Here Be Angels:: Sojourn in a Different World

When Helen visited Dr. Gadway in Miami her blood-soaked body lay lifeless on the floor of her home 1200 miles away. Here Be Angels recounts his decades-long effort to reconcile the facts of subjective experience with the objective facts of science. If you believe in ghosts you will want to read this book for its review of what science has to say about the oft-reported encounters with discarnate beings. If you do not, you should read this book for the same reason. Quantum theory is based on the assumption that events at the micro level are fundamentally random. Gadway boldly challenges this assumption with intuitive arguments that are readily accessible to the layman. Personal experiences—including a motorcycle tour of the great northwest, flights to Peru and Africa, confessions of betrayal and the experience of love and forgiveness—are contextualized with penetrating insights into what some of the greatest thinkers have contributed to our modern worldview. Along the way Gadway motivates an intuitive explanation of synchronicity that departs sharply from the one worked out by Jung and Pauli. You are invited to join him on an adventure of discovery that examines the fundamental nature of the force of gravity, which, he points out, Einstein’s magnificent theory both describes and denies. The title, “Here Be Angels,” is a reference to the trope old geographers used to designate unexplored territory. Gadway’s contention is that one cannot reach unexplored territory without crossing the portion that has been mapped, which is science. The subtitle is a play on the word indifferent, underlying Gadway’s conviction that the world—contrary to the default position of the scientific community—is not indifferent to our being here. To make this point he reminds us that scientists, in conducting their experiments, engage the world what is essentially a dialogue, the presumption being that the universe will answer any properly posed question in an honest and truthful manner. Although Gadway describes encounters with ghosts and angels, he insists that his experiences are remarkable only in the literal sense (worthy of being commented on) because of their utter commonness. One of the arguments against the existence of ghosts and angels is that they are immaterial. But, as Gadway points out, when examined closely, elementary particles–the so-called building blocks of matter—are similarly deficient in the characteristics we associate with matter—physical extension, hardness, even objective existence. When you look carefully at physical reality, there is nothing there—no thing—at the micro level. At its most fundamental or elementary level, physical reality is insubstantial, that is, without substance. There simply is no stuff there. On the other hand, there is something there that gives rise to the measurements scientists record when they probe the micro realm: this something is just not a thing in the everyday sense of having extension in space and time, the way, say, a baseball or a stone does. Things at the quantum level are insubstantial the way ghosts and angels are insubstantial. Their insubstantial nature, however, does not mean they are not fully legitimate participants in physical reality. It’s rather that physical reality is more subtle and more inclusive of phenomena than a naïve materialistic conception would have it. Matter, at the most fundamental level, is immaterial, without substance, ghostlike in its incorporeal intangibility. If ghosts and angels are real, evidence-based science will eventually encounter them. Although many people dismiss such beings as artifacts of pre-scientific myth-making or fantasy, Gadway argues that ghosts and angels are no more difficult to reconcile with scientific fact than agents such as ourselves, who have the ability to turn left rather than right or say “yes” rather than “no” in almost any situation. Excerpts may be downloaded from Johngadway.com and our Facebook page: Here Be Angels.