American Cosmic

by D W Pasulka

  physics was the go- to explanatory framework for impos-

  sible skil s like remote viewing, information downloads, and

  the strange physical aspects of UFO events, such as their

  ability to appear and disappear. Even my atheist colleagues

  entertained quantum theories as possible explanations for

  the extraordinary abilities that certain saints were reported

  to have possessed. A colleague who scoffed at my interest

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  in UFO cultures was nonetheless fascinated by my work on

  the cases of saints like Teresa of Avila, who was reported to

  levitate, and other saints who were said to have been in two

  places at the same time— bilocation. After one such discus-

  sion he sent me a note in which he theorized, off the record,

  about bilocation. He linked it to his own studies of quantum

  physics.

  “The idea of saints being in two places at once is in-

  triguing,” he wrote. “Physical laws seem to suggest the im-

  possibility of being in two places at once, but the idea of

  ‘superposition,’ in quantum mechanics suggests that atoms

  and electrons can be in two places at once. Not only that,

  but these two things seem to remain connected to one an-

  other on some level in that they can influence one another.

  Of course, larger objects have not been observed (scientifi-

  cal y at least) to be in two places at once. And, I thought it

  interesting, that in the cases of saints, bilocation is chiefly as-

  sociated with acts of charity.”

  “Charity?” I asked. That jogged a memory I had of both

  Rey and Tyler saying that the idea of humility (not ego)

  seems to be important to their “beings.”

  “Can you say more about your idea of charity?” I asked.

  “Scholastic philosopher Thomas Aquinas views acts of

  charity as divinely infused/ inspired. This would place the

  saint both in the world and not.”

  I was mostly a bystander in the discussions of quantum

  theory and mechanics, but I was intrigued that so many of

  the scientist- believers used this relatively new branch of

  physics to explain the phenomenon. This included Edgar,

  one of six humans to have walked on the moon on the Apollo

  14 lunar landing mission. Edgar earned a PhD in aeronau-

  tics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of

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  Technology (MIT). He was also the founder of the Institute

  of Noetic Sciences (IONS), which is dedicated to the study

  of consciousness, and Quantrek, an institute populated by

  physicists and scientists who study energy and conscious-

  ness. He founded these institutions after a remarkable, tran-

  scendent experience he had while on his way home from the

  moon, floating in space, and looking at Earth.

  The biggest joy was on the way home. In my cock- pit window,

  every two minutes, I saw the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun,

  and the whole 360 degree panorama of the heavens . . . and

  that was a powerful, overwhelming experience. And suddenly

  I realized that the molecules of my body and the molecules of

  the space craft, and the molecules in the body of my partners,

  were prototyped, manufactured in some ancient generation

  of stars. And that was an overwhelming sense of oneness and

  connectedness, it wasn’t them and us, it was “that’s me,” it’s all

  of it, it’s one thing. And, it was accompanied by an ecstasy.

  A sense, “Oh my God, wow, yes!” An insight. An epiphany.7

  This experience was so profound that it changed the direc-

  tion of his life. Upon his return to Earth, he went on an ex-

  tended book encounter, voraciously reading as much as he

  could on the topic of consciousness. Edgar had been raised

  as a Southern Baptist and he was a trained scientist, yet he

  final y found reports of a similar experience within the liter-

  ature of Hinduism:

  The experience in space was so powerful that when I got back

  to Earth I started digging into various literatures to try to un-

  derstand what had happened. I found nothing in science lit-

  erature but eventual y discovered it in the Sanskrit of ancient

  India. The descriptions of samadhi, Savikalpa samadhi, were

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  exactly what I felt: it is described as seeing things in their

  separateness, but experiencing them visceral y as a unity, as

  oneness, accompanied by ecstasy.8

  The transition back to Earth was difficult for Edgar, a feeling

  that Tyler had expressed as wel , after each of his launches of

  satellites and shuttles into space. Tyler said, “It’s an intense

  experience to launch such a big thing into space; the whole

  crew, the astronauts, the engineers, those in mission con-

  trol, have to be working together as one unit. Nothing, and

  I mean nothing, can go wrong. Then, it’s such a high when

  the launch succeeds. Afterward we celebrate. But then, how

  does a person go back to their normal life? How do we just

  go to the gym? It’s surreal in way that is a complete and total

  let- down. I would call it a form of grief.”

  I met Edgar on two occasions. I knew that he believed in

  UFOs and extraterrestrials, so I asked him to meet the small

  group of researchers that I had organized in California. He

  would attend our session via Skype. Beforehand I found out

  everything I could about him and was surprised to learn that,

  just like the other brilliant scientists I had interviewed, he

  had been involved with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI).

  He was also a practitioner of remote viewing. What was more

  surprising to me was that he had conducted remote viewing

  experiments in space during the Apollo lunar mission. These

  experiments were not sanctioned by NASA, and Edgar said

  that they were “secret.” Edgar Mitchel , like Tyler D., was part

  of the hidden and unofficial history of the American space

  program that I had been discovering— the cosmonauts and

  rocket scientists, like Jack Parsons, who believed in extrater-

  restrial or nonhuman beings that interacted with humans

  with the goal of helping them achieve space travel and, in

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  Edgar’s case, peace on Earth. (He believes this is a prereq-

  uisite for deep space travel.) In a sense, there was a hidden

  history of esoteric cosmonauts. Edgar certainly fit the bil .

  Edgar believed that extraterrestrials or nonhuman

  intelligences intervened in space launches. Before our Skype

  session I asked each of the other conference attendees, who

  were all physical y present at the conference, to frame a

  question to ask Edgar. We would each have time to ask our

  question and we would all listen to his answers. When it came

  time to ask the questions, I was the only one who asked Edgar

  about extraterrestrials, even though that was the theme of the

  conference. Apparently, the silencing mechanisms Jacques

  had identified had been strongly internalized by my aca-

  demic
colleagues. Here was an opportunity to quiz an astro-

  naut, a scientist- believer in UFOs, yet most of the questions

  had to do with whether or not humans would be able to live

  together peaceably on Earth. This is an important question,

  but it was not the question I would have thought of in these

  circumstances. And indeed, why would he know the answer

  to that question? He was an astronaut, not a deity!

  When my turn came, I thanked him for being a part

  of our session, and asked my question. “Edgar, I know that

  you believe in extraterrestrials, and I also know that you be-

  lieve they have been interfering with our satellites and some

  of the rockets we launch into space. Can you describe how

  you came to this knowledge and if you might know why they

  would be doing this?”

  Because of his connections, Edgar said, he was privi-

  leged to know that extraterrestrials had dismantled several

  weapons that the United States had launched into space.

  He said that they did this because our weapons, particu-

  larly nuclear weapons, not only damaged humans and our

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  environment but also somehow damaged their environment.

  He said that there were different species of aliens, and that

  there were good ones and bad ones. The ones who intervened

  in our space explorations were good ones.

  I asked him to elaborate, if he would, on the nature

  of the good and bad extraterrestrials. He appeared happy

  that I had asked this question. He explained that there are

  some people on Earth who are in contact with the good

  extraterrestrials, and that they have missions to accomplish,

  sometimes in secret. He believed (like Tyler and James) that

  some extraterrestrials had left advanced technologies that

  certain scientists can unlock and use for the good of humans

  and the world. He said that we have already benefited from

  this technology.

  At the end of the interview, which lasted about an hour

  and a half, I came away with several observations. Edgar used

  language that I had heard used by many of the invisibles.

  Certain words and phrases were repeated often enough to

  form somewhat of a lexicon, or a language group. It reminded

  me of academics who communicate in their own discipline’s

  jargon, and unfortunately other people cannot understand

  what they are talking about. I wasn’t sure what this meant,

  other than that there was a group of people who shared a

  common set of phrases and words and who also shared sim-

  ilar beliefs about extraterrestrials, the US space program, and

  technology.

  Also, Edgar believed that networks of human–

  extraterrestrial contact already exist. Organizations like

  SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, were

  not the preferred contact centers, apparently. Tyler had

  mentioned this too. He thought humans, with their DNA

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  and cel ular receptors that worked like mini satellites, were

  the best receivers of contact information from nonhuman

  intelligences.

  According to several of the scientist-

  believers, in-

  cluding Edgar, quantum physics provides a framework for

  understanding the paranormal and supernatural events

  and abilities, including remote viewing, miracles, and con-

  tact with nonhuman intelligence. Rey and Edgar each called

  this the contact modalities. Edgar’s theories are elaborated

  in several of his books, and in his idea of the quantum holo-

  gram theory of physics and consciousness. According to this

  theory, Edgar says, information consists of patterns of en-

  ergy. Information– energy packets are given off by matter. On

  some level, all bodies of matter contain information.

  Edgar and his associate Rudy Schild helped Rey under-

  stand this theory, and Rey published articles arguing that

  it provides a framework for his contact with nonhuman

  intelligences. Significantly, he also argued that it retires the

  conundrum of the subjective versus materialist approaches

  that has plagued research of UFO events. “I now approach

  the so-

  called ‘ET contact phenomenon’ from a non-

  traditional perspective, one that embraces both spiritual/

  psychic and paranormal aspects, as well as decisively phys-

  ical manifestations.”9

  This theory is able bridge this gap because it posits a re-

  ality that is made up of patterns of energy. Edgar’s theory is

  elaborated in his idea of the “dyadic model” of conscious-

  ness. This model, according to Edgar, explains how re-

  mote viewing, telepathy, and even extraordinary mystical

  experiences, such as his experience of Samadhi while trav-

  eling back from the moon, are possible:

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  Several factors emerge immediately from considering the

  mystical experience from the dyadic point of view. The first

  is that mystical insights are just information that requires in-

  terpretation, not absolute and literal realities, that can stand

  alone. The flaw in cultural interpretation of mystical inter-

  pretation is precisely that of interpreting metaphor literal y.

  However, a valid information function is taking place nev-

  ertheless. Consider the experience of the nirvikalpa samadhi

  which is described similarly in different traditions. In this ex-

  perience the sense of Self merges with the cosmos and reality

  is experienced as unity of Self with All- That- Is. The experience

  is accompanied by intense ecstasy, a sense of eternity and a

  complete loss of fear. The cultural interpretations are general y

  that the experience represents union with the godhead, or the

  ground of being. It is the experience of the “peace that passes

  all understanding.” The dyadic model interpretation is that

  the body/ brain is experiencing its “ground state” or resonance

  with the zero point field. The awareness is the undifferenti-

  ated awareness of the primordial field, as the sense of Self is

  merged total y into the field. The question immediately arises

  as to why an intense ecstasy plus a sense of security and eter-

  nity accompany this state. It is only within the larger question

  of why nature provided feelings at all that this question may

  be answered. The internal feeling sense accesses the state of

  wel being of the organism. In addition, the subconscious brain

  functions integrate information from external senses and from

  non- local sources to provide a “feeling” of alarm or security as

  to the state of the environment. The feeling sense also provides

  reward or punishment for behavior influencing survival: grat-

  ification of thirst, hunger, sex drive, and discomfort or pain for

  dangerous behaviors, etc.

  According to Edgar, the feeling of ecstasy indicates that

  this experience should be repeated. In this way, he integrates

  an evolutionary component into his model. He explains

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  how this model helps us understand how skil s like remote

  viewing and telepathy are possible:

  Although non- local effects have been observed and studied for

  over a century by parapsychologists, in the absence of a com-

  pelling theory the results have been ignored or disparaged and

  certainly misrepresented by mainstream science. Non- locality

  in quantum physics now provides a physical basis for these

  effects. A large number of investigators for several decades

  have demonstrated that brain waves can be synchronized and

  information transferred between individuals across Faraday

  cage barriers. The results do not obey the inverse square rule

  of electromagnetic propagation, nor are they time dependent,

  suggesting the phenomenon is a macro- scale version of

  quantum non- locality, but with more degrees of freedom than

  simple particles undergoing a double split experiment.10

  Edgar worked to establish several organizations devoted to

  the study of consciousness. He also helped fund and establish

  the Disclosure Movement, which is a movement initiated by

  the citizens of various countries to force their governments

  to declassify documents related to UFOs. Through his

  connections to astronauts and the US space program, he was

  able to motivate people who worked for these institutions

  to testify in front of Congress about UFOs. He is a pioneer

  who supported scientists who wanted to study conscious-

  ness and physics. This is now seen as a legitimate field of

  study, but when Edgar started out it was not. He has joked

  that when he began his work on consciousness studies he

  was called a “space cadet” by some of his colleagues, while

  others said he had been “lost in space.” I place Edgar within

  a lineage of esoteric cosmonauts and rocket scientists, such

  as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, John (Jack) Parsons, Tyler D., and

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  many others— people whose ideas and beliefs might appear

  to be on the fringe, and are. They may be on the fringe of our

  future.

  Edgar had returned from space with the confidence of

  one who has been where only twelve humans have ever gone.

  Several months after my colleagues and I spoke with Edgar,

  he passed away on the eve of the anniversary of his landing

  on the moon.

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