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The Science of Creating Miracles
Neuroscience, Quantum Physics,
and Living the Life of Your Dreams
Dr. Larry Farwell
A practical guide to success and happiness in life
by a world-renowned neuroscientist,
selected by TIME magazine to the TIME 100,
the top innovators of our time,
“the Picassos or Einsteins of the 21st Century.”
Dr. Farwell’s pioneering scientific research has proven that you can create miracles in your life. This book shows you how.
DRAFT Revised August 6, 2021
Copyright © 2014-2021 Dr. Larry Farwell
All rights reserved.
So let us see whether we cannot draw the correct, non-contradictory conclusion from the following two premises:
(i) My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the Laws of Nature.
(ii) Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I foresee the effects, that may be fateful and all important, in which case I feel and take responsibility for them.
The only possible inference from these two facts is, I think, that I – I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt “I” – am the person, if any, who controls the “motion of the atoms” according to the Laws of Nature.
-- Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of quantum physics
When you create a thought, it springs from the unbounded field of consciousness which is your essential nature and is also the same as the conscious unified field, the unified field of quantum mechanics from which the particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical universe spring like waves on an ocean. Therefore in consciously creating a thought you can simultaneously create that reality in the physical universe.
We have proven this in the scientific laboratory using state-of-the-art quantum physics apparatus.
The practical application of all this is that you can create miracles, create your life according to your highest vision and aspirations, and live the life of your dreams.
The Science of Creating Miracles: Neuroscience, Quantum Physics, and Living the Life of Your Dreams is about how to do that.
-- Dr. Larry Farwell
Table of Contents
My First Encounter with Weapons-Grade Plutonium.. 19
Why I Nearly Did Not Publish This Book, and Then Did. 25
1. The Conscious Unified Field Experiment 32
How the Conscious Unified Field Experiment Worked. 33
What Took Place in the Conscious Unified Field Experiment 35
Practical Implications of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment 36
Completion and Significance of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment 37
The First Scientific Presentation on the Conscious Unified Field Experiment 42
2. The Unified Field and Human Life. 44
Perception in the Universe of the Unified Field. 46
Is Command of the Unified Field Possible?. 50
The Conscious Unified Field. 52
The Newtonian Materialist Paradigm.. 54
Quantum Mechanics Contradicts the Materialist Paradigm.. 57
Our Role in the Universe of the Conscious Unified Field. 59
SuperPosition and Transmutation: A Preview.. 63
3. What is The Science of Creating Miracles?. 68
4. The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm.. 75
The Conscious Unified Experiment and Your Own Experience. 75
A Reality Check: The Findings of Experts in Spiritual Experience. 76
Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and the Congruence of Scientific and Spiritual Realms. 78
5. The Beginning of My Journey. 83
A Simple Way to Experience Your Blind Spot 92
Intellectual and Experiential Blind Spots. 98
7. Science and Consciousness. 102
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm Revisited. 104
Quantum Mechanics on the Christmas Tree. 108
Fundamental Working Hypotheses of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm.. 112
Who Am I: Human Life in the Real Universe. 116
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm and the Current State of Physics. 118
Resonant Frequencies and the Structure of Life and the Universe. 119
My “Aha!” in Neuroscience, and Your “Aha!” in Life. 124
Resonance: We Attract What We Resonate With. 128
MERMER Moments Put Your Brain in Reprogramming Mode. 130
Transmutation Enlivens Your True Blueprint 133
SuperPosition and the Transmutation Trigger Technique. 135
Every Message Is a Blessing. 137
Negative Experiences Resonate with Something Foreign in You. 139
Create Positive Opportunities for Transmutation. 141
Transmutation Guides and Guided Transmutation. 143
Gain Command of Your Experience of Life. 143
Transmutation, and Insight Too. 150
Creating Transmutation Moments: How to Put Your Brain in Reprogramming Mode. 152
Jump out of an airplane without a parachute. 152
Tell the truth. The truth will set you free. 153
You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets. 158
Neurons and Neurotransmitters. 159
The Peripheral Nervous System.. 160
The Central Nervous System.. 161
The Brain Functions as an Integrated Whole. 163
How We Attract What We Resonate With. 168
10. Applied Neuroscience and the Brain 170
Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Responses and EEG.. 170
Detecting Criminals and Freeing Innocents with Brainwaves. 173
11. Structures and Functions of the Brain 178
The Frontal Lobe and Prefrontal Cortex. 181
The Man Who Lost His Personality. 182
The Parietal, Occipital, and Temporal Lobes. 186
Structure and Function of the Limbic System.. 188
The Man Who Lost His Memory. 190
Light and the Limbic System.. 198
Brain Structures and Facets of a Human Being. 200
12. Self-Knowledge, Integration, and Resonance: The Key to Happiness and Success 202
Intellect and Emotions: The Prefrontal Cortex and the Limbic System.. 202
Transmutation and Self-Knowledge. 207
Transmutation and Integration. 211
Transmutation and Resonance. 212
Creating Integration and Resonance between the Prefrontal Cortex and the Limbic System.. 214
Creating Integration and Resonance Between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems. 216
Love or Fear: The Approach and Avoidance Systems. 220
13. Optimizing Brain Function. 225
The Brain Function Optimization System.. 225
Vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field. 227
The Energized Intuition Technique. 230
The Energized Transmutation Technique. 233
15. The Key to Successful and Delightful Relationships: Know Yourself and Be Yourself 242
Resonance in Relationships. 242
Value, Power, and Safety Revisited. 244
Resonance Is Effortless and Spontaneous. 245
Why Does Mutual Attraction Seem So Elusive?. 246
The Key to Relationships: Resonance on Every Level of Life. 249
16. Using Your Cosmic Quantum Computer to Create Miracles. 256
Your Brain Is a Quantum Computer 262
The Cosmic Quantum Computer Technique. 265
17. Anything Is Possible: Create Miracles Through Conscious Manifestation. 269
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm Revisited. 269
Examples of Conscious Manifestation in My Life. 274
Conscious Manifestation and the Conscious Unified Field. 289
Conscious Manifestation, Transmutation, and SuperPosition. 291
How to Raise Your Level of Consciousness. 292
How to Develop Skill in Conscious Manifestation. 294
Inner Resonance and Integration. 295
18. Using Your Brain to Explore New Horizons in the Universe. 307
Your Brain and Other Instruments for Exploring the Universe. 307
Primary/Natural and Secondary/Artificial Instruments. 307
Primary and Secondary Means of Investigating the Universe. 312
Unique Ability of the Human Brain to Reflect Consciousness. 313
Scientific vs. Dogmatic Approaches. 315
Beyond the Current State of the Art in Physics and Neuroscience. 318
Multidimensional Theory of Miracles. 336
Conscious Empirical Experience Is the Key to Scientific Exploration. 339
The Conscious Unified Field Is the Key to Conscious Empirical Experience. 340
19. The Science of Creating Miracles and You 341
The Conscious Unified Field Is the Key to Creating Miracles. 341
Transmutation Is the Key to the Conscious Unified Field. 342
The Science of Creating Miracles Is the Key to Transmutation. 343
You Are the Key to the Science of Creating Miracles. 345
20. A Personal Message, With Love, From Me to You. 347
Foreword by Marci Shimoff
I’ve always believed in miracles. Even as a child, I intrinsically knew that more was possible than could be seen. Later in life, I got to experience the truth of this personally, as well as professionally in my work as a speaker, author, and transformational leader.
As the co-author of 6 titles in the Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul series, which feature real-life inspirational stories from people around the world, I had the extraordinary experience of getting to read 20,000 stories that were submitted for those books. More than 5,000 of those stories were about some kind of miracle!
Between reading those stories and hearing thousands more miraculous accounts from members of my Your Year of Miracles online program, the miraculous has become irrefutable to me. I’m always astounded to hear every story– from the simplest to the most extraordinary–of how miracles happen every day and in every area of life.
As a lifelong student of meditation and personal development, I’ve had a deep understanding of how miracles work on the spiritual level. I’ve seen how we can create the conditions for miracles to flow in our lives–I call this living in the miracle zone. For the last decade, I’ve had the honor and joy of guiding thousands of people in living their own miraculous lives.
However, I’ve never known how to explain the science behind how miracles work.
Recently, a mutual friend reconnected me with Dr. Larry Farwell, who’s written this book in your hands — The Science of Creating Miracles. Thankfully, I no longer need to try to figure out the science of miracles, because Larry has captured it brilliantly here.
As a scientist, Larry has made some great scientific discoveries and inventions of our time. He’s the inventor of Brain Fingerprinting, a scientific technique to measure brainwaves to detect concealed information stored in the brain which has been used to catch serial killers and terrorists, and to free innocent people falsely imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit. He also invented the first brain-computer interface that allows people to communicate with a computer and speech synthesizer using brainwaves alone, so completely paralyzed people can “talk.”
There’s no question that Larry has a brilliant mind, but what makes his work so powerful is his brilliance in tandem with his caring heart. I’ve known Larry for more than 25 years, and I appreciate his dedication to helping others transform and live the lives of their dreams.
In this book, Larry fuses together a passion for helping people with the science that explains just how powerful our consciousness is. He shares evidence of spiritual concepts through quantum physics and scientific experiments, and provides strategies and tools for living an empowered, loving, and miraculous life.
Now is the time on the planet for this kind of message. We’re at a transition point, and we have the opportunity as a society to make quantum shifts in our individual lives and in our world.
May The Science of Creating Miracles support you in living the miraculous life you’re here for. And may it serve all of humanity to create a world that is sustainable, healthy, and filled with peace and harmony — the world that we’ve all dreamed of.
— Marci Shimoff, #1 New York Times Best Selling Author of Happy for No Reason, Love For No Reason, and Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul, Featured Teacher in The Secret, Co-founder of Your Year of Miracles
How to Read This Book
How to read this book depends on who you are and what your primary purpose is in reading it. The overall purpose of The Science of Creating Miracles: Neuroscience, Quantum Physics, and Living the Life of Your Dreams is to provide you with the knowledge and experience of miracles in your life, and to give you practical techniques that you can apply to create the life of your dreams.
The various chapters in The Science of Creating Miracles cover several different topics.
Quantum Physics
Neuroscience
Living the Life of Your Dreams
- you can learn and practice for applying the Science of Creating Miracles in your life;
It is not necessary to read this book sequentially from beginning to end. Depending on your interests, purpose, and goals, you may read the sections in a different order, or read only the sections of most interest to you.
Some of you will be fascinated by the science. You may be a scientist, or simply one who is intrigued by science and likes to understand things scientifically, thoroughly, deeply, and comprehensively. Some of you may be skeptics who want to see the scientific proof before applying the practical techniques. You’ll want to delve into the scientific parts of this book.
Some of you may be primarily concerned with the practical techniques, the experiential aspect of the Science of Creating Miracles, and how to apply this science to create miracles and live the life of your dreams. You may want to bypass much of the science, and get to the techniques.
Some of you may be intrigued by examples and illustrations of how the Science of Creating Miracles has been applied in life. You may particularly enjoy the story-telling parts of the book.
Here is a guide to the various parts of this book, and which parts may be most relevant for you, depending on your interests and reasons for reading the book. (Several of the chapters will be relevant for more than one type of reader.)
If you’re curious about the author, the “Introduction” and the last section, “About the Author,” may answer some of your questions.
The “Introduction” and Chapter 3, “What Is The Science of Creating Miracles?” provide an overview of what The Science of Creating Miracles is about. Chapter 2, “The Unified Field and Human Life” provides a more detailed overview.
For those of you who are interested in quantum physics, the following chapters may be of particular interest:
For those of you who are interested specifically in the unique scientific research on the Science of Creating Miracles, quantum physics, consciousness, and plutonium conducted by the author, Chapter 1, “The Conscious Unified Field Experiment” may be of particular interest.
For those of you who are interested in neuroscience, the following chapters may be of particular interest:
For those of you who want to enjoy the experiential techniques to apply the Science of Creating Miracles to live the life of your dreams, the following chapters may be of particular interest:
For those of you who are interested in accounts of how the Science of Creating Miracles has been applied in the lives of the author and others, the following chapters may be of particular interest:
One of my favorite chapters, which doesn’t fit exactly into any of the above categories, is Chapter 6, “The Blind Spot.” It may surprise you to know – and to experience in the exercise in that chapter – that we humans have a not-so-small blind spot in our visual field. Experiencing this sensory blind spot may make it easier for us to realize and see within the blind spots we have in other areas of life.
1.
Introduction
My First Encounter with Weapons-Grade Plutonium
I was alone in a room with a piece of weapons-grade plutonium and my nuclear physics apparatus, gazing intently on the colorful moving displays on my computer screen.
The plutonium was shiny, shinier than the slab of platinum holding it up. The variations in the metal surface had a kind of prism effect, like gasoline on the surface of water, so it almost seemed to glow. Real radioactive metals don’t glow like the ones in the movies, but it did emit alpha radiation, which is why I was using it.
My father had supplied the plutonium and built the nuclear physics apparatus. Most people would find it difficult to obtain weapons-grade plutonium, but my father George Farwell was not most people. While still a graduate student, he was one of the developers of atomic energy on the Manhattan Project. His PhD advisor was Enrico Fermi.
The regulatory agencies didn’t know about any of this at the time because everything was classified. My father’s doctoral dissertation on the discovery of plutonium 240 was not declassified until 40 years later.
Now he was a professor of experimental nuclear physics at the University of Washington. He still had some plutonium left from those early days when no one but a few nuclear physicists knew what it was.
I didn’t have enough plutonium to make an atomic bomb. That was not what I was up to. I knew, however, that if my experiment was successful it would have an even greater impact on human life in the long run than the discovery of nuclear energy.
What, then, was my scientific apparatus designed to test? What was it designed to prove? And why did I need plutonium to do so?
Previously, in inventing the first brain-computer interface, I had developed systems to communicate between the brain and a computer, conveying to the computer choices made on the level of an individual’s consciousness by measuring and analyzing the resulting electrical brain activity using brainwaves (EEG or electroencephalography). The information from the brain was conveyed via sensors on the head, amplifiers, digital signal processors, wires or radio signals, and the other apparatus comprising standard EEG systems.
Now I was attempting to do it without the sensors on the head or anything connecting the head to the computer. That is, I was attempting to create a precisely measurable impact on the physical world using consciousness alone. If I succeeded, this would bring the fundamental relationship between matter and consciousness within the realm of scientific inquiry.
One of the things that struck me in my explorations as a seeker is that the wise and insightful people who have guided others in the pursuit of success, spiritual development, power, and happiness in life have all been saying essentially the same thing: The key to life is to be found within, not outside yourself. This experiment would put that premise to the test.
As I observed the colorful moving displays on my computer screen, I thought how my life had all led up to this. Now all my experiences seemed to fall into place. My scientific training at Harvard, my research in neuroscience, my spiritual explorations, all the avenues I had pursued for personal development and development of consciousness –everything I had experienced and accomplished prepared me for this. Now in this experiment – if it was successful – I would bring together everything I had learned and experienced in the spiritual and scientific realms of life.
The idea I was testing was not new. It was not an original idea of mine. The phenomenon I was attempting to bring within the realm of scientific investigation and proof had been known and applied by enlightened beings and spiritual masters throughout the ages. The founders of all the great religions and spiritual traditions knew it, experienced it, and taught it. Some of the great scientists of modern times had envisioned it. Some of the most popular current-day experts on how to live a successful life had expounded it.
What was new, in that small room with the computers, the physics apparatus, and the plutonium, was the possibility of scientific proof of a reality that had been fundamental to human life since long before recorded history. Many others before me had considered the fundamental reality regarding the nature of human life and the relationship of humans, as conscious beings, with the physical universe.
Some of the great scientists of modern times had realized that if this realm of life could be brought within the purview of science, this would form the basis of a whole new paradigm in science and in human life. Even more importantly, they had pointed out that this could form the basis of practical techniques to enrich human life far beyond what we had known before.
What does this mean for human life? As we shall see in subsequent chapters, essentially it means that we can now prove that the great spiritual teachers throughout the ages, and the most insightful of the modern-day experts on success and happiness in life, have been right – not only on the level of wisdom but on the level of science.
They have all said you can create your life beginning with a vision on the level of consciousness. This experiment would provide scientific proof of the mechanism by which that takes place.
To create the life you desire and the world you want to live in, the first step is becoming attuned to your own inner consciousness. From that profound level of experience, you create your inner vision on the level of consciousness. When that vision is clear within you, it not only guides your thoughts and actions. Nature also responds. The Laws of Nature in your environment collaborate with you to manifest what you have envisioned, often in ways that no one could have foreseen or planned.
No doubt you have found in your explorations of life and wisdom, as I have, a teaching common to many great spiritual traditions: The inner field of pure consciousness that is the essential constituent of human life is the same as the unbounded field underlying and giving rise to all of physical creation. Physical creation springs like waves on an ocean from what we now call the unified field of quantum mechanics. The most powerful way to create the life you desire and the world you desire is to function from that profound level of your own being, what I call the Conscious Unified Field.
One of the first sources of this knowledge and insight that I encountered was Plato’s Republic, which I read as a teenager. I went on to find the same thing in the Bhagavad Gita of the Vedic tradition and the writings of the Christian mystics. I saw that more modern spiritual teachers like Paramahansa Yogananda and Kahlil Gibran were delivering this same eternal message.
When I was 12 years old my family spent a year in Copenhagen, where my father was on sabbatical at the Niels Bohr Institute of Theoretical Physics. Niels Bohr was a friend as well as a mentor to my father.
I played with his grandchildren. We did our own experiments. Once we launched a hot-air balloon off the roof of the Niels Bohr Institute for Theoretical Physics. It caught an updraft and flew away out of sight, far beyond what we had originally planned. As I watched it disappear into the sky, I had a sense of how the winds of Nature can give flight to what we humans launch, far beyond what we can see at the time. I didn’t articulate that conceptually in my 12-year-old mind, but nonetheless it made an impression, a sense of awe and wonder that I have revisited many times when I launched more sophisticated projects in my life.
It was only later that I discovered that Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, his friend and fellow founder of quantum mechanics, had extensively explored the role of consciousness in the universe. In his book Physics and Philosophy, Heisenberg recognized the similarity between the teachings of the Vedic scriptures and the inevitable conclusions of an advanced exploration of quantum mechanics: We influence, and in large measure create, what we consciously observe.
I was inspired to discover the same conclusion in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by John von Neumann, the great mathematician who also invented the programmable computer. Another physicist, Gary Zukav, has extensively explored the implications of this phenomenon for human life and written many excellent and practical books on the subject.
When I read the early personal development books by Napoleon Hill and Maxwell Maltz, I realized that their fundamental premise was essentially the same as that of the ancient sages and the greatest of the modern physicists.
When you gain command of the inner field of our own consciousness, you can create the life you desire and accomplish anything in life.
I met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, when he gave a talk at Harvard, where I was a student. I learned TM, was trained by Maharishi as a TM teacher, and taught the technique for years.
I saw in my own life and the lives of many others that contacting the inner field of pure consciousness through meditation has tremendous benefits for every other area of life. Consciousness is fundamental to everything we think, feel, say, and do. Maharishi’s expertise in development of consciousness were a great gift to the world and to me personally.
The most insightful of the present-day experts on success in living are delivering the same fundamental message that inner life is the basis of outer success. My good friends Janet Attwood, Debra Poneman, John Gray, and Marci Shimoff have inspired countless people with their message of inner development as the foundation of success and happiness in all areas of life.
I have had enlightening discussions with Dr. Joe Dispenza on the same realities. His contribution includes not only insight into human life, but also scientific backing for the enlightening phenomena he describes. Deepak Chopra, whom I met when I was at Harvard but have not gotten to know well, also has provided wisdom of life combined with scientific support for the consciousness-based phenomena that are the key to success and well-being.
Those who have written and spoken brilliantly, each with his own perspective, insight, and practical applications of this same universal message include Dr. Wayne Dyer, Alan Watts, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Anthony Robbins, and many others.
Today this fundamental, universal message, or something like it, is even becoming mainstream. Yesterday I saw a billboard by the road advertising the US Marines that proclaimed “Battles are won within.”
Why I Nearly Did Not Publish This Book, and Then Did
After I finished writing this book, I almost didn’t publish it. Why not? Because at the time I thought that I would be a hypocrite if I did.
This book is about the Science of Creating Miracles. I present the scientific evidence that you really can create miracles in your life, you really can live the life of your dreams. We have proven that in the scientific laboratory as well as in life. I provide practical, tested and proven techniques that will give you everything you need to create a life you’d love to live, a life that is amazingly successful and delightful. I won’t say a life beyond your wildest dreams, because the techniques I will show you are all about taking your wildest dreams and creating a life that is just that – equal to your wildest dreams, and certainly beyond anything you could have expected before.
My only problem was that it wasn’t working for me at the time. It had worked spectacularly well for me in the past. It just wasn’t working then.
I had invented Brain Fingerprinting, a scientific technique to detect concealed information stored in the brain. This provided a scientific method to identify criminals and terrorists and exonerate innocent people. After testing it at the FBI, the CIA, and the US Navy and in real crimes in the US, I applied it in classified counterterrorism operations in the Middle East. So far, so good.
Some of the foreign government agencies and other companies that owed me money for that work, however, hadn’t been paying as agreed. I was owed over half a million dollars, and I didn’t have anywhere near that kind of cushion. I had put everything back into my scientific research, pro bono cases, technology development, and the expenses of my work. I was out of money. I couldn’t finance my next trip to the Middle East. I was barely able to cover my basic living expenses, and soon would run out of money for that. I was running into all kinds of problems in organizing my next counterterrorism missions in several countries. Essentially, my life was not working.
The only message I could honestly deliver was, “This amazing new science will work for you, I promise. It just doesn’t happen to be working for me at the moment.” That’s not really worthy of a book.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved in the scientific laboratory that through the power of your consciousness you can create miracles. We proved this down to the level of quantum mechanics – elementary particle/wave phenomena that we precisely measured in nuclear physics laboratory.
If that’s true – which it is – and if I had done that in the past – which I had – then why wasn’t it working in my life right now?
I inquired within myself about what was really going on. Here’s what I realized.
I have been doing counterterrorism work with Brain Fingerprinting for some time.[1] My best friend and greatest collaborator – the former chief of counterterrorism for the FBI – and I conducted counterterrorism missions all over the world together for years. We deal with some serious bad guys, and there are risks involved. Last year he was killed.
To say that I miss him is a pale understatement. Moreover, I didn’t like what his death said about the odds. If two of us do this work for a few years, and at the end of that time one of us is alive, that computes to a 50% probability that I’ll be alive after a few more years of the same work.
I never really got over that. I went back to the terrorist hotspots again, and sometimes life seemed almost normal. I remember one evening I drove with another colleague to the home of one of the top government officials there. We walked to a small square, ate dinner at an outdoor restaurant, and walked back to his house in the dark. It felt almost normal.
Two things then happened, however, that were far from normal. First, another top government official was gunned down and killed in the same exact place where we had eaten dinner that night and many other nights. Then, one of the top people in counterterrorism went for an evening walk near his home in the same area where we had walked. He was kidnapped, taken out of the country, tortured, and killed. This man’s mission was the same as mine, to bring terrorists to justice, and he was up against the same bad guys I was.
I thought, “If they can get him, they can get me, and there is nothing I can do about it. His security was as good as it gets, and yet it wasn’t enough.”
I was afraid – afraid of dying, afraid of leaving my daughter without a father, afraid of not finishing my work here, and afraid of torture. I was really afraid of torture. I have been interrogated for days on end, and it’s a lot worse in real life than in the movies.
I realized on reflection that this thought was paralyzing me – not the reality, but my thought about it, my thought that there was nothing I could do. No wonder nothing was working out for my next mission. I was afraid of what others might do, and I had convinced myself that there was nothing I could do about it.
Nonetheless, my own fear and the power of my own consciousness in the grip of that fear were working against me to the point where nothing was happening. Despite my good intentions and detailed plans, I was going nowhere and helping no one. It would be more than a little hypocritical for me to publish a book on living your dreams when I was vividly living my nightmares.
So I decided to look a little deeper at the situation. I had a talk with myself, very much like the talk I had had with many of my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients who came to me with “impossible” situations. (Later in the book I’ll describe in more detail several techniques to turn “impossible” situations around and create miraculous outcomes systematically.)
Have you ever had the experience of absolutely knowing that you were going to create a successful outcome in something important in your life? Sure you have. It may have looked impossible or at least spectacularly improbable, and still you just knew you could make it happen. Then you did. You had a clear inner vision, you were committed to do whatever it took, and somehow everything in Nature collaborated with you. In the end you created a miracle, and against all odds you succeeded spectacularly.
I have had that experience too. So has everyone who has ever achieved anything major in life. Everything any successful person has achieved has been through creating an extremely improbable outcome – a probability of one in a thousand, one in a million. By the power of their consciousness along with their skill in action they created it anyway and made it happen. I have done this before, and so undoubtedly have you.
What I had been missing was the realization that going overseas, doing my job, applying my science, catching the bad guys, and coming home alive was something that I could create the way I had created everything else I had ever done that was successful. The thought that “there is nothing I can do about it” was simply a thought. It was a thought that was not in accord with reality.
We have proven in the scientific laboratory and in many practical examples in life that consciousness – your consciousness, my consciousness, universal consciousness – can move mountains and create miracles. That is just as true in this situation as everywhere else.
I already knew I could and would do whatever it takes to save many innocent people from brutal murder. That’s what I was over there to do. I could just as well be one of those people. I could create my own safety just as certainly as I could do it for others. If it’s true we can create miracles, that’s a pretty easy miracle for me to create.
All there was for me to do was to get – to really get, experientially, not just as an idea or a hope – that what I had been saying all along to others was really true. I can create an inner vision of the success I’d like to create in the world – including staying alive. The bad guys will do whatever they do. I will do whatever it takes, and I will create what I have envisioned.
I could have mouthed the same words before – in fact, I had. This is exactly what I had been saying to everyone else. My Science of Creating Miracles Training clients got it, and the resulting experience had been working spectacularly for them. All there was for me to do was to really get it myself, to have the experience that my consciousness could create anything, and then to set out and create it. I had done it before. I could do it again.
I’ll get into more specific techniques to accomplish this phenomenon, and more proof that it works, later in the book. I practiced the techniques that I call SuperPosition and Transmutation, and that brought me to the experiential realization that I had previously proved scientifically and inspired in many others: I am the creator and commander of my own life.
Once I realized, actually realized experientially, that I am the creator of my own life – not just in the past, or in small things, but in the real situation I am facing now – I wasn’t afraid anymore.
I came to this experience: I have the vision. I’ll create it. Nature will collaborate with me. Others will do whatever they do. I will do whatever it takes, and Nature will provide whatever I need. I’ll go over there, do my job, practice my science, catch the bad guys, train others, and come home alive. I’ll even enjoy the process.
Once I really got it, once I had that experience on the level of my consciousness, everything fell into place. I got a call the next morning from my partner in the region. A major government agency had finally paid us. The money was deposited in the bank in Dubai. The other arrangements all worked out smoothly, and shortly I was on my way. I did everything I had envisioned, including coming back alive with my entire team. I even enjoyed the process.
So now I can publish this book in good faith and with the confidence that this stuff really works, even in highly challenging situations that at first look dire.
In The Science of Creating Miracles you will see the proof that the technique of creating miracles is a scientific phenomenon. We have proven in the laboratory that consciousness can command Nature and make things happen, even things so improbable as to be correctly described as miracles. In addition to that scientific proof, you will discover how to use all the different structures and functions and amazing talents of your brain to create a life you love to live. You will find proven techniques that you can use to apply The Science of Creating Miracles in your life, to create the life of your dreams.
1. The Conscious Unified Field Experiment
I call the experiment I was conducting in the small room with the colorful moving graphs on a computer screen, the physics apparatus, and the plutonium the Conscious Unified Field Experiment.
In simple terms, this experiment, if successful, would demonstrate that conscious human beings can command events in the material world through consciousness alone, without any physical intervention.
Alpha particle emission by plutonium was the medium through which consciousness would interface with the physical word, having its impact at the most fundamental, quantum-mechanical level.
Anyone who has studied quantum mechanics knows that quantum-mechanical probability functions contain infinite possibilities. In other words, within the quantum-mechanical universe – which is the real universe – anything is possible. Some things are highly probable, and others highly improbable. We can choose what or how to observe and thus define the content of the observation, but once the choice is made the specific outcome is random, governed only by the laws of quantum mechanical probability.
What no one had ever shown until now is that human intention or consciousness can directly influence the probability of occurrence of quantum-mechanical events to make something improbable happen at will. Since everything already is possible in the quantum world, if we could take command of the probability of quantum-mechanical events, then we could take command of the universe. We really could work miracles.
If we can consciously command even a very slight shift in the quantum-mechanical events that arise, provided that this change is consistent, that would be enough to explain not only how we exercise free will and drive our brains at will, but also how we potentially can create any kind of life and any kind of world we desire.
How the Conscious Unified Field Experiment Worked
The Conscious Unified Experiment can be described very simply. My original invention of the brain-computer interface involved communicating human intentions – initiated on the level of consciousness – from the brain to a computer through wires. Now, I was trying it without the wires.
I sat in a quiet room with the sample of weapons-grade plutonium, facing a computer screen with colorful moving graphs. The only link between me and the computer was the influence – if any – of my consciousness on a series of quantum-mechanical events, specifically the emission of alpha particles by plutonium.
In addition to the plutonium, the apparatus included a particle detector designed and built by my father George Farwell in his physics laboratory. This detector was connected to amplifiers, digital signal processors, and a computer, where the sequence of particle detections was timed and analyzed. There was no physical connection between my brain and the detector or any of the physics apparatus.
My task was to command matter though consciousness, to bring order into the otherwise random process of quantum particle emission, using nothing but the influence of consciousness alone.
The computer screen displayed colorful graphs that indicated to me what was happening to the probability distribution of alpha particles emitted by the plutonium. I held the conscious intention to shift the distribution in a particular direction. The graph on the computer screen told me continuously how successful I was in doing that.
I had programmed the computer to track the alpha particle detections and to inform me if I was successful in directly commanding matter through consciousness – i.e., in producing the desired change in the pattern of alpha particle emission.
I had also programmed the computer to display a specific message that, to me, summarized the significance of the scientific result of the experiment.
As in my previous experiments, the room was silent for some time. Blue bar graphs on the screen in front of me fluctuated and grew in size. After some time, the computer rendered the result of the experiment in the manner I had programmed it to display.
Across the screen, in large blue letters, appeared the message:
“Anything Is Possible”
What this meant specifically in terms of scientific data is that I had successfully produced a major shift in the probability distribution of alpha particle emission by plutonium through conscious intention alone, without any physical intervention.
What this meant to me personally was that I now had solid, rigorous scientific proof of what I had known all along intuitively: Anything is possible. “Anything is possible” now is not just a hope or a dream or a platitude. It is a scientifically proven reality. We, as conscious human beings, really can command the universe. All the wise people who have known this and taught it were right all along, not just philosophically adept but scientifically correct.
You and I as conscious human beings have the status of commanders in the universe.
That is who you are. That is who you are, scientifically – not just philosophically, psychologically, or metaphorically. That is your role in your life and in the universe.
What Took Place in the Conscious Unified Field Experiment
Here is a brief, non-technical explanation of what took place in that small room between me as a conscious human being, the plutonium, the nuclear physics apparatus, and the computers.
What took place in scientific and statistical terms is that I succeeded in consciously commanding the plutonium to emit alpha particles according to the pattern I chose, rather than randomly. (I will describe this in more detail below.) The pattern had conformed to my intention to a degree that was statistically extremely certain to be due to actual influence of consciousness on quantum-mechanical events, and not just random variation.
The specific chain of events was as follows. I had the conscious intention of creating a particular pattern in the emission of alpha particles by plutonium. The computer displayed to me a continuously changing display that showed the degree to which I was succeeding in producing the desired effect. That pattern of quantum-mechanical events that I envisioned on the level of my conscious intention happened in the plutonium and alpha particles. The nuclear physics apparatus detected the particles and conveyed the data to the computer. The computer analyzed the data. When it was clear that I had succeeded in significantly influencing the alpha particle emission as intended, the computer displayed the result that this series of events had shown: “Anything is possible.”
The details of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment and the complete scientific protocols and data are described in my previous book, How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible,[2] and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe.
My father and I also presented our experiment and results at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, the primary scientific society for physics research. This research was published in an abstract in the Bulletin of the American Physical Society.
Practical Implications of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment
The point of this is not that you will want to go out and change the probability distribution of alpha particle emission by plutonium. The point is that you have the ability to consciously influence the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events, and the whole universe is nothing but quantum-mechanical events.
When you want to raise your arm, you don’t need to specify exactly which quantum-particle phenomena in which neurons have to move in which way to make your neurons fire so that your arm moves. Your consciousness has a seamless interface with your brain. All you need to do is have the intention to raise your arm, and the applicable laws of Nature carry it out.
What the Conscious Unified Field Experiment showed is that your consciousness also has a seamless interface with the universe. Your consciousness is the same Conscious Unified Field from which the universe springs like waves on an ocean. Functioning from that level, you can command the events taking place in the physical universe.
When your desire and intention is to create a specific result in the physical world outside you, all you have to know is the result. Just as I didn’t specify the details of the particle/wave phenomena in the plutonium and alpha waves, you don’t have to specify exactly which particles have to move in what way to produce the result you desire in your life and your universe. The Conscious Unified Field, being your own nature and the foundation of the physical universe, can accomplish interactions of any complexity necessary to carry out the desired result.
Completion and Significance of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment
I knew I would have to repeat the experiment many times to obtain results significant enough to be irrefutable in the scientific world.
I also knew that no matter how significant the results, no matter how impeccable and scientific the research methods, there would be many who would at first reject them without conducting any relevant research, without even attempting to understand the hypothesis on which they were based or the science that explained how they could be true.
I had long been convinced that the possibilities potentially open to human life far exceeded the common experience of life today. Now I had concrete, scientific evidence.
I would set out to collect more. It might be a long time before the full, unbounded potential of human life came to light in the scientific world, and longer still before that light was seen by many. I felt, however, that I was now moving measurably in the right direction.
After testing many more subjects and collecting millions of data points, I have now collected the data necessary to reach a definitive conclusion: Consciousness can and does command matter at the quantum-mechanical level.
Brief Technical Description and Statistical Significance of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment
First, let’s examine the level of mathematical and statistical certainty of the scientific result of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment. When scientific results such as this one are reported, the report includes the statistical significance level of the observed result. This answers the question, “How likely is it that such a result would come about by chance, in the absence of a real effect?” or “If the experiment were to be repeated many times, how often could it be expected to come out the same way?”
For example, let’s say that you roll a single die. It has the numbers 1 – 6 on it, so half the time you will roll an even number (2, 4, 6) and half the time an odd number (1, 3, 5). Your hypothesis is that some influence on the die will make it come up with an even number more often than an odd number.
If you roll the die once and it comes up with an even number, that’s not convincing proof. That could easily happen by chance. A die is expected to show an even number 50% of the time. If you roll it twice and it comes up even twice, there is a 25% probability that this happened by chance. Three rolls in a row coming out even yields a probability of 12.5% of happening by chance. Four rolls yields 6.25%. Five rolls yields 3.125% probability that it just happened by chance, and nothing influenced the die to come up even more often.
At this point you can be reasonably confident that this result did not come about by chance, and something is in fact biasing the die toward even numbers.
Probabilities can be calculated for obtaining greater than any number of even results out of any number of rolls of the die. For example, the probability of obtaining 60 or more even results out of 100 rolls of the die is 2.8%.
With many rolls of the die, even a small deviation from a 50/50 split between even and odd outcomes is statistically highly improbable and would make it highly likely that there was some influence on the process other than chance.
The convention in statistics is that if there is less than a 5% probability that the result happened by chance (designated statistically as “p < 0.05”), then the result is considered to be “statistically significant.” This is the level of statistical significance that is considered adequate to publish results in a scientific journal.
Another way of saying this is that one can have 95% confidence that the result is real.
In statistical terms, my attempt to influence the probability distribution of alpha particle emission by plutonium was similar to throwing a die repeatedly.
The impact I was attempting to have on the pattern of alpha particle emission was simple. It is well established that plutonium emits alpha particles according to a probabilistic function, at random times. In our experiment the apparatus was detecting a particle emission every few microseconds. In the absence of any outside influence, the interval between particle detections will half the time be an even number of microseconds (2, 4, 6, 8, 38, or 72, etc.). Half the time the interval will be an odd number of microseconds (1, 3, 5, 47, or 93, etc.). The probability that any given sequence will deviate from an exact 50/50 split between even and odd intervals can be calculated very precisely.
In the Conscious Unified Field Experiment, we had three conditions. In one condition I attempted to influence the quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena to produce more even than odd intervals in microseconds between alpha particle emissions. In one condition I attempted to do the opposite, to produce more odd intervals. In a third condition, the control condition, I did not try to influence the process.
My input on the system was not physical. It was solely on the level of consciousness. All I had at my disposal was my own consciousness, my conscious intention to move the unified field in such a way as to produce even or odd intervals between these particular particle/wave phenomena arising from the unified field.
What the result of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved was that consciousness alone, without any physical intervention, can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events. This means that our consciousness can move the unified field. We can consciously influence the particle/wave phenomena that arise from the unified field like waves on an ocean.
In our test of the effect of consciousness on matter at the quantum-mechanical level, the confidence level we obtained for the positive scientific result was 250 times better than the level required for statistical significance (p < .05, or less than 5% statistical probability of error). The significance of our result was p < 0.0002, or 99.98% confidence. This is an extremely high statistical confidence level. It is off the charts in many standard statistics books and tables.
How likely is it that this result is real, that is, that the same result will be obtained if the same exact experiment is replicated? A confidence level of 99.98% can be looked at in the following way. Suppose one of our ancestors began the same experiment we ran on the day that Jesus Christ was born, and completed it one year later. Then, the next year he replicated the experiment again, conducting it in exactly the same way. Then he replicated it again the following year and each year for the next 50 years. Then a younger scientist took over, and replicated the experiment once a year for the next 50 years, when he handed it off to another scientist who did the same, and so on until the present day.
According to the results we have already obtained and the laws of probability, the most probable outcome is that in every case over the last 2,000 years the experimental results would have come out in the same way: Consciousness can and does command matter at the most fundamental level of nature, the quantum-mechanical level.
In short, if you are wondering how certain you can be, on a scientific and statistical level, that you can consciously command Nature and create the life of your dreams and the world of your aspirations, the answer is that you can be very certain.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment was reported in the scientific literature in this publication: Farwell, L. A. and Farwell, G.W. (1995). Quantum-Mechanical Processes and Consciousness. Bulletin of the American Physical Society, 40, 2, 956-57.
Moreover, as discussed in my previous book, others have now also investigated this same phenomenon empirically and found the same scientific result.[3]
The First Scientific Presentation on the Conscious Unified Field Experiment
When my father and I first presented the results of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment at the annual conference of the American Physical Society, the response from the physicists in attendance at our lecture was fascinating.
The first response came from a physicist who questioned my mathematical computations. It took me five or ten minutes to walk him through the equations, and then he got it and agreed we were correct. Then another physicist questioned another aspect of the math involved. It took my dad some time to explain the computations in detail, and then this guy got it and agreed also.
From then on, it was nothing but fun. Physicists have already had their minds blown by relativity and quantum mechanics, so they already know that there are phenomena in the universe that are far outside our common-sense notions of reality. I have found physicists more than any other scientists to be open to an understanding of the role of consciousness in the universe, because in their own research they have already had to deal with the fact that a mechanistic explanation does not fit with reality.
Like my father and other physicists I had come to know growing up, these people were real scientists. Scientists live in a world of exploration of the unknown, where they are asking questions of Nature, questions to which they do not already know the answers. The process of scientific discovery comprises continually updating one’s understanding of reality in light of new scientific evidence. Because the physicists in our talk at the American Physical Society were real, practicing scientists, they were already exploring realms that seem strange and nearly unimaginable compared to their day-to-day experience and what has been known in the past.
Moreover, they have had to come face-to-face with the role of the conscious observer in their explorations of quantum mechanics and relativity physics. So they were entirely open-minded to new experimental results demonstrating the role that consciousness plays in the universe.
They were really excited to see hard evidence that consciousness really does play a commanding role in the universe, and fascinated with our exploration of the mechanics through which that commanding role manifests. We got a chance to explore this reality and its implications in some depth in that meeting.
2. The Unified Field and Human Life
The Unified Field
Albert Einstein coined the term “unified field theory” to describe the scientific unification of the different forces in Nature. He never completed the task of generating a complete unified field theory in his lifetime, and physicists are still working on it today. My experiment with the plutonium was designed to explore the relationship between human consciousness and the unified field.
The physics of the unified field can easily be understood in terms of everyday experience. Let’s begin with a few examples.
When you jump into the ocean, it makes waves. If you jump into the ocean here on the West Coast of the US, it rises in waves according to the physics of your body landing in it. If you jump into the ocean in Japan, the same kind of waves arise.
The ocean is there, whether you are making waves in it or not. The Laws of Nature that govern what kind of event creates what kind of waves in the ocean are inherent in the ocean, at all times and places. This holds true whether you (or a wind, or whatever) are making waves at the time, or the ocean is quiet. The ocean, even when calm, has the potential to rise in waves at all times and places, when the right circumstances to generate the waves come along.
When Thomas Edison first invented the light bulb, he heated a tungsten filament. The heated filament excited that aspect of the unified field that we know as the electromagnetic field into waves of light. The unified field, and the electromagnetic field that is inherent in it, were there already, quiet, like a silent ocean. Then Edison’s tungsten filament excited it into waves. The Laws of Nature inherent in the electromagnetic field led this field to rise up in a particular type of waves, which we see as light waves.
When you turn on a conventional light bulb today, the filament excites the electromagnetic field into light waves, just as it did in a different time and place for Edison. If an extraterrestrial being on the other side of the galaxy does the same thing, the electromagnetic field will rise up in the same waves. The electromagnetic field is the same everywhere in time and space. It has the potential for any amount of light waves, anywhere at any time, when the right event comes along to excite it.
In addition to the electromagnetic field, physics identifies three other universal fields that behave similarly. Inherent in each of the four fields are the Laws of Nature governing one of the four primary forces in the physical world. Electromagnetism is one that we experience every day when we see light or feel the heat of the Sun or engage with electronic devices.
Gravity is another force that we know well. Gravity attracts us to the Earth, along with all the objects we encounter in daily life. Gravity governs the motions of the Sun and the Moon and the galaxies.
Like the electromagnetic force, the Laws of Nature governing gravity are universal throughout the universe, throughout all time and space. If we were walking around on a planet in a distant galaxy that was the same mass as the Earth, a billion years in the future or the past, we would feel the same pull of gravity that we do here. The same events at different places and times will excite the gravitational field in the same way, no matter when or where they occur. According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, gravity is equivalent to curvature in space and time, and is governed by Laws of Nature that are universally the same everywhere in space and time.
The two other fundamental forces take place only at very short distances and directly affect only subatomic particle/wave phenomena. They are known as the strong force and the weak force. Although they are fundamental to the way that matter behaves, we don’t have daily experience with them because our perception does not reach to the extremely tiny levels of structure where they apply. Like gravity and electromagnetism, the Laws of Nature governing the strong force and the weak force are universal throughout time and space.
A current challenge in physics is to unify all interactions in the physical universe – electromagnetic, gravitational, strong, and weak interactions – along with the particle/wave phenomena that they mediate into a single theoretical and mathematical framework.
The unified field is that universal field that contains inherent within it the Laws of Nature governing all of the forces and particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical universe.
Perception in the Universe of the Unified Field
From the perspective of the unified field, the universe does not consist of separate objects. All of the forces and particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical universe are manifestations of the unified field, like waves on an ocean. Things only look different and separate when we have limited perception.
For example, in my room today, my desk looks solid and brown. The Persian rug on my floor looks solid and red, with multicolored patterns. The space in between looks empty, but I can feel air in it. The trees outside my window look solid and green.
If we look closer, however, we discover that the desk, the trees, and the rug are not solid at all. Like the air, they are mostly empty space. The same elementary particle/wave phenomena and forces are interacting in different patterns that look to me like a room with solid objects in it, solid walls, trees outside, and space in between.
When we look closely, the desk in front of me is not solid. It is comprised of mostly empty space, and molecules moving at high speeds. The molecules are comprised of atoms. The atoms are comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons. These in turn are comprised of quarks. When we go within the quarks to the level of string theory, all of this is comprised of vibrating strings. Everything in the physical universe is simply vibrating patterns in the unified field.
The “green” of the tree, the “red” of the rug, and the “brown” of the desk are my experience of certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that you and I see as light. The “red” experience is not in the rug. It is in my perception. A different nervous system would yield a different experience.
Our eyes perceive a very narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic waves in this range appear to us as visible and colorful. Electromagnetic waves in the rest of the spectrum – infrared light, ultraviolet light, radio waves, x-rays, etc. — are invisible to us.
In the 1987 movie Predator, the alien predator saw light in the infrared range, and not in the range we experience as visible. We cannot see infrared light. We sense it as heat. The warmth of the sun on your shoulders when you are on the beach in the Bahamas is infrared radiation.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character had been swimming in cold water and was covered in cold mud, the predator couldn’t see him. It couldn’t distinguish him from the background of mud and sticks at the same temperature. It saw and zapped a rat, which was much warmer, and couldn’t find Arnold.
If this were a movie review, I would argue that Predator is the Citizen Kane of sci-fi action horror movies. It was prescient in several ways: It introduced on the big screen the reality that different nervous systems create different experiences of the physical world, a theme covered in numerous science fiction, real science, educational, and inspirational modern films. It is the only film starring not one but two future state governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. It had more muscles per square inch than any previous mainstream movie, reintroducing the now popular trend of actors being in good shape physically that had been not been prevalent since the days of the silent films of Douglas Fairbanks.
Fictional space aliens are not the only ones who perceive different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum than we do. Some real animals on earth do too. Pit vipers have a pit on their forehead that senses infrared radiation. In their brains some neurons receive input from both the eyes and the pit and somehow combine heat with light to create their perception. Although we can perceive infrared radiation as warmth, it is not a visual experience for us. It doesn’t change the way things look. It is unlikely that a pit viper would have seen exactly what was portrayed in the movie as the perception of the alien predator, but a pit viper would have a different visual experience than we have of a warm rat and a cold Arnold.
We humans have three types of color receptor cells in our eyes. One type responds to electromagnetic radiation in the range of red light, one to blue light, and one to green light. Various combinations of these three allow us to perceive millions of different colors, all within a narrow frequency band.
Some butterflies have as many as 15 different types of color receptor cells. These include receptors that respond to what we experience as visible light, and also to ultraviolet light, which is invisible to us. Some flowers have “colorful” patterns in the ultraviolet range. Thus, butterflies can use their ultraviolet perception to locate food. They also have ultraviolet patterns on their wings, which they use to recognize and attract potential mates.
Some insects, including bees as well as butterflies, also can perceive polarized light. The scattered light that appears as the blue sky is polarized. Skylight is most strongly polarized at an angle of 90 degrees from the sun. (You can test this by taking Polaroid glasses, pointing them at the sky 90 degrees from the sun, and rotating them. As they approach the angle of polarization of the light, the sky will look darker.) Bees and butterflies use their perception of this polarized light as an aid in navigation.
Butterflies not only see, but also emit polarized light. They have structures on their wings that produce polarized light. When a male butterfly is attracted to the patterns of visible, ultraviolet, and polarized light displayed by a female, he initiates a mating ritual. If the female is similarly interested, she literally spreads her wings and lets her light shine, further attracting the male. If not, she holds her wings in such a way as to hide her light, providing him with less encouragement.
We can’t imagine what the world — and each other – look like to butterflies, bees, pit vipers, or space alien predators. It is clear, however, that they have a very different experience of the visual world than we do.
What we see is not what’s “really there” in our environment. What we see is how our consciousness perceives all the interactions of particle/wave phenomena that have arisen as waves in the unified field in our environment. What’s really there is just the unified field and all the myriad particle/wave phenomena that arise from it like waves on an ocean.
Is Command of the Unified Field Possible?
We know we can experience the manifestations of the unified field. That is what the universe consists of, and we definitely experience the universe, or at least part of it.
The entire physical universe consists of interconnected and interacting particle/wave phenomena that arise from the unified field.
My experiment was designed to measure whether we could not only consciously experience the phenomena that arise from the unified field, but also could consciously influence these same particle/wave phenomena.
If it is true that the inner field of pure consciousness is the same as the unified field from which the physical universe springs, then functioning from that level of our own consciousness we must be able to influence how the unified field arises in particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical world.
We have seen that this is possible in the results of the Unified Field Experiment. Let’s look at how possible, in light of the Laws of Nature expressed in the science of quantum mechanics.
In quantum mechanics, everything takes place according to specific laws of probability. The events leading up to now make specific events in the immediate future highly probable and certain other events highly improbable. There is a finite probability that any imaginable quantum-mechanical event will take place at any place and time. Nothing is impossible. Certain events, however, are highly probable and other events are highly improbable.
In light of this, I was having a conversation with my father one day.
I said, “Hey Dad, anything is possible in the quantum-mechanical universe, and that’s the real universe we live in, right?”
I had been asking my dad questions about everything imaginable in the universe ever since I learned to talk.
He said, “Yes.”
“And elementary particles can instantaneously tunnel from one location to another, randomly, governed only by the probabilities of quantum mechanics, right?”
(Tunneling is a well-established phenomenon in quantum mechanics whereby elementary particles can disappear at one location and appear at another location without any mechanism or force being applied to get them there. It occurs regardless of any barriers to that journey, even ones that make it appear impossible. It takes place randomly, due to the uncertainty of locations and velocities inherent in Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.)
“Yes,” he replied.
I said, “So there is a finite probability that all of the elementary particles that make up your and my bodies will tunnel to the other side of the Moon, along with enough air to breathe, and we can continue this conversation there, right?”
We were eating lunch in a restaurant. He took out a paper napkin and a pencil and made some quick calculations. He said, “Right, and I have computed the approximate probability that that will happen right now.”
I don’t remember what the exact probability of that confluence of quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena was, but it was low. And the event did not happen.
The question that remains is, “What can we actually make happen?” If we can make improbable things happen, then “Anything is possible” is not just a theory. It can become a living reality. This is what the Conscious Unified Field Experiment demonstrated.
Miracles, in this context, are not “impossible” events or events that violate the laws of physics or any other Laws of Nature. They are simply highly improbable events. Creating miracles simply means consciously and intentionally inspiring improbable events to happen.
The Conscious Unified Field
In ancient and modern times, great teachers and spiritual leaders have inspired and enlivened millions of people with the eternal wisdom that inner development is the basis of outer development, enlivening consciousness is the basis of success, achievement, and fulfillment in life.
What has been missing? Why has the world not yet fully embraced these truths and applied them to create the kind of world we would all like to inhabit?
We live in a world where science is generally recognized as the ultimate arbiter of truth. If it’s scientifically proven, it’s recognized as true. If not, there’s always doubt.
The fundamental premise of enlightened beings throughout the ages comes down to this: To change the outer world, first explore and enliven the inner world.
In different languages, metaphors, and allegories in different times and places, spiritual teachings have expressed this essential hypothesis: The inner field of pure consciousness is the same as the unbounded unified field that underlies, supports, and gives rise to the physical universe. This is the unified field from which the physical forms and phenomena of creation arise like waves on an ocean (or, more precisely, quantum particle/wave phenomena). When you function from the level of this infinite field, you can create anything in life. Anything is possible.
As Krishna said to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita,[4] the fundamental Vedic and Hindu scripture, “Yogastah kurukarmani.” “Established in Being perform action.” Krishna makes it clear throughout the Bhagavad Gita that “Being” or “Yoga” is the field of cosmic consciousness, the unbounded field that physics now identifies scientifically as the Unified Field.
Jesus Christ taught similarly.
“The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)
“But rather seek ye the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Luke 12:31).
A fundamental hypothesis of enlightened beings and great teachers is that the unified field of the physical world outside us is the same as the unified field of consciousness within us. There is one unified field, within and without. I call it the Conscious Unified Field. Inherent in this hypothesis is that we, as conscious human beings, can function from the level of this field and manifest in our world what we envision within.
What has been missing is a direct, scientific test of this hypothesis. If it is true that the inner field of consciousness is the same as the unified field from which the universe springs, then it follows that functioning from that level, humans can directly influence the physical universe. Such influence must take place at the most fundamental level of structure of the physical universe, the quantum-mechanical level.
My experiment with the plutonium was a direct, rigorously controlled, scientific test of this fundamental hypothesis. What I was attempting to do was to influence the quantum mechanical phenomena in a precisely measurable way using consciousness alone, without any physical intervention. The entire universe consists of quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena and quantum-mechanical events. If we can consciously influence quantum-mechanical events, we can command the universe. Anything is possible.
When the experiment proved successful, this provided solid scientific proof that the founders of the great spiritual traditions, the greatest of the physicists in the last century, and the wisest of the modern experts on success in life are right. Anything really is possible. You really can create the life of your dreams, beginning with an inner vision and manifesting it in the physical world.
This concrete experimental result also provided the foundation for all of the techniques for success and fulfillment in life that I had experienced, and all that I would develop and teach throughout my life. The Conscious Unified Field experiment became the foundation for my writing a book like this one and guiding others in their pursuit of enlightenment, success, and happiness.
The Newtonian Materialist Paradigm
From the time of Newton until recently, the ruling scientific paradigm was the Newtonian Paradigm, which can also be called the Materialist Paradigm. The Newtonian universe consists entirely of objects and forces. Everything is made up of tiny moving objects or particles (molecules, atoms, etc.). Particles have a specific location now in time and space. Each particle is now moving in a particular direction at a particular speed. Particles change direction and speed only when a force acts upon them.
For example, you may hold a billiard ball in your hand. The force of gravity is pulling it downward, and you apply an equal force upward to keep it where it is. You apply another force to the billiard ball when you put it on the table and hit it with a pool cue. It accelerates in response to that force, and then keeps moving accordingly until another force acts on it. (Friction applies a force that will slow it down.)
It may encounter another billiard ball, the collision will apply forces to both balls, and they will change direction and speed accordingly. In principle, if you know exactly where all the billiard balls are on the table and what speed and direction they are now moving, you can predict with absolute accuracy their positions and motions in the future.
In the Newtonian universe, everything consists of tiny particles moving at specific, precisely measurable and knowable speeds and directions, bouncing off each other to create the objects and phenomena we see. A billiard ball is not a single object, but a group of molecules, atoms, etc., each one behaving like a tiny billiard ball.
As on the billiard table, every future happening in the Newtonian universe can be precisely predicted if we know where all the particles are now, where they are going, and how fast. The entire Newtonian universe works like clockwork. Everything is, in principle, predictable. Everything takes place according to the Laws of Nature.
What is the role of conscious human beings in the Materialist universe? The physical universe is going along according to the Laws of Nature, and we as conscious human beings can observe it. Our conscious observation does not affect it. The only things that affects anything in the universe of Newton are objects and forces.
If we take that to its logical conclusion, the Laws of Nature apply to the particles making up human bodies, including our brains. Everything we experience and everything we do are simply a matter of particles bouncing around according to fixed Laws of Nature.
We may experience that we have free will. We may experience that we can affect the world around us. If the Materialist Paradigm is correct, however, that experience is just an illusion.
Some Materialist-Paradigm behaviorists have assumed that, in principle, if we could identify the exact genetics of a person and the exact influences on them throughout life, we could precisely predict everything they would think, say, and do. From the Materialist Paradigm perspective, the brain, like everything else, is simply a predictable mechanical system.
Some have gone so far as to conduct research that erroneously has been interpreted to indicate that when we think we are making a decision, actually the brain mechanically made that decision a split second earlier, and our entire lifetime experience of making decisions and intentionally conducting our actions is just an illusion. Such research is fatally flawed, however, because it depends on the false assumption that people accurately estimate the precise split-second timing of mental events and accurately report it through a behavioral response.
As anyone with a clear understanding of the relevant psychophysiology and psychophysics knows, that assumption is baseless and demonstrably false. The uncertainty, time lag, and errors in reporting of the timing of mental events through behavioral responses is longer than the discrepancies between mental and neurological events that the research purports to measure. In short, the underlying assumption of such research – that mental events happen at the precise time when one estimates and reports them – does not match reality.
Based on the untenable perspective arising from that false assumption, some have erroneously concluded that we only have the illusion of free will, agency, and decision-making capacity. According to the Materialist Paradigm of which such conceptions are a part, our experience of living our lives as we choose is nothing but an illusion created by the inexorable mechanical functioning of the brain. Fortunately for us as human beings, that assumption is not only contradictory to our experience. It also has been amply disproven by research in psychophysiology and neuroscience as well as quantum physics.
Quantum Mechanics Contradicts the Materialist Paradigm
If you are reading this book, you undoubtedly think that you can choose to make a difference in your life and in the world around you. For the last 400 years, however, the ruling scientific paradigm has held otherwise. Scientists over centuries collected voluminous scientific evidence that appeared to show that the universe, including human beings and human brains, worked deterministically like clockwork.
Quantum mechanics and relativity physics opened the door to changing all of that. Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle holds that we cannot know exactly where all the particles are and where they are headed. The universe does not continue endlessly, predictably like clockwork, independently of our participation in observing it. We can’t simply sit back, uninvolved, look at things, and accurately predict the future.
Quantum mechanics recognizes that the observer influences the observed. The process of observation influences whatever physical phenomena we are observing. When we observe elementary particles, we engage with those elementary particles, and that influences their future course.
The universe is not made up of little particles, little billiard-ball-like objects. It is made up of quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena that paradoxically behave both like particles and like waves.
Moreover, we have a choice as to how we are going to observe or measure – that is, to experience – these particle/wave phenomena. If we set up a scientific apparatus to detect particles in a system, we will detect particles. If we set up a scientific apparatus to detect waves in the same system, we will detect waves. What is striking about this is that the “particle” system will behave very differently from the “wave” system, and the only difference is how we look at it.
It gets even stranger. Before we make a quantum-mechanical observation, there aren’t little particles out there waiting to be observed. Before we make an observation, there are only abstract probability distributions. The particles or waves – with the physical qualities of mass, velocity, etc. – only show up when we observe them.
As the great mathematician Jon von Neumann pointed out in his seminal book Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, this applies not only to physics apparatus but to our daily experience of life. In a very real sense, we are creating our experience of the external world by how we look at it.
If this seems incomprehensible, it is because it doesn’t make sense according to our common-sense notions of what the world looks like. As von Neumann observed, “In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.” This certainly applies to the advanced mathematics involved in quantum mechanics.
A detailed explanation of this phenomenon is beyond the scope of this book.[5]
For now, suffice it to say that advances in quantum mechanics and relativity physics have contradicted the clockwork universe of the Materialist Paradigm and opened up the scientific possibility that as conscious human beings we have a choice as to how we will create our lives and the world around us.
It is scientifically possible that we, as conscious human beings, have the capacity to create our lives and to create the world around us that we would like to live in.
Our Role in the Universe of the Conscious Unified Field
Great spiritual leaders have said that we are the pilots of our destiny. The wisest of the present-day experts on success and living have agreed. Many wise and brilliant people in ancient and modern times have developed techniques for living life to the fullest that depend on the fundamental premise that we can indeed consciously influence not only our own lives but the world around us.
The science of quantum mechanics has opened up the possibility that this view is scientifically correct. Some of the great scientists in the field of quantum mechanics have concluded – but not proven – that this is the case. Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, put it this way:
So let us see whether we cannot draw the correct, non-contradictory conclusion from the following two premises:
(i) My body functions as a pure mechanism according to the Laws of Nature.
(ii) Yet I know, by incontrovertible direct experience, that I am directing its motions, of which I foresee the effects, that may be fateful and all important, in which case I feel and take responsibility for them.
The only possible inference from these two facts is, I think, that I — I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt “I” – am the person, if any, who controls the “motion of the atoms” according to the Laws of Nature.[6]
Since the physical universe consists entirely of quantum particle/wave phenomena, and since these quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena behave according to the laws of probability, commanding the physical universe comes down to influencing the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events.
My experiment was designed to test, in the scientific laboratory applying rigorous scientific methods, whether or not human beings can consciously influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events. If we can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events using consciousness intention alone, without any physical intervention, then we can command the universe. After all, the universe is nothing but quantum-mechanical events.
If we can influence the probability distribution of quantum mechanical events, then indeed all the great spiritual and inspirational teachers of the past and present have been right. We truly are in command of our own destiny and our universe. We truly can create the life and the world we desire.
If not, then we are simply automatons. All our thoughts and actions are simply predetermined, automatic (albeit complex) responses to whatever happens to us. Materialists and strict behavioral psychologists are right. Our notions that we are making meaningful decisions and creating our lives are simply an illusion.
That is what the Conscious Unified Field Experiment was designed to test scientifically: Can you really take command not only of our own life but of the world around you, and create the life of your dreams?
Since you are reading this book, you probably already have a clear intuitive sense of the correct answer to that question, and a deep commitment to applying that answer in your life. What is new here is that we put this question to the test scientifically. We have answered this scientific question through rigorous scientific research, at the level of the subatomic particle/wave phenomena of quantum physics. Since I’m writing this book, it won’t come as a surprise to you that the scientific proof I report here will prove that your intuition is right and your commitment is reality-based and valuable.
What This Book Is About
My previous book[7] presented new scientific evidence for a view of reality that lends itself to practical application in human life: The universe is not a thing, or a collection of things. The universe is an experience. Reality is an experience. Life is an experience. Your unbounded consciousness is the foundation and creator of that experience. You can create any experience you desire.
Many people read my previous book and had responses like this: “Ok, I’m convinced of all that. Very interesting. And all that, plus a few dollars, will get me an excellent cup of coffee. What does that have to do with my life? If it has something to do with my life, how do I apply it to create the life of my dreams?”
The purpose of this book is to address those questions. This is an account of my scientific and experiential exploration of the field of consciousness and enlightenment, of the brain and how it works, of our role as conscious beings in the physical universe, of neuroscience and quantum physics, and more importantly how all this can be practically applied to create the life you truly desire.
In this book I will refer to some of the known facts and phenomena of neuroscience and quantum physics that support and help to explain the experiences of life that I am describing. I will discuss some of my discoveries and inventions involving the human brain and nervous system, the relationship of consciousness with matter, and our role as conscious beings in the physical universe. Perhaps more importantly, I will discuss some of the practical applications that have arisen from these discoveries and inventions.
This is not, however, a textbook about neuroscience, physics, or biophysics. There are many such available already. This is not a comprehensive account of the neuroscience systems and quantum physics phenomena that I describe. It is not even a comprehensive account of my own discoveries and inventions in neuroscience and quantum physics. That information is available in my publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and in my patents for those who are interested.
This book is a personal account of some realizations I have had and some practical techniques for living and enlivening life, techniques that I have found to be quite wonderful in my own experience and in the lives of my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients. I have included some of the relevant neuroscience and physics so that those of you who also enjoy empirical proof (as I do) will have something more to play with.
This book is an account of what I have learned about how to experience the reality that anything is possible, a practical guide to living life to the fullest.
SuperPosition and Transmutation: A Preview
To get a sense of the Science of Creating Miracles and the experience that the techniques in this book are designed to create in your life, first it’s necessary to briefly describe the quantum-mechanical universe and our role in it.
In the universe of quantum mechanics there are two states of any quantum-mechanical system.
One state is the state before an observation. Before there is an observation, there is nothing there but mathematical probabilities. There is no mass, no velocity, no spin, no charge, no specific location, none of the physical qualities that particles can be observed to display. The particles aren’t there, waiting for us to come along and observe them. All that is there is abstract probabilities adding up to infinite possibilities.
The probability of any particular particle/wave phenomenon being observed in any specific configuration evolves over time, established and set in motion by the previous observation. All possibilities are there simultaneously, until we make the observation and these possibilities collapse into a single particle/wave phenomenon (or a specific state of the relevant field).
The second state of the system is generated by an observation. When we observe an elementary particle/wave phenomenon, all of the infinite possibilities collapse into a single observation, and the concrete qualities of matter and energy arise: mass, velocity, etc. At the precise moment of the observation, we can know the mass, velocity, and location of the particle/wave phenomenon, but only to a limited degree of certainty, limited by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
This process of observation that brings into being all the physical qualities of the particle/wave is known as the collapse of the wave function.
The state of the system prior to the conscious observation, when all possibilities are there simultaneously, is known as the state of superposition. In the state of superposition, the Conscious Unified Field is there in all of its infinite possibilities, poised to arise in whatever specific event you may consciously create.
What, then, do we as conscious human beings do in relation to the immense, interactive, interconnected quantum-mechanical system that we call the universe?
We take a state of infinite possibilities – the state of superposition – and by consciously interacting with it we collapse it into one observation, one configuration of quantum-mechanical particles/waves. In other words, we create the unique possibility, the unique outcome, that we experience out of the infinite possibilities that the universe makes available to us.
What we are doing, as conscious human beings, moment to moment in our lives, is encountering a field of infinite possibilities and creating a single experience of life from that. By so doing we also set in motion the probabilities for our future experiences. We are moving the universe from a state of superposition, where all possibilities are there, to a finite possibility that becomes our experience of life.
What the Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved is that we have a choice as to which possibilities we will manifest from the infinite possibilities inherent in the state of superposition.
We are not, however, always aware of that choice. We are not generally fully aware of the power we have to create the life and the universe we choose. We do not always experience ourselves as the creators of our lives. Sometimes it feels like someone or something else external to us is making our life the way it is.
All of the techniques in this book, and all of the techniques I have experienced and taught to my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients, are a means to become conscious of the power we have to create the life we choose. This is about creating the experience – not the idea or the concept or the hope – that we create our lives, the experience that anything is possible, we can make it happen, and we are making it happen. This is the experience – not the idea but the experience – that we are in the process of unfolding the possibilities we choose in life, and all the Laws of Nature in the universe are collaborating with us to make it happen.
Think of the most amazing success you have created in your life, something you achieved that looked impossible or at least highly improbable. Have you ever had an experience like this? You had an inner vision that resonated with you on the deepest level, you knew you could make it happen, and Nature collaborated with you. All kinds of events and resources and serendipitous happenings converged to create what you had envisioned, even in ways no one could have thought of or planned in advance.
SuperPosition
That’s what it is like to tune into the state of infinite possibilities. I like to call it experiencing SuperPosition, consciously tuning into the quantum-mechanical state of superposition, the Conscious Unified Field.
You might think of SuperPosition as your favorite superhero flying through the sky or poised for some impossible feat of magnificence and magic. In fact, you are more powerful than your favorite superhero. They only have power in what they can do. In your state of SuperPosition, you have the power to command the Laws of Nature in the universe to collaborate with you as well.
SuperPosition is an experience, an all-encompassing experience on the level of your consciousness. It’s not a thought or an emotion. There isn’t a cookbook formula that you can follow to reach that state.
SuperPosition is a holographic experience, a state of your whole being.
SuperPosition is the direct experience of the phenomenon that Schrodinger described: “I — I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt ‘I’ – am the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature.”
The techniques you will find in this book are designed to cultivate that experience, to refine the functioning of your nervous system, to give you incrementally deeper experience of your own consciousness and the infinite power it holds.
No one specific technique will get you there instantly or permanently. Integrating the experience of SuperPosition into your life is a process of growth of experience, self-discovery, exploration, insight – and delight.
Transmutation
Many techniques are available today to transform your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, your perceptions, your perspective, your attitude, and your beliefs.
A major focus of this book is Transmutation. Transmutation goes beyond transformation. Rather than transforming your thoughts, emotions, attitudes, perceptions, or beliefs, Transmutation creates a fundamental shift in who is creating the thoughts, emotions, attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs. Transmutation takes place on the level of being, not only on the level of thinking and feeling. This book provides practical techniques for Transmutation that you can apply to create the life you dream of, founded on the level of your being.
Before delving into the practical techniques you can apply in your life, first I’d like to discuss what the Science of Creating Miracles is and to give you a sense of the scientific foundation for this science and these techniques in quantum physics and neuroscience.
3. What is The Science of Creating Miracles?
Science and Miracles
Miracles used to be thought of as events that violated the laws of science, events that were beyond scientific explanation. Miracles were assumed to be events that were impossible under known scientific laws. In the quantum-mechanical universe, nothing is impossible. In scientific terms, a miracle now is simply an event that is extremely improbable.
Can we create miracles in human life? Can you create miracles in your life? In light of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment, the answer from science now is yes.
In the Conscious Unified Field Experiment that I conducted with my father, we showed that conscious human beings can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events through consciousness alone. Since the whole physical universe is nothing but quantum-mechanical events, if we can consciously influence these probabilities, we can make highly improbable events happen. In other words, what we proved in the laboratory is that human consciousness can indeed create miracles. In short, the proven scientific reality is that you can create miracles.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment was a combination of quantum physics and neuroscience. I am a neuroscientist, and my father was an experimental nuclear physicist who specialized in research in quantum mechanics. We used state-of-the art experimental nuclear physics apparatus that he designed and built to conduct our research in quantum mechanics.
The word “quantum” has become quite popular lately. It has been used to mean all kinds of things, some of which have little to do with scientific research in physics. When I use the word “quantum” or the phrases “quantum physics” or “quantum mechanics,” I am referring not to an esoteric concept, but rather to hard science, specifically nuclear physics.
What is unique about the Conscious Unified Field Experiment is that we proved in the laboratory that human consciousness can and does have a direct impact on quantum-mechanical processes, specifically detection of alpha particles emitted by plutonium. This is a very concrete and precise phenomenon, to the extent that anything in the quantum-mechanical world can be precise and concrete.
We proved that, although ordinarily quantum-mechanical processes can only be predicted in terms of probabilities, human beings functioning from the level of consciousness can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events. We proved in the laboratory that human consciousness can be applied to create improbable or even “impossible” events – that is, miracles.
This introduces the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, a whole new paradigm in science and human life.[8]
You Can Create Miracles
The Science of Creating Miracles will teach you practical techniques to create miracles consistently in your life. I have devoted many years of my life to exploring the Science of Creating Miracles, both in the scientific laboratory and in the practical world where we live our lives. This book reveals the practical techniques that I have developed and refined to create the miracles you truly desire in your life, to consciously create the life you truly desire, to live the experience that “Anything is possible.”
The techniques I will show you here are founded in science and proven in the real world. We’ll examine the brain, its different structures and functions, and how to apply what we know of neuroscience to use your amazing brain and your even more amazing consciousness to create miracles in your life. We’ll examine the relationship between the brain and consciousness and how to apply this in life. We’ll explore how quantum physics illuminates our role in the universe and reveals the power we have to create our lives and our surroundings.
Perhaps even more important than getting what you want, this book will provide practical techniques to unfold, enjoy, and express who you really are. We as humans are not just a body equipped with a highly sophisticated thinking machine in our heads. The highest function of the brain is not just to run our motor and sensory systems, process information, and mediate emotions. The brain is a truly miraculous instrument for reflecting consciousness. Consciousness is the essence of life, the reality that makes you as a human being different from a rock or a robot.
Consciousness is the essence of who you are, your Self. Your Self, your consciousness – the real you – is unbounded and infinite by nature. You, as a human being, are unbounded and infinite in your essential nature.
The Science of Creating Miracles provides you with practical techniques to experience and unfold your unbounded, infinitely powerful and free Self, and to bring this highest aspect of who you are out more fully in your daily life.
In this book we will explore many unusual and miraculous phenomena in life that can be explained by the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm in conjunction with the current state of development of relativity and quantum physics and neuroscience.
In later chapters we will also examine some phenomena that can be experienced through the instrument of the human nervous system, but which go beyond what science has yet to develop secondary instruments to measure. These are phenomena that at least some ancient and present-day humans have experienced to be real, but that go beyond the current state of development of modern science.
Just as x-rays were real before we had instruments to measure them, so there are energies and phenomena that at least some human beings have experienced through refined functioning of the nervous system, but that have not yet been measured by secondary scientific instruments. We will explore some of these energies and phenomena and the role they may play in human life.
In today’s world, many people are seeking – and not easily finding – what (or who) in life suits you, what inspires you, what brings you joy and happiness, what resonates with the real you. In this book we’ll explore the phenomenon of resonance in Nature, in human life, and in the brain. We’ll examine the brainwave research that scientists including myself have conducted about resonance in the human brain.
We’ll explore my scientific discoveries about how to measure brainwaves as a guide to finding and creating a life that resonates with the real you. I will introduce practical techniques for bringing into your life things, events, experiences, and people that truly resonate with the real you.
No doubt you have read other books or imbibed talks, videos, seminars, courses, spiritual guidance, or coaching about how to create the life you desire. Some of what you have discovered probably works quite effectively already. Maybe you’re already teaching and inspiring others.
All the great teachers in this field, from the ancient scriptures to the latest book that came out last week, have one thing in common. They hold that first you envision what you desire inwardly on the level of your consciousness, and then your progress toward that takes place on two levels. The most obvious is that you take concrete action in that direction.
Less obvious, but equally if not more important, is that your inner vision on the level of consciousness inspires Nature to move in the same way. You find that all kinds of events and resources and people arise serendipitously, in ways no one could have predicted, to support what you have initially envisioned on the level of your consciousness.
All of these experts who expressed that reality in different times, places, and languages have been right. That is indeed how Nature works. You probably already know this. Maybe you yourself are one of these experts who have been expounding this reality in one way or another, or at least applying it in your life.
The Science of Creating Miracles provides a scientific explanation for how this phenomenon takes place, based on rigorous scientific research that we have conducted in neuroscience and quantum physics. This book is meant as a complement, and not a replacement, for other techniques for personal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual development you may already be successfully practicing or teaching others. In addition to introducing you to something new, I hope this book gives you more confidence and more understanding of the things you are already doing to enhance your life and the lives of others.
The techniques provided here are based on the new scientific research on the Conscious Unified Field and the resulting understanding of life and the universe. These techniques are designed to enhance your ability to experience SuperPosition – the experience of the state of infinite possibilities, where you are in conscious contact with the Conscious Unified Field. This experience is the foundation of creating miracles in your life.
The techniques provided here are designed to provide you with the experience of Transmutation. Transmutation goes beyond changing your thoughts, actions, emotions, beliefs, and perceptions. Transmutation is a fundamental shift in who is creating your thoughts, actions, emotions, beliefs, and perceptions, a change that takes place on the level of your consciousness. Through Transmutation you refine your nervous system, deepen your experience of consciousness, and enhance your ability to create miracles in your life. The experience of Transmutation is a practical application of the Science of Creating Miracles.
I hope you find some of the scientific and practical knowledge presented here to be interesting and useful. The techniques I express here have brought delightful results for me and those I have taught. I hope these techniques will also prove useful and delightful for you in creating the life you truly desire, a life where “Anything is possible” is your daily experience.
4. The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm
The Conscious Unified Experiment and Your Own Experience
You have probably had experiences yourself, in various ways, of the same phenomenon we proved in the Conscious Unified Field Experiment. Perhaps you have had an experience something like this. You are thinking, “I’d like to hear from my friend Joe.” Just then the phone rings, and it’s Joe. Did conscious thought have an impact? It appears that it did. From a scientific perspective, the difficulty with such happenings in everyday life is that we don’t know the exact probability that Joe would have called just then even if you weren’t thinking about him.
We do, however, know the exact probability distribution of alpha particle emission by plutonium (as well as other quantum-mechanical probability distributions). My encounter with the plutonium was a controlled experiment to test scientifically whether or not people could influence the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events using conscious intention alone, without any physical intervention.
By proving in the laboratory that you, as a conscious human being, can affect the probability of quantum-mechanical events, what we proved is you can affect anything in creation. In other words, for a human being of awakened consciousness, anything is possible. This is not just a platitude, an abstract hope, a belief, or an attitude. It is a physical fact, a scientifically proven fact.
Consciously affecting the probability of quantum-mechanical events means consciously choosing what will happen in the real universe. This puts you in command of the helm of the universe. For you as a conscious human being, anything is possible.
A Reality Check: The Findings of Experts in Spiritual Experience
In evaluating any new scientific discovery, it is useful to engage in a reality check by reviewing the findings of those who have sought wisdom and truth outside the realm of science. We can consider this from two perspectives that are unlikely to have been included in a standard science education: those who have reported spiritual experiences and those who have studied how to be successful in practical, modern life.
Reality checks regarding new scientific discoveries that consider the findings of those who have sought wisdom and truth outside the realm of science provide a context for our considerations of scientific truth. If I find something in my scientific investigations that is consonant with the truths discovered by others in different realms, this provides support and confirmation of the direction I am heading. If not, I am alerted to give particularly careful scrutiny to these scientific findings.
With respect to spiritual experience, it seems to me that there is a remarkable level of agreement in different cultures and traditions, in different times and places. If we look at the original scriptures of the various spiritual traditions — which were always founded on spiritual experience, and not just information or belief—and at the spiritual experiences reported throughout history, we find a number of universal themes. (We are speaking here of spiritual experience, not of religious belief systems. The latter have led to some decidedly anti-spiritual behavior, such as persecuting or even killing people who do not adhere to the dogma in question.)
Others, including great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, and Werner Heisenberg have expressed the same realization, as discussed below.
It would be the height of hubris for a scientist to presume to summarize the universal wisdom of all the spiritual traditions throughout history in a single encyclopedia, let alone a single paragraph. Please allow me, however, to suggest for your consideration the following themes that appear to me to be universally recognized by those who report experiences of a higher spiritual nature.
1. The entire universe (including all objective and all subjective aspects) functions according to universal, eternal Laws of Nature.
2. The universe is an undivided whole. Everything and everyone is intimately connected with everything and everyone else.
3. To find the truth you must look within.
4. Within every human being is an infinite, eternal, unbounded realm of life, a realm of infinite possibilities, of unlimited knowledge, beauty, joy, fulfillment, and intelligence.
5. The primary purpose of life, and the key to success and fulfillment in life, is to discover and unfold this realm.
6. This inner realm is discovered through silence, rather than through activity.
7. The light of life that is discovered in this silent inner realm is the first cause and essential constituent of creation, with all its diversity and activity.
8. Human beings have free will to make of their life anything they can envision.
9. What you desire to see in your environment or your life, you must first create within yourself.
10. The results of your actions will ultimately accrue to yourself. You reap what you sow.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment was essentially an empirical test of these same truths. The result we found was in accord with the findings and teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the past.
Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and the Congruence of Scientific and Spiritual Realms
The idea of harmony and even potential unity between the world of scientific experience and knowledge and the world of subjective and spiritual experience and knowledge is also not new in the realm of science. The founders of the recent scientific revolution in physics devoted considerable thought to this issue.
Albert Einstein expressed the following view on the relationship between scientific and spiritual experiences.
“You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own … His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is without doubt closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.” (Einstein, Albert, The World as I See It. New York: Citadel Press, 1979, p. 28-29.)
Werner Heisenberg, a principal founder of quantum mechanics, sounded a similar note in the final paragraph of Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science.
“Coming now to a conclusion from all that has been said about modern science, one may perhaps state that modern physics is just one, but a very characteristic, part of a general historical process that tends toward a unification and a widening of our present world…. Modern physics … through its openness for all kinds of concepts raises the hope that in the final state of unification many different cultural traditions may live together and may combine different human endeavors into a new kind of balance between thought and deed, between activity and meditation.” (Heisenberg, Werner, Physics and Philosophy, the Revolution in Modern Science. New York: Harper, 1958, p. 206.)
This book began with a quotation from Erwin Schrödinger identifying the universal “I,” the universal human consciousness that is one with the Conscious Unified Field, as “the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature.”
Schrödinger described the “perennial philosophy” that holds consciousness to be the ultimate reality, and marvels at its universality and at the
“…miraculous agreement between humans of different race, different religion, knowing nothing about each other’s existence, separated by centuries and millennia, and by the greatest distances that there are on the globe.
“Still, it must be said that to Western thought this doctrine has little appeal, it is unpalatable, it is dubbed fantastic, unscientific. Well, so it is, because our science—Greek science—is based on objectivation, whereby it has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the Subject of Cognizance, of the mind. But I do believe that this is precisely the point where our present way of thinking does need to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought.”[9]
Schrödinger went on to discuss the perennial philosophy in terms of the teachings of the Christian religion, the Upanishads of the Vedic literature, and the recorded experiences of sages of various traditions.
Since Schrödinger's 1944 publication, and in particular during the last couple of decades, the similarities between the findings of modern physics and those of the various spiritual traditions of the world have been widely examined both by scientists and by spiritual proponents.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment was designed to form the basis of an integration of scientific thinking and human experience—of scientific exploration on the one hand and the universal experience of consciousness on the other. Recent scientific discoveries in physics and neuroscience certainly point toward such an integration. The early discoverers of the quantum-mechanical nature of the physical universe recognized in the early years of the last century the fundamental importance of the conscious subject in the process of observation through which the universe arises. Science has also recognized for some time – at least in principle — the fundamental connectedness and interrelatedness of all of the universe.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm:
A New Paradigm Encompassing Consciousness and the Material Universe
An optimistic look at the discoveries of the first part of the previous century would conclude that science was then at the threshold of the greatest breakthrough in the history of human thinking and experience: the integration of the subjective and objective worlds, a universal paradigm inclusive of both consciousness and the world of material experience. For a century we have remained on the threshold.
A scientific paradigm that integrates consciousness and the material universe is long overdue. Given the results of scientific research in quantum and relativity physics, the conclusion that consciousness creates the physical universe through the process of observation is inescapable. The process through which this takes place, however, has until now remained as much a mystery as it was prior to the advent of quantum mechanics, relativity, and modern neuroscience.
In the absence of a viable paradigm encompassing both consciousness and matter, the scientific recognition of the fundamental importance of consciousness has remained without practical applications. We know in principle that consciousness is fundamental to the process of observation through which the physical universe emerges, but we have remained entirely unable to apply this knowledge to improve human life. We also know that the universe is an infinitely interconnected whole, but this realization, too, has remained without practical or useful implications for living.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment was designed to test essentially a fundamental hypothesis regarding the nature of human life and the role of conscious beings in the universe. You and I in our most universal Nature, the universal “I” of consciousness, controls not only the “motion of the atoms” but even the motion of the elementary quantum-mechanical particles that comprise the atoms.
The results of the Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved that Einstein, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg were right. The great spiritual masters of antiquity and the founders of the major spiritual traditions were right. The modern experts on success in living are right.
Humans, as conscious beings, have access to the unbounded inner field of consciousness, the same field as the unified field of quantum mechanics from which the entire physical universe springs like waves on an ocean (or, more precisely, particle/wave phenomena in space-time). From this field of our own consciousness, we human beings can command the universe.
Wise and intelligent people have always taught this. The difference that the Conscious Unified Field Experiment made is that now it is a matter of scientific proof.
Taken together, all of this forms the foundation of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, a new paradigm in science and in human life. The Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved it to be true.
We have crossed the threshold to a new paradigm that integrates man and Nature, science and spirituality, subject and object, consciousness and matter, knowledge and experience, human life and the material universe. This book is about how you can fully realize this in your own life, how you can take advantage of your magnificent stature in the universe to create the life of your dreams.
5. The Beginning of My Journey
I was 13 years old and I was drowning. I do not mean drowning, as in overwhelmed, bewildered, confused, and struggling to find meaning in life, although I was all of those things. I mean drowning, as in my physical body was trapped underwater, and I was out of oxygen and out of time.
It got to the point where I was sure I had only about a second more to live. Then something amazing happened – actually three things simultaneously. The first was that I let go of something that I didn’t know I was holding onto, something I didn’t even know existed.
In my life, sometimes things had not worked out the way I desired or intended. Something did not turn out right. I said or did something that didn’t work. Generally, someone was hurt, angry, or afraid – sometimes me. On some level, sometimes conscious but generally not, I felt that there was a possibility that I could go back and make things right, go back and fix it so everything was OK. The possibility might have been infinitesimally small, but on some deep level I always felt that I might someday get a chance to set things right and undo the hurt and pain and misunderstanding and conflict.
Now I knew my life was over, and that would never happen. I consciously let go of ever going back and fixing anything, of ever making things better or different than they were. I felt as though a huge tangled mess flew away from me at that instant.
Simultaneously, my life flashed before my eyes. I have often heard or read that when you are drowning your life flashes before your eyes, but this experience was nothing like what I imagined from those words. I clearly saw, clearly experienced, every single scene and happening in my life, all at once. It was not like a movie preview of just the major highlights, or a fast-forward re-enactment. It was a full experience of each and every moment of my life, just as clear as the present moment, yet all at once. I had no idea that my consciousness could expand to encompass all of that at once, but it did.
The third thing that happened does not easily fit into words. Having let go of ever attempting to change anything, and seeing my whole life, I felt that I saw it clearly for the first time. I was struck by the sense that it simply was what it was, and it was perfect exactly how it was. I was delighted at the perfection I saw in my life. I thought to myself, now, finally, I see my life the way it truly is, and it is perfect. Not that I didn’t see the mistakes or the pain. I simply saw that it was what it was, and sensed the perfection in the universe and in my life in particular.
I had the fleeting thought, “If only I could have seen it that way while I was living it, I would never have suffered. I would have cherished every moment. I would have in every instant seen my life for the exquisitely beautiful experience that it was.” But even that didn’t matter, because I truly saw it now. I realized it had been that way all along, and it didn’t even matter that I hadn’t really gotten the reality until now. Now I got it.
I had no regrets that my life was ending after only 13 years. It was what it was. It was not just enough; it was more than plenty. It was exactly what it was, and I had nothing but delight in my one last flash of it all at once.
Just then I got to the surface. I was gasping for air and spitting water, and my experience of life was back to what it had been.
That is the moment I became a seeker. I knew I had experienced my life the way it truly is. I knew if I could experience it that way all the time, I would always experience fulfillment and never suffer. Even “fulfillment” seems pale and dull compared to the experience I had just had. I knew that the real, true experience of my life was intensely delightful, fascinating, fully engaging in every moment. I felt acutely that that was not what I was experiencing now, or had experienced before, except for that brief moment.
I also knew that if I could experience reality once, I could do it again, and there must be a way to have that experience permanently. It was very clear to me that that was the key to ending suffering and experiencing fulfillment in life. I also had the sense that on the foundation of experiencing my life the way it truly is, I could also freely create everything in my life that I desired, and accomplish my highest aspirations. Not because my life would not be OK without that, but because once I was experiencing the intense wonderfulness of my life when seen truly, I’d naturally be inspired to express my creative intelligence in ways that resonated with me. That inevitably would lead to success on every level.
It has been said that ignorance is bliss. Not so. It was abundantly clear to me in that flash of experience and insight that all of the suffering in my life had come from ignorance, from not experiencing and knowing life the way it really is. It was equally clear that the key to fulfillment in life – to living the life I truly desired, to experiencing a life that inspired and thrilled me at every moment – was experiencing life the way it really is, not the way it had previously appeared.
How did I know? I knew the same way you and I know, when we awaken from a dream, that now we are awake, and before we were dreaming. Reality, when perceived, is self-validating. I just knew, and I knew with more certainty than I had ever known anything in my life.
My life as a Seeker
I set out to discover everything I could about personal development, spirituality, and consciousness. I read every relevant book I could get my hands on. I went to countless lectures, seminars, and retreats.
One of the first books I read was Plato’s Republic. I was inspired and encouraged when I read his allegory of the cave. He said in the ordinary level of consciousness we are like people bound in a cave, with a fire at our backs. We cannot see each other or the fire at our backs. All we see are shadows. We don’t see ourselves or others for what we truly are, only the shadows of people and things.
Plato said it is possible to break free of the bonds and begin to see actual people and things, not just shadows. It is possible to make it to the surface, out of the cave, and see the world and the people in it truly. It is even possible to see the Sun, that which gives light to everything and makes perception of everything else possible.
I realized that Plato must have had experiences similar to mine, and that he must have found a way to make the experience much more complete and whole, and to make it permanent. This all made more sense to me later. At the time, it was primarily an inspiration that I was seeking something that was real and that others had previously discovered, experienced, and known in depth and detail.
The most superficial level of attempting to make some more of life is on the level of what you have. The advertising industry and those who employ it will have you believe that what you have is the key to happiness, success, admiration, and respect, not to mention sex. Just buy more things, and that will get you where you want to be in life. I never really bought that concept, and if you’re reading this book, you probably don’t buy it either.
I did, however, at one time think that the key to success and happiness involved in large measure doing things. I believed that if I could have spectacular enough achievements, that would make my life successful. If I could do impressive enough things, that would garner me respect and admiration from others, and that would bring lots of fulfillment to me. If I could find the right person and do all the things necessary to have the right kind of relationship, that would be a major key to happiness.
I found that most of the self-improvement and personal development books and courses I could find focused on methods for changing what you do. The message was that highly successful people do certain things. Learn to do these things as a matter of habit, and you will be highly successful. This perspective was particularly prevalent in books and courses focusing on maximizing achievements in the world.
Most of the relationship books and courses were also about what to do. Treat all people in an uplifting and loving way. Treat women this way, with certain refinements because of the way they are. Treat men that way, with different refinements because of the way they are. Say these things, do these things, learn a set of rules of engagement that foster harmony, love, and understanding, and your relationships will be successful.
I found considerable value in the advice given in many books and seminars on what to do to create a successful life. My underwater experience had taught me, however, that the true experience of life and the fulfillment that comes from it go beyond anything that one does or does not do.
Many of the books and courses of instruction I encountered recognized that there is more to life than what you do. They recognized that what you do is dependent on what you think and how you think. If you want to change your life for the better, you must change your thinking. As a person thinks, so he/she is. As a person thinks, so he/she behaves, and the fruits of that behavior follow. Think negative thoughts, and you will manifest a negative outcome. Think positive thoughts, and you will manifest a positive outcome.
I practiced many techniques for changing my thinking to be more positive, harmonious, and productive. Most provided substantial good benefits. I knew from my own direct experience, however, that truth and fulfillment in life went beyond any thoughts or ways of thinking.
Some of the more advanced books and seminars included the realization that how and what you think depends also on how you feel. It depends on how you feel about yourself, about others, and about life. It depends on your subtle and often unconscious or semi-conscious feelings about the way life is. Early experiences have an impact on your feelings about yourself and others, as well as your thinking. What you manifest in your life is greatly affected by how you feel – about yourself, about others, about your role in life, about your strengths and weaknesses, about what life is like, and so on. I learned many techniques for changing how I feel, and gained considerable benefit from most of them.
Still, I knew from very intense and self-validating personal experience that there is much more to life than what I do, think, and feel. I knew that living a life that was truly real, truly inspiring, and intensely enjoyable goes beyond any formula for doing, thinking, and feeling.
Some of the most advanced books, seminars, and courses on life recognized something beyond doing, thinking, and feeling. I learned a number of techniques for personal transformation that were aimed at transforming how and who one is being, who and what one perceives oneself to be, and what one perceives life to be. Successful people have a way of being. To be successful, achieve such a way of being. Transform your self-image and your inner sense of who you are and the way life is, and you can live a truly extraordinary, successful, and fulfilling life.
Some of the most valuable techniques and experiences I have had in the realm of personal development have focused specifically on transformation. This perspective, and the techniques and programs based on it, led to significant realizations and insights and to significant improvements in my life. Still, all of this did not get me to the full realization and experience of life that I had glimpsed that one moment underwater when I was sure it was all about to end.
I thought that perhaps if I could find the most intelligent and educated people, I could learn from them. I graduated from high school, applied and was accepted to Harvard University. I thought to myself, “Now I’ll meet the most intelligent people, leaders in the field who have studied life their whole careers. Surely they will be able to help me to find the truth.”
When I arrived at Harvard my freshman year, one of the first things I did was to make an appointment with a professor in the psychology department. He was offering a special seminar where he would personally mentor students. I had just arrived from Seattle, on the other side of the country, and I overslept. I rushed off to the appointment, but still arrived ten minutes late. I was eager to learn, and excited to get to meet someone who would be able to teach me something about life.
The professor and purported world-class expert in human relations greeted me with an angry red face. How dare I, a mere college freshman, be ten minutes late for an appointment with someone so important as him? He was really deeply angry, and he did not hold back in chastising me about it. I realized quite quickly that being intelligent and educated was not necessarily the key to wisdom. It was abundantly clear to me that I knew much more about life, and about human relations, than this expert ever would. And I had an advantage: At least I realized that I didn’t know much, so I would have a chance to learn.
I did not, however, abandon academic learning as a means to discover more about life. I had always been interested in science. My father, George Farwell, was a professor of physics. I grew up around science and scientists, and I always knew that it was an important part of our understanding of life.
I also knew that the brain is fundamental to our experience of life, to everything we do, think, and feel, and to who we are. I decided to study the brain. I did brain research at Harvard, graduated, and went on to earn my PhD in neuroscience at the University of Illinois, focusing on studying the active, living human brain through electroencephalography (EEG). This provided the foundation, from a scientific perspective, for the techniques I have developed for creating miracles in your life.
At the time, though, all of that still did not get me to where I truly desired to be in life.
Spiritual books and teachings had been a major focus in my life since my original spiritual experience at age 13. After quite a few years, I had read and studied everything in sight, and practiced all the spiritual development techniques I could find. Yet the words in the books and in the seminars and in my own head, and the various techniques I learned, still did not get me to where I truly desired to be in life. No matter what I tried to do, think, feel, and even be, my experience of life still fell far short of what I knew from direct experience that it could be.
Returning to the story of my underwater epiphany, soon I made it to shore, caught my breath, and shortly was home and dry. Then I had a chance to think about what the experience meant for me. What it meant for me was that the rest of my life I would be seeking to discover how to get from a state of limited awareness and inevitable suffering to a state in which my life was unboundedly inspiring, fulfilling, thrilling, and delightful exactly the way it was.
I knew it was possible to get from the experience of “this is unbearably painful” to the experience of “everything is delightful.” I had experienced that once, and I knew intuitively that it must be possible to experience it again, and permanently.
It was clear to me that what I had learned up to that point, and what I had experienced up to that point, was not all of life, and not even the most real aspect of life.
After years of study, learning, and practice, I was not much closer to living what I knew to be the true reality of life – or to living a life in fulfillment – than I had been five minutes after I emerged from the water on that first day of my life as a seeker.
6. The Blind Spot
No matter what I learned to do, think, feel, and even be, I had not yet been able to create the life I truly desired. I began to realize that the truth must lie somewhere else beyond where I had been looking. In other words, I had had a major blind spot all my life. The most important truths about life and the most fulfilling experiences apparently had resided in that blind spot, inaccessible to me except in small glimpses and small doses that seemed to arrive at random.
Before going further, I’d like to illustrate for you just how powerful and convincing a blind spot can be. The one I am about to show you is physical. Mental and intellectual blind spots are even more convincing and blinding, as I shall discuss shortly.
A Simple Way to Experience Your Blind Spot
To begin with, I would like to share with you an experience of how the senses generate an apparent reality, an experience that may be quite striking if you have not had it before.
First, look around the room. Do you have a complete vision of what is in front of you? Cover one eye and look around again. Except for the smaller visual field, is your vision no less complete? With one eye still covered, look at a stationary object, so that your eye does not move. Then, being careful not to move your eye, move your attention around the visual field to see if it is complete. Are there any holes in your visual field? Experience clearly says “No.”
What would you say if I were to tell you that there is a hole in your visual field, pretty near the center, and large enough to lose the face of someone standing 15 feet from you? In fact, there is.
Here are the facts. We see by virtue of light entering through the pupil at the front of the eyeball and falling on light-sensitive receptor cells in the retina on the back of the eyeball. Each point in space in front of you maps to a point on the retina. The receptor cells in the retina convey information to other visual processing cells, and on to the brain through the optic nerve. There is a small hole in the retina where the optic nerve exits. There are no receptor cells there, so any light that falls on this area is not picked up by receptor cells. You do not see whatever is in the corresponding small area in visual space.
This is empirically testable. Let’s prove it.
Before you turn the page, please read the following instructions. The next page of the book is blank except for two dots. First, just look at the page and locate the two dots. They are quite easily visible.
If you are reading this on a very small screen, or in a format where the images are too small or difficult to see, you can print out this experiment at https://larryfarwell.com/pdf/blindspot.pdf. There are several other websites that illustrate the phenomenon of the blind spot, some with animated displays and a variety of configurations. (If you are wearing glasses, you may need a somewhat larger display to see this phenomenon clearly; or you can try it without your glasses.)
Hold the book (or digital device) so that the dots are on the same level horizontally. Hold it so that the distance from the book to your eyes is about five times as long as the distance between the dots. This will of course vary depending on the size of your screen. For example, if the dots are four inches apart (as they are in the printed book), hold the book or device 20 inches away from your eyes.
Now, cover your left eye and keep it covered. Look at the dot on the left side. You will still see the other dot out to the right.
Now, while continuing to look at the left dot, slowly move the book or device toward you. When it is about four times as far from your eyes as the distance between the dots (16 inches away if you are using the printed book), the second dot will disappear, and you will see nothing but a blank, white page with one dot near the left. You may have to try this several times to get the dot to line up with your blind spot.
Once the dot disappears, you may find it immediately appears again because you have moved your gaze from the dot on the left to the dot on the right. If you refocus on the dot on the left, the dot on the right will disappear again.
If you keep moving the book or device toward you, the dot will reappear when it is about three times as far away from you as the distance between the dots (12 inches away if you are using the printed book).
Now, turn the page and try the experiment. Once you have seen the dot disappear, go on to the following page.
Could you see the dot disappear?
How can you walk around for 20 or 90 years with a blind spot and never see it, and never miss what is behind that spot? When the dot is in your blind spot, the brain fills in the spot with whatever is around it, in this case with a white background. What is there is a page with two black dots. What you see is a page with one black dot and all the rest white.
Now, let’s try it again, and see what else the brain can fill in. On the next page, you will see a black dot and a square with a white dot in it. Hold the page so the black dot is on the left and the square is on the right. Cover your left eye, move the page as before, and when your blind spot hits the white dot in the square, your brain will fill in the black box and you will see a solid box that isn’t there. Now turn the page and try the experiment.
Could you see the solid, black box that wasn’t there? What is really there is not a solid box but a box with a rather large hole in it. If you line up the hole in the box with your blind spot — a hole in the visual field that the visual system fills in without your knowing it — you see an illusory solid box. If the box is some other color, or even a line or a pattern of parallel lines, your visual system will fill in the same thing in your blind spot. (There are several websites that demonstrate this online.)
Your blind spot is actually quite large, about five degrees of visual angle, big enough to fit about 70 full Moons in it, unseen.
What is so remarkable about this phenomenon is not that there is a hole in your visual field, but that you don’t ordinarily see it. Without your even knowing it, your machinery of experience fills in a complete picture, making assumptions that what you do not see is the same as what you do see. This shows that your sensory systems construct a consistent, plausible reality, rather than just passively reporting what is really there. “What you see” and “what is really there” are not the same thing, and this little demonstration is only the beginning.
Intellectual and Experiential Blind Spots
Our sensory systems are not the only place where blind spots exist. They exist on the level of intellectual understanding as well. Their existence is, in fact, inevitable given the nature of the universe and the nature of the human intellect. Nature is infinitely complex, and the ability of the human intellect to understand is finite. In order to make sense of the universe so that we can function within it, we adopt metaphors that approximately match and explain what we observe through the senses.
Metaphors are characteristically simple and comprehensive — suited for dealing with infinite complexity using the finite tool of our intellect. The power of metaphors is that they provide a framework within which a multitude of diverse observations can make sense. The weakness of metaphors is that, like our visual system, they can appear to comprehend all of reality when in fact they do not.
Scientific understanding of the universe or some part of it takes place within a paradigm. A paradigm is an overarching concept that defines how we think about the universe, or some significant part of the universe.
Every scientific paradigm has its foundation in a metaphor. For example, there was a time when it was believed that Earth is the center of the universe. The metaphor of the Geocentric Paradigm was one fixed ball (Earth) at the center of the universe, with other balls of various sizes moving around it in various patterns.
Scientific research within a paradigm consists essentially of observing more and more of nature, and fitting it into the ruling metaphor and the conceptual scheme arising from it.
Every incomplete paradigm, every incomplete system for thinking about life and the universe, is inevitably based in a metaphor that is much more limited than the reality it purports to comprehend. Thus, every scientific paradigm has a blind spot, a place where realities inconsistent with the paradigm reside.
For one steeped in the paradigm throughout a lifetime, these conceptual blind spots are exceedingly difficult to see and overcome. On the intellectual level as well as on the sensory level, we fill in the gaps so convincingly that we have what appears to be a complete picture even when something very fundamental is missing.
For example, during the reign of the Geocentric Paradigm, for over a thousand years some very intelligent people believed the geocentric metaphor as an a priori truth. It is obvious that everything moves around Earth. That is a matter of direct perception – just look at the Sun rising and setting, the motions of the Moon, etc. The question that those seeking truth about the universe asked was, “How do the heavenly bodies move around the earth?” No matter how brilliant the questioner and the answer, once that question had been asked, there was no possibility of arriving at the truth.
The Geocentric Paradigm had a blind spot. If the entire universe consists of things that move around the earth – which it certainly appears to – then it should make sense to seek to understand the universe by understanding how things move around the earth. Once you have asked that question, the entire realm of possibilities open to you is missing the only possibility that actually accords with reality. The blind spot in the Geocentric Paradigm in fact contains the entire knowledge of how the planets, stars, and galaxies move in the universe.
We now know that Earth rotates on its axis, Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun, the Sun and other solar systems revolve within a galaxy, and all the galaxies move away from each other at high speed. The question that must be asked to get to this realization could not be asked in the Geocentric Paradigm. It is a fundamentally different question: “How do all the heavenly bodies, including the earth, move in relation to each other in space and time?”
Asking that question, and finding answers that are in accord with the observed data, resulted in a scientific revolution where the Geocentric Paradigm was replaced by the Heliocentric Paradigm, with the Sun at the center of our solar system (but not at the center of the universe).
Finally I began to realize that just as the Geocentric Paradigm had a blind spot, I had a similar blind spot in my experience and understanding of life. Everything I do, think, feel, and perceive appears to be a complete account of my life. Working to improve everything I do, think, feel, and perceive – to transform my ways of doing, thinking, feeling, and perceiving – appears to be all that is possible to create the life I truly desire. Yet all of that was not getting me to the much more real and much more fulfilling life that I knew from my own experience must be possible.
7. Science and Consciousness
When I realized that the key to creating the life of my dreams must be in a blind spot, life looked like a dilemma. I later discovered that it was not a dilemma, but a paradox.
Once I understood the paradox, the path from “this is unbearably painful” to “everything is delightful” was clear and easy to traverse. Now my task is to guide you along the path that I have traversed to expand my understanding and experience beyond that dilemma, and to share with you practical techniques that have arisen out of that exploration.
The bottom line is that what was missing in my view of life and the universe, what was in my blind spot, was consciousness. Everything we think, feel, and do, everything we experience in life, is based on the level of consciousness we bring to that experience.
Consciousness is something with which we are all intimately familiar. You know what it’s like to be asleep – very little consciousness. You know what it’s like to be awake – more consciousness. You know what it’s like not to have slept enough, or for some other reason to be half awake – less consciousness.
The more consciousness we are experiencing at any given moment, the more we have clarity of mind, intelligence, joy, fulfillment, creativity, harmony, energy; understanding of life, the universe, and other people; and everything else that makes life successful and enjoyable. Consciousness is the essence of life. The more consciousness we bring to any experience or situation, the more life we bring. Success in every realm of life is a byproduct of the level of consciousness we bring to bear there. Consciousness is not something we see, feel, touch, do, or say. It is the fundamental quality of life that lights up everything we experience.
To bring to light what was missing in my life, what lay in the blind spot to which I had been blind all but a few fleeting moments, I’d like to explore with you the role of consciousness in life and the universe. I do not propose to have a definitive answer. I will, however, propose some working hypotheses that I have found to be interesting and useful.
Scientific Paradigms
To begin with, let’s consider the nature of science. For most non-scientists, science primarily consists of facts. You learn in your science courses in school what has been established as fact. The whole thing is pretty static, cut and dried. For practicing scientists, science is a process of explaining what we know with reference to natural laws, and discovering what we do not yet know. Practicing scientists deal with scientific paradigms and working hypotheses, not “facts.”
Scientific understanding and working hypotheses take place within a scientific paradigm. A paradigm is an overarching metaphor that defines how we think about the universe, or some significant part of the universe. For example, as discussed above, the Geocentric Paradigm held that the earth is the center of the universe, and everything moves around the earth. This paradigm defined how people thought about everything they could observe in the heavens.
The Geocentric Paradigm was replaced by the Heliocentric Paradigm about four hundred years ago. At the time of Galileo and Newton, scientific observation and explanation of the universe began to progress more swiftly than it had in previous centuries. The Newtonian Paradigm or Materialist Paradigm arose to explain the universe in terms of objects and forces. Objects included small things like a baseball and large things like the Earth and the Sun. Forces included forces at play on large and small scales, such as gravity and magnetism.
In the new Conscious Unified Field Paradigm that has arisen to replace the Materialist Paradigm, we explore even deeper questions that have transformed our understanding of the nature of space, time, objects, matter, energy, and life. This new paradigm turns out to be very useful for living a more successful and delightful life, as we shall see in later chapters.
Working Hypotheses
Working hypotheses are explanations of how the Laws of Nature work in the universe or in a particular realm. They lend themselves to predictions as to the outcome of experiments and observations. Working hypotheses are not “Truth” or even “truth.” They are simply explanations that fit the currently available data. When new data arrive through empirical experimentation and observation, working hypotheses often must be revised.
From time to time, observations or experiments yield data that completely do not fit into the current paradigm, and a whole new paradigm arises to explain these. When Galileo and others observed that Venus goes through phases like the Moon, they realized that this would not happen if everything moved around Earth, but only if everything revolved around the Sun. Sometimes Venus is approximately on the other side of the Sun, and we see the side that is lit up by the Sun, just as we do with a full Moon. Sometimes Venus is more on our side of the Sun, and we see a sliver of the light side and mostly the dark side of Venus, just as we do with a new Moon.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm Revisited
As I discussed above, the theories and scientific data of modern physics and modern neuroscience are incompatible with the previous Materialist/Newtonian Paradigm that reigned for four hundred years. Reality, as revealed by currently available scientific data in physics and neuroscience, requires a new paradigm: the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm.
This paradigm has certain working hypotheses that have profound implications for human life. It turns out to provide a very useful practical foundation for creating an extraordinary life.
In the Materialist Paradigm, the entire universe consisted of objects and forces. The smallest objects were indivisible atoms of the various elements. Atoms behaved no differently than baseballs or planets; they were just smaller and more homogeneous. The universe functioned mechanically like clockwork. Our role as observers was to come along and look at it. We could observe any phenomenon in the universe from outside, without affecting it, and could be certain of what was going on there, independent of our observing it.
The primary metaphors of the Materialist Paradigm were particles and waves. Some things, like baseballs and atoms, could be understood as particles. Other things, like light and waves in the ocean, could be understood as waves.
Relativity, quantum mechanics, and modern neuroscience have brought about a new scientific paradigm. These new fields brought to light that the real universe was in fact very different from the clockwork universe of the Materialist Paradigm. It turns out that the Materialist Paradigm was missing the same fundamental reality that I was missing in my early understanding of life: consciousness.
The quantum-mechanical universe is not a phenomenon that we can sit back and observe from outside, without participation. Our conscious observation is a fundamental and necessary element in the structuring of the universe.
This can be understood with reference to some common experiences. For example, this morning in Seattle, the Sun rose at 6:03 AM. I could clearly see it come up over the mountains behind the hills across the lake. I clearly experienced, as a direct empirical observation, that the Sun rose.
Of course, we now know (as others did not know five hundred years ago) that the Sun did not rise. The sunrise is an experience, not an object or an objective event. When you are on a ball that is 8,000 miles in diameter, rotating once every 24 hours, you will experience a sunrise once a day, even though the Sun does not in fact rise.
When the weather bureau informs us that the Sun will rise at 6:03 AM, we do not accuse them of misrepresenting or attempting to deceive us. We all recognize that the weather bureau is describing the preconditions for an experience, not an objective thing or event. To say that the Sun rises is shorthand way of saying that under certain conditions, from a certain point of view, moving at a particular speed and position on a particular planet, and observing in a particular way, we will experience the Sun as rising.
Another common experience that appears to be an objective thing, but isn’t, is a rainbow. Raindrops refract and reflect sunlight at a particular angle. When the Sun is behind us, and raindrops are in front of us at a particular angle, we experience a rainbow. The location of the rainbow depends on our location. As the Sun is about to set in the west, we may see a rainbow apparently ending in a lake that is due east of us. A friend who is a mile north of us may see a rainbow that appears to end in a forest, a mile north of the lake. If we go to the lake where the rainbow appears to end, it will now appear to end farther east, over a hill. If we are driving south at 60 miles per hour, we will experience the rainbow moving southward at 60 miles per hour, skimming over the lake and into the forest. If a friend is driving north on the same highway, he will experience the rainbow moving north. With rainbows, it is very clear that our experience depends on how we observe.
Where is the rainbow when we are not experiencing it? We could say it is everywhere (within a certain range), because we could observe it everywhere within a certain range. We could say it is nowhere, because we are not experiencing it anywhere. Both of these answers have some truth to them, but neither of these answers is really accurate, because the question makes a false assumption: that the rainbow exists independent of our observation of it.
In reality, the rainbow is an observation, an experience, not a thing that exists independently of our observing it. When we are not observing it, the rainbow exists only as a potentiality, a probability that if you make a particular observation you will have a particular experience. A friend can call and provide us with a formula for experience: Go to your window, look east, there is a high probability that observing in this way you will experience a rainbow.
The table in front of me appears at first glance to be very unlike a rainbow. My experience is that it appears to be hard, solid, brown, and unmoving. The reality of quantum mechanics, however, is very different from this. “Hard,” “solid,” “brown,” and “unmoving” are experiences created in my nervous system. The table is giving off electromagnetic radiation in a wide range of frequencies. A small segment of this electromagnetic radiation is in the range we perceive as light. Light at a particular range or combination of frequencies we experience as “brown.” As described above, a different nervous system may experience a different range of frequencies, and may have subjective experiences that are very different from “brown” in response to the same table.
Is the table smooth and solid and unmoving? Not if you look closely. It is mostly empty space, with myriad particle/wave phenomena moving at extremely high velocities. In fact, even that description falls far short of representing how far the actual reality is from our common-sense notion of the table.
The Newtonian Paradigm held that the table was made up of atoms, tiny particles not unlike a very small baseball. The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, and in particular quantum mechanics, reveals that the essential building blocks of the universe, the basic constituents of matter and energy – protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, and all elementary particles – are more like rainbows than baseballs.
Quantum mechanics reveals the strange reality that all the elementary particles that make up our experience of the physical universe are experienced differently depending on how we observe them.
Protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, and all the quantum-mechanical phenomena that structure the physical universe are experienced as waves when we observe them in such a way as to observe waves. They are experienced as particles when we observe them in such a way as to observe particles. Before we make a conscious observation, there are no particles or waves. There are no electrons, protons, neutrons, or photons. There is no mass, velocity, specific location, charge, or spin. None of the qualities of matter exist. There is only an abstract probability function, stretching infinitely in space and time, which defines the probabilities with which the relevant elementary particle/wave phenomena will be observed at a particular place and time.
Like a rainbow, anything in the physical universe cannot meaningfully be said to be at any particular location or to have any particular qualities – or even to meaningfully be out there – until we observe it. The photons and protons and other particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical universe have the qualities and locations that we choose by our choice of how to observe them.
Quantum Mechanics on the Christmas Tree
I first came across an empirical test of this phenomenon when I was 12 years old. My family was in Denmark where my physicist father was on sabbatical for a year with Niels Bohr at the Niels Bohr Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.
It was Christmas, and we had candles on our Christmas tree, as was common at the time in Denmark. We were opening Christmas presents on Christmas morning. Dad was taking pictures with a camera, the kind that records the image on film. A film camera detects particles of light – photons – through a chemical reaction in the film.
Dad took pictures of the Christmas tree with the candles. The light particles emitted by the candles dutifully behaved like particles and recorded the appropriate patterns on the film. Each candle created a small, single spot on the film of the camera that, when developed, would result in a lighter image than the surrounding area. Thus, one could see the image of the candle on the film – a single dab of light for each candle.
From the point of view of physics, the important point to note here is that it was light particles that made the impression on the film. Each photon took a straight, single path from a candle to the lens of the camera, changed direction slightly in the lens as light does, and continued to the film. This is what particles do.
If the candles had been shooting out small ping-pong balls instead of photons, they would have taken the same paths. Nothing is strange here so far.
Dad gave Mom a silk scarf for Christmas. I was admiring it, and I happened to look at the Christmas tree with candles through the scarf – or, more precisely, through the multiple tiny holes between the threads of the scarf.
When I looked through the scarf, candles no longer looked like single candles. Each candle exploded into multiple bands of light.
My Dad was very excited when I showed this to him. It illustrated the paradoxical dual nature of things in the quantum-mechanical universe. Observe the light from a candle one way (no scarf), and it acts like a stream of particles. Observe it another way (through holes in a scarf), and it acts like waves.
One of the fundamental experiments illustrating the paradoxical particle/wave nature of matter in the quantum-mechanical universe is the “double-slit” experiment. The little holes between threads in the scarf had the same function as the slits in the double-slit experiment.
I will not explain this phenomenon in detail here. I explained it in detail in my previous book, and many other illustrations are readily available.
Very briefly, when you have one hole or slit that light passes through, it behaves like a particle. A small object like a candle appears as a single object. When you have more than one hole or slit for light to pass through, light doesn’t behave like a stream of particles. It behaves like waves. The waves interfere with each other and create an interference pattern. When the peaks of the wave from light going through two different holes line up, you get a bright spot. When the troughs of the waves line up, you get a dark spot.
So when you look at the overall pattern created by a small source of light like a candle, you don’t see a single candle anymore. You see multiple bands of light and dark.
The strange thing in quantum physics is that even when you send the particles through one at a time, as long as there are two slits (or multiple holes), each particle seems to somehow go through both slits and interfere with itself, creating the multiple-image “wave” pattern and not the single-image “particle” pattern.
When you add an additional step to catch it going through one slit or another, and observe which slit it goes through, then it goes back to acting like particles. It goes through only one slit and no interference pattern is created. In short, the double-slit experiment – and the silk-scarf-Christmas-candle experiment – show that what is there in the physical world depends on how you observe it.
We didn’t have the physics apparatus to conduct the full experiment. It was enough for Dad that we had a quantum phenomenon here in our living room in Copenhagen, and we could directly observe it. The excitement in his eyes and his voice was tangible.
I still remember the thrill and wonder of that experience for me. I looked at a candle without a scarf and saw a single candle. I looked at the same candle through a scarf, and it exploded into multiple bands of light – which were, incidentally, exquisitely beautiful.
Dad was even more thrilled than I was. Here all of a sudden out of nowhere comes a quantum-mechanical phenomenon readily observable here on Christmas morning without a physics laboratory.
We put the scarf over the lens of the camera, and when we developed the film later we saw the same phenomenon – without the scarf, single candle flames (particle pattern); with the scarf, multiple bands of light (wave pattern).
At 12 years old, I didn’t understand the physics or the math. I did, however, get the excitement and the thrill of discovery. I already knew I wanted to be a scientist, and I knew I would one day discover new and amazing things and get just as excited about them as Dad was.
Fundamental Working Hypotheses of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm
In the quantum-mechanical universe, the material qualities of the universe come into being through our conscious observation. Prior to observation, there is only the unified field from which all particle/wave phenomena spring. There are no photons or protons. Matter and energy exist only as potential, as abstract probabilities for the outcome of future observations at particular times and places. This can be and has been definitively demonstrated in the scientific experiments of quantum and relativity physics.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm provides a framework for understanding this strange reality. It explains the relationship of consciousness and matter in a way that is compatible with the results of research in quantum physics.
As discussed above, it turns out that the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm is also in alignment with the teachings of the great spiritual traditions and the wisdom of many modern experts on success in living. Every great spiritual teacher and every great spiritual tradition, and many of the ancient and modern works and teachers on the subject of how to be successful in life, have taught the same major truths. For our purposes, let’s consider these to be working hypotheses, rather than absolute truths.
My purpose is to take advantage of what is useful, what resonates with me, and what has served to enhance my experience of life. I suggest that you may choose to do the same. I’ll leave the determination of absolute truth aside, as it is not necessary to accomplish what I would like to share with you.
Here are some fundamental working hypotheses of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm. In my view these hypotheses match all known scientific data, and everything else that humans have observed. As we shall see, these working hypotheses also have some wonderful practical applications in living life.
- The inner field of pure consciousness is the essential constituent of life, the foundation of all our experience in life, our essential Nature, the nature of the Self. It is what makes a human being fundamentally different from a rock or a robot. This field of pure consciousness is an unbounded field of energy, intelligence, and happiness, which we draw on to some degree in all that we experience.
- The unbounded field of pure consciousness that we experience within, and that lights up all our experiences in life to one degree or another, is the same as the unified field from which all matter and energy in the physical universe spring like waves on an ocean (or, for those of us who are more technically minded, quantum wave-particle phenomena as described by the equations of quantum mechanics).
- We create our lives by first envisioning something on the level of consciousness, then manifesting it through dual means: by taking actions, and also by enlivening the Laws of Nature inherent in the Conscious Unified Field so that things take place spontaneously in accord with our vision, desire, and intention, things that could not be predicted by mechanical cause and effect.
If these working hypotheses are correct, then another testable hypothesis arises that has huge implications for human life. To understand this, it is necessary to consider a little of the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. According to quantum mechanics, all the forms and phenomena of the universe are quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena that arise from the unified field according to specific Laws of Nature governing the various types of particles/waves – photons, electrons, protons, neutrons, the more fundamental quarks of which they are composed, strings in string theory, and so on.
These particle/wave phenomena arise according to specific, known laws that function probabilistically. That is, before we consciously make an observation, all that is there is an abstract probability distribution with respect to the various particles potentially involved. There is no mass, no charge, no velocity, none of the qualities that matter and energy have once they have been observed. This probability distribution expands infinitely in time and space, and only becomes definite upon the occurrence of an observation.
When we make a conscious observation, the abstract, unbounded probability distribution collapses into an event with material properties that can be quantified and measured (and are measured specifically in that observation).
This is known in physics as the wave function collapse. As conscious observers of the universe around us, this is fundamentally what we do. In a very real sense, we create the quantum-mechanical forms and phenomena of the physical universe through the process of conscious observation.
Wave function collapse is discussed in detail in my previous book.[10] The dependence of collapse of the wave function on conscious human observation is also discussed in intricate detail in John von Neumann’s seminal work, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics.
Von Neumann summarized the situation quite succinctly. “Indeed experience only makes statements of this type: an observer has made a certain (subjective) observation; and never any like this: a physical quantity has a certain value.” (p. 420.)
If that sounded a bit abstract and strange, that’s because it is. Observing things that are of the size and traveling at the velocities that we usually observe in day-to-day life has given rise to our common-sense notions of the world. In our common-sense view, the universe doesn’t appear to work the way that quantum mechanics describes. It can be and has been shown definitively, however, that the way things actually are in the quantum-mechanical universe we live in is very different from our common-sense notions.
Prior to the collapse of the wave function through the process of conscious observation, there are infinite possibilities. Some potential outcomes of observation are probable. Some are improbable. Some are extremely improbable, so improbable that they might be called “impossible.” But nothing imaginable in the quantum-mechanical universe is actually impossible, just highly improbable.
An accurate understanding of the universe of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm gives rise to the realization that anything is possible. Some things are improbable, yet anything is possible. This reality will turn out to be very useful later in our discussion of how to manifest improbable and even “impossible” outcomes through effective use of consciousness.
Now we come to the next hypothesis. If the above three working hypotheses are the case, and if we can open our awareness at least to some degree to this field of pure consciousness — the unified field wherein all the Laws of Nature reside, the unbounded field of energy, intelligence, and happiness from which the universe springs — then another working hypothesis inevitably follows: Consciously functioning from the level of the unified field, or at least to some degree connected with that level, we should be able to influence the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events. Here’s the hypothesis:
- By consciously contacting the inner field of pure consciousness – which is the same as the Conscious Unified Field that gives rise to all of physical creation – and functioning from that level, human beings can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events using consciousness alone, without any physical intervention. Since the entire physical universe consists of quantum-mechanical particle/wave phenomena, this means that we can consciously influence the physical universe to move in accord with our desires and intentions.
Who Am I: Human Life in the Real Universe
In a previous section I introduced a working hypothesis regarding the essential Nature of human life: The inner field of pure consciousness is the essential constituent of life, the foundation of all our experience in life, our essential Nature, the Nature of the Self. This field of pure consciousness is an unbounded field of energy, intelligence, and happiness, which we draw on to some degree in all that we experience.
All of the great spiritual traditions, and many modern writers and thinkers, recognize that the Self of every human being is one with the infinite field of pure intelligence that underlies, creates, and structures the universe. For human life on earth, however, it is also important to realize that each of us is more than that infinite, universal side of life.
Your self (small “s”) is individual. You have a mind of your own. You have your own intellect, emotions, likes and dislikes. You have your own body, your own senses, your own experiences uniquely blending the various aspects of you: your mind, your intellect, your emotions, your senses, your body. The infinite Self is equally compatible with everything and everyone in the universe. Your self has your own likes and dislikes — things, people, and events you resonate with and those you do not.
When Socrates said “know thyself,” he was no doubt referring not only to recognizing the infinite Nature of your Self, but also to knowing and being in tune with your own individual self. Self-knowledge involves knowing both the universal Self and the individual nature of the self. Self-development involves both integrating your universal Self into your life and also developing your self in all of your individual aspects.
“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Shakespeare’s famous words brought to light the reality that creating a life that is true to yourself is fundamental to living in truth with others as well. Here he is referring largely to the small-s self, your own true individuality. This applies equally, if not more so, to your Self, your infinite, universal, divine Nature.
Dr. Seuss touched on the importance of the self to the experience of human life on earth in this way: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
Incorporating the infinite value of your cosmic Self into your life is of immense value. Creating a life that is in harmony with your self, true to your self, is equally fundamental to success and happiness in life.
As a foundation for the techniques I will describe for accomplishing this, first let’s take another look at how the physical universe works and how our brains work. We shall see that in light of the structure and functioning of the universe and of our brains, anything is possible. Then we will discuss how to realize these possibilities in practical human life.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm and the Current State of Physics
As discussed above the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm provides the explanation of the universe that is, in my view, most compatible with all empirically observed data to date. Within the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, there are several different functional and mathematical theories regarding how the Conscious Unified Field vibrates in particle/wave phenomena to create the physical universe.
Physics, in its current state of development, has hypothesized four fundamental forces and a few elementary particles. According to unified field theory, the unified field is the single, universal field from which all of the forces and particle/wave phenomena spring. Two of the forces, electromagnetism and gravity, are readily observable in macroscopic forms and phenomena. The strong force binds neutrons and protons together in the nucleus of an atom, and has a very short range. The weak force is also a short-range force that affects a number of elementary particles.
Elementary particles are particles (or actually particle/wave phenomena) that are not (yet) known to be composed of more fundamental particles. As science has progressed, layer after layer of particles originally considered to be elementary have been found to be comprised of other particles.
Prior to the last hundred years, it was thought that atoms were indivisible. It was then discovered that atoms were comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons, which interact with electromagnetic energy in the form of photons.
The current standard model in physics includes fermions, which can be considered to be matter particles, and bosons, which can be considered to be force particles. Fermions interact with other fermions through the exchange of bosons. Known fermions are quarks and leptons (and their antimatter equivalents). Known bosons comprise four gauge bosons, which mediate the four forces (gravity, electromagnetism, weak force, and strong force) respectively, and the Higgs boson. All of the forces and particles arise as particle/wave phenomena, perturbations of the Conscious Unified Field.
Recent advances in theoretical physics have hypothesized yet more fundamental constituents of matter and energy. String theory and its elaboration in M-theory hypothesize that all particle/wave phenomena are comprised of oscillations or vibrations, like a vibrating string. These vibrations arise at resonant frequencies, due to the nature of the Conscious Unified Field from which they spring.
Vibrations at different resonant frequencies produce the qualities of different particle/wave phenomena that structure the myriad forms and phenomena in creation. The entire universe, with all its particles, waves, and forces, all matter and energy, can be seen as an intricate pattern of resonant vibrations. In string theory, as in previous quantum theories, the physical universe arises as perturbations or vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field.
This phenomenon of resonant frequencies will turn out to be very useful for applying your brain to create miracles in life, as we shall see in later chapters.
Resonant Frequencies and the Structure of Life and the Universe
The ten-dimensional vibrations of string theory and their resonant frequencies can be understood in a basic way with reference to vibratory phenomena in daily life. When you pluck a guitar string, the vibrating string compresses air ahead of it as it moves, and creates a partial vacuum behind it, which then fills with air. As the string moves back and forth at a particular frequency, these alternating compressed and decompressed regions of air propagate as waves to our ears. Our auditory system is structured so as to pick up these vibrations, and to recognize the different frequencies as sound.
When you pluck the middle of a guitar string, the whole string vibrates back and forth, the entire string forming a curve first in one direction and then in the opposite direction. The size, mass, flexibility, and tension of the string determine a particular frequency at which it naturally vibrates. This is a resonant frequency, in this case the fundamental resonant frequency. For a properly tuned guitar A string (the fifth string), the fundamental resonant frequency is 110 cycles per second (Hz).
If you place your finger gently in the middle of the A string, holding it still, and then pluck the string, it will vibrate in a different way. The top half of the string will move up as the bottom half of the string moves down. Instead of a single arc, it will vibrate in two arcs, with a still point in the middle. This is roughly an S-shaped pattern, from S to reverse-S and back to S again. This is another resonant frequency of the guitar string, the first overtone or first harmonic. This is twice the frequency of the fundamental, 220 Hz for a guitar A string. This is an octave higher than the fundamental resonant frequency.
If you place your finger one-third of the way up the string, on the seventh fret, and pluck it, the string will vibrate in three sections, at another resonant frequency. This will be approximately three times the fundamental frequency, 330 Hz, resulting in an E note. Doing the same thing on the fifth fret, one-fourth of the way up the string, results in the string vibrating in four sections, and produces vibrations at yet another resonant frequency. This will be four times the fundamental frequency, 440 Hz, producing an A note two octaves higher than the open A string.
The characteristic sound of a guitar string is produced by the combination of the fundamental resonant frequency and many overtones at other resonant frequencies. The pattern is further complicated, and the sound is further enhanced, by the vibrations of the air inside the guitar and the vibrations of the wood of the guitar. Vibrations of the wood are influenced by, and in turn also influence, the vibrations in the air in and around the guitar.
Each musical instrument has a unique sound because of the set of resonant frequencies created by its configuration of strings (or reeds, lips, etc.), solid materials, and/or hollow spaces in which air vibrates, and the unique configuration of relative amplitudes of the various harmonic resonant frequencies.
An entire symphony (or a rock band, or jazz, or blues, or jug band) can be described in terms of the fundamental notes being played at each moment in time by each instrument, at the resonant frequency of the string(s) (or whatever else vibrates) played in combination with the finger placement, and/or the vibrating air inside the instrument and the vibrating material (wood, metal, etc.) of the instrument itself. Our auditory system and the associated brain functional systems can sense and appreciate this rich blending of vibrations at resonant frequencies.
What does this have to do with quantum physics? The strings of string theory and M-theory also vibrate at resonant frequencies. Unlike guitar strings, they are vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field that arise in ten or eleven dimensions of spacetime. Only three dimensions are apparent to us, or four dimensions counting three in space and one in time.
Like all quantum phenomena, these strings exist only as probabilities until consciously observed. In string theory, as in previous quantum theories, consciousness is a necessary ingredient because without the phenomenon of conscious observation, all that exists is quantum probabilities, with no manifest matter or energy. In the wave function collapse, conscious observation collapses this infinite potential into a finite pattern of manifestation with the discretely measurable qualities of matter and energy.
The way we appreciate the universe is very much like the way we appreciate a concert. We resonate with a rich blend of vibrations at resonant frequencies. The vibrations that constitute the universe are a bit more complex, providing more richness of experience, than those of a concert.
Also, our brains are made up of the same elementary particle/wave phenomena that make up the rest of the physical universe. So our experience of the universe amounts to the complex vibratory pattern that is our brain resonating with the complex vibratory pattern that is the universe, or that part of the universe we are currently interacting with. It’s all one complex, interactive pattern of vibrations at resonant frequencies within the Conscious Unified Field. This pattern of resonance is what creates our experience of ourselves and the universe.
In the universe of the Conscious Unified Field – that is to say, the real universe, as it actually exists – there is no separation between you and the rest of the universe. The vibratory pattern that is your brain and your nervous system is intimately integrated with the vibratory pattern that is the whole universe. Any apparent separation only comes from limited perception.
This reality turns out be to be very useful for living your life, as we shall see in later chapters.
Anything Is Possible
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment showed that by functioning from the level of the Conscious Unified Field – which we can do since it is our essential Nature as well as the essential Nature of the universe – we can consciously choose from among the infinite possibilities inherent in any configuration of the particle/wave/string phenomena that arise in the Conscious Unified Field. These particle/wave/string phenomena arising in the Conscious Unified Field are what appears as forms and phenomena in creation. Since we can consciously choose and influence this process, potentially we can create any pattern of vibrations: anything is possible.
All forms and phenomena arise according to probabilistic laws as particles/waves/resonating strings in the Conscious Unified Field, which contains within it inherently all possible configurations. Functioning from the level of the Conscious Unified Field, we can influence the probability of what pattern will arise in a given time and space. With a sufficiently high level of consciousness, which equates with a sufficiently high level of contact and integration with the Conscious Unified Field, we can create events of any level of improbability.
In other words, if you are sufficiently in tune with the unbounded field of consciousness that is your own essential Nature, your Self, you can create miracles of any magnitude.
How the Brain Works
To use the brain effectively for success in living – and to create miracles in your life – it is valuable first to have an understanding of how the brain works and how we grow and develop through enhancement of brain functioning.
Let’s look at some basic features of how we learn. Look at how you initially learned about the world around you. You are three years old, and you’re exploring the kitchen. You touch the floor, the table leg, the door, a plate on the table, a chair, a drawer, and a hot burner on the stove. Which one do you notice most? Which one do you remember? Which one do you learn the most from? The burner on the stove, right?
We learn by trial and error. When we experience something and nothing much comes of it, the brain takes this as an ordinary experience. No change is necessary. When we encounter the hot burner, we have an intense experience. At that moment, the brain is open for programming. Something important has happened here, something that produces intense experiences. This is an intense experience we want to avoid in the future. What can we learn from this? What can we integrate into our internal representation of the world that will help to avoid this experience in the future?
We learn by trial and error. Errors that have intense consequences open up the brain for input. The intense experience alerts the brain: Now is the time to learn something, to make some changes, to integrate some new knowledge, to recognize a pattern, to gain a new vision of the world.
We can’t reorganize the brain with every experience that happens every few seconds. Most of the time, the brain is not in input mode. When we have an intense experience, the brain takes that as a signal to open up for input, to be amenable to reorganization. This is how the functioning of the brain is optimized as we learn and grow.
We learn and grow in leaps and bounds, not smoothly. Every leap is preceded or accompanied by an intense experience that opens the brain up for input. Intense experiences put the brain in input mode, in reprogramming mode.
My “Aha!” in Neuroscience, and Your “Aha!” in Life
One primary focus of my research in neuroscience has been this phenomenon of learning, reorganization, optimization, and Transmutation in the brain. The neurons in the brain fire electrically (or actually electrochemically). When the brain engages in particular functions or information-processing processes, many neurons fire in certain particular patterns. The electrical activity of the neurons summates to create patterns of electrical voltage that can be measured through electroencephalography (EEG) with sensors on the outside of the head. When a significant information-processing event takes place, it creates a pattern in the EEG, an electroencephalographic response.
In my study of neuroscience I finally discovered what happened in my brain that life-changing day when I was underwater. When the brain recognizes something significant, and opens up for reprogramming, there is a particular pattern in the EEG that I discovered known as a P300-MERMER (Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response). The P300 part is a previously known response that is one facet of the P300-MERMER.
Whenever you have an “Aha!” experience, the brain functions in a particular way, and the electrical impulses it generates create a P300-MERMER brainwave pattern. This pattern can be measured precisely with EEG sensors placed on the head and analyzed by a computer.
What brings about these “Aha!” moments or MERMER moments? An intense experience, something noteworthy, something striking or unusual, something worth taking note of. Sometimes these are the errors in a trial-and-error process, the negative experiences that bring about learning. Sometimes these are intensely positive experiences. In any case they are outside of the business-as-usual experiences in life.
Any intense experience, particularly a novel, unusual experience, creates a major shift in the functioning of the brain. Now something important is happening. There’s something to be learned here. The brain opens up for reprogramming input. Measured in the laboratory, that creates a P300-MERMER pattern in the electroencephalographic brain response.
I have developed several inventions based on this phenomenon, including the first brain-computer interface, a method to communicate directly from the brain to a computer and a speech synthesizer; Brain Fingerprinting, a method to detect criminals and terrorists and to exonerate innocent suspects by measuring brainwaves; methods for using brainwaves to determine what people pay attention to and retain; and a method for early detection and treatment management in Alzheimer’s and other cognitively degenerative diseases. These inventions are described in detail in publications by my colleagues and myself in the scientific journals as well as in my patents.
More importantly for our purposes here, this learning and reprogramming process in the brain that takes place with the “Aha!” experience and the corresponding P300-MERMER brainwave response has major implications for how to create the life you desire. This brings me to the first practical technique I would like to share with you.
8. Transmutation
Let’s review the situation. Most of the time, your brain is in ordinary experience mode, and is not open for reprogramming. It’s business as usual. Every once in a while, an intense experience comes along – a MERMER moment – and your brain is in open-for-reprogramming mode to take advantage of the experience, to integrate it into your inner representation of the world around you and your role in it.
Let’s look into the negative experiences in life a little more closely. You’re cruising along fine, and then something comes up that impacts you negatively. Now you’re experiencing some pain of one kind or another. For the moment, let’s consider emotional pain. Where does that come from?
Value, Power, and Safety
There are three fundamental aspects of life that all of us cherish and protect: value, safety, and power. When any one of these three is threatened, the experience is negative and painful.
Value is threatened when someone or something says or otherwise indicates something along the lines of “You’re stupid,” “You’re ugly,” “You’re worthless,” “You’re unimportant,” “You’re undesirable,” or whatever. Safety is threatened when someone or something communicates, “I’m going to harm you.” Power is threatened when someone or something says, “I’m going to prevent you from doing what you want, or getting what you want” or “I’m going to make you do something you don’t want to do.”
Every negative experience at essence is an attack on your value, power, or safety, or some combination of these. These experiences are painful, and we all spend a considerable amount of time, effort, and energy trying to set up our lives to avoid them.
Now I’d like you to consider two working hypotheses: Consider the possibility that we each have an inner blueprint that says “I’m 70% valuable, and 30% valueless; I’m 50% safe, and 50% unsafe; I’m 80% powerful, and 20% powerless.” Any of these numbers could vary from 0% to 100%, although percentages less than 10% or greater than 90% are rare.
Consider the possibility that we attract to ourselves what we resonate with. (You undoubtedly already know that.) If your blueprint says you’re 70% unsafe, then beginning early in life you attract experiences that resonate with that. If your blueprint says you’re 70% valueless, then you attract experiences attacking your value. If your blueprint says you’re 70% powerless, then you attract experiences that resonate with that.
These experiences, beginning in early childhood, affirm and solidify your inner blueprint, and give you solid, objective, experienced-based reasons demonstrating the truth and accuracy of the blueprint. They provide objective evidence that the blueprint is the truth about us. By the time you have grown up, you have many years of experience that verify and solidify the blueprint. If anything comes along to try to challenge the percentages you’ve lived with, you have a huge backlog of experience to prove such a challenge wrong. This experience is ingrained on every level. Not just emotionally but also intellectually, all of us have voluminous, solid evidence that we are indeed 40% valueless (or whatever).
Resonance: We Attract What We Resonate With
Everything that comes your way in life does so because it resonates with something inside you. It resonates with a resonant frequency in you. This truth has been known for a long time, and is a part of every spiritual tradition. For example, there is an ancient Vedic saying that your karma will find you like a calf finds its mother in a herd of cattle. What you have coming to you identifies you by something in you.
This means that anything that threatens your value, safety, or power only comes your way if it resonates with something in you. Your blueprint has it that you are X% valueless, or powerless, or unsafe.
Moreover, anything coming at you only has an impact when it substantially resonates with something specific in you, something related to a specific issue that you have. This is a specific resonant frequency. For example, if you have dark brown hair, and someone comes along and says, “You have the ugliest blonde hair I have ever seen,” that won’t land in you at all. It won’t bother you. It won’t threaten you. It won’t make you angry or defensive or upset or depressed. If anything, you’ll just feel sorry for someone who is can’t tell one hair color from another.
If, on the other hand, you have an issue with your brown hair, and someone comes along and says, “You have the ugliest brown hair I have ever seen,” that will have an impact. When something anyone does or says lands in you, that lets you know that you have an issue on that subject. If you had no issue at all, then it would be like water off the back of a duck.
From early in life we have a blueprint that tells us that we are X% valueless, Y% unsafe, and Z% powerless. We attract experiences that resonate with that throughout our lives. We are impacted substantially by those experiences because of how they resonate with something in us. Throughout life we accumulate more and more solid evidence that those perceptions of valuelessness, unsafety, and powerlessness are real.
Is it any wonder that all kinds of techniques to try to change our thinking, feelings, and behavior have limited impact?
No matter what you try to think, feel, say, or do, Nature will create a life for you that resonates with the blueprint you are carrying around in you. Just by inherently radiating a particular resonance, you will attract what you resonate with. You will inevitably collaborate with Nature to create a life that matches your inner blueprint.
This extremely powerful phenomenon can work either for you or against you. The point of the Transmutation Trigger technique I’ll describe shortly and the other techniques we’ll be discussing later is to create a situation where your own inner resonance and the almighty power of Nature spontaneously work for you.
Have you ever had the experience of typing on a computer keyboard and then looking at the computer screen and seeing that nothing is happening? The window that takes input is not activated. You’re just pounding keys. There is no input, no change in the computer’s inner workings or output.
When you activate the window by selecting or highlighting it, then what you type into the keyboard gets to the central processing unit. It has an impact. It makes a difference. It reprograms the computer. Without first highlighting the connection to the central processing unit, you bang away on the keyboard, but nothing happens. No input takes place. The computer is not in input mode, not in reprogramming mode.
If you’re like me, you’ve tried all kinds of affirmations and positive thinking techniques, and they’ve had very little impact if any. Why? Because the brain was not in reprogramming mode. It’s like typing when the window isn’t highlighted. Nothing much happens.
MERMER Moments Put Your Brain in Reprogramming Mode
Now let’s get to the interesting part. What puts your brain in reprogramming mode? MERMER moments. Intense experiences. Often these are negative experiences, just the thing you may have been trying to structure your life to avoid as much as possible.
With a little understanding of the reality here, and a little bit of technique – what I call the Transmutation Trigger technique– we can completely turn this entire constellation of experiences around.
First of all, realize that when someone bitches about your ugly brown hair, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you. It only tells you that he has an issue about hair and how it should look.
If his comment lands in you and has an impact, this does give you some information about yourself. It tells you that you have some kind of issue about how you should look. Usually that’s a value issue. Something in you says that people who look a certain way are more valuable than people who look some other way, and maybe you don’t entirely look the valuable way.
So how do you take advantage of this situation to improve your experience of life? First of all, don’t shoot the messenger. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to change his opinion. That’s his issue. What he thinks of you is none of your business. It’s all about him. So dismiss him. You can thank him for sharing, or not thank him, but in any case he’s not a part of the solution here.
I used to think that this kind of experience was something to be avoided. It’s not, and here’s why. What has this bozo who doesn’t know anything about hair done for you? He has done two things: First, he let you know that you have a particular issue. This gives you the opportunity to shine the light of your consciousness on that.
Even more importantly, he has provided you with a MERMER moment. He has given you the kind of experience that opens up the brain for reprogramming. Seize the moment. Now your brain is open for reorganization, your awareness is open for restructuring, you are in a unique and rare position to make a difference in your life. When you know how to take advantage of it, every apparent attack on your value, safety, or power is something highly valuable, what I call a Transmutation trigger.
Transmutation
This is an opportunity for what I call Transmutation. A lot has been written and said in personal development circles about change and about transformation. Transformation means changing the form of something. This can be valuable, but only to a limited degree. We can transform our thinking, our emotions, our actions, but without a fundamental change in the level of consciousness, the transformation is of limited value.
Transmutation goes beyond change and transformation. Transmutation means not just changing the form of something, but changing its fundamental essence. The term “Transmutation” comes from alchemy, the attempt to change metals like lead or iron into gold. You can take a pile of iron cannonballs, melt them down, and transform them into a nice statue, but fundamentally you still have something made of iron, not gold.
Transmutation goes beyond changing the way you think, feel, speak, and act. It is a fundamental change in who is doing the thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting, a change in your being. Or, more precisely, a fuller unfoldment of your true being. You are already infinite, unbounded energy, intelligence, and happiness at your deepest and truest Nature, so you aren’t changing or transforming that. You are unfolding what you truly are.
Transmutation in human life means enlivening a higher level of consciousness, shining light where there has been darkness, altering the fundamental structure of your experience, eliminating the blocks to consciousness, experiencing a heightened degree of enlightenment.
Transmutation Enlivens Your True Blueprint
Transmutation brings the blueprint you are carrying around in you, which is creating the life you are living, to be in tune with your true Self, the real you, the infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe you. Equally important, it brings your blueprint in tune with your self (small “s”), with what resonates with the individual you.
Your transmuted blueprint will then more fully reflect your true Nature. This is your true blueprint. Once you have enlivened your true blueprint, you will spontaneously attract experiences, events, things, and people that resonate with your true Nature. You, in collaboration with the almighty power of Nature, will spontaneously and naturally create a life that reflects who you truly are.
Your true blueprint is a blueprint for a 100% valuable, 100% powerful, and 100% safe you. In fact, your true blueprint, the blueprint that fully and accurately reflects who you really are, is a blueprint for a being who is infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe – an infinite, cosmic being with a unique individual Nature. That is who you really are.
Returning to our practical example, someone has expressed a negative opinion about your brown hair, and it has landed in you with some impact. What to do? It may appear that what needs to be changed here it to educate someone else about what hair should look like, or to knock his teeth out so he won’t share his opinion of your hair again.
What is important for you, however, is your inner blueprint, the inner blueprint that resonated with and attracted this experience, the inner blueprint that has you at only 70% valuable. It is this inner blueprint that so inevitably elicits from your environment some negative messages about your value, whether it’s your hair or something else.
Now you have a chance to reprogram the inner blueprint, to reprogram your brain. The window is highlighted on your computer screen, ready for input. Your brain is in input mode, ready for reprogramming. What are you going to input there that will fundamentally transmute your experience of life in the future from now on?
Again I draw your attention to the fact that at essence you are unbounded, infinite consciousness – infinitely valuable, infinitely powerful, infinitely safe. Your Self is the infinite intelligence of the unified field that gives rise to all of life and all of creation. You, at essence, are infinitely in tune with the Laws of Nature that structure all of life and all of creation. Certainly at one time or another in your life, if only for brief moments, you have had a holographic sense of this. At the same time, you are a unique individual, with your own individual sense of what resonates with the true you.
At this MERMER moment, you may not be particularly comfortable. You may feel angry, or sad, or depressed, or fearful, or whatever. What is important here is that this experience has opened up your awareness for Transmutation. It has put your brain in reprogramming mode.
Realize once again that the limited blueprint you are now carrying does not accurately reflect reality. In reality, you are infinitely valuable, infinitely safe, infinitely powerful. At essence you are totally in tune with all the Laws of Nature, the Conscious Unified Field, the whole universe. All there is to do is to experience who you really are, your true Nature. This will enliven your true blueprint.
The blueprint you have been carrying falls far short of the real you. Your task is to bring the blueprint you are carrying around in you into harmony with who you really are, to make it more accurate. Seeing the flaws in the false blueprint is not enough. You must also be in touch with who you really are. You must transmute the false and inaccurate blueprint into a real and accurate one, your true blueprint.
Whatever you try to do – or think or say or feel or be – Nature will create a life that reflects the blueprint you are carrying around inside you. Your mission in this life, should you choose to accept it, is to transmute that mistaken blueprint into a true blueprint that accurately reflects who you really are – your own true blueprint. This is the purpose of the Transmutation Trigger technique.
SuperPosition and the Transmutation Trigger Technique
Now that your whole system is open for input, you are ready to practice the Transmutation Trigger technique.
Begin by bringing your attention to the highest essence of yourself. You can call it what you like: “Hello, Higher Self / Hello, Cosmic Computer / Hello, Divine Essence.” Address the highest aspect of yourself in whatever way resonates with you.
Then recognize the reality: “I am infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe. I like myself. I love myself. Everything I think, do, and say is in accord with my highest Nature, with the enlightened being I truly am.”
Now you are experiencing SuperPosition, or at least approaching that experience. In SuperPosition, your consciousness fathoms all of the infinite possibilities available in the Conscious Unified Field. You are consciously aware of who you really are, you are in tune with your commanding role in the universe.
Then tune in to your true self (small “s”). Feel what it’s like to be you. Feel what it’s like to be in resonance with what resonates with the real you. “My life is an expression of my self, the real me, the real [your name]. I spontaneously create a life where everything resonates with my true Nature.”
Say it to yourself, resonate with the truth of it, repeat it, get it, enjoy it. Let your awareness spontaneously encompass the whole, holographic reality of it.
This is a holographic realization that you get as a whole. You can approximate it in the early stages of practice with some simple words. Feel free to modify the words in any way that resonates with you. With practice, the experience will deepen, going far beyond the realm of words, beyond the realm of thoughts and feelings, to the realm of your true self.
Then, to solidify this reality in your life, do or say what is consistent with who you really are. Ask yourself,
“What would the real [your name] do?” Then do it now. It is important to take action consistent with who you really are to complete your Transmutation on all levels of life – being, intuition, feeling, thinking, perception, and action.
Our essence is infinite and divine, and yet we live here on earth in the world of doing things and saying things. It is important to establish your Transmutation in the practical world of speech and action. The way to do this is to do and say what is consistent with the real you. From the perspective of the brain, taking action consistent with who you truly are establishes these neural pathways and solidifies your Transmutation on the level of the brain.
Transmutation is not just an insight. Transmutation takes place at the most fundamental level of your being, and radiates throughout all levels of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and action.
This is the Transmutation Trigger technique. Now you have created Transmutation in your life. You have experienced and enlivened your true Nature. You have brought the light of consciousness where there was darkness. You have enhanced your level of enlightenment. You have brought your true Nature more fully into your life. You have expressed your Self and your self more fully in your life. You have created a situation where you now spontaneously create in your environment what resonates with the true you. And there is infinitely more where that came from.
Every Message Is a Blessing
Another thing you accomplish through the Transmutation Trigger Technique is to completely turn on its head the whole idea of negative experiences. When a MERMER moment comes along, celebrate it. Bring it on. Thank the messenger (or don’t), and get on with the internal Transmutation that he/she has helped to make available to you.
When you get something that triggers you, this means that there is something in you that attracted it, and something in you that resonated with it – hence the strong emotional reaction. That something is foreign to you. It’s not the real you. The real you is infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe.
The message is a blessing. It does two valuable things. It points out something foreign in you, something that does not belong, something that is not you, something that is attracting to you things that do not resonate with the real you. Moreover, it puts your cosmic computer in input mode.
We learn through trial and error. Remember the hot burner. Of all the items in the kitchen, touching which one changes the way you function? The one that caused an intense experience.
Anything or anyone that upsets you is pinpointing something you’re carrying that is foreign, and putting your cosmic computer in input mode. Whoops! Something is out of balance here. Please input a change in programming.
What do most people do? One or more of several things: shoot the messenger; blame the messenger; try to manipulate the messenger to deliver a different message; or believe the messenger is delivering information about me, not about something foreign to me. These lead respectively to anger, helpless blame, manipulative behavior, and depression. They come from failing to recognize the truth. They come from incorrect hypotheses regarding what is happening. The damage is not done by lack of will power, or by not trying hard enough to change yourself.
You do not need to change. You do not need to try to change. You are already infinite energy, intelligence, and happiness. You do not need to be fixed or to fix yourself. All you need to do is recognize the truth, recognize who you really are, and internalize it – input the truth into your cosmic computer when you have a chance. Everything else happens spontaneously. This is not difficult. It is simple, and it is easy.
Every triggering event is an opportunity. Misunderstood, it triggers negative emotions and negative actions. When you see it for what it is, it creates a MERMER moment. You can treat this moment as a Transmutation Trigger. The more the merrier. Bring it on!
From time to time, events come along that affect you and put you in a state of upset of one kind or another. How to get back to a state of well-being? If you can always generate a state of well-being, life is always a joy. If you can’t, you are the victim of your environment and circumstances. You are powerless. Your life depends on other people and events that you cannot control.
Paradoxically, when you treat triggering events as a blessing, you’ll eliminate the power they have over you. You’ll eliminate the foreign thing in you that attracted them, and you’ll find that the universe (including the people in it) treats you differently. You will get different messages because you have transmuted what you resonate with. You will have different experiences because you have transmuted how you interpret and respond to whatever happens.
Paradoxically, if you try to control the universe and the people in it to never deliver triggering experiences, you will keep getting the same experiences that you don’t like. If you see the reality of what is going on, you will spontaneously transmute yourself – effortlessly. This doesn’t take work. It only takes seeing and recognizing the truth. The transmuted you will spontaneously attract all the things that the controlling you tried (and failed) to get by manipulating or shooting the messenger.
Most people think that if only they could only get x, y, and z, then they would be happy. The truth is if that you create a way of being in which you are happy from within, you’ll spontaneously attract x, y, and z because they resonate with the real you.
Negative Experiences Resonate with Something Foreign in You
There are several other levels of the realizations here to explore. When a negative experience comes along, it has found you because of something that resonates with it. You are carrying a resonant frequency in you that matches the resonant frequency of the incoming event.
I recall an episode of Arrow on TV where half a dozen of the main characters had infiltrated a stronghold of the bad guys. They quickly realized that the place was being targeted by a drone armed with a Hellfire missile. They made a hasty escape, only to discover that the Hellfire missile was following them.
Just in time they realized that the missile was homing in on an electronic implant in one of them. They cut out the implant, threw it out the back of the van, and sped away. The missile followed the implant, and blew up an empty piece of road.
Essentially the same thing happened in the movie The Bourne Legacy. The protagonist saved his life by cutting an implant that was being tracked by a missile out of his side and feeding it to a wolf, so the incoming missile followed the wolf and blew it up instead of him.
Oncoming negative experiences are like that Hellfire missile. They will find you no matter where you try to run. The good news is that what they are targeting is something in you, but it is not you. It is not the real you. It is something foreign, like an implant. Usually it’s something you are unaware of, something that needs to be healed. The MERMER moment gives you the opportunity to shine the light of consciousness on whatever it is and see it for the foreign substance that it is.
Consciousness has tremendous healing power. Just bringing such foreign anomalies to light goes a long way toward healing them and eliminating the hidden power they used to have.
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
This understanding and this process can give you a whole new perspective and experience of anything apparently negative that comes at you. Attacks on your value, power, or safety are no longer something to be upset about. Each one is a Transmutation Trigger. This can be fun.
It’s important to get out of shooting the messenger, or even blaming the messenger. All she has done is to bring your awareness to something in you, and to help you by opening up your brain for reprogramming. She has provided you with a Transmutation Trigger. Celebrate it, enjoy it. She has fulfilled a valuable purpose for you. What she thinks about you is a reflection of her issues, and has nothing to do with you.
What has to do with you is the Transmutation Trigger that is now available for you. Now you can transmute your blueprint to (or at least toward) 100% valuable, 100% powerful, and 100% safe.
Create Positive Opportunities for Transmutation
There’s another level of realization here as well, regarding negative and positive experiences. Many of our intense experiences are negative, like touching the hot stove. Lots of negativity in self-image comes from the fact that the experiences that were intense enough to create a MERMER moment, a moment that opened up our brain for reprogramming, were negative. We learn by trial and error, not so much by ordinary experience.
When you’re young, a dozen people can tell you you’re beautiful. One tells you intensely that you’re ugly, and the ugly interaction may result in a deeper, more intense experience. Your brain opens up for reprogramming due to the intensity, and the ugly one is what gets imprinted. Then later when you’re told you’re beautiful it doesn’t make much impact, because the window is not open. And the affirmations and positive thinking you may try later are like typing into a window that’s not highlighted on a computer screen.
It almost seems as if the cards are stacked against us. Not so. There’s no law that says an intense experience, a MERMER moment, has to be negative. MERMER moments can be intensely positive.
Many people have had an experience where their life was dramatically changed in a negative way by an intense happening of some sort – an accident, a confrontation, a fight, a rejection, losing someone suddenly, etc. It is commonly thought that negative changes can take place suddenly, and positive ones take a long time and a lot of work. Not so. The same mechanism in your brain that installs negativity in an instant can be used for Transmutation. Transmutation Trigger can create a new style of functioning of your brain and a new life for you as quickly and certainly as any disaster, but in the opposite direction.
You probably remember, at least subconsciously, the first time you touched something hot enough to burn your fingers.
You also remember the first time you touched a man or a woman in an intimate and delightful way. Well, there’s another MERMER moment. There’s another time your brain was open for reprogramming. There’s another Transmutation Trigger.
When you open the window of your mind, then you are open to an experience of heightened enlightenment, and the brain is ready and eager to be reprogrammed to make this permanent. When Buddha reached nirvana, if we’d been there to measure the brain responses, I’ll bet we would have seen a huge P300-MERMER in his EEG patterns.
I call this technique Transmutation Trigger because every intense experience provides a trigger for Transmutation. Every MERMER moment opens up the brain for reprogramming, an opportunity for expanded consciousness.
You don’t have to wait for such opportunities for Transmutation to come along. You can intentionally take advantage of this phenomenon. You can intentionally create intense positive and delightful MERMER moments. Then you get a double whammy. You get to enjoy the delightful experience, and also you open up your mind for Transmutation. You can actively seek positive MERMER moments, intensely positive experiences, peak experiences.
Seeking out such positive intensity takes some courage, and it’s worth it. Best case, you’ll get the best of both worlds – an intensely pleasurable, enjoyable peak experience, and a great Transmutation Trigger. Worst case, you’ll fail spectacularly, and still get a great Transmutation Trigger.
You can intentionally create the opportunities for self-discovery that accompany Transmutational experiences as well. You can learn that you resonate more with warm tropical beaches than with icy slopes by spending a winter on a mountainside north of the Arctic Circle, or by basking on the beach in Hawaii. Either way, you get an intense experience, an opportunity to learn what resonates with you, and a Transmutation Trigger.
Transmutation Guides and Guided Transmutation
You have everything you need to create Transmutation in your life. That said, it can be extremely useful to have a guide who is trained and skilled in creating positive Transmutation Trigger moments to guide you through the process of Transmutation. This can be done by a trained Transmutation Guide in person or remotely by phone or other communication technology.
Such guidance is available through my Science of Creating Miracles Training courses and individual sessions.
Gain Command of Your Experience of Life
A critical skill in life is to get from “this hurts” to “everything is delightful” at will. To do that, you must gain command of your experience. You cannot control the whole universe, although once you have command of your experience, you will find the universe is cooperating with you beyond what you ever dreamed possible. You will have everything you ever wanted and more, but not by chasing after it harder. You will have it by transmuting your experience of life.
The realization and practice of Transmutation gave me a whole new life, and in particular turned around my experience of “negative” experiences and happenings. My life used to go something like this. I’d be cruising along, and everything seemed pretty much OK. Then a Hellfire missile would hit me out of the blue. Someone would do or say something that really triggered me. I’d be overshadowed by anger, or fear, or hurt, or some other negative emotion. I would react out of that emotion – shoot the messenger, punish the messenger, counterattack, run away, try to manipulate the messenger to give me a different message, try to rearrange everything in the external world so this would not happen again, etc.
In time these Hellfire missile events started to seem eerily familiar. The villains in the scenario, whose fault I was always sure it was, kept changing. Yet the same scenarios kept repeating. The only common denominator was me. I began to realize that I couldn’t honestly blame the villains, but blaming myself didn’t work either. Self-blame is no more useful than blaming someone else, and it’s even less enjoyable, because it inevitably leads to guilt, shame, and more negativity in life.
I tried changing my behavior, my thinking, my emotions, my circumstances. The more I tried to change all this, the more it stayed the same. I tried deeper changes, transformations. I tried analyzing where this all came from, looking at my childhood experiences and how they presaged what was landing on me now. The same Hellfire missiles kept landing on me, whatever I tried to do or say or think or feel. Does this sound familiar?
This is because the reality of the situation remained in my blind spot. I was addressing everything except the reality: The Hellfire missiles were targeting something in me, something I was blind to. Something in me resonated with these experiences, and kept attracting them to me no matter what I did.
In fact, what I was doing to try to change the situation only solidified it. By focusing on everything else other than the inner reality that was creating all this, I was inadvertently only enhancing my blindness to my blind spot, making the true reality more and more hidden. Everything I was doing to try to end the cycle or Hellfire missiles was in fact strengthening the pattern that brought them to me. That realization can either be depressing or liberating, depending on whether or not you see the light.
For me, in the end it was liberating, as I’m sure it will be for you. When I finally realized that the deliverers of the Hellfire missiles were messengers rather than villains, the process became an opportunity rather than an obstacle. Once I discovered Transmutation, it became easier and easier to use the Hellfire missiles as fuel for self-discovery and evolution.
Transmutation is an effective method to leave that whole pattern behind, to live in accord with who you really are, to unfold, express, and enjoy the real you.
Keep in mind that it’s not you that they are targeting. Realizing that the negative happenings in your life are resonating with something in you is not a reason to indulge in guilt, shame, or depression. What is resonating with the Hellfire missiles is not you. It is something you are carrying around that is foreign to you, something that is in fact entirely contrary to your true Nature.
Even the blueprint that you have from early in this lifetime – the one that says you’re only 68% valuable, 74% safe, and 55% powerful, or whatever – is a false blueprint. Your true blueprint is that you are in essence 100% valuable, 100% safe, and 100% powerful.
You are more than that. You are unbounded consciousness, unbounded intelligence, the essence and foundation of the universe; you are infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe. You are also an individual, someone with your own individual Nature, and your birthright is a life in tune with your Nature. Anything less than this enlightened realization is just an illusion.
Transmutation lets you bring your inner blueprint in accord with your true blueprint. It lets you shine the light of consciousness spontaneously into the areas within that have been dark and hidden. It lights up your life.
You don’t need to analyze where the negative implants that resonate with a particular Hellfire missile came from. As your consciousness expands in a MERMER moment, however, you may spontaneously see prior events, particularly early childhood events, that first manifested this pattern and firmly imprinted it in your brain and your psyche.
Shining the light of consciousness into these dark places dissolves the darkness. Darkness cannot exist except in the absence of light. You don’t have to do anything about it, you don’t even have to understand it. Just allow the light of your consciousness to light up every area of your inner world that has been dark.
Transmutation Is Easy!
You may be asking, “Can it really be that simple?” “Can it really be that easy?” Yes, it can, and it is. You can verify this for yourself. You don’t have to believe it. Just do it. Follow the scientific method: Implement the Transmutation Trigger protocol, and observe the results.
Transmutation Trigger works spontaneously. You don’t have to understand it or believe in it. You don’t have to expend any effort. You don’t have to try.
It is easy to be what you are. It is difficult to be what you are not. You are not the negative implants you have been carrying around that resonate with and attract Hellfire missiles. You are a divine being of light. You are infinitely worthy of your own love. You are worthy of a life that truly resonates with your true self, your individuality as well as your cosmic Nature. Let the light of your consciousness light you up from within, and spontaneously this becomes not only the ultimate reality but also your everyday experience.
SuperPosition is Easy!
Transmutation Trigger is a key to the spontaneous experience of SuperPosition, the conscious awareness of infinite possibilities in life and the experience of having command of which of those infinite possibilities manifest in your life. SuperPosition is simply the experience of who you are, the real you, and your actual role in the universe as the creator of your life and the creator of your experience of the world around you. SuperPosition is easy because it’s easy to be who you are, easy to experience who you are, and easy to express who you are.
How to Love Yourself
Those who have been seeking truth and spiritual growth generally know that if you love yourself, everyone else will follow suit. If you love yourself, you will find it easy to love others, and they will spontaneously love you back. But how do you get to love yourself? If you tell a 5-year-old, “Hey, remember to love yourself,” she’ll light up, and throw her arms around herself, and say “Oh, yes! I almost forgot.” If you say the same thing to an adult, or even a 10-year-old, the response will be different, something along the lines of, “Huh?” or “I want to, but how?”
Transmutation provides an answer to that question. To love yourself, all you have to do is know yourself. To know you is to love you. Transmutation takes advantage of the moments when you are open to Transmutation to put you in touch with your true Nature, and you can’t help falling in love with yourself.
Socrates was right: “Know thyself.” This or a similar maxim can be found in the teachings of the founders and inspirations of every major spiritual and philosophical tradition.
Transmutation is just a simple method to bring your awareness to who you truly are. This is the key to enlightenment. Spontaneously, as a byproduct, who you are not falls away. Darkness cannot exist in the presence of light.
When a MERMER moment comes up, we experience the pain of not fully being who we truly are. It appears that the pain is caused by something outside of us, and the initial temptation is to try to fix the environment – shoot the messenger, teach the messenger a lesson, change the external circumstances, etc.
A little more enlightened response is to recognize that our response is the problem, and try to transform our thinking, feeling, speech, and actions. We act, however, according to our nature, spontaneously. A frog trying to think and speak and act like a prince is still a frog. We spontaneously radiate who we are. And what we radiate is what draws to us all the external events, circumstances, and people that we encounter.
Changing your behavior and thinking does make a difference, but it does not change the fundamental situation because it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of who is thinking and acting. You experience pain because something in you resonates with and draws to you a negative external event or circumstance or person that appears to cause the pain. That foreign thing in yourself that drew the external negative event then resonates with it. This makes you painfully aware of that in you which is out of tune with your true Nature. Your true Nature is unbounded, infinitely happy, infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe. At the moment, you are experiencing something else.
This provides a Transmutation Trigger. You have become aware of the pain of not fully expressing your true Self. You have become aware of that foreign substance or pattern in you that is blocking and inhibiting your expression of our true self. And, the situation has got your attention. Your system is open to input. You are ready for an “Aha!” experience.
This provides you an opportunity to take advantage of the phenomenon to more fully unfold your true self. The cosmic computer is open for input. Implement the Transmutation Trigger technique.
The Transmutation Trigger technique will remind you of who you really are. You will get a holographic sense of your true Nature. You’ll experience it, feel it, enjoy it. The pain will dissolve, because the light of your true Nature has eliminated the darkness that was obscuring your true Nature.
It’s commonly thought that personal development is difficult, that it’s hard work, that it takes a lot of effort and a long time. Not so. Once again, it’s easy to be who you are. What is difficult is being who you are not. Transmutation Trigger is easy. It’s effortless and spontaneous. All you have to do is remind yourself of reality, the reality of who you are and your role in the universe, and the light of your infinitely powerful consciousness will take care of the rest.
When you first start practicing Transmutation Trigger, it may take you a while to wake up when a Hellfire missile lands. You may find yourself overshadowed by anger, hurt, fear, or whatever. You may find yourself reacting before you have a chance to transmute. Don’t worry. Relax. Don’t blame yourself. All is not lost – you’re awake now, right?
When you do wake up, then do the Transmutation Trigger technique. Thank the messenger, and shine the light of your consciousness within. You may still be feeling something unpleasant. You may have to begin by doing it by rote. That doesn’t matter. It still works, because on a fundamental level you already know the truth.
I suggest you regularly review the Transmutation Trigger technique above to refresh your experience and realize again how effortless this process is.
As you practice regularly, you’ll find that you wake up more and more quickly, and you get to the experience of the holographic truth of who you are more and more quickly.
Transmutation, and Insight Too
In practicing the Transmutation techniques you may come to some realizations and insights regarding your reactions. When you are angry, often that is an overlay for being hurt. It’s not very socially acceptable to admit being hurt, especially for men. Anger is more well accepted. When you’re angry, you may become aware of a hurt that underlies the anger, and a need that underlies the hurt. We’ll discuss this more later. For now, just enjoy the insights. The fundamental thing is to experience who you really are. The details that may arise are unnecessary. They can be useful as a secondary benefit of Transmutation Trigger, however, as we will discuss later.
If you practice it regularly, Transmutation Trigger can completely transmute your “bad” experiences. An attack on your value, power, or safety doesn’t have to be a bad experience. It doesn’t have to be something to be feared or even avoided. Seen for what it is, it can be a Transmutation Trigger.
When someone says, “You have the ugliest red hair I have ever seen,” and it gets to you a bit, you can immediately relish the opportunity, and even relish the experience. The messenger has not told you anything about your value. He’s revealed something about his issues. Thank him. The fact that the comment landed in you means he has also done you the favor of revealing something about your issues. He’s done the even greater favor of inspiring a Transmutation Trigger. He has provided you with a MERMER moment, where your brain is open for reprogramming.
If you’d like, you can not only take advantage of the opportunity, you can celebrate the arrival of such an event. You can go from “Eek!” or “Ouch!” or “Yuck” to “Bring it on!”
At this point I’d like to insert a bit of common sense that you have probably already realized. Transmutation Trigger is an adjunct to, and not a substitute for, dealing with the practical physical world and the people in it. Inner and outer realities must be balanced depending on the circumstances.
When the attack on your safety is a building that is burning down around you, the first order of business is not to go inside, but to go outside. Get out of the burning building. Use your brain to operate your legs. You can get to the Transmutations once you are physically safe. It is obviously of paramount importance to take care of your own safety and well-being, in light of the real, physical circumstances.
If you are dealing with someone who is a clear and present danger to your well-being on any level, it’s necessary as a first order of business to deal effectively with that external situation as common sense demands. Once the immediately threatening situation is handled, then you can get to the inner Transmutations in a safe environment.
Transmutation serves as a means to improve your communication and relationships with other human beings. It is not a substitute for engaging in that communication and those relationships as appropriate in human life on earth. It’s not a way of checking out; it’s a way of checking in on every level. Deal appropriately with the human beings in your life as a first order of business, on the level of speech and action in the real world. Transmutation is a means to that end, not a way of avoiding human interactions or other life events.
Creating Transmutation Moments: How to Put Your Brain in Reprogramming Mode
When an experience comes along that really gets your attention, something that wakes you up so you are fully present, that experience puts your brain in reprogramming mode. You’re walking through the forest, minding your own business, enjoying the scenery, and a saber-toothed tiger leaps out at you. Now you’re fully present. You’re alert. Your brain is primed to learn something critical. This is a Transmutation moment.
Today, saber-toothed tiger confrontations and the like are relatively rare. We still encounter Transmutation moments. When your friend or lover or boss says or does something really striking — either positive or negative – this also gets your attention, brings you into the present moment, and puts your brain in reprogramming mode.
Why wait for Transmutation moments to come along randomly? We can create this experience consciously, and make Transmutation a regular practice in life. Here are some suggestions for creating Transmutation Trigger moments.
Jump out of an airplane without a parachute.
Here’s how this works. First you throw a parachute pack out of an airplane with a small parachute attached to it to slow it down to approximately the terminal velocity of a human in skydiving position. Then you jump out of the airplane without a parachute. You fly skillfully to intercept the parachute pack, put it on, and pull the ripcord in time for your parachute to open before you hit the ground. You may have seen videos of someone practicing this technique. This procedure is absolutely guaranteed to get your attention and bring you into the present moment.
This method has some disadvantages, however. It’s illegal in the United States. It’s expensive and time consuming. And you really have to get it exactly right the first time. It’s not the kind of thing you can keep practicing until you get it right.
The following techniques are much more practical, and still highly effective. All of them are free, readily and conveniently available, and you don’t have to try to get them right the first time – or any time. You can practice them again and again, experiencing Transmutation and learning every time.
Tell the truth. The truth will set you free.
When I suggest this, most people respond with “I already tell the truth. I’m an honest person. I don’t lie to people. When I’m asked a question, I answer truthfully.”
If you’re like me and most of my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients, however, you do indeed tell the truth – but not always “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The key here is usually “the whole truth.”
If you say that one little thing, the story goes, people will go away, or will reject you, or won’t like you, or won’t admire you, or will be hurt or upset or angry.
I’ve found that whenever I say that thing, and then brace myself for the onslaught of negativity I fear, that onslaught never comes. What comes instead is that whomever I’m finally being really truthful with responds with appreciation and understanding. People get intuitively that now I’m being real, and they appreciate it.
Telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth brings you flying into the present moment. It makes you and others acutely aware of the actual reality here and now. This can be an intense experience. Now you are really awake, really paying attention, and you have something real at stake. This creates a Transmutation Trigger moment for you. You have transformed an ordinary, pretty much honest conversation into an opportunity for Transmutation.
Telling the truth will also deepen and strengthen your relationship with anyone who’s interested in the truth. With anyone who enjoys the truth, telling the truth creates intimacy.
Telling the truth is an excellent way to surround yourself with people who are committed to and enjoy the truth, and filter out people who are committed to avoiding the truth. If you tell the truth to someone who is heavily invested in avoiding the truth, the result will probably be that that person will become less and less involved in your life. Those are people you are better appreciating from a distance, if at all.
“The truth will set you free,” free from the artificial constraints of attempting to control your behavior to meet others’ expectations or opinions, and free from people who do not resonate with you or with the truth.
Be Genuine
Throughout my life, I have spent considerable time and energy in what I call image management: doing and saying what I think will impress other people, manipulating my words and actions in an attempt to impact others’ opinions and thoughts about me. It’s exhausting, and it doesn’t work very well.
Doing and saying what you think, feel, and intuit to be best for all concerned under the circumstances is pretty simple and straightforward. On the other hand, it takes a tremendous amount of energy to try to figure out how someone else will interpret and respond to what you’re saying and doing, what they will think of you, and then to control your words and actions to manipulate what they’re thinking of you. And it doesn’t work anyway. I’ve found that people, even people who aren’t very smart or very intuitive, respond to who I really am being and what I’m really up to, rather than being fooled by what I’m pretending. Reality rules. I think you’ll find the same thing, and probably you have discovered this already.
Being genuine means saying to others the same things you are saying internally to yourself, acting congruently with who you know yourself to be, rather than with someone you are pretending to be.
This involves a certain amount of risk. If you reveal the real you, what if people don’t like you? What if they go away?
That’s why being genuine provides an opportunity or Transmutation. Being true to yourself, letting others see the real you, brings you flying into the present moment, and now you have something at stake. This puts your brain in reprogramming mode. This is a Transmutation moment, an opportunity for Transmutation.
Here again, the truth will set you free.
Be Invulnerable
There is a lot of talk these days in personal development circles about being vulnerable. Acting and speaking openly and honestly, as I’ve described above in “Tell the Truth” and “Be Genuine,” is commonly considered to involve being vulnerable. The thinking goes like this: If you’re truthful, and reveal who you really are and what you are really up to, you’re vulnerable because when people see the real you they may reject you, or ridicule you, or be angry, disdainful, fearful, repulsed, offended, or whatever. So by being genuine, you are making yourself vulnerable to other people and their reactions.
Not so.
Let’s look at the reality. As long as you are faking it, hiding out, not revealing the real you, disguising your intentions, and otherwise not telling the truth or being genuine, you are in fact highly vulnerable. You are always at the effect of other peoples’ opinions and responses. If you fail to convince them or impress them with whatever you are trying to pretend, you’ll experience pain. You are not in control of your life. Your life is controlled, knowingly or not, by the people around you. You have given the power in your life to everyone else. That’s about as vulnerable as one can be.
When you tell the truth, be yourself, be wholly genuine, and let the chips fall where they may, you have the power in your life. You are free to take what you see as the best course of action, to do and say what resonates with the truth as you experience it. You are in command of your own life.
Some people will like the real you, and will enjoy the truth. These people will be attracted to you. You’ll find them becoming more intimately and genuinely involved in your life. Some people won’t resonate with the real you, and/or won’t resonate with the truth. These people will sooner or later – usually sooner – be out of your life. That’s a good thing for you, and likely a good thing for them.
Now you are truly invulnerable. You can live the life you love, do and say what resonates with the truth as you see it, regardless of what anyone else says or does or thinks. You are no longer vulnerable to the opinions and words of those around you.
When you are genuine and truthful, the reality is that you are invulnerable, not vulnerable.
Whenever you display your invulnerability in an environment where it makes a difference, once again you are brought into the present moment with something at stake. Once again, you have created a Transmutation moment, an opportunity for Transmutation.
Be Yourself
“To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
There has been considerable discussion regarding the degree to which Polonius actually followed (or not) his own sage advice to Laertes in Hamlet. Shakespeare’s words, nonetheless, are wise.
“Be Yourself,” is another way of saying “Tell the Truth,” “Be Genuine,” and “Be Invulnerable.”
To this Shakespeare adds that being true to yourself is also an effective formula for being true to others. Being false to another man (or woman) always involves not telling the whole of what is true for you, not being genuine, not expressing the truth as you experience it; in short, not being true to yourself.
Being true to yourself provides ample opportunities for Transmutation, through the same mechanics we considered in the previous sections.
Tell on Yourself
If you are like me and my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients, you don’t always live up to your own highest ideals. We don’t always tell the truth. We aren’t always genuine. We aren’t always true to ourselves.
What to do when you become aware that you have fallen short of the truth? A really effective way to get back on track – and to open up your brain for reprogramming and create an opportunity for Transmutation – is to tell on yourself. Be genuine and truthful about the ways you have not been genuine and truthful.
Once again, this brings you flying into the present moment, where you have something at stake. Now you’re revealing that thing that you had been hiding, the thing you didn’t want anyone else to see and probably didn’t want to look at yourself.
You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets
When you fall short of being your highest self, when you’re not behaving consistently with the person you’d like others to think you are, what do you do? If you’re like me and my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients, at first you have an impulse to try to hide it.
When you find yourself hiding something, congratulations! You have discovered an area of life where Transmutation is lacking and would make a difference. Consider practicing any of the above techniques to bring light into this dark area.
It’s Not All About You
It’s important to do all of the above with balance, common sense, courtesy, finesse, and consideration for those around you. It’s wise to keep in mind that it’s not all about you.
Communicating honestly and genuinely is a blessing for you and a gift to those around you. Bending everyone’s ear with every little thing you have been thinking about yourself, however, can be a bit much for those around you. To the extent that these practices involve talking about yourself, it’s wise to use the practices sparingly, with awareness of how interested or open others are to hearing what you have to say, and only when it’s something that makes a difference in the life of whomever you’re communicating with.
9. The Brain
Having learned Transmutation Trigger and Transmutation moments, touched on Guided Transmutation, and considered various ways of telling the truth, we’re ready to go on to several other techniques for optimizing brain function to enliven happiness, success, and fulfillment in life.
Optimal brain functioning involves a balanced and integrated functioning of the whole brain, including synergistic functioning of multiple different structures and systems. Understanding how and why such techniques work requires first a brief discussion of how the brain works. I’ll discuss of some of my favorite parts of the brain, how they function, and how we can effortlessly transmute that functioning.
Neurons and Neurotransmitters
Neurons are the active cells in the brain. Neurons have three basic parts: the cell body, dendrites, and an axon. Almost all of the neurons in the central nervous system have one axon and multiple dendrites. Neurons receive information from other neurons through dendrites. They communicate to other neurons through the axon. The cell body contains the nucleus, which exerts chemical control over the activities of the cell.
Neurons are of four basic types. Sensory neurons transmit information from the environment to the brain. Motor neurons and other output neurons transmit commands from the brain. Motor neurons transmit movement-related commands to the muscles. Some other output neurons transmit signals to other organs and glands. Communication neurons transmit signals from one part of the brain to another. Computation neurons process information. The vast majority of the neurons in the human brain are computation neurons. They process incoming information from the senses, store and process memories, and plan and execute behavior.
Neurons fire electrically (or electrochemically) and communicate with other neurons chemically through chemical messengers. When a neuron fires, an electrical potential moves swiftly down the axon until it reaches the synapse, the gap between two neurons. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that float across the synapse and affect the adjacent neuron.
Each neuron and its corresponding neurotransmitter has one of two effects on the adjacent neuron. Either it excites the adjacent neuron, making it more prone to fire, or it inhibits it, making it less prone to fire. When a neuron reaches a critical level of excitation, it fires. The electrical potential travels down the axon to a synapse with another neuron, where its neurotransmitters float across and affect that neuron in turn.
Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that affect an adjacent neuron. Hormones are chemical messengers that are released into the blood, and affect neurons at a distance. Some chemical messengers can be used either as neurotransmitters or as hormones, depending on where they are released and where they have their effect. When chemical messengers are released into the environment and affect the nervous system of others of the same species, they are known as pheromones.
Different neurotransmitters are associated with different, albeit often overlapping and synergistic, structures and functions. Some of the major neurotransmitters are norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, epinephrine, and acetylcholine.
The Peripheral Nervous System
The nervous system has two major divisions. The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system connects the central nervous system to the rest of the body. Output through motor neurons controls the movements of the muscles. Input through sensory neurons provides information to the central nervous system.
The peripheral nervous system produces various activating, deactivating, and regulatory input for the heart, the digestive tract, the muscles, and all the various organs, and also receives information from these organs.
The somatic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls voluntary motions of the body through the skeletal muscles. The autonomic nervous system is that part of the peripheral nervous system that modulates visceral functions such as heart rate, digestion, perspiration, and sexual arousal. Its effects are generally not under explicit voluntary or conscious control.
The autonomic nervous system has two major parts. The sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body for action through the fight-or-flight response. It prepares the body for the strenuous activity of fighting or fleeing in response to a real or imagined threat.
The parasympathetic nervous system modulates the body in the opposite direction. It facilitates activities that take place primarily when the body is at rest, such as digestion. It is also active in sexual arousal.
The Central Nervous System
The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The brain can be understood in terms of structure and/or in terms of function. Brain structures have been identified in excruciating detail. Function is much more complex. The functions of the simplest structures, such as sensory and motor neurons, are relatively well mapped out. All of the higher structures of the brain, however, have multiple functions and interact with other structures in complex ways.
On the upper surface of the brain is the cerebral cortex, where many of the higher functions take place. The cortex is divided into four main lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, and the temporal lobe. These lobes have different but overlapping and interactive functions.
In the peripheral nervous system, neurons often communicate linearly and sequentially. For example, a sensory neuron communicates with another neuron, which passes the message on to yet another neuron, which delivers the message to the central nervous system.
In the brain, communication between neurons is far more complex, particularly for the higher information-processing functions. Functional systems of neurons communicate synergistically in a way that is far from linear and sequential. Neurons communicate with other neurons through highly complex, multifaceted, interactive feedback loops.
Brainwaves (EEG)
When the brain engages in a particular information-processing task, ensembles of neurons fire synchronously. The resulting electrical activity summates to produce measurable electrical voltage patterns at the scalp.
My specialty in neuroscience is measuring these voltage patterns through electroencephalography (EEG). Through EEG, we can study the living, active brain as it is functioning in real life and in real time.
The voltages measurable at the scalp are small, on the order of a few microvolts, a few millionths of a volt. An EEG system includes sensors to pick up these tiny voltage patterns, amplifiers to amplify them, a digitizer or digital signal processor to convert these voltages to numbers, and a computer to analyze the patterns.
Due to the multiple, synchronously functioning feedback loops and other complex interactions among ensembles of neurons in multiple synergistically functioning structures, the activity of the brain is largely oscillatory. This results in oscillating positive and negative patterns of electrical voltage at the scalp that constitute “neural oscillations” or “brainwaves.”
Brainwaves can be characterized to some degree by a combination of sine-wave patterns oscillating at different frequencies. Brainwaves have been described in terms of the dominant frequency of the oscillations. Alpha waves, for example, are oscillations at approximately 8 – 12 cycles per second (Hz). Beta waves are approximately 13 – 30 Hz. Delta waves (0.1 – 3 Hz) and theta waves (4 – 7 Hz) are slower. Gamma waves (31 – 100 Hz) are faster. Generally (but not always), slower waves are associated with a less activated state, and faster waves are associated with a more activated state.
Brainwaves measurable at the scalp are, of course, vastly less complex than the oscillatory activity inside the brain itself. What we see at the scalp is a summation of many vastly more complex interactions taking place within and between all the various structures of the brain.
The Brain Functions as an Integrated Whole
The brain is highly integrated, and also highly differentiated and specialized. I will discuss some of the functions of the brain in terms of the specific brain structures that are primary in these functions, but it is important to realize that the brain always functions as an integrated whole.
This is like the body. When you throw a baseball, you could say that your hand throws it, because your hand is the only part of the body that touches the ball. But a disembodied hand could not throw a ball. Your hand depends on the arm for the throwing motion. The shoulder is also involved. So is the entire torso, and the legs, and the neck, and the head, and the eyes. The whole body throws the ball, with the hand specializing in that aspect that involves direct contact with the ball.
The brain functions in this same way. The brain always functions as an integrated whole, with every part participating in every experience. Later when I specify the prefrontal cortex or the pineal gland as having a specific function, understand that this specialized function is integrated with the whole brain.
The brain is not like a computer. Computers work linearly, one thing at a time. You can have 1000 parallel processors, but this still is just 1000 linear processes. The brain works as an integrated whole. It is not only massively parallel; it contains multiple bidirectional connections and feedback loops to and from multiple structures that spontaneously work together synergistically to provide a whole experience. In a later chapter we’ll examine the quantum-mechanical nature of the functioning of the human brain as well.
How the Brain Learns
After birth, neurons in humans very rarely divide to produce new neurons, yet the brain grows and develops dramatically. First, the brain makes a vast multitude of connections, far more than we need for functioning. Then those connections that are used are maintained and strengthened, and those that are not used atrophy. This process takes place throughout life.
We produce extremely few neurons later in life, but we produce many new connections between neurons. Also, we strengthen those connections that are used. The more a connection is used, the more it is strengthened. The less it is used, the less it has a tendency to be activated in the future.
From the perspective of brain physiology, we learn and grow by strengthening connections between neurons. Every experience in life corresponds to a particular, highly complex and interactive, vibratory or oscillatory pattern of activity throughout the brain. This is the summation of many neurons firing synchronously and interactively to produce an overall vibratory pattern. When we engage in a particular experience, the entire complex, interactive pattern of neuronal activity that is associated with that experience is strengthened. Having had an experience once, the propensity to have the same experience is enhanced. This is how we learn.
This is also how memory functions. Unlike a computer, the brain does not store memory in a particular location. Memories are stored in a distributed fashion throughout the brain. A memory is a propensity for the whole brain to vibrate in a particular pattern. When we experience something reminiscent of this experience, then this pattern is activated. This triggers the experience of a particular memory and everything associated with it.
Resonance in the Brain
The vibratory activity of the brain when engaging in a particular experience can be compared to the much simpler vibratory activity of a string on a guitar or a piano. If we pluck the string, it vibrates at its resonant frequency. It also vibrates in a complex pattern of harmonics – higher resonant frequencies that are mathematically related to the base frequency.
Different musical instruments playing the same base note will sound different because the harmonics at higher frequencies are different. A guitar playing E will sound different from a piano playing the same note. A violin will sound still different. In the wind instruments, a column of air vibrates in the instrument, producing yet another ensemble of resonant frequencies and another quality of sound.
We can produce a note on a guitar by plucking a string with a finger. The string can also be caused to vibrate by simply introducing the same vibration in the environment. If we play a note on one guitar, and one of the strings on a second guitar is tuned to the same resonant frequency of vibration, then that string on the initially silent guitar will begin to vibrate in resonance with the vibrations produced by the guitar we pluck (provided that the initial guitar is loud enough). The same effect can be produced in principle in all of the instruments through the same mechanism.
This phenomenon depends entirely on resonance. If one guitar is out of tune with another, then the resonant frequencies will not match, there will be no resonance, and the silent guitar will not be activated or enlivened.
Each instrument can be thought of as an ensemble of many small tuning forks, one tuned to the dominant resonant frequency of a string (or of the air in the hollow tube of a wind or brass instrument), and each of the others tuned to one of the higher harmonics. Each of the tuning forks naturally vibrates at its resonant frequency. Together, they produce the characteristic sound and tone of the instrument.
In principle, all the instruments of an orchestra could be activated to blossom forth in sound by the input of a complex sound pattern that corresponded to all of the resonant frequencies in all of the instruments that could play that sound. This phenomenon does not work perfectly as a practical matter, of course, because it would also depend on people placing their fingers on the right strings, valves, etc., and other things that would be impractical to control. Nevertheless it serves as an illustration that will be useful in considering how the brain works, and specifically in considering vibratory, oscillatory processes, resonance, and resonant frequencies in the brain.
If we could replace the orchestra with a few thousand tuning forks for each instrument, as described above, in principle we could input any chord into the room, and our orchestra would be enlivened to the same rich ensemble of sounds. Our tuning-fork orchestra would resonate with the incoming sound at its collective resonant frequency, and reproduce and amplify it.
What does that have to do with the brain? The brain is like an orchestra. For the brain, every experience is the brain vibrating in a rich, complex pattern of oscillatory activities mediated by all the neurons firing in interactive patterns. The brain has a tendency to vibrate at certain highly complex resonant frequencies.
When a pattern comes along from somewhere outside that resonates with a resonant frequency of the brain – a pattern the brain has a propensity to play – this same pattern of activity is enlivened in the brain. The brain responds, resonates, and amplifies the pattern, just as our guitar did with a note that resonated with one of its strings. If the resonance is not there, then the brain is not enlivened by the pattern, just as our guitar was not activated by a note that was not in tune with it.
The brain is much more complex than any orchestra, of course, or than anything else we humans have ever produced. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. Each single neuron is vastly more complex than the most sophisticated supercomputer we have ever built. Many individual neurons are each connected to ten thousand other neurons. All of the neurons in the brain are directly or indirectly connected to one another. The brain includes thousands of sophisticated, specialized neural structures that function synergistically and interactively.
We can build an EEG amplifier – I have done that myself. We can build a supercomputer. We can build a superconducting supercollider. We have some pretty sophisticated secondary instruments to apply in our empirical investigation of the world. We can’t now build a single neuron, however, let alone an integrated network of 100 billion neurons.
The human brain is by far the most sophisticated instrument we have for empirical investigation of the universe. With the human brain we can empirically investigate not only the manifest forms and phenomena of the obvious physical universe, but also all the subtler aspects of living things that we don’t yet have secondary instruments to measure. With the brain we can even directly experience and consciously explore the Conscious Unified Field from which all this arises.
If we had to understand and individually control all our brain structures, functions, and neurons in order to optimize brain functioning, it would be a daunting task. We would not be likely to accomplish this in an hour or a day or a week or a lifetime.
Fortunately, that is not necessary. We can understand the fundamental way the brain works, the principle of resonance, the concept of resonant frequencies, and some of the fundamental functions that the brain provides for us. We can apply that understanding in life. We can take advantage of the principle of resonance to optimize brain functioning based on what we can readily understand and experience.
If an eagle can soar through the sky without first obtaining a PhD in aeronautical engineering, you can learn to optimize your brain functioning without knowing everything there is to know about neuroscience and quantum physics.
Using your brain to create miracles and success in life turns out to be easy.
How We Attract What We Resonate With
An orchestra doesn’t physically attract trombones and violins, but it does attract people who enjoy listening to symphonies. A rock band attracts people who enjoy listening to rock music, and a blues band attracts people who like blues.
On an even deeper level, you spontaneously attract experiences – people, events, things, places – that resonate with something in you, in your current style of functioning. Some things resonate with your own internal resonant frequencies. When they show up, you are activated by them, like a guitar string by a note it resonates with. When something comes along that resonates with a resonant frequency in you, you imbibe and amplify that resonance. Transmutation Trigger allows you to spontaneously transmute your inner resonance, to tune your resonant frequencies, and therefore to change what you will resonate with and attract into your life.
Your brain can do some things that your guitar cannot, and can resonate in some ways that your guitar cannot. Your guitar, or even a million precisely tuned tuning forks, can only resonate with a single chord at a time. Your brain can experience, remember, recognize, and resonate with complex patterns of experience that take place over a period of time. You not only recognize and resonate with a single chord in a song or a symphony, but with a short riff or phrase, and with the song or symphony as a whole. The same is true with all kinds of experiences in life.
10. Applied Neuroscience and the Brain
Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Responses and EEG
Brainwaves reflect this ability of the brain to experience and resonate with patterns of inner and outer experience over time. The various brainwaves – alpha waves, beta waves, etc. – described above comprise ongoing, steady-state activity of the brain. Your brain also produces patterns in brain activity that change over time, reflecting an experience or an information-processing event that takes place over time – sometimes over a very short period of time, less than a second.
Simple, short-term patterns in EEG activity that correspond to specific information-processing brain events and experiences are known as event-related brain potentials (ERPs). ERPs are generally measured by presenting a particular stimulus, such as a word or picture on a computer screen, many times and averaging the EEG activity elicited shortly after the stimulus is presented.
The brain, of course, is doing lots of other things at the time that it is engaging in the particular information-processing activity of interest in a particular experiment. To isolate and study the brain activity related to a specific information-processing functions, scientists use the technique of signal averaging. A stimulus, such as a word or picture flashed on a computer screen, is presented many times. The brain responses to these multiple events are averaged. All of the brain activity that is not specifically time-locked to the event of interest averages out to zero. This leaves an event-related pattern or event-related brain potential in the brain activity as measured by EEG.
Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) are of two basic kinds. Exogenous ERPs reflect purely sensory processing. For example, when a sharp sound such as a click is heard, it elicits multiple recognizable positive and negative peaks in the brain activity in the first few milliseconds after the stimulus. Different peaks reflect the brain activity as the information arrives at specific structures in the auditory system.
Exogenous ERPs are elicited by the sensory processing alone. They do not change depending on how the person processes the input on the cognitive or emotional level, or how he responds to it. Exogenous ERPs are useful for assessing the functioning of sensory systems, and for detecting deficits in the sensory apparatus of the nervous system.
Endogenous ERPs are much more interesting. They reflect cognitive processing. The same stimulus – such as a word or picture flashed on a computer screen – will elicit different endogenous ERPs depending on how the information is processed cognitively and emotionally. For example, if a series of male and female names are flashed on a screen, and a subject is given a task of counting the female names, the female names will be more noteworthy, and will elicit a different ERP response than the male names. The P300 is a well-known (at least to neuroscientists) ERP that takes place when one notices something significant in context, as in the male/female names experiment.
My colleagues and I have discovered that ERPs are only a small part of the rich, complex patterns of change that take place when the brain processes information. The averaging procedure that reveals ERPs is useful for detecting simple patterns, like positive and negative voltage peaks and slopes. It eliminates all complex patterns of brain activity, however, including complex short-term patterns of change in the various frequencies at which the various structures of the brain are oscillating. It also eliminates changes in the dimensionality of the signal and other complex changes.
My colleagues and I have coined the term “multifaceted electroencephalographic response (MER)” to describe the multifaceted constellations of electrical brain activity that take place over a period of time when the brain engages in certain information-processing events.
I think it is highly likely that most if not all of the commonly known ERPs, when analyzed in a more sophisticated way, will turn out to be multifaceted responses – MERs – with rich patterns of change in the frequency, dimensionality, and other features of the brainwaves. Measuring these additional features will, I believe, provide a more comprehensive and accurate description of the phenomenon than that provided by measuring only the simple positive and negative peaks that characterize the ERP. In other words, it is my conviction that the conventionally measured ERPs are simply MERs that have been characterized only by a small subset of their multifaceted features.
The P300-MERMER – Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Response – is the first MER to be discovered. I discovered it when I used more sophisticated mathematical techniques to look at the data in experiments originally designed to elicit a P300. The P300-MERMER is elicited when a person takes note of something significant, something that I call an “Aha!” experience.
The P300-MERMER is the pattern that shows up in the brainwaves when the brain engages in Transmutation.
The P300-MERMER was first published in a peer-reviewed journal by FBI scientist Sharon Smith and myself in a study we conducted on FBI agents. Analyzed in the simplest way, including only the positive and negative voltage peaks (one of each), the P300-MERMER can be considered to be simply an ERP. The more sophisticated analysis methods provide a more comprehensive characterization of the brain activity involved in a MER, and also serve to detect this brain activity more accurately and precisely.
Detecting Criminals and Freeing Innocents with Brainwaves
Accurate and precise detection of brain patterns is important for practical applications of neuroscience, such as Brain Fingerprinting, a technique that I invented. FBI scientists Drew Richardson and Sharon Smith, Drew’s son Graham Richardson, renowned psychophysiologist John Furedy, and I have applied Brain Fingerprinting to detect concealed information in the brain in a number of studies as well as real-world criminal cases.
One of the first studies we did was on FBI agents. We tested subjects, some of whom were FBI agents. On a computer screen we flashed words and phrases containing information that would be known only to FBI agents, due to their unique training. These FBI-relevant stimuli were presented in a series with other, non-FBI-related stimuli. When the FBI agents saw the FBI stimuli, their brains lit up with a P300-MERMER brain response. The non-FBI agents did not recognize the FBI-relevant words and phrases, so their brain responses lacked a P300-MERMER. In this way, we could accurately detect who the FBI agents were in the group.
We also applied Brain Fingerprinting in a study with the CIA to detect US Navy military medical experts by detecting the unique knowledge they have stored in their brains. In another study, we used Brain Fingerprinting to detect bomb makers, people with knowledge and expertise in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Similarly, Brain Fingerprinting can detect an Al-Qaeda-trained terrorist or a member of a specific terrorist cell based on the unique information they have stored in their brains.
We have used Brain Fingerprinting to solve crimes. In the vast majority of cases, an individual who has committed a crime knows information about the crime scene that is unknown to the public or to an innocent suspect. We apply Brain Fingerprinting to detect this incriminating information stored in the brain, or to exonerate innocent suspects who do not know the details about a crime of which they are accused.
One of the first crimes I solved with Brain Fingerprinting was the case of J. B. Grinder. He was at the time a suspect in the rape and murder of Julie Helton. A Brain Fingerprinting test showed that he had the major details of that crime stored in his brain. Faced with certain conviction and almost certain death sentence, Grinder pled guilty to the murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. He also confessed to the murders of three other young women.
This is a case where a serial killer had literally gotten away with murder for 15 years until Brain Fingerprinting detected the record of a crime stored in his brain. At that point, his crime spree as a serial killer ended.
In the case of Terry Harrington, Brain Fingerprinting helped to exonerate an innocent man. Harrington was convicted and imprisoned for 23 years for a murder, always claiming innocence. I ran a Brain Fingerprinting test on Harrington. The test showed that some of the most salient features of the crime – details that the perpetrator would have experienced but Harrington was never told after the crime – were not stored in his brain. Brain Fingerprinting was ruled admissible as scientific evidence in court. Harrington was ultimately exonerated and released, due to a constitutional rights violation in his original trial. Now he is a free man, his innocence recognized in the eyes of the law.
Steven Avery is another man convicted of murder who has been exonerated by Brain Fingerprinting, although he has not yet been freed from prison. Avery is the subject of the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer. I conducted a Brain Fingerprinting test on Avery that is featured in Season 2 (“Part 2”), Episode 2.
At the time of Avery’s trial, no one knew what had actually happened when someone attacked and killed Teresa Halbach. Avery was one of the last people to see her alive. He was convicted of committing the murder along with his nephew Brendan Dassey. The prosecution presented two completely different and contradictory scenarios in the respective trials of Avery and Dassey in convicting the two of the same crime.
Recently Avery’s attorney Kathleen Avery engaged bloodstain pattern analysis expert Stuart H. James to analyze the blood spatter patterns in Teresa’s car in order to determine what actually took place when the murderer first attacked her. This forensic science analysis demonstrated definitively that what actually took place when the perpetrator first attacked Teresa was entirely different from what had been presented at trial. This new forensic science test provided new evidence that was instrumental in constructing a definitive Brain Fingerprinting test on Avery.
The perpetrator knows what he did when he first attacked Teresa. An innocent suspect would have no way of knowing what actually happened, because the scenarios presented at trial and in the press bore very little resemblance to the specific details of the actual crime. No one except the perpetrator knew these details until they were discovered later by blood spatter analysis.
Brain Fingerprinting scientifically detects the record of a crime (or lack of that record) stored in the brain of a suspect. I conducted a Brain Fingerprinting test on Steven Avery to determine scientifically if the record stored in his brain matched the actual crime, in other words, if Avery knew what happened when the perpetrator first attacked Teresa, or not. Obviously, this is something that the actual perpetrator knew.
Brain Fingerprinting proved that Avery did not know what took place when the perpetrator first attacked Teresa. There was no record stored in Avery’s brain of the events that took place during that crime. When a judge and jury hear this evidence, if they think that the perpetrator knows who he is and what he did when he first attacked Teresa, then they must conclude that Avery is not the perpetrator.
As of the time of the writing of this book, Avery’s case is still in the appeals process.
Brain Fingerprinting has proved to be effective in counterterrorism. In many terrorist crimes, the end perpetrators are dead by the end of the operation. The masterminds and handlers, however, remain at large. They have the record of the details of the terrorist crime stored in their brains because they planned it. Brain Fingerprinting can detect that record.
In conjunction with counterterrorism experts in the Middle East, I have developed Brain Fingerprinting tests to detect the masterminds and handlers behind a terrorist mass shooting, a terrorist hijacking, and multiple suicide bombings.
For the purposes of forensic neuroscience, the important feature of this phenomenon is the P300-MERMER pattern in the brain response. It is the P300-MERMER that allows forensic scientists to detect the presence or absence of incriminating information in cases like those of Avery, Harrington, and Grinder.
For the purposes of this book, however, we’re primarily interested in applying knowledge of the brain and how it works in the Transmutation of human life, in particular your life. For our purpose here, the primary value of the “Aha!” experience is that it opens your brain up for Transmutation. You can take advantage of this phenomenon to transmute your experience of life.
From the perspective of the brain, every experience you have had in your life comprises a rich, complex constellation of vibratory, oscillatory activity that shifts and changes in a particular pattern over the time encompassed in the experience. This pattern takes place in multiple interacting brain structures functioning synergistically to produce the whole experience over time. The techniques in this book are methods to harness this phenomenon in the brain to create Transmutation of the experience of life.
11. Structures and Functions of the Brain
As a foundation for our techniques for Transmutation of human life, first it is necessary to consider some of the structures and functions of the brain in a little more detail. As I mentioned above, the brain can be analyzed in terms of structure and in terms of function. The different structures in the brain carry out different functional tasks. It is important to understand, however, that the brain always functions as an integrated whole.
As described above, when we throw a baseball, the whole body is involved. When we have an experience, the whole brain is involved, with a multitude of structures functioning in a highly integrated manner. Although there is specialization of function in the brain, all higher functions are carried out by multiple structures with overlapping functions, operating interactively and synergistically. This will become clearer as we describe some of the major structures and functions of the brain.
Because our interest is in transmuting the functioning of the brain, I will describe the brain in terms that focus more on function than structure. I will discuss some of the structures that are most important for the process of Transmutation of the brain, in terms of the functions that these structures contribute.
This is not meant to be a comprehensive account of brain anatomy or physiology. Many such exist already. My purpose here is to discuss those structures and functions of the brain that are most useful for our purpose of Transmutation in life.
The Whole Brain
Everything we experience always involves the whole brain functioning in an integrated way. Many experiences and the corresponding functions of the brain can be to some degree localized to the structures that contribute the most to a particular phenomenon. Nevertheless, there are some things that the brain does that involve the whole brain to such an extent that they do not lend themselves to localization at all.
First and foremost among these is the experience of consciousness. The most important and most fundamental thing the brain does is to reflect consciousness. Consciousness is the essential constituent of human life, the most fundamental thing that makes a human being different from a rock or a robot. Moreover, consciousness is our access to the Conscious Unified Field, the unified field from which all of the forms and phenomena in the physical universe spring as particle/wave phenomena.
The better the brain is functioning, the more consciousness is reflected. The whole brain reflects consciousness in an integrated way. In fact, all the elementary particles that make up the brain are nothing but perturbations or waves in the Conscious Unified Field. That unified field is the same as the unbounded field of infinite intelligence and consciousness that gives rise to the manifest universe. Obviously, anything we can do to improve the overall functioning of the brain will enhance the brain’s ability to reflect consciousness, and thus will improve life in a holistic way.
Consciousness is the essential nature of life, the Nature of the Self, with a capital “S.” Consciousness is present in every experience, and gives rise to every experience throughout life. Consciousness is the universal aspect of our existence and experience.
There is another, more relative and individual aspect of our life that is reflected by the whole brain. This is the self, with a small “s.” The self is our individuality, everything that makes you and me unique and different from everyone else. It includes our fundamental likes and dislikes, tendencies, propensities, innate talents, and qualities.
The individual qualities of the self are a factor – but not, as we shall see, the only factor – in what kind of things, people, places, and experiences suit a person, what resonates with him or her.
The small-s self has in some spiritual circles been thought of as something low, base, small, selfish, something to be overcome or left behind. Not so. The self is simply our individuality, the qualities that make each of us individual and unique. This is not something small or limiting, or something to be overcome or left behind, any more than being left handed and having blue eyes and blond hair is.
Of course, experiencing as much of the large-S Self as possible, raising consciousness as much as possible, bringing as much of the Self into our awareness and our daily life as possible, is highly beneficial and desirable. That does not, however, involve suppressing the self or divorcing oneself from the self. In a highly developed state of consciousness, the individuality of the self still remains, and is as much a valuable part of life as it always was. (More on this comes later.)
The Cerebral Cortex
The cerebral cortex comprises the surface of the brain. If you look at a brain from the outside, almost all of what you see is the cortex. The cortex makes sense of our experience. It is largely responsible for intentional, planned behavior as well as for the processing of sensory input and motor output. The cerebral cortex plays a key role in consciousness, attention, memory, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and behavior.
The entire brain, including the cortex, is divided into two hemispheres that are approximately mirror images of each other. Almost all of the structures of the brain are dual, with identical or nearly identical structures in each hemisphere. Although the two hemispheres are structurally nearly identical, a few of the major functions, most notably speech, are lateralized to one hemisphere or the other.
The surface of the human brain is convoluted. It is comprised of ridges called gyri (singular: gyrus) and furrows or depressions called sulci (singular: sulcus). This configuration allows for a large surface area in a relatively small volume. Surface area is important because the surface is comprised of grey matter consisting of cell bodies and blood vessels, wherein much of the information-processing activity of the brain takes place. Beneath the surface of the various structures, the brain is largely white matter, consisting primarily of axons and the protective myelin sheaths that surround them.
The cortex has four lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the occipital lobe, and the temporal lobe. Each lobe contains numerous gyri and sulci.
The Frontal Lobe and Prefrontal Cortex
The frontal lobe is at the front of the brain. It is primarily responsible for controlling both simple and complex behavior, and for the sophisticated thought processes that are involved in that control.
The most posterior (toward the back) part of the frontal lobe is the primary motor cortex, which directly controls voluntary muscle movement. All the different parts of the body are mapped onto the motor cortex in a pattern called a homunculus. The homunculus is inverted from the body, with the toes at the top and the various parts of the face and head at the bottom.
The more anterior (toward the front) areas control behavior on increasingly abstract levels. Anterior to the motor cortex is the premotor cortex, which monitors and modulates sequences of motor activity in conjunction with feedback from the senses.
The Prefrontal Cortex
The majority of the frontal cortex in humans is comprised of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the primary area of the brain involved in the application of the intellect. Complex planning and execution of sequences of action, balancing of consequences, weighing of alternatives, and many other intellectual functions are primarily carried out by the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is fundamental to virtually all activities that involve functions of the intellect.
The orbitofrontal cortex is the most anterior portion of the prefrontal cortex. It modulates behavior and thinking at a highly abstract level. It is involved in moral judgment and in the assessment of risk and reward. It is essential for meaningful evaluation of the consequences of actions, and for appropriate social skills involving understanding the impact of actions on others as well as their consequences for oneself.
People with severe damage to the orbitofrontal cortex may still be highly intelligent, but they lack an ability to evaluate risks and act appropriately. They appear to lose the capacity for risk aversion. They also lack social skills, and appear to have little understanding of what is socially appropriate.
The frontal lobe is the last of the areas of the brain to develop. It is not fully developed until a person is in the mid-twenties. Teenagers act like teenagers not only due to lack of experience. Their brains have also not fully developed. The as-yet-underdeveloped prefrontal cortex explains why a teenager may be intelligent enough to learn calculus, yet sometimes apparently not intelligent enough to stay alive while driving a car full of other teenagers.
The Man Who Lost His Personality
As with other brain structures, scientists have learned much about the frontal lobe from a few cases where that area was severely damaged. For the frontal lobe, one such case was a young railroad foreman named Phineas Gage. Gage was a foreman for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. At age 25, he was considered to be a highly skilled and responsible foreman and a capable leader of his crew.
It was late afternoon on September 13, 1848. Gage and his crew were tasked with clearing away some rock to make way for the railroad near Cavendish, Vermont. One responsibility of the foreman was to fill a drilled hole in the rock with gunpowder, tamp it down gently with an iron tamping rod, then sprinkle sand in to cover the powder, and then tamp it down hard with the rod to confine the explosive power of the blast to a small area so as to have maximum impact on the rock. Gage was using an iron tamping rod three feet seven inches long. It was one and one-fourth inches wide at the bottom, and tapered to a point at the top.
Gage’s men were loading broken pieces of rock onto a cart nearby. Gage and his assistant, who was responsible for pouring the sand into the hole, were both distracted by something that the men did. Accounts differ as to exactly what happened next. Either Gage’s assistant failed to pour in the sand, and Gage slammed the rod down hard on the gunpowder, thinking there was a barrier of sand, or Gage misjudged and hit the side of the hole in attempting to tamp down the gunpowder. In any case, the rod scraped the side of the hole and created a spark that ignited the gunpowder, blasting the rod skyward.
The rod entered Gage’s face below the left cheekbone and exited his skull just behind his hairline. It obliterated a large part of Gage’s prefrontal cortex, flew 50 feet into the air, and landed upright in the dirt like a thrown javelin, covered with blood and brain matter.
Gage was thrown up and backwards by the force of the blow. He landed hard on the ground. Gage later said that he never lost consciousness. His body twitched convulsively for a short time. To the amazement of witnesses, he not only survived the blow; within a few minutes he was able to walk and talk. He climbed into an oxcart and sat upright, holding his head, on the mile-long drive to Cavendish. When they reached his hotel, he sat on a chair on the porch, still able to talk and apparently not in excruciating pain.
Two doctors arrived shortly. When the first one arrived, Gage tilted his head to show the exit wound, and said, “Here’s business enough for you.” Shortly thereafter a second doctor, John Harlow, arrived. Dr. Harlow later provided much of the limited information we have about Gage, his injury, and its aftermath.
Gage was still able to walk and talk rationally. He even said he would be back on the job blasting rock within a few days. He made it up the stairs at the hotel and lay on a bed while Dr. Harlow cleaned and bandaged his wound. He rested during the night. The next morning he recognized his mother and his uncle, and was able to converse with them.
Several days later, Gage developed an infection in his brain, became delirious, and then fell into a coma. Dr. Harlow performed surgery to drain the wound and relieve the pressure on his brain. Slowly but surely Gage recovered. He regained his ability to converse rationally and began to undertake many normal human activities. He lost sight in his left eye, however, and it was sewn shut for the rest of his life.
Gage retained what Dr. Harlow referred to as “full possession of his reason,” but his wife and other people who had known him before the accident noticed a very substantial change in his personality, demeanor, and behavior.
There were two reports from physicians on Gage’s condition after the accident. The first was from Dr. Harlow, who wrote a short report in a medical journal. He wrote: “His contractors, who regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman in their employ previous to his injury, considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint of advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operation, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. In this regard, his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was ‘no longer Gage.’”
The second report was by Dr. Henry Bigelow, a professor of surgery at Harvard University. He gave Gage some standard neurological tests, on which Gage performed normally. The tests included only sensory and motor systems and some basic skills that were commonly tested in the laboratory at the time. Frontal lobe damage, however, affects primarily features that show up in life outside the laboratory, the kind of things that may not be revealed on standardized neurological tests and yet will be readily apparent to friends, family, and employers.
Gage’s life after that has been the subject of very sparse reporting, considerable speculation, and not a little outright fabrication.
Gage spent some time traveling around New England, earning money putting himself and his tamping iron on display. He displayed himself and his tamping iron for a short time at P.T. Barnum’s museum in New York, where viewers could reportedly part his hair, peer into the hole in his skull, and see his brain. (Contrary to numerous reports, he did not travel with Barnum’s traveling circus.)
Gage then obtained a job driving a horse coach in New Hampshire, where he worked for a year and a half. Then he traveled to Chile and drove horse coaches there for seven years. When his health began to fail, he returned to the US. He took a steamer to San Francisco, near where his family then lived. After initially recovering, he fell ill again, began to have seizures, and died in May, 1860, twelve years after his fateful accident.
There has been considerable controversy, and little verifiable factual information, about the quality of Gage’s life after the accident. Unfortunately, those who knew Gage personally left no written records about him. Different writers have made different speculations about what Gage was like after he left Dr. Harlow’s care. Some accounts portray him as a vagrant sociopath. Others paint a much more positive picture. They point out that he held a job for seven years in Chile driving horse coaches on narrow mountain paths, an occupation that involves considerable skill and responsibility.
In any case, Phineas Gage was clearly changed by the frontal lobe damage ensuing from his accident. His was one of the first cases to bring to light the specialized functions of higher areas of the brain.
The Parietal, Occipital, and Temporal Lobes
The Parietal Lobe
The parietal lobe primarily processes sensory information. It receives sensory input from the skin and the tongue, which is relayed through the thalamus (discussed further below). The most anterior section of the parietal cortex is the primary somatosensory cortex. As is the case with the motor cortex, all the different parts of the body are mapped onto the somatosensory cortex in a pattern called a homunculus.
The posterior portion of the parietal cortex processes visual and auditory information that originally is directed to other lobes, and then to the parietal lobe for further processing. The parietal association cortex is one of the areas of the brain that generates the EEG activity that comprises the P300-MERMER.
The Occipital Lobe
The occipital lobe is devoted largely to primary processing of visual information.
The Temporal Lobe
The temporal lobe has multiple functions. On the level of higher sensory processing, the temporal lobe combines information from different senses. Auditory signals originating in the ears first reach the cortex in the temporal lobe. The primary auditory cortex processes sounds into meaningful forms such as speech and music. The temporal lobe also engages in high-level processing of visual stimuli, including processing of visual objects and recognition of faces and scenes.
The temporal lobe is extensively involved in the processing of language and semantics, combining information from both auditory and visual sensory inputs. Language is lateralized to the left temporal lobe in right-handed people.
The temporal lobe is also involved in the encoding of memories and the processing of emotion. I will discuss these in relation to the limbic system.
The Thalamus
The thalamus is a deep structure centrally located near the base of the brain. It is not a part of the cerebral cortex. The functions of the thalamus, however, are critical to those of the cortex. The thalamus acts as a central switchboard for the brain.
Almost all sensory input comes in through the thalamus and is directed to various parts of the cortex and other structures. The thalamus also functions as a switchboard for numerous varieties of information traveling from one part of the cortex to another, and for information traveling to and from deep structures to the cortex. In addition to cortical connections, the thalamus is richly connected with the various structures of the limbic system.
The Limbic System
Structure and Function of the Limbic System
The limbic system is a constellation of functionally related structures that are involved in the processing of emotion, and also in memory and context. The limbic system plays a major role in emotions, drives, appetites, and motivations. The functions of the limbic system include emotional, social, motivational, and sexual functioning; learning and memory; and homeostatic, endocrine, and hormonal activities.
The structures of the limbic system are primarily deep structures that surround the thalamus. The cerebral cortex, in turn, surrounds the limbic system, primarily on the top side. The limbic system consists primarily of subcortical (below the cortex) structures, and also includes some cortical structures that are close to the subcortical limbic structures both in location and function.
The limbic system has extensive input from and output to virtually the entire cortex. Like almost all of the rest of the brain, all of the structures in the limbic system are bilateral, that is, there are two of each of them, one in the left hemisphere and one in the right hemisphere.
The primary structures in the limbic system include the hippocampus and closely associated structures, the hypothalamus, the amygdala, the cingulate cortex, and the basal ganglia.
The involvement of the limbic system with pleasure and pain on the emotional level is borne out by the fact that electrical stimulation of virtually all limbic structures (except the hippocampus) induces extreme pleasure or extreme negative emotions such as anger and fear.
The Hippocampus
The hippocampus interacts, both sending and receiving information, with virtually all areas of the cerebral cortex. The hippocampus is involved in regulation of cortical arousal, long-term memory storage, and the experience of context – the ability to visualize oneself and the surrounding environment. It interacts extensively with the executive control centers in the prefrontal cortex.
The hippocampus is critically involved in the formation of new long-term memories. We hold in short-term memory whatever we are currently experiencing and/or thinking about. The hippocampus interacts with widespread areas of the cortex to store as long-term memory information that is originally held in short-term memory.
The hippocampus is also involved in establishing the context or operating environment in which one’s experiences take place. This includes the features of the physical location, and also the expected way that other things and people in that environment will act.
When you have an “Aha!” experience, and take note of something new, interesting, or noteworthy in the environment, the hippocampus is involved. Ensembles of neurons in the hippocampus fire in specific patterns. This electrical activity propagates to the scalp and contributes to the P300-MERMER brain response. In other words, some of the neural generators of the P300-MERMER brain response are located in the hippocampus.
Many general associations we have that involve connections between different events, people, locations, and things, and between these and particular emotions, involve mutual interactions between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.
The Man Who Lost His Memory
As with many other areas of the brain, scientists have learned much about the function of the hippocampus from the results of damage to it. Before the function of the hippocampus was well understood, one famous patient known as HM had both hippocampi removed, along with some closely related structures, in a surgical attempt to control extreme and debilitating epileptic seizures.
From that time on, HM had no ability to form new explicit long-term memories. His ability to speak, read, write, solve mental problems, recall a series of numbers that had been presented to him a short time before, and interact socially with people remained intact. He had no physical deficits.
HM was very much like the fictional character played by Drew Barrymore in the movie 50 First Dates. A man fell in love with a woman, but she had anterograde amnesia and related to him as a newly met person each day. Unlike HM (or any other real, non-fictional person), her short-term memory lasted a whole day.
He still had memory of events that took place prior to the operation. He still knew what was going on in the present, and could converse intelligently about present happenings and much of what he knew from before the surgery. He thought that the conditions of his life were essentially what they had been up until his surgery. Although he lived in a hospital ward, he thought he still lived in the house where he had lived prior to the surgery that removed his hippocampi.
HM lacked the ability to convert any of the present events to long-term memory. This is known as anterograde amnesia. You could come into the room, introduce yourself, and carry on a relatively normal conversation with him. If you left the room for a few minutes and returned, however, he would not recognize you. He would not remember ever having met you, or anything that you and he had done and said in your previous meeting.
Brenda Milner, a scientist who studied HM extensively from the time of the surgery in 1957 to his death in 2008, got to know him quite well. To him, however, she remained a stranger, someone he met newly on each occasion when they interacted.
His memory was also somewhat impaired for events that took place up to a couple of years before the surgery. This indicates that the hippocampus plays a major role not only in the formation of new long-term memories, but also in the consolidation of memories over time.
HM could not remember what he had seen and done, but he could still remember how to do things. He could even still learn how to do new things – without any recollection of the process of learning. Although HM could not form new explicit long-term memories of events, his performance of various tasks improved with practice, despite the fact that he had no recollection of previous sessions. He retained the ability to learn motor skills such as drawing a figure by looking at its reflection in a mirror.
He could not remember (except for a very short time) what he had done since the loss of his hippocampi, but he could in effect learn and remember how to do things. In other words, he lost only his ability for explicit memory. He did not lose his ability for implicit (non-conscious) memory.
The case of HM and a few others like it led to the understanding that the hippocampus plays a critical role in the formation of new long-term memories.
A minor character in the movie 50 First Dates, referred to as Ten-Second Tom, could only remember things for ten seconds. This is actually closer to the real-life situation of HM. HM’s short-term memory, like that of people without brain damage, was somewhat longer than ten seconds, but considerably shorter than a day.
Clive Wearing, a patient with damage to the hippocampus resulting from an infection, is very similar to the fictional Ten-Second Tom. He lives in the present moment, with a memory span of seven to 30 seconds.
As a musician, he still remembers how to play a piano and conduct a choir. Having done so, however, a moment later he does not remember his actions or anything else about the event.
The Hypothalamus
The hypothalamus is located below the thalamus. It plays a major role in emotions, drives, and appetites.
Damage to, or stimulation of, various parts of the hypothalamus has a major impact in eliciting intense emotions and emotion-driven behaviors, or in inhibiting them.
The hypothalamus also provides a link from the nervous system to the endocrine system through the pituitary gland. The endocrine system is the system that secretes hormones, chemical messengers that travel through the bloodstream and have widespread effects throughout the body.
The hypothalamus is the part of the central nervous system that provides the primary interface between the brain and the autonomic nervous system, which will be discussed below.
The Amygdala
The amygdala is at the tail end of the hippocampus in the temporal lobe. Like the hippocampus, the amygdala has extensive connections in both directions to widespread areas of the cortex, particularly the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala plays a major role in emotions, drives, and motivations.
The amygdala is primarily involved in emotional processing. It interacts with prefrontal cortex to generate and process major emotions – anger, happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, and fear. The amygdala has been extensively researched as a major factor in the experience of fear, anger, and rage, particularly in animal research. The amygdala is also intimately involved in the experience of positive emotions, however, which are most highly developed in humans.
The Cingulate Cortex
The cingulate cortex lies deep within the medial longitudinal fissure, the deep fissure running from the front to the back of the brain that divides the left and right hemispheres. Below the cingulate cortex is the corpus callosum, the thick band of neural fibers connecting the left and right hemispheres.
The cingulate cortex associates emotions with external stimuli. The anterior (toward the front) cingulate cortex monitors progress toward a goal. It works in conjunction with the rest of the limbic system and the cortex to modulate behavior and emotions in response to changing conditions, particularly when something goes wrong.
The anterior cingulate cortex has widespread connections throughout the cortex, particularly the prefrontal cortex. It is involved in allocating the resources of the cortex to the demands of the task at hand. Its extensive limbic connections provide emotional input to this allocation.
The anterior cingulate cortex instantly generates a specific response when an individual notices an error in behavior, or when it becomes apparent something is not proceeding according to plan. This shows up on the scalp in the EEG patterns as an event-related potential known as the error-related negativity or ERN. The ERN was discovered by a grad school buddy of mine named Bill Gehring, at about the same time that I was developing Brain Fingerprinting and the first brain-computer interface. Gehring has become a major leader in the field.
The cingulate, along with the amygdala, is also involved in speech, particularly emotional speech.
The Basal Ganglia
The basal ganglia are involved coordinating the limbic system with behavior, particularly voluntary muscle movements. They play a major role in planning and organizing movement, in action selection, and in initiating or inhibiting action, particularly actions involving the voluntary motor systems. They are extensively connected with the prefrontal cortex, where executive decisions are made, as well as with many of the structures of the limbic system, where the emotions motivating actions are embodied. They are involved in reward learning, in connecting positive experiences with particular behaviors.
Basal ganglia are involved in translating emotions to movements, and also in coordinating emotions with other parts of the brain that are involved. The basal ganglia are partly under the control of the amygdala. The amygdala is responsible along with the hypothalamus in inducing fighting, fleeing, feeding, and sexual behavior. The basal ganglia mediate the physical, muscular actions that carry out the drive- and emotion-oriented behavior.
Disorders of behavior control such as Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder are associated with dysfunction of the basal ganglia.
Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease and the associated motor deficits result primarily from deficits in the functioning of basal ganglia (the substantia nigra and the striatum respectively).
The Pineal Gland
Unlike other brain structures, the pineal gland is a single, unitary structure. Virtually all other brain structures are dual, with mirror image structures in the left and right hemispheres. The pineal gland is about the size of a pea. It is located near the center of the brain, between the two hemispheres, in a groove between the two thalami.
The pineal gland is involved in regulating our internal rhythms and our resonance with the environment. It affects circadian rhythms, 24-hour cycles affecting sleep and waking and many other functions of the brain and body. It is involved in seasonal rhythms, sexual maturation, and seasonal sexual activity. The pineal interacts with the hypothalamus to modulate the sex drive.
The pineal gland is an endocrine gland. It produces the hormone melatonin. Melatonin production is stimulated by darkness and inhibited by light. Melatonin is a mechanism for the pineal’s role in coordinating the brain with the rhythms of Nature – the regulation of sleep and waking in coordination with light and darkness, seasonal patterns in experience and behavior, as well as sexual maturation and cycles of sexual desires and behavior. In addition to melatonin, the pineal gland also secretes other hormones that affect sexual maturity and various other processes in the brain and body.
The pineal gland receives input both from the central nervous system and from the peripheral nervous system, particularly the sympathetic nervous system. It receives extensive input from limbic structures, particularly the hypothalamus and the amygdala, as well as the thalamus.
The pineal gland has a more profuse blood supply than any other part of the brain or any other organ in the body except the kidneys. Unlike the rest of the brain, it is not separated from the blood supply by the blood-brain barrier.
Descartes thought the pineal was the seat of the soul. Reports of experiences in many spiritual traditions locate it as the seat of intuition, insight, and subtle perception. The pineal gland has been equated with the “third eye” of intuition and subtle vision common to many spiritual traditions.
In some lizards the pineal actually functions like an eye. It contains light sensors, and some visual neurons receive projections both from the eyes and from the pineal. In humans, the pineal contains cells similar to the rods and cones that are responsible for vision in the eyes and proteins similar to those involved in light sensing in the retina. The pineal receives input regarding light and dark indirectly from the eyes.
Much of what is known of the functional role of higher brain structures in humans has been empirically observed on the basis of the effects of damage to these specific structures. Unlike the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, which can be subject to relatively isolated damage as described above, the pineal gland is located very deep in the brain, near the center of the entire brain. It is virtually impossible to damage the pineal gland without major damage to other highly important brain structures. Therefore, except for its production of melatonin, the role of the pineal in human experience has not been as thoroughly investigated in scientific and medical laboratories as that of many other brain structures.
Throughout history, in many different spiritual traditions, however, there have been extensive reports linking the pineal to spiritual experiences. Many individuals in various spiritual traditions have reported experiences linking the pineal to the experience of subtle perception – seeing and/or feeling subtle realms of creation such as auras, celestial beings, and other phenomena that are not perceptible to the ordinary senses or measurable mechanically – phenomena that have not yet been quantified by current-day physics or biology.
According to the experiential reports, a primary function of the pineal is to provide a subtle, unified, visionary, intuitive, and inspired vision of life. The pineal reportedly is activated when one is perceiving reality on a subtle level, beyond the superficial realms of life. Reportedly it is activated when one is experiencing deep inspiration and unified connection with Nature and with the essence, value, and meaning of life.
The pineal may play a major role in the experience of intuition and subtler realms of life, but the whole brain, functioning in an integrated way, reflects the experience. The totality of the Conscious Unified Field is reflected by the totality of the brain, and experiences involving a high level of attunement with the Conscious Unified Field also necessarily involve the whole brain.
The brain functioning involved in such global experiences can be compared to the holistic functioning of the brain involved in the storage of memories. Just as the experiences that become memories are embodied in functioning of the whole brain, and memories are stored throughout the brain, the experiences of subtle perception and intuition involve synchronous functioning of a multitude of structures throughout the brain.
The pineal, and the whole brain, are synergistically and mutually activated in dynamic, deeply inspirational interactions with other beings. The pineal, and the whole brain, are stimulated in a highly pleasurable way by profound and intense connection with another being.
Many people throughout the centuries have reported the experience that when the pineal is lit up, the whole brain reflects some of this light, and the light projects forward and all around, wherever your attention goes. It enlivens everything you see, hear, touch, smell, or taste, and everything, perceptible or not, that you give your attention. Ecstatic experience in life may be intimately connected to the pineal and its synergistic functioning with the whole brain.
Light and the Limbic System
The eyes, of course, are the primary organs for sensing light. The retina of the eye contains two primary types of receptor or light-sensing cells, rods and cones. Cones are responsible for color vision. Rods are more prevalent and more sensitive, but pick up only black-and-white information and do not respond differently to different colors.
Because rods are more sensitive, when there is very little light, only the rods are functional. This is why everything looks black-and-white (or gray) at dusk. The actual light entering the eye at dusk is in the same full spectrum as during full daylight. The cones, however, are not sensitive enough to pick it up, so when the light is dim we have only black-and-white vision using the rods.
This is yet another example where what we experience depends on our perception, not on what is “really there.” What is really there at dusk is just as broad a range of wavelengths of light as during the day, but we don’t have the subjective experience of the different colors associated with these different wavelengths except when the light is bright. Color, like all of our experience, is a subjective phenomenon created by the interaction of our consciousness with our nervous system, not something that is out there in the world.
Rods and cones project primarily through the optic nerve to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe, which is responsible for our experience of vision.
Recently, to the surprise of scientists, a third type of receptor cell has been discovered in the eyes. These cells sense light, but do not project to the visual system. They have no input to what we see. They project to various areas of the brain associated with circadian rhythms (the 24-hour cycles associated with sleeping and waking and many other functions that vary throughout the day and night) and other functions that involve light such as seasonal changes.
There is also evidence that the timing of sexual maturity is measured not in days or years, but rather in the amount of time light is entering the eyes, and that these cells are involved in that timekeeping function.
These special receptor cells, called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), project directly to limbic system structures that are involved in emotions. They project to the amygdala, described above, and also to the habenula.
The habenula is a tiny structure just below the pineal gland. It projects to the pineal gland. The pineal, as described above, is involved in regulation of light-related activities such as sleep and seasonal changes as well as emotions. It is thought to be involved in the light of higher spiritual experiences. The habenula also projects widely to various structures in the brain that are involved with pleasure and reward systems.
To put that in practical, experiential terms, it appears that special cells in the eye sense light and communicate with areas in the brain that are responsible for emotions, pleasure, rewards, and perhaps with higher spiritual experiences and ecstasy.
Some people feel emotionally depressed during times of the year when the hours of daylight are short. This is known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Sunlight (or other full-spectrum light) appears to help these people.
Many people feel happier on a sunny day, and a little gloomier on a dark day.
The ipRGCs and their connections show that there is a biological basis for the connection between light and happiness, and between lack of light and unhappy emotions.
We humans have known this intuitively for a long time. It’s no accident that we have expressions like “a dark mood,” “a dim view of life,” “gloomy weather,” “brighten up your life,” and “let the sun shine in.” No doubt people have been saying these things in some language since before the discovery of fire.
This message is founded in ancient folklore and also in some new discoveries in neuroscience: If you want to do your amygdala and your pineal gland a favor and feel a little lighter and more joyful in spirit, then brighten your day, open your eyes, and get out in the sunshine.
Brain Structures and Facets of a Human Being
You are a whole person, not just a collection of parts. Yet there are different aspects of your individuality (and universality) that can be meaningfully delineated. For understanding and living life, it can be useful to delineate these aspects of life. So it is with the brain. The brain always functions as a unified whole, and yet certain brain structures function to enliven and support particular aspects of your individuality and universality.
The whole brain reflects the Self, pure consciousness.
The whole brain also reflects the self, your individuality, those particular attributes that make you different and distinct from others.
The pineal gland, and many associated functional structures throughout the brain and even the rest of the body, reflect your spirit and your intuition.
The prefrontal cortex reflects your intellect.
The limbic system reflects your emotions.
The peripheral nervous system and the sensory and motor homunculi in your somatosensory cortex and motor cortex reflect the body.
Next we will consider how to apply this knowledge about the brain to improve our experience of life.
12. Self-Knowledge, Integration, and Resonance: The Key to Happiness and Success
How can we understand and apply our knowledge of the brain to create a style of functioning that brings success, happiness, and fulfillment in life? The key is threefold: self-knowledge, integration, and resonance.
Some of you may be thinking, “Ok, now comes the hard part. This is going to take a lot effort, control, and homework.” Not so.
We are designed to discover, experience, apply, and live self-knowledge, integration, and resonance. This is natural. It is inherent in our Nature. Because it is natural, it is easy. It does not take a lot of work or effort. It does, however, take a considerable amount of willingness to look at reality, and to let go of what is not real. It takes openness to Transmutation, where you enjoy the result only if and when you are open to the process. It takes a certain level of understanding of life and how it works. And it takes some practice.
Self-knowledge involves coming to clearly experience and understand what each of the aspects of yourself is driving at. Integration involves creating a situation where all of the aspects of you are functioning in harmony toward the same end. Resonance involves vibrating, in all of your aspects, in harmony with who you truly are and with what you truly desire, both within you and in your experiences of the world around and the people in it.
Intellect and Emotions: The Prefrontal Cortex and the Limbic System
To begin with, let’s take a look at the relationship between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system, between the functions of intellect and emotions.
The limbic system, as the primary mediator of emotions, has in my opinion gotten a bad rap. It is sometimes referred to as the “reptilian brain.” This description has some foundation in the fact that reptiles have similar brain structures to the limbic system, and lack the highly developed cerebral cortex that characterizes humans. Nevertheless, such a characterization can also carry the implication that the function of the limbic system is to motivate base, sub-human behavior like that of reptiles. The perspective is often set forth that for us to be fully human and not just animalistic, the “higher” human functions of the cerebral cortex must gain mastery over the base urges of the limbic system.
I think this perspective arose out of the residue of misguided religious ideas that were prevalent in previous centuries. Some seriously misguided religious traditions have turned the teachings of the original founders of all the spiritual traditions upside down, and held that at core we are all sinners.
According to this misunderstanding, divinity is not our Nature, but is to be found somewhere outside of us. Our desires are base and selfish. To rise to spirituality and get to Heaven, we must overcome our fundamental Nature as sinners. To do this, we must renounce our own inner value, and find goodness and holiness outside ourselves in some religious personage or institution. We must control and suppress our natural, evil desires and tendencies.
When human character, tendencies, desires, and behavior began to be understood in terms of science and ultimately brain functioning, it appears to me that some of this nonsensical pseudo-religious perspective inadvertently crept into the thinking of some of those who were formulating the functional description of the brain. This led to the idea that the limbic system, and the powerful emotions it embodies, must be controlled by the “higher” functions such as the intellect as embodied in the prefrontal cortex.
Some misguided Eastern spiritual teachings also devalue the functions of the limbic system. As with the Western religions, this is out of sync with the teachings of the originators of these traditions.
A common misunderstanding of spiritual development is that to grow spiritually you must minimize desires. To obtain enlightenment, you must be free from desire. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. If anyone ever does become completely free from desire, the rest of their short life will be a race to see whether they starve to death or die of boredom first.
Enlightenment is not absence of desire. It is a state where your unbounded consciousness is not limited or overshadowed by desires (or anything else), where your consciousness is in tune with the unbounded field of cosmic consciousness, the Conscious Unified Field, and therefore your desires are spontaneously in tune with all of Nature. Enlightenment is a state of integration of all realms of life, not of suppression or abandonment or elimination of desires.
Enlightenment does not mean renouncing or abandoning or suppressing your individuality or your emotions or any aspect of your self. The true you, the enlightened you, are in tune with your own individual thoughts, emotions, desires, likes and dislikes. The enlightened you is in fact highly tuned in to what resonates with you on an individual as well as on a cosmic level.
The limbic system does indeed reflect strong desires and strong emotions. Emotions elicit motion: they motivate us to action. Instincts in all sensate living things are driven by strong emotions, so that we’ll do the actions that the instincts are pulling us toward.
The limbic system is not only responsible for our survival; it is also largely responsible for a lot of the pleasure and fun we have in life. If eating were as pleasurable as brushing teeth, and sex were as enjoyable as childbirth, the human race probably would not have lasted long.
The limbic system is not just a remnant of our less developed, reptile-like ancestors. It performs some extremely valuable and vital functions, both for our survival and for our enjoyment of life. If your parents hadn’t been motivated by their limbic systems to do some important and enjoyable things like eating and having sex, you would not be here.
The human brain is not just a reptilian limbic system with a sophisticated cerebral cortex added on top. For example, the amygdala, a major player in the human limbic system, is vitally involved not only in fear, anger, and aggression, but also in positive emotions and social interactions. In the limbic system, the amygdala in particular had gotten a bad rap because it is heavily involved in behaviors associated with negative emotions like fear and anger. It also, however, has very positive and life-supporting emotional functions.
When both amygdalae are damaged, a person becomes less angry and aggressive, but also loses the ability to recognize and care for his or her relatives, friends, and loved ones. Such a person, even with an entirely intact cerebral cortex, loses interest in social interaction. People with bilateral damage to the amygdala have been known to cause serious injuries to their own infants by treating them as if they were an inanimate object like a rag doll, not a sentient human being.
A human limbic system is not a reptilian limbic system. A human amygdala is not equivalent to a reptilian amygdala. Reptiles with an intact limbic system including the amygdala do not have loved ones, and do not engage in sophisticated or heartfelt social interactions with others of their species. Human beings do, and the human limbic system is a necessary instrument for them to do so.
Like all other brain structures, the amygdala and the whole limbic system work synergistically with the human cortex and the rest of the brain. The limbic system makes a contribution to overall functioning that involves emotions and drives, but this aspect of life cannot exist in isolation from the aspects of experience mediated by other brain structures.
In lectures on neuroscience and psychophysiology, I have given college students a well-known mnemonic for remembering the functions of the limbic system – one that generally seems to elicit a P300-MERMER in the brains of the students. The limbic system is responsible for the “Four Fs” – “feeding, fighting, fleeing, and procreation.” The four Fs mediated by the limbic system, when appropriately elicited and applied, are vitally important not only for survival, but also for enjoyment of life.
Hunger and thirst are designed to provide us with appropriate nourishment and the pleasure inherent in partaking thereof. Anger, in appropriate circumstances, keeps you from being violated, harmed, and thwarted. When appropriate, it is valuable for enlivening your power. Fear, when appropriate, keeps you out of harm’s way. It is vital for your safety. Sex is not only necessary for reproduction; it is also a means to connect deeply and lovingly with another human being on every level of life. It can be one of the most powerful ways to affirm and experience your value, and to affirm and enliven the value of another.
The limbic system can enhance our experience of power, safety, and value. Why, then, does the limbic system seem to get us into so much trouble?
The misguided idea that we must use the prefrontal cortex to suppress or bypass the limbic system does have some basis in reality. The limbic system does indeed engage in powerful emotions, and may appear to motivate us to powerful action with extreme negative consequences for ourselves and others. We may intellectually see that certain actions the limbic system appears to be pulling for would be harmful and not helpful. This can lead to the mistaken conclusion that the limbic system is something to be overcome or controlled. This misconception, however, comes from an incomplete understanding and experience of what is actually going on. The reality is that the limbic system is not the culprit.
The trouble arises not from the nature of the limbic system, but from lack of self-knowledge, lack of integration, and inappropriate resonance, as discussed in the following sections.
Transmutation Trigger can be applied to address this situation. Previously I discussed Transmutation Trigger in terms of Transmutation, of transmuting what we resonate with. Now we can see a second, related benefit of this technique. Transmutation Trigger is a means for gaining self-knowledge.
Transmutation and Self-Knowledge
When a Hellfire missile comes along, and you are highly triggered by it, the limbic system springs into action. You are angry, afraid, or experiencing some other strong emotion. You are motivated to act forcefully on the basis of this emotion. Now is the time to engage the prefrontal cortex – not to do battle with the limbic system but to guide it.
Misguided limbic-system-motivated actions come not from the nature of the limbic system, but from two sources that are actually malfunctions of the prefrontal cortex in conjunction with the limbic system: misinterpreting the eliciting event, and erroneous choice of actions in response to it.
Understanding this phenomenon, and knowing how to deal with it, can make the difference between a disastrous outcome and a Transmutational outcome.
Here’s an example. One day I was standing on my dock, enjoying the sunny day on the lake with a woman I liked very much and was just getting to know. We had just returned from a swim and a cruise around the lake in my boat. A neighbor paddled up in a kayak and confronted me quite angrily: “When are you going to get rid of that piece-of-shit boat? I don’t like looking at it out there on that buoy, interfering with my view.”
My initial impulse was that clearly this was a major threat to my existence. I had no choice but to blast this guy out of the water, both figuratively and literally. This guy had degraded my value by insulting my boat. He threatened my safety – maybe he’d take it into his own hands to do something to the boat. He threatened my power.
He insulted me – or my boat, which occurred to me as the same thing – in front of a woman I cared about and wanted to impress. This could threaten my chances to have progeny, or at least my chances to get laid (which to the limbic system is the same thing). This could seriously be the end of my life as I knew it, an end to my entire legacy on earth. At least, that is the way that it felt to my limbic system. That guy came very close to getting knocked out of his kayak.
This doesn’t mean that the tendencies of the limbic system are wrong. They were just misguided in this case. The emotions I was feeling, and the actions they would tend to spur, would have been appropriate if the kayak attacker had been about to kill me and eat my children. Realistically, though, that was unlikely to happen.
Fortunately, I was familiar with Transmutation Trigger, and my prefrontal cortex came to the rescue. First of all, I managed to pause long enough to consider the reality of the eliciting event. Was this guy’s voicing his opinion of my boat actually a threat to me? Once I paused to think about it, I realized pretty quickly that some guy’s opinion of my boat had nothing to do with the value of my boat, let alone my own value. What some guy thinks of me and his boat reveals that guy’s issues, not mine. His opinion has nothing to do with me. So much for value.
The guy was extremely unlikely to go out and sink my boat just because he didn’t like its looks, or do any actual harm to me or anyone else. So much for safety.
The kayak attacker’s words had zero actual impact on me, once I properly understood the situation in relation to reality. So much for power.
Any woman who would be swayed in her views or involvement with me based on what some guy thinks of my boat would not be someone I would be interested in, and the woman with me at the time certainly was above that. So much for depriving me of feminine attention and enjoyment, or ending my family line here on earth.
Once I managed to meaningfully engage my prefrontal cortex, the imagined threat disappeared. My limbic system no longer had anything to be hyped up about, and my anger subsided quite quickly. My limbic system went back to the emotions appropriate for enjoying a sunny day on the lake with a delightful woman.
As for choice of actions, arguably this guy deserved to be yelled at, or insulted, or knocked out of his kayak. But none of those actions had any value for me. I ignored him.
Having dismissed the messenger, now I got a chance to look at my own value, power, and safety issues, in this case particularly my value issues. I could see that the comment landed in me because I had a value issue. I associated my value with having a nice boat – something fun that I could play with and share with others, and a possession that displayed my level of success in the world. I was sensitive about people appreciating my value, particularly women I was interested in. Nice to know. The Transmutation Trigger is a great way to gain more self-knowledge. Later I’ll discuss more about applying such knowledge.
I quickly used Transmutation Trigger to reawaken myself to my infinite value, power, and safety, to my unbounded self-liking and self-love, and to the inherent perfection in my life and the universe.
The self-knowledge aspect adds another level to Transmutation Trigger. Use it as a technique for gaining self-knowledge, in addition to Transmutation. When something comes along that triggers you, take a look at why. Observe the mechanics that are taking place. What is this threatening? Your value? Power? Safety? What do you want that this appears to be denying you? What makes you feel good about life and yourself, that this is threatening? What do you enjoy that this threatens to take away? What do you dislike that this is pushing at you?
It’s not only intensely negative experiences that provide this opportunity. Intensely positive experiences can provide the same opportunity for Transmutation and insight.
If it’s an intensely positive experience that produces the MERMER moment, ask these same questions in a positive light. What is it about this experience that I deeply enjoy? What do I need that I am receiving here? Does this affirm my value? Safety? Power? How? What does this give me that I want? What about this experience makes me feel good about myself and my life? What is this giving me that I really enjoy? What do I intensely like about this situation and this experience? This self-knowledge will come in very handy later, as we shall discuss.
It was not necessary, and would not have been productive or healthy, for me to use my prefrontal cortex to simply suppress the urge to knock that obnoxious idiot out of his kayak. The job for the prefrontal cortex was to recognize the reality of the situation. Once you really get the reality of the situation, the limbic system will respond with the appropriate emotions.
The limbic system’s power is in emotion, and that can always be guided to something genuinely appropriate to the circumstance. Emotions only get us in trouble when the limbic system has been misguided. You can count on the limbic system to have the emotions appropriate to the information it is given. The job of the prefrontal cortex is not to suppress the limbic system or the actions it spurs us toward, but to guide the limbic system with accurate knowledge and understanding of the situation. The key to proper guidance is self-knowledge, and every MERMER moment provides an opportunity for self-knowledge.
Transmutation and Integration
In addition to self-knowledge, every Transmutation Trigger moment opens the door for integration. Integration is a key factor in the Transmutation that takes place with Transmutation Trigger. In fact, integration is a major key to enlightened use of the brain.
The key integration in the experience I just described is integration between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. The role of the prefrontal cortex is to provide guidance, in light of the true reality of the situation. The role of the limbic system is to provide emotions and the motivation to act. It is the job of the prefrontal cortex to guide the limbic system to be activated by reality rather than by an illusion or a maladaptive habit.
In the interaction on the lake, the limbic system started with emotions appropriate to a real threat to my life. Unexamined, that is what the situation felt like. The prefrontal cortex shed the light of insight into the situation, and I quickly realized that this was not a threat at all, but rather an opportunity.
The prefrontal cortex and the limbic system then acted in an integrated manner to shift from inaccurate, unexamined understanding and inappropriate emotions – and the potential for inappropriate and destructive actions in doing battle with some guy in a kayak – to the understanding and emotions appropriate to sharing a sunny day on the lake with a wonderful woman. This whole process was effortless. All it took was awareness and a willingness to look for and find the truth.
Transmutation and Resonance
The third key to this particular opportunity, and to using your brain for success and fulfillment in life as a whole, is resonance. Resonance is a key to both the problem and the solution.
I came into this life with an inner blueprint that said I was only X% valuable, and Y% valueless. Something in me resonated with, and attracted to me, the attack on my value delivered by the messenger in the kayak. The resonance between something in me and that particular attack made it land hard in me. This activated my limbic system with emotions that were both unpleasant and out of touch with reality – both the reality of who I really am, and the reality of the situation I was facing in the form of the messenger in the kayak.
Transmutation Trigger transmuted the resonance for the kayak attack on my value to resonance with enjoying a life-affirming, value-affirming, sunny day on the lake with a beautiful woman. From that time on, the result of this Transmutation is that I resonate more with that more positive and enjoyable reality and attract more experiences of that kind into my life. I’m also more enlivened by those experiences when they do arrive, due to my resonance with them.
Thank you, kayak attacker. You in fact turned out to be a blessing, albeit a heavily disguised blessing.
This is not the first time such a thing has taken place. In the Mahabharata, the story of Krishna’s life five thousand years ago, there is a story about Arjuna, a close friend and disciple of Krishna. Arjuna was the greatest archer of his time, a highly accomplished warrior. In addition to his physical prowess, he was said to have tremendous spiritual powers, including various immensely powerful celestial weapons commanded by his consciousness on the subtler levels of creation. He was said to be a maharathi, a warrior who could singlehandedly do battle with an army of 10,000 men and win.
One day he was traveling through the forest, and he came across a deer. He decided to take the deer for food. At the same time as he drew his bow, a common woodsman came on the scene. He decided to oppose Arjuna and draw his bow on the same deer. Arjuna politely advised him against such a fight, but the woodsman insisted on doing battle over the deer. Arjuna reluctantly agreed, saying in effect, “OK, if you are intent on assisted suicide, I will oblige you.”
They commenced to fight with bows and arrows and all sorts of celestial weapons. To Arjuna’s shock, the common woodsman was holding his own in the battle. He thought to himself, “Who is this guy? There are only a handful of warriors now on earth who could come close to holding their own against me. If he were one of them, I would know and recognize him.”
Shortly he found out. His adversary was not a common woodsman at all. He revealed himself to be Indra, a god who was also Arjuna’s father. (Arjuna and his brothers had a mother who was quite an exceptional human being; that’s another story.) Indra had just come down to throw some stuff at Arjuna and see how his son handled himself under fire.
To the best of my knowledge, my father was a human and not a god, but the lesson of that story about Arjuna landed in me nonetheless. Whenever someone attacks me in one way or another, I remind myself of this story. That’s not just some idiot in a kayak. That is Nature incarnate, giving me a pop quiz, throwing some stuff at me to see how I handle it.
Is this insult going to turn me into a raging lunatic, terrified that the opinion of some clueless guy will threaten my life here on earth and my progeny throughout all time? Will someone else’s opinion really tarnish my value in the eyes of a woman who is watching (or anyone else)?
Or will I see the messenger for what he is, dismiss him, and take advantage of the opportunity Nature has given me for Transmutation? When my prefrontal cortex and my limbic system are both awake and functioning in an integrated manner, I make the latter choice. Like Arjuna’s father Indra, every kayak attacker is a blessing in disguise.
Creating Integration and Resonance between the Prefrontal Cortex and the Limbic System
Creating resonance, balance, and integration between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system is a little like dealing with a teenager, or in some cases a two-year-old. Teenagers have raging hormones and strong emotions. They lack good judgment regarding what elicits the emotions, and what to do to express them in life-supporting actions.
The solution is not to lock them up or tie them down. The solution is twofold. First, help them to have insight regarding what triggers the emotions, and whether these emotions actually are appropriate and are serving them or not. Second, guide them to appropriate expressions of their emotions. Show them how to get what they want in a way that is socially appropriate, safe, life-supporting, and successful.
You can treat your limbic system in the same way. The solution is not to use the prefrontal cortex to suppress the limbic system, or to countermand the actions that the limbic system is motivating. Every emotion that the limbic system is capable of expressing is there for a good reason. Every emotion is viable and appropriate in some situations. Every emotion leads to actions that are valuable and appropriate in some circumstances.
The value of the prefrontal cortex is for self-awareness and guidance, not suppression. The trick is to use the prefrontal cortex to become aware of the reality of the situation, to put it in perspective. This will transmute the emotions reflected by the limbic system to ones that are appropriate for the present reality, not some imagined threat.
Then it’s up to the prefrontal cortex to provide a guide to motivating actions that are in accord with the now-appropriate emotions being expressed by the limbic system and also in accord with a vision of the present impact and future consequences of these actions.
The limbic system motivates action. The prefrontal cortex weighs the consequences, the risks and benefits, the social meaning and appropriateness of the actions. When functioning in harmony in an integrated fashion, the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system function together to create motivations and congruent actions that are emotionally satisfying, highly motivated, and also highly effective and appropriate now and for their future effects. Both emotions and actions now resonate with a life-supporting style of functioning of the nervous system, and with life-supporting outcomes that are desired, appreciated, and enjoyed on all levels.
The key is a combination of self-knowledge, integration, and resonance. All of these develop naturally and spontaneously through the Transmutation Trigger technique. In the next two chapters we will discuss more techniques to further this development.
Creating Integration and Resonance Between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems
As mentioned above, the autonomic nervous system is that part of the peripheral nervous system that modulates visceral functions such as heart rate, digestion, perspiration, and sexual arousal. Its effects are generally not under explicit voluntary or conscious control.
The autonomic nervous system has two major parts. The sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body for action through the fight-or-flight response. It prepares the body for the strenuous activity of fighting or fleeing in response to a real or imagined threat.
The parasympathetic nervous system modulates the body in the opposite direction. It facilitates activities that take place primarily when the body is at rest, such as digestion. It is also active in sexual arousal.
The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems motivate the physiology in opposite directions. Both are necessary, and both are appropriate for specific circumstances.
When you are being chased by a bear, it is useful and adaptive to perspire, to raise your blood pressure and heart rate, to direct the blood flow toward the skeletal muscles and away from the digestive tract, and generally to activate your body for strenuous activity. The sympathetic nervous system accomplishes all of these and many related changes.
When you are relaxing, it is useful and adaptive to take all of those systems in the opposite direction. The parasympathetic nervous system accomplishes this.
Strong negative emotions such as anger and fear activate the sympathetic nervous system. A difficulty that often arises in modern life is that strong negative emotions arise in situations where there is no need or use for strenuous physical activity. There are many modern situations of anger or fear where there is no possibility of, or use for, physically fighting or fleeing. Yet the sympathetic nervous system becomes activated in the fight-or-flight response nonetheless.
This over-activation of the sympathetic nervous system in the absence of strenuous physical activity leads to a host of health problems such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Poor digestion resulting from the routing of the blood flow to the skeletal muscles and away from the digestive tract results in the buildup of toxins in the body. This in turn leads to many stress-related diseases and autoimmune disorders. Overactivation of the sympathetic nervous system also leads to hormonal imbalances that are far-reaching in their negative effects on physical health, emotions, and overall well-being.
The physiological details of this phenomenon are beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that inappropriate activation of the sympathetic nervous system, particularly when it takes place in the absence of strenuous physical activity, has a substantial negative impact on one’s health and well-being.
The fact that strong negative emotions such as anger and fear activate the sympathetic nervous system does not mean, however, that activation of the sympathetic nervous system is always a negative experience, or always has a negative impact on one’s life. If you are going to win an Olympic race, you’ll need to have your sympathetic nervous system fully activated, no matter how much you enjoy racing and winning. If you are being chased by a real bear, your life may depend on your sympathetic nervous system being fully activated.
The key is balanced and appropriate activation of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. This often requires applying the prefrontal cortex to correctly distinguish reality. The prefrontal cortex and the parietal association cortex can be very useful in distinguishing between real and imaginary bears, that is, between real and imaginary threats to your existence.
It may feel as if an argument with your boss or your significant other is an existential threat to your life, but it isn’t. The prefrontal cortex can assist you in recognizing whether or not you are being chased by a real bear that could end your life, or something not so life threatening is going on. The prefrontal cortex can help you see that whatever people are saying, you are not really in a life-threatening situation (unless you are).
Waking up to this awareness will help considerably to balance the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems so as to be more appropriate to your real situation and the physical demands (or not) that it engenders. Whatever words are flying at you, they are not sticks and stones. Whatever financial or personal loss you may be facing, it’s not life-threatening. The sooner and more fully you can wake up to this fact in any situation, the healthier for you.
Over time, this awareness can create a shift toward more balance and integration in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Neuronal tracks that are used are strengthened; tracks that are not used get weaker. This means that complex neuronal patterns of response that you engage in habitually are strengthened, and patterns you habitually eschew are weakened and fall away.
Another key to health, with respect to the autonomic nervous system and the body as a whole, is to exercise regularly. Inevitably in today’s world, the sympathetic nervous system will be activated in situations where strenuous physical activity does not ensue. Exercising regularly serves to make use of the resources that sympathetic nervous system activation releases. This restores balance and creates integration throughout the whole body and nervous system. It is well known that exercise can counteract both immediate and cumulative negative effects on health of stress and the concomitant activation of the sympathetic nervous system.
Sex is a great opportunity to balance the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Sexual arousal is mediated by the parasympathetic nervous system. Orgasm and the accompanying ejaculation is mediated by the sympathetic nervous system. When all goes well, the two branches of the autonomic nervous system work in balance and harmony.
When one is emotionally at ease during sex, the concomitant activation of the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the sexual response. The ensuing relaxation includes relaxation of the blood vessels that allow blood to flow to the genitals, creating the physical sexual response in the genitals. Only when this response is well established do things reach the point where the sympathetic nervous system is activated, which mediates an orgasm.
When one is not emotionally at ease during sex, what happens? The relaxation that takes place with the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system is inhibited. The genital sexual response is similarly inhibited.
If fear or other negative emotions are present during sex, this also can lead to inappropriate or excessive or premature activation of the sympathetic nervous system. In men, this can lead to premature ejaculation.
Either way, if the parasympathetic nervous system is underactivated or the sympathetic nervous system is overactivated, the sexual response is less than ideal, and the experience is less than fulfilling.
From a neuroscience perspective, the key to sex is the same as the key to life: Create a situation – and a partner – that truly resonates with you, enjoy yourself and her/him, and everything will be wonderful. This phenomenon in life as a whole is further discussed in the following section.
Love or Fear: The Approach and Avoidance Systems
It is often said that at any time we are either choosing love or fear. Although that is an oversimplification that leaves out some other important emotions, there is some truth to the saying. We are always choosing to go toward something we desire, or away from something we experience as repugnant.
Another universal dichotomy is pleasure versus pain. We always seek to experience pleasure and avoid pain. Again, we are always moving toward an experience we desire and away from an experience we want to avoid.
The human nervous system embodies a comprehensive machinery for moving toward that which we like and moving away from that which we dislike. The activation of this approach-avoidance system is embodied in the functioning of the brain and reflected in the brainwaves. Brainwave measurements can be used as an accurate, objective means of discerning what one desires to approach or avoid.
Brainwaves can be a key to discerning whether, and to what degree, one is acting out of love or fear. The specific details of this phenomenon are beyond the scope of this book. Briefly, activation of the frontal right hemisphere corresponds to avoidance, and activation of the frontal left hemisphere corresponds to approach. When an area of the brain is less activated, alpha waves (8-12 cycles per second) increase; when it is more activated, alpha waves decrease. Therefore, activation of the approach system is associated with increased amplitude of frontal right hemisphere alpha waves, and activation of the avoidance system is associated with increased left hemisphere alpha waves.
Does this mean that right frontal alpha waves are an index of love, and left frontal alpha waves are an index of fear? Only approximately, and only in some circumstances. In brainwaves as in life, the dichotomy between love and fear is only an approximate and incomplete account of the phenomenon.
The avoidance system is activated in negative emotions such as fear and sadness. It is also more active, as a baseline, in people with tendencies to experience negative emotions (and in some cases some kinds of psychopathology such as depression and anxiety).
The approach system is activated in positive emotions such as happiness or joy, and, putatively, love and attraction. So far, so good.
The situation is a bit more complicated than this, however. Anger, which is not generally considered to be a positive emotion, is associated with activation of the approach system. We tend to move toward (approach) the focus of our anger, rather than away from it (avoidance).
With all of this in mind, let’s take another look at love and fear in human life. In life as a whole, both have their place. Certainly there are many situations where love is the appropriate, healthiest, most fulfilling, and overall best response.
There are also some situations where fear is appropriate. If you are being chased by a bear, fear and the accompanying activation of the avoidance systems and the fight-or-flight response will serve you well in the strenuous physical activity of running away.
In situations involving choices regarding the path of your life, however, love is virtually always the emotion that will engender the most fulfilling, successful, and overall best choice. In making personal life choices regarding a career or life work, a relationship, or a place to live, it works much better when your choices are driven by what or whom you love rather than by what or whom you fear.
A relationship founded in moving toward someone who embodies everything you love is much more likely to succeed than a relationship based on getting away from people with qualities that you fear. Finding and/or creating a career you love is a much more successful pursuit than running away from work you fear or hate.
Life choices based on love always have you moving toward something. As you approach, you have more and more of what you love. Life choices based on fear always have you moving away from something. No matter how far away you get from what you fear, you may still be no closer to what really resonates with you, to what you truly love.
It’s an oversimplification to say that we’re always choosing between love and fear, and the best choice is always love. Nevertheless, in many situations, particularly situations involving discerning what truly resonates with you, choosing love rather than fear is a highly useful and enjoyable life strategy.
When you’re at a crossroads, when you have a choice to make for the direction in your life, the key is to be aware of what is motivating each possible choice. When it’s love, that’s an excellent choice. When it’s fear, not so much.
From a neuroscience perspective, this means being aware of the activation of the approach and avoidance systems, and making conscious choices that take into account what’s appropriate under the circumstances. When you are being chased by a bear, the avoidance system and the fight-or-flight response are highly adaptive. A choice made out of fear is just the right thing.
When you are exploring a relationship or a career or a life path, the approach system will help to guide you toward who and what resonates with you. A choice made out of love of what you love, rather than fear of what you fear, is the path to success and fulfillment.
The approach system, and the accompanying brainwave patterns, indicate that which resonates with you. The avoidance system, and the accompanying brainwave patterns, indicate that which does not resonate with you. The key is being aware of which system is currently involved in your emotions and actions, and making conscious choices based on this awareness.
The lesson that the approach and avoidance systems offer for us is this. First of all, when making life choices, take note of what is motivating your choice. In neurological terms, activate your prefrontal cortex.
Be aware of whether you are motivated to move toward something or away from something. Assuming that you love sunny beaches and fear forest fires, when you are choosing a home it’s obvious that if you move toward sunny beaches you are much more likely to end up with something that suits you than if you run away from forest fires. With other life choices such as a romantic partner, sometimes the distinction is not quite so clear.
Look closely at whether you are motivated to move toward something or away from something. Your choices will be much more likely to result in something that truly resonates with you if you choose what you desire to move toward, rather than choosing to run away from something.
As a practical rule of thumb, it is wise to make life choices when you are inspired, happy, and exhilarated. These choices will move you toward what truly resonates with you. Choices made out of fear, sadness, or any kind of avoidance may move you away from something you don’t want, but often will not get you close to what you truly desire.
Neuronal tracks in the brain that are activated repeatedly become strengthened. Neuronal tracks in the brain that are not used fall away. Thus, when you engage in a particular pattern of neuronal functioning, the tendency toward activating that same pattern in the future is strengthened. This means that as you continually practice becoming aware of your motivating emotions and consciously choosing love over fear, that pattern becomes strengthened in your life. It becomes easier and easier to choose love over fear, and your baseline state becomes more and more attuned to love and less and less attuned to fear.
Moreover, you can apply neuroscience in the form of brainwave measurements to optimize your brain function to support love and Transmutation. This is discussed in the next chapter.
13. Optimizing Brain Function
Every experience is supported by a specific style of functioning of the brain. When something resonates with the true you – or doesn’t – this is reflected in the functioning of the brain. The functioning of the brain is revealed in the brainwaves, or EEG.
Brainwaves reveal whether and to what degree anything resonates with the real you: people, events, places, careers, creative pursuits, life aspirations, goals, activities, anything that may be important to you.
When you experience the shift in brain functioning that constitutes Transmutation, that is revealed in the brainwaves as well.
I have found that brainwaves can provide a highly effective guide to using your brain to create a life that truly resonates with you, a life of miracles, a life filled with creations, people, events, and surroundings that nourish your soul.
The Brain Function Optimization System
After my invention of the first brain-computer interface, for communicating from the brain to a computer, and Brain Fingerprinting, to detect concealed information stored in the brain, I continued my research along the same lines. This led to the development of a Brain Function Optimization system that objectively measures the functioning of the brain and provides a guide to optimizing brain functioning for maximum success and fulfillment in life.
When exploring choices in life, the Brain Function Optimization system provides an effective tool to reveal objectively what resonates with you, the real you.
The Brain Function Optimization system reveals one’s current style of brain functioning and how this changes with experience, choices, inspiration, insight, and in particular the shift in consciousness that constitutes Transmutation. This provides an objective, scientific guide to progress in Transmutation and Guided Transmutation.
A scientific, brainwave-based system for guiding you through the Transmutation and Brain Optimization process can enhance your progress and results in your life. As with any human pursuit, a trained guide can also be helpful in your Transmutation. That said, you don’t need a computer or a guide to experience Transmutation. As a human being, Transmutation is your birthright, and something we are all designed to experience. Both are true. Yes, guidance can be helpful, and yes, you can do it on your own.
14. Energized Intuition and Energized Transmutation:
A Deeper Level of
Self-Knowledge, Integration, and Resonance
Vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field
Everything in the physical universe consists of perturbations or vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field, particle/wave phenomena that arise from the unbounded field of intelligence, which holds within its nature in unmanifest form all the Laws of Nature that are expressed throughout creation. Single elementary particle/wave phenomena like photons and electrons (or even simpler ones like quarks or the strings of string theory) are simple patterns of vibration of the unified field, vibrating at a particular resonant frequency.” Complex structures in creation are complex patterns of vibration of resonant frequencies in the unified field. Everything has its characteristic vibratory pattern.
What appears as an interaction between one thing in the universe and something else, when seen from a perspective that is more comprehensive (and more true to reality), is in fact a single, larger vibratory pattern that encompasses both of the smaller, more localized patterns that appeared as separate things. This reality is discussed in more detail, along with the physics experiments that reveal it, in my previous book.
The living, functioning human nervous system is a complex pattern of vibrations arising in the unified field at particular resonant frequencies. The aspects of the nervous system, like the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system, etc., are integrated facets of this overall vibratory pattern. Each of these aspects has its own resonant frequencies.
We discussed integration between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system above. We discussed how Transmutation Trigger and the self-knowledge that spontaneously arises from it can help to create resonance, synchrony, and harmony between these two brain systems and corresponding aspects of life.
There is more to the brain than the prefrontal cortex and limbic system, and there is more to life than the intellect and the emotions.
The vibratory phenomena that arise from the unified field in human life also include several other layers. The Self (large S), our unbounded, eternal Nature whose essence is pure consciousness, is reflected by the entire nervous system. The self (small s), our individuality, those attributes and qualities that make each of us different and distinct, is also reflected by the entire nervous system.
The intuition, the subtle but sure way of knowing that is closest to the unified field of pure consciousness – the means of knowing that goes beyond the senses, the intellect, and the emotions – is reflected in the pineal gland and in many associated structures throughout the brain and the entire nervous system.
The intellect is primarily reflected in the prefrontal cortex. The emotions are primarily reflected in the limbic system.
In the brain, the body is reflected in the motor homunculus and the sensory homunculus embedded in the cortex. The peripheral nervous system also extends to every part of the body.
Each of these aspects of human life is in essence a vibratory pattern arising in the Conscious Unified Field. All of these together are a more complex vibratory pattern that embodies a human being. Each of these is in essence a resonant frequency, and the whole human being is a more comprehensive resonant frequency encompassing all the lesser ones.
In using our brain to navigate through life, it is vital to engage in a vibratory pattern that is resonant and harmonious, both as a whole and among and between all the aspects of the overall vibratory pattern of your life. If you want to contribute to a beautiful symphony with your violin, the violin must first be in tune with itself.
If you want to contribute to the creation of a symphony of order and beauty in life and in your world, it is vital for all the aspects of your own vibratory pattern to resonate with each other, to vibrate in harmony and synchrony. Your resonant frequencies must resonate with one another in harmony if you are to be successful in resonating in harmony with the resonant frequencies of Nature and your surroundings.
Intuition
This brings to light yet another level of Transmutation. As you become more and more familiar with the process of taking your awareness inward and being awake to what you encounter, you will notice something other than the intellect and the emotions vying for your attention. The prefrontal cortex shouts. The limbic system screams.
Along with this loud noise, there is also a quiet whisper from the pineal and the whole subtle system in which it is integrated. This is your intuition. It is the quietest and also the most powerful and accurate way of knowing, because it is closest to the Conscious Unified Field which contains inherent within it all knowledge and all the Laws of Nature.
You undoubtedly use your intuition all the time. Sometimes you just know something, and you don’t have any concrete basis for it. You know it, and you don’t know how you know it. As you become more and more familiar with the quieter levels of activity in the nervous system, the power of your intuition will grow.
The intuition, like any other faculty, is strengthened by use. The patterns of vibratory activity in the brain that give rise to intuition, like any other pattern of brain activity, become stronger the more they are activated.
Just as the intellect can shed light on the emotions and provide guidance and direction, the intuition can shed light on everything that the intellect understands – and many things the intellect does not yet understand or know. Intuition can guide the intellect and the emotions in a direction that is more in harmony with your own Nature and with all of Nature.
Your prefrontal cortex can provide you with intelligence. Your intuition gives you wisdom. Wisdom is much more valuable in life than intelligence ever could be.
This is not to say the intelligence is unimportant. As a scientist, of course I place a high value on intelligence. I place an even higher value on wisdom. Intelligence is essential for getting it done, whatever it is. Wisdom, however, will enlighten you as to what is worth doing.
Your intuition will develop spontaneously with Transmutation, and through your becoming more open to your intuition, using it to gain insight and inner guidance, integrating the guidance of your intuition with your intellectual understanding and emotions, and acting on this inner guidance.
You can develop your intuition further through consciously practicing what I call the Energized Intuition technique and the Energized Transmutation technique.
The Energized Intuition Technique
The Energized Intuition technique is highly valuable when you’re facing any kind of crisis or a difficult situation, and equally valuable when you are not.
Sometimes I simply feel the need for insight or guidance. I’m not necessarily suffering or facing an immediate challenge. Something is up for me. My prefrontal cortex and my limbic system have done their best, and I still would like something more. At such times I call on the Energized Intuition technique or the Energized Transmutation technique.
I’ll describe the simpler version, Energized Intuition, first.
Energized Intuition is not really even a technique. Your intuition is always there, always available. The Energized Intuition technique is really just a way to remind yourself to notice something that’s been there all along, and then consciously let Nature take its course.
Here is how I do it. You may find this specific way works for you, or you may choose to modify or elaborate on it in a way that resonates with you. It’s your intuition. You know best how to access it.
Energized Intuition draws on and applies subtle energies that we have not yet discussed. For now, simply go with the experience, and we’ll get to a more comprehensive explanation of the quantum-mechanical phenomena involved in Chapter 16.
Before you begin, make sure you are in a safe environment where you are completely free and uninhibited. It’s best to be alone, or with someone you trust completely, someone you are not embarrassed around no matter what happens. It’s best to be somewhere you won’t be embarrassed if you make some noise. Turn off your cell phone. Close the door. Make sure you won’t be interrupted.
Energized Intuition is effortless and spontaneous. Don’t try for any particular result. Just relax and enjoy whatever comes to you spontaneously. Don’t try to do it “right.” Let the process unfold as it naturally does.
- Stand comfortably with your hands at your sides, palms facing inward. Close your eyes.
- Raise your arms to shoulder height, palms facing down. You may experience drawing energy from below into your open palms.
- Turn your hands over, palms up, and move your arms up and slightly forward until your palms are close together. You may experience drawing energy from above, and feel a ball of energy between your hands.
- Bring your palms down and together in front of your heart. Draw the energy into your heart.
- Remind yourself of who you truly are at the highest and truest level, in whatever language appeals to you, e.g., “Hello, Higher Self” / “Hello, Cosmic Computer” / “Hello, Divine Essence.”
- Ask for guidance from any higher being you know, naming him/her if and as you like. This can be your own higher Self or another being. “[Higher Self / Teacher / God / Divine Guide], I am about to begin Energized Intuition. Please help me.”
- Bring to mind the question or situation you are exploring.
- Ask the question, or think of the situation explored, as you move your hands up and slightly forward until your arms are outstretched above you, palms together.
- You may experience the question traveling upward beyond your hands. It may go way out into the universe, or it may just go a short distance beyond your palms. Either way, or anything in between, is fine. You may notice and enjoy where it projects.
- Bring your hands down, still palms together, to the top of your head. Effortlessly imbibe the answers and insights that come in response to your question or investigation. At this point, the information you receive is probably not verbal. You are receiving it on a more refined level. Don’t worry about getting the answer, or making it clearer. Just enjoy any feeling of inflow that there may be. Here, as throughout the process, don’t try. Just take it as it comes.
- Let your hands come to a comfortable position, whatever that may be right now.
- You will begin to be more and more in touch with your true Nature. You will remember and experience the reality that you are a blessed divine being, infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe.
- As you come in touch with your true Nature, you will feel inner calm, and at the same time a thrill of excitement to be alive.
- The mechanics at play in your current situation may become apparent to you. You may become aware of what tends to draw negative experiences, events, or people into your life. You may become aware of your desires and aspirations, what is important to you, what resonates with the wonderful and delightful things, events, and people you are now drawing into your life, now that you are in touch with your true Nature. You may see a different and much more powerful, fulfilling, and life supporting course of action than what occurred to you before beginning the technique.
- You will know when the process has come to fulfillment. Stand comfortably as before, and repeat steps 1 – 4 to complete the process.
- Thank any being who may have helped you, naming him/her as and if you choose.
- Open your eyes and enjoy your life.
The Energized Transmutation Technique
The Energized Transmutation technique is more elaborate form of the Energized Intuition technique. This process takes advantage of several things that occur naturally. First of all, it spontaneously applies the transmutative and healing power of your consciousness.
It also takes advantage of your connection to your body and your experience of your body. Did you ever notice how a small child responds to an intense situation? They just move with the present experience, and it goes right through them, and then they’re open to the next one. They don’t store it.
Did you notice when kids are being scolded, they can’t sit still? Spontaneously their bodies are moving to throw off the foreign material that makes them uncomfortable. A kid will get into the experience, whatever it is. He’ll squirm, move around, and maybe cry or scream, feel it pass through him, and then it’s over. Now he’s wide open, ready for the next experience.
As we have grown up, we’ve tried to avoid experiencing some things, suppressed our responses, held ourselves back emotionally and physically. Trying not to feel or respond is where a lot of the blocks and resulting strain and pain in life come from. I’m not saying that is always a mistake. Sometimes social conventions require self-restraint. All I am saying is that it can cause stress.
Before you begin, make sure you are in a safe environment where you are completely free and uninhibited. It’s best to be alone, or with someone you trust completely, someone you are not embarrassed around no matter what happens. It’s best to be somewhere you won’t be embarrassed if you make some noise. Turn off your cell phone. Close the door. Make sure you won’t be interrupted.
In Energized Transmutation, you won’t resist anything. You won’t suppress any experience. You’ll relish whatever experiences come, like a young child. You’ll let them pass through you, and you’ll come out the other side refreshed, open, unencumbered by the past, and ready to create new experiences in life.
The entire Energized Transmutation technique is effortless and spontaneous. Don’t try for any particular result. Just relax and enjoy whatever comes to you spontaneously. Don’t try to do it “right.” Let the process unfold as it naturally does. You will recognize much of this from the Energized Intuition technique, but in this case there is more to it.
- Stand comfortably with your hands at your sides, palms facing inward. Close your eyes.
- Raise your arms to shoulder height, palms facing down. You may experience drawing energy from below into your open palms.
- Turn your hands over, palm up, and move your arms up and slightly forward until your palms are close together. You may experience drawing energy from above, and feel a ball of energy between your hands.
- Bring your palms down and together in front of your heart. Draw the energy into your heart.
- Remind yourself of who you truly are at the highest and truest level, in whatever language appeals to you, e.g., “Hello, Higher Self” / “Hello, Cosmic Computer” / “Hello, Divine Essence.”
- Ask for guidance from any higher being you know, naming him/her if and as you like. This can be your own higher Self or another being. “[Higher Self / Teacher / God / Divine Guide], I am about to begin Energized Transmutation. Please help me.”
- Bring to mind the question or situation you are exploring.
- Ask the question, or think of the situation explored, as you move your hands up and slightly forward until your arms are outstretched, palms together.
- You may experience the question traveling upward beyond your hands. It may go way out into the universe, or it may just go a short distance beyond your palms. Either way, or anything in between, is fine. You may notice and enjoy where it projects.
- Bring your hands down, still palms together, to the top of your head. Effortlessly imbibe the answers and insights that come in response to your question or investigation. At this point, the information you receive is probably not verbal. You are receiving it on a more refined level. Don’t worry about getting the answer, or making it clearer. Just enjoy any feeling of inflow that there may be. Here, as throughout the process, don’t try. Just take it as it comes.
- Let your hands come to a comfortable position, whatever that may be right now.
- Spontaneously be aware of your physical body, and your subtle bodies. If there is some suffering in your life, where is the pain? Let your attention spontaneously go there. Don’t concentrate; don’t try; just let your attention go where it is effortlessly drawn.
- You may begin to envision bodily motions and positions or body language that express what you are feeling. You may cry or scream. Move however you are moved to move. Express whatever you are moved to express. Don’t worry what you look or sound like. Remember, you’re completely safe here. You may experience some dramatic bodily and vocal expressions, or the whole experience may be calm and quiet. Express whatever comes naturally.
- Get into it. Now is not the time to resist experiencing. Now is the time to really let your awareness fathom the whole experience. Let your emotions feel it. Let your body express it. Don’t try to resist it. Don’t try to fix it. Just experience it. Your consciousness will be spontaneously healing whatever is out of tune with your true Nature.
- Your body postures and motions will change as the foreign matter is dissolved. This foreign matter has been able to remain because it was in your blind spot, lacking your attention. Now you are letting your attention go there, and anything foreign, any imbalance, will be healed.
- After some time, the knots will unwind. The sensations and any negative emotions will subside. Whatever was causing you pain is something foreign, something that does not resonate with your true Nature, like a thorn in your side. Your consciousness is infinitely powerful. Letting your awareness go to it will dissolve whatever it is, and the reality of your true Nature will begin to shine through.
- You will begin to be more and more in touch with your true Nature. You will remember and experience the reality that you are a blessed divine being, infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe.
- As you come in touch with your true Nature, you will feel inner calm, and at the same time a thrill of excitement to be alive.
- Throughout this process, insights about your life may come to you spontaneously, both while you are experiencing whatever may be out of balance (if anything), and when you are coming in touch with your true Nature. The mechanics of how the situation caused you pain may become apparent to you. You may become aware of what it was in you that drew a negative experience, event, or person into your life. You may become aware of your desires and aspirations, what is important to you, what resonates with the wonderful and delightful things, events, and people you are now drawing into your life, now that you are in touch with your true Nature. You may see a different and much more fulfilling and life supporting course of action than what occurred to you when (and if) you were suffering before beginning the technique.
- You will know when the process has come to fulfillment. Stand comfortably as before, and repeat steps 1 – 4 to complete the process.
- Thank any being who may have helped you, naming him/her as and if you choose.
- Open your eyes and enjoy your life.
You can practice the Energized Transmutation technique any time you’re inspired to gain some insight, intuition, and Transmutation. This may or may not be in relation to something specific that is going on in your inner or outer life. It is equally effective whether something is really up for you at the time or not.
Sometimes when I practice Energized Transmutation, my starting point is a state that I don’t enjoy. Someone else has done something, or something has happened in my life, and I have responded with anger or hurt or some other painful inner state. I may intellectually know that I create my own life, but what it looks and feels like is that some jerk did something wrong to me, and that’s the problem. The responses that come to mind generally involve doing something not very pleasant back to them.
During Energized Transmutation, at first I will experience the anger or hurt, and for a while it gets more intense. When I find where it is in my body, I often clutch that area, or double over as if protecting it.
After a while, sometimes I begin to get a glimpse of what it was in me that attracted the event. The dynamics that created the resonance in me with the negative experience, and sometimes events early in life that embodied these dynamics, come to mind. Other times I don’t get a sense of where it all came from.
Either way, however, with my attention on it, the whole thing fades after a while. I’m no longer gripped by it. I find myself drawn to more enjoyable physical postures and movements. I take a deep breath. I start to relax more.
At this point I begin more and more to be in touch with who I really am. I feel my connection with what is divine in me and in the universe. I feel the healing, enlivening energy of the universe flowing into me, resonating with me – the real me.
Whatever the situation was that caused me pain, from this perspective it looks much smaller, much less overshadowing. It seems almost silly to me that I could have been so troubled by it.
Now, from this perspective, it’s easy to be in touch with the reality that the jerk who did whatever they did was in fact doing me a favor. He brought my attention to something negative that I used to resonate with. Now that the light of my consciousness has lit up that area, there’s no more darkness there to resonate with negativity from outside. Now I’ve had the opportunity to experience and enliven more of the real me.
Now I can act appropriately to the situation. If there was something less than delightful between me and another person, maybe it becomes clear that this is a wonderful person, and we’ve just had a misunderstanding. It takes two to tango, so I contributed to that. Now we can create something much more delightful.
Maybe it becomes clear this is a toxic person, place, or thing – or just one that does not resonate with me – and the best thing I can do is get them out of my life immediately and permanently. Now I can act accordingly. In the section on relationships I’ll elaborate on this.
The responses I envision in this state are much more life-supporting for all concerned. I envision words and deeds that are much more magnanimous, mature, loving, and enjoyable than what I was thinking of before the process.
Often at this point I ask myself, “What would the real me, the enlightened me, do in this situation?” What comes to mind is always something delightful, and often something I never would have thought of before.
I find myself smiling, taking deep refreshing breaths, looking forward to going on with my life this day. At that point I complete Energized Transmutation.
Like Energized Intuition, the Energized Transmutation technique is really not a technique. It is simply the process of noticing your own intuition and subtle energies, intuitively sensing what is going on in you and your life, and allowing the naturally enlivening and healing power of your consciousness to transmute everything involved.
I have described the Energized Intuition technique and the Energized Transmutation technique each in a sequential series of steps. You will find as you practice more and more, however, that the actual phenomenon enlivens a holistic, holographic experience where all of this is experienced simultaneously.
You can always practice these techniques step by step. As the process and the holographic experience become more familiar, however, you may find you prefer to just let your awareness go to the holographic experience, without approaching it step by step. You may find that even in the midst of doing other things and responding to what’s happening in your life, you can check in intuitively with this level of your life for a brief moment, and then continue on with increased insight and a more powerful, integrated, and harmonious style of functioning.
Energized Transmutation fine tunes the brain and the nervous system, enlivens your awareness, and wakes up your consciousness, whether you practice it as a full-fledged technique or in any abbreviated form that suits you.
I have described Energized Transmutation as a solo practice. You can also practice it with another person, or with several people you resonate with. Here you take advantage of the synergistic nature of consciousness and the power of the collective consciousness of all involved.
This same technique can also be applied as a guided practice. This is something I do with my Science of Creating Miracles Training clients. Those of you who are experienced and highly skilled at guiding others can use this framework to guide someone through the process, perhaps offering suggestions and/or asking leading questions at each step. Here again, you take advantage of the synergistic nature of consciousness and the power of collective consciousness to magnify the result.
15. The Key to Successful and Delightful Relationships: Know Yourself and Be Yourself
Resonance in Relationships
The key to relationships is twofold: Know yourself and be yourself. Relationships are based on resonance. Relationships are effortlessly fulfilling when you spontaneously resonate, deeply and fully and delightfully, with someone on every level – intellect, emotions, mind, body, and intuition.
From the point of view of neuroscience, this means that your cerebral cortex, limbic system, pineal gland, and whole brain spontaneously resonate with theirs. The pattern of vibrations in the unified field that is your nervous system, giving rise to your experience of life, resonates fully with the pattern of vibrations in the unified field that is their nervous system, giving rise to their experience of life. The two of you resonate together. Your and their mutual experience is one harmonious, resonant pattern of vibrations.
Self-knowledge is critical for having this experience. Integration is also important. Before you can resonate with another, you must resonate with yourself. A guitar that’s out of tune with itself is not going to be able to play harmoniously with another instrument.
You will spontaneously and very powerfully attract someone who resonates with you – and that includes the parts in your blind spot, the parts you don’t know about. It also includes the parts you know about but reject or don’t want to be there, and the parts you do your best to hide.
Reality rules, whatever you try to do. If you have value issues, if you feel 40% valueless, you will attract someone who is congruent with that, someone who resonates with that. In one way or another they will deliver the message to you that matches your sense of valuelessness. So it is with safety issues and power issues.
Many people try to select potential partners consciously with the intellect – the cerebral cortex. They may even make a checklist. They select someone who matches perfectly with the person they are presenting themselves as on Facebook or elsewhere in public. Then they try to be that person, or at least to appear to be that person, so as to impress and please the one they have selected. Does this sound familiar?
There are two obvious (but often unseen) problems with this. First of all, it takes a lot of effort to try to be someone you think you should be, rather than who you actually are. Being yourself is effortless. Being who you are not takes a lot of work, and on a deeper level it doesn’t fool anyone anyway. The reality of who you actually are always shines through, for better or worse. When you’re attempting or pretending to be someone else, it’s often for worse.
The second problem is with your own brain. If the various aspects of your brain aren’t resonating together harmoniously, you are sending out a discordant vibration to the world. You reap a discordant outcome. You may have selected someone perfect based on the dictates of the prefrontal cortex. But your limbic system has a mind of its own. Your emotional system may be driving at something very different from what your cerebral cortex intends. The result is mixed messages, mixed actions, and unexpected and undesired outcomes.
Trying harder doesn’t work. You can try harder to come up with a prefrontal-cortex-designed persona and partner. You can try harder to be what your prefrontal cortex is telling you that you should be. Either way, reality rules, and the attempt ultimately is less than successful.
The first step in having a successful relationship with someone else, then, is to know yourself.
This is where Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation can be very handy.
No doubt as you have taken your awareness within and sensed the dynamics of what was going on, either in a MERMER moment or in a longer stretch of time, you have noticed some patterns. When you have an experience with another person that is intensely delightful, it is almost certain that all the various aspects of your brain were functioning in harmony.
When you have an experience with another person that really doesn’t work, it is almost certain that the various aspects of your brain were out of sync. When you were with someone and it was really working, what did you sense on the level of your intuition? What were you thinking on the level of your intellect? What were your emotions driving at that was fulfilled? What were you feeling that really felt right? What did this person bring to the experience, on all these levels, that made the person and the experience resonate with you? What in you resonated with the other person? What did you radiate that resonated with what he or she truly desired?
When something isn’t working, usually a major part of the experience that is not working is on the level of the limbic system. The limbic system motivates for particular feelings, and against other feelings. When things didn’t work, what feeling were you desiring and missing? What undesirable feelings came up? What was it about how the other person vibrated that gave rise to the feelings that were not enjoyable?
Value, Power, and Safety Revisited
When something really works (or really doesn’t work), it resonates (or doesn’t) in some particular way with your sense of value, safety, and/or power.
You may find a pattern that you really enjoy it when someone affirms your value — when someone sees you deeply, and recognizes and appreciates how wonderful you are. You may really enjoy being respected. You may really enjoy being desired and appreciated for your beauty, or your intellect, or your talent, or your goodness, or for just being you.
You may feel especially safe in the presence of someone, either because they vibrate an air of safety in themselves and how they relate to you, or because they feel protective of you, or both. You may enjoy feeling protective of them, and the two of you may resonate in that way.
Being in someone’s vibratory influence may give you a sense of power that resonates with your desire to feel powerful. All of these insights, and many others, come spontaneously through the Transmutation Trigger and Energized Intuition and Transmutation techniques, and simply from being aware as your experiences unfold.
Usually you will find that one of the three – value, power, or safety – is your primary motivator, and the primary thing that people you resonate with bring to the experience for you. As you become more familiar with yourself, you will also see that particular kinds of value, power, and safety especially appeal to you. People whose vibratory influence on you resonates with that particular flavor are particularly appealing to you.
When you know that, you can make conscious choices in accord with that desire. Your cerebral cortex, your limbic system, and your pineal gland can function in conscious harmony. You can relax and be who you are in an integrated way. In this integrated, self-knowing state, you will spontaneously attract people who resonate with who you are.
Resonance Is Effortless and Spontaneous
When someone resonates with who you really are, they spontaneously give what you like to receive, just by being themselves. And they spontaneously like to receive what you like to give, just by being yourself. When you truly resonate, you don’t have to learn a set of rules and try to manipulate your behavior. If you be who you naturally are, and they be who they naturally are, together you produce a resonant vibratory pattern that is more than the sum of the parts.
If you really desire to be appreciated, someone who really resonates with you will spontaneously appreciate you and let you know it. They won’t have to try to appreciate you, and you won’t have to try to impress them.
If you like to feel protective of someone, then a person who truly resonates with you will desire and enjoy being in your vibratory protective influence. You will please and nourish them just by being who you are. Aside from being much more fulfilling than trying to be someone else, being yourself and letting her/him be her/himself is a whole lot easier.
Why Does Mutual Attraction Seem So Elusive?
Frequently in sessions of Guided Transmutation or Brain Function Optimization I hear something like this from my client: “Why can’t I ever attract a man/woman that I really want, someone who really thrills me? When I meet someone I’m not romantically interested in, I have a good time with them, and they often fall for me. When I meet someone I really want, try as I might, they’re never interested. Why?”
Here’s what I tell them. When you meet someone you enjoy, but are not romantically interested in, you feel free to be yourself. There’s no risk. You are fully self-expressed. You are fearless, because you have nothing to lose. You are genuine, delighted to reveal and share the real you. If you like fly fishing or operas, you light up when you describe your experiences therein.
When you meet someone you really want, you think and act differently. You try to figure out what a person they are attracted to would be like, then you try to be that person, or pretend to be that person. If you like fly fishing, you don’t just express that enthusiastically. You try to figure out whether the one you want is going to be impressed by or attracted to a fly fishing enthusiast, and then you act accordingly. Or you say a little about fly fishing, note their reaction, and shut it down if they aren’t enthused or impressed.
In short, when you’re trying to attract someone you really want, you’re not being or sharing the real you. You’re trying to be someone else, or at least trying to appear to be someone else. That doesn’t work. Even if you can accurately figure out – or ask them – exactly what they are looking for in a romantic partner, and you put on a really effective act of being exactly that, it still won’t work. People can always smell a phony, and it’s not attractive.
People generally don’t think they’re being phony. They usually think they’re trying hard to be a better person. If I try hard to be a better person, won’t the man/woman of my dreams be more attracted to me? Not if “better” means not being true to yourself. Certainly, a man/woman you desire can bring out the best in you. But it has to be the best in you, the real you, not just what you think they want.
Once again, Shakespeare was spot on, “To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
When you really desire someone, the key is to be yourself. Be the way you are when you’re with someone you enjoy but are not attached to. Be enthusiastic about what truly moves you, not what you think they want to hear or see.
This will yield one of two outcomes. If they resonate with the real you, this is the foundation of a wonderful relationship. If they don’t, revealing the true you authentically will make this clear, and you will avoid a relationship based on falsehood and on maintaining a fiction. It’s easy to be yourself, and that brings people who truly resonate with you. Pretending to be someone you are not is exhausting, and brings people who resonate not with the real you but with someone you are not.
Is It Really Possible?
At this point you may wonder if anyone will really match the real you. If you relax and be yourself, what if no one really resonates with you? Or what if someone would, but they happen to be on the other side of the world and aren’t coming here any time soon? By figuring out what people want, and trying or pretending to be that, you can reliably appeal to people, or at least appear to.
Just being true to yourself takes more courage. It takes a leap of faith that there really are people out there who genuinely resonate with you, deeply and on every level. Often people try to be something they are not, or at least try to modify and manipulate what they are, because they think that who they really are is not what someone highly desirable will want. It’s sort of like Groucho Marx, who said, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
Granted, it is statistically extremely unlikely that on any given day you will meet someone with whom you resonate fully on every level. So what? Everything that has ever happened in your life is statistically extremely unlikely. The odds are completely irrelevant, because the universe is a well-organized place, and your consciousness has a commanding role in the universe. When you set up the resonant frequency within yourself and spontaneously radiate that into your environment, you will spontaneously attract those who resonate with that same resonant frequency.
The Key to Relationships: Resonance on Every Level of Life
When you do meet someone you resonate with fully, how will you know? You will sense the resonance on many different levels.
For a fulfilling relationship that brings delight on every level, the resonance must be there on all the levels of your life. The vibratory patterns in the unified field corresponding to your whole brain, your pineal and associated structures, your prefrontal cortex, and your limbic system all must resonate with theirs.
The finest and most crucial level of resonance is on the level of your spirit, on the level of your intuition. Resonance on this level does not readily fit into a description in words, because the experience is far beyond words. When you meet someone who resonates with you on this level, you will immediately have a feeling of subtle delight (along with more obvious delight) and a feeling of familiarity. It will feel as if you know them well, even though you are just now meeting them for the first time. You will sense an already existing connection, like meeting an old friend. You will know intuitively how they will respond, before they do so. You will feel it is very easy to be yourself in their presence. You will feel brave, willing to be honest. You will know that as you reveal yourself truly to them, they will understand you, appreciate you, and not judge. You will feel that you could be comfortable talking about anything, although you may not choose to talk much at all.
Resonance on the level of the spirit or intuition has another important aspect. To resonate on the level of the spirit or intuition, both of your awareness must be open to the same subtle level of creation. I read somewhere a saying by an early American writer (I haven’t been able to find this again), “Some men are like pools reaching to your ankles. Some are like pools reaching to your knees. Some men are like pools in which you can bathe.” People with whom you resonate on the level of spirit feel like pools in which you can bathe, and you feel the same to them.
Everyone is capable of perceiving a certain level of subtlety in the structure of creation. This corresponds to the level to which their intuition is lively, and may correspond to the level to which their pineal and associated structures are enlivened. You will resonate best with people whose awareness is open to the same level.
If you are reading this book, and you are still with me, I am guessing that you have a highly developed sense of intuition and perception of subtle phenomena in people and in creation. All your life, most of the people you meet see only the most superficial few layers of creation, and the most superficial few layers of you. Sometimes this can be a bit lonely.
Lots of people like what they see in you. Some are highly attracted to you, and may pursue you vigorously. But what most of them are perceiving is only the superficial layers, not the deeper levels on which you live your life. They don’t see the real you, the full you, the you that you experience. Since they do not perceive the subtler levels, they don’t miss them. But you do feel a lack when the resonance is not there on those subtler levels. You desire to be known and experienced and appreciated and loved on all the levels of your life that are open to your awareness.
When you meet someone who resonates with you on the level of the spirit, you will immediately know that they experience and appreciate you on all levels. You don’t need to talk about it – although you may, and you probably will. First, you just mutually experience that you are dancing together on the deeper levels of your spirit. You both know it. This is simultaneously a thrill and a relief.
The next level of resonance is on the level of the prefrontal cortex. Resonance on the level of the prefrontal cortex is easy to perceive and experience. When you meet someone with whom you resonate on the level of the intellect, you find their thinking patterns familiar and easily understandable. You think in ways that are either similar or complementary.
That does not mean that you agree, that you have the same opinions, or that you reach the same conclusions, or even that you think in the same way. It means that your thinking processes resonate with each other. Your way of going about approaching a mental challenge is similar, or it may be different in a way that is complementary. A person who has a linear, systematic, and empirical approach to thinking may resonate with someone who has a more holographic way of coming to understand things, because the two may complement and inspire one another.
As with intuitive resonance, you’ll know intellectual resonance when you experience it. Someone who resonates with you on the level of the prefrontal cortex just makes sense to you, and you make sense to them. You may be very similar in your thinking patterns. If you have different styles of thinking, then resonance means that you both still make sense to each other. You perceive your intellectual differences as intriguing and inspiring, rather than grating and confusing. Resonance does not mean that you are identical. Your vibratory pattern on the intellectual level may resonate with another, quite different pattern in such a way that the overall vibration is harmonious and synchronous, like harmony in music. Again, you’ll know it when you experience it.
Resonance on the level of the limbic system is something that you will feel strongly on the emotional level. As with intellectual resonance, it does not necessarily mean that you are emotionally the same or even similar. It means that you are mutually nourishing emotionally. When you relax and be who you are, they spontaneously feel nourished and inspired in your presence – and vice versa. When they relax and be who they are, this thrills your heart, and at the same time you feel comfortable and easy – and vice versa.
Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation are particularly useful for inspiring the self-awareness that allows you to sense and appreciate limbic system resonance. Some experiences with others work spectacularly on the emotional level. Some experiences with others fail spectacularly on the emotional level. Either way, you get a Transmutation Trigger, and an opportunity for becoming clearer on what your limbic system is driving at.
Your limbic system is always pulling for particular feelings. As you gain experience in life, you have been becoming more and more aware of what feels good to you and what doesn’t. When you resonate with someone on this level, being in their presence feels nourishing to you. You feel comfortable, and at the same time you feel thrilled and inspired and enlivened.
Through Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation, and/or through many other kinds of experiences, you have become aware of the dynamics of emotional interaction that are nourishing for you, and the dynamics that are not. You may have come to know that you really enjoy feeling safe and protected, or that you enjoy providing a vibration that gives someone else that feeling. You may have come to know that you really appreciate being appreciated, and in particular you really enjoy being appreciated for certain specific qualities. You may have come to know that you really enjoy nourishing someone else with that experience, and that this comes naturally and effortlessly for you.
You may enjoy being with someone who inspires your sense of power, and/or being with someone whose power you spontaneously appreciate and inspire. Here again, there may be particular kinds of personal power that you especially resonate with. The more aware you are of your own emotional landscape, what nourishes you, and what you spontaneously provide for others just by being yourself, the easier it is to recognize and appreciate resonance on the level of the limbic system. Once again, you’ll know it when you experience it, this time on the emotional level.
There are also some obvious, common-sense things on the level of the self (small s) that can match or not. If your idea of a good time is running marathons and climbing mountains, you are unlikely to resonate with someone who thinks the outdoors is something you have to drive through to get to the next opera house. This kind of compatibility is obvious and straightforward, and requires no further discussion.
When you really resonate with someone on all levels, your mutual vibrations are like a symphony – or rock or blues or hip hop, if that’s what you prefer. Your vibrations blend with his/hers in a way that creates a harmonious resonant pattern. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Being with such a person gives you a sense of wholeness that you don’t have on your own.
You may already be with someone, and things are resonating magnificently. Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation, and the expansion of awareness they engender, can only enrich your already delightful experience.
You may already be with someone, and things don’t seem to be resonating fully. That may or may not be because the two of you don’t match. Before you can truly resonate with anyone else in mutually nourishing way, you need to resonate harmoniously within yourself. Before you head for greener pastures, you may be wise to take some time to gain self-knowledge and integration with the Transmutation Trigger and Energized Intuition and Energized Transmutation techniques, the other techniques we’ll discuss in later chapters, and all the other things you are no doubt doing to enhance your self-awareness and integration and raise your level of consciousness.
On the other hand, you may already know that your present relationship is not right for you, in which case there’s no reason to waste any more time. It doesn’t serve either you or them to settle for something that is not resonating. Some people settle out of fear, just because they don’t know what they will find if they move on.
Some people settle because they don’t want to hurt the other person. They think they’re doing the other person a favor by staying. One thing to keep in mind is that if it’s not working for you, in reality it isn’t working for the other person either, even if they are adamant that they want it. You both deserve an opportunity to find someone you truly resonate with.
Understanding resonance can take a lot of the pain out of the process of meeting potential partners, having some level of experience and involvement, and in most cases not getting together with them long term. When you meet someone, the reality is that either it matches or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t match, this does not imply a lack on either person’s part. You don’t resonate together, that’s all. Both of you will resonate delightfully with someone else, just not with each other. Apples don’t resonate with oranges. That says nothing about the value of those fruits.
No one in the world resonates with everyone, nor would any sane person want to. When you don’t resonate with someone, it’s not a personal affront. It’s not a rejection. You just don’t match. It simply means that there is someone more congruent for each of you than you are for each other. In reality, that is not something to be sorry about. In fact, it is a wonderful situation for all concerned, and you are fortunate to have realized it as soon as you did. Now both of you are free to find someone you truly resonate with.
Don’t settle. It doesn’t serve either you or the person you settled for. And don’t settle for being with someone who is just settling for you. That doesn’t serve either of you either.
If you are like just about every other human being I’ve ever met, you have no doubt wondered at one time or another whether there really is anyone right for you on the planet at this time, and if there is, if you will ever meet them. Or maybe you think you already met them, and for one reason or another that ship has sailed.
Trust that the universe is a well-organized place. You have attracted and tasted the delight of a certain level of resonance many times in your life already. The universe is all about synchronicity and resonance. If the universe can create the vibrational pattern that is you, it can and does create many other patterns that truly resonate with you. Now that you know and appreciate and resonate with yourself more than ever before, you will spontaneously attract beings who truly resonate with you, the real you. If you aren’t already, you will no doubt soon experience the unfathomable delight that comes with such synchronicity.
16. Using Your Cosmic Quantum Computer to Create Miracles
Morphogenetic Fields
One of the major challenges in science today is explaining how complex, differentiated structures such as a plant or a human body arise. A human body begins as one cell and ends up as a highly complex, exquisitely organized structure with thousands of highly differentiated organs and tissues all functioning in synchrony. Each of the cells in the fully developed body has the same DNA as the original cell, and yet they are highly differentiated and specialized.
Moreover, cells are organized in tissues and organs so as to function together and interact in highly complex ways. The whole is clearly greater than the sum of the parts. How do we get from an undifferentiated part to a complex, integrated whole? How does this transition take place from one and then a few undifferentiated cells – all of which are in the same environment – to a highly complex organism, with organization that is far more complex and sophisticated than that of a single cell?
Morphogenetic fields, also known as morphic fields or morphogenic fields, provide one proposed explanation for this and other phenomena involving organization that goes beyond single units. According to the theory of formative causation, a morphogenetic field embodying the qualities and structure of a heart pre-exists the formation of the heart in the development of a human body. Another morphogenetic field embodies the qualities and structure of a hand, another of the brain, and so on. The various hierarchical structures, such as the brain and the sub-structures of the brain, can be considered either as multiple interrelated morphogenetic fields or as a single, more complex morphogenetic field.
Rupert Sheldrake applies the concept of morphogenetic fields to explain not only developmental biology but also many different phenomena in biology and in Nature as a whole. In his view, morphogenetic fields can be created, maintained, and modified collectively by members of a species and passed on to future generations. Development and even behavior of future members of the species are influenced by morphic resonance with these fields.
My current working hypothesis is that this principle applies at a much more fundamental level of creation, at the level of the Conscious Unified Field. It is well known and irrefutably established in the field of physics that the Conscious Unified Field (whether referred to by that name, or as the ground state of the quantum field, or whatever terminology is used) has an inherent tendency to vibrate in such a way as to manifest individual particle/wave phenomena such as photons, electrons, neutrons, and the more fundamental particle/wave phenomena of modern quantum mechanics.
It is also well established that these particles have a tendency to interact in certain ways. For example, neutrons, electrons, and protons form atoms. It may be that not only the vibratory tendency to create neutrons, protons, and electrons is present in the Conscious Unified Field. The Conscious Unified Field may hold inherent within it the tendency to vibrate in the more complex pattern that constitutes a hydrogen atom – one proton and one electron bound to it by the electromagnetic force.
This can be understood in terms of the guitar string we introduced when discussing string theory. The A string on a guitar has a resonant frequency of 110 Hz. It has an inherent tendency to vibrate at this frequency. It also has a resonant frequency of 220 Hz, and thousands of other resonant frequencies. The overall resonant frequency of a guitar A string is in fact a blend of the fundamental frequency and thousands of overtones at different resonant frequencies.
Whether we refer to this as one complex resonant frequency or many individual resonant frequencies is simply a matter of how we choose to use language to name it. I will refer to this as a resonant frequency, with the understanding that this use of the term encompasses a blend of many different resonant frequencies with amplitudes at different characteristic ratios so as to blend together to make the sound of a guitar string. The resonant frequency of a guitar string, when embedded in a guitar, is still more complex, because it encompasses the vibrations of the body of the guitar and the air in the body.
Matter and energy manifest from the Conscious Unified Field as vibrations at particular resonant frequencies. How complex can these resonant frequencies inherent in the unified field be? Recall that the Conscious Unified Field is not just a conglomeration of small, physical guitar strings. Prior to observation it is an abstract field of infinite possibilities for vibratory patterns. In principle, there is no reason why it cannot contain inherently within its structure not only simple patterns of vibration giving rise to single elementary particles, but more complex patterns giving rise to structures of interacting elementary particles, such as a hydrogen atom.
Here the word tendency is simply another term for probability. A resonant frequency for a particular vibration equates to a relatively high probability for that vibration to occur. The Conscious Unified Field may hold within it a more complex resonant frequency, creating the tendency to vibrate in a more complex pattern such as a helium atom, with two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons. The nucleus consisting of the protons and neutrons is held together by the strong force. The wave functions of the electrons are entangled, producing a phenomenon that requires a much more complex mathematical explanation – in effect, a much more complex resonant frequency – than that of a hydrogen atom.
It may be that the Conscious Unified Field contains within it a complex resonant frequency embodying plutonium 239, and a complex resonant frequency embodying plutonium 240. This is of personal interest to me because the discovery of plutonium 240 and the relationship between plutonium 239 and plutonium 240 is one of the things my father, George Farwell, investigated in the course of his involvement in the development of nuclear energy while still a graduate student. We also used the emission of alpha particles by plutonium 239 in the Conscious Unified Field Experiment.
In addition to inherent resonant frequencies to produce complex particle/wave phenomena comprising a single element like plutonium, the Conscious Unified Field may have complex resonant frequencies that create a tendency (that is, a heightened probability) to create a molecule consisting of more than one element, such as H2O – water, containing two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
Now comes the interesting part. The Conscious Unified Field may have inherent within it highly complex resonant frequencies that create a tendency – which is simply a heightened probability – to vibrate in the highly complex pattern that constitutes a human brain, a human heart, and a fully integrated, functioning human body.
Such a tendency in the Conscious Unified Field would be the equivalent of a morphogenetic field embodying the tendency to create a human body. The probability of creating a human body with two arms and ten fingers and one pineal gland and one heart and two hippocampi is greater than the probability of creating a body with three arms and 12 fingers and two hearts and two pineal glands and one hippocampus, or some other wildly different configuration. This probability or tendency may be inherent in the Conscious Unified Field itself, at the level of the complex resonant frequencies at which the Conscious Unified Field has a tendency to vibrate.
All of the other phenomena that are difficult to explain by a combination of the separate characteristics of the constituent parts, and for which morphogenetic fields have been proposed as an explanation, can readily be explained by this same phenomenon on the fundamental level of the Conscious Unified Field.
Many spiritual traditions refer to essentially the same phenomenon in different languages and different metaphors. In the Vedic tradition, the ancient seers reported that for everything in the material world, there was a seed in the unmanifest field of the Veda, i.e., in what we now call the Conscious Unified Field. Just as the entire tree is in essence embodied in the seed, so anything in the material world can be found in its essence in seed form within the field of pure consciousness from which the universe springs.
According to the empirical reports of the Vedic seers, an individual with highly developed consciousness can empirically investigate and come to know about anything in the material world by directly cognizing its nature as embodied in the tendencies of what we now would call a morphogenetic field within the Conscious Unified Field. Reportedly this is not a matter of philosophy, faith, or belief, but rather something that can be empirically investigated by anyone through developing the requisite level of refinement of functioning of the nervous system.
Plato may have been referring to a similar experience in his description of the Forms. Rather than some kind of abstract idea of the essence of a thing, the Platonic Forms may have referred to the actual empirical experience of the morphogenetic field that gives rise to that thing, directly cognized while still in unmanifest form in the Conscious Unified Field. This would of course have required a high level of consciousness on the part of the empirical investigator, in this case Socrates and/or Plato. As discussed above, Plato’s Republic, and particularly the allegory of the cave, make it clear that at least those two individuals were in fact experiencing a very high level of consciousness and consequent ability to cognize subtle phenomena in creation.
You have no doubt experienced in your own life that you can consciously manifest human and natural events. These involve highly complex vibratory patterns in the Conscious Unified Field. The Conscious Unified Field Experiment and other similar experiments have proved that as conscious human beings we can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events through consciousness alone, without physical intervention. In other words, we can choose among which probable and improbable vibratory patterns manifest from the Conscious Unified Field.
My current working hypothesis is that this takes place at a more complex level than that of individual elementary particle/wave vibrations. Conscious human beings have the ability to enliven, choose, and even modify and create complex resonant frequencies – tendencies or probabilities – in the Conscious Unified Field. These manifest as morphogenetic fields and the complex structures they embody and create.
Now we arrive at the practical application of all this. The morphogenetic field from which you have manifested your present life, as a complex symphony of vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field, contains much more than your physical body. It contains your resonant frequencies with respect to your inherent value, safety, and power. This in turn attracts in your life people, things, events, and phenomena that resonate with your resonant frequencies and provide objective evidence of the level of your value, power, and safety (or lack of same).
This is all being transmuted as you explore yourself and the universe. You can apply Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation to transmute your resonant frequencies from X% valuable, Y% safe, and Z% powerful to 100% valuable, safe, and powerful – and in fact infinitely valuable, powerful, and safe. As you do this, the morphogenetic field you are creating that manifests as your life will reflect this Transmutation and manifests its result in your life.
As you apply Conscious Manifestation from the foundation of a morphogenetic field embodying more and more of your infinite value, power, and safety, you will spontaneously manifest more and more of what you truly desire in life, more and more quickly, fully, and effortlessly.
Your Brain Is a Quantum Computer
Ordinary computers are binary machines. Information is represented as a series of 0s and 1s. Computations involve manipulating these binary bits. Eight bits make one byte, one thousand bytes (or 1024 bytes) make one kilobyte, one million bytes make one megabyte, one billion bytes make one gigabyte, one trillion bytes make a terabyte, and so on. (An alternative system uses these terms to signify powers of two that approximately equal one thousand, one million, etc.)
Ordinary computers can only be in one state at a time. Each state is represented by a particular configuration of 0s and 1s. All computations involve manipulating these 0s and 1s to produce a specific outcome. At each point in the computation, the computer is in a single state, a single configuration of many 0s and 1s.
Binary computers have served us well over a period of decades, and have improved exponentially in their ability to store and process information. In 1965 Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, described this trend as a doubling of the number of transistors in an integrated circuit every two years.
Moore’s Law, which is really an observation and not a natural law, has since been generalized to refer to a doubling of computing capacity in general. The doubling period has now been adjusted to be about 18 months, in light of the fact that not only are there more transistors, but they are also faster. Moore’s Law has proven to be quite accurate over a period of decades in predicting the progress in computer technology.
There are inherent limitations to the complexity and speed of the binary processes implemented in ordinary computers, however. We cannot just keep making things smaller and faster forever. The reason for this is that when we reach a small enough size, the world becomes quantum-mechanical. We cannot make something smaller than an elementary particle, and when we approach the size of elementary particles, quantum effects begin to have a major impact on the functioning of the system.
If progress is to continue beyond a certain point, we need an entirely different algorithm and apparatus for computing.
Fortunately, Nature does not work like a binary computer. In the quantum-mechanical universe, until there is an observation to collapse the waveform, all possibilities are simultaneously represented in the state of the quantum system. The quantum-mechanical universe simultaneously takes into account all possible outcomes. The possibilities inherent in a quantum-mechanical system, and their respective probabilities, evolve over time.
When particle/wave phenomena are in the state where concrete, manifest properties have not yet emerged from the Conscious Unified Field, and all that exists is abstract probabilities, they are said to be in a state of superposition.
For example, an electron in a state of superposition simultaneously exists and evolves in all possible states that may be observed. The probabilities of these states change over time according to well-known Laws of Nature. The state of superposition is represented mathematically by the Schrödinger equation.
When an observation is made, the state of superposition disappears. The waveform collapses into a state where only one of the possible states is observed.
The phenomenon of superposition presents the possibility that a quantum computer could be developed. Such a computer would input information into a system, setting in motion an evolving state of the system in which particle/wave phenomena were in a state of superposition. It would keep the relevant particle/wave phenomena in a state of superposition while computations take place that inherently consider all possibilities at once. Then, after computations have progressed to a certain point where output would be useful or definitive, the quantum computer would extract information from the system.
By taking into account all possibilities at once, a quantum computer could process information vastly faster and more efficiently than a binary computer. A quantum computer would take advantage of the nature of the quantum-mechanical universe, the same reality that ultimately will be the limitation of binary computers.
The input to a binary computer is ultimately always encoded in bits, 0 and 1. A quantum computer uses qubits or quantum bits. Qubits are not confined to a binary 0 or 1, or any other single value. Qubits can be a superposition of states, that is, a single qubit can simultaneously embody all possible states of a quantum particle/wave phenomenon. Thus qubits contain vastly more information than bits.
The challenge, of course, it to provide information in qubits and to extract information from the system once the quantum computations have progressed without compromising the integrity of the system. If you find it challenging to imagine how such a process could be implemented in hardware, you are in the same boat as some of the top computer scientists and engineers in the world. No one has yet successfully built a quantum computer. Scientists have, however, made some progress toward developing a functional quantum computer. So far, they have been able to input and extract information embodied only in a very small number qubits, and they have not yet been able to perform actual quantum computations.
The most promising approach to developing a quantum computer, in my view, is the approach developed by Thomas J. Routt. Dr. Routt has several patents on a unique approach to quantum computing, and has written a groundbreaking book on the subject, Quantum Computing: The Vedic Fabric of the Digital Universe.
My current working hypothesis is that the human brain functions as a macroscopic-scale quantum computer. The primary evidence for this is that the human brain has the capacity to reflect the Conscious Unified Field, which is in a state of infinite superposition of all possible particle/wave phenomena. Since the human brain can reflect the Conscious Unified Field, and can interface with the Conscious Unified Field, the human brain has the capacity to bring the infinite possibilities inherent in quantum-mechanical states to fruition and practical application in human life. The next section examines a practical application of this phenomenon.
The Cosmic Quantum Computer Technique
A common method for making important decisions is to use the brain like a binary computer, functioning on the level of the intellect. This involves several steps: State the alternatives; outline all the positives in favor of particular alternative; outline the negatives against that alternative; either count the positives and negatives, or if some are more important assign a weight to each positive and each negative; come up with a composite score for each alternative; decide on the alternative with the highest score. Such methods have their value in clarifying the issues involved, but they fail to take advantage of the full potential of your brain, the consciousness it reflects, and the infinite intelligence of the Conscious Unified Field to which your brain gives you access.
A quantum computer simultaneously considers all possibilities, when its critical particle/wave facets are in a state of superposition – that is, when the possibilities exist only as unmanifest probabilities within the Conscious Unified Field. Your brain can do the same thing. Your intuition is your access to the brain’s ability to simultaneously consider all possibilities inherent in the Conscious Unified Field. Ultimately your guide will be your intuition, because it is your closest access to the deepest level of reality, the Conscious Unified Field.
The intellect is too limited an instrument to encompass this unbounded reality. Nevertheless, the intellect does make a significant contribution to your decision-making process. So do the emotions. Using your brain as the quantum computer that it is includes using the intellect and emotions as well as the intuition.
The steps of the Cosmic Quantum Computer technique are these:
17. Anything Is Possible:
Create Miracles Through Conscious Manifestation
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm Revisited
The Materialist Paradigm was the ruling paradigm for 400 years. The Materialist Paradigm held that the universe consisted of objects and forces that worked predictably like clockwork. If you could observe the condition of any system, you could predict mechanistically any future state of that system. The basic building blocks of the universe were atoms, small hard objects not unlike tiny baseballs.
The Materialist Paradigm was instrumental in our developing a considerable level of control over the physical universe. It resulted in many advances in science, and in understanding how the human body works on the level of biochemistry and biophysics. Science proceeded in the Materialist Paradigm through reductionism. Any system could be broken down into its constituent parts, and if you knew all the parts and how they interacted, and also knew the present state, you could predict precisely any future state of any system. In the Materialist Paradigm, everything is either inevitable or impossible.
During the last century, the data of quantum physics, relativity physics, and neuroscience have proven to be entirely incompatible with the Materialist Paradigm. The universe does not work like clockwork, independent of our conscious observation of it.
As discussed above, the elementary particle/wave phenomena that make up the physical universe – protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, etc. – are not things. They are not objective events that exist independent of our observing them. They are more like tiny rainbows than tiny baseballs. They are observations. They are empirical experiences.
What we observe depends on how we observe. If we observe a particle/wave phenomenon in such a way as to observe a particle, we observe a particle. If we observe a particle/wave phenomenon in such a way as to observe a wave, we observe a wave.
Before our conscious observation, all that is there is the Conscious Unified Field. There are no protons, neutrons, electrons, or photons. There is only an abstract probability distribution that defines the probability of the outcomes of future observations at particular places and times. The outcomes of the observations are the elementary particle/wave phenomena such as protons and photons. They have specific existence only once the observation is made.
In this way they are like a rainbow: How, when, where, and if you observe them depends on how, when, and where you make the observation.
Our conscious participation is a major factor not just in observing but in creating the universe that we experience. The universe is not a thing. It is not an object. The universe is an experience. Everything in the universe is an experience. As the great physicist Niels Bohr put it: “The task of science is both to extend the range our experience and reduce it to order…in our description of nature the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of phenomena, but only to track down as far as possible relations between the multifold aspects of our experience.”
Eugene Wigner, another Nobel laureate in physics, expressed the reality quite succinctly: “The laws of quantum mechanics cannot be formulated … without recourse to the concept of consciousness.”
This is very different from the universe of the Materialist Paradigm, and very different from what scientists thought science to be up until that time. As Werner Heisenberg, another major contributor to the scientific revolution that brought in the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, said “Anyone who is not upset upon first hearing about quantum mechanics certainly did not understand it.”
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm has arisen to explain reality as revealed by modern science – particularly quantum physics, relativity physics, and modern neuroscience – and as revealed by many experiences we have as human beings that cannot be explained by the Materialist Paradigm.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm recognizes that the fundamental basis and essence of the physical universe is the same as the fundamental basis and essence of human life. The physical universe consists of perturbations or vibrations in the Conscious Unified Field that arise probabilistically in accord with the laws of quantum mechanics. Our essential Nature as human beings is that same unbounded Conscious Unified Field that is also the essence and foundation of physical creation.
The units of time/space in the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm are not objects, forces, or events. The units of time/space in the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm are observations, conscious experiences. The conscious observer is a necessary and fundamental aspect in any observation. As conscious beings we create the universe that we experience through the process of observation.
The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm recognizes that in the quantum-mechanical manifestation of particle/wave phenomena that constitutes the physical universe, anything is possible. Some things are highly probable. Some things are highly improbable. Nothing is impossible, and nothing is inevitable.
We, as conscious human beings, have command of the experience of the universe that we generate. As the Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved, we can consciously choose the outcome. We can consciously affect the probability distribution of the quantum-mechanical events that make up the universe. This takes place to a greater or lesser degree depending on the level of our consciousness.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved to an extremely high level of statistical confidence that we as conscious human beings can influence the probability of quantum-mechanical events using consciousness alone, without physical intervention. Our data showed that this influence is possible down to the elementary particle level in space and matter, and down to the microsecond level in time. Both of these are far beyond what our senses can perceive in time and space. Since our consciousness is that unbounded field of pure consciousness that is the essence and foundation of creation, however, we can have an intentional, conscious impact even at this fundamental, imperceptible level.
We could have chosen any physical process to test the influence of human consciousness. We chose alpha particle emission by plutonium as a dependent variable in our experiment, because the probability distribution in quantum mechanics is extremely well known and well established. We showed that conscious human beings can, through conscious intention alone, influence the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events at will.
Since the entire universe consists of quantum-mechanical events, the implication of this is that anything is possible. Some things are probable, some things are improbable, and we have the ability to consciously choose among the probabilities that actually manifest.
Again, the Conscious Unified Field paradigm reveals that anything is possible. Some things are more probable, some things are less probable. You have command of these probabilities through your consciousness.
This has practical implications for your life. No doubt you have desires and aspirations to do and experience things that are highly unusual, improbable, or commonly thought to be impossible. No doubt people have told you that your highest dreams and goals and aspirations are unrealistic.
If your goals are magnificent, then certainly it is statistically extremely unlikely that you will achieve them. Statistically, the naysayers are right. So what? Everything that has ever happened in your life is statistically extremely unlikely.
Considering the billions of people in the world, and the billions of places they could have been at any one time, what are the odds that your parents would be at exactly the same place at the same time, the moment they met? Certainly less than one in a million or one in a billion. One in a trillion? One in a quintillion? One in a centillion (10303)? Yet it happened. If it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here. But it did, despite the odds. The same is true of every single event in your own life up to this time.
Every experience you have ever had has been almost – but not quite – infinitely unlikely. The odds are completely irrelevant, because the universe is a well-organized place, and your consciousness has a commanding role in the universe.
The odds of any given spectacularly successful undertaking turning out to be successful are small. But so are the odds of everything else. The odds of the whole universe coming together in such a way that any other specific happening in your life would come about – including the ones that have already happened – are also extremely small.
The odds of your successfully doing any specific extraordinary thing are small. The odds of doing any particular ordinary thing are small also. Say the odds of a very specific, truly particular spectacular success you may envision are one in a quintillion. The odds of doing some very specific ordinary thing instead are one in a quadrillion. So you may as well go for what you really want, not just what you know you can get. The following sections will describe in more detail how to do this, and use your brain and your consciousness to succeed.
Examples of Conscious Manifestation in My Life
Certainly you have experienced many examples of Conscious Manifestation of something improbable or “impossible” in your life. Perhaps if I recount a few of mine, it will remind you of some of yours.
When I was in graduate school, I invented the first brain-computer interface, a device to allow an individual to command a computer (and in my case also to talk through a speech synthesizer) using brainwaves alone. At that time no one had ever successfully developed such a device.
The brain-computer interface (BCI) is a physical device using electrical brain signals, EEG. Unlike the Unified Field Experiment, it is not in and of itself a means for manifestation through consciousness alone.
One day I was minding my own business in my laboratory, and a young man fell off a silo and was paralyzed from the eyeballs down. I was measuring brain responses every day, without any overt indication or communication from the subject other than his brain, so it occurred to me that I could develop a brain-computer interface that would allow a completely paralyzed person to communicate using his brainwaves. In our laboratory we used custom computers and digital signal processors built in the laboratory, and wrote all the software ourselves.
I devised a brain-computer interface (BCI) that has since come to be called the Farwell-Donchin P300 Speller or the Farwell-Donchin BCI. It flashed rows and columns containing the alphabet and certain computer commands on a monitor. When the desired letter or command was flashed, the subject noted it, his brain said “Aha!”, and his brain elicited a P300-MERMER response. (At that time we only knew about and measured the P300 aspect of the response.) In addition to the alphabet, the set of choices included several computer commands such as “Backspace” in case of a mistake and “Speak” to activate a speech synthesizer to speak what the subject had spelled out.
I wrote the software and developed the system late at night in the laboratory. I would glue sensors to my own head (I had not yet developed the convenient headsets we now use). I would start the system from the computer, then run around to the other side of the monitor, plug myself into the EEG amplifiers, and test it out. Many attempts failed. Finally I got the system working, and tested it successfully on some of my friends from the lab and other graduate students.
The first time I tried the system on a real patient, the young man who had fallen off a silo, I could not get clear enough signals for him to speak through the speech synthesizer. Either he wasn’t really awake in there, or the system just wasn’t good enough to detect what he wanted to say.
I showed my invention to Manny Donchin, the head of the department and one of the top leaders in the field of electroencephalography. He took an interest in this and another invention I’ll describe shortly, and he became my mentor and graduate advisor.
Shortly I heard of another patient through my friend and colleague Ted Bashore, then at Medical College of Pennsylvania. Twelve years previously, a young man had been injured in an automobile accident and was paralyzed from the eyeballs down. For twelve years he had been silent. He was able to communicate in a rudimentary way though eye blinks. Someone would go through the alphabet, pointing to each letter in turn, and he would blink when they pointed to the letter he desired to communicate. It was a slow and silent process.
I brought my BCI to Philadelphia to work with Ted. The young man, whom I’ll call Mike, lived at home with his mother and father, and was cared for by day nurses. We set up the equipment, computer, amplifiers, and speech synthesizer by Mike’s bed and carefully explained to him how to operate it.
By that time I had developed a headband with embedded sensors, so the process of connecting to the head was much more convenient for all concerned than what was available when I first developed the system. I placed the headband on Mike’s head.
I remember I was almost breathless with excitement when I started the system. I liked publishing in scientific journals, but this was much more important. Now I’d get a chance to make a difference in someone’s life with my invention.
It didn’t work. The signals we were receiving were indistinguishable from random noise.
At that point, I could have thrown in the towel. It was very clear that the system was not working. Moreover, no one had ever succeeded in creating a brain-computer interface, let alone one that worked in a real clinical setting with a paralyzed person. The probability of success, objectively, was near zero.
Instead of accepting defeat, I chose instead to ask myself some questions. One question that I did not ask was, “What is the probability of success?” I did ask these:
First, I reminded myself of who I am; “How would the real Larry Farwell, the one you know yourself to be, think about this? What would the real Larry Farwell do?”
“Is the brainwave phenomenon I’m measuring real and reliable?” Yes.
“Is it possible, at least theoretically, to measure this phenomenon accurately?” Yes.
“Will it make a difference in Mike’s life and his mother’s life if you succeed in doing this?” Yes.
“What would it be like, for you and Mike and his mother, to experience this actually working?”
I got a holographic sense of what it would be like for this to work, for Mike to get to say something out loud to his mother after twelve years of silence. I was inspired by that, and yet I still had no idea how to do it.
Then something occurred to me that I had not thought of before. Human eyes are electrically charged, so when you move your eyes, it sends signals across the scalp that interfere with the brainwaves my BCI was measuring. There are mathematical ways to correct for that later in data analysis, but to develop a communication system we needed clean brainwaves in real time, not sometime later. Maybe the signals from Mike’s brain were clear, but they were contaminated by electrical signals from his eyes.
I realized I could build a system that would detect the electrical signals coming from Mike’s eye movements and subtract these signals at a variable gain from the brainwave signals we were measuring. I could adjust the gain so that this additional system would exactly cancel out the interference of the eye-generated artifacts with the real brainwaves.
I phoned an electrical engineering tech in our lab, and he told me the electrical components I would need to build such a system, and how to put them together. The next morning I drove to Radio Shack, bought the necessary components, and built the system.
The next day we returned to Mike’s house, and set up the system again, along with the new component. I started the system, and felt myself breathing very quietly as the matrix flashed on the monitor in front of Mike. I could see from my computer display that the brainwaves were much clearer than before.
After a few minutes, a metallic voice emerged from the speech synthesizer, “Hello Mom, how are you?” Mike’s mother came running in from the kitchen with tears in her eyes. I ran out into the front yard, and did a flying kung fu kick. I could see in Mike’s eyes that he would have been grinning if he could.
Now there are thousands of scientists working with brain-computer interfaces around the world, many of them applying the same original algorithm I used with Mike or variations on it.
I could see that the turning point was when I ignored the odds, and envisioned the possibility. I have experienced the same phenomenon again and again in my personal and professional life.
After inventing the brain-computer interface, I thought to myself, “What more could we do with this technology?” I realized that there were other situations where it was important to know what was going on in someone’s brain, when they weren’t expressing it or when we didn’t know if they were expressing it accurately.
We could use this in criminal investigations, intelligence, and counterterrorism. When a person plans or commits a crime or a terrorist act, or even when he is trained as a terrorist or bomb maker, certain information is stored in his brain.
Immediately after the crime, a guilty suspect knows who he is and what he has done. An innocent suspect who did not participate knows nothing of the crime. I decided to develop a system that would detect this concealed information stored in the brain.
At first I had no idea how to do it, but somehow I knew it could be done. I remember a conversation in the lab, after about the hundredth failed attempt, with two of the engineers in the lab. One of them said, “Do you know what you’re doing?” Before I could answer, the other engineer, who knew me well, said, “Of course not. But that’s never stopped him before.” I realized he was right.
Once again I spent late nights in the lab with sensors on my head. Once again, after many failed attempts, the system worked. Once again I tested it on my friends and colleagues. That was the origin of Brain Fingerprinting.
As discussed above, Brain Fingerprinting detects the record of a crime or other situation under investigation stored in the brain, or the lack of that record in the brain of someone who lacks inside knowledge of the crime. The system presents words or pictures on a computer screen. Some of these contain details of the crime that are known only to the perpetrator and investigators. They are presented in a series along with other, irrelevant words or pictures.
When the perpetrator sees the crime-relevant details, he has an “Aha!” response. His brain emits a corresponding brainwave pattern, a P300-MERMER. We measure this pattern, and thus determine whether or not the incriminating information tested is stored in the suspect’s brain.
Of course, it is important to test only information that is known only to the perpetrator and investigators, not information that was available to the public through news stories or information that a particular suspect has some innocent way of knowing.
The test can only be applied in cases where such information known only to the perpetrator and investigators exists. According to FBI scientist Dr. Drew Richardson, who tested Brain Fingerprinting with me at the FBI, such information is available in about 70% – 80% of cases. By contrast, fingerprints and DNA, which are also accurate methods of connecting a perpetrator with a crime scene, are available in only about 1% of cases.
After a couple years of applying Brain Fingerprinting in the laboratory, I decided it was time to do something with it in the real world. I decided to go to Washington, DC and get a million-dollar contract with the CIA to prove the system in the field. I talked with some of my friends and colleagues about my plan. The answers I got ranged from “Are you crazy?” to “You are crazy.”
I remember one of my well-meaning friends, who knew much more about such things than I did, asking me some leading questions meant to inspire more reasonable thinking on my part. First, he pointed out that I did not have a PhD yet. I was a graduate student. I did not have my own laboratory. I did not have patents (which I did later obtain). I did not have employees or technical staff to carry out the project. I did not have my own EEG equipment. I didn’t even own a single computer.
I would be competing against some formidable people and institutions. Westinghouse had obtained a million-dollar contract, on which I was a consultant, to port my system to a more user-friendly platform. They would be competing with me for the next contract. Several other professors in major universities had also obtained CIA contracts to attempt to do what I was doing, and would be competing for the next contract as well. I would be competing with some of the top scientists in the field, major scientists in private companies and university professors with their own laboratories, equipment, and staff. Several of them had already received similar contracts with the CIA and other government agencies to pursue this kind of work.
He asked me, “In the history of the US, to your knowledge has any graduate student, without a PhD, or a lab, or employees, or equipment, or patents, with nothing but an idea, ever obtained a contract – even a $10,000 contract – with the CIA or any other US government agency, for any purpose, let alone for a new invention?” No.
“So, what are your chances of succeeding in getting a million-dollar contract from the CIA for your invention?”
“You are throwing away your scientific career. If you leave now, you will never get a PhD – especially if you have the audacity to compete with your own professor for a major contract. What you are contemplating amounts to professional suicide. You might as well start practicing now for your next job, ‘Do you want fries with that?’”
I asked myself some different questions:
“Does my Brain Fingerprinting invention work?” Yes.
“Is it truly effective and accurate?” Yes.
“What difference will it make when I prove it in the real world, in major government agencies like the FBI and the CIA?”
Here is the difference that Brain Fingerprinting makes. For as long as there has been civilization, there have been criminals and innocent suspects, and there have been attempts to determine who is which one of these.
Until now, in order to get away with any crime, or in order to continue to carry out terrorism, a criminal had to do two things. (1) He had to make sure that there was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. This could sometimes be accomplished by the hands-on perpetrators, and routinely was accomplished by criminal and terrorist masterminds. (2) He had to make sure that either he was the only one who knew he was involved in the crime, or that everyone else who knew was silenced in one way or another. They might be silent because they were co-conspirators, or because they were bribed, threatened, or killed.
On the other hand, until now, an innocent suspect who knew that he was innocent, and who had been uninvolved in the crime, often had no way of proving that he was innocent.
It is not the case that no one knew who were the perpetrators and who were innocent suspects. The perpetrators always know who they are and what they have done. The innocent suspects know who they are, and lack inside knowledge of what the perpetrators have done. Since this information is stored in their brains, however, until Brain Fingerprinting it had been inaccessible to investigation.
Now, with Brain Fingerprinting, the situation is entirely different than it ever has been. Now, when a perpetrator or planner of a crime or terrorist act knows what he has done – even if no one else knows or all who know are silent – investigators can also know. We can detect the record of the crime stored in the perpetrator’s or planner’s brain. No matter how carefully he controls the situation and the people involved, since the invention of Brain Fingerprinting no perpetrator can set it up so he can’t be detected.
Now, an innocent suspect who did not participate in the crime can say, “I didn’t do it. I wasn’t there. I don’t know the details of what happened. Give me a Brain Fingerprinting test, and I’ll prove it.”
In light of this, I asked myself some more questions:
“What will it be like when Brain Fingerprinting is established in the world? What difference will this make?”
“What will it be like for you, making such a contribution?”
I got a holographic sense of what that would be like for others – investigators, crime victims and their loved ones, potential crime victims who will be spared when the perpetrators are brought to justice, innocent suspects, and others. I got a holographic sense – in my intuition and pineal, my prefrontal cortex, my limbic system – of what that would be like for me. I was inspired by the possibility.
I did not think about the near-zero probability of success. I thought about the possibility. Anything is possible.
I went to Washington DC; got a million-dollar contract with the CIA; set up my own lab, bought the necessary equipment, and hired the necessary people; conducted research at the CIA, the FBI, and the US Navy; ran hundreds of Brain Fingerprinting tests and got the correct result in every case; returned to school for a month, completed my dissertation and my exams, and got my PhD; patented my invention; returned to Harvard as a research associate; and left to form my own company, Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc. All that grew from the one seed in my consciousness when I intuited what it would be like to make my invention a reality in the real world.
My first experience in testifying as an expert witness and applying Brain Fingerprinting as scientific evidence in court was similar.
I got a call from a friend of Terry Harrington, an inmate who had been convicted of murder and had served 23 years of a life sentence. She said that she was convinced that Harrington was innocent, and asked if I could use Brain Fingerprinting to prove it.
I had previously used Brain Fingerprinting to bring serial killer J.B. Grinder to justice. In the Grinder case, however, we had not had to go through a trial. After Brain Fingerprinting proved that he had the record of the murder of Julie Helton stored in his brain, he was faced with certain conviction and very likely a death sentence. He pled guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, and also confessed to the murders of three other young women.
In the Harrington case, however, in order to make a difference I would not only have to run a successful Brain Fingerprinting test on him, I would also have to obtain a ruling of admissibility in court for the technique and the science behind it.
I agreed to talk to Harrington. He told me he was innocent, and he would do anything to prove it.
I told Harrington that Brain Fingerprinting could help, if we could find some salient details about the crime that he had never been exposed to at the trial or in interrogations. I interviewed Harrington and numerous witnesses, examined crime-scene photos, sifted through voluminous evidence from the investigation and the trial, and visited the crime scene. (This scene obviously was not the same as at the time of the crime, but still had the same essential layout with respect to where the buildings, streets, railroad tracks, etc. were located.)
I did indeed find a number of very salient details about the crime to which Harrington had not been exposed in the trial, including where the perpetrators went to get from where the crime started to where it finished, where they went after the shooting, what they had to traverse to get to the getaway car, what was behind the victim when he was shot, etc.
Without telling Harrington what was the right answer in each of these facts, I asked him if he knew any of these things. He said he did not. I also collected extensive evidence about his alibi from alibi witnesses.
I ran the Brain Fingerprinting test on Harrington. It showed definitively, with a 99.9% statistical confidence, that the record stored in his brain did not match the crime scene, and did match his alibi.
Harrington filed a petition for post-conviction relief based on the Brain Fingerprinting evidence and other exculpatory evidence. A hearing was scheduled to present the evidence.
Harrington had already lost five trials, three at the state level including the Iowa Supreme Court, and two at the federal level. He had exhausted his appeals, and the petition for post-conviction relief was his only remaining option.
As the hearing approached, the odds for success did not look good. Not only had he lost five previous trials; this was Pottawattamie County, Iowa, a place not known for open mindedness to new ideas. I was scheduled to present a new scientific technology that had never been presented in court before. His attorneys, Mary Kennedy and Tom Frierichs, were taking the case pro bono, as I was. They were skilled and dedicated, but had limited resources.
The State of Iowa was loaded for bear. They had a substantial staff dedicated to building their case. The prosecuting attorney was intelligent, vicious, determined to win, and unencumbered by any concern for truth or justice. Scheduled to testify against me was Manny Donchin, who was my own mentor and dissertation advisor and one of the top scientists in the field.
I found myself looking at the probability of winning, and realizing it was very slim. I knew that if we lost, it would be a huge blow to the cause of Brain Fingerprinting, the cause of justice, and to me. I found myself thinking about the potential impact to my own reputation and stature as a scientist. Once again, it appeared that I was committing professional suicide.
I found myself wishing that the opposing expert witness would have car trouble on the way to the courtroom, and not show up. I began to consider not showing up myself, or cancelling the hearing on some excuse.
When I found myself entertaining those two thoughts, I was shocked. I hadn’t imagined I was capable of such small, selfish, and negative thinking. This created a MERMER moment for me. After reminding myself who I really am, I asked myself some questions:
“What would the real Larry Farwell ask himself?”
“Does Brain Fingerprinting really work? Is it truly accurate and scientific?” Yes.
“Does it provide definitive evidence of Harrington’s innocence?” Yes.
“Does Brain Fingerprinting meet the standard for legal admissibility as scientific evidence?” Yes.
“If you testify and justice prevails, what will be the outcome?”
An innocent man will be freed after 23 years of false imprisonment, and will spend the rest of his life as a free man.
“What will that be like for others – Harrington, his loved ones, and other people in the future who will benefit from the legal precedent?”
It will make a life-changing difference for at least a few people, and perhaps for many.
“What will that be like for you?”
I got an intuitive, holographic sense of what that outcome would be like for me and for others. Once again I was inspired.
I had no interest in winning by default. I wanted the opposing expert witness to show up, so when truth prevailed not only would one innocent man be freed, there also would be a strong and comprehensive record that could benefit future cases. I did not consider the probability of losing, only the possibility of winning and making a difference.
I consulted extensively with Harrington’s attorneys, Mary Kennedy and Tom Frerichs and also with my attorney, Tom Makeig. Makeig was responsible for educating me as to the necessary way to present the science so that it would be obvious to the judge that the science meets the standard for legal admissibility. Kennedy provided much of the legal research and preparation. Frerichs successfully argued the case in court.
I took another step as well. I tracked down Kevin Hughes, the only alleged witness to the crime, whose testimony had been a major strength in the case against Harrington. In the trial he had sworn that Harrington committed the murder, and he had been an accomplice. He had stuck to that story for 23 years.
When I confronted Hughes with the Brain Fingerprinting test results exonerating Harrington, at first he stuck to his story. Again and again he recounted the story he had told at trial. I kept telling him that Harrington’s brain said something different.
Finally he recanted. He admitted that neither he nor Harrington had anything to do with the crime. He was 17 years old at the time of the crime. Like Harrington, he was Black, and this was Pottawattamie County, Iowa. He was in jail awaiting trial on five lesser crimes involving auto theft, crimes he had in fact committed. He told me that the investigators had told him that if he didn’t implicate someone else, they would send him to prison for life for murder.
So he had made an accusation. When the investigators went to investigate the individual he had accused, they found he had been in jail at the time of the crime. They came back to Hughes, and told him that accusation was wrong, and they needed a better one. Hughes then implicated Harrington, who was a friend of his. Hughes told me that the investigators then told him all about the crime, took him to the crime scene, and coached him so that his testimony at trial would match the known evidence.
I immediately drove Hughes to the office of a court reporter and obtained all of those statements on video and under oath. This became a part of the record in the Harrington case.
I went to the hearing. It was brutal, as expected. The prosecuting attorney and the opposing witness performed quite effectively. Being cross examined by the prosecuting attorney was not fun.
I got a chance, however, to explain the truth and the scientific proof of that truth, and the attorneys on my side did a spectacular job.
When all was said and done, the judge had no choice but to rule in favor of admitting Brain Fingerprinting as scientific evidence. The science met the Daubert standard: It had been tested and proven; it had been peer reviewed and published; it had a known and low rate of error; and it was well accepted in the scientific community.
In a separate hearing, Hughes’s recantation was also admitted as evidence.
The judge stopped short of granting Harrington a new trial, however, on the grounds that the Brain Fingerprinting evidence, though scientifically sound and legally admissible, would not likely have changed the outcome of the original trial had it been available then. His ruling on Hughes’s recantation was the same.
Harrington appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted him a new trial, based on a constitutional rights violation in the initial trial. The Supreme Court left in place the law of the case, including the admissibility of Brain Fingerprinting as scientific evidence. In light of the Brain Fingerprinting results, the recantation of the key witness, and the other new evidence exonerating Harrington, the state elected not to try him again.
Harrington is now a free man. He went on to sue the city, the county, and in effect the state for framing him. The case was appealed up to the level of the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but before it was heard, the county settled out of court and paid $12 million to Harrington and a co-defendant who was also falsely convicted.
An innocent man is free, and a new scientific technology has been added to the arsenal of the criminal justice system. This is an invention that I hope and believe will free many other innocents as well as bring criminals and terrorists to justice in the coming years.
My role in all of that grew from the seed in consciousness that originated in the moment of truth I had when considering the possibilities.
You, my friend, have no doubt had similar experiences in your own life, times when you had an inner vision of something improbable or impossible, went ahead despite the odds, and saw your vision manifest for the benefit of yourself and others. You can look forward to having that experience repeatedly in the future.
In this chapter we will look at this phenomenon in some more detail, and see how this kind of experience in life can be inspired, nourished, and brought to fruition.
Conscious Manifestation and the Conscious Unified Field
In my view, the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm is the scientific paradigm that most closely matches all of the scientific data and human experience that we have accumulated to date. It recognizes that anything is possible. Human beings can command Nature through consciousness alone. Any conceivable event has a non-zero probability of manifesting. As human beings we have the power to function from the level of the Conscious Unified Field to manifest that possibility, even when the probability is low.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved this in the laboratory, showing that consciousness can command quantum particle/wave phenomena to a highly statistically significant degree, down to the elementary particle level and the microsecond level.
The degree to which our awareness is in tune with the Conscious Unified Field determines the degree to which we can manifest. If we desire an apple, we can manifest this on different levels depending on our level of consciousness. On the most superficial and mechanical level, we can go to work, make some money, drive to the store, hand the money to the cashier, and we have an apple in our hand. With a higher level of consciousness, we may have the thought, “I’d really like an apple,” and just then Nature organizes it so we walk under an apple tree or an apple truck drives by, and an apple falls into our hands.
With a very high level of consciousness, we may have the thought, “I’d like an apple,” and an apple manifests in our hands. The quantum-mechanical probability of such an event is low, so manifesting it takes a correspondingly high level of consciousness. Miracles are simply improbable events, commanded by a very high level of consciousness.
If the essential Nature of every human being is unbounded consciousness, the Conscious Unified Field, which creates and commands all of creation, then why doesn’t everyone always have everything they desire?
The degree to which Conscious Manifestation takes place depends on several factors. First and foremost, Conscious Manifestation depends on consciousness. The most important determining factor in the success of Conscious Manifestation is an individual’s level of consciousness.
Throughout history there have been highly evolved individuals who have been able to produce miracles, or, in the terms of quantum physics, to consciously choose highly improbable outcomes from among the infinite possibilities present at any one time and place in the Conscious Unified Field. When an individual’s awareness is expanded to encompass the full Nature of the Self, when an individual’s awareness is fully established in the Conscious Unified Field, then every impulse in one’s consciousness, every desire and intention, has the support of the infinite power of unbounded intelligence, and comes to fruition instantly.
When your awareness encompasses the entire ocean, then any impulse in your consciousness creates a corresponding wave in the ocean. More precisely, any impulse in your consciousness is a wave in the ocean. When your awareness is fully established in the Conscious Unified Field, then any impulse in your consciousness creates a corresponding particle/wave phenomenon arising in the Conscious Unified Field. There is no separation between desire, intention, and outcome.
Since the essential Nature of life is consciousness, all of us have some level of attunement with the Conscious Unified Field. We are all to some degree in tune with our own essential Nature as infinite beings. The degree to which we are fully conscious is the degree to which Conscious Manifestation can take place.
Conscious Manifestation, Transmutation, and SuperPosition
Transmutation, SuperPosition, and Conscious Manifestation are experiences. Like all experiences, they take place in the field of your consciousness.
Transmutation is the experience that opens your awareness to the state of SuperPosition. SuperPosition is the experience of your power to create Conscious Manifestation. SuperPosition arises spontaneously and effortlessly from the experience of Transmutation. Conscious Manifestation arises spontaneously and effortlessly from the experience of SuperPosition.
How to Raise Your Level of Consciousness
The fundamental task of the nervous system is to reflect consciousness. Anything we do to improve the functioning of the nervous system will develop consciousness. Anything we do to harm the functioning of the nervous system will interfere with the development of consciousness.
There are numerous things you can do to raise your level of consciousness. Anything that positively influences the functioning of your nervous system serves to raise consciousness. This includes eating a healthy diet; regular exercise, particularly exercise that develops not only strength and endurance but also mind-body coordination, balance, and integration; sufficient sleep and rest; avoiding toxic chemicals, emotions, situations, and people; and in general living a healthy lifestyle.
The purpose of practices such as hatha yoga and tai chi is to refine the nervous system as well as the body, and thus to develop consciousness.
Recent research has shown definitively that play improves the functioning of the nervous system. Play consists of engaging in fun, enjoyable, challenging, entertaining activities – having fun for its own sake, when nothing important depends on the outcome. This allows the nervous system to grow and develop, without the stress of a possible failure that is always present in more serious circumstances.
Some methods of meditation also develop consciousness. Different types of meditation have different kinds of benefits. There are three basic types of meditation: focused attention, open monitoring, and automatic self-transcending. Each of these three types of meditation involves different characteristic mental activity, and consequently results in different characteristic brainwave patterns that have been measured in the laboratory.
Numerous techniques of these three kinds have been studied in scientific laboratories. The three different sets of physiological responses, three different brainwave patterns, and three different sets of benefits of practice have been comprehensively measured and documented in the scientific literature.
Focused attention techniques involve voluntary control of attention and cognitive processes. They include loving-kindness-compassion meditation and some forms of Qigong, Zen, and Buddhist meditation. Open monitoring techniques involve dispassionate, non-evaluative awareness of ongoing experience. These include Vipassana meditation, mindfulness meditation, some types of Zen meditation (Zazen), Sahaja Yoga, and some types of Qigong. Automatic self-transcending techniques involve automatic transcending of the procedures of the meditation practice. They include Transcendental Meditation; also, in one study an individual with 45 years of practice of Qigong reportedly attained the same experiential and physiological state and corresponding brainwave patterns.
The three different types of meditation techniques not only produce three different physiological states and characteristic brainwave patterns. They also have substantially different benefits in life. Focused attention and open monitoring techniques help to train you to use your mind, intellect, and emotions in better ways. They provide methods of applying the level of consciousness that you have.
Automatic self-transcending techniques such as Transcendental Meditation directly develop higher states of consciousness. Such techniques effortlessly and spontaneously open your awareness to the inner field of pure consciousness, the Conscious Unified Field.
Scientific research has shown that these techniques also produce unique physiological changes, fundamentally different from those of usual daily life or other types of meditation. As your mind spontaneously settles to a state of silence, your body gains a deep state of rest, deeper than sleep. Deep-rooted stresses in the nervous system are dissolved by this deep rest, resulting in overall improved functioning of the nervous system.
I first learned the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM) when I was a student at Harvard, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came there to give a lecture on the technique. I spent several years with Maharishi. He personally trained me as a TM teacher, and I have taught several hundred people the technique. I have seen in my own experience, and the experience of every one of the people I have taught, that Transcendental Meditation does raise one’s level of consciousness and has many other scientifically documented benefits as well.
That said, the development of higher states of consciousness is beyond the scope of this book – or any book. The experience of higher states of consciousness is something that must be taught and learned through direct experience, not read in a book.
How to Develop Skill in Conscious Manifestation
Conscious Manifestation is an effective way to create the life you truly desire, to create a life that resonates with your inner love, your highest aspirations, your most precious desires, a life that is thrilling on every level.
Conscious Manifestation is not, however, a concrete technique that can be specified in steps and followed like a cookbook. If it were, we would all have manifested everything we desire long ago. I’m not going to offer a cookbook solution, because that is not the level on which Conscious Manifestation takes place. Conscious Manifestation is a way of spontaneously living life. Numerous facets of life, vibrating in harmony, make up this phenomenon.
Regular experience of Transmutation and SuperPosition naturally generates the growth of your skill in Conscious Manifestation.
Anything you do to raise your level of consciousness enhances your skill in Conscious Manifestation. In addition to one’s level of consciousness, several other factors have a major influence on the success of Conscious Manifestation: inner resonance and integration, clarity of vision, depth of experience, effortlessness, and support of Nature.
All of these factors are enhanced by your regular experience of Transmutation and SuperPosition.
Developing an awareness of what these factors are and the role they play in your experience of life serves to enliven these factors and thus to enhance your ability for Conscious Manifestation.
Inner Resonance and Integration
Many people are aware of the mechanics of how we create our lives. First, we have an inner vision, then it is manifested both through actions we take on the level of overt speech and behavior, and through resonance. We spontaneously attract in our environment that which resonates with what we create within. This understanding has led to many practices involving positive thinking, affirmations, focusing on inner desires and intentions and/or outwardly stated desires and intentions, and the like. Obviously, thinking and saying positive things has some benefit for life. Such an approach also has some inevitable shortcomings, however.
Such activity takes place on the level of the mind and the intellect. Attempting to manifest through use of the mind and the intellect is like trying to program a computer with a sledgehammer. It may have the desired effect, or little effect, or in some cases the opposite of the desired effect.
The advantage of using the intellect is that it can be controlled. Through effort and focus, one can hold the intellect to a particular assigned task with brute force of will. There are several difficulties with such an approach. One difficulty with focusing on affirmations, stated intentions, etc. is that we attract what we resonate with on all levels – including emotions and intuition – not just the intellect. In an effort to attract wealth, one may intentionally think “I am wealthy,” while experiencing the emotion of the pain of lack of wealth.
Engaging in such an affirmation may actually bring one’s attention to how one feels about it right now, and the actual emotional feeling may be one of lack, the opposite of what is desired. We attract what we resonate with, so the external situation attracted by such a phenomenon will be the want of wealth and the experience of its lack. The same can be true for love, connection, and relationship. If the intellect states a desire or intention, and the emotions are not fully resonating with it, what is attracted will be a mixed result at best.
Similarly, you may have been told all your life that you will be most valuable if you pursue a business career, and you may have internalized this on the level of the intellect, but what really makes your heart sing is dancing. Or maybe you’ve been pressured to be a famous dancer, and you’d really prefer to do bookkeeping or beekeeping or gardening or stock trading.
No amount of focusing on what your intellect defines as success will create that in your life, because you as a whole aren’t resonating with that. The emotions are a deeper level of life than the intellect, and you are more likely to attract what you emotionally feel than what the intellect is trying to command – whether that feeling is of the presence of something desirable, the lack of something desirable, or the presence of something undesirable.
In neurophysiological terms, the prefrontal cortex can’t do it alone. If the limbic system is feeling something different or even opposite from what the prefrontal cortex is trying to command, the result will be less than successful.
This is why integration and inner resonance are a prerequisite for using the principle of resonance to attract what we desire. As you practice Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation, you will become increasingly aware of the workings of the intellect and the emotions and what these different aspects of yourself are enlivening. With this increased awareness spontaneously comes increased synchronicity between these levels of yourself, and increased ability to consciously choose and create your inner state. As your intellect and your emotions come more into mutual resonance, you will spontaneously attract experiences, events, and people that resonate with this.
Inner resonance with the intuition is even more vital than inner resonance between the intellect and the emotions. Your intuition is a finer, subtler, and more powerful level of life than the intellect and the emotions.
Finer levels of creation are more powerful. You can take a piece of wood at the superficial physical level, and apply it as a working tool. Going to the chemical level, you can burn it, and release much more energy. If you go to the subatomic level and create a nuclear reaction, this same amount of matter will release many times more energy.
So it is with the levels of human consciousness. The closer to the Conscious Unified Field, the more powerful. Your intuition is closer to the field of pure consciousness than the intellect and the emotions, and thus creates a much more powerful influence in Nature.
Resonance with the intuition brings an extremely powerful level of life to your experience of Conscious Manifestation. As you practice Transmutation Trigger and particularly Energized Transmutation, your awareness will become more and more expanded and refined, more connected with the all-knowingness of the Conscious Unified Field. You will become more and more conscious of your intuition and the knowledge and insight it brings to light. Spontaneously your intellect and your emotions will begin to resonate more and more with your intuition.
Your intuition reveals to you, on a quiet yet powerful level, what truly, deeply inspires you in life, what resonates with the deeper, more precious levels of you. When your life is out of sync with your subtle intuitive sense of what really resonates with the true you, then anything you attempt to do or accomplish will lack this most important vital force.
Resonating with your intuition is very close to resonating with the infinite power of the Conscious Unified Field. Your intuition puts you in touch with the finest level of creation that your awareness can fathom. It gives you the guidance that is most in tune with Nature, your own Nature and the Nature of the universe.
What does your intuition feel like? That can’t really be put into words. You’ll know it when you experience it. Some situations, people, events, and places resonate with you on a deep, quiet level. You have a sense of knowing that this is right, inspiring, comfortable, fulfilling, quietly thrilling. You feel enlivened and delighted. You feel increasing clarity.
Other situations, people, events, and places do not resonate with your intuition. In their presence you feel a sense of discomfort, caution, confusion, fear, or dread. You have probably learned to trust these quiet feelings, even when there is no concrete reason for them that you can identify with the intellect.
When you have a desire that spontaneously resonates at the deep intuitive level, that deeply inspires and thrills you, and your intellect and emotions are also resonating in the same vibration, then this creates the maximum resonance with Nature to attract what you desire. The more inner resonance you have, the more integration between your cerebral cortex, your limbic system, and your pineal and associated systems, the more powerfully you radiate a vibratory influence that resonates with and attracts what you desire. Often it will show up in a way that you could not possibly have foreseen with the intellect, and to a degree that you did not anticipate or even know to hope for.
Nature can be effortlessly inspired to create anything you desire with your whole being, but it cannot be commanded by any amount of coercion from the intellect alone.
When you are receiving guidance from someone else, do you like to be told what to think and do, or do you prefer to be asked questions and come to the realizations and insights yourself? When you are offering guidance to yourself, would you like to treat yourself in the same way? Does it make sense to you that being gentle and loving toward yourself may be the most effective way to inspire resonance between all the different aspects and levels of you?
In my view this is a key to developing resonance between your intuition, intellect, and emotions. When you get something on the level of your intuition, but you aren’t there yet on the level of intellect or emotions, gentle guidance through leading questions may be the best way to lead yourself there.
When I’m in a state of internal conflict or indecision, or I’m bogged down in negative thinking or emotions, or I don’t appear to be getting what I want, I sometimes ask myself, “How would the real Larry Farwell be inspired to approach this situation? What would the being I truly am – the unbounded, cosmic being –– think, feel, intuitively know, and do?” This helps to put me in touch with my own intuition, with my higher Self, and with Nature. Following this, often a more enlightening and productive series of questions arises spontaneously, as I described in several instances in the previous chapter.
Clarity of Vision
When we are asking Nature to resonate with something and manifest it in our lives, it helps to be clear about what we are envisioning. A vague sense of it is less useful. Clarity is most important on the intuitive level. It is vital to have a clear intuitive sense of what experience in life you are desiring.
Clarity on the intuitive level is not the same thing as specificity on the material level or the level of the intellect. People sometimes express their desires in a form of something like “I want a million dollars.” That may seem clear and specific, but what experience is really desired? Is it living in a beautiful house? Is it freedom to spend your time creating something inspiring? Is it taking care of loved ones? Is it being in a position to use your talents to create a better world? Is it driving fast cars and showing off fancy clothes? Is it impressing other people? Would getting a million-dollar bribe for doing something dishonest fit the bill? What if you had only $100,000 now, plus a situation where you could depend on having that every year, in exchange for doing something really inspiring to earn it?
It’s not just about the desired thing, or event, or situation. What is the desired experience?
With respect to clarity of vision, the important thing is to be clear on is what kind of experience of life you envision, what experience in living resonates with you deeply on every level, what truly inspires you. The concrete, material phenomena that Nature provides to embody that experience may be different from what you initially think.
Internal resonance, and resonance with Nature, depends on being clear what life experience you desire, not just what superficial attributes you think might contribute to that experience. Such clarity is an important factor in creating a resonance within yourself that will attract what is truly fulfilling for you.
Depth of Experience
Conscious Manifestation takes place spontaneously to the degree that your awareness is in tune with the Conscious Unified Field, how close you are to the state of SuperPosition. This depends on your overall level of consciousness, as discussed above. I am sure you have experienced, however, that your degree of attunement with your own higher Self, with Nature, with the Conscious Unified Field, and with your own intuition vary from time to time.
You can take advantage of this phenomenon. First of all, you can notice the events, people, circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, places, environments that inspire you to be more in tune with your Self, and what has the opposite effect. Transmutation Trigger and Energized Transmutation spontaneously put you more in touch with your true Nature and with Nature’s true nature. So do many other experiences.
Some other experiences take you in the opposite direction. One important way to inspire Conscious Manifestation is to choose more and more to engage in the experiences that you have found bring about a higher level of attunement with your own Nature and your own consciousness.
Conscious Manifestation is a way of living, not a cookbook formula or step-by-step method. In the Materialist Paradigm, the whole universe was mistakenly thought to be like a mechanical, clockwork system where everything proceeded linearly from cause to effect like a series of dominoes.
If that were the real universe, you could set up a step-by-step process and reliably get anything you wanted without experiencing the depths of your own soul. (1) make a list of what you want; (2) write it down; (3) put it by your mirror; (4) say it every morning ten times; (5) if it doesn’t work at first, try harder, concentrate harder on it; (6) Voila! You’re a billionaire with a perfect relationship.
The universe of the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm – which is the real universe – does not operate like that. The universe of the Conscious Unified Field paradigm responds spontaneously to resonances. The deeper the resonance in you, the closer to the Conscious Unified Field within you, the closer you are to the experience of SuperPosition, the more powerfully this inner resonance enlivens Nature to create a like vibration in your environment.
There isn’t a cookbook technique for this. Nevertheless, you can consciously choose to enliven a vibration in harmony with something you desire, particularly when you are in a state of being highly in tune with your own consciousness, your inner being, your own personal contact with the Conscious Unified Field – that is, when you are in or close to the experience of SuperPosition.
Consciously choosing a holographic inner vision of a desired experience in life, at a moment when you are highly attuned with your intuition, your higher Self, and your full Nature – when all levels of your life are spontaneously vibrating in internal resonance – creates a powerful resonance with Nature that sets in motion powerful Laws of Nature to spontaneously manifest the fulfillment of that desire.
When this takes place at a subtle, quiet level of inner experience, the effect is most powerful. This is not something you can manipulate, but it certainly is something you can take advantage of by keeping awake to such experiences and choosing wisely what to enliven in your awareness at the time.
The mechanics of Conscious Manifestation are this: You experience a holographic vision, a faint impulse of desire, at the quietest level of the mind, closest to the field of pure consciousness. This is the state of SuperPosition. You let go of even that faint impulse, and it merges into the Conscious Unified Field. It enlivens the infinite power of Nature inherent in the Conscious Unified Field in that vibration. The Conscious Unified Field vibrates in resonance with your vision and desire. From that enlivening of the Conscious Unified Field springs a like resonance in your environment. This resonates with and mutually enlivens the vibration in you. The Laws of Nature are set in motion within you and in your environment to create what you have envisioned. Spontaneously the envisioned reality manifests, simultaneously in you and in your environment. The whole process is effortless and spontaneous.
From the subtlest level of your awareness, with all aspects of you in tune – in the experience of SuperPosition – desire and let go. Nature takes care of the rest.
Much later I realized that this is the phenomenon that I got a taste of that day underwater that began my journey as a seeker.
Effortlessness
Conscious Manifestation is effortless. This is different from many other things we do. When you are doing pushups, more effort produces more pushups, which in turn produces more muscle growth. In many realms of life, trying harder produces more results. If you’re not getting the result you want, try harder. Do more pushups. The same applies to many kinds of mental tasks.
Conscious Manifestation is different – fundamentally different. Conscious Manifestation depends on the level of your consciousness, the level of your awareness. It depends on spontaneously accessing the quietest level of your awareness, close to the silent level of pure consciousness that is your essential Nature. Trying harder, focusing with the intellect or trying to manipulate the emotions, keeps your mind on an active, surface level. The harder you try, the further you are from the subtle, quiet level wherein lies the greatest power of your consciousness.
This is why Conscious Manifestation is not a technique you can do, or even a technique you can think. The more you do, the harder you think, the harder you try, the further you are from the state of inner silence, the Conscious Unified Field wherein lies the infinite power of Nature, the experience of SuperPosition.
Any effort or strain or trying interferes with the spontaneous phenomenon that is the essence of Conscious Manifestation: desire and let go.
Support of Nature
Nature supports desires and actions that are in accord with the Laws of Nature, in harmony with Nature, in tune with the Conscious Unified Field. When your awareness is close to your own inner experience of pure consciousness – your own essential Nature and the Nature of the Conscious Unified Field – then your desires and intentions that arise at that level are spontaneously in tune with Nature.
Such desires and intentions spontaneously gain the support of Nature. Desires and intentions that are fully in tune with you – the real you, the full you, your higher Self – are also spontaneously in tune with Nature. Their fulfillment will spontaneously be supported by Nature. Conscious Manifestation is the process of spontaneous fulfillment of such desires.
Conscious Manifestation is not a formula for using thoughts to create outcomes. It is not the case that if you just think hard enough about something, you make it happen. If you have tried it, as I have, you know this from experience.
Conscious Manifestation is a process of resonating with an experience that also resonates with the Conscious Unified Field and thus with all of Nature, enlivening the resonance with the Conscious Unified Field, and thereby creating the manifestation of both the inner aspects of the experience in you and the concrete, external aspects of the experience in your environment.
In short, desires and intentions are only manifested by Nature to the degree that they are in tune with Nature. If your desires and intentions support Nature, then Nature supports your desires and intentions.
As your own internal resonance increases, as you become more in tune with your intellect, emotions, intuition, and higher Self, spontaneously your desires and intentions will become more and more in tune with your own Nature. At the most fundamental level, your own Nature is in essence the Nature of the Conscious Unified Field that underlies, supports, and creates all of life and all of the universe. As your life and your awareness become more in tune with the Conscious Unified Field, your desires and intentions will have an increasingly powerful effect. Your experience of Conscious Manifestation will become simultaneously more effortless and more powerful and effective as you gain more and more support of Nature.
18. Using Your Brain to Explore New Horizons in the Universe
Your Brain and Other Instruments for Exploring the Universe
Primary/Natural and Secondary/Artificial Instruments
For millions of years, we human beings have used our nervous systems, including both the brain and the sensory and motor systems, to explore and make sense of the universe we live in.
In recent times, we have developed instruments to aid in this exploration. Instruments serve several functions: to replicate our experience of Nature, to objectify and quantify our experience of Nature, and to refine or extend our ability to experience less obvious forms and phenomena in the universe.
Human beings have been experiencing the pull of gravity for millions of years, as long as there have been humans on earth. Long ago we developed sufficient understanding of the Laws of Nature governing gravity to work with gravity in our lives. Very early we learned to use heavy stones, held down by gravity, to build things that would not blow away in the wind. Long before we learned to measure 100 feet or measure our weight, we learned not to jump off a 100-foot cliff.
It has only been in the last few thousand years that we have developed secondary means of investigating gravity. We developed scales to duplicate our experience of gravity, and to quantify the phenomenon of gravity. We are still attempting to further our secondary understanding of gravity. We have not yet been able to extend our means of perception to the point where we can perceive or measure gravitons, the hypothetical fundamental particle/wave phenomena that manifest gravity from the Conscious Unified Field. We are now approaching such measurement, however. In conjunction with his theory of general relativity, Einstein hypothesized the existence of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time that he predicted would be brought about by relative motions and interactions of massive objects. Scientists have recently measured gravitational waves generated by spiraling motions, collisions, and mergers of black holes, the most massive objects in the universe.
For millions of years, human beings have perceived electromagnetic radiation within a particular spectrum that we see as light. We can see visible light through our sense of sight. We can also perceive infrared radiation such as the warmth of the Sun or heat from a radiant heater through our sense of touch.
It has only been in recent centuries that we have developed secondary means of investigating light and other electromagnetic radiation. We now have instruments that not only duplicate our perception of light and heat, but also can measure and quantify electromagnetic radiation quite precisely.
We also have instruments to extend or refine the reach of our senses. Microscopes and telescopes have extended and refined our senses and thus allowed us to see things that previously were not visible. A host of other instruments have allowed us to perceive and deal with electromagnetic radiation in the range of radio waves, x-rays, etc., that previously were beyond our ability to experience.
Throughout history, human beings have longed to explore the unknown. We all have the ability to explore the universe through our senses. The basic ability of human beings to investigate reality can be enhanced in three fundamental ways: (1) We can refine and enhance the functioning of the nervous system through natural means, so that we become able to perceive or cognize realities that are not readily accessible to individuals with a less developed nervous system; (2) We can extend and enhance the ability of the senses through secondary, artificial means, such as microscopes and telescopes, allowing us to perceive what was previously imperceptible; (3) We can extend the reach of our senses by developing secondary measuring devices that measure parameters that are not directly perceptible by the human senses, such as the chemical composition of various substances.
Long before we had secondary instruments, some human beings explored the realities in the universe through refinement of the human nervous system. Records of such exploration abound in every tradition.
As described in the Republic and specifically in the allegory of the cave, Plato knew and practiced such experiential, empirical techniques. Through refinement of the nervous system and consequent increased ability to perceive reality, one could progress from a lower to a higher state of consciousness. To Plato, the beginning, commonly experienced state of consciousness was like being bound in a cave with a fire at one’s back, only able to see shadows of things and people.
One could develop to the point of seeing the actual things and people that cast the shadows, progress to the world outside with all its rich scenery, and ultimately even directly experience the Sun, that which lights up all of creation and makes it possible for us to experience it. The Sun in the allegory, and the experience of Plato’s that was often translated into English as the Good, was recognized as the cause of knowledge and truth, and yet higher than knowledge and truth. This same experiential reality has been named differently in different times and places. Today we refer to it as the field of pure consciousness, the Conscious Unified Field.
In the Vedic tradition, Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras reported extensively on the methodology for developing higher states of consciousness. He described the experience of a host of specific empirical techniques for applying consciousness for both investigating Nature and gaining command of various specific Laws of Nature on the subtle levels of creation. After being lost for many centuries, some of these same techniques have recently been revived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in conjunction with Transcendental Meditation. They are currently referred to as TM-sidhi techniques.
Lost in Translation
One word of caution is necessary when dealing with translations of ancient records of experience. Something always gets lost in translation. With translations of works on experience such as those of higher consciousness that are very rare in the present day, often virtually everything gets lost in translation.
Originally, in the early days of a spiritual tradition, an individual is having a particular experience and is teaching others to have that experience. He or she speaks or writes a detailed account of the experience in a language that contains specific technical terms to specify the experience and its features. Sometimes these descriptions of experience are spoken by the original spiritual leader, and not written down until sometime later.
Centuries later, someone who has never had the experience embodied in the original description translates these words into a language that lacks specific terms for such an experience, using the best words he can find in that language. Then someone else who has not had the experience reads the words, and attempts to have the experience (or to understand it) without the instruction and guidance of someone who has knowledge and experience of the phenomenon. Such a situation will not result in the aspirant either understanding or experiencing the phenomenon in question.
We all run across this phenomenon in various fields of life with which we are familiar. For example, as a black belt and instructor (“Shifan” or “Young Master”) in kung fu, I have learned the specific names for hundreds of stances, kicks, strikes, throws, and holds, and various advanced techniques combining these. The particular terms specifying these are not self-explanatory to someone lacking the experience. Forms have names like “white monkey comes out of cave” and “plum blossom.” A kung fu master can say a few words to an experienced kung fu student, and the student can carry out a complex sequence of moves directly corresponding to those words. If someone lacking such experience attempts to read the same words and act like a plum blossom or a white monkey coming out of a cave, however, it is unlikely that he will recreate the genuine experience originally described.
The same is true in many other fields such as ballet and other forms of dance, music, sports, etc. It is also true in the various scientific disciplines. Imagine a future civilization (or post-apocalyptic non-civilization) where current physics, biology, and engineering are entirely unknown, and the language does not have words for atoms, molecules, quarks, nuclear reactions, or airplanes.
One might think that if you really understood (or really believed in) the philosophy of nuclear fission, you could become very powerful in life, but one would have no understanding of the necessary mechanics to produce that phenomenon. Some people in such a society would probably believe the idea that if you really understood the philosophy of airplanes you could fly through the sky; others would dismiss this. Some might think that if you just believed in the creed of airplanes you could fly through the sky. None of these people would have any genuine understanding of the phenomenon, and none would actually fly. In any case, the words without the experience would have little value, particularly when translated into a language structured by people who had never experienced the phenomena described.
The word that Plato used to describe the direct experience of the Conscious Unified Field is sometimes translated as “the Good.” The word that Patanjali used to describe the same experience is sometimes translated as “concentration” or “isolation.” None of these words have anything to do with the actual experience originally specified by people who were having the experience.
The English language was developed by people who were not having this experience, so different translators who have never had the experience, and have no idea what it is, will translate the terms that specify it differently. Lacking the experience, many later translators and commentators have mistakenly assumed that what Plato and Patanjali – and the founders of all the great spiritual traditions – were describing was not a direct experience, but rather a philosophy or a belief system.
Primary and Secondary Means of Investigating the Universe
Later in this chapter we will discuss some of the experiences of reality that any human being can explore and empirically investigate. This will include some systematic, empirical investigations that can be and have been undertaken through natural refinement of the human nervous system. We have not yet developed artificial enhancements to perception or secondary instruments to duplicate and quantify some of the phenomena that have been empirically explored through this methodology.
Secondary instruments to duplicate and quantify our experiences of the universe, and artificial methods to extend the range and sensitivity of our senses, have contributed substantially to our ability to experience and understand the universe. Man-made instruments such as microscopes, telescopes, spectrometers, and particle accelerators have now been able to objectively duplicate our experience in a wide range of phenomena in the universe, and to make available to observation many of the forms and phenomena of the universe that previously remained imperceptible to us.
Some phenomena can be experienced and empirically investigated only through the human nervous system, as we do not yet have secondary instruments capable of detecting and measuring them. Some phenomena are investigated through secondary measuring instruments, as they are inaccessible to the human senses. Some phenomena are open to empirical investigation both through direct experience through the human nervous system and through secondary measuring instruments.
Even after considerable development of secondary means of investigating the universe, we human beings still have the most sophisticated instrument for experiencing and making sense of the universe inside our own skulls. The brain and the nervous system can still experience many things that have not yet been duplicated by secondary instruments. The brain is still the primary instrument for empirical investigation of the universe.
Unique Ability of the Human Brain to Reflect Consciousness
The most fundamental experience that the brain is capable of providing, the experience that makes us fundamentally different from a rock or a robot, is the experience of consciousness. Consciousness is the essential constituent of human life, and the prerequisite and basis for all other experiences. Every human being experiences consciousness to one degree or another. We have not yet developed machines or instruments to provide a secondary means to duplicate or measure the experience of consciousness.
The brain not only has the ability to experience various levels of consciousness, it also has the ability to experience pure consciousness, the unbounded consciousness of the Conscious Unified Field. Throughout history, the founders of all of the great spiritual traditions, and many others, have reported this preeminent experience in human life. Different highly evolved beings have described it differently, in different language, metaphors, and contexts, at different times and places throughout history. Many have come to this experience spontaneously.
The experience of pure consciousness is also available through systematically refining our machinery of experience, the brain and nervous system. This is somewhat analogous to refining and extending the reach of the senses through microscopes and telescopes. This refinement of the nervous system can be accomplished through a number of means, most directly through the practice of automatic self-transcending meditation techniques. Such techniques open the awareness directly, quickly, effortlessly, and spontaneously to the inner field of pure consciousness that is the Nature of the Self. Regular experience of this field raises one’s overall level of consciousness, not only during meditation, but in all of life.
This is one instance where the capacity of the human brain for experience of reality far exceeds that of any secondary machines or instruments we have yet developed. The human brain is capable of fathoming and directly experiencing pure consciousness because the human brain can entertain a non-spatio-temporal mode of experience, beyond space and time. All secondary instruments we have developed to date can only function within very limited constraints in space and time.
The existence and nature of single cells and distant galaxies is a matter of direct experience for those who have extended their machinery of experience through the use of microscopes and telescopes. For others, single cells and distant galaxies are not phenomena of direct experience. They can only be the objects of conjecture, belief, or non-belief.
In this same way, the existence and nature of pure, unbounded, infinite consciousness is known only to those who have refined their nervous systems to the point that this experience is spontaneously available. For such individuals, the Conscious Unified Field is not a matter of conjecture or belief. It is a matter of direct, empirical experience. Those who have had intuitive experiences that come about through a close level of contact with the Conscious Unified Field also have considerable empirical evidence of its existence and nature, and of their own essential Nature as unbounded consciousness.
Scientific vs. Dogmatic Approaches
Different people have different approaches to phenomena in the universe that they have not yet personally experienced and that instruments have not yet developed to the point of being able to duplicate and measure. Some take the empirical, scientific approach. If I have not yet seen something, and others report having seen it, I’ll remain open minded, and either conduct the empirical investigation myself, or at least listen to those who have conducted an empirical investigation of the phenomenon.
Others take a dogmatic approach, in which the nature of reality is determined by a priori beliefs rather than by empirical evidence. In the current day, there are two major camps ruled by dogma. One is religious dogmatism. Religious dogmatists believe that all of reality was completely and accurately described in the scriptures that they believe in, as translated into their language and as interpreted by them. Any experience or phenomenon that contradicts their interpretation of these scriptures must be false. Those that have a very literal interpretation of their chosen scriptures rule out the possibility that the enlightened beings who founded their religion may have been speaking the truth in a metaphorical or allegorical manner. Others take a more open-minded view.
The second major dogma-based belief system is what the great physicist Werner Heisenberg called “dogmatic realism.” Dogmatic realism, or dogmatic materialism, is the fundamental tenet of the now-defunct Materialist Paradigm: The universe consists of objects and forces that interact mechanically, and our consciousness plays no role in this mechanistic universe. The fundamental dogma of Dogmatic Materialism is that the material world is all that exists. We can observe the forms and phenomena of the material world and know what is really there, independent of the observer and the process of observation.
By now you are undoubtedly aware of the fact that the fundamental tenets of the Materialist Paradigm have been amply disproven by modern physics, particularly relativity and quantum mechanics, and by modern neuroscience. Just as many held onto the theory that the earth was the center of the universe long after it had been disproven by Galileo and others, there are still those who believe in the Materialist Paradigm long after it has been disproven. Some of them believe with a fervor as great as the fervor of the most intense religious fundamentalists, and attack non-believers in their paradigm with a viciousness not often seen outside of religious disputes.
Fundamental to dogmatic materialism is the a priori tenet of faith that the only things that exist are phenomena that have been duplicated by mechanistic instruments. Any human experience that has not been so duplicated is non-existent or illusory. The dogma of dogmatic materialism holds that consciousness either does not exist at all, or is an epiphenomenon of matter. Dogmatic materialists use their conscious intellect to deny the existence of the very consciousness that makes that conscious denial possible to experience.
The logic of dogmatic materialism today is essentially the same as the logic of the Geocentric Paradigm 400 years ago. Then it was, “I see the Sun rise. It is obvious that it rises. In order to rise, it must go around the Earth. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t see it rising. It’s obvious that the Earth is the center of the universe.”
Now it is, “I see the material world. It is obvious that it’s out there, solid and material. If it weren’t the way it looks to me, it wouldn’t look that way. I don’t see the Conscious Unified Field. If there were anything else other than material objects, I’d see it. The only possible situation is that the material world is there, and it is the way it looks to me. It’s obvious that the material world is just how I see it, and nothing else exists.”
A dogmatic materialist would not consider the possibility that the human nervous system could be refined to have experiences of reality that are not available to a less developed nervous system, because according to their dogma the only real, non-illusory experiences are ones that have been duplicated and quantified by mechanical instruments.
Dogmatic materialists often identify dogmatic materialist dogma with “science” (sometimes with a capital S). In fact, dogmatic materialism is the opposite of science. The essence of science is empirical investigation. Dogmatic materialists deny the existence of empirical investigation of any phenomena that have so far been investigated only through empirical experience using the machinery of experience embodied in the human nervous system – phenomena that have not yet been duplicated by secondary, external instruments.
If you are a dogmatic materialist, don’t waste your time reading the next section. It is about phenomena in the universe that you have already decided, as a matter of absolute a priori faith and unquestionable dogma, do not and could not exist.
If you are a genuine scientist, or anyone interested in empirical exploration of life and the real universe – as I am sure you are – please read on.
If you are a religious dogmatist, the next section may or may not be appealing to you, depending on whether the phenomena I describe are compatible with the scriptures or proclamations you take as the authority on reality, as you interpret them. In my understanding, many of the phenomena I describe in the next section have indeed been described in the scriptures of all the different religions of the world. Your interpretation may or may not agree.
If you’ve gotten this far in this book, you are probably quite open minded. I suggest you proceed with an open mind. If God is almighty, He certainly could have created some really amazing things. He could have given us a nervous system that is capable of experiencing them, even before we have developed secondary instruments to measure them.
In the next section I describe what to me are some of the most fascinating areas for empirical investigation open to us at the present time.
Beyond the Current State of the Art in Physics and Neuroscience
As Thomas Kuhn explains in detail in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, progress takes place in science not smoothly but in periodic leaps and bounds. Normal science proceeds within a ruling paradigm by adding depth and detail to the understanding of phenomena that are explained by the paradigm. Every once in a while, however, empirical experience reveals something that totally does not fit into the paradigm, and a whole new paradigm arises to explain these phenomena.
In the Newtonian Paradigm or the Materialist Paradigm, the universe consisted of objects of various sizes, all ultimately constructed of small indivisible objects called atoms. These objects moved in predictable ways when acted upon by various forces. They moved in an absolute framework of time and space. The conscious observer had nothing to do with the phenomena observed. The universe was out there functioning mechanically, and we could just come along and look at it without affecting it.
In my previous book, How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Paradigm and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible, and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe, I describe some of the early experiments in relativity physics and quantum mechanics that produced results incompatible with the Materialist Paradigm. One seminal example is the Michelson-Morley experiment, which showed that the speed of light is constant for all observers. This means that space and time must be relative, as Einstein hypothesized.
Several early quantum-mechanical experiments showed that the basic phenomena that make up the physical universe will act like a particle when you observe them like a particle, and will act like a wave when you observe them like a wave.
With quantum mechanics and relativity, the conscious observer became not just a necessary ingredient for the empirical investigation of the universe, but an integral participant in the creation and structure of the universe itself.
Ultimately, the idea that the universe existed and had specific qualities independent of conscious experience of it turned out to be at odds with reality. The Conscious Unified Field Paradigm that has replaced the Materialist Paradigm recognizes the fact that the physical universe is nothing but particle/wave phenomena arising in the Conscious Unified Field.
Consciousness is fundamental not only to the investigation of the universe, but to the existence of the physical universe, to the creation of all phenomena in the universe. The universe and all the phenomena in it are experiential realities, phenomena that exist and appear as they do only in conscious experience. The universe is an experience, not a thing.
When something is empirically experienced and reported that cannot be explained by the current paradigm, this provides the impetus for a new paradigm to arise. This includes four types of empirical results: (1) Empirical results that have been investigated through the instrumentality of the human nervous system through ordinary observation through the senses; (2) Empirical results that have been investigated through the instrumentality of the human nervous system through natural refinement of the nervous system to reveal phenomena that are not experienced with a less highly developed nervous system; (3) Empirical results that are obtained through extending the capabilities of the nervous system through secondary artificial instruments that extend the senses (e.g., microscopes and telescopes); and (4) Empirical results that are obtained through extending our investigative capabilities with secondary instruments that measure phenomena that the nervous system cannot directly perceive (e.g., particle accelerators applied in nuclear physics).
To me, some of the phenomena that are most fascinating and that provide the greatest impetus for scientific advancement are phenomena of the second type above: Empirical results that have been investigated through the instrumentality of the human nervous system through natural refinement of the nervous system to reveal phenomena that are not experienced with a less highly developed nervous system.
Such phenomena are open to direct empirical investigation by anyone through refinement of the human nervous system, but not everyone embarks on such empirical investigation. Just as those who look through a telescope have a different data set to deal with in explaining the motion of the planets, those who have experienced subtler realms of creation through refinement of the human nervous system have a different data set than those who have not had such experiences yet. This provides an opportunity for lively exchange of ideas, and in my view provides a vital stimulus for the progress of science and human life.
When something has been empirically experienced, but has not yet been explained by the current paradigm, this provides the impetus for further investigation and further scientific development. Until they are incorporated into the paradigm, such empirical results are either dismissed as impossible, or considered to be miraculous, or considered to be anomalous until explained.
Arthur C. Clarke expressed this situation as three laws of prediction.
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
A miracle is something that has not yet been sufficiently explained in terms of the current paradigm, or that has been clearly explained, but the explanation is not yet well known. The remainder of this chapter discusses two types of miracles.
Here we will discuss two types of phenomena that have been empirically investigated and reported that clearly are within the realm of “impossible” in the universe of the Materialist Paradigm. The next section describes some miracles that are incompatible with the Materialist Paradigm, but that can be readily explained by the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, in conjunction with the fields of physics and neuroscience in their current state of development.
The subsequent sections of this chapter describe other miracles that not only are “impossible” in the Materialist Paradigm, but also will require enhancement or extension or elaboration of the current state of physics and neuroscience within the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm.
In other words, the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, incorporating the current theories and empirical results of physics and neuroscience, is sufficient to explain most, but not all, of what has been empirically observed to date. There are some phenomena that will require an enhancement of the currently extant theories in physics and neuroscience in order to be adequately explained. In addition to being fascinating, these provide an inspiration for progress in science and human life.
Miracles That Can Be Explained by the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm Incorporating the Currently Known Forces and Particle/Waves
To me, some of the most fascinating phenomena for exploration and expansion of our knowledge and understanding are the ones that have been empirically investigated so far only through the instrumentality of the human nervous system. These are phenomena for which we do not yet have adequate secondary measuring instruments.
Many of these are explainable within the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm by the phenomenon of conscious choice among the infinite available probabilities applicable to the known particle/wave/string phenomena. In other words, many seemingly miraculous or inexplicable phenomena can readily be explained by Conscious Manifestation by an individual with a high level of consciousness. Such an individual can use conscious intention to create a highly unlikely outcome from within the infinite possibilities inherent in the Conscious Unified Field.
The Conscious Unified Field Experiment proved that as conscious human beings we have the ability to consciously affect the probability distribution of quantum-mechanical events. This provides the mechanism through which potentially we can consciously manifest any imaginable configuration of the known elementary particle/wave phenomena – protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, the more fundamental quarks of which they are composed, the vibrating strings that appear as quarks, etc.
Such an event can be carried out by the four known fundamental forces and the known particle/wave phenomena manifesting in an extremely improbable configuration. In quantum mechanics, anything is possible. Some things, like walking on water, are highly improbable. An individual with a high level of consciousness can consciously create and manifest such highly improbable phenomena through command of the probability distribution of observations involving known particle/wave phenomena such as protons, neutrons, gravitons, etc.
Most of the miraculous events that have been reported throughout history can readily be explained as unlikely events mediated by the known particle/wave/string fields, consciously commanded by one who is deeply in tune with the Conscious Unified Field.
Command of the probabilities of gravitational phenomena would allow Jesus to walk on water, or Krishna to lift a mountain over his head. Command of the probabilities of known elementary particles, the strong and weak (subatomic) forces, and electromagnetism would allow a highly evolved being to command the weather, heal by touch, turn water to wine, and feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.
Ancient records and recent reports of psychokinesis, levitation, precognition, and remote viewing can also be explained as conscious command of highly improbable events involving the known forces and particle/waves, accomplished through conscious desire and intention combined with a high level of attunement of one’s consciousness with the Conscious Unified Field.
I am not saying that these and the multitude of other miracles reported throughout history all actually took place. I was not there, so I don’t know (or if I was there it was not a lifetime that I remember). The point here is that many phenomena that appear miraculous are readily explainable by the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, encompassing the current state of development of physics and neuroscience.
I am guessing that miraculous events are already a part of your life experience. If you are reading this book, I think it is very likely that you have already had many experiences in your life where you have consciously created and manifested an outcome that is so improbable that it can reasonably be called a miracle. So have I.
You may also have had experiences of subtle perception of realities that go beyond the ordinary world that has been measured by secondary scientific instrumentation and explained by current scientific explanations. So have I.
Empirically Observed Phenomena That Require Expansion Beyond the Currently Known Forces and Particle/Waves
The most fascinating phenomena to me are the phenomena that have been empirically investigated by the instrumentality of the human nervous system and repeatedly reported, have not yet been measured by secondary instruments, and also are beyond the scope of the forces and particle/waves currently known to physics. There are some phenomena that can be and reportedly have been empirically investigated by direct experience, but that cannot be explained through conscious command of the currently known particle/wave/string phenomena of present-day physics – not even by extremely unlikely events involving the known forces and known particle/waves. In other words, such phenomena cannot be explained by any conceivable configuration – even an extremely improbable configuration – of protons, neutrons, electrons, photons, gravitons, and the other known particles and forces.
In my view, the most likely explanation for such phenomena will turn out to be additional quantized fields within the Conscious Unified Field, beyond those particle/wave/string fields that have now been categorized, named, and mathematically described. As science has progressed, we have discovered and brought within the realm of systematic empirical investigation many increasingly refined levels and realms of particle/wave/string phenomena. We have not yet reached the end of this exploration. Undoubtedly there are more layers to discover.
The reported phenomena that cannot be explained by currently known elementary particle/waves include such phenomena as qi, auras, chakras, celestial beings, and reincarnation. Such phenomena can be systematically explored through the empirical application of the human nervous system, in conjunction with methods to refine the nervous system so as to be capable of perceiving phenomena that are not readily apparent to a less highly evolved nervous system.
These phenomena are beyond the scope of our currently available secondary measuring instruments, because our currently available secondary measurement instruments are only capable of detecting phenomena comprised of the known elementary particle/waves.
Such phenomena are in my view the most fertile field for empirical scientific exploration now available for human beings to explore. Developing secondary measuring instruments that are capable of measuring such phenomena is also in my view one of the most fascinating pursuits now available to us in the field of science.
Such phenomena, to the degree that they are borne out by systematic empirical investigation, will require enhancements or extensions or additions to the currently known set of particle/wave/strings in order to be scientifically and systematically explained.
Qi
Qi is a subtle energy that has been extensively studied and delineated in Traditional Chinese Medicine and martial arts. As of the present time, the only instrument for the empirical investigation of qi is the human nervous system. We have not yet developed secondary measuring instruments capable of measuring it. The primary sensory modality for the experience of qi is the sense of touch, although some individuals with highly advanced functioning of the nervous system also report the ability to perceive it through the sense of sight.
Qi reportedly can function both inside and outside of the human body. In the human body, qi reportedly follows specific energy meridians. These have been extensively studied and documented in Traditional Chinese Medicine. They form the basis for acupuncture treatments. These meridians do not correspond to any obvious structures or functions of the nervous system or body.
Qi can be felt and moved outside the body as well. It can be drawn in from the environment, and also projected outwards. It can transferred from one body to another, with or without physically touching. This phenomenon is used both in healing and in martial arts.
Qi is also fundamental to all advanced forms of martial arts. I have some personal experience in this area. I am a black belt in kung fu with the rank of Shifan (“Young Master”). I am a student of three times world champion Grand Master Keychun Song. I taught kung fu for years in his academy, and later on my own. Master Song is a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and qigong expert as well as being a kung fu master.
Every advanced martial artist I have ever met uses qi extensively in forms and particularly in sparring. Show me a martial artist who does not have extensive knowledge and experience of qi, and I will show you someone who has had his butt kicked by someone who does.
I have also had some personal experience with qi as applied in Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture. Once in a kung fu tournament I missed a block and took a side kick in the lower part of my rib cage. It broke my floating rib. I managed to win that round, and moved to the next round of the competition. I won my first round with my next opponent, but I was having difficulty fighting because of the pain in my ribcage. (For those of you who don’t like stories about pain, well, neither do I, but please read on because the pain is a necessary feature for what I will explain shortly.)
I was using my right arm to guard my lower right ribcage quite closely, because I knew I could not afford to take another hit in the same place. In the second round with my new opponent, he figured out that I was keeping my guard low on my right side. He delivered an excellent roundhouse kick to the right side of my face, and I was out of the competition.
At that point I was in a considerable amount of pain. This was not my first broken bone, and my previous experience had been that all I had to do was keep it still, and it didn’t hurt much. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my ribs still, because I needed to move my ribcage to breathe. Ordinarily I would have experienced quite a bit of pain in my face, as it was badly bruised, but the pain in my ribs was so intense that I didn’t even feel my face. This fact turned out to be interesting in light of what I experienced next.
Master Song treated me with acupuncture. We knew my rib was broken, because I could feel it click when I breathed. He immediately put his finger on a particular acupuncture point on a meridian on my head that was associated with the area where my rib was broken. To my surprise, I felt a sharp pain at that particular (uninjured) point on my head, just from a gentle touch from a finger. This was remarkable in light of the fact that I did not even feel the major bruises on my face at the time.
Then Master Song placed an acupuncture needle in that spot. The response from my nervous system and my entire body was immediate. The pain in my ribs subsided dramatically in a matter of seconds. My entire body had been very tense from the pain, along with the fact that the pain was exacerbated by breathing, which is something I could not long do without. As soon as he placed the acupuncture needle, my entire body relaxed. The pain did not leave entirely, but it was reduced from excruciating to mildly unpleasant.
None of these experiences are readily explainable in terms of the four fundamental forces and known particle/wave phenomena. I think that the most likely explanation for qi will turn out to be that qi is mediated by a quantized field that can be empirically investigated by the instrumentality of the human nervous system, but for which we do not yet have secondary measuring instruments.
This field must have properties that include interacting with the currently known particle/wave phenomena, because qi clearly has effects on the body and nervous system, which are made up of these particle/waves. Because of this, there is a possibility of developing a secondary measuring instrument, made of material that we can understand and see and touch, that would measure qi. So far, however, no one has yet succeeded in developing such an instrument.
Auras
Throughout history, for many thousands of years, human beings from many different societies, different religious and spiritual traditions, and different times and places report seeing auras of light around other beings, particularly highly evolved beings. In many different religious and spiritual traditions, highly evolved and/or divine beings are depicted as having an aura of light surrounding their heads.
Both in ancient times and in recent years, people who perceive auras have developed systematic understanding and delineation of the significance of different colors and other characteristics of auras. Reportedly, auras contain information about innate tendencies of an individual, as well as the individual’s current mental, emotional, and spiritual state. In some cases auras also reportedly contain information about physical abilities, states, conditions, or ailments. A comprehensive account of auras and their significance is beyond the scope of this book.
So far, auras have been investigated only through the instrumentality of the human nervous system, and have not been measured by secondary instruments. People reportedly see them. Auras are also reportedly perceptible through the sense of touch. These auras are not comprised of photons, i.e., vibrations in the electromagnetic field, because they are not picked up by secondary measuring instruments that measure electromagnetic radiation. Nor are they composed of any of the other particle/wave phenomena currently known to physics.
As of now, the only available method of empirically investigating auras is to refine the human nervous system to the point where they become perceptible. This can be accomplished by various methods for refining the nervous system, including meditation techniques mentioned above. Some people reportedly have this level of refinement of the nervous system naturally from the time of birth, without any further practice or development. Some people reportedly spontaneously develop this ability later in life, usually in connection with a spiritual experience. Some develop it in conjunction with meditation and other practices to raise consciousness. Some develop it through practice and instruction specifically in aura reading.
The fact that auras have been empirically investigated only through the human nervous system, and not through any secondary measuring instruments, does not mean that they do not exist. Human beings perceived electromagnetic radiation as light for millions of years before we had any secondary instruments to measure it. Human beings also reportedly have perceived auras for as long as we have historical records.
Human beings who do not currently perceive auras can begin an empirical investigation by practicing techniques to refine the nervous system so that subtler phenomena come within the realm of conscious experience, or by training from someone skilled in the art.
I think that the most likely scientific explanation for auras is that they are vibrations in a quantized field, much like the electromagnetic field, which a highly developed human nervous system has the capacity to perceive, but for which we do not yet have secondary measuring instruments. This is a fascinating field for future research.
Auras, like qi, reportedly interact with human bodies made up of the conventional particle/wave phenomena known to the current state of physics and biology. For this reason it is possible that we will develop secondary instruments, using conventional materials, that will be capable of measuring auras.
In recent centuries we developed secondary instruments for measuring the electromagnetic radiation that we have been perceiving as light for as long as there have been humans. We have also developed secondary instruments to measure electromagnetic radiation that we cannot see since it is outside the range of perception of our eyes, such as x-rays and radio waves. Perhaps in the near future science will advance to the point of developing secondary measuring instruments to measure the subtler kind of light that makes up auras, which until now has been perceived only though the human nervous system.
Chakras
Many different spiritual and traditional medical traditions report the experience of energy centers or chakras in the human being. Reportedly there are seven chakras, each corresponding to a particular aspect of the human being, including the levels of basic survival, sexuality, power, heart (in the emotional sense), communication and self-expression, vision and subtle perception, and higher spirituality. A subtle energy, known in some traditions as kundalini, is reported to rise from the lower to the higher chakras as an individual develops higher levels of consciousness.
Chakras reportedly can be empirically investigated through the modalities of sight and touch, and also through the other senses.
Although they are reported to interact with the nervous system and the conventional physical body, the chakras do not directly correspond to specific organs constructed of the matter or energy currently known to physics and biology.
Once again, I think that the most likely explanation in terms of physics is that chakras reflect the activity of quantized fields, vibrations arising in the Conscious Unified Field. These quantized fields are distinct from, and yet are connected to and interact with, the conventionally known physiology comprised of the particle/wave phenomena of current-day physics and biology.
Those whose nervous systems are sufficiently refined to see chakras, and those with sufficient training to develop this skill, report that such perception provides extensive information about the individual. At the most basic level, the various chakras can be seen to be relatively open or closed, relatively dormant or enlivened. Subtle energy can be perceived to be flowing or blocked at the various chakras.
Reportedly, with highly developed perception, extensive detailed information can be directly perceived associated with the chakras, each chakra containing information related to its corresponding realm of life.
Chakras reportedly contain extremely detailed information about a person’s life, emotions, intellect, tendencies, likes and dislikes, modes of living, internal dynamics of experience, way of interacting with others, past experiences and their impact, etc. Reportedly this information can be directly perceived by someone with the requisite refinement of consciousness and perception.
Celestial Beings
Every spiritual tradition reports the experience of beings who inhabit bodies of a more refined material than the conventional physical elements of which human bodies are made. The scriptures of the monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, include many references to various levels of angels. Polytheistic religions like Hinduism report the experience of many kinds of celestial beings, including not only many gods who have been directly experienced by humans but also many other types of celestial beings whose bodies have been perceived by the human nervous system. Hindu scriptures report the experience of multiple higher planes of existence, occupied by beings whose bodies are made of materials of various levels of subtlety. Animist religions report the experience of spirits occupying subtle bodies who are associated not only with living things but with inanimate objects and forces of Nature. Even nontheistic religions such as Buddhism report extensive experiences of beings with bodies of subtler materials.
These beings reportedly can be perceived not only through the sense of sight, but also through the sense of hearing and touch, and even in some cases taste and smell. Celestial music is a common experience in various traditions, as are healings that celestial beings sometimes are said to deliver on the level of touch.
Some observers also report the perception of several levels of subtle bodies in living humans. These subtle bodies are associated with, but not identical to, the commonly perceived human body comprised of conventional materials.
Here again, as with auras and chakras, the most likely scientific explanation for such empirical observations in my view is that the various levels of celestial bodies and other subtle bodies are vibrations in quantized fields analogous to the electromagnetic field and the other commonly known fields in physics. Also, as with auras and chakras, these subtler fields interact with the quantized fields known to present-day physics. Therefore, potentially science can develop secondary instruments to detect and measure them. To me, this is a particularly fascinating area for empirical investigation and scientific study.
In the absence of such secondary instruments, the only available method for empirically investigating such phenomena is through the refinement of perception of the human nervous system by meditation and other methods as discussed above.
At this point a word of caution is in order for those who are developing the ability to see beings who inhabit subtle bodies. There are reportedly many levels of subtle bodies, and many kinds of beings living in them. Just because a being is in a body other than a human body does not necessarily mean that this is an angel, or any kind of higher being. Reportedly there are beings in bodies on the astral level that are lower, rather than higher, in the spiritual sense. (See also the below discussion of reincarnation.)
It is wise to trust your own intuition, intellect, and common sense, and not let all of these be overshadowed by a message from an unknown being who may or may not have more wisdom than you. If something is true, it will ring true to your own intuition as well.
Reincarnation
Some people report clear memories of previous human lives in different times and places. Such reports are difficult to verify. When you and I woke up this morning, we may remember having lunch together yesterday, even though we both lost consciousness during the intervening night. This is easy to verify. We can go back to the same restaurant and see that it is still there and looks the way we remember it. We can talk to each other and compare our memories. If we both remember the same thing, we can have considerable confidence that our memories are real.
This same process is not generally available with respect to memories of previous lives. In some cases, however, there have been documented reports where a child has reported remembering being murdered in an immediately previous life, and has provided details that have turned out to be correct. This has in some cases included specifics that turned out to be highly detailed and accurate, such as where the murder occurred, the identity and description of the perpetrator, what the murder weapon was and where it could be found, and where the body was buried.
There have been many reports where someone reportedly remembers a previous life and also has a birthmark or a birth defect in the present body that corresponds to a major (usually fatal) wound in the previous body. Dr. Ian Stevenson documented over two hundred cases where children reportedly remembered a recent past life and also had a birthmark or birth defect in the same bodily location and with a similar shape or form as such a wound in the remembered previous life.
Some people reportedly also have memories of life in subtler bodies, in some cases after a previous death and before the present incarnation.
In many other reported cases, people who meet someone who seems particularly familiar have compared notes and discovered that they remember common experiences with each other in past lives, and the details match.
Reincarnation is a fundamental part of many religious and spiritual traditions, including Hinduism and Buddhism. There is some debate as to whether reincarnation was originally a facet of the early Jewish teachings, the teachings of Jesus that formed the original basis of Christianity, and the teachings of Islam. My purpose here is not to attempt to settle such questions, but rather to consider the implications for science if the reported accounts of reincarnation are factual.
Reincarnation would require that something physical, at least on some refined level, continues to exist after a person’s body ceases to function, and that this aspect of the individual then can be incarnated into a different physical body. There must be something to carry the individual identity and characteristics from one body to the next. Such a pattern of vibrations cannot be explained by the known particle/wave phenomena of present-day physics. The body that is composed of the known particle/wave phenomena ceases to function, and is unconnected by any conventional physical means to a new body that a person may inhabit on the other side of the world at a later time.
If the reports of reincarnation are accurate, the most likely scientific explanation is essentially the same as the explanation above for celestial bodies. That aspect of the individual that survives the death of the body and enters a new one would most likely be composed of vibrations in a quantized field that interacts with the known fields of present-day physics and biology.
Multidimensional Theory of Miracles
The above sections explain how the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, in conjunction with the four primary forces and known particle/wave phenomena, provides a scientific explanation for many phenomena that are “impossible” – or, more correctly, highly improbable. Other phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of the conventional particle/wave phenomena known to current physics and biology can be explained and understood in terms of additional quantized fields, vibrations arising in the Conscious Unified Field that are similar to yet distinct from the particle/wave phenomena known to current-day physics.
There are several other theories regarding how the Conscious Unified Field manifests that could shed light on phenomena that go beyond common experience. As we discussed above, the strings of string theory are vibrations in ten-dimensional spacetime (or 11-dimensional spacetime for M-theory). Under usual circumstances, we perceive only four dimensions, three in space and one in time. Accessing additional dimensions could give rise to many phenomena that would appear miraculous or impossible in the four-dimensional spacetime that we perceive.
This idea is not new. Edwin Abbott wrote about it in 1884, long before Einstein’s theory of relativity called into question the absolute nature of time and space, in a remarkably prescient book titled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. In this story, the inhabitants of Flatland live in a plane. They are two-dimensional beings like squares, triangles, and circles. Their bodies, houses, streets, and everything in their world exist in two dimensions. They can neither perceive nor imagine a third dimension.
The main character is a Square. This is also the pseudonym of the author, A. Square. The Square has a dream about a one-dimensional world called Lineland, in which all of the inhabitants are points. He visits this world, and fails to convince the inhabitants of the line that there could be anything beyond one dimension.
One day he encounters a Sphere. The Sphere can do impossible, magical things by moving in and out of the plane that the Square takes as the whole universe. The Sphere can grow larger and smaller at will, by moving such that larger or smaller parts of him intersect the plane that constitutes the universe of the Square. The Sphere can disappear at one place and reappear at another by moving in the third dimension, outside the plane where the Square lives. He can go into the Square’s locked closet, without touching the door or breaching the wall, take something from there, and bring it to the Square in his living room.
At one point, after failing to explain to the Square the reality of the third dimension, the Sphere takes the Square out of his plane and shows him “Spaceland,” the world of three dimensions. From that perspective, looking down on the plane of Flatland, the Square can simultaneously see his living room, his children sleeping in their bedrooms behind closed doors, and even his neighbors inside their houses behind closed doors and walls. From this perspective the Sphere can also see and touch the inside of other two-dimensional beings, their internal organs, etc., while their skin remains intact.
We learn that the Sphere visits flatland once every thousand years, performs miracles, and attempts to educate the inhabitants regarding the existence of the third dimension. This is not well received by the powers that be in Flatland, and anyone caught teaching about three dimensions is executed or imprisoned.
The Square realizes that there could be even more dimensions, not just three, but four or five or six or more. He points this out to the Sphere. The Sphere admits that there have been reports of beings who perform miracles in Spaceland and claim to be from higher dimensions, but he rejects the idea entirely. For him, three dimensions is all there is.
When we consider time as an additional dimension, the Sphere of Spaceland was actually living in four dimensions in spacetime, and the inhabitants of Flatland were living in three dimensions.
According to string theory, we are ten-dimensional beings, functioning in a 10-dimensional universe (or 11 dimensions for M-theory), but we are only commonly aware of four dimensions. Just as four-dimensional beings such as the Sphere could perform apparent miracles in the three-dimensional (counting time) world of Flatland, the ability to navigate in additional dimensions could be one explanation for the ability to create apparently miraculous outcomes in our four-dimensional spacetime.
Facility in higher dimensions might, for example, make one able to perceive things at a distance, to look inside people and objects and closed rooms, to appear and disappear at will, to change shape and size in apparently impossible ways, and to enter and leave closed spaces without breaching the walls or opening the doors.
It might even allow one to move in the time dimension in ways that appear impossible, or at least to see backward and forward in time in a manner that appears impossible in the conventional four-dimensional spacetime that is commonly open to human perception. Thus the multidimensionality of string theory and M-theory provides another potential explanation for some kinds of miraculous phenomena in human life.
Conscious Empirical Experience Is the Key to Scientific Exploration
In this chapter we have described phenomena that have been empirically investigated by human beings through refinement of our own machinery of experience, the human nervous system. These phenomena have not yet been detected or measured by secondary, artificial measuring instruments such as microscopes, telescopes, and particle accelerators. They have not yet been mathematically quantified or explained by a comprehensive theory delineating the mechanics of their expression as vibrations of the Conscious Unified Field. That does not mean that they do not exist. It only means that there is more scientific exploration yet to be done.
Throughout this book, every phenomenon and scientific understanding I have discussed has been tied directly to empirical evidence, that is, to human experience on the level of consciousness. Consciousness is an essential ingredient in any scientific observation and a fundamental aspect of the scientific process of empirical exploration of the universe.
Before the conscious observation, there is no physical universe. All that exists in that state of superposition is abstract probability distributions containing all possibilities simultaneously. When we make the conscious observation, these infinite possibilities collapse into a singular event, with concrete particle/waves at (approximately) known locations moving with (approximately) known speed and direction. In a very real sense, conscious observation creates the physical universe that we are investigating through conscious observation.
The Conscious Unified Field Is the Key to Conscious Empirical Experience
The entire physical universe comprises vibrational patterns, resonant frequencies arising in the Conscious Unified Field, like waves on an ocean. These are the quantum-mechanical units of the physical universe. In investigating the universe, we are investigating the Conscious Unified Field and its expressions in the material universe. Any wave on an ocean that we examine is an aspect of the ocean.
The Conscious Unified Field is also the essential essence of our own life. Our own consciousness is also at its essence the Conscious Unified Field. The Self of every human being, by whatever name it is called, is the same Conscious Unified Field. In investigating the universe, we are applying our own conscious Self to investigate the myriad aspects of the same universal reality that we are, the same Conscious Unified Field manifested around us as the physical universe.
19. The Science of Creating Miracles and You
The Conscious Unified Field Is the Key to Creating Miracles
In the quantum-mechanical universe – which is the real universe – anything is possible. Some things are probable, and some are improbable. Miracles are not impossible events, only highly improbable ones.
Any imaginable configuration of quantum particle/wave phenomena can arise from the unified field. These possibilities become concrete physical realities through the process of conscious observation, in which the infinite possibilities are collapsed into quantum-mechanical forms and phenomena that make up the material world. Through this process you and I, as conscious beings, are constantly creating the experiences that constitute the world around us.
You are, in your highest essence, the Conscious Unified Field from which the universe arises. Anything is possible for the Conscious Unified Field. The quantum-mechanical world around you arises through the process of your collapsing infinite possibilities into quantum-mechanical observations or events.
This leads to a working hypothesis: By opening your awareness to the full value and power of who you are and functioning from the level of the Conscious Unified Field, you can choose among the infinite possibilities and thus create highly improbable events. You can create miracles.
That is the hypothesis that my father and I tested in the scientific laboratory through the Conscious Unified Field Experiment. The results were positive and definitive. The Conscious Unified Experiment proved in the laboratory that miracles are possible, and we can create them.
By functioning from the level of the Conscious Unified Field, which is our essential nature, we as human beings can create miracles – highly improbable configurations of particle/wave phenomena arising from that same Conscious Unified Field.
Here we may return to the words of the great physicist Erwin Schrödinger that began this volume:
“So let us see whether we cannot draw the correct, non-contradictory conclusion…
“The only possible inference…is, I think, that I – I in the widest meaning of the word, that is to say, every conscious mind that has ever said or felt ‘I’ – am the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature.”
Transmutation Is the Key to the Conscious Unified Field
Functioning from the level of the Conscious Unified Field is the key to creating miracles. Transmutation is the process of opening your awareness to and coming in tune with who you are, at the highest and truest level: that same Conscious Unified Field that is the source of the physical universe.
Transmutation is not a transformation or change in your thinking, your emotions, your actions, or your environment. It is a fundamental shift in who is creating and living your life. It takes place on the level of your very being.
Transmutation is easy, because it simply involves fully being who you really are. It is easy to be who you are. It is difficult to be who you are not. All of the techniques for Transmutation provided in this book are easy, in fact effortless.
The Science of Creating Miracles Is the Key to Transmutation
All science comprises theory and practice. On the theoretical level, the foundation of the Science of Creating Miracles is the Conscious Unified Field Paradigm, which embodies the recognition that all of life and the physical universe are manifestations of the Conscious Unified Field.
On the level of practice, the Science of Creating Miracles has two branches. One is the investigation of the relationship of consciousness and matter – the physical universe and the Conscious Unified Field – through experiments such as the Conscious Unified Field Experiment and neuroscience experiments on the brain and consciousness. This is carried out in scientific laboratories, using scientific apparatus.
The other branch involves directly applying the Science of Creating Miracles to create the life of your dreams. It is carried out in the laboratory of your own life, your own consciousness and the life you create by applying it. This is the primary field of practice of the Science of Creating Miracles presented in this book. It consists of the practical techniques for Transmutation taught in this book and in the workshops, seminars, and personal guidance sessions on the Science of Creating Miracles that I conduct.
You Are the Key to the Science of Creating Miracles
You – the real you, your Self (large S), the “I” of you, the unbounded cosmic you, the Conscious Unified Field, the 100% valuable, 100% safe, and 100% powerful you – are the key to the Science of Creating Miracles.
You create your life and your world. You can and do create miracles. You create and inspire the vibratory influence in yourself and in Nature that brings about miracles.
You create the resonant frequency that enlivens within you and brings forth all around you the experiences, people, things, environment, and events that are in harmony with you and Nature. You can create a life that is harmonious, joyful, and mutually nourishing for you and those around you.
You are the key to peace, harmony, fulfillment, and well-being for yourself and everyone you touch. You have the potential, the consciousness, the inspiration, and all the tools you need to create a truly miraculous life, to live the life of your dreams.
Enjoy the miracle that is your life!
20. A Personal Message,
With Love, From Me to You
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope you find the science, the Conscious Unified Field, the amazing universe we live in, the experiences, the stories, and the techniques I recounted as fascinating and useful as I do.
I created this book as a signpost that you may choose to use on your journey to enlightenment and beyond. The Science of Creating Miracles: Neuroscience, Quantum, Physics, and Living the Life of Your Dreams is designed not simply as a textbook on the Science of Creating Miracles, but more importantly as an operating manual, a guide for Living the Life of Your Dreams.
The techniques embodied here are designed not only to provide you with enriching experiences and insights each time you practice them, but also to enhance and expand your consciousness and to develop and strengthen new neural pathways, leading to an increasingly fulfilling, successful, and delightful experience of life as you continue on your journey.
You are not alone on this journey. Feel free to connect with me and other miracle creators at the Science of Creating Miracles website, https://ScienceOfCreatingMiracles.com , and to take advantage of the workshops, seminars, personal consulting, and other resources offered there.
Love and Blessings,
Dr. Larry Farwell
Acknowledgements
My Father, Dr. George Wells Farwell, for inspiring me with the fascination, power, and beauty of science, for sharing the thrill of exploration of the frontiers of science as well as the mountains and forests and oceans of the world, for answering my questions about everything imaginable starting from the time I learned to talk, for his brilliant contribution to both the miracles and the science in the Science of Creating Miracles, and for being the greatest role model, teacher, inspiration, and friend anyone could hope to have as a father.
My mother, Ruth Kircher Farwell, for bringing me into the world and radiating the truths that life is good, people are wonderful, and I am loved.
My daughter Tiera for being an amazing miracle in my life.
Marci Shimoff for her brilliant foreword to this book, for inspiring so many to live in the miracle zone through her extraordinary insight, clear vision, leadership, and radiant heart.
Deepak Chopra for his insightful comments on my book and his leadership in the new and miraculous paradigm that is now dawning in the world.
Debra Poneman for being one of the most miraculous and loving people I have ever had the joy of knowing, for sharing her wonderful heart and soul and brilliant mind, and for the delight of teaching with her in my early days of this journey.
Janet Attwood for being a wonderful and eminently lovable friend and spiritual companion, and for leading so many people to find their passion and inspiration in life.
Brent BecVar and Rhonda Goodall for inspiration, collaboration, and connection.
Dean Sluyter for being a true friend and spiritual fellow traveler over the years, and for guiding others brilliantly in this journey.
Marilyn Schoeman for her insight, enthusiasm, and spectacular way with words.
Ben Allen for his brilliant contribution as a publisher and friend.
Jacob Severn for excellent insight and editing of this manuscript.
Jade Maniscalco and Erica Statly for handling all the details involved in taking my manuscript from concept to fruition.
Teddi Black for a brilliant cover design and Susan Veach for excellent interior design.
Fakhira Halloun for applying the Science of Creating Miracles to create unprecedented progress toward the miracle of peace in the Middle East.
Mimi Thrasher for her brilliance in collaborating with me in interviews, for her contribution to applying the Science of Creating Miracles to creating world peace, for developing the Science or Creating Miracles Website.
The Science of Creating Miracles Creation Team, Debbie Sumner, Edward Erdal Yilmaz, Lisa Li, Mary Kulakowski, Mimi Thrasher, Ron Kirkendorfer, Ruth Gerhard, Shelley Beyar, and Trista Polo, who have developed and produced the Science of Creating Miracles Workshops, and those who have assisted, including Alixandra Summit, Catherine Malcolm, Clara Rodriguez, Jacob Jose, Marilyn Fiedler, Mayeli Uribe Carrillo, Richard Tenn, Yogi Udgire, and many others.
About the Author
Dr. Larry Farwell is a neuroscientist, inventor, and the world’s leading expert on the Science of Creating Miracles. For his pioneering scientific discoveries, TIME magazine selected Dr. Farwell to the TIME 100: The Next Wave, the top innovators of our time, “the Picassos or Einsteins of the 21st Century.”
Dr. Farwell and his groundbreaking scientific discoveries have been featured in CBS Evening News, CBS 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, ABC World News, PBS, CNN, the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, BBC, Newsweek, the New York Times, US News and World Report, the Washington Post, and major news media throughout the world.
Dr. Farwell’s research has brought creating miracles into the realm of science. He has proved in the scientific laboratory that miracles are real and we can create them. Based on this science, he has developed practical techniques to create miracles in your life.
In his first book, How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence that Anything Is Possible, and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe, Dr. Farwell showed how research in neuroscience, relativity and quantum physics prove that consciousness plays a commanding role in the universe, providing a scientific basis for creating miracles in your life. That research and that book established the scientific basis for the reality that “Anything is possible.”
Based on that scientific foundation, The Science of Creating Miracles is a practical guide to creating miracles and living the reality that “Anything is possible” in your life.
In the last 100 years, there have been four major inventions in the field of psychophysiology. Dr. Farwell invented two of them, the first brain-computer interface and Brain Fingerprinting. (The other two were the polygraph and biofeedback.)
He has consulted with individuals, organizations, and top government officials and agencies worldwide, including the President of the US.
He has published his pioneering research in major scientific journals in neuroscience, psychophysiology, forensic science, and physics.
Dr. Larry Farwell’s ongoing life story reads like a science-fiction thriller. As a forensic scientist and the inventor of Brain Fingerprinting, he regularly faces off with some of the most dangerous people on the planet. From serial killers in Macon, Missouri to terrorist masterminds in Islamabad, Pakistan, Dr. Farwell uses his Brain Fingerprinting technology to catch bad guys and free the innocent.
After graduating from Harvard, while he was still a student in graduate school – without his PhD, without his patents or even his own laboratory, with nothing but his brilliant invention – the CIA recruited Dr. Farwell to apply his Brain Fingerprinting there. He worked with the CIA, the FBI and the US Navy, where his invention proved over 99% accurate in identifying criminals and exonerating innocents.
His Brain Fingerprinting test caught serial killer JB Grinder after he had literally gotten away with murder for 15 years. His Brain Fingerprinting test exonerated Terry Harrington, who had been falsely convicted of murder, spent 23 years of a life sentence in prison, and was ultimately freed. Dr. Farwell and his Brain Fingerprinting test on Steven Avery were featured in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer (Season 2, Episode 2). The test provided scientific evidence that Avery is innocent.
Dr. Farwell invented the first brain-computer interface, allowing paralyzed people to communicate directly from the brain to a computer and “talk” through a speech synthesizer. Founded on that original invention, brain-computer interfaces have now developed into a flourishing field, making possible a whole new realm of communication and man-machine interactions that were considered impossible before. His other inventions include a brainwave-based method for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Farwell is a Harvard graduate and former Harvard research associate.
He is a black belt in kung fu and taught kung fu for many years. He is also an expert in chi gung.
He spent several years studying Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was trained as a TM teacher by Maharishi, and taught the technique for years.
He is a singer-songwriter, guitar player, and recording artist, and has been a performing swing and Lindy Hop dancer.
As the world’s leading expert in the Science of Creating Miracles, Dr. Farwell has not only explored the mechanics of the miraculous in the scientific laboratory. He has applied his miraculous scientific discoveries in life and inspired and guided many others to create miracles in their lives.
Dr. Farwell’s lifetime goal is to demonstrate – in the scientific laboratory and in life – that Anything is possible. He aspires to help to create a world where everyone is living their highest dreams and aspirations, and everyone is realizing and living the reality that anything is possible in their own lives through the Science of Creating Miracles.
Dr. Farwell presents seminars, workshops, personal consulting, TV and other media appearances, and advanced training on The Science of Creating Miracles: Neuroscience, Quantum Physics, and Living the Life of Your Dreams worldwide.
For more information, see Dr. Farwell’s website, https://drlarryfarwell.com.
[1] Since these were classified operations, I must be nonspecific in some of the details.
[2] Farwell, L., How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible. 1stWorld Library / Sunstar Publishing, 1999, SBN-13: 978-1887472241, ISBN-10: 188747224X.
[3] Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne and their colleagues at the Princeton Engineering Research Laboratory have accumulated a large database of results demonstrating the effect of human consciousness on random event generators of various kinds. For an excellent discussion of these results and their significance, see their book Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World (Harcourt Brace, 1988). Helmut Schmidt and his colleagues have also found similar results in measuring the impact of consciousness on random physical processes. (See, for example, Schmidt, H., 1982. Collapse of the state vector and psychokinetic effect. Foundations of Physics, 12, 565-581.)
[4] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1 – 6. Penguin/Arkana, 1990. ISBN 0140192476.
[5] This is covered comprehensively in my previous book, How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence that Anything Is Possible and the revised edition titled Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe.
[6] Schrödinger, Erwin. What is Life? and Mind and Matter (1944/1958/1985). Cambridge University Press, p. 92-93.
[7] How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence that Anything Is Possible and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe.
[8] That new paradigm and the research in neuroscience, relativity and quantum physics that brought it about were the major topics in my previous book How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible, and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe.
[9] Schrödinger, E. (1944/1958/1985). What is Life? & Mind and Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 140.
[10] How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible and the revised edition, Anything Is Possible: The New Scientific Revolution, Physics, Neuroscience, and the Commanding Role of Consciousness in the Universe.