by Corey Taylor
If you thought that was strange, you are going to love this.
Quantum consciousness deals with the quantum mind. It is a hypothesis proposing that classical mechanics cannot explain human consciousness. I mean let’s be honest: consciousness is still a mystery, even after years of study. We have mapped the brain extensively, but there are still no reasons why “we think, therefore we are.” We are walking, talking miracles of undisclosed information. People go on and on, waxing poetically about the human plights of sentient thought, but there are no facts about the soul and willpower—only really good guesses. Incidentally, when I was doing my research, I tried to find some scientific studies about willpower. The only articles that popped up were seminars on how to be a more positive thinker in the workplace . . . and, of course, how to quit smoking. So this is me putting together some ideas on how willpower may influence things like energy and the human soul. Quantum mechanical phenomena like entanglement and superposition may play an important role in the brain’s function and might someday form the basis of an explanation of consciousness, but at this moment, when we are capable of seeing the light from galaxies that emanated before this planet was even created and is only now reaching us, there are still so many mysteries here in the confines of our own souls.
Quantum synchronicity is a bit of fiddly work. The reason I bring it up here is because I believe it could explain why both sides of this debate may be right. In other words, my chances of being on target are just as good as the folks with the white coats and the PhDs. This is summed up in the EPR paradox, written by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen—the aforementioned EPR, respectively. My ideas may be supported by this paradox, specifically the second half, which says that information—or, in this case, proof—may be encoded in “hidden parameters.” They were trying to debunk another piece of quantum physics and in doing so, basically came up with the idea that just because you have not found the answers, that does not mean the answers are not there. At least that is the way I read it. I happily look forward to your letters of disgust.
Here is a last little bit of my examples of plausibility: gravitational singularity, or space-time singularity. This is “a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system.” To me, that may mean that the spirits in question, according to my intelligent energy idea, may be able to sustain themselves by borrowing from different sources of power. Gravitational singularity deals with the curvatures of space-time and includes a measure of the density of matter. Only in the last few years have we realized that the darkness of space—the black shit we see surrounding the stars at night—is matter, not just emptiness. So the idea is that everything has matter, even on a macrolevel, and if everything has matter, that means everything (and I do mean everything) has the potential to produce energy.
So, based on that last paragraph, let me break this shit down like a hardcore band for you. The spirit (a location where the quantities are measured in the gravitational field) can separate from the body (the coordinate system that the location does not need to depend on) and sustain itself through other sources of energy, which I surmise from all of the information I have spewed on the corresponding pages. If the last century has showed me anything, it is that anything is possible. From governing dynamics to thermodynamics, the only basis to support a negative retort to the idea of intelligent energy—or ghosts—is skeptical narcissism. Those who have higher degrees of education are pedantic enough to argue these points until they are blue in the face, and yet there are so many things that can support the idea, and that is all this is—an idea. I am not bucking for a Nobel Prize or even an Ignoble Prize; I am merely trying to make sense of the things I have seen and experienced in the best way I know how—through the many trains of fact and supposition that science has afforded us over the millennia. Even Einstein was not taken seriously when he first theorized that space was curved; it was not until pictures were carefully taken of a solar eclipse that he was proven right. But he knew it all along. Remember: the answers may indeed be in those “hidden parameters.”
I refuse to revert to myth or other tales of the past that tried to explain these things according to tired examples of imagination. I will never subscribe to a method of immediate dismissal, because that is what so many nonbelievers have done based solely on the fact that it does not make sense to them. How can so many people talk about basically the same things and yet still have so many intellects treat these ideas as detritus? How can so many people have the gift of knowledge and not see there may be something there? When imagination and intellect graft themselves together, we find ourselves swimming in possibility, not detriment. If this were the case, people would have never pushed through the veils of prospect to the land of discovery. We would have virtually none of the many wonderful advancements we have today, from pasteurization to space travel. Someone had to go first. Someone had to leave the pack of nay-saying bastards and take the faltering steps toward the unknown. I am in no way saying that person is me—I am just a messenger. But my role is to present possible ideas, not semantics and bullshit. The status quo is not always right, and that, to me, is a relief. If it were, the world would be worse because of it.
Did you know that when a person dies, they are twenty-one grams lighter than when they were alive? This disrupts the whole idea of “dead weight,” quite frankly. Dead weight only means the difficulty of carrying a dead body because the body in question cannot get involved, making it hard to coordinate. And god knows I have carried my share of dead bodies—er, I mean, god knows I have watched several movies in which carrying a dead body looks like it would be uncomfortable and watching said movie in no way means I engaged in any unsavory or illegal behavior and can also account for whereabouts on any given night in question, officer. I have no idea where I was at this point in the conversation . . . something about a movie . . . wait, Sean Penn . . . Benicio Del Toro . . . OH YEAH!! 21 Grams—awesome flick, you should see it. And before you ask, yes, I am feeling much better now.
The twenty-one grams idea has been tested, and it seems to be true. This suggests that the human soul has mass. We already know that the soul is energy. Now we know it has mass. As I said before and as scientific discovery has told us, mass and energy do not break down. They do not go away. So the human soul cannot go away. Seeing as I do not believe in heaven, there are so many plausible instances and scenarios available if you put your mind to it. The energy could be distributed to other systems. The spirit could be recycled into another life form, vis-à-vis reincarnation, which is probable when you put it in context. But by that notion, applying these ideas to the same examples, it is indeed possible for a spirit to exist when it is broken from its host.
So the question now becomes: what kind of energy is it?
Yeah, at this point I am just showing off. Plus I am fairly certain I just triggered thousands of new headaches. I hate to think I am making any of you think. But then again, if you do not think, how else are you going to learn? My Board of Education has holes drilled in it and leaves a vicious wound. In other words, the truth might hurt, but facts only sting, so bite down and bear with me.
Maxwell’s Equation, which I mentioned earlier, deals with commonality between the three major sources of electromagnetic fields: light, magnetism, and electricity. All three travel at the speed of light, which is approximately 186,000 miles per second. These are the Big Three, our major sources of energy. What if the human spirit was a fourth? It is an intriguing idea that unfortunately raises more questions than it answers. I will delightfully give you a respite from all this hogwash for a while.
Here is a great way to change it up: Ouija boards are fucking horseshit.
I cannot tell you how many exasperating arguments I have had with people over the relevance and demonstrative features of these pieces of shit from Parker Brothers. It was not even originally designed for contact with the dead: it was supposed
to be an artistic form of automatic writing, a way to contact your “self.” But ever since movies like The Exorcist and Witchboard, Goths and nutbags everywhere carry these things into graveyards and abandoned buildings to “talk to the other side,” like these boards are some type of MagicJack Plus subscription or something. What happens when the dead reverse the charges, I wonder?
It does not get much more beyond the fringe than a fucking Ouija board, and it does not take much more effort to fuck with people than to participate maliciously in a ceremony in which one such board is involved. I have never given them much thought—to me, they are no different than cold readers, tarot cards, and divining the future through tea leaves—the soft-core porn of the astrology sects. But nevertheless people are convinced the Ouija board is a broadband CB radio to the afterlife. They have used them for contacting everyone from Houdini to Elvis. Some friends invited me to one of the things—they called it a séance, which is a nice way to dress up a bullshit session or a meeting of vapid minds. So I begrudgingly acquiesced. But I had silly high jinks in mind.
We sat in an old house just outside Denver, off of a road that leads you up to Red Rocks Amphitheater. I think my friend Jester was there, but I may be mistaken. All I know is that I was a million miles from reason and up to no good. I do remember there was a woman who called herself Rose there. Her real name was, like, Ingrid or something, so good call on the pseudonym. But with that name came all the haughty trimmings of a pretentious Thanksgiving. It was her Ouija board, and she had tried to dirty it up, or “antique it” as they say, by writing on it and scuffing it presumably with dirt. The only problem was that she kept it in the original box—the fucking thing still had the price tag from Wal-Mart on it. That was not going to rain on her dramatic parade though. “Ooooh, derelict spirits!” she exclaimed in the din, startling me and nearly making me wee a little. “We seek your guidance, wisdom, and cherished mercy . . . SPEAK THROUGH ME. Speak to us. Speak to . . . the world!”
You got to be fucking kidding.
And so the circling began. There we were: a bunch of gothic punk nightmares, fingers all together and touching on a piece of plastic with a hole in it, watching it swirl around like none of us had anything to do with its movement. I know for a fact that I was pushing it; I had no illusions coming into the damn thing. Then again, I had nefarious intentions. Slowly but surely, I started to lead this plastic triangle toward the letters that I wanted. I started with a Y, then an O, until I made it spell out a single sentence:
“YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS.”
I had planned on making it say, “YOU ARE ALL GONNA DIE,” but I changed it at the last minute because I did not want to run the risk of stepping in someone’s piss after scaring three shades of shit out of a group composed of armchair vampires—and I use the term “vampire” here as loosely as possible. Rose, being a little savvier than I gave her credit, picked up on it before I was done and scowled at me the rest of the night. She then called an end to the séance. I was not invited back. As you can tell, my feelings are still hurt to this day. I had basically pulled this same prank on some of my friends back in Evansdale, Iowa, when I carved a Ouija board face onto the top of a writing plank. Guiding the makeshift stylus, which was nothing more than the bottom of a Pepsi two-liter bottle, I made my board tell them all to bum me cigarettes. They all complied. I had smokes for the rest of the night. We did this for a few weeks every Saturday, about an hour before Headbangers Ball came on MTV. Good times. Good friends. Good smokes.
So yeah—those games are shite.
The wonderful thing about all this science and math I am hitting you with is that I am so very fallible when it comes to these questions. Everything I wrote may not even make fucking sense at the end of the day. A theorist could read this book and treat it like the National Enquirer. I could become a punch line for the entire scientific world, a Munson among men. But who gives a shit? So maybe I have just committed the worst bit of mental clutter since Garth Brooks tried to make a rock album, or at least since Chris Cornell tried to make a hip-hop album, or at least since Scott Weiland tried to make a Christmas album, or at least since Lil Wayne tried to make a metal album (I could do this all day—you get the picture . . .). Maybe this is the biggest put-on since the Millerites experienced their Great Disappointment in 1844. But ladies and gentlemen of the jury . . . what if I am not crazy? What if in some corner of a college basement somewhere someone could take this numeral voodoo and actually get somewhere with it? All I have done is stand on a step stool with a lit book of matches, doing my best to set the sprinklers off and send the alarms howling.
Discovery is a violent spasm of chance, reason, and determination. It takes a bit of ball size to jump in among the fires and dare for a marriage of the factual and the fascinating. In this day and age, when everything we are surrounded by seems to be less and less positive, when the world always finds itself on the dagger’s edge, just waiting for the final showdown, and even religion, with all its bells and whistles, cannot drag the throng away from wishing it was a quicker end than slower agony, maybe, just maybe, these few pages can be a counterweight to the heaviness life and all its trimmings can bring. What is so bad about not only believing in ghosts but also in trying to supply a few mathematical examples of why it is possible? What is the matter with wanting just a little bit of mystery left in the world, out there on the fringe by the Yetis and the underwater civilizations? This reality can and will kick every inch of fuck right out of you if you give it an ample opening. We have the anchor—how about a little wind in our sails?
I think looking backward is not the answer, as many theologians would want us to do. I also taste a little tactical chowder when I hear a pragmatist flailing at the mouth about how things like spirits cannot and never did exist. The bile in their repudiations causes the muscles in my forearms to draw clenched fists together and play a game I like to call Smash the Weasel. I only relax when I consider the hypocrisy of it all, when I have the same reaction to the God Squad. So the Gentleman Scholar inside me soothes my troubled mind and furrowed brow with the subtle yet firm reminder that “maybe time will tell . . .” Souls are wonderful things that no one can explain. We do know that this fleshy vessel we use for digs gives off a shit ton of energy. There has to be a connection. There has to be a little triple fantastic in this. Otherwise, humanity as a whole would not be so wonderfully and gloriously fucked up and beautiful.
In this chapter I picture myself running around a giant stone laboratory with crazy tall white hair and a toothy grin, pouring smoking noxious potions from one beaker to another, twisting knobs and switching switches, making lots of noise and cackling like a madman. My gnarled and hunched assistant wanders behind me (I call him Skip because I never bothered to stop and learn his real name), waiting to do my bidding while he wrings his hands over and over, as if there is too much lotion on them. In a convulsion of triumph, I savor my “eureka” moment with rigorous vigor and run across the stones to a blackboard covered in pagan-like symbols and chalk dust. With a bellow of “AH-HA!” I launch myself into my work again, muttering, “I will show them all! I will show the world! I will have my revenge!” Then again, I picture myself like that a lot, really. I see myself like that when I am making lunch sometimes. So I guess this new vision is nothing new. But I like it. I should look into buying a castle with a dungeon somewhere.
The point is that stranger things are always possible. We keep finding mysteries and unlocking their answers, more so in the last twenty years than at any other time in our existence, in my opinion. Yes, things like alchemy and perpetual-motion machines are a little outside our grasp of physics, but there are vast universes of explorative discovery to be had if only we have the mettle to make it so. Just because something is fantastic does not mean it is a fantasy that will never find its place in reality. One of the better bits of being human is that we can dream and reach for things that might never have been reached if we had not had the power to do the dreaming in the first place.
The only limits we have ever had are the ones we build ourselves, fences of pessimistic stone that keep out the sun while blinding us to the sensation of that light on our faces. Some claim that only God has the answers; others say that the parameters of science section off the places we are not meant to go. All of that could be true. Then again, all of that could be a crutch to ensure that the majority of humanity remains ignorant and shortsighted. How will we ever find ourselves if we are not allowed to look? How will we outlast the mistakes of the past unless we test the waters outside our peripheral vision?
Maybe ghosts do not exist. Maybe there is no way in science and life that they can exist. Maybe I have more mental instability than I thought. Maybe I am wrong. If I am, then I will be the first to admit it. I would not like the taste of saying it and I would grumble into my coffee cup for a few years, but I would accept it and move on to the next mystery. Maybe I just have a great propensity for turning bullshit into brilliance than do most people I know. But I like my idea better—that there is more to this world and others than even we, with our big brains and brawny opinions, can fathom as of yet. I like thinking that somewhere between the religion and the science there is the truth. We may never know. But that does not mean that we will never dream of its identity.
