Book excerpt, part one

With the blazing speed and singleminded determination of a roving garden slug, I'm moving forward with my nonfiction book on the afterlife. I don't expect it to be a long or especially challenging book, but it's taking time to organize the material and think it through. This post is the first of three excerpts that make up an early chapter. Parts two and three will follow at intervals. 

This isn't a final draft, but it gives you some idea of what I'm working on. I'm sure there are typos and other mistakes. 

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There are many possible models and analogies that can be used to interpret these [afterlife-related] phenomena. I’m going to use several, but the one I’ll emphasize is the frequency model.

Imagine a radio with an analog tuner — a dial that moves smoothly through a spectrum of frequencies. You can set the dial at a certain frequency, and that becomes the “reality” channeled by your radio. If you move the dial to another frequency, you “channel” a different reality. Some frequencies will come in strong and clear, while others will be faint and distorted. If the tuner is stuck between frequencies, you may get overlapping signals. You may hear jazz with a faint background of rap.

If it were a television instead of a radio, picking up analog signals via an antenna, you might encounter the phenomenon of ”ghosting.” This happens when faint ”ghost images” from one station are superimposed over clearer images from another station.

To me, the idea of a spectrum of frequencies, which we can tune in to, which can overlap, and which can be imperfectly received, is a pretty good analogy for the paranormal phenomena we’ll be looking at. I’m not saying that this model is literally true, only that it serves as a helpful illustration.

The radio tuner is not the only analogy we can use. Another is a motion-picture dissolve or crossfade. This type of scene transition involves fading out on one scene while fading in on another. The tail end of the first overlaps the opening frames of the second. Examining the frames individually, you can see two sets of images occupying the same space with varying degrees of clarity. At the exact midpoint of the transition, the images from each scene are equally bright and clear. At other points, one scene or the other will dominate, with the less visible scene reduced to a kind of ghost image. Moving from one “frequency” to another is similar to making a scene transition in which the old, familiar scene gradually fades away while a new, unfamiliar scene takes over.

We need a name for this transitional state — the series of frames that make up the crossfade, or the series of intermediate frequencies that make up the space between broadcast stations. It is neither entirely physical or spiritual (in the colloquial meaning of each term). It’s the borderland between two distinct kinds of experience, incorporating elements of each in varying degrees. Some people have used the term “imaginal” to designate this ambiguous territory. Rod Serling called it the Twilight Zone.

I think of it as the liminal realm. Liminal means “relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.” The liminal realm is the world of dreams, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories. It’s also the space in which psi operates — telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and retrocognition, and psychokinesis. It’s closely bound up with our subconscious (or superconscious) mind, the nine-tenths of the iceberg submerged below the level of consciousness at any given time. F.W.H. Myers called this larger consciousness “the subliminal self,” meaning it’s just below our threshold of awareness, but to keep our terms consistent, I’ll call it the liminal self.

More important than terminology is the nature of the relationship between the liminal realm and the liminal self. I suggest they’re two halves of the same coin, or two aspects of the same experimental reality. To move from the physical world toward the spiritual world requires an adjustment of consciousness and an adjustment of the things that consciousness perceives. The “frequencies” of matter and of consciousness are ultimately one and the same.

This viewpoint isn’t as radical as it may sound. It has a long pedigree, going back to ancient mystical traditions and, more recently, to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant thought deeply about the nature of reality and the mind’s ability to access it. He concluded that there are two kinds of reality: the noumenal realm, the true reality, which exists beyond time and space; and the phenomenal realm, our perception of reality, which is bounded by mental categories (including time and space) that create an internally consistent logic and order. We cannot perceive the noumenal realm directly; we can only infer its existence intellectually.

Some modern thinkers dispense with the noumenal realm and focus only on the phenomenal realm. Like Kant, they doubt the human ability to perceive reality; but unlike Kant, they doubt there is any true reality underlying our distorted perceptions. But it's hard to see how our perceptions can be distorted unless they are distortions of something. Kant's bisection of the world into the noumenal and phenomenal realms is probably as close as we can get to understanding what reality is all about.

In more modern terms, the noumenal realm may be conceived of as a realm of pure information, roughly equivalent to the binary code that runs a computer, while the phenomenal realm is a realm of images, equivalent to the graphics that appear on a computer screen. To the naive computer user, the graphics are the computer’s reality, while a more sophisticated user understands that the graphics are only iconic representations of an underlying information processing system. We see and manipulate the icons on the screen, while largely unaware of the algorithms operating behind the screen to create and control those icons.

From a Kantian perspective, the mind-body problem is largely resolved, because everything physical that we observe, experiment, and interact with is an interpretation or reconstruction of the mind. The mind imposes categories of time, space, mass, energy, color, size, etc. on a noumenal reality that has none of these properties. The physical world (including the body) is a series of perceptions processed by consciousness. It is impossible to receive any impression outside of consciousness — impossible, that is, to access an unprocessed, unfiltered reality.

This does not mean that reality is entirely subjective, random, and arbitrary. Here is where the importance of the noumenal realm comes in. Like the binary code running a computer, the noumenal realm establishes the ground rules for the images (icons) that we perceive. Imagine many different people playing a computer game on different terminals all hooked up to the same CPU. The images on each screen would be created just for that screen and for that user, and might vary according to the screen resolution and dimensions, the color and brightness settings, and any special individuating factors (e.g., the point of view would be different for each user playing a first-person shooter game); but the binary code would be the same for all.

We each look at reality from inside our own mindset, our own particular (and subjective) set of assumptions and predispositions, and yet our perceptions have their ultimate origins outside of us, as information in the noumenal realm. Moreover, our consciousness itself at any given level has built-in categories that ensure that the perceptions we generate will be broadly similar and will follow the same general rules.

Shifting from one frequency to another would involve a change in consciousness, and that this change, in itself, would entail changes in the world as we perceive it. Since all perception is bound by Kantian categories of consciousness, any change in consciousness, with a change in the associated categories, will change our perceptions. And since we know reality only as “what we perceive,” reality itself will inevitably change as our consciousness changes.

In short, our consciousness and our reality (in the phenomenal sense) go hand in hand, and a change in one necessarily involves a change in the other. As we tune in to a different frequency, we're adjusting our consciousness and simultaneously adjusting our perceptions in order to receive a different kind of reality.

To be clear, I don't think that as we transition out of the physical world, we go into Kant’s noumenal realm. Noumenal reality is the ultimate mystery, comparable to Nirvana in Buddhism or the Godhead in the Christian mystical tradition. Merging with the noumenal marks an end to all transitions and evolution, an end to the phenomenal world (the world of appearances, incarnations, and struggle) altogether. The shifts in mind and being that we’ll focus on here typically involve much more modest changes — a shift from one level of phenomenal reality to another. Think of it as advancing to the next level of a video game. The rules may be different, the images new, the rewards greater, but you’re still playing the game. 

I’ve used words like world, realm, and plane to describe these different realities, but this language may imply a dualistic view of an unchanged consciousness moving through various environments like a sightseer on a bus tour. It would be better to spotlight the fact that consciousness itself is constantly changing along with the environment it perceives. For that reason, I prefer thinking in terms of a state or condition: a person moves from the physical state into the liminal state. In each case, it is a state of mind as well as a state of being.

Suppose you have an out-of-body experience. You perceive yourself leaving your own body and hovering over it. You may perceive yourself now making use of a different body, one not restricted by gravity or distance. This ”spiritual body” or “etheric body” or “astral body” — I'd call it the liminal body — may be younger and healthier than the physical body you’re accustomed to. And it can travel wherever your thoughts take you, in virtually no time at all.

Now, have you actually, physically left your body? Has some sort of spirit body really floated out of your physical form? Or are you only visualizing this experience?

I would say that your consciousness has found a way to tune in to a different frequency. As it does, you lose your emotional and intellectual connection with the body you perceive in your ordinary state of consciousness, and become aware of, or manifest, a new body better suited to the state of consciousness you’re occupying right now. This “new” (liminal) body is not really new; it has been available to you all along; but you were not aware of it because your consciousness was restricted by certain mental categories (like gravity and distance) that it has now at least temporarily cast off. As long as you are in this altered state of consciousness with its altered categories of perception, you will perceive and identify with this less-familiar body. The liminal body will be your reality, just as your physical body is your reality when your consciousness is in its physical mode.

The tuning from one frequency to another, then, is a matter of changing your level of consciousness and your concomitant level of perception, which directly alters the reality that is real for you in that moment. You ease out of the physical state (of both mind and being), into the liminal state, an ambiguous condition that offers both familiar and unfamiliar perceptions and experiences.

As we go forward, we’ll see how useful it can be to think of paranormal things in this way. It’s by no means a complete explanation, nor is it the only helpful “model” we can use, but it will serve to clarify many points that might otherwise seem obscure.

Let’s apply this approach to some specific cases ...

Comments

[Kris]

Well I for one just want to read the book.

[Michael Prescott]

Thanks, Kris. All in good time ... 🙂

[Amos Oliver Doyle]

The use of the word “liminal’ is confusing to me in that Myers used the terms subliminal self and supraliminal self, meaning what today --- if I understand him correctly---might be called the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. Using Myers’s definitions, “liminal” might be seen as an interface between consciousness and the sub-consciousness, kind of like the interface between the surface of a body of water and the air above it.

Use of the term “liminal realm” suggests more than just an interface as Myers implied but a space or place where dreams, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories exist. But later on, liminal is defined as an “initial stage of a process”, not a place. However later, it is defined as “the space in which psi operates.” Further on, the term, “liminal self” is used but that is confusing to me because liminal is now applied to a self as well as a space, a process and perhaps an interface. I really don’t want to be nit-picky here but I think that use of the term “liminal” may tend to confuse some readers, especially those familiar with the work of Frederic Myers but maybe I just need to go back and reread it several times since I am confusing myself by even thinking about it. - AOD

[Michael Prescott]

I see what you mean, AOD. Actually I think of the liminal state as both a state of consciousness and a state of being. But I’m sure this could be made clearer. It’s a tricky thing to get across, sort of like trying to visualize 3D reality in Flatland terms.

Essentially I think what exists is experience. Experience implies a consciousness that processes the experience and a set of things that are processed into an experience. The transition from "physical" to "spiritual" is a change in the nature of one's experience. So it could be seen as a process, like changing one's mind, or a space, like the mental space occupied by one’s experience, or an aspect of the self, or an aspect of the environment. These distinctions become largely irrelevant if everything is experience.

But it’s not the easiest thing to communicate. ☹️

[Mr. Benzodiazepine]

"In short, our consciousness and our reality (in the phenomenal sense) go hand in hand, and a change in one necessarily involves a change in the other. As we tune in to a different frequency, we're adjusting our consciousness and simultaneously adjusting our perceptions in order to receive a different kind of reality."

http://davidpratt.info
Mr. Pratt seems to be in agreement with you on this statement. But, judging from what you say about theosophy, I doubt you would get along very well...

[Eric Newhill]

By Jove, I think you've done it, Michael. A beautiful distillation and synthesis of all we have been discussing for years and all of the evidence and ideas out there. It's wonderful to see you using your great intellect and writing skills to put this together. Please keep going! I'm also looking forward to reading the book - and I'm sure that many many more people on both sides of the debate will be too.

Thank you! I feel like you are becoming our voice.

[Eric Newhill]

Oh...I also really like how you handle OBEs. I used to think that something literally left the body, etc, but now understand it per your explanation. I just could never get the framing and context right, as you did. Good stuff!

[max]

nicely put. it seems there is not transition between states. whatever state we are in is our current state of consciousness. i am looking forward to your further ruminations.

[Kathleen]

"...you lose your emotional and intellectual connection with the body..." So many NDErs express exactly this.

I hope you also address NDEs, and specifically, how virtually all have the same, or very similar narrative, making it highly unlikely they are "hallucinations."

Good luck.

[Paul]

I suspect the “tuning” idea may well be right. If I understand you correctly, consciousness is tuned to express itself through the vehicle it is associated with - at the moment for us, a physical body, but plenty of purported communicators talk about different kinds of body. Maybe our consciousness is the common factor, it’s expression limited only by the vehicle it is temporarily associated with?

Perhaps all the talk of “vibrations” is closer to the truth than we imagine.

[Douglas]

The view you've arrived at is similar to the writings of 'Seth' and afterlife explorers like Robert Monroe etc.

Where consciousness itself exists across a spectrum, or at least manifested consciousness exists across a spectrum, and depending on where you are along it, the vibrations will differ. Moving to different realms is really you adjusting your own vibrations. In reality you are not really 'moving' at all, because from the absolute perspective, everything is One so nothing is actually happening. Again, all very similar to various mystical traditions.

Kashmir Shaivism uses the metaphor of a vibrating musical string. When the string vibrates, music is created, but there is nothing to the vibration other than the string.

[Bruce L Siegel]

Michael, I like your metaphorical approach. It’s realistic. For other than experiencing death while still residing primarily in the body (which I would argue mystics of various stripes actually get to do), the human mind’s only means of approaching this state of consciousness is through metaphor. (And that’s what the afterlife is, as you keep emphasizing—not a place, but a state of consciousness.)

What’s more, the frequency metaphor is a good one. It was really helpful to me back in 1991. That’s when I was just beginning to open up to the radical (for me) notion of a spiritual realm that mainstream science was neither accounting for, nor even slightly interested in.

I use to ponder in amazement the fact that in some very real sense, all the music, dramas, comedies, newscasts, police broadcasts, and so forth, now available to picked up by radios and TV’s in my area, are here as I speak, passing through my body. Think about that—a virtual infinity of information bathing me every moment of every day.

And given that, the possibility of other invisible but omnipresent forms of energy—vibrant, complex, perhaps even alive—was easier for me to accept.

I look forward to the next installment!

[Eric Newhill]

Hi AOD,
"Use of the term “liminal realm” suggests more than just an interface as Myers implied but a space or place where dreams, apparitions, out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories exist. But later on, liminal is defined as an “initial stage of a process”, not a place"

I don't see a problem here. A bathroom is both a place and process occur there (bathing). A waiting room is a place where you wait, etc.