Dan Brown's newly released novel, The Lost Symbol will undoubtedly generate curiosity and attention on Freemasonry. Some of the readers may be captured by noetic sciences and its impact on everyday's life.
There is a phrase, right at the beginning of the book (chapter 18), which captured my attention and kept resonating in the back of my mind as Robert Langdon's adventures took him in the depths of subterranean Washington DC. Katherine Solomon, when explaining noetic sciences, introduced an interesting topic: thoughts have a mass, and if they do, they have their own gravity which attract things with a smaller mass wandering around its orbit. In short, thoughts may actually attract other things!
This important breakthrough in the world of possibilities could finally bring a scientific demonstration about the existence of the Law of Attraction. But there's more. It could also show the reality and usefulness of modeling as John Grinder originally conceived it, after the existence of mirror neurons already partially explained.
Noetic Sciences seem to be the missing link between mysticism and scientific thought, some sort of a unifying theory between strict laws and spiritual worlds.
Will the Law of Attraction, the power of modeling and unconscious learning finally find a scientific imprimatur, or will they progressively become esoteric disciplines reserved to the initiates, as Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism and others?
The question is, to me, of extreme interest.
The idea that thoughts are "things" has been around since antiquity. However, most folks still consider them to be in the realm of subtle energy, which is still outside our ability to physically measure. That's not to say they are completely out of the physical realm, though. At one time we did not have the ability to measure radio waves and now we do.
I would like to comment on one other common misunderstanding. Gravity is not a force. It's the bending of spacetime in the presence of mass. Think of a bowling ball in the center of a trampoline. A golf ball on the edge moves toward the center, not because the bowling ball is actively attracting it, but because the fabric of the trampoline is bent. Magnetism; however, is a force. It actively attracts things with certain properties that enter it's field of influence. This is more akin to what the Law of Attraction teaches than is the idea of gravity.
Dear MaAnna,
Many thanks for your comment and clarifications. These are all very interesting topics that deserve more space, and yet your obesrvations have already captured me to new ways of thikning and feeling things all around us.
Thanks again and have a Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2010.