Dr. T. Lee Bauman, blending science and spirituality, argues God’s essence lies in light—citing Einstein’s relativity, the double-slit experiment, and biblical references like Genesis’ "universal days" (8B years for Day 1) to reconcile creation with physics. He dismisses The Da Vinci Code claims but explores karma, reincarnation, and NDEs, where light transcends human perception even in darkness. Quantum phenomena—twin paradox, spooky action—mirror divine omniscience, while his book The Akashic Light unites global religions through luminous metaphors. Callers debate evolution vs. God’s role, with Bauman suggesting accelerated or extraterrestrial life origins without endorsing them. Ultimately, the episode posits that science and faith may not be mutually exclusive, hinting at deeper cosmic connections. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you may be in the world, all time zones covered by this rockin' program, Coast to Coast AM.
It's not like any other program you've ever heard anywhere, and it's intended that way.
Good morning, I'm Mark Bell.
It's my honor and privilege to be escorting you through the weekend.
And what an interesting weekend it should be.
Tonight we have another physician, a doctor, Lee Bauman, in the next hour.
And he is definitely a believer in things spiritual.
Now, I have a feeling that he probably is going, well, not necessarily.
He talks here about the evidence for heaven.
And a TV documentary can't have heaven without sort of a traditional God, right?
So spiritual slash God and a doctor, all of that normally does not mix.
We'll see what his story is next hour.
In the meantime, let's look briefly at the news.
Oh, by the way, the webcam photo is the same one.
It is of Erin.
By the way, I would like to note, yesterday was the anniversary of the passing of one of the most wonderful alive women that the world has ever known, Ramona Bell.
That was a rough day.
Anyway, let's look at the world news.
That's always rough, too.
A huge avalanche.
A lot of this is weather.
I'm telling you, folks, the weather is changing.
A huge avalanche knocked two cars straight off a mountain pass Saturday on the main highway to one of the state's largest ski areas shortly after crowds headed through on the way to the lifts.
According to authorities, eight people were rescued from the buried vehicles.
All were taken to area hospitals.
All this in Colorado.
Elsewhere, for example, in New Jersey, I'm getting a ton of email.
The daytime temperatures are in the 70s, in the 70s in New Jersey.
How strange is that?
In fact, here, let me read you a little bit.
Let's see.
Where have I got it?
Somebody sent me an email.
Yeah.
I'm sitting here, and I think it's January 6th, 2007.
Have most of all my windows open.
It's 3 in the morning.
There's a warm breeze blowing through my living room window.
I walk out to the porch, place a bag of garbage in the can, and I smell summer.
What the?
Well, you know.
I look at the thermometer.
It reads 61 degrees.
Now, that's at night.
At night in New Jersey.
Later tomorrow, weather guy says it's going to be in the 70s.
All kinds of emails like that.
Unseasonable weather, they call it.
Jolts northeast.
As Marie Goff drove up the muddy access road to the top of the bobsled track at Mount Von Hovenburg on Saturday, the thermometer on the dashboard caught her eyes on top of a mountain unbelievable.
51 degrees, said Goff, a driver for the Olympic Regional Development Authority.
Thank goodness it stopped raining.
Thank goodness the track is refrigerated.
The weather is nuts.
Here, it's, let me look, 29.8 degrees.
The winds yesterday were kicking up around 40 miles an hour, 50.
Again.
So here in the desert, where normally during the day we should be in the 70s, New Jersey is.
I have no idea what's going on.
Well, I do, but how it manifests is going to be random and strange.
In the opening battle of a major drive to tame the violent capital of Iraq, the Iraqi army reported it killed 30 militants Saturday in a firefight in the Sunni insurgent stronghold just north of the heavily fortified green zone.
President Bush worked Saturday to finish his new war plan.
This new plan could send as many as 20,000 additional troops to Iraq.
So I guess looking at the alternatives, the president decided it was better to send more than to take more out.
New Orleans has got a lot of trouble, death trouble.
At least eight slayings in the city in the first week of the new year, and they're talking about a curfew.
A curfew on the big easy.
That's something, isn't it?
Toys R Us, Inc.
agreed on Saturday to award a Chinese-American infant a $25,000 prize in a New Year's baby contest after the company came under a bunch of fire for disqualifying the girl because her mother was not a legal U.S. resident.
Chinese-born advocates say they were infuriated by the Toys R Us, which opened its first mainland China store less than a month ago, launched an email campaign, in fact, on the issue.
So in a moment, as Paul would say, we'll look at the rest of the news.
All right, I watched this very carefully, you know, the whole Chicago UFO business, and watched the CNN coverage.
And here's somebody named Greg who writes the following to me.
Hey, Art.
I was watching CNN News yesterday, heard the Chicago O'Hare report sighting by United Airlines pilots and mechanics.
It was reported by Candy Crowley, who, in my opinion, is trying to copy somebody on 60 Minutes.
She made such a mockery of the story by mixing it in with loony tunes like animations, other stories, and with a disbelieving tone of voice as if it were an everyday prank-like story.
So, I guess the government has put a disinformation notice to the news media about this story that had happened in November 7th of 2006.
They're just trying now, getting around to reporting it and putting their spin on it.
And I really do have to agree, I'm afraid that there is a little bit of that going on.
Maybe a lot of that going on.
A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows how ExxonMobil has adopted the tobacco industry's disinformation tactics to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue.
According to the report, this all comes from Whitley Streeber's unknown country.
Between 1998 and 2005, ExxonMobil funneled nearly $16 million to a network of 43 advocacy organizations that try to confuse the public on global warming science.
ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming, just as tobacco companies defied, or rather denied their product, caused lung cancer.
That's according to Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists Director of Strategy and Policy, a modest but effective investment has allowed the giant oil companies to fuel doubt about global warming, to delay government action, just as Big Tobacco did over, well, for the past 40 years.
Now, this is an interesting story.
And by the way, we're about to go to open lines.
So if you know the portal numbers, as I like to call them, and you have something to say in the first hour that would be of some interest to us all, feel free to join us now.
Illegal immigrants planning to cross the desert and enter the U.S. on foot are to be given handheld satellite devices by the Mexican authorities to ensure they arrive safely.
It's not a joke.
It's in the Monterey Sunday Telegraph.
Those who get lost or perhaps fall sick during the dangerous four-day crossing will now be able to activate the device, alert frontier, it'll alert frontier police on both sides of the border.
The satellite tracking service would require would-be illegals to register their intentions before setting off, a paradoxical move, obviously, given that secrecy is necessary for success.
But Mexican authorities are predicting that about get this, 200,000 devices will be handed out when the project is launched formally in the coming year.
Our intention is to save lives, said Jamie Orbigon, the co-coordinator for the State Commission for Migrants in Pueblo, the Mexico state which is behind the project.
Why, there are lots of people looking to cross, and we're working with U.S. authorities to make sure they do not die on the way.
Between 20 and 30 migrants succumb to hellish temperatures, insect bites, and what have you, while attempting to cross into Arizona every year.
Heat exhaustion sometimes causes short-term memory loss with trekkers wandering aimlessly in the desert.
The route into Arizona, known as Suave Pass, is both the most common and the most dangerous way into the U.S., according to Mexican state migrant authorities.
Up to 75,000 attempt the crossing every month, of whom between 50,000 and 60,000 are caught regularly by U.S. border patrols and sent back.
The chance of success depends greatly on the knowledge of the guide known as the coyote or desert fox, and they get between $2,000 and $10,000 per person.
Coyotes are without mercy.
If a member of their pack lags behind, if you can't keep up, we'll abandon you.
Alone, you have about 36 hours to live.
It is in this period the satellite device makes a difference.
So, we're going to give satellite tracking devices to people wanting to make the illegal trip into the U.S. Now, this next story comes from the New York Daily News.
And I would say that it's pushing the envelope a little bit.
President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant.
Pushing the envelope.
Bush asserted the new authority on December 20th after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations.
He then issued a signing statement, that's in quotes, that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who reviewed it.
A White House spokeswoman disputed claims that the move gives Bush any new power at all, saying the Constitution allows such surges anyway.
Still, the move, just one year after the New York Times' disclosure of a secret program that allowed warrantless monitoring of Americans' phone calls and email, seemed to catch Capitol Hill by surprise.
Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant.
Experts say the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up huge amounts of mail.
And that's a little unsettling.
I guess if they can listen to your phone calls and they can read your email, then opening mail is not an additional big step, but it just keeps coming.
I find it very intriguing that Mitchie Okaku and Brian Greene both have pretty much laid it online with you as well as in the books I've read that time is not as people think it is, as a river that flows by or moment at moment that we live, and there's our past and our future, but they make it clear that all points in time simultaneously exist.
The first photon of light and the last photon of light are all in existence as we speak.
With that in mind, I think at one point or another, and people are going to have to address the point that you were talking about last week, and that's abortion.
When a person is conceived, their death occurs at the very same time because all points in time simultaneously exist.
So to me, it's not a question of when does life begin.
The question is when did it end?
Because if a person is conceived and their lifespan is 100 years from that point, their life and their death have both simultaneously existed, all at the same time.
Well, there are many, many views on that, and many still view it as kind of like a river, not one that cannot be breached forward or reverse, but nevertheless like a river.
unidentified
Well, basically, though, the precedence is that all points in time exist simultaneously.
In other words, my birthday, September 30th, 1968, the moment of my birth still exists as we speak.
If you die 100 years from your birth, that moment exists at the same time that your birth exists.
All right, I don't think I'm going to grasp it, but let's say, let's just go with what you're saying.
How does that affect abortion?
unidentified
Okay, well, the point is, if a person's conception and their death simultaneously take place, because every point in time exists simultaneously, an abortion simply prevents that person from fulfilling an entire lifespan.
Yeah, but according to your theory, if I heard it even halfway correctly, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether it's life at the very beginning from the heart beating and then an abortion takes place and it doesn't live to be 100 years old.
It's still got its point in time, if I was listening to you.
unidentified
Well, it still has its point in time, but the whole key is that individual still had the potential of the full lifespan.
But what happens is it eliminates the lifespan of the individual when they're aborted before they're born.
Thank you for keeping us second shifters awake on the way home here.
I have been digging in the archives on the web here for Coast to Coast, trying to find a show you did, oh, gosh, probably a couple of three years ago.
Device, it's an active device.
It's not an EVP kind of thing, but it's an active device that somebody came up with and was actually communicating with a professor, I believe, from Orange Coast Community College.
It was a really interesting experiment, and it's not coming to me right now.
It will come to me, though.
Anyway, proceed.
unidentified
Well, I...
I was wondering, you sort of threw it out there, seeing if anybody else, and there was a website that you directed people to, that you were just throwing it out to see if anybody else could sort of improve upon the design of this thing.
No, actually, the schematic diagrams and all of that stuff for it are up there.
I'll come up with a name for you here in a few moments.
Somebody hit me with it, if you would please, on Fast Blast, and I'll come up with a name.
But they've got schematic diagrams.
The whole experiment they did was laid out, and they actually, in live time, talked to a professor who helped them get this, helped them develop the circuitry for better communication with the dead.
It was absolutely amazing.
From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Yes, indeed.
Back in the kingdom of Nyai.
And it's great to be back.
Back in the USA.
How are you doing, everybody?
It's going to be a very good night.
We've got a doctor coming on.
And as I said at the beginning of the program, most of the physicians that I talk to, along with the scientists, are not believers in God.
Now, clearly this doctor is a believer in things spiritual.
Whether that actually means God or not, I don't know, but he mentions heaven.
And I think that's pretty well connected to the more traditional God that we know.
So we'll find out at the top of the hour.
In the meantime, and in a moment, we will continue with open lines.
All right, for the last caller, thank you very much, of course, as always, everybody on Fast Blast.
For the last caller, no, it's not EVP.
Well, it is EVP, but it's a very live form of EVP.
And it was called SpiritCom.
That's S-P-I-R-I-C-O-M.
If you want to look it up on the web, it's really fascinating or SpiritCom, S-P-I-R-I-T-C-O-M-M.
Anyway, something like that.
And the man's name was George Meeks.
George Meeks.
And what they did was set up this elaborate electronic circuitry that allowed them to speak to this man who had passed on.
And he was an electronics expert.
And he actually helped them work on the circuitry to improve the communications with the other side.
And there were hours of live recorded experimentation with talking to the other side.
I actually at one point played about 45 minutes of it on the air.
It would cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand straight up.
You can download that audio from the web.
So I would suggest you look up George Meeks or SpiritCom, S-P-I-R-I-C-O-M, or Tri-SpiritCom.
Either way, it probably will come up.
It's well worth investigation.
And if somebody into electronics out there wants to look into it and give it a shot, boy, would I ever be interested in the results.
Let's go to Tim in North Carolina, my state of birth.
How are you doing, Tim?
unidentified
I'm doing all right tonight.
Glad to have you back in the United States.
I just wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of the show.
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but they recently passed this law.
Unfortunately, I lost my identification and my Social Security card recently.
And I went down to the Social Security office to try to get a new card, and they informed me that the information that I had been using up until now to get my Social Security card is no longer good.
And that they only issue 10 cards now, and they retrodate it back to your birth.
So if your mother has gotten you a Social Security card and you've lost it a couple of times, and you get up to 10, they will not give you another one.
And I was talking to the security guard about it, and he says, well, they've already turned away about 30 people, and he says, I don't know what they expect them to do.
He says, you need to either go to a different country or go live under a bridge because you won't.
And he says he doesn't understand what people are going to do.
But I think that it's just a ploy to get those people and say, well, we can't give you another Social Security card, but if you get this little chip in your hand.
No, and they were supposed to take away our guns and they didn't.
And also your second guest, Major Ed Dames, he said that the shuttle that went up after Columbia, that would come down in a fiery crash, and that would be the beginning of the kill shot.
I'm kind of trying to get their consistencies here about some things.
You know, even people that work at McDonald's, you know, the federal government makes billions of dollars every year taking taxes out, and he's calling them wasteful consumers, and people are getting systematically slaughtered in Indiana and death camps in Indiana.
But I also don't for one second now, nor have I ever believed, that we orchestrated 9-11, that we somehow put together, even indirectly, in any way at all, aided, even slightly, in those that crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and so forth and so on.
All right, Maurice in Pennsylvania, wildcard line, you're on the air.
unidentified
And now for a complete change of pace, as some.
I'd like to talk about my favorite insect, and it's the cicada, the 17-year cicada here in the U.S. And I'm talking about it for a reason, and that is I'm wondering if things have been done by scientists to figure out how these little insects,
such as the ones that were over in Asia before the tsunami, didn't do their thing, didn't chirp, didn't buzz.
And, you know, the old natives who lived on some of these islands off the Asian coast figured out what was going on and saved themselves and maybe a bunch of their tribespeople.
And I think there needs to be more research along those lines.
You know, insects predicting or at least giving us some sort of warning about earthquakes, tsunamis, and what have you.
In other words, you're saying, listen to the cicada.
unidentified
Listen to the cicada, which often is confused with the locust, but that's a whole different other subject because locusts eat veggies and cause all kinds of crop damage.
Cicadas are harmless.
They do their thing.
They mate and they make babies and they die in the winter.
But these 17-year ones, and there's also a 13- and 14-year species as well, and they are prime numbers, by the way.
I've kind of studied a little bit of research here and there, and I've kind of got attracted to them because of the fact that they come up every year in the one-year ones.
And when the tsunami hit a few years ago, and of course it was mentioned on the news broadcast, I think it was 60 minutes, that they brought this kind of thing up.
And I thought, wow, this could be, you know, a help.
And I know there's been animal research done with dogs and cats and birds and things and how they.
Well, we're not supposed to allow that, but when it occurs just like that, what can you do?
Wildcard line, Jared in Winslow, Arizona.
Hello.
unidentified
Hello.
I'm calling here from work.
I'm glad that I got in.
I had to call in when Mr. Spieber was on about the weather, because up here in Northern Arizona, I actually live in Snowflake, and that's about 6,000 feet.
And it's interesting because the last night of the year, on the 31st, it was like six degrees, which is normal.
And then the following day, the same time on New Year's Day, it's about 4 in the morning, it was 40 degrees.
There's some new stuff here, and the Verumps have grown a little bit.
It's very fast-growing community.
But the basic nature and the character of Perump is now what it's always been, and that's kind of the Old West.
It's the individual, it's the open free space, it's America.
I'm Art Bell.
This should be very, very interesting tonight.
Dr. Lee Bauman, author of God at the Speed of Light, The Melding of Science and Spirituality, Window to God, A Physician's Spiritual Pilgrimage, and the Akachic Light, Religion's Common Thread.
Beginning his journey as a religious skeptic in the 1970s, Dr. Bauman now writes books defending spirituality based on the incredible link between worldwide descriptions of God and the proven scientific nature of physical light.
It's going to be interesting.
His first book was considered one of the inspirations for past CBS television series, Joan of Arcadia.
Remember that?
Lee has also been featured in the TV documentaries.
Well, actually, a couple of them.
TV documentaries, The Evidence for Heaven and The Search for Heaven, both Grizzly Adams productions.
Stay right where you are, and we'll be right back.
Well, all right, Dr. Bauman, again, welcome back.
And I would like to ask you, you know, I've interviewed probably hundreds, if not thousands, of doctors and scientists, and I find that the great percentage of them, when they're pressed right to the wall, which I do with a lot of them, don't believe in God at all.
And I think the reason for that, at least from my own experience, having gone through undergraduate school where I personally was a biology major and a chemistry minor, and then, of course, we go through medical school, the scientific method basically mandates that if you cannot prove that something exists, then you have to doubt its true existence.
And certainly that was where I found myself, and I think that's where most of my colleagues are right now.
And certainly with theories such as Darwin's theory of evolution, you know, at least in the distant past, there were so many concepts which dictated against the existence of a higher being.
I got into administrative medicine, basically working for insurance companies back in 1990, and I've just slowly reduced my workload since that time, especially when I got into this writing.
It has just been an overwhelming thrill to be able to influence so many people without the laying on of hands.
What happened back in the 1970s, and this was when I was actively practicing, I considered myself a religious skeptic, and I developed an interest because of Raymond Moody, who was another physician and philosopher who came out with the first published book on the near-death experience.
Obviously, being a physician, that interested me.
Both my wife, who was also a physician, and myself found ourselves, unfortunately, resuscitating people.
And we always wondered what exactly was going on during the resuscitative process.
We had a good idea what was going on from the medical and physiologic standpoint, but from the spiritual standpoint, of course, you learn absolutely nothing.
And I guess that's because there's really nothing to learn.
In particular, I remember when I was still a resident, actually, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I was called up on a floor to pronounce a patient, not pronounce them dead, that is.
And I went up and being a resident, you know, still somewhat naive and not wishing to make any errors, I was just very complete in my examination of this poor individual.
I examined the heart, made sure there were no heart sounds.
I listened to the lungs to make sure they weren't breathing, and indeed that was the case.
So I signed the papers and pronounced the patient dead.
30 minutes later, I was Called back on the floor, and the nurses said, You know, Dr. Bauman, that patient you pronounced is now alert and talking.
So that was my first introduction into this paranormal realm of what perhaps might be going on, so many things that we don't understand on the other side.
Well, you know, in retrospect, looking back on my research over the last 30 years, I think this type of thing is not that extraordinary.
There are cases of near-death experiences, you know, throughout the ancient literature, and certainly you can find them on amazon.com in great quantity today.
And I think that's exactly what happened, was this patient probably was dead for some unknown period of time.
And for reasons that we just cannot explain, they came back.
But just doesn't that bring into question, I mean, if you can really be careful and examine somebody and know they are dead, and then it turns out they're not dead, doesn't that honestly bring into question the whole question of when somebody really is dead?
And I think that's why we read so many stories about, in fact, one very interesting case that I discuss in God at the Speed of Light work, a patient lay in the hospital morgue in cold storage for like three days.
You know, and the pathologist came in and was getting ready to perform his autopsy when he noticed his eyelid move.
And one thing led to another, and they ended up doing surgery, and the patient fully recovered.
I think it happened more than we would like to admit.
I was interviewing another physician who told me that in the very old days, they would actually bury people with a rope and a bell up top so that in case they woke up, they could pull on, yank on this rope, and a bell would ring, and I guess whoever was overseeing the cemetery would dig them up.
The stories I've heard were more in relation at periods when narcolepsy was a real fear, when people would actually pass out and appear to be dead, which might go on for hours, if not longer, and these people would be buried.
Of course, I would question how thorough that physical exam was at the time.
But apart from that type of natural medical disorder, I think there still are cases where people have perhaps been buried when they might have been.
Is there anything in science that can explain no brain waves, no heartbeating, no respirations, dead, and then 30 minutes, two hours, five hours, three days later, alive?
I think various people can come up with hypotheses and theories as to why it perhaps was not detected.
Maybe just a very low blood pressure, a threaty pulse that the physician could not detect, which is possible.
Certainly in the intensive care unit, you would often have patients where their blood pressure was so low, the only way you could even detect a blood pressure or a pulse was through something called a Doppler or an ultrasound.
So that does happen.
But usually these people are there are ways to detect that they're still alive.
In fact, I feel very certain that the God of our Bible is the God of all religions.
I basically preach a non-denominational type God.
I was raised as a Christian, so I did come up through that philosophy.
But truly, I believe that the God of all religions is the same God.
And in fact, if you go and read every major spiritual scripture throughout the world, I find it so fascinating.
How is God always described?
And he or she is always described in terms of light.
That was one of the eureka moments for me when, you know, through my various research and reading into Einstein's theories of relativity, where light is really the cornerstone of that Major concept, and then the near-death experience, where the being of light is the main spiritual element of that phenomenon.
And then, lo and behold, every major religion describes its God in terms of light.
And I don't think those are just metaphors.
I truly believe at this point in my life that they're literal.
I think using the actual word consciousness is something that can be argued.
But let me tell you how physicists actually came to coin that term for light.
There was a series of experiments in the early 1900s known as the double slit series of experiments.
And if you read about notables, including Nobel Prize winners like Richard Feynman, he discusses this experiment, the double slit experiment, which was the original experiment in the series.
He describes it as being impossible.
Those are his words, absolutely impossible.
And the reason for that is in the original experiment, light is put through a series of steps, and they know what the final outcome of the experiment is.
They then did a modification where they altered the very last step in the experiment, the very last step.
What they found to their utter amazement was that light altered its actual behavior, its actual pattern it was progressing through in the experiment.
It altered its behavior in the middle of the experiment, far before it even got to the end where the changes were.
They send a single photon or light wave into the experiment.
It goes through some different channels, reflected off of mirrors and whatnot.
And then the outcome is measured at the end of the experiment.
Now, in the modification at the end of the experiment, they put up some polarized pieces of glass so that they could actually detect the orientation of the photons at the very end of the experiment.
Lo and behold, the light actually put this in simple terms, but it altered its behavior before it even reached the polarized series of pieces of glass at the end.
Its polarization was part of the behavior change that was seen.
To try to actually verbalize it, I find very difficult.
Even when I go around the country giving my talks, it's so much easier to have a PowerPoint slide up on the screen where I can show all the changes.
But it's just a classic experiment, which, like I say, we have even Nobel Prize winners saying, this is impossible.
But what you have to realize is it's impossible only for human beings where we are basically trapped in the four dimensions of the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time.
Light, for light, as difficult as it is to grasp this concept I'm about to say, time does not exist for light.
And Einstein showed this.
And it's been proven through particles known as muons that time does not exist for atomic particles.
Well, I'm not quite sure I grasp that because light has a specific speed, though that can be changed or affected, for example, as you mentioned, by gravity.
You have to realize that we are confined to four dimensions.
And we live with time.
We cannot escape time.
And for us to try to talk about an entity like a photon or even any of the electromagnetic spectrum, these frequencies, these waves, they are not restricted by time.
And that's where the difficulty comes in because we cannot imagine something existing without time.
And that's what happened With the double slit experiment.
If you realize that these light waves were traveling around the experiment without regard to time, suddenly that makes sense.
And, you know, the first experiment, the double-slit experiment, was so, I mean, the results were so unpredictable that the physicists then developed a whole series of experiments afterwards.
And Tom Merry from Greeley, Colorado says, isn't it true that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows down, and as it reaches it, time actually stops.
As you get to the speed of light, time virtually stops.
It's a question for Dr. Bauman in a moment.
Dr. Bauman, okay.
I'm struggling a little bit to understand this.
It does seem as though as one approaches the speed of light, it slows down.
That is, time slows down, and perhaps even stops as you get to the speed of light.
Time, you have to really come very close to the actual speed of light, even for time to begin to slow, at least from an appreciable standpoint.
And once you actually reach light speed, time, at least according to the experiments that have been conducted up to date, will actually stop.
And these concepts, you know, they're easy to phrase.
It's easy to say time stops at light speed.
But to actually accept that concept is very difficult.
That's certainly one reason it took me 20 years to write my first book was you'd read about these concepts, you'd read about the experiments, but it's just so difficult for the human mind to accept.
And I think the work that Raymond Moody did, that Dr. Moody did, was just phenomenal.
It was basically, I consider it, an excellent medical study.
The fact that there were so many elements which occurred repetitively and were often corroborated by some of these out-of-body experiences, by people who were observed during the experience but obviously didn't know they were being observed, and they could actually state, yes, I was doing this at that time, I just find are phenomenal.
And I don't think they can be just negated by skeptics.
I think there's a lot of credibility to these observations.
And the fact that many people say, well, drugs caused this or oxygen deprivation caused it, I don't buy that because so many people, such as my wife would often tell about in the emergency room, you know, these people would go out right there on the litter.
They'd be talking to you one minute and then they were gone the next.
You resuscitated them and they would come back without the use of drugs and the amount of time that they were gone would have, you know, sometimes was just a phenomenally short time, maybe 5, 10, 15 seconds, and they're back.
And these people would have similar experiences that you couldn't argue were the result of drugs or oxygen deprivation.
And yet these people would often be just as bitter and angry that they were brought back from this state of euphoria and this existence on the other side.
Well, if you have heard these things from your patients, and your wife has, that must mean that most physicians, emergency room physicians and so forth, have the same experience fairly frequently and they don't talk about it.
And as we alluded to earlier in the conversation, many of these people are indeed atheists and agnostics.
And they cannot understand in the least how these young people, you know, people with everything in the future to look forward to, would come back and be upset that they were brought back from the dead.
You know, to them, least of all, does it make any sense?
To someone like me who am now very spiritual, I think it makes excellent sense.
But for an atheist, you know, to be challenged in the emergency room with such bitterness and anger, they have real difficulty accepting that.
I was just on the internet one day back in the fall of 2003, and my name came up on one of these search engines under the heading of a TV show.
And so I had to check it out, find out what this was all about.
And lo and behold, here was this very prestigious Hollywood producer and director who named my book as one of the books that she had read and had inspired her to create this TV series.
Now, you have to think back, I was a first-time author and, you know, still quite naïve as to all the transpirings that often occur following, you know, even a modestly successful book.
And I just couldn't believe it.
I felt sure that she had the name wrong, and somehow things had gotten messed up, and it wasn't me at all, or it wasn't my book at all.
But as I went on and read about it, indeed, the TV show dealt with spirituality, and the character was kind of a tangent or an offshoot off of the character Joan of Arc, who would often see God in this TV series.
In a nutshell, then, what they're doing at Princeton is they have this great big computer, and then they have computers all over the world, Doctor.
You're going to have to look into this.
And they dub them eggs.
It has a scientific meaning, but they call them eggs.
And they are simply computers geographically scattered around the world.
And they're sitting there spitting out random numbers.
And each one of these computers reports back to the mama computer at Princeton.
And as an example, and there are many examples now going back years, but I'll give you the example of 9-11.
They record constantly, kind of like you're looking for an earthquake.
And they depend on these computers to be continually spitting out random numbers.
Well, when something starts to get non-random, it is recorded almost as though you would record an earthquake.
And with major events that have occurred in the world, like 9-11, the non-random aspect of it just went right off the chart.
I mean, it just went all of a sudden about get this, get this now, 30 minutes before 9-11 actually happened, it just went off the chart.
And that relates to many, many, many big things that have happened in the world.
This has been going on for a number of years now at Princeton.
You can actually go on the web and put in Princeton Consciousness Project or Princeton Eggs, And you can actually look at these computers in different parts of the world, reporting back to Princeton, and it seems as though human consciousness appears to be affecting these computers to begin to go non-random.
There's something in human consciousness that's affecting these computers.
And it appears to be outside of time.
In other words, prior to these events, 30 minutes or so, everything starts going berserk.
So there's something outside of time with respect to human consciousness itself, which I guess would key into what you're saying with light being outside of the time spectrum.
When you study his work and other work that people have done with NDEs, does it bring you to the conclusion positively in your mind that there is consciousness following physical death?
Now, back in the 1970s, I could not accept the tenet of God based upon faith alone.
In fact, looking through my life, I probably never could.
And that was how science has actually brought me to that point in my life, where now I just feel there is no doubt whatsoever.
And science is the basis for that, including Moody's work with the near-death experience, where as you read the various near-death experiences which are out there, the main element of the near-death experience is undoubtedly when the person undergoing the experience first is introduced to this being of light or to the light itself.
The spirituality associated with it, the peace, the love, the warmth, that has been what has transpired or changed most people's lives who have undergone this type of event.
So, yes, I feel the near-death experience is a definite, very good argument for why consciousness exists following death.
You know, unless I can absolutely prove something, and NDEs come close, but I still, somewhere in my mind, I say, well, this could be a dying brain.
Now, I've seen physicians stand up on television specials and say, look, it's the brain dying from the outside, moving inward, brain cells dying on the outside of the brain, finally moving inward until you begin to get to the core, the middle of the brain.
And what people see is this light at the end of what appears to be a long tunnel is merely the last part of the brain that has not yet died.
And for those few that come back, that's the experience they relate, and that's why they relate it.
If you research the dying brain, it has so many similarities to when you're put under general anesthesia is the typical scenario that I like to bring forth.
If you undergo general anesthesia, you know, you're laying there on the table and the anesthetist is telling you to count backwards and, you know, what happens is everything goes black.
It's not that they see light.
Everything goes black.
And there is absolutely no medical or physiologic explanation for why the dying brain should see light.
There are too many occurrences where people undergo unconsciousness or they're put out under general anesthesia.
And the typical scenario you hear is everything goes black.
It's not that they see light.
So that, at least from a medical standpoint, is why I just cannot buy those arguments.
You say, in terms of light in the Bible and other religious texts, what kind of descriptions lead you, where do you see this in Scripture where it refers to light other than let there be?
Take a nice deep breath, and we'll come back and continue.
Dr. Lee Bauman is my guest.
In the darkness at the moment, here in the high desert.
How are you doing, everybody?
I'm Art Bell.
Now, there is a mysterious place, Africa.
I spent some time there, and let me tell you, it's not like anything you've ever experienced.
If you ever get the chance and you can travel in this world, in this life, take the opportunity, jump at the opportunity, and see a little bit of what the rest of the world is like.
Dr. Lee Bauman is my guest.
We're talking about God and light.
Perhaps one and the same.
Doctor, you discuss a lot, I guess, in your books about design, intelligent design, and you obviously believe, I guess, in intelligent design.
There is a physicist, again, by the name of Gerald Schroeder, who has written several books on basically his concept of intelligent design.
And he came up with what I consider just an absolutely great melding of science and the six days of Genesis, which tries to bring together those two divergent concepts.
The fact that science states the universe has been around for 16 billion years, and the book of Genesis, if you take it literally, you know, indicates we've only been around about 6,000 years.
If you get into the detail of the story of Genesis, what you find is that the sun didn't even appear, didn't even become transparent until like day two in Genesis, and the earth wasn't created until day three, if I'm recalling properly.
So to try to argue that the six days of Genesis are based upon 24-hour Earth days really doesn't make any sense because the Earth didn't come about till the third day.
And what Schroeder came to synthesize was the fact that with that being the case, that you couldn't base the days of Genesis upon just the typical Earth day.
He developed what he calls universal days.
And he develops it based upon a mathematical premise, which is somewhat complex, and I don't honestly think your listeners would be very interested.
But he has a mathematical and scientific rationale for defining his universal days.
And when he does, it brings together the Genesis story and science completely.
Well, evolution for me personally, and I'm sure for many other scientists, has always been a great argument for why you don't need God.
And it certainly was that way for me when all these things began to click about the common characteristics of physical light and how they compared with attributes of God.
That was one thing, but you still had the theory of evolution out there just as a thorn in my side.
And what science has found, and I'm just totally shocked that people who argue intelligent design don't bring up this concept, which is very well documented, is the fact that there's a period in the Cambrian era.
Now, the Cambrian era, you know, back in the dinosaur age, existed between 543 up through 490 million years ago.
So it's been, you know, a while ago.
But there's a period during that Cambrian era known as the Cambrian explosion.
And that's actually, if you go to look it up on the internet, that's the search term you would use: Cambrian explosion.
And that period of the Cambrian era lasted only about 5 to 10 million years.
That is the time period during which single-celled organisms, both plant and animal, just exploded into all the multicellular, diverse life forms that have grown up to what we now recognize as complex life here on the Earth.
If you place into computer models all the genetic mutations, survival of the fittest, all that complex detail that Darwin argued, if you place that into a computer model, what you find is there is no way that could have taken place over just 5 to 10 million years.
In fact, the computer models spit out time periods on the order of hundreds of millions of years, not just five or ten million years.
So that is probably the greatest single argument against Darwinian evolution, and I would stress Darwinian evolution.
I think there may well be other, perhaps, modifications to this theory, accelerated forms of evolution, perhaps even evolution where life was seeded outside of our planet, whether you want to argue Mars and the Martian meteorites or even outside of our solar system.
I think those are all possible candidates.
But Darwinian was compatible with the fossil record.
You know, I find even blatant lies probably have some truth in them.
You know, I think that's certainly extreme.
But, you know, often when you read about some of these stories in the newspaper and you say, you know, I know that's not true, usually I find that there might be some small phrase in there which probably is true.
Somebody that I interviewed and very much like, John Lear, actually the son of Bill Lear, claims to have not authored this himself, but passed it on from somebody else.
He said, when you die, it is traditional to, everybody knows, to go to the light.
Go to the light.
He said, it's a trick.
Don't go to the light.
Go to the darkness.
The light is a trick.
And ever since I heard that, it has bothered the hell out of me.
Well, you know, in fact, when I hear people say, well, Dr. Bauman, how do you explain the hellish NDEs?
The ones where people do not see light, where they're in darkness and groping figures or grasping at them, there are so many stories where the person having that particular NDE, if all they do is say, oh, God, help me, what happens?
All of a sudden, the light appears and embraces them.
Now, that doesn't happen all the time, but that's a very common theme when people are in those dark, hellish NDEs that you often hear about.
There are very few, percentage-wise, very few hellishly described NDEs.
However, I would think that, number one, most people are loath to describe any NDE at all for fear that people will think they're crazy or won't believe them or whatever.
But certainly a hellish NDE.
People would be very, very unlikely to come back and tell their friends they went to hell and somehow made it out.
Did there, since you knew these people, I guess to some degree, if you were to have judged them from what you knew of them, would you be surprised that they went to hell and came back?
Ooh, that is actually a subject I do an entire two-hour talk on.
So I'm very opinionated when it comes to that.
You know, you get into the Dan Brown arguments, the Da Vinci Code and whatnot.
I think the tampering has been minimal, actually, despite those arguments that you read about and have been so successful in books like the Da Vinci Code.
Now, most larger modern Christian religions say, no, uh, when you die, you're dead until the second coming, and then you'll be resurrected and so forth and so on, right?
Well, in a certain perspective, I definitely, in fact, I feel there's no doubt, and again, I feel it's a proven fact from past scientific experiments.
If you'll allow me, I'll just take some time to give a backdrop to this.
First of all, you have to understand that time slows or even stops at light speed.
And you have to accept that fact.
If you accept that, then it's been shown, and Einstein actually did studies on it, where he would show how fast you would have to travel for time to slow certain amounts.
And what he actually came up with was what he calls his traveling twin paradox, which I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with.
And what that shows is that let's assume you have a pair of twins.
Twin A is going to be doing the traveling.
Twin B remains on Earth.
So twin A takes off, and let's assume he's traveling at like 880% the speed of light, which is pretty fast, but it's not the speed of light.
Twin A travels to a distant star and returns.
And what we find is that when twin A has returned, he or she is years younger than twin B, who has remained on Earth.
So from that standpoint, you can actually say that twin A has traveled into twin B's future.
True.
Some would argue that that's a form of time travel, and others would not.
But that is definitely possible, and I think it's just a matter of time before that occurs.
Well, and actually to address that, as we were talking about the double slit experiment and the fact that as human beings we could actually see light and how time did not restrict light in this particular experiment,
so it would be that if as humans, if we could ever escape into a dimension where time did not exist, then yes, there's no reason why time travel could not occur.
Now, whether that is actually ever going to be possible or whether that's a limitation that has been forever placed upon humankind is another question.
But we would have to escape the bounds of Time and space.
I feel that there is definitely an intimate relationship between God and light.
And the conclusion that God equals light is something which I am seriously entertaining.
And that is really based upon what we've discussed up to this point.
If you will keep in mind that the world's major religions always describe its God in terms of light, the fact that the being of light in the near-death experience is often identified with God, or if you're a Christian, Christ.
In quantum physics, and this was really the arena that convinced me of the possible relationship between God and light, is not only the consciousness of the double slit series of experiments, but quantum physics, believe it or not, actually has shown what I term the three omnis of light.
That's O-M-N-I, Omni of Light.
And they are omnipresence, being everywhere, omniscience, being all-knowing, and omnipotence, being all-powerful, of course.
And we readily identify those attributes with descriptions of God throughout the world's literature.
Oddly, quantum physics gives similar descriptions, and it has led notables such as Niels Bohr to make comments, and again, another Nobel Prize winner, to make comments that those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum physics could not possibly have understood it.
And it's because these are just ridiculous concepts that most of us, the first time we hear them, cannot conceivably believe because they're just fantastic.
They're out of science fiction.
But what the three omnis are, and we broached upon it temporarily at the beginning of the show, is if we assume that time does not exist for a light wave, then picture a light wave at one corner of the universe, and it begins its journey to the other side of the universe.
We are assuming, of course, that it doesn't run into something and is absorbed.
But theoretically, that light wave can travel from one corner of the universe to the other corner.
And even though we as humans see it traveling at a specific speed during that time, for light itself, time does not exist.
So for the amount of time for that light wave to go from one corner of the universe to the other corner for light, and that's the key, for light, not for us humans, but for the light wave, time never elapses.
It's ageless.
And so that's where the omnipresence argument comes in, the fact that light can theoretically be everywhere in the universe at one time, and time does not elapse.
And again, we have physicists who state that exact fact, that light theoretically can be everywhere.
I've actually heard some people state that they've heard the argument that maybe there's only one light wave in the universe and it's everywhere.
And that would be true only for light.
It would certainly not be true for humans because of the time warp that we exist in.
But that's the first omni.
That's the omni of omnipresence being everywhere.
Now, assume that we as humans could now be light waves.
And assume that we can be everywhere in the universe at one time.
We would basically know everything that was going on in the universe at that particular moment, wouldn't we?
Now, if you expand that and the fact that, okay, time does not exist for me now as a light wave, then theoretically, not only do I know everything that is occurring now,
but because time does not exist or stated another way, the past equals the present, equals the future, theoretically, I know of events that have not yet occurred in the future, and I know of events that have taken past in past times.
And so suddenly we're launched into the second omni, the omni of omniscience, or being all-knowing.
So these are, you know, I readily admit they're theoretical, But they make perfect sense.
Now, the omni of omnipotence becomes a little more problematic because there's one particular concept in physics which makes a valid argument for that.
What I often tell my audiences, though, is from a simple standpoint, just imagine that you're talking about an entity which can be everywhere in the universe at one time.
It probably is not a great giant step to assume that it's probably pretty powerful as well.
However, the actual physics argument and the physics concept is one known as re-normalization.
That's the word normal with RE in the front and isation at the end.
And your listeners can actually look it up on the internet if they're interested.
But what happened was back in the early 1900s, again, as physicists were first trying to calculate energy levels of quantum particles, what they found is if they took a very simple atom like the hydrogen atom, or if they took a particle like the electron, when they were first calculating those energy levels, they were coming up with ridiculous infinite results, which didn't make any sense.
What they found was if you look back upon your basic sciences and examine the interaction of electrons with light, you basically can't separate the two.
Electrons bounce between one electron orbital of atoms to another by either absorbing energy as light or by giving it off as light.
So you really, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the interaction of the electron with the photon.
And what physicists resolved was that it was this interaction, the fact that light was contributing the apparent infinities to these calculations.
They had to actually devise a mathematical protocol, which is known as renormalization, to eliminate, to cancel out the affinities on both sides of the equations.
And only by doing that were they able to get rid of these infinities, which they felt were the result of light.
Physicists, a lot of physicists, including some very notable figures who exist today, have described the technique of renormalization as sleight of hands, like the magician's hand, as tricks.
And they just don't buy the concept.
They feel it's a false technique which has been placed within our mathematical world because of a problem that we as humans have had trouble dealing with.
So that basically accounts for the three, what I call the three omnis.
You add the fourth concept of consciousness, and you realize you're using descriptors which are used to describe God.
And when you look at the descriptions of God throughout the world's religions, you look at the fact that the being of light in the near-death experience is often identified with God, it just seemed like there was a connection there that was very difficult to refute.
That's kind of how I got from point A to point B in my life and wrote my first book.
You know, quantum physics is so complicated and just so bizarre that we as humans, well, it took me 20 years to lend any credence to those concepts at all because they were just so fantastic.
And that's what troubles so many people when I give my talks is the fact that if it's the first time that they have ever heard these concepts, you just can't buy them.
They're just too ludicrous.
It certainly took me 20 years, and that's not an extreme exaggeration at all.
It took me 20 years to put and accept these concepts as being factual.
You know, I would read about a study one day, and it would make perfect sense right at that time.
The next morning, I'd wake up and review what I had just read, and all of a sudden it didn't make any sense again.
And it gives you, of course, since you're writing science fiction, it gives you a little bit of latitude to play in areas that you're not quite certain of.
And I find it so easy to write when you're writing science fiction because all of a sudden you don't have to give justification for anything.
However, having said that, at the same time I want my novel to be scientifically accurate.
And I've actually had a couple of university professors, one physics and one biology, who have actually donated their time and effort to be able to review some of the areas to make sure that they are scientifically factual.
So it's been a whole new avenue for me, which I'm just thoroughly enjoying.
I have found people to be very receptive, which has really shocked me because I had expected major obstacles at having people, especially your churchgoers, to accept this type of work.
I can only guess it's because many of these people are so familiar with Jesus saying, I am the light of the world, and God being depicted as a burning bush and other forms of light, that people are really quite more open-minded than I would ever have guessed.
And as I mentioned earlier, almost every God throughout the planet's religions is described in terms of light.
If I go in even to some of the tribal religions of Africa, because you mentioned Africa earlier in the program, they actually, there are many accounts where they describe their God or gods as shining bright as the sun.
And certainly we have the Egyptians, the Mayans, the Incas, you know, who all worship the sun.
And I have to wonder if it's not so much that they were worshiping the sun as it was they were worshiping the light.
I think our human nature is to seek comforting thoughts, and certainly that is part of my own perspective.
I prefer to live thinking that there's something positive in my future and not something negative like just dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
So inwardly, I have often questioned if that's not a primary incentive that I have used, but at least I have the comfort of knowing that science, I believe, is backing my work.
So you don't think there's any possibility that when you die, it is ashes to ashes, that it's just not something horrible, it's not hellish, nor is it angelic and comforting and heavenly.
And one of the prime reasons for that is there are many equations, physics and chemical, which show conclusively that at the end of time, when this universe no longer exists, the one definite remnant of our universe, when all matter deteriorates, is going to be light.
And if for no other reason, even if I was a pure agnostic, I would have to admit from the scientific principles that exist that my ashes will someday, if for no other reason, become pure light.
And if light indeed is the three omnis and consciousness, then I think even the atheist has to admit that at least in the end, he will become a being of light.
I hope so, and I hope my work may be, you know, a seed which opens that flower, that someday we will have a much greater understanding of the works of our Creator.
Yes, and I certainly have many colleagues that would stand by that.
On the same level, however, I have physician colleagues That love my books have taken me out to dinner because they just want to interrogate me and interview me and glean more information.
And they have actually talked their colleagues into buying my books.
It's just been a phenomenally wonderful experience for me.
That may be because though they're agnostic, they really want the comfort of being able to believe, and perhaps they think somebody of your stature can convince them.
When we get back, it's the audience's turn, and I'm going to be very, very curious, and you should be prepared, Doctor, because you're going to get just about anything and everything as we open the phone lines for Dr. Lee Bauman.
Light, consciousness, God.
That's what we've been talking about when we get back.
It's your turn.
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I'm Mark Bell.
Let there be consciousness.
Good morning, everybody.
Dr. Lee Bauman is my guest.
He's written a number of books, actually.
The Akachic Light, we haven't discussed that yet.
A Window to God, A Physician's Spiritual Pilgrimage.
God at the speed of light.
The melding of science and spirituality.
And then, of course, Akachic Light, religion's rather common thread.
And I guess we should discuss that in a moment.
And then we'll go directly to calls, if you'll just stay right there.
In the Akashic Light art, I was basically greatly disturbed, as probably all Americans were after the events of 9-11.
And having done my research, which led to God at the speed of light, and recognizing that the God of all religions was described in terms of light, it seemed to me there was an obvious commonality amongst all religions.
And, you know, the fact that Muslims were fighting Christians and were fighting just Judeo-Christian philosophies in general, and vice versa, for that matter, I felt was the major stimulus for this book.
What I attempt to do is go into strict detail with all of the world's religions, showing how God is described in terms of light and how the commonalities outweigh the differences amongst our world religions.
I discuss, obviously, the three omnis in consciousness.
I go into all of the spiritual, significant spiritual passages between the world's religions.
And the one aspect which intrigued me the most was that dealing with Islam, with the Muslim religion.
As Westerners, we often quote one of the surahs, one of the passages from the Quran, and we quote the passage that reads, When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads, and when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly.
And that's one of the several passages which Westerners feel is the reason for all this violence that we're seeing from the Islamic radicals.
What suddenly occurred to me in the midst of doing research for this book was, okay, you know, that's one viewpoint, and as Judeo-Christians, we can argue that they're a violent religion.
But what I found as I furthered my research in this area was, you know, as Judeo-Christians, we can't talk, basically.
We have as violent, if not more violent, passages in our Old, or in our, yes, in our Old Testament, in our own Bible.
The one passage which I give out in my talks reads as follows.
Moses and Eliezer, the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation went forth to meet them, speaking of the army of Moses.
And Moses was angry with them.
He said, Have you let all the women live?
Now therefore kill every male amongst the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
And, you know, I don't bring that up to belittle the Judeo-Christian religion, because I think it's a great religion.
But we just can't be hypocrites.
We have our own violent passages and our own sacred texts.
And I think we just need to acknowledge that.
We need to acknowledge that the people incurring the violence over in the Middle East are indeed radicals.
This has been going on for millennia between Christians and Muslims.
And there's no reason in my mind why we all can't get along, is the oft-quoted phrase.
First time caller line, you are on the air with Dr. Lee Bauman.
unidentified
Good morning, gentlemen.
This is a great conversation, Doctor and Art.
You're both doing great jobs.
My name is Kevin.
I'm from Western Pennsylvania.
And as I was listening earlier in your conversations, you were talking About time and relativity and so forth.
And being that religion kind of gets smacked around when your conversation goes between science and religion, trying to find common ground, religion takes kind of a hit.
But there are indications in the Bible.
And just briefly, in the New Testament, Jesus said, in my kingdom, a day is as a thousand years, as a thousand years is as a day.
And I'd like to get your opinion on that quote as to Genesis, relativity, and time.
And the other, being a Catholic that I am, we recite what's called the Nicene Creed at Mass.
And your questions, I heard you asking earlier in reference to is God light?
Even way back in time, when they made the Nicene Creed after the Council of Nicaea, they came up with this Creed.
And I'm just going to read a very brief part of it.
God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being with the Father.
First of all, Kevin, I think that's an excellent question.
The passage about a thousand years, I think, works in so beautifully with what I described earlier about Gerald Schroeder's melding of the days of Genesis with the scientific era of 16 billion years.
And I would have to wonder whether that passage isn't a reference to a similar relationship.
The fact that the day that is used in Genesis is and cannot be just the 24-hour Earth Day, and is probably indeed much more.
In fact, I would argue more than even thousands of years.
We would actually be talking billions of years.
So that is how I would address the first question.
Regarding the Nicene Creed, I think, again, the comment relative to God is God, light is light, I could see that some would argue that they're not the same, that indeed they're separated in that creed.
And I think others would take the opposite viewpoint and say, you know, they're right next to one another and they're implying a relationship.
So I don't know what the people who attended the Council of Nicaea, what their actual intent was, but certainly you know my viewpoint.
I think people do often try to control religion and our minds by statements, and we have the power as humans to either accept or refute those type of demands and even creeds for that matter.
Okay, west of the Ronkeys, Larry in San Francisco, you're on with Dr. Bauman.
unidentified
Two questions, Dr. Bauman.
Are you aware of the prevalence of light images in psychedelic experiences, especially with the tryptamine psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca?
People often report the sun.
I know in my own case with mushrooms, the sun was so bright, even though it was at night, my impression of the sun was so bright I felt like I was getting a sunburn.
People often report seeing eyes, eyes that eat you up.
They're so intense looking.
So eyes and light and so on in psychedelic experiences.
I wonder if that plays into what you're talking about.
And the other question, more basic, is simply, if the light is God, what's the dark?
Is the dark God also?
Is the dark the devil?
I remember a song I used to sing when I was a pagan that said, well, you know, that talked about, well, how beautiful the light is, but the dark is healing.
The dark is where the answers are to things that have no answers.
I don't know, Doctor, whether you've looked into this at all, but I've interviewed many pretty legitimate people who feel that there is a path to that we call God or our inner self, our consciousness, through the use of some of these psychedelics.
One, I think there could be a very rational argument that some drugs do indeed help reduce the veil that separates us, perhaps, from our Creator, and that's why we're seeing the light.
So I could see that as one valid argument, whether that's the actual answer, I don't know.
And the second comment is that obviously that's one reason why People who do not believe that the NDE is a part of the future afterlife is their conviction that drugs are causing the experience.
And that is where I would refute that argument because so many people have the same experience who have received no drugs and similarly have had also no anoxia or other things.
I love that question because certainly you can go into the world's literature, and just as I made comments favorable about the light, you always read what we have always assumed to be the metaphors about the dark, you know, representing Satan and whatnot.
I do not know about that.
The darkness is certainly an area of intrigue for me.
If you look at the physics literature, what you find is that even in the total, absolute darkness of outer space, there are over 400 million photons of light, but it's non-visible light.
So light still exists even in total darkness.
One of the things which I tell people who do describe some of these hellish dark NDEs to me is that, you know, you're still in the light.
It's a non-visible light, but I get that information out at least as some small form of comfort for those that have that experience because there is actually light in total darkness.
Just let me premise myself is I believe that I'm a natural scientist and that I had some NDEs 20, 25 years ago and led me down the same path that you gentlemen are talking about tonight.
I just wanted to throw a couple concepts out of you and then ask a question.
Oh, and by the way, that antimatter, quantum physics, may discover that there's a whole spectrum range of light, which we know nothing about, just as the spectrum of light we know today.
The antimatter qualities may turn out that another completely different spectrum of scientific qualities of antimatter in the frequency.
Well, my first comment is if you consider what God considers as time as out being out of our space and time, consider a yardstick, zero would be 2,000 years ago, 18 inches would be today, and 36 inches would be 2,000 years ahead of us.
If you had God's perspective of time outside of our time.
We talk about a collective consciousness.
In our mind right now, you can feel your toe and you can feel your finger at the same time.
Imagine if your toe was 10 million light years out there and your finger was 10 million light years in the other direction.
In your own mind, in your consciousness, you can feel both of those places at the same time.
And it could be that the consciousness of God can actually be in those same two places like we can feel our finger and our toe at the same time.
My question is, it relates to physics and Einstein.
Einstein predicted black holes.
He knew black holes existed.
Theoretically, he worked out that stars would collapse and black holes would be creative.
Nearly 70, 60, 70 years after Einstein, man saw light bending around black holes.
In fact, man discovered that light is sucked into black holes.
And there's probably an energy change with the acceleration of light in a black hole.
So my question really is, with our perceptions, with our known perception, what we know today, light is matter.
And we can now prove that light matter is susceptible to gravitational pull, just like any other matter in the universe.
So I wanted to know if Dr. Bauman had ever considered that.
And it's saying that light is God.
And I believe that light is just another creation of God.
And that it's maybe a vehicle of communication by God.
But light by itself, in our perception, is still matter.
And certainly Einstein, with his famous equation E for energy equals MC squared, where M basically stands for matter, would verify that.
So I feel that that's a proven concept that certainly exists out there.
The fact that gravity is able to bend light and wondering if gravity, whether Mark is suggesting that gravity has some type of power over light and hence God, which would not Be very rational.
Again, I would make the observation that, according to Einstein, gravity is merely a warping of space.
And that, again, is an observation that we as humans have regarding gravity because we're, again, locked within the four dimensions of space and time.
Whether that actually holds true for the photon itself, because just because we observe something doesn't mean that that's the case for light.
Dr. Lee Bauman is my guest from the high desert in the middle of the night.
I'm Art Bell.
You know, it's very interesting.
Actually, over the years now, and it's been a lot of years, my own feelings, my own religious philosophy, and all the rest of it, my own feelings about how we got here, who God is, whether God's real, how it all fits together, have been formed by years of listening to the guests that I've had on this program.
And that influence probably bigger than any other in my life.
Sort of the university of the air, as it were.
Dr. Lee Bauman is the teacher this night, and he'll be right back.
Doctor, you seem to associate light with the creator.
Adam in Andover, Minnesota, sends the following by computer.
It's been shown that light travels through the path of least time, not least resistance.
What if light were to bend around black holes?
Because it would be much faster than traveling through one?
The concept of least time, I remember hearing about in a Richard Feynman lecture.
So I know that is certainly a valid and proven concept for the travel of light through space.
So I have no problem with that at all.
I'm not sure I totally understand the relationship between it traveling around it as opposed to traveling through it, because it would be my understanding that the light that is actually impacting directly with the black hole would be absorbed by the black hole,
and the only light that is being bent around it are those light waves that are traveling out beyond the perimeter and then are bent toward in that direction again so that we were even able to visualize it.
Okay, see, I do a lot of Bible study in ancient languages, the Hebrew, Aramaic, and stuff like that.
The catabolt is an event that happened.
I've got to go back to the beginning in Genesis here.
The very first words out of Genesis is, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, period.
It stops right there.
Then an event happened called the catapult, which was Satan's overthrow.
God destroyed that earth age that was then.
That's when the dinosaurs were here and stuff like that.
The Hebrew is really specific.
And it goes on to say that then the earth was void and without form.
The Hebrew says the earth became void and without form.
And I believe that the first earth age, that's when the dinosaurs were roaming around and stuff like that, God destroyed that age and he ushered in a new one.
And you can kind of date it back to about maybe 12,000, 13,000 years ago.
That's why you see, you know, mastodons with buttercups in their mouths.
You see palm trees at the North Pole.
A large event happened at that time.
And most scholars agree that it was about 12,000 years ago.
And as a thousand years with the Lord, as it says it, you can go in the Hebrew with that too.
You can almost get it down to God created the earth, you know, on the sixth day, the Seventh day he rested.
Well, that's about 7,000 years.
And you kind of start getting to where we're at now if you follow that chronological order.
And you can also see where civilization started.
You know, they call the cradles of civilization Mesopotamia.
And they define, you know, what makes someone civilized is the ability to farm and not be hunters and gatherers.
And most scholars agree that that was around the Mesopotamia time.
And Adam, which was made on the eighth day, was a farmer.
God created a farmer.
So, see, all this kind of relates.
It kind of all coincides with a long time scale happening here.
Nor am I. Wildcard Line, Lawrence in Billings, Montana.
unidentified
Good evening, gentlemen.
It's an honor to speak to you, Mr. Bell.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking my call.
I had a near-death experience I'd like to relate and then a question.
I was admitted to the hospital emergency room.
First, I went in a couple weeks earlier with a slight headache, and they put me on the CAT scanner.
They said I had glioblastolamulta for me in 30 days to live.
Huh, okay, how distressing is that?
Then they did an MRI and they found out, oops, are we bad?
It's not cancer.
It's just an abscess.
We can treat it with antibiotics, which they proceeded to do, and it did no good.
And a week later, I fell into a coma.
I was rushed to the ER.
They had emergency right-side craniotomy to remove a mass about the size of a small softball that had stopped the flow of blood to my brain and basically killed me for five minutes.
And I remember the experience quite lucidly.
Was no light.
It was pitch black.
I was suspended above this gray plane that stretched off into the distance in infinity.
And the weirdest thing about the whole experience was I remembered being there before.
At the time, I was totally relaxed and happy to be there, total joy and elation to be back home.
I don't know why I felt that way because before and after the experience, I don't have any recollection of ever being there before.
But when I was there, I was right at home.
I saw little multicolored peckets of white running along the gray plane beneath my perspective, astral plane, if you will.
And they were running along the plane until they countered a little ditch.
And they'd go into this little trough, and the plane disappear.
As soon as I crossed past that threshold, and I had the feeling of movement, it was a completely visual and emotional experience.
All of a sudden, I'm studying in an earth-like environment, blue skies, beautiful manicured lawns, trees, and I turn and look in another direction.
There stands my father and my best friend Lance, both who had died several years earlier.
And they appeared to be a white hologram.
And they were both smiling at me as if to say, welcome to the other side, son.
Except that they were smiling because those dirty turkeys knew I had to come back.
And when I woke up in the ICU, I was not a happy camper.
I thought, oh, great, back for more pain and suffering, I see.
And I saw no light whatsoever except for the multicolored packets that were going into the little trough.
And I was wondering how the doctor would interpret that.
The first card stole my thunder, but my brother told me this kind of like a joke a while back, and it goes, this person asks God, how many, what's a second to him?
And God responds, one million years.
Then the person asks God, what's a million dollars to you?
And God goes, one, or one cent.
Then the person asks God for one million dollars, and God answers them in one second.
And the whole concept of a longer time frame certainly fits in with this whole creation-evolution business.
And I've always thought, Doctor, that The fact that evolution is real and all this time really has passed does not preclude God's hand being still behind it all, right?
Okay, well, wouldn't that also apply to this spooky new world of quantum physics?
In other words, I've had it explained to me, but still do not understand how two particles could react in a way that implies communication between them without there being communication between them.
And if there is communication between them, it's occurring at faster than light speed.
Well, I love the aspect about multi-dimensions because there's the problem with wave-particle duality that people familiar with quantum physics are familiar with.
And there's a concept or at least a theory known as string theory, which addresses and basically brings together those two divergent concepts.
However, the two most prominent string theories, one known as bosonic and the other known as the superstring, require a minimum of either 10 or 26 dimensions to exist.
Certainly not the simple four that we are so intimately familiar with.
So the existence of multiple dimensions is very possible, assuming that we are on the verge of proving the rationality of this new string theory, which is so prominent today.
Of the books that you have written, Doctor, if somebody were just starting, intrigued by what you've said tonight, and wants to understand what you've said tonight, which of your books would you buy?