ON THE NATURE OF REALITY AND REMOTE VIEWING
REALITY AND REMOTE VIEWING
James Burnett, Ph.D., P.E.
INTRODUCTION
This paper is directed to why we are having so much difficulty scientifically understanding phenomena such as remote viewing (clairvoyance), dowsing, and spiritual healing.
I wrote this paper mostly for myself to better organize my thoughts, as a physicist, on my psychic and spiritual experiences and what these experiences are saying about the nature of the universe.
My paper emphasizes that we scientists must get out of our comfortable assumptions of a 4-dimensional space-time with immutable physics in order to significantly progress on understanding the Universe.
While my suggested view of "reality", and my supporting experiences, are not unique -- there are few signs that this view and such justifying experiences are much considered in the scientific and psychism communities.
Rather, I see that most scientists researching psychism are stuck in the comfortable assumptions that physics and 4-dimensional space-time are always valid and never have exceptions. They are also stuck in not weighing in possibly an active conscious spiritual participant.
This paper will not be acceptable to the standard research publications, because these publications with their peer review systems are the most stuck of all in these comfortable assumptions. I am retired and have no motivation to create technical publications for my professional advancement, which gives me the freedom to think and write unfettered.
For the ones who can manage their belief system, and not be managed by it, I offer this paper for thought.
I expect that changing the public's belief system on psychism will be done by generation-death and a new generation of more open thinkers. That is what Dr. Lister experienced with the German medical profession, after he discovered germs and sterilization.
SCIENCE BACKGROUND
My background is provided to establish that I am an experienced physical scientist.
My education is a B.S. in Aeronautics, a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Physics. I was educated at the University of Michigan. My technical career has spanned fifty years of research and development, along with university teaching.
PSYCHISM AND SPIRITUALITY BACKGROUND
Since my youth I have been a highly-functional psychic, with a lifetime of psychic and spiritual experiences -- which I generally keep as a private matter.
I am functional in clairvoyance, psychokinesis (some times), spiritual healing, and other experiences I don't know how to categorize.. I am also functional in remote viewing and dowsing.
I never take money for these abilities, so I have no commercial motives.
"SCIENTIFIC" METHODS
As a physicist I first want to remind the reader that the first principal of science is:
When reason conflicts with experience, experience trumps.
This point is being made due to a number of scientists wanting to reject unusual phenomena that have not passed their rigor of reproducible scientific testing. Denying the experience on this argument is promoted by scientists who like their comfortable belief system of testable reproducibility, and have forgotten the starting foundation of all new physical theories -- experience trumps.
And, there is no reason that unusual phenomena, such as these spiritual and psychic experiences, must be reproducible and testable in this 4-dimensional physical reality. These are assumptions conveniently made. Nice, handy, but not justifiable. Especially with humans.
I note that my wife will not meet the test reproducibility -- but she is very real never the less.
My experiences with spiritual miracles have strongly demonstrated that our space-time physics does not always hold when dealing with spiritual phenomena. Some things occur that are impossible according to our 4-dimensional physics.
There appears merit in the statements of Hindu mystics that this physical existence is an illusion and the real world is the spiritual world.
I have had spiritual-miracle experiences that are impossible, but they did physically occur. Some major spiritual experiences occurred under conditions of close observation that prevented trickery.
I initially struggled with accepting these spiritual experiences because they so violated my physics training. However, I finally accepted the experiences were real, but not explainable within the currently known physics of this physical existence.
• One striking example was a mystic manifested a physical object out of nowhere. This object appeared about one foot in front of my eyes while I was staring at the manifestation point. My wife also witnessed the experience. Trickery was impossible. He gifted us the object afterward as a memento.
• Another example was the healing of a structural defect in a person's skeletal system -- permanently curing a condition that was medically untreatable.
REMOTE VIEWING AND DOWSING
In spiritual healing, and in remote viewing (clairvoyance) and dowsing, I note that I use the same process. It is my experience that they are all the same phenomena, just used for different purposes.
My spiritual healing experiences, and many psychic experiences, all have the clear nature that there is a spiritual interactive consciousness that sometimes responds to my requests with actions and information.
I speculate that this same spiritual consciousness is the source of the information gleaned by remote viewing and dowsing.
Presently none of these psychism and spirituality phenomena are well understood. I believe the problem here is our current research methodologies are constrained by our belief in an immutable physics and space-time reality.
HOW MANY DIMENSIONS ARE ENOUGH?
dimension: One of the group of dimensions, whose number is necessary and sufficient to determine uniquely each element of a system of entities.
So: Are 4-dimensions sufficient for our total existence?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------?
To quote Mr. Edwin A. Abbot (1838 - 1926), author of "Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions":
"To
The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL
And H. C. IN PARTICULAR
This Work is Dedicated
By a Humble Native of Flatland
In the Hope that
Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries
Of THREE Dimensions
Having been previously conversant
With ONLY TWO
So the Citizens of that Celestial Region
May aspire yet higher and higher
To the Secrets of FOUR, FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions
Thereby contributing
To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION
And the possible Development
Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY
Among the Superior Races
Of SOLID HUMANITY"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIRITUALITY
The word "spiritual" is different from the word "religious".
Classical Pantheism:
My usage of the word "spiritual" is close, but not always the same as in Classical Pantheism.
Classical pantheism is expressed in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Monism, and the New Age, as viewing God in both a personal and a cosmic manner।
The names God, Brahman, and The Conscious (interactive) Universe are interchangeable in my usage।
Classical pantheists believe there is a spiritual basis to all reality. So do many physicists, due to our experiences with quantum physics.
A feature of pantheism is that each individual human is an active part of the Universe or God.
A way to understand this relationship is through the Hindu phrase, tat tvam asi - "that thou art", wherein the human soul/self or Atman is understood to be the same as God or Brahman - only people do not realize it। In this Hindu concept they believe that one must be liberated through enlightenment (moksha) in order to experience and fully understand this relationship - then the part becomes no longer dissimilar from the whole.
God or Brahman or the Conscious Universe is said to be eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and ultimately indescribable in human thoughts and language
(I disagree with the underlined part above, and argue that because God or Brahman has given each human soul free will, God is self-constrained from being omnipotent or "all powerful".
I note that parents are not all powerful over their child, once they give the child some free-will in order for them to gain life experiences and mature।)
The sage-seers (rishis) of the Upanishads (Hindu scriptures) fully realized Brahman as the reality behind their own being and of everything else in this universe। This rishi knowledge is ancient -- from thousand of years before Christ.
• These rishis described Brahman as infinite Being, infinite Consciousness, and infinite Bliss (satcitananda).
• Brahman is regarded as the source and essence of the universe.
• The initial unmanifest state of singularity of the universe is described as a "beyond being and non-being" in the Nasadiya Sukta.
• The Rig Veda says that by the desire of the Supreme Being, the initial manifestation of the material universe came into being from Hiranyagarbha (literally "golden womb"), out of which all worlds, organisms and divine beings (devas) arise.
It is said that Brahman cannot be known by material means, and we cannot be conscious of it because Brahman is our very consciousness.
(I take exception to the underlined portion above, because of my experiences with The Conscious Universe। Over the years, I have had interactive physical experiences with The Conscious Universe many times, demonstrating to me that a human can communicate both ways with The Consciousness Universe.)
THE PSYCHISM and SPIRITUALITY MECHANISM
Based on these experiences in spirituality and psychism, I propose that a Conscious (interactive) Universe is why psychic and spiritual phenomena occur. I propose that:
Psychic and spiritual phenomena are a participatory spiritual connection with The Conscious Universe.
Four-dimensional space-time physics is not immutable when it is involved with spiritual connections।
RESEARCH PROBLEM
Physicists do not know how to measure or detect a spiritual connection except by experience -- which is why we scientists are having so much trouble studying and understanding psychic and spiritual phenomena.
James Burnett, Ph.D., P.E. - 26 October 2008
whitecrow888@yahoo.com
James Burnett, Ph.D., P.E.
INTRODUCTION
This paper is directed to why we are having so much difficulty scientifically understanding phenomena such as remote viewing (clairvoyance), dowsing, and spiritual healing.
I wrote this paper mostly for myself to better organize my thoughts, as a physicist, on my psychic and spiritual experiences and what these experiences are saying about the nature of the universe.
My paper emphasizes that we scientists must get out of our comfortable assumptions of a 4-dimensional space-time with immutable physics in order to significantly progress on understanding the Universe.
While my suggested view of "reality", and my supporting experiences, are not unique -- there are few signs that this view and such justifying experiences are much considered in the scientific and psychism communities.
Rather, I see that most scientists researching psychism are stuck in the comfortable assumptions that physics and 4-dimensional space-time are always valid and never have exceptions. They are also stuck in not weighing in possibly an active conscious spiritual participant.
This paper will not be acceptable to the standard research publications, because these publications with their peer review systems are the most stuck of all in these comfortable assumptions. I am retired and have no motivation to create technical publications for my professional advancement, which gives me the freedom to think and write unfettered.
For the ones who can manage their belief system, and not be managed by it, I offer this paper for thought.
I expect that changing the public's belief system on psychism will be done by generation-death and a new generation of more open thinkers. That is what Dr. Lister experienced with the German medical profession, after he discovered germs and sterilization.
SCIENCE BACKGROUND
My background is provided to establish that I am an experienced physical scientist.
My education is a B.S. in Aeronautics, a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and Mathematics, and a Ph.D. in Physics. I was educated at the University of Michigan. My technical career has spanned fifty years of research and development, along with university teaching.
PSYCHISM AND SPIRITUALITY BACKGROUND
Since my youth I have been a highly-functional psychic, with a lifetime of psychic and spiritual experiences -- which I generally keep as a private matter.
I am functional in clairvoyance, psychokinesis (some times), spiritual healing, and other experiences I don't know how to categorize.. I am also functional in remote viewing and dowsing.
I never take money for these abilities, so I have no commercial motives.
"SCIENTIFIC" METHODS
As a physicist I first want to remind the reader that the first principal of science is:
When reason conflicts with experience, experience trumps.
This point is being made due to a number of scientists wanting to reject unusual phenomena that have not passed their rigor of reproducible scientific testing. Denying the experience on this argument is promoted by scientists who like their comfortable belief system of testable reproducibility, and have forgotten the starting foundation of all new physical theories -- experience trumps.
And, there is no reason that unusual phenomena, such as these spiritual and psychic experiences, must be reproducible and testable in this 4-dimensional physical reality. These are assumptions conveniently made. Nice, handy, but not justifiable. Especially with humans.
I note that my wife will not meet the test reproducibility -- but she is very real never the less.
My experiences with spiritual miracles have strongly demonstrated that our space-time physics does not always hold when dealing with spiritual phenomena. Some things occur that are impossible according to our 4-dimensional physics.
There appears merit in the statements of Hindu mystics that this physical existence is an illusion and the real world is the spiritual world.
I have had spiritual-miracle experiences that are impossible, but they did physically occur. Some major spiritual experiences occurred under conditions of close observation that prevented trickery.
I initially struggled with accepting these spiritual experiences because they so violated my physics training. However, I finally accepted the experiences were real, but not explainable within the currently known physics of this physical existence.
• One striking example was a mystic manifested a physical object out of nowhere. This object appeared about one foot in front of my eyes while I was staring at the manifestation point. My wife also witnessed the experience. Trickery was impossible. He gifted us the object afterward as a memento.
• Another example was the healing of a structural defect in a person's skeletal system -- permanently curing a condition that was medically untreatable.
REMOTE VIEWING AND DOWSING
In spiritual healing, and in remote viewing (clairvoyance) and dowsing, I note that I use the same process. It is my experience that they are all the same phenomena, just used for different purposes.
My spiritual healing experiences, and many psychic experiences, all have the clear nature that there is a spiritual interactive consciousness that sometimes responds to my requests with actions and information.
I speculate that this same spiritual consciousness is the source of the information gleaned by remote viewing and dowsing.
Presently none of these psychism and spirituality phenomena are well understood. I believe the problem here is our current research methodologies are constrained by our belief in an immutable physics and space-time reality.
HOW MANY DIMENSIONS ARE ENOUGH?
dimension: One of the group of dimensions, whose number is necessary and sufficient to determine uniquely each element of a system of entities.
So: Are 4-dimensions sufficient for our total existence?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------?
To quote Mr. Edwin A. Abbot (1838 - 1926), author of "Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions":
"To
The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL
And H. C. IN PARTICULAR
This Work is Dedicated
By a Humble Native of Flatland
In the Hope that
Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries
Of THREE Dimensions
Having been previously conversant
With ONLY TWO
So the Citizens of that Celestial Region
May aspire yet higher and higher
To the Secrets of FOUR, FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions
Thereby contributing
To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION
And the possible Development
Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY
Among the Superior Races
Of SOLID HUMANITY"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIRITUALITY
The word "spiritual" is different from the word "religious".
Classical Pantheism:
My usage of the word "spiritual" is close, but not always the same as in Classical Pantheism.
Classical pantheism is expressed in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Monism, and the New Age, as viewing God in both a personal and a cosmic manner।
The names God, Brahman, and The Conscious (interactive) Universe are interchangeable in my usage।
Classical pantheists believe there is a spiritual basis to all reality. So do many physicists, due to our experiences with quantum physics.
A feature of pantheism is that each individual human is an active part of the Universe or God.
A way to understand this relationship is through the Hindu phrase, tat tvam asi - "that thou art", wherein the human soul/self or Atman is understood to be the same as God or Brahman - only people do not realize it। In this Hindu concept they believe that one must be liberated through enlightenment (moksha) in order to experience and fully understand this relationship - then the part becomes no longer dissimilar from the whole.
God or Brahman or the Conscious Universe is said to be eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and ultimately indescribable in human thoughts and language
(I disagree with the underlined part above, and argue that because God or Brahman has given each human soul free will, God is self-constrained from being omnipotent or "all powerful".
I note that parents are not all powerful over their child, once they give the child some free-will in order for them to gain life experiences and mature।)
The sage-seers (rishis) of the Upanishads (Hindu scriptures) fully realized Brahman as the reality behind their own being and of everything else in this universe। This rishi knowledge is ancient -- from thousand of years before Christ.
• These rishis described Brahman as infinite Being, infinite Consciousness, and infinite Bliss (satcitananda).
• Brahman is regarded as the source and essence of the universe.
• The initial unmanifest state of singularity of the universe is described as a "beyond being and non-being" in the Nasadiya Sukta.
• The Rig Veda says that by the desire of the Supreme Being, the initial manifestation of the material universe came into being from Hiranyagarbha (literally "golden womb"), out of which all worlds, organisms and divine beings (devas) arise.
It is said that Brahman cannot be known by material means, and we cannot be conscious of it because Brahman is our very consciousness.
(I take exception to the underlined portion above, because of my experiences with The Conscious Universe। Over the years, I have had interactive physical experiences with The Conscious Universe many times, demonstrating to me that a human can communicate both ways with The Consciousness Universe.)
THE PSYCHISM and SPIRITUALITY MECHANISM
Based on these experiences in spirituality and psychism, I propose that a Conscious (interactive) Universe is why psychic and spiritual phenomena occur. I propose that:
Psychic and spiritual phenomena are a participatory spiritual connection with The Conscious Universe.
Four-dimensional space-time physics is not immutable when it is involved with spiritual connections।
RESEARCH PROBLEM
Physicists do not know how to measure or detect a spiritual connection except by experience -- which is why we scientists are having so much trouble studying and understanding psychic and spiritual phenomena.
James Burnett, Ph.D., P.E. - 26 October 2008
whitecrow888@yahoo.com
posted by Daz at
11:24 AM
3 Comments:
Dr. Burnett, I wish there were more people like you. This world would be a much better place.
Stewart Swerdow's book, the Healer's Handbook, a journey into hyperspace, ascribes to that same precept of spiritual healing and remote viewing being one in the same. How do you feel about his methods?
I also ascribe to the principles of the Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot, Nature's Mind as the Quantum Hologram by Edgar Mitchell, and the various theories of microtubules as they relate to paranormal phenomena by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose.
How would you describe the theory of the Holographic Universe in that each of us are a piece of that Universal Hologram?
By
HealingMindN, at 9:44 PM
Dear healingmindn:
Regarding the people cited by you, these are all speculative tools created so that people can have a means to think about the Universe. All have some of it right, and a lot of it wrong. That also includes my thoughts too. We are all the five blind men examining an elephant -- geting different experiences and descriptions.
Best, Jim Burnett (White Cros)
By
Anonymous, at 7:58 PM
"I expect that changing the public's belief system on psychism will be done by generation-death and a new generation of more open thinkers."
How many generations do you think it will take? The Society For Psychical Research has been around for more than 100 years. What is differnt about this generation than the last 5? I don't mean to be flippant, I am interested in your views.
Thanks
By
Anonymous, at 3:06 PM
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home