Synchronicity: Yoga and the Black Hole Cult
Time Life has out a new magazine called Killer Cults. They begin their writings with a short intro that declares we are in fact, "experiencing a pop cultural movement toward cults." This makes it seem almost as if it has become the "in thing." It is important to realize that this is not a conscious decision people are making.
I recently awakened to find myself deep in a cult. The experience is like Leonard Susskind's description of falling into a black hole. Susskind believes that if we were to observe someone falling into a black hole they would recede until they disappear. This is like people seeing their loved one going into a cult. Yet, the perspective of the person falling into the black hole (cult), is very different. He believes they would notice nothing at all. They would have no perception they were going anywhere, nor have any idea anything was happening to them. (The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics p.43-44)
That is not the only similarity between black holes and the cult phenomenon. Hawking believed that information could be lost in black holes. He thought that these information eating monsters existed all around us without our having any perception of them.
Black holes already seemed scary enough, with their ability to swallow everything, including light. For a while, we learn, physicists were faced with the possibility that these cosmic vortexes might also be eaters of order, sucking up and destroying information. Like the Echthroi, the evil demons of entropy in Madeleine L’Engle’s novel “A Wind in the Door,” black holes might be chomping their way through the universe, plowing sense into nonsense. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Johnson-t.html)
This idea about black holes intrigues me- it implies to me, that we are black holes.
Our brains which identify and process information may also be the greatest adversary to keeping and protecting it. Depending on the brain and its processing, we can believe the faulty, wrong, or harmful information. Even innocent intentions can become corrupt as we manipulate ideas in our heads. We are capable of twisting facts unknowingly. This faulty processing can cause us to perpetuate unscrupulous thoughts. The truth is that science has proven self-bias is human nature. This brings me to the well-known idea of "history repeating itself. " That idea would support the theory that even when we know the history of events we can still forget or distort the lessons taken from it.
Quantum mechanics states that you ought to be able to completely account for the path of any particle in the universe. So if you throw a pizza into a black hole, you should be able to trace how that pizza is torn apart; you should be able to see what happens to the individual atoms that constitute the crust, the cheese, etc. Quantum mechanics stipulates that all particles in the universe can be accounted for and information cannot be deleted. But in a black hole, that information is lost. Hawking's radiation means the black hole is losing mass. But we have no idea what that means for the pizza, which, presumably, is still inside the black hole. (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/14/17119320/stephen-hawking-hawking-radiation-explained)
If Hawking is correct- information, like the pizza in the example, is being lost. But, Quantum mechanics says that the message (pizza) distorts beyond recognition. Either way, it seems our outcome here is the same. There is a loss or perverting of experiential knowing dooms us, as humans. This is why we relive experiences again and again. This feels pessimistic to me. It condemns all humankind to self-limited, reliving of terrible occurrences. We are repeatedly walking into familial abuse, genocide, war, cults and so many other painful and traumatic phenomenon.
"The poet Dante said of the entrance to Hell: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
But wait! Before we decide all hope lost, there are new discoveries that might support a better outcome.
“Things can get out of a black hole. ... So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up — there’s a way out.” -Stephan Hawking
Quantum Mechanics suggest that only things with negative energy are unable to escape a black hole.
“The one that falls into the black hole effectively has negative energy,” Burgess says, “and the other one can get out and escape from the black hole, with positive energy. The particle that escapes forms the Hawking radiation. And since the particle that falls in has negative energy, “you’re essentially subtracting energy from the black hole,” Burgess says. “It means you’ve taken mass away from the black hole.” (https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/14/17119320/stephen-hawking-hawking-radiation-explained)
So, how does my analogy hold up to the theory of Hawking's Radiation?
I have found that in most cases a cult indoctrinates you by using negative energy. People often enter while searching for comfort. It is common to occur during difficult phases in life. A cult seeks out your specific ills. They promote healing and enlightenment. A promise to lessen our pain is a powerful lure that seduces. The energy remains "negative" to the outside world then. The cult's way of life and its beliefs seem more beautiful and infallible than their outside life.
If something happens to break that enchantment you can pop yourself back out of the black hole. When this happens you emerge as an exact opposite of what you had been brainwashed to believe. Rather than seeing the world as negative or even neutral, you will see that it is the opposite. Suddenly, you again see the world as the freedom to believe and act as you wish. You have gone positive and the manipulation and control the cult had over you are obvious to you. This "seeing" creates not only dissent but becomes opposition to the cult's agenda.
Virtual particle pairs are constantly being created near the horizon of the black hole, as they are everywhere. Normally, they are created as a particle-antiparticle pair and they quickly annihilate each other. But near the horizon of a black hole, it's possible for one to fall in before the annihilation can happen, in which case the other one escapes as Hawking radiation. (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/BlackHoles/hawking.html)
You escaped just like Hawking radiation!
I do not pretend to know the purpose of life and existence. This similarity I have drawn between black holes and cults may be pure coincidence. To my mind, there seem to be endless possibilities to the connections that exist in how things work. I find patterns of all existence. There is an absolute elegance to the intricacies uncovered by these discoveries.
Correlations between mental and physical workings are what attracted me to my cult. Their agenda worked for me as long as I could use science-based facts to explain their metaphysical teachings. I thrilled at playing in the mystical sandbox until the day factuality became bent to the degree that it was antithetical. My personal thinking style is more logical than emotional. I use the experiences of my life as the valid basis of my belief system. When the cult ideology began to battle my hard-earned truths, I realized I had to get myself out of there. To what extent information was to have become askew I do not know. Since leaving, I have realized I had allowed myself to be far more influenced than was healthy. I feel lucky to have had enough faith in my beliefs to stay true to them.
We are human so there is a point of no return for us all. By the black hole theory again- if I fall in, I may or may not even continue to exist. Even if I did I would either be a tattered version of myself. Changed for life and the shell of the person I once was. I might look like me but I would no longer know my own mind, refilled with someone else's understandings of life.
Cult's transplant us into a world created by their understandings. They teach us to think like them-not on our own. The me I have grown into through my own experiences and understandings would no longer exist. The cult reduces to being nothing more than the replica of another.
Humans are imperfect and susceptible to coercion. We can be "brainwashed" despite our sureness that we could not. We give up our own beliefs in exchange for love and community. This is especially true when we are in need. We are conditioned to follow a leader from birth. We give up our truth for another's when we perceive them stronger. When their life appears superior to ours we become enamored by mirages of their utopias.
Like a stick in a stream, we are apt to allow ourselves to flow where powerful forces take us. We may lose our perception and become consumed what seem to be fulfilling experiences. Acceptance and like-minded community hook the unsuspecting. The flow is irresistible to those seeking security and belonging. The phenomenon is a delusion. A known formula produced by a magnetic leader and love blinded followers. Groupthink is known to carry us unwittingly closer to the precipice, the end of our identity. We have entered "the suck zone."
The moving current begins so nice and easy, like a lazy river, we hardly notice any changes. Unfortunately, we then let down our guard. The false safety keeps us unaware of the danger. This river to literal self-destruction ends at a waterfall. The cult you find yourself in and the depth at which you have participated could equate to only a small drop or could end you up in Niagara Falls. No one knows the depth of the truth until they hit bottom. From the viewpoint of floating on that stream, we can't see what is coming. Each person's fall will be relevant to their perception. This makes every experience different and personal.
I fell down the falls. My ride was bumpy and I got a little wet- but I survived it. From now on, I choose to sail my own ship.
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