I was sent this book by the author as part of his Holosync meditation programme.

He explains about evolutionary catharsis, which he defines as “the ability to identify, take responsibility for, and move through the upheaval which sometimes accompanies deep meditation”.

While doing the Holosync programme we sometimes experience discomfort, or upheaval, as old programmes come up to be dissolved. Bill tells us that the end result of our meditation work is “a life experience cleansed of fears, dysfunctional and self-destructive behaviours, conflict, and debilitating emotional pain”. Along the way we will meet all aspects of ourselves and of our world that we knowingly or unknowingly have deemed inappropriate or have tried to repress.

Although I have been on the programme for a year or so and am nearing the end of Awakening level 1, i.e. the second level, I have not yet experienced much upheaval, if any, though I have experienced that I am gradually becoming a person who is getting rid of procrastination, says what has to be said, however unpopular, etc. What others think of me bothers me less and less. I do and say what has to be done and said.

There is a chapter about catharsis, and one on “order out of chaos” about the work of Ilya Prigogine. He discovered that order arises not in spite of entropy (a measure of the amount of randomness or chaos in a system) but because of it.

I found Bill Harris´s previous books, Thresholds of the mind and The new science of super awareness, easy to read and enlightening, but found this little book more challenging. Though he writes clearly and articulately, Bill rarely defines his terms, and when reading the book I continued to have difficulty in understanding what he meant by the “dissipative structures” he kept talking about.

He tells us that the universe is “not one of independent things, but rather one of process, a changing, flowing, evolving, and intimately interconnected system of interactions”.

Evolutionary growth is “Escape into a higher order”.

There´s a chapter about the human brain as a dissipative structure (there´s that phrase again!). Bill explains that when we get overwhelmed, the system is forced either to break down or to reorganize at a higher, more evolved level: first things make sense, then as chaos increases, they no longer make sense, and finally, after reorganization, they make sense again, but in a whole new way, never before imagined.

There are chapters about emotional release, mental release, resistance and the six stages of evolutionary change. These six stages are as follows: 1) Awareness 2) Identification 3) Focusing 4) Expansion 5) Resolution and 6) Reintegration and reprogramming.

In conclusion, this is no easy read but if you manage to get through and digest it, you will find it rewarding. ( )