“You can plot this using wave mechanics. As soon as the thing is not in conscious focus, waves from the surroundings splash against the spiky waves of the object flattening them making them less than certain but more than just impossible.”
“And I thought IT was straightforward,” laughed Paul pouring wine for them both.
“Try this for size then,” smiled Alec. “Without quantum theory modern molecular biology would probably not exist as we know it. Neither would the discovery of DNA, microelectronics, transputers, high speed data communication, precision robotics, CAD systems, genetic engineering, space exploration and nanotechnology.”
“So how does all this square with religion, spirituality, God, metaphysics and eternity?” Paul challenged him.
“Through quantum philosophy,” answered Alec. Paul stared at him.
Alec continued. “You have to follow the developmental process to arrive at that conclusion. There have been tomes written about quantum science. I’m trying to be as brief as I can. Paul Dirac published his relativistic quantum theory in 1926 which basically said that an electron contains a property called spin. The magnitude is half of Planck’s Constant. As a result, and trust me here, in a significant sense biology can be reduced to chemistry which can be reduced to quantum physics.
“A consequence also was that of negative energy solutions, or the possibility of antimatter and the anti electron or positron. So conversions could be made, for instance, a photon into an electron and one positron. It took twenty years to obtain a fully predictive quantum theory of photons and electrons. This is where it gets complicated.”
“Really,” sighed Paul as both men paused to enjoy their main courses.
“Of course,” chuckled Alec, ‘there are now a lot more particles around than we expected. There are muons, gluons, neutrons, electron-antineutrinos, antiprotons, muon-neutrinos. Then we got baryon numbers and lepton numbers and quantum chromodynamics which uses colour, left and right handed spin, flavours of quarks and an unexpected lepton, the tau.
“So now the exciting bit, is that everything terrestrial which is known is consistent with the standard theory of particle physics although there is no experimental evidence of this. And there are only three types of neutrino in the universe and three generations of quarks and leptons comprise the matter fields to be found in nature.”
“I’m not sure where all this is leading,” said Paul.
“It leads to space time geometry,” explained Alec pushing back his plate. “We haven’t got to space-time curves, wormholes, superstring theory in twenty-six dimensions or where gravity fits in. I could go on.”
“Why don’t we head back to the lounge,” Paul suggested.
Paul’s mind was whirling with particles. Somewhere there was a connection, something that made sense given his experiences. As they found once again two comfortable chairs and ordered coffees, Paul saw that the scientific approach to existence was getting very close to the ultimate analytical statement or theory that explains absolutely everything. Observations in particle physics, nuclear and atomic physics, molecular theory, biology, physiology, neuropsychology, geology, astrophysics and just about all cosmology were close to the final statement, at least in theory. What of psychology, sociology and politics? They were nowhere near as advanced. Except that all the scientific work presupposes one indefinable element: the observer.
“So,” said Paul, “what about us, the observers? We experience the world in our minds and nowhere else. We are embodied inside the world not outside it. We don’t experience external reality, or existence, directly or absolutely.”
“You’re on my wavelength, old buddy,” Alec was clearly enjoying himself. “Quantum philosophy re-introduces us to our own souls.”
“So there is no solid outside world at the quantum level,” Paul remarked.
“At that level the world centres around the observer who, just by being conscious, is the witness of all that can conceivably be real. Consciousness is therefore essentially oneness. Wow, I need a drink.” Alec called a passing waiter then said to Paul. “Are you ready for one of my crazy theories?”
“I most certainly am. This is the most interesting conversation I’ve had with someone other than myself for a long time.”
“You know that it is impossible to accurately observe an electron. The very observation process creates fields and the electron can be in more than one place simultaneously. Well, what if there is only one electron, whizzing around being part of every atom simultaneously? So your brain and my brain are composed of the same electron. So is everyone’s brain. So is everyone’s body. Minds may differ and thoughts may come and go at random but those minds and those thoughts are all one. Only our sense of selfhood makes us believe we are individuals, as well as our physical bodies, which, as we have established, only exist inside our minds to begin with.”
“So there could only be one type of field in the universe?” asked Paul.
“Which is the universe,” said Alec.
“Which is us,” said Paul.
“And even wilder,” said Alec animatedly, “ultimately there may be only one particle in the universe and therefore one source of consciousness.”
“Where does this leave the spiritual worlds, reincarnation, beings of infinite spiritual power?” asked Paul, then he ventured. “And what about the theory that everything is part of a computer program?”
“Maybe that’s an IT project I could get funding for?” mused Alec. “It’s hard to say we are not, except that, what is outside the program? What or who is controlling it?”
“Maybe no one,” suggested Paul. “Suppose some vastly superior species created the program and became extinct. It would just run forever in cyberspace.”
“I need to think about that one. I feel a book coming on. As for your other point,” said Alec, “they would be just another dimension within the same field and not part of gross matter. We’ve seen how you can observe and measure matter, and therefore energy, from the densest red dwarf and beyond, to the quark and beyond. We can’t actually see quarks, but we know they are there.”
“So, presumably, we can’t see spirits but we know they are there.”
“Precisely,” said Alec.
The two men sat back for a moment in contemplation as life in the hotel carried on around them.
“People will say it’s all in the brain,” said Paul. “When the brain dies so does everything else.”
“What you are saying is why is will power apparently restricted to our bodies? How is consciousness associated with the brain? The quantum theory accounts for the flow of consciousness of the observer. The one observer is all there is. This is true for every human being. There can only be one observer. There is no consciousness to explain except his. The others are ultimately identical. So there is no physical connection between the brain and consciousness.”
“Why would one person then make a radically different decision than another?”
“Only if it is impossible for them to disagree over facts. Goodness of spirit will be the hallmark of the observer, you, me, everyone else, that understand quantumly. Evil is a mark of stupidity. That is why things evolve and are yet stationary. The observer who understands the quantum explanation embodies the holy spirit, in fact is divine will. Brains organize memories and govern the processes of information but, as lumps of meat, they have no more to say about consciousness than that excellent piece of steak I enjoyed tonight. A telephone exchange is a good analogy for a neural network but it can never be conscious.”
“So there is only one consciousness,” Paul began to feel the throb inside again.
“How could there be a consciousness of which you are not aware?” said Alec. “It would not be consciousness.”
“So it must be our role to understand and empathize with the psychic backdrop to existence,” Paul ventured.
“That’s a very good way of putting it,” said Alec. “Maybe psychoactive drugs are the answer. Many races have used
these drugs to expand their minds. Perhaps the real invention of the next decade will be a drug that is harmless but enables human beings to experience the one consciousness. Now there’s an idea I might put forward in the think tank sessions.”
Paul laughed. “I guess that however powerful our brains are, computers, with which they are frequently compared, could never embrace understanding. And if time and space are one, why are we planning the future, like you did just now?”
“Tricky one,” replied Alec. “We accept the evolution of man and contemplate the future when there could be time travel, artificial sex robots to give us all we ever could want physically and a virtual reality business sector. Matter in motion can therefore be understood, which is where planning comes in, and be physically comprehensible in terms of a neural network but consciousness can never be reduced in this way. Knowing, thinking and planning are vacuous concepts without consciousness at their heart.”
“And while DNA is one manifestation of a deep memory that unfolds over months, years and millennia it is conceivable that an astral body also has memories accessible instantaneously,” said Paul.
“Well, you say that but did you know that nuclei have been observed spinning at a thousand trillion revolutions per second so why could not astral bodies be composed of such particles?”
“So what evolution needs now is some way of convincing westerners to stop reviling mysticism, which can be a complement to science and not the antithesis of it. Real mysticism is like science in that it tries to reduce to that which is self-evident. This is the real insight mankind must experience if we are to move to the next level of existence.”
“Very well put,” said Alec. “And bring the eastern esoteric traditions closer together. It’s the how that bothers me.”
“Maybe it will happen of its own accord, like an evolutionary step?” said Paul.
“Or maybe it needs someone to make it happen, like Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and the Dalai Lama all rolled into one fantastic being,” Alec mused. “Hey, look at the time.”
Paul glanced at his watch. It had gone midnight and the hotel had emptied, with the exception of some determined drinkers in the bar across the lobby. Alec stood up, swaying slightly.
“Paul, I really enjoyed this evening. It’s not often I get to meet someone I can talk to like this. It just goes to show. Believe in the power of dreams. I’m going to hit the sack. Let’s try and touch base again. We’re bound to get involved with other people during the day but maybe we can have dinner again, unless I can find a backer for my mind expanding drug proposal.”
Paul stood up and the two men shook hands warmly.
“Let’s try and do that,” said Paul. “I thought tonight was really great. I don’t know where the time has gone.”
“At the quantum level there is no time, old buddy,” laughed Alec and then he was gone, heading for the elevator. Paul felt curiously alone when Alec left. It was seldom he met anyone of remotely like mind. He didn’t feel like going to bed. He decided to use the Internet connection in the lobby to send Kate an email then take a turn around the block.
Outside the night was warm and there was a curious scent pervading, a mixture of vanilla and roses. He walked up the hill towards Mitseon, the little road that led to the path that ran beneath the Acropolis.
He stood as everyone does and stared at the Parthenon, brightly lit and dazzlingly white. To his right stretched an avenue lined with olive trees, Dionysus Street, that led down to the spiders web-like network of streets that made up the Plaka, for many the true centre and heart of Athens. The Plaka would be coming alive just about now and Paul needed something to break the spell of his conversation with Alec. He also wanted to let the concepts and ideas sink in and obey the urging of the feelings that emanated from inside him.
The more he thought about it, although he had deliberately forgotten the events of several years ago and immersed himself in normality, the more he had come to realize that the prophecies might be genuine, that he might have been selected for a special purpose.
The streets of Adrianou, Apolonos and Nikis were thronged with people and the noise of their voices rebounded from the walls of the ancient buildings. Street traders vied with hot food stalls and restaurants spilling out into the cobblestones, and the air was redolent with the aromatic aromas of barbecued meat, vegetables and spices, a combination of smells and scents that was peculiarly Greek.
His deep conversation with Alec, which had stimulated and excited him beyond words, had also left him feeling drained. A stroll around some of the busiest streets in the world soaking in the energy of the place had the desired effect of restoring him and dispelling sleep. In truth, it was also his system fighting jet lag that accounted for his sudden burst of energy.
His mind was half focused on the impact of quantum ideas and concepts and on the beehive buzz of Athens street life washing around him. Then the thought struck him forcibly. Try as he might he could not rid himself of the conceptualization of angels and other spiritual beings as being in some way governed by religious overtones. But this was totally wrong and probably was due to the word angel being one that he had grown up with and associated with the Bible.
It would not matter which religion he espoused, whether primitive ‘idolatry’ or sophisticated faiths or even cults: the future fate of mankind and the work that Ru-Ah must be on Earth to carry out had nothing in common with religions except that it would be the quite natural development and heir to all Earthly beliefs. The blend of scientific and philosophic truths could not be bound by any liturgy or messianic doctrines or by any holy books or secret manuscripts. It would, in fact, represent the assimilation of all known Earthly beliefs of every kind and would be based on real insights and miraculous revelations about the future of individual human beings. And it would be harmonious. It would be a process that brought all the peoples and disparate cultures of the world together.
This really came home to Paul forcibly as he leaned against a street corner. Alec had done well to try and compress the history of quantum mechanics and quantum philosophy into a couple of hours. Paul knew there was a great deal more to it but it had been enough to shift his pattern of thinking, as had the session with the Swami in Goa. Although these meetings had taken place years apart, their impact had not been diminished. And Paul knew now there were more to come.
Remarkably, although Paul saw and acknowledged Alec throughout the duration of the conference, they never had an opportunity to do more than grab the occasional word. Evenings were taken up at dinner in various restaurants with networking contacts. They promised to keep in touch and Alec showed genuine interest in Malone’s energy from plants idea.
One afternoon, Paul managed to escape the cauldron of the conference to stroll around Athens and be a tourist. His steps turned naturally towards the Acropolis. He climbed the steep walkway through the scrubby park towards the entrance and, apart from one noisy school group of French children, he was virtually alone as he paid his 12 euros to gain entrance to the Parthenon and its temples.
It was chilly and starting to drizzle slightly as he made his way up the steps he just about remembered. Most of the ancient buildings were surrounded by scaffolding and not open to the public. Paul did feel cheated by this but didn’t dwell on it. His mind was full of memories. He recalled a photograph of himself sitting on those well-worn steps and one of Kate leaning over the parapet gazing down on the Temple of Dionysus. They had both been so young then and so full of hope. The setting was appropriate. Here in one of the cradles of the civilized world they had set out on a lifetime together. It had been their first ever trip as a couple, before they were married. The gray drizzle from the high-flying clouds mixed with his tears. He remembered their time in Athens when the subway consisted only of one line in the city and the creaking trains rattled slowly down to the port of Piraeus; and then an idyllic summer wandering the islands, sleeping wherever they could find a bed, plucking fresh olives to eat with the juice running down t
heir faces and making love in the sand on empty beaches.
How little he had known. Any thoughts of being an angel, one of the cherubim, would never have entered his head. He had escaped from the working class stranglehold of his childhood into the middle class aspirations of Kate’s world.
He strolled around the mighty Parthenon marvelling at the symmetry and the majesty of the building. His first love had been music and he had spent many exciting years with various bands, writing and performing. He could relate to the harmonious positioning of the pillars. The temple was a symphony in stone.
Marriage to Kate had meant that music would inevitably fall by the wayside. He thought he had the talent to make it big but the breaks never came his way. Maybe that’s what they all said; those who didn’t hit the big time. But Kate and then the children had more than compensated. The need to have a regular income, a career, to aspire to a better life didn’t sit well on the shoulders of an ex-busker who could not guarantee a living from one week to the next. But, this was the way it had to be. Maybe it was a sacrifice but then maybe it was growing up.
He paused for a beer in a pavement café outside Monastiraki subway station and glanced at his watch.
The late afternoon sun bleached the façades of white walled houses reflecting and vanishing into harsh, angular shadows. Passers-by would suddenly vanish into deep shade and then emerge, dazzled into the sunlight. A bit like birth, death and rebirth, mused Paul as he nibbled at a saucer of complimentary olives.
For an unaccountable reason he suddenly thought of Romy, picturing her in her comfortable studio apartment. He allowed himself the luxury of an erotic daydream in which a rampant Romy straddled him on her examination couch. He shook the dream out of his head and instead selected a plump olive which he popped into his mouth. He was sure he could have made it with Romy but he just didn’t have the courage or maybe he just had too much common sense. That is a sad reflection on the man he used to be, he thought. Romy’s little stress busting technique had worked, however. It had helped him to expel so much dross from his soul. He was grateful to her for that. The events of that time and the periodic encounters with the Swami and Alec, and to a lesser extent Malone, had changed him, he was convinced of it. Angel predictions, dark force terror and mind expanding concepts had woven their disparate webs over his mind and his spirit.
An Angel on My Shoulder Page 22