Product Description

Introduces the embracing world-concept long sought by scientists, mystics, and sages: an Integral Theory of Everything

• Explains how modern science has rediscovered the Akashic Field of perennial philosophy

• Reveals how the universe stores a record of all that is happening and has ever happened on Earth and throughout the cosmos

• Explores the origins, role, and future of life and consciousness in the universe

Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in the new field of vacuum physics now show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in the zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic-field--or “A-field”-- is not only the original source of all things that arise in time and space; it is also the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened in life, on Earth, and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.

Scientist and philosopher Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this vision of the “informed universe” in language that is accessible and clear. The informed universe lends credence to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “we are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36713 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-23
• Released on: 2004-09-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
". . . an eminently readable book written by a preeminent mind of our time. . . . It inspires us to reach beyond the known into the further reaches of our knowing and imagination. . . . Laszlo integrates a vast array of contemporary scientific and perrenial philosophic knowledge, distilling it into a simple and elegant synthesis."
(Yasuhiko Genku Kimura, More Than A Book Review )

". . . Laszlo's new book is a provocative overview and a masterful synthesis of knowledge at the frontiers of cosmology, physics, neurobiology, and consciousness studies. . . . provides strong support for the idea that finally we have a common unifying concept for science and spirituality."
(Christian De Quincey, Ph.D., Shift, Mar-May, 2005 )

". . . will be of aid to those students interested in utilising modern science to explain the subtle and unseen."
(The Beacon, Mar-Apr, 2005 )

". . . deeper research into nature's information field is essential. . . . What we discover will have profound personal and social impacts, and . . .  accessing this knowledge is intrinsic to the evolution of consciousness."
(Nexus, Mar-Apr, 2005 )

". . . highly empirical and impressive . . . manages to reveal the connectivity of a wide range of established principles . . . . expands the mind to the point that readers will exit this changed."
(New Age Retailer, Trade Show Issue 2005, Vol. 19, No. 4 )

“Ervin Laszlo presents readers with a tour de force, nothing less than a theory of everything. This book introduces such provocative concepts as the “A-field” and the “informed universe,” making the case that a complete understanding of reality is woefully lacking without them. Readers of this book will never view the universe in quite the same way again.”
(Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., professor of psychology, Saybrook Graduate School, and author and co-editor of Varieties of Anomalous Experience )

“Over the last 30 years, Ervin Laszlo has consistently been at the forefront of scientific inquiry, exploring the frontiers of knowledge with insight, wisdom and integrity. With Science and the Akashic Field he takes another quantum leap forward in our understanding of the universe and ourselves. This enthralling vision of mind, science, and universe is essential reading for the 21st century.”
(Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D., California Institute of Integral Studies, and author of Creators on Creating )

“It is rare indeed that a revolution in thought can open our eyes to a new universe that transforms our inner experience as well as our relationships with others and even with the cosmos. Martin Buber did it with I and Thou. Now, Ervin Laszlo, one of the most profound minds of our generation, has given us a great gift in this readable book that explores how we are connected to each other in fields of resonance that penetrate to the deepest levels of being.”
(Allan Combs, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of North Carolina at Asheville, and author of The Radiance of Being )

“In this impressive and transformative work Laszlo brings the reader into an integral worldview for our time. The reader who encounters this book will be irrevocably transformed and will henceforth experience the world through a global lens.”
(Ashok Gangadean, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, Haverford College, founder-director of the Global Dialogue Institute, and author of The Awakening of the Global Mind )

“In a visionary way based on profound knowledge of modern science, Laszlo creates a genuine architecture of human and cosmic evolution. He provides the bridge between all the different puzzle-stones of science and unifies them in a most remarkable and bold ‘integral theory of everything.’”
(Fritz-Albert Popp, Ph.D., director of the International Institute of Biophysics and editor of Recent Advances in Biophoton Research )

“This is one of the most important books to be published in the last decades. Ervin Laszlo’s Science and the Akashic Field has the power and coherence to explain the major phenomena of cosmos, life, and mind as they occur at the various levels of nature and society. In demonstrating that an information field is a fundamental factor in the universe, Ervin Laszlo catalyzes a radical paradigm-shift in the contemporary sciences.”
(Ignazio Masulli, Ph.D., professor of history, University of Bologna, Italy, and coauthor of The Evolution of Cognitive Maps )

“Laszlo’s book opens the way toward a great synthesis. Whoever reads Laszlo’s book witnesses the greatest awakening of the human spirit. Not since Plato and Democritus has there been such a transformation in the history of thought!”
(László Gazdag, Ph.D., physicist and professor of Social Sciences, Science University of Pécs, Hungary, and author of Beyond the Theory of Relativity )

“In his admirable 40-year quest for an integral theory of everything, Laszlo has. . . presented a coherent global hypothesis of connectivity between quantum, cosmos, life and consciousness." (Zev Naveh, Ph.D., professor emeritus, Israel Institute of Technology, and author of Landscape Ecology )

Science and the Akashic Field provides the pioneering scientific answer to. . .fundamental questions our species faces at this critical time in human evolution.”
(David Loye, Ph.D., former research director of the Program on Psychosocial Adaptation and the Future, UCLA School of Medicine, and author of An Arrow Through Chaos )

“Science and the Akashic Field . . . . offers humanity the perspective of more peace and security, not as an idealistic goal but as a reflection of reality.”
(Jurriaan Kamp, editor in chief of Ode Magazine and author of Because People Matter )

“. . . Ervin Laszlo’s brilliant new work, Science and the Akashic Field, surpasses previous explorations. . . . This is a “make-sense-of-the-complex” opus, accessible to every reader.”
(A. Harris Stone, Ed.D., founder of The Graduate Institute in Milford, Connecticut, and author of The Last Free Bird )

“. . . . This is a solidly grounded vision of our cosmos, with perspectives that are wide and deep and have profound implications for all of us.”
(Henrik B. Tschudi, chairman of the Flux Foundation, Oslo, Norway )

“If you ever wanted to hold the universe in your hand. . . .You can hardly do better than join cosmologist Ervin Laszlo in the ultimate quest: for a theory of everything.”
(Christian de Quincey, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, John F. Kennedy University, editor of Institute of Noetic Sciences’ IONS Review, and author of Radical Nature: Rediscovering the Soul of Matter )

“Ervin Laszlo is, arguably, the most profound thinker alive today.”
(Lady Montagu of Beaulieu, First Ambassador of the Club of Budapest )

Decoding GUTs, WIMPs, and The Big Crunch, Ervin Laszlo brings the ancient Indian concept of akasha into the new millennium and convincingly details how science is turning this metaphor into a viable scientific theory.”
(Spirit of Change, March-April 2005 )

". . . lends credance to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation."
(Share Guide, Sept-Oct 2005, Issue #81 )

". . . provides a non-technical introduction to explain how the interaction of vacuum torson waves could scientifically prove that everything and everyone in the universe is connected."
(
Alec Franklor, Edge Life, Sep 2007
)

From the Back Cover
NEW SCIENCE / PHYSICS

“This important work unifies the realms of science and consciousness in a truly integral ‘theory of everything.’”
Ralph Abraham, Ph.D., professor of mathematics, University of California, and coauthor of Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness

"A seminal book from one of the best thinkers of our time. Ervin Laszlo charts the frontiers to which science is inexorably headed. In years to come people will look back at the amazing foresight of this work.”
Peter Russell, Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Findhorn Foundation and author of From Science to God

“With extraordinary intellectual clarity, Laszlo provides a vision that links the best of modern science to the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions.”
Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., president and founder of the International Transpersonal Association and author of The Holotropic Mind

Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in science’s zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic-field--or “A-field”-- is the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened on Earth and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.

In Science and the Akashic Field philosopher and scientist Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this information field in language that is accessible and clear. From the world of science he confirms our deepest intuitions of the oneness of creation in the Integral Theory of Everything. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”

ERVIN LASZLO, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize). In 2004 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the Templeton Prize. A former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East, Laszlo is founder and president of the international think tank The Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of over 400 papers and 74 books translated into 20 languages, he lives in Tuscany.

About the Author
Ervin Laszlo, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize) and a nomination for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East and founder and president of the international think-tank The Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of 74 books, translated into 20 languages, he lives in Italy.

Customer Reviews

A very insightful and satisfying read
What Did I Get Out of the Read?
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This is one of the most thought-provoking books I have read for a long time. It brought together, in one theory a lot of the loose ends of "weird" science and paranormal experience and tied them with a normal science-based knot.

What Did I Think of the Book?
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This guy has so many academic degrees and awards I am barely worthy of reading his book, never mind reviewing it! False humility aside, although this book takes a scientific approach to the subject matter, is targeted to the layman.

It is remarkable as a serious, educated attempt at a scientific framework for explanation of much of the paranormal. Laszlo is neither a scientist, nor a paranormal investigator. He has an eclectic academic career - in this book he plays the philosopher of science. He explains his theory of the Akashic field (A-Field) that causes the coherence we see at all levels of nature - from the strange non-local effects of quantum physics, up through Bose Einstein condensates, molecules and consciousness to the problem of the uniformity of the cosmos. The heavy duty maths and conceptual detail are missing. It is left to an exercise to the readers to discover the rigorous physics that underpins the speculative theory ;-). It is intellectually a very satisfying book to read because it so effectively applies Ockham's razor - so much is explained by a theory that "introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities."

This and Dean Radin's book "Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality" seem to be at the forefront of laying down a scientific foundation for the explanation of the workings of hitherto paranormal events.

Excellent, straightforward discussion of complex subjects.
Reading this book was a joyful experience. Of course, if you want a more profound, detailed, technical if you will, discussion you can read one of the several books by the same author on this or related subject.Or, other authors on this same matter. I enjoyed very much the previous to the last part: The Phenomenon of Coherence where Dr. Laszlo discusses the Coherence in Consciousness with such a simple approach that it made the complex subject a very understandable one. He also refers his discussion to several well known resources on the subject. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to introduce him/herself into the realm of universal consciousness phenomenon.

Hope may exist.
In this book, Ervin Laszlo is taking us on a journey, previously attempted by many authors/thinkers, from the antiquity to the current era. Laszlo's trek is different, however, because it not only incorporates, in quite a readable format, some of the discoveries in frontier sciences such as cosmology but also uses concepts of Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory. Such an approach allows the author a high degree of conceptual integration which he aptly labels coherence. For those whose thoughts are not quite as ethereal but are still primarily matter-bound, the venture into transpersonal psychology, the mind, etc. may still feel too many conceptual light-years away. Sporadic studies of analogies in morphology, physiology, and behavior among separated but at birth identical twins, have been just as mysterious and intriguing as is the concept of nonlocal coherence and teleportation, so far proven to exist only in the quantum world. What unifies the quantum observations with those of the studied twins is that in both instances, there is an initial entanglement, a form of a special and close relationship in physical and biologic realms respectively.
The capability of biologic entities to generate magnetic waves is also touched upon by the authors as a possible medium of near instantaneous communication within the human body. The release of magnetic waves, albeit following an external magnetic jolt, is already explored in the current usage of magnetic resonance imaging, the MRI, in medicine. It is a technology which allows for unprecedented and near-real time images of the human body in health and disease.
This book literarily teleports us to another paradigm. At a time of human and climate instability, this book goes a long way toward making the existence of Universe-wide and all-encompassing connections worth deep exploration. The author utilized science-based observations, with a special focus on the paradigm of integration/coherence, to raise the plausibility of bi-directional relationships not just within esoteric quantum physics but among all of us and all that surrounds us on any scale. This book is very timely and highly recommended.
Ivo P. Janecka, MD, MBA, PhD
Janecka@post.harvard.edu