Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything

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Summary: Integrates advanced ideas in consciousness & cosmology
Review: Ervin Laszlo is a highly honored and respected scholar. His new book examines the most advanced ideas in physics, cosmology, metaphysics, and consciousness research. This is a book that is highly readable and suitable for the layperson. Ancient wisdom and modern research in physics and consciousness are brought together as the author seeks to help us recognize the underlying coherence and integration of Creation. Non-local consciousness is found to be intrinsic to the nature of reality, allowing us to understand many phenomena that challenge the common illusion of linear, material existence. This is not a lengthy or overly technical book - it focuses more on examining concepts and piecing them together to form a deeper, more encompassing view of Life and Creation. I highly recommend this book as an introduction or summary of what the most aware thinkers of our world have to teach us.

Rating:
Summary: Poor Science
Review: I had this book overnighted to me as I thought it would be the missing piece of the puzzle for my own work in progress. Unfortunately it was not.

The book starts off promising as Mr. Laszlo praises the scientific method and promises to stick to it during the course of the book. Everything was fine until he mentioned homeopathy as a useful way of curing illness. Anyone with a computer can dig up enough dirt on homeopathy to fill a swimming pool. The fact is there are no scientifically verified experiments that it works, and countless experiments which show that it does not. If you don't believe me just check out what James Randi has to say on the matter. I'm not saying that homeopathy is with out a doubt useless, I'm just saying it should not be accepted as fact without proper evidence, and so far there is none.

Laszlo makes the same mistake when he mentions the experiments conducted by Targ and Puthoff which claim to show evidence of ESP. Again James Randi among others has completely refuted their claims. You see for something to be accepted as scientific it has to be repeatable, yet there are hundreds of experiments which show ESP as well as dowsing simply don't work. Proponents of these fantasies can rationalize away any defeat (i.e. the weather, too hot, too cold, too many people, too little people, etc). Of course Laszlo fails to mention any of the experiments which give negative results. That would be too....scientific of him.

And honestly, if ESP were real it would have been established by now. And no there is no vast conspiracy to subdue ESP findings. I want it to be real just as much as the next guy as that would be incredibly neat. But wishing for something doesn't make it so.

To his credit Laszlo presents an interesting (though somewhat flawed) view of the vacuum potential. Read this one if you must but do so with a grain of salt.