Aliens, gods and angels explained by science?
One of the world’s leading scientists has been making some observations that could explain people’s experience through time with ‘aliens’, ‘angels’ and a variety of entities currently categorised as supernatural.
Professor Martin Rees is no new ager. He’s a cosmologist and astrophysicist and has been the Astronomer Royal for three decades. He was Master of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012.
In that period I attended the Master’s Lodge two or three times, following ceremonies in the Trinity chapel involving long speeches in Latin. I didn’t understand a word of it but it felt very profound, almost magical.
If, at that time, Professor Rees was thinking about how invisible energy or consciousness from transbiological beings from across the universe could be the cause of perceptions of aliens or angels (or and whatever other notions of supernatural entities exist in our cultures and minds) he wasn’t letting on. A kind smile and a glass of sherry were the main things he shared, along with the Latin speeches and handshakes to scholars.
The speeches, which sounded beautiful but were ultimately bewildering to this former comprehensive school kid, could have a parallel with Professor Rees’ suggestion about discarnate consciousness that transcended biological life long ago. Just as I didn’t have the mental preparation to understand what was being said in that chapel, human beings (generally*) don’t have the mental preparation to perceive what any post-biological energy existing around us is. And is doing!
Our cultural background therefore takes over and we might perceive the energy as physical aliens, gods, angels — or whatever other conceptions of elevated beings exist in our minds. It is possible that any such energy manifests itself in a manner encounterers can just about comprehend — or our ape brains simply mischaracterise what we are encountering.
From transhumanism back to shamanism*
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about transhumanism, with most people concerned at this stage with ideas of enhancing and lengthening human life through technology. Some looking further forward envisage a time when our consciousness is liberated from our biological bodies — and perhaps merges with the consciousness of others.
Martin Rees suggests that any technologically advanced species evolving on other planets would have remained in biological form for just a thin slither of their existence. The finite nature of resources and the frailty of being (or being in) a biological form are reasons why any such species would have eventually sought to become transbiological.
If that happened, the resultant mass (or masses) of consciousness existing around us in space could be something humans have been interacting with through the ages. Manifesting in different ways for different individuals, as perceptions are shaped by beliefs and images already in our minds.
Someone living in medieval times and brought up on biblical stories might perceive angels. An atheist growing up in the sci-fi era could visualise aliens. In a sense both are correct, as such energy could be described as elevated emissaries from above or alien intelligence.
Properly translating information and beliefs from other societies can be hard enough, let alone comprehending and representing transcended beings from other worlds.
In studies of shamans, terms like ‘spirits’ and ‘ancestors’ need to be thought about very carefully. At the point when Europeans started to observe and later actually listen to shamans, our culture would interpret ‘spirit’ to mean ghost of a deceased human person. For those from a ridiculously class-ridden and lineage obsessed country like England, ‘the ancestors’ would evoke a much more narrow collective of beings than shamans were referring to.
The missionaries and anthropologists observing shamans simply did not have the intellectual foundations at that time to grasp that ‘spirits’ could be understood to be transbiological consciousness of any species from anywhere. And ‘the ancestors’ can be understood to be the collective consciousness of all species that have existed anywhere.
Just as my lack of education in Latin made it impossible for me to understand the richness of what was being said by Professor Rees in that chapel, many generations of observers have not understood what shamans have been talking about. Let alone what the discarnate entities that shamans interact with have to teach us.
