Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe [Paperback]

‘The modern Tao of Physics’
New Scientist

‘Opens the door to some entirely new world… a delight. It could make quantum thinkers of us all.’
Danah Zohar

‘The modern version of The Tao of Physics… We gain tantalising glimpses of an elusive alternative to the thing we know as science… Peat’s book is an eloquent plea for a fair go for the modes of enquiry of other cultures.’ New Scientist

One summer in the 1980s, theoretical physicist David Peat went to a Blackfoot Sun Dance ceremony in Alberta, Canada. Hitherto having spent all his life steeped in and influenced by linear Western science, he was entranced by the Native world view and, through dialogue circles between scientists and Native Elders, he began to explore it in greater depth. Blackfoot Physics is the account of his discoveries. In an edifying synthesis of anthropology, history, metaphysics, cosmology and quantum theory, Peat compares the medicines, the myths, the languages, indeed the entire perceptions of reality of two peoples: Western and Indigenous. What becomes apparent is the amazing resemblance between Indigenous teachings and some of the insights that are emerging from Modern Science, a congruence that is as enlightening about the physical universe as it is about the circular evolution of man’s understanding.

One summer in the 1980s, theoretical physicist David Peat went to a Blackfoot Sun Dance ceremony in Alberta, Canada. Hitherto having spent all his life steeped in and influenced by linear Western science, he was entranced by the Native world view and, through dialogue circles between scientists and Native Elders, he began to explore it in greater depth. Blackfoot Physics is the account of his discoveries.

In an edifying synthesis of anthropology, history, metaphysics, cosmology and quantum theory, Peat compares the medicines, the myths, the languages, indeed the entire perceptions of reality of two peoples: Western and Indigenous. What becomes apparent is the amazing resemblance between Indigenous teachings and some of the insights that are emerging from Modern Science, a congruence that is as enlightening about the physical universe as it is about the circular evolution of man’s understanding.

David Peat is a highly regarded theoretical physicist and author of thirteen books including Einstein’s Moon: Bell’s Theorem and the Curious Quest for Quantum Reality, Turbulent Mirror and Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind. He is currently writing a biography of the physicist David Bohm.