I see this book as "mysticism" applied to
self, neuropsychology, and physics/cosmology, the editor’s unstated purpose
being to "make the world safe" for "psi"-religion.  The
reader may overlook my foreshortening disinterest in the theologic religion
that informs much of the text.  For those interested in how these topics might
converge to corroborate "Design" in the "Universe," the
range of information and argumentation may inspire; for others, the quantum
leaps from premise to "theurgic" conclusion will disappoint.

The book reads
relatively free of obfuscatory jargon, no doubt because of the interaction
among the authors from their co-participation in conferences and lectures on
the theme.  This exchange among the contributors/presenters has produced a high
degree of focal centrality in the overall text.  

At the less readable end
is Torrance’s reconfiguration, in
the form of a "neuro-theo-apologia," of other articles of his unstripped
of academicism in a book otherwise more readable.  Although Clarke begins with
plain-English verve as he slides into a breathtakingly brief history of
philosophy, he soon finds my head snapping back out of nods were it not for my
currently helping my nephew construct a philosophy paper on quantum mechanics,
a topic I’d otherwise abhor.  Perhaps he lifted his paper from its original
site so that “ectopically” it fails to integrate "discoursively" with
the rest.  Carr does a good job of showing how modern quantum cosmology creates
realities far removed from our (phenomenological) "world taken for
granted" [my terminological import].

Ravindra pens the
clearest presentation in the book, on the essence of yoga compared with the
practice of scientists.  Midgley starts out as refreshingly as Ravindra, but
soon turns spotty at best amidst a rag-tag-edly interesting philosophical
history of the mind-body debate.  Fenwick seems, p. 115, to "wrongheadedly"
equate "mystical" and "religious" experience, especially in
monotheistic senses, as the social surveys of priest-sociologist Andrew Greeley
do.

Claxton at least appears
to be honest about his "angelic" assumptions, but his engagingly
written fluff commentary soon cloys.  I could not help seconding (p. 139) his
pasting as "neo-phrenologists" neuro-"scientists" who, by
locating color-intensities (through PET, SPECT, MEG, fMRI, etc.), imagine all
begins and ends with their exclusively intracranial judgmentalism about the
nervous system.  These days we’re feeling for “bumps” on the inside.  From
Claxton on, in my eye, the work goes consistently downhill.  Habgood, however,
raises intriguing ethical issues about what constitutes a "person" in
the light of brain-dead patients and cryo-sperm (inspiring my related concern,
"Will he still be the Ted Williams we knew when he thaws out?").

Of the few diagrams in
the book Carr’s, p. 39, "macro-micro" uroboros figure, with
scientific notation technically explained in the text, produces a nice modern
memento of the thought-laden alchemical drawings of the Middle Ages of little
apparent current "relevance," except, perhaps, for scientifically
minded Jungians.

Some notions seem absurd on their
face:  Alexander, p. 228, entertains Ruse’s notion that "our genes foist
morality on us," apparently celebrating E. O. Wilson’s notion of natural
selection for "altruism," not likely an advance over Francis Ashley-Montagu’s
championing of "cooperation" over competition in evolution.  Torrance,
p. 199 (fn.), proposes the foolish notion of Mother Theresa as self-denying in
an age when "sainthood" is handed out like Tootsie Roll Pops.  Surely
she melded self-satisfaction and will-to-power, gratifying her
"pleasure-principle" along the Wilsonian lines just mentioned. 
Finally, someone in the book says a computer has a "subjective point of
view."  Really!

Lack of explicit definitions of
terms like "mind" means that implicit significations of the terms
change kaleidoscopically within and across authors–the "Plastic Man"
approach to definitional [un]clarity.  "Words mean whatever I say [or
don’t say] they mean [whenever and however I choose them to mean]," I
think the hookah-smoking caterpillar said to Alice.  One of the authors, whose
biography shows tremendous published concern with the "G-word," fails
to offer even an inkling of a clear delineation of the etheric term’s palpable
meaning.  As usual with edited works, the book could have gained markedly by
lists of terms carefully "defined."  Compare Carr, p. 34, where
"cosmos" or "Universe" [the Theistic Upper-Case?] means
"the entirety of physical creation"–Now there’s a presupposition for
you!–and "mind" bluringly dissolves into "Man,"
"consciousness," or "spirit," despite the actual etymology
that narrows it a bit to "memory," presumably a selective, recreated
experience necessarily occurring in and through the body.

Absolutely no one presents
specific, detailed, concrete experiences the synthetic interpretation of which
could advance a humanely relevant image of that which is the center of all our
fields of study–us!

Bibliographies could have been
more ample (annotated for the benefit of the reader?) and had more recent and
entries with a minimum of the technical.    

© 2005 A. P. Bober

A. P. Bober has
studied a psychology spanning Skinner and a humanistic-clinical view based on
existential phenomenology and had been a PhD candidate in a substantive yet
philosophic European-based sociology including the "critical" view. 
His teaching augmented courses in group theory/"small-group developmental
dynamics" (lab) while introducing "sociology of knowledge" and
"issues in biological anthropology," with publications in the first
two fields.  Currently he is writing a book on mystical experience as
metaphorically tied to neurophysiology.

Categories: Philosophical, General