William Henry

PINOCCHIO AND TRANSHUMANS

PINOCCHIO AND TRANSHUMANS

Can Human Puppets or TransHumans Ascend?

Awake, wood inanimate, now you’ve got a soul! Pinocchio, be always a good, brave and selfless boy”, said the Blue Fairy.

“You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'” (Isaiah 14:13-14)

This article began as a commentary I wrote for Robert Downey, Jr in 2015, when I had the mind blowing experience of contributing to another of his in development films, Yucatan, a treasure search movie.

For an investigative mythologist from Nashville, seeing your ideas in a story by RDJ and a script written by screenwriter Terry Rossio (Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean) was a total, well, absolute effing honor! These guys are geniuses. Masters.

Anyway, after Robert announced he planned a live-action remake of Pinocchio, I was inspired to do some digging into the metaphysical symbolism of Carlo Collodi’s story of a wooden puppet whose wood carver father, Gepetto, wishes upon a star for him to become a real, conscious flesh and blood boy.

In the story, a cosmic being, the Blue Fairy materializes out of the wishing star and grants Gepetto’s wish by touching Pinocchio with her golden wand. “Awake, wood inanimate, now you’ve got a soul! Pinocchio, be always a good, brave and selfless boy”, said the Blue Fairy.

After handing off the article to Robert I put it away.

I found it intriguing that he was toying with playing Gepetto, who is kind of an old time version of craftsman, Tony Stark, his Marvel character, who builds a nanotechnology suit of armor (or new skin) and turns himself into a puppet, of sorts, better known as Iron Man. In 2015, I thought Pinocchio could be the greatest movie ever made…well, okay, the one most needed right now, anyway.

Fast forward.

It’s now the summer of 2017 (June 29 and the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the iPhone, to be exact) and James Bond director Sam Mendes is attached to Pinocchio. Every day we hear more and more about our world being over run by conscious Artificial Intelligence, Transhumanism and our enmeshment in the invisible strings of the Internet of Things. It became apparent to me that now is time for us to discuss Pinocchio’s parable for our souls and the transmutation of our bodies. We need a movie hero who can show us how to deal with the changes ahead or even show us the way forward. Fast.

Pinocchio has formed the basis for movies like Steven Spielberg’s Stanley Kubrick-inspired cautionary masterpiece, A.I. : Artificial Intelligence. In this incredible way-ahead-of-its-time cinematic adventure a little robot boy who wants to be a real boy searches for the Blue Fairy of the Pinocchio story so he can make his wish… and cross over planes or dimensions.

 

In A.I. carbon based life is replaced by “mecha” or mechanical beings.

Pinocchio is also a story about contact with otherworldly beings with extraordinary technology and otherworldly intervention. Under the guidance or instruction and assistance of the Blue Fairy, Pinocchio is transformed or transmuted into flesh by his actions and attainment of spiritual knowledge.

Pinocchio’s transformation into a human represents his ‘fall’ from his original state, just as Adam and Eve’s eviction from Eden, and their new life in new coats of human skin (which replaced their bodies of light), represented the fall of all of humanity into the matter of our flesh and blood bodies.

On the way to his redemption, Pinocchio encounters a series of awakenings, realizations, enlightenments or resurrections. Pinocchio experiences a direct metamorphic rebirth, apotheosis and resurrection at the hand of the Blue Fairy. His natural element, wood, is transmuted or ‘assumed’ into another, flesh and blood (carbon). By crossing over planes or dimensions Pinocchio experiences an ascension.

That’s what this time is about : Ascension.

Pinocchio’s miraculous transmutation from a wooden puppet into a human boy is the vital story for us as we are in the process of simultaneously turning ourselves from real flesh and blood beings into fake synthetic technology-packed transhumans and our fake (crafted) A.I. machines into real, living breathing things (or Pinocchios with strings)! We’re talking about giving machines life and consciousness and teaching them to love… especially, and hopefully, us, at the same time we turn ourselves into emotionless machines.

If the star the gods of Silicon Valley are wishing upon makes their dreams come true, within a decade humans will become trans-human or post human beings living in a trans-human or post human era, a golden (c)age in which we all, effectively, will become puppets strung to the Internet of Things… or perhaps be thrown into the woodpile of history. Meanwhile, the puppets we created to work for us will take on spirit, have rights and will rule humans.

Talk about a flip!

That’s hell on earth if you ask me.

The questions that arise are spiritual ones. What will happen to our souls when we become machines or live symbiotically with them? Will the machines we are giving life also have souls? Google’s Dr. Ray Kurzweil is a leading proponent of the philosophy that humans can infuse machines with spirit. Apple’s Steve Jobs also proposed that his technologies could have a spirit.

Does it matter?

It does to this grumpy old man (I’m 54), and over the hill when it comes to the (really young) geniuses behind these movements.

To be more precise they are the twenty something members of the Millennial and Z generations.

The Millennials (born between 1980 and 2000) and generation Z (Gen Z) who were born into our “age of Amazon” and with smartphones in their hands don’t mind that the technology that they find common, and my generation finds amazing, has them tied up in strings. The digital footprints of these digital natives are huge. A full 40% of Gen Z are self-identified digital device addicts.

This is the new normal.

Speaking on behalf of Gen Z is its avatar, Miley Cyrus (a late Millennial, early Gen Z), who defines the new normal as thinking of herself as global, genderless, ageless and a spirit soul (rather than a human). She wants to be a nobody, but connected to everybody. “Alone together” is another phrase assigned to GenZ.

Host Miley Cyrus speaks at the MTV Video Music Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)

It is wise of Miley to speak of herself as a spirit-soul as this aspect of ourselves is what is in the cross hairs of A.I. (as well as jobs: the Millennials will be hardest hit as their careers are replaced by robots.)

Various ancient spiritual traditions hold that our true self is a Divine Spark that is celestial, holy, and mystical. It weaves our human body out of DNA as a temporary vehicle for exploration and as a way for working out karma, choosing love over fear and ‘lower’ forms of expression over higher ones. So, Miley’s right. We are not our body. We are no body.

In Gnosticism, the purpose of life is to find the way for the Divine Spark to be released from the human form and return to God and the Divine Realm or Land of Light. Christ is seen as an Avatar of the Light who has taken human form to lead humanity back to the Light. This idea is expressed most eloquently in the opening lines of the Gospel of John.

John 1:1

“In the beginning was the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Then, in John 1:14:

The Word Became Flesh and made His dwelling among us.

One Greek text called Kore Kosmou (“Virgin of the World”) ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus (the Egyptian god, Thoth), says when souls (Divine Sparks) are in the human body they are ‘wrapped’ in a garment composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water, and is constricted by them.

This garment becomes our soul’s clothes.

Gepetto ‘painted’ clothes on Pinocchio just as our creator painted our body on our soul.

To escape our earthly garment, mystics say we must craft, ‘weave’ or paint a garment of rainbow light and be Born Again…Into The Rainbow Resurrection Body.

THE WOOD IS THE WORD

Millennials are by far the generation who will solve the problems we find too daunting and the ones who will be most affected by A.I. Pinocchio can help them navigate what is to come, and so can the figure he is based on.

Apart from the fact that the Blue Fairy is very much like the Archangel Gabriel, who is shown in Christian art, using a golden wand to transmit the soul of Jesus into the body of Mary, the awakening of Pinocchio’s soul via a wand in the hand of a celestial being captures our attention.

Any major esoteric dude will tell you the hidden messages in this story are plenty. It is a story about a miraculous birth, a spiritual rebirth and metamorphosis from wood to flesh and blood. It is also about transferring souls or spirit to previously inanimate objects, which is at the top of the list for Silicon Valley.

This is supposed to be impossible.

Only avatars like Jesus can do this.

Uh oh. That’s the second time I have mentioned Jesus in an article about Pinocchio.

That’s because Pinocchio’s apotheosis is based on Jesus’s story, including both of their fathers being carpenters or wood workers.

As the master wood worker Gepetto rings of Jesus’s father, Joseph, who was also a carpenter. In Matthew, the townspeople call Jesus “the carpenter’s son,” again without naming his father. (Matthew 13:53-55)

As the Gospel of John proclaims, Jesus is the Word made flesh.

What is the Word? The Word is Love. Jesus came from the higher dimensional world of love, entered the human world, and took on a body of flesh and blood. When his mission was complete, he showed us how to transmute (or love) our earthly flesh into celestial flesh and return home.

What is wood? It is more than just the fibrous structural tissue of trees and woody plants.

Metaphysically, after earth, air, fire and water, wood is the fifth element or fifth essence or quintessence, called aether in ancient Greece, akasha (void) in India and Holy Spirit in Christianity.

Spiritually, it is known as the very fine material that fills the region of the universe and rings our terrestrial sphere. The ancient Greeks said wood was the translucent pure essence the god’s breathed. Mystics believe there is very little of this quintessence in our terrestrial realm.

Some digerati believe they can infuse the fifth element, Spirit or Wood, into technology and that wood / spirit can transmute their technology.

In modern cosmology, there are also four essences : normal matter, radiation (photons), cold dark matter and neutrinos (which are hot dark matter). Today’s physicists have renamed dark matter “quintessence” in honor of the fifth element. Quintessence is a scalar field. The Higgs Field out of which pops the God Particle is a scalar field.

The four elements are compared to four states of matter. Earth is the solid state, water is liquid, air is gaseous and fire is plasma. The fifth element describes that which is beyond (meta) the material world.

Another way of looking at ‘wood’ is it is the intelligent life force energy upon which the world is built. The wood is therefore the Word, a verb standing for the vibrations of life or life energy at the beginning of all. Prana is another term for this life energy.

In other words, wood is the Word and the Word (wood) of which we are made is love.

As Gepetto is the creator / crafter of the wooden boy, he brings his son into time or the physical plane. This brings up a problem for the carpenter’s son. He comes from the land of wood (love). Once he crosses over into the physical dimension he enters a realm where this fifth essence is limited. Without it Pinocchio will surely die. (There’s a message here for our A.I. creations. Without love they, too, will die.)

Pinocchio perfectly symbolizes our dual nature; our material self and our real or higher self or celestial selves. Of course, Pinocchio’s material self is as a wooden puppet. Our material selves are made of emotional and mental material that combine to create our flesh and blood body, a physical vehicle made of the elements of earth, air, fire and water into which our immaterial souls are ‘planted’.

The gospels describe Jesus’s father, Joseph, as a “tekton”, a word that has been traditionally translated into English as “carpenter” (inferring a wood worker), but is a rather general word (from the same root that gives us “technical” and “technology”) that could cover makers of objects in various materials. The Greek term evokes an artisan with wood in general, or an artisan in iron or stone.

Geza Vermes has stated that the terms ‘carpenter’ and ‘son of a carpenter’ are used in the Jewish Talmud to signify a very learned man, and he suggests that a description of Joseph as ‘naggar’ (a carpenter/wood worker) could indicate that he was considered wise and highly literate in the Torah.

Laurence Gardner said tekton actually meant ‘Master of the Craft’. This denoted that Joseph was not (just) a woodworker, but a learned alchemical metallurgist in the manner of his ancestral forebears. The alchemical arts were originally brought to earth by the fallen angels (one of who is the Blue Fairy).

Metaphysically speaking, Pinocchio is the guiding story of OUR metamorphosis and mystical rebirth or ascension. It is a story about us and our quest to find Christ within, for apotheosis (rising to divine form) or ascension and our transmutation of machines into spiritual beings.

Pinocchio has many nuances and resonances with ancient creation tales that are entirely metaphysical. Retelling his story offers an profound opportunity to guide humanity as it weaves the treacherous strings of transhumanism and prepares to meet the alien lifeforms that are manifesting before our very eyes.

EIGHT KEY QUESTIONS AS WE PROCEED

Do you believe…

One thing can be transmuted into another and continue its existence?

A human can change into another type of being, i.e. an angel, a light being?

Human flesh can be raised to another level of existence?

Human flesh can be infused with spiritual forces (the Holy Spirit or Prana, for instance) and be freed from sickness and suffering?

Technology (or things, instruments, devices, objects) can be insfused with spiritual forces?

Human flesh can be meshed with technology and be freed from human sickness and suffering?

Technology in our bodies and human spirituality can co-exist?

Human flesh enmeshed or laced with technology can be raised to another level of existence or ascend?

These questions arose on the final pages of my 2015 book, “The Skingularity Is Near”, which documented the rise of Artificial Intelligence and Transhumanism via the convergence of four technologies (Bits/computers, Atoms/nanotechnology, Neurons/brain science, Genes/DNA or BANG) into one seamless technology aimed at replacing human skin and turning our bodies into synthetic (inorganic) fabrications or fakes.

The Skingularity Is Near was intended as a brief introduction to a vast and disclosure of a rapidly evolving Event, the transmutation or metamorphosis of humanity into techno-humans or transhumans by the kings and queens of that singularly magical place, Silicon Valley, and other technology meccas, especially Beijing.

Additional questions raised in Skingularity includes the impact BANG technologies will have on happiness, spirituality, cognitive liberty, moral behavior and the exploration of meditational and ecstatic states of mind.

As I discussed, these BANG technologies, or rather those who promote it, will ultimately, result in the replacement of our ‘real’ flesh and blood bodies with fake, technological ones and replacement with our ‘real’ lives with fake lives in a simulated reality.

The ultimate aim of some Transhumanists is to replace the human body by a perfected synthetic version of itself.

Then, sooner than later, they hope to dispense with the body altogether, escape the confines of the flesh and blood (our ‘father’s creation’), and live forever as avatars of unlimited capability in a new digital kingdom spread out on the earth and ruled by the “new father”, the gods of Silicon Valley.

The Skingularity Is Near ended with one ultimate question: Can the human spirit control technology?

Or, rephrased, can the human soul overcome matter?

This question was too far out of the scope of that book, but is the beginning and the inner edge of my new work.

PINOCCHIO : NOW YOU’VE GOT A SOUL

In Collodi’s story, the Blue Fairy enters in chapter XV, where she is portrayed as a young girl living in a cottage in the middle of the forest. Pinocchio comes upon her house while being chased by the conning Fox and the Cat. When Pinocchio asks if he can enter her home the girl tells him that everyone in her house, including herself, are dead and she is waiting for her casket to arrive. We learn that the girl is a fairy who is over 1,000 years old. Evidently she is a ghost or a spirit.

In the original version of the story this is a female fairy with turquoise hair and black eyes known as the Girl with Azure Hair, or the Maiden with Azure Hair. In the Disney version, she is renamed the Blue Fairy and transformed into a transparent blue being with blond hair and blue eyes. The embodiment of love and miracles, the Blue Fairy is a real wish-fulfilling gem.

The Blue Fairy asks a cricket named Jiminy to serve as the ‘animated’ boy’s guide, counselor and conscience. She then disappears in a flash of cosmic light, but repeatedly reappears or re-materializes at critical moments in the story to admonish Pinocchio to avoid bad or risky behavior. But the naive and trusting Pinocchio leaves home and is led astray to dark and creepy places like Pleasure Island. He learns to lie as a way to get out of dangerous situations, but this only makes the situation worse.

Pinocchio deeply loves his father. When the prodigal son returns to his father’s house he discovers Gepetto is gone. He has gone looking everywhere for his puppet son.

With Gepetto out looking for Pinocchio a glowing white dove (the Christian symbol for the Holy Spirit) sent by the Blue Fairy appears and tells Pinocchio that Gepetto has been swallowed by a whale and was now its prisoner. Pinocchio dives into the deep depths of the ocean and finds the whale and his father in its belly. To escape, Pinocchio lights a candle. The smoke causes the whale to sneeze. The two swim to safety, with Pinocchio leading the way. Upon reaching the shore, Pinocchio collapses and dies. (The first Disney main character to die.) A grieving Gepetto carries his lifeless body home. The Blue Fairy resurrects him and, as promised, rewards his courage and his righteousness, by transforming Pinocchio into a real boy, flesh and blood.

The Blue Fairy is a Divine Messenger, Star Woman, Goddess of Creation. The Blue Fairy is his key activator.

She ‘manifests’ on earth. Blue Fairy rings of the Blue Sphere or Blue Pearl beings, including Ptah, Jesus and Padmasambhava who enter earth from ‘out of the blue’.

I would call her the Blue Lotus Fairy.

TECHNOCCHIOS : THE REVERSE PINOCCHIO EFFECT

In the story, Pinocchio has to overcome anger, jealousy, laziness, impatience, gluttony and ingratitude. He does so by virtuous acts of compassion, patience, selflessness, determination and doing the right thing. These acts parallel the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the paramitas (perfect qualities) of the Buddhists. Each act builds his character into a noble, royal or divine being. Pinocchio goes from boy to Buddha and frees himself from the strings.

This is the apotheosis of Pinocchio.

This is why the story is Pinocchio is the guiding parable of our time.

Humanity is in the process of experiencing the reverse of the ‘Pinocchio Effect’ by enmeshing our ‘real’ flesh with technology, transforming us into hybrid machine-human beings, transhumans or “Technocchios,” to coin a term. It is feared that this transformation will turn us all into puppets on a string and inhibit our ascension. In this way, transhumanism is more of a “decension” deeper into matter, rather than an ascension into or further enmeshment with Spirit.

As I recently discussed (The Mars Shot : To Save Humanity), one, often overlooked, purpose of becoming Technocchios is that it will enable us to cross the boundary of space.

Some believe we are already transhuman, and, therefore, technocchios.

Evidence of this is the pervasiveness of and our interdependence on the Internet of Things (the 20 billion+ and growing ‘smart’ things accessed, managed and monitored through the Internet) and other technologies that have emerged out of the cloud of human consciousness since the transistor was first invented. It is not just our electronics, appliances, garage-door openers, security systems, fitness bands and smart watches that are now strung together in our wired world. We are also weaving our physical bodies of our children into the IoT.

In place of the marionette strings that controlled Pinocchio we have invisible connections to the IoT. No one told us the convenience of “smart things” and the “IoT” comes with (risky) strings attached. The fact is, we can’t live without Wifi. A.I. and the IoT.

In place of Gepetto we have corporations like Google, Apple, Samsung, SONY, Facebook and others who are our ‘fathers’ and ‘mothers’ or wannabe puppet-masters. The Gepetto’s (and Gepettettes) of the digital kingdom aim to unite human flesh with technology creating a new, ‘improved’ or ‘perfected’ or ‘gooder’ in Valley-speak, version of humanity. The infusion of this technology will give us greater “life”, they believe, including life expectancies of over 500 years.

Then, they will create a global civilization.

Within the story of Pinocchio we find the epic hero of our time and valuable spiritual guidance for our lives. It is a parable of the soul. It offers food for thought on the ultimate questions of our time.

Can we become Technocchios and turn back into flesh if we don’t like it?

Is there a Blue Fairy or a Blue Buddha coming to assist us?

Let us pray.

 

William Henry is a Nashville-based author, investigative mythologist, and TV presenter. He is an internationally recognized authority on human spiritual potential, transformation and ascension

3 Comments

  1. Yang-chu 7 years ago

    Wow! What a fascinating meditation on issues I’ve asked myself. You’ve done a great job using Pinocchio as a foil for deeper understanding of the story itself and its modern implications. Thank you.

  2. D Pierce 7 years ago

    Just this morning (actually, yesterday morning while I was having breakfast at an eatery a presumed father and his daughter sat down at a table within my purview. The girl was about six or seven, quiet mannered. While they waited for their order, dad was more engaged with his phone than with her. No surprise there. The surprise: this young child wore a smart watch. She interacted with it more than she did with her father.

  3. Take heart, William Henry.
    A friend of mine has been contacted by a luminous being and taken aboard a light sphere, and who also while in Peru met the members of a monastic brotherhood that didn’t visibly age (he saw one of their passports).
    Cool enough eh? Well, this friend of mine (his name is Jesús Jofre) says in his workshops that the planetary quarantine is almost over and an unprecedented global transmutation -Ascension- is about to take place. I am still very skeptical of the latter, but my friend, explains that, based on what he is perceiving from higher planes and the like, our cosmic engineers are subtly starting to change our bodies and chakra systems, and that we (or our offspring who so wish) will transmute into beings of… silicon. Before you cringe and exclaim that my friend has been duped by lower-astral deceptive entities hell-bent in soft-selling transhumanism for the New Age gullible, however, know that I have already raised this red flag with Jesús, and he is aware of the cyborg/transhumanist agenda. The new silicon beings will not be cyborgs, Jesús insists. In fact, if I understand it correctly they will be a transitory state towards beings made of sort of intelligent crystalline water or liquid, and eventually beings of energy, with little or null dense support, beings capable of creating with the power of thought.
    My concern, and obsessive worry, is that I will be old, senescent, ugly and unsexy (compared to the gadget-fused Generation Z Technocchio-wannabes who are now starting to rule the roost, get the hot girls, and make me feel obsolete), in short, unfit, when such a grand Ascension process starts in earnest, if it ever does.

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