Retrocausality, Time, and the Now Moment
science and metaphysics are merging, to our benefit
Retrocausality
Physicists are an ingenious lot.
They have designed experiments with two entangled photons which show that the measurement of one of the photons later in time can change the status of another photon that has already been recorded. This curious result suggests that future events can influence past events. It turns the notion of causality – that a cause always precedes an effect – on its head.
Physicists have called this phenomenon retrocausality. It suggests that the arrow of time might not always go forward from the present into the future, but that a future event can influence a past event.
For old-timers like me, this idea is explosive. Retrocausality suggests that decisions made now about past events can change how those past events played out.
Let’s take the Cuban Missile Crisis for example, an event that traumatized millions of people in the Western world (I lived through that period). Could a decision by a large enough group of people actually change how events unfolded in 1962? It’s a wild suggestion, and leads me to think about the Mandela Effect.
The Mandela Effect
The Mandela Effect is where large groups of people remember events one way, when it is “actually” another way. For example, many people remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison in 1980, when he was actually released in 1990. (For more examples, ask Grok 3 to explain the Mandela Effect.)
Wild theories explaining the Mandela Effect have been proposed, from individuals or groups shifting between parallel realities where historical facts differ; to time travelers (future humans) changing the past, which leaves residual memories of the “original” timeline; to the Simulation Hypothesis, which states that physical reality is really a universal computer simulation, a la The Matrix, where the “code” of our universe changes, misaligning actual memories with the new state of affairs.
Let’s add Retrocausality to these theories. Unlike the others, it is an interpretation of reality that has been established by experiment.
The point is that our simplistic view of the universe may ignore a much more complicated actuality, which may include wild physics concepts like retrocausality and nonlocality.
Retrocausality and Nonlocality Explained
Let’s look at a physics experiment devised by physicist John G. Cramer that explains his interpretation of retrocausality and nonlocality.
An experiment is designed such that a signal is sent by an emitter to a target known as an “absorber.” After the absorber receives the signal it sends a signal backwards in time to the emitter, letting it know that it has received the signal. This completes the communication, which Cramer calls a “transaction.” The two events – the sending of the signal and the retrocausal return of the signal – can occur such that the emitter receives the return signal before the emitter sends it, or, the two events can occur simultaneously. Theoretically, the emitter (the signal source) and the absorber (the target) could be light years away, if you had a spaceship capable of placing the absorber that far distant.
The ability to simultaneously send and receive information across vast distances faster than the speed of light is called nonlocality. Einstein and his physicist buddies objected strongly to this concept (Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance,”) but it has since been accepted.
Retrocausality implies that in order for simultaneous communication to occur across long distances, for every forward-moving signal in time there is a corresponding signal that moves backward in time.[1] This is remarkable, and suggests to me that the light we see from a star one million light years away may not be from a million years ago, but in real time. This is crazy because light cannot, by definition, travel faster than it propagates. However, nonlocality says that information can go faster than the speed of light.[2]
A Practical Example of Retrocausality
In the diagram above, the emitter is at NASA on earth, and the absorber is the Mars Rover.
If such a retrocausal communication system could be implemented, NASA could move the Mars Rover in real time, instead of waiting around for several minutes for a signal to get from earth to Mars, and another time lag for the signal from the Rover to get back to earth. If you have ever worked on a slow computer you know how frustrating waiting for a response can be.
This introduces a metaphysical question.
A Metaphysical Explanation: The “Now” Moment
The Now moment is a state of consciousness that is beyond time. It’s a state of consciousness because it transcends the physical universe. If you have ever reached the Now moment of consciousness (even for a few seconds) it feels perfect, you feel wise beyond belief, you feel like you can do anything, there’s no pressure, time disappears. You are in the zone and it feels great.
Let’s take this idea to its ultimate evolution. What happens time-wise after a person takes their last breath and moves out of the body and into the between-lives area? Here, there is no time at all and so no linear progression, or arrow, of time from past to present to future. “Past,” “present,” and “future” are rolled into a seamless whole.
In that case, would it be possible to know the future with certainty?
I will leave that answer to the reader, but we do know that every decision we make always affects the future. If the past, present, and future exist simultaneously in the “now,” then a decision in the Now moment would also affect the past. This has interesting implications for health and healing, and for clearing away past traumatic incidents of the past that affect a person in the present.
It also has implications for the consciousness of humanity as a whole. By reaching the Now moment in meditation an individual may be able to lift or clear past trauma that is causing mental or emotional pain in the present. Could doing this with large groups help to clear trauma from humanity’s historical time track as well?
Referring back to our physics principle of retrocausality, the clearing of past trauma from the Now moment (the present) is equivalent to the backwards-in-time signal sent by the absorber back to the emitter.
History Repeats Itself
Students of history note that history has repeated itself over and over down the centuries. Well, humanity’s level of consciousness hasn’t changed much throughout history, and so events have always remained within the same box of beliefs and expectations. Einstein spoke to this when he said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same consciousness that created the problem.” The key to history (and anything else) is consciousness.
Keeping the idea that ‘history always repeats itself’ in the collective consciousness places it into our future timeline and makes “the same old crap” a tragic, self-fulfilling prophecy.
Political commentators and news organizations use this conception in their Narratives. They talk about the return of fascism, or a possible Civil War in our country, if events don’t go in the “correct” direction. This is a form of propaganda called manufacturing consent. If you can get enough people to believe something, the probability increases that it can happen. That’s the function of the MSM.
The ‘history always repeats itself’ narrative is a self-fulfilling prophecy, not some inevitable law of human evolution. What is feared is created, and placed on the future time track.
I prefer to think in more metaphysical terms: that human consciousness is now on a new, fresh time track without historical trauma or impediments.
Physics Merging with Metaphysics
Over the past several decades there has been a subtle merging of metaphysics with physics. Retrocausality and non-locality – implausible metaphysical ideas – are taken seriously enough for hard-nosed physicists to devise theories and design experiments around them. Physicist David Bohm explained how the universe works with an Implicate Order, an underlying but invisible strata that contains all of the programming for universal laws. This is a metaphysical concept.
Ideas that were once considered to be in the realm of science fiction have become reality.
Here is a quote from Ben Rich, who was the head engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works, a private defense contractor associated with advanced, exotic technology in our hidden special access programs:
“We have things in the Nevada desert that you and the best minds in the world won’t even be able to conceive that we have for 30 or 40 years, and won’t be made public for another 50.”
— Ben Rich to Kelly Johnson, before Ben Rich died in 1989.
Ben Rich said this 36 years ago. How far have we advanced since then?
Perhaps the merging of physics and metaphysics has already led to exotic technology that stretches the imagination.
Conclusion
Retrocausality and nonlocality are metaphysical concepts firmly grounded in science. Physics and metaphysics are beginning to merge. That ongoing process will eventually lead to massive breakthroughs and new inventions, and it also counters the blatant politicization of science in medicine, climate science, and the social sciences.
We don’t have to remain stuck in the old ideas of the past. History doesn’t have to repeat itself. Perhaps it’s time to move outside the restricting box of current reality and embrace ideas that promote a better world.
[1] For those interested¸ see John G. Crane’s presentation called the Quantum Handshake, at
[2] The zero-point energy field exists everywhere in space, from one end of the universe to the other. Some physicists suggest that every point in space and time is connected.