Author Archives: Christine Niver

Even in Uncivil War, Can We Agree On Some Things?

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Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog
Created February 13, 2026

George Washington

This July 4th is the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The USA has been around for a quarter of a millennium. The longest running Noble Experiment in Self Rule by The People. Often referred to in the past as the Greatest Hope For The World.

And yet these are among our darkest hours, on a par with the Civil War, the War of Independence, and the early days of WWII, when we were not sure we could win it. Another one of those times when the continued existence of the USA as conceived by The Founders is not guaranteed.

We have not had many of these existential threat periods in our history. Only a few of us alive today were there the last time this happened, which was the dark period between December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and February 2, 1943 (the battle of Stalingrad). The Allied victories at El Alamein and the battle of Midway, followed by Stalingrad, turned the tide and made us feel certain we were going to win, surely at terrible cost in lives.

We are back in one of those situations again, perhaps the worst of all, because we are internally at war with ourselves, as in the Civil War. But this time it seems to go much deeper than in the Union vs. Confederacy war. Is it because of the mind-bending media we now have, which are being used intentionally and unintentionally to divide us? The race issue is still a part of it, but now there appear to be many more issues which divide us. Is one key difference between the Civil War and today’s internal polarization that we now face a horde of irreconcilable issues?

I wonder. It’s conceivable that we are closer together than we realize on a great many (not all) issues. What puts the venom in the situation is the divided loyalties caused by the existence of two teams that have always been rivals, and that rivalry in recent decades has become increasingly bitter (see quote from George Washington at the top of this article).

If We The People still want to rule ourselves, and if we are dissatisfied with both political parties to some extent, can we set aside the teams for a while and just talk amongst ourselves about the issues? (Thanks to Bob DeSena for his ongoing emphasis on issues, without which I might not have gotten this idea.)

But let’s not look at that one idea as a panacea. It’s likely that even when discussing the issues, there will be a tendency to flare up when it becomes evident that one’s party has a very different vision on that issue than the other party. It will be difficult for people to be able to separate party loyalties from the issues. In higher states of consciousness (Observer state and Flow state), one can perform this trick, but in the default network state of Emergency Oversimplification Procedure (EOP), automatic reactions will follow ingrained patterns.

So what can we do to bring us all back together again?

It’s still worth thinking creatively about issues, and sharing any innovative ideas in social media, with your government representatives, and with your friends, family, and acquaintances. Good ideas tend to bubble up in the zeitgeist. Don’t look for getting credit for your good ideas, spread them unselfishly for the good they may do, and be satisfied if they get a public hearing, even though no one remembers it was your idea.

The political discourse has, in my lifetime, been plagued by a paucity of creative new ideas. It always seems to be the same old ideas recirculated again and again. People want a change from that.

There is something else we can all do, which will have a positive effect even though it may sound like magical thinking.

Imagine the two warring sides gradually, like a giant zipper that has been unable to zip closed, finally slowly closing, one click at a time, as the two sides see ways to agree on one little thing at a time. Picture how it might happen. Two people discussing one of our many problems and somehow, between them, converging on common ground solutions that have never been tried or even thought of before.

Outside of politics, these Aha moments happen every day. People are more creative than ever before. Thirty million Americans are now Creators; everyone is writing books, blogs, doing podcasts, and we are more creative now than ever before. Let’s bring politics into the creativity game. It doesn’t have to be a sad show forever. It wasn’t a sad show to be a patriotic American for a quarter of a millennium. It has only been sad for a little while, and we are feeling like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That feeling itself can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Undo that feeling.

Here’s what some of our Presidents said about these subjects, worth remembering in honor of Presidents’ Day:

John Adams, the second President of the USA:

“The happiness of society is the end [goal] of government.”

“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”

James Madison:
“The Constitution is the guide which I will never abandon.”

James Monroe:
“The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.”

“A free, virtuous, and enlightened people must know full well the great principles and causes upon which their happiness depends.”

“National honor is national property of the highest value.”

John Quincy Adams:
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

“’Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.”

Andrew Jackson:
“Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred.”

“As long as our government is administered for the good of the people… it will be worth defending.”

“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.”

Abraham Lincoln:
“The struggle of today is not altogether for today – it is for a vast future also.”

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus so far nobly advanced.”

“With malice towards none, with charity for all… let us strive on to finish the work we are in.”

Thomas Jefferson

Love to all,
Bill

 

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The Discoverers of Quantum Physics Concluded that the Universe Is Made of Consciousness

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Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog
Created February 6, 2026

It’s fascinating to do deep dives into the people who created our modern world, though unlocking the secrets of quantum physics. It came as a huge surprise to me that the originators had the idea I thought was mine, the idea that the universe is itself a single consciousness.

When I say that it was mine, what I really mean is that I thought no one in the modern world had come up with it before. I learned long ago that the same idea was the core of Advaita Vedanta, going back possibly as far as 6000 BC in proto-Dravidian lore, and more developed by Kashmir Shaivism in the 11th Century AD. Before I studied such things, the idea came to me first when I was 12 years old, in a way that made no sense to me. When I was 32 years old, my complete theory of the conscious universe put itself together in my mind.

If quantum theory had never been put together by these folks, today we would not have smartphones, personal computers, tablets, and if we had computers, they would be gigantic and unbelievably slow, and only the biggest companies could afford them.

Max Planck, the originator of quantum theory, said, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.”

Erwin Schrodinger provided quantum theory with an equation to calculate the wave function of a system, such as a hydrogen atom. He coined the term “quantum entanglement,” which explains how particles that were once together share information instantaneously (faster than light) ever afterward, no matter how far apart they are. He said, “The total number of minds in the universe is one.”

Werner Heisenberg, whose famous principle is that we cannot know both the position and the vector of a subatomic particle, stated, “Any observation is an interaction that influences the system being observed.” In other words, the act of a consciousness observing something changes the something which is being observed. This is not the same as saying that the whole universe is one single consciousness, but it is saying that consciousness has a similar effect to touching something – what classical physics regarded as “spooky action at a distance” and ruled as impossible.

John Archibald Wheeler took this idea further in his Participatory Anthropic Principle, which was endorsed by Stephen Hawking. This principle states that all that exists in itself consists of probability waves, which observation by consciousness, causes the wave function to collapse into material existence.

Albert Einstein did not accept the idea that the universe came about by accident because he saw immense intelligence and rapturous beauty in the universe that pointed to a Creator.

Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Gustav Jung proposed a common reality underlying both the physical and conscious realms. They saw synchronicity, meaningful coincidences without a causal link, as a possible manifestation of this underlying unity of mind and matter.

All of these great minds have had stupendous influence on shaping the world in which we live, and yet the world has not been told about their beliefs about the nature of reality. All we have learned in school and through the media about these people relates to their technological implications.

Why does that matter?

It matters because the general public thinks that science has ruled out the possibility of God. That is the impression that is left in the mind by the way the culture has assimilated the equations left behind by these great thinkers. Certainly most scientists today are biased to believe in materialistic accidentalism, or what they call “Physicalism”. Yet the greatest physicists of all time, who were miles ahead of most scientists in their understanding of what makes the universe tick, all considered consciousness to be fundamentally tied in with the actions of the physical realm. The originator of quantum theory, Max Planck stated it most bluntly, “matter derives from consciousness.”

The important thing is that science very definitely leaves room for God in the sense of an umbrella consciousness connecting us all – entangling us together into one entity.

One mammoth mind with so much computing power as to be able to pay attention through your eyes and mine and an infinite number of other “vessels”. A cosmic role-playing video game with one Player playing all the roles.

When you look inside and consider “your own self”, is that actually The One Self there looking at the world through your eyes? In deepest meditation, one is sometimes lucky enough to reach the place where one is just the experiencer, not identifying with the thoughts and feelings that are arising, invulnerable to anything that might happen, and reverberating with an all-encompassing love and joy.

Why is any of this relevant to what is going on in the world today, which might distress all of us? Is there a solution in here somewhere?

Yes. If we wipe our minds clean of all prior assumptions and start our lives anew right now, with our minds open to the possibility that Planck and Jesus and countless other sages are right, that we are all part of a cosmic playland, we can forgive each other for messes made of things which we have all unintentionally contributed to. We can lift the spirits of the people around us that the universe is teaching us a lesson we needed to learn, and although it is painful, it will make us better. We need to work our way through it without focus on blaming because that only makes things worse. Instead of getting stuck in blaming, we need to figure out how to steer toward win/win solutions that will get us out of the mess.

We all have people who represent us in government, we all have email, we all have a few minutes a day to suggest actions to our representatives by email (if we have more time and the inclination, phone is even more effective). Let them know daily what your suggestions are. Keep it up until you see the change you want begin to happen. Be patient, it takes miles to turn around an aircraft carrier, and this situation is much more massive than a carrier.

Beyond the world situation, spend most of your time enjoying the moment. If it is a work moment, put your heart and soul into your work. If you would rather be doing some other kind of work, use the evenings and weekends to plan your life change and then execute it carefully.

Enjoy life itself: nature, children, loved ones, friends, conversations, foods, experiences, explorations, curiosity and learning (use search and AI!), exercise, bathing, dressing well, the stars, smelling, breathing, looking around, taking it all in, looking at it from the possibly cosmic point of view of One Self.

Do things that are good for all parties and watch what happens. Listen for and look for inner clues and hunches that could be coming from the universe or from your own deepest, highest self.

Open your mind to all possibilities and discard all the bias baggage. Restore the awe and wonder you felt as a child. See the potential good in each moment, even if there is a blatant threat. How can you steer it toward the good outcome you can see?

See a presentation on this subject

 Watch a one-hour video about this topic

Watch a ten-minute video about my life growing up and having these thoughts

Love to all,
Bill

 

Feature image: “The Universe Is Consciousness” by Christine K. Niver

POWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys
will be out in February

POWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys by Bill Harvey

The Feeling of Being Guided by a Higher Power to Do Good

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Powerful Mind Part 46

Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog – January 30, 2026
Created January 26, 2024

Read Powerful Mind 45              |              See all 12 Powerful Mind Keys

A 2023 Pew survey found that 45% of Americans “have had a sudden feeling of connection with something from beyond this world.”

“Have you ever wondered what life is all about?” I asked the precocious two-year-old.

“All the time,” she replied.

This is the kind of conversation that parents should initiate as early as possible in a child’s upbringing.

But since this is a rarity, we tend to grow up shoving our awe and wonder out of our conscious minds, because we don’t have time to dally. It’s all coming at us too fast, especially in recent centuries. A conscious mind process forms, which Freud named the Ego and the Superego.

The Ego presents itself as the active conscious mind, and so we all think of it as our self. It’s really more of a chosen spokesperson for the much greater totality of the real self that is our individuality.

The Superego is that part of the Ego (in my estimation) that second-guesses ourselves, our inner critic. Freud considered the Superego a separate functionality in which society’s demands are embedded as the conscience.

H.L. Mencken said, “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that somebody may be watching.”

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may be the part of the brain playing a major role in the manifestations Freud labeled the Superego. It is probably also the structure supporting what Daniel Kahneman labeled as System 2, explicit thinking. Interestingly, Observer state (my term for metacognition) is very useful, and I associate it with the executive control network mediated by the frontal brain; but in  Flow state, which is even more effective than Observer state, the frontal regions of the brain give up control to more primitive parts of the brain (“hypofrontality”), and the Ego and inner critic disappear, as intuition and practice meld everything into a sense of oneness that does itself effortlessly.

When one begins to shift into Flow state as a way of life, it transcends the Ego, as if the Ego had been training wheels which you can now take off your bike. You can now sense and live from the real you, your full self, not the defensive Ego, but from the joyous Muse within you. It was you all along, although it may also be the Self of the Universe living through you.

By now, many people know about the Flow state, and it has become formally recognized by the scientific and medical communities. However, there are some aspects of that state which are still taboo subjects. These are the spiritual intuitions which often accompany the Flow state.

We’ve already discussed Noia, my term for the intuitive feeling that invisible forces are trying to help us by getting us to notice certain stimuli which appear to be giving us information relevant to our current situation and/or thought process. U.S. Andersen, whom I’ve cited earlier, writes about surrendering control to what he calls the Secret Self, and he is talking about the same thing I’ve often referred to as the Universe, or the Muse within. The religion of Islam also preaches the same notion of releasing control to Allah.

It’s conceivable that one should first use the conscious mind and intuition to practice at life and gain a degree of proficiency at it before giving up the inner critic continuously second-guessing oneself, i.e., the Ego. Without practice, the Flow state might not come on so easily just by making a decision to release conscious control. Instead, one might be fooled by impulses coming from the Ego that one thinks are coming from higher guidance.

I know from my personal experience that the latter misclassification has dramatically fooled me many times in my life, especially as a youngster.

I think now that many spiritual people think they are being guided to make political choices by higher powers when it might actually be the Ego masquerading as God.

Even those of us who experience some Flow state every day are (wisely) hesitant to speak much about a feeling of being guided from above. It’s the sort of statement that can cause one to wind up being pigeonholed as a nut.

U.S. Andersen embraces this sense of being guided by the Universe to do things that will develop us as individuals and enable us to provide more value to others. Having been a successful pro football player and businessman, perhaps he was less concerned about how people labeled him.

In this book, Powerful Mind, being serialized here, I’ve already recommended that you keep an open mind about whether the Universe might be a single Self, and you one avatar of The One. It is definitely a scientific possibility that cannot be ruled out. Whether or not in Flow state, I now take it as almost a certainty, because of my experiences. But I do not urge you to believe anything, merely keep an open mind to all possibilities, and notice what your own experience teaches you.

Set your sights high. Visualize how you want your life to be without undershooting out of fear of being heartbroken by failure. Don’t be attached to any outcome, just visualize the outcomes you want, curtail negativity, and enjoy your life each moment. Turn negativity into learning and creatively adapting to circumstance. Don’t fight what is; go with it and steer toward the positive.

As Bob Dylan wrote, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” Each of us is serving by the work we choose to do; we are serving people, and they pay us money for what we do for them. In your life’s best dream—your visualization that you will refresh daily—you have to be doing the work that gives you joy and gets you into the Flow state, otherwise you are not on the path to your dream. If you have to make a difficult switch in your life, do it in the way that gives you and others joy rather than stress, and make changes patiently.

Leave open the possibility that you are working for the Universe and that it will guide you along the way to your dream; look for possible messages in everything, but don’t talk yourself into wishful thinking, stay balanced and open-minded, use all of your faculties, all of the instruments in your inner orchestra.

Attune yourself to what is happening to you – become one with it – and go with its flow, except where you feel the need to go around certain parts of it that simply don’t feel right.

Believe in yourself and your ability to tackle any problem life throws your way, just know that you have to put everything else aside and patiently, without time pressure, use single-pointed focus on that one problem. Other side thoughts will arise, but note them in writing and put them aside for later. You can tackle everything, but take it one at a time, don’t rush, and you’ll see that you can solve everything you need to.

The feeling of being guided by a higher power to do good is a wonderful feeling. Make sure you are being an empiricist about it, that other people are sincerely thanking you, that you are really doing good in general, not just for selected others, with some other folks actually being harmed by your actions, but doing good for everybody. That and a feeling of joy in your life are the two essential checkpoints that you are on the path to your dreams.

Key #12:

Continuously focus on, bring out, and enjoy the Good

The 12 Powerful Mind Keys

Powerful Mind Key

New Mental Strategy

Blogpost Link

#1

Trial-doubt your own last thought/feeling.

#2

Study, edit, and reset your automatic reactions.

#3

Constructively and kindly express what you are really feeling.

#4

Root for the Universe, not just for your current vehicle.

#5

Self-rating is irrelevant.

#6

Be sure of what YOU want and enjoy the journey to your dreams, without attachment to outcomes.

#7

Take Observer position, note your feelings without owning them.

#8

When there is too much going on, rotate attention to make sure every workstream is covered.

#9

Consciously determine how much to take your time.

#10

Patiently determine the most constructive use of each salient inner experience.

#11

Inner Visibility: See Your BioAI, See Your Muse.

#12

Continuously focus on, bring out, and enjoy the Good.

POWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys
will be out in February

POWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys by Bill Harvey

Love to all,
Bill

Mind Dwell Hath Consequences

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Powerful Mind Part 45
Welcome to this week’s Bill Harvey Blog, January 23, 2026.
Created January 19, 2024

Read Powerful Mind 44              |              See all 12 Powerful Mind Keys

Whatever repeatedly appears on the screen of your mind will eventually appear in your external experience...

Quote from You Are the Universe: Imagine That, Chapter 17 – “Predreaming” by Bill Harvey

My wife Lalita is an avid reader; she reads a couple of books a week. The other day, she came across a book she had to mention to me, because of the similarity of its title to my book Mind Magic. The book is called The Magic in Your Mind. It was written by U.S. (Uell Stanley) Andersen, an American football player and businessman. I was fascinated, looked it up, bought it, and read it. The book asserts that our imagination controls what happens to us in our lives. This is not a new idea, nor is it just an idea: since antiquity, rare human beings have discovered this way of using their mind, verified that it works, and written about it. The earliest trace of it is in the Vedas, going back to memorized but not written texts possibly as early as ~1700 BC or even earlier, finally converted to written form ~500 BC.

In the Sermon On The Mount (~27 CE), Jesus quotes Proverbs 23:7: “As a man thinketh, so shall he be.”

The Law of Attraction was the book by William Walker Atkinson (1906), which might have inspired Jose Silva to create the Silva Mind Control Method (1977) – or Jose might have discovered it again by himself. In between these books (1961), was when Andersen published his book. The Secret was then published by Rhonda Byrne in 2006. Any of these writers might have been inspired by earlier books, and/or themselves discovered the phenomena and the ways of using them.

I’m finding the writing in Andersen’s book to be inspiring and exalting to read. Even though I know these things, the way he explains them is beautiful and lofty. His poetic metaphors and allusions have the ring of truth. I wish I had found his book before he passed away in 1986; it would have been great fun to have conversations with him.

When I was writing Mind Magic in 1972 (published in 1976), I purposely avoided metaphysics and cosmology because I wanted the book to have universal appeal, including atheists and people of all religions. The methods in Mind Magic are positioned as “useful fictions” and as “lenses” which had been invented by me and tested in my life. The reader is invited to try them and see for themselves that they are pragmatic, i.e., the methods work.

In my book You Are The Universe – YATU (2014), I went the other way and rooted my mental methodologies in a picture of the Universe as One Self playing all roles, thus each of our minds is actually the universal mind enjoying the view from one avatar’s perspective. In that book (YATU) I report on my own (mundane and extraordinary) experiences and theorize about how reality works, in order to explain those experiences. And I theorize why The One Self is playing this game.

Chapter 17 of YATU is called “Predreaming” and is all about how to use the mind to cause the future you want, and how to avoid accidentally “ordering poison from the menu” by careless use of these same faculties. An excerpt:

Whatever repeatedly appears on the screen of your mind will
eventually appear in your external experience on the Universal
Computer Screen we call material reality.
You are tuning in these material experiences, ordering them,
Attracting them to you, by dwelling on them.
It makes no difference if your dwelling on them consists of
prayer to get them (your desires), or dread of getting them (your fears).
The “dwelling-on” places the order, in either case.
Oblivious to our inherited “ordering power”, almost all of us are
using it against ourselves.

The difficulty of using this Predreaming method is not the intense visualization of your most precious dreams actually coming true in real life; that part is fun, it’s almost like daydreaming with purpose. The hard part is keeping your mind from repeatedly drifting into emotively imaging dreaded eventualities that are exactly what you most ardently desire to not happen.

In my novel Pandemonium: Live To All Devices, the character Templegard is the only soldier-spy tested by U.S. Army Intelligence who is able to not think of a green monkey. For most of us, even those of us with relatively high degrees of mental self-discipline, it’s almost impossible to not think of something. The trick is to not avoid thinking of X, but to focus on thinking of Y, and that will work, but requires practice at first.

Any negativity in the mind will tend to bring negativity into your actual life. This is why in previous chapters of Powerful Mind, we have oft mentioned quickly turning off internal alarms and moving on to solutions for whatever is causing those alarms. Negativity is a very useful alarm system, but when we are in Emergency Oversimplification Procedure (EOP), we tend to wallow in the alarm that is going off, rather than turning it off, thanking it, and moving on to planning how to deal with the thing that is causing the alarm to go off.

The more intensely you detail the future you want to happen, the better. This same attention to detail is valuable in preparing contingency plans for what you will do if the very things that you do not want to happen, happen anyway. Not only planning what you will say or do or what your face and body language will communicate, but experiencing it in your imagination, what it will look like and feel like from being inside yourself in that future moment.

Once you have pre-experienced the worst eventualities, you will find that some of their sting has been burned out. This will make it easier to casually turn aside if they pop up again in your mind. You will feel prepared and less concerned that such a thing might happen to you. Stoic, courageous, and fatalistic. Resolved.

This can be done every night before going to sleep, as regards what might happen in the day ahead. First, disarm the undesired outcomes by preparing for them, then put them aside and focus on predreaming the outcomes you do want to happen. If you are comfortable praying, go right ahead. I think of praying as asking for cosmic fire support. I don’t feel comfortable asking the Universe for help in trivial self-serving matters; I feel comfortable asking for the Universe to help in instances where the outcomes I want are beneficial to all concerned, although in the short run, some may be more benefitted than others.

Andersen argues that we should strive to change our identification with our ego to our identification with the Universe. This is unquestionably right in my opinion, however, it can run into friction with one’s atheism or specific religious beliefs (many Jews, for example, are uncomfortable equating themselves with God). This is why I rephrase his exhortation to identify with our Muse, the “voice” (some guidance might not involve words) inside that gives us the best advice. It comes down to the same thing as Andersen’s advice. And in Mind Magic, the final chapter is all about Identifying with the Universe. Here in Powerful Mind, I’m refining that only slightly into identifying with your Muse, as operationally easier to put into practice. You will, by doing so, tend to let lower thoughts float downstream without acknowledging them or identifying with them. You’ll instead tend to wait for the Muse and invite it space in which to be heard (or the advice felt and comprehended without words).

More on Key #12 in upcoming posts. In the meantime, ration negativity, and keep track of what percent of your time you detect it inside; and enjoy purposeful daydreaming about the future you want with all of your powers of imagination.

My new book, on which this blog series is based,
POWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys
will be out in FebruaryPOWERFUL MIND 12 Simple Keys by Bill Harvey

Love to all,
Bill

 

Live chat with my avatar now.