BIO EVOLUTION:

How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World

by Michael Fumento

(Encounter Books, 2003, hardcover $28.95)

Imagine bioengineered crops that could eliminate starvation and disease in the Developing World—and be grown on a fraction of today's land, thus returning millions of acres back to the environment. How about final cures for cancer, Alzheimer's, and every other major health scourge known to humankind? Or consider body armor made from silk three times tougher than Kevlar, spun from goat milk proteins that have been modified by spider DNA. And don't forget microorganisms that could consume toxic and even nuclear waste, quickly and cheaply rendering it harmless. Think of what it would mean to be able to grow organs from your own DNA for future transplants. What about the implications of a whole spate of technologies likely to inhibit—and reverse—the aging process? Could human beings live for two hundred years or more?

Sound absurd? Perhaps, but according to author Michael Fumento, this is just a taste of what the field of biotech has in store for us during the next five to ten years.

In Fumento's thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and unabashedly pro-biotech book, he explores this mind-boggling subject in layperson's language. And folks, it's a brave new world. In chapter after chapter, Fumento explores the impact of biotechnology on medicine, agriculture, hunger, and the global ecology while also examining the economic and political pressures on the field. He also goes to great pains to debunk many of the myths and controversies surrounding biotech, including the highly charged issue of embryonic stem cells. And this, of course, brings us to ethics.

While Fumento clearly states that ethical concerns must be addressed every step of the way and clarifies a number of misconceptions, it's evident that he is far more excited about the possibilities of biotech than he is concerned about its potential negative long-term consequences. In fact, in his most impassioned statements, Fumento verges on suggesting that opposition to biotech is unethical. This position is a touch ironic, to say the least, given that biotechnology has generated more ethical concerns than any other field to date. So while Bio Evolution is both exciting and exhilarating, as well as a great place to start an exploration of the field, it should definitely not be the only book you read on the subject.

Michael Wombacher

THE HAND OF GOD

Thoughts and Images Reflecting the Spirit of the Universe (1999)

INSIDE THE MIND OF GOD

Images and Words of Inner Space (2002)

Both edited by Michael Reagan, with introductions by Sharon Begley (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press)

“Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world,” said Arthur Schopenhauer. If seeing is believing, these two small-format coffee-table books will measurably expand those limits, even at a moment's glance. Pairing cutting-edge photography with provocative quotations by everyone from Albert Einstein to Annie Dillard, Herman Melville to Dr. Seuss and the Pope, they are visual and philosophical odes to the furthest reaches of scientific knowledge—and by extension, odes to the sacred.

The Hand of God is the first and better of the two. Many of its images of outer space are so spare, elegant, and overwhelming, they brought tears to my eyes. Planetary nebula NGC 3132, for example, looks like a glossy geode or divine eye floating in black space, half an incomprehensible light year in diameter. Best savored like wine or poetry, just a page or two will send your imagination reeling across the universe, there to behold both the mystery of creativity and the awesomeness of human purpose. Inside the Mind of God, on the other hand, inverts its lens into the deceptively enormous landscape of molecular biology, presenting microscopic shots of neurons, hormones and viruses, cancer drugs, heart valves, and cybernetic circuits. Like a combination science lab and art show, it both educates and impresses.

Too many coffee-table books just sit there; these, like stars or microscopes, will brighten your vision of reality.

Ross Robertson

THE HEART OF THE QUR'AN

An Introduction to Islamic Spirituality

by Lex Hixon

(Quest Books, revised edition, 2003, paperback $18.95)

It's hard to imagine a more timely re-release of Lex Hixon's elegant meditation on the Qur'an, entitled The Heart of the Qur'an. For most Westerners, our limited interest in this classic religious pillar has unfortunately sprung from the arid soil of escalating tensions between premodern Islamic culture and the postmodern West—not from the fertile loam of spiritual aspiration. That is why we are fortunate to have such a heartfelt rendering from a Westerner like Hixon, who was steeped in the mystical ways of Islam. Before his death in 1995, he was not only an ordained Sufi sheikh but also an accomplished student of many great mystical traditions, including Vajrayana Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Soto Zen, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

In fact, an essential part of the journey into The Heart of the Qur'an is the mysterious and captivating story of Hixon's personal experience with Islam, described in the opening chapters of the book. This otherworldly introduction—filled with dreamlike visions, spiritual masters, and holy pilgrimages—flows seamlessly through meditative and poetic prose into a selection of passages from the holy text itself. Hixon presents the spirit of the Qur'an through passages that keep returning our attention to Allah, the omnipotent source of the universe speaking through his chosen prophet, Muhammad. Through metaphors of fertility and earthen bounty, Allah's all-generous and all-encompassing nature is conveyed in images and values clearly suited to the agrarian cultures of the time. But nowhere is the affirming spirit of Allah more profoundly expressed than in the passages about the hereafter, where even hell is but one stop on the soul's imminent journey home.

All the while, the simple cadence and rhythm of Hixon's language bring the reader into a mood of spiritual readiness, transmitting a deep and vibrant peace. Indeed, you can read The Heart of the Qur'an as a cultural artifact or for religious edification, but I recommend it for the hidden depths that reward those who are sincerely interested, like Lex Hixon himself, in the awesome mystery and rich meaning of life.

Morgan Dix

TRANSCENDENT SEX

When Lovemaking Opens the Veil

by Jenny Wade, Ph.D.

(Paraview Pocket Books, 2004, paperback $14.00)

Imagine dimming the lights, turning your cell phone off, and enticing your partner into bed for an evening of lovemaking, only to find yourself, while wrapped in your lover's embrace, suddenly overwhelmed by an utterly inexpressible, ecstatically blissful experience of divine communion with the source of creation itself—an experience in which orgasm becomes not just irrelevant but even an irritating distraction. Based on the narratives of ninety-one people interviewed by transpersonal psychologist Dr. Jenny Wade, Transcendent Sex sets out to demonstrate that these kinds of powerful and potentially transformative experiences not only are quite common but are in fact “happening every day behind closed doors with people you know, people without any special sexual or spiritual training—people like you.”

As one participant described, “I [broke] apart, [fell] into the Light . . . merged into the fires of God like a planet plunging into the furnace of the sun. . . .” Experiences like these show that sex can be a portal to a numinous world that is, Wade concludes, more ubiquitous and readily available to us than we might imagine. It is a world that exists beyond the delimited realms of space and time, in which past lives and future destiny can be revealed, time warps, magical connections with plants and animals can be perceived, and union with the Divine is made manifest. And this world can be revealed spontaneously through sex, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, personal history, religious orientation, or sexual mechanics. This is not about tantra.

“At that moment,” one woman recalled, “the universe was revealing itself, and all the secrets were there. . . . So we're all-knowing. We're all-experience. We're the universe. . . . We are All That Is. All That Is.” It's no wonder that Wade compares transcendent sex to near-death experiences, which are similarly unpremeditated and also often irrevocably transform a person's life. Thus, she concludes that transcendent sex “can become a vehicle for a grace that transfigures all of the human condition, [a] nexus of Spirit and flesh [which] illuminates and sanctifies all creation.” And what spiritually inclined person wouldn't want to pursue that? But can one consciously cultivate these kinds of experiences? Wade isn't so sure. Nonetheless, the dozens of vividly compelling, consciousness-shifting events she conveys are indeed awe-inspiring.

Jessica Roemischer