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Forever Alive Issue 01
F O R E V E R A L I V E L i t e
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Issue Number 1 September, 1995
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Forever Alive is the world's premier magazine on
the subject of physical immortality. We offer a new
vision of humanity, as completely whole, beyond the
polarities of life and death, spirit and body, mind
and heart, male and female. This pioneering
magazine explores the transformative powers of
embracing a life without limits.
This file is best viewed in a monospaced font, such
as Courier.
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C O N T E N T S
* "Immortality in the 21st Century" by Herb Bowie
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M A S T H E A D
Editor: Herb Bowie
Forever Alive Lite is the electronic equivalent to
Forever Alive magazine, a periodical printed on
actual paper. The paper version is published
quarterly, while its electronic "lite" counterpart
is published monthly. Both are published by People
Forever International.
E-MAIL ADDRESS
Herb Bowie@aol.com
MAILING ADDRESS
PO Box 12305, Scottsdale, AZ 85267-2305
TELEPHONES
1 (602) 922-0300 Voice
1 (602) 922-0800 FAX
1 (800) 2B4-EVER Toll-Free
Forever Alive Lite is copyright (c) 1995 by People
Forever International. You may freely distribute
this file electronically on a non-commercial,
nonprofit basis to anyone, and print one copy for
your personal use, but you may not alter or excerpt
this file in any way without direct permission from
People Forever International.
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A B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F F O R E V E R
Immortality in the 21st Century
A fiction, by Herb Bowie
Editor's Note
The popular media have been focusing increased
attention on the subject of radical life extension.
These articles often cite promising scientific
information, but all too frequently finish up with
distressing projections of dire social consequences
that would supposedly ensue from unrestrained
living. The best example is probably a Life
magazine cover story from a couple of years ago.
This included a projection of the next 400 years
that made immortality seem catastrophic at worst,
and merely tiresome at best.
In order to provide an alternative vision of our
life-extended future, I've included the following
account of our next 100 years. This is only one of
many such possible scenarios, and I make no
prophetic claims. I do hope, though, that this
narrative opens your eyes to some positive
possibilities, and stimulates a clearer picture of
what you see for yourself in the coming century.
2002 -- Scientists Proclaim Immortality!
In February, a group of scientists shocked the
world by announcing that, three years earlier, the
human race had achieved a kind of theoretical
immortality. It was at this point, they said, that
the ever quickening pace of scientific discovery
had passed the point at which, for every year of
additional research, at least one year could be
added to the human life span. Although no
guarantees could be made, there was little doubt
that progress would continue at the same, if not a
greater, rate. Eternity had arrived, then, not from
a single "silver bullet," but from a snowball
effect produced by the constantly increasing
accumulation of relevant scientific advances.
Paul and Sara O'Connell were at first as astonished
by the announcement as was the rest of the human
race. Paul was an environmental engineer who had
just turned 40, and his wife, originally from
Israel, was a kindergarten teacher approaching her
37th birthday. They and their seven year old son,
Stephen, had all spent their lives so far
relatively free from accident and illness, and
pursued life styles healthier than most. The
"Immortality Proclamation," as it was called,
caused Paul and Sara to stop and consider their
options. Although neither of them seriously
believed they could live forever, the possibility
of extending their lives by a decade or two proved
to be motivation enough. They began to seek out
news of longevity research, and to apply it to
their lives wherever possible.
2003 -- Humanity Faces the Choice to Live
Many other people were equally interested in the
Proclamation. Scientific news that had previously
been confined to technical journals or a few
specialty magazines suddenly began appearing in
most of the popular media. Newspapers began running
columns on the subject of life extension, and many
of these quickly grew into entire sections. Soon
every major television network had at least two
shows on the subject, and an entire cable channel
devoted to longevity followed shortly thereafter.
Surprisingly, not everyone was excited with the
possibility of living forever. As the number of
people pursuing "incremental immortality"
increased, so did active opposition to the
movement. Since every major religion was based on
some form of an afterlife, much antagonism came
from this quarter. Even people who were not
particularly religious seemed to feel that
immortality was unnatural and somehow immoral.
Others protested that dramatically lengthening
human life spans invited some sort of apocalyptic
catastrophe, such as mass starvation or economic
collapse.
What followed was one of the most divisive social
conflicts in history. For the first time, humanity
was offered a clear choice between life and death.
Science was outlining quite specific actions that
could, when taken together, extend life spans
dramatically. When faced with this option, many
people declined. These same people had, a few years
ago, before they had been given the choice, shown
no obvious signs of wanting to die. And yet, now
that they had turned their backs on immortality,
they seemed to court death with a vengeance. It
soon became apparent that there was no middle
ground in this division that crossed all existing
socioeconomic and demographic categories. One was
either a "lifer," as they came to be known, or one
turned towards death.
Paul and Sara were troubled by religious and moral
qualms from time to time, but had their new
direction in life constantly reinforced by the
improving quality of their lives. They not only
expected to live longer in the future, they
realized they felt better, and more alive, today.
Of their parents, only Sara's mom was supportive of
their decision, and even she did not choose to
pursue life extension herself.
Paul changed jobs this year, at a significant
decrease in salary, to get away from a boss that
was adamantly anti-life. By the end of the year,
Paul heard that his former boss had died of
previously undiagnosed cancer, but by this time he
was already firmly established at a new firm
composed mostly of lifers, and there was no turning
back.
2004 -- Immortality Groups Form
Paul and Sara joined a local immortality group that
had formed recently. These started as study groups,
distributing new information as soon as it became
available. They soon became support groups as well,
with people helping each other to make the
sometimes difficult changes in their lives that
were demanded by the emerging longevity research.
2005 -- The Aliveness Meter
Much of the most promising research into human
health was now taking place in the fields of
psychology and sociology, as scientists further
confirmed the importance of the body-mind
connection. With these principles becoming more
firmly established, immortality groups such as the
one the O'Connells had joined became places to
practice these principles, and not just to study
them.
This field of inquiry was accelerated greatly by a
discovery made by a physicist. Quite by accident,
while searching for a new way to detect black
holes, she discovered an entirely new form of
radiation. It did not take her long to realize that
the source of this energy was not a distant
celestial body, but some quite close human bodies.
She developed a meter with which to measure this
field, and found that it was not constant, but
fluctuated greatly from person to person and from
time to time with the same person. Interestingly,
she discovered that it was often strongest with
young people, and frequently weaker with older
people.
She took some measurements in a variety of
environments, including a hospital and a nursing
home, where levels turned out to be particularly
low. In the hospital she found one patient in
particular whose output of this new energy field
was barely perceptible. She made some discreet
inquiries of the staff, without uncovering any
reason for this unusual variation. When she arrived
home, though, she found a message waiting for her
that the patient had died from a sudden and quite
unexpected heart failure.
Further and more methodical research confirmed that
levels of this new radiation had a very high
correlation with other measurements of levels of
health, including life expectancies for medical
patients with critical conditions. Once this
relationship was firmly established, the next step
was to use this measuring device to find other
factors that influenced the strength of this
aliveness radiation, as it was now being called.
2006 -- Meter Validates Group in Arizona
Scientists from a number of different fields began
to experiment with this new tool, but the most
promising results were obtained by psychologists
and sociologists. It turned out that the quality
and quantity of human thought, feeling and
interaction had a much more direct effect on the
level of this new radiation than did any other
factors.
One of the sociologists who had begun serious
experimentation with the new "aliveness meter," as
it had been dubbed by the popular press, was based
at Arizona State University. He began to take
readings at a variety of local religious services,
with some varied and dramatic results. As he
continued his research by investigating some
religious organizations that were farther from the
mainstream, he heard about a local group whose
principles were actually based on human
immortality. He attended one of their services, and
was surprised to find that levels of aliveness
radiation were off the scale of his meter.
He returned to his laboratory, calibrated the
machine to ensure that there was nothing wrong with
it, and then returned to the group's next meeting
with a new machine, built to measure a higher
range. This trip validated his earlier findings. He
began to study the principles and practices of this
organization, and soon published research that
revolutionized the field of longevity.
The immortality groups that already existed turned
out to be ideal forums to implement these new
principles, and as a result they spread rapidly.
Paul, Sara and Stephen adapted to them quickly,
finding that they felt good, as well as being
theoretically good for them. The idea of living
forever was starting to sound appealing, as well as
possible.
2009 -- A New Quality of Life
Some people had anticipated that the easing of the
pressure of time would make people's lives less
exciting, that people who had "all the time in the
world" would become so laid back that they might
appear to be dead, even if they were going to live
forever. It was true that people no longer felt the
same pressure to cram a certain amount of
achievement into a fixed number of years. It turned
out, though, that research established a direct
correlation between improving the quality of one's
life today and increasing one's life expectancy.
And since immortality had been granted, not through
some magical fountain of youth or potion, but
through people's own continuing and expanding
efforts, people's general levels of involvement,
commitment and excitement rose commensurately.
Excitement, it turned out, was a prerequisite for
immortality.
Paul and Sara were happier than they had ever been,
but then they had by now been saying this for
years. They both had lost weight, and looked
younger and more fit than the day of the
Proclamation seven years ago. They had become more
involved in their careers, while at the same time
keeping a balance with other aspects of their
lives. Stephen would be going to college in four
more years, but neither of them experienced any
dread at being left alone in their house. They had
experienced, through their biweekly immortality
meetings, a richness and a variety of human
relationships that would allow them no thought of
loss. They had other children that they were close
to, as well as adults of all ages, and though they
knew they would miss Stephen, they felt no threat
of being emotionally deprived as he assumed a
smaller role in their lives.
2014 -- Accidents On The Decline
The most persistent rub in the expanding
possibility of immortality was the remaining threat
from catastrophic accidents. No matter how healthy
you became, people reasoned, it would do you little
good if you were run over by a truck.
When researchers finally turned their attention to
this problem, they found that "accidents" were not
as accidental as people had previously thought.
People radiating higher levels of the aliveness
radiation were found to be proportionately less
likely to have accidents. They also found that, as
people became less resigned to eventual death, they
were less tolerant of unsafe conditions that led to
accidents in the first place. People were no longer
satisfied with statistics that reported huge
numbers of people dying each year in traffic
accidents, for example. Accidental deaths were no
longer just things to be watched on the evening
news, they increasingly became invitations for
positive action to make sure they didn't recur.
2021 -- Population Growth Stabilizes
People who had been worried about overpopulation by
now realized that their fears had been misplaced.
Although birth rates remained high in the
diminishing number of relatively poor countries,
they continued to decline in the richer countries,
and especially among the lifers, more than making
up for the decrease in the death rates. It was not
that these longer-lived people lost any interest in
children--on the contrary, they seemed to enjoy
them more than ever. At the same time, the
immortality groups offered a new social structure
that allowed fewer children to be enjoyed by more
people, and allowed them to be shared across
traditional family boundaries. These groups also
relieved many of the former disadvantages of
raising "only children," since these children now
had other children within the groups that they
could play with and become close to, replacing a
few brothers or sisters with a larger number of
"cousins."
The declining birth rates also seemed to be caused
by other, more subtle, factors. The span of
people's potential childbearing years continued to
lengthen in parallel with their total life spans.
This created even more of an environment in which
having a child was a matter of choice, rather than
a pre-programmed action triggered by a biological
time clock. Also, as people's lives lengthened, and
the prospect of living even longer became more
real, they seemed less driven to achieve
immortality through their offspring. Finally, the
adult lifers were more childlike themselves, and
seemed to rely less on the presence of children for
that quality of joy so often associated with
childhood.
Paul and Sara were no exceptions. They had adjusted
to Stephen's adulthood and departure from their
household. Although their doctors assured them that
they could have another child if they wanted, they
had never seriously considered it. They were still
close to their son, and he delighted them as much
now as he had when he was one month old.
Stephen, meanwhile, had married a girl he had met
and fallen in love with in college, named Maggie.
They were open to having a child, but were in no
hurry, and felt no pressure from their parents, who
had plenty of friends with children of all ages.
Stephen had become an aeronautical engineer, and
Maggie was a journalist.
2027 -- Work Lives Change Dramatically
Widespread changes had taken place in people's
working lives. Fears of a huge population of
retired senior citizens utterly depleting their
various pensions and retirement funds had proven
ironically unfounded, as research had confirmed
many people's suspicions that retirement was
inherently incompatible with radical life
extension. With the siren song of retirement
finally silenced, people were able to seriously
turn their attention to improving working
conditions. Employers granted more holidays and
vacations each year, shortened the standard work
week, and more frequently gave their employees paid
sabbaticals from the workplace.
At the same time, as the principles of immortality
became more widespread, people increasingly
demanded that they be implemented in their working
environments. The previous trend towards working at
home and telecommuting reversed itself, as people
started to look forward to going to work to be with
other people there.
None of these advances were free, but society found
ways to pay for them. As the span of productive
working years increased, while the length of the
expensive early years of life remained fixed,
society found that its tax base was increasing
while its education expenses were declining.
Employees also became less fixated with constantly
increasing salaries, as the need to accumulate a
"nest egg" to finance the "golden years" of
retirement became a diminishing reality. Retirement
plans that had previously been funded by government
agencies or employers either decreased their
requirements or were liquidated altogether. Medical
costs also declined, as more emphasis went into
prevention rather than expensive and often
ineffective correction. In general, the cost of
living went down as people realized that most of
their money had previously gone towards, not
living, but bearing and raising children, getting
sick and growing old.
Paul celebrated his 65th birthday by liquidating
his Individual Retirement Account, which by now
held close to one million dollars, and using part
of the money to start his own company. The new firm
designed, manufactured and marketed recycling
equipment. Sara went to work in the new company as
well, and turned her educational skills towards
training their customers in the use of the
equipment. They found that working as well as
living together enriched their relationship in new
ways. Once again, they were happier than they had
ever been.
2036 -- One Career No Longer Enough
Along with all the other changes in the workplace,
"career hopping" was becoming more common. As more
money and time became available for living, adults
spent more of both on education. As life spans
lengthened, it had become increasingly apparent
that one dose of early education, no matter how
big, would not be enough to last a lifetime--a
program of ongoing "booster" shots would be
necessary. Anyway, as people had gotten used to
ongoing learning in the field of longevity, they
began to extend their renewed interest in learning
into other fields as well.
Some people built on earlier careers and knowledge
bases to launch new ones. Others started with no
more than a latent passion, and branched off in
directions entirely different from ones previously
taken. In either case, the decreased "cost of
living" and modified retirement expectations
allowed them to adjust joyfully to initially
smaller salaries in their new vocations. Their
lessened incomes were more than adequately
compensated for by the increased sense of freedom
that came with the possibility of starting over,
not one, but many times.
Paul and Sara continued to prosper in their
company. Stephen had quit his engineering job, had
come to work for his parents briefly, and then had
started a new career as an actor. He had softened
the blow to the family income, however, by waiting
for a year during which his wife, Maggie, had to
take her compulsory management rotation in the
office, for which she was given a 20% bonus. By the
end of the year, when she returned to her normal
duties, Stephen was performing regularly in the
local community, although he was still making only
about one third as much money as before.
2048 -- Global Environment Improves
The rate of scientific advance over the last few
decades had quietly achieved an even greater
acceleration than that of the last century. As more
money became available, more of it was spent on
scientific research. The diminished need to retrain
a new generation of researchers every decade was
also having its effect. Major breakthroughs were
being routinely achieved by scientists in their
sixties, seventies and eighties who had been able
to build on the successes of their youth rather
than seeing their powers diminish with age.
These technological advances were some of the
factors contributing to a gradual turnaround of the
environmental decline that had plagued the world
since the beginning of the industrial revolution. A
more immediate cause, though, was the increased
motivation of the voting population to do something
about these problems. The simple truth was that
asking people to save the earth for future
generations had never worked very well. Now that
people were concerned with saving it for
themselves, they focused on the issues at hand with
an insistence that had previously been reserved for
aging voters facing cuts to social security
benefits.
Whatever the reasons, the United Nations in this
year announced that, for the first time since they
had begun tracking the relevant statistics, the
earth's environment had actually improved over the
past year. The hard work was not over, but the
world had turned the corner.
Paul and Sara's company, in its own small way, was
part of this turnaround. They had achieved
substantial financial success, and were thrilled
with the report from the UN. They decided to
celebrate by taking a year off to travel the world,
and turned the company over to a trusted employee
to run in their absence.
2062 -- A New World Order
Scientists had years before established that
emotions of human suppression, prejudice and
hostility were life-threatening for the subjects as
well as the objects of these feelings. This
realization had gradually replaced strong feelings
of racism, nationalism and separatism with an
expanding acceptance of all human beings as fellow
citizens of the world. Organized religion, the
other great divider of people, had fallen into
decline without the need of much scientific
intervention, since people who were increasingly
unafraid of death had little need for the comfort
of traditional religious beliefs.
At the same time, there were feelings of devotion,
spirituality and reverence that were found to be
greatly life-enhancing. The immortality groups that
now covered the globe found, however, that they did
not need a god or a sacred text to invoke these
feelings. Haltingly at first, and then with
increasing abandon, they had begun to apply these
feelings to each other. As people found they could
feel holy about themselves and other people, not
just at these meetings but in their everyday lives,
more and more people became converts to this new
way of life. Immortality became the religion to end
all religions.
With these age-old barriers to togetherness
crumbling, national governments began to assume a
more reasonable and restricted role in human
affairs. The United Nations began to take on more
of the functions formerly reserved for these
national bodies, and it was in this year that all
the countries of the world turned their national
defense systems over to the control of this world
body, to be used for peacekeeping missions only.
2068 -- An International Language
In February the International Standards
Organization released ISO 3364-18, which defined an
international standard for the English language.
This monumental document, including a dictionary
and a book of grammar, was the culmination of a
ten-year effort by a global committee. The intent
was not only to standardize the language, but to
simplify it by eliminating as many of its maddening
inconsistencies as possible.
This new document satisfied the long-standing need
for a truly international language. English had
long ago become the de facto standard, but
countries having another primary language had still
bristled at the idea of acknowledging a foreign
language as their own. Esperanto had been briefly
touted as a neutral alternative, but since not even
its most vocal advocates actually knew it,
implementation had proved impractical.
The work of the International Standards
Organization, then, accomplished two important
objectives. First, it made the language easier to
learn by cleaning up many of its irregular
spellings and constructions. Second, and more
importantly, it gave countries where English was
not the standard a chance to take ownership of the
language by making changes to it.
In November, the United Nations adopted
International English as its official language.
Predictably, the strongest objections came from
England, which was still having difficulty
reconciling itself to the way America had
bastardized the language. The eloquent objections
of the language's mother country were overridden,
though, and one more barrier to global
communication was removed.
2090 -- Together Forever
One of the dire recurring predictions made by those
skeptical of immortality was that human
relationships could never last that long, and that
those who had eagerly pledged to remain faithful
until death did them part would all too quickly
renounce their vows when staring into the face of
eternity.
Although the conquest of all sexually transmitted
diseases had given a certain impetus to this
argument, many couples persisted despite the
predictions. It was not that they were
unattractive, or unattracted, to others. They
enjoyed these erotic feelings without feeling any
compelling need to consummate them, and these
emotions became just one more strand in the rich
and satisfying tapestry of their social existence.
Paul and Sara were one of many such fortunate
couples. They celebrated their hundredth wedding
anniversary by visiting a new resort on the moon.
They looked back over their years together, time
during which they had grown closer than they had
ever thought possible, had shared and stimulated
each other's growth, and had become people they had
never dreamed of being when they were married. They
drank a toast to each other, and pledged their love
for the next hundred years, and made love together,
for perhaps the ten thousandth time, as the earth
sank beneath the horizon.
- - -
From Forever Alive magazine, Issue number 25,
September through November, 1995. Copyright (c) 1993
by People Forever International.
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FOREVER ALIVE MAGAZINE
Forever Alive magazine is the paper-based big
brother to this e-zine. It has been published
quarterly since 1989.
R. Seth Friedman, in Factsheet Five, Issue No. 56,
said about Forever Alive:
"This publication breaks the mold of fringe
immortality zines with informative, rational (and
very readable) essays in a bright colorful
package."
Carol Wright said about us, in the Spring 1994
edition of the NAPRA Trade Journal:
"This quarterly publication is probably the only
immortalist (as opposed to longevity) magazine
around. Forever Alive offers recent information
about longevity, bodywork, nutrition and so forth.
But their upbeat philosophical essays separate them
from other health magazines. They challenge your
most deeply seated beliefs about life and death."
The Alternative Press Review, in their
Spring/Summer 1995 edition, said:
"Forever Alive is a nicely-produced, 42-page
quarterly magazine devoted to bodily health and
human immortality--along with their shadows,
obsessive fear of aging and death."
Forever Alive has now grown to 52 pages, with no
outside advertising, and featuring a full-color
cover. The magazine is available at better
bookstores, including the Barnes & Noble and
Borders chains. The cost is $6 for a single issue
and $24 for an annual subscription (4 issues).
Subscriptions and single issues may be ordered
directly from People Forever.
Distributors for Forever Alive include Desert Moon,
New Leaf, Armadillo & Co. and Ingram Periodicals.
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