Of Gratitude and Peace

Today (21 September) is International Day of Peace. It is also World Gratitude Day. Whilst it is perhaps telling that we need a special day to remind ourselves of peace and gratitude, the days are welcome in a world that still yearns for true peace and seeks a state of grace.¹

It is noteworthy that the day is Gratitude Day rather than Gratefulness Day. We may be grateful for a number of things in our life: the warmth of the sun on our face, the smell of the ocean, the taste of our morning coffee, or the greeting waved out by a neighbour.

Gratitude goes further. Gratitude is a state of mind that we take with us into the world. It has an inner motivation that is not dependent upon an external event or circumstance to stimulate a feeling of gratefulness.

World Gratitude Day was suggested by the spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy in 1965 when he proposed a day of thanks that the whole world could celebrate.

Sri Chinmoy has also been a light in seeking for peace in the world. Chinmoy tells us that “It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer peace.” If we attempt peace without this inner peace, he cautions us to “…not try to change the world. You will fail. Try to love the world. Lo, the world is changed, changed forever.”

Furthermore, Chinmoy has advice for us that links the twin themes of today – peace and gratitude. He tells us:

“Gratitude can transform our life, sooner than anything else.”

Hence, through gratitude we can discover an inner peace. That inner peace enables us to love the world, thus changing the world, and so gaining peace.

Let us remind ourselves today of the connections between gratitude and peace and also between our own inner peace and the peace of the world.

Note:

1. The words gratitude and grace both derive from the same etymological root – meaning to favour.

Ishmael - Book Review

Have you had the experience of reading, hearing, or seeing reference to something so often that eventually you say to yourself “I have to check that out.”?

That’s how it has been for me with this book. First published in 1992, with a special twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 2017, Ishmael is now thirty years old.¹

Ray Bradbury² praised the book, stating that “Ishmael is a genuine discovery. It will be around for many years.” It is still around, and thankfully so, for it is just as relevant today as it was then, perhaps moreso.

The cover of the book claims it to be “A Novel.” In reality it is more of a Socratic dialogue, with Daniel Quinn (the author) writing in a manner similar to Plato’s writings with Socrates as the main character.

Ishmael (the teacher,) using a searching and probing technique, takes his “pupil” on a journey to discover the story that our present-day cultures have been enacting for the past 10,000 – 12,000 years. It is an enlightening journey as it uncovers a forgotten past that sheds an entirely different meaning on the stories of Adam and Eve, the Fall, and the murder of Abel by Cain. Most of us recognise these stories from the Bible, and even if we are not religiously inclined, they are the stories that we have been enacting ever since.

Ishmael and his student meet each other because of a simple newspaper advert: “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” Who could resist such an opportunity? Ishmael’s pupil can’t.

Significantly, Ishmael’s pupil is never named in the novel. This omission allows us, the readers, to become the student. The student could be any one of us.

Without revealing too much of the plot, nor the teachings, Ishmael helps his student see the history of the world over the past 10,000 – 12,000 years as being a continuing conflict between the Takers (represented by Cain) and the Leavers (represented by Abel.) Which of these is dominant and dominating can be guessed at when the story of Cain and Abel is recalled.

How do these two human trajectories play out in the novel? I will leave that for you, the reader, to discover in your own “reading” of the novel, the dialogues, and the stories.

As for Ishmael himself? Well, Ishmael is a gorilla, taken from his home and kept as a fairground attraction. Initially, that Ishmael is a gorilla may be a bit jarring. However, understanding the novel, and the stories it tells, in a mythical sense, then it is entirely appropriate that the teacher is a Leaver, and is caged by the Takers.

Yes indeed, Ray Bradbury was correct. This is a book that deserves to be around for many years. It deserves re-reading often, as perhaps do the sequels (My Ishmael and The Story of B.) I’ll go and read those next.

Notes:

1. Daniel Quinn, Ishmael, Bantam Books, New York, 2017 (special 25^th anniversary edition)

2. Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012) was one of America’s most acclaimed authors. A prolific author in many genres he sold over 8 million copies of his works in 36 languages.

Are We Threatened Too?

Today (7 September) has been designated as Threatened Species Day in the country in which I live – Australia.

There are over 1,700 Australian species and ecological communities that are known to be threatened and at risk of extinction. World-wide, over 41,000 species are threatened with extinction.

Let me say that again. Over 41,000 species world-wide are threatened with extinction.

Well over a quarter of those threatened species belong to the Mammalia family (mammals).

That is the group (Mammalia) that includes us – Homo sapiens.

We can be more precise. Homo sapiens belong to the family Hominidae (Great apes) which includes chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutan, and bonobo. Amongst this family, our closest cousins – chimpanzees and bonobos – are listed as Endangered and “at very high risk of extinction in the wild.”

What about us? Are we threatened or in danger of extinction?

The IUCN says “no.” On the Red List Homo sapiens is classified as LC – Least Concern. Amongst the family Hominidae we are the only species with this classification. All others are classified as Vulnerable (VU), Endangered (EN), or Critically Endangered (CR). We are also the only ones in this family where the population is increasing. All others are decreasing (although gibbons are stable.)

Why are we not listed as threatened? The IUCN justifies our classification as of Least Concern because “…the species is widely distributed, adaptable, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline.”

Really? At least three observations come out of this.

First, there is a strong causative link between the increase in our population size and the decrease in the populations of all other Great apes, not to mention the decrease in populations of numerous other species.

The extinction rate of all animals has increased significantly over the past quarter of a century, and especially since the Industrial Revolution. That is our doing.

The second observation is that our increasing population, and the consumptive practices of a large proportion of our population, should be an ecological warning bell. We have been overshooting our carrying capacity globally since the early 1970s, with the rich, westernised nations, overshooting long before that. Any ecologist will tell you that when a species overshoots its carrying capacity it is only a matter of time before there is decline.

Furthermore, the greater we exceed our carrying capacity then the greater is likely to be the decline. This would suggest that we are threatened.

Thirdly, the IUCN states that as far as we are concerned “…there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline.” It is perhaps difficult to recognise a threat to ourselves when the threat is principally ourselves. Homo sapiens is the threat to Homo sapiens.

Ironically, we have appropriated for ourselves the species name Homo sapiens (Wise human), yet we are showing little collective sign of the wisdom such a designation suggests.

What would it take for the sapient part of our species categorisation to be made manifest?

Amongst the range of possibilities would have to be an acknowledgement that we are a threatened species, and that we conspired to place numerous other species on the threatened list. Having done that, we would be wise to confess our hubris in claiming our heights of evolution.

The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the Earth. This would be a wise mantra for us to adopt.

Existential Anxiety, Grief, and Mourning

In recent weeks I have found myself in many conversations with people around responses to existential collapse and the anxiety that arises because of that threat (and reality.)

A study of 10,000 children and young people (aged 16 – 25) in ten countries about their thoughts and feelings related to climate change was published in December 2021.¹ The results of the survey was consistent across all countries, with 59% of respondents being very or extremely worried about climate change. A further 25% were moderately worried.

Respondents reported feelings of being sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and/or guilty. High levels of anxiety and distress were correlated with perceptions of government inaction and betrayal.

Reading this research, and reflecting upon my conversations with people around existential collapse, I was reminded of the work of Francis Weller (The Wild Edge of Sorrow.) Weller notes that when we do not allow for, and honour “the needs of the soul during times of grief” then “sorrow mutates into symptoms of depression, anxiety, dullness, and despair.”²

A year ago (August 2021) I posted a series of four blogpieces exploring Existential Grief and Mourning. In response to the above observations I now offer these four blogpieces in their complete form below. Hence, this weeks blog is substantially longer than my normal weekly blog. However, it may be of use having it all in one place.

Considering the results of the survey of 10,000 children and young people, it is worth restating an observation from Existential Grief and Mourning. “We must find the courage to begin conversations about Existential Collapse – even if we do not know how or where to begin.”

Notes

1. Caroline Hickman, Elizabeth Marks, Panu Pihkala, Susan Clayton, R Eric Lewandowski, Elouise E Mayall, Britt Wray, Catriona Mellor, Lise van Susteren, Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey, The Lancet, Vol 5, December 2021.

2. Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2015.

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Existential Grief And Mourning

This blogpiece seeks to understand our collective and individual response to social and environmental collapse.

The first warning bells sounded fifty years ago with the release of Limits To Growth.¹ That ground-breaking study looked at several possible future scenarios based on projections of population, resource use, pollution, food per capita, and industrial output. One of these scenarios the authors termed the Standard model. Since 1972 this has come to be re-phrased as Business As Usual. Recent research and studies have shown that those warning bells rang true.²

We are at the limits to growth. In fact, we are beyond the limits and are now in collapse.

Many reading this may think that I am speaking of collapse as resulting from climate change. I am…but so much more as well. To borrow a term from the climate change lexicon – we are facing a perfect storm.

This perfect, super, storm is comprised of: climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, soil depletion, pollution, water degradation, food scarcity, diminishing fuel reserves. Added to these are the more socially constructed harms of: political polarisation, mass refugee and migration movements, an ever-increasing chasm between rich and poor, techno-addiction, and loss of trust in so-called world leaders. All these, and more, are coming together simultaneously, to create unavoidable collapse.

Whether we know it or not, like it or not, this existential crisis gives rise to grief and mourning.

Five Stages of Grief

In 1969 the Swiss-American psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross postulated five stages of the grief process. Her theories and ideas have little changed in the intervening five decades. Her five stages of grief is a useful model with which to dissect our collective response to existential loss. This blog will look briefly at each stage: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Following this, this question will be posed: what does it mean to mourn when faced with the possibility of human extinction?

Denial

For decades, denial was the default position on climate change for most of the world’s leaders, captains of industry, politicians, and other decision-makers. Within the general population, denial of climate change was also widespread, although this has changed somewhat during the course of this century, with denial less evident within the general population.

More recently, even some of the most recalcitrant of the world’s leaders have shifted and now, at least, acknowledge the reality of climate change.

However, the planetary system has shifted immensely in far less time than it took these leaders to change their minds. It has gone from Global Warming to Climate Change, to Climate Chaos, to Climate and Environmental-Social Collapse within just a few short years.

Collapse, however, goes much deeper than Climate Change – it is a death. A death of our way of life, perhaps even the death of our very existence on this planet. Such a thought is extremely uncomfortable – so much so that a common response is denial. Indeed, denial is reasonable and totally understandable. Denial protects us from those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. At least, it does so until such time as we are capable of moving on.

There is a danger in lingering too long in denial however.

When someone is faced with the death of a loved one, a person in denial wonders how they can go on, perhaps even questioning why they should go on.

Faced with existential death however, our collective denial shifts our response from one of ‘how do I go on’ to a stubborn ‘we will go on.’ Denying the possibility of the extinction of humanity we, collectively, say: it’s business as usual, we won’t change, we’ll keep on keeping on. And so, we continue to extract minerals from the earth, we will continue to exploit nature for our own ends, we will continue to pollute the land, sea, and air with our waste. Denial says we must keep fuelling the industrial-consumerist machine in whatever way possible.

Denial, ultimately, stops us from seeing the error and foolishness of our ways.

We cannot afford to linger in denial, for the longer we remain in denial, the closer collapse comes, and the harder the fall is likely to be.

Anger

Anger is an on-the-top emotion. When we experience it, we know it – and usually, so do those around us. Anger is driven by, and protective of, the ego. Anger declares: I am threatened, or I have been harmed. Our ego wants to protect us from real and/or perceived threats. So, our ego looks for, and usually finds, an external source of the threat or pain.

Anger is also a cover-up emotion. It covers up deeper emotions. Beneath anger we often find other emotional states: betrayal, physical harm, abuse, and abandonment, are some possibilities. These hidden emotions vary from person to person, and from culture to culture. Anger, and our ego, is determined to shield us from these deeper emotions. With respect to Existential Collapse, beneath the anger may be the pain of a deep sense of impending loss. Loss is always difficult, and painful. Existential Collapse is the ultimate loss, and extremely painful. No wonder we want to shield ourselves from that.

Once a source of threat or pain is identified, the ego now has something, or someone, to blame. Presently, various movements around the world find it easy to identify culprits: business leaders, trans-national companies, world leaders, the media, politicians. Once identified, it is easy to uncover further evidence for this analysis. Confirmation bias kicks in and we can find many articles with titles such as “Biggest 10 carbon emitters” almost every day.

Anger is a useful early response to Existential Collapse – it protects us. However, remaining within this stage is unhelpful, because we remain externally focussed. We can find more and more evidence that we are right, that someone or something else is to blame, and hence deserving of our anger.

When that happens, anger has become a blindfold, preventing us from seeing the bigger picture.

Bargaining

The other stage that many activists (and others) are caught in is that of bargaining. Bargaining allows us to hold onto hope, even though we are experiencing pain. Bargaining asks: If I (we) do this then can things get back to normal?

Bargaining in a time of Existential Collapse says: If we do this, and that, then collapse will not happen. Bargaining is a hopeful stage, it paints a rosy picture of the future, one in which everything will be okay.

Because this stage is hopeful of the future, it is often a solutions-generating stage. However, solutions posited in this stage tend to be of a reactive and grasping nature. Solutions offered from this stage often react to a simplistic analysis and grasp at quick (often technological) fixes. Such solutions arise from a mechanistic way of thinking.

The mechanistic, Cartesian, ways of thinking have been with us in the western world for some 400 years or so. Einstein, however, challenged this by telling us that:

“We cannot solve problems using the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Einstein was not simply suggesting thinking differently about problems, he was suggesting a completely different way of thinking.³

Because we continue to think and generate solutions within a mechanistic mindset, the solutions generated in this bargaining stage, more often than not, also tend to exacerbate the very problem we are wanting to solve.

Bargaining keeps us locked into an historical trap. A trap that keeps us thinking we can be certain of being able to fix things. A trap within which we continue to believe we can be in control of the anthropocentric project of progress. This is techno-addiction.

The bargaining stage is useful to us, it means we can, at least, look forward to a possible future. However, as with anger, if we linger here too long, we do so at our peril.

Plus, we fail to see the underlying cause of the strife we are in and the damage we continue to inflict upon the earth.

Depression

We live in a world where we want to fix things. If its broke – fix it! If it ain’t broke – still, fix it! You could say we are fixated on fixing things. The same is true of depression. Depression must be fixed.

But, in a time of grief, depression is a natural response to loss. Indeed, when facing Existential Collapse – the ultimate loss – depression may be a vital part of the grieving process; a “must-see” stop off point on the grieving journey.

Yet, there is much fear around depression, sadness, and despair. This fear leads to a reluctance to talk about Existential Collapse. “Don’t talk about it. Don’t go there – you’ll only get depressed.”

Sounds like denial, doesn’t it? Depression – a necessary stage in the grief process – is to be denied.

The reluctance to recognise the possibility of depression takes on an even greater significance in a time of Existential Collapse. The ramifications of collapse will seriously impact younger generations and those yet to be born. Older generations (if we/they understand at all) may be reluctant to engage with younger people because we/they wish to protect children and grandchildren from such thinking.

Yet, not talking about collapse hides a truth. An enormous truth! An unwillingness to enter into conversations around collapse is tantamount to lying. Such conversations may be difficult, they may be painful, they may even be depressive. But, have them we must – for this collapse has already begun, and will become worse – much worse.

Furthermore, younger generations cannot be protected and must not be lied to. Indeed, younger generations most likely know more about Existential Collapse than do older generations.

Notwithstanding the possibility of depression, we must find the courage to begin conversations about Existential Collapse – even if we do not know how or where to begin.

Let us not allow our fear of depression to hinder us from facing our fear of Existential Collapse.

Acceptance

Accepting Existential Collapse may seem to be a strange (even counter-intuitive) notion. How does one accept the possible extinction of the human race? Surely, that is an untenable idea. However, let me be clear: Acceptance is not synonymous with “being okay with.” Nor is acceptance a resigned, non-involved, withdrawal.

Tara Brach coined the term Radical Acceptance which is possibly a better term than the single word – Acceptance. She has said that Radical Acceptance is “…an inner process of accepting our actual, present-moment experience. It means feeling sorrow and pain without resisting… (It is) clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart.”⁴

Perhaps an analogy may help to distinguish between this form of acceptance, and a resigned withdrawal.

Imagine you are a member of a sports team (e.g., rugby, netball, Aussie rules, gridiron, basketball, league …) and the full-time whistle is about to blow within the next couple of minutes. Your team is trailing by thirty points or more – your team is going to lose. Do you, and the rest of your team-mates, give up, stop playing, walk dejectedly off the field? No! You keep playing, right up until the whistle, even though you know you are going to lose. Furthermore, you keep playing as part of the team. You don’t take on the burden of loss all to yourself. Nor do you hog the ball – you pass, you support your team-mates.

That is Acceptance.

Acceptance in a time of Existential Collapse also understands that past actions are no longer relevant. Past behaviours and ideas cannot be returned to. They are unsustainable.

This understanding leads many in the Acceptance stage to conclude that the very basis of western-styled techno-industrial civilisation is at the core of the collapse. Business-As-Usual is not an option.

Although Acceptance understands the big picture, it also realises that there are no solutions. Existential Collapse is not a problem to be solved or fixed. It is a predicament which has an outcome, but does not have solutions. See the excellent blogsite (Problems, Predicaments, and Technology).

This would seem to suggest that the emotional response would be depression. It is not. True Acceptance, in fact, opens one up to a new appreciation of beauty, love, joy, and contentment.

Existential Mourning

Having now delved into the five stages of Grief, with especial reference to Existential Collapse, these concluding paragraphs consider the emotional response of Mourning.

Existential Collapse is incomprehensible. Existential Collapse is unheard of. We have never been here before. We have no blueprints. We have no roadmap with which to navigate our way.

However, if we get over denial, and then manage our way through the three stages of grief (anger, depression, bargaining) then we may arrive at Acceptance.

In that state of Acceptance we can truly Mourn.

(Before moving on, let me make an important distinction. Mourning is not depression. Mourning is not melancholia. Mourning is not sadness, nor is it sorrow.)

Mourning is like the soft woollen cloak that wraps around us and holds in the warmth of a deep love.

Tracing the etymology of mourning is illuminating. It has Old Germanic and Old Nordic roots; roots that also give us words like memory, commemorate, and remember. So, when we mourn, we remember something.

When we think of mourners we think of those (as in the painting at right by Teodor Axentowicz) following a coffin. These followers (mourners) have lost someone, and in their following, are remembering that loved one.

Thus, we could define mourning as “remembering our love for someone, or something, that has been lost, or is about to be lost.”

It is this love, and the memory of love, that sets mourning apart from melancholia and depression. You could say that mourning is a remembering of joy, beauty, love, and connection.

Mourning, in the context of Existential Collapse, is remembering the beauty of nature. It is remembering our connection with the enormity and totality of life. It is remembering our place. It is remembering that we are all derived from, and owe our very existence to, Mother Earth.

Mourning and Acceptance are two aspects of the same understanding. Both recognise that whatever we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. When we treat the Earth with disdain, we lose our connection and humanity.

When we treat the Earth as part of us, we can remember beauty, joy, and love.

We are losing that Earth. Or, at least, we are losing our part of that Earth. And for that, we can mourn, we can remember.

Notes:

1.    1. Meadows, Meadows, Randers & Behrens III, The Limits to Growth (Report for the Club of Rome), Universe Books, New York, 1972.

2.     2. For example, https://www.livescience.com/collapse-human-society-limits-to-growth.html (accessed 28 July 2021)

3.     3.This blog further explores Einstein’s famous dictum about thinking.

4.     4. www.tarabrach.com (accessed 10 August 2021)

5. 

Zoe's Children - Heat Waves

In late July 2022 Seville, in southern Spain, suffered with a heat wave. The city had only recently introduced a 3-tiered measurement for heat waves, with 3 being the most severe. This heat wave attained the Tier-3 category. The heat wave was also the first in the world to be given a name (like tornados, hurricanes, typhoons etc) – an indication that the authorities in Seville expect to have other heat waves deserving of a name.

This heat wave was given the name Zoe.

In mythology, Zoe is known amongst the Greek Gnostics as having a fiery breath. Zoe certainly breathed fire over Seville and the rest of Spain during the month. Indeed, the whole of Europe underwent severe heat waves, resulting in an estimated 12,000 + deaths between June and August.

Other cities are also implementing heat wave categories and considering naming them (in an alphabetically backward manner) as has Seville.

Heat waves raise the risk of stroke, kidney and heart problems, as well as directly causing heat stroke and dehydration in people.

And, scenarios such as this will only get worse. The latest IPCC¹ report (finalised in February 2022) noted that there will be a “very likely increase in length, frequency, and/or intensity of warm spells or heat waves over most land areas.”

Ominously, the authors of that IPCC report were “highly confident” of the “very likely increase” in south-west, south, and east Europe. Seville is almost as far south-west in Europe as it is possible to get!

Seville, Spain, and Europe are not alone. Severe heat waves have occurred in Australia, many parts of South America, India, Pakistan, the U.S., China, and Japan – since the beginning of 2022.

Heat waves do not affect human populations only. We know that heat waves can cause mass die-offs amongst some animals (birds and mammals in particular.) Even for surviving members of species heat waves have a tremendous cost. Heat waves can damage the DNA of nestling birds in the first few days of their lives, meaning that they may die younger and produce less offspring.²

What can we expect after Zoe?

Zoe’s children will birth more frequently. Zoe’s children will live longer, and Zoe’s children will be more brutal.

The name Zoe means life. Zoe’s children are more likely to take life, than to give it.

Notes:

1. IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

2. Eastwood, Connallon, Delhey, Peters, Hot and dry conditions predict shorter nestling telomeres in an endangered songbird: Implications for population persistence, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 13 June 2022.

 

A Broad Mind Can Travel Anywhere

There is an oft repeated saying that travel broadens the mind. Does it?

Perhaps for some travellers the experience is indeed mind expanding. Perhaps some travellers discover different cultures and, in the process, find that the encounter changes their attitude towards other people, and other ways of life, in a positive manner.

If that is the case, then travelling has indeed broadened the mind of the traveller.

But, what of those “others” who has been travelled to?

Sadly, too often in today’s world, those who live in places travelled to are damaged by the encounter. (A previous blog piece has commented upon this.)

Let us return to the traveller.

What if the saying about travel and broad minds is turned inside-out, turned upon its head?

The French novelist, Marcel Proust, claimed that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

How might we obtain new eyes?

Some of the world’s most enlightened people (those with broad minds) hardly travelled at all.

Jesus is said to have travelled no further than 50km from his place of birth. Buddha travelled only through northern India and Nepal.

Ann Frank as a teenager was unable to travel outside her “secret annex” in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. Yet she left, in her diaries, an account written by an incredibly broad-minded young woman.

Stephen Hawking was confined to his wheelchair from his late twenties onward. Yet, his broad mind allowed him to travel anywhere – even to the edge of Black Holes.

Perhaps it can be better said that a broad mind can travel anywhere.

Of course, there is one journey that we can take that truly does broaden our mind. This journey requires no physical or geographical travel at all. This is the inward journey. The journey that takes us downward into the depths of Soul.

Travelling into this terrain (of Soul) is the most mind-broadening journey one can ever undertake. And there is no need to leave home; no need to disrupt other cultures; no need to leave carbon footprints in the environment.

Truly, a broad mind can travel anywhere.

Quantum Consciousness (Book Review)

When he was about 14 or 15 years old Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez made the astute observation that: “The biggest challenge we face is shifting human consciousness, not saving the planet. The planet does not need saving. We do.”¹

The young environmental and climate activist was right then, and still is. We need to shift human consciousness.

Peter Smith’s wonderful book, Quantum Consciousness, gives us a taste of what such shifted consciousness might look like, and how we might get there.

For Smith (and, I assume, Martinez,) consciousness is not simply a shift to becoming more conscious. Shifting quantum consciousness involves a complete overhaul and re-envisaging of what consciousness entails.

Smith utilises concepts from within quantum physics to elucidate and explain the realms of consciousness open to us – if we are willing to take the journey.

Quantum consciousness does not reside in our brain, Smith tells us. Indeed, consciousness is not even located within our bodies. We reside in consciousness. This idea is fundamental to Smith’s ideas and concepts.

Once this idea is recognised then the four key essences of quantum consciousness can be understood more clearly. Smith borrows four aspects from quantum physics and slightly re-words them for us non-physicists to understand. The Observer Effect becomes The Creator Effect, Non-locality becomes Everywhereness, Entanglement becomes Intanglement, and the Holographic Universe becomes Holographic Healing.

With these four key concepts in mind Smith takes us into the realms of: parallel lives, past lives, the power of beliefs, inter-connection, multi-verses, communication across distance and time, interdimensional consciousness, our role and place in nature, and other possibilities that many would dismiss as esoteric “nonsense.” Such dismissal is misplaced. It has been said that the mind is like a parachute – it only works when it is open.³ Quantum Consciousness shows us what possibilities exist, if we are open to them.

Smith is highly qualified to write this book. He has studied various forms of hypnotherapy and has been the President of the Michael Newton Institute for Life Between Lives Hypnotherapy – an institute with trained therapists in more than 40 countries around the world. He has many years experience in working with people in various states of consciousness, and utilises many of these cases to illustrate the concepts within his book.

Furthermore, Peter Smith’s writing style is straight-forward and easy to read. He expresses complex ideas in plain, uncomplicated, language. This makes it easy to grasp the concepts that otherwise might be difficult to understand.

This blog has a leaning towards a collective approach to how we live on this planet in a sustainable and amenable manner. Hence, I was delighted to read the final two chapters (Changing the Landscape of Planet Earth and, The Evolved Landscape of Planet Earth) wherein Smith addresses the links and correspondences between our individual consciousness and our collective consciousness, and how each helps the other to further evolve.

This is also a relatively short book (less than 200 pages) making it highly accessible to anyone wishing to gain further insight into what a shift in human consciousness might entail.

Notes:

1. Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez is the Youth Director of the environmental organisation Earth Guardians. In 2015, he and 20 other young people brought a lawsuit against the US government for failure to act against climate change. Although the court sympathised with the young people, the Court “Reluctantly (concluded) that this remedy (a government plan to phase out fossil fuels) is not within our constitutional powers.”

2. Peter Smith, Quantum Consciousness, Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota, 2019.

3. This quote is attributed to Frank Zappa, the enigmatic musician and composer.