Unearned Enlightenment

Spoiler warning: This post will contain spoilers for the 1987 Michael Crichton novel: Sphere. As this novel was a great thriller with plenty of twists which balanced science fiction and action in a successful manner, I do not wish to spoil it for those who have not read it and think that they would enjoy such a book. As for those who don't intend to read it, I found there to be several interesting conclusions I drew from this latest read-through of Sphere uniquely tied into other books I have recently read.

Sphere, by Michael Crichton, begins with psychologist Norman Johnson as he gets a call from the Navy, of all places, to come out and investigate something in the middle of the Pacific. As a part of his usual job, Norman is often called by the FAA to help survivors of plane crashes in the immediate aftermath, but given that no crash was reported in this isolated pocket of the sea, he wonders just what brings him here. Deepening the mystery if Captain Harold Barnes asking him about an old project Norman worked on with the government. A project about contact with extraterrestrial life. Soon, Norman finds himself amongst a team of scientists hand picked by himself, years ago, designed to investigate just that extraordinary thing, for he has not been called here for a plane crash. Something has crashed, deep at the bottom of the ocean, and the craft is three hundred years old…

Just this brief teaser of this kind had me hooked onto Sphere when I first picked it up some years ago. It had everything I could have wanted: mystery, conspiracy, and a knack for blossoming imagery which brought the spooky underwater thriller to life. I could easily picture it, in film, as another Aliens or Prometheus. Its own 1998 movie, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, and Sharon Stone, was so poorly reviewed that I'm disinclined to even give it a chance. The novel asked questions about our very nature, though I was not at the stage in my life to fully ponder them. Nevertheless, I read it voraciously, and it stuck with me years later.

When I decided to re-read it, I was coming off of the heels of two important spiritual volumes: Autobiography of a Yogi, by Paramahansa Yogananda, and A Search in Secret India, by Paul Brunton. Both of these books, and other evidences I have discovered in my life, have led me to believe that more exists to the human mind than can be discovered by modern science, and that ancient Yogic art may hold the keys to a fantastic hidden power dormant within the spiritually disinclined minds of most people, including myself. Now, both books contain some sensations which stretch even the open mind into stuttering disbelief, but the base fact remains: We are more than the sum of our neurological parts. Our consciousness is deeper and far more powerful than we can imagine.

So how does this pertain to Sphere? To spoil the book, the craft the navy finds at the bottom of the ocean turns out to be an American spacecraft from the future. As the scientists investigate the logs, they find that the craft had gone through a black hole and into either another universe or another part of our universe. And it had not returned empty-handed. Within the cargo bay lies an enigmatic, polished sphere whose only distinctive markings are some grooves located on its fluid-like surface. Almost the size of a house, nothing the crew can do initially may open the sphere. Later, one crew member does open it, in secret, and discovers within an extraordinary power: to turn ones thoughts into reality. But he does not know he possesses this power.

After a lot of hair-raising shenanigans and plot twists in which most of the crew are killed, it becomes true that all three survivors had gone inside the sphere and obtained the power. Only one of them was consciously aware of it, for he enters the sphere after deducing what the power could be. Even though he maintains his awareness, he cannot help the power from controlling him, and he nearly makes a fatal mistake. However, once he realizes himself, he rectifies it and saves his friends from certain death at their own hands.

Autobiography of a Yogi details an event in which a highly esteemed yogi, Mahavatar Babaji, creates an entire palace from his thoughts just for the pleasure of one of his disciples. This being one of the more fantastical elements of Yogananda's narrative, I was inclined to treat it with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. However, if I assume it may be true, then the thrill of untapped potential comes immediately to my mind.

After all, who wouldn't love to materialize entire castles or palaces or mansions at will? Mahavatar Babaji, along with several other yogis in the book, are also able to transmit their thoughts and their very beings to other places in the world. Another incredible feat and another thrill of potential. How much simpler would life be if I could just… teleport myself to wherever I please?

As such thrill filled me, it was quickly deflated by the realization that many of Yoga's more potent arts are lost to secrecy, perhaps only kept live by a smattering of a few god-actualized beings across the entire Indian subcontinent. I then found myself wishing that just powers of materialization could be presented to me without trying. I wished someone would just… give them to me.

Sphere uses Jungian ideas to explore what may actually happen if such power were given to the layman. Usually, these yogic arts are concealed behind vows of secrecy, but those are in fact the easiest things to break. More difficult are the hours of meditation and "self" reflection required to obtain even the smallest modicum of alignment with god.

In the novel, none of the characters have undergone such rigorous meditation, and with the hypothetical exemption of Norman Johnson, the psychologist, none may even be aware of the idea of self-actualization as present in Yoga. So when they obtain this power to realize their thoughts in the physical realm, disaster ensues. Rather than creating palaces, they create the monsters of their subconscious. Jung's famous "shadow" takes quick and dominant form.

Of course, all of this gets sufficient discussion in the book itself, as Norman's background makes him an expert in the matter. My own intrigue came when I reflected on the nature of both the Yogic powers displayed by the likes of Mahavatar Babaji and the power given to the characters of Sphere. In both instances, one may manifest things from their imagination, but while Babaji uses it to fulfill a "simple" desire of his disciple, the crew subconsciously use it to realize their own nightmare.

Sphere tells us why these Yogic arts are behind lock and key, to be touched by so few at once time. If we were to be privy to this amazing human potential, what would stop our subconscious from directing our minds to great peril. As Jung put it, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." As a brief aside, I use the words unconscious and subconscious interchangeably. There is a difference, but for the purposes of this essay they can be thought of as the same thing: an underlying bastion of untapped human thought, home to archetypes and the aforementioned shadow.

Crichton's most famous novel, Jurassic Park, tells its own amazing story of the human condition and our arrogance and rush to achieve dominance over nature. But for my money, Sphere has a more compelling story. As all great writers do, Crichton uses his story to put on display a unique aspect of psychology. Whether or not he meant to tie it into spirituality and the Yogic arts, I cannot say. I tend to think not, but we'll never truly know. Regardless, I found Sphere to tie in so beautifully with Autobiography of a Yogi and A Search in Secret India that this read-through was even more incredible than the first. Whenever I happen to pick up Sphere again, I'll never read it quite the same.