Reading The Secret of Secrets brought to mind many of my own explorations of consciousness over the past half century. While a work of fiction, many of the characters seem based on real people I have met, and I suspect many of my friends and Substack readers may have had a similar experience. The book’s female scientist (Katherine Solomon) was almost certainly a composite character inspired by the work of Lynne McTaggert, Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, and perhaps Helané Wahbah and Cassandra Vieten as well. All of these female scientists have been closely associated with The Institute of Noetic Sciences; Mandala Schlitz and Vieten are past presidents. Brown makes no effort to conceal the connection; the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is prominently mentioned throughout the book.
I have always viewed IONS as a harbinger of a coming transformation of consciousness. The organization was founded in 1973 by the astronaut Edgar Mitchell after he had an epiphany of universal connectedness while viewing Earth from space, which later became known as the “overview effect.” Ever since, IONS has been conducting leading edge research into consciousness that bridges the physical sciences with the invisible world.
I have had the blessing of working with past presidents of IONS, most closely with James O’Dea, who was president of IONS from 2003-2008. After I founded the SEED organization and we initiated conferences that brought together Native and Western scientists in dialogue known as The Language of Spirit, we regularly invited leading researchers from IONS. In 2004, we invited Mandala Schlitz to participate in the inner dialogue circle. The following year, we invited O’Dea, then the founder Edgar Mitchell himself in 2006, followed by O’Dea again in 2007 (who returned several more times in subsequent years). These groundbreaking dialogues took place for 13 consecutive years, from 1999-2011, and covered many of the themes discussed in The Secret of Secrets. Blackfoot elder Leroy Little Bear served as moderator for all of them.
Little Bear was truly a moderator par excellence, who asked koan-like questions that were challenging to Native and non-Native participants alike. The very first question he asked in 1999 was: “Is it possible to come up with an original thought?” followed by “What would be the reality you would experience if you were not thinking in a language?” These questions acted like portals of consciousness, opening up extraordinarily wide vistas of thought that brought in dimensions of the natural world that I was previously unaware of. It was as if all of nature was invited to the table to act as our allies.
The following year Little Bear asked “Are we the receivers or transmitters of our thoughts?” This question was addressed in The Secret of Secrets through the aforementioned Katherine Solomon character, who advocated for the existence of non-local universal consciousness and the brain as a filter of this wider consciousness. There is ongoing research into this subject at the Institute of Noetic Sciences from Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Dean Radin, and others. But the fictional scientist went beyond any current peer-reviewed research (I am aware of) to assert that the neurotransmitter GABA filters out much of total reality in our normal daily existence. She goes on to say that the ingestion of psychedelics removes that filtering mechanism, and therefore, psychedelics are not hallucinogens—they simply lower the level of neurotransmitters that inhibit consciousness, making it possible for more of reality to be experienced![1] She compares this to what happens in the dying process, also a time of suppression of GABA, and claims we regain this interconnected, wider view of reality when we die.
One of the things IONs has been studying for a long time is the survival of consciousness post bodily death. If consciousness survives bodily death, this is the ultimate game changer, according to the Solomon character. The fictional scientist does not adequately explain why that would be, but the implication is that fear of death is at the heart of the materialist worldview. The fear of death underpins much of human interaction and, in particular greed; if we overcome this fear, we can become more thoughtful, considerate, kind, and loving toward our fellow humanity and all of nature. This makes sense to me. The literature on near-death experience, and also literature on psychedelics confirms that these states of mind evoke a deep sense of love and oneness reminiscent of the overview effect experienced by the founder of IONS, Edgar Mitchell.
While I deeply appreciate the leading-edge research into consciousness that IONS has conducted, I know that much of it is only considered new because the perennial wisdom that preceded it is so old it has been completely forgotten and/or overridden by modern theories of consciousness. The ancients did not believe that the brain is the generator of consciousness. The Upanishads of India assert that the eyes, ear, and mind are passive instruments that receive the greater, underlying intelligence of Brahman. Brahman is the unseen ultimate reality behind all of existence. There is a similar belief in Chinese Taoism. “The Tao that is spoken of is not really the Tao.” It is much the same in Judaism, where traditionally the Creator (YHWH) was not spoken aloud or even written with vowels. God remains ineffable and unknowable, a truth beyond any ordinary means of perception. The Vedic tradition says it most succinctly. To know the “mind behind the mind” is impossible.
We also find agreement on the origin of consciousness among the founders of psychology as a discipline. William James, writing around the turn of the 20th century, asserted that the brain is not the primary generator of thought, and instead acts as a transmissive filter of consciousness. I have always believed this to be true, but I’m aware this view is no longer mainstream. But with the publication of The Secret of Secrets, I am hopeful this will change.
One of the most significant statements in The Secret of Secrets was uttered by the character Langdon, who said, “A shift in perspective will often reveal a hidden truth.” A paradigm shift is on the horizon. IONS foresaw this exact scenario when they produced a magazine called Shift from 2003-2009. Stephen Dinan, then the Director of Membership and Marketing at IONS, went on to become the catalyst for the IONS Shift in Action program. Dinan later co-founded The Shift Network with Devaa Haley Mitchell, and together they continue their work impacting a transformation of consciousness.
Brown clearly believes that awareness of survival of consciousness post bodily death will help bring about a profound transformation of consciousness. The “secret of secrets” he speaks about implies a fundamental shift from fear to love. Fear keeps our hearts hemmed in; love breaks our hearts open. Love has the potential to expand the heart so much that we may even begin to experience what Edgar Mitchell did: the unbounded interconnectedness of all there is.
Mitchell had a mystical, direct (noetic) experience of oneness viewing Earth from space. The scientific world began to catch up to his insight in recent years in the most unexpected manner, the Human Genome Project being the catalyst. Scientists expected the results to reveal a unique human DNA signature in keeping with the prevailing worldview that humanity is separate and transcendent from nature. Instead they discovered that humans share approximately 98.5% the same DNA as a chimpanzee and 50% the same DNA as a banana! We are inextricably connected to the whole.
The realization of our radical interconnectedness is what opens the heart in joyful ecstasy. In my latest book Original Love: The Timeless Source of Wholeness, I contend that love and wholeness are inextricably interconnected. Love evokes wholeness, and wholeness evokes love. The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles understood this. He said that love was a foundational force in the cosmos. According to Empedocles, when the universe was formed, there were four roots (later known as the elements fire, water, earth, and air) mediated by the forces of love and strife. Love is the force that brings the elements together; strife is what separates them.
In sum, I feel enormously grateful to best-selling author Dan Brown for writing this book, for in doing so, he has brought the work of the Institute of Noetic Sciences into the mainstream. The most important lesson humanity must learn is how much we are interconnected with the rest of creation. It is this understanding that opens our hearts and inspires us to genuinely care for, protect, and interact with the entirety of the natural world. Every day I pray for this shift in consciousness to come about. This popular book is a step in the right direction.
Love and blessings to all,
Glenn
[1] I am not advocating for or against the use of psychedelics. I am simply reporting an interesting idea proposed in The Secret of Secrets.