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The Science
i ll d t he
beh
Supernatural
 THE
MYSTIC
MIND
The Science Behind the Supernatural

CRYSTAL LOVE

f
Mind is the forerunner of all things
Mind is foremost,
Of mind, are all things made

T he Dhammapada
Buddhist Text, Verse 1
3rd century BC
 Contents

Author's Note ix

Preface: What Is Mysticism? 1

Introduction 3

1 The Universal Mind

The energy God 9
Before creation 20
In the beginning... 25
The big bang 30
Astrology 34

2 The Human Mind

The invisible universe 51
The aura - soul within 59
Auric healing 62
Conscious and unconscious 68
Left and right brain 70

3 Mind Over Matter

Hypnosis 75
Altered states 79
Sound, music and sacred dance 89
Meditation, trance and transcendental experience 93
Miracles and magic 96
The power of positive thinking 99

4 Future Mind
Space-time and the sixth sense 105
Telepathy and ESP 111
Prediction and prophecy 117
Dreams and premonitions 119
 The Mystic Mind

5 Everything Is Mind
. 125
The out-of-body experience
The near-death experience 1 32
Author's Note
Death and resurrection 1 38
Visions of paradise 142
Ghosts, mediums and spirit guides 145

6 Immortal Mind
The law of cause and effect 159

T
his book is primarily intended as a serious study and
1 60
The law of karma
1 70
investigation into the potential, phenomena an � mecha�ics
The theory of reincarnation
of individual mystical and supernatural expenence. Usmg
Past-life regression 1 75
hitherto ignored or unpublicised scientific data, theory and
Return to the source 184
evidence, I hope to be able to prove to you in the pages of this
7 The Mystic Mind - Epilogue book that the existence of these mystical experiences is
1 87 scientifically feasible.
The mystic mind
191 These experiences, the validity of which are often questioned
Evolution and the New Age
194 and rejected by both formal religious doctrine and scientific
Science and religion
196 understanding, have nonetheless become nothing short of a
The new consciousness
198 pandemic social phenomenon within the last few decades of our
Love is the law
collective history.
Bibliography 203 Furthermore, these mystical and supernatural experiences are
being reported trans-globally at an ever-increasing rate. They also
Acknowledgements 206
appear to exist entirely independently of any one particular
207 religion, culture or belief system, and regardless of race, creed,
Index
colour, age or sex. These experiences challenge the very nature of
About the Author 213 traditional Western materialistic science and religious dogma.
Although this work is not essentially a study of religious
Images
doctrine or scientific theory, we shall need to refer to many
Figure 1 The macrocosm and the microcosm 10
religious texts, both ancient and modem, on the matter of mystical
Figure 2 The Kabbalistic Tree of Life 19
experience, vision and revelation, in order to gain some under­
Figure 3 'Aum' - The Shri Yantra 27
standing of how the mystical experience is incorporated into
Figure 4 The Tai Chi - Yin and Yang 31
traditional religious philosophy and belief.
Figure 5 The Zodiac 33
I shall also be referring to the latest relevant scientific dis­
Figure 6 Earth's magnetosphere 45
coveries, as well as recent theories in quantum and particle physics,
Figure 7 Two physically identical leaves 56
particularly superstring theory, which I have kept as simple as
Figure 8 The human aura 60
possible for the general reader.
Figure 9 The seven major Chakras 66
Ultimately, what I seek in this work are universal truths that
Figure 10 The left and right brain 72
are free of political, religious or scientific dogma, and which speak
Figure 11 The auric body 127
a language of their own.
Figure 1 2 An angel 155
Based on extensive and prolonged research, and inspired by

ix
 The Mystic Mind

my own supernatural and mystical experiences which began as a

child, and which resumed with an unexpected intensity in my
Preface
adult life, I later became increasingly determined to find a logical
What Is Mysticism?
framework of reference for these experiences - for which neither
my parents, school, society, scientific or religious teaching were
able to prepare me.
Since no one Western religion, philosophy or scientific doctrine
seemed to encompass or refer to these experiences in any meaning­

T
ful way, and indeed most were generally often openly hostile to he word 'mystic' originally comes from the Greek word for
such matters, I studiously began my own in-depth research for the 'mystery' - meaning 'the unexplainable' - whose own root
evidence that my experiences required of me. word means quite simply, 'with closed eyes'.
These experiences, having no root to speak of in my own According to mystic philosophy, one cannot gain a full
cultural frame of reference at the time, begged me to find a thread understanding of God, the nature of the universe, or indeed the
that would lead me to the 'Holy Grail' - a 'Theory of Everything' 'self', by external or physical means alone since God, religion and
- that would unite both religion and science in a harmonious, spirituality all exist within our own selves, within our own souls.
cohesive one-ness, while at the same time incorporating the reality By 'closing the eyes' and shutting out the external physical world
of the individual mystical experience in terms acceptable to both. of the five senses through introspection, meditation or prayer, a
This book is an attempt to reveal those findings. divine union with God, vision or revelation may be experienced
by the individual.
Meditation, introspection and prayer are common to all
religions, and yet mysticism is not a religion because it has no
hierarchy, no rules, no regulations, and no sacred texts. In
mysticism the central character is yourself, and you are, in your
highest sense, both the worshipped and the worshipper, both
temple and congregation. The mystical journey is, by its very
nature, a journey into the self, and a journey ultimately made
alone.
The mystical and supernatural, however, may also be experi­
enced spontaneously by those with no religious affiliations at all,
atheists and agnostics alike. Apparently regardless of all belief and
outward form, the mystical experience appears to exist and
function as an internal vision or revelation within the mind or the
'soul' of the self, and not as an externalised sensual experience.
The mystic tradition itself pre-dates organised religion and is
ultimately the very foundation of all religions, whether they are
pagan, primal or otherwise, and mystical revelation can be clearly
seen to be at the heart of them all. This includes the Eastern
philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as the three
Western monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
the latter of which were founded on the mystical revelations of

x 1
 The Mystic Mind

their own respective teachers or prophets, Buddha, Moses, Jesus

Christ and Mohammed. Introduction
Although the three great monotheistic religions which
originated in the Middle East - Judaism, Christianity and Islam -
are based on the individual vision, revelation, and mystical
experience of these divine messengers or prophets, it has been the
case throughout recorded history that some of these selfsame
religions have also been largely responsible for the repression of

W
individual empowerment through the internalised individual hat is the true nature of human consciousness? Who and

experience of personal revelation. what are we, and of what are we ultimately capable? Are

However innocent and natural this primal human desire for we, as many would have us believe, merely a chance

higher spiritual states of consciousness may be - and it is obviously and random collection of atoms, finite in an infinite universe,

a collective social phenomenon from the beginning - the art, know­ limited in power and potential and destined to diSintegrate and

ledge and practice of spiritual mysticism have found no safe dissolve at physical death with no further awareness. to speak of;

haven in our relatively modern, male-dominated monotheistic or do we truly possess that most mystical and holy of attributes, a

religions. divine, immortal and indestructible soul which survives physical

In the words of Carl Jung however: '50 long as religion is only death and is connected inexorably to the very heart, mind and soul

faith and outward form, and the religious function is not of the universe?

experienced in our own souls, nothing of any importance has Even though humankind has begun to explore the farthest
reaches of outer space and developed the material technology to
happened. It has yet to be understood that the mysterium magnum
is not only an actuality, but is first and foremost rooted in the land on the Moon this century, inner space, the human mind,

human psyche. The man who does not know this from his own remains relatively uncharted, and its many great mysteries remain

experience may be a most learned theologian, but he has no idea unsolved.

of religion and still less of education.' And yet, the remarkable personal testimonies and experiences

The philosophy of mysticism and individual revelation, of literally millions of people worldwide are demanding a change

however, is a unifying philosophy in as much as it recognises the in our modern Western belief system. Reports of personal

right of every individual to this state of harmony, bliss and union experiences of a mystical, supernatural, transcendental or spiritual
nature, such as telepathy and E5p, the out-of-body and near-death­
with the divine, which can only be experienced by the individual
as an internalised phenomenon. experience, and past-life memory, have become all too numerous.
Far too numerous to dismiss or ignore.
As the evidence for these phenomena grows, many of us are
asking the inevitable questions about ourselves and our place in
the universe.
Our culture, our' lives, and our individual thinking however,
have always been influenced and affected by the many visible and
invisible forces that operate within society as a whole at any one
time. Moreover, our understanding of the nature and meaning of
the universe and the laws that operate within it is defined, to a
large extent, by these social genres, and the norm can be defined,
and redefined, by society as a whole at any given point in its

2 3
 The Mystic Mind Introduction

history. Our current modem Western belief system has Neither is Pius XII's tolerance of fascism and ethnic cleansing
understandably been influenced by the religion, politics and unique in papal history. From Pope Urban II - who preached the
science of our time, and the collective Western concepts of the first crusade against Islam in 1095 - to the latter-day popes who
universe, of God, soul, judgement, afterlife, of Heaven and Hell, have openly supported such fascist dictators as Franco and
have all been influenced to a large extent by Judeo-Christian Mussolini, successive pontiffs have demonstrated an absolute
concepts. spiritual disregard for essential humanity and Christian teaching.
Today, however, after 2,000 years of Christianity, many The Vatican, already seriously disturbed and discredited by
churches are empty of their congregations and large numbers have John Cornwell's accusations, comes under further attack in the
now fallen into disuse or disrepair. The Church of England is also second book. In Gone with the Wind in the Vatican, the writers - a
simultaneously beset with internal sex scandals, whilst at the same pseudonymous group who call themselves 'I Millenari' - level
time maintaining its selective, stubborn and sexist refusal to accusations of corruption, freemasonry, sexual scandal and devil
ordain women priests. worship within the Papal Court, the Curia. Monsignor Marinelli,
The Church, now worth approximately £3 billion in land, who worked in the Curia for 35 years, and whose name is an
property, stocks and shares (which, until recently included shares anagram of I Millenari, has now admitted taking part.
in the armaments industry) has dominated our religious views for Despite Christ's own views on material wealth - best expressed
nearly five hundred years since Henry VIII broke away from in the biblical quotation, 'It is easier for a camel to pass through
Rome to marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. And yet it is now, as we the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the gates of
enter the new millennium, in rapid decline. Heaven' (Matthew 19:24) - the Vatican remains one of the
In the Vatican, the Pope too has his cross to bear. In the first of wealthiest religious institutions in the modem world.
two controversial books, Hitler's Pope, author John Cornwell, In 1996, with scandals of its own to contend with, the Church of
Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, documents England issued a report, In Search of Faith, in which it stated that
historical evidence of the Nazi sympathies of wartime Pope Pius although only less than 15 percent of the population of the UK still
XII - Eugenio Pacelli. According to the author, Pius XII was an go to Church, over 75 percent nonetheless still believed in God,
anti-Semite who coerced on the side of fascism, entering into pre­ and even more remarkably, in reincarnation.
war concordats with Hitler, which later ensured financial The Church, which might do well to contemplate another well­
advantages for the Vatican in return for non-intervention in the known biblical maxim - 'Cast out the mote in your own eye,
horrors of the holocaust. These concordats later helped usher the before you cast out the mote in your brother's eye' (Matthew 7:3)
Fiihrer to power and minimise Catholic opposition to the Final - is now blaming astrology, alternative, New Age, neo-pagan and
Solution. (It should be remembered however, that although Pius indigenous mystical folk religions for the decline of the Church
XII did little or nothing to help save the Jews of Rome, many itself and society as a whole. It warns us against this return to
ordinary Catholic priests and nuns risked their own lives to help 'darkness and superstition' and the dangers of an eclectic 'pick
save the gravely endangered Jewish population of Italy.) and mix' philosophy.
As pontiff, surely Pius XII must have been familiar with biblical However, when the Romans first came to Britain in the fourth
literature? On that basis, it is hard to believe that he could have century AD, later bringing formal Christian doctrine with them,
missed the passage in the New Testament in which Christ - Britain was a pagan country that was rich in mystical nature
himself born a Jew - commands us to 'Love thy neighbour as religions and traditions. Stonehenge, a complex astrological
thyself' (Matthew 5:43). It is even harder to believe that a man observatory, solar temple and place of religious worship, was
who was so obviously flawed as a Christian managed to become built thousands of years before the Romans converted the early
pontiff, head of the Roman Catholic Church, and Christ's alleged Britons to Christianity. This they did with remarkable ease, by
'representative' on Earth. superimposing Christian churches on pagan holy sites, and

4 5
 The Mystic Mind Introduction

incorporating Christian festivals into pagan ones. Easter and to banishment from the heavenly presence, so Paradise was 'close
Christmas, for instance, were arranged to coincide with the communion and full intimacy with God'. 'God' furthermore, was
pagan holy days - the Spring Equinox and Winter Solstice not 'an old man with a white beard' - but rather a supreme being
respectively. with both masculine and feminine aspects.
Although the male-dominated Church and new religion After nearly 2,000 years of threatening its congregations with
eventually suppressed the old mystical nature religions with fierce 'hellfire and brimstone', and threatening any freethinking
determination, culminating in the burning of so called 'heretics' individual with the charge of 'heresy' if they should dare
and 'witches' in the Middle Ages, many old pagan customs, like challenge the doctrine of the Church, the Church itself is now
Halloween survive to this day. beginning to adopt the selfsame views and philosophies which
We are now witnessing the decline of the Church and the rise have been at the very heart of nature, pagan, primal and Eastern
of 'New Age' religions that readily incorporate the magical and religions all along.
mystical. The evolution of a 'New Age' religious culture In the meantime, the Church of England is arguing amongst
furthermore, appears to fully embrace the concept of personal itself as to the real nature of the Resurrection, and in the
empowerment through the mystical and transcendental Archbishop of Canterbury's millennium message, Dr George
experience. In this sense, New Age philosophies, beliefs and Carey said we 'cannot know Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
customs appear to resemble early mystical nature and pagan It goes against all human experience and our first instinct is
religious traditions in many respects. incredulity' .
Are we witnessing the revival of a simple but powerful The Virgin birth too, is now coming under sceptical scrutiny
mystical nature spirituality that was lost when the indigenous and whilst the Church concentrates on redefining its own beliefs,
nature religions were suppressed, some thousands of years ago by science has taken an altogether different viewpoint in its own
an invading Roman culture? Is the modern collective unconscious short history, culminating in the 'God is dead' philosophy of the
seeking a return to more natural and meaningful ways to believe sixties.
and worship? Today, however, we are witnessing a spiritual revival and
As well as suffering dwindling congregations, both the revolution, which is happening at the grass-roots level of
Protestant and Catholic Churches are now in further turmoil over society as a whole, and which appears to be a culture in its own
their own accepted beliefs and philosophies. These were right, regardless of the views of either scientific or traditional
established at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, when the council religious thought and dogma. Astrology, healing, telepathy and
members were called to 'define' the 'real' meaning of the ESP, the out-of-body and near-death experience, as well as
scriptures. However, many of the original scriptures were reincarnation and past-life regression, have become bridges to a
strangely omitted from the New Testament at this time, including new religion.
the Gospel of Enoch, which remain hidden in the vaults of the Are we witnessing the birth of a new mystical philosophy
Vatican to this day. evolved by a generation who perhaps have grown tired of
Furthermore, in August 1 999, days after a leading Jesuit listening to a Church that neither understands, nor practises what
magazine redefined concepts of Hell, the Pope declared that it preaches, and a science which has denied the sacred mystery
Heaven was not 'a place above the clouds where angels played and magic of the world?
harps, but a state of being after death'. 'The Heaven in which we Disillusioned and dissatisfied with both science and formal
will find ourselves is neither an abstraction, nor a physical place religion, people around the world are now looking to define their
amongst the clouds' the pontiff told pilgrims in St Peter 's Square. beliefs, spiritual needs and experiences in some other way.
Just as 'Hell' was separation from God, a state of being in Ironically however, it is modern science, particularly quantum
which those who had consistently rejected God were condemned physics that is now inadvertently offering verifiable scientific

6 7
 The Mystic Mind

information on the nature of the universe and the validity of the

1
mystical and supernatural. This can surely only lend support to a
growing body of evidence, which, I believe, will soon come to The Universal Mind
confirm the unity of all things, and the amazing untapped power
and potential of the mystic mind.

The energy God

'The Primal Mind, which is life and light, being bisexual, gave
birth to the Mind of the Cosmos. The Primal Mind is ever
unmoving, eternal and changeless and contains within it this
Cosmic Mind, which is imperceptible to the senses. The cosmos,
which senses perceive, is a copy and image of this eternal Cosmic
Mind, like a reflection in a mirror.'
The Hermetica, Egyptian Text, 3,000 BC

S
ince the dawn of time, humanity has wondered about the
meaning of life and pondered the nature of the universe. To
this day we are still wondering and debating. The universe is
nobody's fool however, and does not give up her secrets easily.
Alone in the vastness of this magnificent star-filled cosmos,
resplendent on a uniquely lush blue orb, we are all spiralling
helplessly, relentlessly and irrevocably through space and time.
Where are we going? Why are we here? Is there a meaning and
purpose to life? W here did the universe come from? Is there a
God? What happens to us when we die?
Throughout the ages, many diverse religions, philosophies,
cosmological and scientific theories have come into being in an
attempt to answer these questions. Diverse as these multiple
theories may be, however, and there are as many as there are people
in the world, they can be roughly divided into two opposing camps.
The first camp - that of religion, spirituality and mysticism - has
collectively, throughout history, contained three constantly recurring
themes:
1) That the universe is a deliberate manifestation of a divine
mind, or intelligence - an act of God in other words.
2) That all creatures have an eternal soul which survives
physical death and which will be called to account for its deeds

8 9
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

The macrocosm by God on 'Judgement Day'.

3) That certain persons are naturally gifted with the ability to
and the microcosm intercede with, or contact these higher spiritual realms or
dimensions - usually through mystical vision or revelation.
This would include mystics, holy men, shamans and prophets.
This first camp also believes in the possibilities of higher
realities, or dimensions, and an ultimate state of spiritual bliss,
Heaven or Nirvana. They also collectively recognise, and have a
reverence for the 'angelic' or spiritual planes of existence. The
angel Gabriel for instance, is quintessential in both the Old and

o
New Testaments, as well as the Koran. Sometimes this camp also
incorporates a belief in reincarnation, depending entirely on which
spiritual system the individual camp member follows.
The second camp of course, is that of the scientific materialists
and atheists who also have three main, but contradictory beliefs:
1) There is no God. The universe, and life on Earth, with all its
intricate and detailed diversity, 'just happened'. Atoms
accidentally bumped into each other and - hey presto!
The macrocosm: 2) We have no soul - we are just physical forms. According to
planet revolving around the Sun this camp, you live, you die, and that's it. There is nothing
more. There is no God, no Heaven, no reincarnation, no life
after death. No nothing.
3) The 'supernatural' is unscientific and serves no useful purpose
in a practical world. According to this camp, the other camp is
basically 'out to lunch with the fairies', and their 'visions' and
'revelations' nothing more than delusion, hallucinations or
wishful thinking. This camp does not believe in anything

o uruess it is physically scientifically verifiable or at the very

least, has some logical or scientific explanation.
Of course, common sense tells us that both contradictory
philosophies cannot be right - there either is, or is not, a supreme
creative intelligence in the universe - with all its implications. One
camp, therefore, has a logic that is fatally flawed.
Now, and this is the eternal billion dollar question - which one
of these two camps is right? Before we can embark on any
The miCrocosm: meaningful debate on the subject, we should firstly consider and
proton revolving around nucleus contemplate that ancient maxim 'As above, so below', for should
we be in any doubt as to our relationship with the universe, we
can be reminded by this simple phrase that the laws which apply
Fig. 1
in the universe apply to both great and small alike.

10 11
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

The macrocosm and the microcosm, the universe and the atom, To try and find the answer to that question in any meaningful
are identical in principle (see Figure 1 ), and since we live in one and way, the logic of one must obviously stand the test of scrutiny, and
are composed entirely of the other, there is no reason to suppose the theories of the other must be firmly, but politely eliminated.
that we are somehow separate from the same principles that apply Before we can investigate the many complex and varied
at the very heart of both. implications of the first option (the pro-God camp), however, let
We are all, whether great or small, bound together in the same us firstly see if the second one (the no-God camp) fits into the
web of creation and like it or not, we obey the same laws, follow world model and follows the same laws as the rest of the universe.
the same universal principles and are all inexorably and eternally For, as we have already noted, the laws that operate in the
linked. universe apply without exception, and unless the 'accidental
Furthermore, we cannot separate any one part of the universe universe' meets this criteria, it will automatically disqualify itself
and exclude it from the universe itself any more than you could as a reasonable and logical hypothesis.
take any one cell from your body and deny it equal status and Now, the universe works on certain mathematical principles and
participation in your own being. Whether that cell is far away on laws that are part of the very fabric and structure of creation, and
the end of your big toe or right next to your line of vision on your one of these is Newton's Third Law of Motion, otherwise known as
nose, it is still part of a comprehensive whole that makes up your the Law of Cause and Effect. The Third Law of Motion states that
totality. It is the same with the body of the universe and, despite its 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction'. Simply put, if
enormity, every part of it is part and parcel of its entirety. And that there is an effect, then there is, without doubt, a preceding cause.
includes you. Following the logic of the Third Law of Motion then, we can assume
If somewhere in one's own mind the concept of separateness that if the universe was created at the moment of the big bang, there
should try to take hold - that is to believe that any one part of must have been a causative factor which preceded it. The universe
creation is not intrinsically bound and connected to any other part of itself could simply not have come into being without a causative
creation and that, somehow, the laws do not apply to 'this' or 'that' factor, and to suggest that it could do so would simply be contrary
or 'him' or 'her ' - be rid of it now, because all of creation is inexor­ to the very laws and nature of its own being.
ably linked, bound together in a unified wholeness or 'one-ness'. According to the principles of the Law of Cause and Effect, we
We cannot, for instance, separate out the Sun from the Moon would have to conclude that the universe would have had to have
and suggest one or the other is not of the same world or subject to a causative factor, that is, something that both preceded and
the same laws, or even immune from the effects of each upon the caused the big bang to happen in the first place.
other. At the same time, neither are you separate from, greater or This alone is sufficient reason to doubt the concept of a
lesser than, any other part of creation. You are part and parcel of it universe with no preceding cause, and if this Law did not apply
by its own, and your very own nature, and from that there is no throughout the universe, I can only see that the universe itself
escape. would be without motion, cause or effect, and that matter - if it
However, that is not to say that we do not, or may not, existed at all - would simply stagnate.
experience a sense of separateness, from time to time. Indeed, this Everything in the known universe is subject to these same
may be at the heart of many a human malady. Our sense of universal laws and the very same laws preclude the idea of a
separateness, however, is the 'Maya', the illusion of our existence universe which had no apparent cause to precede the effects of its
as separate from the whole. Like the blind men who tried to own visible manifestation. There must have been, by the very
describe an elephant by holdings its ear, tail or leg, we may never nature of the universe and all the laws that govern it, a preceding
know anything about the universe until we try to see it in its ause. There can be no other explanation. The universe, operating
totality. Cl nd abiding by its own laws, and by its very nature MUST have

So - back to our billion-dollar question - which camp is right? had a causative factor.

12 13
 The Mystic Mind The Univer sal Mind

This causative factor we collectively refer to in spiritual terms and non-material, being beyond form, and of an altogether dif­
as 'God'. . ferent nature.
Now, having failed the first test, that of conforming absolutely If then, we are 'made in his image' it is, I believe, the non­
to universal laws, the logic of camp number two, the 'no-God' (no physical, invisible and divine aspect of God to which this
causative-factor) camp, has been quickly and quietly eliminated. statement refers. Exactly what this mystical and divine energy
We must now, scrutinise the logic of camp number one, the pro­ may be however, we shall explore in the next chapter.
causative factor (God) camp, and see if their theories about God Being essentially non-material by nature, furthermore, I doubt
and the universe stand up to scrutiny. whether this 'God' has a single gender of maleness alone, which
However, two things should be clarified before we can even has been so popularised by the male-dominated monotheistic
attempt to gain some understanding of whom or what this 'God', religions, and which supplanted the primal and pagan religions
this 'causative factor ' could be. where 'God' and 'Goddess' worship was not uncommon. Indeed,
If we assume that this God is the sole causative creative the pontiff himself has now declared that God is possessed of both
factor which gave rise to the materialised universe, we can male and female energies.
immediately and irrevocably discount the theory that this God Already intrinsic in Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, the
could in anyway be human, or possessed of human form. Firstly, concept of male and female energies - the polarity of Yin and Yang
because the universe itself is some 20 billion years old, and or positive and negative energy - is known as dualistic monism
homosapiens were not even present at the time, having only (the two originating from the one) which ultimately gives rise to
appeared on Earth relatively recently, and secondly, because no the numerological concept of the Trinity (1+2=3), which is also
one human being has the power to individually create a whole referred to in many religious texts, including those of Judaism,
universe! Christianity and Hinduism.
The popularised Western concept of a milky white God with a
cute fluffy beard floating somewhere around Heaven, is therefore Now, although matter is finite, in the sense that all material forms
a rather absurd notion that no doubt arose from the are subject to birth, life and death, 'energy' itself can neither be
misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the biblical statement created nor destroyed. It was never born, and it can never die. It
that appears in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and which just is. It precedes all form, being the eternal creative source of
states 'God made man in his own image' (Genesis 1:26). matter, and in this context it can be considered infinite in its
As the creator or the creative force of the entire universe must absolute sense. (I use the term 'energy' here to denote a 'higher' or
precede material creation, being absolutely non-material in its causative 'divine' energy.)
original form, it in effect originated from a higher, invisible, pre­ However, infinite or not, let us make no mistake, this 'energy'
dimensional actuality, which preceded the big bang and the is not merely a by-product of creation, it is intrinsic to creation
material universe, this divine 'likeness' must refer to the invisible, itself. Equally, energy also appears to have some form of
pre-materialised being of the creative source. intelligence or awareness, as well as the ability to organise matter
Furthermore, if we consider the principles of the macro and into a multitude of forms and species. This is obvious and
microcosm - 'as above, so below' - it is far more likely that this apparent if you look at nature.
statement refers to the Divine nature of God, spirit, energy, (the W hat quality is it in a moth, for instance, which has the
creative source) which is present in all things, having created them intelligence to make that moth look identical to the tree on which
from higher dimensions of reality. it lives? Was it the intelligence of the insect itself which
If we can assume that this 'God' pre-existed the materi­ determined that it should look like its host tree, or did the very
alised universe, being the causative factor of it, and all things atoms and cells, which themselves must be party to this
in it, we must consider the fact that this God is non-physical intelligence, determine their evolution?

14 15
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

However, 'energy' is possessed of many qualities, and one of suns. This explosion actually happened billions of years ago, but it
the qualities of universal energy that we need to investigate at this is only now that the light has reached us. We are in fact looking
point is the nature and activity of light. back in time. The activity of light has a direct bearing on the very
Although light was once believed to be corpuscular, that is nature of space/time.
consisting of particles, it was later proved by the phenomenon of For example, and much closer to home, is our own Sun. The
diffraction - which shows that the boundaries of shadows are light from this, the closest star to us, takes roughly eight and a half
diffused - to consist of waves. Although apparently contradictory minutes to reach us. Therefore, if the Sun were to go out now, at
in scientific terms, light appears to consist of both particles and this very second, we would not be aware of it for another eight
waves both alternately and simultaneously! and a half minutes. Therefore, due to the nature and speed of light,
there may be delays in between the time that an event occurs and
Light itself may be regarded as a form of electromagnetic radiation the time you perceive the event happening. Furthermore, light and
consisting of oscillations of an electric and magnetic field. Light time can both be diffracted and distorted.
forms a narrow section of the electromagnetic spectrum and is Albert Einstein's theory of relativity demonstrates to us that we
perceived by normal vision on a wavelength range between experience the phenomenon of space/time relative to the speed of
approximately 390 nanometres (violet) to 740 nanometres (red). light and the relative position of the observer. Einstein also
Substance and light are basically the same electromagnetic discovered that the faster one moved relative to the speed of light,
energy and can be described as fields of force whose state is the slower time went. This was amply demonstrated in his
discernible as wave phenomena. mathematical experiments which indicated that if a traveller was
Light travels out from source at 186,000 miles per second and is to embark on a journey into space moving faster and faster at a
(apart from thought as we shall see later) the fastest moving thing relative velocity, he would return to Earth to find that compared
in the universe. The relative speed of light, furthermore, has much to, say, his ten years in space, Earth time had moved on at a
to do with how we perceive the visible universe. Indeed, without relative ratio to his own, and had aged several hundred years.
light, we would perceive absolutely nothing. It is light which Let us just assume for a moment that we could reach the speed
makes all things visible and manifest. of light ourselves. Hypothetically, remembering that time moves
Without light, our world would be in darkness and no life would slower as the speed of light is approached, at the speed of light
exist at all, being entirely dependent on it for biological function itself, time and space would simply cease to exist. We would be
and creation. Light, so far as we are concerned, is synonymous with beyond space/time, and definitely nowhere within the mate­
life itself, and without it, we would simply not exist. Everything we rialised universe.
are and perceive, is a direct result of the activity of light. Logically and conversely, if we reverse the process, travelling
Now, as we are all no doubt aware, when we look into the slower and slower away from the light, we would no doubt arrive
night sky at the furthest most distant galaxies, we are looking at in some strange place which the inhabitants called 'the material
the universe, as it was some millions or even billions of years ago. universe', having passed through several dimensions to get there.
This is quite simply because light takes time to travel from one Understanding light has a lot to do with understanding the
place to another, and the light which we perceive from these manifest universe, and 'light' has a mysticat as well as physical
distant galaxies was actually emitted millions, and in some cases connotation.
billions of years ago. The subject of light also appears over thirty times in the Bible,
On 23 January 1999, astronomers discovered a new gamma-ray and the tenets of Christianity as defined by Emperor Constantine
burst, that is, an enormous explosion in the far reaches of the at the Council of Nicea in the 4th century AD contain these
universe, which emitted a phenomenal amount of gamma-ray profound words in their texts: 'Before all Worlds. God with God.
energy, in this instance, as powerful as the explosion of 10,000 Light with Light'.

16 17
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

The secrets of creation are bound, symbolically, encoded in our The Kabbalistic
ancient texts and religions, which at their very essence contain
mystical knowledge about universal energy and creation which Tree of Life
compare with, and sometimes exceed, current scientific knowledge.
We also speak of people 'seeing the light', or becoming 'enlight­
And the ten dimensions of creation
ened' to indicate a state of spiritual awareness or illumination. Spirit (Energy)
'Going towards the light' has also become a frequent phenomenon
for those who have died and been brought back to life by modern
medical science.
Nowhere is the mystical activity of light better conveyed,
however, than in the Kabbalah - the mystical tradition that forms the
basis of both Judaism and Christianity. The Kabbalah, which was
given to Moses on Mount Sinai after God gave it to the Archangels,
and which literally translated means 'to receive' or 'to reveal', has
both a written and an oral tradition. The first four books of the
Kabbalah appear as the first four chapters of the Old Testament.
The three main written texts of the Kabbalah are The Sefer
Yetzirah, which depicts God as indescribable; The Zohar, which
is commonly referred to as the Book of Splendour, and which
describes the universe as an interconnected mass of particles
governed by a higher force; and the Sefer Bahir which is known
as the Book of Brilliance and which describes the universe as a
multi-layered reality in which all parts are connected and where
each and every part is governed by a higher law.
The teachings of the Kabbalah are visually encompassed
in the Kabbalistic 'Tree of Life' (see Figure 2); a schematic
diagram which represents the underlying blueprint and
numerology of creation, and which best describes how God
(Energy, Spirit, Light) manifests the physical universe
(matter) through a series of dimensions called Sephiroth.
Simply put, 'God' which can at its essence be viewed as pure
energy, consciousness or light, must be slowed down through
this series of transformers (dimensions) to its slowest vibration,
which will then be perceived as matter, travelling through at
least ten dimensions to get there.
The ten Sephiroth also represent the numerological principles
of creation from one to ten, and are equated with the ten major
Matter
planetary influences that shape life on Earth. It is through the
planetary energies that the ten main qualities of the Tree of Life
Fig. 2
manifest themselves.

18 19
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

The Tree of Life is then further subdivided vertically into three going through a similar process of conception, development and
by the Pillars of Judgement, Mildness and Mercy, representing the gestation before its own birth. Somewhere, unseen and invisible to
Trinity (Spirit, Mind, Body), and is subdivided again into Four the naked eye, on an altogether different dimension, the universe
Worlds which represent the four elements, fire, water, earth and was in a state of pre-birth up to the point of the big bang, which we
air. Divided horizontally there are seven levels, which can be seen will liken to the moment of birth, and the exact point at which the
to relate to the seven Chakras. universe exited the womb of the Universal Mother.
To the Kabbalistic or occult numerologist, numbers represent W hat and where is the womb of creation?
the primal organising principle that gives structure to the In the same way that we cannot remember being in the pre­
materialised universe. Numerical law determines all the seasons, birth consciousness - unless you have undergone hypnosis or re­
the movements of the planets, and even harmony in music. There birthing techniques - we are equally unable to remember or
are rhythms to life, and these rhythms can in turn be measured as quantify our existence before the birth of the universe.
cycles, waves or vibrations, all of which are measurable by number. However, whatever we are, or were in the beginning, be it
As Pythagoras once observed - 'All things are number'. 'God', spirit, energy, atomic matter or otherwise, we were all
Numbers and numerical law are at the very heart of creation. present, in one form or another, at the big bang itself, for as we
Numbers represent the ability of the one to self-divide and discovered earlier, no one part of the universe can be separated
multiply in the same way that an embryo becomes a fully formed from any of the other and at the point immediately prior to the big
entity. It is through this selfsame process that the entire universe bang, all matter was contained in a state of unification, or oneness.
and all things that exist come into being. It is logical to assume therefore, that whatever matter now
exists in the universe had all existed together at the moment of the
Before creation big bang itself, and that includes you and me, although obviously
not in the forms we now have. Nonetheless, the substance that
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. composes us all was present at that moment, and it is from that
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, very same substance that we are made.
Hath had elsewhere its setting, Previous to the visible and physical manifestation of the
And cometh from afar universe which occurred at the big bang, however, the laws of
'Ode to Immortality', Wordsworth physics as we know them break down and, as we are dealing with
higher dimensions of reality, simply cease to apply. We are, in
Before you came kicking and screaming into this world, and made essence, now dealing with non-material principles that do not, and
yourself visible and manifest, you spent nine months in your cannot, conform to any known laws that apply in the physical
mother's womb, invisible and as yet unformed. Although you dimension.
were unseen and virtually unknowable up until the time of your Another set of criteria for understanding pre-creation of
birth, there was no doubt in your mother's mind that you were in universal energies is therefore required in order to discover
the process of creation. exactly how or where matter might have existed before the big
This simple analogy might best describe the birth of the bang itself.
universe for, up until the point that it burst through the ethers into Of course, we know that matter did not originate in our own
the realms of the visible, it was in a state of gestation and universe, because our own universe did not exist itself in physical
formation - let us just say for now, in the womb of creation. form before the big bang. So where was all that universal
Now, it is quite apparent, if we follow the principles of the 'as substance before the big bang?
above, so below' maxim relating to the relationship of the One way of explaining how and where the universal substance
macrocosm and microcosm, that the universe itself must have been ould have been or existed before the big bang is to consider the

20 21
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

concept of higher dimensions - another state of existence in, or on into the nature of subatomic particles, the more particles we find.
which this universal energy or substance could actually pre-exist. The current "zoo" of subatomic particles numbers several hundred,
Now, although the idea of higher dimensions may sound at first and their properties fill entire volumes. Even with the Standard
rather like science fiction, the concept of a multi-dimensional Model, we are left with a bewildering number of "elementary
universe is now fast becoming science fact. particles". String theory answers this question because the string,
The first theory of higher dimensions was called the Kaluza­ about 100 billion billion times smaller than a proton, is vibrating;
Klein theory in which light, which can travel through the vacuum each mode of vibration represents a distinct resonance or particle.
of space, unlike sound, was explained as vibrations in the fifth The string is so incredibly tiny that, from a distance, a resonance of
dimension. This was later advanced by physicists Michael Green a string and a particle are indistinguishable. Only when we
and John Schwarz who proved the consistency of this theory with somehow magnify the particle can we see that it is not a point at
the superstring theory, which suggested that all matter consisted all, but a mode of a vibrating string. In this picture, each
of tiny vibrating strings. subatomic particle corresponds to a distinct resonance that
Although it was once thought that atoms were indivisible vibrates only at a distinct frequency.'
fundamental particles, the discovery of neutrons, protons and Although we shall be referring to superstring theory on many
electrons within the atom itself has now shown that atoms are further occasions in this book, suffice it to say that according to
not indivisible at all. Furthermore, scientists have recently dis­ quantum physicists, in order for this theory to work, there must be
covered that neutrons, protons and electrons are not indivisible further dimensions to explain and account for these quantum
fundamental particles either, and are now known to contain three phenomena.
sets of even smaller particles, which are known as quarks. The precise number of dimensions predicted? Ten.
Quarks themselves come in two varieties - briefly named the Although superstring theory represents the latest developments
'up' quark and the 'down' quark. A proton consists of two up in quantum physics, the concept of a ten-dimensional universe
quarks and a down quark and a neutron consists of two down already exists, as we have seen, within Kabbalistic tradition and
quarks and an up quark. Furthermore, everything in the universe teaching. In the Hall of the Gods, referring to esoteric numerology,
appears to be made from combinations of electrons and up and author Nigel Appleby writes, 'In the Jewish mystical tradition of
down quarks. the Kabbalah, it is taught that God has 10 faces and that
However, that is not the end of the story as far as sub-dividing followers of the faith should know them all. In quantum science,
atoms and fundamental particles is concerned, and in the 1950s where scientists study atomic particles in an accelerator vacuum
Frederick Reins and Clyde Cowan found conclusive experimental (a vacuum is basically "nothing" which consists of particles that
evidence for a fourth kind of fundamental particle called a spontaneously create and annihilate themselves), some
neutrino - billions of which are ejected into space by the Sun, and authorities have given 37 as the suspected number of particle
are passing through us all at this very moment. fields. In Fadic terms, this number is 3+7 which is equal to 10, ie
Scientists have now also discovered four more quarks, in Pythagorean reasoning everything (l) and nothing (0). So
known as 'charm', 'strange', 'bottom' and 'top', and a heavy according to both a specific religious interpretation and the
electron called a tau, as well as two other particles called muon tenets of scientific quantum theory, there was "everything"
neutrinos and tau neutrinos. According to superstring theory, if residing in "nothing", symbolised by the number 10. From the
we could examine these particles with even greater precision we very start of the universe itself, the basic bUilding block number
would find that they all ultimately consisted of tiny vibrating was to be 10. '
loops. The concept of a ten-dimensional universe is a theory now
In his book Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical gaining credibility in the scientific world, and in his book The Tenth
Physics at New York University writes; 'The deeper we probe Dimension, Japanese physicist Mikio Kaku describes the theory of

22 23
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

a ten-dimensional universe, and his diagram of how he perceives In the beginning . . .

these multi-dimensional universes is remarkably similar to the
Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. 'In the beginning was the word, as the word was with God and the
In his own search for a Unified Field Theory, a grand theory word was God'
that would unite all theories into one, renowned physicist
St John 1 : 1
Professor Paul Davis in his book Superforce explains how the
\
bewildering array of subatomic particles form abstract patterns I do not suppose myself able to describe to you in any
meaningful
and mathematical symmetries, suggesting deep linkages. He way the true nature and being of God, or exactly
how this God
explains how the forces that act between these particles may came to manifest the visible universe. The Kabbalah,
as well as
require the existence of unseen extra dimensions of space and how many other great religious and mystical systems, philos
ophies and
these particles may be linked by an invisible 'superforce', which texts, remind us that God is indescribable, and it is said,
that if you
permeates all of Creation. can describe God then it is not God.
Could this superforce be 'God'? I must admit, therefore, that all I can hope to do in
. these pages
In The Physics of Immortality, author Frank Tipler presents a IS to allude to the nature and
being of God, the initial and the
purely scientific and mathematical argument for the existence of indescribable source of all life, since adjectives and
verbs are
God and an afterlife. In his opening pages he writes: 'When I obviously insufficient to penetrate the nature and
being of the
began my career as a cosmologist I was a convinced atheist. I Creator, who is beyond form and certainly beyond the
reach of the
never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be human intellect.
writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of As we shall see later however, although the human
intellect is
Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are incapable of understanding God, God can be known
through the
straightforward deductions of the laws of physics, as we now internalised mystical experience of vision, revelat
ion and the
understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the transcendental experience. Words, however, are often
insufficient
inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.' to describe the personal mystical revelation, as
it ' consists of
Although the superstring theory represents the latest theoretical experiences for which we have no suitable language.
developments in quantum physics, and may even have its own Before we can address the inward mystical understandin
g of
opponents from within the scientific camp itself (string theory God, however, there is one more aspect of creation
that we need
remains a theory because we do not have the technology that can to investigate, and that is the nature of sound.
Sound is
magnify the relevant subatomic particles 100 billion, billion times), ssentially a vibration, which is carried through a mediu
m such
I believe that ancient mystical systems will wholeheartedly as air or water (sound cannot exist in a vacuu
m) and is
welcome it into their camp, as the Kabbalah and its concepts of experienced by the human ear on a range between
20 and 20,000
integrated subatomic systems and ten-dimensional universes has hertz (audio frequencies).
already shown. According to the New Testament, sound was at the
heart of
However, the following passage from the Hindu scriptures - reation: we are told, 'In the beginning was the Word
and the
the Baghavad Gita - may suggest that the concept of superstring Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John
1 : 1 ) . In
theory was already incorporated into Sanskrit texts thousands of ,1 l1cient sacred Hindu literat ure Aum (Om) is said
to have been
years beforehand. t he word, sound or vibration which God uttered to
bring forth
In the Baghavad Gita, Brahma (God) manifesting as Lord Krishna t he materialised universe. .
explains, 'I am Arjuna, the highest principle of transcendence, and What effect does sound have on matter?
there is nothing greater than me. Everything that be, rests on my The eighteenth century German physicist Ernest Chiadn
i first
energies, exactly like pearls on a thread' (BG 7.7). observed the effects of sound when he scattered
sand on steel

24 25
 The Mystic Mind
The Universal Mind

discs and observed the changing patterns produced when various

notes were played on a violin.
�Aum'
Earlier this decade and inspired by Chiadni's experiments,
Or Hans Jenny began working with a 'Tonoscope', that is, a
The Shri Yantra
machine which transforms sounds into visual images on a video
screen. And the pattern of diminishing harmonics
W hen Or Jenny recited the sacred Hindu word Aum (Om)
through the Tonoscope, he was amazed to find that the pattern
that emerged was a perfect circle filled with concentric triangles
and squares (see Figure 3).
This pattern coincided with the frequency pattern of
diminishing harmonics, and was identical to the Buddhist 'Shri
Yantra', a mandala which is said to represent the moment of
creation, which was said to have begun with the utterance of the
sacred sound - Om.
Further experimentation by Or Jenny also showed that
different notes were able to create different shapes, many of them
intrinsic and essential in creation, such as spirals and octagons. He
also found the last note of Handel's Messiah produced a perfectly
formed six pointed star.
It would appear then that at the subatomic level, atoms closely
resemble oscillators which respond to different frequencies.
According to physicist Oonald Hatch, 'we are now discovering
that all matter is in a state of vibration and that the universe is
composed not of matter, but of music.'
Now, back to superstring theory and our tiny vibrating loops.
Could it possibly be that these vibrating loops are making musical
notes with their vibrations that actually organise matter into
cohesive and mathematically correct living art forms? Are these
tiny superstrings emitting tones that materialise form into
different shapes and patterns?
In his book The Music of Life, Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi
mystic writes; 'A keen observation shows that the whole
universe is a single mechanism working by the law of rhythm.
The law of rhythm is a great law, which is hidden behind nature.
It is in accordance with this law that every form is made and that
every condition manifests to view. The creation therefore is not
merely a phenomenon of vibrations without any restrictions. If
there were no rhythm, if it were not for the law of rhythm we
would not have distinct forms and intelligible conditions. There Fig. 3

26
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

and there is no sound It would appear then, that although both light and sound are
is no movement which has no sound
primal energy forms in their own right, they would both still
which has no rhythm.'
from? It is coming depend on an initialising source to stimulate the initial vibration
But where does this sound and rhythm come
s', which exist within every which caused either one of them to exist in the first place.
from within the vibrating 'superstring
our totalit y. Within each of us at W hat was this initialising factor?
one of the atoms that makes up
ve, is an incred ible symphony If we go back to the maxim, 'as above, so below,' there is
this moment, if we could but percei
mathe matica l propo rtions - of one other energy that we should consider if we are to under­
being played. Each of our differing
- produ cing the sum total of stand something about creation, and that is the power of
this or that atomic structure
own indivi dual vibrat ion, our thought. Thought, in its essence, must be viewed as a power in
ourselves. Each of us having our
sound , and our own unique its own right. Thought, and the power of creative visualisation
own unique orchestra and
are behind every work of literature, art, music, invention and
composition to play.
Brian Greene, Professor of creation. Thought, in itself, is an elusive power, which defies
In his book The Elegan t Universe, .
Columbia University and
both definition.
Physics and Mathematics at
c has long since provided the Think about it. As you sit and read this book, realise that each
Cornell University writes: 'Musi
puzzl ing over the questions of word that is written on this paper is being read out loud to yourself
metaphors of choice for those
t Pytha gorean "music of the in your mind. You are thinking the words out loud in your head. No
cosmic concern. From the ancien
spheres" to the "harmonies of nature " that have guide d inqui � one else can hear them but you. Think about where those thoughts
tively sough t the song of nature In are coming from. Somewhere in your being is the source of the
through the ages, we have collec
al bodies and the riotous thinker, and although we tend to associate thought solely with brain
the gentle wanderings of celesti
partic les. With the discov ery of activity, this, as we shall see later, is simply not the case.
fulminations of subatomic
hors take on a startli ng reality, Thought is a vital prerequisite for creativity. Nothing that is
superstring theory, musical metap
micro scopic landsc ape is suffus ed ever done, not the writing or reading of this book, or any other
for the theory suggests that the
vibrat ional patter ns orches trate the t hing you care to imag.me was ever done without an initialising
with tiny strings whose
change, according to t hought. Whatever you or I do is always preceded by a thought.
evolution of the cosmos. The winds of
gh an Aeolia n universe.' Quite simply, we think about something, and then we do it. 'I
superstring theory, gust throu
sophis ticated of instruments can t hink I'll do this', or 'I think I'll do that'. We create it in our minds,
However, not even the most
a note unless there is a player or a as a concept, before materialising the thought into deed.
play itself. It cannot utter
y not occur in the instrument itself Thought and the power of visualisation and creation are closely
plucker. A vibration will simpl
agitat ed it. So what is causing our l i nked and in the simple, but profound words of the sixteenth
until some outside force has
e? Let us go back to the reference century French philosopher Descartes, 'I think, therefore 1 am.'
tiny little superstrings to vibrat
told, 'In the beginn ing was the word Thought is the creative source of the self. Thought is pure
from the Bible where we are
and the word was God.' W hat could 'reative power. Nothing is ever done without it. Without thought,
and the word was with God
have alread y seen, accord ing to Hindu reative and conscious, there is no motion, no creation. Thought,
this possibly mean? As we
d the sacred sound ,) we shall see later travels faster than light. Thought can be
philosophy and teachings, God simply uttere
mater ial univer se into being. Was i n stantaneously received regardless of the distance of the thinker
of Om and brought the whole
set all things into vibrat ing motion? ,I nd the receiver. Thought precedes all things. Thought, as a form
this the primary sound that
ially disturb ances on the magneti of energy creates ideas that are translated into action and then
Light and sound are both essent
and depen d on two things for their tna terialised as form.
spectrum in a given mediu m,
has activa ted the vibrat ions in the first Perhaps then, it is the same with the creative source of the whole
existence - a source which
can act as a receive r for those vibrat ions. I I n iverse, perhaps the 'Mind of God' conceived of a multi-layered
place, and something which

28 29
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

universe, with planets and stars, mountains and seas, sweet The Tai Chi
smelling orchids and a variety of living things.
In his book Christ and the Cosmos Professor EH Andrews writes: Yin and Yang
'God is the common source and originator of all things. He did not
take some pre-existing substance and transform it into the world.
This is the whole thrust of the doctrine of ex nihilo creation. He
created this entire universe from pure spirit, from pure thought,
from pure mind'.
The Creative Source thought about not being alone in the Void,
and created a seed thought within itself which emitted a vibration
which in turn emitted sound and light, and brought the whole of
the material universe into being.

The big bang

'I cannot believe God plays dice with the universe.'

Albert Einstein

Approximately 20 billion years ago our universe was born. Brought

forth from the invisible dimensions which preceded material
creation, the darkness and silence that must have preceded it at
that moment echoed to an incomprehensible explosion, which in
turn spewed matter forth into an expanding space.
One cannot even begin to imagine what it must have been like,
or what could have existed in the emptiness before that time.
Our intellects can only comprehend that which, like our
physical selves, has a beginning, middle and an end. It is virtually
impossible, therefore, by any normal processes, to understand the
possibility or reality of an existence without beginning or end, in
other words, infinite and eternal.
In the sacred and mystical texts of Hinduism, the big bang is
known as the Divine Breath, and it is said that Brahma (God)
breathes in and out an endless cycle of universes for all eternity.
According to these ancient Sanskrit texts, the universe is created
many times, and destroyed equally in an endless cycle. The birth
of our universe is but one incarnation of many such universes
which existed aeons ago in the past, and which will exist again
aeons into the future.
These intervals may be beyond our comprehension, the interval
between the expansion and contraction of one universe may be
Fig. 4

30 31
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

taking trillions of years to complete, exploding and imploding in The Zodiac

regular cycles. W ho is to say how many times this has already
occurred? And the pattern produced by joining
Perhaps energy and matter are eternally conjoined, as in the the astrological triplicities and quadruplicities
Chinese symbol of Tai Chi, the Yin and Yang, bound together,
inseparably, symbolising an endless cycle of creation and
destruction which continues for all eternity. Spirit and matter
endlessly conjoined in a cosmic dance (see Figure 4).
Perhaps it is part and parcel of the nature of energy to create, and
following the cycles of creation and destruction, the universe(s)
returns impeccably to its source, to be spewed out again and again,
for all eternity.
At the point immediately prior to the big bang, however, which
is the beginning of the universe as we know it, all matter was
contained in a singularity, that is, a point where all the laws of
physics as we know them break down.
Having been in the process of creation since the divine thought
conceived of it, the One, having undergone the many mystical and
alchemical processes required to materialise pure thought into
form, was ready to give birth, in this case to an entire universe.
The One, was about to become the Many.
By a process of self-division and multiplication, as in the cellular
division of an embryonic form, the original One had self-multiplied
itself and was ready to manifest onto the material plane.
One can only assume that matter burst through the Ethers,
perhaps through something similar to a white hole - the opposite
of a black hole which sucks matter in - after completing its
gestation period of dimensional formation, finally ejecting itself
out from the womb of creation.
At the precise moment the big bang occurred, immense
amounts of matter began expanding into an evolving space, and
slowly over billions of years, this cosmic matter, which consisted
of very fine dust, began to condense into stars, planets, and,
eventually all life forms as we know them, including ourselves.
Once the universe had condensed sufficiently, it formed billions
of galaxies and stars, including the spiral galaxy in which we now
live, and our individual solar system, that is, the Sun and nine
known planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth (Moon), Mars, Jupiter,
Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and Pluto.
Fig. 5
And the rest, as they say, is history.

32 33
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

Furthermore, according to string theory, all matter in the

Astrology
universe - including the planetary bodies - is composed of
'Had we never seen the stars, and the Sun, and the heavens, none �icro�copic .atoms, which in turn contain infinitesimally minute
VIbrating strings. The planetary bodies themselves are so vast, and
of the words which we have spoken about the universe would
must co�tain so many atoms, each with its own tiny vibrating
ever have been uttered. But now the sight of day and night, and
superstrmg, that they must be making quite a silent noise out
the months and revolutions of the years, have created number, and
there in space.
have given us a conception of time; and the power of enquiring
Like everything else, the planets are in a state of vibration.
about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have
Th� planet�, which are essentially vast orbs of singing,
derived philosoph� than which no greater good was, or will be .
v� bratmg atomIC matter - as we shall see shortly - are rotating at
given by the gods to mortal man.'
dIfferent orbital velocities and relative distances from a com­
The Timaeus, Plato
munal Sun, which itself is a giant humming thermonuclear
reactor which is continually creating fundamental particles which
From our earth-bound perspective, astrology has evolved from a
are the very breakfast of life. We on Earth, the third rock from the
time immemorial as a sacred mathematical and metaphysical
Sun, are orbiting this great giant star at approximately 65,000
science revolving around the study and interpretation of universal
mph, accompanied by a relatively small lunar satellite that we call
cycles and rhythms (see Figure 5).
the Moon.
We depend entirely on the Sun, Moon and planets for life as
The Sun, in its turn, is just one of billions of similar suns that
we know it, and their precisely predictable cycles are the very
are all rotating around the centre of our own spiral galaxy, which
cause of everything we know and hold dear. Spring, summer,
we call simply 'The Milky Way'. The Milky Way, in its turn is
autumn, winter, night and day, the rise and fall of the tides, are all
spiralling onwards through space accompanied by a billion other
the result of precise and predictable mathematical variations in
visible galaxies. Because the universe is expanding however, all
planetary movements, including the rotation of the Earth on its
these stars and galaxies will one day entirely disappear from view,
own axis.
and if any life still exists on Earth billions of years hence, they will
The vast planetary bodies are continually affecting our
not share the joy of the star-filled night sky that we currently take
personal and planetary biospheres as they radiate their enormous
for granted.
electromagnetic energies into space. Quantum physics tells us that
For the purposes of astrology however, we confine ourselves to
even one microscopic electron on the far side of the universe can
understanding the planetary cycles within our own solar system,
affect everything in the universe simultaneously. How much
from an earthly perspective.
greater then will the effect of the planetary movements be - which are
Now, whereas it is the job of astronomy to define planets in
vaster by far?
terms of their the physical properties, weight, mass, rotational and
Any movement or expression of energy either internally
orbital velocities, chemical composition and so on, it is the job of
within the atom, or externally in outer space - will have an
astrology to define the effects of these planetary bodies and their
instant reaction and affect everything, everywhere within the
movements on human destiny, both individual and collective.
universe simultaneously. Earth is not exempt from this equation
According to the basic principles of astrology, each planet has
and we are being continually bombarded from outer space by .
I ts own character, or 'tone', which affects life on Earth and is said
cosmic forces to which the Earth's magnetosphere is extremely
to 'govern' a particular area of life.
sensitive. These cosmic forces are passed on through the
In mythology, the planetary energies were often personified
magnetosphere of the Earth to all individual life forms that (as we
via a series of 'Gods', thus evolved the characters of Venus _
shall see in the next chapter) also possess their own unique
The Goddess of Love, Mars - The God of War and so on. These
electromagnetic force field.

34 35
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

archetypes are found in many global religious mythologies, and To do this, firstly imagine a calm pond with a smooth surface.
although these personifications take on the characteristics of their When you have done that, toss in a pebble. Now - watch the
own cultures, they still retain the essence of the planetary ripples as they expand out from the point of impact, as the pebble
persohalities. travels through the medium of the water. This is how it might look
Far from being inert spheres in space, however, all the planets if we could actually see the invisible lines of force coming from the
including our Earth have vast networks of electrical currents planets, as they disturb the medium of space, in the same way that
running in their deepest interiors. On Earth, these energy lines are the pebbles disturbed the water. The size, shape, speed and nature
sometimes known as ley lines and the most well known of these of the individual planet will have a different effect on the shape of
magnetic currents runs through Stonehenge, Glastonbury and St the disturbance in the medium through which it is travelling.
Michael's Mount in the west counties of England. To continue our analogy, let us now throw ten pebbles into the
For the purposes of terrestrial astrology, however, we are pond at the same time at the relevant positions - to represent the
primarily concerned with the effects that these energies have on Sun, Earth and all the planets - and imagine how the ripples will
life on Earth as we are magnetically influenced, enhanced or look on the surface of the pond now. Can you see how the
di§turbed by: vibrations from the ten impacts overlap and interact on the surface
1) The character, energy and tone of the planet concerned making lovely patterns?
2) The character and ·element (fire, water, earth or air) of the Lastly, imagine these pebbles could assume an orbit around a
sign of the Zodiac which the planet is transiting - which represent central pebble and be throw into the water together - can you see
magnetic variations in the medium of space - and their angular how all the different patterns the pebbles (planets) make as they
relationships to the other planets; 0, 60, 90, 120, 1 80 degrees being follow their spiral trajectory through the water (space)?
the most important. Remember, we all live on the 3rd pebble - watch how the
3) The 'House' (sign) in which the planets reside relative to the vibrations affect us.
Eastern horizon at the time of birth or occurrence. This can only be The idea that the heavenly bodies can affect life on Earth is the
calculated with an exact time of birth, and determines the 'rising' primary principle of astrology, calculating the planetary
or 'ascendant sign' . movements is the mathematics and geometry of it, and
Now, you will notice astrology has a tri-part dynamic, a trinity i nterpreting the effects of those movements is the science and art
which express spirit, mind and body. These magnetic variations, of it.
according to astrologers, directly influence life on Earth and are a The practice and belief in astrology goes back to the most
medium for the direct expression of an organised universal will, n ncient of days when our first ancestors began to study the
consciousness or mind - God in other words. In a sense, because it heavens and found patterns and cycles that could be precisely
is through the planets that we can predetermine cosmic activity, predicted - such as night and day, summer and winter - and
the planets can be seen to be acting as a sort of 'pre-set computer w hich ultimately became the very foundation of timekeeping as
code' for creation. It is through astrology that we can understand we know it. Years, months, and days are all measured and created
some of the secrets of this code. by planetary cycles. In early Britain, it was the job of the Druids to
The signs the planets are in, the angles they make to each other keep abreast of these cycles and keep accurate time, which was
and the house system, all determine the arrangement and 'ssential for the organisation of society, and which they did with
interaction of electromagnetic forces that we receive on Earth. l he assistance of Stonehenge.
Before we take a closer look at astrology, however, let us firstly Astrology also became a science of prophecy, from the
take a simple analogy to help us imagine what these invisibl prediction of eclipses, equinoxes and solstices, to the prediction of
magnetic lines of force in space might actually look like as th ' personal and collective events through the interpretation of the
planets transit the heavens. signs in the heavens. Working on the maxim of 'as above so

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below', Earth was seen as a mirror of the cosmic world. also believes that, 'astrologers trade on the mind's attempts to
Symbolically, the three highest mountains in the world fall directly understand the world that have been honed throughout
under the three brightest stars. evolution' .
'It's a load of twaddle'. Thus read the headline of a recent When confronted with similarly uneducated critics, Sir Isaac
newspaper article on astrology that appeared in the London Daily Newton famously and politely replied - 'I, Sir have studied the
Telegraph, written by science editor Dr Roger Highfield. subject, you have not'.
'Pure Bunkum.' 'Codswallop.' 'Superstitious mumbo-jumbo.' Now, if you are not altogether familiar with the principles of
These are a variety of uneducated opinions on astrology, astrology, and you too feel an instant need to doubt the ability of
including one from the loveable pope of British astronomy, Patrick the planets to affect personality, destiny and life on Earth, just
Moore. consider this for a moment before we go any further - what do
Once wedded in the same marriage bed, astronomy and you think would happen to you, your family, your pet dog, and
astrology are still suffering the effects of a cultural divorce which the rest of life on Earth if the Sun were to go out right now?
began with the separation of the sacred sciences - alchemy, magic, Exactly. We'd all be dead in no time. We would all die. I can
metaphysics, mathematics, geometry, astronomy and astrology - comfortably predict that. We depend on the Sun for life itself. Our
which was due in part to the birth of modern materialistic science very ecology and biology is as linked and dependent on the Sun
and in part to the accompanying collective shift in social values for the food of life, as a child is to its parent to bring home the
from spiritual to material. daily bread.
At the same time, our materialism and technology was taking Now, our lunar satellite - what would happen if the Moon were
us further and further away from the countryside, our traditions, to suddenly escape from the Earth's gravity and disappear into
our knowledge of the land, the night sky, the rising of the Sun and space? If you don't know, I'll tell you. The oceans would swell into
Moon - away from nature - and further and further into the gigantic tidal waves for one last time - before they finally settled
barren drabness of our cities. into one giant stagnant unmoving pond. We'd probably all be
Professor Adrian Furnham of University College London says, dead in no time. We would all die. (The Moon is actually moving
'People believe in astrology because they fall victim to the fallacy out of Earth's orbit at a slow but steady pace. This will mean
of personal validation'. (Does that mean I'm not a Sagittarian, I nothing to us now, but in millions of years time the Moon will
only think I'm one?) actually finally leave Earth orbit forever.)
Professor Richard Dawkins - 'Let us not go back to a dark age Although the edifices of Stonehenge and the pyramids remain
of superstition and unreason' - is also equally agitated by the as a lasting testament to a time in our pre-history when ancient
rising popularity of astrology, and he has made precisely the same civilisations displayed an arcane knowledge of the metaphysical
accusations against religion, which he dismisses as thoroughly as sciences which far exceeds our own, the science and art of
he does astrology. astrology has found no grace and favour in our modern Western
Equally sceptical Dr Susan Blackmore, Senior Lecturer in society until relatively recently in our history.
Psychology at the University of West England believes that - 'The Widely practised in Britain until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I
human mind is made to make connections, and people will look of England, who employed her own personal astrologer, one Dr
for them in everything. This is what makes us clever and able to John Dee, and his assistant, Irish mystic Edward Kelly, to help
understand the world, and this is what trips us up when we read guide her affairs of State, astrology finally fell out of favour shortly
significance into horoscopes'. a fter her death, in 1603.
Dr Blackmore believes that people who turn to astrology tend Far from being a 'weak and aimless woman' who had little or
to be those with 'least control over their own lives' such as, and I no meaning and control over her own life, as Dr Blackmore has
quote - 'women who read women's magazines'. Susan Blackmore suggested, Elizabeth I was a competent head of state for over forty

38 39
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

years and one of the most successful monarchs in British history. matter of course, hoping for some heavenly guidance in their
Recently voted Woman of the Millennium, was Elizabeth's success daily lives.
due in part due to the wise council of her astrologer and mystic The words, What sign are you?' have become the by-phrase of
who often warned her of impending danger, including the our times. In one word you can tell people a lot about yourself and
subversive Catholic plot to kill her, and place her cousin Mary your character - 'I'm an Aries' Ooud and bossy!) 'I'm a Scorpio'
Queen of Scot's on the throne of England? If we take Elizabeth I as (sex maniac!), 'I'm a Virgo' (squeaky clean!), and so on. Astrology
a case in point, I rather think Ms Blackrnore's statement is grossly has become the human jungle way of 'sniffing' each other out now
unfounded. perhaps, that we have become so deodorised. Astrology has
Although a keen astrologer and alchemist himself, born shortly become very much the language of personality in today's world.
after the Tudor period came to an end, Sir Isaac Newton later came As well as describing character from the birth chart (which is a
to discover the physical laws that were to become the bedrock of map of the heavens at the time of individual birth), astrology is
modern materialistic science. also helpful in predicting trends. Seeking some form of divine,
In the meantime, and having lost favour with the theoretical honest and meaningful guidance in their daily lives, many people
scientific academics of the post-Industrial Revolution who are turning to astrology and astrologers to interpret the meaning
found no room for the mystical and metaphysical in their test and mood of the heavens and to fulfil their spiritual and emotional
tubes and theorems, the Church was entering an era of needs.
unprecedented brutality driven by a puritanical fervour. For The increasing popularity of astrology is, of course, much to
over four hundred years, Britain, Europe and America entered a the annoyance of the Church who say - 'Instead of turning to the
period of history know best for its obsession with 'witches' and Church for guidance, we are turning to our horoscopes, taking
'witchcraft'. (NB a 'witch' is the female equivalent of the male solace in New Age philosophy', and that our quest for the 'quick
'wizard' or magician.) This period was characterised by the reli­ fix, pick and mix belief system is causing the very fabric of our
gious fervour with which thousands upon thousands of men society to fall apart. The whole of Civilisation', says the Church, 'is
and women - although it must be said the greater proportion were on the verge of disintegration' .
women - were harassed, persecuted, tortured and murdered for In response to the accusations against astrology, Jonathan Cainer,
practising any of the so-called heretic 'pagan' arts, including, of one of Britain's foremost newspaper astrologers has this to say; 'If
course, astrology. (Women were seen as being more easily the surge of interest in astrology, healing, homeopathy, herbalism,
seduced into doing 'the devil's work' by the male-dominated self-awareness or cosmic attunement is a sign of anything at all, it is
Church after Eve gave Adam the proverbial apple. He could that people are seeking greater depth and meaning in their lives.
have said 'no' ! ) What should the Church have to fear from this?'
I t was not until the Witchcraft Act was repealed in Britain in Although astrology is dismissed by formal Christian teaching as
1951 that astrology - and astrologers - could safely resurface from a superstitious 'pagan' science which has no place in the 'real'
over four hundred years of political and religious oppression, worship of God - being both blasphemous and heretical - I am now
having been discredited by both formal religious doctrine and more inclined to believe that the political and economic motivations
scientific dogma. and ambitions of the 'Church' have led them away from the real
Today however, after only fifty years since the Witchcraft Act was meaning and purpose of Christ's teachings and message.
repealed, having being largely re-introduced to the West with the To support this claim, I would firstly like to refer you to the
influx of Eastern religions and philosophies in the sixties, astrology passage in the Old Testament of the Bible which appears in
has once again captured the imagination of the collective psyche. Genesis 1 : 1 4 and which reads; 'Then God said "Let their be
Today, literally millions of people all over the world read their lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the
'stars', in the daily papers and consult astrologers regularly as a night, and let them be for signs"'. Now, what interpretation can

40 41
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

you put on this? There can be no other. The planets and stars the By the time of Christ's birth, astrology was already at least
:
Sun and Moon, according to the Bible itself, are also for sIgns. 10,000 years old. We cannot tell when the moment of awareness
Omens of the destiny on Earth to be read in the heavens. dawned, when our earliest ancestors first recorded the comings
In truth, this promise is fulfilled in the New Testament with the and goings of the heavenly bodies, but at some time in our distant
birth of Christ. The history of Christianity itself begins with one of past, humankind generated a vast knowledge of the heavenly
these great heavenly astrological signs. The Three Wise Men - movements and their relationships to events on Earth.
astrologers - from the East, had found, interpreted and followed Long before the telescope was invented, the outer planets were
the new star to Bethlehem to find the new-born babe. The birth of well known to many ancient cultures even though they did not, so
Christ was predicted and clearly written in the heavens. The Three far as we know, have access to any sophisticated optical equipment.
Wise Men had found the signs clearly written in the stars. Nonetheless, early cultures show a remarkable understanding and
The very first act in Christian history begins in full fact with the knowledge in these matters.
fulfilling of an astrological prediction - without which perhaps the The Dogon tribe in Africa for instance, have detailed star maps
Messiah might never have been found, at least not until much of Sirius, which date back approximately 1 0,000 years. These, they
later in his life when he began his ministry. Being the eldest son in say, were given to them by visitors from outer space. (Although it
a Jewish family furthermore, Christ himself would have been is not my job in this book to discuss the influence of Alien
instructed in the Kabbalah in which astrology and numerology are Intelligence on Earth culture, let us just say for now that many
firmly integrated. The reference to numerology in the Bible is also unanswered questions remain on this matter.)
a frequent one. To our earliest ancestors, the Sun was the obvious source of all
In his missing years Christ is also said to have travelled to life on Earth - giver of light, and warmth - without which, no
India to study with the Hindu Brahmins who were already living thing could be, grow or flourish. In many early societies the
familiar with astrology and other esoteric traditions. Christ's visit Sun itself, although it was understood to have been created by a
to India is recorded in the 'Pali' manuscript that was found in 1887 higher source, became the focus of religious worship and many
in Himis, the largest monastery in Ladakh, just west of Tibet. olar temples were built in solar-worshipping cultures, including
Christ was also reported in popular legend to have travelled to the Egyptian and Druidic, in honour of this perfect disc of life.
Britain with his tin mining uncle, Joseph of Aremethia, arriving in Indeed both the pyramids and Stonehenge are built on solar geo­
Glastonbury to study the art of sacrifice (self) from the Druids. metric principles.
Blake's immortal hymn, Jerusalem, is a reference to this myth: Now, although our early forefathers may have known little
of the chemical composition of the Sun, they knew instinctively
And did those feet in ancient times, that it was essential to life. It is only recently that we have
Walk upon England's pastures green? discovered that our Sun is in essence a vast thermonuclear
And was the Holy Lamb of God reactor, which is continually spitting out fundamental particles
On England's pleasant pastures seen? into the atmosphere, enabling creation and life on Earth to
flourish.
Whether or not Christ travelled to India or Britain, he was in no Now, although our own Sun is just one of ten billion stars
way a stranger to the alchemical and astrological knowledge and on the edge of a spiral galaxy, and our galaxy itself is but one
traditions of the time. He would have, at the very least, been well­ of ten billion galaxies visible within the universe, it is to us the
versed in the Kabbalah, which can be seen as a symbolic and very centre of the solar system which we call home, and is the
literal system of metaphysical, numerological, astrological and centre around which all the planets, including our Earth, orbit.
alchemical magic. This arcane knowledge would have certainly Not only does the Sun emit heat and light, however, it also
enabled Christ to perform his 'miracles'. emits other forms of electromagnetic radiation - as well as

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emitting fundamental particles - and this outpouring of ionised Earth's magnetosphere

gases and their associated magnetic field is called 'the solar wind'.
at rest
The solar wind is hot plasma, an electrically charged mixture of
ions whose source is the Sun's corona. This highly charged gas
flows outward during coronal mass ejections at a speed of
approximately 500 kilometres per second to a distance four times
greater than the orbital path of Pluto - which is known as the
heliopause. Because of the Sun's rotation, the emissions form into
an Archimedean spiral.
When the solar wind hits the Earth's magnetosphere it distorts
it with enormous force, depending on the speed and density of
solar emissions. The varying amount of solar emissions - magnetic
plasma - which enter Earth's atmosphere will therefore have a
direct effect on the magnetic fields of all other life forms, including
us (see Figure 6).
According to recent evidence from NASA, when solar
radiations are at there strongest, heart attacks (amongst other
things) are most frequent. In astrology, the Sun is said to rule the
sign of Leo, which governs (amongst other things) the heart. Earth's magnetosphere
Astrologers have long since known the secrets of the planets and distorted by the solar winds
their relationship to life on Earth.
According to AT Mann in his book The Round Art, 'the solar
..
system can be considered a huge step down transformer of solar
energy which produces an effective range of magnetic fields
governing all life processes on Earth. The tracks of the planetary
bodies around the Sun create magnetic fields charged with induced
current and the Earth receives these as an archetypal magnet.'
Because of the electromagnetic nature of the planets and the Sun -

(whose own surface is covered in dancing positive and negative -

magnetic loops), the magnetic ripples, or waves, of energy which -

are continually emitted from them cause electrical interference on
the cosmic medium of space - in this case our solar system -
which is directly felt on Earth as a form of wave energy. This wave
energy interpenetrates the Earth's biosphere as electrical
interference or agitation of the Earth's electrical field. This can be
detected as radio interference. ..

In 1951, JH Nelson, an engineer with the US broadcaster RCA,

was asked to investigate a problem RCA was having with its radio
reception quality, which seemed to vary with Sun spot activity.
Fig. 6
Mter careful research, Nelson discovered that the days when

44 45
 The Mystic Mind The Universal Mind

interference was at its worst were on days when any of the planets The lunar cycle also seems to be directly linked to mating and
were forming angles of 0, 90, or 180 degrees to the Sun. fertility patterns in humans, as well as governing the movements
Since planetary movement is entirely predictable, based on the of fluids. This was confirmed by the work of Dr Jonas, a Chez
exact mathematical calculations of the orbital paths of the planets, physician who was researching female fertility, and who
this knowledge of future planetary activity and angular relation­ subsequently discovered that human females could spontaneously
ships enabled RCA to determine days on which reception would be release an ovum once a month, regardless of their normal
affected - in advance. menstrual cycle, at the exact moment that the Sun and Moon
In exactly the same way as Nelson was able to calculate future formed the same angle as at the woman's birth.
planetary movement and associated interference, by tracking the For instance, if the woman in question was born at the new
movements of the planets and observing their angular relation­ moon, each month when the Moon was new - ie the same angle to
ships to each other and the Sun, astrologers are also said to be able the Sun as the moment of her birth - she could spontaneously release
to chart future events, either individually or collectively. an ovum, regardless of her normal fertility and menstrual cycles.
By drawing a map of the heavens at the relevant point in time He eventually developed a system of birth control based on the
a dept astrologers are also able to describe, not only an individual, combination of the normal menstrual cycle and this extra cycle,
but his or her life's journey in detail, by predicting the relationship which is 97 percent effective. (You can find the position of the
between the positions of the planets at birth - each planet having Sun/ Moon angle for your own birth date by referring to an
its own unique magnetic force field, character and signature - and 'Ephemeris' for the year of your birth or consulting a competent
their continuing orbital relationships to each other in relation to astrologer.)
the original birth chart. Dr Jonas also discovered that the Moon's position in a woman's
In astrology, each planet is said "to have a different effect on the birth chart determined, with 97 percent accuracy, the sex of her
Earth's magnetosphere, and to 'govern' one archetypal area of children, and that as the Moon transited positive and negative
creation. The Moon, for instance, directly affects us through its sectors of the Zodiac it would favour either the 'x' or 'y' chromo­
gravitational effect on water, which produces the tides of the some magnetically, in alternating periods of approximately 2.5 days
oceans. Scientists have recently measured the magnetic pull of the (a perfect way of maintaining an approximate 50-50 ratio of the
Moon in a cup of tea. How much more then the pull on our bodies sexes). In astrology, the Moon is said to rule the sign of Cancer,
which are some two-thirds water? Does this explain the tendency which rules motherhood, and birth!
'
towards 'lunacy' at full moons, when the magnetic pull of the Further research into solar' activity has confirmed that great
Moon on terrestrial liquid is the strongest, and the crime and birth civilisations rise and fall in accordance with Sun spot activity, and
rate is highest? , when the Sun's magnetic polarity, which reverses itself at regular
The Moon also has a direct affect on cycles of glandular activity intervals over immense periods of time, occur, the electromagnetic
in the body, in particular, the human female menstrual cycle that is discharge is so great that if affects human DNA, causing major
28.5 days long - identical in length to the lunar orbit around Earth. evolutionary changes as well as affecting major geophysical
Many aquatic species, including coral, respond entirely to the upheavals.
lunar cycles to determine spawning and mating patterns, and even Dramatic changes also occur during eclipses, and in his book
when displaced in laboratory experiments, their body clocks The Book of the Eclipse author David Ovason correlates great
remain entirely in tune with lunar magnetism. In these historical events that have been triggered by, and coincide with
experiments, simple life forms were able to distinguish when the solar eclipses. He writes, 'It does not matter at all in astrological
Moon was full, and directly overhead in readiness for spawning terms whether the eclipse is seen or not seen. It still influences the
and mating, even though their captive investigators had done entire spiritual atmosphere of the Earth and works upon all sub­
their best to trick them. lunar creatures equally, according to the nature of their birth.'

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He continues 'Scientific research has shown that liquids and Michel Gauquelin, the French researcher, confirmed the
substances immersed in liquids change in some inexplicable way influence of planetary bodies over individuals when he examined
during an eclipse, just as the Moon helps control the tides. The the birth charts and professional occupations of thousands of
implications of this are extraordinary, bearing in mind that our physical volunteers, which proved that the dominant planet in the
bodies are vertical columns consisting of about 80 percent water.' individual chart coincided with professional occupation. For
As well as emitting various electromagnetic forces, however, example, sportsmen and soldiers had a prominent Mars in their
the planets also emit sound. birth charts, scientists a prominent Saturn, and writers a
This was first confirmed when the US space probe, Voyager 2 prominent Mercury (as a writer, I conform to the latter).
approached Saturn. The probe picked up a distinct noise from the Scientists now confirm that there is growing evidence of
magnetosphere of Saturn, which was then beamed back to Earth. birthdays influencing health and careers. Research conducted by
When these noises were speeded up and played through a musical Professor David Phillips at the University of Southampton has
synthesiser, the waves were found to consist of a distinct melody. proved that babies born at different times of the year are more
Later expeditions confirmed that sound was also occurring within likely to develop certain traits. Of course, they are reluctant to
the Sun itself which 'sounds like a chorus of instruments playing accept astrological explanations, saying, 'there must be some
tones' . Does each of the planets emit musical notes? scientific explanation'.
Sound recordings made in space by NASA are said to sound Michel Gauquelin believes these varying but predictable
like an incredible symphony, and if the planets are emitting influences are the results of terrestrial magnetic disturbances that
different notes and tones - and we have already seen that music work because the solar system was a 'great organism composed of
can affect the shape of matter - are we responding at a subatomic many forces which interact on many levels, the most plausible
level to the loud but silent tones being emitted by the planets? theory being that the Sun is the motor and the solar field is the
Pythagoras and Plato rightly observed that the ratio between medium. The Moon and the closest and largest planets to the Sun
the notes on the musical scale were identical to the ratios of the cause agitation in this field, and the stronger the agitation, the
distance of one planet to another, and as we saw in the greater the effect on the child at birth'.
experiments with the Tonoscope, if sound has the ability to Can this scientifically precise correlation between heavenly and
organise matter into distinct patterns, and if the planets are earthly events linking the macro and microcosm - 'as above, so
continually emitting sound, then perhaps the resonances, below' - be explained?
harmonies and vibrations they constantly emit had a creative The Hermetica is attributed to the Egyptian sage Thoth, who is
effect on the primordial oceans of the Earth, enabling organic otherwise known as Trismegistus, meaning 'thrice great', such was
structures to arise from the rich bioche�cal soup of the oceans, by his reputed wisdom. In the work, Thoth writes that the creator,
the various musical symphonies which the planets were creating. Atum, arranged the constellations of the Zodiac in harmony with
In the same way that the musical scale, composed as it is of a the movements of Nature saying, 'I will build the Zodiac - a secret
limited number of notes, can produce an infinite variety of musical mechanism in the stars, linked to unerring and inevitable fate. The
compositions, the planetary 'tones' may well define and lives of men, from birth to final destruction, shall be controlled by
'orchestrate' life systems on Earth, by their direct effect on the the hidden workings of this mechanism' .
organisation of matter into distinct patterns and shapes. Each Is sound the key to this mechanism?
planet would have a job to perform, as each note has a job to Is 'The Music of the Spheres' a literal reality representing
perform in a chord, a song or a symphony. Each of the inner seven precise universal laws that control the creation and evolution of
planets is esoterically associated with one note of the octave, the life on Earth at an atomic level, as both astrology and vibrating
outer planets forming the higher octave. The Sun, the centre of the superstring theory might suggest?
solar system, is associated with middle C. The planets are undoubtedly the largest collection of atoms and

48 49
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vibrating superstrings, and therefore the loudest of instruments in 2

our vicinity. They create the music of the spheres with their notes
and tones. They are the instruments and the orchestra, and we are The Human Mind
all dancing to their tune.
No tune in living history, however, ever wrote itself. A tune
must have a writer, an arranger, a creator, a composer.
Who wrote the 'The Music of the Spheres?'

The invisible universe

'And God made man in his own image.'

Genesis 1 :26

T
he first book of the Bible tells us that 'God made man in his
own image'. What does this mean? We have already
determined that this 'God' - the invisible and divine source
of all creation - must have existed in some higher mystical form
before material creation itself. We have also determined that this
God is essentially non-material by nature - an indescribable form
of some higher force most closely resembling pure energy,
consciousness or light - and which contains both male and female
energies (Yin and Yang) simultaneously.
If then, we are not made in God's physical image, to what
can this statement refer? Could it mean that we are a
microcosmic form of _this same energy, consciousness or light
from which God made all things? Is this what Christ meant
when he said, 'I am the Light'?
In the words of the Sufi mystic Kabir - 'All know the drop
merges into the ocean, few know the ocean merges into the drop:
This statement implies a givine omnipresence, the macrocosm
within the microcosm. God within all form.
In the ancient Egyptian texts of The Hermetica it is also written
that God is Oneness and that everything is part of one Supreme
Being - an invisible universal consciousness, or mind - which has
created all things from an original impulse, and yet which also
resides within all of creation simultaneously. What relationship
does the human mind have to the universal mind? Are our minds
part of an interconnected 'divine consciousness', or are they
individual and separate, merely the result of the activity of the
physical brain?,

50
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It is, I believe, entirely an aberration, ignorance and arrogance to separate from the physical body itself during life and describe
of Western materialistic scientific thinking to assume that distant locations - and even more remarkably - also appears to
'consciousness' or 'mind' is a quality possessed by human beings survive and be able to communicate after physical death itself.
alone, or that this 'awareness' is entirely a function or by product If consciousness were truly restricted to the physical
of the physical brain. brain and brain function, it would be impossible for anyone
The brain, like all physical body parts and material forms, is to do this .
absolutely finite and depends on this self same omnipresent According to the concept of divine omnipresence, which
universal energy for its very existence. By this simple fact alone, suggests that divine consciousness is inherent in all form, the
the brain itself cannot be considered capable of producing thought physical form is said to contain this inherent energy field
or consciousness per se - because it is ultimately a finite material that is simultaneously the source and mind of the form itself,
form and like all finite material forms cannot have either life or whether it is a rock, an animal, a plant or a human. All life forms,
consciousness without energy. Rather, it may be that the brain acts in this philosophy, are equal and equally endowed with divine
as a medium by which 'consciousness' or thought expresses itself universal 'consciousness'. This is the meaning of omnipresence.
on the material plane. In this view, the brain is considered a It means that God is not separate from creation, but intrinsic
physical organ that can only be activated via a continuous series of within it, and that God is everywhere and everything simul­
electrical impulses. taneously.
Once you deprive the brain of these electrical impulses as in It is only in our human arrogance that we assume that we are
death, the brain will automatically stop functioning. It may remain unique in the possession of 'consciousness'. But how does
perfectly intact as a physical mass, but it is the electrical energy consciousness function in a form without a brain and five senses
that both creates and stimulates it. Switch off the electrics - and as we know them? A plant for instance - how can a plant have
the brain is nothing more than a jelly-like mass of grey matter consciousness? It has no brain. It has no eyes, ears or nose. And
waiting for an electrical fix - like the monster Frankenstein yet scientific experiments confirm that plants can have awareness
waiting for the gift of life from a lightning bolt. . of their environments and can suffer emotional extremes of
Therefore, even though the brain may survive physical death happiness and pain in the same ways that we can. How a carrot
intact, in exactly the same state it was in just before death, it is no must cry then when it is picked, no less than the cry of a fully
longer of any use; it is no longer activated. The electrical force, universally-conscious lamb heading for the slaughter.
which once generated activity in the brain itself, has withdrawn Man, carrot and lamb all contain this same universal
with the original organising energy field, which created it in the substance - this same universal consciousness. Just because
first place. carrots and lambs do not share our interest or skills in
Although Western medical opinion is generally of the belief computer technology, literature, fashion or space travel is no
that it is the brain which secretes thoughts 'like a liver secretes reason to assume they are not conscious or do not possess
bile', current evidence is beginning to prove otherwise. 'awareness' , 'feeling' or 'consciousness'.
Mathematician and cognitive scientist David Chalmers is one In The Secret Life of Plants authors Peter Tompkins and
of many who now believe that consciousness may be fundamental Christopher Bird describe scientifically controlled experiments
in the universe, perhaps equal with matter and energy neither where plants were either actually hurt, or the thought of the intent
'derivable from or reducible to' anything else, including the brain. to hurt focused on them. In all cases, the plants - which were
Do we have any evidence to support this claim? attached to extremely sensitive electrodes - showed an extreme
Yes. We do. As we shall see later during our investigations into emotional reaction - whether they were actually hurt, or merely
the ever-increasing reports of the out-of-body and near-death had the thought - the intent - projected at them.
experience, the 'consciousness' of the individual appears fully able In a series of further experiments which the authors describe

52 53
 The Mystic Mind The Human Mind

in ample detail, a further selection of plants were either object - fluctuating with internal and external changes. The
physically or mentally attacked by an individual unknown to the Kirlians started by photographing plants, which seemed to emit
researchers. showers of different coloured lights from channels in their leaves
The researchers were later able to identify the attacker from a and progressed to humans who also appeared to have these fine
large number of possible suspects - entirely by the reaction of the sheaths of light emanating from them. They also subsequently
subject plant when it encountered the aggressor. Conversely, as any discovered that the energy field - the field of light - would display
gardener or green-fingered soul will tell you, plants respond positive or negative changes on the energy field itself before these
extremely well to love and affection. changes became apparent on the physical form.
This research data implies that plants not only react to various Two physically identical leaves for example - when subjected
stimuli in a conscious and emotional way, but are also able to read to Kirlian photography - showed that although they appeared
our thoughts as in the case of the plants who telepathically reacted thus to normal vision, one of them actually had a very strong
to aggressive mental projection. luminous auric field, whereas the energy field of the other was
How can they do this? Now, plants may not have a brain, but extremely weak. The latter soon became sick and died, showing
they are absolutely capable of consciousness because they contain the same irregularities on the physical form as it had already
electromagnetic energy like everything else in the universe and it displayed on the auric field. The former continued to live and
is this self same energy that possesses consciousness, not the form retained its healthy glow (see Figure 7).
itself. (The consciousness, spirits or souls of plants have long been The same phenomenon has been proved with the study of
known in Celtic mythology as the Devas of the plant kingdoms - human energy fields. The field of preventative medicine could
fairies, pixies, and elves who are said to be endowed with special surely benefit enormously from such technology.
powers. The oak tree, for instance, is one of the 12 sacred trees In all life forms, it is the quality and quantity of energy within
venerated by the Druids and Pagan Britons. Socrates called it 'The the form itself that determines its health and strength. The energy
Tree of Wisdom' . Why were these trees considered sacred? How within the form however, can be affected by internal emotional
could they have influence or consciousness?) and physical factors, as well as external electromagnetic forces
Now, because everything in the universe is composed entirely being received from other life forms. The human energy field is
of atoms, and because these atoms contain both a positive and also affected by the magnetic fields of the planets that are being
negative electrical charge, the resulting effect is that every single continually absorbed by the Earth's magnetic field. These
physical form in the universe is possessed of an electromagnetic fluctuations in magnetic energy are then detected on the auric field
force field. as a disturbance in wave energy.
What does this force field look like? It looks like light. How do Plants, animals, humans, even rocks, are all are continually
we know? giving out positive or negative energy fields, depending on its
In 1950, two Russian scientists, Simyon and Valerina Kirlian own state of health and being. They all have their own
discovered that they could scientifically photograph a strange electromagnetic fields, which are all interacting with each other at
luminescence which appeared to surround and interpenetrate all the sub-atomic level.
living things, rocks, stones, plants, animals and humans alike. In 1953 Dr Mikhail Kuzmich Gaikin, a surgeon from Leningrad,
By laying film or plate in contact with the object to be confirmed that the auric photographs the Kirlians had produced
photographed and passing through the object an electric current showed identical points where vital energy of life force could be
from a high frequency spark generator which put out 75,000 to tapped. These coincided with the 700 acupuncture points he had
200,000 electrical pulses per second, the whole body of the learnt about from Chinese doctors during World War lI.
physical object in question appeared to be suffused with an inner The Earth itself is also surrounded by an enormous vital energy
light which radiated in varying colours and intensities around the or electromagnetic field of its own, and this magnetic shell is

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 The Mystic Mind The Human Mind

Two physically identical leaves sensitive to all the variations in electromagnetic energy emitted by
the Sun, the planets and the Moon, which is the closest orbiting
body to the Earth, and the Earth's magnetosphere is affected
accordingly.
In a threefold action, the planetary fields bombard Earth with
electromagnetic energy (the force field of Jupiter for instance, is
6,000 times greater than the Earth's and a hundred times larger),
which in turn influences the Earth's magnetic field, which, in its
turn, affects the electromagnetic force fields of all life forms on
Earth, including ourselves.
The planetary bodies are massive generators of sound and
electromagnetic energy, and as they orbit the heavens, forming
various angular relationships with each other and us, the varying
combinations and frequencies of energy have a direct influence on
life on Earth.
Weak auric field
The force field of each individual is linked to the universe via
the bioplasmic body and the electromagnetic field of the Earth,
and the Earth magnetically acts as a receiver for all incoming
electromagnetic wave energy. When there is a change in the
universal energy matrix, a resonance in produced which then
distorts the bioplasmic body of the Earth, which in turn affects the
bioplasmic bodies of all life forms on Earth, including us.
In 1959 Dr Leonard Ravitz of William and Mary University in
the United States demonstrated that these human energy fields
fluctuated with mental and emotional activity (as the Kirlians had
discovered) and that the resultant wave energy emitted varied in
brilliance, intensity and colour according to the psychological state
of the person concerned.
Inside the electromagnetic force field, or bioplasmic body,
processes appear to have their own energy pathways or ley lines,
and the bioplasmic body itself appears to be a unified organism
which acts as a whole, is polarised, gives off its own
electromagnetic fields, and is the basis, or blueprint for the
subsequent biological, or material form.
Later scientific research confirmed that this electrical force
could be measured with a scientific device known as a Super
Strong auric field Conducting Quantum Interference Device (SQUID), which was
able to measure the electrical activity of brain function by the
variations in this electromagnetic force field in even more detail
Fig. 7 than the EEG.

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 The Mystic Mind The Human Mind

Twenty years later, Dr Robert Becker of the Upstate Medical particles within the bioplasmic field and was relatively stable. If,
School in New York confirmed the existence of these complex however, there were a shift in the positive and negative balance of
electrical fields within the human body and found that they changed the bioplasmic body, ill health would be the resul�.
in strength and intensity depending on psychological factors. He What causes the bioplasmic body in humans to fluctuate -
also discovered electron-sized particles moving through this what is the agitating factor?
electrical field. (Have you ever walked into a room and instantly The agitating factor is thought. Where does thought come from?
felt a vibration, an 'atmosphere'? You may be sensing the state of the It comes from our minds. What is the mind?
magnetic energy of the environment or person in question.) It is pure energy, pure consciousness: pure light.
Dr Rupert Sheldrake, a well-known author and researcher who
has worked extensively on the morphic (electromagnetic) fields of The aura - soul within
animals, believes that invisible organising fields of energy regulate
all systems. These fields, he believes, are causative of the physical 'Let thine sight be single and thine whole body shall be full of Light.'
form and act as a blueprint for the individual form itself. Matthew 6:22
Dr Sheldrake's own research has reinforced his belief that these
bioplasmic, or morphic fields, could have an effect on other One of the most common recurring themes in all the world's religions
morphic fields regardless of how near or far they were. His is that humans have a divine immortal soul, which survives physical
extensive research into morphic fields and animal behaviour also death. We know, of course, that all our bodies will eventually die and
shows that animals are extremely sensitive to these fields and are disintegrate because they are made from finite material.
able to experience telepathic sensitivity to their owners, even at What is the Soul? How can it survive physical death?
great distances. Quite simply, it is the orb of energy, 'The Light' within us. It
According to current scientific thinking, the world of survives physical death because it is not physical. It is pure energy.
apparently solid form is, in reality, suffused with an invisible Pure consciousness. Pure Light. It is non-material, infinite and
world of radiating energy fields, thought fields and bioplasmic indestructible (see Figure 8).
forms. Furthermore, mind and body are now being redefined in The 'light energy', which is simultaneously the cause and mind
terms of energy impulses and rhythms, all of which are in constant of all things that exist, and which will survive intact after it has
motion, and each of which can have a direct effect on the magnetic withdrawn from the physical body at death, is what we know as
fields of other bodies however great or small. the soul. The individual soul however, although part of the greater
Dr Victor Inyushin of Kazakh University in Russia researched oneness, also retains a perfect record of its own eternal existence
human energy fields over many years, and his results suggested (as we shall see later in the chapter on reincarnation).
that the electromagnetic force field was composed entirely of ions, Ancient mystics have long described an ethereal energy body,
free protons and free electrons, which was a state absolutely dis­ which duplicates the human body, and which is perhaps best
tinct from the four known states of matter, solid, liquid, gas and defined as an electromagnetic area where sub-atomic vortices of
plasma. The bioplasmic (electromagnetic) force field he subse­ the cosmos are transformed into the individual.
quently defined as the 5th state of matter. The ancients also believed that the 'aura' was an exact double
He also discovered that despite the apparent stability of the of the physical body but composed of a much finer substance. The
bioplasmic field, a large amount of energy was radiated out into aura is also said to contain all the information about the individual
space through breakaway particles that could be measured as they from past, present and future.
emanated from the bioplasmic body. In ancient Egypt, this spirit double was simply known as 'Ka' .
According to his extensive research, which began in 1950, the The Azande tribe in Africa believed that everyone has an
bioplasmic field appeared to be a balance of positive and negative etheric/ double, which they called the 'Mbisimo' - a mirror of the

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The human aura physical body, but composed of much finer matter. The Bacairis of
South America talk of a 'Shadow' which leaves the body during
sleep and finally at death, and in Burma, the 'spirit double' is
simply called The Butterfly' .
That plants, animals and humans have fine sheaths of sub­
atomic or protoplasmic energy interpenetrating the solid
physical bodies of molecules and atoms is a concept that dates
back for thousands of years, long before the Kirlians invented
their ingenious camera. Although normally invisible to the naked
eye, the aura usually appears as a large circle of light sur­
rounding the physical body and can extend out from the physical
body from a few inches, in the case of a weak auric field, to an
average of about three feet to five feet in a healthy person. The
especially trained or highly spiritually-developed, such as the
Yogis of India, can have an auric field in excess of ten to thirty
feet or more. The aura of the Buddha was said to stretch for
several miles.

The aura, or halo of light, that surrounds and interpenetrates the

physical body is also well depicted in Christian art, in ancient
iconography, and in the stained-glass windows of churches and
cathedrals. The aura of light, or 'halo' appearing around the heads
of saints, and even Christ himself.
However, the halo or aura of light in reality actually
surrounds, not just the head, but also the whole body. The
symbolism of the aura depicted around the head in iconography
was simply meant to indicate those who had become spiritually
'illuminated' or highly spiritually-evolved, such as the Saints and
Christ himself.
In the Gospel of St John, however, this 'Light' is referred to in
even greater depth: There was a man sent from God whose name
was John. This man came to bear witness of the Light, that all
through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to
bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives
light to every man who comes into the world.' (John 1:7-9).
In Thessalonians 5:5 we are told, 'You are all sons of Light' . The
theme of light occurs in many religious writings and in the
Mundaka Upanishad (part 3, verse 2 of the Upanishads, essential
scriptures in Hindu Vedic philosophy) we read:
Fig. 8

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'As long as we think we are the ego, we feel attached and fall into A trained energy healer or spiritual healer will be able to
sorrow. But realise that you are the Self, the Lord Of Life, and you detect these imbalances on the auric field, before they manifest
will be freed from sorrow. W hen you realise that you are the Self, onto the physical body. Those gifted with clairvoyant sight will
"Supreme source of light, supreme source of love," you transcend be able to detect them visually by using the rods and cones in the
the duality of life and enter into the unitive state.' corner of the eye - peripheral vision - which are more sensitive
to subtle energies and wavelengths. W hen in the process of
Twentieth century parapsychologists have also come to view man as energy (spiritual) healing, the electrical field of the healer
linked to the universe via his auric body, and now believe that we all increases drastically in voltage as the healer passes energy on to
react to changes in the planets as well as to the moods, thoughts, and the patient.
emotions of others. We are · also affected by sound, light, colour, Verena Davidson, a gifted spiritual energy healer, claims that
magnetic fields, weather and noise. W hen there is a change anywhere when in the process of healing, 'I tune into a higher source of
in the universe, a resonance is produced in the vital energy of the energy and simply ask to be a clear channel of universal energy. I
electromagnetic body which in turn affects the physical body. then imagine that same energy radiating out of my hands and I
find I can · alter energy fields and vibrations in this way. Working
Auric healing primarily through the seven Chakras, or wheels of energy I am
able to detect energy blockages or imbalances. Because each
'Although mystics have not spoken of energy fields or bioplasmic Chakra resonates at a certain tone and channels one of the colours
forms, their traditions over 5,000 years in all the parts of the globe of the spectrum, I am able to calm or energise the Chakra, and
are consistent with the observations scientists have recently begun increase, decrease or cleanse the colours there.' The hands, she
to make.' says, act as a scanner, picking up energy from the patient.
Hands of Light, Barbara Ann Brennan More new age touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo? Not so.
Scientifically verifiable!
The ancient Chinese in the 3rd millennium BC believed that every­ Dr Robert Beck is a nuclear physicist who has travelled the
thing was composed of 'Ch'i', or vital energy, and that Ch'i itself was world measuring the brain waves of healers in an attempt to try
composed of two opposite but complementary forces, Yin and Yang. and explain the healing force. Dr Beck soon made a startling
W hen Yin and Yang were in balance, the subject experienced good scientific discovery. He basically found that no matter what their
health, but when out of balance, ill health resulted. own particular method of healing, all healers exhibit an identical
They subsequently developed acupuncture, a system of healing brain wave frequency during healing itself. The frequency was 7.8-
which accessed this inner energy, and by manipulating the life 8.0 hertz. W hy it should align to this frequency? This puzzled Dr
force, as it ran along the invisible energy lines within the body, they Beck until he realised that the Earth's magnetic field also fluctuated
could help restore the balance of positive and negative energies. between 7.8-8.0 hertz. These are known as Schumann waves.
In its original sense, the word healing means to complete, 'to Dr Beck also discovered that during the healing process the
make whole'. To achieve a state of health, or wholeness, a balance healer's brain becomes both frequency and phase synchronistic to
must be found between these two positive and negative energies. these waves and the natural frequency of the global magnetic
W hen we are out of balance, ill health is the ultimate result. field. Dr Beck also believes that healers are able to take energy
The aura itself can best be described as pure energy, or light, directly from the magnetic field of the Earth itself at the
that is primarily agitated by thought vibrations. Eventually the unconscious level. This phenomenon is known as field coupling.
thought vibrations on the auric field crystallise, or densify, and According to Dr Beck's research, after healing the patient's
become physical form. Matter is the end result of thought in its brain frequencies had also become phase synchronistic with the
crystallised form. healer and the 7.8-8.0 hertz frequency of the Earth's magnetic field.

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Dr John Zimmerman, founder of the Bio-Electromagnetics radio tunes into radio waves. The aura is continually reacting to
Institute in Reno, Nevada, also researched this field coupling colour vibration.
phenomena and found that the healers left and right brain became What are the Chakras? According to the Indian Vedic tradition,
balanced with each other and demonstrated the same alpha the Chakras are seven major invisible wheels, or vortexes of
rhythm predominating during healing as Dr Beck had found. energy within the auric field itself. These are situated parallel to
In our original form we are pure energy and pure light and the spinal column, and are the invisible receptors for cosmic or
beyond sickness and ill health. It is negative thinking that causes universal energy. Each is tuned to a different planetary magnetism,
imbalances. Ultimately, everything is pure energy, and if we are note and colour and twinned with a major glandular system (see
not in balance and living in harmony with the universe and Figure 9).
ourselves, these negative emanations will eventually materialise The Chakras act as receivers for universal wave energy, each
onto the physical body and begin to block the energy fields operating at its own frequency of sound and colour. The Chakras
resulting in ill health. then transform this powerful universal energy into an energy
Natural healing methods help direct healing energy onto the vibration the physical body can withstand, via the seven major
auric field and help correct these imbalances. The type of glandular systems. The glandular systems are then responsible for
imbalance may also be detected by assessing the colour balance distributing this energy throughout the body in order to maintain
within the energy field itself. and nourish vital life systems at the physical level.
We are continually creating colour within our thoughts which There are seven major Chakras and seven major glandular
filter onto the auric field, and in constant reaction with colour systems. Third Eye Centre, or Brow Chakra is paired with the
from our environment. Although we may think of colour as an Pineal Gland, the Throat Chakra with the Thyroid gland, The Solar
inert substance with no power or meaning, colour can affect our Plexus with the Adrenals, the Bass Chakra with the Gonads, and
mood and temperament. We also use colour to express our so on. A disturbance, imbalance or blockage at one of these paired
feelings - thus, 'red with anger', 'green with envy', and so on. chakric-glandular centres will cause an imbalance in the energy
field and if it is not prevented, will eventually manifest as physical
Can colour affect our mood? In 1932 Robert Gerard, a US scientist disease.
conducted a series of scientific experiments. He subsequently Colour is a living energy. Like Light. Like Sound. The colours
discovered, under strict laboratory conditions, that exposure to which appear on the aura are associated with each of these
red light excited the senses, increased heart and respiration rate Chakras and each Chakra is associated with a colour, a note, and a
and inevitably made people much more stimulated and planetary ruler, and the colour manifesting on the aura is
aggressive. Exposed to pink light however, his experimental indicative of mood, spiritual and mental state, and physical health.
subjects became tranquilised and incapable of anger. Blue too, These chakric centres are sub-atomic receptors to cosmic energy,
was calming and relaxing, decreasing pulse and respiration rate which is converted into form. They distribute light throughout the
and so on. These effects he noted, applied to those with or body.
without physical sight. As we saw with the Kirlian leaf experiment, the stronger the
This is because light behaves as both particles and as waves, light, the stronger the energy. The weaker the light, the weaker the
and can be perceived with both physical sight and at the sub­ energy. Blockages on the physical body will be preceded by
atomic level on the auric field, which will be perceived as blockages on the aura itself.
vibrations, or wave energy through the relevant Chakra. We The aura, being composed as it is of some form of sub-atomic
literally perceive colour at the wave level, the auric field acting as vibrating substance, is also sensitive to sound as a healing
a magnetic receptor to wave energy. Each colour has its own wave medium and 'overtoning' is now a popular method of inducing
frequency. We pick up colour at this level in the same way that a healing onto the auric field by the use of sound vibrations. Each of

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The seven maj or Chakras the seven notes have an affinity with one of the seven colours of
the spectrum, and individual notes can energise or calm the
various chakric centres.
And their relationships to
As well as being indicative of physical health, the colours on the
the seven colours of the spectrum aura are also indicative of personality type. One way of quickly
and easily seeing this on the aura is through a technique called
aura imaging. Tony Cash of the Integration Centre, Covent Garden,
is an aura-imaging expert and he uses computerised aura imaging
equipment, a recent development of Kirlian photography, to
produce print-outs of the human aura, together with a personality
interpretation. The data is gathered using a special handset that
measures the energy in and around the body through the hand.
Aura imaging researchers have found a strong correlation
between different colours in the aura and personality attributes
and states. For example red is the most physical and action
orientated, green is about communication balance and nature,
violet is intuitive artistic and visionary, yellow is analytical and
intellectual, and so on. Different colour types also have different
ways of staying energised and balanced.
At the invisible level, there are many forms of healing and
many psychological tools we can use to improve our health and
well-being. From Kirlian photography, to aura imaging, spiritual
healing, aromatherapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal
medicine, sound therapy - all these have a direct affect on the
vibration of the auric field of the individual and assist the re­
balancing of the self and encourage the healing process.
Although modern medicine and the medical establishment
remain hostile towards such 'alternative' methods of healing, it
In ascending order: should be remembered that our modern system of medicine - so­
called orthodox medicine - is a system based on the use of
chemical drugs and corrective surgery, and is actually less than
The Base Chakra - Red
200 years old. Acupuncture, herbal medicine, energy and colour
The Sacral Centre - Orange
healing however, are mentioned in ancient texts from all around
The Solar Plexus - Yellow
the world, North and South America, Africa, Australia, Ancient
The Heart Centre - Green
Egypt, India, China, Peru, Mexico - natural healing may even go
The Throat Chakra - Blue
back into pre-recorded history by as much as 60,000 years.
The Third Eye Centre - Purple
Whilst over 20,000 people die in the UK annually from the side
The Crown Chakra - Indigo
effects of chemical drugs, I have no record or knowledge in my
research material whatsoever of anyone suffering such fatalities
Fig. 9 with natural or alternative medicine.

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 The Mystic Mind The Human Mind

Furthermore, recent clinical trials conducted in Germany found Although we now know that these auric or electromagnetic fields
that the herbal remedy St John's Wort, a popular herbal folk remedy are a reality, and they have now been proven to exist beyond a
for depression, worked as effectively as any chemical drug for the shadow of doubt, you and I generally have no conscious
condition, many of which have extreme side effects. Researchers awareness whatsoever of their existence.
from Nottingham University hospital also found that gum from a These phenomena occur constantly as an ongoing reality and
tree on an Aegean island can cure stomach ulcers and stop their yet we are normally almost entirely ignorant of them. In the same
recurrence. Many other ancient herbal remedies are now coming out way that we have no conscious knowledge of this inner world, we
very favourably in strict clinical trials. are also equally unconscious of other complex and important
The obvious applications of natural medicine are profound, functions that are a pre-requisite to our existence.
and today more and more people are turning to 'alternative' An innumerable amount of functions are taking place within us
therapies. Of course, there is room in holistic medicine for both at this very moment of which we have no conscious knowledge.
ancient and modern medical techniques and I believe that they Somewhere, within the self, there is a knowledge and
should work together for the good of humanity, and to take a joint consciousness which exceeds our own individual conscious
responsibility for its health and welfare. awareness, and which is entirely and totally responsible for the
Our holistic selves, however, are in reality the sum total of the day-to-day running of our very being at the atomic level.
energy apparent on the pre-physical self, and this energy is in a
constant state of vibration and fluctuation. The primary agitating Whereas the conscious mind deals primarily with what we are
factor involved in this process of dynamic change is thought. As 'conscious' of in our daily lives, as interpreted by the five external
we have already seen, thought is the initiator of all things, senses, sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, the unconscious deals
attitudes, beliefs, habits, and actions. with the complexities of our inner worlds whilst we remain
Whatever we think has a direct affect on the vibrations of our blissfully unaware.
inner energy, and this energy in turn has a direct affect on the Carl Jung describes the self as the wholeness that transcends
physical body. By realising that negative thoughts create negative consciousness, and it was Jung who first brought the concept of
actions - which in turn create negative energy which often resides in conscious and unconscious to modern psychology. He also
the physical body, stored in the cells and tissues the self - the thinker pointed out that what could not be expressed or understood by the
is enabled to create literally positive 'new vibrations' for him or her conscious mind, could be comprehended by the unconscious and
turn will
self, which, in , filter onto the physical body as an improved that the unconscious communicated to the conscious mind in the
sense of health and well being. language of symbols.
The use of symbolism is apparent in the dream state, which is a
consciousness and unconsciousness direct result of unconscious activity, the cause of which is still little
understood by mainstream science and medicine. The symbolism
'The general theory of relativity shows us that our minds follow which filters through to the conscious mind however, can also
different rules than the real world does. A rational mind, based on represent organic, cellular and atomic forms, for which the
the impressions that it receives from its limited perspective, forms conscious mind has no reference, and which can appear
structures, which thereafter determine what it further will and will spontaneously in works of art, especially those of a spiritual
not accept freely. From that point on, regardless of how the real nature. The Shri Yantra, for instance - which Hans Jenny
world actually operates, the rational mind, following its self discovered with his tonoscope and which is a literal, visual
imposed rules, tries to superimpose on the real world its own representation of the sacred word 'Om', symbolising the moment
version of what must be.' of creation - was first painted over 3,000 years ago by Buddhist
The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav monks long before the tonoscope was even invented. How did the

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monks access the magical and meaningful Shri Yantra? Jung dimension and this is the pairing of opposite but complementary
claimed these images existed at a level within all humanity, known forces, epitomised in the Chinese symbol Tai Chi, or Yin and Yang
as the 'collective unconscious'. (see Figure 10).
Now, we know the conscious mind connects us to our Male and female, night and day, hot and cold, everything in the
everyday reality and our everyday world but we have also seen material dimension can be considered as consisting of two
that a universe exists within, a body of light, exists within us all, complementary but opposing forces, and the human brain has
which contains energies and intelligences for which we have no been designed and developed to perceive the forces of the
reference. universe in two distinct ways.
Although the conscious and the unconscious are two separate The left brain (Yang), which can be considered solar, active and
components of the mind, they are by no means equal. Scientific male, deals primarily with the conscious mind and its associated
tests also reveal that the conscious mind makes up only one logical, practical and analytical functions. The right brain, which
eleventh of the mind itself - whilst the unconscious, accounts for can be considered Lunar, receptive and feminine (Yin) , deals
the remaining ten-elevenths. primarily with the unconscious mind and its associated
We might compare the conscious mind to the tip of the imaginative, intuitive, and rhythmic functions.
iceberg, and the unconscious mind to the submerged portion In the late 1990's, researchers Bennett and Shaywitz, using
which makes up the major part of it. This inner energy, further­ electromagnetic resonancing cameras that highlight brain activity,
more, being the creative source of the self, has knowledge of all discovered startling differences in brain function in both men and
things and it is via the unconscious mind that the inner self can women. In laboratory conditions, experiments were conducted
be contacted. where an equal number of male and female volunteers were given
a series of questions and tasks to deal with. Without exception, it
Left and right brain was found that whilst the men responded virtually entirely with
their left brains to all the experimental stimuli, women responded
When you make the two as One, and the inside like the outside, with both halves of the brain simultaneously.
you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' Men's inability to deal with emotional and intuitive functions
Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus (in general) can be seen as a lack of activity in the right brain area.
Equally, women tend to use less of the left brain than men, and are
The human brain is actually not one, but two brains, composed of sometimes incapable of fully accessing or utilising the potential of
two distinct halves, simply known as the left brain and right brain. the left brain functions.
The left and right brain are connected by a single channel, which At the Cognitive Psychopharmacology Department at the
is composed of billions of nerve fibres and is known as the corpus Institute of Psychiatry in London, Dr Tonmoy Sharma has
collosum. discovered (also with the use of MRI, or magnetic resonance
The left brain governs the right side of the body, and deals i maging) that women are less able to perform logical functions like
primarily with intellectual, practical and analytical functions. It is map reading. Whereas the male test cases showed a large increase
considered conscious. The right brain governs the left part of the of activity in both areas of the brain, female responses were weak
body and deals primarily with imaginative and intuitive in both left and right brain. In verbal skills such as expressing
functions. It is considered unconscious. (If you are left handed, the feeling, however, the female brain lit up drastically on both sides,
reverse applies.) and the male test cases showed virtually no activity in
By the evolutionary design process of dividing the human comparison.
brain in two halves, we observe the replication of an important We need to utilise and express both sides of our brain for
natural phenomenon that appears consistently in the material ompletion and wholeness, but unfortunately, in society today, we

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The left and right brain have seen a collective suppression and underestimation of right
brain activity. This is often expressed directly as a suppression of
female qualities, and sometimes of women themselves who in
Seen from behind various religions and cultures are still considered 'inferior' to men.
However, Bennett and Shaywitz's research has now confirmed
that women function at a more complete, intuitive and sensitive
level than their male counterparts, but the emphasis on society
today is not on the mystical potential of the 'feminine' right brain,
but on intellectual and practical achievement. It is still, in essence,
a male-dominated, left-brain society.
The activity of the brain in both sexes however, can primarily
be quantified as consisting largely of electrical impulses which are
generated on the electromagnetic field before being processed by
the brain, which acts as a medium between energy and matter.
There are four main modes, or levels of consciousness; each of
which operates on a different frequency, or wave band.
Left brain: Right brain: The wave associated with normal waking consciousness is
Conscious Unconscious the Beta rhythm, which operates on a frequency between
Logical Imaginative approximately 13 and 30 Hz (cycles per second). The second
Analytical Intuitive wave is known as the Alpha rhythm, which operates on a
Male Female frequency between 8 and 13 Hz and is associated with meditation
and relaxation. The third wave is known as The Theta rhythm,
which operates on a frequency between 4 and 7 Hz and is
associated with the dream state. The fourth is the Delta rhythm,
which is the slowest and operates at up to 4 Hz. This is asso­
ciated with deep sleep.
In the US, Dr Daniel Kirsch has been a leading pioneer in the
field of electromedicine since 1972 and has subsequently devised
the Alpha Sim technology which, by harnessing neurons in the
brain, can attune the four brain waves to their correct
Yang Yin frequencies, thus reducing medical symptoms such as pain,
Active Receptive insomnia and stress.
Male Female In essence, the human mind is sensitive to electrical stimuli
Solar Lunar from both within the organism itself, from other objects and
Hot Cold beings, and from the external universe. It operates entirely on
Day The Tai Chi Night energy and is affected by all other energy sources.
Is the human mind really a part of one, all-encompassing
u niversal mind which is composed of some higher energy most
closely resembling pure consciousness, energy or light? If so, our
Fig. 10 minds could have unlimited power.

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Free from the constraints of the physical body, the mind, the
soul within us all, which is eternal light and all-powerful energy,
3
can merge with the universal mind whose power of creativity is Mind Over Matter
limitless. Connected and interconnected to all things, our
individual 'minds' retain and possesses a collective universal
knowledge, which goes beyond the limits of our everyday reality,
the definition of which has been imposed by our current limited
Western understanding. Can the interconnectedness of all things
explain much of the mystical and supernatural that we normally Hypnosis
reject as 'irrational', 'illogical' or unscientific?
If the 'mind' - as our current Western definition has it - is not When you go into a trance, you will experience a change in
limited to the physical organ of the brain itself, it must indeed awareness. Just as everybody is different in the way they experience
have depths and powers which as yet remain largely denied, life, so each person's way of experiencing trance is unique.'
discredited and divorced from our totality. The Hypnotic World of Paul McKenna, Paul McKenna
Can we explain, or scientifically verify these powers? In the

L
following chapters we shall continue to investigate the et us firstly imagine that the totality of our consciousness is
supernatural and paranormal powers of the human mind, but it is like a vast body of water eleven miles deep. In this analogy,
through clinical hypnosis that we firstly encounter and access our conscious awareness would span the surface of the
these deeper levels of consciousness and it is here that we begin to water, and a little under a mile down. The other ten miles deep
see the mystic mind unfolding. represents our unconscious minds.
Alternatively, let us imagine that the totality of our
'consciousness' is like an orange. Our conscious minds can be
compared to the skin, with its view of the surface and the external
universe, and the inner orange represents our minds at the
unconscious level, the totality of that which exists invisibly within
us all.
In our 'normal' daily 'awake' state of awareness or consciousness,
we are only aware of the surface of 'reality' that we perceive with our
five senses and our conscious minds. However, we know that there
exists within us all a non-physical reality, an auric field, which is
both consciousness and energy and which appears to contain all the
information regarding the individual soul and its form, and which
simultaneously transcends both space and time as we know it.
Of course, we are generally oblivious and ignorant of all this
memory and experience in our daily lives, concentrating as we do
on our never-ending quest for survival. Nonetheless, this
information exists within each of us at a universal and personal
level whether we know it or not.
There may be times in each of our lives when this 'ultra-reality'
breaks through to the conscious mind in flashes of insight, sudden

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awareness, a gut feeling, a vision or dream, but there are also ultra busy modem world. At this level of consciousness, we are
many tried and tested methods of deliberately altering the mode functioning on the Beta brain rhythm operating at a frequency
of consciousness so that the individual can perceive this inner between approximately 13-30 Hz.
world, and thereby access both supernatural experience, data and By focusing the mind on just one thing at a time, especially if it
information normally unavailable to the conscious mind. is any way calming or relaxing, like listening to music or sitting
How do we unlock the door and access the unconscious? quietly and listening to the water flowing in a river, or to the ebb
Hypnosis appears to be one important key. Under hypnosis, we and flow of the tide, our minds automatically start to switch
can remember details of events we aren't consciously aware of. frequencies. We start to drift into the relaxed Alpha rhythm
Under hypnosis we can have operations, control pain and heal operating on a frequency now between 8-1 3 Hz.
wounds. Under hypnosis we can go back in time to remember our The Alpha rhythm is associated with meditation and
childhood days, and even more remarkably, to remember past relaxation.
lives, as we shall see later in the chapter on reincarnation. Once we quieten the mind, and begin to relax, we begin to
Although only recently introduced into modem Western induce alpha waves. It is apparent from all the medical data on
psychological practice by Austrian physician Franz Mesmer, who hypnotic trance induction, that in this state, the conscious mind
believed that a power similar to magnetism existed in the human can be by-passed, and in so doing, automatically access deeper
body, many ancient cultures displayed knowledge of trance­ levels of consciousness and reality.
induction as a healing medium. The ancient Chinese, the Alpha wave brain rhythm is the key to the altered state.
Egyptians, the Indians, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Romans
all utilised this knowledge for spiritual and healing purposes. The By using relatively simple repetitive words, sounds, or sugges­
Hindu Veda describes similar procedures which are over 3,000 tions, which tend to alter brain wave patterns the hypnotist can
years old and which resemble modem hypnotic techniques to a induce an altered state of consciousness in the recipient, which we
large degree. call the hypnotic trance. By diverting the focus of mental attention
How is the hypnotic trance state induced? from the left brain to the right brain, from conscious to uncon­
Firstly, let us dispel one myth. Anyone can be hypnotised. scious, the hypnotist, or hypnotherapist can assist the hypnotised
In fact, we all at some time or another during the day pass into person in accessing otherwise unavailable parts of memory and
minor hypnotic trances. The simplest examples of when this can consciousness, thus overriding the restrictions and limitations of
occur quite naturally are - when we are staring out of a window, our conscious minds.
driving down a long stretch of motorway, watching your favourite For instance, there is well-documented film footage of
programme on TV, or simply being engrossed in something arachnophobics emerging after one hypnotherapy session tenderly
pleasant you enjoy doing. holding a large hairy tarantula.
Hopefully, as you read this book, you will also be absorbed Now, that is truly amazing!
enough to notice that you haven't noticed the normal sights and This technique of bypassing the normal conscious responses
sounds that you would if you weren't focused on doing something and tapping into a more powerful aspect of the psyche has been
else. used successfully in all areas of medical and psychological health,
Quite simply, the greater the focus - the greater the attention - and offers a wide range of potential in medical practice. It is only
the greater and deeper the trance. unfortunate that modem medicine does not place more value on
We all slip in minor hypnotic trances at regular intervals. Why these techniques that could prevent untold suffering and conserve
does this happen? · vital, and often expense resources.
Thoughts, as you know for yourself, are normally in constant Bums victims, for example, are remarkably responsive to early
motion, jumping from one thing to the next - especially in our hypnosis. Studies show that in a receptive hypnotic subject even

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the transferred suggestion that a hot object is placed on the skin conscious level, and are continually absorbing information of
will actually produce large painful blisters. This is despite the fact which the conscious mind has no apparent awareness.
that there is no actual burn, no thermal stimulation. At the same To access this immense unconscious data bank of information,
time, suggest that the skin is cool to a burns victim, especially we have to switch-off the intellectual apparatus, the medium for
within the first two hours after the burn, and it will prevent the conscious thought and perception - the left brain. We have to
usual development of inflammation. delude it, literally hypnotise it - lull it into a non-active phase. As
In all areas of medical practice, there are many applications for soon as we have shut this door, as soon as we put the conscious
hypnosis. In dentistry, nursing, psychiatry, child-birthing, anaes­ mind to rest, to sleep, the other door - the door into the
thesia and surgery, hypnosis has, without a doubt, proved that we unconscious - opens.
can transcend the limits of the conscious mind and access a far However, that is not to say that under hypnosis, the individual
more powerful form of consciousness. There are also enormous is asleep - far from it. It is the conscious mind that 'goes to sleep'
benefits in self-hypnosis. or becomes unconscious during this process, enabling the
Bernadine Coady, 58, originally from the West Indies and the unconscious to be activated, and the hypnotic subject to access
matron of a nursing home in Cambridgeshire, England, hitherto inaccessible data. The patient is fully aware of what is .
successfully completed a diploma course in self-hypnosis in 1994 happening, but on an altogether different level and different
from the British School of Hypnosis. Due for an operation in April mental perspective.
1999, she decided, for medical reasons, to use hypnosis instead of a
general anaesthetic. Altered states
Unfortunately, on the date in question, her hypnotist failed to
materialise. Undeterred, Bernadine decided to draw on her own To see a world in a grain of sand,
skills and hypnotised herself. Before surgery she spent just three And Heaven in a wild flower,
minutes quietly talking herself into an altered state of mind. She Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
told herself she would feel no pain and that if she did, she would And Eternity in an hour.
liken it to waves washing against a sea wall. Each time the pain William Blake
happened, she visualised it ebbing away, like the tide. Bernadine
had a successful operation anaesthetised only by the power of her What is the measurement of reality? Do we define reality as the
own mind. world we perceive when we are conscious, and relating to the
externalised material universe (left brain), or would we be better
How does hypnosis work? define it as the world of the imagination and the unconscious
Once the conscious mind is sufficiently relaxed, the brain starts to (right brain)?
produce alpha waves, which automatically induce dream or Although we know this inner world to exist, can you see or
trance-like states whereby the unconscious can be accessed. hear the atoms rotating and vibratmg within you? No. You cannot.
Once we access the unconscious, or right brain, we connect Certainly not with your conscious mind at least. Can you see or
within ourselves to a wealth, an unlimited reservoir, of hear the planets humming and creating ripples of energy in space
knowledge, memory and experience. If we are able to tap into the that are distorting your own auric-field? No. You cannot. Certainly
unconscious to such a degree, and bypass the confines of the not with your conscious mind at least.
conscious mind, what is it in fact that we are actually tapping To the five senses, to the conscious mind, a brick wall is always
into? a brick wall. Subject the brick wall to further scrutiny however and
It is obvious thus far that we contain information and data at you will find that it is made up of billions upon billions of atoms
the unconscious level that we are absolutely unaware of at the which consist of minute rotating bodies. These, given the nature of

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rotating atomic bodies, will be vibrating, gIvmg off electro­ race, religion and culture have been compelled to experience
magnetic energy, singing at the superstring level, and shining with something of this altered state, to experience something of this
a given quantity of inner light. inner universal energy, this inner reality, and to access higher
Our five senses perceive only the brick wall. states of consciousness.
But we know these things are realities. Science has confirmed Perhaps the oldest and earliest of these rituals was achieved by
it. We know all this invisible activity is going on everywhere the ingestion of psychoactive or hallucinogenic plant substances.
simultaneously. It's a fact. Our very own bodies are full of tiny At some time in our long distant past, human beings first
vibrating atoms which are giving off energy, sound, light and discovered, probably entirely by accident, that certain plants - that
colour. Can we hear or see them with our five senses - our certain hallucinogenic plant material - had an inherent ability to
conscious minds? No, we cannot. alter perception and consciousness in the individual to a profound
and remarkable degree. Normal consciousness and daily reality
So which is the reality, the brick wall, or the vibrating atoms? would be overtaken by the experience of increased perception and
There is a spiralling world of energy and light within our own the ability to see the normally invisible universe.
beings which is constantly reacting to levels of consciousness, The use of hallucinogenic plant material soon became a ritual
energy and vibrations which are normally beyond the reach of our of religious proportions in our primal tribal societies. Some of
everyday reality and our 'normal' perception. Who is to say which these religious plant rituals still survive to this day in the
is the more real? Just because the atoms are invisible to our normal rainforests of the Amazon and in remote parts of Africa and Asia.
sight does not mean they do not exist. Collecting and grinding special plant material which is either
Ultimately, reality should not imply either one or the other but, eaten, or ingested through the nasal cavities, the native shamans
rather, both. We are in effect, equally capable of perceiving two still connect to the spirit worlds in this way and in their dreams
entirely different worlds, the world of matter - external world - and trances they claim to be able to transcend the physical,
and the world of invisible radiating energy - internal world. material world, and enter into a luminous world of spirits and
As we have already seen, within every living being in the ancestors. In their trances they reconnect to nature, to the land,
world, animal, vegetable, or mineral, there is a microcosmic world and to their own inner luminous divinity.
that imitates the creative principles of the entire universe, that is, This desire to transcend the limitations of the perceptual world
light materialising itself, through ten dimensions (vibrations) until has remained in our genetic makeup and remains within the
it crystallises into form. The universe is essentially light psyche, and within our natural cultures to this day. Psychologist
materialised into form and, we too, are microcosmic amounts of David Clark believes that the massive social shift and revival of
light individualised into form. The amount of light (energy) the use of hallucinogenic drugs in the last thirty or forty years is
required to make the individual form is appropriate to the size of an unconscious attempt by the collective unconscious to reconnect
the form itself. to these inner spiritual realities, in search of a lost spirituality and
Although we are unable with the conscious mind to penetrate psychic wholeness.
these inner realities with our intellects and our five senses (left In his book The Doors of Perception the writer Aldous Huxley ­
brain) we are enabled to experience something of this inner world who spent half his own adult life researching the psychedelic and
of light, energy and higher dimensional realities by entering into mystical experience - writes of his own first experiences with
altered states of consciousness (right brain). Mescaline: 'I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living
In many cases the desire for altered states is primarily a light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing -
spiritual one which is driven by a need, either conscious or but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no
unconscious, for unity with the self. It is a desire to transcend the recurrent ebbs, but only a repeated flow from beauty to
world of duality and throughout human history, peoples of every heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning. Words

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like Grace and Transfiguration came to my mind. The beatific introduced to ever-more novel information, sensory input, and
Vision, Sat Chit Ananda, Being - Awareness - Bliss - for the first behaviour and thus is moved to higher and higher states of self­
time I understood, not on the verbal level, but precisely and reflection. The shamans are the vanguard of this creative advance.'
completely what those prodigious syllables referred to. I was in a He continues, 'The prolonged and repeated exposure to the
world where everything shone with the Inner Light, and was psychedelic experience, the Wholly Other rupture of the mundane
infinite in its significance.' plane caused by the hallucinogenic ritual ecstasy, acted steadily to
As a writer of some repute, Huxley was able to describe dissolve that portion of the psyche which we modems call the ego.
something of his experiences on Mescaline. A world of radiating Wherever and whenever the ego function began to form, it was
light, of a beauty beyond words. A world transcendent from the akin to a blockage in the energy of the psyche. The use of
material dimension. Somehow, hallucinogenic plant material is psychedelic plants in a context of shamanic initiation dissolved, as
able to bypass conscious 'normal' reality, and connects us to this it does today, the knotted structure of the ego into undifferentiated
inner world of light. How? feeling that Eastern philosophy calls the Tao.'
In 1952 it was discovered that there was a close similarity in the Millions of people all over the world who have experienced
chemical composition of mescaline (synthetic peyote cactus) and altered states of consciousness induced by psychoactive plants or
adrenaline. Further research revealed that lysergic acid (LSD) an drugs in the last thirty years also report similar feelings. There are
extremely potent hallucinogen derived from ergot, has a structural reports of a heightened sense of awareness and sensory
biochemical relationship to the others. perception, an increase in the experience of cosmic love and
It was subsequently discovered that adrenochrome, which is a beauty. A feeling of connectedness, or Oneness with all things.
by-product of the decomposition of adrenaline, could produce Time and space become distorted in general with expanded
several of the symptoms observed in mescaline intoxication. perception, and there is an increase in the phenomena of
Adrenochrome occurs spontaneously in the human body, which paranormal experiences such as telepathy, out-of-body experience,
means that we should all be capable of manufacturing minute and past-life memory.
quantities of a chemical that is known to cause profound and far Some people who have had mystical, religious or spiritual
reaching changes in consciousness. experiences during altered states induced by plant or synthetic
psychedelics, also report seeing everything as 'white light', or
Do hallucinogenic plants merely stimulate something that experiencing either cellular or cosmic phenomena usually invisible
already exists within our very being? In his book Food of the Gods to the naked eye such as auras, magnetic force fields, primary
Terence McKenna goes even further and suggests that cosmic rays and so on.
psychoactive plants may have been linked with early religious The psychoactive drugs do, indeed, seem to open hidden doors
belief, or even more profoundly, he attributes the development of within the mind. In the words of William Blake, mystic, visionary,
spiritual consciousness itself directly to psychoactive substances artist and writer - 'If the doors of perception were cleansed every­
and the subsequent mystical experiences they seemed so thing would appear to man as it is, infinite' .
dramatically to evoke. Whatever biochemical reactions take place between plant and
He writes - 'If, as suggested earlier, hallucinogens operate in human, however, the desire to experience the mystical is an
the natural environment as message-bearing molecules, integral part of our collective humanity.
exopheromones, then the relationship between primate and In his book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui way of knowledge
hallucinogenic plant signifies a transfer of information from one writer Carlos Castaneda, reporting on his anthropological studies
species to another. Where plant hallucinogens do not occur, with Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian who was well versed in the use and
cultural innovation occurs very slowly, if at all, but we have seen knowledge of mind altering hallucinogenic plants writes 'The
that in the presence of hallucinogens a culture is regularly importance of the plants was, for Don Juan their capacity to

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produce stages of peculiar perception in a human being. That he However, in the early sixties, the idea that LSD could cure
guided me into experiencing a sequence of these stages for the ordinary psychosis initiated a period of intense medical research
purpose of unfolding and validating his knowledge, I have called into the drug, which was first synthesised in 1938 by the Swiss
them 'states of non-ordinary reality', meaning unusual reality as scientist Dr Albert Hoffman. Conducted in both the UK and US,
opposed to the ordinary reality of everyday life. The distinction is unsuspecting patients were given large doses of LSD, with the
based on the inherent meaning of the states of non-ordinary reality. encouragement of psychologists such as RD Laing, on the basis
In the context of Don Juan's knowledge they were considered as that it opened up the mind more quickly than normal therapy
real, although their reality was differentiated from ordinary reality.' procedures. One doctor recommended his patient for LSD therapy
The desire to know something of this inner reality, to know and because it 'cured all ills'.
to experience something of our own divinity, is a real an inner Unfortunately the experimental does of the drug were far in
need that was once accounted for in social ritual in our early excess of recreational doses and in a series of experiments
nature religions. What was once considered a sacred and spiritual conducted by the CIA, unwitting patients were said to be given
necessity, however, is now condemned to illegality in the Western LSD for 77 days running. The Misuse of Drugs Act, however, has
world. now forced LSD - and the rest of the hallucinogens - firmly
The altered states induced by psychoactive, plants are now underground.
considered - in our left brain male dominated society - to be of no Cannabis, a mild euphoric and psychoactive officially classified
use to society whatsoever, either individually or collectively. as a medicinal herb, was once used as a cheap and ecological
Is it any wonder, therefore, that civilisation and society today in source of rope, paper and cloth, as well as being used for
general, is so bereft of an inner spirituality, plagued with thousands of years in herbal remedies and religious rituals. This
psychological and physical sickness, ecological sickness, spiralling was said to be due to its ability to simultaneously relax and
crime rates and pandemic negative socio-chemical drug abuse and expand the mind.
addiction? Virtually unheard of in the West fifty years ago, an estimated 5
The emphasis in these early cultures was to obtain wisdom million people in the UK alone use cannabis regularly for
from the plants, and to enter an altered state (right brain) . medicinal and /or recreational purposes. Some people, including
Although some ancient surviving rituals still exist in remote areas religious groups, also believe that cannabis has spiritual appli­
of the globe to this day, on the whole, we have lost our Shaman, cations. In the Rastafarian culture in particular, cannabis is seen as
Witch Doctors and our Medicine men, who performed the role of a sacred plant, a means of connecting to Jah (God), a way of
intermediaries between Heaven and Earth. stimulating the brain in a spiritual way. It is used regularly as a
Although we have, in the main, lost our connection with these religious sacrament and an aid to meditation and creativity in
ancient spiritual practices, they can never be lost entirely and many sub-religions and in many homes throughout the world.
forever. Despite the suppression of these timeless rituals in Europe But does cannabis really possess herbal medicinal, creative or
and America over the last few hundred years, in the last decades spiritual qualities? Cannabis Sativa is listed in every herbal
of this millennia we have witnessed a phenomenal and almost medical book as a rather profound little plant good for a large
instantaneous revival of these spiritual practices. variety of medical and nervous disorders. Its attributes include the
power to ease hysteria, insomnia, coughs, colds, nervous
The use of LSD from the sixties onwards, encouraged and guided disorders, women's pains (Queen Victoria once used it for her
by the likes of the late Timothy Leary (Tune in, turn on, drop out), PMT) and a variety of other disorders.
changed our society forever. Music, art, theatre culture evolved At the University of Tel Aviv new research data has now
and diversified at the same time as the collective unconscious was confirmed that a chemical present in cannabis is also naturally
undergoing a drastic evolution. present in the human brain itself.

84 85
 The Mystic Mind Mind Over Matter

Is cannabis a natural brain food? Sir Thomas Culpepper, the famous Sixteenth century herbalist,
The latest research conducted by the Israeli scientist Dr referred to the many qualities of cannabis, which he refers to as
Maschon Knoller, head of neurosurgery at the Tel Hashomer Hemp. He tells us that it is good for inflammations of the head, or
Hospital in Tel Aviv, has proved that a new drug extracted from any other parts. It eases the pain of gout, knots in the joints,
the cannabis plant could literally save the lives of brain injury sinews and is good for hot or dry coughs. The plant is also good
victims. Recent research actually confirms that the active for jaundice, eases colic and prevents nosebleeds. Cannabis is also
ingredient in cannabis has the ability to stop brain cells killing good for glaucoma, insomnia and nervous disorders.
themselves after serious head injury trauma, which normally leads Cannabis simultaneously has the advantage of being a mild
to paralysis and in the worst case scenario, to death. Scientists euphoric and psychoactive - no doubt because of its relaxing effect
have been searching for a way to prevent the damage in head on the brain and nerves, perhaps enabling us to induce alpha
injuries caused by a chain reaction that leads to this destruction of waves - and for this reason perhaps it is so currently popular.
irreplaceable cells. The answer seems to be in the cannabis plant. Do people smoke cannabis because they are naturally,
Asaf Yefet was one of the first patients to be saved by the new instinctively and biologically drawn to a plant which helps
drug called dexanabinol, which can prevent serious neurological stimulate and protect their own brain function in an extremely
handicaps. Having fallen from his horse and suffered severe head stressful world? Does smoking cannabis help relax the mind and
injuries, Asaf was taken to the Hashomer Hospital, where he was help induce more relaxing and spiritual alpha waves?
diagnosed as having a 3 percent chance of survival. He was Although until now society in general may consider the altered
instantly put on Dr Knoller's trial and within hours he was being state and the use of psychoactive plants of no social or cultural
given dexanabinol through a drip in an attempt to heal the validity whatsoever, I think, on the contrary, that these plants have
damage to his brain. The drug however, must be administered much to offer us in our lives and cultures and it is surely no
within two hours of the original injury. coincidence that the phenomenal progress made in the closing
After five days, Asaf finally regained consciousness and was years of this millennium coincides with the revival of these
able to walk home after three weeks in hospital. It took him three powerful plant substances.
months to make a full recovery, totally against all the odds. Are we seeing a spontaneous revival of an ancient form of
The active ingredient in cannabis seems to inhibit the tribal and shamanic ritual, which has now become rapidly incor­
production of glutamate, the scavenging enzyme usually apparent porated into our :modern culture?
in small quantities in the brain, which is responsible for the effects Many of the great artists, musicians, writers and inventors
of brain damage. Professor Aviv who also works on the of the 20th century who have contributed so much to the
programme believed that this plant could provide the main latter half of this millennium, have all, at their own admis­
ingredient for a miraculous cure for treating brain injuries, sion, participated in mind altering and expanding substances
haemorrhages and strokes. Bill Alker of the National Head Injury of one sort or another.
Association says dexanabinol, extracted from the long-sacred According to recent polls, more people take recreational
cannabis plant, could have a 'major impact' towards saving lives psychoactives in Britain than in any other country in Europe.
and preventing permanent disability. A third of all brain injury Is it a coincidence that the UK has the largest use of psycho­
victims die, whilst the rest are often confined to wheelchairs. active drugs, and at the same time has one of the most creative arts
Could this cure be useful in meningitis also? and music industries, not just in Europe, but also in the world?
Cannabis has also proved useful in multiple sclerosis and other Can this unique creativity be attributed in part to the use of plant
serious neurological disorders. The main quality attributed to can­ psychoactives?
nabis by its billions of users is that 'it relaxes me'. Like most medi­ Consumed daily by millions of people world-wide, despite
cinal herbs however, cannabis has a variety of other medical uses. every effort and attempt by the authorities - the 'status quo' - to

86 87
 The Mystic Mind Mind Over Matter

stop them, so many people are now consciously choosing to alter The current political attempt at prohibition of mind expanding
their consciousness with plant psychoactives on such a regular plants and drugs will never work - because humanity has always
basis, that it is proving to be a hopeless and impossible task to sought to expand its individual and collective consciousness since
prevent them. Of course it is. How on earth do you police billions the beginning of history as we know it. W hilst tobacco and alcohol
of people all round the world every day that want to relax, alter remain the biggest drug killers in society today, and yet remain
their brain waves and enter a more spiritual and imaginative state legal, the psychoactive plants that seem to evoke profound
of consciousness? And more importantly, does society have a creativity and spiritual development remain totally illegal.
moral right to do so? The desire for some form of spiritual 'ecstasy', however, is
In our primal societies - which did not suffer the crime and imbedded in our genetic and psycho-spiritual make up and it is
disorder that we do - the regular ritualistic ingestion of for this reason perhaps that the synthetic pseudo-psychoactive
psychoactive mind-expanding potions kept the individual and compound 'Ecstasy' which induces feelings of love and euphoria,
society balanced (left brain/ right brain). Perhaps, instead of trying has become part of the rituals of a new tribal culture. The plants,
to suppress what has been considered sacred and spiritual for so the drugs, the music.
long, we should embrace the altered state and perhaps we would Dance, trance, ecstasy. It's in our blood; it's in our make up. To
see a reduction in what, today, has become a glaring social and suppress this desire for spiritual ecstasy in not only unhealthy to
spiritual malaise, and would hopefully see an increase in the society as a whole, it is unhealthy to the individual. The memory
number of happy, whole and well adjusted individuals. of our collective tribal past and our relationship with nature, the
knowledge that within the self is a state of being which transcends
Many still unconsciously seek this inner wholeness and spiritual normal waking consciousness, is etched eternally on our own
experience of inner religious ecstasy through the psychedelic genetic make up. Our individual DNA carries the collective
experience, but whereas the seeker of spiritual wisdom would memory of human history - and it is pumping around in our veins
once have been guided through his profound and intense to this day.
experience by a 'shaman', one who knew of the spirit worlds who Although Aldous Huxley was convinced that the key to solving
could guide the seeker through the labyrinth, the seeker today is the world's problems lay in changing the individual through
forced into a criminal underworld and sub-culture where mind mystical enlightenment and the psychedelic experience, I think it
expanding drugs are often sold alongside deadly mind numbing will be some time yet before the rest of the world catches on.
narcotics - such as heroin and crack-cocaine - and where they are
left to explore these altered states of consciousness alone. Sound, music and sacred dance
However, the psychedelic experience is, by its very nature an
intense and powerful one, and one not to be undertaken lightly. As 'Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the
in all walks of life, there are always casualties and the line between mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life
illumination and psychosis a thin one. to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is
W hatever the risks, however, there are always those who are good, just and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but
prepared to take them in search of spiritual knowledge, in search nevertheless dazzling, passionate and eternal form.'
of the altered state. This drive to explore the boundaries of inner Plato
space is, with the right guidance, no more or less dangerous that
the desire to expand the boundaries of outer space. Both are Because everything is energy, or vibrations, music has been a
willing pioneers and explorers who know the risks and who take powerful tool in spiritual and religious ritual for altering states of
them in order to expand our understanding, whether it be of inner consciousness since our first nature religions evolved, and to this
or outer worlds. day, in every religion world-wide, including the monotheistic

88 89
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 CHAPTER V.

Geology of the Oasis.

Previous
The earliest geological observations made in Baharia
geological Oasis appear to have been those of Cailliaud,[35] who
work.
visited the district in 1820, and recorded the occurrence
of volcanic rocks within the depression.
In 1874 the celebrated Rohlfs Expedition was organised, and in
that and the succeeding year traversed large portions of the Libyan
Desert. The work of this Expedition, forms indeed, the basis of our
knowledge of the geology of Egypt generally. The eminent geologist
and palæontologist of that Expedition, Karl A. Zittel, did not,
however, visit Baharia, and the only information with regard to the
geology of this oasis was derived from specimens collected by Prof.
Ascherson. After examining these, Zittel stated[36] that the floor of
the oasis consisted of sandstones, marls, etc., presenting a
considerable resemblance to the lower part of the Overwegi stage;
[37] but concluded, that as they were succeeded at a very short
interval by Nummulitic Limestone, precluding the possibility of the
higher Cretaceous beds, except in a very attenuated form, they must
be of Tertiary age.
In 1894, Capt. H. G. Lyons, R.E.,[38] visited Baharia, and 5 miles
N.N.E. of Zubbo discovered a bed containing small examples of
Exogyra. These were examined by Prof. Zittel and referred to as
undersized specimens of Exogyra Overwegi Beyr.[39] This discovery
of Capt. Lyons’ thus showed the series to be undoubtedly of Upper
Cretaceous age.
In the latest edition of Prof. Zittel’s map, the depression was
shown as consisting of Cretaceous beds surrounded by an Eocene
plateau, which was also supposed to separate it from the oasis of
Farafra to the south.

Geological
A glance at Plate I will be sufficient to show that the
Survey, work of the Geological Survey has resulted in large and
Oct.-Dec. important additions to our knowledge of this oasis. The
1897.
Eocene is seen to form the surrounding plateau only on
the north; while the Cretaceous, consisting of several well-marked
divisions, occupies not only the depression itself, but forms part of
the surrounding plateaux on the east and west sides, and is
continuous with that of Farafra to the south. Moreover, the relations
of the two great formations of Cretaceous and Eocene are now
shown to be those of unconformability and overlap. The actual
extent of volcanic rocks and post-Eocene lacustrine deposits, the
latter a newly-discovered and important series, is now shown for the
first time.[40] Important folding has been detected and numerous
organic remains have been discovered.
The deposits met with in the district admit of classification as
follows:—
RECENT.
1. Sand-dunes, salines, and superficial deposits.

POST EOCENE (Oligocene?).

2. Basalt and Dolerite intrusions.
3. Ferruginous sandstones and quartzites, with
limonite and pisolitic iron-ore, probably lacustrine
in origin.

EOCENE (Middle-Lower.)
Lower Mokattam-Upper ⎰ Limestones with Nummulites, Operculina, Echinids,
4.
Libyan. ⎱ Lucina, etc.

UPPER CRETACEOUS.
5. Thick-bedded White Chalk and grey crystalline
Danian |
limestone.
Cenomanian ⎱ 6. Limestones and variegated sandstones.
(Some Turonian or ⎰
Senonian).
Cenomanian | 7. Sandstones, clays and marls.

These groups will now be dealt with in succession, commencing

with the oldest.
 UPPER CRETACEOUS.

Cenomanian.

7.—Sandstones, Clays and Marls—These, the lowest and oldest

beds, form the floor and parts of the walls of the depression. They
are best developed and exposed in the north end, where their
maximum thickness is about 170 metres; the base of the series is
not seen, and thus their total thickness cannot be estimated. In the
north part of the oasis they are capped, with apparent
conformability, by Eocene limestones, although an intervening band
of limestone-grit may occasionally occur. In the south, the series is
followed by the higher Cretaceous divisions, while in the isolated hills
within the depression these beds are capped either by Eocene
limestones, by basalt or dolerite, or by Post-Eocene ferruginous
sandstones and quartzites.
They consist of friable false-bedded variegated sands and
sandstones, with harder dark-brown ferruginous bands, alternating
with sandy shales and clays, passing through every gradation. Some
of the sandstones are micaceous.
The clays are frequently saliferous, and bands of fibrous gypsum
are occasionally seen.
Large well-formed groups of barytes crystals are occasionally
found in the sandstones of the oasis-floor, and hard thin vein-like
masses of a sandstone, in which the cementing material is barytes,
are frequently met with in the eastern part. The weathering of these
veins, which are evidently produced by the action of infiltrated
solutions in cracks, gives rise to the peculiar spheroidal belted
nodules which often strew the ground, and of which the existence
has been already mentioned by Ascherson and Zittel.
Although these strata are, as a rule, unfossiliferous, organic
remains are common in certain beds, and especially in the dark-
brown ferruginous concretionary bands of the sandstones. The
commonest form is Exogyra, individuals of which are found crowded
together in some bands; in most cases they are pseudomorphs in
ironstone.
In the hills between Mandisha and El Bawitti this series consists
of soft false-bedded variegated sands and sandstones with
ferruginous bands, alternating with sandy shales, the whole locally
showing a slight westerly dip of between 3° and 7°. Some of the
sandstones contain flakes of colourless mica. The whole series is
capped and protected by a hard bed of dolerite, which has been
intruded along a bedding plane into the series, and now forms the
summit of these hills.
The following section was measured about 4 kilometres west of
Mandisha—
Top. Metres.
More or less columnar dolerite, much broken up by weathering. 10
Sandstones, sandy clays; unfossiliferous 65
Ferruginous sandstone with casts of Exogyra; sandrock and
sandstone, with ferruginous unfossiliferous bands 10

The section is much obscured by downwash and talus of angular

fragments of dolerite, sand, shale, etc. This downwash of shale and
clay is often covered by a hard coating of salt and sand cemented
together, sometimes having the appearance of regular beds.
The following is a detailed section measured at the well-marked
isolated conical hill near the western escarpment, 10 kilometres
north-east of El Qasr (See Plate I.) The series is here capped by 6
metres of nodular and hard compact limestone with Nummulites,
Operculina, Lucina, etc., of Lower Eocene (Libyan series) age.
Top. (Hard compact limestone with Nummulites, etc., Eocene). Metres.
Shaly clays with ferruginous bands, occasionally containing
Exogyra shells; alternations of shales and shaly sandstones. 7·4
Soft shaly and crumbly sandstones, with many hard 21·0
ferruginous bands and shaly clays. In the sandstone occur
 solid vertical rods of ironstone 5 centimetres in diameter,
with concentric structure
Gray marls with plant-stems and leaves 1·5
Yellow sandstone, well-marked thick compact bed, false-
bedded 11·5
Hard ferruginous band with fish-remains 0·2
Gray shales 1·5
Soft beds of crumbly sand, harder sand-rock, with clayey
layers and ferruginous bands 6·0
Shaly clays with dark-red ferruginous sandy layers, with
gasteropod and Exogyra shells. Green shaly sandstone on
top, and gray sandy clays below 16·0
White and gray-bedded sand-rock 9·0
Obscured beds, one containing small Exogyra and
gasteropods. 15·0
Shaly sandstone with hard reddish nodular ferruginous bands
containing gasteropods and Exogyra. 3·5
Sandy beds, hidden by downwash 6·0
Ferruginous bands containing Exogyra casts
⎱
Sandy shaly clay, false-bedded, with white sand-rock. Plant- 20·0
⎰
remains
Bed of white sand-rock 1·0
Thinly laminated gray shale 2·0
Reddish-brown nodular ferruginous band 0·2
Sandy or clayey beds, obscured by downwash ⎱
9·0
Sandy clay ⎰
Sandy beds with dark-brown ferruginous bands 13·0
Sandstone with hard ferruginous bands, full of Exogyra 6·0
Sandy bed, crowded with well-preserved Exogyra shells 0·2
Yellow sandy clay with numerous Exogyra casts 3·0
Dark carbonaceous shale with obscure plant-remains ⎱
15·0
Sandy beds with bone-fragments ⎰
Floor of Oasis. 168·0[41]

At the extreme north end of the depression the cliffs and the
lower part of the conspicuous dark hill, Jebel Horabi, are composed
of shales, clays and sandstones belonging to this series. The cliffs
are capped by Eocene limestone-grits and limestone as in the
section just described. The upper part of Jebel Horabi, however,
consists of a mass of ironstone, often coarsely pisolitic, with some
limonite, and red and yellow ochre. This iron-ore appears to replace
the sandy beds more or less irregularly at the base, but the great
mass of mineral above is probably a later and quite distinct deposit.
(Vide under Post-Eocene). Traces of shells occur in places.
In the isolated, limestone-capped hill (Plate I), 6½ kilometres
north-west of Ain el Haiss (the northern spring) these beds are more
fossiliferous than usual.
Top. (Limestone, the basal bed of the intermediate series).
Limestone, the basal bed of the intermediate series.
Sandy beds with hard brown ferruginous concretionary bands,
containing numerous casts of Cyprimeria (Artemis?) Arca,
Cucullæa, Odostomopsis abeitrensis, Baculites aff. syriacus, and ⎫
50
Neolobites Vibrayeanus ⎬
m.
⎭
Clays, often shaly
Hard ferruginous sandstone with pockets of clean white sand

Numerous other sections at different points were examined and

measured. Such a series is naturally very variable, and individual
beds do not maintain their characters over wide limits, so that
correlation of different sections is not possible, except in the
roughest manner.
In the southern part of the depression fossils are more frequent,
otherwise the beds are very similar.
The series under consideration is by no means poor in organic
remains, although the latter are more or less restricted to certain
bands and localities. No doubt most of the fossil shells have been
removed by solution, etc., as those now existing are generally
preserved as pseudomorphs in limonite.
The following is a list of fossils which have been obtained from
this series:—[42]
Cucullæa sp. Odostomopsis abeitrensis.
 Arca sp. Natica sp.
Exogyra flabellata. Baculites (syriacus?)
E. mermeti. Neolobites vibrayeanus.
Venus (Artemis?) sp. Fish-teeth and bones.
Silicified wood and plant-remains (including leaves of Dicotyledons).

As regards the age of these beds, it has already been mentioned

that the discovery of Exogyra by Capt. Lyons some years ago, in the
basal bands of the series, showed them at least to be Cretaceous,
although their correlation with the Overwegi stage, on the
supposition that the specimens collected were referable to E.
Overwegi, is now shown to be inadmissible. The fairly extensive
assemblage of organic remains obtained from this and the overlying
series enables the age of the beds to be determined with accuracy,
and Dr. Blanckenhorn, who had the first opportunity of making a
careful examination of the collection, has pronounced them to be
Cenomanian.[43]
The general lithological character of the beds and the prevalence
of false-bedded sandstones containing in places silicified wood and
plant-remains, including leaves of large trees, point to the conclusion
that the beds of this series were deposited in fairly shallow water,
perhaps in an estuary, at no great distance from the land.

6.—Limestones and Variegated Sandstones.—In the walls of the

south end of the oasis, the series just described is always overlain by
a bed of hard, and usually more or less crystalline, limestone. This
limestone forms the lowest member of the series now under
discussion. At the extreme southern end of the oasis, on the western
side, this basal limestone forms a narrow platform, of only some 200
metres width, separating the respective escarpments of the two
series 6 and 7. On the same side further north the upper escarpment
is usually further back, and in some localities the beds do not form a
single well-marked escarpment at all.
The series also occurs forming a line of hills within the
depression, these hills owing their existence to a remarkable
syncline, by which the beds in question have been folded down to
the level of the floor of the depression.
The beds of the series form, as a rule, a well-marked group,
individual beds often being traceable for great distances and
correlable in different parts of the oasis.
The group as a whole consists of alternations of brown
limestone[44] (with grey crystalline varieties) and variegated
sandstones and clayey beds. A typical section, as exposed on the
west scarp in N. lat. 27° 53′, is as follows:—
Top. (Buff-coloured limestone and white chalk of Division 5.) Metres.
1. Soft brown sandstones and sandy beds, much obscured 7·6
2. Sandy beds, passing up into a very hard grey concretionary
sandstone, showing ripple-marks 4·6
3. Thin-bedded dark sandstones, mostly very hard 1·5
4. Hard compact thick-bedded grey sandstone, very
concretionary, false-bedded 2·1
5. Shaly sandy beds with ferruginous concretions 1·5
6. Brown impure limestone 0·6
7. Soft variegated sandy beds and sandstone 9·0
8. Rather friable buff-coloured sandstone, more or less false-
bedded, with peculiar iron-staining 6·0
9. Gray rather concretionary sandstone, with dark-brown
ferruginous bands 3·0
10. Brown crystalline limestone with calcite, passing into harder
grayish crystalline limestone, flinty at top 6·1
11. Gray marls and shaly clays 3·0
12. Brown crystalline limestone 0·6
45·6
Base. (Sandstones and clays of Division 7.)

In Jebel Hefhuf, the long narrow ridge-shaped hill a few

kilometres south-east of El Bawitti (Plate VII), the beds of this series
are implicated in the fold, and are found tilted at angles of 30 and
40 degrees. They here consist of a considerable thickness of
crystalline limestone, calcareous grits, shaly clays and sandstones;
the softer beds always form a gully between the harder.
The following were noticed at a point about 7 kilometres from
the western end of the ridge:—
Top. Metres.
Calcareous grit, usually siliceous, with bones (often a true bone-
bed).
⎫
Sandy clays, etc., with silicified wood[45] ⎪
Thick-bedded brown sandstone, siliceous and ferruginous in ⎬ 21
part. ⎪
Green and gray iron-stained sandy clays ⎭
Thick-bedded brown crystalline limestone
Brown crystalline limestone with calcite cavities near base 24
Base. 45

Below come the clays and sandstones of the lowest series, No. 7.
In the section above, the limestones are usually too crystalline to
show any traces of organic remains, although numerous casts of
shells occur at certain points. The calcareous grit, a very well-
marked bed, has been observed at points widely distant within the
oasis; in places it is a true bone-bed,[46] often highly siliceous and
passing into a hard quartzite. Its occurrence here, at the top of the
Cenomanian series and below the White Chalk (to be described
later) is of great interest, as its position shows it to be probably
homotaxial with the bone-beds of Dakhla Oasis[47] and the Eastern
Desert,[48] where they are of Campanian age. The bone-beds on this
horizon must thus have been deposited over an enormous area.
If followed round from the south end of the oasis along the east
scarp, the beds of this division are found to gradually become more
and more calcareous, consisting often almost entirely of limestone,
[49] and to dip more and more to the south-east, till in the
neighbourhood of the large sandstone-hill near the scarp in latitude
28° 5′, where the tilting reaches its maximum, they dip at 45° and
partly disappear under the sandy covering of the ground between
the hill and the scarp. Further north the dip grows less and the beds
re-appear, forming the top of the main scarp at the oasis-edge.
The organic remains in Division 6 include ammonites, echinids,
with Ostrea, Exogyra and masses of Serpulæ; fossil wood and
fragments of bone also occur. These fossils are in places abundant,
some bands being almost entirely formed of the shells of Exogyra.
The ammonites, although apparently specifically identical with those
of the lower series, attain a much greater size. The assemblage of
forms and the prevalence of bands of limestone point to deeper
water conditions than the foregoing underlying series.
The following is a list of forms obtained as far as determined:—
Rhabdocidaris, probably nov. sp.
Diplopodia marticensis.
Heterodiadema libycum.
Toxaster radula.
Hemiaster lusitanicus (roachensis?)
Serpula (Galeolaria) filiformis.
Pinna, probably nov. sp. Corbula sp.
**Inoceramus cripsi. **Natica sp.
Ostrea sp. Tylostoma syriaca.
Exogyra flabellata. Turritella nov. sp. aff. nodosa.
E. olisiponensis. **Turritella sp.
E. mermeti. Cerithium sp.
Plicatula Reynesi. Pterodonta aff. inflata.
Spondylus (?) Murex.
Modiola sp. **Fusus sp.
Cardium sp. **Drillia pleurotomoides.
Isocardia sp.
Nautilus Munieri.
**Pachydiscus peramplus.
Neolobites vibrayeanus.
 [**] Indicative of a somewhat later age than Cenomanian.

The above fauna taken as a whole has a decided Cenomanian

aspect, although some of the forms (marked **) are indicative of a
somewhat later age, i.e., Turonian and Senonian. As the next bed
above is the Danian White Chalk, it is probable that some of the
upper beds of this series form a transitional stage between the
Cenomanian and Danian. The presence of the bone-bed, as already
mentioned probably of the same age as the Dakhla and Eastern
Desert bone-beds, i.e., Campanian, supports this view. In any case,
however, the great thickness of beds, of Senonian-Danian age, of
the southern oases of Dakhla and Kharga, including the bone-beds,
the Exogyra Overwegi series and the ash-gray shales, is here
apparently only represented by a few metres of deposits.

DANIAN.

5. Thick-bedded White Chalk and grey crystalline limestone.—

This series conformably overlies the upper member of the last. On
the west side the chalk forms a well-marked, snow-white, tortuous
escarpment, lying at a considerable distance (5 to 10 kilometres)
from the oasis-wall. Towards the south, however, it approaches the
depression, its escarpment following immediately above and behind
that of the underlying series. South of the extreme end of the
depression proper, the chalk escarpment forms a long narrow bay,
the furthest point of which is 20 kilometres distant. Thence it runs
northwards, so that to the south-east of the depression the beds of
the series are seen at some little distance from the oasis-edge, but
further north they appear to come to the edge and to overlie the
brown limestone as part of the main scarp in the neighbourhood of
the large hill already mentioned in latitude 28° 5′ N., where the
strata dip so steeply into the plateau. There is some difficulty in
correlating the beds of this group on the two sides of the oasis, for
while on the west they are chalky and in places fossiliferous, being
only in part altered to a crystalline limestone, on the east, doubtless
owing to the folding which produced the strong dipping already
referred to, they are almost entirely composed of hard crystalline
and horny greyish-white limestone, apparently devoid of fossils.
(Vide p. 60).
Within the depression it is probable that the White Chalk is
represented in part by some of the hard gray crystalline limestone in
the synclinal fold of Jebel Hefhuf.
On the west and south-west sides of the depression the White
Chalk covers a considerable area, which is characterized by its rough
surface and by numerous depressions, some of considerable size,
eroded by wind-borne sand. To the south it extends to Farafra, being
continuous with the chalk of that oasis.
Lithologically, on the west side of the oasis, the series is
represented by a thick-bedded, snow-white, pure foraminiferal chalk,
30 to 45 metres thick, partly altered in the upper part into hard gray
crystalline limestone. It was probably deposited in water of
considerable depth.
On the west side of the depression the White Chalk yielded a fair
assemblage of fossil-remains, the chief among which were great
numbers of corals. In the upper part Nautili are occasionally met
with, while Spirorbis, Pecten, Gryphæa, fragments of Inoceramus
and other shells are fairly common. In addition echinids occur
sparingly and sharks’ teeth are seen here and there. One of the best
fossil localities is 24 kilometres north of Ain el Haiss.
The following is a list of those obtained:—
Cælosmilia. Exogyra overwegi.
Linthia nov. sp. Pecten farafrensis.
Spirorbis. Spondylus nov. sp. aff. S. Dutempleanus.
Inoceramus. Nautilus sp.
Gryphæa vesicularis Corax pristodontus.
As regards the age of this White Chalk the fossil facies has a very
young Cretaceous aspect. Zittel[50] has already shown that the
White Chalk of the Libyan Desert, studied by him in Farafra, Dakhla
and Kharga, is Danian, and the identity of the chalk of Baharia with
that of those oases was satisfactorily proved on the traverse from
the latter oasis to Farafra.
The White Chalk brings our description of the Cretaceous series
of Baharia to a close. As will be shown, it is overlain unconformably
by Eocene deposits. Throughout the deposition of the Cretaceous in
this area it is clear from the character of the beds that the sea-floor
had been continually sinking. After the deposition of the white chalk
subsidence probably ceased and the area became one of elevation,
the Cretaceous beds rising to form land. During this elevation much
folding must have taken place, and subsequently gradual subsidence
set in until in Lower Eocene times the area again became marine
and the deposition of the rocks now to be described began to take
place.
 EOCENE.

Upper Libyan—Lower Mokattam.[51]

4. Limestones with Nummulites and Operculina.—In the north

part of the oasis, both in the walls and in the isolated hills within the
depression, the lower Cenomanian beds, the “Sandstones, clays and
marls,” are directly overlain by buff-coloured or yellowish limestone
of Eocene age, containing Nummulites, Operculina, Ostrea, etc. The
beds of the two series being horizontal, the junction is one of
apparent conformability, but in many localities the base of the
Eocene is marked by a bed of limestone-grit, indicating the break in
continuity of deposition which is known to have occurred from the
respective ages of the beds in question and from a study of the
same beds further to the south.
In a traverse across the plateau to the west of Bawitti,
Operculina-limestones with nummulites were found to form the
surface of the desert. Again on the traverse from Maghagha to the
oasis, already described, no Cretaceous beds were crossed, so that
the plateau N.N.E. and N.W. of the northern end of the oasis is
entirely formed of Eocene rocks. On the east side, however, no
certain evidence of Eocene age in the beds capping the scarp has
been found south of the fault which cuts the scarp as the
prolongation of the sharp syncline of Jebel Hefhuf.
Further south, on the west side, a very dissimilar succession was
found to that on the north. Here at a distance of 20 kilometres from
the oasis wall, at a point 30 kilometres north-west of Ain el Haiss,
the uppermost member of the Cretaceous, the White Chalk itself, is
overlain by a hard gray crystalline limestone containing an
abundance of Nummulites and Operculina, with Lucina, Fusus and
Natica. The actual junction of the two series is here difficult to
detect, as the White Chalk is itself altered in its upper part into a
hard gray crystalline limestone, simulating the Eocene beds
themselves, and there is little difference of dip between the two
series. The following foraminifera have been determined from this
locality by Mr. F. Chapman:—[52]
Textularia? gramen N. discorbina
Globigerina bulloides N. sub-discorbina
Operculina complanata, var. Orbitoides (Discocycloides)
discoidea dispansa
Nummulites gizehensis, var. Pachoi (O. dilabida, Schwager).
N. curvispira

Within the synclinal fold at one point (Plate VII), 17 kilometres

north-east of Ain el Haiss, Eocene echinids and nummulites were
found, but the beds from which they had weathered had been
almost completely removed by denudation. The echinids have been
recognized by Blanckenhorn as the following:—
Porocidaris Schmedeli.
Echinocyamus luciana.
Sismondia Sæmanni.

The following two species of nummulites have been determined

by Chapman:—
Nummulites Beaumonti.
N. sub-Beaumonti.

Beds of
In the scarp due north of Harra, the Cenomanian
east side of sandstones and clays with Exogyra mermeti and E.
depression. africana are conformably overlain by a hard yellow
crystalline limestone containing small nummulites; so that here the
Eocene clearly overlies the Cenomanian beds. If this upper limestone
bed be followed southwards along the scarp (see the sections on
Plate VIII) it appears to be continuous as far as the road leading to
Ain Haswi, where the ground forming the bottom of the oasis-
depression rises to the level of the limestone, and the clays are
completely hidden by sand and limestone-debris. There commences
here, however, a considerable thickening of the limestones, and hard
brown limestones, with calcite-filled cavities, and some soft earthy
beds come in; so that here we have the beginning of the series (No
6) which has been described as recurring on the opposite scarp in
the same latitude, and which forms the hills north-west of Harra.
The topmost bed of the scarp is a hard crystalline limestone, which
appears continuous with that containing nummulites further north,
and the top of the plateau is therefore probably here also Eocene. A
little further south, the plateau-surface is covered with countless
small hills of white chalky limestones with siliceous beds; these beds
were searched without result for fossils, but as they overlie the hard
crystalline rock, above mentioned as probably Eocene, they must be
of Tertiary age, and therefore do not correspond with the Danian
white chalk of the western plateau. As the large hill near the plateau
east-north-east of Ain el Haiss is approached, the thickening of the
lower crystalline brown and grayish-white limestones is very marked,
and here they probably comprise both Cenomanian and Danian
rocks; but the dip south-eastward is so strong that the Eocene must
be close to the edge of the plateau, while the folding doubtless
accounts for the crystalline nature of the rocks and their poverty in
fossils. South of the large hill, a second plateau is met with at a
distance of about a kilometre eastward from the main scarp; this
second plateau consists of soft chalky beds similar to those above-
mentioned, underlain by clays and sandstones, while the main scarp
still exhibits brown and grayish crystalline limestones, though both
the dip and the thickness of these beds become gradually smaller. As
the south point of the oasis is approached the limestones thin out,
till at the end only a few beds of hard yellow-brown limestone occur
in the clays; these beds are continuous with those containing
Cenomanian fossils on the west plateau. Thus at the south-east
portion of the scarp the Danian is either absent, or represented by
very thin beds at a little distance from the oasis. It might be
suggested that the soft chalky limestones which form the second or
upper plateau correspond with the Danian white chalk of the west
side; but several considerations tend to negative this view. In the
first place, it has been mentioned above that similar soft chalky
limestones occur at about the same horizon further north, where
they overlie beds which are probably Eocene. Again, on the line
followed from the south end of the oasis of Minia, nummulites were
found in abundance only a few kilometres away from the oasis. And
lastly, these chalky limestones never show folding comparable with
that of the lower beds, a fact which seems nearly conclusive in view
of the unconformity known to exist at other points between the
Cretaceous and the Eocene.
If the Eocene age assigned above to the chalky limestones of the
eastern plateau be correct, it is possible that the clays and
sandstones which underlie and separate them from the Cretaceous
limestones may represent the Esna Shales of the more southern
oases, though sandstones are elsewhere absent from this series.

Unconformity and overlap.—From the above description of the

Eocene rocks of Baharia we see that their relation to the underlying
Cretaceous system is one of unconformable overlap.[53] In the north
part of the oasis we have the Eocene (Up. Lib.-Low. Mok.) overlying
directly the lower beds of the Cenomanian; further south, on the
west, the same beds overlie the White Chalk of Danian age, and no
doubt at an intermediate point the Eocene overlies the intermediate
beds. On the east side, though the actual demarcation of the Eocene
and Cretaceous beds is a matter of some difficulty, the difference of
dip between the two systems in some localities is well marked.
It seems certain then that after the deposition of the Cretaceous
beds in this region, elevation took place with a considerable amount
of folding (which will be noticed fully further on). The land thus
formed underwent a marked denudation before subsidence took it
below the surface of the sea and allowed of the deposition of the
Eocene deposits just described.

POST-EOCENE (Oligocene?).

3. Ferruginous grits and quartzites, with limonite and pisolitic

iron-ore. As already mentioned, one of the most striking
topographical features of the oasis is the number of isolated black,
and for the most part perfectly conical, hills within the depression.
These hills are composed of the lower Cenomanian sandstones and
clays of the Cretaceous, and owe their existence and dark colour to
protecting caps of very hard, dark, ferruginous, silicified grits and
quartzites, often associated with limonite. The first impression
obtained on examining these rocks, is that they are merely silicified
and ferruginous bands of the sandstone series below, which forms
the general oasis-floor and part of the walls and hills.
A careful investigation of the deposits over a large area, however,
shows this view to be untenable; for while in most of the isolated
conical hills within the depression, the beds in question cap the
lower sandstones and clays (No. 7) of the Cenomanian, on a portion
of the edge of the western plateau they cap the bed of limestone
(basal member of No. 6) which itself caps the lower sandstones and
clays. (Plate I). There must therefore be an unconformable overlap
below the two series.
This is further borne out by the facts, first, that the ferruginous
silicified grit has never been observed to pass under the limestone in
the walls of the oasis, although found capping hills in close
proximity; and secondly, that the limestone never occurs below the
ferruginous silicified grit in the isolated conical hills. The former
would happen if the deposit in question represented the top of the
sandstones and clays, the latter if it represented the next bed above
the limestone.
Furthermore, these beds are found capping hills close to the
oasis-wall, and occurring on exactly the same level as the limestone
capping the latter, suggesting at first sight some sort of connection
between the two; the beds are, however, so entirely different that it
is not possible to imagine the one to be an altered condition of the
other; moreover, if such were so, the gradual passage of limestone
to the ferruginous beds should be visible, but such has never been
observed.
The only possible view of the origin of these beds, consistent
with the above facts, is that they represent a far younger deposit
than the strata on which they lie, a deposit formed in fact in a slight
depression in the Eocene and Cretaceous rocks, long anterior to the
time when erosion was carving out the area to its present form. The
pisolitic character of the iron-ore of Jebel Horabi and the usually
large amount of ferruginous material, as well as the general
character of the beds, indicate shallow-water lacustrine deposition
and precipitation. No organic remains have as yet been observed in
these deposits.
It should be mentioned here that it is frequently impossible to
draw any sharp of line of demarcation between these deposits and
the undoubted Cenomanian sandstones below, when they rest on
the latter in the hills within the depression. The sandstones
themselves are frequently ferruginous and limonitic in their upper
layers. This, however, is easily explained on the supposition that
there would have been considerable infiltration into these porous
sandstones forming the lake-floor, with consequent deposition of
ferruginous material.
Lithologically the beds in question present a considerable
similarity to the quartzites and hard ferruginous sandstones of Jebel
el Ghudda and Gar el Hamra on the road from Feshn to the oasis
(ante, p. 18, 20), and also to the beds of Jebel Ahmar, near Cairo,
and in parts of the Fayum. In the absence of evidence of their
precise age, they may be provisionally classed as Oligocene.

Jebel
A short description of these beds in a few special
Horabi. localities will now be given.
This well-marked hill, situated at the extreme northerly end of
the depression, consists of a mass of ferruginous material, including
limonite, pisolitic iron-ore, red and yellow ochre, etc., lying on a
series of sandy shales, clays and sandstones belonging to the
Cenomanian (Series No. 7). Thin bands of limonite, etc., occur in the
clays and sandstones, but the great mass of mineral appears to form
a distinct deposit capping, and in part replacing, the former. The
iron-ore occurs in every stage of purity.
 Samples from Jebel Horabi, analysed by Mr. A. Lucas, gave the
following results:—
Pisolitic ironstone Ferric oxide 58·68% ≡ 41·07% iron.
Limonite „ 81·06% ≡ 58·84% „

Isolated
These hills all show the same characters, with the
hills in exception of one or two capped by limestone or basalt.
centre of
Oasis. They consist of sandstones, with occasional shales
and clayey bands, of the Cenomanian series (No. 7)
capped by a hard brown or black silicified ferruginous grit, which
frequently passes into a typical quartzite. This cap may be of any
thickness up to some seven or eight metres. Its junction with the
sandstones below is generally obscured by the mass of talus lying on
the slopes, but where visible it is difficult to draw any line of
demarcation between the two, there being in some cases a more or
less gradual increase of hardness and ferruginous material from the
upper part of the sandstones upwards. In one hill an ordinary yellow
sandstone was observed, when followed up, to contain an increasing
number of ferruginous concretions, at first in isolated lumps, or
strings, but higher in such quantity as to present the appearance of
a breccia, which latter gradually passed up into a hard dense mass
of ferruginous quartzite. This at first sight suggested a similar age
for the whole rock-section, but would be quite explicable on the
supposition of infiltration, as suggested above.

2.—Basalt and Dolerite.—Three large hills in the north-west of

the oasis, notably Jebel Mayesra, Jebel Mandisha, and the northern
half of Jebel Hefhuf, are capped with a basic volcanic rock, the
existence of which was noted by Cailliaud[54] so long ago as 1820.
Ascherson[55] further studied the distribution of this rock in 1876,
and collected specimens which were carefully examined later by
Prof. Zirkel.[56] The latter diagnosed the rock as a typical
plagioclase-basalt, strongly resembling that of the Giant’s Causeway;
it is finely holocrystalline, containing augite, plagioclase and olivine,
with some magnetite and ilmenite, and very sparing flakes of biotite;
the resemblance of the rock to basaltic intrusions in Tripoli and at
Abu Zabel (between Cairo and Bilbeis) is remarked on by Zittel and
Ascherson, and the opinion that it was intruded into the sandstones
in later Tertiary times is put forward.
The basaltic intrusions occur at four separate points in the oasis,
representing two more or less inclusive areas; the total area covered
by the rock is about 14 square kilometres. The intrusion appears to
have been in the form of laccolites; in Jebel Hefhuf the basalt is
intrusively interbedded in the Cenomanian, between the lower
sandstones and the overlying limestone, both of which rocks show
distinct signs of contact-metamorphism. The sandstone shows
generally very little alteration, though in some places much
hardened; while the limestone is highly crystalline and of a beautiful
red colour near the igneous rock. The crystalline nature is, however,
more due to folding than to contact-metamorphism, as it occurs in
all the limestones of the neighbourhood. In several places the
vertical pipes, up which the molten mass was thrust, with
disturbance of the sandstone, can be traced; and dykes are
occasionally seen near the edge of the deposits. The section seen in
Jebel Mandisha is as follows:—
Top. Metres.
Columnar basalt and dolerite, much broken up by weathering 9·2
Sandstones, clays and sandy shales 64·0
Ferruginous sandstones with casts of Exogyra (thin bed) ⎱
9·2
Sand-rock and sandstone with ferruginous bands ⎰
82·4

In a small ⅂-shaped hill in lat. 28° 46½′ N., long. 28° 48′ E. of G.
a mass of basalt occurs which appears to be mainly the remains of a
large pipe or “neck.” The igneous rock here shows flow-structure at
the sides, being hard and crystalline in the centre. It has altered the
sandstones at the contact very considerably, converting them into a
greenish rock full of chalcedony. Here, as in the other deposits, the
basalt shows distinct columnar jointing and the resulting blocks
weather into spheroidal masses where exposed.
The igneous rocks of Baharia are therefore Post-Cretaceous in
age and it seems reasonable to assume, as suggested by Mayer-
Eymar,[57] that they are of Lower Oligocene age, contemporaneous
with the basalt-sheets of the Fayum, of Abu Roash and the desert to
the west, and of Abu Zabel. The andesite neck passed on the road
between Maghagha and the oasis (p. 22) and the larger masses of
Bahnessa and other places in the Western Desert were likewise
probably erupted at the same time.
 RECENT.

1.—Sand-dunes, Salines and Superficial Deposits.

Blown Sand, carried along by the prevailing north and north-west

winds, is heaped up against all obstacles in its path, such as hills and
vegetation; sometimes it is carried over these obstacles, only to fall
and accumulate in the wind-shadow on the other side. The
cultivated lands of the villages are for the most part surrounded by
sand-accumulations, and some low dunes occur in various parts of
the oasis; the positions of the latter will be better gathered from the
maps than from any mere description. Baharia itself is more free
from sand than any of the oases to the south of it, but even here the
deposits of this material are very considerable, and as already
mentioned extensive sand-dunes occur on the desert to the east, at
a short distance from the depression.

Salt-swamps occur in the north of the oasis, having probably

been produced by the overflowing of springs forming lagoons, which
have taken the salt from the surrounding clays, the water from the
springs only containing a small percentage of salt. The salt-swamps
round Mandisha are now covered with a thin rough dry white crust
of salt mixed with clay and sand; when this is broken through a salty
sludge is seen to exist below, sometimes in a quite liquid state; the
depth of sludge is probably not very great, but there is enough to
immerse a camel up to its neck, as was found by experience during
the survey.

Clays.—Sandy clays of recent origin occur at isolated spots on the

floor of the oasis, notably near Ain el Haiss, where they are now
being rapidly removed by the action of the wind. Many of the springs
are also depositing a certain amount of clay on the low ground.

The Tectonics of the oasis.

The rocks of the district have undergone a considerable amount

of disturbance along certain lines.
The most important fold is a well-marked syncline beginning at
the west scarp in lat. 28° 7′ N. and running across the depression in
a direction 30° north of east until it strikes the eastern escarpment
in lat. 28° 23′. This synclinal fold is remarkably sharp, the width
being generally only a few hundred metres, but the dips so strong as
to bring the limestone beds nearly vertical in places. Along the line
of fold we find the whole of the series 6 and 7 brought down to the
level of the floor of the oasis, but on either side the beds so quickly
regain their horizontal position that no trace of the folding is to be
seen (Plate VII). The White Chalk in these folds is always altered by
pressure into a hard crystalline limestone, as are also the limestones
of the Cenomanian below. The fold is not actually continuous across
the area, but is in reality made up of a number of long narrow
ellipsoidal depressions, or cup-shaped hills, in which the end-dips are
always less strong than those of the sides. At its most southerly
point, where it runs into the scarp 14 kilometres north-west of Ain el
Haiss, the two series 6 and 7 are found dipping northwards at angles
up to 40° (and at one spot 78°). On the other side of the fold the
same beds dip southwards at only 5°, and the appearance of the
fold at this point suggests the existence of an accompanying fault
(fig. 1).
 Fig. 1.—Section across Syncline, 12½ kilometres N.W. of Ain Haiss.
a. Shales and sandstones with Exogyra, Arca, Cucullaea, etc., Neolobites
vibrayeanus, etc. b. Hard crystalline limestone with flints. c. Sandstone passing
into hard quartzite. d. Variegated sandstones with bands of sandy limestone. e.
Hard dark-brown siliceous crystalline limestone. f. Calcareous grit (≡ bone-bed)
passing in part into sandstone, and capped by hard crystalline limestone with
shells.

Between this point and Jebel Hefhuf the fold is marked by a line
of low isolated limestone-capped, cup-shaped hills, the largest and
best marked of which is 16 kilometres north of Ain el Haiss. Here the
maximum dip amounts to 55° on the western side of the basin-
shaped hill.
Jebel Hefhuf is, perhaps, the most striking part of the fold. The
southern portion owes its existence entirely to this syncline,
consisting as it does of a long, and remarkably narrow, ridge-shaped
hill of folded rocks. Dips of 50° and 60° are common in places, and
the limestones implicated in the fold are usually rendered hard and
highly crystalline. The highest crystalline limestones in Jebel Hefhuf
probably represent the White Chalk, but the beds are too crystalline
to show any traces of fossils.
It is noteworthy that all the basaltic rocks of the oasis occur on
the north-west side, and at no great distance from this syncline. To
the north-east of Jebel Hefhuf the line of fold passes apparently
between the range of elongated hills west of Harra and the larger
somewhat triangular hill to the north of it, and although the
limestones and clays of these hills show a considerable amount of
folding they do not exhibit it in so striking a manner as Jebel Hefhuf.
Continuing the line till it cuts the last scarp, we arrive at a
prominent sandstone headland, in the gullies on either side of which
the folding can be very well seen. To the west of the headland the
beds are thrown sharply up in the valley so as to be nearly vertical;
this up-throw has resulted in an actual fault, the denuded edges of
the vertical sandstone and clay-beds being overlain by a horizontal
bed of limonite. The nose of the promontory is of sandstone, this
being thrown up somewhat on the south-east side of the fault; the
upper sandstone and clay beds dip south-east again somewhat
sharply on the face of the headland and come down to the level of
the oasis floor. It would seem therefore that at this point we have
the syncline between two sharp anticlines, the north western of
which has culminated in the fault.
The southern end of the oasis is cut out in a well-marked gentle
anticline.
On the west side from Ain el Haiss southwards the whole
succession of Cretaceous rocks dip steadily to the north-west at from
four to five degrees, while those on the east scarp show an equally
constant dip to the south-east, which increases further north, till in
the neighbourhood of lat. 28° 5′ its magnitude reaches 45°; it
becomes gradually less further northwards. Owing to this strong
tilting of the beds, the large hill near the scarp consists entirely of
sandstones and clays with a cap of quartzite and limonite, although
nearly or quite as high as the scarp; the beds here recover their
nearly horizontal position at a very short distance north-west of the
line of folding, as do also those of the plateau on the other side the
line.
Besides the above-described disturbances of the beds, there are
some smaller local disturbances which are extremely well-marked.
Thus for instance the large flat-topped hill in N. lat 28° 7′ and E.
long. 28° 48′, like several smaller hills E.S.E. of it, bears a cap of
limestones, although its height is less than that of the sandstone
hills around it. The section of this hill at its western side is as
follows:—
Top. Metres.
Silicified limestone 0·6
Hard impure chalk 2·4
Silicified limestone 1·2
Pale green soft sandy and clayey limestone 6·1
Sandy ferruginous conglomerate 0·3
Clays with sandy and ferruginous layers, extending
approximately 22·0
to oasis floor.
32·6

The beds are horizontal, and the neighbouring smaller hills which
possess a similar limestone covering are precisely of the same
height. It would seem impossible to account for these limestone
caps in the midst of higher sandstone hills except by assuming that
they mark the positions of islands, subsequently denuded, in the
post-Eocene lake which deposited the limonite caps on the other
hills; at the same time they evidently represent part of a synclinal
fold, though the horizontal position and non-crystalline character of
the beds show that this syncline must have been wide and shallow.
It is scarcely possible to think there can have been a locally
calcareous deposit from the lake which generally deposited the
sandstone and limonite; the sudden transition from the black
sandstone and limonite of the surrounding hills to the snow-white
limestones of those under consideration is so strongly marked in the
field as to forbid such a supposition. At the same time, no fossils
were found in the beds, so they cannot be satisfactorily correlated
with the limestones of the oasis-scarps, and they are of somewhat
variable character at different points of the hill.
It is evident then that in the south part of the depression the
Cretaceous beds as a whole form a large flat anticline, which is
continuous with that of Farafra to the south.[58] This bears out the
statement of Capt. H. G. Lyons,[59] some years ago, that he believed
Baharia and Farafra Oases to lie on an anticlinal at right angles to
that of Dakhla and Kharga. The anticlinal and synclinal folds of
Baharia are parallel and were evidently produced by the same earth-
movements.

Age of the
Within the oasis-area too, some other traces of
folding. folding are visible; in lat. 28° 11′ N., long. 29° 1′ E. are
two small hills of clays and sandstones (the latter locally
green in colour), the beds of which dip about 30° E. and W.
respectively, showing a local anticline whose axis runs nearly north-
and-south. In this neighbourhood, as in the oasis generally, it is not
possible to trace the folding in the beds of the low ground, owing to
its thick sandy covering.
Another point of disturbance is on the western plateau in N. lat.
28° 26′, E. long. 28° 49′, some 11½ kilometres north-west of El
Qasr. Here (Fig. 2) along a N.E. and S.W. line, crossing an otherwise
level plateau, the Eocene beds, and probably also the Cretaceous
below, are thrown up in a sharp anticlinal fold, which however, is not
continuous but consists of a number of isolated bulges, with dips up
to 50°. The plateau at this point consists of Eocene Operculina and
Nummulitic limestone, and the effect of the anticlinal fold is to
expose the beds of sandstone below, which, as already mentioned,
are probably Cretaceous.

Fig. 2.—Sketch showing probable relations of Eocene and Cretaceous in

anticline on Western Desert plateau, 11½ kilometres N.W. of El Qasr.
Eocene.—1. Grey crystalline limestone. 2. Hard white gritty chalky limestone. 3.
Grey calcareous sandstone. 4. Limestone with Nummulites and Operculina.
Upper Cretaceous.—5. Calcareous-grit. 6. White sandstone. 7. Crystalline
limestone. 8. Cenomanian clays and sandstones with Exogyra flabellata, E.
Mermeti and E. olisiponensis, etc.
 With regard to the age of the tectonic movements which
produced the synclinal and anticlinal folds of Baharia, it must be
admitted that it is not easy to speak with absolute certainty, owing
to want of evidence at one or two points. It appears certain,
however, that they belong to two great movements, separated by a
vast interval in time. The first disturbance of the beds would appear
to have taken place at the end of the Cretaceous period, when it
seems probable that the area in question underwent upheaval into
dry land. It seems tenable that it was during this movement that the
large flat anticline, so well seen in the south part of Baharia and in
the north of Farafra, was produced, as the Eocene beds forming the
plateau immediately to the east of the Cretaceous beds do not show
any sign of disturbance.[60] The subsiding Cretaceous land, on which
these Eocene deposits were laid down, must therefore have had the
form of a long, flat, irregular ridge of anticlinal structure, probably
extending from Dakhla through the oases of Farafra and Baharia to
Abu Roash.
The other folds of Baharia, being parallel to the anticline just
dealt with, would at first sight appear to date from the same
movement. With regard to the syncline, however, two observations
appear which force us to consider its age as very much later; these
are, first, the occurrence of nummulites and other Eocene fossils
within the fold at a point 16 kilometres north of Ain el Haiss, and
secondly, the fact that at the northern extremity of the fold, where it
meets the eastern scarp, the Eocene beds are affected. With regard
to the first of these, the beds themselves, from which the fossils had
been derived, were not observed to be actually affected by the fold,
and therefore the evidence here, although suggestive, is not
conclusive. The evidence at the north end of the fold, however, if
substantiated, proves that the age of the fold must be post-Eocene.
With regard to the anticlinal fold on the north-western plateau there
is no question, as this clearly affects the Eocene beds; it also is
parallel to the other folds. These folds affecting Eocene beds, lead us
to the conclusion that there was another period of possibly ever
more important earth-movements, of the exact date of which we