A Brief Tour of High Consciousness: A Cosmic Book on the Mechanics of Creation by Itzhak Bentov

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know now that I really enjoy “fringe” non-fiction that chronicles out of body experiences and remote reviewing.  This is another of those books.

If you’re not into those topics, my apologies in advance. 🙂

A lighthearted yet profound guide to the realms of higher consciousness and the ultimate nature of reality.

Goodreads

My research into consciousness exploration continues with A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov.

Having predominantly read books like this by artists (Jurgen Ziewe and Kurt Leland come to mind), it was refreshing to have a first person narrative by an engineer. Itzhak’s lens of perception is so different than my own- I loved it.

There is a part towards the end, What is a Hologram, and a chapter by another author, Essay on Cosmology by Edward Apgar, that I didn’t resonate with at all. But, perhaps for the most scientifically-minded, those parts will be your favorite.

Hologram image from nationaldefensemagazine.org

Itzhak has simplistic doodles scattered throughout the text which brings a “Randall Munroe” feel to the book- the use of simple pictures to illustrate complex and abstract ideas. This author definitely feels to me as if he was a bit ahead of his time in both his presentation and materials.

Bentov doodle from ritamarrpositivechange.wordpress.com

Itzhak’s explanation of “lens of consciousness”: “As consciousness evolves and information starts pouring in, the information is couched in a language best understandable to the person involved. For instance, a poet will be shown the nature of Creation in poetic images, an artist in visual symbols, and a mathematician in abstract equations; a nuts-and-bolts fellow like myself will have it shown to him as structure.” pg 5

I was reminded of Robert Monroe’s Journeys Out of the Body in which he puts emphasis on recording and comparing out-of-body experiences for consistency and real world applications to bring legitimacy to the practice.

I’ve heard that we’re all made of star dust and I really liked Itzhak’s description of it in this passage: “Stars collect into clusters or galaxies, and as they die, they explode and create cosmic dust, which again condenses into new stars and planets. Everything in the entire universe, including our bodies, is made of one cosmic substance. We contain atoms from the most distant galaxies and are thus connected to the whole universe.” pg 13

Stars in the sky from wikipedia.org

Everything is vibration: “In short, consciousness in a vibratory state manifests itself as our familiar matter, from which the different forms that we see around us are made. The table, the flowers, the scent of the flowers, and our bodies are all made of rapidly vibrating consciousness.” pg 20 Wild!

A discussion of how to interact with devas (an ant deva to be precise, which is kind of silly, I realize), which Itzhak describes as “The name given to a being that is the rudimentary consciousness of any structure”: “To negotiate with her, the currency of exchange is love. Just send the ant deva a lot of love, which will stimulate her evolution. Even ant devas need love, in order eventually to know their Creator.” pg 33

In my meditations, I’ve frequently experienced what Itzhak describes in this next passage. It was nice to finally have a reason why: (While in a meditative state) “Wiggle your body. This causes a disturbance, a vibration, to spread … (This is similar to a fly falling into a spider web. The vibration of the web signals the spider and it shows up to investigate its dinner.) The deva .. appears immediately, looking worried and saying something like “What do you want?” or “Who are you?” pg 35

I’ll close with this excerpt of Itzhak’s philosophy: “There is nothing absolute and final. If everything were iron-clad, all the rules absolute and everything structured so no paradox or irony existed, you couldn’t move. One could say that man sneaks through the crack where paradox exists.” pg 78

If you enjoyed this book, you may want to take a look at Otherwhere by Kurt Leland or Multidimensional Man by Jurgen Ziewe. If you liked the doodles of complex concepts and want more of that, try Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe.

Thanks for reading!

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