May 15 2013

Higher-Level Awareness

Throughout my years of helping people deal with their spiritual and inter-dimensional interactions, I’ve learned that most people have blocked their own recall or are subject to involuntary blocking of higher-level activities.

One example of being blocked that comes to mind is one of my early experiences when I had only been working and living with Leo Jean for about 3 years. One night we were awakened at about 3:00 a.m. by the sound of a very loud engine and bright lights that appeared to be coming from right on top of our apartment building. As we stuck our heads out the window, nothing was visible on top. We started to get dressed to go outside (it was the middle of winter), but the noise and lights suddenly stopped.

The next night when the same loud engine noise woke us up, we hurried out onto our deck and looked up toward the top of the building. We could see nothing but a halo of lights but, as we looked around at the buildings on the ridge, we could see many people in pyjamas out on their decks, staring toward the top of our building. It was so strange, yet it made me feel better that other people had been awakened and were obviously looking at whatever was on our roof. We went back inside and, when the noise suddenly stopped, I ran to the window and saw what looked like a round array of fiery jets as a craft pulled silently away.

The next day we excitedly drove over to the buildings on the ridge and rang a few apartments to ask people exactly what they’d seen from their balconies. However, after speaking to about 10 people, we realized that not one of them remembered the event. It was as though they had all been sleepwalking and had absolutely no recall of even being out on their decks. Although we were vividly aware of the event, it was clear that the people on the ridge had been blocked completely.

Not long after this incident, Leo and I decided to travel to Florida in response to a national news report about a mysterious UFO sighting in the town of Gulf Breeze. It was reported that a group of people on one side of the bridge from the mainland had seen a cluster of lights/orbs, while another group on the Pensacola Beach side hadn’t seen anything at all.

Image credit: MiamiHerald.com

We met with the psychologist who had been interviewing witnesses and he brought us into contact with the retired Air Force colonel who was conducting a MUFON investigation. During a meeting at his private residence just outside Eglin Air Force Base, we became convinced that there was no real effort to figure out what really happened. The most forthright person we met was an air force pilot who had arrived late to the meeting and confided that he had seen many different types of extraterrestrials during solo flights, but he couldn’t talk about it for fear he would lose his wings. The Gulf Breeze incident exemplified a common occurrence in UFO sightings where only one person is aware while nearby bystanders are oblivious to the phenomenon.

Over the years I’ve heard many times that people wish they could see something that exists in another dimension, and I believe there are several main reasons why they can’t. Some people have blocked themselves in childhood, so that they will not see, hear or feel anything that happens at the higher level. In addition, most people are conditioned to accept inter-dimensional summoning and are subject to memory blocks about such activity. Because I’ve learned to refuse the negative summoning signals that summon people into inter-dimensional activities, I’ve learned to utilize a higher-level skill that I probably wouldn’t have realized otherwise.

I can’t help but to compare the refusal of incoming energy signals that promote and block an individual’s inter-dimensional activities with the efforts of astronomers to detect signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life in the universe. There might possibly be corresponding yet undetected incoming signals that block scientists from accessing certain frequencies of signals coming in from the cosmos. Attempts to isolate, filter or mask such signals might make it possible to discover some inter-dimensional communication that will unblock the amplifiers to our seemingly silent universe.

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

Spiritual vs. Inter-dimensional Influence

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment!

Apr 13 2013

Our Advancement in the Cosmos

To me the inter-dimensional world appears somewhat like the almost tactile dark matter of the universe, while the spiritual realm is more abstract, similar to the mysterious nature of dark energy.

How can it be said that spirits are fiction and that nothing happens or exists in other dimensions when we can only verify the properties of a mere 4% of our physical universe? We seem to know a lot about our biological selves because we can physically study the most evident part of our being, but the higher nature of human capability has been largely ignored, due to the divide between science and religion. (Note: I’m not a member of any religion.)

Although our higher-level aspects represent the largest component of our being and dark energy constitutes about 73% of our cosmos, practically nothing is known about either. Since ancient times we have been seeking to explain the meaning of our existence at a level above our physical evolution, but few answers have emerged. Perhaps for the same reasons as cosmologists and astrophysicists require more advanced mathematics to explain the largely unseen portion of the universe, we need to develop our higher-level knowledge to access the positive aspects of our spiritual being.

While dark energy in its vastness can be compared with the phenomena associated with the spiritual world, the properties of dark matter might soon bring knowledge about how inter-dimensional activity is conducted. Some recent breakthroughs show that, although invisible, dark matter appears to have substance as it demonstrates gravitational effects on its density. The similar almost tangible nature of the inter-dimensional plane suggests that further study might reveal the forces separating it from our familiar level of reality.

Now that physicists acknowledge and attempt to prove that the scientific truths of quantum mechanics must be equally verifiable at larger scales, it must spark a profound change in the way we see ourselves existentially. It’s mind boggling to grasp that some scientific investigators have hypothesized that our universe could merely be a 3-D projection on a 2-dimensional screen at the edges of our universe or that we could be the creations of an advanced civilization’s manipulation of matter through computer programming. Is our role as an evolving species merely to reproduce to provide more advanced players for the next generation, or are we meant to progress by realizing the potential of the spirit within?

As we delve further into the similarities between the microcosm of our material composition and outward into the macrocosm of the universe, we appear to be the constructs of an incomprehensible yet remarkable reality. Once we consider that we are not only comprised of the infinitesimally tiny components of our atoms, but part of a much grander scheme in the universe, it’s easier to fathom that our spirits represent the more advanced part of our existence.

At the physical level, we’re expanding ever outward into the universe, as though it was intended that we strive to explore the expanse beyond. All of our experiences have accumulated into our reality as individuals and as a civilization and we have the power to move past the negative interference and to add new positive content that expands our spiritual horizons.

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment!

Mar 2 2013

Counteracting Negative Impact

At times our existence on this planet seems so precarious, especially when we experience such wakeup calls as the asteroid flyby and explosive meteor over southern Russia February 15^th. Just as world governments bear the responsibility of creating the means by which we can protect our planet from such natural hazards, we all bear the responsibility to refuse negativity so that each of our spirits can progress positively within us.

A few weeks ago, as I was pulling the car onto the road in front of our (former) house outside Montréal, I looked up toward the east and saw a bright fireball cascading across the sky. Since it was so bright, at first I thought it might have been an aircraft on fire. But, as I watched it arcing across my line of vision, I saw it glow reddish then disappear, so I knew I’d seen a meteor. And it was fascinating! By that time I had already begun to regard the impending impact of a large celestial object striking our planet as a real possibility yet, at that moment, the sight of that fireball simply filled me with a sense of wonder. Afterward it brought home with greater validity the realization that asteroids are part of our planet’s natural environment.

Although the recent cosmic activity has alerted the general public to the very real possibility of a celestial body creating havoc on our planet, there have already been steps taken by NASA to track and map the largest asteroids, but they’ve only located a few. What’s needed is international cooperation to fund and create the advanced technology necessary to enable the deflection of such asteroids as Apophis, the big one that’s heading our way in 2029 and again in 2036. If we do nothing, we risk the chance of a direct hit. Just thinking about it isn’t enough.

In his Newsweek article, Dr. Michio Kaku outlined some of the proposed technology that would alleviate the threat, adding:

“It is inevitable that one day we will be hit, and hit hard. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. We realize this every time we see the pockmarked surface of the moon. Unfortunately, without an early-warning system, we don’t know when such an impact might take place.” ¹ (See link to entire article below.)

Just like asteroids and comets are attracted to our planet, negativity is at some level attracted to each one of us. We’re all being bombarded day and night with negativity and, unless we commit to doing something about it, we’re sitting targets to this constant negative pummeling. The little grains-of-sand meteor-type hits are easy but, eventually, a big hit will come in and bring with it the kind of personal devastation that no one desires. There are always positive solutions when you’re ready to create them, but it’s always so much harder to counteract negativity when you’re caught off guard in a state of weakness without means and knowledge.

Here are a few ways to fight the negativity in your daily life:

Make a commitment to yourself to refuse negativity whenever it arises. Become more aware of the negativity that you’re accepting. Take a few seconds to refuse all sources. As you get used to doing this, you’ll get better at it.
Refusing negativity is the first step, but you also need to replace the negativity with something positive. Remove yourself from the negative environment. Go for a walk in the fresh air; excuse yourself from a negative conversation; get rid of objects that remind you of past negative situations.
Take steps to change your situation, if you’re unhappy with the way your life is unfolding. Quit worrying and regretting. Forgive yourself more often. Start looking for a new job; strengthen or end relationships; move into a new location that suits you better; you get the drift of it!
Love yourself a little more. Start doing more of the things that you love to do for yourself: Exercise more, eat better, sleep better; play a musical instrument; build something; learn something new that interests and/or pleases you! There are plenty of ways to make your life more positive–be creative!
“Ideally” request a healing/removal from me. I will immediately remove the large packets of spiritual negativity and allow you to start from a position of strength.

Just as the world needs to find act to diffuse the inevitability of an asteroid hitting the Earth, only by fighting back against negativity, by building strength of resistance and by creating a positive stance will we endure the impact of negative personal onslaughts.

Side note: After our move from Montréal, I thought I’d see if there were any reports on record about the meteor I’d seen. I found that, according to the American Meteor Society, 50 reports had been received about the fireball (a meteor that is larger than normal), and it’s rare for an individual to see one or two fireballs per lifetime. (Wow!)

(Read the article about Event #181 for 2013 here: http://www.amsmeteors.org/2013/01/new-england-fireball-january-23-2013/)

¹“Asteroid Apocalypse” by Michio Kaku, February 26, 2013 via The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/25/asteroid-apocalypse-why-scientists-worry-about-2036-planet-buster.html

Related news: 19 March 2013 via Space.com: Asteroid Threat Collides with Earthly Budget Realities in Congress

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment!

Feb 21 2013

Spiritual vs. Inter-Dimensional Influence

Since spiritual interference and inter-dimensional interference seem so similar, the distinctions between them require some explanation. Spiritual interference takes place when entities from the spiritual realm impose themselves upon people at the spiritual level, while inter-dimensional interference occurs when beings that exist in other dimensions of reality, i.e. space and/or time, interact with someone.

Recently a blogger commented on one of my posts about his experience in summoning spirits. The 7-year practitioner of Reiki had been schooled in a healing method that involved the use of spiritual ‘guides’. Instead of understanding that it was his lack of knowledge about how to deal with spirits, he was terrified when he started to see the ‘demonic’ faces of spirits as he called in his ‘guides’. While I agree with him about the misguidedness of the ‘New Age’, he had allowed the beings that presented themselves to influence him to believe that they were representatives of the Light*.

As I learned many years ago, people who summon spirits most often have no idea who or how many they’re summoning. Despite the best of intentions, the use of spiritual guides can be especially dangerous, because any more powerful spirit or being can step in and interfere. The vast majority of spirits that are attracted to our planet are negatively-oriented and will readily respond to anyone who summons spirits for any reason. When a spirit is summoned, it can trigger a reaction from the inter-dimensional realm and bring negative influences upon an unsuspecting person.

Since I started my spiritual work, I have always understood that spirits are not to be fooled around with for any reason. I never trust a spirit that comes around; I immediately refuse it, because no positive spirit would ever break free will and interfere with me. The summoning of spirit ‘guides’ is a questionable practice that can entice beings from other dimensional realms to interfere with both the practitioner and their client. If someone who summons spirits has a negative spirit within, or doesn’t have knowledge of vibrations or doesn’t know how to detect the positive nature of a spirit, they can be heading for trouble, as the blogger described.

Recently, I was impressed by the works of Arthur C. Clarke that were featured in an episode of the series: “Prophets of Science Fiction”. Although I’ve never read any of Clarke’s novels, I was aware that it was he that had provided the calculations for the geosynchronous orbits of satellites. Probably even more striking to me was the plot of his first novel in which he described the arrival of aliens resembling demons that hovered above the earth for an entire generation in a cloaked or higher dimensional state while they observed the progress of humans. Clarke’s depiction of the aliens was similar to what religious people would identify as devils or demons.

Photo by G. Romlewski; tall pink cloud

Clarke’s fictional aliens struck me as awesome since, when I was in the middle of my first conscious spiritual battle, I perceived thefigure of what I can only describe as a satyr superimposed over the body of a human (obviously in another dimension). Once I had found Leo Jean and told him about my experience, he started to remove the satyr-like beings that were harassing me. We discovered that those particular beings are very common in the negative realm, but are able to remain secretive in their higher dimensional state while interacting with humans. They are not only spiritual beings, but they hail from other worlds, where their physical characteristics are the product of their evolution. Former astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell stated recently on TV that he believes we are being visited by beings from other worlds and that they are monitoring our progress. (“UFO Hunters” 2012)

Perhaps Clarke was far more knowledgeable about the inter-dimensional realm, as he brought forward advanced knowledge that could only be introduced as fiction to a closed-minded society. After all, most of the ‘prophets’ of history had to disguise or encode their writings in order to avoid having them destroyed by religious institutions or the ruling class. Mitchell, backed by his scientific and aeronautical knowledge and personal experiences, offers a rational approach to the exposure and inevitable acknowledgement that we are not alone.

I work with people from around the world who have suffered the consequences of spiritual and inter-dimensional interference. So many people wonder why they can’t refuse properly, but they don’t realize that they’ve already accepted negative influences. The uniqueness of my approach to healing is derived from the acquired knowledge of how to remove spirits according to their distinct vibration from within and around people.

If people were to refuse inter-dimensional beings at both the spiritual and inter-dimensional levels, their secretiveness would continue to unravel and fewer would be susceptible to their negative influence.

[*Light: The pure white light of the universe; purely positive energy]

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment!

Nov 14 2012

“…Learn the Natural Law”

The other day someone in the twitterverse asked me what the term “natural law” meant in the context of the message I received when I was 15, as described in my post called “Early Flat Screen Presentation,” so I’ll attempt to answer that in part now.

What the otherworldly beings said was: “This life you lead is a test. In order to pass you must learn the natural law.”

First of all, I should state that I didn’t really know why I was selected to be the recipient of that telepathic message. It wasn’t a dream; I was fully awake in a public restaurant. I never experienced anything like that before or since. At first it seemed to spark confusion in me, since it was so vivid and I couldn’t talk about it with anyone, except the girlfriends who were with me at the time.

From my perspective the event was life changing, since the portion of the message that was left with my consciousness was so clear and I only began to understand its significance when I started to work with my spirit 15 years later, and Leo suggested that the beings were from the future. The only “natural law” that I knew when I was 15 was that of physics, which I happened to be studying at the time. It didn’t make sense to me then that they would be telling me that my life depended on the laws of physics. Now that I’m so much older (and more ‘seasoned’), I believe that the message incorporated the learning of many natural laws including those in the fields of physics, science, philosophy, medicine, law, morality and nature itself.

The beings I saw when I was 15 years old.

Most physicists agree that all the laws of physics are the same in our universe but, in the so-called Many Worlds Theory it’s postulated that there are multiple universes and the laws of physics are potentially different in each one. Given this format, one could suppose that all natural laws could be different elsewhere. For instance, there could be a universe in which people might rejoice one’s death and mourn at one’s birth. In another universe the moral law could dictate that everyone has to be cruel and despotic, while those who are kind and compassionate are morally corrupt.

As a result of my many years of working with my spirit and glimpsing into the spiritual journeys of others, I’ve come to believe that the spiritual natural law is likely the same throughout the multiverse and is interconnected with the Light*. With its multiple timeless existences, a spirit can be recognized as the quantum part of our human repertoire. The message started with “this life…” to differentiate this life from another, as if to suggest its significance in my quantum existence.

Quite frankly, I’m still learning about “the natural law”. Sometimes I wonder whether the greater part of the message (about 5 minutes long) has been buried within me as a suggestion. Maybe it was downloaded to me for future reference and will continue to give me inspiration along the way. In the meantime, I will pursue my efforts to gain a further and deeper understanding of my own interpretation of what it means to “learn the natural law.” It’s interesting that I’ve already learned to use my brain in a more advanced way to communicate across the planet in my higher level healing work. Since the message I received was sent telepathically, I’ve included a link below to a short video on collective intelligence by the popular theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.

Perhaps the meaning behind the message about the concept of learning “the natural law” is to inspire others to pursue the answers to the questions about the reasons for our current existence.

Link to Michio Kaku’s video on The Big Think: “Can We Have Brain-to-Brain Communication?”

[*Light: The pure white light of the universe; purely positive energy; freely available to all!]

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

I welcome and value your input~Please feel free to comment!

Sep 29 2012

Dealing with Dimensions

Many people have inter-dimensional experiences, but often what they’ve seen, heard or felt is so strange that it’s difficult for them to explain.

While physicists are struggling to prove or disprove string theory as they work toward a unified theory of how the universe ticks, one of the main focuses is on the existence of 11 dimensions at the quantum level. So, if the physics works at the larger scale and if we’re surrounded by these invisible dimensions, is it feasible to assume that we’re already conducting activity within them?

My insights about inter-dimensional occurrences are derived from personal experience and from working with others for over 27 years. Two personal incidents stand out that have helped me to understand the nature of the interference that is caused by inter-dimensional events as opposed to that which is caused by spiritual events.

When I first met Leo Jean, he gave me a spoon that he had twisted into a knot at the neck to use as a reinforcement of my connection to the untapped power of my higher self and spirit. Upon going to bed a few nights later, I placed the spoon inside my pillowcase and under my pillow for security during the night. After a short time asleep I awoke with a start and jumped out of bed to turn on the light. Something felt amiss as I looked around the room. Then I thought about the spoon that Leo had given me. I reached my hand inside of the pillowcase to grab it, but I couldn’t feel it, so I flipped over the pillow to see if I could see or feel it that way. The spoon wasn’t there! There was no way that anyone could have taken it, since I was alone. Then I had the thought to refuse the negative interference as I pulled the pillow out of its case. As I held up the empty pillow case and shook it, I heard a “ping” sound as the twisted spoon fell to the bed.

My reaction to this experience served as a reinforcement of the lessons I was just learning about the spiritual and inter-dimensional worlds. If I had reacted in fear, I would simply have attracted a whole slough of negative energy/spirits to me. Instead, after some initial confusion, I reacted in a very positive manner by refusing the negative interference. Perhaps there was no ‘advantage’ to the spoon being ‘held’ in another dimensional state, so it was ‘returned’.

In another instance I experienced more of a time shift. A couple of years later, while Leo and I were sharing the errands at a strip mall, I was in the bank while he was shopping for groceries a couple of stores down to the right. While I stood at the teller, casually looking out the window of the bank, I could see Leo walking from the grocery store past the bank. I wondered where he was going, since I was supposed to join him at the grocery store, and watched as he kept walking toward the end of the row of stores to the left.

When I exited the bank a couple of minutes later, I followed Leo but he had already disappeared from view. When I rounded the corner of the building, I saw that Leo was nowhere to be seen, so I continued to walk behind the building for a short distance. As I returned and looked around the corner toward the bank, I saw that Leo had just come out of the grocery store and was walking toward me. When we met on the sidewalk, I asked what was going on, because I had just seen him go in the other direction around the building. I was quite puzzled by what had occurred, because it really had no physical explanation.

Although there are many instances of people who have experienced time distortions while in the vicinity of a magnetic anomaly, such as the Bermuda Triangle or other similar places on our planet, Leo and I were situated in a rather run-of-the-mill place. (It just happens to be not far from where the Perimeter Institute is now located, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it!)

If I were to speculate, I would have to imagine that I was caught up in some sort of a temporary wave of space-time distortion. If quantum theory is correct at larger scales, I had simply seen Leo in one probable reality. Did I observe this because I am more aware, or because my mind is more adaptable? I can’t even compare it to a déjà vu, because it was taking place in real time. For whatever reason, the event made me keenly aware that I was still susceptible to interference from an inter-dimensional source.

When people claim that they’ve lost time, have been abducted by extraterrestrials or remember being in an alternate reality, I fully understand that their experience defies explanation in purely physical terms. It’s frustrating because there is no physical evidence available when the entire incident appears to have taken place solely within their own consciousness as a personal experience.

However, if a person has entered a higher dimension, there can be a distortion in both time and place. An inter-dimensional experience can last longer in another dimension than it does in ‘real’ time. A person can wake up in a void in space or can be led into an otherworldly vehicle effortlessly, along with a memory of interaction with inter-dimensional beings. Just because no one else has shared the exact same experience doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Bearing in mind that we, as humans, cannot be the only living species in the universe and that other forms of life are likely far more advanced than we are, we’re barely ‘scratching the surface’ of understanding the more advanced realms of existence.

When a person knows how to work with their spirit, they’re able to transcend the negative interference that draws them into inter-dimensional activities.

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

Sep 13 2012

Sharing Spiritual Knowledge

Knowledge that is gained spiritually has to be built upon and experienced, rather than just learned in the form of concepts and ideals.

Throughout the production of a weekly Public Access TV show about our work during the 90’s in California, my partner, Leo, would say: “You can’t hold on to knowledge. You have to let it flow.” Although we used to receive a lot of response to our broadcast, the vast majority of our audience viewed it merely as entertainment.

So, what does the sharing of spiritual knowledge involve? While I was absolutely fascinated with the prospect of immediately learning all about what Leo does, he made it clear that the only way to really learn is to live it. In other words, in order to learn about the spiritual world, you have to learn through experience how to navigate its waters. And, since there are many dark waters and levels of understanding, you have to be careful about what depth you’re stepping into and in which direction you’re heading as you venture into the vastly unexplored spiritual realm.

Although I wanted to know everything at once, I had to build a foundation upon which all the other information could rest. If I didn’t learn how to relax, then I wouldn’t be able to receive higher-level information that was needed in my work. If I didn’t learn to recognize and refuse negativity, then I would have been quickly inundated by it (since my role is to help others by removing their buildup of negativity so that they can properly work with their spirit.) If I didn’t learn the fundamentals of vibrations, I wouldn’t have known how to separate the incoming higher-level information coming at me. I also learned how to respect and nurture my spiritual self, so that we are both acquiring the positive knowledge of the Light* through our efforts together.

For the most part, many people are only looking to how spiritual work can help them in their daily lives. Everyone learns differently and, in order to benefit from your higher levels of being, it’s still necessary to learn how to relax, heighten awareness and to refuse negativity. Once these fundamentals become natural, the knowledge about your composite selves will become clearer; the waters will be much less murky and you can always depend on safe haven with the Light.

What I love about the work that I’m doing is that, when I work my spirit, I’m always learning. There’s never a dull day or a day when I don’t learn something new about myself or about my place within the larger picture of humanity. For me, the acquisition of spiritual knowledge is similar to a cosmologist’s search for information about the universe: Why are we here…How did the building blocks of life assemble so ideally that we could become who we are…Are there any more lifeforms in the universe…If so, how do we come into contact…What’s inside a black hole…What’s outside our universe…Where is all this heading?

As I consider the slow progress of spiritual evolution on our planet, I am heartened by the enormous strides that cosmology is making to better understand our physical place in the universe. What could be fundamental to a spiritual breakthrough might be a realization by individuals that their spiritual progress could be accomplished by going within to work with their own spirit.

If we all acquired more positive spiritual knowledge, we could take a colossal step forward toward our spiritual evolution as a race. I believe that, only then, will we make any form of breakthrough to make contact with more evolved species. For the moment we must tread through the muck of negativity that we’ve created for ourselves on this beautiful planet.

When we look inward to gather our spiritual knowledge, we should be looking for the Light to which we are all connected universally. If that Light doesn’t yet exist, then each of us should actively pursue the acquisition of its gentle and powerful positive force until it gleams within.

[*Light: The pure white light of the universe; purely positive energy; freely available to all!]

For more information about my work as a Higher Level Healing Expert

Related posts:
Why I Work With My Spirit
Believe in the Power of Your Selves: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Recognizing Spiritual Negativity

Jan 26 2012

The Universe in a Windowpane « NOVAs Physics Blog: The Nature of Reality

The Universe in a Windowpane « NOVAs Physics Blog: The Nature of Reality.

Jan 24 2012

Welcome to the Multiverse

The Wizard nebula, a star-forming region 7,000 light-years away. If our universe is part of a multiverse, it might have near-twins out there, along with other drastically different universes. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
by Sean Carroll
From the October 2011 issue; Discover Magazine; published online October 18, 2011

Could our universe be just one of a multitude, each with its own reality? It may sound like fiction, but there is hard science behind this outlandish idea.

Theoretical cosmologist isn’t one of the more hazardous occupations of the modern world. The big risks include jet lag, caffeine overdose, and possibly carpal tunnel syndrome. It wasn’t always so. On February 17, 1600, Giordano Bruno, a mathematician and Dominican friar, was stripped naked and driven through the streets of Rome. Then he was tied to a stake in the Campo de’ Fiori and burned to death. The records of Bruno’s long prosecution by the Inquisition have been lost, but one of his major heresies was cosmological. He advocated that other stars were like our sun, and that they could each support planets teeming with life. Orthodox thought of the time preferred to think that Earth and humanity were unique.

These days, cosmologists like me may be safer, but our ideas have grown only more radical. One of the most controversial but widely discussed concepts in the field resembles a hugely amplified version of Bruno’s cosmology: the idea that the thing we call “the universe” is just one of an infinite number of regions in a much larger universe of universes, or multiverse. A big focus of my own research asks whether a multiverse can help explain the arrow of time.

Also like Bruno, cosmologists are reaching far beyond what observational evidence can tell them. At the time of Bruno’s death, Galileo had not yet turned the very first telescope upward to the stars. Today, nobody has looked beyond the boundaries of the known universe. In fact, such a far-reaching vision seems impossible by definition.

The extent of what astronomers can see is frustratingly limited by the speed of light: one light-year (about six trillion miles) per year. When we look far away, we are looking into the past, and that past doesn’t stretch forever. Everything we see emerged 13.7 billion years ago from the hot, dense state known as the Big Bang, so we cannot observe anything more than 13.7 billion light-years away. If there is something so far away that its light couldn’t have traveled from there to here in the time since the Big Bang, we cannot observe it.

Obviously, we don’t know what the unobservable part of the universe looks like. It is conceivable that the universe as a whole is finite, closed in on itself like a sphere. It is also possible that it extends infinitely far in space but remains more or less the same no matter how far you go. And finally, it’s possible that the universe extends infinitely far, but conditions vary wildly from place to place. That would be a multiverse.

Here we are not talking about disconnected universes, but rather what we cosmologists call pocket universes. Conditions are fairly uniform within any region but vary greatly from region to region. One pocket far away might be similar to our universe, but the mass of the electron might be a bit different. Even such a small change could scramble the rules of chemistry, not to mention biology. Another region might be utterly strange, with seven dimensions of space, say, and 29 forces of nature. All together, a bewildering variety of universes, each with its own laws of physics.

For all the parallels, modern physicists are quite unlike Bruno in one crucial way. They weren’t led to this picture by pantheistic mystical philosophizing. Rather, they have been forced into it—kicking and screaming, in many cases—by other theoretical ideas, especially cosmic inflation and string theory.

Inflation was conceived in 1980 by MIT physicist Alan Guth to explain why the observable universe is so flat and smooth, with galaxies distributed evenly throughout space and with almost exactly the right amount of mass to balance out its expansion. The idea is that immediately after the Big Bang, the universe was trapped in a state called a false vacuum, in which empty space was filled with an incredible amount of energy. The false vacuum was unstable, like a radioactive atom waiting to decay. Eventually it broke down into the ordinary vacuum of space as we know it, releasing tremendous amounts of matter and radiation. In the process, an extremely small patch of space inflated to enormous size, evening out any irregularities and giving rise to the universe we see today.

But unlike a radioactive atom, which either decays or doesn’t, the false vacuum can decay in some places but not in others. That means there can be regions where inflation continues forever. Suppose a tiny inflating region grows to tremendous size, and 90 percent of it converts into matter and radiation. The remaining 10 percent then grows to an even bigger size; 90 percent of that decays, and the cycle repeats indefinitely. There are regions like our own, where inflation has long since ended, but also places where inflation is still going on, creating yet more regions, each forming a pocket universe.

That’s where the multiverse comes from. It is not that cosmologists are so fond of all those universes; it’s that we are fond of inflation, because inflation explains the observed properties of the cosmos with great precision. But many versions of inflation theory also predict an infinite number of universes, like it or not.

Things get still more interesting when we add string theory to the mix. String theory is currently the most promising way to explain the fundamental properties of all the particles and forces in our universe. But ours are not the only possible properties. String theory allows a boggling 10⁵⁰⁰ solutions—that’s a 1 followed by 500 zeros—each corresponding to a different type of universe with its own kinds of particles and forces.

In short, string theory predicts that the laws of physics can take on an enormous variety of forms, and inflation can create an infinite number of pocket universes. So the different laws of physics predicted by string theory might not be just hypothetical. They might really be out there somewhere among the countless parts of the multiverse. This is not a situation that cosmologists dreamed up in a flight of fancy; it is something we were led to by trying to solve problems right here in the universe we observe. The question is, now that the multiverse is here, what are we going to do about it?

A lot of people, both inside and outside the scientific community, are viscerally opposed to the idea of other universes, for the simple reason that we can’t observe them—at least as far as we know. It’s possible that another universe bumped into ours early on and left a detectable signature in the cosmic background radiation; cosmologists are actively looking. But the multiverse might be impossible to test directly. Even if such a theory were true, the worry goes, how would we ever know? Is it scientific to even talk about it?