The Common Field of Consciousness

The Reality of the Collective Psychical Fields

Emile Durkheim (1899) showed the existence of collective psychical fields. He showed that the reality of the collective psychical fields is of the same degree as that of the physical fields, since it is measurable (through social indexes), and its relations and consequences show the same rate of stability. The collective psychical field generates a remarkably stable rate of suicides in a given nation. Individuals forming the society change from year to year, but the rate of suicides remains stable. This rate is different in different nations, and seems to be determined by moral factors. Moral life is per se a collective phenomenon, and the collective psychical field is an expression of the background moral fields of individuals. Our moral convictions are a certain kind of concerted brain activities, formed from our common characteristics. This is expressed also in the changes of the social indexes of e.g. suicide. Durkheim observed, that the activity of the society follows a seasonal rhythm, its intensity grows from January to July, and then decreases. Durkheim pointed out, that the suicidal index of the people living in marriage shows the same ratio to that of people of the same social class being widows, indifferently from the selected class. The simple reason for this is that the judgement of the society is of a general character, independent of the actual group of the society, although the social conditions of life sensitively change from group to group, therefore becoming widow would show a larger relative loss in the lower classes. Moral judgements are closely related to emotions, therefore we are led to the inference that common field of consciousness consists of emotions.

The rate of suicides is observed to grow with the age, and shows a tenfold increase from the young to old age. Accepting the plausible view that the social environment of the people does not show necessarily a more and more hostile face as they grow older, but remains more-or-less the same during a lifetime, we observe the existence of an effect independent from the immediate social environment. This effect is probably mostly of subjective character indicating the growing sensitivity of the people to the accumulating social influences. This effect lays an emphasis on the ‘tuning’ of individuals to the different influences, to the weakening of their ‘psychic immune system’ because of manipulation.

The World-View of the Person

The ‘everyday consciousness’ of the people is the expression of useful informations, beliefs, habits and traditions. The basic behaviour, the modus vivendi and the actual activity is mostly determined also by the world-view of the person, which directs her/his system of values and conscious decisions. Determining factors of the world-view are the religious faith and the cohesion to the nation. Analysing these factors, we may observe that beliefs, habits, religions, traditions are related to the prehistory of the nation and mankind. The fundamental influence of the world-view to our activity is certainly explained by the still surviving factors of Nature and Cosmos within our psychic life. In this way, the everyday consciousness seems to be determined by the Universe, Mankind and nation - therefore, by the common fields of consciousness.

Thoughts are closely related to Emotions

I know that emotions are a certain kind of taboo in the western civilisation. Emotions and thoughts should be separated forever - a principle almost generally accepted, in scientific circles as well. Nevertheless, thoughts are closely related to emotions, they may be regarded as the expression of them, as two stages of the same process.

Our brain is made up as a community of 4* 10¹⁰ neurones. From this enormous number of neurones, only ten-fifteen million is waiting for stimuli. The time-period of the building up and decay of the activation potential is around 10^-3 s. It means that our brain activates 10¹⁰ neurones in a second. This data is consequent with the data given above (Sect. V.) for the information processing speed of the whole brain in forms of neurones, 10¹⁰ bits/s. Only a millionth or less is the speed of the conscious information processing, less than 10³ bits/s. The process in which the ‘unconscious’ becomes ‘conscious’, is based on a certain selectivity, which may be paralleled with the process of the development of a conscious thought from an unconscious emotion.

Emotions are the basis of Consciousness

Blocking the emotions involves blocking the basis of consciousness, while keeping emotions does not lead necessarily to uncritical decision, since it is the normal way of the brain’s activity to select the information by their content and choose which should be involved in aware consciousness. The large territories of unused neurones sign that our emotional world is poor as compared to its original capacity in a rate of 1/4 000. There is not any other part of the body which would work with such a low efficiency. The electric work made by the heart, e.g., is 40-60 times of that of the brain’s as a whole (Rein, G., 1995, personal communication), although it also participates in the general atrophy of the organism. It is important to note here, that the decrease of the basic level of the EM activity of the brain decrease of health of the whole organism (Oldfield, Coghill, 1988). The organ which is not used, dies. It is known in medicine that a whole range of illnesses is related to the anomalously low activity of brain, between cerebral innoculation and subsequent cellular malfunction of the body (Oldfield, Coghill, 1988).

Psychosis, neurosis seems also to be related to undervitality of the brain. The brain’s activity is largely parallel to the emotional intensity, when we feel that something important is happening to us. The brain may conquer back its lost territories, long-forgotten vast fields of untouched neurones, at a rate of 4 000 times, and million times of that value, when the activity of the brain is at full speed. Compared to that state, our present use of the brain is something when we see through a small tube which shows one-millionth of the field of vision without the tube. Since the under-utilisation of the brain leads to the self-destruction of the organism, psychic and somatic illnesses, emotions can not be exiled from the centre of the brain to its highly controlled peripheries. Elevation of the consciousness of mankind is unimaginable without the elevation of its basic level of activity, without a significant role of emotions.

Primary Perception

After coining the term ‘primary perception’, I became aware of the same term already introduced into science. The phenomenon of ‘primary perception’ is known in child psychology (Pearce, 1977) denoting the extrasensory perception of children. Eloise Shields presents an evidence that telepathic ability peaks at age four, at which time their parents may begin to be aware of such activity (Peterson, 1974). The term ‘primary perception’ surfaces in electromagnetic context, as well, denoting the perceptions of plants through EM fields (Backster, 1968). Primary extrasensory perception was known in ancient cultures, such as ‘seeing’ (látás) in the magic world-experience of ancient Hungarians (Vekerdy, 1974).

Merged Consciousness

The ‘merged consciousness’ within proper conditions, by the help of a careful attention, represents a higher expression of human existence, as in cases of entering a new era of mankind, like the origin of natural sciences at the Greeks or the renaissance, or at the formation and enlargement of collectives or groups. If we to develop a more evolved form of consciousness, we have to live with emotionally driven states of consciousness. The more the consciousness will be filled up with human, natural and cosmic motives, love, eagerness to act and desire to fulfil our destination, the more it will open up, and the more it will be active, powerful and intense. Consciousness when finding its natural field of action, its natural roots and natural harmony, is able to regain its cosmic power again.

Freedom of Thought

It is important to point out that the suggested inductive model for the generation of consciousness offers a way for the ‘freedom of thought’. The laws of the complete, original electromagnetism of Maxwell (1892) are richer and more correct than their simplified forms presented by Heaviside and Gibbs, known as Maxwell-equations, valid only within special conditions. Recently, Cornille (1995) pointed out that “the presence of the Ampere-force in the complete EM implies that a charged capacitor can accelerate its centre of mass without external help if it has an absolute motion with respect to ether.” One can expect that spontaneous effects may be induced by the Lorentz force. I suggest that this spontaneity may be related to the observed spontaneous phenomena in the inorganic and organic world, especially in the collective fields of consciousness, where spontaneous induction may regularly occur.

Source: The Physics of Collective Consciousness, by Attila Grandpierre