The cosmic consciousness hypothesis in some ways represents a synthesis of the hypothesis that admits of a god or gods and the atheist hypothesis that denies the existence of any god. It does not require the existence of a god, which will probably make the devout believing Christian scoff. At the same time it allows that some of the anecdotal claims made by religion may have some basis in reality, which will probably make the convinced atheist scoff.
The idea of a cosmic consciousness appears in many earth-based religions, mystical societies like the Rosicrucians, and most eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism in one form or another.
The core idea with this hypothesis is that the effects of religious practice occur because of an external connection between the individual performing the religious ritual and some external aspect of nature. (The key terms are "external" and "natural." The external and supernatural defines the hypothesis of deity; where the internal and natural will be considered as the atheist hypothesis.)
The Analogy of Magnetism
In order to more fully explain the idea of an natural external effect of religious practice, I will present an analogy to the history of magnetism.
In the ancient world, some men were aware that certain stones - lodestone - would point to the north star when suspended from a string. Other stones that appeared almost identical to the lodestone would not. There was no obvious difference to the senses between those that did and those that did not, nor was there any thing detectable to the sense that could explain why the stones that pointed north did so.
As men tried to explain the phenomenon, which appeared to be magic to them, the invented mythologies and stories about the stones falling from Polaris, and so on. Surely it was the work of the gods that such stones could always find north, even in the day when the star wasn't visible.
If we were to go back in time to this age, and attempt, using only the tools and resources available to the ancients, and attempt to verify claims of magic stones that could always find north, even in a fog, we might be a bit skeptical. Since only 1-2% of the Earth's hematite is magnetic lodestone, conducting a scientific experiment in an attempt to verify that the stones actually did exist could very easily fail to produce a result that would support the idea that the stones existed. Yet the anecdotal stories and mythologies of these magic stones would persist, because the stones really did exist.
Fast forward about 2500 years to today. Thanks to Gauss, Maxwell, Tesla, and others, we now have a rather complete theory of electro-magnetism. Not only do we know that magnetic hematite exists naturally as lodestone, but we are able to magnetize hematite that is not naturally magnetic. We can create many varieties of magnet, both permanent (using iron) and temporary (passing an electrical current through a coil of wire), we can measure the strength of a magnetic field, we can concentrate it through cores in a transformer, or dampen its effects by enclosing it in a metal box, and we can use a magnetic field to generate electricity in generators, or conversely, we can use electricity to generate magnetic fields that make motors turn . In fact, a very large portion of the technology we use everyday is in some way related to our knowledge of magnetism. Magnetism is no longer a magical, mythological anecdotal story, but a very solid reality.
Among the things we have learned about magnetism is that the Earth is magnetic. It is the Earth's magnetic field that the lodestone on a string aligned with - that just happened to align fairly closely to the direction of Polaris in Europe and western Asia.
While we humans may not be able to detect a magnetic field with our 5 senses, there is plenty of evidence that migratory birds and homing pigeons can. Science has found that some species of birds have special cells in their brains that map the Earth's magnetic field, some have magnetic sensors in the beaks, and some might even be able to "see" the Earth's magnetic field. These birds have ready access to a sense that we humans don't seem to have.
Perhaps we once had this sense and it atrophied from non-use because it wasn't very useful for human survival, or perhaps it developed to a far less accessible and obvious level in humans. Perhaps some of us have this magnetic sense more developed than others. Some people just seem to have a natural sense of direction where others don't.
The Theory of Everything
In the past few hundred years, since Galileo and Newton started it, science has discovered a lot about the universe we live in. But it hasn't yet discovered everything there is to discover. Along the way there have been some pretty interesting side trips.
In the tail end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the 20th, physicists were puzzled when they added up all of the atomic weights of the components of an atoms nucleus and discovered that the sum of the parts didn't equal the measured weight of the nucleus. Where, they asked, did the missing mass go? Enter Albert Einstein and the Special Theory or Relativity's e=mc2 - - The mass had been converted to energy being used to hold the nucleus together.
But the numbers still didn't add up perfectly. Physicists have been working ever since to track down one defect after another ever since. And I suspect they will be at it for a long time yet.
In the meantime, physicists like Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) have started to notice that physics is starting to look a lot like some of the concepts in Eastern religious traditions...
Is it possible that there is some force or energy that, like magnetism to the ancients, causes phenomenon for some people in a very limited way - enough to create the anecdotal stories and mythologies surrounding religious experience, that we are not able to detect with our five main senses or measure with our current instrumentation? A far reaching force that connects with perhaps the entire universe and which is able to subtly nudge the laws of probability? A form of energy that some people are more naturally sensitive to than others, like the sense of direction in some people?
The Role of Intelligence with Cosmic Consciousness
Assuming that this is indeed the case, then the role of intelligence is the same as it was with magnetism. Our intellect is the primary tool we can use to explore the concept and discover whatr makes it work, just as the pioneers of electro-magnetic theory did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And the first thing to consider is, "What questions should we be asking?"
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