Risen Mayonnaise

[Originally posted 10/10/2010]

My relationship with Tim, after his transition, has been going for more than two decades — much longer than the time we spent together before his transition; and probably quite a bit more than most relationships on Earth these days. Many things happened in these past years between us that can scarcely be believed, and our book attempts to capture just a tiny bit of some of those events, interweaving them with the deeper implications. These happenings were brand new to me, and I had little solid footing to understand them, or explain them to someone else. As I strove to wrap my mind around those alien things and comprehend them, I was brought into contact with ideas that often made little sense, if any. Much didn't seem to have any connection to language that I used, or to any language at all, so I often ended up not explaining it, which would have helped my learning process.

Tim, as well as our spirit guides and Risen mentors, worked with me in various astral geographies while my material body slept, and I would awake with much more understanding and insight, instilled directly into my mind. As well, they orchestrated incredible amounts of material into my terrestrial sphere, mostly in the form of books. The books, being terrestrial themselves, often fell short at truly explaining what they were trying to say, but they still stimulated me and reinforced much of the astral learning. All this was a long and arduous process. Much of the astral learning involved direct experiences, where I would be immersed in actual events that demonstrated certain spiritual concepts and which required me to make decisions and take action. This still goes on, and there are days when I awaken back into my earthly life much more tired than when I left it the night before. 

Our bodies sleep not because they need rest, but because our spirits need a break from the heavy, gravity-laden principles of earthly physics and psychology that weigh them down. Once out of these bodies, we are free to fly and move, think and feel in ways rarely possible while in the terrestrial waking state. Upon return, we feel refreshed and energized. But if we've been working overtime and going to night classes in the astral, most likely we'll feel quite tired upon reentering the body. One of Tim's many activities is a kind of "archeological explorer" — involving exploration and observation while traveling into spirit dimensions that are relatively or completely unknown to the scientific team he works with on the moon-planet, "Borrowed From Angels." Tim has indicated that even as Risen, he needs rest at times, although for different reasons than ours on Earth, and that after particularly "long and distant travels" to these spirit geographies, he is required to take some R&R. (Interestingly, many Risen take their vacations in particular diakkan geographies, which are known for their immense physical and intellectual beauties.)

"Long and distant" are two particular words that we on Earth understand and seldom question, and are the best and only ones that can possibly be used here to convey, in a very, very loose way, what Tim means. But paradoxically, and simultaneously, they're not at all right; in fact, they're completely wrong, for what we know and experience as time and space are reflections of what the Risen know — meaning almost the opposite, like the reflection in a mirror. This gives much to ponder when considering the adage, "as above, so below." This paradox is mentioned in the book:

“Your geography is usually described on earth as an experience of Space-Time. Space appears to stand still while events are perceived to change by passing through it in a linear, timely way, manifesting impressions of past, present and future. Conversely, the Risen geography could be said to be an experience of Time-Space. Time appears to stand still, while space appears to change as I move through it. Just like on Earth—and a few of your scientists are beginning to grasp this—the Risen interpret and utilize these appearances, which are really just thoughts, as movement or modes of transportation. All time events are occurring simultaneously, reflecting the Risen understanding that Creation is finished and always available for manifested exploration. Space-Time and Time-Space, and other combinations of light and sound are the mediums of exploration, the finger paints of the cosmic playroom. You, the Yet-To-Rise, can and do experience Risen Time-Space via spiritual events and realizations, and states of altered consciousness—which also include pain and suffering." (p. 108)

Because of my own deep immersion over many years into Risen life and its innumerable variations of culture, beliefs, even rituals, it's been of vital necessity for me to be able to retain enough comprehension of at least some of it in order to maintain a healthy mind-body balance while still embodied in this current physical form. Otherwise, it would be like psychological oil and water trying to both occupy the same space, and the insolubility of the two would likely result in me not only sounding crazy, but possibly feeling and appearing crazy to others. Indeed, it's clear from my work as a psychotherapist that many people have obtained higher spiritual concepts though various ways, means, and agendas, but their actual  inability to understand them in ways sufficient to integrate them into their lives causes anxiety, stress, fear, and panic. It's fascinating to see that works such as Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy presents just this type of situation, over and over, in terms of dealing with being unable to integrate alien ideas and behavior, giving rise to its notable injunction, "DON'T PANIC." Exactly what we recommend in The Risen.

I feel it's important to share that many of the fairly intense books and other documents brought to me by Tim and other spirit friends — besides the deeply metaphysical ones — are strictly scientific writings, and fairly intense ones about current biology, genetics, and quantum mechanics. Like the many and various psychotherapy models, all use their own language, but most are not that hard to grasp, even the ones about DNA which require a good grasp of biochemistry. Many of these books prepared me for those that sought to integrate certain concepts, such as the complex work by Stephen Meyer, Signature in the Cell. *

But it's the ones about quantum physics that bring truly alien ideas to the table, ideas that are the most resonate with the worlds and lives of the Risen. Yet even the popular books for the lay person, such as those of Amit Goswami's, which seek to present these ideas in digestible mixtures of metaphysics with empirical sciences, largely fail to do so. Unfortunately, they end up making the authors sounding just a little meshugga.  This is not to say that Dr. Goswami doesn't know what he's talking about, or might be one electron short of a photon, but that it's extremely difficult to make the numinous luminous. And he's not the first scientist to try to do this. Other scientific disciplines have had their own prophets who sought to mix oil and water — Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality, for example, where he suggests things like, "Creativity is the principle of novelty. Creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many, which are the universe disjunctively. The ultimate metaphysical principle is the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The novel entity is at once the togetherness of the 'many' which it finds and also it is one among the disjunctive ' many' which it leaves; it is a novel entity, disjunctively among the many entities which it synthesizes. The many become one, and are increased by one." (p. 26)

We have had our best chances of connecting with such luminosity in the works of the metaphysical poets, such as William Blake, who even draws picture to help us grasp the basics of the basically incomprehensible. Our own bodies can easily emulsify larger molecues in the intestines with acids as a first step in digestion, but trying to mix oil and water with our minds is an entirely different thing. Maybe rather than trying to find a Theory of Everything, the next Nobel Prize should go to the one that can come up with the perfect recipe for Risen Mayonnaise.

As a next step in my education, the Risen recently brought into my terrestrial world a special home course on DVD:  Quantum Mechanics: The Physics of the Microscopic World, a series of 24 lectures by Professor Benjamin Schumacher of The University of Texas. I recently finished what Dr. Schumacher considers the most difficult lecture, "States, Amplitudes, and Properties" which set my mouth to yawning but my mind to spinning — probably foreshadowing the next lecture, "Particles That Spin." Am I a geek or a freak, or what?

In this last lecture Dr. Schumacher introduced what he called "quantumese" — a new language that will be used to discuss the detailed workings of the submicroscopic worlds. And not just any language, but an abstract language. Because apparently there are no words in the macroscopic world that are useful for what goes on in the quantum world.  He even said, in plain language, that "even if you don't understand much of this — and you probably won't — don't worry about it."  – i.e., DON'T PANIC.  How can I panic when I don't know what I'm panicking about?

Here's the most significant realization (and possibly only one) that came to me during this presentation. I realized that, from the way it was being presented, it was impossible to tell if this language had been invented to describe and discuss things that had already been observed, or if it it had been invented to talk about ideas that had occurred in the physicists' minds but that they had yet to observe, and wanted to have handy in case they actually observed these things, should they happen. There was the very strange and spooky sense that this abstract language had been invented with the hope that using it will somehow make quantum reality visible, comprehensible, and real to the macroscopic mind. That first they think about it, which then causes something that doesn't exist, to manifest. It would appear that quantum physicists are uncovering the spiritual properties of existence long known to ancient spiritual systems: that we manifest our world, and not the other way around. (See Robert Lanza's Biocentrism for another modern scientific disciplinary presentation about this.) I, August, have uncovered some things through my own mediumistic experiences, and it appears that many other people have also, or are beginning to. The Risen seeks to support and help validate those kinds of experiences.

And here is the same dilemma we have when it comes to presenting and talking about the Risen and the worlds-within-worlds existence they lead.  One of the many agendas of the book, The Risen, is to begin the process of introducing new language fit for the 21st century mind, or at the very least, to introduce the idea that new language is necessary, without coming across as incomprehensibly nutty. This includes using already known words and ideas but with new definitions. It might therefore be noticed that although the book appears to do this in some small but powerful ways, it really strives to stimulate the reader to take hold of their own experience — via Authentic Self — and discover, or even invent, their own language, which is the precursor towards the manifestation of a new culture, complete with concepts, beliefs, behaviors, and even rituals of reinforcement. The very abstracting nature of such hyper-personal, intimate self-discoveries draws the explorer deeper and deeper into what could be described as a super-submicroscopic metaphysical experience, and one of such exquisite self-intimacy that it seems to paradoxically make one feel even more included as a conscious aspect of one's universe, while feeling excluded from the aspects of the consensual reality universe. What this means, in plain mayo, is that one has begun to move — to transition — from the Great Wheel of Unconscious Material Existence to totally new ways of conscious existence via the Great Spiral of Novelty.

 
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* Lest anyone get the wrong impression, I don't sit around and discuss and debate the masses of information I've ingested from my multi-discipline reading with therapist and medium comrades at the local cafe; this information is what I bring with me into the astral to assist me in my Astral Physics for Dummies classes, and my ongoing discussions with Tim and other Risen while in the waking state; although some of it has begun to find space in recent radio and magazine interviews about The Risen book. But I do manage to consume a lot of coffee anyway.