Dawn of an Era of Well-being

Even though he has just celebrated his 90^th birthday, Ervin Laszlo’s energetic commitment to his mission of worldview shift remains admirably unflinching and unflagging. He continues to produce significant creative and strategic contributions, as witnessed by these four books published in the last two years. Needless to say, there are many overlaps of mutual reinforcement, but the messages are so important that they bear repetition and reiteration. The first three books also contain significant contributions from other thought leaders including Deepak Chopra, Neil Donald Walsh, Jean Houston, Stanislav Grof, Karan Singh, Gary Zukav, Gregg Braden, Kingsley Dennis, and even myself. These provide convergent and clarifying visions as well as templates for action.

My Journey outlines Ervin’s three incarnations as musician, academic and systems theorist, and activist, all of which represent aspects of his quest for purpose. These phases exhibit an openness to transformation and a progressive clarification of his vision and understanding grounded in a nonlocal quantum paradigm, systems theory and evolution. The other authors take Ervin’s autobiographical account as a point of departure for further personal reflection, and there is a comprehensive index of his books from 1963–2021.

The Wisdom Principles is a schematic handbook of timeless truths of wise thinking and timely wisdom as a guide to good living. The first part distils the author’s philosophy of coherence, evolution and the fundamental reality of consciousness as a nonphysical force in the universe. Purpose is seen as evolution towards higher levels of oneness and ‘more profound and encompassing forms of love.’ The second part contains many practical suggestions, including the need to discard the old and embrace the new in terms of reviewing beliefs, rethinking aspirations, challenging irrational practices and expanding our identity so that we can reconnect to the source and live beyond fear, with a reminder that change comes from the periphery rather than the centre. We need to champion new forms of politics and business already promoted by the creative minority. Ervin sees the new imperatives as thinking globally, relying on inner authority, living in harmony with diversity and finding meaning through intensive development. All this contains a great deal of relevant detail and pertinent questions summed up in the wisdom credo (p. 129) and three declarations (pp. 203 ff.). Pier Mario Bava contributes a perspective from the life sciences, Maria Sagi from health and healing, and Kingsley Dennis on wisdom for the young.

The next book, Dawn of an Era of Well-being, is written with Asian business leader Frederick Tsao, who provides a very interesting take from traditional Chinese Philosophy to engage with our monumental challenges, which represent an opportunity to forge a better future and a different normal based on a transformed mindset – to be distinguished from the ‘new normal’ promulgated by the World Economic Forum that is fundamentally based on mechanistic rather than quantum science. The authors rightly insist that Worldviews are the foundation of culture in a context where change is required at all levels in view of the realisation that the old systems are obsolete, in spite of institutional attempts to sustain them. New views on the nature of reality and consciousness are emerging on the margins, and have yet to achieve much traction in the mainstream.

In discussing the quantum paradigm in society, the authors advocate the wholeness principle whereby what is good for the whole is good for the part, in contrast with our existing part-based understanding typified in the invisible hand of Adam Smith. Tsao provides an excellent overview of the essentials of the Chinese philosophical system, both from Daoism and Confucian relational ethics embodied in the Great Learning. If only the Chinese could implement ‘collaboration in diversity’ rather than seeking to impose conformity in the name of security, though developments in quantum leadership are promising. Seven thought leaders provide their own powerful visions for healing and well-being, of which Ervin summarises the hallmarks as wholeness, love and an expanded identity.

The final book also has the makings of a social movement with a corresponding website (https://www.upshiftmovement.com/), coining the word upshift and proposing a detailed blueprint for a grassroots co-creative way forward to a flourishing future for life as a whole within an expanded holistic, eco-systemic and spiritual worldview. Ervin identifies mindset as the crucial factor and calls for creativity and diversity, responsibility, and planetary consciousness based on ‘the vital interdependence and essential oneness of humankind, and conscious adoption of the ethics and the ethos that this entails. Its evolution is the new imperative of human survival on this planet.’ The second part reiterates many of the principles outlined in earlier books on the basis of being the change we want to see, all of which is brilliantly summarised in a series of updated beliefs (p. 98) and a compendium of visionary insights. The final section gives the transcript of an interview I conducted with Ervin for IONS earlier in the year.

Although I am a firm believer that fundamental change comes from the periphery and margins and is initiated by small creative groups, I am still left with the question articulated by the abolitionist Frederick Douglass when he wrote that ‘Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will.’ The new normal envisaged by the WEF with their Fourth Industrial Revolution is not humane in advocating a technocracy based on universal surveillance, tracking and control, and which is grounded in the mistaken idea that humans are merely machines or hackable animals. Klaus Schwab made the following statement at the most recent WEF meeting in May 2022: “Let’s be clear, the future is not just happening; the future is built by us, a powerful community here in this room. We have the means to impose the state of the world.” Indeed, they have already succeeded in implementing key shifts and policies towards a transhumanist digital technocracy during the pandemic with their Great Reset supported by almost all governments around the world, many led by former WEF Young Leaders such as Trudeau in Canada, Ahern in New Zealand and Macron in France. Moreover, the Rockefeller Foundation is currently funding the ‘Mercury Project’ using behavioural psychology to increase vaccination demand – a blatant exercise in propaganda and attempted narrative control: “This innovative partnership will support research teams seeking to evaluate online or offline interventions to increase Covid-19 vaccination demand and other positive health behaviours (sic!), including by targeting the producers and/or consumers of inaccurate health information and/or by increasing confidence in reliable (sic!) health information.”

The inexorable trend has been towards centralised authoritarianism and the decline - even demise - of deliberative democracy and Enlightenment principles of free speech and human dignity. The system on which these technocratic aspirations are based will need to collapse in on itself in order for Ervin’s new quantum mindset to arise and prevail; it will also require active resistance to these plans at a time when technology in league with government and powerful corporations has the power to silence creative dissidents and emotionally manipulate the general public to scapegoat and vilify these same people, dividing in order to rule. Our very humanity is now at stake, which makes Ervin’s vision and the generation of radical and conscious social movements even more critical. There are distinctive signs of collective spiritual awakening, but we are locked in a cosmic struggle between the forces of love and those of corrupt, coercive power using the ultimately Satanic weapons of fear, domination and manipulation to suppress our sovereignty and deny our innate divine nature. Now is a time for strategic vision, a new story and firm resolve to persist in our creative transformation for which we can draw inspiration from Ervin’s life and writings.