Shamanism for the Age of Science: Awakening the Energy Body - Kenneth Smith 2018

Expanding The Baseline State of Consciousness
Expanding the Boundaries

While imagination plays a role in forming and sustaining consensus reality, the bulk of it exists beyond the zone of accepted reality. Entering this energy field revitalizes views and experiences of life. The following sections put forth experiences that move perception out of its cozy nest by stimulating imagination and learning, and enhancing ontological growth as they provide experience with life beyond widespread accepted norms. Depending on the nature of the experience and level of skill, they represent altered or discrete altered states. They also provide examples of various aspects of consciousness that, when integrated, help establish a new baseline state.

Psychic Experience

Psychic experience, or psi as academic and scientific literature refers to it, is most often segmented into two major categories: extra-sensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (PK). ESP consists of those perceptions outside the physical senses. The basic elements of ESP are clairvoyance (seeing beyond the range of ordinary vision), telepathy (direct communication between minds), and precognition (the ability to know the future). We can add remote viewing (ESP using a specific method) as a distinct class. PK deals with the direct influence of mind on matter. Examples of PK include OBE, firewalking, imprinting images on photographic film, and spoon bending.⁶ Each facet of psi is a specific cohesion that deepens with the expansion of skill.

Scientific inquiry into psi began in the 1870s, and the field received a boost from the spiritualist movement (mediumship) when psychical research organizations were founded in Britain and the United States during the 1880s.⁷ Today, while books on OBE, courses on firewalking, and psychic development classes can easily be found, scientific investigation has languished, with few institutions of higher learning providing courses.

Empirical research, however, points to a conclusion that some, if not all, psi is innate to humans and that it may not really be “extra” at all. For example, psychiatrists Gabbard and Twemlow have shown that prior to onset, 79 percent of those they studied or surveyed who had an OBE were emotionally calm and physically relaxed, that 89 percent wanted to have another, and that 86 percent said the experience provided a greater awareness of reality. Most OBEs weren’t forced in any way; they were natural and spontaneous events.⁸

Moreover, it is now clear that U.S. governmental agencies have not only sponsored psi research but have trained people in its use. For example, a former military intelligence officer, Joseph McMoneagle, has revealed the inner workings of the once top-secret spy program, Stargate Project. Once a field operative, McMoneagle was later trained in a rigorous protocol of remote viewing. After demonstrating great talent, McMoneagle was designated Government Remote Viewer and Psychic 001. Decorated by the U.S. Army for his prowess as a psychic spy, McMoneagle now consults for corporations on projects such as finding the best geographic locations to drill for oil, as well as working with scientists in collaborations that have included contributing to the discovery of a new subatomic particle.⁹

The acceptance of psi hinges on the model of reality used: does psi exist or is it scoffed at? But this pertains to acceptance, not legitimacy. A model that accounts for it can be found in both the Toltec paradigm that references emanations, connectedness with the environment, assemblage point positions, and entrainment as well as in quantum physics theory, which puts forth energetic resonance, entanglement, and nonlocality.¹⁰ Both theories hold that domains of energy connect with and influence other domains, that information from one energy field may be communicated or transferred to another, and that there is a dimension of reality that is not bound by ordinary time and space. Psi could therefore reflect having a more fluent connection with an extended environment. From this viewpoint, learning the various elements of psi becomes just that, learning. The groundwork for a worldview incorporating psi exists.

Mystical Experience

A mystical experience is one in which awareness expands to the extent that humans are perceived to be part of a greater, possibly divine, reality. Representing a cosmological rather than skill-based cohesion, it dismantles boundaries in favor of extensive and continual growth. It requires us to break barriers because it can’t be contained. Personal accounts of mystical experience are often couched in religious terms, so this transcendent awakening usually finds a place in theological as well as psychological studies.¹¹

A mystical experience awakens potential. It connects you with infinity. It stretches you further through your energy body and jettisons you out of your current condition field. It facilitates growth to a new level. The term mystical should not be equated with the term occult. Occult concerns the experience, use, and application of psychic forces. An occult view may enclose supernatural events to make sense of them yet do so without requiring you to expand your vision.

Although mystical experiences usually occur spontaneously, they can be facilitated by following a step-by-step path that leads to ever-widening awareness. All of the classic transpersonal psychologies contain their own staircase of logic. The information in this book serves as an example. At some point during a mystical experience, though, logic is suddenly and overwhelmingly supplanted by a gestalt of awareness. As pointed out by physicist Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics, however you arrive at a mystical experience, and regardless of whether you are a practitioner of mysticism or science, a common experience is that of having your reality shaken to its roots.¹² Over time, what is at first an altered state forms into a discrete altered state. Rounding out the procedure, the integration of the experience leads to a fundamental change in your view of reality, a new baseline state.

Researcher Valerie Hunt maintains, “Psychotherapists must envision this realm of consciousness as essential to an expanded, orderly relationship with self and the cosmic world.” Noting that mystical experiences are often dismissed as emotional aberrations, she adds that they add to emotional intelligence and “are absolutely essential for comprehending life’s profound meanings.”¹³

Just as a certain pattern of stars indicates a particular constellation, a pattern of discrete perceptions indicates a mystical experience. If you were to have a mystical experience right now, you would notice several of at least ten distinct perceptions that combine to form this constellation, producing what might be an overwhelming gestalt of awareness.

1. A mystical experience is ineffable; words are not adequate to describe the experience. Although it is possible to recount the event to some degree, you clearly feel words portray only the surface.

2. There is a sense of surrender. You feel at ease recognizing creative forces molding your life. In addition, although you may have sought the experience, it came and went of its own accord.

3. As you touch the mystical, it enshrouds you in sacred wonderment. Knowledge beyond reason is yours, and the value of the experience is self-validating. You need no group consensus support to recognize its reality.

4. The experience is short-lived.

5. You are taken beyond ordinary time and space. While the experience is short, you may feel as though you have touched eternity. Gone, too, is the sense that you live exclusively in three dimensions. You now recognize a direct, inner connection with creation that does not rely on ordinary measurements.

6. You experience paradox, seeming opposites. You may feel as though you are in the midst of a fertile wasteland. The experience is rich beyond compare, yet there is nothing to hold. You tap direct knowledge that does not require thinking. You experience what you learn rather than apprehend it once removed.

7. You do not study knowledge; you are knowledge.

8. You understand the experience as positive and affirming.

9. You can integrate the experience. A persisting change in your personality prevents you from turning away from your new awareness. A mystical experience alters your life.

10. You feel fused with all life. You are no longer separate from your existence; the realization of oneness grants your life new meaning.

Some of these qualities are mentioned in the work of William James, often credited with being the father of American psychology. Abraham Maslow also mentions some in terms of peak experience. He states that a peak experience carries its own intrinsic meaning, includes disorientation (an altered state) of time and space, and is always a positive experience.¹⁴

While this list gives a general outline of elements of a mystical experience, the event is always unique, as though it were tailored to the individual. All of these qualities don’t need to be a part of each mystical experience. Just as a cloud might prevent your seeing an entire stellar constellation, you might miss a few of the components. In any case, the authority of personal experience supersedes any guidelines. At the same time, knowing these elements is helpful, since you will become aware of each at some time in your growth through the stages of awakening. The mystical experience represents a symphony in which all elements harmonize.

A mystical experience not only opens and refines your perception but also clarifies your life. If you were to feel the sacred unity of all creation, you would naturally behave more ethically. Rather than use OBEs for self-aggrandizement, they can be used to explore the farthest reaches of the universe or the innermost depths of yourself. If you can integrate the experience in positive ways, you seek to express your knowledge in positive ways, too. Through your experience, and the manner in which you express it, you begin to travel within infinity. As you do, your horizons grow, you touch expanded impressions of reality, and you realize deeper regions of your being.

Mysticism

It is possible to live in a way that contributes to having mystical experiences. Traditionally, this has been the province of mysticism: philosophies, religions, and lifestyles that engender a mystical relation with the universe. These are high-end metaphysical systems that provide a way to reveal the wholeness of life, including its divinity. A mystical experience often results as a by-product of having this orientation.

Mysticism has heretofore placed the emphasis of religious experience on the immediate awareness of God. In Christian mysticism, for instance, Jesus serves as a model for direct participation with God-conscious. The mystical movement within Judaism produced the Kabbalah, a tradition of perceiving divine reality. And Islamic mysticism, often referred to as Sufism, holds as a principle the immediate intuitive knowledge of God. Similar constructs of divine communion are the defining element of mysticisms in other religions as well as in various philosophies.¹⁵ However, the field of transpersonal psychology, which incorporates studies of mysticisms, demonstrates that a mystical experience need not be couched in religious terms or understanding; that is, the basis of mysticism may be considered in a secular light. Still, through history religion has kept alive this form of relationship with a higher order, no matter what it is called.

While the cognitive technologies found in transpersonal psychologies provide the means to open us to possibilities and hopefully lift us out of conditional fields, interpretations of the ensuing experiences result from the very nature of the technologies, be they material, psychological, or religious. Perhaps the experience is often rendered in religious context because religions have been the purveyor of information about mystical adventure. It then becomes a self-validating experience, as interpretation constrains the expanded awareness. A priest may touch the face of God, for instance, while a psychologist may glimpse the fullness of individuation and a scientist delve into a unified field of consciousness. On the other hand, perhaps religious doctrine emerges from prophets encountering the mystical and bringing form to it. Either way, the result is that the conditional field of the system (religion or psychology) is being used to pressure awareness into a natural field, into a direct alignment with a cosmic awareness. This is an example of craftsmanship that leads to artistry.

This is also a requisite point in understanding human consciousness. Even when consciousness attends to higher orders of human awareness, as can be found in areas of religion, philosophy, and psychology; it is still tuned to conditional fields. If they can push you to a natural field, then they are the ones to follow. If they can’t, and you still abide by them, you will remain relegated to the conditions of an arbitrary human arrangement that does not represent a natural order—whether the order is of biology, physics, or all creation.

The natural energy field, a complete conscious state of human awareness, exists beyond the confines of those systems that are designed to help you get there. Once there, you are always on your own—just as you have been all along. The difference is that you now have balance and wherewithal. Mysticism therefore supports the quest of expanding consciousness and a mystical experience transcends the model that helped engender it.

Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff described four main avenues of mysticism: conquering pain or commanding physical resources, faith and devotion, direct knowledge of consciousness, and a path that combines the others.¹⁶ Yet in each branch, elements of the others are present. A person of devotion will realize more consciousness, for example, and vice versa. The various forms provide access to a greater reality for different personalities. Each avenue may express itself in elaborate practices or through very streamlined styles.

There are also cultural considerations. While the world’s three major monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—share common ancestry, each has developed a unique form of mysticism. Even though they all engender a mystical relationship with the cosmos, they may not all consider paranormal experience or abilities to be viable for ontological development. Various denominations may also accept or reject psi.

The same applies to transpersonal psychologies. A Zen Buddhist may shun the high adventures of OBEs, a Taoist may allow them, and a Toltec may intend them. It is also interesting to note that meditative experiences vary among practitioners. Electroencephalograph (EEG) research has shown that a Zen master might stay alert to the simple rhythm of a metronome while remaining deep in meditation, for instance, while a skilled Yoga meditator’s EEG doesn’t register the physical-environment stimulation. Even with common overarching goals, different systems yield different results.¹⁷

Buddhist monk and psychologist Jack Kornfield presents two principal schools of mystical thought as transcendent and immanent.¹⁸ A transcendent path strives for the higher order of altered states, including mystical revelations, while an immanent path doesn’t place importance on altered states and teaches that everything needed is right here, right now, in ordinary time and space. Modern Toltecs are in the middle as they strive for a range of altered states to accelerate learning while recognizing that they haven’t learned much if they can’t apply their experiences in the here and now. As we have seen, the experience of altered states is needed for learning as without altering what you know, you don’t learn. You need to expand the bubble of perception, by entering an altered relation with the world, and then integrating it to form a new baseline to where what once was altered is now normal. Immanent paths, however, de-emphasize the types of altered states that include psi and mystical experience.

Within the various forms of mysticism, some researchers hold that there are two major divisions, reflecting outward or inward orientation to mystical phenomena. This division is also referred to as plenum and void, or catophatic and apophatic.¹⁹ Plenum may be described as pure potential, all that is, or the complete fullness of energy and being. The catophatic approach uses images to provide a human relationship to this expanse, which allows the mystical to make sense through material or emotional representation such as stained-glass renderings found in church windows.

The apophatic style, on the other hand, provides an imageless, abstract portrayal of something beyond the ordinary human condition.²⁰ The void is often described in negative terms: “that which is not” as opposed to “that which is” (plenum). Void is also considered to hold potential; beingness springs forth out of something else, which is beyond description. Meditating on a blank wall serves as an example technique.

Both methods reveal vital models. The scientific debate surrounding dark energy offers a good example for application to other fields. That is, the interpretation that dark energy spreads throughout the universe reflects a plenum orientation, whereas if dark energy is viewed as a perception of void then we’re talking about an apophatic approach. The debate also serves our better understanding mysticism as when we’re dealing with the essence of perception and interpretation: reality always perches beyond comprehension. Void may represent peaking into the unknowable where there are absolutely no references, known or unknown. It could therefore be an aspect of the plenum that exists beyond human capacity to touch it and is perceived as void. Or void could be the womb of potential and plenum; it could be emptiness that gives rise to form. Don’t let interpretations get in the way of experience.

While worthy to distinguish the different aspects of mysticism, a significant point is that they are not exclusive. Despite their intrinsic differences, teachings of one method overlap with those of others. Understanding the whys and wherefores can help you latch on to the integrity of a school of thought in order to gain momentum. Doing so also helps you to avoid the trap of fundamentalism. All said and done, mystical systems share common denominators including:

1. Recognizing a greater reality that is far more substantial than a material world.

2. Defining a mystical reality. Within this schematic, we find the clear division between occult and mystical experience.

3. Portraying a psychology or philosophy that determines an individual’s soul (which may be the energetic, anatomical core) to be similar to—if not identical with—the greater reality.

4. Offering a doctrine, system, or way to bring about the perception of the greater reality.

5. Providing means to align with, and experience, that reality.

From an energy body perspective, a mystical experience offers temporary freedom from conditional-field cohesion. It can be understood in terms of the assemblage point shifting more to the core of the energy body, corresponding with an alignment to emanations that uplift awareness. The grace of this interpretation is that since there are objective references of human anatomy, the causes and effects can be measured and then intentionally reproduced. In principle, this is similar to mapping out the cause of disease and then developing a technology to restore health.

Near-Death Experience

Yet another phenomenon that expands awareness is the near-death experience (NDE), which provides firsthand experience with reality outside of normal daily living. I had my first NDE when I was eight years old and a few more in a dream research laboratory.

The NDE that occurred when I was eight resulted from falling into a lake while fishing and nearly drowning. I experienced the lab adventures at The Monroe Institute, which is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. They use a technology known as Hemi-Sync, short for “hemispheric synchronization.” It was initially developed by Robert Monroe, a sound engineer and producer of several hundred radio network programs, as well as a person who gained notoriety by reporting his OBEs.

This bioenergetic technology uses sound to help balance the electrical activity of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. This automatically focuses attention, enabling the listener to more fully investigate aspects of consciousness. We could say that Hemi-Sync shifts a person’s assemblage point, thereby shifting perception. Conversely, changing cohesion alters brain waves.

In recent years, scientific research has led to the popularization of a psychological model of brain functions, which allows us to clarify different modes of perception. In short, the right hemisphere of the brain perceives in a holistic, spatial, intuitive, and symbolically oriented manner. In contrast, the left hemisphere processes information in a linear, sequential, and analytical manner. The brain hemispheres, which correlate and control the opposite sides of the physical body, may also be related to the first and second energy fields, to the right and left sides of the energy body, with the left hemisphere corresponding to the linear, right side of the energy body and the right hemisphere to the potential and imaginative capacities of the left-side, second field.²¹

Hemi-Sync builds on the principle that the brain can follow, or entrain to, brain-wave frequencies—delta (0.5—4Hz), theta (4—8Hz), alpha (8—13Hz), beta (13—30Hz), and gamma (30+Hz)—as outlined in chapter three. To establish this frequency following response, slightly different audio frequencies are sent to each hemisphere of the brain, preferably using stereo headphones for increased efficiency. If a 100Hz tone is sent to one ear and an 110Hz tone to the other, the brain mixes these signals and automatically produces the difference between the two signals. In this instance, the brain generates a 10Hz binaural beat. The brain then resonates at 10Hz, thus producing more alpha waves. The person then becomes more relaxed and experiences more mental imagery—a state known to correlate with dominant alpha activity.²²

To expand this, imagine simultaneously establishing binaural beats of 4Hz and 16Hz. At 4Hz the brain is resonating near delta, so the listener would gradually experience more perceptions characteristic of deep sleep. But a 16Hz beta wave is also being generated, leading the person to remain awake and alert, and able to consciously perceive what happens during the corresponding sleep state.

By entraining to specific audio signals, I had clinically induced mystical and near-death experiences as well as OBEs. In each instance, the laboratory experience corresponded to similar events outside of the laboratory while not using Hemi-Sync. The NDEs resulted while entraining to a 1.5Hz binaural beat, a frequency close to what is considered brain wave, clinical death. As I listened to the tones, I spontaneously found myself traveling in a tunnel with a vortex at the end and vanishing in the distance. At the end of the tunnel was a gentle but brilliant white light. I sensed that the light consisted of a uniform field of energy of indescribable proportions. When I exited the tunnel, I saw a huge ball of white light. Although I sensed it in impersonal terms, I could understand why many people who have had an NDE thought of it as a tremendous light being or entity, often deemed to be God.

Approaching the light, I saw it as pure energy, or as a void, depending upon my orientation, which I could easily shift. When I entered the light, I felt it could be used for any purpose, that it is passive and value-neutral. I had the realization that perception there is not intellectual although it might be possible to take the intellect along for the ride. I felt the light was the permeating energy of all creation, including the intellect. I then went completely through the light and found that on the other side of it everything was reversed. I found a mirror image of the physical universe I knew in my ordinary life. My mind recoiled at the intensity of this altered state and the experience ended.

I think it is interesting that my experience corresponds with the findings of Raymond Moody, later verified by other scientists. Moody found a constellation of experience that marked a classic NDE, including traveling through a tunnel, seeing a field of light or an entity of light, and OBE. As with mystical experience, not all of the elements of a NDE need to be present in a given experience to accept the legitimacy of the phenomenon.²³

In the lab a couple of months after my first experiences, we again used the 1.5Hz binaural beat. Soon I kinesthetically felt a tunnel in my abdomen. I then saw the field of white light. This time, I felt that it was only one bandwidth in the breadth of existence, albeit the dominant band of the human condition. I understood that it was not God; it was the pinnacle of human awareness, the capstone of the chakra rainbow and God encompassed as well as transcended this domain. I also intuited that the physical senses downplay, or even blind one to, other perceptions. I had a knowing that the tunnel was a representation of a force leading to the white light and perhaps beyond.

Reflecting a discrete altered state, this time I dove directly into the light without hesitation. I discovered that we take ourselves far too seriously. I also touched what seemed like the deepest recesses of my being. Bridging a mystical experience, the realization that throughout creation all realities occur simultaneously and in the current moment then quietly exploded within me. This provided a principal reference for an eventual shift in my baseline state of consciousness.

Science

The process of acquiring knowledge and having it widely accepted is the same whether you’re dealing with the outer edges of metaphysics or with culturally mainstream investigations. Even in science, it’s often a matter of time before what once was hidden becomes widely known. Mario Molina, for instance, is one of the scientists who discovered the deleterious effect of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the upper atmosphere. He says that his early studies on ozone depletion were regarded by the media as “such an esoteric problem that who cares about it?” Even within the general scientific community, his ideas had no resonance; they were too abstract for others to get a handle on, as the ozone layer had not yet been explored. His work also bridged environmental politics, which crossed the line of true science in the thinking of some.

Molina’s motivation to enter research rather than chemical engineering was based on his personal fascination of the problem rather than on the pursuit of money. Because CFCs are stable and don’t readily dissipate in the lower atmosphere, his curiosity propelled him to examine what happened in the upper atmosphere as humans wantonly discarded these molecules, a situation he considered to be a case of “bad manners.” Rather than close off investigation based on then current perspectives, he sought more science: this being a difference between scientism and science.

He discovered that even one CFC molecule destroyed hundreds of thousands of ozone molecules in a catalytic chain. It then took years before governments around the world had incorporated a sufficient amount of information to change their ways and enter into agreement to eliminate CFCs. Based on his forward-thinking work and its inherent value to the group, Molina, born in Mexico City, shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with colleague Paul Crutzen.²⁴

Molina’s initial evidence can be seen as an altered state as it was a significant departure from the known, at least at that time. Those who verified Molina’s research represent discrete altered states as they could duplicate Molina’s finding. As the scientific community gradually adopted these findings, the scientific baseline state of consciousness relating to atmospheric science changed. As is often the case with departures from the status quo, it required years before governments changed their political baselines and entered into a treaty.