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The Mind is Non-Local                                     by Richard Stammler           © Rich Stammler, 2008      I was watching a lecture on the brain. It is a teaching series and this was the introductory lecture by psychologist and neuroscientist Jeanette Norden. She detailed a history of the mind noting that the early Greeks and Egyptians generally held that the seat of cognition and perception was in the heart. Later the Greek physician Galen indicated that it is not in the heart but in the brain. This has been the Western medical view ever since.1 The brain is the complex neural structure in the skull.      The mind is something else, it holds cognition, perception, and memory. After the Renaissance more detailed studies of the body not only pinned the mind and soul in the brain but, specifically, in the cavities near the central area of the brain called the “ventricles.” The modern neural-anatomical position is that the cerebral cortex “is believed to be the seat of the mind,” specifically the outer one inch of material of the cerebral cortex is where the mind resides.2      Recent research on the locus of the perception, assimilation, processing and transfer of information in the body reveals that the notion that this takes place in the central nervous system (composed of the brain and the spinal chord) is only true for four percent of the information carried in the body. The rest is carried by protein molecules called peptides. Peptides, strings of protein molecules created in many places in the body, transmit information to the rest of the body. The information that is carried by the peptide can be brought to any cell that has a receptor for that particular peptide. Furthermore, individual cells of the body beyond those of the central nervous system manifest learning and hold memory.3      This is one of the reasons why the endocrinologist and ayurvedic teacher Deepak Chopra speaking at an American Holistic Medical Association Conference stated,      We can no longer confine the mind to the brain anymore. It has escaped and it is in every cell of the body. In fact we can’t confine it to the body either. It is everywhere in the universe and there is a lot of scientific evidence for that also.4      The research on peptides clearly supports Chopra’s statement that the mind is “everywhere in the body,” but what is he talking about when he says the mind is everywhere in the universe? To understand that, we need to go into the concept of non-locality as described by quantum physicists.      University of California at Berkeley physicist Henry Stapp stated that non-locality is “the most profound discovery in all of science.”5 Physicist Nick Herbert states, “Three features of the quantum world seem to me to be particularly important for models ofmind: randomness, thinglessness, and inseparability.”6 By inseparability Herbert is talking about the principle of non-locality which says that at the quantum level reality is a whole in which there is no temporal and no spatial separation. In some quantum events information seems to transfer instantly, super-luminally, which has been convincingly proven (although what this really means is in hot debate). Einstein was unsettled by these experimental results and called it “spooky action at a distance.” But whether Einstein liked it or not and however the theory of quantum mechanics evolves as an explanation of reality, the non-local nature of our universe will always be a key part of our reality. Some, like Herbert, have made this a central characteristic of consciousness and the mind. This is why Chopra is telling us that mind also exists in the non-local dimension(s) of reality.      Why is this important? It is the principle of the non-locality of the mind that permits the mind to do some amazing things which include the “recall” of past and future lives, what I call “other lives.”7 It is also that aspect of the mind that enables what is commonly called ESP or psychic activities.      So what is the evidence for the non-local mind? Depending on what one will accept as evidence, there really is a lot. But that evidence that has a strong scientific basis is the following: mutual lucid dreaming, the vast government research and development of the process of remote viewing, and, yes, so called past life regression. I’ll detail each of these in turn.       If you want to work on this some more – call me. ___________________ 1 Norden, J. (2007) Understanding the brain. DVD1, lecture one. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company. 2 Norden, J. (2007) Understanding the brain. DVD1, lecture five. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company. 3 For an excellent chronicle of how this position evolved, see Pert, C. (1997). Molecules of emotion: The science behind mind-body medicine. New York: Scribner. 4 Chopra, D. (Speaker). (1989). New physics of healing, A New Medical Model, Cassette Recording. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. 5 Stapp, H. As cited in Herbert, N. (1985). Quantum reality: Beyond the new physics. New York: Doubleday. 6 Herbert, N. (1985). Quantum reality: Beyond the new physics. New York: Doubleday 7 I use this term because the term past life is too restrictive. In modern clinical hypnotherapy there is an option of working issues with past lives, future lives and, there is what I call horizontal reincarnation where lives can overlap your present life.