F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction Author

PEAR

The Global Consciousness Project

by

This guy, “hardware hacker” Adam Michael Curry, has a dream. A global one.

To borrow a little from the article, and Gregory Weinkauf, Mr. Curry sees that the world reads news together…even listens to music together…now, he queries, can the world feel together? And furthermore, can this shared awareness, this collective consciousness, actually impact our physical world?

Can we affect reality?

The basic idea is that there’s all this “new” research out there being done by laboratories, like Princeton University’s PEAR lab and the Institute of Noetic Sciences (among others) to investigate how deeply our collective consciousnesses are connected to “the fabric of physical reality.” It’s called The Global Consciousness Project (GCP; which is, curiously, like my Psychic novel’s, “Global Foundation for Peace,” or “GFP”…), employs random number generators spread around the world, global events that “polarize human attentions,” like 9/11, earthquakes, or Princess Diana’s death, and analyzes the results that manifest the “unexplained ordering affect on chaotic systems.” And, furthermore, this research suggests that the odds that “the combined GCP data” are “due to chance” is less than one in one hundred billion, which implies that there’s a “deep connection” between the mind and physical reality.

That’s one hundred billion.

Wow, lots of cool phrases. And “one hundred billion.”

Oh, and Mr. Curry is pushing a smartphone Consciousness app.

Okay, why does it always have to be about a smartphone?

I applaud Mr. Curry and the others in this area of exploration, but I have to inform them that this line of investigation is nothing new. Not at all. And it’s not even a question…but a fact. I also understand how science always lags in this department, the Department of Mind over Matter. At least in the public displays of research.

There have been many texts written over the history of Humankind about the association of the mind and matter, aka, “reality,” aka what we think affects reality, and it’s largely and roundly been poo-pooed and publically “discredited.” But one set of books have done an incredible job of discussing this reality and has been out since the sixties. This is the work of Jane Roberts and Rob Butts (both deceased). They did this by tapping into their own inner world, through one of Jane’s “entities,” called “Seth.”

Oh, now, see, I hear the eyes rolling!

I talk about it and the eyes roll, but science talks about it—and throws in a frigging smartphone—and you’re all over it.

The basic concept of the Jane, Rob, and Seth view is that we create our own reality. That’s it. No smartphone needed. Just intent and focus. You want a good life, focus on it. Believe in it. Live it. You want wars and poverty or peace and riches, then go ahead, focus on it.

You get what you focus upon, there is no other rule.

But Mr. Curry wants all of us to download an app where we apply our minds to random number generators during life’s great, polarizing events.

Fifty years, it was said, research has been going into all this (not Curry’s work, but others), and this is as far as they’ve come? Random number generators?

One the one hand, quite disappointing. Well, on both, really. What the heck have they been doing all this time, when all this corroborating material has been out there, like Jane, Rob, & Seth’s work? Has it even been looked at, or, again, dismissively poo-pooed? Essentially, what science seems to be doing, is reinventing the wheel. Oh, sure, you could say, they’re just applying the scientific method, and are just duplicating claims in scientific settings. Perhaps, but people are people wherever you go, no matter what they wear, what they do, or languages they speak. Prejudices come into play (yes, even in the scientific community). And, not the least of which, is science itself. Science measures the observable, which seems obvious, but what happens when what you want to observe isn’t, well, observable? What if the targets of your investigation can only be examined by the mind itself, and not under some electron microscope or injection into some CERN collider?

This is the problem with prejudices and attitudes with any so-called “psychic” disciplines, like remote viewing.

It’s not quantifiable.

Sure, we’ll be able to find all the physical links and manifestations, and the like we can using all of our best equipment, but we’ll also be missing out on the best parts that simply cannot be viewed using physical instruments. As much as I’m dismayed at the use of remote viewing for spy-type activities, these Hal Puthoffs, Dale Graffs, Russell Targs, et al (including Stanford Research Institute), made the leap into looking into the mind with the mind. The mind is a nonphysical entity, how the heck are you going to look at that with a microscope of any kind?

Quantum physics comes the closest with all it’s weird micro-behaviors, like entanglement and wave/particle theories, and this has given rise to some really earth-shattering theories…but nothing ever seems to “come of it.” It all just seems to stop short of “going there” by saying we all affect and effect our own realities by the thoughts we think.

But, really, all you only have to do is examine your own life and the lives of those you know. Look at how your beliefs color and mold and form your own life. Do you believe life is hard, unfair, and controlled by others? And has it been? Do you know others who are happy and carefree and seem to have a fun life—and has it been?

How can it be both ways? Either it’s one way or the other. Sure, one can definitely get into circumstances and privileged lives, and whatnot, all kinds of other variables, and, yes, all of this knowledge from entities like Seth come from the “nether regions” of life, the nonphysical, the spiritual, where we mortals wrapped in corporeal form cannot really venture (though we’re told we can…), and what of all the other religions, etc., and yes, it does get rather sticky, here. Billions of rabbit holes. But what I did was look for explanations that didn’t matter what the belief was…just the mechanics that are behind all beliefs. And it is up to each of us to do this. It is part of our growth. But my point to all this is not to preach, but to show that others have already gone there with the whole “our thoughts affect reality” thing, investigations have been ongoing for fifty frigging years, and all we have to show for it is a smartphone app? I really don’t want to slight and dismiss Mr. Curry’s investigations into the mind/matter arena, but, come on, people, so much has already been done on the topic, don’t keep reinventing the damned wheel! Don’t keep starting over from scratch by ignoring already existing work! Build on it! Take it, take its tenants and expand upon them.

Sigh.

Yes, I may have been a bit smug and smarmy over this post, but overall…I am enjoying the scientific entrance (however late) into all this, because it does show a broadening of consciousness on other levels…i.e., that of hard-nosed science. Where this goes will be interesting, but it’s up to each of us to employ this in our everyday lives, like I’ve discussed before. We create our own lives…how we look at life is how we live our lives. It’s that simple. And if you want to change something, you have to begin inside your own head—how else can you effect change? If you don’t believe in the change you seek, then you’re not gonna give it any thought, not gonna write it down, not gonna further “transmit” its concept into the world or tell someone about it, or write that book or movie, not create that patent, not gonna discover that new theory.

It all starts in our minds…and before that damned smartphone…was the concept of that damned smartphone in someone’s mind.

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