In fact, reality has become your God of choice. As for me, I remain an ever hopeful dreamer.
Dreamers are asleep!
Reality is a nice place to be. But, we have to be awake to enjoy it.
T.
Discussion of Mysticism and Interesting thought by Rudolf Stiener
by frankiespeakin 77 Replies latest jw friends
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Terry
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frankiespeakin
I'm going to try again to understand R.Stiener's Statements:
The difficulty of grasping the essential nature of thinking by observation lies in this, that it has all too easily eluded the introspecting soul by the time the soul tries to bring it into the focus of attention.
It is like a dog chasing its tail. If thoughts or thinking are mental chatter we are conscious of, that goes on inside the mind then when we sit quitely to observe this,, thinking will stop when we finally focus our attention on observation and all that is left to observe is nonthinking and so we cannot observe thinking in a very focused way or with 100% focus. As focus observation increases thinking decreases until focus is 100% and mental chatter is 0%. That is if we can only consciously think of one thing at a time. This is not to include the subconscious which seems to be able to multitask effortlessly. Which make me think that perhaps when this state of observation is reached the unconscious or subconscious becomes observable which is nothing like the ego dominated consciousness we normally experience.
Nothing then remains to be inspected but the lifeless abstraction, the corpse of the living thinking. If we look only at this abstraction, we may easily find ourselves compelled to enter into the mysticism of feeling or perhaps the metaphysics of will, which by contrast appear so "full of life".
When we reach this mental state of observation and thought chatter quites down we are left with a lifeless abstraction which brings one to a unusual state of just being or observing with no judgements since thoughts have ceased. In this state it appears to be full of life, feeling become more real unclutered by thoughts and judgements. Since one is only observing and not thinking, judgements cease too, there is no ownership of feelings they just are there to be observed, once one starts to judge and conceptualize these feelings think has started and observation is reduced. This is perhaps what many call Nirvana or Satori.
We should then find it strange that anyone should expect to grasp the essence of reality in "mere thoughts".
This experience is so profound that our views of reality no longer rely on mental chatter or conscious thoughts.
But if we once succeed in really finding life in thinking, we shall know that swimming in mere feelings, or being intuitively aware of the will element, cannot even be compared with the inner wealth and the self-sustaining yet ever moving experience of this life of thinking, let alone be ranked above it.
This one really puzzles me???
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Markfromcali
But if we once succeed in really finding life in thinking, we shall know that swimming in mere feelings, or being intuitively aware of the will element, cannot even be compared with the inner wealth and the self-sustaining yet ever moving experience of this life of thinking, let alone be ranked above it.
This one really puzzles me???It would puzzle 'the mind' because it cannot go there.
In spite of the ambiguity of translation, it strikes me as being like the zen ox-herding pictures. Specifically it's where you move from emptiness back into the world, but now it is not a matter of conditioning/karma/whatever, being tossed about by the 'ten thousand things.' But of course even then you'd still think, you don't become a space cadet - there is just not all the useless mind chatter.
Also it's not a matter of a particular moment like ok from this point on I am abiding in the emptiness, (pure potential) it HAPPEND - things can progress on multiple level simultaneously. So even before that is fully realized you can act 'from that place' in daily life, whether it's mental or physical activity. It's just a matter of how clearly it comes through, no big deal. As Steven says in another one of his songs:
I'll find that place that is no place at all
At the center of the center of the center of the wheel -
Rod P
Well Terry, with respect, how do you know for sure that your explanation of "Necessity" to account for simultaneous discovery is the only possible answer? I simply see your argument as but another possibility. Maybe your conclusion is also unwarranted.
I would argue that science has not yet progressed to the point where it can understand or measure and replicate many things of the spiritual, metaphysical, mystical realms. And while the Mystics and Spiritualists have, had, and always will have, their share of charlatans and deceivers, Scientists, with their New Religion, have their share of Sacred Cows too.(We could have a real debate in this area, but I presume you already know about this.)
It is my thesis that the gap between science and spirituality are actually narrowing, so that they are moving closer together. I believe the day will come when these two disparate perspective will actually become one or unified, because the tools of the scientist will reach the point of sophisticated development that it will be able to test, quantify and replicate all of the manifestations of this ancient frontier for the first time. Spirituality and Metaphysics, and all of the fields of paranormal phenomena will one day be explainable by Science, and we will discover that it all operates by natural law. At that point, the Scientist will no longer have to adopt the position of the Skeptic, and the Spiritual Practitioner or Believer will not have to regard Science as its detractor.
Here is one more article that I hope you all will find informative and useful:
Spiritual Science: DNA is Influenced by Words and Frequencies- by Grazyne Foser and Franz Bludorf
DNA Can Be Influenced And Reprograammed By Words And Frequencies Russian DNA Discoveries
The human DNA is a biological internet and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), the mind's influence on weather patterns and much more.
IN addition, there is evidence for a whole new type of medicine in which dna can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies WITHOUT cutting out and replacing single genes.
Only 10% of our dna is being used for building proteins. It is this subset of dna that is of interest to western researchers and is being examined and categorized. The other 90% are considered "junk dna". The Russian researchers, however, convinced that nature was not dumb, joined linguists and geneticists in a venture to explore those 90% of "junk dna". Their results, findings and conclusions are simply revolutionary!
According to them, our dna is not only responsible for the construction of our body, but also serves as data storage and communication. The Russian linguists found that the genetic code, expecially in the apparently useless 90%, follows the same rules as all our human languages. To this end they compared the rules of syntax (the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences), semantics (the study of meaning in lanugage forms) and the basic rules of grammer.
They found that the alkalines of our dna follow regular grammar and do have set rules just like our languages. So human languages did not appear coincidentally, but are a reflection of our inherent dna.
The Russina biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues also explored the vibrational behavior of the dna. [For the sake of brevity I will give only a summary here.....]
The bottom line was:
"Living chromosomes function just like solitonic/holographic computers using the endogenous dna laser radiation."
This means that they managed, for example, to modulate certain frequency patterns onto a laser ray and with it influenced the dna frequency and thus the genetic information itself. Since the basic structure of the dna-alkaline pairs and of language (as explained earlier) are of the same structure, no dna decoding is necessary. One can simply use the words and sentences of the human language!
This, too, was experimentally proven! Living dna substance (in living tissue, not in vitro) will always react to language-modulated laser rays and even to radio waves, if the proper frequencies are being used. This finally and scientifically explains why affirmations, autogenous training, hypnosis and the like can have such strong effects on humans and their bodies. It is entirely normal and natural for our dna to react to language. While western researchers cut single genes from the dna strands and insert them elsewhere, the Russians enthusiastically worked on devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects.
Garjajeva's research group succeeded in proving that, with this method, chromosomes damaged by x-rays for example, can be repaired. They even captured information patterns of a particular dna and transmitted it onto another, thus reprogramming cells to another genome. So they successfully transformed, for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the dna information patterns.
This way, the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects or disharmonies encountered when cutting out and re-introducing single genes from the dna. This represents an unbelievable, world-transforming revolution and sensation! All this by simply applying vibration and language instead of archaic cutting-out procedure! This experiment points to the immense power of wave genetics, which obviously has a greater influence on the formation of organisms than the biochemical processes of alkaline sequences.
Esoteric and spiritual teachers have known for ages that our body is programmable by language, words and thought. This has now been scientifically proven and explained. Of course, the frequency has to be correct. And this is why not everybody is equally successful or can do it with always the same strength. The individual person must work on the inner processes and maturity in order to establish a conscious communication with the dna. The Russian researchers work on a method that is not dependent on these factors but will ALWAYS work, provided one uses the correct frequency.
But the higher developed an individual's consciousness is, the less need is there for any type of device! One can achieve these results by oneself, and science will finally stop laughing at such ideas and will confirm and explain the results. And it doesn't end there. The Russian scientists also found out that our dna can cause disturbing patterns in the vacuum, thus producing magnetized wormholes! Wormholes are the microscopic equivalents of the so-called Einstein-Rosen bridges in the vicinity of black holes (left by burned-out stars).
These are tunnel connections between entirely different areas in the universe through which information can be transmitted outside of space and time. The dna attracts these bits of information and passes them on to our consciousness. This process of hypercommunication is most effective in a state of relaxation. Stress, worries or a hyperactive intellect prevent hypercommunication or the information will be totally distorted and useless. In nature, hypercommunication has been successfully applied for millions of years. The organized flow of life in insect states proves this dramatically. Modern man knows it only on a much more subtle level as "intuition". But we, too, can regain full use of it.
Such hypercommunication is then experienced as inspiration or intuition. The Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini, for instance, dreamt one night that a devil sat at his bedside playing the violin. The next morning Tartini was able to note down the piece exactly from memory; he called it the Devil's Trill Sonata.
For years a 42-yar old male nurse dreamt of a situation in which he was hooked up to a kind of knowledge CD-ROM. Verifiable knowledge from all imaginable fields was then transmitted him that he was able to recall in the mornng. There was such a flood of information that it seemed a whole encyclopedia was transmitted at night. The majority of facts were outside his personal knowledge base and reached technical details about which he knew absolutely nothing.
When hypercommunication occurs, one can observe in the dna as well as in the human being special phenomena. The Russian scientists irradiated dna samples with laser light. On screen a typical wave pattern was formed. When they removed the dna sample, the wave pattern did not disappear; it remained. Many control experiments showed that the pattern still came from the removed sample, whose energy field apparently remained by itself. This effect is now called "phantom dna effect".
It is surmised that energy from outside of space and time still flows through the activated wormholes after the dna was removed. The side effect encountered most often in hypercommunication and also in human beings, are inexplicable electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of the persons concerned.
Electronic devices like CD players and the like can be irritated and cease to function for hours. When the electromagnetic field slowly dissipated, the devices function normally again. Many healers and psychics know this effect from their work. The better the atmosphere and the energy, the more frustrating it is that the recording device stops functioning and recording exactly at that moment. And repeated switching on and off after the session does not restore function yet, but next morning all is back to normal. Perhaps this is reassuring to read for many, as it has nothing to do with them being technically inept; it means they are good at hypercommunication.
In their book "Vernetzte Intelligenz" (Networked Intelligence), Grazyna Gosar and Franz Bludorf explain these connections precisely and clearly.
The authors also quote sources presuming that in earlier times humanity had been, just like the animals, very strongly connected to the group consciousness and acted as a group. To develop and experience individuality we humans however had to forget hypercommunication almost completely.
Now that we are fairly stable in our individual consciousness, we can create a new form of group consciousness, namely one in which we attain access to all information via our dna without being forced or remotely controlled about what to do with that information. We now know that just as on the internet, our dna can feed its proper data into the network, can call up data from the network, and can establish contact with other participants in the network.
Remote healing, telepathy or "remote sensing" about the state of relatives, etc. can thus be explained. Some animals know also from afar when their owners plan to return home, that can be freshly interpreted and explained in the concepts of group consciousness and hypercommunication. Any collective consciousness cannot be sensibly used over any period of time with a distinctive individuality. Otherwise, we would revert ot a primitive herd instinct that is easily manipulated.
Hypercommunication in the new millennium means something quite different: Researchers think that if humans with full individuality would regain group consiciousness, they would have a god-like power to create, alter and shape things on earth! AND humanity is collectively moving toward such a group consciousness of the new kind. Fifty percent of today's children will be problem children as soon as they go to school. The system lumps everyone together and demands adjustment. But the individuality of today's children is so strong that they refuse this adjustment and giving up their idiosyncrasies in the most diverse ways.
At the same time, more and more clairvoyant children are born (see the book "China's Indigo Children" by Paul Dong ....) Something in those children is striving more and more towards group consciousness of the new kind, and it will no longer be suppressed! As a rule weather, for example, is rather difficult to influence by a single individual. But it may be influenced by a group consciousness (nothing new to some tribes doing it in their rain dances). Weather is strongly influence by earth resonance frequencies, the so-called Schumann frequencies. But those same frequencies are also produced in our brains, and when many people synchronize their thinking or individuals (spiritual masters, for instance) focus their thoughts in a laser-like fashion, then it is, scientifically speaking, not at all surprising if they can thus influence weather.
Researchers in group consciousness have formulated the theory of Type I civilizations. A humanity that developed a group consciousness of the new kind would have neither environmental problems, nor scarcity of energy. For if it were to use its mental power as a unified civilization, it would have control of the energies of its home planet as a natural consequence. And that included all natural catastrophes!!! A theoretical Type !! civilization would even be able to control all energies fo their home galaxy.
In my book "Nutze die taeglichen Wunder", I have described an example of this: Whenever a great many people focus their attention or consciousness on something similar like Christmas time, football world championship or the funeral of Lady Diana in England, then certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of the random ones. An ordered group consciousness creates order in its whole surroundings!!!
http://noosphere-princeton.edu/fristwall2.html
When a great number of people get together very closely, potentials of violence also dissolve. It looks as if here, too, a kind of humanitariuan consciousness of all humanity is created. At the love Parade, for example, where every year about one million young people congregate, there has never been any brutal riots as they occur for instance, at sports events. The name f the event alone is not seen as the cause here. The result of an analysis indicated rather that the number of people was TOO GREAT to allow a tipping over to violence,
To come back to the dna: It apparently is also an organic superconductor that can work at normal body temperature. Artificial superconductors require extremely low temperatures of between -200 and -140 degrees Celsius to function.
As one recently learned, all superconductors are able to store light and thus information. This is a further explanation of how the dna can store information. There is another phenomenon linked to dna and wormholes. Normally, these super small wormholes are highly unstable and are maintained only for the tiniest fractions of a second. Under certain conditions, wormholes can organize themselves, which then form distinctive vacuum domains in which, for example, gravity can transform into electricity. Vacuum domains are self-radiant balls of ionized gas that contain considerable amounts of energy.
There are regions in Russia where such radiant balls appear very often. Following the ensuing confusion, the Russians started massive research programs leading finally to some of the discoveries mentioned above. Many people know vacuum domains as shiny balls in the sky. They attentively look at them in wonder and ask themselves "What could they be?" I thought once: "Hello up there. If you happen to be a UFO, fly in a triangle." And suddenly, the light balls moved in a triangle. Or they shot across the sky like ice hockey pucks.They accelerated from zero to crazy speeds while sliding gently across the sky.
One is left gawking and I have, as many others, too, thought them to be UFO's. Friendly ones, apparently, as they flew in triangles just to please me. Now the Russians found in the regions where vacuum domains appear often that sometimes fly as balls of light from the ground upwards into the sky, that these balls can be guided by thought. One has found out since that vacuum domains emit waves of low frequency as they are also produded in our brains. And because of this similarity of waves they are able to react to our thoughts.
To run excitedly into one that is on ground level might not be such a great idea., because those balls of light can contain immense energies and are able to mutate our genes. They can; they don't necessarily have to, one has to say. For many spiritual teachers also produce such visible balls or columns of light in deep meditation or during energy work which trigger decidedly pleasant feelings, and do not cause any harm. Apparently this is also dependent on some inner order and on the quality and provenance of the vacuum domain.
There are some spiritual teachers (the young Englishman Ananda, for example) with whom nothing is seen at first, but when one tries to take a photograph while they sit and speak or meditate in hypercommunication, one gets only a picture of a white cloud on a chair. In some earth healing projects, such light effects also appear on photographs.
Simply put, these phenomena have to do with gravity and anti-gravity forces that are also exactly described in the book, and with ever more stable wormholes and hyper-communication, and thus with energies from outside our time and space structure. Earlier generations that got in contact with such hypercommunication experiences and visible vacuum domains were convinced that an angel had appeared before them.
And we cannot be too sure to what forms of consciousness we can get access when using hypercommunication. Not having scientific proof for their actual existence (people having had such experiences do NOT all suffer from hallucinations) does not mean that there is no metaphysical background to it. We have simply made another giant step towards understanding our reality.
Official science also knows of gravity anomalies on earth (that contribute to the formation of vacuum domains), but only of ones of below one percent. But recently gravity anomalies have been found of between three and four percent. One of these places is Rocca di papa, south of Rome (exact location in the book "Vernetzte Intelligenz" plus several others). Round objects of all kinds, from balls to full buses, roll uphill. But the stretch in Rocca di papa is rather short, and defying logic, skeptics still flee to the theory of optical illusion (which it cannot be due to several features of the location).
All information is from the book "Vernetzte Intelligenz" von Grazyna Fosar und Franz Bludorf, ISBN 3930243237, summaraized and commentated by Baerbel. Available only in German.
I leave this with you all to ponder Science and Metaphysics/Mysticism.
Rod P.
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Terry
Well Terry, with respect, how do you know for sure that your explanation of "Necessity" to account for simultaneous discovery is the only possible answer? I simply see your argument as but another possibility. Maybe your conclusion is also unwarranted.
I would argue that science has not yet progressed to the point where it can understand or measure and replicate many things of the spiritual, metaphysical, mystical realms. And while the Mystics and Spiritualists have, had, and always will have, their share of charlatans and deceivers, Scientists, with their New Religion, have their share of Sacred Cows too.(We could have a real debate in this area, but I presume you already know about this.)
There is a special branch of Rhetoric that deals with fallacy. One of which is THE ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam
Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance." The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true.
(Note that this isn't the same as assuming something is false until it has been proved true. In law, for example, you're generally assumed innocent until proven guilty.)
Here are a couple of examples:
"Of course the Bible is true. Nobody can prove otherwise."
"Of course telepathy and other psychic phenomena do not exist. Nobody has shown any proof that they are real."
In other words, there is only one practical way I know of to demonstrate my assertions and that is to look at what each has produced using its best methods:Science (and rational logic) and Mysticism (with its extra sensory origins).
Further.....
List the number of benefits which Science has produced for mankind using the Scientific Method of rational logic and the 5 senses. Then.....
List the number of benefits which Mysticism has produced for mankind.
I'd love to see such a list.
Terry
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Narkissos
Online Latin being easy to track back: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html
Another rhetorical fallacy from this page is "red herring":
This fallacy is committed when someone introduces irrelevant material to the issue being discussed, so that everyone's attention is diverted away from the points made, towards a different conclusion.
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frankiespeakin
Wow this is turning into an intereting discussion.
Rod,
The article doesn't have much documentation for all these claims. I've never read anything about this on DNA before do you have some sources other than this article?? It sounds kind of fantastic but were the scientific documentation to what they claim?
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Rod P
frankiespeakin;
Sorry, I was not meaning to "hijack your thread". I probably got out of line here, for which I apologize. What got me hopping was Terry's question "What is Mysticism?" in which he seemed to me, via a quotation from Ayn Rand, to be pooh-poohing anything Mystical because it was "supernatural, unknowable, non-sensory, non-rationale, etc. (I have some familiarity with her "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead", and her materialistic cult-like following of the 1960's)
In terms of other articles and sources and proofs, I will see what I can provide you with. There is a ton of experimental data, but it tends to be dry and lengthy, and would certainly not be appropriate on this forum.
Narkissos;
I know that what I spoke of and presented here is, in some respects, considerably off-topic respecting "Mysticism and Interesting Thought by Rudolf Steiner". It's just that I detect there are some really deep thinkers here on this thread, and I was implying "Hold that thought (the title of this thread), while I address Terry's comments on the deficiencies of Mysticism. At the same time, Narkissos, when I read your comments about the internal limit of language and conceptualization, I could not help but feel how appropriate this article was in terms of thoughts and words having an influence on our internal DNA. We are talking here about our essence and our being, and this is, to me, connecting science with the mystical. For this reason, I do not feel that I was engaging in the fallacy of the "red herring", notwithstanding I was off-topic on Rudolf Steiner.
Terry;
I do not disagree with your "Argument from Ignorance" principle. I just don't see it being relevant to my input here. I do not argue that Mysiticism, et al is true, simply because no-one can prove otherwise. Neither do I maintain that Mysticism and the paranormal do NOT exist, because no-one has shown any proof that they exist. I am saying there IS enough evidence of paranormal phenomena (i.e. operating beyond known physical laws) that science cannot readily dismiss or explain away. Instead of Science adopting the predisposition that this cannot be, and then inevitably finding a way to debunk it all, it is time for Science to adopt a more open mind, they should work more collaberatively with the Mystics and the Schools of the Paranormal, and then see what they discover. I believe they would discover untold wonders about this Universe that do defy all known physical laws, and would even discover the underlying explanations for the effects and experiences of the Mystics, etc. What possible harm could that be?
Further, I am not debating the benefits of Science vs. Mysticism here. What has that got to do with the question of whether Mysticism is grounded in reality or otherwise. Both Science and Mysticism are doorways of perception. It does not surprise me that Science, which is focussed on the physical level of reality, has produced many benefits for mankind. It has also done some serious damage, such as bombing and killing technologies and toxic chemicals and pollutants on land, air and water. And who knows where genetic engineering and cloning is going to lead us- human cloning and the food supply? Science without true spirituality (ethics?) will become our downfall.
What I am arguing is that Science and Mysticism may not be as far apart as we may think, and that they should work more closely together, rather than each denying and criticizing the other. The article above, IMO, gives compelling reason for this, and the potential benefits are enormous and revolutionary.
Rod P.
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frankiespeakin
Rod,
I like to mention that many scientist have turned to gurus for info well known physist David Bohm is one of them as well as Rupert Sheldrake, these are two that come to mind right off the bat.
Heres some good info on D. Bohm although there is quiet abit on the net :
TWM David Bohm David Bohm (1917-94) was one of the foremost theoretical physicists of his generation and one of the most influential theorists of the emerging paradigm through which the world is increasingly viewed. Bohm's challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to re-examine what it is they are doing and to question the nature of their theories and their scientific methodology. He brought together a radical view of physics, a deeply spiritual understanding and a profound humanity. In the years before his death in 1992, Bohm lectured worldwide on the meaning of physics and consciousness.
In an interview in 1989 at the Nils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, where Bohm presented his views, Bohm spoke on his theory of wholeness and the implicate order. The conversation centered around a new worldview that is developing in part of the Western world, one that places more focus on wholeness and process than analysis of separate parts. Bohm explained the basics of the theory of relativity and its more revolutionary offspring, quantum theory. Either theory, if carried out to its extreme, violates every concept on which we base our understanding of reality. Both challenge our notions of our world and ourselves.
He cited evidence from both theories that support a new paradigm of a more interrelated, fluid, and less absolute basis of existence, one in which mind is an active participant. "Information contributes fundamentally to the qualities of substance." He discussed forms, fields, superconductivity, wave function and electron behavior. "Wave function, which operates through form, is closer to life and mind...The electron has a mindlike quality."
In his groundbreaking theory of "wholeness and the implicate order", Bohm proposed a new model of reality that was a revolutionary challenge to physics. In this model, as in a hologram, any element contains enfolded within itself the totality of its universe. Bohm's concept of totality included both matter and mind.
Bohm also mentioned the dangers we face as a society and the changes we will have to make in our thinking in order to have a future. He said we need a more holistic approach to the ecological problem and must find something else in life besides economic growth; if it continues unchecked, it will destroy the planet.The emerging change in consciousness is the challenge and the key: "Our future depends on whether we feel like part of this one whole or whether we feel we're separate."
Mystic Fire Online ---------------------------- David Bohm was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists and philosophers and was deeply influenced by both J. Krishnamurti and Einstein. Born in Wiles-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1917, he studied under Einstein and Oppenheimer, received his B.Sc. degree from Pennsylvania State College in 1939 and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943. He was the last graduate student to study with Oppenheimer at U.C. in the 1940s, where he remained as a research physicist after Oppenheimer left for Los Alamos to work on the atomic bomb. He worked at Berkeley on the Theory of Plasma and on the Theory of Synchroton and Syndrocyclotrons until 1947. From 1947-1951 he taught at Princeton University as an Assistant Professor and worked on Plasmas, Theory of Metals, Quantum Mechanics and Elementary Particles.
He was blacklisted by Senator Joe McCarthy's witch-hunt trials while teaching at Princeton. Rather than testifying against his colleagues, he left the U.S. Bohm subsequently became Professor at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Technion of Haifa, Israel, and at Birkbeck College, University of London; Research Fellow at Bristol University; and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1990. Bohm lived in London and died in 1992.
Bohm was a member of the Royal Academy, the originator of the causal interpretation of quantum theory, and the author of a famous text on quantum mechanics and of numerous articles and other books. The best-known recent work was Wholeness and the Implicate Order. He wrote his classic book, Quantum Theory, in an attempt to understand quantum theory from Nils Bohr's point of view. After completing the book and communicating with Einstein on it, Bohm remained unsatisfied with the theory. Bohm's challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to re-examine what it is they are doing and to question the nature of their theories and their scientific methodology.
A profoundly contemplative man, Bohm arrived intuitively at universal truths and presented them in imaginative models, in the languages of both physics and philosophy. His physics and cosmology were all-encompassing and so far ahead of his time that few people were able to appreciate them. Mainstream physicists considered them too mystical, and few mystics could follow his subtle scientific reasoning. (Krishnamurti was a notable exception.)Bohm redefined physics. To him it was not about mere prediction and control, nor even mathematical equations. Though central to the enterprise, they are not its essence. Physics is about nature and our understanding of nature. For Bohm, its meaning and its message were creativity, the signature of an infinite universe. He saw it an undivided wholeness enfolded into an infinite background source that unfolds into the visible, material, and temporal world of our everyday lives. H
Here is an interesting place that might have some bearing on our subject:
http://www.wie.org/j11/default.asp Can scientific inquiry lead us to the same transcendent knowledge that the world's spiritual traditions speak of? Includes interviews with Huston Smith and Rupert Sheldrake, as well as articles by E. F. Schumacher and Fritjof Capra.
Letters
From the Editors
Introduction to this issue by Andrew CohenAndrew Cohen
Knowledge, Power and Enlightenment
"When the knowledge of perfection is the ground of all conscious experience . . . that perfection becomes the very source of mind itself."F. David Peat
A Look For Truth,
No Matter Where It Takes You
David Bohm, renowned theoretical physicist and close associate of the great spiritual visionary J. Krishnamurti, is remembered by his friend, colleague and biographer.
Interview by Simeon AlevFritjof Capra and E.F. Schumacher
What Matters Most
Why do two equally passionate critics of the scientific-materialist worldview differ so fundamentally on the capacity of the "new science" to answer humanity's most important questions?Amit Goswami
Scientific Proof of the Existence of God
A physicist explains how his mystical realization that consciousness is the ground of being helped him to solve the troubling paradoxes of quantum mechanics.
Interview by Craig HamiltonHuston Smith
Where do Your Loyalties Lie?
"In Descartes's fall, we sinned all." A world-famous religious scholar and spiritual practitioner critiques science's overreach of its rightful grasp.
Interview by Michael TomsFritjof Capra
Is It True That...
the Buddha Would Just Be a Physicist?
What's wrong with this picture? An excerpt from an interview with one of the new paradigm's foremost pioneers.
Interview by Renée WeberRupert Sheldrake
Maybe Angels
A controversial biologist explores the consciousness of the universe and dissects the materialist creed.
Interview by Hal BlackerHas Heaven Died and Gone to Physics?
A review of The Physics of Immortality, Frank J. Tipler's reductionist prophecy of an eternity far stranger than paradise.Andrew Cohen
Final Purity
"Purity can become manifest only when one is able to live without reservation in the knowledge that one doesn't know and will never know." -
Rod P
frankiespeakin,
Thanks for all the info. It looks like I will be a while exploring all this. Between you and Narkissos, I may be buried. He's got me going on Gnosticism. Now you've got me on Physics.
I used to have breakfast meetings every day with a group of friends who were all interested in physics, and particularly Einstein's General and Special Theory of Relativity. I always had difficulty with the premise of the formula E = M x (C squared), where C is the speed of light, a constant. That constant was determined by physical observation = 186,000 miles per second (approx). The presumption is that since nothing physically observed travels faster than that speed, therefore this is the limit of all matter travelling in this universe. (Then in the nuclear physics they discovered particles that actually travelled faster than the speed of light, called Tachyons.) Who is to say that anything travelling beyond the speed of light is even in the visible spectrum. All I'm saying is, that the formula is a mathematical construct, and when the mass of the object reaches the speed of light, the mass purportedly becomes infinite. (This is with respect to another formula that is much more complex than the one above.) In other words, the "formula tail" seems to be wagging the "physics dog". Mathematics can sometimes yield weird and even contradictory results, which makes it difficult to translate it's true meaning in terms of physical reality. Yet the logic all fits neatly. That is why I am suspicious of the mathematics of physics in some areas, especially when we reach the marginal limits of the universe.
Anyway, the main mentor around the breakfast table, Mel Winfield, has developed a theory consistent with the notion that the Universe did not begin with the Big Bang, but rather a Constant State Universe that goes thru cycles of expansion and contraction. He is by no means alone on this. He also has a radically new theory on the atom and particle physics and gravity, which, if true, would turn the world of physics upside down.
Rod P.