Chapter Summary

This chapter introduces readers to the “biggest discovery in the history of physics,” which remains virtually unknown to the general public, namely that matter and consciousness are somehow interrelated, discovered only late last century. That discovery allows us to take a new perspective on medicine powers, which is detailed in this chapter.

Chapter 1

Superstition, but Whose?

Bending the Rules of Science

Now the rule of science in this case dictates that if you cannot scientifically explain supernatural events, you cannot declare them to be real. No problem there. However, that is only half of the rule! It is the other half that scientists have chosen to ignore. That part says that you cannot dismiss any observed phenomena until you prove that it does not exist. In the same manner then, there is no scientific proof that supernatural events do not occur. Consequently, without scientific proof either way, one can only make an assumption. You can either assume supernaturalism is not real or you can assume that it is real. In either case, your belief is based on faith, not fact. In both cases you only have a working hypothesis. However, scientists have taken the assumption that supernaturalism is not real for nearly two centuries. After such a long period of time this view has become so one-sided, they now take their assumption as fact. For example, I have never read of an anthropologist who declared that spirits and their powers are real because science can’t prove they don’t exist. That sounds absurd, but so does the decrying of the supernaturalism as not real.

Does God Play Dice with the Universe?

One of the great ironies of 20th century physics was that “the very man who from 1928 onward was to say so many times, ‘God does not play dice,’ was the first to show that ‘God does play dice.’”

What most people probably don't know is why Einstein made this claim in the first place. It was not a scientific fact, but rather his end of a philosophical debate with physicist Neils Bohr, and other physicists, about the nature of the universe based on the data coming from quantum mechanics. Their debate began in the late 1920's. By then Einstein had proved that there was no absolute space and time in the universe, and in so doing he had opened up a vast, uncharted territory in physics that gave rise to quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.

Einstein never lived to see this debate settled, and for many years most physicists believed it impossible to devise an experiment in which the oddities of quantum mechanics could be tested. It was not until 1964, 36 years after the debate began, when Scotch mathematician John L. Bell published the first mathematical proof that could put the debate to experimental tests. It was a tremendous break through in physics, certainly the largest in the last century. Known as Bell's Inequality (or Bell's theorem), it would determine if Einstein and most physicists had been right. If Einstein was correct, the experiment would not reveal the sought after hidden variable, it would only prove that the Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation was wrong. Needless to say, Bell was certain that experimental tests of his proof would vindicate Einstein. That is, Bell did not believe that consciousness had any role in reality.

The final nail in the coffin came in a March, 1999 article in Nature entitled, "Bell's Inequality test: more ideal than ever." In this one and a half page article, Alain Aspect, from the University of Paris-South in Orsay, France, announced the conclusions of his team's experiment, conducted at Innsbruck, that most closely aligned with the requirements of Bell's theorem. Again, the results were in favor of the observer effect. These finding now tell physicists "that something about the way we had imagined the world to work must be wrong...We must recognize that objective reality is a flawed concept, that state vector collapse does arise from some interaction with the observer, and that indeed consciousness is a negotiable instrument of reality. Our entire conception of reality must now be rethought.”

The Physics of Shamanism

Quite frankly, most physicists did not want reality to turn out the way it has. I suspect that was their main incentive behind the repeated, improved experimental tests of Bell's inequality. They wanted a mechanical universe and didn’t find it. Even more problematic has been the question of where to go with this new view. How do you construct a consciousness meter?

The first step is to begin with the assumption that their medicine powers are real—the taboo point of view. From there we look for correlations between the observer effect and the actions of shamans. That is, can the observer effect be used to hypothesize why shamans do what they do in ceremony? In so doing, this must not be mistaken as a proof for the existence of medicine powers, but simply a hypothetical means for better understanding their nature, a way to explain them rather than simply assuming them to be the result of “magical thinking” as anthropologists are fond of noting.

As it turns out, Newtonian physics simply does not apply to shamanism. It is the quantum level of reality that shamans tap into with their consciousness via trance-induction techniques. This is quite consistent with native views of reality where there is a spirit world (non-ordinary reality) and there is this world (ordinary reality). To put it another way, shamans have mastered the art of altering their consciousness to attain an SSC (shamanic state of consciousness) in which they are able to "view" this underlying operational level of the universe. In so doing, the content of their "view" and the determination put to it (the will of the shaman) are what serve to select quantum level probabilities. Shamanism is a complex process whereby a human being (or one's helping spirits) generates an observation at the quantum level, such that the ritual being performed will alter the course of ordinary reality by causing a specific state vector collapse. What shamans must do during ceremony is follow the "spirit rules.” To deviate in any manner from the given rules always results in failure of the ceremony. The question here is to what extent are these rules based in quantum mechanics? In the quote at the beginning, White Wolf declares that these laws do not change. With this in mind we need to take a particularly close look at what native shamans do across the board during ceremony, regardless of what culture they are from. Once we have a clear notion of what those actions are, we need to see if they follow the rules of quantum mechanics that serve to activate the observer effect.

Scientific Inquiry

Every shamanic ceremony is in essence a scientific experiment, crude as it may appear to our eyes. My sense is that their ceremonies rarely fail, and it is the efficacy of their art that has caused it to stand the test of time. American Indians were too pragmatic to waste their time on difficult undertakings that failed. The primary piece of laboratory equipment is human consciousness, and it has to be used with great precision. A sustained personal will (observation) is what forms this precision. In this sense the route of scientific enquiry went in a great circle. It began with shamans using their consciousness and eventually came back around to our discovery of consciousness and matter being intertwined.

Reality and the Observer Effect

Knowing that the observer effect is real begets the question of how it operates. What is the interrelationship between what is observed and how you observe it? What does it have to do with anyone else who is also making an observation?

These types of “paranormal” changes in reality are the result of observation being made on a continuous stream of events at the quantum level. Walker’s view of how this happens is as follows: "Objective reality actually exists as a collection of potentialities [Einstein's "dice" possibilities] like pages in a book…these states are selected as whole pages non locally, irrespective of spatial relationships...this state selection process (the pages pulled from the book) is caused by observation, which ultimately means the consciousness of the observer. And we have seen [via research in neurophysiology] that the [human] consciousness is a quantum mechanical process that has associated with it a will channel that connects our consciousness experience to those events in the outside world to bring about state vector collapse. The will selects the state of the brain that we consciously experience, and the global nature of quantum mechanics of necessity links this brain state to the external event that occurs." Thus, it is the "hidden variables of our consciousness and of our will that do the state selection--that create the events of the next moment we see.”

In this new hypothetical view of shamanism we will be looking for the cross-cultural actions of medicine people that serve to produce a strong observer effect. Even though it is not possible at our current point of knowledge to clearly visualize the observer effect, this need not inhibit us from exploring relationships between this effect and medicine powers. For example, it is difficult for us to visualize how it is that mass can shape space, yet we utilize this fact. At the same time, you really don’t need to understand the physics of medicine powers in order to use them. My goal is to simply present a viewpoint that enables us to better understand why shamans do what they do using a current scientific viewpoint.

Chapter 1 - Superstition, but whose?

Chapter 2 – The work of the devil

Chapter 3 – The heart of the matter

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© Copyright 2002-2009 All rights reserved by Wm. S. Lyon

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