Earliest Examples of the Mandela Effect

 

There’s a common assumption in our modern western world that there is one shared reality, that can be factually verified through time and by people all around the world. This assumption may seem so obvious to be not worth mentioning–except that it’s quite possible that it’s untrue.

One of the things I’ve been tracking over the past 17 years by collecting first-hand field reports of reality shifts and alternate histories, is that just as we would likely all agree that there are many possible futures each of us might encounter, there are apparently also many possible pasts. Recent news reports of newly popularized memes such as the so-called “Mandela Effect” reported by Fiona Broome in 2010 and the “Berenstein Bears” reported by a blogger named Reece in 2012 are but two indicators that the public is becoming aware that history doesn’t always remain the same.

Throughout all of recorded western history, any time that people heard of someone having died, only to later find out they were actually still alive, we tended to consider it something akin to simple mistaken identity, such as American author Mark Twain once reported when writing in 1897 in a note to Frank Marshall White, “the report of my death was an exaggeration.” Most people interpreted discussions about someone supposedly having died and later recognized as alive as some kind of confusion, or mistake. Yet according to my research and surveys as reported in my book, Quantum Jumps, 27% out of 567 survey respondents reported that yes, they have “seen dead people and animals alive again.” If so many people are now reporting they’ve experienced this, what are the earliest documented cases of this phenomenon?

 

Earliest Reported “Mandela Effect” Cases

First most-reported “Mandela Effect” (aka “alive again”) celebrity, Bob Keeshan as “Captain Kangaroo”

In a small sample size survey conducted in 2005, I reported that nine celebrities at that time were noted for having been reported dead by reputable sources, only to subsequently be reported very much alive again. In a note we might find interesting now, but that didn’t seem surprising at the time, nobody in the summer of 2005 mentioned Nelson Mandela.

Back in July 2005, the celebrity heading up the “Alive Again” list was Bob Keeshan, an American actor who played a TV character known as Captain Kangaroo. A whopping 26% of those surveyed at that time recalled that Bob Keeshan had died before 2004, and then died again in January 2004. The next most-often remembered “alive again” (aka “Mandela Effect”) celebrities back in 2005 included: Jane Goodall (15%), Larry Hagman (15%), Bob Hope (10%), Jack Palance (10%), Bea Arthur (5%), Ed Asner (5%), Walter Cronkite (5%), and Mariel Hemingway (5%).

 

Where was Nelson Mandela back in 2005?

We might well ask, “Why didn’t anyone mention Nelson Mandela being alive again back in 2005 when that first survey was conducted?” which is an excellent question. At that point in time in 2005, neither I nor anyone I surveyed made a point to mention remembering what many of us would later recall–that Nelson Mandela had died many years earlier than his currently recorded official date of death of December 5, 2013. Fiona Broome’s first mention of the Mandela Effect was still five years in the future, and he was not yet on anyone’s radar–including those who were starting to talk about the “Alive Again” phenomenon.

You might think perhaps Nelson Mandela was “lying low” while alive back in 2005, and not making major media appearances–yet according to current history, we find Mandela got huge media coverage in February 2005 when he came out of retirement from public life to give a speech in Trafalgar Square to 20,000 people. Mandela called for action to end ‘unnatural poverty’ in a speech covered by BBC News as well as most all of the major news networks. This is a speech I have no recollection of, as one might expect from someone like me who’d thought up until a few years ago that Nelson Mandela had died decades earlier. So while our current history shows that Mandela remained politically active and publicly visible off and on over the past decades, I’ve been unaware of all these activities unless I look them up and read about them and watch them now–which for me is for the first time.

 

The Case of the Missing Bolton Dinosaur

During this same time period when I was conducting the first surveys about the earliest reported incidences of the Mandela Effect, a town in the United Kingdom noticed it seemed to be missing a dinosaur. A full-scale model of a dinosaur was an oft-mentioned favorite memory from the 1960s for many visitors to the Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, as a January 2006 article in The Bolton News describes–yet as of 2006, there was no longer any official record that any such dinosaur existed. This was a matter of importance to the community, since restoring the old exhibit would have saved the museum the time, effort and energy required to obtain a new dinosaur exhibit in 2000. Alan Rushton, leader of the Conservative group on Bolton Council, said: “One of our dinosaurs is definitely missing! Am I supposed to accept that my eyes deceived me, or this enormous dinosaur was a figment of my imagination? I remember as a schoolboy going on visits to the museum and standing in awe, looking at it. I raised the matter when I was on the arts committee but we were never able to find any trace of it.”

And Anne Wright, also remembered the seeing the dinosaur when visiting the museum, commenting,  “I remember a huge dinosaur standing in the entrance to the natural history section. One day I went in and it was no longer there. Later on, when I asked about it, none of the staff could remember anything about it, but I know I saw it. Now nobody seems to know anything about–it’s bizarre.”

About half of those responding to the Bolton News story remembered the dinosaur that now has no official historical record of ever having existed at the museum, and the other half don’t remember any such thing.

 

What’s Going On?

What I’ve been documenting since 1999 are first-hand reports from people noticing changes in reality all around the world. What I’ve noticed over the years is that these reports of people and things appearing, disappearing, transforming and transporting are the very types of phenomena we’d expect to see on the quantum / microscopic scale of the very, very small–yet they’re happening on a grand scale. People are noticing items such as their socks and keys moving around as if by themselves. People are noticing they remember events differently than siblings and friends. And sometimes people notice they’re disagreeing about what happened moments earlier.

These realizations come forth at the very point in time that humanity enters the new Quantum Age, in which most every field in science now has the word “quantum” in front, including: Quantum Biology, Quantum Cognition, Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Statistics. While quantum logic and phenomena has long been shunted aside as irrelevant (aside from creating nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons), we’re now at the beginning of the “quantum invasion,” as inventors, engineers and scientists strive to be first to build quantum computers.

Amidst this new gold rush of our times, scientists are finding that people such as Quantum Biologist Johnjoe McFadden and Quantum Cognitive Scientist Jerome Busemeyer who I’ve featured on my radio show, Living the Quantum Dream, are leading the way in demonstrating how quantum phenomena are occurring all around us in Nature in our everyday lives.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that as we seek a “theory of everything” unifying the classical and quantum realms, it seems to be finding us. And many of the seemingly bizarre properties of quantum physics appear to be everywhere around and inside us, including occasionally making surprise appearances where we least expect them.

 

How to Record Alternate History Reports

Since people reading about alternate histories and the Mandela Effect often begin to experience increased incidences of shifts in reality, keeping records of what’s observed becomes important. Questions about alternate histories need to include descriptions of several points in time, that include three points in space and time. Such a journal entry would be recorded to include how, “Today, on date and time Z we are recording that at at date and time Y we became aware that apparently some kind of change had occurred at date and time X involving ____________ being different in these ways __________________.”

 

This article will have a short video summary:

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, the BBC, One World with Deepak Chopra, and her radio show, Living the Quantum Dream. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

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Overcoming Artificial Boundaries

 

Enjoying lunch with friends in San Francisco the other day, our conversation turned to the way people so often decide on some arbitrary line of demarcation that acts as a boundary we then choose to respect. We thus end up with geographic boundaries for our cities, counties, states, and nations. We have boundaries for races, genders, ages, politics, and religions. We set boundaries for what kind of news and scientific reporting we consider legitimate. These boundaries seem quite real to us when we’re closely involved in whatever is being divided up–but as soon as we get some distance between ourselves and whatever is being divided up, we can find ourselves hard pressed to explain why any particular dividing line was so essential.

While these lines may seem benign, they can contribute to serious problems. One of my friends explained how she’d conducted a search for an African American computer engineer employee a few years ago. She’d thought finding a black programmer would be fairly straightforward, and was surprised to discover that was not the case. When she finally found and hired a young black man, she asked him why he thought there were so few blacks involved in Information Technology. He replied that African Americans, “just don’t have the required skills.” While this young man clearly believed this to be true, my friends and I were aghast at how such a thing could be. Even if young African Americans are not provided with requisite skills to be accepted to college computer science programs—what belief system is contributing to this situation? At some point there must be an artificial line of demarcation—some point where those fit to learn computer programming skills may proceed onward and upward, and all considered to be “unfit” may not.

Why do we feel such a burning need to draw these boundaries—these artificial lines of demarcation? One of my friends pointed out that we could, as John Lennon invites us to do in the lyrics in his song, Imagine, simply choose to walk through those imaginary boundaries–yet the reason most people don’t do just that has to do with a fear of losing control. He summed it up as,

“We set boundaries because of a need for control.” 

All of this was on my mind when I received an email from a thoughtful reader, who wrote:

While QM itself gives many observable examples of the fluidity and variability of our realities what is being developed as quantum computing does not. That’s because it has been developed in a “put new wine in old bottles” fashion. It uses binary as base. So in classical computing a bit can be in one of two states 0 OR 1. A qubit can be in one of three states 0 OR 1 OR (0 and 1) – the state of superposition. Of course computers have to be practical so such an approach, limited though it may be, makes sense.

It’s like the cat in the box. The example was given using only alive and dead. But in actuality a superposition can be and usually is more (alive|dead|male|female|tabby|calico|etc) Superposition is the confluence of two or more seemingly discrete states. But our thinking at the moment is strongly binary. Hence our creation of digital as being the foundation for our current approach to computing.

Illustration from the book, Quantum Jumps

I replied to this email message stating that I agreed with the point about there being a bias toward viewing the world with a bias toward binary / classical operations. I love the example of Schrodinger’s cat not simply being alive or dead (which is essentially a throwback to binary either/or classical thinking), but rather “alive, sickly, pregnant, old, young, dead, etc.” And the way that quantum logic was initially described contains classical binary bias, with the “von Neumann cut” being the imaginary line by which one supposedly can determine whether to employ Classical or Quantum physics equations.

But what if this arbitrary line of demarcation is just as artificial and man-made as all of our other artificially constructed boundary lines? What if the scientists seeking a Theory of Everything (TOE) one day prove that all of the physical world is ruled by quantum physics laws and equations, and classical physics is just a limited, special case? As far out as that may seem, a growing number of scientists are writing research papers and proposing theories stating just that.

Classical logic is a special case (subset) of quantum logic. Illustration from Cynthia Sue Larson’s paper, Primacy of Quantum Logic in the Natural World.

I published a paper, Primacy of Quantum Logic in the Natural World, pointing out something similar to what the person who emailed me is saying–that we need true quantum logic, and not warmed-over classical Boolean logic approaches that won’t ever get to the heart of the essence of true quantum logic and phenomena. As I explain in my paper, quantum logic and phenomena appears to be the larger set within which classical physics and logics resides, and not the other way around. It is thus incumbent on us to pay better attention to the natural world in order to learn to recognize the natural order of quantum logic all around us, including occasional evidence of reality shifts and quantum jumps demonstrating Evidence of Macroscopic Quantum Phenomena.

Quantum computing represents the beginning of a truly new form of technology, thus indicating that we’re now entering the Quantum Age. The aspect of quantum computers I find of secondary interest is that in order to build quantum computers, we require quantum phenomena occurring on a macroscopic scale, as well as a true understanding of quantum logic. Thanks to the work of researchers in the fields of quantum biology, quantum cognition, and quantum cosmology–such as Johnjoe McFadden, Jerome Busemeyer, and Yasunori Nomura who I’ve interviewed in my blog and my Living the Quantum Dream radio show–we can now start to recognize that Nature is already utilizing quantum logic, and Nature already shows evidence of quantum phenomena occurring on a macroscopic scale. The photosynthesis of plants has been proven to be a quantum process happening in a warm, wet, “noisy” biological environment where such things “weren’t supposed to happen,” yet clearly they are.

And fortunately for us, it increasingly seems more and more clear that rather than living in a binary, limited, boundary-constricted world—the natural world is likely much more unrestricted, open, and quantum in every way.

Here is a short video summary of some of the points in this article, filmed on location in San Francisco where I met my friends for lunch:

 

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, the BBC, One World with Deepak Chopra, and her radio show, Living the Quantum Dream. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

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Conversations with Edgar Dean Mitchell

 

Cynthia Sue Larson and Dr. Edgar Mitchell at an IONS event in February 2010

One of my first and most influential mentors as an author and consciousness researcher has been Edgar Dean Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), and author of Psychic Exploration and The Way of the Explorer.

I felt blessed to be able to see Dr. Mitchell in person at an IONS event in California in February 2010, where he was the guest of honor. I loved chatting with Edgar that chilly evening at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland about the remarkable speed of technological advances over the past hundred years. He told me how amazing it is that his grandfather had crossed the United States of America in a covered wagon, his father was born soon after the Wright brothers made their historic first flight, and then Edgar walked on the moon and made it safely back home to Earth on Apollo 14. This was even more amazing, because Edgar’s Apollo 14 mission immediately followed the nerve-wrackingly problematic Apollo 13.

I first got to know Dr. Mitchell via email correspondence that began sixteen years ago, in March 2000. When we first began our correspondence, we commiserated about the challenges of the publishing world, and shared our ideas regarding the connection between consciousness and the physical world. Dr. Mitchell provided me with his honest assessment of my manuscripts, and helped me envision a positive future for humanity on our beautiful blue-green planet, Earth.

“We went to the moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.” 

I was moved by the way that Dr. Mitchell had a positive vision for humanity that he shared through his commitment to creating an organization dedicated to exploring consciousness, at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He frequently referred to the epiphany he’d had while in space, returning in his Apollo capsule to the Earth from the moon, as he looked up in the sky to see a full Earth. He describes in The Way of the Explorer that at that moment he felt, “I am one of a growing handful of human beings to have seen the Earth from the point of view of an extraterrestrial. In the heavens there is no up and down, no east or west. Earth is but a beautiful blue speck in the midst of a vast emptiness marked by luminous celestial bodies. We inhabit but one of those celestial bodies; one of the most organized-for all we know.From the heavens, in 1971, the Earth looked peaceful and harmonious, but of course all was not as it appeared. Conflict that threatened our very survival lay below. Weapons were poised, ready to annihilate life as we knew it at a moment’s notice; environmental crises were lurking just beyond public awareness. The common root of these mushrooming dilemmas, I believe, has been conflicting, out-dated, flawed ideology and dogma, with roots in antiquity.”

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On the Difference Between the Map and the Territory

While Dr. Mitchell and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye, we certainly shared a mutual love for exploring the nature of consciousness. We both had witnessed experiences of mind-matter interaction which we wrote books about, and Dr. Mitchell on occasion would remind me of the importance of always remembering that the map is not the territory. He describes what he means by that in The Way of the Explorer, where he says, “This leads to the point that our beliefs are our map of reality. We do not perceive reality directly, but only the information our senses present to the brain at any given moment, which is then compared with the existing remembered experiences to obtain meaning. Because this map is the only reality we humans know, we often make the mistake of thinking that our map is reality itself, when in fact it is just an incomplete portrait painted from memory.”

Dr. Mitchell viewed psychokinetic mind-matter effects to be a way of managing patterns of energy that we would consider to be information, and he considered epiphanies–such as the one he had in space, and the sort of experience that can transform skeptics and “non-believers” to suddenly become concerned with spirituality and the nature of consciousness–to be “an abrupt organization, or reorganization, of information in a way that produces new insight at the level of conscious awareness.”

Edgar and I shared a common view of the role of beliefs for humankind. He writes in The Way of the Explorer, “This leads to the point that our beliefs are our map of reality. We do not perceive reality directly, but only the information our senses present to the brain at any given moment, which is then compared with the existing remembered experiences to obtain meaning. Because this map is the only reality we humans know, we often make the mistake of thinking that our map is reality itself, when in fact it is just an incomplete portrait painted from memory.”

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On Consciousness and Healing

Within a couple of years after I got to know Edgar, he informed me that after receiving a medical diagnosis that he had cancer, he’d opted to go the natural/alternative healing route rather than standard “slash or burn.”  Edgar told me that the IONS board had surprised him in March 2002 with an offer to do a shamanic style healing ceremony for him, which he agreed to. He wrote to me, “I had been on the giving and observing end of such efforts many dozens of times, but never the recipient. What a wonderful experience. We did do some shape shifting!! Subsequent high definition ultra sound sonogram showed the malignancy was gone. I trust that by some diet and life style change, meditation and such wonderfully good thoughts from folk like you that we can keep it that way. Thank you again for your kindness, love and caring.”

I was immensely grateful to hear this good news that one of my heroes and mentors was able to walk his talk and experience for himself the healing power of positive shared intentions, energy, and consciousness.

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On the Matter of UFO Disclosure

Dr. Mitchell grew up within 40 miles of Roswell, New Mexico, in a small town where the old-timers talked about what they’d observed. Though Edgar never mentioned to me any direct experience that he’d had with UFOs or extra-terrestrials, he did tell me that with regard to the matter of UFO disclosure, “Press has called me on couple of points, to which I have responded, but I >do concur this subject should be opened up and obfuscation stopped.”

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On Consciousness & Reality

Dr. Mitchell was a marvelous mentor for me, through his creation of IONS, his excellent writing, and his willingness to converse with me about his thoughts on the topics of consciousness and reality. He was a proponent for quantum holography being the basis for consciousness and mind-matter effects. Here are a few highlights excerpted from my emails with Dr. Mitchell in which we share our thoughts about consciousness and quantum physics:

 

Edgar Mitchell (1 April 2000): The Bohmian approach that Sarfatti uses and calls post quantum mechanics has a lot of merit, but consciousness events only reach maturity in the complexities of group theory and Lie group algebras with macroscale objects, not theories of individual particle (although the phenomenon must find its antecedents at the particle levels).

The fact that “information” is now finding its rightful place in physics, on a par with energy, as I suggested in “Explorer”, is being anchored by the quantum hologram research which is an information mechanism that allows one to say that the quantum hologram is the wave side of the wave particle duality for macro scale objects–it is non local, geodesic form (3 dimensions) that carries the event history of the macro scale object in its phase relationships, and remains in phase conjugate adaptive resonance not only with its associated object but can be perceived nonlocally by other sensing objects that can create the phase resonance relationships.

If we begin to understand that “information” in form of the quantum hologram is nature’s answer to quantum nonlocality in the macroscale world, then we are getting close to why we have subjective experiences. Nonlocality is the key that no one really understands well,– yet. All these weird “realities” you are discussing have a nonlocal component.

 

Cynthia Sue Larson (4 April 2000): 

I just finished reading your excellent article titled, “Nature’s Mind: the Quantum Hologram.” This article is the most coherent and convincing case I’ve yet seen for the quantum holographic model, and one of the best papers I’ve ever read on the subject of consciousness. Your paper seems to effortlessly weave together current threads of thought from recent research, making for very easy reading. I am quite impressed with it, and very thankful to you for sharing it with me!

I am also pleased to see that you included reality shifts in your paper as the “more puzzling” case for creating remote physical effects in inanimate objects (and I presume you’d also acknowledge for animate beings as well). While we may not yet understand the
energy transfer mechanism for these shifts in macro reality, I am hoping that a better understanding of clusters of entangled quantum particles… and also a better understanding of string theory, with it’s many “curled” dimensions… will soon provide us with a better idea of what this mechanism might be.

I am feeling the greatest sense of optimism about the physics experiments being conducted to show how entangled pairs and clusters of quantum particles move simultaneously across great distances of space. Perhaps we’ll soon see that there are similar connections across time. The beauty of the quantum holographic model is that it provides us with a very clear visual analogy for how these unseen forces may be operating around us.

I also am very curious to know how we might expect reality to behave when we begin with the assumption that there are ten dimensions around us… most of which are tightly curled and for the most part, invisible to our normal senses. An uncurling of curled dimensions simultaneously in two locations may be at the heart of the mysterious mechanism behind reality shifts.

I also greatly enjoyed your shorter article, titled “Space Flight as an Anticipatory Computing System”. This article was wonderful, because of the powerful human interest component. It’s always a sheer delight to read about your experiences with the Apollo missions!

 

Edgar Mitchell (4 April 2000): 

Cynthia, thanks for the nice comments. You are right, there is still a lot of mystery going on at that level. But let me give you my slant on it.

1) the inanimate object case is even more tricky than the living systems case. Why?, Because it is easier to imagine (picture) resonance between two living objects, than between vastly dissimilar objects–humans and rocks, for example. With humans, for example, if resonance is established, information may automatically be transferred without significant energy exchange, and the energy of the recipient is used for healing (for example)–just like in the case of a musical sound causing a glass to break at a distance—–it is not the energy transfer that is important, but rather the frequency that causes the glass to resonate faster than the chemical bonding of the glass can tolerate.

So thought can create a resonance at a distance so that information is available. However, physically, displacing an macro object in 3 D space seems, (at first glance) a little more difficult because we are accustomed to thinking that it requires energy to move things around.

However, particle nonlocality, between similar particles, is also just resonance–but they are similar particles and it doesn’t matter which one is A or B, they are each equally causal and entangled with the other. How that same principle applies to objects of dissimilar scale size is still a bit murky.

Perhaps you are right that multidimensional strings may provide some answers. I will state strongly that I am not convinced about that, as I think multidimensional concepts, while exceedingly brilliant mathematics, elegant and satisfying, can’t really be validated. Even Einstein’s curvature of space is really more easily explained by a non-isotropic, non- homogeneous Zero Point Field. At least at the macro level, there is nothing to curve. I believe we are still in large measure confusing the map with the territory in physics. But you are completely correct, nonlocality, resonance and entanglements are clearly the subjects for the next few years of study.

 

Cynthia Sue Larson (7 April 2000): 

Thank you also for sharing your perspective on difference between inanimate and living systems reality shifts. I certainly feel much more affinity for people and animals and plants I love than for inanimate things, and the reality shifts I’ve managed to “perform” have so far been confined to this realm of those I love who are alive. On the other hand, I know of people who routinely shift reality with inanimate objects (such as spoons), so I’m still investigating both kinds of reality shifting.

I definitely agree with your sense that it’s important to not confuse the map with the territory being explored! That’s a great analogy, and so true. Very often it’s hard to notice when our own beliefs and assumptions are interfering with perceiving reality as it truly exists. The very words, ideas, and metaphors we use for comprehending the world can hamper our complete understanding by unnecessarily limiting our world view.

I’m intrigued by your sense that we may find it difficult to experimentally validate string theory. I’m feeling optimistic about that right now, since I’ve heard that there are currently a few possible ways that such experiments could be conducted. One idea, proposed by Giovanni Amelino-Camelia of the University of Oxford and the Institute of Physics in Neuchatel Switzerland, suggests that gamma-ray bursts can be used to check whether the speed of light in a vacuum depends on its wavelength. Special relativity theory states that light has the same speed in a vacuum regardless of wavelength… so if wavelength-dependent speed of light is observed, we would be witnessing a level of physical law more fundamental than relativity.

A second way to experimentally validate string theory would be to detect minute variations in gravity. We’d look for a time difference in the range of 10 microseconds for gamma rays that have traveled for some 10 billion years… which our current instruments may be able to detect.

Yet another way that string theory may be able to be proven is if we can use the Large Hadron Colliders at CERN to make strings… taking advantage of the lower unification scales which would be expected from the ten dimensions, since the new dimensions could lower both the Grand Unification scale (as shown recently by Keith R. Dienes, Emilian Dudas and Tony Gherghetta of CERN) and the Planck scale (according to Arkani-Hamed, Savas Dimopoulos of Stanford University and Gia Dvali of the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste).

Perhaps these ideas for testing string theory won’t work out, but the fact that there are so many experiments being considered is quite heartening to me!

 

Edgar Mitchell (7 April 2000): 

I need to correct my self. I agree with what you said about the experiments to validate string theory through speed differential of different light wave lengths, etc. I do agree that strings may be the form of basic matter. I am only objecting to the “interpretation” of the mathematics as multiple physical dimensions, just as I object to the Copenhagen and Many worlds “interpretations” of the equations of classical quantum theory; and just as I (now) agree with Halton Arp is his dissent from the Big Bang interpretation of red shift as being the sole reason that we observe red shift.

Mathematics and certain basic theories can be and must be validated by experiments as “fact”. However, interpretation of what it all “means” usually is a map masquerading as a territory. And unfortunately, that happens continuously, and is communicated to the less knowledgable public which does not have the means to understand the errors.

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At the time of Edgar’s death, we had just been planning for him soon to be a guest on my radio show, Living the Quantum Dream. I miss Edgar Mitchell tremendously, though I am grateful that his legacy of thoughts, ideas, and community of consciousness researchers lives on. Thanks to Edgar’s foresight in recognizing a continuing need to explore not just the far reaches of space–but also the far reaches of mind–our world is an immeasurably better place for having had him in it.

 

 

 

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, the BBC and One World with Deepak Chopra. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

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Nonduality and Acceptance with Joan Tollifson

Joan Tollifson

Joan wrote about her experience having been born in the 1940s and growing up with only one hand in her book, Bare-Bones Meditation, Waking Up from the Story of My Life.

Many years later, Joan discovered that her missing hand was a kind of gift–in that she was given a kind of ticket to “the secret rooms of people’s hearts where something is always missing or misshapen.”  In childhood, Joan realized that she stood out with a disability that nobody was supposed to point out or talk about. Tollifson advocates a stripped-down meditation practice that is not dependent on any program, method, techniques, or specific practices. Joan writes,

“Meditation is seeing the nature of thought, how thought constantly creates images about ourselves and others, how we impose a conceptual grid on reality and then mistake the map for the territory itself. Most of the time we aren’t even aware that thought is taking place. Meditation is realizing, on ever more subtle levels, that it is. When conceptualization is seen for the imaginary abstraction that it is, something changes.” 

I especially relate to this definition of meditation, as well as Joan’s subsequent observations that meditation is listening–really, really deep listening. There can be strength in accepting who one is, even (perhaps especially) when it’s not socially popular, such as being a disabled lesbian in the 1960s.

I can’t be helped but be touched by Joan’s life journey, filled with learning to face challenges with courageous dedication and commitment. I am deeply touched by the integrity and spirit it took for Joan to break through habitual thinking and truly walk her talk of becoming self-knowing and self-aware. It’s easy for most of us to become lulled back into complacency, resting on laurels of past spiritual accomplishment. It’s inspiring to see how for some people like Joan, fitting in simply is not an option–and meditative practice more than just something nice to do. It can be genuinely life-saving.

 

What Joan Tollifson Knows for Sure

I was pleased and honored to meet Joan Tollifson at the Science and Nonduality conference in San Jose, California. Joan gave a talk about “Being just this moment,” featuring aspects of her “bare bones” variety of Buddhism. It seemed fitting to meet with her in the gardens at the Dolce Hayes mansion, where we were surrounded by trees, flowers, and the occasional hummingbird. I was honored to ask Joan what she feels she knows for sure that most people aren’t aware of, that could greatly benefit the world. You can see her response to my question in this YouTube video.

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and hosts Living the Quantum Dream on the DreamVisions7 radio network. She discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, the BBC and One World with Deepak Chopra. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

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Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Stanley Krippner

Dr. Stanley Krippner with Cynthia Sue Larson

I recently had the pleasure to chat with Dr. Stanley Krippner about quantum logic, consciousness, and dreams. Dr. Krippner is a professor of psychology at Saybrook University, and author, editor, and co-author of numerous books including:  “The Voice of Rolling Thunder,” “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” and many others.

I first met Stanley Krippner about ten years ago at the International Conference on the Study of Shamanism and Alternative Modes of Healing, where we’ve both given presentations. I’ve long been deeply impressed with the insights Stanley shares, such as I reported in the September 2005 issue of RealityShifters, in which I mentioned some fascinating aspects of his work:

 Stanley Krippner presented a thought-provoking paper at this year’s shamanism conference that summarized research findings between the differences in the dreams of schizophrenics and non-schizophrenics. Imagery in schizophrenic dreams is quite different than imagery in shamanic dreams and visions; schizophrenic dreams are more apathetic, banal, and low-energy with few clear settings or distinct outcomes. I am intrigued to note that one of the biggest differences between shamanic and schizophrenic dreams appears to be that of lucidity… that what the shaman knows for sure is something the schizophrenic has not noticed. The shaman maintains a constant sense of awareness and focus that brings greater meaning to peoples’ lives.
http://www.realityshifters.com/pages/archives/sep05.html
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CYNTHIA: Thanks so much for meeting to talk with me today! I’d love to know your thoughts about the connection between quantum physics, consciousness, and dreams.

STANLEY: Montague Ullman was doing just what you’re telling me—applying quantum physics to dreaming. Especially to psychic dreaming. And he was working on that before he died. I’ve not seen the manuscript of his incomplete book, but you can get some information from an interview he did with Mark Schroll.

CYNTHIA:  Wonderful!

STANLEY: Now in the sense that I see it, it’s especially true of precognitive dreams—dreams about the future, because there will be several possible futures that the dreamer could dream about. And the psychic dreamer knows which one to dream about, so this is where the observational effect comes in. And this is why some people are able to do this and some people aren’t. Some people have the talent to unconsciously select the possible future that indeed comes true. And I wrote an article about the probable future years ago, before I knew anything about quantum physics. But in that article, I pointed out how so many dreams about the future are pliable. In other words, once the dreamer knows about what might takes place, the dreamer can make a change to prevent something disastrous from happening.

CYNTHIA: So you’re saying this happens frequently.

STANLEY: This happens frequently, yes. There’s been a study on this, years ago, by Louisa Rhine. If I remember the statistics, whenever there was a portending disaster, the dreamer was able to prevent the disaster in about three out of four occasions, which was a lot. And there was another evidence indicating that the disaster might happen, to know that this was something that was not just being made up.

CYNTHIA: Right. That would be the challenging thing, to know if it didn’t happen, would it have happened, of course.

STANLEY: One case I do remember was a woman who had a dream about a light fixture falling on her baby’s crib, killing the baby at exactly two o’clock in the morning. So she woke up and took the baby into the bed with her and husband. He was very dismissive, saying, “Oh, it’s just a dream. You were worried—you’re concerned.” But later that night, at two o’clock in the morning, this light fixture did fall into the baby’s crib.

CYNTHIA: Wow. And that’s something they would hear, and it would wake them up if they were asleep.

STANLEY: Yes, if they were telling the truth about this account, there you have an example of where the likely future had changed by human volition. 

CYNTHIA: Right.

STANLEY: Now, your feeling that dreams show us the real nature of reality is something that’s shared by many indigenous groups around the world.

CYNTHIA: Yes. What I’m suspecting is that’s the best way to look at the quantum paradigm that we’re trying to understand. I think that one of the best ways to look at it is as if everything really is a dream, basically. As you know, we can’t even agree on what consciousness is to begin with. But I’m expecting that we’re making progress.

STANLEY: Consciousness is anything you define it as. I tell people instead of waiting, just take any definition that you like, and use that, and run with it! So I don’t think the issue is that we don’t know what consciousness is. The issue is we don’t have a consensus on what consciousness is. Far from it.

CYNTHIA: We recognize it when we see it, but we don’t know how to explain it or describe it fully, so that everyone agrees.

STANLEY: That’s the so-called “hard problem,” which many people don’t think exists.

CYNTHIA: How about yourself?

STANLEY: Oh, yes! I’m working with a team of people who are interested in doing a documentary on the hard problem. Are you familiar with the new movie, The Imitation Game?

CYNTHIA: Yes.

STANLEY: Did you know that the protagonist had written about telepathy?

CYNTHIA: No. Wow! In real life?

STANLEY: In real life. It was Henry Stapp who picked up on that essay, and carried it a step further, in a classic article which came out in about 1972. So you might ask Henry for the article that builds on Turing’s notion of telepathy. It came out in a journal called Mind, as I recall. I have a copy of it. And it’s I think still very timely. Henry was so far ahead of his time.

CYNTHIA: Wow! So Henry Stapp wrote an article and published it…

STANLEY: Yes, based on Turing’s original article. Turing was saying, well, if telepathy exists, then it would proceed this way and that way. And so then what Henry did was to take that and show, yes, this is how it would proceed. And he was able to fill in the gap that Turing had no way of knowing about.

CYNTHIA: That’s quite useful! I appreciate the way that Henry Stapp looks at the Von Neumann cut, focusing attention on finding the place where consciousness occurs. I think of it as levels of consciousness, actually. So I agree with that. But at the same time, I’m also quite interested in the multiverse concepts and ideas, because they match the feeling of how it feels when you jump into another world.

STANLEY: They do, yes.

CYNTHIA: And you can jump in, and jump out. You can see things go back and forth, which is quite interesting to me. That’s why I want to talk to people who have experienced them, rather than people who say that you can’t do it. I’d rather trade notes with other people who’ve been there, on the SS Quantum Beagle, as we observe things from the deck, and share our notes. And then when it comes to levels of consciousness, I find that’s where some of the most interesting phenomena occurs, when you meditate a lot. I do martial arts, and I meditate a lot.

STANLEY: Keep doing both!

CYNTHIA: I think it helps. When you do martial arts, you’re honing your entire system and your ability to focus attention. I can move my consciousness and sort of expand it out. Like when I first met Eva Herr at the Portland airport and without any tips from her walked away from her to pick up her unmarked suitcase that she had not told me anything about, I was what you might call entangled with or coherent with the entire system of me and Eva Herr—and it felt very much like a dream. What it felt like to me was, “Now it’s time to go–wave at Eva. Now go this way. Now walk that way. Pick up that bag that is just now dropping onto the baggage claim carousel at the same moment you arrive. Now look at Eva and gesture to this bag to make sure it is hers.” It was her bag, and her jaw just about hit the floor, as she’d been on her cell phone that whole time, and had not given me any information about her luggage, nor was it tagged. It just felt like I was ‘in the zone’–like what athletes experience. So it wasn’t so much precognition so much as, “Here we go! This is what we’re doing.” I think a lot of people do this, and they don’t know that they’re doing it. It goes unrecognized quite a lot. And when we expand our consciousness, then you can have an effect on things like the weather, I believe. On a lot of things. A lot more than people recognize, even.

STANLEY: Two years ago I came out with the book about Rolling Thunder, the native American medicine man. I did it with his grandson, who’s also interested in quantum physics, and there are several documented instances where Rolling Thunder seemed to have an effect on the weather.

CYNTHIA: Yes, exactly! That sounds like a great book! I’ve also experienced other changes. Just on the flight to New York, we hit turbulence. The plane was just “bah-duh-duh-duh-duh” So I spread my consciousness to the plane, and the weather, and everything became all smooth. Smooth! Then my friend next to me started talking to me, and I turned and I looked at her, and it went back to “bah-duh-duh-duh-duh,” so I said, “Excuse me—I need to meditate.”

STANLEY: Really! I’m going to have to try that when I’m on a turbulent flight.

CYNTHIA: I think we often think we are the bodies that we’re in; we’re not the bodies that we’re in.

STANLEY: This is another native American concept—the concept of the “long body.” The body does not end with our skin—it extends into time, into space, and into other people.

CYNTHIA: Yes!

STANLEY: William Roll wrote a whole series of articles about the long body.

CYNTHIA: That’s what I would call levels of consciousness; you can expand it, you can bring it in, you can direct it.

STANLEY: Now getting back to dreams, have you read Fred Alan Wolf’s book about dreams?

CYNTHIA: Yes, it’s quite excellent.

STANLEY: Yes, I like his book about “The Dreaming Universe,” very much.

CYNTHIA: It’s one of my favorites!

STANLEY: I have an article coming out in a European newsletter, “Transpersonal Transformative Experiences,” and I have a whole series of examples past and present TTEs.

CYNTHIA: That sounds excellent.

STANLEY: There are two types of Transpersonal Transformative Experiences. One is the spiritual, and one is the secular. In both of them, they’re transpersonal, because the person goes beyond their usual self identity. And in spiritual experiences, it’s (vertical). They go up to the upper world, and go down to the lower world, and they encounter entities or beings or energies or forces that are not part of their customary world or identity. Whereas in the secular experience, that’s horizontal. People go to Nature. They become involved with other people in a group movement. And again, they transcend their ordinary identity in sort of a group consciousness or a version of their consciousness with Nature, and that’s all observable entities and observable objects, which is why it’s horizontal. But either one can transform a person.

CYNTHIA: Yes, they can.

STANLEY: I’m going to do another version of that on the east coast. I just signed the agreement today, for the Academy of Spirituality and Consciousness Research. You should look at their website—very interesting group. And that’s happening right after the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

CYNTHIA: I’d love to ask you one last question: What would be the one thing that you would like people to be aware of with regard to everything that you’ve done, and all of your work?

STANLEY: Interconnectedness. If people see how we’re all interconnected and connected with Nature, we wouldn’t have an environmental crisis, we wouldn’t have two dozen wars all over the world. We’d honor the rest of Nature and the rest of humanity, because we’d know that those are parts of ourselves. So that’s an easy question.

CYNTHIA: Getting to the place of how we can do that is the hard problem.

STANLEY: What you’re doing, with books like yours, helps raise peoples’ consciousness. And you don’t have to have everybody agreeing with this. A small group of people who want to make change is enough to get the ball rolling.

CYNTHIA: That’s right.

STANLEY: Have you heard of Stephen Schwartz?

CYNTHIA:  Stephen Schwartz—that sounds very familiar.

STANLEY: He has written several books. He has a new book coming out, “Eight Rules for Changing the World.” He gives many examples of how small groups of people in very peaceful ways can make major changes in the world, or parts of it, simply by following these eight rules.

CYNTHIA: Nice!

STANLEY: His book isn’t out yet, but it will be available on amazon.com.

CYNTHIA: OK. Thank you so very much!

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Dr. Stanley Krippner 
http://stanleykrippner.weebly.com/

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, and BBC. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

RealityShifters®

Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Stuart Hameroff

Cynthia Sue Larson with Dr. Stuart Hameroff

I talked with Stuart Hameroff this month about his ideas about quantum physics and consciousness. Dr Hameroff is a clinical anesthesiologist and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, and lead organizer of the Toward a Science of Consciousness conferences that began in Tucson, Arizona in 1994.

Stuart Hameroff’s research involves a theory of consciousness developed over the past 20 years with British physicist Sir Roger Penrose. Their Orchestrated Objective Reduction (‘Orch OR’) theory suggests that consciousness arises from quantum vibrations in protein polymers called microtubules inside the brain’s neurons.  For a review, along with critical commentaries and replies, see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001188

Hameroff and Penrose suggest these vibrations compute, collapse, interfere and resonate, regulating neuronal processes and connecting to the fundamental level of the universe, providing moments of conscious experience and choice.

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CYNTHIA: Some scientists point out that the brain is basically dissipative, essentially, that it’s not isolated. Would you agree with that?

STUART: I think that the brain is a little bit more clever, that there are alternating phases of isolated/quantum and dissipative/classical processing. Quantum and classical, quantum and classical, quantum and classical. The classical is dissipative and interacts with the environment, bringing information in and letting information out, exerting causal efficacy in the world. But classical phases alternate with quantum phases at EEG frequencies, for example, at 40 Hz. Or maybe even faster, at megahertz. So for 40 Hz, that would imply every twenty-five milliseconds there is a cycle of quantum processing followed by collapse, a classical result that interacts with the outside world. In this classical phase information comes in and that’s when it’s dissipative, and then the cycle repeats. So you have a quantum phase that’s isolated, then an open phase that’s dissipative and brings information in, and then another quantum phase, so on in alternating phases. I think consciousness consists of sequences of these alternating phases, the end of each quantum phase a discrete event. Consciousness is a sequence of discrete events, not a continuum. A movie appears continuous to us, but it’s actually a sequence of frames; I think consciousness is like that, and these frames alternate, quantum and classical.

CYNTHIA: I love your theory, which is about the best one I’ve seen for bringing that together. When we look in the brain, would you say we see evidence of this quantum logic happening? You might say that we do?

STUART: As far as quantum logic, specifically, I think that you see that in dreams. I think dreams are quantum information without collapse—you stay in the quantum phase, without the dissipative phase. If there’s a loud noise, you wake up, so you’re shielded, isolated. Except for sleepwalkers, or something like that.

CYNTHIA: And lucid dreaming is interesting.

STUART: Lucid dreaming, exactly.

CYNTHIA: In that case, maybe, would there be alternation?

STUART: Lucid dreaming, I have to think about that. Probably there’s some collapse, but maybe infrequent, or not total, or something like that. I’m not sure. That’s certainly an exception to the rule. Sleepwalking and lucid dreaming are special cases.  Matte Blanco described the logic of dreams which is very similar to quantum logic.

CYNTHIA: You can find the extremes there, but they come together.

STUART: Well the big issue in quantum logic is noncommutativity. In regular logic, A times B equals B times A, but in quantum logic, A times B is not equal to B times A. Paradox reigns. Opposites co-exist.

CYNTHIA: Right!

STUART: Irreversible steps are one of the keys.

CYNTHIA: In addition to the irreversible steps, some people have noticed that quantum logic is a little bit like four-fold logic—so-called “Asian logic”—because it does have True, False, True-and-False, and Not-True-Not-False.

STUART: Yeah, superposition, quantum superposition. Or as Stuart Kaufman talks about, Aristotle’s ‘excluded middle’ actually occurs in quantum logic.

CYNTHIA: Would you say that quantum logic feels like an equal partner to classical logic, or do you feel it’s more of the primarily logic that is constantly there? This gets to what you were noticing about the brain.

STUART: I think the logic of the quantum world underlies the classical world—but then when collapse occurs—you get the classical world. I believe in collapse, but quantum field theorists don’t necessarily agree with collapse. And then you have Henry Stapp’s view, that collapse is caused by the Cosmic Mind. I don’t think that solves the problem. That puts consciousness out there, kind of outside of science, so it’s really a spiritual, religious type of approach. But I think you can get spirituality out of collapse, with non-locality and Platonic values, which is what Penrose brought in.

CYNTHIA: I love the way you bring up protoconsciousness, the Planck scale, and the way consciousness might exist in that sort of decoherent state, but at the same time, you do look to consciousness to bring about collapse.

STUART: Roger Penrose essentially replaced decoherence with self collapse, what he called ‘objective reduction’. Decoherence is kind of an ill-defined thing anyway. Nobody can really say exactly what it is. Plus it doesn’t really get rid of the quantum superposition—just buries it in noise. So Roger came up with the idea that there is this objective threshold for reduction, related to the uncertainty principle, so every superposition will reach this threshold, and have a self collapse. Now normally, that occurs in a very charged, polar environment, like in this table, or in the air, or liquids. So the charge will entangle with another charge, the simple equation is: E = h/t, where E is the amount of superposition, h is Planck’s constant, and t is the time at which self collapse occurs by OR. So the larger the E, the faster the t. Roger then also said that when OR happens, there is a moment of subjective experience.

CYNTHIA: OK.

STUART: Now normally, if that happens in a polar environment, then it’s random, and it’s going to happen very quickly, but randomly, so the moment of conscious experience won’t have any cognition. That’s what we call protoconscious moments, random, non-cognitive and inconsequential—but still experience. There’s consciousness everywhere, but it doesn’t hang together and do anything meaningful.

CYNTHIA: That could explain, perhaps, why plants can photosynthesize using that quantum random walk, because on some level, they’ve got protoconsciousness.

STUART: Yeah, photosynthesis is a really interesting thing. I was talking about this yesterday with these guys down at Stanford. Does that collapse? That’s a good question. The problem is that, by e=h/t, if it’s just electrons, electrons have very little mass, so e is going to be very, very small. So it will take a lot of electrons to reach collapse.

CYNTHIA: Right.

STUART: Everything has proto-conscious moments. But in the brain, and specifically due to structures called microtubules inside neurons, the random entanglements are avoided during quantum isolation phases, and the quantum states are organized, or ‘orchestrated’ by memory, sensory inputs and resonances, and cognitive ‘orchestrated’ OR conscious moments occur. But plants have photosynthesis which uses electron quantum coherence but probably don’t have orchestrated OR and meaningful consciousness. The problem is that by E=h/t, electrons comprising E have very little mass, so E is going to be very, very small, and t very, very long. So plants might have meaningful conscious moments but very rarely.

CYNTHIA: Right.

STUART: But the quantum movements of electron excitations in plant proteins which enables highly efficient conversion to food is similar to what happens in microtubule proteins. You have these aromatic rings, kind of like benzene and phenyl rings, which have excitons and dipole states. These are the same molecules that are in psychedelics, dopamine and psychoactive drugs and neurotransmitters. And that type of environment is non-polar, so there’s no charge. There are induced dipoles, but no net charge. So the quantum states there don’t automatically and quickly entangle with the environment and collapse. They can persist and couple with other quantum states to interact cognitively and process information. Or in the case of photosynthesis, transfer energy.

CYNTHIA: This coupling with other quantum states is really interesting, and brings me to the core of something I’ve been looking at, which is levels of consciousness. When we ask this big question, “Who are we?” and “Who is the observer?” we tend to have a human bias, of course, because this is how we see the world. But obviously, people who meditate are able to focus very closely in on one particular system within themselves, such as their breathing, their heart rate, these kind of things. So it’s something that we have the ability—at least yogi masters do—through meditation and awareness of themselves—to change that kind of level of consciousness. This to me is the key.

STUART: Yes, levels of consciousness. If you go back to E=h/t, these protoconscious events are happening in the table, in the air, in the coffee cup all the time. It’s basically the same as decoherence, except there is this little snippet of protoconscious experience that’s happening everywhere. So that seems bizarre and crazy, but on the other hand you have people—panpsychists—now saying that everything’s conscious, without any clue as to what actually that might mean. But then, if you get into a non-polar environment, you avoid the random entanglements, and have cognition and meaningful consciousness. In other words, the quantum states are orchestrated. It’s like the difference between the sounds and tones of an orchestra warming up, and the orchestra playing a symphony.

CYNTHIA: Exactly.

STUART: So the orchestra warming up with the various isolated tones and notes is like protoconscious moments here and there. And then they start playing Beethoven, because it’s all orchestrated, and that’s music. It’s a very good analogy, the musical analogy, except with music you need a listener, whereas here, the vibrations are self-aware. So when you start to orchestrate the objective reduction events, you get cognition and consciousness. And then it’s a matter of the intensity of the levels. So for example, assuming it’s orchestrated, and you have meaningful consciousness, then as “E” becomes larger, “t” becomes shorter, and you get more intense conscious experience, like music changing to a higher octave. As E is larger, you use more of the brain. Did you see that movie, “Lucy”?

CYNTHIA: Yes!

STUART: It’s about how we use some percentage of the brain, and Lucy was using more and more percentage of her brain. And how they were saying she was doing it wasn’t right.

CYNTHIA: It was fanciful.

STUART: Nobody really knows. Based on available technology they tell us we only use a small fraction of our brain. Well, bullshit! How do you know how much of our brain we use? We may use a lot of it for stuff that’s not conscious, or that is conscious and cant be measured, like quantum effects in microtubules. But just for consciousness, I think if you’re meditating or if you’re in an altered state or something like that, that means you’re using more and more of your brain that is involved. Therefore, “E” becomes greater and “t” is faster, so you get faster, more frequent, conscious events. You go to a deeper level which is a higher plane. It’s been shown that meditators have  higher frequency gamma synchrony, for example, but it could go even faster, like to megahertz, for example. So we could be having ten million of these events per second. But then you’d say, “Wait a second. For EEG, our cognition is much, much slower.” What Roger and I proposed in our last paper is that these faster events interfere and give beats, just like in music, when you have beat frequencies. And the beat frequencies are what we see—the EEG. The beat frequency that we see is cognitive windows in the range of milliseconds. But they are actually deriving from faster vibrations, like in megahertz, which is where the microtubules are vibrating. So there’s a spectrum of terahertz, gigahertz, megahertz, kilohertz, and then hertz. And the EEG is basically hertz. So what we see as EEG I think of as beat frequencies of faster vibrations at a deeper level. EEG is the slower, large scale tip of an iceberg of deeper, faster vibrations. So if you’re meditating, or you go in an altered state, you’re going into that faster, more intense domain. So it will include more conscious moments per second, and they are more intense. So that’s what I think an altered state is, a deeper level, higher frequency level of consciousness—it’s the frequency at which you’re having orchestrated conscious events, more deeply into spacetime geometry. Very intense experiences may be entirely in spacetime geometry, and could exist independent of the brain, at least temporarily, remaining entangled. So this could explain out-of-body experiences. As the Beatles said – ‘The deeper you go, the higher you fly….”

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Dr. Stuart Hameroff 

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org

 

Center for Consciousness Studies

http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu

 

Consciousness in the Universe: A Review of the ‘Orch OR’ Theory

by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001188/

 

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, and BBC. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

RealityShifters®

Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Yasunori Nomura

Yasunori Nomura with Cynthia Sue Larson

I’ve been following Professor Yasunori Nomura‘s work this past year with tremendous interest, since he was one of the first theoretical physicists to publish a paper on the topic of the many worlds of quantum mechanics being one and the same as the eternally inflating multiverse. This perspective is one I consider to be extremely promising, both for its elegance and also for its ability to explain much that other theories cannot so easily address.

I was thrilled when attending a screening of the recent documentary film, “Particle Fever,” about the hunt for the Higgs boson to see Yasunori’s name up on the podium. I’d received an invitation to attend this UC Berkeley event through the Physics Department where I’d studied and received my degree many years ago. Dr. Yasunori Nomura was one of the panelists who talked about what we’re learning from the hunt for the Higgs boson after the show, along with Lawrence Hall, Marjorie Shapiro, Walter Murch, Mark Levinson, Petr Horava, Beate Heinemann, and Surjeet Rajendran. Dr. Nomura is a Professor at UC Berkeley at the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, where his work is primarily focused on particle physics and cosmology.

Panelists at “Particle Fever” screening at UC Berkeley, September 12, 2014

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CYNTHIA: Thank you so very much for taking time from your busy schedule to answer a few questions! I also want to thank you for writing such a clear and persuasive paper in the Journal of High Energy Physics, “Physical Theories, Eternal Inflation, and Quantum Universe.” You’ve also developed a new theoretical framework to describe dynamics of quantum gravity in low energy regimes, preserving locality. What’s so wonderfully exciting about bringing these ideas together is that you are presenting us with a view of general relativistic global spacetime being an emerging classical concept that arises from a special relativistic, quantum mechanical description of quantum gravity. When these concepts are applied to the idea of the multiverse, we then have a multiverse with no beginning and no end, but rather time that emerges locally in branches. Is this a fairly good summary of your most current perspective? And in what new directions is your work going next?

YASUNORI: Yes, that is a good summary of my perspective. Our world is quantum mechanical. Quantum mechanics governs how nature works at the deepest level, not just in small subatomic scales but also at the largest scale of the eternally inflating multiverse. At the same time, quantum mechanics is a “weird theory” which predicts many counter-intuitive phenomena, and from which the “normal world” we perceive emerges only in a certain limit. This includes concepts such as space and time. Furthermore, quantum mechanics is an intrinsically probabilistic theory—every prediction you make is probabilistic. My current effort focuses on developing a deeper understanding of these issues. What is the detailed microscopic mechanism underlying the emergence of spacetime? What does the probability really mean? How does understanding of these issues help revealing the so-far elusive quantum theory of gravity?

CYNTHIA: I love the way you describe our world as being quantum mechanical at the deepest level! This conceptualization has not been popularly embraced, perhaps due to the counter-intuitive “weirdness” of quantum mechanics. You make excellent points about quantum mechanics being intrinsically probabilistic, and I appreciate your emphasis on the importance of better understanding what probability really means. In the introduction of your 2011 paper, “Quantum Mechanics, Spacetime Locality, and Gravity,” you point out that, “Quantum mechanics introduced the concept of probability to physics at the fundamental level. This has led to the issue of the quantum-to-classical transition, in particular the measurement problem.”  What is needed for us to better understand probability in a quantum world?

YASUNORI: What the probability in quantum mechanics really means is a deep question, with which people have been struggling for a century. At the most naive level, it means that when we prepare an ensemble of a large number of systems all of which are in an identical state, then the records of performing physical measurements on these systems are distributed according to what quantum mechanics predicts. Does this mean that we simply do not know enough details of the systems, and if we do, then we can predict the outcome of measuring each member of the ensemble with certainty? People certainly wondered this possibility in early days in developing quantum mechanics, but we are now almost certain that this is not the case. In quantum mechanical world, the outcome of a measurement is intrinsically probabilistic—the probabilistic nature is not a manifestation of our incomplete knowledge of the system. A question then arises when we ask what happens if we make a “single” measurement on “a” system in our universe. According to quantum mechanics, the result is “probabilistic,” but what does that really mean? Where is the ensemble? Are there many universes which are “distributed” according to the prediction of quantum mechanics? This is where the necessity of considering many universes—or multiverse—comes in. We need to consider cosmology in a deepest sense to really address this problem.

CYNTHIA: This suggests there is a deeper interconnectedness that goes beyond any “single” measurement on “a” system that is occurring everywhere–and not just in the realm of quantum particles, because we cannot assume that any given experiment is closed off from its surrounding environment. We definitely require an understanding of probabilities beyond mere statistical frequencies, since we can’t run experiments on multiple versions of the universe! What are your thoughts about the value of the Bayesian interpretation of probability for quantum cosmology–the idea that before we start measuring probabilities, we must set initial assumptions about the probabilities?

YASUNORI: Yes, the issue is certainly relevant beyond the realm of quantum particles at small scales. Quantum effects are there even at large distances—they are simply hard to recognize for an observer like us living in “a branch” of a complete quantum state. We still do not know exactly what form the physical law that allows us to address this issue will take, but I can certainly imagine that some sort of Bayesian ways of thinking may play an important, and perhaps even crucial, role in formulating such a law. In fact, there are already several hints to move forward, based on consistency of quantum cosmology. (Another obvious clue is that the new rule must reduce to the standard Born rule in situations in which an ensemble is explicitly available to an observer.) Perhaps, explorations of this issue may lead to a new theory beyond quantum mechanics, not just reinterpretation (or reformulation) of the standard quantum mechanics.

CYNTHIA: Quantum cosmology is an especially exciting field right now, as it is becoming clear that multiverse theories can be modeled using computer simulations that can be compared to cosmic background radiation. When you envision a new theory beyond our current conceptualization of quantum mechanics, what ideas do you find most interesting now?

YASUNORI: Yes, quantum cosmology is an especially exciting field right now because of observational and theoretical evidence pointing to the multiverse, gathered in the last decade or two. We are, however, not at a stage in which we can simulate the multiverse as we do for cosmic background radiation. The problems we are struggling are still conceptual: what is the probability in the cosmological context, etc. I am, however, optimistic about near future progress. One idea which I think promising, and which I have been pursuing, is that “time” we perceive emerges only locally in relevant branches (e.g. in our own universe) in the static multiverse state. This would solve many conceptual issues such as what is the beginning or end of the multiverse.

CYNTHIA: Considering time to be more of a variable than a constant in the multiverse is fascinating and mind-bending. We now have measurements from our most accurate strontium atomic clocks showing that time elapses more slowly at lower altitudes, influenced by gravity, so a clock positioned just a few centimeters higher will read a different time. NIST’s chief timekeeper, Tom O’Brian, recently stated in an NPR interview that, “My own personal opinion is that time is a human construct.” Could you describe a little bit more about how might we envision time as being something we perceive locally in relevant branches of the multiverse–is there some way to visualize such a thing?

YASUNORI: What we call time is nothing more than (a very special form of) correlations between physical objects. Consider throwing a baseball. It is usually stated that the baseball then moves (relative to the earth) as “time passes.” What is really happening, however, is that the relative location between the baseball and the earth is correlated with configurations of other physical systems, e.g. the location of the hands of a clock, relative configurations of the Sun, Earth, and Moon (although their changes are minuscule in the timescale of the motion of the baseball), configurations of synapses in your brain, etc. To describe all these correlations, one may introduce some parameter “t” and write the configurations of the systems as functions of this “spurious” parameter t as we describe a curve in a two-dimensional plane using a parametric representation: (x(t), y(t)). This parameter t is precisely what we call time—it does not really “exist” as a physical object!

A real question then is why there exists such a special form of correlations between configurations of various physical systems, more specifically correlations that are described in a simple manner using a single spurious parameter t. This is what really must be explained, which my static quantum multiverse proposal is trying to address. Note that these special corrections (i.e. time) need not exist in all the branches of the multiverse state. We only know experimentally that they exist in the branches corresponding to our universe.

CYNTHIA: You point out that our conceptualization of infinitely large space that we associate with eternal inflation is really just an illusion, and a more accurate way to describe everything is that we exist within an intrinsically probabilistic multiverse. The vastness of eternally inflating space can thus be found in probability–in which an initial state evolves into a superposition of states, with branches occurring whenever bubble universes burst forth. In your “Static Quantum Multiverse” 2012 paper, you explain how the multiverse need not evolve in order to be consistent with an arrow of time–which presents a completely different picture of cosmology than the currently popular sense of infinitely large space. Within this static quantum multiverse, can you envision there being a place for subjective observation with its associated sense of past, present and future—so important to people, as Bernard d’Espagnat’s observes, “Time is at the heart of all that is important to human beings.” For example, when imagining ourselves throwing a baseball, is there anything we can identify as being ‘now’–the present moment?

YASUNORI: You correctly summarize that the vastness of eternally inflating space can be found in probability space. In a sense, the “Static Quantum Multiverse” proposal simply says that the vastness of time should also be found in the probability space. In this picture, the (static) multiverse state contains many “observers,” e.g. myself, at “different times,” each of whom has his/her own sense of past, present and future. In your example, each of these “observers” (which we usually describe as a single observer in different moments) has his/her own sense of now, with the baseball located in the place determined mostly by the Newtonian mechanics. I can’t affirm that the absence of the absolute notion of ‘now’ is not a problem, but I think it is not.

CYNTHIA: I appreciate how your static quantum multiverse model’s inclusion of probability space and time provides such an elegant view of the cosmos while allowing for free will and unique individual experience. Thank you for sharing some of your fascinating ideas and observations about quantum cosmology, time and space! In addition to reading your many publications–which number 111 to date, according to ResearchGate–how best can people follow your work and what you are doing?

YASUNORI: It is my pleasure. ResearchGate is one option. Another possibility is to use an author search in INSPIRE, the High Energy Physics information system built by CERN, DESY, Fermilab and SLAC: http://inspirehep.net/search?ln=en&ln=en&p=author%3AY.Nomura.1&of=hb&action_search=Search&sf=earliestdate&so=d&rm=&rg=250&sc=0/ I will also be updating my homepage: http://physics.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/yasunori-nomura/

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps, Reality Shifts, Aura Advantage, High Energy Money, and Karen Kimball and the Dream Weaver’s Web, and the Aura Healing Meditations CD. Cynthia has a degree in Physics from UC Berkeley, and she discusses consciousness and quantum physics on numerous shows including the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, and BBC. You can subscribe to Cynthia’s free monthly ezine at: http://www.RealityShifters.com

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Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Seán Ó Nualláin

Cynthia Sue Larson with Seán Ó Nualláin

I met author Seán Ó Nualláin at the Foundations of Mind conference that Seán organized and facilitated in Berkeley in February 2014. The first Foundations of Mind conference took place in 1995 in Sheffield, England, with other past conferences taking place in Dublin, Ireland, and this marks the first year that these conferences have taken place in the United States.

What’s impressed me most about Seán is his single-minded dedication to facilitating a truly extraordinary and groundbreaking series of scientific conversations that recognize areas of true progress toward a more complete understanding of consciousness–which is my favorite subject! You can glean a sense of the excitement generated by continuing seminars and talks facilitated through Seán’s Foundations of Mind in this last sentence of it’s mission statement:

“We remain open to the idea that reality is an entangled nexus and that we cannot truly perceive without changing it. That has, of course, been accepted in physics since the 1930s; but the consequences may be quite different than you imagine. We invite you to our conferences and workshops to explore this.”

I’m deeply grateful to Seán for granting me this interview where he tells us about his new book, One Magisterium, and new course on consciousness, Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind.
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Cynthia: First, I’d love to thank you for organizing the Foundations of Mind conference and seminars that I’ve so greatly enjoyed attending this year. There’s something truly extraordinary happening at this time in history, that I most keenly sense when reading your books and attending the Foundations of Mind events you’ve sponsored. I get a sense that we’re on the verge of a great intellectual revolution having to do with a whole new way of comprehending consciousness. What most inspires you to explore the subject of consciousness, and how do you feel this subject is important at this time?

Seán:  About the times we live in, Jacob Needleman put it very well in his blurb for my new book, “One Magisterium” (CSP, Sept 2014); “From first page to the last, a sustained and dazzling burst of light illuminating the fundamental questions and the presumed “answers” within the scientific, philosophical and spiritual world now radically changing before our eyes.” Consciousness is one way into this phenomenon of the “scientific, philosophical and spiritual world now radically changing before our eyes.” Scientists in general are naturally uncomfortable with the subjective world; there is indeed a case that it is best left to artists and spiritual guides. Yet we can say some coherent and responsible things while remaining responsible scientifically.

Cynthia: You raise an important point that many scientists are reticent to publicly discuss subjective experience, even though their own subjective experiences are primary motivators behind the scientific research they do. There seems to be a difference of opinion by many people that if there is to be but “One Magisterium,” or primary way of comprehending reality, it will be based on science, while others feel it should be primarily spiritual. Do you sense humanity is on the verge of finding a way to reconcile these differences, perhaps starting with saying some coherent, responsible things about consciousness?

Seán:  Great question! Of course, historically the magisterium is church teaching. The Galileo incident put paid to that; not so much Galileo’s  contemporary clerical opponents, who were actually quite sophisticated, but the retards who were pushing biblical geocentrism well into the 19th century.

After SJ Gould, there is a consensus that Galileo’s  contemporary clerical opponents are correct; the magisterium of the Church is faith and morals (“how to go to heaven”), and that of science external reality (“how the heavens go”). As an Irish recovering Catholic, I was particularly engaged in this debate; the fact that it still goes on is attested by the recent movie “Cavalry” with Brendan Gleeson as a rural Irish priest with nothing to offer eventually except his willingness to die as an expiation for the rape of children by his church.

Ironically, it was a Belgian Priest (George le Maitre) who invented modern cosmology with his notion of the singularity/ “primeval atom.” Yet he vociferously protested against the Vatican’s adopting this as proving the biblical account of creation………

On the other side, we have “thinkers” like Dawkins and Harris who argue that science has advanced enough to come to moral conclusions. Dawkins’ autobiography is interesting; it looks like he had the makings of a decent computational biologist before the “selfish gene.” On the other hand, there are too many kludges in his early experimental apparatus for his results to be credible. The Harris case is simpler; after Ed Vul, who spoke at Foundations of Mind (FoM), we frankly do not have to believe any fMRI results of the kind Harris adduces.

I leave this answer with a few more trends the book addresses;

–       Why is it that the people who believe in a religious basis (from Mother Teresa to Mathieu Richard to yes, Michelle Bachman) tend to work hardest for others? The notion of an objective realm of morality seems vital
–       What of subjectivism in the arts? Currently, young  Americans are deserting the only sophisticated arts form created here ie jazz
–       What of the mess Google and others are making of natural language processing?The book and course put a lot of these issues together.

Cynthia: I am very much looking forward to reading your new book, “One Magisterium”! What I find personally most significant about your previous books, including The Search for Mind and Being Human: The Search for Order is the apparent ease with which you bring ideas together from a multitude of disciplines to create a cohesive holistic presentation of consciousness at a level that I’ve seen few other authors match. There appears to be a larger picture view of “how the heavens go” than some more narrowly focused scientists and authors recognize. How would you advise those interested in getting caught up to speed with new findings about the nature of consciousness to begin?

Seán:  Cognitive Science completes the circle of explanation in the sciences. It can also hint at solutions to moral and aesthetic dilemmas, often explained away through postmodernism/subjectivism. It must obey laws of inheritance of facts and constraints; just as biology inherits facts and constraints from physics, so must Cognitive Science inherit facts and constraints from biology. These include conservation laws (physics), chaotic dynamics (both biology and physics); and it is likely therefore that concepts like harmonic oscillators and bifurcations should be pervasive in Cognitive Science.

Yet the situation is more complex. For example, the concept “information” in physics has an energetic dimension (Landauer), a spatial dimension (Susskind) and, as quantum theory teaches us, it determines to some extent what we considered objective reality. Likewise, it is arguably impossible to continue discourse about biology without granting that codes/syntax are intrinsic to the subject. Cognitive Science also inherits these constraints.

We must go deeper still. We find that mathematics, the most elliptical and precise language with which we describe reality, constrains us in certain ways. Tensors of various orders, from scalars through vectors to the Riemann and Ricci tensors, are distinct with the latter two not describable in terms of the former. Our explanation patterns in Cognitive Science must honour this. So fMRI, which specifies a scalar, cannot be an explanation of mind, nor can vectors; it is a category error to suggest they can.

Our explanation patterns in Cognitive Science must also honour what we learned in the 20th century from Gödel, Church et al about the limits of formal systems. This can paradoxically leave us open to non-deterministic thought. So we can indeed, following Gödel, Schrödinger and other greats, assert the existence of the spiritual while remaining completely scientifically responsible. However, we are not going to get a “solution” to the so-called “hard problem,” an algorithm mapping all neural data to experience; that is also a category error. We are going to be able to argue for a substratum of subjectivity and indeed free will in conscious experience while remaining scientific. The job of eliciting subjective states belongs to great artists and spiritual leaders, of whom we have a decreasing number.

Cynthia: I can see that you’ve accurately identified some rather serious shortcomings currently being made by many researchers and authors–that they are making category errors at critical junctures. I love the work you’ve been doing with your Foundations of Mind conference series and your new book, “One Magisterium” to help people realize the importance of building upon sturdy foundations of knowledge in philosophy, math, physics, biology, linguistics, and computer science. Clearly there is no need for a high-tech new-fangled version of phrenology to provide a solution to the so-called “hard problem” of why people have subjective experiences of consciousness using fMRI. And clearly there is a need to create and test scientific hypotheses for how free will and other cognitive functions operate. How important do you feel it to be that cognitive science and consciousness researchers adopt a common language, and how would you envision such a shared common language being formed?

Seán:  In 1997 I published the book Two Sciences of Mind (it precedes Shambala’s use of this phrase) to indicate the necessaity for a distinction between what Needleman called “inner” and “outer” (cognitive science ) empiricism.

In my course, you’ll find certain intersections; the Noe/O’Regan/Freeman work on sensorimotor behavior, which is common to cognitive science and consciousness research. Yet that does not extend into domains like the arts, where artists are using a much larger palette precisely to specify inner states.

Cognitive science  can tell us that jazz uses much more complex computations than rap; in fact we can specify the stack in say Beethoven’s 5th, whose opening has a fractal structure. That may lead us to suspect there is something more going on, the opening to objective  reality that Beethoven felt he was doing. And at that note of opening to reality of I’d like to end this interview; it is precisely this sense of an objective world to which we must conform and which can edify us that we in the west have lost. To regain the respect of fundamentalists like ISIS, we might consider this instead of just bombs.

Cynthia: Thank you, Seán, for making time for this interview, and for sharing news of your new book and your course on consciousness, Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind.  I’m glad to announce that this online course is available to students anywhere in the world, and it starts this September 2nd. For a cost of $75 US, this course is a bargain, since this is the same course taught for credit at Stanford University by the same instructor, and students who complete this course will receive certificates of completion. It includes video presentations from the entire proceedings of the 2014 Foundations of Mind conference, and  I encourage all interested to learn more at: http://consciousnesscourse.blogspot.com/  and to register online at: http://foundationsofmind.org/register.html

 

 

Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Frank Moffatt

Frank Moffatt in Bangkok

Have you ever wondered why some people age gracefully, seeming like they look pretty much the same now as decades earlier, while staying actively engaged in fun activities, learning new things, and staying active… and other people slip into steady decline?

If you have noticed this and wondered, “What’s up with that?”  you’ll love hearing about Frank Moffatt and his new documentary film! You could say that Frank Moffatt is a man with a mission to change the world, but that would be missing the point that simply listening to his message has the power to completely transform our lives. When I heard from Frank that he’s raising funds through an Indiegogo campaign for a new documentary movie, I was intrigued. Your Second Fifty: Rising Above the Myths of Aging is a movie designed to implement change in all who see it. Consider these facts:

By 2015, those aged 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population (source: AARP). Of that 45%, many will have been subjected to limiting beliefs and myths that will unfortunately restrict them from reaching their true potential — mentally, emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually. The good news is that with proper education and guidance, these limiting beliefs and myths can be eradicated — and a fresh new outlook and approach can be established within one’s daily life.

I’m thrilled to know this movie is in the works, and honored to share some special insights from Frank Moffatt in this interview. And I hope that if you find this topic as exciting as I do, you’ll support the Your Second Fifty: Rising Above the Myths of Aging Indiegogo campaign, and share this post with friends and family!
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CYNTHIA: I’m thrilled to talk with you about your new documentary film, “Your Second Fifty,” since its message that many common beliefs about aging are untrue is a big idea that also came to my attention when I was researching and writing my most recent book, Quantum Jumps. I was stunned to learn that long-term scientific studies have shown that one of the best predictors of long, healthy lives are peoples’ biases and prejudices about the elderly. When I give talks about the science covered in Quantum Jumps, I often make the point that “If you take just one idea away from this entire presentation, improve your stereotypes about the elderly! You can improve both your longevity, and your quality of life.”  What inspired you to create a movie about these ideas at this time?

FRANK: First off I’m excited to read your book! We really have no idea of our potential and capability, especially in our second fifty. But to answer your question, I wanted to make the documentary because we are an impulsive society and people would rather sit and watch this film for an hour than sit and read a book for 6 or 7 hours. So the real question would be, what inspired me to write the book? After observing people over 50 for a year or so I was struck by the fact that some people were full of life, while others were full of death and the answer boiled down to their beliefs about aging – so I took on the task to debunk the myths and limiting beliefs of aging!

CYNTHIA: I agree with you that many people these days would rather see a movie or hear an audiobook than read a book, and I’ve been creating YouTube videos and audiobook editions of my books to meet this growing demand. I’ve also seen exactly what you’re describing regarding people around age 50 who either seem to be thriving or declining, with evident differences in ease of movement, involvement in learning and creative pursuits, and zest for life. I’ve also gotten the feeling we’re not doomed at age 50 to be “over the hill,” but actually can truly thrive. Have you personally experienced turning around a limiting belief about aging in your life, and if so, would you tell us about it?

FRANK: When I was a kid I suffered from asthma, and while I played sports, I was always missing parts of seasons because my lungs couldn’t handle the training. When I was 52, I decided I was going to run a marathon. I was over weight and hadn’t done any exercise in years. I began slowly, just walking one or two kilometers. Three months in, I was up to a ten K run, and 6 months later I finished the Bangkok Marathon – 42 K in just over 4 hours. I didn’t need to win the race, I just needed to change my belief from I couldn’t run – to I can run – I will run and I will finish what I started.

CYNTHIA: Wow, what an inspirational experience! I’d not heard of the Bangkok Marathon before, and I’m truly impressed that you reached a point at age 52 where you noticed you’d gained weight and weren’t exercising, and so you looked around to find what could motivate you to become more physically active. I’m sure your ability to set an athletic goal for yourself must have been made a bit easier thanks to your having played sports earlier in life. What advice would you give someone in their second fifty years who wants to get more exercise but hasn’t played sports?

FRANK: When we started to make the documentary, I seriously thought I needed to interview one of the worlds top fitness guru’s, but over time I’ve realized that it’s not about having the body of a Greek goddess. It’s about being fit from the inside out. Going for a 30 minute walk each day not only improves your fitness level, but it’s beneficial, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, and when we are more fit in those four areas of our life, we’ll attract more opportunities financially. But there are three other areas of physical wellbeing we need to consider:

1) Flexibility – a little stretching daily will pay incredible dividend down the road in our 80’s, 90’s and more and more likely our 100’s,

2) Resistance training – we need to keep our muscle in shape to support our physical structure so our later years are positive and product and

3) What we eat – as we get older the metabolism slows down because we slow down, so eat more fresh, raw foods and most importantly eat less–and that’s hard to do if we’re sitting on a couch.

CYNTHIA: I love the way these are simple things most people can do by making small adjustments to daily life. I can also reassure people that your advice is quite sound, as it’s coincidentally what I’ve been doing for the past 15 years since I took up practicing martial arts when I approached the age of 40. I’m doing the flexibility and resistance training as part of my Kuk Sool Won practice, and being much more mindful of what I eat, and I look and feel so much healthier now than I was 15 years ago. These tips are pretty well-known, but I understand your movie, “Your Second Fifty” does some pretty serious myth-busting concerning typical ideas most people have about aging. Could you share with us one of those myths you address?

FRANK: Honestly that’s the great part about the documentary and the sad thing when you take a minute to consider just how many limiting beliefs impact us after 50. And even when we’re aware of these limiting beliefs, we have no idea how to address them and remove them. But you wanted one, so let’s consider memory loss. We had the opportunity to interview Dr. Daniel Amen, possibly North America’s leading expert pertaining to the Mental Dimension. Without giving away all the goods here, he alluded to the fact that memory loss can be caused from a number of things–none of which were age-related. Having received a head injury as a young child that had gone unattended, or an inactive life style, both mentally and physically are far more likely to be key determining factors for memory loss in people over 50.

CYNTHIA: So if I understand you correctly, there’s no need for people to assume we’re all headed for dementia as we pass the ages of 50, 60, 70, and 80… nor is there any reason to presume we’ll necessarily be less active or less physically fit in our second fifty years of life. And hopefully, good results are obtainable in terms of improved quality and quantity of life without needing to spend a fortune, right?

FRANK: Well, let’s adjust that a bit – there is no need to assume we’re all headed for dementia – IF – we make the changes. If we don’t, then we’re rolling the dice, because the majority of people have sustained some form of head injury, or currently maintain a sedentary lifestyle. You just have to know what to do to make the changes! As far as fitness goes, one of the gentlemen we interviewed was Werner Berger. Last year, Werner climbed the highest peaks on all 7 continents (which by the way included Mt. Everest). Werner is 76 years of age. It’s also important to state that at age 59, Werner decided to climb mountains, so he is no different than anyone reading this article. That’s what makes this documentary so important – it will change the way we have been programmed to age. It may be the best investment anyone can make with regard to their longevity and wellbeing. Life is best served when we challenge ourself to be the best we can be, and give up competing with others.

CYNTHIA: Based on what I’m hearing from you about your new documentary, “Your Second Fifty,” and what I’ve learned from the latest research, I’m thrilled that you’re making this movie, and so glad that there will be such an inspirational film people can sit down and watch that has the power to so thoroughly improve peoples’ lives. If people are interested in finding out more about the movie, what’s the best web page for them to learn more?

FRANK: Thanks Cynthia! Our website is www.yoursecondfiftydocumentary.com. If people wish to secure a streaming of the documentary they can go to our Indiegogo campaign and select Perk #2 and for that $5 give themselves every chance to live their remaining years healthy and happy – one less fancy coffee and they’ll change their life forever. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/your-second-fifty-documentary–2 Our planned premier with be held in Los Angeles November 15th. Thank you and keep smiling!

CYNTHIA: Thank you, Frank! I so appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions and share so much valuable, life-changing information with us today!

 

Cynthia Sue Larson Interviews Alexis Brooks

I met author Alexis Brooks for the first time in person just the other week in the San Francisco bay area at the New Living Expo. We’ve been good friends and colleagues for more than ten years, but this was the first time we managed to be in the same place at the same time. What a treat!

What’s impressed me the most about Alexis over all these years is her consistently positive outlook, and deep wisdom regarding metaphysical matters. Alexis is one of those inspirational people who are as beautiful inside as out, so it’s no surprise that even regular snapshots of Alexis shine with inner light!

I’m deeply grateful that Alexis granted me this interview where she shares some fascinating insights into her background and interests. Even though I’ve known Alexis for years, I loved getting the opportunity to learn more about why she has such a passion to share powerful insights about consciousness and metaphysics with the world, and where this lifelong interest began.Alexis recently published the #1 best-selling book, Conscious Musings, and she is the featured writer and host of The Conscious Inquiry Radio Show at Conscious Life News.
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CYNTHIA: I’m just tickled pink to do this interview with you, since I have been so inspired by your writing and your work for so many years! You have such a refreshingly light yet simultaneously emotionally soulful approach to sharing ideas that empower people to see themselves and the world in a whole new way. What would you say was your primary inspiration to do what you do today?

ALEXIS: Thank you Cynthia.  First let me say what a pleasure and an honor it is to be interviewed by you.  I too have admired all that you’ve done over the years to bring so many individuals to a place of understanding about the magnificent workings of reality – how vast it is and how we can all participate in our own personal reality shifts…kudos!

As for the inspiration for the work that I do, I’d have to say that the influence started very early on for me.  I grew up in what I’d call “an alternative home.”  Although my parents were very much immersed in the mainstream – my mom was an educator and my dad a scientist (self taught) from M.I.T.–both very “left brained” professions, somehow they naturally gravitated toward the BIG questions of life, you know, “Who are we?” “What are we capable of?” and “How does reality really work?”  They’d sit around the kitchen table and discuss things like reincarnation, extraterrestrial life, life after death and spirituality in general, including much of the teachings of the various “orthodox religions.”  When I was old enough to pull up a seat to the table, they would include me in discussions, welcome my curiosity AND my opinions.  When they decided to embark upon learning transcendental meditation (TM), they brought me along to class too–at the age of  13!  It was a family affair.  So I was indoctrinated, you might say, at a very young age.

But then my natural curiosity took on a life of its own.  I found myself genuinely interested in these same big questions, wanted to explore for myself, and I did.  I found myself somehow grasping concepts that even my parents couldn’t fathom.  I remember having this epiphany one day about the nature of time.  I must have been reading something about the illusory nature of time, how linear time is a physical construct and that in actuality all time is simultaneous.  I don’t know how, but I just seemed to “get it.”  I remember talking to my mother about this newly found realization with such enthusiasm–I remember her saying to me, “Now THAT’s over my head…”  I didn’t understand how she didn’t get it and I did.  I guess I went on my own trajectory from there.

What’s also driven this natural interest in me is that I would occasionally have my own let’s just say, “curious” experiences–pre-cognitive dreams primarily.  I knew SOMETHING was going on; that it was important, and I felt that most people just weren’t getting the true nature of reality–that there was so much more, and I was determined to investigate these underpinnings.  As I grew, I became more voracious in my studies–branching off into all sorts of areas of metaphysical study.  Although I didn’t realize quite where this would be headed.  I’ve had several what I like to tell people “incarnations” in this life–worked in various industries, including entertainment (I was a teen model and bit actress), broadcasting, marketing and small business ownership.  I’ve had several different careers but this work is without question my passion.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I simply love what I do and I’m so blessed to be able to do it!

CYNTHIA: I love how thanks to growing up in a family with such intelligent, spiritually-minded parents, you instantly grasped the idea of simultaneity of time! This kind of notion is one that reminds me of holism–of a view that I see is emergent right now in the realm of quantum physics at a time when dualism and material realism is still the dominant paradigm. This is a time when many people who are aware of a deeper interconnectedness would love to know how best to share this realization with those who don’t yet “get it.” What would you say to people who are starting to wonder whether the old classical perspective is incomplete, or how such “things” as non-dualism or simultaneity of all time could possibly be?

ALEXIS: Well right off the bat this is a difficult concept to get ones heads around (this notion of simultaneous time).  As I said, my mother, whom I looked up to for her sense of exploration into the “unknown” was absolutely dumbfounded when I presented her with this possibility, so consider that.  And she was a “big seeker.”  You take the everyday person and present such a concept and chances are they’d think you were crazy.  Simply put–this is not the type of discussion you can have with anyone (unfortunately).  As much as I’d like to wave a magic wand and say, “You will now GET IT.”  That’s just not going to happen.  In fact, I’ve stopped trying to convince certain people of the efficacy of such matters.  I’d once heard, “We must leave people to their own pace of learning as part of their own path in this incarnation and not be so keen to judge it…”  Something like that.  That made me take notice.  As much as I’d like to argue the merits of this theory of simultaneous time and how we can present all sorts of data (and experience) to show its empirical evidence, I can’t.  I think the actuality of this concept will present itself to those who are ready to receive it.

Here’s a very basic idea that I’ve often contemplated…Isn’t it interesting how man constructs, plans, calculates the slight tilt of time by changing the clock one hour forward in the spring (“spring forward”) and one hour back in the fall (“fall back”).  This is the man-made manipulation of time.  This is not a perennial process but an annual process.  One that man decides.  That always intrigued me and struck me as curious.  How is it that an edict can be made to say we will fall back one hour or spring forward one hour and all are expected to abide by it?  Our bodies and our minds obey this edict.  This isn’t fundamental time, this is constructed time.  And yet we abide by its laws.  This was a curious clue to me many years ago–it told me how “plastic” time is and how mutable time is….this was a clue to me as to the malleability of time.  It’s just not what we think it is.  Therefore, it is far more plausible to me that time at its fundamental core IS simultaneous. How is it that we can have “pre” cognitive experiences (dreams, insights, waking visions) when time is supposed to be linear?  The answer: it’s not!  This is probably what tipped me off to the reality of the simultaneity of time, and this is what I’d encourage others to explore when asking themselves these BIG questions.

Now, as to how to “convince” others of this reality, especially those (as you said) who are wondering whether the old perspective is incomplete.  The good news is that those who are wondering to begin with, probably already have a clue that the old model is incomplete!  This is an innate knowing.  Something within the core of our being already knows these things – feels it, in fact.  It’s just difficult to articulate it.  So that’s why it’s so important to be around others who are willing to discuss these ideas, muse about the process of non-linear time (no-time) and other fantastical ideas like these.  Good news–we’re getting there–slowly but surely.  I don’t know–maybe our DNA is finally waking up, along with our consciousness.  I’ve always felt that there is some faculty built into us that inherently knows these things and always has.  These faculties have become dormant; atrophied.  But somehow, we’re being nudged to wake up (by the Universal Alarm Clock, LOL)!  That’s what my book is really all about–waking up these dormant faculties.  The understanding of simultaneous time is just one mechanism to do just that!

CYNTHIA: This really does feel like a special time in history unfolding right now, doesn’t it? And speaking of clocks and time, I hear from lots of people who notice things like seeing 1:11, 2:22, 11:11 and so forth on digital clocks, getting a sense that it’s time to wake up. How long have you been aware that we are entering a time of awakening, and how were you called to be of service?

ALEXIS: There’s no question that we’re living in an unprecedented period of history.  Some feel that we are here during the “end times,” and others are truly excited to be here during what many feel is this incredible shift in human and even Universal consciousness.  I am one of those people in the latter category!  My “entry point” into what I’d call awareness of this shift occurred during a personal experience that lasted three months back in 2005.  It was an out of this world experience.  It just descended on me with no warning and no cajoling on my part–it just happened!  Some have described it as a “kundalini awakening.”  I’m not sure if that’s what it was but I have to tell you it was a breakthrough the likes I’ve never experienced before.  To this day I feel honored that I came upon this confluence of physical, psychic and cosmic reality, although I don’t know how it all happened.  It’s a long story and one that I’m still trying to fully comprehend to this day!  I was “given” information about “the future,” about the important times ahead. Admittedly at the time, I’d little to no knowledge about prophecies like the Mayans or Hopis – 2012, et al…none!  But I got this sense that whatever I’d be doing in time would be instrumental in helping humanity (along with others) through this period.  It was then that I  began seeing 11 on the clock…1:11, 3:11, 5:11, 11:11, etc.  I didn’t know what to make of it.  Not too many people were reporting such things back then, but look at the number of inquiries these days.

When you Google “I see 11:11” you’ll get roughly 275,000,000 results!

That’s a lot of people either seeing 11:11 or wanting to know its significance.  That’s huge!  Something quite powerful is going on.  I wish I could say with absolute certainty what it means, but I cannot.  After contemplating the significance of the “11” phenomenon, my sense is that it carries multiple meanings, applicable at different times.  It might act as a warning at one time and a wink and a nod at another.  I think the observer must derive the synchronistic significance for themselves.  Either way, I sense that we are being ushered in to a new way of thinking and a new language and perhaps numbers are becoming a central communication tool for us all.  Pretty fascinating!

CYNTHIA: I share your optimism about these special times, and an associated sense of excitement and importance about this time in history. I also can’t help but wonder if perhaps the reason you and I both tend toward optimism about the future might in some way be related to both of us having gone through kundalini awakening experiences. I like the way you point out the way increasing numbers of people are noticing 11 on the clock, as well as other types of repeating numbers such as 2:22, 3:33, and so forth. These are patterns I began observing immediately upon my kundalini awakening. Given that people who see such numbers might literally be receiving a kind of cosmic “wake up!” message, how would you advise people to stay awake, rather than hitting the “snooze button” and drifting back into living on autopilot?

ALEXIS: First I want to address a key point.  I know we have to stay optimistic, but allow me to make clear something that I feel to be quite important.  I’ve said many times that in order to “go with the shift” we also have to acknowledge both the shadow and the light – they are equally important.  The alchemists of old new this “secret” and they utilized it quite effectively in order to transform themselves and their reality.  So many are focused on just the light and the positive and that’s great, but there’s something quite powerful about understanding the shadow effect as well.  We all have it, we embody it, and we have the ability to transcend it, but only if we recognize it.  I love this quote by author and philosopher Neil Kramer whom I mention in my book who said, “To get to the real thing, it is necessary to first stop everything.  Everything!  Only by holding still can we go deep beneath the calm of the surface and actually look into the darkness.  Whatever is there is you.  Blemishes, conquests, beauty, mortification, bafflement, and longing–all of it has to be first seen as just what it is.”  So as much as I’d like to only acknowledge the path of positivity during these special times, I don’t want to make the mistake of ignoring all the dimensions it comes with, including the shadow.  As I’ve said, when we can acknowledge the darkness, we will be quicker to eradicate it.  That said, I think people are certainly starting to recognize all the quirky, non-linear, bizarre patterns they are being presented with these days, not the least of which are numbers.  We’ve talked about the “11” phenomenon and other numerical patterns that seem to be in our face.  There are messages implicit in these numbers.  These are not easy to distill, but if we can use something I have coined, called “subtle acuity”–the ability to hone our gaze and be hypersensitive to our surroundings and all of the cues the Universe gives us to guide us (including numbers), we will become more attuned to universal language and more primed to shift and evolve.

As you’ve mentioned, staying awake is absolutely necessary.  Nothing less will do.  All bets are off as far as hitting the “snooze button’ is concerned!  It’s easy to fall back asleep when we have so many prompts to ensure we do so, like media and technology and well, the “hamster wheel.”  But we can’t relent.  We must stay awake and aware.  Our survival and thrive-all depends on it!

CYNTHIA: Might another way for people to consider accepting their shadow sides be through becoming more compassionate–loving and accepting all aspects of themselves? I ask, because it seems so often in the news these days we hear that people who’ve been the loudest in advocating separatism of one kind or another turn out to secretly have been concealing aspects of themselves they felt others couldn’t… or wouldn’t… accept. Would you agree that being more loving, accepting and compassionate toward oneself can help each of us be the change we wish to see in the world, and if so, would you please share tips or suggestions to help people with this?

ALEXIS:  Absolutely!  I’ve no doubt that becoming a loving and compassionate individual will be a major step in transformation, but I want to elucidate one crucial element.  Let me do it with another illustration.  Some years ago, alternative historian and author Graham Hancock told of this stunning experience he had while journeying I think to Brazil where he had a shamanic experience that involved the use of the native plant ayahuasca.  During the partaking of this hallucinogen which culminated in an altered state of consciousness, he found himself confronted with a great beast that looked to have the head of a crocodile and the body of a human.  The beast was overwhelming and frightening.  Hancock had to confront the being, but eventually something told him to look the beast in the eyes with all of his heart and when he did, the beast simply dissolved.  (I’m sure I don’t have the details of the story exact but hopefully you’ll get the idea.)  Bottom line, the moment he confronted the beast, it dissolved and when that happened, all of reality shifted for him.   The lesson is that when you confront the “beast” you can truly embrace compassion and be loving and accepting of yourself and your life.  Actually, I don’t think it can happen any other way.  I have a sneaking suspicion that what we fear most is merely illusion and the moment we confront the illusion, we dissolve it and when we can dissolve it, we can truly arrive at a place of compassion and love of ourselves and of others. That’s absolutely powerful!

Clearly I wouldn’t advocate seeking out an experience of this magnitude in order to come to a place of compassion.  I think we can achieve this in other ways.  First and foremost, we must forgive ourselves on all fronts (and forgive others).  We must realize that blame is a futile endeavor.  Let’s just get on with what is true in our hearts (and I believe at the core, it is simply LOVE).  Second, we must not take the external or epidermis layer of reality too seriously.  As the late great Michael Talbot once said, “We are like iceberg beings–most of us is beneath the surface.”  Let’s commit to investigating beneath the surface to uncover the true gifts of ourselves and when we do we can finally embrace them!  Finally, we must awaken what has become dormant in our consciousness and that is the idea that we are absolutely powerful, creative and limitless beings.  I know this may sound cliché, but once we unravel the layers of belief that have told us otherwise, we can have our own personal epiphany and finally breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice and truly live inside our personal and collective power.

CYNTHIA: You have such a wealth of personal experience with learning to come to a place of compassion, and experiencing a real sense of forgiveness and inner limitless power. Some people can become so fixated on what went wrong, and who’s responsible for creating the problem, that forgiveness and compassion can seem impossible. What “baby steps” tips can you suggest for someone who finds it hard to access a place of deep compassion and forgiveness?

ALEXIS: The act of forgiveness can be a difficult thing for so many people.  Particularly those who were wronged in a big way, say emotional or physical abuse of some kind.  I wish I had a magic set of words I could convey to provide the answer.  I don’t know that there are words that can be said, but rather a feeling that needs to be embodied by each individual seeking to find a place of compassion and forgiveness but are getting stuck.

Here’s one suggestion I can lend.  Let’s say you are suffering due to a sense of blaming another and you can’t get to a place of forgiveness.  A little exercise you might do is to go outside, preferably a place that is in nature and is quiet, say beside a tree.  Stand with both feet firmly placed on the ground, barefoot if possible.  Begin to recall the act or experience that made you so angry – something that someone did to you, or maybe it is something that you inflicted upon yourself.  FEEL that anger, sadness, blame as much as you can–really feel it!  Bring up that emotion from the core of your being.  NOW, imagine taking all of that condensed energy – that anger, sadness, etc, and moving it through your body, downward until it empties out through your feet.  Imagine all of that energy washing out of you and into the ground, like muddy water being absorbed by a porous section of soil.  Really imagine this happening.  Then ask the earth to take it unto herself and transmute it–literally shifting the energy from negative to positive.  This is a very alchemical process.  You can also imagine this energy as being old scraps of food that has turned into unusable waste.  The earth has the ability to compost that energy and turn it into fertile soil, ready to be planted with new thoughts and new emotions.  Now it’s ready to receive a space of compassion and forgiveness and so can you.  I’ve always looked at nature as one of our best teachers.  When you simply observe how nature works–it’s cyclical process, its effortless ability to produce and multiply AND its ability to take unusable “negative” waste and change it into fertile soil, ready to be planted with new seeds, you have to ask yourself am I not made of the same characteristics?  I think we are.  And the more we can work in harmony with nature, the more it will support us.  I think this is more than a metaphor.  We have all the tools we need to access a place of forgiveness, compassion and joy and nature is one of our greatest allies in this process!

CYNTHIA: I agree with you that Nature is a great teacher, and I love the natural sense of harmonious energy I can feel when standing, sitting, or lying on the ground outdoors. I’ve seen people who had been feeling emotionally distraught quickly attain a sense of peace and calm, simply from sitting or lying down on the grass… and I’ve heard of people who say they’ve been healed by the Earth simply by lying down outdoors on the ground. Part of this may have to do with the healing natural Schumann frequency of about 7.8 Hz, and part may be due to hearing natural sounds of wind, trees, and birds and seeing natural beauty. And speaking of beauty, I must say your new book, Conscious Musings, is gorgeous! Did you have something special in mind when designing the cover for your wonderful new book?

ALEXIS: I was so blessed to have a fantastic team bring my concept to life for the cover of Conscious Musings.  I’ve always felt connected to the idea of the mandala and particularly Dr. Carl Jung’s interpretation of the mandala and its spiritual significance.  When I had my web site some years ago, I chose to feature a variety of mandalas as part of the theme.  So when I decided on a book cover concept, it was a “no brainer” for me. It had to include the mandala, but I wanted to give it more of a three-dimensional feel and I wanted it to appear as if this omnipotent, omniscient source of consciousness would be accessible to all.  So I portrayed the mandala as being presented to every reader as an opportunity to partake in its gifts which are in truth our own innate gifts.  In fact at the end of the book, I conclude with a short message that is meant to convey the cover’s significance.  It goes like this:

“Out of the dark abyss, there emerged a pair of outstretched hands.  Gently moving toward me, I squinted, blinded by the hazy light that surrounded its shape, I knew not what it wanted with me.

I could not move.  I could not speak.  My eyes became affixed to what materialized in its gentle palms.  The hands came closer, cradling its contents.

There it was – the sphere of life, the nucleus that I had been missing from for so long.  Its vibrant colors and intricate shapes penetrated my being with a purpose that I could no longer ignore. I had a vivid remembrance that this was once me.

Now it is being returned to me with the promise of transformation.

This time, I shall partake in its promise and never look back. 

This time I will accept what these hands offer, the promise of me–as I was meant to be!”

My sincerest hope is that the cover and most importantly, the contents of Conscious Musings will convey this message to each and every reader–that it is our divine right to embrace our own sense of self, that knowledge and wisdom and love lie within, and that the Universe is beckoning us to re-awaken these qualities for the positive transformation of ourselves and our world.  Life is a gift and if we recognize it as such we will be so much closer to realizing the absolutely creative and limitless beings that we truly are!

CYNTHIA: That is so beautiful! It gives me goosebumps of happiness and joy! Thank you so much for taking the time to share so much wisdom and inspiration both in your marvelous book, Conscious Musings, and also in answering these questions today. Would you please be so kind as to let people know how they can best learn more about you and your work?

ALEXIS:  Sure, and thank you so much for warmly extending the opportunity to spend some time with you Cynthia!  My “home base” can be found at: www.higherjourneys.com.  You can find details of my book Conscious Musings there as well as a regularly updated blog of my latest musings on metaphysics, paranormal, and all sorts of reality transcending information. My radio program, Conscious Inquiry with Alexis Brooks can be found at: http://radio.consciouslifenews.com/shows/conscious-inquiry.  If you’ll allow me to borrow your signature question…“How good can it get?”  My answer–REALLY good! Thanks Cynthia!

CYNTHIA: Thank you, Alexis! I’m so grateful to you for taking the time to answer these questions and share so many fascinating insights with us today!