"A Peek at Infinity," Chapter 1, "Gregory's army of the young"

Since I discovered last week that I can see into the future and read future minds, I realized that the essay before this, formerly titled The candidates speak (comprising the policy statements of the two presidential candidates in 2044) has become the Prologue to a science fiction novel which I'm now going to write, a novel based on things that are really happening.  I'm calling the novel A Peek at Infinity, a title I would have liked on a dusty paperback when I was a kid staring at its cover in a used bookshop, that cover featuring a stylish young woman in a sweater and skirt, pointing up to the sky with a mixed expression of alarm and excitement even though the story turned out to have nothing to do with pointing up at the sky, as this one doesn't.  This story is about an ageing telepath, billed in his youth (the Age of Aquarius) as Harry the Human (aka me) who finds that, as his physical self follows the familiar downward spiral, he develops new mental powers which, though not really compensatory, are at least in the right direction.  For instance he, that is I have found for the first time in my longish life that I can commune with other telepaths.  Just as remarkable, I'm able, so I discovered last week, to contact minds in the future.  What I found in my maiden voyage to the year 2044 were the presidential candidates' statements which, as noted, comprise the Prologue to this tale.


Subsequent research on the childhood of one of these future candidates, Anthony Roberts (not his real name), who is in our time a teenager, led me to the cult guru who is raising him, known only as Gregory.  Gregory's doctrines clearly presage those prominent in 2044, as you'll see in the Prologue, but to my sadness, it does not appear that Gregory's concept of "beauty receptors" makes it past WWIII in either party.

Anthony Roberts, nineteen years old last March, has been living on the commune since he was 3, when his mother joined, and he has a close relationship with the charismatic leader, who has clearly influenced the future leader of Scientific Humanism.  I intend to study Roberts further, but I've made preliminary contact with Gregory, who is amenable to my discussing him on my blog.  Gregory wrote this statement to introduce himself to readers of this novel:  

Statement from Gregory, leader of the Army of the Young, 6/10/16

"Greetings, men and women of our rapidly evolving society!  My name is Gregory and I am the leader of Mantis, a revolutionary movement on the West Coast whose aim is to ensure that the coming pre-emption of human evolution by the military/media/industrial complex will not exclude the co-evolution of human groups who wish to determine their own society.

Why might some people want to determine their own society?  Simply, some people may not want their progeny to end up as bionic machine parts in a factory or as medicated zombies waiting to blink out of a new world.

Some people might want to create a world for themselves, not for a corporation.

I am twenty-six years old.  Too young to be a revolutionary leader?  Not according to my new friend Harry the Human.  Harry was a young revolutionary leader in the '60s, but he tells me that no revolution was happening then (though some thought there was), so there wasn't much for a revolutionary leader to do.  Now, he says, a revolution is not only possible but unavoidable.

What do we mean by "revolution."  First, here's what we do not mean: We do not mean violent overthrow of governments or corporations.  We do mean a consistent refusal to submit to government/corporate plans if they stand in the way of our new, human lives.  

When test-tube babies grow into optimal factory workers, we want nothing to do with it.  When the government clones new and lethal soldiers for its wars of corporate conquest and domestic manipulation, we want nothing to do with it.  When education becomes a tech manual, we want nothing to do with it.

We want what many people have wanted: A rational life that fits into the planet that engendered us.  We are not opposed to genetic engineering and all the powerful gifts of science to our kind, but we want a say in our re-creation.  

For instance, we want beauty in our society.  Our species has beauty receptors, but we destroy all beauty as if it threatens us.  When the corporate world is ugly as perceived by traditional human receptors, it will de-evolve the beauty receptors out of people and replace them with receptors with new, pale definitions of beauty, or supply "anti-depressants" to dull the pain of an ugly world.  We will do no such things.  We will develop our beauty receptors, our poetry receptors, our thinking receptors, our love receptors.

We will find a territory.  It will be ours.  We will have treaties with corporations and governments, but we will not be subject to any of them.  We will be subject to our own laws.

Where will the territory be?  Since Mantis is spread up and down the West Coast, our territory will likely be in some part of the current western U.S.  It is too early now to know the location, as the re-configuration of the U.S., along with the redrawing of the borders of all the world's nation-states, is a process just beginning.  When it arrives for the U.S., Mantis will be strong and ready to negotiate our new place.

That re-configuring of nation-states will be delayed for some years by the wars currently unfolding.  These wars will distract people from the worldwide crises of government, in which it is clear that governments cannot solve any of our species' most pressing problems.  Wars will divert people's attention from the dysfunction, and from the gradual replacement of traditional humans with new models.  The Media/Government/Military Complex does not want people to be aware of their evolution.

But we of Mantis are aware!"