Science meets Spirituality
342408
Loved this. Gregg Braden makes sense of science in a really easy to understand way.  He uses his ability to spot patterns in history, science, religious history, anything really and puts them together to show how they support each other as part of a bigger whole.

For so long spirituality has been stuck in a world of pure faith, unprovable and often ridiculed for being factless.  Now is the time that the facts are starting to come together to prove there is something in it all.

Gregg's manner is engaging and interesting.  He makes light work of these heavy subjects such as quantum physics and religion and presents it in a meaningful and powerful way.

Even the most skeptical can't deny factual evidence.  It's heartening to think where we are going as a society.  I look forward to what we're heading for.  His other book around 2012 is an extension of this and equally captivating.
3967064
Retired physicist Amit Goswami, PhD is a pioneer of the new paradigm of science called science within consciousness an idea he explicated in his seminal book, The Self-Aware Universe where he also solved the quantum measurement problem elucidating the famous observer effect. The original version of this book was written for scientists: this immensely readable book is a revised version for the lay public. It deserves our attention.

Dr. Goswami is a fine communicator, caring enough for his readers that he makes Quantum Physics navigable. `Quantum physics is the physics of possibilities. And not just material possibilities, but also possibilities of meaning, of feeling, and of intuiting. You can choose everything you experience form these possibilities, so quantum physics is a way of understanding your life as one long series of choices that are in themselves the ultimate acts of creativity.' From this beginning he investigates all the aspects of how thinking in the vein of quantum physics charges us to be creative at all times: quantum creativity - enables us to solve unusual problems that require holistic solutions, such as the degradation of the environment, - enables us to explore the meaning of our life and the meaning of the world around us, - teaches us intelligence in general, - compels us to learn how to function in the presence of real freedom, - enables us to integrate our outer and inner life, - enables us to achieve spiritual fulfillment, and more.

To explore the world as Dr. Goswami suggests requires reading this entire book on you own: the contents are so well placed before the reader that grasping the significance of the information is a very personal experience. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 14
3440701
There are a lot of excellent books out there right now that attempt to bridge the gap between the spiritual and the material, but few do it as elegantly and effectively as Dr. Haisch. Dr. Haisch is a top notch scientist and scholar, an astrophysicist with a distinguished list of publications and accomplishments; and yet his style is anything but pedantic and tedious. Dr. Haisch has a deep understanding of the issues in both science and faith that face humanity at this important time, and he writes about them with a freshness and clarity that kept me riveted to the page. I read "The God Theory" in one setting, and found myself highlighting furiously.

Dr. Haisch puts a new twist on the God as consciousness theme by suggesting that human consciousness is "filered from the mind of God."  Haisch helps us understand his theory of God by using the analogy of white light; Just as filtering white light makes it visible to the human eye, filtering God creates the diversity of life and matter that we see around us. There are intriguing discussions about the meaning of the Biblical creation story, The nature of consciousness, the nature of God, and how inertia REALLY works (a fascinating theory that turns the old idea of inertia inside out), just to name a few themes. I've read extensively in the area of quantum physics, consciousness studies, and the spirit/matter relationship, but found this book to present perspectives that I haven't seen before.

If you are planning to read just one book on the subject, this should be the one; if you've read most of the books on the subject over the years, this one will tie together a lot of the ideas you've come across. I loved this book, and will even be adding it to an outside reading list for one of the university classes I teach.
2320109
The topic of religious faith vs. science and postmodernism is undertaken in this wonderful book.  The author takes us on a well-versed journey to explore the many topics/debates concerning this issue.  A wonderful book that will make you think.
3431750
In an era when religion's malignancy is becoming increasingly apparent, we urgently need to be shown that spirituality is quite compatible with a rational, scientific, areligious worldview. This task has been taken on by some very good books recently, notably "The Problem of the Soul" by the philosopher Owen Flanagan and "The Sacred Depths of Nature" by the biologist Ursula Goodenough. Another excellent addition to this genre is "What Is Death?" by the biologist Tyler Volk. He begins his narrative on a personal note, describing how a near-death experience left him anxiously pondering his mortality. We then follow him as he explores death from many different perspectives-genetic, neurological, ecological, cultural-and eventually arrives at a better understanding of how vital death is to life. Particularly fascinating is Volk's discussion of recent research showing how death influences our thoughts and behavior even when we are not consciously thinking about it, often by making us cling more tightly to our beliefs. These findings obviously have tremendous relevance for understanding post-9/11 events. "What Is Death?" has not entirely dissolved my fear of mortality; I don't think any book could do that. But after reading it, I felt more sympathy with the lines that end Robinson Jeffers's great poem "Night": "A few centuries/Gone by, was none dared not to people/The darkness beyond the stars with harps and habitations./But now, dear is the truth. Life is grown sweeter and lonelier,/And death is no evil."
692326
The Quantum Leap of Faith aims to find a common ground between science and theology. Bodner greets the readers with an introduction to the beginning of life through science, weaving it with its evolution through faith. His conversational approach makes it an appealing read that is neither tedious nor unscholarly. In this comprehensive book, Bodner shares mind-boggling arguments that suggest there is much more to the universe and our minute existence than what we know of.
4154271
Awakening to Zero point is a great book by Gregg Braden , a geologist, sacred journey guide and spiritual man. I have met Mr Braden in person and think he is a fabulous man, that really cares about the earth and with a profound intuitive insight regarding the changes that we are undergoing. The book is a collection of theories and ideas that attempt to bring together what many of us are feeling intuitively  ( "things on earth are changing" and "the past of humanity is not as we thought" ) with some solid evidence and scientific fact. I think Gregg does a very good job at this and provides plenty of food for thought.
The science in the text can be definitely improved upon though, as has been pointed out by a few reviewers with a scientific background. As a former physicist i too found that some of the science in the book is approximative. Maybe gregg's science, although better than that of most new agers, is not as good as some of the people for which science is their daily occupation. I too had some slight uncomfortablness at some of the statements within the book, from a scientific prospective. However I would not for this reason throw out the baby with the bath water. Gregg's science might not be fool proof, but his his intuition surely is. I ultimately found this book very valuable. At least it is a movement in the right direction. Science and Spirit will soon be meeting, if humanity is to progress at all. Gregg has definitely put a very positive foot forward in this endevour as well as sharing of his experience and very positive essence in this text. A very worthwhile read.
1918351
While there are more books about the paranormal than a person could read in one lifetime, now there is an fascinating book, written from a scientific point of view on how our consciousness works.  Unlike religion, T. Lee Baumann doesn't ask us for blind faith, he gives us the scientific view of how our consciousness works in measurable ways.

Throughout his book Matter to Mind to Consciousness: Anatomy of E.L.F., Baumann lays out, chapter by chapter in three different sections, exactly how he came to his conclusions on God and consciousness, which, if I understood the book correctly, is God. The part of us that is conscious, the part that you see behind a person's eyes, and disappears upon death, is God.

Matter to Mind starts off under the section called Matter.  Here Baumann gives us a simple anatomy lesson, simple enough for me to understand it.  Starting with brain cells and ending with the spinal chord.

The next section explains how the mind works.  Our brains give off electrical signals which can be measured by instruments such as the Electroencephalogram. Baumann explains in great detail everything from the electrophysiology of the brain to instinct.  Pretty amazing journey, in a well-laid out way to both engage the reader and to help him understand just what the mind is all about.

The last section of the book has to do with our consciousness.  How electricity works, magnetic fields and how they affect us, to how our electrical appliances might be messing with the magnetic resonances of the Earth which we've spent millions of years adapting to.

Baumann concludes with three Near Death Experiences where the subjects saw our prayers as light shooting up into the sky. "Children . . . are excitedly outspoken about this phenomenon (prayer) . . . They saw prayers turned into beams of radiant, golden or rainbow light that would arc over from the one saying the prayer, no matter how many miles away . . . Once the prayer beam 'hit' them, they described it as being akin to feeling a 'splash' of love and an incredible 'warming'". (page 152)

Wonderful book to give the more scientific minded who need proof that God exists.  Baumann lays it out like a it's a scientific study, which I guess it is.  Baumann believes that God and light share all of the same properties, therefore, like the ancient holy books say, God is Light.  Though already a believer, it was great to know that God can be proved by science.

My conclusions after reading Matter to Mind, is that God manifests in the third dimension as electricity, and our brains are the receivers to hear what God has to say.
4292376
Brian Lancaster is Principal Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University in England and is the Chair of the Transpersonal Section of the British Psychological Society. In this fascinating book he tries to weave together an empirical, scientific approach to consciousness with the personal accounts found in spiritual and mystical traditions. He tries to bring together some of the data that has emerged from neuroscience and psychology with teachings from Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.

The book is well organized and most engagingly written.

I very much enjoyed reading this book, but I was left with two questions that have worried me since the first attempts were made to marry mysticism and quantum mechanics and secondly the attempts that have been made to reduce mystical experiences to neural activity. First, can we be sure that we are understanding the mystical texts accurately, and second, can we reduce transpersonal experiences to neural activity?

Many writers have cherry picked the experiences that fit their model. Mystical experiences have many common characteristics, but they are by no means all the same. When authors say that they have found a correspondence between one mystical report and one interpretation of physics, it is almost like trying to fit one mystery with another. There are so many ancient teachings and many of them are quite inscrutable or ambiguous to the untrained. Experts in the various traditions frequently disagree with each other. So it is quite possible to take pretty much any current scientific theory and find mystical teachings to fit. So unless we can be sure about what the teachings are saying we cannot use them to provide evidence for or against the theories. In addition the book includes a lot of  psychodynamic theory which is notoriously open to multiple interpretations.

There will likely be correspondences between neural activity and mystical states, but that is quite different from reducing a profound and meaningful experience to the firing of neurons.

Brian Lancaster subscribes to a supernatural or dualist theory, proposing that a "transcendent reality" is needed to account for subjective experience. I think that he may well be right, but we also cannot ignore several writers, like Francis Crick and Daniel Dennett, who think that we already know enough about the brain to explain conscious experiences, and presumably therefore mystical experiences.

Despite my two questions remaining unanswered, this book provides one of the best summaries of current thinking on consciousness and I recommend it highly.
718548
What a unique book. I admit I am reading slightly outside my typical genres, but this book discusses both childhood and spirituality in ways that I am unused to seeing them.  It was compelling to see scientific analysis on something like spirituality, and found that fascinating. Those who dislike the merging of those halves of the human experience may find this book more challenging or frustrating, though perhaps it will be most useful to them.
4076165
Zor: Philosophy, Spirituality and Science
Author: J.B.
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 978-452895406
Reviewer: June Maffin

"Dear Reader, Remember when you believed you would change the world?  It's not too late. Let's change the world together."  And with that short note to the reader, the author had my attention.

I couldn't help but wonder - where would his novel go from here?  How would the sub-title be addressed?  And what was a Zor anyway?

The 1966 song "What's It All About, Alphie", the 2004 film "What The Bleep Do We Know" and many others have raised the everpresent "What is the meaning of life?" question and tried to make connections between philosophy, spirituality and science.  In this brilliant novel, author J.B. accomplishes it through the persona of Zor in a series of interactions with Boston businessman John Brewster.

So, who is Zor?  John Brewster introduces the reader to Zor this way: "There are two things you need to know about Zor.  First - the man is brilliant.  A native of Haiti, he stands less than five feet tall boasting broad shoulders and a muscular build. Classically handsome, with mocha skin and European features that suggest mixed ancestry. Zor is charmingly soft spoken with a disarming, Caribbean lilt.  Second - he destroyed my life."

And with that introduction, I was hooked. Woven throughout a plot that involves betrayal, a struggling marriage, alcoholism and suspicious business dealings, the reader discovers that John's life is out of control.  In conversations with Zor about negative ch'i, rewiring neuron networks, reductionism, addiction, entanglement, God, the collective unconscious, the Big Bang theory, meditation and more, John realizes that the beliefs he has held throughout his life no longer hold any veracity for him.  In his interactions with Zor, John Brewster uncovers a new reality, wholeness and peace in his life as he discovers the true meaning of Metta.  But, not without conflict and drama along the way.

This story powerfully addresses the synergistic connection between spirituality, science and philosophy (entanglement) in a compelling and easy-to-understand way.  Zor offers the example of the tuning fork where vibrations of one tuning fork only affect another if they are identically calibrated. The more tuning forks one uses, the greater likelihood of finding another who will likewise be affected.  Similarly, Zor says that prayer group members often comment that when they pray, they feel the energy (the positive ch'i).  Zor notes that praying vigils are often successful because "the bigger the sample of people praying, the greater the likelihood of finding someone whose positive energy is on the same frequency." Synergy. Connection.

It's seldom that I find a book that resonates so deeply with every fibre of my being in so many ways, but this is such a book.  I didn't want it to end.  I read it slowly, savouring each page, enjoying the plot and the intricate ways J.B. maintained the humanity of John Brewster and brought his years of research, wisdom and ch'i to the character of Zor who challenges the reader to think - really think about love, wholeness, peace - life.

I hope we haven't seen the last of Zor.
3357080
The relationship of Religion and Science has often been characterized as competition and conflict. What professor Lane deftly achieves is not simply a more balanced approach but a heavily nuanced and variegated merging of these two realms of human endeavor. Not only do archaic and primal myths demonstrate levels of precision and observation that science might well envy, but the overlapping explicit and implicit metaphysical quests are both complementary and foundational to one another. One really must read this work as a curative to the all-too-frequent facile and naive fashions in which the topics of "Religion and Science" are often discussed. This book is well-written with a fascinating attention to detail when necessary, but at the same time, fully explanatory assuming no prior knowledge of the many subject matters it engages.
2220065
I call "Faith, Madness..." scientific poetry.  It is a work of humanity, written in earnest, baring its flaws and uncertainty to reveal a possible truth about WHY and maybe more importantly HOW we are what we are.  Callahan weaves snippets of insightful, passionate prose with personal ancedote to illustrate his theory that our immune systems help to define our individuality.  I have been touched by this book.  Not only does it speak to my thirst for scientific understanding but it lightly stroked my sense of spirituality.  Science books like this don't come around very often.
3175510
Dr. David Bradstreet writes with detailed knowledge, personal warmth and engaging humor in this excellent book that combines his passionate study of the cosmos with his life-long commitment to his faith in Jesus Christ.  However, don't let the authors personal faith scare you off;  he is not pedantic or proselytizing in his approach.  This book isn't just for science-lovers; it is very accessible to those with little scientific knowledge, written in a style that reduces difficult concepts into understandable terms without dumbing them down.  The many references  to TV shows, movies, and books, etc. enhances the readers enjoyment for those familiar with such things.
I would recommend this book for any book clubs that are looking to expand their genres beyond memoirs, fiction or biographies.  There would be much meaty content to discuss.  Its a unique read among the many choices available, and I would highly recommend it for young and old alike.  Kay D.
654713
I haven't enjoyed a spiritual adventure in reading like this since I read Siddhartha by Hesse in college many years ago.  The combination of science and spirit dealt with issues most authors shy away from.  Either one must be rational and scientific or else spiritual and religious.  The author shows that they are not mutually exclusive.  Lightman 'lights' the way into the creation of our universe with fact, some humor, and philosophy.  This was an enjoyable read; a pleasant way for the layperson to understand our evolution from nothing to something.
3383432
This book provides a welcome shaft of light in a world experiencing a waning respect for spirituality. In today's world we rely upon a logical understanding of all we are normally prepared to accept as truth. Therein lies the problem with religion, for if we accept the findings of modern science, it can be difficult to believe all the Holy Bible has to tell us where there are perceived conflicts between the two. This book seeks to show that this is really down to differing perceptions resulting from contrasting views of the same truth.
Starting from the viewpoint that there must be truth in both science and the ancient beliefs detailed within the Bible, the author seeks to show us connections between the two. Throughout this inspiring work the author offers up scientific evidence, compares it with Bible extracts, and then uses powerful logic to lock the two together in a most convincing way. The results are amazing, with the kernel being that both natural evolution (science) and divine creation (the Bible) are detailed in Genesis 1 and 2, wherein we are really reading an account of a two-phase creation. In other words, God created a world which evolved as the scientist believes until, at a point where the Bible introduces the Garden of Eden, he took a personal hand and divinely created Adam and Eve alongside evolutionary man, using their genetics as a blueprint. In so doing, he disproves Erich von Daniken's theory that we were descended from spacemen, and also shows we are not directly descended from apes! The author points out there is clearly an evolving process in all of creation and we should give God the credit for starting this process, not leaping in at the middle of something with an implied back-story! By using evolution to produce a blueprint for a successful species, God had a perfect plan for the survival of his chosen `sons of God'. Genesis 6, he then shows us, describes how these two parallel races interbred against his will and how, as a result, God's anger brought about the Great Flood.
Remarkably, this work manages to build bridges between science and the Christian religion and, despite its subject matter, succeeds in being both entertaining and enlightening. It also seeks to prove life-after-death, faith healing, the significance of Jesus, and how an overall explanation scheme can take into account the entirety of the Bible and modern science. This is a work to arrest the atheist, ignite the agnostic, assist the Christian uncomfortable with the enigmas thrown up by science, and challenge the scientist who seeks to derive a `theory of everything' without recognizing the ultimate source of such unity has to be God. Although delving into the most difficult areas of human perception, this book is remarkably easy to follow, encyclopaedic in its coverage, rich and flowing in its style. It is a highly recommended read that provides a new and most valuable contribution to the science versus religion debate.
3413037
In this beautifully written  and most accessible book, Swimme and Tucker tell us a story linking the origins of the universe to life on earth today. Drawing upon major accomplishments across the sciences and many Nobel prize winning scientists among others, the book invites us to move from a mechanical understanding to a relational view in which change in one means change in all. This holds at the level of galaxies and at cells in living organisms. And, prompted by the book, we begin to see how change at the galactic scale reverberates all the way down to atoms and up again. Part of the magic of the book is to introduce, as a consequence of the forces creating the universe, the many life forms and, eventually, humans whose use of symbolism and cultural forms become factors affecting the very character of our environment, the earth, and possibly the entire universe. This is a rare and wonderful book that has the power to have us think about these issues deeply and openly.