{"id":527,"date":"2022-10-11T22:34:50","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T22:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taliyah.org\/newdawn\/?page_id=527"},"modified":"2022-10-16T13:22:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T13:22:31","slug":"reason-and-the-unseen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/taliyah.org\/newdawn\/reason-and-the-unseen\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Follow REASON and Believe in the UNSEEN?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u0628\u0633\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0644\u0647 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u0645\u0646 \u0627\u0644\u0631\u062d\u064a\u0645<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Can a person be a \u201cman of reason\u201d and a \u201cman of faith\u201d at the same time, or are these concepts mutually exclusive? This is a very important question to answer for those of us defining our path as the Din al-`Aql wa-l-Fitrah <\/em>\u2013 the Religion of Reason and the Natural Order.<\/p>\n

All too often these days, it is suggested or outright stated that a person who believes in the spiritual realms or in spiritual beings is inherently \u201csuperstitious,\u201d fool-hearty or otherwise rejects science. This, however, assumes far too many things to be a sound conclusion.<\/p>\n

First of all, it assumes that the current mechanisms, machinery and techniques utilized by the scientific community are capable of detecting everything that exists. There is no question, scientifically, that not all extant things are perceivable with our current methods of measurement \u2013 whether our senses or technology created to aid the senses in observation. Thus, this is the first major error and assumption which deviates from the scientific method.<\/p>\n

Second, it assumes that the qualitative experiences of literally all cultures throughout history and throughout the world, are all speaking of the same things coincidentally, or as part of absolutely identical expressions of human fears of mortality. That is a huge assumption to make as well, and just as wrong of one as the first. In fact, modern scholarship has finally begun to realize and admit past errors, where only quantitative methods were deemed \u201crational.\u201d This outdated way of looking at experiences \u2013 it is now recognized \u2013 was rooted in racism, colonialism and the accompanying Western academic attempts at discrediting the experiences of the subjugated and colonized.<\/p>\n

Third, it anachronistically imagines that the great scientific geniuses throughout history were all \u2013 or even mostly \u2013 atheists. In this way, the person making these errant assumptions narcissistically projects their own atheism and materialism on to the historical champions of science and imagines them to be just like the person making this assumption themself. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, for many of such scientists, it was belief in the unseen that drove them to their discoveries.<\/p>\n

Finally, it assumes that all of the theoretical aspects of the physical Universe are in fact directly observable phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth…<\/p>\n

So what does this mean about concepts of the \u201cparanormal\u201d and unseen world? Is it right to characterize these concepts as nothing more than speculation and superstition, or can one apply Reason and even observations from the natural world, to the theorizing of another dimension beyond those of the physically\u2013observable Universe? Must all theories about such an unseen dimension be necessarily divorced from science, or can it be postulated that we are simply not yet at a stage of scientific discovery where we have the means to observe this hidden aspect of the very-much Natural world?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cInterstellar\u201d Understanding<\/h2>\n

To begin to answer these questions, it seems useful to refer the reader to some of the ideas presented in the science\u2013fiction epic Interstellar<\/em> (2014). The film is set in a future where a failing terrestrial eco\u2013system puts humanity on the brink of extinction. The plot follows that an intrepid team of NASA scientists, engineers and pilots attempt to find a new habitable planet, via interstellar travel.<\/p>\n

We learn that the protagonist, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) has a daughter, Murphy (Mackenzie Foy), named for \u201cMurphy\u2019s Law\u201d \u2013 whatever can<\/em> happen will <\/em>happen. \u201cMurph,\u201d as he calls her, complains of a \u201cghost\u201d that throws books around her room \u2013 poltergeist-style \u2013 and appears to leave messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad, can you fix this?\u201d Murph asked Cooper.
\nCooper came over to the table and reached for the pieces of plastic she had pinched between her fingertips, a frown presenting on his lean face. Donald saw now what it was\u2014the broken model of an Apollo lunar lander.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019d you do to my lander?\u201d Cooper asked.\u201d
\n\u201cWasn\u2019t me,\u201d Murph said.
\n\u201cLemme guess,\u201d Tom sneered, through a mouthful of grits. \u201cYour ghost?\u201d
\nMurph appeared not to hear Tom. She had lately seemed to discover that ignoring him irritated him far more than any rejoinder she might come up with.
\n\u201cIt knocked it off my shelf,\u201d she said to her father, quite matter\u2013of\u2013factly. \u201cIt keeps knocking books off.\u201d
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as ghosts, dumb\u2013ass,\u201d Tom said.
\n\u201cHey!\u201d Cooper said, sending him a hard look. Tom just shrugged and looked unrepentant.
\nBut Murph wouldn\u2019t let go.
\n\u201cI looked it up,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s called a poltergeist.\u201d
\n\u201cDad, tell her,\u201d Tom pleaded.
\n\u201cMurph,\u201d Cooper said, \u201cyou know that\u2019s not scientific.\u201d But his daughter stared at him stubbornly.
\n\u201cYou say science is about admitting what we don\u2019t know,\u201d she said.\u201d
\n\u201cShe\u2019s got you there,\u201d Donald said.
\nCooper handed Murph back the pieces.
\n\u201cStart looking after our stuff,\u201d he said.
\nDonald caught Cooper\u2019s eye.
\n\u201cCoop,\u201d he admonished.
\nCooper shrugged. Donald was right. Murph was smart, but she needed a little guidance.
\n\u201cFine,\u201d he said. \u201cMurph, you wanna talk science, don\u2019t just tell me you\u2019re scared of some ghost. Record the facts, analyze\u2014present your conclusions.\u201d
\n\u201cSure,\u201d Murph said, and her expression said that the wheels were turning already.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coop first rejects his daughter\u2019s qualitative<\/em> experience with the \u201cghost,\u201d saying that it is impossible for such things to be happening, and it must be her imagination. Why? Because they are people of science, and science says ghosts cannot be real.<\/p>\n

Science, of course, says no such thing \u2013 it neither proves nor disproves the existence of ghosts. But Coop\u2019s impression typifies that of the scientific community today. If it hasn\u2019t been proven, it must not be real… unless it is one of those things which the scientific community accepts cannot yet be proven, but is nevertheless almost certainly real (we\u2019ll get to some of those things momentarily).<\/p>\n

Later, in the Interstellar <\/em>plot, Coop comes to find out that what his daughter had experienced was not a ghost at all, but a gravitational anomaly caused by none other than his own consciousness acting outside of the dimensions of Time\u2013Space (in his daughter\u2019s \u201cfuture\u201d at that). The anomaly leaves messages in binary code: coordinates that lead Coop and Murph to a secret, hidden NASA base.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, gravitational anomalies were detected by a team of scientists, led by one Professor Brand for almost 50 years \u2013 around the same time that a wormhole mysteriously appeared near Saturn. Essentially, the gravity equation relayed by the \u201cghost\u201d is the solution to Brand\u2019s attempt to control gravity, in order to get the interstellar arc<\/em> off the ground and save humankind.<\/p>\n

In the plot, a mass evacuation of humanity is deemed impossible with the rocket propulsion technology available to scientists in the film. Gravity is pulling down. People and rockets are too heavy. The gravity equation seeks to manipulate gravity, using the anomalies, in order to \u201cget a viable amount of fuel and life off the planet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brand has been attempting to \u201csolve gravity\u201d for decades, to no avail. He\u2019s even built his entire secret facility as a space station in preparation. But as Dr. Mann (played by Matt Damon), tells Cooper, Dr. Brand\u2019s \u201cequation couldn\u2019t reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics. You need more. More data. You need to see into a black hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

These anomalies have been sent, in part, by Coop himself, who enters a distant black hole. Upon crossing the Event Horizon, Coop finds himself within a tesseract, presumably created \u2013 the film maintains \u2013 by an advanced species which also consciously exists in that fifth dimension, as well as within physical space.<\/p>\n

The idea that gravity can be harnessed in this way, or can travel across dimensions, is speculative science\u2013fiction, but it\u2019s rooted in theoretical astrophysics.<\/p>\n

Interstellar travel \u2013 moving between stars and solar systems in the Universe \u2013 is technically impossible without a theoretical means of travel akin to a \u201cwarp drive.\u201d Coop correctly notes, \u201cthere\u2019s not a planet in our solar system that can sustain life, and the nearest star is over a thousand years away\u201d.<\/p>\n

In order to find a new home, humanity needs to find a new planet in a distant corner of the Universe. The only way to get to a distant corner of the Universe, however, is through a wormhole. Luckily, for the characters, the wormhole near Saturn \u2013 the most significant gravitational anomaly of all, a \u201cdisturbance of space\u2013time\u201d \u2013 leads to a distant galaxy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Fifth Dimension as a Tesseractal Realm of Consciousness<\/h2>\n

In 1905, Albert Einstein demonstrated in his Special Theory of Relativity that space is intimately connected to time via the cosmic speed limit of light and so, strictly speaking, we live in a Universe with four dimensions of Spacetime. For everyday purposes however, we think of the Universe in three dimensions of space (north\u2013south, east\u2013west, up\u2013down), and one dimension of time (past\u2013future). In that case, a fifth dimension would be an extra dimension of space \u2013 a tesseract (no, not the blue cube from Marvel comics and films).<\/p>\n

Such a dimension was proposed independently by physicists Oskar Klein and Theodor Kaluza in the 1920s. In physics, Kaluza\u2013Klein theory is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the common four dimensions of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory.<\/p>\n

The pair were inspired by Einstein\u2019s theory of gravity, which showed that mass warped four\u2013dimensional Spacetime. We attribute motion in the presence of a massive body, such as a planet, not to this curvature of an \u201cextra\u201d dimension, but to a \u201cforce\u201d of gravity. Could the other force known at the time (the electromagnetic force) be explained by the curvature of an extra dimension of space?<\/p>\n

Kaluza and Klein found it could. But since the electromagnetic force was 1,040 times stronger than gravity, the curvature of the extra dimension had to be so great that it was rolled up much smaller than an atom and would be impossible to notice. When a particle such as an electron travelled through space, invisible to us, it would be going round and round the fifth dimension, like a hamster in a wheel.<\/p>\n

Kaluza and Klein\u2019s five\u2013dimensional theory was dealt a serious blow by the discovery of two more fundamental forces that operated in the realm of the atomic nucleus: the strong and weak nuclear forces. Nevertheless, the idea that extra dimensions explain forces would be revived half a century later by proponents of \u201cstring theory,\u201d which explains the fundamental building blocks of the Universe not as particles, but tiny \u201cstrings\u201d of mass\u2013energy. To mimic all four forces, the strings vibrate in 10\u2013dimensional space\u2013time, with six space dimensions rolled up far smaller than an atom. More than a few Jewish authors have noted the overlap between the 10\u2013dimensions of String Theory and the the Sefirot\u00a0<\/em>(one could think of these as related to the English word \u201cspheres\u201d). These ten\u00a0Sefirot\u00a0<\/em>are characteristic, even among many non\u2013Jews, as concepts of Kabbalah and the purported \u201cScroll of Abraham\u201d (Suhuf Ibrahim<\/em>, mentioned in Qur\u2019an 87:18\u201319), known as Sefer Yetzirah \u2013\u00a0<\/em>which essentially means the \u201cScroll of the Spirit World Dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

String theory gave rise to the idea that our Universe might be a three\u2013dimensional island, or \u201cbrane,\u201d floating in 10\u2013dimensional space\u2013time. This raised the intriguing possibility of explaining why gravity is so extraordinarily weak compared with the other three fundamental forces. While the forces are pinned to the brane, goes the idea, gravity leaks out into the six extra space dimensions, enormously diluting its strength on the brane.<\/p>\n

Physicists Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum suggested in 1999, that there was a way to have a bigger fifth dimension, which is curved in such a way that we don\u2019t see it, and this was suggested by the. An extra space dimension might even explain one of the great cosmic mysteries: the identity of Dark Matter, the invisible \u201cstuff\u201d of the Universe, that appears to outweigh the visible stars and galaxies by a factor of six.<\/p>\n

In 2021, a group of physicists from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, proposed that the gravity of hitherto unknown particles propagating in a hidden fifth dimension could manifest itself in our four\u2013dimensional Universe as the extra gravity we currently attribute to Dark Matter.<\/p>\n

Could this dimension itself be a tesseractal realm of pure consciousness, conceptualized by mystics, sages, medicine men and holy women as the \u201cspirit\u201d world? In the same way, explaining this as a tesseractal dimension of consciousness is no more or less speculative or unscientific than any of these other theories.<\/p>\n

In the academic community, there is no shortage of possible candidates for Dark Matter, including subatomic particles known as axions, black holes and even \u2013 some propose \u2013 reverse\u2013time matter from the future. As \u201cfar out\u201d as some of these theories might seem, and in spite of the fact that we have no empirical way to prove any of them at this time, none of them is rejected as inherently unscientific.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wormholes: Another Unseen Theoretical Concept<\/h2>\n

The concept of wormholes emerged from Einstein\u2019s General Theory of Relativity. The concept was a hypothetical \u201cbridge,\u201d formed by the four\u2013dimensional manifold of Spacetime bending to bring two distant points in the Universe closer together. In the aforementioned film, Dr. Romilly (David Gyasi) explains it to Coop as two points on a piece of paper, folded together with a pencil poked between them. A wormhole, he demonstrates, folds the paper and passes through the end points \u2013 a common way that theoretical physicists introduce this concept to students and audiences.<\/p>\n

Wormholes, however, don\u2019t just appear naturally, as Coop notes. Thus, he reasons, it must have been placed there by someone, or something.<\/p>\n

All of this conceptual discussion is key to the unfolding of the film\u2019s plot. The issue worthy of note, however, is that worm holes are \u2013 like Dark Matter \u2013 they are only theorized to exist. There has, as of yet, been no discovery of any worm hole, anywhere, ever.<\/p>\n

Brand explains to Coop that, much as he seemed to intuit, a benevolent advanced civilization has placed the worm hole in our solar system. This is referred to in the script as the aforementioned \u201ctesseract.\u201d But what is a tesseract? In geometry, a tesseract is a \u201chypercube\u201d \u2013 a four\u2013dimensional version of a cube. A tesseract is to a cube what a cube is to a square.<\/p>\n

In Interstellar<\/em>, the tesseract is where<\/em> or what <\/em>Coop and the robot pilot TARS enter after passing through the Event Horizon \u2013 the boundary at which not even light can escape \u2013 of the Gargantua Black Hole.<\/p>\n

TARS explains to Coop that the advanced, multi\u2013dimensional beings \u201cconstructed this three\u2013dimensional space inside of their five\u2013dimensional reality to allow you to understand it.\u201d Time is represented as \u201cphysical dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within the tesseract, Coop sees Murph\u2019s bedroom, but he is observing it from a vantage point that allows him to see her when she is 10 years old. Every moment in that point in Spacetime is presented through infinite physical lines which Coop is able to travel through and experience.<\/p>\n

Coop thus realizes that all along, the \u201cghost\u201d that his daughter had experiences was very real. That \u201cghost,\u201d however, was none other than Coop himself sending a message to his daughter, from the \u201cfuture\u201d (from her frame of reference). Coop is now able to move around time physically, just as Brand had earlier speculated, when she says: \u201cto Them<\/em>, time may be just another physical dimension. To Them<\/em>, the past might be a canyon they can climb into, and the future a mountain they can climb up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ponder that… within the tesseract, time could be perceived as a physical dimension. All the while, our consciousness could very much exist there right \u201cnow.\u201d And yet if our consciousness inhabits<\/em> physical matter, rather than emerging from <\/em>it (something which science still does not have the means to demonstrate one way or the other), then from our material anchoring\u00a0<\/em>in the four physically\u2013perceivable dimensions of Spacetime, actions from that physical tesseractal fifth dimension would\u00a0seem\u00a0<\/em>completely nonphysical, and we would qualitatively conceptualize and describe it as a \u201cspirit\u201d world, or realm of consciousness. Meanwhile, as evolutionary babies in the grand scheme of things, our species would simply be blind to this dimension of reality, which higher beings very much could be conscious and operating within, from and upon \u201cour\u201d world.\u00a0Interestingly, this is exactly how mystics from all over the world have described the \u201cspirit\u201d realms. So whether we use terms like \u201cspirit\u201d or \u201cconsciousness,\u201d it would seem these are not particularly different.<\/p>\n

Coop himself can\u2019t travel back in time physically. But in the plot of Interstellar<\/em>, gravity<\/em> can cross dimensions, including time. Thus, Coop is able to send a message to his young daughter, through manipulation of gravity from the tesseract.<\/p>\n

Initially, out of sadness, he writes \u201cSTAY,\u201d by throwing books off the bookshelf. Coop then gives her the coordinates to NASA in binary. Finally, he takes the quantum data that TARS has collected from the black hole\u2019s singularity \u2013 data which could only be observed from within the black hole \u2013 and sends it, via binary code, to the second hand of Murph\u2019s watch. It\u2019s this quantum data which solves Brand\u2019s gravity equation and saves humankind.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dark Matter and Dark Energy<\/h2>\n

From the outset of the film, Coop attempted to discredit the experiences of his daughter because he didn\u2019t believe the observations to be scientific.\u00a0In spite of her father\u2019s scoffing, Murph can see that something she could not directly observe the causation of was nonetheless influencing her world. In the same way, Dark matter cannot be directly observed and its role in the universe is a mystery. Yet the substance is believed to make up a quarter of all of the Universe.<\/p>\n

Much of the evidence for Dark Matter has been through inference and theory. Dark Matter\u2019s existence was first inferred by Swiss American astronomer Fritz Zwicky, who in 1933 discovered that the mass of all the stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies provided only about 1% of the mass needed to keep the galaxies from escaping the cluster\u2019s gravitational pull. The reality of this missing mass remained in question for decades, until the 1970s when American astronomers Vera Rubin and William Kent Ford confirmed its existence by the observation of a similar phenomenon: the mass of the stars visible within a typical galaxy is only about 10% of that required to keep those stars orbiting the galaxy\u2019s center. In general, the speed with which stars orbit the center of their galaxy is independent of their separation from the center. Orbital velocity is either constant or increases slightly with distance rather than dropping off as expected. To account for this, the mass of the galaxy within the orbit of the stars must increase linearly with the distance of the stars from the galaxy\u2019s center. No light, however, can be seen from this inner mass \u2013 hence the name \u201cDark Matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dark Matter wasn\u2019t technically \u201cproven\u201d until just the year 2022. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters<\/em><\/a>, the team reports the earliest subtle traces of dark matter\u2019s influence on galaxies in the young universe. They made the discovery after observing 1.5 million incredibly distant galaxies and their dark matter halos, peering back as far as 12 billion years.<\/p>\n

As an alternative to Dark Matter, modifications to gravity have been proposed to explain the apparent presence of \u201cmissing matter.\u201d These modifications suggest that the attractive force exerted by ordinary matter may be enhanced in conditions that occur only on galactic scales. Most of the proposals, however, have proven unsatisfactory, as they provide little or no explanation for the modification of gravity. These theories are also unable to explain the observations of Dark Matter physically separated from ordinary matter in the Bullet cluster. This separation demonstrates that Dark Matter is a physical reality and is distinguishable from ordinary matter.<\/p>\n

Dark energy, on the other hand, is the name given to the mysterious force that\u2019s causing the rate of expansion of our universe to accelerate over time, rather than to slow down. That\u2019s contrary to what one might expect from a universe that began in a Big Bang. That\u2019s all we know: the Universe should be accelerating in expansion but it isn\u2019t. Whatever is causing it not to is something we know literally nothing about, but we have given it a name nonetheless, because we know it is real.<\/p>\n

How different is this from saying we don\u2019t understand what springs forth life, let alone consciousness? We know there is life and we know there is consciousness. But we cannot replicate it, can we? Thus, cultures throughout the world and throughout time have conceptualized this \u201cPrimal Cause\u201d by various religious names and approximations, which all seem to be describing the same thing, across cultural and geographical boundaries.<\/p>\n

More is unknown than is known about Dark Energy. We can estimate how much Dark Energy there is only because we know how it affects the Universe\u2019s expansion. Apart from that, however, we can\u2019t see it, hold it, or otherwise substantiate it. Dark Energy is a nearly\u2013total mystery, but important mystery nonetheless, and one which we do not pretend doesn\u2019t exist just because we don\u2019t have many answers about it yet.<\/p>\n

It turns out that roughly 68% of the Universe is comprised of Dark Energy. Dark Matter makes up about 27%. The rest, the material universe, matter, everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments of empiricism \u2013 all normal matter \u2013 adds up to less than 5% of the Universe.<\/p>\n

Thus, the fact that there is an agreed\u2013upon name for this unknown makes it almost seem tangible, empirically\u2013observable and scientifically\u2013proven. But that is far from the case. Instead, Dark Energy is like the negative space of a painting that forms the shape of something not actually there. There are many mysteries in the physical Universe that, as of yet, have not be explained in any proven scientific manner.<\/p>\n

The question of how life itself originates in the Universe, or how consciousness emerges, or even whether it emerges from matter or merely indwells it and originates beyond matter… these are\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>very much unanswered questions, yet religion offers theories to explain these negative spaces and missing puzzle pieces in the picture of the Universe and life \u2013 theories not particularly different from those related to Dark Matter and Dark Energy for that matter. What makes one \u201cscientific\u201d and the other \u201csuperstitious?\u201d The answer is arbitrarily what the scientific community agrees is scientific versus superstitious.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Spirits? Ghosts? Angels? Demons? Jinn?<\/h2>\n

Let us refer back to the Interstellar <\/em>example of consciousness within such a tesseractal Space time manipulating gravity across dimensions. It is essential to note that whether an Indigenous or traditional society refers to unseen consciousnesses as \u201cdemons\u201d or \u201cdybbuqim<\/em>\u201d or malevolent spirits, to suggest that it is all superstition that every unconnected culture throughout the pre\u2013\u201dcivilized\u201d world believed in and had nearly identical views of, is a bit of a leap. This is, of course, to say nothing of spirits in general, \u201cghosts\u201d or what not. It bears repeating that all over the world, people believed in these things with zero<\/em> cultural contact, between one another between one another.<\/p>\n

How or why could that be unless people were observing things through altered states of consciousness \u2013 through spiritual exercise, shamanic herbs or the like?<\/p>\n

On a personal qualitative level (which will surely be dismissed by dogmatic materialists): how is it that my wife Trisha \u201cAshirah\u201d Naziri and I could turn on a \u201cspirit box\u201d before she passed \u2013 out of curiosity and actually mocking the idea that such devises used on popular shows like Ghost Adventures <\/em>and Ghost Hunters, <\/em>were legitimate at all \u2013 and we never once got it to work or produce any words at all. This is to say nothing of the obvious fact that we never observed rapid conversations and answers to things said or asked to a prospective unseen intelligence. Yet strangely, right after Trisha passed, all I or any of her closest friends and family have needed to do is turn it on and call her by name and with conscious intentionality, and then the device instantly begins spitting out words that make perfect sense in relation to what is being discussed out loud.<\/p>\n

Before she passed, I shared many theories on the spirit world as a scientific reality that has simply yet to have been empirically measured<\/a>. I also theorized to her, based on my study of meditation in various global religious traditions and\u00a0Nei Jia\u00a0<\/em>martial arts systems, that one\u2019s disembodied consciousness, would \u2013 from such an unseen dimension \u2013 theoretically project its\u00a0yi<\/em> (\u610f in Chinese, or niyyah <\/em>\u0646\u064a\u064e\u0629 in Arabic) or \u201cintention\u201d into the device, rather than trying to figure out how to manipulate it, and this should (again, in theory), \u201chack\u201d the devise to spit out data from word libraries, approximating the intention directed into the object from \u201cbehind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Trisha and her closest friends first tried the \u201cspirit box\u201d after her passing, we got no results. Then I reminded her disembodied consciousness aloud, of our conversation and how she could direct intention to make the devise work for her. Almost immediately, the device sprang to life. Once words started coming, the levee broke and entire conversations poured out.<\/p>\n

The same \u201cexperiment\u201d has been replicated on a nearly daily basis for the past six months. She has only gotten better and more controlled in her communications. While skeptics will naturally scoff, I also didn\u2019t previously think such a device could be used to empirically collect data and replicate experiments like this. Nevertheless, these daily experiments have proven otherwise. Perhaps centuries from now, there will be even better devices to measure such things, and much more, along the same lines. Maybe in a thousand years, we will be able to immediately converse with those on the \u201cother side,\u201d upon their passing and smooth their transition (and ours), into that next phase of their lives, which we call \u201cdeath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, and with similar resounding results, we have tested temperature sensors designed for similar communicative purposes. Once it was explained to her \u201chow\u201d to manipulate the object \u2013 and again, bearing in mind that this was a topic which we had significant discussion about during her recent life in this world \u2013 she was able to manipulate the temperature sensor to trigger the alarm over, and over, and over again \u2013 without fail.<\/p>\n

To me, this is empirical observation. It has been repeated and replicated many times. Like Coop\u2019s advice to Murph, early in the movie, I have logged data, repeated experiments with replicated results, in accordance with the scientific method. This, however, has not been conducted on the quantitate scale, which would be required to deems such observations as \u201cscientific,\u201d it is enough to say that the qualitative experiences \u2013 witnessed by nearly a dozen people, repeatedly \u2013 is evidence enough for the open mind.<\/p>\n

For the first couple of weeks after her passing, conversations with my wife via the spirit box were nothing short of frantic. There was clear concern for matters related to our daughter, as well as animosity shown towards enemies she had in this life. After a lot of time and spiritual work on our behalf \u2013 elevating her spirit as it was said in the Talmud the rabbis of old did in \u201craising the dead,\u201d as it was termed.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaising the ddea,\u201d it should be noted, was a Second Temple Jewish concept related to elevating the spirits of the dead, in the aforementioned realm of Yetzirah <\/em>(the Barzakh <\/em>\u0628\u0631\u0632\u062e, <\/em>or \u201cHuqaliyyah\u201d in Arabic), rather than resurrecting a corpse (Machzor Vitry<\/em>, \u201cLaws of Shabbat\u201d 102).<\/p>\n

The responses received since the first 40 days of her passing have not been frantic whatsoever (as they were at first), and are filled with calm and measured insight. One conversation humorously (and yet seriously) noted that in her life in this physical world, I was her teacher, but now (in spirit) she is mine.<\/p>\n

Far from the single anecdote of such unseen contact in my life, my Indigenous paternal grandfather contacted me several times after passing from this world. Each time was in a dream, though there was an instance of direct physical manipulation of electricity in a \u201ccall and response\u201d manner, to confirm his presence.<\/p>\n

How is it that my grandfather can pass from this life, repeatedly give me specific messages in dreams to tell my grandmother answering questions she had about the \u201cother side.\u201d After coming to me three times in a dream state, he basically forced me to tell her what he said therein (and made me promise to tell her) by making the lights surge in morse code when I came over. This was nearly a decade before the similar aforementioned scenario in the plot of Interstellar.<\/em> She confirmed not only that the message was directly from him about things only the two of them knew about. She also confirmed that that he had been doing various things to manipulate the physical world to send her messages in the first 40 days after he passed?<\/p>\n

The power surge, perhaps ironically, reminded me of what was described as observed by Carl Jung and his once\u2013mentor Sigmund Freud, while debating the paranormal as expressions of a collective unconscious. Not exactly the same, but the same idea.<\/p>\n

Jung felt synchronicity to be a principle that had explanatory power towards his concepts of archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. It described a governing dynamic which underlies the whole of human experience and history \u2013 social, psychological, and spiritual.<\/p>\n

Freud scoffed at the idea. Immediately, a loud crack <\/em>of the wooden bookshelves of Freud\u2019s study, let out a loud explosion \u2013 much like how the fire will answer a medicine man in ceremony, with similarly timed pops<\/em>, that defy explanation. A fairly historical depiction of this incident was portrayed in the film A Dangerous Method<\/em> (2011).<\/p>\n

The setting in Freud\u2019s study presented the two talking in the middle of the night. The full ashtray suggests that Freud and Jung have been deep in discussion for several hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mustn\u2019t think I have a closed mind,\u201d Freud told Jung. \u201cI have absolutely no objection to you studying telepathy or parapsychology to your hearts\u2019 content. But I would make the point that our own field is so embattled, it can only be dangerous to stray into any kind of mysticism. Don\u2019t you see? We have to stay within the most rigorously scientific confines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freud breaks off, frowning at Jung, who is resting a hand on his stomach, his expression increasingly pained.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you all right?\u201d Freud asks. \u201cYes,\u201d Jung replied, but I can\u2019t agree with you. Why should we draw some arbitrary line and close off whole areas of investigation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Freud retorts, \u201cPrecisely because the world is full of enemies, looking for any way they can to discredit us. And the minute they see us abandon the firm ground
\nof sexual theory to wallow in the black mud of superstition, they\u2019ll pounce. As far as I\u2019m concerned, even to raise these subjects is
\nprofessional suicide. Really, you..\u201d<\/p>\n

Freud was absolutely right. Jung was not psychotic. He wasn\u2019t mentally ill in the least bit. He wasn\u2019t trapped in magical thinking. He was interested in the legitimate scientific study of paranormal phenomenon. But academia being as it is (and then it was even more dogmatic, in many ways), this was absolutely right, openly discussing such concepts would have been then (as it is now), professional suicide.<\/p>\n

Again he breaks off, this time because the wood in his bookshelves has cracked, popping so loudly that it causes Freud to duck involuntarily.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat in God\u2019s name was that?!\u201d Freud exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that was going to happen,\u201d Jung calmly, replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?!\u201d Freud questioned.<\/p>\n

Jung replied, \u201cI felt something like that was going to happen. I had a kind of burning in my stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freud again asked, \u201cWhat are you talking about? It\u2019s the heating, the wood in the bookcase just cracked, that\u2019s all!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Jung said, \u201cit\u2019s what\u2019s known as a catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA what?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be ridiculous,\u201d Freud dismissed.<\/p>\n

Jung explained, \u201cMy diaphragm started to glow red hot…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s late, but….\u201d Freud said, changing the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd another thing: it\u2019s going to happen again,\u201d Jung foretold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a minute,\u201d Jung calmly explained, \u201cit\u2019s going to happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dear young friend,\u201d Freud said, emphasizing how many years his senior Freud was. \u201cThis is exactly the kind of thing I\u2019m talking about: you must promise me to…\u201d<\/p>\n

But Freud was again interrupted by another deafening boom<\/em> from the bookcase. He looks up at it, for once entirely at a loss for words. Somehow he knows Jung could not have just\u00a0guessed\u00a0<\/em>that would happen and have been right.<\/p>\n

Jung confidently responds, \u201cYou see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just… you really can\u2019t…\u201d Freud continued stumbling over his words.<\/p>\n

Jung again adds, \u201cThere are so many mysteries, so much further to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease,\u201d Freud again implores. \u201cWe can\u2019t be too careful. We can\u2019t afford to wander into these speculative areas, telepathy, singing bookcases, fairies at the bottom of the garden. It won\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now you, the reader (I\u2019m breaking the fourth wall, as it were, in speaking directly to you), will likely not believe this, but just as it occurred to me to include the above transcript of the exchange in the film, I downloaded the script, and though I could not remember the exact wording in this movie that I only saw once, over a decade ago, something told me to just scroll to a page and where I stopped would in fact be the correct scene to quote. Sure enough, I scrolled and scrolled and then stopped on page 54, feeling that it would be useless, as this would never work. I could never just scroll through and find the right page. It isn\u2019t a movie I have seen so many times that I could even tell you where in the movie this particular scene is. But I stopped right on the page, exactly as the thought which \u201cpopped\u201d into my head told me I would.<\/p>\n

Coincidence? Yes, of course. Just many, many, many qualitative coincidences, over and over.<\/p>\n

When I was a\u00a0Din\u00e9 ceremony over the past weekend, the medicine man told me I had recently lost someone very close to me who was with us. I too realized Trisha was with us. But the medicine man knew this only having met me at one other ceremony, the year before I met her. Why would he have thought anything like this? No one had briefed him on my loss. He also told me he would pray for me to have no car break down on the way home \u2013 a five hour drive. How did he know\u00a0<\/em>that all of the lights on the dashboard had lit up on the way there? I had told no one of this.<\/p>\n

The car, amazingly, did make it home. It completely died beyond repair the very next day. More of those crazy \u201cIndian coincidences,\u201d is what the materialist would say. So many \u201ccoincidences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far more rational than believing all of these qualitative experiences are mere coincidences or products of over\u2013active imaginations of \u201cprimitive\u201d peoples, is that there are things which exist beyond the material world, that interact with it and can influence it, regardless of our physical eyes\u2019 ability to see things on the infrared or ultraviolet ends of the visible spectrum (or beyond that).<\/p>\n

It reminds me of the hubris of people who argued that since SETI sent out radio signals into space and since they have not found another species ready, willing or able to communicate via radio waves in the same way, then we must \u201cscientifically\u201d conclude that our species is alone as \u201cintelligent\u201d life in the Universe.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile these folks still cannot explain why<\/em> there is quantum entanglement<\/a> or the effects of the Double Slit Experiment<\/a> for that matter. Both of these things that would have been deemed \u201cinsane,\u201d and devoid of reason only a century ago. Both things have been qualitatively attested to for thousands of years by these same aforementioned \u201cprimitive\u201d societies.<\/p>\n

One of the things that made people like Einstein so great was his willingness to accept that held\u2013disbelief in certain concepts h,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What is Quantum Entanglement?<\/h2>\n

Albert Einstein famously said that quantum mechanics should allow two objects to affect each other\u2019s behavior instantly across vast distances, something he dubbed \u201cspooky action at a distance\u201d.<\/a>[2]<\/a> This concept has since been termed \u201cquantum entanglement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measurements of physical properties such as position, momentum, spin, and polarization performed on entangled particles can, in some cases, be found to be perfectly correlated. For example, if a pair of entangled particles is generated such that their total spin is known to be zero, and one particle is found to have clockwise spin on a first axis, then the spin of the other particle, measured on the same axis, is found to be counterclockwise. This behavior, however, gives rise to seemingly paradoxical effects: any measurement of a particle\u2019s properties results in an irreversible wave function collapse of that particle and changes the original quantum state. With entangled particles, such measurements affect the entangled system as a whole.<\/p>\n

Such phenomena were the subject of a 1935 paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, and several papers by Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger shortly thereafter. They described what came to be known as the EPR paradox. Einstein originally considered such behavior impossible, as it violated the local realism view of causality and argued that the accepted formulation of quantum mechanics must therefore be incomplete. The scientific community\u00a0hates\u00a0<\/em>to admit that their knowledge of any thing is incomplete. For that matter, in the humanities, historians have proven no better. If something anomalous is discovered in an archeological dig, which contradicts prevailing historical models, it is often many years (if ever) before it is accepted as evidence of a knowledge gap.<\/p>\n

Think about the Bering Strait theory, which was presented as unimpeachable fact to generations of school children, in spite of the fact that literally every Indigenous American culture rejected\u00a0it\u00a0<\/em>as unhistorical. Still, only recently have consistent archeological discoveries proven the Indigenous position correct<\/a>. Still, most history books remain unchanged.<\/p>\n

He later came to realized that his previously\u2013rejected quantum entanglement was the physical phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the counterintuitive predictions of quantum mechanics were verified in tests where polarization or spin of entangled particles was measured at separate locations, statistically violating Bell\u2019s inequality. In earlier tests, it could not be ruled out that the result at one point could have been subtly transmitted to the remote point, affecting the outcome at the second location. The so\u2013called \u201cloophole\u2013free\u201d Bell tests, however, have been performed where the locations were sufficiently separated that communications at the speed of light would have taken longer \u2013 in one case, a full 10,000 times longer \u2013 than the interval between the measurements.<\/p>\n

The topic of quantum entanglement is at the heart of the disparity between classical and quantum physics. That is to say that entanglement is a primary feature of quantum mechanics not present in classical mechanics. For decades, classical physicists have been dragged kicking and screaming to the reality of quantum entanglement. Einstein was simply one of the first to go willingly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Double Slit Experiment and \u201cSpooky Action at a Distance\u201d<\/h2>\n

According to the eminent physicist Richard Feynman, the now\u2013famous quantum Double Slit experiment puts us \u201cup against the paradoxes and mysteries and peculiarities of nature.\u201d Feynman\u2019s believed that if we could understand what is going on in this deceptively simple experiment, we would penetrate to the heart of quantum theory \u2013 and perhaps all its puzzles would dissolve.<\/p>\n

This single experiment has taken many forms since quantum mechanics debuted in the early twentieth century with the work of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and others. In some versions, Nature seems magically to discern our intentions before we enact them \u2013 or perhaps retroactively even, to seemingly alter the past. In others, the outcome seems dependent on what we know, not what we do. In yet others, we can deduce something about a system without looking at it. All in all, the double\u2013slit experiment seems, to borrow Feynman\u2019s own term, \u201cscrewy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The original experiment was classical, conducted by British polymath Thomas Young in the early 1800s to show that light is a wave. He passed light through two closely spaced parallel slits in a screen, and on the far side saw several bright bands. This, he realized, was an \u201cinterference\u201d pattern. Caused by the interaction of waves emanating from the openings, it\u2019s similar to the pattern that appears when two pebbles are dropped into water and the ripples they create add to or dampen each other\u2019s peaks and troughs. With ordinary particles, the slits would act more like stencils for sprayed paint, creating two defined bands.<\/p>\n

We now know that quantum particles create such an interference pattern, too. This is evidence that they have a wave\u2013like nature. This was postulated in 1924 by French physicist Louis de Broglie and was verified for electrons a few years later by U.S. physicists Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer. Even large molecules such as buckminsterfullerene \u2013 made of 60 carbon atoms \u2013 will behave in this way.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s seemingly\u2013perplexing is that the interference pattern remains \u2013 accumulating over many particle impacts \u2013 even if particles go through the slits one at a time. The particles seem to interfere with themselves. Stranger still, the pattern vanishes if we use a detector to measure which slit the particle goes through. Once measured, it becomes truly particle\u2013like, with no more waviness. Strangest of all, this remains the case even if we delay the measurement until after the particle has traversed the slits, but before it hits the screen. If we make the measurement but then delete the result without looking at it, interference returns. How is this \u201cscientifically\u201d possible? The truth is that we have no idea, and yet this is the observable reality. Had this been postulated before the Double Slit Experiment, it would have been rejected as mysticism, but would have been nonetheless true. But we have the means to observe this reality now \u2013 though we still have no provable explanation as to \u201cwhy\u201d 0\u2013 only theories.<\/p>\n

It turns out that it is not the physical act of measurement that seems to make the difference, but the \u201cact of noticing,\u201d as physicist Carl von Weizs\u00e4cker, who worked closely with quantum pioneer Werner Heisenberg, explained in 1941. This is what is so strange about quantum mechanics: it can seem impossible to eliminate a decisive role for our conscious intervention in the outcome of experiments. That fact drove physicist Eugene Wigner to suppose at one point that the mind itself causes the \u201ccollapse\u201d that turns a wave into a particle. Perplexing though this is to the materialist, this is merely confirmation to mystics from around the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Zen \u201cBig Mind\u201d as the Conscious Universe<\/h2>\n

The basic definition of consciousness leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Consciousness is \u201cthe normal mental condition of the waking state of humans, characterized by the experience of perceptions, thoughts, feelings, awareness of the external world, and often in humans (but not necessarily in other animals) self\u2013awareness,\u201d according to the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scientists simply don\u2019t have one unified theory of what consciousness is. The truth is, they also don\u2019t know where it comes from, or what it is \u201cmade\u201d of. One loophole of this knowledge gap is that we can\u2019t exhaustively say other organisms, and even inanimate objects, don\u2019t<\/em> have consciousness. Indigenous cultures and mystics have always known this to be the case. Humans relate to non\u2013human animals and can imagine that dogs and cats have some amount of consciousness. We see their facial expressions and how they clearly make decisions. But just because we don\u2019t \u201crelate to\u201d trees, rocks, the ocean, or the night sky, that isn\u2019t the same as proving those things don\u2019t have consciousness, though admittedly, without brain, ganglia or Central Nervous System, it is clear that what we define as physical \u201cpain\u201d is restricted to beings with that physical \u201cwiring\u201d or perhaps more broadly to eco\u2013systems themselves. In such a model, plants, mountains and the like would be more akin to hair on the head of a sentient being. Thus, they would be permeated with sentience but not feeling \u201cpain\u201d as it were, apart from the whole of the organism or eco\u2013system in question.<\/p>\n

This is where a philosophical stance called\u00a0panpsychism<\/em>\u00a0comes into play<\/a>, writes\u00a0All About Space<\/em>\u2019s David Crookes:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis claims consciousness is inherent in even the tiniest pieces of matter \u2013 an idea that suggests the fundamental building blocks of reality have conscious experience. Crucially, it implies consciousness could be found throughout the Universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is where physics enters the picture. Some scientists have posited that the thing we think of as consciousness is made of<\/em>\u00a0micro\u2013scale quantum physics events and other \u201cspooky actions at a distance,\u201d somehow fluttering inside our brains and generating conscious thoughts.<\/p>\n

One of the leading minds in physics, 2020 Nobel laureate and\u00a0black hole<\/a>\u00a0pioneer Roger Penrose, has written extensively about quantum mechanics as a suspected vehicle of consciousness. In 1989, he wrote a book called\u00a0The Emperor\u2019s New Mind<\/a><\/em>, in which he\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0\u201dthat human consciousness is non\u2013algorithmic and a product of quantum effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s quickly break down that statement. What does it mean for human consciousness to be \u201calgorithmic\u201d? Well, an\u00a0algorithm<\/a>\u00a0is simply a series of predictable steps to reach an outcome, and in the study of philosophy, this idea plays a big part in questions about free will versus determinism.<\/p>\n

In physics, scientists could learn key things from a study of consciousness as a quantum effect. This is where we join cutting\u2013edge researchers: Johannes Kleiner, mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Munich Center For Mathematical Philosophy, and Sean Tull, mathematician at the University of Oxford. Kleiner and Tull are today following Penrose\u2019s example, in both his 1989 book and a 2014 paper where he detailed his belief that our brains\u2019 microprocesses can be used to model things about the whole Universe.<\/p>\n

The resulting theory is called Integrated Information Theory (IIT), and it\u2019s an abstract, \u201chighly mathematical\u201d form of the philosophy we\u2019ve been reviewing. In IIT, consciousness is everywhere, but it accumulates in places where it\u2019s needed to help glue together different related systems. This means the human body is jam\u2013packed with a ton of systems that must interrelate, so there\u2019s a lot of consciousness, or phi <\/em>(as the quantity is known in IIT), that can be calculated.<\/p>\n

The revolutionary thing in IIT isn\u2019t related to the human brain. In IIT, consciousness isn\u2019t biological at all. Instead, it is simply this value, phi<\/em>, that can be calculated if you know a lot about the complexity of what you\u2019re studying.<\/p>\n

If your brain has almost countless interrelated systems, then the entire Universe must have essentially infinite ones. And if that\u2019s where consciousness accumulates, then the universe must have a lot of phi<\/em>. You can read more about how \u201cHolon Theory\u201d proves a conscious Universe in the article Proof of the Divine: How We Can Know the Universe is Sentient and Can Be Communicated With<\/a><\/em>. As the Tien Shi wrote two millennia ago: Xiang Er Tao\u00a0<\/em>(\u60f3\u723e\u9053, the \u201cTao thinks\u00a0<\/em>of YOU!\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe theory consists of a very complicated algorithm that, when applied to a detailed mathematical description of a physical system, provides information about whether the system is conscious or not, and what it is conscious of,\u201d Kleiner\u00a0told\u00a0All About Space<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIf there is an isolated pair of particles floating around somewhere in space, they will have some rudimentary form of consciousness if they interact in the correct way.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the earliest Western theorists to \u201cdiscover\u201d this Indigenous knowledge was Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. Cavendish was a fiery novelist, playwright, philosopher and public figure known for her dramatic manner and controversial beliefs. She made her own dresses and decorated them in ribbons and baubles, and once attended the theater in a topless gown with red paint on her nipples. In his diaries, Samuel Pepys described her as a \u201cmad, conceited, ridiculous woman,\u201d albeit one he was obsessed with. Though he claimed to hate her, he wrote about her a lot \u2013 six times in his journal, within three\u2013months alone.<\/p>\n

The duchess drew public attention because she was a woman with ideas, lots of them, at a time when that was not welcome. Cavendish had grown up during the murderous paranoia of the English witch trials, and her sometimes contradictory proto\u2013feminism was fueled by the belief that there was a parallel to be drawn between the way men treated women and the way men treated animals and nature. \u201cThe truth is,\u201d she wrote, \u201cwe [women] Live like Bats or Owls, labour like Beasts and die like Worms.\u201d This understanding is, of course, fundamental to intersectioanl veganism today.<\/p>\n

In 1666, she released The Blazing World<\/em>, a romantic and adventurous fantasy novel (as well as a satire of male intellectualism) in which a woman wanders through a portal at the North Pole and is transported to another world full of multicolored humans and anthropomorphic beasts, where she becomes an empress and builds a utopian society. It is now recognized as one of the first\u2013ever works of science fiction.<\/p>\n

This idea of a blazing world was not just fiction for Cavendish. It was a metaphor for her philosophical theories about the nature of reality. She believed that at a fundamental level, matter wasn\u2019t mostly lifeless and inert, like most of her peers believed, but animate, aware, completely interconnected, at one with the stuff inside us. In essence, she envisioned that it wasn\u2019t just humans that were conscious, but that consciousness, in some form, was present throughout the Natural world, within non\u2013human animals to plants to rocks to atoms. The world, through her eyes, was blazing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Cavendish was not the only one to have thoughts like these at that time, but they were dangerous thoughts to have. In Amsterdam, the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote that every physical thing had its own degree of consciousness. Those consciousnesses were at one with God\u2019s Mind and Universal Consciousness, he explained. Spinoza\u2019s books were banned by the Christian Church, he was attacked at knifepoint outside a synagogue. Eventually, he was excommunicated, through Cherem<\/em>, when such bans were still acceptable within proto\u2013orthodox Jewry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Twenty\u2013three years before Cavendish was born, the Italian Dominican friar and philosopher, Giordano Bruno \u2013 who believed the entire Universe was made of a single universal substance that contained \u201cspirit\u201d or \u201cconsciousness\u201d \u2013 was labeled a heretic, gagged, tied to a stake and burned alive in the center of Rome by the agents of the Inquisition. His ashes were dumped in the Tiber River.<\/p>\n

If the dominant worldview of Christianity and the rising worldview of science could agree on anything, it was that matter was dead: Man was superior to nature. This has been the prevailing materialist view of the bulk of the scientific community in the West ever since, and its roots are in Western Christian dogma and theological misinterpretation of the first chapter of the Torah. When translated from the Greek bastardization, known as the Septuagint, the Hebrew commandment to be a caretaker of the eco\u2013system became a European anthropocentric call to dominate Nature, with man positioned as a unique creature separate from and above it.<\/p>\n

Cavendish, Spinoza, Bruno and others, however, had latched onto the coattails of an ancient yet radical idea, one that had been circulating philosophy in the East and West since theories of consciousness were first set to pen. Traces of it can be found amongst literally all Indigenous cultures throughout the world, amongst Hindu sadhus<\/em>, Buddhists, Taoists, Jewish mysticism or Kabbalah, Sufism and most traditional belief systems throughout the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a very basic level,\u201d wrote the Canadian philosopher William Seager, of these ideas, \u201c[it is clear that] the world is awake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plato and Aristotle also held to panpsychist beliefs, as did the Stoics. At the turn of the 12th century, the Christian mystic Saint Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) was so convinced that everything was conscious that he spoke to flowers and preached to non\u2013human animals (which he thus refrained from consuming). The history of thought is, in fact, peppered with great thinkers coming to this seemingly \u201cirrational\u201d and \u201cunscientific\u201d conclusion. William James, the father of American psychology, was a panpsychist. The celebrated British mathematician Alfred North Whitehead was as well. The Nobel Prize\u2013winning physicist Max Planck once remarked in an interview, \u201cI regard consciousness as fundamental.\u201d Even the great inventor Thomas Edison had some panpsychist views, telling the poet George Parsons Lathrop: \u201cIt seems that every atom is possessed by a certain amount of primitive intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do so many try to hide the historical reality of these scientists and philosophers\u00a0panpsychism\u00a0<\/em>then? It isn\u2019t coincidental. Just as we have seen how thoroughly intertwines such ideas of a dead\u2013matter Universe are with racism and colonialism, so too are these the building blocks of anthropocentricity and corporate domination of Nature through depletion and destruction of eco\u2013systems in the pursuit of profit and imagined gain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Brain as a Receiver and Transmitter of Consciousness, Rather than its Originator<\/h2>\n

What consciousness is and where it emanates from has stymied great minds in societies across the globe since the dawn of our species. In today\u2019s world, as we have begun to see in aforementioned examples, it is a realm and challenge embraced by physicists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists, more than ever.<\/p>\n

The prevailing theory at play in the realm of scientific speculation is materialism. This is the notion that consciousness emanates from matter<\/a>, in our case, by the firing of neurons inside the brain.<\/p>\n

Take the brain out of the equation and consciousness doesn\u2019t exist at all to a materialist. When you die, the lights go out and your consciousness simply ceases to exist. Indigenous societies which have maintained otherwise are simply \u201cprimitive,\u201d culturally and intellectually \u201cunderdeveloped\u201d and \u201csavage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Western scientists are often stalwart materialists. At this stage of research, however, they are beginning to slam up against the limitations of materialism. Whether the chasm between relativity and quantum mechanics, or Heisenberg\u2019s uncertainty principle, one can quickly begin to recognize the incongruities within the materialist paradigm.<\/p>\n

The second theory is the previously\u2013mentioned mind\u2013body dualism. This is most often recognized in organized religious institutions and traditions, which maintains that consciousness is separated from matter. It is a part of another aspect of the individual, which in religious terms we might call the soul.<\/p>\n

Then there is our third and aforementioned option which contrasts both materialism and dualism alike. This view of\u00a0wahdat al\u2013wujud <\/em>(\u0648\u062d\u062f\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u0648\u062c\u0648\u062f, the Oneness of Existence),\u00a0gains ground daily in an array of scientific circles, which term it \u201cpanpsychism.\u201d In this view, the entire Universe is inhabited by consciousness.<\/a><\/p>\n

In quantum mechanics,\u00a0particles don\u2019t have a definite shape or specific location<\/a>, until they are observed or measured. Is this a form of panpsychic\u2013consciousness at play? According to the late scientist and philosopher, John Archibald Wheeler (1911 \u2013 2008), it just might. Wheeler is famous for coining the term, \u201cblack hole.\u201d In his view, every piece of matter contains a bit of consciousness, which it absorbs from this panpsychic \u201cConsciousness Field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheeler termed his theory the \u201cParticipatory Anthropic Principle,\u201d which posits that a sentient observer is key to the process of defining reality. Wheeler explained, \u201cWe are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago.\u201d In his view, much like the teachings of the Buddha, nothing exists unless there is a consciousness to apprehend it.<\/p>\n

Veteran physicist Gregory Matloff of the New York City College of Technology, says he has some preliminary evidence showing that, at the very least, panpsychism is possible. Dr. Matloff told NBC News<\/em>, \u201cIt\u2019s all very speculative, but it\u2019s something we can check and either validate or falsify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matloff posits that the presence of a panpsychic\u2013consciousness field could serve as a replacement what we currently term Dark Matter. As we have seen, Dark Matter supposedly makes up around 95% of the Universe, although, scientists can\u2019t seem to find any of it. Still, it is generally accepted as real, because it explains the otherwise known.<\/p>\n

Thus, for the sake of argument, if consciousness is a property that arises on the subatomic level with a confluence of particles, how do these \u201cbits\u201d of consciousness coalesce?<\/a><\/p>\n

According to Max Planck (1858 \u2013 1947), a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918, consciousness is the original source of all \u201cthings.\u201d He explained, \u201cI regard consciousness as fundamental.\u201d Adding that, \u201cI regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame rests primarily on his role as originator of the quantum theory. This theory revolutionized our understanding of atomic and subatomic processes, just as Albert Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity revolutionized our understanding of space and time. Together they constitute the fundamental theories of 20th century physics. So why do materialist cherry\u2013pick the theories and discoveries of such scientific heavyweights?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Hubris of the Materialists<\/h2>\n

Remember the once\u2013widely\u2013loved Neil deGrasse Tyson? If you followed his career at all, you may have noticed his arrogant claims about Traditional Chinese Medicine and herbal medicines of Indigenous cultures. As you might imagine, he isn\u2019t much of a fan. Tyson tweeted: \u201cWhat do you call [herbal] alternative medicine that survives double\u2013blind laboratory tests? Regular medicine\u201d (May 31, 2012).<\/p>\n

Hilarious, right? There\u2019s only one\u00a0tiny<\/em> problem: Tyson does not know anything<\/em> about what herbal medicines have been tested, or he would not have made this demonstrably inaccurate, flippant comment.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Tyson\u2019s ignorance of Western studies on herbal medicine is second only to his complete unawareness of the use of Traditional Chinese Medicinal herbs in mainstream hospitals in China, to fight cancer.<\/a> One prominent herb, the Turkey Tail mushroom, has recently stepped to the forefront, but it is largely being ignored in the West. Still, it is now promoted by some cutting-edge researchers, as complimentary to pharmacological treatments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t discover turkey tail,” says lead investigator\u00a0Leanna J. Standish, PhD, ND, LAc, FABNO<\/a>, medical director of the\u00a0Bastyr Integrative Oncology Research Center<\/a>. “It’s been used in Asia for thousands and thousands of years, and it turns out to be a really potent immune therapy. The significance, I think, is that we’re bringing a new medicine to cancer patients in the U.S.”<\/p>\n

Previous research by Bastyr and the University of Minnesota found a Turkey Tail supplement may support conventional breast cancer therapies by strengthening a patient’s immune system. That study was published<\/a>\u00a0recently in the peer-reviewed journal\u00a0ISRN Oncology<\/em>. It has since been published in multiple studies, demonstrating its efficacy in fighting prostate cancer. Apparently Tyson didn’t get the proverbial memo on any of this.<\/p>\n

TCM herbs are also being promoted for COVID-19 treatments, and were employed in China to quickly get the pandemic under control<\/a> (much more so than Western countries were able to). Tyson is apparently unaware of the literally thousands<\/em> of published Chinese\u2013language studies on such plants, which are in fact the result of double\u2013blind laboratory tests.<\/p>\n

Why would Tyson claim otherwise? Because he doesn\u2019t know any better, and in his arrogance, he assumes that if he does not know something, then knowledge of it must not exist. In The Greatest Story NEVER Told: The Truth About the \u201cJesus\u201d Myth and the Historical Figures Behind It<\/em><\/a>, I term this the \u201cChristopher Columbus Approach to Research.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well, Tyson apparently is unaware that not everything in medicine is based on Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), and not everything that is shown to work on RCTs will work in real life and are sometimes eventually withdrawn due to various issues.<\/p>\n

For all of his claims of championing \u201cevidence based medicine\u201d \u2013 prospective studies that measure the effectiveness of a new intervention or treatment \u2013 doing so without clinical experience and judgement is also just as bad as the quackery<\/em> which he claims to denounce. But he wouldn\u2019t know that, since he has neither formally studied Western Pharmaceutical or<\/em> Traditional herbal medicines. If he had, he would have known that main treatments for malaria recommended by the World Health Organization is a Chinese herb<\/a>? And yes, there have been numerous studies on its efficacy<\/a>. They just do not teach such things in Astronomy graduate programs. But that hasn’t stopped Tyson and people like him from assuming that their expertise in one area transfers and translates to\u00a0any\u00a0<\/em>area of study.<\/p>\n

Tyson was later exposed as a sexual abuser and rapist of at least four women<\/a>. In another tweet, Tyson explained that \u201cB*tches be like Quantum Physics: Always behaving different when they\u2019re being observed.\u201d I wonder what could have led him to make an attempt at humor like that? Could it be the fact that women were holding him accountable for the actions which had been only observed between himself and his victims?<\/p>\n

Though he has kept his jobs<\/a> due to his popularity with materialists who see him as a champion of denigrating qualitative experiences of non\u2013European cultures (or European Indigenous ones, like the Sami People, for that matter), he has largely fallen from public grace due to his abuses. Interestingly, the renowned theoretical physicist Steven Hawking never suffered professional repercussions after it was revealed he was a regular at Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s \u201cPedo\u2013Island\u201d<\/a> \u2013 full of underage sex slaves… but I digress.<\/p>\n

This seems to be a great time to remind people that scientists are not unimpeachable. Tyson is an astrophysicist and should be viewed as a very educated authority on that\u00a0<\/em>subject alone<\/em>. This does not qualify him as an authority on medicine, biology, nor the chemical properties of plants throughout the world. This, however, has not stopped him from speaking authoritatively on this matters, with the Western arrogance that would rival any of his European contemporaries.<\/p>\n

From Galileo to Alan Turing (1912 \u2013 1954), the scientific community of the day has often persecuted revolutionary and ground\u2013breaking scientists.<\/p>\n

We tend to think of black holes as a 20th century discovery, dating back to 1916, when Albert Einstein first published his theory of general relativity, followed by fellow physicist Karl Schwarzschild used those equations to envision a spherical section of spacetime so badly warped around a concentrated mass that it is invisible to the outside world. The true \u201cfather\u201d of the black hole concept, however, was a 18th century Black man in England. This Episcopalian cleric named John Michell (1724 \u2013 1793) was described in contemporary accounts as \u201ca little short man, of black complexion, and fat,\u201d who was nonetheless \u201cesteemed a very ingenious Man, and an excellent Philosopher.\u201d[3]<\/a> Michell was so far ahead of his scientific contemporaries with his Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London <\/em>(read on November 27, 1783), and his published works that followed, that his ideas languished in abstruseness, until they were re\u2013discovered more than a century later. \u201cHe died in quiet obscurity,\u201d states the American Physical Society, \u201cand his notion of a \u2018dark star\u2019 was forgotten until his writings re\u2013surfaced in the 1970s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read that again.<\/p>\n

Michell\u2019s deduction of black holes was so disregarded that no one even gave his early reasonings on the matter any thought until the 1970s. The first black hole ever discovered was Cygnus X\u20131, located within the Milky Way in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. Astronomers saw the first signs of the black hole in 1964 when a sounding rocket detected celestial sources of X\u2013rays according to NASA. That means from 1783 until almost two centuries later, this man of reason and faith\u2019s calculations and deductions were not\u00a0proven\u00a0<\/em>by science. This didn\u2019t mean they were unscientific, nor were they untrue until proven<\/em>. Something can be absolutely true and have a scientific theoretical explanation even centuries before it can be scientifically proven.<\/p>\n

Michell suggested that there might be many \u201cdark stars\u201d throughout the Universe. Today astronomers believe that black holes do indeed exist at the centers of most galaxies. Similarly, Michell proposed that astronomers could detect \u201cdark stars\u201d by looking for star systems which behaved gravitationally like two stars, but where only one star could be seen. It was an extraordinarily accurate prediction. All of the dozen candidate stellar black holes in our galaxy (the Milky Way) are in X\u2013ray compact binary systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Sirius Mystery<\/h2>\n

Scholars of the \u201chard\u201d sciences are not the only subscribers to the \u201cChristopher Columbus Approach to Research.\u201d Historians and anthropologists are often much worse.<\/p>\n

In 1950 there appeared a curious account in the French anthropological literature describing the traditional beliefs regarding the star Sirius held by the Dogon tribe of Central Africa. The article was written by Marcel Griaule, and a colleague Germine Dieterlen. Griaule was a renowned French anthropologist with decades of experience in Africa. Griaule studied the Dogon for almost twenty years, and during that time he talked extensively with a blind elder named Ogotemmeli. He divulged to Griaule secret teachings of the Dogon ancestors. To Griaule\u2019s surprise this knowledge included the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the fact that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, had at least one companion star. Ogotemmeli drew a star map of Sirius \u2013 which he called sigu tolo. <\/em>\u00a0Griaule, a bit of an admitted astronomy buff, recognized the very elliptical orbit of Sirius B, a white dwarf companion to Sirius A. This had only been discovered in 1844 and has never been visible with the naked eye. According to Ogotemmeli this was lore that stretched back millennia, and there was no evidence of any other outside contact with astrophysicists cum anthropologists.<\/em><\/p>\n

These Dogon beliefs were elaborated on several years later in a posthumous book Le Renard p\u00e2le<\/em>, or The Pale Fox<\/em>, written by Griaule and his colleague Germaine Dieterlen. As described, the beliefs appear to contain many of the essential facets of modern scientific knowledge about Sirius and its companion. This includes knowledge that \u201cmodern man\u201d obtained with powerful telescopes, coupled with sophisticated scientific theories about stellar interiors. It was stated, for example, that Sirius was orbited by a tiny star moving in an elliptical path with a period of 50 years. Moreover, the faint star was made from a \u201cdense metal\u201d, so heavy that all the people on earth could not lift it. How could the Dogon have acquired such astonishing knowledge?<\/p>\n

The Dogon stories about Sirius bear unmistakable parallels to modern scientific knowledge about Sirius: the fifty year elliptical orbit of the white dwarf, the super dense matter that it was composed of, and other curious pieces of information. For many years the Griaule article lay uncommented on. For the most part astronomers didn\u2019t read the French anthropological literature and anthologists did not recognize the unique astronomical signature of the information. It finally gained widespread attention in the late 1970s. Skeptics like Kenneth Brecher of Boston University and Carl Sagan of Cornell University, regarded the Dogon stories as cultural artifacts, products of contacts by the modern world with the Dogon, which they incorporated into their own traditional culture. But there is no evidence for this, and much to the contrary.<\/p>\n

As well, the confirmation of Sirius C as difficult\u2013to\u2013detect \u201cDark Star,\u201d as the Dogon believed, only came in 1995. Since 1894, irregularities have been tentatively observed in the orbits of Sirius A and B with an apparent periodicity of 6\u20136.4 years. The 1995 study concluded that such a companion likely exists, with a mass of roughly 0.05 solar mass \u2013 a small red dwarf or large brown dwarf, with an apparent magnitude of more than 15, and less than 3 arcseconds from Sirius A.[4]<\/a> Though recent theories have argued against the 1995 thesis, the fact that the existence of such a star is even being debated in the scientific community raises the question of why the Dogon would have had such a claim, so many years before it was theories, or believed that the third of the stars in the Sirius system was visibly dark, and would be difficult to detect? Who could have told them of this in the 1930s?<\/p>\n

To answer this question, some have postulated that the Dogon must have been contacted in the distant past by ancient extraterrestrial visitors from Sirius. Is this true? We can\u2019t prove such a thing, one way or another, but there is nothing unscientific<\/em> about such a theoretical explanation.<\/p>\n

What we can do is acknowledge that there is know known way that the Dogon of Mali could have come to this knowledge through empirical observation with their physical senses. The choices we are left with are either the \u201cAncient Aliens\u201d hypothesis, or something more mystical, suggesting that through accessing unseen planes of existence, knowledge of that aspect of the Natural world can be obtained without empirical observation in the physical Universe. What is not reasonable is to imagine that such traditions of the Dogon were mere conjecture or superstition that just coincidentally panned out. That is simply too many striking coincidences to be statistically probable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Geniuses Mocked and Rejected by Their \u201cScientific\u201d Colleagues<\/h2>\n

As note, the reader should be reminded that the gatekeepers in academia have typically opposed visionaries and geniuses, and fought them tooth and nail, every step of the way. For example, theoretical physicist George Zweig (born 1937), proposed the theory of quarks right after defending his doctoral thesis and at the same time as rival Murray Gell\u2013Mann. Because Zweig was a young graduate student and not as well established, the journal that both scientists sent their respective papers to, accepted Gell\u2013Mann\u2019s after having rejected Zweig\u2019s for the same theory. Gell\u2013Mann then went to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics for his work.<\/p>\n

Almost unbelievably, Gregor Mendel\u2019s (1822 \u2013 1884) work on genetic inheritance wasn\u2019t read by anyone during his life. This certainly wasn\u2019t due to lack of effort on his behalf. Even though Mendel attempted on many occasions to contact renowned scientists, to share his discovery, they struggled to understand him and his theories.<\/p>\n

Attempts to replicate his experiments also proved problematic. Although his experiments on pea plants worked, when asked to reproduce this experiment on more complex plants, such as hawkweed, he couldn\u2019t replicate similar results. We now know that this was because Hawkweed has the ability to reproduce asexually. It wasn\u2019t until the next century, a full 16 years after Mendel died, that his work was rediscovered and replicated successfully. Interestingly, it was said that Charles Darwin had a copy of Mendel\u2019s paper, and if he had read it, then the connection between evolution by natural selection and classical genetic hereditary would have been made much earlier.<\/p>\n

In another tragic example, Ludwig Boltzmann (1844 \u2013 1906) developed equations and formulas which explain the properties of atoms and how they determine the physical nature of matter. Proposing a theory that disproves other laws of physics, to say nothing of the scientists who built their careers on such theories,\u00a0 thought to be correct at the time, does not make you particularly popular or appreciated in academia. After years of fighting for atom theory to be accepted, Boltzmann committed suicide. This was only three years before Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of an atom, proving Boltzmann\u2019s theory. Boltzmann\u2019s student Paul Ehrenfest (1880 \u2013 1933) would eventually commit suicide as well.<\/p>\n

Noticing a trend here?<\/p>\n

A Hungarian physician working in Austria, Ignaz Semmelweis (1818 \u2013 1865) noticed that one hospital of his had very high death rates. He theorized that this death toll could be lowered by surgeons washing their hands between patients. Semmelweis\u2019s theory was correct. Greeted with such an easy way to reduce mortality, do you think his fellow practitioners welcomed this research? As you might have guessed by now, having seen so many similar cases presented herein, they disregarded it, scoffed at his conclusions and \u201cdebunked\u201d them as \u201cunscientific.\u201d<\/p>\n

After years of trying, Semmelweis finally gave up and ended his days in an insane asylum. It wasn\u2019t until around 20 years later that Louis Pasteur\u2019s germ theory inclined more people to wash their hands often. Semmelweis was proven right, but it was sadly too late. The scientific community of his day simply did not have the means in which to quantify his theory and prove it through material means. Still, qualitatively, he knew he conclusion was right. There is a saying in research that \u201cenough anecdotes is called data.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Einstein Intuition and Reason<\/h2>\n

The dogmatism of Semmelweis\u2019s fellow scientists literally drove him insane. And yet, he was the sane one, and was absolutely correct in his conclusions. Perhaps, realizing the trappings of such short-sightedness, this is why Einstein famously said that \u201cimagination is more important than knowledge,\u201d and \u201cthe only real valuable thing is intuition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Einstein also claimed the purpose and drive behind his own research was to \u201cknow God\u2019s thoughts.\u201d Should we then conclude that Einstein was not a man of reason? What arrogant lesser mind would dare to claim such a thing to defend their lack of insight and vision?<\/p>\n

Even Einstein himself was proven wrong about such matters as the black holes (which he reluctantly accepted, but said there was \u201cno hope of observing this phenomenon directly. He was also wrong about the cosmological constant (which he later had to discard as a wrong conclusion of his earlier research). He was wrong about gravitational waves – nearly publishing a paper vehemently arguing they didn\u2019t exist, before reluctantly accepting them. He was also wrong about many minor errors in his calculations and conclusions.<\/p>\n

In spite of this, however, we do not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater and reject the overwhelming body of his scientific observations and mathematical calculations. What made Einstein great was not just his theories and calculations, it was also his willingness to admit his understanding of science was wrong when it was proven to be so. But this did not stop him from theorizing even before the empirical verdict was in. Lack of empirical proof did not mean something was proven to be false. That is not science, that is Western narcissism. If no Europeans were known to have stepped foot on \u201cTurtle Island,\u201d which became termed the \u201cAmericas,\u201d then the European arrogant mind proclaimed that it had not been discovered. It did not matter that so many millions of people already lived there.<\/p>\n

To play on the classic Zen koan, <\/em>if a tree falls in the woods and a European was not around to hear it, then did it\u00a0really<\/em> make a sound? Perhaps others were there to hear those sounds, and what is sound anyway but vibrations? So what is meant by \u201csound?\u201d Do we mean \u201cis sound perceived,\u201d or do we mean \u201care the waves created that could be registered as sound by a conscious observer?\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, to Western arrogance, if mainstream institutions and academics are unaware of a thing, it is as if it does not exist. For in their minds all that there is truly great to discover has been discovered. Nothing could be further from the truth, and thankfully, daring scientific visionaries are proving this fact year after year. In time, the hubris of materialists today will be disproven too, as science develops ways to quantify what we can currently only qualitatively research \u2013 much as was the case with Semmelweis. Like Semmelweis, the sages, prophets, medicine men and holy women throughout traditional cultures and spiritual paths are not wrong just because there is not a microscope to examine their qualitative experiences under. Time will demonstrate this, as it always has.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u201cSavage Mind\u201d and Eurocentric Hubris<\/h2>\n

The efforts to dismiss and denigrate traditional and Indigenous cultures and religious beliefs began with the European \u201cEnlightenment.\u201d As the West was trying to \u201clighten\u201d the controlling powers of the world through colonial endeavors, they simultaneously propagandized their own rationalism as evidence of their genetic and cultural superiority. In the East, enormous, anomalous European fighters were sent to try to embarrass traditional martial artists. This did not always end the way the colonists had hope, as in the case of Huo, Yuan\u2013Jia (1868\u20131910), well known for his Jing Wu Athletic Association, and his public bouts, defeating those burly Europeans attempting to humiliate the \u201csick men of Asia,\u201d as they termed them.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

As well, in academia, an array of Eurocentric anthropologists brought colonialism out of the trade routes, settlements and battlefronts, to the University and publishing house.<\/p>\n

Prominent Victorian theorists identified global Indigenous beliefs and practices with what became known in the field of psychology as \u201cMagical Thinking\u201d \u2013 the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Before this term came into common parlance, however, the phrase \u201cassociative thinking,\u201d was employed to describe what European anthropologists and Orientalists believed was a common feature of practitioners of \u201cmagic,\u201d and thus a characteristic form of irrationality.[6]<\/a> Still, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual clarifies that psychology does not consider religious beliefs or practices to fall under the rubric of actual magical thinking.[7]<\/a> This clarification came centuries too late, however, as the cultural damage was already done to Indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

Edward Burnett Tylor coined the term \u201cassociative thinking,\u201d[8]<\/a> characterizing it as pre\u2013logical, in which the \u201cmagician\u2019s folly\u201d is in mistaking an imagined connection with a real one. The magician believes that thematically linked items can influence one another by virtue of their similarity.[9]<\/a> For example, in E. E. Evans\u2013Pritchard\u2019s account, members of the Azande tribe believe that rubbing crocodile teeth on banana plants can invoke a fruitful crop.[10]<\/a> Why? Because crocodile teeth are curved (like bananas) and grow back if they fall out, the Azande observe this similarity and want to impart this capacity of regeneration to their bananas. To them, the rubbing constitutes a means of transference. To European anthropologists, this meant the Azande were stupid and superstitious.<\/p>\n

All ancient cultures had a name for an energy center in the lower abdomen, like the Chinese Xia Dan Tien, Japanese Hara, or the Indian Svadhisthana Chakra. African cultures too had the same concept. Edward Evan Evans\u2013Pritchard noted, in his Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande<\/em>, references of the Dan Tien being, in the African view, the storage house of a sorcerer\u2019s power, yet \u2013 while its location in the lower \u201cabdomen of the witch\u201d was certain, Pritchard concluded disappointedly that he was \u201cleft in doubt as to what it is anatomically.\u201d Regardless to say, he did not believe this to be anything more than superstition, yet millions of practitioners of Nei Jia systems of \u201cInternal Kung Fu\u201d know otherwise.<\/p>\n

For instance, I begin showing new students how to move from the Dan Tien on the first day of class, and to coordinate the opening and closing of the kwa <\/em>surrounding it, to generate tremendous, measurable martial power. As well, simply by teaching intentional use of this Dan Tien as a \u201cvice grip\u201d of sorts, I can and do demonstrate crippling power of qin na <\/em>joint locks, that effortlessly <\/em>far exceed what can be generated from mechanics alone, and without having to rely on as large frame of external motions to perform such joint locks. Obviously, to the non\u2013practitioner, or novice martial artist, this sounds ridiculous. I invite them to come take a free introductory class at my martial arts school any time.<\/p>\n

The next in the line of extremely dismissive and racist European anthropologists to dismiss Indigenous believes as stupidity and superstition was Sir James Frazer\u00a0(1854\u20131941). I was first introduced to Frazer in my first secular religious studies course, in the University where I studied and received my undergraduate degrees and first masters. Thankfully, a disclaimer was offered by the professor, regarding how outright racist Frazer\u2019s dismissive ideas were.<\/p>\n

Frazer elaborated upon Tylor\u2019s principle by dividing magic into the categories of\u00a0sympathetic and contagious magic, and in this he was fair in his categorizing. The latter, he explained, is based upon the\u00a0law of contagion\u00a0or contact, in which two things that were once connected retain this link and have the ability to affect their supposedly related objects, such as harming a person by harming a lock of his hair.<\/p>\n

Sympathetic magic operates upon the premise that \u201clike affects like,\u201d or that one can impart characteristics of one object to a similar object. Frazer believed that some individuals think the entire world functions according to these mimetic principles.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n

The next academic colonist I came across in my early anthropological research into global religious was Lucien Levy\u2013Bruhl\u2019s How Natives Think<\/em>\u00a0(1925),\u00a0in which he describes a similar notion of mystical, \u201ccollective representations.\u201d Like Frazer, he saw magical thinking as fundamentally different from any\u00a0Western\u00a0style of thinking. He did not realize that to Indigenous and traditional cultures, this is a feature, <\/em>not a bug, <\/em>so to speak. He asserted that in these representations, \u201cprimitive\u201d people\u2019s \u201cmental activity is too little differentiated for it to be possible to consider ideas or images of objects by themselves apart from the emotions and passions which evoke those ideas or are evoked by them.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

Levy\u2013Bruhl claimed that the indigenous people commit the post hoc, ergo propter hoc<\/em> fallacy, in which people observe that x is followed by y, and conclude that x has caused y.[13]<\/a> He believes that this fallacy is institutionalized in Indigenous cultures and is committed regularly and repeatedly, because the minds of Native peoples are simply not as developed and refines as that of Western Europeans.<\/p>\n

Despite the view that Indigenous \u201cmagic\u201d is less than rational and entails an inferior concept of causality, in\u00a0The Savage Mind<\/em> (1966), Claude Levi\u2013Strauss suggested that magical procedures are relatively effective in exerting control over the environment. This outlook has generated alternative theories of magical thinking, such as the symbolic and psychological approaches, and softened the contrast between \u201ceducated\u201d and \u201cprimitive\u201d thinking: \u201cMagical thinking is no less characteristic of our own mundane intellectual activity than it is of Azande curing practices.\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n

Just as Evans\u2013Pritchard was demonstrably wrong about the Azande \u201cdan tien\u201d being a unique superstition of that one particular culture, and just as he imagined it to be based on nothing but pure imagination and magical thinking \u2013 when this can and has be proven otherwise whenever a qualified master of Nei Jia martial arts is called upon to demonstrate as much, so too it be that many of the associations Indigenous cultures have maintained over the years might have a quantum<\/em> relationship, which are, as of yet, unable to quantify through empirical measurements of the material world.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the medicine men and shamans throughout the world have known something Western materialists do not. Perhaps they are accessing that tesseractal Fifth Dimension, and we simply cannot perceive what is going on \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d of the physical dimensions we can see, touch and measure.\u00a0Maybe that is the case, or maybe the Western \u201crationalist\u201d is laughing at such a suggestion. As they cannot prove the matter one way or the other through materialist methods of measurement and observation, it would seem that at best they should say that while they doubt such a thing, it is theoretically possible. Such open\u2013mindedness, however, is not typically a characteristic such people are known for.<\/p>\n

Let the scoffers scoff, and let those who know, know. The medicine man does not need to submit to the tests of Western skeptics to legitimize Indigenous tradition. The OMD does not need the West\u2019s stamp of approval before healing the sick.\u00a0As it is written in the Tao Te Ching:<\/p>\n

When superior people hear of the Tao,
\nthey carry it out with diligence.
\nWhen middling people hear of the Tao,
\nit sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not.
\nWhen lesser people hear of the Tao,
\nthey ridicule it greatly and laugh out loud.
\nIf they didn\u2019t laugh at it,
\nit wouldn\u2019t be the Tao.[15]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, such people are not\u00a0supposed\u00a0<\/em>to\u00a0get it.\u00a0<\/em>As the Qur\u2019an says, \u201cto you be your way, and to me be mine\u201d (109:6).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Natural Conclusion<\/h2>\n

For now, it suffices to say that there is no inherent contradiction between reason and qualitative spiritual experience \u2013 that visionary intuition and imagination that Einstein lauded \u2013 so long as faith does not reject things that can be empirically proven. Still, the fact that something has not\u00a0<\/em>been empirically proven at a given time is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>proof nor even evidence that it is false. Such an errant belief is not science, it is Western materialistic dogma, and it is every bit as much a religion as any other \u2013 this faith being one solely invested in the ego and imagined limitlessness of modern human understanding.<\/p>\n

So, can you follow REASON and believe in the UNSEEN Spiritual world? Yes, just as much as you can use reason to deduce\u00a0<\/em>any number of things which cannot yet be quantified by current scientific methods of empirical observation. That is why it is called\u00a0reason,\u00a0<\/em>because it used logic beyond mere physical observation, yet drawing on and employing such observations to the extent which they can currently be measured. That \u201cimagination\u201d and \u201cintuition\u201d Einstein was talking about? It wasn\u2019t for clever quips, contrived platitudes and 21st century memes to be shared on social media. It was literally his way of trying to impart the importance of such vision and qualitative \u201cgut\u201d research, in driving huge and revolutionary discoveries both in his own life and in the generations forward.<\/p>\n

Does \u201cGod\u201d have to be part of our understanding of the universe for it to be scientifically\u2013understood? No, clearly not. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and science, most people will choose God. Why? Perhaps this is because of their own qualitative experiences which materialists are seen as dismissing and attempting to delegitimize (along with Indigenous and traditional cultures which hold to a view of the world which explains these universal, qualitative experiences).<\/p>\n

By denying these universal qualitative experiences, many are led to denialism, hostility to science and the profoundly dangerous mental incoherence in modern society that fosters depression and conflict. Meanwhile, many of those who believe they have made a discrete choice in \u201cscience alone,\u201d find themselves without any way of thinking that can give them access to their own spiritual potential. What we need is a coherent big picture that is completely consistent with \u2013 and even inspired by \u2013 science, yet provides an empowering way of rethinking that Force that some call \u201cGod,\u201d which provides the human and social benefits without the fantasy.<\/p>\n

How can we arrive at this? A good guide is to follow what Einstein expressed when he said \u201cthe God that the atheist does not believe in, I do not believe in either.\u201d If your vision of the Creator is akin to that of a \u201cman in the sky\u201d or a gendered father\u2013figure, which you take literally and without metaphorical interpretation (such as \u201cFather Sky, Mother Earth\u201d), then your theology is no doubt inconsistent with Reason and Science. Einstein correctly denounced this as a \u201cGod\u201d that the atheists do not believe in, which he too rejected. We also reject this concept of Divinity.<\/p>\n

The Qur\u2019an, however, does not speak of such a deity. Instead, the it tells us that \u201cwheresoever you turn, there is the Face of Allah\u201d (2:115) and that the Divine powers revealing the Qur\u2019an are \u201cnearer to you than your jugular vein\u201d (50:16). The First Kalimah<\/em>, the Shahadah<\/em> of Islam even tells us \u201cLa ilaha<\/em>\u201d there is no god<\/em>, there is \u201cill Allah\u201d only Allah, Al\u2013Ilah<\/em>, the Divine. The A\u2019immah<\/em> of the Ahl al\u2013Bayt said that when the Mahdi rises, he will do so praying the holiest of Names of Allah in the Hebrew language<\/a>.[16]<\/a> Why is that? The Tetragrammaton (to say nothing of the Shem Ha\u2019Meforesh<\/em>) is itself not even a noun.<\/p>\n

It is not the \u201cname\u201d or \u201ctitle\u201d of a deity, it is a literal\u00a0verb.\u00a0<\/em>God, as Rabbi David Cooper rightly said, \u201cis a Verb!\u201d We are thus, as Rabbi Cooper noted, not to think of a noun\u2013based \u201cGod\u201d in the sky, but of the process of \u201cGod\u2013ing<\/em>\u201d that is encoded and encapsulated within the Hebrew Name \u201cYHVH.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/p>\n

Science can never tell us with certainty what\u2019s absolutely <\/em>true, since there will always be the possibility that some future discovery will rule it out. But science can often tell us with certainty what\u2019s not true. It can rule out the impossible. Galileo, for example, showed with his telescope that the medieval picture of Earth as the center of heavenly crystal spheres could not be true, even though he could not yet prove that the Earth moves around the sun. Whenever scientists produce the evidence that convincingly rules out the impossible, there\u2019s no point in arguing. It\u2019s over. Grace lies in accepting and recalculating. That\u2019s how science moves forward. This is wisdom.<\/p>\n

What if we thought this way about \u201cGod?\u201d What if we took the evidence of a new cosmic reality seriously and became willing to rule out the impossible? What would be left?<\/p>\n

As people of Science (`Ilm<\/em>) and Reason (`Aql<\/em>), we can, <\/em>in fact, have a real \u201cGod,\u201d but only if we let go of what makes the gods of theology and dogma unreal. A person of Reason is only interested in a concept of Divinity if that concept is real. If It isn\u2019t real, there\u2019s nothing to talk about. This doesn\u2019t, however, mean real<\/em> in the sense of a physical object. We must mean real <\/em>in the sense of the full scientific picture of our biology, the eco\u2013system, and the double dark Universe, composed primarily of what is today termed Dark Matter and Dark Energy \u2013 a concept previously was scoffed at and ridiculed \u2013 which we live in. No doubt, as our understanding expands, and data is clarified, it will be termed something else – perhaps more consistent with the reality beyond the mystery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Endnotes<\/h2>\n

[1]<\/a> Excerpt From: Greg Keyes. \u201cInterstellar.\u201d<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Einstein, A., Podolsky, B. & Rosen, N. Phys. Rev.<\/em>\u00a047, 777 (1935).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Cole MSS XXXIII, 156, British Library<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Benest, D.; Duvent, J. L. (July 1995). \u201cIs Sirius a triple star?\u201d Astronomy and Astrophysics. 299: 621\u2013628<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> In 1902, Huo responded to a challenge advertised by a Russian wrestler in Xiyuan Park, Tianjin. The wrestler openly called the Chinese \u201csick men of Asia\u201d because no one accepted his challenge to a fight. The Russian forfeited when Huo accepted his challenge and told Huo that he was merely putting on a performance to make a living and apologized for his earlier remark in the newspaper. Between 1909 and 1910, Huo travelled to Shanghai twice to accept an open challenge posed by an Irish boxer, Hercules O\u2019Brien. The two of them had arguments over the rules governing such boxing matches and eventually agreed that whoever knocked down his opponent would be the victor.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Nisbett, D.; Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. pp. 115\u20138.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM\u20135). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing. pp. 655, 824<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Glucklich, Ariel (1997). The End of Magic. Oxford University Press. pp. 32\u20133.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Evans\u2013Pritchard, E. E. (1977). Theories of Primitive Religion. Oxford University Press. pp. 26\u20137.<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> Evans\u2013Pritchard, E. E. (1937). Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a> L\u00e9vy\u2013Bruhl, Lucien (1925). How Natives Think. Knopf. p. 36.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[13]<\/a> ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[14]<\/a> Shweder, Richard A. (1977). \u201cLikeness and likelihood in everyday thought: Magical thinking in judgments about personality\u201d. Current Anthropology. 18 (4): 637\u201358 (637). The Azande practice of curing epilepsy by eating the burnt skull of a red bush monkey, based on the apparent similarity of epileptic movements and those of the monkeys, discussed in Evans\u2013Pritchard 1937, p. 487.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/a> Tao Te Ching<\/em>, 41<\/p>\n

[16]<\/a> Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Sa\u2019eed bin Oqda narrated from Ali bin al\u2013Hasan at\u2013Taymali from al\u2013Hasan and Muhammad, the sons of Ali bin Yousuf, from Sa\u2019dan bin Muslim from a man that al\u2013Mufadhdhal bin Umar had said: \u201cAbu Abdullah as\u2013Sadiq said: \u201cWhen the Imam [al\u2013Mahdi] calls out the azhan, he will pray Allah with His Hebrew Name [YHVH] and then his companions, who will be three hundred and thirteen [in number], will be permitted to join him. They will gather like the cloudlets of autumn. They will be the bearers of the banners. Some of them will be missed in their beds in the night and in the morning they will find themselves in Mecca. Some of them will be seen walking on the clouds during the day. They will be known by their names, their fathers\u2019 names and their lineages.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said: \u201cMay I die for you! Which of them is greater in faith?\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt is those, who walk on the clouds during the day. They are the missed ones. About these companions Allah has revealed this verse, \u2018Wherever you are, Allah will bring you all together\u201d (Qur\u2019an, 2:148.).<\/p>\n

[17]<\/a> We can understand this as related to the verbal Akun <\/em>in Arabic, though the form expressed in the Torah is a unique form that cannot be employed in normal discourse because of the conjugation of \u201cperpetual Be\u2013ing<\/em>\u201d which cannot linguistically apply to anything in the created Universe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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