Reincarnation, the ‘Interlife’, Universal Consciousness & the Holographic Soul
Modern studies repeatedly suggest that a significant proportion of people in the Western world now believe in reincarnation. Although this phenomenon can be traced back to various esoteric movements that flourished from the second half of the 19th century, it gained significant ground with the explosion of popular interest in Eastern spiritual approaches in the 60s. And it was reinforced by a proliferation of therapists offering to regress people into their past lives.
Yet now the tide seems to be turning again. For some years the emphasis has been moving more towards the idea that we are all part of the One, the All, the Source, the Absolute, the Ultimate, the Great Spirit or whatever we choose to call the ‘universal consciousness’. Of course this is not a new idea. But what is changing is that especially more intellectually minded spiritual seekers are tending towards the view that anything outside of the ‘One’ is mere ‘illusion’.
In fact this word illusion is used a great deal in spiritual circles these days, although actually in quite different contexts, and it is perhaps worth considering what these are. Of course readers would all agree that the physical world itself is to some extent an illusion, at least inasmuch as it is underpinned by the nonphysical planes and states of being that science is increasingly pointing towards. But what about the idea that we only reincarnate for as long as we fail to see through the ‘illusion’, and that as soon as we gain ‘enlightenment’ we can ‘break the bonds of karma’ and ‘reunite with the Source’? More radical still, what about the idea that any notion of individuality is completely illusory on all levels, and that as soon as we die there is no sense of continuation of any sort of individual soul consciousness?
Whether or not they make it explicitly clear, these latter two are the ‘illusion models’ supported by a significant proportion of our best-known spiritual commentators of modern times – be they proponents of, for example, the ‘power of now’, or of ‘cosmic ordering’, or of ‘quantum mysticism’. Yet to see the world in this way is entirely at odds with what we might call the ‘experience model’, which holds that we lead many lives in order to see all sides of every emotional coin, and to learn to deal with the manifest challenges that life on this planet provides. In other words, a model in which the emphasis is on an individual soul growing by experience over many lifetimes.
If we are to adopt a rational approach then, rather than relying on ‘revealed wisdom’ ancient or modern, it is surely sensible to consider which of these models is best supported by logical analysis and the available evidence.
We can start with the premise that there must exist some sort of ultimate force or energy that underlies the entire universe, both seen and unseen, which is the Origin or Source of everything in it. However ineffable it may be, this principle of a universal consciousness is almost a logical necessity, and it is certainly supported by scientific research at both the quantum and the macrocosmic level. The idea that ‘we are all one’ is also a common element of transcendental experiences, whether spontaneous, meditative or induced by hallucinogens. So our next step must be to investigate whether, at the same time, there is any real evidence to support the idea of an individual consciousness that exists or survives independent of the physical body.
The most relevant area of research here is near-death experiences. In particular we are interested in cases that involve subjects returning with factual information that is subsequently verified, and yet so obscure that they could not reasonably have acquired it in any ‘normal’ way.
Near-Death Experience & Reincarnation Cases
One of the most fascinating cases on record took place in the early 70s, and involves a gifted young Russian scientist called George Rodonaia. His work on chemical brain transmitters was sufficiently valued by the KGB that they were not prepared to lose his expertise to the US by letting him take up an invite to further his research at Yale. On the day of his departure, as he stood on the pavement in Tbilisi waiting for a taxi to the airport, he was deliberately mown down by a car and pronounced dead at the scene. His body lay in a morgue for three days, but as the autopsy began his eyelids flickered and he was rushed to surgery.
As a man of science George had never had any time for religion. So those close to him were bewildered when, three days into his lengthy recovery, he began to describe what had happened while he was ‘dead’. In fact his was a relatively non-typical and highly transcendental experience, but for our current purposes he also claimed he had also been able to travel anywhere he liked while ‘out of body’. In particular he was drawn to a newborn baby in the hospital adjoining the morgue because she would not stop crying, and doctors had been unable to diagnose the problem. Much to his surprise he found that he was able to communicate with her telepathically, and also to scan her body and establish that her hip had been broken, probably at birth. Incredibly, as soon as George was well enough to pass on this information, the doctors x-rayed the baby and found that she did indeed have a fractured hip.
There are other, similar cases of near-death experiences involving obscure, factual information that combine to strongly suggest that our individual awareness or consciousness does indeed continue to exist even when the physical brain is absolutely non-functional. So far so good. But is there any evidence to support the further idea that individual souls have many lives?
Here we encounter two important areas of research, the first involving children who have spontaneous memories of past lives. Although historically most of these cases have come from Asia, one of the finest involves a young American boy called James Leininger of Lafayette, Louisiana. Born in 1998, his fascination with toy planes from the earliest age took a more sinister turn as he approached his second birthday, when vivid nightmares began. He would thrash around in his sleep, kicking out with his legs up in the air and moaning: “Airplane crash, on fire, little man can’t get out.” His mother Andrea had no particular religious convictions but, when her mother suggested these might be memories of a past life, she began to encourage little James to talk about them. And he began to reveal startling details, such as that the pilot of the plane was also called James; that he had been shot down by the Japanese; that he had flown Corsairs; and that one of his fellow pilots went by the name of Jack Larsen. He also mysteriously mentioned the single word Natoma.
His father Bruce remained dubious about any sort of spiritual explanation, but he knew that neither he nor any other member of their family had any particular interest in aircraft or the war. So he began to research, and quickly established that an aircraft carrier called the USS Natoma Bay had been stationed in the Pacific during World War II and had taken part in the notorious battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima early in 1945. He ordered a book about this, and was flicking through it one day when James pointed to the island of Chichi Jima on a map and exclaimed, “Daddy, that is where my plane was shot down.” He then made contact with the ‘Natoma Bay Association’, who confirmed that Jack Larsen had been one of the pilots, and also that only one pilot had been lost at Chichi Jima: 21-year-old Lt James M. Huston Jr.
Bruce also knew that Huston had flown Wildcats, not Corsairs, on the Natoma Bay. But when he made contact with Huston’s elderly sister she kindly sent him some photos – including one of her brother standing proudly next to a Corsair. Military records then showed he had originally been part of an elite special squadron who test-flew these planes. But the real clincher involves three ‘GI Joe’ dolls. When Bruce asked his son why he called them Leon, Walter and Billie he replied, “Because they greeted me when I went to heaven.” Again military records confirmed that three of Huston’s fellow Natoma Bay pilots were Lt Leon S. Conner, Ensign Walter J. Devlin and Ensign Billie R. Peeler – and that all three had died before Huston on other engagements. None of this detailed information is available on the internet pages about the Natoma Bay even now, let alone in popular books and so on.
Past Lives & Hypnotic Regression
The second area of past-life research is hypnotic regression. With this we must first appreciate that the human brain appears to store a complete record of everything we have ever been exposed to, no matter how briefly or how long ago, and that although most of these memories remain inaccessible to our normal consciousness they can be accessed in trance. So apparently authentic and detailed past lives, even including strong emotions and strange accents and so on, have sometimes been proved to come from perfectly normal sources – not least historical fiction, which is often overlooked by spiritual researchers. Nevertheless, there remain some cases involving information so obscure that only a paranormal explanation seems appropriate.
One of the finest involves a young woman dubbed Jane Evans, who was one of many subjects regressed by the Welsh hypnotherapist Arnall Bloxham. She first visited him in the late 60s and proved a responsive subject who, over the course of a number of sessions, regressed into six separate lives from Roman times onwards. She would go on to be the star of a 1976 documentary made by the initially sceptical BBC producer Jeffrey Iverson, entitled ‘The Bloxham Tapes’. Her most celebrated past life was that of a persecuted Jewess in 12th century York, but on close investigation this case is somewhat inconclusive. In fact her strongest life in terms of obscure evidence involved Alison, a young servant to the 15th century French financier and merchant, Jacques Coeur.
Some of the historical information Jane came up with in trance was relatively obscure, and could only be verified by professional French historians. For example, she said that Charles VII’s nickname was “heron legs”; that his son Louis had poisoned his wife; that his mistress Agnes Sorel had two pet dogs clothed in “coats of white fur with jewelled collars”; and that Coeur was Jewish and his father was a goldsmith. Perhaps more impressive was her knowledge that Coeur was an avid collector of art, with paintings by Jean “Fouquet,” the court painter to the king and one of Coeur’s debtors; by Jan “van Eyck,” the court painter to the nearby Duke of Burgundy; by “Giotto,” an Italian master from the previous century; and by the little-known “John of Bruges” who, Iverson established only with great difficulty, was also known as John Bondolf and was a Flemish court painter for the king’s grandfather. More impressive again was her report that Coeur had a “body servant” called Abdul, who was “dressed differently from the others” – because it was only from obscure French court records of the time that Iverson was able to confirm that he did indeed have an Egyptian body slave.
Impressive enough, yet the clincher in this case is Jane’s recall of a “beautiful golden apple with jewels in it” that she said had been given to Coeur by the Sultan of Turkey. All of Iverson’s initial attempts to verify the existence of such a piece drew a blank until his last night in Coeur’s home town of Bourges, when he returned to his hotel to find a message from a local historian. The latter reported that he had been searching through contemporary archives when he found “an obscure list of items confiscated by the Treasury from Jacques Coeur”; and in that list was a “grenade” of gold – a pomegranate. Of course this is so like an apple in shape and size that the English word contains the French root pomme. It is also worth noting that one sceptic’s supposed attempt to trace all these details to a historical novel is a complete travesty, because the novel has an entirely different plot and contains virtually none of these obscure details.
Again there are other, similar cases of both childhood recall and regression that involve equally obscure yet verifiable information about past lives. But could all these merely result from subjects tapping into some sort of universal memory, or even from possession by the deceased? Probably the strongest evidence that these are indeed memories from the subjects’ own, individual, past lives comes from subjects also being regressed into the time between lives, or ‘interlife’.
This stems from the research of a number of pioneering psychologists and psychiatrists around the world, who each stumbled on the interlife independently in the 70s and 80s. Their subjects’ reports are extremely consistent, so that the experience can be broken into five main elements: transition and healing, past-life review, soul group interaction, next-life planning and returning. This evidence from what now constitute thousands of subjects from diverse backgrounds suggests strongly that there is a continuity of individual soul identity across many lives.
The Holographic Soul
So how do we properly bring this evidence of individual soul survival and reincarnation together with the idea of a universal consciousness that underlies everything? Although the most profound spiritual sources have hinted at the truth throughout the ages, the most simple yet elegant solution has only become available to us in recent decades with the discovery of the hologram. And it involves applying this principle not to the brain, nor to memory, nor even to the universe as a whole, but instead to soul consciousness itself:
Soul consciousness is holographic. We are both individual aspects of the Source, and full holographic representations of it, all at the same time. However this does not mean that soul individuality is in itself an illusion. The principle of the hologram is that the part contains the whole, and yet is clearly distinguishable from it.
The other message that comes through loud and clear from interlife research, as well as from the most profound spiritual sources, is that free will and personal responsibility reign supreme. This is what allows us to learn from our mistakes, and to grow as souls. So any next-life previews seen between lives merely represent major probabilities and lesser possibilities, and there is no karmic punishment or predestiny. Indeed the idea of karma itself has arguably outlived its usefulness, because it is clear that the dynamics of how our attitudes, intentions and experiences feed into the futures we create for ourselves, both across and within lives, are far too complex to be reduced to simplistic ‘laws’.
In conclusion it appears that there are no ‘flaws in the grand plan’. The physical world is not an abomination created by fallen angels. Nor is the reincarnation cycle something to be escaped from at all costs, either by suddenly gaining the enlightenment to see through the illusion, or by learning to give up all ‘attachment’ so as to generate no more karma. Although we would do well to aim for a degree of emotional detachment and balance, and regular meditation is absolutely invaluable in trying to bring our ‘higher selves’ to the fore, life is to be lived and experienced!
So where does it all end? Interlife evidence, again backed by the most profound spiritual sources, suggests that we continue to reincarnate until we have exhausted all the possibilities for growth in the physical plane. And this is only the ‘end of the beginning’ of the soul’s journey, because there are many other opportunities for new experiences in other realms. As for the idea of ‘reuniting with the Source’, the concept of the Holographic Soul suggests that we never split off from It in the first place, and that It is always within us and us within It.
What about the million dollar question from which ‘illusionists’ tend to shy away? What is the whole point of the universe in the first place, and how do we humans fit into the ‘big picture’?
The Source’s primary aim, in diversifying into all the billions of holographic soul aspects of itself that operate in the various realms throughout the universe, is to experience all that is and can be. So as individualised aspects of the Source who have chosen to reincarnate on this planet, we are merely fulfilling a small part of that objective by gaining a balance of all the experiences available via this route.
This whole article is amazing. I am convinced of the reality of reincarnation from reading it.
BUMP people have to read this.
Spirituality and Science - The Holographic Universe
In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris, a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century.
You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect’s name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.
Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn’t matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing.
The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein’s long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since travelling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect’s findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.
University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect’s findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram. To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms.
A hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.
Holograms
To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam.
Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.
The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.
The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has laboured under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart some thing constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.
This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect’s discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion.
He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.
The aquarium model
To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish.
Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium’s front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different.
But as you continue to watch the two fishes, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.
This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect’s experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose.
And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.
Cosmos as a super hologram
In addition to its phantom like nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.
The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.
In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order. At its deeper level reality is a sort of super hologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the super holographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.
What else the super hologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the super hologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be – every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."
Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the super hologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the super holographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".
Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram. Working independently in the field of brain research, Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality.
The brain as a hologram
Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain.
For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain. In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat’s brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that crisscross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference crisscross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram.
Pribram’s theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage – simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information.
Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horselike", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly.
Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross- correlated with every other piece of information – another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature’s supreme example of across-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neuro physiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram’s holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions.
Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram’s theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists. Argentinian-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena.
Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability. Zucarelli has also developed the technology of holophonic sound, a recording technique able to reproduce acoustic situations with an almost uncanny realism.
Pribram’s belief that our brains mathematically construct "hard" reality by relying on input from a frequency domain has also received a good deal of experimental support. It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies.
Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions.
The synthesis of Bohm and Pribram’s views
But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram’s holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm’s theory.
For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist.
As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is Maya, an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion. We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the super hologram.
This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram’s views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with scepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far. More than that, some believe it may solve some mysteries that have never before been explainable by science and even establish the paranormal as a part of nature.
Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm. In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level. It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual ’A’ to that of individual ’B’ at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology.
In particular, Grof feels the holographic paradigm offers a model for understanding many of the baffling phenomena experienced by individuals during altered states of consciousness.
Regressions into the animal kingdom
In the 1950s, while conducting research into the beliefs of LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female of a species of prehistoric reptile.
During the course of her hallucination, she not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsulated in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species’ anatomy was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head.
What was startling to Grof was that although the woman had no prior knowledge about such things, a conversation with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal.
The woman’s experience was not unique. During the course of his research, Grof encountered examples of patients regressing and identifying with virtually every species on the evolutionary tree (research findings which helped influence the man-into-ape scene in the movie Altered States).
Moreover, he found that such experiences frequently contained obscure zoological details which turned out to be accurate.
Transpersonal psychology
Regressions into the animal kingdom were not the only puzzling psychological phenomena Grof encountered.
He also had patients who appeared to tap into some sort of collective or racial unconscious. Individuals with little or no education suddenly gave detailed descriptions of Zoroastrian funerary practices and scenes from Hindu mythology. In other categories of experience, individuals gave persuasive accounts of out-of-body journeys, of precognitive glimpses of the future, of regressions into apparent past-life incarnations.
In later research, Grof found the same range of phenomena manifested in therapy sessions which did not involve the use of drugs. Because the common element in such experiences appeared to be the transcending of an individual’s consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of ego and/or limitations of space and time, Grof called such manifestations "transpersonal experiences", and in the late ’60s he helped found a branch of psychology called "transpersonal psychology" devoted entirely to their study.
Although Grof’s newly founded Association of Transpersonal Psychology garnered a rapidly growing group of like-minded professionals and has become a respected branch of psychology, for years neither Grof or any of his colleagues were able to offer a mechanism for explaining the bizarre psychological phenomena they were witnessing. But that has changed with the advent of the holographic paradigm.
As Grof recently noted, if the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.
Consciousness creates reality
The holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology.
Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical.
Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows.
What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body.
The power of visualization
Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as "reality".
Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession.
Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection. Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.
If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson’s are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality.
What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagorical events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo Don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams. Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined.
Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry.
A new realityWhether Bohm and Pribram’s holographic paradigm becomes accepted in science or dies an ignoble death remains to be seen, but it is safe to say that it has already had an influence on the thinking of many scientists.
And even if it is found that the holographic model does not provide the best explanation for the instantaneous communications that seem to be passing back and forth between subatomic particles, at the very least, as noted by Basil Hiley, a physicist at Birbeck College in London, Aspect’s findings,
"indicate that we must be prepared to consider radically new views of reality".
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_holouniverse05.htm >>3136>Numerous researchers, including Bohm and Pribram, have noted that many para-psychological phenomena become much more understandable in terms of the holographic paradigm. In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, telepathy may merely be the accessing of the holographic level. It is obviously much easier to understand how information can travel from the mind of individual ’A’ to that of individual ’B’ at a far distance point and helps to understand a number of unsolved puzzles in psychology.Can anyone here into telepathy? What do you think of this? How can I practice telepathy myself? Do I just need to raise FRV?
bumping this shit because it's awesome!
I wish to bump this information.
>>3143There has never been a successful demonstration of telepathy performed.
So if it does exist humans either can't do it, or just have never done it.
>>12299I've seen multiple recorded videos of telepathy being performed though.
Just because shit is heavily suppressed by vested interests intent on keeping us in ignorance doesn't mean it's not out there.
There's a video you can probably find on youtube where some super-autist son is able to telepathically communicate with his mother.
>>12299>There has never been a successful demonstration of telepathy performed.
>So if it does exist humans either can't do it, or just have never done it.Science/logic fail. That conclusion is not supported by your premise.
Something not having been performed under laboratory conditions does not mean that it's never happened.
>>12325True, its a logical jump.
But lets say that 1% of people who practice magick can perform telepathy, or have any kind of magick power really. Let's say for some crazy reason, only 1% of those people will actually attempt to show someone of note, either on TV, a firm, or a university professor. Even if you had those little of numbers, some time throughout modern history you would at least have one verifiable resource that could be used to show that paranormal phenomenon are real. However we don't. Even with youtube videos as
>>12310 states, you have a very small amount that aren't just bad image editing. The rest can't be shown to work for sure, and thus have no real backing and could likely be to numerous other phenomenon.
The usual counter to this is the old "scientists wouldn't even try it! they're all in their dogma". To which I am almost sure of that you've never met a university professor or any actual scientists. If i went to one of my profs, and told him "hey i can move shit with my mind, wanna see?" and then I did it, first he would do the simple tests to see that I'm not faking it, then take me to the lab, then take me public. They're just normal people who would love to be the one to discover a new physical phenomenon.
However this has never been the case in modern history whatsoever. No one has been able to even reliably manipulate a random number generator (RNG) to show proof. Those at the noosphere project have already shown to be bunk as well.
I would love to proven wrong on this, but as of right now there is one thing that is certain and a (very tiny) assumption that can be made off of this.
Right now magick has never successfully been demonstrated to the larger public despite numerous rewards and outlets.
The assumption that magick has never even been demonstrated in private because of the statistical unlikely hood that all people who have gained magical abilities have unanimously decided to keep these abilities secret.
>>12369Magicians have a set of 'rules' called in some circles, "The Four Powers of the Sphinx": To Will, to Know, To Dare, and To Keep Silent.
Practically all occultists agree that a magician should not talk about his abilities or attempt to demonstrate them, and that to do so will weaken his power or cause it to fail outright.
My personal favorite theory for why this is regards the theory of the Holographic Universe and what Robert Anton Wilson termed "reality tunnels". The First Principle of Hermetics states that the Universe is one great mind, that we are all quanta of one infinite, singular consciousness. In a hologram or a fractal, any part contains all the information of the entire whole. Thus, any point of consciousness in the universe is a microcosm of the infinite consciousness; i.e., man is made in god's own image. This idea is repeated in the Kabbalah.
If every human mind is a microcosm of Gods own mind, then we might extrapolate that our minds reflect the creative power of God, that all that we intend will likewise come to pass. This idea too is repeated in various occult traditions. Beliefs are intentions, too, and more often than not they are limiting ones. RAW described a phenomenon he called "reality tunnels", which supposed that every individual filters reality through their own biases and perceptions and interprets it differently. I think, however, that we might take it a step further, and suggest that individuals' beliefs, their intentions, literally shape the reality they experience.
Therefore, to attempt to demonstrate magic before a group of skeptics would be to literally set your will against theirs. Even to talk about your magic with close friends is to potentially invoke their doubt, which is itself a powerful force. They don't believe magic is real, so their will is ironically shaping their reality to reflect that intention. Assuming this theory is correct, how strong would your will have to be to impose it on a world of disbelievers? I think it's likely that any magical act attempted with the potential of "proving" magic to the world would be facing an almost insurmountable hurdle of retroactive disbelief (given the apparent non-linearity of time to magic).
It should be noted that there is a difference between conscious and unconscious beliefs. Many people's conscious beliefs conflict with their unconscious beliefs, and the unconscious ones always win. For example, I've had lucid dreams where I couldn't violate basic laws of physics, even though I knew I was dreaming. Unlocking your unconscious beliefs, I suspect, is the hardest thing in the world, and also the most important for a magician.
Forgive the long, esoteric rant, but this is /fringe/, so fuck it.
>>12370I appreciate the post, but what you've said has many holes in it.
For one, more people believe magick is real than don't. Christians believe it is real, islmaic people especially believe it is real, the voodoo priests in Louisiana claim to practice it, and the ancient cultures of early man still in africa claim it is real. Over half the world, at the very LEAST, thats 3.5 billion people, believe in some form of magick. If the power of intention is so strong, than more than half the world believing in something should at least yield something right?
Maybe I've just seen too many magicians fail to demonstrate their abilities, but I honestly think if magick is real, humans just can't use it. Magicians can't even make a future prediction and then right it down on paper, then show people to prove his magick is real. That wouldn't be blocked by anyone seeing as he used his magick before people put their intent on it. What about videos? Do video cameras negate magick?
I'm really willing to hear all opinions on this, but the only way I've seen "magick" used successfully is when people use it for psychological reasons. Which has been fully mapped out by the fields of psychology and neuroscience.
If there is any proof you have to the contrary I would love a link
>>12475
>For one, more people believe magick is real than don't. … If the power of intention is so strong, than more than half the world believing in something should at least yield something right?That's not a hole, actually. It's what I was talking about when I said:
>It should be noted that there is a difference between conscious and unconscious beliefs. Many people's conscious beliefs conflict with their unconscious beliefs, and the unconscious ones always win. The large majority of people who profess to believe in magic or miracles don't hold those beliefs on a fundamental, subconscious level, and subconscious beliefs overrule conscious beliefs every time.
That was my point with the lucid dream example. Have you ever had a lucid dream? Next time you do, try breaking the laws of physics on a really basic level and see what happens. You'll be surprised at how difficult it is, (and it gets more difficult the more lucid you are). Even though it's only a dream and you consciously know that you can do anything you can imagine, your subconscious beliefs will limit you. Conscious beliefs are fickle, weak, often contradictory, generally wrong. Subconscious beliefs form a web of interconnecting, bedrock pillars of your worldview, and are not easy to change.
>Magicians can't even make a future prediction and then right it down on paper, then show people to prove his magick is real. That wouldn't be blocked by anyone seeing as he used his magick before people put their intent on it.Did you read what I wrote about the apparent non-linearity of time in magic? Your premise that you can outsmart the power of intention with a clever trick cannot be taken for granted.
The people who DO believe in magic on a subconscious level, and have managed through self-hypnosis and meditation and drug-induced spirit-journeys and whatever else to align all their other interconnected subconscious intentions to that purpose: the real shamans, magicians, miracle workers, if you believe they exist… I suspect those guys actually are doing some crazy shit. There are many stories of anomalies and miracles, most anecdotal, but even some highly verifiable ones if you dig. But they will never suffice to convince you. Only you get to set the parameters of your reality tunnel. If your mind is set on disbelief, no record of scientific experiment or sworn testimony of experts or video documentation will ever be sufficient. Even the evidence of your own eyes won't convince you. (I know this from experience.)
As far as I've been able to determine, magic will never prove itself to you. It's cannot be under the purview of science because it is a mirror of the observer. If you want to see it, you have to stop intending for it to fail with your subconscious expectation of its failure, and that's not necessarily a simple task. You have to open your mind to it, and then you'll realize that you were doing it all along.
Or don't. No one said you have to be a magician in this lifetime. It might even be a bad idea. There's probably a good reason it's so obtuse.
>>12480Your imagination of time is off, as it is not something you travel through, but is a single state that changes at planck time. Therefore nothing can exist in a non-linear state of time.
It also seems the new-age ideas of "you don't see it because you don't believe hard enough" are really only there to protect ideas from scrutiny. I highly doubt that if I were lucky enough to get get DMT, that this would have any effect on my ability to "manifest" magickal experiences into my reality, and then NOT be able to confirm these experiences objectively. I've also never heard from any occult people that magick is something that can be blocked, they usually state that it is just too weak to be really noticed. Most claim they can manipulate RNG's and have in front of friends and family as proof.
ITs a nice catch 22 that you in order to believe in magick one should see it, and in order to see it you need to believe in it. Yet the 3.5 billion people on this planet that do believe have never seen it either, only in the new age or alternative spirituality groups to people claim that they actually experience magick.
So why can most of the world not see this magick although they believe in it?
