Einstein misquoted?

mess1n

Hi, someone posted the following quote on facebook this morning, attributed to Albert Einstein:

"Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics."

From what I've read about Einstein I really doubt he said this. But I'm not sure how to find out. Any ideas? It really pisses me off when "The Secret" club start misusing science to give their self-absorbed fantasies some credibility.

Many Thanks,
Andrew

rollcast

There has been a discussion about this on another forum - found it on google.

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16381

I done a bit of searching on google and couldn't find anything he said that was even similar to that.

Ryan_m_b

I've tried googling this in several ways and all I can find is either:

1) Websites quoting it within their articles with no source, generally new age/crackpot websites
2) People asking in forums "I read on a website with no source that was a bit new age/crackpot that Einstein said this, did he?"

That would suggest to me that it is fake. Also, whilst not conclusive at all, it isn't listed in wikiquote which is odd given the vast amounts of quotes there and the high hit rate you get from google just from typing in the supposed quote.

Lastly: who cares about vague, semi-poetic statements made by Einstein? It's an argument from authority wrapped up in mystical woo. Einstein was good because of what he demonstrated to be true. Delphic statements like this should be taken as seriously if they came from Einstein as if they came from the local tramp.

Fredrik

I did some googling. I haven't found anything that conclusively proves what I'm about to say, but it looks like the person being misquoted here is a guy named Darryl Anka, who claims to be channeling a "multi-dimensional extra-terrestrial being" named Bashar. Anka has a web site that I don't want to link to, but I'm sure you will find it if you search for it.

I'm reluctant to link to any woo woo sites, but I think I have to post a couple of links, since they are the only evidence we have of where this quote came from. The quote started appearing on the web some time in 2001. (You can use date ranges when you search with Google). This document (titled ‘The Ides of March’, channeling from Bashar by Darryl Anka) is filled with so much nonsense that I can't make myself read it, but it came up in the search results, so I searched the document for "frequency", and found that it ends with the words

This is not philosophy! This is physics! Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is physics.

This web page contains the quote

Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality.

It's attributed to Bashar, not to Einstein.

Edit: That document is from March 2002, according to Google. The quote was attributed to Einstein in the earliest pages I found, from January 2001. The "Wise words" page is from December 2001.

Edit 2: Here's the text that contains what I assume is the original quote, at the Bashar web site.

ThomasT

Nice research. I have no idea if Einstein said it, but, if you think about it, it makes sense, imho. How do we see, hear, taste, touch and smell? It's all vibratory (ie., frequency dependent), isn't it?

Ryan_m_b

Let's not try to rationalise a statement that clearly makes no sense. Everything is no energy, you can't "match a vibration" and "make the reality you want", this is neither physics nor philosophy. The fact that some perceptions include frequency as part of their phenomenon is irrelevant.

Also: excellent work Fredrik!

ThomasT

I take it to mean that resonant frequencies determine reality. Reality only has one definitive meaning. Our perceptions. And the root of all of our perceptions are our sensory faculties. The reality we experience is a function of the frequencies we're capable of reproducing. If we could reproduce different frequencies, we would experience different realities.

But of course, we can't. Anyway, I don't see anything particularly strange about the statement in question ... given what's known about our sensory faculties.

Whether it's attributable to Einstein is another question.

As to the statement that everything is energy. Well, what's the basic definition of energy? Doesn't energy imply, require, entail ... motion?

Jimmy Snyder

This vibe just in, Bashar is Einstein.

Ryan_m_b

Reality is not our perceptions, we perceive reality. Whether we do that rightly or wrongly is neither here nor there. In addition our senses and perceptions (two different things) are not determined by frequencies. Whilst some do entail a frequency component e.g. hearing others do not e.g. smell.

Stop trying to rationalise a crackpot statement. This thread concerns the authorship of the statement, not whether or not we can play semantic games to make it profound.

ThomasT

I're read a lot of Einstein's stuff, and he didn't talk, phrase things, this way. But the bottom line is that nobody here knows for sure.

Perhaps you might give some background wrt what it was that perturbed you about this? And, just a heads up, if you use profanity at PF you'll get infractions, and if you get enough infractions you'll get barred from PF forever.

Fredrik

I guess not, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that he didn't say this. This is precisely the sort of thing we'd expect to hear from someone who claims to be channeling a multi-dimensional extra-terrestrial, not from someone who understands physics.

You asked Ryan, and I'm sure he'll tell you his reasons. In the meantime, I'll tell you mine. In my opinion, the idea that "the reality you want" has a frequency, is as nonsensical as anything gets. The idea that you can get the reality you want, by "matching" that frequency is even worse.

ThomasT

The thing is, if you just look at the statement, and assume that it came from somebody with no physics education, it shows, imo, a bit of insight.

Actually, my question was directed to the OP, since he said that:
And I wasn't sure what he was referring to by that.

I'm not going to express my opinion on this. I wrote two replies (which I subsequently deleted) to Ryan which I think cast some serious doubt on his (and now apparently your) opinion on it. But it's not worth an infraction. So, whatever you guys want to say about it is fine with me. I'm not going to discuss it any further.

jim hardy

That just doesn't sound like the humble, kindly man of "Ideas and Opinions", and I dont believe it is.


http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...s_and_Opinions

alt

As others have confirmed, some 'Bashar' fruitcake. I recall coming across his 'poetic material' some years ago.

Anyway, checked out AE's quotes on Wikiquote.org and found the following (part of the EMC2 quote, early in the page)

"It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing — a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. (Not to infer in any way that it lends any credibility to the fruitcake, above)

I like Einstein's quotes a lot - beyond merely the scientific (since I'm no scientist) and particularly those dealing with life, philosophy, broader knowledge, etc. Here is one of my favourites (also on the Wiki page);

I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.

PS - I believe he also had a real quirky, some would say weird, sense of humour.

SuperiorPrep

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- my favorite AE quote

biocykle

"As others have confirmed, some 'Bashar' fruitcake. I recall coming across his 'poetic material' some years ago.

...

"I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution..."

...

How poignant, then, that an utterly positive, poetic, life-enforcing, empowering, funny, smart etc. message (out of which the misattributed phrase was lifted) is single-handedly written off as "some fruitcake" by the very same person who admires Einstein's belief in imagination, intuition and inspiration over cold knowledge.

Or, ironic? Does it have to be 'scientific' imagination to count?

Fredrik

There's nothing smart about the quote that this thread is about. It's just a bunch of incoherent nonsense. The term "fruitcake" isn't very sensitive, but it's understandable. We get tired of seeing nonsense dressed up as physics.

It does when the imaginative statement contains the phrase "this is science".