Albert Einstein? Darryl Anka? Bashar? Apocryphal?
Dear Quote Investigator: Many odd quotations are credited to the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein, and recently I have seen another peculiar example featured on Facebook and multiple websites:
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.
I do not think this is physics, and I do not think these are Einstein’s words. The statement appears similar to tenets popularized in New Age books and magazines. Can you find out more about this quotation?
Quote Investigator: There is no substantive evidence that Albert Einstein said this. It does not appear in the comprehensive collection of quotations “The Ultimate Quotable Einstein” from Princeton University Press [UQEI].
The earliest evidence QI can find for this quote is in a digital archive captured in April 2000 of a webpage from a site called bashar.org. The data can be viewed by using the “Wayback Machine”, a service provided by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization which offers permanent storage and access to massive collections of digitized materials.
A set of computers at the Internet Archive regularly crawl the web and download accessible webpages. The data is stored for later examination by researchers, historians, and the curious. The “Wayback Machine” provides a front-end to a search engine that allows a user to view the contents of an individual webpage as it appeared on dates from the past. However, only a limited number of webpages and dates are available for study.
On April 8, 2000 a computer at the Internet Archive visited the website bashar.org and downloaded a webpage that included the quotation under investigation in the last paragraph. The title at the top of the page was “The Ides of March”. The words on the page were not attributed to Albert Einstein. Instead, the name Darryl Anka appeared at the bottom of the page along with a copyright symbol and a 1996 date. The webpage was likely created sometime between 1996 and April 2000.
The Wikipedia entry for Darryl Anka states that he worked as a special effects artist for several motion pictures. In addition, it states that Anka is known as a channeler [WKDA]:
Anka claims that he began to communicate, through trance-channeling, with an extra-terrestrial entity called Bashar in 1983. He describes Bashar as existing in a parallel reality, in a time frame that we perceive as the future.
The webpage at bashar.org from April 2000 explicated the philosophy of Bashar as channeled by Anka. The page stated: “Everything you could ever want, it has already been given to you”. Here is an additional excerpt to illuminate the viewpoint being espoused [DABS]:
Everything is here and now, but in various states of visibility and invisibility depending upon the frequency that you are operating on, and that means the belief system, the definitions that you buy into most strongly.
The background given above might help the reader to interpret the final paragraph on the webpage [DABS]:
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.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Albert Einstein did speak about the relationship between matter and energy. The following quote is from a 1948 film called “Atomic Physics” [AEAP]:
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.
A website called lightascension.com has a webpage that displays a list of quotations. A condensed version of the saying provided by the questioner is attributed to “Bashar” [LABH]:
“Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality.”—Bashar
In March 2012 a discussion about the provenance of the quotation occurred at the website physicsforums.com. A participant using the handle “Fredrik” found an instance of the quote on a website associated with Darryl Anka and Bashar [PFFR].
In conclusion, this saying is not from Albert Einstein. It is probably from a channeler named Darryl Anka who has assigned the words to an entity named Bashar.
(Many thanks to Jamel Paul and Phil Earnhardt whose email queries inspired this question and answer.)
[UQEI] 2010, The Ultimate Quotable Einstein, Edited by Alice Calaprice, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. (Verified on paper)
[WKDA] Wikipedia entry: Darryl Anka. (Accessed en.wikipedia.org on May 15, 2012) link
[DABS] Internet Archive: Way Back Machine, Web capture date: April 8, 2000, Archive download URL: www.bashar.org/about/IdesofMarch.html, Title: “The Ides of March”. (Accessed at web.archive.org on May 15, 2012) link
[AEAP] American Institute of Physics (AIP) website, Segment from soundtrack of the 1948 film “Atomic Physics”, J. Arthur Rank Organization, Ltd. (Accessed aip.org May 15, 2012) link
[LABH] Website: Light Ascension for Light Workers, Name on welcome page: Sandy Stevenson, Title page with quotation: “Wise Words Page 2”. (Accessed lightascension.com on May 15, 2012) link
[PFFR] Website: Physics Forums, Discussion thread title: “Einstein misquoted?”. Date on page: March 3, 2012. (Accessed physicsforums.com on May 15, 2012) link
Wonderful research. Thanks. Glad you cleared that up!
Thanks for this, I was able to correct a Facebook quote, although its probably already gone viral. Really appreciate your work.
Thank you. This appears to be excellent work.
Einstein 1, Bashar 0
I was so pleasantly surprised to find out how many people were wondering about this quote, just like I was. I am glad I found this link. Thank you so much for your work. I shared your findings with those on FB who were posting Einstein’s pic, and associating his image with the quote in question. In my view, misquoting Einstein is crossing the line of integrity. May this just be an isolated case though. Once again, thank you so much ^_^
Because of some background in Physics, I suspected the authenticity of the quote as it was a cocktail of meaningful and meaningless sentences. Still, I was inclined to give an alibi thinking that may be Einstein had said some thing similar which got distorted. Your site has very systematically clarified the whole thing. Thank you very much.
Awesome research… makes the quote even better in my opinion.
Thank you for the thorough research. When I saw this quote, I knew instantly it was not Einstein. However, I needed a reference to back my suspicions. It doesn’t even make sense from a physics perspective. It seemed “hokey” and “new age” like something from The Secret. Thanks for clarifying.