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A Mystical Map of Your Soul

This week, outside of Israel, we read the parasha of Acharei Mot. (In Israel, since Pesach is seven days and finished last Friday, Acharei Mot was read on Shabbat and this week the following parasha, Kedoshim, is read. For the next few months, the weekly parasha read in the Diaspora will be different than that read in Israel.) In Acharei Mot, we are commanded:

And any man of the House of Israel or of the foreigner that lives among them, who eats any blood, I will set My countenance upon the soul who eats the blood, and I will cut him off from among his people. For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have therefore given it to you [to be placed] upon the altar, to atone for your souls. For it is the blood that atones for the soul. (Leviticus 17:10-11)

Many recipes call for the use of “kosher salt”. Chefs like it because the larger grains allow them to season their meals more precisely. Jews use koshering salt to remove the tiniest drops of blood that may have remained after draining.

The Jewish people are absolutely forbidden from consuming any kind of blood, whether in a juicy steak or even the tiniest drop inside an egg. It is quite ironic that one of the most disgusting anti-Semitic accusations thrown upon the Jews is that Jews, God forbid, consume the blood of children. (It is all the more ironic that this “blood libel” originates among Catholics who, when taking communion, believe they are drinking the blood of Jesus—who was a Jew!) In reality, Jews obsess over ensuring that we consume no blood whatsoever, and one of the requirements of kosher meat is that all of the blood has been completely removed.

The Torah explains that we should not consume blood because nefesh habasar b’dam hi, the “soul of the flesh is in the blood”. If we eat meat, it is in order to obtain the nutrients in the flesh, not to absorb the spirit of the animal. The animal’s soul is, as the Torah commands, to be placed “upon the altar”. The Kabbalists explain that by doing so, the soul of the animal is allowed to return to the spiritual worlds from which it originates.

In precisely balanced language, the verses cited above state that a Jew who consumes any blood within which is soul, nefesh, will be “cut off” from his nation, and God will personally set His wrath upon that Jewish soul, nefesh. The same word is used to refer to the soul of the Jew and that of the animal. People sometimes forget that animals, too, have souls, and it is forbidden to harm animals in any way.

Having said that, there is of course a great difference between the soul of an animal and the soul of a human. In fact, we find in the Tanakh that five different words are used to refer to the soul. Our Sages explain that a person actually has five souls, or more accurately, five parts or levels to their soul. (The Ba’al HaTurim, Rabbi Yakov ben Asher [1269-1343], states that the five prayer services of Yom Kippur, and the five times that the Kohen Gadol would immerse in the mikveh that day, is in order to purify all five souls; see his commentary on this week’s parasha, Leviticus 16:14.) These five souls are in ascending order, and correspond to the spiritual universes of Creation and to the divine Sefirot. Each soul is itself made up of even smaller, intertwining parts. Understanding the soul and its dynamics is a central part of Jewish mysticism, and what follows is a brief overview of that spiritual map.

The First Three Souls

The first and lowest of the souls is the nefesh. As we have already seen, this soul is associated with the blood, and is the “life force” of a living organism. Above that is the soul called ruach, literally “wind” or “spirit”. We find this term right at the beginning of the Torah (Genesis 1:2) in referring to the Spirit of God (Ruach Elohim) and in many other places to refer to the souls of great people, such as Joshua (Numbers 27:18). Above that is the neshamah, literally “breath”, which we are first introduced to during the creation of Adam, where God breathes a nishmat chayim, “soul of life” into the first civilized man (Genesis 2:7).

These first three souls—nefesh, ruach, and neshamah; often abbreviated as naran—are spoken of widely across Jewish holy texts, from the Tanakh through the Talmud and the Zohar. For example, the Talmud (Niddah 31a) states how there are three partners in the creation of a person: the father is the primary source of five “white” things (bones, nerves, nails, brain, eyeball), the mother is the primary source of five “red” things (blood, skin, flesh, hair, iris), and God gives ten things, including the ruach and neshamah. (The nefesh presumably goes together with the blood from the mother.)

The Zohar (I, 205b-206a) elaborates that the neshamah is greater than the ruach, which is greater than the nefesh, and that a person only accesses higher levels of their soul if they are worthy. Sinners do not have access to their neshamas at all. They are just living nefesh, like animals. Based on this, the Zohar has a unique perspective on Genesis 7:22-23:

All in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life [nishmat ruach], whatsoever was in the dry land, died. And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the sky; and they were blotted out from the earth; and Noah alone was left, and they that were with him in the ark.

The Zohar sees these two verses as distinct. First, all those people who did merit a ruach and neshamah (meaning they weren’t completely sinful and didn’t deserve to perish in the Flood) died of natural causes. Only after this did God “blot out” all that remained, including animals and people who were so sinful they were essentially like animals, bearing only a nefesh.

With these three souls in mind, many aspects of life can be better understood. For example, when one is asleep only the nefesh remains in the body (to keep it alive), while the higher souls may migrate. This is why a sleeping body is unconscious and likened to a corpse, and why sometimes dreams can be prophetic, as the higher souls may be accessing information from the Heavens, or through interaction with other souls.

Another intriguing example is from Ibn Ezra (Rabbi Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, 1089-1167) who relates the three souls to three major purposes of sexual intercourse. The first and simplest is for procreation, something that even animals do, and naturally corresponds to nefesh. The second is for good health, corresponding to ruach. The third is for love and intimacy, fusing the souls of husband and wife, corresponding to the neshamah.

In addition to naran, the Zohar sometimes speaks of additional, even higher souls, such as “nefesh of Atzilut” and “neshamah of Aba and Ima” (see II, 94b). To make sense of these, we must turn to the Arizal.

Earning Your Higher Souls

In multiple places, Rabbi Chaim Vital (1543-1620), the primary disciple of the Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria, 1534-1572) and the one who recorded the bulk of his teachings, describes the anatomy of the soul (see, for example, the first passages of Sha’ar HaGilgulim or Derush Igulim v’Yosher 3 in Etz Chaim). At birth, a baby only contains a full nefesh. As the Torah states, the nefesh is in the blood, and the Arizal adds that since the liver filters blood and is full of it, it is the organ most associated with nefesh. By the age of bar or bat mizvah, a person now has the ability to fully access their ruach. The organ of ruach is the heart (also stated in the Zohar, III, 29b, Raya Mehemna), associated with one’s drives, and both inclinations, the yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara. Only at age 20 does the neshamah become fully available (in most cases). The neshamah is housed in the brain, and is associated with the mind.

Today, we know how scientifically precise those statements are. For example, at any given time the liver (the body’s largest internal organ) contains about 10% of the body’s blood volume, and filters about a quarter of all blood each minute. As well, we know today that the majority of the brain’s development ends around age 20 (though minor changes continue for at least another decade, if not longer). It therefore isn’t surprising that teenagers are so good at making bad decisions. We can also understand why being a teenager is so difficult emotionally, as this is when the ruach is in full force in the heart, and one struggles with their desires and inclinations.

Reinforcing what was said in the Zohar, the Arizal taught that one does not automatically have full access to these souls, but must work on themselves and merit to attain them. Unfortunately, a great many people spend their entire lives stuck in nefesh, living very materialistic and animalistic lives, never overcoming their desires and inclinations (ruach), or achieving any kind of mental greatness (neshamah). The potential is there, though never realized.

For those who do grow ever-higher, they may be able to access even loftier soul levels: the chayah and yechidah. In the Torah, we see many places where the soul is referred to as chayah, including right at the start where God breathes a soul into Adam and makes him l’nefesh chayah (Genesis 2:7). The chayah is sometimes described as an aura. It is not housed within the body, but glows outward, and plays an important role in the interactions between people. (Conversely, some early sources speak of the chayah as being within the body, and serving as its life force. See, for example, Beresheet Rabbah 14:9.)

Above it is the highest level of soul, the yechidah, “singular one”, which connects a person directly with God. It is like a divine umbilical cord, and one who realizes it and senses it may certainly draw through it information from Above. The yechidah, too, has Scriptural basis, for example in Psalms 22:21 and 35:17 where David asks God to save his nefesh and yechidah from danger.

Souls Intertwined With Universes

In Etz Chaim, Rabbi Vital cites the Talmud (Berakhot 10a) as the source for the concept of five souls, as well as the five olamot, spiritual universes. (The mystical Sefer HaBahir adds that this is the secret of the letter hei, which has a numerical value of five.) There in the Talmud, the Sages point out how David’s Barchi Nafshi, Psalms 103-104, uses the phrase Barchi nafshi et Hashem, “May my soul bless God” five times. These, the Sages state, correspond to the five olamot, “worlds” or “universes” that David inhabited. Though the Talmud goes on to present a more physical explanation of what these worlds are, it is possible to read deeper between the lines, and the Kabbalists find allusions to five cosmic, spiritual universes, which are: Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beriah, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon. While explaining these worlds in depth is a topic for another time, we can state that the five souls correspond to these five universes.

In fact, the Arizal teaches that one can identify the soul elevation of another by studying the colour of their aura: black is the colour of Asiyah, the lowest, physical realm which we visibly inhabit. The higher world of Yetzirah, the domain of angels and spirits, is red. Even higher is Beriah, literally “Creation”, where the very spiritual foundations of Creation exist. It is white. Above this is Atzilut, “divine emanation”, which is pure, brilliant light. These worlds, and souls, correspond to the letters of God’s Name. The final hei is Asiyah/Nefesh, the vav is Yetzirah/Ruach, the first hei is Beriah/Neshamah, the yud is Atzilut/Chayah, and the “crown” atop the yud is Adam Kadmon/Yechidah.

How the letters of God’s Ineffable Name relate to the five levels of soul, the five “universes”, and the Ten Sefirot. (Zeir Anpin refers to the middle six Sefirot from Chessed to Yesod.)

All of these also correspond to the major branches of Torah study. Learning Tanakh is in Asiyah, while Mishnah is in Yetzirah. Talmud is in Beriah, while Kabbalah is in Atzilut. When one learns these texts, they are putting on a spiritual “garment” for that soul level, rectifying it and elevating it further, and this garment will remain with them in the World to Come (see Sha’ar HaPesukim on Tehilim). This is the deeper meaning of Psalm 19:8, which states that God’s Torah is temimah, meshivat nafesh, is “pure and restores the soul”.

Adam Kadmon is left out of the above (and in general is made distinct from the other four universes) because that level is where one has mastered all of the Torah branches, has refined their soul to the highest degree, and is a perfectly righteous person. This level may be equated to the super-lofty soul of Nefesh d’Atzilut which we previously mentioned from the Zohar. Such a rare person is referred to as a malakh, an “angel”, and this was the case with people like Eliyahu, Yehudah, Hezekiah, and Enoch (Sha’ar HaGilgulim, ch. 39).

How the souls and universes relate to the “Tree of Life” which depicts the 32 Paths of Creation – the 10 Sefirot and the 22 Hebrew letters.

Emptying The Universe’s Soul

In case it wasn’t complicated enough just yet, the Arizal taught that each of the five souls is itself composed of five souls. So, within the nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah (abbreviated as naran chai) there is an inner nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, and yechidah! That makes 25 smaller parts to the soul. Furthermore, each of these parts is composed of 613 sparks corresponding to the 613 mitzvot. Each of those sparks is further composed of 600,000 even smaller sparks. Multiplying them all together, we get 9.195 billion sparks.

In the same place where he writes this (Sha’ar HaGilgulim, ch. 11), Rabbi Vital explains that all of these sparks were contained within Adam. We may assume that it probably isn’t the case that each person has 9 billion or more sparks, but that Adam’s original soul divided up into so many sparks. Since it is said that in the same way all people are physical descendants of Adam, they are also his spiritual descendants, we might conclude that the world should expect to have a population of up to 9.195 billion people. Interestingly, demographers are currently predicting that Earth’s population will actually top out around 9 billion, and will then start to decline. This prediction is quite amazing in light of one famous Talmudic teaching:

In Yevamot 62a, the Sages state that Mashiach will not come until all souls are born. They describe a Heavenly repository of souls called Guf, literally “body”. Only when Guf is empty can Mashiach arrive. The Guf may be mystically referring to that first “body” of Adam which contained all souls within it. Once all of those sparks are born, all souls from the beginning of time will be alive simultaneously so that everyone can witness the tremendous Final Redemption. It appears we are inching ever closer to that moment.

The above essay is adapted from Garments of Light, Volume Three.
Get the book here! 

For more about soul dynamics, see the following:

How the Priestly Garments Atoned for the People

Priests in the Temple (Courtesy: Temple Institute)

This week’s parasha, Pekudei, describes how the Mishkan and all of its vessels were created, together with the special priestly garments. The parasha ends with the formal initiation of Aaron and his sons into the priesthood through their ritual purification, anointment, and donning of the sacred vestments. Our Sages famously state (Zevachim 88b) that the vestments of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, atoned for the sins of the people:

The tunic atoned for bloodshed… the breeches atoned for lewdness… the turban made atonement for arrogance… the belt atoned for [impure] meditations of the heart… the breastplate atoned for neglect of civil laws… the apron atoned for idolatry… the cloak atoned for slander… and the crown, worn on the forehead, atoned for brazenness.

The tunic (kutonet) was a simple white garment worn over the body which all of the priests (not only the High Priest) wore. The Talmud says it atoned for bloodshed, and proves it through a gzerah shavah, a form of interpretation where the exact same word (or root of a word) appears in two different contexts, thus allowing a connection between the two to be made. In Genesis 37:31 we read how, following the sale of Joseph, his brothers slaughtered a goat and dipped Joseph’s special robe in the goat’s blood. They used the bloodied robe as proof to show their father Jacob that Joseph had been murdered or devoured by an animal. The word used for Joseph’s robe is kutonet, too, that same word used for the Kohen’s garment. From this we can learn that the kutonet atoned for bloodshed.

The breeches (michnasei bad) were white pants worn to cover up the lower half of the body, and atoned for sexual immorality. The Talmud proves it from an explicit verse in the Torah (Exodus 28:42) where God commanded that the pants be made “to cover up the flesh of their nakedness”. The Hebrew term here is precisely the one used to denote sexual indecency (‘ervah, or gilui arayot).

The white turban (mitznefet) atones for arrogance. Rabbi Hanina explains here that the turban was worn on the head at the very top of the body, and thus atoned for people who similarly put themselves “at the head” above other people.

The last of the four garments worn by the regular priest is the avnet, a sash or belt. Made of red, blue, and purple wool, it was the only multi-coloured garment worn by the regular priest. It atoned for impure thoughts, and the Talmud says we know this from the fact that the sash was worn tied around the heart. Contrary to what we may expect, this was not a belt to hold up the pants, but rather an independent garment wrapped around the upper body.

In Jewish thought, the heart is the seat of the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, which tries to make a person sin by throwing improper thoughts into their head. The heart is also the seat of the yetzer hatov, the good inclination. These two opposing forces both reside in one’s heart. Because of this, the term for “heart” used in the daily Shema is levavecha, and not the more grammatically consistent libecha. The former has an extra letter beit, the doubled language alluding to the two inclinations in the heart.

Our Sages teach that one should always keep their mind above their heart, in full control of their inclinations. The brain should dominate the heart, and the heart should dominate the liver. The Hebrew word for liver, kaved (כבד), is directly related to kavod (כבוד), “honour”. Thus, the liver is the source of pride and arrogance. These organs are arranged physiologically in the body the way they are to teach us a lesson: the brain (or intellect) should be on top, then the emotions of the heart below it, and the ego at the very bottom.

If one accomplishes this, with their brain, moach (מוח) in Hebrew, being above their heart, lev (לב), and their heart being above their liver, kaved (כבד)—then they become a melekh (מלך), “king”. If the letters are reversed, where one’s honour trumps their emotions, which in turn overrule their reasoning, then they are klum (כלם), “nothing”.

The Four Garments of the High Priest

Garments of the regular priest and the high priest (Courtesy: Temple Institute)

The High Priest wore an additional four unique garments. On his forehead was the golden plate known as the tzitz, which atoned for brazenness. This is proven by another gzerah shavah between Exodus 28:38, which commands the priest to wear the plate upon his metzach, “forehead”, and Jeremiah 3:3 which speaks of the brazen “forehead” (again metzach) of a licentious woman.

On top of the regular white tunic, the High Priest wore a meil, a “coat” made entirely of fine blue (tekhelet) wool. The coat atoned for lashon hara, evil speech. Since the Torah states that the coat had bells along its bottom, which jingled as the Kohen walked, Rabbi Hanina explains: “Let an article of sound come and atone for an offence of sound.”

Rav Yitzchak Ginsburgh points out that the term for bell, pa’amon (פעמן) refers to something that resonates, and the same root is used, for example, in describing how the Spirit of God resonated within—l’fa’amo (לפעמו)—the Biblical judge Samson (Judges 13:25). Rav Ginsburgh beautifully notes how the gematria of “Spirit of God” (רוח ה׳) is 240, equal to that of pa’amon (פעמן). It is also equal to meil ha’ephod (מעיל האפד), the full title of the garment, as in Exodus 29:5 or 39:22. He concludes that if one wishes to have the Spirit of God rest upon them, the key is to refrain from any evil speech.

The ephod, or apron, atoned for idolatry. This is derived from Hosea 3:4: “For the children of Israel shall sit solitary many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or teraphim.” The verse is taken to mean that where there is no ephod, there will be teraphim—various implements of idol worship. The word “teraphim” appears multiple times in the Tanakh (as in Genesis 31:19 and Judges 17:5), nearly always in relation to idolatry.

Upon the ephod was the famous choshen, the breastplate that, according to tradition, allowed for communication with the Heavens. The breastplate atoned for violations of dinin, civil law. We know this from the fact that the Torah calls the breastplate choshen mishpat (Exodus 28:15), literally “breastplate of judgement”, with the term mishpat typically referring to court cases and civil law (whereas chukim and edot refer to religious-based, historical, or ritual laws).

In this way, even the very clothes of the Kohen helped him fulfill his main duty of bringing atonement for the people. Yet, in the past two thousand years, there has been no Temple and no priestly service. Might there be something in its stead?

Every Jew is a Priest

When the Temple was destroyed, our Sages instituted a number of practices in place of those Temple rituals. They declared that “as long as the Temple stood, the altar atoned for Israel, but now a man’s table atones for him” (Berakhot 55a). Just as the priests would wash their hands in a special basin before starting their services (and before eating terumah), the Rabbis instituted netilat yadayim, the ritual washing of the hands before starting a meal. Just as the sacrificial meat was required to be brought with salt, it became customary to dip the bread in salt before eating it. In place of the Temple menorah we have the Chanukah menorah, and in place of the Temple showbread we have two challahs, each traditionally braided with six strands to represent the twelve loaves once displayed in the Temple.

In many ways, the Talmudic sages and rabbis saw themselves filling the role once held by the ancient priests. More importantly, they taught that every righteous Jew should see himself as a priest. After all, God intended for all of Israel to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). In fact, many commentaries agree that it is only because of the Golden Calf incident that the tribe of Levi was appointed to take over the priesthood. Were it not for that tragedy, every firstborn male would be a priest, and any other Jewish male could voluntarily enter the priesthood. To this effect, the Talmud (Bava Kamma 38a) goes so far as to state that “even a non-Jew who occupies himself with Torah is comparable to the High Priest.” A person who lives in Torah and refines himself to the highest degree is likened to the greatest of priests, at least in a spiritual sense.

In a wonderful affirmation of this, we see that every Torah-observing Jewish man is wearing “holy garments” that parallel the priestly vestments. Everyone generally wears a shirt and pants with a belt, along with their head-covering, corresponding to the four vestments of the regular priest (kutonet, michnasei bad, avnet, mitznefet). And there are four additional special items that a Jew wears that parallel those unique garments of the High Priest:

The “bells” along the hem of the tallit.

The tzitz headplate worn on the top of the forehead is like the head tefillin worn “between the eyes”, while the choshen breastplate worn over the heart is like the arm tefillin which is supposed to be worn in line with the heart. The ephod that was worn over the shoulders and stretched down below the waist is like the tzitzit katan garment worn over the shoulders with its fringes hanging down below the waist. The woolen tallit with which we wrap ourselves, with its customary blue stripes to remember tekhelet, is like the special blue meil that was made of fine tekhelet wool. And just as the meil had pa’amonim bells along its hem, the tallit, too, customarily has bell-like knots along its hem.

In this way, every Jew has the ability to elevate to a priest-like status, especially in lieu of a Temple, and in light of the Torah’s statement that all of Israel is a “nation of priests” (Exodus 19:6). Each Jew can bring about atonement, not only for himself but for his people as a whole, and each Jew can spread evermore divine light into the world.

Is Your Brain a Quantum Computer? (A Scientific Explanation for the Soul and Afterlife)

This week’s parasha, Chayei Sarah, begins with the passing of the matriarch Sarah. The Torah states that “the lives of Sarah were one hundred years, and twenty years, and seven years…” Traditionally, two big questions were asked of this verse: the first is why the Torah describes her life as one hundred, twenty, and seven years instead of simply saying that she was 127 years old when she died. The second is why the Torah says these were the lives of Sarah, instead of life in the singular, especially in light of the fact that the parasha actually describes her death, not life!

The classic answer to the first question is that Sarah was as beautiful at 100 as she was at 20, and she was as pure at 20 as she was at 7 years old. The answer to the second question, as we’ve explored in the past (see ‘A Mystical Journey through the Lives of Sarah’ in Garments of Light), is that Sarah – or at least a part of her soul – was immediately reincarnated in Rebecca, and thus Sarah’s life and life’s work continued with her future daughter-in-law. In general, the word for “life” in Hebrew is in plural, chaim, which alludes to the fact that there are really two lives: the transient life in this current physical world, and the everlasting life of the soul.

Today, many question (or outright reject) the possibility of an afterlife. Such people argue that there is no evidence or scientifically plausible explanation for such things. When the body dies, the person dies with it, and that’s it. In reality, there is a great deal of evidence to support the notion of a soul and an afterlife, and even one solid scientific explanation that is slowly gaining popularity and acceptance.

The Quantum Brain

Although there have been millions of cases of “near death experiences” and medically-induced “clinical deaths”—many of which end with the victim or patient describing other worlds and relating accurate information that would have been impossible for them to know—these are all relegated to “anecdotal evidence” and generally not taken seriously in the scientific community. We can put all of that aside (together with countless people’s personal stories of prophetic dreams and premonitions, “out-of-body” experiences, miraculous occurrences, and other inexplicable phenomena), and focus strictly on accepted science.

In recent decades, neurologists studying the human brain have sought to uncover what it is that generates consciousness and actually makes the brain work. Why and how is it that this network of cells produces a “mind”? Biology and chemistry have given us the general mechanisms of electrical signals and neurotransmitters, but have not been able to answer the real fundamental questions. To solve the mystery actually requires the most complex of sciences: quantum physics.

In 1989, world-renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose published The Emperor’s New Mind in which he argued that classical physics simply cannot explain consciousness, nor can the brain be compared in any way to a typical computer, or be explained with familiar algorithms. Penrose suggested that the only plausible explanation for consciousness can come from quantum physics.

To go into the major principles of quantum physics is far beyond our scope. Indeed, one of the great quantum physicists, Richard Feynman, once noted: “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” Suffice it to say that quantum physics has completely revolutionized science and our entire understanding of reality. It has turned the universe into a funky place where just about anything is possible, and where things at the sub-atomic level behave in totally bizarre ways. Niels Bohr, one of the early quantum physicists (and a Nobel Prize winner) offered that “If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” Meanwhile, the man who is often called “the father of quantum physics”, Max Planck, stated:

As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.

From his lifetime of studies, Planck concluded that reality as we know it doesn’t exist, and all of matter is held together by some kind of universal mind or consciousness. Building on these ideas, and the complex math and science behind them, Penrose proposed that the brain is a “quantum computer” of sorts, and may be intricately linked to the very fabric of the universe.

Quantum Biology and the Soul

Penrose’s hypothesis inspired a psychology professor in Arizona named Stuart Hameroff. As a practicing anesthesiologist, Hameroff knew that anesthesia works by shutting down small proteins inside neurons called microtubules, and this shuts off a person’s consciousness. Penrose and Hameroff teamed up to continue researching the possibility of the brain as quantum computer. Incredibly, their conclusions suggest that the brain can actually store its quantum information in the universe itself, so that even if the brain was to die, its information would not die with it. That information can be held indefinitely in the universe, and can return to a revived brain, or even into another brain. This would explain near death experiences and clinical deaths, and provides a scientific explanation for reincarnation and a life after death. The death of the body does not at all mean the death of the person, or that person’s memories and thoughts.

While there are those who are quick to criticize the theory and reject it, no one has been able to actually refute it. In fact, since the theory was first proposed, more and more evidence has accumulated to support it. In 2014, quantum biologist Anirban Bandyopadhyay (based in Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science and a visiting professor at MIT) successfully demonstrated the quantum activity of microtubules.

It appears that science has finally discovered the soul. There are now valid, empirical evidence-based theories to explain the existence of an eternal mind or spirit, a universal consciousness, the possibility of an afterlife and reincarnation. The scientific community needs to stop aggressively denying anything that seems “spiritual”, and instead delve deeper into this exciting and promising new field. This sentiment was already expressed long ago by Nikola Tesla, considered by many to be the greatest scientist of all time: “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” It was the genius Tesla who first noted that his brain “is only a receiver,” and stated that “In the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know it exists.”

The above is an excerpt from Garments of Light, Volume Two. Get the book here!