Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

One day in the year 1226, St. Anthony of Padua (1195–1231) was giving a sermon in a church in Limoges, France. While speaking, he remembered he had promised to conduct a service at a monastery on the other side of Limoges. Stopping his sermon, he knelt in prayer. At this moment, monks in the monastery saw St. Anthony walk in and conduct the service, after which he stepped away into the shadows. Meanwhile, in Limoges, he ended his prayers and rising to his feet again began speaking (Rogo 1982, pp. 81–82).

Many bilocations were documented in the life of St. Martin de Porres, born in Peru in 1579. As a young man, he entered the monastery of the Holy Rosary in Lima. He did not become a priest, but served as a lay helper. He lived at the monastery, humbly serving the priests, until he died in 1639. After his death, various Church commissions interviewed witnesses to his miracles, including bilocations. Rogo (1982, pp. 82–83) stated: “The original documents containing these eyewitness testimonies of the saint’s miracles include the Processus ordinaria auctoritate fabricatus super sanctitae vitae, virtutibus heroicis et miraculis (1664) and the Beatificationis et canonizationis Servei Dei Fratis martine Porres (1712), both of which are housed in the archives of the Order of Friars Preachers, Santa Sabina, in Rome. Another source of information on the saint’s bilocations is the Responsio ad novas animadversions R.P.D. fidei promotes super dubio an constet de virtutibus ecc issued in Rome in 1742. Also useful are the official volumes on St. Martin’s beatification and canonization processes published in Italy in 1960 and 1962 respectively.”

Once at the monastery in Lima, Brother Francis, a friend of Martin de Porres, became severely ill. As he lay on his bed in his room, the door of which was locked, he saw St. Martin, who brought hot coals for a fire. He also sponged the body of Brother Francis and remade his bed, before disappearing (Rogo 1982, pp. 83–84). Other residents in the monastery reported similar experiences. In addition, there are reports of appearances of St. Martin de Porres in Japan and China. He had often expressed a desire to be a missionary in the East.

Once when St. Martin was in Lima, his sister Joan and her husband were hosting a family reunion at their home outside Lima. Shortly after an argument broke out among the relatives, St. Martin appeared at the door, carrying food and drink. He seemed to know all about the cause of the argument, and negotiated a peaceful resolution. Martin remained in the home of his sister for the rest of the evening, and departed for Lima the next morning. Joan visited the monastery a few days later. She told the monks how he had appeared at her home just in time to solve the quarrel that had broken out there. The monks were astonished, because he had been busy tending patients in the monastery’s infirmary at that time (Rogo 1982, p. 84).

In 1970, a yogi named Dadaji visited a family of his followers in Allahabad, India. He went alone into a room of their house for solitary meditation. When he came out, he told his hosts that he had bilocated to the house of his sister-in-law in Calcutta, 400 miles away. This was verified by the Allahabad followers, and later confirmed by parapsychology researchers Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson (1976). Interviewing the Mukherjee family in Calcutta, Osis and Haraldsson found that they had seen an apparition of Dadaji in their house at the time of the yogi’s meditation in Allahabad. Roma, the Mukherjee’s daughter, said she was reading a book in the study when she saw the figure of Dadaji, who first appeared partly transparent and then became solid. Dadaji indicated that he wanted some tea. Roma got a cup of tea and a biscuit, and passed them into the study through the partly opened door. Roma’s mother and father saw the figure through a crack in the door. The family members did not enter the study, but remained in the living room. Later, after hearing a noise in the study, they entered and found the figure gone. But the tea cup was half empty and the cookie was gone. Although Roma was a follower of Dadaji, the other family members were not (Rogo 1982, pp. 90–91).

Conclusion

I have presented in this chapter only a sampling of the vast accumulation of observations related to paranormal modification and production of biological form. Just as Darwin used observations of intentional modification of biological form through selective breeding as evidence for evolution on a larger scale, we can take the observations in this chapter as evidence for the paranormal modification and production of biological form on a larger scale—the initial production of a large variety of biological forms, including the human form, by intelligent causation.

A Universe Designed for Life

The universe itself appears designed for life. Certain fundamental constants of nature, certain ratios between the forces of nature, appear to be very finely tuned. If their numerical values were even slightly different, the universe as we know it would not exist. Stable atoms, stars, and galaxies could not form (Barrow and Tipler 1996, p. 20). And thus, life itself, as we know it, could not exist.The values of the constants and ratios appear to be entirely arbitrary. In other words, as far as scientists today can tell, the values are not determined by any law of nature or property of matter. It is as if the values had been set by chance. But the odds against this are so staggering, in some cases trillions to one, that we are confronted with a genuine problem in cosmology, called the fine tuning problem. One possible explanation is that the finely tuned values were set by a providential intelligence. In these times, this is the last thing most scientists would concede. One way to avoid the God conclusion is to suppose that there are innumerable universes. Therefore cosmologists have begun to favor theories that result in the production of such universes. They imagine that in each universe, the fundamental constants and ratios have, by chance, different values. And we just happen to live in the universe where all the values are properly adjusted for life to exist. We should not be surprised at this. After all, if the values of the constants and ratios were not just the way they are, then we would not be here to observe them. Another way to avoid the God conclusion is to find some as yet undiscovered physical explanation, a new theory of everything, such as superstring theory, that would yield the fine tuning we observe in this universe.

All of the current discussions about the fine tuning problem take place within the general framework of the Big Bang cosmology. Under the general heading of the Big Bang cosmology, there are dozens of Big Bang theories, almost as many as there are Big Bang cosmologists. It is not my purpose here to explore all the technicalities of these theories. I just want to give a general composite picture of what they involve. First, the universe emerges as a fluctuation of the quantum mechanical vacuum, which is compared to a sea of energy. In the case of multiverse theories, many universes emerge as fluctuations of the quantum mechanical vacuum. These universes in their beginning stages are immeasurably small, dense, and hot. Then they began to expand rapidly for a short period of time. As they continue to expand, they are filled with a super hot plasma. Later, after more expansion, and cooling, the super hot plasma condenses into subatomic particles, which later begin to condense into the gases hydrogen, helium, and deuterium. More exotic types of matter and energy, called dark matter and dark energy, are also produced. In regions of more dense concentrations of dark matter and energy, the atomic gases condense into stars and galaxies. Within the superheated cores of these stars, heavier elements form. And when the stars finally explode into supernovas, still heavier elements form in the heat and shock. And after billions of years, we have the universe we observe. Its fate is not precisely known, but according to some cosmologists the universe will eventually contract into a black hole, and perhaps rebound again, emerging through a white hole.