Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness

by Itzhak Bentov

one’s level of ignorance increases exponentially with accumulated knowledge.

The physical body is reabsorbed by the planet, and the “body” of information is also absorbed back whence it came. No organized energy is ever lost.

When the psyche, after having been without a physical body for a while (the period after death), decides that it needs additional pieces of information obtainable only through the physical body, it will acquire one and continue to associate with the new body until it wears out and dies.

even our smallest, most insignificant actions will be broadcast far and wide and thus influence something or someone—whether that something or someone is aware of it or not.

Suppose we tune two violins, then put one of them on the table and play a note on the other. If we watch carefully, we shall see that the same string that we are playing on one violin is also humming on the violin that we placed on the table. Clearly, there is a “sympathetic resonance” between the two.

The air waves generated by the first violin impinge on the second violin. The string that is tuned to the emitted note will absorb the energy of the waves of that frequency preferentially because that energy comes to it at its own natural frequency. The energy transfer within this system is therefore optimum, and such a system, made up of two tuned oscillators, is called a resonant system.

It seems that nature finds it more economical in terms of energy to have periodic events that are close enough in frequency to occur in phase or in step with each other. That is the meaning of rhythm entrainment.

Nature feels that it is more economical if two or any number of oscillators that vibrate at frequencies close enough to each other work together rather than insist on keeping their small differences.

We could actually associate our whole reality with sound of one kind or another because our reality is a vibratory reality, and there is nothing static in it. Starting with the nucleus of an atom, which vibrates at enormous rates, the electrons and the molecules are all associated with characteristic vibratory rates. A most important aspect of matter is vibratory energy.

The more finely our systems are tuned, the clearer a signal we can pick out of the general noise and jumble of “sounds.” When we have a system of tuned oscillators, even the tiniest signal can be picked up. You may recall that it requires very little energy of the correct frequency to drive a resonant system.

In short, our whole reality is based on one common factor, and that is periodic change, or sound. Our senses are geared to respond to all these different “sounds,” but we are always comparing one sound with another. We can appreciate only the differences in sound.

We have seen various ways of producing sound. We know that when a string or any other structure vibrates, it may develop standing waves. These are waves that occupy a “fixed” position in any structure, whether it is a string, a plate, a container filled with a liquid, or a blood vessel. Nodes are the spots in which minimum motion occurs. When sets of waves are superposed, interference patterns result. A hologram is an interference pattern of light waves on a photographic plate. When two differing frequencies are superposed, beat frequencies result. Coherency is an in-step or in-phase behavior of waves. Oscillators are devices that move in a periodic, repetitive fashion between two points of rest. Our bodies are also such devices. Oscillators vibrating out of phase with each other may get locked into phase through rhythm entrainment. A system of oscillators that is in phase can resonate. Our reality is a vibratory reality, filled by “sounds” of different kinds. We respond to differences in these sounds.

it seems that the real reality—the microreality, that which underlies all our solid, good, common-sense reality—is made up, as we have just witnessed, of a vast empty space filled with oscillating fields!

We may look at a disease as such out-of-tune behavior of one or another of our organs of the body. When a strong harmonizing rhythm is applied to it, the interference pattern of waves, which is the organ, may start beating in tune again. This may be the principle of psychic healing.

We are surrounded and permeated by several fields: 1. The so-called isoelectric static field of the planet. 2. The electrostatic fields created by our bodies. 3. The magnetic field of the earth. 4. The electromagnetic field, which has a very wide spectrum, ranging from the very slow wave caused by disturbances in the atmosphere, through the spectrum of the visible light, and into the ultraviolet and higher frequency radiation. 5. The gravitational fields of the earth, the moon, and the neighboring planets and the sun. 6. The electromagnetic fields created by humans; the different broadcasting fields of radio and television networks.

we have an electrostatic field around the body. This field couples us well to the isoelectric field of the planet, which means that the motions of our bodies are transmitted far and wide around the planet. This is, naturally, a very weak signal.

in deep meditation the human being and the planet system start resonating and transferring energy. This is occurring at a very long wavelength of about 40,000 km., or just about the perimeter of the planet. In other words, the signal from the movement of our bodies will travel around the world in about one-seventh of a second through the electrostatic field in which we are embedded. Such a long wavelength knows no obstacles, and its strength does not attenuate much over large distances. Naturally, it will go through just about anything: metal, concrete, water, and the fields making up our bodies. It is the ideal medium for conveying a telepathic signal.

Recent scientific studies4 show that the effects of meditation are not just subjective but have very marked physiological effects besides soothing jangled nerves and lowering blood pressure. It slowly but surely causes what we shall call “elevation of levels of consciousness.”

if there are other people in the vicinity, or anywhere on the globe, who are meditating and are approaching this resonant frequency, they will be pushed along and locked into that frequency. We can therefore say that a nucleus of meditating body or bodies will emit a simple harmonic motion or a “sound” of approximately 7 Hz. through the electrostatic field of the planet. This emission will entrain others and help them in their effort to achieve the resonant state. The more bodies are thus locked in, the stronger the signal becomes. Due to the different time zones around the globe, there are always some people resonating and keeping this “sound” going.

When we magnify our physical matter very much, we find that we are made mostly of void permeated by oscillating fields. This is what objective physical reality is composed of.

the human body, is easily influenced by outside fields, whether natural, such as the changing low-frequency electromagnetic fields generated by weather patterns or by changing magnetic and gravitational fields affected by the moon and the sun; or it can be influenced by artificial fields produced by humans, such as broadcasting fields of radio and television networks.

When in the meditative state, our bodies go into resonance with the electric field of the planet.

our physical bodies and all matter is made up of interacting electromagnetic fields vibrating at tremendous frequencies.

our senses translate the surrounding reality to us into a Morse code language of action and rest. Action comes when the neuron fires its spike, and rest comes as the cell is regenerating and readying itself for the next firing. Out of this action-and-rest code our brain constructs for us, for example, the form of a rose, its texture, its color and smell—in other words, its “rosiness.” Or it will construct for us a faint image of distant galaxies coming in through the eyepiece of a telescope.

Throughout the animal kingdom, from plankton to elephant to humans, we find that reciprocating motion prevails. There is almost no spin in the living structures. We are confined to a pendulumlike or, if you wish, oscillating behavior.

It may be useful for us to ponder the possibility that “tangible reality” exists for us only as long as there is movement; and when the movement stops, matter and solid reality become diffuse and disappear.

Our senses translate to us the physical reality in a Morse code of action and rest. This is our subjective reality.

We have shown that when the pendulum reaches its point of rest, it has to become nonmaterial for a very short period of time and expand into space at an almost infinite velocity.

“Tangible world is movement.” Without change or movement there is no objective or subjective reality.

Step 1. Relax. Position the watch in front of you on a table so that it will be easily visible without any effort through half-closed eyes. Lean with your elbows on the table if you wish. Step 2. Look at the watch in a relaxed way and follow the second hand. Try to absorb and remember the rhythm at which it moves. All this has to be done quite effortlessly. Step 3. This is the crucial step in the experiment. Close your eyes and visualize yourself engaged in your most favorite activity. This visualization has to be as perfect as possible. For instance, if you visualize yourself lying on a beach in the sun, you have to be there—all of you. Don’t just think you are there, but feel the warmth of the sun and the texture of the sand; hear the sound of the waves; use all your senses. The results will be better if you choose a relaxing activity rather than a hectic one. 4. When you feel that you have stabilized this visualization, slowly open your eyes just a bit. Don’t focus on the watch, just let your gaze fall on the dial as if you are a disinterested observer of this whole affair. If you have followed the instructions properly, you may see the second hand stick in a few places, slow down, and hover for a while. If you are very successful, you’ll be able to stop the second hand for quite a while. To some people this is a shocking experience. The moment one feels shocked, the second hand accelerates and resumes its normal speed. Clearly, there is something very disturbing here.

Why, then, did the watch slow down or stop altogether for a while? I propose that the observing mind (or “the observer,” for short), the entity that correlates and makes sense of the information submitted to it by the brain, was absent. It went off to the beach and left the “hardware” at home, unattended. The “hardware,” by which I mean the sensory organs and the brain, are processing and producing the information, but the entity that correlates and makes sense of the information, has left the body for a while.

From the moment the watch stopped to the moment it started moving again, the “observer” was “out of the body.” In cases in which the watch has only slowed down, the “observer” was “split.” He was partially on the beach and partially in the body, handling information at a reduced rate.

When something moves so fast that it uses almost no time for its movement then it moves at an almost infinite speed, and when something is going so fast, then it must be present at all places at once! We mortals could perhaps give this kind of behavior a more fitting name: omnipresence.

since the future is made up of probabilities dependent on human free will, such travel into the future would be rather vague and unreliable

A very good example of this is so-called “subliminal advertising” This was a technique used some years ago by which products were advertised in the movie theaters or on television by flashing for a very short time a message on the screen. The public was never aware of what was happening since the message was too short to activate the conscious mind into producing a coherent thought image. But the subconscious mind, being much quicker, did pick up the message, and people dutifully consumed the advertised products. These techniques have fortunately since been outlawed.

An experiment with time shows that we have objective and subjective space-time, which normally coincide.

Our bodies are oscillators, and the atoms making up our bodies are also oscillators. Therefore, we expand into a spacelike dimension many times a second very rapidly and collapse back as rapidly, possibly at the rate of atomic vibration. However, in an altered state of consciousness we can expand our subjective time greatly. This allows us to observe the action of other psyches that are “out there” at a leisurely pace and bring back useful information from “there.” This is done without using up much objective time.

So our reality is made up of a constant rapid back-and-forth shuttling between our solid reality and the way-out realities, which we share with everybody else.

An expanded or higher state of consciousness implies an expansion of ...

My basic premise is that consciousness resides in matter; put another way, all mass (matter) contains consciousness (or life) to a greater or lesser extent. It may be refined or primitive. We human beings are so designed that when properly trained, we can interact with anything that has consciousness on whatever level.

By analogy, when motion or vibration appears in the absolute, it becomes visible or manifest, and we call it the relative, or physical reality.

Matter, being made of quanta of energy, is the vibrating, changing component of pure consciousness. Therefore, we can divide creation into two components, the absolute and the relative. The absolute is fixed, eternal, and invisible, while the relative is the visible, manifest, and changing aspect. The latter may be coarse or fine, short-lived or long-lived, but it is always based on the absolute.

The absolute is thus a state in which contrasting concepts become reconciled and fused. Movement and rest fuse into one.

Everything is oscillating between two states of rest. Everything is producing “sound.”

The broader our frequency response, the larger the number of realities in which we can function.

The hierarchy of realities is topped by the “absolute.” The absolute is the basis of all realities. In its nonmanifest form, it is a potential, intelligent energy. When rippled or modulated, it becomes the basis of our tangible physical matter and individual objects.

Most of us have heard about experiments demonstrating that plants respond to human emotions—to threats, love, etc. (The Secret Life of Plants1 by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird is the best source of information on this subject.)

a thought that starts out as a tiny stir eventually develops into a full-fledged thought producing at least a 70 milivolt potential somewhere in the cortex. It fires the first neuron, which in turn causes others to fire in a certain sequence. However, in this universe no energy is lost. If we can pick up the current produced by the thought outside the head, it means that the energy of the thought was broadcast in the form of electromagnetic waves, and at the velocity of light into the environment and, finally, into the cosmos.

As long as we are just sitting and producing idle thoughts, the thought energy is diffuse, and it eventually spreads out, weakens, and disappears. However, when we consciously concentrate and send coherent thoughts, that thought energy or thought form will impinge on the person for whom the thought was meant.

In a way, all these minor gods or Nature spirits rely on the energy they get from others to keep themselves powerful. Just like the politicians, their power and influence depends on the size and the strength of their constituency. Eventually, as their constituency diminishes, they fade from the scene, as did the gods of the ancient peoples, for example, the Baal, the Moloch, the Greek and Roman gods, etc. They remain just at some nominal value, sufficient to hold a social security card for old-age pension.