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THE GRID
Exploring the Hidden Infrastructure of Reality
By Marie D. Jones, Larry Flaxman Hierophant Publishing
Copyright © 2013 Marie D. Jones and Larry Flaxman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-938289-21-7
CHAPTER 1
reality 101
What Is the Grid? Exploring the Invisible Infrastructure of Reality
Do we need more reality? We've already got so much.
—Ralph Abraham, The Evolutionary Mind
Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
—Erich Fromm, Man for Himself
Those who came before us, and others at this very time, are formulating their own theories about the nature of reality. History is rampant with great minds and brilliant thinkers seeking to understand the way the world works, the seen and the unseen. The science of reality itself. Religions and myth, spiritual and native traditions, New Age gurus and metaphysicians, scientists and philosophers, have all tossed their input into the hat from which we have molded and shaped our theory. We figured it was our turn to throw something into the hat ourselves.
Trying to describe the nature of reality is like trying to describe air. It is invisible. We cannot put in under a microscope, or hold it in our hands to show our friends, or make it perform on a YouTube video. Yet we live day-to-day with the effects of its presence. We know air exists because we would die if we didn't breathe it in and out of our lungs to nourish our brain and blood cells and tissues. We know it is there, yet in a court of law we could never put it on the witness stand.
Such is the case with trying to describe reality. We run into problems with verbiage. It's the All. It's existence. It's the matrix of being. It's what we experience each day and night. It's what we live in. Yet none of these definitions really quite captures the possible "structure" of reality in a way we can wrap our minds around. We know reality is there. At least the illusion of it is. Reality encompasses everything, including us, within its hidden grasp, and we experience the effects all around us as our five senses perceive and process our surroundings.
But were we to give a form to reality in its entirety what might it be like? Since no one has really been able to photograph it or offer up valid proof of its physical form, we must go on more circumstantial evidence. In fact, this is the case when trying to describe anything that is invisible or beyond the normal experience. We have to resort to two things:
1. Coming up with analogies and symbols that simplify the complexity of what we are trying to describe.
2. Presenting the surrounding evidence of its existence by showing how it influences the things around it.
In this chapter, we will focus on a simple symbolic analogy. In future chapters we will present the surrounding evidence of this theory, and hopefully by the time you are done reading this book you will look at reality in a whole new way. Our goal is that you will see reality itself as possibly having an actual form, one that has function and laws and operates in a very specific manner to create the entirety of human existence.
This is where the power of imagination comes into play. Were reality to have an actual infrastructure within which we live and move and have our being, what would we liken that structure to?
The Shape of Reality
We know that we exist in a reality that we collectively share with everyone on the planet. In this singular reality a chair is a chair, and a dog is a dog, and though we might have different languages with different words to describe such things, the things themselves are the same for all of us. We know that we move around in a world with certain rules and laws of nature and physics, laws that govern how things operate both in the heavens and here on Earth ... even in our own bodies. These laws and forces serve as the foundation from which life itself springs forth, and we can see the results as our manifest physical reality.
To this we add an individual reality, one we each carry with us from birth to death, shaded and molded by parental influence, social conditioning, cultural influence, environmental factors, education, and religious belief. Our individual reality is our own, even as it consists of many things we mutually agree upon with those around us. In a sense, the collective and the individual realities blend and have fluid boundaries for the most part. (In extreme cases, such as with native tribes living deep in the Amazon rainforest, reality may not be anything like what we perceive it as, simply because of differing influences and factors. Yet there is still a collective understanding of being human ... and of existing within a framework that has physical laws and forces, even if the native explanation is far different from our modern scientific one.)
Reality is for the most part our totality of existence, perceivable through the five senses of taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch, and the experiences we gather since birth to accumulate into a singular lifetime.
But ... we sense, and often even directly experience, evidence of something else. Something unnamable and unknowable, a reality, or realities, just beyond the "veil" of the five senses. A reality, or realities, just beyond the boundaries of normal day-to-day life and the mundane experiences it contains. Now and then, we experience something that shakes us out of our comfort zone and shocks us into the realization that there is much more to reality than meets the eye.
Beyond the veil of the illusion of our one singular reality, there may even be an infinite number of other levels of existence, where things we cannot even imagine exist, things that sometimes cross into our reality in the form of unusual, paranormal, supernatural, or mysterious events. These forms can take on many shapes, such as dreams that predict a future event, psychic abilities, visions, healings, seeing a ghost or encountering a mysterious entity, entering a time slip or a shift in consciousness, or even traveling into the astral plane. These are just a few of the many ways that we might be moving between realities, voluntarily or accidentally.
The levels of reality are like a three-dimensional grid that consists of layers of realities stacked on top of and alongside one another, each connected to the others in an interlocking cube. This is the Grid.
Perhaps in this grid we speak of, there are finite levels and layers of realities. That would imply an end to entirety, which for some is an impossible thing to even imagine. Does the universe have an end? Are there other universes out there? How many? Ten? Twenty? Two million? Imagine each universe as a separate level of this grid. How would they end? Wouldn't there be something just beyond the "end" boundary?
Perhaps there is an infinite number of levels in the Grid, with no end and no beginning, even as there may be an end and a beginning to a single level. Imagine our own universe and the big bang. In chapter 2 on the science of the Grid, we look at how the big bang may have been the beginning "singularity point" for only one Grid level, but not all of them. Each level may have a big bang all its own, with bangs going on all the time, creating new levels of the Grid as others die off.
Or perhaps the Grid is like a snowball rolling downhill, building exponentially in size and capacity as it gathers more snow to its core. It may even be self-regenerating, so that when one level breaks down another rises out of the ashes and creates even more levels from its origin point.
We will explore all of these possibilities in later chapters, but for the sake of understanding the infrastructure itself, and how it might work, let's imagine our Grid as a finite and easily identifiable shape: a skyscraper.
Were we to look inside a skyscraper being erected, we would see levels sitting atop and aside one another, each with its own floor filled with rooms and windows and doorways—the skeleton, if you will. One floor alone might have a hundred different rooms in which different activities take place. These rooms are connected with doors and hallways, allowing the people on that particular floor the freedom to move about between rooms.
In a skyscraper there are many floors, each with its own world of possibilities. Perceptually, each floor is a reality in and of itself, a closed existence that is filled with experiences and events for those who live and work on that particular floor. Those who wish to experience the reality of another floor may easily do so by simply taking the elevator, the stairs, or perhaps the exterior fire escape, for there are many connectors in this Grid of reality allowing movement and interaction.
Imagine the Grid as having various access points. Accessing the top floor takes more energy and effort than accessing the floors immediately above or below your own reality. Beyond the energy requirements, we may also be programmed to believe that our own reality is hard enough to deal with without complicating it by constantly moving between levels. And yet, that opportunity is present in this Grid.
Now zoom out a bit further. Imagine your skyscraper as part of a complex of several buildings, each representing a "bundle" of parallel worlds or realities. This mirrors the concepts of the most cutting-edge quantum and speculative physics, which will be examined in later chapters.
Another concept to be explored is that of bubble universes. Bubble universes may contain wormholes and portals connecting to other bubble universes, similar to the way one section of a building leads to another section.
The Grid, then, acts as an infrastructure of realities layered upon and alongside each other, with access points that allow travel and interaction between layers. These access points act as the elevators and staircases between worlds, and as we will discover, they can occur spontaneously or purposefully depending on a variety of factors, including human physiology, psychology, environmental influences, and even anomalies that all align to allow for an opening to present itself between the layers or levels of the Grid of existence. If we know what the connectors are and where they are located, we can walk this Grid, and thus experience the many floors that we call the entirety of existence.
You Are Here
We exist at one finite point in the Grid, and yet our influence can be felt throughout the levels, as a pebble thrown into a still pond creates a ripple effect that moves outward until its influence is too weak to have an effect. We, too, may have this ripple effect on the layers of the Grid that we are closest to or are able to access. What we do in our level of the Grid may no doubt affect what happens in other levels, unless certain protectors and barriers are in place to prevent such influence.
Like time travel, there may be paradoxes or natural and physical barriers in place that keep us from entering parts of the Grid where we don't belong or that we are not equipped to handle. Perhaps our level of consciousness even dictates where and when we can move about the Grid, much like an employee in an office must have permission to leave his or her floor to go to another floor for lunch, a break, or interaction with another department in the company.
In future chapters we will go further in depth into all of the aspects of the Grid, from the connectors and mechanisms by which we move about the Grid, to the aspects of our own bodies, brains, and consciousness that may dictate the ability to walk the Grid, to what other levels may look like and what kinds of laws might govern them, as well as what kinds of "things" might reside there. These other realities may be much like ours in many cases, and unimaginably different as well.
Some may transcend time and space as we understand them, curving and warping into different universes with their own grid-like realities, yet all a part of the ultimate skyscraper that we call the Grid. Like a city skyline with many buildings reaching to the sky, the Grid itself then becomes the skyline, with people moving between buildings, and between worlds, by foot or boat or car or trolley or bicycle. No matter the analogy, this Grid is an interlocking infrastructure that may be of infinite size and complexity, containing all that was, is, and ever will be.
It is, simply, All. The whole darn city itself.
Zoom out once again, and imagine that each skyscraper in a major city skyline is a universe unto itself. In one universe, one level of reality, there may be the hustle and bustle of energy and activity, and yet a nearby building may be under construction and void of activity. And if the actual Grid contains infinite skylines, one entire city may be a ghost town long dead to life and energetic exchange, and another city may be waiting to be born from the blueprints of a Master Architect's imagination.
Even within just one reality, just one skyscraper, those same contrasts may exist, with one floor loud and bustling, with people moving and interacting and doing their thing, and the floor right above it abandoned, silent, still. As above, so below, and the individual "reality" we call home may actually be a mirror of the greater cosmic reality that contains the entirety of the Grid. This is a powerful concept in most spiritual traditions, the idea that each level of the Grid may, as a holographic image, contain the greater whole of the entire Grid itself. And perhaps our brains behave in this same holographic manner, mirroring the Grid on a physiological and neurological scale that creates our perception, belief, conditioning, and ultimately the actual experience of physical reality that we engage in from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Although, in the Grid birth and death are merely elevator rides that begin and end on particular floors, and they say nothing of the floors that came before or those that come after we take our last breath.
Loops and Perceptions
Reality is about perception, and much of what we call reality is nothing more than the accumulation of experience, memory, expectation, and habit. We experience the same things over and over again and react and respond in similar fashion more often than not to create a loop of experience that we call life. Yet, reality has never been accepted at face value by the world's religions, native belief systems, metaphysicians, philosophers, sages, or scientists. All have known of these other potentialities, these other realities in the Grid, even if they could not offer tangible, empirical proof of them, other than the subjective experiences of millions, perhaps billions of people who at some point in their "normal" lives walk the other floors or levels of the Grid.
We present an infrastructure of the All of reality that offers a visual of levels and connectors, spreading outward from some center point, yet having no center, really, because in this Grid there is all of eternity. The center may be where we are; yet we exist fully within this Grid. We live and move and have our being in it. And we can move to any other floor or room or office or building we want depending on the factors and circumstances our theory of the Grid sets forth.
"In my father's house are many mansions ..." Many mansions ... many levels. Many doors and windows and staircases and connectors. Perhaps you've even walked one of these levels yourself already ...
CHAPTER 2
MULTIPLE WORLDS
Levels of the Grid
Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.
—Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous
The word universe is supposed to mean everything that exists. Today, we're almost certain that our universe is not all there is. There really could be parallel earths, parallel yous, and parallel mes. It's hard not to wonder what our alter egos might be like, whether they're living out our most cherished dreams. But, don't forget this possibility: You could already be living the dream of another you from a parallel universe.
—Morgan Freeman, Curiosity: Is There a Parallel Universe?
Go then. There are other worlds than these.
—Stephen King, The Gunslinger
Levels. Worlds. Universes. Are these simply the ideas of science fiction and fantasy, or is there an actual science behind a grid-like structure of reality? Descriptions of multiple and parallel worlds, alternate dimensions of space and time, and realities that lie hidden beneath the visible order of our own abound in theoretical and quantum physics. Tracking the science of the Grid is like going on a long scavenger hunt of clues and links in knowledge and revelation that comes to one stunning conclusion: There are other worlds besides our own.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE GRID by Marie D. Jones, Larry Flaxman. Copyright © 2013 Marie D. Jones and Larry Flaxman. Excerpted by permission of Hierophant Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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