Quantum Generations: How the Future Can Heal the Past

In many spiritual and indigenous traditions, a profound truth is held: the healing we undertake in the present moment ripples through time, mending the wounds of our ancestors and clearing the path for future generations. This concept, often called 'seven generations healing,' suggests that our actions today can affect seven generations into the past and seven into the future. For a long time, this was understood as a beautiful, metaphorical belief. But what if there's a deeper, more scientific basis for it? What if this ancient wisdom is, in fact, an accurate description of how reality works at its most fundamental level?

The answer might lie not in ancient texts, but in the perplexing world of quantum physics. Specifically, in a series of mind-bending experiments that are forcing scientists to rethink everything they thought they knew about cause and effect.

The Quantum Experiment That Broke the Rules

Imagine a quiet lab in Vienna. In 2012, a group of physicists conducted an experiment that seemed to defy logic. They worked with entangled photons—pairs of light particles that are inextricably linked, no matter how far apart they are. What happens to one instantly affects the other. In this experiment, they sent one photon to be measured immediately. The other, however, was delayed by sending it through a long optical fibre. The results were startling. When the physicists compared the measurements, it appeared that the outcome of the first photon, which had already been measured, was somehow influenced by the second photon, which hadn't been measured yet.

This bizarre phenomenon has been replicated in various labs around the world and is now known as the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser. It’s a concept that challenges the very foundation of our linear experience of time. The act of measuring a particle in the present seems to reach back in time and retroactively determine what happened to it moments, or even hours, earlier.

When the Future Shapes the Past

In the world of classical physics, our reality is neatly organised. Cause always precedes effect. If you push a domino, it falls; the cause (the push) comes before the effect (the fall). This is how we experience the world every day. But at the quantum level, particles don't seem to play by these rules.

Consider the simple nature of a photon. It can behave like a wave or a particle. But it doesn't "decide" which it is until it's measured. The most astonishing part of the quantum eraser experiment is that our choice of how to measure the photon after its entangled partner has already been measured can retroactively influence the result of that earlier measurement. The first photon’s behaviour seems to “know” what will happen to its partner in the future.

One variation of the experiment illustrates this perfectly. A single photon is split into two entangled twins. One twin travels to a detector and is measured. The other twin is sent on a different path, where scientists can, at a later time, choose to either preserve or "erase" information about which path it took. The eerie finding: The initial measurement of the first twin mysteriously aligns with the later, future choice made regarding its partner. It's as if the particle could see into the future.

Quantum Causality and Interconnectedness

This is not a violation of relativity; no information is travelling faster than light. Instead, it points to a deeper, more profound truth: at its most fundamental level, reality isn't fixed until it's observed. And sometimes, an observation in the present appears to sculpt the past.

This is where the ancient wisdom of seven generations healing meets cutting-edge physics. If our present actions, our present state of being, can influence what has already occurred on a quantum level, then it’s not so far-fetched to believe that our healing journey today can ripple backward through our family lineage, resolving old traumas and untangling generational knots. It suggests a universe that is far more interconnected than we can possibly imagine, where our past, present, and future are not separate lines on a timeline but part of a single, unified whole.

Some physicists believe that this phenomenon hints at a universe where time is not a fixed, linear arrow but an emergent property—an illusion that only appears to be orderly when we observe it on a large, macroscopic scale. On a deeper, quantum level, the past and future might be in a continuous, fluid dance, influencing each other in ways we are only beginning to comprehend.

The more we explore quantum mechanics, the more our common sense understanding of reality begins to unravel. The traditional notions of a separate self, a linear timeline, and a predetermined history fall away. What remains is a world of immense potential, where the present moment holds the power to not only shape our future but to rewrite our past. This is the quantum-level explanation for seven generations healing: the inner work you do today isn’t just for you. It's for the spirits of your ancestors and for the hearts of your descendants, all connected in a timeless web of being.

Nigel John Farmer