancement of Education, Maslow writes, I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still higher Fourth Psychology, transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization, and the like [4]. It should be noted here that Maslows transpersonal psychology of self-actualizing transhuman potential was heavily influenced by the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose concept of the ubermensch, or superman, went on to inspire Nazi eugenics, which itself played a role as a precursor to transhumanism.

Maslow, like Buckminster Fuller, took Hubbard under his wing. In her 1989 autobiography, The Hunger of Eve: One Womans Odyssey Toward the Future, Hubbard writes, I wrote to Abraham Maslow, telling him his book Toward a Psychology of Being had saved my life. . . . He wrote back immediately that . . . he would like to meet me. He came to lunch at the New York apartment. . . . He said I was an example of his theory of self-actualizing people [6].

Anointing her as an evangelist for his super-potentializing psychology, Maslow connected Hubbard with a network of New Age organizations, such as the Esalen Institute, which baptized proselytes in the name of his new transhumanist psychology. According to Hubbards Emergence,Abraham H. Maslow called this the Eupsychian Network, the society of self-actualizing and self-transcending people [7]. In her autobiography, Hubbard historicized how, in an effort to help her on her mission to win converts to Maslows trans-potentializing psychology:

[h]e [Maslow] offered his Eupsychian Network, a list of the good people he had collected over a lifetime, those who would form for the Good Society. This was before the human potential movement had surfaced. . . . The Eupsychian Network were people in the growth mode. Many were humanistic psychologists founding growth centers, such as Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Michael Murphy of Esalen, to help people move toward full health. . . . My list soon totalled [sic] over 1,000, each one a precious being, sensitive to the emerging civilization [6].

In The Revelation: Our Crisis Is a Birth, Hubbard tells the story of how she wrote to everyone in Maslows [Eupsychian] network, asking for their positive views on our future. Many responded and I published their responses in The Center Letter [7], which was Hubbards futurist newsletter on evolutionary transformation. Thanks to these publications of prominent Eupsychians, according to Hubbard, The Center Letter spread . . . all over the world, from Africa to behind the Iron Curtain . . . Within six months I [Hubbard] was connected to leaders of the emerging world [7].

A list of such key Eupsychian individuals and institutions is printed at the end of the second edition of Maslows Toward a Psychology of Being. In the preface to this concluding section, which is titled Addendum: The Eupsychian Network, Maslow describes Hubbards Eupsychian comrades as a cadre of globalist bent on the collective-conscious evolution of transhumanist potential:

I [Maslow] call it the Eupsychian Network because all these groups, organizations, and journals are interested in helping the individual grow toward fuller humanness, the society grow toward synergy and health, and all societies and all peoples move toward becoming one world and one species. The list can be called a network because the memberships overlap considerably and because these organizations and individuals more or less share the humanistic and transhumanistic outlook on life even prior to confirmation of that outlook. [4]

Stated differently, Maslows Eupsychian Network, which teamed up with Hubbard, was a clique of transhumanist[s] determined to establish a one world order in which humankind will actualize its super potential by collectively evolving and unifying into one species.

Following the prelude to the Addendum, Maslow cataloged his Eupsychian Network of globalist transhuman potentializers, such as Barbara Marx Hubbard and Michael Murphy, along with their affiliated institutions, including the Esalen Institute. In addition to Mike Murphy, Pres. [President] of the Esalen Institute, Maslows Eupsychian directory included Willis Harmans Education for the Future project at Stanford Research Institute [4], which had pioneered AI engineering on top of launching the first iterations of internet communications in collaboration with the US militarys ARPANET. Harman also co-founded the World Business Academy (WBA), which is a corporate-futurist think tank where Hubbard was a Fellow along with New Age guru Deepak Chopra. Chopra, another Esalen affiliate, has proclaimed that Hubbard was the voice for conscious evolution of our time, according to The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation [3]. A key leader in the Human Potential Movement, Harman also spent twenty years as the President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Hubbard gave a speech in which she praised her collaborations with Ervin Lszl, who was also a WBA Fellow. In the Appreciations section of her Book of Co-Creation, Hubbard named Willis Harman, Michael Murphy, and Abraham H. Maslow as [c]olleagues and teachers of conscious evolution [7].

Malsow cataloged several other Esalen-connected organizations, including human potential centers, in his menu of Eupsychian institutions:

Other human potential and humanistic psychology institutions listed in Maslows Eupsychian Network include the National Center for Exploration of Human Potential; the American Association of Humanistic Psychology; the American Humanist Association; and the Fellowship of Religious Humanists [4].

To tie it all together, Maslow inducted Hubbard into his Eupsychian Network of human potential organizations where allied with the presidents of the World Business Academy, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, and the Esalen Institute to push the globalization of transhumanist psychology.

The Esalen Institute, which was bolstered by Maslows Eupsychian Network and endorsed by Hubbard in her Birth 2012 and Beyond [1], is best known as a New Age self-actualization retreat led by a host of Eastern mysticist gurus and hippie psychedelics enthusiasts who have propelled the Human Potential Movement. However, Esalen has also been a hub for behavioral psychologists, such as B. F. Skinner, humanistic psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow, and transhumanist computer engineers, such as Mikey Siegel, who have been driving a Transhuman Potential Movement aimed at steering the noetic evolution of the human species through trans-eugenic technologies, such as consciousness-hacking brain-computer interfaces.

This year, in 2022, there will be an Esalen workshop titled Superhuman Evolution, which will explore evolutionary esotericism by examining the intersections across technology, psychedelic[s], Darwinian . . . transformations, and metaphysical revelation . . . that might point to or even manifest the future human (or superhuman). It should be noted here that Darwinism was a predecessor of eugenics, which itself is the precursor to transhumanism.

Darwins cousin, Francis Galton conceptualized eugenics as the science of harnessing Darwinian evolution by selectively breeding elite bloodlines while culling unfit gene pools. Later, in 1957, British Eugenics Society President Julian Huxley, who was a close friend of fellow eugenicist Teilhard de Chardin, coined the term transhumanism to denote the next phase of eugenics in which the old-school methods of artificial genetic selection will take a backseat to biological engineering through human-machine mergers. Julians brother, Aldous Huxley, who authored the dystopic novel Brave New World, coined the term human potential, and he energized the Human Potential Movement as a trendsetter at the Esalen Institute where Hubbards mentors, Abraham Maslow and Buckminster Fuller, were both leading figures.

There have always been integral connections between the Esalen Institute, the Human Potential Movement, hi-tech transhumanism, and noetic Gnosticism. In 2013, H+ Magazine, otherwise known as Humanity+ Magazine, which is the popular publication of the organization formerly known as World Transhumanist Association, posted an article titled Producing and Consuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives. This H+ article historicizes how:

[s]everal scholars have linked the superhero narrative with the emergence of a human potential movement which became popular in the 1960s. In places such as the Esalen Institute, the philosophy of the cosmic posthuman was put into practice. . . with the intention of unlocking latent abilities. In his weighty tome theFuture of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature,Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy examines . . . evidence of metanormal human functioning. . . . Like the human potential movement, Transhumanism is also the offspring of the sixties counterculture.

At the same time, this article also links Esalens transhuman potential movement to a theological, or Gnostic narrative. In a section titled Silver Age Superheroes and the Emergence of Tranhumanism, this H+ article explicates how [t]ranshumanism, in some forms, presents a world in which science and magic are conflated through the spread of numerous hybrid spiritual or religious movements variously dubbed techno-paganism or cyber-shamanism, which reconfigure shamans as low-tech cyborgs.

Another H+ Magazinearticle, which was published in 2014, explores the ways in which the Human Potential Movement and the Neurosingularity Project dovetail together through intersections between genetics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, psychedelics, and a range of psychotechnologies that coalesce in transhumanist evolution. Entitled Mindapps and The Neurosingularity Project, this article, details how, [a]mong current tributaries to the Neurosingularity Project are: 1) multistate theory, 2) transhumanisn, 3) psychedelics, and 4) the human potential movement.

More specifically, in a section titled The Human Potential Movement and Positive Psychology, this article expounds how [m]ultistate theory, psychedelics, transhumanism, transpersonal psychology, and the human potential movement can all contribute to their mutual fulfillment and to the Neurosingularity Project with the HPM [Human Potential Movement] being a precursor of transhumanism. Additionally, this article postulates how, [i]nstead of using only electronic information technologyor biology hybridized with ITto augment human intelligence, milestones in genetics are advancing us down the path toward producing better human brains and other extropic and human potential goals.

In sum, these H+ articles propound how hi-tech transhumanism is an outgrowth of the Human Potential Movement that was spearheaded by the Esalen Institute, which was part of Maslows Eupsychian Network where Hubbard cavorted with other Gnostic trans-eugenicists to advance the noetic evolution of the human species through human-computer interfaces that can hack consciousness.

More recently, in 2018, Esalen hosted a Consciousness Hacking workshop run by Mikey Siegel: a transhumanist computer engineer who has developed Intelligent Robotics and social robotics at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, respectively. On the Esalen website, Siegels biography states that he uses technology to facilitate a path toward higher consciousness, self-realization, awakening, and transcendence. To industrialize transhumanist consciousness hacking into a global corporate enterprise, Siegel, according to Wired Magazine, helped found the Transformative Technology Conference, which convenes a mixer for technologists, futurists, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists trying to turn consciousness hacking into a multi-billion-dollar business on a par with the fitness industry.

Kickstarting the consciousness-hacking industry during the year before his Esalen workshop, Siegel conducted an experiment titled One Thousand Minds Connected Live, which hooked people up to cognition headband[s] that recorded their electroencephalogram (EEG) brainwaves while they all watched a movie called MindGamers. By concurrently data-mining the electrical brain activity of this massive audience, Siegel aimed to digitally record the first image of a mass-connected mind. Commenting on this experiment, Siegel hyped how, as a result of such brain-computer interfaces, we are actually changing as a species . . . [The brain is] actually changing the landscape of human culture. Were profoundly different than what we were 20, 30 years ago.

Assisting Siegel with the Thousand Minds experiment was Tim Mullen. According to TheWrap, Mullen is the CEO of Qusp Labs a neurotechnology firm and has developedwearable brain-computer interface (BCI) technology similar to whats being used in these [Thousand Minds EEG] headbands. Elaborating on the experiment, Mullen laid out [t]he overarching vision that in the future we will have the ability to link the nervous systems of humans . . . [T]he groundwork for that is being laid right now . . . Its accelerating so fast so its really possible to imagine that in one generation we might see that fundamental link established.

In brief, these brainwave-hacking wearables, designed by Siegel and Mullen, are building the next noospheric layer of transhumanitys cybernetic nervous system which, according to Hubbard, has consciously evolved from internet IT infrastructure into online social media networks that can now be augmented through collective webs of biofeedback neurotech. From Mikey Siegels Transformative Technology Conferences, back to Michael Murphys Esalen Institute, all the way back to Abraham Maslows Eupsychian Network, there are branches of transhumanist psychology, neurotechnology, and human-potentializing spirituality that share common roots in Barbara Marx Hubbards noetic prophesies of collective-conscious evolution through global cybernetics.

To mind-meld global human consciousness through brain-computer neurotech, Hubbard evolved the Human Potential Movement into the Social Potential Movement [2], which she used to promote the HeartMath Institute (HMI) [1] [2]. The non-profit HMI is a synergistic satellite of the for-profit HeartMath Inc. corporation that carries out multilevelmarketing schemes to sell biofeedback wearables, such as emWave and Inner Balance, which are similar to the EEG headbands designed by Siegel. Programmed to socially synchronize an individuals heart coherence with the global community by uploading users electrocardiogram (ECG) analytics to online cloud databases, HeartMaths biofeedback technologies are being propagated across the planet through HMIs Global Coherence Initiative (GCI) in order to harmonize the worlds ECG wavelengths into a singular hivemind resonance.

In pursuit of his consciousness-hacking venture, Siegel has also engineered a collective biofeedback wearable called HeartSync, which he piloted at a Burning Man festival. The transhumanist HeartSync headsets can interlink as many as 24 people to a single computer in order to synchronize the groups breathing and heartbeats. At Siegels co-hack house, his Consciousness Hacking MeetUp group, which has hosted at least 15,000 members in at least 30 communities, attendees engage in collective meditation while wearing HeartSync headgear hooked up to a computer. On Project Nights at Siegels co-hack house, startup founders pitch their prototypes, such as the LucidCatcher, a sleep band that stimulates your brain with small electrical pulses, supposedly letting you control your dreams.

According to Siegels business partner, Josh Whiton, who is a personal friend of Elon Musk and Tony Robbins, HeartSync can be used to have a board meeting and you hook everyone up to a headband and a heart-rate sensor to get into state of coherence [sic] . . . You get people out of their ego states and into a group state, thinking as one. Other applications of HeartSync, along with other AI biofeedback devices, neurotech brain stimulators, and immersive VR, include psychotherapeutic and psychedelic consciousness hacks that can digitally induce mindfulness and enlightenment.

Siegels HeartSync neurotech is similar to the emWave and Inner Balance biofeedback wearables that are sold through the HeartMath Institute, which is endorsed by Hubbard in her Birth 2012 and Beyond. In this book, Hubbard lists the Institute of HeartMath as a Birth 2012 Campaign Sponsor along with the World Business Academy and the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI), which is a satellite of the HeartMath Institute [1]. In addition to these Birth 2012 Campaign Sponsors, Hubbard cataloged a directory of Shift Network Allies, including the Esalen Institute and the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Siegel has served as an Advisor to the IONS Innovation Lab [1]. Siegel and his BioFluent Technologies corporation, which is the company that produces HeartSync biofeedback wearables, are also profiled on the list of Industry Partners and Advisors at the Transformative Technology Lab (TTL) where HeartMath President and CEO, Deborah Rozman, whom Hubbard names as an all[y] of the Birth 2012 Campaign [1], is also profiled on list of TTL Industry Partners and Advisors.

Along with Rozman, there are several other GCI Steering Committee and Advisory Board members whom Hubbard endorsed as allies of the of the Birth 2012 Campaign [1]:

Additionally, there are several other GCI Steering Committee and Advisory Board members who hold prominent positions at the Institute for Noetic Sciences:

Also serving on the GCI Scientific Advisory Board is Roger Nelson, who is founder and director of the Global Consciousness Project and was the longtime coordinator of research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory at Princeton University, which was financed by Hubbards benefactor, Laurence Rockefeller. In addition, Nelson is a member of the Esalen Institute Center for Theory and Research.

Towards the end of Birth 2012 and Beyond, Hubbard anthologized a chapter by Claudia Welss, who is another Steering Committee Member of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative; a Board Member of Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution; and a member of the extended research faculty of the Institute for Noetic Sciences [1]. In Claudia Welsss Birth 2012 and Beyond chapter, which is titled Energizing Social Synergy for the Shift, she details how HeartMaths biofeedback wearables can be implemented to globally synchronize the EKG heart coherence rhythms of individuals and communities across the planet in order to artificially stimulate a worldwide shift in evolutionary consciousness [1].

Defining heart coherence, Welss describes it as a measurable psychophysiological state that can be quantified with [b]iofeedback measurements [1]. According to Welss, HeartMath has demonstrated that we can intentionally change our heart signal pattern to a coherent waveform in which [h]eart-brain alignment is created, causing a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal, and biochemical changes as systems synchronize and connect, facilitating system-wide communication [1]. In a section titled Scaling Heart Coherence for Social Synergy, Welss elaborates how:

[r]eseach at HeartMath has confirmed that a persons [heart] coherent electromagnetic signals can be detected in the nervous systems of other people as well as in animals. Heart coherence thus appears to enliven our connections through resonance, not only with each other and with nature but, conceivably, with the mind of the cosmos [or noosphere], enabling the parts to be in communication with the whole. [1]

To harmonize the heart coherence waves of global communities with the collective-consciousness of the noosphere, Welss calls for the worldwide coordination of HeartMath biofeedback synchronization through [t]he Global Coherence Initiative, a project of HeartMath, [which] is based on the belief that [heart] coherence scalesfrom the personal, to the social, to the planetary . . . If heart coherence does indeed scale, our attempts at social synergy would benefit on all levels [1]. Citing the evolutionary theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who was the godfather of epigenetic theory, Welss posits how:

the Global Coherence Initiative estimates that three-hundred and fifty thousand people measurably increasing their heart coherence baselines may be enough to create a global coherence heart-field environment . . . through the sustained repetition of this new behavior by a critical mass of individuals . . . By intentionally generating this field of global coherence for the Shift, we may . . . emerge as a positive, conscious evolutionary force. [1]

In a separate chapter titled A Map to Cross the Gap, Hubbard herself calls for heart coherence synchronization of 350,000 wearers of HeartMath biofeedback devices by practicing Quick Coherence and Heart Lock-In [1], which are HeartMath-trademarked mindfulness techniques, through a special group setting online [1]. This online biofeedback collaborative is known as [t]he Global Birthing Care Room, a project of the Institute of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative, [which] provides a digital representation of practitioners, portraying them as points of light across the globe [1].

In sum, the HeartMath Institute has commissioned a transhumanist network of wearable Global Coherence Apps to interlink brainwaves and heart rhythms across the planet in order to Shift the collective-consciousness of the human species into a one-world Social Potential Movement that is synchronized with the cosmic evolution of the noosphere through the cybernetic nervous system of internet social media. In turn, these transhumanist neurofeedback wearables are in position to biorhythmically induce synthetic states of bliss that will psychologically condition global populations to happily comply with the corporate-communitarian mandates of the techno-fascist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

If you think the global biofeedback synchronization of human conscious sounds like a virtuous means of unifying hearts and minds across the planet into a utopian one-world community, it should be noted that the HeartMath Institute and HeartMath Inc. are steeped in corporatism. Hence, rather than arouse sincere socioemotional bonds across all socioeconomic classes, and instead of elucidating minds with true spiritual enlightenment, HeartMaths commercial neurotech is primed to lull the precariat into blissed out trances that render them submissive to the corporate-technocratic mandates of the surveillance capitalist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

By distributing Global Coherence Apps and other neurofeedback wearables through multilevelmarketing schemes and networks of partnerships with multinational companies and business consulting firms, HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative is driven by a brand of corporatism known as evolutionary entrepreneurship, which has been promoted by Hubbard and her colleagues at Singularity University. Notwithstanding the flowery love and light rhetoric from Hubbard and GCI spokespeople, the corporate nexus of evolutionary entrepreneurs connected to HeartMath is primed to steer global biorhythm coherence to comply with a techno-fascist Social Credit economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

To recruit participants to the Global Coherence Network of wearable biofeedback sensors linked to smartphones, HMI and HeartMatch Inc. employ multilevel-marketing schemes that convert HeartMath practitioners into certified HeartMath Mentors and Trainers who offer heart coherence coaching through HeartMath Resilience workshops. It is keen to note here that multilevel marketing stratagems, which Hubbard advocates in Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential [2], are rooted in the self-actualization workshops of the Human Potential Movement. In fact, the multilevel marketing giant, Amway, has been one of the biggest corporate adherents to the channeling of the Human Potential Movements self-actualization mantra to con salespeople into pyramid scams.

It is also worth noting that the heir to Richard DeVoss Amway fortune is former US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who has financed Neurocore biofeedback ed-tech. In my article, Secretary DeVos, Neurocore, and Competency-Based Workforce Training, I documented how the Neurocore corporation, where Betsy sat on the Board of Directors, is part of a burgeoning socioemotional-learning industry that traffics in biofeedback ed-tech which includes the emWave wearables distributed by HeartMath. For instance, HeartMath LLC holds the corporate license for the Macquarie Institute, which facilitates HeartMath workshops, such as the Resilient Educator program that teaches attendees how to utilize emWave biofeedback wearables in order to enhance classroom learning at Primary and Secondary School[s].

By leveraging multilevel-marketing tactics to propagate GCIs Global Coherence Network of transhuman-potentializing biofeedback wearables, the HeartMath Institute is actualizing what Hubbard deemed to be an enterprise of evolutionary entrepreneurship that melds neurotechnology and collective biorhythmic consciousness into the futurist Singularity , as envisioned by Googles Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil.

In 2018, at a Singularity University Global Summit, which was titled The Future of Entrepreneurship: Living in Exponential Creativity, Hubbard was interviewed by Mark Donohue: an associate of both Kurzweil, who is Co-Founder and Chancellor of Singularity U, and Peter Diamandis, who is the Executive Founder and Director of Singularity U. During this interview, Donohue and Hubbard hyped how Maslow-inspired . . . evolutionary entrepreneurs are at the forefront of ushering in a transhumanist Singularity through Maslowean business practices that pivot on synergistic convergences. Donohue highlighted how

Barbara was a seminal leader in the 70s at running what are called SYNCONs, so bringing together the best of whats working to create a synergistic convergence to create a whole new out of the disparate parts. . . . So thats a whole synergistic convergence process which were inviting and believe Singularity [U] is part of, but we feel is another level of convening the exponential technology, the exponential leaders, to actually have a convergence thats more directional and curated by Singularity [U] to take it to the next level.

Concurring with Donohues exaltation of evolutionary entrepreneurs, Hubbard declared that the exponential entrepreneur has the power to shift the system, and if the exponential entrepreneurs feel themselves to be connected with evolution, the guidelines of greater consciousness . . . applied to exponential entrepreneurship actually is the shift point. This shift point, according to Hubbard, will result in humankind becoming a new species. If you combine hi-tech with evolutionary spirituality with greater consciousness, . . . if you combine exponential evolutionary technologies with the new power of humanity . . . , you have a new species . . . Its not only that we are becoming new individuals and to some degree a new species with this power, but the whole system . . . is going to radical newness.

Donohue affirmed Hubbards shift point prediction as he proclaimed that Singularity University will be instrumental in thrusting the human species forward into conscious transhuman evolution: Were upon the birth of what Barbara has named Homo Universalis. . . . The new whole will be far greater than has ever existed before, and ultimately, Singularity [U] is a catalyst and a leader in the awakening of this new species to fulfill our full human potential [inaudible] within the evolutionary story by creating synergistic convergences at the next level. Hubbard concluded the interview by celebrating Singularity U as a driver of conscious transhuman evolution: its a great privilege to see what Singularity [U] is able to do to help initiate this movement. If we want to say a new movement is . . . moving in the direction of evolution, I would say Singularity University is taking a tremendous role to initiate that.

Through the synergistic convergences of exponential entrepreneurs, corporate industries, consumer stakeholders, and futurist think tanks like Singularity U, the Human Potential Movement is expanding into a Social Potential Movement, propelling Hubbards transhumanist dreams of collective-conscious evolution through global technology markets.

In her book, Conscious Evolution: Awakening of Our Social Potential, which was edited by Donohue, Hubbard devoted six chapters to Part III: The Social Potential Movement [2]. Throughout Part III, Hubbard laid out her vision of Social Evolution through the technocratic globalization of public-private partnerships. For example, Hubbard printed a chart of Donohues Golden Innovations wheel, which graphs how the Social Potential Movement is being rolled forward through a Global Collegium that synergistically converges Economics/Business, Science/Technology, Government/Law, Media Communications, Education, Health, and Spirituality/Religion. To cultivate a global Community of CoCreators [sic] through the sphere of Economics/Business, Hubbard promoted corporate foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Center for What Works, along with impact-investing firms, such as the Social Venture Network.

In sum, Hubbard called for public-private partnership to push the collective-conscious evolution of social potential into the futurist Singularity through the globalization of transhumanist neurofeedback technologies, such as the emWave and Inner Balance biofeedback wearables that are distributed through the multi-level marketing schemes of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative. It is worth noting here that, at Singularity University, Kurzweil has partnered with the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, Ben Goertzel, who presented his AI research at the 2013 Annual Conference of the World Future Society, which was co-founded by Hubbard [1]. Goertzel is also listed on the roster of the Transformative Technology Labs Industry Partners and Advisors along with the President and CEO of HeartMath.

For almost 20 years, Kurzweil has forecasted that the year 2045 will mark the emergence of the transhuman Singularity. Prior to Kurzweils prediction, Hubbard foretold that 2020 would mark the year of the global consciousness shift that would tech-noetically thrust human evolution into the transhuman Singularity of 2045.

During her speech at the 2015 IONS International Conference, Hubbard propose[d] that we develop a new world purpose . . . by 2020, and the date has been picked by some other people [such as] Stephen Dinan, who is a former Director of the Esalen Institutes Center for Theory and Research, a former Director of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and the author of the Foreword to Hubbards Birth 2012 and Beyond [1]. In her IONS speech, Hubbard postulated that:

[i]f we took the next 5 years, and said our purpose would be, by 2020, we would connect enough of the co-creators in health, education, economics, in every sector of human endeavor in every culture . . . and show up by 2020 as the beginning of the next stage of human self-evolution . . . [then] [w]e would become the Gnostic human; we would become humans that actually incarnate the genius of evolution, the supramental powers of evolution.

Now that 2020 has ushered in the post-COVID New Normal, which is rolling out the Great Reset for the technocratic Fourth Industrial Revolution, it appears that Hubbards predictions for trans-technological evolution are coming true, and as Kurzweil forecasted, the Singularity is near.

See the original post:
Barbara Marx Hubbard: Godmother of Transhumanism and Synthetic Spirituality

When we are first introduced to Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) in Crimes of the Future, hes laid up in a bed that looks like a fleshy, rotting orchid, in extreme discomfort. Hes informed that a new hormone has entered his system, a biological measurement of the internal change that hes experiencing. In our very first moments with the main character of this film, we are already getting the groundwork for the trans allegory that underlines the entirety of David Cronenbergs latest film.

Transgender, nonbinary, and otherwise queer people have long identified with horror as a means of expressing transgressive, taboo, and otherwise unacceptable behaviors and fantasies. The mere act of existing as a trans person is coming under intense scrutiny, both politically and medically, and the laws passing through various states are dehumanizing. Is it any wonder that so many of us identify with monsters? Is it any wonder that trans people are reflected in these stories so obviously?

In Crimes of the Future, the bodies of people like Tenser, who are moving beyond human, who experience accelerated evolution syndrome, are heavily policed and regulated. There are myriad complex political agencies who are deeply concerned with Tensers bodyNew Vice and the National Organ Registry chief among them. While Tenser isnt trangender, he is considered transhumanquickly evolving beyond contemporary definitions and constraints. He considers his condition a rebellion of the body, an anarchy of biology, a revolution that he feels deep inside.

All this is very similar to many transgender experiences. The bureaucratic hoops people have to jump through to change their names, their gender, and how society sees them mirror Tensers voluntary declaration of extra-evolutionary organs to the NOR, and the seemingly impossible-to-understand red tape that comes from that. Hes asked to take consultations for medical problems, or asked just how radical are you? when faced with a horrific post-mortem opportunity. A performance artist who invites people to watch as he surgically removes naturally emergent organs, Tenser is a subject of both attraction and disgust as people flock to his underground exhibitions, at the same time that his body comes under more and more scrutiny by the political powers at the edges of narrative.

There are obvious parallels to the reaction to Tensers transhuman performances and the ways queer people are seen when they exist publicly in our own society. Drag shows, queer balls, coming out parties, Pride, how many of these moments of joyful expression are considered both disgusting by members of the public but intensely attractive to the in crowd that participates? But the key to exploring the transgender experience through the transhuman portrayal in Crimes of the Future comes from the way that Tenser reacts to these vestigial organs that are spontaneously produced by his body. They hurt him, they make it difficult for him to live, but they are also the source of his art and his sense of being. In order to survive, he must have these organs surgically removed, and he chooses to do so through a voyeuristic exhibition of his surgery. Any trans person who has medically transitioned, or even considered medically transitioning in any way, will often describe their surgeries as necessary procedures, because they are. Affirming and progressive gender-corrective surgeries benefit trans people in myriad, individual ways, including benefits to their mental, social, emotional, and bodily health. Tensers view of his own surgeries as a transhuman subject are not so different.

The body is reality, Caprice, Tensers partner and surgeon, played by La Seydoux, tells him at one point. This phrase struck me hard, because for so many trans people, there is an obsessive collection of realities that exist within the body. If your body says you are one thing and your mind another, whats the truth? In the film, bodies are also described as outer space, as expansive and unknowable, as intrinsically empty of meaning until we fill it up with meaning ourselves. It is up to us to understand our bodies place, permanence, and performance.

When Timlin (Kristin Stewart) makes a pass at him, he retreats. Hes not good at the old sex. The kind of sex that a body has with another body. Instead, he finds release through new sex, he explains, the kind of euphoric realization of a new body that comes out of surgery. Besides the sexualization of surgical procedures (which is fascinating, but not necessarily something I want to relate to trans people at large, or the generalized trans experience) there is the appearance of a sex organ made by surgery as part of this, which is often part of the trans experience. The details are a little gory, so Ill spare you, but my eyes about popped out of my head when Caprice tells Tenser that his newest procedure might have its uses.

Theres also the aspect of control that runs throughout Crimes of the Futures transhumanism. Tenser is intimately tied to the desire to control his bodywhat happens to it, who touches it, and what comes out of it. Through the film he describes what happens to him as traumatic, and that he enjoys that trauma. He also says that he wants to be open he has this desire to not only become a different body, but to show it off. To be obvious and explicit about what hes doing, to perform within his new body is a feeling that a lot of trans people often want too, the freedom to be obvious about their bodies and their gender performance.

At the end of the film, theres a question of will. Has Tenser been willing these body parts to emerge? Has he found an emergent way to become transhuman? Or is this just the next step of human biology, the inevitable path of a human body simply saying yes, its time to change? Within this we can read a transgender fantasy: if we want to change, if we know that this change is necessary, if we are in an incomplete body, it will just fix itself. We will wake up one morning and our trans bodies will be transformed into what they were supposed to be, and we will be made into a more perfect trans-human.

Crimes of the Future is in theaters now.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

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Crimes of the Future's Body Politics Show an Emergent Trans Fantasy - Gizmodo

Photo credit: World Economic Forum, via Flickr (cropped).

Transhumanism, boiled down to its bones, is pure eugenics. It calls itself H+, for more or better than human. Which, of course, is what eugenics is all about.

Alarmingly, transhumanist values are being embraced at the highest strata of society, including in Big Tech, in universities, and among the Davos crowd of globalist would-be technocrats. That being so, it is worth listening in to what they are saying under the theory that forewarned is forearmed.

Israeli philosophy professor Yuval Harari is one of themovements chief proselytizers.He believes that AI/human hybrids are inevitably going to take over and that those of us who refuse to join our minds with these computer programs will come to be considered a useless class, or even, useless people.From theMiami Standardstory:

Harari went on to say that humanity is in the midst of a second industrial revolution centered around artificial intelligence. But the product this time will not be textiles, or machines, or vehicles, or even weapons, the product this time will be humans themselves, Harari asserted. We are basically learning to produce bodies and minds. Bodies and minds are going to be I think the two main products of the next wave of all these changes.

The useless people referenced by the WEF advisor would be those who refuse to be injected with artificial intelligence capabilities in the coming decades. Describing humans as hackable animals, Harari believes that the masses would not stand much of a chance against these changes even if they were to organize.

Ah, the old resistance is futile gambit.

What will happen to useless people?

The problem is more boredom, what to do with them and how will they find some sense of meaning in life when they are basically meaningless, worthless, Harari continued. My best guess at present is a combination of drugs and computer games.

It is tempting to fall prey to such nihilism. But resistance is not futile if we continually remind ourselves that no human life is ever meaningless or worthless. And even if Harari is right that we will eventually devolve into a Brave New World caste system, the unenhanced still would retain the most important and powerful human characteristic of all: the ability to love.

Love isnt something that transhumanists generally talk much about. I think thats because it cant be generated by taking a pill, editing genes, or melding with a computer algorithm. It isnt transactional. The ability to love comes from being loved and practicing the virtues. No high-tech shortcuts. How boring.

This is transhumanisms fatal flaw. To paraphrase a great saint, If I blend with an AI computer program and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have enhanced capacities that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Editors note: For more on Yuval Harari, see Casey Luskins multi-part review of Hararis book Sapiens.

Cross-posted at The Corner.

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Transhumanism Is Pure Eugenics - Evolution News

What is transhumanism?

(1) The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.

(2) The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies.

The Philosophy of Transhumanism

Transhumanist FAQ

Developed in the mid-1990s and published in 1998, the Transhumanist FAQ became a formal document through the inspirational work of transhumanists, including Alexander Chislenko, Max More, Anders Sandberg, Natasha Vita-More, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Arjen Kamphius, and many others. Over the years, this FAQ has been updated to provide a substantial account of transhumanism. Humanity+, also known as WTA, adopted the FAQ in 2001 and Nick Bostrom added substantial information about future scenarios. The Transhumanist FAQ 3.0, as revised by the continued efforts of many transhumanists.

The Transhumanist Manifesto

Written by Natasha Vita-More 1993 and revised in 1998 (v.2), 2008 (v.3), and 2020 (v.4), and based on the earliest manifesto Transhuman Statement, which was published in 1983.

The Transhumanist Declaration

Originally crafted in 1998 by an international group of authors: Doug Baily, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom. This Transhumanist Declaration has been modified over the years by several authors and organizations. It was adopted by the Humanity+ Board in March, 2009.

Read the original post:
Transhumanism Humanity+

What about the body? Lets ask a Lutheran about Cybernetic Immortality & Disembodied Intelligence

Of the many promises to enhance human existence through technology made by our transhumanist friends, one stands out as particularly fantastic and thought provoking. That is cybernetic immortality. Cybernetic immortality prolongs human intelligence in a disembodied or post-biological form. After the body is discarded, our mental processes will continue in the computer cloud. So goes the H+ promise.

Cybernetic immortality looks a lot like the immortal soul of Cartesian or premodern religious belief. Is this what attracts the religious transhumanist? Can we achieve through technology what religion promised but failed to deliver? Might Christians find in transhumanism a shortcut to immortality and salvation?

Not on your life! At least according to Lutheran theologian Jamie Fowler. Jamie believes that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ. To become incarnate means to enter the flesh. What has been redeemed by God is the human person in the flesh, in the body. God promises a resurrection of the body, not an escape from the body either as an immortal soul or as a postbiological intelligence. We compared and contrasted Radical Life Extension, Cybernetic Immortality, or Resurrection of the Body in a previous Patheos post. In this post, we take up resurrection of the body with more detail.

If we ask Jamie Fowlerand we will interview Jamie belowwhether she plans to become a religious transhumanist, we can predict her answer. No way!

Our transhumanist friends tantalize our imaginations with visions of human transformation. These processes require critical thinking and visionary accounts to assess how technology is altering human nature and what it means to be human in an uncertain world (Vita-More, 2019, p. 49). Here in Patheos we will take the advice of Natasha Vita-More and engage in critical thinking. We will ask Jamie Fowler to help us think about the human body in Gods gracious plan of redemption and resurrection.

This post is one in a series on religious transhumanism and its critics. Weve interviewed Micha Redding on evangelical Christian transhumanism, Lincoln Cannon on Mormon transhumanism, Michael LaTorra on Buddhist transhumanism, and James Hughes on UU transhumanism. Weve also interviewed Hava Tirosch-Samuelson who vehemently repudiated H+ based on Jewish theology. In this series of Patheos entries I would like to explore theological reasons for embracing or jettisoning the H+ vision of a transformed humanity. Here we pit against each other cybernetic immortality and resurrection of the body.

Transhumanists believe in transforming humanity through technological enhancement. Here is Ray Kurzweil.

My views are certainly consistent with the Trans-humanist movement. My only hesitation is that I dont like the term Transhumanism because it implies that we will transcend our humanity. The way I articulate this is that we will remain human but transcend our biological limitations. To transcend limitations is precisely what being human is all about.

One form of transcending our biological limits is shooting for postbiological existence, called either cybernetic immortality or whole brain emulation (WBE).

We start by postulating that our present mind is a pattern. Allegedly, our mind is an information pattern attached to a biological substrate. Once we have captured the pattern, we can remove the mind from our brain and upload the it onto a silicon substrate. Then, perhaps even into the cloud. Once in the cloud, no longer will the vicissitudes of the body drag the mind toward discomfort, pain, suffering, or death.

Cybernetic immortality is achieved through whole brain emulation. The basic idea is to take a particular brain, scan its structure in detail, and construct a software model of it that is so faithful to the original that, when run on appropriate hardware, it will behave in essentially the same way as the original brain. The once biological brain becomes substrate independent. In short, a disembodied mind.

Uploading a human brain means scanning all of its salient details and then reinstantiating those details into a suitably powerful computational substrate, Ray Kurzweil tells us. This process would capture a persons entire personality, memory, skills, and history (Kurzweil, 2005, pp. 198-199). Postbiological intelligence will live on in disembodied form. At least as long as no one pulls the plug on our lap top. Nothing short of disembodied cybernetic immortality will have been achieved.

What great news! Cybernetic immortality, brags Donald Braxton, will be able to continue a non-biological life in a virtual reality for as long as the simulation can run. Thus, the transmigration of the soul will no longer be a matter of faith, but a scientific fact(Braxton, 2021, p. 8).

Theologians puzzle and ponder whole brain emulation. What are its implications? Modern transhumanism is a statement of disappointment. Transhumanists regard or bodies as sadly inadequate, limited by our physiognomy, which restricts our brain power, our strength and, worst of all, or life span. Transcendence will not be found in the murky afterlife of the usual religions, but in technological and biological improvement (Alexander, 2003, p. 51). Would Brian Alexander prefer to keep his body replete with restrictions on his brain power and life span? Why not trade this dying bag of bones for the ecstasy of thinking in disembodied form among the stars?

Jamie Fowler is a systematic theologian in the Lutheran tradition. She is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. As a laboratory genetics researchers, she gives special attention to Theology and Science.

TP. Jamie, in your research for your doctoral dissertation, you are investigating the work of divine grace in, with, and under what is physical. What do you believe to be the decisive theological point here?

JF. I believe the decisive theological point that unites divine grace and our physical existence is the Incarnation! In the incarnation, Christian faith claims the presence of Gods Word in our world. Gods Word is particularly located in this universe, on this planet, in Israel. Gods Word lives in history as the human person Jesus of Nazareth. Because Jesus is fully God and fully human, from a biological perspective, the Incarnation instates the physical existence of Gods Word as a living organism. But wait, theres more: through Jesus God connects all the dimensions of our existence the physical, the social, the spiritual dimensions and so on into the very life of God. In his death and resurrection Jesus retains his multidimensional linkage to us.

This multidimensional linkage is the pathway by which grace travels to those who have faith in the salvific power of Christs death and resurrection. Because Christ was a physical being, he transmits his grace to us through a multitude of interconnected dimensions. Consequently, we receive grace multidimensionally. Take the Eucharist, for example. When we eat the Eucharist, we utilize our physical and biological dimensions. We take grace which is really present When we believe in Christs presence in the Eucharist as we eat, we open our spiritual dimension. For the Christian, and more specifically the Lutheran, this pathway of grace is not possible without the physical connection between God and creation. Thus, the Incarnation is the decisive theological point from which divine grace works in, with, and under our physical existence.

TP. When it comes to embodiment, why would transhumanism pose a problem for a Lutheran?

JF. Hopefully my answer above illustrates the fact that, for a Lutheran, physical existence, or embodiment, is paramount to faith and salvation.

Yet, physical existence does not play a central role in Transhumanist philosophy. In fact, for transhumanists our physical existence, characterized by aging and eventually death, is a problem to be overcome. Transhumanists envisage a day when postbiological human beings will be free from all corporeal restraints.

For example, Ray Kurzweil, futurist, inventor, and transhumanist, anticipates that, around the year 2030, biotechnology will enable a union between humans and genuinely intelligent computers and/or AI systems. The resulting human mind/computer would be free to roam a universe of its own making, uploading itself at will on to any suitably powerful computational substrate.

Thus, when it comes to embodiment, the problem transhumanism poses for a Lutheran is the formers radical rejection of the human body. For a Lutheran, discarding bodily existence is nothing short of a rejection of God as both Creator and Redeemer.

TP. If a Lutheran must choose between (1) Radical Life Extension, (2) cybernetic immortality, or (3) resurrection of the body, which will it be? Which do you believe to be most authentically Christian?

JF. Both Radical Life Extension and Cybernetic Immortality are Transhumanist ideals that grapple with the problem of aging/death. Radical Life Extension (RLE) intends to overcome aging and death to some extent by genetically altering the human body. Cybernetic Immortality (CI) aims to shed the human body by transferring ones self-consciousness from that individuals biological body to a suitable, intelligent substrate. Even though RLE and CI have different methods, they both, albeit to different degrees, reject the natural human body.

A Lutheran would not choose either of these options in the face of aging and death. Instead, the Lutheran hopes for eternal relationship with the Creator, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit in addition to the entire body of Christ in Gods Kingdom. The Lutheran yearns to be resurrected at the appointed hour. In the resurrection, God fulfills and perfects human beings with new, immortal bodies that are blessedly free from the threats of aging and death. Thereby, Lutherans like Roman Catholics wait in faith for their resurrected bodies. Such bodies cannot be manufactured. Resurrection is the work of God alone.

Furthermore, the Resurrection of the body is the only authentic Christian choice when compared to RLE and CI. The New Testament of the Bible, the central Christian text, tells of Jesus Christs death and Resurrection and then the resurrection of the dead.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Corr 15: 42-44 NIV)

As we can see, Christian salvation is marked by the resurrection of the body. When God assumed a natural body, God gathered our physical bodies, our entire existence, in all dimensions into Gods life. Without the Incarnation, the general resurrection of natural bodies to spiritual bodies is not possible.

TP. Any final words?

JF. As I have observed above, Transhumanist philosophy and technology holds the human mind in the highest esteem. Yet, Transhumanism regards the body as merely a husk in which individual subjectivity resides. This perspective is Cartesian and dualistic because it clearly relegates mind and matter into two, separate existential realities.

However, according to the biologists and neuroscientists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, authors of the Santiago Theory of Cognition. The Santiago Theory claims that living systems are by definition cognitive systems. Living is itself a process of cognition. And this applies to all organisms, with or without nervous systems. In short, body and mind are inseparable.

To put it another way,the structure (matter) and organization (mind) of any organisms are two aspects of a single self-making process. In other words, mind and matter are two sides of the same coin. And that coin is Life. According to this theory, the mind cannot be extracted from the physical body. The human mind does not exist apart from the biological body.

Thus, uploading our minds onto a suitable AI substrate as Kurzweil would have us do, is simply not possible. We might successfully transfer a shadowy imprint of our thoughts, emotions, memories, habits, and behaviors onto the substrate. However, this Transhumanist eschatological hope will never be achieved because the human mind cannot be extracted from the human body.

In conclusion, let us acknowledge and celebrate especially in this highly technological age that we ARE our bodies! Our individual bodies contribute to our individual identities. As a Lutheran, I believe that all bodies matter. When God assumed existence in Jesus, God did not fail to assume a body! To that end, Christ was resurrected to new life with God, a new Life that still included a BODY.

TP. Lutherans are not alone among Christians in looking forward to what St. Paul promised in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44. In the eschatological resurrection, Paul anticipates a spiritualized body, a soma pneumaticon. This vision of the resurrected body looks nothing like the disembodied cybernetic mind in the transhumanist vision. Here is Carmen Laberge of Reconnect Radio. The body is part of Gods good creation, described as the temple of the Holy Spirit for those who are redeemed, and Jesus bodily incarnation, resurrection and ascension demonstrate the value God places on the physical human body. So then, should we. And yet, it is not the body that is to be worshipped nor is this flesh-suit eternal (LaBerge, 2019, p. 774). Yet, it is the bodily creation that God redeems in the Easter resurrection of Jesus and your and my promised resurrection into the eternal kingdom of God.

In sum, there is no consonance between the transhumanist vision of cybernetic immortality and the Christian vision of an eschatological resurrection of the dead.

Ted Peters directs traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. He authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

This fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

Alexander, B. (2003). Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion. New York: Basic Books.

Braxton, D. (2021). Religion Promises but Science Delivers. The Fourth R: Westar Institute 34:3, 3-9.

Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity if Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Penguin.

LaBerge, C. F. (2019). Christian? Transhumanist? A Christian Primer for Engaging Transhumanism. In e. Newton Lee, The Transhumanism Handbook (pp. 771-776). Switzerland: Springer.

Marturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Valero, 1980. Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: Reidel.

Peters, T. (2019). Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism, and Rival Salvations. Covalence, https://luthscitech.org/artificial-intelligence-transhumanism-and-rival-salvations/.

Peters, T. (2019). Boarding the Transhumanist Train: How Far Should the Christian Ride? In e. Newton Lee, The Transhumanist Handbook (pp. 795-804). Switzerland: Springer.

Peters, T. (2019). The Ebullient Transhumanist and the Sober Theologian. Sciencia et Fides 7:2, 97-117.

Vita-More, N. (2019). History of Transhumanism. In N. Lee, The Transhumanism Handbook (pp. 49-62). Switzerland: Springer.

World Transhumanist Association. (2015). Transhumanist Declaration. http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-declaration/.

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Religious Transhumanism 11: What about the body? | cybernetic immortality - Patheos

In an in-depth interview with The New American, Dr. Robert Malone shared details of his intellectual journey from questioning the safety and efficacy of Covid vaccines to recognizing the intense efforts of the globalist forces aimed at establishing a totalitarian regime that would supersede national political structures.

Dr. Malone said that the driving force behind the effort is the World Economic Forum (WEF), whose members dominate supranational organizations, national governments and political parties, corporations, the media, and academia.

The goal of the policies that were implemented as a part of the Covid pandemic response was to accelerate the Great Reset preached by the forums founder and chairman, Klaus Schwab. Based on total control over information, the economy, and finances, and on the ideas of transhumanism and population control, the Great Reset becomes possible because of mass formation psychosis. Malone argued that since this phenomenon captures both the populace and the leaders, it is paramount to wake people up, and he offered solutions for doing so.

Dr. Robert Malone pioneered mRNA vaccine technology in the late 1980s and holds nine U.S.-issued patents in which he is explicitly named an inventor. During the Covid pandemic, he emerged as a leader of the intellectual movement against unethical Covid-related vaccine mandates, vaccinations of children, and medical censorship.

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Dr. Robert Malone: Resisting Covid Tyranny and the WEFs Great Reset | The Paradise News - The Paradise News

Times are tough for Alex Jones, his media operation Infowars, and his businesses and associates facing legal headaches and financial blows alongside the conspiracy theory mogul.

Several defamation lawsuitsfiled by people whom Jones and his network have targeted with alleged falsehoods, harassment, and conspiracy theoriesare leaving a mark on his disinformation empire. And both Jones and Infowars have faced widespread social media bans.

But Jones is a wily one, having also invested in online infrastructure thats enabling his proteges to grow with their own audiences. Through the creation and fostering of his independent video hosting platform, Banned Video, Jones is shepherding the careers of employees and outside contributors, as they build a repository of far-right digital content.

Many of those personalities have storied histories of their own, and to some degree mirror the trajectory of Jones own career: appealing to some of the wackiest conspiracy theories the internet has to offer, laundering far-right extremism, and espousing an abundance of hateful rhetoric.

Though Jones and Infowars have been ejected from most mainstream internet services, Banned Video has provided a vehicle for far-right creators to side-step some of those restrictions. In a sense, Jones has found a way to keep his legacy (and businesses) thriving, even after having been canceled by Big Tech.

Because other personalities hosted on Banned Video lack the outsized national profile of Jones, many have been able to produce content for Infowarswhile enjoying access to mainstream internet services and platforms that have given their platforms owner the boot. It has enabled those creators to rack up millions of views, collectively, and to leverage things like online payment processors, enabling their content to become profitable. And through the implementation of redirecting URLswith names like Free News and Battle Plan NewsJones and his crew have been able to veil Infowars content as links are posted to mainstream social media sites.

Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Infowars editor and producer Greg Reese is one such figure. On Banned Video, Reese produces edited and scripted segments that delve into the fantastical tendencies of online conspiracy communities, often racking up hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of views. Some videos contain verbatim Russian propaganda about alleged corruption of Western nations. One such video on the platform blends baseless accusations that Ukraine is overridden with Nazi sympathies, along with an antisemitic bent. In that video, Reese echoes historical distortions to allege that Zionist political forces shared alliances with Nazis because both wanted their own ethnically pure state.

The word Nazi is a made-up slur, Reese says in the video, before alleging that world leaders in politics and business are seeking to enact fascist control over the globe.

Jones has found a way to keep his legacy (and businesses) thriving, even after having been 'canceled' by 'Big Tech.'

Some of Reeses highest-trafficking content on Banned Video contains conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines. In one of his videos for the platform, he claims that the Pfizer vaccine contains nano-tech activated by 5G broadband signals to build an internal electronic system with an endless potential for bio-manipulation in people who are vaccinated. It has more than a million views.

Another asserts that the same world elite leading the response to the pandemic are plotting a false flag attack on the world using smallpox. Reese earned nearly a million views claiming that vaccines are bioweapons, and hundreds of thousands of views arguing that vaccines are killing people to usher in an era of transhumanism.

In one video, Reese goes through a list of the ten stages of genocide to argue that the U.S. is conducting one against patriotic Americans. Another regurgitates flat-earth conspiracy theories. And one video alleges that QAnon conspiracy theories are meant to brainwash their followers to religiously trust the plan without question and be submissive to a New World Order take over of the world.

Is it the great awakening, or is it the New World Order making its final move? Reese rhetorically asks in the video. Who is to say this hidden army is not controlled opposition posing as the American patriot movement? A great final lie to trick us all into a deeper state of tyranny while they sacrifice pawns and reshuffle the deck for another round of their sick control game?

Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Harrison Smith broadcasts on Infowars airwaves and uploads content on Banned Video. Though Twitter suspended Smith from its platform in 2020, the Infowars host has managed to evade the suspension and to share his Banned Video content on the platform. With access to the Twitter ether, Smith has managed to send content viral to the point of reaching Fox News host Tucker Carlsons primetime program and former President Donald Trump. (Reached by email by The Daily Beast, Smith said he had been temporarily suspended a few times from Twitter but that his current account was created in 2017. After The Daily Beast inquired with Twitter, Smiths account was permanently suspended.)

Smith embodies Jones habit of allying with and glazing over far-right extremist movements and believers, seen clearly in his cozying up to the sub-sect of the modern white nationalist movement led by racist and antisemite Nick Fuentes. On a promotional poster for Fuentes most recent American First Political Action Conference event, Smith was listed as a special guest. (Smith has also admitted to attending the event in past years.) Smith has interviewed other extremists for Infowars, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, and has attended events hosted by far-right figures like podcast host Ethan Ralph. Smith told The Daily Beast he has attended events hosted by Fuentes and Ralph in a personal capacity, not as a representative for my employer.

Smith has his own history of espousing far-right rhetoric. He once ranted about killing officials in President Joe Bidens administration and promoted white genocide conspiracy theories. Smith has invoked the great replacement white supremacist conspiracy theory by nameand that particular conspiracy theory has driven several racist mass murders. He has advanced anti-immigrant talking points about the 1965 Immigration Act, which revoked explicit racial quotas from U.S. immigration policy, saying that it made the U.S. into a dumping ground for the Third World. During the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, Smith praised the attackers, calling them patriots. And in a conversation on-air with an antisemitic caller, Smith once faulted the FBI for supposedly being directed by Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League.

After the Christchurch masacre, in which a white supremacist murdered Muslim worshipers in New Zealand, Smith combed through the shooters manifesto on air for Infowars, initially condemning the manifesto before finding points where he thought the mass killer was kind of right.

Despite these prior remarks, Smith told The Daily Beast he advocates for self-governance, freedom, individuality, and the continued existence of all people, regardless of race or ethnicity.

Harrison has lauded the extreme rhetoric of Patrick Howley, a writer for the conspiracy clickbait blog National File, and a newer addition to the invite-only Banned Video platform. Though Howley does not work at Infowars, he has been a regular guest on the network. Infowars and National File have had a close relationship since the latters earliest days, once co-hosting an event coinciding with the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

On Banned Video, Howley has uploaded gobs of hateful and conspiratorial content targeting racial minorities and Jews. In one video, he alleged that national media was pushing an agenda of violence against white people in America, and in another he responded to criticisms of author Alice Walkers antisemitic beliefs by doing a crude impression of a Jewish affect and yelling, The goyim are going to notice!a common antisemitic catchphrase online. Howley regularly deploys his bigoted Jewish affectation in antisemitic rants that depict Jews as sinister plotters of the downfall of Western society. In one video, he remarks that it's almost as though a dreidel has been spun to see who gets genocided first, and white males, it turns out, are first on the list.

Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Howley is still active on Twitter, where he has nearly 75,000 followers. On his profile, he has accused the musical artist Lizzo of advancing hostile agitation against White males on behalf of jewish interests because the record label she is signed to is led by a Jewish male. He has advanced white genocide conspiracy theories, writing to white Twitter followers that a genocidal racialist system is determined to destroy you and wants you dead. Howley has written that Zionist and Chinese institutions are genociding white people. He has faulted conservatives for not stating that the Fake News media is run by Jews. Howley has posted that Everything blacks hate about white people they are really just talking about Jews. He has also claimed that the mainstream conservative movement is run by leftists and owned by the Zionist foreign lobby to advance the goals of white demographic replacement through mass legal immigration. He tweeted, Stop blaming Whitey for your problems. Realize Jewish people own everything. He has also claimed that it is just obvious that Israel did the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In February, Howley authored an article for National File, which he promoted on Twitter, praising the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Club. He has asserted that recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was a product of the modern environment in which privileged minorities earn long-run shekels for ganging up on white men who are being genocided.

Howley has managed to evade moderation from Twitter despite posting antisemitic messages to his account and promoting links to Infowars websites. (Twitter did not provide a statement to The Daily Beast on Howleys use of Twitter prior to publication.) And along with Reese, Howleys host publication National File has used content on Banned Video to promote links soliciting funds via PayPal, enjoying access to a platform otherwise off limits to Jones and Infowars. National File utilizes Revv to process credit card payments for its site, another online function which Infowars faces limited access to.

When reached via email, Howley sent The Daily Beast a comment deriding racially divisive propaganda and New World Order stooge puppets who dance for the cannibalistic pedo Cabal. Howley later said that response was satire and he did not respond to further questions.

The main goal of Infowars is to obscure and confuse reality, to make people sort of believe in alternative sets of facts.

A representative from PayPal did not directly respond to an inquiry about Reese and National Files PayPal accounts, but wrote back, We regularly assess activity against our Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review actions reported to us, and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policies. The Daily Beast attempted to contact Revv via a web form on the companys website for media requests, but did not receive a response.

Dan Friesen, co-host of the podcast Knowledge Fight, which recounts and reviews Infowars programming with a critical eye, told The Daily Beast that he doubted whether the lesser-tier personalities currently hosted on Banned Video possessed the charisma, audience networks, or enterprising drive that enabled Jones to ascend as a behemoth in political media, pointing to the relative fades into obscurity experienced by Infowars personalities David Knight and Millie Weaver after they left Jones ranks. However, Friesen said that current personalities appeals to extremist communities using the Banned Video platform could provide chances to network and potentially carry on should Jones actually crumble under the weight of lawsuits.

Even in the hypothetical case that lawsuit turmoil prompted Jones to retire from his seat at the Infowars broadcast desk, Friesen said that the driving philosophy of Jones is likely to last, with or without the conspiracy theory kingmaker. Whether its seeding chaos in the news cycle or whitewashing extreme ideas for a devout audience, the model of media exemplified by Jones already exists elsewhere today and for much larger and mainstream audiences. Even if this trio of far-right protgs fail to fill Jones shoes entirely, Jones model has been replicated by others enough to persist even in a world without Jones on air.

The main goal of Infowars is to obscure and confuse reality, to make people sort of believe in alternative sets of facts. I think there are a lot of folks doing that, with or without Alex, now, Friesen said. In a grim sense, the damage was done a while ago.

For those currently suing Alex Jones for defamation, including the parents of Sandy Hook mass shooting victims, and the countless others caught in Infowars scope throughout time, that harm has been gravely serious. The wider project of weaponized misinformation and conspiracy theories that Jones has built his business on has alarming consequences for the greater stability and health of the societies they inhabit.

Jones launch and curating of his Banned Video platform has enabled Infowars content to salvage some of its viral potential online under new presentation styles, and it has empowered a crop of far-right personalities to produce their own content under the larger Infowars brand.

Tech platforms interested in keeping Jones and his cronies off their services must realize that moderating a figure like Jones brings with it a constantly shifting game of whack-a-mole, requiring adaptability and a close, constant eye.

(Attempts to reach Reese via an Instagram direct message were unsuccessful. Inquiries sent to an email address listed on Infowars website for media interview requests went unanswered.)

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How Alex Jones' Conspiracy Empire Has Kept Itself Going Even While Being Banned From Social Media - The Daily Beast

It always sounded as if David Cronenbergs Crimes of the Future would be a return to the veteran directors preoccupation with body horror, transhumanism, and weird, organic sci-fi and the films first trailer proves this very much to be the case.

Featuring strange, fleshy technologies, body parts sewn shut or relocated to unfamiliar places, and scenes that confuse sex with surgery as well as what appears to be a shot of someone eating a waste paper basket Crimes of the Future is very recognizable as the work of the man who made such unsettling explorations of the human-machine interface as Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash, and Existenz in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Crimes of the Future, which will be released in theaters in June, reunites Cronenberg with Viggo Mortensen, star of his much more grounded (but also excellent) 2000s crime thrillers A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. Mortensen plays a near-future performance artist who publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs, assisted by his partner (La Seydoux). Kristen Stewart plays an investigator from the National Organ Registry who looks into the couple, and uncovers a plan to use their fame to shed light on the next phase of human evolution. (You can get a very slightly better sense of this plot from the French version of the trailer below.)

In a statement, Cronenberg said, Crimes of the Future is a meditation on human evolution. Specifically the ways in which we have had to take control of the process because we have created such powerful environments that did not exist previously. [...] At this critical junction in human history, one wonders can the human body evolve to solve problems we have created? Can the human body evolve a process to digest plastics and artificial materials not only as part of a solution to the climate crisis, but also, to grow, thrive, and survive?

Crimes of the Future comes after a fairly long hiatus for the 79-year-old Cronenberg, whose last film was 2014s Maps to the Stars. In 2020, his son Brandon Cronenberg released Possessor, a horror film that seemed strongly influenced by the elder Cronenbergs work.

It was also revealed that Crimes of the Future will premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in May in the main competition. The winner of last years top prize at Cannes, Titane, also owed a clear debt to Cronenberg, so it seems the Canadian elder statesman of horror is making his comeback at a time when his twisted visions are in fashion.

Also premiering at Cannes will be Top Gun: Maverick; Baz Luhrmanns Elvis biopic; a new crime thriller from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook; a French remake of the cult Japanese zombie film One Cut of the Dead; a new film by Mad Max director George Miller; the directorial debut of Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae, and much more. Looks like a great festival.

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David Cronenbergs Crimes of the Future trailer shows return to sci-fi body horror - Polygon

The laws of physics makes it impossible for the vaccines to eliminate or affect the Higgs Boson particle, known in media as the God Particle

A Facebook post published on January 11 by Facebook page Filipino Future falsely claims that COVID-19 vaccines remove the God Particle in the body.

The posts caption has a line that reads: More variants, more shots. Para ano? Para makumpleto ang pag eliminate ng God Particle sa katawan mo, at trabahuin ng mRNA ang pag create ng new strains of tissues na magpapangyari upang ihanda ka sa transhumanism goal ng mga Elitista.

(More variant, more shots. For what? To complete the elimination of the God Particle in your body and to allow mRNA to create new strains of tissues that will prepare you for the transhumanism goal of the elitists.)

The post also defined the God Particle in the line that reads: What is the God Particle? Ito yong mark of God sa DNA ng tao, yong conscience mo, yong naka tanim sa bawat hibla ng tissues ng katawan mo. (What is the God Particle? Its the mark of God in the DNA of humans, your conscience, its in every fiber of the tissues of your body.)

The post has over 300 reactions, 150 comments, and 250 shares on Facebook, as of writing.

This claim is false.

COVID-19 vaccines cannot do anything to eliminate or even affect particles like the Higgs Boson, known in media as the God Particle, due to the limitations of the laws of physics.

The term God Particle was coined by Nobel Laureate for Physics Leon M. Lederman in his book The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? originally published in 1993.

The term is used to refer to the sub-atomic particle that gives all particles their mass, which is technically called the Higgs Boson, named after theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Peter Higgs. The Higgs Boson was first observed on July 4, 2012.

The European Center for Nuclear Research says that sub-atomic particles are so small that they are governed by either the strong or the weak nuclear force and are described by the quantum theory. Meanwhile, any matter that is larger than atoms is governed by gravity and is described by the general theory of relativity.

These differences do not allow sub-atomic particles to interact with the macro world, and physicists have not yet fit the two into a single framework. The difference in models also explains why sub-atomic particles cannot interact with normal matter.

Dr. Don Lincoln, a senior scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, told Rappler that there is no credible link between the sub-atomic world and vaccines.

Lincoln explained that removing the Higgs Field from an object or a body would instantly make its atoms infinitely large because it is responsible for the mass of every matter in the universe. The Higgs Field is the associated field of the Higgs Boson particle.

No Higgs field means that atoms become infinitely large.If the Higgs field disappeared in the body, youd evaporate or explode, depending on how fast the Higgs field disappeared. Given that there are no reports of post-vaccine explosions or disappearances, I think we can dispel this claim, Lincoln said.

According to the World Health Organization, vaccines work by triggering an immune response in the body to fight a specific virus.

Rappler has fact-checked posts from Filipino Future multiple times in the past. Here are more fact-checks on Filipino Future:

Lorenz Dantes Pasion/Rappler.com

Lorenz Dantes Pasion is a Rappler volunteer. This fact check was reviewed by a member of Rapplers research team and a senior editor. Learn more about Rapplers internship program here.

Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.

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FALSE: COVID-19 vaccines eliminate 'God Particle' in the body - Rappler