Holographic Universe

296 THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE Return to the Dreamtime ________ 297 (many of them the heads of departments and the deans of medical more accepted natural phenomena. The idea that the universe began in a schools) said that they believed \"an understanding of psychic phenom- single, primordial explosion, or Big Bang, is accepted without question ena\" was important to future graduates of psychiatry! Forty-four percent by most scientists. And this is odd because, although there are admitted believing that psychic factors were important in the healing compelling reasons to believe that this is true, no one has ever proved process.34 that it is true. On the other hand, if a near-death psychologist were to state flatly that the realm of light NDEers travel to during their So it appears that fear of ridicule may be as much if not more of a experiences is an actual other level of reality, the psychologist would be stumbling block as disbelief in getting the scientific establishment to attacked for making a statement that cannot be proved. And this is odd, begin to treat psychic research with the seriousness it deserves. We need for there are equally compelling reasons to believe this is true. In other more trailblazers like Weiss and Whitton (and the myriad other words, science already accepts what is probable about very important courageous researchers whose work has been discussed in this book) to matters if those matters fall into the category of \"fashionable things to go public with their private beliefs and discoveries. In brief, we need the believe,\" but not if they fall into the category of \"unfashionable things to parapsychological equivalent of a Rosa Parks. believe.\" This double standard must be eliminated before science canAnother feature that must be a part of the restructuring of science is a begin to make significant inroads into the study of both psychic andbroadening of the definition of what constitutes scientific evidence. spiritual phenomena.Psychic and spiritual phenomena have played a significant roie in humanhistory and have helped shape some of the most fundamental aspects of Most crucial of all, science must replace its enamorment withour culture. But because they are not easy to rope io and scrutinize in a objec-tivity—the idea that the best way to study nature is to be detached,laboratory setting, science has tended to ignore them. Even worse, when analytical, and dispassionately objective—with a more participatorythey are studied, it is often the least important aspects of the phenomena approach. The importance of this shift has been stressed by numerousthat are isolated and catalogued. For instance, one of the few discoveries researchers, including Harman. We have also seen evidence of itsregarding OBFJs that is considered valid in a scientific sense is that the necessity repeatedly throughout this book. In a universe in which thebrain waves change when an OBEer exits the body. And yet, when one consciousness of a physicist affects the reality of a subatomic particle,reads accounts like Monroe's, one realizes that if his experiences are real, the attitude of a doctor affects whether or not a placebo works, the mindthey involve discoveries that could arguably have as much impact on of an experimenter affects the way a machine operates, and the imaginalhuman history as Columbus's discovery of the New World or the can spill over into physical reality, we can no longer pretend that we areinvention of the atomic bomb. Indeed, those who have watched a truly separate from that which we are studying. In a holographic andtalented clairvoyant at work know immediately that they have witnessed omnijective universe, a universe in which all things are part of asomething far more profound than is conveyed in the dry statistics of R. H. seamless continuum, strict objectivity ceases to be possible.and Louisa Rhine. This is especially true when studying psychic and spiritual phenomenaThis is not to say that the Rhines' work is not important. But when vast and appears to be why some laboratories are able to achieve spectacularnumbers of people start reporting the same experiences, their anecdotal results when performing remote-vie wing experiments, and some failaccounts should also be viewed as important evidence. They should not miserably. Indeed, some researchers in the paranormal field have alreadybe dismissed merely because they cannot be documented as rigorously as shifted from a strictly objective approach to a more participatoryother and often less significant features of the same phenomenon can be approach. For example, Valerie Hunt discovered that her experimentaldocumented. As Stevenson states, \"I believe it is better to learn what is results were affected by the presence of individuals who had beenprobable about important matters than to be certain about trivial ones.\"35 drinking alcohol and thus won't allow any such individuals in her labIt is worth noting that this rule of thumb is already applied to other while she is taking measurements. In this same vein, Russian parapsychologists Dubrov and Pushkin have found that they have more success duplicating the findings of other parapsychologists

296 THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE Return to the Dreamtime _________ 299if they hypnotize all of the test subjects present. It appears that hypnosis An Evolutionary Thrust towardeliminates the interference caused by the conscious thoughts and beliefsof the test subjects, and helps produce \"cleaner\" results.3* Although such Higher Consciousnesspractices may seem odd in the extreme to us today, they may becomestandard operating procedures as science unravels further secrets of the Science may not be the only force that offers us passage to the land ofholographic universe. nonwhere. In his book Heading toward Omega Ring points out that there is compelling evidence that NDEs are on the increase. As we have seen, A shift from objectivity to participation will also most assuredly affect in tribal cultures individuals who have NDEs are often so transformedthe role of the scientist As it becomes increasingly apparent that it is the that they become shamans. Modern NDEers become spirituallyexperience of observing that is important, and not just the act of transformed as well, mutating from their pre-NDE personalities intoobservation, it is logical to assume that scientists in turn will see more loving, compassionate, and even more psychic individuals. Fromthemselves less and less as observers and more and more as experiences. this Ring concludes that perhaps what we are witnessing is \"theAs Harman states, \"A willingness to be transformed is an essential skamanizing of modern humanity. ,138 But if this is so, why are NDEscharacteristic of the participatory scientist.\"37 increasing? Ring believes that the answer is as simple as it is profound; what we are witnessing is \"an evolutionary thrust toward higher Again, there is evidence that a few such transformations are alreadytaking place. For instance, instead of just observing what happened to consciousness for all humanity. \"the Conibo after they consumed the soul-vine ayakuasca, Harner And NDEs may not be the only transformative phenomenon bubblingimbibed the hallucinogen himself. It is obvious that not allanthropologists would be willing to take such a risk, hut it is also clear up from the collective human psyche. Grosso believes that the increasethat by becoming a participant instead of just an observer, he was able to in Marian visions during the last century has evolutionary implicationslearn much more than he ever could have by just sitting on the sidelines as well. Similarly, numerous researchers, including Raschke and Vallee,and taking notes. feel that the explosion of UFO sightings in the last several decades has evolutionary significance. Several investigators, including Ring, have Harner's success suggests that instead of just interviewing NDEers, pointed out that UFO encounters actually resemble shamanic initiationsOBEers, and other journeyers into the subtler realms, participatory and may be further evidence of the shamanizing of modern humanity,scientists of the future may devise methods of traveling there themselves. Strieber agrees. \"I think it's rather obvious that, whether [the UFOAlready lucid-dream researchers are exploring and reporting back on phenomenon is being] done by somebody or [is happening] naturally,their own lucid-dream experiences. Others may develop different and what we're dealing with is an exponential leap from one species toeven more novel techniques for exploring the inner dimensions. For another. I would suspect that what we're looking at is the process ofinstance, although not a scientist in the strictest definition of the term, evolution in action.\"39Monroe has developed recordings of special rhythmic sounds that hefeels facilitate out-of-body experiences. He has also founded a research If such speculations are true, what is the purpose of this evolutionarycenter called the Monroe Institute of Applied Sciences in the Blue Ridge transformation? There appears to be two answers. Numerous ancientMountains and claims to have trained hundreds of individuals to make traditions speak of a time when the hologram of physical reality wasthe same out-of-body journeys he has made. Are such developments much more plastic than it is now, much more like the amorphous andharbingers of the future, fore-shadowings of a time when not only fluid reality of the afterlife dimension. For example, the Australianastronauts but \"psychonauts\" become the heroes we watch on the aborigines say that there was a time when the entire world wasevening news? dreamtime. Edgar Cayce echoed this sentiment and asserted that the earth was \"at first merely in the nature of thought-forms or visualization made by pushing themselves out of themselves in whatever manner desired. .. . Then came materiality as sueh into the earth, through Spirit pushing itself into matter.\"40 The aborigines assert that the day will come when the earth returns

300 THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE Return to the Dreamtime 301 to the dreamttme. In the spirit of pure speculation, one might wonder if, doubt, in the final historical seconds of that crisis—a crisis which involves as we learn to manipulate the hologram of reality more and more, we will the end of history, our departure from the planet, [and] the triumph over see the fulfillment of this prophecy. As we become more adept at death. We are, in fact, closing distance with the most profound event a tinkering with what Jahn and Dunne call the interface between planetary ecology can encounter—the freeing of life from the dark consciousness and its environment, is it possible for us to experience a chrysalis of matter.4'' reality that is once again malleable? If this is true, we will need to learn much more than we presently know to manipulate such a plastic Of course these are only speculations. But whether we are on the very environment safely, and perhaps that is one purpose of the evolutionary brink of a transition, as Strieber and McKenna suggest, or whether that processes that seem to be unfolding in our midst watershed is still some ways off in the future, it is apparent that we are following some track of spiritual evolution. Given the holographic nature Many ancient traditions also assert that humanity did not originate on of the universe, it is also apparent that at least something like the abovethe earth, and that our true home is with God, or at least in a nonphysical two possibilities awaits us somewhere and somewhen.and more paradisiacal realm of pure spirit. For instance, there is a Hindumyth that human consciousness began as a ripple that decided to leave And lest we be tempted to assume that freedom from the physical isthe ocean of \"consciousness as such, timeless, spaceless, infinite and the end of human evolution, there is evidence that the more plastic andeternal.\"41 Awakening to itself, it forgot that it was a part of this infinite imaginal realm of the hereafter is also a mere stepping stone. Forocean, and felt isolated and separated. Loye has argued that Adam and example, Swedenborg said that beyond the heaven he visited wasEve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden may also be a version of this another heaven, one so brilliant and formless to his perceptions that itmyth, an ancient memory of how human consciousness, somewhere in appeared only as \"a streaming of light.\"46 NDEers have also occasionallyits unfathomable past, left its home in the implicate and forgot that it was described these even more unfathomably tenuous realms. \"There area part of the cosmic wholeness of all things.42 In this view the earth is a many higher planes, and to get back to God, to reach the plane where Hiskind of playground \"in which one is free to experience all the pleasures spirit resides, you have to drop your garment each time until your spirit isof the flesh provided one realizes that one is a holographic projection of truly free,\" states one of Whitton's subjects. \"The learning process nevera . . . higher-order spatial dimension.\"43 stops. . . . Sometimes we are allowed glimpses of the higher planes—each one is lighter and brighter than the one before.\"47 If this is true, the evolutionary fires that are beginning to flicker anddance through our collective psyche may be our wake-up call, the It may be frightening to some that reality seems to become increas-trumpet note informing us that our true home is elsewhere and we can ingly frequency-like as one penetrates deeper into the implicate. And thisreturn there if we wish. Strieber, for one, believes this is precisely why is understandable. It is obvious that we are still like children who needUFOs are here: \"I think that they are probably midwifing our birth into the security of a coloring book, not yet ready to draw free-form andthe nonphysical world—which is their origin. My impression is that the without lines to guide our clumsy hands. To be plunged intophysical world is only a small instant in a much larger context and that Swedenborg's realm of streaming light would be tantamount to plungingreality is primarily unfolding in a non-physical way. I don't think that us into a completely fluid LSD hallucination. And we are not yet maturephysical reality is the original source of being. I think that being, as enough or in enough control of our emotions, attitudes, and beliefs toconsciousness, probably predates the physical.\"44 deal with the monsters our psyches would create for ourselves there. Writer Terence McKenna, another longtime supporter of the holo- But perhaps that is why we are learning how to deal with small dosesgraphic model, agrees: of the omnijective here, in the form of the relatively limited confrontations with the imaginal that UFOs and other similar experi- What this seems to be about is that from the time of the awareness of ences provide. the existence of the soul until the resolution of the apocalyptic potential, there are roughly fifty thousand years. We are now, there can be no

302 THEHOLOGRAPHICUNIVERSE Notes And perhaps that is why the beings of light tell us again and again that INTRODUCTIONthe purpose of life is to learn. 1. Irvin L. Child, \"Psychology and Anomalous Observations,\" American We are indeed on a shaman's journey, mere children struggling to Psychologist 40, no. 11 (November 1985), pp. 1219-30.become technicians of the sacred. We are learning how to deal with theplasticity that is part and parcel of a universe in which mind and reality 1. THE BRAIN AS HOLOGRAMare a continuum, and in this journey one lesson stands out above allothers. As long as the formlessness and breathtaking freedom of the 1. Wilder Penfield, The Mystery of the Mind: A Critical Study of Con-beyond remain frightening to us, we will continue to dream a hologram sciousness and the Human Brain (Princeton, NX: Princeton Univer-for ourselves that is comfortably solid and well defined. sity Press, 1975). But we must always heed Bohm's warning that the conceptual pi- 2. Karl Lashley, \"In Search of the Engram,\" in Physiological Mechanismsgeonholes we use to parse out the universe are of our own making. They in Animal Behavior (New York: Academic Press, 1950), pp. 454-82.do not exist \"out there,\" for \"out there\" is only the indivisible totality.Brahman. And when we outgrow any given set of conceptual 3. Karl Pribram, \"The Neurophysiology of Remembering,\" Scientific.pigeonholes we must always be prepared to move on, to advance from American 220 (January 1969), p. 75.soul-state to soul^tate, as Sri Aurobindo put it, and from illumination toillumination. For our purpose appears to be as simple as it is endless. 4. Karl Pribram, Languages of the Brain (Monterey, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1977), p. 123. We are, as the aborigines say, just learning how to survive in infinity. 5. Daniel Goleman, \"Holographic Memory: Karl Pribram Interviewed by Daniel Goleman,\" Psychology Today 12, no. 9 (February 1979), p. 72. 6. J. Collier, C. B. Burckhardt, and L. H. Lin, Optical Holography {New York: Academic Press, 1971). 7. Pieter van Heerden, \"Models for the Brain,\" Nature 227 (July 25,1970), pp. 410-11. 8. Paul Pietsch, Shufflebrain: The Quest for the Hologramic Mind (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 78. 9. Daniel A. Pollen and Michael C. Tractenberg, \"Alpha Rhythm and Eye Movements in Eidetic Imagery,\" Nature 237 (May 12, 1972), p. 109, 10. Pribram, Languages, p. 169. 303

304 NOTES Notes____________________ 305 11. Paul Pietsch, \"Shuffle brain,\" Harper's Magazine 244 (May 1972), p. 66. 16. Saybrook Publishing Company, The Reach of the Mind: Nobel Prize 12. Kareo K. DeValois, Russell L. DeValois, and W. W. Yund, \"Responses of Conversations (Dallas, Texas: Saybrook Publishing Co., 1985), p. 91. Striate Cortex Cells to Grating and Checkerboard Patterns,\" Journal of 17. Judith Hooper, \"An Interview with Karl Pribram,\" Omni (October 1982), p. Physiology, vol. 291 (1979), pp. 483-505. 135. 13. Goleman, Psychology Today, p. 71, 14. Larry Dossey, Space, Time, and Medicine (Boston: New Science Library, 18. Private communication with author, February 8, 1989. 1982), pp. 108-9. 19. Renee Weber, \"The Enfolding-Unfolding Universe: A Conversation with 15. Richard Restak, \"Brain Power A New Theory,\" Science Digest (March 1981), p. 19. David Bohm,\" in The Holographic Paradigm, ed. Ken Wilber (Boulder, 16. Richard Restak, The Brain (New York: Wamer Books, 1979), p. 253. Colo.: New Science Library, 1982), pp. 83-84. 2. THE COSMOS AS HOLOGRAM 20. Ibid., p. 73. 1. Basil J. Hiley and F. David Peat, \"The Development of David Bohm's Ideas 3. THE HOLOGRAPHIC MODEL AND PSYCHOLOGY from the Plasma to the Implicate Order,\" in Quantum Implications, ed. Basil J. Hiley and F. David Peat (London; Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 1. Renee Weber, \"The Enfolding-Unfolding Universe: A Conversation with p. 1. David Bohm,\" in The Holographic Paradigm, ed. Ken Wilber (Boulder, Colo.: New Science Library, 1982), p. 72. 2. Nick Herbert, \"How Large is Starlight? A Brief Look at Quantum Reality,\" Revision 10, no. 1 (Summer 1987), pp. 31-35. 2. Robert M. Anderson, Jr., \"A Holographic Model of Transpersonal Con- sciousness,\" Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 9, no. 2 (1977), p. 126. 3. Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, \"Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered 3. Jon Tolaas and Montague Ullman, \"Extrasensory Communication and Complete?\" Physical Review 47 (1935), p. 777. Dreams,\" in Handbook of Dreams, ed. Benjamin B. Wolman (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979), pp. 178-79. 4. Hiley and Peat, Quantum, p. 3. 5. John P. Briggs and F. David Peat, Looking Glass Universe (New York: 4. Private communication with author, October 31, 1988. 5. Montague Ullman, \"Wholeness and Dreaming,\" in Quantum Implications, Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 96. 6. David Bohm, \"Hidden Variables and the Implicate Order,\" in Quantum ed. Basil J. Hiley and F. David Peat (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 393, Implications, ed. Basil J. Hiley and F. David Peat (London: Routledge & 6. I. Matte-Bianco, \"A Study of Schizophrenic Thinking: Its Expression in Kegan Paul, 1987), p. 38. Terms of Symbolic Logic and Its Representation in Terms of Multidimen- 7. \"Nonioeality in Physics and Psychology: An Interview with John Stewart sional Space,\" International Journal of Psychiatry 1, no. 1 (January 1965), Bell,\" Psychological Perspectives (Fall-Winter 1988), p. 306. p. 93. 8. Robert Temple, \"An Interview with David Bohm,\" New Scientist (No- 7. Montague Ullman, \"Psi and Psychopathology,\" paper delivered at the vember II, 1982), p. 362. American Society for Psychical Research conference on Psychic Factors in 9. Bohm, Quantum, p. 40. Psychotherapy, November 8, 1986. 10. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (London: Routledge & 8. See Stephen LaBerge, Lucid Dreaming (Los Angeles: Jeremy P-Tarcher, Kegan Paul, 1980), p. 205. 1985). 11. Private communication with author, October 28, 1988. 9. Fred Alan Wolf, Star Wave (New York: Macmillan, 1984), p. 238. 12. Bohm, Wholeness, p. 192. 10. Jayne Gackenbach, \"Interview with Physicist Fred Alan Wolf on the 13. Paul Davies, Superforce (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), p. 48. Physics of Lucid Dreaming,\" Lucidity Letter 6, no. 1 (June 1987), p. 52. 14 Lee Smolin, \"What is Quantum Mechanics Really About?\" New Scien 11. Fred Alan Wolf, \"The Physics of Dream Consciousness: Is the Lucid tist (October 24, 1985), p. 43. Dream a Parallel Universe?\" Second Lucid Dreaming Symposium15. Private communication with author, October 14, 1988. Proceedings/Lucidity Letter 6, no. 2 (December 1987), p. 133. 12. Stanislav Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976), p. 20.