# The God Theory  ## Metadata - Author: [[Bernard Haisch]] - Full Title: The God Theory - Category: #books ## Highlights - Playing the game is far more satisfying than reading the rules. ([Location 119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=119)) - Tags: [[pink]] - God experiences the richness of his potential through us because we are the incarnations of him in the physical realm. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=124)) - Tags: [[pink]] - twentieth century, but never entered the scientific mainstream. It had the most impeccable credentials, however, having been explored by Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Walther Nernst. This field of inquiry is essentially the story of light—a very special light known as the electromagnetic zero-point field, or the electromagnetic quantum vacuum. The zero-point field is an important part of the God Theory. I will return to it in chapter 6. ([Location 279](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=279)) - Tags: [[pink]] - One of the oldest of religious teachings is that “The One who became many is becoming one again.” That is how I view what we are all doing right now. ([Location 338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=338)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - In fact, in its most rigid form, reductionism becomes essentially a matter of faith and simply another kind of orthodoxy that goes by the name of scientism. The word “science” is used today in two very different ways—in the service of epistemology, which is a way of investigating reality, and in the service of ontology, which is a conceptualization of reality itself. It is in this second sense that dogmatic science is invoked today and should more properly be regarded as the religion of scientism. ([Location 434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=434)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - propose a revolutionary idea: that a truly advanced civilization will not be classified on the basis of the physical energy it harnesses, but rather on its ability to understand and use the literal creative energy of divine consciousness that is the fundamental nature of all living beings. ([Location 445](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=445)) - Tags: [[pink]] - According to Russell, the state achieved in meditation is a fourth distinct state, in which there is awareness, indeed profound awareness, but awareness of nothing but consciousness itself. In this state, awareness transcends consciousness of objects and is pure self-awareness. ([Location 517](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=517)) - Tags: [[pink]] - the language of its nihilist proponents, a pointless universe has no conceivable outcome except the grim maximization of entropy. Such a view cannot, via any tinkering or contortion, be made life-enhancing. ([Location 597](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=597)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Indeed, the feud between science and spirituality is deeply rooted in intellectual repression perpetrated by organized religion in centuries past. Religion has been responsible, ironically and unconscionably, for vast swaths of death, destruction, and terror spanning the globe and most of recorded history, including, alas, the present day. Science has understandably been repelled by this and taken a stand against the excesses of religious insanity. ([Location 604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=604)) - Tags: [[pink]] - For it is only reasonable to question the justice and compassion of creation if, in fact, we believe ourselves and other living creatures to be separate from God. It is only reasonable to view creation through evolution as a pitiless, indifferent process if we fail to recognize ourselves as participants in God's very being. On the other hand, if everything, literally everything, in the universe flows from an infinite potential and participates in an infinite intelligence, the perceived pain of evolution becomes the fulfillment and manifestation of divine purpose. ([Location 620](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=620)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Likewise, I suggest that the evolution of living things may occur through a combination of strictly physical, deterministic processes and a nonphysical tendency toward order and information—although the latter may not be in any way detectable by conventional scientific measurement. Experience and observation shows me that there is a self-creative, self-organizing character to living things suggestive of the influence of a higher order. ([Location 685](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=685)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The third view of consciousness holds that material reality is not only non-exclusive; it is secondary. Something else came first. This spiritual perspective holds that forces and intelligences in a non-material realm or realms created, or perhaps continually create and sustain, the world of matter and physical laws. ([Location 733](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=733)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - As Huxley puts it: To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of the brain and nervous system. What comes out at the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will help us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. ([Location 779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=779)) - Tags: [[pink]] - I suggest that these amazing abilities, which we would regard as impossible for a human being to do were they not demonstrable, support the idea that individual consciousness is somehow linked to or a part of an infinite consciousness. They also support the view that your brain determines your everyday consciousness, not as a source, but as a filter, and that drugs or brain damage can crack that filter and admit a variety of experiences, including psychedelic visions and mathematical genius. ([Location 804](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=804)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - spiritual consciousness are the cause and basis of the physical world. What I am saying is, of course, nothing like a proof. I am contending that the direct inner experience of consciousness trumps logic and proof. ([Location 825](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=825)) - Tags: [[pink]] - This conversation was a revelation to Grossman about the true nature of the concept of reductionist materialism within modern science: rather than being “an empirical hypothesis about the nature of the world which is amenable to evidence one way or the other” it has become, in actuality, ideological dogma. ([Location 874](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=874)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The God Theory, on the other hand, proposes that the creation of universes comes about through the intention of an infinite intelligence for the purpose of experiencing itself in its infinite diversity. ([Location 935](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=935)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The challenge is to think like a scientist without being trapped in the assumption of the present-day physical model of reality that matter is all there is and all there can be. ([Location 949](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=949)) - Tags: [[pink]] - There is a rule in quantum physics called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that states (with certainty, as it happens) that no quantum object, such as a microscopic pendulum, can ever be brought completely to rest. Any microscopic object will always possess a residual random jiggle, thanks to quantum fluctuations. Hold that thought. Radio, television, and cellular phones all operate by transmitting or receiving electromagnetic waves. Visible light operates in the same way, just at a higher frequency. At even higher frequencies, beyond the visible spectrum, are ultraviolet light, x-rays, and gamma rays. All are electromagnetic waves that are really just different frequencies of light. Now back to Heisenberg. It is standard procedure in quantum theory to apply the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to electromagnetic waves, since electric and magnetic fields flowing through space oscillate as a pendulum does. According to that principle, at every possible frequency, there will always be a tiny bit of electromagnetic jiggling going on. And if you add up all these ceaseless fluctuations, you get a background sea of light whose total energy is enormous. This is the electromagnetic zero-point field. ([Location 967](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=967)) - Tags: [[pink]] - This state can support both quantum mischief and, I predict, veritable technological magic. It may represent an unlimited source of energy available everywhere, and perhaps even a way to modify gravity and inertia. The quantum vacuum is, therefore, in reality a plenum, but in keeping with tradition I will continue to use the term quantum vacuum. ([Location 983](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=983)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Matter resists acceleration, not because it possesses some innate property called mass as Newton postulated, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place. To put it in somewhat metaphysical terms, there exists a background sea of quantum light (the electromagnetic zero-point field) filling the universe, and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object. The action of that quantum light is what makes matter the seemingly solid, stable stuff of which we and our world are made. ([Location 1126](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1126)) - Tags: [[pink]] - We got funding and we got results. We published two new papers that confirmed that the inertia of matter can be traced back to the zero-point field. ([Location 1254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1254)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The proposed connection between the zero-point field and inertia, in effect, suggests that the solid, stable world of matter is sustained at every instant by this underlying sea of quantum light. ([Location 1264](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1264)) - Tags: [[pink]] - While light itself does not experience space and time in its own reference frame, it is the measurement of light signals that defines space and time in ours. Consider the following paradox. Radio signals are a form of light—light with a very long wavelength. Imagine broadcasting a signal toward the Alpha Centauri star system, sending it away from your transmitter at the speed of light—186,000 miles per second. Now hop into your star cruiser and accelerate to half the speed of light chasing the radio waves. How fast are those radio waves moving away from you as you chase them at half their own speed? The paradoxical answer is 186,000 miles per second. So you accelerate still more, to 90 percent of the speed of light. Still the radio waves are receding from you at 186,000 miles per second. And even when you reach 99 percent of the speed of light, they are still leaving you behind at 186,000 miles per second. This paradox becomes even more mysterious when you consider that the colleague you left behind at the transmitter also “sees” the radio waves moving away at the same 186,000 miles per second, even though he is standing still and you are chasing them at 99 percent of their own speed. And to top it off, by the time you are moving at 99 percent the speed of light, he sees you as only 1860 miles per second slower than the radio waves, even though you measure your relative motion to the radio waves to be an unchanging 186,000 miles per second. Paradoxes abound, but they are all resolved by interlinking space and time in a four-dimensional geometry. Take my word for it! ([Location 1297](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1297)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Haggadah forthrightly states: “The light created at the very beginning is not the same as the light emitted by the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, which appeared only on the fourth day.” ([Location 1336](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1336)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The passage continues: “The light of the first day was of a sort that would have enabled man to see the world at a glance from one end to the other. Anticipating the wickedness of the sinful generations of the deluge and the Tower of Babel, who were unworthy to enjoy the blessing of such light, God concealed it, but in the world to come it will appear to the pious in all its pristine glory.” ([Location 1340](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1340)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Assume, for the sake of argument, that the reference to light in the Haggadah is to some actual fact relevant to the creation of the universe in the Big Bang. What might that represent in modern scientific terms? One possibility, of course, is the radiation- dominated era of the universe following the Big Bang. Modern computations show that, for the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was devoid of stable matter, but filled with electromagnetic radiation. ([Location 1354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1354)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Cosmologist Joseph Silk, in The Big Bang, notes: Of course, we cannot directly observe the primeval fireball, and in fact direct observation would have been impossible even by a hypothetical human observer, for the universe did not become transparent until after 300,000 years. Direct observation of the early universe could not be feasible until the density and temperature had fallen to the point at which matter could form and radiation could propagate freely. Before 300,000 years had elapsed, observing the early universe would have been like trying to peer into a dense fog. ([Location 1366](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1366)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Mass makes things solid, substantive, and perceptible to your senses. As I have suggested, however, mass may be an illusion. The characteristic that defines it—resistance to acceleration—may, in fact, be akin to an electromagnetic phenomenon. ([Location 1410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1410)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Esoteric wisdom holds that the origin of creation lies in God's desire to actualize potential. Since that potential is infinite, it is likely that it would spawn an unlimited number of creations, one of which we happen to inhabit. To create any given universe, God selects a subset from an infinite variety of ideas to actualize and experience. Each universe consists of a subset of ideas that work together and thereby enrich God through a living experience of infinite potential made manifest. ([Location 1461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1461)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Under the plan, you as pure spirit would enter the physical universe just created. This is because physicality is the only way to know experientially what you know conceptually. It is, in fact, the reason I created the physical cosmos to begin with . . . ([Location 1499](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1499)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Now I will explain to you the ultimate mystery; your exact and true relationship to me. YOU ARE MY BODY. ([Location 1502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1502)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The Kabbalistic perspective on creation is interesting because, in it, the emanation of light becomes a central element in the creation process. The Absolute forms a kind of vacuum or void within itself, which the Kabbalists call ayin. Since this process takes place as a precursor to creation, the void is not a literal void in the sense of empty space, as we think of a vacuum. Space itself has not yet been created. A kind of light emanates out of the Absolute to fill this void. The flowing of this light through the void activates the potential within it. The nothingness of the void, heretofore purely potential, is elevated into a manifest reality by this divine light. ([Location 1556](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1556)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The zero-point field inertia hypothesis implies that the most fundamental property of matter, namely mass, is also created by light. ([Location 1605](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1605)) - Tags: [[pink]] - McCrea asked the simple question: What makes that happen? The atom is not just sitting there watching a calendar, getting bored, and deciding one day that 5700 years have passed and it's time to move on. How can the abstract “passage of time” somehow put pressure on an atom to make the transition? What even tells the atom in any dynamic way that time is passing? McCrea suggests that the master clock, the temporal prod that keeps things moving, are the quantum fluctuations of the zero-point field. ([Location 1686](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1686)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Spontaneous emission poses the exact same dilemma as radioactive decay. What is pushing and prodding the electron to make that downward jump? ([Location 1696](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1696)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Real discoveries lie ahead if we can learn to integrate the vast physical knowledge accumulated by science over three centuries, with the spiritual awareness embodied in our own consciousness. ([Location 1728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1728)) - Tags: [[pink]] - maintain that, while there are seemingly vast and irreconcilable differences between the dogmas of the major religions on an exoteric level, they must be in agreement with spiritual truth on an esoteric level. On the esoteric level, there must be a perennial wisdom that all religions share. ([Location 1951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1951)) - Tags: [[pink]] - It is worthy of note here that Kabbalah clearly—and wisely—cautions that all descriptions of God are necessarily wrong, because an infinite, timeless consciousness can have no characteristics that can be properly translated into physical terms. Love, light, and bliss come the closest. ([Location 1979](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=1979)) - Tags: [[pink]] - think the situation will be radically different in the future. I do not think that this new century will be dominated by merely inanimate high technology. It is my view that exploring and discovering the latent transcendent powers of our own creative consciousness will be more important and of greater value to civilization. Indeed, this will be a kind of full circling rather than a wholly new direction in human history. There may be a spiritual substance to science as well as a scientific substance to spirit, with light as the key link. The time has come to reintegrate the two. ([Location 2036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=2036)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Why should human beings have the ability to discover and understand the principles on which the universe runs?” asks the physicist Paul Davies in The Mind of God. The answer, in the God Theory, is simple. We understand the rules because we made them up—not in the state we currently find ourselves as human beings, of course, but back when we were literally one with God, before God decided to temporarily become us. ([Location 2047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0070YFPYU&location=2047)) - Tags: [[pink]]