THE SCIENCE OF POSSIBILITY

Subtitled 'patterns are connected consciousness', this is a wide-ranging book combining the insights of a scientist with those of an intuitive and relating personal journeys to the wider trends of the development of scientific ideas. Jon began by studying human sciences at Oxford, where Richard Dawkins was one of his lecturers and mysticism, religion and spirituality were emphatically not part of the course. His transformation was catalysed by a four-day course on relaxation and creative visualisation where he began to understand the limitations of his scientific training and that other ways of knowledge were possible. Her journey begins with intuitive connection and expands through various forms of training, especially in relation to plants. The aim of the book is not to deny science, but rather to reframe it or turn it inside out by going beyond scientism and exploring a universe of spiritual consciousness. Science should represent an approach and attitude towards evidence. Drawing on spiral dynamics, it uses two models, the first a 'oneness to complexity spiral' with matter and energy as polarities and the various levels of the physical domain in between; the second illustrates a balancing process between each layer of the spiral within the overall dynamics of structure and flow. There are four parts: the first opens up other worlds and viewpoints - new ways of seeing - including chapters on medical intuitives, psychoneuroimmunology, plant communication, shamanism (Malidoma Somé), homoeopathy and miraculous healing, and the influence of Goethe and Buckminster Fuller is evident. These researchers point towards a scientific investigation of connectedness, evident in psychokinesis and telepathy (Ganzfeld) experiments. Homoeopathy is also understood in terms of a science of connectedness, and the authors give historical background as well as explaining the controversies of the last 20 years. They might have added the work of Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier to their analysis as this shows how biologists have been using the wrong model. The second part explores our biology and is more technical, involving discussions of evolution, living functionality, development and growth. It shows that nothing happens in isolation and that every thread in the tapestry is related to an environment. They present an emergent model based on 'simplexity', stressing the importance of biology in our overall understanding. They challenge oversimplifications in the prevailing orthodoxy, arguing the case for nonvisible energies and higher consciousness playing a part in biological processes. They explore the rhythm of life and the importance of coherence in self-organising systems, drawing on Mae-Wan Ho, Elisabet Sahtouris and Rupert Sheldrake. They conclude that 'all levels of living systems are working together in a harmonic and coherent process that consciously created life.' The third part addresses cosmology and the concepts that have been created as a means of physical explanation. They see uncertainty and paradox as indicators of creative flexibility in the universe, arguing that 'information and consciousness and define the world', a view that finds many residents and elsewhere. They draw on the work of the physicist Nassim Haramein, who features in the film Thrive with his explanations of form, fractals and sacred geometry as an alternative to quantum mechanics, all of which is finely illustrated and points towards participatory co-creation and evolution of consciousness. The last part weaves the strands together in a science of human experience. What we understand as reality is a social construction or shared perception using particular patterns of understanding. These can evolve, as explained in the spiral dynamics model, with which many readers will no doubt be familiar. These are explained in detail and imply a holistic understanding of spirituality and life, which they summarise towards the end of the book. So what is next? A new way of seeing, relating and being based on a profound insight into connectedness. Creative visualisation gives us new and more expansive possibilities that imply letting go of a flawed materialistic belief system with its implications of disconnection and alienation. We can become more conscious participants in this co-creative and inherently non-linear process. This is far more adaptive than our current worldview, which is on a collision course with nature. What we need - and I think the authors are absolutely correct in this - is a blend of global thinking with local empowerment based on a flexible and responsive approach. This is fundamentally optimistic, involving a choice to understand and be who we really are and act from that place of oneness. If we do not choose this in advance, as the book recommends, then this perspective will be forced upon us by events that we ourselves will have created.