A Shaman Levitates

MAINSTREAM science looking for the source of our consciousness, insist its origin must be located in the physical brain.

Such scientists are certain that all cognition arises from the activity of neurons attached to specific structures, which have fixed locations in the head.

Yet many credible scientific minds today think otherwise, and dispute the idea that our human consciousness arises from physical neuronal structures.

Open minded science should always be willing to pursue truth wherever it leads, even to consider that consciousness itself may be an independent entity from the physiology through which it manifests and operates. It’s only stating the obvious: automation takes us only so far – cars need drivers, and airplanes must have pilots.

But the mainstream clan still labels psi studies, pointing to a stand-alone self, as ‘junk science’ no matter how rigorous the experiments. The results no matter how conclusive, are ignored. They are generally not accepted for publication in prestigious journals which would lend them credibility.

Parapsychologists risk being minimized and shunned — and their careers are often stalled as funding sources dry up.

Ω

“We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox,” steamed Blavatsky in her article A Paradoxical World, “wherein, like dry leaves caught in a whirlpool, we are tossed helpless, hither and thither, ever struggling between our honest convictions and fear of that cruelest of tyrants—PUBLIC OPINION.”

Yet, poised fearlessly at the frontiers of psi research are scientific groups such as the respected Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California, and the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek.

These researchers, and others, like NES energy medicine, are willing to take a leap in pursuit of the fast-moving “soul of things” that other scientists prefer ignoring.

Such investigations were formerly the exclusive precinct of ancient, uncanny intuitives and seers. Today there are many qualified scientific investigators on the hunt for answers to the puzzling problems of consciousness that stymie mainstream science.

Seeing is Deceiving

ATOMS like their privacy as any physicist knows who tries to nail down their elusive face and place.

This effect is due to something dubbed the “measurement problem” in quantum physics.

Whether atoms are waves or particles, it was supposed, would be established simply by observing them. But it was not that easy.

So-called “observing” the fickle critters, actually changed their supposed appearance!

For decades this classic problem in quantum physics has been a mystery, and shows no possibility of being resolved anytime soon, at least not with the use of conventional scientific methods.

In ancient times such mysteries were resolved by initiated seers whose “flashing gaze” could penetrate “into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there,” H. P. Blavatsky recounts. [SD 1:272]

“…but modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,'” she wrote.

The size, shape and location of these energetic illusions will likely never be resolved. To prove it, Mme. Blavatsky argues that the atoms and particles of modern science don’t really exist except in the exuberant imaginations of the scientists. And she famously insisted that atoms are merely “entified abstractions,” are not subject to physical laws, and that no scientist will ever see one.

Ten Dogmas of Science

WESTERN science is growing every year more intolerant, wrote Mme. Blavatsky in her 19th Century article Occult or Exact Science.

Yet “every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy…if approached in the right direction,” she wrote.

Not much has changed. In recent months a public controversy arose over scientific research into the fundamentals of consciousness.

“It involves IONS scientists, as well as some of our colleagues,” notes an article on IONS website titled Think Outside the Box, “and may reflect shifting attitudes about frontier research.”

The article continues: “TED, the popular conference organizer with the tag line ‘ideas worth spreading,’ recently removed videos of two TEDx talks from their official YouTube channel and then cancelled a TEDx event. The censored talks and cancelled event had a common theme—exploring the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain.

If “will has no special organ,” H. P. Blavatsky wrote, “how will the materialists connect it with ‘molecular’ motion at all? As Professor George T. Ladd says: — ‘The phenomena of human consciousness must be regarded as activities of some other form of Real Being than the moving molecules of the brain.'”

Yet TED’s justification for their actions “was that the contributors were promoting ‘pseudo-science.’ The videos were talks presented by Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock, and the event presenters included Russell Targ, Larry Dossey, and IONS’ Marilyn Schlitz.”

“TED’s actions, based on recommendations from its anonymous ‘Science Board,’ kicked off a heated Internet discussion and shed light on how some segments of the scientific mainstream tend to stifle conversation on the nature of consciousness, including the kind of cutting-edge research that IONS conducts.

“However, the enormous attention this controversy has received, and the discussion it generated, may signal a shift towards more openness to including the possibility of non-local consciousness into scientific dialogues.”

Hearts in Healthcare

THE ancient Wisdom Religion, now called Theosophy, provides a compelling basis for ethics and compassion.

The binding force lies in the realization that humanity shares one divine root, that all are united both in the natural world and at the deepest spiritual level.

The teaching shows that “compassion is no attribute” that it is the “Law of Laws,” (Voice of the Silence) — “the law of love eternal.”

The mutual brotherhood and altruism such compassion demands are the ideals we must follow if humanity is to survive and thrive. Fortunately, The Golden Rule is found in all the world’s faiths, and is more universal than most of us know or were taught.

“The ethic of reciprocity is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion,” says A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. The Golden Rule “is often regarded as the most concise and general principle of ethics, a condensation in one principle of all longer lists of ordinances.”

Charter for Compassion International

“The latest advances in neuroscience paint a rich picture of the deep interconnection between human beings: our feelings, sensations, thoughts, emotions, physiological responses, and visceral reactions are intimately linked.

“It’s as if we have a broadband network connection between our respective nervous systems.”

♥

Death No Fear

VETERANS of near-death experiences, writes Dr. W. R. Morrow, “found that death is not to be feared.”

“They have all been to the edge, looked over, and afterwards lived out their lives with an optimistic attitude.”

Theosophy concurs in H. P. Blavatsky who wrote: “death comes to our spiritual selves ever as a deliverer and friend,” (The Key to Theosophy, p.161.)

“This extensive ‘research,’ if it gives any proof at all, gives evidence of a universal heaven,” says Morrow, “the same comforting near-death vision for everyone reporting!”

“Interestingly, recent analysis by researcher Dr. Jeffrey Long of 1,200 reported cases of the near-death phenomenon shows remarkable similarities across cultures, continents, and religions,” Morrow notes. “All were pleasant and reassuring.”  

“Many in the religious community will not accept a God like this who provides no separation of the sheep and the goats, but personally I like this hint of a loving embrace when I go.”

Heavenly Vision

♥

Dr. William Morrow is a Florida licensed marriage and family therapist with offices in Cape Coral and Fort Myers. Learn more at: http://www.williamrmorrow.com. Email wmorrowmft@embarqmail.com

A Telepathic Cat

CONSCIOUSNESS is at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.

Knowing very little of its spiritual essence, we define consciousness by names we give to its various ‘states’ — waking, sleeping, intuitive, meditating, angry, depressed, happy or sad.

We experience perhaps hundreds of such random mental and emotional states every day, no wiser in understanding the hidden matrix, or field of consciousness in which they are embedded.

Material Science approaches nature only “through her appearance,” H. P. Blavatsky writes in The Secret Doctrine (1:610), and “that appearance is always deceitful on the physical plane,” adding that Science:

“…refuses to blend physics with metaphysics, the body with its informing soul and spirit, which they prefer ignoring.”

Ω

Nevertheless, physics and metaphysics were once deeply entwined, resulting in the natural philosophy of the Greeks, but is given the cold shoulder now by a science that prefers computer simulations, and huge particle collider machines to the natural world.

Searching for the God Particle

Occult Science, on the other hand, rejecting the Cartesian system, describes the body-mind consciousness as the lower end of a universal, spiritual substrate referred to as “BE-NESS” in The Secret Doctrine—symbolized by two pre-manifested aspects cited as “abstract space” (bare subjectivity), and “abstract motion” (representing unconditioned consciousness.)

“Consciousness has long been one of the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything,” writes Linda Geddes in the 29 November 2011 NewScientist.

Ω

Lucid dreaming, being conscious of dreaming while dreaming, best exemplifies this multi-layered conscious now-presence. Perhaps H. P. Blavatsky expressed it best with a word she coined to describe absolute consciousness —”BE-NESS”— “the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical One Absolute.” (Vol. 1:14)

Among all earthly creatures, who might most exemplify this enigmatic quality, if not our feline friends?

Ψ

Be-ness

One of Rupert Sheldrake’s experiments on the unexplained powers of animals is dramatized by the case of David Waithe’s cat Godzilla!

Biologist author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books, Sheldrake is a former Research Fellow of the Royal Society. In this clip Sheldrake discusses Godzilla, a cat that knows when his owner is calling. 🙂

Waiting to Inhale

AN Eastern wisdom teaching is introduced to the West in the familiar proverb “what goes around, comes around.”

The modern saying is almost certainly a soul memory referring to the omnipresent, and unerring law of karma.

Wisdom of karma insists that every fleeting moment eventually returns, to its original state plus the experience gained — after completing an obligatory pilgrimage.

Specifically, a person’s actions whether good or bad,” as Wikipedia has it, “will often have consequences for that person.”

The ancients always insisted on the absolute universality of periodicity, the law “of flux and reflux, ebb and flow,” according to The Secret Doctrine, “which physical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature.”

“An alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception,,” says this teaching, “that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.”

♦

This teaching is set forth in The Secret Doctrine as the Second Fundamental Proposition, a universal law sourced from the Perennial Philosophy (on which the teachings are based)…

Soul and the Juggernaut of Science

OUR modern objective science “is the hallmark of society today, and “it has an unrivaled power base.”

“Its description of reality has molded the modern world,” write Deepak Chopra, MD and Jim Walsh in their July 1, 2013 article in Huffington Post.

And, “its worldview holds sway over universities, governments and the public at large.”

“Everyone who participates in the consensus view of reality has been touched by it. But the role of the observer has puzzled and intrigued physics since the quantum revolution a century ago.,” say the Authors of the article The Consciousness Project – Hopeful Solutions for Epic Problems.

“We feel that this issue offers a crucial opening for expanding the role of science.”

“As a counterpoint to the science juggernaut, there is another view of reality supported by loosely aligned groups in religion, philosophy, and a minority in science,” they write. “Their worldview is consciousness-based. Whatever their differences, supporters of consciousness place mind first in Nature and matter second.”

“Flying” – Lois Greenfield

“Such a worldview has no significant financial backing comparable to mainstream science,” writes Dr. Chopra. “It has been excluded from experimentation in major universities and all but banished from respectability, depending on the rich heritage, East and West, of saints, sages, and seers who fall outside the scientific method.”

Wresting the domain of consciousness from the lords of scientific  reductionism, where it has been abused and minimized for decades, takes imaginative and fearless investigators.

Such would not have been included the proclaimed “Father of Modern Philosophy” René Descartes, who held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as mere automatons.

This is not a concept that sits well with consciousness-based views of reality, nor with animal advocates, environmentalists, including most Theosophists — who recognize that consciousness is inherent in all kingdoms of nature, not just the human. In their view, possessors of sentient consciousness include such unlikely candidates as bacteria, minerals — and atoms!

Decartes held famously to the premise “I think therefore I am”— without ever explaining what a thought is, or explaining the persistence and presence of the ever-elusive nature of consciousness. One wonders if it doesn’t seem far more reasonable to assume in fact that the opposite is true, i.e. —“I AM, therefore I think?”

Adherents biassedly line up on one or the other side of the issue. (Actually, Theosophy would argue both sides are accounted for by the ancient teaching of the mind’s dual nature.)

In fact, the elusive, omnipersistent ‘mind’, is not a production of the brain at all, but an aspect of universal mind.

Over one hundred years ago, unraveling the mystery of the existence of the ‘soul’ was attempted by physical science, employing of course the expected material, reductionist methods — using a mechanical device to weigh it!