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By JIM DEKORNE
Pause
for a moment and try to imagine four-dimensional space. It is right
next to you, but in a direction you can’t point to. No matter how
well hidden you may be, a four-dimensional creature can see you
perfectly well, inside and outside.
– Rudy Rucker, The Fourth Dimension
How
might these beings be even dimly aware of our presence, if we
normally don’t have an inkling of theirs? Once more, we’re treading
on extraordinarily thin ice by even thinking about explanations for
this phenomenon. The mere need to attempt an understanding shows us
how far afield our thinking has come.
– Rick Strassman, M.D., DMT, The Spirit
Molecule
If
these men are correct, then physics is the study of the structure of
consciousness.
– Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Consensus reality in the “real world” is founded upon corporeal
entities beholding three-dimensional space. When out-of-body
explorers or UFO abductees claim that they passed through solid
walls during their experiences, they are contradicting perhaps the
most fundamental perceptions of human observers.
Scientism condemns such assertions as either
fraudulent or hallucinatory because if they were accepted as
legitimate, our entire conception of reality would collapse – an
appalling prospect, challenging the credibility of all
self-appointed official observers. Nevertheless, when faced with
such an abundance of anomalous data any fearless spectator might
suggest that our concepts of dimensional location need to be
re-evaluated and clarified.
At its simplest, the experience of three-dimensional
space is the awareness of three perpendicular axes: North-South,
East-West and Up-Down (e.g., a cube). Two-dimensional space (a flat
plane) contains only two of these axes, and one-dimensional space
consists of only one axis – a single line.
Time is also a dimension, though not a spatial one;
however, it is a necessary extension to our awareness of space, and
so we normally describe our reality as three dimensions of
space, plus one dimension of time – the so-called
“four-dimensional space-time continuum.” Even small children can
understand this because we spend all our lives living within its
confines: it’s an experience so commonplace and taken-for-granted
that we never really think about it. (It is, after all, our
consensus reality).
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From Descarte's Traite de l'Homme
(1667). The pear-shaped image inside the head (labelled "H")
is the pineal gland which Descartes hypothesised was the
gateway to the soul. |
Four-dimensional space, on the other hand,
though mathematically describable, is a concept virtually impossible
to visualise. That’s because progression from one spatial dimension
to another follows a logical sequence of perpendicular extension: a
plane is merely the extension of a line in a direction at
right-angles (“perpendicular”) to that line’s axis; a cube is
created when a plane is extended at right-angles to that plane’s
axis. This is easy enough to portray as long as we’re dealing with
three dimensions or lower, but in what perpendicular direction would
a cube have to move to create four-dimensional space? Even if
you know the secret, the mind boggles and goes into spasms while
trying to visualise it.
The reason for this is because we are
multi-dimensional entities “serving time” in a three-dimensional
spatial prison and brainwashed into believing it’s a life sentence
without parole or any hope of escape.
To switch metaphors, consider for a moment a Zen
Koan – an existential test of your ability to transcend your
perceptual situation:
You are standing on a spot where (judging by the
rumbling sounds and trembling beneath your feet), a volcano the size
of Krakatoa is just about to erupt. Immediately above your head an
enormous fireball, a meteor as big as Manhattan, is only seconds
away from crashing exactly where you’re standing. A few metres to
your front, a tidal wave (over a kilometre high!) is cresting and
about to break. Six metres behind you (at Ground Zero), a hydrogen
bomb test is in its final few seconds of countdown; to your
immediate right, the entire Nazi army from World War II is bearing
down upon you with distinctly murderous intentions. And finally,
coming up fast on the left, a charging herd of ten thousand enraged
bull elephants is about to stomp you into the dirt.
Koan:
In what direction lies escape? (Hint: it’s the only
“perpendicular” direction available to you, and given the above
circumstances you are about to take it whether you want to or not!)
There are other ways of visualising this: consider
the “black hole” or “singularity.” A black hole is created when a
largeish star (about 50 times bigger than our sun) consumes all its
nuclear fuel and implodes into its own intense gravity. Anything,
including light, approaching within a given critical distance of a
black hole is sucked into its whirlpool, never to be seen again.
Physicists postulate that such imploding singularities depart from
our own space-time to create new parallel-universe/space-time
dimensions. (The connections between them constitute the familiar
“worm holes” so necessary for Captain Kirk’s navigation of the
Starship Enterprise.) What appears to us as a black hole
implosion in this universe becomes a “white hole” explosion
somewhere else – creating a whole new universe, a whole new
dimensional reality:
“Relativists realized that there is nothing to stop
the material that falls into a singularity in our three dimensions
of space and one of time from being shunted through a kind of
space-time warp and emerging as an expanding singularity in another
set of dimensions – another space-time. Mathematically, this 'new'
space-time is represented by a set of four dimensions, just like our
own, but with all the dimensions at right angles to all the familiar
dimensions of our own space-time. Every singularity, on this
picture, has its own set of space-time dimensions, forming a bubble
universe within the framework of some 'super' space-time, which we
can refer to simply as 'superspace'.”1
Notice that the rule of perpendicular extension is
maintained in the creation of these new universes and that any
observers within them would perceive an analogy of our own familiar
four-dimensional space-time continuum. (Should they be practitioners
of Scientism, let us forgive them for believing that theirs is the
only reality that exists!)
Now imagine that you are standing outside on a clear
summer’s night – all the stars above the horizon are visible to your
sight. Assume (for the purpose of illustration) that the
hypothetical XYZ-123 galaxy (one-hundred million light years from
Earth) is shining brightly. The photons (waves or particles, take
your pick) which were emitted from the XYZ-123 galaxy during earth’s
dinosaur days, are just now arriving on our planet; they implode
through the pupils of your eyes to explode within your brain: “Ah-ha
– yes, there it is! Just above Orion, the familiar old XYZ-123
galaxy,” says your mind-observer.
Koan:
Where do these photons (after their exhausting one-hundred million
year journey through interstellar space) go upon entering your own
personal black holes (eye-pupils)? The radiation from an entire
galaxy registers on your brain, is interpreted by your mind, and
then what? And then where? Surely those photons can’t just “wink
out” after going to all that trouble to get here! Can they?
“The matter [falling into a black hole] cannot escape
back into the universe we know, yet if it does not disappear at a
singularity it must pass into a region of spacetime that we do not
know. Sometimes such unknown regions are called other universes, the
effect of gravitational collapse being to establish a bridge or
tunnel into these enigmatic 'parallel' worlds. The collapsing star,
or whatever matter falls in after it, falls on through the tunnel
and out into, presumably, a cosmos much like our own.”2
Look at it another way: Imagine a point existing in
some kind of pre-spatial “void” – the Tao, perhaps (whatever that
is). Mathematically, a point has zero dimensions, but it exists
anyway because consciousness defines it that way. A zero-dimensional
point existing in “non-space” probably comes as close to “nothing”
as we can imagine, but quantum cosmologists say that our universe
was created out of just such a “singularity.” They also tell us that
nothing can take place without an observer:
“The universe is supposed to be everything that there
is, and if all is quantized, including spacetime, what can collapse
the cosmos into reality without invoking consciousness?”3
The implications of this concept are astounding! If
the zero-dimensional point is all that exists, and if it “decides”
to “extend itself” and become the universe, by the rules of quantum
physics it can’t be anything but Consciousness itself! Some might be
tempted to define this Primordial Awareness as “God,” but let’s not,
since Scientism insists (regardless of the implications of quantum
theory), that the concept of “God” is unnecessary to explain the
Cosmos. (Whether you regard this as a non sequitur or not
depends on which belief system you use to define your illusions.)
Anyway, the rules of dimensional extension tell us
that movement in any direction from a point is perpendicular, so one
dimension (a line) is created if the point moves at all. Should it
turn from there, two dimensional space is defined; and of course all
it has to do next is make one more right- angle turn and we have
three spatial dimensions. Should all of these movements happen
simultaneously, we have a passable description of an explosion:
“The evidence suggests that the Universe was born out
of a singularity – a point of infinite density occupying zero volume
– and that in the first split second the tiny seed containing all
the mass and energy in the observable Universe went through a period
of exponential expansion, known as inflation.”4
This “inflation” is the Big Bang that became our
universe – a point of infinite density occupying zero volume (a
mind-numbing concept!) “explodes,” creating space, time, matter,
energy, and anything else we haven’t discovered yet. Unfortunately,
when most people imagine the Big Bang they visualise it as a
three-dimensional event, forgetting that all other possible
dimensions must also be factored into the equation. Which is to say:
the primordial point explodes (the Big Bang), but because this is a
multi-dimensional affair, it is also imploding (the Big Whimper,
perhaps), creating all of multidimensional space in one event. If
our point is indeed conscious, as quantum theory demands, it follows
that consciousness is a priori to any and all phenomena, and
anything created by it is by definition part of it: hence
everything that exists is in some way conscious, just as the
Theosophists tell us. (More about them later.)
Our point’s simultaneous explosion/implosion would
create a bare minimum of six spatial dimensions: three of space and
three of hyperspace, and certainly many more than that. What would
they look like “objectively?” Wouldn’t dimensions created out of
Consciousness have to be “Mind Stuff” – perhaps a Super Collective
Unconscious at least as infinite as the physical universe?
Out-of-body shamans do indeed describe Locale-II (hyperspace;
see previous parts of this article) as a kind of Supermind, a realm
where thought (consciousness) creates mass and energy out of itself:
“Superseding all appears to be one prime law.
Locale-II is a state of being where that which we label thought is
the wellspring of existence. It is the vital creative force that
produces energy, assembles 'matter' into form, and provides channels
of perception and communication. I suspect that the very self or
soul in Locale-II is no more than an organized vortex or warp in
this fundamental. As you think, so you are.”5
This empirical out-of-body observation is echoed in
quantum theory, which of course is based upon solid,
self-consistent, repeatable, scientific experimentation:
“To the naive realist the universe is a collection of
objects. To the quantum physicist it is an inseparable web of
vibrating energy patterns in which no one component has reality
independently of the entirety; and included in the entirety is the
observer... In the absence of an observation a quantum system will
evolve in a certain way. When an observation is made, an entirely
different type of change occurs. Just what produces this different
behavior is not clear, but at least some physicists insist that it
is explicitly caused by the mind itself.”6
Physicists describe matter at the subatomic level as
a “wave function,” and tell us that it is more “idea-like” (i.e.
related to awareness) than it is “matter-like.” In fact, at the
subatomic level, there is no substantive physical world at all –
it’s just a vibrating dance of energy, or Consciousness, which must
in some sense be the same thing! We can deduce this as follows:
Einstein’s famous E = MC squared equation
demonstrates that matter and energy are two versions of a single
phenomenon. Unfortunately, Einstein left himself (as observer) out
of his equation. It might more accurately be written as: E = MC
squared, divided by X – “X” symbolising consciousness (i.e., an
observer) which is demanded by quantum theory for anything to exist.
If this is at all accurate (and the implications of quantum physics
seem to require it), then the lowest common denominator to which
reality can be reduced is Consciousness itself.
If Consciousness (what else?) created an infinity of
four-dimensional space-time “bubble” universes, each of which is
perpendicular to (i.e. “perceived by”) that Consciousness, then
Consciousness has to be the “Super-Space” surrounding and permeating
them all. Since time and consciousness can’t be separated from each
other without logical absurdity, time could be thought of as a
one-dimensional function of Consciousness projected into
three-dimensional space. (Thus, the four-dimensional space-time
continuum, since without duration, space would be, if not
unperceivable, at least very boring.)
This time-consciousness interface is what sets space
“in motion” and is the only way a differentiated point-of-view can
experience dimensional reality. Outside of the dimensional
bubble-universes (i.e. in the superspatial realm of
Consciousness-without-an-object), time does not exist, a fact
attested to by psychonauts and mystics since “time out of mind.”
(Pun intended.)
Each differentiated point is a potential “free agent”
which may be arbitrarily assigned to any position in any dimension.
Being conscious, they become attitudes or points-of-view within
multidimensional space (“God’s observers,” if you will). Your
individual human consciousness is essentially the interface of a
point-singularity (“you”), linking our particular spacetime bubble
with Super-Space, or perhaps more accurately, the Objective Psyche:
which is Jung’s revised, much better, label for the “Collective
Unconscious.”
“What Jung calls the objective psyche may then be
likened to an encompassing energy stratum from which arise varying
field activities discernable to the experienced observer through the
patterning of image, emotion and drive configurations. These psychic
field expressions Jung has called complexes and archetypes of the
objective psyche... The objective psyche exists independently of the
ego, but can be experienced and comprehended to a limited extent by
the ego.”7
These complexes and archetypes within the Objective
Psyche have traditionally been regarded as “gods,” but not as “God”
(i.e., as the Objective Psyche per se). The difference between you
(or any other differentiated point-of-view) and the Objective
Psyche, as such, is the difference between man and “God.” The
purpose of our incarnations as “points-of-view” is to return to the
pool from which we emerged with full gnosis of where we’ve been and
what we’ve done. (We’ll examine the traditions informing this
concept in our next article.)
Because our unconscious mind is a two-way wormhole
connecting subjective perception with the infinite realms of the
Objective Psyche, it is not uncommon for profound insights to emerge
from those dimensions into human awareness – often before their
time. Figure 1 is taken from Rene Descartes’ posthumous 1667 work,
Traite de l’Homme, which illustrates his theory of
perception. He regarded the pineal gland as the “gateway to the
soul,” and in this drawing he hypothesises how visual perception is
concentrated therein. Most of Descartes’ theories have been
disproved by modern research, but his fundamental intuition in this
case is still valid. All that is missing is the concept of the
DMT-synthesising pineal gland (discussed in our last article) as a
singularity linking spacetime awareness with the Objective
Psyche to complete the hypothesis being proposed here.
And I hope my hypothesis is beginning to make sense:
Since we experience ourselves as a conscious centre (a “point”)
inhabiting a physical body, which perceives itself as part of a
three-dimensional “outside” reality, it is obvious that all external
sensory input is perpendicular to our subjective awareness.
Which, if you follow the right-angle rule, is to say that
consciousness itself must be in some sense dimensional! The only
direction of escape in Koan-1, then is within. The
only place that the radiation from the XYZ-123 galaxy can go after
entering the black-holes of your eyes is inside. This
mandates that both Locale-I and Locale-II are inner
dimensions which to varying degrees mirror our
familiar, externalised space-time. We have the empirical testimony
of out-of-body explorer William Buhlman that this is so:
“For two years I had believed that I was moving
laterally from one area to another within the same dimension, but
now the startling truth was apparent. I was not moving laterally but
inwardly within the universe from one energy environment to
another.”8
Buhlman goes on to describe what can only be a kind
of singularity of consciousness imploding into itself, into a
dimension of many dimensions. Here he is, out-of-body, in the
Locale-I version of his bedroom, about to enter a typical
Locale-II environment, perhaps one of Robert Monroe’s “upper
rings”:
“Feeling centered, I stand at the foot of my bed and
say aloud, 'I move inward.' I feel an immediate sensation of rapid
inner motion – I’m being drawn into a vacuum deep within myself. The
sensation of motion is so intense that I shout 'Stop!' Instantly I
stop moving and realize that I’m in a new environment. I am outdoors
in a beautiful parklike setting.”9
Although admittedly rare, this perception is neither
new nor unique. The Tibetan Book of the Dead tells us
explicitly that all of the bardo realms are “inside of us”:
“O nobly-born, these realms are not come from
somewhere outside [thyself]. They come from within the four
divisions of thy heart, which, including its center, make the five
directions. They issue from within there, and shine upon thee. The
deities, too, are not come from somewhere else: they exist from
eternity within the faculties of thine own intellect.”10
Although the idea that “The Kingdom of Heaven is
within you” is a cliche familiar to everybody, when entertained at
all, it is usually understood metaphorically. Seldom do we perceive
“inside” literally: as a real, honest-to-god dimension
of reality. Here’s another version of this ancient idea from the
Vedic tradition of India:
“The seat for the Gods is indeed within, in the inner
being which is wider and far greater and subtler and supple and
enlightened and distinguished from the physical being.”11
Come on! Gimmie a break! (The logical mind wants to
know how a vessel can be smaller than its contents.) Although an
impossibility in any three-dimensional context, four-dimensional
space is obviously not bound by such provincial illusions. Actually,
instead of an absurdity to be dismissed out of hand, initiated
awareness recognises immediately that it is dealing with a
legitimate dimensional interface when such “impossibilities” are
depicted. For example, it is not at all uncommon for UFO abductees
to describe the inside of the spacecraft as much larger than the
outside:
“As strange as it sounds, this
bigger-on-the-inside-than-out impression is exactly what a three
dimensional creature like... any one of us might expect to
experience when confronted with a four dimensional space. An
analysis of the geometry by Stan Kulikowski in the MUFON UFO
Journal concluded: 'Whether this inside-too-big phenomenon is
actual alien technology or deliberate fraud or a subconscious
psychological trick of perception, it is nevertheless based on good
mathematics and related to the fundamental physics of our
universe'.”12
All of the confusion surrounding OOBEs (Out-Of-Body
Experiences), NDEs (Near-Death Experiences), alien abductions (and
life itself, for that matter), is directly attributable to the
difficulty that a consciousness hypnotised by three dimensions has
in perceiving “beyond” that illusion. Thus, we project these spaces
“outside” of ourselves, and regard our bodies as “vessels” which
must be “gotten out of” in order to “ascend” to “higher” realms.
(Notice that we can’t even discuss the subject without using
three-dimensional, “external” concepts.)
Because the imploded dimensions are generally
believed to be difficult to visualise, authentic mystical (i.e.
hyperdimensional) awareness is greatly handicapped in its attempt to
translate what it experiences into terms that three-dimensional
chauvinists can understand. Here’s another description of this
interior reality from the Chandogya Upanishad. Note
that it describes the “heart” as the centre of awareness. That could
be poetic license – the pineal gland might make a better candidate:
“As large as the universe outside, even so large is
the universe within the lotus of the heart. Within it are heaven and
earth, the sun, the moon, the lightning, and all the stars. What is
in the macrocosm is in this microcosm.”13
This is an unambiguous description of consciousness
as four-dimensional space!
If we superimpose our observation of the hypothetical XYZ-123 galaxy
onto this picture, we have photons imploding from spacetime into
mindspace: inner and outer galaxies connecting, interacting and
evolving within the matrix of Consciousness itself. Since we know
that the pineal gland (a singularity within the human brain) is
associated with out-of-body perception, it’s a fair hypothesis that
some kind of eye-pineal connection constitutes the focal “point”
linking these two realms. “External” images implode into our
“eye-pupil-wormholes” to instantly explode via the pineal
singularity into interior dimensions of infinite Mind Stuff.
“The eye is [the Self’s] dwelling place while we
wake, the mind [pineal gland?] is his dwelling place while we dream,
the lotus of the heart is his dwelling place while we sleep the
dreamless sleep.”14
I won’t quarrel about where the pineal gland fits
into the above scheme, because if Descartes is correct in his
intuition, the pineal is the dimensional aperture that processes
sensory input from everywhere in the body. In connection with this,
it is highly significant that theorists studying our spacetime
universe postulate the existence of tunnels, tubes, or wormholes,
yoking the dimensions together (see Figure 2).
“Cosmologists have even proposed the startling
possibility that our universe is just one among an infinite number
of parallel universes. These universes might be compared to a vast
collection of soap bubbles suspended in air. Normally, contact
between these bubble universes is impossible, but, by analyzing
Einstein’s equations, cosmologists have shown that there might exist
a web of wormholes, or tubes, that connect these parallel
universes... The Einstein-Rosen bridge acts like a tunnel connecting
two regions of space-time; it is a wormhole.”15
By now it shouldn’t surprise us that the experience
of passing through a “tunnel” is one of the most universally
reported characteristics of out-of-body travel. Later in his career,
Robert Monroe founded The Monroe Institute, a non-profit
corporation, to scientifically study and induce the out-of-body
experience in a wide-range of subjects. Here’s one of the first
things he found:
“As the induction of the OOBE state was examined
further, one key element did repeat consistently... In slow motion
it 'felt as if one were going through a tunnel to get to the light,'
a classic description that has been brought forth by many who
performed the OOBE inadvertently or in a near-death situation.”16
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Einstein-Rosen bridge connects two universes. |
“Classical description,” indeed! Can there be any
doubt that the following accounts are portrayals of interior-dimensional
“wormhole-analogs” which mirror their spacetime counterparts? Here
is Oliver Fox, describing a visit to some indeterminate realm in
Locale-II:
“And now it seemed to me there was a sort of hole or
break formed in the continuity of the astral matter; and through
this, in the distance – as though viewed through a very long tunnel
– I could see something indistinct which might have been the
entrance to a temple, with a statue still further away showing
through it... I was falling, with seemingly tremendous velocity,
down a dark, narrow tunnel or shaft.”17
Subjects undergoing a DMT-induced out-of-body
experience commonly describe an identical phenomenon. (DMT:
N,N-dimethyltriptamine, a product of pineal synthesis, was discussed
in the previous article of this series):
“First I saw a tunnel or channel of light off to the
right. I had to turn to go into it. Then the whole process repeated
on the left. It was intentional that way. It was as if it had a
source, further away. It got bigger farther away, like a funnel. It
was bright and pulsating... I had a sense of great speed. Everything
was unimportant relative to this. Things were flashing, flashing by,
as if from a different perspective. It was so much more real than
life. The left and right tunnels joined in front of me.”18
Dr. John Mack, in his study of the UFO Abduction
Syndrome, also describes the tunnel as a common experience among his
abductee-informants. These are apparently inter-dimensional doorways
through which the Aliens both enter our space and convey their
victims into hyperspace.
“A forty-one year old health care executive spoke to
me of large tubes through which he passed during one of his
abductions 'into the next plane where there was this light'...
Catherine [another abductee]... also spoke of a tube or tunnel
through which she and others passed from a spirit plane outside
space/time back to the embodied physical state on earth.”19
Then of course, there is the Near-Death Experience (NDE)
as described by Dr. Raymond Moody, the pioneer investigator of this
unique form of out-of-body projection. In fact, the “tunnel
phenomenon” is so ubiquitous that he lists it as one of fifteen
symptoms considered definitive of an NDE.
“Often concurrently with the occurrence of the noise,
people have the sensation of being pulled very rapidly through a
dark space of some kind. Many different words are used to describe
this space. I have heard the space described as a cave, a well, a
trough, an enclosure, a tunnel, a funnel, a vacuum, a void, a sewer,
a valley, and a cylinder. Although people use different terminology
here, it is clear that they are all trying to express some one
idea.”20
In a later article we will examine the phenomenon of
“Remote Viewing,” a tactic used by both United States and Soviet
intelligence agencies to spy on each other during the Cold War. We
will then determine if these specially-trained psychics were
actually “out-of-body” travellers in the classical sense of the term
as we’ve defined it so far, but for now it is instructive to examine
some representative descriptions of Remote Viewing in light of the
tunnel phenomenon under discussion. Here are some excerpts from the
remote viewings of Captain David Morehouse:
“My phantom body fell through the tunnel of light
again... I began plummeting down the tunnel of light... I made the
long fall down the tube of light and passed through the membrane
into the target area... The fall through the tunnel seemed longer
this time and I never hit the membrane at all... I found myself
falling into a tunnel of light and passing into another world.”21
Here is a description by Captain F. Holmes Atwater,
the Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) officer who founded
the US Army’s Remote Viewing unit at Fort Meade, Maryland. (As
described in his book, this particular event was almost certainly a
classic “astral projection” OOBE):
“My kinesthetic sense of motion (like the feeling you
get when flying in an airplane) was accompanied by a strange visual
perception. I seemed to be moving through a white tube or tunnel,
its walls lined with crystalline forms.”22
And finally, here is another observance by William
Buhlman, the out-of-body explorer who (even more than Robert
Monroe), defined his experiences within the context of modern
quantum theory:
“The tunnel experience is much more significant than
most people recognize. Not only does it provide substantial evidence
of a logical transitional method for consciousness after physical
death, but it directly relates to the modern physics theories
concerning parallel universes and energy wormholes, as well as to my
observations concerning the multidimensional universe.”23
Yeah, but what about Locale-I (the Sidpa
Bardo), which Monroe describes as our own familiar world, though
perceived while out-of-body? How could that be regarded as an
“inside” dimension?
Imagine consciousness as a dimensional “double
mirror” with back-to-back reflective surfaces: one facing outward to
space-time, the other facing inward to hyperspace. The evidence
suggests that when someone goes “out-of-body” into Locale-I,
they are not actually interfacing with the physical world that we
touch when “in-body,” but with the “etheric double” of the physical
world on the other side of the mirror. (Technically, of course,
we’re not going “out-of-body” at all, but “in-our-body,”
but for now at least, let’s not complicate the nomenclature.) Here’s
Buhlman again:
“Slowly I came to understand that the environment I
was observing was not the physical world, as I had assumed. I
realized that the structures I normally observed when out-of-body
were nonphysical structures... Now I finally understood why there
were slight variations between the nonphysical and physical
furniture and other objects. For example, the nonphysical walls were
often a different color, and the shapes and styles of some of the
furniture and rugs were different. Much of this was minor but
nevertheless noticeable... It appears that we are not observing the
physical world from a different perspective, as many believe, but
are interacting in a separate but parallel dimension of energy.”24
In the spring of 1902, Oliver Fox had his first
out-of-body experience when his consciousness “woke up” within what
he called a “dream of knowledge,” but what would today be labelled a
lucid dream. It was an anomaly such as Buhlman describes above that
shifted his awareness from semi-conscious dreaming to conscious
perception of Locale-I:
“I dreamed that I was standing on the pavement
outside my home... Now the pavement was not of the ordinary type,
but consisted of small, bluish-grey rectangular stones, with their
long sides at right-angles to the white kerb. I was about to enter
the house when, on glancing casually at these stones, my attention
became riveted by a passing strange phenomenon, so extraordinary
that I could not believe my eyes – they had seemingly all changed
their position in the night, and the long sides were now parallel to
the kerb! Then the solution flashed upon me: though this glorious
summer morning seemed as real as real could be, I was dreaming!”25
If Locale-I is the other side of our spacetime
looking glass, then further extension of consciousness into
Locale-II with its hierarchies of astral and mental matter is
even more difficult to visualise except perhaps as a funhouse
hallway of imploding-exploding, wormhole mirrors. For the sake of
comprehension it is not improper to retain familiar
three-dimensional terminology (e.g., “rings,” “planes,” etc.) as
long as we remember that it is probably only accurate in a
metaphorical sense. Since OOBE explorers perceive these other realms
in “external” three-dimensional terms we can assume that any inner
differentiated realm appears to awareness as a three-dimensional
construct.
What seems clear is that the out-of-body experience
is the projection of a subjective observer into the Objective
Psyche: mind imploding into Mind. The perpendicular rule of
dimensional progression mandates that realms numerically “higher”
than the observer are always perceived as “inside” – which is to
say, related to “Consciousness” rather than to “matter” (whatever
that is). This explains why entities existing in numerically higher
dimensions can always observe those in numerically lower realms,
though normally not the other way around – unless the observer is
“out-of-body.”
For example, we could easily contemplate
two-dimensional beings dwelling in a plane. (Imagine flat creatures
moving back and forth within a sheet of cellophane.) To them,
however (if they became aware of us at all), we would seem to be
“supernatural” entities appearing magically within their midst.
(Touch the sheet with your finger: they’d regard it as the sudden
apparition of a mystery out of “nowhere.” Remember, our concept of
“above” can only be comprehended by them as “within.”)
If this rule holds, we can hypothesise with
reasonable certainty that dwellers in numerically higher dimensions
are normally experienced by dimensionally lower entities as inner
ephemera: as voices in the head, spirit guides,
channelled entities, and so-forth. (The possible exceptions would be
temporary fourth-dimensional “holographic inserts” or “shamanic
projections” into three-dimensional space – such as UFOs,
apparitions, ghosts, etc.)
Although seemingly ghost-like or discarnate to us,
there is no reason to believe that these ephemeral beings don’t
experience themselves as anything but “physical” within their own
space. Since quantum physics tells us that our own seemingly solid
reality is actually energetic or “idea-like,” it should come as no
surprise that the higher dimensions must also be experienced by
their inhabitants as “physical.” That means that what we regard as
“thought” is perceived as “matter” in the higher dimensions.
As Robert Monroe and other out-of-body explorers have
attested, the “non-material” realms have an ascending order of
abstraction which can be divided into an indeterminate number of
levels, planes, rings, spheres, or bubbles. Those closest to our
physical Earth are most like Earth: those further removed fade off
into zones so ethereal that they become almost impossible to
portray. Denizens of the nearest realms are described as
experiencing their environments pretty much the same way that we
experience our physical space-time dimension – some are even said to
believe that theirs is the only reality: for them, Earth cannot
exist.
When we read the monotonously repetitive data on UFO
abductions – how abductees are routinely transported through solid
walls, beamed into spaceships, communicate telepathically with
aliens, etc., we have to ponder what kinds of dimensional interfaces
must be involved. Almost all serious researchers are now in
substantial agreement that the UFO phenomenon is transdimensional in
nature, though how higher-dimensional entities can “physically”
introject themselves into three dimensional space remains
maddeningly unresolved.
“I believe that the UFO phenomenon represents
evidence for other dimensions beyond spacetime; the UFOs may not
come from ordinary space, but from a multiverse which is all around
us, and of which we have stubbornly refused to consider the
disturbing reality in spite of the evidence available to us for
centuries... The UFOs are physical manifestations that simply cannot
be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we
see here is not an alien invasion. It is a spiritual system that
acts on humans and uses humans... They are part of the environment,
part of the control system for human evolution. But their effects,
instead of being just physical, are also felt in our beliefs. They
influence what we call our spiritual life. They affect our politics,
our history, our culture.”26
Everything we have examined so far suggests that
these intruders from a fourth-spatial-dimension constitute the
“angels, devils, fairies and elves” who’ve been interfacing with
humankind since the dawn of time. The fact that they accommodate
themselves to prevailing cultural illusions tells us immediately
that (just like us), they are Ideas (spirits, points-of-view)
evolving on some frequency within the Objective Psyche. They and we
may even be co-creations – when fairies fade from credence in
spacetime, the ideas they represent morph into space aliens to keep
pace with current belief systems. Who creates whom?
By now it should be clear that the out-of-body
experience (including its near-death variant) and the UFO Abduction
Syndrome are but two linked components of a larger underlying
reality, the structure of which is quite “alien” to anything granted
by general cultural consensus. We are now ready to examine these
concepts as they are described by the “traditional counter-culture”
– that ancient body of wisdom comprising what is known as the
Perennial Philosophy. This will be covered in the next
instalment of this series.
Recommended Reading:
Ultimate Journey by Robert Monroe, Perils of the Soul
by John Haule.
Footnotes:
1. Gribben, John, “Is The Universe Alive?,” Whole
Earth Review, No. 84, Winter 1994, Pg 31-33
2. Davies, Paul (1982). The Edge of Infinity,
Touchstone (Simon and Schuster), NY, Pg 87
3. Davies, Paul (1980). Other Worlds,
Simon & Schuster, NY, Pg 135
4. Gribben, op. cit.
5. Monroe, Robert A. (1977). Journeys Out Of The
Body, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, NY, Pg 74
6. Davies, Paul (1984). Superforce,
Simon & Schuster, NY, Pg 49
7. Whitmont, Edward C. (1969, 1978). The Symbolic
Quest, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, Pg 42
8. Buhlman, William (1996), Adventures Beyond the
Body, Harper SanFrancisco, Pg 30
9. Ibid, Pg 31
10. Evans-Wentz, W.Y. (1960). The Tibetan Book of
the Dead, Oxford University Press, NY, Pg 121
11. Pandit, M.P. (1970). Aditi and Other Deities
in the Veda, Dipti Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram,
Pondicherry- 2, India, Pg 23
12. Stacy, D. and Huyghe, P. (2000). The Field
Guide to UFOS, Harper-Collins, NY, Pg 145
13. Prabhavananda/Manchester translation (1948,
1957). The Upanishads, Breath of the Eternal, Mentor Books,
NY, Pg 74
14. Ibid, Aitareya Upanishad, Pg 62
15. Kaku, Michio (1994). Hyperspace,
Oxford University Press, Oxford, Pg x., 226
16. Monroe, Robert A. (1985). Far Journeys.
Doubleday, NY, Pg 19
17. Fox, Oliver (1962). Astral Projection: A
Record of Out- of-the-Body Experiences, University Books, New
Hyde Park, NY, Pg 98, 106
18. Subject, “Willow,” in: Strassman, Rick, M.D.,
(2001). DMT, The Spirit Molecule, Park Street Press,
Rochester, VT, Pg 224-5
19. Mack, John E., M.D. (1994), Abduction: Human
Encounters with Aliens, Chas. Scribner’s Sons, NY, Pg 419
20. Moody, R. A. (1976), Life After Life,
Bantam, NY, Pg 29
21. Moorehouse, David (1996), Psychic Warrior,
St. Martin’s Press, NY, Pgs 139, 142, 150, 162, 201
22. Atwater, F. Holmes (2001). Captain of my Ship,
Master of my Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing Co.,
Charlottesville, VA, Pg 8
23. Buhlman, op. cit., Pg 87
24. Ibid, Pg 16, 18
25. Fox, op. cit., Pg 33
26. Jacques Vallee — “Excerpts from Dimensions: A
Casebook of Alien Contact,” ReVison, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Spring
1989), Pg 39, passim.
Bibliography
Rucker, Rudy (1984). The Fourth Dimension,
Houghton Mifflin
Zukav, Gary (1979). The Dancing Wu Li Masters,
Morrow, NY
______________________________________________________________________________
The
above chapter is excerpted from the author's work in progress called
The Structure of Reality. Jim DeKorne is the author of
Psychedelic Shamanism: The Cultivation, Preparation, and Shamanic
Use of Psychotropic Plants (ISBN: 0-9666932-5-6), available via
mail order from Polyester Books in Melbourne, Tel: (03) 94195223 or
on the Internet through
www.loompanics.com. Interested publishers can contact Jim
DeKorne via New Dawn at
editor@newdawnmagazine.com |
