Merkabah

[Skarekrow]

The function fo music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought.

~Thomas Beecham​

 

[Skarekrow]

Is There A Multiverse? - Universe Documentary
​

[video=youtube;bATyoYzlObY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bATyoYzlObY[/video]​

 

[Oscillation]

I often wonder about how you have the time to watch all these documentaries.

 

[Skarekrow]

I often wonder about how you have the time to watch all these documentaries.

Firstly, I am not in my 20’s anymore…many of these documentaries I have seen over the years.
Secondly, I am currently no longer doing surgery and taking a hiatus from work altogether…it’s not the best financial situation, but I was granted disability status (so that helps a bit ) due to the form of arthritis in my spine.

We make time for the things we deem important to us.

 

[Tin Man]

Darwinian Inheritance and the Evolution of Evolutionary Theory​

By Rupert Sheldrake

Charles Darwin was a firm believer in the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
In his book The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Darwin gave many examples of the hereditary transmission of adaptations.

He also published an account in Nature about dogs with an inborn fear of butchers.
Their father had a violent antipathy to butchers, probably as a result of being mistreated by one, and this fear was transmitted not only to his children but also to his grandchildren.

Darwin knew nothing of genes or random mutations, which only became part of biology in the twentieth century.
He put forward his own theory of heredity in the The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, entitled ‘The Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis.’

In order to understand, for example, how a dog could inherit something a parent had learned, or how a plant’s descendants could inherit its adaptations to a new environment, Darwin proposed that cells all over the body threw off microscopic ‘gemmules’ which somehow entered the egg and sperm or pollen cells, transforming them to make these characteristics hereditary.

The great French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Larmarck proposed decades before Darwin that habits could be inherited, and in this sense Darwin was a Lamarckian.
Darwin’s theory of pangenesis was largely ignored, and was airbrushed out of twentieth-century hagiographies of Darwin.

In twentieth-century biology, Lamarckian inheritance was treated as a grave heresy in the West, where Neo-Darwinism predominated.
In the Soviet Union, by contrast, the inheritance of acquired characteristics was orthodox, which only intensified the prejudice against it in the capitalist world.

Neo-Darwinism differs from Darwinism in attributing heredity to chemical genes, which can only change by random, purposeless mutations, and in denying the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Many neo-Darwinians are unaware that Darwin himself had very different views.
Darwin was not a neo-Darwinian.

The selfish gene theory, advocated most strikingly by Richard Dawkins, took the neo-Darwinian world-view to an extreme.
The genes were personified: Dawkins argued that they were selfish, and as ruthless as Chicago gangsters.

They had the power to ‘mould matter’ and ‘create form.’
The genetic material, DNA, was no longer a mere molecule: it was animated and purposive.

Ironically, Dawkins persuaded many of his readers that life was purposeless and mechanistic by using vitalist rhetoric, attributing minds and purposes to DNA molecules.
But behind the haze of misleading metaphors about selfish molecules, he was popularizing the standard neo-Darwinian theory that evolutionary creativity occurred only by random mutations, with no purpose or direction.

Evolutionary change was driven by the changes in gene frequencies in the population as a result of natural selection.
Acquired characteristics could not be inherited.

Unfortunately for Neo-Darwinism, the facts do not fit the theory.
The taboo on the inheritance of acquired characteristics was lifted at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the recognition of epigenetic inheritance, meaning inheritance over and above the genes.

Some kinds of epigenetic inheritance depend on small RNA molecules (sRNA), others on the methylation of DNA, others on modifications to the proteins that bind to DNA.
The genes are not changed through mutation, but are switched on or off through the way they are packaged.

The discovery that some of these changes are inherited through eggs, sperm and pollen marks a revolutionary change in modern biology.
Some remarkable recent studies have shown that mice can inherit their fathers’ fears, reminding us of Darwin’s report of dogs with an inherited fear of butchers.

In these experiments, carried out by Brian Dias and Kerry Ressler, males were exposed to the smell of a chemical called acetophenone that they would never normally encounter in nature.

They were given mild electric shocks when smelling this chemical, and soon became frightened when they smelled it again.
This was a classical Pavlovian conditioned reflex.

However, their children and grandchildren were also terrified of the smell of acetophenone.
They were affected even when the fearful fathers’ sperm was transmitted by artificial insemination, preventing any form of cultural contact.

How could fearful responses to a smell be transmitted from noses and brains to sperm cells?
Dias and Ressler suggest that molecular influences travelled through the blood stream.

This sounds very like a modern version of Darwin’s gemmule hypothesis.
In plants, too, there is now good evidence that sRNA molecules can move from various organs of the plant through the sap to the eggs and pollen, bringing about heritable changes that continue over generations.

To what extent can the fears of human fathers be transmitted to their offspring, even in the absence of any contact between the fathers and their children?
No one knows.

Much remains to be discovered about epigenetic inheritance.
But it is already clear that evolutionary theory needs to be extended or revised.

The dogmas of Neo-Darwinism have been superseded.
Not surprisingly, this is the subject of a lively debate within contemporary biology.

As evolutionary theory moves beyond the narrow confines of Neo-Darwinism, the question of evolutionary creativity is once again thrown open.
The inheritance of learning and adaptations does not depend on random genetic mutations, but on direct transmissions from parents to offspring.

Hence the creative responses of organisms to challenges are a major source of evolutionary creativity, just as Darwin thought, and as Lamarck thought before him.
Darwin attributed these adaptive abilities to the ‘co-ordinating power’ inherent in living organisms.

But he did not explain how this power worked, and we still do not know.
But we do know that organisms themselves can be creative, and that some of their learning and adaptation can be passed on to their descendants.

Evolution can happen faster and more purposefully than twentieth-century biologists allowed them to think.

Darwin was certainly influenced by Lamarck, but he eventually rejected many of Lamarck's findings in the creation of his own theory. It's the same with all the others who influenced his work. He learned and expanded his theory because of them, but also had to cut away that which didn't work. So I wouldn't call Charles Darwin a Lamarckian, just as I wouldn't call him a Curvierian or a Malthusian.

The post was very interesting, but the findings it quotes are heavily contested. There is a push to reexamine the current accepted theory of evolution, but it's far from universal.

 

[Skarekrow]

Darwin was certainly influenced by Lamarck, but he eventually rejected many of Lamarck's findings in the creation of his own theory. It's the same with all the others who influenced his work. He learned and expanded his theory because of them, but also had to cut away that which didn't work. So I wouldn't call Charles Darwin a Lamarckian, just as I wouldn't call him a Curvierian or a Malthusian.

The post was very interesting, but the findings it quotes are heavily contested. There is a push to reexamine the current accepted theory of evolution, but it's far from universal.

For sure.
It’s also heavily edited for public consumption….this “survival of the fittest” does hold true in many circumstances, but Darwin actually focused much more on the cooperative nature of well…nature.
I thought it was a good read anyhow.

 

[Skarekrow]

“Only the existence of a field of force can account for the
motions of the bodies as observed, and its assumption
dispenses with space curvature.

All literature on this
subject is futile and destined to oblivion.

So are all
attempts to explain the workings of the universe without
recognizing the existence of the ether and the
indispensable function it plays in the phenomena.

My second discovery was of a physical truth of the greatest
importance.

As I have searched the entire scientific
records in more than a half dozen languages for a long time
without finding the least anticipation, I consider myself
the original discoverer of this truth, which can be
expressed by the statement:

There is no energy in matter
other than that received from the environment.”

— Nikola Tesla

​

 

[AJ_]

I know this thread is more about the "inner" than the "outer", but I found this clip of the way the planets and sun really travel through the galaxy - it reminded me a lot of the motion of our DNA, and our connection to something beyond words:

[video=youtube;0jHsq36_NTU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU[/video]

 

[Skarekrow]

I know this thread is more about the "inner" than the "outer", but I found this clip of the way the planets and sun really travel through the galaxy - it reminded me a lot of the motion of our DNA, and our connection to something beyond words:

[video=youtube;0jHsq36_NTU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jHsq36_NTU[/video]

Isn’t that an interesting model!
I have posted a couple of videos about this somewhere deep within this thread!

 

[Skarekrow]

How to Dissolve Negative Emotions into Emptiness

​

Do you sometimes feel oppressed by negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, anger, shame, worthlessness, or depression?
Are you open to discover a way to overcome them — transcend them — that requires no medication nor years of psychotherapy?

I have good news for you.
Ancient wisdom traditions of the East — such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism — have put a lot of study into the human body and mind, for thousands of years, with the goal of transcending human suffering.

With centuries of devoted experiments, revelations, and insight, they discovered that all these negative emotions are not natural to our true being — they belong to the realm of the ego, our mistaken identity.

Following a certain set of contemplative practices and some lifestyle tweaks, these masters discovered their true being, and saw that in this place these negative emotions do not live.

Out of their compassion and sense of oneness with all beings, they then spent their life teaching us how to find this space of freedom, of peace, of bliss.
The insights and techniques that I share in this article come from the Buddhist traditions, and the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

​

Dissolving Negative Emotions

Every single thought, feeling or sensation that we have is, by its very nature, impermanent.
It comes and goes.

It comes from emptiness, exist for a small period of time inside our system, and then subsides again into emptiness.
If you would simply perceive everything that happens to you (and in you) as a temporary phenomena inside you consciousness, see it for what it is, and let it go when it goes, you would not have any problems.

Basically, all suffering would disappear.
But that is not how our mind usually operates.

We normally react, in a very personal level, to everything that we perceive.
We create stories, interpretations, and turn every little happening into a stitch in the fabric of our personality, our identity.

We then meet the world and suffer through the lenses of this limited identity.
Without questioning who we truly are, and without understanding the nature of thoughts and mind, we feel oppressed by our own feelings, and build walls of separation and limitation with our beliefs and attachments.

This is the state of most people in this planet.
From the enlightened point of view, however, we are simply pure consciousness, and everything that happens is just a movement of energy inside of us, like images projected on the cinema screen.

The screen is not burned by images of fire, nor cut by images of a sword.
Therefore, the surest way to dissolve any suffering, any negative emotion, back into emptiness, is to realise who we truly are.

To remember — and experience — that we are the cinema screen, and not the images projected on it.
Let’s take fear as an example.

The ultimate cause for your fear is your identification with the small self (the ego), and your attachment to your ideas and desires.
Fix this, and fear will be impossible.

Postpone looking at this, and all you get is symptom treatment.
Fear has, for sure, effects in our body, emotions, and energy — and many times its helpful to treat it in this level via body-work, therapy, energy healing, or even medication.

Sometimes without these treatment we are so distracted by the symptoms of fear that we can’t even have the headspace to look deeper into ourselves.
But, ultimately, we need to tackle the fundamental cause of fear.

“Ok, that’s great! Now how can I work my negative emotions at the root? Give me some practical hints.”Â
I’m glad you asked.

Let’s continue with the example of fear.
Let’s say that you are having a conversation with a friend, with your partner, or with a colleague, and suddenly the fear of rejection comes up inside you.

Excellent, this is a great opportunity to practice.
Depending on your needs, and level of maturity (self-knowledge), take one of these two approaches below.

Seeing Clearly

1. Recognize that fear has arisen, and label it in your mind. The words you use are important. Don’t say “I’m afraid” or “I have fear”Â; instead say “fear has arisen”Â, or “fear is here”Â. Do you see how just changing the words already creates a different perspective, and more space?
2. Take one to three deep breaths, and bring your attention inside yourself — this means don’t pay attention to the object, person or circumstance that triggered the emotion, but rather attend to the emotion itself. Accept that the feeling is there.
3. Study the feeling deeply: its causes, effects, and nature. Here are some questions to guide your contemplation:
   • Causes: what exactly triggered this feeling in this moment? There is no need to go to the remote causes of it in your childhood or whatever. For now just stay with what’s happening right here.
   • Effects: how does it feel in my body? Where does the feeling reside in my body? What memories and thoughts swim around this feeling in my mind? What are my thoughts and feelings about this feeling?
   • Nature: Look inside and ask yourself “what is this feeling?” Don’t use words to explain, just keep the question alive. Does this feeling have a substance, a color, a size? What is it made of? What’s the vibration of it? Contemplate how this feeling is impermanent. It was not here a few minutes ago — where did it come from? It will not be here after a few minutes — where will it disappear into?
4. Spend as much time as you need in step three. Learn as much as possible about the negative feeling. We are slaves of what we don’t understand. See if this emotion is the real problem, or if it is something else underneath it.
5. Let it be whatever it is — but don’t create stories and interpretations around it. And let it go. I can’t tell you how to let go, but intuitively every human being knows how.
6. At this point you may find that the negative emotion has already disappeared, or lost power. If not, you can move on to the next exercise (Returning to Emptiness), or practice contemplating the opposite quality (more about this down below).

Returning to Emptiness

1. Recognize that fear has arisen, and accept it for what it is.
2. Turn your attention inward, and ask yourself “Who is afraid?” Who is the one that is affected by the fear? Who are you that perceives the fear?
3. Take it slow. Don’t assume — actually do the looking. Use these questions to bring all your attention inside, towards yourself, the subject and experiencer of the fear. This subject is the ego, your identity, or who you think you are. Spend time keeping the attention here, in this space.
4. If your focus is intense and persistent, at this point you have already forgotten about the fear. But keep on.
5. Ask yourself, “Who am I?” Reject any answer that your mind gives you, because you are aware of your mind (and all its products), therefore you cannot be your mind. You are aware of your shirt, so you are not your shirt — it is an object of your perception. You are aware of your body, so you are not your body. You are aware of your fear, so you are not your fear. You are aware even of this mental process, so it’s not you. Who are you, who is aware of all these things?
6. Is this space of awareness afraid? Is it male or female? Does it have a shape? A substance? A nationality?

You may use these techniques one after another, or individually.
In any case, clear understanding is very important.

You cannot overcome what you are not aware of, what you don’t recognize.
As your self-knowledge becomes more sharp and habitual, however, you will be able to jump directly into dissolving back to emptiness.

I don’t want to spoil your discovery, but if you follow this through long enough, and deep enough, you will discover your true position as the witness of everything, fearless awareness itself.
There is no suffering in here.

Contemplate the Opposite

Another practice that Buddhism suggests is to contemplate the opposite quality.
Our mind is unable to hold on to two thoughts at the same time — especially opposite thoughts.

At most it can quickly switch between them, but at any given moment its only busy with one thing.
So if you are feeling fear, and you make an effort to contemplate fearlessness and courage (both the thought and the feeling of it), fear will subside.

If you are feeling sad, contemplate gratitude; if angry, contemplate compassion and love; etc.

Some Final Thoughts

Regarding the Returning to Emptiness, you will get the ability to simply dissolve any troublesome thought or negative emotion in a couple of seconds, by simply looking at it and remembering your true position.

What a powerful freedom this is!
Don’t expect to achieve this level of mastery in a couple of weeks, though. It takes time, and the process is hugely helped if you keep a daily seated meditation practice.

There are many types of meditation that you can try; but in my experience Self-Enquiry (or “I Am Meditation”Â) is the one that is most helpful to develop Returning to Emptiness.

This process works not only when dealing with fear, but also with any other negative emotion, because of all them come from a single cause: the forgetfulness of our true being, and identification with the ego and mind.

And it’s more effective when you use it whenever the negative feeling comes up, then and there, or immediately after.
So, this is the invitation that I have for you…Break free from the shackles you have made for yourself.

Go beyond the ego with all its limitations and suffering.
You are the space of Being; you are pure consciousness.

Suffering is not natural to you — peace and freedom is.
Discover that, be that.

This is the teaching of the ancient sages.

 

[Skarekrow]

Why it Makes Sense to Explain Near-Death Experiences by the
Survival of Consciousness

by Titus Rivas
This paper is based on a somewhat more technical article in the Journal of Religion and Psychical Research (January 2003).

​

Introduction

Recently, several medical doctors such as Dr. Pim van Lommel (The Netherlands), Dr. Sam Parnia (UK) and Dr. Michael B. Sabom (USA) have carried out studies to determine if patients who have officially been declared clinically dead really can get Near-Death Experiences (NDEs).

All of them conclude that NDEs do indeed take place among at least some of these patients.

The researchers accept that consciousness is not destroyed when our brain stops functioning.
They also accept that consciousness will probably continue exist after death, as in this sense, there isn’t any relevant difference between a flat EEG and brain death.

Mainstream materialist scientists generally see consciousness as a byproduct of the activity of the brain.
For the question of survival, it is therefore sufficient to show that the mind does not need the brain for its very existence.

Near-death experiences and materialist theories of the mind
If we can prove that consciousness is present after the brain has stopped functioning, we have shown that materialism must be wrong.

There are three strategies of people who want to avoid the ‘survivalist’ conclusion of recent NDE-studies.

1. Scepticism about the methods used in the studies:
This is the usual response by skeptics whenever they are confronted by results that go against their world view.
However, the scientific reputation of the researchers involved in the recent studies certainly seems spotless and their work has been accepted as worthy of publication in prestigious journals such as The Lancet.

So it may be safely assumed that the standard skeptic objection is simply baseless in this case.
Research into NDEs cannot be dismissed anymore as being unscientific.

2. Flaws in the specific interpretation of the results:
Some critics think that the findings of these studies should not be interpreted by the survival of consciousness.
Memories of an NDE during clinical death would just be false memories.

At a subconscious level of their mind, patients are simply fooling themselves.
They never experienced anything like it, but they just believe they did.

Without being aware of it, they have simply constructed a rich fantasy and they falsely assume that they had a real NDE.
Another version of this counter-theory wants us to believe that NDEs do exist, but that they don’t occur during clinical death.

In other words, the experiences happen during the seconds or minutes before patients lose consciousness or a few moments before they awake.
Patients are simply confused about the exact moment they experienced their NDE.

However, researchers point to the fact patients have accurate (’veridical’) impressions of events that took place while their brains showed a flat EEG.
Therefore, any hypothesis that claims that these people simply deceive themselves must account for these experiences.

It is very convenient for skeptics that such experiences, which seem clearly related to Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP), are still quite controversial for many mainstream scientists.

However, the evidence for such accurate impressions during clinical death is growing and its quality is also increasing (Ring, 1998; Sabom, 1998; Rivas, 2000; Abdalla, 2002).

So unless we wish to remain hard line skeptics at any cost, it seems wise to take them very seriously.

What kind of ESP might in principle accout for events that happened during a flat EEG?
In parapsychology,we know two categories of ESP that are related to a time factor.

First, there is precognition which in this context would boil down to an experience of an event which took place during the stage of flat EEG before that experience occurred.

According to the false-memory theory the patient will not eventually experience the event while it is taking place.
During the stage of flat EEG there wouldn’t be any awareness whatsoever.

More importantly, the visions of events to come should take place before the patient loses consciousness or at least before he enters the stage of flat EEG.
And he should lose all memory of having had such a precognitive vision after he has come to.

Therefore, I personally cannot take this very far-fetched possibility seriously and I really think we should dismiss the precognition-version of the false memory theory.

The other time-related form of ESP is called retrocognition, which means: knowledge acquired through ESP of past events.
The retrocognition-version of the false memory hypothesis interprets memories of veridical experiences during the stage of flat EEG as follows.

At a subconscious level of their minds, patients with an NDE may use ESP to get knowledge of past events which happened during their coma.
They project that knowledge into their false memories during the last moments before they regain consciousness.

The theory needs to hold that all patients with veridical experiences during their flat EEG were somehow motivated to create a fantasy.
In that fantasy they would include false memories of real events by retrocognition.

Some patients would be subconsciously motivated to use retrocognition to deceive themselves about their lack of consciousness during their flat EEG.
Retrocognition is a very strange hypothesis for NDEs, because it suggests that a patient would not use ESP to perceive events that happen between the stage of flat EEG and complete awakening.

Instead, he would focus on events that have already taken place.
The theory cannot explain cases of NDEs in which there are paranormal (accurate) impressions also of events which occurred during the awakening process itself.

Retrocognition would not be able to explain cases in which patient experience such impressions as part of a coherent and continuous stream of consciousness.

An even more fatal weakness of this theory is that it uses a very unmaterialistic concept -retrocognition- to uphold a materialistic theory.
Even if it were true, it simply could not be defended by a materialist, at least not by a conventional materialist.

By its very nature, the retrocognitive false memory theory needs to be part of a broader radical dualistic theory about the mind-brain relation.
It might be defended by the so called "animistic" school of thought within the parapsychological tradition.

This is a current which promotes the explanation of possible evidence for survival after death in terms of ESP (or psychokinesis).
However, it is very ironic that even a hard line animist like Hans Bender (1983, page 148) concluded that the ESP needed to explain accurate ‘veridical’ experiences during NDEs is in itself suggestive of survival after death.

In any case, if veridical memories of events during flat EEG are taken seriously, we must leave the plane of (conventional) materialist theorizing about mind-brain relations.

After that, we have to ask ourselves which theory is simpler: a dualist theory which holds that the memories of events during flat EEG are false memories, constructed via retrocognition.

Or rather a dualist theory which holds that such memories simply are real memories based on real experiences.
After we have accepted a dualistic framework, we can no longer consider the real memory theory as more complicated just because it would imply survival.

Even animistic champion Hans Bender acknowledges that at least some form of survival is implied by any serious ‘radical’ dualist theory.
Therefore, I conclude that the false memory-theory is more complicated than necessary.

In order to avoid the conclusion that consciousness survives death, it needs to postulate a process which is only plausible within a theory which ultimately implies at least some form of survival of the mind after death.

So it really is a theory which is more complicated than a straightforward survivalist theory.
It implies both survival and a strange, unknown kind of retrospective distortion of memory through retrocognition.

Therefore, in my opinion, we should only adopt the ‘false memory through retrocognition’ory after it would be shown that memories of NDEs must generally be false.

It's the animists who have to show the (radical) survivalists wrong in this case.
Certainly not the other way round.

The radical survivalist theory is the simplest interpretation of NDEs that can explain every aspect of them.
The theory can be refuted by evidence for a more complex theory such as the “false memory through retrocognition”-theory.

3. Adaptation of mainstream materialistic neuropsychological theory:
The last materialist response is defended for example by Karl Jansen, a psychiatrist known for his attempts of artificially producing experiences which resemble NDEs.

It states that memories of NDEs are indeed real memories, but that there would still be some unmeasurable level of brain activity which can still account for them (Abdalla, 2002).

Accurate impressions of events during flat EEG are usually ignored by this theory.
The problem with this theory is that there is (by definition) absolutely no evidence for it.

Theorists seem to be quite content with pointing at unsuitable parallels such as certain types of sleep EEG.
But no acceptable close empirical analogues have been presented so far.

For instance, during most vivid dreams there is rapid eye movement (REM).

As Pim van Lommel points out, if we accept NDEs as real experiences during flat EEG, we also have to accept that patients experience normal, full-blown and even heightened conscious mental activity in them.

If critics want to explain this away by a still unknown type of unmeasurable neural activity, they have to present parallels which involve normal (lucid) or heightened conscious mental activity.

And which can at the same time be satisfactorily explained by known neural activity.
Otherwise, we must conclude that the theory is based on nothing more than unfounded speculation!

It is not forbidden to defend a cherished, well-founded theory against new evidence, but such a defence should of course be plausible and based on acceptable data.

As far as I know, there is no serious evidence for this theory as a counter theory for survival.
That is precisely the reason that Pim van Lommel simply rejects it as having no scientific basis.

Bibliography

- Abdalla, M. (2002). Cardioloog Pim van Lommel haalt bijna-dood ervaringen uit het donker. Paravisie, 17, 13-27.
- Bender, H. (1983). Zukunftsvisionen, Kriegsprophezeiungen, Sterbeerlebnisse. Munich: R. Piper Verlag.
- French, C.C. (2001). Dying to know the truth: visions of a dying brain, or false memories? The Lancet, 358, 9298, 2010.
- Lommel, P. van, Wees, R. van, Meyers, V., & Elfferich, I. (2001). Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. The Lancet, 358, 9298, 2039-2044.
- Parnia, S., Waller, D.G., Yeates, R., & Fenwick, P. (2001). A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation, 48, 149-156.
- Ring, K. (1998). Lessons from the Light: what we can learn from the Near-Death Experience. New York: Insight Books.
- Rivas, T. (2000). Herinneringen aan een periode tussen twee levens. Prana, 120, 33-38.
- Sabom, M. (1998). Light and Death. Zondervan Publishers.

 

[Skarekrow]

A curious theory and article!

SURVIVAL PHYSICS: a brief summary
R.D. Pearson BSc., *C.Eng.M.I. Mech.E 5 March 2003
* -Prior to retirement and switch to physics

​

This theory has achieved publication in Russian conference proceedings (3 & 4) of 1991 and 1993, and in the peer-reviewed journal "Frontier Perspectives" (5) in 1997.
Two books by Pearson (6 & 7) provide further detail.
Furthermore the theory was supported by Dr Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University, on the Jeff Rense Radio Show (8) in 2001.
​

Introduction

Quite a number of people have realised that quantum theory must link with evidence proving the continued existence of consciousness following death of the brain.

The most recent contribution of this nature I have seen is the excellent article The Quantum Marriage, by Will Hand (1).
He shows, for example, that quantum theorists were driven to accept that on the small scale of the atom, what we interpret as "reality" only occurs at the instant of observation.

This is the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of a phenomenon called "wave-particle duality": an important feature of quantum theory.
Quantum theorists found that, on these small scales, what had been regarded as minute objects, the electrons, photons and other components associated with atoms, seemed to exist as sets of interfering waves until observed.

Only then did these waves "collapse" to become real particles.
The extraordinary situation, which has prevailed for nearly a century is that, despite the clear acceptance of the role of consciousness in creating reality, all mainstream scientists still insist that consciousness vanishes on brain death.

The obvious paradox, which is never mentioned, is that matter could not exist prior to any brain!
The development of quantum theory has, therefore, already proved that some form of consciousness had to pre-exist the creation of matter.

Yet scientists, across every discipline, go to immense trouble to discredit all evidence showing that consciousness can exist independently of matter.
Most enlightened people, like Hand, have had personal experience demonstrating to them that at least some so-called, "paranormal" experiences have to be real phenomena and cannot be explained away by delusion or fraud as most scientists and parapsychologists insist must be the case.

Then some of the enlightened seek explanations from twentieth century physics.
This is perfectly sensible and reasonable but is not the way my own contribution came into being.

I started without any intention of considering survival or any other aspects of the paranormal.
I had simply started to take an interest in physics as it stood.

Then in 1984 I realised something was wrong with the logic associated with the "big bang" theory.
This has it that all the energy and matter of the universe was created in a gigantic explosion taking only a split second.

From then on the total substance of the universe, its energy plus matter, remained constant and, being pulled back by mutual gravity, the flying debris would decelerate ever afterwards.

Flaws in the logic had led directly to a huge false prediction called the "Cosmological Constant".
This says that the universe is expanding at rates many billions of billions of times faster than astronomical observations could possibly allow and theorists, to this day, still look for a resolution to this problem.

What is also extraordinary is that theorists simply ignore this huge false prediction and yet claim that the big bang theory is fully supported by all the observations they have made!

I realised that I ought to be able to create a flaw-free alternative theory capable of eliminating the difficulty, using the expertise of my own discipline.
I soon found some other difficulties in need of resolution and so treated them all simultaneously as a single holistic problem.

The solution, which began to appear in a few years, showed me that the paranormal and survival of consciousness must be real and true: an integral part of what I think of as an enlightened physics.

Not until then did I embark on a search for evidence and did so by joining a circle for psychic development.
This was run by two mediums, Victor and Barbara Iles.

I soon had all the evidence I needed to support the theory.
Then in 1988 I met Michael Roll who showed me the powerful published scientific literature of Crookes, Lodge and other scientists, showing me how this evidence, amounting to the total proof of survival, had all been suppressed and discredited by other scientists and parapsychologists who had perceived it all as a threat to existing paradigms.

Hence, to me, survival appeared as unexpected spin-off from an effort made to solve physical problems.
It is therefore my opinion that this approach supplies a much greater credibility than one which merely attempts to fit existing quantum theory to survival fact, especially when the flaws in that theory are not eliminated.

Survival Physics in a Nutshell

The other main problem needing resolution was a theory of gravity compatible with quantum theory.
Einstein's theory called "general relativity", a mathematically very accurate description of the way matter behaves on the large cosmic scale, is still accepted to be the best in existence.

Unfortunately, as all physicists freely admit, it just does not match in with quantum theory.
They have been trying for nearly 80 years to match these two so-called "pillars of twentieth century achievement" and success still evades them.

I will summarize my own final solution which gives mostly the same end equations as general relativity, eliminates the difficulty of the cosmological constant and then shows how an ultimate immortal consciousness must exist as part of an invisible background medium.

It seemed to me that the trouble with Einstein's theory was that the assumptions on which it was based made it incompatible with the existence of any background medium, such as the old aether.

The latter was discredited about 1900 and is still regarded as non-existent, yet something like it is needed if quantum theory is to make sense.
Therefore the assumptions of relativity needed modification.

This is something theorists still will not accept since, in effect, this means the abandonment of relativity theory.

Newton's mechanics seemed the only alternative but is restricted to low speeds.
Revision therefore seemed necessary to make it exact.

I found that the mass of an object needed to be regarded as variable instead of remaining constant as Newton had assumed.
A background medium had to exist and had to be more compressed the closer the approach to a massive object: the density of the aether had to be variable.

This variable density, coupled with the variable mass, gave the same predictions as general relativity but offered the huge advantage of being fully quantum compatible.

Although mostly the same end equations appeared, they had a different meaning and interpretation.
For example, as most people know, a clock situated at a low level in a gravitational field runs slow due to Einstein's concept of "gravitational time dilation": time itself runs slower at a lower level.

For the revised Newtonian time runs at the same rate everywhere but there is a gravitational mass increase with reduction of level and this reduces the frequency of vibration of the clock mechanism.

The same revised Newtonian then needed to be applied to study the background medium, assumed to operate on similar mechanics but in such a manner as to explain the peculiarities of quantum theory.

In effect this mechanics was being assumed to apply both on large cosmological scales and at a sub-quantum level of reality.
The hope was that the peculiarities at the quantum level would emerge as a natural consequence.

First the problem of the cosmological constant needed to be addressed.
The only way the revised mechanics could provide a solution was by making a further revision.

A mirror mechanics had to be added having all masses and energy values considered negative.
Then the background medium, I now call the "i-ther", had to consist of a mixture of particles, some made of positive energy and with the remainder of a negative kind.

Then both kinds could be created or destroyed in balance because the changes would cancel out.
To understand what this entails it is easiest to think of the energy form known as mechanical work.

An object is pushed a given distance and the work done is obtained by multiplying the pushing force by the distance it moves.
If the object is free to move it will accelerate, so absorbing the work done and turning it into energy of motion: kinetic energy. (This also adds a "kinetic mass" causing a mass increase according to the revised Newtonian.)

If now the energy from which the object is made is considered negative then a backward facing force will cause it to accelerate.
So negative mechanical work is converted to negative kinetic energy and there will be an associated increase of negative mass.

There is nothing peculiar about such negative mass and energy.
We could do all our mechanics on these assumptions and get all the same responses because the negative effects always come in pairs and cancel out.

The really new feature, however, is that now both kinds of energy, considered complementary to one another like the Yin and Yang of Eastern philosophies, are considered to co-exist.

They have to form a mixture of fast moving "primaries" in constant collision with one another like the molecules of a gas.
Collisions of primaries of the same energies were just like those of billiard balls.

For evaluating responses of unlike kinds, however, it was necessary to extend the mechanics by introducing what I call, "Opposed Energy Dynamics".
Just as in ordinary mechanics it is necessary to consider two conservation laws together: those of energy and momentum.

Applied to opposite energies in collision, however, responses turned out to be very different from those between like kinds.
An astonishing mathematical discovery emerged.

At each collision of opposites, the need to conserve momentum forced each primary to gain energy.
They were breeding like opposite sexes!

Each of the collision partners gained energy of its own kind in balanced amounts.
It meant that pure creation could spontaneously arise from a void of nothingness!

This meant the i-ther could spontaneously appear from nothing and grow at an ever accelerating and extremely rapid rate, both in volume and density.
Fortunately at a critical density instability would arise allowing flow patterns on a minute scale to appear.

Primaries would be pushed by the pure creation going on behind them so that they flowed in large numbers to common centres from all directions.
The conditions for almost total mutual annihilation had appeared so that only a minute net creation could remain.

A solution to the cosmological constant had appeared naturally!
The i-ther would be committed to a modest ever-accelerating growth and, after matter had appeared, the universe of matter would be carried along so that it too would expand in a similar way.

This prediction was not finalised until 1992 but I thought no way would ever be found for checking this prediction.
However, in 1998 astronomical observations of very distant supernovae, published by Schwartzchild (2), confirmed that indeed the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate: so lending fortuitous support to the theory.

Cosmologists on the other hand were taken by surprise and are still trying to explain the effect in terms of dark energy with strange repulsive powers.

The centres of annihilation are most stable as filaments existing in bundles but on larger scales these bundles have random orientation.
Switch-like Tee-junctions appear as filaments try to cross each other.

Also the cell-like structures of breeding cylinders, with filaments of annihilation at their centres, act like tiny engines producing power.
This power can only be expressed in the form of waves of switching action as one switch, in changing state, triggers the next.

A fluid component of breeding primaries bathes the filaments and so forms an additional medium for wave propagation.
A source for quantum waves seems to have appeared!

In addition the filaments seem to have the potential for evolving a brain-like structure: a background neural net.
Hence my speculation is that consciousness evolved at the level of i-ther long before matter appeared.

At some point this consciousness developed a creative urge and built an interpenetrating system of universes of matter as a means of providing meaningful habitats for minds.

Each mind would be a fragment of the i-theric consciousness, separated from the rest by information filter-barriers.
The only tools available for building such matter-systems were the quantum waves.

Hence a perfect reason for the strange wave-particle nature of matter seemed to have appeared.
To make what we infer to be a sub-atomic particle, waves had to be focused.

At any focal point a transient spike of density in the i-ther would be generated to represent that particle and it would behave as such in collision with others built the same way.

Then to make say, an electron, such focusing would need to be repeated very rapidly with places chosen by the i-ther using its own kind of computational mathematics.

Any "particle" would really be a train of repeated creations joined end to end in time but not in position.
The train of positions would be so chosen as to make it appear as if controlled be an electromagnetic force.

Similar positioning would make the nuclei of atoms seem controlled by a strong nuclear force.
Hence the forces, seeming so real to us, now appear as abstract mathematical constructs.

Matter cannot be as real as it appears: true reality lies in the invisible, in the real energies at the level of i-ther.
This model, worked out in detail, provided a new and paradox free interpretation for both wave-particle duality and non-locality.

As each wave passed the focal point, to make a sub-atomic particle, it then started to spread out again travelling ultimately to infinite distance.
As it went it caused increase in the collision of primaries and so stimulated excess creation.

This mechanism was studied in detail and found to provide a satisfactory explanation for the variable density needed to create a satisfactory theory of gravity.
The "quantum-wave theory of gravity" had appeared and seems every bit as good in predictive power as general relativity.

Conclusion

From a start made to solve a difficulty in the big bang theory, consciousness has been shown to have the potential of being immortal.
If the brain is conscious as well, it cannot be the primary one.

The latter must still remain after the brain has died.

It is my hope that, since survival can be shown an essential and integral part of physics, that the efforts still being made to discredit all evidence of survival will soon come to an end.

This theory has achieved publication in Russian conference proceedings (3 & 4) of 1991 and 1993, and in the peer-reviewed journal "Frontier Perspectives" (5) in 1997.

Two books by Pearson (6 & 7) provide further detail.
Furthermore the theory was supported by Dr Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University, on the Jeff Rense Radio Show (8) in 2001.

At least he said that a theory of this kind had to apply.
Other details can be found on the websites of Michael Roll (9) and Tom Jones (10).

REFERENCES
1 Hand, Will: The Quantum Marriage: The Seeker Vol.2 No.4 Spring 2003
2 Schwarzchild, B.: Very distant Supernova Suggest that the Cosmic Expansion is Speeding Up: Physics Today, Vol.51(6) pp.17-19
3 Pearson, Ronald D.: Alternative to Relativity including Quantum Gravitation: Second International Conference on Problems in Space and Time: St. Petersburg, Petrovskaja Academy of Sciences & Arts [Sept.1991]: pp 278-292
Chairman Local Organising Committeer. Michael Varin: Pulkovskoye Road 65-9-1
St. Petersburg 196140, Russia. FAX: (7) (812) 291-81-35
Phone:Alexandre Alekseev: office7) (812) 291-36-73, Home7) (812) 173-55-69 E-Mail: consym@saman.spb.su
4 Pearson, Ronald D.: Quantum Gravitation and the Structured Ether
Sir Isaac Newton Conference. St. Petersburg [March 1993] pp 39-55 (Address as Ref.3)
5 Pearson, R. D.: Consciousness as a Sun-Quantum Phenomenon
Frontier Perpectives, Spring/Summer 1997, Vol.6,No.2 pp70-78 (also see ref. 10)
6 Pearson, Ronald D,: Intelligence Behind the Universe!: [Dec.1990]
370 pages (520 grams) A popularisation plus Technical Appendix Available from:
Michael Roll: 28 Westerleigh Rd., Downend, Bristol. BS16 6AH:
Tel:0177 9561960 (or see ref.9 website)
7 Pearson, Ronald D.: Origin of Mind [Dec.1992]: -A popularisation plus
Technical Appendix
72 pages: (110 grams) direct from Michael Roll (see ref.6 or 9).
8 Jeff Rense Radio Show: www.rense.com (Date 3 Nov. 2001 in America)
9 Roll, Michael: The Scientific Proof of Survival After Death. See www.cfpf.org.uk
E-mail: mike@mroll.freeserve.co.uk (To order refs 6 or 7 )
10 Jones, Tom. M.: www.survivalafterdeath.org (gives ref. 5 in full)
11 Keen, Montague: Ellison, Arthur: Fontana, David (of the Society for Psychical Research UK): The Scole Report: (gives recent valuable evidence)
Proc.Soc. of Psychical Research Vol.58, Part 220 (1999)

 

[Skarekrow]

Carl Jung - The Collective Unconscious

[video=youtube;yAgIdXjawks]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yAgIdXjawks[/video]

Excerpt from Psychology Classics narrated by Tom Butler Bowdon​

 

[Skarekrow]

Pretty awesome!
Surprise, surprise.
See "Morphic Resonance"
http://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance

@Kgal (thought you would like this one!)

We Each Have a Mysterious Bioenergy Field Around Us: Study

Biochemist John Norman Hansen, Ph.D., at the University of Maryland has found evidence of what he believes is a bioenergy field around humans.
Such a field has been speculated about and alluded to in spiritual traditions for thousands of years, but now scientific investigation has indicated such a field does exist.

Dr. Hansen conducted hundreds of experiments with dozens of subjects, and his results are consistently replicable.
Other scientists have also replicated his results, including Willem H. van den Berg of the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the Johnson Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and physicist William van der Sluys at Gettysburg College, who published their study in the Journal of Scientific Exploration on March 15.

Previous investigation of human bioenergy fields has used photon sensors.
Dr. Hansen took a different approach.

He wondered whether a bioenergy field, if it exists, would have enough force to push a torsion pendulum—a device sensitive enough to be moved by a subtle force.
He hung the pendulum above the subject’s head and saw a clear change in the pendulum’s momentum.

“After conducting control experiments to rule out effects of air currents and other artifacts, it is concluded that the effects are exerted by some kind of force field that is generated by the subject seated under the pendulum,” he explained in his 2013 study, titled “Use of a Torsion Pendulum Balance to Detect and Characterize What May Be a Human Bioenergy Field,” also published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

“We know of no force, such as one within the electromagnetic spectrum that can account for these results. It may be that a conventional explanation for these surprising results will be discovered, but it is possible that we have observed a phenomenon that will require the development of new theoretical concepts.”

One of the outstanding observations was that the effect of the human presence continued for some 30 to 60 minutes after the human subject had already left.
With other forces, such as air currents, the pendulum would immediately return to its classic, non-driven motion.

Every subject had roughly the same power to influence the pendulum, “indicating that the effects on the pendulum require neither unique talent nor practice,” wrote Hansen in a synapsis of a talk he gave at the 34th annual Society for Scientific Exploration conference at the end of May.

“However, it has been observed that some subjects, especially ones that have pursued a meditative practice for many years, exert very different effects during a meditative state compared to a non-meditative state … which shows that the mental state of a subject can strongly affect the behavior of the pendulum.”

Is There a Conventional Explanation?

Van den Berg and van der Sluys used the same pendulum device as Hansen has made the design public, encouraging others to replicate his results) and observed the same change in its movement when in proximity to a human head.

They wondered, however, if this change may have been due to a change in air temperature from the heat emanated by a human head.
The change in air temperature could cause convection currents, they said.

They placed a layer of plastic between the head and the pendulum and found the effect on the pendulum disappeared.
They suggested the plastic either cut the pendulum off from the mysterious bioenergy field, or it simply cut off the heat source.

Hansen published a reply to this study, however, noting what he sees as flaws in the theory that body heat caused the pendulum movement.
For starters, Hansen said, “If you were to place a thick plastic shield between the subject and the pendulum, the pushing force [of the bioenergy field] would initially be against the shield, and the pendulum would only respond to whatever pushing force remained after pushing against the shield.

For the pushing force to survive passage through the shield and then push against the pendulum would violate fundamental principles of physics; i.e. you can only use a force once, and if it is utilized to push against the shield it cannot subsequently push against the pendulum.”

Another factor Hansen said that van den Berg failed to take into account is the persistent aftereffects.
Hansen wrote: “A fundamental principle of pendulum physics is that if the pendulum is driven by an outside force and the force is removed, then the pendulum will immediately return to classic non-driven motion.”

Any accumulation of heated convection currents would quickly dissipate after the subject left.
So convection currents do not explain these aftereffects.

Hansen described the effects of the subject’s bioenergy field as being somehow “imprinted” on the pendulum.
He said the van den Berg study also failed to acknowledge the varied frequencies with which the pendulum oscillates in the presence of a human subject.

The pendulum oscillates with a single frequency when the subject is absent.
It oscillates with many new frequencies when the subject is present, and for some half an hour or more after the subject has left—something not explained by convection currents caused by air temperature variations.

 

[Kgal]

Pretty awesome!
Surprise, surprise.
See "Morphic Resonance"
http://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance

@Kgal (thought you would like this one!)

​

Hansen described the effects of the subject’s bioenergy field as being somehow “imprinted” on the pendulum.
He said the van den Berg study also failed to acknowledge the varied frequencies with which the pendulum oscillates in the presence of a human subject.

The pendulum oscillates with a single frequency when the subject is absent.
It oscillates with many new frequencies when the subject is present, and for some half an hour or more after the subject has left—something not explained by convection currents caused by air temperature variations.

You were right! I totally "resonated" with this. :w:

I especially liked the fact they noticed the pendulum picked up the frequency of the subject. That's so cool. I use an amethyst hanging on a necklace chain for my pendulum. Yesterday before I left to tour a State Residential Facility I was moved to pick it up and wear it so it would get some sunshine. It would seem we resonate with each other.

 

[sprinkles]

We Each Have a Mysterious Bioenergy Field Around Us: Study​

Hey, have you ever used your hands to start a half burned out fluorescent tube light? Where it only lights a little bit at the ends but doesn't have enough juice to get that ion trail down the tube, but if you give it a couple rubs with your hand it'll coax it to fire up the rest of the way?

 

[Skarekrow]

You were right! I totally "resonated" with this. :w:

I especially liked the fact they noticed the pendulum picked up the frequency of the subject. That's so cool. I use an amethyst hanging on a necklace chain for my pendulum. Yesterday before I left to tour a State Residential Facility I was moved to pick it up and wear it so it would get some sunshine. It would seem we resonate with each other.

You should try it in front of a mirror and see if it starts to swing.
I would be curious also if it rotated clockwise or counter.
I actually don’t have a real pendulum, but of course you can make one very simply…I have so many powerful stones to choose from.
I’m gonna try this experiment at home myself and will report back!

Hey, have you ever used your hands to start a half burned out fluorescent tube light? Where it only lights a little bit at the ends but doesn't have enough juice to get that ion trail down the tube, but if you give it a couple rubs with your hand it'll coax it to fire up the rest of the way?

I have not, but I know it can be done….I have however; while still a Paramedic, picked up a guy who had one of the long florescent light tubes halfway up his ass.
Everyone was too afraid to pull it out including him out of fear that it would explode and his lower colon and ass would be filled with shattered glass and mercury.
Not too smart.
We had to transport him on all fours on top of the gurney…and protocol states that the protruding end of any impaled object be left uncovered…so I made a nice cover for his ass cheeks but it was pretty obvious what was going on…hahaha.
I wonder if an x-ray machine could light one up?
People are strange…I have a myriad of things stuck in people’s asses stories…including some poor 19 year old kid who’s new wife stuck a Ben-wah ball up his ass and he ended up having to have an open laparotomy (abdominal incision ) because it had worked it’s way so far north.
Hahaha

 

[Kgal]

You should try it in front of a mirror and see if it starts to swing.
I would be curious also if it rotated clockwise or counter.
I actually don’t have a real pendulum, but of course you can make one very simply…I have so many powerful stones to choose from.
I’m gonna try this experiment at home myself and will report back!

When I use it I ask it Yes/No questions. The way it moves towards or away from the Yes stone or the No stone gives me my answer. The only time I've ever seen it start moving in the form of a circle was when I asked if "they" loved me...and it went wild creating a circle to the maximum length of the chain and a golden glow formed within it.
Today is a huge energy surge day...so I think I might try your suggestions and hold it in front of my portable mirror and see what I see.

:bounce: This is fun!

 

[Skarekrow]

When I use it I ask it Yes/No questions. The way it moves towards or away from the Yes stone or the No stone gives me my answer. The only time I've ever seen it start moving in the form of a circle was when I asked if "they" loved me...and it went wild creating a circle to the maximum length of the chain and a golden glow formed within it.
Today is a huge energy surge day...so I think I might try your suggestions and hold it in front of my portable mirror and see what I see.

:bounce: This is fun!

Well ideally, you shouldn’t be touching it at all…unfortunately they don’t have too many details about what kind of pendulum they had, how much it weighed, how far from the subjects head, what kind of movements are they talking about exactly - minutely detectable to a machine, or visibly dramatic?
There are a lot of variables….still, I’m gonna give it a try too.
I’m thinking I’ll mount it about 3 inches from my head, sitting in a chair, trying not to move as to help eliminate air currents….then I may adjust the distance and what not.
Should be fun!

 

[Oscillation]

Ultimately they would try to do it in vacuum... but then they wouldn't be able to breath. Humm.