Author Finds 2016 Essay on 'Mandate of Heaven' Fits 2026 'Like a Glove'

THE INTERNET — Christopher Knowles, author of the Substack publication The Secret Sun, has republished an essay he first wrote in mid-2016, saying he was struck by how well it anticipated the present year. He writes that he could have composed it "this morning" and it would still apply.

Knowles disclaims any gift of prophecy. He says he merely recognizes patterns, and that patterns lead to conclusions if one takes the long view. He adds that he has been pulling old posts from his earlier blog, partly to keep them from the many AI systems that he says scrape Blogspot daily. A revised and remastered version of his series is due this month, he reports.

The essay's central argument is that civilizations from Sumer to Rome believed they held the Mandate of Heaven until they did not. Knowles writes that current political, social and economic arrangements look unsustainable, and that he believes most intelligent people see them heading toward wide-scale civil conflict. He cites Brexit and strains within NATO as evidence.

Among his more striking conjectures is that state-sponsored hackers will one day loose an artificial intelligence on the Internet with the single command "Crash everything you can." He also wonders aloud whether some force is deliberately undermining the capitalist world order, and whether elites are bluffing about their competence.

The author further reports a revival of grim, fatalist paganism, naming Santa Muerte and Wotanist sects, and argues that technology is eroding human competence. He recalls warning Timothy Leary in 1993 that immersion in virtual environments would impair life in the real world, a remark he says angered Leary. He also contends that human evolution lacks internal logic, a view he says biologists are kept from discussing, though he offers no evidence in the piece.

Knowles closes by invoking a "War in Heaven," a phrase he attributes to Gordon White, and suggests that powerful people have concluded the technocratic utopia is a mirage. He adds that shifting space weather may or may not be involved. His verdict: things are about to change "and change hard."