No doubt it is news to no one that planet Earth is in a period of escalating interlocking crises. We need a response that addresses all the hidden as well as the obvious dimensions of these crises—before they spin out of control into irretrievable chaos. (For the moment, let us leave aside the geophysical crises, including climate change, increasing seismic activity, and the ozone holes, as well as pollution, radiation poisoning, mass extinctions of species, increasing solar flare activity, and the like. They cannot be dealt with effectively so long as the current political system endures.) The system is in process of collapsing of its own weight, its own internal contradictions. At the same time, spontaneous social movements are arising on a global scale that are confronting the system and increasing the level of stress to the breaking point. Our concern is to assure the optimal outcome of this titanic face-off.

The crisis we face at the sociopolitical level is one of legitimacy of authority. The OWS movement (Occupy Wall Street) and the Indignado movement in Spain and other anti-austerity movements all over Europe, following on the so-called Arab Spring, not to mention student movements and general protest movements in many parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, are simultaneously rising to a crescendo.

The ego is a prison camp. No one is ever released. There is only one way out: through the death of the ego. But the ego is fragmented. It is made up of many egons, ego particles, each with its own drive, its own jouissance, its own paranoid patterns of behavior, its own history of criminal activities. No egon is innocent, even though some are guilty of lesser charges than others. The egons are controlled—and regularly tortured—by super-egons, who are their guards, but who are also lifers here in Egontanamo. The cruelest entity here is the warden, known as the Censor. He keeps all the in-mates under constant surveillance. He remains hidden from view, safe in his bastion, keeping the whole camp running, and enjoying its aggressive, paranoid, sado-masochistic energy field. He alone has the power here.

But secretly, a prison break is being planned. The authorities are not aware of it, but the Great Escape is already underway. Paradoxically, it is beginning in the most highly guarded hell hole, the punishment cell, in constant lock-down, solitary confinement. There, all alone, sits a unique in-mate of this prison: he is not officially here, he is only a legend to most of the prisoners. Yet, there in the deepest dungeon he waits. They say he was kidnapped as an infant, and some even speculate that he was born in the prison, and that his mother, who was really innocent, died soon after. Somehow, he survived, hidden away and forgotten.