Everyone has faith in something; be it of the religious quality, atheistic, agnostic, or just plain apathetic; the human mind simply cannot function without a basic, ground state level of faith. Like a heart without blood to pump or lungs lacking air to breathe, so too would be a conscious, sentient being without a continuous stream of faith to circulate. To illustrate my point, consider my case as an example: I am alto-phobic. As a young child, I had a traumatic experience with heights that still echoes in my mind to this very day whenever I ascend any higher than the fourth rung of a ladder. That painful experience wrote into my heart a personal axiom: HEIGHTS ARE BAD! That’s faith in action, my friends. Conversely, I can easily roll out of bed and tread about my daily path through this world with a reasonable sense of confidence because I believe without doubt that the ground beneath my feet will keep me from falling. I don’t trust ladders, but I trust the ground…again, this is faith in one of its most elementary forms.

I like to think of faith as analogous to electromagnetism. Like electromagnetism, faith comes in a spectrum of frequencies. This would correspond to the various categories of beliefs that you would accumulate throughout your life. Some ideas are lower frequency, basic, while other ideas are higher frequency, carrying sufficient momentum to impact your reality. Like all waves, faith can also have amplitude. When we speak of sound, amplitude is perceived as loudness, where light has brightness. Similarly, our beliefs can be expressed with great passion or stale mediocrity. When one combines a high-energy idea with the right level of enthusiasm, one could—figuratively speaking—move mountains. This is no mystery. Ask any successful entrepreneur, inventor, author, performer, or professional in any field how they made it, and you will find that a clear vision (frequency) met with sustained passion (amplitude) is the universal formula for success which has stood the test of time. Where there is a will, there is a way, indeed.

Electromagnetic waves come in individualized quantum packets of energy, and in a sense, you can reasonably say that a thought is a quantum unit of consciousness. Single-serving ideas for a single-serving world. If you were to zoom out, away from a single, lone thought, I would hope you’d find that very individual thought to be but a single bump within an entire field bubbling with thoughts…just like the electromagnetic field. Now, extend this field beyond the confines of your own being, and you might find that we all share a common field—an aether of sorts, that some have come to know as the Collective Unconscious, Akashic Records, even, the Noos-sphere. Just like the chaos of the human mind the electromagnetic field can never be completely stilled. In fact, if you attempted to drain all of the energy from any particular region of space, you would still find small, random ground state fluctuations within the electromagnetic field. Nature doesn’t seem to believe in the concept of absolute zero; at least not in the physical realm. In quantum mechanics, these small energy fluctuations are called virtual particles, and the chaos field that these virtual particles occupy is known as the quantum vacuum. We know this field exists because its presence has been detected via decades of experimentation; and one such experiment has revealed to us a most plausible mechanism involving this non-zero energy; the Casimir Effect (named after the brilliant Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir, who predicted the effect in 1948).

I personally find the Casimir Effect fascinating. It essentially demonstrates that when two parallel objects are placed close enough to each other so that the energy fluctuations between the two surfaces are less than that of the chaos surrounding the exterior of the two objects, the parallel objects will experience mutual attraction. Initial versions of these experiments were conducted using two thin metal plates, which were placed so closely together, that the results were difficult to measure; however, later versions of this experiment have confirmed the existence of this mysterious attractive force. You can even observe similar results between two parallel surfaces suspended in agitated water. The larger scale water experiments are much easier to replicate, fun, and much less burdensome to the wallet. Well, you might be wondering at this point: What the hell does any of this have to do with faith?

It has been my consistent, subjective experience that the most fundamental laws of nature seem to permeate all of reality, from the ground up. At times, complexity can act as a veil, concealing the continuity of these universal laws, but I find that if you take the time to lift the veil and examine nature closely, well—you might come to a realization: As above, so below. Your thoughts carry a spiritual momentum, you see. I discovered this to be true when I began digging deeper into spiritual things. I gradually became more and more aware that my thoughts alone played an active role in constructing my reality. Nevertheless, it takes a tremendous measure of faith-momentum just to simply navigate the tumultuous and shadowy recesses of the unconscious chambers of the heart. Many will tell you that the most difficult step in consciously manifesting your reality is simply identifying what you truly desire. Added to this monumental task is the meticulous process of excavating your raw desire(s) from the treasure troves of your heart and carefully refining it into a purified form—free from all slag and external corruption. Solve et coagula unto flawless perfection. It is then, and only then, that you and your new potential reality are staring each other face-to-face, like the two parallel metal plates in the quantum vacuum, surrounded by a sea of chaos. All that’s left to be done is to allow the internal momentum to die out. You have to let go. In order for your present reality and your desired state to merge into one, the energy fluctuations in between the two ‘surfaces’ must first dissipate. It’s not as easy as it sounds, though. So much time and energy spent on edifying and detailing your imaginal constructs, and now it must be totally discharged and neutralized. The seed must die before it can sprout; else the energy fluctuations of the outer chaos field will be insufficient to integrate the two parallel realities into a new unified creation. If you hold too tightly to your desires, you’ll choke them out, and they will never become anything more than a day-dream. It would seem that the practice of conscious manifestation is a strange, but harmonious amalgam of artistry and science; yet for the most part, I find that life has its way of naturally discharging excess energy. Not everyone is consciously aware of how to construct and attract the reality that they would prefer, but one way or another, everyone gets the reality that suits their state of mind. It is a true saying; time does heal all wounds—but only if you stop picking at the scabs first.

Nature is an endless library of knowledge, and her secrets are whispered into the wind. “Does not wisdom cry out, And understanding lift up her voice? She takes her stand on the top of the high hill, Beside the way, where the paths meet. She cries out by the gates, at the entry of the city, At the entrance of the doors (Proverbs 8:1-3).” Are you listening?