John Maguire
New
I have read a couple of his books.
Those that are mostly on the subject of spirituality are quite good and I can see why they have become best sellers.
"Quantum Healing" is baffling. He speaks as if he had full understanding of all intricate physiological and psychosomatic aspects of all illnesses.
He makes an unprecedented mishmash of facts, speculations and baseless claims that made my head spin for a while. Some parts of the book are irritating and it's difficult to distillate the good out of it because of all the interspersed nonsense.
I bought the book over 10 years ago and I promised myself I would never, ever buy another one with the word "Quantum" in the title, unless it's written by a physicist :)
p.s. = one thing is for sure: the guy is a marketing genius, he even released console videogames with his brand a couple of years ago.
This about nails it. I feel I can argue quantum mechanics better than Chopra can, and that's pretty sad.
However, to label him a "enemy of reason" and try to crucify him like Dawkins and others have done is downright bullshit. It's actually pretty dangerous/scary to delineate between the "good guys" and the "enemies" like that. Clearly those like Dawkins/Coyne do not understand the dangers and biases associated with the use of such language. Or maybe they do, which makes it even worse.
They appear to have zero self-awareness. They think his ideas are "dangerous", but they don't see any inherent danger latent in their belief systems. Ultimately it's base demagoguery being perpetrated by the most "rational" and "intelligent" among us. Their appeal to emotion (i.e. hate) is pretty sickening.
However, I do wish his name didn't appear on every other genuinely interesting book on consciousness or one that questions materialism, etc. because people have a knee jerk reaction to it. I suppose if you're trying to preach to the choir that's a fine marketing tactic to adopt, but if you want "mainstream" credibility its asking for trouble.
Ultimately, in a free-market of ideas, Chopra has his place.