The self-actualizing cosmos : the Akasha revolution in science and human consciousness

142 Pages·2014·1.35 MB·English

by  Laszlo

THE
SELF-ACTUALIZING
COSMOS
“In his new book, Ervin Laszlo, the world’s foremost systems theorist,
summarizes his evolutionary connectivity hypothesis and his concept of the
Akashic field. He offers a brilliant solution for the paradoxes and anomalous
phenomena that emerged in the course of the twentieth century in a broad
variety of fields—from astrophysics, quantum-relativistic physics, and
chemistry to biology, anthropology, thanatology, parapsychology, and
psychology. In this tour de force, Laszlo’s renaissance intellect spanning a
broad range of scientific disciplines offers the reader a breathtaking vision of
a self-actualizing cosmos. A book that should not be missing in the library of
any scientist seeking to understand the nature of reality.”
STANISLAV GROF, M.D., AUTHOR OF HOLOTROPIC BREATHWORK,
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE FUTURE, AND WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS
“The modern idea of a mindless, purposeless, directionless universe will take
its place as a morbid relic in the history of ideas. It is being replaced by the
vision expressed in The Self-Actualizing Cosmos. This important book
restores hope and meaning and shows that the cosmos is a friendlier home
than we have recently taken it to be.”
LARRY DOSSEY, M.D., AUTHOR OF ONE MIND: HOW OUR INDIVIDUAL MIND
IS PART OF A GREATER CONSCIOUSNESS AND WHY IT MATTERS
“Forty years ago Ervin Laszlo changed the way we saw the world with his
classic book The Systems View of the World. Today he changes the way we
understand the cosmos and our own place in it. This is a groundbreaking and
very readable work.”
ALLAN COMBS, PH.D., AUTHOR OF CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED BETTER,
SYNCHRONICITY, AND RADIANCE OF BEING AND DIRECTOR OF THE
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES (CIIS) CENTER FOR
CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank cutting-edge physicists Paul LaViolette and Peter
Jakubowski for contributing the pioneering hypotheses that lay the foundations
of the Akasha paradigm in physics.
I wish to express my thanks and appreciation to Edgar Mitchell, Stanley
Krippner, David Loye, Kingsley Dennis, David Lorimer, Deepak Chopra, and
Ken Wilber—long-standing friends and colleagues—for comments and
suggestions that helped me achieve a comprehensive formulation of the science
and philosophy of the Akasha paradigm.
I likewise acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Maria Sági, another long-
standing friend and colleague, whose discoveries regarding space and time-
independent nonlocal healing have motivated my development of the Akasha
paradigm and have also kept me in good health for nearly three decades.
My sincere thanks to David William Gibbons and Györgyi Szabo for
conversations that helped me spell out for the reader basic questions about the
meaning and relevance of the new paradigm.
I am grateful to Marco Antonio Galvan for his deep interest in this paradigm
and his remarkable acumen in finding and calling to my attention the cutting-
edge scientific findings that testify to its scientific foundations.
It gives me particular pleasure to acknowledge the expert contribution of my
sons Christopher and Alexander in bringing to my attention findings and ideas
relevant to the exposition and implications of this paradigm.
Last but by no means least, I thank my wife Carita Marjorie, without whose
unfailing patience and constant love and support I could not have had the
endurance, the inspiration, and the concentration to work on the concepts and
ideas I have attempted to express in this, my latest and perhaps most definitive
“Akashic field” book.
Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part One: Conceptual Foundations of the New Paradigm
Chapter 1: Revolution in Science
Chapter 2: Fields
Concept of Fields
Science’s “Classical” Fields
Quantum Fields
Chapter 3: The Connecting Holofield
Properties of the Nonlocality-Generating Field
Chapter 4: Fields, Physical Reality, and the Deep Dimension
Physics and the Problem of Physical Reality
The Concept of a Deep Dimension
Chapter 5: The Akasha
The Idea of the Akasha
The Holographic Spacetime
Part Two: Akasha Paradigm Cosmology
Chapter 6: Cosmos
New Horizons in Cosmology
First Principles
The Metaphor of Sea and Waves
The Origins of Coherence in the Universe
Evolution in the Universe
Parallels with Hindu Cosmology
Chapter 7: Consciousness
The Body-Mind Problem
A New View of the Place of Consciousness in the Cosmos
Part Three: Akasha Paradigm Philosophy
Chapter 8: Perception
Two Modes of Perceiving the World
Reading the Akashic Field
Chapter 9: Health
Information in the Organism
The Akashic Qi Attractor
Implications for Medicine
Chapter 10: Freedom
The Scope of Human Freedom
Enhancing the Human Potential for Freedom
Chapter 11: The Good
The Good
Awakening to “The Good”
Part Four: Questions, Answers, and Reflections
Chapter 12: On the Meaning of the New Paradigm: From an In-Depth
Dialogue with David William Gibbons
Chapter 13: Healing through the A-Dimension: An Exchange with Dr.
Maria Sági
Chapter 14: What Is the Akasha? A Commonsense Q & A with Györgyi
Szabo
Chapter 15: Comments on the Akasha Paradigm by Leading Scientists
and Thinkers
Edgar Mitchell
David Loye
Kingsley Dennis
David Lorimer
Stanley Krippner
Deepak Chopra
Ken Wilber
Appendices: The Akasha Paradigm in Science
Appendix I: Nonlocality and Interconnection:
A Review of the Evidence
Nonlocality and Interconnection
in the Quantum World
Nonlocality and Interconnection
in the Living World
The Nonlocally Interconnected Universe
Appendix II: The Akasha Paradigm in Physics: Two Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1: The Transmuting Ether by Paul A. LaViolette
Hypothesis 2: The Universal Quantum Field by Peter Jakubowski
References
Footnotes
About the Author
About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company
Books of Related Interest
Copyright & Permissions
Index
Prologue
There is a major revolution under way in science today, a transformation that is
both profound and fascinating. It changes our view of the world, and our concept
of life and consciousness in the world. It comes at a propitious time.
We know that the world we have created is unsustainable: we need new
thinking to avert a collapse and set us on course for a sustainable and thriving
society. The inspiration for the new thinking can come from science but not, or
not only, from science as a source of new technologies. Rather, we need to view
science as a source of orientation and guidance, as a wellspring of trustworthy
ideas for rediscovering our relations to each other and the universe. The
revolution under way in science offers a paradigm that can fill this need.
A paradigm in science is the sometimes tacit but always effective foundation
of the way scientists conceive of the world, including the objects and processes
they investigate. A new paradigm is an important innovation in science: it allows
scientists to piece together the emerging elements of scientific knowledge and
perceive the meaningful whole that underlies this complex mosaic of data,
theory, and application.
A new paradigm has meaning and interest well beyond science. It provides a
holistic, integral view of life and universe, lifting these vistas from the realm of
speculation into the domain of careful observation and rigorous reasoning.
Although based on sophisticated theories and wide-ranging observations, the
now emerging paradigm is basically simple and inherently meaningful.
The book in the hands of the reader is dedicated to conveying the principles of
the new paradigm in language that, to paraphrase Einstein, is as simple as
possible—but not simpler. It outlines the principles of the new paradigm and
applies them to enhance our understanding of cosmos and consciousness. It then
turns to such matters of human concern as how we perceive the world; how we
can use the information we receive from the world to maintain our health; what
kind and level of freedom we enjoy in the world, and, last but not least, how we
can strive for the highest value in life, which philosophers called “The Good.”
The author has been engaged in exploring and elaborating the paradigm
coming to light in science for more than four decades. He hopes that this study,
the latest and most mature fruit of his endeavors, will live up to the expectation
his friends and readers attach to it. And that it will prove to be an effective
scheme for investigating and elaborating the new paradigm emerging in science
in order that we may reach a better understanding of who we are, what the world
is, and what our mission is in this crucial epoch of our history.