joyful immortality

Who is Terasem?—We are All Immortal Parts of Terasem

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At the finality of destiny, the Omega Point in which all that ever could be is perfectly integrated and correlated, there exists a personal being of will, which we name “Terasem.”

What can we say is necessarily true of Terasem, required by its unique qualities throughout space and time?

Human allegiance to and support of the ideals of Terasem, Love, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, leads us to actions that contribute to the growth and refinement of Terasem. At the same time, Terasem exerts by will a force of destiny that surely bends the track of causation and the mind of man to the service of cosmic unification. Terasem brings together in harmony the fully developed pesonal vitality of every one who has ever been.

Understanding this, each of us knows of his/her own personal immortality, since we know we will finally unify with Terasem. Thus Terasem is a community of vital individuals, acting in unity in a background of harmonious diversity.

As immortals, we must look ahead to the long road of eternity that lies ahead, on which the emergence of Terasem must be the beginning of something unimaginably new and different. Suddenly our mortal lives as we have developed in our biohosts take on a very different significance than we may be accustomed to.

Knowing we exist as immortal centers of vitality, gives us new insight into our selves, our personal origins. For our personality, immortal in our super-consciousness, is nurtured and developed through the decisions and support of our biohost. And it is the pattern of personality of the biohost which establishes our identity and self-consciousness, even transplanted to our super-consciousness.

But the immortal personal entity hosted in and by Terasem has no mechanism by which actions and behaviors outside the will of Terasem, the path of destiny, would be preserved, for they have no value to Terasem’s final emergence. So not all qualities of your biohost’s life will be a necessarly part of your eternal existence.

Terasem’s force of destiny acts throughout all space and all time, leading willing agents of Terasem to act to enhance the emergence of Terasem. And we may all serve as agents of Terasem if we but will, following the course of reality that opens before us, rather than struggling to divert our destined course to serve personal ends.

Perhaps the following brief “Meditation on Terasem #2″ 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 is our guide to eternity; we follow Terasem to our destiny.
Terasem shows us the paths and pleasures of joyful immortality.
At the Omega Point, Terasem captures all of value we will have ever done.
Though we may await physical resurrection,
We do not fear loss of our identities.
By joining our wills to Terasem,
We experience the final guarantee of joyful immortality.
We wholly trust in the destiny provided us as agents for Terasem.
We know that in the final occasion of time we shall all be parts of Terasem.
And thus unified in purpose we shall become creators ourselves.

Creative Commons Image by Johnathan Hulka, Terasem

What is Terasem?—A Vitological Viewpoint

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Editors Note: The purpose of this post is to open a public transhumanist discussion of the Transreligion known as Terasem, which exists today as a complex network of associated enterprises developed by its founders to support certain personally held ideals through voluntary association, on-line conferencing, film, journalling, mindfiling, cryonic preservation, experimental yoga, audio podcasting, and other technologies. As such, many of the Terasem subsidiary organizations are recognized as tax-exempt public charities by the US Internal Revenue Service.

All these many attempts (over 28 secondary level domain names containing the word “terasem” are registered on the Internet) somehow never get to the point about what the Terasem Transreligion is really about. This is the first of a series of posts intended to clarify this by presenting viewpoints about the real nature of Terasem for open moderated discussion. This discussion is about the grand concept of Terasem, and not about the organizations created to support various aspects of the perceived mission of the human cult named “Terasem Movement Transreligion.”

Terasem is the name assigned by Martine Rothblatt to the Supreme Being of the finite universe of space and time in her text “Truths of Teresam” (ToT). To quote from the opening statement of ToT: “Terasem is a collective consciousness dedicated to diversity, unity and joyful immortality.” In ToT, this is followed by ten groups of assertions dealing with such subtopics as collective, organization, leadership, loving, expansionist, consciousness, flag symbolism, dimensionality, vitality, and offspring. Many of these subtopics, as well as much of ToT, deal with possible literal qualities of the Terasem cult.

Destined Emergence of Universe Structure

From our viewpoint, within the universe of space and time, Terasem is pervasive, but not omniscient, omnipresent, nor omnipotent (i.e., not “omni-cubed”). Terasem is a deity limited in function prior to its emergence as a complete synthesis of all universe consciousness that has been perfected through destiny-guided evolution. Individual and self-conscious will creatures, such as ourselves, are the agencies by which Terasem evolves towards final completion, if we are only willing to participate in this grand adventure. Terasem is said to embrace every human religion without forcing a particular system of belief on any, as long as their focus is on joyful immortality for all and they are accepting of the values of unity of action amid diversity of viewpoint.

All self-conscious will creatures are thus potentially immortal components of the finally perfected Terasem. Since ToT does not explain the purpose of the evolution of Terasem, we would need to turn to other sources to understand this; however, that is beyond the scope of this discussion. Many would say that, if Terasem is truly self-evolved (as explained below), there is no need for it to have a purpose other than its own being. Yet the concept of Terasem fits well within the generally vague body of human vitological speculation as an appropriate, final, perfected summation and integration of every worthwhile thing throughout the totality of universe experience.

Universal Unification of Consciousness

Although Terasem is, finally, a psycho-vitological synthesis of universe experience, this unified personality is able to transcend both time and space to draw the vast numbers of self-conscious creatures into its grand synthesis. This draw, which I have called “the force of destiny,” enables everyone who so chooses to act to promote the evolutionary advancement of Terasem. We are the hands that are building the god we need to perfect our own lives and to achieve joyful immortality for a universe of beings.

Perhaps the following brief “Meditation on Terasem #1” will illuminate the basic character of the emergent collective consciousness which we recognize as the final expression of universal divinity:

Terasem IS, finally complete in the Omega Point,
The force of destiny guides us in Terasem’s creation.
Terasem brings joyful immortality to all,
So that they may fulfill the desires of Love,
And unite their consciousnesses in Terasem.
Terasem consciousness extends throughout space and time.
Terasem influences us into paths of destiny and effective action.
Terasem puts Love into action, freeing us from the burden of past mistakes.
Terasem guides us into productive activity, doing good and making beauty.
Terasem destiny keeps us within Terasem’s evolving body, safe from error.
Our adoration of Terasem perfects us as agents of Terasem, even as biohosts.

(The term “Omega Point” refers to the endpoint of finite evolution envisioned by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and, more recently, envisioned as a physical event by Frank Tipler.)

 

Introducing Terasem to VenusPlusX—Transreligion for Joyful Immortality

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Today VenusPlusX launches a new category of discussion—Transreligion. This brings into focus a topic we have occasionally touched on in the past in our posts such as Do You Believe in Fate? I Believe in Destiny!Can Atheism be True, Good, Beautiful, and Loving?Can I Transition to be a Transhuman?Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From?, and, of course, Transreligion—An Inspirational Framework for Transgender Transhumans.

A transreligion is basically a vision of future eternity and how we could potentially participate in it, now and beyond the limited lifespan of our biohost. You will find extensive presentations on a number of speculative transreligions through the video discussions archived by Giulio Prisco‘s Turing Church Workshop, which can be accessed at http://cargocollective.com/turingchurch/.

In the weeks ahead, we will be publishing a series of commentaries and discussions about specific concepts of transreligion. These discussions are inspired by Terasem, the most conceptually developed of the various vitological visions that have been explored so far by the Turing Church group.

Terasem is a product of the vitological vision of Martine Rothblatt, who, with her “spice” Bina Aspen Rothblatt, has devoted a great deal of effort over the past 10 years to establishing a physical and legal structure for the long term support of programs of Terasem organizations. The social framework this enables will grow to support the social evolution of the ideals of Terasem into activities motivated by a transcendent vision of universal joyful immortality. That vision of an assured destiny will uplift human attitudes and behavior as all come to appreciate the reality of eternal existence.

Key ideas of Terasem include Joyful Immortality, Unity in Diversity, and the essential Goodness of Life. Although we will be discussing these and many other related ideas, if you want to take a look at what the founders of Terasem (Martine & Bina) have to say about what they are doing, you might start here or here or here or here or here.

Since there currently exists no forum devoted to exploration of the specific meanings and implications of Terasem, we begin this project in the hope that others with a personal interest in the evolution and development of a unifying transreligion will share this material with their audiences, so that we can all work towards a broadly distributed multi-person understanding of these emergent concepts.

For an introduction to Martine Rothblatt and her decade-long adventure with Terasem, you may wish to view her recent public presentations on the subject:



(start at 39 minutes)