This is the first time that I receive a book to review. The publisher (“Black Spring Press”) sent me a copy of this book about “science, religion and the theory of everything”. It is Hayes second book, but I had not heard of The Infinite Harmony before, but then again, the books are not entirely ‘within my genre’.
The ex-hippie Hayes got a revelation when he started to study DNA. There is an 8×8 construction in it which he also found within the I-Ching. Further investigation proved that there are more numbers essential in nature, but also religion and mythology. This information Hayes worked out into a theory of everything, or a code. The “Hermetic Code” as he calls it and I suppose this is why I received this book to review. Important numbers such as 7, but in Hayes’ view more like 8, but also 22 and the earlier mentioned 64 can be found within everything, most importantly in music. 7 Notes (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti) and with the first note of the next an octave of 8. The writer speaks about heavenly music, a bit like Pythagoras’ music of the spheres. The “Hermetic Code” is much like the genetic code, but Hayes claims that the Egyptians knew about the ‘esoteric music’ code and also to other peoples than the Egyptians it was known. Thoth was the one to teach it though, which brought Hayes to the name “Hermetic Code” (HC). Since the magical square of Mercury (also mentioned in the book) is also 8×8, I can’t really blame him for this. I loose the writer a bit when he keeps speaking about “Hermetic theory” and the like, because he refers to the HC and not to Hermetism. Also (even though he probably underbuilt his theory in his first book) he is underbuilding a theory, but Hayes uses ‘his own’ (however he will say you he only rediscovered it) code as prove for other theories.
Here I have to tell you about the other aspects of the book, because the actual code is only a small part of the book. Hayes uses his code to link religion/spirituality with science, such as quantum physics, but also more radical theories. Mostly Hayes moves within the spheres of writers like Colin Wilson, Robert Temple, Michael Talbot, Graham Hancock and the like; writers who investigate the things that ‘accepted scientists’ refuse to investigate and have wild theories to explain strange things from the past and the present. Also Hayes uses a lot of pages to write about the building of the pyramids with its massive blocks of stone, electrons / protons / quarks / etc. or the hologramic brain. He mostly collects ideas of others and tries to underbuild these with his HC-theory. Just an example. Some writers have claimed that the use of the Egyptians to make their art and build their temples was some kind of knowledge of sound-waves which they could use to lift stones and drill marble. Since the HC is a musical code (The Infinite Harmony was not for nothing subtitled musical structures in science and theology)……!
Many of Hayes’ ideas have been slumberingly present since his hippie-days when he experimented with LSD. Later when he read books of the spiritual masters Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. He combines the ideas of these two, but also Hindus, yogis and concepts in worldwide religion with new discoveries of scientists and ideas of writers such as those in the previous paragraph. This results a bit in a recapitulation-drill (even though I am not familiar with this kind of literature, I knew about most ideas) with his HC as red-line. Sometimes Hayes looses the track a bit, but the result is interesting. I don’t agree with the writer everywhere, nor do I follow his every theory, but the basis of his ideas closely resemble my own, I just came to the hypothesises another way.
So, if you want to read about new findings in science, radical theories for things yet (officially) unexplained and hear a theory of everything, I suppose you can get this book and read it.