As Hugh explained that emotional energy had karmic consequences, Alan took the opportunity to look over the audience. He remembered how discomfiting the idea had been upon first exposure. What would it be like to experience how he had treated others from their side of the equation? He could barely imagine at the time, and even now, months later, it was still an abstract more than anything else. He was thankful however, that he had rarely done anyone wrong, and he had certainly never been intentionally cruel. But could the same be said for others?

Some of the residents at The Facility had suffered nervous breakdowns after learning what awaited them on the other side. No small number of those were still heavily sedated and under constant supervision. Others had signed their NDAs and withdrawn from the world entirely, having gone to live in seclusion in the belief they could somehow limit or avoid any further... complications...contamination...consequences? Alan wasn't sure. Yet others had seemed to transform completely, seemingly becoming their best selves, conscientious and caring in ways they hadn't been before.

Looking out over the audience now, Alan noticed many people's faces had gone a pallid shade of gray as Hugh described the karmic principle of human emotional states they now knew to be an objective truth. Some few other guests, primarily from the Eastern belief systems, were nodding and smiling, believing an aspect of their faith to have been confirmed. Which it was, in a way. Many, he could see, were staring off into space, no doubt reflecting on their past.

Alan's attention refocused on the transpiring conversation as Lanza, whose Biocentrism theory he had been introduced to only recently, mentioned Alan by name, "... But Dr. Turing stated that consciousness isn't maintained during the transition out of our space-time, if I understood him correctly, so how are we to experience these 'emotional energies'?"

"Quite right," responded Jack, noting that Alan's attention had wandered and giving him a wink as he twirled his moustache, "How indeed?" Alan responded with an almost imperceptible shrug of chagrin.

Hugh continued without abating, "That was our question as well. This was further complicated by the fact that certain signature sets seem to be excluded from the ... reinsertion process. What we have been able to determine however, is that it is not an actual emotional transference to an individual and intact consciousness nesting in the omphalos, but rather the re-initiation of the emotional cascade via reinsertion into our space-time."

"I'm sorry gentlemen," interrupted Elisabeth, seeming somewhat shaken, "would you be so kind as to simplify your explanation. Am I to understand that after you die, you will feel what I feel because of you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Alan confirmed respectfully, "quite right."

"But not outside of our space-time? How can that be?"

Jack interjected again, bringing things to a point, "As Hugh said, the individual's signature is processed and reinserted in our space-time, re-initiating the emotional cascade so that we can experience it. What this means is that our unique signatures, much like a computer program, are rebooted or re-initiated on this side. The consequence is quite intuitive actually. How could we possibly feel what we make others feel on this side of the veil, unless we are them?"

"When we die," Hugh explicated, "and I know I wished us to avoid theological terminology. But in this instance it is a very close approximation, so you must forgive me. When we die, we are for all intents and purposes, processed in the omphalos and then reinserted or reincarnated as ... well... each other.

"This metempsychosis, or reinsertion as I prefer to think of it, is non-linear in space-time. Meaning it is possible for us to be born into someone else's life as them. We then live that life from beginning to end, thinking we are that other person, because, well, we are. During that lifetime I will then invariably experience that which I, in this lifetime, gave rise to.

"So in this life I am me. Next life, I will be Alan here, or Jack, or even the Queen - all because these people have made me feel or experience something. I, you, we - we are all both cause and effect in a karmic wheel with no exceptions."

Jack cleared his throat before leaning forward to speak into his microphone again, "If I may?"

"Go ahead, Jack," said Alan.

"What Hugh is saying is accurate, but even then is really the first step to comprehension. When he said he would be Alan or me or the Queen, what he should have said, he would be all of us at the same time. As Christopher's modeling, the ultraintelligent machine's analysis, has determined, we are all each other, living out our different lives simultaneously. It appears as if we have been doing this for all of human history. Or at least what we understand as history.

"We are not, in this room, a hundred different souls living out each other's lives, we are one soul divided a hundred ways and reincarnated a hundred times in an overlapping period of time to feel and experience what those around us have made us feel."

"And more," opined Alan, "indeed, it is much more. Because we are reinserted as every person with whom we have ever interacted, so that we can feel and experience what we made them feel, we are, as Hugh noted, by necessity reinserted non-linearly throughout time - and at the same time - as every other person on the planet. I take this to mean that all time is transpiring now, it is only our individual consciousness that perceives time as we conventionally understand it to exist."

Hugh smiled sympathetically at the audience, "It is certainly a lot to absorb in a short period of time, especially having heard it only once. In essence, we are, each of us individually, for lack of a better term, a sort of omni-soul living in all times, in the body of each and every one of us, at the same time, separated only by our individual consciousness which may, perhaps, be an illusion."

Alan stood at the table-top podium, glancing through his papers as Jack and Hugh sat silently for a few moments, letting the information sink in. There were a few whispers in the crowd, as people enumerated the consequences or possibilities amongst themselves. For the most part however, they seemed content to ponder the consequences in silence.

Finally, a woman near the back of the audience raised her hand, "It was said that signature sets were excluded from... uh... reinsertion. What does that mean? And how... umm... imminent must the emotional... I don't know... the emotional catalyst be for me to be ... reinserted in someone else? Does that make sense?"

"Ah, very good," said Alan, pleased with the timing of the query "now we come to why you, all of you, were invited here today..."

...

To be continued in [Eternity is Closed Circuit - Chapter 8: The Epigenetic Epiphany]