Merkabah

[Skarekrow]

Powerful.

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

 

[PintoBean]

"You are the artist of the spirit.
Find yourself and
express yourself in your own particular way.
Express your love openly.
Life is nothing but a dream
and if you create your life with love,
your dream becomes a masterpiece of art."

~ Don Miguel Ruiz​

Thanks, reading this quote came just at the right moment for me.

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

Parallel Possibilities: Are We Remembering Other Universes?

Quantum suicide is one of the most horrifying thought experiments proposed by Hans Moravec.
To be brief, rig up a gun to a device measuring the spin value of a proton every ten seconds.

The spin value randomly creates a quantum bit as 1 or 0.
When the trigger's pulled and the quantum bit comes up 1, the gun fires, killing the subject.

Zero?
The subject survives, and will survive subsequent attempts should Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation prove correct.

It's a riff on Schrödinger's cat, where kitty is in a superposition of being alive and dead at the same time.
But who wants to risk their lives despite the prospect of quantum immortality?

Isn't there a safer way to test this?
Enter Daniel Filan and Joseph Hope, two of the Australian National University's brightest, addressing the question, "What would it have looked like if it looked like I were in a superposition?"

Their theory has nothing to do with conspiracy theories, disinformation, nor dodgy memories but remembering events from parallel universes, harkening to Fiona Broome’s Mandela Effect.

​

In case you've been living under a rock, the most popular example of this theory is the Berenstain Bears controversy.
Rap duo Run The Jewels, and many others, insist the children's book series was originally spelled "Berenstein".

Filian and Hope discover it's impossible to find definitive proof, but their paper describes how to detect if a person was in a state of superposition.

It's a non-lethal take on quantum suicide.
The experimenter enters a machine with pen and paper to record the state of an electron as "yes" or "no".

After noting their observation, they exit the machine, leaving the data on a table.
After, say, 100 tries, the data is reviewed.

Should the compiled results be roughly 50/50, then the person wasn't in superposition.
If all the results are the same, the experimenter was in superposition.

"We also note that this test relies crucially on both the 'memory loss' experienced by the experimenter, and the knowledge of the phase of the initial superposition. The full quantum state of the experimenter, including their memories, is being generated by the machine. This means that it is possible for them to have any memories at all, but we have shown that they must be identical across multiple branches of the superposition, and therefore cannot be correlated with the actual relevant measurement results."

​

What if these memories only appear identical, and the differences are so insignificant where realities are indistinguishable from another? For example, the differences between a pair of realities might be an atom resonating at a lower energy than its parallel doppelgänger.

Over these iterations, based upon the experimenter's measurements, a universe with a significant difference like Berenstain/Berenstein could crop up and conflict with "reality".

The possibilities are endless, like our infinite universes.

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

Neurotransmissions — An Anthology of Essays on Psychedelics from Breaking Convention.
The authors are indebted to Dr. Stephen Szára for kindly agreeing to an interview.

From a representative sample of a suitably psychedelic crowd, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who couldn’t tell you all about Albert Hofmann’s enchanted bicycle ride after swallowing what turned out to be a massive dose of LSD — the world’s first acid trip (Hofmann, 1980) has since become a cherished piece of psychedelic folklore. Far fewer, however, could tell you much about the world’s first DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) trip. Although less memorable than Hofmann’s story, it was no less important. The folklore would come later and reveal itself to be far weirder than anyone could have predicted. A DMT trip is certainly one of the most bizarre experiences a human can undergo and, although six decades have passed since the very first DMT trip, the experience continues to confound and remains fertile ground for speculation regarding its significance and meaning (Meyer, 1997;Luke, 2011;Gallimore, 2013). Of course, it would be extremely Western-centric to ignore the use of DMT by indigenous Amazonians in the ayahuasca brew (Shanon, 2003;Frenopoulo, 2005;Shanon, 2005;Schmidt, 2012) or the cohoba snuff (Schultes, 1984), but it was only after the effects of the pure compound were discovered that its role in these traditional preparations became clear.

There has been a resurgence of interest in DMT in the last couple of decades, largely inspired by the baroque orations of the late psychedelic bard Terence McKenna, who regarded DMT as “the secret”; producing the most intense and bizarre experience a human could have “this side of the yawning grave”. Furthermore, although the endogenous production of DMT in humans has been established for several decades (Barker et al., 2012), attracting speculation as to its role in humans (Callaway, 1988;Wallach, 2009;Gallimore, 2013), recent research has provided more definitive evidence for a true functional role in human physiology (Frecska et al., 2013;Szabo et al., 2014). Dr Rick Strassman’s groundbreaking study of the effects of DMT in humans (Strassman et al., 1994;Strassman, 1995;Strassman et al., 1996) has been a particularly potent catalyst for speculation regarding the significance of this unique psychedelic. Strassman, a psychiatrist at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine, recruited 60 volunteers, the majority of whom received more than one dose of DMT by intravenous injection. This study was particularly special in that the subjective experiences of the volunteers took centre stage, with every detail of their trip narratives carefully recorded and many subsequently featuring in Strassman’s psychedelic classic, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (Strassman, 2001). Whilst being the most ambitious and extensive study of DMT in humans, it certainly wasn’t the first. For that, we’ll need to go back a few decades.

The first DMT trip

The story begins sometime in 1953. Hungarian physician and chemist, Dr Stephen Szára, was planning a study to investigate possible biochemical factors in the aetiology of schizophrenia (Szára, 1989). News of the remarkable mind-bending effects of Hofmann’s new lysergic acid derivative had already spread throughout the European medical community and Szára was keen to procure a small supply to use in his own research. He wrote to Sandoz, the only source of LSD at the time, to place an order. However, Hungary was firmly locked behind the Iron Curtain and Sandoz seemed wary of sending him the potent new drug. His request was politely refused. Szára needed an alternative:

“At this point, I sent an order to a British pharmaceutical house to purchase 10 grams of mescaline. To my surprise, and delight, the drug arrived in December 1955. I remember weighing out 400 mg of mescaline in the laboratory a few days before Christmas and took it home…” (Szára, 2014)

Having read and admired Huxley’s ‘The Doors of Perception’ (Huxley, 1954), Szára was keen to experience the effects of the drug himself. His choice of timing for his first mescaline trip now seems beautifully apposite:

“On Christmas Day I took it about 3pm. After about one hour I felt nothing, so I decided to go to the church on the top of the Castle-Hill in Budapest. On my way, on the bus, I started to feel that my vision had started to change; I was looking out through the window to the familiar landscape and seeing the trees moving in a strange way. When I got to the church I managed to get in, already full with people, standing room only. The ceremony had already started, loud organ music filled the air… to my surprise, as I was looking down to the marble floor, it was enlarging around me into a large circle, my neighbours seemingly far away, while I knew that I could touch them…” (Szára, 2014)

Suitably heartened by the experience, Szára turned his attention to a recently published article by a trio of analytical chemists, Fish, Johnson and Horning (1955), on the chemical constituents of the cohoba snuff, used by indigenous South American tribes to induce states of religious ecstasy (Schultes, 1984). Their analysis yielded only two major components; the first of these was the well-known toad skin secretion, bufotenine (Chilton et al., 1979). In typical 1950s style, medical double act, Fabing and Hawkins (1956), had already established the distinctly unpleasant, somewhat toxic and unimpressively psychoactive effects of this particular tryptamine by squirting large doses into a selection of unfortunate Ohio State Penitentiary inmates. Based on this data alone, it was generally assumed that bufotenine was responsible for the psychoactive effects of cohoba. Szára, however, was unconvinced.

The other major component of the snuff was the closely-related and pharmacologically unexplored alkaloid, N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). It would be nice to write that Szára had a peculiar presentiment that DMT was the active psychedelic component of cohoba, but he didn’t. However, it was obvious that those seeking communication with the gods were hardly likely to be impressed by the dangerously hypertensive, choking and nauseating effects of bufotenine. DMT was the only alternative and so Szára decided to make some. As well as being a physician, Szára has a PhD in organic chemistry and, using the recently published synthesis by Speeter and Anthony (1954), was able to synthesise ten grams of DMT within a few days. Unlike his American counterparts, Szára chose himself as the first test subject (actually, he chose a cat, but we’ll skip that part). Mindful that Hofmann had considered 250μg of LSD a conservative first dose and ended up, in Szára’s words, “bombed out”, he opted for the same tiny amount, which he ingested orally. Of course, nothing happened. Over the next few days he gradually increased the dose up to 10mg/kg, or about three quarters of a gram. Still, no effect. Szára was somewhat discouraged and perhaps ready to abandon DMT when a colleague suggested that he should try injecting it:

“In April of 1956 (the exact day is unknown [Author note: April has a special significance in psychedelic history, with Hofmann first taking LSD on the 19thof April]), I tested three doses intramuscularly, paced at least two days apart to allow the drug to clear my body. The first dose (30 mg, around 0.4 mg/kg) elicited some mild symptoms — dilation of the pupils and some coloured geometric forms with closed eyes were already recognizable. Encouraged by these results, I decided to take a larger dose (75 mg, around 1.0 mg/kg), also intramuscularly. Within three minutes the symptoms started, both the autonomic (tingling, trembling, slight nausea, increased blood pressure and pulse rate) and the perceptual symptoms, such as brilliantly coloured oriental motifs and, later, wonderful scenes altering very rapidly.” (Szára, 2014)

Although Szára is unable to recall more details of this first experience, the trip had the typical DMT flavour familiar to contemporary users — complex geometric patterns give way to fully formed, immersive hallucinations. It was clear to Szára that this was the secret:

“I remember feeling intense euphoria at the higher dose levels that I attributed to the excitement of the realization that I, indeed, had discovered a new hallucinogen…”(Szára, 2014)

Strange new worlds: Szára’s first study

Szára wasted no time in beginning the very first study of the effects of DMT in human subjects.
He recruited 30 volunteers, mainly doctors from the hospital where he worked, the National Institute for Mental and Nervous Diseases, Budapest. All received 0.7 mg/kg (about 50mg for an average person) DMT intramuscularly and their experiences carefully recorded (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958). Sadly, however, only a handful of these early DMT trip reports were published, purely as representative examples. The hospital has long since closed down, Szára’s contemporaries have all since passed away and all the original data has been lost. Despite this, the few surviving reports offer an invaluable insight into the experiences of those very first volunteers. For anyone familiar with modern DMT trip reports or, indeed, who has taken DMT themselves, these early accounts will resonate. However, rather than simply presenting these reports in isolation, it might be more interesting to contextualize them with selections from modern trip reports for comparison. It must be borne in mind that, although, to modern DMT users, the phenomenological content is certainly the most fascinating feature of the experience, the early DMT researchers were less aware of its significance. Szára, a self-confessed “old-fashioned scientist” and somewhat wary of “New Age stuff”, pointed out:

“When these experiences, such as God, strange creatures and other worldliness, appeared in our DMT studies, we did not philosophize about them but, as psychiatrists, we simply classified them as hallucinations.” (Szára, 2014)

As such, it is unsurprising that subjects weren’t pressed to elaborate on their visions and the reports can seem terse. In contrast, trip reports garnered from online databases and forums, such as Erowid or the DMT Nexus, are often characteristically detailed and sometimes frankly verbose. Despite this difference, the parallels between these early reports and those of modern users are nonetheless revealing. In Szára’s first study (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958), a 28-year old male physician (we’ll call him Adam) was one of the first to receive his 50mg dose:

“The room is full of spirits…the images come in such profusion that I hardly know where I want to begin with them! I see an orgy of color, but in several layers one after the other… Everything is so comical…one sees curious objects, but nevertheless everything is quickly gone, as if on a roller-coaster.” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

Even this brief trip report extract features a number of fairly characteristic DMT motifs — the user is hurtled through a rapidly changing procession of complex visual imagery, meets discarnate entities (it is perhaps a reflection of the time that these were reported as ‘spirits’) and sees “curious objects”. The rollercoaster analogy is often used to describe the sense of moving extremely rapidly through the highly complex visuals as the trip unfolds. The following extract is from one of 340 modern DMT trip reports collected by Peter Meyer and an anonymous blogger known only as Pup, compiled from numerous sources and published online (Meyer and Pup, 2005):

“This was by far the most intense experiment that I had done and it was like riding a roller coaster through a fractal. As the trip was winding down I tried to concentrate on the designs as they flowed by and through me to check out the complexities. As one of the more interesting designs flowed by I focused on a circular design that morphed as I focused on it into an eye with a grinning mouth below it. The smile seemed more maniacal than friendly, but was never less an amazing sight.” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #36)

Many modern users find that, whilst being indescribably bizarre, the experience is often suffused with a sort of comical ambience — the maniacal grinning mouth in the above report is perhaps indicative of this — and it’s notable that Szára’s subject, Adam, also seemed to experience this. Timothy Leary, in his seminal 1966 article, Programmed Communication During Experiences with DMT (Leary, 1966), articulated this type of experience with characteristic eloquence:

“Eyes closed… suddenly, as if someone touched a button, the static darkness of retina is illuminated . . . enormous toy-jewel-clock factory, Santa Claus workshop . . . not impersonal or engineered, but jolly, comic, light-hearted. The evolutionary dance, humming with energy, billions of variegated forms spinning, clicking through their appointed rounds in the smooth ballet…” (Leary, 1966)

This contributor to the fabulous drug information website, Erowid, describes a strikingly similar scene:

“It was generally like a wacky toy factory. Gadgets, widgets, twirling machines, stair-step pattern, Escher-like “space” and tunnels and chutes. The beings would seem to go “look!” and I felt I was supposed to look.” (Erowid Experience #11258, 2001)

Even in the hospital setting of Strassman’s study, such madcap scenes were commonplace:

“Something took my hand and yanked me. It seemed to say, “Let’s go!” Then I started flying through an intense circus-like environment…there was a crazy circus sideshow – just extravagant. It’s hard to describe. They looked like Jokers. They were almost performing for me. They were funny looking, bells on their hats, big noses.”(Strassman, 2001, p169)

It is tempting to suggest that the “curious objects” reported by Adam are those that appear throughout the modern DMT trip report literature, often presented or revealed by elfish entities (we’ll come to these later!):

“A gaggle of elf-like creatures in standard issue Irish elf costumes, complete with hats, looking like they had stepped out of a hallmark cards “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” display, were doing strange things with strange objects that seemed to be a weird hybrid between crystals and machines.” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #19)

“I saw the most indescribably beautiful “objects” here. I was fascinated. The ‘elves’ seemed to want me to do the same thing that they were doing. It was frustrating.”(Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #125)

Early entity experiences

Of course, to anyone at all familiar with the DMT experience, it is not so muchwhat you see that commands particular attention but, rather, where you go andwho you meet there. A large proportion of DMT users, about 50% in Strassman’s study (Strassman, 2008), report travelling to normally invisible worlds and meeting an array of peculiar beings. Curiously, this type of experience was represented in Szára’s first cohort (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958), so might be considered as a core feature of DMT experiences, rather than a later counter-cultural affectation. A 27-year old female physician (we’ll call her Bella) describes the characteristic auditory effects that precede ‘breaking through’:

“The whistling has stopped; I have arrived. In front of me are two quiet, sunlit Gods. They gaze at me and nod in a friendly manner. I think they are welcoming me into this new world.” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

Although this new world seems somewhat more sedate than the worlds many DMT users are familiar with, the sense of having arrived in another place is unambiguous, as is the presence of non-human entities. There is even an attempt at communication:

“One of the Gods–only his eyes are alive–speaks to me: ‘Do you feel better?’” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

It’s intriguing that Bella described these entities as ‘Gods’, and tempting to speculate that they possessed qualities that inspired a sense of supreme power and wisdom. Entities with such qualities, whilst only occasionally referred to as Gods, are certainly common in the experiences of modern DMT trippers:

“There were these beings that seemed to inhabit this place, that seemed to come off as vastly more intelligent and vastly more capable.” (Erowid Experience #52797, 2006)

Sometimes these entities actually claim to have the sort of power we might expect from Gods — the power to create life — although their behaviour can often be less than godly:

“I did see intelligent insect alien god beings who explained that they had created us, and were us in the future, but that this was all taking place outside of linear time. Then they telepathically scanned me, fucked me, and ate me.” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #213)

Later in the experience, Szára’s subject, Bella, moved into an enclosed environment:

“From the darkness I see through the black iron lattice into the bright temple.” (Sai-Halasz et al., 1958)

Whilst no further details are given regarding this temple, many modern DMT users report entering a place with a temple-like quality:

“There is a corridor with a very tangible ambience, one can feel the space around. It now appears to be a temple structure of some futuristic sort, like some space age Hindu/Mayan temple with the walls displaying architecture similar to the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan except the walls are inverted to angle outward with the terraces reversed. It seems very real but also very fleeting, changing rapidly.” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #97)

Despite being somewhat brief and lacking detail, these earliest trip reports seem to hint at the type of experiences DMT users would describe decades later.
This pattern continues with the studies that followed.

Horrible orange people

Once Szára’s first study was published, other physicians understandably became interested in DMT and began similar studies of their own. Turner and Merlis (1959) were interested in comparing the effect of pure DMT with those of the cohoba snuff. Their plucky recruits were convinced to inhale up to a gram of the snuff every 30 minutes, presumably until they could take no more. Unfortunately, neither subjective nor objective effects were observed, barring an awful lot of coughing and sneezing and general “discharging”. The DMT injections were more successful, although only a single trip report apparently merited publication. A 33-year-old psychotic female (we’ll call her Carla) was given 50mg DMT intramuscularly. Following a brief period of anxiety and an apparent struggle against the effects, Carla fell into a dreamlike state, before awakening suddenly after about 5 minutes. She appeared to regain awareness of her surroundings and was then able to relate her experience to the attending physician:

“It is as if I were away from here for such a long time… In a big place and they were hurting me. They were not human. They were horrible… I was living in a world of orange people…” (Turner and Merlis, 1959)

Of all the early DMT trip reports, this is one of the most intriguing. It isn’t unusual for DMT users to experience entities that appear less than benevolent, although it should be pointed out that Carla had a history of physical abuse. A number of Strassman’s volunteers also reported non-human entities with some degree of malevolent intent or, at least, that were either visually objectionable or performing some unpleasant act on the user. Insectoid creatures appear regularly:

“When I was first going under there were these insect creatures all around me. They were clearly trying to break through. I was fighting letting go of who I am or was. The more I fought, the more demonic they became, probing into my psyche and being. I finally started letting go of parts of myself, as I could no longer keep so much of me together.” (Meyer and Pup, 2005) #186

“With its innumerable eyes it gazed at me steadily and extended a tentacle. At the same moment it fired a beam of light directly between and above my eyes. The alien laser was pinkish-green. It hurt. I begged it to stop. I whimpered. Please stop, you’re hurting me…” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #273)

Sometimes, the user appears to be the subject of some sort of experimentation:

“There were four distinct beings looking down on me, like I was on an operating-room table. I opened my eyes to see if it was you and Josette, but it wasn’t. They had done something and were observing the results. They are vastly advanced scientifically and technologically.” (Strassman, 2001, p194)

“I felt like I was in an alien laboratory, in a hospital bed like this, but it was over there. A sort of landing bay, or recovery area. There were beings. I was trying to get a handle on what was going on. I was being carted around. It didn’t look alien, but their sense of purpose was. It was a three-dimensional space… They had a space ready for me. They weren’t as surprised as I was. It was incredibly un-psychedelic. I was able to pay attention to detail. There was one main creature, and he seemed to be behind it all, overseeing everything. The others were orderlies, or dis-orderlies.” (Strassman, 2001, p197)

It was these ‘alien experimentation’ experiences that prompted Strassman to suggest, as others have, a relationship between DMT and alien abduction, during which the abductee is often subjected to painful experimental procedures, probing and measurements (Mack, 1994). However, despite some similarities, there are enough differences, including the absence of the classic ‘alien greys’ in the DMT state, to suggest that they are distinct (Luke, 2011). Although we have no further details as to the nature of the creatures that were ‘hurting’ Szára’s subject, Carla, it’s notable that accounts of negative interactions with non-human entities are not purely a modern feature of the DMT experience.

Enter the little people: Szára’s second study

As well as ‘normal’ subjects, Szára was also keen to observe the effects of DMT in some of the psychiatric patients at the hospital. There was a growing belief in psychiatry that these new “psychotogenic” agents, specifically LSD and mescaline, might be useful in the treatment of psychosis or at least as diagnostic tools. Szára selected 24 female in-patients, the majority with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and all were given 1mg/kg DMT intramuscularly (Boszormenyi and Szára, 1958).

Only three case reports were featured in the resulting publication and these were objective accounts of the patients’ behaviour after DMT administration, as recorded by the physician — any insight into the subjective experiences of the patients could only be gleaned from their spontaneous utterances. Despite this, one of the case reports is particularly salient. The patient was a 30-year-old female (we’ll call her Daisy) with “persecutory delusion and paranoid behaviour”. A few minutes after the DMT was administered, the typical auditory effects began:

“She complains of a strange feeling, tinnitus, buzzing in the ear…” (Boszormenyi and Szara, 1958)

It’s common for a buzzing or humming sound to accompany the initial stages of a DMT trip, an effect also observed during out-of-body experiences (Blackmore, 1989). With Daisy, a period of agitation and confusion followed — “she keeps asking, ‘Why do I feel so strange?’” — and then, after about 30 minutes, she seemed to indicate some loss of body awareness, also common in DMT users, which is echoed later in the session:

“As if my heart would not beat, as if I had no body, no nothing…” (Boszormenyi and Szara, 1958)

Then, around 38 minutes into the session, her head begins to clear and she is able to recount her visions:

“I saw such strange dreams, but at the beginning only… I saw strange creatures, dwarfs or something, they were black and moved about…” (Boszormenyi and Szara, 1958)

Reports of ‘little people’, described variously as elves, dwarfs, sprites or similar, are not only common during a DMT trip (Luke, 2013), they are perhaps one of its defining features. Of course, not everyone meets such beings, but ‘the elves’ are certainly the most famous denizens of the DMT realm. Terence McKenna’s expositions on these highly animated little creatures, which he dubbed ‘machine elves’, are legendary:

“Trying to describe them isn’t easy. On one level I call them self-transforming machine elves; half machine, half elf. They are also like self-dribbling jewelled basketballs, about half that volume, and they move very quickly and change. And they are, somehow, awaiting. When you burst into this space, there’s a cheer!” (McKenna, 1993)

McKenna also called them ‘tykes’, which perfectly captures their spritely and mischievous nature. Whilst ubiquitous, they appear in a variety of forms, ranging from amorphous light beings to the classic elves of Germanic or Celtic folklore. Despite this variability, they seem to be unified by their character:

“The new geometry began to unfold layer after layer of laughing, giggling, incredibly lively beings… greeting me with enthusiastic cheers… the countless wonderful, hilarious, animated self-transforming liquid light energy creatures vied for my attention… They actually all start waving and saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘Time to go, nice seeing you, Love you…’” (Erowid Experience #85120, 2010)

They even made an appearance in Strassman’s study, of course:

“That was real strange. There were a lot of elves. They were prankish, ornery, maybe four of them appeared at the side of a stretch of interstate highway I travel regularly. They commanded the scene, it was their terrain! They were about my height. They held up placards, showing me these incredibly beautiful, complex, swirling geometric scenes in them…They wanted me to look! I heard a giggling sound– the elves laughing or talking at high-speed volume, chattering, twittering.” (Strassman, 2001, p188)

Cott and Rock (2008) used thematic analysis to delineate the common themes within the DMT experience using anonymous volunteers. Although the accounts of only 19 respondents were analysed, the elves feature in one description of a scene that seems straight from a Brothers Grimm tale:

“Once I entered a room to see what looked like little elves working hard… I was watching these little guys work very hard on a bench, and they were building something.” (Cott and Rock, 2008, Respondent #16)

The elves, it seems, are everywhere…

Archetypes and the s/elf

Owing to Terence McKenna’s almost godlike eminence within the psychedelic community, and the gleeful enthusiasm with which he recounts their bizarre antics, it has become rather straightforward to dismiss the ubiquity of the elves as resulting from a sort of ‘McKenna effect’ — the little tykes ingress the subconscious of all who hear him speak, only to burst wildly into the frame shortly after the third toke. However, the appearance of animated dwarf-like creatures in at least one of Szára’s subjects, when Terence McKenna was but a sprite himself, might hint that such beings represent something more universal, and that perhaps McKenna wasn’t too far from the truth when he later claimed that “everybody gets elves”. Whatever their true nature, the elves have understandably attracted a range of interpretations, from simple hallucinations to truly autonomous sentient beings from an alternate dimension. Somewhere in between, the elves are sometimes explained as latent Jungian archetypes scuttling from deep within the collective unconscious (Luke, 2011). This is the explanation that Szára favours:

“To explain the possible origins of dwarf or elf-like creatures, I wouldn’t look for parallel universes or the “Quantum Sea” for explanation, but right in the brain, deeper than conscious memories …” (Szára, 2014)

Jung explained archetypes as “ever repeated typical experiences…stamped on the brain for aeons” (Jung, 1953). Anthropologist Charles Laughlin argues that these archetypes are encoded in neural structures present from birth and responsible for the experience of the foetus and infant (Laughlin, 1996). According to Laughlin, these ‘neurognostic structures’ are both inheritable and subject to evolution (Laughlin, 2000). Drawing on this theory, Gallimore (2013) proposed that DMT might be an ancestral neuromodulator that was once secreted by the brain in psychedelic concentrations during sleep and allowing access to, or the development of, neurognostic structures (encoded as patterns of neural connectivity) entirely separate from those generating the experience of the consensus world (this one!). Whilst this function is apparently now lost, smoking or injecting DMT may allow these ancient neurognostic structures to be ‘reactivated’, allowing us access to a world that is not so much alien, but from which we have become alienated. Szára has a comparable idea, suggesting that certain ancient archetypal structures might be suppressed during normal consciousness, with DMT allowing them to break through to the surface:

“C.G. Jung’s archetypes and symbols come to my mind as possible images, stored in neuronal connectivity patterns early in development. What DMT might do in adults is to slow down and stop reality testing (via the fronto-parietal loop) and let the Default Mode Network release the stored images and symbols into the perceptual system. It is the brain that stores and releases archetypal images into our altered consciousness…”(Szára, 2014)

He proposes that the elves might represent one of the most fundamental archetypes:

“I would suggest that the dwarfs and elves, that appear in many, if not most of the DMT experiences, are in fact symbols of one of the most significant archetypes: “the Self”, in the form of circles or Mandalas released from the Collective Unconscious. They may be projections of early “Selves” [Author note: we believe the pun to be intended] stored in the infancy of the individual when ancestral DMT dominated brain functions…” (Szára, 2014)

Of course, the idea that DMT somehow awakens deeply embedded archetypal structures remains highly speculative.
However, Szára suggests that indirect evidence might already exist:

“There are actually some studies in neonatal rats (Beaton and Morris, 1984),showing that DMT can be detected at birth in low level, increasing significantly by day 12, staying high until day 31 and decreasing after this for the rest of their life. This is in line [with the model] postulated by Gallimore for the ancestral role for DMT. Obviously, this kind of data should be replicated in rats and in other animals as well as in humans if possible before the hypothesis gains credibility…” (Szára, 2014)

If the brains of human neonates secrete significant quantities of DMT, albeit temporarily, is it possible that the newborn child is able to access the DMT realm, but loses this ability long before memories can be laid down? It is intriguing that many DMT users feel a profound sense of déjà vu upon breaking through:

“The DMT space has a familiar feel to it. When I go to the DMT space, I often think, now I remember, this is where I have been before…” (Meyer and Pup, 2005, Report #18)

The experience of déjà vu in healthy individuals is thought to result from a disruption of the normal familiarity signal that underlies recognition (O’Connor and Moulin, 2013).

However, there is no agreement amongst psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists as to whether there is always an overlap between the perceptual experience (the DMT experience in this case) and a previously stored representation, and thus whether the experience of déjà vu stems, at least partly, from an actual memory (O’Connor and Moulin, 2010). Perhaps, in the case of DMT, it’s not so much déjà vu as access to an authentic, albeit latent, memory trace. Perhaps we really have been there before. Maybe this is why the elves often welcome the tripper back with great celebratory uproar:

“They kept saying welcome back and words like: the big winner, he has returned, welcome to the end and the beginning, you are The One! As I looked around the room I felt the sense of some huge celebration upon my entry to this place. Bells were ringing, lights flashing…” (Erowid Experience #1839, 2000)

It’s rather uncanny that many of the themes that regularly appear in the DMT state are those we might naturally associate with childhood — clowns, jesters and jolly elves, playrooms and nurseries, fairgrounds and strange mechanical toys. Are small preschool children naturally attracted to small lively giggling characters (the outrageously popular Teletubbies, for example) because they remind them of similar creatures from the DMT realm?
Something to think about.

Is there something-it’s-like-to-be a machine elf?

Explaining the elves and other DMT entities as latent Jungian archetypes or other structures from deep within the collective unconscious doesn’t seem to bring us any closer to knowing whether or not they can be considered real. Perhaps we need to look deeper. Jung himself proposed that fragments of the psyche, buried in the unconscious, might carry on a completely separate existence from the main complex. These autonomous psychic complexes form a miniature, self-contained psyche and are, perhaps, even capable of a consciousness of their own (Jacobi, 1959).

This is a powerful idea. Descartes famously failed to deny his own existence, or at least the existence of his own mind. Neuroscientist Giulio Tononi seems to generalise this existential undeniability to anything possessing subjective consciousness. According to Tononi, whilst many things might be considered real, if something exists from its own subjective perspective — if there is something-it’s-like-to-be it — then it’s really real (Tononi, 2014); its reality cannot be denied. So, with regards to the reality or otherwise of the elves, perhaps we should ask: is there something-it’s-like-to-be a machine elf? If Jung’s autonomous complexes are to be taken seriously, then the answer is a very big and startling maybe. Maybe! And, if so, then the elves might not just be real, but really real! This might suggest that the elves could have intentionality and are actively seeking to communicate with us, even if the communicator turns out to be an alienated fragment of the communicatee. As McKenna (1991, p. 43) suggests, “we are alienated, so alienated that the self must disguise itself as an extraterrestrial in order not to alarm us with the truly bizarre dimensions that it encompasses. When we can love the alien, then we will have begun to heal the psychic discontinuity that [plagues] us.”

In an apparent attempt to transcend such philosophical speculation, computer scientist Marko Rodriguez proposed a methodology for experimentally testing whether or not DMT entities objectively exist — giving them advanced mathematical problems to solve (specifically, finding the unique prime factors of very large numbers) (Rodriguez, 2007). Rodriguez assumes that the highly advanced DMT entities (they very often appear extremely intelligent and technologically advanced) would waste no time showing off their computational prowess by feeding the correct answers to the expectant tripper, thus proving their objective existence.

However, as Luke (2011) points out, it can’t be assumed that the tripper couldn’t receive the correct answers from some earthly incarnate source by a so-called ‘super-psi’ effect. Despite this shortcoming, this type of experiment might eventually prove useful in extracting information from the DMT entities that one might struggle to ascribe to our earthbound domain. In fact, perhaps the extraction of useful information would be a better standard by which to judge the objective existence or otherwise of the DMT reality and its inhabitants. Terence McKenna often sidestepped questions regarding the objective existence or reality of the entities and simply asked them: What can you show me?

Thinking the unthinkable

So far, we have avoided discussing the possibility that DMT might actually open a doorway to an alternate world and, for those of you rolling your eyes now, such an idea might be seen as frankly ludicrous. However, it can’t be ignored that a large proportion of DMT users, from Szára’s earliest subjects to modern amateur psychonauts, often arrive in the same type of world — highly artificial, constructed, inorganic, and in essence technological (Hancock, 2005) — and meet the same types of entities. If (albeit a big if) an experiment could be designed to extricate information from the DMT realm and ‘super-psi’ effects or other earthly sources could be ruled out, this might allow us to differentiate latent archetypes or other unconscious structures from a truly autonomous alternate reality. The results of such an experiment, if positive, would have profound implications for our understanding of reality. Obviously, it would be wildly astounding to discover that such a strange world exists and could well have existed long before our universe popped from nowhere (ahem) 14 billion years ago (“Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest…” as Terence McKenna used to quip). However, there’s nothing in the laws of physics to rule out parallel worlds as such. The most astonishing revelation would not be the existence of such a world, but the fact that we had the ability to access it with such facility; by inhaling a couple of lungfuls of one of the simplest and most common alkaloids in the plant kingdom.

This revelation would force a far more fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of reality and our place in it. The major problem with thealternate world explanation for DMT is what might be called the data input problem. There seems to be no obvious means for our brains to receive data from an alternate dimension and to explain such a phenomenon might require us to rethink the structure of reality itself. For example, the idea that we might live in a type of computer-simulated universe is actually now receiving serious academic consideration (Bostrom, 2003; Whitworth, 2007; Beane, Davoudi & Savage, 2012). Not only would many of the implicit quirks within the laws of physics be easily explained by a simulated universe (Whitworth, 2007), it might also be straightforward to explain how data normally disconnected from our reality program might be gated by a relatively simple subprogram (i.e. DMT). Perhaps, instead of looking for glitches or drifts in the physical constants of the universe (Barrow, 2003) to test the simulated universe theory, we ought to be looking for more explicit clues. And perhaps DMT is one of those clues.

This would also naturally raise the question of intentionality — was the DMT subprogram deliberately embedded for us to find?
And, if so, by whom and for what reason?

We’ll leave this question as an exercise for the reader.

Of course, for those with no personal experience with DMT, it’s reassuringly straightforward to glibly dismiss alternate alien dimensions and disembodied intelligences as mere hallucination. Clever philosophical rhetoric, offbeat thought experiments and appeals to obscure Jungian manuscripts are unlikely to convince the DMT-naïve that there’s something far more interesting going on. The only reliable convincer appears to be somewhere comfortable to lie down for ten minutes and a small glass pipe.

OH MY FUCKING GOD!

Beyond the overwhelmingly rich, complex and fascinating visual content of the DMT experience, the elves and their strange hyperdimensional habitat seems to percuss the user at a point deep in the core of their being. The immediate response is often a profound sense of shock and the returning tripper, eyes wide and shaking, might struggle to verbalise anything beyond repeating “OH MY FUCKING GOD!”

What is particularly interesting about DMT is that this shock is caused, not just by the bizarre nature of the experience, but by an unshakeable feeling of authenticity — the individual is unable to deny the realityof the experience; unable to dismiss it as hallucination or repressed memories bubbling up from the darkest corners of the unconscious mind. The most fundamental ontological assumption — that this earthly reality is the one and only real thing — is instantaneously shattered with little hope of being restored. The DMT reality feels real and is real, even after returning to normal consciousness.

The late Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John E. Mack, conducted detailed interviews and hypnotic regression sessions with over 200 so-called alien abductees. Despite not suffering from any known neuropsychological pathology that he could identify (i.e. perfectly sane), all of the abductees were uncompromising in their insistence that their experiences were real; that they had really happened. Similar to returning DMT trippers, this feeling of absolute certainty collided with their most basic assumptions regarding what was and wasn’t possible with such force that they were left in a state that Mack termed ‘ontological shock’ (Mack, 1994).

Humans, sane ones at least, are extremely good at distinguishing reality from fantasy and the vast majority are quick to accept that a particularly strange dream was just that — a dream and not real. Whilst this reality-testing is impaired during dreaming and psychosis (Limosani et al., 2011), waking from the dream or recovery from psychosis is generally sufficient to restore this important ego facility and the dream or hallucination is recognised for what it is. This makes the DMT experience all the more compelling and paradoxical — it is far stranger than (almost) any dream and yet there remains a remarkable inability to shake the feeling that it was truly real once the experience has ended.

Harder, deeper, longer

Despite almost six decades having passed since Szára’s first study, we appear to be no closer to a definitive explanation for DMT’s astonishing psychoactive effects. It’s quite tempting to assume that the strangely characteristic DMT-like experiences that so many users report, from playful giggling elves to grotesque alien “pro-bono proctologists”, can be explained in terms of modern cultural memes that propagate through underground psychedelic literature, archival Terence McKenna lectures and, most recently, through the internet. However, the few surviving trip reports from these early DMT studies perhaps suggest that things are a little more complicated than that and therein lay their importance.

DMT evokes experiences with a highly characteristic flavour and content that appear to be somewhat independent of the cultural setting in which they manifest, coupled with a frighteningly compelling sense of authenticity. Whether this points towards a truly autonomous alternate universe to which DMT somehow gates access or towards some deeply embedded structures within the human collective unconscious (perhaps both), or something entirely different, these experiences are far from trivial to explain and are certainly worthy of proper academic study.

Although psychedelic drug research is now recovering following a several decades long hiatus, the academic focus now tends to be on the neural correlates of the experience, rather than the experience itself. Whilst this research is important, there is the danger that the psychedelic state will be unwittingly explained away, neatly packaged as an interesting variant of brain network activity. This is wholly unsatisfactory and it is important that objective neuroimaging data is complemented by detailed phenomenological studies of the DMT state. The authors are currently performing a detailed (and long overdue) quantitative phenomenological analysis of Strassman’s original ‘bedside notes’ and such carefully recorded trip reports will likely form the primary data source in future research, although psychedelic researchers should be prepared to enter the DMT realm themselves with the aim of answering specific questions and performing experiments. After all, if you want a tiger’s cub, you must go into the tiger’s cave.

Terence McKenna exhorted psychedelic drug users to see themselves as explorers —

You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas.

Whilst a handful of lay psychonauts might manage to dive deep enough to bring back a few good ideas, this is really the psychedelic equivalent of amateur free diving and is ultimately limited by the lung capacity and training of the individual and the brief duration of action of the drug. There is perhaps an attractive romanticism attached to the idea of sitting cross-legged on a brightly coloured, hand-woven rug, lighting incense and raising a hand-blown glass pipe to the lips. But DMT seems to demand more from us than this. It appears to carry a message so shockingly profound and important that it demands careful preparation and skilful use of our technological apparatus to successfully retrieve and decode it. DMT is unique amongst the classical psychedelics in not only being very short acting, but also not exhibiting a tolerance effect with repeated use (Strassman et al., 1996).

As such, using the same technology developed for maintaining a stable brain concentration of anaesthetic drugs during surgery, it would be feasible to administer DMT by precisely regulated continuous intravenous infusion, permitting the explorer an extended, and theoretically indefinite, sojourn in the DMT reality. Although a well-prepared strong ayahuasca brew might achieve a crudely comparable effect, standardisation of the dose is much more difficult and the concentration of DMT in the brain will fluctuate based on a range of pharmacokinetic and metabolic factors. A well-designed continuous IV protocol could account for these factors, allowing the brain DMT concentration to be kept stable or manipulated to gradually move the explorer deeper and deeper into the DMT space. This approach might give the brave voyagers enough time to orient themselves, get their intellective tools in order and cast their nets far out into the “dark ocean of mind” in the hope of bringing back the message that DMT has been trying to convey since Szára first dipped his toes in the water almost 60 years ago.

If ever there was a time, it’s now.
Ahoy, shipmates!
Ahoy!

***

​

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Frenopoulo, C. (2005). The ritual use of ayahuasca. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs37, 237-239.
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Luke, D. (2011). Discarnate entities and dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Psychopharmacology, phenomenology and ontology. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 75, 26-42.
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Whitworth, B. (2007). The physical world as virtual reality. CDMTCS Research Report Series 316, 1-17.

 

[Kgal]

Young girl who has awakened her Third Eye.

[video=youtube;ZtLkzg8bFgA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtLkzg8bFgA[/video]

 

[Kgal]

Powerful.

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

I watched Vol I and Vol II this weekend and was absolutely blown away!!!!!

Such raw vulnerability and love expressed in those faces. Amazing!

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

What Is Déjà Vu?
Michio Kaku Wonders If It’s Triggered by Parallel Universes​

I’ve spent the past week on a road trip across America, and, during it, experienced perhaps my most intense case of déjà vu ever.
Rolling into Memphis for the first time in my life, I walked into the lobby of the hotel at which I’d reserved a room for the night and immediately felt, in every fiber of my being, that I’d walked into that lobby before.

But I then realized exactly why: it followed the same floor plan, to the last detail – the same front desk, the same business center computers, the same café with the same chalkboard asking me to “Try Our Classic Oatmeal” – of the one I’d visited the previous day in Oklahoma City.

Should we chalk this up to generic American placemaking at its most efficient, or can we find a more interesting psychological phenomenon at work?
Michio Kaku, though best known for his work with physics, has some ideas of his own about what we experience when we experience déjà vu.

“There is a theory,” says Kaku in the Big Think video above,”that déjà vu simply elicits fragments of memories that we have stored in our brain, memories that can be elicited by moving into an environment that resembles something that we’ve already experienced.”

But wait!
“Is it ever possible on any scale,” he then tantalizingly asks, “to perhaps flip between different universes?”
And does déjà vu tell us anything about our position in those universes, giving us signs of the others even as we reside in just one?

Kaku quotes an analogy first made by physicist Steven Weinberg which frames the notion of a “multiverse” in terms of our vibrating atoms and the frequency of a radio’s signal: “If you’re inside your living room listening to BBC radio, that radio is tuned to one frequency. But in your living room there are all frequencies: radio Cuba, radio Moscow, the Top 40 rock stations. All these radio frequencies are vibrating inside your living room, but your radio is only tuned to one frequency.”

And sometimes, for whatever reason, we hear two signals on our radio at once.
Given that, then, maybe we feel déjà vu when the atoms of which we consist “no longer vibrate in unison with these other universes,” when “we have decoupled from them, we have decohered from them.”

It may relieve you to know there won’t be an exam on all this.
While Kaku ultimately grants that “déjà vu is probably simply a fragment of our brain eliciting memories and fragments of previous situations,” you may get a kick out of putting his multiverse idea in context with some more traditional explanations, such as the ones written about in venues no less dependable than Scientific American and Smithsonian.

But in any case, I beg you, Marriott Courtyard hotels: change up your designs once in a while.

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

 

[Kgal]

hahahahahahaha..... are you sure you wanna hear about that stuff?

 

[Skarekrow]

hahahahahahaha..... are you sure you wanna hear about that stuff?

What else is there to talk about?! Some bullshit?
No way….you know me...not for me.

 

[Kgal]

What else is there to talk about?! Some bullshit?
No way….you know me...not for me.

Yeh....an INFJ all the way! We're like that.

 

[Skarekrow]

These stories exclude any possibility that these things are actually happening (mostly a materialist viewpoint), entertaining nonetheless.
Enjoy!

Ghost World

A Look at the Supernatural Through the Lens of Six Disciplines

​

Do you believe in ghosts?

As Halloween approaches, this question pops up frequently. Virginia Magazine turned to U.Va. academics from six disciplines and asked them how each of their respective fields interprets the supernatural—spirits, visions, the undead and more.

None of the professors interviewed confessed to believing in ghosts themselves, but all study some aspect of the supernatural.
Whether through qualitative anthropological analysis, deconstruction of literature and photography, archaeological digs or examining faulty neurons in the brain, these researchers each shared a bit of their vast and varied understanding about the human longing to believe in the spiritual realm.

Do You See What I See?
ART HISTORY
Claire Raymond

Art History

Art historians are no more likely to give credibility to the supernatural than any other segment of the population, but the theme appears in the art of many cultures.

Claire Raymond, an art historian at U.Va. who studies 19th-century spirit photography, says that the idea of ghosts is all about the desire of the living—the desire to not lose the dead.

BY CLAIRE RAYMOND

Flip through cable TV channels today and you may come across paranormal investigation shows such as Ghost Hunters, in which “detectives” search for spirits using digital and infrared cameras, among other equipment.

Modern and tech-heavy as this phenomenon might seem, it has its roots in a 19th-century practice known as spirit photography, a subject of my research.
In the mid-19th century, Spiritualism, the belief that the dead inhabit a spirit realm and can be contacted by living “mediums,” erupted in the United States and spread to Great Britain and France.

The Spiritualist movement was buoyed in the United States by the ferocious death toll of the Civil War, which left survivors longing to make contact with their departed loved ones.
One of the strangest adjuncts to this already fantastical belief system is spirit photography.

The Haunted Lane by Melander & Bro., 1889.LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

​

Spirit photographers, who claimed to be mediums channeling spirits of the dead, convinced their patrons that they could catch in photographs the images of ghosts. By using double exposures, blurred emulsions and models posing as spirits, they created photographs where a diaphanous spirit image appeared alongside the living subject of the photograph. Few people in the late 19th century understood how cameras worked, and in this pre-Kodak era, before spirit photography was revealed as trickery, the images produced gave some scientific credibility to Spiritualism.

Mary Todd Lincoln with the Ghost of Her Husband, c. 1869–70WILLIAM MUMLER
​

Prominent spirit photographers William Mumler and Edouard Buguet were both tried for fraud in the 1860s and ’70s.
But even after the prosecutions had proved rather definitively that the “ghosts” of lost loved ones photographed by Mumler and Buguet were fraudulently produced—images created by double exposures, props, models and even dolls—many Spiritualists continued to believe that the photographs were authentic.

Despite prominent proponents such as Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, the Spiritualist movement—and spirit photography—waned and largely disappeared in the 20th century.

Why, then, is televised ghost hunting and newfangled spirit photography on the rise today?
That may be a question for the media studies department.

As an art historian, I see how spirit photography articulates the uncanny properties of light—its ubiquity and exacting force.
Art curator and collector Sam Wagstaff, who introduced spirit photography into the fine arts world in the 1970s, described looking at the photographs as “watching a wild party, from a distance, through a lit window.”

As pieces of art, the photographs capture the longing that clearly still exists, for some, today, of connecting the world of the living with the dead.

---

Claire Raymond is an assistant professor in U.Va.’s McIntire Department of Art and Art History.
Her research focuses on the intersections of aesthetic theory and feminist theory, with an emphasis on the photographic image.
She teaches art history and sociology courses on the theory of photography, the culture of the image and theories of cultural trauma and haunting.


Stand-Ins for the Devil
LITERATURE
David Gies

Literature

Literature professors examine the supernatural only through texts, where ghosts or spirits tend to represent something else entirely. U.Va. professor of Spanish David Gies says that Spanish literature professors “rarely think about the supernatural except when it comes up as a plot device.”

Below, Gies, an expert on the literature of Enlightenment and Romantic Spain describes the supernatural elements of 19th-century Spanish texts, where ghosts reflected the turmoil of the times.

BY DAVID GIES

Ghosts and phantasms figure prominently in Spanish literature, but nowhere more enthusiastically (and scarily) than during the Romantic period (the first half of the 19th century).

From the bone-jangling specters that populate José Espronceda’s spooky narrative poem, “El estudiante de Salamanca” (The Student from Salamanca, 1836) to José Zorrilla’s super-famous drama, Don Juan Tenorio (1844)—where statues appear and disappear, a dead man walks through a wall and the ghost of a deceased lover materializes in order to save the soul of the sinning protagonist— Spanish readers and play-goers reveled in the joys and terrors of other-worldly beings.

At the finale of Joaquín Francisco Pacheco’s weirdly incestuous play, Alfredo (1835), the evil (and spectral) Greek appears as a “supernatural” being to the play’s eponymous hero, who is suffering from a nervous breakdown. One of the period’s best-sellers was a four-volume work titled Funereal Gallery of Tragic Stories, Ghosts, and Bloodied Shadows (Agustín Pérez Zaragoza, 1831).

Many of the characters in these works were stand-ins for the Devil, who stood in opposition to God as a controller of the cosmos.
While the European Enlightenment (in the 18th century) had promised peace and stability through the exercise of reason and scientific study, the Romantic world discovered that such promises were all lies (Napoleon saw to that), so the Spanish world-view shifted from the collective to the personal, from “us” to “me” (a preview of today’s Me Generation?), from optimistic to profoundly pessimistic.

Fatalistic destiny, rather than benevolent concern, now controlled the universe (the Duke of Rivas’ most famous Romantic play is called Don Ãlvaro or the Force of Destiny, 1835).

Enter the ghosts.

---

David Gies is Commonwealth Professor of Spanish in U.Va.’s Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, and has published 15 books and critical editions of Spanish literature. In October 2007, he was granted a knighthood by His Majesty Juan Carlos, King of Spain.


A Message from a Muerto Cimarrón
ANTHROPOLOGY
Jalane Schmidt

Anthropology

Anthropologists of religions seek to understand how a community’s religious beliefs—and its engagement with the supernatural—affect daily life and culture. Cultural anthropologist Jalane Schmidt studies the lives and histories of peoples of African descent in the Americas and has both observed and participated in many Afro-Cuban rituals involving the supernatural, such as the one she describes here.

A Message from a Muerto Cimarrón

JALANE SCHMIDT

I am continually amazed with human beings’ varied imaginings of the supernatural, and their creative attempts to interact with “It”—whatever they hold “It” to be.

Recently during a hot, humid night in rural Cuba, I found myself being taunted—or perhaps haunted?—by the spirit of a 200-year old escaped slave (cimarrón) who had been summoned by the gathered assembly of spirit mediums.

Drawing close to my face, with the rhythms of the drumming ritual still pounding around us in the cramped room, the cimarrón mocked me, the visiting North American anthropologist: “You take a step and you stumble. But when I walk, I arrive!”

I received the cimarrón’s unflattering comparison with good humor, and promised to try harder to arrive at an understanding of his words.
In Cuba, as in other former slave societies of the Americas, the memory of slavery still weighs heavily upon the present.

Some 10 million Africans were kidnapped, stripped from their kinship networks and forced to labor (and often die) in wretched conditions in the New World. Throughout several centuries of dehumanizing treatment—what Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson has termed slavery’s “social death”— enslaved blacks asserted their dignity by forging their own systems of meaning.

Among the slaves’ concerns—a question shared by many of their present-day descendants—was how to honor their dead, the muertos.

An altar in honor of a muerto cimarrón, prepared for a May 2010 ceremony in El Cobre, Cuba.JALANE SCHMIDT
​

Through the 19th century, devotional organizations (cabildos) comprising enslaved and free blacks honored their departed members by sponsoring Catholic masses during which they prayed for the repose of the souls of the deceased.

Though approved by civil and church authorities who intended that the cabildos—often named for a Catholic saint—would Christianize blacks, these institutions served as social spaces where blacks elaborated upon earlier African forms of worship.

The resulting creolized (hybridized) religious expressions are still popular in Cuba, and include Catholic appeals to the saints—the Christian dead—as well as African-inspired ritual remembrances of the community’s own muertos.

Being a scholar of both religious studies and of African American Studies, I found myself in rural Cuba, attending a ceremony in Cabildo Cimarrón, a religious community led by a friend of mine, Juan Madelaine González.

A renowned local spiritist medium, Madelaine, as he is known, attracts a clientele who seek healing for their ailments, whether these are physical, psychological, social or some combination of thereof.

Madelaine’s helper in his healing practice is his muerto cimarrón, a spirit of a long-dead escaped slave who, during consultations and drumming ceremonies, at times animates Madelaine’s body in the form of possession trance episodes.

Madelaine is normally a calm man.
His muerto cimarrón is not.

So present-day spiritists of the Cabildo Cimarrón must coax the cimarrón out of hiding from the slavecatchers who chase him, even in the afterlife.
As Madelaine’s body spasms and his consciousness recedes, the assembly beckons the cimarrón with polyrhythmic drumming, clapping, and chanting: “Come, Congo cimarrón! Complete your mission!”

Initially, the cimarrón shouts to us reluctantly, because he harbors suspicion that we, the attendees, might be in league with his pursuers.
After attendees allay his fears (and ply him with rum and the occasional offering of a sacrificed animal), the cimarrónarrives.

The ceremony is celebratory as the cimarrón is greeted as an honored guest while he offers otherworldly oracular advice to the gathering.
For a time, the rent fabric of history is healed by the welcomed presence of the dead.

---

Jalane Schmidt is a cultural anthropologist of religion in U.Va.’s Department of Religious Studies.
Her current research explores how the history of slavery is performed in spirit possession rituals and expressed in the material culture of African diaspora regions of the Caribbean and Latin America.

“Ghostly Visions”
NEUROLOGY
Lisa S. Toran, MD, and Sarah M. Jones, MD

Neurology

In the field of neurology, supernatural sightings are nothing more than visual hallucinations, a symptom of neurological disorders such as seizures and delirium, or diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

Visual hallucinations are common in psychiatric disease as well, especially with schizophrenia, depression and substance abuse.
\Two U.Va. neurologists show us what happens when vision-related neurons in the brain don’t behave as they should, while also acknowledging that hallucinations can be a normal part of mourning.

“Ghostly Visions”

BY LISA S. TORAN, MD AND SARAH M. JONES, MD

Have you ever looked into a mirror and actually made it all the way through three “Bloody Mary” declarations, and as you go to turn away, out of the corner of your eye you think you actually see something … just before you run out of the room in fear?

This is most likely a visual illusion, and is actually quite common.
The “Bloody Mary” phenomenon is referred to as the “strange face-in-the-mirror illusion,” and in studies it has been easily replicated by simply taking a group of people, putting them in a dimly lit room with a mirror and asking them what they see.

In one study, 28 percent of people reported seeing the face of a stranger rather than their own, while a full 48 percent saw “fantastical and monstrous beings.” The author of this study suggests that there is an area of the brain specifically designed for interpretation of faces.

When your face is distorted by low lighting—for example by drawing shadows and lines in places that you would not typically see in a lighted bathroom mirror—your brain misinterprets the image and identifies it as someone else’s.

We rely on the visual system to experience and navigate our world.
Reflected light enters our eye and is transmitted through our visual pathways to the brain.

The signal also is transmitted to areas of the brain involved with memory, emotional response and conscious interpretation of the image.
These areas are therefore known as “visual association pathways.” But what if those vision-related neurons in your brain were not behaving as they should?

This is the general idea behind the cause of visual hallucinations.
One way to think about visual hallucinations is to consider the case of hallucinations in epilepsy.

Scientists think that a group of abnormal neurons in the visual pathway, or in the visual association pathways, are activated spontaneously and cause an electrical storm.

This could lead you to experience a vision that is not actually present in the outside world.
Thus, the image is generated from inside the brain.

So just as an abnormal electrical discharge of a brain nerve can cause shaking of a limb, a similar abnormal discharge in just the right spot in the brain can potentially cause you to see all kinds of visions.

Visual hallucinations can be found in many neurologic conditions, including seizures, migraines, delirium, encephalitis and dementia.
Hallucinations come in a wide array of different subtypes; they can be categorized as simple or complex.

For example, people with migraine headaches may experience simple hallucinations, with flashes of light, zigzags of color and kaleidoscope swirls.
For people with dementia or delirium, hallucinations can be far more complex.

The observed object can be clearly defined and have specific form.
The hallucinations can take the shape of animals or people and perhaps even ghosts.

Visual hallucinations can also be a normal part of mourning.
Up to 80 percent of elderly subjects experience seeing their dead spouse within one month of their death, and this is considered a normal part of bereavement.

The exact reason for this is unclear, but it is theorized that “their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved’s passing.”
It is similar, in a way, to when staring at a light for too long can result in a negative image of the light when we look away.

It is interesting to consider how all these conditions we currently classify as explainable causes of hallucinations were viewed in the distant (and not so distant) past.

How many people with visions due to epilepsy were merely classified as “crazy,” and how many put pen to paper to describe their hallucinations in the form of ghost stories?

So next time you consider the existence of ghosts, just remember they may just exist inside our minds.

---

Lisa S. Toran (Res’16) is a 4th-year resident physician in neurology at the U.Va. Medical Center.
Sarah M. Jones is a physician and an assistant professor in the U.Va. Department of Neurology.


Soul Food
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Greg Schmidt Goering

Religious Studies

As a field of inquiry, religious studies takes an agnostic stance toward the supernatural: It neither affirms nor denies it, says religious studies professor Greg Schmidt Goering.

Most of the world’s people practice religion in some form, and many of these religions believe in the existence of supernatural realms.
Goering sees his research as a way to understand the ways humans find solace and meaning through practices like the Mexican Day of the Dead ritual.

Soul Food

GREG SCHMIDT GOERING

As a scholar of religion, I want to know what ideas about the supernatural people hold, why they believe what they do, and how such beliefs in the supernatural affect their behaviors.

In my course Sensing the Sacred, we examine the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Like Halloween, Day of the Dead abuts the Christian holidays of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day (November 1 and 2).

In Mexican tradition, the celebration constitutes a family reunion during which, it is believed, one’s deceased ancestors return home to commune with their living relatives for a few brief hours.

Two Day of the Dead skeletal figurines.
​

According to Goering, the figurines speak to the idea that life and death are not all that separate.
Leading up to Day of the Dead, Mexican families construct elaborate home altars decorated with the foods and drinks that the deceased enjoyed in life.

Tamales and sweets sit alongside flowers, candles, skeletal figurines, copal incense and photographs of deceased loved ones.
The living make these offerings to the dead, who, it is believed, return from the cemetery once a year to visit their relatives and partake of these offerings.

The disembodied souls do not eat the food offerings physically; rather they consume them spiritually.
After the dead have had their fill, the living partake of the food and drink and share leftovers with friends and family.

Relatives also strew a line of marigold petals from the door of the home to the altar.
The deceased ancestors follow the scent of the orange and yellow flowers to the food offerings.

In order that the dead can find their way back afterwards, petals are also scattered from the home in the direction of the cemetery.

A Day of the Dead decorative skull.

​

What do Day of the Dead rituals tell us about ghosts and the supernatural?
About the senses in Mexican culture?

I’ve always thought of death as the end of sentient experience.
But clearly Day of the Dead practices insist that some sensory faculties persist even in death; the practices of preparing favorite foods and creating paths with marigold petals suggest that the dead can smell and taste, if not see or hear.

The rituals indicate that the realms of the dead and the living are not so separate—taste and smell provide an ongoing communion between the two.

---

Greg Schmidt Goering is an associate professor in U.Va.’s Department of Religious Studies.
His research examines how ancient Jewish sages developed wisdom bodily in their students by educating the senses and constructing a sensorium.

He teaches courses such as The Nature and Nurture of the Senses and Sensing the Sacred: Sensory Perception and Religious Imagination.

Invoking & Suppressing the Dead
ARCHAEOLOGY
Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver

Archaeology

Archaeologists generally agree that the ancient Greeks believed in things that we now consider supernatural. U.Va. alumna and archaeologist Carrie Sulosky Weaver, who conducts research in southeastern Sicily, made a rare discovery of ancient tombs that showed a fear of the undead.

Invoking and Suppressing the Dead at Kamarina

BY CARRIE L. SULOSKY WEAVER

Within the Passo Marinaro necropolis, in use from the 5th to 3rd centuries BCE, and located in the ancient Greek colony of Kamarina in southeastern Sicily, some graves contain skeletons that are intentionally trapped in their tombs, while others possess tablets with magical inscriptions addressed to Underworld deities.

These macabre and unusual archaeological findings suggest that the ancient Greeks may have participated in rituals intended to both ward off and summon the dead.

The ancient Greeks believed that death was not necessarily a permanent state, and supernatural occurrences are described by ancient authors such as Homer and Plutarch.

Fear of the dead, or necrophobia, is palpable in the stories that describe bodies rising from their graves, while other tales involve the efforts of the living to invoke the spirits of the dead, known as necromancy.

Drawing of the burial in Tomb 693.
​

This tomb contains a child approximately 8 to 13 years old, with five large stones place on top.
It appears that the stones were used to trap the body in its grave.

D. WEISS FROM G. DI STEFANO'S EXCAVATION JOURNALS

Necrophobia centers on the belief that the dead are able to physically reanimate and exist in a state that is neither living nor dead, but rather “undead.”
Scholars typically refer to the undead as “revenants” from the Latin word for “returning,” revenans.

The concept is popular on a number on current television shows, including the French drama Les Revenants (The Returned).
In the ancient world, revenants are feared because it is believed that they leave their graves at night for the explicit purpose of harming the living.

To prevent them from departing their graves, revenants must be sufficiently “killed” by means of incineration or dismemberment.
Alternatively, revenants could be trapped in their graves by being tied, staked, flipped onto their stomachs, buried exceptionally deep, or pinned with rocks or other heavy objects.

Tomb number 653 in Kamarina’s Passo Marinaro necropolis contains an adult whose head and feet are completely covered by large fragments of an amphora (a ceramic storage vessel), presumably intended to pin the individual to the grave and prevent it from seeing or rising.

The second tomb, number 693, contains a child approximately 8 to 13 years old, with five large stones placed on top.
Like the amphora fragments, it appears that these stones were used to trap the body in its grave.

Although the reasons for entrapment will never be fully known, I have considered numerous explanations for these unusual findings.
A supernatural interpretation is plausible, and these individuals could have been pinned to their graves to prevent them from harming the living.

Drawing of the burial in Tomb 653.
​

This tomb contains an adult whose head and feet are completely covered by large fragments of an amphora, presumably intended to pin the individual to the grave and prevent it from seeing or rising.

D. WEISS FROM G. DI STEFANO'S EXCAVATION JOURNALS

The material remains of necromancy, the purposeful invocation of the dead, have also been found in the necropolis.
The dead were invoked covertly through the use of curse tablets, which the Greeks called katadesmoi.

These were binding spells inscribed on thin sheets of lead, often shaped like tongues or leaves, which were deposited in graves during secret nighttime ceremonies.

The messages on katadesmoi were intended for Underworld deities who were expected to coerce the souls of the dead into fulfilling the requests of the living. Often, petitioners sought to redress a wrong that had been committed, such as murder or the theft of an inheritance, but katadesmoi were also used so that one might gain an advantage in love or business.

To date, thirteen katadesmoi have been recovered from Kamarina’s Passo Marinaro necropolis.
Due to the degradation of their inscribed surfaces, these tablets have not been fully translated, but four of them were clearly pierced by nails.

Nails were used to puncture or symbolically “kill” objects, presumably to ensure their arrival in the Underworld or to draw the attention of Underworld deities.

Drawing of a katadesmos from Kamarina.D. WEISS

​

Although rare, the material remains of supernatural beliefs and practices are preserved in the archaeological record, and they present modern archaeologists with the difficult task of their interpretation.

Remains such as those found at Kamarina provide additional evidence for necrophobia and necromancy and shed light on a dark but fascinating aspect of ancient Greek burial practices.

---

Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver (Grad ’13) earned a PhD in the history of art and architecture from the University of Virginia.
She is an instructor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture.

More information about the supernatural practices uncovered at Kamarina can be found in her book The Bioarchaeology of Classical Kamarina: Life and Death in Greek Sicily (University Press of Florida, 2015).

 

[Skarekrow]

From a Reddit post:

I saw something that was in my SO's sleep paralysis episode. (self.Thetruthishere)
submitted 6 days ago by _il_mostro_

My partner suffers from sleep paralysis, we've been together for 5 years so I've heard all about it and I can recognize when it's happening to him. Normally i'm asleep of course, but i've woken up several times when it's happening and I can tell. His eyes are open and he breathes EXTREMELY heavily, sometimes his head shakes or his jaw clenches. I can wake him up during these episodes by shaking him. He prefers I do, btw.
The episodes sound terrifying, but i've personally NEVER encountered sleep paralysis or honestly anything paranormal until this moment. I work in healthcare, and sometimes have to leave close to 4 am. I'm kind of paranoid about oversleeping and missing work, and I think this stress causes me to wake up frequently in the night to check the time.
THE ENCOUNTER
One evening I woke up and looked at the clock. It was close to 2 am. Relieved I can sleep longer, I turn to go back to sleep. I could hear my partner breaving heavily on the outside of the bed (I was on the inside and the dog was between us). At this point I became aware of this low voiced whispering. I had no idea what it was saying, but had lot's of "s" sounding words. I don't remember having any thoughts of what it was, besides thinking my SO was having an episode and was trying to speak. I turn around to attempt to wake him up.
The first thing I notice is that his eyes are closed, which is odd because they normally are open. Right after I notice that I became IMMEDIATELY aware that something was standing over top him, on the side of the bed. I wish I could properly describe the adrenaline rush that ran over me. I've never felt such a rush of fear like that in my entire life. It was an extremely tall black shadow. It was humanoid shape, but had much thinner and longer limbs. I looked up and it was literally as tall as the ceiling, which is at least 10 feet. In fact, it's head appeared to be hunched over because it was too tall for the room. It's eyes were large and radiated red. Like a coil on a oven, instead of a light.
I sit up, and my first reaction was to wake up my dog. He is a 90 lb pit (who I should note, NEVER barks). He was curled in between us, and I could feel him snap to attention. He never makes a noise, but his head was up. I honestly did not want to take my eyes off the "thing" so i'm not sure if he was starting at it or just in the general direction I was looking. I couldn't make out any features besides the eyes on the "thing", but I could definitely tell it was staring at me. It slowly, SLOWLY, backs up (never turning around) and hunches down and out the open bedroom door. The whole experience was probably 10-15 seconds.
I immediately shake awake my SO who said he was having an episode where there was an entire room full of shadow people speaking to him. Saying the typical terrifying things ("you're going to die" "I know who you are" and etc.). He said he could feel and see when I sat up. When I told him what I saw, i could tell he was absolutely terrified. It's been a couple months since that incident and i've not seen anything since.
WHAT THE FUCK THOUGH WAS THAT!?! How could i have possibly seen something that my SO was experiencing in an episode of his sleep paralysis? Anyone else experience this?
TL;DR: My SO has sleep paralysis. One evening I wake up and witness something out of one of his nightmares. What the hell did I see?

 

[Skarekrow]

Good call Emma.

 

[Skarekrow]

OCT​

There is Only Form

​

Since the time of Greek philosophers–Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates–it has been believed that the present universe is comprised of two things: form and substance.
Forms are the ideas that exist even when substances don’t; the world of things combines form and substance, kind of like the form of a statue exists in the mind of a sculptor and is applied to a substance–e.g., stone–to create statues.

Without the form, the material world is amorphous, and without the substance the forms are not visible.
This post examines this viewpoint and argues that there are no substances; only forms are real. Whatever we call substance, thing, or object, is also a form–i.e. an idea.

The Problem in Form-Substance Dualism

The divide between form and substance is perhaps the oldest form of dualism in Western philosophy, from which other kinds of dualism–e.g. the mind-body dualism, or the empiricism-rationalism dualism–have sprung.

The key issue in each of these kinds of dualism is that neither side of the duality presents a consistent and complete picture of the world around us, and yet we don’t know how to combine them.

For instance, the duality between form and substance leads to challenges in reconciling the abstract with the amorphous.
How do mind and body interact?

If, however, you want to dissolve the duality and replace it by some unity, you have a new set of problems.
For instance, how does matter produce our ability to think, feel, will, judge and plan?

Scientific and philosophical materialism reject the mind-body duality, and replace it with matter, which is then supposed to explain both mind and body.
The trouble in such reduction is that we are trying to reduce ideas to things but no one really knows how this reduction can ever be achieved.

By definition, an idea is something that stands apart — although may be incarnated–in many things.
No particular thing is that idea; the idea is the general or abstract that stands independent of those things.

If, therefore, you want to reduce the ideas to things, you will create a logical contradiction in your theory.
The resolution of that contradiction would require you to reject the notion that there is indeed something apart from the things –i.e. ideas.

The reduction of mind to matter, therefore, in effect, amounts to the rejection of the reality of ideas themselves.
If, however, you reject the reality of ideas, then you must also reject knowledge, perception, cognition, science, and any lawfulness–whether natural or man-made.

If ideas are unreal then any generalization from the particulars is also unreal.
I doubt that anyone wants to think about such an alternative–after all, what would you be thinking if thinking itself is unreal?

What’s the point of having a belief that I am thinking about when I have already rejected the possibility of generalizing from the particulars?

The Inverted Reduction

This crisis in any kind of dualism–and its proposed alternative, materialism–can be resolved if we invert the reduction: instead of reducing mind to matter, forms to substance, ideas to things, we can now try to reduce matter to mind, substance to forms, and things to ideas.

In my previous writings, I have tried to show why dualism and materialism fail for different reasons.
This conclusion is, of course, not new.

Literature is littered with critiques of both materialism and dualism.
My contribution to this debate is the idea that the reduction need not proceed from matter to mind (reducing mind to matter); it can as well begin in the mind and proceed to construct matter from it.

I have shown why this approach allows consistency and completeness, unlike dualism or materialism.
Before you confuse this position with Idealism (the notion that the whole world exists in my mind alone), let me just say that the idealist actually does not recognize the existence of a real external world, or at least could not justify it.

The alternative I’m proposing is that there is a world out there, but it is idea-like, not thing-like.
The idea-like world does not have to exist in my mind; after all, ideas can also be objectively real.

In a sense, I’m an ontological monist (because I reject the mind-body dualism), but my monism is neither materialism nor idealism.
My claim is that there are only ideas; even the things that we think are substances or objects are also ideas.

Ideas, however, do not just exist in another world of forms (Plato), descend in the world of substances (Aristotle), or merely cast shadows from which they cannot be truly understood (Socrates), but real entities that make up everything around us.

To paraphrase this in a modern language: the world around us is information–not of the physical variety but of the semantic variety.
Physical information reduces to states of material objects, such that their meaning is still in someone’s mind.

For instance, a musical composition is not meaning by itself although if the listener is acquainted with the musical tonality, she can derive the meanings.
The physical view thus rests upon the mind-body divide: the body is the meaningless sounds and the mind is that which interprets them.

Semantic information, on the other hand, is one in which the meanings are in the object itself.
Whether or not you know the rules of music, the music will have its effects on your body.

In mind-body dualism, there is a world of frequencies which the mind interprets as musical meaning.
In material monism, there is a world of frequencies, and musical meaning is an illusion.

In the inverted reduction, there is musical meaning from which the notes of its expression are created.
That is, the ideas underlying that musical creation are objectively present in that creation; and they will have their effects.

Our cognition of that music only helps us explain that effect; the effect does not depend on the cognition.
If you go to temple, church, synagogue, or monastery, you will naturally feel peaceful and relaxed, whether or not you believe in that religion or understand its viewpoint.

The goodness in a holy place objectively exists in that place and naturally imbues its inhabitants with it, whether or not they make efforts to understand it.
We cannot pinpoint any physical fact that causes that meaning, because the meaning is abstract.

And yet, denial of that meaning would make it impossible to explain what you feel.
We must acknowledge that something good exists although we can’t perceive it.

It has effects that we can perceive, but we can’t attribute them to perceivable causes.

Information and Judgments

The term information derives from the Greek notion of form and is close to the Aristotelian idea of form, where forms were “inside” substances and by their presence in-formed the substances into objects.

But that is not the sense in which I use the term information; my usage does not distinguish between form and substance; rather it means that there is only one kind of entity–information–which is both real (i.e. it exists in space-time like we suppose ideas do) and yet it is not material substance.

The space-time existence of information changes our understanding of matter and space-time itself: like information is hierarchical, material objects too must be hierarchical.
Only some of these objects can be perceived–those which are less abstract than our senses.

Anything more abstract than the senses cannot be perceived, although it exists, and will have effects–even on things that we can perceive.
This new understanding of matter alters our notion of space-time from flat and open to hierarchical and closed.

I have previously discussed how this hierarchical space-time structure addresses problems of incompleteness and inconsistency in all areas of science.
While information is material and it exists, it may not necessarily be true.

The crucial difference between material monism and the informational monism is the relation between existence and truth.
In material monism, if something exists, then that very existence also indicates the truth.

However, in informational monism, we cannot infer truth from existence: a statement can exist, but its existence doesn’t imply (or deny) its truth.
The distinction between existence and truth is collapsed in material monism but that distinction is reinstated in informational monism.

Take, for instance, the images on a TV screen.
The images are real because they exist.

However, their existence does not mean that they are true.
In judging the images on a TV screen, we must ask two kinds of questions:
(a) do those images really exist?, and
(b) given that the images exist, are they really indicative of truth?

In science, there are only objects, and no images.
There is no expectation that the TV is about some facts, which are being represented in the TV.

The planets, galaxies, or objects in this world are not images of something outside those objects.
Therefore, we cannot ask whether the images are true or false; we can only ask if they exist.

In essence, we cannot apply judgments of truth to matter (as described in current science), we can only apply judgments of existence to material objects.
This is clearly a shortcoming, because if we took this belief all the way, then the words on this blog would exist but could not be judged to be true or false.

Therefore, when science speaks about information in the sense that something exists, judgments of truth cannot be applied to objects.
We can say that the world exists, but not whether it is true.

Inverted Reduction and Judgments

The shift to informational monism entails not just a resolution of the problems in dualism and material monism, but also the reinstatement of truth judgments.
For example, the world around us may exist, but it may not be true.

If everyone around you is lying, you cannot suppose that they don’t exist, although you can claim they are not telling the truth.
This shift in the nature of matter entails important revisions to science.

If material objects are not just existents but also have meanings (by which we can judge their truth), then we have a clear problem in measuring both existence and truth.
Clearly, we can see, taste, touch, smell, or hear the existence, but we cannot know the truth by such sensation.

Seeing that a book exists, and knowing that the book is true, are two different judgments; the latter cannot be derived from sensation, and to determine truths, we must now broaden our notions about empiricism.

The Problem of Truth

How do we know the truth of a claim?
This is again a very old and contentious philosophical problem and to summarize it in one sentence, to know the truth of a sentence, you must have already known the truth a priori.

If you begin as a blank slate–i.e. not knowing any truths–then the first thing you encounter can only be assumed to exist, but not be true (after all, this is your very first encounter with the world, and you cannot be expected to know the difference between truths and falsities).

Every subsequent encounter with the world suffers from the same problem.
That is, if you could not know the truth in the first encounter due to the possibility of errors in judgment, then you cannot ever know the truth, because every judgment suffers from errors.

The only resolution out of this quagmire is if you assume that some things are true, and use those assumptions to test the truth of the other facts.
In short, knowledge cannot begin in observations; it must rather begin in the postulates about the nature of reality.

We test our postulates against the facts of the world, but our postulates distort what we see in the world.
Our postulates are the goggles through which we see the world.

They are essential to even see, and yet they may distort the act of seeing itself.
There is a well-known saying that if you only have a hammer, the whole world appears as nails to you.

Similarly, if you believe that the world is comprised of point particles, and you happen to interpret the movement of planets as motion of these point particles, and the predictions of your postulates are confirmed by observation, then you would be led to believe that the world is indeed point particles.

However, this point-particle view may not always work for all phenomena.
You might then postulate that the world is waves, and again you will find your postulates are confirmed by observation in many cases.

As we encounter new phenomena, our toolset is broadened–we now include not just a hammer but also a screwdriver, wrench, etc.
Each of these tools works in some cases but not in others.

Since they are mutually incompatible, you cannot reduce the toolset to a single tool (e.g., the unified theory of everything).
You also don’t a priori know which tool to use for which phenomena.

Therefore, you try different tools and then find which one works better than the others, and then see the world in terms of that tool–e.g., if a wrench is useful in controlling the world, then the world must be nuts and bolts.

So far, your use of tools is exclusive, and you might say that there isn’t a real problem: after all, nothing tells us that we must have a single tool in our toolset.
However, you then run into some scenarios in which you need two or more tools at once–e.g. a hammer and a screwdriver–and the world now appears to be both a nail and a screw.

Since your toolset is already divided, you cannot conceive of a new type of object that simultaneously has grooves (like a screw) and doesn’t have the grooves (like a nail).
In such scenarios, you have to reconcile the opposition between a nail and a screw, and yet any straightforward combination results in a logical contradiction.

You have no choice but to throw away both nail and screw conceptions, and start with a totally new set of tools and ideas.
Unfortunately, this isn’t very easy–if we have grown up using hammers and screwdrivers, it is not easy for us to suddenly invent new tools, and thereby change our view of the world.

And so we continue to use the old tools, in conjunction with probabilities.
We claim that that the world doesn’t truly fit our view, although if we try to forcibly fit it into our view, we will need to use probability.

For instance, we can say that the world is 50% screw and 50% nail.
When you hold a hammer in your hand, the thing becomes a nail, and when you have a screwdriver, it become a screw.

The fact is that the world is neither nails nor screws–these are the modes in which we are trying to comprehend the world–and probabilities represent not an anomaly in the world but in the conceptual apparatus we use to understand the world. If you are using a certain tool, you only expose a part of the reality to observation and manipulation; other parts remain hidden.

The process of truth therefore requires the careful selection of a tool that will expose all the features of reality at once.
If the world is a bolt but you think of it sometimes as a screw and other times as a screw, you are neither completely right, nor completely wrong.

However, as you apply that idea to reality, it will work sometimes and fail at other times.
When the idea appears to work, it is not true, and when it appears to fail, it may not be entirely wrong.

The only way you can know if your conception of reality is true, is if you have exhausted the phenomena against which it can be tested.
This clearly presents serious practical difficulties in confirming the truth of any idea.

Truth, Consistency and Completeness

While truth is the goal of knowledge, consistency and completeness are the tests of knowledge.
Let’s quickly remind ourselves that we are not speaking about existence which we already saw above does not indicate truth.

To know truth, we must postulate (and believe) in some truths, and then use them to confirm or deny the truth of observations.
As this process proceeds, some islands of truths begin to emerge from the sea of existents.

These islands are are centered around some postulates; some observations confirm one set of postulates, while other observations confirm other postulates.
At this point, you can see that these islands are opposite positions on the globe: they are both confirmed by experiment, but they are conceptually and logically inconsistent.

To find the truth, we must resolve the inconsistency amongst the partially successful ideas.
If you observe this process long enough, you will find that it constructs an inverted tree in which the inconsistent ideas are the leaves, the more consistent ideas are branches, even more consistent ideas are trunks, etc.

The process of knowledge involves traveling from the leaves to the root–the singular idea that reconciles all contradictions.
From that singularity you can create diverse ideas and theories, which are, in one sense, mutually contradictory, but in another sense, are derivatives of the singularity.

The journey from the oppositions to consistency requires us to see something “deeper” or more abstract than the oppositions themselves.
If red and blue appear contradictory to you, then “color”–which is something deeper than red and blue–will reconcile that opposition.

If color and form appear different notions to you, then “sight” will reconcile that disparity.
As you proceed from the leaves to the branches, shoots, and trunks, towards the root of the tree, you find a greater and greater degree of conceptual unification.

The root of this tree is consistent (because there is only one root without a second, so contradictions have been preempted), complete (because everything else sprung from that root, and that root can therefore explain the diversification), and true (because all observable facts will only confirm the reality of that root).

While there are practical challenges in traversing the tree–and knowing if we are going towards the root or away from it–it is not hard to see that the process of knowledge can end only if the structure of knowledge is a tree.

If the structure of knowing is a maze, then you can never find its end.
If the structure of knowledge is a loop, then you can never finish knowing.

The only structure in which knowledge ends, is if that knowledge is a tree.

Being and Knowing

Greek philosophy drew a wedge between being–the things that exist in the world and are called material objects–and knowing those beings.
This wedge has been carried forward in different ways since then.

My claim is that this opposition between being and knowing is false; there is a being which is also knowing.
We don’t have to separate being from knowing if the world is information–which exists and which is ideas.

This approach dissolves the mind-body duality, but it also rejects materialism.
Instead of reducing ideas to matter, we now reduce everything to primordial ideas.

The universe did not begin in a material explosion such that upon sufficient complexity creation, after billions of years, we now have ideas.
Rather, the universe begins in ideas which create complex objects through combination.

This approach radically effects all areas of modern science –mathematics, physics, biology, and cosmology.
For instance, numbers are ideas and not properties of collections; if a number is a property of a collection, then objects must exist before we can understand the number; but if the number is an idea, then it can exist even when the objects and their collections do not exist.

To speak about numbers, we must be able to conceive existents that are not material objects.
The key point is therefore that any kind of dualism (and its materialistic rejection) are both false.

There isn’t form and substance–such that the substance exists in this world and the forms in another.
There is only form–and that form exists in this world.

This-worldly forms aren’t necessarily eternal or even true.
But they are forms nevertheless.

The distinction between true and eternal vs. false and temporary forms has to be dealt as a separate issue, rather than putting the forms themselves in another world.
Only when we have rejected both dualism and materialism can we create the possibility of consistency and completeness.

 

[Skarekrow]

So once again I sit at the infusion clinic getting my IV treatment for my arthritis, and once again it brings the issue of our own mortality to the forefront.
That lady across the room from me...the one that looks like a skeleton with skin stretched over it and a wrap on her head will probably not last much longer...she might see Christmas if she is lucky.
But beside these folks are other folks...the ones sitting next to them, that love them...their spouses, children, etc.
They see how precious, fragile, and fleeting this life actually is.
We falsely believe that we have some semblance of control over our destiny - we don't.
I think that will always be an ongoing lesson for us all...you can only do your best and the rest is out of your hands.
We need to learn to let go of our precieved sense of control in our lives...yes, we have free will to chose how we react to those situations that arise - and I think there is great truth in that.
How we live in spite of the challenges of life not only define you, but they set you on a more authentic path.
Love to you all.

 

[Kgal]

So once again I sit at the infusion clinic getting my IV treatment for my arthritis, and once again it brings the issue of our own mortality to the forefront.
That lady across the room from me...the one that looks like a skeleton with skin stretched over it and a wrap on her head will probably not last much longer...she might see Christmas if she is lucky.
But beside these folks are other folks...the ones sitting next to them, that love them...their spouses, children, etc.
They see how precious, fragile, and fleeting this life actually is.
We falsely believe that we have some semblance of control over our destiny - we don't.
I think that will always be an ongoing lesson for us all...you can only do your best and the rest is out of your hands.
We need to learn to let go of our preconceived sense of control in our lives...yes, we have free will to chose how we react to those situations that arise - and I think there is great truth in that.
How we live in spite of the challenges of life not only define you, but they set you on a more authentic path.
Love to you all.

Yes. I agree wholeheartedly with you.

...and you are greatly loved....

 

[PintoBean]

Yasss! Because the alternative are things like cool things your smartphone can do, stuff you can buy at Ikea, stuff you bought elsewhere etc etc.