Are you willing to wind things up a notch? All righty! Here’s your next assignment. We’re going to work on getting you up to speed. Strap yourself in. I’m going to get you to suppose that reincarnation is unlimited in another way. Imagine that it doesn’t wait for your life to end before it kicks in. Ooh hell, hold on now!
The idea, which we've already encountered, is that during sleep you become another person. There are a couple of things that that would require.
First, is that your hardware can miraculously reboot. Previous memories get wiped and replaced with another set so thoroughly that there’s no sign. After your new identity has uploaded, you behave exactly as he or she (or dolphin) would. Yes, it’s a mind bender, but I’m sure you’ll get over it. You’d better, because we’re about to open up the throttle.
The second thing to grasp is that improved-Persil reincarnation serves to slot us, Matrix-like, into the next life as fully-formed adults, so that our consciousness is not obliged to grow up from babyhood.
There are more steps to go. I eased you into this thought experiment by putting you to sleep, as it were. I had the change of identity occur at night. I now propose that we can fast-forward reincarnation. I’m going to have it happen more frequently than once a day.
We’ve no choice. The engine would surely stall if we had to hang about twenty-four-hour intervals. There’s no such clock, in my opinion. Such a mechanism would be far too cumbersome.
Besides, we humans don’t pass our days so regularly and clear-cut. We live in every time zone. Some of us work night-shift, or attend all-night parties. We’re up at all hours of the day and night. So prepare yourself, if you would (and if you can) for a huge jump in quantum mechanics: one small step for man; a giant leap for mankind.
Consider that reincarnation may occur, not after an entire lifetime, not at the end of each day, but after a fraction of a second. Is that beyond you? Here, let me help.
Think of any two people. Oh, I don’t know . . . Van Gogh and Einstein? Envisage the self-knowledge, awareness of self, or consciousness of one darting into the other. Shift their identities. And then an instant later, switch them back.
Did you manage to? Do it again and again. Make them go back and forth like a see-saw on steroids. Speed it up until it’s like they’re vibrating. Half a second, a quarter, an eighth . . . Can you imagine it?
Don’t worry about the mechanics, the whys and wherefores, the logistics and the dizziness. (I’ll get you a pill for the nausea.) They are not your concern. Just try to envisage the process of flitting into someone else’s shoes intact with all that person’s memories, history, genetic makeup, and everything else.
Here’s another way to picture it. Compare this process to the principle behind moving pictures. You know how film is put together frame by frame. Flash twenty-five images per second upon the screen (less in some cartoons, where you can perceive the jerkiness) and there you have it: the illusion of movement come to life. The movie seems to run continuously, but that is only an illusion. What if the same rule applied to how we sensed our being-ness? What if life was a series of rapid-fire stills?
Okay, okay, just give me a minute. Is this where you’re going? Einstein and Van Gogh are a dual identity. Their personalities dither. Each is filled to the bursting point with self-awareness. Each believes himself unique and separate. Yet, for the eighteen or so years that their lives overlap, they are joined more tightly than any pair of Siamese twins. Nevertheless, they remain utterly unaware of the connection.
We could suppose that Van Gogh and Einstein (and me too, yes) comprise some sort of living strand. Should we co-opt the term ‘string theory’? Is that what we’ve got—chains of people hooked up? Am I building up to a collection of of these reincarnation threads?
No, not exactly. You haven’t quite got the cat by the tail. This isn’t a question of who gets to ‘bag’ which being – I grabbed Van Gogh and Einstein, so you get to nab Da Vinci and Tom Cruise. No, no, no! Think larger and grander. Think of the bigger picture.
Here’s what I suggest that you do. Imagine that the rate of reincarnation were increased. Turn that dial. Increase our speed up to a rate that makes it ridiculous to hang onto the term reincarnation—it’s too much of a mouthful to work properly at this velocity. From now on I’ll refer to what we’re doing as flitzing. Think of it as reincarnation on broadband.
‘But why?’ you ask, ‘For what the reason? Don’t you know that you’re giving me a headache?’
Yes, I appreciate that this isn’t easy. Think of this as a particularly tough lesson in quantum consciousness. Though it’s tough to get your brain around these concepts, a thorough understanding of the underlying principles will set you free. It will confer upon you unbelievable power.
Just as matter and energy can be broken down into the smallest of particles, wavelets, bits of string or what have you, let’s say that consciousness is also quantifiable. Fine, roll your eyes at me. I told you that I read science fiction. What possible reason could I have to take us into La-la-land territory? Hold your horses, I say. Po statements, remember?
I’m talking not just billionths of a second, but billionths of billionths. Nanos, picos and further. And at every miniscule point in time, a flitz occurs. Yes, you read me rightly. At every conceivable instant one is another person—no, I’ll expand the field—another being.
I propose that one’s soul is one spark of consciousness that leaps about the universe in quantum-sized instants—shall we call them quarks, quirks, snips or snarks? I’m open to suggestions. I want your spark of consciousness to have time to flitz a circuit of every centre of consciousness, into every creature, plant or life form, so that it seemed it had never gone missing. This arrangement would permit the illusion, in all of the life forms that it touches, that he, she or it is continuously, uniquely and separately alive.
You see where I’m headed, don’t you? I’m about to string together these nothing moments into an unbroken, unbreaking wave. Our perception of the present, our most intimate experience of being, is itself the greatest testament of, argument for and proof of quantum-mechanical-reincarnation. Ism is hidden clockwork that jerks life along by the bootstraps.
We insist on regarding ourselves as individuals with separate souls living independent lives. We act as though we are discrete—fenced off from one another by date and location. We see our lifespans as a linear progression of personally relevant events.
But I put it to you that we’re finger puppets, and that together we make up one enormous hand. Can your self-awareness stretch that ultimate octave? We’re alone, and yet we’re totally together, like tube feet on a starfish, or the cilia on a single-celled organism. We’ve got to get it all together if we want to work in concert. The question is how.
So . . . let me get this straight. What you’re saying, I think, is that there’s just us—WE—plus God, right? Us and Him—a kind of duality. But that doesn't help me understand what God wants. What is it that he wants us—ME—to do? What is my—OUR—purpose?
Ah, you still imagine yourself separate.
Whoa now! You’re not going to . . . I mean, you can’t mean . . . Are you telling me . . .?
Just what the hell is this—some unholy text? Is the writer the devil in disguise? Is that what’s going on here? Is he (or I) fooling with your mind? Or am I the Antichrist come for your soul? Danger, Will Robertson!
Who knows? It could be—I mean I could be. It depends what the people who thought up that term had in mind. Could they have seen any of this coming? Certainly the ideas contained herein could change a person’s thinking. They could make you see the world very differently. You might decide that everything you thought you knew is way off the mark. And if what I say causes you to discard your religious convictions, then I suppose that I lay myself open to the charge.
But would that be such a bad thing? Aren’t you halfway there already? Western society has already largely weaned itself away from the idea of a vengeful and jealous Dog. Come on now, really. Is there anyone who still seriously believes in hell, damnation and original sin, and a red-skinned devil with horns on his head pointing a pitchfork? The sooner we escape the clutches of such crackpot witchery the better, it seems to me.
