Relativity

Marcel Cairo has put up a thoughtful piece on the newly discovered Albert Einstein letter in which the great physicist dismisses belief in God as a childish superstition.

I agree with Marcel that Einstein's view should come as no surprise, given his previously known statements on the subject.

I might add that Einstein seems to have doubted the existence of an individual soul also, opting instead for a sense of mystical oneness with all creation, as exemplified in this famous quote:

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

Comments

[Bryan.A]

Well that famous quote seems pretty comparable with what is frequently discussed on your blog here MP.To me the "God is nature" theory is what he's saying right there as well I've heard plenty of people who worship a personal God call B.S on that theory yet ironically enough can't even describe their own personal God.

[Michael H]

Einstein was a pantheist and admirer of Spinoza, as Marcel notes in his post. I came across a page on Einstein's Pantheism, which has several commentaries and excerpts of his ideas on existence.

There's several good quotes at the bottom of the page. (And some that I totally disagree with.) I thought the following was appropriate in the context of David Brooks' column in yesterday's NYT, anticipating the advent of "Neural Buddhism":

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. The religion which based on experience, which refuses dogmatic. If there's any religion that would cope the scientific needs it will be Buddhism...."

[Michael H]

This one's better:

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

[william]

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

From my point of view the bible is a mixed bag of wisdom and ignorance. There is profound wisdom in the bible but also profound ignorance. Separating the two is the wonderful and interesting and joyful challenge.

To suggest that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is “pretty childish” is rather naive. Dare I say stupid about Einstein? Maybe being Jewish he only read the old testament but then even in the old testament there is much profound wisdom.

"I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe."
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within ."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-Einstein

Cute saying but cannot be taken literally because it misses the evolution of the soul and how the manifestation and creation (evolutionary) process of perceived individual life forms demands unawareness. (His term stupidity)

Out of this evolutionary process comes innocence and this innocence leads to ignorance and out of ignorance comes stupidity, joy, foolishness, sin, suffering, pleasure, happiness, creativity, struggle, misery, drama, and distress. (Dynamic expression of the infinite Oneness)

Is it worth it? Did we have a choice? Ask the mystic if it was worth it. And a thousand times over they would say yes absolutely, totally worth the struggle.

Like Michael H I found most of Einstein’s quotes on Marcel’s website very much in line with what we have been discussing on this blog.

I don't understand why Einsteins opinion is important. He is not known to have done any paranormal research so why is his opinion considered relevant?

[Art]

"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us."
-------------------------------------------

What Einstein didn't understand is that this "prison" that we experience happens for a reason and that reason is to teach the soul what it means and how it feels to be a separate, unique, individual. The soul comes here to become "unassimilated." The amazing thing about this unassimilation is that "resistance is futile". Everyone experiences duality and separation whether they want to or not. The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and the soul is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn - whether we want it to be or not. We don't have to do jack squat. Belief is irrelevant, acceptance is irrelevant, agreement is irrelevant. From the moment we are born and we separate from our mothers and our umbilical cord is cut till the day we die and our physical death becomes a lesson in separation to those loved ones we leave behind life is a never ending series of separation experiences. It doesn't have to be physical either. It can be emotional. You can feel and experience separation from people that you live with in the same house. Divorce, friends moving away, moving to a new location, even picking a tomato or grape off a vine is a kind of separation. Heck, even getting up in the middle of the night and using the restroom is a way experiencing separation. Duality such as religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, language, dialects, wealth, I.Q., etc. (the list is endless) causes the soul to experience separation and duality oftentimes leads to separation. And when someone responds to me and argues "no, that's not so! 'we are here to learn how to love and be one with god!'" That too is just more duality and separation for our souls to be imprinted with. We are gods in training. Baby gods. God's children. Gathering memories of what it's like to live in a physical universe so that our souls can one day use that information to create our own heaven or hell in the Spiritual Universe.

[Ulysses]

The way I understand that letter is that Einstein was talking about organized religion being “childish superstition”, not about his believe in God; at least in the concept of Spinoza’s God --an infinite transcendent nature as opposed to a personal God of the Abrahamic religions who is supposed to constantly intervene in human affairs through miracles.

On the other hand there are other Einstein letters and quotes that express favorable ideas about religions, including his famous "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" and "God does not play dice" –regarding Quantum Mechanics.

Also, Einstein liked to give opinions about many subjects where he was not an expert. As someone has put it: Einstein was brilliant when it comes to science, less so when it comes to politics and fashion.

[Art]

I've read that Einstein had Asperger's Syndrome. If he was anything like my nephew that has Asperger's syndrome he must have been goofy as heck. My nephew says weird and inappropriate things all the time. He was actually in the gifted program in grade school but when he hit puberty his social skills never developed.

[Ronnie]

I too have asperger's syndrome, Art!

I may have grown out of the notion of an Abrahamic God, but I do believe in the Panentheistic one. ;)

[Michael H]

Pantheists Unite!!!

[Hope Rivers]

I didnt think Pantheists believe in a God a such?

Well not long before everyone finds out I guess.

[H]

Hope, I thought fundamentalists were pantheists. I mean, I thought they believed that God is everywhere and in everything.

[Hope Rivers]

Pantheists:
the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God's personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature

Fundamentalists:
A movement in American Protestantism that arose in the early part of the 20th century in reaction to modernism and that stresses the infallibility of the Bible not only in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historical record, holding as essential to Christian faith belief in such doctrines as the creation of the world, the virgin birth, physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ, and the Second Coming.

I guess I'm neither, I don't follow a denomination per se, there are some things that challenge me in the bible, therefore cant say infallibility of everything in it.

What this means is this little bird has no home by normal christian man made definition :-)

[H]

Well, I start with the premise that defining God is self-defeating, and all these concepts, "Abrahamic" God, "personal" God, "impersonal" God, "transcendent" God, "immanent" God, God "the Father", "pantheism", "panentheism ", monism, dualism, etc. are man-made. I would venture that the first principle of theology should be "God is that which is beyond all human categories".

[william]

“We are gods in training. Baby gods. God's children. Gathering memories of what it's like to live in a physical universe so that our souls can one day use that information to create our own heaven or hell in the Spiritual Universe.”

This appears to be so Art. Never quite have seen it stated that way but even the bible I think states we are gods about 8 times. We need many incarnations to learn this wisdom and hopefully we will create heavens and not hells. Although I have talked to many people that believe hell is the earth experience.

“Well, I start with the premise that defining God is self-defeating, and all these concepts”

Maybe to try and define infinite is to limit infinite but maybe we can define some of the qualities of God like love and divine intelligence. There are about 6.7 billion descriptions of “God” on this planet. Every human appears to have a bit of a different opinion of what or who God is. To many atheists their God is their intellect or for many scientism.

One definition I always favored was “Isness.”

Einstein had great intellectual capability and he did pretty good describing this infinite Oneness. We see this intellectual capability in many skeptics but this not mean they have as yet acquired or demonstrated much divine intelligence as least in this life. Einstein appears to be accepted by both the religious and the atheists from his writings.

As an experiment I used to visit atheist’s websites and post comments like them and oh how well I was treated and then slowly I started to turn the page and express some of my spiritual views and it was amazing how they started to treat me differently, sometimes even hostile. We love being around people that think like us. Gives us comfort and smoothes our doubts I think.

Anyone see Oprah the other night on past life regression. I very seldom watch Oprah but that night something told me to flip to her program and there it was past life regression with the many lives many masters guy.

[Marcel Cairo]

Michael, thanks for the link to my post. I Love the discussion here.

You know, I had a weird thought just a moment ago. What if Einstein was the Messiah? It's not that inconceivable.

Who, since Moses, Buddha, Jesus or Mohamed, has had such a lasting influence, both popularly and academically, on the way we understand or challenge our relationship to religion, morality, humanism, naturalism, politics, ethics and love?

What if we looked at the legacy of Einstein's work and wisdom as a type of corrective "white out" on all the obvious mistakes that were made in the first two millenniums since his last visit?

Kind of crazy, yes, but the more you toy with the idea in your mind, the more I'm starting to believe it.

Anyone wish to start a cult with me? We will let our hair grow wild, ride bicycles and greet each other by sticking out our tongues. Just like HE did.

[Ryan]

>Pantheists Unite!!!

If this seems a popular position around here, I will give *one hundred dollars to anyone who can tell me what 'panentheism' means.

* No I won't.

[Alex]

"Who, since Moses, Buddha, Jesus or Mohamed, has had such a lasting influence, both popularly and academically, on the way we understand or challenge our relationship to religion, morality, humanism, naturalism, politics, ethics and love?"

I would disagree with you. Newton (by extension of the Protestant Reformation and its weakening of traditional Christianity) provided the intellectual backdrop for contemporary views of these topics. All of the philosophers and scientists that followed him merely built on the Newtonian mechanistic worldview (it is still implicitly part of the scientific worldview despite its overthrow by QM and relativity). Einstein is a mere drop in the bucket compared to Newton.

[Michael H]

I’m not a big fan of Ken Wilber’s Integral Philosophy, which I find to be unwieldy and complex, but he does make several interesting observations in his recent interview with Salon. I thought this brief description was about as accurate as one can do.

On the nature of God:

“The word "God" is much more misleading than it is accurate. So there's a whole series of terms that are used instead by the esoteric traditions -- super-consciousness, Big Mind, Big Self. This ultimate reality is a direct union that is felt or recognized in a state of enlightenment or liberation.”

It is the profound feelings of unconditional love and interconnectedness that are realized in this state of direct union that the founders of the various religions were all attempting to express. While contemplation of the varying interpretations of this state of mind has value, the common hope and intention of all mystical thought is to lead others to identify with the deep, warm feelings that are inherent to the state of mind that the mystics themselves experienced.

Understanding them involves looking for those positive feelings. If someone is simply evaluating ideas conceptually, they’re denying themselves the essence of the message. The whole point is to raise the spirit, or as I like to say, to discover a higher level of consciousness. It’s about uncovering positive feelings that are natural to us, and following them to see where they lead.

[Ross W]

Panentheism is God extending beyond the known Universe. Ryan -please send the $100 to Save the Children/Whales/Planet? I don't care which ;-).

[Michael H]

Panentheists Unite!!!

[Ulysses]

When I read discussions about God like these, I am always reminded of Gödel’s Theorems, which in essence state that “No consistent logical system is complete” or “No complete logical system is consistent”, kind of like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applied to mathematical models or logical systems. The implications of these theorems are obvious. If we intend our concept of God or any of our philosophical “ism” to be a logical system, then such system will never be complete and consistent at the same time.

[Marcel Cairo]

Alex,

Sometimes it helps to have a sense of humor when reading comments.

:-)

[Ross W]

Michael H: I think you must be implying that there is no possible way that panentheists can be disunited?!

Ulysses: "such system will never be complete and consistent at the same time."

In the same way that quantum particles can't have their position and velocity determined at the same time?

[Ryan]

@ Ross

>Ryan -please send the $100 to Save the Children/Whales/Planet? I don't care which ;-)

Very funny :-). I may or may not take you up on your offer to give some money to a child, whale, or planet. But I believe charity should be kept private. ;-) (wipes brow - 'phew, got out of that one!')

I was first introduced to the term 'panentheism' via Kitaro Nishida's work. I was a little unsure, myself - but in the book I have, the explanation is a little different to how Ross puts it.

If this discussion is still live tomorrow I will flesh it out. It's Brahms and red wine at the mo' - not concentration.

[Ryan]

PS - I'm in the UK not the US. I'm not drinking wine at 2pm on a Thursday! There are worse things I could think of doing then, though...

[william]

You know you are not being taken seriously when you call Einstein stupid and no one comments.

"What if Einstein was the Messiah? It's not that inconceivable."

Ok Marcel what have you been smoking? Come clean now. Saw your beautiful child on your website. My question is how did a guy with a baldhead and a questionable sense of humor and believes Einstein was the messiah and talks to people on the other side get such an attractive woman.

I have two grandchildren about your child’s age and if you don’t think god is love have grandchildren. Cutest kids on the planet. Really. Mom was in movies and father looks like a movie star like his dad. Just kidding son looks nothing like dad. Ok I am bias but what grandparent is not.

Signed
Bald headed guy with a very very dry sense of humor and believes dr hora was the messiah. Hey he was Jewish.

I agree with Alex, Newton has had a much more profound effect on western civilization and its religious beliefs then Einstein. We are still recovering from Newton’s discoveries. I.e. scientism.

Even most PhD’s in physics are still materialists and don’t have clue the implications of quantum physics.

Michael H: ken is a Buddhist I see little difference between his writings and Buddhism except he uses a lot more gargantuan words.

"Understanding them involves looking for those positive feelings."

Don’t think we can look for them. If we look (i.e. want) they might elude us. They find us if we are open (i.e. loving) or something to that effect. Or not.

Actually the intelligence that came through George Wright the medium I think would agree with you

[Marcel Cairo]

William, thanks for the compliments on my family, they often vindicate me before the executioner. :-)

So if I am wrong about Einstein, then explain why Mariah Carrey has the #1 album in the country right now - an album called E=MC2.

I rest my case.

[Michael Prescott]

I think quantum physics (which Einstein opposed) has been more revolutionary than Einstein's theories. I also believe that George "Goober" Lindsey is the one and only true Messiah.

But it would be cool if there were an Einstein cult ... except, given all the Einstein calendars, T-shirts, posters, and bumper stickers, maybe there already is one!

Regarding panentheism, I take it to mean that God suffuses the physical cosmos but also exists beyond the physical and gives rise to the physical. I.e., God is both immanent and transcendent.

Yes, I should have said that Einstein appears to have regarded a personal God as a childish notion, but not the Spinozan God. Not that Einstein necessarily had any better grasp of these things than anyone else ...

i wonder what everyone thinks of Keith Augustine's assessment on nde target identifccation experiments?

NDE Target Identification Experiments

The cutting edge of near-death research lies in controlled tests of veridical paranormal perception during the out-of-body phase of those NDEs that include OBEs. The detection of remote visual targets during out-of-body NDEs has the potential to provide decisive evidence of consciousness functioning independently of the body, conceivably answering the survival question once and for all. Alternatively, if NDErs are given ample opportunities to identify remote visual targets during their experiences yet fail to do so, veridicality studies offer the prospect of confirming the hallucinatory nature of these experiences. Given the importance of such experiments in either establishing or falsifying veridical paranormal perception during NDEs, it would seem remiss to conclude this section without a survey of the results of NDE veridicality research conducted to date.

Thus far there have been five separate studies in which remote visual targets were placed in presumably NDE-conducive hospital environments. Although earlier experiments with OBEs induced at will have failed to provide compelling evidence of any paranormal processes operating during induced OBEs (see Alvarado 199-200 and especially Blackmore, "Beyond" 189-199 & 213-224 for a survey of the results of these experiments), one might anticipate a greater likelihood of paranormal activity during spontaneous out-of-body NDEs. The first NDE target identification experiment was carried out in the mid-1980s by Janice Minor Holden in the emergency room (ER), each room of the coronary care unit (CCU), and each room of the intensive care unit (ICU) at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois (Holden and Joesten 46). As Holden and Leroy Joesten report, visual targets were placed

in the corners of hospital rooms in which near-death episodes were most likely to occur.... in such a way as to be visible only from a vantage point of looking down from the ceiling. No living person was to know the exact content of the stimuli, thus rendering the design double-blind. Once the patient was resuscitated from a near-death episode in one of the "marked" rooms, knowledge of the content of the visual stimulus would be assessed (Holden and Joesten 46).

The authors go on to explain what would constitute a positive result in their study: "If [out-of-body NDErs] accurately identified card content with significantly greater frequency than other NDErs and non NDErs ... the hypothesis that [out-of-body NDErs] have veridical perception ... would be supported" (Holden and Joesten 48). Unfortunately, however, in the entire year of the study, only 1 cardiac resuscitation occurred in the hospital areas covered by the study, to an Armenian immigrant with poor English who declined to give an interview about his resuscitation. At the same time, at least one NDE occurred in a hospital area not covered by the study (Holden and Joesten 51). With no experiences to test, inevitably no positive results were reported.

A second experiment was conducted by Madelaine Lawrence at Hartford Hospital, Connecticut until early November 1994, when Lawrence was Director of Nursing Education and Research. A scrolling LED display placed in the cardiac electrophysiology lab--though occasionally turned off--was up and running for a total of about 6 months (M. Lawrence, personal communication, August 7, 2006). Lawrence reports:

I placed an electronic sign high on a cabinet in the room [of the electrophysiology lab], not visible to anyone standing on the floor. In order to read the sign a person needed to use a ladder or be out of his body. It contained a nonsense statement like, "The popsicles are in bloom," and I changed it randomly. It was nonsense so that no one could say he overheard a conversation about the words on the sign. All subjects who became unconscious during the EP [electrophysiology] studies were interviewed and asked to describe their experiences. We were hoping they had had an NDE and had read the sign (Lawrence 158-159).

Unfortunately, although "three patients reported the early stages of an out-of-body experience," no one had an OBE extensive enough to see the sign (159). So the results of this study, too, can only be considered negative.

A third experiment was set up in "the medical, emergency, and coronary care units of Southampton General Hospital" in the United Kingdom by Sam Parnia from August 1997 to August 1998 (Parnia et al. 150; S. Parnia, personal communication, August 3, 2006). For one year "boards were suspended from the ceiling of the wards.... [with] various figures on the surface facing the ceiling which were not visible from the floor" (Parnia et al. 151). Of the 63 cardiac arrest survivors interviewed during that time, 7 had some recall of the period after they lost consciousness. Of these 7, 4 had NDEs as defined by the Greyson NDE Scale, 2 had NDE-like memories (e.g., feelings of peace or seeing deceased relatives), and 1 had memories unlike NDEs (e.g., seeing "some unknown people jumping off a mountain"). Though two of the four NDErs "lost awareness of their bodies," none of them had full-blown OBEs (151-153).

Under the supervision of neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick and Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC) Director Paul Badham, Penny Sartori conducted a fourth target identification experiment, also in the United Kingdom, at Morriston Hospital, Swansea from January 1998 to January 2003 (Sartori 34). As Sartori explains:

At each patient's bedside in ITU [the intensive therapy unit], mounted on the wall, is a cardiac monitor. Symbols which were mounted on brightly coloured day glow paper to attract attention were placed on the top of each monitor. These symbols were above head height and concealed behind ridges to prevent them being viewed from a standing position, thus ensuring they could only be viewed from an out-of-body perspective (Sartori 35).

Sartori adds that the symbols were inconspicuously changed every two months and covered by a card removed away from her sight, "ensuring that not even the author knew which symbol was on which monitor" (35). Though all ITU patients were interviewed in the first year of the study, for logistical reasons interviews in the remaining four years were limited to cardiac arrest survivors, those who came so close to death that their survival was unexpected, and spontaneous OBErs and NDErs (36). Consistent with van Lommel and colleagues' findings, about 18% of the cardiac arrest survivors reported NDEs; about 5% of them reported OBEs (37-38). In the entirety of Sartori's 5-year study, 15 patients reported NDEs or NDE-like experiences, and 8 OBEs were reported (37-38). Nevertheless, Sartori reports, this study also yielded negative results, as "not all of the patients rose high enough out of their bodies and some reported viewing the situation from a position opposite to where the symbols were situated" (Sartori 38).

The fifth and most recent veridicality study was conducted by Bruce Greyson, Janice Minor Holden, and J. Paul Mounsey at the University of Virginia Health System Electrophysiology Clinic from January 2004 to July 2006 in order to demonstrate that "patients during cardiac arrest have perceptions that they could not have had normally from the position of their bodies," as this would provide profound "evidence for the independent functioning of the mind while the brain was physiologically impaired" (Greyson, Holden, and Mounsey 93). Following Lawrence's precedent, the University of Virginia study was premised on cardioversion, the controlled administration of an electric shock to the heart to restore normal heart rhythm. But whereas only about 30% of Lawrence's electrophysiology patients required cardioversion in order to restore a normal heart rhythm (of which 9% reported NDEs) (Lawrence 158), all 25 of the University of Virginia patients experienced at least two episodes of induced cardiac arrest in order to test implantable cardioverters/defibrillators (ICDs) (Greyson, Holden, and Mounsey 90).

During the two-and-a-half-year period of the study, a ceiling-facing laptop computer visible only from a perspective far above eye level was opened and laid flat on top of a cabinet or video monitor before patients entered the procedure room for ICD implantation and testing. The laptop generated clear and simple but unpredictable cartoon animations (e.g., a jumping frog) of varying colors quasi-randomly selected by the computer based on when it was turned on and unknown to any living person prior to the completion of the study (88-89). Although 5 patients (20% of the sample) acknowledged some recall of events while unconscious--such as a sense of timelessness, feelings of peace, vaguely being somewhere unfamiliar, and possibly sensing the presence of a deceased relative--no NDEs were reported, and thus no out-of-body NDEs were available to test (91-92).

Given that controlled studies of veridical paranormal perception during NDEs have only been attempted intermittently and on a small scale, it is imperative that further target identification experiments are simultaneously carried out at multiple hospitals over a period of several years. For, as Sartori notes,

If hundreds of patients report an OBE there is a greater potential for the symbols being viewed. Equally, if hundreds of patients report an OBE but none correctly identify the symbols then it could lead to the conclusion that the OBE is a mind model (Sartori 39).

In a related but hardly surprising development, similar long-term multicenter research has already established that distant prayer (i.e., prayer unknown to the prayed-for) has absolutely no effect on the health of hospitalized patients (Benson et al. 934). If past experience is any guide at all, NDE veridicality research is no more likely to overthrow our current scientific understanding of humanity's place in the universe. In the meantime, at any rate, existing veridicality research presents no challenge to the current scientific understanding of near-death experiences as hallucinations.

[Leo MacDonald]

That's the problem scientists who claim to have knowledge about the paranormal sometimes do not. Albert Einstein believes that their is no individual soul but of course that does not mean he's right.

[Hope Rivers]

Hey sounds like they had a bad run with "these" NDE experiments, not enough near deaths, varying experiences etc. Its not enough to draw conclusion that they are hallucinations, with many other NDE's previously verifying unknown knowledge only able to be obtained via OBE.

People who aren't expecting to see certain things, generally don't! Not every NDE floats up looking towards ceilings either, I know with mine, I was more intrigued with looking at myself, lying on the bed I didnt even see the ceiling but I felt myself being lifted upward, the next second I'm in the tunnel, it was like an instant thing.

That study appeared not to be well thought out as far as I'm concerned.

Although it does raise the question as to why some NDE's miss the vital NDE experiences.

Why some people get the OBE,tunnel, life review, meetings, light and messages and others are lucky to get only one or maybe nothing at all.

And why is it there are people who have NDE's without dying, they have it via a dream with all the same symbols and intensity?? Yes this is very true!

Is this similar to why some mediums can produce lifeforms and others hear thought forms and others again have almost no psychic ability?

[william]

"In the meantime, at any rate, existing veridicality research presents no challenge to the current scientific understanding of near-death experiences as hallucinations."

Well yes and no. NDE's leave a person with an entirely different view of life and death whereas to my knowledge hallucinations do not appear to have this effect.

People have had an NDE and have come back and have knowledge that defies explanation unless of course their consciousness left the body. There could be other reasons for a person's consciousness not focusing on a computer. But these are good points you bring up and much more research needs to be done.

As far as OBE's I myself am very skeptical of these at least most that are reported. But then if I had the ability to leave my body and remember I would be singing a different tune I suspect.

“Nevertheless, Sartori reports, this study also yielded negative results, as "not all of the patients rose high enough out of their bodies and some reported viewing the situation from a position opposite to where the symbols were situated" (Sartori 38).”

“Unfortunately, although "three patients reported the early stages of an out-of-body experience," no one had an OBE extensive enough to see the sign (159). So the results of this study, too, can only be considered negative.”

Not sure you could call these negative results. Maybe inconclusive, but negative? Also one must be very careful and take into consideration the beliefs of the person doing the research. After checking her out on the Internet it appears she indeed took this into consideration.

Not sure what her hypothesis was but if she considered those results negative maybe she needs to create a new hypothesis. The significant variable may be the placement of the sign. Or not.

I predict that someday Einstein’s famous formula will be seen as an approximation and not an absolute.

[Hope Rivers]

Ryan -please send the $100 to Save the Children/Whales/Planet? I don't care which ;-)

Very funny :-). I may or may not take you up on your offer to give some money to a child, whale, or planet. But I believe charity should be kept private. ;-) (wipes brow - 'phew, got out of that one!')

HA HA..... you guys a real comedians, like Laurel and Hardie or Abbott and Costello, now which one of you is the big one?? ;-)

[Hope Rivers]

If you want something to laugh about, how about this Seinfelid reruns are on again, yippee!!

I was chatting to someone and this crazy idea came to my head about, if we had to cast a show with each of us up for a role who would play which character from the motely crue on this blog, so here goes ;-)

I'm Elaine of Course, MP would naturally be Jerry, since he runs the blog, MichaelH can be the soup Nazi, I dont think he'd mind that role, um lets see Ross I reckon your Elaine's Boss, the textile dude, and William maybe you could be Jerrys dad, because of your age and I'm sure we can think of people for the other roles.

We need a George, Kramer, George"s mum and dad, Jerry's mum and a Newman any ideas? ;-)

Now that's comedy!

[Dave C]

Einstein has always been something of a personal hero for me. I am still in awe at the imagination that could have conceived relativity. Nevertheless, I'm a little saddened at the way people hold him up to be the ultimate authority on everything. Einstein was a true scientist, like Newton, Bohr and Heisenberg. But he was not a guru and I suspect he would have been embarrassed to know that people considered him as such.

For what it is worth, I agree with Wilber that the word "God" is misleading insomuch that it means so many different things to different believers. The term "All that is" has often been used instead and I think, although unwieldy, it does sum up the concept precisely. If consciousness is the source and there is nothing outside of this consciousness, then God is that consciousness and there is nothing external to God. So God is nature and the universe and you and me.

[william]

“Einstein has always been something of a personal hero for me. I am still in awe at the imagination that could have conceived relativity”

One day while walking in the mountains with a friend he had a revelation that time was relative. He ran back to his cabin and the rest is history. Where do these revelations come from? Are we receiving help from the other side?

[Ross W]

Dave C: “If consciousness is the source and there is nothing outside of this consciousness, then God is that consciousness and there is nothing external to God. So God is nature and the universe and you and me.”

Possibly, Dave –that’s pantheism (or panentheism!). But if you and I are created by inattention (some part of the great Awareness falling asleep to its own omnipresence), and manifest as a spacetime dream, then we could simply be meaningless ephemera. That would apply to Einstein’s theories too, of course. With events like this Earthquake in China and cyclone in Burma, I sometimes hope that’s the case. When the dream becomes a nightmare, you just need to wake up.

[Hope Rivers]

So what are you saying here Ross that God is still asleep?

[Ross W]

Well Hope, it could be a recurring (after Nietzsche) nightmare. Gurdjieff used to talk about the War against Sleep. In which case, maybe it needs to be exorcised from within by the archetypes (us). In that case, let’s start a Baptist-style prayer: “Lord, you’ve given us the blisters. Now let’s have the bliss.” Or – “Give us the bliss, not the blisters.”

[Ross W]

Sorry -I shouldn't be facetious, but what else is there?

[Ross W]

...apart from Art, Music, poetry, sculpture, plays, films, novels, religion, materialism, charity work, sport, etc, etc… pretty stupid thing to say, really…

[Hope Rivers]

I must have been half asleep :-(

[PD]

The biggest discoveries in science by Einstein and others during his lifetime have been unexpected/amazing/nearly unbelievable (relativity, big bang, QM, etc). Scientists who made those discoveries were thinking 'outside-the-box'.
That's why I'm a little surprised that Einstein's view of 'god' seems somewhat humdrum/unimaginative/inside-the-box.
A personal god and life after death seems more 'outside-the-box' than his view.
But I like his sense of humor.

[Ronnie]

Haven't there already been at least a few successful OBE experiments? I know Charles Tart conducted one with successful results, and I've heard a few other ones conducted by members of the Monroe Institute. Really though, don't we already have enough credible OBE accounts as it is? >_>

[Ross W]

"I must have been half asleep :-("
Maybe, Hope, but it was me being stupid, not you. Question is, do we immerse ourselves in this possibly phoney reality, or do we try to find the escape hatch?

I'm inclined to agree wth PD about the importance of a sense of humour (that's English humour with a "u", though, not the American 'irony-bypass' type without a "u");-) {...thank God for emoticons!}

[unknown]

Well Charles Tart Obe experiment the controls were not good.

[unknowm]

The charles tart obe experiment the controls were not good

[Marcel Cairo]

William,

Actually Einstein got the idea of Relativity while on a bus passing a very famous clock tower in Bern, Switzerland, where he worked as a patent office clerk. He stated this fact at the time in a letter to his closest friend.

[unknowm]

In the universe of forms everything is relative but beyond it everything is absolute

[william]

http://museumvictoria.com.au/scidiscovery/scientists/einstein.asp

it appears there there may be many stories on how Einstein got the idea of relativity. do you have a link on your statement that it was a clock tower.

[unknowm]

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible." -Albert Einstein

[william]

"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know his thoughts. The rest are details." Einstein

It appears that Einstein may have had some mixed feelings about a God. Also one cannot say that the entire bible is childish. Much wisdom in the bible and of course much ignorance.

My research and reading indicates that intellectual genius does not always equal spiritual or mystic knowledge. The atheists and indeed all of us would do well to understand that very simple “truth”.

[Ross W]

Have you seen this one, William:

“God not only plays dice. He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”(Stephen Hawking)

[Ryan]

I apologise for the length of this post. But, below, follows what I had in mind when mentioning panentheism.

Undoubtedly, the term does not have one concrete meaning. Here is how Masao Abe--in his introduction to An Inquiry into the Good--explains this part of Kitaro Nishida's philosophy:

Nishida rejects both theism and panentheism and advances a type of panentheism: "Our God must be the internal unifying power of the universe, which orders heaven and earth and nurtures the myriad things in them" (chapter 29); "God is the unifier of the universe and the universe is an expression of God ... God is the greatest and final unifier of our consciousness; our consciousness is one part of God's consciousness and its unity comes from God's unity" (chapter 30)

Abe continues,

God--as the basis of the unity of the universe--is discussed by Nishida not from the perspective of speculative metaphysics but as a fact of pure experience. And in pure experience this unity called God is experienced as personal, and as inspiring love and respect. God's self-development in itself is infinite love for us.

Nishida himself explains, in Chapter 30;

The self-development of a certain unifying entity is the mode of all realities, and God is their unifier. The relation between the universe and God is the relation between our phenomena of consciousness and their unity.

This is put more lucidly in Chapter 14:

God is not something that transcends reality, God is the base of reality. God is that which dissolves the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity and unites spirit and nature...

God is no-thing, there is no place where God is not, and no place where God does not function ... the power of God is active in the universe just as a painter's spirit is active in a great painting...

Given what I have said so far, God might be felt to be a cold philosophical existence ... totally unrelated to the activity of our warm feelings, but this is hardly the case ... our infinite spirit is never fundamentally satisfied by the unity constituted by an individual self, it inevitably seeks a larger unity, a great self that envelops both oneself and others...

Our love for others is the demand for such supra-individual unity with them...God, the unity of the universe, is the base of this unifying activity, the foundation of our love, the source of our joy.

So God, under this view, is not the thread that runs through the beads of reality. Physicalistic analogies do not seem to do the trick. It is the unity itself that is God. God does not create the world, and is not part of it. God is its foundation; the world is a manifestation of this unity.

Well that's my understanding of this position, anyhow.

[Marcel Cairo]

William,

There are two separate theories developed by Einstein concerning relativity. The first one, developed in 1905 is known as the "Special Theory of Relativity". This is the one that led to E=MC2. The theory is called "special" because it deals with light in a vacuum, i.e. a world without gravity.

Einstein's second theory of relativity, known as his "General theory of relativity" was an expansion of his first theory, and it included the property of gravity within the equation.

Einstein's "special theory of relativity" came together one night right after he declared to his friend and patent office co-worker, Michele Besso, that he was giving up on trying to figure out the incompatible paradox between Newton's concepts of velocity and Maxwell's constant for the speed of light.

That night, Einstein went home feeling dejected and depressed about his failure to resolve the problem. On his way home, he was traveling in a street car away from the famous Bern clock tower and wondered what would happen to the clock tower if suddenly his street car were to take off at the speed of light. That's when he realized that time was relative to the speed at which an object traveled. More of that story here.

The painter falling off the roof story was something Einstein imagined up in a daydream in 1907, two years after he published the first theory. To help him visualize the effect of gravity on his theory of "special relativity, Einstein wondered what would happen to time if a painter fell off a roof. More of that story here.

[Ross W]

Interesting, Ryan. God is seen as the "base" or the "foundation" of reality, similar to the "soil" or "ground" in MP's tree analogy. Kind of contrasts with the "God most high" most of us were told about in youth!

[william]

"First, in one masterful stroke, Einstein elegantly proved that if the speed of light was indeed a constant of nature, then the most general solution was the Lorentz transformation*. "

The guru I studied under a physics guy but better known as a quality guru who understood variation the very best stated that to date no one has proven and been able to show on a process behavior chart that the speed of light is a constant. Deming crossed over in 1993 so maybe they have proven that in the last 15 years.

I will stick with my original statement that Einstein’s formula will in time be shown to be an approximation. A very good and brilliant approximation but not a constant. Or not.

Thanks for the correction that story has been with me for over 20 years and read it in a book. Now with the Internet wow what a research tool. Literally has the capability of joining the world together. Peace in our time thru the Internet. Sorry that dry humor again.

“God not only plays dice. He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen.”(Stephen Hawking)”

Good quote Ross. I suspect that the universe is perfection in action but to our unaware minds it looks like god is playing dice and even throwing dice where they cannot be seen. You want to fry Hawking’s mind send him an email and ask him to explain what caused the big bang.

See I used unaware minds not ignorant minds. I wonder what a synonym would be for ignorance?

[Art]

The cutting edge of near-death research lies in controlled tests of veridical paranormal perception during the out-of-body phase of those NDEs that include OBEs. - anonymous
--------------------------------------------

A large percentage of NDE experiencers, in the description of what they experienced, make comments that exactly parallel what Michael Talbot wrote about in his book "The Holographic Universe." There's no easy rational explanation for why this happens. Talbot did not write his book to prove NDE's yet many people who have NDE's say things that sound like they came straight out of his book. These are people who have never read his book or heard of the holographic universe.

Housewives from Kansas, truck drivers from Florida, or even doctors and surgeons, often make statements that a very holographic flavor to them. They talk about the overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness, feeling like they were everywhere in the Universe at once, being able to see in 360 degrees at once, time and space not existing, etc. Dr. Kenneth Ring had a whole chapter devoted to the holographic universe in his book "Life At Death" and Dr. Melvin Morse devoted several pages to it in his book "Where God Lives."

Many near death experiencers also make comments that seem to parallel or corroborate what some quantum physicist have written about reality. Buildings made out of knowledge, thoughts being things, etc.

[Hope Rivers]

Marce, Mariah's album has nothing to do with Einstein, but if you were a numerologist you would have said,

E=MC2 which =EEQUALSMCTWO = 46/1

A reason why it's number One! and with her name included its persona (how the world see's it = a number 8 (wealth + power)

So number 1 in the title and whole package with her name was destined to be a winner, of course don't ask me why these things work, lefts say it has a force of it's own.

[Hope Rivers]

Ohhh and its first year essence also indicates its first year on the shelf will be number one.

EEMCT =19/1
+ MC = 26/8

(this is the BIGGIE for the first's year material success a 26/8 :-)

[Hope Rivers]

So what I dicovered, is this concept is no different to scientists using mathematics to back their ideas. But hey they think what they do is "normal" and is respected at large.

I saw a relationship not only with letters having a number it vibrates too but also how words are spoken and are seen also make a difference.

It can be complicated, but hey so is everything else.

Yes Ross, it could have been the tea leaves or is it just inquisitiveness?? :-)

[Hope Rivers]

A Christian would say, its God's blessings or the devils.

A materialist would say it's good luck.

A skeptic would say it's bullshit.

A psychiatrist would say its a grand delusion.

Go Figure! ;-)

[Hope Rivers]

"Marcel, Mariah's album has nothing to do with Einstein, but if you were a numerologist you would have said"

I take this back, numerologists follow a formula on the written word. My cup of tea leaves also discovered another aspect they ignore :-)

[william]

“Buildings made out of knowledge, thoughts being things, etc.”

This appears to be so. And it appears it depends on the level of soul development that determines the ability of the soul to create simple or complex forms. Kind of like a mental world.

I know many many years ago (in the sixties) when I was working my way through college as a tool room machinist it used to take hours of very focused precise manual controlled machining to make some parts and I used to think to myself, “We should be able to just think and imagine this part into being”. Those feelings were very strong not just a passing thought.

This was thirty years before my research into the mysteries of life; was I remembering an ability I had in a life between lives? Maybe, maybe not.

[william]

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.
- Albert Einstein - Obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955

again my point being that intellectual giants may not be spiritual giants.

"Under communism, man exploits man. Under capitalism, it's just the opposite. ...

anyone know whose quote this is? was it John Kenneth Galbraith

[Hope Rivers]

Theory of Relativity is a theory, that has yet to be able to emcompass everything.

Science is just another form of religion, just like all the others out there, including the numerology

There is a force (god) and there is precision and order. Some how I reckon he knew we'd be working our ways too finding out how "he" "god" "Cosmic consciousnes" and "we" operate.

We've discovered many things don't you think?, maybe not enough for some :-(

[Hope Rivers]

Maybe it all come down to the power of the dream (belief compounded from the beginning of time)

Go Figure :-)

[Hope Rivers]

Oh forgot to add the "power of attraction", there's something in that too! ;-) Damn Magnets!

[Hope Rivers]

Here's some quotes off my site for you William to add to your collection.

"We loved with a love that was more than love."
- Edgar Allan Poe

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love."
- Anais Nin

"Who is wise in love, love most, say least."
- Alfred Lord Tennyson

[Dave C]

I'm still at a loss to understand why people cannot help but think of God ("All That Is") as something separate. Surely it is this separateness that is the illusion? And if there is no separation - if we exist purely within - then it makes no sense to think of a personalised God somehow above and beyond us mere mortals.

We make value judgements based upon our limited experience of reality. Thus we assign the values "good" and "bad" to events because of the way we are affected by those events. Why those events happen the way they do is something we probably can't understand in a similar way that a colony of cancer cells can't understand why they are being wiped out by radiation or chemicals. From the cancer's point of view, these are "bad" events while, from the point of view of the patient, they are "good".

Or indeed, the so called "bad" events might contain valuable lessons that could not have been learned otherwise.

Or, it might be an exercise in free will. If I am All That Is and I want to learn how great is my potential for creation, then what better way to do that than to create autonomous creators within my own consciousness. Give these creators free will and see where it goes. But there probably has to be a framework within which these autonomous creators can operate - a framework which we might recognise as the "Natural Laws".

So each of us is a co-creator. We are free to create whatever we will, so long as we work within the laws that operate in the particular framework that we happen to occupy. I am, right now, sitting in a physical universe and am bound by the laws that operate here. But I am essentially a conscious being who is a being of consciousness and that consciousness created the physical world around me.

I don't know it for sure but - unlike Mr. Einstein - I can't think of any good reason why my consciousness can't transcend this created reality and occupy another beyond.

[Dave C]

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

John 14:2

(I'm not religious but that doesn't mean that religious works have nothing worthy to say).

[Hope Rivers]

Dave C, nice scripture, different meanings for different folks. I guess you see what you hope to see :-)

[Hope Rivers]

But whats the root of that Hope?

[Hope Rivers]

Hows I see it God has a place for everyone, he say's "you", meaning the individual.

God has a place for you and you and you and you and you and you....

[Hope Rivers]

The question really is did God dream/think/speak us into existence, as creatures to love him/her/it or did Dave, Hope, William, Michael, Ross, MP collectively do it themselves (living already forever).

If you have any faith in the prophets of the bible, you'd see their visions and hearing God's spirit, showed them we are "creations" of God. Yes we share his image, spirit etc but nethertheless we are God made, like the trees and bugs and everything else.

The thing about the bible is you have to look at the whole book, read in the context of the chapters, the culture etc not just pull out bits and pieces to fit your arguement.

Millions of "intellectual" scholars have studied it, people read it everyday of their lives and still get new revelations. Thats why I said you tend to see what you want to see, often its not always what the message is saying.

[Hope Rivers]

Also if you see Jesus as a man, you'd think he is preparing a place just for those that believe in him (Christians) but if you see Gods spirit speaking through Jesus, the message is different.

[Art]

I'm thinking if there really was a little Jewish Rabbi, Yeshua, in the first Century, he was more than likely a near death experiencer who came back after his experience and expounded on what he experienced while on the other side. When that Roman soldier pierced his side with the spear he probably pierced his pericardium just enough to let out the fluids and relieve the pressure and when they cut Yeshua down and he flopped on the ground his heart restarted beating, and they "brought him back." And I'm thinking everyone creates their own "mansion" in the Spiritual Universe because it's a place where thoughts are things and consciousness creates reality. The way a person thinks dictates what they "see".