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Summary: FUN to read. Excellent Science Review of BIG IDEAS
Review: This book was as good as nonfiction gets in terms of the "can't stop reading factor". The author has a uniquely exciting way of mixing the biographical information about scientists and their lives with the exciting work they have done, and wrap it up with the implications for you in the real world. The ideas are HUGE here and even for a reader of this type of material (energy, vibrations, advanced theoretical physics, healing, psi, psychic phenomenon...) the book makes points that really help refine one's ideas, turn on a few more light bulbs in the mind. A great read for the information and because it is like a super exciting novel--captivating. I recommend also the book "Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness" by Evan Finer because it will help you apply many of the theoretical ideas of this (and similar) books to your own wellbeing and personal effectiveness. Interestingly, the one book will help you to understand the other more deeply (the Effortless Wellbeing book will help you gain experiential knowledge of the ideas in The Field).
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Summary: Good read
Review: This is a very readable book. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. The book attempts to present spiritual concepts in the context of 'double-blind statistically significant' scientific experiments. I am not sure about this approach, the skeptics will never be convinced, and those of us already in the know don't neet to be bored with all this scientific mumbo-jumbo. However, I recommend the book as a comprehensive historical overview of the development of parapsychology.
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Summary: Well done, also read SB: 1 or God by Maddox
Review: This is an imaginative look at the makings of life. If you accept anything here or not, it is of no comparison of how the ideas put forth may stir your thinking. And that is just exactly what this book is, a thinking authors perceptions of this huge thing called life which involves the universe of creation or scientific evolution. The one overwhelming emphasis in the book is to continually mature and evolve or advance to some form of spirituality but in a scientific realm. I liked it, but the subject matter put forth is much better revealed in a book I liked more, SB: 1 or God by Karl Maddox
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Summary: A good intro to what is at the frontiers.
Review: This is an unusual book because firstly, it explains clearly the implications of some difficult scientific concepts, but does so from the perspective of one not versed in science, who learnt them to see what they had to offer to her own areas of interest. This means that she comes to the subject with an honesty and an innocence that is both refreshing and open. It means that we can be assured that the ideas explained will not be tarnished with the prejudices common to many science writers publishing books for the general public who look over their shoulders for the critical approval of authority, and their subsequent warrant.
But this makes the book both charming and disarming. Certainly science is predisposed to caution while harbouring unspoken prejudices of its own, but the leaps of imagination from the notion of a zero point field to an all-encompassing theory that explains faith-healing, brain functions, collective memory, as well as offering theories of warp drives for interstellar travel among other things is too loose and generalised to exclaim 'Eureka!' but maybe a quiet 'there may be something in it'.
The reason is simple. The notion of working from the quantum small towards the classical large overlooks the fact that there is already an aspect of the small present in the large which is this: the more we know scientifically, the less we know non-scientifically. To try to turn the concept of the zero point field into something graspable as a scientific concept in the large scale would require science to incorporate something of the existential as a working principle, which is excluded from science by its very nature and first principles. In short, the book is methodical and makes its case extremely well as far as it goes, but it lacks the underlying philosophical underpinning that could lend it greater weight.
Even so, it is worthwhile to collect in one volume all those disparate areas of concern to us at the frontiers of thought which collectively demonstrate that we may well have reached the edge of our understanding of the nature of reality with the classical line of approach symbolised by science, but it will require the involvement of thought from other areas apart from science to go further. Unfortunately, as this book ably demonstrates, funding and serious interest in such projects is scarce and limited. Even so, this book is a welcome addition to the growing chorus of dissatisfaction with the rather tired ideas that do nothing more than affirm their own faith in an outworn 300 year old philosophy that is now well past its 'use by' date.
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Summary: scientific proof finally made available
Review: This is one of the better books that brings science and the scientific method towards the area which has has been initially probed by the metaphysics community. The metaphysics community has been interested in the realm of the 'supernatural' or 'paranormal', for lack of a better word. Unfortunately, they did not have the right tools to explore what they were after from a scientific point of view. Nevertheless, this has not prevented the scientific community from 'stumbling' into this realm, and applying the scientific method of interrogation. That's what this book is all about. It presents a good chunk of the research done by the scientific community that crosses into this new territory, and convincing evidence that was derived from this research, showing the existence of The Field, through which all are connected. What is particularly well done in this book is to bring all the evidence found of The Field from the different disciplines (i.e. physics, biology), and merged them to show that in fact it is the same Field prevalent throughout. Also outlined very well in this book is to what lengths some scientists, who refused to believe the data, went to not only prevent these finding from being published, but also to make the researchers' lives miserable. One is only left wondering what these stubborn scientists are trying to protect.An excellent book that compliments this is The Holographic Universe, that also presents an impressive archive of scientifically documented data in regards to the 'paranormal'. For those of you that blankly stated all of this stuff is silly as there was no scientific proof, here it is, finally made available to the masses. It is now up to each and everyone of us to integrate this new knowledge, and to fully take advantage of it.
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Summary: An impressive description of paranormal effects
Review: This is probably the most complete and readable description of all the paranormal research that has taken place both in this country and abroad.
McTaggart describes research and documented evidence of the apparent telepathic and telekinetic powers of the brain as well as its ability to affect the health status both of the individual and of others. She relates experiments that presumably prove that even chickens and rabbits have such powers. She mentions some of the (mostly secret) experiments in remote viewing carried out by our government during the Cold War. McTaggart describes experiments in homeopathic medicine, where the curing substance is diluted to such an extent that it is there only as a memory, and yet still remains potent.
Such information, of course, has appeared in other books. McTaggart, however, goes on to point out that the classical idea that events are not influenced by the observer does not hold in quantum physics dealing with electrons and sub-particles. She proceeds to describe at great length the Random Effects Generator, essentially a computerized random number generator, and how it is affected by conscious and unconscious wishes of nearby, and even remote, observers. A large amount of information that she describes is based on results obtained through such machines.
So far, the description deals with presumably real experimental observations. Where the book takes a giant leap, however, is in its identification of what enables these effects: the Zero Point Energy Field. The basic principle in Heisenberg's and Bohr's quantum theory is that sub-atomic particles don't exist until they are observed. The entire Creation Theory of our modern physicists is based on the idea that sub-atomic particles can continuously jump into existence and then disappear, as long as both operations take place in less time that the Planck period (10exp-43 seconds) since we cannot observe anything within such a small time interval. These continuous particle appearances and disappearances are described by a field which McTaggart postulates that we have the ability to affect. This field presumably involves huge quantities of energy that could become accessible if only we only knew how. (Interestingly, she does not question the source of such a huge amount of energy in our universe.)
The final conclusion is that everything is interrelated, and everything consists of energy vibrations. Everything is one, so it is little wonder that we can affect our environment with our conscious or unconscious thoughts. Personally I agree with this final statement, but there is no proof that McTaggart's postulated Zero Point Energy Field is the real enabling mechanism. Instead, it could easily be the recently postulated vibrating energy strings, as claimed by Lewis Tarter in his God Theory, or some other mechanism not yet identified. In any case, however, the existence of such an effect can have tremendous theological implications. I definitely recommend this book.
(The writer is the author of Christianity without Fairy Tales: When Science and Religion Merge.)
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Summary: Ignore the old ....
Review: This is, in my opinion, a fantastic book. I suspected the existenced of such a "field" that provided a medium between individuals and "psychic" phenomena when I was a youngster in the 60's. Ignore what Arthur C. Clarke has to say about her work, because he is a neutralizer for anything that doesn't jibe with Newtoniam mechanics and is therefore automatically biased against the thesis of her book.
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Summary: rock your world!
Review: This revoloutionary thinking and scientific study confirms what you may always have felt, that you are much more than a biological infestation on this planet!There is much greater reason & power in your existance than you can imagine. Well scientifically backed up justification. it'll blow your mind without drugs!
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Summary: Timely, interesting and readable
Review: This was a very interesting book. It is, I guess if you had to label it, quantum phyics for the non-scientist. One of those books that scientists aren't all that fond of.
It is written well and easy to understand. This is the third time I have read it. It is very, very interesting. Among other mysteries she explains the principle of non-locality and how homeopathy works.
The non-locality chapter alone could be a stand alone book and I'm sure someone out there already has. This is a fascinating principle and one that prompted me to almost quit bodywork (along with a couple of statements I made online being misintrepreted). I think it is important for any healthworkers all the way up the line to doctors to be aware of this.
from pg 11 "Perhaps the most essential ingredient of this connected universe was the living consciousness that observed it. In classical physics, the experimenter was considered a living seperate entity, a silent observer behind glass, attempting to understand a universe that carried on, wheather he or she was observing it or not. In quantum phyics however, it was discovered, the state of all possibilities of any quantum particle collapsed into a set intity as soon as it was observed or a measurement taken."
Her lay description of this is funny and makes it very understandable. Massage is very much about measurements and observations and judgements. When I digested the information and realized I needed to change my practice and almost quit bodywork entirely. I learned another modality instead. One that can be a little less reliant on observations and judgements.
This is a very readable book. This is definately not a self-help book but after reading it you can't help but wonder about the effect of your thoughts on others, and the intelligent design of the universe.
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Summary: Scientists Explore the Last Frontier - the Zero Point Field
Review: With an ear for human interest and eye for detail, Lynne McTaggart masterfully tells the true story in THE FIELD of how pioneers in science and consciousness research are working to achieve a more complete understanding of the true nature of reality -- an understanding which includes (rather than ignores) consciousness. THE FIELD describes how scientists have gradually become aware of what appears to be a unifying energy structure in our universe. This "Zero Point Field" provides us with a simpler explanation for how things work than previous overly-complex ideas require. Simplicity in science is a good thing, because it generally indicates which theories will win out as time goes by. The Zero Point Field theory demonstrates it's elegant simplicity by allowing physicists to derive the famous equation F=ma (rather than take it as a starting assumption), and by helping medical practitioners understand the underlying scientific basis for homeopathy. Our scientific conceptualization of this universe has changed considerably over the last few centuries and now faces one of the biggest overhauls ever -- and THE FIELD demonstrates why the Zero Point Field is likely to be the last frontier for us to explore. THE FIELD is packed with detailed descriptions of some of the most exciting experiments recently conducted by leading researchers in the field of consciousness such as: Cleve Backster, Jacques Benveniste, William Braud, Bob Jahn, Edgar Mitchell, Fritz-Albert Popp, Hal Puthoff, Rupert Sheldrake, Russell Targ, Elisabeth Targ, and Charles Tart. I give this book my highest recommendation.
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