Product Description

Fred Alan Wolf, theoretical physicist, uses an ancient Hindu meditative technique, that draws on yoga and quantum physics to show that time is a flexible projection of mind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117409 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Customer Reviews

The Best Time Travel Book Ever!
You can't find a more fascinating and delightful book about the nature of time and reality than Fred Alan Wolf's YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL! Chapter One alone is more than worth the price of the book, as it describes how a yoga adept can overcome the five barriers to reaching the state of egoless mind... which is what Wolf explains one needs to do in order to travel through time without a time travel device. THE YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL shares a compelling vision of the nature of time travel by combining essential elements from yoga and physics with extraordinary clarity. Wolf provides readers with the perfect blend of warmth, wit, and scientific detail for readers to grasp such physical concepts as possibility waves, probability waves and qubits. THE YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL is so provocative that you'll want to read it more than once to comprehend the wonderful world of time travel!

I was delighted to see how Wolf explains how the so-called time travel paradoxes such as the "creativity paradox" and the "grandfather paradox" can be completely resolved when considered in the context of parallel universes. Wolf explains how time travel is no longer relegated to science fiction, but is instead required by current models of the physical world, which moves the burden of proof from defending the possibility of time travel to proving there is any kind of law forbidding it.

THE YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL is surely destined to become a classic, as it covers a topic that has never before been addressed with such insight and elegance. I give this book my highest recommendation!

Lack of clarity
I wouldn't immediately dismiss this book as New Age hogwash, because any discussion of the mind is going to involve metaphysics. Wolf himself admits that consciousness is subjective, but hopes that a subjective model of mind can provide us with a better understanding of "reality". Quantum physics may help in this understanding, but there isn't much in this book that builds on existing theory. Wolf's only addition is proposing that through meditation the mind can travel through time.

The single biggest gap that I found in his theory was the transition from observing quantum-level events to observing ordinary world events. He states that we can travel through time by releasing the ego's hold on everyday events - through meditation we can stop focusing so hard on what's in front of us, and expand our minds into the timeless existence. Meditative consciousness, he claims, disengages the mind from the normal process of collapsing quantum waveforms. While I have no doubt as to the psychological and spiritual benefits of meditation, I don't see how the observation of a particle and the collapse of its possibility-wave can have the same effects as, say, the observation of my desk. From what I understand, quantum physical events don't have any effect at the level of classical physics, unless some sort of detector is involved (as in Schrodinger's Cat). I may be misunderstanding this, but the point is that Wolf makes no attempt to explain this leap between quantum events and everyday reality. I realize that this book is written such that the layman can understand it, and therefore these details may have been deliberately omitted, but if that is the case, I wonder why he bothers with the science at all. Why not just write a book about how to meditate?

Which leads me to another point - in the final chapters, Wolf discusses the benefits of mind time travel, but he never says anything about his experiences with it. In dealing with subjective matters of mind, I can accept that objective scientific experiments are next to impossible, but I would have appreciated some sort of anecdotal evidence. But there is none. Relating personal experiences would lend a bit credibility to his theory.

He reviews some means of "conventional" time travel, which may be interesting to some people, but I felt was a waste of space and had very little to do with his central theory. But that's not a big deal.

Because of these flaws, the entire book was rather fluffy. If you are the kind of person who enjoys being told that the universe is a wonderful, magical place, you might like the book. But if you are looking for any sort of solid reasoning to reinforce this view, or for tools that will help you realize it for yourself, you'd be better off looking elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that science and spirituality are mutually exclusive. But if we are searching for truth, there needs to be a clarity of thought that is lacking in this book.

Time Travel.
The Yoga of Time Travel is written clear enough for anyone to understand, and will answer most of your questions pertaining to time travel. Once the author explains to you the science and it's limits, when it comes building a time travel machine, he will show you the metaphysical side of time travel.

There is no way a book on time travel will satisfy everyone's beliefs. Quantum Physics can only explain so much, and when one starts to write about the spiritual side of time travel, there are just too many beliefs to be able to use the right words to keep everyone happy. In other words, read the book and enjoy the book.

Naturally there will be books that go more deeply into Quantum Physics and books that go more deeply into Yoga but this is not what the author is trying to do. He is giving the reader a clear look at where science and metaphysics is at when it comes to time travel. So do like I did, and enjoy it.