The questions about how our beliefs may shape our reality are among the most significant in all of consciousness research. And so it is that many seekers step outside of the “standard religionsᾠ and begin to seek the “truthᾠ of the ways and means of Ascension.
As noted, “Ascensionᾠ is discussed widely in books, articles, on the Internet, in classes and workshops, and other media. The general trend of ideas expressed includes the search for the “one thing that will transform your life.ᾠ
Various “techniquesᾠ are advertised which promise to provide stress relief and even the “key to the highest levels of human consciousness.ᾠ The shopper in the market of ascension “toolsᾠ is told that they can now make a choice to “swiftly and easily free the nervous system from stress, enjoy maximum creativity, clarity and health, experience inner peace, fulfillment and joy,ᾠ and of course, change one’s self-limiting beliefs.
Another perspective on “ascensionᾠ tells us that ascension is “the way to integrate all portions of your self in a conscious way.ᾠ The seeker is told that he or she is a “multi-dimensional being who seeded portions of itself into the physical realityᾠ and that fully “remembering who you areᾠ is the act of integration and the “removal of the veil of time, identities and separateness in yourself.ᾠ What, precisely, the result will be—other than being “healthy, wealthy and wiseᾠ—is not clear.
As we read further in the available literature, we discover other ideas. One “expertᾠ on the subject tells us that this thing called “ascensionsᾠ was only achieved in the past upon dying, and that now people can do it and take their physical body with them. He suggests that spirituality is so advanced in the present age that souls can graduate more quickly. It is as though he is suggesting a “grading curveᾠ has been instituted so that the requirements are lessened. Either that, or he hasn’t been paying much attention to what is going on “out there.ᾠ
The evidence of “advanced spirituality“ in our world is severely lacking in spite of the New Age claims that “light workers“ can “help bring forth the ascension for the masses before physical death, before totally wearing out the physical body in resistance to evolution. Much more energy can be expended on the positive and much less wasted on the negative.ᾠ
Again, we note that objective reality does not support such a claim. If anything, since the inception of the New Age “movement,ᾠ if it can be so called, things have gotten a lot worse.
This leads to another point: it seems that we must accept the objective fact that attempts to change the world spiritually, or to regulate large scale events, simply do not work. Yes, there does seem to be evidence that individuals or small groups of individuals can make small changes or produce effects with a limited range of influence. But for some reason, the world as it is, seems to operate based on rules or laws that we do not understand. The fundamental nature of the physical world seems to be antithetical to this “spiritualization.ᾠ
One recent work that attempts to provide a scientific explanation for this ability to influence the world, Conscious Acts of Creation, tells us:
This book marks a sharp dividing line between old ways of scientific thought and old experimental protocols, wherein human qualities of consciousness, intention, emotion, mind and spirit cannot significantly affect physical reality, and a new paradigm wherein they can robustly do so!
The book, written by three mainstream scientists, goes on to tell us that:
…utilizing a unique experimental protocol on both inanimate and animate systems, that the human quality of focused intention can be made to act as a true thermodynamic potential and strongly influence experimental measurements for a variety of specific target experiments.
After almost 400 pages of math and speculation and descriptions of experiments we are told:
Under some conditions, it is indeed possible to attach an aspect of human consciousness, a specific intention, to a simple electrical device and have that device, when activated, robustly influence an experiment conducted in its vicinity in complete accord with the attached intention. Thus, if they do it right, humans can influence their environment via specific, sustained intentions. […]
Some new field appears to be involved in the information passage that occurs between conditioned locales that are widely separated from each other in physical space. Even with transmitters and receivers located inside electrically grounded Faraday cages, highly correlated patterns of information appeared in the remotely located locales.[…] Although we don’t fully understand them, we now have some new tools with which to probe the deeper structures of the universe and a new adventure is underway for humanity.
It is important to note that the “intendersᾠ of the experiments were long-time practitioners of Siddha Yoga and could thus be considered metaphysically “in tuneᾠ to some considerable extent. The question is: What did they accomplish? Based on the descriptions, it sounds pretty earth shaking, right? Well, as noted, after almost 400 pages we find that the most significant result seems to have been changing the pH of a small sample of water.
Yup. That’s it.
Nevertheless, this is important for the simple reason that they managed to scientifically demonstrate a principle, even if
the overall result was that it was - most often - an iffy proposition and there didn’t seem to be a lot of control. Most results were “statistical“ and this has always been a problem with the “create your own reality“ idea. When all the data is examined, what we generally find is that it is six of one, half dozen of the other.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. What the real rules are, nobody seems to know.
While we all might like to think we can transform our world by praying and/or thinking positively, we must remember that there is a great deal of evidence that real transformations of the planet have repeatedly been cataclysmic. A philosophy, which ignores this fact, is courting disaster.
