"The Holographic Universe"--interview with Michael Talbot

[Magical Realist]

One of the first thinkers who took the metaphor of the hologram to whole new levels in understanding our world, consciousness, quantum physics, and psi phenomena. The vast scope of this holistic thinking possesses amazing explanatory power for what the nature of reality is and the nature of mind as well. See example below..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgYz_BU2Ew

“Because the term hologram usually refers to an image that is static and does not convey the dynamic and ever active nature of the incalculable enfoldings and unfoldings that moment by moment create our universe, Bohm prefers to describe the universe not as a hologram, but as a "holomovement. " The existence of a deeper and holographically organized order also explains why reality becomes nonlocal at the subquantum level. As we have seen, when something is organized holographically, all semblance of location breaks down. Saying that every part of a piece of holographic film contains all the information possessed by the whole is really just another way of saying that the information is distributed nonlocally. Hence, if the universe is organized according to holographic principles, it, too, would be expected to have nonlocal properties.”― Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe

It occurs to me that if our physical universe is the holographic generation of a hidden level of order, then not only are objects and matter instantiated by it but also space itself is. So the hologram, or Bohm's holomovement, is perceived locally as atomistic and separated into discrete parts and distanced locations, but is actually bound together by a deeper non-local order beneath space itself, and probably beneath time as well. Holographically I may appear to be lightyears away from a star, but myself, the star, AS WELL AS the space between us, all unfold or manifest at once from the underlying implicate substrate. Nonlocality is thus fundamentally hardwired into the fabric of reality, as demonstrated by such phenomena as entanglement (see excerpt below), synchronicity, clairvoyance, precognition, memory, emergence, and fractal geometry.

"According to John Preskill, the Richard P. Feynman professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, many physicists have suspected a deep connection between quantum entanglement — the “spooky action at a distance” that so vexed Albert Einstein — and space-time geometry at the smallest scales since the physicist John Wheeler first described the latter as a bubbly, frothy foam six decades ago. “If you probe geometry at scales comparable to the Planck scale” — the shortest possible distance — “it looks less and less like space-time,” said Preskill. “It’s not really geometry anymore. It’s something else, an emergent thing [that arises] from something more fundamental.”

Physicists continue to wrestle with the knotty problem of what this more fundamental picture might be, but they strongly suspect that it is related to quantum information. “When we talk about information being encoded, [we mean that] we can split a system into parts, and there is some correlation among the parts so I can learn something about one part by observing another part,” said Preskill. This is the essence of entanglement.

It is common to speak of a “fabric” of space-time, a metaphor that evokes the concept of weaving individual threads together to form a smooth, continuous whole. That thread is fundamentally quantum. “Entanglement is the fabric of space-time,” said Swingle, who is now a researcher at Stanford University. “It’s the thread that binds the system together, that makes the collective properties different from the individual properties. But to really see the interesting collective behavior, you need to understand how that entanglement is distributed....

"...a string theorist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, likens the holographic concept to a two-dimensional computer chip that contains the code for creating the three-dimensional virtual world of a video game. We live within that 3-D game space. In one sense, our space is illusory, an ephemeral image projected into thin air. But as Van Raamsdonk emphasizes, “There’s still an actual physical thing in your computer that stores all the information."
---- https://www.quantamagazine.org/tensor-ne...-20150428/

[C C]

One of the first thinkers who took the metaphor of the hologram to whole new levels in understanding our world, consciousness, quantum physics, and psi phenomena. The vast scope of this holistic thinking possesses amazing explanatory power for what the nature of reality is and the nature of mind as well. See example below..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgYz_BU2Ew

“Because the term hologram usually refers to an image that is static and does not convey the dynamic and ever active nature of the incalculable enfoldings and unfoldings that moment by moment create our universe, Bohm prefers to describe the universe not as a hologram, but as a "holomovement. " The existence of a deeper and holographically organized order also explains why reality becomes nonlocal at the subquantum level. As we have seen, when something is organized holographically, all semblance of location breaks down. Saying that every part of a piece of holographic film contains all the information possessed by the whole is really just another way of saying that the information is distributed nonlocally. Hence, if the universe is organized according to holographic principles, it, too, would be expected to have nonlocal properties.”― Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe [...]

EXCERPTS (MT, from THU):

[... page 155 ...] In 1975 when I was a senior at Michigan State University I had a similarly profound and reality-challenging experience. I was having dinner with one of my professors at a local restaurant, and we were discussing the philosophical implications of Carlos Castaneda’s experiences.

In particular our conversation centered around an incident Castaneda relates in Journey to Ixtlan. Don Juan and Castaneda are in the desert at night searching for a spirit when they come upon a creature that looks like a calf but has the ears of a wolf and the beak of a bird. It is curled up and screaming as if in the throes of an agonizing death.

At first Castaneda is terrified, but after telling himself that what he is seeing can’t possibly be real, his vision changes and he sees that the dying spirit is actually a fallen tree branch trembling in the wind. Castaneda proudly points out the thing’s true identity, but as usual the old Yaqui shaman rebukes him.

He tells Castaneda that the branch was a dying spirit while it was alive with power, but that it had transformed into a tree branch when Castaneda doubted its existence. However, he stresses that both realities were equally real.

In my conversation with my professor, I admitted that I was intrigued by Don Juan’s assertion that two mutually exclusive realities could each be real and felt that the notion could explain many paranormal events. Moments after discussing this incident we left the restaurant and, because it was a clear summer night, we decided to stroll.

As we continued to converse, I became aware of a small group of people walking ahead of us. They were speaking an unrecognizable foreign language, and from their boisterous behavior it appeared that they were drunk. In addition, one of the women was carrying a green umbrella, which was strange because the sky was totally cloudless and there had been no forecast of rain.

Not wanting to collide with the group, we dropped back a little, and as we did, the woman suddenly began swinging the umbrella in a wild and erratic manner. She traced out huge arcs in the air, and several times as she spun around, the tip of the umbrella nearly grazed us. We slowed our pace even more, but it became increasingly apparent that her performance was designed to attract our attention. Finally, after she had our gaze firmly fixed on what she was doing, she held the umbrella with both hands over her head and then threw it dramatically at our feet.

We both stared at it dumbly, wondering why she had done such a thing, when suddenly something remarkable began to happen. The umbrella did something that I can only describe as "flickering” like a lantern flame about to go out. It emitted an odd, crackling sound like the sound of cellophane being crumpled, and in a dazzling array of sparkling, multicolored light, its ends curled up, its color changed, and it reshaped itself into a gnarled, brown-gray stick.

I was so stunned I didn’t say anything for several seconds. My professor spoke first and said in a quiet, shocked voice that she had thought the object had been an umbrella. I asked her if she had seen something extraordinary happen and she nodded.

We both wrote down what we thought had transpired and our accounts matched exactly. The only vague difference in our descriptions was that my professor said the umbrella had "sizzled” when it transformed into a stick, a sound not too terribly dissimilar from the crackly sound of cellophane being crumpled.
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[... page 169 ...] Another gifted psychic who can see the aura in great detail is Los Angeles-based "human energy field consultant” Carol Dryer. Dryer says she has been able to see auras for as long as she can remember, and indeed it was quite some time before she realized other people couldn’t see auras...

[... page 179 ...] Talented psychics often report seeing such "holograms” floating in people’s auras. These images are usually of objects and ideas that hold a prominent position in the thoughts of the person around whom they are seen. Some occult traditions hold that such images are a product of the third, or mental, layer of the aura, but until we have the means to confirm or deny this allegation, we must confine ourselves to the experiences of the psychics who are able to see images in the aura.

[... page 180 ...] I, too, have had similar experiences when looking at the energy field. Once, while deep in thought about a novel I was working on about werewolves (as some readers may be aware, I have a fondness for writing fiction about folkloric subjects), I noticed that the ghostly image of a werewolf’s body had formed around my own body. I would quickly like to stress that this was a purely visual phenomenon and at no time did I feel I had in any way become a werewolf.

Nonetheless, the holographic like image that enveloped my body was real enough that when I lifted my arm I could actually see the individual hairs in the fur and the way the canine nails protruded from the wolfish hand that encased my own hand.

Indeed, everything about these features was absolutely real, save that they were translucent and I could see my own flesh-and-blood hand beneath them. The experience should have been frightening, but for some reason it wasn’t, and I found myself only fascinated by what I was seeing.

What was significant about this experience was that Dryer was my house guest at the time and happened to walk into the room while I was still sheathed in this phantomlike werewolf body. She reacted immediately and said, "Oh my, you must be thinking about your werewolf novel because you’ve become a werewolf.”

We compared notes and discovered that we were each observing the same features. We became involved in conversation, and as my thoughts strayed from the novel, the werewolf image slowly faded.

[Magical Realist]

"Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things," biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession. Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection. Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality. What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams. Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry."---- Article by Michael Talbot https://tobyjohnson.com/michaeltalbot.html

"Coincidentally" it was this exact same thought that I had in mind a few weeks ago when I came up with:

"In a world of ten thousand shimmering illusions, the only reality is magic."

---

It emitted an odd, crackling sound like the sound of cellophane being crumpled, and in a dazzling array of sparkling, multicolored light, its ends curled up, its color changed, and it reshaped itself into a gnarled, brown-gray stick.

I KNEW I'd heard of that "crackling cellophane sound" reference before. It is in the description Terence Mckenna gives of his DMT experience:

"So you take (let us assume) a third toke, long and slow through a glass pipe. You vaporize this stuff. You don’t mix it with weed or oregano or any of that, which was done in the past. You want the pure stuff. (Text sourced from https://www.organism.earth/library/docum...millennium) And you take it in and in and in. And there is definitely somewhere in here a threshold, a threshold which you must exceed. And when you do that, this membrane-like thing, this chrysanthemum, will actually part. And there is a sound like the crumpling of a plastic bread wrapper or the crackling of flame. A friend of mine says this is the radio entelechy of your soul exiting through the anterior fontanelle at the top of your head. Could be! In any case, this crackling sound and a tone, a tone, a nnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeee! And then there’s this impression of transition. And you’re now twenty seconds deep into this experience. There’s an impression of transition. It’s as though there were a series of tunnels or chambers that you are tumbling down, being propelled by some kind of muscle behind you that is pushing you. I mean, yes, birth canal. Yes, yes, of course. But anyway, a tunnel. And what I’ve noticed about this tunnel is: the walls and ceiling flux and come down to meet each other. And where they touch, they pull apart with a shhhhllllllluuuuuushhhh. And then you’re propelled into the next space, and then the next, and then the next. And there is this shhhllllll-pop."

Found this comment by a DMT user on the Shoomery blog:

"I don't think so...The crackling sound I've heard from dmt is way more powerful and immersive than popping in the ears from yawning. It doesn't seem to originate from any particular point, it's all around & within me.

I've only heard it a few times. I found it to be much more reminiscent of the crackling of a wood fire burning rather than a plastic wrapper. It was much softer and more "organic" feeling. There was also an electronic, high pitched oscillating/pinging sound associated with it."

[Magical Realist]

Talented psychics often report seeing such "holograms” floating in people’s auras. These images are usually of objects and ideas that hold a prominent position in the thoughts of the person around whom they are seen. Some occult traditions hold that such images are a product of the third, or mental, layer of the aura, but until we have the means to confirm or deny this allegation, we must confine ourselves to the experiences of the psychics who are able to see images in the aura.

Not exactly thrilled by the prospect of having my most addictive thoughts displayed in public like that. What if I were surfing erotic art on the web for hours. Would images of naked men be floating around in my aura? lol

[C C]

It emitted an odd, crackling sound like the sound of cellophane being crumpled, and in a dazzling array of sparkling, multicolored light, its ends curled up, its color changed, and it reshaped itself into a gnarled, brown-gray stick.

I KNEW I'd heard of that "crackling cellophane sound" reference before. It is in the description Terence Mckenna gives of his DMT experience:

"[...] And there is a sound like the crumpling of a plastic bread wrapper or the crackling of flame. [...]"

Found this comment by a DMT user on the Shoomery blog:

"I don't think so...The crackling sound I've heard from dmt is way more powerful and immersive than popping in the ears from yawning. It doesn't seem to originate from any particular point, it's all around & within me.

I've only heard it a few times. I found it to be much more reminiscent of the crackling of a wood fire burning rather than a plastic wrapper. It was much softer and more "organic" feeling. There was also an electronic, high pitched oscillating/pinging sound associated with it."

Kind of reads like DMT and psilocybin deliver auditory triggers for ASMR.

Cellophane ASMR - Crinkling, Crackling, Squeezing ... https://youtu.be/br0LcbcozXY

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/br0LcbcozXY

Crackling fire by lake ASMR ... https://youtu.be/mwf1vgCgMLw

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/mwf1vgCgMLw

[Magical Realist]

I love the campfire. Can almost smell it. Directors probably incorporate a lot of these sounds in their movies. For instance, I still remember the sound of the rain drops on Brad Pitt's hat as he stood outside the motel in Thelma and Louis.

[Magical Realist]

Here's part 2 of the interview with Michael Talbot posted in the OP. Here he gets into many of his own personal experiences with what may be called "non-ordinary reality", ranging from a poltergeist that haunted his family for years to encounters with beings from UFOs. Then he ties all this into his holographic model of reality with some really wise and spiritually mature advice on how we should then live our lives. I personally take this to heart, particularly in that my own experience with higher realities pertains to my own shamanistic journey and the oracular nature of synchronistic/serendipitous experiences as well as my inner voices. Michael's own brilliant summation of this supernal vision is worth repeating:

"In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality. What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, for magic is our birthright, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams. Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality would have to be seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events would express some underlying symmetry."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugQBP3NQ2g