COMMON LINKS: QUANTUM PHYSICS AND SPIRITUALITY

Little did I know when I set out to tread ever-so-gingerly into the early translations of the sacred Word of God that I would find myself having to scramble to brush up on quantum physics. Let's be honest, even as a high school student I was challenged to grapple with the complications of Grade 11 and 12 physics, not that there is any comparison.

So, what is quantum physics anyway? Put simply, it’s the physics that explains how everything works: the best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter and the forces with which they interact. Quantum physics underlies how atoms work, and so why chemistry and biology work as they do. You, me and the gatepost, at some level at least, we’re all dancing to the quantum tune. If you want to explain how electrons move through a computer chip, how photons of light get turned to electrical current in a solar panel or amplify themselves in a laser, or even just how the sun keeps burning, you’ll need to use quantum physics.

In this piece, based largely on the work of several scholar study groups that I have been privy to, we unveil a possible connection between quantum physics and the all but forgotten four-letter name of God in the Hebrew Bible! You may be surprised by the relationship that Scripture has with the scientific world. 

“Einstein, don’t tell God what to do!” This was the famous retort of Niels Bohr -- one of the creators of quantum physics -- to the most celebrated scientist of the 20th Century. Albert Einstein had been unhappy with what he called the “spooky” quantum theory, which implied that reality was almost random, illogical, impossible to understand. At the most fundamental observable level of physical existence, the tiniest expressions of energy and mass behaved in a way that was utterly bewildering. Like many people, Einstein found this hard to accept, and so he had argued that “God doesn’t play dice” (i.e., the natural universe is – or “should” be – orderly).

Surprisingly enough, the ancient Hebrew Bible has some things in common with modern quantum physics! Actually, the Bible expresses a rather similar overall view of the universe. Ecclesiastes 7:24 is one of many verses that speak of the great, unfathomable mystery of reality: “What has come into existence is far away and deep, deep! Who can search it out?” (Compare, for example, Isa 40:28, 55:8-9; Ps 92:5/6, 139:6; Job 5:9, 11:7; Ecc 3:11, 8:17.) Probably Bohr would have enjoyed these verses more than Einstein.

Another possible similarity between quantum physics and the Hebrew Bible relates to the previously mentioned four-letter name of God – יהוה (YHWH). People have wondered about and argued over this name for many centuries. A great number of different theories try to define its proper pronunciation and original meaning. One of the most popular ideas is that the Hebrew Bible’s name for God is a verb that expresses past, present, and future tenses all at once! According to this interpretation, the name YHWH means something like “the one who was-is-will be.” This is a very old idea that may go back as far as the Jewish-Greek Septuagint translation (ca. 200 BCE/BC) and the Book of Revelation (1st century AD/CE).

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It should be explained that the ancient Hebrew language that the Old Testament was written in did not have vowels in its alphabet. In written form, ancient Hebrew was a consonant-only language (making translation the challenge it was). In the original Hebrew, God’s name transliterates to YHWH (sometimes written in the older style as YHVH). This is known as the tetragrammaton (meaning “four letters”). Because of the lack of vowels, Bible scholars debate how the tetragrammaton YHWH was pronounced.

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If we were to translate this understanding of God’s name into the language of quantum theory or physics, we might call it “a superposition of all possible states.” Indeed, quantum mechanics posits that the particles or waves that apparently make up our universe (and us) can exist in all possible states at once – until someone carries out a “measurement.” Once you measure the location of a particle, it “collapses” to a single specific location. Perhaps the name of God, YHWH, is similar: it communicates being in all states, dimensions, and times simultaneously – and if you try to define the meaning more specifically, you end up reducing it to just one aspect.

This is by no means the only possible way to understand the name יהוה (YHWH), and it is not even necessarily the most plausible. But it does serve as an interesting mind stimulant, our thoughts going perhaps where they never would have otherwise.

I have been fascinated too with something written by Ellis Peterson AKA Ragnar Storyteller, a retired math professor and electronics engineer. "The Laws of Quantum Physics is a gift to us from the Age of Aquarius," he states emphatically. Simply speaking, the Laws of Quantum Physics tell us that there exists an infinite ocean of thinking intelligent energy called the Quantum Ocean. Spiritually speaking this is the Mind of God, where we live, move and have our being.

"So even though we feel that we have moved through a physical distance in space around our Galactic Sun, in reality we have moved in 'God’s' Mind," he continues.

"There is no time, past present nor future in the Quantum Ocean, Mind of God. There is no here or over there space in the Quantum Ocean. There is only the HERE-NOW.

Everything that ever was, is or will be exists in the Quantum Ocean, Mind of God. The Age of Pisces that we have just physically left and the Age of Aquarius that we have physically entered (some 50 years ago) exist and have always existed in the the Quantum Ocean, the Mind of God."

We humans are individual souls within the Mind of God, who ‘blink out’ of the Quantum Ocean and into the self-consciousness of a new incarnation, When our physical life expires, we ‘blink in’ to the Quantum Ocean -- an unfolding and infolding process.

"It is all on schedule...Our incarnations, the Planets, the Solar Systems, Galaxies etc. It is according to some Divine timing plan. The ‘blinking out’ and ‘blinking in’ of man, races of man, civilizations of man are all on a timing schedule.

Only we as individual souls have the gift of free choice. We can choose for ourselves what choices we will make once we incarnate. This free will allows us to choose our thoughts, feelings and actions which will create our present reality," Peterson concludes. (I wrote similarly in a Wrights Lane post not long ago.)

We can then deduct that, in the Age of Aquarius, we have the gifts and tools of the Laws of Quantum Physics to make more conscious choices.

Bet you never thought of it that way before.

Seriously, I hadn't either.