Transformative Media & Entertainment

Comment

Comment by Colleen O'Rourke on September 13, 2009 at 1:06pm

Those are excellent points that you made, Ed. I've actually read one of Ken Wilber's books - he is a very advanced thinker...one who "puts it all together." If I had one wish at this moment, it would be that all of the scientists would share with all of the mystics what they REALLY know. Nothing held back. Wouldn't that only be a fair exchange? :) We would make some quantum leaps then.

Comment by Ed Lantz on September 13, 2009 at 12:45pm

Hi Mary,

Thanks for clarifying your views - very helpful.

I am at heart a scientist and have studied in quantum physics and electromagnetics. I've also experimented with Kirlian photography (in the 1970's) and also consider myself to be a mystic. To me, mysticism is science turned inwards. Both the mystic and the scientist seeks to know the truth. Scientists have an easier job in many ways because they operate in an objectified dimension with a shared language and well developed techniques for vetting theories and claims. The mystic polishes the "lens of contemplation," to quote Ken Wilber, and seeks to discover truths by looking within. One cannot say, in my scientific opinion, that the objective, outer realms of phenomenology are more real than the inner realms. But in the realm of consciousness, it is very difficult to falsify (disprove) claims, making this a kind of free-for-all for any off-the-wall philosophy to be smugly presented as fact.

We really run into real problems when we try to correlate the two realms. The mystic may speak of chi as "energy," but the physicist has a very narrow and clear definition of energy. If chi is energy (by the physicist's definition), then we should be able to measure it with a meter and a probe. The short answer is that we cannot really measure chi in a way that correlates exactly to the mystic's experience of chi. If chi is electromagnetic in nature, then it is an extremely weak force overshadowed by radio waves, light, bioelectricity, etc. which are easily measured. If chi is a "higher vibration" then one must ask - what is vibrating, and what is its frequency? If we knew this we would then be able to measure it.

The bridge between any two diverse schools of thought or disciplines is to seek common ground. I therefore do not try to mix science and spirituality except where they naturally overlap. Anything that is intuitive is filed away in my mind as intuitive information. Scientific data is filed away in a different file drawer. I try not to confuse the two. That is where you either loose the scientists because we are being too "woo-woo," or we loose the mystics because we are being too "reductionist."

Standing on the common ground between mysticism and science, I can say that there seems to be a greater reality than what we ordinarily see (as seen through the lens of contemplation - scientist's who have not polished this lens have no right to comment). It seems to many mystics that consciousness exists apart from my physical form, that we can access other dimensions or realms, and can also access information at a distance. But, being true to science, I cannot provide hard, repeatable evidence (other than some very suggestive research that remains unconvincing to most scientists) that consciousness exists apart from our human forms. I may have had personal experiences, but those are anecdotal and are not admissible as scientific proof (though they certainly can be suggestive of areas ripe for study).

In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that much of what we consider to be our mind's internal experience is the result of neural circuitry. However, as a scientist, I cannot rule out the conjecture that biological systems are vehicles for other-dimensional entities to experience life in 3D reality, and much of our neural circuitry is the interface manifold between these two planes.

Quantum information science shows us how the universe is interconnected. Each atom contains an infinite amount of information (Hilbert space) and this information can pass instantaneously across any distance between entangled particles (even entangling with the vacuum), and that everything is (at least weakly) entangled. However, no experiment can demonstrate repeatedly and unequivocally that biological systems can access such information.

So when we ask the "big questions" - does God exist, does consciousness survive death, is the brain just an antenna, is memory non-local, etc., science is not at a place where these questions can be falsified or even intelligently addressed. As you point out, neuroscientists are experimenting with monks and such, but all they have done is show correlations between brain states and subjectively reported mystical states. No conclusions can be drawn from this regarding the "big questions." (it does, however, validate that SOMETHING real is happening in the brain and that the monks are not lying in their subjective reports of mystical experiences). I remain skeptical of any claims that the existence of God has been proven (though I am also open minded and will often take the time to examine such claims).

Finally, bringing this back to Transformative Media and Entertainment, as we write books or scripts for TV or film, if we can start on this common ground of not having objective proof of the mysteries, yet having intuitive "knowing" that is suggestive that there is more to the universe than what we ordinarily see, we will cast a wider net and not alienate scientists who are - believe me - just as curious as the rest of us, but a little more careful about making smug statements about untestable claims. One of the best films to do this, in my opinion, was CONTACT. Blessings, ed

Comment by Colleen O'Rourke on September 13, 2009 at 12:12pm

Some brief comments on M.R.'s post: I believe we are quantum. We are the Creator and the Created. We are each an aspect, a fragment, of Source, God, The Divine, the Tao...whatever it is you choose to call it. And eventually, no matter what path we take, we will end up back at Source. Much of the information which has been put out there is misinformation, but it is all helpful in the sense that as long as we test it, we are indeed evolving. There is far, far more to it all than 10,000 books will tell you...over 950 billion years of history for this universe alone. And there are many universes. And matrixes which have been tampered with. It is very interesting, though, to read about the pieces that everyone has to contribute. All of the cellular memory of all that has occurred, is occurring, and will occur is kept in the Akashic Records. Nothing is unknown, but not one of us has the full picture, thank God. That would be too much power in one person's hands. When we ALL are united at Source, whenever and however that will come about, then we will all have the full and correct story.

I do not agree with the theory that memory is stored "elsewhere," apart from our very own "Selves." We are multi-dimensional beings, and we are connected to much higher levels of ourselves than you realize. I also do not agree with the theory that rubber-souled shoes prevent energy from entering our chakras...in fact, that is one of the silliest things I have ever read...but it is an example of misinformation. We are energy, and we can easily and consciously pull it up from the center of the Earth, through each of our chakras, out our crown chakra, up to Source, and back down again into the Earth. In fact, to do this circulating of energy, or prana, everyday, as many times as you think of it, is an excellent exercise in not only helping to transmute the negativity on this planet, but also to ground in the new energies which are being given to us in plentitude on a daily basis now directly, without filters. You can easily do this while walking wearing sneakers. My vertical channel is clear, and my chakras are 80% clear. I work on this breathing exercise every day. It has to do with prana, chi...the life force. I could not possibly quote you the names and authors of the articles I read for about five hours every day, but I like to keep up with the latest information. In fact, I am about to put on my sneakers and go for my usual 4.4 mile walk now.

Have you ever read "The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D? This book explains that only 1% of the population was born with a spinal cord sensitive enough to "sense" danger, such as on on-coming car, or a mugger approaching you from behind in a crowd, or even gossip behind your back for that matter. These are the people who will arouse the family in the middle of the night if they sense smoke in the house. If you are one of these people, then you probably need to have quiet downtime every day to avoid becoming over-stimulated. It is an incredible read, and very valuable. I mentioned it because of your comparison of the chakra system to the human antennae. This makes complete sense to me. Thank you.

Just one last request...I think we are making great strides towards becoming a balanced society, and it would be very helpful to phrase this thought in a positive way. We are what we think, after all...if we think we are balanced and focus on becoming and remaining balanced, we will be balanced. This brings me to the thought about female/male energies, and the left/right brain theory, but there is only so much one can say in a blog. This is much longer than I intened it to be. Signing off now!

Comment by mary rose on September 13, 2009 at 11:09am

Ed, I understand what you are saying. And, i am very glad to get into this conversation.

But, let me ask you this: cellular Bruce Lipton has written a book entitled: The Biology of Belief. Is "belief" not "consciousnes"? And does this not infer that there is a "biology of consciousness?" Lipton left his profession of teaching cell biology to medical students because what he was finding in the lab did not match what he had been taught or what he was team-teaching at the university where he was a professor. And he writes in his book, that when he tried to convey what he was discovering in the lab, the other professors would not believe him, so he had no alternative but to leave. Dr, Candace Pert, formerly employed by the National Institute of Health and the first to identify opoid receptors in the brain, ran into the same type of thinking at NIH, and also left there to go on the speaking circuit as has Lipton. As a result, in the past few years thinking with regard to what consciousness and spirituality is have changed dramatically, but no one as yet knows everything.

Where you write "imagining an automobile and projecting it onto a screen" what i am gettingi from Carla Hannaford's explanation of how we actually see objects is very close to what you write.

In the Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce writes to the affect that we are doing a lot of talking but we don't exactly know what we are talking about as yet.. We've not been able to put it all together. And that is what i am attempting to do with my book.

But then we are also talking about quantum physics which is a very fuzzy "now you see it- now you don't" subject. Really difficult to pin down. But what a lot of scientists, particularly those involved in neurobiology and neuro-cardiology, agree on is that the human body/mind is configured like a computer. And within this group, there are those who say it is not just a computer, but a quantum computer. However, there are other researchers who talk about the human body as a receiving and transmitting station that acts much like a TV or a radio station. It was interesting for me to learn that Dorinne understands that the ear is not only capable of receiving signals but of transmitting them as well. And she is only the second person whose research i have read that is aware of this. But with each cell in the body being configured just like a computer chip then it also becomes obvious that the whole body is an information gathering system and might as well be a broadcasting system. An interesting book on this that i have not as yet read all of is: "The Human Antenna - Reading the Language of the Universe in the Songs of our Cells" by Dr. Robin Kelly with endorsements by both Cr. Bruce Lipton and Larry Dossey, M.D., Dr. Dossey being one of the world's foremost authorities on distance healing using the power of prayer.

Dr. Kelly's research reveals that the Chakra System forms the human antennae. And this leads into something else: the hypothesis that memory is "non-local" meaning that it is stored elsewhere. And according to some researchers, Irvin Laszlo being one, memory is stored in what was called by the Ancient Ones, "the Akashic Field". And what gives evidence for this according to John Chilton Pearce is that of a savants ability to access a small segment of that field because they are wired differently than the rest of us due to some fluke in how the fetus was formed in the uterus. If every one remembers the movie Rainman,this movie starring Dustin Hoffman examined the life of a savant and how he was able to access incredible amounts of information from one small segment of the whole that is available. And other savants demonstrate the same ability to recall dates far in the past and tell what day of the week they fall on, etc. And what i have deduced from this is that each of us is configured as a personal computer with each cell (microchip) acting as a mini-computer and the Akashic Field acts like a mainframe compute and stores all of the information fed into it by the mini and personal computers. And, somehow the two electrical forces of the universe which make up our body as well, the electromagnetic field and the strong force, or the alternating current, both create life and provide the energy from which we operate. An energy which the Chinese call "chi" and have researched for thousands of years, but which the Western mind has had difficulty coming to grips with. Recent research also reports that in order for the human system to work properly it must be grounded just as any other electrical appliance. And the human body connects with the universal energy field taking it in from the earth through our bare feed where it then proceeds into the body and into the chakra system which regulates it. Howver, since the advent of plastic soled shoes, this energy is not able to pass through the material and enter into the body thus throwing it out of balance. Our energy system is connected to the rest of the universe by the heart which regulates the energy flow in our system by its beat. When the beat is regular, the body has a "coherent" energy pattern and is not dis-eased. When the heart's beat is irregular, this creates an incoherent pattern in the body referred to as a "chaos" pattern which results in disease. If a coherence pattern is not reinstated in the body then death of the body is a result at some point, but the electromagnetic energy field, which may serve as the body/mind hard disk still retains all of a person's "spiritual energy". And, as we know energy never dies, it just takes on another form with form following function -- that is, the new spirit encodes itself with its life mission before taking on another body and re-entering the earthly plane.

As for what you write here, "Perhaps you are willing to wait around until neuroscientists figure out what happens in the brain when monks meditate to confirm that meditation has value, for instance. I'm not that patient, and have found it easier to just try things such as meditation and see for myself what works and what does not" Neuroscientists have already conducted these tests with monks in meditation and with nuns in contemplative prayer, and have found what they feel is a connection with God via the brain. But what the real question here may be is "what is God"? Is God a man-like being or the electromagnetic energy field that underlies all of life and provides us with our energy/spirituality?

Another factor in this is that energy may be "coded fields of information" with what we know as "life" or "mind" providing the information, and energy happens when these information fields are in motion.

Please remember here that i am only the messenger and not the message. And, it is quite possible that i, like many others, may have either received the wrong information or have misinterpreted it. But I have reviewed over a hundred books on this so far, and the message appears to be the same. We are both the creator and the created.

But perhaps more information and more dialogue will make this much more clear. . .

One of Lipton's findings from studies in a new field entitled "epigenetics" is that who we are is not determined by our genes as previously thought, but by our environment. And that we are largely "programmed" by our parents and our schooling until about age 7. Joseph Chilton Pearce's research shows that most babies are born with a holographic mind in place, but by the age of 7- 10 it has been replaced with a left-brain linear orientation due mainly to the present educational system which "teaches" to the left brain. And, as a result approximately 75% of the population of the United States is left-brain oriented. Which makes us a highly unbalanced society.

What i think is interesting is that most of the elite do not send their children to public schools, but to Montessori or other schools which have a "hands-on experiential learning program" in place that is whole-brain oriented.

Comment by Colleen O'Rourke on September 13, 2009 at 8:34am

I think my real point that I was trying to make below is that we have people all over the world "waking up" at various stages. Some are far along this process, and others are just getting a hint of it. So, we need many different formats to reach people at their various stages of awakening. Clearly, "one size does not fit all!" :)

Comment by Colleen O'Rourke on September 13, 2009 at 8:19am

Personally, I don't need science to prove that God exists, but I agree, Jeff, that for many people living in purely 3D consciousness, it might be exactly what they need to convince them of theories like "You create your own reality;" "Thoughts are things;" "The mind-body-soul connection," how mental telepathy works, and so on. I believe that all matter in creation is made up of atoms, simply vibrating at different frequencies. The higher the frequency, the less dense the atom(s) is/are. Hence, a piece of matter known as a rock vibrates at a very low frequency, while the human body vibrates much higher. Did you know that crystals actually form new growth, and that the interior of the Earth center is crystalline, as our bodies are becoming?

Everything is connected, and what we do to one, we do to ourselves. Nothing disappears, matter just changes form. Perhaps if everyone could only grasp this concept, no one could harm another living thing, and there would be peace, prosperity, sustainability, and the end of all illness of any kind. It sounds like we are make great progress towards that goal.

Ahhh, and Ed, I think inner guidance is the most precise guidance there is. The heart is the most perfect computer ever created. Love and joy, Colleen

Comment by Jeff Hutner on September 13, 2009 at 7:52am

HI Mary, Ed and all.

I am just beginning to read Transcendental Physics by Edward R. Close, Ph.D. In his remarkable book, Close uses science to prove the existence of "God" by showing that consciousness precedes reality or the material. This paradigm shift may provide a useful foundation for a transformational media project.

Comment by Ed Lantz on September 13, 2009 at 12:26am

Hi Mary. I actually take some issue with your comment:

"What I have found to be the best way of defining anything having to do with human consciousness is by looking at it biologically because that is the only way it can be defined and clearly understood. Anything outside of biology is purely human conjecture."

What about the subjective experience of mind, thought, emotion, beliefs, dreams, etc? Is "I Think therefore I Am" pure conjecture?

I agree that neuroscience is making great strides and will soon be able to peer deep into our subjective experience. However we are a long ways from me imagining an automobile and projecting that thought onto a screen. Subjective experience is still the most direct way to peer into the workings of one's own brain. Scientists have even admitted that the subjective experience is more direct than the experience of the "outer world" which must be detected by the senses and transmitted to the brain where it can be "reconstructed."

Spirituality is, to me, all about the subjective realm of phenomenology. More exactly, it is an attempt to perfect and refine our Quality of Consciousness. We eat health food and exercise to remain healthy, but what about the quality of our inner state of affairs? This is the realm of art, education, media, entertainment, self-help and other symbolic, linguistic or vibrational modalities that primarily operate through our senses - especially the eyes and ears. What we believe, how we manage emotions (emotional hygiene), habitual thinking patterns and various states of consciousness are all related to the quality of our subjective experience - something that science is only starting to touch.

Perhaps you are willing to wait around until neuroscientists figure out what happens in the brain when monks meditate to confirm that meditation has value, for instance. I'm not that patient, and have found it easier to just try things such as meditation and see for myself what works and what does not. Perhaps inner observation is not precise, but it's all we've got sometimes.

Warm regards, ed

Comment by Ed Lantz on September 13, 2009 at 12:07am

Check out these Bella Gaia Sample Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiI7vMbSpn8

NASA Earth Day Videoconference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0vWFQpMvNk

Public responses at Smitsonian Folklife Festival
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK7Y9mo8Nfs

Comment by mary rose on September 11, 2009 at 1:42pm

George, I was unable to access the play list you reference here on the AOAND site. But then i have attempted other times to access other referenced works of this type and have been unable to do so. As you indicate here, the translation is difficult. But i was able to locate some information on Widipedia for those seeking to learn more of the meaning here with regard to the Heart Sutra. . /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_Sutra

As some of you may know, i am currently conducting research as a journalistic investigator for a book i am writing entitled: "The Sacred Quest for the Who of I Am". And, it is based in the biology of human consciousness, but it as well takes into consideration both cultural and social issues.

What I have found to be the best way of defining anything having to do with human consciousness is by looking at it biologically because that is the only way it can be defined and clearly understood. Anything outside of biology is purely human conjecture. Until just recently, we had no instrumentation with which to accurately measure and understand the working of the human body, and, in particular, the subtle energy vibrations which make up what are called our "emotions" which are our "consciousness". But it became necessary for NASA to accurately measure the human body's activities in outer space and thus instrumentation was developed that is capable of now measuring these subtle energy vibrations of the body. So it is now possible to accurately record the workings of the body and to see the subtle energy vibrations that are reflected in such a way as to constitute "communication". And i have come to refer to anything outside of the new biological findings as "cultural baggage".

His Highness The Dalai Lama appears to have come to this recognition as well and has written about this in his book entitled: "The Universe In An Atom." In this book we begin to see how as is the atom, is the cell, is the human, is the earth, is the universe. And if you understand one of them then you understand all of them. So, in my book, i have chosen to understand myself -- the human. Although I have learned much from cellular biologist Bruce H. Lipton in his study of the cell. I am very grateful to Dr. Lipton because he provided me with almost all of his material from which to learn.

Getting back to The Dalai Lama, he is the first to study science with an astrophysicist as his assistant. And he also is very interested in the research conducted at the Mind/Life Institute. A determination has been made that Buddhism is based in quantum physics. And The Dalai Lama writes in his book "The Universe In An Atom" that should there be a difference found between Buddhism and science, that science shall prevail.

Where you write below re: "form," what i see is that form follows function but function has no form -- it is something that is just understood.

I hope this adds some light to this subject. Although "Fundamentalism" is hanging on with all its might, we appear to be moving into a new realm of what many are calling "secular spiritualty" and leaving the dogma of religious belief systems behind. Extremely important to understanding this is to gain complete understanding of what researchers call "the field" -- that is understanding the field of energy which makes up every living thing, and as well understanding the "electromagnetic energy field" that underlies all of life and without which life could not manifest.

Perhaps someone else can add to this.

.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 34
• 35
• 36
• 37
• 38
• …
• 51
• Next ›
• Page