Spiritual Intelligence

Science may still be a long way from measuring the quality of human consciousness, but it can already detect its presence in the brain's electric frequencies. Drawing on the research of neuroscientist Rodolfo Llinas, which connects consciousness with the presence of 40 HZ neural oscillations in the human brain, the authors of The Quantum Self attempt to conceptualize the spiritual state of ""higher consciousness"" within the realm of quantum physics. Going one step further than Llinas, Zohar and Marshall propose that these frequencies are evidence of spiritual intelligence, or the ""intelligence of the soul."" They define SQ as ""unitive"" thinking and describe it in physical terms as the high frequency oscillatory activity that binds the proto-consciousness in all single-cell life into a unified, meaningful whole within certain special structures, such as the human brain. Of the neural cells involved in conscious experience, they write: ""They behave as many individual voices that have become one voice in a choir. No known phenomenon can generate this kind of coherence, but it is the rule in quantum processes."" The unity of all living things that is at the core of Buddhist philosophy serves as a natural segue from quantum physics to metaphysics. Unsurprisingly, Buddhist, Hindu and Hebrew texts provide the foundation for the authors' prescriptions for increasing spiritual intelligence in the latter half of this engrossing and inevitably controversial book. Illus. not seen by PW. Foreign rights sold in Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and the U.K. (Jan.)