Predictions predicted by Spindrift Research.
Have any Spindrift predictions turned out to be correct?
There are four answers which are yes, yes, no, and maybe.
About "maybe," one prediction is what the Bruce and John Klingbeil said about future computer generated algorithmic realities: "A murky world looks like it could possibly happen." The Klingbeils often raised this question about future technology: "What are Christians and religious people going to do when God's creation is replaced with algorithms?" See this Spindrift blog that discusses how godlike technology has overwhelmed spirituality.
Now about the yes, yes, predictions coming true, and the no prediction:
1. Yes . The Klingbeils believed that once mainline society showed some initial excitement, the window of opportunity would be about ten years to get some serious work done with preliminary evidence that would be taken to the next step to establish some psychic thoughts and spiritual prayers were real phenomena in the world. Then strange things would happen to some experiments that showed promising results. The experiments would stop working and some funded projects would fail. The scientific skeptics would announce they were right all along about errors in the previous paranormal studies that worked, the results of which would be called flukes.
Ironically, discoveries such as in quantum physics and neuroscience suggest more research should be done with paranormal effects. Even though the window of opportunity seems to be closed for prayer. Projects should continue only for a few, but most funds will likey dry up until the window opens again by unforeseen events. (A Journey Into Prayer, pages 362 - 372.)
2. Yes . A related prediction is becoming truer each day. Atheism will grow. So will a dominate scientific monopoly that will try to determine for everyone what is true and what is false. Atheists choose not to retain God in their knowledge. Only science is knowledge. Believers in God and religion might be pushed to become a separate segment of society. Believers might be categorized as uneducated and insane for believing in God and religion.
Stemming from the bad behavior of some people of religion, Twenty-first Century men and women are choosing atheism. The atheist says, "If 9/11 is the way religious people act, the religious terrorists have created a great argument to become an atheist."
3. No . The Spindrift staff imagined if the scientific evidence for prayer began to establish effects of order and spirituality were genuine phenomena, this discovery would encourage the population toward realizing its spiritual thoughts actually do influence outcomes that could potentially raise the value systems of mankind. This spiritual realization doesn't seem to be the case in the short-run, though there are clusters of spiritually minded people who are trying to raise human consciousness by combining consciousness research, science, and religion.
Do expect one external problem and one internal problem to diminish Christianity and religion in the Twenty-first Century.
Our lives being controlled by technology is the biggest problem that faces spirituality and religion.
Within religion itself, the biggest problem is facing radical Islamic proliferation across civilizations.
The atheist, physicist, and philosopher, Victor J. Stenger, wrote “Science flies me to the moon. Religion flies me into buildings.”
Tony Sabrado wrote, "Terrorist bombers' self-sacrifice for the higher good fueled much of the new atheistic movement that included Christopher Hitchens." (The Huffington Post, (03/13/2013.)
An example of becoming an atheist might be entertainer Bill Maher. Around the time of the millennium, on his show Politically Incorrect, I heard Bill Maher say he believed in God. He thought God was busy doing things like making trees as I recall. Maher always derided religion, yet he believed in God. Something happened and Maher became an atheist. My speculation is that the extremism of 9/11 and the Catholic priests that molest children pushed Maher over the edge to distain God the way he distains religion.
To some degree, science and religion have to overlap, else atheism will win.
Atheism has risen as modern man has bcome more educated and adept at solving his problems through new inventions and pointing out dreadful examples of religion. In 2012, an atheist organization announced its plans to go into high schools to encourage teenagers to come out of the closet to voice they don't believe there is a God. The secularization of society may push religion and claims for sprituality to either put up evidence or shut up.
From their Christian Science influences, the Klingbeils predicted that if religion cannot harmonize with science, the progress made by science and medicine will leave religion behind in the dust as a relic of evolution and naiveté.
Spindrift did find some atheists who were testable in the lab. Some atheists produced an intention similar to a goal-directed prayer effect that could reproduce goal-directed results.
Spindrift wasn't able to find an atheist who could produce non goal-directed results aka "Thy will be done" prayer results. Spindrift believes that there is an argument to be made that it takes a holy state of mind, aka a Quality state of mind, to reproduce non goal-directed results. If found scientifically true, the finding of the contribution of holiness would argue that some religious values are important to nurture within human consciousness. (A Journey Into Prayer, page 370.)
The impression of fatuities (pointlessness) might emerge, but consider the following absurd thought for a moment. If you look hard enough, the believer in God and the atheist have a common thread. Both pursue finding something lawful and real beyond the material appearances of the obvious worldview.
What else could potentially happen?
Bruce Klingbeil said, "Spiritual progress is made drip by drip." Bruce and John predicted that some version of the following would happen in the future:
1. With one hand, science might mock believers of religion and psychic phenomena. With the other hand, science might add psychic power to its technologies. See the Spindrift History page, paragraphs 7 - 9.
2. Some computers might become conscious beings like human beings.
3. As technologies in science and medicine make life easier and do the work for human beings, debunkers of spiritual reality will inform us, "Who needs God and the paranormal anymore? Human inventiveness can reproduce most miracles for real." The modern debunker will ask the believer, "Do you want to have a religious argument, or do you want to have a fact based argument?" Perhaps the quantity of thought and things will be reproduced without a religious concept, but history shows that reproducing Quality in people is often tied to a higher Source than mankind and the human mind alone. Because of scientific advances, believers of the spiritual and paranormal may be forced to defend what is the reality in their convictions. If not defended, a futuristic technological society might minimize believers of Quality religious, psychic, and spiritual influences as purveyors of ignorance, superstition, and fraud.
More about "A murky world looks like it could possibly happen."
The prediction is a world taken over by intelligent machines smarter than human beings. A takeover could be the consequence of mankind ignoring his education of religious values, ethics, and wisdom that should check machines becoming our masters and our destroyers.
Expanding on the overbearing technological age upon us, the Klingbeils speculated and predicted that a Matrix-like world should overwhelm mankind. Machines and computers would engross the five physcial senses so much that mankind would hardly have room left in the mind for an original thought, a spiritual thought, a quiet thought, or free-will. Privacy will become a rare experience. Maybe the rich might pay for privacy, if it can be experienced at all. God may be replaced by the machines and virtual reality. Human beings may hear and learn only the machines' perspectives on life. Men and women could find out that they are beholden to the machines for their viewpoints and not religion, freedom of speech, free-will, or having many original thoughts and actions of their own. (See A Journey Into Prayer, pages 124 - 128, and 372. Also see John Klingbeil's science fiction novel Richard Garrett.)
A few of other predictions are worth a mention.
1. In 1986 and 87, Spindrift became an early harbinger about the religious terrorists' prayers that precede terrible terroristic acts. In 1993, Bruce predicted that if Americans and Christians didn't better grasp the dangers of negative and evils prayers, the darkness these prayers produce will increase for humanity. The Internet has spread these dark intentions globally. See Question 10 on the FAQ page.
2. Yet to happen, but it seems to be developing now, is a lack of quietude and privacy for virtually all human beings. Spindrift predicted that noise reduction and experiencing quiet will be at a premium. People will crave their privacy and quiet time. Because of advances in digital devices and other technology, people won't have much quiet time anymore anywhere. See Question 7 on the FAQ page, part 4.
3. One worry that Bruce, John, and Deborah Klingbeil had are the unintended consequences of the Spindrift findings. Psychic powers found to be true through prayer experiments could trigger unintended abuses of negative and manipulative prayers to control and hurt people.
4. EMP stands for Electromotive Pulse. EMP pulses are created by nature or by man. Such pulses would knock out almost anything to do with electricity and electronics. An EMP action taken against the United States, from a natural sunburst or more likely a deliberate action, would throw Americans into depending on themselves as do the Amish. It's a terrible scenario, but EMP could potentially bring Americans back to their spiritual roots.
Many futurists have sternly warned about an EMP problem for America.
The new Air Force One airplane that carries the President of the United States, his staff, and members of the military has been constructed as an EMP proof flying fortress.
WE HOPE FOR A POSITIVE VIEW OF THE FUTURE.
It's wonderful to live in a technologically advanced world of quantity that also includes a spiritual compass. That is, a parallel spiritual world that conveys to mankind some values and Quality that don't need to be suppressed completely when confronted by new technology.
