Views of 2100 & The Future ~ with Cayce, Heinlein, Tennessee Williams and William Stafford

Raiding my Book of Predictions for ideas I randomly opened it at the last page of a section on Edgar Cayce. The last paragraph goes like this:

A believer in reincarnation, Cayce had a dream in 1936 in which he saw himself reborn in 2100AD in Nebraska, which by then will be on the west coast of the US. In this vision he was trying to convince a group of scientists that he had lived some 200 years before. In order to collect evidence of his former life, he flew east in a cigar-shaped metal airship to an island where workmen were clearing rubble and rebuilding a city. When he asked where he was, a worker replied that he was in the former city of New York on Manhattan Island.

Edgar Cayce made numerous predictions which didn't materialise at the time expected -though I guess which may still be in the wings awaiting a more accurate cue. However, the above was simply a dream, but an interesting one to think about.

Coincidentally, speaking of 2100, I'm at present reading, rather slowly, Revolt in 2100 by Robert Heinlein. It's part of a trilogy Future History. In the novella If This Goes On... ,which forms the main part of this book of three stories, the scene is set in 2100 in what was the USA. The author describes the country as being ruled by an absolute theocracy, one with all the advantages of hi-tech, married to the worst of mediaeval regimentation and cruelty. If anyone suspects that kind of thing "can't happen here", I'd say, "don't be too sure!"
As the book's title indicates, a revolt is in the works. Heinlein's science fiction view of life in 2100 is scarcely better than that in Edgar Cayce's dream.

I notice, in searching for information about the rest of the Future History trilogy, that the author has been way off in his timing. Sci-fi authors have found this problem tricky for decades, even the best of 'em! Originally written in the 1950s, Heinlein outlined a world, in around 2000 AD, where space travel had been fully mastered, with the US being a leading power in a systemwide imperialism embracing all habitable planets. Highly optimisitic and several centuries too soon!

Apropos nothing in particular I'll throw in that by January 2100 Uranus the rebellious planet will be in mid-Aries, at around the same point it'll be in early in 2016. There are 90 years between now and then, few, if any who are on Earth now will still be around. Even my husband's two great-grandchildren born in January and June this year will, at best, be in their final years.

The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you.
~Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

I've just discovered William Stafford, an American poet born in Kansas, and love his honest-to-goodness plain style of poetry. No pretentious fluffy flights of fancy, but the ability to use words as triggers so that the reader creates their own flight. He was born on 17 January 1914, with 4 personal planets in Capricorn, between 20 and 29 degrees, and Uranus in Aquarius at 6 degrees, tagging along with the Capricorn stellium. Uranus never just tags along though! The rebel planet manifested in Mr. Stafford via his pacifist stance during World War 2.

With The Future and 2100 in mind, here's one of Mr. Stafford's poems:

Security by William Stafford


Tomorrow will have an island. Before night
I always find it. Then on to the next island.
These places hidden in the day separate
and come forward if you beckon.
But you have to know they are there before they exist.

Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven’t let that happen, but after
I’m gone others may become faithless and careless.
Before them will tumble the wide unbroken sea,
and without any hope they will stare at the horizon.

So to you, Friend, I confide my secret:
to be a discoverer you hold close whatever
you find, and after a while you decide
what it is. Then, secure in where you have been,
you turn to the open sea and let go.