Chapter 6

TRANSPERSONAL AND SPIRITUAL

      Originally, the contents of this section were going to be woven throughout the rest of the text.  Because this information is not necessary for the main point of the paper, I elected to remove the information and include it here at the end instead.  The reader may decide if they wish to read on or skip to the conclusion.  This section takes a deeper look at the various topics already mentioned and transports them into a mystical realm.  This section will parallel the rest of the paper, with the same topic headings as the main sections of this paper; personal statement, deeper communication, and evolution.  I do not mention a spiritual dimension to health and disease.  I do believe there is one, however, I do not know enough to write about it.  A spiritual view of health would include energy systems and the chakras.  It would examine love and its impacts on healing.

      I've always had a strong spiritual sense even though I grew up without any religious traditions.  My mother was mostly in and out of various spiritual disciplines.  I didn't respect any of them.  My father never went to church and didn't seem to be aware of a spiritual side.

      As I was working on my undergraduate degree, I began to experience an interesting phenomenon.  Every time I had a question about something that didn't make sense in my studies, I would stumble across the answer in a book within a week or two.  I started to suspect that perhaps there was some guiding force in my life.  This continued after I graduated and up until "The Weekend."

      During The Weekend, I was at a concert.  My friend and I were slam dancing.  We were intoxicated (I for the last time).  I hurled my body at him and he ducked.  I did a somersault and hit the ground with a tremendous force.  The moment I hit, I had an instantaneous realization the I was only a fraction of an inch away from breaking my neck and killing myself.  In fact, it seemed my life had been spared by some higher power that I now owed it to.  I went into a very deep internal state reviewing my life.

      The next few months were very hard and full of changes.  I quit my job and enrolled at J.F.K.U.  I spent most of my time in this deep internal state.  It was dispersed with periods of great confusion about who I was and intense shame for the way that I had lived my life.  Growing up in a broken home, I had a set of rules in one home and a different set of rules in another home.  In addition to this, I had various sets of friends that all lived by different sets of rules.  All of these different and often conflicting sets of rules helped to shape my identity.  I began to notice how my self-image was shaped through the various sets of people in my life.  This was primarily based on the things they said and how they communicated to me.  This self-image would change (however so slightly) depending on who I was with at the time.  I later came to recognize this as projection and projective identification.  However, in the mean time I was very confused about who I was.  My identity seemed scattered in hundreds of incomplete pieces, many of which were incompatible.  I had completely lost my mind.  My family was concerned and took me to see a psychiatrist.  To me, this was just another fragmented reflection to look at.  His view of me was called dissociative disorder--yet another identity to contend with.

      In the process of concentrating on the many different identities that I could choose from, they all came together and dropped out of existence.  Any intellectual idea of who I was vanished.  I was left with a crystal clarity of myself as a divine being, at one with God and the universe.  I could feel the whole universe pulsing through every cell of my body.  Every sound sounded the same, every taste tasted the same, every sight looked the same, and every sensation felt the same.  Everything was transported to pure experience and pure bliss.  I had a profound sense of the evolution of the universe, the layers of the human mind, and the multitude of dimensions to the universe.  Every discovery, from Darwin's theory of evolution, and Freud's theory of the mind, to Einstein's theory of relativity, and quantum physics, seemed so profoundly important to my understanding of what I was experiencing and yet they were so insignificant compared to the state itself.  Nothing that occurs in the human mind could explain this; once an explanation began, it would simply be lost.  The understanding of the mind only serves to help to let go enough to allow the power of the universe to flow through it, the body, and back out into the universe.

      I realized that the moment I tried to talk to anyone, this state would vanish.  It is through language and communication that we bend each other out of shape and take each other away from our experience of our selves as divine beings.  I had a desire to enter into a monastery and take a vow of silence for the rest of my life.  Somehow, however, it seemed the world needed me to help advance human communication to the point that we no longer tread on each other's divinity.  Or, to own my projection, I needed to be in the world to learn how I can communicate so I don't tread on others divinity and I can prevent others from treading on my own divinity.  After all, I had spent 26 years of my life with the careless use of language.  I had helped cause some damage to others and had work to do to set it straight.

      Prior to coming to school at J.F.K.U. I happened across an ashram that my mother had been attending.  On the wall I saw a picture of a guru whom I felt drawn towards.  In learning the story about this guru, I remembered having heard it earlier while I was working on my undergraduate degree.  When I first read the story, I had a sense that it was also a story about me.  Several years later I found myself at his/our ashram.  I learned that it was he who had been guiding me and that it was reflected in his eyes that I could maintain my identity, in spite of what others (or myself for that matter), may think.  And so, I gathered strength to go into the world.

      My experiences during and after The Weekend were laced with profound intuitions, and visions.  If I began to walk down a dangerous path a vision of how my life would turn out would flash into my mind.  I had visions and sensations of things happening in other places and other times.

      Previously, I wrote about the communication that occurs on a body level through sensory input.  This section will go a step further and investigate the communication that can occur on a transpersonal level, through extra sensory perception (E.S.P).  An over view of the field of parapsychology will be given as well as some evidence through a recent discovery that combines both physics and neuropsychology.

      The following is a passage from Morgan (1994) describing her experiences in Australia with an aboriginal tribe she calls the Real People:

We had walked several hours when the Elder stopped and fell to his knees.  Everyone gathered around as he remained in the kneeling position, his arms held out in front, gently swaying.  I asked Ooota what was happening.  He motioned for me to remain quiet.  No one was saying anything but all their faces were intent.  Finally, Ooota turned to me and said the young scout who had left us earlier was sending a message.  He was asking permission to cut off the tail of a kangaroo he had killed. 
     It finally dawned on me why it was quiet every day as we walked.  These people used mental telepathy to communicate most of the time.  I was witnessing it.  There was absolutely no sound to be heard, but messages were being relayed between people twenty miles apart.  (p. 60-61)

Morgan (1994) writes her book as fiction, "to protect the small tribe of Aborigines from legal involvement" (p. xiii).  However, it is about her real life experience with a group of Aborigines in Australia.  If the reader believes her journey is real, it gives an account of paranormal communication.

      The following is a brief overview of the field of parapsychology.  My information comes from a lecture given by Schiltz (1995), director of research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

      There are four areas of parapsychology: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis.  Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition fall under the category of E.S.P. (extra sensory perception).  Telepathy is the knowledge of information that is in the mind of another.  Clairvoyance is the knowledge of what is happening in a distant location.  Precognition is the knowledge of events that have not yet taken place.  Psychokinesis is the ability to move an object without any physical interaction with it.

      Surprisingly, the majority of the world believes in psychic phenomena.  Only in academia is it not widely recognized.  While there is much research being done that gives statistical evidence for parapsychology, most disciplines choose to ignore it.  As Morgan (1994) wrote, "Mental telepathy was something I sensed the people back home would find difficult to believe" (p.63).

      There are two ways that research on clairvoyance and telepathy is conducted.  The first is called forced choice, and the second is called free response.  In an example of forced choice method, a subject is given a certain number of choices as to what is on the back side of a card viewed by a "sender."  The subject then chooses what they think is on the back side of the card.  After many attempts, the number of correct responses is compared to the number of attempts.  Research has shown that the number of correct responses is generally higher than what statistics would show the number of correct responses to be if they were just random.

      In free response, the subject's dreams and imagination are used.  For example, a subject is asleep in one room.  In the next room is another person watching a film.  When the researches can see that the subject is dreaming, the subject is awakened and the dream is recorded.  Many times, the dream is similar to the film being viewed in the next room.  This is just a sample of some of the research done on parapsychology.

      Parapsychology implies that there is another dimension to reality that is beyond the brain.  Through this dimension, we are all interconnected.  This implies a social consciousness; what we think and imagine can have an effect on others.  Morgan (1994) mentions the reason the Real People tribe are able to use telepathy is because they never tell a lie.  The result is that they are able and willing to have their minds open.  They have nothing to hide.  The other implication is that consciousness is not limited to the human mind, mindbody, or soma, but is vastly distributed elsewhere as well.  Proving this and introducing these facts to the general consciousness are the challenges of parapsychology.

      I learned about a new integrative theory while attending J.F.K.U.  A fellow student, Richard Amoroso, was working on something and not paying attention to the lecture.  When the instructor became distracted by this and questioned him, he apologized and said that he had just solved the mind-body split and was working on a paper to meet a publication deadline.  What Amoroso calls a mind-body split is quite different that what I call a mind-body split in previous sections of this paper.  In my writing I refer to the physical body when I say body, and the neuro activity in the brain when I say mind.  His theory connects the human soma (physical body and neuro activity) with something beyond.  The soma is the body and the something beyond is the mind.  What I call the something beyond, I will describe later in this section.  The following is a brief summary of Amoroso's theory.

      The paper he was working on is entitled, "Modeling the Heisenberg Matrix: Quantum Coherence and Thought at the Holoscape Manifold and Deeper Complementarity" (1995a).  While most of the paper is over my head, I will summarize it to the best of my understanding.  The following section has been reviewed by Amoroso (1996).

      The holoscape manifold is the area in the brain where the neuronets interact in complex ways to form thought.  Quantum Coherence is the adherence of quantum particles.  According to Amoroso's theory (1995a), there is a location in this holoscape manifold where quantum particles, namely psychons, adhere to the brain and effect thought.  Psychons, according to Amoroso (1995b), are the theoretical rudimentary particle of the universe that make up all Mind stuff.  Fermions are the basic rudimentary particle that make up all matter.  Bozons are the rudimentary particle that make up all light.

      The deeper complementarity in Amoroso's theory is referring to higher dimensions of space, or what is being called pre-space.  Minkowski space refers to fourth dimensional space-time mentioned previously.  The deeper complemetarity are the dimensions of reality beyond Minkoski space (there is believed to be as many as eleven dimensions).  It is in this deeper complementary that the psychons gain access to the neuronets (Amoroso, 1996).  The evidence of parapsychology seems to support Amoroso's conclusions.

      While traditional physics has said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, some observations at the quantum level prove otherwise.  An experiment called the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) experiment showed that two particles that have been in the same atom and have opposite spins so that their total spin is zero will react to one another even if their distance is thousands of miles away (Capra, 1975).  This happens in spite of the fact that there is no time for them to receive information through any conventional means (Capra, 1975).  Perhaps it is through this deeper complementarity that information can travel faster than the speed of light.

      There seems to be substantial evidence of the possibility of communication on a paranormal level.  Connecting this to the rest of the paper, and the story of the Tower of Babel, the descendants of Noah were able to understand each other with "few words."  Morgan's Aboriginal friends had opinions about words and talking:

The Real People don't think the voice was designed for talking.  You do that with your heart/head center.  If the voice is used for speech, one tends to get into small, unnecessary, and less spiritual conversation.  The voice is made for singing, for celebration, and healing.  (1994, p. 64)

It is through talking that paradigms are built and misunderstanding occurs.  Perhaps the descendants of Noah knew this as well.

      An overview of Darwin's theory of evolution was given in the previous discussion of evolution.  Since the days of Darwin many new discoveries have been made that refine to his theory.  I'd like to introduce a few of these and transport evolution into a mystical realm. 

      The theory of morphogenetic fields is Sheldrake's "alternative to the mechanistic world-view" (1991, p. 202).  A morphogenetic field is a "collective memory" of a given species (Sheldrake, 1991).  Each species has its own field that effects the intellect of the individuals of the species.  Sheldrake (1991) even extends the ideas of fields to atoms, molecules and even "laws" of nature.

      Evidence for this is supplied by an experiment started at Harvard University.  Over a ten year period, rats were trained to escape from a water maze.  Each new generation learned to escape quicker.  After ten years, the rats could escape ten times faster than the original rats.  This change occurred in all of the rats of the same species and not just the descendants of the original rats.  In fact, the change occurred in rats of the same species in other areas of the world (Sheldrake, 1991).

      More empirical evidence for morphogenetic fields comes from the blue tit, a European bird (Sheldrake, 1991).  The blue tits learned that they could steal cream from the top of milk bottles left on the doorsteps of houses.  Eventually birds all over Europe were stealing cream.  When the WWII came, milk was no longer delivered in Holland.  After eight years, when the war ended, the milk delivery continued.  The blue tits, in a short period of time, were once again stealing the cream.  The amazing thing is that the life span of the blue tit is only three years.  Two generations of blue tits had passed and yet the descendants still knew how to steal cream (Sheldrake, 1991).

      The proof of morphogenetic fields is further supported by the fact that in two different places of the world, the theory of evolution was independently discovered by both Darwin and Wallace; and, in two different places of the world, calculus was independently invented by both Newton and Leibniz, as cited in earlier sections of this paper.

      Morphology is the study of the shape of of an organism.  Edelman (1991) links morphology with behavior: "subtle changes in form sometimes lead to extraordinary changes in behavior" (p. 48).  "Morphology," he suggests, "is the largest single basis for behavior" (1991, p.  49).  Edelman (1991) states that understanding how behavior effects form and how form effects behavior "is the part of Darwin's program that remains largely incomplete" (p.48).

      Punctuated equilibrium is the argument against gradual change in the evolutionary process as Darwin stated it.  Stephen Gould and Niles Eldredge (as cited in Rensberger, 1983) put forth the hypothesis that evolutionary change doesn't happen gradually, but rather it happens suddenly.  A species enjoys long periods without any evolutionary change and then "suddenly" (over a period of several hundreds to several thousands of years) evolves into a new species.  The evidence that supports punctuated equilibrium is in the fossil records.  There is very little evidence of gradual change in most species in the fossil record, rather "in most cases species simply appear at a given time, persist relatively unchanged for a few million years and then disappear" (Rensberger, 1983, p.2).  Margulis and Sagan (1986) note that the appearance of the nucleus in the evolution of a cell "looks as drastic as if the Wright Brothers' Kitty Hawk flying machine had been followed a week later by the Concorde jet" (p. 115).

      Arguments against punctuated equilibrium state that the fossil record is too scant to show any transitional forms.  Further, gradual change may occur in the soft tissue of a given species.  Soft tissue change would not be evident in the fossil record.  Also, there does appear in some of the fossil records a gradual change, but in most cases there doesn't (Rensberger, 1983).

      Alan C. Wilson (as cited in Rensberger, 1983) of the University of California at Berkeley concludes that evolution is slow and gradual for most species, faster and more abrupt for others.  Leigh Van Valen (as cited in Rensberger, 1983) of the University of Chicago doesn't support either of these view points: "I don't think the evidence is good enough to resolve the issue" (p. 5).  He believes there is probably a range of evolutionary rates.

      The DNA of the human and the chimpanzee are 99.8% identical.  This is a common known fact.  What is not so commonly known is that only five percent of the DNA is used in creating the shape of a given species (Martin, 1993).  The rest of the DNA is filler or "junk" DNA.  Theories about the reason for junk DNA include: it is spacers, it is redundant in the event of an attack, or it is in preparation for an evolutionary jump (Martin, 1993).  Regardless, while human and chimpanzee DNA are virtually identical, a different portion of the genetic code is used in shaping the species.  Martin (1993) compares this to two recipe books that are virtually the same (two out of a thousand pages would be different).  What is read out of the book is different, giving rise to a different species.  This leaves a question of what determines the section that is "read."

      The following is my attempt at unifying some of this information.  The shape of an organism determines its behavior and its ability to survive.  It can also limit its behavior and threaten its ability to survive.  When a species reaches the limit of its behavior within a given shape, it learns (collectively) to evolve into a new shape.  While Sheldrake (1991) only associates morphogenetic field with memory, my suggestion (unscientific) is that they may also be associated with learning and intelligence as well.  Through this intelligence the species learns to alter its form by changing its DNA or what is read off its DNA.  Martin (1993) suggests that the only way to truly have free will is by altering the DNA, otherwise the body is an expression of its genes which determine its behavior. 

      According to Bateson (1972), learning IV is the combination of phylogenesis (the evolution of a species) with ontogenesis (the development of an individual).  Perhaps learning IV is the ability to alter the shape of the species in which learning I-III take place.  In which case, learning IV would give rise to instinctual behaviors, or learning zero.  This type of learning could take place within the morphogenetic field. 

      The "something beyond" (mentioned earlier) I like to call big "M"ind.  My suggestion is that big "M"ind guides evolution through the morphogenetic field and learning IV.  Big "M"ind gives rise to little "m"ind (neuroactivity within an individual) through the process of evolution.  Eventually, with learning I-III, little "m"ind can understand that it is actually a part of big "M"ind.  By achieving learning III, little "m"ind can then let go of itself in such a way that allows big "M"ind, in human form, to enjoy the universe it created by the process of evolution.

      Sheldrake (1991) writes, "no one has been able to figure out how the brain does store memories.  People have looked for memory traces . . . and after decades of research have failed again and again to find them.  I think this is possibly because they're not there" (pp. 211-212).  He suggests that the brain tunes into memories like a radio tunes into radio waves.

      Pert (1990), after her years of studying neuropeptides and there receptors, showing that neuropeptide receptors are not just in the brain, they are also in the body, comments that she "can no longer make a strong distinction between the brain and the body" (p. 153).  She questions whether or not the mind is in the brain, and if the mind can survive the death of the physical brain.  She states, "I think it is important to realize that information is stored in the brain, and it is conceivable to me that this information could be transformed into some other realm" (p. 158).

      In a previous section, I referred to "heaven on earth" as a place where there are no more stressors than the soma is able to effectively deal with.  These new concepts give a new perspective, based on scientific discoveries, of the possibility of an existence beyond the physical realm.  Perhaps, there is a place beyond our physical existence that can be attained when one is prepared to shed their physical existence.  Perhaps, there is in addition to my heaven on earth, a heaven beyond earth.

• Amoroso, R. L.  (1995a).  Modeling the heisenberg matrix: quantum coherence and thought at the holoscape manifold and deeper complementarity.  Ch. in C. Pribrum and J. King (Eds.)  Scale in conscious experience: Is the brain too important to leave to specialists to study.  Manwah, NJ: Larwence E. B.
• Amoroso, R. L. (1995b, March).  Modern physics and the new arguments for consciousness.  Lecture presented at John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, CA.
• Amoroso, R. L.  (1996, February).  Phone interview.  Albany, CA: The Noetic Institute.
• Bateson, G.  (1972).  Steps to an ecology of mind: A revolutionary approach to man's understanding of himself.  New York, NY: Chandler.
• Capra, F.  (1975).  The Tao of physics.  New York, NY: Bantam.
• Edelman, G. M.  (1991).  Bright air, brilliant fire: On the matter of the mind.  New York, NY: Harper Collins.
• Margulis, L & Sagan, D.  (1986).  Microcosmos: Four billion years of microbial evolution.  New York, NY: Summit.
• Martin, B.  (1993).  DNA.  Lecture presented at John. F. Kennedy University, Orinda, CA.
• Morgan, M.  (1991).  Mutant message down under.  Lees Summit, MO: MM.
• Pert, C.  (1990).  The wisdom of the receptors: Neuropeptides, the emotions, and body-mind.  Ch. 13 in R. Ornstien & C. Swencionis (Eds.)  The healing brain: A scientific reader.  pp. 147-158.  New York, NY: Guilford.
• Rensberger, B.  (1983).  The evolution of evolution.  in W. Kornberg (Ed.)  NSF mosaic reader: Evolution, new perspectives.  pp. 1 - 9.  Wayne, NJ: Avery.
• Schiltz, M.  (1995, March).  The challenge of parapsychology.  Lecture presented at John. F. Kennedy University, Orinda, CA.
• Sheldrake, R.  (1991).  The past in present.  Ch.10 in M. Toms (Ed.)  At the Leading Edge.  pp. 202 - 218.  Burdett, NY: Published for Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation.