Images of the Future

Hosts:  Susan Cannon & Nancy Margulis

Brief introductions – bring your voice in; what drew you to come to this particular session and one outcome that would really delight you:

Tree – I came because I need to be nurtured and out of my head.

Bill – my image of the future is pretty dreary; I’ve been studying pretty intensely peak oil and feel a certain urgency and building community is the modality I’m choosing to put my modalities into and I’m really curious about what you see as an image of the future that might be different from the one I hold.

Andrew – I have been interested in trying to work on processes for representing the future in today’s decision-making and I thought this would inform that in an interesting way.  Looking for a broader view of the future within which to situate my own work on climate and sustainability.

Sheri – I actually have this strange capacity for seeing and holding really positive visions in the future even amidst seeing and being deeply aware of the multitude of inconvenient truths.  Holding this tension.  I’m very interested in the consciousness, the conscious engagement with this capacity of mind, the role of imagination activation, and collective visioning, and how to bring it into a larger field.

Rick – I needed more feminine in this conference and I figured this is where I’d be able to get it.

Anodea – I’m with Einstein.  Imagination is more important than knowledge.  The 6^th chakra the place where we hold vision is the first step consciousness takes on its way down to manifestation, so the images we hold are one of the most important things we can put out into the collective.

Laura – I was drawn firstly because I also am very interested in the question and had a very similar question that I was interested in exploring.  So why would I not be here.  I’m really, I came here to this conference looking for the spark of creativity that happens when people engage in a real creative conversation and I think this kind of topic can provide that. 

Jean – What drew me to this session was actually the sense of Susan’s energy and wanting to find out what you were doing and what you were involved with and seeing a sense of the ripples of energy around you and who was responding to that.  In terms of images of the future, I think the most powerful image that stayed with me is reading a piece by Margaret Meade where she was talking about how until very recently all of human knowledge and culture was passed within three living generations and it had to be passed because there was no other transmission means and we’ve been in this period when we’ve developed all these means of transmitting it and her projection into the future was that we don’t know the answers now; we’ve passed on answers and technology but we have any idea of what the questions are evolving into the future, so the present need is to support and nurture the upcoming generations to ask the questions that will evolve at that time.  So that’s my image of the future.

Mark – What drew me to this session was Susan’s presence, a kind of gravity there, I haven’t heard much from Susan and was encouraged to lean in that direction.  I work with my friend Kenoli Oleari in communities around the world and we like to convene a real full panoply of voices in that community to imagine together a future they would like that everyone can support. 

Lynnea – I would say ditto to a lot of the reasons, plus I really needed to get out of that room (laughter).  I actually think there’s something that we can call a future attractor.  I don’t think that it’s just that we’re kind of being propelled forward from something that happened in the past, I think that we may be being drawn forward.  I was thinking about it, I started studying conscious evolution with BMH and David Spangler in 1980, that’s a long time ago, and I feel that if we could become more conscious of what might be drawing us into the future, we might be able to participate with it more consciously.

Zoe – I appreciate what has been spoken here.  What comes to my mind is those times when I’ve looked into the future and have been given the options of unlimited resources with limited amount of time.  Visualizations of you have 2 years to live.  And when I’ve reread what I’ve read, I’m astounded at what I envisioned is either pulling it into being, but it’s just so literal, so if we are that powerful with our dreaming and we are dreaming the world into existence, then it’s importance for us to be sitting in groups and looking at how we see the future and how we’d like to see the future.

Carl – Came because of some things I had read in your bio about cultural images of the future, historical images that groups of people held.  Also I’m intrigued in the responsibility of the leaders to be able to articulate a clear and compelling vision of where we are heading, where are we going.

Judy – I think originally the word that I was drawn to in the little write up was attractor.  I want to understand more about what those attractors are and how my experience and gifts of skills at this place and time can be woven into the time that is coming.  What is my role.  Learn more about what those attractors are.

Margo – I’ve been working a lot with vision and story.  How to maintain and keep alive and growing vision if possible, without it people keep recreating the same stuff.

Nancy – my draw is that I wanted us to leave with an artifact of our time together, in terms of a vision which is articulated in words and visions or however it shows up and offer some ways into that that might bypass the rational mind we’ve been using well to think about this and help us discover something new. 

Charles – Susan is a colleague from 10 years back.  I don’t think there is any really more important question than images for the future.  For the most part we don’t have them because as a species we aren’t used to think of the future or if we have them they are incredibly naïve.  Or if we look at them more closely we easily end up in cynicism or hopelessness and none of those three options serve us.

• Role of imagination more important than knowledge 
• Margaret Meade - until recently knowledge was passed within 3 generations, no other transmission needs (now we have new means of transmitting); her projection: we don't have answers now but we don't have the questions either, the present need is to support and nurture the upcoming generations to ask the questions that will evolve at that time.
• There's something we can call a future attractor.  We're not being propelled forward by something from the past, we may be drawn forward.
• Studying conscious evolution in 1980…if we could become more conscious of what is drawing us into the future, we might be able to participate more fully.
• What I envisioned is pulling it into existence.  If we are that powerful to envision the future, we should be doing it more consciously.
• Responsibility of the leaders to clearly articulate where we are going.
• Drawn to the word attractor. 
• I want to understand what those attractors are…
• What is my conscious engagement?
• Working a lot with visions and putting story together…how to keep alive and growing vision is key.  Without it we keep creating the same stuff. 
• I wanted to leave with an artifact of our time together - words or visions and ways to engage into that that would bypass the rational to discover something new.
• There's no more important question - we are not used to thinking about them….

SETTING CONTEXT

What is the image of the future?
How has that played out historically?

Image of the future is a compelling, sometimes not even possible, but extremely compelling, attractive, story – call it an image because it lodges in the senses and acts as an attractor to pull us forward

-         example “the rapture” – not compelling to all but to very coherent minority

The “image of the future” is a term used by futurists in actual research because it has an actual force in creating the future.  It is a particularly compelling, sometimes not even necessarily completely possible, but extremely compelling, almost mythic, attractive story, or idea, it’s a compilation perhaps, we call it an image because it kind of lodges in the senses and acts as we now know as an attractor to draw culture forward.  The idea of the rapture, we hear that one word and that conjures up a whole set of images and you can see where that’s pulling a large group of people in our culture, and that’s not a particularly desirable image of the future, but you can see what that has done, how that is drawing people towards a certain way of being, and it’s not like everybody is sharing a particular script around this, it’s not a stated vision, but it is an idea that is shared and it’s shared by a very coherent minority that ends up affecting the larger whole. 

Where this got started and how I got interested in it, was back in the 50’s there were some of the early path breakers around the ideas of systems and complexity who were just starting to form, and one of them was a sociologist named Fred Polack (see below for link to online text of Image of the Future), and in the 50’s, it was after WWII and people were getting very interested in, okay so we’ve just been through this huge cataclysm of world war two, what is going to come out of this, where can we go, can we do anything about understanding where civilizations go when they start to change, when we see that they are naturally decaying or exhausting their sort of “cultural capital”, if there’s a change coming.  People were already starting to sense it.  People were there on the edge.  So what Polack did was embark on a huge study of mostly western civilizations, he looked at art and science and governments and history.  He just amassed all this data because he was sure if he studied enough stuff cross-disciplinarily which wasn’t done much then, people mainly studied in their own subjects and disciplines, that he could find a pattern that could tell us what would be the factors that would result in a successful reorganization. a successful shift of culture, because sometimes they just use up their energy and they collapse, you know, Rome just kind of fell apart.  And sometimes they go on, some part of them reemerges in a more complex culture and a new way of being and he wanted to see what those factors could be.  So he spent a lot of time studying this, and this was before computers and before people understood systems theory.  So he went and did this huge study and looked at every possible causal factor and tried tried tried and finally what he came up with and it shocked him as well as everyone else, the only correlate, the only causal factor and the dominant causal factor in the successful reorganization of these societies, was was there a desirable image of the future, held by a small enough but significantly aligned, what he called a creative minority.  Did that exist?  If it was positive, the culture went on and, it didn’t matter what was going on at the current time.  There could be war happening, decay, horrible things, but if people had this particular image of the future to motivate them, to draw them forward, the cultures went forward and did not collapse. 

o       A desirable image of the future held by a small but significant “creative minority” that could grow and provide something to organize around

o       Clear and imaginal (not necessarily rational) image

o       Most often, it’s a small group existing on the margins at first

o       There can be a lot of competing creative minorities, question which one will wind up being the one to move the system forward

o       In the beginning, it’s not visible by dominant majority – beginning to live…like a seed crystal.

o       examples:  Christianity; American dream; Jewish covenant; the Renaissance

o       Chiliastic (apocalyptic + utopian)

o       Some systems have collapsed that were seed images, originally (communism in Soviet Union; Nazi Germany) – sometimes the system is in so much chaos during collapse that even a not-so-good alternative that is coherent can take hold

o       This strong image of the future was emerging on the margins of culture.  There were often competing groups and one would be dominant enough to bring some coherence to the idea/image.

o       Susan wanted to find such a group and research it to make that image more visible so that it can become more coherent.  This was in the late 90s. 

§         Paul Ray’s work on “cultural creatives” – new subculture of values emerging for the first time in 100 years.  Very positive.  Decided to use this as her population to study.  From all different walks of life.

§         Went through future-building process with individuals; turned out that there was a lot similar – definite emerging vision of the future.

§         How does this “research” continue?

Questions

seed crystal visions are not always ones that history judges with favor…

when the Russian system and the Weimar republic went into chaotic phase, there were all these other competing visions. And the Nazis dominated because they had a clear coherent vision. 

How much French revolution has taken over our thinking…unique about American revolution is that it was successful.  It was a subgroup or minority that started it.  Adams and Jefferson - the American revolution started way before the war started.  Benjamin rush, one of the founding fathers from Pennsylvania said 10 years after the war ended, the war was just the first piece in a great drama that was unfolding.

Who is to say we wouldn't have a collapse?  There are some indicators in financial market that there is a collapse (imminent).

Brain research - being able to sense the future, the human brain is the most capable organism to sense the unfolding gestalt.  We have this capacity.  The cerebral cortex were a recent development - enables us to envision the future.  On a planetary scale, the internet is the ability to envision the future.

The renaissance - named rebirthing time during the time….within 30 years.  It was a tiny group, 1000 people. 

GUIDED VISUALIZATION
Sharing of our Images of the Future

What would be a process that we could engage in that would allow us to go into an exploration of the images that we’re holding and could be part of this seed image. 

• Human soma is wired for sensing into the future (when we are not so involved in the busy-ness of the logical mind that we can’t be aware of it)
• Otto Scharmer’s work on presence states that imagination is an organ of perception

Images that came through:

Peaceful, full, healing gardens, temple space where young women come to me for initiation and healing; people singing; magical cat was with me – feeling of fullness and peace and that people were in order in harmony with earth and community of people.  In temple space young women doing art; creating objects that represented harmony – my face much older but much more peaceful and serene – happy

2012 – similar images of temple, young women – living exactly where I live now – when I looked in mirror, lighter, healthier and younger than I look now – in my box was a pitch pipe and I was getting everyone together to sing; I was speaking to large groups of people – we had already gone through whatever the crisis was

10 years from now – very much today, writ large – lots and lots of information – constant sense of mild overload – TV and computer screens had disappeared because whole walls were that – I had my community, felt financially secure, almost everything about my life was better – pieces of the world were better (developing countries had more – more relief aid and the US had finally joined the world community), but a lot of suffering – headlines of day were Asian nations in nuclear stand-off over drought

2020 – crisis had happened, and still lot of repercussions, but we were a whole as a world – political will had emerged out of the crisis – a lot of creative energy was gong into recreation – community I was in (I and others) knew our purpose; had been called together for some engagement in soul work – transportation had no noise – had information (like library) in us – sitting in circle communicating – filtering information, just getting exactly what we needed when we needed it.  Spiritual computing.  Using full human capacities and intelligences.

Lot of self-contained communities that were connected – existing under the radar of a very threatening force – sort of fascist gray energy between the communities – all the communities were co-creating and producing more than they needed and sharing what they didn’t need – gardens flourishing – communities multi-generational and not single families

10 years out – peace and calm that seemed to be everywhere – people were doing whatever they needed to be doing – working with other women from multiple cultures and there was ease there – as vision progressed, I was in Central America – could look back at America and see that the eastern portion of the US was gone – there was rebuilding, didn’t sense chaos, but rebuilding; where I was was a safe and quiet place

Mine was about 12 years out – I was in school yard and I was in supportive capacity to teachers – child gave me a blue metal box and in it were a piece of wood, a stone and a feather

20 – 30 years out… a very peaceful place, didn’t notice cars – sound of bee, children’s laughter, many domains of activity – could go to farming area; places to talk about ideas; places to play – had a sense that I knew what I needed to do – right away, I knew whether there was a need to do something for the community – we were aware of many other communities around the world; when they came either coming with news of some terrible news of natural disaster or coming with good news; mentor was old, big person – genderless and as I received my box I thought I didn’t need anything and saw that it was a little piece of flesh – shaped like a penis or was it a small piece of labia? –

Saw little islands of cultural creatives holding space until system has collapsed enough to hold something new and fresh

Place where we honored and hugged each other and really knew each other and what the day was about – quiet mode of transportation out to join a choir – both artistic and communicative – gift came in a lovely little box and a balloon came out with a string and I held on to the string and headed up.

I had islands in a large sea of chaos and misery, death, etc.  day started alone and moved into more and more contact with others – had more of a sense of self as a pattern of energy than as an object – school where each level mentored the level below, yet with overarching presence of the adults – gift was very moving – mentor was very shadowy sort of figure – gift was a ring with a stone into which I could look and have brief eye contact with people from my past with whom there was some misunderstanding and have a moment’s glance of understanding with that person.

Remember opening a box and what leapt out was a little round mirror that reflected the light that was present and gleamed – something about reflecting the light that is there – when you see something positive reflecting and amplifying it (today we’re reflecting the negative more)

Surprise Process
 

A question was already written inside on a sheet of paper that is neatly folded up.  Sit with the question for a while just holding the piece of paper (you don’t actually get to read it – just sense into it), and then something will come to mind (image/word/phrase) and then record it on the outside and then open it up and see the connection between the two.

NEXT STEPS - Participation in a larger project related to this and what will be happening in the future of this?

Next step, take it away from me as an individual researcher and create a systemic way of pulling forth this vision.  The work is to make it more conscious and more coherent.

Interest and next step?  How do we collect this image in a systematic way to bring forth this image that clearly rests within a group like this already.  And/or to support those seed crystals into greater coherence.

Download a pdf of Image of the Future by Polack

http://futurefeeder.com/index.php/archives/2005/02/03/the-image-of-the-future/

Polak’s “the image of the future” is still relevant even 50 years after its first print.  Polak argues that the human condition is bound to its self-conscious image of the future.

“The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures.  As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom.  Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive.”