Physics Of Immortality, Multidimensional Mathematics And The Search For Meaning – The Dark Thoughts That Inspired, The Strands

Many years ago, I read a book by the physicist Frank J. Tipler, The physics of Immortality. I read the book many times and appreciated the fact that Tipler had attempted to explain the end of the world, death, resurrection, eternal life and the eternal return using theories in quantum physics and cosmology. For a time, I was obsessed with the book and its ideas, writing several stories whose plot points revolved around a few of the concepts presented in the book. As usual I was using writing as a tool, hoping to come to an understanding of what I had read with the goal of incorporating those ideas it into my worldview.

I spent time thinking about the end of the world and the eternal return where the universe expands and collapses and then starts again, a phase so long that it is possible for any single entity to remember or be aware that this had all happened before, history repeating itself in a very physical way, doomed to repeat itself. Then I would contemplate the Omega Point which was the embodiment of everything that the universe was and could be, containing its entire past and potential future, the point at which the universe fulfilled its ultimate destiny, collapsing into a singularity and becoming infinite. In many ways, this concept, when examined, met the definition of God posed by many religions; as a single but infinite being/point that contains all things and possesses complete knowledge, understanding and awareness of the universe and all its inhabitants.

Then there was the concept of phase states. This principle stated that a particle in an organism or more generically, in a system, has a certain number of possible states it can be in and the combination and interaction with all the other particles and their states defines the overall phase state of that system. To take a simple example, if an organism had one particle switch and that switch could either be either on or off then there would be only two possible phase states of that organism and at any one time the switch could be either on or off.

As human beings with infinite potential, we would like to believe that the possible phase states of a person are infinite. However, Tipler showed that the possible phase state of a human is extremely large but finite. Therefore, in a life lived long enough and with a constantly varying array of stimulus all the phase states could be experienced, at which point you are then bound to repeat at least one of those states. For instance, out of all the possible combinations of the genes, cells and particles we possess a human could be defined as being in 1 of 100 phase states (not the real number just using it for simplicity. The real number is huge.) if that person experiences all 100 then the next time they phase shift they must experience a state that they have already experiences. They must then repeat. This is where the concept of phase states and the eternal return coincide. For in a bound universe with a finite number of phase states at some point in the future we are bound to repeat a previous state, it is inevitable given enough time.

Thinking about this got me to wondering how it might be possible for a human to experience all the possible phase states of humanity in a lifetime. If one could do that they would know everything it means to be human having experienced all its possible states and therefore would not need to be reborn into the system to learn anything else.

I wrote some stories that incorporated these ideas but they were still rolling around in my head looking for another outlet. The demons were loose, doing what they always do, embedding themselves in and scratching at darker places. Their scratching was insistent and soon I found the next idea that would lead towards the exorcism of these dark thoughts. This was when I came across an article on multidimensional mathematics which then gave me a model for conceptualizing these ideas, allowing me to picture and build a multidimensional world which became a playground for exploring the concepts that Tipler had written about. I began with a question. What if there are hundreds of thousands of dimensions but the human mind and eyes are not capable of seeing them all? From here I began to create a framework and the rules for such a universe.

These alternate dimensions have three spatial dimensions but do not have a time dimension and are squeezed within the dimension we normally take as the only reality. They are here all around us but we do not have the capability of seeing or experiencing them. Our brains are hardwired via our neurochemistry to see a consensual dimension/reality which allows us to exists in the Consensual Reality Dimension. The particles of this Consensual Reality Dimension vibrate with a certain frequency that our neurons are imprinted to. Focusing on that energy pattern is what allows us to see it but at the expense of not being able to see any other dimensions. But what if our consciousness could be shifted, our energy modified to then be able to see a different reality? Our minds could still not exist in multiple universes at once but for a time we could focus on this alternate dimension and our consciousness would, for a time, completely exist in it.

The Strands was born. In the novel, I use a few word pictures, such as spheres within spheres contained within a blanket of interwoven spheres as well as an intricate carpet to explain the concept. Here is one example:

“The people who first started the Strand Society used metaphors to try and explain the structure of the universe, and the one that seemed most popular is that of an intricately woven carpet. When you step back and look at the carpet you see a pattern or a picture, when you get closer you see the individual strands. If you were to pull one of those strands and start to unravel it you would reveal more strands; then if you were to take one of those strands and look at it closely with a microscope you’d see more intricacy again, and on and on. What we see most often is one of the Strands. There are other threads running parallel and perpendicular to them or even interwoven but we can only perceive one. Choice, creativity, and dreams create tributaries and alternate dimensions that continue to unfold in the system of the Strands.”

From this I came up with the concept of Conductors, who were gifted individuals capable of shifting their consciousness to other strands. They could also force a shift in other people’s consciousness allowing them to experience alternate dimensions. As always, knowledge is power and some want to use that power to reach enlightenment and others want to exploit it for financial and political gain. While some want to travel in the dimensions of dream and choice to steal ideas or inventions there are others who believe the strands hold the key to spiritual evolution. But then there are the strands themselves, imbued with the consciousness of billions of entities and their choices and phase states creating a world that is so enormous, miraculous, and magical.

With this new surrealist world to visit and explore I started to interweave spiritual concepts into the story. I thought back to Tipler and the eternal return, the Omega Point, phase states and resurrection. I then thought about Karma and the need to return until we can transcend the system of the karmic wheel. This is where I found the next piece of the puzzle, that it holds us in awe.

Keeping with that idea I move forward. If you could experience all it was to be human by traveling the alternate dimensions that were based on your choices and other’s choices, could live in alternate worlds with alternate feelings and emotions, then you could shorten the time it takes to become enlightened. In Buddhist metaphysics, an individual may have to live thousands of lives before becoming enlightened. What if the Strands, acting as a spiritual tool, could allow one to experience those thousands of lives in a single incarnation? Then if someone were to travel to the origin of the strands, Tipler’s Omega Point, they would experience the totality of human experience in an instant and could then move beyond to the next spiritual system.

This was the concept. Along the way there are dream hackers, corrupt corporations, multidimensional beings, occultists, strand terrorists, etc. Each with a different agenda, each motivated to understand and control the strands for one reason or another.

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In the end, it was the contemplation of physics and mathematics and how those concepts could play a role in spiritual evolution that became the dark thought that inspired the world of, The Strands and its inhabitants. I hope you enjoy the novel.

brianwhite@darkrevmedia.com

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New Names For Ancient Concepts

The Dark Thoughts Of ​In The Shadow Of The Witch

A few people have asked me if the terms darkta, illukta, and illumika which appeared in, In the Shadow of the Witch, occur in any of the mystical or philosophical literature I’ve read. To my knowledge they do not. I chose to create new terms to represent the concepts I was trying to express. I did this primarily because I can find it difficult to understand what an author is attempting to relate if they use terms I’ve been exposed to elsewhere and the author’s definition does not match mine. I did not want that to happen here. The world of the witch and the dark landscape that Trevor must traverse in pursuit of her resembles our world but is also vastly different. Through the course of the story these terms are allowed to take on their own meaning within the context of the story without relying on preconceived definitions that may contradict the word’s intent. In many ways I wanted both the characters and the readers to be able to come to their own definition and understanding of these words.

These spiritual/philosophical terms were created to embody a variety of different psychological, metaphysical, and spiritual principals that I have encountered over the years and were not meant to convey a single idea or ideology. The darkta for instance embodies the concepts of yin, the shadow, anima, lunar energy, id while the illukta references the other halves of these dualities; yang, the light, animus, solar energy, ego. And then there is the unifying principle which is beyond these pairs, the illumika, which could be loosely equated with the Ain Soph of Kabbalism, the Tao of eastern mystical traditions, the Void or any number of other occult and mystical terms that attempt to define the unknowable All.

Another pitfall I was attempting to avoid by using these terms was the tendency of certain terms to elicit judgement. Normally when we see the word dark or shadow we think bad, something to be avoided, something to be fixed, depressions, sadness, etc. On the opposite end, we see the words light or illuminated and we think positivity, sunshine, something to strive towards. I wanted to avoid placing judgement on these new terms. Over the course of the novel these words don’t always mean what we think. They define a type of energy, a latent or expressed capability, but this energy exists beyond judgement. Only if we can see past the judgement of these terms do we begin to understand the unifying principle of the illumika.

Please let me know how you defined these terms as your read the novel.

brianwhite@darkrevmedia.com and I can post comments on The Dark Daily Blog or on tumblr: https://brianwhitedarkdaily.tumblr.com/

The Dark Thoughts That Inspired, In The Shadow Of The Witch

The, In the Shadow of the Witch, storyline was heavily influenced by the music I mentioned in Dark Tunes, however, there were a few dark thoughts that I feel were the seeds of the tale. There were concepts and questions that I wanted to explore and then the music provided the characters and story line that allowed me to “safely” explore them.

I have a tendency to be a pessimist and if I let my mind wander I tend to project the awful. I have used the term awfulizer and catastrophizer to describe this aspect of myself. Indulging in awfulizing leads to catastrophizing which can eventually (when left unchecked) escalate to Armegedonizing. I can take a small problem, awfulize it into a much larger problem which then projects other people and situations into the swirling stew that has now become a catastrophe. Before you know it our whole universe is being swallowed by a black hole from which no living thing will escape, a phenomenon I call Armagedonizing.

One of the most awfulizing mind experiments I indulge in is what I would be willing to do to protect my family if threatened by disease, kidnappers, murderers, zombies, etc. and what I would do to avenge them if anything did happen to them. The idea, that someone or something could take that which I hold most precious away from me, leads me to some very dark places. The question itself is one I dread and can plague my thoughts. In most cases I’ll picture them in a dangerous situation that goes bad which becomes awful which then becomes a catastrophe, and before I know it I’m exacting revenge on whatever dark phantom my mind has chosen to represent the enemy and I will pursue that enemy even if it results in all out Armageddon. To me there is nothing more terrifying than thinking of my children being in danger.

Writing is often cathartic for me and acts as a form of exorcism for these thoughts. Writing something in the form of a story has a way of alleviating some of the dread of these thoughts by allowing me to create a surrogate that then has to carry the awful burden of them. It then becomes his/her (in this case the mild mannered Trevor) responsibility to take those emotions and feeling and act on them. Strangely enough this transference allows me to escape the emotive component of awfulizing, for now it is a thought experiment involving someone else; poor Trevor.

As my awfulizing surrogate, Trevor removed me from the guilt and pain of these dark thoughts and feelings. When personalizing these thoughts a lot of emotions can be stirred up and I can lose track of the story if I project my own feelings too far into it. Trevor does some of the things I believe I would do when faced with a similar situation, but it is he whom has to deal with the consequences of those actions, not me. In many ways I can now explore the metaphysical questions that result from some of these thoughts because I’m no longer so emotionally invested. If I were to project my daughter’s face on the characters in the novel I would lose all perspective and would write purely from the emotion generated from that transference. That is how the idea started, however, I quickly realized that I would need to distance myself (via Trevor) in order to gain some perspective. What I would do and the lengths I’d go to save my family or to avenge them is the first dark thought that sparked, In the Shadow of the Witch. The emotional transference onto Trevor then allowed me to explore others.

The second group of questions came as a result of thinking about the first and had to do with judging motives and actions. Was Trevor’s revenge warranted? I thought so and I think most parents would agree. But if we take a step back and look at this from a distance, remembering that Trevor is now our safe surrogate, we have a chance to analyze this without having to deal with the pain and the emotion of it. Does his vendetta accomplish anything? Will he increase the peace and love in the world by ridding it of the Coma Witch? Is he bringing more light into the world by destroying a shadow or would he bring even more light if he were able to forgive?

These questions I could only explore through Trevor and at times not even through him, because he’s too close to it as well. The people he meets have to pose these questions as Trevor is blinded by his rage. These questions may scratch at the back of his skull at certain times but they never take root. The anger pushes them away and they lay in the darkness unexplored. That leaves Rakesh and the giant to bring them up and remind him that he needs to think about what he is doing, why and what he will become as a result.

Led by his anger, Trevor is forced deeper into the witch’s shadow, and another question emerges. In exacting revenge do we become indistinguishable from that which we are taking revenge upon? Are we justified in killing the killer? Can we be justified in doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Is our guilt or innocence, based purely on motive and intent or is there something beyond that? Is the question even relevant? In essence are we driven to become that which we despise? Is it possible that some forms of evil simply need to be wiped out, that there is no healing to be accomplished as long as these forms of evil exist? If that is the case, does Trevor become a heroic knight if he succeeds in killing the witch? Logically if we kill the killer we become by definition a killer, but does that make us evil if done for the right reasons?

These are the unanswerable questions I wanted to banter about. If I put myself back in this story for a painful moment I know that it would be almost impossible for me to separate my emotions from these questions and that hate would become my prime motivator. This is exactly what Trevor is feeling when he states to a preacher that those questions didn’t matter to him, that in fact they had never even entered his mind.

To really think about the dark places one has to travel to in order to even accomplish an act like killing the witch, I made the witch a formidable, powerful foe that can manipulate forces that a normal human cannot even comprehend. In order to even start on this quest Trevor must immediately decide that he is going to devote himself to chasing her, in effect giving himself over to the dark ways of the witch. This is how he enters her shadow and why he becomes trapped within it. Trevor then starts off knowing he needs to change and that the change will not be for the better. He must immerse himself in a system that is completely counter to everything he has known previously. In many ways to kill the witch he must become the witch and the chase is the transformative journey (physical, psychological, spiritual) that effects that change. Once in the chase he is presented with various forms of the questions, what is he becoming? What does he have to give up? And is the person he must become the same person that began the chase? What must he lose of himself? Does he have to give up his ability to be kind, to love, to forgive?

Beyond that Trevor must also question if he can regain the pieces of himself that he may sacrifice in the chase. At the beginning of the novel Trevor recognizes that once you touch the darkness you’re never the same again, but his wife tries to convince him that that is not true. She tries to convince him that once he does what he needs to do to save their son they can simply go back to the way things were. Trevor is doubtful, but at the same time there is a part of him that wants to believe it’s true, that he can wear this dark transformation like a costume and when the last act of the play is over simply take it off and go back to being the old Trevor.

That is the final dark question that we need to examine. Once we have been touched at such a core level by sadness or evil, or any dark emotion, even though we may say we got over it, are we ever truly free of it? Are we ever really the same person we were before? And should we be? Is not pain, sadness, a price we pay for growth and revelation? As Rakesh had said, “Pain is a motivator.” What we allow it to motivate us to do is our choice not the choice of that which is causing the pain.

I chose to think of this in yet another way. Can a black hole ever go back to becoming the white dwarf it was before its collapse? In the short term this may seem impossible but the witch asks us to look at this a different way. She reminds Trevor that he cannot see the effects of all his actions or hers, that there is something much bigger going on. She challenges him to take a more universal approach to how he views his and her actions. To judge them is to miss the point. The witch tells us that over the lifetime of a universe we cannot judge individual acts and actions, we must view it universally and understand that in essence the black hole is a singularity we can’t understand but the energy that it swallows may become the seed of a star that becomes a white dwarf again in the future. Then, yes, it is possible, in a universal view to say that we can go back to what we were and that we may not understand the journey but the destination (enlightenment, heaven, whatever you choose to call it) is inevitable. This is the eternal return, universal balance, the rules of a closed system. To escape it and its consequences we must move beyond it. And that leads to one more dark thought.

If we see the witch as a force of nature can she be judged as evil? In this universal view we are trying to cultivate, if we remove judgement, can the witch be viewed as a cleansing agent, a dark deity that swallows the universe into its black loving embrace as a means of healing it, setting the counter to zero so that a new system with new rules can be born? Possible?

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The joy of these questions for me is that there are no real answers. It is my desire to play with these ideas that inspire my writing and leads me to create characters that can examine and then carry my dark thoughts. Because of them I can still sleep at night.

The Dark Thoughts That Inspired Horn And Dagger

I have written specifically on how music has influenced the creation of my novels and of, Horn and Dagger, in particular on the Dark Tunes page. However, many of these ideas were seeded long before the music gave it a form. In other cases the story was further modified by something I learned during the writing process. It may seem odd the way these influences fit together (I know they are to me). When I think of a novel that includes killer wormholes, magic mushrooms, and a unicorn that defecates a substance that is molded into glass that exhibits strange reflective properties and is then sold at the local village store by an eccentric engineer, I wonder how I got there myself. This is my attempt to try and understand it.

One thing I’d like to get out of the way. What I walk away with from the things I read, hear or see is not necessarily what is. These Dark Thought essays are not a listing of facts but what I was inspired to create based on the influence of said facts. That is the beauty of writing for me, I get to create a mythology and world that is based on the “facts” as I remember and perceive them. In the process of explaining how these influences inspired the story I don’t want to do a disservice to any of the particular facts or the people that generated them. With that said, this is my disclaimer: what you read below is the twisted, edited, colluded, and darkly manipulated memories of a dark fantasy author. What is important for me is the story, not memorizing the facts that generated it and I didn’t want to go back and fact check, for fear that it would change how I was inspired by them originally.

Mushrooms And Mushroom Cults

Psychedelics have always intrigued me. The way in which a chemical can warp one’s perception of reality makes me question the nature of reality itself. If we say that perception is reality then we must consider the fact that altered perception caused by different states of consciousness (dreams, drug states, shamanic states, meditation, etc.) are as legitimate as “normal” perception; “normal” perception being loosely defined as being consensual and statistically popular. When we alter perception we can see beyond the gates of the consensual to the raw reality provided by our subconscious or generated through our emotional states. But these perceptions and states are no less “real” than other modes of perception (waking consciousness).

I chose to focus on psychedelic mushrooms in, Horn and Dagger, for a variety of reasons. One is that mushrooms are organic. This then leads to the question of why such substances exist in nature? What is their purpose? We tend to believe that Mother Earth is here to provide for our physical wellbeing but isn’t it possible, if not even more likely, that there is a larger concern for our spiritual evolution. If that were true then maybe these substances were left for us to ingest with the express purpose of bringing about our spiritual evolution – Spirit Food.

There are many theories on this topic, some that even suggest that our ancient ancestors’ first experience of God may have been brought about by the ingestion of such substances or that language may have been developed during leaps in cognitive ability that resulted from the ingestion of naturally occurring psychedelics in plants. During these shifts in consciousness the mind is free to rely more on the creative/intuitive/emotive properties of our being and less on the rational/reductive. It is easy to understand how, when one is concerned with finding food and shelter, one does not focus on the otherworldly thoughts that ingesting such chemicals can produce. There is a change in perception but also a shift in focus from the rational reductive to the expansive and oceanic which allows us to make intuitive leaps that our rational/logical mind may not have arrived at.

When playing around with these thoughts I began to imagine a group of people that could harness the effectiveness of such chemicals, creating a spiritual community devoted to the spirituality of the mushroom. Me being me, I wanted to explore the dark side of this society and its social mores. These dark monks used mushrooms that they meticulously grew and cared for to initiate dark revelations in its followers. In fact, ingesting of the mushrooms was a prerequisite to their initiation into the society. They then shared these mushroom epiphanies that become part of the collective consciousness of the society. If you can’t integrate the dark knowledge exposed by the mushroom into your psyche, you go insane or you die!

There was another element to the mushrooms that was added as part of my reading Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which the author is hunting and gathering his own meal and following it from seed to slaughter house. This was an eye opening book for me on many levels and taught me a lot about industrial agriculture. The part that relates to the novel, however, was the section where he writes about his experiences while mushroom hunting. I learned a lot I never knew about mushrooms but what piqued my interest was the concept that calories is a unit of energy that is solar centric as a result of our food chain beginning with green plants. These plants use the sun to grow and are then eaten by other animals in the chain. Sun provides the energy to the plant, plant provides energy to animal, animal provides energy to humans. Mushrooms, however, are a fungus that grows in darkness and shade, representing more of a dark or lunar energy. Mushrooms grow off of the rotting and decaying material in the soil. I found this juxtaposition extremely interesting. The mushrooms that this society cultivates don’t just contain psychoactive compounds they also contain the revelations of the dark by feeding off of the moon, shadow, rot and decay. An understanding of the epiphanies surrounding death and darkness may lead to a deeper understanding of life itself.

That is how mushrooms made it into the novel.

Wormholes And Black Holes

Anyone who has read my other novels, The Strands and In the Shadow of the Witch, will immediately recognize that I have a fascination with the concept of black holes and wormholes. With my inability to let this fascination go it shows up again in, Horn and Dagger. Am I done with it now? Doubt it. The idea that a black hole is the garbage truck of the universe, a force capable of consuming even light, is miraculous to me. It is the universal eraser, the system reset button.

There are so many theories as to what happens when one enters a black hole. For me a black hole represents a place where our rationale, our logic and our science break down. At the level of a singularity we enter the plane of paradox, contradiction and mysticism. Eternity, forever, never, infinity are almost impossible for us to comprehend. For me these objects of darkness offer a lot of creative possibilities and I continually like to explore what these black holes can be utilized for. In this particular case I have “little” black holes that can be utilized as weapons to erase “smaller mistakes.”

But there is so much more to think about and explore. Can black holes lead to alternate dimensions? Is there one that leads to Heaven and another to Hell? Can a wormhole be used to simultaneously transport someone from one place to another or to a different plane of existence? If matter can neither be destroyed nor created is a black hole a transformative agent that tears apart the form, in effect freeing it to now exist in the multitude, no longer separate parts but a consistent whole? Is it a black redeemer? So there are still more questions to answer so I don’t think I’m done with this one yet.

Which Leads Us To Unicorns

Vildhjarta’s Masstaden was the album that pulled all the loose ends together for me. But not right away. When I first heard this dark atmospheric metal album, I was so excited because it sounded so different than the metal I was listening to at the time but it also disturbed me. It was so dark and alluring at the same time, pulling me into its world of mythic adventure. I read some forums where there were discussions about the album being a fable that explores the dangers of foreign financial and political influences (globalism) on a small ocean town. This foreign influence is not brought in by a foreigner but one of their own, like a prodigal son returning, but he had brought this shadow with him, this knowledge of the outside that could destroy his home. This situation forces a struggle between the eternal golden monk (the monk in H&D) and the lone deranger (the engineer in H&D). This struggle is what I wanted to focus on, while at the same time not necessarily stating one is evil and one is good. The story then takes place on a secluded island called Gull. Gull exists in a moral “gray space” where it is difficult to judge right and wrong.

It was this album that framed up the story and gave birth to the vision that inspired it. The additional influences provided various elements to the story but Masstaden was always at its core. As I detail in Dark Tunes, the movie, The Last Unicorn, and the Haruki Murakami book, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, provided the remaining pieces of inspiration. Once these influences came together I was set on a unicorn being in the story.

In, Horn and Dagger, the unicorn is a lonely creature. Her magic is used to mislead and mystify but not bring people closer to the truth. But the epiphany is resident within her. Just like the unicorn in, The Last Unicorn, she can be transformed but we don’t understand if this only happens in the monk’s perception or in reality. I also thought it ironic that one of the reasons tourists come to Gull is to purchase memory glass, which has some strange and unique properties which make it a coveted novelty. This glass is actually created from the Unicorn’s crap. I don’t know where I came up with that but as soon as I wrote it I thought it funny (in a darkly perverse way).

The dagger is also related to the Unicorn. The horn is the epicenter of the unicorn’s magic. It is the physical wand that projects her illusion into the world. This magic can be transformative. It could turn some objects into weapons (dagger) or even become a weapon itself.

All these influences and ideas were swirling in my head without a real storyline. Then one day I went mountain biking and when I came home decided to take a nap on the couch and put on Masstaden. Then and there it all came together. In a dazed half-dream-half-awake state, Horn and Dagger, finally emerged. First as a scene between the monk and the unicorn and then quickly filling in with backstory and characters that included an alchemist/engineer that manipulated the unicorn’s magic, a town enthralled by the illusions of the unicorn, a society that revered the dark revelations of the deadly mushrooms, and a monk who is a prodigal son returning either to save or destroy this island that he once called home.

Just like that. Years of this stuff simmering in my head, suddenly brought to boil by a shift in perception and some atmospheric dark heavy metal music. I’ve explain the other elements of this story and their influences in Dark Tunes so I don’t want to be repetitive here. Suffice it to say I don’t understand all the elements of this story myself. When a story and its characters grow organically like this it is a surrealistic journey. I can see the pictures, I can describe them, but I don’t always know what they all mean. I have my interpretation of them but I prefer to keep them to myself.

I invite readers to come to their own understanding and interpretation of these elements and encourage you to share them with me and the community of www.darkrevmedia.com readers.

brianwhite@darkrevmedia.com and I can post responses to The Dark Daily Blog

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