Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00251)

Friends,

For further information regarding the confirmations of theosophy by current 
science, check out the web site of Peter Mutnick -- containing interesting 
(if not conclusive) dialogues with prominent quantum physicists -- from which 
the following commentary is an excerpt referring to the Secret Doctrine. 

Incidentally, these dialogues were either posted to the Quantum Mind online 
forum sponsored by the University of Arizona consciousness studies department 
(headed and moderated by Stuart Hameroff) -- or, possibly, on the off-line 
unmoderated discussion group set up by one of the members of QM online, in 
which Dr. Mutnick and I also participated, along with about thirty other 
internationally known scientists and philosophers, including some Nobel 
prizewinners and one or two interested metaphysicians without academic 
[Ph.D.] credentials (like myself :-) 

However, the arguments between the quantum physicists still go on, since they 
haven't yet correlated their ideas with those of the Superstring/M-brane 
theorists -- who have mathematically determined the existence of a 10 
dimensional (multi-space) universe -- or with my theory of ABC, that brings 
consciousness and thought down to analogue field informational processes that 
have nothing to do with quantum effects (except those related to the 
mechanisms of the brain, body, and the mass/energy particles that compose 
them)... 

The difference being that most quantum physicists think of the "images" of 
thought, memory, sensory and extra sensory perception, as being finitely 
"particulate" in nature and subject to quantum laws -- while ABC sees them as 
being composed of infinite degrees of interference wave patterns of a 
holographic nature -- that are transferred holistically between consciousness 
(mind, memory, experiential, etc.) fields by purely electrical (harmonics, 
inductiion, resonance, etc.) processes. (Of course, the non informational 
phenomena within each of these fields could be governed by quantum 
particle/wave laws -- but the constants and energy relationships of such laws 
would be entirely different on each transcendental plane of consciousness.) 

Thus, the inner "astral light" that we see with our mind's eye, could be 
traveling at a velocity much faster than the speed (c) of sidereal light that 
actually falls on the retinas of our eyes (there to be translated chemically 
and electrically until its vibrational patterns are transferred holistically 
to the brain's em field, and thence, as holographic, interference patterned 
modulations, to our mind/memory fields).

When the currently mixed bag of scientists working in the various disciplines 
of the hard and soft sciences finally recognize these possibilities, join 
their physics, biologics, and psychology's with the "metaphysics" of 
Supertring/M-brane and ABC theories -- all the current "hard problems" of 
consciousness (explaining experience, brain-mind binding, psi phenomena, 
will, etc.) will be answered... And, theosophy will finally be "proven" by 
science. How long this will take is anybody's guess -- but, though not all 
of them know it, they are getting very very close.

LHM

P.S. I added a comment with reference to FOHAT to the dialogue below between 
Mutnick and HPB. (Note that I introduced the SD to all these consciousness 
science forums as early as 1994 when they first started up. Before then, 
prior to the philosopher, David Chalmers, posing the "hard problem" -- 
explaining the experience or "qualia" of consciousness -- the study of 
consciousness was anathema in most "hard science" circles.) 

--------------------------------------------------------------- 

From: Peter Mutnick (http://www.geocities.com/saint7peter/index.html) 

The Secret Doctrine and Complementarity

Note: I explain below the relevance of this passage, written in 1888, to 
quantum theory and the philosophy of complementarity. The URL given 
immediately below is the testimony of one Leon Maurer concerning Einstein's 
interest in "The Secret Doctrine".

http://users.aol.com/unIwldarts/uniworld.artisans.guild/einstein.html

LeonMaurer@aol.com

[Helena Blavatsky]
The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions: -
(a) An omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all 
speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception 
and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond 
the range and reach of thought - in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable and 
unspeakable".

[Peter Mutnick]
If the source of the complementary pairs of opposites is not this type of 
plenitude, then the alternative is a cheap defective universe. This is the 
impression that many have of complementarity and the Copenhagen 
Interpretation, but it is a misconception on their part from the outset.

[Blavatsky]
To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the 
postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested, 
conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause - dimly formulated in the 
"Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy - is the 
rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be". It is of course devoid 
of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested, 
finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, *Sat*), and is 
beyond all thought or speculation.

[Mutnick]
The penetration of the Unconscious leads to the implicate order as the true 
Mind of the Observer. The Unknowable is the foundation for the implicate 
order as the noumenal back-ground. The Infinite and Eternal Cause = the God 
of Spinoza = the Implicate Order of Bohm.

[Blavatsky]
This "Be-ness" is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On the 
one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one 
thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive 
of by itself. On the other hand, absolute Abstract Motion representing 
Unconditioned Consciousness.

[Mutnick]
The primary pair of conjugate variables are enunciated in 1888! Moreover a 
possibly profound meaning is given to them.

[Blavatsky]
Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable to 
us apart from change, and motion best symbolizes change, its essential 
characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality is also symbolized by 
the term "The Great Breath", a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further 
elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine 
is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE - BE-NESS - symbolized by finite 
intelligence as the theological Trinity.

It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given 
here.
Herbert Spencer has of late so modified his Agnosticism as to assert that the 
nature of the "First Cause", which the Occultists more logically derives from 
the "Causeless Cause", the "Eternal", and the "Unknowable", may be 
essentially the same as that of the Consciousness which wells up within us; 
in short, that the impersonal reality pervading the Kosmos is the noumenon of 
thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the esoteric and 
Vedantin tenet.

Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute 
Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned 
existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once 
we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in 
the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.

[Mutnick]
This Absolute Consciousness is the same discovered by Edmund Husserl through 
the phenomenological reduction. It is discovered by everyone who turns their 
attention inward and asks in sincerity, "Who and What am I?" But this cannot 
be done casually or even necessarily through an act of will. Husserl said 
only that one should perform the phenomenological reduction at least once 
during one's lifetime. It is a peak experience and the experience of a 
lifetime. Zen adepts often had two experiences: one an initial Kensho; and 
later a complete Enlightenment.

[Blavatsky]
Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as 
independent realities, but as two facets or aspects of the Absolute 
(Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether 
subjective or objective.

Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all 
manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. 
I is the *fons et origo* of force and of all individual consciousness, and 
supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On 
the other hand, precosmic root-substance (*Mulaprakriti*) is that aspect of 
the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so 
pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its 
differentiation.

[Mutnick]
Substance and Ideation have to do with the State Vector and its Reduction.

[Blavatsky]
Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the 
Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe". Apart 
from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual 
consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that 
consciousness wells up as "I am I", a physical basis being necessary to focus 
a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain level of complexity. Again, apart 
from the Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction, 
and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.

[Mutnick]
Clearly applicable to the State Vector and its Reduction.

[Blavatsky]
The "Manifested Universe", therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as it 
were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation".

[Mutnick]
EX-istence = explicate order.

[Blavatsky]
But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are 
but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the 
manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to 
object.

This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the 
occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the 
"Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature". 
Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the 
other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all 
manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through the 
Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or 
Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the several 
vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains to self - 
or reflective - consciousness; while Fohat, in its various manifestations, is 
the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle 
electrifying every atom into life.

[Niels Bohr]
"Actually, ordinary language by its use of such words as thoughts and 
sentiments, admits typical complementary relations between conscious 
experiences implying a different placing of the section line between the 
observing subject and object on which attention is focussed. We are here 
presented with a close analogy to the relationship between atomic phenomena 
appearing under different experimental conditions and described by different 
physical concepts, according to the role played by the measuring instruments. 
In fact, the varying separation line between subject and object, 
characteristic of different conscious experiences, is the clue to the 
consistent logical use of such contrasting notions as will, conscience and 
aspirations, each referring to equally important aspects of human 
personality." (Niels Bohr, "Physical Science and the Study of Religions", 
1953, in TPWNB, Volume IV, pp. 159-60)

[Mutnick]
Fohat as the mediator of subject and object is more than the "aspects of the 
human personality" which are products of varying placements of the split. 
Fohat actually synthesizes the opposites (complementary pairs) in a way that 
is not yet understood. THIS IS A PRIMARY KEY TO THE SCIENCE OF THE 21ST 
CENTURY! IT EXPLAINS THE DYNAMIC ACTION OF WILL IN A UNIVERSALLY CREATIVE 
SENSE.

[Maurer] 
Too bad that Mutnick, while he sees the quantum correlation's with the 
fundamental principles, can't see that, since Fohat manifests as the primary 
field of electrical energy in its threefold aspects, that the link between 
the opposites (fullness-emptiness, sleeping-waking, light-dark, etc.), as 
well as the idea of "complementarity" depends solely on cyclic laws, and is 
mediated by holographic field interference patterns overlaid on and carried 
by the fundamental frequencies of the primal mind and memory fields... Linked 
to each other by their coadunate zero-point centers of universal awareness 
and will. Thus, like the DNA in any body cell can build the entire body 
structure, the universe contains all of itself in any zero-point instant 
"spinergy" spread everywhere throughout all of Space, both Absolute 
(abstract) and Metric (phenomenal). 

[Blavatsky]
The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1) The ABSOLUTE; the *Parabrahm* of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, 
which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
(2) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, 
*unmanifested* Logos, the precursor of the "manifested". This is the "First 
Cause", the "Unconscious" of European pantheists.
(3) Spirit-Matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe", Purusha and Prakriti, 
or the *second* Logos.
(4) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the 
Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of 
Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
The ONE REALITY; its *dual* aspects in the conditioned Universe.

Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: -
(b) The Eternity of the Universe *in toto* as a boundless plane; periodically 
"the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and 
disappearing", called "the manifesting stars", and the "sparks of Eternity". 
"The Eternity of the Pilgrim"* is like a wink of the Eye of Self-Existence.

*"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our "Monad" (the two in one) during 
its cycle of incarnation. It is the only immortal and eternal principle in 
us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole - the Universal Spirit, 
from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the 
cycle. When it is said to emanate from the one spirit, an awkward and 
incorrect expression has to be used, for lack of appropriate words in 
English. The Vedantins call it Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, 
too, differs somewhat from that of the occultists; to explain which 
difference, however, is left to the Vedantins themselves.