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CONTACT 54 The Study Society Newsletter Spring 2011 £3.00 Contact The Study Society Newsletter Wring Out My Clothes Such love does the sky now pour, that whenever I stand in a field, I have to wring out the light when I get home. St Francis of Assisi From, for lovers of god everywhere Hay House, 2009 Cover Illustration James Turrell .© ‘Sky-space’ installation in the Roden Crater, Arizona. The Roden Crater is an extinct volcanic cinder cone, situated at an elevation of approximately 5,400 feet in the San Francisco Volcanic Field near Arizona's Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. The 600 foot tall red and black cinder cone is being turned into a monumental work of art and naked eye observatory by the artist James Turrell, who says: . in this stage set of geologic time, I wanted to make spaces that engaged celestial events in light so that the spaces performed like a music of the spheres — in light. The sequence of spaces, leading up to the final large space at the top of the crater, magnifies events. The work I do intensifies the experience of light by isolating it and occluding light from events not looked at. (See more at www.rodencrater.com) CONTENTS 3. The Universe as a Hologram Michael Talbot 9. Nothing Obscures Consciousness Rupert Spira 12. Three Graces James Witchalls 15. Holman Hunt and the Light of Consciousness Fiona Stuart 17. Writing a poem, living a life Tony Brignull 19. Sometimes a Light surprises Heather Gibbs 20. ‘Dawning of the clear light’ Peter & Elizabeth Fenwick 22. The Meaning of Light? Dorothy Smith 23. Northern Lights Martin Redfern 25. Go gentle into that good night Geoffrey Lee 26. Book Reviews Redfern, Connell, Miodownik, Garten 30. Obituaries. Peggy MacLaren, Keith Mott, Costi Melidis 32. The Three Hermits Leo Tolstoy 36. Information pages 40. Diary Dates 2 Painted Storks at sunrise in the Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary, Rajasthan. Richard Beal. © The Universe as a Hologram Does Objective Reality Exis t? Science appears increasingly determined to understand the real nature of consciousness and just exactly how ‘the world’, both inner and outer, contrives to arise in the minds of human beings. Here is one strand of enquiry, set in motion by the physicist David Bohm with whom, before he died, the Study Society had a strong connection. This is work still in progress, not the end of any story, but it demonstrates the way that modern science and the perennial vision of the mystics are inevitably coming together to suggest a new paradigm — a paradigm which, like this issue of Contact, seems to be built upon the fundamental and miraculous nature of ‘Light’. IN 1982 A REMARKABLE EVENT TOOK PLACE at the University the speed of light. Travelling faster than the speed of light is of Paris. A research team led by physicist Alain Aspect tantamount to breaking the time barrier — time would performed what may turn out to be one of the most simply stop — and so this daunting prospect has caused important experiments of the 20th century. Unless you are some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have explain away Aspect’s findings. But it has inspired others never heard Aspect’s name, though there are now many to offer even more radical insights. who believe his discovery may be changing the face of The physicist David Bohm believed Aspect’s findings science. imply that objective reality simply does not exist —that Aspect and his team discovered that under certain despite its apparent solidity, the universe is in essence an circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are illusion, rendered by an infinite and miraculously able instantaneously to communicate with each other detailed hologram. regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn’t To understand why Bohm makes this startling matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart. assertion, one must first understand a little about Somehow, each particle always seems to ‘know’ what the holograms. A hologram is a three-dimensional photo- other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates graph made with the aid of a laser. The object to be Einstein’s long-held tenet that nothing can travel faster than photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. 3 Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object reappears. The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The ‘whole-in-every-part’ nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has considered that the best way to understand any physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is turns, the other also makes a slightly different but to take it to pieces and study its respective parts. This is corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other ‘reductionism’ — reducing a thing to its component always faces toward the side. If you remain ignorant of elements and examining them separately. But a hologram the real situation you might even conclude that the fish teaches us that some things in the universe may not be must be somehow communicating with one another, but susceptible to this approach. If we try to take apart the truth, of course, is that there is only one fish. something constructed holographically, we will not get David Bohm suggests that this is precisely what is the pieces from which it is made, we only get smaller and going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect’s smaller wholes . experiment. The apparently faster-than-light connection This insight suggested to Bohm another way of between subatomic particles is really telling us that there understanding Aspect’s discovery. Bohm believes the is a deeper level of reality we are not usually privy to, a reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact higher dimension beyond (and including) our own that is with one another regardless of the distance separating analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view them is not because they are sending some sort of objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one mysterious signal back and forth, but because their another because we are seeing only a portion of their separateness is an illusion . He argues that at some deeper reality. Such particles are not separate entities, but only level of reality such particles are not individual entities, fleeting facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that but are actually reflections of the same fundamental is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the rose ‘something’. already mentioned. And since everything we perceive in To enable people to better visualize what he means, this physical world is comprised of these fleeting facets of Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an ‘reality’, the universe itself can be seen as a projection — a aquarium containing a single fish. Imagine also that you hologram. are unable to see the aquarium directly and your In addition to its apparently illusory nature, such a knowledge about it and what it contains is provided by universe would possess other startling features. If the two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium’s perceived separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at two means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the television monitors in another room, you might assume universe are infinitely inter-connected.The electrons in that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. every carbon atom in the human brain are connected to As the cameras are set at different angles, each of the the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that images will be slightly different. But as you continue to swims, every heart that beats, and every star that watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that shimmers in the firmament. Everything inter-penetrates there is a certain relationship between them. When one everything else, and though human nature may seek to 4 measure and categorize, to pigeonhole and subdivide the of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that criss- various phenomena of the universe, all these divisions are cross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a laser light interference criss-cross the entire area of a piece seamless web of unity. of film containing a holographic image. In other words, In a holographic universe, even time and space can no Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram. longer be viewed as fundamentals. Concepts such as Pribram’s theory also explains how the brain can store ‘where’ and ‘when’ simply break down in a universe in so many memories in so little space.

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