Welcome to the information age

“… knowledge is doubling every ten years.”

Eric Johnson, president of the US Chamber of Commerce — in the mid-twentieth century — as he noted the constancy of change.

That was before the Internet.

With the advent of the Web, knowledge was doubling approximately every 18 months by 2004, according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (A.S.T.D.).

or

IBM predicts that in the next couple of years, information will double every 11 hours

or

“as shown in patents and academic publication, knowledge doubles at different rates for different sectors, ranging from 2 years for nanotechnology to 21 years for other sectors.” (newsfan)

or

Ray Kurzweil predicts within decades, he predicts, he will be billions of times more intelligent than he is today, able to read minds, assume different forms, and reshape his physical environment at will. So will everyone. Today’s human beings, mere quintessences of dust, will be as outmoded as Homo Erectus.

All this, Kurzweil believes, will come about through something called The Singularity. Popularized more than a decade ago by the mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction novelist Vernor Vinge, who borrowed the term from mathematics and astrophysics, it refers to the future point at which technological change, propelled by the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, will accelerate past the point of current human comprehension.

or

What

knowledge will increase by 4096 times every year. (FairfieldLife)

So bottom line I guess – you get to pick the amount of knowledge we have or will have or might have, because….no-one seems to know…about knowledge…exactly.

Exactly.

Honest its mostly guessing. High paid guessing and PHD guessing – but guessing.

You know how many species of animals in the worlds there are? we don’t know.

Why do we sleep? – we’re not sure

Where does life come from? – we’re not sure

Why is there something rather than nothing? That is why are we and the universe here, rather than not here? – we don’t know.

How did language evolve? – we don’t know.

There’s more we don’t know than we know.

And what we “know’, what is called ‘information’ – is mostly naming things. They were always here, its just now we have ‘discovered’ them and given them a name. And everytime we name something – its called knowledge. Its not, it’s just a name.

Anyway.

The point is.

Relax

Information is for using not memorizing.

Statistics are whats already here but re-arranged. The percentage of RBI’s with or without steroids by (place players name here)… Well we may or may not know that name, we may or may not know, or care, he uses steroids, and the number of runs batted in expressed on a XY curve or a bell curve doesn’t change the fact of your or my cancer or flu symptoms or knee scrape or pregnancy or job prospects. Its just stuff put together from other stuff and then called ‘new’ stuff

Science is about the same, there’s nothing ‘discovered’.You or I may not have know about protons before science’ discovered ‘ them, but they were there, and scrambled eggs are still scrambled eggs with or without the proton factor.

OK Science is good for technology, good to allow us more…comfort.

All that I am saying is…

…calm down, its just stuff – and mostly, for you and me, not so important ‘stuff’

How about we learn what we Don’t need to know.

Tiny examples:

Homelessness – a cure. Its too overwhelming isn’t it. It is said there are over a quarter of a million people homeless in New York City on any given day – 250,000 people. How much would it cost to fix that? – No-one has that much money to spare. But -

Apparently there are only about 2500 chronically homeless people. That is who no matter what happens will be homeless, due to medical or mental challenges. NYC is spending over $62 million annually on homelessness. That’s almost $25,000 a year, every year. You want to fix homelessness in NYC – buy cheap housing, put in stand-by nurses and access to hospital care for those 2500. Cost less than $62 million over 10 years, 20 years. But that is not how we think, we want stats and bell curves, and we don’t want to give to those down and outs when the single mum gets nothing – we have principles.But then our principles, and information get in the way of actual knowledge – so we fail.

or

The famous Rodney King beating and the L.A.P.D. Millions were spent on the L.A.P.D. and studies and reports and Commissions. Money was poured into better recruiting techniques and better training programs and graphs and diagrams and statistics were labored over.But The Commission report into the L.A.P.D. at the time found there were 44 – Forty Four hard core BAD cops who basically caused all the trouble. There were other cops who weren’t perfect, but there were 44 hard core nut jobs. Fire the 44. Your done. L.A.P.D. resurrected. But we have so much ‘information’ how can it be that simple?

Really -

Its the old story – a the 80/20 rule. 20% of any number produce 80% of the problem, or the profit, or the work or the situation. 10% are the key movers. 1-5% are the core of the problem, or the solution.

But that is not a bell curve, that is not…fair. And we believe in fairness and statistical methods and more knowledge gathering until we can solve the problem.

That’s our problem, there’s always a few causing the much.And its always simpler than we think. And in an information crazy world (the Western World) where grants and money are tied to ‘discovering’ things. Simple lets face it – is not good.

But listen – its always simpler than we think.

Remember that about business, your internet business. No matter how many programs you buy, how many seminars you attend, how much ‘knowledge’ you try to cram into your brain. Less than 20% of anything is worthwhile. So settle down, back up. Pick a business niche or market you like, or likes you – and learn it.

Not everything about everything, just that key 2-10% that makes it all move, and then if you have tie the rest of the 20% – but honestly you don’t need that much ‘information’.

Learn what you don’t need to know.

Most of the ‘knowledge’ is a luxury. Its because we can produce the numbers not because they have any true value. Its a rich society’s way. Always.

(yes test and track, use all the analytics, but that not ‘knowledge – that’s tools – put them back when your finished with them).

Figure out all the little you need to know – and know that.

Information is a tool – use when needed. And put it away

And in ten years it will still be less than 20% of the whole – and in 100 years.

Because WE don’t change. We are Singular. We are the singularity,in our own lives

WE can make as many stats and graphs and discoveries – but WE don’t change. We love and hate and envy and desire and believe and distrust and care now and before. 1000 years ago and (if we are around) 1000 years from now.

A customer still wants or needs or desires fun or love or security or relief from pain or…well all the usual stuff. It doesn’t change.Now and forever amen (perhaps?).

martin gover writes about all kinds of stuff at martingover.com – and some of its good.Really.

And free ebooks – usually, sometimes, most of the time. Have a look.

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I stand, you sit.  I speak, you listen.  I could also sing.  In fact, my seventh-grade daughter, Kaiyuh, sings in her school choir.  My wife and I attended a choir concert in which 6th, 7th and 8th grade vocalists and musicians performed on stage for about two hours.  We sat in the audience and listened.  The vocalists stood, like I am now, and performed.  Part of their performance required using their voices in unusual ways.  They had to exert physical force to hit high and low notes out of the range of ordinary speech.  They also had to exert mental force to remember timing and pitch through several different songs.  As I watched my daughter and her classmates perform, I also noticed that the back of the stage was walled in by acoustical panels that bent toward the audience at the top.  The entire setting was focused on human activity.  There was no room and no call for any other species or its activities to be present.  The entire event was anthropocentric.

Having noted the anthropocentrism, I then began to look more closely at the bodies.  They all dressed in the same way.  They wore white shirts or blouses, black pants or skirts and black shoes.  The girls had little make-up and their hair was pulled back and tied tightly in buns or ponytails behind their heads.  Their dress clearly signaled that the attention of the viewers and the performers should not be on bodies but on sounds, words and their meanings.  The singers were physically standardized units of vocal production.  The vocalists all stood in approximately the same w

Images of black church choirs appeared brightly before my mind’s eye.  I saw in the church choirs how the bodies swayed and stamped the rhythms as the voices rose higher and stronger to Jesus and God.  But in the church there were also those who sat and listened and those who stood and performed.  Where, I asked myself, had this come from—this gesture that simultaneously freezes and forces?  How have we come to freeze the body and force the mind?

An illustrative answer to this question appears in the history of Western music from the Gregorian chant to the symphony orchestra and the rock concert.  Why did Western music begin in such a quiet mode and develop into such loudness?  Of course we can thank the technology of sound amplification for some of the change.  Gregorian chanters did not have Dolby or Bose.  They did not have electricity to power microphones, speakers and amplifiers.  But the difference in volume seems to signify more than the presence or absence of technological assistance.  It also signifies the presence and absence of God.

During the Middle Ages, religion centered around two physical structures—the church or cathedral and the monastery.  Both buildings were places in which people could communicate with God.  God was not far away and could be reached by whispered prayer, prayers spoken in ordinary volume and by the subdued chants of singers.  As European humanity opened its mind and loosened its tongue, God began to move farther away.  By the 17th century, after the revolutionary work of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, God was a decreasing necessity in the physical universe.  He had become added value because he had moved further away from human reach.  In 1687, Newton’s Principia showed that the human mind can decode the structure of nature into manipulable symbols that allow precise prediction of physical events.  As the human mind ascended, God’s mind retreated.  It seems natural and logical to follow this trend through the development of physical science and empirical philosophy until, in the 18th century, musicians felt compelled to cry out to God with the loud voices of symphonic music. 

By our own time, we hear many different kinds of extremely loud music.  Why must it be so loud?  Because the ear of the signified is so far away.  As the Baroque composers cried out to a distant and receding God, so do the popular singers cry out to a distant love.  What really is the difference in acoustical structure between the lyrics—Love me, Jesus, love me, and Love me, honey, love me?  The distance between the one who wants love and the one who can give love is so great that tremendous volume is necessary to cross the space between them.

Crying out for the love of God in Christianity, however, has more serious implications than the wailings of pop stars.  The religious person in search of their God seeks not only love but also the ultimate assurance that he or she will survive death and enjoy eternal life as an immaterial soul.  This search for assurance is a search for divine insurance against the uncertainty of human life.  The religious person seeks certainty about the meaningfulness of birth and the survival of individuality after death.  The religious person seeks security.

The primary fear to be assuaged by religious security is the fear of death.  The fear of death is fod—f-o-d.   Fod sounds and is spelled like the English words “nod” and “cod.”  But “fod” is spelled with an “f.”  From here on, the fear of death is fod.  Fod seems to be part of the body’s autonomic physiological system.  It is like the body’s reaction to food poisoning.  You do not have to tell your body to vomit.  Throwing up bad food is not the result of a conscious calculation.  It is a physiological reaction to something that threatens the body.  Fod is also like the reaction of the immune system to the presence of pathogens.  You do not have to tell the specialized cells to form and attack the intruder.  They form and attack as a reaction of the system in defense of its own life.  In this sense, fod is natural, normal, raw and elemental.  It signifies the desire of life to maintain itself indefinitely. 

But indefinitely is not eternally.  The idea that a living thing can transcend, in whole or in part, the mortal boundaries of its livingness to persist in some different state forever is an addition.  This addition reflects an idea of surplus that overcomes, in its eternal form, all kinds of natural lack or deficiency.  This addition also provides the transcendent justification for the myriad rituals of everyday life in and by which we dampen fear, amplify hope and attempt to secure immortal existence or eternal life.  Religion, however, has not been the only effort to provide such security.

In the history of humanity, there have been four efforts to provide humans with security about the unknown before birth and the unknown after death.  These four are myth, philosophy, religion and science.  When I map these four across linear time, I see a rhythm.  It begins in the hunting and gathering period that preceded agriculture in human life.  Agriculture brought new security and satisfaction.  The displacements of nomadism and of famine were significantly decreased by the reliability of cultivated crops and domesticated animals.  Then, in about 1000 BC, travel, trade and communication between different groups of people brought very different worldviews into contact and collision.  Insecurity and dissatisfaction increased as traditional worldviews had to reckon with their own non-universality.  Philosophy appeared, as did all of the monotheisms, during the next 1500 years, which includes the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire.  In this context, security about life after death increased for many people due to their adherence to monotheistic religious practices and doctrines that reestablished universality on a ground that freely mixed rationalism with mystery.  That world of security, called the Dark Ages in the West, unraveled with new thinking, contact, discoveries and inventions that led to the period of insecurity in which we all now live, the modern age with its emendation in post-modernism. 

A long wave of security and insecurity undulates through changes in human socioeconomic systems.  These systems deploy many forces that have brought, ritualization of fod—thanatophobia—in everyday life.  This oscillation begins with the development of the human species as a biological organism and ends with the end of the same species. The logic and rhythm of the wave forces are ours to deal with and to understand.  However, short of a massive, dramatic change in our biological structure, we will always be somewhere in, on and within the long wave oscillation of security and insecurity.

Like looking through a hall of mirrors, we can see through four thousand years of human civilization.  We can recode all of it as aimed at one thing—securing human life, existence and reproduction.  All of it has aimed at one goal—understanding where we come from and where we’re going.  All of it has functioned with binary logic that has ended up in the same conundrum: a unity in which there is no principle of differentiation. Binary logic, or, the logic of identity and contradiction, assumes difference for its functioning.  Without difference, the logic of identity and contradiction dissolves into incoherence.  The assumption of logic echoes the assumption of physics: without positive and negative charges, there would be no matter or energy.  Yet, like logic, physics cannot explain the origin of charge, that is, the origin of difference in the fundamental structure of the physical universe.  In fact, none of the major mental structures of the last four thousand years can explain the origin of difference.  Binary logic has reached its ultimate limit in myth, philosophy, religion and science. Something new must come for human beings to move on from where we have arrived after four thousand years of trying to understand ourselves and nature with binary logic.

To approach the new, we need to be able to free ourselves from the old.  Toward this end, I would like to suggest a thought experiment.  It has several steps:

Empty language of traditional reference and meaning

Empty language of regional reference and meaning

Empty language of local reference and meaning

Empty language of familial reference and meaning

Humans continue to live

But language does not secure thought or perception

Humans continue to act, produce and consume

But language does not cohere relationships

Consequences:

1.     Written language appears as more secure and more reliable.

2.     Spoken language appears as art, entertainment and manipulation

3.     Boundary problems multiply in all areas of human verbal activity

Consequences of the consequences:

1.     Individuals and groups increasingly diverge from traditional norms.

2.     Divergence includes attempts to regain past security as well as attempts to discover new forms of security.  For example, religious traditionalism thrives alongside scientific inquiry, philosophical speculation, and artistic and social experimentation.

This thought experiment synopsizes the change in human culture from the archaic periods in Europe and Asia to the appearance of axial religions, all of which posited an invisible, scarce reality as the ultimate source of human security, safety and happiness.  The traditional ability of human beings to be satisfied with life in the natural world had disappeared to such an extent that only the idea of and belief in life in an eternal, unnatural world brought satisfaction.  However, polytheism was unsatisfactory because it relied too heavily on connections of deities to the natural world.  What the human spirit needed was a way to disconnect entirely from the world of nature.  All of the axial religions and philosophies presented ideas of scarcity that were mutually exclusive and designed to secure individuals in conditions that were independent of natural time and space.  Natural and social scarcities came to signify the scarcity of human satisfaction and security.  Natural and social surpluses came to signify the abundance of satisfaction and security available in the unnatural, trans-social world of theological immortality.

Consequence of the consequences of the consequences:

Capitalism, driven, underwritten and protected by monotheistic theologies and religions, is the socioeconomic consequence.  It is an economy of surplus and scarcity that regards the natural world as totally useless except for its potential to be transformed into products that promote some aspect of human security, pleasure, happiness, health or well-being.  Capitalism is the application of the religions of scarcity to economics.  On behalf of an idea of human security divorced from the natural world, such as life in a totally mechanized space station, capitalism is destroying life and the possibility of life on earth by destroying the basic life support systems of the biosphere, such as air, land and water.

A brief history of the ego illustrates the ancient fluctuation that preceded the appearance of monotheistic capitalism.  Linguists specializing in the history of ancient Greek have speculated about the origin of the first person, singular, nominative pronoun, egwge, which became the Latin, ego, which in turn has become the English, ego.  One possibility is that, based on its usages in the oldest written layers of ancient Greek, this word represented a gesture.  The gesture can be imagined as follows.  People in a group are speaking with one another.  At some point, a part of the conversation includes one person exclusive of the others; for example, one person may have caught a fish on a day when no one else did.  The word, egwge, accompanied a manual gesture that pointed toward the body of that one person who had caught the fish.  In context, egwge singled out one body without disengaging that body from either the past group activity or the present conversation.  In the ensuing years, the ancient Western ego passed through writers such as Homer, Hesiod, Heracleitos, Empedocles and Parmenides. 

By the time of Plato, the Western ego was afloat in a sea of cultural differences that continually required some kind of self-affirmation, or, egocentered assertion, in order to gain and maintain security in social interaction.  As the sea of cultural fluctuations became stormier and stormier over the next few centuries, more and more people sought refuge away from not only the traditional insecurities of natural processes, such as earthquakes, floods, droughts and famines, but also the increasingly confusing and disturbing social processes of cultural mixing.  The axial religions and philosophies, featuring dualisms that universally contrasted a this world condition with a that, or, otherworld, condition, appeared and have flourished to this day.

Indeed, haven’t we been here before?  By “we” I mean human consciousness.  By “here” I mean in this phase of world-order.  By “before” I mean a passage in the linearization of human experience known as history. We have, as naturally and repeatedly as the body produces antibodies, produced our own lenses through which to diminish fod.  We have alternately, rhythmically, forcefully captured our need for security in mental lenses.  First came myth with polytheism; then came philosophy with sophistry and the beginnings of natural science and mathematics; after those came religion with exclusive monotheisms that preached absolute dualisms; next came science with technology.  Each lens has completely satisfied some people’s longing for secure answers to the questions of the origin and end of existence and especially of human existence.  But each lens has become a layer of human consciousness.  Now the layer of science and technology seems to be morphing into another layer of fundamentalist religiosity. 

This morphing has thrown modernism and post-modernism into strong relief in contemporary intellectual life.  We may easily understand modernism and post-modernism as oscillations in the long wave of security and insecurity.  The seeds of both isms were sown at the beginning of the age of European exploration, when Europeans suddenly began showing up on the shores, on the lands and in the faces of people who had not known that Europeans even existed.  This was the beginning of the decrease in transitions in global human life.  The rise of the middle class, who made their money from their own efforts in trade and manufacturing, and without the ceremony, the mediations or the transitions of monarchy, aristocracy, nobility or papacy, further powered the decrease in transitions.  Now, in 2006, generations of human beings have been raised on the visual media of photography, cinema and television in which scene changes require that the viewers make the transitions in their own minds. 

Modernism reacted to the decrease in transitions by decrying fragmentation and inventing compensatory forms, such as the novel, in which the author could create an alternate reality that was whole, complete and smooth.  However, more contemporary people have tried to join and accept fragmentation rather than beat or reject it.  More and more humans travel from one physical location to another in such a short time that they move from one culture, language, religion and ecosystem with only flight time as transition.  More and more humans watch visual media, such as television and movies, which decrease transitions in order to increase speed of delivery and quantity of content.  Post-modernism makes the absence of transitions a virtue and an aspect of art and life.  Both isms, modernism and post-modernism, express human beings trying to cope with changes in the basic structures of human existence upon which security and insecurity depend.  Both isms are oscillations in the long wave of security and insecurity.

Myth, philosophy, religion and science have all tried to give absolutely reliable meaning to human thought and language and, through thought and language, to human life.  As the security, stability and reliability of the referents of language have varied, so has the meaningfulness of human life.  The more security there has been the more meaning, the less security the less meaning and the greater search for meaning.

In this process, philosophy has made the fatal assumption that meaning is ultimately comprehensible by language.  Language is a function of only part of the brain.  The brain is one small organ in a much larger body.  How could the expression of one part of one organ comprehend the meaning of the entire organism?  Impossible.  Just as only a small part of the physical universe is accessible to the brain through vision, so only a small part of the semantic universe is comprehensible to the brain through language.

Is a personal conclusion from this reflection possible?  I think it is.  First, I note what I do not conclude.  I do not conclude, as have so many monotheistic religions, that the ultimate goal of human life should be to leave life entirely.  If the experience of the void shows that god and the devil are one, that all saviors are one, that all religions mask the same reality, that all experiences, states and conditions are transient, transitory and without enduring substance or consequence, that is, to put it briefly in Buddhist terms, that nirvana and samsara are one, then what possible difference can it make whether I am alive, dead or in any other condition?

In other words—there are always other words, aren’t there?  There are always other words because human beings are so diverse and the human mind is so productive.  But other words are, after all, only words.  So, other words are not my conclusion.  No, all of the teachings of the monotheistic religions, the philosophies, the myths and the sciences are a more recent wisdom.  There is an older wisdom.  It is accessible through language but it is not language.  It is silently signified by the entire enterprise of semiotics that endeavors to articulate the significations of our experience. 

In this connection, I remember a video of a dancing African tribe.  The dancing was taking place on a wide, flat, red dirt plaza in the middle of the village.  The villagers, men and women, girls and boys, were dressed in bright red cloths that wrapped, turned and furled around their shining, coffee and chocolate colored bodies.  Everyone danced in a huge circle.  Everyone had a part in the song; some dancers played instruments that they carried; other participants stood close to the outside of the circle, playing instruments and singing and swaying their bodies.  The only observer was the person taking the video.  Otherwise, there were no observers.  No observers!  Everyone danced, sang or played an instrument.  There was no stage, performance or separation of human activity from nature.  The earth was beneath their feet and the sky was above their heads.  There was nothing to signify a distant subject or an observed object.  There was no dualism.  The sounds, gestures and motions of the dance were as natural as wind in trees or water over rocks or animals running across the plains. 

For the analytical subject, this dance signifies the ancient wisdom.  It is the participation of the human body in a cosmos whose dimensions are continually opening and closing in, through and around us.  But that which is continually opening and closing in, through and around us, continually makes a difference in how we think and feel about the world.  What, then, is the nature of this difference that participation not only makes but also inscribes in every aspect of our conscious experience?

If all theology is correct, that everything began in one god that was absolutely pure, single and the same as itself…if astrophysics is correct that the entire universe began in a singularity that was pure and altogether of the same kind of energy…if Buddhism is correct that ultimately there is only the void of which nothing can be predicated…if mysticism is correct that all is one and one is all…THEN, I am still faced with the same unanswered questions.  What is difference?  What is the origin of difference? 

I understand that the human mind can be stilled to quiescence that can be intensified through stages of samadhi to the point at which there is no experiencer, experiencing and experienced.  But that is only the human mind.  What about electrons and protons?  Where does charge come from?  Can electrons and protons be stilled to quiescence so that there is no difference in charge?   If so, would not that be the end of all matter?

This reflection carries our thought to the end of the combined logic of the last four thousand years of human civilization.  Each dimension of that combined logic, whether it is myth, philosophy, religion, science or mysticism, leads to the same limit.  There is no way, using any branch of that logic, to account for the existence of difference.  Every branch of traditional human logic leads to a unity that is prior to any difference.  There is no principle of differentiation, no power of being or making difference, either inside or outside that unity.  Therefore, no branch of traditional human logic can account for the existence of difference.

The entire teeter-totter of civilization balances on one axis: security and insecurity.  But, this is an axis of feeling, not of need.  People feel insecure even when their physical needs are satisfied.  The 9/11 attack on the US made a nation of people most of whom have no problem satisfying their physical needs feel extremely insecure.  Traditionally, invasion or the threat of invasion is a major source of human insecurity.  Connected to this human threat is the threat that has persisted from myths of evil demons to images of hostile extraterrestrial beings or invasion from outside the human realm.  This type of extra-human invasion also appears as the evil principle of many religions, such as Satan in Christianity. 

The idea of Satan places human beings between the possibility of evil and eternal suffering and good and eternal bliss.  This placement not only promotes insecurity, it also promotes constant dissatisfaction with oneself and others.  One never knows, in the terms of monotheistic religious doctrines, how god is going to go—for the person or against them.  One never knows which act, large or small, might tip the balance toward an eternity baking in hell or an eternity basking in heaven.  One never outgrows or overcomes fod. 

This insecurity of fod can also be seen as an engine of another characteristic of Western European, North American and increasingly global fundamentalist consciousness: speed.  If the devil pursues you from behind, and the last judgment looms ahead, then one way to end the anxiety that surrounds the insecurity of not knowing future eternal fate is to speed up the process and get the apocalypse and the last judgment over and done with.  The impatience with moral lapses that is historically embedded in all kinds of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and the certainty with which apocalyptic groups have regularly foretold the certain end of the world together exemplify this distortion of time around psychological conditions of insecurity that are driven by religious beliefs.  The movement away from drugs like opium and peyote, which take people through long and sometimes very slow illusory passages, toward drugs like crack cocaine and methamphetamine also coincides with this attempt to compress natural time into religiously based chronology.

Question:  What’s the rush?

Answer:  Eternal life.

The entire project of Western intellectuality has been the attempt to tie the human mind to permanence.  There are the immortal gods and goddesses who have always lived on Mt. Olympus.  There is the first principle—water, air, love, flux, the one, the atom—which has always existed and from which everything has come.  There is the one god, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, who is eternal and from which everything has and always will come.  There are the modern philosophers, from Descartes to Kant, Nietzsche, Russell, Wittgenstein, Husserl, Sartres and Derrida, trying to find the seat and source of certainty, and the subject that can judge truth and falsity, certainty and uncertainty, good and evil and meaningfulness and meaninglessness.  Of course the philosophers do not agree.  The only truth they have found is the conflict among their divergent points of view.  There also is the unified field theory of the physical sciences that, including the Big Bang, explains the permanent structure of the physical universe and of all forms of matter and energy in it including human beings.  The entire project of Eastern intellectuality has been similar.  There are the immortal gods and goddesses; there is nirvana; there is moksha; there is satori; there is the endless and all-creative yin and yang. 

Everywhere that human beings have looked up from the moment of providing food, water and shelter, there have arisen thinkers who have tried to tie the human mind to permanence.  Why?  To relieve insecurity.  The long wave of security and insecurity is the logic and rhythm of forces.  The logic and rhythm are in the forces.  There is no place to stand, no place to ride, other than in and on the wave.  Security signifies identity with permanence.  Insecurity signifies difference from permanence.  The struggle to achieve permanence is the struggle to eliminate difference.  But no struggle can exist without difference; all struggle assumes, needs and requires the existence of difference.  Difference persists in the struggle for permanence as well as in the search for meaning.  If difference persists then is not difference the permanence we seek?  If difference surrounds every dry ground of unity like oceans, lakes or rivers surround islands, then isn’t difference the permanence we seek?  If so, then we may see birth as the falling away and death as the uniting, birth as the moment of difference and death as the moment of identity, life as the locus of insecurity and death as the focus of security.

In conclusion, there is no necessary conclusion to this reflection.  We have not followed a deduction from premises.  We have not pursued an hypothesis through experimentation.  Nor have we engaged in symbolic interpretation guided by idealistic or moralistic principles.  Rather, this verbal process has participated in the power of semiotics to look through, to make transparent, the everyday life of human beings.  Such looking through ends only as a phase when the transparentizing attention turns elsewhere.

Freeze the body, force the mind.  Freezing the body signifies fear of the body, fear that it is going to die, fear of its mortality.  Forcing the mind, through voice, emotion and mental exertion, signifies the hope that a human being can leave the body, leave nature, and reach an immortal state.  These fears and hopes have been thoroughly ritualized in human social practices.  They represent, all together, an enormous effort to give human beings final release from thanatophobia, from fod.  This effort naturally raises a certain type of question:

If death is so terrifying, why do we keep having children?

If birth is so natural and beautiful, why isn’t death also so natural and beautiful?

If birth is to be treasured and sought, why is not death to be treasured and sought?

Is there any difference in beauty between a sunrise and a sunset?

Thank you

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In my widespread circumnavigation – I would be untruthful, if I claimed that I was not a devout lover of women. They are the most amazing pedestrians to have ever walked the globe. Men demolish – women coacervate societies. This is irrefutable. Because of this very amazement, I have formed a mental list of the most dynamic women I have had the pleasure of knowing. This hierarchy would be undeniably spearheaded by Brazilians, Argentineans, Italians, Japanese and Thai. However, I must admit that Israeli women rival the Boticelli encapsulation of quintessential beauty. How did this ever manifest?

I argue that this may be rationalized by three significant factors – heterozygous advantage, warm tropical climate, and the cold reality of living amidst a perennial state of fear. First and foremost, it is fairly clear that through a dramatically heterogeneous society – rampant hybrid vigor abounds. This biological phenomenon results when individuals with dissimilar genetic traits reproduce – the genes most suitable for survival will be selected for. Those savvy enough to pick up on this phenomenon, may argue that heterogeneity is one of the founding principles of myriad societies – particularly that seen in the West. However, where Westerners have been reared in more of a “beef stew” (i.e. a society based upon precipitating subpopulations that rarely integrate); Israel truly embodies the “melting pot” theory…

These people were brought to “Middle Earth” from diverging genetic backgrounds to fully integrate based upon one coagula

Indeed, empirical observations of present-day societies with Portuguese influence across all bizarre corners of the globe (i.e. Mozambique, Macau, Goa, and Brazil) have shown me that these people seem to enjoy a liberal (particularly sexually) and jovial lifestyle – relative to other nations with tragic vestiges of Imperialism. Therefore, the integration of several societies was made particularly facile here. And we can now express our SINCERE gratitude for such an ideal experiment in values – as most will agree if they ever experienced a night of Carnavale in Rio.

Next, sex is somehow buoyant when it comes to tropical climates. I would argue that a fairly strict correlation emerges between warm climates and sexual desire. This is clear to anyone who has lived in NYC for awhile. Within the span of one week, people will radically alter their apparel from exceedingly conservative winter coats to Daisy Dukes. Implicit in this change is a revelation of skin, sexual propensities, and general mood change.

Finally, due to the juxtaposition of a militarized State and a society relatively equal in terms of gender dynamics – women have the freedom to seek out their internal wishes without being labeled as social pariahs. Moreover, this may be a stretch, but I argue that although fear clearly suppresses our sexual appetite, when it sporadically dissipates, a layer of aggression and intense sexual passion aggregates and explodes in the form of prolific baby-making processes…

Based upon such a successful social experiment – my arrival in Israel was met with surprised euphoria. These women were not only ABSOLUTELY aesthetically stunning – but were also intelligent, goal-oriented, and exceptionally interesting. As I periodically weigh the possibilities of existentialism and Calvinism against one another – I began to search for a deeper meaning for such a serendipitous discovery. What I came up with was that despite my general passion for all of our proverbial Eves – I wanted to find that perfect counterpart. And based upon my age and inclination it seemed that this may have been one of the most significant reasons for my arrival in Israel…

Indeed, I was quite fortunate as these women unequivocally shared a DEVOUT penchant for aspiring American medical humanitarians. I raised no objections to this undeniable affinity. In fact, I had never been solicited so much before in my life. At this point, there was no doubt that I would find that woman that would stimulate every nerve and whose passion would percolate every vein every day for the remainder of my adventure-induced curtailed life. Yet despite all of my debaucherous late-night quests – my efforts were to no avail. Alternatively, I was to be used as a utensil for a period of six months by curious Middle Eastern women with ravenous thirsts. Indeed, I have NEVER encountered such a sexually liberal society – taking place on both sides of the gender divide…

The most curious phenomenon I encountered, however, was the pervasive emotional aloofness. While these women clearly attracted me initially by their sweet, soft and tender ways, I was apparently no more than a toy to them – to be disposed of as they saw fit. This was exceptionally peculiar for me, as I had most recently lived in East Asia, where women began shopping for their “white picket-fenced homes” the day immediately following sexual engagement. Could these two worlds rationally coexist?

Indeed, any woman I displayed any meaningful interest to quickly concealed all emotional vulnerability. One night, I thought I had met my Venus – the next week, I would be crudely awakened by other men answering their mobile phones. Was this really the paradise I thought it was? Sadly not. It seems that this world I had entered was the quintessential wet dream for a young man of his early 20s looking to explore, conquer and divide. I surpassed this stage some time ago…

Let us now anthropologically probe this bizarre phenomenon. Clearly, this is all conjecture and is not validated by any objective evidence. Therefore, I’m certain that many of my observations will be held in contention by my readers. However, I simply ask you to explore the abstract possibility of such explanations…

I argue that this substantially promiscuous Israeli society can be most generally rationalized by 4 significant factors. The first is the preference of living in the present. Indeed, illogical roads are built, pervasive construction abounds, bank accounts are drained, airlines are booked, and some of their most attractive men and women of this earth are frequently fornicating. Why? Because living amidst such volatile and unstable conditions creates a world where the future holds little weight and even less certainty…

Why establish good credit, set up our much-loved 401(k)s, take out a 2nd mortgage to add a 3rd wing to our unnecessarily large home, or plan on that vacation to the Caribbean decades from now – if it could all vanish in an instant? Indeed, this Israeli mentality is quantum leaps beyond that of many other western nations. Of course, most of us fail to identify our unequivocal appointment with death, and subsequently plan for a time that may never realistically materialize. What is the sum result? Spending one’s entire and only life preparing for plausible nonexistence. I have not been to Norway recently, but I don’t believe an award in astrophysics is necessary to identify this behavior as quintessentially insane…

The second contributing component to this social algorithm is that of social cohesion. Anti-Semitism has pervaded the globe for millennia. Only in the past 60 years have they found one place to call home. Due to this oppression, they have had to maintain strong ties of kinship. Indeed, this is one of the only reasons that can justifiably explain how a race/religion was able to survive amidst such ubiquitous persecution – joined in both space and time. Indeed, we may reflect upon the Durkheimian concept of social anomie here. It simply does not materialize in Jewish society. In fact, Jews have some of the lowest suicide rates in the world. The rationale is that they have kept such strong support networks. Therefore, when a nation was pieced together with individuals from all over the world – this solidarity would manifest in unprecedented ways…

Constantly assuming disacceptance would unfold, they have relied on only one sure thing – themselves. If you take this phenomenon in conjunction with them occupying part of the present-day Arab world (where it is safe to say they are less than welcome) – this social cohesion skyrockets. This is why, I believe, I have found such a divergence from expectation and truth. When traveling in other parts of the globe, they just assume that their negative press will follow them. Therefore, they expel what they expect – negativity. Yet when they are amongst their own, we are fortunate in witnessing them in their genuine unadulterated state – a charming and hospitable breed…

Therefore, while many women that I encounter from other parts of the globe may be the emotionally-starved products of dysfunctional divorces, teenage pregnancies, “daddy’s mid-life crisis defined by dating a woman 5 years my junior” (or any other Jerry Springer episode that I may have missed) – the women I meet here manifests on a strong platform of love and security. Women do not need to seek out their Freudian father in some 84 year-old sexually-exploiting man, but can feel emotionally fulfilled while enjoying the physical fruits of life with a man that they are genuinely attracted to – but nothing more…

Third, this strong sense of family values in conjunction with their remarkable endeavors to retain their racial/religious traits – a significant emphasis has been placed on Jewish women to produce children. As avian delivery of infants typically fails in practice, Israeli women are constantly reminded that they must produce offspring via seeking out competitive sperm donors. However, through remarkable sexual education and disease prevention this programmed drive fails to produce its intended result – “Jewish babies”. Alternatively, we are left with an emotionally sound, progeny-seeking, spontaneous populace actively seeking out sexual satisfaction…

Finally, independence again established by near gender equality presents another substantial piece to this sociological puzzle. Through women’s mandatory conscription in the military to their role in politics to their predominant university enrollment – women here do not “require” a male counterpart for their emotional and financial fulfillment. Moreover, due to the acceptance that their men may go off to battle and never return at any given moment, I argue that they oftentimes reserve a piece of their emotional potential. Women must quickly learn how to fend for themselves if this very real possibility materializes. However, at the same time, they recognize their physical need to consummate and thus perceive men to be a useful component to “their world” – a unique reversal of values, indeed…

And we now arrive at our idealistic debacle. I have met some incredible women along this Israeli avenue. However, this path lacks the silver-lining of emotional connection and nurturing I so desperately crave. What is the result? Emotions can never be realistically projected or quantified, but I will continue on my search until I find that amazing woman to share the rest of my undetermined life with. Until that day, glasses will remain unbroken, heads will stay bare, chagrined emotions will persist, and life will continue as before…

Tyler B. Evans, MPH
Mr. Evans earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Gerontology from the University of Southern California; and Master of Public Health degree in SocioMedical Sciences/History & Ethics from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He is currently a medical student at Tel Aviv University/Sackler Faculty of Medicine. He has extensive experience in the field of HIV/AIDS, human rights advocacy and medical humanitarianism in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia – working with Doctors without Borders, Physicians for Human Rights, UNICEF, as well as various other non-governmental organizations.

Mr. Evans currently resides in Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, contact te2105@columbia.edu.

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RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

When we speak of religious beliefs we mean its theological tenets. Christianity and Islam share common ideas and beliefs having their roots in a common source–Judaism. This religion in turn derived many of its doctrines and beliefs from the Persians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and the Sumerians. Perhaps it would be true to say that almost every religion is syncretic, though they may try very hard to cover this up.

Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism are more mystical in nature and differ greatly from the Semitic religions in many basic principles; Hinduism comprising of many philosophical schools of thought, embraces various theological ideas. Some schools of Buddhism teaches that there is no permanent entity called the soul; that what is thought to be the soul is simply a collection of karmic tendencies transmittable from one incarnation to another. Their extreme views are nilhilistic in nature; however, it is doubtful whether this was implied in the teachings of the Buddha. For instance, if there is no Self, then there is also no Gautama Buddha in existence; and yet, prayers are still being directed by the faithful to this exalted being. Fundamentally, although these religions have diverse concepts regarding the soul they all point or refer to the One where all sentient beings originate. All have their own particular name or names for this Source, and all have their personal ideas regarding this Divine Essence.

Theological precepts are often tainted with the frailties of the human ego and intelle

In Christian theology it is believed that the soul prior to birth is devoid of any individuality or personality. It is only when God breathes through the nostrils of man that the soul acquires self-consciousness, and is a “living” being–and this condition of being alive is believed to remain with the soul after death. In the Book of Genesis it is recorded that,

“God made man out of the dust of the earth, breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and made man a living soul.” (Gen 2:7)

The phrase “living soul” is equated to the state of being self-conscious. According to this notion unless there is an awareness of the existence of an ego, or a self, a person or being does not truly have a soul. Such a creature is “soulless.” A person may be alive imbued with the soul-essence, the life-force, and yet remain soulless, in the sense that it is not self-aware. Some states of insanity may represent beings who are “soulless.” While the living soul is associated with the awareness of the ego, immortality is associated with the awareness of the superego, the Higher Self. This idea, though, falls in the province of metaphysical thought.

Basically, theology consider the soul to be a substance implanted in man. It is believed to be an entity divinely created and bestowed upon man when man takes his first breath. Christian theology formulated the idea that man is a divine creation, the highest of all beings, and that the whole universe was created for man alone in support of his existence.

In Christianity the terms “lost souls” or “degraded souls” are often expressed. The moral quality of a person’s life is believed to be able to affect the soul. However, from the metaphysical point of view soul-essence is immaculate, perfect, immutable and divine. What may be affected is not its essence but its conscious expression. The consciousness arising from soul essence is that which evolves and strives to reflect the image, archetype or blueprint that God created for man. This is stated emphatically in Genesis; however the statement is often interpreted literally. This blueprint is the image or divine qualities of God. It does not refer to form but to the inner nature of the life-essence.

The Hindus, generally speaking, believe the soul to be an entity that resides in the physical body and is subjected to reincarnation in accord with its karma. The Upanishads says that, “The Supreme Person, of the size of the thumb, dwells forever in the heart of all human beings.” Its esoteric wisdom, moreover, tells us that the immaterial man is constituted of various principles each having their own particular function. The highest principle within the microcosm of man is the Atma, or according to others, the Paratman.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the microcosm is represented by Krishna, Arjuna, the carriage, and the horses. Krishna is the Spirit, the highest aspect of man; Arjuna the evolving soul; the carriage the mind; and the horses the senses. Graphically five horses are often represented. They represent the senses of man through which the vital force escapes and runs uncontrolled. In yoga and esoteric practices the senses are subdued so that the vital force may be directed within to awaken the sluggish Arjuna. Krishna is the guide that assists Arjuna in this project.

ANCIENT BELIEFS

As we mentioned before, the belief in the survival of the soul after death goes way back to the earliest development of humankind. Primitive Neanderthal tribes, for instance, would bury food, tools, and weapons along with the corpses of their departed in order to provide them with the bare necessities in the afterlife. This custom still survive in some cultures and is a clear indication that not only is soul survival believed in but that the afterlife as a continuation of the sort of life lived in the physical world is likewise presumed.

Animism was the prevailing belief among prehistoric man. Everything was considered alive and pervaded with a soul-force that even gave inanimate objects a consciousness and an intelligence of some kind. Stars in particular were believed to be souls long dead and living in heaven. To the primitive mind, the sky or firmaments were considered to be heaven, just as hell was thought to lie beneath the earth.

That the soul “resided” and functioned in the physical body, a location was sought for its residence. Some believed the heart to be the organ of the soul, others pointed to the head. Some primitive cultures thought that the blood was the vehicle of the soul–that the blood carried soul-substances to every part of the body. The demon Mephistopheles in a play written by Goethe (1749-1832) declares the blood to be a “curious thing.” The belief that the blood is the vehicle of the soul is not without foundation, however. If the soul in this context is considered to be the life-force, prana, chi, or even oxygen, one can only surmise how the primitive mind intuited this scientific fact. Scientifically, it has been noticed that blood-transfusion often causes a temporary change in character in the person receiving the donor’s blood. Could it be that blood is impregnated with one’s soul-characteristics? As the blood was associated with the soul, many primitive tribes such as the Scythians evolved the custom of drinking the blood of their enemies or victims in order to absorb their courage, strength, power, and abilities. The custom of forming blood-brothers is also based upon the belief in the importance of the blood as related to the soul, and its transcendence over fleshly ties. Members forming blood-brothers would drink the blood of fellow members thus forming a soul-bond overriding the normal flesh-and-blood relationships.

The ancients often depicted the soul as a bird often human headed, perhaps referring to its ability to fly. The Aztecs, ancient Greeks and Egyptians among the many ancient races, for instance, often portrayed the souls of their dead in murals and pottery as a winged bird taking flight from its lifeless corpse. Eagles, hawks, doves, peacocks and phoenixes were often used to represent the soul.

Not only the head, heart, and blood were believed to be the seat of the soul, but likewise the breath. Believing that the breath is associated with the soul and life, the aborigines of Papua New Guinea would breathe through tubes into effigies of their forefathers in order to confer a certain vitality to their departed souls. This is a magical practice based on the law of similarity. Many tribal cultures practiced the placement of obstructions in the nostrils of their dying ones as a last effort to saving their lives. This they believe would effectively prevent the soul from escaping and causing the death of the body.

It is believed among ancient and savage people that the soul being associated with the life force, illnesses or feebleness of the physical body are caused by the escape of the soul from the gross form. In extreme cases the soul force was “captured” by some evil spirit and it was the task of the shaman, the tribal witch-doctor to recapture the soul and restore it to the corporeal body. The ability of the shaman to dissociate his incorporeal aspect from the gross form supposedly facilitated this sort of work.

The Ancients’ concept of the soul has evolved throughout the ages, and even now our scientific understanding is constantly in a state of change. Our conceptions regarding the soul is associated with our various notions regarding God. As man evolves so does his awareness of the soul and his Source. Man has formed many ideas regarding the nature of his creator. In this context it can be seen that the phrase, “God creates man, and man creates God” has a basis in truth.

Among the ancient cultures, the Egyptians and Hindus were the most advanced in their understanding of the soul. We in particular refer to their mystics, hierophants, and sages. They regarded man as a microcosm with many aspects, both material and incorporeal, with each aspect having its own function to play in the life and destiny of the soul. Their many teachings live on today in contemporary metaphysico-occult philosophy. The ancient Greek philosophers and sages such as Thales, Plato and Pythagoras derived much of their occult knowledge from these wise priests of the Orient.

SCIENTIFIC VIEWS

Along the scientific vein, certain schools of thought believe the self or ego to be a by-product of a brain function, and yet what gives rise to this function is not known, and only given an educational guess. The section of the brain that “causes” a sense of self is likewise not yet discovered. This concept of the “brain causes consciousness” is fundamentally the viewpoint of the mechanists that sees man as merely a machine. The above concept is flawed, however, because portions of the brain have been known to be destroyed and yet the presence of a sense of self still remained. In the condition known as hydrocephalus, for instance, large sections of the cerebral cortex may be destroyed or missing, being filled instead with cerebro-spinal fluid, and yet individuals suffering from such a condition may lead normal lives without suspecting their blight. They may even have an I.Q. above average.

The mechanists, Freud (1856-1939) among them, claim that our behavioral actions are automatic responses to external stimuli, and that life is a result of the right combination of chemicals derived from food and oxygen. That an animating force exists to vitalize the organism they may concede but this force is looked upon as a physical energy akin to electricity. The mechanistic theory describes how perception takes place through the stimulation of the senses that creates nerve impulses, and how these nerve impulses travel to the sections of the brain related to the senses, and how they form sensations; but the theory does not consider the real perceiver that tries to make sense of the sensations. To mechanists, the perceiver is thought to be one of the functions of the cerebral cortex. In short, the mechanistic concept leaves no room for the existence of the soul. To a mechanist the purported existence of the soul is considered as an absurdity.

If the eminent neuropsychologist Karl Lashley (1890-1958), author of Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence, after years of research could not discover the seat of memory in the brain, how much more difficult would it be to discover the seat of the self or soul–not withstanding Descartes’ (1596-1650) assertion that the pineal gland is its locus. This French philosopher and mathematician also declared, “cogito, ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am” thus implying that the Self arises into existence as a result of thought, or as a function of the mind. Nevertheless, mystics have proved to themselves the possibility of transcending thoughts and yet remaining in existence, and possessing an exalted sense of Self, unified with the Cosmos. The mystic’s standpoint is supported by Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French philosopher and writer. To Sartre, existence does not depend on the functions of the mind, that a being does not exist simply because it thinks. According to Sartre, existence precedes the mind–or thinking.

Rene Descartes’ statement is therefore erroneous, or perhaps our interpretation of his statement is wrong. “I think, because I am” would be closer to the truth. In spite of this, Descartes was somewhat accurate in believing that the pineal gland plays an important role in man’s occult physiology as we shall see later when we discuss the metaphysical purview.

Mainstream science may disavow the existence of the soul on the pretext of its immateriality, undetected by their instruments; and yet, matter in its actual state in similarly immaterial. This was the proposition of Leibniz (1646-1716), the German philosopher, who considered matter as a manifestation of Mind–”a stupid variety of mind.” To explain this graphically, for instance, what we call concrete matter is actually made up of moving molecules. Molecules in turn are made up of whirling atoms, and these are composed of even smaller particles. Should these sub-atomic particles be magnified “nothing” would be found. Matter, is therefore, made up of “emptiness.” We may call this void “energy,” “mind,” or “spirit,” but whatever we call it, the fact remains that matter is actually as insubstantial as the soul. If the reality of one is accepted why not the other? The many particles composing matter are filled with this “nothing,” or space. Another curious fact is that if we were to remove the space inherent within a human body, for instance, and all the “particles” united, the total compaction would result in a piece of matter no larger than a mite of dust. Leibniz’s theory is also paralleled by the thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the American Trancendentalist. According to Emerson matter is “a phenomenon, not a substance.” He also considered the material world to be,

“a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day.”

Science informs us that nothing is destroyed. That matter is just energy possessing a certain structure and magnetic-field. It is acknowledged that everything in existence is made up of energy. Now as the existence of consciousness and a sense of self are undeniable, they should be thought of as indestructible as well, for Science has already implied the idea in its equations. So why then does Science not accept the possible existence of disembodied consciousness–the soul?–because it cannot be perceived? Quiet an absurdity, really–even while embodied the Self cannot be seen. Can you see your Self?

From whence does the sense of self-identity come? It seems that mainstream science is still a long way in finding this one out. However, new paradigms are being formulated by open-minded scientists who are now considering the world-view of eastern mystics in conjunction with the new developments and discoveries in the field of physics and psychology. The theories of quantum physics and transpersonal psychology are closing the gap between essential religion and conventional science. Regarding the mystery of the Self in relation to the brain we are reminded of the words of the researcher and scientist George Buletza who said in the Rosicrucian Digest (Sept. 1983) that,

“Rather than the brain producing Self, it is the other way around. The brain is a product of Self, of Being ever striving to be. The brain is the incredibly fine instrument created by Self in the process of expressing its own nature . . .”

It has been observed in many laboratory experiments all over the world that human consciousness reveals an ability to extend itself beyond the boundaries of the brain and body, that somehow it may perceive or influence events at distant places. Such mental activities suggests to some scientific observers that consciousness may exist independent of the corporeal form.

Many branches of science such as physics, psychology, astrophysics, and biology, are investigating the soul, and each has their own particular methods of inquiry. Perhaps the most important branch of science that has been developed in recent times, relatively speaking, is parapsychology.

Parapsychology

Parapsychology is that branch of science that studies the nature of psychic or paranormal phenomena. Its scope of investigation covers a wide range of subjects: for instance, ESP, hauntings, poltergeist activity, Near-Death Experience, Out-of-the-Body Experience, UFOs, Strange Creatures, Weird Phenomena, etc. There are now many institutes investigating, studying, and teaching this branch of science. The word “parapsychologist” is often misunderstood. Many people seem to think that being a parapsychologist is synonymous to being psychic. This is erroneous. A psychic may not be a parapsychologist, and vice versa. A psychic is someone who perceives impressions through higher senses not ordinarily registered by the physical senses. Psychics may not generally understand the impressions that they register, and may simply believe and be fooled by illusions and appearances. A parapsychologist seeks to understand unusual phenomena through scientific analysis, and by using empirical methods with the aid of carefully devised instruments. A mystically inclined metaphysician, on the other-hand, basically strives to understand phenomena with the aid of his intellect, intuition, and other higher faculties. The parapsychologist’s basic methods are three-dimensional, the psychic’s four-dimensional, and the mystic-metaphysician’s, five-dimensional, or even higher.

To illustrate the difference between a paranormal and a metaphysician’s understanding of phenomena, we will just illustrate one out of many. As an example, supposing a psychic were to receive impressions of an impending disaster, he would consider it to be truth and proclaim it to others. He would make all sorts of predictions anent the impressions that was registered in his mind. He would consider it as a revelation of God.

The metaphysician on the other hand, knowing Cosmic and natural laws, understands the impressions received to possibly be thought-forms-mind creations of fearful beings. Man radiates thoughts, and these thoughts, perhaps without a basis of truth, are received by psychics. The unfortunate thing in all of this is that thoughts are creative. What we habitually think about with intense emotion have a tendency to materialize. So dire predictions often come true; however it does not have to be. We have to learn to eliminate fear. When psychics make predictions they are instilling and intensifying fear among the masses. Now this is a vicious cycle. When people are made fearful by psychics they begin to imagine more catastrophic horrors and these thoughts radiate out again to susceptible psychics who repeat the whole procedure over again. The momentum eventually grows until it manifests physically.

However, let us not digress too far and return to our subject: Parapsychology has established various avenues of research for determining the reality of the soul and the survival of personal consciousness. Although the results of their research are inconclusive by the standards of mainstream science, parapsychologists have been successful in acquiring evidence and vital knowledge that when analyzed seemingly validates the age-old belief in the existence of the soul and its survival of bodily death. Nevertheless, parapsychologists have formulated various theories as to their findings, not all of which aligns with the traditional view of the soul. It is also important to note that the term “soul” is rarely used in mainstream science or parapsychology. The terms “mind,” “consciousness,” and “personality” are often used instead.

Copyright © 2006 Luxamore

Leonard Lee aka Luxamore
Metaphysical teacher, counseler, healer and merchant of occult/magickal items of Indonesia.
Magickal Items from Indonesia: talismans, mustika pearls, kerises, etc.
Magickal Bezoar Mustika Pearls from Indonesia.

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