I had a busy last weekend that included hours of driving, so to help pass the miles with moderately less boredom I listened the audiobook version of The Field by Lynne McTaggart. I’m a little late to the party as this book was originally published in 2003. While I usually don’t go in for books with those kinds of covers, the ones that look overly blue and science-y as if they are trying too hard to look legitimate, I was incredibly interested in the subject matter so I decided to give it a shot. I’m still not sure about the personal agenda of the author, but upon an independent check of the studies referenced in the book, it does seem that many of them hold some amount of water. The book covers a number of foundational studies from the 20th century on quantum phenomenon, as applied to various aspects of our macro-reality like remote viewing and telepathy amongst other effects. The studies in the book aim to suss out the origin of consciousness, and asks whether it arises from quantum phenomena. Connected with every study detailed in the book is what is known as the quantum zero point field.
The zero point field refers to the fact that in a complete vacuum, when the temperature reaches absolute zero and all molecular motion should in theory come to a standstill, there is still a detectible residual movement that somehow arises from the vacuum itself. The energy that keeps the molecules moving, even when they shouldn’t be able to move due to lack of kinetic and potential energy, comes from quantum interactions with virtual particles that are constantly coming into and popping out of existence. In other words, the so-called empty vacuum of space, and indeed even non-empty space, is continuously interacting with and receiving energy from this field, on a quantum level. This phenomena has been proven by a number of scientific experiments, including spontaneous emission and the Casimir effect. In real world terms, constant quantum fluctuations lead to a background sound called the Johnson-Nyquist noise that is detectible in all electronic circuits, even those so sensitive that they must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures in order to reduce residual noise.
Even in the silence and emptiness of the vacuum, if we look closely enough, there is still activity present. That fact seems to be a fundamental property of our universe.
There is now evidence that the microtubule structures inside our neurons act as a way for our brain to create wave interference patterns arising from quantum field energy interactions. We also know this type of wave interference mechanism under another name: holography, in which a resulting “picture” of an object is encoded by the interference of two waves. In the brain, these wave interference patterns orchestrate and give rise to what we understand as consciousness. To summarize, in this model, our brains are merely attenuation devices that are able to resonate with and collapse quantum states inherent in the substrate of the universe’s zero point field.
Hopefully you’ve stayed with me through the journey of building up the scientific framework. Now we can move on to the fun bit, magick!
Magically speaking, we can compare the zero point field to the ultimate void from which divinity manifests. In Qabalistic terms, this would relate to the three veils of the negative, known separately as Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur. In Liber 777, Crowley attributes these three negative veils to Key 0, and gives them the names Nothing, No Limit, and Limitless LVX or Light. Interestingly, it is the photon or quanta of light, that interacts with the Zero Point Field.
According to Paul Dirac, one of the fathers of quantum science,
The light-quantum has the peculiarity that it apparently ceases to exist when it is in one of its stationary states, namely, the zero state, in which its momentum and therefore also its energy, are zero. When a light-quantum is absorbed it can be considered to jump into this zero state, and when one is emitted it can be considered to jump from the zero state to one in which it is physically in evidence, so that it appears to have been created. Since there is no limit to the number of light-quanta that may be created in this way, we must suppose that there are an infinite number of light quanta in the zero state...
In other words, the zero point state of nothingness is a state of limitless light. Now contrast this to the following passage in the 13th century foundational text of Qabalah, the Zohar:
Before He gave any shape to the world, before He produced any form, He was alone, without form and without resemblance to anything else. Who then can comprehend how He was before the Creation? Hence it is forbidden to lend Him any form or similitude, or even to call Him by His sacred name, or to indicate Him by a single letter or a single point... But after He created the form of the Heavenly Man, He used him as a chariot wherein to descend, and He wishes to be called after His form, which is the sacred name "YHWH".
Recall the microtubules, the biological mechanism through which humans can interact with the zero point field of quantum potential. Put in the language of esotericism, we can begin to understand the zero point field as the nexus through which the divine creative potential of godhead descends into and is in communion with mankind. In the above passage from the Zohar, the reader might easily assume that creation happened in some point in the primordial past, but what if it is happening constantly and in the present moment? This phenomenon may account for all manner of magical results. It would also account for why meditation yields such amazing outcomes in a magical sense, since the person meditating is literally quieting the noise of their surface thoughts and tuning in to the divine universal field.
In the Vision of the Star Sponge Crowley writes about an experience that seems very descriptive of our understanding of the zero point field:
I lost consciousness of everything but a universal space in which were innumerable bright points, and I realized this as a physical representation of the universe, in what I may call its essential structure. I exclaimed, "Nothingness with twinkles!" I concentrated upon this vision, with the result that the void space which had been the principal element of it diminished in importance; space appeared to be ablaze, yet the radiant points were not confused, and I thereupon completed my sentence with the exclamation, "but what twinkles!"
If the zero point field is pure limitless light, or the potential for it, we can also think of it as pure information. In trying to understand our interactions with information, astrologically speaking, we should look to the sphere of Mercury. Mercury rules communication and information. Because matter interacts with the zero point field, causing waves and thus wave interference, there is an imprint of every thing that has happened, will happen or is happening —according to some physicists, time does not exist in the way we perceive it, but is a very persuasive illusion. This also reflects Mercury’s role as scribe of the gods and ruler of magick. Therein lies a mystery with Mercury, forever occupying a liminal twilight space of all and none, a principal of much interest to occultists and magicians.
Individuality is not possible, though, if we are immersed in a universal sea of light-information with no clear boundaries between ourselves and the rest of the information out there. It is clear that some mechanism must come into play that limits our perception in a way that allows us to become a single entity, not a borg-like hive mind. It is here that Saturn has a role to play, in limiting and restricting our access to the information available, so that we can individuate from the universal all.
In my last post, I spoke a little about the role that Mercury and Saturn play in our perception of the universe, at least according to the gematria which resulted in the value of 402, and the word בת or bath which means daughter. For the full explanation that resulted in that particular number and word, please read the previous post before continuing.
In the Qabalah, the daughter corresponds to the final ה hé of the Tetragrammaton, יהוה, where the yod is the father, the first hé the mother and the vau the son. You’ll notice immediately that the letter hé does double duty embodying a mother/daughter duality, evoking a cycle which is just a part of the larger cycle of transformation and manifestation represented by the Tetragrammaton as a whole. To briefly relate the symbolism of the Tetragrammaton to those not familiar with Qabalah, the mother unites with the father, giving birth to the son and daughter. The daughter falls into a deep slumber, to be rescued by the son. The son and daughter then unite to become the new father and mother, and then the cycle repeats. This analogy symbolizes the a continuous (albeit somewhat incestuous) cycle through which divinity propagates through matter and then returns to itself.
Each princess card in the tarot corresponds to hé final, as the court cards make up the sequence of yod hé vav hé. The princesses are simultaneously the highest and lowest card in the sequence and are thought of as the throne of their respective Aces.
Hé is also the letter attributed to the Star card of the Thoth tarot, Crowley’s formulation of the deck. In the earlier Rider Waite Smith decks, the Star has the attribution of tzaddi, however as part of the reception of the Book of the Law, Crowley was directed to change it from tzaddi to hé with the words, “Tzaddi is not the Star.” Crowley himself gives a somewhat incorrect, or at least obscured explanation of the resulting symmetry that making the switch between tzaddi and hé does to the zodiacal order of the tarot, but his explanation isn’t really relevant to this particular discussion. If the reader is so inclined, there is a further explanation of the topic here. Regardless of the explanation, the received words point us to another clue on the path, that the Star card is relevant to our understanding of the nature of the zero point field and the magical-mechanistic underpinnings of the universe.
The Star, as we mentioned above, gets the attribution of the letter hé as well as the zodiacal sign of Aquarius. Traditionally, Saturn rules the airy sign of Aquarius and marks out the boundaries of our limited human perspectives. The subject matter on the face of the card is of a goddess with two cups against a starry background. In the Thoth tarot she is the goddess of the night sky, Nuit, who interestingly is one of only a very few other attributions to Key 0 in 777, alongside the three veils of the negative. With this information we can formulate and therefore symbolize the direct knowledge stemming from the zero point field being separated and funneled through the function of Saturn and becoming individual gnosis. The water Nuit pours from cup to cup is the process by which the All becomes the One, the divine becomes the individual personality.
Praxis
Become aware of your individual personalty as a focused and narrowed sliver of the entirety of the universal sea of divinity. How does this change your outlook on existence? Now imagine that every other living thing is also the same. Does that change your interaction with other people and animals? Take note of inspirations and gnosis and relate these as coming from the zero point field. What does that mean for your view of your place in the universe? How can we apply this understanding to our magical path?
holy cannoli this is the best shit, thank you, consistently really great reading, i'm your biggest fan, etc. I've also really been feeling a little iffy whenever an occult author brings up quantum mechanics or tries to tie in to the like, appeal to authority in the form of science/scientism. Your take is opening up the questions more clearly for me, and specifically tying the creation of photons to Ain Soph Aur is a really beautiful line of thought, thank you.
I'd like to point you toward my pet favorite science writer, C.K. Raju - I'm working my way slowly through the 11 Pictures of Time right now. It's aimed a little less at the lay reader than I might like but he takes pains to be as clear as possible - he focuses more on the history side but has a lot to say about how ideas that are seen as religious by the West are inextricably tied to the development of science, while academia likes to blind itself by means of 'objectivity' to its (religious) cosmological views inherited from Augustine. I'm just aching to talk about it with anybody if that catches your interest sometime!
One last question: "Because matter interacts with the zero point field, causing waves and thus wave interference, there is an imprint of every thing that has happened, will happen or is happening" - Just curious about this 'imprint', do you happen to have any further reading to point me to? Should I just pick up The Field?