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This book deconstructs and debunks the lucrative and widespread marriage of quantum physics with pop-spirituality while tracing this pernicious strain of pseudoscience to its source: the founders of quantum mechanics themselves. The association of mystical ideas with modern physics in the self-improvement industry is not new. The "spookiness" of quantum properties like uncertainty and entanglement has proven fertile ground for new-age mystics and alternative medicine advocates who saw a way to put a scientific veneer on their claims. In the early days, the founders of quantum physics accused it of implying an observer-created reality. Later, Taoists and Wu Li dancers were quantized. Then ancient Indian medicine, Ayurveda, morphed into "quantum healing." Little wonder The Oprah Winfrey Show told its viewers: think about losing weight, making more money, and falling in love, and you'll become thin, wealthy, and happily married ... all based on quantum physics. Criticism of the pseudoscientific misappropriation of quantum physics has been widespread but inadequate; thus far, the scientific community has failed to account for its own role in the fusion of pop-spirituality and quantum physics. As well as thoroughly exploring and debunking quantum mysticism, this book traces the development of quantum mysticism and pulls no punches in exposing the unwitting role of quantum theory's founders in propagating quantum mysticism.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Of gods, goddesses, and philosophers.- Chapter 2: Sins of the fathers.- Chapter 3: Certainty of the probable.- Chapter 4: Pathway to quantum mysticism.- Chapter 5: Quantum consciousness crosses the Atlantic.- Chapter 6: Eastern plague of the sixties.- Chapter 7: Inventing modern physics.- Chapter 8: The Standard Model.- Chapter 9: Are you the universe.- Chapter 10: Messenger is not the message.- Chapter 11: What is to be done.
Report
Hassani impressively charts the principal mistakes made by the spiritual teachers looking for legitimacy via a connection to modern science, an undertaking that requires him to discuss quantum physics in some detail and with great clarity. this is a rigorously researched and well-argued book that should be read by anyone interested in the commandeering of science by pseudoscience. A meticulous study composed in admirably accessible prose. (Kirkus, kirkusreviews.com, October 27, 2024)
