The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century

by Howard Bloom

(John Wiley & Sons, 2001, paperback $16.95)

The possibility of turning human society into one global mind through the internet has been inspiring visionary scientists, politicians, futurists, businessmen, sci-fi writers, and just plain folk for decades. But evolutionary biologist Howard Bloom, the highly acclaimed author of Global Brain, claims that networking, and a resultant global mind, has been the name of the game since the dawn of time.

In 223 brilliantly written pages backed by more than 100 pages of references, Bloom goes to town to prove his point: that global connectivity has been built into the fabric of evolution from the word “go,” that is, from the Big Bang onward. According to Bloom, evolution is never an individual affair. Rejecting the commonly accepted notion that evolution is a result of the survival war waged by the “selfish gene,” he argues that it is and always has been a collective endeavor, strongly dependent on elaborate networking. Elementary particles network; bacteria network; animals, from the most primitive to the most complex, network.

Stay with Bloom, and you'll find yourself in a mind-boggling tour spanning fourteen billion years and the whole range of life—from elementary particles to politics, zoology to religion, and the laboratories of scientists to the inner mental chambers of Islamic terrorists. At the end you'll witness a crescendo of poetic exuberance, as Bloom sets forth his credo about mankind being evolution's “self-awareness, her frontal lobes and fingertips.” He writes, “We are second-generation star stuff come alive. We are parts of something 3.5 billion years old, but pubertal in cosmic time. We are neurons of this planet's interspecies mind.”

Bloom never moves away from the principles of scientific inquiry and is careful to back all of his statements with hard data. He also claims no spiritual inclinations, presenting himself as a confirmed atheist. (Read his analysis of the motives behind organized religion and you'll see what he means!) Yet his conclusion—that all the myriad forms of life are parts of one mass mind, one “global brain” of the highest intelligence—is deeply spiritual. So is his belief that evolution is now entering a new phase, that of conscious evolution, in which humanity is the means of nature's self-reflection.

Bloom is a superb, entertaining writer who combines scientific rigor with an inspiring, poetic vision. The result is a stimulating, fascinating, and very enjoyable book.

Igal Moria

AN EVOLUTIONARY AGENDA FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

by Alan Sasha Lithman

(White Cloud Press, 2003, paperback $16.95)

An Evolutionary Agenda for the Third Millennium is a prophetic vision of the final unfolding of human evolution as we quickly approach what author Alan Lithman sees as the end of the Egoic Era. This era began at the very inception of the universe, when the universe itself recoiled from the sheer magnitude of the force of the Big Bang. According to Lithman, the aftershock of this traumatic cosmic birthing is the same egoic force within human beings that always instinctively resists any form of change.

Lithman believes that human beings today represent a new species, Homo Transitionalis, a transitional species whose main function is to transcend ego and egoic tendencies in order to make it through these turbulent times so that the human race can survive and mutate into its final egoless form. If we are successful, if we curb the tide of destruction that is threatening to cascade down around us, we will be the first branch of the infinite evolutionary tree to have consciously willed its own mutation.

Lithman's call to arms is fueled by his own profound awakening to, and passion for, the reality of evolution. He prescribes an agenda of “evolutionary activism” to facilitate transformation at the personal and collective level, even including a radical shift in our economic structure and stock markets, that will usher in a postmonetary social system. Much of the book's cosmology and evolutionary history seems purely, and at times implausibly, speculative, which for some could weaken the impact of Lithman's vision. At the same time, the vast sweep of time he synthesizes and the enormous responsibility inherent in this evolutionary project are truly awe-inspiring.

Jeff Carreira

THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY

by Tom Atlee

(Writers' Collective, 2003, paperback $15.95)

The Tao of Democracy is a wonderfully well-written and accessible synthesis culled from years of Tom Atlee's research on dialogue and deliberation. His lifelong experience and passion for what can happen when people come together are literally infectious. As a result of his own political activism from the sixties onward, and especially his watershed experience of the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament in 1986, where he first experienced the liberating wisdom of group synergy, Atlee has immersed himself in learning everything there is to know about group intelligence.

Many inspiring stories illustrate how people with diverse and even opposing positions have been able to miraculously come together with remarkable results. Collective Intelligence is what Atlee calls the greater wisdom, resolution of conflict, and subtle levels of problem solving that emerge in these deliberative groups. He describes a wide variety of methods to catalyze the authentic dialogue that leads to these communal expressions of intelligence. Described in detail are such methods as Dynamic Facilitation and the organized conversations known as World Cafés. One of the most impressive examples is Citizen Deliberative Councils, where diverse strangers discover the mystery of their shared humanity and collaborative aliveness on the way to resolving specific societal problems. Atlee hopes to see the convening of these councils become much more common, as the results they have produced in several countries have been profound.

The Tao of Democracy inspires action. The extensive bibliography and wealth of references make it an ideal handbook for anyone interested in pursuing the experience of group wisdom. And it is indispensable for those who want to get involved in the bigger picture of transforming our future through transforming democracy.

Elisa Mishory

A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING

by Bill Bryson

(Broadway Books, 2003, hardcover $26.00)

“I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on.” Such was the rather unsettling thought that gripped popular travel author Bill Bryson as he flew across the Pacific one day. Subsequently spellbound by an urge to fathom just about everything that science has learned about our planet, a three-year quest for knowledge ensued and A Short History of Nearly Everything is the result.

And what a wild and rollicking romp it is! From the Big Bang through eons of grinding evolution, Bryson serves as our newly erudite, wisecracking tour guide on a voyage that catapults us into the mind-boggling infinitude of space and squeezes us into the infinitesimal micro-world of the molecule. We follow paths forged by obsessive scientists as they attempt to map the transit of Venus, the depths of the ocean, the code of our DNA, and well, just about everything else! Along the way Bryson engages us in rapturous meditations on the inconceivable wonders of proteins and protons, quarks and quasars, and more seemingly mundane phenomena such as water, air, and the weather. Scientific giants (and very eccentric human beings) like Newton, Darwin, and Einstein pop into life on the page and many amazing (and often disconcerting) facts are liberally sprinkled throughout. Did you know, for example, that Yellowstone National Park actually sits on top of the submerged cone of a smoldering supervolcano that is overdue for a blowout? Or have you ever been intrigued at all by the likely scenario that will unfold when the next asteroid with our name on it comes around? You get the idea. A Short History of Nearly Everything is one of Bryson's most educational and entertaining travel books to date—a never-a-dull-moment journey that makes the usually arcane world of scientific discovery accessible, fascinating, occasionally frightening, but always lots of fun.

Pete Bampton

ONENESS PERCEIVED: A Window Into Enlightenment

by Jeffrey S. Eisen, Ph.D.

(Paragon House, 2003, paperback $19.95)

In Oneness Perceived, Dr. Jeffrey Eisen examines the question: What is the relationship between Oneness and duality? According to Eisen, the illusion of duality, or “twoness,” is created when some portion of Oneness perceives the remainder as “other.” This he calls “original perception,” and its occurrence in a human being creates the first concept of self.

He gives a powerful and compelling explanation of the dizzying process through which this original sense of self continuously divides, ultimately forming the nearly infinite mass of self-concept that makes up the hopelessly fragmented modern human personality. Dr. Eisen sees this process in the human psyche as the most recent product of billions of years of evolution. According to him, duality has been evolving since the inception of the universe in order for oneness to satisfy its insatiable desire for self-knowledge. Our role as human beings is to return to original perception, which is achieved through deep spiritual practice, and which finally allows the universe to awaken to itself.

This brief description is a vast oversimplification of a very complex thesis giving the impression of a linear progression of thought, which is not true to the text. In the author's own words, “This is not an easy book to read. . . . [It] should be better organized, but it is not.” In writing Oneness Perceived, Dr. Eisen has elected to follow his own thought process rather than impose any potentially more logical structure to the writing. Those who do not share Dr. Eisen's love of intellectual pursuit may find themselves at times overwhelmed and confused by the sheer volume of the ideas and concepts that are explored. But others will find a thrilling ride through the passionate and inspired contemplations of a powerfully enlivened mind as it careens, often wildly, through a torrential stream of insight and realization.

Jeff Carreira

HARDCORE ZEN

by Brad Warner

(Wisdom Publications, 2003, paperback $14.95)

A down-and-out rocker-turned-Zen teacher, Brad Warner is up front in expressing his fundamental philosophy of life: “The act of regarding anything at all as more worthy of respect than anything else,” he explains, “is the first step down the short and slippery path to the utter annihilation of all mankind.” By merging “the so-called postmodern worldview” of universal egalitarianism with his mystical insights into the fundamental oneness of existence, he dismisses the need for hierarchical gradations of value and depth, allowing him to proceed through his autobiographical exegesis on Zen with unencumbered irreverence. Although professing a deep reverence for the Buddhist Heart Sutra, whose famous proclamation that “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” struck Warner so profoundly when he first heard it that he “literally had to fight to keep from crying,” he uses his understanding of its meaning to exult in arrogant ridicule of nearly everything in the world of form.

Hardcore Zen is an essay in the punk-rock ethos of rebellion and the questioning of all authority, and how those qualities naturally align with the pursuit of Zen realization. But in his nondual, indistinct universe where “nothing is sacred and nothing is profane,” Warner clearly feels free to rebel against any sense of dignity. His treatise, while in many ways a witty and compelling elucidation of Zen, is ultimately undone by its pervasive and relentlessly crass immaturity. Titling his chapter on reincarnation “In My Next Life I Want to Come Back as a Pair of Lucy Liu's Panties,” for example, he points out that “you don't need to get a turkey baster full of hot grease shoved up your ass” in order to experience the inherent joy of “our ordinary, boring, pointless lives.” Continuing his inspirational call to awakening, he says, “You're alive when you're sitting in your bedroom cleaning wax out of your ears. You're alive when you're looking at your turds floating in the toilet. . . .” Of course, like any good, ironic Gen X'er, Warner appears to be perfectly self-aware of the crude, smartass nature of his work. And this might even make for amusing reading, in line with the shock tactics traditionally characteristic of Zen, if he didn't revel in it so much. Determined to somehow provoke his readers into mystical illumination by his self-indulgent expectorations, Warner essentially buries under obnoxious heaps of puerility what might otherwise be a candid and even—dare I say it?—sincere explication of his two decades of Zen practice.

To be fair, though, he does concede that his book might not appeal to everyone. “Maybe you wish you'd bought that new Ken Wilber book instead of this one,” he suggests. Don't worry, Brad, I think, as I toss his tome in the recycling bin. It was a free review copy.

Tom Huston