OLD AND NEW EVIDENCE ON THE MEANING OF LIFE. VOLUME 3. UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY AND LIFE IN OTHER WORLDS

In the book's Prologue Whiteman suggested that in this materialistic age, 'the chief problems facing people regarding the meaning of life' have to do with the logical structure of a world, the nature of an object, space and time, scientific method, individual minds and individual identity. These may not seem the most immediate problems for someone in ordinary life, but science and philosophy fail if these problems are not tackled when addressing (or attempting to address) foundational concepts of existence. The term 'theology' in the title of this book could be misleading; what is presented is a radically new coverage of religio-philosophical thinking from Minoan to early Christian times. This period was selected because the writings can be 'reasonably taken to refer to first-hand mystical experience.' His referencing is widespread: 'I have felt obliged to study in the original languages: Vedic, Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew and Greek. Translations of these scriptures have almost invariably been made by scholars lacking mystical experience.' The new critical translations and their interpretation could be disquieting reading for the orthodox; Whiteman wrote that for the ancient seers, '"God" would not be a great power "up there", but some "divine" state of life actually experienced.' This experience involves 'the growth of spiritual perceptions and powers beyond those of normal everyday life in this world and body.' Much of the book is taken up with characterising the state of 'beyond normal everyday life'. There is a review of the varieties of separative experience (a term preferred to out-of-body experience) recorded by the author, with reality ratings given for most. It is likely that the experiences given the highest reality rating are those that standard thinking would rate lowest, namely those with the least connection with physical experience. Standard rating, in the thrall of the ruling materialistic paradigm, is based on closeness to physical manifestation, this being the only acceptably 'real' state. Whiteman's approach is the complete antithesis; experiences score high on the reported degree of reflective observation, awareness of significance, communication with other minds, sense of integration, continuity of memory into a physical state, openness to comparisons with physical and other manifestations while being clearly aware that the state cannot be described as physical. Standard thinking will also have difficulty engaging with the discussion that follows on personality structure. The recognition of a 'corporate structure' of personality involving conjoined non-physical beings was widespread in the ancient world, but has received only sporadic attention since then, although current professional enterprises such as spirit release are turning up the same data. Conjoined or 'contributory minds' (co-minds) are normally discernible only in a separated state, but their associations and interactions with an individual are, as Whiteman described them, many and varied. They may carry the memories and features of a physically-living individual so closely as to be a 'double'. Several cases are reviewed where the individual becomes aware of his/her own double, or a double is seen by other people. These cases seem hopelessly puzzling without some kind of interpretation in terms of co-minds offered in the book. The two final chapters deal with perceived inhabitants of lower worlds and life in the higher worlds. Almost inevitably, Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell comes to mind. The two accounts of the lower worlds do not differ greatly, a particular feature being that although the inhabitants and their environments are generally unpleasant, the inhabitants themselves mostly find nothing unseemly and are settled in their condition. Scenes of 'world destruction' are reported by both authors, which appear to be associated mainly with the raising of lower to higher lives. The accounts of higher worlds by the two authors differ markedly, since the worlds were experienced by Whiteman in a transformed state, whereas Swedenborg did not appear to experience states of bodily transformation, and did not distinguish between different separative states as did Whiteman. The differences between Whiteman's and Swedenborg's writings become especially evident in a supplement to the Volume 3, On the mystical derivation of Quantum Theory and physical laws in general. In the 182 years between the death of Swedenborg (1772) and the time Whiteman began publishing in this field (1954), huge and varied changes had taken place in Western European thinking. Especially significant for Whiteman's ideas were the quantum theory revolution, Husserl's phenomenology, and the introduction of Eastern religio-philosophical literature to the West. These developments serve to carry mystical ideas further into physical life and concepts; at the same time physics extends 'into the metaphysical insights of tensor analysis and other elaborate mathematical structuring, as in electromagnetic fields and their interaction.' A meeting of ways may therefore be seen. While it is hardly possible to summarise this complex section, it could be said that it deals with the logical deduction of physical laws by tensor calculus, centred round the need to account for consistency between one observer and another. Essential for the emergence of physical laws is admitting three time dimensions in addition to the three space dimensions, one of which is measurable change-and-flow, and two other time dimensions not subject to transformation or measurement: actualising time and substructural time. The six-dimensional matrix is combined with actual observation to make a 16-component field, which is characterised by distinct electric, magnetic and current components. This gives him a basis for deducing formulae of quantum field theory, yet is fully consistent with the Indian doctrine of 16 kalās, cycles of conscious functions. Whiteman has always been dissatisfied with hypotheses of unobservable elementary particles, and his deduction of quantum field theory does without these notions. His perceived inner structuring of space-time manifestation applies also to non-physical worlds, so the connection with mysticism is always present, and counters materialism completely. The supplement is likely to seem the most difficult section of the book—there is some advanced mathematics—but in time to come it might be held as the most important few pages, since, as in a letter of 11 November 2006, it 'opens the door to other worlds of reason and life.' It could be said that this is the major thrust of all three volumes of Old and New Evidence on the Meaning of Life.