11

The Fate of the Universe

We can begin here with the current scientific worldview, which holds that the universe is basically a chaotic, expanding mass of space, time, matter, and energy. The root of this assumption is the second law of thermodynamics, which says simply that heat always flows from hot to cold and never vice versa. This means that all the energy in the universe will continually disperse far and wide until it is distributed evenly everywhere. An involutionary process such as this, if it remains unchecked, will eventually lead to a long, slow, heat-death for the universe; all matter will become icy-cold and lifeless, its energy having been spread thinly throughout space, remaining only as a residual vibration, like a faint whisper in an otherwise silent void.

This rather depressing state of affairs, say cosmologists, should not concern us too much, because it will take many billions of years of gradually increasing entropy for such conditions to arise, and in any case the human race will certainly not be around to witness this ultimate state of chaos. This heat-death scenario implies, of course, that the universe is basically a closed physical system.

An alternative to the above prediction is the idea of the “big crunch.” Proponents of this theory suggest that the collective force of gravity will eventually overcome all other forces. When this happens the entire cosmos will at first cease to expand; then it will begin to contract again under the cumulative force of gravity, increasing in temperature as galaxies converge, the whole thing collapsing inward toward a final “singularity”—the big crunch. This would mean the total annihilation of everything: space, time, matter, energy.

There has been further speculation that the resultant singularity could somehow trigger another almighty bang, so beginning a whole new cycle, a repeated expansion of the universe out to the limits permitted by the critical density of all its mass, only to contract again toward another mind-boggling crunch—and so on, ad infinitum.

Interestingly enough, this description is very similar to the ancient Hindu version of cosmological events, which sees the universe continually appearing and disappearing in a well-defined rhythmic cycle known as “a day and night of Brahma.”

Physicists, however, doubt the possibility of endless cycles repeating without change, pointing out that there are serious physical problems with such a theory. We need not detail them here, but they apparently arise as an inescapable consequence of the inviolable second law, which would call for bigger and bigger cosmic cycles expanding with ever-increasing limits, until eventually future cycles would become so long that conditions within them would be indistinguishable from those prevailing in a big freeze.

Another interesting theory has been proposed by the science-fiction writer Wilbur Wright in his book Time: Gateway to Immortality. Wright begins by pointing out an interesting feature of the expanding universe, which is that the galaxies farthest away from us are receding at velocities close to one-tenth the speed of light. If these galaxies were eventually to reach the speed of light, he says, they might coalesce into enormous balls of matter and energy, ultimately contracting on themselves to become tiny, superdense neutron stars or black holes. Wright then goes on to propose a similar fate for the cosmos as a whole, suggesting that at the speed of light the tiny body resulting from the collapse of the entire universe might rupture the fabric of space-time and pass through into an adjoining continuum at high velocity and temperature. The end result would be another big bang, and so the beginning of another great cycle in the endless evolution of whatever it is that is evolving. Wright visualizes an infinite succession of universes and interpenetrating voids stretching from the unimaginably large to the infinitesimally small. As each continuum empties, a fresh singularity from some microcosmic region emerges to start a new cycle. As he says, nature abhors closed systems, so the sequence from small to large would be open-ended and potentially infinite.

There are, in fact, a number of alternative cosmogenic theories currently under consideration involving obscure phenomena like black and white holes, antigravity and inflationary processes, the “false” and “true” vacuum relationship, and so on. But clearly the most interesting of them all in respect to this present investigation is the proposition made by Lee Smolin, which is that there might even be a form of natural selection operating among universes, of which the evolution of life and consciousness may be a direct consequence. Smolin, of course, comes at this from the background of classical science. As we noted in chapter 9, the astrophysicist George Smoot has also opted for what looks set to become the “biological paradigm” by asserting that the structured physical characteristics of the present universe were already encoded within its “cosmic DNA” as early as a mere 300,000 years after the big bang. It is unlikely that these primordial “genes” simply materialized out of nothing, so we may reasonably assume that they were actually encoded within the original “cosmic egg” at the very beginning of time.

As we see, these ideas tie in perfectly with the hermetic description of events, which tells us that the universe above is a living creature, a zoon, and that the life and consciousness of sentient beings below or within it are faithful recapitulations of the original hermetic blueprint, part of an irresistible process that is vital to the sustained evolutionary development of the whole. Thus, while the physical body of this multidimensional creature may or may not be headed toward a final state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the greater universe, if it is alive and conscious in some mysterious way, could have emotional, psychological, and even spiritual sides to its existence. These are aspects we would define as being associated with the higher dimensions, in which the whole manifests as a six-dimensional phenomenon, an open system that, exactly like planetary biosystems below, is able to export entropy into its “environment”—the seventh dimension—and to simultaneously import the energy needed to sustain its ongoing development.

If this were so and the universal chain of existence proved to be open-ended and potentially infinite, then the second law would not be violated in any way: energy of some kind could still enter from outside the system. This external energy would not, of course, prevent the physical body of the universe from ultimately dying. Like your own, if it is basically organic, then eventually it must. But even if it were to die, through whatever means, one would still expect it to have the capacity to pass on its hereditary characteristics in some way. Possibly, therefore, the background radiation fluctuations described by George Smoot as “cosmic DNA” are the result of hereditary genes bearing the characteristics of some earlier parent universes.

THE “OTHER” UNIVERSE

As I have already implied, the transcendental “higher self” of the universe (that is its psychological and spiritual natures) would have to be connected in some way with the higher dimensions. The question is, How might such a connection be established? How could an expanding, chaotic mass of purely physical phenomena ever escape from the fourth dimension?

The distance to the edge of the universe, or to the outer wave of expanding galaxies, is not known, but scientists have calculated that these galaxies are moving away from us at around 10 percent the speed of light, as noted before. No one knows whether the outer galaxies will ever attain the speed of light, but if the universe has enough outward momentum to continue expanding at an accelerating rate forever, then it is not unreasonable to suppose that this could and very probably will happen. Attempts have been made to discover if there is enough gravitating matter in the universe to cause it to contract again, but there appears to be an unknown quantity of “dark” matter out there, so calculations have been necessarily speculative. However, Paul Davies has been moved to remark, in The Last Three Minutes: “Taken at face value, the galaxies seem to be flying apart so fast that they may indeed just ‘escape’ from the universe, or at least from one another, and ‘never come down.’”¹

Of course, if the galaxies did continue to accelerate unhindered they could eventually reach the speed of light itself, to the threshold of a quite different reality—the timeless, fifth dimension of existence. Wilbur Wright has suggested that at this point the whole galaxy might coalesce into an enormous ball of matter and energy, ultimately contracting upon itself to become a superdense neutron star or a black hole. However, this would be an unlikely end, one might think, for something so vibrant and radiant as a living cell in the body of the universe.

So, assuming this did occur, that the outer galaxies effectively “escaped” from the fourth dimension and reached the threshold of the plane of light, then theoretically they would be freed from the consequences of the second law of thermodynamics, which relies on the “arrow of time” to define any increase in entropy, or any waxing or waning of energy content. On the plane of light there would be no time mechanism with which to measure any kind of change. Out there it is always midday: nothing waxes, nothing wanes, everything just is. Presumably this is why the photon quantum, existing on the plane of light, is potentially everlasting; if unhindered by matter, it can maintain its vital spark and its maximum velocity for billions upon billions of years. The background microwave radiation permeating the whole universe, which scientists say is the residual vibration left over from the big bang, consists of photons—light quanta—and these quanta have been moving at the same maximum velocity from the moment they were first created. If these photons can last from fifteen to twenty billion years, they can reasonably be expected to last for another twenty billion years, and so on, in virtual perpetuity. Clearly there is no evidence of advancing chaos in such a dimension of existence, no increase in entropy as we would normally define it.

What we have here, of course, in this future scenario of galaxies escaping from the time dimension and “never coming down,” is a graphic example of the universal process of transcendental evolution unfolding. These galactic helices, the cells of the universal body, would effectively enter into a higher scale of existence, a scale no less musical than the one below, but one that encompasses an infinitely greater reality.

So let us now trace the origin of the galactic cell back to the point at which the whole musical phenomenon first came into being. The big bang might be said to represent the very first note, Do, in the greater fundamental octave of universal evolution. Significantly, conditions of existence when this first note was sounded were such that there was no space, no time, and, therefore, absolutely no entropy. We can envisage this universal octave as having subsequently developed in all directions, from the first note, Do, of the big bang, up through various intermediary stages, perhaps into the “re” of early expansion and cooling, the “mi” of particle formation, the “fa” of the first star formations, the “so” of galaxy formation, the “la” of the formation of accompanying biosystems or habitable planets, and the “ti” of the appearance of organic life and of observers like you and me. These are merely hypothetical stages, but they all have one thing in common in that they manifest in the fourth dimension of time. In addition, they all encompass within their structures the three lower dimensions: solid, plane, line. Now, if we accept the hermetic interpretation of cosmic events, we can say that the time dimension, like everything else, is itself a fundamental octave, and that the ultimate note, Do, at the top of this scale of development would be sounded by all galaxies everywhere as and when they reached the light barrier—a kind of celestial version of the sonic boom.

In the case of the major musical scale, we know that the first note and the last are one and the same (Do), with a difference only in scale. By the same token we can say that the first and last notes of the universal time octave described above must also be in essence the same, again with a difference only in scale. Logically, therefore, one would expect the conditions prevailing at the moment of initial creation (no space, no time, no entropy) to prevail also inside galaxies entering the dimension above. And so they would, for at the speed of light, space contracts to nothing, time stands still, and everything moving at such a velocity—like the photon—is in a permanent state of thermodynamic equilibrium.

We have thus far followed the evolution of the universe from the big bang to the superluminal boom of “escaping” galaxies and so traced the development of one fundamental octave of universal resonance. According to musical theory, of course, the ultimate note, Do, at the top of this scale would not only be the last, it would also be the first note of the next scale above. Therefore, any galaxies developing up to this stage, transforming themselves, or a higher part of themselves, into five-dimensional entities would then have the potential to evolve up through the next ascending scale of universal resonance. So each galactic cell, upon reaching the threshold of the fifth dimension, would then continue to expand in some way, to develop further as its transcendental body approached nearer and nearer to speeds approaching the square of the speed of light, into a six-dimensional, solid form. Just like an individual cell in a growing planetary organism, the greater body of the galaxy would steadily become pregnant with six-dimensional cosmic “proteins.” In the organic world, a normal self-replicating cell that has reached this condition of “optimum resonance” ultimately divides. Could a “pregnant” galaxy somehow do the same? If the universe is a closed system it probably could not, but if it is open and organic, living in a seven-dimensional arena, anything is possible. For evidence of such a process, which in our timescale might be an extremely rare occurrence, we should perhaps be looking for two galaxies coexisting side by side that are structurally mirror images of one another.

If a galaxy could “divide” in some way, the question as to how this might occur is even more perplexing. It has been suggested that at the center of all revolving galaxies is a black hole, a monstrous, superdense, supergravitational entity from whose clutches even light can’t escape. A black hole would literally tear apart anything that came within its immediate sphere of influence—its “event horizon”—including, of course, stars and their planets. Certain astrophysicists have suggested that a black hole could act as a kind of nonlocal conduit through which anything passing might subsequently emerge “on the other side” into a totally different but coexistent space-time continuum.

It is hard even to imagine the extraordinary sequence of events that might transpire as the greater “body” of the galaxy transformed itself into a six-dimensional being. Once it had reached the first conceptual barrier—the speed of light—and transmuted some kind of resonance through to the fifth dimension, these transcendental vibrations would thereafter become a part of a whole, new, wider reality. Earlier we noted that a higher dimension unfolds every time a new direction is determined. In the case of the galaxy reaching the light barrier, this new direction would be something akin to a lateral, planelike development, spreading out at 90 degrees to the initial line of movement. The original line of movement would remain just that—a relative “line”—a cross-section of the greater five-dimensionality of the thing. Similarly the transition of the galaxy from five-to six-dimensional form would also proceed in an entirely new direction, so that its final condition would be as far removed from its five-dimensional manifestation as a solid is from a Euclidean plane.

So a galaxy that had successfully attained its final six-dimensional form would have effectively evolved up through the second fundamental octave of universal resonance, again from the first note, Do, sounded by crossing the light barrier, up to the next fundamental note, Do, the second barrier marked by the square of the speed of light. But even at

this stage or on this scale, at the beginning of the third octave of universal development, the galaxy would still be in the process of evolving. We can accordingly depict this overall cosmic process of the galaxy’s coming to fruition using our usual diagrammatic format:

Obviously the mass of a galaxy could never accelerate beyond the speed of light. It would have to remain either suspended on, or marginally below, the plane of light. Any further superluminal motion, therefore, would have to involve nonmaterial resonances. These metaphysical vibrations would emanate from the material core, the galactic “chromosome,” and would then proceed to develop in an entirely new direction, diffusing their energies, if not yet instantaneously, then at speeds far greater than that of light. As to the possible nature of these higher energies or forms of resonance, they might, as I have already suggested in earlier chapters, be composite structures formed from the conscious thoughts of sentient beings existing in the given galaxy. Admittedly we are in the realms of science fiction here, but then consciousness itself is a form of resonance, vibrant, energetic, alive, and its very existence represents a new direction in which the galaxy can continue to grow and develop.

So, if the galaxy itself is a chromosome, then, relative to the same scale of existence, sentient beings like ourselves would be the metaphysical equivalent of biochemical “triplet codons,” created and subsequently ejected by the double helix above out into the cytoplasm (the planetary world in time), presumably so that we can ultimately dictate the synthesis of the higher, finer substances required for further evolution.

In the living cell, triplet codons act as templates for the manufacture of finer, more resonant substances—amino acids, the building blocks of life. Similarly, the human mind codes for the manufacture of metaphysical “amino acids”—ideas, concepts, theories, and so on. Now, in the cytoplasmic membrane of the cell, there are special enzymes that cause the newly developed amino-acid chains to fold up into the more complex protein macromolecules. Likewise, therefore, in the greater macrocosm there should be components out there in the cosmic “cytoplasm” of the sky whose function is to “fold up” our concepts and theories into immense, radiant, “protein” structures. As I suggested in chapter 7, these cosmic “enzymes” may be connected in some way with the sun and its planets (and perhaps their moons), whose varying magnetic influences pervade the whole solar system and whose orbital cycles are hermetically related to one another, endlessly beating out in time the relative values of the major scale. We note further, from Robert Temple’s discovery that the Pythagorean Comma is expressed in the mass ratio of Sirius B and our sun, that this hermetic symmetry could also extend to the stars and even, perhaps, if the dictum of Thoth holds true at every level, to the galaxies themselves. Certainly starlight is hermetically structured, as indeed is all light—and it vibrates throughout the entire universe. So it would be no exaggeration to say that there is music literally everywhere, in the chromodynamic and atomic scales of matter, in DNA and the genetic code, in the double helix of the human brain and the Hermetic Code, in solar and galactic helices, in the octave of dimensions—even in the “mind” of the universe itself.