Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness

Produktbeschreibung

NEW SCIENCE / COSMOLOGY "Records the exciting intellectual friendship of three amazing minds pushing to the edge of history in search of a new consciousness blending scientific observation, mythical imagination, and visionary speculation." --Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade "A book for all those who seek to quest beyond the limits of the ordinary. Three fine thinkers take us plunging into the universe of chaos, mind, and spirit. Instead of leaving us lost, they bring us back with startling insights and more wonder than we knew we had." --Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing "Should be required reading for anyone who believes that science and spirituality cannot and should not interact." --Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Space, Time and Medicine This book is a vibrant discussion between three of the most original thinkers of our time as they blend science, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and traditional wisdom to explore and expand our current views of reality. The late psychedelic visionary and shamanologist Terence McKenna, acclaimed biologist and originator of the morphogenetic fields theory Rupert Sheldrake, and the mathematician and chaos theory scientist Ralph Abraham join forces to investigate the relationships between chaos and creativity and their connection to cosmic consciousness. The authors challenge the reader to the deepest levels of thought with wide-ranging investigations of the ecology of inner and outer space, the role of chaos in the dynamics of human creation, and the resacralization of the world. Among the questions the authors raise are: Is Armageddon a self-fulfilling prophecy? Are humans the imaginers or the imagined? Are the eternal laws of nature still evolving? What is the connection between physical light and the light of consciousness? Part ceremony, part intellectual and spiritual discussion, these trialogues are an invitation to a new understanding of what Jean Houston calls "the dreamscapes of our everyday waking life." RUPERT SHELDRAKE, Ph.D., the author of several books including Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, A New Science of Life, and The Rebirth of Nature, lives in England. TERENCE MCKENNA (1946-2000) was the author of Food of the Gods and The Archaic Revival. RALPH ABRAHAM, a Ph.D. in mathematics and a professor at the University of California, is the author of Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior; he lives in California. 

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Jean Houston
Preface
Chapter 1: Creativity and the Imagination
The new evolutionary cosmology. The regularities of nature as evolving habits.
The basis of cosmic creativity. The cosmic imagination as a higher-dimensional
attractor drawing the evolutionary process toward itself. The Omega Point.
Imagination welling up from the womb of chaos. Psychedelic experience and the
mind of Gaia. Gaian dreams and human history. Dark matter as the cosmic
unconscious.
Chapter 2: Creativity and Chaos
The chaos revolution. Chaotic attractors as eternal mathematical realities.
Indeterminism in nature. Chaos and the evolution of order. Form in the cooling
process. The organizing fields of nature as related to mathematics and the
cosmic imagination. Mathematical models. Attractors, attraction, and motivation.
The freezing of information in crystals and in written language. The primacy of
spoken language and abstraction.
Chapter 3: Chaos and the Imagination
Chaos in Greek mythology. The myth of the conquest of chaos. Fear of chaos and
the suppression of the feminine. The partnership society and the rise of
patriarchy. Seasonal festivals of the repression of chaos, and the creation of
the unconscious. The inhibition of creativity and its relation to global
problems. The Eleusinian mysteries. Creativity and Christology. Plans for the
recovery of chaos and the imagination. The significance of the chaos revolution.
Chapter 4: The World Soul and the Mushroom
Randomness in the evolutionary process. The limited nature of models. The
computer and chaos revolutions. Coevolution of mathematics and the material
world. The mathematical landscape. Sensory qualities in the cosmic imagination.
The similarities of souls and fields. The primal unified field and the fields of
nature. Rebirth of the world soul. Interplanetary transfer of the human psyche
via the psychedelic experience and the spores of magic mushrooms.
Chapter 5: Light and Vision
Physical light and the light of consciousness. Light and vision. The location of
visual images. Mind extending from the eyes.The sense of being stared at: a new
kind of field or the electromagnetic field? Hierarchy of fields in nature.
Coupling between electromagnetic and mental fields. Physical light and
self-luminous visions. Tryptamine hallucinogens. The world soul. Fields as the
medium of divine omniscience. Gaian mind and the light of the sun.
Chapter 6: Entities
Discarnate intelligences and nonhuman entities: creatures within the human mind
or truly Other? Entities and shamans. The use of language by entities. Angelic
communication in the birth of modern science. The dream dimension and entities.
The effect of science and humanism on entities. Nature magically self-reflecting
and aware.
Chapter 7: The Unconscious
The three great bifurcations. Creation of the unconscious, the origin of evil,
and the rejection of chaos. Escape from evil by the resurrection of chaos. The
suppression of psychedelics, the patriarchy, and the rise of booze. Partnership
and dominator drugs; the addiction to addictions. Habits and the formation of
the unconscious. Holidays and the reinforcement of awareness. Prayer, magic, and
astrology for enlightenment.
Chapter 8: The Resacralization of the World
Ralph's religious background. The sacred in India. Rediscovering the sacred in
the West. The revival of ritual and the resacralization of music. Feminism and
the archaic revival. Gothic cathedrals and animistic Christianity. The green
movement, saving the Earth, the greening of God. Psychedelic churches. The
resacralizing of science.
Chapter 9: Education in the New World Order
Education as initiation. The dominance of rationalism and humanism. Rites of
passage. Summer camps. Testing and accreditation. Institutions and
administrations. Workshops as a model for a new pluralistic and decentralized
system of education. Religious initiations. Reform of existing professions. A
possible pilot project.
Chapter 10: The Apocalypse
The apocalyptic tradition: a mythic model motivating religious history or an
intuition of the ending of history or time? Modern millenarianism and scientific
versions of the apocalypse. The possible end in 2012. The self-fulfilling
quality of apocalyptic prophecy. The speeding up of history and the
inevitability of planetary metamorphosis. Death and transformation on a cosmic
scale. Intensifying conflict and the power of faith.
Glossary
Bibliography
About the Authors 

Autoreninfo

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., the author of several books including Seven Experiments That Could Change the World, A New Science of Life, and The Rebirth of Nature, lives in England. Terence McKenna (1946-2000) was the author of Food of the Gods and The Archaic Revival. Ralph Abraham, a Ph.D. in mathematics and a professor at the University of California, is the author of Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior; he lives in California.