There is a man who is often considered as one of the smartest people who ever lived. Some of us first heard about him when we were told: “Well, you’re no Einstein.”
Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity, and you have no doubt seen the famous equation:
E = mc2
Yet what does this equation actually say about the world? Well, it overturned the world view that physicists had held since the 1600s, when a scientist called Newton formulated the view that the world was a kind of grand machine, a giant clockwork.
This view is called “classical physics,” and it basically said the world was made from two separate elements, namely matter and energy. These elements were fundamentally different, they did not mix. Matter was considered to be made of small particles, the smallest of which could not be divided. Energy was considered to be made of waves that constantly move or at least vibrate.
Einstein’s deceptively simple formula overturned this view by putting an equal sign between energy (E) and matter (m for mass).
Based on the theory of relativity, some other very smart scientists developed a new branch of physics, called quantum mechanics. You probably learned in school that all matter is made up of invisible entities, called atoms. And atoms are made up of even smaller entities, called subatomic particles. Quantum physicists study this subatomic world.
Quantum physicists discovered that the subatomic world is very different from the world we see with our senses. In fact, a so-called subatomic particle doesn’t seem to be just a very tiny billiard ball. Physicists currently say it has a dual nature, a split personality. Sometimes it behaves like a particle, and sometimes it behaves like an energy wave. This has led to three observations:
- A nuclear reactor does not produce energy. It simply frees the energy that is already inside the Uranium atoms. The reason is that atoms are actually made of energy.
- A subatomic particle is not actually a particle, as we normally see it. It seems more like an energy wave that can take on a stationary form and therefore appear as a “solid” particle.
- It has been observed that a subatomic particle can appear out of “nowhere,” divide itself into smaller particles, that then collide and disappear back into wherever they came from.
The conclusion is that the world is not made of matter and energy because matter is simply another form of energy.
In classical physics, it was thought that matter was the fundamental element and that energy was a product of matter. In quantum physics, it is clear that energy is the fundamental element and that matter is simply energy that has taken on a “stationary” form. But the energy that is “bound” in matter can be set free again.
Why is this important? Well, because it explains something about the mind.
What exactly is the mind?
According to quantum physics, the underlying reality of the world is energy, but what is energy?
Scientists are very good at describing how something behaves, but not as good as explaining what it actually is. For example, scientists cannot really explain what electricity is, but they know how to make use of it. Likewise, they can’t say what energy is, but they can describe how it behaves. They describe energy as something that is constantly vibrating, much like a wave on water, which has an amplitude, frequency and wavelength.
Energy can take two basic forms. One is as a mobile wave that moves through “space.” The other is as a stationary energy field. This stationary field is still a form of energy waves, it is just not moving, such as a wave through water.
Energy is a form of vibration and there are many forms of energy. But the only real difference between them is their vibrational properties. For example, there are forms of energy that we can see with our eyes, and they are ingeniously called “visible light.” This is simply energy waves that vibrate within the spectrum that our eyes are designed to detect.
There are also forms of energy waves that our eyes cannot detect. Infrared light vibrates at a lower rate and Ultraviolet light vibrates at a higher rate than the visible spectrum. Our eyes cannot see them but we know they exist.
This leads to a profound conclusion: The world is made entirely of vibrating energy.
Some energy we can detect with our senses, but there is some energy that we cannot detect. Some energy we can detect with scientific instruments, but according to quantum physics there are forms of energy we cannot detect with current instruments. Scientists often call this a quantum field, a vacuum state or other names.
Why is this important, what does it have to do with you changing your psychology? Well, if everything is made of energy, what is the mind made of? It must also be made of energy. If everything is an energy field, then the mind is also a form of energy field.
Okay, but what’s the significance of this?
The energy continuum
In school, you probably saw the teacher take a magnet and place it underneath a piece of paper. The teacher then spread iron filings on top of the paper, and like magic they formed a pattern of curved lines. You were probably told that this is because a magnet has an invisible field around it, called a “magnetic field.”
You were probably also told that this energy field is produced by the physical magnet, yet quantum physics has brought this interpretation into question. If energy is the underlying reality, does the magnet produce the field, or does the field produce the magnet?
What quantum physics has actually shown is that everything is made of energy. There are simply different forms of energy, set apart only by their vibration. We can now suggest the following continuum of energy:
- Behind everything is a field or realm of energy of such high vibrations that we can neither detect it with our senses nor with current scientific instruments. This energy is the foundation for everything else. It is from this base energy that the material world springs, and this happens when the base energy is lowered in vibration.
- Some of the base energy has been lowered to a spectrum of vibrations that we can detect with scientific instruments, yet it is still too high for our physical senses.
- Some of the base energy has been lowered further, so it now vibrates within the spectrum that our physical senses can detect. Our senses and our brains perceive this to be “solid matter.” In reality, it is still vibrating energy and it only appears solid to our senses and brains.
Once again, what has this got to do with changing your mind?
The brain-mind conundrum
One of the great mysteries for both scientist and philosophers has been to explain the connection between mind and matter, between mind and brain.
Scientific Materialism claims it can explain this by saying that everything that happens in your mind is the result of the physical, material (electrochemical) processes that take place in your physical brain. They say the mind is entirely and exclusively produced by the physical brain, it is a so-called epiphenomenon (meaning the mind comes after the brain).
As said elsewhere, HAP is not about making you believe in an absolute truth. However, if the claim that your mind is exclusively the product of the brain were true, then HAP (and all forms of self-improvement and psychotherapy) would be meaningless. If the mind is produced by the brain, the only way to change the non-physical conditions in your mind is to change the physical conditions in your brain. This would be a deeply disempowering view.
HAP will examine the materialist world view elsewhere, but at this point, consider a simple line of reasoning.
Scientific materialists claim that the brain produces all aspects of human psychology. Your psychology is a result of your brain function. Your individual brain function is determined by your genetic inheritance. Your brain is very complex, so it can adapt to the conditions you encounter as you grow up. But the way your brain adapts is a result of your genes. And in the materialistic view, there is nothing you can do about your genes.
Some materialists claim that one of the biggest problems in human history is religion, which they see as a form of superstition. Some have even gone on a crusade to make religious people see the error of their ways and abandon their religious beliefs. Some of these materialists even describe how they themselves had an epiphany that caused them to abandon all religious beliefs and accept the theory of evolution and a materialistic world view.
Yet these same materialists claim that what happens in the psyche is a product of the materialistic processes in our brains, which are determined by our genes, which we do not have the power to change. The logical conclusion must be that religious people are religious because their particular genetic make-up makes their brains produce a religious experience. So how can these people change their minds about religion when their minds are produced by the brain and therefore the mind cannot override their genetic make-up?
In other words, materialists crusading against religion are telling people to do something that the materialist world view says is impossible. This leaves two options:
- Scientific materialists are not smart enough to se the logical fallacy of their world view.
- Scientific materialists don’t actually believe what they are saying, namely that the mind is exclusively the product of the physical brain.
Materialists seem to think their minds are not a product of their brains, which is why they can see what religious people cannot see. They also claim to have a superior truth, but if our minds are products of the brain, the concept of a superior truth has no meaning. If a religious world view is the product of brain function, then a materialistic world view is also a product of brain function. When materialists think their truth is superior, it is simply because this is how their brains function, and how is that different from religious people?
So, if materialists really did believe that we do not have the power to change our minds, why are they crusading against religion? And if we do have the power to change our minds, then our minds cannot be exclusively produced by our brains, our minds cannot be a materialistic phenomenon.
The only way that you can make a conscious decision to change your mind (about religion or anything else) is if your mind has the ability to override your physical brain. Of course, millions of people throughout history have experienced that they were able to change their minds and override the beliefs they were brought up to believe in. Millions of people have experienced that by using the science of psychology or various self-help methods, they have been able to change conditions in their psychology, from bad habits to deep traumas.
The mind is more than the brain
The conclusion upon which HAP is based is that there is something in the human mind that can override the physical brain, even the programming you were exposed to during your upbringing. There is core of your mind, as described elsewhere, that can mentally step outside the brain and consciously decide to change your actions, feelings, thoughts and deepest beliefs.
How can this be possible? Because your mind is an energy field that exists beyond the physical brain. This is in no way denying that your physical brain has a profound influence on your mind. It is simply saying that there must be a part of your mind that is an energy field, and it is NOT produced by the brain. This mind-field exists in a realm of vibrations that is higher than the vibrations that make up your physical brain. That is why it can override your physical brain.
A crude analogy is that of a car. Imagine that an alien spaceship visited the earth and observed it from a distance. They might conclude that the dominant life-form on earth is what we call cars. They are everywhere, they constantly move around and society seems to be organized around them and their needs.
We of course know that a car is just a vehicle that we use to get from Point A to Point B. You own your car, you do not become your car by getting into it, and you can get out of it again. Likewise, your brain and your physical body can be considered a vehicle that you use in order to have the kind of experiences and do the kind of things you can do with a physical body on this physical planet.
Your mind wasn’t produced by the brain, your mind at some point entered the brain. You can get out of your body and continue to have a conscious existence. This is demonstrated by the exercise of you mentally stepping outside your mind, watching yourself reading this from a distance.
The immediate conclusion is that your mind is more than your brain, and that is why your mind can change your mind.
There are other conclusions we will look at later, but for now we will consider what the mind as an energy field really means. The four levels of your mind—and the world.