30 July 2010

quantum mysticism?

One of my more skeptical friends, knowing of my interest in 'neo-naturalist' claims that 'quantum holism' offers a uniquely scientific and authoritative answer to questions of jurisprudence, has pointed me to an endorsement by Ervin Laszlo, the World Futures editor, quantum mysticism guru and Akashic Field exponent ... modestly described as The Theory of Everything or unkindly dismissed as a repackaging of Theosophy.

Laszlo is claimed by CJ Martes, an Akashic Field Therapist [sic], as endorsing Akashic Field Therapy -
AFT Endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize Nominated Physicist ...

Akashic Field TherapyTM is an integral method of healing that allows an individual to reveal important information that is creating subconscious barriers or blocks to happiness & well-being. As we continue to discover the profound role of the Akashic Field in our everyday lives, we open humanity to embrace a new interpersonal frontier. This has far reaching implications for each of us as member's of the global community. I am pleased that Akashic Field TherapyTM is an avenue for personal/spiritual self-discovery based on my 2004 Theory of Everything, which offers all people the opportunity to make a harmonious, greater connection to the world around them.
Gurdjief, come on down. Let's ignore inconvenient details such as the fact that nomination for a Nobel is easy and isn't the same as being awarded the prize. (It's the Peace Prize, btw, not one for science ... with Laszlo joining nominees such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini.)

dialing up your Akashic Record


Martes explains that -
Mystics and sages have long maintained that an interconnecting cosmic field exists at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic Record. The most notable mystic and psychic who routinely assessed the Akashic records in the form of readings for individuals, was Edgar Cayce. Edgar Cayce lived from 1877 to 1945 and during his lifetime performed thousands of such readings for people all over the world.

Cayce was very well respected for all of his intuitive insights. He greatly influenced the lives of his clients. He also influenced the holistic health field with some of the natural remedies he brought from the Akashic Records. It is easy to study his work because he carefully documented each person's reading and follow-up for many years past a client's initial session with him. Because of this, he gained perhaps the most concrete evidence and information about the way the Akashic Records work for each of us.

Cayce believed that the Akashic Records contained a history of every soul since the dawn of creation. These records connect us to each other he often said. They contain the stimulus for every symbol, archetype or mythic story that has ever heavily touched the patterns of human behavior.

When asked where the records reside, Cayce would say they exist within "the skein of space and time" and told many people interested in his work that the "records are everywhere". He further believed that the records are inscribed on some kind of "etheric energy" similar in nature to the energy of thought. This could be correlated to the "aether" of scientific interest.

The records are impressed or encoded into energy they are continually rewritten based on our choices, thoughts and emotion. He believed that revealing the past for a person in his readings was useful to bring about conscious awareness of the soul's growth. He never stopped emphasizing that the records are written by each of us by our own free will and choices made in the present. He reinforced also that our choices in the present moment allow the future possibilities to unfold in our lives from our Akashic Records. ....

Cayce explained that the Akashic records not only store everything in the past of an individual but they also contain all the future possibilities and potentials for our lives. He believed that we basically call into potential an array of possible futures as we interact in our daily lives and learn subconsciously from the data that has already been accumulated.

The theory Cayce had that all the future potentials for us already exist in the Akashic Records simply waiting for our free will to call them into action, is strikingly similar to a view that would emerge many decades later in the newest area of science called Quantum Mechanics and then with Ervin Laszlos Theory of Everything.

It also further supports that our thoughts do indeed create our reality and that it is our perceptions that drive what is real for each of us.

Quantum scientists recently discovered a new area of time and space called the Quantum vacuum. There are newly discovered properties of time and space happening all the time but it seems clear now that this vacuum is a super dense cosmic frictionless medium that carries light and all the universal forces of nature. A well known scientist and philosopher named Ervin Laszlo, in his recently published book, Science and the Akashic Field shows that it may not only be a super dense sea of frictionless energy but also a sea of information conveying the historical experience of matter.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Martes offers to read your Akashic Record and treat your problems using Akashic Field Therapy.

How, you ask? The answer, it seems, is simple -
How are sessions done, especially if I'm not seen in person?
The wonderful thing about these sessions is you not have to be in person or on the phone to have one. Reading information from the Akashic Field is done using very minimal information: full name and birthdate. All information, results and interpretations are recorded onto your own audio cassette which is sent to you via US Priority Mail or Global Priority Mail if not in the Continental United States.
Ah, so past, present and future can be discerned by the adept using only your name and birth date. That claim had my friend rolling on the floor. I merely wondered whether the same therapy would allow me to confer with Cleopatra.

But wait, as they say, it gets better. Martes goes on -
Is this like getting an Akashic Record Reading or Psychic Reading?
Yes and No. It is similar to a reading in that spiritual intuition is used to provide an accurate interpretation of the information found, however it is not limited to just a few past lives or a reading of information. The way it differs is the depth of real information about limiting beliefs, traumas and other negative patterns that directly influence your life now and your potential future possibilities.

How are the patterns identified?
Through CJ's research into various methods of psychology, quantum healing and other holistic methodologies has developed a set of 17 charts that encompass the majority of patterns that could be present for a person. These charts are used to provide very real and beneficial insight into sub-conscious states that cause you to block positive potentials in your life. Dowsing is used to locate the specific patterns on the indicated charts for you.

Is it possible to do a session for a child?
Children also carry various blocking patterns into a life experience just as adults do. Even with a younger child who is not consciously aware of the session material have shown tremendous benefit from this work. A child session consists of 3 major life programs and is less cost than an adult session. The cost for a child's session is $125.00. A child is considered from birth to 16 years of age.

What information do I need to give CJ for this session?
CJ needs your full name, birth date and a photograph to conduct your session. Photographs are not necessary, that is the personal preference of CJ to see who she's working with.
eye of newt, entrails of cat

From my perspective that seems much like tea-leaf reading, palm-reading, consultation of chicken entrails or use of a crystal ball ... presumably of comfort to the therapist and patient but somewhat lacking in scientific credibility.

It would be hilarious if delightful claims about telepathy, 'remote healing', changing the weather through "community consciousness", premonitions, communication with the dead - or is it the undead - and other weirdness were not being recurrently made in publications such as World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, in my opinion eroding the claimed authority of Laszlo, of his fans and of that no doubt very prestigious journal. Madame Blavatsky, L Ron Hubbard, Rudolph Steiner and Edgar Cayce just do not work for me, irrespective of whether an author has used (or misused) words such as quantum, holism, mesodomain or singularity.

Some people will agree with Deepak Chopra - exponent of quantum mysticism, advocate of 'cosmic ordering' (ie wish hard enough and the good things will happen ... presumably people in Darfur and Auschwitz omitted to wish hard enough), author of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and claims such as "contrary to our traditional notions of aging, we can learn to direct the way our bodies metabolize time". Metabolize time? Direct the way time is metabolized? That's a weirdness that's consistent with Laszlo's enthusiasm for "communication with entities that are no longer living in the familiar form in this world but are alive nonetheless".

Chopra stated that -
Ervin Laszlo provides the most brilliant, comprehensive, and intellectually satisfying integral theory of everything that I have ever read. ... His work transcends the vision of Darwin, Newton, Einstein, the quantum pioneers, and many other scientific giants of history.
Well, at least he didn't say that Laszlo was bigger than Jesus Christ.

Chopra has moved on from the days when he was promoting levitation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the exponent of the simple life whose collection of bling featured over 100 Rolls Royce cars. In my opinion we would be well advised to be wary of such expansive claims or discoveries by World Futures contributor Stanislav Grof that the A-Field (rather than the LSD supplied to some of his cancer patients) accounts definitively for their recollection - while in "holotropic states" - of past lives as aristocrats, gorillas, insects or plants.

Combs, Arcari & Krippner's 2006 article in World Futures on 'All of The Myriad Worlds: Life in the Akashic Plenum' calls on the A-Field as an explanation for parapsychology. The authors are arguably correct in arguing that "interest in esoteric traditions such as Gnosticism, Sufism, Vedanta, Shaivism, Kabbala, Hermeticism, Theosophy, Neoplatonism, Wicca, neo-shamanism, and Tibetan Vajrayana" involves "a widespread search for answers beyond the rational confines of scientistic reductionism and the standard Judeo-Christian worldview", creating an "alternative reality tradition".

That creation is however not new and, with all respect to its adherents, is not "hard science". It is evident in the writings of fin de siecle spiritualists and other enthusiasts who, although often sincere, have been recurrently debunked by hard science, the same science that has addressed nonsense such as witches on broomsticks, saints who cross the sea on a millstone or levitate, neighbours who curdle milk or cause impotence with magic spells, and demonic possession. Just as importantly, for me 'alternative reality', however comforting to its adherents, does not replace rationality and "scientific reductionism" as bases for understanding the world. Readers might want to consider the cautions provided here before embracing hocus pocus - or mere hypothesis - as 'scientific proof'.

'Alternative realities' - such as reincarnation (as a potplant, cat, film star or otherwise) or using prayer to make it rain - in my opinion lack a certain credibility. They militate against action that might improve the lives of people in the ordinary world, not the alternative one inhabited by Cthulu, Xenu, Baron Samedi, the Little Green Men from Mars, the Prince of Darkness or other phantoms. Some of us will thus not be calling the Akashic Field Therapy hotline or using our credit cards (of the psychic or dollar variety) to pay the therapist.