Tuesday, May 2, 2017

The Mandela Effect, Quantum Forgiveness, and the ACIM Urtext

The Mandela Effect is an internet meme born the same year as The Universe Is a Dream (2010); the effect revolves around people reporting memories of the past that contradict the present. The name of the effect is a reference to large groups of people having a memory of Nelson Mandela dying in prison back in the 80s. He instead died in 2013. Google the Mandela Effect and you'll find all kinds of examples.

Now, to a normal person lacking whimsy and creativity, the Mandela Effect is easily dismissed as people being idiots and therefore believing false memories. However, those with whimsy and creativity consider it to be a potentially authentic phenomenon. Of the people who consider the effect authentic, most generally attribute the Mandela Effect to some variation of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and some even evoke the CERN large hadron collider as the catalyst. I take things farther though and see the Mandela Effect as an example of quantum forgiveness in action.

Those who have read The Universe Is Virtual (get smart and do so if you haven't) and understood it, know that erasing records of the past changes the present. True forgiveness is the ultimate eraser. In the virtual model of the universe, what you forgive and don't determines what version of the universe is rendered to you when you observe it. That differs from the standard many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is an interpretation that tries to eliminate the observer and thus mind. To get technical, many worlds "removes the observer-dependent role in the quantum measurement process by replacing wavefunction collapse with quantum decoherence." In that sense, many worlds is the wrong theory to evoke when trying to explain how the Mandela Effect may be authentic.

Unlike the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which tries to brush aside mind, the virtual interpretation that I endorse and teach is a model where there is no universe without a mind making it seemingly real. At best the universe is a probability. A probability is nothing unless it is actually rendered to a mind. Conversely, in the many worlds model, every possible universe actually exists physically, independent of mind. Mind would have to be more fundamental than matter to retain any memory that contradicts a given timeline.

Many worlds is a cool idea in the sense that it gives credence to the idea of parallel universes and thus multiple timelines. But many worlds is stuck in the materialistic view of the universe. Many worlds plays heavily into what is currently perhaps the most intellectually adventurous show on TV, the cartoon Rick and Morty. However, if I were on the Rick and Morty writing staff the show would portray an explicitly virtual universe. Watch the clips below. The first clip represents the Schrödinger's cat many worlds idea as is often referenced on the show. The second clip is from a neat episode about an entity named Unity that is one mind living through many bodies.


Whether the concept is thought of as many worlds or alternative renderings of the universe, the basic idea is the same: there are multiple timelines. Multiple timelines means multiple potential version of the same thing, such as multiple versions of you or multiple versions of A Course in Miracles. The script of the universe is written but there are variations in the script.

As many people probably already know, there is an ongoing rift in the A Course in Miracles world between the official Foundation for Inner Peace version of A Course in Miracles and earlier leaked versions...what is called the Urtext. The word urtext means an original or the earliest version of a text, to which later versions are compared.

In case you never noticed, I stay out of Course in Miracles politics lol. I keep out of the formal ACIM world. I've never gone to any conferences. And I don't blatantly take sides within the ACIM world. I just do my own art driven things and hope enough people enjoy what I do to allow me to keep doing my things. Technically, my stuff is mostly an extension of the Wapnick school of ACIM. But my own personality rubs off on how I talk about and express ACIM. That's what happens with everyone.

Ideally, we'd be living in a world where A Course in Miracles is a perfect book that was channeled perfectly by Helen Schucman without any need for edits. If we lived in that world, no earlier drafts of the course would ever have existed to be leaked. But here's the deal, you and I don't live in the world where that happened. We live in a world where there are a few slightly different versions of ACIM floating around. Not only that, we live in a world where English versions of ACIM exist that are free domain and thus without copyright. ACIM and the entire universe exists as it does for you and me right now in a certain way. And that certain way is presenting us with exactly what we need to forgive.

Perhaps there is an alternative timeline in which Helen Schucman recorded A Course in Miracles without any need for edits. Perhaps there is an alternative timeline where the Foundation for Inner Peace maintained a monopoly on ACIM, which worked fine until all the original people died and new people took over and ruined the course. Perhaps there is a version of the course that came with clear predictions of the future and those predictions came true thus converting most of the world into wanting to practice ACIM lol. I don't quite know. But the fact is that the timeline in front of your face is the one fit just for you.

(Incidentally, if you live in a timeline where stuff like psychic predictions rarely ever seem to come true, you have to consider that you've subconsciously chosen such a timeline. Why you made that choice could have many reasons, but one reason could be just so you can remain skeptical of the power of the mind.)

I'm personally cool with the relative chaos of the course at it exists in the current timeline because even though people will inevitably botch the course with their own interpretations, no botched version will be able to have a monopoly on the course. That makes the course more anti-fragile and able to exist in pure forms despite noise made by misinterpretations, misuses, and simple watering down of the message.

The world that is rendered to you is your custom classroom showing you what's in your mind. A Course in Miracles exists as it does to you because any other version would either be too clear or too unclear. That's just what you get in a world where ego is trying to go one way and spirit the other.

When presented with A Course in Miracles, people go through a process of rationalizing why they should accept it or dismiss it. And I always find it interesting to examine how people rationalize dismissing ACIM, including people who are well-known spiritual teachers and authors. For instance, the idea that the world is illusory is often too much for people and it leaves people feeling depressed. And when I personally call the universe an illusory turd lol, that is too much even for some ACIM people. Therefore, to dismiss the idea that the world is illusory, people jump through hoops trying to rationalize why the world is real and why in essence entropy is wonderful lol. On its own, the idea that the world is illusory is not of much use, but when you combine it with true forgiveness and oneness you see why the world is illusory and why that's great news as opposed to depressing news. So, dismissing ACIM requires cherry picking and misinterpretation. When people want to dismiss ACIM they see in it what they want to see. But since ACIM is such a dense book, the reality is that it lends itself to cherry picking and misinterpretation regardless of if you want to accept it or dismiss it.

I personally work off of the Foundation for Inner Peace version of A Course in Miracles. And I personally accept that ACIM as a whole is perfect in the sense of the ideas it contains. As far as the importance of individual words and edits, it doesn't mean much to me in the big picture. I'm not the kind of guy that agonizes over single words and sentences. If every single word was extremely important, the course could only exist in its native language, English. But the course has been translated into many languages; there is always some compromise in translation. Overall, I just think of the course as existing exactly how it needs to exist for those rendering any timeline in which it exists.

So, anyway, some stuff to ponder when the subject of the Mandela effect or ACIM Urtext comes up.

Also, you might want to buy some of my ACIM art, like my new Miracle Mandala, because of, you know, the Mandela Effect.

And check out my experimental spin off websites listed under News. I'm at a kind of crossroads right now figuring out what I want to do next, if anything, in terms of books. I'll likely be posting something about that eventually.

http://alexandermarchand.com/books/store/