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Rating: 
Summary: Lofty-sounding but vacuous
Review: A more appropriate title for this book would be "Three Pretentious Fools Talking About Things They Know Nothing About." The book is composed entirely of vacuous but lofty-sounding rhetoric, and is remarkable for its almost complete lack of intellectual content. It sounds like the kind of discussions I used to have in the dorm with my college buddies after we'd had about 6 beers each. I'm especially disappointed that Ralph Abrham would contribute to this loser, because I'm an amateur mathematician myself and I've enjoyed some of Abraham's earlier, more directly mathematical books. His "Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior" is priceless. So why would he waste his time on a book like this?
Rating: 
Summary: Repackaging flair
Review: For those new to the works of Sheldrake, this could be the perfect buy.Yes, it's a repackaged version of what the authorities would consider "Old School." So if you want a book with a cool title, cool cover, and probably one of the more digestible texts of Sheldrake's ideas, (and you don't have any Sheldrake on your shelf) then this would work. As for complaints by Sheldrake fanatics, hey, at least this is getting those marvelous ideas by McKenna and Sheldrake out to newer and newer audiences!
Rating: 
Summary: holy trinity?
Review: I read this book while on jury duty. Because I ran out of reading materials, I went back over it and decided to write down some of my favorite quotes. Here is one example, by Ralph Abraham. "I find the whole idea that the world's soul is confined in a space/time continuum of four or ten dimensions extremely claustrophobic." So, you all get the idea. This was not a book to summarize, so I kept writing down quotes and buzz words. What gave me a lot of chuckles were the interspersed references to psychedelic drugs and various qualities of mushrooms, and the use of mushroom examples and so forth. I don't know much about mushrooms, but it helps date these guys, even while they are talking about ten dimensions being claustrophobic. I will say this-- they must have had some good trips. I don't pretend to understand a lot of their references, mushrooms aside, but it is an easy book to read as long as one doesn't feel the need to follow up every lead and reference. Their approaches seem to be kind of cutting edge, but dated, if there is such a combination. I am particularly interested in Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, which is what led me to the book. My attention span tends to be a little short, so I wanted a kind of breezy overview. Although I enjoyed the book a lot, I don't think I got much out of the morphic fields discussion. So I will look elsewhere for that. I lent this book to my daughter, who is enthralled by it, particularly since she just took a bunch of final exams, some having to do with statistics and econometrics, so their discussions of modeling were most interesting to her. And who wouldn't go for the idea of creativity coming out of chaos? Aren't our lives in chaos most of the time anyway? There must be a purpose for it. That's it. I get more creative after every chaotic event!! The discussions about beginnings, endings, various attractors, etc. were really fun to read. Not sure which ones came from their imaginitive minds (resulting from chaos), or their super intelligent brains, and which ones were from the mushrooms. Oh, here's another Abraham quote I absolutely loved. "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed. There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there's a reflected wave back." Ok, that was cool!! All things considered, if you have some extra time (either on the beach, or on jury duty) read this book. They weaved in references from all aspects of experience-- mythology, mushrooms, science, waves, psychology, philosophy, history, etc. I love that!! I consider a book a success for me if I get one good idea from it. And I got more than that from this one, although I am not any more inclined to take psychedelics than I was prior to reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and Enlightening, Intellectual 60s style
Review: I read this book while on jury duty. Because I ran out of reading materials, I went back over it and decided to write down some of my favorite quotes. Here is one example, by Ralph Abraham. "I find the whole idea that the world's soul is confined in a space/time continuum of four or ten dimensions extremely claustrophobic." So, you all get the idea. This was not a book to summarize, so I kept writing down quotes and buzz words. What gave me a lot of chuckles were the interspersed references to psychedelic drugs and various qualities of mushrooms, and the use of mushroom examples and so forth. I don't know much about mushrooms, but it helps date these guys, even while they are talking about ten dimensions being claustrophobic. I will say this-- they must have had some good trips. I don't pretend to understand a lot of their references, mushrooms aside, but it is an easy book to read as long as one doesn't feel the need to follow up every lead and reference. Their approaches seem to be kind of cutting edge, but dated, if there is such a combination. I am particularly interested in Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields, which is what led me to the book. My attention span tends to be a little short, so I wanted a kind of breezy overview. Although I enjoyed the book a lot, I don't think I got much out of the morphic fields discussion. So I will look elsewhere for that. I lent this book to my daughter, who is enthralled by it, particularly since she just took a bunch of final exams, some having to do with statistics and econometrics, so their discussions of modeling were most interesting to her. And who wouldn't go for the idea of creativity coming out of chaos? Aren't our lives in chaos most of the time anyway? There must be a purpose for it. That's it. I get more creative after every chaotic event!! The discussions about beginnings, endings, various attractors, etc. were really fun to read. Not sure which ones came from their imaginitive minds (resulting from chaos), or their super intelligent brains, and which ones were from the mushrooms. Oh, here's another Abraham quote I absolutely loved. "As the waves pass the rock, their shape is changed. There is a hologram of the rock within the wave that comes forward and crashes on the beach, then there's a reflected wave back." Ok, that was cool!! All things considered, if you have some extra time (either on the beach, or on jury duty) read this book. They weaved in references from all aspects of experience-- mythology, mushrooms, science, waves, psychology, philosophy, history, etc. I love that!! I consider a book a success for me if I get one good idea from it. And I got more than that from this one, although I am not any more inclined to take psychedelics than I was prior to reading the book.
Rating:
Summary: Cutting-edge Cosmology
Review: This is a gripping series of conversations between the three authors discussing various aspects of the psyche, the universe, the role of chaos theory in the dynamics of creation and the rediscovery of ancient wisdom. The authors, all three of whom stood at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines, challenge the reader about our current views of reality, morality and the nature of life. The sometimes breathtaking insights emerging from this will not fail to move the reader. The chapters on creativity, the imagination and chaos are amongst the most compelling, and deal with theories like the cosmic imagination as a higher dimensional magnet that pulls the evolutionary process to itself, the Omega Point, and imagination arising out of the womb of chaos. Other fascinating topics include indeterminism in nature, nature's organising fields as mathematical representations, and the encoding of information in crystals and in written language. The chapter "Light and Vision" is one of the most poetic, dealing as it does with physical light and the light of consciousness, the theory that one's thoughts are a measurable field emanating from the eyes, the similarities between electromagnetic and mental fields, the concept of a world soul, and morphogenetic fields as a medium of divine omniscience. Incorporeal intelligence and non-human entities are discussed - are the latter merely inhabitants of the psyche or do they have an independent existence? Scientists and inventors like Kekule, who received answers in dreams, are referenced here. The book concludes with a glossary, bibliography and biographical information about the authors. It is a stimulating text in which the power of the mythical imagination, scientific observation and innovative speculation combine to create a thought-provoking reading experience.
Rating:
Summary: holy trinity?
Review: Three of the most intriguing and revolutionary minds of our time together at last. If you can find the video in which this book is transcribed,it's definitely worth watching as well. it's called Metamorphasis.
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