by Gregg Braden
For example, during experiments in prayers for peace, the studies clearly show that there were statistically significant declines in the key indicators that the researchers were observing. The incidence of traffic accidents, hospital emergency-room visits, and even violent crimes against people went down. In the presence of peace, all that could happen was peace. As interesting as these results are, however, what they demonstrate next has been an ongoing mystery to those studying this effect.20
When the experiments stopped, the violence returned, in some instances reaching levels even greater than before the experiments began. What happened? Why did the effects of the meditations and prayers appear to end? The answer to these questions may be the key to understanding the quality of awareness that creates. What happened was that the trainees stopped what they were doing—they ceased their meditations and prayers. And this is the answer to our mystery.
If we believe that choosing our reality is something that we do only for the moment, then it makes perfect sense that when we stop feeling as if our new reality exists, the effect of our decision is over as well. Our reality making may be a short-lived choice if we assume that feelings of healing, peace, and abundance are experiences that only last for minutes at a time. Between the modern experiments and the instructions in ancient texts, we know that reality making is more than what we do … it’s what we are!
Key 11: We must become in our lives the things that we choose to experience as our world.
If feeling is the way we choose and we’re feeling all the time, then we’re also constantly choosing. We can feel our gratitude for the peace in our world with conviction because it always exists somewhere. We can feel appreciation for the well-being of our loved ones as well as ourselves because we’re healed and renewed to some degree every day.
This may be precisely what the Aramaic versions of the Gospels were trying to convey to the people of the future through the language that they left for us nearly 2,000 years ago. It may be this very effect that’s described in the Gnostic text of the lost Gospel of Thomas, as well: “That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves. That which you do not have within you [will] kill you if you do not have it within you.”21
Although the admonition is brief, the implication is powerful. Through the words attributed to the master, Jesus, we’re reminded that the power to shape our lives and world is something that lives inside of us as an ability that we all share.
LIFE DOESN’T ALWAYS FOLLOW
THE RULES OF PHYSLCS
What happens if we live in a way that breaks the accepted rules of physics? Or what if we don’t even know the rules exist? Is it possible that we can follow the example of quantum particles that seem to do precisely this?
Common sense tells us that if something exists in one location, then it certainly can’t be somewhere else at the same time, regardless of what “it” is. Yet that’s precisely what the experiments have shown.
The obvious question that follows such discoveries is: If the stuff that the world is made of can be in two places at once and we’re part of the world, then why can’t we do the same thing? Why can’t we fulfill our duty in the workplace or classroom and at the same time be enjoying ourselves on a sunny beach or hiking through a mountain canyon somewhere? While we’ve all wondered from time to time if such a thing could occur, the possibility is really just pure fantasy … isn’t it?
When we hear of something unusual happening on many occasions involving different individuals, there’s normally some truth to the reports. While the specifics may vary, it’s often possible to trace the underlying theme to an actual event in time. The Great Flood is a perfect example of what I mean here. Throughout history and in a multitude of cultures, there’s an almost universal theme that’s recounted time and again. Playing out on various continents, in diverse languages, and with different people, the story and the outcome are nearly identical.
Although the details vary, history is similarly punctuated with reports of people who’ve bilocated—that is, they physically appeared in different locations at the same instant in time. Often these feats are attributed to yogis, mystics, or individuals who have in some way mastered a dormant ability (not always, however). The common thread that seems to link these reports is that those who do the bilocating are generally masters of the power of human emotions such as love and compassion. Frequently, the reports are associated with the holy works of saints and are well documented by missionaries, native peoples, and others who are believed to be reliable witnesses to the miracles.
Among the best documented of the many instances of bilocation attributed to St. Francis of Paola, for example, was a case that happened in 1507. As the holy man was fulfilling his duties at the church altar, people who had come to see him found that he looked as if he was in a deep state of prayer, and they decided not to disturb him. When they left, however, they were more than surprised to find him outside of the church they’d just entered. And he wasn’t simply standing there alone; he was talking with locals and those passing by on the street. Quickly, they ran back into the chapel, only to find that he’d never left—he was still there, “lost in prayer.” Somehow, through a mysterious state of consciousness associated with a deep meditative state, St. Francis of Paola had appeared to the same people in two locations during the same period of time.
Between 1620 and 1631, María de Agreda, a nun who lived for 46 years in a convent in Agreda, Spain, reported more than 500 journeys across the ocean, away to a distant land. As far as those who knew her and lived with her were concerned, she never once left the convent. For María, however, she would “fly” to the faraway place she spoke of during what she called her “experiences of ecstasy.”
Such a phenomenon could be chalked up today to a 300-year-old report of remote viewing (the ability to witness and perceive events from a distance by directing consciousness to a precise location), except for one curious distinction: María de Agreda not only visited the lands that she described, but she taught the indigenous people she encountered there about the life of Jesus. Although she spoke only her native Spanish, the Indians could understand her as she shared the teachings of the great master with them.
The documentation of her sightings came when the archbishop of Mexico, Don Francisco Manzo y Zuniga, heard about her experience. When he sent missionaries to investigate, they were amazed to find that the local Indians of the area were already well educated in the life of Jesus—so well, in fact, that they immediately baptized the entire tribe on the spot.
Nearly a decade later, María de Agreda’s mystical journeys were finally validated. While she was under a church-ordered oath of obedience, she described the intimate details of a land that she’d never physically visited. Her description was so complete that she included the subtleties of climate and changing seasons, as well as nuances of the culture and the beliefs of the people whom she’d taught. Following a “rigorous ecclesiastical examination,” María de Agreda’s mystical journeys were declared by the church to be authentic and she was given the consideration of “the highest rank among the mystics of past ages.”22
Not all reports of bilocation are from the murky years of the 16th and 17th centuries. As recently as World War II, there have been many instances of holy men appearing in multiple places at once. One of the best documented is that of Italy’s mystical Padre Pio. Following his promise that the Nazi-occupied city of San Giovanni Rotondo would be spared from destruction by the Allies, he appeared in broad daylight in a way that’s rare even for bilocation.
As the bombers arrived over the city to target German strongholds, the image of Padre Pio in brown robes appeared in front of their planes, hovering in midair! Unlike the brief apparitions that are sometimes reported under the stress of battlefield conditions, the image lingered for all to see. And as long as it remained, any attempt to release bombs on the city failed.
Frustrated and mystified, the pilots changed course and landed their planes at a
nearby airfield with all of the bombs that were with them when they began their mission. Shortly afterward, one of the pilots went to a nearby chapel. To his amazement, inside of it he found the same friar that he’d seen earlier hovering in front of his plane … it was Padre Pio!
The padre wasn’t a ghost or the apparition of a long-deceased saint, as the pilot had suspected. He was real. He was alive. And on that day, he’d somehow been in two places at the same time: on the ground in the chapel and in the air directly in front of the planes. While the Allies liberated Italy, the city of San Giovanni Rotondo was spared, just as Padre Pio had promised.23
When we experience something that appears to happen beyond the realm of what we know to be true, we often credit it as a miracle. So what are we to make of the reports and documented cases of bilocation and other seemingly miraculous feats that span more than 600 years? Can we write them off as pure fantasy or wishful thinking? … Possibly. There’s always the chance that they were conjured up by people with too much time on their hands or who honestly wanted them to be true.
However, what if there’s something more happening here? If it’s proven to us beyond any doubt that we aren’t limited by the current laws of physics, that confirmation allows us to see ourselves in a powerful new light by offering us something beyond faith upon which to base our new beliefs.
Just as the initiates mentioned in the poem in the Introduction to this book found a new freedom in their unexpected experiences, if we find that we can follow in the “footsteps” of quantum particles that operate beyond the boundaries of space and time, then we can certainly use our ability to heal our bodies and bring joy to our lives. The key is this: To do what seems to be impossible, one person first has to push the limits of what we previously thought to be true. Just as the initiates discovered that they were more than they’d formerly believed once they moved beyond their fear of “the edge,” in order to live miracles in our lives, we must first overcome our beliefs that such phenomena are impossible.
Key 12: We are not bound by the laws of physics as we know them today.
For us to do so, someone must perform that miracle first so that we can see it happen. Maybe that person is particularly gifted in one area of life, such as healing. Or perhaps that individual simply has the openness to see the world differently. Regardless of how it happens, once one person does that special something—whether it’s Jesus or your next-door neighbor—then the same miracle becomes available to everyone else.
A beautiful example of this principle is illustrated by the inability of the native peoples of North America to see the ships of the early Europeans that were anchored just off their shores. The concept of a massive wooden boat with huge masts and sails was so foreign to them that they had no point of reference for what they were seeing. In the same way that our vision is capable of detecting the individual frames of a movie, the natives’ eyes could certainly make out the silhouette of the ships on the horizon. And just as our brains try to make sense of what we see by merging the frames together into the continuous experience of the movie, the natives tried to do the same thing. The problem was that no one had ever done it before: Nothing in their collective experience told them how to see a European sailing vessel.
It was only when the medicine man of the tribe squinted and used his vision a little differently that he could begin to make out the ships. Once he did, it wasn’t long before everyone in the group was able to see what only hours before had been invisible. It was all about the way the people allowed themselves to perceive. In their willingness to try something different, a whole new world opened up to them. Maybe we’re not so different from those natives on the shore a little more than 500 years ago. We can only imagine what’s in store for us when we think of our world, our universe, and ourselves a little differently.
At the beginning of this section, we asked the question “If an electron is able to be in two places, why can’t we?” Perhaps the answer could be found if we posed our query a little differently. Rather than buying into the belief that particles can do something that we can’t, let’s ask what it takes for an electron to bilocate. If we understand how the stuff we’re made of behaves under the circumstances of a miracle, maybe we can find those conditions in our own lives. And to understand how this works, we’ll need to explore the single facet of our existence that gives each of us the ourselves: the power of the hologram.
CHAPTER FOUR
ONCE CONNECTED, ALWAYS
CONNECTED: LIVING IN A
HOLOGRAPHIC UNLIVERSE
“So here we are—all part of this
great hologram called Creation,
which is everybody else’s SELF… .
It’s all a cosmic play, and
there is nothing but you!”
— Itzhak Bentov (1923–1979),
scientist, author, and mystic
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
— William Blake (1757–1827),
poet and visionary mystic
A mystery was alluded to in the experiments of the last section, one that was never solved. A part of the proof that the Divine Matrix actually exists was offered when two “somethings” that were once joined (two photons, the DNA and the photons, or the donor and his DNA) acted as if they were still connected to one another, even though they were separated by distances ranging from feet to hundreds of miles. The question is: Why?
IS IT REAL, OR IS IT
A HOLOGRAM?
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. As a visual person, I know that this is true for me. For example, seeing one demonstration of how to start the engine of my truck is much more meaningful to me than reading all the pages of a manual describing why the pistons move and the spark plugs spark when I turn the key! Once I see the big picture, then I can always go back in order to understand the details, if they’re even still important; sometimes I just want my truck to start.
I suspect that many of us work in this way. Although we find ourselves in the high-tech world of how-to manuals and computer tutorials about why something is the way it is, a direct experience is still the best way to explain a new idea clearly. A powerful example of such an experience is our introduction to the idea of a hologram. Holograms have been used in research since their discovery in the late 1940s.1 Since that time, however, precisely what one is and how it works had little meaning to the average nontechnical person—until the original Star Wars motion picture was released in 1977.
In a pivotal scene early in the film, we see the representative of an entire planet, Princess Leia, pleading for help to save her people. She encodes her message in the form of a digital hologram stored in the memory of R2-D2, the android who captured the hearts and imaginations of audiences throughout the world.
While Princess Leia remains in one part of the universe, R2-D2 carries her holographic image to another world in a galaxy far, far away. The message remained secret until a young warrior, Luke Skywalker, coaxes it from him. In a stunning display of state-of-the-art motion-picture graphics, R2-D2 delivers the Princess’s request by projecting a miniature image of her into the room, as if she were there in person.
Suddenly, her lifelike image appears in midair to make the plea. Because she looks three-dimensional to the movie audience, we’re given the feeling that if we were there, we’d be able to reach out and touch her just the way we could the person sitting next to us in the theater. If we did so, however, our hands would pass through empty air: She’s just a hologram.
For many people in the ’70s, this scene was their first experience of a holographic projection and how real it can appear. It also gave us a surprising glimpse of what our phone calls may look like at some point in the not-so-distant future. Even today, decades later, the mere mention of the word hologram still brings to mind the image of Princess Leia.
Fo
r all intents and purposes, a hologram is generally thought of as a picture—a three-dimensional image—that looks lifelike when it’s projected in a particular way or is seen in a certain kind of light. While the film rendition is one example of what the hologram may produce, there’s much more to it than simply a photograph.
The holographic principle may be one of the simplest yet least understood phenomena of nature. At the same time, it could hold the greatest potential for making change on even the largest-possible scales within a time frame that’s dizzying to the mind. To apply this power in our personal lives, however, we must understand precisely what a hologram is and how it works. So, first things first: Just what is a hologram?
UNDERSTANDING THE
HOLOGRAM
If you were to ask scientists to explain a hologram, they would probably begin by describing it as a special kind of photograph where the image on the surface suddenly appears three-dimensional when it’s exposed to direct light. The process that creates these images involves a way of using laser light so that the picture becomes distributed over the entire surface of the film. It’s this property of “distributedness” that makes the holographic film so unique.
In this way, every part of the surface contains the entire image just as it was originally seen, only on a smaller scale. In other words, each fragment is a hologram. If the original picture were divided into any number of pieces, each one—no matter how small—would still show a full view of the entire original image.
