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The Quantum Doctor: A Physicist's Guide to Health and Healing

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For Amit Goswami, PhD, a leading quantum physicist, medicine is a timely area of application for the new science based on the primacy of consciousness. This new science has a spectacular ability to integrate conventional science, spirituality, and healing. If any field needs integration, says Goswami, it is medicine and healing. The Quantum Doctor boldly reinterprets the leading methods of alternative medicine—homeopathy, Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and Ayurveda—and of conventional medicine from the viewpoint of quantum physics. He shows that these seemingly different models can be integrated into a new multi-tiered system based on the new "science within consciousness." At the heart of all illness and healing is consciousness, Goswami says. And The Quantum Doctor gives physicians, practitioners, and patients a whole new way of applying medicine, with a greater likelihood of healing. Goswami calls it integral medicine, and it's based on an integration of the underlying metaphysics of all medicine models. "This is a very new approach. This can be the legitimate basis for a paradigm shift in medicine."

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2004

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About the author

Amit Goswami

70 books227 followers
Amit Goswami is a nuclear physicist and member of The University of Oregon Institute for Theoretical Physics since 1968. Dr. Goswami is a revolutionary in a growing body of renegade scientists who in recent years have ventured into the domain of the spiritual in an attempt both to interpret the seemingly inexplicable findings of their experiments and to validate their intuitions about the existence of a spiritual dimension of life.

He became best known as one of the interviewed scientists featured in the 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? , the recent documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance , and stars in the 2009 documentary The Quantum Activist .

Please visit www.AmitGoswami.org for the latest events and information.

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5 stars
170 (47%)
4 stars
99 (27%)
3 stars
59 (16%)
2 stars
24 (6%)
1 star
9 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly Carlson.
35 reviews2 followers
July 8, 2008
It was like being on a really great drug for a few years cause that's how long it took me to read it. Supported my life in lots of ways along the journey. If you want to imagine breaking down everything you ever thought was "true" go ahead and let go and read it. In small chunks its easier to digest. Don't forget to pay attention to your life as you read through it cause the clues to getting it will be there. blah blah blah I love this life, its amazing
Profile Image for Carol Ann .
30 reviews3 followers
December 3, 2013
Amit Goswami shares his knowledge of Quantum Physics and applies it to our current western medicine beliefs. He is excellent at conveying knowledge at the lay person and at the same time he can capture the interest of medical professionals. Good book if you are interested in alternative medicine.
Profile Image for Kira Alana  Lospinoso.
16 reviews
August 24, 2023
I recommend this book to anyone who has ever questioned or became frustrated with the materialist dogma that our institutions and methodologies rely on in the west. Not enough good can be said about this book - just the ability for such vast concepts to be explained in a way that’s digestible let alone the scope and number of threads explored and discussed throughout this book —- defiantly will be back to reference, read again, and continue learning/realizing — reading this alongside my ‘yoga journey’ has helped open and shape my perspective in indescribable ways — spirituality and healing, both these rediscoveries, regeneration, opportunities to connect and embody something more
Profile Image for Vikrant.
90 reviews4 followers
July 22, 2020
Quantum theory is still as challenging for the mind to understand despite 20+ yrs of first getting exposed to it. However, practice part is what this books focus on, in the realm of health and wellness. Quite interesting to see how Ayurveda, TCM, Homeopathy traditions work on the body-mind-consciousness-vital energy approaches versus pure body-material approach of allopathy! Finally- might not term Homeopathy as pseudo science :-)
Profile Image for Joshua J.
47 reviews
April 12, 2023
This was amazing! Finally a concept that employs all manner of healing, from allopathic, homeopathic, ayurvedic, holistic etc and shows how they can all work in tandem to heal those in need. I am so glad I read this book, it wouldn't surprise me if I did again at some point.
Profile Image for Rogier.
Author 5 books28 followers
March 8, 2018
Crystal clear. The mind of the patient is the healer. As much as that was metaphysically clear to me before from Advaita and Buddhism and later from A Course in Miracles, having Goswami's explanation based purely in quantum physics really helps flesh it out more.
Ever since I've started to live the Whole Foods, Plant-based lifestyle, it is clear to me that while this model 'empowers' the patient, that this is in and of itself futile, and leaves you stuck with no way out, unlerss you knew you had a mind which is capable of making a different decision.
You get no further than the mechanistic reasoning of The Pleasure Trap, which explains nothing, although it makes you more aware of the mechanics of food addiction. Shifting the focus to the mind (and not the brain) really facilitates the realization that the mind can make a different decision, that I don't want to live like that any more. The healing modalities are then a matter of choice. The Whole Foods Plant-Based diet then is just one healing modality, albeit a big one.

Had Goswami really known about it, he would not have had his bypass operation, nor would he have made an exception for allopathy in respect of cholesterol lowering drugs or viagra, since high cholesterol and ED are purely symptoms of the bad diets that lead to cardiovascular disease, and there is no reason not to change your diet once you understand that. He would also have understood the real reason that the genetic angle is largely pointless because of T. Colin Campbell's clear demonstration that cancer is 90% nurture and not nature. In other words, cell damage is unavoidable if you do any living and while it is always good to reduce your exposure to known carcinogens, there is no way to do so 100%. Campbell's research proved clearly that cell damage must be supported by bad nutrition in order to lead to cancer. In a high nutritional state cell damage is less likely to occur, for your body will have plenty of anti-oxidants, but beyond that animal proteins are the fuel that eventually produces cancer, and you now have the ability to avoid them.

The upshot is, for me, that the Whole Foods, Plant-Based lifestyle shifts the action to the mind of the patient. Things like The Pleasure Trap help explain and understand the addiction to bad food, but it is the realization, with Goswami, that the mind is in charge of the body, introduces the meaningful possibility of a different decision. We choose healing, and the particular modalities are then mostly a matter of personal preference, what works for you. The Quantum Doctor is the new paradigm where the mind of the patient is in charge of the healing, and this wipes away the mechanistic, body-centered, and ultimately Newtonian paradigm of allopathy, but it equally wipes away the silly paradigm of naturopathy of mind-body-spirit, which explains nothing. Once we start understanding the primacy of the mind in healing, new things become possible.
Profile Image for J.
159 reviews38 followers
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May 6, 2011
Fundamentally this book is about causality. But that topic is presented in a rich context of health and disease. Goswami gets specific when he dives into the different modalities of allopathy, Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, chakras, and homeopathy.

My brains pretty much splattered all over the walls when I realized that the excerpt below was backing up Unity and taking down the illusion of separateness:

pg 43
"For large masses, the quantum dynamics of matter is such that the objects expand as waves of possibility very slowly, so slowly that the effect of the uncertainty principle is hardly visible. So when your friend observes a chair in a certain position, and then you observe the same chair, your friend's observation affects the object's position so negligibly that you virtually observe the same chair in the same place.

So the two of you can compare your data and decide that since both of you are seeing the same thing, the thing must be independent of your observation, must be outside your awareness. That is, consensus data mesmerize us to conclude that this macro-world of matter is external to us. (But laser experiments show that objects like chairs do mauve by some imperceptible 10^-16 centimeter between two observations).

Now consider the subtle body. Here there are no extended bodies, and no micro-macro division. We have indivisibly an extension of worlds, infinite oceans of which the waves are experienced as individual events. But now the quantum uncertainty principle extends to all such waves; therefore one's observation always affects the object in the subtle body, so another cannot experience the identical object. Because of the lack of consensus, in this case we do not make the mistake that the objects are outside us. We experience them as private, and therefore we easily conclude that they must be internal."
Profile Image for Tine!.
145 reviews37 followers
October 27, 2011
Maybe my emotions regarding this book are a bit naive, but perhaps it struck me as the-best-thing-ever because I have been slowly building up to it; that is to say that I have been unintentionally preparing my mind for the complete dissolution of the tangible world by reading books steeped in mysticism and an inward-focused philosophy. Then along comes this book, making - if you'll excuse the expression - a quantum leap from a manner of thinking to a more promising worldview backed by ongoing "discoveries" of science that are leading us through a funnel of tightening certainty before spitting us right back out into the big ol' void. Goswami did a fine job pulling all of his collected knowledge in and deftly interlacing it to form a fairly confident net - enough to catch the reader as he falls through that void. Ok! That does it! Clearly I can't talk about this book except in metaphor - I give up!
Profile Image for Cristina Smith.
Author 23 books182 followers
December 15, 2017
Dr. Goswami is a quantum evangelist. He does a great job of introducing and explaining these fairly complex concepts to a right brained person like me in a way that I grok. I enjoyed this book and really got a lot out of his explanation of Ayureveda and healing vital energy imbalances.

Recommended for healers, alternative medicine advocates and those wanting a scientific perspective on healing.
Profile Image for Lucy.
133 reviews1 follower
October 5, 2020
Kdybych měla tuto knihu shrnout do jedné věty, byla by to asi tato: Nemoci mají různé úrovně, a tím pádem i způsoby léčení musí tyto úrovně odrážet a respektovat. Kvantový doktor začal pohledem do světa kvantové fyziky a jejích superpozic. Bohužel pokračoval už jen vyjmenováním alternativních medicín - akupunktura, čakry, homeopatie… Pro nováčky jde ale o dobrý první vhled do vod alternativní medicíny. 
Profile Image for Zee Malvern.
12 reviews
June 16, 2022
Goswami teaches about the four bodies which is incredibly interesting especially in accordance with healing the parts of ourselves we may not be able to access consciously, however, he is relatively anti-vax/meds and he doesn’t give the reader a lot of autonomy on belief systems. I literally crossed out the parts of the book I didn’t agree with and kept it because it does have a fountain of information on the four bodies. It was an ok book just remember your autonomy throughout.
1 review1 follower
December 28, 2017
I have been practising yoga for two years now. However, this book has helped me understand more on the role of gunas and the chakras role in health.

The bottom line for me is, it has made me understand the importance of being more conscious of the role of chakras and my energy levels towards life.
4 reviews
January 7, 2019
Intriguing!!!

I only DIDN'T choose 5 stars because of my own limitations of grasping part of this! Fantastic eye opening book that is required reading for one of my classes toward my PhD in Integrative medicine & it was absolutely fascinating! Parts were over my head, but I have no doubt as I further my education in this field, that will change.
Profile Image for Tanweer.
9 reviews1 follower
February 27, 2021
As a practitioner of Allopathic & Traditional Medicine I was delighted to stumble on a book that attempts to unite modern medicine with centuries old traditions of healing. I carry the burden of justifying myself to my allopathic colleagues as to why I chose to practice Integrative Medicine – with this in mind, I brought this book authored by a physicist with a doctorate degree and a foreword written by Deepak Chopra, MD.

I truly enjoyed the first two parts of the book ( about 150 pages ) as the author explains the concepts of Quantum Doctor, Integral Medicine, Vital Force , Levels of consciousness and healing, Downward Causation. His brief explanations on Chinese, Ayuverdic & Homeopathic Medicine would be helpful to a naïve reader.

Part 3 & especially Part 4 of the book, on the other hand, are a huge disappointment. Instead of uniting his ideas, the author instead chooses to promote Ayuverdic Medicine and Hindu Philosophy and rest of book becomes highly speculative and mediocre. It becomes a mish mash of physics, metaphysics and Ayuverdic Medicine, ultimately failing the main purpose of the book – to bridge the gap between allopathic & traditional medicine. The author goes out of his way to discredit Western Medicine. Whatever credibility he builds in first half of the book is dispersed in other half and the remaining credibility left, if any, is thrown out when he cites two anecdotal examples – a 11 eleven year amputee who grows a new limb and a 260 year old woman who lives under the sea. At this point, I truly felt my intelligence being insulted.

Curiously, the author leaves out any mention of Greek ( Unani) Medicine – a highly regarded , centuries old method of healing still practiced in India , Pakistan & the Middle East. The author grew up in India and I find it is impossible for the author not to have heard / know about Greek Medicine. What is possible though is the author has let his bias against Muslims take a hold of him - which is common amongst Indian authors, including academicians.

I gave the book 2 stars as I liked the first half of the book.
Profile Image for Steve Barrera.
144 reviews2 followers
July 9, 2023
With this book, Amit Goswami continues his project of applying the fundamental theory of science within consciousness to specific domains of knowledge, in this case to health and medicine. The key insight at work is that in addition to our physical body made of atoms, we have two subtle bodies - a vital body where our life functions are maintained, and a mental body via which we attribute meaning to our experiences. These three bodies are correlated through unitive consciousness, but unlike our physical bodies which are in a shared external reality, our vital and mental bodies are in a private internal reality, experienced as our feelings and thoughts. Disease and illness can be understood in terms of all three bodies, and Goswami applies this understanding to elucidate a scientific framework he calls Integral Medicine. He uses this framework to make sense of different systems of "alternative medicine," including Ayurdeva, chakra medicine, traditional Chinese medicine including acupuncture, homeopathy, and mind-body healing such as the placebo effect. His arguments are rational and logically consistent, but one must take for granted that alternative medicine methods do work in order for this book to make any sense. Even assuming you do believe the data on alternative medicine, much of this book seems speculative, though it certainly suggests many potentially fruitful lines of research, should the scientifc and medical communities at large take up this theoretical approach. I do think Goswami's theory is strong, and it certainly aligns with my own personal experience as a living creature (you'll have to take my word that I am indeed such a being), but this book offers little in the way of praxis. Still, it opened my mind to new ways of thinking about health and well-being, as dependent on more than just physical or chemical states, but also on higher orders of consciousness.
Profile Image for Aleš Bednařík.
Author 6 books24 followers
February 12, 2024
Jeden z takých pokusov využiť poznatky z kvantovej fyziky na propagáciu alternatívneho liečiteľstva. Splieta piate cez deviate, ale tvári sa to ako seriózna filozofia spájajúca všetko - od ajurvédy, cez homeopatiu až po materialistickú medicínu. Chce ulahodiť všetkým aj keď najčastejšie kritizuje materialistickú medicínu.
Výsledkom aj tak má byť viera v to že našou mysľou vieme všetko, aj sa vyliečiť.
Nuž západná medicína nepopiera psychosomatiku, na rozdiel od alternatívcov ju aj skúma.
Keďže kvantovej fyzike málokto rozumie, ale prepojenie energie a hmoty psychošmejdov a šarlatánov fascinuje, tak okamžite spájajú vedu s ich energiami, čakrami, vitálnymi prúdmi, či čokoľvek, čo je vágne pomenované, ale má liečiť všetko.
Je ťažké dokazovať, ľahké vymýšľať rozprávky, čo znejú ako filozofia alebo spiritualita a ťažko rozlíšiť fantáziu od dôkazov.
Profile Image for Maria Ripoll Cera.
152 reviews2 followers
September 1, 2022
Uno de esos libros imprescindibles para avanzar con los tiempos. Amit Goswami presenta aquí sus conocimientos en la medicina cuántica, inteligibles para la mayoría de nosotros, aunque difícil de seguir. En líneas generales va quedando el mensaje claro y provoca un cambio vital en cómo ver la vida y la salud, en cultivar el famoso "salto cuántico". Lo importante de este libro es conservarlo cerca, para recordar ponerlo en práctica día a día.
Profile Image for Beta Évora.
12 reviews
May 13, 2020
A melhor explicação sobre o poder do ego ser ligado à comida está nesse livro!
Profile Image for Varshu Goboori.
3 reviews
June 28, 2020
Absolutely amazing. This book made me contemplate about every single aspect of my life.
Profile Image for Rakesh Anand Bakshi.
18 reviews4 followers
October 11, 2021
Brilliant! The necessity of follwing not just one field of medicine. Ayurveda, allopathy, homeopathy, accupressure, accupuncture, etc.... a balance beween them for our cures.
Profile Image for Ana Paula Louvem.
22 reviews
May 17, 2022
É um livro muito interessante que apresenta um novo conceito de saúde: a medicina integral. Esse livro deve ser lido com calma e foco.
34 reviews1 follower
June 15, 2023
Great information, repetitive and confusing to read, compelling, mind-widenning.
Profile Image for J.B. Hollows.
Author 3 books3 followers
September 25, 2024
Well over my head in many ways but fascinating and still relevant ten years on.
Profile Image for Martin Lutonsky.
168 reviews2 followers
October 25, 2018
Tahle kniha mě docela dostala. Ani nevím proč, ale má představa (spíš neuchopená) o tom jak fungujeme my jako lidé se velmi velmi shoduje s tím, co tu autor odkrývá. U mě to je prostě ten click, který se dostaví, když Vám něco přesně zapadne na své místo.
Kniha se velmi podobá klasické učebnici, a proto i když se velmi dobře poslouchá doporučuji pořídit si ji i v papírové formě neboť se k jednotlivým pasážím budete chtít vracet a dělat si do nich poznámky. Pocit z jejího čtení jsem měl jako na VŠ, když jsem studoval odbornou literaturu, která mě sice bavila, ale byla psána věděcky. I když zde autor pravidelně odlehčuje text názornými příběhy a činí tak knihu ještě lépe stravitelnou.
Profile Image for Preston.
97 reviews3 followers
July 22, 2013
readable and relevant, useful information - kind of a "funny book" for those of you who haven't experienced Goswami's alternative viewpoint on the world - worth reading, especially for those in or entering the health care field
Profile Image for jaroiva.
2,059 reviews55 followers
February 22, 2019
Na můj vkus hodně teoretická kniha, příliš mnoho cizích slov, často i zbytečně (i když někdy bych vinila spíš překlad).
Začalo mě to trochu zajímat až za polovinou, když přišly na řadu čakry, ale celkově mě knížka spíš nebavila a moc mi nedala.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews

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