New Realities recorded on February 5, 2008
Summary
Host Alan Steinfeld interviews Dr. Desiree Hurtak and former astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell about the evolution of consciousness. Dr. Hurtak discusses Edgar Mitchell’s early ESP experiments in space, the Global Consciousness Project, and the concept of a quantum, interconnected mind. Dr. Mitchell then shares his profound, transcendent experience (samadhi) while returning from the moon, which led him to research the relationship between mind and matter which continued in the IONS Institute. He discusses the flaws of Cartesian duality, the concept of the quantum hologram, and the necessity for humanity to evolve its consciousness and become a sustainable, space-faring civilization.
Transcript
Alan Steinfeld
Welcome to New Realities. My name is Alan Steinfeld, and this is a very special broadcast of the program. I have two exciting, interesting people on the show today who are really part of the evolution of consciousness on this planet. I’ll be talking first to Desiree Hurtak, Dr. Desiree Hurtak, about the mixing of spirit and consciousness. And then the second half I’ll be talking to astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who’s just released a re-released of his book, the second edition of the book called The Way of the Explorer. And he is the founder of the Institute of Noetic Science, which is all, which is devoted to consciousness, science, spirituality. But first Desiree, Dr. Desiree, are you there?
Desiree Hurtak
Yes, Alan, pleasure to be on the show. I really appreciate the work of astronaut Edgar Mitchell. And of course, he was the first who really started to do these ESP experiments beyond the outside the box of the psychics and the weirdos and things like that. He actually did it out in space. I think you know that.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, he did. It’s actually mentioned in his book, The Way of the Explorer, that he started to explore the levels of consciousness while he was still in the kind of mechanistic paradigm of the world, but he started to reach out into something else being possible.
Desiree Hurtak
In fact, he did it out in outer space and he was approached by a couple… I worked in connection with Andrija Puharich back in the 70s. And of course, Andrea introduced Edgar to Uri Geller. But he was approached by a couple doctors at the time, Dr. Boyle and Dr. Maxey. And they said to him, when you’re out in space, at some free time, maybe you can look at a couple of symbols, make some sort of random symbol situation, and send that energy back here. Let’s see if we can pick them up. And that’s exactly what he did. He did a private experiment while he was in outer space.
Alan Steinfeld
And what was the result of that experiment?
Desiree Hurtak
Well, I’ll let him tell you. I think it was very, very positive, which is what kicked off his entire next career after being an astronaut into the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, of course, he had that epiphany in space, and that is what I’ll be talking to him about, how for a moment, he got his cosmic connection with all of existence, which is, which is what a lot… I mean, you don’t have to be in outer space traveling back to Earth to have that connection. But that opened it up for him. But, you know, the work that I’m doing and you’re doing is to have people realize that connection here, in this moment.
Desiree Hurtak
I agree with that. But there’s something to be said about being outside. Like, the sages used to go into the caves to get away from the cacophony of all the thoughts of the earth. And I think that’s why Edgar Mitchell works with what he calls a quantum hologram. He also feels there’s this kind of collective mind. We call it the quantum mind. And this is that we’re all interconnected. We’re all linked in some way.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, that cannot be explained though by Western science. And this is the critical moment that we’re up against now, right?
Desiree Hurtak
Exactly. But I think scientists are starting to see this, as we were talking before the show, Alan, of course. There’s a global consciousness project at Princeton University. And they showed in their what they call random event generators, the REGs, or they also call them eggs. That even prior to 9-11, in fact, four hours prior to 9-11, there was something in the consciousness of the planet that they these eggs, which are situated throughout the world, especially in the area of the Northeast, started picking up on. So there’s something not only in terms of the interconnectedness of random things that normally take place that we have an effect on through the thoughts of the mind, but also we can actually do it in advance of events, which is really scary for many people.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, it is scary, I mean, to know that people, we were picking up subconsciously collectively is what this random event generator… that something critical was going to happen four hours before it happened. We have to rework our theories of what consciousness is, which is what Edgar Mitchell’s work has been about since he left the astronaut space program. But still, there doesn’t seem to be a real solid theory… I mean, there’s a non-locality that Mitchell talks about, but how do we explain this, Desiree?
Desiree Hurtak
Well, of course, my husband, Dr. Hurtak, has worked on a book with Russell Targ called The End of Suffering. And they talk about this whole idea of the non-local mind. Now, this is something that goes back to the ancient Buddhist philosophies, but also ties into today’s reality of Schrodinger’s cat. So scientists are starting to understand this. They’re starting to see, yes, there could be some logic to the fact that there is this interconnectedness. I call it a quantum interconnectedness.
Alan Steinfeld
Let’s just, I just wanted to ask you about Schrodinger’s cat. That experiment by Schrodinger said, let’s say we put a cat in a box and there’s poison in the box with the cat. Either the cat is dead or it’s alive after a certain amount of time, right?
Desiree Hurtak
Well, it goes one step further. And this is where Roger Nelson from the Global Consciousness Project picked up, is that the idea is that the observer, you looking at the box actually makes the final determination. And what they’ve noticed, and this is what Princeton started with their whole idea, is that you can affect an event. You can make it, if I think the cat is dead, the cat is more likely to be dead. Is that it? Because…
Desiree Hurtak
Well, it’s just the fact that the researcher actually can affect the event. Actually what it is, is atomic nuclear radiation is coming in to the cat’s box. And if he’s hit by one, he’s killed. If he’s not hit by one, he’s not killed. And the idea is that just like healing someone, you can actually make a change in the reality structure as the observer. And so this is what we’re talking about with all these realities. In fact, Edgar Mitchell not only has looked at the psychic connection that we all have with one another, but he wants to see how what’s called psychokinesis, where you can actually move objects or bend forks and spoons such as Uri Geller did.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, what theory… I mean, is there like a theory like, you know, Newton has a theory of the laws of physics. Do you think it ever will be possible to formulate a theory that is based on this kind of subjective experience?
Desiree Hurtak
No, I definitely think so. And I think it’s going beyond really theory. There’s a lot of events going on that shows how interconnected we are, such as with quantum physics, that you can have two particles that break apart, and yet one particle is completely still related to another particle even at a distance. So this just, you take one more quantum leap and you get into what the humans are doing.
Alan Steinfeld
The quantum entanglement, I think this is Dean Radin’s work with his new book, Entangled Minds.
Desiree Hurtak
But it actually of course comes before that with experiments done by a man called Bell and some other additional scientists who have actually confirmed this in laboratory tests. So we’re not talking about things that are far out. We’re just trying to get it so that people on the planet really realize they have a potential, they have a power. And of course, part of our work, my work with my husband Dr. Hurtak in The Keys of Enoch and our studies with Future Science…
Alan Steinfeld
Right, Future Science, the Hurtak website, as well, right? Is that how…
Desiree Hurtak
futurescience.org. We also worked with Uri Geller in the past. And of course that was something that Edgar Mitchell also did. And Mitchell actually asked Uri because he was getting a little frustrated to see if he could bring back a camera that he had left on the moon. Well, Uri didn’t bring back the camera, but what he did bring back was two tie clips that were definitely Edgar Mitchell’s. So this idea really shocked…
Alan Steinfeld
He transported that?
Desiree Hurtak
He transported it, exactly. And this is what shocked Mitchell. Why couldn’t he bring back the camera? I, you know, personally from our work with Uri, he’s not in total control of these things. It’s really entities and energies that are working around him that do some of this with him. He doesn’t always like to admit that, but when you really get down to it, he’s not alone in what he’s doing.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, it’s true. Even when I interviewed Hal Puthoff, and they were doing work with Uri Geller, he talked about how Uri couldn’t actually reproduce the experiments in the laboratory. But outside the laboratory, they were playing with a deck of cards, and they opened this new deck, and the cards fell, and they fell actually through the table they were at. And it was some kind of weird phenomena. It was as if the cards were… half of them went through the table, and half of them… they were like, cut in half. And it was a phenomenon that Hal Puthoff could not explain, and I don’t even think they documented it, but he told me a personal story where he witnessed this. And Uri didn’t know how it happened. So it’s true, Uri is not in complete control, but there is phenomena happening around him.
Desiree Hurtak
Well, he had some very unique experiences with other levels of intelligence, and many of his close associates, especially Andrija Puharich back in the 70s who introduced him to the US, strongly believes that they are the ones in control and actually trying to get Uri into helping humanity, perhaps using this for very positive energy reasons for helping the planet.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, he did have UFO sightings in the desert, in the Sinai. And actually, I just talked to a healer named Zev Kolman, who also… he had UFO sightings in the desert in the Sinai, in around the same area that Uri Geller did, and after those sightings, he became a world class healer.
Desiree Hurtak
I want to say this is all part of that quantum mind. When you can link your mind with these higher levels of intelligence, we believe… well, you could say the angelic forces or the Godhead, depending on your religious beliefs. We feel you’re opening up a whole another level of reality to yourself. Normally, we’re closed off, we’re just here, we’re just concerned about the people around us. But the whole idea of what Edgar Mitchell’s talking about is to open yourself up to a universal reality, a universal mind, and then tap into that. And use discernment as well. I think that’s extremely important.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, part of your work, you and your husband, is the fact that we are this universal mind, that we’ve been conditioned to think that we’re not. And in the book, The End of Suffering, they talk about this expansion of consciousness, which is our essential being. And do you think it was an organized sort of plot to keep us from knowing that, or is it just part of our evolutionary cycle?
Desiree Hurtak
Well, in a sense, it is our evolutionary cycle to awaken ourselves to realize that we are part of a global mindset, a universal mindset. But we also feel in some cases, there was the fall. And that fall was into this limited mindset. It’s as simple as that. We were much more universal at one point, but coming to this planetary system, coming into the field of this earth, we have actually entrapped ourselves into this ongoing cycle of creation. And that was what’s so interesting about Edgar Mitchell, getting off the planet, being in space, he probably could be more sensitive. I think there were you could ask him a couple other astronauts also had similar experiences of this universal consciousness when you’re out of this earth dimension.
Alan Steinfeld
I actually am going to ask him that. We should get him on the phone.
Desiree Hurtak
Yeah, go ahead, Alan. Thank you for calling. Have a great show and we’ll talk to you later.
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you, Desiree. Desiree Hurtak. Okay. Well, now I will be talking to the astronaut, Edgar Mitchell. Do we have Edgar on the phone? He is the author of the new book of his re-release of his book called The Way of the Explorer. Hello, Don? Don? Don? Do you have your guest?
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you. Hello, Dr. Mitchell?
Edgar Mitchell
Yes. How are you?
Alan Steinfeld
Thank you for being a guest on New Realities. This is Alan Steinfeld.
Edgar Mitchell
I’m glad to be. What’s up to you, Alan. How are you today?
Alan Steinfeld
Yeah, I met you last year. I went down there to visit you with Jane Jinnew to talk about the Edgar Awards, which I have the tape of.
Edgar Mitchell
Oh, yes, yes, yes. I remember that now, of course.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. So I just want to introduce you and say that this is, welcome to New Realities. We’re talking to Dr. Edgar Mitchell, former astronaut, author of the book, The Way of the Explorer, which has just been re-released by the publishing company is Career. Career Press. It’s a beautiful book. It’s about your evolution, I would say, from being the mechanistic hardcore scientist to one that’s exploring consciousness. And the amazing thing about your work, Dr. Mitchell, is how you ran as far out as man could go away from the earth as externalized, and now you’ve investigated the internal phenomena. So, in a sense, it’s a real balance between the outer and inner worlds. Is that how you see it?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, yes, but also when you start to get a big picture point of view, which is what we do when we get out to space, it makes you it changes your thinking about it. At least it has for an awful lot of us.
Alan Steinfeld
An awful lot of the astronauts? I mean, you are one of the few people to actually stand on another world. Was there a certain quality? This is what I’ve always wondered. Was there a quality to the presence you felt actually standing on the moon?
Edgar Mitchell
No, it was more more on the way back when things were relaxed. The mission was essentially complete and we had time to be contemplative and to look at the heavens and to enjoy the magnificent panorama of the heavens from that point of view. That was when for me it was most impressive when all the work was done.
Alan Steinfeld
And at that point, you describe it, and you’ve described it in many occasions, that there was that transcendental moment where everything, I guess you just felt you were one with existence. Could you describe that again?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, of course. It was a realization from my training in astronomy at Harvard and MIT, when I was doing my doctoral work, what we knew at that point in time, and remember that’s over 50 years ago, that the molecules in my body and the molecules in the spacecraft had been prototyped and perhaps manufactured in some ancient generation of stars. That’s how matter is organized. Matter is made, heavy matter is. And I suddenly realized those were my molecules, and instead of being intellectual it was suddenly very personal and visceral. And it caused me to rethink about what is all of this, what’s going on here. And that was the moment, I guess, that planted the seed for this investigation into consciousness? Well, the experience was so vivid and so powerful, and that experience is accompanied by an ecstasy of bliss, a wow. And only after I came back to earth, and still, and this happened for three days coming home when I was, didn’t have other work to do, to distract me, I got a chance to look at the heavens.
Alan Steinfeld
You were in bliss for three days, you said?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, coming home, yeah. Every time I got to look out the window and enjoy the scenery a little bit, this experience would present itself and I didn’t know what to make of it. So when I came home, I started looking in the literature of science and could find nothing. And then the literature of religion could find nothing. And I got some professors, anthropologists over at the Rice University, who I got to know, and described what was going on, and I really needed to understand, try to understand what was happening. So they started digging in the ancient literature and came up with the Sanskrit from ancient India of an experience called the Savikalpa Samadhi. And I said, well, what is that supposed to mean? And they said, well, it’s an experience where you see things in their separateness, like you do with your eyes, but you experience them internally as a unity, as a oneness, and it’s accompanied by ecstasy. And I said, well, that’s exactly what I was feeling. And so I did more research on this and started talking to people in every culture, different cultures, since this came out of an ancient culture. And got to talk to shamans and witch doctors and the kahuna and the so-called wise men of different cultures and discovered that virtually every culture on earth has in their lore, somewhere, these types of transcendental experiences. And I realized very suddenly that that type of experience, because it is so difficult to explain, and particularly to people who have not had it, that the attempt to describe it and to make practical use of it, let’s call that the exoteric description of an esoteric experience. And that seems to be the basis of religion.
Alan Steinfeld
It is a basis of religion. Did other astronauts have this as well? Did you talk to any of your colleagues?
Edgar Mitchell
Yeah, I’ve talked to quite a few. Now, and very much like religion, many of us had that type of experience, particularly those in the lunar module pilot position like I was, that had finished their work on the surface and had a little bit more time to relax coming home. And a number have talked about, you know, a world without boundaries and the beauty of the Earth and the ecstasy of seeing it. And as a matter of fact that very quietly has written a book about it called The Overview Effect many years ago now. And it was basically that type of experience, but we all put our own twist on it. Right. Myself being more inclined toward philosophy and science, I put a more philosophic and scientific twist on it. And some of the others being more steeped in their traditional religious thinking put that sort of a twist on it. But by and large, it was the same experience.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, you did a great thing though, also by using your scientific bent, you started the Institute of Noetic Science, which is a way to start to bridge this phenomenon that was just documented in the East to make it a part of the consciousness of the Western mind. And do you want to talk about that inspiration?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, yeah, let me talk about that just a minute and get our readers up to speed. You see, since Newtonian times and Cartesian times actually of Rene Descartes back in the late 16th century, and he came to the conclusion that body, mind, physicality, spirituality belonged to two different realms of reality. And never the twain, that they didn’t interact. And that served a very noble purpose. It got the Inquisition of the time off the backs of the intellectuals so they quit burning people at the stake, like Giordano Bruno, and Copernicus had the good sense to pass on before he got burned.
Alan Steinfeld
But locking Galileo up and all that, yeah.
Edgar Mitchell
Right. But the Cartesian duality then kind of freed up the intellectuals of the period to investigate physical properties of nature as long as they stayed away from mind, spirit, consciousness and those sorts of things. So for 400 years that has been the case. Mind and consciousness have been theological and philosophical or even epistemology, how do we know what we know, but not subject for science. And I realized now that we’re a space-faring civilization, we probably need to get past that and that the tools of science were really needed to understand why are we conscious at all and that people forever have asked the question who are we, how did we get here, where are we going. And I thought now as a space-faring civilization we need to re-ask that, so that’s what I started doing.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, and that’s where we start to understand levels of consciousness that exist as a sort of more subjective reality. You called it something like the holographic mind or the non-locality of consciousness. Do you want to go into a little bit of that?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, yeah, those are properties of the quantum world that we really only started to investigate in the 20th century. And even in the early 20th century, even though the earliest work in quantum mechanics suggested the intersection of mind and matter and that observation had an effect on matter at a subatomic level. We’ve been loath to address that subject for almost 80 years now. But that’s when I came back from the moon, that was what I was trying to do. But particularly looking at the so-called psychic stuff, which was really a slap in the face to modern science because they said that can’t be, can’t be.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, it can’t be because… And you, I know, I mean you’ve done experiments. It can’t explain it. So I mean that’s the problem when someone’s so attached to the old paradigm. I mean you talk about the experiments you did with Uri Geller where you wanted your camera back from the moon, but he was able to transport somehow your tie clips.
Edgar Mitchell
Right. Exactly. A rather interesting, funny thing. Right.
Alan Steinfeld
But we can’t explain how did he do that. I mean there’s no scientific explanation for that.
Edgar Mitchell
Oh yes, there is. We’re getting to the point where we can handle it pretty well now.
Alan Steinfeld
We can?
Edgar Mitchell
Yeah. It is a quantum phenomenon. There have been books written on intentionality now, and this phenomenon of quantum coherence. Well, let’s start with basic stuff. We put people in screened chambers where electromagnetic signals can’t get across. And brainwaves of people that are sympatica go into sync when you do that, if they are being set up with measured brainwaves. And lovers, mother child, twins, it’s called the twin effect, which we know pretty well. That on any given day twins, even though around the world from each other, may be thinking the same thoughts, dressing the same way. It’s a well-known phenomenon.
Alan Steinfeld
Right.
Edgar Mitchell
So, but what is not known, you see, is that this information gets across Faraday cage screening. In other words, a screen in an isolation chamber that doesn’t let electromagnetic signals like radio and television waves get through, but does let these type of thoughts get through, and does let gravitation get through. And these are quantum phenomena.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, because it’s probably not about distance at all, is the non-local…
Edgar Mitchell
It’s not about distance, no. It’s non-local stuff, right.
Alan Steinfeld
That’s a new way of looking at the world.
Edgar Mitchell
Yeah, now being able to show by experimental means with the tools of science that that’s what it is, then we can go slightly different way on all of this now.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, it takes a reevaluation of the worldview and the paradigms that have existed in science to incorporate new theories. It really takes a whole new formulation of the nature of reality, which is what you do go into in this book. But still it doesn’t seem like we have a formula for this subjective experience. Maybe it’s not possible.
Edgar Mitchell
Well, no, that’s quite true. I can’t write an equation right now for how intentionality propagates. But the fact is that it is a quantum coherence, and we know that. And the fact that we can transfer energy in quantum entanglement in this way, and that the phenomenon of healing does take place in this way. And I’ve not only investigated this, but personally experienced it. So that we know we’re dealing with real phenomenon here.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, the big thing about it all, and we can talk about formulas and all that, is that the actual human being is then seen as something greater than what the previous science has made us out to be, you know what I mean?
Edgar Mitchell
Yes. Well, the whole interaction of mind, matter is coming under reevaluation, new understanding and so forth. We have to change our paradigm in science to account for this.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, we do. And I think your work is a major element of it. I mean there’s so many anomalies that have not been accounted for. Even, and you mentioned it briefly because you were born in Roswell, the whole UFO phenomenon, what could you tell us, I mean you haven’t seen any, but you’ve been briefed about it. Can you give us a little background on what you know?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, what I know about it is it’s a real phenomenon. We have been visited. And the governments of the world, including primarily our own, but others too, have kept this under wraps for at least the last 60 years. Why have they kept it under wraps? Well, I can’t say that I know for certain all the answers to this because that’s not my field of study, but I can give you a pretty good answer.
Alan Steinfeld
Sure.
Edgar Mitchell
At that time in our country, certainly, we had just finished World War II. The Army Air Corps had been essentially separated and became a separate force called the US Air Force. The Office of Special Services, OSS, was shut down and transformed eventually to become the CIA. So nobody, when the so-called Roswell incident took place, nobody in authority really knew what to do about it. And the concern was that if it was really hostile, we were in trouble, because we didn’t know what to do about it. We couldn’t defend. So as is often the case with government, it was hushed up and declared secret. All sorts of excuses given. I mean we see that so often in government, that shouldn’t be a surprise. But it’s been going that way for the last almost 60 years now. And I think it’s about to open up because people are more open to it, people are more expecting of it, more incidents have taken place. And I’m not convinced now that all of those evident incidents are really visitations. There’s probably home-grown stuff, some of them at least.
Alan Steinfeld
But did Gordon Cooper talk to you about his experiences?
Edgar Mitchell
Oh yes, I know all of Gordy’s experiences. The fact is I know most of the people’s experiences. The fact is many people who were in the Air Force, in flying positions, airline pilots, military pilots, have encountered these type phenomena, some have even been vectored to chase them in fighter type aircraft.
Alan Steinfeld
No, there’s just a whole bunch of sightings over Stephenville, Texas, where hundreds of people saw… you’re aware of that, right?
Edgar Mitchell
Yes, I am not… I’m not too up to speed on that. I was pretty busy the last week or so. And I frankly didn’t pay any attention to it. So…
Alan Steinfeld
But you know it’s just another anomaly. It seems like if the government was to acknowledge first that they had a part in covering up, but also that they exist, it would be a truly Copernican revolution in the same sense that we were no longer the center of the world, which we still think we are, of creation.
Edgar Mitchell
I think the public is becoming more and more attuned to the fact that that’s not really true.
Alan Steinfeld
But I think it really hooks in with the work at the Institute of Noetic Science and the work you explore in this book about how consciousness, it’s not only non-local, but it’s not necessarily confined to this planet.
Edgar Mitchell
Oh, of course not. No, that’s true.
Alan Steinfeld
So is there a way you see to work in this phenomenon with the theories that you’ve developed and have been a part of developing?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, I think all we need to start doing is accepting, and recognizing that the universe, as the Hubble Telescope pictures have shown us, is markedly more vast and intricate and wonderful and puzzling than we’ve ever believed. And that we’d better wake up and try to understand it and take advantage of it and be part of the bigger world.
Alan Steinfeld
And that consciousness itself is a part of that world.
Edgar Mitchell
Oh yes. Well, and understanding why we’re conscious at all, how it evolved, that’s a part of the studies that I’ve been most intimately interested and involved in. How did consciousness evolve? What is it? How do we express it?
Alan Steinfeld
That’s the big, well, that first question is the big question. Is consciousness a byproduct of matter coming together or is it an epiphenomenon that precedes matter? That’s the question.
Edgar Mitchell
Well, I think we still don’t have a good answer to that, but you say an epiphenomenon, you’re really saying it’s an accident, that’s what epiphenomenon means.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, I don’t mean that. I mean was it the thing that caused matter to exist in the first place?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to answer that question in the very near term. However, the postulate that I put forth, and it still has to be tested, but it certainly is… I mean it has to be more generally accepted… is the fact that quantum correlation of particles even at the inanimate particle level… the quantum correlation of particles that have been in process together and go across the universe from each other. This process of entanglement and non-locality suggest that… and we have used for many, many years in quotation marks the word that one particle knows what happens to the other one because they respond to each other. Well, I think we should accept that that’s probably the most fundamental aspect of awareness that we can demonstrate in nature. And that why don’t we just quit beating around the bush and say that is the most fundamental aspect of awareness. And what we call consciousness is simply an extension of that into the macro world and to a more complex molecular structure. And eventually it evolves to be a brain in living systems.
Alan Steinfeld
So you are saying then, and what I’ve also thought in other readings, is that consciousness sort of pervades the space of the universe. It is sort of the substance if it can connect one particle on one side of the universe with something else. It’s the medium of existence in a sense.
Edgar Mitchell
Let’s take a first step. The first step is it demonstrates, all of this demonstrates that everything in the universe is interconnected informationally. There’s an informational connection here that we still don’t really know how to explain, but it’s there nevertheless. And it’s a wonderfully exciting thing, but it’s still very, very mysterious.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, you know the word information doesn’t, according to Marshall McLuhan he said it doesn’t mean data, it means pattern in formation.
Edgar Mitchell
Yeah. Pattern of energy. Right.
Alan Steinfeld
So is this the work you’re continuing to do now? What are you working on?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, it’s exactly that. We have discovered, or what was discovered in Germany by a colleague by the name of Dr. Walter Schempp in Germany about 10 years ago, was a phenomenon called the quantum hologram, which seems to be a very basic aspect of nature’s quantum information system. We’ve been exploring that and trying to develop that over here the last few years, and my research at this moment is far more concerned with precisely doing that. Developing that to expand this whole notion of quantum entanglement, which has for the last 80 years been considered to only be relevant at the subatomic level. But here we’re seeing it is relevant at all levels of nature.
Alan Steinfeld
And what does that do then for who we are as beings, if that is true?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, for me, and this is kind of a metaphor, but this demonstrates I think, and will help us demonstrate, that what we’ve called the mystical world is largely contained and largely explainable and expressible within the realm of quantum physics. And using this quantum holographic formalism, it’s a mechanism in nature. Let me give another little analogy to help get the idea across. We call our intuition our sixth sense. If what we’re correct in saying here, we should call intuition our first sense, because quantum information and quantum entanglement was around before our solar system and our planet were even formed.
Alan Steinfeld
So we’re dealing with a very primitive phenomenon, and it’s the basis of all our perceptual capabilities. So you are saying then consciousness precedes all things in a sense.
Edgar Mitchell
Well, I would state it slightly differently. That consciousness evolves right along with the universe and matter. That we didn’t start out with living systems with a brain. They had to evolve, and they had to be evolved in an environment conducive to survival. And it turns out, papers have now been written quite a numbers that demonstrate that nature is a learning system. It’s not just a randomly mutating system, changing system like Darwin thought. No, it’s a learning system. And the papers have been written on that, that’s been demonstrated. So we’re facing a real change in our understanding of how all this takes place.
Alan Steinfeld
It does come somewhat back to the equation of consciousness equals God almost, in a sense that…
Edgar Mitchell
Well, people can say that and people do say that.
Alan Steinfeld
But that’s such an awful word because it has so many bad connotations these days.
Edgar Mitchell
I don’t quite go that far, but some do of course.
Alan Steinfeld
But I think so the quantum hologram then is, I like what you said about the evolution of consciousness along with the evolution of matter and space and time. And that means we still have potentials to evolve continuously.
Edgar Mitchell
Of course.
Alan Steinfeld
But there’s so many anomalies that seem to not even fit into that. I mean the goal of science is to include anomalies that make it a greater expression of our interpretation of the world. What have we not figured out yet?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, let’s realize we’re just barely out of the trees. The scientists at the end of the 19th century made the proclamation that virtually all the laws of physics have been discovered. And how wrong could they possibly be? I mean it’s getting more and more complex every day, and we realize that the universe is far more complex than we’ve ever thought about it.We have only started to unravel what nature is all about. And with the Hubble telescope and the other visions of this greater universe that we can see with our modern equipment, we just see how vast and complex it is and we’re still babes in the woods.
Alan Steinfeld
But even the moon has anomalies they can’t explain, right?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, we haven’t had enough time there to unravel those yet.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. But are there some anomalies about the moon because you’re sort of the moon expert about it being hollow when it hits, being hit by a meteor? Have you heard those?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, there are questions that we haven’t really done enough…
Alan Steinfeld
I know. I mean, there’s so many different anomalies that have yet to be solved. I mean, your main focus is in the field of trying to understand and make it explainable for the rest of the public this idea of the quantum hologram and our connection through consciousness. And just one last question, how do you think this will then change as it filters down to the mass public who we are as a civilization? By having this awareness of consciousness, how will that then change who we are in the world as a civilization?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, let’s hope that it will help us as we understand this and we understand the problem, that civilization right now is not on a sustainable course. That we are gobbling up our resources at an alarming rate. China and India are coming online and aspiring to the lifestyle of the West. And our planet and the environments being damaged, species are being extinguished at an alarming rate. So we’re not on a sustainable path. And what I’m hoping is that we will wake up and realize we got to do something about it.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, with the worldview of being part of this consciousness, this quantum hologram, it seems like we can be more responsible for our connection to all things. I think that’s what you’re saying.
Edgar Mitchell
That’s the thing we have to learn, is that our responsibility to ourselves, to each other, and to the planet, and to Gaia as a whole. That we’ve too often in the past thought that we could mess it up and God would clean it up. And haven’t seen that happening yet. We’re going to have to clean up our own mess.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. So I think it’s very important the worldview that you’re presenting with this work will show us that, you know, Darwin was wrong. We are not, in my opinion, an accident of creation, but an intention set out for evolution.
Edgar Mitchell
No, I agree. This is a… I use a phrase to express this. From all we can see at the moment, we live in a universe that is intelligent, creative, self-organizing, learning, participatory, non-locally connected, and interactive. An evolutionary system. Takes all of those words to express it.
Alan Steinfeld
Well, thank you, Dr. Mitchell. Can I just ask you, do you ever miss the moon? Do you feel like you want to go back there?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, there’s a little story about that if we have time. I was asked when John Glenn went back into space a few years ago at 77, if I wanted to go back. And I said, well, sure, but I’m going to wait until I’m 100 and beat John’s record. It was kind of a smartass remark and a throwaway, but it kind of got out in the public and it keeps coming back. So maybe I’ll have to do it.
Alan Steinfeld
That would be great. Why do you think we never went back to the moon? Do you think…
Dr. Edgar Mitchell
Because our political system and the public said, ho-hum, been there, done that, what’s in it for me to go back? And of course, the scientists are saying, hey, we’ve just got started.
Alan Steinfeld
Right. Well, thank you. I hope we do go back. And Mars, people are talking about going to Mars.
Dr. Edgar Mitchell
Well, we are. You know, we got another minute or so?
Alan Steinfeld
Sure, sure, sure.
Edgar Mitchell
If you think about the ancient Phoenicians, when they started exploring the Mediterranean in their frail boats, and then after that the South Sea Islanders started exploring the vast Pacific in their dugout canoes. And it was only in our lifetime, the last century, that we started to go into the air. And I tell a little story about my great-grandparents who went across from Georgia to West Texas after our Civil War in the 1870s in a covered wagon. They had horses, a few cattle, started a herd, and the railroads weren’t complete across the south and the west. Automobiles hadn’t been invented. The electric light hadn’t been invented. My father was born shortly after the Wright brothers flew the first flight, and I went to the moon. So from covered wagons to going to the moon in a hundred years. That’s what this modern period has been about. And we haven’t slowed down yet, but unfortunately, the bad fallout of it is we’re growing and changing so fast that we’re destroying the environment around us.
Alan Steinfeld
But I think we are going to change that course of… doesn’t have to be our destiny. I mean, from what you’re saying, the human being, the instinct in the human being is the way of the explorer. Look how we’ve covered the planet.
Edgar Mitchell
Of course.
Alan Steinfeld
And so going to Mars, going to the stars is just a natural instinct of…
Edgar Mitchell
That is our next step, and of course, eventually, we will go out from this planet. Papers have all been written, they’re already being prepared that we will be a space-faring civilization in this century. And, you know, our planet and our solar system aren’t going to last forever. It will burn out. So if our species is to survive this natural phenomenon of the solar system burning out, we’re going to have to be off of this planet in some time. Now, it’s a ways down the road, so we don’t have to be in a rush, save for a few billionaires, but nevertheless, our destiny is to explore.
Alan Steinfeld
It definitely is. And thank you for being one of, you know, this age’s greatest explorers. Your exploration of the outer world and the inner world, that’s also the key to both those explorations.
Edgar Mitchell
Both are required here, yep.
Alan Steinfeld
So this new revised edition of The Way of the Explorer, can you just give me a little, what did you revise about?
Edgar Mitchell
Well, I just brought a few things up to date and talked a little bit about some more modern work, a few people that passed away that are important in all of this, and acknowledged them. So it isn’t a major revision, but it is updating from the last revision. There’s been four revisions to this book.
Alan Steinfeld
It’s still a very valuable book talking about the non-locality of consciousness, your story going from a mechanism to more of a mystical paradigm. It’s still an excellent learning tool. So thank you. I’ve been talking to Edgar Mitchell, astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who is just out with the revised edition of The Way of the Explorer by Career Press. This is Alan Steinfeld for New Realities. This conversation will be up online on bbsradio.com archives or my website, newrealities.com. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Edgar. I really appreciate it.
Edgar Mitchell
Talk to you again. Thank you, Alan.
Alan Steinfeld
Okay. Talk to you. Bye.