Vladimir Putin’s most recent staff change has western experts baffled. According to the BBC, Mr. Putin’s new chief of staff Anton Vaino has reached the top of the Kremlin pecking order “shrouded in mystery”. However cloak & dagger Mr. Vaino’s appointment may seem though, it’s a clear sign Russia is headed off into a far more progressive policy realm than Londoners or Wall Street financiers would have us believe. Here is a candid look at the Putin way ahead.

Olga Ivshina and Dmitry Bulin of BBC’s Russian service tell us just how disparate western capitalist ideas are from the “Third Way” Mr. Putin and his Kremlin advisers have set out in quest of. I alluded to this path in a previous article for NEO. Now I find it fascinating that western media and economists cannot seem to keep up with Putin, even in fiscal policy matters. The BBC piece entitled; “Nooscope mystery: The strange device of Putin’s new man Anton Vaino”, does illuminate readers to reality, albeit unintentionally. An article by Mr. Vaino entitled; “The capitalisation of the future” is the key to understanding how Russian will go forward in this “new way” policy project. Though the BBC, ABC, and a score of other mainstream media outlets fail to understand, the essence of “Third Way” government is not so hard to grasp. Here’s the gist.

Architects of the “Third Way”

Anton Vaino’s theories and strategies on economics are being studied like nobody’s business in western circles today, and for good reason. The “Capitalization of the Future,” piece, published back 2012 in the journal Questions of Economics & Law, it has the status quo experts stymied. Calling Vaino’s assertions mumbo-jumbo, the focus of all media is on the author’s “Nooscope”, a device invented to understand the sphere of human thought. Supposedly built and patented by Vaino, the device measures what the genius Vladimir Vernadsky called the “Noosphere”, or the collective conscious of humanity. At least this is what ABC postulates. In fact the Noosphere concept goes back to a man named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who first used the term to describe a third state of human evolution (ergo a 3rd way). While ABC and BBC reporters seem to fail to understand, readers who are confused her may consult the Princeton Global Consciousness Project for more clarity. I assure you Mr. Putin’s selection for chief of staff has less to do with abracadabra policies, and a lot more to do with cutting edge policy and fiscal processes. Vaino is, in my view, the genius picked to lead Russia into its next phase of socio-economic development. For any among you who have ever heard of Big Data and small data analytics, the rest of this story should enthrall. To quote from the Princeton project’s introduction:

“Subtle but real effects of consciousness are important scientifically, but their real power is more immediate. They encourage us to make essential, healthy changes in the great systems that dominate our world. Large scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. Knowing this, we can intentionally work toward a brighter, more conscious future.”

Now that I have more of your attention, the Princeton project more or less clues us as to the potential of Putin’s most recent staff moves. To be precise, the 15 years of data analysis and study at GPC have established direct correlations in between world events that can predict outcomes. Simply put, I believe Mr. Putin’s think tanks can now formulate and enact regulated behaviors on some level. Okay, maybe that is not so simple to understand, so let me quote Roger D. Nelson, Director of the Princeton project:

“Great events on the world stage which bring people together in shared thoughts and synchronized emotions will be correlated with changes in the behavior of our network of random sources. That hypothesis was intended to be tested in a series of fully qualified statistical tests, with a priori specified parameters. The result is a definite confirmation of the general hypothesis, with a cumulative seven sigma difference from the null hypothesis expectation.”

We in fact do possess a collective consciousness, and evidence is showing that humankind has in fact entered a third phase of development. The theory goes something like this. The noosphere is this third successive phase after the so called geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the formation of life changed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally altered the biosphere. So, the noosphere emergence theory is the point where humankind steps into an era where resources are created through the transmutation of elements. And it is here that some readers may well leave off, at the point where the normative merges with the empirical. The theories of noogenesis seem like black magic to western economists because human spirituality and consciousness enter into the equations. In short, God is part of the complexity of the “Third Way”.

I will let you digest this for a brief moment.

The God Quotient

One bean counter’s “mumbo-jumbo” is another’s “Holy Grail”. It was Teilhard who first argued that the noosphere would eventually evolve toward the Christian notion of love as a principal driver of this new evolution. He discussed something called the Omega Point, or the apex of thought/consciousness which he believed was in essences, the eschatological return of Christ. Now before the reader goes of half cocked thinking this writer has lost it, please be patient. After all , these are not my theories and concepts, although I tend to agree.

Vladimir Putin has been quoted as saying that love is “the way” forward many times. And though western media has largely ignored this sentiment, it is an important note here. With supra-capitalism virtually melting down before our eyes, and with the ensuing desperate crises we see perpetrated by London and Washington, correlating the decline of western civilized ideals is only one step away. While NWO owned media like Isreali businessman Daniel Treisman’s Inquisitor equates noosphere ideas to the mysticism practiced by Hitler’s henchmen, the reality of the supposed invention is closer to Silicon Valley’s penchant for the Internet of Things (IoT) potential. I’ve no space here for delving into this, but for many people in the world the clear divergence away from traditional spiritual ideals is readily apparent. Taking America as a poignant test case, my country resembles more and more the “Babylon” from the book of Revelations. And I know many a Southern Baptist minister has to be preaching himself blue in the face about now. But to return to Mr. Putin’s Third Way and Anton Vaino’s role.

The Steady State – A Noocratic Ideal

It is said that Noocracies are impractical, at least by formerly democratic notions. However impracticable governance by the “wise” may seem though, it’s abundantly clear humanity is not prepared to govern itself, nor are the current democratic systems affecting us positively enough. The test tube of democratic governance is at best, filled with a cloudy substance indiscernible from oligarchy. For many, there simply has to be a better way of going forward. So, what better place to create a new experiment, than the biggest and more diverse country on Earth?

If there is such a collective consciousness phase going on, then perhaps it is due time Pythagoras’ “city of the wise” took shape. It was Plato who predicted that Noocracy was the future political system for the entire human race, and that Democracy (“the authority of the crowd”) and other forms of governance would eventually be replaced by it. Emory professor Mikhail Epstein defined Noocracy as a system of governance where “the power of the collective brain rather than separate individuals representing certain social groups or society as whole.” Combining what we know of Putin’s supposed “Third Way”, the growing concern over inadequacies of growth capitalistic systems, and the world’s mounting ecological problems, it’s easy to project upon concepts like a steady-state economy, and better collective governance meted out via better technology and a metaphysical element. If the time for more pragmatic thinking is now, then our end is fairly well assured. And believe me, Vladmir Putin is the ultimate pragmatist.

Anthropogenic global warming, widespread habitat loss and species extinctions, consumption of natural resources, pollution, urban congestion, intensifying competition for remaining resources, and increasing disparity between the wealthy and the poor, and burgeoning crises rip at the fabric of our societies today. War, famine, internal strife, and a new theology of narcissi threaten all life on this planet. Continual growth and incessant misuse of resources is not longer even possible, let along advisable. While the industrialists have their media outlets assist in the ongoing fight for the status quo, only Putin and his allies seem to forge forward with anything new. This is not just my view. Please consider what The New York Times or Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post would report had Hillary Clinton’s proposed chief of staff invented a “Nooscope!” Right now you would be reading about how Hillary’s “Second Way” of governance finally proved out – you’d read how the Internet of Things (IoT) would receive $1 trillion in funding, and how Democracy would seamlessly integrate into the Noosphere.

I hope that one hit my Silicon Valley technology pals in between their Google Glass wearing eyeballs. However, it looks like Russia is racing toward the first ever large scale Noocracy. It’s no coincidence that Herman Daly’s concept of the steady-state-economy bears elements of Anton Vaino’s assertive theories. Furthermore, top-down economic and political models do not compare positively with more radical ideas such as French political scientist Serge Latouche’s de-growth scenarios. So the western detractors, particularly the average reporter on the scene, would seem to be behind the curve of Putin administration progressive thought. Unless I miss my guess, Vaino will make a series of announcements of efforts to tap into first the collective Russian consciousness, and later the Eurasian Union sphere of change. Look for the Chinese to emerge in all this, and sooner than later.

The crisis we’ve all been privy to, the convergences and the divergence from traditional ideals, it all bears a biblical intonation form me. My colleague Holger Eekhof and I discussed this at length just yesterday. An agnostic himself, the Dutch political analyst readily admitted in our most recent chat, his concerns over the “epic” disintegration of western values. In particular he was concerned over the fascist or right leaning trend here in Germany. With Muslims in the modern crucible, the danger of Germany reverting to past transgressions is a growing potential. And we both believe this is out of design. As for Putin, it’s fair to say his calling card is Orthodoxy, where values are concerned. Maybe some readers don’t want to hear this, but the signals are all with us. Are we at Armageddon, or are we about to mutate into a collective Eden?

I leave you to ponder individually. The answer may well be seen in a new system emerging.

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.