They say, "Pray for a miracle." They say, "Pray, and it all turns out well."
It always fascinated me.
The trust that people have in miracles is unfathomable to some. But why? How could we be made from the same soil but share such different beliefs?
I grew up as a religious person. For a long period of my life, I wanted to be a monk. I prayed many times a day but never for a miracle.
Underneath my monk hood was a scientist lurking, questioning every thought.
If I finish my test and submit it, how could praying change anything? It’s a true or false test, and my answers are already written. If I know I have a wrong answer, is praying going to replace it?
I always thought it was impossible. I would pray for the strength to deal with the result of what had been done. I wouldn’t pray for a miracle to change the outcome since I was convinced that miracles are impossible—even irrational.
Many years later, I found myself on a completely different trajectory. I was studying Pure Physics at the national science academy.
We sat in a long auditorium, with 1200 students listening to a professor who was talking about the theory of relativity. At this point, my monk mind had hibernated back to his floor, and my scientist mind was running the building. Back then, my mind had two floors: one for the scientist and one for the monk.
I sat in the back of the hall. In a room of 1200 students, a seat in the back is way back. I was so far back, the professor looked like a fairy, whispering and sharing her knowledge in a distant land called the front of the auditorium. She stopped talking about relativity and began speaking about the concept of parallel universes.
As a teenager, hearing that theory made my atheist and scientific mind praise the lord. The idea of having multiple versions of ourselves in different scenarios was overwhelming, so I decided to look deeper into it. I looked so deep, I found myself two years later in film school studying film theory.
That semester, we were studying Krysztof Kieslowski and his film theory of the “What If.”
What if every time you made a decision in your life, the decision you didn’t take was taken by a version of yourself in a parallel universe? This is called bifurcation.
Let me expand:
You are at a car dealership. You see your dream car. You also see your wife’s dream car. Both would work perfectly for your household and are within your price range. You wonder what to do.
After much thought, you buy your wife’s dream car. In a parallel universe, at that same moment, your “double” decides to buy his favorite car instead of his wife’s.
According to Kieslowski, this variation in decision creates a whole new set of interactions that changes the trajectory of your character or his/her double.
To return to our example:
On the way home from the dealership, you’re excited to be your wife’s hero. She’s very happy, so she suggests an unplanned date, and you agree.
Meanwhile, your double and his wife are not as happy. She’s upset, and he’s unsure why. They have a new car, after all. She tells him she wants to go to her parents’ house instead of on a date. He accepts, though he’d hoped for a spontaneous date.
The bifurcation isn’t drastic, nor are its results. Parallel universes don’t work as simply as: “You and your wife live happily ever after, while your double and his wife get divorced.”
What happens at bifurcation is a ripple effect. You will have a different experience on the date than your double will at his in-laws’. Up until then, you were the same person. Now, you are different people with different experiences.
A great Kieslowski movie that explores this theory is *Le Hazard*.
The “what if” world.
Every time you think, “What if I didn’t become a lawyer?” or “What if I ordered the vegan option instead of the meat?” know that a parallel universe has been created where you made the decision you’re wondering about.
Kieslowski also believed in the concept of the "double" in this universe. He believed that every human has a double on Earth. The same soul, delivered into two different sets of circumstances, plays out. In the concept of the double, doubles cannot meet. If they do, one of them must die. A great movie that explores this is *La Double Vie de Véronique*.
That was mind-blowing to a young mind—and it still is to an old one.
In my mind, a new floor had to be built. The two-floor building in my mind had become too small. Now, a philosopher lives in my mind on a newly built third floor.
As I sit on the roof of our humble home in the camp, trying to avoid the heat of summer, I look at the stars shining above and wonder…
Parallel universes—do they physically exist? When do these universes begin? Is there a version of me where I was stillborn?
The idea that complete realms could be created simply because I made a set of decisions seems over the top. Does that mean each of us lives in our own universe?
I pondered that question for months. I think that each one of us does live in their own universe, but when our senses detect another living entity, we share a universe with them for the time of interaction.
When I am alone, I can think about anyone or anything and decide to believe whatever I wish.
I could convince myself that I live in a dome on the moon, and if no one tells me otherwise, I will continue to believe.
When people meet, they share a common universe. In that universe, there are laws and rules—the laws of social order and convention. Once people return to their solo states, they return to their individual universes.
But what’s the point? What’s the point of parallel universes? The idea doesn’t help solve any of our existential dilemmas—it actually adds to them.
Along the journey of my life, I met an incredible woman, April, who has a magnificent perspective on life. She has traveled the world and seen the four corners of the globe. She and I sit in her garden by her little house on a beach in California. Amidst the conversation, she tells me about her project, *The Questioneers*.
She was convinced that ultimate knowledge is not knowing all the answers—it’s knowing all the questions. So I questioned more.
Years go by, times change, energies shift. I’ve made a home on the American frontier, and the building in my mind now has nine floors. The reception area is a large hall where all the residents of the building gather to make decisions.
It’s a diplomatic harmony in my mind. Except for the guy who lives in the penthouse—but that’s a story for another time.
To return to the matter at hand…
Not long after, scientists thought they had discovered a parallel universe adjacent to ours where the laws of physics operate in reverse.
Parallel universes are no longer just theory or conjecture. They are real—as real as reality, whatever that means.
April and I sit on a picnic table by the fire on an island in the Salish Sea. The sun is setting, the sky is clear, eagles roam the sky, and the planet is living through uncertain times.
A disease has spread across the globe, so different that half the planet isn’t sure if it’s even real. Case numbers rise, people die in large numbers—or so we think. No one is sure of anything. What my wife and I are sure of is that we will take no risks. We will quarantine, raise our garden, and observe until we can make a scientific evaluation, regardless of what the media says.
As we eat snacks and sip wine, the radio on the table plays *Me and Bobby McGee* by Kris Kristofferson. When the song ends, the DJ comes back on air, introducing the next song. She says:
“Today, scientists proved that we live in a universe that has a parallel. They speculated in the past about the existence of parallel universes, but today they proved one.”
She takes a short breath, then says, “Well, that’s a dandy idea.”
The show continues, but I remain fixated on the idea. Science just proved we live in a parallel universe.
Not that I don’t trust DJs, but I needed to know more. So I did some research.
The sun had drowned into the ocean, and the land calmed down, but my mind was still racing, researching.
The pandemic took over society. It took over social media and mainstream media. The disease created a virus. The virus of misinformation.
So I went to Google. Google is a beautiful index for an endless book. If the Library of Alexandria had an index, it would have been Google.
It didn’t take long to find a statement from NASA.
NASA explained that one of its scientists discovered a parallel universe where the laws of physics are reversed. While studying particles from outer space, scientists found an anomaly. There are two kinds of particles that come from space: those that pass through Earth unhindered by matter and those that are stopped by Earth’s matter. Heavy particles can only be detected arriving, while light particles can be detected arriving and leaving. In this particular experiment, scientists detected heavy particles leaving Earth.
After much analysis, the only explanation was that these particles belong to a parallel universe where time and physical laws run backward compared to ours.
The scientist added a little joke: “To them, we are the ones in reverse.”
NASA later clarified that this is not definitive proof of a parallel universe, but it is a strong possibility.
So I ponder… What if this is the truth?
Forget about why we are alive or why we are on Earth. Why do we live in a parallel universe?
I obviously have no clue, but I found a theory that calmed my mind.
The concept of parallel universes is the miracle that makes miracles possible.
If you haven’t abandoned this article yet, here are my two cents:
We live in a realm that exists parallel to an endless number of realms. A version of ourselves exists, or existed, in each of these realms. The realms are infinite, and the possibilities are infinite. That means every single bifurcation that happens in our life, no matter how little, creates a parallel universe.
Example:
Remember that exam I mentioned earlier? Well, according to the logic of the multiverse and a little bit of mathematical probability, in that test room, my younger self created 1024 realms.
How? You ask.
There are two ways to answer each question on that exam: True or false. So, if it was a one-question test, my younger self would have created two realms (2 possibilities × 1 question). Just like the car dealership example.
Now, if the test had two questions, there would have been at least four realms (2 × 2) (2²):
One realm where I aced it,
One realm where I got them all wrong,
And two realms where I got one right and one wrong.
If the test had three questions, I would have created at least eight realms (2 × 2 × 2)(2³).
Since that test had 10 questions, the total possibilities were 2 to the power of 10 (2¹⁰), resulting in 1024+ possible outcomes for that test and 1024+ different universes. That is now a fact.
If particles can jump through parallel universes, then so can we. We are, after all, nothing but a group of particles giving us form.
So now, when I pray, I pray for a miracle. Because now I know how miracles work.
The Earth’s rotation creates a specific frequency, and our minds generate another frequency through thought. The Buddhists say that when you truly meditate, chant, or pray, you align your frequency with the Earth’s.
If you can tune your frequency, you can shift yourself from this universe to any parallel universe you want to join.
If something you want exists in your mind, then it exists in some universe. Even if it seems like what you are wishing for is impossible because "the universe doesn’t work that way," don’t hesitate. If what you are wishing for could happen, it would already be true in another universe.
But remember, everything comes with a price. If you send yourself to a better realm, you will send a version of yourself to a worse one. Make sure you deserve what you wish or pray for.
If your prayer takes too long to be answered, or your meditation took time to align with the universe, stay kind so you can keep this realm as good as possible for whoever replaces you.
In the end, I will borrow from the greats to say: “The only thing I’m sure of is that I’m sure of nothing.”
This is absolutely fascinating, thank you, and beautifully written. You’ve given me much to ponder.
You sir have blown my mind