Mysticism and the New Physics

I have to say that while I was reading Mysticism and the new physics I didn't feel that it was a particularly well written book. There are several errors in the physics - this isn't where Talbot is being speculative, it's just wrong. Also I felt that he had a tendency just to report on what people have said, rather than putting it together into a consistent narrative. When I got to the end of the book there was a chapter added in the second edition explaining that Talbot originally wrote the book in his early 20's. I felt that this explained a lot - at that age I feel that he didn't have the critical abilities to do the subject justice. However you might find it useful for its reporting on the views of various scientists on the links between mysticism and physics.

While Talbot was growing up he was interested in science, but also had paranormal experiences. At the time he didn't see any contradiction, but as he grew older he found out that the rest of the world did make a definite distinction between the two. Although I wasn't particularly impressed with this book, I did feel that it points towards some interesting possibilities, in particular in the idealist philosophy of mind, and I will certainly read some of Talbot's later works, such as The Holographic Universe (Unfortunately Michael Talbot died from leukemia at the age of 39 in 1992)