Quantum Metaphysics
A New Cosmology for the Church, Part 4
Alien Encounters: A Book Review
Figure 1. Kabbalistic painting
“…we must recognize that we live within a virtual reality
that is actually a digital simulation!”
– Chuck Missler[1]
that is actually a digital simulation!”
– Chuck Missler[1]
“A new world, as the mystics have always said,
is a new mind.”
– Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy [2]
is a new mind.”
– Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy [2]
By Sarah H. Leslie
Chapter 4 is titled “Reality’s Twilight Zone” in Alien Encounters: The Secret Behind the UFO Phenomenon by Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman.[3] This is a short little chapter packed with quantum physics. As I was to discover, chapter 4 leads directly into quantum metaphysics, i.e., quantum spirituality.[4] Metaphysics is not science. It has to do with the “spiritual, occult, esoteric, Hermetic, mystical, paranormal, or supernatural.”[5]
Missler believes that space alien UFO contacts are “interdimensional” visitors.[6] Alien phenomena that interact with earthlings are explained by certain quantum physics theories. Missler’s quantum ideas are borrowed from old occult sources and the New Age movement. He also relies upon certain quantum physicists who have applied mystical meanings to their scientific research.
Once again, while reading Chapter 4, I discovered that I had a prior familiarity with the topics that Missler is addressing. I was first taught this new mystical physics – not in science classes – but in educational psychology classes in the 1970s. One of my professors came out of Stanford University where he had frequent ongoing contact.[7] I was also taught consciousness as part of holistic education – that the nature of reality is in our mind, that to transcend our limitations we need expand our minds and experience a deep inner paradigm shift, that we are not separate but all interconnected to the whole, and that our minds can change the cosmos. It wasn’t until the 1980s that I first read Marilyn Ferguson’s book launching the New Age movement, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s. After reading her book I finally understood that the strange “physics” that I had been taught in college wasn’t just eastern mysticism, it was also New Age metaphysics.
Wormholes & Superstrings
The purpose of Chapter 4 is to lay the groundwork for explaining UFOs. Missler’s first suggestion is that these “Intergalactic Visitors” might travel through “wormholes” – “a shortcut through both space and time,”[8] citing research done by Kip Thorne, Michael Morris and Ulvi Yurtsever. Kip Thorne is also popular in the science fiction world because of his speculative works.[9] The theories about time travel and wormholes have captured the imagination of fiction writers and especially Hollywood. The popularity of “wormholes” in particular in the culture-at-large, a huge amount of pseudo-science is mixed up with physics.[9] One can see an example of a portal/wormhole in the recent science fiction movie Thor in The Avengers series. In fact, I have written about “wormholes” previously because some evangelicals in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) have adapted this as a quantum spirituality paradigm, which they refer to as “portals” between “heaven” and earth. Accessing these portals for them becomes a means for “dominion,” i.e., bringing heaven to earth.[10]
After considering a few other theories, another hypothesis proposed by Missler is that UFOs and/or their passengers are “interdimensional.” This is the hypothesis that Missler settles on, and it is brought up continually thereafter in the book. Missler explains:
It has been suggested by some of the most knowledgeable observers that the apparent ability of the UFOS to materialize and dematerialize seems to suggest that they are ‘hyperdimensional’ or from some other domain, able to enter and leave our space-time at will. While this sounds like a contrivance of some science fiction novel, this could be surprisingly consistent with current discoveries from the field of physics. [12]
Missler’s “knowledgeable observers” are not mentioned by name in the book, but in a 2010 interview with Tom Horn, Missler implies that UFO experts Vallee and Hynek may be the “competent researchers” who “have come to the conclusion that they’re hyper-dimensional.” [13]
10 Universes in the Kabbalah?
This “interdimensional” premise becomes extremely important to the entire thesis of Alien Encounters, in which Missler postulates that space aliens and Nephilim are interdimensional creatures who can slip in and out of our universe. Missler stated that “Particle physicists have now discovered that we apparently live in a universe of ten dimensions.”[14] I was intrigued by this and looked at the footnote, but it said: “For more information see The Creator Beyond Time and Space, by the authors of this book” with the Koinonia House phone number.[15] I googled the book[16] and it led directly to an article authored by Missler in 1998 in which he asserts, under the topic of “Hyperspaces,” that
The ancient Hebrew scholar Nachmonides, writing in the 12th century, concluded from his studies of the text of Genesis that the universe has ten dimensions: that four are knowable and six are beyond our knowing. [17]
Again, on page 95 under the subtopic of “Superstrings,” Missler asserts, “Our universe is now viewed as being made up of ten dimensions.” The footnote for this states, “From his study of Genesis 1, the ancient Hebrew sage Nachmonides came to essentially the same conclusion.” So it wasn’t necessarily “particle physicists” who were influencing Missler? Why was he citing Nachmonides? Who was Nachmonides? He was a leading Spanish Kabbalist in the 12th century. He had his own esoteric theory on the creation of the universe “intermingled with aggadic and mystical interpretations.”[18]
The Kabbalah? Is this a source for credible scientific physics?! Hoping that these references might be an anomaly, I kept researching. I found a nearly identical statement in another Missler article, under the subtitle “Evidence of Hyperspace?”
Nachmonides, in his study of Genesis One, eight centuries ago, inferred that the universe had ten dimensions: he concluded that four were discernible; six were "unknowable." This is consistent with the current conjectures of cosmological physics.[19]
Figure 2: Nachmanides painting
The 10-Dimensional Metacosm
Both the astrophysicists and the quantum physicists now tell us that we apparently live in a hyperspace of more than four dimensions—ten is a current estimate….
Of the ostensible ten dimensions we now know exist, only four are directly perceptible by our current technologies. The remaining six are “curled” (to use the nomenclature of metric tensors) in less than 10-33 cm. (smaller than the wavelength of light) and thus are not directly discernible by current methodologies. It is also interesting that the Hebrew sage known as Nachmonides, writing in the 13th century, concluded from his study of the Book of Genesis that the universe has ten dimensions, but only four of them are “knowable” by man.
It appears that many millions of dollars have been spent on atomic accelerators only to learn what Nachmonides concluded from his study of the text of Genesis!...
It would seem that the domain of the “Metacosm”—which includes the elusive six dimensions—is the realm of the trans-dimensional phenomena such as angels, demons, and, perhaps, UFOs and other paranormal phenomena.[20] [bold added]
Note that last paragraph saying these other dimensions explain angels, demons, UFOs and paranormal phenomena! Again, it was becoming painfully apparent that Missler wasn’t getting his ideas solely from physics scientists. In an interview Chuck Missler did with Tom Horn, a leading postmodern prophecy teacher,[21] I discovered that Missler also attributes the 10 universe theory to the Jewish scholar Maimonides:
...that's exactly what Maimonides - the 13th Century Hebrew sage - concluded from Genesis 1 that the universe has ten dimensions, four "knowable, and six not knowable." He did it from textual gymnastics, and it's interesting that he came to the same conclusion as we have by spending millions of dollars on atomic accelerators, and all he used was the text. The point is as we start dealing with things like UFOs or things like angelic beings the more sophisticated we are in terms of our understanding of hyperspaces, the more normal those things strike us as being. [22]
Trying to make sense out of this strange development, I kept researching. I found out that Nachmonides’[23] work on the Kabbalah (also spelled Cabala) is considered significant in the history of metaphysics.
“Kabbalah” means “tradition.” The Kabbalah is thought to have been a teaching handed down from God to Moses, although the earliest textual evidence of a Jewish mystical tradition dates from about the first century B.C. Kabbalism is a fusion of early Jewish mysticism with Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and possibly Hermetic Gnosis. Some have argued that Kabbalism definitely begins in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries in Spain. [24]
These “ten dimensions” are a clear reference to the ten Sephiroth (Sefirot) of the Kabbalah, which posits a metaphysical cosmology. The ten Sephiroth are “almost always depicted as circles and often shown grouped and interconnected in a diagram known as the ‘Tree of Life,’” and “delineate the stages of God’s progressive self-manifestation which, according the Kabbalah, represents God’s dependence upon man.[25] The Sephiroth is sometimes mystically conceived as “expressing the underlying structure of nature itself and of every created being.”[26] If this sounds familiar it is because it so closely resembles the esoteric teachings in the New Age that we are all one, we are all connected, and we are all becoming god.
The Kabbalah teaches a different version of the earliest chapters of Genesis:
…by manipulating the language of Adam they are recovering the wisdom he possessed and then lost in the Fall…. The Sephiroth Tiferet and Malkhut are identified with, respectively, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from the Garden of Eden. Adam’s sin consisted in “separating” the two trees and choosing to “worship” only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. [27]
The Kabbalah posits another path to redemption by changing the story of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Note the occult significance of this statement that man can become “One with God”:
Kabbalists claimed that their teachings came directly from the wisdom and the knowledge of the Garden of Eden, and that such teachings were channels to transport initiates back to that primordial state of innocence first experienced by Adam and Eve. The pathways of Kabbalah are like staircases to the Garden of primordial, pure, and untouched consciousness. Kabbalah is the mystical manifestation of mankind’s ultimate desire to reach God and to be One with God….[28][bold added]
In the Kabbalah, man uses mystical pursuits to attempt his desired union with God. This heresy quite obviously bypasses the Cross of Jesus Christ, the ultimate Lamb Who shed His blood to redeem fallen man (Rom. 5:9-10; 10:9). The Kabbalah teaches that mankind can find perfection through meditative steps. Specifically the Kabbalistic meditation is “aimed almost solely at transformation” and teaches that “the whole task of a human being in this life it to complete him- or herself.” Kabbalistic mystical meditation serves as “a vehicle, as medium by which we can travel in consciousness” and experience “contact with the divine.”[29]
Above is an image of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life “which plunges its roots in the Garden of Eden and grows its trunk upside down into the world of mankind. From the branches of the tree grow ten fruits, known as the sefirot….”[30] This tree is described as “luminous and alive, vibrating with the current of divine energy” and it is said to “contain the eternal rhythm of the universe and everything that it contains, from the biggest galaxies to the smallest human deed, as it unfolds and folds again.”[31] Note how the Kabbalah relies on meditations and mantras as a method to achieve divinity:
The principles governing each sefira are universal energy forces that can be applied to everything: they can be used as steps for meditation; they can be inspirations for contemplation; their names can be used as power mantras to be recited again and again to reach a higher state of consciousness.[32] [bold added]
Of relevance to the next section of this review, I read that the Kabbalah tree “can be described in more modern terms as a holographic image, where each part of the image also contains the whole.”[33] Interestingly, modern adherents to the Kabbalah also describe it in terms of quantum metaphysics:
We stand at the brink of a new age as we witness the mysterious world of quantum physics opening up before our eyes, divulging secrets that attest to the truths of centuries-old kabbalistic constructs. Just how unified are we with the matter that inhabits our universe? Can our positive thoughts actually create a positive reality? In this session we explore ideas in quantum physics and their parallels in kabbalistic thought as we seek to understand the fabric of our universe and how it can enhance the way we live our lives. [34][bold and color added]
Why was Missler using imagery from the Kabbalah? Wasn’t it sufficient to simply quote quantum physics scientists and theoreticians?
Reality Check
As I am obviously not an expert in physics, I went out to look at some of the scientific material. What does the current science of physics hypothesize about other dimensions, specifically ten dimensions? It is a bit complicated, but here are the simplest explanations I could find:
Additional dimensions
In physics, three dimensions of space and one of time is the accepted norm. There are theories that try to unify different forces and such—these theories require more dimensions. Superstring theory, M-theory and Bosonic string theory respectively posit that physical space has 10, 11 and 26 dimensions. These extra dimensions are said to be spatial. However, we perceive only three spatial dimensions and, to date, no experimental or observational evidence is available to confirm the existence of these extra dimensions. A possible explanation that has been suggested is that space acts as if it were "curled up" in the extra dimensions on a subatomic scale, possibly at the quark/string level of scale or below.
An analysis of results from the Large Hadron Collider in December 2010 severely constrains theories with large extra dimensions.[35]
In string theory, compactification is a generalization of Kaluza–Klein theory. It tries to conciliate the gap between the conception of our universe based on its four observable dimensions with the ten, eleven, or twenty-six dimensions which theoretical equations lead us to suppose the universe is made with. For this purpose it is assumed the extra dimensions are "wrapped" up on themselves, or "curled" up on Calabi–Yau spaces, or on orbifolds. Models in which the compact directions support fluxes are known as flux compactifications. The coupling constant of string theory, which determines the probability of strings to split and reconnect, can be described by a field called dilaton. This in turn can be described as the size of an extra (eleventh) dimension which is compact. In this way, the ten-dimensional type IIA string theory can be described as the compactification of M-theory in eleven dimensions. Furthermore, different versions of string theory are related by different compactifications in a procedure known as T-duality. [36]
I discovered that the subject of other dimensions creates much speculation, argument and controversy in the scientific community. Plus, this high intellectual level of physics is not easily explained or understood by lay people. Thus it lends itself to arcane teachers of metaphysics, who spiritualize the abstract, especially New Age leaders. And even certain physicists have entertained mystical interpretations to their research, as I was about to find out.
FLATLAND & Old Fogies
Flatland has become a metaphor for a two-dimensional universe. “Flatland” is the title of a subsection in Missler's book. The footnote takes the reader to Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 classic fictional book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s description in the Foreword of the 1983 reprint of this old novel said it was the “best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions.”[37]
I was first taught the story about “Flatland” – not in a literature class, nor in a science class – but, again, in the context of educational psychology. Flatland was used as a metaphor for those old fogies who still live in a two-dimensional universe and haven’t yet been transformed into a new way of viewing reality. We were told to adopt a third worldview in which “consciousness is primary, and matter and energy are emergent properties of consciousness.” This third-dimensional thinking would open our minds to accept “psychic phenomena” and expand our ideas about the universe.[38] Marilyn Ferguson, in her book that launched the New Age movement, The Aquarian Conspiracy, explained, “Like the Flatlanders, we have been at least one dimension short.” [39]
The point of Missler’s citation of Flatland was to suggest that UFOs and space aliens are beings from “a parallel universe.”[40] It seemed like he was saying if we would but open our minds, we could consider the possibility how these creatures from another dimension can intersect our own dimension.[41] Missler explained that a “super being” of another dimension could pass through our universe.[42] Why would he focus on this? Hyperdimensionality seems to be a convenient way to explain mysteries in the Scripture. For example, in an interview with Tom Horn, Missler even suggests that Jesus was “hyper dimensional… after his resurrection” and that He
had some very peculiar properties in his resurrection body... [and] enjoys a dimensionality that allows him to enter and leave a 6-sided space, apparently without passing through any of the six sides. And that's the kind of thing that only a mathematician can deal with. In fact I've encountered some that argue from that, that he must enjoy at least 11 dimensions.[43]
Explaining Jesus merely as a hyperdimensional creature does not take into account the fact that Jesus Christ is God, and all things – ALL THINGS – were created by Him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:10-3) And also, Col. 1:16: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.”
Paranormal Psychotechnologies
Footnote 109 in Alien Encounters refers the reader to a “Briefing Package” that was available from Missler’s Koinonia House. I found a 2010 version of this is posted online which refers back to “three briefings ‘beyond the boundaries of our reality” that were published in the 1990s.[44] The current version discusses the concept of a “Holographic Universe” in some detail, referring to David Bohm, “a protégé of Einstein’s and one of the world’s most respected quantum physicists.” As I read through this section, again I recognized what I was reading! Missler was teaching that nothing is real, everything is an illusion, and everything is connected. He wrote:
One of the implications of Bohm’s view has to do with the nature of location. Bohm’s interpretation of quantum physics indicated that at the subquantum level location ceased to exist. All points in space become equal to all other points in space, and it was meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else. Physicists call this property “nonlocality.”
One of Bohm’s most startling suggestions is that the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence…. [45]
It sounds like physics. But is the application mystical? Where had I read this before? Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy! In her book, Ferguson explained the history and theology of this new spiritual quantum physics. She taught that “we can achieve a new dimension of mind,” which is part of becoming “stewards of our own evolution.”[46] She described how David Bohm and his theories were adapted into a New Age metaphysics by the neuroscientist Karl Pribram[47] when he was at Stanford. Under the noteworthy subtitle “A HOLOGRAPHIC WORLD” Ferguson divulged:
The paradoxical sayings of mystics suddenly make sense in the radical reorientation of this “holographic theory.” [48]
If the nature of reality is itself holographic, and the brain operates holographically, then the world is indeed, as the Eastern religions have said, maya: a magic show. Its concreteness is an illusion.[49]
Starting from the premise of abstract and complex quantum physics, a mystical worldview is then put forth as though it were scientific fact. Ferguson related the story of how “Pribram was electrified” after he “read copies of Bohm’s key papers urging a new order in physics.”[50] She wrote of Bohm’s influence on Pribram, and how this developed into quantum metaphysics:
What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, said Bohm, is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic—not really “there.” What we normally see is the explicate, or unfolded, order of things, rather like watching a movie….
…all apparent substance and movement are illusory. They emerge from another, more primary order of the universe. Bohm calls this phenomenon the holomovement”….
“Maybe reality isn’t what we see with our eyes,” Pribram says. “If we didn’t have that lens—the mathematics performed by our brain—maybe we would know a world organized in the frequency domain. No space, no time—just events. Can reality be read out of that domain?”
He suggested that transcendental experiences—mystical states—may allow us occasional direct access to that realm. Certainly, subjective reports from such states often sound like descriptions of quantum reality, a coincidence that has led several physicists to speculate similarly. [51][italics in original, bold added]
Note the last paragraph and its emphasis on the mind. In a quantum holographic universe, according to the New Agers, the use of paranormal “psychotechnologies” will further the “mysterious process of collective evolution”[52] of mankind. It all begins in the human mind, they say, and we all just need to rethink.[53] Marilyn Ferguson broadened this to include well-known practices of the occult:
In a nutshell, the holographic supertheory says that our brains mathematically construct “hard” reality by interpreting frequencies from a dimension transcending time and space. The brain is a hologram, interpreting a holographic universe….
In this framework, psychic phenomena are only by-products of the simultaneous-everywhere matrix. Individual brains are bits of the greater hologram. They have access under certain circumstances to all the information in the total cybernetic system. Synchronicity—the web of coincidence that seems to have some higher purpose or connectedness—also fits in with the holographic model…. Psychokinesis, mind affecting matter, may be a natural result of interaction at the primary level. The holographic model resolves one long-standing riddle of psi: the inability of instrumentation to track the apparent energy transfer in telepathy, healing, clairvoyance. If these events occur in a dimension transcending time and space, there is no need for energy to travel from here to there. [54] [italics in original, bold added]
This spiritualization of physics provides a platform for New Agers to teach we are all one, we are all interconnected, and nothing is separate. For example, the Course in Miracles teaches that reality is all a matter of “perception.” Note the terrible conclusion:
True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees. [55]
“Ghostly Images” of Un-Reality
Niels Bohr, a Danish scientist who was a leader in the emerging field of quantum physics, said: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it.”[56] This quote is at the beginning of Missler’s chapter 4. Marilyn Ferguson had also cited Bohr’s physics, explaining:
Many great physicists over the years have become deeply absorbed in the role of the mind in constructing reality…. Neils Bohr, to symbolize his theory of complementarity, designed a coat of arms featuring the yin-yang symbol.[57
Figure 3. Neils Borh's yin-yang coat of arms in Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics
I then found a 1998 article, “The Boundaries of Reality,” where Missler described Neils Bohr’s physics:
The Danish physicist Niels Bohr pointed out that if subatomic particles only come into existence in the presence of an observer, then it is also meaningless to speak of a particle's properties and characteristics as existing before they are observed. [58]
Who was Neils Bohr and how does his physics lend itself to metaphysical interpretations? At my local library I happened upon a recent Science News article about Neils Bohr which helped to answer this question. Bohr, a contemporary of Einstein, was said to have emphasized “the role of the observer in creating reality.”[59] But the author notes that this is a “point of contention for many physicists today.”[60] According to this article Bohr was influenced by Kierkegaard’s existentialism, which helped him to be able to perceive the “multiple truths” and “quantum paradoxes”[61] inherent in quantum physics:
Multiple truths
Bohr’s embrace of such incongruity reflected views about truth he had developed in his youth. In fact, his investigations of quantum science fed a much broader world view.
“The primary payoff of his engagement with quantum physics for his wider philosophy was the discovery that multiple truths come … in complementary pairs,” Heilbron said.[62]
Notice that the concept of multiple realities gives rise to the idea of multiple truths. It is precisely at this juncture that the metaphysics advocates insert their spiritual interpretations. Missler, expanding on these ideas of Bohm, Pribram and Bohr has similarly speculated about “A Holographic Universe?” stating:
There seems to be growing evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it may be only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own that the real reality is literally beyond both space and time.[58]
A universe without reality is antithetical to the biblical teaching of a personal God who is real in space and time. “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” (Acts 17:28a). Obviously a view of Scripture corrupted by the metaphysics teachings of no absolutes, no reality – especially with the inclusion of a mystical Kabbalistic re-interpretation of early Genesis chapters – lends itself to both existentialism and ecumenism. As Dr. Francis Schaeffer once warned:
Another way to fall into an “evangelical existentialism” is to treat the first half of Genesis the way the existential theologian treats the whole Bible. The first half of Genesis is history, space-time history, the Fall is a space-time Fall, or we have no knowledge of what Jesus came to die for, and we have no way to understand that God is really a good God. Our whole answer to evil rests upon the historic, space-time Fall. There was a time before man revolved against God. The internal evidence of Genesis and the external evidences (given in the New Testament by the way the New Testament speaks of the first half of Genesis) show that the first half of Genesis is really meant to be space-time history—that is, space and time, the warp and woof of history.[54]
“The Holographic Universe”
Just to double-check what I was researching, I decided to dig a little deeper. I was troubled by the physicists that Missler was constantly citing. I did a key word search on the physicists that Missler mentions most frequently – Bohr and Bohm – and this time added in Pribram. Up popped a book titled The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. I was shocked once again.[65] It became quickly apparent that Talbot’s book served as a primary source for Missler’s metaphysical worldview.[51] Talbot credited David Bohm and Karl Pribram with being “generous with both their time and their ideas” and credited Marilyn Ferguson and her book The Aquarian Conspiracy as one of his primary sources.[52]
Talbot, who said he grew up in a psychic family and had many psychic experiences, wrote extensively about the paranormal in his book. Talbot described Bohm’s “reality” in terms of New Age mysticism:
One of Bohm's most startling assertions is that the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a hologram. [68]
Considered together, Bohm and Pribram's theories provide a profound new way of looking at the world: Our brains mathematically construct objective reality by interpreting frequencies that are ultimately projections from another dimension, a deeper order of existence that is beyond both space and time: The brain is a hologram enfolded in a holographic universe. [69]
Pribram's assertion that our brains construct objects pales beside another of Bohm's conclusions: that we even construct space and time.[70]
WE construct space and time?! This interpretation of quantum physics is essentially saying we are all little gods. Talbot’s New Age quantum spirituality thesis clearly influenced Missler’s idea of a “Holographic Universe” – to the extent that some of Missler’s key elements are obviously taken directly from Talbot.[71] Why is all of this important? Because Missler uses Talbot’s New Age physics to also explain the paranormal – specifically UFOs and space aliens. Talbot proposes, “In a holographic universe, a universe in which separateness ceases to exist and the innermost processes of the psyche can spill over” and where “consciousness is the agent that allows a subatomic particle such as an electron to pop into existence” that UFOs “may be projections” of “collective mentalities.” In Talbot’s dreamworld, even “animals, plants, even matter itself may all be participating in the creation of these phenomena.”[72] Isn't this just the type of occult thinking that was influencing Missler, who in turn influenced the rise of the Postmodern Prophecy eschatologies?[73]
I had first read about holographic cosmology in a book by New Ager Jeffrey S. Stamps titled Holonomy: A Human Systems Theory.[74] Relying on the esoteric theories of men like Kenneth Boulding, Ervin Laszlo, Ludwig von Bertalanffy, and others,[75] Holonomy was an intellectual attempt to define human “systems” in terms of mystical units of holons (also known as cells or fractals), which are all connected together for the evolution of consciousness of the universe. More eastern mysticism. In fact, Stamps titled his Epilogue “Emergent Tao.”
Stamps also talked about metaphysics. He observed how “Neils Bohr acknowledged the profound harmony between ancient Eastern wisdom and modern Western science.”[76]
Figure 4. Neils Bohr’s yin-yang coat of arms in Holonomy
Stamps was quoting from Fritjof Capra’s groundbreaking book The Tao of Physics, which launched the New Age metaphysics movement. Capra’s book sheds more light on Neils Bohr. It appears that he was, despite his scholarly science, dabbling into eastern mystical ideas:
Niels Borh was well aware of the parallel between his concept of complementarity and Chinese thought. When he visited China in 1937, at a time when his interpretation of quantum theory had already been fully elaborated, he was deeply impressed by the ancient Chinese notion of polar opposites, and from that time he maintained an interest in Eastern culture. Ten years later, Bohr was knighted as an acknowledgement of his outstanding achievements in science and important contributions to Danish cultural life; and when he had to choose a suitable motif for his coat-of-arms his choice fell on the Chinese symbol of t’ai-chi representing the complementary relationship of the archetypal opposites yin and yang. In choosing this symbol for his coat-of-arms together with the inscription Contraria sunt complementa (opposites are complementary), Niels Bohr acknowledged the profound harmony between ancient Eastern wisdom and modern Western science.[77]
Realizing all of this, I decided to take a second look at David Bohm. When I simply went out to Amazon.com and searched his name I discovered that he had a 1985 dialogue with the Theosophist J. Krishnamurti[78] which was published in the book The Ending of Time.[79] I also found Marcia Montenegro's review of New Age leader Peter Senge's classic book The Fifth Discipline who had quoted Bohm as saying: “Science is not 'accumulation of Knowledge' but the creation of 'mental maps' that guide and shape our perception and action, bringing about a constant 'mutual participation between nature and consciousness.’”[80] Here was Peter Senge also using Bohm's physics as a basis for his New Age theorizing. Montenegro, an Christian expert on the New Age movement, made comments about Senge's use of the hologram model - comments which are also pertinent to this review:
In this section, Senge gets into the quantum theories that New Agers misapply to reality in order to offer evidence for their Eastern view that all is one. Senge is not using business or leadership principles here, but New Age interpretations of reality through a misuse of quantum physics. Senge refers to the hologram (p. 212), a New Age concept of the universe, and discusses this for several pages as a model of reality. The hologram model is pantheistic (all is God), or at least, panentheistic (all is contained in God). He also approvingly quotes Abraham Maslow, an architect of New Age thinking. To say science is a creation of a mental map implies that creation is not real (a Buddhist concept), but is only a tool with which we understand the perceived (but false) reality. For a Christian, science is the discovery of laws that God set in place to operate in His creation.[81]
The Truth
The sad fact is that Missler is still teaching and promoting all of this quantum metaphysics. At a 2012 Red River Prophecy Conference in 2012 Pastor Glenn A. Knudson heard Chuck Missler speak on this topic. Pastor Knudson’s summary confirms and underscores the concerns expressed in this review of Chapter 4 of Alien Encounters:
He [Missler] states there are "NO ABSOLUTES" at the sub-atomic or quanta level and that we no longer can have the perceptions we once had as "nothing is real" HE HAS JUST DESTROYED GOD!!!! He then recreates God by stating that at the sub-atomic particle level all things are connected, not merely in locality but in communication. He states it is hard for us to conceive but you can take two quarks and separate them by the expanse of the universe and yet they will communicate with one another. God has just been redefined and all of his creation has become one with the creator BUT NOT THROUGH THE BLOOD OF CHRIST!!
He then began his trail of "experts" that allowed him to arrive at these conclusions. It begins with a 13th century Jewish rabbi named Nachmonides who determined from studying Genesis that there are ten dimensions…. This is the foundation that he lays for his version of quantum physics, boundaries of reality and interpretation of our existence.[82]
God in His Word seems to specifically address those dabbling in quantum metaphysics when the prophet Isaiah wrote:
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being His counsellor hath taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and shewed to Him the way of understanding?.... there is no searching of His understanding.
(Isaiah 40:12-14, 28b)
Endnotes:
1. Chuck Missler, “The Realm of Angels,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/2012/1044/print/
2. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (J.P. Tarcher, 1980), p. 36 [emphasis added]
3. Alien Encounters: The Secret Behind the UFO Phenomenon, by Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman (Koinonia House, 1997)
4. See classic definition here, and note the cosmology is part of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
5. John Lash, The Seeker’s Handbook: The Complete Guide to Spiritual Pathfinding (Harmony, 1990), p. 321. This book is a New Age dictionary.
6. Alien Encounters, subheading p. 85.
7. This former Stanford professor also taught a class on Teilhard de Chardin.
8. Alien Encounters, p. 84.
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics_of_time_travel
11. Here is a brief sampling of previous writings on portals published on Herescope: http://herescope.blogspot.com/2008/02/creating-heaven-on-earth.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/11/12-12-12.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/05/quantum-prophecy.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2013/06/techno-dimensional-prayer-combat.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2006/02/geographical-heresies-of-new-apostolic.html
12. Alien Encounters, p. 85.
13. Tom Horn interviews Chuck Missker, http://royalheir.blogspot.com/2010/06/ufo-disclosurecontact-part-13-dr-chuck.html “UFO Discloser/Contact, Part 13 - Dr. Chuck Missler,” 6/7/10. Vallee and Hynek have been mention in the previous sections of this book review.
14. Alien Encounters, p. 86.
15. Ibid, footnote 105.
16. At this point in my research, it is outside the scope of this book review to review Missler and Eastman’s previous work.
17. Chuck Missler, “Quantum Physics: The Boundaries of Reality,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/62/ and http://www.khouse.org/articles/2005/590/
18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachmonides Note that there are many, many variations of the Kabbalah and its history, as well as many variations in how it is believed and practiced. Much of this is murky because it of its occult nature.
19. Chuck Missler, “How Constant are the ‘Constants’? Epistemology, Part 7,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/2005/590/
20. Chuck Missler, “The Realm of Angels,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/2012/1044/print/ Herescope previously published something about this article in Gaylene Goodroad’s article “Quantum Prophecy,” http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/05/quantum-prophecy.html
21. Other teachers in the Postmodern Prophecy Paradigm (PPP) rely upon the Kabbalah for their mystical sources, including Peter Goodgame in “The Divine Council and the Kabbalah,” http://www.redmoonrising.com/agenda.htm#The
22. Tom Horn interviews Chuck Missler, Ibid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachmonides and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides. I found Maimonides mentioned in a number of books about the Kabbalah, including 9-1/2 Mystics The Kabbala Today by Herbert Weiner (Macmillan, 1969, 1992) which refers to Moses Maimonides, “the great twelfth-century physician-philosopher,” p. 12. The Wikipedia page notes: “Maimonides was not known as a supporter of mysticism, although a strong intellectual type of mysticism has been discerned in his philosophy.” Missler mentions Maimonides in footnote 4 of his article “Return of the Aliens? As The Days of Noah Were,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/43/ and also in the Bibliography of his 2010 Briefing Package Beyond Perception http://nicolepark.info/sites/default/files/chuckMissler/Beyond_Perception_Notes.pdf
23. Other spellings or names for Nachmanides include Nachmonides, Rabbi “Menachem,” Rabbi Moses (Moshe) ben Nahman,” and Nahmanides. I am thankful for the extensive research that Dr. Martin Erdmann provided to me from his collection.
24. Glenn Alexander Magee, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (Cornell University Press, 2001), p. 165. An alternate history is that the “word Kabbalah itself… is found for the first time in the work of Ibn Gabirol (1021-1056).” Dr. Avram Davis and Manuela Dunn Mascetti, Judaic Mysticism (Hyperion, 1997), p. 178-179. There are many, many disagreements about the history of the Kabbalah but the roots do go back into various streams of the occult throughout the past few millennia.
25. Magee, p. 169. Also see Judaic Mysticism, p.176 which states “we are partners with God.”
26. Jewish Mysticism, p. 169.
27. Ibid., p. 175-176.
28. Ibid, p. 179.
29. Ibid, p. 124-125.
30. Ibid, p. 183.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid, p. 190.
33. Ibid.
34. http://www.torahcafe.com/jewishvideo.php?vid=6996ed362. “This class was given at the National Jewish Retreat - a yearly event hosted by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute.”
35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension_(mathematics_and_physics)
36. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compactification_(physics)
37. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension_(mathematics_and_physics)
38. I am quoting here from Dean Radin’s article “The Enduring Enigma of the UFO,” where he is citing Willis Harman’s M1, M2 and M3 worldviews. The M2 worldview was deemed too restrictive, dualistic, and narrow-minded. Published in Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness, Winter 2008-9, No. 21, p. 27, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Webpages/Shift-EnduringEnigmaOfUFO.pdf Also See: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/01/enduring-enigma-of-ufo.html?m=1
39. The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 150.
40. Alien Encounters, p. 95. This is a quote attributed to Jacques Vallee, footnote 112, citing his esoteric book Passport to Magonia, pp. 153-154. Also see Missler’s 1997 online article, http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/29/print/
41. Missler seems to have derived this Flatland application from an earlier article in the SCP Journal (August 1977, Vol. 1, No. 2) by Mark Albrecht and Brooks Alexander titled “UFOs: Is Science Fiction Coming True?” Another author, Jim Simmons, in his book The Last Generation, posted online, used the same material: http://www.focalpointpublications.com/ArticleDeception2/ArticleDeception2.html
42. Alien Encounters, p. 87.
43. http://royalheir.blogspot.com/2010/06/ufo-disclosurecontact-part-13-dr-chuck.html “UFO Discloser/Contact, Part 13 - Dr. Chuck Missler,” 6/7/10.
44. “Beyond Perception: Supplemental Notes,” Koinonia House, 2010. http://nicolepark.info/sites/default/files/chuckMissler/Beyond_Perception_Notes.pdf. Note that Nachmonides’ 10 dimensions are referred to on page 17 and in the Bibliography at the end (p. 27) Maimonides' The Guide for the Perplexed and Nachmanides' Commentary on the Torah are both cited as sources.
45. Ibid, p. 22-23.
46. The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 46. Bold added.
47. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
48. Ibid, p. 177.
49. Ibid, p. 180, citing the research of neuroscientist Karl Pribram, worked alongside Thomas Kuhn at Stanford. The footnote in The Aquarian Conspiracy on p. 178 says that Pribram "worked on his landmark book, Languages of the Brain, in an office next door to Thomas Kuhn, who was writing The Structure of Scientific Revolutions."
50. Ibid, p. 180.
51. Ibid. p. 180-181.
52. Ibid, p. 183.
53. A few years ago we posted many articles on Herescope about this concept of “rethinking.” Warren Smith wrote much of these posts. See, for example, http://herescope.blogspot.com/2007/11/oprah-and-friends-to-teach-course-on.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2007/11/what-is-rethinking.html
54. Ibid, p. 182.
55. A Course in Miracles, Manual for Teachers (Foundation for Inner Peace, 1992) p. 85 [emphasis added]. This was at the top of the Herescope post on 11/14/07, “What is ‘Rethinking’?” I am grateful to Warren Smith for alerting me to the fact that quantum spirituality always leads to this type of New Age heresy.
56. This quote can be found in Chuck Missler, “Quantum Physics: The Boundaries of Reality,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/62/ and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
57. The Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 172-173. This fact is also documented at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr and later in this review with a quote by Capra and a graphic. See Exhibits in this post.
58. Chuck Missler, “Quantum Physics: The Boundaries of Reality,” 1998, http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/62/
59. Tom Siegfried, “When the atom went quantum,” Science News (Vol, 184, #1), July 13, 2013, p. 23. Also posted online: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/351277/description/When_the_atom_went_quantum
60. Ibid, but the author wrote” But Bohr didn’t speak of it in that way, says philosopher of science Don Howard of the University of Notre Dame.” Page 23. Nevertheless, see Capra's quote later in this review.
61. Ibid, p. 24.
62. Ibid, p. 23. The “Explore More” at the end of the magazine article states: “Heilbron lecture: http://bit.ly/SN_bohr
63. Chuck Missler, “A Holographic Universe?” Featured Briefing, Koinonia House, http://www.khouse.org/articles/2012/1086/. Gaylene Goodroad included this quote in her article on Herescope: http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/05/quantum-mysticism-in-church.html. This quote is also found here: http://www.ucbdirect.com.au/items/koinonia-house~chuck-missler-/special-collection/11709DVD-detail.htm and http://www.khouse.org.uk/store/product/201/holographic-universe. Note that Missler has continued this theme of a holographic universe over the years.
64. Dr. Francis Schaeffer, Two Contents, Two Realities. This was a “position paper” he sent to the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, 1974 at a time when the evangelical world was beginning to fall into the emerging mindset of eastern mysticism. The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, Volume 3: A Christian View of Spirituality (Crossway, 1982), p. 409.
65. I found a scanned in version of Talbot’s book posted here: http://archive.org/stream/HolographicModelOfTheUniverse/holouni_djvu.txt. The original book was published in 1991 by HarperCollins, and it was recently reissued as HarperPerennial in 2011. The author passed away shortly after the book was published. One place Missler cites Pribram is here: http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/229/
66. Gaylene Goodroad pointed out to me that portions of Missler’s Cosmic Codes are pulled straight out of Talbot’s book without proper attribution.
67. The Holographic Universe, “Acknowledgements.” Talbot says that his chapter 2 “is actually just a slight rephrasing of the words Ferguson uses to summarize” about Bohm and Pribram’s conclusions.
68. Ibid, p. 46.
69. Ibid. p. 54. Italics in original.
70. Ibid. p. 55. Italics in original.
71. See footnotes 60-61. More will be written on this topic later.
72. The Holographic Universe, p. 284-5. Talbot is borrowing heavily from Carl Jung for his ideas that our dreams and our psyches create reality. But he extends it to all of the cosmos. In this section he is attempting to explain UFOs as both real and an illusion we create by our collective unconscious.
73. See Part 1 of this review on Herescope for an explanation, http://herescope.blogspot.com/2013/06/alien-encounters.html
74. Published by Intersystems Publications, 1980. I spoke about Holonomy at several Discernment Ministries conferences in 1997 and 1999 when describing the formation of the cell church model.
75. Note the connection to Stanford again, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Advanced_Study_in_the_Behavioral_Sciences
76. Holonomy, p. 46, quoting Fritjof Capra’s 1975 Tao of Physics, p. 160.
77. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (Shambhala, 2010), p. 160.
78. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Krishnamurti
79. http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Time-Dialogue-J-Krishnamurti/dp/0060647965/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375145308&sr=1-7&keywords=David+Bohm
80. Marcia Montenegro’s Notes, July 2012, reviewing The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge, “a Zen Buddhist and New Ager,” who has had considerable influence on the formation of the Emergent Church movement. Senge was quoting Bohm on page 222. See: https://m.facebook.com/note.php?refid=52¬e_id=10150999855393468 which was republished and revised as “Peter Senge: A New Church Shaman?”, January 2013, http://christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_PeterSenge.html#top See also: http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/community/system-theory.htm.
81. Ibid. We wrote about Peter Senge's influence on the formation of the Emergent Church movement on Herescope at: http://herescope.blogspot.com/2005/10/christian-leaders-go-on-expedition.html and http://herescope.blogspot.com/2010/06/other-side-of-emergent.html
82. “Review of Chuck Missler at the Red River Prophecy Conference by Pastor Glenn A. Knudson,” Apostasy Alert on Rapture Ready Radio, March 17, 2012. http://rrrapostasyalert.blogspot.com/2012/03/review-of-chuck-missler-at-red-river.html
Exhibits:
Figure 1: Painter David Rakia's "Otot" (literally signs/letters), oil on canvas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rakia-letters.jpg Kabbalistic painting of the supernal illumination of Hebrew letters in Creation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah
Figure 2: Wall painting of Rabbi Moses ben Nachman , at the wall of Akko's Auditorium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nahmanides_painting.jpg. Cropped from File:Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (Nahmanides) - Wall painting in Acre, Israel
Figure 3: Neils Bohr's yin-yang coat of arms as depicted on page 144 of Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (Shambhala, 2010), p. 144.
Figure 4: Neils Bohr’s yin-yang coat of arms as depicted on page 46 of Holonomy. It is presented as FIGURE 5.1 on page 46, stating “Bohr’s Heraldry. Coat-of-arms of Niels Bohr, showing his choice of the t’ai’chi symbol for complementarity (Capra, 1975, p. 144).”
posted by Discernment Research Group @ 7/30/2013 06:09:00 PM
