Consciousness and reality
The biggest mystery of our times?
Consciousness and reality are inextriably tied together. They are fundamental to our existence. We live on this planet, which supplies our immediate reality, and which we experience personally via our consciousness.
So reality and consciousness together create our experience of existing — yet we don’t know what either is. We know we’re here, and that our experience feels very real. Yet we neither understand the extended nature of the reality in which we live, nor do we know what, at our core, we are.
The two most common explanations are offered by religion and science. Religion has long told us that reality is constituted of the Earth, heaven and hell. Our consciousness is an eternal soul — which God created by some mysterious process that no one talks about. Our soul lives in a body on Earth, then when our body dies God will send to heaven or hell, depending on whether or not he liked what we did on Earth.
Science, with its doctrine of scientific naturalism, declares all this fantasy. Neither heaven, hell, nor the soul exist. Instead, what exists is the physical universe, which came into existence by chance, and that has neither purpose nor meaning. Moreover, scientists can only see around 4% of the universe — the other 96%, designated dark energy and dark matter, remains totally invisble. We, being part of the natural universe, are bodies which are similarly here by accident. Human consciousness is an accidental by-product of our brain’s neural activity: when the brain dies, so does consciousness — which doesn’t truly exist anyway. Ultimately, according to science, metaphysical concerns are “woo woo,” and not to be engaged in by serious people.
Personally, I find neither explanation adequate. The religious soul is an unsatisfactory concept. Where does it come from? Of what is it constituted? And why is God so keen to create individual souls just to eternally reward or punish them? The scientific view, that universe came into existence accidentally and is purposeless and meaningless, is arguably even worse.
The fact is, reality and consciousness remain enigmatic. It seems to me that we are currently in an intermediate stage, in which many of us have rejected the longstanding religious explanations, but we haven’t yet found an adequate replacement explanation.
The great quantum physicist, Wolfgang Pauli, who had a witty turn of phrase, when he was grappling with a similar situation observed:
The best that most of us can hope to achieve in physics is simply to misunderstand at a deeper level. — Wolfgang Pauli
A new potential model of reality
Nonetheless, and however futilely, I am fascinated by ideas of how reality might be constituted, and the processes by which we live in our local reality and perceive what is happening within it.
One useful source I have for investigating an arcane topic such as this is a group of non-embodied guides who are very happy to answer metaphysical questions like these. In the past, when I have asked them about reality and consciousness, they have proposed a model of reality that is constituted of three primary levels: the electrophysical, the electromagnetic and the electrospiritual. These are the three primary bandwidths within which human beings function.
The following offers a description of how we participate in these three bandwidths. It is followed by a question that I drew from a friend in response to this explanation. The question is followed by the guides’ answer.
The electrophysical, the electromagnetic, the electrospiritual
The human body exists on the electrophysical level. Your body can be described as a biological system that combines matter, chemicals and electricity. Information circulates around your body via electrical charges [thus the reason the body is described as electrophysical] that pass between nerve endings. These nerve endings include the synapses in your brain. Information-carrying electrical charges initiate chemical reactions that motor your body as you go about your day.
Some of the information is apparent to you at the level of your everyday awareness, such as when you read a newspaper or respond to another person’s voice. However, most information circulating through your body is not immediately apparent to you, given there are many biological processes, such as the digestive process of extracting nutrients from food, in which your conscious mind does not need to participate. This is your identity on the electrophysical level.
Associated with your body is an electromagnetic spectrum. The closest to your body is what has historically been called the aura, for which we prefer the term energetic envelope. The energetic envelope has two major functions. It provides an energetic template that guides the growth of cells when an egg in a woman’s womb is fertilised. It also provides an energetic medium for the passing of information from the spiritual to the embodied levels of existence.
Another significant aspect of the energetic envelope is that it incorporates energy centres known as chakras, as well as the meridians along which focused energy moves around the body — although technically such energy doesn’t pass through the body, it circulates through the energetic envelope, along the meridians and via the appropriate energy centres. It is through the energy centres that a spiritual identity associates with a body and is linked to what it experiences.
Other parts of the electromagnetic system are closer to the electrospiritual aspect of your identity. These include the traits we have describe as your accumulated human identity. These traits are characteristics you generate during the course of living an embodied existence, and that you carry with you from one life to another. They are characteristics that contribute to your unique identity. They don’t dissolve when your body dies, being uploaded to and energetically inscribed into your electrospiritual identity.
Your electrospiritual identity may be thought of as a sphere of glowing energy. Just as different individuals’ energetic envelopes possess different colours, and just as your energetic envelope changes colour to reflect your inner states, so electrospiritual identities possess different colours, which may more accurately be termed different energetic signatures. While each individual’s core energetic signature remains the same always, much can be and is added to it as an individual evolves.
Reality and hon-human beings
The physical universe may be likened to an iceberg. You well know that most of an iceberg’s mass exists under water, out of view of those on the surface. Similarly with the universe: only the tip of its physical manifestation is apparent to observers on this planet.
The vast major proportion of the universe is not seen by scientists who limit their data gathering to physically measurable effects.
Species in the universe exist within particular energetic bandwidths. All the organic species on this planet — being carbon-based life-forms that draw on a similar base of DNA and genetic code — exist on the same narrow energetic bandwidth. So when they bump into each other, they bounce away — or one grabs the other and eats it. They can interact in this manner because they largely share the same energetic bandwidth.
However, not all species throughout the universe share the same bandwidths. Many other beings exist on energetic bandwidths that significantly differ from the human physical bandwidth. As result, scientists on this planet will never be able to measure their presence. The bandwidths involved are so distant from the human that they do not intersect.
Another relevant factor is that many species are able to shift across bandwidths with great facility. This means that, just as is depicted in science fiction literature, some species that in general exist on a non-human energetic bandwidth are able to manifest on a physical bandwidth, should they choose to do so, and become visible to human beings. We observe that those you call extra-terrestrials may be considered to fall into this category.
A question
You say that human beings collectively perceive this physical world as real because we’re all plugged into the same electrophysical bandwidths. Yet the situation isn’t this straightforward, because our awareness is capable of shifting into non-physical perceptual modes, even if only a few among us choose to do so. Consequently, human beings agree regarding the nature of physical reality, but we don’t agree on what’s happening beyond the physical. So the nature of what reality is for human beings ends up being contested. On the largest scale, why is humanity plugged into this particular convergence of bandwidths, out of all those that exist? Is it possible for us to engage with more bandwidths?
The question states that everyone agrees they are living in the same physical reality. This is debatable. A dozen people could be standing together, sharing the same physical space, but one is enjoying the colours, another the smells, one is occupied with a phone call, and another is worried about someone not present and so hardly notices what is around them at all.
So just occupying the same physical space doesn’t guarantee that people are agreed regarding the reality they occupy. The idea of reality has a psychological dimension that makes physical reality different for everyone.
This also applies throughout the epochs of human history. Long ago people worshipped gods of place and offered sacrifices to nature gods in the hope of keeping storms and droughts at bay. Later the notion of the physical world being filled with many gods was replaced by the notion of one God over all. But for some this God was loving, for others God was angry and punishing, and yet others felt God was ignoring them, and not in a way they felt was beneficial.
So as people walked through marketplaces, or herded their goats towards feed, or sailed the seas in search of goods to trade, they shared physical reality with their companions, but all kinds of different notions were playing through their minds, leading each to interpret the same physical world quite differently.
In recent centuries the sciences have replaced religion for many, with the result that notions of material causes, chance and cosmic indifference play through their minds. Of course, while some assume the dogmas of science, others continue to believe in a loving or punishing God. Some may even believe in nature gods. And all these people could be shopping in a supermarket, sharing the same physical reality, but interpreting the world they share in very different ways.
Contesting human views of reality
To this extent we agree with the questioner. Human beings have always had contested notions of reality. Beyond basic motor-level agreement regarding the physical layout of a space, which prevents people from bumping into each other, there is little agreement regarding what reality is and where its limits lie.
Yet it is also true that people agree on the basic contours of physical reality. How is this? In part it is because physical features certainly exist. Streets, hills, sky, beaches, oceans, cities, deserts — they are there. A desert doesn’t switch in and out of physical existence. A desert remains present even when — and we are nodding now to idealists — no one is looking at it.
On the other hand, everyone gets trained in how to perceive reality. Most people are born into a body with five functioning senses, which operate within certain bandwidths of electrophysical reality. These bandwidths delimit what you perceive. Yet everyone is trained how to use their senses from birth. Those born into hunter-gatherer cultures are taught to see, hear and smell things that urban dwellers do not. But urban dwellers can navigate malls and operate electronic devices with a facility traditional hunter-gatherers do not possess. So different kinds of expertise is developed in different cultural environments.
Today, you have been trained from birth to function within the electrophysical bandwidths that constitute the universe in certain ways and to utilise certain aspects of your capacities in specific ways. From infancy your attention has been directed towards some things and not towards others. In this way you entered an over-riding feedback loop that is constructed and sustained by the culture in which you live.
Humanity’s reality bandwidths
So how is it that humanity is plugged into this particular convergence of bandwidths, out of all those in existence? It is due to feedback loops. While there are slight cultural differences from one country to another, everyone is taught to utilise a certain number of bandwidths. Over time these have become standardised and accepted by human beings as constituting reality.
But, as the questioner pointed out, this is merely an agreement that is taught to the young and then sustained through participation. Mutual affirmation generates feedback loops that keep everyone plugged into the same electrophysical bandwidths and perceptual modalities.
Is it possible for humanity as a species to change the electrophysical bandwidths it primarily uses during its physical existence? Of course. Individuals have long been doing so. All that is required is to disconnect awareness from feedback loops. Naturally, this is easier on an individual scale than on the broad population scale. But it will happen.
We noted earlier that different species in the universe operate on different bandwidths to the human. Many species began with a limited sensory connection to reality, just like humanity, but genetically engineered their bodies, developed their cognitive capacities, extended their perceptual modalities, and now they freely function across a far wider number of bandwidths than was originally the case. Their everyday self has become vastly more complex, which allows them to utilise a much wider range of perceptual modalities than are currently available to human beings.
It is possible that homo sapiens sapiens could one day become like them. Clearly, many changes need to be made before humanity could accomplish this, but it is a feasible goal.
In the meantime, and considering this is highly unlikely to occur within the incarnational cycle of anyone currently living in a human body on this planet, what we come back to is the notion that your reality, the reality you occupy not just physically and socially, but psychologically, energetically and spiritually, is definitely something you can change, for yourself, and to your advantage. Treating reality as a developmental opportunity is certainly an approach to living that we recommend.
This essay contains material excerpted from How Did I End Up Here? by Keith Hill. Further discussion of the bandwidths is available in that book, and in The Kosmic Web by Peter Calvert and Keith Hill. Information on both books is available on www.attarbooks.com. They may also be viewed in all online bookstores.