Book review: The Quantum Doctor, by Amit Goswami

Another book review on slate, this time it is for Amit Goswami's, "The Quantum Doctor". I purchased this book not so much for what my interests have been in the past few years but mainly for topics which I have been interested in my whole life.  I have always been interested in holistic health and healing but unfortunately never really looked into it much. This book gives a good description of what holistic healing is... and then some!

In his book, Amit describes various naturopathic concepts such as  homeopathy, Chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine, ultimately describing how these naturopathic concepts are forms of quantum healing. He goes on to describe what quantum healing is and how it can be used by anyone to heal themselves. The general idea I got from the book was that although these naturopathic concepts can help people tremendously they are not meant to replace allopathic medicine as there not so useful, for the most part, in emergency situations. I read this book after reading his other book, Physics of the soul, which allowed me to traverse the jargon much easier than if I were freshly exposed to it.

After reading two Amit Goswami books I come away with the feeling that he tries to put too much emphasis on Hindu traditions, which is fine as he comes from a Hindu background. Nonetheless, the books together contained a plethora of life altering information and I would highly recommend the Quantum Doctor to anyone who is interested in naturopathic medicine and alternative healing.

Tangled Hierarchy explained

Tangled Hierarchy is a concept which can help explain the deeper levels of connection between the subject and the object. In the current book i'm reading, The Quantum Doctor by Amit Goswami, Amit offer a fairly straight forward explanation regarding how conscious quantum collapse explains how the subject-object barrier is formed.

Our brain itself is what carriers out Quantum collapse, that is actualizing an event from the realm of possibility. Thus our brain allows us to actualize the computer screen in front of those reading this. Those whom are familiar with this concept or are clever should now wonder, well what allows the actualization or quantum collapse of our brain? Thus the tangled hierarchy is formed. The explanation for this, elucidated by Amit in his book, is that consciousness itself is responsible for both the quantum collapse of our brains and the object our brains observe.

This is best explained by the picture below. Which hand is drawing the other? Is the right drawing the left or is the left drawing the right? Neither! Its a conscious being drawing them both! Its a simple  example, yet it illustrates the role of consciousness in tangled hierarchy.

Does newly published research contravene morphic resonance theory?

I was reading an article on science daily today titled, "From blue whales to earthworms, a common mechanism gives shape to living beings." Link

This research, to be published on Oct 13th, 2011 in the prestigious journal, Science, May be interpreted as opposition to sheldrakians view point that body parts and organs are where they are because our bodies conform to, "morphic fields" to which we align ourselves with. These morphic fields are supposedly  to have been passed down since from the beginnings of life and are, according to Rupert Sheldrakes viewpoint, not tangibly detected via current physical methods. The article I read today seems to indicate otherwise, this is directly from the article:

"The process is astonishingly simple. In the embryo's first moments, the Hox genes are dormant, packaged like a spool of wound yarn on the DNA. When the time is right, the strand begins to unwind. When the embryo begins to form the upper levels, the genes encoding the formation of cervical vertebrae come off the spool and become activated. Then it is the thoracic vertebrae's turn, and so on down to the tailbone. The DNA strand acts a bit like an old-fashioned computer punchcard, delivering specific instructions as it progressively goes through the machine.

"A new gene comes out of the spool every ninety minutes, which corresponds to the time needed for a new layer of the embryo to be built," explains Duboule. "It takes two days for the strand to completely unwind; this is the same time that's needed for all the layers of the embryo to be completed."

This system is the first "mechanical" clock ever discovered in genetics. And it explains why the system is so remarkably precise."

Now, don't get me wrong, although morphic resonance theory is met with much criticism I do tend to lean towards supporting it as Sheldrake gives one hell of a rock solid argument pro-morphic resonance in various literature he has published. However, after reading this article I cannot help but feel demystified by life because this research makes the process of life forming seem very mechanistic rather than mystical. Research of this nature makes me feel like eventually scientists will have discovered that we are essentially bio-robots, completely programmed with everything into our DNA. Then again, there is overwhelming bodies of research which point towards us being able to reprogram our bodies via our conscious actions/beliefs. Is the intermediary which allows us to reprogram our DNA, consciousness? Morphic resonance? You be the judge.

Book review: Physics of the soul, by Amit Goswami

Just finished this book recently. I originally purchased this book because I was interested in how quantum nonlocality is/could be correlated with what we call the "soul" or "spirit". Boy did I get that.... and then some!

At some points through out the book I felt as though I was in a little over my head. Amit's main aim in this book is to use the concept of quantum non-locality and relate it to the tibetan book of the dead (the most in-depth and well described account of the afterlife to date) for how to describe the soul. Using these tools Amit puts fourth strong arguments for us having not only a physical body but a vital, mental, supramental and bliss body, each with their own characteristics (Amit is simply elucidating info which has been presented in numerous other documents). At one point Amit gives blow by blow details for what he believes we will experience when we die!

I have read previous books regarding NDE's, OBE's, past life regressions, reincarnational evidence and things of the sort so I was already a firm believer in the presence of a non-material part of us which existed (not to mention the deep seeded intuition which exists in all of us that there is more than meets the eye). What was nice about this book is rather than just use human accounts, Amit used scientifically sounds concepts (quantum non-locality) to describe the non-material part of us. I am not sure if I believe in the possibility of the 4 other non-material parts of us (mainly archetypal based) but i come away from this book with a renewed feeling that life is all about developing not only the material body but every other non-material body that exists, whether it be 1 or 4. Namaste

The Holographic Universe

One book which has been instrumental in my journey in understanding the universe has been "The holographic universe" by Michael Talbot. This book was written decades ago and yet is still considered cutting edge as far as the material presented.  The principle of the hologram is simple, any part of the whole contains all the information of the whole. How Does does this apply to the universe and life? Watch the video!

Distinguishing the vital body from the physical body

I am currently reading "Physics of the soul" by Dr. Amit Goswami. In the chapter I am reading he mentioned something I felt worth sharing. In trying to give his readers a good grasp on what the vital body was and how it is separate, yet still connected to the physical body, he used the example of how newtonian laws can be used to understand the movement of the planets and other non-living objects but not the vital body.

For example if we wanted to know what Jupiter's location will be in reference to earth in 10 years we can use mathematics and newtonian science to figure it out. Now, what about where YOU will be in 10 years? Amit points out that, where you will be is, amongst other things, dependent on your thoughts and feelings. A thought or feeling cannot be measured by mathematics or newtonian science. A thought or feeling is essentially like a program for which the physical body follows. From here he equates that, because of this fact we can see the connection between how the physical body is governed by the vital body. He also discusses the possibility of us having a "mental" and "supramental" body. All together these various bodies can fall under the general category of "subtle body".

Many term's have been used to describe the subtle body. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake uses the term "morphogenic field" to describe the field to which the physical body organizes itself to. I for one agree with Amit and Rupert regarding the existence of these type of fields. The only reason the general scientific community isn't in full agreement regarding these fields is that there is no hard science to prove their existence, only logical deduction and theories. This is one thing I feel as though will change, hopefully within the next decade.

Final destination of the soul: heaven or hell? But how....

Although I always found myself questioning the nature of existence through out my life, I didn't seriously start to consider the issue until I was living by myself during grad school in the fall of 2008. It was then I actually started to try and confront an issue that had always bugged me (and i'm sure everyone at various points in their lives), what the heck happens when we die?

What was different about me attempting to answer this question from previous times was that I had come to the realization that, pretty much anything that has ever been told to me regarding this topic has been from the mouth of another human. The problem here is humans manipulate things for reasons which are obvious and reasons which are... not so obvious. Not to mention information lost in translation or simply disregarded. What I wanted to do was try and attack this question outside of everything I had been told and look at it specifically from pure life experience.

At this point in my life I was still very much operating my brain under OS christianity 2.0 so my thinking went immediately to, "ok so we go to heaven or hell, but how do we get there?" (so much for attacking this question from pure experience!) I kept trying to think about how life experiences on earth would dictate this type of separation process. I imagined that if we did "good" or "bad" that our souls would continually undergo a type of magnetism process which would charge them to a certain degree, thus when we die we would be naturally be attracted to our post life destination. Then I thought, "well ok, good and bad are vague terms, what decides good from bad?" Being raised a catholic of course god came into mind, but then how does he (because of course god is masculine) decide? I first thought about how there had been times in my life when I did bad or good things. Then I thought about other people, how there are reports and stories of other humans doing horrid things and amazing things. I thought about humans when placed in desperate situations will do desperate things. Then a situation came into my mind. I thought about the life of someone much less fortunate then me, someone who constantly had negative things happening to them, and there whole life maybe just for the way they looked or spoke or whatever it may be they were tortured by other humans beings.

What if due to them coming up at the short end of the gene pool and not being born with suitable living characteristics among other human or simply they were born into a not suitable living environment and all these things lead them to not believe in god, because of course if god was so good why would he subject someone to that type of torture. According to catholicism they would not go to heaven and be cast off to hell. For the logical thinking person immediately you should think, "well thats not right", although i'm sure there are those of you out there thinking, "damn right he shouldn't go to hell!" Regardless, once I came to the realization that not every life is born into the same genetic and living conditions therefore there can never be a universal good or bad, right or wrong I decided that at that time I was just not ready to tackle issues of how and what determines where the soul goes in the afterlife.

Reflecting back on my thoughts then it is interesting to see all the pitfalls I encountered when trying to breach this topic.The main thing I got hung up on then was the concept of good or bad. We've all been taught it but never understood it in its entirety and this is because, there is no entirety. As far as life is concerned there is no universal "good" or universal "bad". The main reason being concepts of good and bad vary from person to person,  tribe to tribe, city to city, country to country, etc. I know your probably thinking, well this is bologna, there has to be some inherent feeling of good or bad, because I can FEEL it when I do something either good or bad.

Ignoring the effects that one's subconscious mind has on our feelings and actions, I will agree that yes there does exist those type of feelings in all of us but its not specifically the feelings of good or bad but more correctly its the feelings of what supports and is conducive to the continuity of life's existence or what is negative and harmful to the continuity life's existence. Every thought or experience you have ever had IS some variation of the two. Wouldn't it make sense? You are in fact life therefore shouldn't the measuring stick be what either supports or harms ur existence? Shouldn't the measuring stick be what suports or harms other living things existence?

If one accepts this notion (if you don't please offer a rebuttal) then you can understand, if you yourself  are the measuring stick, if life itself is the measuring stick, the need for an outside judger is not needed. The mechanism for judging is already built into the system, for example if all life decided to not suport its existence guess what, it wouldn't exist! I wouldn't even be here to ponder these thoughts. If life decided to continually support its existence by living in harmony with all itself, well then we'll wind up where we are now.  Humans are the greatest expression of life supporting its own existence. (this is of course ignoring the hypotheses that life on other plants exist, which is another post in and of itself.)


The obvious question's here are, how would this life supporting or life harming information be stored? Why would life support or harm itself? What then happens to life which does or doesn't support itself? these questions will be discussed in another post but at this point I hope we can agree that the universal measuring stick for life existence is how much it supports or harms itself.