by Ronald D Pearson [Web Pages:Pearsonian Space]
What became clear at the very first meeting was that those attending could be divided into two mutually antagonistic "camps" separated by a group of interested but uncommitted "neutrals".
In the larger camp were committed materialistic "scientists" who dismissed out of hand all accounts of paranormal experiences for which no convincing scientific (or, as they called it "rational") explanation was available. In the other camp were a smaller number of "sensitives" or "psychics" who had no doubt of the reality of certain varieties of "unscientific" phenomena which they had themselves experienced and which a still smaller minority claimed could reliably be reproduced by the application of certain mental rules and/or ritual practices. In the middle ground between the camps were those who claimed no personal experience of "the paranormal" but were prepared to consider the validity of phenomena for which convincing anecdotal evidence was available — particularly if statistical support could be adduced.
At one of these "Mensa at Malvern" meetings, your editor had the privilege of meeting Ron Pearson, the author of several books on topics of interest to anyone concerned with reconciling the physical with the psychological sciences. He is grateful to Ron for permission to compile this lecture using extracts from two booklets, The Colossus and Origin of Mind, obtained from Ron at one of the above meetings.
At the time, Ron was a lone voice crying in the wilderness. He attributed scientific scepticism regarding "the paranormal" to the Establishment's abandonment of the idea of a physical "Ether".
In 1887 Michelson and Morley tried to find the speed of the Earth through the Ether by measuring the variation they expected to find in the speed of light as it travelled "with" and "against" the Ether wind, but they obtained a zero result. This encouraged Einstein to assume that space was a vacuum, that the speed of light in a vacuum was constant, and that nothing could travel faster than light. He opined that no "Ether wind" would ever be found. His theory of gravitation called "General Relativity" relied on the curious idea of a "curved space-time" — an idea which most people still find counter-intuitive.
Ron had several points of disagreement with Einstein who, on his 70th birthday, is reported to have told a friend: "Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction... But there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all."
Working on the basis of Newton's theory of gravitation, Ron reinstated the ether. He proposed that light propagates relative to local space and that space is not vacuous but acts as a compressible fluid. He deduced that information was no longer prohibited from travelling faster than light. [This month (Nov, 2011) CERN scientists reported that tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos had been found to break Einstein's universal speed limit. — Ed.]
For several years now, "blind faith" in Einstein has been eroding and the realisation has been dawning that relativity theory, which concerns the very large cosmic scale, is incompatible with the rapidly developing quantum theory which concerns the very small scale of the interior of the atomic nucleus. Physical science is still incomplete, and a more holistic theory is gradually taking shape.
What follows is a condensation of Ron's two pamphlets — as far as possible using Ron's own words.
As I swotted one day at my books in a room at the college, a strange feeling suddenly came over me. For no reason I could put my finger on I needed to go to the town library about a mile away. Not for the life of me could I reason out why I needed to go; yet go I must. The feeling was so strong that, despite the shortage of time and my very real need to study, I just packed my bags and went. I was short of time because I had foolishly spent far too much on building my model.
On entering the library, my eyes immediately focused on, to me, a new journal called The Oil Engine and Gas Turbine. I picked it up and opened it in a random way. On the very page at which the journal opened, I was immediately struck by a heading: Pressure Exchanger for Locomotive Gas Turbine. "What a good name that would have been for my invention", thought I. I read on, and to any observer my face must have seemed to grow longer and longer. The article was indeed a very good description of my own idea. Worse still, it was clearly more advanced than the model I had built.
Until then I had prided myself on being something of a pioneer and this was more than just upsetting. I felt in a state of total shock. My dedication to the whole thing instantly evaporated. I felt numb and despondent — in fact desolated. But the incident raises a puzzling question. How was it that I homed in on this article without prior knowledge of its existence?
Many rationalists will put it down to coincidence but I know this will not do. Coincidence cannot account for the sudden irresistible urge I experienced. It was as though something inside me or outside me directed me on to this unknown target. It was information I needed to have, no matter how unpleasant the reaction would be at the time.
For years I puzzled over the question, but as time went by I more or less dismissed the incident. It did not fit into the scientific framework I had been trained to accept.
Many years were to elapse before anything like this recurred. Then in 1977 the same thing happened several times in the course of a few weeks as I desperately tried to meet a deadline. I was preparing material for The Energy Show to be held at Olympia in London. On each occasion I found material I urgently need by picking out books and opening them at random after logically conducted searches had failed.
On other occasions I have been introduced to people having the means to support innovative projects. And sometimes I have immediately experienced a horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach making me want to run away. Being unable to fault any logic or see any justification for this unpleasant feeling, I have each time repressed and ignored this "gut reaction". And each time I have ultimately come unstuck. I once found myself doing business with the Mafia and had to back off pretty sharply! Something has always happened in the end which totally justified the ringing of a warning bell.
How can anyone account for such premonitions? It does look as if the elusive paranormal cannot just be dismissed. I certainly cannot casually dismiss these and other paranormal experiences which I shall relate because they were my personal experiences.
"Few subjects infuriate scientists, physical scientists in particular, more than claims of "paranormal" events such as spoon bending, levitation, and communication with the dead.
"They are resented because, if confirmed, the whole fabric of science would be threatened.... Sceptical committees have been set up to investigate such events and they almost invariably conclude that the claim in question is a fake."
In New Scientist dated 8/8/92, an article by Peter Atkins uses the concepts of Establishment physics to prove that spirit cannot exist. He refers to "the truth of the absence of soul and the ultimate insignificance of all human activity."
One might imagine that the second of the above quotations would raise the hackles of the Established Churches and galvanise them into supporting their own versions of "the paranormal"; but they remain passive. At one meeting of MatM, the Dean of a famous old cathedral revealed that his faith did not encompass the possibility of life apart from a physical body.
Yet despite such scepticism, reports persistently appear of paranormal phenomena which, if true, would contradict this dogmatic science of the Establishment and many of the dogmas of the Church. Why are so many people so negative on such aspects when so many sensitive people just know they are real?
It is an axiom of good science that all possible solutions must be followed until alternatives one by one drop out as they meet insurmountable barriers. Science is also claimed to thrive on constructive criticism. As your studies of "New Physics" deepen, you will come across quite a number of internal contradictions which the student is expected to take on board as if they were reasonable or acceptable. They should, however, be appraised critically and then compared with the alternatives. I shall summarise. I do not ask that my solution be accepted without critical analysis.
Appearances are deceptive, for what look and feel solid and rigid like bars of iron are not solid or rigid at all when viewed on a sub-microscopic range of scales.
We could take a bar of iron and cut it in two. We could go on doing this repeatedly until we had nothing left but tiny pieces of iron. But this cannot go on indefinitely because the next division would destroy the last bit of iron and turn it into two different "elements". As first recognised by the ancient Greeks, the smallest particle would in this case be an atom of iron.
These particles can be imagined as tiny spinning balls, minute even compared with the size of atoms. They are the protons and neutrons which bind tightly together to form the compact atomic nucleus and the electrons which move around this nucleus in a formation which defines the atom's size and shape. The electrons do not touch one another or the nucleus in order to form a rigid structure: instead, they interact by forces transmitted through what appears to us as empty space.
The orbital, which sometimes has protruding lobes, defines the size and shape of any atom. It arises from a negative electric charge carried by each electron and a charge of positive electricity carried by the protons pulling the electrons toward the nucleus to maintain the atomic structure.
Although nobody has ever reconciled this with the accepted idea of a permanent electron, Schrödinger's model fits the facts perfectly and shows how atoms form up into the ball or lobe shapes they need to be. These shapes are the diffuse clouds made by smeared-out electrons. The model also predicts the way atoms can stick to other atoms to make up so-called "molecules". Thus it explains the basis of chemistry.
The orbital is huge compared with the size of an electron. Electrons have proved to be tiny objects spinning as they travel. They can be severed from their parent atoms and made to travel independently. Many millions can move together to create electron beams. Indeed, television pictures are formed by such beams. Yet electrons cannot be smeared out and simultaneously continue to act as tiny spinning tops.
So what does all this mean? Here we make our first departure from established physics.
While it lives, it behaves like a little spinning top as it flies along. Then it suddenly collapses and vanishes, decaying to its primordial substance, energy, the stuff from which everything in the Universe is made.
This energy is exactly conserved, being then used for the creation of a replica particle — though not necessarily in the same place! So the electron is permanent in that it is made from a permanent bit of ebergy, but it exists as a sequence of reconstructions joined end to end in time but not in position. The sub-atomic particle seems to jump about at random, though confined within certain limits of space instead of sticking in one place or travelling like a cricket ball.
So at sub-atomic scales, there is an inbuilt uncertainty in the positions of particles. Only a volume of space can be defined in which they can be found jumping about at random. The places where new construction is allowed seems to be determined by some kind of computing system which needs to permeate all space, using a set of mathematical rules which physicists have already worked out by matching up with experimental observations. Schrödinger's equations for the atom based on "wave interference patterns" show how these fit.
An atom of hydrogen is easiest to think about because it is the simplest. If we could photograph a hydrogen atom with a very short exposure time, we would see a dot representing the single proton forming its nucleus and, some distance away, a short arc would appear. This arc represents the single electron moving a short distance in the time available.
But then, with increased exposure time, instead of seeing an increase in the length of this arc (as would be expected for a permanent electron) two short arcs would be seen in different places — though within the space allowed by the orbital. With further increase in exposure time, two, then three, then four ... and then dozens of little arcs would appear in locations randomly distributed within this little ball of space. Ultimately, the exposure time can be increased until it is equal to the time it would take for a permanent electron to make a single orbit around the nucleus. Then as many as 250,000 little arcs would be seen!
In fact there are now so many that the effect is to create the diffuse ball of charge described by Schrödinger: yet at each manifestation there is present only a single tiny spinning object of matter and electric charge. This seems to be the only way in which such a minute object could produce the effect of a relatively huge diffused cloud.
Also, an independently flying electron can sometimes be confronted with alternative routes. For example, there could be a number of holes in a screen. If any occurrence of an electron goes through a hole, it seems to have gone through all the holes at once and subsequently appears to travel along all available routes simultaneously.
This fits in with what we have already deduced. The occurrences keep jumping about at random from any one alternative path to any of the others as they move in a general forward direction away from the holes. They do not, however, form a shadow pattern of waves if they are ultimately caught upon a screen.
Experiments show that a pattern of waves is associated with every type of sub-atomic particle and these patterns in some way specify the paths along which travel is permitted. These are "interference patterns" similar to the cross-over region of ripples on a pond formed when two pebbles are dropped in together.
If this is not very clear, then FIG. 1 illustrating Young's famous two slit experiment should help clarify matters. Thomas Young [1773-1829. English physicist. — Ed.] used a beam of light. Now light consists of another kind of sub-atomic particle called a "photon", but it does not matter because it has been discovered that all sub-atomic particles move as if controlled by a wave plan. The light beam can be imagined turned down so low that only one photon travels at a time.
The illustration is an over-simplification showing only five alternate bands of thick lines. So in this case there are five alternate routes that could be numbered one to five. It is as if at each collapse of a particle, a die with five faces is thrown. The next band is chosen by matching the number found at random with the number allocated to each band. The position of the reconstructed particle on the chosen band will be a little further from the slits each time as specified by wave travel in the time available. Eventually, the photon collides with the screen to make a little dot. It could be made to leave a permanent record if the screen were a sensitised film.
Then as other photons follow, similarly dodging about sideways at random, a pattern of speckles would build up until finally five bands of light would be observed forming an interference pattern on the screen. In reality, there would be many more than five alternate positions for each re-construction because the position on each band is also chosen at random.
This peculiar phenomenon is known as "wave-particle duality" because sometimes a wave nature and at other times a particle nature seems to apply. If this new explanation seems complex, bizarre, and implausible, then you need to make comparison with solutions which physics has already accepted as reasonable.
So he postulates that the electron is copied. But since we see only one, the other has to exist in another universe. This then involves the entire universe being instantly copied! So new universes are created whenever an electron is faced with choices of alternative path. This is happening for every electron in the universe faced with such a choice. According to this, countless billions of universes, all interpenetrating one another, need to be created every second, and this is said to have been going on for billions of years since the so-called "Big Bang".
Everett and his supporters, like the famous physicist Professor Wheeler [John Archibald Wheeler, 1911 – 2008, American theoretical physicist. — Ed], say that this means an infinity of matter systems has to be accepted. So every star and planet has an infinity of copies all in the same places!
Physicists therefore already accept the feasibility of other systems of matter interpenetrating our own. Yet paradoxically they make no mention of a spiritual world in support of religious belief. They are halfway there but avoid this connection. Why?
Furthermore, no realistic explanation of the paranormal is offered.
The model also fails to explain how the shapes of atoms can be related to electrons, which have been treated as permanent objects. They would have to move in circles!
This again results in paradox. According to Wheeler, the observer is elevated to the status of a "participator", because without the act of observation the so-called "wave function" cannot collapse into reality. Wheeler then goes on to conclude that in some sense a quaser is created billions of years in the past by an astronomer just looking at it!
Furthermore the electron will have to exist as a wave spread out to fill the orbital of an atom. Then it could not exhibit the charge on which Schrödinger's wave models depend! Nor could it exhibit the spin which is also an inherent part of the quantum description of the atom. Without spin, the atom would not work.
It can best be envisaged as a grid of filaments pointing in all directions and criss-crossing one another to form the switches on which all computers depend. Sufficient open space needs to exist between filaments to permit the fluid of tiny generated particles to flow as if having an independent existence.
The facts show that energy must be peculiar stuff. It must obey the known laws of physics whilst flying along built into the form of particles — which means it cannot then move faster than light. In its disorganised state, however, it has to be absorbed by the grid and must then be able to move at least 10,000 times faster than light. Without this extra mobility, particles could not appear to jump about fast enough.
Indeed the new insight from physics allows our bodies to be composites carrying duplicates made from companion matter. It is therefore conceivable that the consciousness or soul could exist separately from our bodies and brains. It is said that other matter systems could exist built of waves and tuned to frequencies higher than ours. This again fits the new picture — except that these waves are now only abstract quantities. They are the numbers used by the grid in its computations to specify where sub-atomic particles of each inter-penetrating matter system are to be created or extinguished.
Hence the new approach is homing in on support for the basic tenets of all the faiths man has nurtured since antiquity.
Examples:
After a sensitive, Victor Isles, had read me a most convincing history by holding my watch, he handed me a medallion. Then he asked me to see if I could tell him anything. To my astonishment, my hand went stiff and painful. He then told me he has rheumatoid arthritis in both hands! To me, this was especially exciting because it provided valuable insight into, and confirmation of, the new theory.
Sand reading is another form of psychometry in which memories seem to be transferred instantly from a person to the sand. One person from a group pushes a hand into sand to make an imprint while the sensitive is prevented from seeing whose hand is used. Then the sensitive reads the sand. I have seen this done many times with consistently impressive results. The messages read out have always had a special meaning exclusive to the person concerned.
There just has to be a scientific explanation for such strange phenomena. Again, the grid concept comes to the rescue; but now psychometry can be used as data input to provide more information about the mind itself.
Instead, the mind just has to be a part of the switching pattern of the grid itself. The brain can only be an interfacing link to enable the muscles of the body to be operated and to process information received from the sense organs for transfer to the mind. So again the new theory supports the idea of a separate consciousness which would be able to survive physical death.
Any small object can be suspended on a thread or chain about five inches long. Hold the thread or chain between the thumb and two fingers. Ask the object to say "Yes" and then "No". If the holder is insensitive, nothing happens. If the holder is sensitive, the pendulum will start to move. The bob will rotate or swing in such a way as to clearly distinguish between its answers to the two questions. Then by repeated questioning, lost objects can be located.
For the experiment we are going to think about, two people need to be selected by use of the pendulum method just described. One can be quite insensitive (usually male) but the other must be very sensitive (usually female).
The insensitive holding the pendulum sits in front of his partner and the latter sits behind holding nothing. Then the sensitive asks the questions mentally without saying a word and imagines the pendulum moving as desired. In tests we have carried out, the insensitive has been amazed to discover the pendulum moving without apparent cause and in exactly the manner programmed by the sensitive. This demonstrates the interconnectedness of minds.
A huge single Mind existed in the beginning as a switching pattern of the grid. How this arose cannot yet be ascertained. This Mind had nothing with which to interact, and so decided to split parts of itself into myriads of sub-minds. These would then potentially be able to gain some form of experience by mutual interaction.
Each sub-mind was enclosed by a filter-barrier to block access to data from the rest of the grid, thereby eliminating direct communication between sub-minds. The barriers would act in one direction only, preventing inflow but allowing information to flow out into the grid so that the whole, forming a collective sub-conscious mind, could be enriched. (Psychometry would not be possible unless information could flow out from minds and be stored in adjacent matter.)
Then a system of matter needed to be created to which each sub-mind could be connected. Such matter had to be so contrived as to permit it to operate with apparent independence of the supporting grid. Hence uncertainty had to be built into the structure of atoms. The only route for access of data to each sub-mind had to come through special sense organs made from matter. A brain structure had to be incorporated to interface between mind and body so that the body could be operated and process incoming data. In this way the contrived illusion of a Universe looking real and solid could be made convincing. If too much data could leak into each sub-mind from the rest of the grid, the illusion would be destroyed.
The object was to force each sub-mind into situations where it would develop by a combination of competition and co-operation with other sub-minds. Each would be cut off from the realisation of being part of a single entity. Each living body would be allocated a finite lifetime of some optimum length so that sub-minds would not be permanently locked into any particular frame.
The illusion might be altogether too convincing if the duration of life in the body should appear to be the full story, because the resulting despair would be counter-productive. Hence a small deliberate leak had to be incorporated in the filter-barrier to provide a glimpse of what lies beyond the body. This leak would be greater for some individuals than for others. Hence the relatively small number of people possessing enhanced psychic powers.
But this means that an enlightened physics needs first to be accepted, and communication is presently being restricted by The Establishment. For instance, consider the Equinox programme shown on Channel 4 TV on Sunday, 18 November, 1990 in which spiritual and paranormal evidence was dismissed as "coincidence" or "false interpretation" by both James Randi (a conjuror/magician) and Susan Blackmore (a psychologist). Their idea of a "rational explanation" assumes that only things which do not appear to conflict with physics can possibly exist. But the material for the programme was carefully selected. Those parts of the paranormal they could not explain were simply avoided. Anybody who studies the subject objectively soon finds that the really difficult questions cannot be answered their way. The psyche cannot be bound by the the partial derivatives of an incomplete physics which recognises only tangible material.
Yet they do co-operate! In Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time, he relates how the Pope invited some physicists to the Vatican to give theologians some lectures about the "New Physics". Then the Pope gave them a lecture. He told then just how far they could go before they entered theological territory. Hawking shows great concern because he felt that he might have trespassed already! So this was not a meeting for actual education. It was a political debate in which they carved up the available territory and shared it between themselves.
Please understand that I am not trying to discredit the Church. I merely seek to remove barriers so that it can flourish. Surely science snd religion should be mutually supportive of a common truth conveying to different compartments of the mind different aspects of the same thing — the physical and the emotional sides. If it is necessary to carve up the territory into opposing camps, then something must be wrong.
All religions need to be able to evolve. As long as people are primitive, only simple explanations of reality can be advanced because otherwise they would not be understood. It would be useless to describe the grid as a computing system to people who did not even know arithmetic! So as scientific advance is made, the information about reality imparted to the masses can move further toward the truth.
But a materialistic physics has locked the Church into a medieval view from which it does not seem able to escape. Pity the poor Vicar-to-be when he finds out about Nicea half-way through his theological course! [He/she will feel even worse after reading Barbara Thiering's books, Jesus the Man and Jesus of the Apocalypse. — Ed.]
Vicars are good people: they have to be if drawn to serve as they are. But they are faced with the need to cover up the truth if they are to keep to the rules laid down for them. It must be an acutely embarrassing situation.
Constantine, a tough and ruthless dictator in about 300 CE, was faced with a problem. About 150 different Christian sects were fighting against one another and threatening to pull the Roman Empire apart. So he gathered all the leaders together and forced them to come up with a single Creed which all would be forced to observe. Not surprisingly, many false ideas were incorporated for political reasons which had absolutely nothing to do with the truth. The crime of heresy was made punishable by torture to ensure unity of belief. As a result, the Church has ever since been stuck with things it would very much like to discard. But it cannot move as long as it is supported only by belief and faith counterpoised by a materialistic physics. Anything discarded in such circumstances might endanger the entire credibility of the Church.
Let us be clear. We are not trying to topple the whole of physics. Most of it is perfectly correct and sensible. We must target these parts which, largely as a result of an unfortunate history of opposition by the Church, have locked physics into materialism.
There is much in the church's teachings with which we have no quarrel. Perhaps, given a little persuasion, many in the Church might even support us. After all, the interests of the Church would be served by eliminating materialism if only they could see this. Only a restoration of spiritual values supported by a sound physical and psychological science can reverse the worldwide obsession with Mammon which is undermining the twin pillars of economy and morality on which civilisation ultimately depends.
That Colossus has now been undermined by the Internet and the World Wide Web. You and I and everybody else with access to such means are empowered as never before to cast light into dark corners and initiate the efforts necessary to clean them out. Nothing can stop us but lack of creative will.