Tag Archives: matter

Revival of Faith

A COMMON sense critic of scientific pretensions, who has wit, sanity and elevated moral intelligence all wrapped up in one person, is difficult to ignore.

Such a person is Mary Midgley, dubbed by the Guardian, UK as “the most frightening philosopher in the country” — and today nearly 11 years later, at age 91, she is still receiving accolades, and taking no prisoners.

We discovered this totem-toppling English moral philosopher by chance through a brief, unassuming comment she posted in the “Letters” section of the January 3-9, 2009, NewScientist — signed simply “Mary Midgley, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.”

Her logic appeared seamless, and upon mulling her 257 insightful words over a week of lunch breaks, her ideas also felt convincingly Theosophical — indeed, strongly Blavatskian.

Midgley’s comments were aimed at Peter Millican’s on”Thinking Matter,” and her response goes to the essence of the issue:

“[T]he real trouble with the mind-body problem centres,” she writes, “on the word ‘materialism.’ This word is itself a relic of dualism.”

“It suggests that there are two rival stuffs — mind and matter — competing to be seen as basic to the world. It tells us to choose one of these and reduce the other to it.”

“Soul, the Self, or Ego, is studied by modem psychology as inductively as a piece of decayed matter by a physicist,” cries H. P. Blavatsky. “Psychology and its mother-plant metaphysics have fared worse than any other sciences.”

Continue reading

The Astral Virgin

EASTERN metaphysics proposes the existence of an astral substance, or matrix, patterning the physical world.

This active image-field  is the mystical progeny of the omnipresent, spiritual and dynamic substratum of the universe.

One outcome of this universal substratus, as psi researcher Dean Radin notes in his book Entangled Minds: “we occasionally have numinous feelings of connectedness with loved ones at a distance.”

“The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new,” Radin says, “for millennia it’s been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct.”  (see Into the Light)

The spiritual substance supporting universal inter-connectivity is called Ākāśa in Sanskrit, a word meaning “aether” (in both its elemental and metaphysical sense.) The Ākāśa, with its alter-ego the Astral Light, are the raison d’etre of ‘out-of-body’ experiences, and support the entire spectrum from the spiritual to mundane psychic experiences (PSI).

Astral Light is the primeval storehouse and reflector of all the thoughts, ideas, feelings and acts uploaded from the Earthly doings of self-conscious humanity.

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The scientific experiments of the Global Consciousnesses Project have demonstrated that the simultaneous force of many minds focused on one event, produce measurable effects in scientific instruments—facilitated by, Theosophists believe, by this same ubiquitous, universal mediating astral substance.

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Divine Breath

WE live on a planet constantly in motion, and except for the occasional natural catastrophe, it is usually a very slow, orderly motion.

The Earth is billions of years old and still in the making—glacial cycles come and go, continents move, mountains form and crumble. Yet Life persists.

Modern Science has, for decades, tried to sell us every soulless theory they could, from the ‘big bang,’ to the chemical origin of life, and a gravity-driven universe.

Our current dogmatic science ought to fear approaching the problem of life’s origins. Their hypothetical models always postulate random events, and chance mutations, in a hostile universe — a cosmos without conscience, consciousness or spiritual life.

All new theories lead up blind alleys. How Earth formed, how life arose. All we are offered is endless speculation, and the stunningly unscientific approach that, instead of welcoming new ideas, refuses to follow where the evidence leads.

And what life is in its most essential essence, continues to be the most ignored problem in science.

The mainstream theorists have so far been content with a soulless stew of blind matter, which has neither intelligent design or purpose. But these have led nowhere in explaining the many mysteries hidden in everyday life.

In stark contrast, Theosophy teaches that ‘life’ did not have to be created, but is a universal principle, and underlies the universe both macro and micro. Life only ‘arises’ to our attention according to science under rigid conditions.

“Life must conform to a chance based material worldview, measurable by laboratory instruments, and judged by our human physical senses.”

§

But life is really a dynamic interaction between the forces of spirit, mind and matter, Theosophy says, and develops its forms via patterns embedded in an indwelling, divine evolutionary plan.  A great mystery recently was discovered challenging the foundations of modern scientific principles.

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Out There

MAINSTREAM scientists looking for the source of consciousness, insist its origin must be located in the physical brain.

They are certain that all cognition arises from the activity of neurons attached to specific structures, which have fixed locations.

Yet many credible scientific researchers today are unconvinced, and dispute these assumptions.

Such open minded investigators are willing to pursue truth wherever it leads, even to evidence that consciousness is a independent entity from the physical structures through which it manifests. But because their investigations are considered hocus pocus, their results are not considered credible.

“We live in an age of prejudice, dissimulation and paradox,” Blavatsky wrote in A Paradoxical World, “wherein, like dry leaves caught in a whirlpool, we are tossed helpless, hither and thither, ever struggling between our honest convictions and fear of that cruelest of tyrants—PUBLIC OPINION.”

Investigators risk being minimalized and shunned by their peers—and their careers stalled as funding sources dry up.

Ω

Yet, poised fearlessly at the frontiers of psi research are scientific organizations such as the respected Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California, and the Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek. These researchers, and others, like NES energy medicine, are willing to take a leap in pursuit of the fast-moving “soul of things.”

Such investigations were formerly the exclusive precinct of uncanny ancient intuitives and seers. Today there are numerous qualified, sincere scientific investigators on the hunt for answers to the puzzling questions of consciousness that stymie mainstream science.

“The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there.”

Still material science “believes not in the ‘soul of things,’” Blavatsky complained. Now, all that may be changing.

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The Hard Problem

EMBARRASSMENT can be, well, embarrassing—especially if you blush in public. We empathize, and also feel embarrassment for others.

A hint of a reproof, or an admiring stare likewise might cause us to blush— or it might occur getting caught snatching a candy from a store display.

But, just how does an invisible, seeming intangible bio-energy like a thought or feeling, projected  into a physical system, affect that system materially and visibly? How can this happen? How is it possible a thought or a feeling can generate a physical effect?

“Sow a thought, reap an act” is a familiar occult mantra and begs an answer to the mysterious mechanism of just how thought energy can speak to the nervous system, and then, almost instantly, cause a response in the physical body.

“It’s well known that the human body depends upon homeostasis,” writes Deepak Chopra, and asks: Memories and Emotions: All in The Mind or the Brain? And answers: “it is the ability to keep very complex systems in balance and to return to a state of balance when it is disturbed—

 ”Yet words [or images] cause us to deliberately go out of balance,” says Chopra, “and there’s no physical mechanism to explain it.”

Continue reading

The Psychic and Noetic

The Pythia Oracle

MAINSTREAM scientists looking for the source of consciousness, expect it’s origin to be located in the physical brain.

They are certain that all cognition arises from the activity of neurons, attached to specific structures, which have fixed locations.

Yet many credible scientific researchers dispute these assumptions. They are not convinced, and are willing to investigate the anciently held belief that consciousness is a independent entity from the physical structures through which it may manifest.

Because their investigations are not considered credible, investigators risk being minimalized and shunned by their peers — and what is worse, by their funding sources.

Ω

Continue reading

Masquerade

WE live on a planet constantly in motion, and except for the occasional natural catastrophe, a usually very slow, orderly motion.

The Earth is billions of years old and still in the making, where glacial cycles come and go, continents move, mountains form and erode.

Scientists investigate everything from the hypothetical big bang to the smallest geologic and biologic forces. But where Earth came from, how evolution works,

…and why and how life itself arose, is still the most profound mystery in science.

Of course, a materialistic science would be perplexed. Their hypothetical models always start and develop through random events, and chance mutations that drive a soulless stew of blind matter, having neither intelligent design or purpose.

Continue reading

A New Humanity

COMING to its senses from seeming insanity, a new humanity is “raising its voice.”

These words signaled H. P. Blavatsky’s welcoming the New Age, as publicized by her over a hundred years ago.

Humanity today speaks, as she hoped, “in those authoritative tones to which the men of old listened in reverential silence through incalculable ages.”

Emerging into this ‘new age’ the spirit in man “has returned like King Lear,” Blavatsky wrote in her article ‘The Tidal Wave.’

She was not the first to acknowledge and dramatize the arrival of a newly awakened humanity.

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Humanity had in the long past listened to a higher voice, she says, but they were so “deafened by the din and roar of civilization and culture, they could hear it no longer.”

But “look around you and behold,” exulting as if writing today, and “think of what you see and hear, and draw therefrom your conclusions.”

What must have been a hard sell in her time, Blavatsky nevertheless boldly maintained that “the age of crass materialism, of Soul insanity and blindness, is swiftly passing away” — an idea, easily acknowledged today — and that:

“… a death struggle between Mysticism and Materialism is no longer at hand, but is already raging.”

Ω

True knowledge, Plato’s Nous, comes slowly and is not easily acquired, says Theosophy.

Continue reading

The Deathless Self

EVOLUTION as defined in the occultism of Theosophy, is a triple-faceted scheme — a blend of spirit, mind, and matter — “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually and lovingly — and largely unawares at first — through a long, but finite series of reincarnations in human form.

A major factor in our self-development lies in recognizing the continuity of life, Theosophy says — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as death.

Self-knowledge evolves gradually out of the recognition, as the philosopher-mystic Teilhard de Chardin famously claimed, that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the other way around.

We are first and foremost spiritual beings, and humanity is our field of experience. But what happens to our human self after death? Does our consciousness die with the body?

Our afterlife, once the dissolution of the body and Earthly desires is complete, is blissful. That state “consists in our complete conviction that we never left the earth,” Blavatsky writes in the Key to Theosophy, “and that there is no such thing as death at all.”

The “post-mortem spiritual consciousness of a mother,” she explains as an example, “will represent to her that she lives surrounded by her children, and all those whom she loved.”

“…no gap, no link, will be missing to make her disembodied state the most perfect and absolute happiness.”

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The Mysterious Builder

MAINSTREAM science creates an insurmountable obstacle to understanding the real nature of life because of one belief issue.

The issue is, in attempting to unlock the nature of reality, science insists that life must be a distinct entity from matter.

This consensus is sustained because “most researchers still believe they can build from one side of nature, the physical,” says Biocentrist Dr. Robert Lanza,

… concluding crucially, “without the other side, the living.”


His opposing view is detailed by Dr. Lanza in his book Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe.

Dr. Lanza shows that Biocentrism, an extension of the Anthropic Principle, described by the Einstein disciple physicist John Wheeler, asserts a view of life incompatible with modern materialism.

The premise of Biocentrism is, with important modifications which assert an intelligent hierarchical structure to nature, a central premise of Theosophy.

The ancients too, held that the universe is created by life and not the other way around.

φ

Continue reading

Mary and Goliath

A COMMON sense critic of scientific pretensions, who has wit, sanity and elevated moral intelligence all wrapped up in one person, is difficult to ignore.

Such a person is Mary Midgley, dubbed by the Guardian, UK as “the most frightening philosopher in the country” — and today nearly 11 years later, at age 91, she is still receiving accolades, and taking no prisoners.

We discovered this totem-toppling English moral philosopher by chance through a brief, unassuming comment she posted in the “Letters” section of the January 3-9, 2009, NewScientist — signed simply “Mary Midgley, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.”

Her logic appeared seamless, and upon mulling her 257 insightful words over a week of lunch breaks, her ideas also felt convincingly Theosophical — indeed, strongly Blavatskian.

Midgley’s comments were aimed at Peter Millican’s on”Thinking Matter,” and her response goes to the essence of the issue:

“[T]he real trouble with the mind-body problem centres,” she writes, “on the word ‘materialism.’ This word is itself a relic of dualism.”

“It suggests that there are two rival stuffs — mind and matter — competing to be seen as basic to the world. It tells us to choose one of these and reduce the other to it.”

“Soul, the Self, or Ego, is studied by modem psychology as inductively as a piece of decayed matter by a physicist,” cries H. P. Blavatsky. “Psychology and its mother-plant metaphysics have fared worse than any other sciences.”

Continue reading

The Flashing Gaze

The Pythia Oracle

MAINSTREAM scientists looking for the source of consciousness, expect it’s origin to be located in the physical brain.

They are certain that all cognition arises from the activity of neurons, attached to specific structures, which have fixed locations.

Yet many credible scientific researchers dispute these assumptions. They are not convinced, and are willing to investigate the anciently held belief that consciousness is a independent entity from the physical structures through which it may manifest.

Because their investigations are not considered credible, investigators risk being minimalized and shunned by their peers — and what is worse, by their funding sources.

Ω

Yet, always fearlessly at the frontiers of psi research, is the respected Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California.  Similarly, the Institute of HeartMath — each are in hot pursuit of the fast-moving “souls of things.”

Continue reading

The Resolute Spirit

Jennifer Stuczynski and Pole

HAVING the right tools for a job is essential, just ask any electrician, plumber or carpenter.

Equally important, is that the tools being used are dependable and in good working condition.

Just ask any parachutist, race car driver, mountain climber, or pole vaulter.

ξ

Similarly, the tenor of our body and senses often determine, for better or worse, our spirit’s ability to express its unique genius.

The quality and adequacy of “the brain and body to transmit and give expression” to the immortal spirit, Blavatsky writes, is “the result of Karma.” She offers an analogy:

“… the physical is the musical instrument, and the Ego, the performing artist.”

No skill of the soul she wrote, “can awaken faultless harmony out of a broken or badly made instrument.”  The physical “may be a priceless Stradivarius or a cheap and cracked fiddle,” she notes.

Zoe Bloomfield with her cracked $7000 violin. Photo: Nick Moir

But sometimes physical limitations can be successfully overridden. The genius of Paganini, for instance, even burdened by a “cracked fiddle,” would still produce more perfect music from a damaged instrument, than could a lesser musician.

Continue reading

The Body-Field

EASTERN metaphysics proposes the existence of an astral substance, or matrix, patterning the physical world.

This active image-field  is the mystical progeny of the omnipresent, spiritual and dynamic substratum of the universe.

It is a secret agent and, as noted psi researcher Dean Radin says in his book Entangled Minds“we occasionally have numinous feelings of connectedness with loved ones at a distance.”

“The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new,” Radin says, “for millennia it’s been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct.”  (see Into the Light)

This source of this immanent force is called Ākāśa, a Sanskrit word meaning “aether,” in both its elemental and metaphysical sense. The Ākāśa, with its alter-ego the Astral Light are the mechanism of ‘out-of-body’ experiences, and

…the primal storehouse and reflector of all the thoughts, ideas, feelings and acts uploaded from the Earthly doings of self-conscious humanity.

Continue reading

Spiritual Beings

EVOLUTION as defined in the occultism of Theosophy, is a triple-faceted scheme — a blend of spirit, mind, and matter — “inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point.”

True and lasting self-knowledge is acquired gradually and lovingly — and largely unawares at first — through a long, but finite series of reincarnations in human form.

A major factor in our self-development lies in recognizing the continuity of life, Theosophy says — and that for the soul, there is really no such thing as death.

Self-knowledge evolves gradually out of the recognition, as the philosopher-mystic Teilhard de Chardin famously claimed, that we are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” not the other way around.

We are first and foremost spiritual beings, and humanity is our field of experience. But what happens to our human self after death? Does our consciousness die with the body?

Note this article has been updated and republished.  Please click the link below:

The Deathless Self

 

The Shiva Life

WE live on a planet constantly in motion, and except for the occasional natural catastrophe, a usually very slow, orderly motion.

The Earth is billions of years old and still in the making, where glacial cycles come and go, continents move, mountains form and erode.

Scientists investigate everything from the hypothetical big bang to the smallest geologic and biologic forces. But where Earth came from, how evolution works,

…and why and how life itself arose, is still the most profound mystery in science.

Please note this post was updated and republished at the following link:

Masquerade

The Epiphany Problem

KNOWING oneself necessitates consciousness and self-awareness, both mysterious and elusive correlates of  mind.

Consciousness is a hard nut to crack, because it comes down to the mind doing “metacognition” — i.e., thinking about thinking — equivalent to mentally lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps.

The special organ of consciousness is of course the brain, acknowledges H. P. Blavatsky. Nonetheless, she asserts:

“What consciousness is can never be defined psychologically.”

“We can analyse and classify its work and effects,” she says, but science cannot define it directly.  That would require they “postulate an Ego distinct from the body.”

But the mainstream cognitive sciences, eschewing Eastern psychology, still strongly resist the idea that mind can have an independent reality. Continue reading

What We Believe 2

Lourdes Lopez, Firebird

Eastern New Age beliefs encourage tolerance, open our hearts to Nature, and build universal brotherhood and sisterhood.

They are widespread today, reports a new Pew Research Center Forum poll, (see part one of this Post.)

Many Americans, the Poll reveals,”blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects.

In the world as a whole, more people believe in reincarnation and karma than do not. But the question of why these ideas have become so widespread in the West, remains unanswered. Continue reading

Never Ending Life

THE Founders of the modern Theosophical Society and Masters behind the wider Movement, labored tirelessly during the late 19th Century to document and publicize the lost teachings concerning man, nature and the universe.

The restoration of this ancient Wisdom came at a critical juncture — the rise of materialistic science was threatening to deliver a death-blow to mysticism, and the immortal soul of man.

“Modern science believes not in the ‘soul of things,’” Blavatsky wrote then, “and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony.”

She called upon the two autocrats, science and religion, to end their combative ways — and collaborate towards a higher synthesis. As it turned out, both got their comeuppance from an unexpected source. Continue reading

The Red Book

Reprinted from The Red Book by C. G. Jung (c) Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung.

THOSE attracted to Theosophy and to Occultism are becoming every day more numerous. With every inquiry lies the potency and promise of genuine spiritual development.

The Masters of Wisdom in every age set up no barriers against any one’s approach. Their works and lives are not limited to adepts, saints, and the “purest of heart.”

The humblest searcher would not be made to feel discouraged by the sense of his own shortcomings, or by the perception of the difficulties at every step on his journey of self-realization.

This week we feature the work and life of one of the humblest and fearless of searchers, the renowned writer-artist-occultist-psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. The exhibit of his Red Book at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City ends January 25, 2010. Continue reading