Psychedelic Futurism

My recent essay for Purple Magazine's 'Future' issue

Check out http://purple.fr to learn more about this wonderful magazine

When considering the future from where we are today, we tend to toggle between dystopian outcomes. Our culture, in fact, wallows in dystopia. We marinate in apocalypse. Films and TV series envision every conceivable dreadful outcome, from control by robot overlords to nuclear winters, from zombies to plagues, evil extraterrestrial attacks to ecological meltdowns. Overwhelmed by negative projections, people — particularly young people — feel disempowered, cynical, depressed, anxious.

In my past works — from 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl to How Soon Is Now — I journeyed into the depths of possible nightmare futures but, in the end, proposed pathways toward utopian and joyful ones. I should say up front that one reason I can, still, see something extraordinary and amazing on our horizon is that I am not a materialist. I do not believe that our consciousness is limited to these meat suits. My first book, Breaking Open the Head (2002), chronicled my journey from skepticism to mystical revelation, one that I believe anyone can make for themselves, if they maintain their skepticism rigorously while pushing themselves to the limit.

In 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (2006), I explored the philosophical perspective of idealism, which is my worldview. According to this philosophy, consciousness, not matter, is the fundamental reality, the “ontological primitive.” Each of us, individually, is a dissociated projection or “alter” of an underlying consciousness that is indivisible, instinctive, timeless, spaceless, without boundaries. The philosophy of idealism is rapidly gaining popularity.