Is sci-fi prophecy, predictive programming, research done right or manifestation?
As the world looks more and more like a science fiction story every day, it can be hard for me to discern what exactly this genre is doing. I’ve talked a few times about how prophetic some of the classic sci-fi novels are and I’m constantly taking emerging media and showcasing all the real-life parallels (check out my Instagram highlight on #SciFiIRL).
But a question I get hung up on all the time is: What is sci-fi actually doing?
Is it prophecy? Are these authors/creators actually channeling answers psychically through creative expression? Is their consciousness tapping into some greater truth when they are in flow state?
Is it predictive programming? Are these stories just plants intended to soften our minds to ideas and concepts we otherwise wouldn’t be on board with?
Is it just well-researched? Frankly, you could take documents from NASA, CIA patents, declarations from tech companies and pharma experiments and write science fiction for the rest of your life just based on real documentation. A look back at history and disclosures and current events basically write themselves.
Is it manifestation? On the other hand, maybe it’s the chicken before the egg. Entertainment is insanely influential. Perhaps by writing these imagined futures, we’re inspiring their creation.
Let’s get into it.
Prophecy
I don’t want to linger on this section too long because I’ve talked about it before. George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Phillip K Dick, Arthur C. Clark all appeared to be fortune tellers as much as storytellers.
One of the most glaring examples that I can think of is Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and its subsequent book. There are remarkable aspects we see in blazing glory in today’s world. She was talking about climate disaster before it was cool, but more interestingly she talked about submersive VR experiences and pharmaceutical companies who provide “smart drugs.” (This is long before everything was “smart-something”. Smart water, smart cars, smart speakers… blah blah blah.)
#SciFiIRL: But her most infamous foresight is a presidential candidate whose catchphrase was “Make America great again.” Seriously. I’m not joking. How? Is? This? Possible?
She wrote the book in 1998. And I can’t imagine a world where the Trump campaign would willfully choose a dystopian villain’s catchphrase.
So can that be anything other than prophecy? Or at a bare minimum, channeling?
With regards to this idea, Butler had this to say, as quoted in the New Yorker:
“This was not a book about prophecy,” she said, of “Talents,” in remarks she delivered at M.I.T. “This was a cautionary tale, although people have told me it was prophecy. All I have to say to that is: I certainly hope not.”
The thing that opened my eyes to the concept that writing was actually a form of channeling, was Lindsay Scharmyn. A fellow fiction writer, she described the experience of storytelling as a psychically charged experience. And I couldn’t agree more. There are times where I go back and read words that I can’t even remember writing. Or when I look at the intricacy of a plot and feel like there was some divine magic that tied all the pieces together.
My lifelong obsession with psychic ability is front and center in my first two books. But I’m finding it’s actually present in all kinds of areas in my creative and everyday life.
I’m drawn to research that is exactly what I need for stories, but wasn’t what I was actively seeking in the moment.
Answers to plot holes and perfect endings and twist and turns literally drop into my consciousness, without provocation. And you can feel in your soul that it’s right.
When I switch gears into writing a new story or a blog post, suddenly, the world begins to shape around that idea.
Twice now, the book I’ve written has immediate overlap with other books/movies being produced as if we’re tapping into the same frequency.
Connections I didn’t know I was making during the drafting process suddenly appear as this intricate web that I couldn’t have conceived fully in my conscious mind.
Synchronicities pile on top of each other when things are moving in the right direction.
And then there’s mother’s intuition, a source of magic that just grows and grows with time.
I am convinced that willfully or by some intelligent design, prophecy and storytelling go hand in hand.
Predictive Programming
What is predictive programming?
According to Ohio State University:
Predictive Programming is theory that the government or other higher-ups are using fictional movies or books as a mass mind control tool to make the population more accepting of planned future events.
They go on to disparage how people who believe in this are mostly conspiracy theorists. But do you really have to label yourself that way to think it’s weird how often we see foreshadowing in entertainment?
Utopia on Amazon I think is a perfect example. What a weird show to have come out right in the middle of 2020. A pandemic surges. A global demand for vaccines takes over the populous. An evil Bill Gates-esque pharma manufacturer tries to stop overpopulation by giving vaccines that cause infertility. And the ragtag group that is trying to thwart this evil plan is on the case because a graphic novel is giving them clues.
Come OOOOOOOONNNN.
If this isn’t designed to make people who question vaccines look like idiots who believe in fairytales I don’t know what is. And apparently the UK version of the show is even more aligned using PCR tests and actually labeling the disease as a coronavirus (I believe, feel free to double check me).
And let’s just say you have no ability to see that… are you familiar with how often The Simpson’s shows exact scenarios years before real-life?
It’s constant. Go look.
At the end of the day, can we at least agree that science fiction entertainment in particular makes things a little easier to swallow? That if you see kids having fun and saving the world in a virtual reality in Ready Player One that you’re maybe a little more inclined to give it a shot? Where do our ideas come from? How do we accept new ideas?
In many cases, our future is handed to us in the form of fiction, so that when it gets here, our subconscious mind isn't thrown off. We also know that governments are decades ahead of technology we see and that there’s an incestuous relationship between the CIA and Hollywood. So is it really that far fetched that they give us a glimpse of what’s to come so we don’t all clutch our pearls? And in some cases, so that we are primed to say “yes please, give me that!”
Well-Researched
Margaret Atwood makes the argument that everything in her novels is based in history or current events. So while it may seem prophetic, it’s actually just telling the stories of humans as they have been and as they will be again.
“History repeats itself” is such a cliche that we don’t take it seriously enough. We like to think we’re progressing and improving, but we see the same things happen over and over again. The rise and fall of tyrants. The cycle from hard times to good times to soft times and back to hard times. The evolution of technology and the side effects of those inventions.
Someone with solid historical knowledge can notice the repeating trends and write speculatively based on what they already know is coming because it’s happened before.
We’re redundant beings and, apparently, forgetful ones. So maybe what we’re seeing in science fiction is just our own amnesia combined with some modern frills.
Aldous Huxley wasn’t seeing into the future because he was channeling information from another realm. He was writing what the future definitely would be because his eugenics brother Julian Huxley was a key player charting the course.
Huxley didn’t make a prophetic guess. He used the intimate knowledge at hand and wrote a book that matched the future that elites were intentionally trying to build. Was it a warning? Perhaps. But it was founded in fact, which is possibly the scariest kind of sci-fi we have.
Julian Huxley coined the phrase transhumanism for the love of all things. And now that concept is EVERYWHERE. Facebook’s move to Meta is transhumanism. The singularity is transhumanism. Genetic engineering and manipulation is transhumanism. The Calico program by Google is transhumanism.
Watch this quick clip about how terrified Aldous was of the world his brother was imagining. Then consider, what did he say they we aren't already seeing?
Manifestation
The thing that is really cooking my noodle lately though is whether or not there is some form of manifestation taking place through speculative fiction. Arthur C. Clark who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey invented the idea of satellite communication.
That’s kind of weird. Don’t you think?
And how often do we see people who watch a movie or show get inspired and even obsessed with the ideas presented to the point where those things leave the page/screen and enter our reality. The OA and its rabid (I mean that in the nicest way) fan base have transcended the bounds of entertainment. It has literally opened a parallel universe by introducing the concepts of parallel universes to an eager audience.
In my own fiction, I imagined a world where psychic ability allowed people to time travel by moving their consciousness forward and backward (and * spoiler * sideways) through time. And almost a year to the date of releasing the first book exploring this concept, I find this dude’s book on Amazon:
The Psychic Time Traveler: We can all do it! by Tim Beaton
Tim Beaton has unearthed another small piece of the human psyche and the potential for time travel.
The Psychic Time Traveler, How You Can Change Your Past and Your Future is the astounding and inspiring memoir of a man who has firsthand experience with psychic time travel.
Throughout history there have been records and documentation of humans experiencing unique psychological happenings—premonitions, precognition, déjà vu, and more. Though these events are often dismissed as simple quirks of the human experience, more modern individuals are beginning to discover just how complex these feelings are—and how powerful.
As Beaton welcomes you into his incredible life story, you’ll witness astounding examples of his ability to foresee the future. His stories have the power to enlighten and convince even the strongest of skeptics.
With space-time memory transfer, a whole new world of possibilities awaits. If you’re searching for answers and dreaming of changing your future for the better, this book will get you there.
Let me be clear… I wrote both my books dealing with this topic from a complete place of ignorance and imagination. I had never heard of the concept when I wrote the entire first draft of my debut. As I began exploring consciousness, the themes in my book expanded. But I still had never seen a real-life account of it until I had written not one, but two fictional stories based on this idea. And trust me, I looked.
It is almost as if writing this fictional subject manifested a world where this exists in my real life. It’s an exciting and weird and powerful and scary concept to get my brain around.
What are we placing into the minds of readers and viewers when we create? Why are specific ideas drawn to us? Can an idea grow into a fully formed reality when we release it from our subconscious into the world? Is that being done on purpose already?
I don’t actually have the answers to that, but I do like the idea of pondering its potential.
If the Netflix’s and Amazon’s and MGM’s and Disney’s of the world know that there is magic in storytelling. Real, genuine, reality-creating magic, what world is it those people are trying to create? And if we as creators possess the same power, how are we countering that?
If the big “they” of Hollywood are trying to steer us off a cliff, how do we build a road block with story? If their aim is to divide (and damn is it working) how do we write stories of unity? If there is a tone in literature telling us we’re helplessly approaching the apocalypse, how can we, as independent, individual creators, manifest a new possibility?
It may make me a weirdo, but I genuinely believe we have the capacity to steer the course as sci-fi authors. There’s proof of that. This genre is something that can be fun, sure, but it’s also something to take seriously. What is your message? What are the themes dropping into your stories from out of the ether? How are you breaking the loop of history? Is there hope? Is there growth? Is there a different path forward? Can a middle ground be imagined? What are you loading your reader subconscious with?
Whatever science fiction is, it isn’t frivolous fun.