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Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything

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When I was in college, I picked up Ervin Laszlo's "Introduction to Systems Philosophy," and it was one of the most fascinating things I'd ever read. He was not addressing repeatable experiments to verify predictions of specific experimental phenomena. He was trying to come to realistic grips with something we all experience though we had no scientific models at the time to cover it. He was trying to describe how wholes relate to interacting parts.

Whether a result of his observations or just cultural evolution, it is now relatively commonplace to accept, under the banner of various different terms and theories, that complex systems have their own properties distinct from those of their individual parts. The simple rules followed by individual ants lead to something unexpectedly interesting when there are hundreds of thousands of them forming colonies.

I think it is in this spirit that Laszlo's recent work should be first considered. He isn't trying to come up with a way to predict particular experimental phenomena, as far as I can tell, he is trying to capture larger patterns of empirical evidence with greater generalities. His respect for science and mathematics and his undeniable brilliance distinguish this effort from most of what you might find in the "Speculation" or "Metaphysics" section of the local bookstore.

The general notion that Eastern and Western cosmologies contain different perhaps complementary visions is hardly revolutionary any longer, nor can it be credited (entirely) with any particular scientific progress, unless you are going to say that new metaphors are all there is to building new theories. That would ignore the equally great significance of the epistemic values and social processes unique to the scientific tradition, as well as the unique aspects of Eastern cosmology, which are not just or primarily some sort of "New Physics."

His brilliance and credentials don't seem to protect Laszlo in many reviewer's minds from guilt by association with the many books that have made silly attempts to describe Eastern cosmologies in Western terms and vice versa. This is a shame.

Nor do they protect him from legitimate criticism that this is not quite science. It is probably better called protoscience, or science-philosophy.

While Laszlo is careful with evidence and analysis once he has granted the existence of phenomena based on experience, he has somewhat different criteria in selecting the legitimate domain of phenomena than most physicists would share, and very different than most psychologists would share. Psychologists spend a lot of time trying to understand perceptual and cognitive illusions and distortions that can lead to experience being misinterpreted.

The skeptic would probably say that some of what Laszlo is using as the base for his theories is better explained in psychological terms rather than physical terms. However that would miss the underlying point that looking through a different lens makes different evidence look valuable, and leads to different modes of explanation.

Looking through a different lens does not eliminate the need for explaining all of the relevant phenomena, but it can sometimes make different phenomena seem relevant. Like many intellectuals before him, Laszlo is looking at both physical and human phenomena through an "interconnectivity" lens and seeing something different from mainstream science. And he is careful enough and clever enough that if the human phenomena he assumes are real ... are really real ... then his theory is something much more interesting than just idle speculation.

Yes, this might be "mind candy" in a sense, since it is as much speculation and philosophy as science, but it is intellectual mind candy that follows most of the rules that make for good theory, if his assumptions and evidential base are valid. And that makes it a fascinating read for many of us, even if it strays from mainstream science.

This is an interesting little bit of mind candy I saw in a metaphysical bookstore while on a trip. It made the wait in the airport and the flight home go very quickly, and it really is rather entertaining and thought provoking.

This is an ambitious undertaking, trying in one fell swoop to present, as the author says, "An Integral Theory of Everything". What Laszlo does here is present a number of anomalies from the fields of physics (cosmology and quantum physics), biology and "consciousness research", and then he tries to explain all these anomalies with the theory of an "Akashic Field" in which this and perhaps infinite other universes are embedded. This Akashic Field contains and is the source for not only all matter and energy, but for consciousness as well. Heady stuff, but it is not a rigorously "hard science" presentation, rather one that is approachable even by people with little exposure to scientific thought. And yet he then makes it even more approachable: he nicely divides the book into chapters of varying scientific difficulty, so that the true novice can still read the book and follow the essence of his argument merely by skipping the slightly more rigorous sections and chapters. It is a thoughtful touch that he pulls off quite nicely.

I've had more than a passing interest in this field for several decades now. I trained as a biologist and microbiologist who ultimately went into psychiatry after med school, with an initial interest and emphasis on Transpersonal Psychology and "consciousness research", even training for three years with Stan Grof, whose work is mentioned in the book. I'm also an amateur astronomer with some education in physics, and probably would have gone into physics if my math skills were better when I went back to school after a six year hiatus. I've also practiced Eastern religions for twenty years, and am familiar with the teachings about things "Akashic". So, many of the things discussed in the book are quite familiar to me.

This background has not only made the book a bit more interesting to me than it might be to others, but it has also put me in a position to be a bit more critical of some of its claims. Here are my criticisms of this otherwise highly entertaining book.

First, I'm afraid the reviewer here that has been flamed so badly as "not helpful" for criticizing some of the science behind Laszlo's claims is largely correct; it is often not very rigorous science at all.

Lazlo also seems to have fallen prey to the annoying push by those in this field to become "The Great Prophet of the New Paradigm". Ever since this "new paradigm" and "paradigm shift" stuff came out of Kuhn's writings in 1962, every narcissistic scientific rebel wants to be the special new savior who overthrows the existing order and leads us to some utopian scientific promised land. It is certainly possible that someone eventually will, but somehow I doubt it's going to be these folks who have written in this field for decades.

Reading this book I also found myself annoyed by another tendency I have noticed in those who are attracted to this field; the desire to avoid the acknowledgement of God, and the active avoidance of the use of that term even when appropriate. It is sad to watch the New Age mental gymnastics that the author goes through when finally, through his own search and reasoning, he finds himself up against the Ultimate Mystery, merely one more theoretical level removed from the mystery people have referred to as "God" for millennia. His explanation for what almost anyone else would call "God" is, of course, the "Akashic Field", sort of a cosmic "Gaia Hypothesis" on steroids. A belief in both science AND God is not only possible, but pretty common: and yet not for these folks. It's as if people in this field will simply do anything to avoid saying the word "God", and it seems to keep things on a far less profound level in the process. Hence my response that this is merely very nice "mind candy". When you are staring IT in the face, why not just humble yourself and speak of God?

I'm reminded of a great quote from Robert Jastrow's "God and the Astronomers":

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries".

Or, as Neem Karoli Baba said, "It is better to see God in everything than to try to figure it out".

Flame away!

Laszlo has done an amazing job of pulling together the pieces of what in the end is a pretty well thought out "theory of everything." His language is precise and lucid, and makes sense of a great body of scientific research, unexplained phenomena, and things that are for many intuitive insights. A key element, which Laszlo touches tangentially on in the course of the book, is the relationship of elements of his central thesis to ancient wisdom traditions, etc. I was struck by the fact that much of the conclusions that Laszlo comes to from a "scientific" approach have long been part and parcel of, for example, Buddhist thought and cosmology. Indeed, almost every conclusion that Laszlo comes to has a counterpart in Buddhist philosophy, from reincarnation to impermanence. For the practicing Buddhist, most of the book is quite readily accessible, and criticism directed at the book by those with a scientific bent suffers from the usual symptoms. Scientists want "proof" and "repeatability" before they can accept anything, they want years of study and peer review, and articles published in Nature, etc. The problem with this approach is that it dismisses other types of equally valid experiences, and ones which many scientists are typically manifestly unqualified to assess. Buddhist monks trained for years in the rigors of mind training, meditation, and the cultivation of mindfulness and insight, are capable of directly experiencing the type of reality that Laszlo describes...let these critical scientists duplicate this rigorous training process before rendering judgement on such matters. And scientists should also show a little humility, if one had polled the scientific community a two hundred years ago, the accepted wisdom on a host of matters at that time, would now appear quite laughable, but would have been as staunchly defended as some paradigms today...bravo to Laszlo for being such a visionary....

Ervin Laszlo is a highly honored and respected scholar. His new book examines the most advanced ideas in physics, cosmology, metaphysics, and consciousness research. This is a book that is highly readable and suitable for the layperson. Ancient wisdom and modern research in physics and consciousness are brought together as the author seeks to help us recognize the underlying coherence and integration of Creation. Non-local consciousness is found to be intrinsic to the nature of reality, allowing us to understand many phenomena that challenge the common illusion of linear, material existence. This is not a lengthy or overly technical book - it focuses more on examining concepts and piecing them together to form a deeper, more encompassing view of Life and Creation. I highly recommend this book as an introduction or summary of what the most aware thinkers of our world have to teach us.

Ervin Laszlo is a brilliant French former professor of philosophy, systems theory and futures studies, who holds the highest degree awarded by the Sorbonne (State Doctorate) and four Honorary PhDs. In this book he presents a wholistic view of the world from the vantage points of quantum physics and systems theory.

He does not hesitate to question the commonly held beliefs within quantum physics, pointing out facts that do not fit within currently popular theories explaining the universe.

In a clear and succinct summary, he points out the unlikelihood of chance coincidence alone providing an explanation for the development of the universe as we know it. There is an extremely minute possibility that the `fine-tuning' of the properties of subatomic particles, the forces that govern interactions of these particles, and the timing of the big bang, and the conditions on earth that permit life to exist could have occurred by random combinations of factors.

Coming from the opposite direction, Laszlo suggests that living organisms have similarities with quantum systems.

Laszlo argues that all matter is conscious, on the one hand, and on the other, that we are hard put to define exactly what consciousness is. He marshals cogent arguments to support his argument that the entire universe is conscious, interconnected through a universal field. He cites scientist after scientist who postulate theories that can explain a universal, collective consciousness which has been called in mystical tradition the akashic field, and which he calls the A-field.

This book is an excellent summary of the overlaps between science and mysticism, with materials that will interest those familiar with this field of discussion as well as newcomers to these explorations.

A very great scholarly book but i was a bit dissapointed with the conclusions he reached. he is coming from a scientific background and only very carefully concedes anything that might be labelled spiritualistic. That is fair enough ... keeps us from going off the rails completely but sometimes i wish great scholars wouldn't be so rigid. Sometimes academia gets in the way of other, far more intuitive and (ironically) RATIONAL conclusions. However, he does have the very great virtue of scientific rigour, so that you know if he admits for example telepathy into his discourse, that it must be solid.
He explains how information is transferred instantaneously
during phenomena like the quantum spook 'action at a distance' and telepathy (which he readily admits into his framework), and then poses the question 'how' is the information transferred , given that it must be faster than the speed of light. He also marvels at the level of 'coherence'
between organisms such as ourselves and our envoirnment, and again points to feedback loops and systems theory (covered very well by the way in
fritjof capras 'web of life').
Again the big question is 'how' - how does the information get 'fed back' so quickly on natures broadband, so to speak, in order to maintain such a high level of coherence. This points convincingly to another type of 'connectivity' - not translatory across a surface, but vertically towards a common center (in this case an omnipresent etheric, or common field sustaining and informing the observable world). The idea of the ether raises its head again and, inspite of mitchelson&morley it is very plausable. (incidentally, according to nature magazine, this was revisited in 1986 and traces of etheric wind WERE found, using more sensitive equipment. Where was the huge sensational reaction in the scientific community ? .... this is what i mean about scientific rigidity, or fear of ridicule).
This is how the book starts out, and it is very exciting, and then he goes on to posit the existence of the akashic field (read 'etheric field', vacumn or zero point field) which mystics and spiritual teachers have always maintained.
This field would explain neatly a range of phenomena - just like Lynn
mcTaggarts book 'the field' - in fact, basically, at this point he has just caught up with McTaggart.
I was then hoping he would maybe explore the possibilities of the other fields (or plenums / planes) , just as the esoteric literature tells us - ie. the astral plane, the mental plane, the causal plane etc. but he stops at the akashic. (in fairness, as a scientist he had to).
From there he says it is an information reservoir that 'informs' the physical world of phenomena, storing the information holographically in wave patterns - and that everyones conscious experience is stored there for everyone else to tap into ... (reminded me abit of Carlos Casteneda and the eagle devouring our awareness at the point of death).
The thing that dissapointed me is that he was dismissive of reincarnation and the idea of a soul existing as an entity within the field as 'unlikely' without giving any further explanation. He said that peoples experience of past lives were actually people just tapping into the field of all experience in a manner not unlike radio reception - ie. you pick up on the frequencies that resonate with your own. The consious experiences are recorded there , but there is no trace of the agent who put them there .... abit like the song being immortalised when burned (encoded) onto the cd , but the cd burner (the agent) itself dissapates)...The obvious extension of that analogy is who or what is the listener to the cd's ?
At the end of it all , and after many iterations of universal creation, all of the fields potential gets realised (in the form of these holographic, soliton like, patterns) and this is equivalent to all of the possibilities inherent within the mind of god becoming realised - or god has become self realised through us as his agents (yes ... very like the eagle devouring the awareness at the point of death). All the different possible permutations and combinations , that exist as potential , do eventually get materialised (or 'made observable') and their exact details get recorded in this field. Thus both the being and the becoming are in there (as they would have to be if they exist as potential within the mind of god) ... BUT, here he seems to take the path of the materialist when he seems to suggest that these wave patterns ARE the very mind of god. There is something missing in this picture ... it is like having a cd and no listener.

The esoteric literature would appear to suggest that we may well be thoughts in the mind of god, and that we are exactly as immortal as this gods mind is - no less. We don the clothes of many etheric planes (giving us for example a mental body and an astral body as well as the outward physical body), but we remain that immortal spark, that static point in eternity. The creative forces of the universe are inherent in us as much as in any God - at the level of our eternal core, it is we ourselves (as one) who spin the web of the outer worlds, including the sheath known as the akashic field.
Why can't there be other 'higher' agents, such as the soul and the monad within what the author has termed the akashic field ? Why does he just dismiss the idea of the soul incarnating as 'unlikely', and instead postulate something far more requiring of a leap of faith - ie. the cd's without a listener ? It could be a case of bringing a bit of scientific scepticism to bear , just for the sake of it , in order to compensate for the giant step taken in the direction of spirituality - so as not to TOTALLY alienate himself from his peers.
Its still a great work though - just a pity he restrained himself from going the whole hog.
Esoteric literature on the otherhand seems to maintain that we ARE immortal ... that we form collectively the mind of god, and that these forms are structured in a certain way (for example the numbers 3 and 7 seem to feature pretty heavily in the picture, as well as recursivity (galaxies of galaxies type of thing). The personality is the agent of the soul, and the soul is the agent of the monad. The soul spawns many personalities over many lifetimes(these do dissipate back into the field) and collects the conscious experience of each (this is the eagle). After a while the soul no longer needs the experience of physical matter ... its agent (the personality) is a perfected instrument and carries out the souls purpose in matter - just as the sculptors art eventually takes form through the heavy medium of marble, the souls vibration achieves a true and faithful expression in the world of matter. The personality is dispensed with and you just have a soul operating in the world. Eventually in a similar manner the soul itself is absorbed back into the monad ... and so on as long as there is freedom of thought within the mind of god, the process goes on and on - it is eternity itself. The mortality or immortality of the self would appear to be a question of identification ... if i identify myself with my personality, then i get a different answer than if i identify myself with my soul. In the second case i (soul) will survive death, in the first case (personality) no. Similarly at another level you would need to identify with the monad to get the happy answer. i think jesus identified with the very force of life itself (the father) ... and thus knew for certain that he was exactly as immortal as the creative forces themselves. One thing that can't be created is creativity itself - it has to preceed the creation, and thus the creative forces of the universe are immortal.

This is an interesting and useful book, not so much for what it claims to offer, a theory of everything, but for its collection of anomalies in physics, biology, and consciousness research that seem to point to the existence of an information field that links all of nature in a holographic manner. Unfortunately, the anomalies probably would not stand up as so discordant with current theories were the proponents given equal time to asses them. For example, John Holland (Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems) has given a credible answer to the question of whether there was enough time for the process of Darwinian evolution to reach the state we find in the fossil record. But this possibility is not mentioned in Laszlo's book, since presumably it would cast doubt on one line of evidence for the information field.

Indeed, the author's proof syllogism is of the form:

a) There is apparently non-local phenomenon X
b) Current theory does not give a convincing or understandable explanation of this phenomenon.
From a) and b) conclude that the A- (information) field provides the mechanism underlying the phenomenon X.

In this way, the A-field is given some remarkable properties such as persistence from one universe to its successor, explaining how our current universe manages to have its constants set to just the right values for us to be able to exist in it. Beyond claims of holographic resonances, no attempt is made to provide a testable theory, that open-minded physicists might attempt to validate.

In summary, Laszlo provides a useful compendium of current physics' unanswered questions (that mainstream physicists might prefer not to ask) and an interesting but un-testable theory of a field that records everything and drives evolution forward at all levels.

A wonderfully put argument that covers a lot of ground, but the one thing I found missing was the "spiritual" aspect upon which the practical and well researched arguments are based. By "spiritual", I mean that it does not go into the spirituality of our existance and the contents of the Akashic Field. It gets to the door, but fails to open it.

They say knowledge unfolds like the layers of an onion. Every now & then a robust stock take of how much has been unpeeled, and what possibilities the next few layers may represent to us, comes along. Without a doubt, Ervin Laszlo's `A' Field is a fine example of this, connecting the essence of a tremendous amount of experience and schools of thought from a wide range of authors, scholars and technicians into one compelling read. Some of Laszlo's glimpses into what the deeper layers may have in store for us are perceptively mildly controversial, as to be expected, and I believe welcomed. His ability to discuss in a coherent fashion such diverse topics as Darwinism, Chi, Kundalini, reincarnation, non-locality, transpersonal communication, the channelling of Seth, black holes and intelligent design across the disciplines of cosmology, biology, consciousness, and quantum science, is a pretty staggering and admirable effort.

I would rate the `A' Field five stars for the value of the inclusion of comments from other scientists and thinkers, the references plus further reading section, and the key ideas boxed and highlighted throughout each chapter alone. At times the implications of the `bits joining it all together' took a while for me to absorb because of their shear expansive nature. I would happily re-read this book along with Lynne McTaggarts "The Field" knowing I would get more from them both every time. They are surprisingly complementary and for science texts, quite exciting. In a way, Lynne McTaggart's material emphasis's the nature of experiments with consciousness, whereas Laszlo emphasises how these results may parallel and then converge to finally merge with spiritual knowledge and then morphose into a form of grand unified theory of everything. Astounding work; clear, concise, articulate, objectives stated up front. Great thinkpiece and at a cost of around 10 bucks, you can't lose!

Regards, Daniel John Hancock

It is no surprise that Laszlo's ground breaking work would invite some violent ripostes. It is never easy to change our thinking about anything.

I have read and enjoyed at least a dozen of his books over the last two decades, and this is without doubt the clearest and most accessible. What he proposes is nothing short of an integral theory that promises to re-unite consciousness and the phenomenal world, and he shows how the fundamental interconnectedness of the Universe is not just a rare event occurring occasionally at the level of the very small, but is instead a property of all matter and life.

Intellectually, emotional and spiritually satisfying. Highly recommended