In recent years I've been doing 'progressions' (contrasting to 'regressions') with people in my workshops and once in the Hundredth Monkeying project – a mixture of meditation and interactive remote-viewing of the future. What I do is slowly count people forward in time, usually to about twenty years ahead (now 2017 – which lies after the critical time-point many people subscribe to around 2012-15). What's interesting is that many different results come up – probably arising from the fact that I encourage people to place themselves in that time or to see it through someone close to them (if they're disincarnate by then) rather than to view it abstractly.

Yet most of the results seem to hang together with each other to paint a picture of both the dawning of a new world with an utterly renewed and deepened atmosphere and a lot of joy and quite considerable difficulties for some and in some areas – though neither is globally prevalent, at least around 2017. I haven't experimented enough with taking people further forward to a later date such as 2050, when this situation might theoretically have changed.

However, we don't leave things there, since this is not a prediction game. The issue is to get a good grasp of the reality one finds at that point in time and to get a sense of the things one is glad about and the things one might at that time regret or wish were different. I then create a space toward the end of the journey whereby people may explore various alternative possible realities to the details they have 'got', to see what might also be possible in the evolving circumstances. I encourage people to look at the potential future consequences and issues arising around that future time (ie 2017ish), to check out whether what they see might be acceptable when seen from a longer-term viewpoint.

In some cases I ask people to check out other, contrasting circumstances which others in the world of that time might be experiencing, so that they get a wider picture of the condition of humanity. If there are parts which are bewildering or button-pressing about what people experience from this I ask them to backtrack a bit to see where the cruxpoints of evolving situations lie (between 1997 and 2017). Then, after giving space for completions, we slowly come back.

Then comes another process, usually in the form of writing down one's observations, followed by a sharing session. This involves mentally tracking the twenty-year period in stages and how it evolves for each person, with a view to helping them clarify their life-intents for the present, establish something of a timetable for personal life-commitments and activity and identify things they can accentuate or avoid in their current and future actions which might lead toward more wholesome results. The relevance of this is to bring into focus one's capacity to create the future, both in the personal sphere and in one's contribution to the generality.

The advantage of a technique such as this, whether or not it accurately maps possible future scenarios (and I suspect that for at least 50% they are getting quite accurate material) is that it tends to bypass any out-of-proportion wishes or fears one might have for the future. Hopes and fears come up, though if one sets up the session carefully, quite a profound realism can arise in people's progression-journeys. This has some advantages inasmuch as a proportion of people cloud their sense of the future with images of either bliss/redemption or horror – only to find in such an inner process that realism exists in the future too! (For example, some realise that an 'ascension into the fifth dimension' (for example) is not a disincarnate experience – more a change of awareness). Witnessing the results of this kind of work makes me aware of how, today and in the future, we humans, though sharing life on planet Earth, nevertheless live in very different worlds – and we're likely to continue doing so! There might be an overall global median reality, yet our individual experiences of it are all the same exceptionally variant, and heaven and hell exist within the same overall 'reality'!

The general effect of doing such progression-meditations on those who do it is noticeably empowering. Many report that they have gained a more workable handle and orientation on the (or their) future, and a clearer insight into their life-purpose, where they need to go with it and how they can specifically empower themselves to play a personal part in global future-creation. Though I have expected difficulties around use of this technique, I have not had a single report of difficulties arising – yet!

However, I must acknowledge also that I have not been systematically gathering feedback or data from these experiments. Usually we end the session with a round of group-feedback, since everyone benefits from hearing others' experiences – both the similarities and the differences.

A few commonalities which seem to have arisen:
1. the general level of happiness and understanding in the world has risen significantly, even though there are still areas of difficulty and gulfs to cross – it feels as if at that time we're still in the earlier stages of planetary transformation and redemption of the past; however, it seems that the observable changes at that time are not immediately recent and have been there a few years – people are relatively used to them and there aren't predominant signs of social shock or 'punch-drunkness'; some still live in the past, though most accept the present and are intentionally working for the future;
2. the world is not significantly damaged, though there have been some noticeable catastrophes and shifts in society and nature and some people suffer from it, yet there is more global mutual support going on; there's a hint of feeling that the 20th century has been worse than the 21st;
3. there seems to be a greater depth of colour to reality, and many more people are experientially aware of deeper dimensions of reality;
4. there seems to have been much international movement of people, as individuals and masses, and nation-states seem to be something of a thing of the past yet not institutionally changed;
5. there are considerable hurdles to cross, yet a greater willingness to acknowledge and cross them;
6. there seems to have been a levelling-out of belief- and reality-differences and much more mutual understanding, though there are pockets of diehards who cling on to and barricade themselves into specific beliefs too, which causes some trouble but not too much;
7. it seems that some of the greatest difficulties in accepting change arise in USA, where social dissonance seems to have been strong, though some of the more radical individual world change-agents come from there also; China seems to experience quite major disorientation and mass-depression and the Islamic world seems to be going through a (by then, to them) welcome shift in perspective, belief and social practices and a lightening of social atmosphere and equity; Europe and Latin America seem to be relatively stable – Europe seems to have gone through a significant material collapse, yet this has actually helped its social atmosphere and is almost a relief (as if it was less devastating than WW2); there seems to be a power-levelling in the Americas in which Latins assist Anglo-Saxons in dealing with loss;
8. Africa and Russia seem by then to be leading areas for the development of new social initiatives and precedents; some areas of the world are triumphing in social cooperation (akin to 'war efforts') while others are languishing and 'in balance' – things seem to be very much 'in process';
9. there seems to be a greater awareness of spiritual and macrocosmic issues, yet there seems not to have been a classic showing of divine entities or ETs – it seems to be very human-oriented at that time;
10. there have been setbacks, yet they seem to be regarded philosophically and as manageable changes – there's a sense of relief at the things which could have happened and didn't;
11. many of the issues we think now are problems have become assets to the future – such as mining waste-dumps and the arrival of new species-mutations in nature – though this is not without challenges and regrets; climate has changed by noticeable degrees; mass activities such as forest-planting and settlement-rebuilding are under way in some areas;
12. humanity seems to be okay and progressing, without major loss of population (though with some tragedies).

These observations have not been systematically reviewed – they're more impressions picked up from what people have reported. So far I've run this inner journey with some 250 people in about 15 different sessions since 1992.

I would emphasise that I believe it's not advisible to conduct such progression experiments unless set up carefully by people who have good experience in regression or meditative imaging technique and group facilitation. It's important not to inject predispositions such as visionary idealism or future-paranoia if valuable results are to be obtained and if one's responsibility to participants is to be honoured. It's also important to emphasise the notion of 'possible realities' and of our capacity to actively participate in creating the future.

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