Project Mind: The Conscious Conquest of Man and Matter Through Accelerated Thought

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The following is Dr. Peter Lowentrout's review of the book ProjectMind by T.Kun. This review appeared in the Vol. 6, No. 1, 1995 issue of "Utopian Studies" the international, interdisciplinary journal of The Society for Utopian Studies (SUS).

PROJECT MIND: THE CONSCIOUS CONQUEST OF MAN & MATTER THROUGH ACCELERATED THOUGHT, pseudonymously written by T.Kun, is a prospectus for "Project Mind," a "utopian...think tank." With the publication of this book, Kun intends to recruit "those who wish, with their whole selves, to radically transform for the best what we presently call 'reality'." Kun believes that scientific and cultural progress has thus far been driven by "the Eureka experience," brief moments of brilliant insight. The achievement of "Accelerated Thought" in Project Mind, however, will provide a sustained creative vision that will "establish an ongoing link with higher consciousness, producing a powerful cosmic current channeled through human essence from a higher dimension to fuel the transformatory breakthrough science of the future." This new science engendered by Accelerated Thought "will, within a few years, produce such material abundance that the pursuit of material wealth will lose all meaning." Material deprivation and suffering will disappear from the world along with the "greed, envy, sloth, vice and depravity" induced in us by overindulgence and the adversarial competition characteristic of capitalism. We will quickly come to see that "existence is 99.99% spiritual and only 0.01% physical and that we are all brothers in the spirit."

Accelerated Thought, the achievement of which is crucial to Kun's proposed Project Mind, is "a process driven by essential desire whereby the infinite intelligence latent in man finds expression through the rapid revelation of natural and cosmic secrets." Candidates for Accelerated Thought and Project Mind will be deeply creative people who are "if not leaders in their technical specialities, at least highly conversant in some discipline or field of inquiry." They will be people whose adult integrity and strength are "built upon the act of heroic courage in childhood to say 'the emperor is naked,' and who sustained their belief in utopian vision...." Using "special psychological techniques, environmental aids and sophisticated computerization," providing for the material needs and financial obligations of its participants, Project Mind will encourage the development of Accelerated Thought through a bootstrapping process grounded in our "essential individuality" and driven by will and desire. Accelerated Thought, Kun asserts, is "the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy."

If Kun might seem rather vague concerning the exact nature of Accelerated Thought, it might be worth noticing that mystical texts are seldom "how-to" books of the spirit. "The Cloud of Unknowing," Teresa of Avila's "The Way of Perfection," John of the Cross's "Living Flame of Love": even when mystics tentatively point out the Way, much necessarily escapes the text. In attempting to treat the ineffable, something of central importance always eludes words and must be communicated, as Master Huang Po had it, in a direct "transmission of mind," that is, in the direct impact of one's whole person upon that of another.

Kun's utopian mystical project has an interesting originality, but it is not without its antecedents. Accelerated Thought is not unlike Karma Yoga, with it's emphasis upon vigorous and right action in the world made ever more effective through the spiritual benefits that redound from that action. Kun's "Eureka experiences" and "Accelerated Thought" are akin to Maslow's notions of peak and plateau experiences, though the ontology implicit in Maslow's work is pallid in comparison to Kun's. The notion of a coming vanguard of spiritual athletes who will widen the paths into the sacred for the rest of us to trod can be seen in many thinkers in traditional religious communities from Aurobindo to Teilhard and is a belief common to many newly formed religious movements sensitive to historical process. The expectation that profound and wonderful changes will be quickly wrought in the world with the inbreaking of the sacred is a nearly universal religious motif; Kun's startlingly optimistic expectation of such change, for instance, is reminiscent of that found in the early Society of Friends' doctrine of the Lamb's War.

It is often the case that the bald presentation of an author's ideas makes them seem silly and inadequate. Kun's own presentation of his ideas is neither however, and Project Mind is clearly written and well-argued. Within the charmed circle of its own initial assumptions, Project Mind makes good sense. Time will quickly show those assumptions to be either true or false, but if Project Mind goes the way of the Lamb's War, it will still have been a robust expression of that yearning for and striving after a better world that shows us at our very best.

Kun's work is recommended for consideration as an ancillary text in courses on utopian thought and literature. Scholars who are interested in following the development of Project Mind can contact the newly established Project Mind Foundation at 8 Mevo Hamaavak, French Hill, Jerusalem 97877, Israel. (email: [e-mail])

Dr. Peter Lowentrout
California State University - Long Beach
Utopian Studies Journal

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Accelerated Thought - a quantum leap
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This review was written by Francois Jaubert, Beaver Point,British Columbia, Canada.

We live during an age when the diversity and the seriousness of the problems confronting humanity is such that we have no alternative but to achieve a quantum leap in understanding our world, thereby placing ourselves in the position of clearly seeing the absolute necessity for generating breakthroughs of all kinds at a rate unprecedented only because it is commensurate with the immensity and acuteness of our global needs.

The meta-thinking this quantum leap requires itself cannot be achieved by utilising ordinary mental and emotional processes. Highly accelerated results simply demand thought accelerated to a degree which is inconceivable by an ordinary mind, or rather by a mind in ordinary mode. Yet Accelerated Thought is a must if we are to arrive at genuine solutions tailored to the megalithic proportions of our profoundly precarious Earth-wide situation.

A world-based think-tank specifically designed to generate this type of intensely rarefied and extremely rapid proto-thinking is in the process of being established, its blueprint having been published as the book - PROJECT MIND.

A chain-reaction of eureka experiences could so imbue the mind of a critical mass of researcher-visionaries that matter itself would be transubstantiated into a pliable and solvent vehicle for creation of all manner of forms, applications and functions.

What the book "PROJECT MIND" describes is not at all a paradisiacal fantasy or an unattainable utopia but is rather a grounded and realistic view of the universe and of our place -- and role -- in it.

A fundamental yet extraordinarily perplexing issue such as death is no match for Accelerated Thought which firmly plants thinkers upon the foundation of life whereby our bodies materialize into transcendent corporeality no longer subject to the pseudo-laws of deterioration and decay.

Ecstasy must become mundane if we are ever to live in a truly just world where hunger and poverty have no reason to exist. That is why the organizing of PROJECT MIND, the international think-tank, can be said to be more critical than the Manhattan Project, and quantitatively more humane than Mother Teresa's amazing work.

What everyone seems to accept as natural and inevitable parts of the human condition are myths of inequity that are rooted in the way matter itself is put together, a way which is most unnatural and artificial. It is therefore at the level of matter that PROJECT MIND will primarily focus in the context of experimental conditions highly geared to the promotion of Accelerated Thought.

... 2 "Small visions lead to larger ones" so writes T.KUN, author of the book, "until the plasma-like flame of researcher-visionaries subjective consciousness begins to transform into a controlled fusion-type reaction which is the first stable phenomenon of objective consciousness. Until this point", the author goes on, "repeated flashes of insight into the objective world emerged from the state of subjective consciousness and served to spur the researcher-visionaries on. Now thought clears and accelerates considerably to an entirely new energy level, enabling researcher-visionaries to penetrate into nature's secrets in a much more constant and systematic way."

T.KUN adds, "Penetrating insight, in forming hypotheses of ever-increasing elaboration and predictive power propelled by hope, faith, and certainty generated during the progressive expansion of subjective plasma-like consciousness, is only the precursor to a kind of meta-insight consisting of rapid, far-reaching extrapolation."

In concluding, the author states: "It is possible only to a mind harbouring Accelerated Thought in its maturing stages -- a mind illuminated with the fusion-like brilliance of objective consciousness."

The book PROJECT MIND is available at the Salt Spring Island library. Both the sister and the brother-in-law of PROJECT MIND's executive director are residents of Salt Spring, BC. David S. Devor resides in Jerusalem, where he may be contacted at 8 Mevo Hamaavak/French Hill/Jerusalem 97877/ISRAEL c/o PROJECT MIND FOUNDATION.
(email: [e-mail]).

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Rating:
Summary: A Real Plan for World Transformation
Review: The other reviews on this page are full of revealing detail. In this review, I want to grab your attention by getting to the main points.

Do you think thousands of years of meditation and prayer have made much difference in resolving the basic problems of humanity as a whole - hunger, disease, shelter, comfort? If not, then keep reading.

Do you think that a few hundred years of the scientific method has resulted in a greater ability to feed people and meet other basic physical needs? If so, keep reading.

Does it seem reasonable to you that if technology could fulfill everyone's physical desires in an instant, then there would be nothing left for humanity to be concerned with but spiritual development and exploration of the universe? If so, keep reading.

What do you suppose would happen if the kind of intense focus and transcendence of normal consciousness that is practiced by spiritual adepts was somehow adapted to scientific endeavors?

What if all the energy that has been devoted to escaping the realities of the physical world was somehow focused on finding technological ways to transform the physical world?

Intrigued? If so, then get this book!