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Features
The God CodeInterview with Gregg Braden
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The Path of Kabbalah
By Shulamit Elson
This is a copywritten excerpt from her book: Kabbalah of Prayer - Sacred Sounds and the Soul's Journey
"No mystical tradition better explores the intersecting mysteries of the human character and divine presence than the medieval Kabbalah and no writer offers a better primer in its contemporary practice and understanding than Shulamit Elson." Professor Bruce Chilton, Executive Director, Institute of Advanced Theology, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion, Bard College.
Shulamit Elson teaches the spiritual path of the Kabbalah to students worldwide, and is a pioneer in the use of the sacred sounds of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, for prayer, spiritual development and healing. She has presented her work in such diverse venues as the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, the Auroville Healing Center in Pondicherry, India, and at learning centers throughout Europe, Israel and the United States.
Shulamit is the author of the highly acclaimed book Kabbalah of Prayer - Sacred Sounds and the Soul's Journey, and Brooklyn Bodhisattvas, A Book of Visions and Kabbalistic Poetry as well as the two audio CDs Beyond Words - The Sounds of the Kabbalah, and Vibration - Shulamit and the Drepung Gomang Buddhist Monks. Prior to setting out on her own spiritual path, Shulamit was a successful investment banker on Wall Street. She resides in upstate New York where she is the Director of SoulSongs, The Center of Sound and Kabbalah. She is a graduate of New York University and has a MA in History.
The Kabbalah traces its beginning to the time of the biblical patriarch Abraham. In both written and oral form its wisdom has been carefully handed down from master to student, capturing the imagination of religious scholars and spiritual seekers for thousands of years.
In every generation there are men and women who seek to find the meaning of life through this ancient Jewish mystical path. By striving to unlock the mysteries of the universe and to align with the forces of creation, students of the Kabbalah attempt to make their way back to God.
The books that make up the foundation writings of the Kabbalah include the Sefer Yetzirah, or Book of Formation, whose first date of appearance in written form is unknown, but whose oral teachings date back before the first century; The Sefer haBahir or the Book of Illumination first published in the late 12th century; and the Sefer haZohar known as the Book of Splendor,first printed in the late 13th century.
These books are part of a vital tradition kept alive over the centuries by dedicated spiritual seekers committed to finding answers to questions about the nature of creation, the Creator, and our place within the divinely ordered universe. Their goal is to uncover a mystical path to oneness with God through study of the hidden esoteric meaning of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Holy Scriptures.
One of the most important teachings of Kabbalah is that in addition to our Nefesh, or animal soul, which we share with all living creatures, each human being possesses a Neshamah or higher soul. Our higher soul can never be debased or corrupted and it knows everything we need to know about the universe and our place within it. It is a part of us literally touched by God, and it offers each of us the possibility of direct contact with the angelic world and the forces of creation.
The Kabbalah offers seekers from all faiths a path to the awakening of their higher soul based on an understanding of how our thoughts, speech and actions either elevate or degrade our nature. On this path, the Kabbalah teaches us the power of prayer by deepening our understanding of the true nature of prayer and its effect on ourselves and the upper worlds. Through the study of Kabbalah we come to understand that by strengthening our connection to the upper worlds through the act of prayer we align our spiritual essence, our own vibration with the vibration of the Eternal.
The Kabbalah teaches that this act of aligning ourselves with God is a process that takes place over many lifetimes. Before each birth, we are like a thread in a divine tapestry, a "curtain of souls." The thread of our existence is interwoven with the threads of the All. Descending from the One, we are born into separation and duality. This descent and separation is a painful tearing of the fabric of our existence.
Before our soul descends into the world, we know everything there is to know; we know all the worlds, our reason for being, our destiny, and our connection to All That Is. Then, at birth, an angel touches our lips and this knowledge and our intimate connection to the Creator is forgotten. Compelled by our need for survival, we are drawn inexorably into the stream of life, focusing all our energy on obtaining nourishment, maintaining our physical safety, and mastering our earthly environment.
The angel who touches our lips and causes us to forget does not completely erase our memory. Faint awareness remains of what we once knew. Living with this subtle awareness submerged within, we sense that something important has been lost.
At the same time, there is often an unreality about this sense of loss. What could be missing? How could we begin to look for it? It is like the buried fortunes in fairy tales. The treasure has been buried so long that talk of its existence seems unbelievable. Nonetheless, despite attempts to ignore or dismiss it, memory lingers of our soul's original state of oneness. Hidden but active, this memory exerts a powerful influence. All have felt its pull at one time or another.
To reclaim the treasure of our higher soul's forgotten knowledge, and to heal our original wound of separation, each one of us must embark upon a hero's quest to find this concealed and heavily guarded jewel. The journey beckons us, through many twists and turns, across moats filled with dark creatures and burning fires, to travel beyond the twin dragons of our ego's fear and delusion.
In most cases, this journey begins only after we have gone though the process of developing a separate sense of self, learning how to protect ourselves, physically and emotionally, from others and the world around us. Once this "growing up" takes place, our spiritual journey commences in earnest as each of us is drawn to make our way back, step-by-step, to a state of oneness and connection. In this process of awakening our higher soul, everything that has happened to us in the past and all that will happen to us in the future plays a role.
The rewards of our pilgrimage back to wholeness, and the awakening of our higher soul, include the priceless gift of uncovering our soul's unique individual purpose here on earth. It is one of the central teachings of Kabbalah that everything in creation has a reason for existing and each human being has a unique purpose on earth, even if it is not apparent to us. Each of us plays an essential role in the structure of the world. This is one reason why we must always have a profound reverence for all human life.
For most of us, unaware of our reason for being, life often seems empty and without meaning. Some question why they exist at all. Finding the answer to the question "Why am I here?" is one of the greatest rewards of spiritual growth.
Many, unfortunately, will succeed in forestalling their spiritual growth, with sad consequences. A stunting of spiritual development exacts a heavy price in physical illness and mental suffering. Regardless of our state of spiritual understanding, however, we are always married to the consciousness of the universe. Not metaphorically, but in a real way, we are interwoven with and inseparable from the Eternal.
The evolution of our spiritual consciousness is a continuous process of development, taking many lifetimes. We are born again and again in order to reach the full expression of our soul's unique purpose. This should not be confused with becoming a perfect being. As humans, living in the world of duality, perfection is neither possible nor expected.
In each life, our spiritual journey does not start from scratch, since we have our soul's lessons from countless lives lived before. We begin life in relationship to our past lives, with debts to pay, and rewards to reap. In addition, the consequences of our past lives influence us to act and react in certain ways, while at the same time, we are continuously creating new consequences from our actions during this life. In this way, nothing that we do, no matter how small, is without consequence.
Regardless of how ordinary our everyday reality may seem, each of us is on this sacred journey across our many lives. Unaware of this truth, most of us mistake the surface of our life for the essence of what it is to be human, but underneath, the real story unfolds: the yearning pulse of our Neshamah, our higher soul, quietly and persistently beats.
In the spiritual journey across our many lives, the destination and the Source are the same. Once we perceive our oneness with God, we understand that the Source points to the destination, and the destination leads to the Source. This is one of the many meanings of the teaching found in the Sefer Yetzirah that "The end is embedded in the beginning and the beginning in the end, like a flame in a burning coal."
Journeying back to the One, our life is our lesson plan. It is designed to give us the opportunity to address unresolved issues from past incarnations, as well as to fulfill commandments we have failed to honor.
Understanding that life's challenges are actually meant to be opportunities for spiritual growth and the awakening of our higher soul, we respond to them differently. Instead of feeling angry or victimized, we are able to ask: "What is this difficult person, or challenging circumstance meant to teach me?"
Sometimes, in the midst of our greatest challenges, we can sense our Neshamah, our higher soul, calling out to us. In these moments, when we listen very carefully, it is as if God is whispering in our ear. For the most part, however, we are unaware of this hidden treasure within. It is a treasure that lies quiet and dormant, until we are guided through study, intention, yearning, and prayer to awaken it.
In contrast, every human being is born with a fully awake and engaged Nefesh or animal soul. This part of us is highly intelligent, emotional and resourceful. The main goals of our animal soul are survival in the physical sense, and taking care of our wants and bodily desires. To our animal soul, everything is food, to be consumed, digested, enjoyed, hoarded, and fought over.
The animal soul lives in struggle and battle, some of it with outside forces and much of it in a self-created civil war between the various aspects of our personality and desires. On this level of our being, we are constantly on the alert, continually caught between seeking pleasure and fleeing pain. We think only of our power and powerlessness relative to the physical world around us.
Living on the level of our animal soul, our perception of ourselves rests with the external roles we perform and how successfully we perform them. We identify completely with our day to day accomplishments and failures. We rejoice in our preferences and opinions, our loves and our hatreds, and think of our worldly achievements as defining who we are. The result is that for years we can fail to notice that our material successes do not provide a sense of abiding completeness and in fact often feed its opposite, an underlying loneliness and despair.
For many, this is essentially the sum total of what is, in fact, a very limited existence. This is not to say that such a life is simple or uninteresting. On the contrary, it can be complex, colorful, and quite absorbing. It is, however, in an ultimate sense, empty, unrewarding and permeated by fear of loss.
Each one of us, living only on the level of our animal soul, experiences this emptiness and longs for something more. However, at this early stage in our soul's journey we are literally trapped animals. Our longing for completion simply drives our animal soul to search ever more desperately for fulfillment in the only places it knows in the external world of things like careers, friends, lovers, spouses, physically fit bodies, ever increasing numbers of material possessions, and ever more pleasurable physical experiences.
As long as we live our life only on the level of our animal soul, stalking the perimeter, ever on guard, the possibilities inherent in our Neshamah, our higher soul, will elude us. This includes all perception and experience of the upper worlds. Our activities are therefore little more than simply moving around the furniture in our cage. What is called for, instead, is to open the cage door and to walk free.
This freedom begins with our yearning for something more. Perhaps we are worn down by sorrow and the cycle of longing and loss. We may have a brush with death, become bored with our toys, or find that our worldly successes suddenly lack meaning. Perhaps a vision takes hold, or we may find a teacher or a teacher may find us. Whatever the reason, driven by the whispering of our higher soul, our yearning causes us to begin to search in earnest for what we have forgotten. At this point the study of Kabbalah, under the direction of a knowledgeable teacher, can be extraordinarily helpful.
When we fully awaken our higher soul we live in a place of surrender, embraced by God; we neither cling to the past nor wait upon the future, since our higher soul resides in a timeless world. In this awakening, concepts and ideas about how things should be fall away. Our higher soul understands that what belongs to us comes to us, and therefore it feels neither pride nor resentment. It simply recognizes our individual place in the nature of things.
Unlike our animal soul that fears for itself and its future, constantly alert to the world's countless dangers, the Neshamah, the higher soul, fears nothing. Its connection with the body and the ego is of an entirely different order since it carries with it the knowledge that physical death is not the end.
At the level of our higher soul, feelings exist deep within the moment, to be experienced in the now; we laugh with complete abandon and weep profoundly. The rewards of living at the level of our higher soul are the rewards of a life fully lived. We no longer turn to others with the expectation that they will repay us with things such as love, appreciation, or money. We thereby allow others to be genuinely free. Sensing that there is no price tag attached to our friendship, people gather around us for the sweetness of our energy, to bathe in the radiance that surrounds and imbues us.
As our higher soul awakens, the constructs of our personality invariably begin to loosen. In many cases, the awakening is experienced much like an earthquake. As the old ground beneath us falls away, our relationships alter as we stop participating in the old ways, for they cannot bear the scrutiny of our new awareness.
While it may appear to us that in this awakening we are becoming something different, we are actually becoming more ourselves, as our animal soul assumes its proper place. Each and every thing we lose is replaced by something much stronger and much greater, and we come to understand the words of scripture: "Those who cling to the Lord God, have eternal life in the present."
When our higher soul awakens, we still exist on an earthly plane and share in the pleasures and sorrows of the physical, even as we dwell with the angels and partake of the higher worlds. We continue to have the same physical obligations and the same need to tend to the body. We still have to eat, sleep, and breathe. What is different is the level of our consciousness, and hence we have an entirely different relationship to these needs. In this transformation, everything is the same, yet everything changes. As the Buddhists say: "Before enlightenment, chop the wood, carry the water; after enlightenment chop the wood, carry the water."
Mount Shasta Magazine will be interviewing Shulamit Elson in our next issue.
To Contact Her:
E-mail: SoulSongs@aol.com
www.soulsongs.com
Phone: 845-687-7783
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Liberating Mary Magdalene - The Sacred Number of Her Name
By Ed Conroy
"God in the beginning of creation made the body of the universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put together without a third; there must be some bond of union between them." Plato, Timaeus
There is a new Madonna in the Western world, and her name is Mary Magdalene. She is, it appears, the patroness of the people whom Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong calls "believers in exile." To her new advocates, she is herself the archetype of the "Bride in Exile," the feminine principle denied and suppressed by a patriarchal church desperately out of touch with women and their emotional lives.
Long regarded by the mainstream churches as a penitent prostitute, the figure Mary Magdalene is now being "resurrected" from that status by numerous writers, each with a different concept of her significance. In the general upsurge of interest around Mary Magdalene, the question of her possible marriage to Jesus of Nazareth has feverishly captured the popular imagination of the English-speaking world, firing an intense debate in the North American mass media in 2003 that continues this year.
Dan Brown's best-selling thriller, The Da Vinci Code, of course, has been the principle vehicle for conveying this idea, with over 4.5 million copies in print. In addition, much homage has been recently paid to (and scorn once again heaped upon) Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the authors of the earlier best-seller,Holy Blood, Holy Grail, for first broaching to a mass readership, over 20 years ago, the idea of a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Over the past 20 years, there has been a feminist revolution in Biblical scholarship, led in many ways by the pioneering work of Elaine Pagels, whose The Gnostic Gospels made the teachings of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts known to a new generation of lay readers. In concluding her chapter "God the Father/God the Mother" in that work, Pagels wrote: "The Nag Hammadi sources, discovered at a time of contemporary social crises concerning sexual roles, challenge us to reinterpret history; and to re-evaluate the present situation."
In Pagel's footsteps have followed distinguished feminist scholars such as Karen King of Harvard and Jane Schaberg of the University of Detroit Mercy, among others, who have re-evaluated sexual roles in Christianity through advancing the concept of Mary Magdalene as a person of considerable stature, power and authority in the early church.
Yet it is Margaret Starbird, an independent scholar and theologian with deep Roman Catholic roots, who has emerged as the mostrecognized advocate for the heretical idea of a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. That marriage, she asserts, was a model of sacred partnership, and a template for the union of male and female energies inthe human soul as well as in our personal relationships.
Starbird has developed her position in three books: The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, The Goddess in the Gospels (her spiritual autobiography) and, most recently, Magdalene's Lost Legacy: Symbolic Number and Sacred Union in Christianity.
In Magdalene's Lost Legacy, Starbird formally argues that the authors of the New Testament regarded Mary Magdalene as having the status of "sacred partner" with Jesus because of the symbolic numerical value of her epithet "the Magdalene." Starbird says the meaning of "the Magdalene" is derived not from her supposed hometown of Magdala, a fishing village on the shores of Lake Kinnaret (which received its name from early Christians), but from the Hebrew word magdala (migdol) which means "tower-stronghold" or "elevated."
Her overall argument is based upon the "sacred canon of number" the ancient, Pythagorean idea that harmony in human relationships depended upon the recognition of balance and proportion inall things a philosophy which is encoded into books of the Jewish bible and the New Testament. Among contemporary feminist authors presently writing on the subject of Mary Magdalene, Starbird is the first to utilize the technique known as gematria (from the Greek root word for geometry) to analyze and interpret Christian scriptures in support of the idea of a sacred partnership, a marriage, between Jesus and Mary Magdalene
As Starbird clearly defines it in her most recent book, Gematria is a long-honored and well honed literary device employed to enhance the subtle meaning of certain verses and phrases and possibly used as a mnemonic device as well. It required a deliberate manipulation of letters and words, similar to the rhyme scheme of a poem but more sophisticated. Instead of setting their verses to music, the authors of the sacred texts set them to number.
In Greek, in which the New Testament was written, as earlier had been done in Hebrew and later even in the Roman alphabet, every letter was given a numerical value. By adding togetherthe numerical values of the letters in a name, verse or epithet (such as "the Magdalene"), the reader is able to obtain the symbolic value of that phrase. Phrases and words in both the Jewish bibleand the New Testament that share the same value thereby become linkedin their significance and must be taken into account, in this ancient but now academically ignored way of explicating the meaning of sacred texts.
In constructing her arguments, Starbird gives full credit to the authors who laid their foundation. She particularly acknowledges John Michell, the author of over 20 books exploring themes of high civilizations in antiquity and the esoteric dimensions of "duodecimal philosophy," or systems of meaning based upon the number 12. He is perhaps best known for his classic work The View Over Atlantis, which outlined the relationship between the great megalithic centers of Britain and the "ley line" system of telluric currents that, he suggested, linked them in an energy grid for the benefit of nature and humanity. Michell is also noted for his many years editing The Cereologist, the first serious periodical concerning crop circles.
Michell's book City of Revelation has provided for Starbird the basis of her arguments in Magdalene's Lost Legacy, as she clearly recognizes. She also credits the importance of the work of David Fideler, whose Jesus Christ, Sun of God is also a milestone in explicating the development of Pythagorean number mysticism in Hellenistic culture and its role in the creation of specific passages of the Gospels.
Michell attaches particularly great importance to the number 153, which, according to chapter 21 of the Gospel of John, is the number of the fishes the disciples caught in their net when fishing on the sea of Galilee. Both Michell and Starbird point out that the number for one of the Greek words for "fishes" is 1224, which is the product of 153 x 8, eight being the number of regeneration. In addition, the Greek word for "net" has a value of 1224. Moreover, the Greek phrase "multitude of fishes" has the value of 153 x 16, a doubling of the previous factor of eight. Michell's interpretation of these numbers, with which Starbird agrees, is that the "multitude of fishes" refers to "the harvest of humanity," or, in Christian terms, the ekklesia, the "Bride of Christ," all those who are converted to the path of Jesus.
Mathematically, 153 is also related to the square root of 3, which before the use of the radical sign in mathematics was expressed by the ratio of 265 to 153. That ratio is geometrically derived from the pattern commonly known as the vesica piscis (the "fish's bladder"), and is formed by the intersection of two circles of equal radii whose circumferences pass through each other's centers.The central shape formed by the intersection of the two circlesis at once a symbolic vulva, and also the source of the "fish" symbol utilized by Christians since antiquity to identify themselves. If one draws a cross from the centre of that symbol to obtain the horizontal and vertical axes of the diagram, the ratio of those lines to one another is 265 over 153 , the square root of 3.
David Fidler expanded upon Michell's discovery of the importance of 153 in Jesus Christ, Sun of God, noting that thesquare root of 3 is the governing ratio of a complex and beautiful diagram which he describes as "the cosmic fish net'." As he puts it, "To the early Christian Gnostics the net was an important cosmological symbol, but this natural symbolism predates Christianity and represents the woven web of nature or the vivifying power of harmony which enforms (sic) the pattern of creation."
Starbird said that she met John Michell at a conference of the Fortean Society in 1993 and asked him if he had ever considered what might be the gematria of "the Magdalene." "He replied that no, he had not," Starbird said, "but then looked at me and said 'Maybe that's your job!'"
The number value of "the Magdalene" that Starbird obtained by gematria from the Greek, she states, is none other thanthe significant 153, the number of the Hellenistic "net," andthe number of vesica piscis, the "fish's bladder," long identified exclusively with Jesus. The sacred form of the two intersectingcircles and their unique generative properties had been known sinceantiquity, and Michell argues it is represented in the design of Stonehenge,as well as in the floor plans of the great Gothic cathedrals.
Starbird is both modest and critical of conventional attitudes in her assessment of her contribution.
"The only really original contribution I made was tocheck out the number for Mary Magdalene and to realize her connection with the whole '153' gematria and sacred geometry, which I feel was overlooked by the men because they never gave her the time of day (since she was a 'prostitute')," she said.
"For me, the 'sacred marriage' is the 'pearl of great price hidden in the field,' a metaphor for the kingdom of God. No one ever thought to look for it - since they didn't realize it was missing!"
Michell recalled his original meeting and, having read her arguments concerning a possible marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, told this writer in a telephone interview from his home in London that "her arguments are highly plausible, and it is a delight to see someone take one's work and expand upon it for a good purpose."
Michell added he concurs that Starbird's associationof Mary Magdalene with "153" and the vesica piscis, is her own unique and original contribution to the growing debate over the identity and significance of Mary Magdalene.
As the joining together of two circles of equal radii, creating a third intersecting area that is symbolic of the vulva and the womb, the vesica piscis is one of the fundamental symbols of sacred geometry, and the origin, as well, of the Tree of Life of the Kabbala.
Simone Weil, the remarkable 20th century philosopher/social worker, in her extraordinary meditations on the meaning ofPythagorean number mysticism, wrote this passage, which GordonStrachan quotes in his own book,Jesus the Master Builder.
"It is impossible that the disposition or arrangement of two of anything, so long as there are only two, should be beautiful without a third. There must come between them, in the middle, a bond which brings them into union. The most beautiful of bonds is that which brings perfect unity to itself and the parts linked. It is geometrical proportion which, by essence, is the most beautiful for such achievement."
This concept of the beauty in perfect proportion is fundamental to Pythagorean number mysticism, and appears to have been completely embraced by the authors of the New Testament. At the heart of Starbird's arguments concerning the relationship of Mary Magdalene and Jesus lies her assertion they created a beautiful model of sacred partnership - a "bond that brings them into union" - that was to have been the birthright of humanity. As she put it in my feature profile of her for the National Catholic Reporter in 2003, that birthright was "hijacked" by a male dominated church until the present time.
Sacred partnership, to Starbird, is much more than equality of the sexes in domestic and professional terms. She says the incarnation of Jesus is not correctly understood as the imposition of an exclusively male son of God as king of the Earth, but rather his life showed he was here to demonstrate that wisdom is the result of the balancing of opposites, in human terms of male and female energies.
Mary Magdalene, therefore, was much more than a "Mrs. Jesus," in Starbird's arguments. As Jesus' royal consort, she was his partner in the sacred enterprise of his ministry as well as his beloved. That the church could not accept this role for her, and that she was cast in the role of penitent prostitute, is to Starbird not merely a tragedy, but directly linked to the sexual scandals now plaguing the Roman Catholic Church, and to the wasting of the natural world, the global ecological crisis brought on by centuries of denigrating the female.
To completely "round out" her argument, Starbird delves even deeper into Michell's City of Revelation to explicate his interpretation of the Book of Revelation.
As is widely known, the number 666 has now been appropriated by evangelical Christians as not only the "number of the Beast," but the number of Satan, the devil, the fallen angel. As Starbird points out, however, John Michell has explained the significance of 666 as the number routinely used in ancient texts to refer tothe power of the Sun in its symbolic role as the male, procreative force of the universe.
The number 666 is obtained through constructing the "magic square" of the Sun, in which the numbers 1 through 36 are arranged in a box of six rows of six numbers each. Each line (vertical, diagonal and horizontal, from corner to corner) adds up to 111, and the sum of the entire box is 666.
Michell also points out, Starbird says, that the complementary number to 666 is 1080, the number of the Moon, and these two numbers take on a dynamic meaning in Jesus' parable of the mustard seed: "The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which a farmer sowed in his garden. Although it is the smallest of seeds it grew into a tree with great branches and the birds came to nest in it." (Mark 4:30-32)
The phase "the grain of mustard seed" in Greek has the value of 1746, which is the sum of 666 (the male force) and 1080 (thefeminine principle), pointing to the union of opposites – within oneself and within society – as inherently involved in the process of coming into relationship with the Divine, what Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven.
"Jesus was really the first feminist," Starbird says. "He came to liberate women from a social tradition in his times in which they were completely subjugated to men, and in doing so, hewanted to create a condition of harmony and balance.
To lay even more firmly the foundation for that argument, Starbird utilizes Michell's interpretation of the Book of Revelation as a critique of unbalanced, unchecked solar power – 666 outof relationship with 1080 through the deification of Jesus asa celestial god.
As she put it in Magdalene's Lost Legacy.
"The prophetic warning at the heart of the Apocalypse insists that the raising of the human Jesus to an image of cultic worship, as an image of an all-powerful and wrathful God of Justice, Power and Might, is itself a deification of the solar 666, the male power principle: 'This calls for wisdom. If anyone has understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666' (Rev. 13:18). John Michell addedup the gematria of the phrase 'and his number is 666' and discovered that the sum of the letters is 2368, the same sum as the Greek letters for the name of the man in question – 'Jesus Christ.'
Clearly, both Michell and Starbird have given mainstream Christian theologians plenty to consider, particularly as popular interest in apocalyptic scenarios has never been higher.
So far, the academic theological community has tended to ignore Starbird's formal arguments in Magdalene's Lost Legacy, just as they did with Michell's earlier City of Revelation and his related work The Dimensions of Paradise. Perhaps some dialogue may be stimulated in the future by feministsattracted to Pythagorean philosophy, as Simone Weil was.
In the interim, though, Starbird's work has attracted an appreciative reader and commentator in the person of Lesa Bellevie, whoruns the website www.magdalene.org, by far the most comprehensivesource of information on the many facets of Mary Magdalene andthe emerging spiritual/cultural movement coalescing around herfigure.
In 1992, Bellevie gave a talk entitled "Brides In Exile: A Primordial Religious Impulse Latent in Western Civilization" to the Seattle Pagan Scholars, in which she provided a remarkable overview of the current spectrum of scholarship and speculation concerning Mary Magdalene. (The entire text is available at Bellevie's website.)
At the conclusion of her talk, Bellevie had the following observation to make, which is an apt summation of the current state of considerations concerning Mary Magdalene, Jesus and the concept of "sacred union"
"The concept of sacred union is one that affects a variety of religions, particularly those of Abrahamic origin…. With that in mind, I think that 'the bride in exile' is an archetypal expression of our sense of being apart from the divine, however we conceive of it."
To make an absolutely unscholarly statement, I think that the rejuvenation of goddess-oriented and earth-centered religion, as well as the awakening of Mary Magdalene in the collective awareness, is indicative of the divine yearning toward union within us. The modern pagan and magical culture is much more receptive to the idea of balance and the reconciliation of powers than the followers of Abrahamic religions, and in this regard, I think we're leading the way in what could be some very powerful spiritual movements.
Ed Conroy, c. 2004 Ed Conroy is a Texas journalist and author of Report on Communion: An Independent Investigation ofand Commentary on Whitley Strieber's Communion. He can becontacted via email at EConroy53@aol.com.
For more on Mary Magdalene see: www.magdalene.org
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Music and Metamusic - A Universal Bridge
By Barbara Bullard and Matthew Joyce
Barbara Bullard has been a professor at Orange Coast College for 38 years. In that time she has been honored in Who's Who Of America's Teacher, Outstanding Educators of America, California Speech Coachof the Year. She is also a five time recipient of the prestigious NISOD Teaching Awards from the University of Texas. She has researched the effects of music and Metamusic® on the body and mind for three decades.
Matthew Joyce has been exploring human consciousness for more than 20 years. He is the publisher of Higher Self Guides. He writes frequently on self-improvement and metaphysical topics.
I remember being ready to fall asleep as the "special" music began. Ten minutes into the wonderful music, I felt myself lifted out of my body. Soon I soared through the deep blackness of space. Wonder and bliss filled my being as I floated through a vortex of energy. Immediately an awesome melody I can only describe as "music of the spheres" embraced me with transcendent love. My soul overflowed with healing and happiness. Tears of joy streamed down my face. For what seemed a profound eternityI voyaged through the heart of space and music. Eventually I gently floated back into my body on the bed.
Despite years of incorporating music into my meditations and explorations of consciousness, never before had I enjoyed sucha rich experience. The power of music helped me transcend the boundsof earth to experience the levels of my soul.
To better understand the nature of my experience and the impact of music on our lives, I turned to noted author Wayne Dyer and others who advocate the purposeful use of music for improving our health and gaining greater insights into our lives.
In his book, You'll See It When You Believe It, Dyer asks us to consider the word "universe," the term we use to describe the infinite and all-encompassing expanse that surrounds us. Breaking the word into its parts, we see "uni" meaning one and "verse" meaning song. One Song. The entirety of all there is comprises but a single song.
Hidden right there in plain sight is one of the most profound truths of our existence. From ancient Hindu mystics to modern quantum physicists the collective wisdom of humankind has repeatedly discovered that the universe is an immense energy field vibrating on a score offrequencies. No matter how we separate the individual notes, they all play together to create a single harmonious song.
The Bible, so central to the beliefs of many Western cultures, tells us that "In the beginning was the Word." Yet many Eastern andaboriginal cultures maintain that the world was not spoken, but, rather,SUNG into existence. For a growing number of scientists, their researchinto the impacts of music on the brain and consciousness now favors theinfluence of song over speech. In fact, quantum string theory describes our bodies, all physical matter, and even the Earth itself, as cosmic instruments staying in tune with a larger universal orchestra
The night after my first musical epiphany, I gained even more personal experience with this concept. That second evening atthe Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia, I listened to a second "special" composition. This one was more serene, more earthy. Soon after the music started I found myself walking through a lush rain forest. As I strolled among the verdant flora and myriad animals I felt filled with a deepsense of oneness and rapport with Mother Earth. I felt personally compelledto do my part for her healing.
When the experience was over I asked our group leaders, "What is that special music that's having such an impact on me?" They smiledand told me it was a surprise. The answer would be revealed soon.
The Body-Music Connection
To grasp the widespread impact of music in general, we need only look at the marvelous compilations gathered by the renowned musicologist Don Campbell. His books, Music and Miracles, Music: PhysicianFor Times To Come, and The Mozart Effect cover the spectrum of music's influence on almost every aspect of the listener's body and mind.
Virtually all of us can point to one time or another in our lives when music impacted our emotions. Maybe it was the quiet strains of classical music during a romantic dinner. Perhaps it was toe-tapping rock-n-roll so compelling you just had to dance. Music plays such a central role in our experience that no Hollywood movie dares to do without it. To do so could be box office suicide.
According to Dr. Avram Goldstein of Stanford University, who surveyed people to study the impacts of various emotional stimuli, music was the single most influential factor with a "thrill rating"of 95 percent. Second place was the thrill of sex with less than 80 percent. Because music affects the limbic area of the brain—which influencesour feelings, monitors our hormonal systems, and governs our body's ability to seek reward and pleasure in our lives—we can't help but feel the impact of music on our emotions.
But music impacts far more than simply our feelings. It also affects our heart-rate, body metabolism, blood pressure, muscular energy, digestion, circulation, nutrition, fatigue, cholesterol levels, and brain development—just to name a few of the many other bodily elements subject to its influence. "There is scarcely a single function of the body which cannot be affected by musical tones," says author David Tame, in The Secret Power of Music.
German jazz theorist Jochim Ernst Berendt had an epiphany with music that was comparable to mine. His inspired him to researchall the world's religions to learn how music and sound affect the brainand consciousness. He shared his findings in The World Is Sound-Nada Brahma, which devoted special attention to musicians who arecomposing "new music of transformation." The book became a classic withinsix months.
Musicians and readers were particularly inspired by his chapter "The Temple in the Ear," which explores the overwhelming importance of the auditory nerve and the influence of music and sound on consciousness and health. In it Berendt points to radiological studies of MRIs which demonstrate that our auditory nerve has three times as many connections to the brain as vision does.
This becomes important for our inner journeys because as composer Murray Schafer states, "With our eyes we are always at theedge of the world looking in, but with our ears the world comes to us and we are always at the center of it." This is why, he reflects, "Ourears are the organ of transcendence and the gateway to the soul.
Berendt further demonstrates in less esoteric terms how the auditory system also connects to the thymus gland, which is our main regulator in the fight against disease, and thereby influences the immune system. Moreover, says Berendt, the auditory system maintains direct connections to every organ in the body. That means that sounds transmitted through the auditory nerve can heal the body.
"In reality we and the universe are vibration," says Berendt, "and the sound that comes into our brain stimulates not only the brain, but also the entire immune system." That is why Campbell, Berendt and others echo the chorus, Music and mEARicles—Yes!
Because of the strong connection between our auditory nerves, thymus glands and immune systems, certain types of music have proven to be a powerful aid in healing. I experienced this first hand whenI later played some of the "special" music for one of my students, Aaron, who was in the hospital dying of AIDS-related complications.
I took three "special" CDs, Inner Journey, Sleeping Through the Rain, and Cloudscapes to the hospital. I left them with Aaron'smother, instructing her to put on the music whenever Aaron needed sleep or relief from pain. Days later on my second visit, I was greeted bya nurse who asked where she could purchase the "miracle music" for the hospice wing. The nurse said that as long as the music was on Aaron needed no morphine.
I went into Aaron's room and quickly learned that this "special" music is something more than ordinary music.
As we talked, the music ended. Within five minutes, I noticed a ripple of pain several inches wide spreading from Aaron's face all the way down to his toes.
"Is the music off?!" he screamed.
"Yes," I said as I restarted the music.
"I told them not to turn it off. It doesn't hurt when the music is on," Aaron told me.
In less than 10 minutes Aaron's pain eased.
Aaron's favorite "special" music was Sleeping Through The Rain. He turned to Inner Journey to feel closer Oneness with God ashe made his final transition.
Should it be surprising that music could have such an impact on Aaron? Or on me? I don't think so.
Holistic physician and psychiatrist John Diamond, M.D., explores the relationship between music and health in his book, The Life Energy in Music. In it he notes that at some point 95 percent of the population will suffer from low thymus levels and fatigue. This low thymus activity can be instantly raised by listening to enhancingand soothing music that mitigates the effects of everyday stress andnoxious stimuli. Diamond suggests that music can increase T-cell production to five times normal levels, raise endorphin levels up to 90 times, improve resistance to illness, dampen the perception of pain, and evoke faster recovery times.
As a further testament to the healing power of music, Dr. Diamond cites findings on the unusual longevity of classical musicconductors. "At the age of seventy, by which point 50 percent of American men are deceased, 80 percent of conductors are not only alive, but active and working," he writes in Your Body Doesn't Lie. Truly,there is something incredibly therapeutic about music.
Music in Our Genes
Larry Dossey, M.D. reaches a similar conclusion in his excellent article, "The Body as Music." In it Dossey eloquently addresses aneven deeper level of music when he states: "Why are we moved by music? One reason may be that the body itself is intrinsically musical, rightdown to the DNA that makes up our genes."
The idea that DNA and music might be connected originates with the work of Dr. Susumu Ohno, a geneticist at the Beckman Institute of the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California. Dr. Ohno has notated more than fifteen songs based on the DNA of a variety of living organisms.
He finds that the more evolved an organism, the more complicated the music. The DNA of a single-cell protozoan, for example, translates into a simple four-note repetition. But music transcribed from humanDNA––such as the body's receptor site for insulin––is much more complex.
"Listeners knowledgeable about classical music hear similarities between these DNA-based compositions and the music of Bach, Brahms,Chopin, and other great composers," writes Dr. Ohno. "DNA melodies aremajestic and inspiring. Many persons hearing them for the first timeare moved to tears. They cannot believe that their bodies, which theybelieved to be mere collections of chemicals, contain such uplifting, inspiring harmonies––that they are musical."
Not only can one make music starting with DNA, it is also possible to reverse the process. In other words, you take a piece of music and assign nucleotides to the notes. The end result resembles a strand of DNA. Ohno tried this with a Chopin piece and the final result resembled a cancer gene!
Now if music affects us down to the level of DNA, I believe each of our organs is singing its own song. We are healthy when our organs are singing in harmony. We feel sick when they are singing out of tune. From my own experiences it is clear that listening to music helps the body stay in tune.
A Melody a Day Keeps the Doctor Away
For optimal health, Steven Halpern, Ph.D., a foremost creator of healing music, suggests listening to music with an alpha/theta brainwave rhythm (alpha is 7-13 Hertz and theta is 3-7 Hertz) for a minimum of thirty minutes per day. Halpern bases this statement, in part, on anunderstanding of the correlation between vibrations in the Earth's electromagneticfield and those of the human body. The Earth vibrates at an inaudible frequency of approximately 8 cycles per second. When the human body is deeply relaxed it too vibrates at approximately 8 cycles per second. This sympathetic resonance is known as Schumann's Resonance, and it implies that being in harmony with oneself and the universe may be more than a mere poetic concept.
Listening to alpha and theta frequencies as Halpern describes helps to induce a trophotropic state, a powerful healing conditionin the body. The opposite of this state is the ergotropic state, which triggers a fight or flight response that causes stress and fatigue. Hectic schedules and over stimulation naturally force us into ergotropic states that eventually lead to exhaustion, sleep deprivation, and illness. Relaxing and listening to music in the alpha/theta range brings on atrophotropic state and helps restore balance.
Knowing this, the question then becomes, what kind of music supports synchronized alpha/theta brainwave states? Since each of us is unique and has differing needs, what feels restful and healing for some may not be appealing to others. However, there are certain desirable qualities in music to be used for inner work. The most appropriate music tends to be the opposite of the kind that we play in our cars and homes as we hustle and bustle through our busy days. More often than not,inner space music contains no vocals since lyrics stimulate the logic-dominant left hemisphere of the brain, as opposed to our more creative right hemispheres. Inner music also tends to feature slower rhythms that help our heart rates and brainwaves to slow down. Furthermore, the musical formats are generally harmonic with instrumentation that facilitates an introspective or contemplative mode. The most effective musical selections are those that permit your mind to wander gently and enter a peaceful state of being. The soundtrack may center on the ambience of nature, which can help you get in tune with the natural environment, or it may feature more ethereal sounds and long moments of silence where some say we can experience Oneness or God.
So where can you find music like this? Fortunately, we live in an era of the synthesizer, new instrumentation, and the internet–all of which provide access to a cornucopia of music conducive for healing and exploring inner realms. The best way to find something suitable is to browse the aisles of your favorite music stores or to surf the web. Some good places online to start include: www.backroadsmusic.com, www.healingmusic.org, and www.ethereanmusic.com. In terms of recording artists, you might want to consider works by Aeoliah, Don Campbell, Dik Darnell, Constance Demby, Steven Halpern, Steve Roach, Jonn Serrie, or Robin Spielberg, to name a few perennial favorites.
However, finding the right music is just the first step. To truly make the most of the listening experience we must also be willing to fully participate in the process by surrendering to the "intent" of the music.
Constance Demby, a well-respected symphonic space musician, whose classic Novus Magnificat was voted by New Age Voice as one of the 25 most influential ambient albums of all time, explains that for the music to take you to soul levels you must be a willing participant. She encourages listeners to participate in "frontal listening," as opposed to background listening. Ask to be taken to the same realms that the music came from, she says. Open your heart, surrender, and let the music in all the way. People can go much further when they consciously focus on the music and surrender to it. By allowing their minds to follow the music they are led to the Source of the music—and its transformational power. In a sense, it means meditating with the music.
Therefore, when listening to music for healing or voyages to inner and outer space, it's best to begin with the proper attitude. Next, sit or lie down in a noise-free environment where you know that you will not be disturbed for at least 45 minutes. Make sure that you'verid yourself of all distractions. The best approach is to create a sacred space where you can relax, reduce worrisome thoughts, and minimize externalstimuli. Doing so helps to open yourself to inner visions created by the auditory nerve's response to the music.
It's clear to me that I wouldn't have had such profound experiences with music if I had not also been in a conducive state of acceptance. At the Monroe Institute, renowned for facilitating states of expanded consciousness and out-of-body experiences, we were freed from all ourdaily distractions—no watches, cell phones, newspapers, or TVs—for an entire week. My colleagues and I each came with the intention to explore the consciousness of inner and outer space. I am certain that being in the right frame of mind helped facilitate my transformational musical encounters.
So what was the "special" music they played for us at the Monroe Institute?
More than Music—Metamusic
I eventually found out at the concluding morning session of my weeklong professional workshop. The compositions I'd been listening to, and those I later gave to Aaron, were what is called Metamusic®. The first evening was titled, Inner Journey, and the second evening was Sleeping Through the Rain.
Metamusic is music that is specifically designed to promote healing and encourage voyages to inner and outer space. The audible musical compositions are then significantly enhanced by the synergistic addition of Hemi-Sync® brainwave signals. These subaudible electrical sound wave patterns are blended and sequenced to support different states of consciousness.
Hemi-Sync works by playing slightly different tones in each ear, which then harmonize inside your brain. To better understand,imagine playing two notes on the piano. If played one after the other you hear the difference between them. But when played at the same time, you hear them in harmony. Hemi-Sync works the same way, except that since the tones are subaudible the synchronization process occurs inside your brain instead of outside your ear. When precisely controlled Hemi-Sync® tones are combined in the brain, the entire brain begins to resonate. Itbecomes "entrained" to the frequency, producing a unique whole-brain state known as hemispheric synchronization, or Hemi-Sync. When Hemi-Sync is added to relaxing music the result is Metamusic.
The magic of Hemi-Sync and Metamusic lies in its capacity to deliberately and directly induce the trophotropic state. By recording subaudible alpha and theta frequencies beneath the already engaging music the Monroe Institute creates musical tools with a powerful healing potential.
Many people first seek Metamusic for meditation, inner exploration, or for guided imagery work. Favorite selections among Monroe Institute enthusiasts include: Ascension and Higher, both by J.S. Epperson, Deep Journeys by Steven Halpern, Inner Journey and The Journey Home, both by Micah Sadigh, and Mystic Realms and Into the Deep by Matthew Sigmon and Julie Anderson.
Because the Hemi-Sync; tones can be adjusted to any frequency, including the sleep inducing delta range, Metamusic can also be used to help people with insomnia and sleep disruptions. More than 30 million Americans suffer from insomnia and sleep disorders. Metamusic helps a growing number of them to drift off to sleep more readily and enjoyrapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is essential for good health. Themost popular titles of this type are: Midsummer Night by Alan Phillips, Sleeping Through the Rain by Matthew Sigmon and Julie Anderson, Portraits by Lenore Paxton and Phillip Saidi, Cloudscapes, by Ray Dreske, Gaiaby Richard Roberts, and Transformation by Micah Sadigh.
Because these musical selections are specifically designed to take listeners into deep states of relaxation and consciousness,they should NEVER be used while driving a car or moving vehicle.
Metamusic is not just for inner work and healing though. By combining music with Hemi-Sync frequencies in the stimulating beta harmonic range, it can be used to induce periods of sustained creative energy and mental concentration. Titles such as Illuminations, Remembrance,Einstein's Dream, and Indigo for Quantum Focus, all by J.S. Epperson, as well as Seasons at Robert's Mountain by Scott Bucklin, and Baroque Garden by the Arcangelos Chamber Ensemble were all designed to stimulate a coherent brain state that enhances learning and peak performance. Many of selections were created to help those with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and other learning challenges, but they've proven very popular among those who simply want to work and study smarter, not harder.
Conclusion
Music is truly a bridge to good health, and Metamusic is a marriage between the innate power of music and the wonder of Hemi-Sync. I agree with Deepak Chopra, M.D.'s belief that it is our duty to humanity to be as healthy as we can possibly be. We are all ripples in a vast cosmic sea, and the vibrations of our mental, physical, and spiritual beings affect everything else. As Chopra says, each of us is, in effect, awave of sound that hums a tune throughout our lives.
By making conscious choices about the types of music that we listen to we can improve our health, explore inner realms, and enhance our creative and mental performance. As we become healthier and happier through the use of uplifting music, so too do our relationships with others and the world around us. How could it possibly be otherwise when the entire universe is singing a single song?
Barbara Bullard/Matthew Joyce, c. 2004
To find out more about Metamusic or the impacts of music on health and healing, visit our websites at www.dnamusic.com, and www.higherselfguides.com, or Monroe Products at www.Hemi-Sync.com.
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Alice In Quantum Land
By William B.Shanley
Following is from Lewis Carroll's Lost Quantum Diaries, ed. William B Shanley.
"Good morning, Alice," a voice said. Or at least it seemed like a voice.
Alice rubbed her eyes. She'd fallen asleep in the orchard, and had been dreaming of tea parties with singing cakes and dancing oysters. She rubbed her eyes and looked around, but there was no one in sight. Had the voice been in the dream, she wondered? Or maybe she was still dreaming. She'd caught herself enough times in that trap, thinking she had woken up, only to discover she was still dreaming. It always annoyed her.
"Good morning, Alice." There it was again. But where was it coming from? Alice had become used to voices that came from strange and unexpected places, or were disconnected from the people or things who were speaking, but not voices that came from nowhere.
"Good morning," replied Alice cautiously but politely, not wanting to upset whoever, or whatever, this might be. "Who are you? Or more to the point, where are you?"
"I'm a quantum," the voice continued. "You've been hearing a lot about quantum physics and all the strange conclusions that it leads to in your world, so I thought it was time you heard from me, and got a picture of how the world looks from a quantum's point of view.
"As to where I am, I am everywhere and nowhere. Always and nowhen.
Alice knew better than to let her mind be worried by paradox. Just about everything she had heard so far was paradoxical in some way or other, and trying to understand paradoxes was bound to lead to even greater confusion.
"Let me introduce myself," it continued, "and all the other zillions of quanta in the universe, for in many ways we're all exactly the same.
"Each of us is the smallest possible packet of energy in the universe. Any transfer of energy, whether it be from one electron to another in an atom, or from the sun to your skin, involves a whole number of us quanta. There may be 1, 2, 5, 117, or 19,387,463,728 of us, but never half a quantum or three-and-a-quarter quanta. That would be like you having a conversation with half a person, or three-and-a-quarter people."
Alice wondered whether she could imagine having a conversation with three and a quarter people. Three-and-a-quarter bodies, perhaps -- she'd met stranger situations than that -- but three-and-a-quarter people, she was not so sure. But before she had a chance to try imagining a fraction of a person, the voice from nowhere was back.
"In your world you also call us photons -- the smallest unit of light.
"Now when I speak of light, I am talking not just of the visible light you see with your eyes; I mean the whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation of which visible light is just one tiny range of frequencies. At higher frequencies are ultraviolet light, X-rays and, beyond them, gamma rays. At lower frequencies you find heat waves, and at the lowest frequencies of all, radio waves.All of them are just different frequencies of light. And they are all composed of photons, each one a single quantum."
"Then why did you say you were all the same?" asked Alice. "Light has many different colors; heat I can feel on my skin; and I've been told to keep well clear of gamma rays. They all seem very different to me."
"That is because the energies we carry vary enormously. The higher the frequency, the higher the energy. A gamma-ray photon, for example, packs billions of times more energy than a radio-wave photon. This is why gamma rays, X-rays, and even ultraviolet rays to some extent, can be so dangerous to you. When these photons hit your body, the energy released can blow apart the molecules in a cell. When heat radiation is absorbed by your skin, the energy released is much, much less, and all it does is warm you up a little.
"However, although our energies vary enormously, there is one thing about us that is always the same. We all, each and every one of us, possess exactly the same amount of action."
"What," Alice was about to say, "is action?" But before she had even finished thinking "What," the quantum said, "I thought you might ask that.
You're familiar with the terms mass, velocity, momentum and energy, I presume?
"Yes," thought Alice. She remembered learning about them at school.
"And you learned how they relate to each other. An object's momentum, for example, is its mass multiplied by itsvelocity. And work is energy multiplied by distance. Action isjust another one of these qualities, but it is not one you normally hear about at school."
"The amount of 'action' in any action is defined as the object's momentum multiplied by the distance it travels. Orit can also be expressed as the object's energy multiplied by the time it is traveling."
"Imagine someone throwing a ball." Suddenly, out of nowhere, the White Rabbit appeared, running around the orchard throwing large orange tennis balls into the air. "Some imagination!" thought Alice.
"If he were to throw the balls twice as fast, would there be more or less action?"
"More, of course.""Twice as much?"
"I'd think so."
"And if the balls were much heavier, like croquet balls, would there be more or less action to his action?
"More."
"And if he ran around for twice as long, how much action do you think there would be?"
"Twice as much, I suppose."
"So the concept of action isn't really that strange, is it?"
"No," replied Alice, wondering why she had never thought about action in this way before. And why hadn't she heard about it at school? Maybe it hadn't been important?
"Oh, it's very important," said the voice from nowhere. "Your mathematicians have discovered that whatever happens in the universe happens in such a way that the total amount of action is always the lowest possible. It's what they call 'The Principle of Least Action.' And your scientists use it all the time to predict how things will happen. Those balls the White Rabbit is throwing trace out a curve in the air, yes? Well that curve happens to be the one that involves the least amount of action. Any other curve you could imagine would require more action."
"A sort of cosmic efficiency principle," thought Alice.
"Yes. And it apples to everything. Even light. When you see a reflection in the looking glass, the light comes backto you at the precise angle that involves the least amount of action."
"Hmm, I'm beginning to see why action is so important."
"Yes, it's absolutely fundamental. And, as I was saying, every single quantum in the universe, every photon, whatever its frequency and energy, is an identical unit of action.
The amount is exceedingly small -- after all, we're very, very, very tiny. In your units of measurement, each of us is about 0.00000000000000000000000000663 erg-seconds. And before you even think of asking what an erg is, it is a unit of energy, a very small one. To lift a one-pound croquet ball a distance of one foot takes about 13.5 million ergs. If you took one second to lift the ball, your action would have involved about 13.5 million erg-seconds. Now each of us quanta is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of an erg-second -- point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero... "
"Stop, please. I get the picture. You are a very, very, very, tiny unit of action."
"Yes, the smallest possible action in the universe. It's called Planck's constant, after Max Planck, who first discovered us. Each one of us, each and every one of us, is exactly this amount of action."
Alice thought about this for a while. "Light is action," she mused. "I'd never thought of it like that before. But I suppose it sort of makes sense. After all, light never stops moving. It can travel right across the universe, and at great speed. Light never rests, it never slows. Yes action seems kind of appropriate."
"Not so fast," the quantum interrupted. "That may be how you see light, but we see ourselves very differently. As far as we are concerned, we don't ever experience ourselves traveling anywhere. We never move at all."
"Now, that's ridiculous!" cried Alice. "I'm used to paradoxes in this quantum world of yours, but how can you say you never travel anywhere when you so clearly do? If you never go anywhere, how come light gets to us from the sun, and how come light has speed?
"Hold your horses, my dear, and I'll try to explain. But first I'll need to take you on a little excursion into the theories of another of your great scientists, Albert Einstein.
"Like many other scientists of his time, Einstein was puzzled by the fact that light always seemed to travel at the same speed, no matter how fast you might be moving. At first this seemed nonsense. If you were to walk along at 3Êmph, and the White Rabbit ran by at 7Êmph, simple arithmetic tells you he'd be going 4Êmph faster than you. If you speeded up and ran along at 7Êmph you'd be able to keep up with him, and there would be no difference in speed. But light didn't seem to behave like this at all. Experiments showed that however fast you go, you can never catch up with light; it always passes by at 186,000 miles per second. Even if you were to travel at 185,990 miles per second, light would still whiz by 186,000 miles per second faster."
"Faster! Faster!" the Red Queen's voice echoed throughher mind, along with images of chessboards and talking lilies. Alice remembered what it was like to never get anywhere however fast you ran. "Was the Red Queen a friend of yours?
"No, but maybe young Albert had read about your adventures with her.
"After a lot of thought he decided to accept that you could never catch up with light, however fast you went. It is just the way the universe works, however non-sensical it might seem. This led him to his famous 'Special Theory of Relativity,' and to some conclusions that at first seemed even greater nonsense.
"His equations predicted that the faster something went the more slowly its clocks would run. The precise relationship between speed and time is not a straightforward one, and I won't bother you with the detailed mathematics, but the result is that if you wereto travel past someone at 87 percent the speed of light, they would observe your clocks to be running at half the speed of theirs. This slowing applies not just to clocks, but to all physical processes, all chemical processes, and all biological processes. Your whole world would run at half the rate of theirs."
"Sounds more like the looking glass world than my world."
"Well, it turns out that your world really is a bit like the looking glass world. Scientists have flown clocks aroundthe world on jets and found that they do indeed run slow -- by a factor of about one in a trillion -- not enough to worry anyone, but enough to prove that Einstein's theory is correct.
"And it's not just time that shrinks. Space is also changed. Lengths measured in the direction of motion become shorter, and in exactly the same proportion as time slows. If you were to travel a measured mile at 87 percent the speed of light, you'd measure the distance to be only half a mile."
"You mean space and time really aren't fixed after all?"
"Right, they're not as absolute as people had thought. How much space and how much time you observe is relative to your speed. That's why Einstein called it 'relativity'.
"But he also discovered that not everything about time and space was relative. People moving at different speeds may disagree on how much space and how much time they observe, but they all agree on the total amount of space and time."
Alice thought it must be a bit like cutting a string in two. Cutting it in different places would give pieces of differing lengths, but the total length of string would always be the same.
"Exactly. Or rather, not exactly. Space and time don'tadd up by simple arithmetic. In fact, you get the total by doing a subtraction."
"Doing addition by subtraction! Now that's the sort of arithmetic the Red Queen would like."
"But it isn't simple subtraction," the quantum continued, "the mathematical formula for combining space and time is more complicated than that. It's something like 'the square root of space squared minus time squared.'"
"I think I'll skip that. I'm confused enough as it is. But what's all this got to do with light, and you saying that light never travels anywhere?
"Well, the equations of relativity predict that at the speed of light, length shrinks to nothing, and time slows to a complete standstill."
"You mean space and time just disappear? That is bizarre."
"Yes, and it's quite troublesome to your physicists. Their equations of motion get littered with zeros and infinities,and it's very hard for them to make much use of them. So they usually ignore this extreme case, consoling themselves with the thought that because nothing can ever actually travel at the speed of light, they don't have to worry about these bizarre effects."
"Why do you say things can't travel at the speed of light?" Alice asked, sensing a possible contradiction.
"Ah, that's because not only space and time change with speed, but so also does mass. Whereas space and time decrease with speed, mass does the opposite. The faster you go, the heavier you become. If you reached the speed of light, your mass would become infinite."
Alice tried to imagine having an infinite mass. Being very, very heavy she could just about handle. But infinitely heavy? She couldn't even imagine infinity, let alone an infinite amount of anything.
"Don't worry. You'll never go that fast. To move an object of infinite mass would take an infinite amount of energy. A lot of energy might get you close to the speed of light, but there simply is not enough energy in the whole universe to accelerateyou all the way up to light speed. That's why it's impossible for anything to ever travel at the speed of light."
"But some things do travel at the speed of light," interjected Alice, pleased that she had caught the quantum contradicting itself. "You, for example, travel at the speed of light."
"Of course. To say that light couldn't travel at the speed of light would be pretty ridiculous, wouldn't it? But light is not really a 'thing' as you think of things. Photons have no mass at all. Each of us weighs absolutely nothing -- no matter how fast we go. Even at the speed of light, we still weigh absolutely nothing."
"So you aren't subject to the same cosmic speed limit as we are.
"Correct."
"And so you always travel at the speed of light." Alice proudly concluded.
"On the contrary. We never travel at any speed."
"What?"
"No, that's just how it appears to you in your world. On our side of the quantum looking glass, things look very different.
"I said that at the speed of light distance and time shrink right down to zero. Well, that means that, from our point of view, we never experience ourselves traveling any distance whatsoever. In your world you see us traveling through space, but at the speeds we travel space has become so warped there is no distance between where we start and where we end up. And since at our clocks haveslowed to a standstill, we never take any time at all. We go nowhere in no time."
"Makes the Red Queen seem positively sane."
"The Red Queen was still living in the world of things, the world of space, time and matter. We quanta live in a very different world. We are not things. We have no mass, we never travel any distance, and we know no time. So, because we travel no distance in no time, the notion of speed is meaningless for us. In our frame of reference -- and what frame of reference could more appropriatefor light than our own -- we have no need of speed.
"But I thought Einstein said that the speed of light was the same for all observers. How can you say you have no speed?"
"What you think of as the speed of light is from our perspective something very different. You remember me saying that all observers always agree on the total amount of spacetime separating two events, even though they disagree on how much actual space and how much actual time they observe?
"Yes."
"Well, when you calculate the total amount of spacetime between the two ends of a light beam the result is always exactly zero. This is because the total is arrived at by that complicated formula that involves 'space-squared minus time-squared'. For any photon, anywhere in the universe, the amount of space it appears to travel is exactly balanced by the amount of time it appears to take, and when you subtract the two, they cancel each other out, leaving a total of zero.
"This is something even we photons agree upon. Except that we don't experience a beginning and an end. We observe ourselves traveling zero distance in zero time. Subtract zero from zero and what do you get?"
"Zero, of course."
"Exactly. However you look at it, the combined amount of spacetime for light is always zero."
What felt like waves of significance passed through Alice. She felt that this was somehow very, very important, but she had no idea how or why.
"In your world," it continued, "you observe a separation between the beginning and end of a light beam. The zero spacetime of light has manifested as some space, along with some time.Since the total must remain zero, the amount of space that appearsis exactly balanced by the amount of time that appears
"What you observe as the speed of light can be thoughtof as the ratio of manifestation of time and space. For every 186,000 miles of space, there appears 1 second of time. It is this ratio that is fixed. This is why the so-called 'speed' of light in your world is always the same."
Alice didn't quite know what to think. She sat back and tried to imagine what it would be like to be light. She tried imagining space and time disappearing, but it didn't work. However hard she tried, space and time would not go away. Maybe that's just the way the mind thinks, she thought.
Then she tried the opposite, trying to imagine nothing, and to imagine that nothing being stretched out into space and time. But that was just as difficult.
She was just about to give up trying to understand any of this when suddenly the thought came to her that if light doesn't experience itself traveling anywhere, then what's all this stuff about light being both a wave and a particle? "It can't be either!" she exclaimed
"You're catching on fast. A wave that traveled nowhere would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? So would a particle that existed for no time at all. Waves and particles are concepts your scientists use to try to understand us in their world. They are both 'thing' words, but we quanta aren't things at all. Trying to make us seem like things is why your scientists find us so puzzling and paradoxical. They are seeking to understand us from their world, the world of time, space and matter. But that's the source of their problems. We have no mass; we don't inhabit space and time. We don't belong to the world of things. We belong to the world of light. If they could step into the world of light they would realize that there is no paradox at all."
Alice lay back, and closed her eyes. There was the Red Queen again , with that incessant grin. Or was it the Cheshire cat's grin? And why was the Red Queen, or the Cheshire cat, or whoever she was, wiggling like that? Her edges grew fuzzy, her colors blurredand her crown began to turn into golden light. Before Alice knew it, the Red Queen had completely dissolved. And so had everything else. There was nothing in her mind but light. No thing. Nowhere that was anywhere else. No time that was not now. Just light.
"Is this the same light?" she wondered? "Is the light I see in my mind the same light as the light I see in the world?"
"What else? But I think we should leave that for another time," she heard the voice from nowhere say. But at least she now knew where the voice was coming from. It was coming from everywhere -- from everywhere around her, and from everywhere within her.
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Quantum Questions: an interview with Mike Wright of Ramtha's Schoolof Enlightenment, The American Gnostic School
This article is from the live webcast Beyond The Ordinary, www.beyondtheordinary.net, which brings you guests who give practical ways of changing our lives. The list of guests has spanned a wide spectrum - authors, scientist, global thinkers, shamans and mystics with ancient knowledge, physicists with the latest discoveries, body/mind experts, and technical experts with cutting edge knowledge. Many well-known, famous, all speaking pretty much the same message, albeit in different voices.
Mike Wright was an Air Force fighter pilot and instructor pilot who also taught elementary school and as adjunct faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and South Puget Sound Community College. He has worked as a freelance writer and investigative journalist and is currently on the teaching staff of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, The American Gnostic School.
Mike speaks about quantum physics, quantum mechanics, string theory, parallel lifetimes, time, dimensions, non-locality, and how all of this affects us in our daily life.
BTO: Mike Wright is here, and apparently everywhere! We have lots of questions via e-mailfrom our listeners.
From listener Bruce: Mike, what is hyperspace exactly and how would torsion fields induce antigravity? What other effects would torsion fields have upon hyperspace? Invisibility? How might that happen? I think of hyperspace as being "absolute elsewhere". Am I close to reality?
MW: Well, that was a whole mass of questions. Let's start simple with what is "hyperspace", the first question behind the question. From our classical, basic, Western, philosophical perspective of three dimensions of space and one of time, hyperspace is everything else. That pretty well simplifies that. Anytime you add extra dimensions of space, extra dimensions of time, you're moving outside of the ordinary, consensus reality of space and time. I qualify that because there are within the scientific community many researchers who routinely use the convenience of hyperspace as a mathematical model, a theoretical model, a convenience to propose answers to anomalies. Within commerce, industry, even military and government research black projects or deep holes of industrial espionage, they use hyperspace in the sense of accessing parallel realities using the "many worlds" interpretation that was proposed by Hugh Everett in the 1950's. Through that concept, hyperspace is parallel spacetime realities, parallel timelines, parallel worlds that exist just one dimension awayfrom the ordinary one. And at the quantum level subatomic particles caninteract in between those parallel realities.
Researchers, particularly on quantum computers - for example Bell Labs, AT&T, Mitsubishi - are pouring millions of dollars into researching quantum computing because when they refine that technology they can access all parallel quantum computer states in all universal parallel realities. Instead of having one laptop, you would have trillions of laptops all interacting through the quantum level in parallel realities; a calculation that would take an ordinary computer months or years to solve be done in a few minutes.
I don't want to get into define torsion fields. But picture a tornado where a warm front and a cold front come together; they create a funnel effect that spins out very powerfully. That's a natural weather phenomenon that is liken unto the torsion field. It's a completely different force phenomenon than straight gravity or electromagnetism, or the strong and weak nuclear forces: it does manipulate space-time. Even in tornados you get weird phenomenon where straws are pushed through mirrors. Neither one of them is disrupted. It's as if the molecules were separated and then rearranged and put back together by flipping them through hyperspace and back again. This gets kind of technical.
As to invisibility, consider a fan and you turn it on low. You can still see the blades and you feel a little bit of air. But if you turn it on super high fast, the blades disappear. Are they still in the room? The blades are invisible,but they're still affecting the environment.
BTO Listener Ron in Canada: Since we know that all matter is consciousness and energy, and that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, does that explain how we can experience previous incarnations? And since we know that time doesn't exist, if Puxsutawney Phil sees his shadow in February, does that mean we get six more weeks of winter or is Phil living in no time? I mean, look what happened to Bill Murray in Groundhog Day!
MW: If we say that consciousness and energy(1) are the substrate of the material world or that conscious intent overlaid as information on energy is like programming software that allows you to create a simulated reality on the computer, then the larger simulated reality of life is based upon the interactions of a more fundamental level of reality, which begins at the quantum level where the observer affects what's being observed. Our conscious intent, and the will or energy that we put behind that, begins to be impressed upon the quantum field and the subatomic particles that are still in a dispersed state within the quantum field which haven't been localized yet. They are still in what David Bohm called the implicate order because they haven't manifested yet. They can be reprogrammed. They are always manipulated because we are always observing our reality; our attitudes, our thoughts, our assumptions, our beliefs, our expectations, our past experiences - all influence what we see and how we interpret it in our reality.
In regards to experiencing past incarnations as long term memory: one could view the implicate order, the quantum field, what the Indians call the akashic record. All of this information, all experiences, have been impressed upon the quantum field.
The lives that we have existed in are all still available as a record. Every subatomic particle, every photon, just like every human being, accumulates experience. That accumulated memory in the human being is preserved holographically in the brain. Accumulated experience is preserved in the subatomic particles at their level of reality in the quantum field. So, it is accessible and through a focused effort one could tune in. Whether or not t