Augmented Reality: a Challenge to the Soul

Augmented Reality uses altered perception to change or enhance an experience. It can give you extra real-time information about the details of a football game you are watching on a device, for example, or it can be built in to a policeman’s helmet to indicate what is happening in the immediate environment to assist a pursuit. It can be used, too, in ways that change your perception without, necessarily, your knowing it. Many computer games are based on virtual or altered realities, but usually it is apparent when this is so; augmented reality, however, will enable you or other people to overlay sensory information upon you so that you see, smell, hear or feel your reality very differently. Reality and illusion will become blurred, and it could get to the point where you do not know what is real, and what is not. Through special glasses, you may choose to use AR to give you a garden where the sun always shines, you are warm and the flowers are beautiful, even if it is mid-winter - that is your choice. As you look at your smart-phone, or its future replacement, what you see there could be directed by others to change your perceptions and beliefs without your knowing it. It can be very subtle, manipulative and dangerous, used to gather and disseminate information, and even to change you. It can be helpful for educational, practical and entertainment purposes, but AR can also alter our innate truth. For each of us, our soul lives to learn and grow through human experience which comes not from the mind but from the senses. Our eyes, ears, nose, touch are fundamental to the process of being alive and part of Earth and much beyond: being present in the moment means shutting out the mind and seeing, feeling, hearing, without judgment or comment, without labelling or analysing. We cannot connect with nature or feel a part of everything or everyone without a sensory interaction that is heart based. It is fundamental to everything we are, to the future of our souls, and to the future of the Planet. We know already how technology in social media and other internet platforms, in cars, televisions, smart meters, computer devices, credit and loyalty cards, and virtual assistants like Alexa are used to gather information about ourselves to be used for marketing or other influencing purposes. While such ethics are very questionable, they do not interfere with our right to be ourselves. Augmented reality, if misused or uncontrolled, could change who and what we are fundamentally, inhibiting the purpose and growth of our souls and creating a population of controlled clones. Thousands of years ago Atlantis fell because scientists found a way to control souls through technology: if augmented reality comes close to creating a similar situation, Spirit will intervene once again, of that I have no doubt. Perhaps human wisdom will prevail?     [byline]]]>