Breaking News: Mars Melt May Hint at Solar, not Human, Cause for Global Warming

Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes have a natural--and not a human-induced--cause, according to one scientist's controversial theory. Earth is currently experiencing rapid warming, which the vast majority of climate scientists says is due to humans pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Mars, too, appears to be enjoying more mild and balmy temperatures. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

Abdussamatov believes that changes in the sun's heat output can account for almost all the climate changes we see on both planets. Mars and Earth, for instance, have experienced periodic ice ages throughout their histories. "Man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov said.

By studying fluctuations in the warmth of the sun, Abdussamatov believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

[Editor's Note: This landmark article was initially presented at the First International Congress of Psychotronics in Prague in 1973 and was first printed in the Journal of Psychoenergetic Systems in 1975.]

Since the dawn of time there have been two conflicting explanations for the nature and structure of the world in which we live. Those can be most simply stated as the field and the particle. These two conflicting ideas appear in Greek thought, Democritus stressing the field and Heraclitus the particle. Today, fields are stressed in relativity physics, while particles are emphasized in quantum mechanics.

Throughout history, many attempts have been made to synthesize the field and the particle theory. In current physics, those attempts fall under the name of geometrodynamics (Wheeler, 1959). It is our intent in this article to show how a cross synthesis of particle theory and field theory will shed new light on living processes.

In living systems the excitation of electrons by photons and the subsequent conversion of that excitation into the bond energy is called photosynthesis and is the basic builder of biological structures. The reversal of this process is called bioluminescence. This phenomenon is the transfer of energy from a bond to an excited electron, resulting in the emission of a photon. It has been suggested by Szent-Gyorgyi (1957: 8) that the energetics of living creatures can be understood in terms of photosynthesis and its reversal, bioluminescence.

The formation of a certain type of chemical bond known as the resonance bond (which is most easily seen in the case of the Benzene molecule) leads to a peculiar situation in which certain electrons are freed from a particular location in the molecule. These are then free to travel around the entire molecule. This means that the electrons occupy an energy shell of the whole molecule as opposed to a particular atom in the molecule. The existence of molecular systems with mobile electrons has been found to be of profound significance in the phenomena of life.

Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, which comprise ninety-nine percent of all living systems, are among the atoms in the periodic table which form the multiple bonds most easily leading to mobile electrons. Sulphur and phosphorus, which are extremely important for life processes, also form multiple bonds quite easily.

All the essential biochemical substances, which perform the fundamental functions of living matter, are composed completely or partially of such mobile electrons. Molecules that contain these electrons are known as conjugated systems (Pullman and Pullman, 1963, chapter 18). The essential fluidity of life may correspond with the fluidity of the electronic cloud in conjugated molecules. Such systems may best be considered as both the cradle and the main backbone of life.

Conjugate bonded molecules may interact in a variety of ways. Among these types of interaction can be found the interpenetration of electron orbitals which permits electromagnetic coupling. This coupling can permit activated electron energy to pass from one molecule to another in the same way a radio can transmit a message to a radio receiver. There is also the possibility of the transfer of an entire electron, known as charge transfer.

It is possible for a molecular complex to contain several radicals at different positions on the main molecule, each of which is conjugated. If these are in close enough proximity, or can be brought into proximity by changes in the structural configuration of the molecule, a charge can pass between these two groups. This is the case of the transfer of electron charges on or around a single molecular complex. It has been suggested by Szent-Gyorgyi (1968) that the sugars and phosphates that make up the side of the alpha helix of DNA can permit the passage of electrons, functioning as a conductor.

Biological conduction systems operate primarily on an amorphous semiconductor mode as opposed to resembling metallic conductors (such as the new devices being developed for computer memories). The former do not have sharply defined energy bands in which electrons may flow, as opposed to other bands in which they are bound rigidly. There is a spread or bell-curve in which the points or tails are bound more closely to a particular molecule. The hump indicates a conducting band that permits electrons to flow across the surface of a particular molecule or between molecules (McGinness, 1972).

This means, in essence, that protein molecules, which are composed of amino acid sequences, may act as organic circuits. The amino acids each have a donor group and an acceptor group on opposing ends. This means that a string or series of amino acids could pass a charge along its length as if it were being passed along a series of spines sticking up from the main body of the molecule.

Different pathways could be defined across the surface of a protein molecule by the amino acid radicals projecting from the surface of the protein. The shape of the protein molecules is a function of the charges and the conjugate systems on the radicals that make up the protein. When a protein is manufactured and peels off the ribosome, it immediately assumes a three-dimensional spatial pattern that is directly related to the charges on its surface and the ways in which they interact.

The biological activity or specificity of action of various molecules is intimately related to their structure or their exact three-dimensional spatial configuration. Electronic energy and electrons can move through a protein molecule between its different parts and even pass among different molecules. We now come to understand a possible mechanism for biological regulation involving flows of electrons and transfer of electronic energy between molecules. These can change their shape and thereby change their specific action and activity. The fusion of electron clouds can exist within a conjugated system and among conjugated systems. This can account for cohesion or adherence of such molecules to each other. Such fusion is a very important determinate of the structure of larger aggregates of molecules and portions of living cells, such as membranes.

A liquid crystal in a cell through its own structure becomes a proto-organ for mechanical and electrical activity, and when associated in specialized cells in higher animals gives rise to true organs such as muscles and nerves. The oriented molecules in liquid crystals furnish an ideal medium for catalytic action, particularly the complex type needed for growth and reproduction. A liquid crystal self-structures through singular lines, rods and cones, etc. Such structures belong to the liquid crystal as a unit and not to its molecules which may be replaced by others without destroying them, and they persist in spite of the complete fluidity of the substance (Needham, 1936).

Bernal's statement (1933) would seen to support Burr and Northrop's macro-atomic theory (1935), which postulates that there are two aspects to reality: the field and the particle. Burr and Northrop associate the field with what they term the macroscopic aspect and the electron with the particle. The particle is associated with movement. The structure of biological material seems to be associated with the field aspect. The electric field causes polarization of the macromolecules in solution due to the fact that molecules possess a dipole moment, and changes the position of protons in the molecule. Such action can affect the relative stability of different possible configurations of macromolecules. The field affects the degree of structure present in the solution.

Experimental evidence indicates that part of the environment of living organisms consists of a complex four-dimensional, space-time, field pattern that the organism responds to and requires for a healthy existence (Brown, 1971). Research carried out with organisms in fields lower than the normal magnetic field strength of the earth inevitably results in deterioration and death of the organisms involved (Purrett, 1971).

Recent research indicates that an organism utilizes its sensitivity to cope with the complex electromagnetic and gravitational fields in its environment. This process serves to calibrate its internal biological rhythms with external factors such as 1) rotation of the earth; 2) variations in the earth's magnetic field; 3) transit of the moon around the earth; and 4) influences of the sun (e.g., short-term field variations, yearly seasonal changes, sun spot cycles occurring every eleven years). Changes in these various external systems influence the organism profoundly (Burr, 1972; Garrison, 1971). Correlations have been drawn between collapse and reversal of the earth's magnetic field and extinction of various species (Purrett, 1971).

The complex field pattern also carries other information to living creatures. Fluctuations of the field pattern reflect the presence, location and other characteristics of different physical and biological phenomena in the environment such as other creatures and physical objects. Alterations in electomagnetic parameters in the environment can be related to such physical phenomena as conductivity, permeability, and space and surface charges. Organisms themselves contribute to the environment by virtue of the end products of their various physiological processes. These may alter environmental electrical and magnetic properties.

Moving from a consideration of various mechanisms and influences of electromagnetic field phenomena on living creatures, a more intimate role for electromagnetic fields in life phenomena will be examined. The first phenomenon to be considered is the relationship between electrodynamics and development.

It is a current hypothesis that the electrical fields associated with a cell are intimately related to processes that have to do with structure and motion in the cell. The first such influence or effect would be that of providing a directive force in the laying down of substances in the growth of the creature. In dealing with extra-cellular electric fields, such fields most probably correlate the growth activities among cells, and thus determine the origin and orientation of symmetrical axes for cell groups and the entire organism (Lund, 1945, chapter 6).

The next area for consideration has to do with regeneration of damaged tissue. Recent research has shown that electrical current in living tissue can serve to precipitate regeneration and growth of new tissue (Becker, 1972). This mechanism apparently operates by causing cells at the site of the injury that are still alive, to dedifferentiate back into cells resembling embryonic cells and thereby to divide and grow. This new growth is guided to repair the damage and ceases when the damage has been repaired and the creature is again intact.

From the very beginning, the electromagnetic field provides a sustaining and directing matrix for the cells and the biological substances in the creature. There is evidence that all creatures possessing a central nervous system have a direct current system that displays a field pattern expressing the anatomical arrangement of the central nervous system itself. It has been suggested that this DC system serves as a primitive data transmitting and control system which regulates the ability of the central nervous system to process data by a more sophisticated form of neural transmission (Becker, 1963).

Consciousness may be seen as a frame of electrical charges in motion such as electrons bombarding a television screen; personality is a time-lapse series of these scintillating frames of consciousness. Personality becomes a reverberating input-output pattern of self creation seeking information or patterns of energy from the environment as well as from its own memories. The personality never recreates itself but creates only a close approximation which is accepted, due to the principle of constancy, as being the same.

The phenomena of unique individuality and personal continuity depend on memory. Consciousness involves the most recent memory and is thereby subject to loosening and erasure. Personality transformation becomes energy pattern modification of not only scintillating consciousness but also of recent circulating memories and older stored memories. Thus consciousness can be conceptualized as an electronic phenomenon occurring in the brain that involves both dynamic charges in motion and also stored structure (Tien, 1969). Referring to the mechanisms mentioned earlier, a very close connection between electronic activity and structure can be seen. A good deal of work on human psychological processes indicates that human beings are extremely sensitive to various electromagnetic events in their environment.

It has been shown that stress can uncouple synchronized and harmonious biological rhythms resulting in pathological conditions in organisms (Burr and Northrop, 1935). We propose that these biological systems can be resynchronized and recalibrated through conscious effort. The proposed mechanism for this influence has to do with the indicated coupling of these various external events to biological processes.

The amplifying effect of consciousness has also been seen to be relatable to various electromagnetic occurrences in the brain. At a deeper level of analysis, it can be suggested that the field phenomena which we have been studying and working with are in fact more real, if that term can be used, than the particulate matter and various objects of which we have been speaking (Wheeler, 1959).

Briefly stated, fields and particles may be themselves composed of empty curved space, trapping lines of electromagnetic force. This is the holographic concept of reality. The structural configurations themselves or the geometry of the fields and the particles are more fundamental than either the fields or the particles themselves.

We suggest that an epistemology based on the concept of a human being as a material object composed of particulate substances in various configurations and patterns would be erroneous. Human beings are better seen as ongoing, dynamic, shifting, changing, field entities (or field patterns) that serve as a matrix for the flow-through of biological substances and various simple chemicals.

This proposal has profound significance for human behavior, extending from the actions of the individual and personal ethics all the way to the actions of sociological aggregate systems such as nations and multi-national groups. We feel that many of the problems of society that are current today can be traced to our ignorance of, or refusal to embrace, this larger holographic electrodynamic reality in which we live. Furthermore, this knowledge is not new. It is the main core of the message of social reformers throughout history. It is also discussed, in other terms, by many individuals who characteristically experience psychoenergetic phenomena (e.g., psychokinesis, clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition).

Presman (1970) has postulated that such electromagnetic fields normally serve as conveyors of information from the environment to the organism, within the organism, and among organisms. He has postulated that in the course of evolution, organisms have come to use these fields in conjunction with the well-known sensory, nervous, and endocrine systems in effecting coordination and integration.

Szent-Gyorgyi (1957, 1960) has theorized that cells and other biological components might have various electronic solid-state physical properties such as that of being semi-conductors. He suggests that the use of quantum electrodynamics is necessary to understand biological processes which regulate the vital activity of organisms.

Becker (1963) has maintained that it is already established that electromagnetic forces can be used to change three fundamental life processes in mammals. Those processes are bone growth, partial multi-tissue regenerative growth, and basic levels of nerve activity and function. All of these effects appear to be mediated through perturbations in naturally pre-existing electronic control systems. The neural electronic system also seems to be related to levels of consciousness and biological cycles, and we have developed the thesis that this system furnishes the linkage mechanism between electromagnetic forces in the environment and biological cyclic behavior.

McGinness (1972) reported that melanins are excellent electron acceptors and have semi-conductor properties which appear to be important in midbrain structures. Melanins are known to act as an ultraviolet sun screen, but research indicates that they also have a fundamental biological role. McGinness (1972) has proposed that melanins may de-excite certain biological molecules by converting electronic energy to heat. An analysis of data on melanins suggests that the electronic properties of melanins can best be explained in terms of a band model for semi-conduction in amorphous materials, which may also explain the behavior of proteins and other biological macromolecules such as RNA and DNA. In amorphous materials, there is an essentially Gaussian density of electron energy states.

Muses (1970) has proposed the possibility of unit impulse functions evolving from the Gaussian. His work traces the relation of this mathematical concept to quantum biological indeterminacy in terms of modulation of random fluctuations by target-seeking perturbations, pointing the way to the understanding and computing of the parameters of volitional experience in quantum biological terms. He maintains that we are dealing with Gaussian wave packets, put to use in terms of a close-range reaction, in turn resulting in the resonant microbiological specificity (arising from the relatively large number of specific molecular parameters) necessary to the essential life and evolutional processes of chromosome synapses, replication, and mutagenesis.

Muses holds that inherently indeterminate processes may be biologically used in achieving determinate ones such as our repeatable and commonly accepted volitional experiences of effort and direction. The range of quantum indeterminate fluctuation of biological efficacy is in the far ultraviolet, and it is in this spectral region that we should expect to look for any modulation effects on Gaussian wave packets by volitional energies manifesting as ultramicrobiological field perturbations.

Biologically, there is a threshold of non-randomicity below which peaks tend to emerge that are sharp enough to possess biodirectiveness in an enzyme-guiding sense. Random biological quantum energies which are physiologically unassigned are the clue to psychosomatic directing, which can be beneficial or deleterious to the organism. Muses (1970) describes the mechanism of this effect as a microbiolaser type process.

Heisenberg explored the possible relevance of the quantum indeterminacy of elementary particles for biological systems, especially human systems (discussed in Koestler, 1972). He stated that there are two places in the human system where the quantum indeterminacy of a single particle can have a profound influence. The first important effect is that of mutation in the genetic code. The second important influence is the alteration of the behavior of neurons during human thought processes.

Tien (1969) has conceptualized mind as mass in relative motion and brain as energy at relative electrical charges in motion, like electrons bombarding a television screen, and personality as a time-lapse series of scintillating frames of consciousness. Personality becomes a reverbating input-output pattern of self-creation, seeking information or patterns of energy from the environment as well as from its own memories. The stability of any given personality is maintained by feedback based on the principle of most similarity.

According to the holographic model of reality, all the objects we can observe are three-dimensional images formed of standing and moving waves by electromagnetic and nuclear processes. All the objects of our world are three-dimensional images formed electromagnetically--i.e., holograms.

This concept and the models of human information processing based on the hologram throw interesting light on the philosophical tradition which holds that the world of objects is an illusion. With the triumph of relativity and quantum physics, the interpenetration of the philosophical and the scientific is possible.

LeShan (1969) has observed, in discussing some individuals who purportedly experience psycho-energetic phenomena, that their view of the universe as a great thought of which they are a part is quite similar to many physicists' view that they see reality only in their own mental image.

We propose that the "reality hologram" which appears as a stable world of material objects is the elementary particle which has a long-term existence and fairly simple rules of interaction. We also propose the existence of a "biohologram" which appears mobile and evolving, through the DNA molecule. This "biohologram" projects a dynamic three-dimensional image that serves as a guiding matrix for the manipulation and organization of the "reality hologram."

Sealing: term employed by the developers of the Regenetics Method to indicate the stage of "ener-genetic" repatterning through DNA activation in which the bioenergy vacuum constituted by the Fragmentary Body (a disruptive expression of non-integrated forces) is closed. Sealing is a critical step on the path to genuine healing as well as enlightenment, as it lays the groundwork for a stable luminous embodiment by establishing an "infinity circuit" of eight electromagnetic fields and corresponding chakras.

"It's the gap between activities that I can't stand, the time when one phase of my day ends and the other hasn't yet started, like the time between work and supper," says my 35-year-old client who has recently left a drug rehab center for alcohol addiction.

"The gap, tell me about the gap," I probe deeper. Something must be happening there. On entering the gap, he describes an emptiness, a nothingness, then entering more deeply he experiences the welling up of an immense anxiety. I ask him to stay with the anxiety, to sense it in his whole body, then to enter the sensation and gesture how it feels. There must be something causing the anxiety. Shifting his attention to the inner landscape surrounding the anxious, fearful part of himself, he experiences the presence of a thing. He describes something that lurks in the deep recesses of his imagination and feels as though it is circulating around him. It is very clear to him. It is all head and shoulders, withering to nothing at the hips. It is blue, red and yellow and has the presence of electricity.

This is but one descriptive example of the many imaginations that clients face in the office of a Psychophonetics practitioner. All fear, doubt and hatred experienced by a person coexist with "monsters" that feed on the energy of these expressions, enhancing themselves at the expense of the client's spirit. We see large, rodent-like monsters with gnawing teeth, witches with long red fingernails, large, dark, swamp monsters that fill the room with their shadowy presence.

Unique to the human being is the capacity to make choices about how we act out of a higher intention and purpose. At times we may observe that aspects of ourselves are split off from this higher nature with varying degrees of alienation. Diverse behaviours range from reactions and projections where a part of ourselves temporarily responds to outside stimuli in a way we would not choose; to deep-seated anxieties, fears, doubts and hatreds that undermine large chunks of our life, keeping us smaller than we would wish to be; to fundamental splits in our actions that we would not even recognise as our own if we saw them. Sometimes it feels as though someone else has slipped in and acted on our behalf. At these times our animal nature that would respond without thought to base instincts and drives reigns supreme over the organizing human part of ourselves. The further our animal nature splits off from our humanity, the more we assume the nature of foreign beings.

According to philosopher and seer Rudolf Steiner, the human "I" is not the only master in the astral and etheric bodies of the human being. Other astral and elemental beings inhabit these bodies. Depending on the nature of the deeds of man, so are corresponding elemental beings given a room at the inn. There is only one aspect of the human body that can increasingly belong to man alone and that is his blood. If, however, he is not perpetually careful to strengthen his I inwardly through a strong and vigorous will, he loses control of his I and other beings can fasten onto his blood. The blood becomes a stronger expression of the I as the I finds its centre and inner strength.

In Basel, Switzerland, in October 1911 in his lecture on the Etherization of the Blood, Steiner described the human faculties of the following in relation to their effect on the blood: thinking or intellectual activity; feeling (sympathy and antipathy); and moral impulses or the will to do good or evil. The activities of thinking and moral impulse have a tendency to polarize, resulting in thinking devoid of moral integrity and will activities that are not thought through. Steiner stated that distorted moral deeds will assert their influence on the blood in a negative way.

Thinking, feeling and doing (moral deeds) are manifestations of the two essential activities of sympathy/antipathy and reasoning swirling constantly in the soul. Sympathy and antipathy arise out of desire and reasoning results in mental pictures or vizualisations emerging in the soul. In the swirling they encounter the boundary of the soul at the sense organs to form a perception of an outer phenomenon and a corresponding sensation in the soul. The turning back on themselves of these capacities results in feeling. The working over of the sensation with reasoning results in a mental image that sinks into the etheric body as an aspect of memory. All experiences are met with a gesture of soul and associated resonance pattern represented by the sounds of speech and are stored as a mental picture complete with its coloring of sympathy or antipathy and the meaning placed on it. The soul contains all the mental images acquired in the life of the individual.

Mental pictures carry on an independent life in the unconscious boundaries of the soul and, depending on the feeling and meaning attached to them, are the source of bliss or suffering. They rise to consciousness when triggered by a new perception or sensation with a similar resonance. If left unattended, the images and associated resonance can cause illness within body and soul. One needs to provide reference points to which these mental images can be raised to consciousness in order that the I can rework the experience with new reasoning in the process of creating new meaning of the experience. The conscious reworking of mental images facilitates an integration of soul.

Psychophonetics, a method of counselling, personal development and soul work, applies the principles of Steiner's Psychosophy in a manner that provides reference points for the mental images to be raised to consciousness. Using nonverbal modes of communication including body awareness, gesturing, visualization and sounding, mental images are brought to consciousness where the dynamics are unpacked in the processes of exploration, blockages released with empowerment, and new capacities invoked in resourcefulness. The sympathies and antipathies associated with the mental image resurface and reasoning is applied with new resources. The disharmony of thinking, feeling and doing are identified and resources encouraged to face the doubt, fear and hatred that block these faculties of soul from finding their integration. It becomes clear during this process that varying levels of disowned and foreign astrality inhabit the clients' being, experienced as entities in the psyche, and that when experienced and presented to consciousness, choices can be made to integrate them or ask them to leave. The successful outcome of the counselling process is that the I, able to change its relationship to the experience, becomes increasingly present at the center of the individual's being and less at the mercy of chaotic soul forces.

The concept of disowned and foreign astrality asserting its presence in the blood may be interpreted in the light of the following pleomorphic theory. According to Steiner the astral beings that inhabit the astral body extend their influence into the physical body through the parasites that inhabit the physical body. Since 1800 a stream of scientists have been researching blood in light of an alternative view to the current germ theory. These researchers have been ignored, ridiculed and sometimes persecuted in their time and their work removed from scientific literature.

One such researcher was Antoine Bechamp (1816-1908), a contemporary of Louis Pasteur whose germ theory forms the basis for the current medical model and its resultant pharmaceutical mode of treatment. In his final work The Blood and Its Third Anatomical Element, Bechamp describes an entity present in the blood which he names a microzyma. He envisions microzymas as submicroscopic entities in the blood, tissues and cells of all living beings, plant and animal, which carry in themselves the essential elements for life, disease, death, and decay. His work has been followed by other scientists, most notably Gunther Endelein, Wilhelm Reich, Royal Raymond Rife, the Australian team Glen Dettman, Ph.D., and Archie Kalokerinos, M.D., and presently Gaston Naessens and Robert Young, N.D.

Bechamp's pleomorphic theory maintains that: 1) There is an independently living microanatomical element (the microzyma) in the cells and fluids of all organisms that precedes life at the cellular, even the genetic, level, and is the foundation of all biological organization; 2) Microzymas routinely become forms normally referred to as bacteria, which can subsequently revert or devolve to the microzymian state; and 3) Atmospheric "germs" are not fundamental species, but are either microzymas or their evolutionary forms, set free from their normal animal or vegetable habitat by the death of an organism.

Bechamp insisted that the process of cell breakdown is mediated by microzymian fermentation even in a healthy body. Though there is renewal happening as well, breakdown fermentation eventually takes over, greatly increasing its intensity at death. Microzymas respond to biochemical signals and resolve into forms capable of more rigorous fermentation breakdown, namely bacteria and fungi.

Observation of a blood smear under a microscope reveals the foreign particles identified by Beauchamp, Enderlein and others as disturbed phases of the microzymal cycle. Microzymas take on more vegetative bacterial and fungal forms, increasing the fermentation process and resulting in cell breakdown and degeneration--also observed in the blood. Parasites may find representation in the blood as metamorphosed microzymas when the I forces are not strong enough to keep unbridled soul forces in check.

Many people observe that they conduct their lives with varying presence, often expressing that they "do not know who they are" or "there is nothing at the core of them." Many such individuals experience that they hover just behind or above their phyical bodies. Further exploration reveals disturbing mental pictures which have the effect of distorting the thinking, feeling and doing capacities of the individual in a soul that becomes increasingly fragmented. Experience remains undigested until it is consciously engaged, made sense of and named by the I. The process of creating meaning and naming experience ensures the penetration of the I into that pocket of unconsciousness with a resultant strengthening of the I forces and an integration of the soul faculties.

We are in a phase of human evolution in which more and more of our lower nature can become consciously embraced by our higher nature. The opportunity exists for humans to unite intellectualism and moral deed. The active, intentional strengthening of the I and its penetration into the depths of the soul brings about the integration of the thinking or intellectual faculties with feeling and results in moral deeds arising out of these harmonious forces in a process of evolving consciousness and deeper penetration and ownership of all aspects of self.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Katherine Train. All Rights Reserved.

[Katherine Train is a Psychophonetics Counsellor with a practice in Cape Town, South Africa. She employs methods of deep counselling, expression of experience through gesture, and the sounds of human speech to heal and integrate the many aspects of the human being towards more conscious living. For more information visit http://www.psychophonetics.com.]

Did You Know ... that the divine triune structure of Silent Stillness (Divine Consciousness) giving rise to Sound (the Word or Holy Spirit) which then becomes Light (the Sun or Son) is one way of conceptualizing the Sacred Trinity? Moreover, the creational trinity composed of nothingness, sound and light is not unique to the Western worldview; it is also foregrounded in many Eastern philosophies. In Taoism, to cite one example, the implicate order of consciousness is referred to as the Tao. The Tao gives rise to what Lao Tzu, author of the Tao Te Ching, calls the "ten thousand things" (the light-based holographic multiverse) by way of the breath (sound).

Whenever I embark on an idea and it feels "right," there is an internal quietness and relaxed ease that I have learned to recognize. It's as if I'm located in the center of myself, the way I feel when I'm well balanced on my feet. There's a sense of being in the right place at the right time, and that I can trust myself to follow my intuition wherever it takes me. Worry, doubt and uncertainty all seem irrelevant and in the way. Somehow or other I can count on all the pieces coming together with a minimum of effort on my part--if I let go of control, give in to the pleasure of the moment and, most of all, have faith in whatever is happening.

This is not always a popular position to take, especially when there is money involved, but in my experience when I feel a combination of relaxation and the anticipation of an adventure, I take it as a go-ahead signal and shrug my shoulders at resisters. Invariably, the results validate this approach. Conversely, if I plan too much in advance to make something happen because I think it ought to, often it will take twice as much time and effort and go awry anyway, having to be done again at a later date.

A caterer donated a commercial refrigerator to us, free, if we would move it. We didn't need a refrigerator, but we badly needed a freezer. However, after much discussion, we decided to accept. The first attempt to move it failed because the truck broke down; the next time, our helpers had the wrong date. When we finally got truck and helpers together, we discovered that the door the refrigerator had to go through wasn't wide enough. Finally, with thanks and apologies, we gave up. Two days later an anonymous caller donated a freezer--delivery included.

Sometimes a single, fortuitous coincidence prepares the way for the next opportunity, which then leads to yet another remarkable coincidence--all unpredictable and often involving people and events far removed from each other in time and space. In such instances, we may feel watched over by a ministering angel, or like an agent for a much larger set of circumstances than anything we can consciously control. At times it may seem that we are the agents, or go-betweens among people we may not even know, helping things happen between them as we play merely the role of "connector."

According to Jung, the world has an underlying order, a "collective unconscious," like a shared memory in which all beings are bonded by deep patterns that connect us to each other and to the cosmos. In such a universe, synchronicities are literally "co-incidences": simultaneously occurring events whose meaning or significance is immediately apparent to the person experiencing them.

In the course of my research several years ago, I found a reference to a large-format book published in Germany early in the century, which dealt with color and its effect on the body. Visiting the local libraries and bookstores, I came up with a blank. I felt that restless sensation one feels when only one thing will satisfy, and came home from my bookstore search disgruntled. Then the phone rang. It was a woman I had never met who said, "About a year ago, a friend gave me your name saying that you and I were interested in the same questions. I am an artist fascinated by vibration from the point of view of color and light--and I understand you are interested in vibration from the point of view of sound. Is that right?"

"Yes," I gulped.

"Well," she said, "I've got a book here I've been meaning to lend you, and I've got some time today. Can I bring it over and we can finally meet?"

Of course, it was the very book I'd been searching for. She came, we met, I borrowed the book, and we've been good friends ever since.

From time to time co-incidences will be dramatically illustrated when several seemingly unconnected activities begin to merge and each becomes relevant to the others. When this happens, everything appears to be a sign for everything else and everything is potentially useful. I've learned to pay close attention to every insignificant detail when this happens because it seems to occur when the stakes are very high.

Jung writes, "The understanding of synchronicity is the key which unlocks the door to the Eastern apperception of totality that we find so mysterious." Indeed, the ancient Chinese oracle, the I Ching, or Book of Changes, is based on a belief system which assumes that the manifest world as we know it is a reflection of an underlying reality in which all things are connected and in the process of continuous transformation. Nothing ever stays the same. According to Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian thought, the whole cosmos is perpetually in motion, every particle shifting in relation to every other particle, everything synchronized in time and space.

In this tradition, each moment in time sounds like a single chord. The notes of every force in the universe sound simultaneously, singing the harmony of the Whole--NOW. Everything everywhere is part of NOW. Everything is interrelated, inter-dependent, inter-penetrating NOW. Nothing exists outside NOW, from the shimmering of subatomic particles to the swirling of the galaxies. NOW becomes NOW becomes NOW ...

The Chinese, who have used the I Ching as a divination tool for centuries, do not have the same difficulty as we in the Western world accepting that a "chance" pattern created by a toss of three coins can be helpful as an inner guide. To use the oracle, one asks a question six times, throwing the coins each time to indicate a pattern of changing lines which refer to a particular reading in the Book. The pattern may seem purely random to the uninitiated, but the "hexagram" received as a result of the tossed coins is invariably to the point and relevant in specific detail to the question.

To the ancient Chinese, it was simply a fact that correspondences exist between our individual lives and the grand sweep of the universe at any given moment in time. The laws governing the overall design are the same as the laws governing each person's life, and so, by the law of resonance, when we ask for guidance at a specific time, we naturally receive advice that matches our question.

I was a young woman, newly married to a university science professor, when I was first introduced to the I Ching. My husband was rather dismayed by my interest in a document as "irrational" as the oracle, and when I requested a copy as a birthday gift, he outright refused. It was one of our first fights, and we were both hurt and confused by the encounter. Unbeknownst to me, he bought a copy for me anyway--against his better judgment--and threw the coins to prove to himself that his skepticism was justified. But he had somehow gotten a defective copy, and the pages of the "hexagram" he received were blank!

Mystified, he returned that copy to the bookstore, exchanged it for another and then changed his mind, by this time angry. He returned that copy to the bookstore, too, determined not to buy me a gift he didn't believe in.

In the end, I received the I Ching as a gift from someone else. On the night of my birthday, I asked my husband if we could read together the text of the "hexagram" he had originally thrown. Reluctantly, he agreed. The text spoke to the issue of people with divergent views learning how to negotiate their differences peaceably. Still unsatisfied, he threw the coins again. The reading he received stated that a person was a fool who asked the same question twice.

It is only in contemporary Western thought that things exist in splendid isolation in a three-dimensional world and that God--if there is a God at all--is high in His heaven and out of reach. The great Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, whose origins are lost in the mists of time, is said to have postulated the following basic law of existence: "That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, for the miracles of the Universe are part of One Whole Thing."

The teachings of Hermes Trismegistus emphasize that the same laws of Being hold true on every level of the Universe--on every scale and every span of time--and that the form and substance of our world arises from basic, recurrent patterns inherent in the larger Universe. The solid-seeming forms of the three-dimensional world as we know it--the "below" of his teachings--are a reflection of the corresponding elemental motions of the unseen, transcendent Universe--the "above" of his teachings. "Above" and "below" here refer not to directionality, but to degrees of density and subtlety difficult to describe in everyday language.

For example, the spiral shape appears everywhere we look, from swirling smoke to seashells to nebulae. It coils in the DNA molecule and whorls on a baby's head. The bloom of a rose, the spin of a tornado, whirlpooling water, the unfurling of a fern all follow the same pattern, each in its own context, each on its own scale. Our lives also trace a spiral course as we come round and round again to the same dilemmas, each time presented with a new opportunity to experience the world from a slightly higher perspective. On every level, these forms reflect a basic motion of the cosmos.

Basic "movements," such as the spiral, are like energetic maps which pervade all of existence, acting as blueprints which ultimately give form to everything we know. In our everyday lives they exist in the ordinary realities of our physical world for us to notice or not, as we wish. But whether we perceive them or not, they are writ both smaller than we can see and larger than we might ever guess at, inherent and immanent at every level of the Cosmos. In the last twenty years, high-speed computer technology has revealed to scientists what the wisdom traditions of many cultures have been pointing to in myth, metaphor and symbolism through the ages: the universe is a complex dance of many dimensions and the patterns laid down by this ongoing dance are the basis for all matter and life.

Scientists and the sages now agree that underlying every leaf, pulsing vein and many-branched river system is a recognizable geometry, a set of basic proportions that seems to repeat itself wherever one looks. Scientists typically acknowledge this geometry as "Pythagorean," while sages often refer to it as "sacred harmony." In other times, temples were designed according to these proportions and music was sung based on these intervals. The knowledge seems to have been lost during the late Middle Ages and until very recently was termed "esoteric," or hidden knowledge, but computers may have begun to make this implicit order more "exoteric."

In 1975 mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot put into his computer a simple equation representing one of these basic patterns and programmed the computer to repeat the pattern hundreds of thousands of times. The resulting graphics came out looking like forms in the natural world! On his computer screen appeared shapes both organic and inorganic: coastlines, mountains, river systems, plants ... These shapes, he discovered, showed the same exact pattern at whatever scale he examined them. A coastline, for example, was made up of a myriad of tiny, perfectly proportioned reflections of itself, repeating over and over. ("That which is below is like that which is above ...") At the microscopic scale the image appeared to be a chaotic jumble of motion, but at the level visible to the human eye it was a recognizable form, easily identified, not chaotic at all.

Convinced that he had stumbled on a new way of looking at the form and structure of the Universe--a geometry of the natural world, as it were--, Mandelbrot called his discovery "Fractal Geometry," suggesting the basically fractured or chaotic nature of all matter.

Contemporary mathematicians and physicists studying these phenomena as Chaos Theory, Non-linear Dynamics, Nonlocality Theory and Quantum Mechanics are observing that there is an inherent roughness to the world, a kind of wild diversity. They describe it as frenetic, haphazard, highly textured, unpredictable. Although they have not gone so far as to accept the fact that all phenomena are linked by interactions too subtle to be measured, they do acknowledge that the Universe is constantly changing on every scale, and that every particle responds with acute sensitivity to the unpredictable gyrations of each new moment. Fractal Geometry now shows that in every dimension this exuberant, complex tangle reveals itself in greater and greater detail, system within system. Wherever we look, we see that each discreet bit of activity and information is a subtle reflection of the Whole.

The late physicist John Bell showed that if two photons or two electrons are separated, no matter how far, they are still actively connected to each other. Moreover, their connection is both direct and instantaneous without the need for any mechanical intermediary between them. A change in one creates a simultaneous change in the other. His theory of non-locality posited that on the level of the "exuberant, complex tangle" of the Universe, everything is in continuous contact with everything else and nothing is separate from the Whole. (In anthropological terms, this has been referred to as "contagious magic.")

Likewise, physicist David Bohm observed that while on this implicate, minute scale of the Universe everything is vibrating with wild abandon, in constant communion with everything else, at the level of the Whole there is an overriding, interpenetrating order. He called this "order enfolded in chaos," meaning that what appears to be randomly chaotic, actually holds within it a deep-seated cooperative spirit. Bohm suggested that this phenomenon is akin to an intention embodied in matter, a will-to-be, an inherent awareness--in a word, consciousness. Beyond "things," transcending even movement itself, there perhaps exists an all-encompassing Mind. Bohm wondered if it is this self-aware, all-pervading consciousness that we ought to acknowledge as the context in which all forms--including ourselves--have their Being. For it is against this backdrop of conscious Wholeness that our physical world, and all its individual entities, reveals its true nature.

In Western culture we are taught to think in terms of linear logic, where there is a specific reaction to a single stimulus and proof exists in being able to repeat the same reaction. Hard logic, some call it. But there is another approach--softer and more intuitive, nonlinear--in which things are perceived in their totality as part of a larger context. The boundaries that isolate one thing from another exist only at the most obvious and superficial level, like bubbles on the surface of a pot of soup.

In a nonlinear universe events happen all at once, arising out of the common brew, bouncing and bumping off each other in every direction. Everything is part of this movement where an impulse occurring at this moment, right here, may have unforeseen consequences somewhere else in the world far into the future. In fact, this critical dependence of everything on everything else is such that even an imperceptible shift of the tiniest element in one place can have vast ramifications on the whole cosmos, for all time. As Jung put it, "There is no linear evolution (except at the beginning of life); there is only the circumambulation of the self."

In such a worldview, everything participates in a sensitive web of active information. Atoms, cells, molecules, plants, animals, people, earth, Heaven and Spirit all enter into communion with each other and join the ever-changing dance of form and structure. Like the dancing Siva, the many-armed God revolves in a constantly changing pattern while his feet stamp out the many rhythms of All-Rhythm--creating new designs at each moment in perfect, dynamic balance. From this perspective the Cosmos is like a pure tone that contains all sound the way a simple, balanced stillness contains all motion.

In a world like this, it would be surprising if synchronicities did not occur. Synchronicities, it would seem, are a phenomena inherent in the Universe, continuously appearing in the natural course of events. They pop out of the common matrix just as waves in the ocean lift, crest with a tumble of white foam, and sink back into the larger sea. Synchronicities occur all around us all the time, but it is only when we ourselves are the fulcrum around which a co-incidence--good or bad--occurs that we sit up and take notice.

These surprises, which for the most part are unexpected gifts plopped into our laps by a beneficent world, are like wake-up signals, eye-openers to the larger Universe in which we live. We might consider them a means of tuning into the frequency of the Whole, becoming citizens of a much grander world. In doing so, we may find ourselves participating in events which take place on several continents, involving people we have never met, spanning long periods of time ...

Many years ago in India, I met a remarkable classical flutist who hoped to bring his music to America. He presented me with a demonstration tape, and I promised to play it for people when I got home--but in fact, I dragged my heels on it for over a year and a half. One day, however, I awoke with the feeling that on that day I had to follow through on my promise, so I telephoned a local radio station and asked them for air time. "What a coincidence!" the program Director exclaimed. "The tape for the eleven o'clock show never arrived, and we've been searching for something to put in its place. Could you come right down?"

I went to the station and the program was heard, coincidentally, by a member of a college for Indian music, who called me and said, "You won't believe this, but just last night we had a faculty meeting to talk about finding a classical flute teacher. I don't know what made me turn on the radio this morning. Normally, I never tune in to that program ..."

I have wondered about what, indeed, made him turn on the radio that morning; what had made me wait all those months before following through on a promise; and what had caused my path to cross with this flutist's in the first place? It is as if we were all tuned to the same frequency and so made contact, quite subconsciously, each following a signal we were not even aware of. Like several waves cresting simultaneously on the same sea, we were bonded by the medium of our shared ocean. Unknown to each other, we each responded to a similar impulse. And like secret agents of the same unknown design, we collectively created the conditions that brought this musician to America.

Co-incidences like this are similar to the magic of falling in love. The beloved, special in our eyes, seems to stand out in bold relief from the backdrop of all the other people in the world. As if composed of more dimensions than other, ordinary mortals, our loved one shines, radiates with significance. At the same time, the very wondrousness itself of this feeling appears to be so simple, so obvious, so right. Without effort new lovers seem to vibrate in tandem, every sensor awake to even the most subtle signal from the other. In such moments, the world, awash with color, makes such simple sense.

Years ago, in the first weeks of my first trip to Italy when I was nineteen, I found myself in a small town quite against my will. The friend I was meeting in Milano brought me there for "safekeeping" until she could return from her other commitments to take me to meet her family. This was arranged without my knowledge. Since I spoke little Italian, I had no idea whether she would come for me in a day or a week. I was left to wait for her in a convent where I was locked in my room in the evenings and put in the care of a silent nun during the days.

Bewildered and frightened, I tried several times to escape, but each time was apprehended and brought back to the convent. Days passed, and there was still no sign of my friend. Finally, making an early morning run for it, I jumped onto a passing bus and made my way to the train station. I got on the first train to arrive, looking over my shoulder the whole time, having no idea where it was bound for. When it arrived at Bologna Station, I jumped off, still not knowing where I was going, but when I heard a conductor call out "Ravenna" I impulsively ran for the next train.

Sitting across from where I plopped down was an attractive fellow with a cello case, with whom I exchanged furtive glances until we both disembarked at Ravenna Station. Waiting on the same tram line outside the station, we finally began to talk to each other, and with that conversation began my courtship with the first love of my life.

Synchronicities are much like the experience of falling in love. Through them we get a glimpse into the very fabric of the Universe, its miraculousness and utter simplicity, its ordered Wholeness and the wild shimmying of its ecstatic dance. By learning to tune into this seeming paradox, we can relax and be receptive to the daily coincidences that present themselves to us like pennies from Heaven.