Dark Matter and Subtle Energies
There have been many attempts to explain observations about subtle energies, Qi and Prana. Amongst the most promising scientific candidates is dark energy and dark matter. The trouble has been that it is a fundamental mistake to try and explain one mystery – subtle energies and subtle systems – with another: dark matter and dark energy.
So I was delighted to see that Scientific American is reporting on a new paper in the coming edition of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
For almost 75 years, astronomers, cosmologists and physicists have deduced that ordinary matter must be surrounded by vast quantities of an invisible substance that is not substantial enough to collide with atoms or stars but massive enough to keep galaxies from flying apart. Named dark matter, this mysterious material has eluded the most careful means of detection, but has been assumed to exist because of its gravitational impact.
Observations of a relatively recent collision of two galaxy clusters have finally proven the existence of dark matter. The discovery is a triumph of perseverance, creativity and rigorous mathematics.
My own understanding about all this is that dark energy and dark matter may indeed be the mechanism by which these subtle energies interact with our universe. But beyond or within that lies something else: Consciousness, Mind or the Informational Matrix. This is the realm of the One, the First Cause.
Why all this matters to us, is that this new research provides further evidence that there is more to the Universe than the things that we observe with our normal senses. It already has us thinking of ways in which this will likely impact our maintenance of health and management of illness.
We had to learn about dark matter from observations of the unimaginably large, but it has implications for the very small: the fundamental structure of the systems and materials that constitute our bodies.
“We perceive and are affected by changes too subtle to be described.”
–Henry David Thoreau (American Essayist and Philosopher, 1817-1862)
Exploring the Web of Life
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
–John Muir (Scottish-born American Naturalist, Writer, Founder of the Sierra Club, and “The Father of the National Park System,” 1838-1914)
One of the most significant discoveries during my lifetime has been the gradual understanding that at the most basic levels we are all inextricably interlinked. Long thought to be nothing more than an occasional curiosity concerning the behavior of elementary particles, there is more and more evidence that this interconnectedness is constantly present in our lives.
The work of people like the late David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, Ervin Laszlo and many others has gradually begun to put these essential ideas on a much firmer footing. That’s not to say that every scientist in the world accepts these concepts: they certainly do not. But science grows by slow steps. Each observation adding to the one before, like grains of sand being heaped onto a giant ant heap. Sometimes things turn out to be wrong, and then it’s back to the drawing board. Or the ant heap gets re-arranged.
But rather than argue about the theory, I would like to suggest that you try an experiment. It is particularly effective if you are in a close relationship with another person.
If you are at work or away from the other person for some other reason, spend every free moment during the day thinking kind, loving thoughts about the other person. Feel a sense of gratitude that they are in your life. Do nothing else. Don’t specially call, email or IM them. Just do the thinking and feeling about them. And when next you see them, have a look at their initial reaction toward you. It’s extraordinary how often people find that when they next meet up, the person who’s been thought about in this way is particularly warm and loving.
I don’t recommend doing the converse, and thinking mean thoughts about someone and waiting for the fallout. But if the other person is tired, dispirited or distant when you meet, it’s a good idea to see if your thoughts about them may be factored into the equation.
Clearly there are a hundred things that will determine how people react toward each other. Is it a new relationship or a mature one? Are people tired or distracted by work or children? Has there been an argument, illness or trouble with relatives or neighbors? The list is almost endless.
But I would suggest that you try this experiment for yourself and see what you come up with. If you send them, I’ll publish any interesting observations, with the usual guarantee of anonymity.
And by the way, there are some rigorous scientific experiments being conducted right now to test this phenomenon.
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”
— Frederick Buechner (American Presbyterian Minister and Writer, 1926-)
Convergence
One of the many things differentiating complementary and alternative medicine from the more conventional type, is that complementary practitioners are not much interested in a pathological diagnosis, and instead focus far more on the whole person. There are more than 500 types of complementary and alternative medicine, and virtually all work on the principle that they want to stimulate the body to heal itself.
It is not so well-known that in recent years some of the most cutting edge academic research in medicine has been breaking down artificial organs-based barriers, and focusing instead on the whole person, and look at research in a more holistic way. So a cardiologist and liver expert may be working together on the same problem.
Someone was asking me why this blog has so many categories? The reasons is that artificial barriers between illnesses, health, wellness, consciousness and spirituality are breaking down, and this blog reflects that. I was asked, “So are you interested in self-help or health and wellness?” the answer to that one is “Yes.” All of these are inextricably linked.
A second conceptual change, that is not much known outside of research centers, is that much of the current thrust in pharmacology is based on modulating the body’s responses, rather than simply blocking diseases processes.
Despite this apparent convergence, there are still some enormous differences in approach:
1. The medical research enterprise remains profoundly reductionist, and so it tends to ignore some key aspects of what it is to be human: we are a great deal more than sets of biochemical reactions.
2. Dismissing the social and psychological aspects of health and illness remains an Achilles’ heel of most academic research. When I was working in academia, a distinguished colleague came over form the England to give a lecture. An expert in brain imaging, he spoke a lot about consciousness and free will. As one of my American friends said afterward: he sound just like you in our research meetings!
3. Complementary, alterative and now integrated medicine remains firmly focused on relationships as a key to healing. Not just the relationship of a client and their family, but the relationship between client and therapist. And there is a third arm to this. When, in the mind-1980s, we first started putting together the principles of this new Information Medicine known as Integrated Medicine in the United Kingdom or Integrative or Integral Medicine in the United States, a key component of it was the insistence that the therapeutic encounter would require the therapist to do more than just show up and do something technical. But that the therapist would also be aware of the impact of the encounter on them, and the importance for the therapist to be involved in growth work themselves. There was a time when psychotherapists would remain in therapy throughout their careers. That may not now be feasible. But it is entirely feasible for a therapist to take a bit of time each day to calm themselves; to reflect on what is going on inside them and in the subtle currents of the interactions between them, the person who has come to them for help and guidance, and all the other people involved in the situation. This is the way in which medicine is going to develop in the future.
The extraordinary advances of biomedical research can be an incredible boon to humanity, but they need to be leavened by an understanding of the context within which they are developing.
“A physicist who rejects the testimony of saints and mystics is no better than a tone-deaf man deriding the power of music.”
–Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher and, from 1962-67 President of India, 1888-1975)
Technorati tags: Alternative medicine Complementary medicine Integrated medicine
Dissing Descartes
Every clinician has been asked the question, “Is the pain in my body, or is it all in my mind. Am I imagining it?” I have seen countless students and young doctors get themselves into a hopeless tangle over that question. And the answer to “is it the body or the mind?” should be “Yes.” If a person is suffering, they are suffering, and pain coming form the mind is every bit as real to them as pain coming from any other part of their anatomy.
But hidden within this question is a mistake that can be traced back to the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes who, in 1641, proposed that there was a neat split between the soul and the body. He actually envisioned an independent soul that inhabited and interacted with the body by opening little trap doors in the brain. This later became interpreted as a neat split between the mind and the body. He was by no means the first person to propose this. Twelve hundred years earlier Numidian-born Theologian, Saint Augustine of Hippo proposed something very similar. This idea of a clear split has informed our thinking for over three hundred years, yet it is probably wrong. And as with the opening question about “is my problem in my body or in my mind,” it has great practical implications: falsely locating the nature, origin and priority of symptoms.
Another practical implication of this artificial split is that by imagining a mechanical clockwork universe divorced from mind or spirit, we have removed value and meaning from the world. Indeed, some scientists take an extreme view, and say that there is no place for value, purpose or meaning in the universe, and that they are simply artificial creations of the mind. I have had some interesting discussion with people who have gone to far as to say that consciousness itself is no more than a set of reflexes in the brain. It will not surprise you to hear that I believe that they are wrong. when scientists say that they have found that the temporal cortex of the brain lights up when someone is having a religious experience, that does not mean that you can reduce a person’s faith and belief to a lit-up piece of brain. It is merely that the area of the brain corresponds to the experience.
I am a firm believer in the notion of nonduality, that essentially there is no fundamental distinction between mind and matter. Consciousness is the primary underlying force in the Universe. There is a very good resource here. So why do I take this position?
1. Personal experience of nonduality
2. The insights of modern theoretical physics
3. Independent, empirical research from a number of reputable scientists around the world. I have just constructed a list of recommended books at Amazon.com. You can access it here. If you take just a little time to examine the research reported in these books, I think that you will begin to be convinced as well.
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
–Aristotle (Greek Scientist and Philosopher, 384-322 B.C.E.)
Technorati tags: Descartes Mind and Brain Duality Nonduality
The New Frontier in Brain Control
This is important work for several reasons:
It may well help people with chronic pain to use non-pharmacological approaches to the control of their pain, even if they do not have access to fancy high-tech scanners.The work is pushing the frontier of what is possible in terms of controlling one’s own body.It is an amazing confirmation of the teachings of many schools of teaching about health, from yoga and qigong, to Science of Mind.It raises very interesting questions about who or what is actually controlling the pain: it gets us straight back to the whole question of where is the mind and is it the same as the brain. (The answer to that is NO: a subject for many more entries)It is important not to lose sight of the fact that pain is often a lot more than aberrant firing of neurons or an imbalance in the some of the serotonin and norepinephrine systems of the brain. It can be brought on or exacerbated by psychological and social factors, and I have seen many people in extreme spiritual crisis, who then began to develop pain in various part of their bodies, yet had no overt signs of depression or of any other psychological or psychiatric problem.
Technorati Tags: pain control, chronic pain,
