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A Time of Extraordinary Change


Futurist John L. Petersen predicted the global financial meltdown with stunning accuracy. Now this hard-headed soothsayer is tracking the winds of change that he feels are destined to sweep away the foundations of our current society and prepare the way for something completely new.

by Carter Phipps
 

Introduction

Trying to predict the future,” business consultant Peter Drucker once remarked, “is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.” Indeed, when it comes to peering into life’s crystal ball—whether one is a futurist or a fortune teller—the experience is likely to make humble men and women of us all. That’s why it is particularly meaningful when someone steps out, takes a risk, bets their reputation on a controversial prediction—and then is proven completely right. Enter John Petersen. Petersen is the founder and director of the Arlington Institute, a think tank that has made a specialty out of helping its clients anticipate and plan for rapid, unpredictable change. Petersen’s always interesting thoughts on the future have appeared in the pages of EnlightenNext before, and his email newsletter FUTUREdition has long been a must-read for those interested in keeping up with the frontiers of human knowledge.

In August 2006, I received an email from the Arlington Institute, signed by Petersen, which contained a frightening warning. The world’s finances, it claimed, were overstretched, overleveraged, and overexposed to the U.S. housing market, creating the conditions for a financial panic that was likely to unfold in the near future. Petersen was going out on a limb, I thought, doing what so many others, futurists included, are loathe to do—make specific predictions with specific dates and do it publicly. Normally, I might have dismissed such a doom-and-gloom forecast as alarmist and not to be taken seriously. But Petersen is not the kind of person one dismisses lightly. With a military background (he is a veteran of the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars), time served in various positions in the national security apparatus, and a scientist’s penchant for fact-based analysis, Petersen has a pragmatic, no-nonsense attitude that has earned him respect inside the Pentagon and in the corridors of Capitol Hill. And yet his interests are extremely eclectic and would frustrate attempts to easily categorize him, ideologically or philosophically. On any given day, he is as likely to be having lunch with an Air Force colonel, a maverick physicist, or a New Age psychic. He counts among his acquaintances such philosophically distinct figures as Newt Gingrich, former CIA director James Woolsey, 2012 prophet Daniel Pinchbeck, technological guru Ray Kurzweil, and UFO enthusiast Whitley Strieber. And his recent interest in the work of Rudolf Steiner and Indian teacher Sri Bhagavan shows that his spiritual interests have accelerated over recent years as well, adding another surprising twist to the resume of this unconventional futurist who has made a name for himself in the land of convention.

Recent history has been more than kind to Petersen’s prediction of financial collapse, a vindicating truth that gives a certain degree of gravitas to his other predictions about our near-term global future. Indeed, Petersen’s crystal ball has turned more and more gloomy of late, and when I called him last winter to get his perspective on our current global downturn, his apocalyptic sentiments didn’t exactly soothe my concerns. But don’t get me wrong. This broad-minded sage, whose recent book is titled A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change, is not a pessimist. He is, in fact, surprisingly upbeat about humanity’s long-term prospects. He may see us heading into extremely rough waters but feels that those turbulent seas are necessary to induce the much-needed transformations that can truly remake our society. Dare we be so casual about coming catastrophes? In the eyes of this prescient prognosticator, such system shocks are simply the inevitable price of living in a time of extraordinary change.



–Carter Phipps


 
 

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This article is from
Envisioning the Future