INFINITE LIFE

When I was asked to give a talk on Infinite Life, I could have described my own experience of seeing my father after he died, or my mother's visit four hours before her ashes arrived, or the friend who stayed in touch with me after she died. Although I'm convinced we survive death, my own personal experiences will not convince the sceptics. Instead I decided to talk about the evidence for life after death, of which there is a great deal.

I began with a quote from Albert Einstein: “What we have called matter is energy whose vibration has been lowered to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.”

The ancient Greek philosophers were preoccupied with the idea that behind the changing world of appearance there is an eternal reality. They pondered the mysteries of an afterlife. Pythagoras believed that eternal reality was composed of changeless mathematical truths. Plato and his followers thought in terms of transcendent Ideas or Forms beyond space and time. Their fellow Greeks defined a philosopher as someone who enquires into “the things under the earth” meaning the afterlife. Plato incorporated some aspects of this common understanding into his idea of philosophy as “a rehearsal for dying”. He applied reason in an attempt to get closer to the truth about whether consciousness transcends death.

Although we now know more than the Greeks, most scientists acknowledge that they know relatively little about the universe. About 4% to be precise! Cosmologists say that dark matter and energy make up 96% of the universe but nobody knows what it is, how it works or how it interacts with matter and energy. Stephen Hawking admits “We have no idea how the world really works. All we do is build up models which seem to prove our theories.”

Most scientists say consciousness is limited to the brain. However, the subjective side has often made major breakthroughs in science. For example Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was the result of exercises taking place within his imagination causing him to say “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Many Quantum Physicists including Amit Goswami, Michio Kaku and Joyce Hawkes are exploring consciousness through Bio-Scientific research. Joyce Hawkes was an atheist until she had a Near Death Experience in which she met her deceased mother, grandmother and a Being of Light. She is now a healer who works with shamans and conducts research into what happens in the brain when we are kind, compassionate and loving.

Rupert Sheldrake, a Cambridge don, researcher at the Royal Society, Harvard Scholar and Fellow of Clare College, is a pioneering biologist taking science away from materialism. He explores the nature of consciousness and writes about the kind of phenomena that science dismisses but people are fascinated by: telepathy, the success rate of alternative medicine, how dogs know when their owners are coming home and how we know when we are being stared at. Animals and birds appear to behave in a non-local manner, e.g. when a certain number of birds in England learned how to open the tops of milk bottles left out by milkman, suddenly all birds in Europe began to do it. This supports the theory that distant particles, once in contact, somehow remain connected no matter how far apart they may be. Physicists call these events “non-local”. Change one particle and the other instantly changes to the same degree. A non-local interaction links up one location with another without crossing space and without delay. Henry Strapp, a leading interpreter of quantum theory, says that non-locality could be the “most profound discovery in all of science.” Sheldrake explores the phenomenon of instantly shared remote knowledge which he calls Morphic Resonance. Animals hear frequencies in much higher ranges. They know when an earth-quake is about to happen which Sheldrake suggests could be used to predict earth-quakes and evacuate people in time. Apparently, this is already being explored in China but not in America.

Valerie Hunt is internationally recognized for her pioneering research on human energy fields. Holding advanced degrees in psychology and physiological science from Columbia University, she discovered vibrational patterns during pain, disease, and in emotional and spiritual states. She created the first human energy field model based on 25 years of sophisticated electronic field research and extensive clinical studies. The electro-magnetic human bio-field led to stunning new information about the mind, body, emotions and extraordinary human capabilities in higher states of consciousness. She used high frequency instruments, the first being the telemetry instrument used by NASA to monitor the astronauts' physiological states during the first manned space flights. Dr Hunt studied the effects of shamanic healing. She discovered that brain waves create a slow wave from zero to 20 cycles per second but the heart creates a larger and faster wave up to 225 cycles per second. Life is electro-magnetic. All matter consists of electrons spinning around a nucleus whether alive or dead. We live in an electrical and magnetic field. The heart has the strongest electrical and magnetic field being 100 times stronger than the brain. It has been measured by the HeartMath institute in America. The ancient Egyptians recognised the Intelligence of the Heart and portrayed it being weighed against the Feather of Truth after death.

In humans there are two electrical systems. The first is the nervous system and brain. The 2nd system is an electro-magnetic field emanating from atoms. This energy is called an aura or energy field. It is unique in that it is ‘continuous’ while all other electrical recordings of heart, brain and muscles are on-off signals. This corona is a halo or mist around a living body and is called chi, life-force, prana and aura. Beyond the physical there is another field of energy at a higher frequency. It is 8 -10 times faster than the other biological electricity from the body's surface. Electrical currents associated with the mind and human consciousness were first recognised by Valerie Hunt at UCLA. This data has been incorporated into an area called “mind-field research” and shows that the mind is not limited to the brain. A DC shift, also called an open-mind field, occurs during meditation, hypnosis, trance or trauma.

Valerie Hunt wrote “Infinite Mind: the science of human vibrations of consciousness.” Her Mind Mastery Meditation CDs and The Body Electric video are available on line.

Rosalyn Bruyere is a clairvoyant who sees auras and writes about the chakras. She has collaborated with physicians and scientists including Valerie Hunt. She is a healer who says disease first appears in the aura before it appears in the body, and at this early stage it can be prevented. During an altered state the aura is expanded. When we allow more energy to flow through us, the auric field experiences an electromagnetic direct current or “DC” shift. The flow of electrons in the nervous system is increased and amplified, and all internal processes are accelerated and expanded. Then we have access to thoughts, feelings and memories not accessible in “normal” conscious states. This DC shift enables us to access our subconscious and superconscious.

Edgar Mitchell was a US Navy officer, test pilot and NASA astronaut. He was the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14 and spent nine hours on the Moon. On his way back to Earth he had a mystical experience. He said, “The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe is not just an accident based on random processes.” He is not the only astronaut who reports having had a mystical experience in space.

In 1972 Mitchell retired from NASA and the US Navy, and moved to Palm Beach, Florida where he founded the Institute of Noetic Science using the Greek word for inner wisdom, direct knowing. The Institute of Noetic Science uses the tools of science to explore consciousness, the paranormal and related phenomena. Mitchell's book “The Way of the Explorer” describes his journey into space and mysticism.

NASA sent a satellite into space which recorded a huge shift in the Earth's magnetic field immediately after the death of Princess Diana and after 9.11. Collective human emotion created this shift. It could be called a Mass Movement of the Heart.

Joseph McMoneagle became psychic after a Near Death Experience and was recruited for a top secret military program, code-named Stargate, to develop and apply remote viewing skills for national security purposes on behalf of the American government. He was able to retrieve information from other locations during out-of-body episodes. He retired in 1984 and now runs his own company called Intuitive Intelligence Applications. He is a remote viewing consultant and has written several books.

Dr Eben Alexander fell into a coma after suffering a rare form of bacterial meningitis. His family were told to turn off his life-support system because he was brain-dead. Although his brain was not functioning during the coma, he was able to describe a life-changing Near Death Experience in which he met the biological sister he did not know he had who had recently died. He wrote “Proof of Heaven – a neurosurgeon's journey into the afterlife” which was on the best-selling list for over a year.

Michael Newton is a psychiatrist who stumbled upon life-between-life when he hypnotised people who had requested past-life regressions. At first he resisted, seeing past lives as non-clinical, but then regressed hundreds of people who described where they were in between each life, the purpose behind their life-choices, and what they were carrying from past lives. For example, he saw a client in chronic pain who, through past life regression, re-lived being killed in the First World War. The client was able to eliminate the pain when he found a therapeutic link between the pain in his body and a trauma in a previous life.

Newton sees the mind as being in three concentric circles. The outer circle is the conscious mind which is critical and analytical. The 2nd circle is the subconscious where we go in hypnosis to tap into the storage area for all of our memories in this life and former lives. The third innermost circle is the superconscious mind. The Soul is our real identity and our centre of wisdom. Brain waves in trance slow down from Beta (waking state) past the meditative Alpha state into Theta which we experience in hypnosis. When we sleep we go into the final Delta state. In hypnosis people report what they see and hear but have trouble relating to what they don't believe to be true. Most of the people described being part of a primary Soul Group which interacts with other soul groups and incarnates to learn soul lessons. Members of a soul group choose to experience a life together in order to learn lessons and develop qualities.

Michael Newton founded The Newton Institute and has written two books: Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls.

Dr Raymond Moody, a philosopher, psychologist, physician and author, is widely known for his books about Near Death Experiences and life after death. He has been an authority on Near Death Experiences since the 1960s and was called The Father of the Near Death Experience by the New York Times. He received the World Humanitarian Award in Denmark in 1988, has appeared three times on Oprah, and numerous other radio and TV shows. He founded the Life After Life Institute to distribute information and understanding of consciousness. He trains hospice workers, clergy, nurses, psychologists and doctors on grief recovery and dying.

Most Near Death Experiences occur when the heart stops beating. People who suffered cardiac arrest describe feeling more alive as they floated up to the ceiling and observed their bodies. Many people are able to hear accurately what the doctors are saying. One woman described floating up the outside of the hospital building where she saw a tennis shoe sitting on a high ledge which could not be seen from inside the building. Many people describe a tunnel or portal which transports them into a warm, loving, accepting light. Deceased friends and relatives are there to greet them and they are asked by a being, described as an angel or guide “What have you done with your life?” and “How have you learnt to love?” As they review their lives in 3D, they take the perspective of a third person and are able to feel how others experienced them. The most important point of life appears to be about love and how it is put into practice. Most people who have had a Near Death Experience do not wish to return to their bodies but are told it is not their time to die.

The place we go to after death is one of order and direction; love and patience. There is no heaven and no hell.

So far 13 million Near Death Experiences have been recorded.

Dr Ian Stevenson researched young children who remember past lives and in many cases discovered that their memories were accurate. He spent 40 years travelling to different countries to investigate children who said they remembered past lives. He was a meticulous investigator using a lie-detector machine. One little boy insisted that his plane had been shot down by the Japanese 50 years earlier and said his name had been James Houston. His father, an evangelical Christian, was convinced when the memory was confirmed.

Dr Brian Weiss is a psychiatrist, hypnotist and author who specialises in past life regression. He attended Yale School of Medicine and was sceptical when one of his patients recalled past-life trauma which explained her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. If you google him, you can experience a past-life regression session on line. He has written Many Lives, Many Masters, Only Love is Real, Miracles Happen and Same Soul, Many Bodies.

Quantum physicists are now saying that objective reality does not exist, concluding that subject and object are one. The Danish nuclear physicist and Nobel prize winner Niels Bohr has had a lifelong interest in Vedanta philosophy and reads the Upanishads to find answers to his questions about reality. It may well be that Brahman is the fundamental divine cause of everything and that love is the most important feature of our brief lives on earth, as has been discovered in the Near Death Experiences reported by 13 million people worldwide.

I conclude with a quote from Carl Jung:

“No one knows what the ‘psyche’ is. Under certain conditions the psyche can even break through the barriers of space and time precisely because of a quality essential to it, that is, its relatively trans-spatial and trans-temporal nature. This possible transcendence of space-time, for which it seems to me there is a good deal of evidence, is of such incalculable import that it should spur the spirit of research to the greatest effort.”

MORE INFORMATION

Richard Feynman:

“According to the theory of quantum electrodynamics, virtual particles, such as electrons and photos, appear and disappear from the quantum vacuum field, also known as the zero-point field, that pervades the universe. Feynman called this theory the ‘jewel of physics’ because of its extremely accurate predications, correct to many decimal places.

“The price that is paid for this accuracy is the acceptance of invisible, unobservable particles and interactions, and of the mysterious quantum vacuum field. According to quantum electro-dynamics, all electrical and magnetic forces are mediated by virtual photons that appear from the quantum vacuum field and then disappear into it again.

“All the molecules within your body, all your cell membranes, all your nerve impulses depend on virtual photons appearing and disappearing within the all-pervading vacuum field of nature. As the physicist Paul Davies put it, “A vacuum is not inert and featureless, but alive with throbbing energy and vitality.”

Higgs Boson:

Mass, the quantitive measure of matter, turns out to be deeply mysterious. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, the mass of a particle like an electron or a proton is not inherent in the particular itself but depends on its interaction with a field called a Higgs field, named after one of the theoretical physicists, Peter Higgs, who proposed it in 1964.

Thus the mass of an electron, for example, arises through its interaction with the Higgs field, and this interaction depends on special Higgs particles, called Higgs bosom. Writers of popular science often refer to the Higgs bosom as ‘the God particle’.

Billions of euros were spent to look for it in a gigantic particle accelerator, the Hadron Collider at CERN, near Geneva. After years of searching, in July 2012 researchers claimed to have found signals that were consistent with the predicted properties of Higgs bosons.

David Bohm:

“Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty because even in the vacuum matter is one; and if we don't see this it's because we are blinding ourselves to it. If we don't establish these absolute boundaries between minds, then it's possible they could unite as one mind.”

Sigmund Freud:

“If I had my life to live over again, I would devote myself to psychical research rather than to psychoanalysis.”

Freud's legacy has been sanitised of his openness to “psychical” or non-local mental phenomena. His biographer, Frank McLynn, said: “Freud was always interested in telepathy...he simply feared that until psychoanalysis was established beyond risk of destruction by ridicule, to exhibit open-mindedness was to hand enemies a weapon.”

Nick Herbert:

“Religions assure us that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the same deity; biologists say that we are entwined with all life-forms on this planet: our fortunes rise or fall with theirs. Now, physicists have discovered that the very atoms of our bodies are woven out of a common superluminal fabric. Not merely in physics are humans out of touch with reality; we ignore these connections at our peril.”

Henry P. Strapp – Berkeley University:

“The new physics presents prima facie evidence that our human thoughts are linked to nature by non-local connections: what a person chooses to do in one region seems immediately to effect what is true elsewhere in the universe. This non-local aspect can be understood by conceiving the universe to be not a collection of tiny bits of matter, but rather a growing compendium of “bits of information” and I believe that most quantum physicists will also agree that our conscious thoughts ought eventually be understood within science and that when properly understood, our thoughts will be seen to DO something: they will be efficacious.”

Thomas Henry Huxley:

“The greatest tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

Alfred North Whitehead:

“The universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of its existing modes of knowledge. Sceptics and believers are all alike. Scientists and sceptics are the leading dogmatists. Fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophical adventure. The Universe is vast.”

C.S. Lewis:

“It is not impossible that our own Model of reality will die a violent death, ruthlessly smashed by an unprovoked assault of new facts... But I think it is more likely to change when and because far-reaching changes in the mental temper of our descendants demand that it should. The new Model will not be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up when the inner need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will be true evidence. But nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her. Here, as in the courts, the character of the evidence depends on the shape of the examination, and a good cross- examination can do wonders.”

Other Dimensions:

Early work by Einstein, using tensor analysis, assumed space had ten dimensions, but it has become clear that even ten dimensions is an over-simplification. Bosonic string quantum mechanics is only consistent in a 26 dimensional space-time, and even these models do not include the dimensions of consciousness.

Reincarnation:

In 325 A.D. The Council of Nicea decided that Jesus was the son of God and people could only be redeemed through his mediation. The priests later became the mediators. In 529 Justinian closed the University of Athens and the last neoPlatonist scholars fled to Persia. In 553 Justinian removed all references to karma and reincarnation from the Bible. Justinian's wife belonged to a sect called the Monophysites who rejected reincarnation.

In the ninth century Pope Nicholas I eradicated the individual human spirit from the original Trichotomy of Man. The Pseudo-Isoderic Decretals declared that God existed outside the living world. Salvation had to be either bought or earned, for life is a sin which, according to the priests, separated the soul from God.

The early Christian Gnostic sects believed in reincarnation which was inherited from Egypt.

Clement of Alexandria, Origen's teacher, accepted reincarnation and said that St. Paul taught it. Jesus and his Apostles all accepted reincarnation. Origen and St. Augustine believed in the pre-existence of the soul. Pythagoras remembered several previous lives.

Anne Frank:

A girl called Barbara, born in Sweden in 1954, told her Christian family that her real name was Anne Frank. The diary had not been published then and they had no idea who she was talking about. When Barbara was ten years old they took her to Amsterdam where she was able to take them to the Anne Frank House. She knew exactly where it was. She mentioned the pictures of movie stars Anne Frank had stuck on the wall in her bedroom and was told they had been taken down because people were stealing them. Barbara looks like Anne Frank and is also a talented writer. She was first published at the age of twelve.

Quote from the Bhagavad Gita:

“If you understand your own mind completely, you are not just a human being, you yourself are God.”