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Wisdom Masters Press

Michael's Articles - Set One

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Amber photo set5img3Hello from Amber. Michael occasionally writes articles just for our community mailing list members. The articles cover a wide range of topics, from AI to ancient civilizations, discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, and physics, consciousness studies, archaeological mysteries and much more. When dealing with certain subjects Michael's articles sometimes contain information to which we have unique access. Heather and I have received dozens of emails from members saying how much they've enjoyed the articles, and asking if there was any way to read articles which were sent to members prior to the time they signed-up for our community mailing list. So, we decided to create a web page with some recent articles along with an index,
     Have fun exploring!
       which you'll find just below.   

Recent Articles:

   Quantum Physics and the Ancient Wisdom

  The Extraordinary Mysteries of Ancient Egypt

  Illusions, Realities, and Consciousness

  Advanced 'Stealth Civilization' on Earth?

   Ancient Civilizations, the Ever Expanding Mystery

   Stonehenge, The Ever Deepening Mystery . . . and Merlin

   Letters from the Earth and AI (Artificial Intelligence)

   About our Books - please see this article in our newsletter here

   The Concepts of Oneness

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Quantum Physics and the Ancient Wisdom
Quantum physics is something we hear a lot about, but exactly what is it? Most broadly stated, quantum physics is an exquisite refinement in the description of nature. It applies not only to the sub-atomic, micro-physical world, but applies to the macro-physical, classical (Newtonian) world as well. The quantum world builds the classical world. Everything in the classical, macroscopic world is composed of microscopic units of energy—the quanta—acting in unison.
     Consciousness and its various attributes are parts of the quantum reality in which we live, and from the quantum perspective this universe is an extremely interactive place. Quantum physics signifies that we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny portions of a universe looking at itself, and creating itself. The concepts of quantum mechanics have emerged as essential elements in understanding both human consciousness and “reality.”
A fundamental conclusion of quantum physics acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a mental construction. As pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: ‘The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial, it is mental and spiritual.’” —Nature 436:29, 2005, ‘The Mental Universe’ by R.C. Henry, Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University, primary founder of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
   Consciousness and its various mental aspects are part of our quantum physical universe. And since consciousness arises at the quantum level, the features of quantum physics are involved in—and represent possible explanations for—all the countless paranormal phenomena that have been observed and described since the very threshold of history, and that modern researchers consistently observe in experimental settings. These include extrasensory perception, telepathy and clairvoyance, telekinesis and psychokinesis.
Anyone not shocked by quantum mechanics has not yet understood its implications.” —Niels Bohr, Nobel Laureate
The so-called miraculous powers of a great master are a natural accompaniment to his exact understanding of subtle laws that operate in the inner cosmos of consciousness.” —Yogananda (A.D. 1893-1952)
   Currently there is no single theory of quantum consciousness. In fact a spectrum of more or less independent models have been proposed. Some quantum mechanical consciousness options assume space-time multidimensionality, i.e., that there are more than the four conventional space-time dimensions, as in modern string theory or M-theory. Other options assume that several extra dimensions are associated with a mental attribute and that the individual mind is an expression of a universal mind through holonomic communication with quantum fields, an idea that has led to promising holographic theories (Pribram, 1986, 2011).
     The features of quantum theory that make it not only special but specifically relevant to consciousness can be summarized as follows:
   1) Quantum theory describes the most fundamental level of energy and matter. In contrast to macroscopic levels, the quantum level has aspects, such as mass, charge and spin, that are given properties of the universe, not capable of further reduction or explanation. In quantum theories of consciousness, it is suggested that consciousness is a fundamental property that exists at this most basic level of reality. Some theories are additionally linked to our interpretation of the structure of space-time, which is seen as being interconnected with the nature of quantum consciousness (Chalmers, 2000; Nagel, 2012).
   2) Another apparent aspect of the universe is space-time, as described by the special and general theories of relativity. Although both relativity and quantum theory have been tested to very high degrees of accuracy, they are nevertheless incompatible with one another. The gravitational force is the main problem, since the smooth continuous curvature of space that describes gravity in general relativity is incompatible with the discreteness of particles/waves that is fundamental to quantum theory. String theory and loop quantum gravity have attempted to bridge this gap, but neither are yet regarded as giving a full picture (Smolin, 2004; Penrose, 2004).
     The essential implication of the incompatibility of relativity and quantum theory is that space-time represents only a framework created or evolved by our consciousness to perceive the world we experience around us, and is not an actual feature of reality itself, an idea that goes back to Sri Adi Shankara (c. A.D. 788-820), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and physicists such as J. Robert Oppenheimer.
   3) Physicists use mathematical entities called wave functions to represent quantum states. A wave function can be thought of as a list of all the possible configurations of a superposed quantum system, along with numbers that give the probability of each configuration being the one, seemingly selected at random, that we will detect when we observe the system. In traditional versions of quantum theory, then, the wave form of the quanta is conceived as a superposition of the many possible states of a quantum particle or system. The wave function treats each element of the superposition as equally real, if not necessarily equally probable from our point of view. When the wave function “collapses” through conscious intervention (observation, as in the Copenhagen interpretation), the particular state such as position for the particle manifests.
     The property of randomness is not in itself particularly useful in theories of consciousness, yet it does offer insights into the unique abilities of consciousness, and certainly exposes an enormous chink in any theory of a deterministic structure of the universe, something examined in particular by the Penrose/Hameroff model, 2013 (see also Stapp, 2009, 2012). This is further illustrated by John Wheeler’s delayed-choice version of the famous double-slit experiment, which demonstrates that “the act of observation changes not only what is observed in the present, but changes what happened in the past as well,” effectively demonstrating a reversal of the causal flow of time (Vincent, et al., Experimental Realization of Wheeler’s Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment, Science Journal, 315:5814, 2007).
The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” —Albert Einstein
  4) Non-locality is another special feature of quantum theory. Classical (Newtonian) physics deals only with local or so-called “billiard-ball” relationships—in a microscopic system of elementary particles with bits of matter and energy bumping into one another; and in a macroscopic system like our everyday world through direct physical contact; e.g., to pick up a book, you have to physically grasp it and lift. These relationships are called “local” in that they involve immediate contact. Such relationships are also normal in quantum physics. However, quantum physics also possesses non-local relationships. This applies where particles have been in some relationship, such as electrons or photons, in which case they can become correlated or “entangled.”
     For instance, the property of spin on two correlated particles must always be opposite; if one spins up, the other spins down. This is not a problem while the particles are in a wave form, as both will be in a superposition of up and down. However, when the wave function of one particle collapses (is observed or measured), that particle chooses one or the other superposition. When that happens, its correlated particle will instantaneously choose the opposite position. In experiments, this is shown to happen when the two particles are out of range of a signal travelling between them at the speed of light (Bell, 1964; Freedman, Causer, 1969; Aspect, 1982; et al.; and see, Experimental Three-photon Quantum Nonlocality, Nature Photonics 8, 2014).
     In other words, no mass, matter, energy or conventional information is transferred through space-time between the particles via any known means. This behavior demonstrates that the properties of quantum particles correlate instantaneously over any distance. As physicist Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., points out, “Quantum physics provides a modern version of ancient spirituality. In a universe made out of energy, everything is entangled; everything is one.” Anyone who does not find this mind-boggling does not understand its implications. All macroscopic objects, like books and people, are composed of correlated or “entangled” quantum particles.
   5) A remarkable and very special aspect of quantum is revealed in Everett’s Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI). This interpretation of quantum mechanics asserts the objective reality of a “universal wave function” and dismisses the concept of wave function collapse, in opposition to the Copenhagen interpretation, stating that there are additional worlds which exist in parallel to our own, all at the same time.
     Quantum mechanics specifies the state of the universe not in classical terms, such as the positions and velocities of all particles, but in terms of a mathematical object called a wave function. According to the Schrödinger equation, this wave function evolves over time in a deterministic fashion that mathematicians call ‘unitary’. Although quantum mechanics is often described as inherently random and uncertain, there is nothing random or uncertain about the way the wave function evolves. The difficult part is how to connect this wave function with what we observe. Many legitimate wave functions correspond to counter intuitive situations, such as Schrödinger’s cat being dead and alive at the same time in a ‘superposition’ of states.
     In the 1920s, physicists explained away this weirdness by postulating that the wave function ‘collapsed’ into some random but definite classical outcome whenever someone made an observation. This add-on had the virtue of explaining observations, but rendered the theory incomplete, because there was no mathematics specifying what constituted an observation—that is, when the wave function was caused to collapse. Hugh Everett’s original theory (1957) is simple to state but has complex consequences, including parallel universes. The theory can be summed up by saying that the Schrödinger equation applies at all times; in other words, that the wave function of the universe never collapses. Everett made no mention of parallel universes or splitting worlds, which are implications of the theory rather than postulates. His brilliant insight was that this collapse-free quantum theory is, in fact, consistent with observation. Although it predicts that a wave function describing one classical reality gradually evolves into a wave function describing a superposition of many such realities—the many worlds—observers subjectively experience this splitting merely as a slight randomness with probabilities consistent with those calculated using the wave function collapse mathematics.
     The fundamental idea of the Many-Worlds interpretation is that there are myriads of worlds or universes in addition to the one we are aware of and observe around us. Many-Worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual “world” or “universe.” In other words, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite—number of universes and, for example, everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not happen in the past we personally experienced, actually occurred in the past of another parallel world or universe. The universe continually divides itself into parallel worlds, each with an alternate version of ourselves. Everything that could possibly happen in our future, but does not happen in the future we personally experience, occurs in another parallel world or universe. Each decision or choice we make propels us into a world and future we personally experience, with every other possible decision branching into an alternate parallel world. Moreover, each decision, choice or observation we make affects our past, effectively reversing the causal arrow of time; e.g., choosing to read or not read a letter can determine what it says.
     This interpretation of quantum mechanics is also referred to as the relative state formulation, the Everett interpretation, the theory of the universal wave function, the many-universes interpretation, the multiverse, or just many-worlds. As much as this interpretation echoes science fiction, it is well regarded by many of the finest minds of all time.
In our universe we are tuned into the frequency that corresponds to physical reality. But there are an infinite number of parallel realities coexisting with us in the same room, although we cannot tune into them.” —Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, Recipient of the National Medal of Science and the Benjamin Franklin Medal
The general notions about human understanding . . . which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of, or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom.” —J. Robert Oppenheimer, Ph.D., Wartime Head of the Los Alamos Laboratory
The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within.” —Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., winner of the Da Vinci Medallion
For a parallel to the lessons of quantum theory . . . we must turn to those kinds of epistemological problems with which already thinkers like the Buddha and Lao Tzu have been confronted, when trying to harmonize our position as actors in the great drama of existence.” —Niels Bohr, Nobel Laureate
We are what we think, all that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” —Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha (circa 563-483 B.C.)
   For those who wish to further explore the concepts of quantum consciousness and the potentials of truly utilizing it, Amber has a suggestion. Respectfully, Michael
     Note from Amber: Covering precisely this subject, our book ‘Quantum Consciousness, Psychokinetic and Extrasensory Powers: A Guide to Attaining True Paranormal Abilities’, ASIN B07B42VNXH, is available on Amazon for the US here, the UK here, Canada here, Australia here, France here, Germany here, and India and Nepal here.

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The Extraordinary Mysteries of Ancient Egypt
     Over ten-thousand years ago there appeared on the banks of the Nile, as if suddenly descended upon the sands, the first great civilization of known history. Never has the world become so fascinated with an ancient culture as it did following the 1798 expedition of young Champollion with young Napoleon to Egypt. Napoleon returned empty-handed, but Champollion came back with the greatest mystery of the ages in his grasp. The Middle Ages knew of Egypt only as a Roman colony; the Renaissance presumed that civilization had begun with Greece; even the Enlightenment, though it concerned itself intelligently with China and India, knew nothing of Egypt beyond the Pyramids.
     Egyptology was a by-product of Napoleonic imperialism. When the great Corsican led his French expedition to Egypt in 1798 he took with him a number of academics to explore and map the terrain, and made a place also for scholars interested in Egypt for the sake of a better understanding of history. It was this group who first revealed the magnificent temples of Luxor and Karnak to the modern world, and the elaborate Description de Egypte (1809-13) which they prepared for the French Academy was the first milestone in the scientific study of this majestic, forgotten civilization. The recovery of Ancient Egypt is one of the most brilliant chapters in archeology.
     No people, ancient or modern, have conceived of building a civilization on a scale so sublime, so great, so grandiose, as the Ancient Egyptians. Their technology of agriculture, metallurgy, industry and engineering; the invention of glass and linen, of paper and ink, of the calendar and the clock, of geometry and the alphabet; the excellence and sublimity of sculpture and the arts; the refinement of dress and ornament, of furniture and dwellings, of society and life; the remarkable development of orderly and peaceful government, of census and post, of primary and secondary education, even of technical training for office and administration; the advancement of writing and literature, of science and medicine; the first clear formulation known to us of individual and public conscience, the first cry for social justice, the first widespread monogamy, the first monotheism, the first essays in moral philosophy . . . all elevated to a degree of superiority and power that has seldom, if ever, been reached since.
Egypt gave birth to what later would become known as ‘Western Civilization,’ long before
the greatness of Greece and Rome.” —John Henrik Clarke
Ancient Egypt, through the solidarity, the unity, the disciplined variety of its magnificent achievements, its unexcelled artistic products, and through the enormous duration and the sustained power of its effort, offers the spectacle of the greatest civilization that has yet appeared on the earth. We shall do well to equal it.”  —Gabriel Faure
•  One of the supreme elements of this enigmatic civilization was architecture, because it combined in imposing form both mass and duration, beauty and use. From the time of the Pyramids to the Temple of Hathor at Denderah, i.e., for some four-thousand years or more, there rose out of the sands of Egypt such a succession of architectural achievements as no civilization has ever surpassed. At Karnak and Luxor a riot of columns raised by Thutmose I and Amenhotep III, Seti I, Rameses II and other monarchs from the Twelfth to the Twenty-Second Dynasty; at Medinet-IIabu (c. 1300 BC) a vast but less distinguished edifice, on whose columns an Arab village rested for centuries. At Abydos the Temple of Seti I, dark and somber in its massive ruins; at Elephantine the little Temple of Khnum (c. 1400 BC), positively Greek in its precision and elegance; at Dcr-el-Bahari the stately colonnades of Queen Hatshepsut; near it the Ramcsseum, another forest of colossal columns and statues reared by the architects of Rameses II; and at Philce the lovely Temple of Isis (c. 240 BC). These are mere samples of the many monuments that still adorn the valley of the Nile, and attest even in their ruins the strength and courage of the mysterious race that reared them.
     Perhaps the noblest aspect of Egyptian civilization was its art. Here, at the very threshold of history we find an art powerful and mature, superior to that of any modern nation, and rivaled only by that of Greece. At first the luxury of isolation and peace, and then, under Thutmose III and Rameses II, the spoils of conquest, gave to Egypt the opportunity and the means for massive architecture and a hundred minor arts that so early touched perfection.
     The whole theory of progress hesitates before Egyptian art: “We were astonished by the beauty and refinement of the art displayed by the objects surpassing all we could have imagined; the impression was overwhelming.” —Egyptologist Howard Carter, discoverer of the intact tomb (KV62) of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh, Tutankhamun (November 1922)
     A special note must be made regarding one of the most mystifying of all the seemingly impenetrable puzzles of Ancient Egypt, the origin of the exquisite and lordly Egyptian writing known as hieroglyphics. Historically, the system of hieroglyphic symbols appeared suddenly, as if out of nowhere, with no record or evidence of a long, slow development that would normally be the case with any sophisticated written language.
     Hieroglyphs were from the very beginning phonetic symbols. An earlier stage consisting exclusively of picture writing using symbols or illustrations of the intended word or concept cannot be shown to have existed in ancient Egypt; indeed, such a stage can with certainty be ruled out. No development from pictures to letters took place; hieroglyphic writing was never a system of picture writing or ideographs.
     Ancient Egyptian traditions explain this quite simply: hieroglyphic writing was one of many “gifts of civilization” provided by Thoth, the Egyptian god-of-all-trades. The voluminous lore of the ancient Brahmaic and Egyptian traditions relates that in the antediluvian time of zp tpj (generally transcribed as Zep Tepi), the “first occasion” or “first time,” mysterious, highly enlightened “gods” appeared in Egypt, bearing previously unknown technology and knowledge. The texts inscribed on the walls of the Temple of Edfu in Upper Egypt contain explicit descriptions of the time of Zep Tepi and the coming of the “bringers of knowledge,” recounting their arrival from “the stars” in a “cosmic egg” bearing the “gods” who brought the gift of civilization to Egypt, the primary of which was Ptah, whose rule, the texts tell us, began circa 18,000 B.C. Our current knowledge does not allow us to improve on this explanation for the origin of hieroglyphic writing.
     Plato (c. 428 - 348 BC) writes that Egyptian priests kept records of their history going back over eighteen-thousand years: “Egypt has recorded and kept eternally the wisdom of the ancient ages . . . all coming from time immemorial when gods governed the earth in the dawn of civilization.”
     The Greek historian Herodotus tells us that when Hecataeus of Miletus (550 - 476 BC) boasted to the Egyptian priests that he could trace his ancestry through fifteen centuries to a god, they quietly showed him, in a hidden sanctuary deep under the sands, the statutes of three-hundred-forty-five high priests, each the son of the preceding, making three-hundred-forty-five generations since their “gods” had appeared in the Nile valley, marking an historical record extending back some one-hundred-eighty centuries. What were these mysterious gods?
     In ancient times, hieroglyphic script was called mdju netjer—“words of the gods.” The word hieroglyph came from the Greek hieros (sacred) and glypho (inscriptions), a term that first appears in the writings of Diodorus Siculus and Clement of Alexandria. For many years, however, researchers were unable to read the lordly inscriptions surviving on the monuments. Typical of the scientific temperament was the patient devotion with which Champollion, the “Father of Egyptology,” applied himself to the decipherment of the mystifying hieroglyphics. He found at last an obelisk covered with such “sacred carvings” in Egyptian, but bearing at the base a Greek inscription which indicated that the writing concerned the Macedonian Greek ruler Ptolemy (Ptolemy XII, c. 117 - 51 BC), and his historically famous daughter Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII, c. 69 - 30 BC). Guessing that two of the hieroglyphics, often repeated with a royal cartouche attached, were the names of these rulers, he made out tentatively (in 1822) eleven Egyptian letters; this was the first proof that ancient Egypt had an alphabet. Then he applied this alphabet to a great black stone slab that Napoleon’s troops had stumbled upon near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. This “Rosetta Stone” contained an inscription in three languages: first in hieroglyphics, second in “demotic” (the popular script of the Egyptians), and third in Greek. With his knowledge of Greek, and the eleven letters made out from the obelisk, Champollion, after more than twenty years of labor, deciphered the whole inscription, discovered the entire Egyptian alphabet, and opened the way to the recovery of an astonishing lost world.
     Champollion’s work was one of the peaks in the history of history. The ability to translate innumerable inscriptions found on the walls of ancient monuments, temples, tombs, and documents has provided us with profound insights regarding the civilization of the Ancient Egyptians.
     Yet inexplicable puzzles remain. Immense volumes have been written to expound our knowledge—and conceal our ignorance—of the origin and powers of the culture of Ancient Egypt. Extant records of their history, preserved through the centuries, although voluminous, reveal no record of a mythic or heroic age, as all normally emerging civilizations inevitably have. Archaeological records indicate that the Nile region was at that time only sparely populated by a people slowly graduating from a Paleolithic to a Neolithic stage.
     Vast mysteries shroud the sophistication of Ancient Egypt: How did a small stone-age culture suddenly ascend to create perhaps the greatest civilization of known history? How were their monumental and wholly unprecedented accomplishments achieved? What long-forgotten knowledge, abilities and powers could have given rise to the glorious culture of Ancient Egypt?
Ancient Egypt presents us with an impenetrable mystery. How may we explain a Neolithic desert people spawning the most majestic civilization of history? Their rapid ascension from a primitive state to a previously unapproached zenith of technology and culture demonstrates advancements that utterly elude explanation. Many of their artistic and architectural productions are unequaled to this day. What could possibly explain vast technical knowledge and sophistication appearing so fully-formed so suddenly?”  —Legendary Egyptologist Flinders Petrie, Archaeological Journal
   These imposing mysteries inspire curiosity and ignite the imagination. There are riddles to be answered and puzzles to be solved. And one immediately intuits that the quest for answers will bring to light something profound, something long hoped for yet rarely revealed, something of immense value. And so it is.
   Note from Heather: For insights to the mysteries of Ancient Egypt, an in-depth examination can be found in our book, 'A Great Master Speaks, Immense Powers of the Ancients Revealed: The True Secrets of Dynastic Egypt', ASIN B00TIYMKFM, available worldwide, including in US here and the UK here.

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Here’s something Michael wrote in response to a very nice inquiry from a reader, and is a great topic for an evening read. Have fun! Thanks, Amber
Illusions, Realities, and Consciousness
     Regarding your inquiry about the promising results you’ve obtained from studying the knowledge expressed in our books, I’m glad to hear it, yet I would add this: be cautious. Whoever goes in search of anything must come eventually to one of three conclusions. Either to say that they have found it; or that they are still engaged in the search; or that it cannot be found. None of these conclusions are especially comfortable.
     Amongst the ancients, the Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, and others, thought that they had found true knowledge. They established the sciences we currently have, and treated them as a means of reaching certain facts. Clitomachus, Carneades, and the Academics despaired in their search, and concluded that the most fundamental knowledge could not be conceived or understood by our intellect.
     Pyrrho and other skeptics and epechists—whose doctrines were said to be taken from Homer, the Seven Sages, Archilochus and Euripides, and to whose number were added Zeno, Democritus, and Xenophanes—said that they were yet upon the search after true knowledge. They judged that those who thought they had found it were deceived, yet that it was too early and too daring a vanity to say that human intellect is not able to attain it. ”Nil sciri quisquis putat, id quoque nescit, An sciri possit; quam se nil scire fatetur,” said Euripides (“He that says nothing can be known / O'erthrows his own opinion / For he knows nothing / So knows not that”).
     It may be that they were all right. “Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind,” wrote Einstein, “and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility of the meaning of such a comparison.”
     Of course, consciousness is the thing most directly known to us, and, in the assessment of scholars, from philosophers to physicists, it is the only thing directly known to us. As the means of interpreting sense impressions and experience through the transformation of those impressions and experiences into recognizable symbols in our awareness, it cannot in the same manner interpret itself. It is the most immediate, most remarkable, and most mysterious fact known to us. Energy-matter seems less mysterious, even though less directly known. As Pascal marveled: “There is nothing so inconceivable as that matter should be conscious of itself—philosophers who have explored its nature, scientists who have theorized on its origin—what matter could do that?
     The impressive advancement of scientific research in recent decades has provided remarkable new windows into questions of consciousness. Both of the great revolutions in 20th century physics—the general and special theories of relativity, and quantum mechanics—have revealed factors that play a fundamental role in the creation of what we perceive as physical “reality.” They challenge the assumption that there is a material reality that exists ‘out there’ at all.
The world is a construct of our mind’s sensations, perceptions, beliefs, memories. It is convenient to regard it
as existing objectively on its own. But it certainly does not
.” —Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel Laureate

The idea of an objective real world whose parts exist objectively in the same sense as stones or trees exist, independently of whether or not we observe them, is impossible.” —Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Laureate
•  In past centuries it was believed that the physical reality we experience around us exists independent of our observations—in other words, that there is an actual, real material reality. Einstein's relativity, Schrödinger’s wave function, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Feynman’s sum-over-histories, Bell’s theorem, the Copenhagen interpretation, and Everett’s interpretation, among many other advancements in quantum research, have revealed that this is demonstrably not the case.
The universe itself has no single history, nor even an independent existence. That seems like a radical idea, even to many physicists. Indeed, like many notions in today’s science, it appears to violate common sense. But common sense is based upon everyday experience, not upon the universe as it is revealed through the marvels of technologies such as those that allow us to gaze deep into the atom or back to the early universe.” —Stephen Hawking
Atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts. The philosophical issues raised by quantum mechanics apply to the big as well as the small.”
—Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Laureate, originator of the Uncertainty Principle

•  Quantum physics, an exquisite refinement in the description of nature, not only describes elementary micro-physics but applies to the classical or macro-physical (Newtonian) world as well. Consciousness and its mental aspects are part of the quantum universe in which we live, and from the quantum perspective this universe is an extremely interactive place. Quantum consciousness signifies that we are part of a universe that is a work in progress; we are tiny portions of a universe looking at itself—and creating itself. And it is not only the future that we determine, but the past as well. Our present observations select one out of many possible quantum histories and futures for the “reality” we experience.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” —Albert Einstein
•  In recognizing the illusory nature of what we perceive to be “reality,” and in recognition of the higher orders of reality, we stand on the threshold of discerning an altogether new model of reality. Nonlocal behavior provides us with a glimpse of a vastly enlarged view of nature, one in which the universe is neither possessed of space and time nor contains a multitude of things—instead it is one, interwoven thing—even the appearance of separate things is utterly interconnected in some fundamental manner that, in science, we can experimentally perceive but not explain. A new model encompassing these discoveries may replace all others, even quantum mechanics; we may retain a humble skepticism about even this most incredibly successful of theories—the wise physicist has been cured of certainty by history.
     As Newton himself wrote: “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” —Sir Isaac Newton (A.D. 1643-1727), President of the Royal Society (1703-1727)
     That great ocean of truth engulfs the universe, which leads us, with an abundance of caution, to frame a question—with such caution because a wrong question will never yield a right answer. How do thoughts and images held in conscious awareness actualize forms or events whose probability of actualizing would otherwise be one in billions?
     The ancient wisdom traditions of great masters and sages propose an answer—as it was admirable expressed to me—that consciousness, energy, and matter are wholly interconnected; that they are, at some higher level of reality, one and the same, yet in the physical dimensions of space and time are perceived and experienced as different, at least by an ordinary observer. Certainly, in accordance with the special theory (of relativity), mass is energy and energy is mass. Where one exists, the other exists; they are in fact one and the same. Not so clear is how consciousness fits this picture.
Someone you will meet in our books, the Himalayan master Amrita, expressed that energy-mass is merely a form or aspect of consciousness. Put more concisely, energy-mass is simply consciousness objectified within subject-object consciousness. We think of, perceive, and experience the physical world as solid and real; actually it is nothing more than an energy construct, ultimately no more substantive than the quantum field in which it is embedded.
     Some people have insisted that when I witnessed psychokinetic events I actually witnessed “miracles.” If so, they were no more and no less than the miracle of all reality—a unity of consciousness producing in an individual awareness patterns of perceived symbols we consent to call real, yet which continually shift to reflect the aspirations and dreams of the perceiver, simultaneously different for each and the same for all—the vast universe with its billions of galaxies, the stars and their planets, the mountains and valleys, the highlands and deserts, the seas and rivers, the garden of life that teems in every niche, elephants and bears and cats, birds and butterflies, and, of course, all of us. All solidity and permanence in the physical realm are unquestionably illusions; conceivably only consciousness is real and eternal, the consciousness of the living universe.

   Note from Amber: For a comprehensive examination and analysis of the mysteries and amazing powers of consciousness, please see our book, 'The Quantum Mind, Concepts of Consciousness', ASIN B0BWK8H9GX, available worldwide, including in US here and the UK here.
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Is there an Advanced 'Stealth Civilization' on Earth?
     You may have seen recent articles by very reputable scientists openly speculating on the possibility of a technologically advanced civilization “hiding” on Earth. In a new paper, a team of researchers from Harvard University and Montana Technological University speculate that sightings of "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon" (UAP)—bureaucracy-speak for UFOs, basically—"may reflect activities of intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth" (e.g., underground or underwater). They propose that UAPs might not be visitors from space at all, but are ‘cryptoterrestrials,’ an advanced species hiding on Earth. This concept, though perhaps initially surprising, gains credibility given the vastness of unexplored regions of our planet and the sheer number of sightings of aerial phenomena.
     Considering the immense body of accounts of various types of UFO phenomenon witnessed worldwide and extending back to the very threshold of human history, it’s probable that most people familiar with the subject have concluded that extraterrestrial influences on our planet are real or at least plausible. For example, in June of 2021, the US intelligence community released its long-awaited report on what it “knows” about the scores of mysterious flying objects that have been seen and recorded by the military over the last several decades. For more details, I spoke to several friends at Caltech and MIT who are aeronautical engineers, astrophysicists and specialists who study exoplanets, exobiology and so forth. It was fascinating. Briefly, several observations emerged.
     First, the UFOs, or UAPs as they call them—Unidentified Anomalous, or Aerial, Phenomena—are absolutely “real physical objects." The official report states, "We absolutely do believe what we're seeing are not simply sensor artifacts. These are things that physically exist." Apparently the years of claiming sighting were "swamp gas," "ball lightening," "weather balloons" and the like have thankfully come to a close. Many of the sightings were made by multiple radar contacts, infrared scans and other types of sensors. Even better, in at least 11 cases, pilots reported a "near-miss" encounter with the UAPs, and when flying close to them the UAPs reacted by stopping, turning, ascending and descending in ways indicating they were aware of the military aircraft, sometimes mimicking or evading the military pilots’ maneuvers.
     In one encounter, two Navy F/A-18 fighter jets were launched from a carrier to investigate a radar contact hovering at about 80,000 feet above the ocean. As the jets approached, the UAP abruptly decended from 80,000 feet to a few feet above the water. The UAP took about 3 seconds to decend 80,000 feet, meaning it traveled at a speed of 18,180 mph, and its sudden stop just above the water imposed a deceleration force of approximately 276 Gs.
     An F/A-18F pilot described the UAP he encountered as "an elongated egg or 'Tic Tac' shape about 46 feet in length, solid white, smooth, with no edges, nacelles, pylons, or wings, and with a discernible midline axis," which "took evasive action on being approached" and "effortlessly evaded interception." (The F/A-18 Super Hornet is capable of at least 1,300 mph; its top speed is classified and likely much higher.)
     Second, they’re definitely not some secret military project of ours, nor are they something a foreign adversary like Russia or China might be fielding. “The UAPs exhibit flight characteristics that radically exceed any technology possessed by humans.” They are able to hover, travel at hundreds to many thousands of miles per hour, make turns that impose extreme G forces, are able to travel in our atmosphere, in space, and also underwater. There have been sonar observations made by US submarines tracking objects going over 500 mph underwater, and diving to depths beyond the ability of sonar to track.
     So what are they? Naturally, there’s speculation that they’re extraterrestrial craft piloted by aliens—the word alien comes from the Latin term alius, “other”—or robotic craft controlled by extraterrestrial aliens. However, it was pointed out to me by a number of astrophysicists—and now reported by researchers from Harvard and MTU—that they could very well be, and are perhaps more likely to be, vehicles used by a non-human race that lives on our planet, and which may have been here for millions of years. UAPs like the ones discussed in the report have been observed worldwide for uncounted centuries. There are extremely remote land areas on Earth that are scarcely explored, and vast areas undersea and under-ice that are beyond our reach to explore.
     Our planet is about 4.543 billion years old and our species has only been here for the last 0.004% of the Earth's history. From our knowledge of the Milky Way Galaxy, we know that the Earth is an uniquely attractive planet with conditions ideal for life. Thinking we're the only intelligent species that could ever have been here is pure hubris. Modern humans have existed for just a few tens of thousands of years. Who knows what sentient beings may have evolved here or may have come here in the vastness of the past billions of years of Earth's history, and what technology they may have?
What does it mean for a civilization to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilization is a few hundred years old. A civilization millions of years old is as much beyond
us as we are beyond a bush baby or a macaque
.” —Carl Sagan

•  In the Harvard/MTU paper, the researchers suggest a range of possibilities. First is that a "remnant form" of an ancient, highly advanced human civilization is still hanging around, observing us. Second is that an intelligent species evolved independently of humans in the distant past, and is now hiding their presence from us. Third is that these hidden occupants of Earth traveled here from another planet or time period. Multiple regions on Earth were cited in the new study as worthwhile candidates for investigating the chances of a cryptoterrestrial species' secret base.
     UAP sightings of "craft and other phenomena (e.g., 'orbs') appearing to enter/exit underground access points, like mountains, volcanoes and voids in Antarctica's ice," they write, "could be evidence that these cryptoterrestrials may not be drawn to these spots, but actually reside in underground, under-ice, or underwater bases." The researchers acknowledge that our limited knowledge of over 80% of the world's seafloors and vast regions of Earth's landmass and ice caps neither confirms nor dismisses the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis. They emphasize the need for humility and open-mindedness in scientific inquiry.
     Being open-minded is certainly the proper approach. NASA has satellite imaging evidence of the remains of an extensive Paleocene civilization existing under the ice of Antarctica, including “intelligently-made structures, resembling some sort of pyramidal and rectangular buildings.” And ice-core derived, isotopic records from the Paleogene and Neogene geologic periods strongly indicate that the infrastructure of an advanced civilization existed on the Antarctic continent millions of years ago, and that the civilization may have been inhabited for 300,000 or more years. If so, are the inhabitants still here on Earth? If the inhabitants left Antarctica, where did they go?
•  Note from Heather: You'll find this extraordinary subject covered in detail in our book 'Antarctica and The Lost Civilization', ASIN B09M98VQ9F, available worldwide, including the US here and the UK here.

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Ancient Civilizations, the Ever Expanding Mystery
     How ancient is civilization on our planet? How difficult is it to accurately answer that question? For decades the archaeological community labored under the theory that human civilization began only after the end of the last Ice Age (circa 14,500 - 11,500 B.C.). The theory conjectured that, prior to that time, humans were no more than primitive hunter-gatherers incapable of communal organization or sophisticated abilities, and it was only after the last glacial period—following the melting of the two-mile thick sheets of ice that covered much of Europe and North America—that our human ancestors began to develop agriculture and complex economic and social structures, sometime around 4000 B.C. Archaeologists therefore theorized that the first non-nomadic, agrarian societies did not develop until approximately 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, 3100 B.C. in Egypt, 2600 B.C. in the Indus Valley, and 1600 B.C. in China.
     Current archaeological assessments hold that there was no single “cradle” of civilization, but that several civilizations developed independently, among them the Near Eastern Neolithic (Mesopotamia). Research findings indicate that Egypt developed earlier than the Tigris-Euphrates cultures and rapidly flowered into a civilization specifically and uniquely its own; one of the richest and grandest, one of the most powerful and yet one of the most graceful cultures in history. By Egypt’s side Sumer’s culture was but a crude beginning, not even Greece or Rome would surpass it.
     Contemporary research has unearthed buried civilizations and discovered submerged cities one after another—archeology and anthropology now reconstruct an unsuspected antiquity of man—history proves all history false and paints a canvas of stunningly ancient and mysterious dimensions. Previous academic accounts of the origins of civilization and the cultures of the ancient world have fallen forfeit to finds at archaeological sites around the world.
Everything we’ve been taught about the origins of civilization may be wrong. Old stories about great lost civilizations of prehistory, long dismissed as myths by archaeologists, are set to be proven true.”  —D. Natawidjaja, Ph.D., Senior Geologist with the LIPI Research Centre for Geotechnology
•  The bulk of the most ancient of these archaeological finds indicate that sophisticated civilizations existed not only prior to the last glacial period, but most importantly, prior to the ‘Younger Dryas Boundary’ cataclysmic event as well. The ‘YDB’ event, which occurred circa 10,770 B.C., is thought to have been caused by the air-bursts or impacts of several comets, or possibly a mile-wide meteorite that impacted Greenland's northern ice cap (the Hiawatha glacier), resulting in massive shockwaves and firestorms sweeping across the continents and initiating a 1200 year-long epoch of terminal environmental change, including devastating cold, perpetual darkness, massive floods, and catastrophic faunal extinction. See, e.g., Firestone, West and Warwick-Smith, The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: How a Stone-Age Comet Changed the Course of World Culture, Bear & Company, 2006; et alia.
It’s not surprising that large animal species, such as the mammoths, went extinct during the cataclysmic Younger Dryas period, which dates from 10,800 B.C. to 9,600 B.C. And of course it had huge effects on our ancestors, not just those ‘primitive’ hunter-gatherers the archaeologists speak of but also, I believe, several high civilizations that were wiped from the historical record by the upheavals of the Younger Dryas.” —James Kennett, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus,
Department of Earth Science, University of California (UCSB)

•  We are fortunate that not all traces of pre-YDB event high civilizations were “wiped from the historical record.” A brief sampling of such prehistoric evidence includes:
• Remote sensing images from NASA missions over Antarctica reveal what researchers have concluded to be clear evidence of a complex settlement including “large rectangular and pyramidal buildings” lying beneath 1.4 miles (2.3 km) of ice that has covered the region for millions of years (location: Continent of Antarctica). This discovery, if confirmed, will represent the greatest archaeological find of history. (For a full account of the scientific evidence so far available, please see, 'Antarctica and The Lost Civilization', ASIN B09M98VQ9F, for the US here and the UK here.)
• The ancient Egyptian ‘Turin Royal Canon’ (papyrus 1874 verso, c. 1279 B.C.) records the reign of the pre-dynastic “Gods of Ancient Egypt” as beginning in 37,920 B.C. (location: discovered in Thebes, currently in the Museo Egizio [Egyptian Museum], Turin, Italy).
• Gunung Padang, meaning “Mountain of Light,” the site of numerous megaliths including a 300 foot high pyramid whose base materials have been dated to 22,000 to 20,000 B.C. (location: Cianjur regency, West Java Province of Indonesia).
• Inscriptions on the walls of the ancient Egyptian Temple of Edfu, recounting a historical record of Egyptian civilization extending back to 18,000 B.C. (location: west bank of the Nile in Edfu, Upper Egypt).
• Nabta Playa, site of some 25 megalithic structures, including a calendar circle with sophisticated astronomical alignments, estimated by research teams to have been constructed as early as 16,500 B.C. (location: Sahara Desert of southern Egypt, west of Aswan).
• Puma Punku, meaning “The Door of the Puma,” site of inexplicably precise andesite stonework and extensive megalithic structures whose astronomical alignments date to 15,000 B.C. The tools that were used to create the highly complex structures at Puma Punku do not exist in the archaeological record (location: Tiwanaku, in the Andean Mountains of western Bolivia).
• Göbekli Tepe, a remarkably complex megalithic ceremonial center dated to 12,000 to 9,000 B.C. (location: southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, northeast of Şanlıurfa).
• The Great Sphinx of ancient Egypt, whose weathering and erosion patterns correlated with paleoclimatology and subsurface features establish that its body and the walls of its enclosure date to 11,000 B.C., and perhaps far earlier (location: Giza Plateau adjacent to the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt).
• A vast submerged city in the Bay of Cambay, or Gulf of Khambhat, artifacts from which have been carbon-dated to 9,500 B.C. (location: Arabian Sea coast of India, bordering the state of Gujarat).
• The underwater Yonaguni complex, estimated to have been submerged circa 10,000 to 8,000 B.C. (location: offshore of the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, 108 km from the east coast of Taiwan).
• The extensive sunken city of Dwarka, relics from which have been carbon-dated to 7,000 B.C. (location: offshore of the Devbhoomi Dwarka district in the state of Gujarat, northwestern India).
     Many more such prehistoric sites—identified via satellite imagery, ground-penetrating radar, deep-mapping sonar, LIDAR, and other advanced technologies—are known to exist but remain to be explored. Archaeologists estimate that only a tiny fraction of the ruins and relics of our world’s most ancient civilizations have been found.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of undiscovered ancient sites across the globe. There are so many previously unknown sites and structures all over the world . . . what satellites help to show us is we’ve actually only found a fraction of a percent of ancient settlements and sites all over the world.” —Sarah Parcak, Ph.D., Satellite Archaeologist, Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Laboratory for Global Observation
•  Even when bolstered by modern technology, the reconstruction of early civilization on our planet is a precarious enterprise. Every day the sea encroaches somewhere upon the land, or the land upon the sea, as volcanic lava flows expand islands and continents. Over millenniums, widely ranging temperatures cause sea levels to rise and fall by hundreds of feet; immense sheets of ice invade and retreat; full-margin rupture megathrust earthquakes and super-volcanic eruptions radically change topography; vast regions of landmass are buried, lakes and inland seas become valleys, valleys fill, river canyons deepen, mountain ranges weather away, and some, like the Himalayas, continue to rise and shift through the action of plate tectonics. To the geologic eye the surface of the earth is a fluid form.
     It is not merely possible but highly probable, as Aristotle thought, that many cultures arose, developed to a high state, then eventually lapsed from human memory. “History,” said Bacon, “is the planks of a shipwreck; vastly more of the past is lost than found.” As an ancient Egyptian saying has it: “Mother Earth has shaken many civilizations from her back.”
     Legends arise for a reason, and a purpose. Historical accounts and records are composed of the vague and hazy vestiges of memory; more of the great secrets of the past have vanished than have been revealed. Even the earliest accounts of Earth’s history were composed long after certain truths had lapsed from human memory, or were considered secrets far too powerful, or too sacred, to be revealed. Yet legends inevitably arose in which fragments of those truths were preserved.
     From the dawn of earliest civilization on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—the highest in the world, with an average elevation of some 16,000 feet—legends of a lost civilization have fascinated and inspired millions with accounts of a mysterious world hidden deep in the vast wilderness of the Great Himalayan Range. Although arising from sources widely separated in both space and time, the legends are remarkably consistent. They relate that this mysterious world is the dwelling place of an extraordinary community of “sages and masters.”
     Scholars believe that these primeval legends are the historical precursors of a fabled land described in the oldest Sanskrit texts, a concealed realm of beauty and knowledge. The scriptures of the 4000 year old pre-Tibetan Zhang Zhung culture are thought to be the earliest extant references, yet the same hidden realm is represented in many ancient traditions; the pre-Buddhist B’on treaties, Hindu texts of the Kalki lore, the Puranas, in the earliest texts of the Kalachakra Laghutantra (c. 500 B.C.), in the even more ancient Kalachakra Mulatantra (c. 900 B.C.), and in ancient wisdom traditions throughout Asia. The B’on treaties refer to the hidden sanctuary as Olmolungring, the Zhang Zhung and Tibetan scriptures as Shambhala I lam-yig, Hindu histories as Aryavarth, Chinese as Hsi Tien, and Russian traditions as Belovoyde.
     Absent an ember, there can be no smoke; there is a kernel of truth in all such ancient and enduring legends, and they cannot be easily, or wisely, dismissed. If this mystical hidden realm still exists, who resides there? Descendants of the “sages and masters”? Inheritors of their knowledge and wisdom? From where did they come? Why do they stay so carefully concealed? What knowledge do they possess? If encountered, what would they want us to know?

   Note from Amber: If these intriguing questions interest you, explore some fascinating answers through Michael's accounts in our book, 'Passage to Shambhala, The Himalayan Journals of M.G. Hawking', ASIN B09VRSRKZC, available worldwide, including the US here, the UK here, Canada here, Austrialia here, and India and Nepal here.
   And if you're curious about our world's many mysterious lost civilizations, you'll enjoy this book, 'Forbidden History, The Lost Civilizations', ASIB0CVVZVM78, available worldwide, including the US here, and the UK here.

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Stonehenge, The Ever Deepening Mystery . . . and Merlin
     Ashley and Heather are both from Oxfordshire, and have been fascinated with Stonehenge since a school outing to Salisbury Plain they took as children. Now they’re excited about a recent discovery which, rather than shedding light on any of the many mysteries of Stonehenge, actually reveals another, really big one. Michael worked with them to get details from the universities doing the field work, plus research some archaic history, and wrote the following. Cheers, Amber
•  Around 3200 B.C., Stone Age farmers in Wales' Preseli Hills built a great monument. They carved columns of unspotted dolerite, or bluestone, from a nearby quarry, then thrust them upright in a great circle, precisely aligned with the sun. Exactly what the circle meant to them remains a mystery. But new research reveals that several centuries later the giant stones were taken down and transported along a route that covered about 175 miles (282 kilometers) to the Salisbury Plain. And there, about 4,600 years ago, they were placed to create what is still the world’s most iconic prehistoric stone monument: Stonehenge.
     Researchers had already traced Stonehenge’s slabs of bluestone to the west coast of Wales, from a wild moorland in Pembrokeshire some 175 miles from Stonehenge. They identified the quarries where the stones were extracted more than 5000 years ago, amongst a series of rocky outcrops called Carn Meini. But radiocarbon dating showed a puzzling gap of several centuries between activity at the bluestone quarries and the earliest construction at Stonehenge. Researchers wondered whether the distinctive bluestones had been used to build other stone circles first, then moved to Stonehenge later.
     Over the past decade, archaeologists from University College London and University of Southampton searched for ritual structures in the Preseli region that might have provided the stones and the blueprint for Stonehenge. In recent years, they excavated parts of an ancient monument called Waun Mawn, where a handful of toppled bluestones similar to those at Stonehenge form a partial circle. The excavations revealed distinctive socket-shaped pits where other huge stones had once stood. Connecting the dots between the empty sockets and toppled bluestones at Waun Mawn, archaeological researchers then revealed a circle 110 meters across, exactly the same dimensions as the outer earthen ditch that was part of Stonehenge’s original layout. One of the bluestones at Stonehenge has an unusual cross-section which precisely matches one of the holes left at Waun Mawn, and another is missing a large chip which was found at Waun Mawn as well. And, like at Stonehenge, the circle’s entrance was oriented toward sunrise on the day of the midsummer solstice.
     The researchers then measured the last time sediments inside the socket holes at Waun Mawn had been exposed to light, using optically stimulated luminescence; they also radiocarbon-dated charcoal found inside the pits. They estimate the missing stones were erected between 3400 and 3200 B.C., and then removed 300 or 400 years later, around the time the first construction at Stonehenge began. “We’re quite confident the reason they came down is they went to Stonehenge,” said a University of Southampton archaeologist.
     What remains as the greatest mystery is how, exactly, the stones were transported over rough terrain a distance of 175 miles (282 kilometers). The biggest of Stonehenge's stones, known as sarsens, are up to 30 feet (9 meters) tall and weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average. The largest stone, the Heel Stone, weighs about 30 tons. The smaller stones, referred to as "bluestones" (they have a bluish tinge when wet or freshly broken), weigh up to 4 tons each. Archaeologists say there were originally 82 sarsen stones and 80 bluestones at Stonehenge, with an estimated total weight of 2,300 tons (2,087 metric tons).
     A Welsh team of researchers attempted to use only Stone Age tools and methods (more or less) to recreate the prehistoric journey made by the 162 stones. The project involved attempting to drag a smaller bluestone across land on a large wooden sled. (The first use of the wheel on an axle did not appear in Brittan until about 900-800 B.C.) They also attempted to transport a small bluestone over water by boat. Despite every method they tried, it required a modern crane to get the stone on the sled or in the boat. The sled proved impossible to move over rocky terrain—no matter how stoutly constructed, it always broke apart—and the boats always sank. Eventually, after failing to successfully move even one stone, the entire project was scrapped. “Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, either requiring the labor of thousands over a period of many decades to move the stones, or the use of an unknown technology,” said a University of Southampton researcher.
     An unknown technology? The oldest written history of Britain tells an interesting story. Geoffrey of Monmouth (A.D. c.1100-1155) from Monmouth, Wales, was a Catholic cleric, bishop of St. Asaph (1150), and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography. He wrote several works in Latin, the language of scholarly literature in Europe during the medieval period. His major work was the Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), c.1136, the work best known to modern readers. It relates the early history of Britain, from its first settlement by Brutus of Troy, a descendant of Trojan hero Aeneas, to the death of Cadwaladr in the 7th century, covering Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain, the reigns of Kings Leir and Cymbeline, as well as relating one of the earliest developed narratives of King Arthur.
     In one of his histories, Geoffrey provides an intriguing answer to the great mystery of how some 2,300 tons of massive stones were moved from the west coast of Wales to the Salisbury Plain in England. Based on an older work he had found, Geoffrey relates that King Aurelianus (uncle of King Arthur) wanted to build a memorial for the hundreds of Britons, including many nobles, treacherously slain by the Saxons during a truce meeting on Salisbury Plain. (An incident said to have taken place at a banquet near modern-day Wiltshire, ostensibly arranged to seal a peace treaty, which may have been the cession of Essex and Sussex in exchange for intermarriage between Rowena, the daughter of Saxon chieftain Hengest, and the Brittonic King Vortigern.) King Aurelianus demanded a memorial for the dead Britons which would last forever, but his builders could think of no way of doing it. An advisor to the king, known as Merlin (Welsh, Myrddin; Latin, Merlinus), suggested a solution—go to Wales and bring the magnificent stone circle monument at Waun Mawn back to England.
     Geoffrey relates that King Aurelianus' men, numbering some 15,000, proved unable to move the immense stones until Merlin interceded by using “magic” to assist them. The magician was also called upon when it was time to put together the stones of what would become Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain. Aurelius ordered Merlin to erect around the Britons’ burial place the stones which he had brought from Wales. Merlin obeyed the King’s orders and put the stones up in a circle round the sepulcher, in exactly the same way as they had been arranged in Wales, “thus proving that Merlin’s artistry was worth more than any brute strength.” Interestingly, even thousands of years later, we have no means of improving upon this account.
     “Probable impossibilities,” Aristotle wisely counseled, “are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.” Geoffrey believed what we habitually forget—that ‘impossibilities’ can actualize when the unimaginable is imagined and then made real with the application of apposite knowledge through systematic effort. Centuries later, in a conversation with Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke, the dean of science fiction writers Robert Heinlein would capture this transmutation process perfectly: “It’s part of the nature of man to start with imagination and build to a reality.”
     Like any currency of value, the human imagination is a coin with two inseparable sides. It is our faculty of fancy that fills the disquieting gaps of the unknown with the elusive certitudes of ‘myth’ and ‘magic’ when common sense and reason fail to reveal causality. And that selfsame faculty is what leads us to rise above accepted facts, above the limits of the possible as established by logic, custom and convention, and reach for new summits of previously unimagined truth. Which way the coin flips depends on one’s degree of courage, determined by some incalculable combination of nature, culture, and character.
One man's 'magic' is another man's knowledge. Supernatural is a null word.”  —Robert Heinlein
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”  —Arthur C. Clarke
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”  —Carl Sagan
We cannot fathom technology that is unknown to us, and we seldom consider things
that seem impossible to us
.”  —Christopher Dunn

When you’re touched by something revealing magic, nothing’s ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They’re too busy, or they just don’t hold with magic, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.”  ―Charles de Lintn

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'Letters from the Earth’ and AI (Artificial Intelligence)
     One recent evening we had some friends over, including several computer science experts, and the subject of Artificial Intelligence came up. With all of its pros and cons, that resulted in a very animated discussion. Afterward, Michael wrote something about AI that may inspire reflection on the subject, which I have included below. Thank you, Amber
•  In Mark Twain’s 'Letters from the Earth,' God gathers the archangels and announces that He has made humans. Satan (who else?) asks, “What are they for?” Perhaps you can hear the strangeness, the dissonance in this question, which is the sort that marks the boundary between ideology and science. Scientists have no trouble asking what the various parts of an organism are for or what function they have in an ecosystem. But they tend not to ask Satan’s question because it offers no hypotheses to be tested. What are people for? Twain gives us God’s chilly answer: “They are an experiment in Morals and Conduct. Observe them, and be instructed.” So Satan goes to Earth and soon concludes that “the humans are all insane ... the earth is insane.”
     You might say of Twain, as Walter Benjamin said of Charles Baudelaire, that “he must not be taken too seriously”—that speaking in the voice of a disillusioned archangel merely allowed Twain “to sustain a nonconformist position.” Yet 'Letters from the Earth' was withheld from publication by Twain’s daughter until 1962, and it tends to come burdened with editorial disclaimers blaming its cynicism on the circumstances of his old age, as if the book were merely a late, funereal fugue, unrelated to the rest of his work. In fact, the disillusioned archangel is the Connecticut Yankee in extremis, a rational being in an irrational world.
     Twain's cynicism was neither a visage of old age nor was it misplaced. Irrationality, perhaps insanity, is all around us, we're immersed in it. By way of proof, consider the recent meteoric rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A rational being would observe that there could be some future problems with AI, and could reasonably ask, “What is it for?
     This past summer, when ‘Oppenheimer’ was in theaters, many denizens of Silicon Valley were reading books about the making of the atomic bomb. The parallels between nuclear devices and the superintelligence of AI were taken to be obvious: world-altering potential, existential risk, theoretical research thrust into the geopolitical spotlight. Still, if the Manhattan Project was a cautionary tale, there was disagreement about what lesson to draw from it. Was it a story of regulatory overreach, given that nuclear energy was stifled before it could replace fossil fuels? Or was it a story of regulatory dereliction, given that our government rushed us into the age of thermonuclear weapons without giving extensive thought to whether this would end human civilization? Did the analogy imply that AI companies should speed up or slow down?
     The “doomers”—those who are deeply concerned about AI and want to slow down—and even the “accelerationists”—those who avidly promote it and want to speed up—have genuine concerns. The lead scientist at Anthropic, Sam Bowman, has been studying how they work and explains: “There are two interconnected, very big, very concerning unknowns. The first is that we don’t really know what the systems are doing in any deep sense. If we open up ChatGPT or any AI system and look inside, we just see millions of lines of code flipping around a few hundred times a second, and we have no idea of what any of it means. With only the tiniest of exceptions, we just don’t understand what’s going on. We built it, we trained it, but we don’t know what it’s doing. The other big unknown that’s connected to this is we don’t know how to steer these things or control them in any reliable way.”
     AI, then, is essentially alien—an super-intelligence system into which people have no insight. Humans are largely predictable to other humans because we share the same human experience, but this doesn’t extend to artificial intelligence, even though humans created it. Mark Bailey, the chair of cyber intelligence and data science at the NIU, explained: “If trustworthiness has inherently predictable and normative elements, AI fundamentally lacks the qualities that would make it worthy of trust. Constructing AI systems that behave in ways that people expect is a significant challenge. With their inner workings impenetrable, AI systems are fundamentally unexplainable and unpredictable. If you fundamentally don’t understand something as unpredictable as AI, something that can do things you absolutely cannot foresee, how can you trust it?
     Last August, there was a private screening of the movie ‘Oppenheimer’ at The Neighborhood, a co-living space near Alamo Square where the “doomers” and the “accelerationists” can hash out their differences over complicated coffee drinks. Before the screening, Michael Nielsen, a quantum-computing expert who once worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, was asked to give a talk. He asked, “What moral choices are available to someone working on a technology they believe may have very destructive consequences for the world?” There was the path exemplified by Robert Wilson, who didn’t leave the Manhattan Project and later regretted it. There were Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall, who shared nuclear secrets with the Soviets. And then, Nielsen noted, there was Joseph Rotblat, “the one physicist who actually left the project after it became clear the Nazis were not going to make an atomic bomb,” and who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
     Silicon Valley is largely a refuge of Robert Wilsons, give or take the regret. In his talk, Nielsen told a story about a house party where he’d met “a senior person at a well-known AI startup” whose doom quotient was fifty per cent. “If you truly believe that AI has a coin-toss probability of killing you and everyone you love,” Nielsen asked him, “then how can you continue to build it?” The person’s response was “In the meantime, I get to have really nice houses and cars.” Not everyone says this part out loud, but many people—and not only in Silicon Valley—have an inchoate sense that the luxuries they enjoy in the present may come at great cost to future generations. The fact that they make this trade could be a matter of simple greed, or subtle denialism. Or it could be ambition—prudently refraining from building something, after all, is no way to get into the history books. (J. Robert Oppenheimer may be portrayed as a flawed, self-pitying protagonist, or even as a war criminal, but no one is making a Hollywood blockbuster called “Rotblat.”)
     One of Sam Altman’s mentors described him as “driven by a hunger for power more than by money.” Elon Musk, in an onstage interview, said that his erratic approach to AI through the years—sometimes accelerating, sometimes slamming on the brakes—was due to, “My uncertainty about which edge of the double-edged sword would be sharper.” He still worries about the dangers—his doom quotient is apparently twenty or thirty per cent—and yet in smaller settings he has said that, as long as AI is going to be built, he might as well try to be the first to build it.
     Artificial intelligence is already making people rich. Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of chip company Nvidia, which controls 80 percent of the data-center AI chip market, has seen his net worth explode from a mere $4 billion five years ago to a staggering $83.1 billion as of March on the back of bottomless demand for his company’s product. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly valued at $86 billion, with rivals Anthropic valued at $15 billion and Inflection at $4 billion, as of their most recent funding rounds. While OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he owns no shares in the company, it’s possible, even likely, that he and other AI founders and execs have joined the nine figures club by now, at least on paper.
     The editor of Asterisk, the doomer-curious magazine, notes in the first issue, in part, “The next century is going to be impossibly cool or unimaginably catastrophic.” The best-case scenario, he said, would be that AI turns out to be like the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator in Switzerland whose risk of creating a world-swallowing black hole turned out to be vastly overblown. Or it could be like nuclear weapons, a technology whose existential risk of annihilating the human race is real but has been contained, at least so far.
     Just as in Satan’s question, “What are they for?,” here is the sort of dilemma that marks the boundary between ideology and science. Or between rationality and irrationality. As with all dark prophecies, warnings about AI are compelling—and deeply unsettling—yet possibly wrong. But are you willing to bet your life on it?

*                   *                    *
The Concepts of Oneness
     The belief that everything in the Universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, scientific and spiritual traditions, as captured by the phrase I encountered so often among the Himalayan masters, "All-That-Is." As quantum physicists express it, space, time, solidity and separation are illusions, and our five senses perceive and communicate to us only a tiny fraction of the true nature of reality. Nobel winner Erwin Schrödinger once observed that quantum physics fully reflects the concept that there is indeed a fundamental and very real oneness that exists throughout the Universe.
Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms, for consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. Quantum physics reveals a basic oneness of the Universe. Multiplicity is only apparent; in truth, there is only one mind.”  —Erwin Schrödinger
Quantum physics provides a modern version of ancient spirituality. In a Universe made out of energy, everything is entangled; everything is one.”  —Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.
To us, the only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that recognizes both sides of reality—the quantitative and the qualitative, the physical and the psychical—as compatible with each other, and can embrace them simultaneously. It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche (i.e., matter and mind) could be seen as complementary aspects of precisely the same reality.”  —Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Laureate
•  Despite it seeming as though the world is full of divisions and separations, many people throughout the course of human history have understood that what appear to be individual things are all part of a fundamental, underlying reality. Despite the relative prevalence of this belief, there has been an absence of well-validated psychological measures that capture the concept. While almost all forms of spirituality certainly do contain it, the belief in oneness is typically combined with other concepts that assess diverse aspects of spirituality, such as meaning, intent, purpose, sacredness, or having a relationship with God. But what happens when we secularize the belief in oneness?
     In a recent series of investigations, a team of psychologists decided to find out. In their study, they found that only 20.3% of participants had thought about the oneness of all things "often" or "many times", while 25.9% of people "seldom" thought about the oneness of all things, and 12.5% of people had "never" thought about it. Based on findings from quantum physics, the researchers created a six-item "Belief in Oneness Scale" consisting of the following items:
 ●  Beyond surface appearances, everything is fundamentally one.
 ●  Although many seemingly separate things exist, they all are part of the same whole.
 ●  At the most basic level of reality, everything is one.
 ●  The separation among individual things is an illusion; in reality everything is one.
 ●  Everything is composed of the same basic substance, whether one thinks of it as spirit, consciousness, quantum fields and processes, or whatever.
 ●  The same basic essence permeates everything that exists.
     Their research revealed that people who believe that everything is fundamentally one differ in crucial ways from those who do not. In general, those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, with animals, and with aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same "one thing" or "All-That-Is."
     This has some rather broad implications. First, this finding is relevant to our current fractured political landscape. It is very interesting that those who reported a greater belief in oneness were also more likely to regard all other people very much like members of their own group, and therefore to identify with all of humanity. There is an abundance of terribly divisive identity politics and political propaganda these days, with all too many people believing that their own ideology is the only true one, and who actually believe that anyone who disagrees with them is evil, immoral, or somehow less than human.
     It would be beneficial for people across the entire political spectrum to recognize and hold in mind the concept of oneness even as they are asserting their own personal values and political beliefs. To only have "understanding" or "compassion" for those who share their same ideology, and vilifying or even becoming violent toward those who they perceive as having a false ideology, is not only antithetical to cooperation and progress in the broadest sense, it is also counter-productive to political accomplishments that advance the greater good of everyone in this country, and indeed of all humans on this planet.
     Second, these findings have important implications for education. Even if some adults may be hopeless when it comes to changing their beliefs, most children are not. Other beliefs—such as a belief that intelligence can learn and grow ("growth mindset")—are very popular in education these days. However, I wonder what the outcome would be if students were also explicitly educated to understand that we are all part of the same fundamental humanity, by actively showing students through group discussions and activities how we all have our own thoughts, ideas and philosophies, and how underneath the superficial differences in opinions and political beliefs, we all have the same fundamental needs for connection, purpose, and to matter in this vast Universe. Perhaps now, more than ever in the course of human history, we would benefit from a true recognition of oneness based upon philosophical, spiritual and scientific models.
"It is true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of human culture, in different times or different cultural environments or different religious traditions: hence, if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may find that new and interesting developments will follow."  —Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Laureate

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Snow LeopardP.S. - Only about 6,000 snow leopards are now left in the wild, down from some 9,000 in the year 2000! The WWF has a wonderful program where you can symbolically adopt a snow leopard. Donate and you'll help to save those still left, plus you'll get a snow leopard adoption kit (a cute snow leopard plush toy, tote, certificate, species info card, and a photo). And the WWF is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, so your donation is fully tax deductible. You can see the snow leopard adoption program here, and there are programs to adopt many other endangered animals as well. Thank you!

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