Introduction

Imagine for a moment that you live in a world where infinite parallel realities not only exist but are accessible—easily, to everyone, without need for specialized equipment. In such a world—like in our own—you are born, you grow, you make a hundred thousand little choices that shape your life, and you invariably live to regret one or another. But unlike in our world, when this dissatisfaction hits, you may simply shift your reality. Choose something different. Be someone different.

For many of us, such a possibility is first and exclusively encountered within the realm of fiction; consider recent releases like Everything Everywhere All at Once (Kwan and Scheinert 2022), Ready Player Two (Cline 2020), or the cat’s cradle of alternate realities found in Marvel and DC’s respective cinematic universes. While interest in such parallel and alternate-reality content is certainly not a new phenomenon, the subgenre of science fiction has seen a reinvigoration in the past decade, with a particularly intense wave of production and popularity following the onset of the pandemic. This is no coincidence. Science fiction, like horror, is a genre bred to articulate and confront cultural, social, and political anxieties and finds particular popularity during times of crisis and change (Sontag 1986). As increasing political polarization and class inequality contribute to dramatically different lived realities, rapidly intensifying climate change alters our physical landscape, and the continued challenges of COVID-19 remake our routines, disillusionment has become a chronic feature of life for many in the United States and around the globe (World Economic Forum 2021; United Nations 2023). It is no mystery then the seductive hope to be had in the lateral thinking of multiversal media, or the comfort that can come from imagining other universes in which we may get things right.

But for some, imagining is not quite enough. For some, the hope offered by fictional alternative realities burns so brightly that it illuminates a new way forward entirely. For such questing souls, it is not just the idea of other realities but the search for them that becomes a powerful engine of agency, discovery, and, yes, hope. These are the reality shifters: an online community brought together during the COVID-19 pandemic and united by their belief that the promises of the multiverse are not restricted to the annals of fiction but tangible realities to be explored.

It is this community that lies at the heart of this article. Inspired by stories metaversal and mundane and informed by diverse approaches to spiritual exploration, magical traditions, religious practice, and scientific tradition, the shifting community demonstrates a radically encompassing approach to ontological and philosophical inquiry rooted in the challenging of boundaries—not only around perceived limits of self, consciousness, and reality as we know it but of the explicit and implicit brackets we place on ways of knowing and experiencing the world.

As such, the reality shifting community provides a fascinating contemporary case study through which to evaluate the potential benefits of creative, combinatory cognition and the ability of a more expansive mode of inquiry, precisely because of its ability to both generate knowledge and think critically about how that knowledge is produced. In the following pages, it is those benefits of unfettered experimental inquiry that will be evaluated as we trace the emergence and formalization of shifting as a mode of exploration, the embrace of heterogeneity at the core of its practice, and its place within a long and generative genealogy of entwined spiritual and scientific discovery—a tradition that does not turn away from the ineffable but works alongside it to shed light on the structures of reality and the nature of being.

Shifting 101

If this is the first you have heard of the reality shifters, you might think I am speaking metaphorically or in the vein of the relentlessly optimistic social media content that tells us we can all create our own reality (as long as that reality falls within the acceptable norms of Western capitalist society, of course). But in this case, it is meant in the most literal sense—shifting between realities. Though the basic practice has appeared under different names and instantiations over time, shifting in its current usage is an encompassing term for the practice of intentionally and directedly relocating your consciousness to a different reality, either temporarily or permanently. The underlying assumptions about the structure of reality and the specific practices and rituals undertaken in shifting may differ, as we will explore momentarily, but for most shifters, such manipulation of consciousness is achieved by experimenting with the mental and physical exercises, rituals, and methods recommended by other shifters, such as “scripting” or detailed writing about the target reality to create a clear mental picture; meditation and energy work to center the body and mind; or the use of tools like binaural beats to enhance concentration and mindfulness.

Crucial to understanding the shifter mindset is a fundamental illimit on where or even when their consciousness may travel. Presuming an infinite cosmos of possible universes, shifters are empowered to dig deeply into their desires in order to craft a target reality that fulfills them. This includes the types of parallel or alternate universes we are most familiar with in popular multiversal media, with elaborations of timelines branched off from key decisions. What person would you be if you had attended a different college? Joined the Merchant Marines? Dedicated your life to the study of the majestic platypus? More interestingly, the possible realities available to shifters also include “fictional” realms depicted in books, film, TV, and other media, as well as any world conceptualized by the shifters themselves. As one example, a shifter who is a fan of the Harry Potter franchise may seek to temporarily shift their consciousness into a reality inspired by Hogwarts. Drawing methodological importance from previous experiments in transformational fanworks like fanfiction, fandom-oriented shifters often place an emphasis on scripting—writing comprehensive accounts of the target reality before shifting. They may write, draw, or create a vivid mental picture of the particulars of their Harry Potter-inspired desired reality and the place they would like to inhabit within it (a student, teacher, creature, etc.), detailing specifics such as their name and appearance, the house they would like to be sorted into, and even details such as how long they would like to stay in that reality or when and how they will return to their core or current reality. Some may also include planned narrative arcs or key events to take place in their desired reality, as well as rules meant to govern the passage of time and eliminate threats such as illness, injury, or death. Many such scripting tips and aids advocated by early fandom shifters were initially published—and can still be found—on existing fanfiction websites and spaces such as Wattpad and Tumblr (@Ashley_Writes 2020). Once the reality is scripted to their liking, the shifter may then experiment with any combination of meditation, visualization, spellwork, prayer, and other suggested activities (such as listening to the Harry Potter soundtrack while sleeping or keeping their script under pillow) to catalyze their consciousness in a directed path towards the desired reality.¹

Understanding the overlap between more mainstream practices of transformative fanworks and the emergence of shifting is key to understanding its character. It was fandom-related shifting content that first piqued my interest in a digital ethnography of the community in the fall of 2020, inspired by a spate of TikTok and Tumblr posts seeming to speak literally about visiting or interacting with fictional characters and places. So too did I find that the majority of those seeking out information on shifting did so as an extension of their existing fandom involvement, often posting about shifting from fandom-identified accounts on TikTok, Tumblr, and other social media. For shifters already accustomed to using media worlds as a jumping-off point to create their own content and imagine new possibilities for characters and worlds, fictional does not mean off-limits. In large part due to this influence, the foundational precept of the shifting community came to be that if can be conceptualized by at least one person, it is a legitimate potentiality to be realized—a type of boundlessness that ideologically departs from many popular books and movies about alternate universes (Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Shifting FAQ text on r/shiftingrealities (@Popkitsune 2021).

Though the logic and mechanics may differ from one text to the next, modern multiversal media tends to share a sense of gravity around the importance of choice and constriction when confronted with a variety of realities that differ in small and major ways. Sometimes, this is depicted as parallel universes traceable in their alteration or moment of creation, centered around key moments and intersections in which a decision is the vehicle of change. Consider Everything Everywhere All at Once, where pivotal decisions branch off into new parallel universes—like Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) choosing to stay in China rather than moving to America with Waymond (Ke Huy Quan)—while unlikely choices can be strategically carried out to traverse those universes. Other times, the multiversal logic is abstract and near-impossible to ascribe motivation to, attributed only to a butterfly effect of time and meaning. Consider the perplexing, ever-shifting appearance of Batman in 2023’s The Flash (Muschietti 2023), in each sliver of reality portrayed by actors who had previously assumed the character in other properties. Not only does it teasingly imply entanglement between universes independent of the protagonist’s actions, but such wily ontologic complicates the ultimate choice each protagonist is confronted with: which reality they inhabit. And they do choose, almost without exception.

For all that multiversal media may appear to ode possibility and potential, many of the stories end the same way, as parables for the impossibility of finding the “right” universe. A mainstay of the genre is the moment of clarity in which the protagonist comes to recognize the futility of searching for the exact choreography of choices and decisions, singled out within infinity, to bring them exactly what they wish. Sweetening their acquiescence is often a newfound appreciation for their original reality and/or an “Invictus”-like sense of determination regarding their happiness. See Evelyn, now able to move between and simultaneously inhabit every possible timeline, ending her journey in the same IRS office in which it began. Such endings seem to remind us that we cannot have it all and we should not want to either. But the truth remains that the very telling of stories is a testament to the persistence of the human urge for more; an enduring curiosity, a hunger for what could be not satiated by everything that is and has been. Even if the text itself precludes the possibility of “having it all,” the reader or watcher may revel in it. In an age with unprecedented access to astronomical amounts of media, there is now a book or movie or podcast or TV show available for nearly every flavor of mood and desire. If at any point you grow weary of the story, you may pick another. And if what you want does not exist in the form you want it, it is easy enough to bring it into being through an act of creation, as simple as words on a page. No one quite appreciates the importance of the latter truth like those self-same fandom writers and artists who found the shifting community a place to literalize the creative possibilities of “infinite realities, infinite possibilities.” This is crucial to understanding the “why” and “how” of contemporary reality shifters—many have grown up surrounded by a near-boundless panoply of media worlds, with myriad opportunities to contribute to the expansion of story worlds and practice conceptualizing their own realities.

While the possibilities of shifting may be unlimited, that does not mean they are easily accessible. Alongside the belief in an infinite cosmos of potential realities, foundational to the community is that reality shifting is process-based. Just as a writer goes through many drafts, great effort, and occasionally mental anguish as they strive to bring their fictional world to life, so too must the shifting be approached with sustained and committed effort and care—leading to the elucidation of those “methods” mentioned earlier, in which activities drawn from various traditions are combined and ritualized to encourage shifting success. In the introductory guides on and across many hundreds of comments on Reddit, TikTok, and Tumblr, it is reiterated that shifting is not an immediate fix to anyone’s problems or a quest without cost; it requires a great amount of experimentation, persistence, trial and error, and enduring faith in both oneself and the process. Reflecting this process, gradations of shifting have been defined: a “full shift” involves successfully and completely transporting the consciousness from the current reality to the desired reality, while “mini-shifts” refer to any partial or incomplete shifts, which are reported to be experienced by beginners and experienced shifters alike. There is no formal or informal timeline for movement through the stages of a shift, and it is, in spirit, non-hierarchical; instead, many find ways to creatively indicate their relationship to the process without the pressure to reach external benchmarks or evidence results (Figure 2). As a result, it is the questioning and questing spirit that marks one as a member of the shifting community and not the ultimate success of the endeavor; even those who never achieve a full shift can be active, participatory, and valued members of the community, contributing in a myriad of ways to the larger discourse on the process and practice of shifting.

Figure 2:

Customized user tags on r/shiftingrealities.

As will be explored in greater detail further on, reality shifting is—at its core—simply one expression of a desire to understand the unseen structures of reality. This desire has persisted in various forms throughout history and drawn on combinatory forms of knowledge and creative experimentation to those ends, but the fact remains that the contemporary shifter movement is quite young. It was the COVID-19 pandemic that served as catalyst to turn sentiments that had been percolating inchoate into a recognizable community of practice. Accordingly, reality shifting truly solidified as a recognizable designation in the late summer of 2020, consolidating earlier disparate communities such as r/quantumjumping and r/reality_shifting through the first wave of quarantine. The subreddit r/shiftingrealities, founded in September 2020, particularly emerged as a gathering place for those interested in shifting, serving as a central hub for resources and methodology and providing a space for community, discussion, and negotiation of practice. This latter function is particularly important; through several years of posts, we can trace the coalescence of the community through collaborative elaboration of and experimentation with methodology, as well as the emergence of passionate debate around the more complex ontological and philosophical implications of shifting as a practice and the nature of reality itself.

Revelatory Heterogeneity

While the practical recommendations and explorations of reality are crucial to those new to shifting, perhaps more important are those posts wherein the complex discussions of what shifting could theoretically accomplish are negotiated, with anecdotal evidence and outside sources woven together to posit, critique, and reject theories. Taken together, these trends in content emphasize the maturation of reality shifting as a mode of inquiry, vacillating between individual and collective experiences of reality and navigating the practical, moral, and ethical questions such interactions arise. Crucial to the overall aim of this article, this maturation is where we truly see the creative, combinatory thinking now characteristic of community truly blossom, demonstrating how the relaxation of restrictions between ways of thinking, feeling, knowing, and believing can lead to surprising and generative lines of inquiry.

For example, one popular post asks other shifters to share their thoughts on the ethics of killing within a desired reality, while another solicits thoughts on the existence of an afterlife within desired realities (@Cuervo-Renard 2021; @No0000ooo0 2021). Discussion and theory posts, particularly on Reddit, are also a space where historical explorations of reality are subject to examination. For instance, several shifters have posited that historical accounts of “visions” may indeed be shifting: “Across human history many people have accounted seeing visions of past, present, and future events,” user @Surgicalcanon (2021) writes. “Do you think these people were reality shifting, whether they were doing it themselves or by some form of deity?” (@Surgicalcanon 2021). Another popular post uses cultural evidence to make the same point, quoting an interview with science fiction writer Philip K. Dick in which he reportedly said that “the books he wrote were simply him documenting his experiences in parallel worlds” (@A_Beetle_Boi 2021).

Some of the even more controversial discussion and theory posts across platforms are those based on the constitution and limits of the self across current and desired realities—a digital rehashing of several centuries of philosophical inquiry into the nature of the soul. For example, one provocative post questions if there is a way for those who shift to multiple desired realities to store discrete memories within each desired reality so as not to be overburdened by memory—a deeply weighty proposition that carries with it questions of what constitutes the self: our experiences or our memory of them (@ItsGogaMyDudes 2021). Another post muses on the possibility that we are all the “side characters”² of someone else’s desired reality and, relatedly, whether certain celebrities or people in our current reality could have shifted here,³ raising ever more complex questions on the nature of these overlapping realities and if there is indeed some kind of “core” reality or an underlying structure at all (@KishBent 2021).

Though there has been widespread adoption of the terminology already introduced, like “current reality” and “desired reality,” they can imply vastly different things for different shifters—a subjective conception of reality that determines the ability of someone to mediate or manipulate reality. For example, some believe in a stable home world to shift to and from, allowing for short “trips” to alternate realities without necessarily jeopardizing the stability of the home world. Other shifters, however, argue there may be no true or continuous current reality at all. Instead, every decision we make is actually a small shift to a different timeline, a panoply of possibility expanding infinitely each time we order Chinese instead of pizza or take the bus instead of the train. As such, intentional shifting to a desired reality need not be viewed as a wholly new experience or an unfamiliar skill, but simply a new order of magnitude; a “long-range” shift (@SystemLog 2021).

In both cases, the path between the current and desired reality has detours. Many shifters conceptualize a special subset of the multiverse they term “waiting rooms.” Often described as a pocket dimension entirely unique and customizable to each individual, they function as a kind of metaphysical pit stop “before shifting to your DR [desired reality]” (@AutoModerator 2021). Many shifters describe using their waiting rooms to rest, reset, or practice their skills in meditation and shifting (coincidentally echoing much of the characterization of quarantine). Other shifters speak of waiting rooms as a “shortcut” to further realities: once the waiting room dimension is located or constructed, some argue, a path is carved out through repeated shifting and thus requires less effort than a full shift to a novel desired universe. Within the community, waiting rooms are the subject of sustained discussion and debate on their constitution, function, and relationship to other realities. Can a waiting room become your current reality? Is there a difference in the ontological “material” of the waiting room compared to a desired reality? If someone knew the details of a personal waiting room, could they shift there as well, or would some kind of spiritual “passkey” be needed? The answer(s)—if there is one to be had—remains to be seen. The ontological complexity and attention to philosophical questions entangled with such possibilities, however, is worth noting even in the absence of solid answers. The popularity of such discourse signals that participants are extracting value not just in manipulating reality but in the act of processing, discussing, and investigating its constitution. Even without ever completing a “full shift,” participants are learning to think differently about their current reality and exert greater control over its mediation.

Such discursive exploration is perhaps at its most valuable when it comes to creatively uniting existing or scientific thought with the more spiritual and experiential dimensions of shifting—modeling a type of combinatory cognition that drives the discovery of ever-new paths for exploration and discussion. While there is no single scientific theory of alternate reality that unites the community, there are two frontrunners that structure much of the community. For those shifters who favor a more externally motivated understanding of reality, multiverse theory is the preeminent choice. Also known as the many-worlds hypothesis, it is an interpretation of quantum mechanics first theorized by Erwin Schrödinger, formalized by Hugh Everett in 1957, and popularized by Bryce DeWitt in the 1970s (Gribbin 2020). It theorizes that every possibility exists simultaneously; every single outcome of every single decision exists in some reality (very literally everything, everywhere, all at once). In DeWitt’s words, “[e]very quantum transition taking place in every star, in every galaxy, in every remote corner of the universe is splitting our local world on Earth into myriad copies of itself” (as cited in Gribbin 2020). In some many-worlds interpretations, it is our observation of one potentiality that brackets off the others and roots us in a certain reality; only once we open the box that contains Schrödinger’s cat do we solidify if we are in the reality where it survived or perished.

This is the core premise that captures shifters: the idea that they can learn to become aware of, locate, and “bracket off” one world from the myriad of possible realities, blazing their own path directly to their desired destination. If they do not like the reality in which the cat is dead, they can simply shift to one where it is alive, or perhaps one where they are the cat. Or maybe the cat is Garfield. For shifters interested in “fictional” realities and characters, many look to physicist Max Tegmark’s interpretation of the many-worlds hypothesis to evidence their exploration. As one post explains,

Tegmark theorized that our physical reality is built from complex mathematical structures (which explains why we are able to come up with equations to describe various laws of physics). From there, we get to what he referred to as “Level IV” of his theory regarding parallel universes. It says that not only are there universes operating off our laws of physics, but there are ones that function off of an entirely different set of fundamental laws. Our universe might have a mathematical structure that says pigs cannot fly, but there could be another universe that’s math states pigs flying is perfectly normal. Hence, realities exist where magic, talking animals, or superheroes exist. (@MagicalSpaceWaffle 2022)

To understand or access worlds that function off different laws of physics then must require an expansive approach not strictly bound by the laws of science as we currently know them.

There are, however, shifters who are not convinced by the many-worlds hypothesis. Instead, they resonate with a more internally motivated explanation for multiple realities: consciousness theory. Though less formalized than many-worlds, consciousness theory operates under an idealist understanding that our external reality is a projection of our internal self, and by operationalizing our consciousness, we can shape the reality we experience. Many of those who follow this theory take inspiration—perhaps surprisingly—from a series of government experiments known as the Gateway Process.

In 1983, United States Army intelligence at Fort Meade filed a document containing the conclusions of several years of experiments into the nature of consciousness and reality. Called the “Analysis and Assessment of the Gateway Process,” it is part of a since-declassified series of documents from several decades of government investigations into psychic phenomena with a two-fold goal: first, to use quantum mechanics to “describe the nature and functioning of human consciousness . . . [and] the character of the time–space dimension,” and second, to operationalize this understanding to transcend time–space using experimental techniques of expanded consciousness (McDonnell 1983, 1). In particular, experiments focused on brain hemisphere synchronization to influence “the amplitude and frequency of brainwave output between the left and right hemispheres so as to alter consciousness, moving it outside the physical sphere so as to ultimately escape even the restrictions of time and space” (McDonnell 1983, 7).

Shifters who draw inspiration from consciousness theory believe the realities they seek to encounter do not necessarily already exist—it is exactly this power of harnessed consciousness that allows them to transcend all “restrictions” and bring their desired reality into being. To access this power, they take inspiration from, and replicate techniques described in, the Gateway Process such as binaural beats, subliminal messaging, hypnosis, transcendental meditation, and biofeedback. For example, in the “Dazzle Method,” shifters utilize a series of light frequencies to theoretically trigger a state of enhanced consciousness:

Our (Current Reality) brains are believed to react to 9HZ light frequencies stimulating occipital polarity in much the same way as Robert Monroe’s CIA-studied hemi-sync tapes, the equivalent of audio frequencies within the gamma range stimulating an area usually only reached by experienced mediators . . . Start off with a slow setting, around 5 or 6, using DELTA WAVES, then on every following attempt to shift, go up a notch each and every time. Around the 7 to 8 setting use THETA WAVES, and around the 10–12 setting, try EPSILON WAVES. Finally, when you approach the highest setting, 20, if you still haven’t shifted, use GAMMA WAVES as they stimulate the release of biophotons corresponding to the highest sensory input. (@RealityShifting101 2021)

Similarly, many shifters strategically use audio frequencies to “prime” their consciousness for shifting, usually in the form of guided audio meditations—some of which have garnered millions of views on YouTube and TikTok. Embedded within these meditations are subliminal messages and binaural frequencies—two of the techniques meant to unlock consciousness to transcend space–time in the Gateway Process. It is an approach not without mainstream scientific merit; a wealth of studies conducted over the past half-century have confirmed the ability of subliminal audio and visual messaging to have positive effects on behavior and learning, increase self-esteem, and have measurable impact on a range of other behavioral and perceptive functions (Fleming 2019; Walker 1991; Vernon 2009). Binaural beats have been similarly evidenced to enhance the “interhemispheric coherence” for possible psychological and physiological benefit, with several studies confirming their benefit in increased attention and focus, improved cognitive function, anxiety reduction, and decreased chronic pain (Solcà et. al 2016; Colzato et. al 2017; Lim et. al 2018; Yusim and Justinas Grigaitis 2020; Gkolias et. al 2020). So too are many of the audio frequencies used in binaural beats associated with alternative spiritual belief systems and practices. Often referred to as “sacred frequencies,” certain frequencies are associated with distinct properties, purposes, and numerological resonances that amplify their significance for those who incorporate sound into their spiritual exploration or religious practice—drawing meaning from multiple modes of knowledge and being (Constantinsen, n.d.).

This leads us to the final element in the maturation of the shifting community: the role of the ineffable. The community is of heterogenous religious affiliation and individual spiritual belief, and it is not uncommon to see shifters—secular or otherwise—experiment with elements of magic and witchcraft in their shifting practice. Just as there is no single agreed-upon scientific framing within the shifting community, there is benefit to the wide range of beliefs and practices drawn upon—with plenty of healthy and passionate discussion on their purpose.

From the earliest posts, one thing the community has never been is dogmatic; both as individuals and as a collective bound by purpose, shifters are egalitarian in their approach and diverse in their influences, weaving together scientific elements like theoretical physics and quantum mechanics with diverse cosmologies, pantheons, and practices. It is, in short, a radical embrace of combinatory practice rooted in the fundamental premise that a multiplicity of realities necessitates multiplicity in ways of knowing and being. This generalized openness is not to say, however, that individual shifters do not tend to one side à la the scientific theory divide. For a not-insignificant proportion of the community, shifting is an extension of their existing religious practice or an exploratory element in their idiosyncratic spiritual journey—the science comes second. One Christian shifter of unknown denomination writes that exploring the boundaries of reality makes them feel “much closer to God,” taking pains to locate historical evidence that reconciles such experimental practices with traditional worship:

Lectio Divina is an ancient way of prayer. Doctors of the Chruch [sic] like Thomas Aquanis [sic] were even said to be so connected to God that he literally would float of [sic] the ground . . . when you are in this state you realize not that you are the creator of your reality but that you can control it. This is because you understand that you are a part of God, you abide in them. (@Cereal_KillerOvO 2021)

The importance of faith within shifting practice is not restricted to Christian religions; there are shifters of every major world religion, including neopaganism, and scores more who do not identify with an existing religious tradition but freely experiment with adopting rituals and practices from other shifters in their unique spiritual communions within reality. Less important than an existing set of beliefs or integration with a formal religious system is the impressive ability of participants to creatively select and apply aspects of diverse practices alongside scientific precepts to shape both their philosophical and methodological approach to shifting.

There are hundreds of posts in the vein of those pictured here, weighing approaches, religious histories, and moral quandaries with care, thoughtful consideration, and an overarching culture of respect for diverse traditions (Figure 3). What is repeatedly affirmed is that an interest in the philosophical and moral aspects of shifting is not predicated on an existing religious affiliation nor pre-existing spiritual orientation more broadly but rather is something that can be experimented with and discovered as part of an individual’s shifting practice. One of the most marked aspects of the community is the widespread depth of critical self-reflection and consideration of the wider impacts of their exploration that prompts participants to consider questions of belief and practice as part of the shifting process, not solely as a precursor to it. From the ethics of violence in desired realities to conceptualizing the free will of inhabitants of constructed realities to shifting as a route to immortality, the curiosity that drives shifting discourse and practice is one of candid confrontation with people’s own assumptions and beliefs about how the world can and should work. It is, in short, an ecosystem of knowledge sharing with the belief that diverse experimenters drawing from each other’s unique subjectivity and experience stand a better chance of finding the answers of the universe. Though shifters often seek idiosyncratic desired realities and amalgamate unique processes to get there, the culture of shared knowledge and exploration means that a breakthrough for one becomes new data for the benefit of all—a true gestalt that transcends its constituent parts. A space for all kinds is what is being offered—not only within the platforms and discussion boards of the shifter community but within the sandbox of reality.

Figure 3:

Faith-oriented discussion posts on r/shiftingrealities.

This heterogeneity must be understood as the suturing feature of the shifting community—and a reflection of a broader cultural shift from a strict demarcation between religious and magical practices to increased fluidity in individual spiritual amalgamations (Twenge 2023; Shipley 2022). What creates the collective out of the singular is the shared belief that none of us are bound by the hand that fate plays us and the enduring faith that a better life is within our power to create—a type of magic in and of itself. As anyone who fell in love with Halloweentown (Dunham 1998) as a child can tell you, “magic is really very simple, all you’ve got to do is want something and then let yourself have it.” And—to take a cue from the oft-paraphrased Arthur C. Clark—what is magic but science we do not yet understand? It is with this spirit that contemporary shifters take up the task of exploration, happy to splash in the generative space that emerges when the distinctions between scientific knowledge, spiritual belief, religious practice, and magical worlds become porous and practitioners feel empowered to question the structures that do not serve them. In this way, the shifting community’s combinatory spiritual science can inspire us to reexamine and reshape our fundamental relationship to reality, even if we choose not to explore the multiverse ourselves.

A Lengthy Legacy

Though shifters represent a fascinating new direction in the creative exploration of reality, the urge to explore the boundaries of consciousness—and the belief that there are other accessible worlds somewhere out there—goes further back. Much further back. And in each phase of inquest and experimentation, so too do we see the lines between the effable and ineffable ripple and twine. In this way, the spirituality-invigorated science of shifting is less an invention and more a reinvigoration of a legacy that has lasted millennia. This, then, brings us to the final part of this article: looking to past explorations into the nature of being that similarly draw on combinatory ways of knowing to fundamentally alter our understanding of reality. In doing so, we can place the practices of contemporary reality shifting within a longer legacy of reality mediation, legitimizing the potential of creative, combinatory cognition to bring about large-scale transformations across science, spirituality, and society alike. To do this, we look to one sustained effort within the millennia-long search to elucidate the ineffable forces of our universe that cannot be seen or otherwise detected but may nevertheless hold the key to reality itself. A “Holy Grail” project for physics and philosophy that has made its greatest strides when approached with a combinatory practice of exploration and knowing: the exploration of aether.

Our story begins in ancient Greece, where Aristotle, following Plato, conceptualized an unseen element that permeates reality. He called it the fifth element, or quintessence, although now it is more commonly referred to as aether or ether (Temple 2021, 76). Unlike the other four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—quintessence/aether was believed to be celestial rather than terrestrial in origin, functioning as the bridge between our physical reality and the divine. Plato spoke of it as the material “God used in the delineation of the universe,” while Aristotle characterized it as an element “more divine and prior” than its terrestrial counterparts (Plato 2021; as cited in Hahm 1982, 63). A mediator of reality itself, in many ways aether was conceptualized as functioning similarly to the constitutive webs of materiality and affect. By some accounts, Aristotle believed this fifth element to be the source of vitality and intelligence within the cosmos. He considered the possibility of beings made entirely out of aether, “intellective and perceptive deities” able to “know and think and perceive” in order to bring structure to the universe (Van Buren 2023, 16, 19)—in short, an approach to understanding aetheric reality that both adopts the language of the physical sciences and fits within the classical Greek hierarchical polytheism of personified deities.

This divine character of aether was not incommensurate with the role of physics in the Hellenistic period; John Heilbron (2015, 2) has termed the physics of the Greeks a kind of “natural theology,” its purview spanning the “the physical world from the high heavens to the Earth’s center, and from the human soul to the life of the least of living creatures.” Three centuries later, Cicero echoed this animating aspect of the mysterious fifth element when he called it “the essence of gods and souls” (as cited in Temple 2020). Fast-forwarding a fair few centuries, Islamic and European alchemists carried this tradition forward, explicitly drawing from ancient and classical texts as they explored components of divinity as part of the material plenum of the world. Part and parcel was the continuation of the theory that quintessence functioned as a bridge and/or mediator between dimensions or realities. In alchemical practice, aether was then framed as a key element—albeit undiscovered—that bound our terrestrial world to the heavenly one. As a material element, the alchemists theorized it might be manipulated to heal illness and extend life, or perhaps even be a constitutive component of that ever-elusive elixir of life (Taylor 1958, 95).

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, quintessence continued to influence the understanding of being in both scientific and spiritual realms. Most famously, it served as an influence in the development of theories of gravity and electromagnetism—unseen forces that nonetheless shape the world.⁴ Isaac Newton, that grandfather of physics, used the term “aether” for not only a medium through which gravity functioned but as a potential resolution to the “puzzling problem” of how the divine (the soul) may interact with the material (the body) (Gillespie 1960, 130). Further, historical evidence shows Newton theorized aether as a force fundamental not only to “optics, chemistry and gravitation” but the “ordering of the planets and universe”—treading dangerously close to heresy as this “deified ‘absolute space,’” suggesting aether and God “might be identical descriptions” (DeMeo 2009). In Newton’s own words:

Perhaps the whole frame of nature may be nothing but various contextures of some certain aethereal spirits . . . wrought into various forms; at first by the immediate hand of the Creator; and ever since by the power of nature…Thus perhaps may all things be originated from aether. (cited in Gillespie 1960, 129)

This may be surprising to those who only know Newton for his work on gravity, but as a thinker, he was not shy about his twining of religious and scientific purpose. In the eyes of many, he was “the rhapsodist . . . the most daringly speculative thinker about nature known to history” (Gillespie 1960, 128). As a possible model for contemporary thinking about reality and being, it is a pretty compelling appellation.

Two and a half centuries later, another one of history’s great thinkers reinvigorated the search for our unseen element. By Albert Einstein’s time, however, the Cartesian project had reached completion in strict separation between spirituality and science, thus stripping aether of its divine resonances. Aether was instead conceptualized as a practical and physical—if not yet understood—mediating element in the cosmic soup, including within a 1920 lecture by Einstein entitled “Aether and the Theory of Relativity.”⁵ In transposing the divine to the mundane, however, aether retains echoes of its historical role as a bridge or mediator between what we know and the answers we are trying to find. “The aether hypothesis was bound always to play some part in physical science,” Einstein (1922 6, 20–22) asserts, “even if at first only a latent part”:

As to the part which the new aether is to play in the physics of the future we are not yet clear. We know that it determines the metrical relations in the space–time continuum . . . but we do not know whether it has an essential share in the structure of the electrical elementary particles constituting matter . . . our present view of the universe presents two realities which are completely separated from each other conceptually, although connected causally, namely, gravitational aether and electromagnetic field, or—as they might also be called—space and matter.

The fundamental question thus became how to reconcile the dual “realities” of space and matter with aether as a mediating force somewhere in-between. Einstein and his contemporaries did not know yet where precisely aether fit within a model, but they suspected its discovery could change everything. “If we could succeed in comprehending the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field together as one unified conformation,” Einstein (1920, 22–23)⁶ continues, “the contrast between aether and matter would fade away and, through the general theory of relativity, the whole of physics would become a complete system of thought.”

Einstein continues to assert the existence of some kind of aetheric medium in the following years, drawing on Newton’s ([1924] 2017, 2) earlier conception of aether as a kind of matrix or space he termed the “aether of mechanics.” “Aether is not to be understood as a mere hallucination of the Newtonian theory, but rather that it corresponds to something real that exists in nature,” Einstein ([1924] 2017, 2) asserted. “The mechanical aether—which Newton called ‘absolute space’—must remain for us a physical reality” (Einstein [1924] 2017, 2). At the same time, however, he highlights that such an aetheric-structure reality is something different, perhaps less intrinsically material, than the reality we have known so far: “Of course, one must not be tempted by the expression aether into thinking that, like the physicists of the nineteenth century, we have in mind something analogous to ponderable matter” ([Einstein 1924] 2017, 2). So, then, we are left with something we know must exist and must be critical to the functioning of our world as we know it but is unlike anything we currently know, are able to see, or are currently capable of analyzing—in short, something ineffable we might otherwise term as magical or divine.

Ancient Problems, Modern Solutions

Aether rarely appeared in Einstein’s work after this point, and it was largely abandoned by most physicists in the following decades. As one journalist put it in 2021, “The term “aether” (or “ether”) lives on as a colloquial expression in the West, an abstract idea of the intangible void” (Neal 2021). After being stripped of its theological affiliations for a few odd centuries in the custody of scientists, it became, ironically, relegated to “the esoteric worlds of magic, mysticism, and the supernatural” (Neal 2021). But the search for the secrets of reality was not relinquished; it merely rebranded. Remember the experimental wing of the United States military? It was there that the tradition of spiritual science was carried forth, almost entirely removed from the public eye (at least before it was declassified and shared widely on the internet). Despite their original classified nature, government programs like the Gateway Project and MKUltra are the most well-known forays into psychic phenomena of the last century, in no small part due to the popularity of media like Stranger Things (Duffer Brothers 2016) and The Men Who Stare at Goats (Ronson 2009). The latter especially served to immortalize the more fascinating experiments of the United States government: the attempt to create psychic super soldiers in the 1980s, called Project Jedi; the deployment of subliminal messages in songs by Matchbox Twenty and Kris Kristofferson at Guantanamo Bay; and, not the least, the creation of the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual, which tells trainees they will learn to:

Fall in love with everyone, sense plant auras, organize a tree plant with kids, attain the power to pass through objects such as walls, bend metal with their minds, walk on fire, calculate faster than a computer, stop their own hearts with no ill effects, see into the future, have out-of-body experiences, live off nature for twenty days, be 90%+ vegetarian, have the ability to massage and cleanse the colon, stop using mindless cliches, stay out alone at night, and be able to hear and see other people’s thoughts. (Ronson 2009, 14, 177, 40)

Though the military fell short of these goals in nearly every respect, it is one of life’s beautiful ironies that “‘the institution you would expect to be the last to open the door to the greater realities” is the one largely responsible for the popular image of spiritual science that endures today (Jim Channon quoted in Ronson 2009, 43).

Everything old becomes new again, and the story of the unseen, mediating component of the universe is clearly far from over—and not just for the dogged reality shifters. The belief in the discovery of a quintessential material or force that will unlock the secrets of reality has again come to the fore as our technologies become more precise and the scale of our exploration grows both macro- and microscopically. This is seen most obviously in the rhetoric around “invisible, imponderable” dark matter—explicitly referred to as quintessence by some scientists—and theorized to make up a significant portion of the mass of the universe despite never having been observed (Ivaylo Zlatev et. al 1999; Beltrame 2020). In the last few years, some scientists have moved to officially consider dark matter as a “fifth fundamental force” that structures our universe, right alongside gravity, electromagnetism, and strong and weak nuclear forces (and neatly bringing us back to the starting point of Aristotle’s original conception of the aetheric fifth element) (Neal 2021).

Interestingly, the divine legacy of aether has also reappeared in recent revelations regarding the role of plasma in the cosmic soup. Called “the fourth state of matter” alongside gas, liquids, and solids, plasma is thought to make up 99.9% of the universe (Mullen 1999). “Whereas once space was thought of as empty,” Robert Temple (2020, 107) writes in A New Science of Heaven, “we now know that at a subatomic and quantum level, space is a jungle of plasma, a highly charged, creative ecosystem—with matter in the form of particles being one of the things it creates.” Like aether was for the Greeks, the alchemists, and Newton, it is plasma, Temple (2020, 6) believes, that will be the key to “reconcile the ‘spiritual’ with the ‘material’” dimensions of reality. Though Temple is somewhat an outlier in the intensity of his belief in the potential of plasma—and more open than most academics to the integration of esoteric study—the ongoing studies into dark matter and plasma have ignited similar interest and debate in spiritual communities. One such place is the blog Does God Exist, where John Clayton, a retired physics, chemistry, and Earth science instructor, considers scientific discoveries through the lens of divine power. Plasma, for Clayton (2021; 2017), is “a tool God uses to shape the creation and mold the world around us” while the prevalence of dark matter and energy point to “the fingerprint” of an intelligent design that facilitates “great stability over an infinite amount of time.” “The more we know of the creation,” Clayton (2021) passionately concludes most of his posts, “the more we understand the power and wisdom of the Creator.”

This belief is echoed by astronomer, particle physicist, and Catholic priest Paolo Beltrame, who similarly sees such discoveries as an opportunity for the reunification of the scientific for divine exploration. In “Dark Matter to Bright Faith,” Beltrame passionately argues that these advances in science only strengthen faith—and vice versa. After all, he points out, it was fellow theoretical physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaǐtre who proposed the theory of the Big Bang and fundamentally altered our understanding of the origins of the universe (Beltrame 2020, 49). “Scientists nowadays are disclosing a God who is more God-like than ever,” Beltrame (2020, 49) writes:

The cosmos has expanded from just our solar system to the scale of hundreds of billions of galaxies, and God is even bigger than that. The creative action has been moved from a six-day narrative into almost 14 billion years of evolutionary process, and God has even more imagination than that.

So too does Beltrame advocate for the reconciliation of science and faith in a manner reminiscent of the ancient Greek’s approach—and the kind currently espoused by reality shifters. The philosophical physics that considered both “the physical world from the high heavens to the Earth’s center” as well as the ineffable world of “the human soul to the life of the least of living creatures” finds echo in Beltrame’s description of the curiosity his faith encourages toward the “totality” of life from those “inner and intimate aspects” of the psychological and spiritual to the “most social and global” issues of scientific pursuit (Heilbron 2015, 2; Beltrame 2020, 50). “Scientific interest, therefore,” Beltrame (2020, 50) asserts, “can find a comfortable home within a life of faith.”

Beltrame, Clayton, and Temple’s faith in the reconciliation of these pursuits, however, is far from the standard. As noted earlier with Einstein’s mundane aether, we have moved a fair sight far from the “natural theological” physics of Aristotle and Plato or the “theologian scientist” Newton became in his old age (DeMeo 2009). There is a persisting stigma around the cross-pollination of science either with specific religious tradition or abstract spiritual purpose, embodied by popular atheist scientist Richard Dawkins, who termed faith in an unknown divine “infantile” and “dangerous” in The God Delusion—a book that spent twenty-two weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List (2006, 80, 189; Steinfels 2007). But such a strict position does not come without a cost—and for some, that cost is an inability to fully address the increasingly complex philosophical questions raised by physics. As Bertrand Russell ([1927] 2023, 1) writes in the opening to The Analysis of Matter, “In spite, however, of the extraordinary successes of physics considered as a science, the philosophical outcome is much less clear than it seemed to be when less was known.” He interprets the fundamental problem as a disjuncture between “the world of physics” and “the world of our perception”:

The world of physics must be, in some sense, continuous with the world of our perceptions, since it is the latter which supplies the evidence for the laws of physics . . . Physics must be interpreted in a way which tends towards idealism, and perception in a way which tends towards materialism. (Russell [1927] 2023, 6–7)

In this view, it is only by building this bridge between ways of knowing that physics—and other scientific ways of knowing—may reach their full potential and succeed in understanding the true complexity of reality. It is a call to action that biophysicist James DeMeo has argued passionately for in the past. The prejudice against such combinatory work, both historical and contemporary, “must [be] overcome in the sciences,” DeMeo (2009) writes. Only then do we stand a chance of ever grasping the true “nature of the substance and structure of space” (DeMeo 2009). In overcoming that prejudice, that reactionary desire to shy away from any challenge to how we have been taught to order the world, it is entirely possible that what we may learn could entirely reframe our understanding of being—individually, collectively, and cosmically. In short, opening the door to such combinatory modes of knowing and being like that of the reality shifters, and refusing to dismiss the legacy of transformative spiritual science like Newton’s—even if it means dabbling in the borders of belief—might be exactly what is needed to push forward in our search to understand the nature of reality and our selves.

Conclusion

Contemporary reality shifting, as a practice both shaped by a particular moment in time and situated within a longer legacy of experimental exploration, is a masterclass in weaving together an incredibly diverse fabric of historical, religious, popular, and cultural traditions. As a case study for experiments in the mediation of reality, shifting exemplifies the generative possibilities that arise when ideas and influences drawn from seemingly disparate fields are critiqued, syncretized, recontextualized, and tested—then shared for the benefit of the whole. This egalitarian approach transposes the long legacy of spiritual science for the modern age, well suited to the increased fluidity and multiplicity being seen across many areas of social and personal life in the wake of COVID-19. So too does the shifting experiment exemplify the possibilities that may arise when we embrace Russell’s provocation to soften the divisions between the worlds of physics and perception, the material and the ideal in a way that remains taboo in many scientific arenas. Though time will tell if their brand of combinatory cognition and spiritual science leads to great breakthroughs in our collective understanding of reality, perhaps the most crucial aspect of their work is that is has undoubtedly already changed the lives of many shifters for the better.

For some shifters, being a part of the community and learning to think and experiment in this way has provided a better understanding of the world through varied and otherwise impossible experiences, the opportunity to “do the things that my big imagination has always wanted to do,” to “live for myself” and “be so grateful for living that I’d cry at the thought of having to die” (@PinkPoodleOFDOOM 2021; @Schnippleslurp 2021). For others, their shifting practice is rooted in emotion and serves as a healing method of connection with beloved figures both real and fictional, such as departed family members or a favorite comic character. The nature of contemporary reality shifting means that it empowers practioners to find a sense of agency within infinity, instilling a sense of capability, power, confidence, and control over a reality that may offer little otherwise.

Perhaps most importantly, shifting—and the unfettered purview of spiritual science more broadly—can be a tool through which to articulate our desires and dreams, find joy and inspiration, and practice unrestricted imagination in a time of uncertainty and continued crisis where such opportunities have been too few and far between. For these reasons and more, this article has endeavored to situate reality shifting as a critical case study on the benefits of creative, combinatory cognition and the transformative understanding of self and others facilitated through such expansive approaches to knowing and being in the world. As just one expression of a long history of entwined scientific and spiritual inquiry, like the story of aether and the promises of plasma, the shifters’ experiments offer a siren song of possibility, irresistible in their endless potential to interrogate and reframe our relationship to our world, our reality, and our selves.