Humanity has the potential to follow many future roads. What I mean is that we humans seem to be following a direct line, where our past pushes us forward in a certain inevitable direction, in a certain and most expected direction. But there are other alternatives, other roads, other futures, other alternate life tracks that we can travel down as a species.

For the most part, we all perceive and believe, being that we have completely focused ourselves on the existential possibility of time as being only a linear and sequential thing, that there is only one future for us, that this future is pretty much a guaranteed thing within the parameters that we feel to be possible. Certainly, there are times when we might say that this particular event in our history might have changed what we became in the future. We may say that this battle, this particular theology, this new law and set of principles that was created at this time in the past, changed aspects of our present and the future to come. But generally speaking, we believe that the future is set, there is only one possible future for humanity, because whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not, we tend to have the idea that our future is very much set, just like our past; that ultimately neither the past nor our future can be really changed at all.

This belief has to do with the linear idea of time, we think, often times quite unconsciously, that since the past is unchangeable, the future is as well. This is a difficult concept to grasp because we have such an inbuilt and comfortable idea about reality, but the unconsciously believed fact is that if the past cannot be changed, then the future cannot be changed either, the future must be as unchangeable as the past.

We often make brave speeches as to how we can all change, how we will get better, but really, unconsciously for the most part, we have a sense that the future is set as well. We also tend to presuppose that since time only moves forward, evolution is also only a forward moving vehicle; this means that we do not think that things from our past can evolve in that past, they can only evolve going forward in time. This is a difficult concept and I want you to contemplate what this truly means, because for those stuck within the throes of rationality, such a concept, even if it is mildly and quickly entertained, can be earth shattering.

Since we believe that evolution is only a forward moving entity, the past is lesser than what we have now. And of course, this also means that our future must be better, because it will be more evolved than the past. Moreover, being that we have pursued a very specific kind of technological reality, that better future that we envision must involve a technological evolution in a very particular direction. And yet, it is this very modern insistence on a linear time model that actually creates this inevitable future, because awareness shapes reality, not the other way around, and our current awareness, so focused on mechanical and linear conceptions, must only be able to create a very limited range of future possibilities. And those possibilities seem to all involve an external device driven science.

But is this particular ‘evolution driven’ road that leads to a technological future full of devices and contraptions really inevitable?

Well, this future is inevitable only because this is how we view time, and how we perceive and work with our reality. From the inner alchemist’s point of view, the inner creates the outer, we create our future through our beliefs which narrow our focus, and it is this narrowing of focus on only one particular belief system that is in essence giving us the future that we feel we must have.

What I mean is that, because we believe in linear time, because we believe that time is a force outside ourselves, we must therefore believe that there is always an external cause before an effect. We must believe that all things, all change, happens outside us, beyond us, and therefore our technological advancements must follow such laws, which means that only one type of technology is most likely possible, and that this technology is mechanical in nature; you hit this and this hits that, which does this, and all such cause and effect, happens outside ourselves.

But such a causal understanding not only limits the potential capabilities of human technologies, it also limits the power that is available for us to work with and infuse into these technologies. Further our causal order due to our limited perception of time, also regulates our understanding of ourselves and the other, we believe that all things are external to us, that we are surrounded by things, our technology therefore is a technology of external devices, external contraptions of all sorts.

By limiting our ideas of time, we limit our potential. It is the case therefore that many people tend to think in a rather black-and-white manner about what we can do, about what is possible for us as human beings. Our future is set therefore, there is nothing else but this possibility; we are quite literally stuck. As such, the majority of us tend to believe that we will either blow ourselves up due to some catastrophic war, have mass death due to some man-made event, or we are bound to move to the stars and become some spacefaring civilization, akin to something that you might see in a typical sci-fi or cyberpunk movie.

But there are different ways to perceive and therefore eventually to work with time, there are other causal structures that we can begin to work with, if we are willing to at least soften some of our very rigid current conceptions of time and reality.

At this point in history though, our technological growth, our evolution, must be more external devices and better and better machines. Machines after all are the future and the future is better, it is evolution. And it is therefore not only prudent but inevitable, say the rationalists, that these external machines and devices end up actually becoming part of ourselves, end up becoming actually attached contraptions, machines in our brains or our bodies, until eventually we too must become partially or mostly machine ourselves. Machines are the future so they are better, we must therefore become better by becoming more like machines.

Our human future is a future filled with artificial intelligence, computers of increasing complexity and power, electronic implants, robotics that do most of our work, and a future humanity that looks more and more like a dystopian cyberpunk reality. In this future world there seems to be this push more and more lately, towards a more commune or community based human reality, where individuality and many of its inherent freedoms must be given up so that more orderly, more machinelike that is, communities may be established. A new future where people may need to become more like drones in a hierarchical order, instead of individual beings pursuing their own individual interests.

While it is the case that many argue that there will be ways to escape this future, perhaps by escaping from the clutches of large organizational structures perhaps, the reality is that most technology is in the hands of large corporations and organizations that will make such escape as difficult as possible. In order to study this potentiality, we can review what has already happened with the smart phone.

While it is possible to have a phone connected independently to the global network, no contract or plan connection, this ability is becoming more and more difficult over time. Such increasing control over the technology of smart phones, and the increasing complexity and intrusion possible by the many applications, apps, available to smart phones, makes it easy to see that the promise of power and privilege of the smart phone comes with a great cost.

Many may argue that such freedoms are really just an intrusion into personal privacy and not control, but such people are deluding themselves into thinking that all of this information that is gathered cannot be used to later create passive control techniques, that in time may nudge and sometimes even force them, into certain directions and actions. In other words, the great control of mass information allows for the control of the masses.

Now, many are talking and working towards a future, where a smart phone like device or at least a device that could interact with a smart phone, could soon be attached to the human brain. Imagine then all of the possible difficulties that we now face, as far as security and personal freedoms just with smart phones that are in our pockets. What might our future be like when the smart phone is actually in our skull? Who will control the design and the functional parameters of the hardware and software that will go into those embedded computer devices.

It is not my desire in this article to create some kind of angst against future technological endeavors. I personally find that much of our technology is very useful, and as a modern person I too have benefited from this technological advancement. But I do believe that there is the possibility, of an encroaching future that we might not want, and as such, I am asking, is it possible to find different ways to offset that future? At least a small part of that future, one where such devices become part of our brain.

Well, one possible way, is to expand our conception of reality and to develop a different type of technology, a technology that I am calling ‘mental science’ or mental technology. Such a technology would need to be able to create all of the things required from the mechanical one, in short it would need to provide for us anything that we have been able to do through our modern conception of technology. But doing this through a wholly different kind of mental technology, would mean that we would have to completely change our deep and core beliefs about the very nature of reality.

When we think of time as being a linear and sequential thing, we do so because our minds have been conditioned for a very long time to think in such a way. For such a long time actually that to think anything else is considered lunacy, and for such a long time that our external senses, our physical senses, are the only allowed perceptions that fit within the parameters of this understanding, of this belief. Such conditioning has given birth really to the modern technological world, and as I have said, this modern world is a device driven mechanical one.

As to what this mental science might look like and what it could provide in the short term?

Well, in my books I write about a very old other type of technology, a mental science that I refer to as inner alchemy. Such a mental science states that time is not linear at all. It states that time is actually a thing that exists all here and all now, that time is an infinite moment point that contains within it both what we think of the past and the future events. As such, our ability to alter, to see, and to work with time, is in some ways more complex but it is also very rewarding and powerful. Such a conception of time as being an ever-present event, opens up the mind to new possible directions, to new causal laws and therefore new potential technologies that do not need to focus so exclusively on the current causal framework. This new causality framework posits that time is a fluid affair, and that both the past and the future can change, do change, just like this present moment is constantly and ever changing.

What might be possible through such a framework?

Well, it may be too late in our history to change completely and to begin a new type of probable world where mind science dominates everything, but we might still be able to use some of that causal understanding from this alternate form of science to offset the encroaching restrictions to individuality, that a purely mechanical and devise driven technology is creating.

We could for example, delay or permanently change the need to have mechanical and electric devices implanted in our brains. Instead of needing electronic inputs plugged into our heads so that we might experience virtual realities and download information, we could instead learn to access different dimensional existences, different modes of mental perceptive points, so that we may expand our awareness enough that such external and invasive devices and contraptions would not be necessary. At the least limit these until it is, or it becomes absolutely necessary to use them to, maintain or repair biological functions in people with disabilities.

Through the ability to control personal awareness, we could perform any of the things that implants promise to provide a healthy body and mind. We could communicate telepathically, access infinite information, manipulate external objects, experience a far more powerful kind of internal reality, not through virtual environments but through the ability to move, quite literally, across many dimensions, across real and complete other worlds. And in mastering all of this mental ability, we could grow intellectually in ways that I believe would surpass any physical computer or general intelligence network.

It is my personal belief and personal perceptions, that such a technology does exist and has existed on this planet in our past, a past where the modern linear conception of time did not rule the human psyche. And I do believe that snippets, that clues to such mental science can be found if we are willing to look deeply within available data on the subject, and are willing to work with diligence, using scientific principles, as we now do in other scientific and technological directions.

Using the techniques of inner alchemy, it is possible to be able to acquire incredible amounts of knowledge, and to free ourselves to an incredible extent from the three-dimensional world that binds us, from the mechanical world of linear time that seems to be chocking our individuality more and more, as we move seemingly forward through time. It is possible for us as human beings, to be able to experience unbelievable other spaces and other worlds, and it is possible for us to do this naturally through a kind of mental science, instead of for example, losing ourselves in a particular virtual-reality video game or headset. Certainly, these techniques are not plug and play like most of our modern electronic devices, but you may find that the work required to develop these abilities, may also have other benefits, such as expanding your own idea of self and of the possible freedoms that we do have access to now, as individuals.

We do not need to give up our current technology, we do not need to take a step backwards in that regard. We can incorporate both the science of the mind and the technology of devices in order to create a future that is our best possible future.

If you would like to explore the potential of such a mental science, and in particular, this ability to travel and to do and know in dimensions beyond conception, then I would recommend to you my book, Out of Body Experiences Quickly and Naturally, and if you are interested in very advanced techniques and methodology in this area, then I would recommend, The Way of the Projectionist.