Finally I finished this little book. It has been two months since I wrote the quantum physics article after the first part of this book. That it took so long to read it is not only caused by lack of time and other things to read, but also because of the readability of this work, but about that later.
The book is divided in three parts, eleven sections and numerous subsections, chapters, etc.
Part I is called “Western Science”, part II “From Western Science To Occult Science” and part III “Occult Science”, which already shows the structure and purpose of the book.
The term “occult science” the writer explains as follows: it is “a principal sub-set of Theos-Sophia, [and] acclaimed an EXACT science, for its teachings, in their essential content, have been ever-consistent and unchanging, thoroughly verified and independently corroborated, although inevitably the form of presentation has varied to suit the culture, phychology and mental climate of any particular epoch.” (p. 55) So to say, science performed by occultists, clairvoyants, etc.
The first part is pretty short and very interesting. It deals with Western science’s investigations of sound and light and explains very well the history, present and possible future of quantum physics. Things are explained nice and clear and this part is not only very interesting, but also well readable.
Part II is a bit longer and deals with a few other elements of western science and the occult scientific approach.
The last part is the largest part of the book and spans well over half of the 250 pages. Here the book becomes rather tedious and this is one of the reasons that it took me so long to read it. For too many pages, this part contains philosophical musings and implications of elements from occult science and western science and the differences between these two. Of course the book would be incomplete when subjects such as God, consciousness (the basis of occult science, but rejected or taken in an entirely wrong manner by western science) are not attended, but since this is mostly Theosophy (that is, modern Theosophy as coming after and from H.P. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society) most of it is known to me. The strong link with science is of course something you don’t usually find in Theosophical literature, so that was the main reason for me to decide to read it all. Unfortunately the writer seems to lack the ability to write engaging about such subjects. The end of the book is again magnificent though when Bilimoria deals with a few subjects from western science and explains it by the doctrines of occult science, which he does very well.
The good part of the book is, is that the writer is familiar with ‘classical’ scientists such as Descartes, but also a bit more rescent like Einstein and Newton (also with their not too familiar interest in occult topics and their writings about these) and also modern scientists, the more unorthodox modern scientists and of course occult scientists. Herewith you get a very good overview of the entire scientific spectrum. Also he knows what he is talking about, it is not only ‘book knowledge’.
Also there are some theories, ideas and investigations of his own. For example, he shows that the velocity (speed) of light, the contant of Planck and the gravitational contant are not as constant as western science (wants us to) believe(s).
Quotes and ideas are taken from a wide range of literature, from HPB’s “The Secret Doctrine” or “The Voice Of The Silence” to the recent writings of Rupert Sheldrake (an outcast of western science) or Stephen Hawkings (a respected scientist).
The bad things about the book are:
-The writing-style. As mentioned Bilimoria seems not able too well to write readable philosophical subjects and his writing is at times more difficult than needed. For example, why writing: “by strenuous mental arithmetic”, when you can also say: “hard thinking”? Not to mention the line-long sentences with 3 or 4 subsentences that the writer uses too often.
-Footnotes can half of the time just as well be part of the text. Now you need to decide when to read the footnote that is directed to halfway a sentence.
-The lay out. Theosophical desc-top-publishers seem to like to put quotes in the text. Fortunately in this book these aren’t quotes that can be found in the text itself, but why making a special part in between the text to make another few lines? Then you have to decide when to read it and these quotes doesn’t add anything to the text either! At times they even span a full paragraph!!
Also the fact that there are far too many different kinds of headers. You have a header for a new part and section of course, but also ‘chapter’ titles large and in capitals, only large, fat and in capitals and only fat and these variations in another font than the text (arial and the text in times and both in times), the same size and in capitals, the same size and fat, etc., etc. This really doesn’t make things clearer.
-Bilimoria is a huge fan of diagrams and tables and uses them a lot. 9 Out of 10 times the diagrams are more confusing that explaining!! They are often desultory and a total waste of time to try to understand.
A few positive points then after this run down…:
-Essential thoughts of the writer are often repeated;
-Overall the book has to main subjects within the purpose of the book being the investigation of light and sound and the origin of the universe (big-bang theories) which in the end will at least have learned you something about these subjects.
Overall the book it just alright. I am not too happy with it, but the first section and the last 50 pages are extremely interesting to read. I think that if you are interested in the subject, you better try I.K. Taimni’s “Science and Occultism” (unfortunately not available from Amazon), C.W. Leadbeater’s “Occult Chemistry” or O. Tynberg’s “The Science Of Nature” (available online here). Not that I read these books, but just to name a few titles of writers that I have better experience with…
And you can’t get the Bilimoria book from Amazon either. You will have to approach a local Theosophical lodge in order to get it or write to the addres above.