Consciousness is Faster than Light or Atoms

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. 🙂

Evidence of an Immortal Mind in Man and Nature

In the Matrix

MAINSTREAM science looking for the source of consciousness insists its origin has to be generated in the physical brain.

Most neuroscientists agree that all cognition arises from the activity of neurons attached to specific structures, which have fixed brain locations.

Yet many credible scientific researchers today are unconvinced and dispute these biased mainstream materialistic assumptions.

Open-minded investigators are willing to pursue truth wherever it leads, even exploring evidence that mind and its corresponding consciousness is a living entity independent of the physical structures through which it manifests.

But because research findings on this question upset established assumptions, it is frequently ignored by mainstream science. H. P. Blavatsky found the same evidence in her own era declaring:

We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox, 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.

-H. P. Blavatsky, A Paradoxical World

Caught in a whirlpool of dry leaves. (Flickr)

Yet, poised fearlessly at the cutting edge of psi research are scientific organizations 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.”

Many frontier investigators risk being minimized and shunned by their peers—their careers stalled as funding dries up.

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

Buddha meditating under the Bo Tree

“The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system,” Mme. Blavatsky wrote.

“The facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain, in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs.”

The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.

“The genuine texts of the Upanishads treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the Vedic texts. They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. In a few words: They contain the beginning and the end of all human knowledge, but they have now ceased to reveal it, since the day of Buddha. . . . One thing in them — and this in all the Upanishads — invariably and constantly points to their ancient origin.”

“But modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,’ and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony.” 

The Secret Doctrine 1:272.  

Now all this may be changing . . .

Thoughts are Things: Attitude is Altitude

© Lois Greenfield

THE uplifting adage ‘attitude is altitude’ pinpoints how the power of positive thinking can improve every aspect of our lives, using a simple but underutilized power we all possess.

“For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results,” writes NPR National Desk religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty about a study on the science of spirituality.

“Now some scientists,” she writes, “are fording new, and controversial territory.” In an area of esoteric inquiry which is sometimes called Mental Alchemy and/or Metaphysics, a lot of thinkers over the ages have stated the idea in various ways.

The conviction that the thoughts one thinks are the great determiners of the content of one’s life, inspires  many to forge on despite difficult life circumstances.

Ancient wisdom traditions maintain that thoughts are actual things, and that one’s thoughts are the result of an unalterable universal law called “Cause and Effect,” and will manifest themselves at some point in one’s life.

“Cause and Effect”

“Remembering thoughts are things — have tenacity, coherence, and life, — that they are real entities — the rest will become plain.”

[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter No. 9]

◊

The law of Cause and Effect can also be described as a law that says, “For every action, there is a reaction.”  Since thoughts are actual things, and since thoughts are also actions, it means that the thoughts will invariably cause a reaction that will result in the manifestation of those thoughts.

“Magnetic Threads”

“No act is performed without a thought at its root either at the time of performance or as leading to it. These thoughts are lodged in that part of man which we have called Manas — the mind — and there remain as subtle but powerful links with magnetic threads that enmesh the solar system.” 

[William Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy, Chapter 11 – “Karma”]

Thoughts are Things: Placebo vs Nocebo

© Lois Greenfield

THE uplifting adage “attitude is altitude” aptly pinpoints how the power of positive thought and intention affects every aspect of our lives.

“For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results,” writes NPR National Desk religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty about a study on the science of spirituality.

“Now some scientists,” she writes, “are fording new, and controversial territory.” In an area of esoteric inquiry which is sometimes called Mental Alchemy and/or Metaphysics, a lot of thinkers over the ages have stated the idea in various ways.

The conviction that the thoughts one thinks are the great determiners of the content of one’s life, inspires  many to forge on despite difficult life circumstances.

Ancient wisdom traditions maintain that thoughts are actual things, and that one’s thoughts are the result of an unalterable universal law called “Cause and Effect,” and will manifest themselves at some point in one’s life.

“Cause and Effect”

“Remembering thoughts are things — have tenacity, coherence, and life, — that they are real entities — the rest will become plain.”

[The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett, Letter No. 9]

◊

The law of Cause and Effect can also be described as a law that says, “For every action, there is a reaction.”  Since thoughts are actual things, and since thoughts are also actions, it means that the thoughts will invariably cause a reaction that will result in the manifestation of those thoughts.

“Magnetic Threads”

“No act is performed without a thought at its root either at the time of performance or as leading to it. These thoughts are lodged in that part of man which we have called Manas — the mind — and there remain as subtle but powerful links with magnetic threads that enmesh the solar system.” 

[William Q. Judge, The Ocean of Theosophy, Chapter 11 – “Karma”]

Seeing the Past, Present and Future Now

Psychic and Spiritual Visions

FUTURE time, according to Theosophy, is included in both past and present time. With this assertion The Secret Doctrine anticipated modern quantum theories and even what might come — modern Theosophy is still way ‘ahead of the curve.’

An article in New Scientist this month is titled “Why now doesn’t exist, and other strange facts about time” takes us closer to Mme. Blavatsky’s assertions.

Quoting the American Theoretical Physicist John Wheeler’s statement ‘Time is what prevents everything happening at once,’ “… is as fair a summary of what time does as any other – especially given that our hunt for the most basic ingredients of reality (see “Essence of reality: Hunting the universe’s most basic ingredient”) has left us a trifle muddled about its status.”

“One culprit was Einstein, whose theory of general relativity merged time with space. But even before him, out understanding of the laws of physics worked the same regardless of whether you travel forwards or backwards in time. That just doesn’t tally with our experience. So what is time really?”

Albert Einstein

“Einstein’s relativity tells us that time results from gravity warping the fabric of reality – resulting in a picture that is weirdly at odds with our experience.”

With her usual stunning clarity H. P. Blavatsky asserted (The Secret Doctrine 1:37) that “Time is only an illusion,” and even endowing atoms with consciousness. Yet she insisted that Time as we know it is only “produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration —

and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced.”  

H. P. Blavatsky

“The real person or thing,” she maintained, “does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth.

“It is these ‘sum-totals’ that exist from eternity in the ‘future’, and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the ‘past’.” 

Seeing the Past, Present and Future

One of Mme. Blavatsky’s occult teachers, one of the two adept co-authors of The Secret Doctrine declared: “I feel even irritated at having to use these three clumsy words — past, present and future!  Miserable concepts of the objective phases of the Subjective Whole, they are about as ill adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving.”

(Letter 8, The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett)

Time Traveler

Electric and magnetic affinities are generated, occult teachers say, whenever there is physical touch, the sound of a voice, or even seeing or looking. Every action we take carries information about us and the life around us, a kind of psychic body language. We also call them ‘vibes’ – and clearly they can be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

The invisible transfer of information between persons, animals, trees, bacteria and brain neurons, is still largely a mystery. Even birds and bees do it. The general term today is “psi,” coined from parapsychology, and usually refers to telepathy or other forms of extrasensory perception currently unexplained. It is important to point out that

Sister and Brother

Mme. Blavatsky with her Adept Teachers authorized Three Objects of the Theosophical Society, of which the Third included study of  this mysterious phenomena.

Most importantly, The First Object of the Theosophical Society was “to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity.” This first fundamental idea was further explored in The Key to Theosophy as including universal “Sisterhood:”

“… it is only by all men becoming brothers and all women sisters, and by all practising in their daily lives true brotherhood and true sisterhood, that the real human solidarity, which lies at the root of the elevation of the race, can ever be attained.

“It is this action and interaction, this true brotherhood and sisterhood, in which each shall live for all and all for each, which is one of the fundamental Theosophical principles that every Theosophist should be bound, not only to teach, but to carry out in his or her individual life.”

The Second Object is stated as “the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences etc.” These two have been preserved intact by almost all Theosophical groups.

“Buffy” Sarah Michelle Gellar

The original Third Object was clearly stated by H. P. Blavatsky in The Key to Theosophy, Section 3, published in 1889, and reads:

“To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.”

Despite the Founder’s unambiguous wording, some theosophical revisionists have chosen to unilaterally remove both the words ‘psychic” and “spiritual” from this Third Object. As a result of this unauthorized tinkering only a timid, and watered-down version of the original Third Object is all the public sees today.  How could this happen with a subject that pervades every major textbook the Teachers wrote, and hundreds of original articles?

Healing Miracles of Mind, Intention and Belief

In the Matrix

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

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

Yet many credible scientific researchers today are unconvinced, and dispute these assumptions.

Such open minded investigators are willing to pursue truth wherever it leads, even to evidence that consciousness is a independent entity from the physical structures through which it manifests.

But because research findings on this question upset established assumptions, it is ignored by mainstream science.

We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox, 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.

-H. P. Blavatsky, A Paradoxical World

Leaves in the wind.

Frontier investigators risk being minimized and shunned by their peers—and their careers stalled as funding sources dry up.

Ω

Yet, poised fearlessly at the cutting edge of psi research are scientific organizations 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.”

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

Buddha under the Bo Tree

“The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.”  

“The genuine texts of the Upanishads treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the Vedic texts. They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and matter. In a few words: They contain the beginning and the end of all human knowledge, but they have now ceased to reveal it, since the day of Buddha. . . . One thing in them — and this in all the Upanishads — invariably and constantly points to their ancient origin.”

Materialistic science still “believes not in the ‘soul of things,'” Mme. Blavatsky declared forcefully in The Secret Doctrine 1:272.  

Now all this may be changing . . .

Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for the Illusion of Time

FUTURE time, according to Theosophy, is included in both past and present time. With this assertion The Secret Doctrine anticipated modern quantum theories.

Even the great Einstein disliked the idea that atoms might be able to simultaneously mimic each over huge distances, proclaiming it to be “spooky action at a distance.”

“Time is only an illusion,” H. P. Blavatsky insisted even endowing atoms with consciousness. Time yet an illusion “produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration — and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced.” (The Secret Doctrine 1:37)

“The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment,” she insisted, “but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from the earth. It is these ‘sum-totals’ that exist from eternity in the ‘future’, and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity in the ‘past’.”

One of Mme. Blavatsky’s occult teachers, one of two adept co-authors of The Secret Doctrine delcared “I feel even irritated at having to use these three clumsy words — past, present and future!  Miserable concepts of the objective phases of the Subjective Whole, they are about as ill adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine carving.” (Letter 8, The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett)

Electric and magnetic affinities are generated, occult teachers say, whenever there is physical touch, the sound of a voice, or even looking. Every action we take carries information about us and the life around us, a kind of psychic body language. We also call them ‘vibes’ – and they can be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

The invisible transfer of information between persons, animals, trees, bacteria and brain neurons, is still largely a mystery. Even birds and bees do it. The general term today is “psi,” coined from parapsychology, and usually refers to telepathy or other forms of extrasensory perception currently unexplained.

Mme. Blavatsky with her Adept Teachers authorized Three  Objects for the Theosophical Society, which included study of  this mysterious phenomena.

The First Object of the Society was “to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,” and the Second “the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences etc.,” and these are preserved by almost all Theosophical groups.

Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar

The original Third Object was also stated clearly by H. P. Blavatsky in The Key to Theosophy, Section 3, published in 1889, and reads:

“To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.”

Ξ

Despite the Founder’s unambiguous wording, some revisionists have chosen to unilaterally remove both the words “‘psychic” and “spiritual” from the Third Object. As a result of this revisionist tinkering only a timid, unauthorized and watered-down version of the original Third Object is all the public sees today.  How could this happen with a subject that pervades every major textbook the Teachers wrote, and hundreds of original articles?

Sow a Thought, Reap a Destiny

THE uplifting adage “attitude is altitude” aptly pinpoints how the power of positive thought and intention affects every aspect of our lives.

“For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results,” writes Barbara Bradley Hagerty the NPR National Desk religion correspondent.

“Can Positive Thoughts Help Heal Another Person?

“The idea that positive thoughts and prayer can affect your health has been taught at medical schools for years. But can your thoughts affect another person physically?

“A few renegade scientists are conducting studies between loved ones to find that out — and they say it’s possible.”(Listen to Barbara Bradley Hagerty on NPR’s All Things Considered):

“Now some scientists,” she comments on a study of the science of spirituality, “are fording new, and controversial territory.”

In an area of esoteric inquiry which is sometimes called Mental Alchemy and/or Metaphysics, a lot of thinkers over the ages have stated the idea in various ways.

Ancient wisdom traditions maintain that thoughts are actual things, and that one’s thoughts are the result of an unalterable universal law called “Cause and Effect,” and will manifest themselves at some point in one’s life.

The conviction that thoughts are the great determiners of the content of one’s life, inspires  many to carry on through life’s difficulties.

The law of Cause and Effect can also be described as “For every action, there is a reaction.”  Since thoughts are actual things, and since thoughts are also actions, it means that the thoughts will invariably cause a reaction that will result in a manifestation of their effects.

Buddhism, Science, and Scientism Exposed

ELECTRIC and magnetic affinities are generated, occult teachers say, whenever there is physical touch, the sound of a voice, or even looking.

Every action we take carries information about us and the life around us, a kind of psychic body language. We also call them ‘vibes’ – and they can be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

The invisible transfer of information between persons, animals, trees, bacteria and brain neurons, is still largely a mystery. Even birds and bees do it. The general term today is “psi,” coined from parapsychology, and usually refers to telepathy or other forms of extrasensory perception currently unexplained.

Mme. Blavatsky with her Adept Teachers authorized Three  Objects for the Theosophical Society, which included study of  this mysterious phenomena.

The First Object of the Society was “to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,” and the Second “the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences etc.,” and these are preserved by almost all Theosophical groups.

The original Third Object was also stated clearly by H. P. Blavatsky in The Key to Theosophy, Section 3, published in 1889, and reads:

“To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.”

Ξ

Despite the Founder’s unambiguous wording, some revisionists have chosen to unilaterally remove both the words “‘psychic” and “spiritual” from the Third Object. As a result of this tinkering today only a timid, unauthorized and watered-down version of the original Third Object is all the public sees.  How could this happen with a subject that pervades every major textbook the Teachers wrote, and hundreds of original articles?

Seeing Into the Future: Humans May do it Naturally

ELECTRIC and magnetic affinities are generated, occult teachers say, whenever there is physical touch, the sound of a voice, or even looking.

Every action we take carries information about us and the life around us, a kind of psychic body language. We also call them ‘vibes’ – and they can be ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

The invisible transfer of information between persons, animals, trees, bacteria and brain neurons, is still largely a mystery. Even birds and bees do it. The general term today is “psi,” coined from parapsychology, and usually refers to telepathy or other forms of extrasensory perception currently unexplained.

Mme. Blavatsky with her Adept Teachers authorized Three  Objects for the Theosophical Society, which included study of  this mysterious phenomena.

The First Object of the Society was “to form the nucleus of a Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,” and the Second “the study of Aryan and other Scriptures, of the World’s religion and sciences etc.,” and these are preserved by almost all Theosophical groups.

The original Third Object was also stated clearly by H. P. Blavatsky in The Key to Theosophy, Section 3, published in 1889, and reads:

“To investigate the hidden mysteries of Nature under every aspect possible, and the psychic and spiritual powers latent in man especially.”

Ξ

Despite the Founder’s unambiguous wording, some revisionists have chosen to unilaterally remove both the words “‘psychic” and “spiritual” from the Third Object. As a result of this tinkering today only a timid, unauthorized and watered-down version of the original Third Object is all the public sees.  How could this happen with a subject that pervades every major textbook the Teachers wrote, and hundreds of original articles?

The Science Delusion

WESTERN science is growing every year more intolerant, as H. P. Blavatsky once declared in the article Occult or Exact Science  

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

A century later, not much has changed. Last year around this time a public controversy arose over scientific research into the fundamentals of consciousness.

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

“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 once argued, “how will the materialists connect it with ‘molecular’ motion at all?” Knowing they could not, she fueled the dispute quoting the prominent psychologist George T. Ladd: — ”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.

The argument only confirms today what Mme. Blavatsky wrote in her Preface to The Secret Doctrine (1:viii):

“… the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization,”

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

At the Center of the Circle

© Lois Greenfield

THE uplifting adage “attitude is altitude” aptly pinpoints how the power of positive thought and intention affects every aspect of our lives.

“For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results,” writes NPR National Desk religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty about a study on the science of spirituality.

“Now some scientists,” she writes, “are fording new, and controversial territory.” In an area of esoteric inquiry which is sometimes called Mental Alchemy and/or Metaphysics, a lot of thinkers over the ages have stated the idea in various ways.

The conviction that the thoughts one thinks are the great determiners of the content of one’s life, inspires  many to forge on despite difficult life circumstances.

Ancient wisdom traditions maintain that thoughts are actual things, and that one’s thoughts are the result of an unalterable universal law called “Cause and Effect,” and will manifest themselves at some point in one’s life.

The law of Cause and Effect can also be described as a law that says, “For every action, there is a reaction.”  Since thoughts are actual things, and since thoughts are also actions, it means that the thoughts will invariably cause a reaction that will result in a manifestation of those thoughts.

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.

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.”

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. 🙂

How We Heal

THE uplifting adage “attitude is altitude” aptly pinpoints how the power of positive thought and intention affects every aspect of our lives.

“For decades, scientists have tried to test the power of prayer and positive thinking, with mixed results,” writes NPR National Desk religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty.

“Now some scientists,” she comments on a study of the science of spirituality, “are fording new, and controversial territory.”

In an area of esoteric inquiry which is sometimes called Mental Alchemy and/or Metaphysics, a lot of thinkers over the ages have stated the idea in various ways.

Ancient wisdom traditions maintain that thoughts are actual things, and that one’s thoughts are the result of an unalterable universal law called “Cause and Effect,” and will manifest themselves at some point in one’s life.

The conviction that the thoughts one thinks are the great determiners of the content of one’s life, inspires  many to forge on despite difficult life circumstances.

The law of Cause and Effect can also be described as a law that says, “For every action, there is a reaction.”  Since thoughts are actual things, and since thoughts are also actions, it means that the thoughts will invariably cause a reaction that will result in a manifestation of those thoughts.

River of Compassion

BUDDHA never had any intention of establishing a religion 2500 years ago, at least not the sectarian kind we know today.

But it was not long before extremist followers across Asia and India split his teachings into separate branches and sects, ruled over by self-appointed lamas and monks.

The same exists today in a Hinduism that is dominated by a priestly caste of Brahmins who have co-opted the ancient wisdom religion for their own purposes.

It compares to Islam where a minority of priestly fanatics have gained dominance and political power, and who preach a severe and even violent dogmatism aimed at preserving their right to rule.

Yet Buddha’s life and teachings showed humanity the way to conscious enlightenment without priestly intermediaries,  through direct spiritual development, merit and compassion. People were inspired to rediscover and live according to the dictates of their own peaceful spiritual insights without any forced obedience to caste or creed.

The Buddha’s teaching of individual responsibility and the primacy of individual spiritual action should have saved the world from religious dogmatism. But with the persistence of the selfish side of human nature such teachings would not prevail.

Similarly, Christian religious dogmatism, with its god and invented savior, cleverly placed beyond our mere earthly domain, the ‘only son of God’ dogma secured a virtually unbreakable dominance over the soul of humanity.

Brahmin performing the Ganga Aarti

“Shun ignorance, and likewise shun illusion. Avert thy face from world deceptions” and “mistrust thy senses, they are false,” The Voice of the Silence (Fragment 2) declared. “But within thy body, the shrine of thy sensations,” it insisted,

“seek for the ‘eternal man,’ and having sought him out, look inward: thou art Buddha.”

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The ancient origin of the [Upanishads], H. P. Blavatsky notes in The Secret Doctrine [Summing Up section], “proves many of the the Upanishads were written before the caste system became the tyrannical institution which it still is.”

“Half of their contents have been eliminated,” she wrote, “while some of them were rewritten and abridged.” A few brave souls today are speaking and acting out, as Blavatsky did, against dogmatic desecration and dominance.

Out There Somewhere

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.

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“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.”

Faster than Light

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.

“Thought flies like lightning through the subtle matter of the mental plane,” writes a Master, “so the thought of the whole world on a certain subject may easily gather together in one spot, and yet be accessible and attractive to every thinker on that subject.”

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.”

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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.

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.

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Consciousness is Universal

“Even our increasingly sophisticated technology for peering inside the brain has, disappointingly,” Geddes writes, agreeably with Theosophy, “failed to reveal a structure that could be the seat of consciousness.

Yet the esoteric wisdom, ever a true and honest system, “checks the discoveries of modern exact science,” notes Blavatsky, and demonstrates

“…some of them to be necessarily correct, since they are found corroborated in the ancient records.”

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“To use a Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly,” Blavatsky establishes in The Secret Doctrine (1:4): “an out-breathing of the ‘unknown essence’ produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear.”

“This process has been going on from all eternity, and our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning and will have no end.”

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“The Big Bang was big, but it wasn’t the beginning, Cambridge University mathematical physicist Neil Turok says. He theorizes that the universe is engaged in an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction: There have been many Big Bangs, and there will be many more.” (Cambridge University)

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Some modern physicists like Cambridge University’s Neil Turok (above), in a radical new theory want to amend the standard big bang.

They are suggesting it is a cyclic event that consists of regularly repeating big bangs.

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The ancients recognized universal periodicity all along, the Second Fundamental Proposition of The Secret Doctrine, a universal law which is described in part:

 

“…the absolute universality of that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, 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, that it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the universe.”

All life is indeed suffused with so-called ‘god-stuff’ due to the ubiquity of that supra-physical One Absolute BE-NESS — the First Fundamental Proposition which is “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point” throughout the universe, and every being in it.

“Say Cheese”

The Theosophical concept of the ‘expanding universe,’ analogous to a image gradually emerging from light through a negative in a photographer’s darkroom, according to Secret Doctrine cosmology (1:63). The s0-called ‘expansion’ was, Blavatsky asserts:

“…not an increase in size—for infinite extension admits of no enlargement—it was a change of condition.”

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And this periodical “Great Breath” of the universe, the great out-breathing and in-breathing, is the core of the occult teaching—

“…the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine.”

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“Its one absolute attribute, which is itself, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the ‘Great Breath,’ — which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in the sense of limitless, ever-present space.”

Beginning with this universal perspective, as does Plato ‘deductively’  (from universals to particulars), we will begin see how this process continues down the line to individual consciousness, in its various states, experienced at every moment in daily life in man and nature.

Healing Naturally

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

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

Yet many credible scientific researchers today are unconvinced, and dispute these assumptions.

Such open minded investigators are willing to pursue truth wherever it leads, even to evidence that consciousness is a independent entity from the physical structures through which it manifests.

Most so-called New Age science is still considered hocus pocus, and the researcher’s findings are not considered credible, no matter how rigorously the studies are done.

“We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox,” Blavatsky wrote in 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.”

Poised fearlessly at frontier research are scientific organizations 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.”