Earth’s Hidden Reality: Discover It, Explore It, Embrace It
Mark Hunter Brooks
Charlotte, N.C.: Spark Publications, 2022. 179 pp., paper, $24.95.
Mark Hunter Brooks boldly proposes a new and complex worldview that unites current science and Theosophical metaphysics. The maxim “Fools Go Where Angels Fear to Tread,” which serves as the title for chapter 10, hovers over the entire book. Is Brooks the fool who dares tread unwittingly among the angels of Western science? Or is Brooks the angel who treads on the fools of Western science, which ignored the principles of metaphysics?
Brooks humbly states that he does not know for sure, and he suggests directions for scientific research in quest of the answers that will determine if his grand proposal is valid. If so, it will be a major accomplishment, which will repair the deep rift between science and spirituality. If it isn’t valid, it was a courageous attempt for which he deserves credit, having led both scientists and Theosophists to think deeply outside of the box.
Brooks obviously worked long and hard in his craft as an author to make physics succinctly understandable to a broad readership. The book delves into contemporary physics in the same depth that you would expect from an article in Scientific American magazine. Many readers, though, will not grasp his explanations of physical concepts fully and will have to take him at his word in places. This shortcoming is a consequence of his decision to present a complex worldview in an abbreviated, well-illustrated book. If he chose to write a more detailed book, his readership would drop precipitously, although it might attract a larger academic audience. We are the beneficiaries of his production of a popular book rather than a longer treatise.
Brooks is a profound thinker who is not constrained by the paradigms of Western science. He is well versed in Christian and Jewish thought but not beholden to doctrinaire theology or creeds. He is a member of the Theosophical Society and steeped in the writings of Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, including their work in occult chemistry. He prominently credits Theosophy as his primary source of metaphysical knowledge. He has experienced personal visitations by spiritual beings.
Earth’s Hidden Reality is based on wave theory rather than particle physics. This decision may cause heartburn for many physicists who cling to particle theory. However, wave theory resolves paradoxes that particle theory may not. For this reason, we applaud Brooks’ reliance on wave theory to explain the origin of matter and energy and to account for reincarnation and other mysteries on a scientific basis. His grasp of wave theory is commendable. He argues compellingly that wave theory is complementary to basic concepts of metaphysics. These include what Theosophy calls planes of existence and the anu or ultimate physical atom as described by Besant and Leadbeater.
For Theosophists who want more background on physics but not a textbook, we recommend Schrödinger’s Universe by Milo Wolff and the Fields of Color by Rodney A. Brooks. These two popular books approach quantum theory from the perspectives of the wave structure of matter and field theory respectively. The wave-based theory was originally proposed by Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger and William Clifford, while field theory was mainly fleshed out by Julian Schwinger, also a Nobel laureate.
Bold new ideas like the ones in this book cannot be digested overnight. What Brooks has proposed is thorough, well thought out, and convincing. We hope that experimental physicists will follow his metaphysical clues to focus their research towards answering the basic questions of existence with a wave-based perspective. In the meantime, this stimulating read deserves our careful attention.
We are not convinced, though, that the wave theory of physics can directly answer the basic questions of Theosophy that Brooks tries to explain. Theosophical answers may have to wait until we have a better understanding of consciousness and its relationship with wave theory. Rodney A. Brooks has identified consciousness as the “grand-daddy of all mysteries.” We agree.
Andre Juliao and Andre Clewell
Both reviewers are members of the Tallahassee Study Group. Andre Juliao is a PhD student in physics at the National High Field Magnetic Laboratory of Florida State University.