Quantum Mind: The Edge between Physics and Psychology

2000, Lao Tse Press, Portland, Or, 629 pages, paper, $26.95

Reviewed by Steven Fenwick

Carl Jung once predicted that the sciences of physics and psychology would eventually come together to give us a unified view of matter and consciousness. Jung lived during the time when great new discoveries in the areas of relativity and quantum theory were shaking up the foundations of physics as well as our common sense view of reality. Indeed, physics was now telling us that the observer could not be separated from that which is observed, thus introducing subjective awareness into what was once a completely objective reality. It would seem that, like Alice, physics had gone down the rabbit hole into a view of reality that made little common sense to the view of most ordinary people. It seems even today, at the turn of the twenty-first century, most people have not yet caught up with the discoveries of modern physics.

Arnold Mindell takes us on a magical journey into this rabbit hole where physics and psychology meet. Mindell is uniquely qualified to help bring about the integration of these fields as predicted by Jung. He is an M.I.T. trained physicist turned psychologist who trained at the Jung Institute in Zurich. He then developed Jungian dream psychology further by connecting it to work with body symptoms, extreme states (psychoses), relationship and family systems, as well as to group and organizational work. Mindell’s cutting edge theory is known as “process-oriented psychology” or “process work.”

Quantum Mind is Mindell’s latest and most ambitious work to date. The book starts by going to the foundational root of basic assumptions about numbers and mathematics, showing that even counting is based in psychological experience: whenever we are counting one set of things we are discounting something else. He shows us that the “consensus reality” which can be observed and measured by western science arises out of a larger “non-consensus reality” which connects us to dreaming, shamanism and psychology.

Mindell then proceeds to develop the psychological meaning of such mathematical concepts as imaginary numbers and conjugation and is able to relate these concepts to both dreaming and physics. He then takes us on a wild journey through quantum mechanics, relativity, parallel worlds, non-locality, hyperspaces, Jung's concept of synchronicity, the curvature of space-time, big bangs and black holes and the Self-reflecting Universe (and these are just a few of his topics). As daunting as this may sound, especially to the math or science phobic, Mindell manages to make it easy and fun to understand for the beginner. The book is chock full of understandable diagrams and illustrations as well as real life examples and exercises that connect you to your own inner experience. Yet at the same time, this book will open new insights for those already conversant in the areas of math, physics and psychology. As an example, I recently had a conversation with an applied mathematician, who does research on modelling ecosystems, who told me that she found this book to be a “breakthrough.”

I personally found this book to be a real mind opener. I was especially excited by his connection between the quantum wave function and dreaming. Mindell writes:

Dreaming is analogous to the invisible period when quantum objects are not being observed. In a dream, your presence can be any place at any time. However, when you are waking up, the awareness of your waking mind lands you in one spot in space and time. No one knows exactly how this “collapse” into a particular spot on earth takes place. Just as there is no theory explaining how you wake up in one spot, there is no agreement in physics as to how observation “collapses the wave function” so that a quantum object appears located in one particular spot. (187)

Mindell shows us that physics is moving towards a viewpoint in which the basic “stuff” of the universe is not particles but sentient awareness, and that this sentience is not limited to human beings but arises throughout nature in the relationship between the observer and the observed.

Mindell ends his book by applying his ideas to the psychology of dreams, to working with physical illness, and to working with the world's social and environmental problems. It is impossible to do justice to the breadth and depth of this book in this short review. I can only encourage you to take this journey with Arnold Mindell down the magic rabbit hole and discover for yourself a world where physics meets dreaming.

Coma, A Healing Journey and Quantum Mind are available from Lao Tse Press at www.laotse.com