There’s nothing particularly new about the notion that the building blocks of reality is consciousness. But what Michael Talbot shows us, in The Holographic Universe, is that this assertion has a scientific explanation.
Drawing on the work of physicist (and Einstein protegé) David Bohm and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram, Talbot makes the case that we, and everything we experience, can be explained in terms of wave-form interference patterns.
Among the mind-boggling implications of this thesis: not only is everything connected, but everything that exists is contained within a greater whole:
. . . the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kid of illusion . . . Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all objects and appearances of our physical world . . . the manifestation of all forms in the universe [is] the result of countless enfoldings and unfoldings between these two orders.
And how’s this for an explanation of the eternal?
Because the implicate order is the foundation that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it also contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be; every configuration of matter, energy, life, and consciousness that is possible, from quasars to the brain of Shakespeare . . .
Don’t think for a moment, however, that The Holographic Universe is as dry or abstract as these quotes suggest. Once Talbot finishes with the science (covered in the first, and shortest, of the book’s three parts) he gets to the really juicy stuff: showing how the holographic model explains a whole range of parapsychological phenomena, from ESP to ghosts.
It’s a wild ride, and Talbot is an excellent storyteller–the sort of writer who, by the time you finish the last page, leaves you feeling that you’ve been fundamentally changed.
The Holographic Universe is not a new book. It was published originally in 1991. But few books are more important to contemporary study of metaphysics. If you haven’t read it, you should, and if you have, you’ll agree that a re-read is like coming back to an old and much-loved friend.
2 comments
One of the most important books I’ve read on my parapsychological journey. It lays out the basis for all Earth-bound reality including non-physical happenings. It is a primer on the way energy, the building block of everything manifest and unmanifest, behaves and the laws behind its behavior.
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We would agree with you. While it’s useful to explore books on the practice of metaphysics, a solid grounding in theory is also useful, and this book helps with that.