Michael Prescott's Blog

In dark places

I've been reading Choosing Reality, a book on Buddhism by B. Alan Wallace. As always seems to be the case when I read up on Buddhism, I'm finding the exposition more confusing than helpful.

In his description of Buddhism's Middle Way, which he calls Buddhist centrism, Wallace tells us, "Phenomena are brought into existence through the processes of verbal and conceptual designation." (p. 122)

Now, stop and think about this. It means that everything we perceive around us is created by our own thinking - our "processes of verbal and conceptual designation," i.e., labeling and categorizing. Presumably if we could not name or categorize a tree, then trees would not exist.

But how could we name or categorize anything if it didn't already exist? Since animals don't designate and conceptualize, do trees not exist for them? Why should the ability to name something have the magic power to summon it into existence? If I can name and conceptualize a unicorn, does that mean unicorns exist?

Lest you think I exaggerate or misinterpret Wallace's position, here is another passage where he makes himself very clear. First he argues that an oxygen molecule does not "intrinsically" (i.e., essentially, ultimately, really) exist. Then he says,

Such entities are brought into existence by the process of conceptual designation: we designate certain experimental phenomena as evidence for the existence of energy, quarks, and so on; and as that convention is accepted, the designated entity exists. But had the entity never been conceived, it would not exist at all. Moreover ... the conceptual designation of an object is retroactive: for example, once electrons have been conceived, they can be said to have existed for many billions of years in the past. [pp. 124,125; emphases added]

Get that? Oxygen molecules did not exist until we could conceptualize them. But once we were able to do this, they "retroactively" existed for billions of years!

What is true at the atomic and subatomic levels is also true at the macroscopic level of daily experience. Wallace writes, "If the basic components of the physical world lack intrinsic existence independent of conceptual designation, the same must be true of the physical universe as a whole." (p. 125)

The whole physical universe, then, exists now (and retroactively) only because of our "conceptual designation."

Trying to clarify this point, which certainly requires clarification, Wallace proceeds:

The electron that is conceived by [the mind] does not exist independently of that mind, nor does that mind exist independently of the electron that it conceives. The relationship between the two is not a causal or sequential one. It is more like the relation between a husband and a wife: a man is not a husband unless he has a wife, and a woman is not a wife unless she has a husband. (p. 127)

But clearly this analogy is silly, since the husband/wife relationship is a matter of terminology, while the existence of electrons is a matter of empirical investigation. The distinction is comparable to that between an analytic and a synthetic proposition.

If everything that we believe to exist depends upon mental and verbal designation, it follows that different cultures and even different individuals may dwell in diverse conventional realities. [p. 133]

Yes, this conclusion would follow ... which means, evidently, that if my mental and verbal designations include trees, and yours do not, then I live in a world with trees and you don't. Or if I designate the world as round, and you designate it as flat, then the world is round for me and flat for you.

Then follows a very odd statement:

If a theory is based upon experience, is conceptually internally consistent, and is not refuted on empirical or rational grounds, the centrist view maintains that it may be deemed valid. In that case, what shall we do with competing, incompatible theories that equally satisfy those criteria? We may of course choose any of them as our conventionally valid theory. In so doing, that theory becomes the reality with which we shall involve ourselves. [p. 136, emphases added]

Remember, we have just learned that reality exists only in accordance with our mental framework. Yet now we are told that a theory can be "based upon experience" (the experience we manufacture via our own theorizing?), and what's more, it can be "refuted on empirical or rational grounds." Empirically refuted - when empirical facts themselves are the creation of our own thinking?

If our conceptualizing and theorizing brings about the phenomena of the physical world, as we have been informed, then how could we ever encounter any phenomena inconsistent with our concepts and theories?

None of this makes sense to me, and I'm by no means certain it is even intended to make sense. I think it is really just a series of pardoxical pronouncements, the purpose of which is to clear the mind of all preconceptions by undercutting one's certainty about everything. If this is true, then it may be a useful therapeutic technique for bringing about psychological growth and healing, even if it is of little value in resolving metaphysical problems.

Wallace himself hints that the ultimate purpose of Buddhist teaching is purely pragmatic:

The fundamental mental affliction is confusion, and this refers specifically to the tendency of reifying oneself, others, and the world at large. A confused mind conceives of people and everything else as intrinsic, absolute entities. This mental distortion lies at the root of all other mental afflictions. The individual does not exist as an isolated, independent entity, intrinsically cut off from other sentient beings and the rest of the universe. Rather, each person exists as independently related events: neither our existence nor our degree of well-being is independent from the rest of our environment. [p. 151]

By seeing the world in this nondualistic way, a person may experience relief from anxiety, anger, worry, and other aspects of "confusion." Buddhist teachings are probably very useful in this regard.

But do they shed any light on the real nature of trees or atoms or the universe? Not as far as I can see.

If there's enlightenment to be found here, I'm afraid I'm still in the dark.

Testimony of Light, part two

Another excerpt from Testimony of Light, by Helen Greaves, a book of purportedly channeled communications from a discarnate soul. Ellipses (...) in original; abridgements and additions indicated by square brackets.

Reality! What is it?

What an illusion thought it is! I thought I was real enough on earth. Now I realise that what seemed important and substantial and worth while was but a shadow of a shadow! I'm not really Real here! This too is merely the shadow which is but a shell, or covering, of something else. I'm on a journey still ... perhaps to the Centre, certainly to a higher point, but what this is I scarcely dare imagine. I've only peeled off the outer shadow yet, the outer skin ... rather like peeling skins from an onion. One goes on shedding; it seems an eternal process. [ ]

The Planes of the Spirit stretch onward into infinity. What joy it will be, going forwards, gravitating (even though slowly) to one's true Place! I presume each Plane will seem real, will have more reality than the preceding one.

That sounds like a paradox!

But reality itself? It is quite beyond our comprehension. [ ]

But I am trying to shed some of the clutter of personality. We all have to do that.... And there are three ways in which to carry it out here. By self-judgment, and true assessment of experiences; by service to one's fellows; and by aspiration.

But oh, with so many, many compensations!

I can express it best in this thought; the 'subjective' of the earth plane mind has become the 'objective' in this new state of Being. This I begin to comprehend, is the law of progress. By it we advance onwards into realms of incredible beauty and wonder. How can I make this clear?

The 'subjective' or inner content of my thoughts, aspirations and desires here and now will fashion the 'objective' place to which I will pass on the next stage of my journey, just as the inner life of the soul within the body-mind on earth decides the first future 'home' on this [postmortem] level.

More and more important therefore and invaluable, is the inner life of meditation and contemplation and at-one-ment with Divine Beauty and Truth. The saying on earth 'As a man thinks, so is he' is true in essence, truer than our ideas can conceive. By man's thoughts and inspirations he weaves for himself his future place in this dimension. This is logical Law. In the earth life he can build a façade about himself. Here he has no such mask. He is known here for what he is, and for what his inner subjective life has made him. [pp. 59-61]

Ignore earlier stupidity

In the post that immediately precedes this one, I found fault with Nagarjuna's four-valued logic, saying that the statement "X does not not exist" is identical to the statement "X does exist," and therefore one of the four poles or axes (technically "lemmas") of his system is duplicative.

I was wrong.

I realized this just a short time ago when I was walking by the beach. I asked myself if it is true that two negatives always make a positive. In math this is true, but in life?

Consider this dialogue:

• Question: Are you happy?
• Answer: I'm not unhappy.

Now, "I'm not unhappy" is a double negative, equivalent to "I'm not not happy." So can we conclude that the person has just said, "I am happy"?

Clearly not.  Most of us would assume that the person is saying his mood is somewhere between happiness and unhappiness. He is not happy, he is not unhappy.

This is more than just a semantic quirk. Imagine that you are looking at the ocean on a partly cloudy day (as I was). Is the ocean blue? Answer: It's not blue ... and it's not not blue.

It's not blue because there are strong overtones of gray, courtesy of the overcast sky. But it's not not blue because there are still hints and highlights of blue.

What do emotional states and colors have in common? Both exist on continuums. There is a spectrum of moods from happiness at one extreme to unhappiness at the other. There is a spectrum of colors from slate gray to blue to green, etc.

Now imagine yourself looking at the shoreline. If you point to a certain spot and ask, "Is that the shoreline?", a companion might say, "It's not the shoreline, and it's not not the shoreline."

This is possible because the shoreline, too, exists on a continuum. I don't just mean that the shoreline is constantly changing with each new incoming wave. Even if you could stop time and freeze the waves, you would still be hard pressed to define the exact location of the shoreline. Is it where the edge of the wave is visible? Or it the puddled water left over from the last receding wave? Or is it water-saturated sand just beyond those puddles? Or is it the damp sand a little farther inland? Or the less damp sand beyond that?

Now you look out to sea and notice the horizon. At last, a clear line of demarkation! There is an unmistakable and obvious dividing line between ocean and sky. Or so it seems.

But it seems this way only because you are looking from a distance. Up close the dividing line is not so clear. Is it the upper surface of the ocean waters, or is it the spray and bubbles rising from the water, or is it the hazy, saturated air above the water?

The water and the air are actually interacting as a complex system. If you could view the ocean and atmosphere from outer space, you would see it as a single interactive network, in which the water is constantly escaping into the air through evaporation, and the air is constantly replenishing the water through condensation. And the air, in the form of wind, is moving the water, sometimes in dramatic ways. The whole system extends for hundreds of miles, and is tied in with other oceans and with land masses and with the movement of tectonic plates and with the outgassing of undersea vents and with all sorts of other things.

The point is that a great many things can be seen as existing on a continuum. Perhaps everything can be seen that way. And so it does make sense to say, "X does not exist and X does not not exist." In fact, this may be the most accurate way of describing most of the phenomena we observe.

I still think the authors of The End of Suffering could have done a better job of explaining this. But the idea is sound. I stand corrected.

A salutary lesson

From Testimony of Light, by Helen Greaves, a book of purportedly channeled communications from the afterlife, comes this thought-provoking passage (ellipses and emphasis in original):

I am finding peace. I am at peace. I am absorbed into the atmosphere of peace. I have found tranquillity to the measure in which I can accept and appreciate it. I no longer need to strive and struggle, as I did in the earth life. Always there I worked too hard. I strove. I battled forward. I followed every channel, every path which seemed to lead to that 'break-through' of the spirit for which my soul yearned so deeply. I obeyed the precepts, followed the doctrines, studied and examined all theories which could 'explain' the spirit; drove myself with the whip of an iron will, read, marked, digested the sciences (so called) of the human mind and its reactions to stimuli, as well as the human psyche and its reaching forward into revelation. All this with a great purpose, as I supposed, of Illumination. I strove always for the 'break-through' to spirit, union with the soul, contact with the Great Forces, and always, driving my mind and my personal real was the hope, the glory, the bliss of a 'break-through' to spirit. And now as I look back over my earth life, I realise that so much was illusion.

"He came into His own and His own received Him not."

As I rest now in this Reality I see, with sadness, the truth of those words. I knew Him not. I struggled, fasted, sought for what was already present, perfect and everlasting within me. Like most of us in the body life I was in illusion; lost in glamour. I looked for the Spirit to reveal itself to me, when all that was necessary was 'relaxation unto God'. The Spirit was always with me, veiled because physical sight could not view it. The great secret of finding that Spirit was the 'letting go' of self. I, who longed so much for the touch of the divine, who dedicated my life to religious work, who read lives of the saints for their examples, who delved into the sciences of psychology, extrasensory perception and all psychic phenomena, as well as into the occult sciences, who denied myself the usual sensual and reproductive life of a human being; who truly tried to obey the precepts of the Master, as related in the New Testament, I had not accepted the simple Reality of those words: "Behold, I am with you even unto the end". I had not been able to let go, and let the Spirit absorb me. As I now see my thoughts, actions, aspirations from this angle, I am realizing that the very tenseness of my striving was my undoing and it barred the way to that very union for which my soul longed. I battered at the Veil which hid the Face of Divinity trying by my mind and will to tear it away, [but] the more intense my thoughts, the more real did I create the illusion. For the Veil was, as I now realize, the Veil of my own setting.

Light, Divinity, Reality ... all-pervading consciousness ... were there for my acceptance. Much greater progress would have been made by 'letting go' of all these human images and by allowing the spirit to absorb me. Relax and allow the Spirit to stream through you. Swim with the tide of the Spirit. That is the great lesson I am learning here as I review my mistakes. Now I am 'in the Spirit' ... There was no 'break-through' to Spirit, of which I once, so glibly talked. There is only a gradual absorption of that amount, or degree of Spirit which the openness of the soul can accept. This degree, as I appreciate now, must be governed by the Law of Progress, for the Spirit is never limited, [and] only ourselves, as receptacles, govern the degree of its entrance.

This is indeed a salutary lesson. [pp. 102-3]

Holy Tolle, Batman!

For what it's worth, the title of this entry does not achieve its full humorous impact unless you know that Tolle is pronounced Toh-lay.

Now, having established this important detail ...

I've written several recent posts about Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now. Tolle believes that we can access our true self - what he calls "Presence" or simply "consciousness" - by turning off our mental chatter, the verbalizing and analyzing that occupy our attention throughout the day. By silencing this voice and simply "being present," we achieve a sense of oneness with our environment, and we lose our attachment to "egoic" concerns. If enough people follow this path, the human race will undergo the next stage in evolution, achieve a higher consciousness, and prevent the planetary destruction threatened by our egoic behavior.

There is much to respect in this, but I've had my doubts about some of it. I've wondered if too much detachment can be a bad thing, and I've also questioned the apocalyptic scenario about the end of the world.

Late last night, I thought of something that put Tolle's ideas in a new light. It's rather obvious, but I hadn't seen it earlier. To explain what occurred to me, I first have to present a highly simplified thumbnail sketch of the brain.

The brain is, of course, divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is loosely associated with verbal skills and logical reasoning, while the right hemisphere is associated with imagination, intuition, and holistic thinking. Most people are left-hemisphere dominant, a fact that is reflected in the prevalence of right-handedness among the population. (Since the body is cross-wired, the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, including the right hand.)

Most of us, in other words, access our left hemisphere predominantly, while the right hemisphere runs in the background. This has been probably been true since the advent of widespread literacy. (The left hemisphere, with its verbalizing abilities, is stimulated by reading; the right hemisphere is stimulated by music and images.) In preliterate societies, the hemispheres may have been better balanced. Left-handed people, who make up about 10% of the modern population, tend to have more access to the right hemisphere and, not coincidentally, also tend to be more intuitive and creative.

For simplicity, let's call the left side of the brain the verbal-analytical hemisphere, or VA hemisphere for short. We'll call the right side the holistic hemisphere.

Okay. You can probably see where I'm going with this.

Tolle recommends silencing mental chatter - the voice in our heads that is incessantly labeling and analyzing the world. What this amounts to is suppressing the VA hemisphere. When the VA hemisphere is suppressed, our access to the holistic hemisphere is improved. We enter a holistic state of consciousness in which verbalizing and analyzing are kept to a minimum. This state of mind is unusual for most of us and may feel like "direct perception," unmediated by any mental processes. This feeling is an illusion; the holistic hemisphere is still processing our perceptions, but in a different, less obtrusive, and unfamiliar way.

A noteworthy feature of holistic hemisphere processing is that the sense of time is much reduced or even eliminated. This is how we can lose track of time while engaged in some artistic pursuit, like painting a picture. Tolle makes much of time as a feature of egoic consciousness, but this is no more than to say that awareness of time is associated with the VA hemisphere. When the VA hemisphere is suppressed, our consciousness of time melts away.

It can be very useful to access the holistic hemisphere. It can stimulate creativity and even spiritual or mystical experiences. Accessing the holistic hemisphere can certainly feel like gaining access to some mystical mode of consciousness - a higher, transcendent consciousness. Selective stimulation of the holistic hemisphere can reproduce some (not all) of the features of near-death experiences. Some researchers (e.g. Melvin Morse) believe that the holistic hemisphere actually is a gateway to a spiritual dimension.

Possibly an enhanced mental flexibility - the ability to shift effortlessly back and forth between the two cerebral hemispheres - would alleviate some of the anxiety and stress of modern life, while encouraging  creative thought and openness to spirituality. As such, this improved neurological balance could be seen as a modest step forward in the evolution of consciousness. Perhaps something like this is actually happening, in part because of meditation techniques like Tolle's, but in larger part because kids today are exposed to a constant stream of visual imagery (TV, video games, etc.), while reading continues to decline as a pastime.

In any event, the point is that Tolle's "Presence" or "consciousness" can be understood, I think, as the holistic thinking of the right cerebral hemisphere. Where Tolle goes wrong, in my opinion, is in claiming that this method of awareness is the only true consciousness. In reality, both the holistic hemisphere and the VA hemisphere are equally valuable and equally valid ways of experiencing the world. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Neither is more "real" than the other.

As a meditative practice designed to bring about a greater balance between the two hemispheres, Tolle's approach has considerable merit. Carried to an extreme, however, it might simply replace one kind of cerebral dominance with another. An excessive commitment to holistic thinking can probably be just as undesirable as an excessive commitment to VA thinking. The key is moderation.

A subjective universe?

A few days ago Matthew Cromer, a frequent commenter on this blog and the blogmeister of Science Is a Method Not a Position, suggested to me that physical reality may be best understood not as an objective phenomenon independent of consciousness, but rather as a subjective experience arising out of consciousness. Here's part of what he wrote:

What is ultimately real is the "space" in which reality unfolds. We could call that space "Awareness" or "Consciousness" or "God" if we like....

The difference between [a hallucination] and [a physical entity] is not that one is real and the other is not. The difference is one is part of a shared matrix of perception we call "physical reality", while the other is a matrix of perception that only one individual is experiencing. But both are ultimately subjective. It is just a matter of how many loci of consciousness are able to perceive them.

In an email, Matthew clarified his view by saying that the universe could be seen as consisting of the thoughts in God's Mind, with our individual consciousnesses as small extensions of this greater Cosmic Consciousness.

Although I had heard this kind of idea before, I had never really thought about it or taken it too seriously. But this time, something about the suggestion appealed to me, and since I was flying across the country and would have a lot of time on my hands, I figured I would ponder it.

Which I did.

Over the course of my travel I came up with 17 different issues to which the subjective universe may be relevant in one way or another. Some of these are philosophical or scientific dilemmas, while others are simply personal thoughts. I decided to list them here briefly, in the hope that they may stimulate other people's thinking on this subject.

As for me, I don't know quite where I stand on this whole issue of objective vs. subjective reality. But it certainly is an interesting thing to think about.

Here then, in no particular order, are some of the things that occurred to me.

1. Ordinarily I feel a certain amount of stress while flying, hurrying through airports, etc. But on this trip, with the idea of a subjective universe on my mind, I felt no stress at all. Could stress be a result of feeling separated from our environment, feeling that the environment impinges on us? If we feel we are intimately connected with the environment so that there is no separation, is there also no stress? Could the modern curse of chronic anxiety be related to a sense of separation from our environment brought about by the "objectivity" paradigm?

2. An ethical doctrine I find appealing is moral intuitionism, which holds that certain moral values are simply obvious -- for instance, it's wrong to torture a helpless baby. No matter what complicated, sophisticated arguments an ethicist might construct to defend the practice of torturing babies, most people would know instinctively or intuitively that it is wrong. Of course, this can be explained as some kind of biological conditioning, but there are many problems with the sociobiological approach -- not least of which is that, according to this view, nothing is really right or wrong; an action is merely helpful or not helpful in promoting physical survival. The moral intuitionist view is that certain moral values, certain fundamental rights and wrongs, are simply inherent in the nature of things, part of the "furniture" of reality, so to speak. To cast the argument in a more religious tone, we could say that values exist as ideas in the Mind of God. Clearly this hypothesis has more force if we assume that all of physical reality is ultimately an idea in the Mind of God.

3. Another philosophical issue is the problem of universals -- whether properties such as whiteness or smoothness exist in reality or only as categories in our minds. A very elegant solution to this problem is to say that such properties -- in fact all properties, qualities, attributes, relations, etc. -- exist in the Mind of God. This presupposes a universe that arises out of Cosmic Consciousness.

4. Probably the most philosophical book of the New Testament is the Gospel of John, with its famous prologue: "In the beginning was the Word ..." The term word is the Greek logos, which means something like "a universal principle of order and understanding expressed in action." Perhaps the closest English equivalent is "mind." In the beginning was the Mind ...?

5. Experiments performed by quantum physicists indicate that observation and measurement of subatomic particles can directly influence the behavior of those particles. In some cases the particles seem to "know" what kind of experiment is being performed even before all the steps have been completed. These anomalies are very difficult to explain on the premise of an objective reality independent of any consciousness. But if reality is subjective and dependent on the consciousness of God (and, to a much more limited extent, the consciousness of individual observers), then these anomalies are perhaps more readily explicable.

6. There are numerous cases of miraculous healings that seem to involve a mind-body connection that goes beyond materialistic science. If the body itself is a projection of consciousness, then perhaps the ability of consciousness to heal the body makes more sense.

7. Psi phenomena of all varieties do not fit into the materialist paradigm of an objective reality independent of consciousness. They fit much more neatly into the subjective universe model.

8. The fine-tuning of the cosmos, which seems to have made life possible, is perhaps best understood if "the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine," as the physicist James Jeans once put it. (The same holds true for the origin of the first living cell, which may be better understood as the expression of a conscious plan than a random accident.)

9. The British biologist Rupert Sheldrake has developed the theory of morphic resonance, illustrated by many examples drawn from nature and from the laboratory. Morphic resonance, in brief, amounts to the idea that the behavior patterns of one living thing may influence the behavior patterns of other living things of the same or similar species, even if they are separated by time and space. If physical reality is an expression or projection of ideas in the mind of God, then these patterns of resonance may be seen as analogous to thought patterns, rather than to any physical energy forms.

10. When I was about ten years old, I frequently had the thought that my life was somehow unreal -- that it was only a movie that I was watching. I assumed this was unusual, but one day a friend of mine said he had same experience, only he compared his life to a book that he was reading. Perhaps this feeling of observing our life as a spectator is not uncommon among children, though it seems to fade as we get older. If the world around us is, in some sense, an expression or projection of consciousness -- our own or Cosmic Consciousness -- then this childhood intuition may be quite valid.

11. A related phenomenon is the "witness" feeling often noted by psychologists -- the occasional sense of standing outside ourselves and observing our own thoughts, emotions, or behavior with equanimity. Although there may be mundane psychological explanations for this phenomenon -- defense mechanism, depersonalization -- it's also possible that the perspective of the "witness" reflects a deeper or higher level of consciousness than the one we ordinarily tune in to, and that at this higher level we are aware of the ultimately subjective nature of the events we perceive, including our own thoughts and actions, even our own personality.

12. People who have had a near-death experience frequently report undergoing a "life review," in which they relive all the events of their lives and learn how those events affected other people, for better or worse. Moreover, they directly experience the effects of their own actions on others; they feel whatever joy or suffering they are responsible for in other people's lives. Perhaps the real lesson of the life review is that ultimately we are all one. Perhaps we can experience how we affected other people because ultimately we are the other people and they are us.

13. The most fundamental maxim of ethics, the Golden Rule, may be seen as based on the same premise as the life review. We should do unto others as we would have them do unto us -- because we and they are ultimately the same consciousness, or at least threads in the fabric of the same higher consciousness.

14. One difficulty with both spiritual studies and parapsychology is that they seem to suggest a dualistic world, a reality that is bifurcated between matter and spirit. However, if we see physical reality as an expression or projection of consciousness, then the distinction between matter and spirit disappears, and we may be in a position to develop what mystics call Unity Consciousness -- the sense that all is one.

15. The idea that reality is subjective can be liberating if it implies that we are co-creators of the world, intimately connected to our environment and to our fellow sentient beings. As the ancient Roman playwright Terence wrote, "Nothing human is alien to me." Or as the physicist Freeman Dyson put it, "I do not feel like an alien in this universe."

16. In my early childhood I often had a feeling of nostalgia for a perfect world, one that was more beautiful than the world I found myself in -- a world I pictured as a wonderfully landscaped park, free of litter, crime, or any other blight. Was this just childish imagination, or was I dimly recalling a higher spiritual realm that my consciousness had previously known?

17. Most people have an inability to accept the reality of their own death, at least if death means personal extinction. They may say they accept it, but in fact our own nonexistence is impossible to conceive of and is generally dealt with by means of denial. Does our inability to imagine our own oblivion originate, not in fear, but in the deep-seated knowledge that our consciousness really is indestructible, because it is part of the basic fabric of reality itself?

As I say, just some things to think about, if you wish ...

Further thoughts on reincarnation

At the risk of beating a dead horse (so to speak), I thought I would expand on my two recent posts on reincarnation. Having done some online reading on the subject over the weekend, I found some quotes and info that I wanted to pass along.

First, there are some notable inconsistencies among the data gathered by different researchers. Psychologist Helen Wambach, who hypnotically regressed 1088 patients over 10 years, found that the average interval between death and rebirth was 51 years. Ian Stevenson, who studied children who spontaneously recall past lives, found an interval of only five to ten years. (The occultist Helen Blavatsky said the average interval was ten to fifteen centuries.) Wambach found that people switch from one race to another, and from one geographical location to another; Stevenson's data said otherwise. Wambach and other hypnotists, such as Morris Netherton, report that their patients sometimes remember nonhuman lives as insects, birds, or prehistoric animals; Stevenson's never did.

There are also inconsistencies among different cultures. The Druse Muslims of Lebanon believe there is no gap between death and rebirth; rebirth follows instantly. Other cultures do report a gap of varying intervals. Interestingly, Stevenson found that children's stories tend to reflect these cultural assumptions.

Some researchers, including Wambach and her associate Chet Snow, have tried to "progress" hypnotized patients to explore their "future lives." These patients made predictions, often of an apocalyptic nature: seismic activity, volcanic eruptions, climate shift, Armageddon. Enough time has passed that some of the more specific predictions can be tested. For the most part, they have proven inaccurate.  For instance, Wambach and Snow reported predictions that the Soviet Union would invade Europe in 1998, while the US was preoccupied with a catastrophic California earthquake. Not only did this not occur, but there was no Soviet Union in 1998. Snow also predicted the partial sinking of Hawaii in the late '90s; much to the relief of the Aloha State, this prognostication also proved unfounded. Other predictions for the closing years of the 20th century were that the US would have a new currency (untrue, unless you count the redesigned twenty-dollar bills), bank failures (in a stretch, the savings and loan bailouts might qualify), decimation of the population (no), and a 1999 nuclear accident in Europe (no). Even more cheerfully, Snow's patients report a 98% decline in Earth's population by 2100, accompanied by widespread devastation. Let's hope this one doesn't pan out, either.

Since the hypnotic techniques used to "progress" the patients were the same ones used to "regress" them, the general inaccuracy of the predictions may call into question any data gathered by this method.

Stevenson's data seem stronger than most of the hypnosis data, but even in his case, there are anomalies of interest. He counts at least ten cases in which the child who remembers a past life was born before the past-life personality had died. (Note the words at least. Ten is the minimum.) One noteworthy example is the case of Jasbir La Jat, who went into a smallpox-induced coma at age three and a half, and nearly died in April or May of 1954 (exact records weren't kept). When he recovered, he had assumed the personality and memories of one Sobha Ram, a boy from a neighboring village whom Jasbir had apparently never met. But Sobha died on May 22, 1954, on or about the time Jasbir was ill. Interestingly Jasbir/Sobha told people that Sobha, upon dying, had met a holy man who advised him to take over Jasbir's body. This case seems more in line with spirit obsession or possession than reincarnation, yet in all respects other than the overlap of lifetimes it is identical with Stevenson's "reincarnation" cases.

There is also the puzzling case of Said Bouhamsy, a Lebanese Druse who died in 1943 in a traffic accident. Six months later Said's sister gave birth to a boy who claimed to be Said, and who exhibited a fear of trucks. So far, this is standard fare - except that in 1958 another boy, Imad Elawan, was born in a nearby village, and he, too, claimed to have been Said. Did Said reincarnate in two different boys born 15 years apart? Or is this another case of spirit obsession/possession, with Said's restless earthbound spirit moving from one host to another?

From Burma comes yet another case perhaps more suggestive of spirit influence than reincarnation. A pregnant woman reported dreaming three times of a ghostly Japanese solider who said he would come to stay with her. The woman gave birth to a daughter, Ma Tin Aung Myo, and the girl later remembered life as a Japanese soldier (part of the force that occupied Burma during World War II). Of course the mother may simply have influenced the daughter's imagination by speaking of her dreams. Even if the case is legitimately paranormal, it would seem to tie in better with the idea of an earthbound spirit remaining close to the area where he died and eventually latching on to a human host.

There seems little doubt that an obsessing spirit can take over the host's personality, at least for a time. The famous case of Lurancy Vennum is an obvious example.

Much is made of Stevenson's birthmark evidence - birthmarks (and birth defects) that parallel injuries received by the past-life personality. Some of these cases are indeed intriguing, but in other instances a prosaic explanation may be available. In some cultures, such as the Tlingit Indians, the newborn child is searched for birthmarks that might match the wounds of a recently deceased person; if a match is found, the child is declared to be that person's reincarnation. Naturally this tends to bias the child's not-so-spontaneous "recollections." In other cases, by the time Stevenson examined the child, the birthmarks  no longer lined up with the dead person's wounds, but he was told that they had matched up better when the child was born. It is possible for a birthmark to "migrate" as the child grows and the skin stretches, but since no photographic evidence was available, Stevenson had to take the parents' word as to the original location of the marks.

Much of the information presented above was found in the online book, Reincarnation: A Christian Critique of a New Age Docrine, by Mark C. Albrecht, a somewhat polemical but generally reliable look at this whole question. From that book I culled several good quotes, some by the author himself, and some by other writers. Here is a sampling.

Paranormal investigator Scott Rogo, writing in The Search for Yesterday, is quoted as positing the theory that human personality survives death as a "constellation" of memories, emotions, thoughts, etc. He goes on:

"A developing embryo can become linked with one or more of these surviving personality constellations... Either the craving of the constellation for existence drives it to attach itself to a new life, or the developing consciousness [of the embryo] latches onto one or more of these personalities of its own accord... This linkage is not really reincarnation, since the developing life is only tapping the resources of the donor personality's surviving memories and dispositions... This theory can account for birthmark cases as well as for the emergence of past-life memories and phobias. Because an unborn child has few psychological resources of its own, any surviving personality constellation with which it comes in contact is bound to exert a strong influence. This general framework also helps explain why so many reincarnated children recall violent past-life deaths. It may be that people who died violently shed particularly dynamic or tightly integrated memory constellations. They might especially strive for existence and might more readily attach themselves to a new developing life or hold out a greater attraction to the developing infant..."

This neatly encapsulates the arguments I was making earlier.

Besides any ambiguities in the data, there are also moral and philosophical objections to reincarnation, which the author focuses on in the latter part of his book. I realize that these objections may not carry much weight for some people, but I find them important. Here is a brief rundown of the more pertinent passages.

"There is only one thing that makes a future life worthwhile -- the preservation of the consciousness of personal identity and uniqueness. Yet, in reincarnation, personal identity and uniqueness are forever obliterated." - John Weldon

"Personality means little in the context of classic Eastern reincarnation. All personalities are ultimately interchangeable and therefore more or less synonymous when viewed over the course of thousands of reincarnations. The universe is one big interconnected unit, and everybody simply suffers for everything. Personal responsibility for one's own actions vanishes. Each person bears the allotment of karma that was generated by someone else, and the personality one gets in a particular life therefore seems to be dependent on a throw of the cosmic dice." -- Mark Albrecht

"How is it possible to derive meaning for life from a stance which teaches obliteration of personality?" -- Albrecht

"Thus the truth of the matter is that death for the reincarnationist is not a great deal different from death for an atheist, since individual personality is obliterated." -- Albrecht

"It's very interesting that the reincarnationist tells us we go through cyclic rebirth and we suffer in various lives to atone for our sins. But it's very puzzling that nobody remembers his past life in enough detail to profit from it! So we don't know what we're being punished for." - Walter Martin

I know some people will say that reincarnation is not about punishment, but about experiencing the full range of lives possible on Earth. Perhaps so, but as Albrecht observes:

"Is it desirable to be born again? If the world is dominated by suffering and ignorance, as seems to be the case, would anyone of sound mind want to experience hundreds or thousands of human lives?"

He also observes that if, say, Adolf Hitler's bad karma causes him to be reincarnated as a cripple, Edgar, but Edgar has no memory of his previous life and no knowledge of his culpability in Hitler's crimes, then how is any justice being served? Poor crippled Edgar is made to suffer for crimes that he does not recall and, in any meaningful sense, did not commit. The personality responsible for those crimes has already been obliterated. "Hitler thus cheats the hangman while Edgar is victimized."

Further, such a scheme provides cold comfort to Edgar's parents. Imagine telling them not to be unhappy that their son was born lame, since, after all, he must deserve it, having been a terrible person in a previous life!

And, as has often been noted, the doctrine of karma, at least when moralistically applied, offers no incentive to help the poor and suffering. To do so would be to disrupt the repayment of their karmic debt. Better to let them alone to fend for themselves - as India's "untouchables" have been so left for many centuries.

(Yes, any religious or spiritual doctrine can be misapplied, but it is not clear to me that this is a misapplication. Given the assumptions of karma, it seems like an impeccably logical inference.)

Albrecht concludes by focusing on an important distinction between Eastern and Judeo-Christian concepts of God. To the Eastern mind, God is impersonal; the universe, which is an offshoot or manifestation of God, proceeds with amoral, machinelike regularity, eternally balancing the karmic scales through an endless series of cycles. To the Judeo-Christian mind, God is a person - a being with intentions and desires and preferences; the universe is the creation of God but is not synonymous with him; eternal realities reflect God's mercy, benevolence, and infinite justice.

The distinction, in other words, is between God as an impersonal
"it" and God as a divine person. Some people  are uncomfortable  with the latter idea, perhaps because they feel it is anthropomorphizing the deity, or because they think that an impersonal being is a more sophisticated, more rarefied concept. Speaking for myself, I think that a person is superior to any impersonal thing, just as a human being is superior to a rock.  For me, personality (as distinguished from ego in the narrow sense) is not a negative but a positive. A divine being that lacks personality would strike me as inferior, and therefore as unlikely.

Similarly, the Eastern view of human personality is that it is disposable - a mere mask that is discarded after a lifetime of performing on this earthly stage. The Judeo-Christian tradition places much more value in the individual personality, and insists that it is this personality (in a transcendent form) that will survive death - the identifiable "I," not some impersonal life force that is interchangeable with and indistinguishable from all others.

I have to say that I find the Judeo-Christian view (in these respects) more palatable, more uplifting, and more credible. I also think that "cases of the reincarnation type," when they are not explicable by normal means, are probably best explained as the work of misguided spirits - spirits who, in some cases, may have been misled by the very doctrine of reincarnation itself!

Anyway, that's my view. But I don't really know, and your mileage may vary.

The subconscious

There's a discussion about inspiration and its sources going on at the blog of my fellow author J. Carson Black right now. "Jake," as she is known, made reference to my thoughts on the matter, and naturally I felt the irresistible compulsion to comment ... and comment ... and comment.

My contribution to the discussion turned out to be embarrassingly long-winded. It takes a lot of work to bloviate at this length. So, in the interest of maximizing the return on my effort, I'm also posting my comment here.

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[Jake:] >My friend Michael Prescott thinks the whole subconscious thing is highly over-rated. He’s not sure where inspiration comes from; the jury’s still out.

Yes, I have a problem with "explaining" everything by making reference to the subconscious. The problem is that it doesn't really explain all that much. It's like using the word "instinct" to explain animal behavior. Why do birds fly south? Instinct. Okay, and what exactly is instinct? Well ... you know ... it's what makes birds fly south. And around and around we go.

Truth is, we don't really know what makes birds fly south, on schedule, often to remote nesting grounds that are seemingly impossible to find (and which, in the case of birds hatched in captivity, they have never even been to). It's a mystery. Similarly, where our inspirations come from is also a mystery, and saying it's from our subconscious doesn't really answer the question.

I'm not saying there is no such thing as instinct and the subconscious, only that we don't understand how they work or what they are. The words are just placeholders for ideas and theories that have not yet been developed.

Now, at the risk of seeming unduly mystical, I think that we and all living things are surrounded by energies of various kinds, and that these energies are responsible for many of the mysteries of life. British biologist Rupert Sheldrake has postulated the existence of "morphic fields" that influence animal behavior across time and space. And I think there is good evidence for the continuation of consciousness after death - in which case we are surrounded by the psychic energies of discarnate human beings, as well. (I told you this was going to get mystical.)

Some composers and musical virtuosos have said that they felt they were being guided by a deceased master - the psychic energy of a Rachmaninoff or a Toscanini, say. Some writers believe they can channel the thoughts of the deceased, and have written whole books of such material, some of which are of high quality. Edison was so convinced that communication with the dead was possible that he spent the last years of his life working on a machine for that purpose (which was never completed). And many people have reported getting a message from "beyond" during a period of personal crisis, when they needed it most.

So while I think there is such a thing as the subconscious (whatever it may be), I also think that our inspirations often come to us from an outside source - though they are perhaps filtered through our subconscious before they reach our conscious mind.

In my own case, I have found that if I ask for help on a problem and then wait for an answer, I will usually obtain an answer within a day or two. This may come as a sudden "inspiration," or a synchronicity (meaningful coincidence), or a news item that I "just happen" to notice. Whom am I asking, exactly? The simplest answer is what Spiritualists call their "spirit guides" or sometimes simply "Spirit." Am I 100% sure that I am getting the answer from spirit guides, as opposed to some more mundane source? No - but then, I'm not 100% sure of anything, really. What I do know is that this method works. Try it with an open mind and see.

Now, has anyone out there had experiences like this? Or am I the only one who's crazy? :-)

Born again?

I've never been much of a believer in reincarnation, mainly because the doctrine doesn't make sense to me. How can you "be" a whole bunch of different people and still "be" yourself? If you reincarnate and forget most or all of what you experienced in your previous life, then how can "you" be said to still exist?

Recently, however, I came across an explanation that does make some sense to me. It's here.

As for the evidence for reincarnation, it is largely comprised of two different bodies of data: past-life regressions under hypnosis, and young children's spontaneous recollections of past lives.

The hypnosis data are problematic, because hypnotized subjects have a known tendency to confabulate, i.e., to make stuff up. They will say whatever they think the hypnotist wants to hear. And it is possible for long-buried memories of historical books and films to resurface during hypnosis in surprising detail. One woman, under hypnosis, recalled living in ancient Roman times ... but investigation showed that all the details of her story were taken from a novel about ancient Rome, which she must have read years earlier and consciously forgotten. On the other hand, some data from hypnotic regressions cannot be so easily explained.

Children's recollections (garnered without hypnosis) are better evidence, at least when they can be verified. The psychologist Ian Stevenson has made a career of studying such cases, going to great lengths to track down such children, interview them, and validate their claims. I think much of this evidence is legitimate, but I had previously thought that it could be explained as unconscious channeling of the dead, for reasons given here. This may still be the explanation, but perhaps reincarnation (in some sense similar to what is described in the above-linked essay) is an equally good answer.

The Stephen Experience

A book I'm reading now is The Stephen Experience, by Michael Cocks. The "Stephen" of the title is purportedly St. Stephen, who was stoned to death after declaring his faith in Jesus (Acts 6:8 - 7:60). For a number of years beginning in the 1970s, this historical figure allegedly spoke through a New Zealander, Thomas Ashman, while Ashman was in trance. A number of historical and philosophical messages were received, many of them quite intriguing.

Of course, it is impossible to confirm that the alleged communicant really is St. Stephen. The strongest evidence in this regard is a statement that "Stephen" allegedly made in Greek. The Greek in question is Koine Greek, the dialect spoken in Jesus' day. One of the words in this statement is not Greek, but a Thracian loanword. Inasmuch as "Stephen" says that he came from Thrace, the use of this loanword is appropriate. (A loanword is a word imported from another language; for instance, the French term savoir-faire, which is now part of standard English.)

One might, perhaps, imagine Thomas Ashman researching Koine Greek and cobbling together a statement in this language as part of a complex hoax, but it seems less likely that he would have been able to track down a Thracian loanword and use it correctly.

In any case, what is most interesting to me is not the identity of the communicant but some of the messages he delivered. These are meaningful to me, and possibly they will have some meaning to you also.

But first, a word of warning from the author, Michael Cocks, is appropriate:

If we read [Stephen's] words too quickly, we will be inclined to give ourselves the impression [that they are nothing more than] not too meaningful spiritual talk. This is a great mistake, for every sentence is laden with meaning... I have to read his words slowly, meditatively, as if I were reading poetry. (p. 77)

With this in mind, here are two passages that I particularly liked. First, an analogy explaining the necessity of our "unconsciousness" of spiritual things in this life:

Then you say, "Would it not be easier if the Lord our God were to make it very clear to use what the purpose is ...?" ...

But think how a surgeon would act if, when he had to operate, he had to keep the patient conscious, adjust mirrors so the patient could see the operation that would be beyond his understanding in any case ... In actual practice the patient is treated, and bathed, and is given what medication he may need. He is clothed in a gown most suitable for access, and he is put in a place most suitable for the operation. He is kept in a state so that no pain more than he can bear will be administered to him. When the operation is completed and the wound is healed, and the disorder corrected, then the patient may arise and even discuss the disorder and sickness with the surgeon, and learn from him.

This must be the order of things; therefore, that the patient must trust his surgeon, and carry out his instructions regarding what the patient must know or do, or rather, not do. Likewise the patient must love his Lord God with all his heart, and all his soul, he must trust his God, as he trusts his surgeon, for when he comes to the operating table he is by his own choice made unconscious of the things that are about to happen. Even if he were a surgeon himself, he would still be unconscious at the time of the operation... So, therefore, you must trust your surgeon, have faith in his skill, place yourself in his hands and love him. (p. 74)

Second, an anecdote about Jesus himself:

Some of [Jesus'] friends wished him to prove to others conclusively his relationship with God, and the power that he would possess, by the grace of God.... And Jesus answered at that time: He said, "If you would see the power of God, then choose anybody other than yourself you would wish to die at this moment. This I will perform for you." Of course, the choice was not made, but a great lesson was taught to those who heard." (p. 91)

The author adds in a footnote:

Perhaps the train of thought is that the power of Divine Love was manifested indeed because they could not contemplate such a death, for they are not separate, but one. 

In other words, Jesus' point was that the real miracle was not any demonstration of his powers, but the inability of good-hearted people to will the death of another.

I may post other excerpts from this book from time to time.