Illustration Susanne Gold/ Text Jörg Puma

Medicine developed rapidly after a virus pandemic at the beginning of the 21st century temporarily paralysed the medical industry. In the aftermath, the many untreated physical and mental ailments led to an unexpected massive upvaluation of medicine by society and politics.

As a result, a Kondratieff cycle, i.e. a long-term wave of innovation with sustainable impact on health promotion, has been reinforced.

Two different currents developed: One was focused on psychosocial health and produced amazing results through meditation, self-healing, neuroplasticity, purification of energy streams and spiritual development.

The other direction is technology-based and developed the early implants (e.g. artificial eyes and lenses, cochlear implants for hearing, arm and leg prostheses) with wireless sensors, cameras and remote controlled chips and brain and muscle stimulators into highly functional performance enhancement features at the touch of a button.

Advanced prostheses and brain-compatible storage devices first led to increased performance for the wealthy and more and more cyborgs, i.e. hybrid beings of man and machine.

In a next step, genetic engineering and biotechnology were used to develop transgenic beings superior to normal mortals in strength, reaction and brain activity.

Human progress has often been one step ahead of ethical development, as in this case with transgenic beings and cyborgs – new social tensions are emerging.

The social inequality of the ultra-rich is now being reinforced by artificially designed physical strength, intelligence and performance of their own family.

For body and mind, technical tuning proved to be effective, for the soul meditation techniques – a reason for the establishment of the worldwide super ministries for the ethical handling of progress and euthanasia (based in Berlin, Europe) and Spirituality and Happiness(Bhutan, Himalaya) and Health Equality (Kenya, Africa), which should enable access to and participation in these different possibilities of progress.