by Iona Miller

1992

from TheSynergeticQabala Website

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion."
 - Albert Einstein

"Great Mystery of Life"

In the Qabala, the Ruach is an aspect of soul which reflects the intellectual and moral capacity.

As a vehicle of consciousness, the Ruach allows us the possibility of consciousness journeys through the realm of Universal Mind. Since this aspect of soul dies with the body, it is not the ultimate vehicle of spiritual liberation. That final transcendence takes place in the Neshamah.

But the Ruach does allow us to make conceptual models of our experience of reality. These Ruachian models help us navigate our own local space/time continuum. We can be thinking, contemplating, or meditating in our own homes, and mentally be far, far away. Which truth is real? Imaginal journeys are as old as the human race. They have helped us make advances in both mysticism and science.

Scientists may know nothing about the Ruach, as such. Yet when they make their "thought-experiments" and speculate on the nature of the universe, they enter the same realm as the mystics and philosophers: the causal plane. These thought-experiments are virtual experiences in a mental/imaginal reality. They can have real consequences in real-time. They yield previously enfolded information about the nature of consensus reality. Sometimes they happen in the dreaming state. They are equally revealing in the waking and waking-dream states.

Einstein made a thought-experiment that was experiential and instructive. He imagined himself riding along on a beam of light, and "discovered" the theory of relativity. By keeping the parameters of his postulated world consistent, he simply went on this journey and noticed what happened along the way. This is not so different from the process of magical path-working.

We wonder how Einstein imagined his "astral body" and "causal body"?

The Ruach, and its conceptual models allow us to roam widely through the universe, from sub-atomic to macrocosmic realms. Consciousness maps allow us to "familiarize" ourselves with the territory. They describe the signposts, milestones, and landmarks of our imaginal journeys. The Tree of Life is one such roadmap from the grossly physical to the sublime. Another model of reality is that offered by current sciences such as physics and astronomy.

Sometimes the scientific and the mystical find a common boundary or area of interest. The prospect of time travel or escape from time is one such area. Come now, out of your physical body, into a realm of speculative potential. Journey with us to a vision of reality which transcends our physical constraints. Here science and philosophy overlap.

We invite you to "Look at it this way..."

Matter curves space - the greater the density of matter, the greater the curvature. The greater the curvature, the slower time runs.

First known as the "forbidden sphere", associated with a region of dense matter, the radius of a "wormhole" in space baffled scientists who could not deduce its significance. Einstein was the first to postulate that if you went through, you would wind up in another universe. Wormholes were discovered mathematically through general relativity, and subsequently found in space as black holes. The surface of a black hole is known as an event horizon. There are four-types of stellar-collapse black holes.

Wormholes that were not associated with black holes were described as potentially passable, but only if a special "balm" was applied to the sides of the wormhole. Scientists called this balm "exotic matter."

This sounds very much like an alchemical fantasy, but it didn't remain one for long.

"The details of making the wormhole into a time tunnel have now been worked out. All you need to do is move one end of the wormhole at high speed (close to the speed of light) or place it in a strong gravitational field. Either will do the trick. Once this is done, you could go in one end and come out the other at an earlier time. Or you could go in the other end, go through it in the opposite direction, and come out in the future."

This is easily accomplished as a thought-experiment, but presents problems for the physical body. But it does open speculation on what vehicles of consciousness could actually make such a journey unscathed. As our medical and technological sciences progress, who knows what mysterious forms humans might come to inhabit which could make these journeys possible?

As for the mystics, they have already tackled the problem. The Body of Light is a vehicle of consciousness appropriate for such travel. Light is an electromagnetic wave. We can speculate on identifying with a quantum of light as a vehicle for our consciousness, and imagine escaping the constraints of 3-space. In the world of relativity, light has the greatest degree of freedom.

Mystics admonish us to detach and dis-identify from our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and ego. They say that time, space, and the separate identity are illusions - only a virtual reality, not absolute Truth. Our day-to-day reality is a relative one.

The process of detaching is what mystics mean when they suggest we "die daily."

They encourage a process of "spiritual body building". If we imagine this body smaller and smaller, we enter the sub-atomic realm of quantum theory. We are no longer subject to to the classical laws of physics and biology. We have a model for making quantum leaps - at least with the mind, or in the Ruach. This action takes place in the "virtual space" of Universal Mind.

Newton asserted that space/time was absolute, but he was never entirely satisfied with his own theory. Newton was an alchemist as well as a scientist, although this gets downplayed in his life story. As an alchemist he would be concerned with the search for the god-head in matter - its sacred underpinnings, known in Qabala as the Shekinah.

The sacred side of matter and geometry is an intuitive apprehension. When Einstein was about 12, he came across a geometry book...He later referred to it as his "holy geometry" book. Clearly, he had a reverent attitude even as a small child toward the awesome elegance of mathematics and the universe.

Later, Einstein struggled with the problem of time dilation and nearly abandoned the problem. Then, one night after incubating the problem for months, he awoke with the answer that not even space was absolute. He concluded that the only absolute of nature was the speed of light. Because things shrink in the direction of motion relative to a fixed observer at high speed, you get the strange result that object shrink to nothing!

Space bends and twists. The geometry of space is non-Euclidean. Relativity paints a picture of the space/time continuum that is counter-intuitive and cannot be imagined by normal human senses, which are based on three-dimensional perception. Four-dimensional space is also known as hyper-space, or 4-space. In terms of normal experience, it appears to us as non-space.

We can assume that our three-dimensional space is surrounded by hyperspace, yet we have no idea how to enter it. In hyperspace, time is either non-existent or it does not "pass."

Reimann's "Space Theory of Matter" contained four hypotheses:

1. Small regions of space are, in fact, of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface which is, on the average, flat; namely, that that ordinary laws of geometry are not valid in them.

2. This property of being curved or distorted is continually being passed on from one portion of space to another after the matter of a wave.

3. The variation of the curvature of space is what really happens in the phenomena which we call the motion of matter.

4. In the physical world nothing else takes place but this variation.

If space is curved, it presents the possibility of providing short-cuts through hyperspace. Einstein showed that matter caused space, or causes space-time to curve. Einstein called it "the happiest thought of his life," when he realized the effect of gravitational and inertial mass on acceleration.

We now see that space-time can become curved by the matter within it. We cannot see this curvature directly, but we can see its effects. The extent of the curvature depends on the amount of matter present, or more explicitly, on the density of matter.

The Universe is about 18 billion years old. But time should not be compared to a river, always flowing in one direction, and we are not voyagers on a raft on that river. This makes no sense in terms of physics' formulas which do not have a "now" in them. They deal only with time intervals. Time is not a physical thing like a fluid that we can examine. It is just a dimension like the dimensions of space. This is demonstrated, mathematically, by antiparticles, which can be considered as particles moving backward in time.

We know from statistical mechanics and the second law of thermodynamics, or entropy, that the disorganization of any closed physical system always increases. Yet, entropy is a statistical concept. It doesn't exist for individual atoms or molecules. Recent advances in chaos theory have shown the process of probability generates strange attractors, which in turn create self-generating order from chaotic systems. The expansion of the universe provides one physical arrow of time. Another is the thermodynamic arrow which depends on entropy, while the cosmological arrow is based on gravity.

If there is a beginning to time, is there an end?

Reversing the expansion of the universe, we come up with Planck time, the big crunch prior to the big bang. Here, general relativity breaks down at the quantum level. The end of time is visualized as a sort of foam like soap bubbles. Space-time is broken up into regions of space, time, and nothing.

Time is therefore completely distorted on this scale and may have no meaning.

• Schwarzschild discovered that holes exist at the center of gravitationally curved space. These holes have singularities at their center.

• In mathematically plotting these anomalous curvatures, Flamm found that the radius of the sphere is the gravitational radius. He called it the "invisible sphere", which harks back to such qabalistic notions as DAATH, termed the Invisible Sphere from antiquity.

• To further co-opt mystical terminology, Eddington called this area inside the radius, a "magic circle."

• For years it was an enigma, until Robertson found that this gravitational radius, or magic circle was accessible after all.

• Wormholes in space were discovered by Einstein, Rosen, Wheeler, and Misner.

• Wheeler found that they pulsed over time.

Their link to reality was found in black holes, or rips in the fabric of the space/time continuum. Eddington showed that stars are gaseous throughout, and are stable because they are balanced between enormous gravitational pull and an outward gas pressure. When they collapse electrons are squeezed together almost maximally close.

Black holes are different from other collapsed stars like neutron stars and white dwarfs. They are basically empty space. All of the matter of a black hole is at the center in the form of a singularity with infinite density and zero dimensions. It is a spinning gateway to another reality.

There is a distinct similarity between entropy and the surface area of a black hole. Black holes absorb everything yet have a surface temperature of absolute zero.

Stephen Hawking discovered that in virtual pair production, pairs composed of a particle and antiparticle are spontaneously produced out of the vacuum. They pop into existence, then come back together almost immediately and annihilate one another. The process is allowed because of a basic principles in quantum theory, called the uncertainty principle. This principle tells us that there is a "fuzziness" associated with nature at the atomic level. The process is concealed within this fuzziness.

In the strong tidal forces of a black hole, virtual pairs would be "ripped" out of the vacuum by the tidal forces. Yet, even if one falls through the event horizon, the other may escape, producing radiation.

This seems to imply that black holes evaporate, but this is contrary to the notion that the surface area of a black hole can only increase. One is true in classical theory, the other in quantum theory when dealing with atoms. Hawking showed that the radiation from black holes obeyed a basic quantum formula, called Planck's formula.

This was the first time a link had ever been forged between classical theory (general relativity) and quantum theory.

In all, there are four possible types of black holes, but only the Kerr black hole is likely to occur in nature. The others are purely mathematical entities. So the Kerr black hole is the logical candidate for physical plane time travel. This was portrayed in the Disney film, Black Hole, so if you can't imagine it, see the film. Or, for the intellectually inclined, try COSMIC TIME TRAVEL: A SCIENTIFIC ODYSSEY, by Barry Parker, Ph.D., published in 1991.

It is postulated that there are gigantic black holes at the center of each galaxy. The black hole uses the stars and gas for fuel. There is a giant energy suck-hole at the core of our galaxy. Who knows, it may be the womb of another universe, with its matter being born on "the other side." Maybe it belongs to the starry goddess, Nuit, whose essence is "nothing," yet Divine.

In the Qabala, the Ruach is said to function on the Causal Plane. This sounds like a carry-over from the mechanistic, predictable, clockwork notion of the universe. It does reflect the way logical intellect works, but we also process information with our intuitive mind, which can embrace an acausal connecting principle.

Jung termed this synchronicity, and it bears directly on our notions of things being connected in time. In Jungian psychology synchronicity has been superseded by the concept of chronicity, the chronic re-appearance of dynamic archetypal patterns.

With the introduction of chronicity to our discussion, we have found the god within our fantasy - Chronos, who has been he who binds us to the physical form, he who devours his own children. As the Lord of our local universe, Time assures our imprisonment within the Creation, the material Universe. Mystics have an inherent yen to escape the bounds of time and space, and seek their spiritual home beyond the Abyss.

As long as we are below the Abyss, our consciousness finds causality problems inherent in time travel. These conceptual conundrums prevent the mind from entering the realm of the pure archetypes. We perceive only dim reflections of their effulgence, but we must "see through" the literal nature of reality, even to accomplish this task.

The mind-boggling problems of time travel violate the causality principle, so it becomes paradoxical. The mind, or Ruach, cannot enter these finer realms - only the Neschamah or soul can journey there to the Source. When you cross this Abyss, you untie the knot between the soul and the mind, leave the province of Universal Mind and its three-fold illusion of time-space-matter.

Mystic practice provides a prescription for soul travel that makes transforming a wormhole into a time machine seem like child's-play. The energy for the journey comes from your intent and Will, but like any journey to foreign lands, it requires extensive preparation.

Like the shamans of old, one becomes a psychonaut, rather than an astronaut.