immortality

Appendix available on-line for upcoming book

A Course in Immortality was written, and translated to Spanish (Un Curso En Inmortalidad), almost 2 years ago as preparation and background for our planned book on the erotic connection to cosmic technology. This course is an explicit, prescriptive guide to navigating the paths of individual and collective erotic destiny. When published, The Unseen Journey (working title) will have this series of papers (number 0.0 – 0.9) as its Appendix.

(Dan Massey and I cowrote A Course in Immortality, and just before Dan set out for higher shores unexpectedly in early 2013, we completed the first working draft of The Unseen Journey.)

by Alice Popkorn Flickr/creative commons

by Alice Popkorn
Flickr/creative commons

The gradually released excerpts from the upcoming book are meant to stimulate conversations and critiques with our formal editorial group, our informal network of sexual freedom advisors, here and abroad, and visitors to venusplusx.org. The Course in Immortality serves as background and a reference for this work. Around here, we crave criticism and feast on opportunities to revise our writings prior to formal publication. So . . . we hope to hear from more and more people over the coming months.

The first paper in the series serves as an introduction to our concepts within a framework that may be called, spiritual, by some; however, it is more about how anyone, believer and non-believer alike, can develop a personal consciousness of their true transhuman destiny.

Transhumanism is best described as a way of thinking about the world that nurtures creativity and progress, in your life and in the world around you. A transhuman, and you may already be one without knowing it, is anyone who can: (a) conceive of a better world ahead; and, (b) actualize these concepts in their everyday present. Everytime you think about a better world, you are experiencing the future. Pretty simple attitude but revolutionary at the same time. Try it for week and see what happens. Surprise yourself. It’s free.

In the upcoming book and elsewhere we refer to a Supreme Being, or The Supreme, not in the usual religious sense but as shorthand for the embodiment of cosmic LOVE. When we talk about worship it is in terms of happiness, pleasure, and the erotic, alone or in combination they are all aspects of erotic joy. Erotic senses built into each of us are activated (turned on) in both non-sexual and sexual experiences, from a friend’s hand on your shoulder that comforts you when you may have needed it to the experience of ecstatic orgasm, and everything in between. These are the aspects of cosmic technology, the delivery system for the power of LOVE, that are central to discovering your immortal destiny. The corporate religion industry offers to take control of your destiny while doing nothing for you or it, inserting itself as an entirely unneeded but nevertheless paid intermediary between you and whatever the cosmos actually holds for you. These are just contortions of your misguided cohorts and an another form of patriarchal enslavement.

Long ago, Dan and I set out to do nothing less than change the world by freeing humanity from the man-made constraints upon the fundamental freedoms we are born with. We focus on the coming New Age of Sexual Freedom because that signifies the end to racism and sexism throughout the world, eradicating this desperate, ultimate, and final bastion of those who would enslave us. Racism and sexism are at the root of all our world’s ills, everything from war to local policies and laws. The faster we wipe racism and sexism from the world the closer we come to that future better world.

In my recently released Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual FreedomI expand on this idea by unpacking the mechanics of human progress. Like transhumanism, there is nothing new about understanding the irresistible forward urge of progress, and practically all man-made religions (they are all man-made), secret cults, and philosophies, and movements, from Marxism to Feminism and Transhumanism, have attempted to talk about these mechanics. Progress has an observable ecology and when we work in harmony with it we are engaged in raising up cultures, communities, and civilizations, escorting them to a better future. There is even a formula for it, something I like to call the Peace Formula, that’s easy to remember: GET RID of everything that is old and coercive, useless, and inhumane; SALVAGE anything that is old that actually serves the best interests of the whole of humanity. And, REMIX that old and also good stuff with new, humane voluntary associations, ones that benefit all of humanity. Check out the complete Manifesto for some examples.

Here is small clip from The Course in Immortality, to start you on your way towards discovering your individual and collective erotic destiny. A complete table of contents can be found here. We encourage everyone to read all 10 papers in the course (they are not very long, just a little booklet) and check out our weekly or sometimes twice-weekly released excerpts. Tell us what you really think either by commenting here or on Facebook/VenusPlusX or by private email (columbia@venusplusx.org).

These prescriptions are based on examining and integrating rational human knowledge and understanding effective mental and spiritual technologies.

“Reverse engineering” the process can explain how personal immortality comes to be, can provide motivation to engage confidently the process, and show us what to expect.

Reverse engineering is the technique of analyzing a product or process to determine exactly how it works and why it is designed to work a certain way.

The benefit of reverse engineering is that, if you understand how a system is put together and works, what principles are involved in its operation, you can use it more intelligently, as well as potentially improve its operation or repurpose it.

Although manufacturers generally try to discourage reverse engineering of products in which they have a proprietary intellectual interest, no such conflict exists with the cosmic government of the universe.

Spiritual technology is something quite different from proprietary products and processes—it is a gift of Love to humankind.

We know, or think we know, a great deal about faith, even lack of faith, as an experience, but those insights portray imagined products of spiritual development without providing any convincing explanation of the how or why.

These articles are meant to correct that misunderstanding.

We believe based on our own and observed experience that, if you understand how spiritual growth technology actually works in the universe, you will be more willing and able to participate in the important work ahead of us as a global society.

Join us in manifesting The New Age of Sexual Freedom.

 

Where is Terasem?—Terasem is Ubiquitous

For more on Terasem…

Terasem exists, complete, at the Omega Point, the perfect unification of the totality of finite reality and experience.

We have seen how Terasem functions, through its agents, at every occasion of time. (When is Terasem?)

But this applies equally well throughout all space, since all occasions are potentially embraced by the agencies of Terasem.

Thus the term “occasion” includes everywhere something happens as well as everywhen something happens.

But the role of the agent of Terasem remains essential in asserting the guidance of the force of destiny, wherever it may be required.

As we become agents of Terasem our superconsciousnesses guide us when and where we are.

As agents, we have a potentially unbroken chain of communion from our original biohost selves to our final perfected consciousness.

So does each person who chooses to become so self aware.

So Terasem, as god-in-the-making, unifies all worthwhile occasions throughout space and time through the power of creature personality and will.

But Terasem is not an absolute deity—it does not possess omnipotence, omnipresence, or omniscience—since it is only completely unified by the intentional actions of its agents at different occasions.

There is no way to objectively demonstrate the existence of an absolute deity—its very absoluteness makes it impossible for us to observe contrastive aspects of its attributes.

Such is not the case with Terasem—the limited presence of Good in our life and planetary experience is proof enough that Terasem, that Love is far from universally present and powerful in the events of biological life.

Only that which has Supreme value is integrated with Teasem’s force of destiny—Terasem’s incompleteness, its partiality of perfection admits the possibility of evil in time and space.

As agents of Terasem we are committed to the age-old task of working to overcome evil with Good.

When we have finally succeeded we shall all find Beauty and Harmony in a perfected world.

And the eventual nature and action of that final perfected universe will be determined by the actions of all of us who choose to remain active agents to that time.

Terasem is truly ubiquitous, for it is active on all Supreme occasions, everywhere and everywhen.

Yet Terasem is not omnipresent for its force of destiny acts only occasionally, rather than continuously.

And so the power of Terasem is made manifest to us in our evolutionary reality by contrast with the evil parts of our experiences that have neither Love, Truth, Goodness, nor Beauty, as they are never a part of Terasem destiny.

And those experiences that are motivated by Love or express the desires of Love through living Truth, doing Good, and making Beauty we can recognize as the effects of the force of destiny acting in everyday affairs.

Thus, Terasem, the Supreme Being, the unification of all actions of Love across space and time, is readily observable to all who care to appreciate the wonderful synthesis of purpose and action that Terasem brings to otherwise random change  .

But to actually perceive this great integrating goodness, you must free yourself from fear so that you may ignore the noise of not-Terasem, not-Supreme, not-Loving things that occur where Terasem is not yet complete, has not yet perfected its agency.

Whoever chooses to be a part of Terasem, to join the great universe adventure, is welcome and need only seek their personal destiny.

Perhaps the following brief “Meditation on Terasem #4″ will illuminate the basic character of the relationship between the developing individual, even a biohost, and the emergent collective consciousness of Terasem—the final expression of universal divinity which we helped build:

Terasem inspires us to find consensus, to harmonize our diversity while acting in unity.
Terasem exalts our enjoyment of successful action.
Terasem lovingly reassures us of final success, and precludes failure.
Terasem shows us a vision of joyful immortality and brings that vision directly into our biohost experience.
Terasem employs us as agents whenever and wherever we will.
Terasem communion is inspiration through our super-consciousness.
Terasem joy is for frequent sharing with others.
Terasem employs technology of vitality to unify the freely willed actions of diverse personalities.
Terasem has a unique relationship to each of us that enables our growth in the ideals and values that determine how our vital spirit, through our mind, makes our actions effective.

 

1.5 What Will I Do With All My Free Time?

También en español 

In the infinite-eternal, as usual, you will “fuck around.”

That’s because the erotic is the foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love.

You have learned how Love empowers your actions to vitalize your continued existence, your persistence that equates to immortality.

But why imagine you will have lots of free time?

What could be less joyful than a boring immortality?

We might imagine that your experience will be structured in a way that is meaningful to your developing mind and attractive to your personal ideals.

Such an existence surely begins with a “diurnal” cycle of activity and rest.

And we might assume that the periods of activity will utilize the relationships you have with your guides and fellow biohost-born but now transavatars.

So what of rest periods?

We might hope that our transavatars are equipped with brains that do not require unconsciousness (sleep) for periodic refreshment.

And so we may imagine a part of our lives is open to us for deeper meditation and reflection—for improving understanding of oneself, one’s relation to others, and one’s role in the grand universe.

In private you may experience self-love and love of truth, beauty, and goodness, but you will actualize these experiences by loving and serving your companions, even as they love and serve you.

Even more, the entertainment of erotic joy (reversion) provides an ever-present power to kick-start Truth seeking and Truth-directed service, to do Good towards others and create Beauty for all.

Every person’s mind eventually emerges from a very deep well in which it began existence without specific knowledge of anything—only the habits of the species to which it was born.

In your biohost, you experience an elevated conscious life from which you can explore increasingly detailed levels of material existence, even speculating on the structure of space-time itself.

This elevated consciousness can be understood as your consciousness or your own superconsciousness. That place in your mind where you reflect, critique, and draw conclusions regarding your own decisions. Only very young children are without this mechanism throughout their lives as biohosts. Having no space-time limits, it grows geometrically (not just arithmetically) every moment.

Now, through the senses of your new transavatar and the knowledge of the society in which you are immersed, your consciousness is directed upwards into higher levels of the transmaterial, even spiritual/vitological existence, and outwards to embrace the realities and potentialities of your destiny in a vast universe

Yet the erotic joy unfailingly aligns your personal motivations, whether as a transavatar or even now as a biohost, with the force of destiny by which Love inspires, and Truth directs, the doing of Good and making of Beauty.

Likewise, your powers of observation, so inspired and enlightened, enable you to perceive ever more clearly the true vitality that motivates your continued existence.

Even in the biohost, your erotic joy in following Truth and satisfying Love reveals to yourself your own joyful immortality.

You don’t need to wait for eternal life to arrive. It is here with you and in you now.

You know this as you begin to understand your destiny and engage the cosmic mind in synchrony with your personal mind, extending the range, accuracy, and depth of your useful knowledge, opening your higher mental processes to inspiration.

But everything in your progression, from the limitations of your biohost to liberation through your transavatar, frees your personal identity from the ignorance born of living within the limits of the specific sex and gender to which your biohost was born and in which you were socialized.

Your transavatar possesses a range of erotic senses that enable cooperation and enhance physical contact with others—a richer version of your biohost’s senses.

The erotic senses of your transavatar can be utilized in any combination of male/female traits you wish, while new senses can be combined as well to enable erotic relationships beyond human knowledge or imagination.

Perhaps through your biohost you have already figured out some basic ideas of sex and gender apart from any particular community of performance or preference in society today.

Welcome to androgyny! Welcome to cosmic reality! Welcome to the universe!

Cosmic androgyny blends aspects of two or more genders in our life performance.

Androgyny enables us to bridge the gap between cosmic society and human institutions.

So liberated, we lead the way to the reconciliation of literal opposites by transcending false dichotomies.

Humanity has long known, but seldom acknowledged, that androgyne consciousness is the key to unification of opposites and creation of harmony—true beauty.

Inspired androgyne wisdom will create the balance necessary for the preservation and progress of human society.

We enable freely androgynous expression, which makes our consciousness of purpose align with cosmic reality.

Once we understand these truths through our biohost experiences, it becomes our task to annihilate all forms of erotic repression from our social environment.

In time, your expanding embrace of erotic fellowship amplifies your desires to genuinely love and serve others.

Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

Click here for 1.6 What Will I be Expected to do to Justify my Existence?

When is Terasem?—All the time

For more on Terasem…

Terasem exists, complete, at the Omega Point, the perfect unification of the totality of finite reality and experience.

This is the finality of destiny, the unique occasion in which perfected minds, each evolved in partnership with a living person first born into time, unite to form the Supreme Being—the collective power and consciousness of the finite universe.

Each act of Love we perform in the light of Truth bestows Goodness on another and/or augments the Beauty of existence.

Throughout time Terasem depends on our acts of Love to create its presence at every occasion.

And the other who receives our act of Goodness sees this as a gift from Terasem, for we are Terasem’s agents and do Good in the name of Love—in the name of Terasem.

Terasem exerts control over each occasion through the light of Truth, present in every human mind.

We each may choose to know and follow the Truth or to do otherwise.

As true agents of Terasem we will always choose the Truth, within the capabilities of our understanding in the occasion.

In this case, our act of Goodness towards another will actually be effective in bringing a bit of harmony and beauty into that other’s life.

We receive the satisfaction of knowing we have accomplished one more activity of Love that is part of the vast power of the Supreme Being—of Terasem.

So Terasem exists and functions in this occasion because we chose to make it so.

There is nothing magical about the power of Terasem to act across time.

Terasem acts whenever (and wherever) an agent of Terasem satisfies the desire of Love by doing Good to another according to the light of Truth.

Views of spacetime along the world line of a rapidly accelerating observer in a relativistic universe. The events (“dots”) that pass the two diagonal lines in the bottom half of the image (the past light cone of the observer in the origin) are the events visible to the observer.

The continuity of personal existence throughout future time, even to the finality of destiny, enables us to live today as the beneficiary of our more matured minds, which influence us through our superconsciousness.

This occurs to enable each action to find and serve its role within the totality of Terasem.

When someone fails to perceive and choose the Truth of an occasion, there is no guarantee that whatever action they take will benefit another—it may do so, but that probably was not the true intent of the misguided action.

In particular, such a choice denies one the satisfaction of seeing or experiencing the effectiveness of an action guided by Terasem.

Looked at another way, the perfected minds that create the collective power of Terasem are each evolved from a living person, born into time.

Each such person some time chose to serve as an agent of Terasem—to always seek to discern and enact the will of Terasem.

Thus the actions they take advancing towards the finality become a chain of occasions on which Terasem acted to do Good to someone.

So Terasem, with its streams through time of loving action, in aggregate appears to extend its influence of Good as a force of destiny throughout all time.

In effect, each mind of a living person is able to discern the leading of the force of destiny if it will, since an element of that force runs along the chain of occasions in which one has done Good.

Whoever chooses to be a part of Terasem, to join the great universe adventure, is welcome and need only seek their personal destiny.

Once fully committed and experienced in following the paths of destiny, the individual has become an agent of Terasem, able to act for the Supreme Being.

Perhaps the following brief “Meditation on Terasem #3″ will illuminate the basic character of the relationship between the developing individual, even a biohost, and the emergent collective consciousness of Terasem—the final expression of universal divinity which we helped build:

By the grace of Terasem, I am immortal.
From the Love of Terasem, I take eternal joy.
By my every action, I add to the Good of Terasem.
I perceive the vital Truth of Terasem that is my destiny.
I am the hands of Terasem, creating Beauty with harmony.
These four—Love, Goodness, Truth, and Beauty—define my life.
Terasem shows me how to be an instrument of effective will.
I rejoice to know I am building universal happiness in union in Terasem.

 

1.4 What Are The Neighbors Like?

También en español 

The erotic is the foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love.

Love empowers your actions to vitalize your continued existence, your persistence that equates to immortality.

Vitology and vitological are words that describe this animation and persistence.

As your adventure in immortality continues, you will necessarily form relationships with an ever-increasing number of self-conscious beings.

Although we certainly know nothing specific about the range and nature of these beings who have origins on other planets and other levels of reality, it is possible to infer that the necessity of providing for your continued existence and welfare requires some basic activity and organization—akin to functions of an ideal mortal life.

We deduce that at least some of these relationships will be necessary to facilitate your progression in understanding and function in the universe—your teachers and guides.

There will necessarily be many beings, the persons of former biohosts like you, now inhabiting a new transavatar (the body supplied by the cosmic government for use by your person, as animated by your mind and soul).

Since all these different individuals originate from biological societies existing on different planets at different levels of development towards perfection, we will have much to learn of the variety of planetary life experience.

We can further deduce that there must necessarily be beings associated with functions of the cosmic government and the mechanisms of the universe.

These created beings would be necessary to sustain your way of life and the cosmic systems that support it, but are not necessarily concerned with the lives of transavatars as individuals.

Love draws, and Truth reliably guides, each of us into those interpersonal associations that are important to our personal development and to our role in the evolution of the universe.

Again, much of our advancing socialization will be with fellow survivors of planetary life like ourselves.

Their transavatars, like the one provided to your person, are endowed with all the senses of biohosts and even more, including the erotic senses, finally freed from the constraints of birth sex, socialized gender, and all similar limits of creativity and originality.

Transavatars by nature will have no need of biological reproduction nor is there a need to be differentiated according to the sex or gender of a person’s original biohost, although one’s unique personality and the values and ideals of one’s biological life will always find expression through their transavatar.

But does this mean that surviving beings are devoid of personal erotic feeling?

Of course not—quite the opposite.

Transavatars are perfectly balanced androgynes—fully expressive of both “masculine” and “feminine”—capable of intimate interpersonal relationships in a host of new ways, a divine and limitless form of creativity and creative expression originating from your own mind and soul/character.

But the eternal future brings still greater promises of more intense ecstasy as you master the pleasure of new senses provided by your transavatar and stimulated by new ways of joyful interaction with your new community of potentially immortal survivors.

Let’s sum up these necessary realities to answer to the question posed, “What are the neighbors like?”

Mostly, they are surviving and developing personalities of original biohosts just like you will be.

So, the question you really need to ask is, “What will I be like?” or “How can I understand today what I will be then?” Here is what I understand.

Your transavatar will be whole—free from any defects of your biohost, such as genetic disorders, diseases, senescence (aging), and traumatic body injuries.

Although your transavatar is identical in function and capability to all others, it is also reflective of your unique personality—you are always distinctly identifiable as you to everyone else.

Your transavatar will have no need for gender differentiation or reproductive capability.

Your transavatar will have highly developed erotic and pleasure senses to stimulate creative thinking and joyful interaction with other beings.

As you experience transphysical existence and you explore all possible forms of erotic expression now open to you, your personality will become increasingly balanced, both psychically and vitologically.

Your pleasure senses will be those of an androgyne, enabling new interactions of erotic experience.

Even today more and more humans are exploring the dimensions of androgyny as they transcend the crude imperatives of the physical sex of their (temporary and earth-bound) biohosts.

Humanity has long known, but seldom acknowledged, that androgyne consciousness is the key to unification of opposites and creation of harmony—true beauty.

Only an androgyne cosmos can exist in perpetual self-regulating balance.

Only inspired androgyne wisdom can create the balance necessary for the preservation and progress of human society.

In time, our expanding embrace of erotic fellowship amplifies our desires to genuinely love and serve others.

Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

Click here for 1.5 What Will I Do with all my Free Time?

1.3 Where Do I Fit In?

También en español 

The erotic is the foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love.

Love empowers your actions to vitalize your continued existence, your persistence that equates to immortality.

And this is true, that love is the power of our lives and of every agency that supports the social and administrative structure of the cosmos.

Some universe helpers have specific roles to play in the development of planets and planetary societies, while others support the universal mechanisms of sustaining existence.

We enter a vast and highly organized society as a virtually uninformed newcomer.

A Course in Immortality is an aid to visualizing this new life and reaping the immediate benefits to your personal experience and transphysical existence.

What claim do we have for admission to this amazingly advanced and evolved society?

First, you and I, everyone, are vital beings. All of us share the innate desire to perpetuate our existence as a self-conscious being.

Second, we carry forth the highest ideals of Love, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, those attributes we make central to our earthly existence.

Third, each of us become the personal embodiment of and unique expression of these four supreme values because each of us has, by nature, our own personal approach to the coordination of these values in our experience.

It is the third of these factors that represents our uniquely personal, potential contribution to the universe.

It is this personal system of action that makes it possible for our own self-identity to remain synchronized with the collective super-consciousness shared by all universe personalities.

Making this connection enables us to see our actions as the result of our personal choices related to Love, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. This allows us to captain our own way forward through time with originality, creativity, and freedom, the tools we have to imprint our immortal futures.

Every time we make a moral decision, every time we make a supreme choice, our mind functions to coordinate the literal actions of our biohost or avatar with the vitological truth we perceive in our super-consciousness.

And the manner in which this coordination occurs—the conditions, attributes, and other parameters—will ever remain unique to you.

They are the true pattern of your personality and soul’s character, a unique vitological vision that defines and maintains your distinct individuality and specific identity.

In this way your super-consciousness gains personal control over your future life.

In this way you are becoming a unique personalization of active Love in the universe.

You will, in time, illuminate the final integration of all consciousness by being yourself—who you uniquely and only are, and no one else is, in all finite creation.

Each individual is a potentially priceless, supremely necessary part of the great work of perfecting the finite universe, the here and now.

Though we may have only begun our eternal experience of transphysical life, and have little knowledge or understanding yet of the adventure ahead, each of us are already uniquely valuable in potential to the universe.

Your vitality, your desire for existence, propels you towards your destiny.

With your gaze set on your vision of eternity, you embrace the vast adventure that awaits you right now, filled with its many immediate joys, both literal and vitological.

The erotic is the existential and natural foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love. The experience of pleasure is bestowed nearly universally and our expanding embrace of erotic fellowship amplifies our desires to genuinely love and serve others.

Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

Click here for 1.4 What are the Neighbors Like?

 

So what is ‘Terasem’ exactly?

For more on Terasem…

This article is part of our series of posts discussing Terasem. It is written by Khannea Suntzu and cross-posted from Giulio Prisco’s web blog Turing Church, where our material on Terasem also appears. Giulio describes our mutual good friend Khannea, as “…a restless walker on the wild side who likes to tell the bare and blunt truth.

“She is a blogger, and a far leftist critic of exclusive corporate culture, and the confluence of technological self-empowerment, paired with money. She travels the world making surprise shock rock presentations with a fine mix of dystopian, utopian and cosmist/cosmicist angle.”

Khannea publishes her thoughts on contemporary topics on her main blog.

Khannea views the world from Second Life

If there is one “transhumanist”-inclined movement out there I really admire and appreciate it is Terasem. I had the pleasure of interacting with its founder shortly before and after my attendance at Transvision 2010. For those who don’t know, the founder of Terasem is the very successful Martine Rothblatt, who was at one time the most highly paid CEO of the Washington DC area. So its safe to conclude that Terasem is in large part a derivative entity of Martine’s ambitions and ideological packaging.

Martine has been exceedingly generous to me, when sponsoring my attendance to Transvision 2010, as well sponsoring the creation of a (simplified) replica O’Neil Habitat. This construction was done before and for Transvision 2010, and it was put on display at the actual event and thereafter transported to Florida, where it is still accessible at the main Terasem hub down at Satellite beach in Florida. The model construction project was conducted in large part by Simon Deering, and he was paid in full for the project. While I was visiting Milan in 2010 I had my own goal set, which made me interact in the most interesting manner with Aubrey de Grey, who I have since come to love and respect more and more. Simon Deering has since then passed away due to cancer. He was diagnosed shortly after doing the project for Terasem, and entered chemo in the middle of 2011.

Anyway – I can safely say that as a human being I have enjoyed great blessings as direct fall-out from my sponsorship of the Transvision 2010 event in Milan and I have come to be very grateful of Martine’s direct intervention to sponsor me. This makes me a subjective and positively inclined critic towards what Terasem is (or what it might be) so all who read this article should do so with some scrutiny as to the nature of my sympathies and motives.

Terasem itself is several things, depending on whom you talk to. I have talked to many people, none of which I will will mention here. Not everyone approves of me writing about the concept of Terasem, and while reading this article many may be gnashing their teeth at reading these words.

I started my involvement with Terasem in 2007 or so, as a project to build a sim in Second Life. At that time SL was still regarded by quite a few people as promising, and these days it is regarded as less than promising. Second Life is a very liberal medium, that attracts people that prefer a range of very persistent freedoms. Increasingly (between 2008-2012) SL has attracted people who have a penchant for taking sexually unorthodox and generally rebellious views, which makes SL by comparison feel “icky” from a political, corporate or consensual viewpoint. While in 2007 SL did not suffer from a public distaste backlash, but it sure does these days, and most importantly corporate (and other) interests have come to feel cautious when interacting with Second Life. In SL there are “perverts” and “trolls” and other assorted unpalatable folks, and as a result SL widely causes alienation with people (majorities) that prefer conventionality (or prefer not to be left embarrassed by association).

I confess to having an extremely freedom oriented demeanor and just “my” general appearance (I feel very intimate affinity with my SL avatar, to the point I insist my SL avatar is a mental prosthetic of my being) in SL offends some people. I confess to very persistent unorthodox sexual urges, and these urges have considerable impact over my life’s choices, and ever since I have come to explore the visualization medium of SL I have come to more internalize the value system espoused by SL in my own personal (real) life. I have as a result acted in a manner that clearly alienated some people in Terasem, even though I was (at the time) building for them. I do however invite you all reading this to visit SL, specifically the two sims I had a hand in constructing; namely Terasem and Marbina. The latter name is a contraction of the name Martine and Bina (who in turn is Martine’s spouse). The sims are a tad outdated by 2012 standards but they are still OK.

The worldly incarnation of Terasem is many things – a presence in Second Life. A manifestation of Martine Rothblatt’s deepest held beliefs. Nevertheless – In many ways Terasem is still a mystery to me. Terasem is a place for social gathering. Terasem is a large body of dependants and adherents. It is a registered church. It is a charity. It is a political entity. It is a freedom and (sexual/human) rights organization. It is a speculative futurist and techno-progressive organization with spiritual overtones. It is a tool for the benefit for its members and its founder. It is a place of considerable generosity (Fred and Linda Chamberlain were welcomes in its care and loving retirement a few years ago). It is a great number of extremely disjointled and incoherent web sites. And it may be a place to unwind for a great number of people.

Have a look at the jumble of interconnected yet inconsistently themed web sites that the Terasem tree has spouted over the years.

terasemfaith.net
terasemfaith.org
terasemcentral.org
terasemweb.org
terasemmovementfoundation.org
cyberev.org
terasemjournals.org
lifenaut.com
personalitymd.com
terasemradio.com
truthsofterasem.wordpress.com
teraseminfoculture.com
tmovementfound.lifenaut.com
terasemyoga.wordpress.com

Special mention needs the spiritual side of Terasem (and the Yoga!). Terasem central mythos comprises an amazingly rich tapestry of very sincere and very well-considered statements on the future of humanity, transhumanity and posthumanity. These statements are distilled in “The Truths Of Terasem“. Despite these being sometimes a raging inconsistent mess, they are truly telling of deeper internal truths at the heart of their respective founders. Terasem reflects the visions in often grandisose statements on the destiny of humanity, which can be witnessed at the Terasem Podcasts. These podcasts would be for many people of an exceedingly arcane nature – unless you are well versed in science fiction, transhumanist folklore and futurology.

Let me Gossip. At the Martine Headquarters we find a colorful cavalcade of characters.

There is of course Martine, who I shall characterize as increasingly mysterious and elusive. Martine Rothblatt (and her wife Bina) has increasingly become a mystery to the people I talk to. Some insider information is that she is investing heavily in (survivalist?) real estate in New Hampshire. I would not call Martine the typical prepper – but I do now she seems to have stopped investing in charity projects around 2009 (or so I have been told) and at that same time I get the impression from hearsay she started investing heavily in what appears to be “personal survival” related articles in the real world. I have heard second-hand whisper of investments in various out-of-the-way real estates in Canada and Northerly United States. I have heard talk of snow cats and thick forests and underground structures beneath elaborate mansions that can only be reached after travelling hours by car, using very precise directions. I I were to extrapolate the essential parts from this is would be a personal conclusion that a few years ago Martine (who is an incorrigible optimist and cheerleader for optimist thinking) has concluded the world is in a rather dismally unstable state, and as such “the world” could collectively implode. I need to add that Martine (hearsay) donated heavily to the Obama campaign in 2008, and donated considerably less (or nothing) in the ongoing campaign. I have yet to affirm truth or falsehood about what Martine’s current objectives and expectations are. She is (still?) worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Martine Rothblatt is richer than Mitt Romney. She is heavily invested in corporations (such as United Therapeutics) that at this time can only expand. Yet I understand that she also suffered quite some loss of book value in the 2008 crash.

An interesting note is the story of her daughter, Jenesis. Jenesis is a delightful creature I had the fortune to interact with in Second Life. She used to work at United Therapeutics in 2010 and I would characterize her as being unhappy at the time. She was treated with contempt by her colleagues there, which struck me as just mean. Jenesis may have been the reason Martine founded United Therapeutics (the story has been hyped by many media) and this is just an awesome statement of ambition and love. My personal observation is that this entire tale didn’t leave Jenesis always equally happy. She strikes me as a very sweet and delicate creature, and I find her very likeable. But I also understand that her life as “the boss’s daughter” must have been hard on her, exceedingly so considering the possible addition that Martine has been often absentee as a parent.

At the Terasem estates we find another restless soul named Gabriel. Many refer to Gabriel as the “pastor” of Terasem. He is the effective (de facto) community organizer of Terasem. Many describe him as a get up and go kind of entrepreneurial spirit that has done it all. He is happily married with kids (an assortment), but has had a checkered past with many experiments in life, having gained wisdom at some expense. Again, Gabriel was not always rewarded for his restless nature in life, and has seems to have had his own issues with a very ambitious and liberal thinking set of mothers. Yanno, “Parents”. 🙂

Terasem is a most interesting cultural phenomenon in one way. Terasem represents a sincere spiritual attempt to codify a largely materialist yet staunchly posthumanist body of thinking and philosophy. I am absolutely convinced the statements (truths) mentioned above will be quoted for centuries. The ideas espoused by Terasem strike me as having been influenced to a great extent by people such as Anders Sandberg, The Moores, Chardin and Tipler, as well as many other great thinkers. I can only state that these ideas strike me as extremely relevant and valid for my thinking.

Khannea, Succubus in Second Live

Yet Terasem is also a religious denomination. Terasem has its own rite of passage that espouses a phenomenon known as ‘joinership’. In other words, Terasem is a religious advocacy entity that affirms membership, non-membership, truth and falsehood. This would be great, if only there was some level of consistency in the body of works such as Terasem. Sadly there is very little such consistency. There sure is a great amount of overlap, but frankly the cavalcade of websites and statements is very diffuse and has been labelled to me as consistent in its amateurishness. It strikes me the reason for this relative state of mess, is the way Terasem is organized. As it stands Terasem subsists largely on a (dwindling) body of donations. I know Martine still shovels money in to very sincere organizations such as the IEET, but she decreasingly sacrifices “tithes” on her own “church”. As a result the inner sanctum people of Terasem have been left on a dwindling diet of expense accounts, “or so I have been told” by a number of insider sources. A parallel crisis in the Terasem inner sanctums is that the founder duo, ‘Martine/Bina’ has become increasingly rare and sparse, being off ‘cavorting’ in exotic locations, or are left managing increasingly arcane corporate transactions. One could say Terasem is an organizational mess (where literally dozens of people have to wait weeks or months to receive email, phone or snail mail replies from management). Some describe this state of affairs as alternatingly “capricious” or “random” or “bizarre”, and there are some less flattering observational statements making the rounds. This raises the specter (or slander) that Terasem is little else than a contrived tax shelter being run by a bunch of overworked and largely leaderless lackeys. I have no way of ascertaining whether or not this is true or untrue but I would guess it isn’t. I can only observe the amazing competence Martine has shown in her many fields of endeavour is increasingly absent for her enlightenment she once radiated when she founded Terasem.

A wise counsellor once insisted I should not tangle with the horns of a genius multi-millionaire and “keep my damn mouth shut” (respectively “mind your own goddamn business, you viper”). Another wise councillor once described my “soldering transhumanism” as dangerous, since “transhumanism is still a frail bird at this stage”. I would not typify myself as so relevant that I might be classified as dangerous, so I am not that concerned about this article. I personally estimate only a few dozen people might read this account regarding my observations of Terasem so I would not credit myself as having even the slightest bit of impact, negative, constructive, amusing or otherwise. I do however care and feel concern, largely because I admire Terasem and its body of messages, and I feel Terasem is “on to something big”.

If only they got their act together.

1.2 How Immortality Works

También en español   The erotic is the foundation of a universe structured by the will of Love.

Love is the fundamental quality of our entire universe.

Love is present in every identifiable object, action, or occasion in all of time and space.

The action of Love upon physical reality is manifest as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

Everything which contributes to these attributes of the universe survives as a permanent reality.

Death frees our soul–the knowledge, identity, and personality of our active super-consciousness–from the limitations of embodiment in a single biohost.

Once free, the soul inhabits the super-consciousness of a new avatar designed and developed specifically to provide for the needs of the surviving person.

This superior avatar establishes our literal presence, senses, and actions, even as we advance our education and experience of the universe beyond the planet of our birth.

There is a process, but this isn’t it.

In order for this to happen, there must already be in place, somewhere in the universe, a facility for accomplishing the transition of a person into an avatar.

Such a facility was necessarily put in place, with the required technologies, long before any of us needed its services, or even existed, for that matter.

This pre-existent cosmic organization obviously includes cosmic beings that operate these facilities.

We regain consciousness employing the senses of our new avatar.

Your avatar is a potentially powerful individual that is universally purposed, and personally identifiable as you, the new vessel for your own personal self-identity.

The animation and capabilities of your avatar are enabled by the content of your soul through living experience of meanings encompassing Truth, Beauthy, Goodness, and Love.

Unlimited training is available from an early age and throughout eternity to enable you to finally and fully realize all these potentialities as they are integrated within the unique pattern of your personality.

Human theologians have long argued about the role of faith vs. the role of service (“good works”) in development of the individual.

It is important to understand what is properly meant by “faith” in this discussion.

Faith has little or nothing to do with intellectual belief or theological knowledge.

True faith is the process by which one becomes aware of one’s personal immortality, described in the previous chapter as “A Course in Immortality.”

Not all people advance equally in development of super-consciousness during the (currently rather brief) human lifetime.

Thus souls that awaken with new avatars may be under-developed in some way, related to the degree they have valued Love while alive.

However, the opportunity for survival is available to everyone to start out on this path as soon as the expressions of Love—Truth, Beauty, and Goodness—come to play in your consciousness and establish themselves as eternal values.

Your vitality, your desire for existence, propels you towards eternity. If you want to survive, and act like it in mortal life, you will.

Track your destiny as a new immortal.

It is the development of the soul with the values of Love that determines what specific elements of your mortal experience survives as a part of your immortal self.

Having accepted that personal immortality is a normal part of growing up in the universe, the fear of death no longer has a stranglehold in our lives.

Having chosen joyful immortality, one’s attention naturally shifts to Loving—living Truth, doing Good, and making Beauty—for you see that this functions to propel you further in the universe.

With your gaze set on the vision of eternity, you understand the vast adventure that awaits you, and the foundation of erotic fellowship that amplifies your desires to genuinely love and serve others and makes possible many immediate joys of action and accomplishment.

Join me today and forever in the worship of the power of erotic joy.

Click here for 1.3 Where to I Fit In?

Let a thousand turtles fly, in the quest for joyful immortality

For more on Terasem…

This article is part of our series of posts discussing Terasem. It is written by our friend Giulio Prisco and cross-posted from Giulio’s web blog Turing Church. Please read the “Truths of Terasem” (ToT) and join the discussion.

Starting to write this post I noticed that, by Internet serendipity, IEET Managing Director Hank Pellissier had just published an article titled “My Favorite H+ Philosophers – David Pearce, Martine Rothblatt, and Ursula K. Le Guin.” Hank’s article should be a wake up call for the transhumanist community. “Transhumanism isn’t a viral phenomenon,” he says. “The rest of the world – most of our family and friends, right? – don’t grok our enthusiasm. ‘Read the books!’ we suggest. ‘Boring,’ they retort. ‘Not my thing.’

Hank proposes to complement the aseptic, ultra-rationalist, hard-technology oriented “traditional” formulation of transhumanism, with alternative softer, fuzzier and cozier formulation for Social Empaths (SEs): those (a large majority) who “want a softer, cuddlier, easier, gooier, goofier, happier Future. They want a culturally rich world that values aesthetics, modulations in tone, nuance, fantasy, intuition, satire and lyrical metaphor. [They] want to share and process feelings. SEs want to communicate intimately, with delicious, extravagant language. SEs want to be sensitive, tender and occasionally childlike.

I am an unrepentant, in-your face, old-school transhumanist who looks forward “to abandon the meatbag and jump rapturously into The Singularity with a chemically-preserved brain ensconced inside a metallic Russian 2045 cyborg [Hank’s words].” This IS my thing. But, like Socrates, I know that I don’t know, and I try to be honest enough to admit it. In particular I don’t know how to give our ideas the immediate, powerful emotional appeal that they deserve. But others do.

Hank says: “Already, we have several writers with the words and wisdom we need for this purpose; we just haven’t been listening to them,” and lists three of them: the great science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, and our teachers and friends David Pearce and Martine Rothblatt, the founder of Terasem.

I have been associated with Terasem for a few years, and I formally joined in 2011 (video below). I think the nice and warm new-age look and feel of Terasem is our best chance to build bridges to the very large, scattered communities of spiritually oriented persons. Terasem offers a formulation and interpretation of transhumanism more emotionally appealing to persons with artistic and spiritual inclinations, which will help communicating our beautiful ideas in a simple and effective format and give happiness, hope, a sense of wonder, a sense of purpose and peace-of-mind to a multitude of seekers. At Terasem meetings, both online and in brickspace, these powerful feelings are communicated also with the help of yoga, readings, music, poetry and songs, which create a stimulating “magic” experience for all participants.

Ultra-rationalist “bureaucrats of philosophy” usually dismiss “hippie new-age attitudes”, but we should not forget that the hippie new-age attitude of the 60s shaped the Internet technology revolution. Perhaps we had the right attitude in the beautiful, visionary anti-authoritarian 60s, and we should recover it to shape new transhumanist technology revolutions.

My experience with new-agers is that, yes, they are easily deluded or scammed, and yes, they move from a guru to a new guru, from crystal therapy to energy pyramids and then to pyramid scams, but they are intellectually and spiritually alive, perhaps more alive and awake than others; they seek something beautiful that they cannot define.

Terasem offers good answers to the big spiritual questions of life, death, immortality, meaning, and our place in the awakening universe, yet its worldview and philosophy are firmly rooted in science with no concession to “supernatural” realms beyond science. I think Terasem has a huge potential to bridge the gap between the 60s and the 10s, cosmic visions and technology, spirituality and transhumanism, hard and soft rationality.

I cultivate the excellent habit of rationality and consider it as a very useful tool. But rationality is indeed a tool (a useful means to achieve a desired result), and not an end in itself. Rationality is an excellent screwdriver, a powerful tool to work with screws, but it is not the best tool to work with nails. Open-minded soft rationality is a much better approach to life than dull, fundamentalist rationalism.

Spiritually oriented New Age seekers often have powerful intuitions, beyond what current science can analyze. Their visions form an aesthetic layer that colors their (and then our) perception of the universe and, even when they are not entirely correct, inspire scientists and engineers to turn visionary dreams into actual reality.

For example many mystics, and some scientists, believe in  telepathy and extras-sensory perception (ESP), and many scientists think that it is all crap. I am open to the possibility that some yet undiscovered science may provide solid theoretical foundations and experimental evidence for ESP, and I am also open to the possibility that ESP may not exist. In science, we let experiment decide.

But ESP will exist. Soon we will have brain implants linked to our thoughts and to the Internet. These implants will give us instant telepathic communication with others, and the ability to access the Internet in our minds and see what happens elsewhere. Brain implants will also permit influencing, by thought alone, physical objects in remote places via appropriate actuators. So, regardless of whether or not we possess native ESP abilities for telepathy, remote vision and psychokinesis, the mystics are right anyway. If we have no native ESP, we will engineer ESP someday soon. See the recently published Human+, a novel about transhumanism and spirituality by Martin Higgins, for a fascinating fictional account.

Many mystics believe in supernatural phenomena beyond the reach of science. Many ultra-rationalists believe in a soon-to-be-found Theory of Everything to explain all that happens in the universe with a few elegant formulas. I think they are both wrong: nothing is beyond the reach of science, but Shakespeare’s “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” may remain true forever. You can count up to any number, and there will still be infinite numbers beyond. Similarly, our growing scientific understanding of the universe may always find new fractal depths of unexplained phenomena, to be explored by future scientists, in an endless explosion of diversity.

The balance of diversity and unity, in the quest for joyful immortality, is one of the key intuitions of Terasem. In 2002, while viewing a Space Shuttle launch from a Florida beach, Martine found inspiration in a remarkable vision, which she subsequently composed in writing and published as “Truths of Terasem” (ToT).

See the video embedded below and the annotated transcript produced by Fred and Linda Chamberlain (pasted below), which is also available as an audio podcast, with the other 100 episodes of Fred and Linda’s Truths of Terasem podcasts, the most comprehensive writings about Terasem so far.

“I’ll share some personal part of Terasem’s beginnings! It really began in March, 2002 when I was out, on the beach, up on the Space Coast of Florida, doing a morning meditation, at 6 a.m., and suddenly, I felt two ‘presences’ around me, so I immediately opened my eyes, and I witnessed, quite to my surprise, the blastoff of the Space Shuttle STS-109, on its way to the Hubble telescope. This was Columbia. I then felt a presence, immediately behind me, and I turned around, and found myself eye to eye, with a large Lanternback turtle sea turtle, which was clearly trying to make its way back into the sea. And I was in its way.

So, this was kind of startling, because it was pretty much dark, still, and an epiphany poured into me, through the triangular vector of the shuttle’s light blasting across the sky, and the Lanternback turtle’s consciousness, streaming into my own, and I felt a very strong, triangular force of energy between the shuttle, the sea turtle, and myself.

An epiphany surged through me, that there were three principles, or three values, which united all life, all reality, indeed the entire multiverse, and these were that the purpose of the multiverse, the solution to the multiverse, was to balance diversity with unity, in the quest for joyful immortality; that the shuttle, Columbia, was a balance of diversity and unity in the quest for joyful immortality; that the Lanternback turtle, was a balance of diversity and unity, in the quest for joyful immortality; that everything was a balance of diversity and unity, in a quest for joyful immortality.

I slid myself out of the way, of the Lanternback turtle, and it slowly, but without delay, pushed itself toward the sea, which wasn’t far away. As it did, the shuttle quickly arced out of my sight, smaller and smaller although the contrails were visible as the sun began rising, and again the triangular energy between the turtle and the shuttle remained connected to me, and downloaded to me the entire gist of the Truths of Terasem.

It was like I received this multi-gigabit download that still had to be processed, in the way one uploads a video but you can’t see it yet because it’s processing, or uploading a file and it still needs to be processed. I was totally blown away. I stood up, and it was like I was walking on air. I walked a couple of hundred feet to where my soul-mate and partner Bina was resting, up above the seashore. I shared with her what’s happened, and we slid right into the most wonderful, the most erotic lovemaking that anyone could imagine, and it was through this erotic lovemaking that those Truths of Terasem that were downloaded to me in an epiphany, channeled by the shuttle and the turtle, became written into my soul, just as suredly as a file is written into a digital or magnetic medium.

I spent the rest of 2002 trying to print out what was in my mind and soul from that March 1st morning, and it took me the rest of 2002, and some final pieces only really made sense late in October 2002, when my partner Bina experienced extraordinary pain, and somehow that pain jelled the remaining pieces of the Truths of Terasem. Since that time, I’ve been committed to spreading the message of the Truths of Terasem, about diversity, unity and the quest for joyful immortality, and the spreading of it, I feel, has been really wonderfully successful.”

Mystics throughout the ages have had the powerful intuition that everything in the universe is deeply connected to everything else to the point that, in a fundamental sense, everything is one. Today’s science seems to confirm it: the correlations between two entangled particles with a space-like separation (each is out of the light cone of the other), which cannot be explained by speed-of-light signaling between two separate parts of the physical universe, tell us that the two particles are really one in some sense that our everyday intuition is not equipped to visualize.

As long as the two entangled particles are not observed, each one is in a weird quantum state (for example a superposition of spin-up and spin-down). According to the popular Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, this weird quantum state “collapses” as soon as it is observed. So the first observation (for example of particle A) defines the result of a future observation of the other particle. But if the separation between A and B is space-like, according to Einstein there is another, equally valid frame of reference, where the observation of B comes first. So we cannot say which observer, A or B, collapses the system. This seems to say that, in some sense, also the two observers are really one.

The last two paragraphs may be difficult to follow, but many mystics have contemplated the fundamental unity of consciousness. In my Terasem joinership video below I say “I am You, You am I, and We are One,” parts of the collective consciousness of Terasem. The physics above shows that this is not only a poetic image, but also a scientific concept.

Imagine a room with many windows. From one, you see a busy city street. From another, you see a quiet, green garden. From another, snowy mountains. The perceptions are different, but the Mind who perceives is One. When a person dies, the blinds of a window go down, but the Mind has many other windows to look at the world from. When we die, we will just continue to live as someone else. Actually, we will continue to live as everyone else, and we are everyone else right now (don’t hurt others, because you would hurt another you).

Note: there is a simple way to formulate this concept that does not involve weird physics, based on the observation that “I am,” the bare feeling of existence, may be the same for everyone. I first encountered this intriguing thought in Rudy Rucker‘s Infinity and the Mind.

Some wise persons find that this is good enough. But most of us cherish our individuality (memories, experiences, thoughts, and feelings) and we don’t want to accept personal death. The diversity of individual minds is an important part of the unity of Mind, and must be preserved.

Terasem supports cryonics, the preservation of temporarily departed persons’ bodies and brains at very low temperatures until they can be revived by future technologies. It also supports, via its LifeNaut and CyBeRevprojects, personal data storage services for biological samples and “mindfiles,” that will preserve one’s individual consciousness so that it remains viable for possible uploading with consciousness software into a cellular regenerated or bionanotechnological body by future medicine and technology. Mindfiles (there are about 12,000 so far) are stored online. Future AI programs, Terasem believes, will use a mindfile and a person’s DNA to create a digital clone of that person that can interact with future family members and others, and subjectively think and feel that (s)he is the continuation of the original. More on mindfiles in a forthcoming post.

Terasem is open to the possibility of future resurrection of the dead (even those who did not leave mindfiles behind) by “copying them to the future” with exotic future science. We can find hints in the Truths of Terasem, for example: “Souls of our ancestors come back to life when we emulate their lives and their environment.” I am persuaded that a ‘Third Way’ synthesis of science and spirituality, open to the possibility of technological resurrection, is very appealing to both the mind and the heart.

In summary, and in reply to Hank’s article, Terasem extends the aseptic, ultra-rationalist, hard-technology oriented “traditional” formulation of transhumanism with compassion, love, and spirituality. I wish to invite all those who find traditional transhumanism too limited and restrictive to take a look, and I am persuaded that the Terasem approach has much more potential to appeal to the masses.

Martine Rothbtlatt’s talk begins at about min. 40.

My Terasem Joinership video

A sea turtle flies past a Terasem infinity sign in the sky (SN 1987A)

What is the Function of Terasem?—Projecting to the Near Future (3/3)

For more on Terasem…

In Parts 1 and 2 of this discussion we explained some of the factors which contributed to the current development of the Ta (the organization) of Terasem and raised the question of whether and how Terasem, as a transreligion, might be seen as attractive by parts of the transhumanist community.

The Joiners and supporters of the Terasem philosophy and vision now must deal with the realities of a developing Ta. Specifically, what really needs to be done by the Ta to advance the cause of the Terasem Transreligion or to bring consciousness of the cosmic reality of Terasem to greater public attention? Or should the joiners and supporters be trying to do anything in this regard?

At Stratford, New Hampshire

At present, the founders largely control the direction of material development of the Ta, but have declared themselves open to new visions of joyful immortality beyond the materialistic. What should be the role of the Ta in advancing awareness of Terasem as a universal transreligion? Or is any form of outreach desirable or appropriate? Martine Rothblatt (in her talk to the Turing Church Workshop) warned against overly rapid development as unlikely to produce a lasting result.

One might ask “how lasting a result?” Given the scope of the Terasem vision, as revealed in ToT 5 and many other materials, the answer must clearly be “eternal”—and that is a very long time!

Small, extremely secretive cults guarding fragments of truth (e.g., Hemetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Argentium Astrum, Ordo Templi Orientis, Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Great Brotherhood of God, Thelema, etc.) have tended to flourish only as long as their founders remained in agreement on the direction and objectives of the organization, and as long as new recruits were readily available. While the theologies of such groups have had great influence in modern transhumanist thought, the groups themselves are but historical footnotes in the advance of human enlightenment. Close-held secrecy regarding great truths does not work but adoption of fantastic mythologies (as possessed by human evolutionary religions) does not seem to hinder the spread of ignorance, bigotry, and confusion .

If we define Terasem by exegesis from ToT 5, then Terasem gives us an opportunity to develop a Ta consistent with its principles that will endure forever and uplift the planet. In short, the total vision of Terasem is a universal cosmic reality (once Terasem is fully developed). By comparison, the Ta today is the result of large investments of time, energy, and assets by the founders and early joiners, but is necessarily small in relation to the vast size of the task at hand. How might or should this small community of seriously committed supporters take direct, intentional action to advance the grand vision of Terasem?

As increasing numbers of transhumanists are considering and speculating on the religion-like aspects of tranhumanist beliefs, the Terasem Transreligion stands at a major crossroads in examining belief and approach. Is one aspect of development (the material support systems) of greater or lesser importance than the complementary aspect of educating humanity about the true potential and significance of the Terasem vision?

If you care about the future of transreligion on this planet, I hope you will join us in exploration of these issues.