The observations described in the preceding section, particularly those related to transpersonal experiences, are clearly incompatible with the most basic assumptions of mechanistic science. Yet, they are so consistent and come from so many independent sources that it is no longer possible to deny their existence. It is also hard to imagine that they could be assimilated into contemporary science at the expense of some minor or even major conceptual adjustments of the leading paradigm. The only solution seems to be a fundamental and drastic revision, a paradigm shift of enormous scope and far-reaching relevance.
In a sense, this development is quite logical and should not come as a surprise. Scientific thinking in contemporary medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and anthropology represents a direct extension of the seventeenth century Newtonian-Cartesian model of the universe. Since all the basic assumptions of this way of viewing reality have been transcended by twentieth-century physics, it seems only natural to expect profound changes sooner or later in all the disciplines that are its direct derivatives.
It can be demonstrated without much effort that most of the material from LSD psychotherapy, although quite puzzling and incomprehensible from the point of view of mechanistic science, presents far less difficulty when approached in the spirit of quantum-relativistic physics, information and systems theory, cybernetics, or recent discoveries in neurophysiology and biology. Modern consciousness research has produced much evidence supporting the world views of the great mystical traditions. At the same time, revolutionary developments in other scientific disciplines have seriously undermined and discredited the mechanistic world view, narrowing the gap between science and mysticism that in the past seemed absolute and unbridgeable.
It is interesting that many great scientists who have revolutionized modern physics, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schroedinger, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer, and David Bohm, have found their scientific thinking quite compatible with spirituality and the mystical world view. In recent years, the increasing convergence between science and mysticism has been discussed in a number of books and articles.12
To demonstrate the compatibility and complementarity between the world view emerging from quantum-relativistic physics and the observations from consciousness research discussed earlier, I will briefly review the conceptual revolution in twentieth century physics, following Fritjof Capra’s comprehensive presentation in The Tao of Physics (1975). There is an interesting parallel here that is probably not just coincidental, but has a deeper meaning and significance. The Newtonian-Cartesian model was not only adequate but highly successful, as long as physicists were exploring the phenomena in the world of our everyday experience, or the “zone of middle dimensions.” Once they started making excursions beyond the limits of ordinary perception into the microworld of subatomic processes and into the macroworld of astrophysics, the Newtonian-Cartesian model became untenable and had to be transcended. Similarly, deep conceptual and metaphysical changes occur automatically in LSD subjects, meditators, and other explorers of inner spaces as they enter experientially the transpersonal realms. Science that takes into account the testimony of nonordinary states of consciousness has no other choice but to free itself from the narrow confines of the Newtonian-Cartesian model.
The revolutionary changes in physics heralding the end of the Newtonian model started back in the nineteenth century with the famous experiments of Faraday and Maxwell’s theoretical speculations concerning electromagnetic phenomena. The work of these two researchers led to the revolutionary concept of a force field, replacing the Newtonian concept of force. Unlike Newtonian forces, force fields could be studied with no reference to material bodies. This was the first major departure from Newtonian physics; it led to the discovery that light is a rapidly alternating electromagnetic field traveling through space in the form of waves. The comprehensive theory of electromagnetism based on this discovery was able to reduce the differences among radio waves, visible light, x-rays, and cosmic rays to differences in frequency, bringing them all under the common denominator of electromagnetic fields. However, for many years electrodynamics remained under the spell of Newtonian thinking. As a result, electromagnetic waves were conceived as vibrations of a very light, space-filling substance called “ether.” The existence of ether was disproved by the Michelson-Morley experiment; it was Albert Einstein who stated clearly that electromagnetic fields were entities in their own right that could travel through empty space.
The first decades of this century brought unexpected discoveries in physics that shattered the very foundations of the Newtonian model of the universe. The milestones of this development were two papers published by Albert Einstein in 1905. In the first, he formulated the principles of his special theory of relativity; in the second, he suggested a new way of looking at light that was later elaborated by a team of physicists into the quantum theory of atomic processes. The theory of relativity and the new atomic theory undermined all the basic concepts of Newtonian physics: the existence of absolute time and space, the solid material nature of the universe, the definition of physical forces, the strictly deterministic system of explanation, and the ideal of objective description of phenomena without including the observer.
According to the relativity theory, space is not three-dimensional and time is not linear; neither of them is a separate entity. They are intimately interwoven and form a four-dimensional continuum called “space-time.” The flow of time is not even and uniform, as in the Newtonian model; it depends on the position of the observers and their relative velocities in regard to the observed event. In addition, the general theory of relativity, formulated in 1915 and not yet conclusively confirmed by experiments, states that space-time is influenced by the presence of massive objects. The variations in the field of gravity in different parts of the universe have a curving effect on space that makes time flow at different rates.
Not only are all the measurements involving space and time relative, but the entire structure of space-time depends on the distribution of matter, and the distinction between matter and empty space loses its meaning. The Newtonian notion of solid material bodies moving in empty space with Euclidean characteristics is now considered to be valid only in the “zone of middle dimensions.” In astrophysics and cosmological speculations, the concept of empty space has no meaning; conversely, the developments in atomic and subatomic physics have destroyed the image of solid matter.
The adventure of subatomic exploration began at the turn of the century with the discovery of x-rays and of the radiation emitted by radioactive substances. Rutherford’s experiments with alpha particles demonstrated clearly that atoms were not hard and solid units of matter, but consisted of vast spaces in which small particles—the electrons—moved around the nucleus. The study of atomic processes presented scientists with a number of strange paradoxes that arose whenever they tried to explain the new observations in the framework of traditional physics. In the 1920s, an international group of physicists, including Niels Bohr, Louis de Broglie, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Paul Dirac, succeeded in finding mathematical formulations for the subatomic events.
The concepts of quantum theory and their philosophical implications were not easy to accept, although its mathematical formalism reflected adequately the processes involved. The “planetary model” showed atoms as consisting of empty space with only miniscule particles of matter; quantum physics demonstrated that even these were not solid objects. It turned out that the subatomic particles had very abstract characteristics and showed a paradoxical, dual nature. Depending on the arrangement of the experimental situation, they appeared sometimes as particles and sometimes as waves. Similar ambiguity was also observed in the research exploring the nature of light. In some experiments light showed the properties of an electromagnetic field, in others it seemed to have the form of distinct energy quanta, or photons, that were massless and always traveled with the speed of light.
The ability of the same phenomenon to manifest itself as particles as well as waves obviously involves a violation of Aristotelian logic. The image of a particle implies an entity confined to a small volume or a finite region of space, whereas that of a wave is diffuse and spread over vast regions of space. In quantum physics, these two descriptions are mutually exclusive, but equally necessary, for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena involved. This was expressed in a new logical instrument that Niels Bohr (1934; 1958) called the complementarity principle. This new ordering principle in science codifies the paradox instead of resolving it. It accepts the logical discrepancy between two aspects of reality that are mutually exclusive yet equally necessary for an exhaustive description of a phenomenon. According to Bohr, this discrepancy results from an uncontrollable interaction between the object of observation and the agency of observation. In the domain of the quantum, there can be no question of causality or complete objectivity as these were once ordinarily understood.
The seeming contradiction between the particle and wave images was solved in quantum theory in a manner that shatters the very foundations of the mechanistic world view. At the subatomic level, matter does not exist with certainty at definite places, but rather shows “tendencies to exist,” and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather “show tendencies to occur.” These tendencies can be expressed as mathematical probabilities that have the characteristic properties of waves. The wave image of light or subatomic particles should not be understood in a concretistic way. The waves involved are not three-dimensional configurations, but mathematical abstractions or “probability waves” reflecting the chances of finding the particles at a certain time and at a certain place.
Quantum physics thus suggests a scientific model of the universe in sharp contrast with that of classical physics. At the subatomic level the world of solid material objects dissolves into a complex pattern of probability waves. In addition, careful analysis of the process of observation has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities; they can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. The probability waves, thus, do not ultimately represent probabilities of things, but probabilities of interconnections.
The exploration of the subatomic world did not end with the discovery of the atomic nuclei and the electrons. At first, the atomic model was extended to include three “elementary particles”—the proton, the neutron, and the electron. As physicists refined their experimental techniques and developed new devices, the number of subatomic particles kept increasing; at present, their number runs into the hundreds. During this experimentation, it became clear that a complete theory of subatomic phenomena must include not only quantum physics but also the theory of relativity, because the speed of the particles involved frequently approaches the speed of light. According to Einstein, mass has nothing to do with substance, but is a form of energy; the equivalence of the two is expressed by his famous equation, E=mc2
The most spectacular consequence of the theory of relativity was the experimental demonstration that material particles can be created from pure energy and can be made to turn into pure energy in a reverse process. Relativity theory has not only drastically affected the conception of particles, but also the picture of the forces between them. The mutual repulsion and attraction of the particles are seen in relativistic description as an exchange of other particles. Thus, both force and matter are now considered to have their origin in dynamic patterns called particles. The presently known particles cannot be further subdivided. In high-energy physics, using collision processes, matter can be divided repeatedly but never into smaller pieces; the resulting fragments are particles created out of the energy involved in the collision process. The subatomic particles are thus destructible and indestructible at the same time.
The field theories have transcended the classic distinction between material particles and the void. According to both Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum field theory, particles cannot be separated from the space that surrounds them. They represent nothing but condensations of a continuous field that is present throughout space. The field theory suggests that particles can come into being spontaneously out of the void and disappear again into the void. The discovery of the dynamic quality of the “physical vacuum” is one of the most important findings of modern physics. It is in a state of emptiness and nothingness, yet it contains the potentiality for all forms of the particle world.13
This brief outline of the developments in modern physics would be incomplete without mentioning a radical school of thought that is particularly relevant for our further discussion—the so-called bootstrap approach formulated by Geoffrey Chew (1968). Although it has been specifically elaborated for only one type of subatomic particles—the hadron—it represents in its consequences a comprehensive philosophical understanding of nature. According to “bootstrap philosophy,” nature cannot be reduced to any such fundamental entities as elementary particles or fields; it must be understood entirely through its self-consistency. In the last analysis, the universe is an infinite web of mutually interrelated events. None of the properties of any part of this web is elementary and fundamental; they all reflect the properties of the other parts. It is therefore the overall consistency of their mutual interrelations that determines the structure of the entire network, rather than any specific constituents. The universe cannot be understood, as in the Newtonian model and its derivatives, to be an assemblage of entities that cannot be further analyzed and represent a priori givens. The bootstrap philosophy of nature not only rejects the existence of basic constituents of matter, it accepts no fundamental laws of nature or mandatory principles whatsoever. All the theories of natural phenomena, including natural laws, are considered in this view to be creations of the human mind. They are conceptual schemes that represent more or less adequate approximations and should not be confused with accurate descriptions of reality or with reality itself.
The history of twentieth century physics has not been an easy process; it has involved not only brilliant achievements, but also conceptual turmoil, confusion, and dramatic human conflicts. It took physicists a long time to abandon the basic assumptions of classical physics and the agreed-upon view of reality. The new physics necessitated not only changes in the concepts of matter, space, time, and linear causality, but also the recognition that paradoxes represent an essential aspect of the new model of the universe. Long after the mathematical formalism of the theories of relativity and of quantum theory have been completed, accepted, and assimilated into mainstream science, physicists are still far from unanimous with respect to the philosophical interpretation and metaphysical implications of these systems of thought. Thus, in relation to the quantum theory alone, there are several major interpretations of the mathematical formalism involved (Jammer 1974; PageIs 1982).
Theoretical physicists, however advanced and revolutionary in their views, have been brought up to experience every day reality as endowed with the properties ascribed to it by classical physics. Many of them, refusing to deal with the unsettling philosophical questions raised by the quantum theory, opt for a strictly pragmatic aproach. They are satisfied with the fact that the mathematical formalism of quantum theory accurately predicts the results of the experiments and insist that this is all that really matters.
Another important approach to the problems of quantum theory is one based on stochastic interpretations. In dealing with the events in the phenomenal world, physicists use statistical approaches whenever they do not know all the mechanical details of the system they are studying. They refer to these unknown factors as “hidden variables.” Those scientists who favor the stochastic interpretation of quantum theory are trying to demonstrate that it is basically a classic theory of probabilistic processes, and that a radical departure from the conceptual framework of classic physics was unnecessary and misleading. Many believe with Einstein that the quantum theory is a kind of statistical mechanics that gives only average values of the measured quantities. At a deeper level, each individual system is governed by deterministic laws that will be discovered in the future by more refined research. In classic physics, the hidden variables are local mechanisms. John Bell presented a proof that in quantum physics such hidden variables—if they exist—would have to be nonlocal connections to the universe operating instantly.
The Copenhagen interpretation, associated with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, was, until 1950, the leading view in quantum physics. It emphasizes the principle of local causality at the expense of undermining the objective existence of the microworld. According to this view, there is no reality until that reality is perceived. Depending on the experimental arrangement, various complementary aspects of reality will become apparent. It is the fact of observation that disrupts the unbroken wholeness of the universe and generates paradoxes. The instantaneous experience of reality does not appear paradoxical at all. It is only when the observer attempts to construct the history of his or her perception that paradoxes emerge. This is because there is no clear dividing line between ourselves and the reality we observe to exist outside ourselves. Reality is constructed by mental acts and depends on the choice of what and how we observe.
There have also been tendencies among theoretical physicists to solve the paradoxes of quantum physics by work on the basis of scientific theory. Certain developments in mathematics and philosophy have led to the idea that the reason for the impasse might be in the logic underlying the theory. A search along these lines has led to attempts to replace the Boolean logic of ordinary language by quantum logic, in which the usual logical meaning of such words as “and” and “either—or” is changed.
By far the most fantastic interpretation of quantum theory is the many worlds hypothesis associated with Hugh Everett III, John Archibald Wheeler, and Neill Graham. This approach eliminates the inconsistencies in conventional interpretations and the “collapse of the wave function” produced by the act of observation. However, this becomes possible at the expense of a drastic revision of our most fundamental assumptions about reality. This hypothesis postulates that the universe splits at every instant of time into an infinity of universes. Due to this multiple branching, all the possibilities suggested by the mathematical formalism of the quantum theory become actually realized, although in different universes. Reality is the infinity of all these universes existing in a “superspace” that includes them all. Because the individual universes do not communicate with each other, no contradictions are possible.
Most radical from the point of view of psychology, psychiatry, and parapsychology are those interpretations that assume a critical role of the psyche in quantum reality. The authors who think along these lines suggest that mind or consciousness actually influences, or even creates, matter. The work of Eugene Wigner, Edward Walker, Jack Sarfatti, and Charles Musès is relevant here.
The nature and scope of this volume do not allow me to explore in greater detail the fascinating and far-reaching changes in the image of the universe and the nature of reality suggested by quantum-relativity physics. The interested reader will find more relevant information in special books on the subject written by experts in the field. However, one more issue that is of critical importance should be briefly mentioned in this connection. Einstein, whose work had initiated the development of quantum physics, showed until the end of his life great resistance to the fundamental role of probability in nature. He expressed it in his famous statement: “God does not play dice.” Even after numerous discussions and arguments with the foremost representatives of quantum physics, he remained convinced that a deterministic interpretation in terms of “hidden local variables” would be found some time in the future. In order to show that Bohr’s interpretation of quantum theory was wrong, Einstein devised a thought experiment, which later became known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiment. Ironically, several decades later, this experiment served as the basis for John Bell’s theorem that proves that the Cartesian concept of reality is incompatible with quantum theory (Bell 1966; Capra 1982).
The simplified version of the EPR experiment involves two electrons spinning in opposite directions, so that their total spin is zero. They are made to move apart until the distance between them becomes macroscopic; their respective spins can then be measured by two independent observers. Quantum theory predicts that, in a system of two particles with a total spin of zero, the spins about any axis will always be correlated, that is, opposite. Although before the actual measurement one can only talk about tendencies to spin, once the measurement is made, this potential is transformed into certainty. The observer is free to choose any axis of measurement, and this instantly determines the spin of the other particle that might be thousands of miles away. According to the theory of relativity, no signal can travel faster than light, and therefore this situation should be impossible in principle. The instantaneous, nonlocal connection between these particles cannot be thus mediated by signals in the Einsteinian sense; communication of this kind transcends the conventional concept of information transfer. Bell’s theorem leaves the physicists with an uncomfortable dilemma; it suggests that either the world is not objectively real, or it is connected by supraluminal links. According to Henry Stapp (1971), Bell’s theorem proves “the profound truth that the universe is either fundamentally lawless or fundamentally inseparable.”
Although quantum-relativity physics provides the most convincing and radical critique of the mechanistic world view, important revisions have been inspired by various avenues of research in other disciplines. Drastic changes of a similar kind have been introduced into scientific thinking by developments in cybernetics, information theory, systems theory, and the theory of logical types. One of the major representatives of this critical trend in modern science has been Gregory Bateson.14 According to him, thinking in terms of substance and discrete objects represents a serious epistemological mistake—error in logical typing. In everyday life, we never deal with objects but with their sensory transforms or messages about differences; in Korzybski’s sense (1933), we have access to maps, not the territory. The information, difference, form, and pattern that constitute our knowledge of the world are dimensionless entities that cannot be located in space or time. The information flows in circuits that transcend the conventional boundaries of the individual and include the environment. This way of scientific thinking makes it absurd to treat the world in terms of separate objects and entities, to see the individual, family, or species as Darwinian units of survival, to draw distinctions between mind and body, or to identify with the ego-body unit (Alan Watt’s “skin-encapsulated ego”). As in quantum-relativistic physics, the emphasis has shifted from substance and object to form, pattern, and process.15
Systems theory has made it possible to formulate a new definition of the mind and mental functioning. It showed that every aggregate of parts and components that has the appropriate complexity of closed causal circuits and the appropriate energy relations will show mental characteristics—respond to difference, process information, and be self-corrective. In this sense, it is possible to talk about mental characteristics of cells, tissues, and organs of the body, of a cultural group or nation, of an ecological system, or even of the entire planet, as Lovelock has done in his Gaia theory (1979). And when we consider a larger mind that integrates all the hierarchies of the lower ones, even a critical and skeptical scientist like Gregory Bateson has to admit that this concept comes close to that of an immanent god.
Another profound criticism of the basic concepts of mechanistic science has emerged from the work of the Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine (1980, 1984) and his colleagues in Brussels, Belgium, and Austin, Texas. Traditional science portrays life as a specific, rare, and ultimately futile process—an insignificant and accidental anomaly involved in a quixotic struggle against the absolute dictate of the second law of thermodynamics. This gloomy picture of the universe, dominated by an all-powerful tendency toward increasing randomness and entropy and moving relentlessly toward a thermal death, belongs now to the history of science. It was dispelled by Prigogine’s study of the so-called dissipative structures16 in certain chemical reactions and his discovery of a new principle underlying them—“order through fluctuation.” Further research revealed that this principle is not limited to chemical processes, but represents a basic mechanism for the unfolding of evolutionary processes in all domains—from atoms to galaxies, from individual cells to human beings, and further to societies and cultures.
As a result of these observations, it has become possible to formulate a unified view of evolution in which the unifying principle is not the steady state, but the dynamic conditions of the non-equilibrium systems. Open systems on all levels and in all domains are carriers of an overall evolution which ensures that life will continue moving into ever newer dynamic regimes of complexity. In this view, life itself appears in a new light far beyond the narrow notion of organic life. Whenever systems in any domain become stifled by past entropy production, they mutate toward new regimes. The same energy and the same principles thus carry evolution on all levels, whether it involves matter, vital forces, information, or mental processes. Microcosm and macrocosm are two aspects of the same unified and unifying evolution. Life is no longer seen as a phenomenon unfolding in an inanimate universe; the universe itself becomes increasingly alive.
Although the simplest level on which self-organization can be studied is the level of dissipative structures that form in self-renewing chemical reaction systems, applying these principles to biological, psychological, and sociocultural phenomena does not involve reductionistic thinking. Unlike the reductionism of mechanistic science, such interpretations are based on fundamental homology, on the relatedness of the self-organizing dynamics on many levels.
From this point of view, humans are not higher than other living organisms; they live simultaneously on more levels than do life forms that appeared earlier in evolution. Here science has rediscovered the truth of perennial philosophy, that the evolution of humanity forms an integral and meaningful part of universal evolution. Humans are important agents in this evolution; rather than being helpless subjects of evolution, they are evolution.
Like quantum-relativistic physics, this new science of becoming, replacing the old science of being, shifts the emphasis from substance to process. Here, structure is an incidental product of interacting processes, which, in Erich Jantsch’s words, is no more solid than a standing wave pattern in the confluence of two rivers or the grin of a Cheshire cat.17
The latest serious challenge to mechanistic thinking is the theory of the British biologist and biochemist, Rupert Sheldrake, expounded in his revolutionary and highly controversial book, A New Science of Life (1981). Sheldrake has offered a brilliant critique of the limitations of the explanatory power of mechanistic science and its inability to face problems of basic significance in the areas of morphogenesis during individual development and evolution of species, genetics, or instinctual and more complex forms of behavior. Mechanistic science deals only with the quantitative aspect of phenomena, with what Sheldrake calls the “energetic causation.” It has nothing to say about the qualitative aspect—the development of forms, or the “formative causation.” According to Sheldrake, living organisms are not just complex biological machines, and life cannot be reduced to chemical reactions. The form, development, and behavior of organisms are shaped by “morphogenetic fields” of a type that at present cannot be detected or measured and is not recognized by physics. These fields are moulded by the form and behavior of past organisms of the same species through direct connections across both space and time, and they show cumulative properties. If a critical number of members of a species develop certain organismic properties or learn a specific form of behavior, these are automatically acquired by other members of the species, even if there are no conventional forms of contact between them.18 The phenomenon of “morphic resonance,” as Sheldrake calls it, is not limited to living organisms and can be demonstrated for such elementary phenomena as the growth of crystals.
However implausible and absurd this theory might appear to a mechanistically oriented mind, it is testable, unlike the basic metaphysical assumptions of the materialistic world view. Even at present, in its early stages, it is supported by experiments in rats and observations in monkeys. Sheldrake is well aware that his theory has far-reaching implications for psychology and has himself discussed its relationship to Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious.
This survey of new exciting developments in science would not be complete without mentioning the work of Arthur Young (1976a; 1976b). His theory of process is a serious candidate for a scientific metaparadigm of the future. It organizes and interprets in a most comprehensive way the data from a variety of disciplines— geometry, quantum theory and theories of relativity, chemistry, biology, botany, zoology, psychology and history—and integrates them into an all-encompassing cosmological vision. Young’s model of the universe has four levels, defined by degrees of freedom and of constraint, and seven consecutive stages: light, nuclear particles, atoms, molecules, plants, animals, and humans. Young was able to discover a basic pattern of the universal process that repeats itself again and again on different levels of evolution in nature. The explanatory power of this paradigm is complemented by its predictive power. Like Mendeléev’s periodic table of elements, it is capable of predicting natural phenomena and their specific aspects.
By assigning a critical role in the universe to light and the purposeful influence of the quantum of action, Young made it possible to bridge the gap between science, mythology, and perennial philosophy. His metaparadigm is thus not only consistent with the best of science, but also capable of dealing with nonobjective and nondefinable aspects of reality far beyond the accepted limits of science. Since one cannot do justice to Young’s theory without detailed excursions into a variety of disciplines, the interested reader is referred to his original writings.
At present, it is clearly impossible to integrate all the various revolutionary developments in modern science discussed in this chapter into a cohesive and comprehensive new paradigm. However, they all seem to have one thing in common: their proponents share a deep belief that the mechanistic image of the universe created by Newtonian-Cartesian science should no longer be considered an accurate and mandatory model of reality.
The concept of the cosmos as a gigantic supermachine, assembled from countless separate objects and existing independently from the observer, has become obsolete and has been relegated to the historical archives of science. The updated model shows the universe as a unified and indivisible web of events and relationships; its parts represent different aspects and patterns of one integral process of unimaginable complexity. As predicted by James Jeans (1930) over fifty years ago, the universe of modern physics looks far more like a system of thought processes than like a gigantic clockwork. As scientists have probed into the deepest structure of matter and studied the multifarious aspects of the processes in the world, the notion of solid substance has gradually disappeared from the picture, leaving them only with archetypal patterns, abstract mathematical formulas, or universal order. Consequently, it does not seem extravagant to entertain the possibility that the connecting principle in the cosmic web is consciousness as a primary and further irreducible attribute of existence.19
After this review of some exciting developments in modern science, we now return to the observations from modern consciousness research. Most are clearly incompatible with the Newtonian -Cartesian paradigm of mechanistic science; it is therefore of great interest to explore their relationship to various elements of the emerging new scientific world view. The revolutionary potential of the data generated by modern consciousness research seems to vary with the level of observation. Thus, experiences of a biographical nature present no serious challenge to established ways of thinking and could be handled by minor adjustments of the existing theories. The perinatal experiences would require far more dramatic changes, but it is conceivable that they could be assimilated without a radical paradigm shift. However, the existence of transpersonal experiences represents a mortal blow to mechanistic thinking and requires changes at the very basis of the scientific world view. The necessary drastic revisions will specifically affect those disciplines that remain under the spell of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm, considering the principles of this seventeenth century model to be synonymous with the principles of science.
Fritjof Capra (1975; 1982) and others have demonstrated that the world view emerging from modern physics seems to be converging with the mystical world view. The same can be said to a far greater extent about modern consciousness research, since it deals directly with states of consciousness, the true domain of the mystical schools. Consequently, there is also an increasing compatibility between the revolutionary concepts of consciousness research and modern physics. These statements require a few words of explanation and specification. Convergence between physics and mysticism does not mean identity, or even a prospect of future merging. Tendencies to so interpret the situation have been justly criticized. A particularly incisive criticism has been offered by Ken Wilber. In his paper, Physics, Mysticism, and the New Holographic Paradigm (1979), he points out that perennial philosophy describes being and consciousness as a hierarchy of levels, from the densest and most fragmentary realms to the highest, subtlest, and most unitary ones. Most of the systems agree on the following major levels: (1) physical, involving nonliving matter/energy; (2) biological, focusing on living, sentient matter/energy; (3) psychological, dealing with mind, ego, and logical thinking; (4) subtle, comprising psychic and archetypal phenomena; (5) causal, characterized by formless radiance and perfect transcendence, and (6) absolute consciousness and suchness of all the levels of the spectrum.
In the mystical world view, each level of the spectrum transcends and includes its predecessors, but not vice versa. Since the lower is, in perennial philosophy, created by the higher by a process called “involution,” the higher cannot be explained from the lower. Each level has a more limited and controlled range of consciousness than the level above it. The elements of lower worlds are unable to experience the higher worlds and are unaware of their existence, although they are interpenetrated by them.
The mystics distinguish two forms of interpenetration—horizontal within each level, and vertical between the levels. Holoarchy exists within each level—all its elements are roughly equivalent in status and mutually interpenetrating. Nonequivalence and hierarchy exist between the levels. The discoveries of physics have confirmed only a small fragment of the mystical world view. Physicists have blasted the dogma of the primacy of indestructible, solid matter that served as the basis of the mechanistic world view: in subatomic explorations, matter disintegrated into abstract patterns and forms of consciousness. Physicists have also demonstrated horizontal unity and interpenetration of the first, the physical, level of the hierarchy of perennial philosophy.
Information theory and systems theory have shown a similar situation on levels two and three. The new discoveries in physics, chemistry, or biology can say nothing about the higher levels of the mystical hierarchy. The significance of these developments in science in this respect is only indirect. By undermining the mechanistic world view that ridiculed mysticism and spirituality, they are creating a more open-minded climate for consciousness research. However, only discoveries in scientific disciplines that study consciousness directly can provide access to the remaining levels of the spectrum covered by perennial philosophy. With this in mind, we can now explore the relationship between the observations from modern consciousness research and recent developments in other scientific disciplines.
Transpersonal experiences fall into two major categories. The first includes phenomena the content of which is directly related to various elements of the material world, such as other people, animals, plants, and inanimate objects or processes. The second category involves experiential domains that are clearly beyond the confines of what is agreed upon in the West as objective reality. Here belong, for example, various archetypal visions, mythological sequences, experiences of divine and demonic influences, encounters with discarnate or suprahuman beings, and experiential identification with the Universal Mind or the Supracosmic Void.
The first category can be further subdivided into two subgroups; the principle of division here is the nature of the conventional barrier that appears to be transcended. In the experiences of the first subgroup it is primarily the spatial partitioning and the condition of separateness; in those of the second one the limitations of linear time. Experiences of this kind represent an insurmountable obstacle for Cartesian-Newtonian science, which sees matter as solid, boundaries and separateness as absolute properties of the universe, and time as linear and irreversible. This is not true for the modern scientific world view that pictures the universe as an infinite and unified web of interrelations and considers any boundaries to be ultimately arbitrary and negotiable. It has transcended the sharp distinction between object and empty space and offers conceptual possibilities of direct subatomic connections that bypass the channels accepted or acceptable by mechanistic science. Also the possibility of consciousness existing outside the brains of humans and higher vertebrates is seriously entertained in the context of modern physics. Some physicists believe that consciousness will have to be included in future theories of matter and in speculations about the physical universe as a primary factor and connecting principle in the, cosmic web. In some sense, if the universe represents an integral and unified web and some of its constituents are obviously conscious, this must be true for the entire system. Of course, it is conceivable that different parts are conscious in different degrees and that they manifest various forms of awareness.
From this point of view, the divisions of the ultimately indivisible cosmic web are incomplete, arbitrary, and changeable. In view of this, there is no reason why it should not be true for the experiential boundaries between the units of consciousness. It is conceivable that, under certain special circumstances, an individual could reclaim his or her identity with the cosmic network and consciously experience any aspect of its existence. Similarly, certain ESP phenomena that are based on transcending the conventional spatial boundaries can be reconciled with this model. For telepathy, psychic diagnosis, remote viewing, or astral projection, the question is no longer whether such phenomena are possible, but how to describe the barrier that prevents them from happening all the time. In other words, the new problem is: What creates the semblance of solidity, separateness, and individuality in an essentially empty and immaterial universe the true nature of which is indivisible unity?
Transpersonal experiences transcending spatial barriers are also quite compatible with the world view based on information theory and systems theory. This approach also involves an image of the world in which boundaries are arbitrary, solid matter is nonexistent, and pattern is all-important. Although consciousness is not explicitly discussed, it is conceivable in this context to talk about mental processes in connection with cells, organs, lower organisms, plants, ecological systems, social groups, or the entire planet.
In regard to experiences that involve transcendence of temporal barriers, the only interpretive alternative mechanistic science has to offer for retrieving records from the past is the material substrate of the central nervous system, or the genetic code. Possibly this approach could be applied, although with greatest difficulty, to certain past experiences, such as embryonic, ancestral, racial, and phylogenetic experiences. It would be entirely absurd in this context to consider seriously those experiences that seem to reenact historical episodes from situations with which the individual is not connected through any biological line as, for example, elements of the Jungian collective unconscious from racially unrelated cultures or past incarnation experiences. The same is true for periods that precede the origin of the central nervous system, life, this planet, or the solar system. So too, any experience of future events is inconceivable, since the future has not yet happened.
Modern physics offers some fascinating possibilities based on its broader understanding of the nature of time. Einstein’s theory of relativity, which replaced three-dimensional space and linear time with the concept of a four-dimensional continuum of space-time, offers an interesting theoretical framework for understanding certain transpersonal experiences that involve other historical periods. The special theory of relativity allows for a reversed flow of time under certain circumstances. Modern physicists have grown used to treating time as a two-directional entity that can move forward or backward. Thus, for example, in the interpretation of the space-time diagrams of high-energy physics (Feynman diagrams), the movements of particles forward in time are equivalent to the movements of corresponding antiparticles backward in time.
Speculations expressed in John Wheeler’s Geometrodynamics (1062) postulated parallels in the physical world to what happens experientially in certain unusual states of mind. Wheeler’s concept of hyperspace allows, theoretically, for instant connections among all the elements of the universe without the Einsteinian limitations of the speed of light. Also, the extraordinary changes of space-time, matter, and causality postulated by Einstein’s relativity theory in connection with the contraction of stars and black holes have their experiential parallels in nonordinary states of consciousness. Although it is at present impossible to relate the concepts of modern physics to the observations from modern consciousness research in a direct and easily comprehensible way, the parallels are quite striking. If we consider what extraordinary concepts modern physicists need to account for their observations on the simplest of all levels of reality, it becomes obvious how absurd it is that mechanistic psychology tends to deny the existence of phenomena that are in conflict with pedestrian common sense or that cannot be traced back to such tangible events as circumcision or toilet training.
In contrast with the phenomena described above the category of transpersonal experiences, which has a content with no parallels in material reality, is clearly beyond reach of physics. However, even then there seems to be a fundamental difference between their status in the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm and the modern scientific world view. In the mechanistic model, the universe consists of an immense number of material particles and objects. The existence of nonmaterial entities that cannot be observed or detected by ordinary means and in the usual state of consciousness would be denied in principle. The experiences of such entities would be relegated to the world of altered states of consciousness and hallucinations and interpreted philosophically as distortions of reality derived somehow from the sensory input about “objectively existing elements.”
In the modern world view, even the material constituents of the world can be traced to abstract patterns and to the “dynamic vacuum.” In the unified web of the universe, any structures, forms, and boundaries are ultimately arbitrary, and form and emptiness are relative terms. A universe with these kinds of qualities does not, in principle, exclude the possibility of existence of entities of any scope and characteristics, including mythological and archetypal forms. In the world of vibrations selective tuning into cohesive and comprehensive systems of information has been successfully achieved in the radio and television.
We have also already mentioned that transpersonal experiences are frequently meaningfully associated with patterns of events in the external world in a way that cannot be explained in terms of linear causality. Carl Gustav Jung (1960b) observed many striking coincidences of this kind in his clinical work; to explain them, he postulated the existence of an acausal connecting principle, which he called synchronicity. He defined it as “simultaneous occurrence of a certain psychic state with one or more external events which appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state.” Synchronistically connected events are obviously thematically related to each other, although there is no link of linear causality between them. Many individuals labeled as psychotic experience striking instances of synchronicities; during the casual and biased examinations by Newtonian-Cartesian psychiatrists, all references to meaningful coincidences tend to be routinely interpreted as delusions of reference. However, there is no doubt that there are genuine synchronicities besides the pathological interpretations of obviously unrelated events. Situations of this kind are too striking and too common to be disregarded. It is therefore quite encouraging and refreshing to see that modern physicists were obliged to acknowledge the existence of comparable phenomena in the meticulously controlled context of their laboratory experiments. Bell’s theorem and the experiments inspired by it deserve special notice in this regard.
The parallels between the world view of modern physics and the experiential world of mystics and psychedelic subjects are truly far-reaching, and there are good reasons to believe that these similarities will continue to increase. The basic difference between the conclusions based on a scientific analysis of the external world and those emerging from deep self-exploration is that, in modern physics, the world of the paradoxical and transrational can only be expressed in abstract mathematical equations, whereas, in unusual states of consciousness, it becomes a direct and immediate experience.
LSD subjects sophisticated in mathematics and physics have repeatedly reported that in their psychedelic sessions they gained illuminating insights into a variety of concepts and constructs that are not imaginable and visualizable in the ordinary state of consciousness. Reports of this kind involved, for example, Riemann’s geometry of an n -dimensional space, Minkowski’s space-time, non-Euclidean geometry, the collapse of natural laws in a black hole, and Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. The curvature of space and time, an infinite but self-enclosed universe, the interchangeability of mass and energy, various orders of infinities, zeroes of different magnitudes—all these difficult concepts of modern mathematics and physics were subjectively experienced and understood in a qualitatively new way by some of the subjects. It was even possible to find direct experiential correlates for Einstein’s famous equations based on Lorentz’s transformations. These observations were so striking that they would justify a future project in which prominent physicists would have the opportunity to experience psychedelic states for theoretical inspiration and creative problem solving.
The fact that so many observations from deep experiential work are compatible with the developments in modern physics, clearly demonstrating the limitations of the Newtonian-Cartesian model, is highly encouraging and promising and should help to legitimize the new approaches in the eyes of the scientific community. The potential significance of consciousness research using psychedelics or nondrug methods transcends the narrow boundaries of psychology and psychiatry. Because of the complexity of their respective fields, these two disciplines tried in the past to find solid anchoring in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine to achieve the reputation of exact sciences. These efforts, although historically and politically necessary, neglected the fact that the intricate phenomena studied by psychiatry and psychology cannot be described and explained in their totality by the constructs of sciences exploring simpler and more basic aspects of reality.
The findings of psychological research certainly should not contradict fundamental laws of physics and chemistry. However, the science that studies consciousness phenomena having quite unique and specific characteristics should be able to make a contribution in its own right to the understanding of the world and to use approaches or descriptive systems that are best suited for its purposes. Since ultimately all scientific disciplines are based on sensory perception and are products of the human mind, it would seem obvious that consciousness research can offer valid contributions to any area of exploration of the physical world. It should be emphasized that the knowledge about many of the phenomena described in this book preceded by centuries, or even millenia, the developments in modern physics with which they are compatible. They were discarded by psychiatrists or received psychopathological labels simply because they could not be integrated into the Newtonian-Cartesian model and contradicted its basic postulates.
It is interesting to look from this point of view at the convergence between modern physics, mysticism, and consciousness research. Although the parallels are far reaching and quite striking, they are mostly of a formal nature. They can explain only those transpersonal experiences in which the individual consciously identifies with various aspects of the material universe in the past, present, or future. The mystical literature describes an entire spectrum of additional realms of reality that elude the conventional approaches of materialistic science. The new model of reality described by quantum-relativistic physics has transcended the concept of solid, indestructible matter and separate objects and shows the universe as a complex web of events and relations. In the last analysis, the traces of material substance of any kind disappear into the primordial emptiness of the dynamic void. However, the physicist has very little to say about the variety of the specific forms the cosmic dance takes on various other levels of reality. The experiential insights from unusual states of consciousness suggest the existence of intangible and unfathomable creative intelligence aware of itself that permeates all realms of reality. This approach indicates that it is pure consciousness without any specific content that represents the supreme principle of existence and the ultimate reality. From it everything in the cosmos can be derived; it creates countless phenomenal worlds with a playful sense for exploration, adventure, drama, art, and humor. This aspect of reality, although beyond the reach of the methods of the exact sciences, might yet be indispensable for a true understanding of the universe and for its comprehensive description.
It is hard to imagine that at present, or at any time in the future, physics could find within the confines of its own discipline access to this ultimate mystery. It would therefore mean repeating the old mistake to borrow from physics its new paradigm and make it a mandatory basis for consciousness research. It is essential that a paradigm emerges from the needs of our own discipline and attempts to build bridges to other disciplines rather than emulating them. The significance of new developments in physics for the study of consciousness lies, therefore, more in the destruction of the conceptual straitjackets of mechanistic Newtonian-Cartesian science than in the offer of a new mandatory paradigm.
At this point, it seems appropriate to consider the consequences of the data from quantum-relativistic physics, modern consciousness research, and other areas of twentieth century science for the understanding of the psyche and human nature. In the past, mechanistic science has accumulated a vast body of evidence indicating that human beings can be understood and treated with a considerable degree of success as separate material entities—essentially biological machines assembled from their constituent parts, such as organs, tissues, and cells. In this approach, consciousness was viewed as a product of physiological processes in the brain.20
In light of the new facts from consciousness research presented here, the exclusive image of the human being as nothing but a biological machine is no longer tenable. In serious logical conflict with this traditional model, the new data support quite unambiguously the view that has been held by the mystical traditions of all ages: under certain circumstances, human beings can also function as vast fields of consciousness, transcending the limitations of the physical body, of Newtonian time and space, and of linear causality. This situation is quite similar to the dilemma modern physicists encountered in their study of subatomic processes in the form of the wave-particle paradox regarding light and matter. According to Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity, which addresses this paradox, in order to describe light and subatomic particles in a comprehensive way, it is necessary to see the wave picture and the particle picture as two complementary and equally necessary aspects of the same reality. Each of them is only partially correct, and each has a limited range of applicability. It depends on the experimenter and the arrangement of the experiment which of these two aspects will become manifest.
Bohr’s principle of complementarity is related specifically to phenomena in the subatomic world and cannot be automatically transferred to other problem areas. However, it sets an interesting precedent for other disciplines by codifying a paradox instead of solving it. It seems that the sciences studying human beings— medicine, psychiatry, psychology, parapsychology, anthropology, thanatology, and others—have accumulated a body of controversial data sufficient to justify fully the formulation of a comparable principle of complementarity.
Although it appears absurd and impossible from the point of view of classic logic, human nature shows a peculiar ambiguity. Sometimes it lends itself to mechanistic interpretations equating human beings with their bodies and organismic functions. At other times it manifests a very different image, suggesting that humans can also function as unlimited fields of consciousness, transcending matter, space, time, and linear causality. In order to describe humans in a comprehensive and exhaustive way, we must accept the paradoxical fact that they are both material objects, or biological machines, and extensive fields of consciousness. In physics, the results in subatomic experiments depend on the experimenter’s concept and approach; in some sense, wave questions bring wave answers and particle questions yield particle answers. It is conceivable that in human situations the researcher’s concept of human nature and arrangement of the experiment could facilitate one or the other modality.
We might follow Niels Bohr’s example and be satisfied with a simple juxtaposition of these two contradictory but complementary images, that are both partially true. However, certain developments in mathematics, physics, and brain research have revealed the existence of new mechanisms which offer a promising perspective. In the future it may be possible to synthetize and integrate the two seemingly irreconcilable images of human nature in an elegant and comprehensive way. The relevant data come from the field of holography, David Bohm’s theory of holomovement, and the brain research of Karl Pribram. The following discussion of holographic principles should be seen not as an outline of a new physical model for consciousness research, but as a conceptual aid opening new possibilities for imagination and future speculation. It does not intend to suggest that the world is a hologram, but that holography reveals and illustrates the existence of certain new principles that may operate in the creation of the fabric of reality.