M-Theory & the seven astral planes

[FuzzyQuark]

Consider the following quotes:

Swami Panchadasi, an Indian teacher: "Each of the seven [astral] planes has seven sub-planes and each of these sub-planes has its own seven subdivisions; and so on to the seventh degree of subdivision." - The Astral World

Robert Monroe, founder of The Monroe Institute: "Imagine 7 circles enclosed in an even larger circle upon which 7 more circles are stacked" - Far Journeys

The Prophet Mohammed - "Do you not see how Allah has created the seven heavens, one above another" - Holy Quran, Nuh 15.

But I've saved the best until last: Saul-Paul Sirag, theoretical physicist from Berkeley University: "We have reason to believe now through recent developments in Superstring Theory evolving into Membrane Theory, that there is a kind of a master seven-dimensional lattice called the E-7 Lattice, that creates the seven hidden dimensions of eleven-dimensional space-time". The full article is an interview and can be found at: http://www.mishlove.com/transcripts/sirag.htm

M-Theory is the prime contender for a final Theory Of Everything that unites Einstein's theories of relativity, gravity and quantum mechanics, as well as the various "superstring" theories into a single Grand Unified Theory. And it matches up perfectly what spiritual teachers have been telling us for centuries. Finally, something that science and faith can agree on.

FQ.

 

[Zep]

Victor Zammit agrees with you too! Game, set and match, I think...

Perhaps you might explain how this "agreement" comesabout, and which scientists have done that "agreeing", and provide references to the same.

Thanks.

 

[FuzzyQuark]

The agreement is this:

a) Various esoteric teachings state that there are 7 hidden dimensions of reality

b) M-Theory states that there are 7 hidden dimensions of reality

Whether these are the same thing is the 64 million dollar question, but I can't see a discrepancy between the two - can you?

 

[BillHoyt]

The agreement is this:

a) Various esoteric teachings state that there are 7 hidden dimensions of reality

b) M-Theory states that there are 7 hidden dimensions of reality

Whether these are the same thing is the 64 million dollar question, but I can't see a discrepancy between the two - can you?

You forgot to mention the importance of 7 in the Kabal and in numerology.

 

[FuzzyQuark]

What is it with you people? When science and religion don't match, you rightly criticise religion. Yet when science appears to back what some religions have been teaching, you are sarcastic and dismiss any attempt to reconcile the two.

Is it because you are afraid that your narrow-minded, materialistic worldview might be threatened?

I'm not stating as a fact that the E-7 lattice or the 7 hidden dimensions in M-Theory are the 7 astral planes/heavens, but I thought it is worth mentioning - here's something that appears to match up science and spirituality for a change. Personally I don't agree that there is anything "paranormal", only undiscovered science. Let's at least be open-minded enough to consider new possibilities - if you automatically dismiss ideas like this then you show that you are as closed-minded as the religious fundamentalists.

Is there anyone on this forum who is open-minded enough to say that this is slightly interesting, at least?

 

[BillHoyt]

What is it with you people? When science and religion don't match, you rightly criticise religion. Yet when science appears to back what some religions have been teaching, you are sarcastic and dismiss any attempt to reconcile the two.

Is it because you are afraid that your narrow-minded, materialistic worldview might be threatened?

I'm not stating as a fact that the E-7 lattice or the 7 hidden dimensions in M-Theory are the 7 astral planes/heavens, but I thought it is worth mentioning - here's something that appears to match up science and spirituality for a change. Personally I don't agree that there is anything "paranormal", only undiscovered science. Let's at least be open-minded enough to consider new possibilities - if you automatically dismiss ideas like this then you show that you are as closed-minded as the religious fundamentalists.

Is there anyone on this forum who is open-minded enough to say that this is slightly interesting, at least?

It would be interesting if a) we knew M-Theory was right and b) we had some falsifiable process by which theologians arrived at the conclusion. You make the mistake made by many. You think skepticism and science are about answers and conclusions, when they are really about the processes used to obtain answers and conclusions.

 

[Jeff Corey]

You forget the Seven Seas, Seven Continents (sorry Carlos), the Seven Sisters and the Seven Dwarves.
So what?

 

[Dancing David]

And on the Kabbalah, hmm, you have the hidden three and the visible seven(for the seven planets), for a total ten , but then each level of the four tiers feeds to the next, so the eleventh is the first of the next tier.

 

[Dancing David]

What is it with you people? When science and religion don't match, you rightly criticise religion. Yet when science appears to back what some religions have been teaching, you are sarcastic and dismiss any attempt to reconcile the two.

Is it because you are afraid that your narrow-minded, materialistic worldview might be threatened?

I'm not stating as a fact that the E-7 lattice or the 7 hidden dimensions in M-Theory are the 7 astral planes/heavens, but I thought it is worth mentioning - here's something that appears to match up science and spirituality for a change. Personally I don't agree that there is anything "paranormal", only undiscovered science. Let's at least be open-minded enough to consider new possibilities - if you automatically dismiss ideas like this then you show that you are as closed-minded as the religious fundamentalists.

Is there anyone on this forum who is open-minded enough to say that this is slightly interesting, at least?

uh, dude, this is a sceptics forum even when you present rational arguments about the strange you are going to get a sceptical response.

The seven planes relate to the seven planets which are not hidden, then there are also the seven entrance of the male's body, eight on a female. So I would counter that the seven hidden dimensions are not good correlates for the seven hidden dimensions of the E7 M-theory.

So I say welcome, and you didn't recieve a very rude reception.

 

[FuzzyQuark]

Robert Monroe and Swami Panchadasi were not referring to 7 visible planets, they were talking about 7 levels of dimensions that are accessible via consciousness. So therefore I still say there is a possible match between their descriptions and M-Theory.

Maybe the 7 hidden dimensions of M-Theory are the natural "home" or origin of consciousness, but obviously this is pure speculation on my part. Saul-Paul Sirag has written papers on "Consciousness and Hyperspace" which apparently may address some of these questions, I haven't read them yet but will do at some point.

FQ.

 

[wittgenst3in]

Robert Monroe and Swami Panchadasi were not referring to 7 visible planets, they were talking about 7 levels of dimensions that are accessible via consciousness. So therefore I still say there is a possible match between their descriptions and M-Theory.

Maybe the 7 hidden dimensions of M-Theory are the natural "home" or origin of consciousness, but obviously this is pure speculation on my part. Saul-Paul Sirag has written papers on "Consciousness and Hyperspace" which apparently may address some of these questions, I haven't read them yet but will do at some point.

FQ.

Welcome FuzzyQuark.

It seems that if all these ancient things are actually referring to 'dimensions' in the cartesian sense ( rather than in the sense of 'levels of reality' or 'other worlds') then they would say that 3 of these can be seen directly as length, depth & height and that 7 are unseen.

Is there any evidence that they even understood that there are 3 dimensions visible to us? Descartes only got the idea when he was lying in bed regarding a fly on the wall. He realised that to know the location of the fly it was nessicary to know the distance from the walls and floor.

Also, do you see the irony in suggesting that both Swami Panchadasi (who I gather follows hinduism) and Mohammed are inspired? Siva and the Abrahamic Allah are not really compatible concepts.

 

[LucyR]

You think skepticism and science are about answers and conclusions, when they are really about the processes used to obtain answers and conclusions.

Exactly. If more people appreciated this concept, a great many of the arguments that habitually take place on these forums would cease.

 

[FuzzyQuark]

>Also, do you see the irony in suggesting that both Swami Panchadasi (who I gather follows hinduism) and Mohammed are inspired? Siva and the Abrahamic Allah are not really compatible concepts.

Not at all. The fact that they were both from completely different cultures but arrived at very similar conclusions (that there are 7 unseen dimensions) is quite encouraging IMHO. Naturally they both interpreted this through the "lens" of their own culture and time (i.e. Mohammed sensing them as "heavens").

 

[Dancing David]

And what is the context for the belief that they are unseen, in many traditions the planets are considered to be the visible part of the astral plane associated with them.

If the Swami knows about the chakras, then they aren't hidden either.

So you are saying that the atsral plane is so small that it's influence is infitesimal, that is the implication of string theory.

I don't find it remarkable that there would be similar numbers. Especialy since different cultures have different magic numbers
3,5,7,9,11,13,17,21,23

Now if the number was forty two, that would be more amazing!

 

[FuzzyQuark]

I'll post a larger section of "The Astral World" by Swami Panchadasi. This appears to match up with the idea of string theory stating that everything is vibrating energy. As I said, all I'm trying to do at the moment is point out the apparent consistency - whether the 7 dimensions of M-Theory are what Panchadasi is describing is pretty much unprovable, so it will remain open to debate for a very long time to say the least.


--text extract follows--

It should be mentioned at this point, that each of the Seven Planes has seven sub-planes and that each of these sub-planes has its own seven subdivisions; and so on to the seventh degree of subdivision. So, you see, there is a most minute classification in the occult teachings.


The student of occultism, at the beginning, usually experiences difficulty in forming a clear conception of the meaning of the word "plane" as used in the occult teachings. Consulting the dictionary, he is apt to get the idea of a plane as one of a series of straight layers - one part of a great strata - above and below which are other layers or strata. It usually is quite difficult for the occult teacher to eradicate this erroneous idea from the mind of his pupils, and to substitute the correct Concept.


This error arises from thinking of these planes of being as composed of matter, or material substance, which, of course, is incorrect. When it is remembered that even the densest form of matter itself is composed of vibrations of energy (as recognized by modern science), and that the Forces of Nature are but manifestations of vibrations of energy, one begins to find the key. Instead of the planes rising one above the other in the scale of the fineness, of matter, they are graded according to their respective degrees of vibration of energy. In short, they are planes of vibrations of energy, and not planes of matter at all. Matter is simply the lowest degree of vibrations of energy, that is all.


The second common source of error, on the part of the beginner in occultism, is that of picturing the planes as lying one above the other in space. This conception, of course, naturally follows upon the error of thinking of the planes as a series of layers or strata of fine matter; but it also often persists even after the student has grasped the idea that the planes are grades of vibration, rather than of matter. But, finally, the student is impressed with the idea that the planes are not "layers" or "strata" at all.


The planes do not lie one above the other, in space. They have not spatial distinction or degree. They interpenetrate each other in the same point of space. A single point of space may have its manifestations of each and all of the seven planes of being.

--text extract ends--

 

[Zep]

Sorry???

The nearest thing that seems to match up with is a half-baked science-fiction plot from StarTrek; the ones with "far advanced societies" than us.

Ahem. Get a grip.

Just because they SOUND similar does not MAKE them similar. And in this case they don't even START to sound similar. In fact, the only thing they seem to have in common is the words "seven" and "plane". According to that criteria, an airline schedule would match with both of them just as well. Or do you think United Airlines and Air India are secretly in on this "amazing discovery" too?

Your propensity to invent ludicrous connections that don't exist is exceeded only by your possible foolishness in believing them.

 

[MRC_Hans]

The world is full of these "fantastic coincidences", or correlations, if you like. In religion and philosophy, 7 is a magic number by tradition; we don't know how it started, but once it got established, of course it was bound to pop up repeatedly. Very few religions or philosophies (if any) are built from scratch, they mostly "borrow" heavily on earlier ideas. So, no mystery here.

Now, science has a theory that involves 7. So what? Science has theories that involve practically any number you can think of, so of course some will involve 7. This is not an amazing correlation, you just picked out a single one that happened to use a number that was earlier used in R&P.

It is like walking around on a beach and picking out a stone that is shaped like, say, Texas. Is it a fantastic coincidence? Not at all, there is practically all shapes of stones on the beach, you just picked the one with a recognizable shape.

Hans

 

[wittgenst3in]

It is like walking around on a beach and picking out a stone that is shaped like, say, Texas. Is it a fantastic coincidence? Not at all, there is practically all shapes of stones on the beach, you just picked the one with a recognizable shape.

Or a potato chip

(Some of those have to be fake.)

 

[Keneke]

I'd say search for all of the threads Iacchus has started. He's really big into numerology, and we had to explain eight ways from Sunday that fun with numbers do not mean anything significant beyond fun with numbers.

 

[LettristLoon]

Fuzzy:

The whole point of all of these spiritual beliefs regarding seven dimensions is that they ARE accessible to human consciousness.

Now, as far as the seven "hidden" dimensions talked about in M-theory are concerned, the very fact of their existence outside of 4-dimensional space-time would seem to indicate that they are NOT AT ALL inhabitable by a human consciousness--even assuming said consciousness ain't just a bunch of reactions taking place in the test tube of your brain.

I mean, think about it--get beyond linear space-time, and how would your consciousness respond? How could the human consciousness, or anything approximating it, even consider existing in some situation where time refuses to flow? We're so very, very dependent upon the reliable "forward" motion of time, that even our thoughts take place in a linear fashion, as a result of linear electrical and chemical processes. Get rid of that--step out of 4-dimensional space-time--and you're scrood.

Just a guess here--rather than believing that ancient mystics had some sort of intuitive grasp of advanced physics, maybe we should acknowledge the possibility that they just noted seven visible planets. I mean, both are good ideas, don't get me wrong, it's just that one's "really unlikely" and the other one is, as we say, "terribly sensible."

Otherwise, let us not forget that lots of other religions have never had any concept of seven "heavens:" In fact, it's only a handful of geographically linked areas which have ever developed that particular belief. Most of the religions, throughout history, have failed to note the significance of seven. Think of all the Celtic, Eastern European, Mediterranean, and sub-Saharran pagans throughout history. They didn't know from seven. Also, South American Indians, North American Indians, etc, etc.

Also, Christianity. They couldn't give a fart in the wind for seven, and that's quite a popular faith, I gather.

- B