Bell's theorem was prompted by a famous paradox put forward by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen to challenge the prevailing interpretation of quantum mechanical "reality". The EPR paradox concerns a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement involving pairs of correlated particles. If the first particle in a pair has a certain property - spin, for example - that can be described as "up" then the other paired particle must have the opposite spin property - "down" - so that the two spins cancel to zero. (If they didn't then spin asymmetry would emerge, leading to an unbalanced universe.)

According to classical physics, the two particles have opposite spin states from the outset. However, quantum theory says that each particle exists in a superposition of the up and down spin states (i.e. neither has a clear-cut spin state), and it is not until a measurement is carried out and the spin wavefunction "collapses" that a particle can be said to have a definite spin state. This instantaneously causes the spin wavefunction of the other particle to collapse into the opposite state.

The EPR paradox relates to what happens if the two particles are separated by an enormous distance where no instantaneous communication between the two particles is possible within the framework of conventional physics. If one particle is measured to be "up", how, in quantum theory, can the other particle then "know" that its spin wavefunction should collapse into the "down" state? Classically, each particle always had a definite spin, so there's no dilemma in this view. Quantum mechanically, neither particle knew what its spin state was until a measurement took place. But the question is how can the other particle know the outcome of the measurement instantaneously if it is, say, a light year away? What mechanism would be used to communicate the information? The EPR paradox seemed to strike a deadly blow at quantum mechanical orthodoxy.

It required either "action at a distance" (this is the interaction of two objects which are separated in space with no known mediator of the interaction), or faster than light communication. Einstein completely rejected the latter and said of the former, "Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance." He introduced a locality principle which stated, "If two systems are in isolation from each other for some time, then a measurement of the first can produce no real change on the second."

Einstein and his colleagues believed that they had shown that quantum theory was incomplete and that hidden variables (well-defined classical elements of reality not yet revealed) must exist.

The defenders of orthodox quantum mechanics maintained that the entangled particles are part of a single system, and it doesn't matter by how far the particles are separated: once connected they can never be truly separated.

It was to this fundamental issue that Bell turned his attention. An introduction to Bell's theorem can be found in this article:

http://www.quantiki.org/wiki/index.php/Bell's_theorem#Statement_of_Bell.27s_theorem

The article says:

"In its simplest form, Bell's theorem states:

No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

[Bell] showed that the assumption of local realism - that particle attributes have definite values independent of the act of observation and that physical effects have a finite propagation speed - leads to a requirement for certain types of phenomena which is not present in quantum mechanics. This requirement is called 'Bell's inequality'. Similar inequalities have subsequently been derived by different authors which are collectively termed 'Bell inequalities'. They all make the same assumptions about local realism - that a quantum-level object has a well-defined state which accounts for all its measurable properties and that distant objects do not exchange information faster than the speed of light. These well defined properties are often called hidden variables."

Bell's theorem was tested and confirmed by Alain Aspect's team in Paris in 1982.

Bell's theorem decisively rejects Einstein's view of reality. Nature has non-local aspects.

The ramifications are astounding. Even though the world appears to be based on locality, it is in fact based on an unmediated, unseen reality that permits faster than light (and probably instantaneous) communication. Any credible theory of reality must be able to satisfy Bell's theorem.

David Bohm, a supporter of Einstein's views, proposed that the universe is actually something akin to a giant hologram. A true hologram (rather than the type that gets placed on credit cards) has the property of non-locality: every part of a piece of holographic film contains all of the information possessed by the whole film. Karl Pribram has suggested that human memory is based on holographic principles. In fact, his theory involves the whole human brain operating according to holographic rules. This theory could potentially explain why people can recover a huge amount of normal brain function even after suffering major brain damage or even the surgical removal of large portions of the brain.

The hologram theory is extremely controversial and has been dismissed by most scientists. Even more controversial is Rupert Sheldrake's theory of Morphic Resonance. According to Sheldrake, information can be transmitted instantaneously without loss of energy through any amount of time and space via "morphogenetic fields."  

Some people have speculated that particles called tachyons exist. These are superluminal particles: they travel faster than light. Such particles are consistent with Einstein's theory of relativity (no particle can be accelerated from below the speed of light to faster than the speed of light but since tachyons can never travel more slowly than the speed of light, this rule does not apply to them). If tachyons exist, then they travel backwards in time. Although tachyons are theoretically interesting, no evidence for their existence has ever been found.

Illumination has no difficulty in conforming to the requirements of Bell's theorem. Illumination teaches that mind and matter are two aspects of the same substance. This single substance exists in both a dimensional and non-dimensional space. The matter aspect is confined to the dimensional space while the mind aspect is confined to the non-dimensional space. The non-dimensional space can be considered along the lines of the "singularity" that is said to exist at the centre of a black hole, or the singularity associated with the Big Bang.

In black hole theory, the singularity of a non-spinning black hole is a dimensionless point of infinite density (which distorts time and space so much that nothing, including light, can escape from its gravitational field). It has zero radius, zero volume, and the laws of physics break down completely at this point.

The dimensionless singularity of Illumination also has zero radius and zero volume, but rather than being associated with infinite density, it is associated with infinite mental events. It has no connection with space and time (which are part of the dimensional universe).

Everything in the universe can be explained by the co-existence of the mental and material aspects in an all-pervasive single substance, and by the co-existence of a dimensional universe and a non-dimensional universe.

Illumination provides a straightforward answer to the EPR paradox. The pair of entangled particles start off together in the dimensional material universe, and also in the zero-dimensional mental universe. While they can be separated in the physical universe, they cannot be separated in the dimensionless mental universe. No matter how far apart they travel in physical space, they are permanently connected via the mental universe. So, as soon as a measurement is carried out on one, the outcome is immediately reflected in the mental universe, and that result is in turn immediately reflected in the paired particle, again in the mental universe. But as soon as the results of the measurement are "known" in the mental universe they are instantaneously reflected in the physical universe. Hence, the behaviour required by Bell's theorem is comprehensively explained.

The fundamental point is that by uniting the material and the mental, by uniting a universe with dimensions with one without dimensions, all of the problems of Descartes' dualistic universe are solved, all the paradoxes of quantum mechanics are solved, the appearance of mind from non-mind and of life from non-life no longer have to be explained since every material object is "minded" and to that extent alive. Instantaneous communications are no longer baffling. All instantaneous links are mediated by the mental singularity that lies at the core of physical existence.

The laws of science relate, overwhelmingly, to the physical universe. The EPR paradox and Bell's theorem give the first scientific glimpse of the interface between mind and matter. In the future, a new science of this extraordinary interface will emerge. In the far future, physics (the science of the dimensional universe) and metaphysics (the science of the dimensionless universe) will come to be seen as one. (Illumination prefers the term "transcendental physics" rather than "metaphysics".)

In one mind - that of God - physics and transcendental physics are already one.

The implications of the mind-matter, dimensional-dimensionless universe are extraordinary. The door is opened to psychic powers and  what is commonly referred to as the "paranormal." Such powers are mediated by the dimensionless mental singularity where time and space do not exist and everything is, in a sense, connected and one.

The Illuminati refer to the dimensional universe of matter as the Hylocosmos (hyle = matter) and the dimensionless universe of mind - the mental singularity - as the Psychocosmos (psyche = mind). Only a reality with these two aspects can account for the nature of our knowledge and experiences. Reality is a superposition of the mental and physical, of the dimensional and dimensionless.

Time, space and causation arise in the Hylocosmos, and from there are reflected in the Psychocosmos, but time, space and causation are not inherent in the Psychocosmos. Time and space support the principium individuationis - the principle of individuation. What distinguishes one individual thing from another is that they are differently located in time and space. Anything that existed in exactly the same time and space, and with the same properties, as another thing would not be different from that thing. Because things exist individually in the Hylocosmos, this is reflected in the Psychocosmos, but individual things are not inherent in the Psychocosmos. (Quantum physicists will rightly point out that, as a consequence  of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, it is impossible to tell whether two quantum particles of the same type are located in the same space. This could be interpreted as evidence that the Psychocosmos shapes the Hylocosmos at the elementary level, blurring the principle of individuation. We will turn in a later article to one of the most significant aspects of the quantum world: the difference between "bosons" and "fermions". This difference is critical to the nature of reality.)

The lack of intrinsic qualities of time, space and individuation in the Psychocosmos is what underlies, in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, notions of an underlying universal oneness, wholeness and togetherness. These religions treat the Hylocosmos as a kind of illusion or place where we misapprehend the real nature of things (the veil of Maya in Hinduism) and see the Psychocosmos as the true reality. These religions regard ego, separation, difference, individuation as entities that need to be overcome on the journey towards universal union. Human suffering arises, they claim, from our inability to perceive the true interconnectedness of all things. "Enlightenment" in these religions amounts to escaping the Hylocosmos and fully entering the Psychocosmos.

Illumination, while it has certain elements in common with Hinduism and Buddhism, is ultimately fundamentally different and teaches radically different truths. For one thing, the Hylocosmos and Psychocosmos are inextricably linked and neither is more "true" than the other. They exist only in relation to each other. The Psychocosmos - as the arena of thought and moral action - is rightly the focus of all religions, but it cannot do without the Hylocosmos.

Whereas Hinduism and Buddhism both seek, ultimately, the abolition of the self, Illumination centres on the transition of the self from its most primitive form to the maximum expression of itself, the fullest realisation of its potential - the Self with a capital "S". It seeks, in short, not to absorb the individual into some universal oneness, but to make the individual as perfect as possible: Godlike. The Psychocosmos is the arena where individuals can become everything they have it within themselves to be. It is not the place where individuality is extinguished.

There is a higher truth that Hindus and Buddhists completely miss. It derives from the well-known concept that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (a concept known as holism). Human bodies are made up of many individual cells, but the whole - humans themselves - are vastly more than mere collections of cells. A whole that contains no parts is intrinsically inferior to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The latter contains an entire extra element missing in the former. Individuation is critical to the creation of the greatest conceivable whole. Far from being extinguished in "nirvana", individuation has to be maximised so that the whole, comprised of all the optimised individual things, will itself be optimised. The destruction of the individual in Hinduism and Buddhism is anathema to Illumination.

Arthur Koestler introduced the term "holon" (from the Greek word "holos" meaning whole) to describe an entity functioning as both a whole and as a part of a whole, to be independent in one function, and dependent in the other. Koestler referred to the "Janus principle" to describe the dual nature of holons. Holons strive to be both whole and to belong to a whole. This is very close to the ancient teaching of Illumination. Only individuals who are whole can be part of a divine whole. The journey of each individual, over a number of incarnations, is to allow him to learn the lessons that will permit him to become whole, and thence be part of a greater whole.

The Illuminati teach the message of the Double Holos - a perfect, whole individual within a perfect, whole community. Those who cannot learn that lesson are rejected from the divine whole. They are the damned. Hell is that place where the whole is less than the sum of its parts, where the damned are locked in selfishness, egotism, refusal to cooperate, cruelty, vanity, greed and division. It does not take much to see that hell closely resembles this earth of ours, ruled by the Old World Order. This hell can be transformed into the first step to heaven, but the Old World Order must be destroyed before we can begin to climb the ladder.

Philosophically, the concepts of subject and object are of fundamental importance. The subject is that which knows or experiences while the object is that which is known or experienced. All things are objects in the Hylocosmos and subjects in the Psychocosmos. There is no such thing as a subject without an object or an object without a subject. It is one of the most remarkable features of existence that everything is both object and subject. Most things do not have sufficiently developed minds to take advantage of that, but humans do. We can see our bodies as physical objects in the Hylocosmos, yet our primary way of relating to reality is as subjects.

Yet even with humans, there is a vast grey area and it relates to what is commonly known as the "unconscious". Illumination uses a different terminology for this concept. Illumination asserts that all animals are sentient beings and to that extent are conscious. Humans are the only animals on earth that have the higher level of consciousness labelled "self-consciousness", the ability to reflect upon their own existence. If a human could remove his self-consciousness, he would exist at the same level of consciousness as animals. What Freud refers to as unconsciousness is what is, really, the consciousness of non-human animals.

A sleepwalking human is not self-conscious, but can nevertheless carry out complicated tasks. He is not unconscious; he is using animal consciousness rather than human self-consciousness. At this level of consciousness, humans are more like objects than subjects. Despite what humans think, much of their activity actually takes place at this level, hence the success of Freud's theory of the unconscious. Freud revealed that a huge amount of what we do derives from our objective rather than our subjective nature. Our subjective nature then has to rationalise why we behaved in that way. Some people are far better at that task than others. Many humans exist as little more than higher-functioning animals, while a few have the capacity to successfully operate as lower-functioning gods. Which would you prefer to be?    

The word "theatre" derives from the Greek word theatron meaning "seeing place". The Hylocosmos is the theatre for the mind, where subjects sit and watch both themselves and other subjects as objects. Yet the subjects can also step onto the stage and change the performance. There is no pre-written script. Everyone has the chance to shape their destiny.

One experiment that has been used to probe the paranormal is Rupert Sheldrake's "telephone telepathy" which involves a receiver guessing which of four close friends is phoning them. The experiment is carried out roughly forty times, with the roll of a dice being used to select which friend should make each call. Sheldrake claims that the receiver typically achieves a 42% success rate where a 25% success rate would be expected by chance. Unfortunately, the sample size is far too small to be meaningful, and the experiment could be vastly improved by including four automated voices, and four people who only vaguely know the receiver. The number of trials could be extended from forty to one hundred. It is likely that if these conditions were applied, Sheldrake's results would revert to the expected average.

Illumination makes the following prediction regarding the strength of psychic connections (between those who do not claim to have psychic powers):

1)    Identical twins (Monozygotic twins; two separate embryos come from a single fertilised egg)
2)    Fraternal twins (Dizygotic twins; separate embryos from separate fertilised eggs)
3)    Parents and their children
4)    Siblings
5)    Lovers
6)    Friends
7)    Close colleagues
8)    Strangers

Since identical twins come from the same fertilised egg and therefore once shared the same origin in the Psychocosmos, they are permanently linked (like particles involved in quantum entanglement). Whether they make any use of that connectedness in practice depends on the extent to which they seek to explore their psychic selves. In fact, most people would prefer to block their powers for fear of having their innermost thoughts read. Often, it's only when a major trauma, or death, occurs, that the connectedness becomes fully apparent.

Other aspects of the paranormal will be dealt with in a subsequent article.

People who have lost their sight don't have blind dreams - they dream as though they still had their vision. But someone who has never had sight could never experience a sighted dream. What does that prove? The mental needs the physical to provide experiences, but once it has had sufficient experience of the physical world, it no longer needs it. In the Psychocosmos, the man who has lost his sight in the Hylocosmos regains it. Already, we see the glimmer of how it can be that the mental can reach a certain stage when it is no longer so dependent upon the physical. Those who have lost limbs or become paralysed dream as though they still had their limbs or were free of paralysis. The old can dream of being young again. The living can dream of the dead, and those dead relatives, friends and lovers can come back as vividly as they were when they were alive. A skeptic might begin to see how souls are possible.

Dreams, so mysterious and difficult to study, are underestimated in our culture. They are so powerful that humans have to be paralysed during the dream phase of sleep to stop them acting out their dreams, to stop the dreams spilling into physical reality. The implication is that the margin between reality and dreaming is so slender that if the dream paralysis were removed, we could barely distinguish between the two states. Without dream paralysis, our dreams would have a direct impact on the physical world. They would no longer be dreams but reality.

In lucid dreaming, the dreamer can be fully aware that he is dreaming and direct the way the dream develops. The boundary between reality and the dream is blurred. As the Chinese philosopher Chuang-Tzu said after dreaming that he was a butterfly, "Who am I in reality, a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang-Tzu, or Chuang-Tzu dreaming that he is a butterfly?"

If the whole human race could have a sufficiently powerful dream - a collective dream in which everyone was participating in the same dream - could it be distinguished from reality? The simulated world shown in the film "The Matrix" was a common dream supplied to the entire human race, and it successfully replaced "reality".  If humanity could at some point evolve a "Mass Mind", could it also evolve a collective dream and create its own Matrix? Could it design heaven for humanity?

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's concept of the noosphere amounts to a human collective consciousness. He saw the noosphere as evolving towards the "Omega Point", the ultimate goal of history, the culmination of consciousness.

Out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences and astral projection are all supported by anecdotal evidence but have no scientific support. How could a consciousness separate itself from the body in order to have such experiences? If there are no physical eyes, how is it possible to see? Yet a blind man can "see" in his dreams. But ultimately his vision comes from memory. There is no recorded case of a people blind from birth having an out-of-body experience or near-death experience in which they experienced vision. In fact, even if they could see, they wouldn't know what they were seeing. Seeing is something that is learned. People who recover sight after losing it for decades have to relearn how to see.

Yet if a single case of an out-of-body experience or near-death-experience could be cited that demonstrated that someone had seen without the use of physical eyes it would instantly be the strongest possible evidence for the existence of souls. There are now operating theatres in the world where coded messages have been placed on top of theatre equipment so that they are visible to anyone "hovering" above an operating table as part of a near-death-experience. No coded message has ever been reported by anyone claiming to have a near-death-experience. Yet what if that proof existed, but hadn't been placed in the public arena? What if a secret society had already performed out-of-body experiments where coded information was successfully retrieved?