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The really surprising thing is that the news of the birthplace of the universe was always here. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The really surprising thing is that the news of the birthplace of the universe was always here. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story, by Brian Swimme, Orbis Books, New York, 2005, 128 ff.
The primary revelation of the Divine
By Howard A. Jones
I have taken my title for this review from the endorsement of the book by Thomas Berry, whose own book, The Great Work, may be seen as complementary to Swimme's. Brian Swimme holds a PhD in mathematical cosmology and is a member of the graduate faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Swimme's research interests, reflected in this book, centre on the relationship between cosmology as revealed by contemporary science and traditional views of the Divine, and the sociological implications of the role of humankind in this New Story of our beginnings and destiny: `We study the story primarily in order to live the story.' Swimme conveys the message that is becoming increasingly familiar to those in tune with cosmic spirituality: `What is needed is a transformation from the form of the humanity of today into forms of humanity congruent with the ways of the universe.'
Swimme reinforces the point made by C,J, Jung that, because many religious texts contain stories that are now rationally and scientifically untenable does not mean that they should be consigned to the scrapheap as `meaningless nonsense', as suggested by some atheists. Rather, they should be regarded as myths that teach psychological and moral truths and they have value in this respect for any cohesive society. We have lost sight of this spiritual aspect of our being in our `spiritually desiccated consumer society out of touch with the numinous powers pervading each being in the universe.' All societies develop effective methods to initiate their young into their culture's world view: in the West, the advertising media do this to inculcate consumerism.
Like Thomas Berry, Swimme stresses the need for properly directed education, and getting away from a wholly materialistic philosophy, in science as in everyday life, is a crucial goal: `a change in perception is a primary aim of the curriculum.' The universe is an `unseen ocean of potentiality' for these young minds if they are not constrained in their thinking. To be disciplined is one thing, but it is quite another to be subjected to authoritarian dogma, whether its source is science or religion.
This short book is an inspirational read for those seeking or already on a spiritual path and the New Story is convincingly told.
Dr Howard A. Jones is the author of The Thoughtful Guide to God (2006) and The Tao of Holism (2008), both published by O Books of Winchester, UK.
The Great Work
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation
The primary revelation of the Divine
By Howard A. Jones
I have taken my title for this review from the endorsement of the book by Thomas Berry, whose own book, The Great Work, may be seen as complementary to Swimme's. Brian Swimme holds a PhD in mathematical cosmology and is a member of the graduate faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
Swimme's research interests, reflected in this book, centre on the relationship between cosmology as revealed by contemporary science and traditional views of the Divine, and the sociological implications of the role of humankind in this New Story of our beginnings and destiny: `We study the story primarily in order to live the story.' Swimme conveys the message that is becoming increasingly familiar to those in tune with cosmic spirituality: `What is needed is a transformation from the form of the humanity of today into forms of humanity congruent with the ways of the universe.'
Swimme reinforces the point made by C,J, Jung that, because many religious texts contain stories that are now rationally and scientifically untenable does not mean that they should be consigned to the scrapheap as `meaningless nonsense', as suggested by some atheists. Rather, they should be regarded as myths that teach psychological and moral truths and they have value in this respect for any cohesive society. We have lost sight of this spiritual aspect of our being in our `spiritually desiccated consumer society out of touch with the numinous powers pervading each being in the universe.' All societies develop effective methods to initiate their young into their culture's world view: in the West, the advertising media do this to inculcate consumerism.
Like Thomas Berry, Swimme stresses the need for properly directed education, and getting away from a wholly materialistic philosophy, in science as in everyday life, is a crucial goal: `a change in perception is a primary aim of the curriculum.' The universe is an `unseen ocean of potentiality' for these young minds if they are not constrained in their thinking. To be disciplined is one thing, but it is quite another to be subjected to authoritarian dogma, whether its source is science or religion.
This short book is an inspirational read for those seeking or already on a spiritual path and the New Story is convincingly told.
Dr Howard A. Jones is the author of The Thoughtful Guide to God (2006) and The Tao of Holism (2008), both published by O Books of Winchester, UK.
The Great Work
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For as long as I can remember, the questions cosmologist Brian Swimme raises in the Preface to this wonderfully lucid, accessible and poetically written book have fascinated me:
"Where did it all come from? Where is the center of reality? Where is the heart or source of the universe? Where is that place where everything sprang forth into existence?"
In "The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos" he sets about confronting these questions, with due modesty, and without "any naive expectation that we will now answer with certitude questions which eluded our ancestors." He does so in a positive and optimistic spirit, stating that "the opportunity of our time is to integrate science's understanding of the universe with more ancient intuitions concerning the meaning and destiny of the human."
Swimme makes it clear that cosmology isn't simply about scientific teaching about the facts and theories of the universe. It is "a wisdom tradition, drawing upon not just science but religion and art and philosophy" .
The book centres on the major cosmological discovery of our time: that the Universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and (in Swimme's own words from his website)" ....is so biased toward complexification that life and intelligence are now seen to be a nearly inevitable construction of evolutionary dynamics."
His approach in explicating this shattering discovery is one of evocation rather than merely conveying the facts, although he does the latter extremely well in language which elucidates rather than obfuscates. It is hard for people like me, who lack a grounding in science, to get to grips with the kind of world in which we live from the perspectives of modern physics and cosmology, when so much of what is now known is so counter-intuitive to how our five senses perceive both the earth and the starry heavens.
Each chapter I read, from The Sun at the Center, through Looking Down at the Milky Way, via The Large-Scale Structure of Space and Time, to A Multiplicity of Centers, helped me to understand more clearly than I ever had before not only the nature and structure of "the vast ocean of the cosmos", but also evoked a deep sense of the numinosity of belonging to that cosmos.
Everyone interested in humanity and the new story, which is being revealed to us by modern cosmology, should read this book.
"Where did it all come from? Where is the center of reality? Where is the heart or source of the universe? Where is that place where everything sprang forth into existence?"
In "The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos" he sets about confronting these questions, with due modesty, and without "any naive expectation that we will now answer with certitude questions which eluded our ancestors." He does so in a positive and optimistic spirit, stating that "the opportunity of our time is to integrate science's understanding of the universe with more ancient intuitions concerning the meaning and destiny of the human."
Swimme makes it clear that cosmology isn't simply about scientific teaching about the facts and theories of the universe. It is "a wisdom tradition, drawing upon not just science but religion and art and philosophy" .
The book centres on the major cosmological discovery of our time: that the Universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and (in Swimme's own words from his website)" ....is so biased toward complexification that life and intelligence are now seen to be a nearly inevitable construction of evolutionary dynamics."
His approach in explicating this shattering discovery is one of evocation rather than merely conveying the facts, although he does the latter extremely well in language which elucidates rather than obfuscates. It is hard for people like me, who lack a grounding in science, to get to grips with the kind of world in which we live from the perspectives of modern physics and cosmology, when so much of what is now known is so counter-intuitive to how our five senses perceive both the earth and the starry heavens.
Each chapter I read, from The Sun at the Center, through Looking Down at the Milky Way, via The Large-Scale Structure of Space and Time, to A Multiplicity of Centers, helped me to understand more clearly than I ever had before not only the nature and structure of "the vast ocean of the cosmos", but also evoked a deep sense of the numinosity of belonging to that cosmos.
Everyone interested in humanity and the new story, which is being revealed to us by modern cosmology, should read this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
45 of 51 people found the following review helpful
DEATH TO CONSUMERISM
28 Jan 2001
Format:Hardcover
Brian Schwimme has an archaic nostalgia. For thousands, even millions, of years, people have united together to marvel at the mystery of the cosmos and contemplate the essence of it all. It was the same macrocosm that each and everyone of the primitive cave dwellers to modern man have directly experienced. But nowadays, we don't do that. We disenchant the world by scientific explanations that view the universe as a machine, to the point where the mathematical explanations of phenomena are more significant than phenomena itself. You might be thinking, no way, the majority of the world is religious, and contemplate such things regularly. He points out that the problem with modern day religious thought is that when we ponder the deep questions of meaning in the universe, we do so in a context fixed in the time when the classical scriptures achieved their written form, rather than worshiping in the context of the universe as we have come to know it over the recent centuries. Such knowledge is restricted to "science" which is at odds with religion. It shouldn't be like this. The Scientific Revolution was an age of this separation. The current cosmology calls for an age of integration. I am all for this goal of striving for a new consciousness. Within our Newtonian minds, we've built such tiny worlds like this, which resulting from the machine view of a dead universe, we apotheosize and deify consumerism. This book doesn't bicker about God or anything that people don't want to hear, it's just saying, "Wake up from this man made world, cast back the veil from your eyes, be at one with this LIVING fecund universe!" You will truly be LIVING in the world once you appreciate the heart of the cosmos, which all though is around 15 billion light years away, is also every where at once. There is no restriction to science. The new cosmology is what has mystified the men of all ages, what they spoke of as the Tao, or the Logos - the emanating source of all creation.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A very positive and healthy vision of the universe
26 Feb 2007
Format:Paperback
Brian Swimme is a very passionate man who is well-versed in science and cosmology. At the same time, he is a deeply intuitive man and deep feeler. This book is an introduction to his point of view on man's nature to the cosmos and the necessity for not becoming disconnected to nature and the wonder and awe of the universe. It stresses the interdependence of everything and focuses on the mystery and awe of the universe and the world of nature. This is something most of us have been taken for granted at least at times. In short, it is an invitation to step of the treadmill of the daily grind to look at the big picture and be inspired by feeling our way into the improbability of it and the heart that is ultimately at the center of the universe. Brian believes every child should be introduced to the story of the cosmos and his unique place in it as the culmination of billions of years of evolution. He espouses a return to feeling part of the creation rather than acting on it as an object. If more people did this kind of reflection, I'm sure the world would be a better and safer place.
30 of 36 people found the following review helpful
A decent but not outstanding book by Brian
27 Aug 1998
Format:Hardcover
This book falls somewhere between the cerebral 'Universe Story' and the poetic 'The Universe is a Green Dragon'. Brian is struggling to bring the beauty and feeling of the universe into perspective with the consumerism which rules the day. If you had to pick a single book by Swimme, it would be 'The Universe is a Green Dragon'
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