Human thought in the twenty-first century needs to work towards a new model that immerses the human being within a vibrant energetic universe. However, this need not demand that we throw away what we already have; rather, we can expand upon the tools that have brought us to our present position. There is an eastern proverb that roughly translates as: “You may ride your donkey up to your front door, but would you ride it into your house?” In other words, when we have arrived at a particular destination we are often required to make a transition in order to continue the journey. In this sense we can be grateful to a vast knowledge base of scientific and religious thought for helping us arrive at the point where we presently stand. Yet it is now imperative that we move forward. And how we move forward is likely to be centered in our understanding of consciousness.

Our physical apparatus is spectacular; consider that each of us carries around a 100-billion-cell bioelectric quantum computer that creates our realities, with almost all its neurons established the day we were born. Still, this phenomenal “reality shaper” has undergone monumental perceptual change over our evolutionary history. What is required, at this significant juncture, is again another catalyst of consciousness change. This may come about through discoveries in the field of quantum biology, and the idea, emphasized by Ervin Laszlo in his previous blogs, that the form of consciousness we possess is likely to be the result of quantum coherence.

The human body is a constant flux of thousands of inter-reactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs and 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 20 years of experimental research, Fritz-Albert Popp put forward the hypothesis that biophotons are emitted from a coherent electrodynamic field within the living system. What this effectively means is that each living cell is giving off, and resonating with, 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.

Biophysicist Mae-Wan Ho has described how the living organism, including the human body, is “coherent beyond our wildest dreams” in that our bodies are constituted by a form of liquid crystal, which is an ideal transmitter of communication, resonance, and coherence. All living biological organisms continuously emit radiations of light that form a field of coherence and communication.

Moreover, biophysicists have discovered that living organisms are permeated by quantum wave forms. In her 1998 book The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, 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 …

This incredible new discovery actually positions each living being within a non-local quantum field consisting of wave interferences (where bodies meet). Each person is thus not only in an emphatic relationship with each other but is also entangled with one another.

Neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics are now beginning to converge to reveal that our bodies are not only biochemical systems but also sophisticated resonating quantum systems. These new discoveries show that a form of nonlocal connected consciousness has a physical-scientific basis. Further, it demonstrates that certain spiritual or transcendental states of collective Oneness have a valid basis within the new scientific paradigm.

If we are willing to step down from the donkey, we will find that our new path ahead has a place for reconciling science and spirituality. We should focus on the best of both worlds: engage in cooperation, not in conflict and competition.