Classifying My First Person Spiritual States

After age 70, it becomes especially important to better understand and organize the variety of states we experience, because we know that mortal death is on its way, to wipe out some states and allow others to continue. Even at younger ages, however, it helps to organize our understanding, in order to grow, in a realistic, grounded way. 

I. STAGE 1: STATES BEFORE 1979 or 1980

Up until Christmas of 1978 (when I began working for the US federal government, continuing until 2015), I had had a very focused and diverse exploration of PSI. That required a lot of time, especially when I went to bed, turned on elevating music on the stereo or radio, played with energy and ideas, and usually heard lots of poltergeist side effects and even dogs howling outside whenever I “turned on the switch.” But then it all ended quite abruptly, for several reasons. Partly, I needed to wake up early for the commute to my new job, but partly I felt some duty (dharma?) to focus on important challenges in the new job. And perhaps I was feeling some diminishing returns after many years of exploring the mind on many levels. I also did not like the idea of “wasting energy” on poltergeist and such. 

II. STAGE 2: STATES BEFORE RETIREMENT FROM US GOV: 

For many years, life seemed to settle into a three-way kind of routine.

(1) I had many “astral dreams,” like OOBE. By then, I understood that the dividing line between “astral dreams,” OOBE and lucid dreams is much less sharp than most people imagine. Really, there you are (not really in a specific places) and inputs or images come to you from your body, from other lo cations in this world, and from ”the astral plane” is a kind of mix. It is like the mix of what you feel in your legs versus our thorax versus what you see in your eyes; they are all present, and it is a choice where to focus.

 Ironically, LaBerge’s “just a dream” states represent MORE willfulness and consciousness than the proud but less conscious fantasy type states many people glorify. By 1980, I knew a lot about those states, and simply decided to integrate them into my ordinary daily life. It is interesting how SOME astral experiences seem bound by tight speed limits, while in others one is more free to move; that is an important clue. After 190, I did will myself to “go places” very much, but wherever I was I reflected whatever I was into at the time, sometimes like going to places and talking with other people. (Remember the novel “gravity’s Rainbow”?)

(2) I had many “assumption dreams”, living life from the viewpoint of someone else. Actually, I first noticed this kind of experience in my life before 1980, when I attempted the basic Rosicrucian OOBE experiment for the first time (long after I had worked with others) and suddenly found myself propelled into someone else’s body. 

That was one of the “once in a lifetime experiences” I will never forget, as I projected from the bedroom at 8411 48th avenue in College Park to a mature student sitting on the old red couch in the living room, the same couch I had lied on when I was 8 years old in Pennsylvania recovering from a hernia operation. The student and I were equally stunned, but there was also a time separation of about 12 hours. After this, I naturally read a lot, etc., etc. (I remember Bruner’s novel Players at the Game of People, and found others who had had the same fully conscious experience and could discuss it.) 

Now I view this as “gating” or “channeling”. It follows mathematical principles similar to the gating of visual images in the mammal brain, like what Olshausen discusses in a nice brief paper in one of Arbib’s anthologies on the brain, and like non-Euclidean symmetry circuits discussed in Werbos.com/Erdos.pdf (and various other papers in journals, like Kozma, Werbos, Ilin). 

The version in the noosphere is more powerful and general than what is in the mammal brain, because we “people” modules are more elaborate than visual images are, but the principles are the same. Lately, I understand the huge importance of “partial gating,” where it is not a MERGER of two entities, or even a complete matching of one to another, but a PARTIAL match, like what you do when you approximate and expensive detailed prediction model with a simpler and faster one not capable of hnading as many variables. ,br> 

 

(3) “Cosmic Consciousness”, a kind of full consciousness, 

where all my brain was fully awake and active but I connected to … well, let us say, to the noosphere. This became my routine for the time between when I fully woke up and when I got out of bed, in the early morning. It was a time of very intense mental activity, not restricted to the kinds of props people use in the various types and levels of astral experience.

(Footnote re (3): I thought of it this way because of passages I knew from Bucke’s book, long ago. Later a guru type informed me that Bucke was wedded to a theory I call “the phlogiston theory of consciousness”, which I view as utterly dead and zombieish and silly. I started to use the term “samadhi” for that state, until I learned it causes even more confusion, so I am back to CC. SOME use Samadhi for this, but others use samadhi to describe a kind of astral or mundane state of psychic masturbation, aka bliss, well described in a scene in Lindsay’s novel Voyage to Arcturus. Here I will not dwell on that, or on any others of the weird mental flora and fauna and illusions ALSO DESCRIBED IN Steiger’s book In My Soul I am Free.)

But more and more in recent years, especially as Luda leads me to interesting places all over the world, I have to add a fourth category: stunning periods of spiritual connection, which I have recounted in Facebook posts. Hugely diverse. I remember in Iceland, especially, trying to classify THEM, so as to do better. Quaker Meeting for Worship is another important venue for meditation and connection. 

III. STAGE 3: NEW PATTERNS IN MY INNER LIFE

Now, past 70, in a period of covid with the whole world on edge… yet also with some new knowledge.. the practical lines of classification shift yet again. 

There is still the scared time every day between full brain consciousness and getting out of bed. But some days it seems alive and energizing, and some days a foreboding which does the opposite (and has driven me to Irish Cream the following late evening on some days).

For about a year, I always maintain awareness of two books, among other things: (1) Jung’s Red Book; and (2) Trungpa’s Born in Tibet, plus his accompanying book on ”meditation” (the seven worlds and beyond). 

How can we classify and navigate those early morning states? EACH DAY included enough information content to fill several books, so how to organize it and move in a positive direction?

To keep it simple, this morning (in that state) I created an image of two important TYPES of state: (1) “the all-seeing eye” (EYE for short); and (2) “God as my psychiatrist” (DEEP for short). It is ever so important to be clear on the paradox, that the state which appears grander to itself is actually less real and inferior to the state which impels us to a bit more humility (i.e. realism).

III.1 EYE state

I experienced EYE first. It was yet another “great unique once in a lifetime experience” for me, probably before 1980, when I woke to a state where I felt such a great freedom in moving my mind “through the void.” (Imperfect words here, hard to translate. 

I had experienced something like that initial void state one night when I was twelve years old, in bed, in Flourtown PA, “the night of seven dreams<’ at tikes BETWEEN the dreams. A natural state; not great metaphysics, I thought.) In that state… I thought of H Spencer Lewis’s “cosmic keyboard,” but after I thought of various people I knew, it seemed like a great keyboard of PEOPLE. By typing gently on any key, I could open up a whole flood of information from and out that person. It was a labile two-way connection, easily and quickly adjusted. 

Like astral travel but with infinite speed. Like a switchboard. And I could move my awareness all over, like an all-seeing eye indeed. And yes, I saw a lot, figured out a lot, and learned a lot in that state, from political causes to higher science and math beyond what anyone else on earth knew at the time. That was handy when I later worked at NSF, trying to develop real understanding of ever so many fields of science. Math and mental mapping were crucial to keep it organized, but the flow itself was also crucial. But: given an all-seeing eye, where is the telos, the emotion, the affect, the sheer love? Until age 70 I could simply tell myself, “I” (the normal I of the day) had plenty of higher emotions and telos (utility functions) to appreciate the all-seeing eye. 

II.2 DEEP State

But what happens if and when that I die, and there is nothing left but an eye drifting through space? And so, this morning, I willfully brought up my memory of a discussion with Steve Morse ( “a Catholic Quaker”) and John Surr (“a Buddhist Quaker”) and maybe a few others, in the 9AM “morning drop in” discussion at Langley Hill Quaker meeting. (Cancelled a month or so after covid, and a few feeble attempts to do it by Zoom.) Steve was probably the person starting discussion of the book “Conversations with God”, and then “God is my copilot”. Those books fit well with a lot of modern Quaker thought, which works ever so hard to help us cultivate the skill of inner spiritual listening. As I tried to articulate my own remembered experience, I coined the phrase: “God is My psychiatrist.” 

That fit a lot of the best, most important stuff. Times when I would “rest in the void,” and phrase a question, which would iled an echo or suggestion, and then an entire dialogue. Often the initial steps would seem strangely unrelated to what I asked, but then led by an unexpected path to new insights I would not have imagined. Yes, as if I were in the company of a great psychiatrist. 

III.3 Life In and Beyond Those Two States

 So there are at least TWO different states in this CC cluster, EYE and DEEP. And after I saw this, this morning, I saw how Jung’s spirit of the times and spirit of the deep do resonate somewhat with this distinction, and help me be more conscious ness of what I am ding in these two and other states of the year. The usual EYE state wanders around the world (maybe beyond it a little at times in some ways), and DEEP really is grounded in a “void” state better described as “deep.” 

The “I”in the deep Is a curious state, a mix of power and humility, even more than the usual “Scylla and Charybdis” balance I long ago became used to. (Before retirement from NSF, I often warned myself not to succumb EITHER to delusions of grandeur OR delusions of helplessness, but this is a hundred times in that balance, yet steadier.) I rest in the void, get to ask questions, and can also ask questions which are not really limited in terms of possible answers.

 I can tune in not only to the higher mind of noosphere (to be there and listen) but even to the larger two levels I understand better this year, particular after my new draft paper on “approximation 2,” comparing the grand canonical Boltzmann distribution to the Bellman equation, approximation of which does constitute a different but higher level of intelligence. (Sorry folks, but this is important. I wouldn’t want to just delete all that exists, after all.) 

 I also saw a link to a Buddhist video Luda had me watch a few weeks ago, a video ever so important to my real like at this time, over age 70. It described a kind of sitting meditation exercise, and a kind of meditation in motion. (Please forgive; I forget the Japanese words, but we paid a LOT of attention when we prepared for our month in Japan October-November 2019, reflected only in small part in the photos I link to at Werbos.com/religions.htm.) My CC time in bed is like the sitting meditation, the part of ”me” which can live on after mortal death, 

III.4 Rhythm of Sky-I (EYE or DEEP or other) and Earth-I

But where is the qi, the telos, the flow of love and motivation, which I now derive most from daytime wandering in nature and connection with Luda, first, and other people? One key message: do work harder to cultivate that meditation in motion, connecting the spirot of the deep to as much of life as possible. But as a practical matter, of course, the “me” out of bed is a different state, and I would be ever so out of touch with reality if I did not distinguish it. I evolve towards a MIX of “sky-person” (or sky-I), in bed, using all the input and output channels I have available at that time, along with an “earth-person,” which needs to feel deeply why to cut back on the Irish cream, and to build connections to life and nature and develop specific options on earth (or connected to earth) to SUPPORT the sky-I actions, which in time will be all I have left. 

Of course, I am not disconnected from nature, life and love in the CC time in bed. Far from it. With an open window, overlooking vast nature, with cool breezes and bird song, and Luda nearby.. I am so grateful it is all there for now. I can try to connect all hat more to the deep, to preserve the connections. Talking with Luda and talking with “God” are not so completely different; each encourages skills which help with the other.

 The “deep” is also associated with an incredibly powerful and grand river of higher “qi”, probably like what Meng Tzu also felt and worked with. https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Chinese-Philosophy-History-Economics-ebook/dp/B00GHJH8JE/. It is so sad that so many Conficians in China have decayed from Meng to Zhu Xi, a bit like Shinto decaying from what we saw in the issa Peninsula to the Emperor’s instrument, eroding the very soul of the people who become too obedient, degraded, nepotistic and dangerous (exactly as Mao said when he complained at his school in Chang Sha, which we have visited). 

 And in conclusion, thank you for your patience if you have read this far into the writings of the “earth I”, trying to transcribe about five minutes of what the “sky-I” saw this morning. But even then… 

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This all was written as a response to a message from Nancy du Terte where she described some of HER experiences. My initial reply to her was:

First, I thank Nancy for discussing some of her real, personal first person experience, with the caveats and then humility that we all need to benefit form such discussion. I am influenced, of course, by knowing how much deep, extensive contact she had with heavily vetted psi research funded in the past by the US government. It is good that a few of us can discuss BOTH serious hard core science (like psi dot = i H psi) AND unvarnished first person experience under scrutiny, without social ideological repression of real experience.

I am also glad that the majority of the people on THIS particular list would be happy to discuss what the implications are if "animals have souls. More precisely, a majority of us believe there is more than a 50% probability that many other mammals possess PSI connections. For me, when I think how noospheres can come to be (see werbos.com/religions.htm), it would be hard to believe that many other higher mammals would NOT have a noosphere connection , just as we do. Whatever physical mechanisms allow the noosphere to perturb our brains (and vice versa in some degree of symbiosis), I will never forget how 99% of the human brain is homologous to the brains of other mammals, at the fundamental level we discussed so often with our collaborators Pribram and Freeman. If the noosphere could ONLY speak to mammals in English,this would not follow, but the idea that it only speaks in English is utterly ridiculous. Carl Jung's Red Book is one god window into how it really works, for those deluded people who imagine 

hat sort of reality. so OF COURSE, there are many fellow mammals with PSI, and there are valid questions beyond that about other animals.

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So... to tell it like it is... the experiences Nancy reports with her cats are 

really quite typical of what was documented very carefully in a workshop I attended in 2000 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrott-Warrick_Fund, in Cambridge University, UK.

It is VERY sad that so many people today are so divorced from life and nature that they could really imagine that no other mammals possess psi.  That is why I bcc two friends, more involved in political kinds of issues, who are deeply worried about "how many people have been turned into zombies, de facto, by being locked up in impersonal big buildings where they do not even breathe the outside air and see the sun?"   The standard handbook of mental disorders used by psychiatrists lists low affect as one of the key symptoms, and many people tracking covid describe how lockups and low affect are causing horrible side effects. (Myself, I follow all the local covid rules, but still get get to go outside a lot.) 

INDIA and BRAZIL might well be the two nations on earth where humans retain the most real contact with other mammals, on a deep spiritually grounded way. (OK, Brazil may be more birds, but hey have enough mammals too.)  So maybe some of you might join me in saying to Nancy "Hey, there are a LOT of other connections which are part of OUR lives, which we 

will not hide in a closet." (No, not THAT closet!!! That's what Qanon tries to sell.)

My own life has been so full of so many "human" connections with other mammals (and a few different types with birds)... I will spare you all the details, because there are SO many.And no, Stan, I was not oing it to write a paper publishable in a scientific journal. With maybe one exception... the IDEA of EEG caps on cooperative horses, to do a Kelso type analysis.

But beyond that, there are SO many... 

Many psi believers talk about telepathy and OOBE, so maybe I should skip over that kind now. 

After people experience basic OOBE stuff, but before what I would call cosmic consciousness, there is a whole complex of skills or experiences which are variously interpreted as "channeling," attunement, or (in a more sophisticated version) "partial gating." Indigenous people in Brazil (one of whose leaders I bcc) are deeply familiar with exercises to attune with other creatures enough to see through the eyes of other creatures. Often birds.

I still remember being asked: "Hey, you connect to birds a WHOLE lot. So have you ever had that experience? Seen through the eyes of a bird?" I had to admit: "No, I have not experienced absolute assumption with a bird. Only once in my life with any animal. That was with a cat, and it happened because the CAT wanted it to happen;  it wanted me to see its point of view." (That was in the school year 1975-1976, in Laurel Maryland.) 

There are so many reflections of this in literature from all around the world! 

(I mentioned Walsh's NONdruggie book on shamanism, for example.) 

In my view, Jane Robrts had authentic experiences, even if she had troubles trying to really understand them. "Channeling" is an example, where there can be PARTIAL gating, where ... well, the more intelligent intelligent subsystem couples with the other one, with a well-defined restricted interface, not until the interface between a complex expensive model and a faster simple one, in a large integrated computer modeling system. Some of us actually know how to build intelligent systems, with machine intelligence, embodying the minds of capabilities which exploiting symmetry in this way allows. exploitation of siumpler symmetries and gating is fundamental even to understanding the simpler level of consciousness/intelligence to be found in mammal brains. 

Beyond this level, I see a link between what Jung calls the spirit of the deep and the variety of cosmic consciousness I try to work with, and with the state Nancy describes in the early morning. And with the higher qi described by Meng Tzu, as reported in 

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Chinese-Philosophy-History-Economics-ebook/dp/B00GHJH8JE/. This and partial gating  also link to PARTS of the Upanishads, to the parts where they speak of"seeing though many eyes" at the same time (as in the netflix video Sense8, whihc has its weak points but has important real content).