Title: The Hyperspace of Consciousness
ISBN-10:9176370305
ISBN-13:9789176370308
Author: Massimo Teodorani
Publisher: Elementà
Publish date: 1-Jun-2015
Subject: Spirituality / Supernatural & Paranormal / Parapsychology
The Hyperspace of Consciousness is one of the most intriguing and thought provocative books I've had the pleasure of reading, and I'm excited to be able to introduce it to the PSICAN readers. If you are looking for some mind blowing frontier scientific thoughts, that discuss synchronicity, consciousness studies, spirituality, cosmic evolution, UFOs, a possible alien intelligence, and a newer approach to SETI this book will captivate you. It is also highly accessible to the general public. I personally find myself referring back to this book again and again. The author, Massimo Teodorani is a very well known scientist, anomaly researcher, and science writer in his home in Northern Italy, throughout Europe, and within the scientific UFO community. This is his debut English language book, and it is quickly defining him as one of the most profound thinkers within the frontier science realm.
The following Q & A is an interview I conducted in April 2016 with Massimo on behalf of PSICAN and our readers. We discuss his latest book, UFOs, the good and bad of current UFO studies, his work in Canada, and what's next for this remarkable scientist.
1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I have a Ph.D. in astrophysics and worked at three different observatories in Italy by carrying out research mostly in stellar objects such as supernovae, novae, eruptive protostars, high-mass close binary stars, extrasolar planets and SETI, using both an observational and an interpretative/theoretical approach. In a parallel way I have been doing a lot of research on atmospheric anomalies such as the Hessdalen phenomenon. I have been also teaching Physics at the University. In the last ten years I devoted my attention mostly on some conceptual aspects of quantum mechanics, by leaving astrophysics a little apart (except for the methods used to measure aerial anomalies). I am presently quite committed with research on aerial anomalies and on alternative methods for SETI research. I published several books of science (physics and astronomy) popularization and gave many lectures and seminars.
2. Who do you consider to be the greatest influences on your work?
From the point of view of quantum physics certainly physicists David Bohm, Wolfgang Pauli and Roger Penrose have inspired me a lot and triggered a renewed interest for quantum mechanics and its alternative interpretations, including a possible connection with consciousness studies. In the field of unidentified aerial phenomena I must say that both astronomer Allen Hynek and astronomer-computer scientist Jacques Vallee influenced my thought and research a lot. But I cannot even rule out the great physicist Isaac Newton, who, with Galileo Galilei, is the inventor of modern physics, and yet he had a parallel operational interest in alchemy too: this shows to me that a strong interest in consciousness-related studies can paradoxically trigger the rational mind as if the intuition were a radar guiding an engine called rationality. These six scientists have literally turned on my mind by “reviving” a sort of fire under the ash.
3. What inspired you to write the Hyperspace of Consciousness?
Several factors have prompted me to write this book. The first one is that I have always considered the dichotomy between matter and consciousness totally illogical. I am not truly able to conceive such a separation, namely the one between science and “spirituality”. In my opinion “spirituality” taken alone is a nonsensical concept, as well as its conventional definition is vague. It is not so difficult to me to imagine that what we call “consciousness” may be the software of a hardware called body, and what we call “soul” a terminal of a non-local supercomputer located in the quantum vacuum. For instance in the Exclusion Principle discovered by Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli we have a marvelous and perfect mechanism that gives reality the shapes that it has: this occurs thanks to many couples of spin and anti-spin electrons that, according to the atomic number, are orderly disposed inside very specific quantum states, like drawers inside a closet. This builds up the framework of matter and reality as we know it, subject to causality and locality, and yet the two electrons couple together out of causality but rather non-locally. This is like if our matter atoms, which are done 99% of vacuum, are shells containing inside a precious pearl. That pearl is consciousness, so metaphorically speaking, and manifests itself non-locally. This is just only an example. Of course I have thought a lot about the quantum entanglement mechanism and Bohm’s vision of the Universe where local and non-local realms are fitted together harmoniously. This has allowed me to think that this Universe is a marvelous work of engineering where also consciousness is included, in all of its parts, and that consciousness, and not intelligence, is the true mind of the Universe to which we are all interconnected. But there is more here. Some hypnagogic and hypnopompic visions and lucid dreams I had sometimes turned on something inside my rational mind, by inviting me to speculate on a physical “theory of everything” where consciousness is fully included, maybe as the true director of the known four forces of Nature.
4. How did you come up with this revolutionary and pioneering hypothesis and what got you interested in consciousness studies? Was there a turning point or defining moment in your work as a scientist that led you to this inquiry?
In the past I have been working a lot on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research using a 30 m parabolic radiotelescope, by targeting, during several years, about 60 candidate stars containing extrasolar planets but found nothing, like if we were alone in the Universe. At the same time I have studied quite deeply some physical luminous anomalies that are seen in the sky using measurement instrumentation and found some important clues but the final scientific answer is still far away. What astonishes me is that it is like if sometimes some of these “mystery lights” knew that they were being observed, as if they were able to read in our minds. This reminds me a lot what happened to physicist Harley Routledge while he was instrumentally monitoring a strange “UFO” phenomenon in Missouri, USA at the end of the seventies. Is there a communication mechanism that is beyond the electromagnetic one? The connection with the quantum entanglement phenomenon seems to be direct, but so far we have no scientific proof of this. At the same time we are not able to receive, so far, any intelligent electromagnetic signal using the standard SETI technique. According to the physics of electromagnetism where signals propagate with the inverse square of the distance, the Universe seems to be unable to communicate with itself due to so big distances and the limitation of light speed. At this point I cannot exclude that very advanced civilizations have found out a way to communicate using non-local methods being able to avoid quantum decoherence, and without using telepathy but rather a method that can be measured and recorded (see later the NLSETI hypothesis). In practice this one would be the only method to communicate in real time. Well, as you can see, the main reason why I got interested in consciousness studies is due to my strong motivation to find out a scientific method to communicate with “others”, in our Universe or in alternative dimensions. It is from there that it all began.
5. What questions or challenges were you setting out to address when you started this work?
The biggest challenge is, in my opinion, to be able to know how to enter inside the “control room”. The control room here is represented by a correct knowledge of the “informatics system”. I hypothesize that such a system resides in the virtual particles and antiparticles fluctuating out of the quantum vacuum, which might be used as Bits of information. In few words I hypothesize the existence of a sort of “non-local supercomputer” in the Universe, which is placed inside the vacuum inside atoms, including the ones of our body. If we assume that virtual particles are entangled together everywhere, then, in principle, information can be potentially sent and received everywhere. Of course I expect that a form of supernal science and engineering is at work here, a science created by intelligent beings who are far more advanced than us, maybe living in other dimensions: someone might call them “Gods”, but they are not God, which is only an unreachable and unprovable asymptotic limit. Of course the process must be rationally controlled using some kind of “machine”. Well, I am wondering how to build such kind of device. Maybe the plans are written inside the information that we may receive non-locally, in the same way in which actress Jody Foster discovers the plan to build a spacecraft in the famous movie “Contact”. I have an intimate “belief” that all this is true and this raises my frustration in not being able to demonstrate the existence of all of this. Strange lucid visions and dreams are not a datum that is measurable. The only thing of which I have certainty is that such visions trigger something in the left brain, the one devoted to science and logic. All this is what I would like to demonstrate: so far I can only speculate. Nevertheless these ideas do not affect at all my procedural mood during scientific investigation, which requires an aseptic objectivity.
6. The intelligent plasma hypothesis, the big cosmic library hypotheses are truly exciting and highly thought provocative. What excites you the most about the hypotheses discussed in your book?
Maybe it excites me more the fact that something called “soul” might really exist (without any necessity to invoke a “God”), being it not at all a transcendent concept but rather an informatics one. All the material Universe is ruled by almost perfect physical laws that can be described mathematically. Someone likes to call this “The Mind of God”. But for matter to exist a “mind” might not be sufficient, even if necessary to organize it. Something more, called consciousness, should be necessary, in order to be able to transmit information of all that which is experienced. So the soul, a sort of consciousness container, as a computer terminal would upload this information to a central supercomputer; therefore the memory of the Universe would not be lost. Otherwise this Universe would be meaningless and without any logic.
So, starting from the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (using all the possible scientific means based on astrophysical techniques), passing through quantum mechanics and the study of strange phenomena in the sky, I just landed on the “soul factor”, meaning its non-religious version. I think that my vision regarding the soul is very similar in principle to very recent claims by anesthesiologist and neurophysiologist Stuart Hameroff, when he says that a soul must exist, on the basis of the quantum theory of the brain, which he elaborated with mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.
7. What draws you to studying the phenomenon typically called UFO?
There are several topics that trigger my interest in this quite controversial subject. First of all I need to ascertain its possible natural/geophysical origin, as the Hessdalen phenomenon and/or ball lightning *might* be. Then I am of course interested in the question of propulsion, if it is an artificial phenomenon of some nature. Using measurement instrumentation, such as spectrographs, magnetometers, radio spectrometers, thermal imaging cameras and others, it is potentially possible to extract physical information able to prove or disprove both possibilities. In particular with physical data and the time variation of measured physical parameters in hands it is possible to deduce the propulsion mechanism while the object is flying, if we are so lucky to track it at the right place and the right time: automatic and remotely controlled platforms can allow this using the technology of nowadays. So, I am certainly drawn by the rigorous methods of standard physics in trying to disclose this mystery. But there is something more that draws me, which I call “morbid attraction” and which boils down to this question: “Where are they from, if they are artificial objects piloted by alien intelligence?” No physical data will be able to answer to this question; only standard SETI research can give a very precise answer, even if data are acquired in distance. But, apart from so many hoaxes and misinterpretations, UFO phenomena are effectively sighted here: we can potentially measure the electromagnetic radiation emitted by them. Potentially (and paradoxically) we might even obtain a sample of DNA of their hypothetic pilots. But no one will tell us in scientific terms their provenience. I think that we’ll never be able to establish if they come from our Universe, from another Universe or from another dimension, because we have not the scientific means to do that. Maybe individual consciousness can give the answer: well, in spite of the fact that this is not scientific, I have been intimately drawn by this quest too in this investigation. And, also, I do not exclude that the entire phenomenon is a mere deception, a social experiment, set up in order to manipulate the mind of persons, in a few words: mind control actuated by humans or someone else who we are not able to locate. After all it is so easy to govern the population after feeding it with artificial (false) dreams.
8. What's your assessment of the current state of UFO studies and research? What is right with the study of UFO today? and What is wrong?
First of all I see (and repeatedly demonstrated) a lot of hoaxes, fakes, arbitrary constructions, new age pseudo-religions, “quantum nuts”, misinterpretations of known phenomena, a lot of scientific ignorance. I could add many more to the blacklist. Also I see huge and historical UFO organizations that disseminate disinformation, or inflate cases that instead can be explained prosaically, while witness cases are too often badly screened. I suspect the existence of a sort of huge manipulation coming from the “backstage”: after all giving a new “religion” to people is the equivalent of Bromide administrated to too investigative (and even rebel) minds. Scientifically speaking, I see no real advancement in this field, but only annoying additions of testimonial cases which do not convince scientists at all (including me), even if I believe some (5%) of such witnesses are in good faith and dealing with facts that really happened but that we are not yet able to explain. In fact we do not know yet what really happened, apart from the feeling and the interpretation of experiencers. We certainly know, due to experiments such as the ones carried out by neuroscientist Michael Persinger in Canada, that some electromagnetic fields can induce any sort of hallucinations in the perceivers.
I think that most UFO experiences occur inside the realm of lucid dreams. But what are lucid dreams and hallucinations exactly? Maybe research in this field should be more concentrated on the neuroscience territory. Then there are projects such as Project Hessdalen aimed at the measurement of anomalous aerial phenomena, namely a scientific approach: I think the right way is just here. But too little has been done so far, much less than what has been thought, reasoned and planned, including the huge effort in promoting this project. There seems to be a sort of obstructionism coming from nowhere in this so important methodology, whose origin and motivation I am not yet able to identify. Certainly I can assert that important technical plans of research have been settled up, in all details and with much effort, but funding is too little so far. The reason of this? Not a problem of science or scientific method. The problem, in my opinion, might me synthesized in this phrase: “Don’t kill the dreams of people with cold science, otherwise how could we pilot them?” I believe that ISIS assassins agree with this paradigm. But science, exploration in science, is like a flooding river: in the long run it cannot be stopped. We scientists (the ones interested in the problem) want that this action is done gradually. I am convinced that once the first truly scientific data will come the first flooding river will be the one coming from academic science: we are all united by a strict link. If some strict evidence will come out through numbers and repeatable observations and measurements we (even the more skeptical ones) will remember suddenly the Prime Principles of science: the ones humbly demonstrated by Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton and even Giordano Bruno. Science is not a church but rather a never-ending laboratory where “truth” is approached by using subsequent approximations.
9. Do you have any advice or suggestions for young scientists who may want to study UFOs or other highly controversial subjects?
Here I see two kinds of scholars studying UFOs and the so called “paranormal”: physicists (including astronomers, geophysicists and atmospheric physicists) and psychologists with an interest in sociology, all holding a Ph.D. or equivalent research experience. I think that the two branches might meet each other when some cases are investigated. But I would like to focus on the physicists, here. My advice is that first of all they maintain a very rigorous and quantitative aptitude. There is no research in physics without handling data, numbers, equations, statistics and charts, and the field of “anomaly” isn’t an exception. If the data are well screened and in great number it is possible to make good science (on UFO sightings, for instance) also studying statistically well screened witness cases, in order to search for correlations and constants of the phenomenon. If it is possible to obtain true data using measurement instruments such as spectrometers, magnetometers, radiometers, then all the work is identical to the one of an astronomer: once the data are plotted on a chart it is possible to derive equations able to represent quantitatively those data, so that it is possible to make theoretical modeling, and, also here, search for correlations. All this must bring to the preparation of technical papers. Regarding this I want to furnish two examples, coming from my own experience, that show the two attempts of quantitative approach:
http://narcap.org/reports/ONNYCT_Paper_MT_2009_REVISED.pdf
http://www.hessdalen.org/reports/scex1802217251.pdf
I would like also to add this: researchers who are devoted to this kind of study must be able to show a healthy skepticism, as this is the only way to separate the signal from the noise. At the same time researchers must maintain an open mind: if this doesn’t happen the horizon remains very short and true discoveries cannot come, in fact a bit of courage is absolutely necessary in this research. Sometimes logical speculations or hypotheses, if they can be tested, might be a strong trigger to research.
10. Can you tell us a little bit about your mission in Canada?
Thanks to the very strong and irreplaceable support of a serious UFO investigator such as Jennifer Jarvis (since many years she keeps two very important websites called “Orbwatch” and “Xpose UFO Truth”), in summer 2009 I was able to visit about ten locations in the Ontario area where UFO phenomena were sighted more often. So we decided to lurk in those places using some measurement instruments such as a VLF-ELF spectrometer, optical high-resolution imaging and videoing, optical spectrometry, magnetometry and Geiger alpha particle detector. We did sight strongly suspect UFO activity only once in the area of Cheltenham Badlands near Caledon, but ironically this happened only just after we packed our instruments in the car (by the way, the same ironical circumstance occurred in 2010 during one mission of mine with physicist Gloria Nobili in central Italy). Two days later in Badlands we recorded a very anomalous and long-lasting VLF signal all over the frequency band from 2 to 18 KHz: still today it is quite difficult to establish the nature of this signal, as it is neither of ionospheric origin nor of manmade one. At that time nothing was in sight in the sky, so no correlation could be found. We recorded many other signals but they were all explainable prosaically. I feel that I must go back again there, this time equipped also with a microwave spectrometer, a thermal imaging camera and my new high-resolution no-slit spectrograph. The statistics of UFO sightings in the area is quite rich: I could acknowledge this thanks to the huge amount of information furnished to me at that time by Ms. Jarvis. A documentation of this Canadian mission is reported in the second link I furnished above.
11. In 2014, in Paris you gave a presentation on UFO monitoring stations. If you had unlimited resources where would you personally want to set up UFO monitoring stations and why?
That was a very important congress organized by the French CNES-GEIPAN, the only official scientific institution in the world devoted to research about unidentified flying objects. I think you might be interested in reading my extensive report here:
http://www.ufodata.net/resources/24_TEODORANI_full.pdf
As part of that congress I also presented a project for an automatic and remotely controlled measurement platform to be used to monitor 24 h the sky and analyze all that which passes over our heads. This is an international initiative lead by Dr. Mark Rodeghier of CUFOS and several scientists (including me) and engineers are involved since 3 years:
If I had unlimited resources I would set up this kind of monitoring station in areas where anomalous light phenomena are recurrent. Of course famous areas like Hessdalen (Norway), Marfa (USA) and the Brown Mountain (USA) would be the most suitable. In Italy since several years I have identified at least three “hot areas” of that kind: they are all located in the south of North Italy, two of which in the Apennine mountains of Emilia-Romagna (Pietra di Bismantova and Solignano). Another one is located in southern Veneto (Lendinara, Polesine). I have carried out several missions to two of these locations where a very interesting phenomenon was often in sight and, most importantly, there are already some technicians and amateur astronomers who make a constant monitoring in these areas. These experts, such as Jerry Ercolini and his group and Nicola Tosi are very skilled and they are doing an important work. Moreover in one of these areas Dr. Valentino Straser, a very well prepared geologist, has been giving a lot of support to this research. So there are both interesting locations and human skills and expertise. Due to these reasons, a copy of that kind of automatic monitoring station placed, alternatively, in one of these locations would be a very good choice.
12. Can you tell us about NLSETI?
It is the acronym of Non-Local SETI. NLSETI was born from an idea by US biophysicist Fred Thaheld. You can read his paper here:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0608/0608285.pdf
Cosmological theory assumes that 14 billion years ago, in the very first instants of the Big Bang all that which existed was in a state of entanglement in a single unity. It is hypothesized that this level of entanglement has been maintained also after the expansion of the Universe and so it is assumed that also all the “neural cells" of biological creatures in the universe are in a state of entanglement. In this way advanced alien civilizations might be potentially capable of transmitting non-local messages directly into our brains.
I have further developed Dr. Thaheld’s idea, and I discuss a lot this hypothesis in my book “The Hyperspace of Consciousness”. According to Dr. Thaheld information of extraterrestrial origin might be directly deposited in the neurons of our brain through the mechanism of quantum entanglement. The hypothesis is that all that which exists in the Universe maintains the memory of an interaction at the particle level occurred in the very first instants of the Big Bang when the Universe was not larger than a football. One wonders if this link has been maintained also after the expansion of the Universe. NLSETI might prove or disprove this hypothesis by measuring the brainwave, not just the sinusoidal waves per se but rather the noise therein (the attention on the noise would be focused by rectifying the brainwave using a polynomial function). Very sophisticated algorithms such as FFT and KLT might be able to extract an intelligent signal inside this noise. In the analysis phase we would use exactly the same methodology as SETI, with the difference that in the NLSETI case we would use an EEG apparatus instead of a radiotelescope connected to a multi-channel spectrometer. I have already prepared a research plan for this, using an EEG that allows very high resolution in the domains of amplitude, frequency and time. If some intelligent encoded message is found then we could demonstrate two things: a) that the entanglement mechanism is not operational only in elementary particles but also in much larger objects such as neurons; b) that advanced alien civilizations are able to communicate using this way. This research doesn’t require too much funding and would be easily doable, as we have already at our disposal all the instrumental and mathematical means to carry out it.
13. What current author aside from yourself do you consider a must-read for solid yet accessible frontier scientific exploration?
Regarding UFO research I would suggest almost all the books and papers by astronomer-computer scientist Jacques Vallee, together with the previous books by astronomer Allen Hynek, and the book “Project Identification” by physicist Harley Routledge. Concerning UFOs I would also suggest the book “The UFO Handbook” written by astronomer Allan Hendry, which gives a rational and aseptic presentation of the problem and the methods to study it. Regarding the “paranormal” I am certainly sure that the books by engineer-psychologist Dean Radin would be much appreciated, due both to their scientific methodology and open minded approach. Regarding consciousness studies related to quantum mechanics I would suggest quantum physicist David Bohm’s book “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” and mathematical physicist Roger Penrose’s book “Shadows of the Mind”.
14. What one thing excites you in science today?
Apart from consciousness and anomaly research, I am mostly excited by four topics of modern physics: the nature of dark matter and dark energy from both a particle physics and a cosmological point of view, the investigation on possible traversable wormholes from an astrophysical point of view, the study of the realization of a possible warpdrive spacecraft as the one carried out by Dr. Harold White at NASA, and the mathematical study of the nature of the quantum entanglement mechanism as deduced from the structure of spacetime. If I had to choose one of these four researches I would point to the fourth.
In general I can say that the aspect that triggers me more in science is just exploration. This means having the courage to enter inside a virgin forest making our way with machetes, and accepting all the risks. Our mind is like a digital camera made of a lens plus a computer controlling it: that lens must be able to flexibly pass from wide angle mode to zoom mode, namely from analysis to synthesis and vice versa. This is science in my opinion, and science is discovery, not only conservation.
15. What are you working on now?
I am trying to prepare a new book about subjects that are related to the last published one. At the same time I am working on some “impossible equations” regarding what I call “pre-Big Bang era” where consciousness factors are strongly involved: but this will be a never ending story. I am going on with project planning in SETI research and the instrumental monitoring of aerial anomalies. Moreover I am going on giving several physics and astronomy lectures in public and technical conferences.
16. Where can we purchase or see your works?
You can find most of my work on Research Gate, here:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Massimo_Teodorani
There it is possible to download book abstracts, Powerpoint presentations, technical papers and divulging papers.
Thanks much for this interview and for your very stimulating questions!
My thanks and appreciation goes out to Massimo for kindly giving of his time and participating in this interview. The Hyperspace of Consciousness is available online through Amazon. You can find the author on Facebook via The Hyperspace fan page.
From the book cover:
"A breakthrough in scientific, metaphysical and philosophical knowledge, this book - in light of the hypothesis that matter and consciousness are strictly connected into a single unity - presents an entirely new theory about the way in which information is non-locally propagated through an intelligent Universe and the way in which matter is created by consciousness.
Quantum entanglement, synchronicity, multidimensionality, extra¬terrestrial intelligence, and the true nature of what we call "spirituality" are revisited within a completely revolutionary framework mainly based on new physics, whose goal is to make people think about the world, themselves, the Universe and the true meaning of life, and to trigger scientists of the new millennium towards a more complete understanding of the reality in which we are all immersed. "
