Teilhard’s Mystical Bridge: The Geometric Heartbeat and Lifeblood of the Universe

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence — (Nikola Tesla).

[Above: A counter-rotating spiral diagram that shows light (electromagnetism), gravity, and divinity imaged as one in a unified field. The diagram and following synthesis model depict Teilhard’s radial and tangential energy, classical and quantum physics, religion and science as a seamless pulsating whole. The gold spiral = Light/Information (outward, radiant). The blue spiral = Gravity/ Energy (inward, cohesive). The purple center = God = Spirit = Consciousness (the tensional field uniting their contrary forces).

In the cosmos energy moves in spirals, vortexes, circles, waves, and pulsations, seldom in straight lines. In nature, this pattern is most visible in the phi–spiral (double-spiral) of sunflower seed arrangements, imaging the currents of energy that flow in different directions – like the equinoxes. This phi-spiral configuaration balances the forces of radiance and cohesion, ebb and flow, light and darkness, birth and death, transcendence and immanence, Alpha and Omega, and all paired opposites in a perpetual circuitry of evolution and involution. Their interplay generates dynamic order at all scales from the inside-out of the material universe. The double-spiral motif in nature is not random. Rather, it is the most efficient energy carrying and packaging system in the entire cosmos, generating energy and encoding harmony across quantum, biological, and cosmic scales, innermost and outermost.]

As nature does not give up her secrets easily, both science and religion are best served in the collaborative pursuit of unraveling her enigmas. Science, owing to its intellectual quest to study the structure and behavior of the natural world (tangential energy/emergent and horizontally manifest); religion, because of its belief in a supernatural order that informs and controls the natural world and humankind (radial energy/invisible and vertically caused) – each, visible and invisible, explicate and implicate order, are opposite sides of the same integral coin holding and reconciling their tensions. Unitive contrary forces in nature likewise call for unitive (spiritual) consciousness to balance them in perception and thought without collapsing either, joining material and spiritual,  physics and metaphysics, and the visible/invisible order as a seamless copresent whole.

Science is the study of the natural world and the cosmos, which offer glimpses of the divine through its constants. In a post-Einstein world it is understood that energy, movement, and life itself are not isolated phenomena but dynamic aspects of two universal constants — gravity and light (electromagnetism). The author proposes that both of these constants are linked with the spiral pattern at all scales as depicted in the diagram above, a universal motif found everywhere in the cosmos and nature.

Likewise, the subject of religion and spirituality worldwide posit a constant in the universe called God, whose being is most often referred to metaphorically as light, who in Scripture appears literally as preternatural or transfigured light, and whose energy in Teilhard’s penultimate and final cosmogenic stages (Christogenesis/Omega) converges and organizes around a psychospiritual core in humans, grounded there by a mysterious cohesive gravitas. Tangential light = outward radiation (expansion, differentiation), and radial gravity = inward attraction (convergence, unification). Their balanced counter-rotation generates a stable cosmos, and by analogy, a stable spiritual order. Cosmic-Christ-Omega = the final point where tangential and radial energies converge in Teilhard’s cosmogenesis, balancing and stabilizing each other in synthesis. Love as gravity, and light as consciousness or Spirit = the twin vectors of evolution (imaged in the diagram above).

Nature’s greatest secrets are sometimes hidden in plain sight, her veiled enigmas often reflected in the images, structures, and field patterning of her visible manifestations. Yet her greatest secret may lay hidden in the interface between these paired opposites, particularly that generative liminal nexus (spark) that occurs in the magnetic still-point (“sweet spot” or zero-point) between spirituality and science, radial and tangential energy, and/or classical and quantum physics. Such patterning deserves a closer look, particularly regarding the double phi–spiral (also called the Fibonacci spiral Golden Mean or Golden Ratio, 1.618) commonly imaged in sunflower seed heads, pinecones, galaxies, hurricanes, and even DNA. The author proposes that this field patterning is nature’s most elegant icon of this sacred union, gateway to understanding her hidden secrets, and trysting place with divinity (light) at all scales, micro to macro.

As phi (1.618) [rhymes with “sky”] shows up in the architecture of matter, energy, and life (shells, waves, galaxies, DNA, and even the human body), it too forms the bridge between mathematics, physics, spirituality, and aesthetics where order and beauty merge and unite in a unifed whole. Many mystics and philosophers have seen phi as a fingerprint of the divine in creation, a sacred spiral of divine proportion.

Plato, Einstein, and others thought the key to understanding the unity of all things (synthesis) lay in geometry. Teilhard often spoke of the spiral movement of evolution – not just linear progress, but convergent spiraling toward an Omega Point, establising a new phylum of humans –Homo spiralis.  Double phi–spirals (cross-rotating energy fields) lend themselves perfectly to the cosmic geometry of Christogenesis, where outward expansion and inward attraction meet in higher synthesis via counterbalancing, bi–directional energy field patterning.

Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here – (reputed sign over the door of Plato’s Academy).

Sacred geometry is the universal language that describes the inner workings of nature and the intrinsic order of the universe. Differing from standard Euclidian Geometry taught in schools, which adheres to the disconnected view of the universe, sacred or interdimensional geometry embraces the ecological view of a connected universe or unified field. Studying the patterns that unite all forms of life from microbes to planets and stars, sacred geometry shows the relatedness between unique differences, demonstrating how diverse elements at all scales can be organized into a whole while still preserving their individual uniqueness. Everything has an underlying geometric template that links it to the cosmos. Showing how the microcosm reflects the macrocosm, and outer worlds reflect inner worlds, geometric cosmology provides a tangible  means of examining the intrinsic order of the universe. Most importantly, it provides a perspective on the interface between things visible and invisible, the quantitative (quanta) and qualitative (qualia), finite and infinite dimensions of creation.

Einstein and Tesla revealed that everything that appears solid in the world is in a state of vibration. Nature is abuzz with pulses, oscillations, wave motions, rhythms, and cycles in a vast continuum of overlapping, generative energy and information fields – all of which can be defined as vibration and frequency. Just as invisible radial energy (vertically caused) is expressed as measurable tangential energy (horizontally expressed), likewise frequency can be expressed through number, and number through shape and form, which is geometry.

Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe – Galileo.

Once asked how it felt to be the smartest man alive, Albert Einstein’s reply was, “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Nikola Tesla.” In his thirty-year pursuit of understanding the unified field or TOE (Theory of Everything), Einstein boasted of being able to solve the mysteries of the universe via “one-inch equations,” which he was successful in doing with both special and general relativity. Yet he was unsuccessful in solving the mystery of mysteries, unifying the gravitational force with the electromagnetic force in the cosmos, or classical and quantum physics, the so-called Holy Grail of Physics. It seems that grand mystery was left for an unknown scientist-mystic-contemporary to envision (Teilhard) and another contemporary to discover, an ignored electrical genius (Tesla), and a 21st century soft-science-innovator who followed to fully integrate and clarify. Ironically, though Einstein, Teilhard, and Tesla were contemporaries living in the U.S., they never met. But of the three, it was Tesla who understood that his contributions sat at the sublime intersection of rigorous electromagnetism and spiritual consciousness. He often spoke of a “comic energy” pervading space that is dynamic, radiant, and inexhaustible, believing the sun, stars, and interstellar space were filled with an ocean of alternating, oscillating currents. That speculation anticipated the zero-point field in quantum physics. To him, the whole universe is alive with a Jacob’s Ladder of motion and vibration, the common denominator of astronomy, mathematics, and music. In this cosmic synergy of vibrating octaves, light energy (electromagnetism) not only serves as the skeleton and bloodstream of creation, but is the Source of all physical, intellectual, and spiritual energy in the universe. A single generative power (singularity), with many apps.

So astounding are the facts in this connection, that it would seem as though the Creator, himself, had electrically designed this planet — (Tesla).

Tesla rejected the narrow materialism of classical physics, seeing spirit and mind as fundamental, declaring that his brain was “only the receiver from a Universal Core from which we obtain knowledge, strength, and inspiration.” With simple elegance, his famous phrase below summarizes the bridge between physics and metaphysics:

Everything is the light. If you want to know the secrets of the universe, study energy, frequency, and vibration — (Tesla).

In a revolutionary but unheralded way Tesla’s theoretical model coupled and unified those universal forces. In intuiting that the electromagnetic force was the key to understanding the mysteries of creation, Tesla thought Einstein’s theory of relativity was unsubstantiated, a ruse filled with underlying error built solely on a mathematical structure of the universe that has no relation to the whole, particularly the deepest mysteries therein. For Tesla, the force which keeps the planets in their orbits around the sun and moon in its orbit around the earth is electromagnetism (light). This magical phenomenon, the hybrid of electricity and magnetism operating together in cross-rotational energy fields (paired-opposites), are found in frequency and amplitude constantly pulsating back and forth throughout the cosmos and nature. What is mistaken for gravity, declared Tesla, are magnetic fields of force and the actions of accelerated charged particles (electrons and protons) moving at various velocities of the atomic level and on a planetary scale.

Though it was never published, the Dynamic Theory of Gravity was developed by Tesla as a unified field theory in 1938 at the age of 81, five years before his death. The theory explains the relation between gravity and the electromagnetic force by unifying all the fundamental forces and particle responses into a single theoretical framework. This theory assumed a field force which accounts for the motions of bodies in space. Assumptions of Tesla’s field force dispense with Einstein’s concept of space curvature. Tesla was not publicly known as a religious man. However, his father was a Greek Orthodox pastor, and he spoke often of his mother’s influence in referencing Scripture as the source of all truth that revealed the mysteries of creation.

Without the non-dual mind, it is almost impossible to find a way of seeing and thinking in wholes. Academic notions of gravity remove the Creator from his creation, and the creature from his essence in light, the consequence of binary thinking (separation consciousness) and scientific-materialistic explanations (Scientism). In challenging Einstein’s concept of gravity (as exclusively related to mass), Tesla’s synthesis notions seamlessly united a Creator with his creation as a universal generative energy and information presence that holds the entire universe together. His claim, inferred by Teilhard’s vision, was that 100% percent of the visible universe, its skeleton, heartbeat, and lifeblood, consists of a single unifying force — light energy, including gravity. 

While Tesla saw alternating currents and resonances as the hidden infrastructure (skeleton) of nature and the cosmos, Teilhard saw consciousness and attraction as the inner lining, pulling the universe toward convergence. Together, they suggest an image where electromagnetism is the outer skeleton, and qualia-consciousness is the inner lining of the same cosmic wave form. Both apparent contraries work together as paired opposites in push-pull fashion.

Continuing with their synthesis notions informed by a cosmic understanding of their wisdom traditions, the author renders the double-phi spiral as (1) the sacred symbol of the whole of creation, innermost and outermost (2) the New Universe Story icon (3) the universal symbol of the energic cosmic flywheel completing Teilhard’s and Tesla’s vision, and (4) the imago dei (image of  God) icon for the union of paired opposites gravity (G) and light (f) [electro-magnetism], proposed solution to the so-called Holy Grail problem of physics. In this synthesis-diagram the cross-rotating fields of gravity and light are presented as two aspects of one counter–rotating energy field pattern; one spiral representing light as a “push” (outward ) in one direction, the other representing gravity as a “pull” (inward) in the other, and their organic union (phi) depicting the tensional integrity (tensegrity) in which all things consist and hold together, the spirit-science solution to the unified field conundrum of the universe that eluded Einstein.

The mathematical findings of contemporary physicist Nassim Haramein also lead him to conclude that there are only two forces in the universe: the gravitational force (for him the stronger force, not the weaker one) and the electromagnetic field. Haramein even reduces it to one force, gravitational, arguing that if something is not held to the center, it will not radiate, nor will not orbit. He concludes, “So the fundamental force is the force that holds to the center, is the force that collapses toward infinity, is the force that goes to singularity. And the result of that force is an electromagnetic field that’s just a tiny bit of what’s there.” (click-on the Resource tab at the top for a video short on Why Physicists Think Gravity Creates Light) 

Before proceeding, a word about the term “tensegrity” (tensional integrity), a synthesis term that describes the bi-directional, phi double-spiral forces of push-pull energies in which all things consist and hold together universally. One force is a radial oscillation or inward “pull” (wave) toward center, the other a tangential oscillation or outward “push” (wave) of differentiation which together counterbalance the whole. Tensegrity is a contraction of the term tensional integrity, a structural relationship principle in architecture that describes a complementary balance of forces between paired opposites, one force balanced by the other producing an integrity of tension compression. Simply put, tensegrity is the pattern that results when the forces of push-pull have a “win–win” relationship, key to developing a spirit-science synthesis.

A common example of tensegrity is seen in a child’s balloon, where the rubber skin of the balloon is pulling against the air inside, while the molecules of air are pushing against the inside of the balloon keeping it inflated. A primary example of tensegrity in nature is seen in the DNA helix structure, or in such common inventions as the bike wheel with spokes, and car tires. These tandem forces are also at work in wooden barrels, where the pull of the barrel hoops counterbalance the push of its staves and contents. The push is divergent, while the pull is convergent, as is the relationship between the sun and revolving planets, radial and tangential energy, quantum and classical physics. A tensegrity then is a pair, any balanced system comprised of at least two elements that are in balance resulting in a stabilized system that is maximally strong.

Tensegrity is a phenomenon at work in similar, coexisting paired opposites of physical laws like repulsion and attraction, expansion and contraction, or compression and tension. Like the reconciling tensions of body and soul, spirit and soul (spirit-soul), spirit and matter, or eternity and time, such fundamental phenomena are neither separate or opposite but coupled complements that can always be found together. This dynamism of the reconciled and reconciling tensions of opposites (tensegrity) in inner and outer space is THE cross-rotating electromagnetic “engine” (carousel) that makes the totality of the universe and all things in it go round, operating like a simple Faraday Motor, a miniature of cross-rotating cosmic geometry that turns electrical into mechanical energy. Invented in 1821, the Faraday motor has a radial field (magnet) and tangential current (electricity). Their electromagnetic interaction yields a circular rotation (mechanical motion), a technological icon of how radial and tangential energy combine to generate energy, rotation, tensegrity, and flow. These principles follow the ontological principle: as above so below, as within so without, innermost and outermost.

Note: [Regarding cross-rotating fields in physics — in electromagnetic waves (light), electric and magnetic fields are already cross-rotating, each oscillating at right angles to the other, and both are perpendicular to the direction of travel. This is why light can carry energy and information through space. Gravitational waves, though harder to visualize, ripple space-time in two perpendicular (cross-rotating) polarizations as well. So both light and gravity express their energy through cross-rotating fields.]

Everything in the cosmos is energy in a continual state of change, tension, or transformation, from formless (radail energy) to form (tangential energy) and back again, a circuit of cosmic alternating current. The total energy in the universe does not change or diminish but is continually transformed from one state to another. There is no end, only change. The end of one cycle (or spiral) marks the beginning of another, Alpha ushering in Omega, beginnings morphing into endings, and back in a two-way choreography of Cosmic Alternating Current. The invisible (radial energy) invests and annexes organically (tangential energy) via ionized plasma in the heart of material creation, impregnating all things, thereby unifying the world. Geometry is the constant amidst a continual process of change. Our physical bodies are in a constant state of change – every atom of every molecule is continually changed and replaced. The vehicle of continuity is a geometric spiral (helix) which provides an invisible blueprint upon which DNA is structured. It is these invisible geometric proportions of the spiral that are responsible for the replicating power of DNA.

In light, bi-directionality counterbalancing shows up in wave oscillations (electric <–> magnetic), creating a self-sustaining sacred “dance” composition. In gravity, the bi-directionality counterbalancing shows up in its tensions between radial pull (toward unity) and wave-like expansion (rippling out). Also, light is an information field (photons carry data, pattens, consciousness-analogues). And gravity is an energy field (pulling matter/energy into relationship, coherence, and structure). The entire universe is an overlapping, generative energy and information field. So in the deepest sense both light and gravity are energy–information fields, two interdependent aspects of the same underlying reality, a counterpoint of outward (radiant) and inward (cohesive) radiations.

The key to understanding the unifying relationship between light and gravity, electricity and magnetism as paired counterbalancing opposites is that they are alternating currents (AC) on a cosmic scale, a to-and-fro, two-way energy choreography operative at all scales of the universe. These choreographies reveal both the nature of divinity as light = Consciousness = Spirit as sacred energy, a Cosmic Electrizer that creates, recreates, and holds all things together as One in universal tensegrity. And who in personal and collective cosmogenesis stage form is evolving homo sapiens from a human organism toward a metahuman being – homo elector – light beings and light workers in service to a higher ontological order.

Nikola Tesla discovered alternating current in the mid-1880’s as an electrical engineer in Thomas Edison’s employ. Tesla, dubbed “the poet of electricity” by his profiteering employer, made Edison famous, as the latter was looking for an inexpensive way to convey electrical energy over long distances cheaply, and alternating current was the answer. Edison became rich and famous by Tesla’s invention. Tesla became a footnote in history who died impoverished, having been cheated out of the $50,000 Edison agreed to pay him for his revolutionary invention that made long-distance lighting possible over a century ago. What Tesla may have stumbled upon unawares by his electrical AC discovery was perhaps nature’s best kept synthesis secret, expressed via his quoted observations in this blog, and realized by the author in his novel spirit-science synthesis.

In Alternating Current (AC) electrons oscillate back and forth, creating a rhythmic, bi–directional flow. This oscillation allows energy to be transmitted efficiently over distances. The “to-and-fro” (progressive/regressive) movement is less about motion of particles and more about an energy choreography flow through oscillation/vibration, whose dynamic also plays out in the psycho-social growth stages of personality development, and the psychospiritual stages of spiritual consciousness in the paschal mystery, the death-resurrection choreographies that are the hallmark of spiritual growth from the early stages of aspirant/student to the later, more advanced stages as adept/master.

Teilhard described evolution as being driven by two currents: complexity-consciousness (radiating outward, light-like) and convergence toward unity (inward, gravity-like). Mystics have long spoken of God’s action as a pulsation outflow (emanation, creation) and magnetic inflow (return, attraction), like the diastole/systole, outflow-inflow rhythms of the heart. That pulsation mimics the two-and-fro choreography (“dance”) described above, analogous to alternating current (AC). Hence, following the study of cosmic field patterns, structures, processes, and principles foundational to all manifestations of the universe, the author proposes that the cosmic forces of light and gravity, whose mathematical reconciliation eluded Einstein and continues with physicists today, may well be alternating bi-directional aspects of one deeper field, rhythmically oscillating to-and-fro like AC. What is more, doubling as the scientific definition of divinity, it is conceiveable that the entire universe is powered by this great to-and-fro radiance and attraction, expansion and coherence, light and gravity co–starring as a cosmic AC waveform, two alternating movements of one spiritual energy (current) pulsating at the heart (singularity) of the universe from the “within of things” at all scales (see diagram at top).

Continuing, when light and gravity are treated as counter-rotating spirals, they form a kind of cosmic tensegrity system where the outward spiral = light (consciousness/information), and the inward spiral = gravity (love/energy) counterbalance at all scales. Their cross-rotation stabilizes the cosmos, just as tensegrity balances the forces of push and pull. Again, this is not a random process, but one of intelligent cosmic design, the most efficient packing energy system in the cosmos encoding harmony. That is, God = the meta-field in whom tensegrity swaddles and holds all things, the Eternal Constant ensuring harmony between expansion and contraction, divergence and convergence, information and energy, light and gravity, transcendence (vertical/radial energy) and immanence (horizontal/tangential energy) and all paired opposites whose interplay generates dynamic order. (see diagram at the top, and the author’s synthesis book describing same listed in the bio at column’s end)

On the physics side, at the smallest scales matter itself arises from quantum fluctuations, fields vibrating, polarities shifting, wave-particle duality alternating. At the largest scales, electromagnetic fields, plasma oscillations, and gravitational waves pulse through space. Even stars and galaxies exhibit cyclic activity (star pulsations, galactic rotations, cosmic microwave background ripples). The alternation is not just electrical, it’s the deeper rhythm of expansion-contraction, order-chaos, birth-death, radiation-absorption that threads through physical processes.

On the biological side, life is also sustained by alternating currents – nerve impulses, inhaling/exhaling, diastole/systole, circadian rhythms, cycles and seasons. These aren’t static, they keep life dynamic and responsive.

On the mystical/religious side, Teilhard and other visionaries imagined the cosmos as a living organism, with energy converging toward higher unity (Omega Point). The alternation or tension of opposites is what builds complexity, like the tension in a heartbeat. Some spiritual traditions explicitly describe the cosmos as breathing: a vast “inhalation and exhalation” of God or Brahman. So scientifically and symbolically cosmic alternating current could be thought of as the whole spirit-science synthesis package — coinherent skeleton, heartbeat, and lifeblood of matter in the universe. As a synthesis model this all-inclusive paradigm reconciles a number of tensions and rhythmic processes at all scales of the unified cosmic whole.

If Consciousness = Spirit = God is truly fundamental (as panpsychists, dual aspect monists, and Teilhardian’s suggest) then any “final equation” or spirit-science synthesis is incomplete if it ignores this dimension, which precedes and creates all things, including mathematics. If consciousness is primary, then math-geometry is emergent, a language of consciousness describing patterns of experience imaged in matter. This renders math itself a construct within consciousness, whereby numbers, geometry, and logic are expressions of awareness, not external entitites floating apart from mind. Teilhard would say consciousness is the “within of things,” the inner lining of all matter. Equations only capture the without. If consciousness (awareness) is primary, then math is a language of consciousness describing patterns of experience. Physics, then, is not discovering “reality apart from mind,” but mapping how mind (consciousness) structures energy, matter, and their relationship. Mathematics then = the external skeleton = tangential energy (objective measurable description), and neatly segways with qualia = the internal lining = radial energy (subjective reality), and God/Omega Point = the tensegrity of both in seamless metaphysical/physical union.

And if consciousness is fundamental, then the final unification will not be just math alone, which physicists have been vainly chasing since Einstein, trying to unify classical and quantum realities to no ingtegral avail. But physicists must now consider the notion of consciousness as primary, the very ground of being from which equations arise. This notion calls for a radical shift or reframe in conceptualizing the nature of reality, in keeping with current notions of scientific cosmology, and Teilhard’s vision where consciousness (Spirit) and matter are understood as dual aspects of one field, a unity that transcends mathematics, even while using it.

Henceforth, science shall not live by math alone, but by a novel and robust spiritual physics. Only in that new synthesis discipline can the surfaces of the visible order be experienced and understood as animated by an implicate order (Spirit), inaccessible to physical touch and sense-bound knowledge (intellect/mind). Therein lies cradled the whole of creation, universal spiritual consciousness, God-identity, and the heart of the New Universe Story, the subject of the next blog entry.

And the author? He’s a light being and light worker here to help reveal an untold fragment of a cosmic story, a tiny part of the universe become aware of itself, its origin, and identity in an evolving way.

About the Author

Joseph C. Masterleo, LCSW-DCSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice in Syracuse NY, and Rockledge FL. His half-century of service in the mental health care field includes faith-based counseling and psychotherapy, with an emphasis on psycho-spiritual integration. His subspecialty involves developing a novel paradigm for the synthesis of science, religion, and psychology, identifying the energy and geometric patterns that connect the quantum world with space-time. His model explains how spirit and matter can co-exist as two facets of one reality in a unified field, dissolving the walls of partition between previously siloed disciplines. Inspired by the writings of Thomas Merton (ecumenism), Teilhard de Chardin (synthesis), Thomas Berry (ecotheology), Nikola Telsa (electromagnetism), Ilia Delio (christogenesis) and others, his objective is to tell a new, future-looking story for the Ecozoic Age, one that forms a connecting bridge between the biblical story of creation, modern science, and ancient cosmologies. His columns on these and related subjects have appeared on websites such as The Center for Christogenesis, Progressive Christianity, and in newsprint via The Goodnews Paper, the Syracuse Post Standard, and the Syracuse Sports Magazine, where he comments on sports as reflecting the best and worst of American character and culture. Further information about Joe and his Spirit-Science model can be found in his book, The Ambient Christ, the Untold Story of God in Science, Scripture, and Spirituality, listed on Amazon Books, Barnes & Noble, and on his website www.joeknowsgod.com