Title: The Quantum Life: There is a Better Way to Live
Author: Dr. M. Teri Daunter
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN: 1982267976
Genre: Philosophy / Self-Development
Pages: 244
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
This remarkable book opens with a quote from Kahlil Gibran: “To be modest in speaking truth is hypocrisy.”
The statement well applies to The Quantum Life. On first approach, Dr. M. Teri Daunter’s The Quantum Life: There is a Better Way to Live may appear to be a series of well-intentioned well-organized rants. The same could be said about the essays of Emerson!
On closer inspection, Dr. Daunter’s essays reveal a gold mine of insight and spiritual instruction which are well worth the read. The book approaches the pursuit of wisdom from both contemporary and ‘ageless wisdom’ perspectives. Key concepts of physics, including quantum theory and quantum entanglement, are invoked in this ambitious and winning exploration of consciousness. The author is always a partisan on the side of the readers’ greater awareness and cognitive and spiritual freedom.
The writing is energetic, at times livid, but always engaging and real. Chapters are devoted to explorations of weighty topics which are central to the lives of readers, including sex, higher consciousness, education, and orthodox beliefs. Dr. Daunter singles out ‘orthodoxy’ as a culprit, as a false system of belief inherited when we buy into traditional materialistic values and pursuits. Her attribution of greater value to practices which elevate awareness and consciousness is powerful and will inspire readers to pursue meditation in order to achieve personal and lasting insight.
There are frequent mentions of the work of Carl Jung in these pages. Alongside these are exhortations which ring both contemporary and true, such as “Be the CEO and guardian of your soul.” This book is ultimately hopeful, a welcome departure from passive belief systems. The book calls for the awakening of mankind to its true calling, namely achieving selfhood and discarding false worship. Dr. Daunter writes, “Heaven and hell are states of consciousness in which you live.” This is evocative of the best of another spiritual whistle blower, namely William Blake.
Daunter takes the best and leaves the rest. Her book recasts Neo-Platonism in modern day terms: consciousness connects us to the larger Universe, it is all we have, and it is all we ever need. The writer serves up heaping portions of insight garnered from her personal odyssey through the wisdom traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Sufism and beyond.
Here are other pearls, typical of what readers will encounter when they take the lovely journey offered by this book: “Preposterous…that someone outside yourself can save you from your “sins” “…and, “Fear…is a weapon of coercion…to get others to do their bidding.” The chapter titles are epigrammatic and some stand by themselves as aphorisms, for example “You Are More than a Split Second on the Cosmic Clock.”
Dr. Daunter, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, has gifted readers with a bounteous collection of applied wisdom that is at once timely, timeless, and deeply sincere.
