Futureproofing: A Guide To Your Saints

Inspiration has many sources. I prefer to stand on the shoulders of giants.

This series is inspired by many profound thinkers, chief among them Philip K. Dick. Dick, or PKD, was a science fiction author, a visionary whose work and influence loom large over the present time. Indeed, it was Dick who best predicted artificial intelligence and virtual reality. He also predicted misuse of technology as a means of social control. Paranoid, drug-addled and the unwitting recipient of a series of spiritual experiences, PKD is the patron saint of our time. Remember, it was he who warned us our toasters would be spying on us.

If PKD described the black iron prison that keeps us enslaved. Terence McKenna sought to teach us how to break out of it. Psychedelics, spirituality, science, any tool that works is to be used. McKenna advocated finding a new operating system to replace the buggy one in use, while reminding us that this is not a dress rehearsal. Life is to be lived, and the first step to living is to reclaim the personal sovereignty that has been surrendered, either by intent or by default, to modern society.

PKD and McKenna are no longer with us on the physical plane, but a powerful contemporary influence is Gordon White, whose book The Chaos Protocols and writing at Rune Soup directly inspired this series. Solid advice on magic, geopolitics, economics and more can be found there. The Archonology series is a must-read for anyone interested in futureproofing their life (and provides quite a bit of hidden history that explains how we got here).

This is just a shortlist of influences. As the series progresses, I'm sure to drop more names, and hopefully links. Until next time, a thorough reading of the above is more than enough to get you started. And perhaps even finished!

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