Quantum Self

The field of quantum physics has received a lot of attention lately. Perhaps you have heard the buzz, and are wondering what it is all about. And you may be pondering, “What does it have to do with psychology?”

Well, let me catch you up! In a nutshell, it all has to do with the nature of consciousness, and the way human predictions and measurements about the outcomes of experiments on subatomic particles, like electrons and photons, seemed to be influencing the actual outcome of the experiments. Not only that, it seemed to work both forward and backward in time! And, no matter how “blind” they tried to make the experimenters who were involved.

This started happening in the early days when scientists were experimenting to determine whether light was a thing or a no-thing, a particle (i.e. photon) or a wave of energy. What they found was that when they predicted it to be a wave, it turned out to be a wave. When they predicted it to be a particle, it turned out to be a particle. In essence, whether light showed the very qualities we associate with an “immaterial” wave, or those we associate with a material particle, depended upon us! The state of our human consciousness was influencing how light expressed itself!

In a worldview, where there is one absolute reality, and it is a material one, and only human beings think, that would be impossible. But evidently, it was not. It happened again, and again, and again.

Then, they tried to fool the light. They conjured up all kinds of ways to do so. They would have different people do different parts of the experiment so that whoever shot out the electron, let’s say, and got the experiment underway, wouldn’t know which outcome was predicted by a different experimenter. This is what is called making the experimenter “blind” to the experiment or to the outcome predicted.

They even tried to have a separate person predict the outcome, after other people had already run the experiment, and even those people were blind to the results. But still, it was generally hugely statistically significant, that if the “prediction” was for it to show up as a wave, it did. And if it was for it to show up as a particle, it did. It worked both backward and forward in time.

Then it got even weirder. What Einstein called that “spooky-action-at-a-distance.”

They were playing around with these subatomic particles again. And, I’ll continue to describe it casually like this, they took a couple of electrons from the same family, and separated them. They shipped one off to one part of the world, and another off to the opposite part of the world. But these tiny little particles were so connected with one another (scientists call it being “entangled”), that when the experimenters would do something to “move” one of the particles, its brother or sister particle would react at the exact same time.

Again, this was considered “impossible” because scientists only knew about electromagnetic energies at that time. The thing about electromagnetic energy is that, at its slower frequency or speed, it takes time and space to travel. So, if these spooky-action-at-a-distance or “nonlocal” effects were electromagnetic effects, it should have taken time at least for the communication waves to travel through space to its sibling. But it didn’t. The sibling always knew immediately whatever communication was being transmitted to it across the globe. And it danced in concert with its sibling, as if they were one entity, together in the same space!

It would seem, again and again, that these subatomic particles were conscious in their own way, would be aware of human thought or consciousness, and would dance according to the music of our intent! Nonlocally, across great distances, and in synchrony with their remote dance partners!

As you can imagine, this greatly divided the physicists. Some refused to believe these results were real. Some decided to play it safely and stick to conventional particle physics. But others, greatly daring pioneers we now call quantum physicists, chose to pursue this controversial and belief-shattering line of evidence and research.

They are my quantum superheroes. And I have been a groupie for over thirty-five years now. I have been trying to read what they find, as soon as I hear about it. And I have been synthesizing their research with what I know from other disciplinary consciousness studies and the field of psychology, and from what I have learned from ancient wisdom or direct experience.

Where are they now with all of this? There is too much to tell here. And I try to summarize it a bit more technically in my book Living in a Quantum Reality. But I will say that they are now researching these nonlocal and “magical” effects, and have begun to describe “torsion fields” as being correlated with those effects. I’ll simply let you know that, according to MIT physicist Dr. Claude Swanson, torsion fields are related to the left- and right-handed spin motion of subatomic particles and waves; they don’t seem to take any time at all to travel, and seem to be responsible for “impossible” but routinely documented experiences like intuition, telepathy, extrasensory perception (ESP), remote viewing, entanglement, clairvoyance, precognitive dreams, distant healing, and the like.

And, from Stanford materials scientist Dr. William A. Tiller’s work, we have evidence of a second layer of physical reality, one that is unique, and is of a different physics (i.e. of a different electromagnetic symmetry state) and can be influenced by human consciousness. The acupuncture system of energetic meridians and chakras seems to be associated with this different symmetry state, even when the overall body is not. He has also found that human consciousness and intention can condition a room or space, meaning it can change the physics or symmetry of the space in a room, and these effects last after the meditators have left the room and completed their experiment. This helps me explain to my clients…who comment that they feel an electrical current buzz through them when they walk into my therapy space, or that they feel they are using my energy to shift to other states of consciousness…and provide a technical basis for their experience.

Dr. Tiller has shown as well that human consciousness and intent can influence even random event generator mechanical devices that are programmed to move randomly (like little robots). But scientists have also found that baby chick consciousness can do the same! For those of us who have wondered if we are influencing the lights, or the mechanical operation of the copy machines at work or our cars, perhaps we really are!

Many quantum pioneers are at work helping us connect the dots of our data. Dr. Edgar Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), and Dr. Dean Radin has done much research in the psi area of human consciousness. Dr. James Oschman has synthesized our understanding of the bioenergetic field of the body, and the underpinnings of energy medicine. HeartMath has provided extensive research on the biomagnetic field effects of the heart, compared to the brain, and its interrelationship with our bodily functions. Dr. Gary Schwartz has contributed to our understanding of how human consciousness seems to survive death of the physical body. Dr. Fred Gallo and the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology is helping us bridge this information to the field of psychology, while Dr. David Feinstein is working with APA to keep them abreast of these quantum developments and their applications to psychotherapy. Dr. Stanislav Grof and Dr. Charles Tart are two pioneers in the field of psychology who dared to study and document the various experiences in consciousness that are supposedly “impossible”, but for which we have much evidence. And there are so many more that I wish I could name.

You would be right if you speculated that there is still much debate going on among these multidisciplinary professionals. They still don’t have a consensus definition for concepts like energy, thought, mind or consciousness. Though I more recently heard Dan Siegel, MD define the mind in terms of energy and information, which I too had done.

In Living with a Quantum Reality, I do dare to define energy as power, traveling as waves at simultaneous yet distinct bandwidths of speed or frequency (including electricity, magnetism, and torsion). And consciousness, as spheres within spheres within spheres, like nested Russian dolls, of “energy-carrying-information”. I further explain how it is the information, that which we detect through our experience and senses as qualities or characteristics, that distinguishes one sphere of consciousness from another; but how the unifying field of consciousness as a whole is the source of our sense of wholeness, may be the same as the quantum field of potentiality, and the very essence of the energy we call the God of love.

I love that consciousness has been found to be encoded with holographically-patterned, and unique energetic signatures of information. And no matter how small, each part of the whole has access to the information of the whole, nonlocally connected even beyond space and time!

So, there you are. Consciousness, it seems, is fundamental to our reality. Not bricks of matter, like is assumed by most scientists, including psychologists, today.

The way I like to summarize this more quantum pantheistic worldview and its relevance to the field of psychology is that the quantum field of potentiality (beyond the confining rules of time and space and electromagnetism) is brimming nonlocally and holographically with all possibilities of Divine creation. We can and do engage this field, whether we do so consciously and with intent. Or subconsciously and randomly.

When we engage with this cosmic field with intent, we (e.g. through the power of our laser-focused and loving consciousness) cohere or bundle energy into its particle form. Energy appears as matter. Wave appears as particle. This is the source of the mind-body-spirit connection, and our human capacity to co-create in our world.

Conventional physicists act as if reality is a duality, having a wave nature distinct from a particle nature. Theologians too traditionally preach to us as if our spiritual nature is distinct from our physical nature, seeing God as separate from creation (though Jesus himself taught that the Kingdom of God is within each of us). Psychologists generally deny the existence of Spirit, and simply recognize body with its instinctual consciousness, distinct from the higher reasoning and abstract mind. It’s time for at least those within the field of psychology to realize scientifically that it is all One Consciousness, appearing in many forms, visible and invisible to our perception, depending on our perceptual bandwidth.

Psychotherapy as a profession will best serve each of us when it leaves the confines of the medical model, which for decades it has so exclusively embraced out of its psychological need to be recognized as a “hard science”. And when it extends its own mind around the higher mental and spiritual realities, traveled by many,. Awakening-related experiences must be included in its scope as a helping profession. Yes, there will always be those who need medical care since they are struggling to maintain even normal human psychological well-being. But if even 5% of Americans are awakening to higher consciousness realities then that’s 16 million of us who need a more quantum psychology.

Bottom line: It is time for the field of psychology to adopt the worldview of quantum physicists who tell us that we are actually consciousness as a field of energy and information at our core essence. For if the primary expertise of psychology is about states of mind and consciousness, then it certainly better know that these are essential in defining who we are, and what we experience as our fundamental reality.

Paul Levy vents his frustration with the field of conventional physics in this article titled Quantum Meta-Physics. A rather long read, but if you are up for it, you will get a sense of the evolving drama within the field of physics, and an explanation of many of the paradigm shattering concepts that ignited the quantum debate. If you scroll down toward the end, the key points are summarized.

A hologram is a blueprint, a multidimensional image.

This image is formed from light, or from the blend of many waves of energy, carrying information from many different levels of frequency. The information from the whole, is contained within each part.

In other articles I defined consciousness very simply as energy carrying information. Now we can say that consciousness is a holographic field of energy carrying multidimensional information. And it is consciousness that serves as the template or blueprint, to which matter organizes, whether in the form of a human, a rock or any other material object.

1. Underlying all matter are waves of vibration. 2. These waves carry information. (In doubt, consider the internet!) Because they do, the energy seems to be intelligent, aware, interacting, adapting, varying…. and causing effects. We experience these waves or fields of awareness as consciousness. 3. Fields of consciousness are primary. Matter is energy organized into denser structures called form, and is secondary to consciousness.The body is organized according to the fields of consciousness upon which it is constructed. 4. Every thought carries a vibration, which causes an immediate effect throughout the body. This is the basis for the mindbody toolkit, which includes constructive self-talk, intention-setting, imagery, music, any kind of verbal mantra or silent prayer. 5. Vibrations intersect with one another. Some are produced from within. Some come from outside ourselves. Some cancel each other out. Others amplify. No wonder it is hard to say for sure the source of most of our diseases. 6. It is not constructive to dwell on uncomfortable thoughts, for it simply amplifies them. It is extremely fruitful when we learn how to think constructively more often than not! 7. Nonlocal effects are evident. They clearly are not due to electromagnetic energy, which takes time and space to travel. It seems that torsion fields help explain these mysterious happenings, observed in distant healing, quantum entanglement, remote viewing, and telepathy. When we suspend disbelief, it is amazing the effects we can have with our thoughts…on our body, our family, our world. 8. Resonance. Waves resonate with one another when their peaks and valleys match up. We can feel when we resonate with a thought, an idea, even another person who seems “on our same wavelength”. 9. Entrainment. When waves resonate together, they share or exchange information. This effect is called entrainment. When we entrain with another person, we are like one mind because we have become one mind. Our mental waves group with the other’s mental waves. (And it doesn’t stop with mental waves…) What is in our mind is accessible to the other and vice versa. 10. Scattered vs coherent energy. Scattered energy is like a scatter plot diagram or a bunch of random dots on a page of paper. It lacks in power. Coherent energy is whirled into an organized form, chiefly the swirl or spiral seen in a tornado or hurricane. Scattered thoughts are like random energy; random out, random in. But coherent thoughts are produced when we learn to be mindful, to meditate, to focus with clear multisensory intent. Imagine when our thoughts are aligned with the intent of our soul, the power we have to attract synchronous experience!