While it is not the goal of this book to introduce the reader to quantum physics, we give here an overview, pointing directly at a specific phenomenon that interests us. Quantum physics is a very large field of study and you should make a bit more research if you are interested to go beyond the scope of this book. Therefore, this introduction will seem extremely brief for the purist. Here we will address a specific event where science discovered that there might be such a things as consciousness.
Quantum physics is the science of studying particles. Quantum is the Latin word for “how much”. In a quest to identify and understand the smallest particles, below the scale of atoms, scientific research found out about a few wonderful phenomena that seem to happen only at the quantum scale. Particles, such as electrons, protons, neutrons and many others, behave differently if we pay attention to them or not.
There was a time, in traditional mechanical physics, that the subjects involved in an experiment were : 1- The experiment, 2- The instrument of measurement. But in quantum research, they noticed that the result of an experiment changed according to the way that the scientific people operating the experiment were involved in the experiment, and interacted with it.
In a summed up fashion, we will explain an experiment that used a subatomic particle cannon and receptive screen. The goal here is to give you the basic idea, and not to turn newcomers into scientific overlords.
This experiment is called the “double-slit” experiment. In a laboratory was used a subatomic particle cannon to shoot electrons at a receptive screen, after passing thru a filter plate with two tiny slits. While we would expect the electrons to draw two lines on the receptive screen, we saw a pattern that can only be explained if subatomic particles behave like waves.
Expected result
Actual wave-like result
Thus, to understand the phenomenon, we must use measurement instrumentation to perceive what happens when the electrons pass thru the slits. At this point, when the operators of the scientific experiment used measuring devices to observe the electrons, these stopped behaving like waves and started to behave like particles.
Result while observing
Thus, it was deducted after many attempts to rule out any other possibility, that the observer had an influence on the experiment, and that he was actually part of it. When we observe a particle, where we put our attention on it, it becomes one of its possibilities, taking a definite position and form, but when we are not interacting with it, the particle holds all of its possibilities at once, in every position and form. Where once we considered two subjects involved in an experiment, now there was three: 1- The experiment, 2- The instrument of measurement, 3- The observer.
Therefore, consciousness, or at least, the awareness directed at something, interacts with this thing at the subatomic level. This new scientific concept led the way to questions about consciousness and its actual existence.
If consciousness could alter the way matter behaves, then it was obvious it was the same with the mind, and possibly the spirit.Dr. John Hagelin leads experiments involving the reduction of crime in various places, using only thought processes in deep meditation. A large group of people are gathered in a place where there is a high level of crime, or war, and while everyone is in deep meditation, the level of crime, or war casualties, drop significantly. This experiment was lead more than 50 times with success, at the moment that this book was written.
Considering what was discovered so far, it is obvious that we have the ability to influence the course of events, as much as the behavior of subatomic particles. That is in the nature of the Unified Quantum Field, or the Supreme Consciousness.