Abstract

This study presents a metaphysical theory that describes the roles of the physiology of the brain, the dynamics of the psyche, and spiritual, non-spatiotemporal realities in human consciousness. The term portal experience is proposed to include occult phenomena associated with witchcraft, magic, and divination; psi phenomena described by parapsychology; and mystical experiences, participation mystique, and other phenomena associated with ancient and modern religious systems such as Wicca. During portal experiences, information from outside the physical world of space and time constellates itself in the mind, appearing as symbols, numinous feelings, or a sense of transcendental one-ness. The theory of consciousness proposed in this study explains how portal experiences of non-spatiotemporal reality can occur in persons with physical bodies. ;Jaynes' "Bicameral Mind" and Edelman's "Theory of Neuronal Group Selection" are examined as physiological theories of consciousness. Both are rejected because they argue for consciousness as linguistic and social, but the theories succeed in showing the role of metaphor and of chaotic, dynamical systems in consciousness. The psychedelic bootstrapping theory proposed in this study describes the role of entheogens, drugs which precipitate altered consciousness, as an alternative to linguistic theories, to explain how consciousness became possible during evolution. ;Portal experiences, characterized according to Stace's "Intersection Theory", are shown to be dynamical systems involving fractal boundaries between physical and non-physical realities. Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious is also shown to involve dynamical systems, in the form of psychoid processes. Jung's theory of synchronicity shows how the chaotic physiological processes associated with consciousness in the brain, the dynamical process of the psyche, and the fractal boundary in the metaphysical intersection are connected to one another during a portal experience, so that information from outside the physical world can enter consciousness. Stronger versions of the theory hold that there are psychoid processes identical with the metaphysical intersection, and that because the collective unconscious is the same in everyone, the metaphysical intersection of spatiotemporal and non-spatiotemporal realities is required for the existence of consciousness