Reconnecting to the Source by Ervin Laszlo
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Journal of Conscious Evolution Volume 16 Issue 1 Article 1 8-23-2020 Book Review: Reconnecting to the Source by Ervin Laszlo Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal Part of the Clinical Psychology Commons, Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Liberal Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons, Social Psychology Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons, and the Transpersonal Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Szatmari Krasnoff, Elizabeth W. (2020) "Book Review: Reconnecting to the Source by Ervin Laszlo," Journal of Conscious Evolution: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol16/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals and Newsletters at Digital Commons @ CIIS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Conscious Evolution by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ CIIS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Szatmari Krasnoff: Book Review: Reconnecting to the Source by Ervin Laszlo Journal of Conscious Evolution| Fall 2020 | Vol 16 (1) | Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff, PhD(c) – Book Review of Ervin Laszlo’s Reconnecting to the Source Reconnecting to the Source By Ervin Laszlo 1 A Review by Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff Inner Traditions, 2020 ISBN-10: 125024644X Abstract: Quantum philosopher Ervin Laszlo has taken one step further outside of the contemporary mainstream scientific view, which believes in a reductive “scientific” method primarily of highly controlled experiments to determine truth. In this visionary work, Laszlo proposes that the true laws of nature can also be accessed and felt experientially. Here he argues that the new quantum science can support this view, and even assist us as we heal the rift between mind and spirit and reconnect to our source. Laszlo proposes a new paradigm, a holotropic worldview with love as the core attracting force of wholeness. Indeed, as the chaos of our present age engulfs us in a reverberating dissolution and transformation, Laszlo is surfing the forward wave of evolution and offering front row commentary. Keywords: Consciousness, cosmic intelligence, compassion, science, spirituality, systems theory, non-ordinary consciousness, laws of nature, energy, the field, vibration, the implicate order Reconnecting to the Source is a four-part Following this thought-provoking offering, book written in much the same style as Laszlo outlines the substance of his Laszlo’s previous book, The Intelligence of holotropic theory in Part I, Quantum Science the Cosmos, and is a continuation of an and the Re-Assessment of the Spiritual inquiry into the nature of this source of Experience, and Part II, Connecting to the intelligence and our relationship to it. Laszlo Holotropic Quantum Universe. Then, to gives voice to many scholars, thinkers and round out the picture, Laszlo turns the stage healers in these last two works. After four over to an impressive cadre of colleagues in pages of praise from well-known authors and Part III, A Bouquet of Spiritual Experiences, speakers in the consciousness field such as a collection of 18 essays on spiritual Gregg Braden and Allan Combs, his book experiences of wholeness. The first begins with an introductory foreword and profundity here lies in love, the common root commentary by Deepak Chopra and Neale of the inner experience of so many. Laszlo Donald Walsch, offering a meaningful opus offers a fine summary here entitled Spiritual in itself. Experiences: The Message and the Meaning. 1 Author - [email protected] Published by Digital Commons @ CIIS, 2020 1 Journal of Conscious Evolution, Vol. 16 [2020], Iss. 1, Art. 1 Book Review: Reconnecting the Source by Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff 2 In the concluding Part IV, Essential Lessons nonlocal dimensions. In this manner, and Fundamental Tasks, Laszlo offers quantum theories are frequently found at the important suggestions on how to frame our base of the modern quest for wholeness and distressing global state of affairs, and an source. And it does provide a most interesting insightful commentary on how a holotropic glimpse into realities that have been paradigm offers an essential way forward. heretofore obscured to us—except perhaps This is followed by a richly informative through direct spiritual experience. Enter Annex on Eastern Perspectives, which draws Ervin Laszlo to draw these parallels. illuminative parallels between the Eastern and Western views of, and practices for, Let’s start with the quantum foundations of connecting to source. Lastly, Laszlo includes Laszlo’s holotropic worldview. Holotropism a deceptively mischievous Appendix on “The is a view of a world in which natural, implicit, Confirmatory Evidence of Duck (and coherent laws drive us to seek wholeness. Associated Geese) Synchronicities” by Gary Laszlo gives us the breakdown in Greek: Schwartz. This essay in list form is a light- holos is “whole” and tropic is “tendency or hearted look at the serious results of intention orientation toward” (p. 20). Such views have in the context of a humorous source been put forth by very good company, from intelligence. Teilhard de Chardin and his noosphere (1959) to Stanislav Grof and his own From Part I: Quantum Science and the Re- holotropic breathwork (from where Laszlo Assessment of the Spiritual Experience. borrowed the term) (2010), to Karl Pribram’s holonomic brain theory (1991), and of course These are some of the big questions we face David Bohm’s holomovement (2002). Laszlo today: Is consciousness a product of our begins with the quantum view that the world brain? Or is consciousness everywhere and is a hologram. This means that all parts our brain is a receiver of certain frequencies contain the whole. “That which is here is or channels of this consciousness? Is reality there,” as Neils Bohr showed us in the all that we can see and measure? Or are there concepts of complementarity and causality aspects or dimensions of reality beyond what (1948). Laszlo draws on the theories of we can think about? Beyond thought? And quantum physicist David Bohm, in which the perhaps beyond measurement? There is one explicate (visible) universe unfolds from an field that is actively engaging these questions, implicate universe (invisible) that is giving and that is the field of Quantum Science and the instructions (2002). Laszlo points out that its philosophical counterpart, Quantum this view of source was also held by Indian Thinking, or rather Quantum Philosophy. seers (and named the Akasha), and similar Einstein won the Nobel Prize for showing ideas are found in the writings and thought of that energy has a particle-like nature (Briggs, Hellenic thinkers such as Pythagoras, Plato, 1985, p. 88,). This created inroads towards a Parmenides, and Plotinus (p. 12). Laszlo also mind/body unity philosophy. Experiments explains that physicists have looked at our such as Alain Aspect’s splitting of correlated world and they have not found distinct, photons proved Bell’s theory of entanglement separate items of matter, but instead clusters (Briggs, p. 88)—i.e., these separated photons of “informed energy.” He writes: “In the most were fundamentally connected in a way and basic and general sense, the in-formed a place that we could not measure. This has energies that make up the observable world provided roads of inquiry into the nature of are in-phase patterns of vibration: relatively 2 https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol16/iss1/1 2 Szatmari Krasnoff: Book Review: Reconnecting to the Source by Ervin Laszlo Book Review: Reconnecting the Source by Elizabeth W. Szatmari Krasnoff 3 stable and enduring standing and propagating implicate order, that intelligently and waves” (p. 4). In this sense, we have healed lovingly directs complex and coherent the split between mental and material reality: systems into being through the language of neither came first, they are two expressions vibration (Laszlo, 2017). of the same thing. Laszlo reminds us of what both Einstein and Max Planck stated that The final key to this worldview is the what we think are material things are understanding of a connected field in which ultimately illusions. Equally important, the all transpires. As Einstein said, it is the field mental aspects of the universe are pictured in which controls the particle. The laws of a similar process. nature are present in this field, which is synonymous for the implicate order (Bohm), Another keystone of Laszlo’s theories is the the Akashic field, “the grand unified field of observable laws of coherence of these particle physics, the zero-point field of “matter like clusters of energy and electrodynamics, and the universal quantum information” (p. 5), and the “mind-like field of quantum field theories” (p. 14), the clusters” that mirror them. Coherence is Greek Kosmos, and enfolded pre-space. defined as a result of the connection and Laszlo explains that the theorems of communication between the parts of a system, contemporary physics apply to this implicate while a coherent system has successfully order, although he notes that the Copenhagen integrated its parts (p. 18). There is a helpful school of quantum physics would not summary