This seemingly light and trivial book covers some extremely heavy and profound concepts. In fact, it is amazing how well a few pictures, diagrams, and cartoons can clarify concepts better than chapters of dense text from more "scholarly" sources. Of course, if the pictures don't do it for you, there is the excellent cross-referenced concept-by-concept commentary of Fred Allen Wolf.

I've lost track of how many times I've read this little book since it first started to crack open my narrow Newtonian mind-set back in the '80's. It is an especially good book to read just before going to sleep- the subconscious loves to process this level of material. Here is the best introduction to not only the probably structure of the universe of space-time, but to what lies beyond it. You get very interesting speculations on the nature of paranormal phenomena, reincarnation, the nature of archetypes and the mythological level of perception, survival after death- all of which conventional "science" choses to reject or ignore.

I especially enjoyed the discussion of how quantum waves can affect all levels of existance simultaneously at different scales of organization from sub-atomic, to the natural world of normal perception, to the human mind, to the stellar and galactic level. It adds new significance to the ancient maxim, "As above, so below." This is especially true when you consider that human consciousness helps function as a co-creator of the perceived material world ( along with our higher Selves beyond space-time.) In fact, the purpose of existance seems to be to reunite ourselves with ourselves so that all of creation may become fully aware of itself in harmony.

Yeah, I know it sounds pretty "hippy-dippy", that is it does until you begin to seriously contemplate the true nature of things....

I have read Space-Time and Beyond many times. At first I re-read it to see if there was something I missed in the first reading. Two things you will notice when reading this book.

First: It was a collaboration between a physicist and a layman.
Second: The appendix is the meat of the book.

First, the reader will read a comic book like explanation of mysticism and psychic phenomena. These are the speculative portion of the book. The appendix then verifies these odd occurences through reference to Natural phenomena,at the sub-atomic level. The speculative part is fascinating and very imaginative, but for me now, in Wolf and Toben's vision I see a model of the universe mapped in the macrocosm as extrasensory reality and realized in the microcosm as quantum physics. A visual mnemonic device which the young physicist can utilize to determine the direction of his research based on his own intuition and not that of his mentor.

Thank you Pam, Frank, Colonel J, Dr A, Harjit, Derrick, Shlomo, Dr B, Dan, Jeff, Trappuzzano et. al.

This is for sure one of the most amazing books I ever read. It's a pity it is out-of-print. I have the brazilian translation and was looking of the american edition. Highly recommended.

A must read. Answers many questions that are repeatedly raised in other bokks on simular topics. Freidman does not waste paper....he provides insights to the last line of the last page...
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Where to start ? To get 5 stars, a book must really satisfy many criterias, and this one certainly does.

Its author, Mr. Friedman, deserve among others to be recognized as a brillant pedagogue. The topic is complex but the text is clear and the simple words well chosen, like in his other excellent book: The Hidden Domain. As a reader you are able to think fully about the concepts expressed, without wasting any concentration on sentences analysis. Depending on your learning style, you may prefer like I did the tape version: it lets you think with your eyes closed.

You may have enjoyed David Bohm's unusual interpretations of our world through his master knowledge of quantum physics. You may have been puzzled by Jane Roberts connection with the strange entity Seth. In Bridging Science and Spirit, not only do you get a summary of the most important and philosophical aspects of the above, you are also launched into such powerful explanations of the physical roots of our world that some wild imagination may be needed to fully grasp them.

This book makes you think and almost not believing yourself the potentials of what your mind is trying to visualize: this is why I found the book outstanding.

Fred Alan Wolf demonstrates exquisite craftsmanship in his newest book, MATTER INTO FEELING, as he ties alchemy together with letters of the Hebrew alphabet and physics. Picking up where MIND INTO MATTER left off, Wolf serves the reader thought-provoking tastes of consciousness, memory, lucid dreams, and the awesome and exhilarating concept of the "One-Mind".

MATTER INTO FEELING is a treat for anyone who loves to contemplate ideas such as, "We don't sense what we sense; we sense what we remember we sense." And this leads us to wonder how it is that we do something so seemingly simple as remember something!

When Wolf asks us to consider things such as how the choices we make each day are much more than they appear (since according to the parallel universes model of reality, we try all possibilities, even though we typically only recall choosing one) -- MATTER INTO FEELING becomes a launch pad for personal consciousness transformation.

I love the way Wolf brilliantly combines a joyful sense of wonder with modern physical theories and ancient written texts such as the Upanishads and the Qabala. Like the best kind of chef, Wolf serves up a feast which is simultaneously exotic and familiar, yet leaves anyone who tastes it feeling hungry for more. If you love both science and spirituality, MATTER INTO FEELING is one book you're sure to adore!

I found the book to be rather difficult to follow through the first few chapters. The middle and end of the book were easier to understand; however, there could have been more examples to clarify some of the rather complex concepts. I have recently purchased another book along the same subject line and it presents the material a little more clearly. I may reread this book later or at least compare Wolf's explanations of quantum physics to those in the other book for clarification. I don't have a physics background (except in high school), so that may have been the problem too.

Only thing that lacked in the book was the non-explanasion of death as an inbuilt thing the endless fertilization. Other wise a great read. Highly recommended...

Fred Alan Wolf has removed another brick in the wall separating us from the realization of our true, divine nature. Even skeptical readers will grasp the line of reasoning that always accompanies Fred Alan Wolf's joyous speculative leaps. As our scientific community continues to advance our understanding of the underlying nature of things, we are also realizing the wisdom in the mystical traditions. Fred Alan Wolf is one of the best writers alive today in the area where advanced physics and mysticism converge. The Unity of all things is a fact, and we are all indeed One. Every time I read a book of this caliber, I am bolstered in my ability to sustain this quiet awareness for a little bit longer in the course of my life, when the noise and competition of mundane awareness distracts me and misleads me into believing otherwise. Those of us who cannot accept faith as a means of navigating through the mystery that is everywhere can take heart in the primacy of experience...the experience that comes from genuine open-minded inquiry, the experience that comes from many meditative states, from intuition, sudden glimpses of clarity that we occasionally stumble into, and the experience that comes from following the mind of someone who knows more than we do.

Just when you find out the 'weirdness' of quantum mechanics (QM), things start to get entangled and in the realm of human consciousness, philosophy and what not. I had started reading QM with Nick Herbert's book 'Quantum Reality' and in the middle of the book I realized that I need a little subtler treatment of the subject matter and hence ending up reading this book, 'Taking the Quantum Leap'. I have to the say that Fread has done an outstanding job at explaining the wave-particle duality with reference to all the famous experiments and their interpretations. He then moves on to the famous Bohr vs. Einstien debate EPR. Much of the book is devoted to exploring the point of views of these two schools of thought.. complementarists vs. the continuists. There are chapters on the theory of Parallel Universes etc.

My dismay begings, and thats why I gave the book 3 stars rather than a 4! is when towards the end of the book, the whole QM is tunred into a hodge podge of philosophies of human consciousness, fate and free will. To my surprise it seems that the author has made up his mind that whatever the state of QM is today, IS indeed the complete description of the physical world. At least I got that impression. In my opinion, this is only 2001 and who knows what discoveries are waiting to be happen in next several hundred years regarding our current understanding of the physical world.

As Einstien once said something to this effect to one of his friends, 'do you really think the moon is there because someone is there to see it!' and yet QM has proven to be successful in proving thores of physical phenomena.

Yet indeed I'm still bothered by QM as I was before reading this book but know a lot more about the various schools of thoughts. Could the Schrodinger's cat be alive and dead at the same time in parallel universes?!?

All in all, an excellent reading for starters in QM.

"Taking the Quantum Leap" is an excellent introduction to the bizzare and amazing world of quantum physics. Wolfe takes the reader on a journey from the early Greeks to the modern day as man searched for the answers to the universe's riddles. He shows systematically how physicists first thought they had solved everything with Newtonian mechanics and were then thrown on their heads with the discovery of the quanta. Wolfe proceeds to describe how the science world struggled with these new ideas and attempted to bring meaning to a universe that had suddenly become unpredictable.

Wolfe's analysis delves into the inner workings of the human mind and shows how each of us affects the "reality" we experience. Suddenly the human mind becomes the shaper of the universe and each of us is "god". This is both reassuring and disturbing at once, but Wolfe guides the reader through it, showing that we and we alone control our destiny.

The book only gets four stars because at some points, Wolfe moves beyond the realm of science and introduces a strong religious trend into the story. While he weaves it in well, it still seems out of place, and would have been stronger had he not taken this route. However, the book is still very strong and informative. Definitely a good starting place for a novice of quantum theory.

I really enjoyed this book. It is written in a manner that allows the lay person to understand quantum mechanics, one of the hardest concepts for the preconditioned brain to understand. I know that some people think this book doesn't give the reader a good scientific backround on the subject, but that is what makes this book so good. Instead of boring the reader with equations and such, Wolf connects the basic scentific concepts to the facinating philosophical implications they create. This book should be read slowly in order to be fully understood, but the reader will gain a better understanding of reality and what is really "out there". They may even discover that "out there" is really "in here". Although Wolf, himself, may favor one viewpoint over another, the reader can draw, for himself, what ever conclusions he wants.

Here we have someone who tries to forcibly mix two different paradigms, that of (not-so-modern) quantum physics and that of (not-so-archaic) shamanism. Had FAW been a really good theoretical or experimental physicist, or an impressive shaman, this work might have been a monumental achievement. Unfortunately, here we have a small time college physics teacher dabbling amateurishly with medicine work and - unsurprisingly - getting "insights" which never transcend the banal first-derivative of the simplistic analogy. This book is sentimental to boot and self-indulgent to the point of exhaustion and the unfortunate cayote reader can only growl with irritation at the lack of philosophical rigor combined with the shallowness of the author's autobiographical profile. I am sure Fred is quite a likeable guy and he appears to have dabbled in enough fields to gain some notoriety in New Age circles chasing a New Unified Theory of Everything. Those will find the book enjoyable. To everyone else I say: if you must read it, borrow it from the local library.

Dr. Wolf has accomplished what many cannot, he has written a highly interesting book about his journey to discover the parallelism between quantum physics and the knowledge / wisdom of the ancient shamans -- and has done so without getting lost in the scientific jargon. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it for those who are interested in joining their scientific interest with their spiritual journey.

I speak with Mr. Wolf from time to time and find his knowlage very interesting, but still find it hard to believe that someone who has such knowlege still charges a buck to answer small questions to students! The world goes round by momentum! Not money!

I hoped this book will give me more solid response to questions I had about the soul, mind etc but I think it is more like anthromorphism. There are assumptions that seem to be taken as definite such as closed end cosmolgy, separation of body and soul or mind which is controversial. The idea of soul is mainly built upon collapse of wave function or rather conciousness. I was intrigued that when a robot tests something it could be registering of both results ie, the wave function does not collapse if it is a robot doing the measurement. there is proof of uniqness of the soul in the creation, that is difficult to comprehend i read it many times but the result is interesting, there goes judea-Christian belief and comes Buddha. It is a book that you should read back and forth many times and contemplate, it is worthed and also read Descrates Error.

Gives good insight into the Grand Truth of the origin of everything - the Universe(s), Life, Soul, Spirit, God.. from 2 perspectives - Quantum Physics & Budhism. How "Everything" is created from "Nothing" by mere reflection of "Opposites" which is the fundamental Truth held in Budhism. This is done in a pretty good convincing way. The culmination of science (observation & logic) and religion (mysticism) is going to be SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ULTIMATE TRUTH FOR EVER..THE GRAND UNIFICATION THEORY for Science which is indeed the MOST IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION for Science is only a stepping stone to understand the Grander and much wider ULTIMATE TRUTH about everything.. This is one of the many, many books being made available in this greatest area of research and it is a pretty good one.

If this book is accepted, it could be revolutionary. A masterpiece--talk about uniting Science and Religion!!! By the time you read just the first chapter your mouth will water for more as you wonder, "By the time I finish this will I finally have an answer to the eternal burning questions?" Well, you will have Fred Alan Wolf's answer, to God, the soul, existence, and so on. He had some difficulty and struggle to write a SCIENTIFIC account of the soul. Science is supposed to only deal with things that can be sensed and directly observed, isn't it? So what place does it have on the soul other than maybe denying its existence? Well, we've never found the soul because we've been asking the wrong questions. We have the wrong idea about the "ghost in the machine." We have the wrong conceptions about many things, Soul, Matter, Self, Conciousness, all different, though related, phenomena. He gives a tour through all past contemplations on the nature of the soul's physics. It starts off with a juxtaposition of Thomas Aquinas' and Aristotles' soulish ideas. Then it goes from Plato, to ancient Egypt, to the Qabala. (Providing us with a modern quantum physics interpretation of the Eden story) Fred not only turns to modern science theories, but also Buddhist teachings. The two fields of knowledge on agree on much more than you would ever think. Even the Dalai Lama has said that it could be possible for a soul to incarnate a computer!! Now, I'm not exactly scientifically inclined... and alot of the chapters were deep material for me to comprehend. I never studied quantum mechanics or anything, but this all depends on your own scientific understandings. Some of it may be over your head, but maybe not then again I was up late pretty tired while reading it, Hehe. But he doesn't obfuscate anything, it will nevertheless will be very interesting. (all kinds of stuff, Zero point energy, the Dirac Sea, antimatter) Once it delves more into the Zen Buddhism which he extols, there is alot of soul philosophy. Seeing that everyone is in the illusory cycle of suffering, and that we lose contact with our souls through material addictions...to the point where we don't differentiate the self and the soul. (Which are more like reflections of one another) Such is the nature of Maya. He shows us that there is no plurality to consciousness. There is really only one soul and consciousness, the mind of God, from which we all arise.

This book is DEFINITELY worth your time. And if you don't gain anything else, one thing will atleast be the most unique theory you've every heard, in the chapter titled "Resurrection Physics."1

I've recently returned from a journey to the rain country of western Oregon where I discovered "monistic idealism." It's about to become a philosophy of choice in the consciousness revolution.

I gathered this intelligence at the Eugene home of Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Studies at the University of Oregon. I arranged this special interview because of Goswami's new book, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. (Tarcher/Putnam). I wanted to meet the person who authored such a book and to make sure I was correctly understanding its many profundities.

At first glance, the book appears to be one of those "new science" books that have become so popular. It does describe quite well the basic experiments of quantum physics, the ones that produce such paradoxes as the dual identity (wave and particle) of electrons and their ability to communicate at a distance with each other instantaneously (non-locality). But rather than simply leaving us with a "Gee, whiz, isn't this incredible?" impression that the real world isn't as we assumed, Goswami boldly, yet very thoughtfully, introduces us to monistic idealism and suggests we accept it as a foundation for a new, and quite compelling, worldview.

Monistic idealism is the academically correct name given to a philosophical position that once was considered pre-scientific. It existed before the advent of what philosophers today label as materialistic dualism,. or what we might call the current official scientific world view. Materialistic dualism is the assumption that physical matter is the primary reality and that mind is separate from, but dependent upon, matter. In this view, mind is a secondary phenomena, or, to use the favored term, is an "epiphenomenon," meaning that it is some kind of separate, extra stuff that bubbles harmlessly out of brains. Monistic idealism, however, turns things around. In this position (dating back to Plato in the West, to Hinduism and Buddhism in the East), there is but one mind and it is the primary reality. Matter is an expression of mind, not separate from mind, but mind manifested materially. The worldview expressed in Edgar Cayce's psychic readings is a perfect example of monistic idealism. Cayce's formula, "Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, the Material is the Result," for example, gives consciousness a very creative role in manifesting the material world.

Goswami's book basically says, "Look, if you'll adopt the viewpoint of monistic idealism, then everything--the paradoxes of quantum physics, the puzzle of individual consciousnesss and free will, the enigma of psychic abilities, the universals in spiritual teachings--everything falls into place!" His book is a journey of creative thinking, providing the most credible and complete tour of the worldview we call "The New Paradigm" that I've yet read.

One of the early warning signs of this new paradigm, which Goswami refers to as the "consciousness revolution," was Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: The observer affects the observed. The scientist looks into the microscope at nature to find nature responding to the observation. How did nature know there was a scientist looking? It takes an electron, it turns out, to know an electron. When the scientist flashes a light on atomic structures, the photons of light disrupt the atoms observed. This simplistic explanation, however, is misleading because it hides the greater truth. Goswami points out that we habitually use materialism to assume that there is a fixed material reality--independent of the observer--one that is simply rebuffed by our gaze. Reality is not fixed, however, and that is where the observing consciousness makes a difference. There is literally a quantum leap of creativity that comes into play as the observer, searching for the material electron "thing" within the etheric electronic wave activity, forces the many possibilities into a single, manifested actuality by the very act of observation The quantum leap is, according to Goswami, like an act of grace--creative, unpredictable, synchronistic and "non-local" (psychic). In talking with him, I realized that it took a quantum leap in my own imagination to fully digest all the implications of monistic idealism. It was easy to understand the ethical implication that we each have to take responsibility for our choices. Goswami emphasizes that it make a difference which ideals we live by, because they determine which potentialities in the unmanifest, quantum mind will materialize through the channel of our individual lives.

Individuality, by the way, especially in the context of a universal consciousness, becomes an intriguing question. Edgar Cayce once had a dream envisioning the mind as being like a single star with spokes radiating out to form individually functioning conscious minds. This model expresses exactly the transcendent, unitary mind assumed by monistic idealism. The spokes even anticipate Goswami's formulation as to how and why the unitary mind creates the impression of separate individual minds.

Why, if consciousness is truly unitive and singular, do we have the experience of separate minds? The brain, according to Goswami, is a measuring instrument. It collapses the non-local (a.k.a., infinite and eternal) quantum mind into concreteness and specificity as manifested through individual experience. Our individual "minds" are necessary to "realize" (make real) the material world. We are co-creators of reality, yet created ourselves to help reality become aware of itself. Goswami refers to the theory of "

There is not much I can add to the extremely thorough reviews already written, but I wanted to add my five stars to this remarkable integration of science, consciousness and spirituality. Although Goswami is hardly the first to attempt to link physics and spirituality, he goes beyond mere analogy and includes more science than some of the other efforts. I found the book thought-provoking and highly readable, with one caveat: the introductory chapters (first 20 pages or so) were a little tedious. Once he gets into the meat of the book, it's a fun read.

This book uses quantum mechanics to lay down a very satisfying theory. Many individual mysteries that I have pondered in philosophical conversations are naturally solved or illuminated by the concepts in this book. I consider myself a serious skeptic, but this picture of consciousness intuitively "feels" right. The concept of fragmenting the whole to create individual souls is also found in mystical traditions like Jewish Kabbalah. I was somewhat disappointed at the last few chapters in which the author gets a bit preachy toward his personal beliefs about war, religion, ETC. However, this in NO way spills over into the fundamental theory. I believe my faith in GOD and my faith in the human spirit was much enhanced by this book. I read this after reading two other books: THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE and INNER SPACE. What an unexpectedly great combination of books for the thinking believer!

10-Point Rating: (5.5)
This book gets two stars for dealing with an extremely interesting topic and for making quite a few good points throughout, however the author just wants dreams to do too much. The fact that we can and do distinguish between waking (i.e. ordinary) consciousness and dream consciousness means that the two must be qualitatively different - and in fact they are. The discontinuity of dreams among other features distinguishes them as derivative conscious states, that is to say they are not primary - everyday waking consciousness is primary. We define dreams relative to waking states and not vice-versa for a variety of reasons, and Wallace does little to challenge these obvious differences. It's a bit like saying "everything's alive" or "everything's conscious" - statements like these tend to cheapen the meanings of these words, if everything is, then nothing is.

This has much of the same information as the Holographic Universe (above) but worded in a more scientific way. I found Talbot's book much easier to read and just better overall. This book is highly worthwhile in it's own right although. If I had to pick one it would be Talbots.

This is not light reading..It is a read that one has to take slow and think about. The information presented in the book is very thought stimulating. It is an excellent book and the author does a good job of simplifying a very complex subject.

I'm not surprised people are complaining there are no illustrations here. Perhaps it should come with pictures you can color in yourself and a complementary box of crayons. If we assume, however, for the sake of argument, that this is intended as a children's book, it is nevertheless a very poor children's book. (Very many authors, among them Lewis Carroll, E. B. White, and C. S. Lewis, have shown that it is possible to write for children and still write supremely well.)

I did find that this book somewhat repetitive, as Mr. Wolf tended to "over-explain" aspects of the theories presented in "Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds". However, I strongly suspect that this quandary had more to do with the Touchstone/Simon & Schuster editor's own lack in grasping of the subject matter, resulting in virtually a word-for-word transcription of the entire original manuscript into the final book form.

Considering this likelihood, this book is a true gem! For anyone interested in science and all possibilities, it is well worth a read by both the novice and the well educated. Many books are available on quantum physics, space, time as the fourth dimension, etc. To date, though, this is the only book I have been able to find that puts all of these theories into a veritable nutshell. It delves not only into possibilities, but also probabilities, which include aspects of every major discovery in physics, astronomy, and mathematics since the time of Pythagoras.

It is not a book for the faint of heart, who are secure in their understanding of their every day "reality". It is, instead, for those who intuitively know that there's something more to what we perceive as reality, more than the eye can see. Sorry, there aren't any illustrations for those needing visual aids. Mr. Wolf mentions in here that one needs an imagination to be a good scientist and I happen to agree (I am not scientifically inclined, nor mathematically for that matter, but I have always had a good imagination). The problem with attempting to provide diagrams and illustrations for the topic being covered in "Parallel Universes" is that you can't draw a fourth dimension on a piece of paper.

I regard Fred Alan Wolf's book as a wonderful work of science and poetry; the observer and the observed being one and the same; the fourth dimension of time broadening our understanding of the world around us, including the one most of us can't "see". Read it and find out just how close we are to solving the eternal question, "Is this all that there is?"

Fasten your seatbelt and get ready for a rocketship ride of a book that takes you on a quest for parallel universes. Wolf contemplates how we might perceive these parallel universes, and what it might feel like when we experience the past and future interacting with the present. The extra bonus of this adventure is that Wolf shows you how time is not the steady, measurable thing you thought it was! Time is slippery, because it can't ever be directly observed. Whereas we can measure and then verify a measurement of length or weight repeatedly, measurements of time cannot be easily confirmed. As Wolf points out so succinctly, "Nowhere is there a value of time associated with an observable called time. As far as the equations are concerned, time is just a convenient ordering parameter -- a way of keeping track of things placed alongside each other in a sequence." Time travel may well be possible, and you might not even need a time machine to do it! If you love to stretch your mind to understand more of the universe, I highly recommend this book.