Science and the Akashic Field
One of the books I took with me last week was Ervin Laszlo’s "Science and the Akashic Field". Like "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters", it’s an interesting part philosophy/part quantum physics book that mixes such eternal questions as "What is the meaning of the universe?" and "What does quantum entanglement mean?". When I saw the book, it immediately intrigued me as the "Akashic Field" is mentioned alot in the latest season of Eureka.
The book starts with some brief descriptions on what Quantum Physics predicts about the universe we know, and gets pretty quickly into the concept of Quantum Entanglement and nonlocality. What he then postulates is that, on a larger scale, everything in the universe is entangled. He then leads into various Gaia theories and paranormal activity (telekinesis, telepathy, after death experiences, etc) and theorizes that all of these are explainable by people becoming entangled with the environment or other people.
For example, he references many social experiments in telepathy and nonlocal communication. Many of these involve requiring a deep mental/physiological connection between the two subjects (lovers, relatives) but some are done with basic mandatory 20-minute prayer or meditation, and show surprising results.
The conclusion is that the reason animals are able to sense drastic weather changes (tsunami’s, hurricane’s, etc) is that they are "aware" of the environment in a extra-sensory way. This extra sense is provided via entanglement with the environment on a quantum level. They are "informed" by the environment of what’s going on on a subconcious level, and are more open to it that we are. In our more "civilized" way, we have mental blocks that prevent this information from rising to the conscious mind until we remove them through hypnosis, sleep, or careful study and practice. Everything in the universe, from animal/plant evolution to human conciousness and thought are continuously contributing to the information of the universe and continuously receiving information from it, even if not really aware of it. This universal information repository is referred to as the "Akashic Field", taken from the Indian world "Akasha" which describes the energy that makes the universe.
The ending conclusion is that neither evolution nor intelligent design are actually "correct", and infact both work together. We’re in a much later "iteration" of the universe we know, with each iteration being "informed" (via nonlocality & entanglement) by information created in the previous one. Animals evolve into more capable forms by exchanging information with their environment and creating mutations necessary or beneficial to existence. Human consciousness, the capacity for creative thought and everything else in our head, is possible only through interaction with this field. What initially created or seeded the knowledge within this field? The "Creator", be it God, Allah, or the flying spaghetti monster, or possibly even another Universe long gone.
It’s an interesting theory, and he provides a wealth of information to back up his claim (Both scattered inline throughout the book, and in the rather extensive bibliography and reference section in the back). I’m not sure how much of it I believe, but it certainly sounds fascinating and it’s something I plan to do more reading on. Even as much as I enjoyed the read, and it definately gave me some things to think about, I’ve got to give it a 3 out of 5. Why not higher? Well, it makes reference to some very suspect experiments performed long ago along the lines of Human Saliva responding to it’s host’s stimulus many miles away and using a lie detector on a plant, both as evidence of entanglement with the environment/host. Both of these have been proven as inaccurate (usually as accidentally picking up environmental stimuli) by several scientists, and the MythBusters.
[tag:akashicfield][tag:quantum][tag:book]
