Impassioned call for the study of the possibility of an intelligent universe.

Great for fans of Ulf Danielsson’s The World Itself, Carl Johan Calleman’s The Living Universe.

NONFICTION A Theory of Everything including Consciousness and “God” Bill Harvey | The Human Effectiveness Institute 88p, trade paper, $8.95, ISBN 978-0-918538-19-2

This impassioned treatise exploring consciousness and creation from Harvey, the media researcher and author of Mind Magic and other titles, opens with a provocative declaration: “I’d like physicists to accept the scientific possibility of something very much like ‘God,’ and to prioritize the subject.” “God”,” in this usage, refers to a somewhat anthropomorphized shorthand for consciousness itself, an inter-connected oneness that contains us all and, according to the Theory of Universal Consciousness, could pre-date most of existence itself. But before Harvey’s book digs into the possibility that the universe’s leap into existence was no random accident, and that “consciousness came first and created matter-energy,” it asks readers— especially physicists—to give a fair shake to a more general proposal: that humanity might become better if science “concludes that there is no scientific basis for ruling out intelligence in the universe itself.”

Harvey’s deeper critique of contemporary science is that, unlike the era of the natural philosophers, it has built a barrier between itself and

any conception of God, closing minds and pushing our society toward discord. Harvey draws on Einstein and John Wheeler, quantum mechanics and Eastern spiritual traditions, to make the case for exploring the possibility of a First Self who created all of this, and of a One Self, connecting us all. The work is searching, and Harvey urges readers to be, too, laying out a series of experiments for individuals to feel connection to “the intelligence of the multiverse.”

There’s some humility in asking scientists simply to explore the possibilities. Elsewhere in this compact book, Harvey makes more concrete promises, insisting breezily that “Better behavior will steadily take over” and “Working together in a friendly way will become the norm” if scientists were to endorse the proposition that the universe itself may be intelligent. Later chapters connect the One Self hypothesis to familiar New Age ideas (ESP, out-of-body experiences) that will appeal to seekers at the possible cost of alienating scientists.

Cover: B+ | Design & typography: A | Illustrations: – Editing: A | Marketing copy: A