MESSAGES FROM THE PASSAGE

Feb 07, 2025 - 03:18 Leave a Comment 1003 views

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MESSAGES FROM THE PASSAGE

Up until a few years ago, I posted short articles each month on a variety of topics that centre on themes in Elysium's Passage novel series. I intend to carry on with this, but I probably won't have time for more than one or two articles each month, whereas up to 2022, I used to include up to four articles. At the time, I named them Daily Messages, but they were actually weekly messages that I released each month.

If you enjoy this or any other post on this blog site, please pass the links to anyone you think may be interested, since I've created these blog posts to help promote the ELYSIUM'S PASSAGE novel series. You may find all the blog links on this post.

Btw, the mountain picture is from near the peak of Mount Kidd, which I climbed a few years ago. I included this photo because it reminded me of a passage.

For links to prior Messages that date back from 2018 to 2022, go to the end of this section

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MAY 2025

ORIGINS AND ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS

In speaking of evolution, it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness.
G.I. Gurdjieff'

For May's Message from the Passage, I've included an excerpt from Book Four, ELYSIUM'S PASSAGE: SURREAL ADVENTURES, where a debate ensues on the topic of human origins and consciousness. This occurs at a university forum being held on a virtual island they sail to in called the Flatlands, where Rhom, an off-worlder from the Pleiadian constellation, is giving the featured speaker a hard time.

Whatever your opinion is on the topic of origins, I trust you will find this post interesting, if not a bit provocative, since it goes contrary to much of science's current narrative regarding who and what we are. The question remains: Are humans a fluke of nature or an emanating fractal of a priori consciousness?

We listened to a presentation outside on how the brain was nature’s supreme organ. I smiled at a pretty young woman who happened to be standing next to me. She smiled back and suggested I ought to return tonight to hear a lecture on how the brain’s neural transmitters function.

‘If you haven’t seen the model, it’s quite the sight,’ she said enthusiastically.

‘Maybe you can explain it to me sometime,’ I said. ‘So, are you coming this evening?’

‘I’m not sure, but you should come anyway. Miniature lights simulating neural synaptic transmitters are colour-coded in the lobes, all mapping out how and where the mind performs its wonders. The circuitry flashes on and off in a spectacular flow of colours, causing the brain to glow brightly.’

‘The brain couldn’t possibly be as spectacular as your bright mind,’ I smiled flirtatiously.

I guess she wasn’t expecting that, so she gave me a curious look and moved to the other side of the auditorium. I meant that to be funny, but I guess it came across a bit lame. Obviously, I had miscalculated, losing some of my dazzling charm over these last months. Probably, I needed more practice. Oh, well, I thought, she wasn’t real anyway in this virtual reality, even if she felt that way.

As I observed the crowd, it was evident how impressed they were when the speaker reminded them how chance provides order to matter.

‘But it isn’t just chance,’ he said, ‘it’s destiny. That’s when nature emerges to create the greatest show on earth.’[1]

I watched Rhom’s reaction as he stood stoically, attentive to what was being said.

‘Nowhere is this more evident than with the brain,’ the speaker continued. ‘Obviously, the brain is composed of matter. But just look what it can do! And that’s all that matters,’ he said, chuckling at his play on words.

‘Ah, this explains everything,’ Rhom whispered to me. ‘Amazing… who would have guessed inert matter could do all that? Maybe he’ll now tell us how.’

The crowd seemed transfixed by what the presenter said, even though I’m sure they had heard it all before, for as long as they could remember, since it never failed to awe what other wonders nature might bestow on the human brain should the species survive another billion years or two.

After he concluded his talk, he asked if there were any questions. Rhom raised his voice from the back and said: ‘Thank you, sir, for your erudite presentation on the marvels of the human brain and the recent discoveries made probing the circuitry of the hypothalamus and cerebellum. I wonder if you might now explain where the blueprint for this design might have originated.’

Whispers spread through the crowd as many looked back to where we stood. Some seemed irritated with this effrontery, while others had smug, knowing smiles. Nevertheless, most seemed curious about where this intruder-interloper might have come from using such verboten words. Neither origin nor origination is considered an appropriate term in the Flatlands, any more than design or creation are tolerated in biology and anthropology departments.

The speaker cleared his throat, seemingly uncomfortable being confronted so brazenly with this ignorant and misguided query.

‘Before you answer,’ Rhom said, ‘let me also add I fail to understand how inanimate matter comes to ferment in the primordial slime you spoke of and somehow animates itself into a mechanism for these wonders you speak of. Then there's the question of where the slime came from to get the ball rolling, since it's not exactly inanimate. Or did aliens plant it there? If so, I don't recall doing any such thing, he chuckled. Further to this, how did life overcome the entropic tendencies of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to become a functioning organ?'

'Even if we ignore that conundrum, please advise us how the slime managed to program itself with a prerequisite design to inform itself prior to creating itself. I’d be most appreciative if you would explain this since these questions have been annoying me ever since I heard your unsubstantiated suppositions.’

Now visibly agitated, the speaker said, ‘Though the brain replication outside appears incredibly complex, it wasn’t always so. Over time and chance, however, the brain became increasingly intricate, much as illustrated by the model. As any scientist will tell you, this process can easily be explained by nature’s cooperative mechanisms of mutations in concert with natural selection. Should you care to inform yourself, you will find all accredited scientists agree that the science is settled.’

‘I’m sure they do. Non-sequiturs aside, you have yet to address the question of sex. How does inanimate matter transmute itself into a self-replicating organism… and all this before the advent of either mutations or natural selection. How would symbiosis even be possible if nothing prior existed to make this a possibility? It’s difficult for me to understand how reproductive organs could have emerged when there would be no survival benefit until they were fully functional in both sexes.

‘I’m not sure how anyone could find sufficient faith to believe in any of this, even if they wanted to. And so, if you would, please enlighten me on how these organisms could procreate when there was nothing with which to procreate. In other words, by what means would organs emerge into existence prior to… well, their existence?

‘Let me also inquire; would that not be an implicit tautology, considering the a posteriori would have had to be the a priori cause? It seems there could be no more significant logical contradiction than that. Or am I missing some, ah, if you will, missing link?’

Again, a murmur spread through the crowd as everyone looked back towards Rhom. With so many there, I felt somewhat self-conscious as I stood beside this ancient sea captain relic who kept asking embarrassing questions. Perhaps I should have followed the young woman to the other side.

Maybe that’s what threw the crowd; that, along with his medieval sea habiliments and imposing stature. Though I expected some heckling, it seemed everyone was too caught off guard to know what to do with this odd spectacle in their midst.

‘Once again, sir,’ the speaker responded, ‘anything can happen with enough time, and, in fact, does happen. In this case, most palaeontologists agree that irradiating lightning strikes coalesced the necessary energy from the atmosphere to the earth. Over time, this latent force produced surges of life-forming patterns, thereby overriding whatever order of entropy you might have been referring to.

‘If you knew your science, my good man, you would know that’s what scientists call punctuated equilibrium, or what might be considered random energy discharge surges resulting in the creation of increasing complexity of progressive evolutionary orders. We can only address this in terms of the respected discipline of scientific abiogenesis[2] instead of antiscientific myths of creation, which seem to be implicit in your lines of the query.’

With this comment, the crowd erupted in hoots, laughter and clapping, clearly enjoying the routing coup d’état.

‘Thank you for your inquisitions,’ he said; ‘are there other questions in the audience?’

‘Since you have yet to address my questions satisfactorily,’ Rhom said, ‘I’d like to know if anyone in this esteemed audience can provide plausible insights into what remains unbeknownst to the speaker.’

It was now most apparent that there was a troublemaker in the crowd. Many looked back at us again, this time with indignant anger. The speaker wasn’t at all pleased with Rhom’s impudence.

‘Let me restate the question since it all sounds so miraculous,’ Rhom said. ‘I just want to know how nature can, with enough time and chance, create life out of inanimate matter and then later replicate itself into innumerable species. You just stated that nature explains everything, yet I don’t see how that, in itself, explains anything emerging into existence. Nor has anyone provided a logical causal explanation of how nature could be an effect of itself.’

For a moment, the speaker looked stunned, searching his mind for how to respond or, perhaps, how to deal with this intruder before he did any more damage.

Undeterred, Rhom said, ‘While everyone is thinking about his, I have a related question. Is there anyonehere who can tell us how consciousness was created? Did the brain somehow emerge out of the elements with an awareness of its awareness? A most curious phenomenon, wouldn’t you say, considering no one on this earth even seems to have the faintest idea what consciousness is?’

There was silence as the speaker once again looked down at his notes, this time, I’m sure, wishing this would all soon be over so he wouldn’t have to put up with more of this audacity.

‘Again, all I’m asking,’ Rhom said, ‘is how consciousness was derived from unconscious matter and how did the animated brain, derived from inorganic, inert chemicals, the very brain that observes itself in the laboratory? I don’t know if anyone here is aware that one of your revered physicists aptly commented on this impossibility when he stated: As if mind had only been produced by the very display that it is now watching.’[3]

There was some murmuring in the audience and then more silence. After a few moments of reflection, the speaker regained his composure and finally looked up with a condescending smirk.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘if you were at all familiar with the concept of consciousness, you wouldn’t need to ask such a question because you would already know that awareness is what scientists refer to as merely being an epiphenomenon of the brain.

‘It is often referred to as an emergent quality emanating from the brain’s cortex. If it helps you understand,’ the speaker said, ‘think of consciousness as an electromagnetic wave, much like a hot current radiating off the wire of a turbine’.

‘I see,’ said Rhom. ‘However, saying consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of the brain suggests a few pounds of flesh is all it takes to bring consciousness into existence. That’s what we most pity about this intellectual wasteland; your ontological arguments have no substance. If that’s what Flatlanders wish to believe, then continue in your mind’s playground.

‘Where I come, there is no analogy for consciousness. Instead, analogies derive from consciousness, as does everything else. Consciousness is not of the flesh; it’s of the eternal order of reality from which the flesh exists for a short while. Without being known, it is how we come to know.’

Rhom paused a moment to let these words sink in. Some in the audience appeared intrigued by what he had to say, considering how he appeared to have just stepped off the movie set of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Nevertheless, his poignant questions were new to almost everyone in the forum and possibly the speaker, too. Others looked annoyed, while most seemed confused, as if they had never thought about any of this before.

Before the speaker could divert attention away from h

im, Rhom said, ‘It should be evident that there can be no reality apart from consciousness, yet you remain ingenuous, preferring to fabricate the term epiphenomenon to explain what you can’t explain. It’s supposed to mean something, yet it means nothing.[4]

‘All one needs to do is make up a word, and this whole Flatland will buy into any sleight of hand. What if reality was consciousness… and you want to reduce it to some word that means nothing? Just like you give names to energy particles to make mind-stuff seem more materially palatable, and before you know it, everyone believes the story. That’s why we pity everyone here; there seems to be no end to self-delusion.’

The lecturer grew red in the face as his hands began to shake in anger. Yet, he gave no further response, only muttering something about moving on to questions that had some relevance to the topic.

‘Well then,’ Rhom said, ‘since no one can give any meaningful response to my queries, I will take my leave. If I’ve created a few bumps along your flat, physicalist road, I have done so to jolt you awake. Have a pleasant day.’

As we made our way towards the door, I heard the speaker ask the audience, ‘Could we now please have a more judicious inquiry into the intricacies of the human brain, this time something more based on factual science?’

There was some laughter and clapping at this remark, albeit more subdued than before. I’m sure the audience was relieved with this repartee, as several hands shot up to ensure they wouldn’t have to endure more of Rhom’s audacious stunts.

As we walked out onto the street, I laughed. ‘It seems you’ve been duly informed about the nature of reality, Rhom. Aren’t you glad you came to find what you didn’t know before?’

‘Imagine that, all I had to do was come halfway across the universe to receive such enlightenment. Yet, it seems the Flatlanders don’t take very well to having their beliefs challenged.’

‘Especially by a pirate,’ chuckled. ‘I doubt if anyone has ever confronted Flatlanders with views so unsavoury to their linear orthodoxies.’

‘Their reaction was a typical human experience,’ he said, ‘just like many assumed that the sun revolves around the earth because that’s what they saw, from morning till night. Even after Galileo came up with something very different, their beliefs continued.’

‘It seems things haven’t changed that much,’ I said. ‘Everywhere, people believe what they wish to believe and what makes them comfortable.’

‘Still, we shouldn’t be too hard on your species,’ Rhom

said, ‘even if I might have been a bit direct with the speaker.’

‘Nevertheless, it was important for you to call out the Flatlanders on their presumptions of dubious reasoning. I mean, really, what does a current of heat emanating from a wire have to do with consciousness, even as an analogy? And yet this obvious sophistry seemed to satisfy them.’

‘That’s why analogies can be deceptive,’ he said, ‘especially when non-sequiturs are used to contort what’s foolish to appear reasonable. I hope you will remember how endemic this thinking has become throughout the Flatlands.’

‘I’ll try, but I can see myself sitting in this crowd as an impressionable student not long ago, bobbing my head up and down along with everyone else, which makes me wonder what I was thinking back then.

‘After all, philosophers are supposed to expose and critique the underlying assumptions instead of becoming apologists for every fashionable sophistry that emerges from such intellectual miasma.’

‘But then,’ Rhom said, ‘it has become common for philosophers to critique only what Flatlands consider acceptable for critiquing. Apparently, it’s safer that way.’

‘I guess I should know,’ I said, ‘my career depends on having a few blinds spots when necessary.’

‘That might be; still, how would you have made it this far had you doubted what you inwardly knew to be true? You didn’t forget your vision, and so your vision didn’t forget you, even when you misplaced it after compromising your beliefs to secure a part-time lectureship.’

--- Next Chapter ---

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As we continued our walk out of the Flatlands towards the shore, I was lost in thought while contemplating the lessons I learned while revisiting my past in these Flatlands.

Rhom suddenly turned towards me and said, smiling: ‘You might wish to look up for a moment from the ruts of your past; there is a brighter future to come.’

I then turned and saw Sophia running excitedly towards us. When she caught up, out of breath, she said: ‘Am I ever glad to find that you’re still here. While in class, I kept thinking about you and all the adventures you’re having.

‘I’ve decided I want to come! May I? I’m tired of this place. I promise I’ll learn how to sail and do whatever you ask me.’

I was delighted to hear this and was about to welcome her aboard when Rhom smiled at her kindly and said, ‘Sophia, we would love to take you with us; however, you still need to experience your journey in the Flatlands just as Sebastian had to complete his before it was his time to sail away.’

‘I hate to say it, Sophia, but Rhom is right. As much as I’d like to take you with us, you don’t even know where we’re headed. Before you depart this island, you need to discover where you wish to go.’

‘That is the most important part of the journey,’ Rhom said. ‘When you know that, all else will become clear.’

‘I just know I don’t wish to be here anymore. There’s nowhere to go and nothing to see. I want to follow you since you’re the only men who know where you’re going. Please take me with you; I’ll do anything,’ she pleaded as her eyes moistened.

I took her in my arms and looked at Rhom as if to ask... Now what?

‘Don’t worry, Sophia,’ Rhom said, ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again.’

Still, she sobbed as I released her from my arms.

‘So, where will I find you?’

‘Follow your heart,’ Rhom said. ‘It will direct you to where you should go.’

‘So where is that?’ she asked.

‘Do you see the Mountain across the sea, far beyond Flatlands’ shallow shores?’

‘No, I don’t. You know, we’re not supposed to look in that direction.’

‘Look anyway,’ he said, ‘and keep searching until you see it through the murky mists of the Lowlands, over the seas beyond the horizon. That’s where you’ll find us, ascending to ever-higher plateaus. And, not only us but even more importantly, you will find your Self there.’

‘I’m not sure what you mean. How can I find myself when I already know myself?’

‘Do you, Sophia? Do you know who you are?’

She looked down pensively, not knowing how to respond.

‘No one has ever asked me that before,’ she said. ‘Maybe you're right, maybe I don’t know. So, can you tell me who I am?’

‘Only you can discover who you are,’ I said. ‘All we see is an amazing young woman with beautiful red hair. But within, you are much more than that.’

‘Again, I don’t understand; what do you mean much more?’ she asked. ‘What is much more?’

‘Within,’ Rhom said, ‘you are a goddess of divine resplendence waiting to be found. If you look within, you will find her, the Self you are.’

‘These are extraordinary words, Captain,’ she said. ‘No one has ever spoken to me like this before.’

‘Nor will they, at least not in the Flatlands or Lowlands,’ I said. ‘But first, you will have to ascend your Mountain. That’s what I had to do before I could know the I Am that I am.’

She looked at me curiously, appearing not to understand what I said.

‘I’m sorry, Sophia,’ Rhom said, ‘but we must now take our leave to return to the sea. Always remember to look towards the Mountain so you might join us there.’

He lifted her downcast chin and lightly stroked her hair as she began to sob again.

Again, I took her in my arms and embraced her tightly, kissing her cheek. Then we turned and walked away. After a distance, I looked back. She remained there motionless, silently watching us. I waved goodbye. She didn’t wave back.

‘Dammit, Rhom, this is supposed to be a virtual world, so how can I fall in love and become so enamoured by a hologram that feels as real as anyone I’ve ever known on earth. I feel terrible leaving her behind.’

‘Her image might be holographic, yet it projects a real soul. In a sense, everyone is a hologram of their past, present and future. Possibly, one day, you will meet a semblance of her when you least expect it. If you do, ask her if she ever had a dream about a Captain and his First Mate on the street somewhere.’

[1] The presenter was using this phrase, taken from one of biologist Richard Dawkins' books, which attributes to nature the power to create all life and evolutionary variations throughout the world.
[2] Abiogenesis is the scientific discipline that proposes to explain how life supposedly arises from non-living matter. Speculations are rife in the paleontological and biological communities on how the inanimate became animate. In truth, however, never has life been remotely demonstrated to arise from inorganic life in the laboratories, let alone in Haldane's primordial soup.
[3] The full quote by Erwin Schrodinger is: ‘The show that is going on obviously acquires a meaning only with regard to the mind that contemplates it. But what science tells us about this relationship is patently absurd: as if mind had only been produced by the very display that it is now watching.’ See Appendix ‘A’ for more quotes by Erwin Schrodinger (1933 Nobel Prize in Physics).
[4] For those interested, there is much material available on the topic of epiphenomenalism and how it may have unintentionally germinated and evolved from the philosophical dualism of Descartes. It’s both interesting and informative to understand ‘rational’ Flatland thinking and why the mind is rejected as the causal agent of anything, including free will, since only what is sensory (material) is permitted to be the sole agent. If you give credence to their premises, then obviously free will has no logical basis because their reality has no spiritual dimension to give it a foundation.

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APRIL 2025

THE MAGIC OF
CALIBRATING CONSCIOUSNESS

In this post, I’m going to teach some magic, or so it may seem. But first, I need to give a short introduction so we have some context for how this sorcery works.

This magic is all about how to calibrate levels of consciousness, so let’s begin by questioning what is consciousness? Where is it, where does it come from, and where is it not? Does it come from the brain?

Such questions often trip up scientists since they, I’m sorry to say, are mostly clueless about what I’m about to reveal. Many dismiss consciousness as what they refer to as an epiphenomenon, something that goes on in the brain’s hardware, much like heat off a stove. To me, that’s absurd, but it seems that’s the best they’ve got to explain consciousness since it’s way too subjective and immaterial for their comfort. (I even had an educated atheist friend tell me that consciousness doesn’t exist; it’s just an illusion.)

For more on this debate, see an excerpt in another post that’s taken from Chapter Four of Surreal Adventures in the Elysium’s Passage series, where consciousness is discussed in a heated debate at a fictional Forum. https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/how-conscious-are-you

Regardless, is there another word for consciousness that might help, such as awareness? If so, might we say these are interchangeable terms where is may be said the higher the IQ, the higher one’s conscious awareness?

If so, intelligent people would be the most aware. But are they?

Is it highly intelligent people or highly conscious people that bring misery to the masses? I think it’s obvious it’s not the Mother Teresas that exploit the masses by inserting themselves into positions of power, money and privilege, having little regard for anyone but themselves. Therefore, being intelligent, on its own, does not necessarily mean being more socially adept and well-adjusted in treating others as we all would like to be treated.

So, obviously, having high intelligence is not necessarily the same as having high consciousness. Not to say intelligence and consciousness are mutually exclusive.

As Nelson Mandela once stated: I would suggest intelligence and consciousness, ie, mind and heart, work best when in coherence as a unified field.
See my post, Union of Heart and Mind. https://digitalbloggers.com/book-reviews/union-of-heart-and-mind

Let’s first consider whether consciousness has less to do with the mind and more with the heart. We now understand how intelligence is not just the domain of brain cells but that the heart possesses physiological intelligence, too. For information on this, go to https://www.heartmath.org/

We can measure intelligence with IQ tests, but if consciousness is the domain of the heart, how do we measure the heart? If consciousness is more about love than calculus, how can it be empirically measured and given a score? Certainly not with an EEG readout. So then, what is the technique for calibrating consciousness? That’s where we come to the magic part.

But before addressing this question, let’s first pivot in the direction of spirituality and ask if consciousness has more to do with God than with three and three and a half pounds of flesh. What we understand as consciousness is our experience of the divine expression of God (or whatever terms one may apply, such as Source, Great Creator, Universe, All That Is, Spirit, First Cause, Prime Cause, Prime Source, etc.) Of course, the atheist would deny it being any other than what’s material because that’s all they believe in.

My position, however, is that they are wrong; God has everything to do with conscious awareness simply because God, in essence, is consciousness. That may seem a rather bold, audacious claim. Yet I don’t see how it could be otherwise, implying existence is essentially non-dual, where the distinction between subject and object breaks down into Oneness. Therefore, the extent of our consciousness would relate to how God-infused we are and what we, as free-will beings, allow through the divine portals of our souls. Sorry for getting so philosophical, but the subject requires deep understanding.

If God is everywhere, then so must be consciousness; it’s just a matter of degree. To some extent, all life is aware and, therefore, conscious; the earth, with its animals, plants, insects and even amoeba, not to mention water and soil.

We are told that God is love, the glue of the universe experienced through consciousness. So, does this mean that all, in its essence, is an expression of God? If we hold to the ancient orthodox position that God is omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (all-present), and omnipotent (all-powerful), then how could it be otherwise? I believe most Buddhists, Hindus, and Sufi Muslims would agree, just as the early Christian fathers inscribed these beliefs in their canon.

Of course, this is not the same as claiming amoeba or anything else to be God. That would be preposterously pantheistic. However, we may say God’s material universe is an emanation of eternal Spirit, just as it is stated in Acts 17: 28, for in Him we move and live and have our being. As I see it, consciousness is the animating life force of the universe, the universal élan vital.

But since we each possess, or should I say, exercise a limited amount of consciousness awareness, or as I’ve said, God-infusion, we exist somewhere between the polarities of Light and Darkness, Love and Fear.

Some humans are born with innate high intelligence, while some are born with an innate calibration of high consciousness. Highly evolved humans have both, but most are much lower, with 100 being the average IQ and 200 being the average calibration of consciousness.

Many have little spiritual awareness, while some children seem gifted with uncanny wisdom. If you believe in reincarnation, it’s possible to interpret this as some souls continuing on the continuum where they left off in their last 3D life, such as Mozart inheriting a highly accomplished musical ability and awareness. In such cases, I’m not sure there’s a limit on how far we can evolve in our conscious awareness in one lifetime.

Whereas, there are limits on how much more intelligent you can train yourself to be and how much you can dumb yourself down. It seems, however, that consciousness, or, let’s say, God-infusion, would seem much more pliable when tied to our free moral will and what we allow in through the divine portals of the heart. Christian scriptures exhort us to be ‘filled with the Holy Spirit.’

Again, that’s because the heart is about love and since God is love, the more love we allow, the higher our consciousness, even if we can’t intellectually explain how we are able to swing so significantly both up and down on the scale of consciousness. We can go up by setting our ego aside, or we can ‘fall from grace by allowing the ego-mind to get in the way of our heart’s divine portal when choking off our God-infused consciousness.

Our consciousness can easily rise or fall based on what influences we allow into our lives. Furthermore, we can calibrate these shifts. In other words, an external frame of reference is based on there being what is sometimes called the Field or Universal Field of Consciousness. Now, if it seems ridiculous that our conscious awareness can be measured, let me prove it. Or better yet, you may prove it to yourself.

But first, let me introduce Dr David Hawkins, who was one of the pioneers in the field of examining consciousness. Dr David Hawkins, MD. PhD (1927-2012) was an acclaimed doctor of psychiatry, psychology and philosophy. I’ve listed his impressive list of credentials at the end of a post I wrote a few years ago. https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/how-conscious-are-you
Over the years from the early 1950s, Hawkins wrote extensively on psychiatry and psychology, particularly as it related to addictions.

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Then later, his focus expanded into the domains of spirituality, consciousness and enlightenment. I know of no one else, other than perhaps Jung, who had more to say on these topics, especially when approached from a non-dualistic perspective. Some of his books include The Eye of the I; I: Reality and Subjectivity and Transcending the Levels of Consciousness. Also, one of his most famous books, Power versus Force, had a Foreword written by Mother Teresa as an endorsement of his work.

Many years after establishing the largest and most prominent psychiatric clinic in the State of New York, he turned his attention to consciousness, perfecting an understanding of how to calibrate it. He wasn’t the first to develop these tests, but likely the most thorough in his research and writings.

Though it might seem difficult to believe this method is possible, it’s not such a stretch if you accept that God, by definition, is omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (all-present), expressed as consciousness, then there should be no problem. But since most scientists don’t believe in God, they have a problem with this direct approach to measuring consciousness.

But if there is a verifiable technique for measuring consciousness, what is this magic incantation? It’s simple… no need for wands or devices; just you, the tester and consciousness, which is always there. In essence, this is a kinesiology muscle test where the muscle remains strong when the statement is true and where the muscle goes weak when the statement is false.

So then, let’s do the test....

But first, for the rest of this article that explains how to do the test, go to the full post at https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/calibrating-consciousness

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MARCH 2025

Lecture on Dr David Hawkins and Relativism
February 23, 2025
Dr. David C. Jones

Dr Jones is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Calgary. Now retired and well into his eighties, he remains active in speaking and writing, having authored over 40 books so far.) He was a very popular professor and remains very engaging and captivating with his unique and animated style. I asked him if I may include a transcript of this recent talk at a church on David Hawkins, to which is graciously agreed.

If anyone wishes to know more about the incomparable Dr David Hawkins and his outstanding achievements, I posted an article on his work a couple of years ago. |
How Conscious Are You? https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/how-conscious-are-you

Dr Jones's transcript is as follows:

David R. Hawkins was an extraordinary spiritual figure of the last thousand years. A doctor and a psychiatrist also, he created a map of the spiritual consciousness of humanity. It ran from 0 to 1000, one thousand being the highest attainable on earth. Jesus calibrated at 1000, as did Buddha and Krishna, but most people in the world are below 200, the crucial level of Truth and courage. Below 200, the consciousness of individuals is dominated by forms of negativity—pride, anger, fear, guilt, and shame. Above that level is reason, logic and rationality in the 400s, then love at 500, with unconditional love at 540. Only .4 percent of the world’s population reaches the level of Love.

Hawkins’ system uses a well-known approach of kinesiology, arm muscle testing, to distinguish between Truth and falsity. People test strong when expressing the Truth and go weak when not.[i] “A negative feeling”, he writes, “causes a loss of 50% of the body’s muscle strength and also narrows our vision, both physically and mentally.[ii]

Why? Negativity is a denial of our very essence. It is a denial of all the gifts of God, a denial of your own sanctity, your own holiness, your inherent goodness, your essence as Love. Over and over in A Course in Miracles, Jesus has you memorize the great key—“I am as God Created Me.”

Even before 2008, Hawkins foresaw an approaching calamity. Seventy-eight percent of the world’s population is below the crucial level of 200. Only .4 percent of the world’s population reaches the level of Love. But that was only part of what was happening.

Look at the American universities. In 1955, Academia calibrated at 440, the level of rationality, reason, the intellectual integrity of the classical philosophers, ...the uplift, the study of virtues…. But by 2007, this high calibration of 440 had dropped precipitously to the level of 180 or lower. That’s the level of intellectual anarchy. It’s like falling 25,000 feet into a rock pit.

How did that happen? How were the academics hoodwinked?

Said Hawkins, it was the “fallacious intellectual/sociological/philosophical theories of recent decades; all boiled down to Marxist …elaborations of “relativism (ethical, moral, social, cultural).[iii]” These social anarchists, postmodernists, and relativists dreamt of a society “with no rules or restrictions, where all forms of expression are of equal value and validity, and where even overt falsehood has equal value and credibility with Truth.”[iv]

None of these theorists, Hawkins said, calibrate over 200—Foucault, 190; Darrida, 170; Marcuse, 150; and, of course, Marx, 135.[v] These levels are all negative. They have negative social consequences and destructive social impacts. Look at the Marxist regimes of Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Stalin and any other ‘liberator’ regimes.

This low-level relativism supplanted the wisdom of the Enlightenment, the great minds of history, the Greeks, the Romans, the classics, and The Great Books series. These calibrated from 440 to 499—an infinity richer than relativism.

The professors and many students had fallen victim to the first law of chaos in A Course in Miracles. Remember, 180 is the level of intellectual anarchy.

“What have you taught yourself that you can possibly keep in place of what you have and who you are?” asks Jesus in the Course.[vi] The answer is a self-concept—a made-up self-definition, the coveted but confused purpose of this world. “You come without a self, and you make up one as you go along.”[vii] And not one concept is the same as any other. How unique! But also, how chaotic!

“The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone,” states Jesus.[viii] Each person is separate with self-cut carvings of interests and boredom, attractions and aversions, harmonies and discords, all as different as difference can be. There is no sameness, no unity, no oneness, nothing in common but the chaos everyone sees and feels in the jungle of clashing opinions, each hallowed as a “concept.” And it matters little which concept is chosen. “It bears no likeness to yourself at all,” says Jesus. “It is an Idol….”[ix]

Leaking like Hemlock from the fatal first law of chaos is the great threat to Truth in our lives—relativism.

Relativism calibrates lowly at 180 or lower, below the critical level of Truth at 200, a disastrous downside, magnified by its basic principles, shared by postmodernism. Hawkins detailed the supporting clauses of the first law of chaos, relativism.

There is no independent, universal, verifiable truth.

Morality and ethics have no reality basis and are, therefore, invalid.

Because there are no universal or verifiable truths, there should be no social parameters, restrictions, or [value systems] that are repressive… we get to do what want….

We are greatly affected by the prejudices and power of repressive elements in society that want to stifle us, control us, and keep us in line, like religion or tradition or worn-out morality.

Because there is no absolute truth, God/Divinity is nonexistent, and society should, therefore, be secular/atheistic/populist/libertarian and basically anarchistic.

You see, this is a threat to Jesus’ teachings on Truth.

Relativism is a judgement, and like all judgements, “it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely,” says Hawkins.[x] Relativism is a judgment that all traditions, customs or habits have equal validity. The celebration of the death of a national hero in Westminster Abbey, as a value, is equivalent to live entombment with a dead noble in Mayan culture, another “value.” An Aztec priest’s declaration that a god needs the blood nourishment of a child’s extracted heart is as valid as Jesus’s declaration in A Course in Miracles that a child is holy.

At the end of relativism is total anarchy, complete chaos, where nothing is dependable except undependability.

If honour to one person means do your best and to another, kill a friend in a duel or a sister who “dishonoured” the family. The result? Chaos. If right conduct means beauty to one person and brutality to another, more chaos. Everything is of equal value, equal validity, say the relativists.

Deceit is as good as trust, domination as good as service, cruelty as good as kindness, hypocrisy as good as honesty. “The paradox,” says Hawkins, “is that if anarchy is ‘legal’, then there would be no legal rights of law by which to enforce it.”[xi]

Naturally, a philosophy as utter individualist as relativism favours freedom of speech. It’s no surprise that academics are inclined toward both. Emphasizing things like ‘tolerance,’ social justice,’ multiculturalism,’ [and] ‘accommodation,’” Hawkins reports, “major universities then began stylishly inviting even overtly psychotic visiting trendy ‘professors’ to lecture on delusional subjects, e.g. 9/11 conspiracy, or the Holocaust ‘never happened.’”[xii]

If all statements have equal rights, what Hitler and Goebbels said are merely “points of view,” not falsities, as in traditional morality. In fact, the falsities are vitalised and legalised. The treachery of spies, the destruction by terrorists, the desecration of respect, the advocacy of unlimited sexual gratification—all are merely expressions. Defamation of character as a crime disappears before the perverted light of freedom of speech. Anything can be said; nothing is false; sedition is only free speech, as is slander and lying.

Says Hawkins, “Whereas the average American naively assumes that ‘free speech’ is the bulwark of civil freedom, the opposite is just as true—it is also the most serious threat to liberty.” Hitler promised a better world, Marx did too, and Lenin and Stalin and Mussolini and any number of dictators. But motive makes a difference. As Jesus says in the Course, “the body is beautiful or ugly, peaceful or savage, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put.”[xiii] Similarly, free speech is uplifting or demoralising, melodic or discordant, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put.

“The American populace,” warns Hawkins, “will have to decide whether to side with wisdom or sophomoric absurdity and fulfill Socrates’ dire prediction that democracies eventually fall due to giving equal voice and votes to the ignorant and [self-seeking] segment of the population.” Democracies usually last only two or three hundred years “before the self-centred voters deplete the country of its resources and political wisdom.”[xiv]

There is an enormous difference in the spiritual consciousness of people and in how they treat others. Think of these comparisons. Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler; Socrates and Joseph Goebbels; Mother Teresa and Joseph Stalin…. Which embrace would you prefer?

Consider the embrace of dangerous political leaders. They are intrinsically dishonest, controlling, domineering, unforgiving and vindictive. With no spiritual values, no humane ideals, no personal honour, no consideration, and no value for fairness or human life, they are sanctimonious and savage, deceitful and duplicitous. They are willing to impoverish others and sacrifice others, including family. They ravage the weak and despise the populace as idiots. They favour severe torture. They are blind to others’ pain and totally intolerant of criticism. They love nothing except the fawning of others and the destruction of opponents. They attract followers and naïve apologists. They play the victim to justify violence, and they hate enviable figures.[xv]

“When truth, justice, compassion and peace flee from man,” Sai Baba said, “the world degenerates into a snake pit.”[xvi] This is always true.

“Falsity brings death, destruction, and agony,” Hawkins affirms. “Unless one aligns with the Sword of Truth, one ends up facing the sword of steel.”[xvii]

Truth and relativism are not synonyms. Relativism is an enormous threat to all the teachings of Jesus. The path to Truth is not filled with a hundred forms of deprival and repression, and it has none of the chaos of relativism, none of the demonising of virtues and the virtuous. “We do not need today a new faith or creed, nor a new system of education,” Baba explained. “Nor do we need to create a new society. All we need are men and women who have pure and loving hearts.”[xviii] Always true.

And it's an enormous warning against the chaos overtaking the world—the rejection of Truth. In A Course in Miracles, the Holy Spirit asks for the simple courtesy of allowing Truth to be what it is. “Do not intrude upon it, do not attack it, do not interrupt it's coming,” says Jesus. “Let it encompass every situation and bring you peace.”[xix]

Relativism is embedded in post-modernism. Together, they intrude upon the Truth; they attack the Truth; they interrupt its coming.

And what is the Truth that they attempt to destroy—the Truth that you are as God made you, you are love, you are part of the divine, you are holy, and there is nothing your holiness cannot do. You are part of Oneness. Armed with the Truth, you are meant to uplift this world, to free it from falseness and pain and misleading.

The Truth is for everyone, recognise it or not. Have faith in it. And Jesus emphasises, “The strain of refusing faith to Truth (that is what relativism and postmodernism do) is enormous, and far more than you realize. But to answer Truth with faith entails no strain at all.”[xx] The strain brings “sorrow, depression, sickness and pain, darkness and dim imaginings of terror, cold fantasies of fear and fiery dreams of hell…. And it was nothing but the intolerable strain of refusing to give faith to Truth and see its evident reality.” [xxi]

Yes, friends, Truth does exist. You can feel its uplift. Amen

January 24 2025

[i] David R. Hawkins, Power Versus Force (Carlsbad, CA, Hay House, 2002), 91.
[ii] Hawkins, Letting Go.
[iii] Hawkins, Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man (Toronto: Axial 2008), 108
[iv] Hawkins, Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man (Toronto: Axial 2008), 107
[v] Hawkins, Truth versus Falsehood, 209
[vi] ACIM, text, 296.
[vii] ACIM, text, 656.
[viii] ACIM, Text, 489.
[ix] ACIM, text, 659.
[x] Hawkins, David, Truth Vs Falsehood, 218 check
[xi] Hawkins, Truth Vs Falsehood, 259.
[xii] Hawkins, Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man (Toronto: Axial, 2008), 119.
[xiii] ACIM, text, 151.
[xiv] Hawkins, Truth Vs Falsehood, 147.
[xv] Hawkins, David Truth Vs Falsehood: How to Tell the Difference, (Toronto: Axial, 2005), 280-81.
[xvi] SSS 19, 21.
[xvii] Hawkins, Truth Vs Falsehood. 283.
[xviii] SSS 20, 230.
[xix] ACIM, text p. 435.
[xx] Jesus, A Course in Miracles, text, 435-436.
[xxi] Jesus, A Course in Miracles, text, 435-436

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As Nietzsche said....

To illustrate the degrees of consciousness referred to in this article, this scale below was created by Dr Hawkings

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SUMMARY OF ELYSIUM'S PASSAGE NOVEL SERIES

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This is a series of seven Elysium Passager novels regarding a young British philosopher named James Phillips, who finds himself living in an altered state of reality while still remaining on Earth.

After experiencing a near-fatal fall while climbing to the summit of a remote mountain in the Andes, James awakens in a new dimension. He soon encounters two mysterious beings who provide him with a very different perspective on the nature of his existence. Over the next year, before his body recovers from the coma, he is challenged to re-examine his understanding of life’s meaning and purpose far beyond anything he previously believed or could believe.

An engaging and sometimes surreal adventure with intimations of impending romance, the narrative explores the most important questions about life, death, reality, and our ultimate destiny.

The Plains of Elysium (Champs-Élysées) was described by Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, and many other poets as the paradisiac afterlife realm reserved for heroes. As the title suggests, this is about a journey through a passage that leads towards Elysium’s exciting realm of adventures.

To read a sample press review at https://www.prweb.com/releases/2018/05/prweb15515775.htm

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(ATTEMPTED) INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

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PENDING PUBLICATIONS IN THE SERIES

The following titles in the Elysium's Passage series are projected to be released in 2025

THE ASCENT

THE SUMMIT

QUANTUM LEAPS

SURREAL ADVENTURES

MYSTICAL ROMANCE

THE ELIXIR

THE RETURN

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1. THE ASCENT is the first novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage that’s foundational to everything that happens in the following narratives, which embark on an adventure that will surprise and delight the reader like no other book.

It all begins with an extreme adventure of climbing a remote and challenging mountain somewhere in the Andes Mountains. Just as James, the protagonist, is about to reach the mountain summit, he falls into an abyss that leaves him in a coma for almost a year.

After being airlifted by a forestry helicopter and flown back to London, where his body remained for almost a year. Eventually, he learns it was not he but his body that was rescued. Several days later, without understanding what happened, he continues to climb to the summit in an alternate dimension of higher consciousness.

Fortuitously, he meets two adventurers on the summit ridge who are no longer of this world. After that, his surreal life leads him to several new adventures in the subsequent chronicles, which include a rich mix of adventure, romance, and fantasy, along with profound discussions of philosophy, spirituality, and the afterlife.

2. THE SUMMIT, the second novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, carries on where James, the narrator and protagonist, is taught more about a multidimensional reality that he finds difficult to comprehend.

Not only does he find he’s not as clever as he imagined, but his off-world companions on the summit demonstrate that much of what he believed about life was not just parochial but wrong. At first, he finds this difficult to comprehend since their teachings are contrary to his limited understanding of non-material reality.

After being tricked into teleporting off a ledge where he was trapped, James becomes aware of a new reality that makes him capable of far more adventures than he could have ever experienced in his physical body back home.

Now, if only he would win over the only woman in this life who matters, the nurse on the other side of the veil, who continually demonstrates her unconditional love toward his healing.

This book may also open the reader’s eyes to a much vaster reality than many may be aware of. As with the other Chronicles, there are discussions of philosophy, the spiritual afterlife and what might seem like fantasy.

3. QUANTUM LEAPS is the third novel in Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, where James, the philosopher-protagonist, teleports back to London to visit his body and make contact with the special nurse taking care of it in his absence. Immediately, he feels an inexplicable spiritual bond with her for reasons he remains unaware of.

Now aroused by a renewed interest in matters of love, the beginnings of a relationship begin to emerge as he attempts to reach across the chasm of their worlds. But it’s not until the fifth novel, Mystical Romance, that he encounters her in a way that he finds difficult to believe.

However, before that can happen, there is much about his failed relationships that must be resolved before he is ready to move forward in his new life in Elysium’s Passage. It is during this time he christens his comatose body as the fall guy since it took the fall for him down the abyss so he could learn the lessons he’s now learning.

That will be the next focus of his life, where, in his next Surreal Adventures, he is given virtual lessons to release many of his past beliefs about the world and his life.

4. SURREAL ADVENTURES is the fourth novel in the Chronicles of Elysium’s Passage, which finds James, the protagonist and narrator, escorted by his companions to a remote South Pacific Island, where he is left to reflect on what he’s learned.

During the next forty days, he battles the demons of his past as he works through some rather painful issues from his early youth. Here, in a tropical storm, he encounters an eerie, suspended spectre of the one he loved yet still resents for abandoning him as a child.

After this, he achieves peace of mind and is ready to return to his lodge to join his off-world companions on the Andes summit. However, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any stranger, a sixteenth-century sea captain sails his ancient ‘ghost’ ship onto the beach. Together, they sail off on a mystical ocean voyage to a couple of virtual islands supposedly in the South Pacific, where he witnesses and, at times, participates in several important life lessons.

Near the end, these encounters help prepare him for a new challenge within the interior of a mountain, where he falls deep into a dark tomb of fear. After being rescued by a mysterious stranger wielding his Excalibur, he continues on to where his life is about to be transformed in the following chronicle, Mystical Romance.

5. MYSTICAL ROMANCE is the fifth chronicle in Elysium’s Passage, which will surprise the reader with a romantic twist of how love is expressed in higher realms. From this lofty perspective, everything about intimacy is understood as within, so without.

After escaping his tomb, James, the narrator and protagonist, makes his way through a maze of tunnels until he arrives at a large oak door, which he opens with the golden key he had been given. There, he steps into Elysium’s Passage’s Great Hall, where his life and recent achievements are celebrated now that his eyes have been opened to perceive a fascinating interior world of wonderment… and romance.

To say more might risk diminishing the multitude of delightful surprises as circumstances begin to open to The Elixir, where James is about to re-enter his earthly body’s existence.

6. THE ELIXIR is the sixth chronicle of the Elysium’s Passage series that prepares James, the narrator-protagonist, to awaken and return to his body in London. Before that can happen, however, his off-world friend presents a mysterious equation, enshrouded within a light code frequency, that will stimulate the multidimensional DNA strands within him.

Much of this narration is centred in London, where his nurse unknowingly becomes involved in how the Elixir’s equation finds its way from a taxi cab driver to higher echelons of science. There are many twists in how she unwittingly brings the Elixir to the attention of mathematicians and physicists, after which they eventually discover how to code the equation into a laser ray to stimulate his fall-guy body into full consciousness.

Ostensibly a new Adam, he is destined to return humanity to a higher multidimensional existence. How this happens is filled with intrigue, as is his shocking return to his earthly body.

7. THE RETURN is the seventh and last chronicle in the series where James, the narrator and protagonist, has re-emerged from Elysium’s Passage as he readjusts to life in the third dimension. Many of the events from the previous novels are tied together in an exciting, fast-paced, and action-packed narrative that spans several countries.

At first, it seems all memories have been lost, with his fall guy’s brain not being aware of what happened to him while in his coma. As a consequence, it takes a while for him to be convinced he had been out of his earthly body for almost a year.

Through some unexpected events and evidence, along with his girlfriend’s urging, he comes to an awareness of what had occurred. It takes a while for his mind to catch up with the changes made in his heart during his stay in the alternate realm. But after experiencing several harsh realities, he discovers what he has become while out of his body. Gradually, he comes to understand the many challenges that lie ahead for him in fulfilling his future mission on Earth.

This book is filled with adventure, romance and personal intrigue that ties together all six previous narratives of the Elysium’s Passage series.

As a teaser to the series, the first half of this book is available to read at:

https://digitalbloggers.com/arts-and-entertainment/THE-RETURN