Blog Number 3!

“Hal had grown up in Ohio and Florida, but liked to say he was from Missouri—the Show Me state, the ultimate state of the skeptic. Show me, prove it to me, let me see how it works (143).” Me too!!

I think this line was a great and insightful sentence to add to the beginning of chapter 7 because the information presented was a little off the wall at first. It was encouraging to know that Hal, who was conducting many of the experiments that seemed to prove interconnectedness between living things, wasn’t easily convinced. I am coming to be more accepting of the whole concept of interconnectedness between human beings, but what struck me as very interesting in the beginning of chapter 7 was that plants seem to respond to each other! Plants representing empathy—I had never given this a thought. I have heard that plants get stressed and respond and react to their environments, but a plant responding to another plant’s “pain” made me look at the plants around my house a little differently. In a way it makes sense, what is supporting the interconnectedness is life itself. If I have a bowl of tomatoes and eat one, I don’t think the other tomatoes are empathizing because they are already cut from the vine.

Remote viewing was fascinating to read about. No doubt, I still laid the book to rest with my doubts (I am from Missouri too…), but I think it would be fun to participate in a remote viewing study. “Human beings, talented or otherwise, appeared to have a latent ability to see anywhere across any distance…..anyone had the ability to do this, if they were just primed for it—even those highly skeptical of the whole notion (155).” And when Pat Price was correctly remote viewing the letters and numbers that were written on a folded piece of paper in a man’s pocket who was up in a small aircraft, I decided that he should have played the lottery. This then led me to question that if remote viewing is able to be attained by all (though some more effectively, like Pat Price) why isn’t this being used more? Why is this such a secret? What power lies here! Think about how much easier the father in the movie Taken would have been able to find his daughter. The power is almost scary. The chapters are filled with examples that remote viewing is a human possibility, and as I read through chapters 7-9 I became a little more accepting of the whole remote viewing notion.

Then another sentence really struck me head on: “The Field, a subatomic world of pure potential, life exists as one enormous present. Take time out of it… and it all makes sense (164).” This was really interesting to me because I believe in eternity, and life after death, and it is normal to question “how can a soul last forever in eternity?” perhaps the Field holds the answer to that.

Lastly, I would like to note what I took to be a very important part of the reading on page 159. Remote viewers being exhausted when they are finished viewing, and being kind of overwhelmed with sensory overload. “It was as if they entered into some super consciousness, and once they’d come out of it, the world was more intense”. The words “some super consciousness” are really ambiguous, but they helped me to better understand remote viewing! It’s not like in the hum drum of everyday people are able to remote view, it is obviously very concentrated, and the person enters a different consciousness. Even though I don’t understand the altered state, this makes sense to me. Remote viewing is tapping into the ZPF, and even though I can’t specifically point out where the ZPF is, the same goes for remote viewing. It’s not tangible or “visible” (and this is where I tend to get hung up), rather a network of signals, and I must admit, as I wrap my brain around the whole idea, it is fascinating.