The Reasons for the “Metamorphosis” Series…

The Reasons for this Book:  

Here’s a test:  Name one book of speculative (science) fiction that provides a positive future for humanity – one that relies on human vision and initiative, not space aliens, impossible technologies or miracles.  Name just one.

And, if you can’t, you have identified both the need and the market for “The Metamorphosis of Humanity”.

This is not really “speculative fiction” in the classic sense, but more of a “future model” of a society that is possible for us to create, like “Ecotopia”.  It is a positive, non-dystopian vision of the future.  (Or, more precisely, a vision that acknowledges our current headlong rush into our mega-crises, and offers a possible way out of disaster.)

Also: Frankly, I’m tired of listening to people, especially young people, whine about “We have no future”.  I’m tired of watching sci-fi writers churn out an endless stream of dystopian, apocalyptic, zombie-filled nonsense.  We need VISION… and here’s one.  If you don’t like it, come up with your own!

Why I am Writing This Series:

This book series was delivered — whole — while I was fasting in a cave at the 15,000 foot level in the Himalayas. (For more on my time in the Himalayas, click here.) It’s taken me 3 years to get it written down.

While the genesis of the series came from that cave high above the Douk River, the foundations for this fictional story come from my very real childhood.  I survived my home town, Camden, NJ – the worst city in America.  Camden was a dystopian nightmare long before the word was popularly known.  Camden was a nightmare, decades ago… and it’s gotten worse.

Growing up in poverty, on welfare, in a toxic environment… that was my reality.  It provided for me a unique perspective on life: not one that is theoretical, but one that is LIVED.  (And, I must acknowledge here the scores of my friends who did not survive Camden.  I must also acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of “Camden’s”, pockets of human misery, that now exist around the world.)

The conditions that I describe in “The Metamorphosis of Humanity” exist RIGHT NOW in places like Camden, like the Native American reservations or the coal fields of West Virginia.  (See the book, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” by Hedges and Sacco.)  The lower levels of the Titanic are already below the water line.

At present, I live in Portland, Oregon – on everyone’s top ten list for “The Best City in America”.  It would be very easy for me to do what many of us do – live my good life and forget about the fact that the decks are starting to tilt – for all of us.

I believe that, as a society, we don’t take action because we don’t know what action to take.  And those who do take action either work to prop up the existing system (attempting to bail out the Titanic), protest the existing system (as though blaming the Titanic’s captain will stop the onrushing waters) or just ignore it, hoping it will go away.

“The Metamorphosis of Humanity” gives people another option.

Some may reject the solutions proposed by Dr. Moore and the Imaginal Group.  That’s great!  I sincerely hope that people feel challenged to come up with their own solutions to the dilemmas posed by the book.  (In fact, I hope that people support an interactive website for the book, exploring alternatives to the chapters – and coming up with new ones.)