THE CONCEPT OF DEJA VU: MONISM, PLURALISM, AND DUALISM


Deja Vu is a French term, which literally means “already seen”. It is the phenomenon of having the strong inkling that something you are currently experiencing has already been experienced before. It is a feeling of familiarity that is brought about after the sensation that a person has been through the exact same sequence of things he is presently passing through. 

Some of you reading this right now might have been in a situation for example where you found yourself maybe at a restaurant you had never been to before yet recognizing to the last detail everything that took place including the guy ordering food in a red shirt accompanied by the lady with a yellow tank top and brown hair and you said to yourself “Wait a second, this has happened before. I have been here before”.
It probably is not the same as above that happened to you but you might have been through a similar situation where you felt that this was familiar.

I almost see someone nodding her head in acknowledgment.

So let’s talk about this phenomenon and see how we can explain it as there are obviously people who have questions on it. 

I was directed to and saw an interesting post on the phenomenon of Deja Vu, and I saw several people in their comments to the original article speculating on what could be the explanation behind it.
Some spoke about Monism and Pluralism, while others suggested it was the “Multiverse Theory” that is most appropriate in explaining it. Yet another introduced the possibility of the person who has such occurrences being a sufferer of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE). 

I looked with interest at the variety of potential explanations they each put forward and told myself it would be good to unpack these and see what they all mean. 
I will break the unveiling of this concept and its nature into installments and will run it as a series.

This will be the first installment. 

So, let us start by taking a look  at the first suggested explanation for Deja Vu- “Monism and Pluralism”

Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions, and that a unified set of laws underlie all of nature. Monism denies a distinction between body and soul, matter and spirit, and object and subject.
Everything according to the monist has one source, and for most of them it is the mind. Metaphysical thoughts like “mind over matter” and the “law of attraction” are largely monist thoughts.

Pluralism at the other extreme sees life as being a result of a multiplicity of factors. Religions like Hinduism that offer a plethora of gods for each circumstance and situation are patterned after pluralist thought.
In Epistemology “pluralism is the claim that there are several conflicting but still true descriptions of the world, and that no single explanatory system or view of reality can account for all the phenomena of life”.
We see that this train of thought is popular with traditionalists and adherents of polytheistic religions.

In Ethics, pluralism is “the supposition that there are many independent sources of value and that there is no single truth, even in moral matters.” What is right for one does not have to be right for the other.
Invariably what this means is that Pluralism is essentially the same as Relativism when it comes to Ethics.
Let me break down what that means. It literally means that nothing is right or wrong as there are no absolutes. Everything is right and wrong and both concepts are relative to who is asking, the situation in which he finds himself and what he stands to gain.
It is then neither right nor is it wrong to take another person’s spouse as yours as truth is relative. If it feels good then just do it.

I will gloss over the confusion in those patterns of thought.

The best way to understand life and existence is through a dualist perspective. 
Dualism, in it’s moral sense, has been defined as the belief of the conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work. 
The dualist perspective distinguishes between good and evil, spirit and matter, and soul/spirit and body.

Think of spirit and matter for a second.
In the book of Genesis there are two words used in the creation process. The first Aramaic word used in the creation process is the word “Bara”; that word shows up throughout the first chapter in Genesis and is what is used for practically everything created, including man in chapter 1:27.
It means to “create” or make out of nothing tangible.
So we see that man was created in the first chapter, but when we look at the second chapter we see that the Bible records that man was then formed out of the dust of the earth (chapter 2:7).
When a casual observer takes a look at the creation story he assumes there is a contradiction as it looks as though man was created twice. 
There is no contradiction, yet man was created twice. 
Understand that two different words were used.
The second word is the Aramaic word “Asah” and it means to make out of pre-existing material. This is the word defined as “formed” in chapter 2:7.

God first created from and in the intangible realm, and then made in the tangible physical realm. He formed in the tangible realm what He first created in the intangible.
Everything we see exists in two dimensions- the tangible and the intangible. 
God first created things in the intangible 4th dimensional world before manifesting the things He created in the tangible 3 dimensional world we live in. 
And that is the pattern God uses with everything He does. Remember the following statement- GOD FINISHES EVERYTHING BEFORE HE STARTS IT.  
Everything is created twice. 
It is first created in the spiritual realm before it is created physically,  just like the translating of a script to a movie; the script is first conceived and written, after it is ended then it begins.
There is an invisible and intangible world, this invisible world has a higher level of traffic than the tangible and physical world in which we live. 
Some people scoff at suggestions like these but it does not change the fact that there are many more things that exist that cannot be seen than there are that can. 

On a handkerchief or face towel exists more bacteria than there are human beings in most major and densely populated cities yet it was only recently equipment was developed to pick up on those previously invisible beings we now call bacteria, germs, viruses and microbes. 
A man could be sick with a fever and be vibrating with intensity and people would not know what was wrong with him, but it would be those almost invisible beings that would be responsible for the issue. 
There is a spirit world and there is a physical world. Spirits exist and since life abhors vacuum everyone at some point or the other is under the influence of the invisible. 
The Holy Spirit can take control of people and function through them, and evil spirits/demons can also take control of people and function through them. People tend to manifest the characteristics of what spirit is in control of them.  Demons in control of people is a bit like a car whose driver has been kidnapped and thrown into the trunk by a violent criminal who then begins to drive the car very roughly in his bid to evade law enforcement.
The car will take on the nature and characteristics of the driver.
Being driven by a responsible person the car will stop at traffic lights and stop signs and will keep within the speed limit, but when a drunk, a junkie, or an erratic person takes control of the same car it literally becomes a dangerous weapon that can put everyone at risk.
The same car but different characteristics with different drivers.
The same way it is with human beings. People are like cars being driven by different drivers, some cars being driven by several different drivers at different times.

This is not to put every errant behavior or act on the activities of demons but to point out that they do exist as do other spirits like angels. They exist and exercise different levels of influence over the physical world. This is what dualism is about.

Yet dualism in its purest form (or absolute dualism) does not explain the supremacy of God over the devil.
In the context of the problem of evil, evil is not the opposite of good, rather it is just the absence of good. Evil has no existence in itself anymore than darkness exists in itself. Darkness is not as much an independent phenomenon as it is the absence of light. 
Where there is no light there is darkness, and where there is no good there is evil.

C.S Lewis referred to evil as a parasite, this is because he viewed evil as something that cannot exist without good to provide it with existence. That is a very good way of looking at it.
Absolute dualism is not a proper representation of what exists between God and the devil, this is because if we consider the law of equals and opposites we realize that for something to have an opposite it must first have an equal. God and Satan (aka Lucifer) are not opposites; this is because God has no equal, thus no opposite. 
A more appropriate comparison would be between Michael the archangel, rather than God, and Lucifer the devil.
So the dualism I subscribe to is not Absolute Dualism but Limited Dualism- the type of dualism where the devil attempts to frustrate God’s plan but only because of the Freewill given by God and the duration He allows it last for. 
Monism and Pluralism do not explain the concept of Deja Vu; it is actually Dualism that does and in subsequent articles we will understand just how this works.
We will continue this series in the next installment. You do not want to miss it for anything.  


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