As the politics of the upcoming American presidential election begin to heat up, I am reminded of one of my favorite television series from the 1960's: Patrick McGoohan's brilliantly eclectic "The Prisoner."
For those unfamiliar with the classic series, which was imported into the United States by CBS in 1968, the basic plot was simple: A secret agent suddenly resigns his position, without explanation, and minutes later finds himself inexplicably in "The Village," a bizarre international community for persons who know too much.
Many of the seventeen episodes of the original production were built upon science-fiction based technologies to penetrate the human mind.
Some of the strange mind-twisting plot lines from the 1960s involved the use of powerful information extracting "designer drugs," bombardment of the head with pulsing electromagnetic fields and flashing lights, a machine capable of visually displaying a person's drug-induced dream state, projection of information into the subconscious mind for "speed learning," using powerful super-computers, regression of the mind, and the seemingly impossible machine-induced "telepathic" transfer of the mind of one man into the body of another.
For those used to 1960s American television, this was heady stuff, suitably fitting for the post-summer-of-love psychedelic climate of that era.
Like Stanley Kubrick's epic space adventure/psychedelic mind-expansion masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey," "The Prisoner" had arrived at the right place and at the right time.
McGoohan's allegorical vision of spy vs. spy science fiction was also prophetic. Inside every home, around every corner, sights and sounds were monitored by shadowy observers. I am still amazed how quickly this reality has overtaken our modern 21st century lives: the phone in my pocket is also a world wide high definition video broadcast system. The reality has actually outpaced McGoohan's once-fearful nightmare of the ever-present big brother. In 1966, no one imagined the combined power of mobile information and social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
For more about how our modern society has evolved into the world foreseen by "The Prisoner" check out my four-part series "The Prisoner: Mind Control, Then and Now" at the STARpod.org website.
One of the earliest "Prisoner" episodes was also one of my favorites: "Free for All," a wild mixture of mind-bending brain-washing and political campaigning.
"The community can rest assured that their interests are very much my own, and that anything I can do to maintain the security of the citizens, will be my primary objective."
You can catch a preview at youtube.com.
Speaking of mind-bending wild rides, STARstream Research has yet to weigh in with a solid prediction on the 2012 US presidential election. Part of the reason is we are getting mixed messages from our "anomalous mental phenomena" sources, who often inspire new twists into our predictive methods.
One of the most interesting results we obtained in 2009 concerned a possible threat to Obama's address to the Congress on Health Care Reform. Our original notes determined the threat was "null" but then added that someone named WILSON would have a negative impact on that evening's events. Of course at the time we obtained this result we had no idea that Congressman Joe Wilson would shout "You lie!" at President Obama.
Our current best guess assessment of the information at hand is the winner is yet to be "written into the stars" -- psychic spy source Chris Robinson has stated his belief that Mr. Obama will be re-elected to a second term.
Of all the Republican hopefuls only one has elicited an anomalous mental impression of becoming "Mr. President": Newt Gingrich -- and this only recently, as of the first days of December 2011. As I am writing this, Mr. Gingrich has been endorsed by former presidential candidate Herman Cain.
As I wrote to Chris Robinson, "Given the polarity here in US I expect (as a Many Worlds advocate) a major branching of future events (not unlike post-9/11) ... now wondering which branch I will land in :-)"
John L. Petersen futurist founder of The Arlington Institute quotes Newt Gingrich's endorsement of his book "A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change."
Petersen's book, according to Gingrich, "will stimulate you to think deeply about the challenges we face, the solutions we need, and the changes that should occur."
Maybe Mr. Petersen already knows something more about the 2012 elections? We'll just have to wait and see.
"Be seeing you!"
For those unfamiliar with the classic series, which was imported into the United States by CBS in 1968, the basic plot was simple: A secret agent suddenly resigns his position, without explanation, and minutes later finds himself inexplicably in "The Village," a bizarre international community for persons who know too much.
Many of the seventeen episodes of the original production were built upon science-fiction based technologies to penetrate the human mind.
Some of the strange mind-twisting plot lines from the 1960s involved the use of powerful information extracting "designer drugs," bombardment of the head with pulsing electromagnetic fields and flashing lights, a machine capable of visually displaying a person's drug-induced dream state, projection of information into the subconscious mind for "speed learning," using powerful super-computers, regression of the mind, and the seemingly impossible machine-induced "telepathic" transfer of the mind of one man into the body of another.
For those used to 1960s American television, this was heady stuff, suitably fitting for the post-summer-of-love psychedelic climate of that era.
Like Stanley Kubrick's epic space adventure/psychedelic mind-expansion masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey," "The Prisoner" had arrived at the right place and at the right time.
McGoohan's allegorical vision of spy vs. spy science fiction was also prophetic. Inside every home, around every corner, sights and sounds were monitored by shadowy observers. I am still amazed how quickly this reality has overtaken our modern 21st century lives: the phone in my pocket is also a world wide high definition video broadcast system. The reality has actually outpaced McGoohan's once-fearful nightmare of the ever-present big brother. In 1966, no one imagined the combined power of mobile information and social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
For more about how our modern society has evolved into the world foreseen by "The Prisoner" check out my four-part series "The Prisoner: Mind Control, Then and Now" at the STARpod.org website.
One of the earliest "Prisoner" episodes was also one of my favorites: "Free for All," a wild mixture of mind-bending brain-washing and political campaigning.
"The community can rest assured that their interests are very much my own, and that anything I can do to maintain the security of the citizens, will be my primary objective."
You can catch a preview at youtube.com.
Speaking of mind-bending wild rides, STARstream Research has yet to weigh in with a solid prediction on the 2012 US presidential election. Part of the reason is we are getting mixed messages from our "anomalous mental phenomena" sources, who often inspire new twists into our predictive methods.
One of the most interesting results we obtained in 2009 concerned a possible threat to Obama's address to the Congress on Health Care Reform. Our original notes determined the threat was "null" but then added that someone named WILSON would have a negative impact on that evening's events. Of course at the time we obtained this result we had no idea that Congressman Joe Wilson would shout "You lie!" at President Obama.
Our current best guess assessment of the information at hand is the winner is yet to be "written into the stars" -- psychic spy source Chris Robinson has stated his belief that Mr. Obama will be re-elected to a second term.
Of all the Republican hopefuls only one has elicited an anomalous mental impression of becoming "Mr. President": Newt Gingrich -- and this only recently, as of the first days of December 2011. As I am writing this, Mr. Gingrich has been endorsed by former presidential candidate Herman Cain.
As I wrote to Chris Robinson, "Given the polarity here in US I expect (as a Many Worlds advocate) a major branching of future events (not unlike post-9/11) ... now wondering which branch I will land in :-)"
John L. Petersen futurist founder of The Arlington Institute quotes Newt Gingrich's endorsement of his book "A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change."
Petersen's book, according to Gingrich, "will stimulate you to think deeply about the challenges we face, the solutions we need, and the changes that should occur."
Maybe Mr. Petersen already knows something more about the 2012 elections? We'll just have to wait and see.
"Be seeing you!"
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