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The Wave-Particle Duality of Spirits



In the worlds of religion, the paranormal, psychology and consciousness studies, there’s a long-running feud between people who say that gods and spirits are merely symbolic contents of our minds and those who claim that these entities and forces have external reality to us. It’s the type of issue that you could (and I have) debate both sides with equal fervor for days and days and yet still not come to an answer that really satisfied everybody.

Until now.

This issue has puzzled me for a really long time, until recently it was driven home by way of a simple analogy via Rev Max. He related a hypnopompic vision he had about the spirit world and quantum physics. In quantum physics, there’s something called “wave-particle duality“, which suggests that sometimes light (and other things) appear to act as waves, and sometimes have the nature of particles. Sometimes you’ll hear people use the portmanteau “wavicle” to describe this phenomenon. Wikipedia has a nice line about this issue:

[I]t is not necessary, or useful, to say that an electron is a particle - or a wave - just that in certain circumstances it behaves like a wave, and in others like a particle.

The way we can apply this to the spiritual realm is to say something like: it’s not necessary, or useful to say that a spirit, god or other spiritual entity is inside of our minds - or exists independent of us - just that in certain circumstances, it seems like it’s inside us, and in others like it’s outside us.

I know we’ve talked about this a bit before, but this really solidifies a lot of things for me. It kind of feels like a breath of fresh air, because I don’t have to worry any longer about understanding what actually is the ultimate truth, I simply have to look at what’s useful for me based on the circumstances. By that I mean that sometimes I find it more helpful to think of spiritual stuff in a more “Jungian archetypes and autonomous complexes of the mind” kind of way, and in other cases, I feel much more comfortable looking at it from a more animistic “everything has a spirit” worldview.

The funny part is that once you get deeply into either of these worldviews, they tend to interpenetrate one another. For instance, Jung talked about what he called the psychoid level, where mind and matter intersected. And his notions of synchronicity border very closely on the occult. He also talked about how sometimes inter-generational psychological complexes, forces which shape minds and pass through families for generations - making part of who you are hundreds of years before you’re even born. From the more animistic side of things, we could also look at somebody like Rudolf Steiner, whose work dealt extensively with connecting to the higher spiritual realms. I can’t locate the source off the top of my head, but I recently read something by him where he said that unlike physical entities, the only way for us to know spiritual ones is by us being inside it, or it being inside us.

In either case, whatever viewpoint you subscribe to, I think it might be interesting for you to experiment with adopting the “opposing” stance and see where it leads you. If you believe spirits are simply mental forces, try for a few days to tentatively believe that they exist outside of you (instead or in addition to). And if you believe that they are only outside of you, try operating as though these are simply manifestations of elements of your mind. Note your reactions and any experiences or sensations you have when you try on temporarily another style of thinking. You may be very surprised with the results - but you’ll never know unless you try.

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11 Reader Responses

  1. jp Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 12:59 pm

    hey, that’s perfect!

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 2:17 pm

    Just happened across this interview with Robert Anton Wilson where he talks about this whole quantum entanglement in a pretty simple way:

    http://www.rawilson.com/metro.shtml

    After he and his wife moved up to Capitola in the early ’90s, he used an early incident here as a way to explain quantum physics.

    “When I moved from Los Angeles I moved into what I thought was Santa Cruz,” Wilson told a European audience during footage included in Bauscher’s film. “Then we had something stolen from our car and we called the police, and it turned out we didn’t live in Santa Cruz, we lived in a town called Capitola. The post office thought we lived in Santa Cruz, the police thought we lived in Capitola. I started investigating this and a reporter at the local newspaper told me we didn’t live in Santa Cruz or Capitola, we lived in a unincorporated area called Live Oak.”

    “Now quantum mechanics is just like that,” Wilson continues, “except that in the case of Santa Cruz, Capitola and Live Oak, we don’t get too confused because we remember we invented the lines on the map. But quantum physics seems confusing because a lot of people think we didn’t invent the lines, so it seems hard to understand how a particle can be in three places at the same time and not be anywhere at all.”

  3. Ant Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 3:00 pm

    `Just bumped into this interesting theory while going through my newsfeeds. Less to do with spirits, and more to do with ghosts, but definitely making note of the whole energy aspect of what you’ve just said (and maybe how hauntings fit into the equation). :)

    Ghost Molecule

    What has been found is this: that all human cells en post-mortem (which do contain measurable yet varying amounts of energy) CAN by chemical reaction (response) know instinctively precisely where they fit in a human or animal configure as energy is incrementally released from dying human (animal) cells. Essentially reform in energy the original “animal item” and in this case it denotes George and Mary Q. Lunchbox post-mortem and phases of decomposition.

    Meaning that as a body is decomposing, let’s say, over a five year span, energy is being released in fits and starts which was stored in the living cell now defunct. After a few years of decomp, that residual energy may actually re-form the original structure (a ghost) to some extent and even move about in a given semi-responsive pattern though non cognitive (more zombie than man). If a man it will by self-adherence to the internal chemical response, form in essence a man, if not the very man who died as he was in his binary or basic behaviors. AND even possibly act out a grouping of familiar behaviors sporadically over and over again as this was the physical motion most familiar to that person genus. If that man was a handyman it may very well still do rounds or something similar that that body did regularly or had done repetitiously while alive.

    That could also potentially explain things like curses, too, couldn’t it?

  4. alistair Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 3:16 pm

    the map is not the territory. r.a.w. found that out. science creates great maps. religion forms maps too. the mistake is in adhering to the map as the territory it`s self. math is another map. so is quantum mechanics. the game of particle acceleration creates new particles that we hallucinate as tiny little points of matter, when they are really measurements of energy.many maps make us hallucinate images that persist as real until put to the type of test that r.a.w. experienced. it can be extremely disconcerting when your map collapses, especially in time of crisis. i think we will always be negotiating for the validity of our maps. it`s the nature of this thing called consciousness interfacing with material reality.
    tim, i am begining to work on a map whereby spirits are contained in reality outside of my consciousness. i`ll keep you posted on my perceptions.

  5. channel null Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 8:10 pm

    the map is not the territory. r.a.w. found that out.

    Actually, to nitpick, that’s from Korbyzki’s General Semantics.

    I’m wary of using the term “quantum” too much. That’s how particles work. They’re infinitely tiny. And only astronomically large objects behave in an orderly, predictable fashion. They’re cosmological, they follow “principles.”

    Between the microcosmos and the macrocosmos, we inhabit the mesocosmos, the realm between quantum anarchy and near-classical orderly principles, one of “chaos.”

    That explanation is largely stolen from Hakim Bey/P.W. Wilson in Ong’s Hat. I like it because it gives us a good compromise but also opens up a whole new field. A vesica pisces, if you will.

    We tend to have this neurotic thing about the ‘real truth’ as if nothing is acceptable except the naked reality of things. Problem is, if that’s all you’ll settle for, you’ll most likely end up chewing your wrists open in short order. For the time being, you need to learn to suspend your ruthless cutting apart of the ground beneath your feet and use a model of reality, not because it’s the ‘real thing’ but because it works.

    That’s from Zac’s latest entry.

    Part of the reason I think that argueing over the reality of spirits is silly is for exactly that reason. I mean, I do it too, but there’s nothing practical to gain. I’m not so sure they exist outside of me, but I damn sure act like they are. If I bud off a part of myself, e.g., and let’s say I call it a “fallen member of the Host of Angels, Furfur, a Duke over so-and-so-many spirits who maketh men to…”, then I damn sure better make sure to feed and discipline him–i.e., that semi-autonomous part of me–or expect consequences. Same goes if “Furfur” has some degree of autonomous, “objective” existence like I have.

  6. Janice Says:
    October 4th, 2005 at 10:50 pm

    I just finished “Cosmic Trigger” by r.a.w. where this topic is brilliantly discussed. In fact, I had been struggling with the issue of spirit materializations and whether or not they exist outside of me or if they are simply mental constructs. After finishing this book, I’ve come to the realization that it doesn’t really matter! They are whatever you want them to be: inside, outside, real, archetypal. Whatever one gets out of the experience is what’s important. Tim, you helped me tremendously with your insightful Jungian analysis of my experiences as well. Thanks!

  7. alistair Says:
    October 5th, 2005 at 5:58 am

    general semantics was an element of what bandler synthesised into nlp. “the map is not the territory” originally came from g.s.
    i think bandler would agree that it is unimportant whether spirits are disincarnate, a construct of our own consciousness or something else, as long as they can be functional tools in our lives. spirits may just be a map that is not actually the territory.
    damn infuriating not to be able to see the teritory though………….

  8. rev max Says:
    October 5th, 2005 at 12:31 pm

    The main application of this ambiguous identification for me personally was in a hypnogogic state, coming out of a dream with shock into my physical shell and dancing back and forth between the two worlds as the corpse prepared to rise and realizing that while awake i do feel and seem like a someone that is in a body and exists in time but while dreaming I am neither, and so i am really both simulataneously, like schrodinger’s cat, real/notreal, mortal/immortal, etc.

  9. alistair Says:
    October 5th, 2005 at 2:11 pm

    we do choose to collapse the explicate order of things through choosing. maybe that`s what free will is about. the choosing makes the world we percieve. all things are possible until we say one thing is certain. that is choice. our determination to be right then proves out the thesis, until the next moments of uncertainty.

  10. Multi-Contextual Highschool - Pop Occulture Blog Says:
    June 11th, 2006 at 8:14 pm

    […] Where these dreams come from, I don’t know. Some might say spirits, some would say the subconscious. Maybe there’s no difference. In any event, this latest one for me took place in some kind of special highschool for gifted students or something. Maybe sort of a dream version of Hogwart’s, but in a modern urban setting. One of my professors was none other than JFK himself. I remember this seeming unusual, but I was more impressed than distressed to be taught by a dead president. I stayed after class with him to talk about something or other (I don’t remember), and it really sparked his interest whatever it was. He asked if I wanted to continue this conversation at a local pub, which I agreed to, but told him I had to wrap up a couple things and would meet him there shortly. […]

  11. Dreaming of Baphomet - Pop Occulture Blog Says:
    July 16th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

    […] This is one of those over-the-top type of dreams that’s hard to derive any specific psychological meaning from, I think. The interpretations that make the most sense to me then are that it’s either (1) archetypal or (2) an actual encounter with a real entity, or maybe both. Maybe there is no real difference between the two. […]



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