Matter and Consciousness

"If matter and consciousness are both types of gravitational fields, they are like different ripples in the same pond…what goes on in the consciousness affects the whole universe.

And now we must suspect that every point in the human brain is connected, via (what he calls) the quantum foam (the underlying fabric of all creation), to every other point in the universe." Mysticism and the New Physics, by Michael Talbot, pp.62, 81.

"Sir James Jean's notion of the universe as a giant Thought as opposed to a giant machine is further echoed in quantum physics. Jack Sarfatti states, 'signals move through constantly appearing and disappearing (virtual) wormhole connections providing almost instant communication between all parts of space. These signals can be likened to pulses of nerve cells of a great cosmic brain that permeates all parts of space. This point of view is motivated by Einstein's general relativity in the form of Geometrodynamics. A parallel point of view is given in the quantum theory as interpreted by Bohm. In my opinion this is no accident because I suspect that general relativity and quantum theory are simply two complimentary aspects of a deeper theory that will involve a kind of Cosmic Consciousness as the key concept.'" Talbot, p.82

The Holographic Universe

"During their conversations (David Bohm and Albert Einstein) the two men discovered they each had nothing but admiration for the theory's ability to predict phenomena. What bothered them was that it provided no real way of conceiving of the basic structure of the world. Niels Bohr and his followers also claimed that quantum theory was complete and it was not possible to arrive at any clearer understanding of what was going on in the quantum realm. This was the same as saying there was no deeper reality beyond the subatomic landscape, no further answers to be found, and this too grated on both Bohm and Einstein's philosophical sensibilities...Inspired by his interactions with Einstein, he accepted the validity of his misgivings about quantum physics and decided there had to be an alternative view...His mind, ever active and always looking for deeper explanations, was already searching for a better way of describing reality.

A NEW KIND OF FIELD...After his talks with Einstein, Bohm tried to find a workable alternative to Bohr's interpretation. He began by assuming that particles such as electrons do exist in the absence of observers. He also assumed that there was a deeper reality beneath Bohr's inviolable wall, a subquantum level that still awaited its discovery by science. Building on these premises he discovered that simply by proposing the existence of a new kind of field on this subquantum level he was able to explain the findings of quantum physics as well as Bohr could. Bohm called his proposed new field the quantum potential and theorized that, like gravity, it pervaded all of space. However, unlike gravitational fields, magnetic fields, and so on, its influence did not diminish with distance. Its effects were subtle, but it was equally powerful everywhere. Bohm published his alternative interpretation of quantum theory in 1952.

Reaction to his new approach was mainly negative. Some physicists were so convinced such alternatives were impossible that they dismissed the ideas his ideas out of hand. (Theologians are that way too). Others launched passionate attacks against his reasoning. In the end virtually all such arguments were based primarily on philosophical differences, but it did not matter. Bohr's point of view had become so entrenched in physics that Bohm's alternative was looked upon as little more than heresy.

Despite the harshness of these attacks Bohm remained unswerving in his convictions that there was more to reality than Bohr's view would allow. He also felt that science was much too limited in its outlook when it came to assessing new ideas such as his own, and in a 1957 book entitled Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, he examined several of the philosophical suppositions responsible for this attitude. One was the widely held assumption that it was possible for any single theory, such as quantum theory, to be complete. Bohm criticized this assumption by pointing out that Nature might be infinite. Because it would not be possible for any theory to completely explain something that is infinite, Bohm suggested that open scientific inquiry might be better served if researchers refrained from making this assumption." The Holographic Universe, by Michael Talbot, pp.39,40.

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"Science, the interpreter of the laws of nature and of the principles underlying them, cannot help us in our search to solve the mystery of time and space. The proper domain of science is the physical universe.

The modern archangel has no wings. An invincible giant, when her feet touch the earth. Her marvelous power, however, her initiative, wisdom, and penetrating intelligence are all gone the moment she rises above the soil; and though it be only a few inches, upon this battlefield she is overcome at once--faint and almost inanimate in an unequal battle because she could not readjust her energies to new conditions. At present (the author is writing in the early 20th century) science is a child of the earth and waits for her redeemer, through whom she will be born-again a child from heaven." The Hidden Treasures of the Ancient Qabalah, by Elias Gewurz, p.74.

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"Such skepticism notwithstanding, there are also physicists who are sympathetic to Bohm's ideas, including such big guns as Roger Penrose of Oxford, the creator of the modern theory of the black hole; Bernard d'Espagnat of the University of Paris, one of the world's leading authorities on the conceptual foundations of quantum theory; and Cambridge's Brian Josephson, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics. Josephson believes Bohm's implicate order may someday even lead to the inclusion of God or Mind within the framework of science, an idea Josephson supports.

Considered together, Bohm and (Karl) Pribram's theories provide a profound new way of looking at the world: 'Our brains mathematically construct objective reality by interpreting frequencies that are ultimately projections from another dimension, a deeper order of existence that is beyond both space and time. The brain is a hologram enfolded in a holographic universe.'" The Holographic Universe, p.54.

"The holographic idea also sheds light on the unexplainable linkages that can sometimes occur between the consciousnesses of two or more individuals. One of the most famous examples of such linkages is embodied in Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's concept of a collective unconscious. Early in his career Jung became convinced that the dreams, artwork, fantasies, and hallucinations of his patients often contained symbols and ideas that could not be explained entirely as products of their personal history. Instead, such symbols more closely resembled the images and themes of the world's great mythologies and religions. Jung concluded that myths, dreams, hallucinations, and religious visions all spring from the same source, a collective unconscious that is shared by all people." The Holographic Universe, pp.59, 60.

"Moreover, such dreams were not one-time occurrences. During the course of his practice (Montague) Ullman noticed that when one of his patients failed to recognize or accept some truth about himself, that truth would surface again and again in his dreams, in different metaphorical guises and linked with different related experiences from his past, but always in an apparent attempt to offer him new opportunities to come to terms with the truth.

Because a man can ignore the counsel of his dreams and still live to be a hundred, Ullman believes this self-monitoring process is striving for more than just the welfare of the individual. He believes that Nature is concerned with the survival of the species. He also agrees with Bohm on the importance of wholeness and feels that dreams are Nature's way of trying to counteract our seemingly unending compulsion to fragment the world. "An individual can disconnect from all that's cooperative, meaningful, and loving and still survive, but nations don't have that luxury. Unless we learn how to overcome all the ways we've fragmented the human race, nationally, religiously, economically, or whatever, we are going to continue to find ourselves in a position where we can accidentally destroy the whole picture..." The Holographic Universe, pp.62,63.

 

Manifestations of the Collective Unconscious

"We have suggested that we think of psychic elements rising up through the unconscious until they eventually enter consciousness. When we think in this way it is natural that we should ask where they come from, and the answer must be that they come from a deeper level of the unconscious. It is, however, to be remembered that when we speak in this way about 'levels' within the unconscious we are using a model. We do not know anything about what the unconscious is in itself, and all we can do is think in terms of models which help us to think about what actually goes on…

It is highly probable that great artistic works, great scientific discoveries and many other similar things result from the fact that elements of the Collective Unconscious press forward through consciousness, and in analytic experience people may be faced with the tremendous power of the contents of the Collective Unconscious. Danger arises if the ego becomes confused, and is unable to realize that these elements belong to the Unconscious, and attempts to take charge of them as though they could become an integral part of the conscious personality: it is then that they prove to be too big for the ego, and can cause violent disturbances in man's life…(Four went into Paradise, etc.). Great developments result from the encounter between consciousness and the Collective Unconscious if the ego can cope with the situation; if it cannot it is overwhelmed, either being destroyed or else identifying itself with the Unconscious elements…

Jung calls this ultimate and central archetype by many names.. He calls it 'the Self,' and this can lead to confusion if it is not carefully distinguished from '-self', as in 'myself', 'himself', and so on, because these expressions usually refer to consciousness (the "I" of conscious life) whereas 'the Self' refers to the totality of the Psyche, conscious and unconscious. Jung also calls this archetype 'the Image of God' and the 'archetype of Deity', and he tells us that when it is active it expresses itself in ideas and symbols usually connected with the Idea of God. He calls it 'the archetype of Wholeness' because it points to the possibility of living a life in which the psyche functions as a united whole…

From a religious point of view the kind of God whom one would accept if one took this archetype as one's pattern is a God in whom all our human problems are solved, that is, one in whom 'all things work together for good;' He is a God who is ultimately responsible for the whole range of natural phenomena, and who is related to the evil and suffering in the world as well as to the good and happiness; He is the One God, united in Himself, in whom all things are joined, and there is no aspect of existence which cannot be related to Him." Modern Psychology, The Teachings of Carl Gustav Jung, by David Cox, pp.80, 89, 154.

From our vantage point in the West, at the Feet of the Mystery of Christ, we look into the East. If we view the world with a lower logic we see a world full of terrible problems, a dangerous world, chaotic. (Jeremiah 4:23; Gen.1:2). But when we perceive it with a higher, quantum logic we will not only come to understand how the City of David was hidden in the center of this reality, but from this same point of quantum logic we can see the very Presence of God itself filling and overshadowing the whole earth, revealing Itself in the sum of all things. We can anticipate the State of Light that is about to be born out of this great Disorder.

A Buddhist prayer: May I quickly take birth in Shambhala, the treasury of jewels, and complete the stages of the highest Yoga Tantra.

May we be able to master that special form of thought…which is the highest, imperishable Brahman, for those who wish to cross over to the fearless shore.

Know the self to be sitting in a Chariot, the body to be the Chariot, the intellect (buddhi) the charioteer, and the mind the reins.

The senses they call horses, the objects of the senses their roads. When he (the higher self) is in union with the body-the senses, and the mind-then wise people call him the Enjoyer.

He who has no understanding, and whose mind (the reins) is never firmly held, his senses (horses) are unmanageable, like vicious horses of a charioteer.

But he who has understanding and whose mind is firmly held, his senses are under control, like good horses of a charioteer.

He who is unmindful and always impure, never reaches that place, but enters into the round of births,

But he who has understanding, who is mindful and always pure (of heart), reaches indeed that place, from whence he is not born (into this world) again.

He who has Understanding for his charioteer, and who holds the reins of his mind, he reaches the end of his journey and that is the highest place of Vishnu. (The Center).

And that whence the Sun rises and whither it goes to set, there all the Devas are contained, and no one goes beyond. This is that.

What is here (visible in the world), the same is there, (invisible in Brahman); and what is there the same is here. He who sees any difference here (between God and the world) goes from death to death. (The Upanishads).

"All action takes place in time by the interweaving of the forces of Nature, but man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the actor. But when we know the relationship between the forces of Nature and (human) action, we see how some forces of Nature work upon other forces of nature, and we become not their slave." The Tao of Physics, pp.88,89.

"The general picture emerging from Hinduism is one of an organic, growing, and rhythmically moving cosmos; of a universe in which everything is fluid (Soul) and ever-changing, all static forms being "maya," that is, existing only as illusory concepts. The last idea-the impermanence of all forms-is the starting point of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that all compound things are impermanent (such as human bodies and human empires) and that all suffering in the world arises from trying to cling to fixed forms, objects, people, or ideas, instead of accepting the world as it moves and changes." Ibid. pp.190,91.

Return Ye, Come

The son of DaViD prayed: And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child (historically); I know not how to GO OUT or COME IN, and thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be counted or numbered for multitude. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I might be able to judge between good and bad: for who is able to judge so great a people... (1 Kings 3:7-9).

"The idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions has not only risen in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Hindu mythology. Experiencing the cosmos as organic, and rhythmically moving, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which came very close to our modern scientific models.. One of these cosmologies is based on the Hindu myth of "Lila"-the Divine Play-in which Brahman transforms Himself into the world. Lila is a rhythmic play which goes on in endless cycles (like a Celtic reel), the one becoming the many and the many returning unto the one. In the Bhagavad Gita, the God Krishna (Christ) explains the rhythmic play of creation in the following words:

'At the end of the night all things return to my nature; and when the new day Of time begins I bring them again into the light. Thus through my nature I bring forth all creation and this rolls around in the circle of time. But I am not bound by this vast work of creation. I am and I watch the drama of works.'" (see Zech.2:5). The Tao of Physics, pp.88,89.

"The sages of Israel relate: The Almighty created the world in the same manner as a child is formed in its mother's womb. Just as the child begins to grow from its Navel and then develops into its full form, so the world began from its central point and then developed in all directions.

The Navel of the world is Jerusalem, and its core is the great altar in the Holy Temple.

Within Old Jerusalem rises Mount Moriah upon which stood the Holy Temple, the shrine of the people of Israel. On the summit lies a Big Rock, the Foundation Stone, because the world was founded on it. (1 Cor.3:10-21). For Isaiah the prophet said, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone…a costly corner stone of sure foundation." From the Legends of Jerusalem.

If one drops a stone in the center of a bucket, as it is written: Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15), they may observe that although the resulting wave, or the ripple, moves outward and spreads across the surface of the water (or the seas, as Israel has across the nations of the earth), the wave always, after it has rebounded off the rim of the bucket, returns to the center, to where the stone was originally dropped, and to where it lies hidden beneath the surface.

"Some say that a gem bearing Messiah's name-which floated with the wind until the altar of sacrifice was built on Mount Zion-was the first solid thing that God created. Others that it was the Foundation Rock supporting his altar…Still others say that he cast a Rock into the deep water and built land around it, much as a child before birth grows from the Navel outward; it remains the world's Navel until this day." Graves and Patai, Hebrew Myths, p.41.

At the quantum level of reality, where science and religion are meeting face to face, we may view the interaction of God and creation. It is where the world disappears inward, and where God allows us to see how Their thoughts are interacting across the field of every point of reality. God's thoughts are that 'something behind the energy' that Einstein mused upon. As they appear, in a continuous wave of events, (moment by moment, day by day, year by year), they excite every atom in existence. As each atom is excited history is excited; as history is excited the mind of humanity is excited. The entire image of Creation is imprinted upon the collective psyche of the human family, some of it stored in separate places and some of it in shared places. And just as energy, when it is applied to an individual atom, collects itself in the space that defines the relationship between the orbiting electron(s) and its own nucleus-until some critical (but seemingly indeterminate) point is reached, causing the electron to suddenly jump a quantum leap from one orbit to another, (thus increasing the collective state of the atom)--so history has jumped from one epoch to the next, from empire to empire as it is, leaving lasting impressions on the collective thought patterns of humanity. An atom may experience a series of leaps forcing the electron(s) several times away from its "restful" or inner orbit before the energy it contains is released, in the form of light, and the state of the atom returns (to Jerusalem, and to the mysterious relationship that exists between history and the universe of quantum mechanics.)

"To look into the strange netherworld of the atom in a slightly different way, let us go back to the early 1920s and see how it all appeared to Niels Bohr…His theory of the atom…pictured the sunlike nucleus as surrounded by planetlike electrons revolving in strictly defined shells around it…and he tied it to the new quantum theory by showing that not only did Kepler's three laws for planets hold in the case of electrons revolving around the nucleus of hydrogen, but another law-a curious quantum law which was not noticeable among bodies as big as planets yet was truly fundamental-also applied. This was the law that electrons can move only in certain orbits and no others. It is a harmonic law akin to the rule that restricts Saturn's rings to precise dimensions…

The Bohr atom was thus elaborated into Seven shells, roughly analogous to the seven notes of the scale or the seven planets of antiquity, the innermost shell having room for exactly two electrons, the second eight, the third eighteen, and so on, according to the curious rule of the Double Squares…(2 X 1², 2 X 2², 2 X 3², etc.)…But it turned out to be a lot more harmonic order than that, for these shells themselves are sized according to the strangely simple rule of Single Squares. Thus the first shell of the hydrogen atom is one angstrom unit (1A) in diameter, the second is 4A, and the third 9A, etc., which is mathematically reducable to the series 1², 2², 3², 4², up to 7².

If you should wonder how the hydrogen atom with only one electron can have so many shells, it is because any electron may jump from one shell to another and will do so (on the average) as soon as it has acquired the energy. Moreover when a shell is not occupied, it is still there in the abstract, as shown by the fact that an electron can always find it. For the electron never orbits between shells, it always jumps the whole way or not at all…Likewise, an electron may jump down the same series of shells or terraces, giving back to the world its quanta of energy in discrete photons of radiation-Light." Music of the Spheres, by Guy Murchie, p.338.

The release, or leap inward from (what presently appears to be the normal channel of) human logic to Divine Reality is required of every soul who would be reconciled to the Mystery of God in our time, as it is indeed written: Open my eyes that I may behold wonderous things out of Thy law... (Psalm 119:18).

And he dreamed a dream, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of

And thy seed (thy spiritual seed) shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the West, and to the East, and to the North, and to the South: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again to this land (this State of Mind); for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

And Jacob (humanity itself) awaked out of his sleep (see Psalm 126:1; Ephesians 5:14), and he said, SURELY THE LORD IS IN THIS PLACE; AND I KNEW IT NOT.

And he was afraid, and said, HOW DREADFUL IS THIS PLACE! THIS IS NONE OTHER BUT THE HOUSE OF GOD, AND THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN...(Genesis 28:12-17).