By KEN KORCZAK
A UC Berkely physics grad makes a powerful case for the reality of the Mandela Effect and that reality shifting is how the Quantum Universe manifests
I was intrigued by this new book, The Mandela Effect and Its Society, by Cynthia Sue Larson, because it deals with reality shifting into parallel universes, and also detecting how this may already be happening in our lives.
For me, this is more than just conjecture or theory; I can say in no uncertain terms that I have experienced “slipping” into a parallel universe more than once.
These events were among the most vivid and “real” happenings in my life — so much so that I can assert beyond a reasonable doubt — that all people have the ability to make journeys into “Other Realms.”
“Dimensional shifting” or “quantum jumping” takes us to places that are every bit as substantial and authentic as the “normal” world we live in every day.
Read about one of my visits to a parallel universe here:
SCIENCE FICTION IS REALITY
I am not alone by far in experiencing slips into parallel dimensions and alternate timelines. Part of the reason I was primed to be open to this possibility is that I have long been an ardent fan of the great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.
Even though he died more than 40 years ago, Dick remains among the most well-known SF authors today because so many of his works have been made into blockbuster movies, such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and the recent Amazon Prime series, The Man in the High Castle.
Throughout his many published novels and short stories, Dick hammered away at one theme incessantly — that the daily reality we all perceive as “normal” is not so normal at all. Rather, it is a cunning and complex illusion.
He believed time was fluid, it flowed forward and backward, and that our universe is a multiverse of infinite alternative dimensions or parallel worlds. Furthermore, this multiverse is a slippery realm in constant flux, shifting and executing reality changes.
For Philip K. Dick, this was more than a juicy plot gimmick to help craft compelling science fiction. He truly believed it was happening. In an excellent 1989 biography of Dick penned by Lawrence Sutin, I find this anecdote:
Dick described a time when he had just finished taking a shower. As he stepped out of the tub, he instinctively reached above him to pull a chain on one of those old-fashioned ceiling lights — which did not exist in his home. Yet, his powerful notion was that the light should have been there. Reaching up to turn on the light felt like habitual behavior to him.
Dick theorized that his habit was a residual effect left over from the fact that he had recently existed in an alternate universe or timeline. Maybe he had just shifted into a new universe as he stepped out of the shower?
MANY ‘ORDINARY’ PEOPLE REPORT REALITY SHIFTS EVERY DAY
Well, it’s one thing when a super-creative science fiction writer harbors these beliefs, but it’s another when thousands (or millions?) of everyday people have come to accept the same. That’s just the case that Cynthia Sue Larson makes in The Mandela Effect and Its Society.
Notice that latter part of the title — “It’s Society.” This suggests that significant segments of our population today have accepted that reality shifts and Mandela Effects are happening — and that people are adjusting their lives not merely to cope — but also to take advantage of this remarkable new revelation.
Larson believes the Mandela Effect is a good thing, not a bad thing. She views it as a new doorway for humanity that leads to new freedoms. Learning to recognize, embrace and even help trigger the Mandela Effect may be the most important development in human evolution to date.
Larson says the Mandela Effect empowers people to take greater control of their own personal universe and life situations. It may even allow us to consciously choose — to select — the best “future timelines” that hold the brightest and most beautiful worlds that we want to live in.
Furthermore, accepting the Mandela Effect as real may help you explain a lot of weirdness in your life that you might be confused about now.
WHY IT’S CALLED THE MANDELA EFFECT
The name was coined by paranormal researcher Fiona Broom sometime in the 1990s. That was when thousands (or maybe millions) reported that they were stunned to learn that South African leader Nelson Mandela was still alive. Uncounted numbers of people were convinced — and I mean utterly convinced — that Mandela had died in a South African apartheid prison in the 1980s.
The conviction that Mandela had died earlier prompted the suggestion that his passing happened in an alternate timeline that we have shifted away from. Now in our “real world,” Mandela lived on, ascended to the presidency of South Africa, and died in 2013. Somehow, the people who remember his death are accessing “residual memories” left over from an alternate reality they once occupied.
BUT ISN’T IT JUST “MISREMEMBERING”?
I’ll admit it’s difficult even for me not to accept the convenient “Occam’s Razor” explanation for what people perceive in Mandela Effect experiences. As the skeptics cry out:
“People are just misremembering things! Mainstream psychology has proven that human memory is extremely unreliable! Nothing to see here!”
Indeed, numerous studies have shown that people routinely report events they believe they remember when, in fact, what they think they remember never happened to them at all. A leading proponent of this theory is Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D. She was a member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a non-profit organization that has since disbanded after 27 years of activity.
Psychologists have also been successful with “implanting false memories” in test subjects through the power of suggestion. One of the most famous examples of this is the Lost in the Mall Technique.
However, Cynthia Sue Larson — who holds a degree in physics from UC Berkley, an MBA and also a Doctorate of Divinity — puts forward an impressive assault on the false memory explanation, and other prosaic theories that might discard the Mandela Effect.
One powerful example she cites is that of news reporter Eileen Colts, a prominent broadcast journalist who interviewed Nelson Mandela in 1985. She later vividly recalls covering his death in 1987. In 1995, however, Colts was absolutely amazed to see Nelson Mandela alive and well at a public event in London.
But wait! There’s more:
The 1980s TV show, Head of the Class, aired on ABC from 1986 to 1991, featured an episode called “The 21st Century News.” In it, one of the characters mentions an event at the Summer Olympics happening at the Nelson Mandela Memorial Stadium. This episode ran on May 4, 1988.
This makes for a remarkable correlation between the date Colts said she covered Mandela’s death in 1987 — and then a year later a Nelson Mandela Memorial Stadium was featured in a prime-time TV show.
Beyond this example, many thousands of people remain convinced they remember Mandela dying in prison in 1987 — and so the “social phenomenon” of the Mandela Effect is officially “in play” within our culture, so to speak.
POPULAR EXAMPLES OF THE MANDELA EFFECT
Larson provides dozens of examples of ME that just about any reader can relate to. Some people will have more resonance with some cases than others. However, I bet everyone who reads this book will come away with at least one “weird feeling” based on the incidents presented.
For me, the strongest comes from my all-time favorite James Bond movie, Moonraker, released in 1979. It starred Roger Moore (my favorite Bond) as 007. This is the episode that featured the 7-foot-2 actor Richard Kiel as “Jaws.” He was called that because he had fantastic shiny stainless-steel teeth that could bite through anything.
Well, there is a scene near the end of the movie when Jaws smiles at a pretty blonde woman named Dolly and she smiles back — revealing a large, clunky set of braces on her teeth. This makes for an instant connection between Jaws and Dolly. They walk off together hand-in-hand, obviously in love.
The only problem? A review of that scene today shows that the French actress Blanche Ravalec who played Dolly was not wearing braces. Her radiant smile reveals only a perfect set of white teeth!
When I read this, I simply could not believe it.
I looked up the Moonraker scene on YouTube, and when I saw that Dolly was not wearing braces — I still could not believe it! I vividly remember seeing this movie in 1979 when I was in college. I went to the theater with my university pals, Scott and Arlo.
I recall discussing the movie with Scott and Arlo afterward. I know for a dead-solid fact that we talked about that “clever scene” where Jaws falls in love with Dolly because he could relate to her “mouth full of hardware.”
And yet … it never happened.
I’m still in touch with Scott and Arlo all these years later, so I contacted them and asked if they remember when we saw Moonraker at the Fargo Theater in Fargo, North Dakota, some 45 years ago. They did remember, and they also remembered our discussion of the “braces scene.” Like me, Scott and Arlo were 100% astonished that Dolly did not have braces despite all three of us clearly remembering that she did.
Arlo added: “If Dolly didn’t have braces, that scene makes no sense! Why would they be attracted to each other if they both didn’t have metal in their mouths?”
SOME OTHER JARRING MANDELA EFFECT EXAMPLES:
Everyone knows this famous line from the I Love Lucy TV show:
“Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!” (Spoken by Ricky Ricardo).
The only problem: This line never appears in any episode of I Love Lucy.
***
Most people believe the Fruit of the Loom underwear brand logo is fruit spilling out of a cornucopia. But there is no cornucopia, just a pile of fruit.
***
There was never a brand of Peanut Butter called “Jiffy.” Its real name has always been just “Jif” from the beginning of the brand.
***
Most people believe that C-3PO from Star Wars was an “all-gold” colored robot. But the reality is that C-3PO has one silver leg from the knee down.
***
Be prepared to be shocked at this one:
The chubby business tycoon from the Monopoly board game has a top hat and a big mustache — but he does not wear a monocle. Never has.
***
As proof that your life has been one long delusional fantasy, I regret to inform you that the Kit-Kat candy bar was never hyphenated but has always been spelled as one word: KitKat.
***
A similar cold dose of reality you must accept is that Double Stuff Oreos is not actually Double Stuff Oreos but Double Stuf Oreos (spelled with one “F”).
IT STARTED AS “JUST FUN” BUT …
Yes, these examples are a lot of fun — maybe because they are not strong enough to threaten our belief in our “normal reality.” They can easily be written often as false memories. However, Cynthia Sue Larson considers them important markers indicating something much bigger and more fundamental is happening — that our reality is shifting frequently right under our noses.
But she also presents more audacious examples of what she believes are reality shifts in our normal reality. Two of them she offers are:
- The kidneys in the human body have shifted from being located in the lower back to further up toward the front of the body.
- The heart has shifted from being on the left side of the breast to the center of the chest.
To be honest, I think she is on shaky ground with the second suggestion. While it’s true that the heart is near the center of the torso, it is slightly shifted to the left of the breastbone. Her point is probably that the heart was further left than before.
Larson also provides numerous examples of spectacular Mandela shifts experienced in her own life. One is the sudden appearance of a large sundial on the UC Berkeley campus.
Larson was walking along with some friends when they confronted the 16-inch-diameter sundial on a 4-foot pedestal. Larson was flabbergasted. During her years as an undergraduate at Berkeley, she never noticed the sundial which was placed there in 1915 and donated by the class of 1877.
The examples of the kidneys, heart and sundial are almost tame compared to some of Larson’s other Mandela Effect experiences — such as when some of her friends and colleagues suggested to her that she did not exist for them in years past — but now she does exist in our universe.
HEAVY ON DISCUSSION OF QUANTUM PHYSICS
All of this will probably sound pretty flakey, especially for people who lean to the skeptical side. However, Larson dusts off her physics degree and offers several chapters and a lengthy discussion of the mechanics of quantum effects. She builds a credible model that shows exactly how and why reality shifts and the Mandela Effect could be possible.
But she goes even further by trotting out numerous psychological studies of people who frequently report reality-shifting experiences. This considerable body of data would seem to reveal specific personality traits among people that make them more likely to notice incidents where they shifted dimensionally or noticed vivid indications that something fundamental “changed” in their worlds.
So, while much of this book is just plain fun, it also delivers a heady dose of gravitas by dint of theoretical physics that will intellectually challenge the reader.
FROM “BELIEVER” TO “KNOWER”
Finally, I challenge the reader to become a “knower” rather than merely a “believer.” Many people who read Larson’s book may come away believing that the Mandela Effect is real based on the well-argued evidence she presents.
I place myself in the category of knower because I have had the first-hand experience of shifting into a parallel world where I met an “alternate version” of myself. This experience was as real for me as if I had made a trip to Yellowstone National Park in my car and then came back home to tell people about what I did and saw on my trip.
The first step is to be open to the possibility that reality shifts, quantum jumping and the Mandela Effect are real. The next step is to actively start looking for examples of these events in your own life. Evidence of this may already exist in your daily experience, but because you were unaware of the possibility, your “normal worldview” has simply been “filtering them out” from your attention.
A “graduate level” approach is to proactively attempt to “trigger” a reality shift experience that you can participate in directly. I was able to do this as an outcome of more than 40 decades of daily Zen meditation practice, countless hours of attuning my brain with binaural beats, practicing the induction of lucid dreams and setting conscious intentions to experience specific kinds of paranormal events — from seeing UFOs via CE5 practice to nurturing out-of-body experiences.
Please note that I am a person of no special abilities. For example, I’m not a natural psychic or clairvoyant nor do I possess any kind of specific esoteric skill, such as mediumship, that many other people are born with.
I’m just an ordinary guy born and raised in a Minnesota small town, although I have an unrelenting desire to explore the outer reaches of consciousness and experience it in novel and innovative ways. Most of the time it’s frustrating — but sometimes I travel the Autobahn of the Multiverse, and I have been marveled by fabulous adventures.
You can have the same marvelous experiences. All you need do is be open to possibilities and then try. Better yet, “The Multiverse” will help you along the way. It wants you to grow and evolve your consciousness because when you expand, so does the Multiverse.
JOIN ME ON BLUESKY: KEN-ON-BLUESKY
NOTE: For more stories about reality shifts and quantum effects, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM
My thanks to Ally Bank