The Holographic Universe (Paperback)

"We are addicted to our beliefs and we do act like addicts when someone tries to wrest from us the powerful opium of our dogmas. And since western science has devoted several centuries to not believing in the paranormal, it is not going to surrender its addiction lightly"

Michael Talbot writes with such flair and passion, this book has one of the best introductions you are ever likely to read and you actually get excited at the prospect of turning the pages before the adventure as it were has even begun. The 'adventure' unfolds in two parts, 1 part 55 pages long devoted to the holographic model 1st put together by David Bohm and , It does include science and to those of us uninitiated with scientific realms, do not fret the basic gist of what the Holographic Universe is about can be grasped because Michael has done his best to simplify the terminology and I personally do not think he could have done any better explaining the concepts.

Part 2 is a much better read and is devoted to a collection of paranormal events, which is where the Author's heart really lies. The old phrase of, 'Minds are like parachutes they only operate when open' springs to mind but a cord has to be pulled on the parachute first, and this is the vein in which this book was written, to act as the cord to open our minds, if you let it, you can be witness to other possibilities, other suggestions and other realms.

Some things are still in the 'strange but true' category of events, what Michael Talbot using the Holograph Universe 'theory' does is try to put these events into a form that can be rationalized and so no longer appear strange.

There is very little humour in this book but this does not matter because of the fascinating content. At times this content could challenge your belief system which in turn makes you think what is written is a farce and untrue, if you let it, however if you accept that these things quite possibly have happened then you will have a wonderful adventure and I wish you all the best for your journey back home 302 pages later.

Far from it, Talbot manages - in his tightly written, euphoric style - to introduce the reader to the ideas of (Principally) David Bohm and Karl Pribram, and then goes on to offer some of his own consequent philosophies on reality, life, the afterlife and consciousness.

The book starts off by explaining an interesting feature of Holograms (The type which require a laser shined through the holographic plate - NOT THE KIND VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE WITHOUT LASERS SHINING THROUGH THEM). That feature is that even if the plate is smashed into a thousand pieces, each piece STILL CONTAINS THE WHOLE IMAGE.

Talbot explains that, for some philosopher-physicists like Bohm and Pribram, this seemed to offer a possibly plausible model for features of brain function and, on the wider scale, the universe itself - namely its potential non-materiality and cosmic unity (The belief in the interrelatedness of all things - in it's purest form the idea that each atom contains the universe, that everywhere is nowhere, etc. etc.)

Talbot is not afraid to include the holographic model's potential for explaining metaphysical/ paranormal activity such as telepathic, dream-related and "mind over matter" phenomena which he chooses to present as hard fact (Largely due to his own experiences) rather than possibly mythical historical events. Though to be fair he does examine potential for untruths in each paranormal example.

Cleverly though, he winds you up for the metaphysics all too aware that many a reader (Including myself) would too quickly question the credibility of the manuscript if it jumped into these offerings immediately.

To me, of the book's ten or so chapters, 6 are very strong, two mesmerising, and two average.

Talbot's most interesting philosophical offering to my mind is the idea (Albeit briefly mentioned) that the creative entity that some people might call God (Though I (And probably the Author?) think this is purely a human abstraction and therefore insufficient) may be purely some kind of ball of knowledge/ light that EXPRESSES ITSELF THROUGH INDIVIDUAL LIVES.

I found this an astonishingly original and creative thought, and the 15 hours it takes to read the book are surely worth it just for this.

The equal best thing to me was the introduction of the idea that we shouldn't necessarily perceive past, present and future as "separate" to each other. Rather, there could be some kind of enfolded, constantly unfolding "holomovement" encrypted in light on the boundaries of the universe. Talbot explains that if true, this has potentially staggerring implications - we may merely be acting out unchangeable events.

But like every thought of Talbot's, he's talented at presenting the case for either side of the argument.

He even talks about how UFO's and events such as psychokinesis may be our first quantum discoveries. That is, that we may soon come to tap the powers inferred by a world in which we are not merely observers, but participators in the creation of our universe at its deepest level - the subatomic level.

Prior to the book, I would never have seriously read a paragraph on paranormal activity.

In a brilliantly simple analogy, Talbot says: suppose you have a dream in which you offer your friend a coffee. While you offer your friend the coffee imagine you're thinking "I hope my friend enjoys it". In the dream, the offering the drink is an external reality, while the thought "I hope he enjoys it" is internal reality. Now you WAKE UP. You guessed it. Now you see that BOTH were internal realities, but being in the dream state tricked you into thinking the offering was an external reality. Again, you guessed it - what if you can apply the same notion to the questioning of whether OUR "REALITY" is really the TRUTH. And if it's not, maybe metaphysical events are the "kink" in an otherwise perfect illusion.

Finally there is some good reading on near death experiences. I have myself experienced the "tunnel of light". But i was not dying. It appeared on my eyelids from nowhere, and has convinced me of the afterlife. Just like talbot, i saved the "wacky" until the end.

Seriously though, buy the book now. It'll change your perception. And let's face it - it's a rare book that can.

In quantum physics, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, where a pair of photons traveling in opposite direction display the same angle of polarization when measured at any moment of time, seems to give the impression of communication between them at speeds greater than 'c'. This in effect violates the universal ban imposed by Einstein on the max speed any object/particle can undertake. The other way around this paradox is to view the process in a holographic way. Even Neil Bohr in his famous argument with Einstein on the EPR paradox proposed that the two particles were not separate but part of the indivisible system which in turn strengthens Bohm's Holographic Universe viewpoint of the deep interconnectedness of each particle in this universe with every other.

The apparent solidity, colors, spatial locality and causality associated with our universe is but a perception of our brain which presents a blinkered and veiled view of our world and thus the illusion. The nature of the implicate order - from which our universe has come into being - is non-local and non-causal. The book then takes into account the experiences of the NDE'ers (near-death-experiences) and OBE'ers (out-of-body-experiences) and myriad mystics and shamans, who have described this implicate order/heaven as a place of immense peace and joy, where time and space as we know it ceases to exist, a place populated by being/beings of light/God and constructed by pure thought.

Readers who are interested in gaining insights and philosophies into the nature of our universe and the very purpose of our existence on this planet should definitely give this book a read. Very enriching, insightful and equally entertaining.