For most of my adulthood, I have firmly believed that there was no scientific explanation for an extensive range of anomalous psychic experiences that have been central to my life since early childhood. These vary from distant spiritual healing, to clairvoyant and clairaudient communication with a wide variety of apparent individuated consciousnesses, some incarnate and others discarnate. I have had some extraordinary coincidental experiences, such as my meeting with the author Lyall Watson, when, as Director of the Wrekin Trust, I was looking to book him as a speaker for a Mystics and Scientist conference. I did not know him by sight, but was fortuitously introduced to him by a mutual friend who spotted us standing next to each other in a bookshop in London. Another common place event is suddenly thinking of someone, and shortly afterwards receiving a mobile call or email from them. I know many people have similar experiences. In sharing these serendipities with my son, who holds a senior position with the Oceanography Department of Southampton University, his typical comment has ever been, “All very well and good, dad, but where’s the scientific evidence?” And, I had to agree with him, at least until recently.
Eighteen months ago I was prompted to look again at Young’s famous double slit experiment, which shows that light and elementary particles, like electrons, can exist in either a wave or particle state. This is now known in science as wave/particle duality. I had looked at this experiment before, but what I had not taken on board was the anomaly that once fired from the electron gun, scientists cannot predict where the molecule, atom or electron will end up on the detection plate. In looking into the history of quantum mechanics, I found this issue had proved deeply problematic to those early luminaries of quantum research such as Einstein, de Broglie, Schrödinger, Heisenberg and Niels Bohr. It eventually led to Einstein’s famous puzzled comment “But God does not play dice” (Golub & Lamoreaux, 2023). Unlike, classical physics, where known forces, determine the exact position of an object like a football or missile, the quantum realm is very different. The mathematics shows that once fired from the gun the electron enters into a ‘superposition’ state, where is can be anywhere.
One unthinkable solution to this conundrum is that the electron, ‘chooses’ where it will end up. This possibility was a step too far for those early scientists. Eventually, under the guidance of Niels Bohr, they took the decision, in what is known as the Copenhagen interpretation, that if it could not be measured is should be ignored (Golub & Lamoreaux, 2023)! Moving forward, a hundred years into today’s world the materialist origin of nature of consciousness is being challenged. Consciousness is now considered by some to be fundamental to the structure of the universe, that the universe is a mental construct, not a physical one (Henry, 2005). This theory, known as panpsychism, suggests that some form of consciousness or proto-consciousness exists even at the sub-atomic level (Skirbina, 2009). In support of this belief, Conway and Kochen (2009, p. 30), in their article The Strong Free-Will Theorem make the following statement ‘Our provocative ascription of free will to elementary particles is deliberate since our theorem asserts that if experimenters have a certain freedom, then particles have exactly the same kind of freedom’.
The idea was presaged by the channeled communication of a guide called Seth through a mediumship of Jane Roberts, when Seth stated:
Nevertheless, the atoms and molecules … do possess their own kind of consciousness. The atoms and molecules that make up the pages of this book are also, within their own level, aware. Nothing exists – neither rock, mineral, plant, animal, or air – that is not filled with consciousness of its own kind (Roberts, 2012, p. 7).
If the theory panpsychism is correct where both rudimentary and complex forms consciousness exist at every level within the universe, then we might pre-suppose that all consciousness operates in both a wave and particle state. On this basis, our consciousness, in its wave state, operates in a ‘superposition’ where it could be wherever we choose it to be, and is not just locked up in brain activity. In other words, brains monitor consciousness, not generate it. If correct, we have here a cogent scientific explanation for all anomalous psi experiences. There is no need for a new physics, only a better understanding of what we already know.
We sit in rooms filled with electromagnetic waves, which we cannot detect without a mechanical device such as a mobile phone, TV or radio. I would suggest that these same rooms are filled with waves of consciousness, which we can sometimes detect, particularly when thoughts are directed towards us. Indeed, some people are super-sensitive to the mental activity of others, such as those who find it challenging entering crowded places, like super-markets.
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My poster at the Eurotas conference was based on the above hypothesis where I posed the questions ‘What is conscious?’; ‘What is consciousness?’, subjects central to exploring the nature of transpersonal psychology (Furlong, 2024). The evidence from near death experiences, hypnotic regression and channelled mediumship, suggests that our individuated consciousness continues to exist beyond the death of the physical body. How would the human collective mindset change if Western scientists believed that we our minds could be anywhere and, with practice, could learn to communicate with anything; moreover that our consciousness is eternal.
On this note, I will allow the last comment from a magnificent Cedar tree that resides close to where I live in Great Malvern. I have learned to communicate telepathically with this wise being, who tells me his name is Tengorn. I once posed the question to him “Wouldn’t you like to incarnate as a human being with all our freedoms?” His response was immediate “No way! Human beings walk around with boxes on their heads, they cannot see beyond the end of their noses!” I could not but agree with this chastening response.
Note: For a more detailed explanation of the above ideas please see my article in Transpersonal Psychology Review.
References
Furlong, D. (2024). Consciousness and wave/particle duality: Underpinning the Phenomenology of transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal Psychology Review, 25(1)
Golub, R. & Lamoreaux, S. (2023). The Historical and Physical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Oxford University Press
Henry, R. (2005). The Mental Universe. Nature, 436(7047), 29. https://doi.or.10.1038/436029a
Roberts, J. (2012). Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. Amber-Allen Publishing
Skirbina, D. (2017). Panpsychism in the West. The MIT Press
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