Michael Prescott's Blog

Seeing double

While I was thinking more about the notion of a dual self suggested in my last post, it occurred to me that the idea is by no means new. In fact, it has proven curiously persistent, as this summary from Peter Novak's The Lost Secret of Death makes clear:

The binary soul doctrine is probably as close as the human race has ever come to having a single world religion. Thousands of years ago, people all across the globe believed much the same thing about what happens after death–that human beings possess not one, but two souls, which were in danger of dividing apart from each other when the person died.…

Simultaneously present in numerous cultures at the door of recorded history, the binary soul doctrine may predate all currently known civilizations. This peculiar afterlife tradition not only seems to have saturated the entire Old World at a very early date, appearing in some of the earliest writings of Egypt, Greece, Persia, India, and China, it somehow managed to jump the oceans as well, leaving yet more of its footprints in the cultural traditions of Australia, Hawaii, Alaska, the plains of North America, Mexico, Peru, and even Haiti.

Greece called these two souls the psuche and the thumos; Egypt called them ba and ka; Israel called them ruwach and nephesh; Christianity called them soul and spirit; Persia called them urvan and daena; Islam called them ruh and nafs; India the atman and jiva; China the hun and po; Haiti the gros bon ange and ti bon ange; Hawaii the uhane and unihipili, and the Dakota Indians called them the nagi and niya. The list goes on. [pp.1, 2]

Some of the entries in this list can be disputed. For instance, the ancient Egyptians divided the soul into more than two parts, so it is not strictly correct to say they subscribed to a binary soul doctrine. Still, it is true that they did distinguish between the ba, which seems to correspond roughly to the modern idea of personality, and the ka, the source of intellectual, spiritual, and creative power.

Many cultures had a tripartite, rather than binary, conception of the human being. The Lakota Indians thought there were three elements intertwined in each person: the spirit (nagi), the soul (nagapi), and the totem animal (the source of power). Traditional Hawaiian religion, according to some accounts, divides each person into the unihipili (corresponding roughly to the autonomic nervous system and the unconscious), the uhane (the capacity for rational thought), and the Aumakua (the higher self, the connection to the divine, serving the same function as a guardian angel or spirit guide). Aristotle divided the human being into the vegetative, animal, and rational elements, with only the rational element achieving immortality. Gnostic Christians saw the individual person as consisting of psyche, pneuma, and hyle (the physical body). According to one source,

The psyche (soul) was identified by [Gnostic Christians] with [the] cognitive/emotional aspect of the personality (the ego consciousness). The pneuma (spirit) was identified by them with the intuitive/unconscious level.

The mystical tradition of Kabbalah divides the soul into not three but five parts: nephesh (instinct), ruach (emotion), shamah (intellect), chaya, and yechida. The latter two are aspects of God that are entwined in the human being.

In his fascinating and controversial book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes argues that duality was part of the human condition from the start. The Wikipedia entry on Jaynes aptly summarizes his view:

Jaynes defines "consciousness" more narrowly than most philosophers. Jaynes' definition of consciousness is synonymous with what philosophers call "meta-consciousness" or "meta-awareness" i.e. awareness of awareness, thoughts about thinking, desires about desires, beliefs about beliefs. This form of reflection is also distinct from the kinds of "deliberations" seen in other higher animals such as crows insofar as Jaynesian consciousness is dependent on linguistic cognition.

Jaynes wrote that ancient humans before roughly 1200 BC were not reflectively meta-conscious and operated by means of automatic, nonconscious habit-schemas. Instead of having meta-consciousness, these humans were constituted by what Jaynes calls the "bicameral mind". For bicameral humans, when habit did not suffice to handle novel stimuli and stress rose at the moment of decision, neural activity in the "dominant" (left) hemisphere was modulated by auditory verbal hallucinations originating in the so-called "silent" (right) hemisphere (particularly the right temporal cortex), which were heard as the voice of a chieftain or god and immediately obeyed.

Jaynes cites many ancient texts in support of his thesis. One of them, the Egyptian text “The Dispute between a Man and his Ba," narrates an argument between a man's intellect and his lower self. Here are some excerpts from an online summary

The man wants to end his life. His Ba tries to dissuade him. The Ba threatens to leave the man and probably cries out the man will have to answer for the offense of taking his own life....

Apparently, the man does not wish to end his life without the approval of his Ba. He realizes that without his Ba he will be lost in the afterlife (total annihilation) and so he tries to persuade his Ba to participate in his auto-destructive sacrificial act, for he does envisage immortal bliss & resurrection ! So this is a man who knows about the afterlife and the deities and who nevertheless wants to end his life himself but not without the help of his own Ba ! Because his Ba does not want to cooperate, he reminds it that it is obliged to assist him....

The Ba succinctly replies that the man should be ashamed of himself and stop complaining. Who is he to utter these words and think these thoughts ? Is he not of modest origins ?
This admonition was of no help at all. But the man is reluctant to die if his Ba is left behind. For if left on earth, his Ba would die too and this would imply total annihilation (physical as well as spiritual). This the man does not seek. He needs his Ba to rise so as to become a god in the afterlife. He wants his Ba to assist him and pleads to it by saying he will make a splendid mortuary temple and his children will present offerings. He turns the argument around, and tries to reason his Ba by saying it will not find peace if it accepts the man should die without it being around ... He is very aware all his efforts are in vain, for his Ba will never help him with anything else than the just course of events. To die before death comes is rejected by the Ba.

Whatever we may think of the neurological and psychological details of Jaynes' theory, material like this suggests that duality (or multiplicity) of the self was taken for granted in ancient Egypt and, it appears, in many other cultures as well. The persistence of this notion may simply reflect the inner conflicts that afflict all human beings - reason vs. emotion, self-interest vs. duty, conscious intentions vs. unconscious motives, etc. On the other hand, it's possible that the division of the soul into two or more parts was a popular idea because it reflected a metaphysical truth.

Who can say for sure? Certainly not me, myself, or I. 

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s … super-psi!

Most people who look at mediumship and related phenomena in depth and with an open mind eventually reach the conclusion that non-paranormal explanations simply don’t cover all the evidence. Fraud and mistaken observation do account for some of the cases, but not for the strongest ones. 

 Nevertheless, the hypothesis of survival after death is not the only one that has been put forward to explain the data. A rival hypothesis is that of so-called “super-psi,” the idea that the medium’s unconscious mind is able to extract information from a variety of sources, integrate it into a consistent whole, and present it in the guise of the appropriate discarnate personality. The idea has been dubbed super-psi because, while relatively straightforward instances of telepathy and clairvoyance have been demonstrated repeatedly in the laboratory, nothing so elaborate and far-reaching has been proven to exist. 

If the super-psi hypothesis is correct, then the unconscious minds of at least certain gifted individuals have extraordinary capabilities; and there is probably no reason to think that the same capabilities are not latent or dormant in the rest of us. Our unconscious, then, would have the ability (actually or potentially) to reach at will into other minds, regardless of how widely scattered they might be, and even if the minds in question belong to total strangers, people of whose existence we were and are consciously unaware. Moreover, our unconscious would have the ability to perceive, through clairvoyance, information unknown to any living person, peeking into hidden places without restriction and virtually instantaneously, on demand. It has even been hypothesized that the unconscious could peer back in time—retrocognition—or gaze into the future—precognition—in order to obtain additional information. And all of this extraordinary power would be deployed in the service of a charade–the illusion of communication with a specific deceased personality that has, in reality, ceased to exist. Even the medium herself would have not the slightest idea that her unconscious mind was carrying on this amazing deception on a colossal scale. 

What would be the motivation of the unconscious to undertake such a feat? It has been argued that the natural, all-too-human fear of death is so deep-seated that the unconscious will go to any lengths to suppress it, even to the extent of conducting a remarkably elaborate ruse. 

Now, if all this is true, then the unconscious mind is an almost infinitely greater thing than the conscious mind. Unlike the conscious mind, the unconscious would not be bound by material limits and would be able to interact with all other unconscious minds, as well as with the material world, deriving nuggets of information from a vast array of sources, past, present, and future. In effect, all the unconscious minds of the living would function very much like one giant unconscious that is constantly interacting with itself—a global mind spanning the species, which our ordinary waking minds would remain completely unaware of. 

Yet, if this were the case, it’s hard to understand why the deception would continue, or would ever have been necessary in the first place. Yes, apparent conversations with the deceased may provide some comfort and allay the fear of death—but wouldn’t it be far more comforting, persuasive, and useful for the unconscious simply to reveal the full range of its powers? Not only would this be of immense practical value in our earthly life, assisting us with all sorts ofd mundane difficulties and vastly enhancing our survival chances, but it would seem to hold out a reasonable probability of some kind of afterlife. As has often been observed, if the mind has such phenomenal power and scope, and is not subject to material constraints, then there seems to be no good reason why it could not survive the death of the body. The nearly limitless potential of the unconscious hypothesized by the super-psi idea—a mind that transcends time and space—ought to be far more reassuring and empowering than merely exchanging reminiscences, often of a trivial nature, with the shades of our departed loved ones. 

Why, then, would this global mind of ours be so secretive and duplicitous? Why would it use its enormous powers to dupe us into believing a childish lie? Why would it keep our own potential concealed from us, babying us with fantasies when the truth is so much greater?

Frankly, I just don’t see it. To me, the super-psi theory is fatally flawed. 

But if we accept the best mediumistic evidence and reject super-psi, we seem to be left with postmortem survival as the only alternative. At least, I can’t think of another option. Survival appears to be the only explanation that accounts for all the known facts; and it has the additional advantages of being the most parsimonious theory and the one that mediums themselves—who after all might be expected to have some idea of what they are doing—are most prone to believe. 

Noodlings

During the extended blackout caused by Hurricane Irene, I had plenty of time to noodle with my notebook. One thing I wrote was a dialogue scene between a professional ghost hunter and two prospective clients. The scene quickly turned into lengthy exposition, deadly in fiction, which shows why I would be no good at writing this kind of story - I would want to explain too much! But the ideas in themselves may be interesting, even though they are clearly pure speculation and not intended as any kind of "final answer" or even testable theory. 

The scene is all dialogue, so you'll just have to do your best to keep track of who's who, not that it matters much.

====

But how is it even possible? I mean – ghosts? In the 21st century? It's all so medieval and uncivilized. 

Well, there is a scientific way of looking at it. This is only a hypothesis, mind you. Have you ever played a video game? 

I used to play Tomb Raider. Never got past the second level.

Okay, so imagine that you're playing a really immersive video game. Wearing special goggles, a headset, gloves, whatever. The virtual environment is all around you. Everywhere you turn, you're looking at three dimensional images that seem real. You can manipulate things – grab objects. You can move through the space.

What does this have to do with – 

Bear with me. Let's suppose one other thing. Suppose you've lived in that virtual world all your life. You've never known any other reality. To you, it wouldn't be a game. It would be your existence. 

Like The Matrix.

Yes, exactly. Now what if our reality – this world we perceive with our senses, and even our own physical bodies – what if it's all a virtual reality? 

Then we're in a lab someplace, hooked up to a machine that makes us dream all this?

No. That would imply an ultimate physical reality. But I'm asking you to consider the idea that ultimate reality is non-physical. That it's more like information. That's what the virtual reality of a computer game is made of – information. Millions of bits of data. The whole virtual-reality world is the product of data processing. It's a complex system of algorithms that are recalculated many times each second. The changing calculations produce a new arrangement of pixels every time the screen is refreshed, which happens much faster than the blink of an eye. Movement on the screen is an illusion – the pixels are simply being arranged in slightly different configurations from one millisecond to the next. 

Then there would be no movement in the physical world?

Correct. Only the perception of movement. All change would take place at a deeper level, the level of information processing. There would be only two aspects of reality – the information processing system, and the consciousness that perceives it.

Science-fiction.

It could be. I said it's only a hypothesis. But it would explain some scientific anomalies. For instance, if you entangle two subatomic particles so they have a permanent relationship, and then separate them and send them flying off to opposite ends of the universe, you'll find that any change to one particle effects a complementary change in the other. It happens immediately, faster than any signal could be sent. How it happens is a mystery. But consider: if the values of each particle are linked in an equation at the level of information processing, then a change in one particle's value will cause an automatic change in the other particle's value as soon as the equation is recalculated. The physical distance dividing them is irrelevant, just as the physical distance between pixels on a computer screen is irrelevant. In terms of information processing, the distance doesn't even exist, since all the calculations are performed simultaneously every time the screen refreshes.

Then our world – this world – is constantly refreshing? Blinking on and off like a string of Christmas lights? 

Yes, but inconceivably faster. The refresh rate would be measured in Planck time, the smallest unit of time that can theoretically exist. Incidentally this would also address some very old logical paradoxes, like the fact that an arrow in flight is in motion even though at any given instant it is motionless. The answer is that the change in position occurs each time the screen - the universe - refreshes.  

It's an amusing supposition. I imagine it would have implications for the double-slit experiments too. 

Absolutely. You know how the behavior of single particles varies depending on how they are observed? Well, from an information-processing standpoint, we could say that the calculation that's performed depends on the information that's requested. If we request information on the particle's position, we'll get it. If we request information on the particle's momentum, we'll get that instead. The results of each calculation displace the previous results, so testing for position cancels out the information on momentum, and vice versa. We can never know both – that's Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. And the setup of our experiment determines which value will be calculated and which results will be actualized in our reality.

And all these calculations are being done, not by the observers themselves, but by the information processing system? 

Correct. Though it's a neat point to wonder whether the consciousness of the observers – that is, us – is part of the information processing system, or distinct from it. Maybe at the deepest level, it's all consciousness, and all information processing, and everything is one. Or maybe not. I don't know. 

I've talked to some physicists who say that there aren't any paradoxes in quantum physics, and that this is only a layman's misunderstanding. What do you have to say about that? 

I would say that it depends on your perspective. What those physicists are really saying, if I understand them correctly, is that there are no contradictions in the equations. In other words, because the equations can all be worked out in a completely satisfactory way, there is no problem. And that's true. But it doesn't change the fact that, at the level of human perception, there are apparent contradictions – that is, paradoxes – such as are found in quantum entanglement and the double-slit experiments. So the contradictions appear to exist at the level of physical reality but disappear at the level of the equations – in other words, at the level of the information processing system itself. Which is exactly what I'm saying too.

This is all very interesting, but what about our ghost?

So-called paranormal phenomena seem inexplicable only in the context of materialism. If this physical world is the be-all and end-all, then things like ghosts seem impossible. But if what we know as the physical world is actually a virtual-reality projection grounded in a non-physical information processing system, then not only quantum paradoxes become intelligible. The apparent contradictions of psychic phenomena are resolved, as well. Direct communication between minds – telepathy – is possible, because consciousness is not a byproduct of physical processes and so is not necessarily restricted by physical constraints. Direct awareness of objects outside our field of sensory perception – clairvoyance or remote viewing – is possible because all the information about those objects is stored in the information processing system, to which our minds can gain access under the right conditions. Life after death becomes quite plausible and even inevitable, since the physical body is only a construct of the information processing system, and its demise has no effect on either that system or consciousness itself. A postmortem existence would simply entail adjusting our consciousness to a different level of the virtual reality environment – like moving to level two of the Tomb Raider game you mentioned. And probably there are many levels, offering a continuous opportunity for learning and growth.

And our ghost is, what, stuck on this level? 

There are two kinds of ghosts. Well, there may be more than two kinds, but the ones I've encountered fall into two groups, broadly speaking. First, there are apparitions that don't interact with the living and merely repeat the same stereotyped behavior over and over. I think these have no consciousness at all. They are just subroutines in the program – automatically generated sets of calculations that keep on playing because of a glitch in the system. The second kind are more troublesome. They are souls – I mean, they exhibit consciousness. They're aware of their surroundings, though they may feel confused and helpless. They will interact with the living, often in mischievous or even violent ways. They are, as you say, "stuck." They should have progressed to the next level of the game, but for some reason, usually relating to an emotional block or an obsession or unresolved guilt, they have not made the transition. Their physical body is gone, but they still visualize themselves as they were when they were physically embodied, and they can manifest that visualization to some extent – typically in an incomplete form, such as a half-materialized or semitransparent figure. Remember, the so-called materialization is just more information processing, and consciousness can interact with the information processing system in subtle and unpredictable ways. 

Then how do we get this particular consciousness to stop manifesting?

Its continued earthly existence is literally all in the mind. To make it move on, we only have to make it change its mind. We have to make the errant soul see the light – quite literally, since the transition to the next level is accomplished by means of passage through an all encompassing light. 

What is the light?

I suspect it's a visual representation of the totality of information contained in the information processing system.

All knowledge …

Yes. People who've had near-death experiences and encountered the light sometimes say they'd been exposed to all knowledge, and were one with everything. But the feeling doesn't last – or it lasts only in an attenuated form – once the experience is over.

It's an ingenious little theory. But there's a fatal flaw. Brain damage. 

Come again?

If things worked the way you suggest, the condition of our brain wouldn't affect our power of thought. But it does. Damage to the brain – whether by accident or illness or ingestion of chemicals – definitely impairs our consciousness. So consciousness must arise from the brain, and physical reality must take precedence over consciousness. QED. 

Yes, that's a good objection, and if there were no evidence contrary to materialism then it would be the simplest and safest position to take. But there is such evidence, a lot of it. Your ghost, for example. 

So if the brain doesn't produce consciousness ...

I would say the brain functions mainly as a receiver of consciousness, much in the way that an electronic receiver like a TV set receives an electromagnetic signal. And if the receiver is damaged, its ability to pick up and decode the signal will be impaired, leading to all kinds of problems. But this analogy is probably much too simple, because actually the nervous system does produce some of the elements of consciousness. Hormonal changes can give rise to certain emotions, for instance, and instinctive drives or conditioned reflexes can affect the way we think. In other words, the brain and consciousness have a complicated interrelationship. While we are physically embodied, we are – for the most part – constrained by the limitations of our bodies, including our nervous system. I say "for the most part" because some people do have ways of transcending their physical limitations by practicing ESP or engaging in out-of-body explorations. Actually I think all of us have this ability, but in most of us it's latent or dormant most of the time. Anyway, it's true that our consciousness is usually restricted by the limitations of the brain while we inhabit – or believe we inhabit – a physical body. That appears to be one of the rules of the game, at least at this level. Other levels presumably have different rules. We'll find out when we get there.

So you're saying a person with, say, Alzheimer's would be completely lucid as a spirit?

Yes, after perhaps a period of orientation to dispel any confusion or any lingering effects that the disease may have been imprinted on his or her consciousness. In fact the person would be more lucid than he or she ever was on earth because the limiting and distorting effects of the nervous system would no longer apply. 

Upscale

The recently published book Debating Psychic Experience, edited by Stanley Krippner and Harris L. Friedman, includes some brief but fascinating speculation by parapsychologist Dean Radin about a possible connection between psi and quantum mechanics. Though such claims are often lambasted by critics as mere New Age handwaving, Radin points out that there is a growing body of empirical evidence suggesting that quantum effects are not limited to the smallest scale of existence.

He writes,

The open question [is] whether quantum effects operate in the brain. This is an active debate, with some arguing in the affirmative (Josephson & Pallikari-Viras, 1991; Stapp, 1999), and others in the negative (Smith, 2009). While the debate continues to unfold, it is worth considering that quantum interconnections easily observed at the microscopic scale do not magically vanish in macroscopic systems. They just become more complex. Our present ability to detect connections in macroscopic systems is rapidly advancing, and there is already evidence that quantum effects are found not only in exotic conditions, but in everyday macroscopic systems.

For example, according to Vedral (2008), "Traditionally, entanglement was considered to be a quirk of microscopic objects that defied a common-sense explanation. Now, however, entanglement is recognized to be ubiquitous and robust" (p. 1005). Physicists have observed high quality quantum correlations in diamond that persist on millisecond time scales at room temperature (Neumann et al., 2008), in macroscopic mechanical membranes (Thompson et al., 2008), in photosynthesis (Engel et al., 2007), in electronic circuits (Ansmann et al., 2009) and in avian magnetonavigation (Solov'yov & Schulten, 2009). These developments, all occurring since the turn of the twenty-first century, suggest that quantum processing in the human nervous system is no longer unthinkable. Indeed, given the pace of progress today in quantum biology, it seems inevitable. What is the consequence of this "new" reality for understanding psi?

It means that we need to reframe our understanding of physical objects and what they may be capable of, including the brain. The quantum brain would no longer be exclusively locked inside the skull; parts of it would reside beyond the classical boundaries of space and time. This means that brain processes responsible for ordinary perception, and all the other cognitive processes studied by the neurosciences, may be influenced not only by local sensory information, but by impressions received from what common sense would label "at a distance."

With the brain viewed as a quantum object, people who are asked to keep each other "in mind" would be entangled not just emotionally, but physically. Those brains might "co-process" information regarded as important by both individuals, and as such these psychophysical entanglements might explain the remarkable coincidences reported between separated loved ones and identical twins. For example, Playfair (2003) reports a case (one of many) in which a healthy man suddenly experienced a suffocating pain in his chest while hundreds of miles away, at the same moment, his identical twin was suffering a heart attack.

[Debating Psychic Experience, pp.124-125] 

 

Mind at Large

Lately I’ve been reading Michael Grosso’s 1986 book The Final Choice: Playing the Survival Game. It’s an interesting overview of psi phenomena, afterlife evidence, and millenarian predictions. Grosso makes an effort to tie together several different strands of thought and ends up with an intriguing holistic interpretation. 

One section that I found particularly worthwhile was Chapter 3, “Sketch of a Science of Transcendence,” in which Grosso makes the case for what has been called Mind at Large.

He begins by suggesting that psi exists mainly to help us navigate a nonphysical realm, and not to navigate the space-time universe:  

If the function of psi is essentially otherworldly, then we need not be surprised how transient and marginal an effect we find it to be in this world. In this world, we normally rely upon the sensory-motor system for engaging the environment. Despite some evidence that occasionally psi serves the needs of the organism -- sometimes without conscious awareness -- its day-to-day survival value in the terrestrial struggle for existence seems to be slight by comparison with our bodily senses....

Gardner Murphy, the great American psychologist, wondered why, on Darwinian principles, living organisms did not develop increasing psi ability, which would obviously be of great survival value. For instance, an animal could escape a predator. If psi ability were genetically coded, moreover, we would expect natural selection to work toward a growing incidence of psi function, at least among some favored species. But there is no evidence of psi becoming a biologically stronger function....

Murphy suggests that there are two modes in which an organism is capable of functioning: one, the sensory mode, in space and time; another, the psi mode, independently of time of space and time. In the deeper psi mode, the paranormal is the normal, but this could only be a mode in which the sensory mode were suspended or, as in death, superseded. The psi that appears fitfully and elusively in the terrestrial environment would be the essential mediator of the transcendent environment.

In other words, psi comes into its own in the postmortem phase of existence. It is therefore a pre-adaptive function with limited utility during the stage of biological life. A little later, Grosso expands on the idea of pre-adaptation, defined as: 

... the emergence of structures before they are used.... Consider, for instance, the mesosaurs which apparently never left the water, showing that the development of the amniote egg was not an adaptation for living on land but emerged before there was any need for it.... [Other examples are cited.] Indeed, as one of the great experts on the biology of amphibians, G. Kingsley Noble, says: "A detailed analysis of the many 'marvelous adaptations' in the Amphibia will reveal ... that in most cases the modification arose before the function."

If such pre-adaptations are genuine, we could hardly account for them by natural selection. They look rather like expressions of a plan, as if they were produced for the sake of future use. Now our problem has been to account for psi ability in terms of evolution. What I wish to propose is that we think of psi ability as a pre-adaptive "structure" or "organ." Of course, these latter terms cannot be taken literally, since there is no evidence that psi functioning is anatomically based; thus only by analogy may we speak of psychic structures or organs. 

As a side note, I would point out that many biologists argue that these modifications do serve a function when they are introduced, even if it is not the function they later acquire. For instance, the feathers of the archaeopteryx, not used for flying, may have been used to sweep up insects as food. The idea of pre-adaptation is controversial and may be invalid; the jury is still out. 

In any case, pre-adaptation is not the only challenge to the natural selection theory as a comprehensive explanation of biological development. Grosso writes: 

The English biologist, John Randall, has made several bold and comprehensive hypotheses concerning the parapsychology of life. Randall's overall strategy is as follows: first, he reviews problems in biological theory which Darwinian orthodoxy cannot handle. Second, experimental evidence is cited for the influence of psi on living systems. Third, a transcendent side factor -- Randall calls it Mind at Large -- is advanced as a hypothesis to account for aspects of life neglected by the orthodox view.

The possible role of psi in evolution is indicated when we consider that mutations may arise from single microphysical events. In the words of von Bertalanffy: "As can be shown by mathematical analysis of the experiments, one single hit into the sensitive zone of the gene suffices to cause a mutation. Therefore, the induction of mutations is subject to the statistical law of microphysics." This increases the theoretical plausibility of psi-induced mutation; psi might act on the "sensitive zones" in a gene.

Grosso, following Randall, summarizes the intractable problems in biology as the origin of life (abiogenesis) and the origin of species (macroevolution). Abiogenesis is simply not understood; so far, all attempts at formulating a theory have failed. (See Robert Shapiro’s book Origins.) Macroevolution arguably is not explained by neo-Darwinism, which accounts for relatively minor variations (microevolution) but not for wholesale changes requiring a large number of favorable mutations that occur almost simultaneously. 

Grosso goes on:

Given the gaps in mechanistic biology and the experimental evidence that psi influences living systems, Randall states: "There is at least a possibility that parapsychology has discovered the missing factor needed to construct a general theory of life." Randall outlines several postulates for a general theory of life. The most fundamental and radical is that of a psi-factor he calls Mind at Large. Mind at Large is the transpersonal aspect of mind; it is distinct from but able to interact with matter. Although our individual minds are constantly interacting with their own bodies, Mind at Large does not normally interact with matter. Normally, matter behaves in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Though living organisms are self-regulating on a routine basis, Mind at Large intervenes a critical junctures: for instance, the origin of life, the development of new and higher species, instances of "paranormal" healing and in other circumstances where we observe psi at work. For Randall, this hypothesis is a kind of neo-vitalism empirically backed by the data of parapsychology ...

Randall ... makes it clear that Mind that Large is not identical with the traditional Western idea of God, which implies perfection. Randall's transcendent mind is more like an experimental artist-God who makes mistakes and scratches them out, discovering what it creates as it goes along. At least we can say that Mind that Large is mind; and minds are the kinds of process said to be conscious and to have purpose and intelligence. While it would no doubt be a mistake to anthropomorphize this Mind Factor and suppose that its mode of consciousness, purpose and intelligence were merely an enlarged replica of our own, we may take some comfort in the thought that being mental, it may be possible to engage Mind at Large in some type of meaningful dialogue.

Coming back to psi’s biological utility (or lack thereof), Grosso asks, 

... if psi is a reality, why is it not exploited in the struggle for existence? If Randall is right, the answer is that organisms, though originally expressive of psi-mediated information, normally work like self-regulating machines. Psi may indeed come into play in the struggle for existence under special circumstances. But its overall function, if I understand Randall, is to direct and oversee the upward thrust of the evolutionary process and to maintain the total balance and ecology of life....

The function of psi may be to mediate the origin, evolution and regulation of life, though the sheer maintenance of life, the conservative mechanisms, would be governed by the laws of chemistry and physics. Since the mass of observable life processes is conservative, mechanists can suppose they hold the key to all of life, as long as they ignore the discontinuities, the puzzles of creativity and the paranormal.

From here, Grosso transitions to the issue of life after death. 

Puzzling survival data complement puzzling data about the origin and evolution of life. Mechanism fails to account for certain features of the terminal phase of biological existence, just as it fails to account for certain features of the originating phases of biological existence. Psi-oriented theories of life concur in referring to an overall plan, template, original impetus and directedness of life. The survival hypothesis calls attention to the farthermost reach of an overall plan and directedness: the struggle of life to become radically independent of the physical environment as such.

This struggle reaches its climax when the organism dies. In the survival hypothesis, death is simply a transition to a new nonphysical environment, and it is this environment in which psi will come into its own. In this sense, psi is a pre-adaptive function, one that comes pre-installed but achieves its full utility only after death. Grosso: 

My guess is that psi ability is oriented toward adaptation of a new ecological environment, an environment that Telhard de Chardin christened the Noosphere.... 

At the ... postmortem layer of the Noosphere, the purely noogenetic component of organisms, now extricated from the machinery of the physical world, would rely wholly on psi, the pre-adaptive "organ" or function now essential for a new mind-dependent ecology. This particular view of the role of psi in nature is compatible with the pre-adaptive nature of psi in our ordinary terrestrial existence, the fact that we don't need it to survive as biological organisms. It would also account for survival data now understood as reflecting interactions with the postmortem "layer" of the Noosphere. The present hypothesis might also explain why certain types of behavior are psi-conducive, that is, the inverse of behaviors oriented toward survival in the biosphere....

Living organisms are normally self-regulating and have efficient sensory-motor equipment for coping with the terrestrial environment. An unusual increase of psi capacity would disrupt routine performance. It is easy to imagine how a sudden influx of psi would disoriented organism. Too much information can be as confusing as too little.

The confusion would extend further than the individual. If there is a master plan or cosmic intelligence acting upon the biosphere, it probably wouldn't permit the untrammeled use of psi among living organisms. Untrammeled psi would wreak havoc on the ecological system. For instance, if large numbers of animals could use psi to escape their predators, the great food chain of natural being would be broken.... The suggestion, then, is that restraints upon psi ability are built into the ecological system, which explains the elusive, marginal, unharnessable and doggedly unlearnable character of psi. Yet psi does erupt into terrestrial experience. But under what conditions? If there is anything to our hypothesis, those conditions are apt to be transbiological. Conditions disruptive of normal biological functioning that reduced attention to life might tend to release restraints on side ability. The most dramatic instance of this discerption from biological functioning is being near death.

Hence the reports of near-death experiences, and the efforts of mystical ascetics to overcome the body’s natural demands for food, sex, and pleasure in order to bring on a kind of voluntary near-death state. Grosso oberves that:

... the compulsion to survive as a bodily organism apparently blocks our inlets to transcendent psi. Most researchers agree that excessive striving and egocentric effort tighten the filter and squeeze off access to our psi-potential. We have heard similar things from spiritual teachers: he who struggles to save his life will lose it; he who is willing to give it up for the sake of God or the Higher Cause may save it.

The author sums up: 

The creative psi factor, Mind at Large, the transcendent field we postulate would (1) account for the origin and evolution of life and (2) explain, in a peculiar sense, the data of spiritual experiences.... 

The hypothesis of transcendence will also (3) cover data indicative of postmortem survival. We would now assume that some survival data -- hauntings and apparitions, mediumistic phenomena, reincarnation memories -- express genuine interactions with inhabitants of Minded Large. Finally, psi would (4) make sense as a pre-adaptive function destined to unfold truly in the postmortem Noosphere.

There can be no single argument or crucial experiment to decide if this synoptic view is correct. I recommend it as a way of looking at several sets of problematic phenomena and as an incentive to further survival research.

Two news items

News item the first: 

Chris Carter has contributed an essay to the newly published book Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential or Human Illusion?, edited by Stanley C. Krippner and Harris L. Friedman. The book includes essays by well-known skeptics Ray Hyman, Christopher French, Michael Shermer, and James Alcock, and contrasting views offered by Dean Radin and Chris Carter. 

A Google Books preview, which includes the table of contents, can be found here. 

News item the second:

Brian Whitworth, who has written several fascinating essays exploring what he calls the "virtual reality conjecture," has submitted a paper to the Foundational Questions Essay Contest. The abstract reads:

We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time would just "be", but by relativity, our space can contract and our time can dilate. Likewise objective "things" should just inherently exist, but the entities of quantum theory are probability of existence smears, that spread, tunnel, superpose and entangle. Cosmology even tells us that our entire physical universe just "popped up", from nowhere, about 14 billion years ago. This is not how an objectively real world should behave! Yet the usual alternatives don't work much better. That the world is just an illusion of the mind doesn't explain its consistent realism and Descartes dualism, that another reality beyond the physical exists, just doubles the existential problem. It is time to consider an option we might normally dismiss out of hand. This essay explores the virtual reality conjecture, that the physical world arises from non-physical quantum processing. It finds it neither illogical, nor unscientific, nor incompatible with current physics. Its implications include that the world is digital at its core. 

More of Dr. Whitworth's papers can be found here. 

In the dreamtime

Sometime on Saturday morning I had my first lucid dream. I'd read about these things, but never experienced one. However, my reading probably came in handy, because it allowed me to recognize that I was in a dream state.

In the dream, I was expecting the mailman to deliver a package to me. (In reality, I was expecting a package to arrive on Saturday, so this thought was obviously on my mind.) As I went through my home toward the door, I suddenly realized that the foyer was completely different from anything in my actual residence. At this point, realization struck, and I said to myself, This isn't real. It's a dream. I'm having a lucid dream!

As I said, reading about lucid dreams probably played a key role in my ability to become self-aware at this moment. One of the points made in lucid-dream literature is that you should be on the lookout for things that don't match up with reality. If you suddenly notice that there's something wrong with your environment, something that doesn't match your knowledge and recollection of the physical world, then you should say, Maybe this is a dream. And as you can see, that's exactly what happened here.

I was pretty excited to be having a lucid dream, and immediately I started to worry that I would lose it somehow -- that my concentration would fail and I would slip out of the lucid state. I remember touching the wall of the foyer and feeling its solidity and texture while watching my hand against the wall. All of this was intended, of course, to keep me "in the moment" as long as possible.

Now self-aware, I went to the door and opened it. What I found outside was not my actual street, but a breathtakingly beautiful view of a wide expanse of blue water -- possibly the ocean or a vast lake or bay. The weather was bright and clear, and the color of the water was almost painfully lovely.

Excited, I set about exploring the rest of my house. Although the details have faded somewhat, I recall walking through a series of spacious and beautifully appointed rooms, much larger and nicer than my actual home. I think I passed a very large flatscreen TV mounted on a wall (I don't actually own one of these), so evidently there is television in dreamland!

Since I was self-aware, I knew I was seeing an idealized dream-picture of a place to live, and that mundane reality couldn't equal it. While I don't remember climbing any stairs, apparently there was a second floor, because I remember looking out through a rear window and seeing the ocean or lake (dotted with white sails)  in one direction, a large sparkling community swimming pool in another direction, and directly across from me, a meticulously tended greensward dividing the rear of my home from a row of tree-shaded townhouses. I believe there were some (unidentifiable) people on some of the decks and patios.I had the impression that this neighborhood was ideally situated between the beach and a forest.

Incidentally, I felt pretty sure that my home was also a townhouse, not a detached structure. It might seem odd that I would picture a condo as opposed to a single-family home, or see a community swimming pool instead of my own private pool. But I've lived my whole adult life in apartments and condos, so I guess this is what feels most natural to me.

During my inspection of my fancy new digs, I occasionally reached out to touch a wall (one of them had very nice wood paneling) and thereby ground myself in the environment. There was no sense of being disembodied, but the only part of my body that I clearly visualized was my right hand as it touched the walls. I did pay particular attention to my hand, because the lucid-dream literature had advised me to do this in order to maintain focus. As you can see, I was thinking pretty logically, reviewing what I knew about lucid dreams and taking the recommended steps.

The whole experience was highly enjoyable, and I did my best to prolong the event -- but eventually my thoughts started to wonder, and to my regret I found I was slipping out of the lucid state. I don't remember anything afterward, though presumably I continued to dream in the normal way.

When I awoke, I recalled the dream in a fair amount of detail, which is unusual for me; normally I remember only disconnected fragments of dreams. But at no time, either during the dream or when thinking about it afterward, did I ever imagine that it was a "real" experience. I knew it was a dream while I was experiencing it, and I knew it was a dream when I recalled it upon waking. In this respect, at least, the experience was different from many reported near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences, which very often are described as being not dreamlike at all, but rather being real -- in fact, "realer than real."

Maybe some lucid dreams have this "realer than real" quality, but mine did not. I would not describe the experience as being real, although it did stir some strong emotions -- mainly of aesthetic appreciation for the décor of my home and the natural beauty surrounding it. Even while I was engaged in the exploration of my dream home, I was quite aware that I was dreaming and that the perfection of my accommodations was wishful thinking on my part. As far as I know, virtually no NDErs feel this way about their experiences, and a great many OBErs also draw a sharp distinction between their out-of-body excursions and even the most vivid dreams. (The closest thing I've had to an OBE was a strangely intense dreamlike experience that I described in an earlier post. I don't know if this was a legitimate OBE or not.)

It would seem to me, then, at least based on this one experience, that there is a qualitative difference between a typical NDE and a lucid dream. That doesn't mean an NDE couldn't be some other kind of hallucination, but whatever it is, I doubt it is of the lucid-dream variety.

This is your brain on drugs

I realize that a single case doesn't prove much, but this horrifying and ghastly news story may help explain why I still look askance at hallucinogenic drugs, even if they do, in some cases, have mind-expanding properties.

In northern California an American "cage fighter" allegedly took some tea brewed from psychedelic mushrooms and then became convinced that his roommate was possessed by the devil. The results were not pretty.

Warning: extremely graphic content.

A more detailed and somewhat less sensationalistic account is found here.

I'm not saying that properly supervised experimentation with psychedelics in controlled circumstances is necessarily a bad idea, but clearly there are potentially grave dangers associated with casual use. Like, for instance, having your tongue cut out, your face ripped off, and your beating heart excised from your chest ...

The story does make me wonder if psychedelics played a role in the sacrifices conducted by Aztec priests. The extraction of the victim's heart was a notable feature of these rituals.

Shroomin'

I originally posted this material as a comment in the thread of the last entry, but decided it might as well be a separate post. 

A reader named Tharpa suggested I look at a Johns Hopkins study of mushrooms containing psilocybin, a psychoactive chemical.  The results were quite positive, and a lot less scary and disturbing than many of the ayahuasca reports I'd read. 

The study was first reported in 2006. Here are excerpts from the university's press release: 

All of the study’s authors caution about substantial risks of taking psilocybin under conditions not appropriately supervised. “Even in this study, where we greatly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia,” says [Dr. Roland] Griffiths. “Under unmonitored conditions, it’s not hard to imagine those emotions escalating to panic and dangerous behavior.”

The researchers’ message isn’t just that psilocybin can produce mystical experiences. “I had a healthy skepticism going into this,” says Griffiths, “and that finding alone was a surprise.” But, as important, he says, “is that, under very defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It’s an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people.”...

In the study, more than 60 percent of subjects described the effects of psilocybin in ways that met criteria for a “full mystical experience” as measured by established psychological scales. One third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes; and more than two-thirds rated it among their five most meaningful and spiritually significant. Griffiths says subjects liken it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.

Two months later, 79 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo at the same test session. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better. Structured interviews with family members, friends and co-workers generally confirmed the subjects’ remarks....

Psychological tests and subjects’ own reports showed no harm to study participants, though some admitted extreme anxiety or other unpleasant effects in the hours following the psilocybin capsule. The drug has not been observed to be addictive or physically toxic in animal studies or human populations.  

A follow-up stud showed that the beneficial effects lasted more than a year. Excerpts from a 2008 Hopkins press release: 

Writing in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the Johns Hopkins researchers note that most of the 36 volunteer subjects given psilocybin, under controlled conditions in a Hopkins study published in 2006, continued to say 14 months later that the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction.

"Most of the volunteers looked back on their experience up to 14 months later and rated it as the most, or one of the five most, personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their lives," says lead investigator Roland Griffiths, Ph.D. ...

"This is a truly remarkable finding," Griffiths says. "Rarely in psychological research do we see such persistently positive reports from a single event in the laboratory. This gives credence to the claims that the mystical-type experiences some people have during hallucinogen sessions may help patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety or depression and may serve as a potential treatment for drug dependence. We're eager to move ahead with that research."

Griffiths also notes that, "while some of our subjects reported strong fear or anxiety for a portion of their day-long psilocybin sessions, none reported any lingering harmful effects, and we didn't observe any clinical evidence of harm."

The research team cautions that if hallucinogens are used in less well-supervised settings, the possible fear or anxiety responses could lead to harmful behaviors.

Also relevant to this discussion is William James' experiment with nitrous oxide. His first impressions are recounted here. 

In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, James famously wrote:

I myself made some observations on ... nitrous oxide intoxication, and reported them in print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.

The snake in the garden

I've just read Supernatural by Graham Hancock, a highly enjoyable and thought-provoking exploration of altered states of consciousness brought about by the ingestion of psychoactive chemicals. Previously, I had read only one other book by Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods. I enjoyed it for his lively writing style and boundless speculation, but I wasn't convinced by his arguments. Supernatural, however, is for the most part more firmly grounded, and I felt it to be a superior effort.

Hancock begins with a discussion of prehistoric cave paintings, which, he argues, can best be understood as a visual record of the shamans' hallucinatory experiences. To drive home this point, he compares the cave imagery with accounts of vision quests by contemporary shamans. He also went to the considerable trouble of ingesting some of these potions himself, usually under the watchful eye of an experienced shaman, and he reports seeing much of the same imagery. He recounts Rick Strassman's controlled experiments in which volunteers were injected with the psychotropic chemical DMT, which had effects similar to those of the concoctions consumed by the shamans. He goes on to relate these hallucinatory experiences to the considerable body of folklore pertaining to "little people" -- sprites, pixies, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns, and so forth -- and to the modern phenomenon of "alien abduction," which has much in common with the older legends.

In short, he makes a plausible case that altered states of consciousness -- often the result of ingesting psychedelic plants, but also occurring in other contexts -- can bring up images and narratives that remain strikingly consistent despite wide differences in culture. Snakes, for instance, show up repeatedly in these experiences, as do smallish nonhuman creatures with oddly shaped heads, whether they are construed as fairy folk or as extraterrestrial "grays."

Now, I've previously speculated that so-called alien abductions may be a subset of out-of-body experiences (an idea that, of course, is not original with me), so I have no problem with the idea that these bizarre adventures are, in some sense, hallucinatory. By "hallucinatory," I don't mean that the experience is necessarily unreal, but that it involves -- or may involve -- perceptions of another plane of reality, one that is ordinarily opaque to us but which can be accessed via a dramatic shift in consciousness. Hancock himself inclines in this direction.

What struck me about many of these experiences, as recounted by Hancock, by so-called alien abductees, by DMT research subjects, and by shamans, is how scary and nightmarish they tend to be. There are frequent encounters with bizarre, nonhuman beings who rarely project love, compassion, or empathy; more commonly, these beings are perceived as either coldly indifferent or actively hostile to human welfare. Cave paintings sometimes feature the motif of the "wounded man," apparently a shaman whose body has been pierced by multiple spears. This imagery is reflected in the hallucinogenic experiences themselves, which not infrequently subject the experiencer to torture, surgery, and vivisection. Both alien abductees and shamans report being cut open so their captors can insert small objects into their bodies. Other nightmarish elements of these experiences involve being beset by numerous inhuman creatures, being subjected to sexual congress with them, being carried off to a cave, laboratory, spaceship, etc., as well as the strange recurring motif of hybrid babies with human and nonhuman characteristics. Often these "changeling" babies are described as grotesque.

There is also repetitive imagery of humanoid figures with animal features, as seen in some prehistoric cave art. People who ingest psychoactive substances are prone to seeing creatures that are part human, part animal -- a man with the head of a bison, for instance. In some cases, the experiencer believes that he himself has been transformed temporarily into an animal or a half-human, half-animal hybrid.

When reading these accounts, I was reminded of similarly bizarre episodes described by Robert A. Monroe, who learned to initiate out-of-body experiences at will and eventually set up an institute to study the phenomenon. As I've written elsewhere, some of Monroe's alleged adventures are so fantastic and disturbing that they seem more like vivid nightmares than any kind of spiritual experience. I would characterize much of the material recounted by Hancock in Supernatural the same way. Though he talks about the important spiritual insights that practitioners of these extradimensional travels can attain, I didn't see much in the way of valuable life lessons in the experiences he describes. The only lesson would seem to be that reality is a deeply strange and deeply terrifying place, largely hostile to human beings and not very conducive to spiritual growth. The shamans themselves insist that their ancestors learned to use psychotropic plants by following recipes given to them by spirits during these vision quests. Even if this is true, it does not necessarily establish that the "spirits" meant well, or that the psychotropic plants are beneficial.

While I was thinking about this today, I happen to read an article by NDE researcher Michael Sabom about the religious implications of near-death experiences. The article, "Response to Gracia Fay Ellwood's 'Religious Experience, Religious Worldviews, and Near-Death Studies'," is included in the NDE papers uploaded by Markus Hesse at this location.  

Sabom, a committed Christian, draws a sharp distinction between spontaneous and deliberately initiated paranormal experiences. He believes that the former can give us insights into deep spiritual truths, while the latter are largely the realm of deceptive and malign entities. Thus he counsels against deliberate involvement with the paranormal. To some extent, this opinion simply reflects the view common among conservative Christians that mediums and psychics are trafficking with the devil, and perhaps it can be dismissed as a mere prejudice. Sabom, however, develops his argument somewhat further by giving specific examples of cases in which harmful effects arose from dabbling with the paranormal. And in fact, many such examples can be supplied. Included in his case histories is the above-mentioned Robert Monroe, whose OBEs were sometimes terrifying. Also included is author Whitley Strieber, who described the disorientation and helplessness he felt in his "abduction" experiences.

One case Sabom doesn't mention is that of Joe Fisher, author of The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, whose involvement with a medium led him to believe he'd been targeted by malicious supernatural entities. Fisher became convinced that these demonic creatures were ruining his life. Although the circumstances of his death are ambiguous, it is widely believed that he committed suicide.

With such disturbing cases in mind, perhaps we should not be too quick to reject the idea that there is a qualitative distinction to be drawn between spontaneous and intentionally induced paranormal experiences. And yet any such hard-and-fast distinction would surely be too restrictive. There are, after all, many cases of a deliberately induced altered state of consciousness that have yielded powerful evidence for life after death, as well as uplifting spiritual messages. The trance mediumship of Leonora Piper or Gladys Osborne Leonard shows little sign of malign influences.

How, then, do we explain these different varieties of spiritual experiences? On the one hand, we have shamanic vision quests, alien abductions, DMT trips, deliberately induced OBEs, and the like, which frequently include nightmarish and grossly distorted, sometimes animalistic imagery, along with painful and traumatic experiences. On the other hand, we have NDEs, trance mediumship, deep meditation, spontaneous OBEs, and the like, which for the most part (and with some undeniable exceptions) consist of nonthreatening imagery and uplifting experiences or lessons.

I'm not sure there's any easy answer to this question. But possibly -- just possibly -- the way in which we arrive at an altered state of consciousness determines whether our resulting experience will be predominantly positive or negative. Possibly the ingestion of psychotropic drugs, which are used as a kind of shortcut to enlightenment, is counterproductive, and is more likely to lead us astray, by bringing on an experience that is troubling, not comforting; hellish, not heavenly; irrational, not lucid; traumatic, not blissful.

Perhaps there is no shortcut, and our attempt to find one only leads us down a blind alley or, worse, into a dark cellar. And perhaps people who've experienced so-called alien abductions or frightening OBEs have learned (even if unconsciously) the wrong way of altering their state of consciousness. To put it in spiritualistic terms, we might say that instead of "raising their vibrations," maybe they are "lowering their vibrations." Instead of "going toward the light," maybe they are going away from it.

If so, then there may be some merit to the idea that deliberately induced paranormal experiences are dangerous. No, not all of them, but those that are induced in the wrong way.

Reading Supernatural, I couldn't help thinking of the Garden of Eden. In this biblical story, Adam and Eve live unspoiled lives of simplicity and innocence. But then a snake enters the picture. (Remember that snakes figure prominently in the imagery of hallucinogenic experiences.) The snake offers Eve an apple. (Remember that ingestion of new and unknown substances is what brought about the hallucinogenic experiences.) Eve and then Adam eat the apple, and their eyes are opened to a new way of looking at the world. (Remember that shamans and others who experiment with these psychotropic substances believe they have gained important new insights.) But their newfound enlightenment doesn't benefit them. They are cast out from the garden (remember that gardens are among the most prominent "heavenly" locals in NDEs) and sentenced to a lifetime of pain and drudgery terminating in death.

There are many ways of interpreting this famous -- and famously ambiguous -- story. It may simply be an attack on the goddess religions that competed with early Judaism; the snake was a favorite symbol of these faiths. But suppose the origin of the story lies elsewhere. Suppose it reflects an intuition that the shamanic vision quests made possible by chemically altered states of consciousness can be dangerous. Suppose it is a warning against meddling with otherdimensional beings who, like the snake, can be highly seductive but do not have our best interests at heart.

Graham Hancock believes that ingestion of psychotropic substances expanded the consciousness of our prehistoric forebears and allowed them to begin the long march toward culture and civilization. He believes that these otherworldly journeys still have much to teach us, and that we should be opening the doors of perception to learn from the extradimensional beings who inhabit this other plane of reality.

Maybe so. Then again, maybe some doors shouldn't be opened.