Book Review: The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Talbot’s research reveals many intriguing, controversial mysteries about our minds, brain, body, and the world. Is this book something for the general public?

In this book review I am evaluating my own copy of Michael Talbot’s The Holographic Universe. As I usually point out, this review is not a result of getting any free “evaluation copies” from the publisher or where any other type of “business benefits” are involved.

In other words, the only reason that I am reviewing this book is because of its interesting contents. I bought this second-hand copy many years ago, and it has been on my “future review” shortlist for a long time. So what follows is an independent book review.

Note that the format of this book review is a little different than most book reviews. I have decided to refrain from reviewing Talbot’s own theories (although I am reviewing some of the theories that Talbot mentions that other researchers and scientists have put forward).

I do this for several reasons. First, because it would make the review longer, since one cannot present Talbot’s conclusions without also mentioning other scientists and their theories; second, because I want to let the reader have something to look forward to.

Thus, this article reviews not only Michael Talbot’s book and its quality (Parts 1, 2, and 5), but also assesses some of those theories that Talbot refers to (Parts 3 and 4).

PART 1: THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR

The Holographic Universe was first published in 1991 by HarperCollins, in a hardcover edition. It was then followed in 1992 by the paperback edition (which I am here reviewing), which was published by HarperPerennial.

Note also that The Holographic Universe is available as an audiobook (at least on Amazon.com in the United States).

About the Book

The Holographic Universe is a nonfiction type of book. It is a collection of interesting facts about the world we live in, as well as a compilation of scientific theories about how to explain various phenomena.

Note that this book is not a Law of Attraction book, in the strict sense. It neither promotes the authorized version of Law of Attraction, nor any of the other versions.

However, the phenomena and the theories that are presented in the book may be highly relevant to students of the Law of Attraction, and also to other people who are searching for the truth about what this world is all about (“In what sense can we say that the world is REAL?”, “What is going on here?”, etc.).

Thus, the front cover says:

And the back cover presents quotes from three prominent authors (Fred Alan Wolf, Larry Dossey, and Lyall Watson), who talk about the importance of the idea of holograms in connection with the question of what the “reality” of the world really is.

Front Matter, Main Text, End Matter

This book has 350 pages (xii + 338 pp.).

The front matter consists of a half-title page, a title page, and a copyright page. Then comes a dedication, a quote by Dr. Stanislav Grof, a one-page Contents, and a two-page Acknowledgments.

The main text of the book (302 pp.) is followed by many pages of notes with references (pp. 303-327) and a general index containing names and subject matters (pp. 329-338).

Type of Content

This is basically a text-only book. The book does contain some photographs and illustrations, but not very many. So in the main text of the book, there is, on average, something like one illustration or photo every 20 pages or so.

The Author

Michael Talbot (1953-1992) was an American writer of both novels and nonfiction. His nonfiction works include: Mysticism and the New Physics (1980), Beyond the Quantum (1986), Your Past Lives (1987), and The Holographic Universe (1991).

PART 2: SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

There are three main parts in The Holographic Universe:

1. Part 1: A Remarkable New View of Reality
2. Part 2: Mind and Body
3. Part 3: Space and Time

Each of these three parts contains, on average, three chapters. These are referred to in the summary below.

Summary of Part 1: A Remarkable New View of Reality

In Chapter 1 (“The Brain as Hologram”) we find the stories about Penfield and Pribram’s research about the brain and how it stores memories.

Chapter 2 (“The Cosmos as Hologram”) is about David Bohm’s scientific research in quantum mechanics, and about his ideas about “wholeness” and “the implicate order”.

Summary of Part 2: Mind and Body

Chapter 3 (“The Holographic Model and Psychology”) talks about the interesting perspective of psychiatrist Montague Ullman and the connection to dreams, ESP, and the holographic paradigm. The ideas of the physicist Fred Alan Wolf and the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof are also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 4 (“I Sing the Body Holographic”) covers the idea that the mind is very powerful and can influence the well-being of the body, for example by visualization or by strong beliefs (the placebo effect). Also covered is the amazing ability of people with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) to switch some of their “biological” conditions on and off, when they transition from one of their personalities to another.

Chapter 5 (“A Pocketful of Miracles”) is all about miracles in various forms: the liquefaction of San Gennaro’s blood; the Jansenist convulsionaires; and the psychokinesis experiments by Jahn and Dunne at Princeton University.

Chapter 6 (“Seeing Holographically”) is about vision and about the human energy field (the “aura”). Here is the interesting story about Barbara Brennan, an ex-atmospherics physicist at NASA who already as a child could walk blindfolded and sense the energy fields of objects around her with her hands.

Summary of Part 3: Space and Time

Chapter 7 (“Time Out of Mind”) is about the mind’s abilities to access past and future events. Here is the story about professor Stanislaw Poniatowski at the University of Warsaw, who successfully used the clairvoyant Stefan Ossowiecki to go back in time and learn more about the stone tools that his archaeological excavations had unearthed.

Chapter 8 (“Traveling in the Superhologram”) talks about the idea that space is an illusion in a holographic world. Here are some observations about out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs).

Chapter 9 (“Return to the Dreamtime”) is basically a summing-up of the book, with some discussions about “the void” and “brahman” and shamans, and about the need to restructure the sciences in order to be able to really find the truth about the psyche and the world.

PART 3: THE THREE THEORIES

The Holographic Universe contains a large amount of interesting research that from various viewpoints indicate that the “real” structure of our universe and existence is nothing like what previously have been presented by traditional astronomers and classical physicists.

Because there are many scientific theories presented in this book (not counting Talbot’s own conclusions), I will here describe only some of these theories that Talbot refers to, in order for the prospective reader to get a sense of this book.

I will thus focus on three sections: the discussion about holography and the brain; the development of a holographic theory of the universe; and the episode of the “convulsionaires” in 18th-century France.

Note that I am here in this part only summarizing the three theories that Talbot talks about. For a short evaluation of these three theories, see the next part (“Evaluating the Three Theories”).

The Brain as Hologram

One interesting section of The Holographic Universe concerns the brain/mind, and how memory actually works. In the 1920s Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) presented his engram theory that postulated that certain memories were “located” at different locations in the brain. So while surgically manipulating the same spot in the brain of a patient with local anasthetia, he could make the patient remember the same memory episode.

But Penfield’s theory did not convince everyone. When Karl Pribram joined the well-renowned neuropsychologist Karl Lashley at the Yerkes Laboratory of Primate Research in 1946 he found out that Lashley had not been able to replicate Penfield’s discovery. On the contrary, instead of a localized storage of memory, Lashley’s research indicated just the opposite, namely a distributed model of how memory works.

After joining Yale University, Pribram became increasingly convinced that only a non-localized model of memory storage could work. For even if a removal of a very large portion of the brain might result in a more “hazy” quality of the memories, no-one suffered from any loss of any particular memory episodes.

The real “revolution” in understanding on Pribram’s part came, according to Talbot, in the 1960s when he found an article in Scientific American about holograms. He then realized that the qualities of a hologram might fit very well with memory storage. For a holographic plate/film typically contains the whole image in many locations.

In other words, even if one were to remove a large piece of the holographic plate/film (just as one removed a large part of the brain), the full three-dimensional image is still “remembered”, albeit in a more “hazy” quality (just as human memories are recollected more hazily, when large parts of the brain has been removed).

So the correlation between the “remove-a-large-part-of-the-brain” experiments and the “remove-a-large-piece-of-the-holographic-plate” experiments produced virtually identical results. Is our brain a hologram machine?

The Cosmos as Hologram

Contrary to classical physics with its “billiard ball” mechanics, quantum physics is a strange beast. As most introductory books on quantum mechanics describe it, electrons are not “ordinary objects” but are sometimes behaving as if they are particles and at other times as if they are waves. And the consensus seems to be that this applies not only to electrons, but to most, or all, other subatomic particles as well.

As Talbot says, quantum physicists are now propositing that this “schizophrenic” behavior is simply the manifestation of “something more fundamental”, which they name “a quantum” (pl. “quanta”).

And an incredibly interesting aspect of these quanta is that there is “compelling evidence” that quanta only ever manifest, or show themselves, as particles when we are observing them, as the physicist Nick Herbert’s theories has it (Talbot 1992, p. 34).

Another thrilling aspect of quantum mechanics is the idea of “interconnectedness” between (apparently) “unrelated” events in the subatomic world. This idea has been presented by the famous quantum physicist David Bohm, who in the 1940s was doing experiments on plasma at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in California.

The interesting events started to happen once the plasma had formed. At that time the electrons stopped behaving as if they were singular, independent entities and now instead started to act in a “synchronized” manner, as if they were part of a large orchestra, where each participant followed the overall directions of the orchestra’s conductor, so that an overall “rhythm” was established.

As Bohm’s later research at Princeton University confirmed, also electrons in metals could produce similar effects: “entire oceans of particles” were exhibiting a behavior that simply could not be understood in any other way than that each electron knew what all the other billions or trillions of electrons were doing (Talbot 1992, p. 38).

Having had several meetings with Einstein (who admired Bohm’s 1951 textbook Quantum Theory), Bohm then in 1952 introduced a theory that, contrary to Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation, said that electrons are not non-existing when not being observed. And by postulating a new type of all-pervading “field” called “quantum potential” Bohm could now explain quantum physics just as well as the Copenhagen interpretation of Bohr could.

One important consequence of the “quantum potential” theory was that it indicated that there is no location in that dimension. Consequently, in that plane, “all points in space became equal to all other points in space” (Talbot 1992, p. 41). Thus, “nonlocality” was born.

Several discoveries later (of which the interesting “ink-in-glycerine” effect is one; Talbot 1992, pp. 44-45) Bohm then introduced in the early 1970s the idea of a holographic universe. After continuing to think about these matters, he then in 1980 published his influential book Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

The “implicate order” represents the nonlocal realm of existence that is the “primary” level of reality. From that “implicate order” the “explicate order” (our everyday world) “folds out” (Talbot 1992, p. 46). Thus, the movement of a subatomic “particle” such as an electron is realized as a type of animation, where a quick succession of fold-outs and fold-ins are done.

The holographic idea then is represented in these two orders: The primary level of reality contains the holographic information itself. And then that holographic information is used to project the “objects” of this world at the time of each “unfolding” into our “explicate order”.

The French Convulsionaires

The strange events started shortly after the saintly abbé Francois de Paris died on May 1, 1727 in Paris, France. Because he was a Jansenist, and thereby had radically different beliefs than both the Catholic Church and the seriously catholic King Louis XV, these ruling forces, with different methods, had been monitoring him and his followers. For they wanted to suppress the influence of the Jansenist movement as a whole, since their miracle healing powers were making them very popular.

But when admirers of abbé Paris now gathered together at his tomb, new miracles started to happen, including the healing of various diseases and conditions such as arthritis, deafness, cancerous tumors, etc.

However, there were also other effects of these gatherings. For some of these admirers also started to experience “strange involuntary spasms or convulsions and to undergo the most amazing contorsions of their limbs” (Talbot 1992, p. 129). And this caught on, just like a contagious disease, where a large amount of people were moving down the Parisian streets in some weird, ill-choreographed, zombie-like convulsion dance.

The strangeness of these events doesn’t stop there, though. For the really interesting thing about these events is that the Janseninst convulsionaires [n1] simultaneously became immune to injury and physical torture. Whether severly beaten, hit by heavy hammers or cut by sharp knives or swords, or being strangled, none of them were actually injured even a little bit. They had no marks or bruises on their bodies after these attacks.

Because of the enormous amount of witnesses to these events (thousands of spectators were present), and because these events continued to occur year after year (“the streets surrounding it [the tomb] were crowded day and night for years”; Talbot 1992, p. 129; my square brackets), the Jansenist convulsionaires became an international affair. The niece of the famous philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal was reported to having had an ulcer in her eye cured as a result of these miracles. And the well-known philosopher David Hume was one of those who reported about these miraculous events from abroad.

PART 4: EVALUATING THE THREE THEORIES

After reading about these three theories, several questions emerged that Talbot seemingly did not cover, or did not cover fully. This is not a critique of Talbot’s book; for no author can cover every angle on every point, especially in a book like this, where so many different theories and experiments and experiences are described.

What follows below is therefore just some of my own comments about various aspects of the three theories that may be interesting to discuss further. Some relate to Wilder Penfield’s work, while others pertain to Karl Pribham’s theories. And there are of course many interesting things to comment on regarding David Bohm’s work, and about the fantastic manifestations in eighteenth-century Paris.

Note also that my evaluation of these theories do not include an assessment of Talbot’s own conclusions regarding these matters. This will hopefully make it more interesting for those readers who want to dive into Talbot’s book on their own and discover what his own perspective is.

Penfield and Localized Memories

One question relates to the idea of Penfield’s engram theory: How could a repeated “touching” on a particular spot on the brain result in the evoking of the same memory, again and again? And how could that experiment not be replicated by others?

One observation is that Penfield’s work seemingly focued mostly, or only, on people who were epileptics or who had epileptic episodes. For in his line of work as a neurosurgeon and neurologist, he was specialized in the area of epilepsy and the clinical treatment of it (Valentine and Pickersgill 1997, pp. 444b-445a).

Because of Penfield’s specialization, we might offer the theory that people who are epileptics may have certain cognitive characteristics that make them different from other people. So while “touching” a certain cerebral spot on an epileptic subject might produce such an effect, it may not necessarily produce the same effect on someone else who has no epileptic symptoms. Therefore, his mature theory (1975) that the “hippocampi contain ‘keys-of-access’ to records of past experiences” (Bogen 2008, p. 73a) may be intrinsically linked to subjects with epilepsy.

Another interesting possibility could be that Penfield’s conclusion was not, or not merely, a result of that his subjects were epileptics. Perhaps it was a result of his own psychic powers? Maybe the “consistent results” that he produced in evoking the same memories were triggered by some form of psychokinesis (PK) that he himself generated? And maybe epileptics are also more sensitive to psychokinesis than other people?

Pribram and the Holographic Brain

Karl Pribram’s work is naturally very interesting for “weird” people (like myself), who already have accepted the non-commonsensical idea that “physical” nature is not what “ordinary” people think it is. For not only Law of Attraction promotes the idea that our minds create our physical reality, but quantum mechanics also indicates that the world, at least on the subatomic scale, cannot be understood by using “normal” logic and intuition.

One observation is that Pribram’s concept of that all memories are stored even in the smallest piece of the brain may be compared to Seth’s statements about the knowledge of our bodily cells (Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment, p. 198):

As Talbot correctly indicates, Pribram’s holographic model remains “extremely controversial”. This is, as Talbot says, because everyone has their own theory.

For example, the neuropsychologist Frank Wood says, “there are precious few experimental findings for which holography is the necessary, or even preferable, explanation” (Talbot 1992, p. 30). But such statements, of course, amount to nothing else than the (unproven!) Ockham’s Razor argument, which is a well-known, and well-used, “escape method” for not having to deal with various “strange” phenomena that doesn’t fit into the current “scientific” or “philosophical” paradigm.

In other words, the scientist or philosopher (here Frank Wood) then simply decides himself of herself “what is necessary” and “what is preferable”, as seen from his or her own limited focus involving their own particular field of study.

For SERIOUS researchers, though, Pribram’s findings seem to indicate that a holographic memory model nicely produces the same “haziness” as is seen in subjects who have large portions of the brain removed or “disconnected”.

For the holographic model to be applicable, however, seems to depend on the exact meaning of the phrase “distributed throughout the brain as a whole” (Talbot 1992, p. 13). As I understand the term “distributed”, it seemingly can NOT simply be understood as “some memories are stored in location A and some in location B, etc.” Rather, the idea must be that ALL memories are stored in EACH location (or small area), but that, when “adding together” many different locations (small areas), an increased “sharpness” or “clarity” (or decreased “haziness”) of the memory results.

So just as one might build a network of computers to increase the processing power and produce better-resolution images or weather forecasts, etc., the usage of an increased number of locations (or small areas) in the brain seem to also deliver increased resolution. This, I believe, contributes to making the holographic picture of the brain a plausible possibility.

Nevertheless, Pribram’s theory seems to have had little effect on the development in the field of cognitive science. For in the ten books about cognitive science that I just checked (all of which were published later than Talbot’s book), I found only one reference to Pribram’s holography theory [n2]. Three books mention Pribram but not holography [n3], while six books mention neither Pribram nor holography [n4].

David Bohm’s Holographic Universe

My own evaluation of Bohm’s work is that it is incredibly interesting. Bohm’s accomplishments as a quantum physicist are, of course, very substantial.

And the general non-popularity of his theories amongst many “conventional” quantum physicists indicates, to me, that his theories actually might have some real value. For the orthodoxy of most physicists will typically make it very hard for any radical “paradigm shifts” to happen in this field.

There are three things that I especially like about Bohm’s work. I find the ideas surrounding “the implicate order” and “the explicate order” are very interesting. And I think the idea of “wholeness” also fits well into that discussion.

Another feature of his account is that he does not shy away from the topic of consciousness. In fact, he devotes a whole chapter in his Wholeness and the Implicate Order to a discussion about the unfolding-and-enfolding universe and its relation to consciousness (Bohm 1983, pp. 172-213).

A third feature of Bohm’s theories is that he, unlike many other scientists and philosophers, also gives serious attention to Karl Pribram’s ideas of the hologram as a model of how the brain/mind stores its memories (Bohm 1983, p. 198). This is presumably because Bohm’s own theories involve holographic ideas, and thus Pribham’s work might been seen as more compatible, compared to other non-holographic theories of memory.

The Psychic Powers of the Convulsionists

The accounts of the Jansenist convulsionists in the early eighteenth-century Pairs are truly fantastic. For they really demonstrate that the mind’s psychokinetic powers are very real.

Because our thoughts and emotions can, and do, affect physical reality, the convulsionaires generated their own bodily state by their devotion and beliefs about healing in connection with their visit to their revered “guru” Francois de Paris.

Furthermore, their immunity to any type of severe physical beating or strangulation or piercing indicates that a “commonsense” account of physical reality cannot be accepted.

This, however, does not necessarily mean that a holographic model of the body is the only choice, even though it, in principle, might be very well suited as an explanation of the many weird phenomena that were witnessed by thousands of people.

PART 5: REVIEWING TALBOT’S BOOK

Physical Format

My copy of the 1992 paperback edition of The Holographic Universe is about 5.3 x 8.0 inches (13.5 x 20.3 cm). And it is roughly 0.8 inches (2.0 cm) thick.

This physical format is excellent. The pages are large enough that one doesn’t have to use microscopic font sizes (as in, for example, Oxford University Press’s “A Very Short Introduction” series), but still small enough that the book is somewhat portable.

Paper, Printing, and Binding Quality

The paper used is of the typical “mass market pocket book” type. By now it has yellowed considerably.

This, however, is not a bad thing, since the page then is more soothing for the eyes to look at. For there is now a smaller contrast between the black type and the yellow page than if the page were white.

Layout, Design, and Typography

The layout, design, and typography of the book is very good. It is, all in all, a professional production, and there are no main complaints.

Although the typography could have been a point or two bigger, it works fine as it is for most people with reasonably normal vision.

Basic Content

The overall impression of Talbot’s The Holographic Universe is that it is a very serious piece of work that accurately depicts the various experiments and theories that have been made by famous researchers and scientists.

It is therefore not surprising to read that Hilary D. Burton, who at the time was at the prestigious Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, assessed the book in a book review in Library Journal as being a “well-written and fascinating study” and that it was “recommended for science collections” (Burton 1991).

Also featured in Talbot’s book are various ideas that may be understood to indicate that the mind is very powerful, in the sense that it can actively influence physical reality.

So whether we are talking about the fantastic events that took place in eighteenth-century Paris or the psychic experiments by Jahn and Dunne in twentieth-century Princeton, it seems to be firmly established, to a truly objective truth-seeker (but not to all skeptic scientists and philosophers who are holding on to their old paradigms), that physical reality is much weirder than we previously thought it to be.

There are also other interesting topics presented in this truly amazing book. Various “mystic” phenomena are covered, including out-of-body experiences (OBEs), near-death experiences (NDEs), etc.

Writing Style

Talbot manages to keep it interesting most of the time. This is not merely the result of his fluid style of writing on the sentence level, but also a consequence of his “dramatic” storytelling skills, where he clearly demonstrates that he knows how to present a story in the most interesting and captivating way.

Also important to note is that Talbot is good at science as well. So his narrations and descriptions of various theories and experiments are nicely representing the original material.

In this context it is also interesting (especially for students of the Law of Attraction) to read the author endorsements found in the front matter of the 1994 edition of Seth Speaks. In the company of the statements by Deepak Chopra, Richard Bach, and others, we there also find Michael Talbot’s endorsement:

RATINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Holographic Universe is highly recommended. It should be in the book collection of all people who are interested in topics such as the power of the human mind and the true nature of the physical world.

Therefore, this book is not just for students of Law of Attraction, but also for religious people, for students of physics, quantum mechanics, psychology, and cognitive science.

In general, then, it is for anyone who still has that wonderful curiosity bubbling inside: “What is this world really about? Is the world projected with some type of holography? How can we explain miraculous healings? How powerful are our minds, really?”

Rating: 95%

Chris Bocay

NOTES

the Jansenist convulsionaires [n1] There are many accepted spellings of the word “convulsionaires” in English. The Petit Larousse (“petit” means only 1664 pages, plus maps) informs us that the original French word is “convulsionnaire” (with two “n”) and functions both as an adjective and a noun (1972, p. 220c). As the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary tells us, the French spelling was also used in English, as in one issue of Charles Dickens’s weekly periodical All the Year Round that was published in 1859: “The Convulsionnaires, who . . flung themselves into cataleptic fits before the tomb of the Archdeacon Paris” (1989, p. 884c). The word may also be spelled in the following way: “The practice of the Convulsionaries of the 18th century”, as mentioned in the “convulsionism” entry (1989, p. 884c). Another variant is mentioned in the “convulsionist” entry, with a quote from 1865 by Baring-Gould: “As insensible to pain as the Jansenist convulsionists of S. Medard” (1989, p. 884c).

only one reference to Pribram’s holography theory [n2] In A Companion to Cognitive Science, Karl H Pribram is having his own entry in the “Selective Biographies” section, where it says, “He is best known for his proposed holographic modeling of memory” (Bechtel and Graham 1999, p. 769).”

three books mention Pribram but not holography [n3] The books that discuss some aspects of Pribram’s research but do not cover anything about his holographic model of memory are (in chronological order): The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (Wilson and Keil 1999), Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction (Harré 2002), and The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science (Frankish and Ramsey 2012).

six books mention neither Pribram nor holography [n4] These books (arranged in chronological order) have no information about any aspect of Pribram’s research and also contain nothing about anyone else’s research on holographic models of memory either: The Foundations of Cognitive Science (Branquinho 2001), Neuroscience (Purves et al. 2004), Cognitive Science (Friedenberg and Silverman 2006), Neuroscience and Philosophy (Bennett et al. 2007), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience (Bickle 2009), and Cognitive Science (Bermúdez 2010).

EDITION DETAILS

Title: The Holographic Universe
Author: Michael Talbot
Publisher: HarperPerennial (HarperCollins)
Year: 1992
Edition: First
Binding: Paperback
Pages: xii + 338
ISBN-10 (a): 0-06-092258-3
ISBN-10 (b): 0060922583
ISBN-13 (a): 978-0-06-092258-0
ISBN-13 (b): 9780060922580

LINKS TO THIS EDITION (AND REPRINTS)

NOTE: All links are clean (i.e. NOT affiliate links).

REFERENCES

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