Fred Alan Wolf doesn’t ask why, but why not? In his public role as Dr. Quantum, he appears in What the ?$%# Do We Know? to ask, “How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?”

In the universe of quantum physics, each of us determines our own world. It’s a scientific truth that the very act of our observing events alters their outcome. Our choices and intentions define the fundamental fabric of our reality, what we choose to see or not see. Increasing numbers of 21st century physicists agree that individual consciousness is the ultimate tool for changing our life. Yet it remains a mystery to all but a handful of people.

“We can count masters of consciousness on one hand,” says Wolf “They are those who have single-mindedly transformed the world.” Think of Christ Jesus, Sister Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Others, like Einstein, also have made a huge difference.

We trust these people. We yearn to be in their presence. We innately understand that they have something vital to teach us.

In Wolf’s books, movie script consulting and workshops, he explains in understandable analogies dimensions of thought explored by great thinkers through the ages. Natural Awakenings caught up with Wolf in between public appearances.

People’s response to What the Bleep seems to signal a major shift in consciousness long present but gaining fresh momentum. Are we entering a new era?

The reality is that shift is always happening. The illusion is that we can be stuck in a conventional way of thinking. Life is a continuous state of spontaneous creation. But we tend to become aware of a cumulative shift only in hindsight, when it appears to be phenomenal. No physical event can cause a shift, though popular media can bring it to light. Times of shifting feel normal and natural.

I’ve been talking about quantum physics ideas contained in What the Bleep for 30 years. Taking the Quantum Leap, for example, published in 1982, won a National Book Award for Science. What I’m doing today is not light years ahead of where I was. Now I’m filling in the holes. Yet America woke to the market for these ideas because of the movie. We are a nation of watchers more than readers.

So what new wrinkle are you exploring in your latest work, The Yoga of Time Travel?

Quantum physics and the theory of relativity, which unify space and time on a universal scale, are radically transforming how we understand time. Humans want to pin it down in a circular or linear configuration. Yet we are coming to realize that there is another kind of flow without time’s presence, that we aren’t separate beings limited by space and time, but a One-Being continuous and eternal. As outlined in various writings, including the Qabala, one blink in God-time can be thousands of years for us. We’ve all experienced how time subjectively speeds or slows based on what activity is claiming our attention.

Mechanical constructs cannot explain what goes on in consciousness. Space, time and matter are not fixed, but malleable. Physics and mind are only approximations of a deeper reality, of which we catch faint glimpses when we allow it to bubble up in consciousness. My own realization of this comes from my understanding of science as much as from spiritual revelation.

How do you see the relationship of science and spirituality?

Ages ago, people saw no need for a division between science and spirituality. Politics separated church and state beginning with Henry VIII, who manipulated the system to take another wife. Humanity’s dilemma intensified in the time of Newton, who ironically was both a Qabalist and mystic. Then the Darwin/Wallace theory of evolution made it okay for the piggiest animals to kill everything in the environment for the sake of survival. All of this conspired to condone a contemporary atheistic view of the universe. It became popular to keep God out of the creation equation.

We thought we buried spirituality. But it has its head out of the ground and is influencing everything. We’ve moved into an era of mysticism in which concepts are so abstract that they can neither be proved nor disproved by scientific experiment. String theory is one example. The operation of consciousness is another. We suffer the illusion that a brain in the body is the seat of consciousness, yet our body is 99.9 percent empty space. So who we are may be a consciousness that lives in space.

While working at the level of the body and the senses, Plato thought that we could never quite experience things as they are “in reality.” He taught that there was a more perfect, non-material realm of existence.

In contrast, Aristotle taught that there is no world outside of our senses. The majority of scientists today still share Aristotle’s basic worldview even though quantum physics increasingly supports Plato.

What’s surprising is that I receive little resistance to my spiritual ideas about science, either from scientists or the general public. Scientists are open to that which is profoundly sacred and awe inspiring. The questions we ask emerge as the same spiritual questions asked by the best ancient minds. Science is not closed to spiritual ideas.

Is your thinking based on a platform of one universal omnipotent and omnipresent Mind or on the human brain as the determining factor of experience?

Brain emerges from Mind, rather than mind from brain. Mind is one universal unity. To us it appears to operate as many little separate minds in separate bodies, but that’s not how it operates. We all exist in a field of the One Great Mind. There’s not a human being alive who cannot tap into this field of consciousness, see past the surface to the whole. Everyone is a potential Jesus, Mahatma or Buddha. It’s simply a question of desire and whole-hearted surrender of ego to a selfless love that only indirectly references oneself.
 Instant global communication hints at the reality and sparks daily awareness that so much more exists than just one’s own individual thoughts. We hunger to know what’s possible. We strive to gain a foothold in the knowledge of consciousness that we intuit is all around. We don’t yet know what’s going on in the larger picture. But we know enough to move with it.

In a nutshell, how can we change our life for the better?

First we each must recognize that what we think we want out of life isn’t really what we want. We think we want more material comforts, to be lazy and self-indulgent. Or we think that more excitement is the answer. But we’re not made that way.

Our race is designed to skate on the razorblade edge between order and chaos. Too much static order and we’re bored. Too much flirting with chaos and we feel endangered. We all want to feel safe and loved. Yet by definition the human condition entails conflict. It’s impossible to live a life completely free of conflict.

Note well that without exception anyone who has achieved anything in life has had to struggle to do it. Coming up against resistance gives us a chance to learn who we are and what we are here to do. Cocooning children in the lap of luxury is the worst thing we can do for them. Children need to hear their parents’ story, to learn from the struggle that has made and refined us. As we surrender ego and pride in the telling, we become more aware of our spiritual nature, and our children become more aware of their own.

Risk is a necessary part of life. Without risk, life is worth little. Whether our children thrive or fail as they struggle on the skirt of earthly chaos, we must have faith that they can do it.

by S. Alison Chabonais

Professor Fred Alan Wolf, physicist, author and lecturer, earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at UCLA in 1963. He debuted as Dr. Quantum in 1981. His books on quantum physics have been published in nine languages. He is best known for such works as Taking the Quantum Leap, Mind into Matter and Spiritual Universe. Wolf’s latest release is The Yoga of Time Travel. For more information, please visit www.FredAlanWolf.com. See newsbrief on page 11 and ad on page 45.

S. Alison Chabonais writes for corporate marketing teams and publishes in national and regional magazines. She may be reached at 239-495-2112 or achabonais@earthlink.net .