Sylvain Piron
Sylvain Piron is a medievalist based in Paris (E.H.E.S.S.), currently working on a collective biography of Francis of Assisi and his companions. Latest book: L’Occupation du monde.
As unexpected as it was widespread, the 2030s were marked by what came to be known as the “Great awakening.”[1] In China, a Buddhist revival, which no one saw coming, catalyzed opposition to Communist Party dictatorship, forced industrialization, and the destruction of the countryside. Defections from the security forces were so numerous that the movement spread to the highest echelons of the party; nothing could suppress it. In the turmoil that followed, Tibet regained its independence.
In the Muslim world, the rise of Sufi brotherhoods was just as spectacular. The collapse of the Iranian mullah regime in January 2031, advanced by the conversion of middle-ranking officials, marked its first victory. This would lead, like dominoes, to the overthrow of corrupt regimes in the Gulf countries and North Africa.
In the United States, the Californian spiritualist movement was a major player in the secession of the “enlightened States.” Despite Trump’s impeachment in January 2026, following his conviction for repeated violations of the Constitution —resulting in his banishment by May 2026—the Trumpist movement persisted, seeing him as their martyr. Reconciliation with the Southern states was in turn halted as they remained irrevocably under the thumb of racist Evangelical fundamentalism.
In France, as early as 2026, somewhere in the South-West, near Figeac, a “radical Spinozist” movement emerged—seemingly harmless at first glance. Yet its program of a nonviolent abolition of capitalism gradually won over large sections of society. It got to the point of promoting the election of Marine Tondelier[2] in the May 2032 presidential elections, who had skillfully caught this wave. Her slogan was immediately understandable: “We are all attributes of the divine substance”; the separation of individuals from each other and from their environment was therefore illusory.
I don’t have time to describe all the effects—from the decline of shopping malls and the rise of autonomous communes; to the fall in urban land prices and crime. Suffice it to say that an active Spinozist movement among French Jewish youth had a profound impact in Israel and led to the transfer of Netanyahu, already convicted and imprisoned for corruption, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where what would become a veritable trial of Zionism and its crimes began. The reparations that the State of Israel was ordered to pay to millions of Palestinians caused such a shock that a new constitution was adopted, guaranteeing equal rights for all inhabitants in a new entity called the Holy Land, whose first leader was a Palestinian.
In France, Pauline Dubreuil, a young Spinozist Minister of Education, launched a reform of the school system in 2032. The first year of primary school was devoted not only to learning to read and sing, but also to discovering the innate gifts of children, which they would be encouraged to develop throughout their schooling; instead of the pasts uniform and restrictive models. Given the frequency with which telepathic abilities manifested themselves, significant funds were allocated to the venerable International Institute of Metapsychics, created as a laboratory associated with Paris VIII University, to conduct research on the subject. Within a year, a group of anomalist psychologists (specialists in exceptional experiences) proposed a protocol and training modules for teachers, which was quickly adopted by the entire population.
First, participants learned to send a call to the person they wanted to contact, asking for their consent. The partners could then communicate freely with each other through their thoughts. The use of tablets and other digital media was reduced accordingly. Once the “contact group” protocol, which several people could join, had been established and taught, social networks became obsolete and the use of this strange device, which for several decades had seemed to be the instrument of irreversible alienation (I am of course referring to the cell phone), was definitively abandoned. The use of generative AI quickly died out, without even having to be banned. The last data center in Dunkirk closed in February 2038.
The search for innate gifts quickly led to the discovery of the past lives of young children; in turn, the sense of belonging to a common humanity was so deep that the very idea of racism quickly became incomprehensible. However, it remained a challenge to rediscover the levitation abilities of saints and yogis: this requires long ascetic preparation…the phenomenon seems possible only in isolated places. The hope that some had placed in the possibility of widespread human transport by translative levitation has therefore been dashed.
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In 2050, the world is undoubtedly warmer. The submersion of coastal cities and the expansion of deserts have caused the displacement of hundreds of millions of people. But the rise of spiritual life in all parts of the globe has significantly reduced what were once considered consumer needs, which now appear to be an incredible waste. Most states have governments that are more or less committed to a form of “ecological socialism” and ensure radical redistribution of wealth through profit and inheritance taxes, together with universal basic income. World hunger, having been virtually eradicated, came with the discovery that we were eating far too much and far too badly in industrialized countries.
[1] Thanks to Noah Brehmer for proofreading this text.
[2] In 2025, she was leader of the French Green Party [translator’s note].
JOURNAL OF THE FIRST OUTERNATIONAL 