The Cosmic Game Theory of Consciousness: A Unifying Theory of Everything
- thomaschilds5
- Oct 3
- 54 min read
The greatest question in life is that of existence. For the past two years I've been experimenting with spirituality and have had many unexplainable experiences, experiences that made me deeply question what I thought I knew about existence including seeing someone create fire out of thin air and observing a pendulum wildly swinging/rotating without any physical movement on the part of the person holding it among others. Instead of stuffing those experiences in a closet and forgetting about them (as I did in the past), I decided to try and figure out what the hell was going on.
Last year I created a theory that sought to use the scientific method to falsify God by falsifying enlightenment, the only thing that is promised across all religions and the only thing that is objectively measurable and therefore falsifiable. In that quest I also have scoured other fields of knowledge to cross-reference my ideas scientifically because if consciousness is the basis of life there should be evidence for it everywhere. My study has made me believe that such evidence exists, or at least can form a cohesive alternative picture. I believe that I can logically make a strong case that science, religion, philosophy, and psychology are all saying the same thing just in different ways: that consciousness is the foundation of life and that progression in consciousness, such as enlightenment, is not only possible, but is likely.
The foundational ideas here are mostly old ones recycled, probably the oldest ideas on Earth. Consciousness, or the soul, is eternal and the purpose of existence is progression in consciousness, colloquially known as enlightenment, a progression in divinity. Enlightenment, or at least degrees of it, goes by many other names including: prophethood, buddha nature, Sufi master, medicine man, curandero, witch, psychic, medium, shaman, druid, yogi, and others who have abilities surpassing the average human being. Basically every civilization has their own term for it, or their own words for different levels of enhanced or altered consciousness. None of that is new. What I bring to the table in this post is providing a cross-field analysis tying disparate fields together with the idea of the soul as its foundation, or at least providing an idea of how these fields can relate to consciousness scientifically. The idea isn't new, but the amount of synthesis (and science) in this post might be.
After I demonstrate this idea, I will address what I believe to be a novel contribution, my theory on the purpose of existence, the Cosmic Game Theory of Consciousness. Infinity is a long time. A really fucking long time. After reading a ton of books on spirituality and religion, this is what I think existence is about: existence is basically a video game where you forget that God exists in order to re-experience your own divinity anew. Once you beat the game, you start over, but no two experiences will ever be alike due to the infinite amount of choices made and infinite amount of possibilities of physics, dimensions, or even life forms that exist. The same game never plays out the same.
But first it's imperative that we mount evidence that consciousness even matters. Here is a bullet point list of what will be covered. Some topics will directly intersect more than others and overlapping topics will be addressed in one section or the other depending on which makes more sense to me.
Foundational Information
Consciousness: The inability to determine what causes it, degrees of consciousness, meta-analysis by the CIA.
Past lives: UVA's findings (Ivy league school), past life regression, telepathy tapes, Infinite Mind, Crack in the Cosmic Egg.
Quantum Physics: The measurement problem, quantum entanglement, many worlds theory, inflation theory, dark matter.
The subconscious: The collective unconscious, epigenetic inheritance, the akashic record, the spirit, meta-data, oversoul.
Archetypes: Symbology as communication, Erich Newmann, Hero's Journey.
Energy: Everything is energy, waves, frequency, Schumann resonance, human organ frequency, Torus Field.
Science includes:
Quantum physics: Quantum tunneling, electron orbital jumps.
Biology: Randomness, panpsychism, evolutionary leaps.
Neuroscience: Hot and cold brain states for optimal brain function, fire and water in religion, Yoga Nidra, unlocking genius.
Physiology: Flow state, heightened body awareness, latent human abilities, Biofield Science, the three “brains” of the body, auras, law of attraction, energy healing, chakras.
Acoustics: Sacred geometry, levitation, healing.
Dreams: Lucid dreaming, prophecy.
Cosmology: Virtual particles on a cosmic scale, universal balance.
Drugs: Windows into possible states of being or consciousness.
Psychology includes:
Principles of healing.
Differentiation.
Authenticity and vulnerability.
Emotion and physiology.
Happiness and joy.
Drugs.
Philosophy includes:
The love of wisdom.
The meaning of life.
Self-development and ethical frameworks.
Morality as the meaning of life.
The meta-analysis of religion includes the big 5 and their mystic branches plus other major religions and spiritual traditions across time and space. These include:
The commonalities across all religions: Love, non-attachment/becoming, enlightenment, duality, and balance.
Christianity: Gnosticism, Essenes, Mormonism.
Islam: Sufism, Druze, Baha'i.
Hinduism.
Buddhism.
Judaism.
New-Age spirituality.
Daoism.
Confucianism.
Jainism.
Sikhism.
Zoroastrianism.
Native African beliefs.
Central and South American beliefs: Inca, Aztecs, and Mayans.
Native American beliefs.
Australian Aboriginal beliefs.
Egyptian beliefs.
Norse beliefs.
Celtic beliefs.
Greek beliefs.
Paganism.
Witchcraft.
Alchemy.
Atheism.
Plant medicine
The Return of Divinity.
Multiplicity of Gods: Unique divine roles.
The Cosmic Game Theory of Consciousness
Everything is one.
The soul is eternal: God as the soul and creator of the soul, the soul as co-creator.
Eternity is a fucking long time: The purpose of existence is a game to remember one's own divinity and create a new. An expansion of consciousness.
Enlightenment, or divinity, in stages.
While I will explain each in turn, keep in mind that any of these taken on its own, or even taken a handful at a time, is basically meaningless. It's only the information in aggregate, meta-data, and its applicability across diverse fields, transdisciplinary integration, that makes this theory even remotely relevant and not statistically improbable. Also, this is not an all-inclusive list of potential evidence for consciousness being the fabric of reality, these topics are solely a result of what I've studied over the past year, nothing more.
The Foundations of Consciousness
Consciousness is the foundation of this theory and spirituality as a whole. Science currently doesn't know where consciousness comes from. Our current theories are that the firing of the neurons in our brain somehow create consciousness which operates under a specific philosophy of finding meaning in the world called materialism. Materialism says that everything that exists is physical or is dependent on physical processes and properties. Essentially, it negates anything beyond what can be seen or measured even though science is constantly finding more things that we were previously unable to see or measure but learns to "see" or measure them. The spirit is seen as immaterial and, therefore, doesn't fit under a materialism framework.
In the book The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers he discusses theories of consciousness and attempts to find a unifying theory of consciousness. In it he discusses supervenience, where changes in higher-level properties (supervenient) cannot occur without changes in lower-level properties (subvenient)". In other words, subvenient states are necessary for supervenient states to occur. For example, emotions couldn't happen without changes in brain waves meaning that emotions are supervenient to brain waves; emotions are dependent onbrain waves to exist. He explores the idea of materialism and consciousness and suggests a logical framework as follows which is quoted from his book:
Conscious experience exists.
Conscious experience is not logically supervenient on the physical.
If there are phenomena that are not logically supervenient on the physical facts, then materialism is false.
The physical domain is causally closed.
In other words, if base biological facts can't account for consciousness, then the premise that consciousness is created by physical processes is false. That isn't to say that we don't have good theories on consciousness. Leading scientific theories for consciousness include Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, and Higher-Order theories. I'm not going to cover them besides saying that they are all different theories of materialism saying that the brain creates consciousness in different ways which you can read a simple explanation about them here.
I don't think that either perspective has to be wrong. I think that very much like radio waves or gamma waves which we were unaware of for thousands of years, consciousness may be another kind of wave or energy, like dark matter and dark energy for instance which makes up 95% of the universe, which we don't currently have the tools to measure. We may be trying to measure consciousness the way a spelunker would try and explore a cave with no tools to do so, including a flashlight, a futile and foolish endeavor. With 95% of the universe currently being unmeasurable to us, we really don't know shit and it's stupid to assume that we do.
In the book The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers he talks about the stages of conscious understanding based on judgment. Third order judgment is saying something like "sensations are mysterious" which just means that we experience something that we have no idea how to contextualize much less verbalize. Second order judgment is something like "I'm having a red sensation now" or, in other words, we kind of have a base understanding of something but not a clear understanding. First order judgment is saying "That's red!" where we are able to consciously identify what is going on with surety. Science is the attempt to bring third order judgment to first order judgment, to take the mysterious and turn it into something identifiable and understood. I believe this can be done with what we currently refer to as spirituality as we have a bunch of third order judgments to consider.
In 2000 the CIA released a meta-analysis they did on consciousness research, primarily done by parapsychology which people tend to dismiss offhand but the CIA does not. They found that consciousness definitively produced an effect in their meta-analysis that couldn't be contributed to any possible critique of the data including replicability, as they found that no researcher that critiqued it attempted to replicate it, as well as made up data, as the data was too consistent across 68 independent researchers. The effect size of a study is determined by the amount of studies needed that would show contrary data in order to nullify the results, the general statistical rule being 5 times the amount of studies present to be considered as "robust" significance. The meta-analysis of consciousness data found that the amount of studies needed showing null results was 90 times the amount present in the studies, 18 times more than was was needed in order to prove "robust" significance, totaling 54,000 studies that would be needed with negative results in order for the results to negated. In other words, the CIA concluded that consciousness definitively alters reality.
Past lives are a component of the doctrine of reincarnation, the idea that a single soul reanimates itself in different forms to learn different lessons across time. Interestingly enough, this concept is scientifically backed. The University of Virginia (UVA), a "new" Ivy league school with academic rigor equivalent to schools like Harvard and Yale, has been studying children who claim to remember past lives for over 50 years to see if the details of their past lives can be verified. They've concluded that the 2,500 cases of verifiable past lives "contribute to the evidence for survival of consciousness after death." There is scientific evidence by a rigorous academic institution that the soul is real and that consciousness carries over from past lifetimes.
Several other people have also investigated past lives although they may not be as credible as a reputable university. Dolores Cannon, Dr. Brian Weiss, and Dr. Michael Newton have all studied past lifetimes and found them to be real, and imagine there are more I haven't heard of or read. Dolores Cannon wrote many books full of transcripts with clients describing the purpose of life under hypnosis in books like Between Death and Life. Brian Weiss, a psychiatrist who inadvertently had a treatment resistant client go into past lives during hypnosis and witnessed her healing by experiencing her past lives when nothing else had worked, wrote about it in the book Many Lives, Many Masters. Michael Newton did many case studies of clients who experienced past lives during hypnosis and wrote the transcripts of what they said about life after death in his book Journey of Souls. All were skeptical at first, and despite their engrained belief systems, came to accept reincarnation as factual.
The Telepathy Tapes is a ground-breaking podcast about the ability of non-speaking persons with autism to communicate telepathically. The tests are scientifically rigorous and videos of the tests can be accessed for free on their website here in addition to interviews with the members of production who share their experiences being introduced to telepathy. UVA will be conducting its own experiments soon and I'm personally excited to see what they find.
Infinite Mind by Valerie Hunt, previously a professor of physiological science at UCLA, also a "new" Ivy League school, conducted tests on physiology and consciousness and wrote a book about her findings, which you can read about here. She was able to show that consciousness and energy can be monitored by scientific measuring tools and that consciousness occurred in clients that should've been comatose based on their brain wave function while others operated at brain functions far, far above the average person by the use of meditation. The book Crack in the Cosmic Egg by Joseph Pierce studied fire-walking and marveled at how 80-90% of fire-walkers were able to safely pass through intense heat, so intense that bystanders could get burnt from the heat. The unfortunate 10-20% of fire-walkers who were unsuccessful either died or were critically injured by the attempt showing the danger inherent in said endeavor. You can read more about that in my post here.
All these examples serve as evidence for consciousness having far reaching implications, further than the average person is aware of at a bare minimum. Quantum physics takes it a step further and hypothesizes that consciousness may be the foundation of physics and not the other way around.
In quantum physics all particles act as a 3 dimensional wave (a sphere) where a quantum particles occupies all possible points within the sphere simultaneously until measurement occurs, which then collapses the wave into a single set point. There are two general camps for how this collapse occurs: The Copenhagen Interpretation states that it is because of decoherence, natural interaction with other particles necessary for observation (like photons of light) which causes the collapse while the other theory states that it's the act of conscious observation that collapses the wave, named Quantum Consciousness Theory. Many quantum theorists, although still the minority, believe that consciousness is the foundation of our universe.
Many Worlds Theory, once again in the minority but still popular, posits that when a quantum wave collapses into a quantum particle, every positional possibility also simultaneously occurs, but in different parallel worlds. In other words, there are an infinite amount of worlds accounting for every possible option that could ever exist. Inflation theory is a theory that suggests that all of the parallel worlds exist all around us but in inaccessible dimensions. This could account for dark matter.
Entanglement is when two quantum particles become synced, meaning any impact on one particle impacts the other equally and simultaneously, allowing for instantaneous informational change regardless of distance. Collapsing a wave function caused by decoherence or consciousness is what creates entanglement between particles. Entanglement also can happen across time as discussed in the documentary Through the Wormhole. I hypothesize that not only is many worlds theory correct, but that the parallel realities send information instantaneously by means of entanglement to form a cumulative subconscious knowledge, an idea known by many other names. Carl Jung, the father of the subconscious, coined the term "collective subconscious" to describe an innate knowledge of collective symbols known as archetypes. In other words, humanity inherits a knowledge of specific symbology independent of culture. Genetics has a similar concept of inherited knowledge called epigenetic inheritance, DNA information that changes based on environmental factors and individual experiences, information that gets passed down generationally. New age spirituality says that all knowledge is stored in a place called the Akashic record, information that is accessible through spiritual means. It makes sense to me that the spirit, a common religious concept, is simply the collection of meta-data acquired through instantaneous information exchange from the parallel worlds created by quantum entanglement and the collapse of the wave function, which occurs by means of consciousness. This information exchange made possible by entanglement manifests subconsciously as gut instinct or feelings. The oversoul or higher self, other spiritual concepts, would be the sum total of all experiences in all parallel worlds: the soul. All of these are topics referring to the same general concept, that there is a wealth of information that we are unaware of and could theoretically tap into, that of the subconscious or whatever you'd like to refer to it as.
If the subconscious holds a wealth of information, it's important to know how it works. The subconscious communicates through symbols, a more efficient form of communication, exemplified in the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words." If you see a picture of a sword, you know the various implications of what it could mean immediately. Archetypes are thematic symbols denoting orchestrated roles that are available for emulation and exploration. Archetypes include things like Jesus, Satan, archangels, the king, hero, sage, fool, rebel, caretaker, etc. Spiderman is a specific symbolic role that can be expressed in an infinite amount of ways and the same goes for all archetypes.
Erich Neumann, considered one of Carl Jung's brightest students, wrote a book called The Origins and History of Consciousness in which he describes archetypes, and their accompanying lore, as being symbolic of personal progression, which you can read about here. Archetypes and legends for him told a story of an innate human yearning for spiritual growth and development. Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces describes a similar concept with slight variations called The Hero's Journey, which you can read about here, the most common story telling template on Earth, which features the growth of a hero through trial, pain, and learning until achieving their final enlightened state. According to them both the story of struggle, growth, and reaching unimagined heights seems to be wired into the psyche of humanity.
We've gone over evidence for past lives and the possibilities latent in altered states of consciousness, the subconscious and ideas of inherited knowledge in different fields, and how the subconscious communicates. The last essential points of knowledge relate to the basics of energy.
The Law of Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Quantum physics states that everything is energy due to each quantum particles acting as a wave, a type of energy. Frequency is the measurement of energy in quantum physics. Everything is composed of quantum particles, meaning that everything is energy, and that everything has a frequency. The Schumann Resonance, for example, is the frequency measured between the surface of the Earth and its ionosphere. Different human organs have frequencies. Everything has energy, and everything emits energy. Energy and frequencies commonly manifest in what is called a Torus Field, a donut-shaped energy field that surrounds atoms, human hearts, planets, and galaxies. Even black holes, the densest gravitational fields in existence, emit energy in the form of Hawkins Radiation. Energy, frequency, and waves form the foundations of existence.
All of the covered topics will be important to understand because the next section explores how science and the ideas of enlightenment and consciousness overlap in various fields.
Science, Enlightenment, and Consciousness
Here's how various scientific fields relate to the concept of consciousness and enlightenment.
Quantum Physics
We already discussed how quantum physics can make an argument for consciousness and its possible relationship to the soul, intuition, and consciousness. There are a few more ideas from quantum physics that I believe are worth noting when it comes to spirituality and the idea of enlightenment.
Enlightenment, as a principle, generally tends to occur in dramatic bursts, or at least religious texts I've read have stated as much. Quantum physics tends to validate this perspective. Quantum tunneling is when a quantum particle meets a barrier it shouldn't energetically be able to pass, but it does, essentially teleporting through the energetic barrier as if it didn't exist. This rarely happens, quantum tunneling has a 1 in 100 billion chance of making the leap, but it is possible. This parallels the idea of enlightenment being a seemingly impossible phenomenon, but maybe its just highly unlikely. Electron orbital jumps is a similar concept in which electrons jump from one orbital level to another when certain energetic requirements are met. This could be be similar to the energy level needed from an average human being to transition to a state of enlightenment, an idea which will be discussed more in depth later when I discuss psychology and emotion. Electron orbitals are clearly preferable statistically and ideologically and if all of our quantum particles can do it, who says we can't? Even with quantum tunneling there is technically a chance...
Biology
DNA and its role in physically inherited knowledge was discussed earlier. Other concepts that are relevant include randomness and evolutionary leaps inherent in nature. If you haven't already checked out the documentary episode "Is Luck Real?", I highly encourage you to. The documentary includes an expert that study biological evolution featured around minute 26.
Nature is intrinsically random. The same biologically coded cells will not act uniformly, but instead will act completely randomly. The picture below, from the documentary, shows cells that behave predictably in green and those that behave unpredictably in red.
Why would programmed cells respond randomly instead of predictably? The simplest answer is that it's nature's survival strategy to have different cells express at different times. While this does give a biological basis for why, it still doesn't explain why a programmed cell would go against it's programming. It explains the "why" behind its functionality but not the "how" of going against the programming. An alternative based on the base idea of consciousness is something called panpsychism, the idea that everything, literally everything, holds consciousness. In fact, this idea is central to my theory. What if souls reincarnated in this universe as the smallest particle of matter, a quark, and had to move their way up the chain of consciousness? Or could anyway. It's an alternative for how the randomness of nature occurs which is currently explained as follows:
The other aspect of nature that is interesting is that of evolutionary leaps. Cell growth happens in big bursts and then randomly stop for long periods of time. Nature seems to grow quickly and suddenly, and then rest. Our cells are no different. In fact, humanities progression from apes to Homo Sapiens seems no different. "The Great Leap Forward" is a time period when human ingenuity saw a dramatic rise and it's possible that physiological leaps also occurred in a spurt of growth similar to that of cells. What if there are leaps in consciousness that can happen when the requisite requirements are met, leaps that happen almost instantaneously similar to "The Great Leap Forward" or electron orbital jumps? Supposedly humanity is about to go through a big one.
Neuroscience
Neuroscience has shown that the brain has optimal brain states with certain areas of the brain being less active and certain parts being more active. These are referred to as hot cognition and cold cognition. Hot cognition relates to brain regions including the amygdala, ventral stratium, orbitofrontal cortex, anterior insula, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Basically these are the areas of the brain responsible for rapid decision making, motivation, and emotional learning. Cold cognition relates to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and hippocampus. These are the centers responsible for deliberate, rational thought, impulse control, self-regulation, strategic planning, goals, and learning rules (math, language, etc.). As ChatGPT puts it, "emotions give meaning and energy; logic provides direction and restraint." Optimal brain functioning is seen neurologically as a balance between the two systems. The balance between the two states allows for emotional and behavioral regulation, effective decision making, enhanced social skills and empathy, increased problem-solving, and the ability to delay gratification critical for self-control.
The balance of fire and water is one of the universally fundamental concepts in religion. The necessity of balance between fire and water is mentioned in Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sufism, Taoism, Confucianism, New Age Spirituality, Greek philosophy, Native American traditions, African traditions, Celtic traditions, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and Wicca. Neuroscience seems to mirror the metaphorical balance of the archetypes of fire and water found in these religions and practices when it comes to hot cognition, cold cognition, and optimal brain functioning.
Yoga Nidra, also known as yogic sleep, is an ancient type of meditation in Hinduism and Buddhism that use deep relaxation and intentionality as a way to achieve optimal states of consciousness. A 30 minute session of Yoga Nidra has been shown to impact the body as if it had slept for several hours. Not only that but it boosts hot and cold cognition states resulting in increased balance between the two. Looks like Hinduism and Buddhism had the right idea long before neuroscience was invented, and possibly most other religions as well.
Even if enlightenment isn't real the balancing of the mind could create humans who are ultra-creative by the use of brain coherence optimized by balancing the hot and cold states of the mind. In the book The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk the author argues that geniuses aren't born, they are made and does so by highlighting examples of geniuses and how their circumstances allowed them to excel due to their opportunities to learn at a young age. He also talks about how many child geniuses faded into oblivion most likely due to their inability to tolerate mistakes and failure. Think Again by Adam Grant discusses how it is absolutely vital to rethink what we think we know in order to be truly successful at anything. Einstein said similar things as have others. Here are a couple quotes demonstrating the point:
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer"
Einstein
"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious."
Einstein
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see".
Arthur Schopenhauer
What if the secret to genius is as simple as having a balanced mind?
Physiology
Physiology has a lot going for it when it comes to consciousness theory. The flow state is a psychological and physiological phenomenon in which people describe feelings of extremely heightened senses, distorted time, the loss of self-concept resulting in feelings of unity with everything and peace, and even auditory hallucinations. The flow state is responsible for the progress made in extreme sports, a topic explored in the book The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler. In the book he evaluates extreme athletes and their relationship with the flow state. He asserts that most of these athletes aren't adrenaline junkies, they are flow junkies. They seek a type of enlightened state that can be achieved by means of pushing their physical and mental endurance to their limits.
On a similar topic, physiology actually says that humans are able to achieve what would generally be considered superhuman abilities by means of increasing their awareness (consciousness) of their own bodies. These abilities include: infrared vision, night vision, polarization perception, conscious infrasound, ultrasound echolocation, perfect pitch and harmonic separation, ultra-trace toxin detection, spatial smell-mapping, magnetoreception navigation, seismic vibration sensing, thermal pattern recognition, hyper-precise proprioception, sensing Earth's magnetic alignment, Circadian light tuning, group heart/ mood syncing, and gut-brain intuitive sensing. A lot of big words there with a lot of big implications which you can read more about here. Some of these are possible for everyone to learn and some seem beyond reach. If enlightenment is real that could mean activating latent abilities already in the human body.
There are physiological abilities are technically possible for humans that seem godlike such as Wim Hof who is somehow able to regulate his temperature in freezing temperatures, Alex Honnold famous for his movie Free Solo where he climbs Half Dome in Yosemite in 4 hours without any safety equipment, Budimir Sobat can hold his breath for 24 minutes, and many others like them. Humans are already physically capable of what many of us would consider to be god-like, so why couldn't that extend into the spiritual?
Our physical body is capable of far more than we give it credit for, if we are more actively conscious of it. In fact, science doesn't even fully know the physiology of the body itself. In 2020 a new organ was discovered in the body relating to salivary glands which you can read about here. It would be foolish to say that we know the extents of consciousness when we don't even know the extent of conscious abilities within our own body, much less its physical components.
Biofield Science is an emerging science that measures the electromagnetic and infrared emissions of the body using tools including Electrophotonic Imaging, Gas Discharge Visualization, EEGs, ECGs, Galvanic Skin Response, Super-Conducting Quantum Inference Devices, and Polycontrast Interference Photography. It has found that while technically everything in the body emits something measurable due to particles being wave-like, the brain and heart emit the strongest electromagnetic fields. The heart is much stronger than the brain with its electric field being 60 times the field of the brain and its magnetic field being 100 times stronger than the brain. If we are to use field strength as a measure of power, which it is, then through Biofield Science we have learned that the heart is the most powerful organ in the body.
At face value that doesn't really mean a whole lot besides being interesting. Where it integrates into spiritual principles makes it more interesting. Every religion preaches that love is the path and we commonly associate love with the heart. The heart does secrete hormones, especially oxytocin (the love chemical), which it does in equivalent amounts as the brain. What if different neural centers of the body have the potential to unlock their biological potential which in turn unlocks spiritual potential?
Science has shown that the heart is one of three main "brains" in the body with the other two being the brain itself and the gut, the term "brain" only indicating that there is a large neural center located in that part of the body. What's odd about the neural connection between the heart and the brain is that the heart transmits far more information to the brain than the brain relays back to the heart. The assumption is that it has something to do with heart rate (naturally) and that our heart rate plays a much larger role in emotion processing than previously understood. In order to get to a steady state of love, as religion emphasizes, one must eliminate fear, its natural antithesis, physiologically resulting in altered heart rates. Merging all of this information suggests that the elimination of fear allows the heart to remain at a steady state, possibly releasing more oxytocin, and that benefit gets transferred to the brain in the form of a calm mind, providing the neurological benefits discussed earlier. This allows for heart-brain coherence, when positive emotions predominate allowing for optimal heart and brain function. Due to the size of the electromagnetic field, it seems to start in the heart. And even more interesting, heart-brain coherence expands the size of their respective electromagnetic fields. A lot of religions emphasize the importance of the heart itself which falls in line with science.
The biofield could be another name for auras. Some people say that there are seven auras, some say three, and maybe it's both. For the three auras it could be the biofield of the gut, brain, and heart and what people are seeing is either the electric field, the magnetic field, or the infrared field or a combination of them, something that the human body technically has the ability to do as mentioned previously. The seven auras may be some visual aspect of the chakras which will be covered in a second.
As mentioned previously, the strongest emission of the body energetically is the heart's magnetic field. It's a magnetic field, so what is it magnetizing? That remains unclear but what if it is magnetizing your "hearts desire" so to speak, what you truly want subconsciously. This understanding could account for both the law of attraction and manifesting. Gregg Braden talks about prayer in his book The Isaiah Effect in which he describes prayer as a manner of being rather than a specific action. The understanding of the biofield could merge all of the concepts into a singular understanding. Your prayer is your magnetic field created by your heart, how at peace you are with yourself, others, and the world.
Manifesting may be slightly different than the law of attraction, but it seems unlikely to me. Many traditions say that meditation, or visual meditation, are the key to spiritual growth and science validates the positive impacts of both. For visual meditation the brain can't distinguish very well between reality and imagination so of any meditation it that would seem to be the most impactful. It's possible that manifesting is different due to visual meditation and the way the brain works, but I don't really see it being different from just being and attracting what you naturally desire. It would happen anyway if it's your souls true desire, no need to manifest. The only reason to do manifestation in my mind is if you'd like to motivate yourself or change your optimal life course.
Energy healing also makes sense with all of this information. While energy healing typically talks about taking energy from the source and using it to heal, what if that's not technically what is happening? What if we are healing based on our personal electromagnetic energy and our efficacy is directly proportional to our own level of healing. It makes much more sense to me to assume that we use have to use what we are given as a general rule of life, until we are given more. Energy healing has been studied recently in Biofield Science and it has been shown to have some moderate positive effects specifically in the field of anxiety and depression. More studies need to be done but you can check out my research on all this here. My roommate, the one who created fire out of thin air, can see what we've determined is likely the electric, magnetic, and infrared fields when she does energy healing.
The chakras are theorized to be nervous centers of the body, possibly of the spinal column, which would align with the idea of the kundalini as its description always correlates with an advancement through the spinal column, although possibly through nerve centers or gland centers in the body. The seven chakras would then correspond to points in the body accordingly. The feet (root chakra), pelvis area (sacral chakra), stomach area (solar plexus chakra), heart (heart chakra), throat (throat chakra), and middle of the brain (third eye chakra) all have gland centers responsible for producing hormones and many of them have a high concentrations of nerves as well. This would make them electromagnetic centers which would correspond to chakras. The crown chakra is on the top of the head where the frontal and parietal lobes meet which could be meaningful? That one is less clear under this assumption although all of these are just guesses at this point.
In spirituality chakras are able to be unblocked which lead to spiritual development. What if similar to electron orbital leaps the body needs to reach a specific energy state before "leaping" into the next state of being, otherwise known as enlightenment? And what if unblocking the heart chakra relates to regulating it physiologically? Seems like that all fits together to me.
Acoustics
Acoustics is the study of sound and therefore the study of waves as well. Sound is currently starting to be used in all kinds of interesting ways including to eliminate cancer cells, to make objects levitate called acoustic levitation, and to show the hidden geometrical patterns of sound. These kinds of studies could be hinting at things spirituality has been talking about for a long time.
Sacred geometry for example is the idea that certain patterns are "sacred" or maybe a better term for sacred it just of a higher caliber or higher energetic frequency. When a 2D object, like a circle, is made into 3D, a sphere, the object looks very different from before. Sacred geometry isn't referring to simple geometrical shapes like a circle, it is typically referring to complex geometrical patterns most likely created by wave patterns inherent in all particles, the 3D version of the hidden geometrical patterns of sound video. With this in mind sacred geometry wouldn't just be a shape, it would be a shape based on science and would not only apply to sound, but to any type of wave. The basis of life is likely geometric patterns created by waves.
Sound could also account for at least some of the psychic abilities described in various spiritual contexts, the most obvious drawing from the principles of acoustic levitation being levitation itself. It could also account for miraculous healing, like that of Jesus, who may have used principles similar to using sound to kill cancer cells in order to achieve said miracles. Miracles are just science that aren't understood yet.
Specific sounds have also been linked to higher brain wave functioning namely beta frequency binaural beats, nature sounds, and specific classical music pieces. This suggests that sound may also be used to enhance brain functioning, a field of science that is very much untapped and in its infancy.
Dreams
Dreams have been seen as windows into the spiritual throughout history. We currently understand dreams scientifically as the brain's attempt to heal itself through the use of metaphor, but it could be more than that. Many people have said that the dream about the future or that their dreams come true indicating that there may be more to dreams than meets the eye. I've personally met several people who dream about people dying which then happens in real life. Recently science has determined that consciousness is actually retained during sleep, meaning that it's just a different state of consciousness, a state of consciousness that we really don't know much about.
Lucid dreaming has been scientifically validated to be a state of consciousness different from typical dreaming, a state where conscious communication has been proven possible. In lucid dreaming a person has control over their dreams which can have some far reaching implications. The movie Waking Life is an absolutely fascinating movie which includes some of those implications as well as a lot of really interesting ideas that use science as its foundation. One of those implications is that lucid dreaming allows for living entire lifetimes while inside a dream. Upon reaching Buddhahood, Buddha was famously quoted as saying "I am awake", an interesting parallel when taken in this context.
We know that dreams access our subconscious, but what if they could contact the collective conscious, the akashic record, or the cumulative knowledge of entangled particle in parallel realities previously discussed? What if it was able to tap into something deeper than our level of consciousness? That could account for dreams being an ability of prophets and seers throughout time. It could also account for how dreams and sleep have been credited as creativity and problem-solving boosters if it taps into some deeper source of knowledge.
Cosmology
On the smallest level of existence there is something called virtual particles. Virtual particles pop in and out of existence based on a Quantum Field Theory that postulates that the quantum field is full of different types of energetic fields that give rise to actual particles. Sometimes the energy field doesn't quite get strong enough to form a particle, so a virtual particle is formed. This video explains it. For every particle that is formed there is an antimatter particle formed as well and most particles that attempt to self-create get zapped out of existence by it's antimatter particle, something that is discussed in the documentary Quark Science. Every once in a long while a particle and its antimatter particle miss each other and the particle comes into existence. That last part was just informational although not relevant to my point. The point is that of matter and antimatter. The two expand left or right from the same central point and then snap back together. I believe this could be the same for the universe on a cosmic scale.
This idea melds with spirituality because most of spirituality talks about the universe going through cycles of expansion and contraction, and ours could be going through one and accelerating towards it's antimatter equivalent, accounting for the expansion of the universe which science currently has a difficult time explaining.
Another thing that is interesting scientifically is that of universal balance, a theme that is everywhere in spirituality. Here are a couple ways in which that is demonstrated physically according to laws of science (All quotes from Googling "is the universe balanced"):
Matter-Energy and Expansion: The universe's amount of matter-energy and its expansion rate are in a delicate balance, preventing it from either recollapsing or expanding too quickly to form atoms.
Gravitational Equilibrium: Even large structures like stars and galaxies maintain their form through gravitational equilibrium, and extreme imbalances, like those in black holes, eventually lead to new forms of order.
Electrical Neutrality: The universe is electrically neutral, with an equal amount of positive and negative charge, which keeps it from disintegrating.
Balance is a running theme. Just sayin.
Drugs
Drugs have been used for divine connection throughout history and cultures, a subject that will be discussed later. Every single drug that is used is either mimicking something naturally
produced in the brain or is an inhibitor of chemicals. No drug provides something that the brain doesn't have on its own. What if drugs are a way for us to experience different states of consciousness possible to the brain that eventually we could physically control?
Here are some examples of what it could do:
Heroin uses say that it feels like being hugged by God.
Meth users experience a surge of energy and psychosis like states which could be higher states of consciousness.
Many drugs bring a level of extreme peace and relaxation.
Weed helps people connect ideas they hadn't before.
Beer allows people to be their authentic self without inhibition.
Cocaine gives a surge of energy.
Ecstasy helps people feel a profound level of love for others.
Psychedelics provide all kinds of experiences from talking to other beings to experiencing other dimensions.
It's isn't an all-inclusive list but you get the general idea. Maybe these are just worse versions of the real thing.
Psychology
Psychology is a field of science with a lot of branches. When I refer to psychology I will be referring to the aspect of helping people heal themselves and become happy.
Principles of Healing
There are several principle of healing that I think mirror the ideas of spirituality.
First, in order to heal you need to stop avoiding pain. Pain comes in a ton of different forms, one of which is living in denial of truth because your perception of truth doesn't match reality or that you'd prefer to be right rather than confront the painful truth that you were mistaken. In the documentary Keepers of Wisdom Richard Rohr, an American priest, says that all saints were experts at accepting reality as it is and learning to be happy in it. In Buddhism pain is intrinsic but suffering is optional, a result of being attached to a reality of your choosing rather than reality as it stands. In spirituality pain is a teacher, not something to be avoided, it's something to learn from in order to learn how you are in misalignment with your best self, a self that accepts reality as it is and chooses happiness.
Psychological healing is no different. Running from pain only ensures its continuity just like not resetting a broken bone only ensures that it will never heal correctly. Healing comes from entering into the pain and learning from it. No one is perfect and avoiding your imperfections is just silly as mistakes can only be corrected when you acknowledge them, the same way that a flat tire doesn't get fixed if you pretend it doesn't exist. People have to learn to stop avoiding the pain that comes from judging themselves for their mistakes and their shortcomings in order to become healthier and happier. Once a mistake is made your only choice is to wallow in pain, pretend it never happened which ensures it will happen again, or face the pain and become a better person for it.
Second, differentiation. Differentiation is a very specific theory that I love within psychology but I think nearly every psychological theory emphasizes the same idea. Differentiation is the process of becoming different or distinct through growth and development, learning to stand strong in your authenticity. In order to heal, you need to learn to stand on your own, even if getting there is done through the help of others. Happiness and healing comes through learning that your self of worth is not dependent on others or anything that you do. It's learning and knowing that your worth is inherent and unchanging. A differentiated person is one who is immovable in their emotional peace while remaining deeply connected to others. Spirituality whole-heartedly agrees.
Third, authenticity and vulnerability. Technically these terms are one and the same because true authenticity is unwavering vulnerability. Authenticity and happiness are strongly linked and studies have shown that more authentic people experience more happiness. Spirituality says that everyone was created to fulfill a specific purpose, their specific purpose, which means that authenticity isn't just desirable, it's paramount.
Fourth, happiness, joy, and peace are the most desirable emotional states psychologically. Someone who doesn't want to feel these emotions is engaging in some kind of self-punishment, which is completely unnecessary as previously mentioned. Physiology also agrees with this sentiment which clearly shows that positive emotions help the brain and body function optimally. Here is a chart showing how emotion impacts various aspects of well being.
"L" - Low positive impact.
"M" - Medium positive impact.
"H" - High positive impact.
Asterisk - Mixed results which could go higher or lower than the indicated level.
Spirituality is quite clear when it talks about the purpose of existence and how you should be feeling emotionally. All spiritual traditions talk about the importance of being in a state of peace, love, and joy, hope, and gratitude. It's literally no different than psychology!
Drugs
Drugs and their impact on psychological healing is getting to be very well documented and the results are overwhelmingly positive. Here are how drugs are being used to heal people:
Love screenshotting. Saves so much time.
And there are more. Ketamine is a popular to treat depression, weed is used for anxiety relief, and Ibogaine is being used to treat addiction among others. Shit, most people in this fucking country are medicated and, therefore, on drugs. ADHD medication is an amphetamine similar to meth. Bias against drugs is absolutely unscientific and completely ridiculous, it's psychological gains mirror the use of drugs to connect to the divine which is still yet to be discussed.
Philosophy
The word philosophy means "to love wisdom" making philosophy the active pursuit of wisdom. Wisdom cannot be taught as wisdom is acquired solely through personal experience and reflection on personal experience making philosophy incredibly important if one seeks to become wise. Philosophy seeks to answer the major questions of life which is what we will be elaborating on now.
The meaning of life, the reason for this post, is a question that philosophers have thoroughly considered over thousands of years. Here are different schools of thought on what that could be:
Platonism: The meaning of life is attaining the highest form of knowledge which is truth, a truth that exists beyond the scope of our current understanding as mentioned in the allegory of Plato's cave, that our life is basically like seeing life in a shadow form, not the real form.
Aristotelianism: The meaning of life is in being happy which is achieved through moral development and virtue.
Cynicism: The meaning of life is in being happy which is achieved through self-mastery and achieving freedom from desire and convention. Suffering is caused by valuing that which doesn't matter.
Cyrenaicism: The meaning of life is achieving pleasure, specifically physical pleasure. This is the very similar to hedonism if not identical to it.
Epicureanism: The meaning of life is freedom from pain and fear.
Stoicism: The meaning of life is freedom from suffering which is attained through clear judgment and inner calm.
Confucianism: The meaning of life is to live in harmony in a naturally hierarchical system by developing morally and ethically.
Mohism: The meaning of life is to give universal, unconditional love.
Kantianism: The meaning of life is to live by the duty of categorical imperative, ""Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Basically the Golden Rule but with an emphasis on internally deciding what your Golden Rule is in any given situation.
Utilitarianism: The meaning of life is to create the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.
Nihilism: Life has no meaning. Philosophers didn't take this in a negative way though, they tended to advocate for things like "heroic nihilism" which is creating good in the world regardless. Some philosophers considered nihilism a critical step in psychological development.
Pragmatism: The meaning of life is to practically understand life via experience.
Theism: Life was created by God and the purpose of life is to also create.
Existentialism: You create the meaning of life (and apply it to everyone).
Absurdism: The meaning of life is to navigate life having no meaning. Life's three options are killing oneself, religious belief, or acceptance of the absurd which is learning to live in the absurdity and find happiness.
Secular Humanism: The meaning of life is finding the meaning of your life.
Logical Positivism: Something is meaningful only if it can be empirically verified.
Postmodernism: The meaning of life is constructed by a personal or group construct.
Natural Pantheism: The meaning of life is to care for nature.
Most philosophers tend to agree that the meaning of life is to do something worthwhile, which is most often self-development or helping the world around you in some fashion. Even with the frameworks that suggest that we all create our own meaning of life, I would argue that most people feel the meaning of life is at least partially related to meaningful connections with others, which are dependent on self-development. Developing oneself really has no downsides.
Taking one's own path is something that essentially all philosophers agree upon, the freedom to do what you desire as long as it doesn't impinge on the freedom of others. What you do with that freedom is dependent on values. There are many ethical frameworks within philosophy that provide a structure to help people align with their value systems. These include:
Many philosophers thought that the pinnacle of human existence was achieving a high state of morality. Here are a couple of them:
Plato: The philosopher king talked about in The Republic is a person who has impeccable values that also has the knowledge and wisdom to rule justly. The philosopher king was the archetype for the highest possible state a human could attain in life.
Side note: Socrates, one of my two heroes and who taught Plato, was executed for "corrupting the youth" by teaching them to think more deeply about things and question the prevailing beliefs at the time. During his trial he just made fun of the people prosecuting him and refused to compromise on his standards even though he could've been absolved. Jesus, my other hero, did the same. They both upset the status quo by helping people develop themselves and were killed for it.
Aristotle: The great-souled man is the person who has balanced their life by living virtuously.
Stoicism: The stoic sage is a person who has mastered their emotions by achieving a state of peace and is then able to align their actions with rationality.
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Übermensch is a person who has fully realized their potential by creating their own values in a way that is emotionally and spiritually uplifting, accomplished by overcoming nihilism.
Albert Camus: The absurd man is one who confronts the meaninglessness of life and defies it by living authentically.
Søren Kierkegaard: The knight of faith is someone who is able to find meaning in both the physical and spiritual realms which is done by simultaneously leaving everything in God's hand while also doing all that a person can in the material world.
Philosophy is amazing and interestingly enough the concepts largely parallel spiritual concepts. Spiritual concepts are all about self-development and virtuous living and most philosophers say the same, even the ones that don't think that life has any inherent meaning. It is wisdom to develop oneself regardless of spiritual beliefs or the lack thereof.
Religions and Spiritual Traditions
In my study of religion I've read just about every religious and spiritual text that I could get my hands on in order to find out the commonalities between them. If there is an actual doctrinal truth, it would have to be in every single religion and spiritual practice as God, theoretically, does not play favorites. Unfortunately it seems to be human nature to warp information to meet one's own ends, specifically as a means to assert control over others and gain power, although sometimes for other reasons like having an incomplete understanding. In my studies on religion and spirituality I have found five universal themes.
Love - Every religion speaks of the necessity of love and many speak of it as the path to God or the path to enlightenment. The love of ourselves and the love for others. Unity.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Different ways of expressing the same idea. Releasing what is not truly you or becoming who you truly are.
Enlightenment - Known by many names depending on the religion or culture but the theme remains the same, some kind of advancement of ability within the human species. This also assumes the nature of the soul being eternal.
Duality - Everything has a divine opposite or is two sides of the same coin. The love for ourselves and the love for others. The path to God and the path to enlightenment. The path of non-attachment and becoming.
Balance - The balance of the two sides of duality, the yin and yang of existence. The end goal is to find the balance within ourselves, a balance which in turn allows us to love at a deeper level. Cosmic balance.
If there is a path based on truth, I believe it to be this. Unlike what the majority of the religions in the world have become, the path to God is not passive, it is an extremely active and grueling process. Nothing in life is free and that equivalent is found in effort and growth in my perspective of truth.
I will now elaborate on what the various religions and spiritual traditions say in as far as truth is concerned. Many of these are considered esoteric spiritual traditions or mystical traditions which I believe to be the case because they are the harder paths espousing the importance of self-growth and self-salvation rather than salvation through a savior or external means.
Christianity and Its Branches
Christianity
Love - Love is paramount. The two greatest commandments are to love God and to love thy neighbor.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - The beatitudes found in Matthew 5:3-12 all talk about being. Not pretending, not trying, not doing your best, not doing it because you have to. BEING, embodying, exemplifying.
Enlightenment - God created you in his image, his child, and therefore you are a God in embryo. In prophets, a form of enlightenment. The New Testament talks about the apostles of Jesus doing what he did after his death including healing the sick and raising the dead. The New Testament also says that you are a God in John 10:34, it's just largely ignored. Children of God is stated in John 1:12-13 and 1 John 3:1.
Duality - God and Satan, heaven and hell, good versus evil, spiritual versus the physical.
Balance - Balance is found when Jesus invites people to follow him, he is inviting them to find balance. For example, the rich scribe who refused to give up his riches, Nicodemus because of family obligations, and those who got offended by Jesus telling them to drink his blood and eat his flesh in John 6 showed their imbalances.
Gnosticism
When Christianity came about so did the Gnostics. Gnosticism sects faded out by the end of the 6th century.
Love - Love is the connection to the divine.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Believed that personal spiritual knowledge was the path to divinity.
Enlightenment - Believed in the divine spark in all humans.
Duality - Quite literally one of the basics of their belief system.
Balance - Balance is attained through spiritual means which is required for enlightenment and cosmic unity.
Essenes
The Essenes were the group that taught Jesus which is recorded in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Essenes are commonly thought of as a Jewish sect but Dolores Cannon talks about them in her books Jesus and the Essenes, which I believe to be more accurate and also falls in line with the beliefs of other esoteric and mystical traditions.
Love - Unconditional love and compassion for all beings.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Had to become divine through the acquiring of knowledge.
Enlightenment - Gained by individual spiritual knowledge.
Duality - Good versus evil, light versus dark.
Balance - All creation seeks balance.
Mormonism
Mormonism is one of the largest new religions in the world and I grew up Mormon so its also a shoutout to them.
Love - Two greatest commandments.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Beatitudes.
Enlightenment - Prophets. Joseph Smith taught that all humans can become gods.
Duality - Same as Christianity.
Balance - Taught from the leaders of the church.
I have one thing to bring up with Christianity before moving on. Lucifer was regarded as the second highest angel in heaven and he fell because he thought he knew better than God. He is named "Light-Bringer" and I don't think his title went away, even if he was cast out. If anyone can be forgiven, so can Satan. I believe that Satan is actually an archetype of the fall of man, the division from the divine that we chose upon entering this life. His title, Light-Bringer, is a metaphor for the light we bring unto ourselves in seeking unity with divinity again.
Islam and Its Branches
Islam
Love - Muhammad preached love above all else.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Detachment from worldly things named zuhd.
Enlightenment - Prophets, including Muhammad.
Duality - God versus Satan, etc.
Balance - Finding and middle path and equilibrium named tawazun. Also batin, the inner things, and zahir, the outer things.
Sufism
Sufism is a mystical branch of Shia Islam.
Love - The central tenet of the religion.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Transform self to embody divine qualities.
Enlightenment - Sufi masters who were able to perform miracles.
Duality - Everything that seems dualistic is not as God is one, named tawhid.
Balance - The path to union with divinity named itidal.
Druze
A religion with Islamic roots started around 1000 AD.
Love - Love is a core spiritual concept emphasizing the love of God.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Wisdom and knowledge as path to spiritual growth and connection with God.
Enlightenment - Prophets. Union with the divine through personal purification.
Duality - Called tawhid.
Balance - Fundamental to spiritual progression and cosmic harmony.
Baha'i
A religion with Islamic roots started around the 19th century.
Love - Oneness of humanity and emphasis on peace and harmony.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Grow spiritually to attain peace and harmony.
Enlightenment - Divine messengers such as Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad.
Duality - Spiritual and material natures.
Balance - Science and religion, material and spiritual prosperity, individual liberty and global unity.
Hinduism
All of Hinduism shares the same basic beliefs, they only differ on who is the supreme deity. Yoga is a scientific approach to becoming divine and finding Moksha. The yoga we are most familiar with is called Hatha yoga which is actually supposed to be used to balance the body and shift energy, not just as a means of exercise. There is a progression of Hatha yoga that people are supposed to follow in order to help them progress spiritually. Hinduism has had a progression of their philosophy throughout their history which you can read about here.
Love - All existence is one. Life is sacred.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - There is a strong emphasis on both.
Enlightenment - Moksha. There are different paths to achieving Moksha.
Duality - Consciousness and matter, unity of God and individual soul.
Balance - Dharma and Karma. Reincarnation in order to achieve cosmic balance.
Buddhism
Buddhism has a few branches but they are primarily focused on how to achieve enlightenment, Buddhas, and scripture.
Love - Fundamental component of enlightenment.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - They are all about non-attachment.
Enlightenment - Kind of the whole point of the religion.
Duality - All duality is actually non-duality.
Balance - The middle way, balance of mind.
Judaism
Judaism technically doesn't have separate branches but it does have a mystical tradition, called the Kabbalah, which is worth going over separately.
Mainstream Judaism
Love - The Torah emphasizes living compassionately and justly.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Don't allow anything to overcome love of God.
Enlightenment - Prophets.
Duality - Good and evil, material and spiritual, body and soul.
Balance - Enjoyment of the world and spirituality. Balance is also emphasized in the religion.
Kabbalah
Love - One of the core aspects of divinity. God created the world with love making it a spiritual force.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Goal to purify oneself to align with divine will.
Enlightenment - Divine spark within all things.
Duality - Divine energy through complementary opposing forces. Male versus female embodied by Metatron and Sophia, light and dark, mercy and justice.
Balance - Balance of divine forces symbolized by the middle pillar of the Tree of Life of the Sefirot.
One interesting thought that I had in relation to this mystical branch is the balance of Metatron and Lucifer Light-Bringer (Lucifer is not talked about like this in the Kabbalah). Metatron symbolizes divine light, knowledge, order, and connection or the illumination from above while Lucifer symbolizes individual enlightenment, awakening, the pursuit of knowledge, and a disruptive or questioning light or the illumination from within.
New-Age Spirituality
New-Age Spirituality refers to the growing movement of spirituality around the world that includes things like channeling, christ-consciousness, frequency, etc.
Love - The foundation of existence.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Spiritual growth is heavily emphasized through becoming better colloquially known as raising one's frequency.
Enlightenment - Christ-consciousness. The idea that everyone can attain a Christ-like state because it is a title. Christ means "the anointed one."
Duality - We live in a dualistic universe but the purpose of duality is to teach us how they are actually one.
Balance - Balance is one of the main principles of the universe.
Daoism
Love - Compassion as one of the core virtues.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Go with the cosmic flow. Letting go of ego.
Enlightenment - Unity with the Tao.
Duality - Yin and yang.
Balance - Universal balance of opposites. The I Ching emphasizes the need for balance.
Confucianism
Love - The central ethical virtue.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - People should improve themselves.
Enlightenment - Becoming the "superior person" with an emphasis on unity and harmony. Achieving the "Great Unity." Not the same kind of enlightenment as most religions.
Duality - Yin and yang.
Balance - Universal balance of opposites. The I Ching.
Jainism
Love - Unconditional love through non-violence and compassion.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Detachment is the path to liberation.
Enlightenment - Liberation from reincarnation named Jina.
Duality - Eternal versus the living.
Balance - Central to attaining liberation.
Sikhism
Love - Everyone is equal and selfless service to others is a core part of the religion.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Karma and actions determine future lives.
Enlightenment - Liberation from reincarnation named Mukti.
Duality - Non-dualism, everything is one.
Balance - Between the spiritual and worldly named Miri-Piri.
Zoroastrianism
Love - An essential element of worship.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Emphasis on spiritual development.
Enlightenment - A prophet. Not an event but a practice of ethical living.
Duality - Good and evil.
Balance - Cosmic order and harmony.
We are going to start entering into belief systems that are non as homogenous or well-documented. I am only sharing what I know about them although it may not be comprehensive or may negate individual differences by generalizing. Some of these talk much less about the five core themes or barely touch on them at all but they are there just in different ways.
Native African Beliefs
Love - Interconnectedness of all life.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Emphasis on living in harmony which is done by becoming.
Enlightenment - Everything possesses a spiritual life force or essence, including humans. People with spiritual abilities named sangomas or other types of shamans.
Duality - Seen as complementary pairings.
Balance - Emphasis on restoring spiritual balance.
Central and South American Beliefs
Inca
Love - Respecting life named Ama sipiq.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Moral codes.
Enlightenment - Shamans.
Duality - Complementary opposites, physical and spiritual, masculine and feminine.
Balance - Between physical and spiritual, cosmic balance, unification of masculine and feminine.
Aztecs
Love - Part of cosmic balance and divine qualities.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Path to wisdom.
Enlightenment - Connection to the divine force. Divine spark in the heart. Path to wisdom called Tlamatiliztli which blossomed in the heart.
Duality - Universe made of opposing but complementary forces.
Balance - Cosmic balance.
Mayans
Love - Divine force that connects humans to the universe.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Everyone had a spiritual guide to help them named "way."
Enlightenment - Divine life force in everything. Shamans.
Duality - Complementary opposites.
Balance - Universal principle.
Native American Beliefs
Love - Extremely important to respect all things and create harmony.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Desire for harmony.
Enlightenment - Medicine people and shamans.
Duality - Contrasting complementary forces.
Balance - Core part of belief system.
Australian Aboriginal Beliefs
Australian Aboriginal beliefs talk about "the dreaming" which is better translated as "the law" or "the power".
Love - Universal love and interconnectedness.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Dadirri, or deep listening, leads to spiritual connectedness and growth.
Enlightenment - Clever men and clever women.
Duality - Non-duality. Everything is a unified whole.
Balance - Live in harmony.
Egyptian Beliefs
Love - Divinely influenced, eternal emotion. Weighing of the heart determined afterlife.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Weighing of the heart indicating becoming.
Enlightenment - Divine harmony and perfect union with the divine. Priests and priestesses. Amun-Ra talked about "placing God in one's heart." Lotus flower symbol of spiritual awakening.
Duality - Complementary opposites.
Balance - Order of the cosmos.
Norse Beliefs
Love - Cosmic interconnectedness.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Personal connection with deity and the understanding of interconnectedness.
Enlightenment - Shamanic magic named Seiðr.
Duality - Order and chaos, creation and destruction.
Balance - Interconnectedness and balance of duality.
Celtic Beliefs
Love - Everlasting connection and deep spiritual bonds. Symbols like the Celtic heart and love knot indicate that love was important.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Connection to the divine through nature, interconnectedness.
Enlightenment - Druids. Possibly the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Duality - Harmony of opposing forces.
Balance - Harmony of opposing forces.
Greek Beliefs
Love - Divine love called agape.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Stoicism was based on religious ideas.
Enlightenment - Humanity has a divine spark. Oracles, priestesses, and seers. Deities taking human form as a metaphor?
Duality - Soul and body, mind and body, opposing forces.
Balance - Cosmic balance.
This section is even less unified than the last. Not all themes are represented in these esoteric spiritual traditions and none at all in atheism, obviously.
Paganism
Paganism breaks the mold and doesn't fit all the five themes, specifically that of enlightenment.
Love - Core tenet of reverence for nature and interconnectedness of life.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Personal spiritual growth and divine connection through nature.
Enlightenment - None.
Duality - Opposing but complementary forces.
Balance - Harmony in opposing forces.
Witchcraft
Witchcraft is very individual and so not all of these concepts will apply universally.
Love - Many witchcraft traditions, but not all, see love as a spiritual force connected to the universe or a higher power.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Emphasis on a personal journey of self-discovery and growth.
Enlightenment - Harnessing energy. Some believe in inner spark of divinity. Mostly centered around connection to nature.
Duality - Complementary balance of cosmic forces.
Balance - Complementary balance of cosmic forces.
Alchemy
Alchemical practices are thought to be metaphorical in nature. That being said, maybe they aren't.
Love - Transformative spiritual force. Gold representing love, compassion, and enlightenment.
Non-Attachment/ Becoming - Path from ignorance to enlightenment.
Enlightenment - The philosopher's stone. The lead is oneself that turns into gold. Nature was thought to strive for perfection as well which was also thought to be gold.
Duality - Opposites should be harmonized, symbolized by the Philosophers stone.
Balance - Perfect balance is a central idea.
Atheism
I will go over the common arguments for atheism here as their beliefs are literally defined by not believing in anything spiritual. They do have good arguments and they shouldn't be tossed aside just because of spiritual biases. And by go over I mean show snapshots.
I have read two of the main atheist canonical books, that of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and The End of Faith by Sam Harris and even wrote a summary of them here because I think they have great points. Their main points are that religion has and is doing a ton of harm, a point that is well-made in the picture below, and that religion should have proof if it's real, both of which I agree with hence why I think most religions are wrong (except at their core) and am trying to scientifically falsify enlightenment.
I also agree that atheists should not have religion stuffed down their throats like only teaching creationist beliefs in a public school, doing school prayer in a public school, or otherwise taking away their rights to their belief system. It's ridiculous that religious people think it's okay to not respect other people and their belief systems in any capacity just because it doesn't align with their own.
Other Religious Aspects
Plant Medicine
Plants have been used as a means to contact or connect with divinity throughout time and religious history. In fact, most of the time they have been integral in accessing divine knowledge and connection. Ancient Hinduism used the soma, the Greeks used the Kykeon, weed was burned as incense at or in Jewish synagogues, hallucinogenic wine was found where Jesus was in Israel, Central Americans regarded mushrooms as holy, ayahuasca has been used sacramentally in Central America, the Catholic catacombs suggest some kind of substance use, peyote is used by Native Americans, etc. The book The Immortality Key by Brian Muraresku is a good resource on how drugs have been used in religious history.
The Return of Divinity
Nearly every major religion discusses the return of divinity or the final war of divinity. If humanity is divine in some capacity, which essentially all religions believe, then the return of divinity would have to be a remembering of mankind's divinity. If that happens the power structures that be, the one's that use fear as a means of control, would not take kindly to divine empowerment and it's logical to assume that there would be a war centered around power. This idea fits both of the most common narratives in religion.
Multiplicity of Gods
Many religions have many gods forming hierarchical structures of divinity. If everyone is divine, then this belief system would make sense as every person would have a unique divine role. The variety of gods presented in different belief systems could be indicative of different archetypes of divine potential, such as that of Hinduism and Vishnu's 1,000 divine names. Hierarchy would be based on degrees of consciousness.
The Cosmic Game Theory of Consciousness
The melding of all of this information brings us to the point of this essay, The Cosmic Game Theory of Consciousness. Here are it's main points:
Everything is One: This is one of the most common religious beliefs there is and it makes sense. If God created everything then everything has some aspect of God in it. If everything is created by the same thing, and is of the same base material (God), then technically everything is one. In this case everyone and everything is like a drop in the ocean, an individual aspect of divinity within the cosmic ocean of interconnectedness. It doesn't make sense to hate yourself if everything you create is part of you so it stands to reason that god is unconditionally loving.
The Soul is Eternal: If God is eternal, then so is everything it creates. This also follows our current understanding of energy, that it can neither be created or destroyed.
Eternity is a Fucking Long Time: If you were going to sit around for eternity, what would you do? Eventually you will have done everything and gotten bored of it. The solution? Forget it all and do it again. Imagine being able to forget your favorite food, rollercoaster, movie, or passion and get to re-experience it all over again as if it were the first time. My memory is so terrible that one time I completely forgot the movie Batman Begins and essentially watched it for the first time again... and it was AWESOME. The purpose of existence then becomes a game to remember one's own divinity and create a new. It is an expansion of consciousness from the most infinitesimally small level to absolute and complete awareness and knowledge, God. In the process of remembering one's divinity, it also makes sense to have the opportunity to experience its opposite. Only by experiencing what divinity is not can you fully appreciate what it is. Free choice requires freedom to go in either direction otherwise we would be prisoners to God.
Divinity in Stages: Divinity is the graduating of consciousness which is predicated upon the five commonalities across religion: love, progression, leveling up (enlightenment), duality, and balance.
Figures like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and other spiritual masters suggest that reaching the next level is possible, but is extremely challenging. By this point in history they have all become mythical, a story that people cling to, but few believe is possible for themselves. It will take someone achieving enlightenment again in this day and age to make the story believable again, a beacon of hope that I believe the world desperately needs. Otherwise, while this theory makes sense, it is entirely meaningless.
I believe that the more people that we have "playing the game" the higher the odds of achieving it. It only takes one person to help us realize what is possible and worst case scenario, we become better people and create a better world. There is no losing. For myself, I believe that it is possible based on things I've experienced that shouldn't have been possible and from what I've read and I am actively working on seeing if I can prove it to be a reality.
I believe the game is already happening. Want to play?
Sources
From July 2024.
Psychology
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist’s Guide by Albert Ellis and Catharine MacLaren
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Intimacy and Desire by David Schnarch
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van Der Kolk
Self Compassion by Kristin Neff
Leadership and Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute
Anatomy of Peace by The Arbinger Institute
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
A Therapist’s Guide to EMDR by Laurel Parnell
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Dr. Travis Bradbery
Psychological Types by Carl Jung
Think Again by Adam Grant
The Marriage Clinic: A Scientifically Based Marital Therapy by John Gottman
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver
The Self-Hypnosis Formula by Max Trance
The Instant Hypnosis and Rapid Induction Guidebook by Rory Fulcher
Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors by American Society of Clinical Hypnosis
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown
The Mountain Is You by Brianna West
Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown
Mental and Emotional Release by Matt James
Introduction to Clinical Hypnosis by Gary Elkins
NLP: The Essential Guide by Tom Hoobyar, Tom Dotz, and Susan Sanders
Internal Family Systems Therapy by Richard Schwartz and Martha Sweezy
Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual by Anderson, Sweezy, and Schwartz
Healing Trauma by Peter Levine
The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck
Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Geringer Woititz
Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
People of the Lie by Scott Peck
Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz
Mindset by Carol Dweck
The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan
Personality Isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy
Passionate Marriage by David Schnarch
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess by Caroline Leaf
Shake It Off Naturally by David Berceli
The Great Pain Deception by John Sarno
Spirituality
Between Death and Life by Dolores Cannon
They Walked with Jesus by Dolores Cannon
Jesus and the Essenes by Dolores Cannon
The Three Waves of Volunteers and the New Earth by Dolores Cannon
Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss
Gene Keys by Richard Rudd
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer
A New Earth Eckhart Toole
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Words of the Shaman by Marie Chieze
Alchemy by Paul Selig
Dreamhealer2 by Adam
Conversations with God 1-4 by Neale Hersch
The Vision by Tom Brown
Convoluted Universe by Dolores Cannon
Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda
There is No Death by Sarah Menet
Ye Are Gods by Annalee Skarin
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Eye of Horus by Carol Thurston
Resurrection by Paul Selig
The Ra Material 1-3 by Elkins Rueckert
Ross Peterson: The New Edgar Cayce
Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife by John Fuller
A Course in Miracles by Foundation for Inner Peace
There is a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem by Wayne Dyer
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Sophia Code by Kaia Ra
The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie
Resolving Spiritual Skepticism in Recovery by Andrew Pierce
A Happy Pocket Full of Money by David Gikandi
The Kybalion
Corpus Hermeticum edited by Tarl Warwick
The Veil of Isis or Mysteries of the Druids by W. Winwood Reade
Book of Wisdom by Harry B. Joseph
Cannabis and Spirituality by Stephen Gray
Journey of the Souls by Michael Newton
Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton
The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need by Joanna Woolfolk
Mixing Science and Spirituality
The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy by Gregg Braden
Man and His Symbols by Dr. Carl Jung
Becoming Supernatural by Dr. Joe Dispenza
Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty
The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden
The Emotion Code by Dr. Bradley Nelson
Biogeometry Signatures by Dr. Ibrahim Karim
The Archetypes and the Collective Subconscious by Carl Jung
Psychology and Alchemy by Carl Jung
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg by Joseph Pierce
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollen
Infinite Mind: Science of the Human Vibration of Consciousness by Valerie Hunt
Ayurveda: The Science of Self Healing by Vasant Lad
Light: Medicine of the Future by Jacob Liberman
The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler
Power vs Force by David Hawkins
Religion
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls In English translated and explained by Geza Vermes
The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian Muraresku
The Prophets by Abraham Heschel
The Nag Hammadi Scriptures explained by Marvin Meyer
Psychology and Religion: West and East by Carl Jung
Conversations in the House of Life: A New Translation of the Ancient Egyptian Book of Thoth by Richard Jasnow and Karl-Theodor Zauzich
The Cult of Ra: Sun-Worship in Ancient Egypt by Stephen Quirke
Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion by Abraham Heschel
The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts by Trilochan Sastry
The Holy Quran
The Book of Enoch
Awakening Osiris: The Spiritual Keys to the Egyptian Book of the Dead translated by Normandi Ellis
God In Search of Man by Abraham Heschel
A History of Indian Philosophy by S. N. Dasgupta
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Tibetan Book of the Dead
The I Ching or Book of Changes by Wilhelm/Baynes
Zhuangzi
The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah by J.F.C. Fuller
The New Testament
The End of Faith by Sam Harris
The Zend-Avesta edited by Max Muller
The Talmud
The Gnostic Gospels by Jeremy Payton
Selections from the Writings of the Bab by Ali Muhammad Shirazi Bab
Druze Theology by Said Hany
Celtic Myth and Tradition by Sharon Macleod
The Book of Hadith by Charles Eaton
Buddhist Scripture by Penguin Classics
The Fruitful Darkness by Joan Halifax
The Wisdom of the Shamans by Don Jose Ruiz
Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men by Holger Kalweit
The Crooked Path by Kelden
European Paganism by Ken Dowden
Pagan Magic of the Northern Tradition by Nigel Pennick
The Awakening of the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh
Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam by Carl Ernst
Parallel New Testament by J.W. Etheridge, James Murdock, and George Lamsa
The Heart of Buddhas Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Zohar Pritzker edition
African Traditional Religions and Spirituality by Diohka Aesden
Think Indigenous by Doug Good Feather
Native Religions and Cultures of Central and South America by Lawrence Sullivan
Meister Eckhart by Penguin Classics
Indigenous Religions edited by Graham Harvey
The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr
Other
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything by Rosa Brooks
Mycellium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World by Paul Stamets
The Origins and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann
Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Your Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth by John Robbins
Confessions of An Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
The Republic by Plato
The Psychedelic Explorers Guide by James Fadiman
Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Accidental President by A. J. Baime
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky
A Brief History of Thought by Luc Perry
Plato: The Complete Works
Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Harari
The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall
Quantum Physics for Beginners by Carl Pratt
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollen
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
Outlive by Bill Gifford
Blue Gold by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
Nexus by Yuval Harari
Decoding The Pyramids by John Desalvo
Beyond Growth by Herman Daly
Gods, Graves, and Scholars by C. W. Ceram
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The Black Sun by Stanton Marlan
The Conscious Mind by David J. Chalmers
The Siren Call by Chris Hayes
Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
Weird Books That Are Hard to Interpret
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John Allegro
Millennial Egyptian Wisdom by Dr. M Doreal
The Yellow Book: The Divine Mother, Kundalini, and Spiritual Powers by Samael Weor
Thrown Away: I mean that I literally threw these books away because they suck.
I Asked for Wonder by Abraham Heschel
The Lost Books of the Bible and the forgotten books of Eden
The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley
The Seekers Code by Donny Epstein
The Galactic Historian by Andrew Bartzis
Grimoire Girl by Hilarie Morgan
Truth vs Falsehood by David Hawkins
Podcasts
Philosophize This by Stephen West
The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps by Peter Adamson
Documentaries
Everything and Nothing
Quark Science
Intelligent Trees
Hidden Worlds of Quantum Mechanics
Through the Wormhole
Keepers of Wisdom
Courses/ Classes
Physics Classroom (physicsclassroom.com)
Vibrations and Waves
Academic Articles
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