Brief Peeks Beyond

by Bernardo Kastrup

  Afterword by Rupert Spira

  At the time of writing this Afterword, I have not yet met Bernardo. At least, that would be a true statement in the context of our prevailing materialistic worldview. What do we mean when we say that we have met someone? We mean essentially that two bodies have encountered each other and possibly shaken hands or conversed.

  However, in the context of the worldview expressed in this book, to meet someone, indeed the very idea of relationship itself, takes on a different and broader meaning. From the idealist point of view that informs the essays in this book, and indeed from the perspective of the perennial philosophy that underlies all the great religious and spiritual traditions, the body is an appearance in the mind and the mind is a modulation of Consciousness. As such, the body and the physical world that it appears to perceive are the smallest elements of experience. They are a limited view of the much more expansive world of mind, the larger world of mind being itself a modulation of infinite Consciousness.

  Thus, to meet someone ‘in the flesh’ is to meet only a fraction of the ‘whole person.’ As physical bodies we are reasonably well defined, each with a distinct boundary, but these boundaries define only the smallest element of who we are. At the level of thoughts and feelings there are still subtle boundaries, but the distinctions here are less clearly defined and, therefore, the sense of separation less obvious. As we travel ‘backwards’ or ‘inwards’ towards the essential nature of our minds – that is, as the mind travels ‘backwards’ or ‘inwards’ towards its own essential nature – the forms we encounter become less distinct, and the grounds for the apparent separation between people or entities are less discernible.

  At some point the mind traces itself back to its original, irreducible essence, where there is no form – that is, no coloring of itself – and, therefore, no objects or entities present to be distinct or separate from one another. It is at this level where all humanity, indeed all apparent objects and selves, are one. From this point of view, all apparent objects and selves are expressions, modulations or vibrations of their original shared essence – unconditioned or infinite Mind, pure Consciousness itself.

  What we, as human beings, experience as friendship is the echo of this original oneness of being, reverberating through shared layers of mind, which sometimes, but not always, takes the shape of a meeting at the physical level. As such, true friendship does not require a meeting in the flesh, just as a meeting in the flesh does not always reveal true friendship.

  To meet someone in the flesh is to encounter the visible face of a much larger field of energies. To reduce this larger field of energies to a physical object – a person – is to diminish it, and by doing so to diminish our self. Such a relationship between two separate and distinct objects cannot be a harmonious one, for it denies the shared reality that is their source and essence.

  It is in this context that I can say of Bernardo that I know him without knowing him.

  What has been said above about the meeting of two people is equally true of encountering an inanimate object. I first recognized this when, as a ceramic artist, I would visit museums around the world and explore their collections of early pottery. Long before I was able to rationalize experience as I am doing now, I would frequently feel an uncanny familiarity with a particular bowl or jar, a sort of visceral intimacy that expressed itself in simplistic terms such as, ‘I knew the person who made that bowl,’ ‘I made that jar myself,’ or ‘These are my friends.’ In the terms in which Bernardo expresses his ideas in Brief Peeks Beyond, I was simply recognizing the broader field of mind that I shared with the bowl or jar, of which my body and their forms were, as it were, cross-sections or snapshots.

  Indeed, it was something about the visual image of the bowl or jar itself – my only experience of which was, as Bernardo repeatedly points out, a perception in the mind – which had the power to draw my mind away from the objective aspects of experience, through subtle layers within its own field, at least some way ‘back’ to its formless source and essence.

  Seen in this way, such an object becomes, as it were, transparent, delivering to one’s intimate experience the broader field of mind of which it is a temporary, local expression. This apparent merging of the field of the perceiver with the field of the perceived is the experience known as ‘beauty.’ In fact, it is not a merging of two fields, but rather the dissolution of apparent distinctions within the essentially indivisible field of their shared continuum. As such, beauty is to perception what friendship is to relationship.

  Such is the function and power of art, the power that some objects have to draw attention from the finite to the infinite. A meeting of friends serves the same purpose, only we call it ‘love’ rather than ‘beauty.’ And likewise, some words, such as the collection of essays in Brief Peeks Beyond, have the same power to evoke in the reader not just the concept of infinite Consciousness or ‘Mind Itself,’ of which the apparently physical world is but a temporary precipitation, but the experience of it, a taste of its own essential reality.

  I have been touched by the profundity of these essays and know that they will imprint their healing intelligence in the broader medium of mind, from which humanity draws its knowledge and experience, for many years to come.

  Rupert Spira

  Oxford, UK

  December 2014

  Notes

  1 Lessing (1999), p. xxii.

  2 Unger and Cui (1997), p. 174.

  3 You can also join the forum by going to http://www.bernar-dokastrup.com and clicking on the ‘Forum’ link.

  4 See, for instance: Koch (2004).

  5 The ‘Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’ is a parody of religion and Creationism. Its deity, the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ proper, has allegedly created the universe and all life forms in it. The parody aims to illustrate the absurdity of invoking complex and unprovable entities when simpler explanations suffice. For more details, see: Vergano (2006).

  6 For an introduction to the depth-psychological notion of the ‘collective unconscious,’ see: Jung (1991). For progressively accumulating empirical evidence indicating its existence, see the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

  7 Huxley (2011), p. 8.

  8 Tegmark (2014), pp. 255-259.

  9 Paller and Suzuki (2014), pp. 387-388.

  10 Petrucelli (2010), pp. 79-114.

  11 Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

  12 Coyne wrote: ‘Throughout the article Kastrup implies that there is no reality independent of consciousness …That, of course, is untenable, as there is plenty of evidence about what was going on in the Universe before consciousness evolved.’ (Coyne 2014b).

  13 Seth Lloyd writes: ‘Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity.’ (Lloyd 2006, p. 176). Perhaps the most evocative demonstrations of how simple rules can generate unfathomable complexity come from computational systems called cellular automata (Ilachinski 2001).

  14 Lehar writes: ‘Beyond the farthest things you can perceive in all directions, i.e. above the dome of the sky, and below the solid earth under your feet, or beyond the walls and ceiling of the room you see around you, is located the inner surface of your true physical skull, beyond which is an unimaginably immense external world of which the world you see around you is merely a miniature internal replica.’ Lehar (1999), p. 124.

  15 Libet (1985).

  16 Paller and Suzuki (2014), pp. 387-388.

  17 See, for instance: Blackmore (1993) and Mobbs and Watt (2011).

  18 Popper (2005).

  19 This is a wake-initiated lucid dream. See: LaBerge and Rheingold (1991), Chapter 4.

  20 Buddha at the Gas Pump episode #240, published on 14 July 2014 and available online at: http://batgap.com/bernardo-kastrup/ (Accessed 17 December 2014).

  21 Paller and Suzuki (2014), pp. 387-388.

  22 Online article titled Dissociation FAQ’s avai
lable at: http://www.isst-d.org/?contentID=76 (Accessed 17 December 2014). The italics are mine.

  23 Coyne (2014a).

  24 See, for instance: Fogelin (2001).

  25 See, for instance: Zee (2010), pp. 17-25.

  26 Krioukov et al. (2012).

  27 Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/14/science/20060815_SCILL_GRAPHIC.html (Accessed 18 December 2014).

  28 For instance: Corbin (2010).

  29 Cheetham (2012).

  30 Goethe and Bernays (1839), p. 207.

  31 Beauregard (1963).

  32 Bohm (1980).

  33 Personal communication on 1 November 2014. Matser is a renowned humanist, philanthropist and author.

  34 Smolin (2013), p. 270. The italics are mine.

  35 Ibid.

  36 Plato and Zeyl (2000).

  37 Petrucelli (2010), pp. 79-114.

  38 Jung (1969).

  39 Jung (2002).

  40 See, for instance: Kim et al. (2000), Gröblacher et al. (2007), Lapkiewicz et al. (2011) and Ma et al. (2013).

  41 Ibid.

  42 See, for instance: Griffiths (2004), chapters 1 and 2.

  43 Paller and Suzuki (2014), pp. 387-388.

  44 See, for instance: Faye (2014).

  45 See, for instance: Vaidman (2014).

  46 See, for instance: Bacciagaluppi (2012).

  47 See, respectively: Chalmers (2003) and Levine (1999).

  48 Miller (2005).

  49 See, for instance: Dennett (1991).

  50 See, for instance: Graziano (2013).

  51 See, for instance: Ramsey (2013).

  52 Strawson (2006), p. 5.

  53 See, for instance: Graziano (2014).

  54 The original argument appeared in Searle (1980) and focused on the nature of intelligence and understanding. My interpretation of the argument in terms of consciousness is elaborated upon in Kastrup (2011), Chapter 7.

  55 For instance: Graziano (2014).

  56 See Novella’s comment of 13 May 2014 at 1:32 pm, in Novella (2014).

  57 See, for instance: Tanenbaum (1992), Section 2.4.

  58 See, for instance: Zee (2010), pp. 17-25.

  59 See, for instance: Greene (2003), Chapter 12.

  60 Dennett (1991).

  61 Dennett (2003).

  62 See, for instance: Humphrey (2014). For more background on Humphrey’s ideas regarding consciousness, see: Humphrey (2011).

  63 Strawson (2005).

  64 Blackmore (2002), p. 26.

  65 See, for instance: Churchland (1989).

  66 Center for Consciousness Studies University of Arizona, Anesthesiology (2012).

  67 See, for instance: Zandonella (2012).

  68 Wheeler (2008).

  69 Gelbard-Sagiv et al. (2008), p. 100.

  70 Hendricks (2009).

  71 Craddock, Tuszynski and Hameroff (2012).

  72 Cheu et al. (2012).

  73 Hendricks (2009).

  74 Center for Consciousness Studies University of Arizona, Anesthesiology (2012).

  75 Paller and Suzuki (2014), pp. 387-388.

  76 Jung (1972), pp. 139-158.

  77 Koch (2004).

  78 Shomrat and Levin (2013).

  79 Pearsall, Schwartz and Russek (2005).

  80 Rothschild (2000).

  81 Cedars-Sinai (2013).

  82 Lashley (1950).

  83 Pribram, Nuwer and Baron (1974).

  84 This has extraordinarily interesting implications regarding the nature of time, which echo some of Julian Barbour’s ideas (Barbour 1999). Such considerations, however, are beyond the scope of the present essay and will be treated more rigorously in future works.

  85 Castro (2013).

  86 Ibid.

  87 Ramirez et al. (2013).

  88 Carhart-Harris et al. (2012).

  89 Mosley (2011).

  90 Carhart-Harris et al. (2012), p. 2141.

  91 Carhart-Harris et al. (2012), p. 2139.

  92 Ibid.

  93 Ibid.

  94 Available online at: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Mushrooms.shtml (Accessed 21 December 2014).

  95 Huxley (2011), p. 8.

  96 Carhart-Harris et al. (2012), pp. 2141-2142.

  97 See, respectively: Tsakiris and Koch (2012) and Tsakiris and Kastrup (2012).

  98 Kastrup (2014), p. 33.

  99 Dresler et al. (2011).

  100 Senthilingam (2014). The italics are mine.

  101 Tagliazucchi et al. (2014).

  102 Alford (2014). The italics are mine.

  103 Tagliazucchi et al. (2014), p. 5443. The italics are mine.

  104 Tagliazucchi et al. (2014), p. 5452. The italics are mine.

  105 Tagliazucchi et al. (2014), p. 5448. The italics are mine.

  106 Technically, to calculate the ‘spectral power’ one must first derive the so-called Fourier Transform of the brain activity signal. By doing so, the original time-domain signal is moved onto the frequency domain and broken down into its many frequency components (the so-called ‘frequency spectrum’). The ‘spectral power’ is calculated by squaring the amplitude of those frequency components. One then knows how much ‘power’ each component contributes to the original time-domain signal. But because phase information is discarded in the calculation, one doesn’t know whether the contribution of each component is constructive or destructive. In other words, one doesn’t know whether a component interferes constructively or destructively with the others. Often the total spectral power is huge but, because the components interfere mostly destructively with each other, the time-domain signal is puny. In contrast, low total spectral power often corresponds to a significant time-domain signal, because the component frequencies are in phase and interfere constructively with each other, adding up their respective contributions.

  107 Dresler et al. (2011).

  108 Carhart-Harris (2014). The italics are mine.

  109 Ibid.

  110 Feltman (2014). The italics are mine.

  111 Email sent on 17 November 2014, at 10:52am Central European Time (CET). This is its key part: ‘In your 2012 PNAS paper you explicitly say that psilocybin decreases brain activity mostly in the DMN [Default Mode Network, a brain area associated with the ego] and doesn’t increase it anywhere in the brain. In your new HBM [Human Brain Mapping, a neuroscience journal] study you talk of an increase in variability and spectral power of activity in dream-associated areas. Naturally, an increase in variability is not necessarily an increase in activity. Similarly, an increase in spectral [power] is also not necessarily an increase in activity, since phase information is ignored. I’ve concluded then that your new study in no way contradicts your earlier findings: psilocybin has NOT been found to increase sheer brain activity …in dream-associated areas, even though the media seems to have described the study that way. I’ve attributed the inaccuracy to journalists. Yet, in your own [The Conversation] write-up you wrote ‘that psilocybin increased the amplitude …of activity in regions of the brain that are reliably activated during dream sleep and form part of the brain’s ancient emotion system.’ You also wrote of ‘the principle that the psychedelic state rests on disorganised activity in the ego system permitting disinhibited activity in the emotion system.’ Both statements are at least highly suggestive of a direct increase in brain activity …even though no indication of this seems to be found in your technical papers … I wonder if you could help me understand the discrepancy. Have you ever found that psilocybin increases sheer brain activity …anywhere in the brain?’

  112 Tagliazucchi’s email reply to me on 18 November 2014, 2:57pm CET.

  113 Ibid.

  114 Upon my original inquiry of 17-Nov-2014 at 10:52am CET and several follow-up email messages from me, I’ve received the following email replies. From Carhart-Harris: 18-Nov-2014 at 12:12pm and 2:09pm CET; 28-Nov-2014 at 12:15pm, 1:38pm and 1:43pm CET. From Enzo Tagliazucchi: 18-Nov-2014 at 2:57pm and 7:24pm CET.

  115 Laughlin and Pines (2000), p. 28
. The italics are mine.

  116 See, for instance: Kelly and Kelly (2009), Chapter 6, and Lommel (2011).

  117 Kuhn (1996), Chapter 10.

  118 Kuhn (1996).

  119 The results are available online at: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/results.html (Accessed 22 December 2014).

  120 See, for instance: CBS 2 news report on the Global Consciousness Project, aired on 3 May 2005, with journalist Brandon Keefe interviewing Jeff Scargle, research astrophysicist at NASA.

  121 The American Institute of Physics estimated the odds against chance of the discovery of the ‘top quark’ – a subatomic particle – to be about a million to one. Their 1995 bulletin stated: ‘THE TOP QUARK AT LAST! … [researchers] announced yesterday that they had indeed discovered the top quark. …[they] are now confident that their inventory of top quark events …represents a true signal and not just a spurious effect due to some background phenomenon. …the overall possibility of the observed top quark events being purely due to some background phenomenon is less than one part in a million.’ (Schewe and Stein 1995) The italics are mine.

  122 Kastrup (2013).

  123 Tsakiris (2014).

  124 Rosenberg (2011).

  125 See, for instance: Pigliucci (2014).

  126 See, for instance: Shavinina (2003), pp. 440-441.

  127 Rice and Hostert (1993).

  128 See, for instance: Rosenberg (2011).

  129 Rosenberg, for instance, speaks of the ‘illusion of purposes’ (Rosenberg 2011, Chapter 9).

  130 Ohno (1972).

  131 Doolittle and Sapienza (1980).

  132 See, for instance: Marsaglia and Tsang (2002).

  133 See, for instance: Bub (2014).

  134 Shermer (2014).

  135 See, for instance: Vergano (2006).

  136 See, for instance: Shavinina (2003), pp. 440-441.

  137 Kuhn (1996), p. 117.

  138 Steadman (2014).

  139 Bucke (2009).

  140 Borde, Guth and Vilenkin (2003).

  141 After all, science can only causally explain one thing in terms of another, previously existing thing (Russell 2007).

  142 In Kim et al. (2000), it is shown that observation not only determines the reality observed at present, but also retroactively changes the history of what is observed accordingly. This is entirely consistent with the notion that reality is fundamentally a story playing itself out in mind. In Gröblacher et al. (2007), it is shown that reality is either entirely in consciousness or we must abandon our most basic intuitions about what objectivity means. In Lapkiewicz et al. (2011), it is shown that, unlike what one would expect if reality were independent of mind, the properties of a quantum system do not exist prior to observation. In Ma et al. (2013), it is again shown that no naively objective view of reality can be true, which is consistent with the notion that reality is fundamentally subjective.