by Iona Miller
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the
distinction between past, present and future is only a
stubborn, persistent illusion."
"Great Mystery of
In the Qabala, the Ruach is an aspect of soul which
reflects the intellectual and moral capacity.
As a vehicle of consciousness, the
Ruach allows us the possibility of consciousness journeys
through the realm of Universal Mind. Since this aspect of soul dies
with the body, it is not the ultimate vehicle of spiritual
liberation. That final transcendence takes place in the Neshamah.
But the Ruach does allow us to make conceptual models of our
experience of reality. These Ruachian models help us navigate
our own local space/time continuum. We can be thinking,
contemplating, or meditating in our own homes, and mentally be far,
far away. Which truth is real? Imaginal journeys are as old as the
human race. They have helped us make advances in both mysticism and
Scientists may know nothing about the Ruach, as such. Yet
when they make their "thought-experiments" and speculate on the
nature of the universe, they enter the same realm as the mystics and
philosophers: the causal plane. These thought-experiments are
virtual experiences in a mental/imaginal reality. They can have real
consequences in real-time. They yield previously enfolded
information about the nature of consensus reality. Sometimes they
happen in the dreaming state. They are equally revealing in the
waking and waking-dream states.
Einstein made a thought-experiment that was experiential and
instructive. He imagined himself riding along on a beam of light,
and "discovered" the theory of relativity. By keeping the parameters
of his postulated world consistent, he simply went on this journey
and noticed what happened along the way. This is not so different
from the process of magical path-working.
We wonder how Einstein
imagined his "astral body" and "causal body"?
The Ruach, and its conceptual models allow us to roam widely
through the universe, from sub-atomic to macrocosmic realms.
Consciousness maps allow us to "familiarize" ourselves with the
territory. They describe the signposts, milestones, and landmarks of
our imaginal journeys. The Tree of Life is one such roadmap from the
grossly physical to the sublime. Another model of reality is that
offered by current sciences such as physics and astronomy.
Sometimes the scientific and the mystical find a common boundary or
area of interest. The prospect of time travel or escape from time is
one such area. Come now, out of your physical body, into a realm of
speculative potential. Journey with us to a vision of reality which
transcends our physical constraints. Here science and philosophy
We invite you to "Look at it this way..."
Matter curves space - the greater the density of matter, the greater
the curvature. The greater the curvature, the slower time runs.
First known as the "forbidden sphere", associated with a region of
dense matter, the radius of a "wormhole" in space baffled scientists
who could not deduce its significance. Einstein was the first
to postulate that if you went through, you would wind up in another
universe. Wormholes were discovered mathematically through general
relativity, and subsequently found in space as
black holes. The
surface of a black hole is known as an event horizon. There are
four-types of stellar-collapse black holes.
Wormholes that were not associated with black holes were described
as potentially passable, but only if a special "balm" was applied to
the sides of the wormhole. Scientists called this balm "exotic
This sounds very much like an alchemical fantasy, but it
didn't remain one for long.
"The details of making the wormhole
into a time tunnel have now been worked out. All you need to do
is move one end of the wormhole at high speed (close to the
speed of light) or place it in a strong gravitational field.
Either will do the trick. Once this is done, you could go in one
end and come out the other at an earlier time. Or you could go
in the other end, go through it in the opposite direction, and
come out in the future."
This is easily accomplished as a
thought-experiment, but presents problems for the physical body. But
it does open speculation on what vehicles of consciousness could
actually make such a journey unscathed. As our medical and
technological sciences progress, who knows what mysterious forms
humans might come to inhabit which could make these journeys
As for the mystics, they have already tackled the problem. The Body
of Light is a vehicle of consciousness appropriate for such travel.
Light is an electromagnetic wave. We can speculate on identifying
with a quantum of light as a vehicle for our consciousness, and
imagine escaping the constraints of 3-space. In the world of
relativity, light has the greatest degree of freedom.
Mystics admonish us to detach and dis-identify from our bodies,
emotions, thoughts, and ego. They say that time, space, and the
separate identity are illusions - only a virtual reality, not
absolute Truth. Our day-to-day reality is a relative one.
The process of detaching is what mystics mean when they suggest we
They encourage a process of "spiritual body building".
If we imagine this body smaller and smaller, we enter the sub-atomic
realm of quantum theory. We are no longer subject to to the
classical laws of physics and biology. We have a model for making
quantum leaps - at least with the mind, or in the Ruach. This
action takes place in the "virtual space" of Universal Mind.
Newton asserted that space/time was absolute, but he was never
entirely satisfied with his own theory. Newton was an alchemist as
well as a scientist, although this gets downplayed in his life
story. As an alchemist he would be concerned with the search for the
god-head in matter - its sacred underpinnings, known in Qabala as
The sacred side of matter and geometry is an intuitive apprehension.
When Einstein was about 12, he came across a geometry book...He
later referred to it as his "holy geometry" book. Clearly, he had a
reverent attitude even as a small child toward the awesome elegance
of mathematics and the universe.
Later, Einstein struggled with the problem of time dilation and
nearly abandoned the problem. Then, one night after incubating the
problem for months, he awoke with the answer that not even space was
absolute. He concluded that the only absolute of nature was the
speed of light. Because things shrink in the direction of motion
relative to a fixed observer at high speed, you get the strange
result that object shrink to nothing!
Space bends and twists. The geometry of space is non-Euclidean.
Relativity paints a picture of the space/time continuum that is
counter-intuitive and cannot be imagined by normal human senses,
which are based on three-dimensional perception. Four-dimensional
space is also known as hyper-space, or 4-space. In terms of normal
experience, it appears to us as non-space.
We can assume that our three-dimensional space is surrounded by
hyperspace, yet we have no idea how to enter it. In hyperspace, time
is either non-existent or it does not "pass."
Reimann's "Space Theory of Matter" contained four hypotheses:
Small regions of space are, in
fact, of a nature analogous to little hills on a surface
which is, on the average, flat; namely, that that ordinary
laws of geometry are not valid in them.
This property of being curved or
distorted is continually being passed on from one portion of
space to another after the matter of a wave.
The variation of the curvature
of space is what really happens in the phenomena which we
call the motion of matter.
In the physical world nothing
else takes place but this variation.
If space is curved, it presents the
possibility of providing short-cuts through hyperspace. Einstein
showed that matter caused space, or causes space-time to curve.
Einstein called it "the happiest thought of his life," when he
realized the effect of gravitational and inertial mass on
We now see that space-time can become curved by the matter within
it. We cannot see this curvature directly, but we can see its
effects. The extent of the curvature depends on the amount of matter
present, or more explicitly, on the density of matter.
The Universe is about 18 billion years old. But time should not be
compared to a river, always flowing in one direction, and we are not
voyagers on a raft on that river. This makes no sense in terms of
physics' formulas which do not have a "now" in them. They deal only
with time intervals. Time is not a physical thing like a fluid that
we can examine. It is just a dimension like the dimensions of space.
This is demonstrated, mathematically, by antiparticles, which can be
considered as particles moving backward in time.
We know from statistical mechanics and the second law of
thermodynamics, or entropy, that the disorganization of any closed
physical system always increases. Yet, entropy is a statistical
concept. It doesn't exist for individual atoms or molecules. Recent
advances in chaos theory have shown the process of probability
generates strange attractors, which in turn create self-generating
order from chaotic systems. The expansion of the universe provides
one physical arrow of time. Another is the thermodynamic arrow which
depends on entropy, while the cosmological arrow is based on
If there is a beginning to time, is there an end?
Reversing the expansion of the universe,
we come up with Planck time, the big crunch prior to the big
bang. Here, general relativity breaks down at the quantum level. The
end of time is visualized as a sort of foam like soap bubbles.
Space-time is broken up into regions of space, time, and nothing.
Time is therefore completely distorted on this scale and may have no
Schwarzschild discovered that holes exist at the center of
gravitationally curved space. These holes have singularities at
In mathematically plotting these anomalous curvatures,
Flamm found that the radius of the sphere is the
gravitational radius. He called it the "invisible sphere", which
harks back to such qabalistic notions as DAATH, termed the Invisible Sphere from antiquity.
To further co-opt mystical
terminology, Eddington called this area inside the radius, a
For years it was an enigma, until
that this gravitational radius, or magic circle was accessible after
Wormholes in space were discovered by
Wheeler, and Misner.
Wheeler found that they
pulsed over time.
Their link to reality was found in black holes, or
rips in the fabric of the space/time continuum. Eddington showed
that stars are gaseous throughout, and are stable because they are
balanced between enormous gravitational pull and an outward gas
pressure. When they collapse electrons are squeezed together almost
Black holes are different from other collapsed stars like neutron
stars and white dwarfs. They are basically empty space. All of the
matter of a black hole is at the center in the form of a singularity
with infinite density and zero dimensions. It is a spinning gateway
to another reality.
There is a distinct similarity between entropy and the surface area
of a black hole. Black holes absorb everything yet have a surface
temperature of absolute zero.
Stephen Hawking discovered that in virtual pair production, pairs
composed of a particle and antiparticle are spontaneously produced
out of the vacuum. They pop into existence, then come back together
almost immediately and annihilate one another. The process is
allowed because of a basic principles in quantum theory, called the
uncertainty principle. This principle tells us that there is a
"fuzziness" associated with nature at the atomic level. The process
is concealed within this fuzziness.
In the strong tidal forces of a black hole, virtual pairs would be
"ripped" out of the vacuum by the tidal forces. Yet, even if one
falls through the event horizon, the other may escape, producing
This seems to imply that black holes evaporate, but this is contrary
to the notion that the surface area of a black hole can only
increase. One is true in classical theory, the other in quantum
theory when dealing with atoms. Hawking showed that the radiation
from black holes obeyed a basic quantum formula, called Planck's
This was the first time a link had ever been forged between
classical theory (general relativity) and quantum theory.
In all, there are four possible types of black holes, but only the
Kerr black hole is likely to occur in nature. The others are purely
mathematical entities. So the Kerr black hole is the logical
candidate for physical plane time travel. This was portrayed in the
Disney film, Black Hole, so if you can't imagine it, see the film.
Or, for the intellectually inclined, try
COSMIC TIME TRAVEL: A SCIENTIFIC ODYSSEY,
by Barry Parker, Ph.D., published in 1991.
It is postulated that there are gigantic black holes at the center
of each galaxy. The black hole uses the stars and gas for fuel.
There is a giant energy suck-hole at the core of our galaxy. Who
knows, it may be the womb of another universe, with its matter being
born on "the other side." Maybe it belongs to the starry goddess,
Nuit, whose essence is "nothing," yet Divine.
In the Qabala, the Ruach is said to function on the Causal
Plane. This sounds like a carry-over from the mechanistic,
predictable, clockwork notion of the universe. It does reflect the
way logical intellect works, but we also process information with
our intuitive mind, which can embrace an acausal connecting
Jung termed this
synchronicity, and it bears directly on our notions
of things being connected in time. In Jungian psychology
synchronicity has been superseded by the concept of chronicity, the
chronic re-appearance of dynamic archetypal patterns.
With the introduction of chronicity to our discussion, we have found
the god within our fantasy - Chronos, who has been he who binds us
to the physical form, he who devours his own children. As the Lord
of our local universe, Time assures our imprisonment within the
Creation, the material Universe. Mystics have an inherent yen to
escape the bounds of time and space, and seek their spiritual home
beyond the Abyss.
As long as we are below the Abyss, our consciousness finds causality
problems inherent in time travel. These conceptual conundrums
prevent the mind from entering the realm of the pure archetypes. We
perceive only dim reflections of their effulgence, but we must "see
through" the literal nature of reality, even to accomplish this
The mind-boggling problems of time travel violate the causality
principle, so it becomes paradoxical. The mind, or Ruach,
cannot enter these finer realms - only the Neschamah or soul
can journey there to the Source. When you cross this Abyss, you
untie the knot between the soul and the mind, leave the province of
Universal Mind and its three-fold illusion of time-space-matter.
Mystic practice provides a prescription for soul travel that makes
transforming a wormhole into a time machine seem like child's-play.
The energy for the journey comes from your intent and Will, but like
any journey to foreign lands, it requires extensive preparation.
shamans of old, one becomes a
psychonaut, rather than an astronaut.