Celebrating 2012:
Experience the Future of Consciousness Now
An Experiment in Creating a School of the Prophets
By Henry Reed
Hi Folks:
As I'm just now beginning a new cycle of study and work in preparation for this September's gathering on 2012, I want to describe for you the intent behind this endeavor and what and how I'm planning on engaging our collaboration in this experiment in prophecy. This is a long letter, but I hope you'll read it throughout.
I'm connecting to a long-standing idea associated with the Edgar Cayce material about what it might be like to have a "School of the Prophets." I'm coming to see that prophecy is a call to our developing awareness of our co-creatorship of the future.
Edgar Cayce placed a value on comparative study, and that has proven to me to be a valuable approach, one that leads to more complex insights and avoids the pitfalls of a monopolistic approach to understanding.
During the coming months, I'll be providing more information who join our consciousness list (see http://mail.ls.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/consciousness ) and encouraging and administering your own contributions to this endeavor.
Like last year, I'm hoping that from this group, some of you will decide to participate in the face-to-face gathering at The Big House in Cedar Springs, Virginia, September 14-20 (described in great detail at http://henryreed.com/futureconsciousness/).
Besides those who participate in this manner, I'll be providing opportunities for others of you to participate in our learning and activities via this list. What I'm intending to do in this letter is to lay out the plans for this year's work on the project.
The Focus
What lies ahead? There is much speculation, channeling, and investigation concerning the trend in the evolution in consciousness that may be involved with our global crises. Along with an evolving consciousness comes an evolving world.
Prophetic traditions look to these times for a singular event, a transformation, a shift, in world view and world existence. Recently the most popular focus has been on the Mayan calendar and its end date of December 21, 2012.
Our focus is to develop our relationship to this prophetic tradition. The relationship would include 1) a familiarity with a broad selection of work that attempts to predict the future, 2) time spent developing our own personal intuitive "prophecies," and 3) practicing some exercises or rituals that are designed to help us experience aspects of the anticipated future consciousness and help us grow personally in that direction.
Comparative Study
I speak from personal experience when I say that looking at a subject from multiple points of view yield insights incredibly more rich and complex than when viewed from a single perspective. With regard to the Mayan calendar, for example, we can get caught up in trying to understand the mathematics of the calendar and the astronomy it reflects, as well as deciding amongst the various interpretations and arguments concerning the meaning of 2012.
However, once we begin to take into account other sources, other perspectives, our understanding begins to shift and certain details seem less important and other facts stand out prominently.
Comparative study also has a mythical counterpart that relates to the themes of the coming future. What I am referring to is the archetype of "the many and the one," today often expressed as "unity and diversity."
There are many examples of this theme, including "The Sundance Experiment," about which I'll write later.
What types of material or topics are involved in this comparative study? Let me list a few of them here:
1) The history of the world, leading up to "globalization," or the One Earth. As a part of this, I will be offering my own research into the implications of the dissolving of boundaries in most areas of human functioning.
2) The psychology of ultra-creative individuals and those who have achieved higher levels of human functioning, suggesting trends in human evolution.
3) The converging insights gained from the study of psychedelic therapy, near-death experiences, UFO contacts and alien abductions.
4) The world's spiritual traditions concerning the destiny of mankind and apocalyptic prophecies
5) What we are learning about the human being, and especially the reality of humans as a relationship species from work with meditation, dreams, and intuition or psychic training.
6) The study of change, for example, how chaos a necessary part of evolution, how breakdown can lead to breakthrough
7) The study of the Mayan calendar and related traditions
8) Themes from a variety of sources as to what the future of human consciousness will be like
9) More to be added, I'm sure.
One of the things we need to gain from comparative studies is to be able to see past the specifics and see the "patterns," for "seeing the patterns that connect" is an intuitive act and helps us take our understanding of the material to a higher level.
To give you one example: the loss of boundaries. I researched that theme in terms of the loss of boundaries that defined entities, such as national boundaries, personal boundaries, etc.
But also, the studies listed above point to the loss of the boundary between life and the afterlife, the loss of the boundary between the inner world and the outer world, the loss of the boundary between good and bad, and so on.
All of these can be subsumed under the theme of "oneness," which comes up in many ways. After awhile, you begin to discern the patterns that are at work shaping the future.
The Method: A Democracy of Revelation
Many, many years ago, in my exuberant youth, I sent out an invitation to a few hundred people to put a flyer under their pillow to see what dreams would come.
The flyer announced the beginning of a new journal, Sundance: The Community Journal. It's purpose was to bring to public attention the dreamwork that was going on among individuals, laypeople, outside the realm of psychotherapy.
Dreams are not easily influenced, as their function if governed by forces beyond our control, like the ocean's tides. Nevertheless, the dreams that came out of this experiment were bountiful and amazing.
They spoke of an powerful effect upon society when the value of dreams were more widely recognized and shared in the culture. Many were predictive of a future crossroad, a future which we face today.
Let me share just one of these dreams:
A crowd has gathered, looking up in the sky. There is a UFO overhead. We see that it is piloted by a woman. As the UFO gets closer to the ground, the woman reaches out and hands to the crowd a small plant, a green plant to renew the planet.
This dream contains three elements that are now part of the apocalyptic imagination today: One, of course, is the presence of UFOs, especially in their role as guardian or rescue agents. The second is the return of the goddess, the role of the feminine, and in leadership positions.
And finally, there is the theme of the planet's losing ability to create food from the sun. Being given a new plant from a goddess that will restore the planets ability to photosynthesize food from the sun.
Photosynthesis brings up another interesting connection. One of our Sundance readers sent us a diagram of the photosynthesis process, which is a miniature Sundance pattern itself.
In the chlorophyll molecule, twelve carbon atoms form a ring, and as sun light hits it, the electrons raise their activity level and does the work of photosynthesis.
I mention these things because in our work on Celebrating 2012, we will engage in similar group "channeling" experiments, to bring in new patterns of awareness.
Doing so not only allows us to participate in the prophecy movement, is also is part of the emerging pattern to expected coming changes, where as a society we may share more from a visionary, imaginative place than from the usual emotional or linear thinking dimensions.
Last year's gathering affirmed the practicality of this idea of group revelation.
Not only did we bring in some novel ideas, but we also experienced together moments of what is predicted to lie ahead. You can read a report on last year's gathering at futureconsciousness.htm
Plans for Your Participation
I'll be sending out periodic reports to those who choose to participate in this experiment, gradually providing more and more opportunities for your participation in this process. There will be several layers and levels of your possible participation.
First you can read these messages, think about them, respond with your ideas. It would be a good thing if you spent a little time on the website, http://henryreed.com/futureconsciousness/ to examine the list of links I've posted so far, to get some idea of the scope and variety of information related to this quest.
Second, I'll be posting an inventory of the books we have in line for summaries. Some have been finished, edited, and posted at www.intuitive-connections.net
Some are waiting for me to edit them. Some are waiting for our people who are summarizing them to finish their summaries.
I'll be nominating other books for summary, and welcome your own nomination. Those folks who volunteer to do a book summary will receive a hard copy of the anthology being prepared, as well as a copy of the this September's workbook and manual for our gathering this fall.
These folks will also be invited to attend our gathering by proxy, being provided some activities to engage in while we meet.
Third, up to eight of you will find your way to this September's gathering, where we'll meet face to face to explore our developing methodology for exploring the meaning of 2012 and experiencing first hand several elements of the future of consciousness.
Summing Up for the Moment
I welcome your participation at whatever way works best for you. This project will provide you with a multi-layered, multi-dimensional understanding and experiential handle on the coming changes, to be better equipped to use this impending "crisis" as an "opportunity" for growth and transformation.
Here's what we know:
1) A galactic alignment is coming, whether exactly at December 21, 2012, or thereabouts. It's impact is subject to differing opinions.
2) The earth is challenged with climate change, global warming, species extinction, overpopulation, famines, etc. Something will have to give.
3) Many indigenous traditions have prophesized major changes in our era.
4) Many folks have experienced anomalies (alien abductions, UFO encounters, near-death experiences, entheogenic awareness) that all point to a possible path of consciousness evolution.
5) Cultural creatives have been compiling a set of concepts, experiments, and applications relating to evolved consciousness and its patterns, aimed toward embracing change, a new paradigm of reality and life within it.
What's going to come of all of this? Some folks decide simply that they'll be in the right place at the right time, and decide to go about their business as usual.
Some folks fall into a specific groove of prophecy and make extreme preparations, even going so far as to build a vault underground to store their valuables and food, etc. to get by.
Others are busy sharing and teaching others, helping them to deal with the changes that are immediately at hand, training new skills, new attitudes, new ways of doing business.
The purpose of our "Celebrating 2012: Experiencing the Future of Consciousness Now" is to find our way to the center of the storm, integrate the various dimensions of what's happening, channel new insights that fit for us personally and that lead us to find the most constructive manner of engaging the opportunities that lie ahead.
I'm honored that you'd choose to join me, at whatever level, in this experiment in creative consciousness.
To join our group of participants, whether as a spectator or more, send your request to Henry Reed at STARBUCK@LS.NET
To learn more about the gathering and to see the list of links so far collected, go to henryreed.com/futureconsciousness.
