I would now like to sum up the main points I’ve made in this book. The year 2012 can be regarded as a gateway to a turning point in history. As we pass this threshold, the Earth may be bombarded by cosmic radiation that defies scientific explanation. The scientific worldview, which up until now has been considered to be unshakable, will be irreparably undermined and weakened. Momentous events will disrupt our daily activities and confront us with new realities. Plus we will be constantly faced with these questions: What’s coming next? Is the universe truly sending us radiation bearing a creative force that will change us in positive ways?
A recent press report states the following in this regard: “Extremely intense radiation from a collapsing star shows that up to 100 times more gamma ray bursts may have occurred during this event than have ever been observed before. Even with the naked eye, GRBs lasting up to 40 seconds could be seen in the night sky. Despite their tremendous distance from Earth, these GRBs were clearly visible for the simple reason that they were directed right at our planet.”154
Inasmuch as this phenomenon lies outside the purview of the mechanistic paradigm that has always been touted by mainstream science, we need new interpretations, inspired by old myths and philosophical ideas.
The events of 2012 and beyond, which have in any case already announced their presence, are likely to lead to an irreparable schism between the scientific and spiritual realms. As is so often the case, nature is the best teacher. Despite our fondness for laying down rigid scientific principles, nature teaches us time and time again that although a mathematical worldview can explain many things to us, it helps us to understand next to nothing. In the final analysis, we have no choice but to respond to the coming upheaval using our intuition and our imaginative powers, since our old strategies are bound to fail miserably.
The numerous unexpected phenomena I have discussed in this book will definitely teach us one important thing, however—namely that the purported mind-versus-matter dichotomy is nothing more than a mental construct. For the fact is that even the most brilliant physicist or philosopher cannot tell us where matter ends and mind begins. And thus it comes as no surprise that even eminent physicists have been known to say, “Anyone who has understood quantum physics cannot possibly have genuinely understood it.”155
Here, it is paradoxically the unexplainable physical phenomena that can potentially pose a dilemma for us. Cosmic forces induce changes in us at the primary physical level of our body, as well as at the level of consciousness. Current observations of the cosmos are taking us to the limits of our powers of imagination. The cosmic events we are witnessing today are simply no longer compatible with mainstream, “tried and true” paradigms. If, as is the case now, even solar activity cannot be explained by the principles of modern astrophysics, then our entire theoretical edifice will crumble, and we will need to think much farther out of the envelope than ever before.
In the parlance of our digital age, cosmic forces are forcing us to prepare our hardware for new software. To do this, we will need to part ways with old paradigms and be receptive to new ways of seeing things, even if we find these new ways to be upsetting, peculiar, or even threatening. Each of us already has the requisite hardware—namely a highly differentiated and adaptable body and an extremely flexible brain with virtually limitless learning capacity.
Neurophysiologists would describe this process as a renetworking of our brain cells. Recent research has shown that the human brain can be actively changed through processes such as learning a new language or mastering a musical instrument. Even regular meditation modifies the brain waves in the activated regions, to the point of catalyzing the production of new brain cells.
Every experience and process we engage in entails renetworking of our neurons. The software of our neuronal hardware is of course quite stable as a rule, often to the point of laying down our life’s path for us in advance, since the fundamental skills we fail to acquire during childhood are extremely difficult to learn in later life. In other words, we tend to repeat learned skills and processes ad infinitum so as to avoid having to come to grips with new skills, processes, experiences, and decisions. Nonetheless, it would be a fallacy to assert that human beings cannot change after a certain age.
In fact the opposite is true: the human brain is capable of far more than just repeating learned skills and processes. Moreover, neuroscientists have concluded that we only use about 10 percent of our cerebral capacity, which means that the remaining 90 percent lays dormant. Against this backdrop, the fact that the altered physical conditions we will be facing will force us to use our full cognitive capacity can be regarded as a blessing in disguise and will trigger a process in which we will experience changes in our thoughts, emotions, and imaginings the likes of which we never even dreamed of. It almost seems as though the human brain is ready and eager to face these new challenges. Please note: this observation is not meant to be some kind of artificially cheery optimism in the face of impending catastrophe, but is instead the fruit of my extensive scientific research, which in addition to negative evolutions has time and time again revealed positive effects stemming from changes in the geomagnetic field.
What awaits us at present is an empirically measurable change in and expansion of consciousness that will enable us to see the world literally with new eyes. We will recognize processes, understand their meaning, and even gain the ability to relinquish aspects of our lives that we feel are counterproductive or harmful. It is also very likely that we will experience greater empathy for our fellow human beings and realize heretofore unimagined cultural accomplishments. What’s more, the extreme geomagnetic-field disturbances that are in the offing will result in a thorough overhaul of all the nooks and crannies of our minds.
Scientific research on geomagnetic disturbances has mainly focused on the negative aspects (i.e., on mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression). This is not surprising, since up until now the patients and doctors affected have been able to ascribe such phenomena only to illness, and have completely overlooked the positive effects that are associated with such abnormalities.
The adage “there’s a fine line between genius and insanity” takes on new meaning here. For these patients would surely have seen their abnormal behavior in a new light had they been aware of the fact that their purported symptoms were provoked by geomagnetic disturbances that were a source of creative inspiration in the distant past. Perhaps more importantly, they would have regarded these mental and behavioral anomalies as a gift and a blessing.
The mechanism that comes into play here is highly complex. In the interest of making the far-reaching changes that are provoked by magnetosphere disturbances, we first need to take a closer look at the interplay between the brain and consciousness. First of all, it is amazing how little of the information that is processed by the brain after being absorbed through our five senses actually ends up in our consciousness. This phenomenon is attributable to a mechanism that enables us to filter out information (i.e., allow certain information to appear on our inner “radar screen” and disregard the rest).156
In other words, this filtering mechanism determines which information reaches our consciousness and becomes an object of reflection; at the same time the mechanism blocks out information that is considered irrelevant, in accordance with criteria such as knowledge, beliefs, cultural taboos, and an inner value system, all of which become increasingly entrenched with age.
This filtering mechanism enables us to focus on specific activities without getting distracted by less important matters—one example being that I can work on this book without having to run to the window every time a car drives by my house. In such a case, my filtering system sends me the following signal: “There’s nothing unusual about cars passing by and so you needn’t devote any particular attention to them, since you’re not expecting anyone to arrive in a car and cars don’t pose any particular threat.” This ability to selectively block out stimuli is all well and good for banal situations, but it can have disastrous consequences at higher levels of being; for then we cut off the path upward and downward—first via our upbringing and later in life mainly out of habit or convenience.
We get the lion’s share of our information from our “terrestrial database.” However, in recent years information from the far reaches of the cosmos appears to have been exerting an influence on us via the gamma rays that are directed at the Earth like car headlights as mentioned earlier. Astrophysicists worldwide are anxious to find out what kind of information is being carried by this radiation, whether it is bringing about any change in us, and whether it is trying to tell us something.
Be that as it may, the rising incidence and intensity of gamma radiation over the last decade has been precisely documented. Thus we now know that this extremely high energy radiation stems from supernovas and from the mysterious black holes located at the center of our galaxy. But unfortunately, this is all that’s known for sure, and the rest is a deep, dark mystery. It seems that our planet is responding to the gamma radiation that is reaching us.157 And yet, who or what is doing the responding? Can the responses be measured? Is some kind of cosmic communication taking place here?
As a biophysicist, I have long known that gamma radiation directly affects our mental activity. According to the physicist Michael König, some individuals have the capacity to sense abrupt changes in gamma ray intensity in that they sense exceptional alterations in their energetic state.158 König hypothesizes as follows with respect to this: “Hence photons in the gamma energy range probably also exert an effect on an organism’s biological processes.” König attributes this phenomenon to cell structure: “Efforts on the part of electrons to achieve negentropy in such a way as to bundle the photon gas in the higher structural state within inner space-time also result in the concentration and accretion of photoenergy in bioplasma. If this hypothesis is correct, then the presence of large quantities of high-energy natural photons (cosmic radiation, GRBs, solar winds) may not only increase mutation rates and the incidence of radiation sickness, but may also be integrated as energy input by more highly developed individuals, thus expediting the process of individual spiritual growth.”159
This brief passage entails nothing less than a momentously far-reaching revolutionary view of the world and humankind that impressively dovetails with and elucidates the basic idea advanced in this book—namely that humanity is currently in the midst of a consciousness-altering process of transformation that will be brought to completion in the near future. Thus it is far more than idle speculation to reflect on the consequences of this evolution and to pose the all-important question as to what the nature of this “new humankind” will be.
First of all, we need to bear in mind that human beings are optimally designed for change. Our cell nuclei are approximately 97 percent composed of dormant DNA resources that are just waiting to be activated and that could potentially endow us with completely new traits. In addition the human brain also has the capacity to evolve in such a way as to handle far more complex activities than is currently the case, providing that the relevant neuronal networks receive the requisite stimulation via changes in thinking and behavior.
My focus in this regard has long been the region of the brain that is responsible for intuition. Over the course of the history of Western civilization, this “perceptual organ of the heart” has increasingly been subjugated to and in effect dethroned by the rational mind. We all are familiar with the phenomenon we refer to as “gut feeling”—the diffuse but unmistakable sense that, for example, a new job we’ve been offered isn’t right for us. But we take the job anyway because our rational mind tells us that the job entails advantages such as a high salary, a nice office, and career advancement. But if, as may well be the case, we live to regret our decision, we come to the realization that our intuitive gut feeling was right in the first place, and that despite what our rational mind told us, the job was simply the wrong choice for us.
There are also many daily situations in which we should pay heed to our intuitive feelings. But doing so is even more important when it comes to our spiritual life. It is our intuition that points the way to our “higher self,” which would otherwise remain hidden from sight forever. The intuitive level, which shows us the path of ascent to the higher and highest dimensions of “everything that is” and will ever be, is the counterpart of G4 space in Heim’s theory. Inasmuch as G4 space lies outside the realm of the terrestrial morphogenetic database, we can only gain access to it via the intuitive regions of our brain. And this of course pertains not only to the organ we refer to as the brain, but also to all of our body’s cells, which in a sense have a “mind of their own.”
The evolutionary difference between human beings and animals lies in the fact that animals are still fully connected to our cosmic database, from which they call the information they need—and thus possess a capacity that we refer to as animal instinct. But unfortunately, thanks to civilization, humankind appears to have almost completely lost touch with its instincts. We try to compensate for this loss via the rational mind, which admittedly accomplishes amazing things, but in a manner that often fails to distinguish between constructive and destructive actions.
The dualistic nature of our culture, which has evolved to a point at which the biosphere itself is under threat, comes in for a lot of criticism nowadays. This raises the question as to what we should make of this situation. Is it an evolutionary step backward? Did the cosmic “will” make a false move when it endowed humankind with what is in effect a new brain (i.e., the neocortex)?
Surely not. These issues can be addressed satisfactorily from the vantage point of a metalevel.
The solution lies in the principle of the “veil of forgetting,” which holds that in order to gain the capacity for terrestrial experience, we need to sever our originally intact connection with the cosmos, since this connection veils our perceptions. In keeping with the adage from the Veda to the effect that God experiences everything in all His and Her aspects, it is necessary for this “God” to forget who He is and that She is all knowing.
However, the veil of forgetting has become an albatross around the neck of humankind, as it blinds us to instinct and intuition. The veil of forgetting has turned us into a species that is no longer guided by its instincts, and that has instead learned to perceive, think, and draw conclusions. We will never know how civilization would have turned out if humanity had not learned how to use the rational mind. One of the cardinal laws of evolution appears to be that all organisms develop evermore complex forms, acquire evermore complex experience, and ultimately store both in the cosmic archive.
Humanity of course occupies a special position in the history of evolution by virtue of having developed consciousness, which has existed since the advent of the cerebral cortex and enables us to reflect on, process, classify, and appraise all of our perceptions. The nature of consciousness is determined by how it reflects on, filters, and appraises outside experience, all of which processes contribute to the expansion of consciousness itself. But consciousness needs to radically change its perception of itself. In order for a person to forget their consciousness, they must regard themselves as an isolated individual, as a self in the sense of an “ego” that is differentiated from “you” and “it.”*
I am not of course claiming that the human ego is an artificially created evil entity, for our egocentricity is a key driver of evolution; and the ego era has enabled us to gather experience that can only occur insofar as the veil of forgetting is placed over the self.
But cognition has always entailed being part of an overarching network. We are not monads, as Leibniz conjectured, for we communicate with our environment and even with the cosmos. This makes us susceptible to various forces that will profoundly affect us in the near future. This susceptibility is not a defect by any means, but is instead a completely positive trait that will help us not only to survive the events leading beyond 2012 but also to use them for our inner development.
The self is not our ego. The self exists outside of space-time, is primarily found in the higher dimensions, and is used by some as a synonym for the immortal soul. The self can be regarded as an observer of the ego—an observer who has for the most part been driven into a state of latency by the ego’s dominance. This self can find expression via any region of the brain that functions without intellectual cognition.160 However human egomania has been responsible for untold numbers of terrible acts, and if not reined in may unfold with a horrendously destructive energy. Egomaniacal individuals have been guilty of everything from abuse of power to profiteering to warmongering and mass murders, and are thus a source of endangerment. Some may bring to mind the following statement of Friedrich von Schiller: “Although we have known what democracy is ever since Aristotle, we have remained barbarians. The world will not become a better place until we begin viewing our rational mind through the lens of our heart.”161
*In ancient Greek, ego means “I”; edo means “here”; and ergo means “where I am is here”—which means that I am not, like de facto all entities, everywhere (physicists refer to this as “nonlocal”).