Ervin László

Dr Ervin László (1932-) is a Hungarian pseudoscience promoter and systems theorist. He has published books endorsing spiritual evolution and quantum woo.

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Biography

László publishes woo articles in the Huffington Post.[1] His article Evolution Presupposes Design, So Why the Controversy? argues for intelligent design.[2] Similar to Deepak Chopra, he is a supporter of quantum woo and new age claims about quantum consciousness and spirituality.[3]

László is a believer in psychic phenomena.[4] In his books Evolution: The Grand Synthesis (1987) and The Creative Cosmos: A Unified Science of Matter, Life and Mind (1996), he proposed a universal "psi-field" underlying and interconnecting all of matter to explain paranormal and quantum phenomena.[5] This idea is similar to the morphic fields of Rupert Sheldrake.

László jumped on the 2012 bandwagon with his book WorldShift 2012: Making Green Business New Politics & Higher Consciousness Work Together.

Ervin László has indicated a belief in psychic phenomenon such as remote healing, and talking to the dead in prophesy and has disseminated pseudoscience.[6] He has been criticized for his prophesy that there was going to be a critical tipping point in the Akashic Field in 2012 [7] which is akin to religious millennialism and also his misrepresentation of Darwin's Theory of Evolution incorporating teleological argument (physico-theological argument which replaces God with the Akashic Field)[7]. Some of László's ideas have been designated as pseudoscience such as his notion of "quantum consciousness" because he relies on the misuse of quantum physics similar to Deepak Chopra or Stanislav Grof[3][8][6]. Also he misuses the word theory, using it to have the common meaning of a casual untested idea, similar to hypothesis, instead of the precise scientific term of a group of ideas that has systematically (using the scientific method) shown to explain data, be predictive and be falsifiable such as climate change or evolution.

Akashic Field pseudoscience

László's 2004 book, Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything posits a field of information as the substance of the cosmos. He claims the informational field can explain why the Universe is fine-tuned as to form galaxies and conscious lifeforms; and why evolution is a directed not random, process.[9] He took the concept from the Akashic Records a metaphysical belief held in Hinduism and Theosophy that claims there is a compendium of mystical knowledge supposedly encoded in a non-physical plane of existence.

He define the Akasha field as:

“”…an all-encompassing medium that underlies all things and becomes all things. It is real, but so subtle that it cannot be perceived until it becomes the many things that populate the manifest world. Our bodily senses do not register Akasha, but we can reach it through spiritual practice. The ancient Rishis reached it through a disciplined, spiritual way of life, and through yoga. They described their experience, and made Akasha an essential element of the philosophy and mythology of India.[10]

It has been argued that the Akashic Field is not a theory because it is not-even-scientific (Not even wrong) because it does not pass the falsifiability test (using the word science in a title does not make a book scientific) and there is no scientific consensus for the Akashic Field let alone evidence[11] regarding his "theory", because of this his ideas may not only be dishonest and wrong but may be harmful because it is actively anti-science[12][13]. Despite this inherent pseudoscience and anti-science in his work he was given the role of science advisor for UNESCO!?[11]

Others have jumped on the Akasha bandwagon and offer "Akashic Reading/Clearing… With your permission I can access your soul's Akashic Record facilitate removal of blocks/restrictions from this current and past lifetimes so you can move forward quicker in your spiritual development and life's purpose".[14]

Publications
  • The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time (Hampton Press, 1996)
  • The Whispering Pond: A Personal Guide to the Emerging Vision of Science (Element Books, Ltd., 1996)
  • Evolution: The General Theory (Hampton Press, 1996)
  • The Connectivity Hypothesis: Foundations of an Integral Science of Quantum, Cosmos, Life, and Consciousness (State University of New York Press, 2003)
  • You Can Change the World: The Global Citizen's Handbook for Living on Planet Earth: A Report of the Club of Budapest (Select Books, 2003)
  • Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything (Inner Traditions International, 2004)
  • Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos: The Rise of the Integral Vision of Reality (Inner Traditions, 2006)
  • The Chaos Point: The World at the Crossroads (Hampton Roads, 2006)
  • Quantum Shift in the Global Brain: How the New Scientific Reality Can Change Us and our World [Rochester VT: Inner Traditions, 2008]
  • WorldShift 2012: Making Green Business New Politics & Higher Consciousness Work Together (McArthur & Company, 2009)
  • The Immortal Mind: Science and the Continuity of Consciousness Beyond the Brain (with Anthony Peake) (Simon and Schuster, 2014)
gollark: OH NOSYNCHRONOUS XMLHTTPREQUESTKILL HIM
gollark: I saw it from my user page this morning, I think.
gollark: Hmm, troubling!
gollark: Will it autogenerate esowiki pages and interpreters?
gollark: Very exciting.

References
  1. Ervin Laszlo HuffPost
  2. Evolution Presupposes Design, So Why the Controversy? HuffPost 15 June 2010
  3. Move over, Deepak, there’s a new woo-meister at HuffPo ScienceBlogs 6 May 2010
  4. Subtle Connections: Psi, Grof, Jung, and the Quantum Vacuum by Ervin Laszlo Souls of Distortion
  5. Perspective of Mind: Ervin Laszlo Stoa del Sol
  6. The Mystical Genius of Ervin Laszlo (Part I of II) Swans Commentary 20 May 2013
  7. The Worldshift Has Started HuffPost 18 April 2011
  8. Richard Dawkins interviews Deepak Chopra (Enemies of Reason Uncut Interviews 6/10) from the YouTube channel Bernardo Segura 4 May 2013
  9. Science and the Akashic Field Anandavala
  10. Science and the Akashic Field DailyOM
  11. The Mystical Genius of Ervin Laszlo (Part II of II) Swans Commentary 3 June 2013
  12. Ervin Laszlo, Flying Under The Skeptic Radar? Johan's Blog 18 September 2010 (archived from the original on the 10 January 2011)
  13. Critical Commentary on Ervin Laszlo’s Paper “In Defense of Intuition” Journal of Scientific Exploration (Volume 23, Number 3)
  14. Akashic Readings Jenny Mannion - Author, Intuitive Healer
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