We will delve right into Preston Harold’s statements regarding Jesus and h:
…if an ancient were trying to state the case of h, how could he have done it? If he could utter but one word to give evidence of his grasp of h, then that word must be, “single,” singularity expressed in such a way that it would be true at every way. Jesus said: “The light of the body is in the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” These poetic words reflect light’s single action, relate light and singular behavior in its absorption – and they also present truth in another field: strangely enough surgeons now know that the cornea is the single bit of flesh that may readily be transplanted and truly grow into man’s body, so that its singularity bespeaks the sameness of one.
One can’t help but think here also of the “third eye,” also known as the ajna chakra in Hindu philosophy. The effects of this eye becoming active are a sense of oneness and connection amongst everything, therefore reinforcing the concept of singularity.
But Jesus, Himself, had to symbolize h, the one atom of action that coheres as one unit in the process of radiation, single (as He remained), an indivisible likeness to One, bespeaking a unity that overleaps space, a unity He called the same, without reservation, in every man for each hath one. He could do no more than present a clue as to the dimension of His realization – He did not attempt to state it in full: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” How could His disciples bear to generations unborn more than poetry of the quantum, enveloped in Jesus’ drama and in the one singularly expressed reference to light’s absorption. How is it managed?
We will explore this question in our next post. Until then, peace.
In this study, the second law of thermodynamics is seen to parallel the psychic law Jesus spoke of, saying that it must be fulfilled to the last iota, that it is far easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for this law to fail.
To suggest that something in man, or in consciousness, parallels entropy’s increasing measure will, no doubt, appear fantastic to many scientists – yet, a great scientist, Teilhard de Chardin, writes:
…there is in progress, within us and around us, a continual heightening of consciousness in the Universe. For a century and a half the science of psychics, preoccupied with analytical researches, was dominated by the idea of the dissipation of energy and the disintegration of matter. Being now called upon by biology to consider the effects of synthesis, it is beginning to perceive that, parallel with the phenomenon of corpuscular disintegration, the Universe historically displays a second process as generalized and fundamental as the first: I mean that of the gradual concentration of its physic-chemical elements in a nuclei of increasing complexity, each succeeding stage of material concentration and differentiation being accompanied by a more advanced form of spontaneity and spiritual energy. The outflowing flood of Entropy equaled and offset by the rising tide of a Noogenesis!
So what is Noogenesis? Noogenesis is concept expounded by the French paleontologist/Jesuit Priest Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard saw Noogenesis as the psychic counterweight to Entropy; it is the beginning of conscious, reflective thought, something in all of creation which only human beings are capable of. With Noogenesis eventually comes the creation of a new atmosphere of thought, the Noosphere. The continued linking and merger of human thought via human socialization is Noogenesis. For Teilhard, the same attracting force that brought material creation into existence now exerts that force in the psychic network that will ultimately lead to a universal human community bonded by love. This is especially propelled forward by the expanding awareness of the suffering and diminishment of ourselves and others, which can also be seen as the growth and enlargement of empathy. This will be a “second coming” of Christ and for Teilhard it is the goal to which all evolution is leading.
Preston Harold continues…
Again, this study proposes empathy to be the psychic measure which constantly increases, which may be arrested under certain conditions, but which can never decrease or be “undone.” Omar Khayyam, “who stitched the tents of science,” spoke poetically of a psychic parallel to that which is irreversible. Is it empathy which is written? – when:
The moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
There has been a constant increase in human understanding. This cannot be spelled out on paper any more than entropy’s measure can be written out in decimal figures, but empathy must be calculated in dealing with men in society – for example, efforts to abolish racial discrimination bespeak it. The increase in empathy reflects, no doubt, the increase of disorder, psychic and public, born of man’s social striving, but by its very nature empathy is redemptive: it is knowing with the whole being the truth of the whole situation.
Sometimes it seems to me this can’t be true. Has there been an increase in human understanding? What about all the racism, sex trafficking, and other social ills that still overrun our society and are part of the “Domination System” so expertly expounded on by the late Walter Wink? Human beings will continue to be human beings, right? But then it seems to me that with recent major public awarenesses of injustice, especially the past few months in the United States of police overreach, that a light is being shined in dark places. “Deep cleaning” is never a pretty undertaking, and that goes for both sides of the coin. Maybe, just maybe, we are in the beginning throes of starting to “know with the whole being the truth of the whole situation.” May it be so. Until next time, peace.
Preston Harold now describes his time diagrams from the standpoint of Jesus’ words. He gives us a brief introduction:
The diagrams are not to be taken as more than a token – a token idea is all that can be given. Therefore, if an ancient’s pure thought grasped the truth of time in all it’s complexity, his revelation of it must bespeak such as is beyond man’s comprehension in its entirety; and since time is so involved with space and with a body traveling through space, the ancient’s statement could not at first glance appear to be related directly to the mystery of time.
Once again, Harold reminds us that the ancients didn’t have modern scientific concepts on to which to build their revelations. Poetry was their means of transmission. Now, onto the main event…
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God…With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” –Mark 10:25
Look now at Figure 2. It shows, poetically speaking, that “I, myself” am being drawn through the “eye of a needle” – and when the drawings are understood, it would appear that it is more difficult for “me” to enter “Absolute Elsewhere” which the “eye of the needle” involves (see Figure 4) than it is for a camel to go through a tiny hole.
Consider that if a man possesses the kingdom of God within him, he is rich – and as Jesus depicts true wealth, He, Himself, is rich indeed. Thus, His words must pertain to “how I locate events in my frame” as He presents in words a form that looks like a “circle,” the eye of a needle, which it is possible for “a rich man” to be drawn through, if God draws him, and by a force which is “heaven knows what” – time.
Please also note in Harold’s diagrams that the symbol in the middle of the circle for the “Here-Now” experience is a cross.
Harold continues…
“Absolute Elsewhere” provides “room” for the concept of the unconscious, for an eternal abode of the Father who alone knows the secret of time, and who in relation to the possibility of man’s seeing Him must be absolutely elsewhere – thus, all one can see of Him is to be seen in God-consciousness in man’s here-now being.
One here is reminded of last verse of the Prologue to the Gospel of John – “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart who has made Him known.” John 1:18
Jesus’ strange word-picture suggests a large mass being drawn through a tiny opening – by means of this contradiction, He indicates poetically that the actual mass of matter is no more than a speck in comparison to what it appears to be. Scientists now confirm this.
And who knew that Jesus taught at light speed?!
Eddington says, “As the speed of matter approaches the speed of light its mass increases to infinity, and therefore it is impossible to make matter travel faster than light.” Jesus made Himself a symbol of light, He poetically “sets the pace” at which a material body may travel: He was called “teacher” and “Lord” – thus, when He says that the scholar is not above his teacher nor the servant above his lord, enough that they fare alike, He restricts the pace to His own, light’s speed.
Move over Millenium Falcon, Jesus is in the passing lane! We’ll finish up our “time maps” installments in the next post. Until then, peace.
Albert Einstein believed that the creative principle itself resides in mathematics and in his “Essays in Science” he says, “In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed.”
Preston Harold asks:
If the pure thought of an ancient led him to realize that there is but a single reality – all manifestation of matter, mind, and energy but different aspects of it – and if he grasped the nature and significance of its supreme law so that he must state the entropy concept as it relates to time, as it works within the universe, how would the ancient have done it? He could speak as a poet, using simple words fully…
From what we read of Jesus in the gospels (especially the synoptics), he certainly knew how to use simple words to their maximum effect, distilling the principles he was espousing with breath-taking economy. Within Jesus’ simple words, though, we find infinite meaning if we have the ears to hear.
Many of the passages reporting Jesus’ teaching are as profoundly beautiful as a poem and as complex as the equation concerning the generation of waves by wind that Eddington presents. Others, such as “The kingdom of God is within you,” are as profoundly simple as Einstein’s famous E=mc squared. Can a poet express truly, albeit symbolically, abstract concepts such as are enfolded in a mathematical formula?… Jesus must meet the most severe test of a poet in describing the many aspects of the second law of thermodynamics and its significance. A poetic statement indicating that energy operates always in changing arrangement resulting in increased measure is found in two of Jesus’ enigmatic remarks about the working of God.
It is these two remarks of Jesus we will look at in our next installment. Until then, peace.
Vanity of vanities, says the teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity….All things are wearisome; more than one can express….There is nothing new under the sun. -Ecclesiastes chapter 1
Thus is the poetical scriptural witness to the second law of thermodynamics. It is the law that entropy always increases. The International Dictionary of Physics and Electronics states:
Application of the “second law” of thermodynamics leads to the conclusion that if any physical system is left to itself and allowed to distribute its energy in its own way, it always does so in a manner such that this quantity, called “entropy,” increases; while at the same time the available energy of the system diminishes. This law applies to the universe as a whole, hence the proposition that the total entropy increases as time goes on.
Sir Arthur Eddington says:
“The law that entropy always increases…holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature…if your theory is found to be against [it] I can give you no hope…From the property that entropy must always increase, practical methods of measuring it have been found. The chain of deductions from this simple law have almost been illimitable.”
Might there be a “yes, but…” response to this iron-clad law? Is all really vanity? Is there any hope that can rise above and beyond this theory? Preston Harold comes to the rescue:
As physicists understand this law today, it appears to spell in some billions of years the heat-death of the universe. But as Dr. Rolf Alexander points out, the anti-entropic nature of living things may point to a “simultaneous process of entropy and creation…the process of nature observed by physical science are but a fraction of the picture…”
Here we see the door opening into the realm of “both-and,” leaving the area of “either-or.” Not either creation or destruction, but both creation and destruction. And in the Hindu god Shiva we see that the ancient Shaivas, the oldest sect of Hinduism, had a hold of this concept millennia ago.
Preston Harold continues:
Structural alterations are going on in the realm of physics, and physicists themselves project that there are other laws yet to be discovered, so that all one can say with certainty is that the real meaning of entropy in universal terms may not yet be known.
Ah, the realm of not knowing; the unknown. So frustrating to some of us. Seems to be connected to the “both-and” realm which is full of paradox and uncertainty.
In our next post we’ll continue to explore the second law of thermodynamics and more specifically the “random element.” Until then, peace.
To begin Chapter 6, which focuses on the 2nd law of thermodynamics, Preston Harold sets us up nicely:
The realm of physics is paradoxical, topsy-turvy, poetic, as inexpressible in the last reaches as any mystic revelation that has confronted man.
In his “The Nature of the Physical World” Sir Arthur Eddington writes, “Sir William Bragg was not overstating the case when he said that we use the classical theory on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the quantum theory on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.” Preston Harold says this shift of theory is necessary because scientists have had to divide their laws into different compartments, classic and quantum. Eddington continues, “Unfortunately, our compartments are not watertight…The classical laws are the limit to which the quantum laws tend when states of very high quantum number are concerned…The disagreement is not very serious when the number is moderately large; but for small quantum numbers the atom cannot sit on the fence. It has to decide between (classical) and (quantum) rules. It chooses [quantum] rules.”
Preston Harold pulls us into the realm of religion:
Here, the first parallel may be drawn; when large numbers are concerned, men must operate under classical law, outgrown from the Ten Commandments, and humanity at large will tend to operate according to the classical patterns history presents; but operating within each human being are quantum psychic laws that contradict the classical picture he presents, and as an individual, he is subject to these laws primarily. Just as one psychic law – the Golden Rule – bridges the dichotomy between man and society, so the physicist deals with one law that fits in either quantum or classical compartment. This is the second law of thermodynamics which, in Eddington’s words, “has been equally successful in connection with the most recondite problems of theoretical physics and the practical tasks of the engineer.”
In our next installment we will hone in on the second law of thermodynamics and explore it’s meaning and consequence. Until then, peace.
But as important as the second law of thermodynamics is to scientists, the study of energy, of light, is of first importance. Jesus appears to have seen that the secret of the universe must rest in light, primordial energy, and that in the creation of light rests the secret of creation itself. If He realized the nature of it, He must tell its story in large drama because prime energy, or elementary particle, cannot be identified and is not an individual. In making Himself a symbol of light in order to reveal its nature, and in being a symbol of saving grace in man, He took care to insure that someday men would realize His revelation was of universal truth. This is to say, He did not forget to enfold in the being of all humankind the primordial energy of God that He represented…for to the multitudes before Him, Jesus said:
“…you are the light of the world…”
From a scientific point of view, what is light? Is it a wave or is it a particle? It is actually both, depending on how we observe it. Notice what Preston Harold said above: “elementary particle…is not an individual.” Just this past week the first visual representation of actual light as both wave and particle has been documented. Here is a brief summary:
Please note how quantum theory, part of the “new physics” comes into play in this situation. Preston Harold says:
To evaluate Jesus’ revelation of the law upon which the universe operates and its psychic parallel, and to appreciate His dramatization of light, one must attempt to grasp, at least in some small measure, some of the basic ideas of the new physics. The relationship between science and psychology, which today largely substitutes for religion, cannot be determined by exploring only one realm or the other. To make the acquaintance, to have at least a nodding and speaking acquaintance, with the doctrine of science, psychology, and religion is incumbent upon [modern] man.
Just as light is neither particle or wave but rather both particle andwave, we as humanity can no longer approach meaning using either science or religion/psychology but rather both science and religion/psychology.
Either/Or is out the door.
Both/And is where we land.
But it takes some work on ourselves to “repent,” to change our way of thinking. Preston Harold continues…
To attempt to grasp in small measure some of the basic data of the new physics is not an easy task. And to see in the working of the physical world something of a mirror-reflection of the operation of man’s psyche might strike many as being too far-fetched to give the subject much consideration. A question must also arise – how could Jesus have known anything of physics in today’s sense of the word? His realization arose from the unconscious…. Aniela Jaffe says:
“The parallelism between nuclear physics and the psychology of the collective unconscious was often a subject of discussion between Jung and Wolfgang Pauli…The space-time continuum of physics and the collective unconscious can be seen, so to speak, as the outer and inner aspects of one and the same reality behind appearances.”
If only Hyacinth Bucket was aware of the reality from which appearances arise! Richard’s, Emmet’s, and the Vicar’s lives would have been so much simpler!
Now that we’ve thought about light a bit we will return to the second law of thermodynamics. To prep us for chapter 6, we will listen to Preston Harold’s last words of chapter 5:
This study does not attempt to show that Jesus precisely formulated the secondary law of physics – rather that His words and drama are congruent with the physicists’ explanations of these laws… Jesus’ view of the cosmic significance of nature’s supreme law differs from the nihilistic view of many scientists, disputed in some circles, but His descriptions of its working harmonize with those given for the layman. Jesus must speak to a world wherein even among the learned there was no language or mathematics to couch His realizations if they were as advanced as their congruence with scientific data indicates. Thus, He must be a poet, or in drama show nature’s operation that He grasped – and to be congruent with today’s science, His words must be as enigmatic, contradictory, yet true, as are the secondary laws of physics versus the classical, or as is the wave theory versus the quantum theory of light.
With that we are ready to tackle chapter 6 and how Jesus’ poetic and dramatic ministry expressed truth for the listeners in His day to the same extent that science and math express truth abstractly through numbers and data for modern mankind. Until next time, peace.
Second Law of Thermodynamics – Increased Entropy “The Second Law of Thermodynamics is commonly known as the Law of Increased Entropy. While quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality of matter/energy deteriorates gradually over time. How so? Usable energy is inevitably used for productivity, growth and repair. In the process, usable energy is converted into unusable energy. Thus, usable energy is irretrievably lost in the form of unusable energy.
“Entropy” is defined as a measure of unusable energy within a closed or isolated system (the universe for example). As usable energy decreases and unusable energy increases, “entropy” increases. Entropy is also a gauge of randomness or chaos within a closed system. As usable energy is irretrievably lost, disorganization, randomness and chaos increase.”
-From AllAboutScience.org
Today, the supreme law, the “iron law,” in the physical world is seen to be the second law of thermodynamics. But it gives rise to a view of the universe and entropy’s meaning that is seriously questioned by many experts in various fields who suggest, indeed insist, that this law is correct insofar as it is stated, but that as yet it is incompletely stated or its meaning is misunderstood.
The second law of thermodynamics began to come into being with the first theory of the conversion of heat into mechanical work in the early 19th century. Rudolf Clausius was the first person to formulate the second law in 1850. Yet Jesus intimated the law poetically, from an inner aspect, in his teachings:
Jesus spoke of an “iron law”-that is, of a law that could not fail, and He indicated that all in creation is involved with and rests upon its operation. In the view of this study, He realized that man cannot understand himself until he also understands the natural universe of which he is a part and in which life manifests itself. He saw that in the psychic working of man a parallel to nature’s supreme law operates, and he described this operation in His descriptions of the workings of the kingdom of God, setting forth what might be called “secondary psychic law” as well as describing in poetic terms the most important of the secondary laws of physics. The “secondary psychic law” He enuncidated complements the law of Moses, which Jesus upheld, and forces a synthesis or the higher law of love when it operates in conjunction with the Ten Commandments.
Let’s look at some quotes from Jesus on the idea of law:
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
-Luke 16:16-17
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.
–Matthew 5:17-18
Preston Harold continues:
Jesus did not come to destroy the promise of the high ethic inherent in Jewish law…He came to fulfill this promise which flowered in his teaching… But his words must have referred to more and something other than the mass of rules and regulations which comprised “the law” of His day, upon which time’s accretions bore heavily. For having said, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus, Himself, repudiated more than a “jot and tittle” of the Jewish law… In short, Jesus sets up so large a contradiction as regards “the law” of which He spoke in conjunction with the working of the kingdom of God that one must seek beyond the explanation of His upholding Mosaic law to find the full and deepest meaning of His words. Not until one compares His descriptions of the working of the kingdom of God with descriptions of the operation of the second law of thermodynamics, as will be done in the following chapter, does the parallel between the two concepts become apparent, albeit Jesus’ description is poetical.
But before we move on to the next chapter, we will make a brief detour to explore how Jesus’ teachings reflect the scientific working of light. Until next time, peace.
Preston Harold shows us how empathy aligns with religious thought. He says:
The effect of empathy and its meaning to life may be likened to Tao: Tao is obscured when you fix your eye on little segments of existence only…” but when Tao is grasped universally, “Without law or compulsion men [will] dwell in harmony.” In individual terms, empathy is realizing on one’s own being the Golden Rule. Empathy is Jesus’ new commandment as an act in one’s own soul – love one another, love the Lord your God with your whole mind, heart, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. Only through empathy is it possible to step into another’s shoes without displacing him or foisting oneself upon him or losing one’s own precious identity; empathy not only makes this possible, it makes it mandatory.
Mandatory?! Maybe that’s why Jesus couches empathy’s impetus as a commandment. It seems ridiculous to me to make loving someone a commandment that must be fulfilled, but through genuine non-judgmental empathy a slight crack in the door may open that invites me to walk through.
When empathy exists, one experiences in his own being what is happening to another and understands that another suffers whatever is happening to oneself. Empathy is direct, involuntary. It cannot be vicariously expressed because it is borne from out the boundless deeps of a man and, to borrow words from Alfred Lord Tennyson, rises, “too full for sound or foam, but such a tide as moving seems asleep,” and with certainty “turns again home” whatever one does or witnesses.
And here Harold will explain how empathy is born out of the interplay between good and evil:
Because empathy is begotten only of the wholeness of experiencing good and evil involved in any decision, situation, or act, it exerts an incomprehensible power – which is to say, unconsciously it is expressed and it cannot be called into action. Because it is an unconsciously made automatic response, through it man gains freedom from having to make a choice between what appears to be good and what appears to be evil, for his response is both unconsciously tempered and in accord with the reality of the situation. Huxley says: “The fullest freedom is the expression of an inner compulsion of our being, of a choice, which we have come to feel as inevitably necessary…In general, once we manage to ‘see things steadily and see them whole,’ the choice is made for us.”
And with this one can understand Jesus’ breaking of the religious “rules” in order to meet people where they are, with their immediate hopes and needs. Empathy can be summed up in one phrase of Jesus that echoes the Tao quote above and bears along with it huge implications. Jesus grasped the Tao and stated: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Through the cycle of life and death we come to know the fullness of love. Up through the “twisted tree of knowledge of good and evil” our Authority-Ego within leads the way.
In rebirth, one partakes of love’s spirit…He is reclothed in the flesh of God, virgin flesh, that he may live again to learn the cost of evil doing and through learning, be redeemed. In death the Authority-Ego divests man of his garment: it is this psychic factor that sheds one’s blood for the remission of the many sins of his ego-group; it is this factor that determines life or death…Love itself, which is his Authority-Ego, resurrects and holds inviolate in the id those of the ego-group whose own expression of love has redeemed them; and love resurrects also those that must live again unto the resurrection of damnation until their forces of good and evil are recast into a nonmaterial responsive factor that will prevent abusive exercise of power, and into the pure or purified evil that matter in itself must be seen to be; and in each rebirth love brings to life something of its whole being that has yet to partake of the tree of knowing.
What might this “nonmaterial responsive factor that will prevent abuse of power” be? Preston Harold will ultimately turn once again to William Wordsworth for a poetic description:
Thus, into a new world of being, the Authority-Ego brings its love of life, the ego-group restated: “he was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” In time, as consciousness comes to the ego-group, the voice of worldly experience is heard: conscience sounds its note from one’s subconscious depths. And then, the superego is formed of that element in the id that is responsive to truth and can carry a word of it into the world, as the Authority-Ego “elects” them, giving to these the “keys” to the kingdom within. Through the superego, love speaks, and makes its presence felt in:
…that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: -that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,-
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul…
Here Wordsworth describes an “out of body” experience, a body-free state of rapture; a “nonmaterial responsive factor.” As we become a living soul, there is no need for abuse of power, no need to flaunt ourselves, just increasing knowledge and assurance of blessedness. But why does this knowledge have to be hard earned? Why can’t God simply and totally reveal Himself and our full human nature to us? Let’s ponder this in our next installment. Until then, peace.
The Shining Stranger 