ABSTRACT: As a global species we may be in the throes of passing through a transition towards a different state of consciousness. This new state may likely be characterized by quantum properties such as coherence and non-local field information. Such a ‘consciousness field’ would transform how we relate to other people, the world around us, and expand our perceptual realities. This evolutionary development, it is suggested, manifests a transition from biological and socio-cultural forms of evolution to incorporating a new level: that of neuro-genetic evolution. In this paper I examine how new discoveries in neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics have shown that a form of non-local connected consciousness has a physical-scientific foundation. What this demonstrates is that certain spiritual or transcendental states have a valid basis within the new scientific paradigm.
Keywords: quantum consciousness, coherence, communication, evolution, DNA, biophysics, science, spirituality, living intelligence, future
It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never acting toward it.
John Frederick Boyes, English essayist (1811 – 1879)
The human being has to become what he thinks himself to be
Rudolf Steiner
Human thinking is in need of a new model that constructs the human being and consciousness within an energetic universe that is compatible with both modern science and spiritual teachings. However, this need not demand of us that we throw away the knowledge that we have learned up to this point. On the contrary, we are required to not only work with our current knowledge-base but also to expand these resources to help us move forward into new paradigms of thought concerning human consciousness and the processes operating within the human being. In this time of our developing sciences and new technologies we have the assistance of ever-greater analysis and emerging discoveries that are evolving the parameters of our thinking. It is likely that the next stage in our human sciences will be centred on our understanding of consciousness; and how we are intimately connected to each another and our wider energetic environment.
We have discovered from recent science that each of us carries around with us a 100 billion-cell bioelectric computer that filters and ultimately interprets what we come to see as our ‘reality’. Almost all of its 100 billion neurons were established the day we were born, with around 250,000 neurons created every minute whilst our bodies were forming in the womb. Still, this phenomenal ‘reality shaper’ has undergone monumental perceptual change over our evolutionary history. However, when compared to the skeletal remains of prehistoric human beings there appears to have been no observable change in human anatomy for at least 100,000 years. In comparison, our human mind has taken leaps from its earliest cave-art beginnings. This suggests that we have shifted from biological to cultural to a neuro evolutionary path and that further advance involves the development of the human nervous system and our consciousness. What is required, at this significant juncture, is again another catalyst of consciousness change. The next step that is required is likely to be a neuro-genetic evolutionary shift, and will be a necessary step in order to move beyond the limitations of our current developmental impasse. Civilizations in our historical past (and perhaps also in our unknown past) have collapsed as they evolved to the limits of their material resources without there being a parallel development in human consciousness. At such vital transition periods it is essential that a conscious ‘energy force’ be introduced into the stream of human life in order to catalyze the next spurt in evolutionary growth. Without such conscious energy the material systems are in danger of either running out of control (as is the case now) and/or breaking down – which may also be the case in the near future. Such a conscious ‘energy force’ needs to serve as an impulse to help catalyze human civilization towards new modes of self-knowledge and understanding, often referred to under Maslow as self-directed actualization. Such a catalyst may appear, as this paper hopes to show, through discoveries in the field of quantum biology, quantum physics, and neuroscience.
It is my contention that emerging research in the ‘quantum sciences’ throws new light upon the workings of the human mind/brain and consciousness, as well as the human nervous system and our genetic blueprint – DNA. This research, as this paper discusses, creates a bigger picture whereby emerges a coherency between our biology, our human physiology, and an energetic field of consciousness. Because of this, we could say that we are at the edge of a possible quantum evolution of the human species. It may also be reasonable to say that there are already new generations of people who, as evolutionary agents of change, are manifesting symptoms of such transformational changes. As in any evolutionary shift there appear amongst the species the initial beginnings of such transformation before the change becomes more widespread. These speculations will be returned to later in the paper.
It is fair to say that our global civilization now finds itself at a critical crossroads of development, both in terms of physical resources as well as modes of thinking. It thus becomes imperative that we orientate our perceptive faculties in favour of the potential evolutionary transformation of human consciousness. In recent years our western societies, at least, have developed in detriment to conscious evolution. This is one of the major reasons behind the cultural failings of our critical times. There has been little preparation, discussion, and research into how humanity, both physically and mentally, can deal with great change when it disrupts both scientific and religious belief systems. In our material age there is a tendency to dismiss spiritual concerns as realms of fantasy; likewise, those people of spiritual leaning often dismiss science as being inadequate to guide us into the future. Thus, a great amount of our energies have been channelled into creating an unstable and radically polarised world. What is required, however, is a reconciliation of the scientists with the humanists (C.P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’) and a combination of research and energy into stimulating a progressive understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of our species. In the worst case scenario we could face a process of devolution; it is my contention, however, that this will not be the case. Part of our dilemma though rests in our blindness over how our mental and perceptual faculties operate.
The human brain as a collection of nerve cells operates as a multi-layered frequency receptor. Due to initial conditionings early on in life each receptor becomes wired to perceive a particular wave frequency. As the brain’s receptors tune-in to a particular pattern of frequency waves a ‘pattern recognition’ response is received by the brain and interpreted according to the perceptions allotted to the frequency. In other words, the act of tuning in involves picking-up familiar frequency patterns out of the ocean of frequencies that surround us constantly. By tuning into the same patterns again and again we are reinforcing a particular reality-set. We are thus tuning into a consensus reality pattern unconsciously and forming our perceptions continually from this. Unfamiliar patterns often get ignored since they do not fall within our receptor remit. Perception is thus dynamically created moment by moment as the brain constantly scans the bands of frequencies that surround us. However, if this pattern-recognition behaviour does not evolve over time our perceptual development is in danger of becoming stalled. The result is that we become fixed – or trapped – within a particular reality. This is why human development requires that we move through various paradigm shifts The vulnerability of this process is that we become too accustomed to particular perceptual patterns and ignore other sensory inputs or influences. Also, as a species we have been collectively un-informed about methods obtainable to shift among various frequency bands and patterns. This knowledge has been available within various wisdom traditions (such as shamanism and occult and mystery schools) yet kept out of the public domain. The end result is that we become fixed and dogmatic in our sensory ‘beliefs’ and cling desperately to the small section of reality we perceive as the whole. Yet the human brain, and nervous system, is flexible enough to shift between frequency patterns and to interpret ‘realities’ beyond the consensual pattern. In past generations many mystery schools considered humankind too immature to undertake such training – hence the need for rigorous and strict initiation rituals and testing. This embargo on such knowledge and techniques has helped foster the domination of materialistic science to the point whereby we are taught to dismiss subjective and intuitive impulses and experiences. However, it has now become an evolutionary necessity that our dominant reliance upon material pursuits be balanced with an increase in consciousness research that supports the significant role of a ‘shared mind’. The next stage of human development, I posit, will be of a neuro-genetic nature which using present terminology aligns with a form of quantum consciousness. Quantum Coherence, Quantum Consciousness The human body is a constant flux of thousands of chemical/biological inter-reactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs, fluids, throughout the brain, body and nervous system. Up until recently it was thought that all these countless interactions operated in a linear sequence, passing on information much like a runner passing the baton to the next runner. However, the latest findings in quantum biology and biophysics have discovered that there is in fact a tremendous degree of coherence within all living systems. It has been found through extensive scientific investigation that a form of quantum coherence operates within living biological systems through what is known as biological excitations and biophoton emission. What this means is that metabolic energy is stored as a form of electromechanical and electromagnetic excitations. It is these coherent excitations that are considered responsible for generating and maintaining long-range order via the transformation of energy and very weak electromagnetic signals. After nearly twenty years of experimental research, Fritz-Albert Popp put forward the hypothesis that biophotons are emitted from a coherent electrodynamical field within the living system (Popp, et al 1988). What this effectively means is that each living cell is giving off, or resonating, a biophoton field of coherent energy. If each cell is emitting this field then the whole living system is, in effect, a resonating field – a ubiquitous non-local field. And since it is by the means of biophotons that the living system communicates, then there is near instantaneous intercommunication throughout. And this, claims Popp, is the basis for coherent biological organization – referred to as quantum coherence. This discovery led Popp to state that the capacity for evolution rests not on aggressive struggle and rivalry but on the capacity for communication and cooperation. In this sense the in-built capacity for species evolution is not based on the individual but rather living systems that are interlinked within a coherent whole: Living systems are thus neither the subjects alone, nor objects isolated, but both subjects and objects in a mutually communicating universe of meaning…Just as the cells in an organism take on different tasks for the whole, different populations enfold information not only for themselves, but for all other organisms, expanding the consciousness of the whole, while at the same time becoming more and more aware of this collective consciousness (Popp, Ho 1989). Biophysicist Mae Wan Ho describes how the living organism, including the human body, is coordinated throughout and is ‘coherent beyond our wildest dreams’. It appears that every part of our body is ‘in communication with every other part through a dynamic, tuneable, responsive, liquid crystalline medium that pervades the whole body, from organs and tissues to the interior of every cell’ (Ho 1998: 82). What this means is that the ‘medium’ of our bodies is a form of liquid crystal, thus an ideal transmitter of communication, resonance, and coherence. These relatively new developments in biophysics have discovered that all biological organisms are constituted by a liquid crystalline medium. Further, that DNA is a liquid crystal lattice-type structure (which some refer to as a liquid crystal gel) whereby body cells are involved in a holographic instantaneous communication via the emitting of bio-photons (a source based on light). This implies that all living biological organisms continuously emit radiations of light that form a field of coherence and communication. Moreover, biophysics has discovered that living organisms are permeated by quantum wave forms. Ho informs us that …the visible body just happens to be where the wave function of the organism is most dense. Invisible quantum waves are spreading out from each of us and permeating into all other organisms. At the same time, each of us has the waves of every other organism entangled within our own make-up…We are participants in the creation drama that is constantly unfolding. We are constantly co-creating and re-creating ourselves and other organisms in the universe…(Ho 1998: 116). This incredible new information actually positions each living being within a non-local quantum field consisting of wave interferences (where bodies meet). The liquid crystalline structure within living systems is also responsible for the direct current (DC) electro-dynamical field that permeates the entire body of all animals. It has also been noted that the DC field has a mode of semi-conduction that is much faster than the nervous system (Becker 1998). If biological living systems are operating within a non-local interwoven field of resonating energy, then perhaps it is possible to see this manifesting in physical behaviour? Mae-Wan Ho describes how coherent excitations in living systems operate in much the same way as a boat race, where the oars-people must row in step so as to create a ‘phase transition’. This indicates that there is an inherent tendency in Nature, and in living systems, to resonate together ‘in sync’ as a way of maintaining order and coherency. This type of behaviour serves to reinforce the relationship between the individual and the collective that before had been thought random. This discovery is important in that it lends validity to the emerging paradigm of the ‘global brain’ and of the growth of a planetary empathy. Systems philosopher Ervin Laszlo defines the global brain as ‘the quasi-neural energy – and information – processing network created by six and a half billion humans on the planet, interacting in many ways, private as well as public, and on many levels, local as well as global’ (Laszlo 2008: intro). On this physical level there is already a great deal of information-exchange occurring at ever-increasing speed. Emerging social networks (such as Facebook and MySpace) are also developing empathy-at-a-distance between worldwide users. In this context there is already underway a transformation in the relations between a significant number of people in the world. Yet now hard-science is taking these developments further by positing that people are increasing not only their empathic relationships with each other but also their entanglement. This view has recently been corroborated by neuroscience with its finding of ‘mirror neurons’. A ‘mirror neuron’ is a brain neuron that is activated (‘fires’) when a living being (such as humans and other animals such as primates and mammals) observes the action of another. In other words, if an individual watches another person eat an apple, then the exact same brain neurons will fire in the person observing the action as if they themselves were performing the act. Such neuron behaviour has been found in humans to operate in the premotor and inferior parietal cortex. This phenomenon of ‘mirror neurons’ was first discovered by a research team in Italy in the 1990s when studying the neuronal activity of macaque monkeys. This discovery has led to many notable neuroscientists to declare that mirror neurons are important for learning processes (imitation) as well as language acquisition. In more modern general terms we might also say that this capacity is what ties a person in sympathy and empathy to another’s situation. It may also explain why people become so emotionally attached to events on television, and even cry in response to watching someone crying on the screen. In this way we are emotionally entangled through a mirroring of brain neuronal firing. When we also consider that our bodies are entangled through a quantum field of electrical bio-photon resonance, it explains how we are affected by and from others – via wave/field interference. This information is significant when considering a shift towards heightened empathy between people both near and at-a-distance (via digital communications) as well as the potential for catalyzing future abilities for telepathic communication between individuals. Neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics are all now beginning to converge to reveal that our bodies are not only biochemical systems but also a sophisticated resonating quantum system. This helps us to understand how the body can be efficiently coherent, as well as explaining how we feel ‘drawn’ to others, especially when we use such terms as ‘good vibes’; ‘good energies’; and ‘we just seem to click’. Our bodies then, as well as our brains, appear to function like receivers/de-coders within a constantly in-flux information energy field. This explains how the human brain is able to store a lifetime of memories and experiences[ii] as a wealth of data may well be stored within the informational field that encompasses the brain, and indeed the whole body. This new understanding of the quantum human informational field also gives credibility to the existence of extra-sensory perceptions (ESP) and related abilities. Human consciousness is not only empathic, in a ‘wave-interference’ relationship with other mind-fields, but also is constantly transmitting and receiving information. However, modern materialistic science has, up until recently, focused largely upon ‘hard’ physical evidence and is still grappling with the complexities of quantum mechanics. As Niels Bohr famously remarked – ‘If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.’ The abstract, or ‘soft’, realm of imaginative insights and visions are usually left to the eccentric artists, mystics, and fringe creative innovators. Much of our modern minds have been denied their left-right brain full working and pulled into a tight left-brain rational functioning that operates as mechanical, linear, competitive, and narrow. The abstract right-brain, with its magical world of creative visionary thinking, has been mostly sidelined and laid latent (McGilchrist 2009). Much of this right-brain activity was the source for indigenous wisdom, shamanic practices, and similar traditions that western materialistic thought has sought to ignore over the years. Often our own intellectual training conditions us to think of such ‘magical practices’ as primitive, barbaric, and worthy of little more than western colonialism and/or re-education. Yet those of us in the ‘civilized’ West, with our left-hemisphere dominated brain, live in the everyday world of material things and external attractions. We are shown to exist as separate forces, as islands in a chaotic sea of physical and natural impacts, and at the whim of random neutral influences. Yet we now know that this is not the case. To recap, quantum biology has shown that the body displays an incredible degree of quantum coherence, and that a quantum consciousness field exists throughout the human DNA and thus the human nervous system. Our biochemical structure is composed of a confluence of energies in complete entanglement and which operate as a non-local field within and without the human body. Further, that DNA is a liquid crystal lattice-type structure that emits bio-photons, which are light-based. What this leads to is a new understanding that human DNA operates also as a quantum field. Hyper-Communication and the Quantum Field In light of these recent findings we can begin referring to DNA as Quantum DNA. This suggests that the 97% of human DNA which is not involved in protein building is active within a quantum state. It may well be that a future manifestation of quantum consciousness will come from part-activation of the 97% quantum DNA that so far has baffled our scientists with its function. This quantum DNA activation may likely be related to the state of human consciousness and has remained dormant in response to human consciousness not being sufficiently prepared, or made ready, for its manifestation. This field ‘life-force’ may be similar to the pervasive ‘pranic energy’ which, as Gopi Krishna states, forms the impulse for evolutionary growth in the human nervous system: an ever-present possibility, existing in all human beings by virtue of the evolutionary process still at work in the race, tending to create a condition of the brain and nervous system that can enable one to transcend the existing boundaries of the mind and acquire a state of consciousness far above that which is the normal heritage of mankind at present (Krishna 1997: 226) This transcendental stage of consciousness that is depicted above as being a part of our natural evolutionary heritage is connected with the human brain and nervous system. We now know that we have a DNA quantum field activated within our bodies. Some biophysicists are already discussing whether quantum processes may not be a common denominator for all living processes. As such a quantum informational field throughout the human body will determine the coherence of our light (biophoton) resonance as a vibratory rate. If human consciousness begins to shift its vibratory rate, as a reaction to various external impacts (cosmic, environmental, cultural), then there is every likelihood that DNA – as a quantum field – will likewise show a resonance shift. This may result in parts of its 97% hitherto ‘inactive’ capacities being brought online (i.e. re-activated). This may or may not be linked to the increase in electromagnetic frequencies now impacting our solar system from the precession of the equinoxes.[iii] It also now appears that this ‘inactive’ part of our DNA may manifest a form of hyper-communication. The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev, who has studied human DNA with his research team in Moscow, has found that the 97% ‘inactive’ DNA actually has complex properties. Garjajev discovered that the DNA which is not used for protein synthesis is instead actually used for communication, more exactly – for hyper-communication. In their terms, hyper-communication refers to a data exchange on DNA level using genetic code. Garjajev and his group analyzed the vibration response of the DNA and concluded that it can function much like networked intelligence, and that it allows for hyper-communication of information amongst all sentient beings. For example, the Moscow research group proved that damaged chromosomes (such as damaged by x-rays) can be repaired. Their method was to ‘capture’ the information patterns of particular DNA and then to transmit these patterns, using focused light frequencies, onto another genome as a way of reprogramming the cells. In this way they successfully transformed frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns. Garjajev’s research shows that certain frequency patterns can be ‘beamed’ (such as with a laser) to transfer genetic information. This shows how DNA operates through resonance and vibratory frequencies. It also shows that human DNA can be modified – or altered – through the impact of external frequencies. These research results go some way towards validating the existence of such phenomena as remote acts of healing, and other psychic attributes. It also suggests that DNA is a living, fluid, and dynamic ‘language’ that as a quantum informational field is responsive not only to laser waves (as in the above experiment) but also EM waves and sound – given that the correct frequencies are applied. The knowledge that human DNA can be influenced and modulated by frequencies (sound, light, language, and thought) is likely to have been known to various spiritual traditions, mystics and teachers, over the ages. This is perhaps why a variety of exercises have existed that utilize thought focus (prayer); sounds (music; chanting; singing); light (specific locations both natural light and produced light such as in stained glass); and language (specific recitations as in mantras and zikrs). DNA appears to function not only as a protein builder (the minority function) but also as a medium for the storage, receiving, and communicating of information. Somewhat more controversial is the report that Garjajev and his Russian colleagues also found examples where DNA could cause disturbing patterns in a vacuum, resulting in the production of what seemed to be magnetized wormholes.[iv] These wormholes appeared to function as connections outside of our normal fields of time and space (which hints at inter-dimensional communication). This phenomenon is indeed worthy of further analysis and experimentation. Yet it does seem probable that DNA is involved with various forms of hyper-communication of which, at present, we know very little about. To support Garjajev’s claims of hyper-communication we can see how similar principles are operating within Nature. For example, the organization of ant colonies appears to make use of a distributed form of communication. When a queen ant is separated from her colony, the worker ants continue to build and construct the colony as if following some form of blueprint. Yet if the queen ant is killed then all work in the colony ceases, as if the blueprint had suddenly been taken off-line. This suggests that the queen ant not need to be in physical contact to continue to transmit the blueprint, yet upon death the group consciousness ceases to operate within a hyper-communicative informational field. We can thus refer to these forms of hyper-communication as quantum field consciousness, or simply as quantum consciousness (since quantum implies non-local field effect). In a similar manner, such at-a-distance human phenomenon as remote healing, remote sensing, and telepathy may work along comparable lines. On a more basic level we could say that many of us experience this as the sense of intuition and moments of inspiration. We may even be receiving these forms of hyper-communication when we are asleep. There are countless examples of people, artists, and designers etc, who gained inspiration for their work in their dreams. One example here is that of the Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini who one night dreamt that a devil sat beside his bed playing the violin. The next morning Tartini wrote down the piece from memory and called it the Devil’s Trill Sonata. These experiences seem to be on the increase; or perhaps it is because people now feel more open to speak of such experiences. Also, there are indications that the newer generations of children being born are manifesting a higher level of clairvoyance and other extra-sensory capacities.[v] These developments may indicate that a higher form of group consciousness is emerging within humanity and that these abilities are now finding greater expression. In this respect we would do well to return to those practices recommended for centuries by spiritual traditions and teachers: that is, mediation, reflection, watchfulness, and mindfulness, etc. Einstein was famous as a daydreamer throughout his life and he often claimed that greatest inspiration came to him when in such states. Enhanced connectivity between humanity may thus be served by each of us paying more attention to our inner states and to strive for harmony and balance in our lives. Quantum States and the Akashic Field Materials exist to help in enhancing these inner (or ‘quantum’) states, and can be found within many traditions, whether from the major religions (Christian, Islamic, Judaism, Sikh); or from other streams of wisdom such as Buddhist, Tao, and meditative practices. There are also many written materials (books, tales, and poems) that have the function to stimulate right-hemisphere activity. This is the case with many Sufic stories (such as the Mulla Nasrudin tales)[vi], as well as famous stories such as the Thousand and One Nights; and poems from Jalalludin Rumi (which are now best sellers in the West). Many of these traditions also encourage group meditation as a way of stimulating group consciousness and quantum connection. It has been shown that practiced meditators can achieve an extremely high level of cross-hemispheric synchronization. Similarly, people who mediate together have been discovered to synchronize their brain activity. Through the use of EEG brain scanning it has been found that brainwave activity is synchronized amongst the participants of the group. We can now speculate that this is a result of resonance occurring between the various quantum fields, as shown by the latest research in biophysics. To some extent this has been replicated by the vast array of hemispheric audio material that is now available on the mass market (at various quality levels). These stimulants act to induce an altered state of consciousness; what some practitioners have referred to as transpersonal consciousness. In these states people have experienced very profound connections with what has generally been termed the collective consciousness. Philosopher Ervin Laszlo refers to this collective information field as the Akashic Field (Laszlo 2004). There is now reason to speculate that this so-called non-local Akashic Field is in fact a part of our shared (and over-lapping) quantum fields of consciousness. If this is so, then this leads us to further question whether DNA, which emits biophotons and exhibits inter-dimensional properties, may not itself be the seat of quantum consciousness. Modern science has for a long time considered the human brain as the centre of consciousness; yet this belongs to the materialistic and linear thinking that consciousness is a product of complex matter. The brain is indeed our most complex neurological arrangement consisting of the most intricate network of synapses. Yet it is more likely that the brain functions as a receiver and transcriber of electrical signals that are emitted from the quantum DNA. In this way the trillions of parts of our human DNA acts as a coherent quantum field to regulate every part of our body in each simultaneous moment. The human body is thus a resonating quantum field which, exhibiting potentially inter-dimensional properties, may also be a repository of consciousness. Our reality is thus provided by the work of the brain that transcribes signals into perceptions, yet it is the DNA which is a living intelligence. This idea of DNA being a living intelligence is not new to many indigenous wisdom traditions. For example, as anthropologist Jeremy Narby pointed out, shamans who undergo trance states often seem to be communicating with DNA as a means of acquiring knowledge about plants, healing, and spirit worlds (Narby 1999). Subsequently, Narby explored how Nature is also imbued with this form of living intelligence which acts as survival patterns to enable evolutionary growth (Narby 2006).Shamans, intuitives, and others who are able to tap into this living intelligence find a ‘design’ or blueprint behind all physical structures, which points to a quantum field of living intelligence that acts as an evolutionary impulse within all living systems. We can thus speculate that human DNA, which acts as a quantum energy field, is also likely to be the seat of human consciousness. Further, it is possible to say that this quantum consciousness field is the very same as what has been referred to as the ‘Akashic Field’. Also, recent research suggests that DNA is receptive to particular external influences such as can be manifested through prayer, meditation, and specific sounds/vibrations. This offers startling possibilities for our well-being and human evolution if we are capable of some form of communication with our own living Intelligence (our own ‘Higher Selves’?). We may even have the potential to interact with our own physical cellular structure through focused minds and directed intentions. The implications of this are profound and even infer that humanity may have a future opportunity to be in a relationship, through quantum consciousness, with its own DNA and living design. Further, if resonance/vibratory patterns of quantum consciousness can be passed between generations then it may be that the new generations now being born will exhibit different consciousness patterns. This may be the initial signs in the neuro-genetic evolution of humanity. These new generations will be the ‘evolutionary agents’ that will lead the way through a social-cultural-human renaissance and renewal. Evolutionary Agents – Our Next Quantum Leap? Quantum consciousness – living field intelligence – could well represent the next stage in human evolution; that is, evolution of the global mind of humanity. Various mystics and consciousness researchers have alluded to this by a variety of names; they range from cosmic consciousness, superconsciousness, transpersonal consciousness, integral consciousness, and more. All these descriptions share a common theme; namely, the rise of intuition, empathy, greater connectivity to the world and to people, and a sense of ‘knowing’ about what each given situation demands. Further, such a form of quantum consciousness would likely instil within each person a sense of the greater cosmic whole: the realization that humanity exists and evolves within a universe of intelligence and meaning (perhaps even inter-dimensional). This would serve to impart within humanity a more profound, and acknowledged, spiritual impulse. We can speculate that a variety of forces that include a shifting of the Earth’s geomagnetic forces (as is already occurring); varying solar radiations from each sun cycle; galactic pulses from the centre of the galaxy; our solar system moving through a more ‘energized’ portion of interstellar space; could all in some way result in increased wave patterns (vibrations) entering into the quantum DNA field and catalyzing a shift in the consciousness of humanity. The bridge that divides us at present from another level of living intelligence is in essence a vibratory shift. If such a vibratory shift is a potential means of catalyzing quantum consciousness, this could then lead to increased intuitive faculties and extra-sensory phenomena not only becoming an implicate part of our lives but also to opening up access to greater creativity and inventive capacities for participating in our own human futures. The rise of these attributes in a critical mass could be the key to our next ‘evolutionary leap’. Forms and intimations of these new consciousness patterns are already emerging in the world, but as yet they have not become a part of mainstream research. Such evolutionary ‘mutational’ agents include visionaries, mystics, artists, psychics, intuitives, spiritual Teachers, and what have been termed as the new ‘Indigo Children’. These children (labelled ‘Indigo’ because of their purported coloured auras) are described as possessing increased empathy, creativity, curiosity, and self-will. They are also reported to be spiritually inclined from a young age, and to exhibit strong intuitive capacities. Because of their natural and inherent resistance to authority they are seen as being distracted, rebellious, or alienated in the conventional school system. Yet this is nothing new as throughout recorded history social revolutionaries have felt impelled, and inspired, to resist authority and instigate change (Billington 1998). Many individuals who have felt an awareness of the need to seed an evolutionary impulse into social life have been caught up in revolutionary events and/or been involved in social-cultural upheavals. These human efforts, Krishna notes, come from evolutionary impulses: I can safely assert that the progress made by mankind in any direction, from the subhuman level to the present, has been far less due to man’s own efforts than to the activity of the evolutionary forces at work within him. Every incentive to invention, discovery, aesthetics, and the development of improved social and political organizations invariably comes from within, from the depths of his consciousness by the grace of…the superintelligent Evolutionary Force in human beings (Krishna 1993: 166). These indicate efforts, attempts, or social movements to help prepare the ‘mental soil’ for a new consciousness to slowly seed and grow. On the whole social/cultural/material forces are slow to react to the need for an evolving paradigm of human consciousness. We can say that in order for continued cultural and species growth there are particular periods of human history whereby humanity becomes ready, or in need of, the activation of particular faculties and/or evolutionary traits. It may be that during this critical phase of human culture that humanity will adapt, or be forced to develop, new creative and inspired aspects of consciousness. This transition period – a stage of what I term neuro-genetic evolution – will challenge many of the now-outmoded social structures that have polarized much of human thinking. However, as in all paradigm shifts, old energies inevitably must give way to the new, and it may only be a matter of time before new generations move into evolving consciousness and its physical expressions. It is thus critical that an understanding of spiritual matters begins to permeate through our everyday lives as a counter-balance to our social materialism. It is important in these years ahead that we try to develop a consciousness that is both open to spiritual impulses whilst simultaneously aware and attentive to the latest in scientific research. It is imperative that we revitalize our collective sense of well-being and connectedness – our entanglement – as part of our shared evolutionary development. It is possible that a new state of quantum consciousness will allow humanity access to an unimaginable energetic field of information. This would then open up new vistas of creative intelligence that could be the forerunner to the next stage of along our ascending evolutionary path. Conclusion To summarize, humanity as a global species may be in the throes of passing through a transition towards a different state of consciousness. This new state may likely be characterized by quantum properties such as coherence and non-local field information. Because of this I have termed this new state as that of a quantum consciousness field. This consciousness field will transform how we relate to other people, the world around us, and expand our perceptual realities. It may also catalyze into being other hitherto dormant human faculties such as increased intuition, telepathy, and visionary thinking. Some of these features are already appearing within younger generations being born into the world today and which have been referred to as ‘Indigo children’. This evolutionary development manifests a transition from biological and socio-cultural forms of evolution to incorporating a new level: that of neuro-genetic evolution. This neuro-genetic phase is essential, I argue, to allow humanity to evolve to the next stage upon the evolutionary ladder. As one thinker recently stated: We live in changing times whereby humanity is undergoing a transformation. Our consciousness, which has a vast potential for further development, must undergo a release from old, binding structures, and break out towards a rapid expansion…We need to understand phenomena at deeper levels, and not just accept what we are told, or what is fed to us through well-structured social institutions and channels. We must learn to accept that our thinking is a great tangible spiritual force for change (Gulbekian 2004: 251). If a person is not sufficiently prepared for these changing impacts then it may cause unbalance and confusion. Personal responsibility means each person must seek to balance the energies of both their inner and outer lives; and to strengthen their sense of connectedness, empathy, and creative vision. The new discoveries in neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics have shown that a form of nonlocal connected consciousness has a physical-scientific foundation. What this demonstrates is that certain spiritual or transcendental states of collective Oneness have a valid basis within the new scientific paradigm. Our evolutionary future(s) need not be polarized between the sciences and the humanities but can be – should be – a creative fusion and collaborative partnership. Notes i See Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for information on paradigm shifts. ii Eminent mathematician John von Neumann calculated that during an average lifetime of seventy years we accumulate some 280 trillion bits of information. iii The precession of the equinoxes (or the Great Year) refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth’s axis of rotation, which traces out a cone in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years. iv For more information see the work of Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf. v See the numerous reports that talk of the ‘Indigo Children’ or ‘New Children’. vi See the corpus of tales from Idries Shah References Becker, R. O. (1998) The Body Electric. New York: William Morrow Billington, J. H. (1998) Fire in the Minds of Men. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Gulbekian, S. E. (2004) In the Belly of the Beast: Holding Your Own in Mass Culture. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads. Ho, M.-W. (1998) The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms. Singapore: World Scientific. Ho, M.-W. and Popp, F. A. (1989) ‘Gaia and the Evolution of Coherence’. In 3rd Camelford Conference on The Implications of The Gaia Thesis: Symbiosis, Cooperativity and Coherence. The Wadebridge Ecological Centre, Camelford, Cornwall Krishna, G. (1993) Higher Consciousness and Kundalini. Ontario, CA: F.I.N.D. Research Trust. Krishna, G. (1997) Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man. Boston, MA: Shambhala. Krishna, G. (1999) The Dawn of a New Science. Markdale, ON: Institute for Consciousness Research. Laszlo, E. (2004) Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions. Laszlo, E. (2008) Quantum Shift in the Global Brain. Rochester, VM: Inner Traditions. McGilchrist, I. (2009) The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press. Narby, J. (1999) Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge. London: Phoenix. Narby, J. (2006) Intelligence in Nature. London: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Popp, F.-A., Li, K.H., Mei, W.P., Galle, M. and Neurohr, R. (1988) Physical Aspects of Biophotons. Experientia, 44576-585.