“This is an amazing article. Open your mind and go beyond!” —Tray B
“Reading this powerful writing felt like drinking a tall glass of water or taking a very deep breath. I have to laugh at myself because I used to think the burning curiosity I feel to traverse to the edge of understanding what this experience is would lessen if I just embraced the mystery more fully. The deeper I embrace the mystery the more the curiosity burns. I’m grateful for Sol’s work as it’s always deeply embedded with sources/inspo/connected ideas and maintains room for the reader to reach their own conclusions/ideas while leading the way down the rabbit hole with precision.” —Ren
“‘There is nothing to see here. Move along!’ says the program and all its minions. But we can’t unsee what we have seen, can we? Regardless of how we uncover these anomalies, it is undeniable that corruption and chicanery abound. Love this article, Sol! Amazing detail! Something is happening, and more and more of us ‘gno’ that. Much gratitude!” —April Novoa
Sol Luckman
If you’re feelin’ dejected
If your moods are affected
If your goals seem deflected
Maybe you’re just
Mandela Effected
If you’re trendin’ neglected
If you feel unselected
If true love’s undetected
Maybe you’re just
Mandela Effected
If you’ve been disconnected
If your mind seems infected
If your heart’s all dissected
Maybe you’re just
Mandela Effected
A Rabbit Hole inside a Box
Earlier in this month of December, an unexpected and quite mysterious box showed up on my doorstep postmarked from Coolum Beach, Australia.
Little did I know what a deep rabbit hole awaited inside as I curiously opened it and pulled out an inexplicable pair of beautiful T-shirts—one for myself and another for my partner, Leigh—that turned out to be from my friend Johnny Flynn’s surf shop down under.
The lovely T-shirts would have been “Christmas present” enough, but an even greater gift—inviting a veritable paradigm shift—lay at the bottom of the box just atop the aforementioned rabbit hole: a hefty, glossy hardback copy of Johnny’s new book (which I had no idea he was even writing) … THE MANDELA DILEMMA.
As I hope to make abundantly clear in what follows, this text is arguably the definitive scholarly and theoretical work on a truly bizarre, largely misunderstood and often ignorantly maligned phenomenon. Anyone who hasn’t read THE MANDELA DILEMMA and tries to take credit for “debunking” or otherwise discrediting the Mandela Effect clearly hasn’t “done the research.”
Without stealing the author’s thunder, in this article I’ll endeavor to impress upon you the immense importance of this work in coming to terms with not just widespread “paranormal” activity of the highest order hidden in plain sight.
Just as crucially, I’ll explain how this Effect elucidates the eminently “metaphysical” operating principles of the world we live in (and usually take for granted) … opening the door for contemplation of how we might begin to take control of the universal OS for our highest personal and collective good.
In a handwritten note I found inside the book, Johnny explained that it was a “little souvenir” for introducing him to the Mandela Effect back in 2022 when I posted a video about Tutankhamun.
I recalled sharing that rather mind-bending video around the time I interviewed popular online personality Shiva Shampoo about the Mandela Effect. After a good bit of searching, however, I wasn’t able to track it down on YouTube.
Not to worry. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of similar ones focused primarily on the apparently erroneous memory many (especially older) people (including myself) have of a single cobra—without today’s bizarrely decontextualized and asymmetrical accompanying vulture—gracing the pharaoh’s golden funereal mask.
Here’s an example of such videos that have been, in the “Wild West” YouTube spirit that embraces borderline if not outright plagiarism, reworked ad nauseam …
“The Mandela Effect is a term coined by paranormal researcher, journalist and author Fiona Broome in 2009 when she recalled Nelson Mandela dying in a South African prison in the 1980s,” writes Flynn in his voluminous “detailed inquiry, analysis and theoretical perspective of popular reality shifts … commonly known as ‘Mandela Effects.’”
“History of course shows that Nelson Mandela died in 2013,” he continues, adding that “Broome realised many others also remembered him dying [earlier]. She was surprised that such a large number of people could remember the same event that never apparently happened.”
Perhaps you’ve experienced this or another Mandela Effect (of which there are hundreds) or know or have heard of people who have been thus impacted. And if so, maybe, even probably, like so many others, you’ve been steered by today’s prevailing rationalism and materialism to dismiss the whole topic without a second thought as a load of hocus pocus.
The “Mandela Effect is a collective delusion in which large swaths of the populace misremember a catalog of indiscriminate memories in the same way,” pontificates skeptical cultural commentator Chuck Klosterman, one of countless “experts” who have typically done precious little digging when it comes to the Mandela Effect.
But problem solved anyway, right? Nothing like the casual mention of a “collective delusion” to shame-silence genuine inquiry before any real thinking has even begun.
And if that doesn’t do the trick, why, the religion of science can always—like the architect(s) behind the Mandela Effect itself—just invent something with a ridiculous name like “fuzzy-trace theory” to “logically” explain away such mass malleability of human memory. You’ll soon have enough suckers buying your “explanation” to open a candy store …
Whatever else you do, be sure to take out your broom and sweep Broome’s paranormal shitstorm under the rug as fast as possible. Lest it grow more powerful and whirl itself into something … unthinkable. Lest it rage through your mind like a tornado and explode an entire meticulously constructed worldview grounded in the false god of reason.
Meanwhile, contrary to skeptical propaganda, the Mandela Effect isn’t limited to obscure details or merely digital media. Far, far from it.
Instances of this bizarre phenomenon problematize the “real” in popular culture, movie lines, the Bible, and most profoundly, physical objects (such as VW and Ford vehicle logos) and even geographical features (along such grandiose lines as South America’s position or the directional flow of the Panama Canal).
Setting the Stage with Simulation Theory
My initial interest in the Mandela Effect stemmed from a deep dive into simulation theory (more accurately but also more of a mouthful, simulation hypothesis). Popularized by philosopher Nick Bostrom among others, this is the increasingly widespread idea—especially since the advent and proliferation of digital “realities”— that we’re living in some kind of Matrix-like pseudo-world.
The basic idea, though, summed up by Shakespeare in “all the world’s a stage,” is actually extremely old and far predates our technological era and even, for that matter, the Industrial Revolution, as can be deduced from the old woodcut image in this humorous meme:
The most reactionary variety of backlash to the simulation concept is probably that it’s “impossible” for us to be existing inside one, that it’s “simply ludicrous” to claim that everything we see, hear, smell, taste and touch is just … an illusion.
But is it so hard to imagine? How, for example, do we account for the venerated and incredibly influential concept of maya, the ancient Indian belief that the world is literally just an elaborate “illusion” or “magic trick”?
In the modern era, simulation theory has various roots and offshoots, having gained an enthusiastic and widespread following in such diverse fields as physics, mathematics, computing, and philosophy. I have no interest in unpacking the many variations, derivations and mutants of this extremely technical—and at times wildly extrapolated—theory.
The more I’ve learned about the endless contradictions and almost universal lack of consensus within science, which is supposed to be about “proof” and “facts,” the more I’ve become convinced that theory of any kind is just a mental crutch for those who haven’t yet embraced that everything—including “science” and its endless theories, and including the Mandela Effect itself—is just the brainchild of some combination of individual, collective and universal imagination.
That said, for shits and giggles if nothing else, consider that as far back as this historic 1973 article, a researcher group led by physicist Richard Alan Miller was already putting together a bioscience framework for what would eventually become the simulation hypothesis. I’ve quoted this before, but it deserves highlighting again:
We propose that the “reality hologram” which appears as a stable world of material objects is the elementary particle which has a long-term existence and fairly simple rules of interaction. We also propose the existence of a “biohologram” which appears mobile and evolving, through the DNA molecule. This “biohologram” projects a dynamic three-dimensional image that serves as a guiding matrix for the manipulation and organization of the “reality hologram.”
Thus we have mobile self-organizing holograms moving through a relatively static simpler hologram. The possibility exists that such “bioholograms” could achieve sufficient coherence to continue existence as a pattern of radiant energy apart from a material substrate.
In “Embryonic Holography” Miller continues mapping out the contours of an expanding holographic theory that leads straight to, through and beyond such massively influential works as Michael Talbot’s THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE, a book that blew a whole generation of minds wide open to a whole new way of grokking the “reality” construct.
In this latter article Miller explicitly states that DNA is “the projector of a biohologram, both at cellular and organismic levels.” Ergo, DNA “is responsible for creating a complex pattern of three-dimensional electromagnetic standing and moving wave fronts in the space that the organism occupies.”
“The biohologram has characteristic properties that include the ability to affect the DNA that occupies specific positions within the biohologram,” Miller continues. “In such a situation the nervous system constitutes, first and foremost, a coordination mechanism that integrates DNA projections across all of the cells in the biohologram—aligning these cellular holograms and linking the whole creature hologram.”
Affirming, quite literally, that all the world’s a stage, Miller definitively sets the stage for an understanding of the ways in which an actual holographic simulation might roll out in terms of biology. There’s even a name for this fascinating field that he helped pioneer: quantum bioholography.
Alongside Western biology, even Eastern medicine has for quite some time been intent on reinterpreting itself from a holographic perspective. Naturopath Stephen Linsteadt in “Frequency Fields at the Cellular Level” noted years ago multi-country research data showing “eighteen different microacupuncture holograms in the body, including one in the hands, feet, arms, neck, tongue, and even gums.”
These microsystems are described as “holographic reiterations of the gross anatomy.” In true holographic fashion, every cell in the body is thought to house its own acupuncture microsystem.
Now consider THE SIMULATED MULTIVERSE, a scientific exploration of the simulation hypothesis by an MIT computer scientist, Rizwan Virk, who contends that if we indeed inhabit in a simulated world made up of information rendered all around us, this would certainly make many of the complications and mysteries of our slippery reality start to make more sense.
“Quantum computing lets us simulate complex phenomena in parallel, allowing the simulation to explore many realities at once to find the most ‘optimum’ path forward,” observes Virk. “Could this explain not only the enigmatic Mandela Effect but provide us with a new understanding of time and space?”
“But,” those unable to stomach simulation theory will say, “if you twist my arm, I might be able to entertain certain Mandela Effects. But there’s NO WAY IN HELL none of this is actually happening. Sounds more like science fiction than science to me!”
It’s just this type of uninformed and unimaginative dismissal that Geraint Lewis, professor of astrophysics at the University of Sydney, is addressing in his 2012 article “Alert: You May Be Living in a Simulated Universe” when he affirms asks readers to
imagine a time in the future, a time when computers are powerful enough to fully simulate a human brain, with its vast array of interconnected neurons.
These neurons obey the laws of physics, and fire as their chemical balances change. Thoughts would echo around this synthetic brain, with electrical signals coursing backwards and forwards […]
[I]f you take a purely mechanical view of the human brain, the synthetic brain will be as “alive” as the organic brain that made it.
Not that you’ll ever find me taking a “purely mechanical view of the human brain.” As cardiologist and bestselling author Larry Dossey explains (in “Why Consciousness Is Not the Brain”), despite a total lack of credible evidence,
the belief that the brain produces consciousness endures and has ossified into dogma. Many scientists realize the limitations of this belief. One way of getting around the lack of evidence is simply to declare that what we call consciousness is the brain itself.
I’ve repeatedly stated that I don’t believe that artificial general intelligence (AGI) can or will ever be created—at least not in the sense that it will be able to equal or outmatch such uniquely human capacities as genuine creativity, emotional intelligence, and intuitive gnosis.
But I do acknowledge that synthetic worlds will tend to become more and more interactive and immersive. Does this mean I think we’re living in a computer-based synthetic reality right now? Absolutely not. Stick with me.
In an excellent overview of simulation theory, Jon Rappoport shares a study (also from 2012) from Bonn University that theoretically fleshes out Lewis’s general perspective on synthetic reality from a holographic perspective. I’ve also quoted this before because it’s downright fascinating:
The study proposes that cosmic rays undergo a strange energy shift. The energies are “re-fitted” to align with an underlying pattern or lattice. There is only one proper fit; no exceptions are permitted.
If the lattice is, indeed, a basic pixel-like Reality we are interacting with every day of our lives, then we could be living inside a created artifice.
A simulation.
Put this description alongside the hypothesis that the universe is a hologram: lines of code inscribed on a two-dimensional surface deliver instructions on how the lattice is built, and what its properties are.
In other words, the software which holographically projects the universe includes the exact structure of the lattice.
Then, by the rules of the game, energies which don’t automatically plug into the lattice framework precisely as they’re supposed to are “snapped to” a correct fit [...]
Mike [Adams] has made the analogy to a television picture, which consists of pixels that have their own dimensions and structure. So if we imagine an all-encompassing “television picture,” this would be the lattice-controlled reality we live in.
As I alluded to above, the idea that we live in an artificial, digital, computerized world of the type typically portrayed in cinema, science fiction and increasingly science itself is, for me at least, inherently problematic.
One of the most underappreciated “laws” of this construct appears to be what we might call the “principle of mass deception.” Thus as soon as a new idea becomes popular enough that it’s uncritically accepted as truth by large numbers of people, it’s a virtual certainty that we’re looking at a red herring designed to sidetrack freethinking and limit freedom.
Oftentimes, the “truth” is far less convoluted than the mainstream explanation (however “self-evident” and a matter of “common sense” the latter may be) as some of us, anyway, discover that things are actually far more organic and holistic than our overthinking—and “underfeeling”—initially allowed for.
Occam’s razor is a useful philosophical principle attributed to a fourteenth-century logician named William of Ockham. As it’s used in science, the principle is often framed thus: When you’re confronted with two or more competing theories for explaining a given phenomenon, the simpler (or simplest) theory is likely to be true.
In the case of simulation theory, rather than some kind of artificial video game that would require jumping through many logistical hoops to even exist, doesn’t it actually make more logical and intuitive sense that the simulacrum is more akin to a vastly nuanced, quantum, holographic, 100% natural dream?
After all, we all already know from repeatable personal experience that dreams can be as realistic as waking itself. Why would the simulation require technological props to sustain itself when consciousness has already proved to be all that’s required to create perfectly believable worlds in which we can do perfectly believable things?
Still don’t believe me? Learn how to lucid dream, take two red pills, and call me in the morning.
In the immortal words of comedian Bill Hicks, “Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively … life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.”
My personal opinion, which I’ve expounded on in a series of books here, here and here, is that rather than inhabiting a technological or computer-based simulation, we live in a world that’s actually a collective dream, a dream inside dreams created by the ultimate “technology” of consciousness as it experiences and evolves itself.
Retroactive Change in the Dreamscape: Being Mandela Effected
Instead of a sign of mass delusion or collective Alzheimer’s, based on reams of evidence collected by two generations of researchers compiled in THE MANDELA DILEMMA, the Mandela Effect occurs when something remembered in a certain way is legitimately found to have changed.
As radical as this notion may sound, the most genuinely logical way of interpreting such an occurrence is that subsequent “history” leading up to the present moment is retroactively “rewritten” to reflect the new “reality.”
Obviously, this could never, ever happen in a Newtonian universe. In a so-called real world, the Mandela Effect is an absolute impossibility. In a bona fide material reality, if such a thing existed, the Mandela Effect could and should be written off as a baseless conspiracy theory.
From a quantum perspective, however, we’re taught that matter itself is basically maya, a stubborn illusion, or at best it can be reduced to pure energy and frequency, which is practically the same thing.
“After … conversations about Indian philosophy,” quipped renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg, “some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense.”
This is the same brilliant scientist who also said that “[l]ooking at something changes it” and “atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”
Given that the Mandela Effect is—as Flynn redundantly demonstrates—a repository of weird evidence of something akin to retrocausality that simply can’t be explained away by armchair debunkers on Reddit, it soon becomes obvious that we don’t need science to substantiate the idea that we’re not in a real world but merely the dream of one.
In other words, this one paranormal phenomenon is medicine strong enough to clear away the distracting cobwebs of overweening reason and empower us to experience gnosis, or deeper knowledge (what I like to call “innderstanding”), of the world not as we’re taught it is but as it actually is.
Seen through the clarifying lens of the Mandela Effect, the “reality” we inhabit stands out as what can only be a thoroughly simulated holographic construct. Personally, given all the confusing and triggering baggage attached to much of the verbiage on this subject, in lieu of “simulation” or “simulacrum,” I prefer to call this construct a dreamscape.
To determine whether and to what extent you may be Mandela Effected in this dreamscape, take a moment to respond to these thirteen questions related to Mandela Effects covered in-depth in THE MANDELA DILEMMA …
Is it 1) “Mirror, mirror on the wall” or 2) “Magic mirror on the wall”?
Does the Thinker in Rodin’s famous statue 1) clench his fist to his forehead or 2) rest his chin on a relaxed fist?
Does C3PO have 1) two gold legs or 2) one silver one from the knee down?
Is Britney Spears’ miniskirt in the iconic video for her 1998 debut single “Baby One More Time” 1) plaid or 2) black?
Is it the 1) Flinstones or the 2) Flintstones?
Is the correct title 1) THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS or 2) HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS?
Does Mr. Monopoly 1) wear or 2) not wear a monocle?
Does the logo for Fruit of the Loom 1) have or 2) not have a cornucopia?
Is the famous line from CROCODILE DUNDEE 1) “That’s not a knife, this is a knife” or 2) “That’s not a knife, that’s a knife”?
Is it 1) INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE or 2) INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE?
Is the correct spelling 1) Looney Toons or 2) Looney Tunes?
Is Doc Holiday’s famous line from TOMBSTONE 1) “I’ll be your huckleberry” or 2) “I’m your huckleberry”?
Is the correct name for this celebrated actress 1) Sally Fields or 2) Sally Field?
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