LIFE FORCE, The Scientific Basis

Claude Swanson

I would like to introduce you to a very special man, Claude Swanson, whom I simply adore. Claude Swanson has become a very close friend to Stan and me… more like a member of our family. Claude is above and beyond the most loving, caring individual I have ever met, and brilliant as well.  Claude came into our lives in 2006. Though Claude and Stan thought it a coincidence, I have no doubts that our paths were destined to cross, eventually. Claude Swanson, or should I say, Dr. Claude Swanson, is a physicist. He has spent the past 5 and ½ years working on Stan’s night writing equations. If you have not seen them, go to Stan’s website www.stanromanek.com.

So why do I think Claude is brilliant, because he has figured out what all of the equations are telling us, and the information is incredible. But that will be another article when Claude is ready to have them publicly published. This article is to introduce you to Claude, and the amazing work he has been doing, aside from working on Stan’s equations, And Trust Me It Is Incredible!!!!!

Dr. Claude Swanson

http://www.synchronizeduniverse.com

Dr. Claude Swanson was educated as a physicist at MIT and Princeton University. During those years he worked at the MIT Science Teaching Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory and a Virginia cyclotron in the summer. At Princeton he received the National Science Foundation Fellowship and Putnam Fellowship. His Ph.D. thesis at Princeton was done in the "Gravity Group," which focuses on experimental cosmology and astronomy, and was headed by Dr. Robert Dicke. His thesis advisor was Prof. David Wilkinson, who later became chairman of the physics department.

Swanson conducted postgraduate work at Princeton and Cornell Universities on the design of superconducting plasma containment vessels for fusion energy systems. He then began work for Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton, a consulting company, and later formed his own consulting company which carried out studies in applied physics for commercial and governmental agencies, including DuPont, United Technologies, the U.S. Army and Navy, DARPA and the CIA, among many others.

For the last fifteen years, interspersed with his conventional professional career in applied physics, Dr. Swanson has pursued investigations into "unconventional physics." His principal interest has been unified field theory, the so-called "Theory of Everything" which could explain the universe at the deepest possible level. This has led him to investigate many aspects of the paranormal, which appear to be completely real phenomena which violate our present science. Paranormal phenomena, which have now been proven in the laboratory in many cases, offer a window into the deeper universe, the mysteries of consciousness, and unlock new forces and principles which conventional science has only begun to glimpse.

Among paranormal phenomena which are now known, it has been found that signals can move much faster than light, and the human consciousness and even human influence, can move backward and forward in time. Science fiction concepts such as teleportation and levitation seem to occur in reality in paranormal events, and offer powerful evidence that this will be the new frontier of science.

At the same time, thousands of out-of-body and near-death experiences show that other dimensions and other realities do exist. This has been the domain of speculation by theoretical physics, but OBE and NDE cases indicate that parallel realities and dimensions are in some sense real. And finally, paranormal research suggests that the human soul, the center of human consciousness, can survive death and is apparently an energy form which can move and exist independently of the body. Science is discovering that, in the words of the pioneer Robert Monroe, " we are far more than our physical bodies."

Dr. Swanson has conducted extensive research in these areas, including research of the scientific literature, interviews with scientists in these fields, attended and spoken at conferences, and conducted experiments and investigations, to better understand how such paranormal phenomena can be incorporated into modern science.

This research has involved underwater archaeology in Bimini, scientific measurements in haunted houses, experiments in remote viewing and psychokinesis, and testing of new devices which can measure these strange forces. He has just published a book, The Synchronized Universe, which summarizes some of the new discoveries of this emerging science.

The Synchronized Universe: New Science of the Paranormal

Buy it today, on Amazon:       http://tinyurl.com/7jqsdlk

INTRODUCTION

The Hopi Prophecy
The prophecies of the Hopi are said to come from Massau’u, their spiritual teacher for the age. Ancient Hopi prophecies were handed down on stone tablets accompanied by an oral tradition of interpretation that was passed on by the elders of the community.
Certain of these prophecies concern events near the end of this current age in the Hopi framework of history. Some seem to have been fulfilled, including the coming of the automobiles and telephones-"horseless chariots" that would roll along "black snakes" across the land, and "cobwebs" through which people would speak over great distances.
Among the prophecies is a petroglyph, or rock carving, that depicts the Hopi Life Plan Prophecy. In part, it shows two horizontal timelines, the top one representing our modern technological, materialistic society and the bottom line depicting the Hopi’s own world of attunement to natural forces. Along the materialistic lines are the figures of human beings with their heads detached from their bodies, an apt image for contemporary men and women whose intellectual self and feeling self are so often disassociated.
Also shown in this prophetic petroglyph are two vertical lines that connect horizontal timelines. One of the connecting lines - symbolic of the opportunity for materialistic society to reconnect with the wisdom of the Hopi - is placed, logically just before a pair of circles which interpreters decipher to be the two world wars. The second vertical connector comes after the images for these two great wars, at approximately the time in which we now exist. Thus, there is the opportunity, but not the certitude, for technological society to join with the wisdom of the ancient ones. If not, the Hopi life plan prophecy depicts yet another period of great destruction. (quoted from Thurston, 1997)
The Conflict of Spiritualism and Materialism
This message from the Hopi underlines one of the great conflicts of our age: the separation between the spiritual world and the materialistic world. In Western societies, science is accepted as the final authority on the materialistic world. Scientists take the place of priests in medieval times, telling us about the age of our universe, how it was created, the nature of matter, and even the nature of life itself. The spiritual world has been relegated in the West to periodic rituals and diminishing Church attendance in the older established religions. There has been a backlash from fundamentalist religion, which challenges the scientific world-view head on, but is often viewed by the establishment intelligentsia as extremist and atavistic.
There seems to be no place in science for a God, and no place in religion for modern science. The two seem to be in conflict on all the main points. Religion requires miracles. Science requires the universe to follow laws. Religion and science each have their explanation for how the universe began, but these bear little resemblance to one another. They each offer a theory for how humans came to be on the earth, but the miraculous instantaneous creation of Genesis bears little resemblance to the slow evolution from one-celled animals described by Darwin. This split is confirmed by a 2001 Gallup poll, which revealed that 33% of Americans believe in the Theory of Evolution while 57% adhere to Creationism.
At every point there seems to be a deep disagreement. Scientists who are religious resolve this by compartmentalizing their thought. They simply will not think about the contradictions. The deeply religious often bear a deep suspicion or even a smoldering hostility toward science. This schism widens over matters of abortion, public prayer, genetic engineering, and numerous other matters of public debate.
As the Hopi prophecy makes clear, man cannot continue to exist in this divided state. The spiritual and the scientific sides of human wisdom must communicate. Science affords modern man with enormous power. This power can be used for good or evil. Often the long-term consequences are not even apparent. Science cannot always answer such questions. Religion has known for eons that a higher wisdom is available. Man must learn to seek guidance on a higher level, in order to use these new tools wisely. If he does not learn to listen to spiritual wisdom, the new tools of technology will become weapons, and will lead to our destruction. This, I believe, is the intent of the message of the Hopi.
But this does not imply that organized religion, as it is presently constituted, has all the answers we need. Just as science has drifted to an extreme position in which spirituality plays no part, so modern religion has evolved into fragmented, factious groups, often judgmental and condemning of others, and often having lost connection with the original spiritual beliefs of their early founders. Too often, churches and governments have made common cause, and become instruments of aggrandizement for one another. Too often, churches have modified their teachings to accommodate wealthy benefactors or powerful monarchs and dictators.
There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of different religions in the world, each with its own minute distinctions of ritual and catechism, conflicting gods and conflicting dogma. How can a modern look at this chaos of belief ever conclude that deep, satisfying truth can be found here? This is the response of the Western scientific minded, but it is often also the response of the disillusioned, disheartened faithful who continue religious ritual more out of habit than out of conviction.
Universal Truths
There is a resolution to this dilemma. There is an answer to what seems to be a hopeless question. It is possible to resolve the disagreements between science and religion. There is, after all, only one universe, and only one ultimate truth. Present day science has only PART of the answer, and present day religion also has only part of the answer.
A closer examination of the world’s religions reveals that, beneath the conflict and cacophony of dogma, there are certain universal truths. It is these universal truths which make religion powerful and satisfying to people. They may have different names for these truths, but in each religion, there is prayer and meditation, and these are powerful and healing. In each religion, an afterlife of some form exists, and a soul which survives the death of the body is an article of belief. In every religion there is a belief in superior beings, invisible, but very wise, to whom one can communicate.
A scientist who has studied this, Dr. Charles Tart of the University of California, states:
"Thousands, if not millions, of people alive today have had the experience of existing outside the space of their physical bodies for a brief period and experiencing this separated state as real, not as a dream or imaginary experience. A typical consequence of such an out-of-body experience is on the order of 'I no longer believe that I have a soul, or that some part of me will survive death, I know it!" (Rogo, 1983)
There is no place in modern science for a view such as this. Modern science does not allow for the possibility of the soul, or invisible beings, or have any laws of force which can account for the power of prayer. But what if modern science still has a few things to learn? What if present-day physics is leaving out a few important truths about the universe, as well?
This seems to be the case. There are many phenomena which have been proven in the laboratory, and yet which mainstream physics steadfastly refuses to admit or recognize. Why? Because if it did, it would turn the present world-view of physics upside down. But there is good news, too. It would bring a golden age of new discoveries and new technology, undreamed of today. And it would bring modern science and modern religion much closer to healing the ancient rift which separates them.
Scientific Revolution...
Evidence has rapidly accumulated over the past three decades that our present scientific theories are badly broken. Science is on the verge of a revolution as far reaching as the one a century ago that introduced relativity and quantum mechanics. The mounting evidence for this revolution has been largely ignored by "mainstream" scientists, even as it has grown more convincing. The study of scientific revolutions (see Kuhn, 1962) indicates that they are never easy nor smooth. The scientific establishment ignores or actively opposes the new evidence as long as it can.
Modern quantum theory was initially discovered by Max Planck, who later received the Nobel Prize for it. But he was opposed by the scientific establishment of his day, and became so embittered that he later remarked, referring to these establishment scientists: "Science advances funeral by funeral." Today it has been largely forgotten that Charles Darwin, who advanced the Theory of Evolution, endured white-hot hatred from opponents, who felt he was attacking the Bible's version of creation.
And few today realize that even Albert Einstein, the widely hailed genius of twentieth-century physics, was very slow in being recognized. His Theory of Relativity encountered very little acceptance for many years, and seventeen years later, when he received the Nobel Prize, it was for his work on the photoelectric effect and "other contributions to theoretical physics." Even then, his revolutionary theories of space and time were not accepted by many physicists.
Four hundred years ago, the intellectual establishment had more persuasive methods of preserving the old paradigm. When Galileo advanced his new theory of gravity and acceleration, which contradicted Aristotle, the Church threatened him with torture on the rack if he did not recant. He recanted.
Copernicus, who discovered from meticulous measurements that the earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa, prudently waited until after his death to have published his revolutionary conclusions. And Giordano Bruno, who proposed that the stars in the sky were other suns much like our own, and might have planets just like our sun does, was a offered a choice: publicly renounce his theories or be burned at the stake. (Mendoza, 1995) He held to his truth, and was incinerated as a lesson to those who would challenge orthodox beliefs.
Today, orthodoxy in science is maintained in more genteel ways. Ideas and results which challenge the prevailing viewpoint are simply not published in the mainstream journals, no matter how prestigious the credentials of the scientist or the care with which the work is done. The distinguished astronomer Halton Arp decries the present state of scientific publishing:
"The tradition of ‘peer review’ of articles published in professional journals has degenerated into almost total censorship. Originally, a reviewer could help an author improve his article by pointing out errors in calculation, references, clarity, etc., but scientists, in their fervid attachment to their own theories, have now mostly used their selection as a referee to reject publication of any result that would be unfavorable to their own personal commitment…The press, of course, only reports news from established academic centers that have a strong financial and prestige interest in glorifying the status quo. The result is that real investigative science is mostly now an underground activity."(Arp, 2000)
As a result of these conditions, many scientists are unaware of much of the evidence which has accumulated, which indicates that the present scientific paradigm is broken. What are some of these phenomena which modern physics wishes would go away? Until recently, physicists were dreaming of the "final theory" and thinking themselves very close to achieving it. In the face of such confidence, what reason is there to believe that the present scientific edifice is about to undergo a radical face-lift?
First of all, there is "dark matter." This should be embarrassing to physics. For almost six decades, billions of dollars have been spent colliding elementary particles together in "atom smashers," high-energy accelerators. The outcomes of these experiments became the basis for our modern theories of matter. They were used to predict the kinds of particles which can occur in the universe. And now, suddenly, physicists have to admit that between 50% and 95% of the matter in the universe is of some unknown type that is not predicted by their theories. They know almost nothing about this form of matter. To quote Princeton Professor of Physics Jim Peebles, "It is an embarrassment that the dominant forms of matter in the universe are hypothetical…" (Scott, 2002)
There is also evidence that our theory of gravity, called "General Relativity," has some glaring weaknesses. Anomalies have been observed in Foucault pendulums during solar eclipses. They veer off in strange directions during such events. (Saxl, 1971; Allais, I and II, 1959) These anomalies are large and have been well-documented. They cannot be explained by current physics. Instead they have been ignored.
Another example is the furor over "cold fusion." Most Americans believe the cold fusion debacle in the late nineteen-eighties was an example of either bad science or fraud. They are unaware that over 100 laboratories around the world duplicated and verified the results of those experiments! Among those are five U.S. national laboratories. They are unaware that one of the hasty studies conducted at MIT, which supposedly disproved cold fusion, has been discovered to have doctored its data, and that its initial tests also confirmed the reality of cold fusion. (Mallove 1991, 1997; Bokris, 1999)
The average scientist or citizen would be even more surprised to learn that EPRI, the large, non-profit research institute funded by the nation's electric utilities, conducted an extensive $10 million dollar evaluation of "cold fusion." Their conclusion is that cold fusion works:
"This work confirms the claims of Fleishman, Pons, and Hawkins [the inventors
of cold fusion] of the production of excess heat in deuterium loaded palladium cathodes at levels too huge for chemical transformation...Further, excess energy exceeds that of known chemical processes by two or more orders of magnitude." (Mallove, 1997; EPRI, 1994)
Likewise, the United States Navy recently completed their own painstaking evaluation of this technology. After all, it would certainly be useful for submarines and ships. Their conclusion: "...we do know the existence of Cold Fusion phenomenon through repeated observations by scientists throughout the world." (Szpak, 2002) These very positive evaluations of cold fusion never received any press coverage, while the "debunking" result of MIT received the highest level news attention.
Cold fusion is a technology which directly threatens a large and powerful industry (oil) and this may explain, in part, the intensity of the opposition it experienced. But it also presented a phenomenon which does not fit in with present theories of physics, and thus presents a challenge to orthodox science.
These examples are from the "hard sciences." Even more dramatic conflicts are seen in the areas of consciousness studies and paranormal effects. "Paranormal" is often viewed as a pejorative term, but it usefully categorizes a broad class of phenomena which defy the present scientific paradigm, and for which there is good scientific evidence.
One of these is "remote viewing". This is a process by which a person goes into a light trance and can describe distant objects or events. It has been demonstrated to be successful in a two-decade program conducted by the U.S. military. Despite public disclaimers that it did not work, there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as we will see in Chapter 1. How it works is a mystery which defies our present understanding of space and time, and of physical laws.
Part of the power of remote viewing is its ability to examine targets which are truly "remote" in space and time. One of the great anomalies of this new science is that time and distance do not seem to matter. The target can be ten feet away or ten thousand miles away. And even more surprising, a target event in the past or in the future can be examined just as easily and accurately as one in the present. The consciousness of the viewer seems able to "go" there with equal ease.
This completely violates one of the cardinal laws of contemporary physics, that of "causality," which means that cause must precede effect. And yet solid and statistically valid evidence has accumulated which proves that this law does not hold for remote viewing.(Jahn, 1987, 1992)
During such experiments, at the location of the target a strange and anomalous energy has been seen and measured in some cases. Early evidence suggests that some form of energy or "consciousness" can actually travel to the site being remote-viewed, and causes measurable disturbances. (Osis, 1980; PRC, 1982; Yonjie, 1982; Hubbard, 1987) This is an unknown form of energy which defies present physics, but may hold the key to consciousness and to many kinds of psychic phenomena.
Similar, possibly related, anomalous forms of energy have been documented in haunted houses, where they have been photographed on hundreds of occasions. They often appear as rapidly moving orbs, and create measurable magnetic and electrical anomalies, further supporting the notion that these energy forms are in some sense "real." Could these energy forms, which carry consciousness and survive death, be the human soul, or some aspect of it? Is our science on the verge of a breakthrough which will enlighten us about our own immortality?
These are just a few examples of areas in which serious scientific research is uncovering facts which violate modern physics. They suggest that the present scientific model is limited, and has left out some important phenomena. It may be that, when physics begins to acknowledge these new phenomena, it will evolve into a more advanced, comprehensive and enlightened system of knowledge.
Professor Willis Harmon of Stanford University has called this the "Third Scientific Revolution," because it goes far beyond the discoveries of Newtonian Physics at the dawn of the Renaissance, and the Einsteinian-Quantum revolution one hundred years ago. The new revolution deals with consciousness and subtle forms of energy which have, until now, been neglected by western science. To quote Professor Harmon:
"The fundamental insight behind the 'Third Scientific Revolution" is the view that the existence of states of higher organizational complexity cannot be understood merely through lower-level laws and system-components. The self-organizing properties of matter and of life cannot be fully explained in terms of the physical sciences and molecular biology; completely new fundamental principles will be required." (Harmon, 1995)
Some of these new discoveries will lead to new inventions and technology which will revolutionize our world. Science is learning that "empty space," for example, is not so empty after all. It is filled with energy. (Boyer 1969, 1975; Puthoff, 1989; Cole, 1993) This energy can be tapped to produce clean, abundant, cheap forms of power which can replace fossil fuel, relieve us of our dependence on oil and save the environment.
The energy in the vacuum may be manipulated to produce miraculous new forms of propulsion. The "physics of Star Trek" seems more like science and less like fiction every year. (Millis, 1999; Haish, 1997; Puthoff, 1997) We are discovering that parallel dimensions and higher dimensions, long the domain of speculation by theorists, may be quite real after all. And some of the energy forms in the vacuum may be key to understanding the paranormal effects which are being discovered.
In these books, we review the large number of phenomena which have now been established experimentally as real, and yet which violate present day physics, or at the very least pose a serious challenge to it. Our thesis is that it is time for physics to begin to seriously address these breakdowns in conventional science.
From this, a new scientific revolution will result, with a much deeper understanding of the universe and our place in it. Scientists today work on the "Unified Field Theory" and call it the "theory of everything." And yet, they are not aware of, or even trying to explain, broad classes of phenomena which have been proven to occur in our universe. Without including these, a correct unified field theory can never be found.
At the end of this volume, after reviewing some of this evidence, we shall offer some suggestions about how such a new theory might be constructed. It is far from the final word on such a complex and ambitious project. But we offer our ideas on the shape of the "new" physics as a sort of "prelude", in the spirit of "here are some ideas that might work."
This is a voyage into a new era of science. Like Columbus, we know that the world is not flat. It still may be dangerous to tell others that. Old beliefs die hard. But there is an exciting, much larger, world out there, waiting for the "new physics" to sail into it. It is an exciting world with undreamed-of possibilities...
Personal Growth and Transformation
So that is how my journey began, more than fifteen years ago. Since then I have met some amazing and wonderful people. I have been helped in my journey by so many. And in the process, something else unexpected happened. I began to realize that these new "laws" I was learning about applied to me directly.
Much of the physics of the paranormal involves consciousness. It involves the human ‘soul’, if you will. You cannot talk about the paranormal for very long without encountering the human soul. How is it that the remote viewer can send his consciousness half way around the world to read documents in a safe? What actually goes there? It is certainly the center of his awareness, based on how he describes the experience. Is it his soul or some part of it? There is now evidence to suggest that perhaps it is.
In some out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) cases, as well as in actual death cases, a physical manifestation is seen or measured. A faint glowing orb has been witnessed which may be the physical manifestation of this energy. It has affected electronic sensors, such as strain gauges and optical sensors. It has even been photographed. This seat of consciousness, or soul or some aspect of it, is very real.
When one studies the evidence for reincarnation, again it is surprising how much high quality evidence there is. Thousands of cases have been painstakingly researched by highly qualified academic scientists.(Stevenson, 1960,1977,1975) The findings are persuasive, even overwhelming. Once more it reinforces the notion that the soul, the identity, continues after death. It makes us realize that we humans are much more than we have been taught.
And when you see enough evidence that the human consciousness does not need a physical body to operate, then it opens up the idea of non-physical intelligences. The new physics will have to account for a "field of consciousness," and it may have to deal with the idea that intelligence and awareness does not require a physical body in the sense we are used to.
There have been important breakthroughs in research on reincarnation, near-death experiences, energy healing, the power of prayer, and non-physical consciousness. Many of these will be reviewed here. It is but a short step from this point to realize that the new science begins to resemble, or at least support, some of the tenets of religion. Not any specific dogmatic religion, but the general principles underlying all religions.
As we stumble our way towards the ultimate "unified field theory," we may find to our surprise that it bridges the gulf between science and religion. As our understanding becomes more profound, the differences between these two belief systems may become smaller.
There is, after all, only one universe. There is only one true description of it at the deepest level. This understanding would heal the rift warned of by the Hopi. It would offer an integrated view of the universe and of man. This would be the ultimate "unified field theory." These books are intended to help us as we journey toward that goal.

Wait; don’t forget Dr. Swanson has written a second book that you will not want to miss!

LIFE FORCE, The Scientific Basis

INTRODUCTION

The Unification of Science and Spirit

The “Life Force” is central to many forms of energy healing, such as Reiki and Qigong . It is the energy which flows in the acupuncture system of the body, and is basic to alternative medicine. In Traditional Chinese medicine it is called chi (or “Qi,” both pronounced “chee”). In Hindu Ayurvedic medicine it is called “prana.” In other cultures it has been called od, orgone, bioplasma, bioenergy, biogravity, and many other names. In the West today it is often called “subtle energy.”  It is believed to respond to and interact with consciousness. In fact, it may be the essence of consciousness itself.

 Recent scientific discoveries are proving that this ancient, almost mythological, energy is actually very real. Its effects have been measured in the laboratory. It constitutes a fifth force which has been overlooked by Western physics. It explains many of the puzzling phenomena which have baffled science, including long range healing, paranormal phenomena, and even anomalies in cosmology such as “dark energy XE "dark energy" ” and “dark matter XE "dark matter”.”

It is the “building energy,” which reverses entropy, brings order out of chaos, and makes life possible. It has led to explicit equations, experiments, patents and inventions, and has advanced from speculation to concrete reality as a genuine scientific revolution. It creates a bridge between the old paradigm of space-time and a new higher dimensional reality, which leads to a new model of consciousness and a potential unification of science and spirituality.

 In this far-reaching and comprehensive book, the scientific evidence for the Life Force and its characteristics are described as they relate to healing, life processes, materials science, sacred geometry , sacred sites, quantum physics, and emerging new technologies. This book takes the next step in expanding physics to include subtle energy and the science of consciousness.

 Personal History

As a young boy growing up in Virginia, I used to look up at the stars with wonder. They seemed so bright and close. If you lie on your back in the grass it feels as though you can almost touch them. Growing up close to nature raised many questions for me. How does the universe work? Where do we come from? What is this connection we feel to the stars? I wanted to understand. In High School when I started a personal journal I named it “Why?”

I remember a simple experiment I did in those days. Standing under the stars at night, I would spin around. My arms were pulled up from my sides as the stars appeared to spin above me. This is the familiar effect we call centrifugal force. But I noticed that it only happens when the stars above appear to be spinning. I wondered even then, “Is there a connection between the distant stars and the forces we feel here on earth?” To me as a child, there was a sense that things are connected. I wanted to understand how it all worked.

Pursuing my curiosity, I went to MIT and earned a degree in physics. There I learned that this same idea of connection had been proposed by the German philosopher Ernst Mach. Einstein had been impressed with this concept, and tried to include it in his theory of gravity. However, when the theory was finished, his model predicted that a universe with no stars would still have centrifugal force. So the deep connection between distant matter and forces here on earth was still missing.

I continued my education at Princeton University, where I earned a Ph. D. in physics. I worked in the Gravity Group there, which uses new technology to explore the deep structure of the cosmos. Although I studied with some brilliant minds and learned the physics that was available at the time, many unanswered questions still troubled me.

For example, even today physics has one theory for phenomena at the very small scales, called quantum physics, and a different theory for large scale things like galaxies and the Universe itself. It is called General Relativity. These are very different theories. Despite almost a hundred years of intense work, they have never really been combined into the long sought “unified field theory.” Such a theory would connect the small scale with the large scale. It made me wonder if perhaps there is some missing concept which is needed before this unification can occur, before the “final theory” is discovered.

This incomplete aspect of physics also shows up in the many things that physics cannot explain. There are really fundamental quantities, such as the charge on the electron, that it seems physics should be able to calculate. Yet it cannot (but see: Wyler, 1972). No one can predict what it should be based on accepted theory. They have to use the measured value. This seemed to me to be another sign that physics is still missing some unifying concepts.

There was also the troubling aspect of the vacuum. In physics, the vacuum of space is a very important subject. According to quantum physics, it is far from empty. It is filled with energy. This is called the Zero Point Energy. If you try to calculate how much energy is there, you get enormous values. In fact, the problem was that you would often get infinity for your answer! I was told, “Don’t worry about it. Just subtract it out!” I learned to do this, but I wondered, what else are we throwing out when we subtract out such a huge amount of energy?

In many ways it seemed to me that the vacuum was precisely where the connection between the distant stars and the small particles of quantum physics came together. All those particles out there are constantly radiating energy. Could this not be the origin of the Zero Point Energy of the vacuum? If we put this in correctly, might we not connect the small with the large? Might this not be one of the missing ideas of the long sought unified theory?

The strangest thing in physics was the way it treated consciousness. It was proposed a century ago by Niels Bohr that, in quantum physics, human consciousness has the power to disturb experiments. Just a peek causes something called “quantum wave function collapse,” which means you just destroyed those nice wave patterns your particles were in. So consciousness is really powerful. Once you have looked, the particle behaves differently. And yet, despite this enormously important role consciousness plays, physicists have avoided studying it ever since! It is hard to publish anything on consciousness in the mainstream physics journals. This made no sense to me at all. If consciousness is that powerful and that important, it should be studied more than all those particles. But it is not.

Many of the new breakthroughs described in this book stem from these two oversights in the “old physics” of the Twentieth Century: the enormous amount of energy in the vacuum, and the power of consciousness. These two elements are related. Experiments suggest that consciousness can alter the structure of the vacuum. This is the origin of many of the powers of the mind discussed here.

After graduate school, I continued my research. I began to hear about strange phenomena that violate the rules of science. One of these was Remote Viewing. It involves the supposed ability of someone in a light trance to send his consciousness out into the universe, bringing back detailed information about places and things. Supposedly one could even use this to explore distant events in space and time. Accuracy was said to be independent of distance. If true, such an ability would violate all the rules of physics I had just learned!

In later years I took several courses in Remote Viewing. I experienced first-hand how it feels. Following the procedure, you can focus in on a target and experience an event as though you are there, even if it is ten thousand miles away or happened a thousand years ago. This ability completely defies Western physics. There is no force we know of that can explain it. Yet, hundreds of thousands of experiments have been conducted which prove it is real. The government ran an intelligence program for twenty years using these techniques. Experiments show that we all have the ability. These results are described in The Synchronized Universe (Swanson, 2003), which we shall refer to hereafter as “Volume I.”

Such a power is only possible if the universe is connected. Space and time must not be the barriers we have been taught. As I explored further, I found other phenomena which also violate the current rules of physics. They are all related to consciousness, that important subject physics had neglected. At the present time, the Princeton PEAR Lab has accumulated more than thirty years of research (Jahn, 1981, 1987a; Dunne, 1992, 1995) on these effects. The cumulative odds that they could be explained by chance alone are now less than one part in several trillion. In other words, these consciousness phenomena are real. They have been proven by the rigorous standards of science. They show us that the universe is connected, that events which are far distant in space and time can be accessed by consciousness.

Yet mainstream physicists don’t know about these results. In some cases they have been taught to ridicule these subjects, without ever investigating them (Gell-Mann, 1995; Parks, 2001). There is an artificial barrier in science today. Editors of many mainstream journals will not publish such subjects, calling them too “controversial.” As a result, thousands of academic scientists labor to create better theories of the universe while blissfully unaware of mountains of important data they need to include, which describe these forces they are unaware of.

One day in my early exploration I was introduced to an “energy healer,” Mietek Wirkus, who had recently immigrated from Poland. Although he spoke no English, his wife translated for him as I interviewed him. I had been told by a medical doctor friend that Mietek could recognize broken bones which had been healed many years earlier, and had demonstrated some abilities against other ailments. He was undergoing lab testing by scientists to try to understand how he was able to do what he did.

This was a new and foreign subject to me at the time. Mietek explained his procedure. He showed me a diagram of the auras and chakras, which are said to be part of the energy field surrounding our bodies. Since I could not see such things, and had not read much about it, I listened but reserved judgment.

Then Mietek gave me a demonstration. For fifteen minutes I could hear him breathing as he moved his hands slowly around me, starting at the back. He was always at least a foot away, and sometimes more than ten feet from me. He said nothing. After a few minutes I began to notice a feeling of well being and calm. By the end of the session I was overflowing with abundant positive energy, feeling exuberant. I have rarely felt so good in my entire life. I still cannot explain what he did, but I had experienced powerful healing energy first hand.

That was almost twenty years ago. Since then I have delved deeply into the research literature on energy healing. In the chapters that follow, I will describe what we know scientifically about it. In recent years, some of the Chinese healers have begun working with scientists. They have been demonstrating some of the same puzzling effects that we found in Remote Viewing. One type of Chinese healing is called Qigong (chee-gong). Some of these masters can project this energy from their bodies, resulting in healing of patients thousands of miles away. The lab data and references for this are included in Chapters 1 and 2. As with remote viewing, it does not weaken with distance and penetrates virtually all barriers. In experiments by physicists it causes other measurable effects: alters radioactivity, bends laser beams, changes water bonding, and even causes mechanical forces.

As my research has proceeded, I began to realize that many of the anomalies I was encountering relate to this special energy of consciousness. As described in Volume I, Hindu yogis undergo special breathing techniques called pranayama to build up this energy in their bodies before performing their remarkable feats. Energy healers also build it up before healing. This is what Mietek Wirkus was doing before working on me.

This special energy is called chi or Qi (“chee”) by the Chinese. When it is present, the laws of physics are changed. Strange things occur which are not accounted for in Western physics. Physics has overlooked this important energy. I called it the “Life Force” in the title of this book, because it is essential for life. And as I delved further into it, I began to realize that this energy has been around a long time. While unknown in the West, it has been the central technology of many ancient societies.

Rediscovering an Ancient Force

“For the Ancients, the world was composed of four elements, water, earth, air and fire, which are none other than the three states of matter (liquid, solid and gaseous), fire or heat being what was “added” to pass from one state to another. The Druids added a fifth element, Nwyvre, contained in all the others and in which they saw an image of the universal structure of matter and a symbol of God.” (Mereaux, 1981), quoted in (Devereux, 1999)

 There was a tradition in ancient Europe of a special energy which flowed through the landscape. It was said to flow along special paths called ley lines, which converged at megalithic sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury. It played a crucial role in the fertility of crops and the success of the harvest. A similar tradition existed in China, going back more than 4,000 years. The Chinese called this energy “chi” or “Qi,” and considered it to be the Life Force, essential for the health of people and crops. As in Europe, it was believed to flow along special paths in the ground called “dragon paths,” which converged at temples and sacred sites. According to Chinese law it was illegal to bury a commoner on such a line. The science of controlling this energy was called feng shui.

This same energy was believed to flow in all living things. In Chinese medicine it had two polarities, yin and yang. When the quantities and flow of these were in balance, health resulted. When out of balance, illness and misfortune occurred. Traditional Chinese doctors were paid to keep the energies in balance in their patients, just as the feng shui  masters were paid to maintain energy balance in the land.

A Chinese scholar of the 14^th century commented on the universal role of the life force energy, both in the land and in the body:

“In the subterranean regions there are alternate layers of earth and rock and flowing spring waters. These strata rest upon thousands of vapours (Qi) which are distributed in tens of thousands of branches, veins and threadlike openings…The body of the earth is like that of a human being…Ordinary people, not being able to see the veins and vessels which are disposed in order within the body of man, think that it is no more than a lump of solid flesh. Likewise, not being able to see the veins and vessels which are disposed in order under the ground, they think that the earth is just a homogeneous mass.”

--Chen Ssu-Hsiao (d. 1332 AD), quoted in (Creightmore, 2001) 

The tradition of this energy extended around the world in ancient times. In India it was called prana or vril, and was central to Vedic science and medicine. In Australia the Aborigines believed it came from the sun and flowed along special paths in the ground they called “Songlines.” In annual ceremonies they walked for hundreds of miles along these lines, in rituals to energize them so they would carry the “life force” to their crops and villages (Devereux, 1999, 2003). There were similar traditions around the ley lines of the Druids in England and for the “dragon lines” of the Chinese.

The energy which flowed was called mana by the Polynesians, orendo by the Iroquois, waken or wakonda by the Sioux (Lakota), baraka in North Africa, and pneuma by the ancient Greeks (Devereux, 1999; Michell, 1969). Where belief in this energy existed, large megalithic sites and straight ley line features can often still be found today. These structures appear to have been built to control and channel it. In a similar way, traditional healers in those cultures, the Chinese doctors, Hindu yogis, shamen and medicine men from many countries practiced controlling and balancing this energy in their patients. And in the hidden traditions of adepts and mystics, the practice of breathing and conscious manipulation of this energy was developed to a high art.

With the recent interchange of knowledge between East and West, new information about this force is becoming available. During President Nixon’s trip to China in 1972, a member of the party, New York Times correspondent James Reston, developed acute appendicitis and underwent an emergency appendectomy by Chinese doctors. They used acupuncture XE "acupuncture"  to relieve some of his post-operative pain, and Secretary of State Kissinger talked about it at a subsequent press conference (Reston, 1971). Later Reston traveled around China doing research on it and wrote articles about his experience. Chinese medicine suddenly became front page news in America. And with it, there has been a rebirth of interest in this energy.

Prior to that, other Western scientists attempted to study this mysterious force, but none met with acceptance. Beginning in the 1840’s, the great German chemist and industrialist Baron von Reichenbach conducted systematic, painstaking, studies over many decades. He used “sensitives,” people who could see this energy after spending several hours adapting to the dark. In this way he amassed a huge database describing how it behaves, what creates it and how it interacts with electricity, heat and chemistry. He lived in the era of Faraday and Maxwell, when the laws of electricity were just being discovered. His force was different, and somewhat weak and elusive. In the end, science lost interest in it. It did not fit the developing paradigm of electromagnetism. Later other Western scientists rediscovered this force. In Germany Viktor Schauberger accidentally discovered it in his experiments with water in the 1920’s, and later Dr. Wilhelm Reich happened upon it as he sought to understand the energies of life.

Despite all of this, today it is still considered to be a fantasy by many Western scientists. Yet new discoveries are proving, once and for all, that this energy is real. Korean scientists have identified and photographed the tiny channels called acupuncture meridians that are basic to Oriental medicine and carry this energy throughout the body. Russian and Eastern European physicists have demonstrated in the laboratory that this energy obeys certain laws unlike any other force. They have developed mathematical equations describing its behavior, and even applied it to new patents and inventions. Its behavior is revolutionary in that it alters every other force. Most interesting of all, it responds to human consciousness.

One of the unusual qualities of this energy, which we call the “life force” and the Russians call “torsion,” is that it affects the flow of time. It may also be the key to understanding “dark energy” and “dark matter,” which have been found in deep space by astronomers, and do not fit into our current understanding of particles or forces. Russian scientists have identified two different forms of this energy, one which twists to the right and one which twists to the left. They have opposite effects on the flow of time and entropy XE "entropy" , and resemble in many ways the Chinese concepts of yin and yang, the two polarities of chi. Many experiments have now validated the existence of this energy, although awareness of it in Western science has been slow.

One form of this energy can decrease “entropy,” which is a measure of randomness. This force may hold the answer to why the universe did not “wind down” into a chaotic mass of gas long ago, and instead is vibrant with structures, even today giving birth to new stars and galaxies. The living body, which burns oxygen and carbon, also creates order out of chaos, and has long been considered as a potential violator of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a place where entropy may be decreasing and order increasing. And gravity itself is a third process in which order may increase over time, posing one more challenge to mainstream science (Prigogine, 1980, 1989). According to Russian research, which we describe in Chapters 7 and 8, the life force or subtle energy, which they call “torsion,” is central to all these processes.

An emerging model based on this force appears capable of explaining many of the puzzling phenomena of alternative medicine, such as long distance healing and the power of Qigong, described in Chapters 1 and 2. It may explain how energy healers and Qigong masters project their influence over thousands of miles, achieving successful diagnosis and remarkable cures. This new force lays a foundation for understanding homeopathy, radionics, and other components of alternative medicine which cannot be explained by the Western materialistic paradigm.

One goal of this book is to collect the “best evidence” from many sources, to understand how this energy of consciousness behaves. It does not matter whether it is called the “life force,” subtle energy, torsion, prana or chi. It has been given many names through the years, but it is time to develop a single theory which can explain it, and include it in an expanded paradigm. We are at the beginning of a far-reaching scientific revolution. As the laws of Western physics adapt to these new discoveries, it will enable us to integrate consciousness within science at long last. The mind has previously unsuspected powers, spoken of in many wisdom traditions. Integrating these with science will change the laws of physics and will greatly expand our understanding of ourselves.

The Crisis in Health Care

The new science of subtle energy has a direct impact on our lives. It introduces new technologies and new ways of looking at the world at just the time when our present system is in crisis. Not only are we facing an environmental crisis, as our conventional technology based on fossil fuels and mass production is affecting climate and loss of species, but conventional medicine is also failing to meet the challenges of exploding costs and new diseases which do not respond to conventional treatment. Subtle energy, as it is used in alternative medicine, may offer a solution to this crisis.

“The fact is that the U. S. population does not have anywhere near the best health in the world. Of 13 countries in a recent comparison, the United States ranks an average of 12^th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators.”

–Dr. Rustum Roy, Professor of Materials Science, Pennsylvania State University, Founder of Friends of Health (Roy, 2004b)

 According to a recent study, U. S. medical care is falling behind European countries despite the belief by many in the United States that their health care is superior. “Countries in order of their average ranking on the health care indicators, with the first being the best, are Japan, Sweden, Canada, France, Australia, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, and Germany (Starfield, 2000).

Rankings of the United States medical care, based on these indicators, is (Starfield, 2000; Roy, 2004b):

• 13^th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
• 13^th (last) for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
• 11^th for post-neonatal mortality
• 13^th (last) for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
• 11^th for life expectancy at one year for females
• 12^th for life expectancy at one year for males
• 10^th for life expectancy at 15 years for females
• 12^th for life expectancy at 15 years for males
• 10^th for life expectancy at 40 years for females
• 9^th for life expectancy at 40 years for males
• 10^th for age adjusted mortality

The World Health Organization XE "World Health Organization"  (WHO), using very different indicators, ranks the U.S. even worse, 15^th among 25 industrialized countries. At the same time, the U.S. National Research Council estimates that approximately 76,000 Americans die annually from medical errors, in addition to 108,000 who die each year from drug interactions. (Roy, 2004b).

Despite the low rankings based on quality XE "quality" , the cost of U.S. health care rose at an annual rate of 9.6 %  from 1970 to 2007, far in excess of any other commodity or service. It is by far the most expensive health care in the world, per capita.

A recent initiative announced by several leaders in Integrative Medicine XE "Integrative Medicine" , led by Drs. Deepak Chopra XE "Chopra, Deepak" , Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil and Rustum Roy XE "Roy, Rustum"  (Chopra, 2009), pointed out that in 2007, $2.1 trillion was spent in the U.S. on medical care, or 16.5% of the gross national product. Of this, 95 per cent was spent on disease after it had already occurred. In cardiology in 2006, 

“…according to data provided by the American Heart Association, 1.3 million coronary angioplasty XE "angioplasty"  procedures were performed at an average cost of $48,399 each, or more than $60 billion; and 448,000 coronary bypass operations were performed at a cost of $99,743 each, or more than $44 billion. In other words, Americans spent more than $100 billion in 2006 for these two procedures alone.

“Despite these costs, a randomized controlled trial published in April, 2007 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that angioplasties and stents do not prolong life or even prevent heart attacks in stable patients (i.e. 95% of those who receive them). Coronary bypass surgery prolongs life in less than 3% of patients who receive it. So, Medicare and other insurers and individuals pay billions for surgical procedures like angioplasty XE "angioplasty"  and bypass surgery that are usually dangerous, invasive, expensive, and largely ineffective.” (Chopra, 2009)

 At the same time, there has been an explosion in diseases which do not readily respond to the Western allopathic model. That is, they do not respond to drugs or surgery. Such diseases include many forms of cancer, autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and lupus, Type II diabetes XE "diabetes" , degenerative nerve and muscle diseases, and lifestyle diseases which arise from stress or poor diet.

More Americans are sensing this failure of the health system, because of its escalating cost and its resistance to innovations. As a result, more people are turning to alternative health care which use the entire range of available remedies, including naturopathic and energetic approaches. From 1990 to 1997 the number of patients using an alternative therapy grew by approximately 24%, and their visits to alternative therapy providers grew accordingly. The table below summarizes these results for that time period:

TABLE 1

METEORIC RISE OF WHOLE PERSON MEDICINE (Roy, 2004b)

	1990	1997
Percentage of patients using any one of 16 alternative therapies	33.8%	42.15%
Percentage of patients visiting an alternative therapy provider	36.3%	46.3%
Percentage disclosed to the physician	39.8%	38.5%
Percentage paying out of pocket	64%	58.3%
Total visits to alternative therapy provider (millions)	427	629
Expenditures for Alternative therapy services ($ billions)	14.6	21.2

Integrative Medicine can be something as simple as a return to a healthy lifestyle, more exercise, reducing meat intake, avoiding smoking, and reducing stress. These changes have enormous benefit for avoiding illness and maintaining health. In cases where illness is more advanced, Integrative Medicine often assists the body in returning to health, by helping bring its natural energies into balance or increasing its available energy when needed. Central to many of  these healing methods is the manipulation of the body’s own vital energy, its “life force energy,” the “chi” (Qi ) of Chinese medicine.

Techniques such as acupuncture and Qigong, which have been practiced in China for thousands of years, are methods of balancing and controlling this energy. These techniques are now making slow inroads into American medicine. In 2005 a scholarly article confirming the physiological effectiveness of acupuncture (Cho, 1998) was published by the National Academy of Sciences (Meridians, 2002). We will discuss their results at greater length in Chapter 4.

Acupuncture, as well as many other techniques in Oriental and Alternative medicine, have been found effective over many years of use (Jenerick, 1973; Wiseman, 1991; Helms, 1995) and often with fewer negative side effects than drugs or surgery. However, their acceptance in the West has been slowed by the absence of a scientific model which can account for their effects. One of the goals of this book is to collect the scientific evidence which describes the physics of the life force energy, and to help build a scientific model which explains its crucial role in healing.

A Scientific Revolution is Underway

Subtle energy is but one indication that a scientific revolution is underway. Many things are being discovered in the laboratory that challenge current scientific theory. Every year there are more anomalies, pieces of the puzzle that just don’t fit the present paradigm. This is the classic pattern at the beginning of a scientific revolution.

One area that’s not being ignored because it’s too big to ignore is “dark matter.” Physicists years ago confidently believed that their theories were nearly complete, that they almost had the “theory of everything.” Now they have to admit that up to 95% of the matter in the universe is of some type that we don’t understand at all. To quote Professor David Spergel of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University and the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland (Spergel, 2000)...[excerpt from the book]

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To contact Dr. Claude Swanson, for Radio Programs, Interviews, and Lectures or to simply ask questions, contact him at:  Claude_v_swanson@yahoo.com