The Biology Of Transcendence

Uses new research about the brain to explore how we can transcend our current physical and cultural limitations • Reveals that transcendence of current modes of existence requires the dynamic interaction of our fourth and fifth brains (intellect and intelligence) • Explores the idea that Jesus, Lao-tzu, and other great beings in history are models of nature’s possibility and our ability to achieve transcendence • 17,000 sold in hardcover since April 2002 Why do we seem stuck in a culture of violence and injustice? How is it that we can recognize the transcendent ideal represented by figures such as Jesus, Lao-tzu, and many others who have walked among us and yet not seem to reach the same state? In The Biology of Transcendence Joseph Chilton Pearce examines the current biological understanding of our neural organization to address how we can go beyond the limitations and constraints of our current capacities of body and mind--how we can transcend. Recent research in the neurosciences and neurocardiology identifies the four neural centers of our brain and indicates that a fifth such center is located in the heart. This research reveals that the evolutionary structure of our brain and its dynamic interactions with our heart are designed by nature to reach beyond our current evolutionary capacities. We are quite literally, made to transcend. Pearce explores how this “biological imperative” drives our life into ever-greater realms of being--even as the “cultural imperative” of social conformity and behavior counters this genetic heritage, blocks our transcendent capacities, and breeds violence in all its forms. The conflict between religion and spirit is an important part of this struggle. But each of us may overthrow these cultural imperatives to reach “unconflicted behavior,” wherein heart and mind-brain resonate in synchronicity, opening us to levels of possibility beyond the ordinary.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools enabled has us humans to control the destiny of our species "A wondrous, visionary work." --Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

A comprehensive guide to social visionary Joseph Chilton Pearce’s work on the transcendent and magical potential of the human mind • Explores Pearce’s most influential books, including Magical Child, sharing his life-changing insights into why we have become what we are, contrasted with the miracle nature intends us to be • Features essential passages interwoven with Pearce’s own commentary, drawn from personal conversations and unpublished material • Shows how Pearce’s key insights build across his books and break down core assumptions about reality and human potential An expert in child development, Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-2016) devoted his life to exploring the optimum development and astonishing capacities within each individual human being. Across his 12 visionary books and thousands of lectures, he blended cutting-edge science with spirituality and explored the amazing power of imagination for both children and adults--the space where we are able to play with our reality--inspiring millions to discover the human birthright of a more magical world. In this guide to Pearce’s complete vision of transcendent human potential, Michael Mendizza explores 7 of his most influential books, sharing insights and expertise from Pearce’s full range of interests, from child development and conscious parenting to psychic phenomena and altered states to the power of the mind to shape reality. Offering essential passages interwoven with Pearce’s own commentary, drawn from personal conversations and unpublished material, this book shows how Pearce’s key insights build across his books, breaking down core assumptions about reality and human potential. We see the importance of imagination and empathic, non-verbal forms of wisdom, which have been long overshadowed--to the peril of humanity--by verbal-intellectual skills with their abstract concepts and ideological perspectives. Presenting Pearce’s vision of human potential from the 1950s until the end of his life, this book shares Pearce’s life-changing insights into why we have become what we are, contrasted with the miracle nature intends us to be, allowing each of us to break through our self-inflicted limitations and realize our amazing and magical potential.

The classic work that shaped the thought of a generation with its powerful insights into the true nature of mind and reality. • Defines culture as a "cosmic egg" structured by the mind's drive for logical ordering of its universe. • Provides techniques allowing individuals to break through the vicious circle of logic-based systems to attain expanded ways of creative living and learning. The sum total of our notions of what the world is--and what we perceive its full potential to be--form a shell of rational thought in which we reside. This logical universe creates a vicious circle of reasoning that robs our minds of power and prevents us from reaching our true potential. To step beyond that circle requires a centering and focus that today's society assaults on every level. Through the insights of Teilhard, Tillich, Jung, Jesus, Carlos Castaneda, and others, Joseph Chilton Pearce provides a mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell of current construct reality and leap into a new phase of human evolution. This enormously popular New Age classic is finally available again to challenge the assumptions of a new generation of readers and help them develop their potential through new creative modes of thinking. With a masterful synthesis of recent discoveries in physics, biology, and psychology, Pearce reveals the extraordinary relationship of mind and reality and nature's blueprint for a self-transcending humanity.

Activating the compassionate intelligence of the heart to reconnect to the universe and our spiritual future • Shows how the heart is connected to our prefrontal cortex and offers a balancing counterweight to the calculating intellect of the lower brain • Explains how we are stuck in reactive behavior loops resulting from the loss of the nurturing culture of our ancestors • Reveals how the Heart-Mind Matrix connects us to the universe and is the engine of spiritual evolution Expanding the revolutionary theories of mind explored in the bestselling The Crack in the Cosmic Egg and The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce explains how the heart provides the balancing intelligence to the brain’s calculating intellect, an innate system of emotional-mental coherence lost generations ago through a breakdown of the nurturing culture of our ancestors. By severing ourselves from our heart intelligence, we are left with our selfish, survival-oriented reptilian brains, which create and reinforce “strange loops” between potential and actual reality, leading to our modern world’s endless cycle of self-inflicted disasters and societal crises. Pearce explains that in order to break these cycles and transcend a life focused solely on surviving the results of our own reactive patterns, we must reconnect with the compassionate intelligence of the heart. Offering a rich variety of evidence, Pearce explores neurological research, lost and enduring nurturing cultures, personal experiences, and accounts from the lives and writings of modern sages such as Jane Goodall, Maria Montessori, and Rudolf Steiner. He shows that by activating the original matrix of the Heart-Mind--the engine of our spiritual evolution and our innate connection to the universe--we can teach our brains new ways to think, amend our destructive behavior loops, and enter into a future of peace, spiritual connection, and conscious evolution.

The classic follow-up to the bestselling The Crack in the Cosmic Egg • Explains the process of acculturation and the mechanisms that create our self-limiting “cosmic egg” of consensus reality • Reveals how our biological development innately creates a “crack” in our cosmic egg--leaving a way to return to the unencumbered consciousness of childhood • Explores ways to discover and explore the “crack” to restore wholeness to our minds and reestablish our ability to create our own realities In this classic follow-up to his bestselling The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Joseph Chilton Pearce explains the process of acculturation and the mechanisms that create our self-limiting “cosmic egg” of consensus reality. Laying the groundwork for his later classic Magical Child, Pearce shows that we go through early childhood connecting with the world through our senses. With the development of language and the process of acculturation not only do our direct experiences of the world become much less vivid but our innate states of nonordinary consciousness become suppressed. Trapped in a specific cultural context--a “cosmic egg”--we are no longer able to have or even recognize mystical experiences not mediated by the limitations of our culture. Motivated primarily by a fear of death, our enculturation literally splits our minds and prevents us from living fully in the present. Drawing from Carlos Castaneda’s writings about Don Juan and the sense of “body-knowing,” Pearce explores the varieties of nonordinary consciousness that can help us return to the unencumbered consciousness of our infancy. He shows that just as we each create our own cosmic egg of reality through cultural conditioning, we also innately create a “crack” in that egg. Ultimately certain shifts in our biological development take place to offset acculturation, leaving an avenue of return to our primary state. Pearce examines the creation of the “egg” itself and ways to discover its inherent cracks to restore wholeness to our minds, release us from our fear of death, and reestablish our ability to create our own realities through imagination and biological transcendence.

Magical Child, a classic work, profoundly questioned the current thinking on childbirth pratices, parenting, and educating our children. Now its daring ideas about how Western society is damaging our children, and how we can better nurture them and ourselves, ring truer than ever. From the very instant of birth, says Joseph Chilton Pearce, the human child has only one concern: to learn all that there is to learn about the world. This planet is the child's playground, and nothing should interfere with a child's play. Raised this way, the Magical Child is a happy genius, capable of anything, equipped to fulfill his amazing potential. Expanding on the ideas of internationally acclaimed child psychologist Jean Piaget, Pearce traces the growth of the mind-brain from birth to adulthood. He connects the alarming rise in autism, hyperkinetic behavior, childhood schizophrenia, and adolescent suicide to the all too common errors we make in raising and educating our children. Then he shows how we can restore the astonishing wealth of creative intelligence that is the birthright of every human being. Pearce challenged all our notions about child rearing, and in the process challenges us to re-examine ourselves. Pearce's message is simple: it is never too late to play, for we are all Magical Children.