Julian readily confessed that he didn’t, but felt certain that Ryan was about to reveal the answer posthaste.
“It means…” Ryan paused, as if to ensure Julian’s curiosity and complete attention before delivering a monumental insight… “It means, Jules, that it’s way more involved in biochemical pathways and genetic regulation than we ever imagined! Vitamin D receptors are found everywhere throughout the body, and control literally hundreds of genes! It is way more important than just an enhancer of calcium absorption. It affects almost every aspect of our body’s functioning—all the way from bone formation to immune regulation, to cell differentiation, to energy metabolism, to vascular integrity—the list goes on and on. Wanna know the worst part, Jules? I’ll tell you—nobody is getting it! You know why? I’ll tell you that too! It’s cheap and can’t be patented! If this were a drug that did only 1/1,000 of what vitamin D can do, it would be all over the TV, newspapers, magazines, etc., because some big drug company would be making billions in the process! Nobody knows about its benefits because this research isn’t financially beneficial to any big corporation. Kind of makes you sick, doesn’t it? Millions of people dying needlessly because no big company can find a way to exploit this research for its own gains. Welcome to ‘disease care’ in America, Jules!”
Ryan went on, almost in a frenzy now. “Sunlight! Simple, free, sunlight! That’s it—nobody is getting enough sun! Do you know that all this big cancer scare perpetrated by doctors and sunscreen makers actually LOWERS people’s vitamin D production by almost 100%? Yeah, listen to this,” Ryan exhorted, brandishing some sort of research article wildly in the air. “Age-standardized mean serum 25(OH)D concentrations based on observed values were SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER in 2000–2004 than in 1988–1994 in ALL GROUPS EXAMINED.”1
“Do you get what that means, Jules? We have a simple hormone, free from sunlight, or at worst, a few pennies in supplement form, that can reduce chronic diseases astronomically, and peoples’ serum levels are actually going DOWN, not up, due to a bunch of bogus information and lack of education! And it even gets worse! All this obesity that we’re seeing in our country, and now worldwide, causes vitamin D levels to drop even lower! I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotta do something about this. When I get out of here, I’ve gotta go to medical school or something like that. The world is literally dying for lack of a spokesperson who can’t be bought off by Big Pharma. I’m the man, Jules, I’m the man,” Ryan repeated emphatically as he sank into the chair next to Julian.
Yes, you probably are the man, Julian thought to himself. If anyone could literally take on the whole world, it would be Ryan Christie—a multitalented human being whose energy and curiosity knew no bounds. “Go get ’em, bro,” Julian urged his friend, who was now already deep into his pile of journals. Again, Julian had to envy him. If only he could find some sort of focal point in his own life, and maybe tap into just a little of Ryan’s energy…umm, wouldn’t that be sweet? Oh well, he mused, I guess it’ll just happen when it happens! With that thought, he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a book that had tweaked his interest while he was in the PSU bookstore several days ago.
*****
Julian was halfway through Peter Russell’s “From Science to God: A Physicist’s Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness” before he even realized that several hours had passed. He glanced over at Ryan, who now had journals stacked several feet tall all around his desk, and was busily delving into yet another one. For once, he had been almost as oblivious to space and time as Ryan was. Julian was a big fan of Eckhart Tolle, having devoured and thoroughly assimilated “The Power of Now,” so Tolle’s assessment of Russell’s book as “a vitally important contribution to the awakening of human consciousness,” printed boldly on the book’s cover, had certainly aroused his curiosity. It was an easy read, and now several hours into it, Julian felt an unusual excitement beginning to creep over him.
Julian and Ryan had been raised in the conservative Southern Baptist denomination, having literally grown up just around the corner from the First Baptist Church on Church Street in downtown Charleston. By the time they were seniors, however, although they still attended church there with their parents and enjoyed the social networking and holiday traditions, both boys found many of the sermons to be a bit lacking in intellectual substance for their tastes. Ryan, in particular, found the “exclusivity” commonly practiced by most religions, theirs included, to be rather limited in perspective and altogether unlike his evolving concept of God. His highly scientific nature had caused him to doubt many of the biblical stories they had grown up with, and most certainly the inferences the church had drawn from them. Julian, as usual, was a bit less outspoken, but nevertheless struggled with what he had been taught there, and was always on the lookout for something that made more sense to him.
Russell’s book, written by a scientist who had likewise rejected conventional religion, yet who seemed now to be making his way back toward a broader concept of God, seemed most intriguing. The author’s dilemma—that no matter how much he studied, science never seemed to answer deeper more fundamental questions like, “Where does consciousness come from?” resonated closely with Julian’s own struggle. Russell’s move from the classical sciences to experimental psychology facilitated his newfound interest in the nature of consciousness and led him to seriously question the existing materialistic metaparadigm of the day and to postulate a new theory in which consciousness is fundamental and not derived from the world of space, time, and matter. According to him, whereas there is a physical reality, we never experience it directly—only through our senses and their interpretation in our brain. Add the newer discoveries of quantum physics, and it seems that “reality” is nothing like we imagined it to be, with physical matter, in fact, being 99.999% empty space! In the subatomic world, particles appeared to behave similarly to waves, more like “clouds of potential existence with no definite location.”2
All these new ideas struck Julian like a slap in the face! Imagine that, he thought, the world we actually “know” isn’t the real world at all, just a facsimile created in our minds from our sensory input! And the “real world,” when you get down to the subatomic level, is mostly nothing at all—just energy and potential that consciousness can fashion into whatever it chooses! Space and time are just mental constructs, not fundamental dimensions of underlying reality.
“Wow!” Julian exclaimed, not realizing that he was actually verbalizing his thoughts.
“Wow, what?” Ryan queried, peering above his stack of journals at Julian. “What’s gotten you so excited, Jules?”
“This book is amazing,” Julian whispered, waving Russell’s text in the air. “Ry, science has it all backward—consciousness can never be accounted for from the physical observable world, just the contrary. The physical world emerges from consciousness. Quantum physics is reuniting science and spirituality at last!”
“Hmmm…that sounds like some pretty heavy stuff,” Ryan replied. “I’ll have to leave that to the Russells, though; I’m already up to my ears trying to save mankind from its own colossal biochemical ignorance! Vitamin D for me, Jules, that’s my new mantra. I’m gonna go after these predators who keep suppressing simple, inexpensive natural preventive strategies. Watch out world, here comes RC!”
“Well, I’d say we’re both onto some really big stuff!” Julian smiled. “Ry, just listen to this for thirty seconds,” he pleaded, beginning to read from Peter Russell’s book:
In the past, greater awareness of the true self was deemed important for personal well-being. Today the game has changed; it is now imperative for our collective survival. Our knowledge of the external world has been growing at an accelerating pace, bringing with it an unprecedented ability to modify and manipulate our surroundings. The technologies we now have at our disposal have amplified this potential so much that we can now create almost anything we dream of. Our knowledge of the inner realms, however, has developed much more slowly. We are probably as prone to the failings of a limited sense of self as were people two thousand years ago. This is the source of our problems. Advanced technology may have amplified our capacity