Scientists Discover Life After Death

We assume we know about Life because we are all alive. But in fact, we know very little about the native qualities of this energy we can observe as distinctly separate from everything else in the physical world around us.

I say “native” qualities, because it appears possible that Life might continue on after the death of the body. We can’t see this energy, measure or detect it outside the body, so of course we jump to the obvious conclusion that it has no post mortem existence. Yet we do know that when Life is in our bodies we live and that in spite of our best attempts at a scientific understanding of this phenomenon, it appears and disappears with equal intrigue. Or does it?

In The Very Very Beginning

Excerpted from the book: A View Beyond the Stars, on Amazon, iTunes, Lulu and Barnes & Noble

There are many legends from indigenous peoples of every continent on Earth, which relate ancient tales of the beginning of the world and the first emergence of mankind. You might think they could only imagine their origins arising from the earliest human prehistoric times, well before the written word and born entirely in the mud of this planet. After all, what else could they know than what their aboriginal ancestors had experienced first hand and could pass along to them?

We are all familiar with Classical Mythology, of Roman and Greek origin, which describes various ages of man beginning with a Golden Age of living in a divine, non-corporeal state among the gods from which man supposedly experienced a steady decline into lower awareness. As thousands of years passed we are thought to have descended from the heavens through a succession of heroic eras, ultimately to dwell on the Earth as merely higher animals in what amounted to a rather complete fall from grace and consciousness.

This of course flies in the face of evolutionary theories which relate a Darwinian path from pond scum to the highest form of mammal we know as modern man of today. These persist without any reference to such a mythical pre-history of more eloquent times for man. Still, according to such mythology, Darwin could really not have known of this earlier supernatural time if he were only observing physical biological evidence; thereby easily missing whole chunks of this pre-dawn era of humanity. Or on the other hand, as many would point out thoroughly disproving any notions of such fantasy concerning the origins of mankind.

Our earliest recorded evidence of hominids, believed to be our first biological ancestors, is plotted at between 7 and 8 million years ago; which leaves more than 4 billion years of our planet’s existence unaccounted for. And yet, most of these native legends speak about a time well before our planet was born, before the stars and even before the heavens emerged. They speak of things beyond the possibility of their vision and as simple people, surely outside their scope of imagination.

However, most relate an eerily similar experience in these tales, certainly beyond human knowledge, of super beings emerging from an impenetrable and eternal darkness to suddenly create the first light, or a cosmic egg that burst forth to disgorge a primordial dimension of time and space. Still others describe awesome creatures that arose from a boundless sea beneath an infinite sky to form the firmament which ultimately became what we now know as Earth; and then created all the creatures upon it. And from these first mysterious eternal beings there sprang forth all that has become the many worlds of our vast universe and this one tiny world among the stars which has spawned the only known source of human Life.

These are the creation myths of our earliest ancestors, which have seeded man’s consciousness about other mystical possibilities for the appearance of human beings, juxtaposed with scientific facts which clarify biology, but still fall far short of helping us understand an equally important spiritual heritage. Yet, while they have been reverently passed down through the ages surviving tens of thousands of years from generation to generation, most people now consider them with only mild interest and even some amusement. Unless of course you consider that the world’s major religions are among these many creation myths as well.

Today, in our modern age of finite sciences and many religious faiths, there is still great disparity of opinion about what this oddity of nature we call intelligent Life truly is. In 1944, Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger wrote a book entitled, What Is Life?; which was intended for the lay reader’s better understanding of the subject. Among the many liberally quoted passages in his book was this one that sheds some light on his opinion about the ability of science to understand the essence of Life:

“…the vital parts of living organisms differs so entirely from that of any piece of matter that we physicists and chemists have ever handled physically in our laboratories or mentally at our writing desks.”

Where Life originates from, and it’s ultimate purpose for existence are vital questions that need definitive answers. As a single race of humans living on this speck of rock speeding through a daunting expanse of the cosmos around us, we need to understand how we came to be. The mold from which we have all emerged as humans, how we view ourselves and how we treat our fellows is intimately cast from this great mystery. Many explanations abound even into our present 21st century. But we do mostly agree on one common theme: that the essence of all Life was somehow formed along with the creation of our Universe and that human beings, after billions of years in the making, finally appeared on the scene to top the evolutionary scale. It is the “why”, the meaning for it all which yet divides us. And it this great divide which has made Life on planet Earth rather interesting for us all, to say the least.

No matter your preference for an explanation, evolution by chance, or creation by God, there is no irrefutable proof of either. I make the claim here that there is sufficient evidence to suggest another, a third even more incredible yet compelling possibility and invite you to explore it with me. I also contend that surprisingly it will not invalidate the many truths contained within both science and religion.

The single source and reason for Life however, cannot be proven by any means we possess at present; therefore both science and religion are also belief systems concerning its origins. And so they are not so different from these earlier creation myths on this subject; no matter how staunch and like minded their followers. Yes, even science with all its vaunted facts and formulas has no definitive answer for our primal questions about the essence of Life and its ultimate purpose. Religion of course makes it clear that we are to be divinely tested by a leap of faith to embrace the story of creation passed down through the ages, describing the decisive formation of Earth and its earliest stirrings of Life.

This third ideology, actually builds upon each of the core beliefs of the other two as supportive evidence for the one proposed to you here. It should bring a refreshing change of perspective and fill in the gaps left in each of the other dominant beliefs. For while scientific happenstance and the wonder of fulfillment in nature alone is comforting to some, it presents a cold and pitiless world without purpose to others. And for the others, the warm embrace of the gods of religion give purpose to our struggle, offering hope for eternal existence and peace to assuage our fear of death, but requires that we set aside all scientific understanding. Each directly contradicts the other and leaves the world in perpetual dismay as to who we really are and why we are here.

Truly, not allowing for the possibility of a god as the author of the Universe is no more an egregious intellectual crime than proclaiming divine miracles incapable of ultimate scientific explanation. In other words, there is no more proof of a godless Universe than there is for a god-full one. But depending on your viewpoint, you may believe one is preferred over the other. That simply doesn’t make it truer.

In fact, God could create a Universe without leaving fingerprints just to provide scientists an esteemed and life long profession searching to discover the truth. On the other hand, if the awe inspiring machinery of our Universe is so perfect without intelligent design, we should want to invent God to explain a higher purpose beyond mere amusement of a few humans on a small rock out on the rim of a minor galaxy.

What you will read in the book A View Beyond the Stars will stretch your imagination. Whether you ultimately decide to agree with me or not, hopefully you will come away with a new appreciation for your own limitless personal potential, as well as for those around you who share this voyage, huddled together on a tiny vessel called Earth amidst the majesty of an endless sea of stars.

“Life has come to be mis-defined as a conditional state of existence. To the extent this misunderstanding has been perpetuated, humanity has suffered under the misguidance that death is the end of Life. The notion that laws of the physical Universe also apply to Life is a created illusion.

Life’s source has come to be misidentified with physical bodies, as individuals have come to invest power in them, beyond their original purpose. As mans understanding of the true essence of Life and the nature of spirituality have withered, so has he clutched more tightly to an altered reality. So, he has come to accept a limiting state of existence. So, he has come to be humbled by the fear of death.”

-- DC Musgrove

Beliefs Shape Our Reality

“This is how humans are: we question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question.” -- Orson Scott Card

The eBook: A View Beyond the Stars  cuts right to the quick of that which clings ever so persistently, fiercely beneath our every conscious thought. That we are, each and every one of us special, unique and that somehow we must matter in an enduring way to everyone and everything around us.

Our view of existence is shaped by this simple yet powerful belief. In fact everything we think and do is motivated by a fundamental set of beliefs. How we treat ourselves, how we treat others, what we choose to do in the world and most importantly, what reward we expect from this experience of living Life.

Beliefs are our lens with which we view everything around us. They determine from our most intimate, primal thoughts and concepts, what we will embrace and what we will shun in the world we live in. They both liberate and imprison our actions through both powerful and subtle emotional response, which are without substance and yet bind us completely to what interpretation we make about what we perceive. Of all the influence of forces in the vast Universe that surrounds us, there is no greater impact on any human being than that which results from our beliefs.

What we believe in sets our expectations for existence, causing us to make assumptions for the present as well as the future. These can be as simple as trusting in the good will of people around you, or assuming that people are out to take advantage of you. Most people agree that having a strong set of convictions, or another way of saying commitment to one’s beliefs, is an important sign of character. We learn from experience that nothing much gets done in the world unless a person with conviction sets out to accomplish it.

These are respected character traits in the people we admire and aspire to emulate. But there is another side to being compelled from a strong belief system. It can predispose you to a self-created reality that fixates your attention on a unique view of the world that must be shared by others in order for it to survive. Reality is nothing more than broad agreement on how we choose to perceive and mutually interact with the world we share.

Beliefs become our compromise with chaos. When we first think a thought, or receive a perception from outside ourselves, we are determined to compare it to that which we have already resolved from disorder. From our earliest awareness of unassociated thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions, we have worked steadfastly to sort them into familiar patterns. These form our own very personal matrix, or the mesh underpinning our view of reality, which we weave the remainder of our Life’s experience into. We make compromises with what we don’t understand. We trowel over imperfections on the face of the structure of our understanding, with a plaster of beliefs that restores uniformity and control in our view. As infants, our bodies provide us the potential and physical ability to stand and walk against the force of gravity. But the means to do so must be bolstered by the belief that we can. Beyond just standing up in a tumultuous world, with potential for joy or disaster at every turn, our beliefs help us to decide whether or not we will even try - and choose to exist at all.

This book is not difficult to read and yet for many, reading it will be difficult because it will challenge the way you think and most importantly what you believe in the deepest core of your psyche. It is not easy to reconsider core beliefs. They define us and they protect us from spinning hysterically out of control in a world that tugs incessantly at the fabric of our personal reality. And so I am not asking you to just let go of that which literally holds you together, but rather to merely loosen your grip just a bit; to not clutch so dearly to the comfort of your beliefs, while you consider something new, unusual and perhaps even wonderful.

As we continue to plumb the depths of the inner and outer universes, exploring and pushing beyond our human boundaries of perception and thought, we continue to see something inexplicable and awe inspiring at work. Science is just now coming to terms with an intersection of the physical and the metaphysical; an age old concept that had been discarded in favor of only that which is tangible, therefore observable, quantifiable and therefore classifiable. However, scientific method is beginning to discover proof the intangible may be even more fantastic than we could imagine and despite the gossamer appearance of that which had always eluded our human grasp, it is beginning to materialize right before our eyes.

What does it all mean? Are we so invested in our beliefs about the evolutionary world around us, or the gods of creation, that we cannot embrace another possibility which may well prove each of them to be merely guideposts to our final destination? And might it be possible that our quest as humans might be to finally arrive at a place where neither science, nor even gods rein supreme? If in either case your immediate thought after considering that line was: “preposterous!”, then you see the powerful mechanism of the limiting effect of one’s beliefs at work.

Consider this quote from Robert Lanza: “Instead of assuming a reality that predates life and even creates it, we propose a bio centric picture of reality. From this point of view, life – particularly consciousness – creates the universe, and the universe could not exist without us.”

Robert Lanza is Chief Scientific Officer of Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

A View Beyond the Stars: A Book About Enduring Consciousness

Introduction to the eBook: A View Beyond the Stars
“The world of the mind is an illimitable land whose boundaries are as vast as the Universe itself; and thought is calling us at all times to the undiscovered countries lying beyond the next visible range of mountains.” -- Sam Ervin, Jr.

The average guy on the street doesn’t think about the “Big Bang”, quantum mechanics, or what twisted mood the Creator must have been in to whip up the warped little Universe we live in. Frankly, most of us are busy trying to keep enough money in the bank, the government out of our pockets and figure out why our kid just has to have a nose ring. We haven’t got the time or inclination to speculate technically on why the Universe is the way it is. Most reason such mental exercise should be reserved for those guys with the huge heads and squinty eyes with coke bottle lens glasses. They get paid to think about black holes, why the dinosaurs disappeared and where God might hang out in his spare time. What we do know is that we have a lot of problems, most of our friends have a lot of problems and nobody really has time to hear about ours because they’re too busy worrying about their own.

It appears there is a fair amount of disillusionment with Life in fact for most people, if you pry beneath the surface with them a bit. It’s changed dramatically from the way we thought things were supposed to be like when we were kids. Then, Life was full of simple wonders to explore at every turn. There were no boundaries for imagination and we believed we could have everything we could see and touch. The simple joy of living was pure and good. What happened? Well, our reorientation began as toddlers and by the time we hit our thirties, we have been thoroughly convinced we “know” about Life. It’s not what we hoped it would be, but we’ve got the basics down now and we can deal with it. Is it miserable? No, not usually.

In fact most of us lead fairly decent lives if we have followed the prescribed path, barring missteps or sudden catastrophe. For those who haven’t, well they weren’t as lucky, or should have been raised more responsibly, right? For those of us who enjoy financial and physical health, good families, friends and reasonable goals for the future, Life is pretty good actually. So what’s the problem?

It depends on your perspective, but since we are fairly sapient beings, meaning having higher awareness of self than say, field mice, we have to tune out a lot in order to live peacefully within ourselves. For instance, unlike dogs and cats, we contemplate our existence, our mortality and even our place in the broader Universe – routinely. That is, before the all-ness of it all presses in on us and we quickly divert our attention to more productive, safer mental havens. Yet, for just a moment sometime in our lives, we have all paused upon an ancient path most merely peer intently down for just long enough to discern it is an eerie one. We shake our heads and proceed down the well worn trail followed by the rest of mankind. Only a strange few seem to be drawn to the rock strewn incline leading to the foggy rim of the cliffs over the abyss beyond. Like places of mystery beyond the known world on the maps of ancient mariners, we are warned: “here be dragons”! It’s certainly no place for the level headed. Besides, it’s probably just a dead end anyway. No one has really reported back with anything truly important from out there, have they? Still, we know something very odd is going on beyond our view of reality.

As the speculation goes, 15 billion years or so ago, give or take a few eons, our Universe blazed into existence from a single point of light. Everything else is history. We can measure it, define it and speculate about the rest we don’t know about. What went on before this “Big Bang” is the subject of this book. Obviously there has been no greater influence on humans, than the creation of our Universe; the beginning of all we know as reality. But what was happening just moments preceding its ignition? If indeed there has been a single author of our Universe, reasonable speculation into the motivations prompting its creation should prove to be fascinating. This is exploration into our essence as human beings and that which came before and follows beyond the horizon of our existence – beyond the crepuscule .

This book is not a religious treatise. There have been far too many of those. And there is nothing here but the barest possible discussion of science, because we are feeling around in the darkness which preceded all things measurable by science in fact. This is not a work that particularly embraces philosophy, though it obviously ponders familiar concepts. Quite simply, this book is speculation into the mind of the Creator. Therein only will we discover the answers to questions that equally plague and yet fascinate mankind. Can we and perhaps most importantly for some, should we be so presumptuous as to assume the right to step onto what many would proclaim as sacred ground?

We are presently at a crossroads, poised tentatively at the threshold of breakthroughs in science, medicine and genetic engineering which will more expansively pass traditional powers to mere mortals, formerly preserved for the exclusive use of the gods. We are technically meddling in affairs we have been raised to fear reprisals for already. Our religious programming, which is part of the bedrock of human society even still, gives us pause at each milestone in technological advance to tremble slightly in anticipation of the lightning bolt from the heavens from which we have yet been spared. Have we merely failed to apply the final straw to the proverbial camel’s back?

In any case, we must endeavor to precede the technological juggernaut we have created in our world, with a new understanding of a deeper heritage for Life many find lacking despite the huge volumes of work of science and religion. Something is missing. There appear to be plenty of clues, but it isn’t all quite adding up. Yet, it is essential that we explore our earliest roots as sentient beings, different in character and body – though identical in origin - for our civilization to usher in yet another major era of newer, more powerful technology. Don’t think it has all been figured out for you already. It hasn’t been. The answers are still out there waiting to be discovered. Now, more than ever, it’s still so very important for you to wonder “why”? Notice the ever so slight shimmer in the reality of the world around you. There is something there, just out of reach, but never really out of mind. And there is that question imbedded deeply in all of us. It can be answered. And it will not be what you expected. And yet, it is more than we humans could ever hope for.

This work has been incredibly uplifting and a result of more than 20 years of investigation, pondering and rethinking most of the paradigms we have taken for granted about the birth of human consciousness and our progress to civilization. This book is not for everyone. It is blasphemous, irreverent and probing without conscience. Though, for those who thrive on exploration, it should prove to be more than merely intriguing; hopefully fascinating. For those who fear we are tempting the wrath of various deified super-beings, who would object to merely questioning their motivations, I can only suggest they stop reading and head for their bunkers. For those who are merely skeptical of anything that appears too radical, I offer that the very nature of exploration is to push beyond the already known boundaries into potentially dangerous new territory. What harm is there here to a little intellectual adventure? Perhaps even you will be pleasantly surprised at what you might discover.

By this work, I do not seek anything short of rattling the rusty frame of a society which gamely insists on building higher, more complex social structures, which teeter ever more precariously. Our modern Golden Age of high technology is capable of launching men to the distant stars, in bodies we can genetically engineer to last the journey. But, we insist on subjecting ourselves to psychological ruin from a tug ‘o war created by the hyper-speed pace of our modern civilization and the archaic myths of religious dogma that mire us in the same primordial mud we have slogged through since the dawn of time on Earth; perhaps even longer. It is time to break free of the gravitational pull of primal fear, human guilt and ignorance of our past in order to truly reach the stars.

The real irony is that we will survive everything we do, no matter how badly we muck up our civilization. The pity may only be the quality of that Life we impose on ourselves to dwell in from now to eternity.

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