Brit Marling is the reason I watched The OA to begin with. Before the Netflix series began I had enjoyed and sought out movies she was in or had co-written. If you don’t know about Another Earth, Sound of My Voice, The East, or I Origins I highly suggest you take a trip back in time and discover her other mind bending movies.
The OA season 1 was beautiful and tragic and I loved every second of it. Watching season 2 I began to truly be struck by many of the metaphysical possibilities that were so artfully expressed. Mind bending seems to be everywhere with series like DARK, The OA, and my winter favorite Russian Dolls on screens and minds everywhere. Quantum physics is having the best day ever. People are opening up to not only being entertained by far out sci-fi fantasies but by the very real probabilities of many of the principals laid out in the latest season of The OA and other trending movies.
Watching Season 2 I began furiously taking notes and pages from my own experience with deja vu, plant medicine, dreams, out of body experiences, stories from near death experiencers, quantum physics, and ancient mysticisms. My conclusion was swift but backed by compelling evidence. The OA is showing us very real probable realities that live just on the outside of our current reality paradigm. To quote the misguided genius of Hap, “It’s our inability to conceive of things that hold us back.”
Here are 11 concepts from The OA that I challenge all of us to stretch our minds around.
1. SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE
"According to standard quantum theory, particles have no definite states, only relative probabilities of being one thing or another—at least, until they are measured, when they seem to suddenly roll the dice and jump into formation. Stranger still, when two particles interact, they can become “entangled,” shedding their individual probabilities and becoming components of a more complicated probability function that describes both particles together." NATALIE WOLCHOVER
Einstein coined the term ‘spooky action at distance’ to describe the magic sort of entanglement that unexplainably happens in our quantum model. Science now calls this phenomenon ‘quantum entanglement’ and what it means is that particles that once fired together can be separated by great distances yet remained entangled so that the actions performed on one affect the other. “The rules of quantum physics state that an unobserved photon exists in all possible states simultaneously but, when observed or measured, exhibits only one state.” - LIVE SCIENCE
In pratical or not so practical terms it means that magic beyond the top scientific minds is happening all the time. One could use this fascinating research and not even have to leap to magical thinking around what this could imply for humanity. This concept is important to highlight and ‘understand’ and connects all the other principals and plot lines shared in The OA.
2. THE NECESSITY OF ENTHOGENS
A working definition of enthogens: a chemical substance, typically of plant origin, that is ingested to produce a nonordinary state of consciousness for religious or spiritual purposes.
In The OA the house on Nobb Hill was a key figure in the story line. The entire house was a metaphor if you look close enough. The deep dark basement held the secrets tightly while the red rose window in the attic reveled a glimpse into infinity. It is revealed in episode 7 that the Nob Hill house is built on sacred Native American land with an old spring that creates vapors that induce non-ordinary realities. For millenia plants and substances like Cannabis, Iboga, Ayahuasca, Jimson weed, Peyote, Amanita muscaria, African dream root, and countless others substances and plants have been used ceremonially to reach into the unknown and extract wisdom. The house and its inhabitants were either weakened from over exposure or enlightened by just the right amount of time in the house. Deep historical wisdom and evidence shows us how necessary it is to venture beyond our known borders with the help of these sacred substances. In my estimation when used in the right set and setting these plants and substances can show us more of our reality, help us to heal deep wounds, and reveal a more holistic way forward.
3. HAVE WE DONE THIS ALL BEFORE? #PASTLIVES
The evidence in favor of past lives or reincarnation is fascinating and deeply compelling as well. Can one believe in past lives without having impericale proof? I say YES and so do countless others religions and people. Take for instance the story of Brian Weiss who wrote a book called Many Lives, Many Masters. Before he spent his life spreading the healing message of past lives he was a medical doctor and a psychotherapist who practiced hypnosis. He had a patient he now refers to as "Catherine" who opened his eyes to past lives, She “began discussing past-life experiences under hypnosis. Weiss did not believe in reincarnation at the time but, after confirming elements of Catherine's stories through public records, came to be convinced of the survival of an element of the human personality after death.” -WIKIPEDIA
Catherine also shared private and unpublished details (*this happened before the Google took over the world) about the tragic death of Brian’s child. There are countless other stories about children especially who come in with memories or proclivities that lead open minded parents on an adventure to find out more about where we may come from before we are born. Check out Brian Weiss on Oprah’s famous couch.
Back in 1980, Dr. Brian Weiss was using hypnotherapy with a patient named Catherine to discover the roots of her paralyzing phobias. During one of their sessions, Dr. Weiss asked Catherine to go back to the time those phobias started. Instead of going back to childhood, she went back 4,000 years in time to a past life.
4. SOUL FAMILY / CONSTELLATIONS
In The OA the idea of soul families or people you incarnate with over and over again to learn lessons was called ‘constellations.’
"Every one of us has a group of souls we are spiritually connected to... A group we are meant to connect with in the spirit world, and here by choice in physical form... People from our soul group come into our lives at seemingly random times, but in fact these [crucial] meetings were prearranged between us." (Rachel Keene)
Rachel Keene is a healer who was awakened after the tragic loss of her younger brother. Her description of constellations best fits my understanding of why souls would elect to travel together. "Soul groups or 'constellations' are the set of individuals which you most frequently reincarnate with over the span of time. When Souls were created by all that is, they were manifested side by side, literally cut from the same cloth. Those in your Soul Group are your teachers and you are theirs. There are other purposes that are served by experiencing lifetime after lifetime with the same group of people." Below are a few more ideas about who soul groups are and how they function as a bigger whole.
*Direct Karma: What we do to those in our Soul Group, they do back to us. This constant "back and forth" reversing of roles between the same set of people creates a deep intensity of experience that helps us (along with the other members of our Soul Group) to learn our lessons and to advance in karmic awareness.
* Deeper Impact: When we explore our karma with our Soul Group, we are able to experience our emotions more deeply. This is due to the great investment of time, energy, and effort we have with the members of our Soul Group over the thousands of years of history. So what those inside our Soul Group say or do to us (or fail to say or do) have much greater impact on us than anyone on the outside.
* Deeper Learning: When we constantly interact with the same group of people, the learning goes deeper each time as each person goes deeper into the exploration of their own character. This is only possible where there are repeated encounters between the same souls who are drawn together life after life by Soul Group ties.
* Deeper Investment: When we constantly interact with the same group of people, the deep emotion we experience makes our encounters with them seem more "real" and more compelling. We feel the greater significance of our dealings with our Soul Group (compared to our dealings with everyone else).
* Deeper Love: When we constantly interact with the same group of people, at times, this creates greater harmony in our relationships. At other times, this creates greater discord. At all times, this creates greater karmic challenges to bring more love into the situation. This is the primary reason that Soul Groups were formed to add complexity to our karma and to drive forward our cycles of reincarnation.
This story of the back and forth between Hap and Prairie and Hap and Nina and later Hap's character and Brit perfectly illustrates the deepening of knowing one's self in the light and in the shadow of who we incarnate with. Karma is not some mean God but rather a perfectly orchestrated balancing of the scales so we can all move forward with more LIGHT. If this concept has piqued your curiosity or wetted your whistle in just the right way. You can find more here.
5. PARALLEL REALITIES
A working definition from Wikipedia which is clearly an amalgamation of all of our consciousness on the interwebs:
"A parallel universe, also known as an alternate universe or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained reality co-existing with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes are called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality." There are at least five theories why a multiverse or parallel realities are possible, as a 2012 Space.com article explains here. I'll leave the heavy lifting of parallel realities to the experts and just say, with all of the written and documented history of the world its still clear we know so very little about life itself.
6. TIME TRAVEL
Time travel has been hot for a minute. There are even theories about Donald Trump and his son being some sort of travelers of time. In the OA jumping into a new time involves parallel realities and time travel. So let's understand the concept and why so many people are coming forward as time travelers. (Many of whom say they have been working with our very own government to bring back information and intel.)
Here is Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and co-founder of the World Science Festival, explains what we know about time travel so far.
My beliefs in mind-bending concepts such as time travel does not require science to back it up. In fact, historically the government has been using technology that would appear to be magic for quite some time before it is made known to all of humanity.
***Here is a meditation technique that uses principals from time travel to merge with a future version of yourself.
7. THE MYSTERIES OF DREAMING
In The AO dreams are central to the second season plotline. Many of the dream time test subjects began having similar dreams that revealed a stunning secret or two.
Dreams have become an intense passion for me all of my life. One of my first journals as a kid was an illuminated journal where I could wake up in the* liminal spaces (*A liminal space is the time between the 'what was' and the 'next.' It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.) and keep record of what happened while I slept. I have always had dream recall. I have been a ludic dreamer for as long as I can remember and often I take flights of fancy in my dreams soaring (sometimes not gracefully) in the air. I have spent time researching some of the more magical elements of dreaming like precognitive dreams foretelling of something in the future. I have even lived in to many real-life moments that I first saw in my dreams. How is all of this possible with our current BASIC paradigm of reality!? We must bend in order to allow more of the beauty of the Dreamtime to inform our waking reality. I have looked to and worked with amazing dream teachers like Robert Moss and Tokopa turner to expand my understanding of the magic and healing power of dreams. If dreams interest you, I implore you to invite your dreamer out to play and look into expanding your dream practice.
8. OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCE including NDE’s.
As her organs failed she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience where she realised the cause of her disease as well as waking up to who she truly is.
Near death experiences are the fuel for both seasons of The OA. NDE's have fascinated the most brilliant minds since the first documented case. Many of the survivors come back to this reality with similar stories of bright lights, an all-encompassing love that feels beyond anything experienced in the body, a knowledge of things being said or done in this reality while the person was pronounced clinically dead, and an awakening of more of our senses. In short: unexplainable things happen. The same thread of similar stories happens under varying stages of hypnosis. Many past live regressionists have cataloged similar stories of other times and places from different people all over the planet.
9. THE MANDELA EFFECT
The characters in The OA have to navigate the murky waters of jumping timelines and realizing some memories from alternate realities do not make the jump into the new timeline. We call this the Mandela effect. The Mandela effect is an observed phenomenon in which a large segment of the population misremembers a significant event or shares a memory of an event that did not actually occur. Fiona Broome, a paranormal researcher, coined the term to describe collective false memory when she discovered that a significant number of people at a conference she was attending in 2010 shared her memory that Nelson Mandela had died in prison during the 1980s. In fact, the former president of South Africa was released from prison in 1990 and was very much alive at the time of the conference. According to quantum theory enthusiasts, the Mandela effect presents evidence that parallel universes do exist. -Whatis.com
10. LIFE AS A SIMULATION
Computer simulation and Silicon Valley are front and center for many of the main characters. One of the main antagonists in Season 2 is the tech mogul Pierre Ruskin, who is an Elon Musk type. Many of the top minds of today are asking the question if our reality could be some sort of simulation. "High-profile proponents of what’s known as the “simulation hypothesis” include SpaceX chief Elon Musk. “If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality, Musk said before concluding, “We’re most likely in a simulation.” Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees, giving “better than 50-50 odds” that the simulation hypothesis is correct. "I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none,” he told NBC News MACH in an email." - Corey S. Powell
The top minds are into this reality-bending idea. If this is probable, what else is?
11. TWIN FLAMES
What happens when entanglement/spooky action at a distance, parallel realities, and true love merge? We get the ultimate idea of twin flames. Love it or hate it this term is here to stay and it's clear our superconscious is putting these ideas out on the big screen so we can more deeply understand the variety of experiences one can have on earth. Take for instance Prairie/Nina trying to wake Homer up to remember their past life and love together.
"The Twin Flame Journey is the most wondrous thing that can happen for us on our spiritual path. We meet this person that rips our heart wide open and turns our whole world, as we knew it, upside down. We are shaken up deeply in our beliefs and emotions surface in an intensity, we could not believe would be possible. The life we thought we were quite happy with all of a sudden does not make any sense anymore. All we want is to be with that other person, no matter what. It was considered to be very rare that Twin Flames incarnate at the same time on earth and reunite. Just because the energies are so intense between the two individuals. As earth is on an accelerated ascension path, more and more Twin Flames signed up to incarnate together to help with their intense high frequencies to support humanity in ascending and the next step in evolution. These energies are full of divine light and are shining powerfully onto others, once they come to full fruition. Twin Flames incarnated together to help with their intense high frequencies to support humanity ascending. Twin Flames are one soul, split into two halves. No wonder that the energy that is released when these two parts find each other again is immensely strong. It sets free a vast and powerful amount of high frequency of unconditional love when, what was separated, reunites. Yin and Yang are coming back together. This explains the blissful feeling in the beginning that many refer to as bubble love. With this physical encounter (which can also be online), the energy systems of both individual bodies are influenced. One could say, an upgrade is installed, influencing the DNA of the individuals and the energy bodies of both begin to intertwine – an irreversible effect: From that moment on, the energetic bond is eternal between the two bodies. When that happens, we feel that this is very special and that our lives will change forever. We just know that going back to normal is not an option." --Vera Ingeborg
Many templates exist for what time flames are and could be here to accomplish. Some don't specify romantic love. Some don't believe that souls can split. But the thread that runs through every story is one of this impossible love that transforms and can live on beyond known borders. To that I say AMEN!
In summation, I hope your mind is buzzing with possibility.
I hope something new has crept in and taken up residence. A mind stretched can never return to its known borders. This is how we evolve. We let new ideas in and our reality broaden to accomodate them.
PS- If you are reading this and know Brit Marling. Please send it to her or better yet introduce us. I want to thank her!