Learn from science: expand your wavelength

"Into the Light" is the title of the introduction to Universe, which stimulated my "Greetings from the center of the galaxy" post.

Reading about the electromagnetic spectrum, I don't see how anyone could doubt that science has a whole lot to teach us about opening ourselves to a broader understanding of reality.

Despite being suffused with light, surprisingly little of the universe is visible to the naked eye. Unaided, we can detect only 6,000 of the universe's estimated 70 billion trillion stars from Earth -- and no more than a few thousand from any one location.

Dust, distance, light pollution and a thick atmosphere may serve to obliterate much of this population, but the simple truth is that we are blind to most wavelengths of light and subsequently blind to a large proportion of the celestial sphere's denizens.

Beyond the familiar rainbow of visible light there lies a much more vibrant world, for the heavens blaze across a spectrum of energies far broader than the eye can behold: black holes are uncloaked by bright x-ray bursts as matter spirals into them; treasure chests of embryonic stars smoulder in the infrared; nebulae bask in the ultraviolet light of hypergiant stars; and microwave echoes chronicle the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Only in the last century have we become aware of light's many guises and been able to step into this unseen realm -- it is no coincidence that our exploration of space has advanced hand in hand with our exploration of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Without the technological supersenses to capture the invisible -- and amplify the visible -- our view of the universe would be but a pale reflection of its true nature and our understanding of it similarly constrained.

There's so much more to know, to grasp, to experience. The blind faith of religious dogma is restricted to feeling its way around a horribly confined space.

Reality needs to be embraced in all of its awesome glory. What's theologically close at hand and seemingly comprehensible to certainty-desiring minds isn't all there is.

Comments

[Rain]

Maybe you have already thought of this but this is what auras are. They are not some mystical thing that has a spiritual aspect and nothing else. They are the energy that surrounds each of us since we are made up of energy and what seems solid as our flesh is also energy, atoms, space, etc. Auras can be seen. I see them when I put my mind to it and so could you. They don't prove anything about god or eternal life. They simply are what is there for those who want to see it and around all living things. We can measure electric field that is around living objects and don't have to touch it.

[tAo]

Brian wrote:

"The blind faith of religious dogma is restricted to feeling its way around a horribly confined space."

-- Man oh man, ain't that the truth. And a "horribly confined space" is really an understatement.

Its downright shocking if you actually think about it!... Like how ridiculous and utterly narrow-minded so many contemporary humans are - expecially the religious ones who like to think and speak and act as if they somehow know it all.

It just blows my mind every time I think about how stupid that all is. And I think that whichever side of that line people are on, or they are at... it reveals something very significant about their basic mentality, about the realm they inhabit.

It kind of shows whether people are oriented towards or into the present/future, or whether they are stuck in the limited knowledge and ignorance and backwardness of the past.

Are they looking and thinking and believing narrowly as it was 2000 years ago in the human past? ...OR... Are they looking and thinking and are open-minded to the possibilites of human intelligence and knowledge as it is and may be 20 or 200 or 2000 years in the future of humanity in the cosmos?

To me, whereever people stand relative to this dividing line tells me more about them than almost anything else. It tells me whether or not they are truly aware and conscious and intelligent. Beyond that crucial question, everything else is just mere details.

For instance, if someone is stuck and hanging out in, and hanging onto religious dogma at the expense of and the denial of basic observable scientific facts and wonders, and even beyond that to the great mystery... then they simply have not yet entered the 'Age of Enlightenment' so to speak.

People such as this are very similar to how humans were like, say before the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel.... except the difference here is, is that these people nowadays have NO excuse whatsoever for being so backwards and so blind and ignorant and in denial.

And the funny thing is, that on the one hand these goofbals watch TV and use modern computers etc, but yet on the other hand they continue to believe in such incredibly absurd superstitions and illusions and proven myths... rather than acknowledging simple proven scientific facts.

And thus this contradiction is so very indicative of the exteme stupidity of their religious and spiritual beliefs, and their blind faith in ridiculous obsolete superstitions and other blatant nonsense.

They even use a computer to come and visit this very blog-site... and yet they leave utterly absurd comments that reveal how stuck in ignorant dogma they still are.

So thats my anti-dogma rant for today. And if you don't like it, well then you can blame Brian because he was the one who triggered it with: "The blind faith of religious dogma is restricted to feeling its way around a horribly confined space." And if you don't think that is true, then you can just go stick your head down in that toilet where it came from and where it belongs, and then wait for Jesus to return and flush it for you.

PS: And a Happy NOW Year to one and all.

[Jayme]

Hi Rain,

I've always wanted to see auras but never have. The aura goggles that I bought at the psychic fair filtered out all the colors between blue and red but they didn't work except to make the world appear weird purple. I think any halo (aura) effect can be attributed to large aberrations inherent in the optics of the eye between the red and blue wavelengths. The black aura mirrors didn't seem to work for me either. I felt rather defective not being able to see what many at the psychic fair seemed to be saying was there. Becoming more scientific as I grew up, Kirlian photography seemed to be an active approach to seeing these auras. The images were cool and showed interesting coronal discharges that certainly differ, depending on the electrical conductivity of the object as well as the environment. I learned that energy fields exist around any and all matter and I was deeply attracted to the notion of a spiritual "force." But I still couldn't reconcile the fact that I saw no convincing affirming evidence. So, I don't believe that the aura is a manifest representation of a human "spiritual energy field" because I've never seen one in any known physical storage media that I would trust. I've seen artist drawings, read stories, and have seen cool computer renditions of what this should look like - but alas I am blind and cannot see.

So, I want to believe auras exist as a part of our spiritual bodies. After all, some people are color blind but that doesn't mean colors don't exist for me. I know there are many claims that the aura exists but is it related to the spiritual or subtle body (our ghost)? We have cameras that record photon energy in both ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths outside the normal visible frequencies but I am not convinced that aura's are a physical phenomenon that can be expressed in terms of electric, magnetic, strong, weak, or gravitational forces and I don't think that that the consensus reality agreed upon by most scientists accepts any other type of static or dynamic energy as essential to what we collectively and repeatedly observe in the lab. I've heard reference to frequencies and vibrations and crystal energies in spiritual contexts with regard to the soul, as if they have some scientific meaning, but there is no basis within the concepts offered by science to believe that these concepts are anything other than pseudoscience or psychological in nature. In any case, I've moved from the believer to skeptic, when regarding most of the "paranormal phenomena" reported.

I think that some people DO see auras as you say Rain, just as I think there are good reasons to believe phantom limbs, synthesia, and phosphenes are real experiences. There is no reason to doubt that people perceive auras. However, are they "real" apart from the observer and can these become shared experiences that can benefit others? On a broad level, science provides insight into phenomena that can provide a shared benefit as well as the personal satisfaction of "solving" a puzzle. The concept of energy as it relates to an aura either doesn't exist in a way which allows this perception to be translated into a phenomenological understanding for general consensus or these perceptions are indeed not outward manifestations of anything except as a non-transferable perception apart from storytelling. I don't know maybe storytelling is a benefit in its own right. However, it is very difficult to dispel misconceptions about reality once the story is told and gossip spreads. Look at Cold Fusion. This has small elements of truth in its origin but the "scientists" went to the public with their story before there was consensus that what they saw was what they claimed. (I think there is still ambiguity about their experiments.) I suppose if there is a point to this comment Rain, it is that people such as yourself who do perceive these phenomena could benefit the rest of us if it could be translated to some scientific vernacular and objectively demonstrated, if possible. Alternatively, if perceiving auras is a psychological phenomenon, then this is of benefit too.

I've been turned off by most psychic studies and many personal accounts (no disrespect) seem rather suspect due to inability to acquire repeatable results. On the other hand, science and its fruit are not inherently beautiful in their analyzed abstracted and dead sense - are they? It seems we need the observer as well as the observed for something to be held in beauty. Through this beauty some may get a sublime state of awareness which is that "awesome glory" Brian points out. It seems to me that others not so knowledgeable in reason may require a more poetic or artistic approach to the transcendent beholding.

So, as a dull person who can't see auras, bend spoons with my mind, and can't cause compass needles to move with thought alone - I rely almost exclusively on collective knowledge, my experience, and my own thought. I have found that testimonials may be worth investigating but may not prove a fruitful source of rational knowledge on which I can rely.

Perhaps I'll get better results with aura visualization if I hook myself up to a tesla coil, put my mood ring on and turn out the lights. At least then I'll know how I feel about this whole matter (all tingly). :)

I'm just curious Rain - when you see these auras, can you tell how a person is feeling by their aura; do you think it is related more to your own mental and physical condition; or is it a combination?

Respects,

[Rain]

No, I cannot do anything but see them (when I concentrate) and no colors but I know those who say they see colors.

The machines at the psychic fairs measure the energy from the finger and equate that with a color which they create but not literally photograph. When I first heard about such a thing, I went to a metaphysical store that had such a machine and had it done. I was quite disappointed in the colors-- a fiery red, orange, gold but nothing spiritual looking. Just to make sure it hadn't gotten more spiritual, I was at a psychic fair a few years later (the body mind spirit one in Portland) and they had a machine. I had it done again but was still the same colors which didn't make me happy although there was a bit of purple, but I console myself with not knowing it gets our real colors at all. I haven't been around someone who sees my colors to tell me.

What I see, and it's around trees, around anything living, is just like radiating light (for wont of a better word) like a kind of glow. It doesn't tell me anything about health or anything. To me it's our energy field which has made total sense it would be there since we are beings of energy which again is not a spiritual concept at all but purely what is. I believe this is why we don't always want some people right on top of us. Whether we see it or not, we feel it. Some tell me they can tell how far out the aura goes without seeing it.

What I did was started out looking at trees and concentrating on what was beyond their physical surface. It's a kind of meditating, I guess; but I don't see it as mystical at all. Some say it's why the old painters put halos around the saints. I don't know but it wouldn't just be saints who had energy fields :)

[Robert Paul Howard]

Dear Brian,

I wonder how "virtually certain facts" fit in here. (As well as judgmentalism.)

Robert Paul Howard

[Brian]

Robert, I'm not sure what you're getting at. The nature of electromagnetism certainly falls into the realm of scientifically "virtually certain facts." Well over 99.99% certain, (almost) for sure.

It isn't judgmental to say "this is a fact." Where judgement comes in is, as in the case of religion, when someone claims such and such to be a fact without any proof.

I reject the notion of false equivalence between science and faith, as neatly shown in an image on this blog post:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/12/false_equivalence.php

Reality is too valuable to be cast aside like a cheap trinket.

[Jayme]

Rain

I suppose the closest I've come to "seeing" an aura is when my mind was very still. There seemed to be a greater awareness of how people were feeling, though as I didn't actually see anything.

This sensation seemed more like the body language "spoken" in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (which was actually more than three books) but there seemed to be more elements of awareness than a simple psychology of body language.

It seems to me that the objective mechanisms, to detect and quantify your experience of the aura's energy, are dubious at best. It would be very interesting to see the data from a device that actually makes these "things" visible, if they are real, to we who are not so gifted. I expect this energy is not the same as what physics would presently claim as one of the basic forces which propagate energy but, given that auras can be seen, there is some basis for defining this as a form of energy. It might be psychic energy (i.e. in the mind) that cannot readily be separated from the observer.

I'm not very familiar with the consensus knowledge of mind/brain/body interaction but it seems that we must have some mental model within our brain which allows us to distinguish between living and non-living as projected onto some physical form. The aura might be a disconnection between the mental model and the outward form. Interfering with the brain chemistry may artificially induce this experience of seeing the aura - I don't know. People such as yourself who can see the aura might be able to control the mind so that this perceptual dissociation between the mental model and physical thing becomes apparent. Just my thoughts.

On occassion, when my mind was very still, I have observed a narrowing of the visual field (tunnel vision). However, I couldn't associate this as an objective reality since it had to do with me and my situation alone.

In any case, I'd settle for virtually certain facts since there are always a less than absolute limit to confidence when dealing with consensus reality. :)

Rain - so, you don't see these auras around inanimate objects like rocks? Only living things? (I had the tunnel vision experience for both animate and inanimate objects.)

Thank you kindly for sharing Rain.

[Rain]

I would think rocks should have them too since it's energy but when I worked on this, it was living things where I tried it. Everything is made up of energy.

I don't think it's a gift in my case. It would be when someone has it without trying. I set out to see if it was there and did it meditatively. It comes easier when you have once done it. I would guess you could do that likewise if you put some time into it. It's more an affirmation of what we are though, to me, than a spiritual tool. Possibly some can use it otherwise.

[Jayme]

I am not certain, but my hypothesis is that rocks will show auras too and that it is both a projection and an affirmation of the object form and not an intrinsic property of the object as a thing in itself.

I suppose I was thinking of ways in which the physical object could be blocked with an obscuring screen so that the aura could be objectively identified as being projected, either from the observer's mind onto the object being observed, or from the object itself. If an object or person were placed behind an obscuring screen, the emanating rays projecting out from the object or person should be observable.

Just thinking too much.

Happy New Year.

[Jayme]

This BBC 4 video program is 1 hour long but, if you have the bandwidth and are interested in matter and energy, it is well worth the watch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1406370011028154810

[Roger]

Jayme,

Thoroughly, enjoyed the video.
Thanks for submitting it.
Roger