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Table of Contents

Praise

ALSO BY BRUCE H. LIPTON, PH.D

Tide Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PREFACE

Productior

PREAMBLE

PART I ・ WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS

WRONG!

CHAPTER 1 - BELIEVING IS SEEING

ARE WE AS FRAIL AS WE HAVE LEARNED?

DO ORDINARY HUMANS POSSESS SUPERHUMAN POWERS?

DO WE NEED SURGERY? OR JUST A “FAITH-LIFT?”

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NEW-EDGE SCIENCE

AND NOW ... THE REAL SECRET OF LIFE

THE FINGER ON THE SWITCH

BRAIN VERSUS GONADS

THE NATURE OF DIS-EASE

CHAPTER 2 - ACT LOCALLY ... EVOLVE GLOBALLY

SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE GENES

FROM THE MICROCOSM OF THE CELL TO THE MACROCOSM

OF THE MIND

WHO'S DRIVING OUR KARMA. ANYWAY?

TRANSFORMING THE TRANCE

FROM THE BLAME GAME TO RESPONSE-ABILITY

CHAPTER 3 - A NEW LOOK AT THE OLD STORY

A STORY ABOUT A STORY

HOW TO CHOOSE AN “OFFICIAL” TRUTH PROVIDER

BASAL PARADIGMS: A SHORT HISTORY OF STORY

ANIMISM: MAKE ME ONE WITH EVERYTHING

POLYTHEISM: THE FIRST SPIRITUAL SUBDIVISION

MONOTHEISM: GOD DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

DEISM: A FLASH OF LIGHT

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM: MATTER MATTERS

THE TIDE HAS TURNED

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

CHAPTER 4 - REDISCOVERING AMERICA

EVOLUTION IN THE PETRI DISH

AMERICA: REVOLUTION TO DEVOLUTION

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WAS NO TEA PARTY

SOVEREIGN EQUALS UNDER NO KING

GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY ROOTED IN SACRED GROUND

THE “AMERICANIZATION” OF THE WHITE MAN

AMERICA'S EVOLUTIONARY TRADITION

REPAYING OUR BENEFACTORS: FROM SQUANTO TO TONTO HONORING OUR FOUNDING MOTHERS

UNITING BOTH HEMISPHERES: THE CONDOR AND THE EAGLE

PART II ・ FOUR MYTH・PERCEPTIONS OF THE APOCALYPSE

UNVEILING THE OLD, REVEALING THE NEW

CHAPTER 5 - MYTH・PERCEPTION ONE: ONLY MATTER MATTERS IS SCIENCE A RELIGION?

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY

WHAT IF JESUS AND EINSTEIN WERE BOTH RIGHT?

IT'S IN THE FIELD

CHAPTER 6 - MYTH-PERCEPTION TWO: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

WHICH CAME FIRST. DARWIN OR DARWINISM?

THE EVOLUTION OF DARWIN

DARWIN'S INDELICATE ARRANGEMENT

HOW WE INHERITED SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

A DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD ... NOT!

THRIVAL OF THE FITTINGEST

THE ANSWERS LIE WITHIN

FROM THE SELFISH GENE TO THE SELFLESS GENIUS

WE，RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

CHAPTER 7 - MYTH-PERCEPTION THREE: IT'S IN YOUR GENES WE FOUND THE KEY TO LIFE—BUT IT DOESN'T UNLOCK THE SECRET

IS THE GENE THE KEY?

GENETIC DETERMINISM: THE DOGMA THAT WOULDN'T HUNT THE SELFISH GENE

THE HUMAN GENOME

OF BABOONS AND BONOBOS

IT'S NOT THE KARMA, FTS THE DRIVER

CHAPTER 8 - MYTH-PERCEPTION FOUR: EVOLUTION IS RANDOM THE FALL AND RISE OF JEAN BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK RANDOM MUTATION? NO DICE!

IN PRAISE OF TYPING MONKEYS

WHEN RANDOMNESS MEETS DETERMINISM

PSST ... THE GAME IS FIXED: PIERRE・SIMON LAPLACE

GOD THROWS DICE ... AND THEY'RE NOT LOADED: WERNER HEISENBERG

SO WHAT DO WE KNOW. AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

CHAPTER 9 - DYSFUNCTION AT THE JUNCTION

THE AMERICAN DEVOLUTION

THE CHANGING OF THE GOD

MONEYCHANGERS IN THE TEMPLE

LOWEST COMMON DOMINATOR

THE UNHEALTHY CARE SYSTEM

WEAPONS OF MASS-DISTRACTION

CHAPTER 10 - GOING SANE

WELCOME TO THE SANE ASYLUM

ADULTS OF GOD

EMBRACE OUR POWER WITH ALL DUE HUMILITY

PART III - CHANGING THE GUARD AND RE・

GROWING THE GARDEN

THE FORK IN THE ROAD

HOW DID WE GET HERE? THE HOLISTIC VIEW

WHY ARE WE HERE? THE HOLISTIC VIEW

NOW THAT WE'RE HERE, HOW DO WE MAKE THE BEST OF IT? THE HOLISTIC VIEW

A STATE OF “EMERGENT SEEING"

CHAPTER 11 - FRACTAL EVOLUTION

IS THERE A FUTURE IN FUTUROLOGY?

WHEN IT COMES TO INVENTION. NECESSITY IS A MOTHER dEjA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

FRACTALS—MATH AND AFTERMATH

EVOLUTION DECODED

PURPOSEFUL PUNCTUATION

FROM HUMAN TO HUMANITY

NO NEW STORIES: OUR FUTURE THROUGH A FRACTAL

LOOKING GLASS

EARTH—FROM THE BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

FRACTALS UNDER OUR SKIN

CHAPTER 12 - TIME TO SEE A GOOD SHRINK

CELLs-US

ENORMOUS INSIGHTS FROM THE LITTLE PEOPLE

ARE OUR CELLS SMARTER THAN WE ARE?

TECHNOLOGY: CELLS HIT THE INDUSTRIAL AGE AGES AGO

THE CELLULAR ECONOMY: NO CELL LEFT BEHIND

A HEALTHY CENTRAL VOICE: THE CELLULAR INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

GROWTH. PROTECTION. AND THE BALANCE OF LIFE

LET THEM EAT GUNS

MF.N APR FROM PROTFTN WOMEN ARF FROM T.TPTDS

CHAPTER 13 - THE ONE SUGGESTION

HOW REAL IS REALITY?

THE FIELD EXPERIMENTS

TIME ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

THE PLAYING FIELD AS A PRAYING FIELD

THE SCIENCE OF PRAYER

THE SACRED HEART AND COHERENCE

ENTRAINING WHEELS FOR THE NEXT CYCLE

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

THE ONE SUGGESTION

CHAPTER 14 - A HEALTHY COMMONWEALTH

THE NATURAL ECONOMY: WHAT WOULD OUR CELLS DO?

PRINCIPLE ONE: WEALTH IS WELL-BEING

PRINCIPLE TWO: ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY ARE THE SAME

PRINCIPLE THREE: EFFICIENCY IS THE KEY TO THRIVAL

PRINCIPLE FOUR: CURRENCY MUST REPRESENT REAL WEALTH

FOLLOW THE MONEY

BEYOND THE OLD NEEDY-GREEDY: REAL MONEY BASED ON REAL WEALTH

CHAPTER 15 - HEALING THE BODY POLITIC

NEWTONIAN-DARWINIAN POLITICS

THE AMERICAN EVOLUTIONARIES AND A NEWER WORLD ORDER

THE CENTRAL VOICE OF DEMOCRACY: UNCOMMON COMMON WISDOM

TRANSCENDENT SOLUTIONS: PRACTICING EVOLUTION

A MISSING PERSONS REPORT ON WE THE PEOPLE

THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM

THE SHAPE OF POLITICS TO COME?

HEARTLAND SECURITY

LIFE IS PROGRESSIVE ... AND CONSERVATIVE

CHAPTER 16 - A WHOLE NEW STORY

WHAT'S SO!—SO WHAT?

HEALING THE OLD STORY

CHANGING THE INNERSPHERE

FROM DUELING DUALITIES TO DYNAMIC DUO CAN HUMANS ACHIEVE HUMANITY?

BELIEF CHANGE MODALITIES

ABOUT THE COVER ART

ENDNOTES

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

HAY HOUSE TITLES OF RELATED INTEREST

 

Praise for Spontaneous Evolution

''Spontaneous Evolution is the life-map we've all been waiting for! With just the right blend of spiritual humor and rock-solid science, Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman cast a holistic new light on an emerging new civilization. They lead us beyond collapsing economies and religious extremes to show us that such chaos is a natural step in an unfolding process, rather than the tragic end to a broken planet. Once we recognize the big picture, the choices to a better life and a better world become obvious. The guiding role of Spontaneous Evolution is where our teachings of life, history, and civilization should begin. I love this book!"

一Gregg Braden, New York Times best-selling author of The Divine Matrix and Fractal Time

"The implications of this powerful book have the potential to change the world."

—Deepak Chopra, author of The Third Jesus

"This wise and thoughtful book is a powerful antidote for anyone who is pessimistic and depressed about our future and the challenges we face as humans."

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of The Power of Premonitions

"Spontaneous Evolution is a world-changing book that offers a heartening view of humanity's destiny. Built on the foundation of the latest discoveries in science, it points us in the direction of functional politics, sustainable economics, and individual responsibility in the context of an interdependent community."

—Thom Hartmann, author of The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight

'Spontaneous Evolution is a great book, a vital message, and even more, it embodies Causal Evolution. By understanding and incorporating its wise revelation of how nature works, we can cause the future we intend. The future that emerges from this Whole New Story is so attractive that I believe it will encourage us to fulfill our true hearts * desire for more love, more life, more creativity NOW."

—Barbara Marx Hubbard, founder of The Foundation for Conscious Evolution ''Spontaneous Evolution is a brilliant synthesis of science, evolutionary theory, and spiritual consciousness that provides a unique explanation of our global situation and how we might move forward to repair the world. It charts a path for a global 'up-wising' that could save us from planetary disaster, recognizing that both we as individuals and the global economic/political systems, in which we operate, must evolve quickly to survive."

一Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of The Left Hand of God

 

ALSO BY BRUCE H. LIPTON, PH.D.

THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF^

THE WISDOM OF YOUR CELLS (CD)
SPONTANEOUS EVOLUTION (CD)

* Available from Hay House

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PONTANEOUS

《VOLUTION

OUR POSITIVE FUTURE

(AND A WAY TO GET THERE FROM HERE)

BRUCE H. LIPTON, Ph.D.

AND

STEVE BHAERMAN

HAY

•  

HAY HOUSE, INC.

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Copyright © 2009 by Mountain of Love Productions and Steve Bhaerman

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com • Published
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Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Design: Tricia Breidenthal
Indexer: Susan Edwards

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or
electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may il be stored in a retrieval
system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use   ther than for “fair use" as brief
quotations embodied in articles and reviews——without prior written permission of the publisher.
The authors of this book do not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form
of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either
directly or indirectly. The intent of the authors is only to offer information of a general nature to help
you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in
this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the authors and the publisher assume no
responsibility for your actions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lipton, Bruce H.

Spontaneous evolution : our positive future (and a way to get there from here) / Bruce H. Lipton and
Steve Bhaerman.

1. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4019-2580-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. United States—Social conditions. 2. Human
behavior. 3. Social evolution. I. Bhaerman, Steve. IL Title.

HN55.L57 2009

306.0973-dc22

2009017821

ISBN: 978-1-4019-2580-2

elSBN : 97-8-140-19266-8

12 11 10 0943 2 1

1st edition, September 2009

Printed in the United States of America

 

To Mother Earth, Father Sky,
and All Imaginal Cells

 

PREFACE

Why We Wrote this Book

Hello, Fm Bruce Lipton.

And I'm Steve Bhaerman.

Bruce: We welcome you to our new book, Spontaneous Evolution.

In my earlier book, The Biology of Belief, the emphasis was on how our attitudes and emotions control our physiology, our biology, and our gene expression. The book focused on how personal beliefs affect our personal reality. But there is something more profound to be learned, which is that collective beliefs of a culture or society also affect our personal biology and behavior.

Society is beginning to recognize that our current collective beliefs are detrimental and that our world is in a very precarious position. So, I thought it was time to bring out a message about how the new biology and other insights in the world of science can be applied to our societal beliefs and help us address the threatening situations we currently face.

In this work, I emphasize biology, beliefs, and behavior. However, to fully understand this message, my friend Steve Bhaerman offers information regarding how social structure, politics, and economics also tie into our biology.

Steve: For the past 22 years, I've been doing comedy, disguised as Swami Beyondananda, the cosmic comic. Comedy is a wonderful way to tell the truth and a way to break through the mind's defenses to get new information and perspective in under the radar.

Prior to the Swami, however, my first professional “incarnation" was in political science and social activism during the 1960s. I helped start an alternative high school in Washington, D.C., for students who had grown past traditional schooling. These were exciting times when new ideas were emerging and being tested. As I sadly observed, the most important of those

tests—whether we could actually live the lofty principles we espoused—was being flunked left and right. For example, I recall meeting one individual who was a world-renowned expert on communal living. Unfortunately no one could stand to live with him.

Realizing how little I knew about how to turn the ideal into the real deal, I embarked on a 25-year journey into psychology, personal growth, meditation, and spirituality. Over the past seven years, Fve had the itch to integrate those ideas in a book I wanted to call Healing the Body Politic. After I met Bruce, I thought we could work on the project together, and he agreed.

Bruce: In the medical world, we sometimes have a patient who is declared terminal and everyone counts her out. Then something happens, and this individual has a fundamental change in personal belief through which she expresses a spontaneous remission. One moment, she is terminal and, the next, totally free of disease. This shocks many medical practitioners, but it happens frequently, and most people are aware that the phenomenon exists.

Earth and the biosphere—and that includes us一are an integrated living system. While the system appears to be faltering, the planet itself is capable of expressing a spontaneous remission. What is needed to facilitate that remission is a fundamental change in awareness and beliefs as to who we really are. We used the spontaneous remission concept in the title of this book because we believe that science's new insights w山 profoundly change civilization's collective beliefs on the nature of life.

We have woven this new science into a hopeful story of humanity's potential future to help promote planetary healing. Spontaneous Evolution merges current scientific insights with ancient wisdom to reveal how truly powerful we are and that we can influence our own evolution.

According to conventional Darwinian theory, evolution is a very slow and gradual process, requiring m山ions and millions of years to manifest the evolutionary transformations of species. New scientific insights reveal that evolution actually consists of long periods of stasis, interrupted by sudden, dramatic upheavals. The upheavals are punctuations that change the course of evolution and lead to whole new forms of life.

Our civilization is presently in a state of disorganization and disintegration. We are currently in dire need of evolutionary advancement and don't have time for a slow, gradual evolution. Interestingly, in light of the crises we face, it appears that civilization is already in the throes of a punctuation.

Steve: Perhaps the most burning question now is: Is this punctuation a question mark? An exclamation point? Or, sadly, a period?

People are aware that something is happening. They have been exposed to news of diminishing natural resources, climate change, and population explosion. The doomsday clock is rapidly approaching the midnight hour, when it's going to be more than love that comes tumbling down. Religious people are talking about the end times.

At the same time, we are also coining to realize humanity is connected. The most obvious physical demonstration is the Internet, through which we can send and receive messages around the world at the speed of light. This instantaneous communication ties together the entire global village. Everything is entangled. Everything is related.

As evidence of that, we see science climbing the proverbial mountain of knowledge only to find Buddha sitting on top. In combining Bruce's scientific knowledge of the body with my knowledge of the body politic, we see that science's modem discoveries and the ancient teachings of great spiritual leaders lead to the same conclusion: This is a world of relationship. Nobody gets off the bus. We're all in this together.

Of course, along with this awesome understanding, we realize that the old ways of seeing, believing, and reasoning will not help us alleviate the current situation and step into the new. Our survival is at stake. We need a new paradigm. We need a spontaneous evolution. That is why we have written this book.

 

INTRODUCTION

A Universal Love Story

This is a love story. A love story for the entire Universe: you, me, and every living organism.

Act I opened billions of years ago when a wave of light from the sun collided with a particle of matter. That spark of love between Father Sun and Mother Earth gave birth to a child on this blue-green spheroid. That precocious child, called life, has made Earth its playground ever since, multiplying into an endless array of magnificent forms. Some of those forms are with us today, but many more have become extinct and will never be known.

The curtain rose on Act II of this love story some 700 million years ago when certain single-celled organisms decided they'd had it with the single life. Realizing they couldn't live alone, they turned to one another and said (in whatever primal language single cells speak) "Baby, I need your lovin'." And thus, the multicellular organism was created.

Act III began over a million years ago when multicellular organisms evolved into the first consciously aware humans to arrive on the scene. With consciousness, life was able to observe itself, reflect, and create its own future. Life could experience and appreciate love and joy. Life could even laugh at itself and, eventually, come to write books like the one you hold in your hands.

Act IV traces the evolution of human clans who joined forces and carved the globe into nation states. At the present time, we find ourselves near the closing moments of this act, wondering if the play ends here, like a Greek tragedy that always ends badly. Looking at our chaotic world of human dysfunction and environmental crisis, we seem to be headed for an inevitable train wreck. Fortunately for us, the Greeks also had five-act plays; these were comedies filled with laughter, joy, happiness, and love.

Spontaneous Evolution is a story about how we can safely navigate from Act IV to Act V. The good news is that biology and evolution are on our side.

Inherent within all living organisms is an innate drive to survive, known by science as the biological imperative. Contrary to what conventional science and religion have been telling us, evolution is neither random nor predetermined but rather an intelligent dance between organism and environment. When conditions are ripe   ither through crisis or opportunity 一something unpredictable happens to bring the biosphere into a new balance at a higher level of coherence.

While we often perceive of examples of spontaneous remission as miraculous healings that happen by the grace of God, looking a little deeper we see something else at work. Quite often these fortunate individuals actively participate in their own healing by consciously or unconsciously making a key, significant change in their beliefs and behaviors.

So here is the bad news and the good news. The story of human life on Earth is yet to be determined. If there is to be an Act V, it will depend on whether we humans are willing to make changes in our individual and collective beliefs and behaviors and whether we are able to make these changes in time.

For millennia, our spiritual teachers have been pointing us in the direction of love. Now science is confirming that ancient wisdom. We are each and all cells in the body of an evolving giant super-organism we call humanity. Because humans have free will, we can choose to either rise to that new level of emergence or, in the manner of dinosaurs, fall by the wayside.

The religions that grew out of the cradle of civilization, the Fertile Crescent that is modern day Iraq一which, ironically, is now in danger of being the grave of civilization一have all had the notion of redemption through some savior. In that sense, the coming of the Messiah in Act V will turn the play of life into a human comedy.

All good comedies need a joke, so here is the punch line: we are the answer to our own prayers.

THE RISE OF THE PHOENIX

At the current time, many people find themselves transfixed by disturbing symptoms that seem to mark civilization's devolution. However, this myopic focus distracts us from seeing the Light in the darkness.

Whether you call this Light love or knowledge, its flame grows brighter each day. The Light reveals that civilization is in a birthing process as the old way of life falls away and a new one emerges.

This pattern of evolution resembles the phoenix, a sacred firebird in Egyptian mythology. At the end of its life, the phoenix builds a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites. Both nest and bird burn fiercely, but from the ashes arises a new, young phoenix that is fated to experience the same life cycle.

A modem version of the myth is portrayed in the film The Flight of the Phoenix, which provides an epic example of conflict resolution, mastering challenges, and transformation. The story begins when an oil exploration team abandons its oilrig in the Sahara Desert. The crew encounters a hitchhiking stranger who joins them, and together they fly off in a twinengine cargo plane. When the plane crashes in the middle of the desert, the crew and passengers are stranded. Meanwhile, a band of cutthroat nomads follows the trail of jettisoned cargo to the downed plane.

Just like in the real world, a power struggle ensues for control of this small community. Who will prevail: the strongest individual or the one who controls the resources? As it turns out, neither. Faced with infighting that threatens to destroy their community and endanger them all, the group is forced to develop a plan The hitchhiking stranger, who claims to be an aircraft designer, presents what seems to be an improbable plan to build a viable aircraft from the plane's wreckage. With no other options, the community has no choice but to give this outlandish new idea a chance. Galvanized by this new vision, they band together to create the impossible. In true Hollywood fashion and not a moment too soon, with the nomads firing their guns at the ramshackle aircraft, the untested plane lifts off on its maiden voyage to safety.

The story of a structure failing and something else rising is a familiar one that plays over and over again in the biosphere. Life is in a constant state of perpetual re-creation.

HUMANIFEST DESTINY

If you find it hard to imagine that we can ever get from the crises that we are facing now to a more loving and functional world, consider the tale of another world in transition. Imagine you are a single cell among millions that comprise a growing caterpillar. The structure around you has been operating like a well-oiled machine, and the larva world has been creeping along predictably. Then one day, the machine begins to shudder and shake. The system begins to fail. Cells begin to commit suicide. There is a sense of darkness and impending doom.

From within the dying population, a new breed of cells begins to emerge, called imaginal cells. Clustering in community, they devise a plan to create something entirely new from the wreckage. Out of the decay arises a great flying machine—a butterfly一that enables the survivor cells to escape from the ashes and experience a beautiful world, far beyond imagination. Here is the amazing thing: the caterpillar and the butterfly have the exact same DNA. They are the same organism but are receiving and responding to a different organizing signal.

That is where we are today. When we read the newspaper and watch the evening news, we see the media reporting a caterpillar world. And yet everywhere, human imaginal cells are awakening to a new possibility. They are clustering, communicating, and tuning into a new, coherent signal of love.

Love, we will find, is not some mushy-gushy sentiment but the vibrational glue that will help build this new flying machine and manifest our destiny as humanity一what we call “humanifest destiny."

Chances are you are among the evolutionary imaginal cells who are contributing to the birth of this new version of humanity. Although it may not seem evident now, the future is in our hands. To secure that future, we must first empower ourselves with the knowledge of who we truly are. With a firm understanding of how our programming shapes our lives and the knowledge necessary to change that programming, we can rewrite our destiny.

Spontaneous Evolution introduces the notion that a miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf. When a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolution.

By the time you finish Spontaneous Evolution, we hope you will have a better understanding of past programming, current knowledge, and future possibilities. Most importantly, you will see how all of us can change our programming, our own and civilization's, to create the world we've always dreamed is possible.

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., and Steve Bhaerman

 

PREAMBLE

Spontaneous Remission

*7 have good news. There will, indeed, be peace on Earth ... I sure hope we humans are around to enjoy it."

—Swami Beyondananda

To paraphrase American revolutionary Tom Paine, these are soul-trying times. Madness and dysfunction seem inescapable. We used to imagine getting away to a desert island or mountain retreat to live in quiet sanity. But now, the whole concept of away is meaningless. There is no such place as away. National borders, for example, couldn't contain the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, nor can air pollution from China be stopped from blowing across Asia. Toxic medical debris dumped into the water somewhere washes up and pollutes a beach somewhere else. The air we breathe and the water we drink are all part of a delicate interrelated ecosystem. Yet, the current system we live by, the human "egosystem” if you will, is simply not equipped to deal with these inconvenient realities.

Albert Einstein stated that a problem couldn't be solved at the same level it was created. Never has that assessment been truer than today when all of our reality checks seem to be bouncing. Clearly, we can no longer solve our problems by doing exactly what we've been doing. More weaponry doesn't bring peace. More prisons don't reduce crime. More expensive health care doesn't make us healthier. Nor does more information make us wiser.

In lieu of focusing on the crises, we are encouraged to escape into addictions and distractions conveniently placed before us to keep us preoccupied and passive. But reality keeps intervening. Everything in the world seems to be rolling toward some inexorable, beyond-our-control crisis.

Those of us with children and grandchildren are concerned as to what kind of world we will leave behind for them and their children.

In early 2007, the so-called Doomsday Clock—the marker that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has used since the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945 to measure the danger of nuclear holocaust—was moved up to 11:55 P.M., a mere five minutes before midnight. This is the closest it's been to the doomsday hour since 1953 when the Soviets exploded their first hydrogen bomb.

The latest movement of the doomsday marker reflects not only the increased threat of nuclear war but also threats to our survival from deterioration of the biosphere, oceans, and climate—what Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, has called "threats without enemies."丄 Actually, there are enemies, but these enemies are in the form of false, self- perpetuating mindsets and the obsolete institutions based upon them.

In the face of disturbing news reports that the impact of global warming is coming sooner than expected, combined with intransigence by a system that doesn't want to change, it looks more and more like the world needs a miracle. This miracle would be something akin to the spontaneous remission of an advanced terminal condition.

After assessing civilization's plight using insights offered by cutting-edge scientists, we are happy to report that there are, indeed, golden opportunities hidden in the dark clouds of crisis. Those willing to face the music and dance together will be the ones who will help transform the threatening crises we face into awesome opportunities.

The spontaneous remission we seek appears to be contingent upon a spontaneous re-missioning of civilization through which we change our mission from one based on survival of the individual to one that encompasses survival of the species. This is our fundamental evolutionary mission, our biological imperative. Achieving this remission necessitates that we individually and collectively reexamine many of the fundamental assumptions our civilization accepts as true. Those beliefs we find inadequate or incomplete must be revised so that the new awareness is incorporated into civilization and becomes our new way of life.

Once we understand what science is now revealing about who we truly are, the structures that have kept us from that truth will crumble and a new path will present itself.

It is our intention that Spontaneous Evolution bridge the gap between what we now know and what we will need to know in order to manifest a spontaneous remission. Ironically, some of the new insights offered by science are so far outside of what we've accepted as conventional wisdom that science itself is having a hard time coming to grips with the implications. In other words, if you suspect that reality isn't what it used to be, you're in good company.

So strap yourself in, keep your eyes open, and hold on tight because we are about to experience the adventure of a lifetime. When we realize our role as awakened and aware cells in the body of humanity, when we all participate in and fully experience what may be the most profound and pivotal moment in the history of the planet, then we will witness a new order spontaneously emerge out of chaos. How do we know? The science tells us so.

Oh, really?

If this new reality is truly upon us, why do things seem to be getting more chaotic and disconnected? The answer is that these crises are simply symptoms, which is Nature's way of informing us that our civilization has pushed the biosphere to its limits and must now consider a new way of life in order to sustain our existence.

We know things cannot continue in the same way, and we are frustrated because there appears to be no pathway to lead us anywhere else. Interestingly, the way out isn't a linear path. If anything, it is likely represented by a higher level of consciousness that must be attained by a critical mass of the population. Maybe, when the real rapture comes, we won't have to fly into the sky and leave our clothes behind. Maybe we can stay right here on Earth, fully dressed . . . or not. Rather than being beamed up by Scottie, perhaps all we need to do is beam Buddha down.

Now at this point, if we were you, we'd be saying, “Boy, this spontaneous evolution stuff sure sounds good. But how can we know that this is not merely some wishful pie-in-the-sky thinking and that it actually represents a real possibility?" That is exactly the question the rest of Spontaneous Evolution addresses. And the place to begin is with evolution itself.

rrs TIME TO EVOLVE EVOLUTION

The fundamental argument about evolution is, excuse the expression, a bunch of BS. Belief Systems, that is. We have two opposing belief systems that are like two barking dogmas making so much noise the rest of us can't hear ourselves think.

On one side, we have scientific materialists who insist we got here by random chance. Their argument is akin to the belief that an infinite number of monkeys pecking away on an infinite number of typewriters would in infinite time produce the works of Shakespeare.

On the other side, we have religious fundamentalists who insist that God created the world just like the Bible said He did. Some of these believers have even calculated that God initiated Creation at precisely 9 A.M. on October 23, 4004 B.C.E.

While these points of view, respectively, are in all probability wrong, when taken together they paradoxically point us in the right direction. The latest science is telling us that, while Creation didn't happen in seven days, it was not the result of random evolution, either. Thanks to the new science of fractal mathematics, we are aware that self-similar intelligent patterns recur throughout Nature. As we will see, when these universal patterns are used to assess the state of human civilization, they reveal the evolution of our human species is on the path toward a hopeful and positive future.

Of course at this point, you might be thinking, “If things are so hopeful, why do we have such a mess right now?" In our discussion of evolution, we will describe the nature of punctuated equilibrium, in which crises drive evolution. Accordingly, there are vastly long periods of stability that are punctuated by radical and unpredictable changes. In the wake of such upheavals, which are frequently marked by mass extinctions, evolution rapidly provides a profusion of new species.

Crisis ignites evolution. The challenges and crises we face today are actually signs that spontaneous change is imminent. We are about to face our evolution.

How will our evolutionary advancement come about? Our path is similar to that of cells in the metamorphosing butterfly larva. When provided with a new awareness, the cellular population that comprises the deteriorating larva collaborates to restructure their society in order to experience the next highest level of their evolution.

We use the caterpillar-to-butterfly pattern to illuminate our current situation, and yet there is one significant difference. While caterpillars inevitably become butterflies, the success of our evolution is not inevitable. Even though Nature is nudging us toward this exciting possibility, it cannot happen without our participation. We are conscious co-creators in the evolution of life. We have free will. And we have choices. Consequently our success is based on our choices, which are, in turn, totally dependent on our awareness.

The good news is that we are already well on our way to the next level of human evolution. We believe this leap in evolution was inaugurated by an event that changed civilization's perceptions forever. The first pictures of Earth beamed back from space in 1969 offer photographic evidence of what spiritual seers have proclaimed for centuries: the world is one.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the value of the picture of Earth that appeared on the January 10, 1969, cover of LIFE magazine was incalculable. Etched into the imagination of the world's citizens was not only the beauty of our precious blue-green planet but also its smallness and fragility. Anthropologist Margaret Mead called that image "the most sobering photograph ever made. Our lovely, lonely planet afloat in a vast black sea of space. So beautiful yet so tragically fragile. So dependent on so many people in all countries*

That image of Earth from space inspired American visionary John McConnell to create the Earth Flag in 1969. And this greater concern for Earth also stoked the first environmental legislation in the United States in the 1970s.

So what happened? Why does it seem we've been moving backward since then?

Even though the world's imaginal cells were activated by their new awareness, the global body of humanity is still a caterpillar that, naturally, feels threatened by and is resistant to the upstart imaginal cells. And it is that paradigm of struggle that continues to shape the world's energy field.

In order to secure our future, we must empower ourselves with the knowledge of who we truly are. With an understanding of how our programming shapes our lives and with the knowledge of how we can change that programming, we can rewrite our destiny.

Spontaneous Evolution is designed to be a primer for that transformation. We hope it provides information, inspiration, and encouragement for those readers seeking a healthful, peaceful, sustainable world.

 

PARTI

WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG!

“The best way to face the unknown is by not knowing."

—Swami Beyondananda

Gaze into the sky on a clear, dark, moonless night, and you will see thousands of pinholes of light—ach one a massive, magnificent star in a Universe too large to imagine. Focus on one star and realize that it might no longer exist but may have burned out and collapsed into space rubble eons ago. But because the star was light-years away, illumination from its former existence is still visible, serving as a navigational guide for mariners.

Now, turn your gaze from the heavens to our less-than-heavenly Earth and ask: "Is it possible that we have been charting our course by a burned-out philosophical star? What if our belief system about life is wrong?^,,

On the surface, that contention seems odd. After all, we now generate, share, and absorb more scientific information than ever through books, CDs, DVDs, radio, television, and the Internet. But information alone is not enough. Right content in a wrong context is really misinformation that will lead us either off course or on a dangerous course. Consider the story of the captain of a ship who demanded that the light he saw on a dark horizon change course. When a voice from that other light radioed back, suggesting that the ship change course instead, the captain bellowed his authority to hold his course. The voice from the distant light replied, “Captain, we are a lighthouse."

So you see, the course we choose depends on our perspective.

The simple example emphasizes our point.

 

 

In image A, you might see either a hag or a young woman (you may have to study the image for a while to see them both). Image B is binary code of image A. While the image data in B can scientifically define the content of A, the determination about which image you see at any given moment does not reside in the data code but in your interpretation and perception as the observer.

The message is simple and insightful: one piece of scientific data can describe two entirely different perceptions. And when we truly believe in a perception, we see it as the one and only reality and ignore all other possible realities.

In fact, as individuals and society, we are navigating by old, scientifically disproved philosophical perceptions. But, like those burned-out stars light- years away, the news of their deaths hasn't yet reached us. Like the light on the lighthouse, beacons are shining forth to guide us in a new direction一if we perceive them correctly.

Today, human evolution is at a turning point where an old paradigm and a challenging new awareness are uneasily trying to coexist. We are wedded by habit and tradition to an outmoded view of the Universe and yet civilization is pregnant with a new, exciting, and optimistic understanding of life.

To understand our predicament, let's travel back in time 500 years when astronomer Nicolas Copernicus, looking at the sky from a cathedral turret, made a world-shattering astronomical observation. Contrary to popular belief that Earth was the center of the Universe, Copernicus realized that Earth rotated on its axis daily as it orbited the sun annually.

Church leaders considered Copernicus^, idea blasphemy and clung to old beliefs, even to the point of forcing Galileo, at the point of a sword 90 years later, to renounce his support of Copernican theory and spend the rest of his life in prison. Yet, ironically, those same Church leaders adopted Copernicus^J mathematical formulas to reconcile discrepancies in their religious calendar. The point is, as Galileo experienced, it takes time for human consciousness to accept major changes.

A century has elapsed since Einstein mathematically proved that everything in the Universe is made out of energy and intertwined. Yet a vast majority of humanity still lives by the outdated principles of Newtonian physics, which say the world is a physical mechanism engaged in a series of cause and effect actions and reactions. While those in power used Einstein's theory of relativity to build atomic weaponry  just as the Church employed Copernicus^, calculations to reconcile their calendar一they ignored the immense implications of bombing even a small part of the planet we share.

Meanwhile, our adherence to misunderstandings and "myth-perceptions" has so disconnected humanity from Nature that human activity has become “web of life-threatening." While headlines bear alarms about suicide bombers in the Middle East, too many people fail to realize that our entire species has become a ticking time bomb for the planet. Scientific studies have incontrovertibly established that human gluttony and pollution are causing the greatest mass extinction since dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. If present trends continue, half of all species will be extinct within this century

While our daily routines will continue without lions roaming the Serengeti (hey, we can always visit them at the zoo, right?) there is no life outside the web of life. Unspoken, but definitely implied among warnings of animal and plant extinction, is our own imminent human extinction.

Modern humanity has taken a great deal of pride in the knowledge we have amassed about the Universe and life. As the most highly educated and

information-laden population in history, we collectively know a lot. But what do we really know about what we know? True, we have lots of data, but, as the crises before us reveal, we are apparently a little short of knowledge.

Our problems are not with the data, itself, but arise from our interpretation of the data. As the illustration of the hag/young woman demonstrates, the same data can be used to interpret two completely different images. When it comes to understanding the nature of life, the image we assemble from the data can mean the difference between the life and death of civilization. Fortunately, the radical science discussed in Spontaneous Evolution offers a new interpretation of scientific data, one that casts doubt on our conventional perception of life.

Rene Descartes advised us to doubt everything. And now is the time for us to begin. Not everything we know is wrong, but everything we think we know is up for examination, reflection, and reconsideration.

In Part I of Spontaneous Evolution, we begin with a biological view of how we've come to believe what we believe. In doing so, we firmly establish the relationship between beliefs and biology, and how the interaction of these two, in fact, creates our reality.

In Chapter 1, Believing Is Seeing, we turn the cliche "seeing is believing" on its head. Starting with how cells process information, we trace biological pathways that convert perceptions into beliefs and what might appear to be reality. We offer irrefutable evidence that the mind is, indeed, the master over matter, and then we get right down to the cellular level to show how and why this is how life really works.

In Chapter 2, Act Locally . . . Evolve Globally, we explain how subconscious programming unconsciously thwarts our best intentions. When tracing the evolutionary history of the mind, we show how each of us is, at once, blameless and yet completely responsible for our actions!

In Chapter 3, A New Look at the Old Story, we move from biology to philosophy and describe how the story we use to explain reality controls our perceptions and, inevitably, our behavior. We explain how civilizations evolved over millennia and how each new paradigm greatly influenced the world our ancestors and parents saw and created as well as the world we see and create today.

Most importantly, by stepping outside our stories, we can see that stories are, well, merely stories, no more real than words on a restaurant menu are edible. However, the meaning we bring to those words ultimately determines our choices of what we end up eating. By lifting ourselves outside the matrix of unquestioned beliefs, we allow new stories to emerge that will take us from the tragedy of Act IV to a lighter and brighter Act V.

In Chapter 4, Rediscovering America, we relate the principles and practices that influenced the creation of the Declaration of Independence and still apply to the evolution now at hand. This is not a patriotic paean to glorify America, rather it is an acknowledgment of the revolutionary, visionary truths that "all men [and women] are created equal . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.ⁿ These truths, which have yet to be fully realized in the United States, were actually a gift to the whole world, a gift that originated with Native indigenous tribes.

Reading Part I should provide some relief because its message explains what is wrong with the world and helps generate a new life-sustaining story. When we understand that cultural philosophy and individual perceptions are actually acquired beliefs that determine not only our biology but also the world we live in, we gain personal and world-changing insight. We cease to be dazed accident victims and claim our right to become personally empowered co-creators and architects of a brave and loving new world.

 

CHAPTER 1

BELIEVING IS SEEING

“We don't need to save the world, just spend it more wisely."

—Swami Beyondananda

We all want to fix the world, whether we realize it or not. On a conscious level, many of us feel inspired to save the planet for altruistic or ethical reasons. On an unconscious level, our efforts to serve as Earth stewards are driven by a deeper, more fundamental behavioral programming known as the biological imperative一the drive to survive. We inherently sense that if the planet goes down, so do we. So, armed with good intentions, we survey the world and wonder, “Where do we begin?"

Terrorism, genocide, poverty, global warming, diseases, famine . . . stop alreadyl Each new crisis adds to a looming mountain of despair, and we can be easily overwhelmed by the urgency and magnitude of the threats before us. We think, "I am just one person—ne out of billions. What can I do about this mess?^,, Combine the enormity of the mission with how small and helpless we imagine we are, and our good intentions soon fly out the window.

Consciously or unconsciously, most of us accept our own powerlessness and frailty in a seemingly out-of-control world. We perceive ourselves as mere mortals, just trying to make it through the day. People, on presuming helplessness, frequently beseech God to solve their problems.

The image of a caring God deafened by a never-ending cacophony of pleas emanating from this ailing planet was amusingly portrayed in the movie Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carrey's character, Bruce, took over God's job. Paralyzed by the din of prayers playing endlessly in his mind, Bruce transformed the prayers into Post-It notes only to become buried under a blizzard of sticky paper.

While many profess to live their lives by the Bible, the perception of powerlessness is so pervasive that even the most faithful seem blind to the frequent references in the scriptures that extol our powers. For example, the Bible offers specific instructions in regard to that looming mountain of despair: "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”』That's a hard mustard seed to swallow. All we need is faith, and nothing will be impossible for us? Yeah ... right!

But, seriously, with these divine instructions at hand, we ask ourselves, "Is our presumed powerlessness and frailty a true reflection of human abilities?" Advances in biology and physics offer an amazing alternative一one that suggests our sense of disempowerment is the result of learned limitations. Therefore, when we inquire, “What do we truly know about ourselves?" we are really asking, “What have we learned about ourselves?"

ARE WE AS FRAIL AS WE HAVE LEARNED?

In terms of our human evolution, civilization's current "official" truth provider is materialistic science. And according to the popular medical model, the human body is a biochemical machine controlled by genes; whereas the human mind is an elusive ^<<epiphenomenon,^,, that is, a secondary, incidental condition derived from the mechanical functioning of the brain. That's a fancy way of saying that the physical body is real and the mind is a figment of the brain's imagination.

Until recently, conventional medicine dismissed the role of the mind in the functioning of the body, except for one pesky exception一the placebo effect, which demonstrates that the mind has the power to heal the body when people hold a belief that a particular drug or procedure will effect a cure, even if the remedy is actually a sugar pill with no known pharmaceutical value. Medical students learn that one third of all illnesses heal via the magic of the placebo effect.²

With further education, these same students will come to dismiss the value

of the mind in healing because it doesn't fit into the flow charts of the Newtonian paradigm. Unfortunately, as doctors, they will unwittingly disempower their patients by not encouraging the healing power inherent in the mind.

We are further disempowered by our tacit acceptance of a major premise of Darwinian theory: the notion that evolution is driven by an eternal struggle for survival. Programmed with this perception, humanity finds itself locked in an ongoing battle to stay alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Tennyson poetically described the reality of this bloody Darwinian nightmare as being a world “red in tooth and claw.”3

Awash in a sea of stress hormones derived from our fear-activated adrenal glands, our internal cellular community is unconsciously driven to continuously employ fight-or-flight behavior in order to survive in a hostile environment. By day, we fight to make a living, and by night, we take flight from our struggles via television, alcohol, drugs, or other forms of mass distraction.

But all the while, nagging questions lurk in the back of our minds: ^uIs there hope or relief? Will our plight be better next week, next year or ever?"

Not likely. According to Darwinists, life and evolution are an eternal “struggle for survival.^,,

As if that were not enough, defending ourselves against the bigger dogs in the world is only half the battle. Internal enemies also threaten our survival. Germs, viruses, parasites, and, yes, even foods with such sparkly names as Twinkies can easily foul our fragile bodies and sabotage our biology. Parents, teachers, and doctors programmed us with the belief that our cells and organs are frail and vulnerable. Bodies readily breakdown and are susceptible to sickness, disease, and genetic dysfunction. Consequently, we anxiously anticipate the probability of disease and vigilantly search our bodies for a lump here, a discoloration there, or any other abnormality that signals our impending doom.

DO ORDINARY HUMANS POSSESS SUPERHUMAN
POWERS?

In the face of heroic efforts needed to save our own lives, what chance do we have to save the world? Confronted with current global crises, we understandably shrink back, overwhelmed with a feeling of insignificance and paralysis一unable to influence the affairs of the world. It is far easier to be entertained by reality TV than to participate in our own reality.

But consider the following:

Fire walking: For thousands of years, people of many different cultures and religions from all parts of the world have practiced fire walking. A recent Guinness World Record for longest fire walk was set by 23-year-old Canadian Amanda Dennison in June 2005. Amanda walked 220 feet over coals that measured 1,600 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.- Amanda didn't jump or fly, which means her feet were in direct contact with the glowing coals for the full 30 seconds it took her to complete the walk.

Many people attribute the ability to remain burn-free during such a walk to paranormal phenomena. In contrast, physicists suggest that the presumed danger is an illusion, claiming the embers are not great conductors of heat and that the walker's feet have limited contact with the coals. Yet, very few scoffers have actually removed their shoes and socks and traversed the glowing coals, and none have matched the feat of Amanda's feet. Besides, if the coals are really as benign as the physicists suggest, how do they account for severe bums experienced by large numbers of ''accidental tourists" on their fire walks?

Our friend, author, and psychologist Dr. Lee Pulos has invested considerable time studying the fire walking phenomenon. One day, he bravely faced the fire himself. With his pants rolled up and his mind clear, Lee walked the gauntlet of burning embers. Upon reaching the other side, he was delighted and empowered to realize that his feet showed no sign of trauma. He was also totally surprised to discover upon unrolling his pants, his cuffs detached along a scorch mark that encircled each leg.

Whether or not the mechanisms that allow fire walking are physical or metaphysical, one outcome is consistent: those who expect the coals to bum them, get burned, and those who don't, don't. The belief of the walker is the most important determinant. Those who successfully complete the fire walk experience, firsthand, a key principle of quantum physics : the observer, in this case, the walker, creates the reality.

Meanwhile, on the extreme opposite of the climate spectrum, the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia walk barefoot for days in snow and ice over a 15,000-foot mountain pass. In the 1920s, explorers Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper created the first feature-length documentary, a brilliant awardwinning movie titled Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life. This historic film captured the annual migration of the Bakhtiari, a race of nomads who had no prior contact with the modern world. Twice a year, as they have done for a millennium, more than 50,000 people and a herd of half a million sheep, cows, and goats cross rivers and glacier-covered mountains to reach green pastures.

To get their traveling city over the mountain pass, these hardy, bare-footed people dig a roadway through the towering ice and snow that blankets the 14,000 foot high peak of Zard-Kuh (Yellow Mountain). Good thing these people didn't know they could catch a death of cold by being shoeless in the snow for days!

The point is, whether the challenge is cold feet or "coaled feet," we humans are really not as frail as we think we are.

Heavy Lifting: We are all familiar with weightlifting, in which muscled men and women pump iron. Such efforts require intense bodybuilding and, perhaps, some steroids on the side. In one form of the sport called total weightlifting, male world-record holders lift in the range of 700 to 800 pounds and female titlists average around 450 to 500 pounds.

While these accomplishments are phenomenal, many other reports exist of untrained, unathletic people showing even more amazing feats of strength. To save her trapped son, Angela Cavallo lifted a 1964 Chevrolet and held it up for five minutes while neighbors arrived, reset a jack, and rescued her unconscious boy.- Similarly, a construction worker lifted a 3,000-pound helicopter that had crashed into a drainage ditch, trapping his buddy under water. In this feat captured on video, the man held the aircraft aloft while others pulled his friend from beneath the wreckage.

To dismiss these feats as the consequence of an adrenaline rush misses the point. Adrenaline or not, how can an untrained average man or woman lift and hold a half ton or more for an extended duration?

These stories are remarkable because neither Ms. Cavallo nor the construction worker could have performed such acts of superhuman strength under normal circumstances. The idea of lifting a car or helicopter is unimaginable. But with the life of their child or friend hanging in the balance, these people unconsciously suspended their limiting beliefs and focused their intention on the foremost belief at that moment: 1 must save this life\

Drinking Poison: Every day we bathe our bodies with antibacterial soaps and scrub our homes with potent antibiotic cleansers. Thus, we protect ourselves from ever-present deadly germs in our environment. To remind us how susceptible we are to invasive organisms, television ads exhort that we cleanse our world with Lysol and rinse our mouths with Listerine . . . or is it the other way around? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention along with the media continuously inform us of the impending dangers of the latest flu, HIV, and plagues transported by mosquitoes, birds, and swine.

Why do these prognostications worry us? Because we have been programmed to believe our body's defenses are weak, ripe for invasion by foreign substances.

If Nature's threats weren't bad enough, we must also protect ourselves from byproducts of human civilization. Manufactured poisons and massive amounts of excreted pharmaceuticals are toxifying the environment. Of course poisons, toxins, and germs can kill us一we all know that. But then there are those who don't believe in this reality一and live to tell about it.

In an article integrating genetics and epidemiology in Science magazine, microbiologist V.J. DiRita wrote: "Modern epidemiology is rooted in the work of John Snow, an English physician whose careful study of cholera victims led him to discover the waterborne nature of this disease. Cholera also played a part in the foundation of modern bacteriology— 0 years after Snow's seminal discovery, Robert Koch developed the germ theory of disease following his identification of the comma-shaped bacterium Vibrio cholerae as the agent that causes cholera. Koch's theory was not without its detractors, one of whom was so convinced that V. cholerae was not the cause of cholera that he drank a glass of it to prove that it was harmless. For unexplained reasons he remained symptom-free, but nevertheless incorrect/-

Here's a man who, in 1884, so challenged the accepted medical opinion

that, to prove his point, he drank a glass of cholera, yet remained symptom- free. Not to be outdone, the professionals claimed he was the one who was wrong!

We love this story because the most telling part is that science dismissed this man's daring experiment without bothering to investigate the reason for his apparent immunity, which was very likely his unshakable belief that he was right. It was far easier for the scientists to treat him as an irksome exception than to change the rules they created. In science, however, an exception simply represents something that is not yet known or understood. In fact, some of the most important advances in the history of science were directly derived from studies on anomalous exceptions.

Now take the insight from the cholera story and integrate it with this amazing report: Rural eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia and North Carolina are home to devout fundamentalists known as the Free Pentecostal Holiness Church. In a state of religious ecstasy, congregants demonstrate God's protection through their ability to safely handle poisonous rattlesnakes and copperheads. Even though many of these individuals get bitten, they do not show expected symptoms of toxic poisoning. The snake routine is only the opening act. Really devout congregants take the notion of Divine protection one giant step further. In testifying that God protects them, they drink toxic doses of strychnine without exhibiting harmful effects.- Now, there's a tough mystery for science to stomach!

Spontaneous remission: Every day, thousands of patients are told, "All the tests are back and the scans concur ...lam sorry; there is nothing else we can do. It is time for you to go home and get your affairs in order because the end is near." For most patients with terminal diseases, such as cancer, this is how their final act plays out. However, there are those with terminal illnesses who express a more unusual and happier option—spontaneous remission. One day they are terminally ill, the next day they are not. Unable to explain this puzzling yet recurrent reality, conventional doctors in such cases prefer to conclude that their diagnoses were simply incorrect—in spite of what the tests and scans revealed.

According to Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona, author of Coyote Medicine, spontaneous remission is often accompanied by a "change of story/- Many empower themselves with the intention that they一against all odds一are able to choose a different fate. Others simply let go of their old way of life with its inherent stresses, figuring they may as well relax and enjoy what time they have left. Somewhere in the act of fully living out their lives, their unattended diseases vanish. This is the ultimate example of the power of the placebo effect, where taking a sugar pill is not even needed!

Now here's an utterly crazy idea. Instead of investing all of our money into the search for elusive cancer-prevention genes and what are perceived to be magic bullets that cure without the downside of harmful side effects, wouldn't it make sense to also dedicate serious energy to research the phenomenon of spontaneous remission and other dramatic, non-invasive medical reversals associated with the placebo effect? But because pharmaceutical companies haven't come up with a way to package or affix a price tag to placebo-mediated healing, they have no motivation to study this innate healing mechanism.

DO WE NEED SURGERY? OR JUST A “FAITH・
LIFT?”

All who participate in walking across coals, drinking poison, lifting cars, or expressing spontaneous remissions share one trait一an unshakable belief they will succeed in their mission.

We do not use the word belief lightly. In this book, belief is not a trait that can be measured on a scale from 0 to 100 percent. For example, drinking strychnine is not a game for the "I think I believe^,, crowd. Belief resembles pregnancy; you're either pregnant or you're not. The hardest part about the belief game is that you either believe something or you don't—there is no middle ground.

Even though many physicists might say they believe lit coals are not really hot, they are not apt to shovel the briquettes out of their Weber grill and practice fire walking on them. While you may hold a belief in God, is it powerful enough to believe God will protect you if you drink poison? Put another way, how would you like your strychnine一stirred or shaken? We suggest before you answer that question you have zero percent doubt. Even if prescribe pills to eliminate pain, reduce swelling, or lower fever. However, drugging our symptoms can be as destructive as putting masking tape over our car's gauges. It does not solve the problem; it helps us ignore it一until the vehicle breaks down.

Likewise, drugging the cells and masking symptoms ignores signals bombarding our bodies from the external environment.

THE FINGER ON THE SWITCH

We have revealed that molecular switches activate protein gears, which, in turn, move and generate behavior. Now the big question concerning the secret of life is, "Who or what turns on the switch?” To turn the switch, we introduce ... the signal.

A signal from the celFs environment puts the gears, motor, switch, and gauge into motion.

 

 

The Signal: Signals represent environmental forces that switch on the motor within a cell and cause protein gears to move.

Signals represent both physical and energetic information that comprise the world in which we live. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the people we touch, even the news we hear—all represent environmental signals that activate protein movement and generate behavior. Consequently, when we use the term environment in our discussion, we mean everything from the edge of our own skin to the edge of the Universe. This is environment in the truly large sense.

Each protein responds to a specific environmental signal with the intimacy and accuracy of a key fitting into its matching lock.

The coupling of a protein molecule with a complementary environmental signal causes the protein molecule to change its shape, which, by its nature, is expressed as movement. The cell harnesses these molecular movements to drive its life-providing protein pathways, such as respiration, digestion, and muscle contractions. Protein movement animates the cell, bringing it to life.

New-Edge Biology Conclusion #2
Environmental signals cause
proteins to change shape; the resulting
movements create the functions of life.

BRAIN VERSUS GONADS

We must emphasize that even though the vast variety of protein pathways in the cell provides for the functions of life, merely having those pathways does not generate life. Life is dependent upon the precise coordination and regulation of the celFs protein pathways. The brain and supporting nervous system represent the regulatory mechanism that coordinate all of these many pathways that provide for life.

So ... where is the celPs brain? Well, contrary to what you probably know, it's not in the genes. If you think back to high school or college biology, you probably remember that the cell's largest organelle, the nucleus, is described as the control center, or brain, of the cell. Because genes are housed within the nucleus and it was presumed that genes control life, it was a no-brainer to assume that this organelle represented the cell's brain. However, in light of the infamous nature of assumptions, we must question the accuracy of this belief.

manufacture of specific proteins.

This is far different than the conventional belief that genes turn themselves on and off. Genes are not emergent entities, meaning they do not control their own activity. Genes are simply molecular blueprints. And blueprints are design drawings; they are not the contractors that actually construct the building. Epigenetics functionally represents the mechanism by which the contractor selects appropriate gene blueprints and controls the construction and maintenance of the body. Genes do not control biology; they are used by biology.

The conventional belief that the genome represents read-only programs that cannot be influenced by the environment has now been proven to be one of those things we thought we knew, but we were wrong. Epigenetic mechanisms actually modify the readout of the genetic code. The creative power of epigenetics is revealed in this fact: epigenetic mechanisms can edit the readout of a gene so as to create over 30,000 different variations of proteins from the same gene blueprint!-

Depending on the nature of the environmental signals, the contractor characteristic of the epigenetic mechanism can modify a gene to produce either healthy or dysfunctional protein products. In other words, a person can be born with healthy genes but, through a distortion in epigenetic signaling, can develop a mutant condition such as cancer. On the positive side, the same epigenetic mechanism can enable individuals bom with potentially debilitating mutations to create normal, healthy proteins and functions from their inherited defective genes.-

Epigenetic mechanisms modify the readout of the genetic code so that genes represent read-write programs, not read-only programs. This means that life experiences can actively redefine our genetic traits.

This is a truly radical discovery. Where we once were certain that our genes marked our destiny, new-edge science now tells us Nature is smarter than that. As organisms interact with the environment, their perceptions engage epigenetic mechanisms that fine-tune genetic expression in order to enhance the opportunities for survival.

This environmental influence is dramatically revealed in studies of identical too, can cruise on automatic pilot with self-regulating systems that manage themselves without need for advice or input from the self-conscious mind.

The subconscious mind is an astonishingly powerful information processor that can record perceptual experiences and forever play them back at the push of a button. Interestingly, we sometimes only become aware of our subconscious mind's push-button programs when someone else pushes our buttons.

Actually, the entire image of pushing buttons is far too slow and linear to describe the awesome data-processing capacity of the subconscious mind. It has been estimated that the disproportionately larger brain mass devoted to the subconscious mind can interpret and respond to over 40 million nerve impulses per second. In contrast, the diminutive selfconscious mind's prefrontal cortex only processes about 40 nerve impulses per second. This means that, as an information processor, the subconscious mind is one million times more powerful than the self-conscious mind.-

In contrast to its computational wizardry, the subconscious mind has only a marginal aptitude for creativity, best compared to that of a precocious five- year-old. While the self-conscious mind can express free will, the subconscious mind primarily expresses prerecorded stimulus-response habits. Once we learn a behavior pattern—such as walking, getting dressed, or driving a car—we relegate those programs to the subconscious mind, which means that we can carry out complex functions without paying attention.

While the subconscious mind can run all internal systems and chew gum at the same time, the much smaller prefrontal cortex responsible for selfconsciousness can juggle only a small number of tasks simultaneously. Although its ability to multitask is physically constrained, the trained self- conscious mind is quite adept at single-tasking. It is the organ of focus and concentration.

It was once thought that some of the body's so-called involuntary functions, like the control of heartbeat, blood pressure, and body temperature, were beyond the control of the self-conscious mind; however, we now know that persons with higher mental evolution, such as yogis and other advanced meditators, can, indeed, control involuntary functions.

This tells us that the subconscious and self-conscious components of the

2. Why are we here?
3. Now that we're here, how do we make the best of it?

Whoever or whatever entity provides the most satisfactory answers to these questions becomes society's "official" truth provider. But from time to time, the privilege of holding that title has changed hands. At certain pivotal points, civilization has faced challenges for which old answers no longer sufficed. At such times, humans reached out for new and more functional explanations of life. Society seems to be at such a time now, on the threshold of adopting a new worldview and yet still stuck in old metaphors and explanations.

Throughout history, people have applied two different descriptors on the nature of human existence: static and dynamic. Static stories show the world as unchanging and cyclical. Often these stories are based on predictable, repeating patterns of Nature and the stars, along with the belief that whatever happened last year or over the last ten thousand years will likely happen again. An icon that best represents the character of a static civilization would be a circle or, better yet, a snake circling back to bite its own tail.

Dynamic stories demonstrate progress, based on evolution and learning. History clearly reveals that humans profoundly changed behavior when they encountered new information and experiences. Our ancestors discovered fire, made tools, invented the wheel, learned to hunt and plant seeds, created weapons, and built dwellings. In the past one hundred years, technological innovations have not only changed our lives, they've impacted every species on the planet. An iconic image for a dynamic human existence would be a moving arrow as a vector of progress or, better yet, a zooming rocket.

So which story is true? Do we live in a cyclical, ever-repeating pattern? Or do we evolve and grow? The answer is yes. And yes. Both situations occur simultaneously.

Aboriginal people and those who live close to the land survive by maintaining harmony with the cycles of Nature. Living in balance provides for survival but does not encourage or, for that matter, require technological progress.

However, Western civilization and a growing number of Asian nations have been preoccupied with the arrow of progress. Unfortunately, the glamour of technology has eclipsed humanity's connection with Nature, and

 

 

However, be forewarned; such a solution requires rewriting basic beliefs that underlie our present culture. Fortunately, we have precedent to aid us; this will not be the first time that new thought has changed the course of humanity. In the last 8,000 years, Western civilization has rewritten its mission statement four times, each time precipitating an historic social upheaval.

BASAL PARADIGMS: A SHORT HISTORY OF
STORY

Archaeologists and historians reveal that civilizations around the world have experienced four basal paradigms, that is, agreed-upon explanations for existence: animism, polytheism, monotheism, and materialism . As each stage reached the limits of its understanding and influence, an evolution occurred in which a new stage emerged that both refuted the previous paradigm and also retained vestiges either as an integrated understanding or as an isolated hold out.

The character and fate of each version of civilization is predicated on how people perceive their existence in relationship with the cosmos. From the dawn of civilization, humans have subdivided the Universe into two polarized domains一the material realm and the nonmaterial realm. The

material realm represents the physical universe and is comprised of matter. The nonmaterial realm represents invisible forces that the ancients referred to as spirit and today's scientists call energy fields. Both modern scientists and the ancient mystics agree that nonmaterial forces greatly influence our human experience. Our discussion treats energy fields and spirits as interchangeable terms.

The four basal paradigms that shape each phase of civilization define that culture's relationship with the material and nonmaterial realms. Some cultures recognize the spiritual realm as the most important factor controlling the character of life on Earth, while others emphasize the material realm as primal in shaping the Universe. Some civilizations believe that both realms are causative factors in determining life's experiences. Plotting a timeline of Western civilization's evolution on a chart to measure society's perceived relationship with the cosmos offers amazing insight into the evolution and future of humanity.

We use the following illustration to trace a civilization's beliefs in regard to their perceived relationship with the spiritual and material realms. In Figure A, the realms are designated as separate elements. Figure B. is a more realistic expression in which beliefs that emphasize the material or spiritual realms are presented as overlapping gradients that range from 100 percent belief in the primacy of spirituality to 100 percent belief in the primacy of material reality. The horizontal midline represents a balance of 50 percent emphasis on the material and 50 percent emphasis on the spiritual.

Figure A: Spirit represents the nonmaterial spiritual realm. Matter representsthe material physical realm.

 

Spirit

Matter

Figure B: In reality, Spirit and Matter overlap, creating a continuum between 100% Spirit / 0% Matter and 0% Spirit /100% Matter.

I 100% Spent/0M Matter

Time

0* Spirit / 10D% MMcr

The midline in Figure B represents the arrow of advancing time along which we will plot the path of civilization's evolution. An accelerating succession from one basal paradigm to the next through history reveals that humanity is evolving at an exponential rate. Passage through one level of awareness provides a deeper understanding that facilitates a more rapid evolution into and through the next level of awareness. As we shall see by adding dates to this timeline, time is truly speeding up.

All indications are that civilization is now on the brink of evolving into its fifth basal paradigm. But before we go there, let's take a look at where we've been.

ANIMISM: MAKE ME ONE WITH EVERYTHING

Animism is, perhaps, the most ancient religious practice and is believed to have had its origins among primitive cultures in the Neolithic, or Stone Age, around 8000 B.C.E. It is founded on the belief that the spirit is universal, existing in all things一animate or inanimate. Because animism represents a culture based upon a perfect balance between the material and spiritual realms, we have placed it on the figure's midline.

During the Animism period, the prevailing paradigm was the inherentbalance between Spirit and Matter.

 

 

Animism

Derived from the word anima, which is Latin for “breath" or "soul," animism is the spiritual experience of the Garden of Eden wherein there is no distinction between the self and the environment. Everything一rain, sky, rocks, trees, animals, and, of course, humans一possesses an intangible spirit. And, while every piece of Nature experiences a single spirit, all of the world's spirits are collectively part of a whole.

Lest we imagine that the Garden of Eden is an invention of the Judeo- Christian religious tradition, mythologist Joseph Campbell observes that some version of this story is universal to all human cultures.- The universality of this myth indicates a commonly held primal memory of our connection with all that is.

Animism still exists in a few places among indigenous people. For Australian Aborigine, the spiritual realm is their true reality. What appears to be life in the physical realm is, quite literally, perceived as a waking dream state. Thus, the veil between this world and the next, between matter in the material realm and invisible forces in the spiritual realm, is indeed thin. To some ancient peoples, time itself doesn't really exist and every moment is just another now.

Animism offers these answers to the perennial questions:

1. How did we get here?

We are children of Mother Earth (material realm) and Father Sky (spiritual realm).

2. Why are we here?

To tend the Garden and thrive.

3. Now that we are here, how do we make the best of it?

By living in balance with Nature.

Animism is, perhaps, the closest that humankind has come to balancing its emphasis on spirit and matter since the Garden of Eden. During the paradigm of animism, harmony prevailed between the invisible spiritual realm and the visible material realm. Everything was one with the same One. If life were only static and cyclical in nature, we would still be in the Garden, fully integrated in and virtually indistinguishable from our surroundings, wearing a fig leaf or less. People would be like all of the other animals in what would amount to a great global petting zoo.

But some power or incentive, perhaps innate human curiosity, sent our ancient ancestors on a path outside the idyllic Garden so that we, as a species, could observe, evolve, and become knowledgeable in the world. What theology subsequently ascribed as our downfall from the grace of innocence or our separation from God was, in reality, an "up-wising" that has motivated humanity's evolution through our quest for understanding and awareness.

With one bite of the Apple of Knowledge, Earth shook, the unity of the Garden was fractured, and civilization set out on a path to experience the separate realms of spirit and matter. However, there was a significant fly in the ointment: in order to act as observers of the world, our ancestors had to stand outside and look in. This perspective significantly changed their relationship with Nature. All of a sudden, the Universe was subdivided into me and not me. And somehow, all those forces that had become part of not me had to be mollified lest me and others like me be victimized by the very forces me and we once saw as being in balanced harmony; that is, one, with all.

POLYTHEISM: THE FIRST SPIRITUAL
SUBDIVISION

As humans began to emphasize the difference between me and not me, the unity of the Garden's oneness gave way to “spiritual subdivision." Untethered from the physical world, the spiritual realm took on an energy of its own.

Polytheism came into prominence around 2000 B.C.E. when society disconnected from the oneness of animism through the introduction of a multitude of spiritual deities. In separating spirit from matter, polytheists coalesced the spiritual realm into a variety of iconic gods representing Nature's elements. And wouldn't you know, each of those deities demanded that they be honored with special rituals and ceremonies in order to ensure humankind's continued health and well-being. In seeking the answers to life's mysteries in the spiritual realm, polytheists began to disconnect from Nature.

With the advent of polytheism, the prevailing paradigm began to shift into the Spirit realm.

 

 

Anirn

 

The culmination of the polytheistic epoch came when the Greek gods and goddesses, who exhibited human and superhuman qualities, decided to live in crystal mansions atop Mount Olympus, from which they "commuted," often masquerading in various disguises. As a result, real people never knew if some person or creature was, in reality, a god.

The implications were weighty: fooling around with fickle gods could lead to disaster. Therefore, the message was simple: live in harmony as if everyone and everything were god because the last thing you'd ever want to do was get on the wrong side of an entity who would later get the last laugh by making you roll a boulder uphill every day for eternity.

Polytheists offered new answers to the perennial questions:

1. How did we get here?

We came from chaos.

2. Why are we here?

To please the whimsy of mischievous gods.

3. Now that we are here, how do we make the best of it?

Don 7 anger the gods.

Seeking explanations for what primitive people took for granted, persons living during the paradigm of polytheism birthed the first philosophers. Greek thought evolved into two distinct and mutually exclusive points of view.

The first, popularized by Democritus (460-370 B.C.E.), suggested the primacy of matter. Democritus coined the word atom, which means "uncuttable." He surmised that invisible and irreducible atoms, the smallest bits of material reality, were at the core of every physical structure and that the Universe consisted of atoms suspended in a void. To Democritus and his followers, the only thing that mattered was matter. In other words, what you see is all there is.

In contrast, Socrates (470-399 B.C.E.) offered a philosophy with a vastly different point of view. He perceived the nature of the Universe as a duality. On one hand, there was a nonmaterial realm in which thoughts take on form. The more common term for form, as used by Socrates, was soul. He also said that forms in the non-physical world were perfect, while the tangible material realm represented an approximation or a “crude shadow" of perfect forms. For example, a person could imagine a perfect chair, but the constructed chair would, at best, only approximate the perfection of the original thought.

As polytheism matured, the Greeks allowed both Democritic and Socratic points of view to coexist.

MONOTHEISM: GOD DOESN'T LIVE HERE
ANYMORE

After watching the gods cavort and wreak havoc for a few millennia, it was time to once again move the story along the path of evolution and deeper into the spiritual realm.

Just as children of a certain age begin to sense a need for order and discipline, the search for spiritual understanding led to monotheism and belief in an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent One God who dictates the rules for all. Not only was this God completely out of this world, but He promised us a cushy place out of this world as well, so long as we lived according to His rules一at least those presented by His holy missionaries here on Earth.

While the minority population of Hebrews in the Middle East had been worshipping one God for 2,000 years, Christianity advanced monotheism, with its belief in a single, all-encompassing God as the dominant theological
paradigm of the Western world.

Monotheism took the prevailing paradigm deep into the Spirit realm.

 

 

 

In the first millennium after Christ, the rise of the Church of Rome provided a wonderful example of how a new stage of civilization can subsume and restructure vestiges held over from a former society. Many idols and feasts from the preceding pagan Roman civilization experienced extreme makeovers and returned as Christian icons and festivals.

Under the auspices of Albertus Magnus and his student Thomas Aquinas, the Church revamped the 1,500-year-old version of science and philosophy handed down from the Golden Age of Greece. They winnowed out objectionable polytheistic rhetoric and modified the contents so as to reconcile them with Old and New Testament. Through his synthesis of Christian and Aristotelian philosophy, Aquinas created Natural Theology, a belief system that strove to understand God through a study of Nature.

The Judeo-Christian Church was particularly drawn to Socrates' notion of a dualistic universe and his concept of a perfect form or soul. The Church taught that the imperfect life in this crude shadow of the material realm, Earth, represents what modern visionary activist Caroline Casey called a ''spiritual hardship post/- The planet is merely a stage to live out morality plays, a way station on the path to perfection in the invisible Kingdom of

Heaven. This last-shall-be-first, suffer-now-and-party-later selling point made an otherwise intolerable this life—in the service of opulent higher-ups一a stepping-stone to a blissful afterlife for the soul.

Simply stated, monotheism represented a full emphasis on the spiritual realm while the material world was linked with damnation. Therefore, while living in the monotheistic paradigm, civilization became solely invested in the spiritual realm and soared to its maximum deviation from the balance point at the midline of the timeline. Humankind became so focused on the promised life out of this world that life became out of balance in this world.

A philosophical difference between polytheism and the new monotheistic paradigm was the location and accessibility of the Divine Powers. While the Greek gods lived on Mount Olympus, the new Christian God had an unpublished address somewhere in the High Heavens.

Being above it all, this One God naturally needed a chain of command, from the hierarchy all the way to the Towerarchy." Now that we humans were fully separated from the Creator, mere mortals needed priests to serve as intermediaries. Missionaries enhanced the Church's power and their personal prowess by traveling the world converting animistic primitives who were already communing with their creator with their every breath and doing it very well, thank you.

Monotheists answered the three perennial questions this way:

1. How did we get here?

Divine intervention.

2. Why are we here?

To live out morality plays.

3. Now that we are here, how do we make the best of it?

Obey the Scriptures— r else.

While asserting that life was short and brutal, the Church was making a very compelling offer: do as we say and you, too, will be able to enter the Pearly Gates to an afterlife with the one and only God. Their marketing plan was direct and highly effective: Buy our product; get to Heaven. Don't buy our product; go straight to HelL

But along with the religious hierarchy came lots of rules, not to mention torture and repression in the name of Father God. And with self-proclaimed infallibility came absolute knowledge. Given that knowledge is power, absolute knowledge is absolute power. Therefore, questioning the Church's claim of infallibility was deemed to be heresy, punishable by death, which gave incredible power to the Church's unchallengeable authority.

The Church became so preoccupied with its absolute knowledge, so corrupted by its absolute power that it began to unravel itself, and the Church eventually fell from its lofty position as civilization's prime arbiter of truth.

A key event in the fall of the Church's dominion occurred in 1517 when Martin Luther, a German monk and teacher, protested the Church's sale of indulgences, which were get-out-of-Hell-free passes for the more well-to-do sinners. Luther's challenge precipitated the Protestant Reformation, and, in its wake, the reach of the infallible Church began to recede. Bolstered by the contributions of Descartes, Bacon, and Newton, among others, humankind's evolutionary path began to move away from its preoccupation with the spiritual realm as science began to unveil the mysteries of the physical Universe.

The Reformation marked the first change in direction as the prevailing paradigm began to shift back toward the balance point between Spirit and

Matter.

 

 

DEISM: A FLASH OF LIGHT

By the late 17th and 18th centuries, humanity's evolutionary path was leading civilization toward the powerful midpoint where it would reflect a balance between spirit and matter. Western civilization was, at the time, experiencing the Age of Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement that emphasizes reason and individualism rather than monotheistic religious tradition. Enlightenment philosophy acknowledged that God and Nature were one and the same and that, through a scientific understanding of Nature, people would learn to live in harmony with God.

Interestingly, the balancing of spirit and matter that marked Enlightenment philosophy was actually derived from studies of the animistic culture of the American Indians by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau's idealized description of the Native Americans as noble savages who symbolized the innate goodness of humanity, free from the corrupting influence of civilization, launched a wave of European immigration to the newly formed American colonies.

Many of the Founding Fathers were deists, practitioners of Enlightenment philosophy who accepted the existence of a Supreme Being but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind. They based their beliefs on what they called “natural law and reason." Like the animists 8,000 years prior, deists honored their relationship, with both the material and nonmaterial realms of Nature.

Steeped in deist philosophy with elements directly derived from Native American society, the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution represented an exquisite balance between deep spiritual truth and the physical principles of an elegant material Universe. The auspicious event that marked civilization's return to spiritual-material balance was the founding of the United States of America.

The Deistic period marked a brief moment when Spirit and Matter were again in balanced harmony. This balance didn't last long, but it did foreshadow that it is possible to reattain evolutionary balance.

 

However, the arrow of time never stands still, so the path of evolution continued, passing through the midpoint as it progressed into the uncharted realm of matter一away from otherworldliness to this worldliness.

As civilization transitioned deeper into the physical realm, science's intensified exploration of the material Universe resulted in awareness and technologies that provided a better physical life than anyone up until that time could imagine. How does one compare the reported miracle of Jesus turning water into wine to the marvels of a steam engine trip to the Orient or a vaccine to prevent the ravages of smallpox? And yet, in spite of all of its technological miracles, modem science during the Age of Enlightenment was not yet in position to vie for the title of civilization's "official" truth provider.

Simply, science was unable to offer a better truth for our origins than provided by the Bible, which meant that the truths of science played second fiddle to the accepted truths of the Church.

SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM: MATTER MATTERS

Monotheism was based solely on faith. But philosophers and scientists, such as Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton, offered humans an opportunity to question dogma and seek answers for themselves. For people of that era, scientific truths were predicated on mathematical certainty and predictability, and technological miracles would become the foundation of the new industrial revolution.

Meanwhile, the Church desperately tried to retain control of knowledge, suppressing creative thinkers with the threat of an invitation to the Holy Office of Inquisition, the consequences of which were an unusually effective incentive to help people "think correctly.^J,

The Church also limited the quest for knowledge by making many topics off limits, discouraging curious budding scientists who wanted to know more about the world. For example, the Church claimed that the human body was a restricted domain, a "Mystery of God^,, for His eyes only and to peer inside was a sin. Christians were not allowed to be physicians because of the intellectual prohibition against studying the body's internal workings. The practice of medicine was, therefore, a trade restricted to Jews, Muslims, and those the Church considered to be non-believers. But, in spite of the Church's decrees regarding human biology, scientists forged ahead in other fields.

Philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, then later Isaac Newton, postulated that the Universe was a machine. Newton's principles of mathematics extrapolated the precision of gears in a clock onto the solar system. While the new science did not deny that God might have been the original watchmaker, once the "world watch" was wound up, it was running pretty well solely on mathematics.

In a world where science ruled, God was so far off the planet that His work operated without him. The subsequent industrial revolution and technological inventions further nudged God out of the picture. Who needs God when we humans can make our own technological miracles?

Darwinism marked the prevailing paradigm's shift into the realm of Matter.

 

Monothri

 

Deism

Darwinhm

Animism >«.(no RTF

 

It wasn't until English naturalist Charles Darwin arrived on the scene in the mid-19th century that scientific materialism became civilization's dominant paradigm. Remember, a basal paradigm story has to answer all three perennial questions. Until Darwin postulated his The Origin of Species , science wasn't able to offer an adequate explanation for the question, “How did we get here?" Darwin's theory of origins proposed that humans were derived from a primitive life form through millions of years of hereditary variations shaped by a never-ending struggle to survive. The people of the 19th century readily accepted Darwinian theory because they were quite familiar with the consequences of plant and animal breeding

Once the theory of evolution was accepted as a scientific fact, civilization quickly dropped the Church as its supreme authority and adopted scientific materialism, with its materialist worldview of science, as the “official" truth provider.

Materialists answered the three perennial questions this way:

1. How did we get here?

Random acts of heredity.

2. Why are we here?

To go forth and multiply.

3. Now that we are here, how do we make the best of it?

To live by the law of the jungle.

And there we have it—a rapid descent from the laws of Scripture to the law of the jungle. With honing, the double-edged sword of materialism has provided us with comforts of technology that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors; simply put, civilization traded one absolute authority for another. In light of science's perceived miracles, the dogmatic religion of monotheism gave way to the dogmatic religion of scientific materialism, or scientism. For science, the material world is all there is and anything that doesn't fit into that ideological package is branded as heresy.

Like an adolescent asserting independence for the first time, we humans even began to imagine that we could understand the mechanics of a matterbased Universe and, hence, unlock all the secrets of life. Civilization's path hit the extreme deviation toward the material realm in 1953 when molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick declared they had uncovered the ultimate secret of biology with their discovery of the DNA double helix. In defining the nature of the celFs genesis elements, Watson and Crick identified the material origins of life.

Neo-Darwinism took the prevailing paradigm deep into the realm of Matter.

 

 

 

THE TIDE HAS TURNED

Well, what goes up must come down, and we humans have been suffering a “come・downance" ever since. Over the past 50 years, deified technology has generated unimaginable negative reverberations.

In Walt Disney's Fantasia, Mickey Mouse plays the role of the Sorcerer's Apprentice who attempts to re-create the sorcerer's magic with neither the knowledge nor the wisdom his master possesses. The result is disastrous, as Mickey is unable to control the power he has unleashed. Similarly, modern civilization has activated the power of technology while operating from a limited Mickey Mouse consciousness. Consequently, the same matter-based medicine that gave us penicillin, the polio vaccine, and open-heart surgery— without the countervailing understanding of the invisible realm一has become a leading cause of death in Western societies.

In a last ditch effort to capitalize on the culture of scientific materialism, venture capitalists convinced scientists and the public to invest in the Human Genome Project (HGP). This project was designed to identify and patent each of the 150,000 genes that neo-Darwinian molecular biologists theorized were necessary to create a human being.

However, the completion of the HGP in 2001 revealed the human genome consists of only approximately 23,000 genes. The missing 125,000 genes glaringly reveal that the neo-Darwinian belief in a genetically programmed biology is fundamentally flawed.-

Creating a health-care system based on this flaw, in conjunction with other fundamental misperceptions to be described later, has limited advances in health care and is directly responsible for allopathic medicine's decreased effectiveness and increased costs. The public's dissatisfaction with the current state of allopathic care is reflected in the fact that nearly half the population of the United States has sought relief through complementary medicine modalities.

Interestingly, most alternative healing practices emphasize the role of invisible energy fields in shaping the character of human life. The figure below shows civilization's trend away from materialism and toward balance with the realm of invisible sources, the realm of spirit.

The Human Genome Project, while still an endeavor of Matter, was a key

point in the prevailing paradigm's shift back toward the balancepoint.

 

 

 

 

A new science has arisen to replace the erroneous belief that genes are masters of our fate. The new-edge science of epigenetics recognizes that an organism's biology and genetic activity are directly influenced by their interaction with the environment. Rather than being victims of our genes, epigenetic science reveals, that by controlling our environment, we have the power to control our biology and become masters of our fate.

The good news in the bad news is that society's evolutionary path is rapidly returning to the powerful midpoint and not a moment too soon. Each day reveals a new lesson about how our unbalanced preoccupation with materialism is threatening life on this planet. Thankfully, we seem to be on a quickening learning curve. But if we are to move beyond the unconscious rollercoaster ride of the sine wave, we must become fully conscious and aware that what we need now is not more spiritual-material polarization, but instead harmonizing integration.

The resurgence of religious fundamentalism, particularly the obsession with the rapture and other off-planet rewards, seems to indicate there is a collective knowing that we humans are cruising “fool speed ahead^,, down the road to destruction. Neither the black-cloaked priests nor the white-coated scientists can help us right now一at least not within the confines of existing belief systems. Both monotheism and scientism have essentially disconnected humans from Nature. Religious fundamentalism holds humans above the rest of creation, instead of being part of it. Scientific materialism tells us that the miracle of life was merely an accident that resulted from a random roll of genetic dice.

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

Are you beginning to see why we need a new story? The old stories keep us powerless, at the mercy of either a distant God or random genetic events. They steal our attention and energy by polarizing the population to adopt untenable positions rather than enabling us to move forward. Must we deviate once again? Or will we cultivate unity and coherence that will allow us to take an emergent step forward when, in the near future, the path of evolution once again brings civilization to the powerful midpoint of balanced spirituality and materiality?

With holism, which is the forecasted result of the pending spontaneousevolution, the prevailing paradigm will, once again, be balanced between Spirit and Matter, drawing upon the best and most powerful attributes of each.

Monol heittn

 

 

 

At a time when persistent archaic patterns are fueling the dueling dualities, it would be wise to remember what quantum physicists tell us about the nature of physical existence: behind every particle, there's a wave telling the particle what to do. Just as animists and deists understood that spirit and matter must fully coexist, we are being challenged to move past either-or and to recognize both-and. It's like those beer commercials: Great taste and less filling. Spirit and matter. Wave and particle. You and me and all the others, too.

Consider the story of life itself. Life came into existence at the midpoint, or zero-point, where both waves of energy and particulate matter were fully present. For billions of years, energy from the sun hit the particles of matter that comprise Mater, our Mother Earth. The energy from those light waves merged with Earth's inorganic chemistry through a process called photosynthesis. The composite of light waves and chemical particles generated organic chemistry, the chemistry of living organisms. Through photosynthesis, the energy of sunlight enlivened inert matter. So life, indeed, began with light from the sky fusing with the physical matter of Earth! Can you see where Native American animists generated the concept of Father Sky and Mother Earth?

In a similar fashion, the sperm cell, which is essentially designed as a means of delivering genes, carries only information. In that capacity, sperm function is the equivalent of the wave that fuses with the physical matter in the mother's egg. Once again, in the Universe's amazing web of integrated self-similar patterns, life is created. From information and matter emerges a new life, something that cannot be predicted by studying the egg and the sperm as separate entities. Is it possible that by integrating the opposites of spirit and matter, energy and particle, masculine and feminine, we can create an emergent human society, one never-before seen, whose expression is completely unpredictable by studying what we have and who we are now?

The notion of an emergent humanity may seem like a pie-in-the-sky ideal, but consider the alternative. We are being forced into a situation wherein we either evolve or die. Which would you prefer? And, as we will see in Part II, Four Myth-Perceptions of the Apocalypse, our personal preferences exert a lot more control over our reality than we have, so far, imagined. Consequently, what we choose to prefer might actually make a difference in the fate of humanity.

Unlike our deistic forebears, the battle we face now is not against some external king, but rather against our own internal conscious and unconscious limitations, against our distorted misperception of human nature and human potential. We are at war with the out-picturing of our own fears and habitual defenses against things that might not even exist anymore. The sad joke is that most of us are “remotely controlled" by the beliefs and limitations of people who have lived in the past, and we don't even know it!

When a baby elephant is being trained, its leg is tied to a post with a strong rope. No matter how hard and how long the baby elephant pulls, there is no budging the post. The elephant ultimately comes to associate the rope with an all-powerful, immovable force. When the elephant becomes an adult, simply placing a rope around its leg causes it to stay put because it has already resigned itself to the all-powerfulness of the rope. Even though the adult elephant has the strength to break any rope or uproot nearly any post, the belief of limitation it acquired from past programming in its youth keeps the elephant immobile and docile.

In that light, we might ask: ^uWhich stories and beliefs are keeping us unconsciously tethered, disempowered, and thwarted from expressing our true abilities? Are we limited by unquestioned beliefs about original sin or the meaninglessness of the Universe? Despite our moral guidance, are we secretly afraid that maybe might does make right? Have we resigned ourselves to the pervasive belief that there will always be warfare and poverty, and that's just the way the world is?"

Well, tell that to Mahatma Gandhi. Or Martin Luther King, Jr. Or,better yet, to Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin. Because, as we will see in the next chapter, the unfinished business of America's Founding Fathers may very well hold the key to our next evolutionary stage.

Just as they founded the United States of America on what they called “natural law,” perhaps what is needed now is an updated natural law through which we live by our higher nature as cells in the body of Mother Earth and in the spirit energy of the eternal Universe.

That new direction may be our return ticket to the Garden, but this time, we will return as conscious gardeners, co-creating ever more beautiful, functional, and loving expressions of life.

CHAPTER 4

REDISCOVERING AMERICA

"We don't need a revolution in the United States. We already had one, thank you. What we need now is an American Evolution, where We the People evolve into the citizens the country's founders dreamed of."

—Swami Beyondananda

EVOLUTION IN THE PETRI DISH

When we began to write this book, our original working title was "The American Evolution.^,, Because we, Bruce and Steve, came from the vastly different domains of biological science and political science, we each recognized the evolutionary potential in the political science experiment called the United States of America. Our nation's founding slogan e pluribus unum, “out of many, one", reflects evolutionary science's new understanding that each of us is a conscious, aware, participating cell in the body of humanity. The science experiment notion makes even more sense when we look at America as a human culture dish, a macrocosmic science project from which people throughout the world can learn.

From a biological perspective, Earth represents a giant petri dish that supports the growth and survival of all the organisms in the biosphere. Oceans, rivers, mountains, and deserts create natural geological boundaries that carve the terrain into specific habitats that are populated with unique and diverse communities of flora and fauna. The characteristics that define each environment shape the evolutionary traits of their resident species.

The same is true for Earth's human inhabitants. With the rise of civilization, the environment was further subdivided by geopolitical boundaries that delineated states and nations. Citizens contained within national countries or states were, until recently, walled off from the influence of surrounding tribes. Therefore, each political territory provided a defined environment that shaped the traits and character of its human inhabitants.

Separated by political boundaries, walled-off nations represent the biological equivalent of a culture dish that supports the growth and development of its citizens. Over time, the cultural environments within sovereign petri dishes shape the distinctive customs and traits that define each population's national character.

As is evident in any husbandry program, inbreeding can capture and enhance an organism's special traits. We see the upside of inbreeding in the amazing number and variety of cat and dog species that have been created. Unfortunately, the same breeding practices that create national champions can also create hereditary defects. Inbred genetic disorders can produce degenerative diseases such as malformed bones and joints, hemophilia, mental retardation, and a vast array of other dysfunctions.

By the 18th century, cultural inbreeding had defined the unique positive and negative traits that characterize each of the petri dish nations that comprise Western civilization. Just as collies and pit bulls express different traits, humans bred in relatively isolated cultures develop cultural personalities. These tendencies have been represented humorously in the joke about Heaven and Hell as it relates to the countries in Europe. In Heaven, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the cooks are French, the lovers are Italian, and it's all run by the Swiss. In Hell, the police are German, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and it's all run by the Italians. We laugh in recognition of the differences in these "human breeds."

Something else was true about the human breeding grounds of Europe in the 18th century. Citizens within each country were eventually molded into a stratified, caste-like hierarchy of power and position predicated by their family lineage. The rigid nature of a stratified social class essentially defined a citizen's future prospects before they were even bom.

Consequently, when deistic Enlightenment philosophy swept through Western civilization in the 1700s, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's accounting of the noble savages' freedom in the New World inspired visions of unlimited possibilities. Fueled by the dream of unbridled opportunity in the casteless New World, people around the globe sought a better life by immigrating to the fertile environment offered in the American colonies.

The founding of the United States of America was a grand experiment in the evolution of human civilization. The American colonies were seeded with a widely diverse population that represented numerous races, creeds, and nationalities. Contained within its geopolitical borders and isolated from Europe and Asia by great oceans, the U.S. provided a cultural petri dish to test the dynamics and potential of a global civilization.

Farmers, geneticists, and pet lovers have historically been aware that there is a tendency of crossbred individuals to express qualities superior to those of their purebred parents. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as hybrid vigor. In terms of intercultural breeding, the meteoric success of the U.S. to global supremacy was a testament to the powers of hybrid vigor.

In addition to cultural crossbreeding, the founding of the United States also contributed to humankind's further recognition of the need to balance the spiritual and material realms. The amazing success of the U.S. was due, at least in part, to the incorporation of these advanced evolutionary principles of an egalitarian civilization, fostered by Enlightenment philosophy, directly into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In doing so, the Founding Fathers put their lives on the line, not for themselves or even the citizens of the American colonies. No, they demanded recognition for the value of human life in a declaration dedicated to all of humanity.

Unfortunately, as illustrated by our evolutionary timeline in the previous chapter, the harmony of civilization's deistic phase represented only a short transitional period in humanity's march into the material realm. In the 1860s, Darwinian theory introduced the world to the notion of a godless, matterbased existence. At the same time, the American Civil War and the subsequent industrial boom ushered in a new, materialist philosophy一one that would lead the United States to trade in its deistic spiritual roots and adopt the gold standard. Along with the worship of money came the rule by the machine. America's enormous financial success during this period was facilitated by the empowerment of a nonliving entity to make a profit at any cost. In the 1880s, this entity, the corporation, was given the rights of persons but without the moral conscience of a human heart. As is often the case in Nature, an organism, such as an invasive species, arises in the environment in response to an imbalance and then becomes the imbalance.

Given the corporations^J imperative to grow at any cost, we could argue that these once beneficial organisms have become parasites on the body politic, that they have over-mined America's material assets and undermined the moral and spiritual ideals introduced by the Founding Fathers. As we will show in this chapter, the founding vision of the United States was a significant step in the evolution of humanity and has stood as a beacon for the rest of the world一in spite of all the ways the United States has fallen short of that vision.

Nonetheless, this grand experiment is far from over. Some would say that in the awakening following the Bush years, there is a rededication to live up to the Founders* vision. As we emerge from an era of cynicism to one of evolutionary possibility, we can see how the original intention for the United States has been lost... and how it can be discovered once again.

AMERICA: REVOLUTION TO DEVOLUTION

As we explore the rise and fall of paradigms along the path of human evolution, it's important to remember that history ultimately belongs to those who write and interpret it and that interpretations tend to correspond with the notions of those doing the interpreting. Consequently, we must be aware that, in addition to parts of the story being incorrectly recorded, many interesting and accurate events are often conveniently omitted because their truth didn't fit with the story line that the current ^aofficiaF^, truth provider was presenting.

Those of us who grew up in the United States probably remember stories of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the idealistic principles the country was built upon. Stories in elementary school gave the Founding Fathers a supernatural aura, as exemplified by the iconic painting by Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, which depicts General George Washington standing near the bow of a boat while his men row through icy waters of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.

As befitting their historical contributions, the Founders were initially placed on an iconic pedestal. But within 100 years of putting quill to parchment, their halos were tarnished by political strife of the greatest magnitude, the rise of American industry with its machine mentality, and scathing attacks by

investigative journalists, writers, and scholarly skep-tics who clearly demonstrated that all cherished icons and ideals were ripe for deconstruction.

Certainly, the Civil War severely eroded America's innocence. Then, following that war, the U.S. economy transformed from agriculture to manufacturing, primarily within the industries of coal, steel, and railroads— all of which served to feed the machine. Even urban political organizations, which gave away Thanksgiving turkeys in exchange for votes in the November elections, were called machines.

In the late 1800s, people enjoyed the simplistic rags-to-riches stories written by American author Horatio Alger, which celebrated individuals plucking the plums of success in a competitive world. By the early 1900s, optimism gave way to books revealing harsh realities; these included The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, an expose on the horrible conditions in America's meat packing plants. Muckraking journalists Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and others exposed the darker side of the machine age, including the destructive abuses by corporate giants such as Standard Oil Company. Perhaps the most influential American historian of the first half of the 20th century was Charles Beard, who, literally and figuratively, came of age during America's machine age. Writing at that time of unenlightened selfinterest, it's understandable that Beard would look beneath the halos of the Founding Fathers and find ordinary human beings with selfish interests much like those of Beard's contemporaries, the businessmen and politicians of the early industrial age.-

Reinforced by the increasing cynicism of the post-modern paradigm, Beard's disparaging view of the Founding Fathers took hold and permeated conventional wisdom. As a result, over the past 50 years, the Founding Fathers have come to be associated with archconservative Jeffersonian patriots, longing for a less meddlesome federal government.

At the same time, leftist scholars operating in their own paradigm of political correctness, saw the Founding Fathers as privileged white men, many of whom were slaveholders, who sanctioned expropriating the lands of Native peoples. These scholarly critics chastised: If the writers of the Bill of Rights were so enlightened, why did they say all men—and not women— were created equal? And why was the only woman they ever talked about, Betsy Ross, relegated to sewing the flag?

Today, we can only imagine Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hancock, and the rest of the 56 delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence—many of whom were ostracized and suffered financial hardship after assuming their heroic position—wondering how the ideas for which they risked life and fortune could have fallen by the wayside and how their contributions could be dismissed as mere selfishness.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WAS NO TEA
PARTY

Thom Hartmann, a contemporary American radio “uncommontator" and author of What Would Jefferson Do?, offers a more integrated view and challenges the "elitist white guys” label applied to the Founding Fathers by both conservatives and liberals. Hartmann, who called his political perspective "the radical middle,ⁿ discovered in his research that the wealthiest of the American revolutionaries, John Hancock, would, at his wealthiest, be worth about $750,000 in today's dollars. Another of the wealthier signers, Thomas Nelson of Virginia, had his lands and home seized by the British and died penniless at the age of 50.²

And, while educators today would have American youngsters believe that throwing the British out of the colonies was the thing to do, the revolutionaries were, in actuality, a minority of colonists. As Hartmann wrote: ^uThese men [who signed the Declaration] were the most idealistic and determined among the colonists. While the conservatives of the day argued that America should remain a colony of England forever, these liberal radicals believed in both individual liberty and societal obligations.”3

When they signed the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers were totally aware that they were signing their own death warrants. When they wrote, "We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, our Sacred Honor,ⁿ they understood they were legally marking themselves as traitors一and the penalty for treason was death. When Patrick Henry declared, "Give me liberty, or give me death!ⁿ this was no oratorical hyperbole. And when Ben Franklin told his fellow revolutionaries, "We must all hang together or we shall most assuredly hang separately,he, too, was speaking literally.

John Hancock, the first to sign the Declaration of Independence and whose signature looms as the largest by far—"so King George can read it without his spectacles^,,—already had a price on his head for sedition. When he and his wife were forced to flee the British army, their baby died in childbirth

According to Hartmann, 9 of the 56 signers lost their lives in the war and 17 lost their homes and fortunes. He concluded: "While many of the conservative Tory families still have considerable wealth and power (in Canada and England), not a single Founder's family persists today as a wealthy or politically dominant entity.'炬

With cynicism still the currency of the current political conversation, it's easy to accept the tired, persistent belief that nothing ever really changes astrue.Yetconsiderthis: a band of mostly young men (Franklinwas,byfar, the oldest at 72, and Jefferson, at 33, was closer to the average age) stood up to what was then the greatest power in the world, the British Empire. In addition to his military clout, King George III wielded phenomenal economic power over these revolutionaries because he was also an owner of the largest multinational corporation of that time, the East India Company, which was the target of the celebrated Boston Tea Party.

SOVEREIGN EQUALS UNDER NO KING

Even more remarkable than the rebellion一for rebellions had occurred before一were the evolutionary ideals upon which this revolution was based: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by tlieir Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.^,, This statement flew in the face of European law, even at its most enlightened.

According to the law of England, God granted kingship to the king who then may, as documented in the Magna Carta, bestow rights on his subjects. This doctrine is classic hierarchy, which places ordinary, non-royal humans squarely at the bottom of the "lowerarchy." The entire notion that ordinary humans could be equal sovereign citizens who endow government with authority—instead of the other way around一was unheard of. Where did those ideas come from?

As we may vaguely remember from high school or college history, those ideas came from the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, from philosophers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau and something called natural law. Under natural law, all human laws are to be judged on the basis of how closely they conform to the laws of God and Nature.

This might seem like something up for interpretation, and it was. Initially, the idea was this: God, and God's agent, the state, intends for human happiness. Natural law most insures the happiness of most.

In his classic work, Leviathan, published in 1651, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes attempted to codify this natural law in nine precepts, roughly summarized here:⁶

1. Seek peace first, use war as a last resort.
2. Be willing to offer the same freedom to others as to oneself.
3. Keep your agreements.
4. Practice gratitude.
5. Accommodate your own needs to the laws of the community.
6. As appropriate, forgive those who repent.
7. In the case of revenge, focus not on the great evil of the past but the greater good to follow.
8. Never declare hatred of another.
9. Acknowledge the equality of others.

John Locke, for his part, sought to hold governments accountable to these principles. In his Two Treatises of Government, which he initially published anonymously in 1689, Locke suggested that if a ruler went against these natural laws and failed to protect “life, liberty and property," the populace could justifiably overthrow the government.- Sound familiar? This is the very argument Thomas Jefferson used when he crafted the Declaration of Independence.

GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY ROOTED IN

SACRED GROUND

If we stopped with the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, however, we would be missing, perhaps, the most important influence on our Founders and the government they created. From where did the European philosophers such as Locke and Rousseau get their ideas? The answer: from Jefferson's, Washington's, and Franklin's backyard—the New World.

While high-minded philosophies of human perfection existed in Europe since the Golden Age of Greece, the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness remained an abstract ideal in Socrates' perfect world of form and never made it into the crude shadow of reality. Until, that is, the first reports from the Americas described the ways and customs of its native peoples.

While Rousseau's depiction of the "noble savage" of North America might have been over-idealized, it had its basis in reality. As a matter of fact, the concepts of democracy and balance of powers were alive and well- established at least 300 or 400 years before the signers of the Declaration lifted a quill! Perhaps as early as A.D. 1100 or, according to some accounts, in the 1400s or 1500s, six tribes that populated what is now the northeastern United States, southern Ontario, and Quebec, Canada, came together and formed the Iroquois Confederacy.⁸

The story of the Iroquois Confederacy begins with a seer and great teacher of mysterious origin, a Native American whose name was The Confluence of Two-Rivers. Two-Rivers proposed a League of Peace and Power as a way to establish tranquility between warring tribes in what is now upstate New York. He chose a negotiator, Hiawatha, to bring the tribes together. The result was the League of Haudenosaunee, the Onondaga word for “People of the Long House.^,, The confederacy was comprised of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes, and, later, the Tuscaroras, who migrated from the Carolinas. Through this confederacy, six diverse nations found a way to live in relative peace and harmony through a political system that remarkably presaged the United States Constitution.²

Other similarities between the Iroquois Confederacy and the United States government are also apparent. As with America's subsequent federal system, the tribes retained autonomy in regard to local issues. The confederacy was a mutual-defense pact, which provided a strong multi-tribe nation to protect against outside enemies. It conserved lives, resources, and energies that would have been spent on waging war with each other. Plus, the confederacy employed a sophisticated system of checks and balances between three governmental branches.

In the Iroquois Nation of colonial America, the Age of Enlightenment philosophers of Europe found a real-world object lesson in freedom. As noted historian of the Iroquois Nation Donald A. Grinde, a professor of American Studies and a Yamasee Indian, points out, the Iroquois believed in freedom of expression, provided that expression caused no harm. Unlike European society, which Grinde called “guilt-oriented" and riddled with copious “thou shalt nots," tribal culture was "shame-oriented." That is, a strong identification with the community motivated individuals to avoid transgressions that could bring shame to the clan and to themselves.—

THE “AMERICANIZATION” OF THE WHITE MAN

The similarities between Indian governance and the structure of the United States, no doubt, originated from the profound influence that Native Americans had on the everyday life of the colonists. This was particularly true for those who grew up in the New World rather than England.

More so than in Europe, wild nature was everywhere in America and the customs of down-to-earth informality and equality naturally pervaded the colonies. As Indian law scholar Felix Cohen put it, “The real epic of America is the yet unfinished story of the Americanization of the white man.”项

For example, settlers just off the boat from the Old World were surprised to find colonists dressed in Indian buckskins and shocked to learn that some had even adopted indigenous customs一such as bathing! In European society at the time, bathing was thought to be detrimental to health, so imagine their reaction seeing European-looking folks actually skinny-dipping with the natives.

In his boyhood, Thomas Jefferson was deeply influenced by Native American culture. His father,Peter Jefferson, was a cartographer who took young Tom on numerous excursions. A frequent visitor to Jefferson's childhood home in Shadwell, Virginia, was the Cherokee chief Ontassete. There, young Tom joined his father and the chief as they held conversations long into the night.—

A Native American from the Iroquois Nation was the first to actually propose the creation of the United States—n the Fourth of July no less! On July 4, 1744, at a meeting designed to forge an alliance between the Iroquois and the English colonists against the French, a charismatic chief named Canassatego spoke to the colonists. He said, "Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the Five Nations. This has made us formidable. This has given us great weight and authority with our neighboring nations. We are a powerful Confederacy and, by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, don't fall out with one another? —

According to Benjamin Franklin, who was present at the meeting, Canassatego also offered a powerful demonstration to the colonists. The chief held up an arrow and easily snapped it in two. But when he lashed together twelve arrows—ne for every one of the colonies represented一not even the strongest man in the room could break them.口 Interestingly, the Great Seal of the United States, designed in 1782 by Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, and attorney William Barton, shows an eagle clutching thirteen arrows in his claws.

Shortly after the meeting with Canassatego, Franklin began his campaign for a federal union. In 1751, he wrote: "It would be a very strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages, and yet a like union should be impractical for ten or a dozen English colonies.

Aside from the slam at "ignorant savages,^w Franklin deeply respected the Iroquois^, political wisdom. Franklin's Albany Plan of Union, which he presented to the Albany, New York, Congress in 1754, adopted many features from the Iroquois Confederacy, including the principal position of a President-General who would be appointed by the British Crown and colonial delegates.—

The Albany Plan didn't pass, but it did serve as a model for the U.S. Articles of Confederation, which, in 1781, became the first governing the ideals of “moral renewal and perfection of mankind? —

Through harmonious development of their minds, and their hearts. Freemasons pledge to dedicate their lives to unselfish service to mankind. There is no doubt that our Founding Fathers were affected by special Masonic rituals, which historian Charles Leadbeater described as influencing the energies of the body "so that evolution may be quickened.^,,—

Benjamin Franklin was so taken with Freemasonry that, rather than wait until the required age of 21 to join, he founded his own secret society at age 20. He called his society The Leather Apron Club in reference to the leather aprons worn by masons. He later changed the name to the Junto Club and, finally, the American Philosophical Society. And their credo? Quite simply: “To build a Universe of peace, devoid of fear and based on love."²⁰

Franklin also founded another secret organization in France, the Apollonian Society, to further his lifelong dream of uniting science with religion. As a Mason, he found Masonic doctrine to be virtually indistinguishable from deism, which is the belief in God based on evidence of reason and Nature. He, therefore, referred to God as “the Supreme Architect?—

The nature of George Washington's religious devotion is the subject of conflicting stories. That's because Washington was a bridge between deistic practices of secret societies and religious practices of mainstream religions. As such, he was able to communicate with all his brethren. This is why some religious sources quote his most pious statements, while free-thinker sources declare he was never baptized and left churchgoing to his wife, Martha.

Nevertheless, Washington gave command only to generals who were Freemasons, and he adopted the fundamental principles of "the brotherhood of man, and the Fatherhood of God." He spent time in prayer and meditation every day and ordered that his soldiers say prayers every morning. When no minister was present, he would often lead Bible readings himself.—

Thomas Jefferson, while not as overtly religious, wrote the Jefferson Bible and once said, "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." Jefferson saw equality as a Biblical and scientific fact, suggesting that these evolutionary principles be extended to a brotherhood of humanity where all humans are created equal.冗 In his inaugural address in 1801,

Jefferson declared America as “enlightened by a benign religion, professed in deed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them, including honesty, truth, temperance, and the love of man acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence ..

Even more interesting and pertinent to our time and place today, according to Heironimus, is the theosophical “ye are brethren" traditions of Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, which hold . that every nation has a spiritual destiny一using all ethical means of manifesting the divine plan through the will of the nation's leaders.ⁿ—

Perhaps the destiny of the United States, in regard to living in deistic balance between spirit and matter, is to challenge, by example, all nations to find their own sacred mission. Doing so involves not only boldly moving forward with new action but also going back to acknowledge the unacknowledged past.

Related to our Native American roots, there are two pieces of unfinished and largely unacknowledged business. The first is the sad truth of what became of our spiritual benefactors. The other has to do with a central and key aspect of Native American culture that even the most enlightened of our Founders could even dream of adopting.

REPAYING OUR BENEFACTORS: FROM
SQUANTO TO TONTO

Here is a startling and sobering statistic. According to Donald Grinde, when Christopher Columbus thought he was the first to discover the New World in 1492, there were at least six million Native Americans living in the territory that is now the United States. That's the conservative estimate. Others say there were 15 to 20 million. By 1900, the Native American population was only 250,000举

Much of this attrition can be attributed to Europeans bringing diseases such as smallpox, measles, and syphilis from crowded European cities一diseases to which Native Americans had no immunity. However, warfare, forced migration, outright slaughter, and all of the other fall-out of manifest destiny 一a.k.a. manifested land grab—finished off what the diseases merely began.

Grinde points out an obvious relationship between the decimation of the Native population and the repression of information regarding their contribution to the founding of the United States. "You can't justify the whole conquest and subjugation and destruction of Indian populations if there are things of value in the people you are destroying,ⁿ he wrote.—

Until 1970, the only thing the general population knew about Native Americans were fables of Squanto, the Patuxet Indian who helped the pilgrims survive their first difficult years, and the depiction they acquired from radio and TV shows like The Lone Ranger. In other words, awareness ran the gamut from Squanto to Tonto.

But, in 1970, novelist and historian Dee Brown published Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, an eye-opening history of Native Americans in the west. With this outstanding book and a later television film adapted by scriptwriter Daniel Giat, American society could no longer deny the genocide and ethnocide wrought upon the indigenous people by European invaders—er, settlers. In addition, the lid was also lifted on the denial of the contributions Native Americans made. And as we will see shortly, their full contribution has yet to be received.

HONORING OUR FOUNDING MOTHERS

To reiterate, perhaps the most important lesson from Iroquois tribal society is the notion that authority comes from the ground up, not from the top down. Remember, European law, even at its most enlightened, maintained that God delegated power to the King who delegated power at his discretion to the nobility, and there it ended. The most radical evolutionary notion of our Founders—a notion that came directly from Native American culture—is that the need for government arises from equally sovereign citizens who enter into a compact to ensure a mutually beneficial and thriving community. Again Grinde on Native American society: "Power is breathed into leaders by the people, and those leaders then exist on that support. When that support no longer exists, then their power ceases to exist.^,,—

Although Franklin and others acknowledged the contributions of the Iroquois Nation, the one thing they failed to mention一and conspicuously failed to include in America's constitutional system—was the role of women in the tribe. There was a reason why Native American society had neither kings nor nobility, the culture was roughly egalitarian, and resources in the tribe were distributed according to need, not social class. And that reason is what came to be called The Council of Grandmothers.

Native American culture perceived Earth, plants, and land as feminine in character. Because older women were closest to the basics of life, which had to do with growing and preparing food, birthing and caring for children, and the domestic work of the community, it was a no-brainer for the men to acknowledge women's fundamental power.

The basic unit of government for the Native Americans was the clan, usually headed by an older woman举 Clans owned property collectively and used it to grow enough to feed all of their members. Politically, the Iroquois understood the need for women and men to achieve unity and work together in balance and harmony. The older women, the Council of Grandmothers, assumed the true political power, possessing sole authority to choose the chief or impeach a chief for incompetence or wrongdoing. Women even made the final decision regarding whether or not to go to war.

Lest we over-glorify the influence of women, Iroquois men sometimes had a problem with giving women the right to decide when to go to war. Men complained that women wanted to take them to war too frequently! Keep in mind that, while the Iroquois Confederacy prevented warfare among its confederates, there were conflicts with tribes outside their nation that often involved abduction of children. Thus, women were eager to avenge those kidnappings. In addition, women felt and expressed greater grief over lost husbands and sons, which also translated into calls for vengeance and warfare.—

When women were past childbearing age, they would become clan mothers; some became warriors as well. They would often accompany war parties to make sure the men were doing the proper amount of killing and not shirking their duties. Some reports state that war parties took captives and turned them over to the women to torture. One chief was asked why that was done and he answered, “I do that so they will grow tired of war? —

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, contact with Native cultures actually may have sparked the women's movement in America. Researcher Sally Roesch Wagner, one of the first women to receive a doctorate in women's studies, reports that the founders of the women's rights movement in the late 19th century, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, among others, had early and influential contact with Iroquois women.—

Stanton reported that, as a young girl of 12 or 13, she visited an Iroquois reservation. She was surprised to see the mother of her Indian play-mate selling a horse and accepting cash from a man. Young Elizabeth asked, “What will your husband say when he gets home?^,, The woman replied that the horse was hers, and she could do with it as she pleased.—

At a time when women一in what was then known as "civilized culture"— could not own property, this was an eye-opener. In Native American culture, equal rights to property for both genders and all classes enhanced freedom and democracy because it made it more difficult to bend the will of others through use of economic leverage.

As we read these tales of history, as often about ignorance and cruelty as about kindness and wisdom, it's important to step up and view these situations objectively from a higher perspective. Instead of blaming dysfunctional or evil traits on particular peoples, that is, others, it is far more useful and transformational to recognize these traits as universal human tendencies kept in place by largely invisible beliefs.

As we will see, we hold on to evils in our society by projecting them onto others. When we acknowledge and own those evils within ourselves and within our culture—not out of hatred for our culture but out of love—we stop projecting evil and, in this way, disempower it. This awareness and recognition is the first step in awakening consciousness within ourselves and others.

UNITING BOTH HEMISPHERES: THE CONDOR
AND THE EAGLE

The Native Americans bring us one more gift一this, in the form of a

heartening prophesy from the natives of the Andes. According to their tradition, centuries ago, humans took two diverging paths: the path of the condor and the path of the eagle.

The condor path, which has come to represent the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere, is associated with the heart, the intuitive, and the spiritual. The eagle path, which represents the peoples of the Northern Hemisphere, is associated with the brain, the rational, and the material. For the past 500 years, the power of the eagle一mental and materialistic—has dominated that of the condor's spirituality and heart-centeredness. But according to the prophecy, this is about to change.

The indigenous tradition among the peoples of the South has divided time into epochs called pachacutis, each spanning roughly 500 years. According to the Aztec Calendar—a.k.a. The Sacred Stone Calendar of the Mexican People一the Fourth Pachacuti that began in 1492 was characterized by the prophecies as a time of turmoil, struggle, and conflict. Since October 12, 1992, we've been in the Fifth Pachacuti, which is said to be a time of partnership and union, where eagle and condor "fly together in the sky as equals .”也

And not a moment too soon. In our evolutionary journey through basal paradigms that have taken us deep into the realms of spirituality and materialism over these many centuries, the one thing these paradigms had in common was their disconnection from the sacred feminine and, consequently, from Earth itself. As we will expand upon later, the very detachment and denial of the feminine in Western society has put us out of touch with the natural world. For centuries, the powers of unbalanced domination, empowered first by a He-God then by a He-Science, have forced our world further and further out of kilter to where we are on the brink of destroying the very ground upon which we stand.

Now, in its infinite sense of humor, the Universe is finally asking us to reconcile the hemispheres, left and right, north and south. This time of spiritual reunion, when we will link the sacred masculine and sacred feminine, is not merely the province of indigenous spirituality or reconstituted goddess worship.

The Dalai Lama has also spoken of it. He says he will be the last Dalai human problem: no humans, no problem.

Clearly, the current paradigm of scientific materialism is not up to the evolutionary task at hand. Nor can going back to religious monotheism, the prior paradigm, take us forward, either. We seem to be at a life-threatening impasse in the face of ominous apocalyptic predictions. The key to avoiding apocalyptic collapse, however, lies in appreciating the meaning of the word apocalypse一before it became a code word for “the end of the world."

Originally, apocalypse meant a prophetic revelation, "a lifting of the veils.^,, It represented the exposure of something hidden and has, since the time of the Greeks, been associated with revelations that would occur at the end of time. A new一or, actually, old一interpretation of the word suggests that, by lifting the veil on our own invisible programming, we might yet avoid the inevitable train wreck that awaits us if we stay on the current track.

Scientific materialism has offered four tenets in the dominant basal paradigm that, until recently, have been accepted and regarded as indisputable scientific fact:

1. Only Matter Matters一the physical world we see is all there is.
2. Survival of the Fittest—Nature favors the strongest individuals, and the Law of the Jungle is the only real natural law.
3. It's in Your Genes—we are victims of our biological inheritance and the best we can hope is that science finds ways to compensate for our inherent flaws and frailties.
4. Evolution Is Random一life is basically random and purposeless, and we got here pretty much the same way as an infinite number of monkeys pecking on an infinite number of typewriters over an infinite amount of time might produce the works of Shakespeare.

In the next four chapters, we trace the development of each of these tenets from their origins as myth-perceptions through the profound revisions offered by current science.

In Chapter 9, Dysfunction at the Junction, we will examine the consequences of taking each of these beliefs to its logical illogical conclusion. The institutions we examine一economics, politics, health care, and communications一all suffer from the same fatal affliction: they have pursued scientific materialism to the point of distortion and made money,

CHAPTER 5

MYTH-PERCEPTION ONE: ONLY MATTER
MATTERS

^(tIt is said that invisible forces control our world, but personally I just can't see it."

—Swami Beyondananda

IS SCIENCE A RELIGION?

Monotheism became Western civilization's basal paradigm during the Dark Ages when it offered the best and most acceptable answers to the three perennial questions.

1. How did we get here?
2. Why are we here?
3. Now that we're here, how do we make best of it?

By replacing the former paradigm of polytheism, the Church positioned itself as the sole fount of civilization's knowledge. As the primary provider of mass education, the Church used its power of controlling knowledge to amass vast wealth and great influence. Meanwhile, as the self-proclaimed intercessor between God and king, it enlisted the mighty arm of the law to forcibly secure its dominion.

Over time and intoxicated with authority, the Church's original mission of helping humanity took a back seat to the more pressing mission of helping itself. Yet its power rested precariously upon the fragile foundation that its knowledge represented absolute truth.

But let's be realistic. No authority, especially one predicated on static ancient knowledge, can support that claim. So, in time, Church theologians faced the inevitable likelihood that others would arrive at truths that differed from their own.

Enter the Inquisition, through which the Church's mafia made challengers

But here's the good news. The spirit of science is alive and well. Pioneers thinking outside the box are now precipitating upheavals at the leading edge of science, and their new thoughts are radically rewriting the way we see life. With the revolution underway, the old guard, defending the institution of old science, has dug in to defend its territory. By preserving and protecting its cherished, yet obsolete dogma, the scientific establishment一or, more accurately, those that profit from science, for example, the pharmaceutical industry—have slipped into the realm of religion by touting the dogma: "It's true because we say it is!"

As we will see, however, when we follow Newtonian linear logic to its illogical conclusion and declare that only matter matters, we end up excluding the entire dimension of the unseen realm. And that's the reality we are beginning to realize may be of greatest importance in regard to the nature and mechanics of the Universe. Meanwhile, leaders of the new science have nailed their theses to the door of the Church of Scientific Materialism. Let the re-formation begin!

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO
ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY

The film Quest for Fire provides a keen insight into the world of prehistoric human civilizations. By using fire as a tool for survival, ancient humans were able to protect themselves from carnivorous predators and, in the process, take a huge step toward mastering their environment. While early humans could manage fire, they were unable to create it. These tribes spent a great deal of collective energy maintaining their flame even as they traveled. If a tribe lost its fire, it would quickly devolve to the status of prey, ever vigilant of the circling predators in the dark.

In the movie's final scene, our prehistoric hero learns how to make fire. The film's portrayal of this emotionally charged event brilliantly captures one of the pivotal moments in our evolution. Up to that point, human awareness was preoccupied with immediate survival in a world dominated by voracious predators. By mastering fire, humans were no longer just another animal; they were on their way to becoming the dominant force in the biosphere. The

film ends with the tribe safely sitting around the fire pit and our protagonist gazing skyward, contemplating the full moon. With primary survival assured, humankind was free to reflect on the nature of the world.

From these humble beginnings, the endeavor of science ultimately evolved to formally explore, classify, and understand how our world works. In Western civilization, conventional science officially arose in the Golden Age of Greece when philosophers, such as Aristotle, collected observations and insights about their world and integrated them with conclusions derived from simple experiments.

As Christian monotheism took hold of Western civilization's basal paradigm, it carried forth and incorporated ancient Greek science into its mix of world knowledge. Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus modified and adapted Grecian scientific philosophy to accommodate and support the tenets of Christian scripture. The new Church-based science, known as Natural Theology, formalized the way that science would perceive and study God's creation. In this supportive capacity, science obediently took its place as the Church's handmaiden.

As described earlier, when science was called in to resolve the Church's calendar conundrum, the seeds of a paradigmatic revolution were set. Copernicus' discovery that the solar system is heliocentric was the birth of modern science as a formal institution, separate and distinct from the Church. And pronouncement of that discovery marked a turning point that would lead to more challenges regarding the Church's infallibility and, ultimately, to the collapse of the monotheistic paradigm.

The year 1543 is considered to be the advent of the modern scientific revolution. It was the year that Copernicus, at the end of his life, published his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and successfully challenged the Church's claim of infallibility.

One of the first issues that modem science had to wrestle with was simply, “What is a truth?" Remember, the science of the 16th century was a collection of ancient speculations that had been passed down from the Greeks and modified by Christian theologians. Science was confounded by the fact that there was no way to distinguish or validate a real truth from a fervently consequence of the concept that every action produces a reaction. An outcome can be predicted by the linear progression of discrete events. Simply stated: "We can predict and control the outcome of natural processes."

Newtonian materialism, reductionism, and determinism offered not merely an analysis of the Universe but also the promise of a controllable utopia. The price? The thinking world would have to sacrifice its preoccupation with God, spirits, and invisible forces.

Somewhere between the time of Newton in the early 1700s and the Age of Enlightenment in the late 1700s, tensions eased between the upstart paradigm of modern science and the still-dominant, Church-controlled monotheistic paradigm. By conveniently dividing the Universe into a material realm and a spiritual realm, science ruled the physical world and religion took dominion over the metaphysical world.

Therefore, science was free to pursue its proof of the material nature of the Universe, and religion still guided the course of transcendent souls. While that was a convenient truce between two intellectual superpowers, the resulting separation of spirit from matter has led to an imbalance that continues to endanger our world today.

As the 19th century neared a close, the entire material Universe rested comfortably on a foundation of irrefutable Newtonian truth. Science had presumably proved that the Universe was a physical machine made out of elemental particles called atoms and that universal dynamics could be understood and determined by studying billiard ball-like atomic actions and reactions. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, physicists were so pleased with themselves, they publicly acknowledged that the science of physics was complete and there was nothing more to learn.

W川iam Thomson, renowned as Lord Kelvin, was an Irish mathematical physicist and engineer who addressed an assemblage of physicists at the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1900 and stated, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement/- A similar statement is attributed to Albert Michelson, the first American physicist to receive a Nobel Prize. Newtonian science had appeared to be so complete that, as chairman of physics at the University of Chicago, Michelson quipped that no more physics graduate students were necessary because, as he said, “the grand underlying principles have been firmly established . . . further truths of physics are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.ⁿ-

But a funny thing happened on the way to absolute certainty. Demonstrating once again that pride goeth before the fall, unanticipated anomalies began to turn the world of Newtonian physics upside down. The first crack in the mechanical worldview came in 1895 with investigations by German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen of x-rays, which demonstrated the existence of a mysterious force that emanates from matter and penetrates other matter. Subsequently, French physicists Antone Becqueral and then Marie and Pierre Curie discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity, which revealed that atomic elements are not immutable as presumed but that fundamental elements could, in fact, transmute into other elements.

Two years later, British physicist Sir Joseph John Thomson detected electrons, which demonstrated that the atom isn't the Universe's smallest particle, as Newtonian physics had claimed, but is comprised of even smaller subunits.

While studying the spectrum of light emitted by heated elements, German physicist Max Planck discovered that electrons could jump from one energy shell of the atom to another shell, going instantaneously from one energy level to another without expressing intermediate energy values. Consequently, Planck recognized that the electrons were made up of discrete units of radiant energy, which he described as quanta. His work revealed that as electrons jump between energy shells they either gain or lose a quantum of energy, hence the origins of the science of quantum physics.

In 1905, studies on the photoelectric effect by German physicist Albert Einstein showed that nonmaterial light waves expressed physical characteristics that were formerly attributed only to matter. Based on his observations, Einstein postulated the existence of photons, which are quanta of radiant light energy expressing particulate qualities. With matter behaving as light and light behaving as matter, the certainties of Newtonian physics suddenly seemed uncertain.

In 1926, French physicist Louis-Victor de Broglie predicted that all particles of matter should also behave as nonmaterial waves, and his de Broglie Hypothesis was confirmed three years later in studies on electrons. These experiments showed that electrons have both wavelike properties and particle properties; that is, they are simultaneously material and nonmaterial.

With these discoveries, within a mere quarter century after Thomson's and Michelson's statements about the definitive end of physics, the solid foundation of Newtonian physics had seemingly dissolved into a Zen-like paradox.

The particle-versus-wave confusion was eventually resolved with the advent and establishment of quantum mechanics. The wave-particle duality, a hallmark of quantum physics, provided a single unified theoretical framework for understanding that all matter has characteristics associated with both particles and waves. Welcome to the world of quantum weirdness!

Einstein's mass-energy equation (often symbolized with the equation E=mc^) acknowledges the unification of energy and matter, wherein energy (E) equals mass (m) times the speed of light (c), squared. With this, Einstein showed that atoms are actually not made out of matter, but consist of nonmaterial energy! Today, it is fully established that physical atoms are comprised of a menagerie of subatomic units such as quarks, bosons, and fermions. Interestingly, particle physicists perceive of these fundamental atomic units as vortices of energy resembling nanotornados .

In other words, the long-held perception of a Newtonian Universe, made exclusively of physical objects, turns out to be an elaborate illusion! In contrast, Einstein's unified theory, which attempts to explain the nature and behavior of all matter and energy, proposed that the Universe is one indivisible dynamic whole wherein all physical parts and energy fields are entangled and interdependent.

While quantum mechanics undermined science's preoccupation with materialism, Planck's work also questioned the emphasis on reductionism, which focuses on individual parts rather than the whole. While reductionism appears to explain simple mechanical processes, Planck demonstrated that some events cannot be predicted by linear cause-and-effect reactions but seem to occur simultaneously as part of an interacting energy matrix called the field. Planck's insights emphasized that, in order to understand the nature

of the Universe, we must abandon reductionism and, instead, turn to holism, wherein everything interacts with everything else.

Interestingly, the classic analogy used to describe reductionism involved taking apart a wind-up watch to see what makes it tick. By observing the interaction of mechanical gears and springs, one would presumably be able to repair or alter the mechanism of any other watch. Similarly, scientists presumed that, in order to determine what makes a living organism tick, they could simply take a body apart and study its pieces.

Fortunately for us, both reductionism and the watch analogy are now completely out of vogue. Consider the digital watch. Take it apart, examine its components, and ... what?

Digital watches involve technology derived from quantum mechanics and operate by energy movement, not through interaction of physical gears. Disassembling a digital watch and examining the organization of its bits and pieces will never reveal the nature of its operation. The pursuit of reductionism, with its focus on individual material parts, simply does not offer insight into the integrated mechanics of an entangled quantum Universe.

In addition to challenging our fixation on materialism and reductionism, the science of quantum physics also dispenses with the notion of determinism, which is the doctrine that all events, including human choices and decisions, are predicated on a specific sequence of causal reactions that adhere to natural law. Simply stated, determinism proposed that, with enough data, we can predict the future.

However, Werner Heisenberg, a German physicist and one of the founders of quantum mechanics, discovered that it was not possible to simultaneously map both the position and the velocity of an atom's electron. The more accurately its position is measured, the more uncertain the value of its velocity becomes, and vice versa.

Heisenberg's theory of uncertainty applies to any two conjugate variables, such as position and velocity, time and energy, or angle of rotation and angular momentum. The theory implies that the measurement of one variable results in the disturbance of its conjugate partner, so that both variables never accurately be predicted at the same time. Not only is Heisenberg's theory a direct affront to determinism, it also suggests that the existence of matter is, itself, an uncertainty.

Please note that the adoption of quantum mechanics does not negate Newtonian physics, but, rather, subsumes it. In other words, quantum physics is a larger realm of awareness that includes and substantially adds to the information provided by Newtonian physics. Consequently, quantum mechanics accounts for what was already known plus a whole new realm of heretofore-unrecognized forces that control the unfolding of our Universe.

Quantum mechanics emphasizes that the material Universe一with all of its atoms, particles, and matter—is actually a component of, and controlled by, the invisible universal matrix of energy forces that collectively comprise the field.

Perhaps you recall an elementary school experiment that involves a magnet, a piece of paper, and iron filings. When you sprinkled iron filings onto a piece of paper, the particles distributed themselves in a random manner. However, if you placed a magnet beneath the paper, the sprinkled filings always arranged themselves in a defined pattern that reflected the shape of the invisible magnetic field; the filings did this every time, regardless of how many times you repeated the process.

Now, imagine trying to explain the phenomenon of how the pattern is formed without knowledge of the magnet or the role of invisible fields. What kind of conclusion would you draw if you could see only the iron filings? You could easily conclude that those iron filings, those physical objects, are truly amazing一they filed themselves!

This is the predicament we find ourselves in if we try to make sense of our world by only focusing on the material realm. It is a particularly egregious error in the Universe where we now understand that the invisible field is the agency that governs matter. Or, as Einstein stated with inimitable simplicity: "The field is the sole governing agency of the particle." What Einstein meant was that the field is the Universe's energy matrix that governs all matter, including those mysterious iron filings.- Einstein further emphasized the field's role in shaping the Universe when he said, “There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality"

A century after Einstein presented his mass-energy equation E=mc~, and the belief that matter and energy are inherently interrelated and entangled, many people tenaciously hang onto the illusion of a material-based reality. The insanity we see around us, provided we're not so caught up in it ourselves that we don't notice, is a byproduct of trying to live Newtonian existence in an Einsteinian world.

Interestingly, the invisible energy field that shapes matter, as defined by quantum physicists, has the same characteristics as the invisible shaping fields that metaphysicians define as "spirit."

WHAT IF JESUS AND EINSTEIN WERE BOTH
RIGHT?

If you're puzzled by the fact that science has ignored Einstein for one hundred years, it should be even more puzzling that society has ignored Jesus for two millennia.

When we consider the messages of both Jesus and Einstein together, we can assign a possible scientific basis for the Golden Rule. Along the same line, Jesus' prescription to “love thy neighbor as thyself" makes perfect sense in an Einsteinian world where thy neighbor is thy self. The bottom line implication of the theory of relativity is ... we're all related.

While scientifically advanced nations have had no problem using quantum physics to develop atomic power and nuclear destruction, when it comes to understanding the everyday world, many are still blind to the invisible realm. For example, in the domain of politics and diplomacy, governments still operate in a Newtonian world comprised of individualized interacting parts and pieces, labeled as nations, governments, departments, or territories.

Instead of focusing on the cooperative nature of the energy field and natural resources that we all share, the emphasis is on a competitive war-based political system that intensifies separation and divisiveness, borders and barriers, us and them. The same Newtonian action-reaction mechanics uphold a justice system that emphasizes punishment. "An eye for an eye” is clearly a very Newtonian principle that will make the whole world blind.

We hold nothing personal against Isaac Newton, whose genius will be rightly celebrated as long as there is human history. Newton's science provided humanity with a technical foundation that enabled civilization to gain some control over its external environment. And much of the improvement in the physical conditions of humankind must be attributed to Newtonian science staking its own claim outside of religious dogma. However, society must now deal with the horrors and insanities wrought by a physical science that is unglued from the invisible world.

To see what happens when only matter matters, all we have to do is look at Western society and the monster stepchild it spawned: globalization . In a Frankensteinian sense, humanity has created and released into the world a purely materialistic, mechanical, and nonliving entity known as the corporation. Not only have we given life to the nonliving, we have given it statutory primacy over humanity. In the industrialized world, the wishes and desires of corporations generally hold more power than the wants and needs of the public.

The modem corporation is an entity endowed with one purpose only: to make money. True, a growing number of corporations are managed by executives with conscience and consciousness. These are the heartening seeds of a future world in which corporations serve people, but that is a far cry from today's world in which people serve corporations. A further discussion of how the Rule of Gold has overruled the Golden Rule will be found in Chapter 9, Dysfunction at the Junction.

A world-threatening implication of the Newtonian preoccupation with matter involves the desire to accumulate matter. Never has the world seen a society so possessed by material possessions and so consumed by consumerism.

Those born into Western society since the end of World War II, and particularly those in the United States, have been influenced and programmed by television to such an extent that they hardly grasp the power that media has over their lives. From the early days when Howdy Doody exhorted kids to tell their moms to buy Wonder Bread to the present time when the Baby Channel enables young consumers to develop brand name recognition while still in diapers, humans have been reduced to the status of consumers and

customers.

Conscious of the life-threatening consequences of corporate commoditization of global resources, more and more individuals and organizations are seeking to introduce human values into the economy. The forces that promote human evolution and sanity are often perceived as defensive fringe groups fighting a losing battle in spite of the fact that the majority of humans truly value life above money. The harbingers of the new humanity are, indeed, up against a mighty adversary一perhaps the world's most powerful force and a largely invisible one at that一because they are challenging civilization's basal paradigm, the fundamental beliefs that shape our way of life.

The conventional paradigm of Newtonian materialism, reductionism, and determinism also has provided the fundamental structure of our academic institutions. Students, the products of schools, are graded and rated by measuring their achievements. What better way to know who is better than by measuring? And how better to distribute the financial rewards of materialism than by rewarding those who prove they can produce? Of course, the questions "Produce what?" and "For what purpose?" remain largely unanswered, not to mention unasked.

The realm of medicine, which is the voice of materialistic science, has saved many lives.. However, the primarily Newtonian treatments have continuously proven to be costly, often ineffective, and, at times, life threatening. In alignment with the philosophy of materialism, conventional medicine only focuses on the physical character of the body through efforts designed to adjust and manipulate the body's chemistry, even though working with the body's energy fields has proven to be far more efficient and effective.

We must fully acknowledge that modem science has created outright miracles, especially in trauma medicine, by using a Newtonian approach that perceives the body as a machine. Medical marvels include the ability to take the body apart and put it back together, transplant organs, and even create spare parts. But in spite of all the technical knowledge, we are still outmaneuvered by and live in fear of the lowly bacteria and viruses that continually threaten our existence.

Those who go outside mainstream medicine and experience anomalous healings and spontaneous remissions often find a startling lack of curiosity on the part of traditional medical authorities. This is especially true if the physician cannot invoke a conventionally accepted physical, material explanation to account for the healing. In such situations, doctors often tell their patients they really did not have the disease in the first place—in spite of what the x-rays and CAT scans showed, it was simply a misdiagnosis. In far too many cases, physicians not only dismiss miraculous cures, they actually turn a deaf ear to their healed patients by responding, “Whatever you did, I don't want to hear about it."

Fortunately, the acceptance of holistic medicine is doing much to dispel materialistic medical dogma. There's nothing like a friend's successful treatment to motivate a visit to some complementary health care practitioner. We still have far to go to dismantle the limitations imposed by Newtonian thought, but as we will soon see, the important field of study is the field itself.

ESIN THE FIELD

So .. . the first key myth-perception of the apocalypse, only matter matters, is wrong.

Science, itself, through its own courageous quest for the truth, has disproved its own pet dogma. But if matter doesn't matter as much as we once believed, what does? To quote Einstein: "The field is the only reality.^,,

But if matter is so nonmaterial, why does it seem so real? And if that brick wall is, indeed, an illusion, why can't I put my hand through it? As physicists have discovered, it isn't the density of matter that stops us, it's the density of energy.

At the subatomic level, vortices of energy are constantly spinning and vibrating. If the notion of energy vortex seems too abstract, visualize a minitornado, which is a whirling vortex of wind energy. When we observe a tornado, what we actually see are the swirling particles and debris— irt, shingles, tree limbs, Mrs. O'Grady's cat一swept up in a field powerful enough to implode buildings and hurl vehicles. You cannot put your hand through a solid wall for the same reason you cannot drive your car through a tornado; invisible energy forces are palpable.

And lest we be fooled into thinking empty space is actually empty, the invisible is abuzz with more energy than we can imagine. What Aristotle referred to as “the plenum" and physicists named the "zero-point field^,, is a “quantum sea of light." According to American physicist Richard Feynman, the energy in a single cubic foot of perceived empty space is enough to boil all the oceans in the world.- So, paradoxically, nothing一no thing一is more powerful than any thing! Perhaps zero-point energy is the energy of the future, which is great incentive to actually have a future!

Another marvelously puzzling paradox about physical reality is that it technically doesn't exist. According to journalist Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, this zero-point field is “an ocean of microscopic vibrations in the space between things一a state of pure potential and infinite possibility." McTaggart wrote: "Particles exist in all possible states until disturbed by us一by observing or measuring —at which point, they settle down, at long last into something real.^,, In other words, reality exists on a need-to-exist basis.-

Although physicists find it hard to reach a consensus on something so vast and mind-boggling, the current unconventional wisdom indicates that everything is everywhere all the time and our minds pluck things out of the cosmic soup and sort them into time and space, thus creating what we assume to be reality. By playing in the field's cosmic soup, scientists have been able to send signals great distances instantaneously and have even found ways to affect events that already happened! But more about that later.

For now, let's consider a simple experiment based on observations familiar to many people described in Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, a book and video by British biologist Rupert Sheldrake. An article in Journal for the Society of Psychical Research reports that 45 percent of the dog owners surveyed claimed their animal knew in advance when a household member was returning home.-

In Sheldrake's experiment, which was videotaped for Austrian TV, video cameras with time codes were simultaneously trained on dog owner Pam Smart, who was out of her home, and her homebound dog, Jaytee. At a random time, unbeknownst to either Pam or her dog, she received a call on her cell phone telling her to return home. At that very instant, Jaytee ran to the door to await his owner. Similar results were confirmed in over one hundred videotaped experiments.-

So why is this important? Most of us know there is a special and, perhaps, psychic connection between pets and their owners, just as many of us have had the experience of knowing when a loved one was in trouble. The significance is not that Sheldrake proved something we already know, but that the experiment evoked little curiosity in the scientific community.Just imagine: dogs receiving instant messages at speeds faster than the speed of light, and scientists are not even curious about how they do it?

The problem is that materialistic science cannot come up with an explanation for this phenomenon, nor does it care to. Just as the Church refused to acknowledge the implications of Copernicus conclusion about Earth's position in our heliocentric solar system, orthodox science must ignore the demonstrated fact of canine instant messaging because it flat out contradicts their belief that only matter matters. There is an unexplainable invisible field at work that can provide us with telepathic communications, but because science doesn't believe in the invisible, well, they just can't see it.

Sheldrake suggested there is a morphic field, which he described as “memory inherent in nature,wherein communications we would call psychic can be sent at the speed of thought.— He would be the first to admit that his morphic field concept is merely a speculative explanation that doesn't prove how it works. But, fortunately, that lack of a scientific explanation has spurred him toward further experimentation with the field.

The importance of Sheldrake's experiment is that it demonstrates that the phenomenon is real and that an influential invisible field does, indeed, exist. And the implications are far more significant than being able to call your dog by whistling in your head. As we will see, carefully constructed double-blind experiments have shown that prayer and healing intentions have had a measurable positive effect on AIDS patients and those recovering from surgery. Similarly, studies also indicate that when the number of people practicing transcendental meditation reaches the square root of one percent of

the population in a given city, the crime rate falls precipitously.—

Clearly, it is foolish for us to ignore the power of the field simply because we can't explain it. And fortunately, more scientists are becoming curious. Physicists are already there, in a sense, as evidenced by their use of the phrase ''invisible moving force" to describe these fields. Interestingly, that is the same definition of the traditional Shaper of Fields一God, Creator, Spirit, or whatever term you choose to describe the unifying force in the Universe. The cosmic joke is this: science and religion are essentially each describing the same thing.

So why is understanding the field important? And how can that understanding help us? The answer is three-fold: First, we can end, once and for all, the useless argument between science and religion. Instead of fighting over the existence of an off-planet God, we can work together for on-planet good. Second, by acknowledging the power of invisible fields—even if we don't understand them—we open up an entire new field of inquiry and challenge science to explore what it has previously ignored. Finally, we can realize that humanity is operating on a unified field of dreams, and we can rejoice that the field is a playing field, not a battlefield.

 

CHAPTER 6

MYTH-PERCEPTION TWO: SURVIVAL OF THE
FITTEST

^aWhen your only intention is looking out for number one, everyone and everything else gets treated like number two."

—Swami Beyondananda

"It's a dog eat dog world." "It's a jungle out there.” "Every man for himself.,, We've heard these catchphrases so many times that we've embedded them into what we call reality.

But what if the Darwinian philosophy about the competitive nature of life is all wrong? What if cooperation and sharing are the entire reason for our evolution? What if survival is really dependent on how well we communicate with each other and how quickly we share and process information? And what if there is a world condition much better than mere survival? What if there's also a state of thrival?

WHICH CAME FIRST, DARWIN OR DARWINISM?

Charles Darwin, who was also a child of his times, played one of the most important roles in establishing the paradigm of scientific materialism, especially as it applies to human health and the evolution of humanity. Evolutionary thought had been ripening for nearly a century and even his own grandfather Erasmus Darwin had studied and written about the subject.

In fact, the first scientific paper on evolution, Philosophic Zoologique, was published by French biologist John Baptiste de Lamarck in 1809, the year Darwin was bom.- And phrases that we have attributed to Darwinism一the law of the jungle and survival of the fittest  were also well-established before Charles Darwin's birth.

The opening act for Charles Darwin's opus was performed by Thomas Robert Malthus. Malthus was an economic philosopher whose beliefs and writings provided the theoretical foundation for Darwinian theory. He was also the son of a leading light of the Age of Enlightenment who counted as his friends Jean-Jacques Rousseau and philosopher and economist David Hume. Yet young Malthus took a deeper, darker view of the world than his mentors. Perhaps in rebellion against his father, Malthus championed a pessimistic position in regard to world affairs. He set out not only to prove the glass was half empty but also that it would soon be three-quarters empty, then seven-eighths empty, and on and on subtractum infinitum.

Using logical constructs and linear projections popular at the time, Malthus concluded and subsequently wrote that vegetation reproduced at an arithmetic progression rate:

• => 2 => 3 => 4 => 5 => etc.

In contrast, he suggested that animal life reproduced at a geometric progression rate:

• => 4 => 8 => 16 => 32 => etc.

Malthus's logic went thusly: a farmer managing his land could, with effort and luck, possibly raise an extra bushel of feed in each succeeding year. However, his animal population would double as offspring continued to spring off with each generation and would rapidly diminish the farmer's ability to produce feed for them. Thus, animal life, which, of course, includes humans, would reproduce to the point that we exceed our food supply. In such a reality, life would truly become an ongoing struggle for existence in which only the strongest and most ruthless survive.

Malthus described the consequences of his vision of reality in his 1798 work titled An Essay on the Principle of Population: "The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.”2

Well, at least, the upside of pessimism is that you can never be disappointed. But the essence of Malthus's concern didn't have to do with things getting worse, but with them actually getting better. What if nations curtailed warfare? What if poverty was eliminated and disease cured? Then, according to Malthus, we would really have a mess on our hands! The more successful we became at saving lives, the sooner we would run out of food. Malthusiasts of the 19th century engaged all kinds of social programs to forestall this inevitability, including discouraging the poor from breeding and the creation of slums in swamps where disease would cull the poor from the herd.

However, there is a minor problem with Malthus's gloomy projections— they happen to be false! Seeing the world from a strictly materialist, linear point of view, Malthus was blind to the dynamic complexities inherent within the web of life and to Nature's tendency toward balance and harmony. Furthermore, animal populations simply do not double every year, and their rate of increase is, again, a total variable based upon prevailing environmental conditions. Malthus's linear mathematical conclusions, currently defined as "static projection,ⁿ would only be reasonable in a linear, mechanistic Newtonian Universe.

Fortunately, the Universe we live in is a probability-based quantum reality that is greatly affected by chaos, which is, in the world of mathematics and physics, defined as a system that outwardly appears random but is, in reality, quite ordered and deterministic. In a chaotic Universe, static projections are useless because they fail to factor in the dynamic and unpredictable processes of living systems. The whole Malthusian notion that evolution is driven by a bloody and brutal battle for survival actually has no scientific merit.

THE EVOLUTION OF DARWIN

Darwin, whose life spanned three quarters of the 19th century, came into a world when many views shared an uneasy coexistence. The bright shaft of light called the Age of Enlightenment, which was the philosophy that bred the American and French revolutions a generation earlier, was still shining, although dimmed by the darkness of creeping Malthusianism. The return of the monarchy in France had recently revitalized the Church, breathing life into its quest to retain its powerful paradigmatic crown. And, in the background, the progress of materialist science was steadily moving forward through the work of English chemist John Dalton and his atomic theory, published in 1805, which brought Newtonian physics down to earth by employing its principles to define the mechanics of the newly minted science of chemistry.

Although Charles Darwin was born into an upper-class family of Unitarians and freethinkers, his father, in deference to convention, had young Charles baptized in the Anglican Church. As a child, Darwin attended Unitarian Church with his mother. He later enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, where he eagerly studied science and attended lectures on Jean Baptiste de Lamarck's radical theories of evolution.

Apparently, pre-med wasn't Charles's calling一his poor academic performance caused him to leave the university without completing his degree. His father, concerned that Charles would become a ne'er-do-well (or, at best, a sometime-do-well), encouraged him to enroll at the University of Cambridge to become an Anglican cleric. For a dropout, upper-mid die class Englishman, the ministry was his last resort.

Darwin completed his theological studies and, immediately upon graduation and in spite of his father's protests, signed on to a two-year voyage on the HMS Beagle as a gentlemen's mate to Captain Robert FitzRoy. In the British navy during that time, aristocrats such as Captain FitzRoy were not allowed to socialize with the commoners who comprised the crew. To make his voyage tolerable, FitzRoy offered Darwin a position as traveling companion on a voyage to survey the wonders of Nature.

While at sea, the Beagle's doctor, who was also the ship's official naturalist and in charge of wildlife survey, had a confrontation with young Charles. The doctor resolved the conflict by jumping ship in South America. Conveniently, Charles assumed the official post of naturalist as the Beagle sailed toward the Galapagos Islands for what would become an historic voyage of paradigmatic proportions. The two-year journey lasted five years, during which time Darwin immersed himself in his study of Nature.

Before the voyage, Darwin received a copy of Principles of Geology, which was published in 1830 and was, perhaps, the most important scientific publication since Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Its author, Charles Lyell, was the most distinguished and influential scientist in the world at that time and for good reason. His Principles of Geology, published in three volumes in 1830 to 1833, established the science of geology and, in doing so, undermined the Church's Biblical interpretation of Creation.

Until that time, people held the sacrosanct belief that the Heavens, Earth, and life were the result of God's amazing six-day tour de force described in Genesis. The Church was so secure in its stand on this issue that it even offered, as a religious fact, the exact date that God gave birth to Earth. In case you were thinking of buying Gaia a birthday card, that was Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C.E. James Ussher, an Anglican bishop, determined this date by calculating the lineage of Biblical begats back to the appearance of Adam.3

While most people of the day blindly accepted this date for Creation, geologists, led by Lyell, estimated that planet Earth had evolved through eons of gradual, yet dynamic, upheavals, which, in geological terms, resulted in a warping and repositioning of Earth's crust. Lyell concluded that the physical disposition of continents, oceans, and mountains was the result of slow, steady alterations by natural forces such as winds, rains, floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

Lyelfs book contained four chapters dedicated to Lamarck's theories, which also suggested that life arose through a long, slow evolutionary progression over millions of years during which some organisms became extinct, a situation that explained fossils. To Lyell, evolution of the biosphere was a perfect complement to evolution of the physical planet. LyelPs writings did much to open the public's eyes to a whole new view regarding the origin, or Creation, of the world.

During his five-year voyage, Darwin immersed himself in Lyell's book and, in a sense, became a Lyell groupie, regularly corresponding with this prestigious scientific authority. The novel insights offered by Lyell and Lamarck helped shape Darwin's ultimate conclusion that the succession of life in Earth-history should be ascribed, like geological phenomena, to natural causes.-

Darwin acknowledged the significance of LyelPs contribution to the formulation of his theory of evolution when he published the second edition of his Journal of Researches in 1845. Darwin dedicated this book to Lyell, with the following explanation: "The chief part of whatever scientific merit this journal and other works of the author may possess, have been derived from studying the well-known and admirable Principles of Geology.^f,-

On October 2, 1836, Darwin arrived home in London. He met with and immediately became a lifelong friend of Lyell who encouraged him to pursue his studies on the theory of evolution. As an upshot of their discussions, Darwin began to compile his first notebook on the Transmutation of Species, the title of which was also the original term for evolution coined by Lamarck in his Philosophie Zoologique in 1809.-

So, while Lamarck provided a scientific foundation for biological evolution and Lyell drew a correlation between that and evolution of the physical planet, Darwin focused on providing insight into the forces or mechanisms that drove or motivated the evolutionary process. He was specifically concerned with the reasons why new species should appear at all. Without an answer to that question, Darwin's theory languished for years until, ironically, he found the inspiration to advance his concept in the work of Mai thus.-

Darwin wrote in his autobiography: "In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well-prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on, from long continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed/-

In other words, Darwin was saying that, while Malthus focused on the selection process as a means through which the weak elements of a society are eliminated, he, Darwin, put his own spin on the selection process by emphasizing the survival of the stronger individuals. This was a politically savvy move because Darwin was a gentleman in Victorian England, a culture that had an upper class and a lower class. Rather than attributing the selection process to the influence of a menial lower class, Darwin emphasized that it was good breeding and heredity of the upper class—those having the “favourable variations" and presumably being the fittest—that drove evolution. Therefore, in his writing, Darwin rephrased what Malthus called “Nature's process of selection" in the elimination of society's unfavorable elements into what Darwin termed natural selection.

DARWIN勺 INDELICATE ARRANGEMENT

By the early 1840s, Darwin began to develop his theory, but he did not share his conclusions with anyone, not even Charles Lyell. In 1844, Darwin wrote to the luminary botanist SirJoseph Dalton Hooker, “at last gleams of light have come, and I am almost convinced (quite to the contrary of the opinion I started with) that species are not (it is like confessing to a murder) immutable?- The murder Darwin referred to was the murder of God. If the theory were valid that species individually descended through a process of evolutionary transformation, that would kill the legitimacy of the first book of the Bible, the part of the Scripture that defines the relationship between God and the human race. It is also interesting to note that Darwin wrote, "I am almost convinced^,, that species could mutate. Clearly, even he did not yet believe in evolution.

Later that year, Scottish journalist Robert Chambers anonymously published, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a widely read book that championed evolution over creationism. Even though it was controversial and attacked by Victorian society, this book popularized the notion of evolution and broke the ice for Darwin to publish without professionally perishing.

Yet, Darwin kept stalling for more than a decade until prodded into action by a colleague's work. In June 1858, Charles Darwin received a package that would stir him to action. It was sent by Alfred Russel Wallace, an English

On the surface, this bit of skullduggery might seem to be trivial in regard to the history of humanity, but we can assure you this incident has had profound reverberations that continue to impact us today. The difference between whether Wallace or Darwin received credit for the theory is the evolutionary epitome of the glass being half full or half empty.

From the perspective of a commoner, Wallace recognized that evolution was driven by the elimination of the weakest, while Darwin interpreted the same data to mean that evolution resulted from the will to survive inherent in the fittest. The difference? In a Wallacean world, we would improve in order not to be the weakest, but in a Darwinian world, we struggle to acquire the status of being the best. In other words, had Wallace prevailed, there would be less focus on competition and more on cooperation.

A year after the delicate arrangement, Alfred Russel Wallace dissolved into the background as Darwin gained worldwide prominence with the publication of his masterpiece, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. The content of this best-selling book popularized the concepts of evolution and natural selection and implanted into the world the chilling notion that only the fittest survive.

What brought this book to the attention of the world more than anything else was its subtitle, which offered a more penetrating view of the Darwinism we would come to know. The full title is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It should be emphasized here, that Darwin was a product of his times. While he was radical enough to build on the geological implications of Lyelfs work, he also accepted without question Malthus's conclusions, which we now know to be faulty. While biological success obviously comes from adapting to an environment, from the Malthusian standpoint, that adaptation primarily takes place in the fight over scarce resources.

The concept of social Darwinism, the term coined by philosopher Herbert Spencer~who, coincidentally, is also credited with inventing the term survival of the fittest一emphasizes the harsh implication of Darwinian theory. That theory encourages improving humanity by purifying the race, which, of course, means winnowing out unfavorable genetic inferiors. Taken to its fullest application, Darwinian theory became the state-sanctioned long lineage of reproductive variations over millions of years. Consequently, the theory of evolution made sense and was readily accepted by both science and the populace. This acceptance put science in a position to provide a public-approved and satisfactory answer to that pesky perennial question regarding origins, an answer much more acceptable to the majority than the former view of Creation offered by monotheism.

Not surprisingly, the Church launched an aggressive campaign to counter the heresy of the godless evolutionists. The anticipated confrontation between religion and science came to a head only seven months after the publication of The Origin of Species. The showdown took place during a meeting held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford University in June of 1860. The meeting was distinguished by the fact that two scholarly papers, based on the new theory of evolution, were to be presented for public consideration. A scheduled debate ensued between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, representing the creationists, and Thomas Huxley, a friend of Darwin and a champion of his theory.

In a time before movies, radio, and television, debates commanded public attention for more than just the information they conveyed. Debates were entertainment. It was public theater wherein contestants would duel to the metaphorical death, verbally lashing each other with razor sharp wit punctuated with high drama and biting satire. Bishop Wilberforce, a topnotch debater, was referred to as "Soapy Sam" because of the craftiness he displayed in gaining the advantage. In other words, Sam was slippery.

Wilberforce did not come to conquer evolution; he came to exorcise its evil spirit from the mind of the people. His expressed intent was to humiliate the evolutionists and reestablish in the public's mind the Church's belief in Creation. No record was kept of the actual debate, but Wilberforce apparently summed up his argument with a contrived question to make Huxley look like a fool no matter how he chose to answer it. A version of the question, which played upon Victorian reverence to family lineage and motherhood, went: "Let me ask Mr. Huxley one question. Is it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claims descent from a monkey?^,,

Huxley, who was known as “Darwin's Bulldog," was hesitant to even attend the debate due to apprehension of being entrapped by Soapy Sam's rhetoric. However, he hit Wilberforce right between the eyes with his now famous reply: "I will answer your question, my Lord Bishop. An ape may seem to you to be a poor sort of creature, of low intelligence and stooping gait that grins and chatters as we pass. But I would rather have an ape for an ancestor than a man who is prepared to prostitute his undoubted gift of elegance and culture to the service of prejudice and falsehood.^,,—

Huxley's magic bullet not only felled Wilberforce, it mortally wounded the Church. In a matter of moments, the debate一as well as the monotheistic paradigm一was over. After nearly two thousand years of overseeing the course of humanity, the Church was forced to relinquish the torch of knowledge and, with it, control of Western civilization's basal paradigm. The future was now in the hands of scientific materialism.

A DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD ... NOT!

Prior to the 17th century, science viewed life as a harmonious process, one of the last vestigial beliefs of animism and its descendant, deism. But in the century before Darwin and in the years following his death, the cultural picture of Nature went from nurturing mother to violent jungle.

Largely, this change in image was based on erroneous conclusions derived from biased observations using distorted science. What we observe as violence in Nature is the result of both predator-prey relationships and rivalry over territory, food, and mates. However, the latter form of violence is rarely if ever fatal. Once dominance has been established and acknowledged in a territorial dispute, the defeated animal slinks away, still living. So it's most definitely not a dog-eat-dog world. Yes, it's a dog-eat-squirrel world and a dog-growl-at-dog world, but dogs just don't eat other dogs.

While we humans are, indeed, part of the web of life, we are, fortunately, perched atop the food chain. We no longer have natural predators and so, as more than one cynical philosopher has observed, we prey on one another. There is a distinct difference between the violence of hunting a deer, which is a natural process in the established web of life, and hunting a deer hunter, which is a behavior that falls far outside of Nature's inherent morality. Our fundamental preoccupation with violence as a way of life is truly a misinterpretation of Nature.

Whether by accident or design, the use of violence far predates Darwin as a lowest-common-dominator operating system, wherein might makes right. However, Darwinian theory offered humanity a scientific justification for inhumane actions, including individual violence and the collective use of force, especially if the latter helps eliminate the burgeoning, applecartupsetting lower class masses.

Darwinism also dealt the Church another low blow when it undermined the religious notion of morality in regard to justification of means and ends. In a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, Darwinian fitness is the ability of a population to maintain or increase its numbers in succeeding generations. Therefore, fitness through health or fit progeny represents an end. How we humans attain that end, be it through compassion or an Uzi, is entirely irrelevant.

In the end, Darwinian theory encouraged the "favoured races" to treat themselves to even more favorable treatment. Even worse, Darwinism gave tacit permission for each nation to advance its own "favoured race" at the expense of the whole. And so Darwinian theory delivered Western civilization from monotheism's laws of the scriptures to scientific materialism's law of the jungle. No rules or moral guidelines . . . just Darwinners and Darlosers.

While few people have actually read and understood Darwin's complete works, the phrase survival of the fittest is well known, but mostly misunderstood. The phrase isn't a scientific concept but a tautology, which is just a fancy way of defining what something is by stating what it is. For example, the dictionary defines the word fit, in biological terms, as being able to survive. When Darwinists invoke the mantra survival of the fittest, they are actually saying, "survival of those most able to survive." Well, yeah. But when fed into the human psyche, replete with images of lions chasing down gazelles, survival of the fittest takes on a more life-threatening, adrenaline- pumping significance.

However, if we take a look at the jungle, we find that the law of the jungle doesn't even apply there! When a lion takes off after a gazelle, the lion doesn't care about the fittest or capturing the one with the biggest antlers to

later be a suitable trophy in his den. In fact, she goes after the least fit because she's hungry and wants to be sure she gets something to eat. More precisely, the law of the jungle is actually the non-survival of the non-fittest. By definition, to survive, you don't need to be the fittest, all you need to be is —well, fit. In another way of looking at it, consider the percentage of gazelles that don 7 get eaten by a lion every day.

An evolutionary lesson in not being the weakest is humorously portrayed in the story of two campers in the woods who wake up to find a bear in their camp. One starts putting on his shoes, and the other says, "Why are you putting on your shoes? You can't outrun a bear." The first one says, "Who needs to outrun the bear? I only have to outrun you.^,,

THRIVAL OF THE FITTINGEST

As the path of humanity's evolution continues its swing toward a more balanced, holistic perception of life, we see that the new rules of quantum science apply to the theory of evolution as well.

Studies now emphasize that evolution occurs in the context of an environment一not separate from it. The progress of evolution can be seen as an environment constantly seeking to rebalance itself. For example, let's say organism #1 eats X in the environment and poops Y. As #l's population increases, its food source X necessarily diminishes, while its waste product Y simultaneously increases. While the loss of X and the buildup of Y throw the environment a little out of balance, the situation also provides an opportunity for the evolution of a new organism, #2, that thrives on eating Y and excreting Z. As #2's population increases, it causes the level Y to return to balance but at the cost of increasing the amount of Z in the environment, which, in turn, supports the future evolution of Z-eating organism #3. And so on, and so on. This is an oversimplified example and yet, as sophisticated systems theorists are showing us, it is, indeed, the case.

In his 1998 article in the prestigious journal Nature, British scientist Timothy Lenton provided important support for the Gaia hypothesis formulated by scientist, environmentalist, and futurist James Lovelock. Lovelock suggested that Earth, itself, is a living entity that uses evolution to regulate its own exceedingly complex metabolism. Lenton described how the sun has warmed by 25 percent since life on Earth began some 3.8 billion years ago, and, yet, the planet has somehow been able to regulate its climate and buffer that huge temperature differential. Lenton suggests that evolutionary traits that benefit the system as a whole tend to be reinforced, while those that alter or destabilize the environment in an unfavorable way are restrained.

Lenton concluded, “If an organism acquires a mutation that causes it to behave in an ^<anti-Gaian^, manner, its spread will be restricted in that it will be at an evolutionary disadvantage/— More to the point and applied to our current situation, Lenton is suggesting that if we humans don't find ways to evolve that are more harmonious with the planet, we may find ourselves homeless.

What we have failed to realize is that the real evolutionary principle is “thrival of the fittingest." Those organisms that best fit the environment by contributing and supporting global harmony get to thrive while the others— well...

THE ANSWERS LIE WITHIN

But, perhaps, the most cogent example of the real nature of life, the example that shows us the way out of the Malthusian dilemma of scarcity and points us in the direction of our next evolution, pertains to the origins and development of multicellular life forms on this planet.

Why is it, and how is it, that trillions of single-celled organisms were able to combine forces to become us?

To answer this question, we must remember that, for the first 3.8 billion years of life on this planet, the only life forms were single-celled organisms such as bacteria, algae, yeast, and protozoans.

Around 700 million years ago, cells started to assemble into primitive multicellular colonial organisms. By sharing information, new communal associations provided greater awareness of the surrounding environment and enhanced the life of their constituent cells. Simply, environmental awareness,

IS THE GENE THE KEY?

When Darwin put forth his heredity-based theory of evolution, the premise that traits were passed from parent to child made perfect practical sense to anyone who had ever bred animals: like begets like. Because the Newtonian view at the time emphasized the primacy of matter, it was seemingly assured that the secret of life would be encoded within the body's own molecules.

Based on the information available at the time, Darwin hypothesized that particulate gemmules, which programmed various physical and behavioral traits, were distributed throughout the body. During development, traitattributing gemmules would somehow coalesce in the germ cells—ggs and sperm—which, then, enabled them to be passed on to the next generation.

Newtonian materialistic logic implied that the germ cells carry physical determinants within their molecules that control the traits of organisms derived from those cells. Combine this concept with the basic Darwinian notion of natural selection一that is, the traits that endure tend to be those that enhance survival of the species—and post-Darwinian geneticists had a challenge on their hands: to discover the physical elements that encode hereditary traits, to describe how they work at the cellular level, and then to use that information to design “designer humans."

It took nearly one hundred years of dedicated research efforts for genetic scientists to substantiate the speculations of Darwin in regard to heredity. German cytologist Walther Flemming made the initial advance by identifying the material elements of heredity in 1882. Flemming was a microscopist and the first to describe mitosis, which is the process of cell division. In his study, Flemming emphasized the reproductive importance of thread-like filaments found in the cell's nucleus. Six years later, in 1888, German anatomist Heinrich Waldeyer coined the term chromosome to describe these heredityconferring filaments.

Shortly after the turn of the 19th century, American geneticist and embryologist Thomas Hunt Morgan became the first scientist to describe the rare event known as a genetic mutation when he found in his cultures of redeyed Drosophilia flies a white-eyed fly that was able to produce similar offspring. From his observations on this and other mutant fruit flies, Morgan deduced that the genetic factors that control hereditary traits are arranged along the chromosomes in a precise linear order.

Further chemical analysis revealed that chromosomes are composed of proteins and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). However, the question as to whether the genetic key was the protein or the DNA remained until 1944 when Rockefeller Institute researchers Oswald Avery, Colin McLeod, and Maclyn McCarty determined empirically that DNA was the molecule that encoded hereditary traits.-

Their experiment was both simple and elegant. They removed the chromosomes from bacteria species #1 and separated the DNA from the protein. Then they added either the isolated chromosomal protein or the chromosomal DNA into cultures of bacteria species #2. The results showed that when the DNA of species #1 was added into cultures of species #2, that species began to express traits that were specifically characteristic of species #1. In contrast, the addition of chromosomal proteins from species #1 did not have the ability to transform the traits of recipient species #2. While this study was the first to distinguish DNA as the heredity-controlling molecule, it did not offer any insight into how DNA accomplished this feat.

Interestingly, biologists were not at the forefront of the movement to uncover life's biggest little secret. Insight into the nature of DNA's mechanism was offered by the true mechanics of science一physicists. In his 1944 book, What is Life, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger introduced the idea that genetic information could theoretically be encoded in the configuration of molecular bonds within crystalline molecules.²

Schrodinger offered a well-reasoned theoretical prediction of what biologists should look for in their search for the genesis elements. Inspired by Schrodinger'smechanistic vision, molecular biologist James D. Watson and physicist Francis Crick initiated a collaboration that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of biology.

GENETIC DETERMINISM: THE DOGMA THAT
WOULDN'T HUNT

In 1953, Watson and Crick changed the course of human history when their article “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids" was published in the prestigious British scientific journal Nature. Working with x-ray crystallography, they found that the DNA molecule was a long linear strand assembled from four different types of molecular building blocks called nucleotide bases: adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine, which are abbreviated as A, T, G, and C. They also found that pairs of DNA strands assemble into double helices. Most importantly, they discovered that the sequence of A, T, G, and C bases along the length of the DNA molecule represented a code used to synthesize the body's protein molecules.

A gene, therefore, represents a length of DNA code that contains the nucleotide base sequences needed to make a specific protein. Protein molecules are the material building blocks of the cell and, as such, are responsible for an organism's physical and behavioral traits.

Based on the nature of the DNA coding mechanism, Francis Crick posited the concept known as the central dogma of molecular biology.³ This central dogma, which is also referred to as the primacy of DNA, defined the flow of information in biological systems. The ATGC base sequences of DNA represent information—xpressed as genes—that encodes a protein's structure. The cell makes the equivalent of a Xerox copy of a gene in the form of another type of nucleic acid called ribonucleic acid (RNA).

The RNA copy is the actual molecule physically employed to assemble the code into a protein molecule. Consequently, the information in the DNA is transcribed into RNA and then the information in the RNA is translated into protein molecules. Crick's central dogma mapped the flow of information in most biological systems as being one directional: from DNA to RNA to protein.

Because the original patterns for the trait-providing protein's structure are encoded in the DNA, this molecule was considered the primary determinant of our biological character. Hence, the central dogma, literally translates as DNA being the primary cause of our condition in life. Per Watson and Crick, the secret of life was finally reduced to molecular cascades that originate in the celfs nucleus by switching specific DNA genes on or off. This conclusion represented the epitome of biological reductionism—life emanates from material genes.

The central dogma became one of the most important tenets of modern science, one that significantly influenced the direction of genetic research for the next 50 years. The belief in a physical Newtonian world fully convinced biologists that life and its mechanisms were clearly the result of material interactions, akin to the old story of moving, interlocking gears within windup mechanical watches. Consequently, even before Watson and Crick were born, science had concluded that an assembly of physical molecules controls life. The only remaining question was, “Which molecules would it be?" When Watson and Crick reported their DNA results, the decision was a slam dunk: DNA molecules control life.

Scientists unquestionably accepted the central dogma's conclusions as true because they were already anticipating the result. Amazingly, biologists immediately adopted Crick's hypothesis even though its validity was never assessed. And it is both interesting and important to note that Crick referred to his DNA- RNA- Protein molecular information pathway hypothesis as dogma. By definition, the word dogma represents a “belief based upon religious persuasion and not scientific fact."

By adopting an unverified dogma and making it the very foundation of biomedicine, scientific materialism officially and ironically slipped into the realm of religion! The question as to whether or not modern science represents science or religion was now predicated on whether DNA actually controlled life. Before we go into every hotel room in the world and replace Gideon's Bible with a book on genetics, let's look into this question of the Primacy of DNA. Is it really true?

A key implication of Crick's central dogma is that hereditary information only flows in one direction, from the DNA to the proteins一DNA-RNA- Protein一and never goes in the opposite direction, which means, according to Crick, protein cannot influence the structure and activity of the DNA code. Here's the rub: the body that experiences life is made out of protein; because proteins cannot send information about life's experiences back to the DNA, then environmental information cannot change genetic destiny. This means that genetic information is disconnected from the environment.

The information flow predicated by the central dogma concretized the for the most ruthless excesses of social, commercial, industrial, and governmental Darwinism. Dawkins, a self-declared atheist, believes in neither a caring Creator nor a caring human. Unlike many humanists who don't believe in a personal God, he dismisses anything that is not purely deterministic, materialistic, and outright selfish.

If, according to Dawkins, survival equals success, then a metastasizing cancer is highly successful. Until, of course, it kills the host. But, by then, if we are to believe that our destiny is controlled by DNA, the selfish genes that caused the cancer have successfully established their survival by incorporating themselves into the genetic lineage of their host's offspring, in whom future copies of those genes are prepared to do the same thing again and again, thus creating more genetic determinism一to a cancerous degree.

From the standpoint of our planetary environment, it often appears that human enterprise has come to resemble that cancer, replicating and reproducing to the detriment of the environment as a whole. Now that we have developed space travel, we are preparing to survive by infecting other planetary systems while leaving our dear, dying Earth behind.

THE HUMAN GENOME

Meanwhile, the materialistic implications of genes as genesis led to one of the most ambitious scientific projects (and biggest disappointments) in the history of biology: the Human Genome Project.

The Human Genome Project (HGP) was launched in 1990 initially under the guidance of James Watson who headed the project on behalf of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Ostensibly, at least in the public's mind, HGP was an altruistic project with three main objectives: to identify the genetic basis of all human traits, both positive and negative; to create a research database and tools for data analysis to be shared with the biotechnical industry and the private sector; and to foster the development of new medical applications around the world.-

The thinking went like this. With over 100,000 proteins in the human body and with a gene blueprint needed to make each protein, there had to be at least that many human genes, right? The masterminds behind the HGP believed that, by making a compendium of all human genes, they could use that data to engineer a human utopia.

But lest Richard Dawkins be dismayed by the project's apparent humanitarian goals, there was an ulterior motive to the project as well. Genetic scientists had convinced venture capitalists that a fortune could be made by identifying the 100,000 genes that comprise the human genome. By patenting the nucleotide base sequence for each gene and then selling that information to drug companies for use in drug discovery, the investment would reap phenomenal returns.

But once again Nature, with cunning clarity, played a trick on those who would mine its secrets for financial gain.

Based on the misassumption that genes control an organism's traits, HGP profiteers expected that the more complex organisms would possess a greater number of genes. Therefore, as a precursor to the project, scientists sequenced the genes of simple organisms that have been traditionally employed in genetic research.

They found that bacteria, Nature's most primitive organisms, usually contained between 3,000 and 5,000 genes. Next, they discovered that a tiny, barely visible round worm, Cenorhabditias elegans, an organism with only 1,271 cells whose name is bigger than it is, had about 23,000 genes. So far, so good.

Moving up the complexity ladder, they then studied the more evolved fruit fly and surprisingly found it had only 18,000 genes. This conclusion did not make sense. How could the considerably more complex fruit fly have fewer genes than the simpler round worm? Undaunted, they embarked on the Human Genome Project.

When the complete human genome was assayed, the results were so underwhelming that what should have been a big fanfare came out as a weak bleating kazoo toot. We biologically complex humans, with our 50 trillion cells, have approximately 23,000 genes, almost the same number of genes found in the lowly round worm.-

The project's results were released in 2003, and the event was, nonetheless,

Male bonding among chimps and female bonding among bonobos provide another interesting contrast. In both species, adolescent females migrate to a new troop. Bonobo newcomer females immediately find one or two older females with which to rub genitalia, a behavior that creates a lasting bond between females in the troop and which encourages them to join together to prevent male bullying. In contrast, in conventional chimpanzee troops, bonding occurs primarily among males who then gang up on females, who are generally smaller than males. In bonobo troops, males and females are of comparable size, a factor that might also influence their gender equality.

However, those who study bonobos believe that environmental factors have kept this Garden of Eden chimp culture intact. As Dutch psychologist and primatologist Frans de Waal, author of Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape/ suggests, the bonobos have never left the protection of the forest.— Like other chimps, bonobos are omnivores that hunt and kill small animals. But unlike the other chimps, they are blessed with what another researcher, Gottfried Hohmann, called “bonobo power bars." In their natural habitat, bonobos find an abundant herb, haumania liebrechtsiana, a high-protein plant that has defied Malthus by persisting through hundreds upon hundreds of generations of hungry bonobos.—

Most chimps have to work hard to secure their food because vegetation in most chimp forests is high in tannins and other toxins designed to protect the plants from being eaten to death. Amidst the abundance of their power bars, bonobos waste little time securing food or having to fight over resources.

So what can humans learn from bonobos? While the idea of making love in the face of conflict is intriguing一it would certainly change our courtrooms, not to mention hockey games!一the real message is this: when resources are abundant, fighting becomes less necessary. And when fighting decreases, resources become more abundant.

This is an especially important insight in a world that spends more than one trillion dollars a year on weaponry that could be beaten into plowshares. As we will see later, when resources are diverted from protection to growth, the result is a big boost in health and prosperity一both within society and within the body.

Other questions we need ask ourselves are: If the peaceful bonobos can live in abundance and balance, and a troop of otherwise violent baboons can find they enjoy peace more than war, what can we sentient humans, who have far more resources at our disposal, accomplish? Are we going to continually assume powerlessness and deny responsibility while blaming dire personal and world conditions on selfish genes? Or are we willing to use our intelligence intelligently?

It would be sad, indeed, for creationists and evolutionists alike, if our primate cousins actually evolve past us!

IT'S NOT THE KARMA, ITS THE DRIVER

It seems that every week a medical article or study links one disease or another to a genetic defect. The cancer gene, the Alzheimer's gene, the Parkinson's gene are notions that feed the prevailing, stubborn belief that genetic determinism determines our fate. But when we delve deeper, we find that a relatively small percentage of illness actually can be attributed to genetic anomalies. Even as cancer researchers seek a magic bullet at the genetic level, the National Cancer Institute has determined that at least 60 percent of cancers originate from environmental causes.当

Probing deeper yet, we find that even when a close correlation exists between an environmental factor and a disease, relatively few of those exposed to the environmental factor actually contract the disease. A study some years ago revealed that when chronically exposed to asbestos, 1 in 1,000 people contracted mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer. While this is an alarmingly high rate compared to the general population, the unasked questions are: What about the other 99.9 percent who are exposed but don't get the disease? What, if anything, are they doing or not doing that keeps them healthy? What other factors are involved in the expression of disease?

Modern medical science seems curiously incurious about the intangible and invisible characteristics of illness and healing. Thanks to 300 years of programming and the effects of the central dogma on modern medicine, we have come to see ourselves as biochemical robotic vehicles. When something is amiss, when we are experiencing symptoms, we cruise over to our local medical mechanic who tells us to stick out our tongue and say "aaah" and

Mason's first hypnosis session focused on one arm. When the boy was in a hypnotic trance, Mason told him that the skin on that arm would heal and turn into healthy, pink skin. When the boy came back a week later, Mason was gratified to see that the arm looked healthy. But when Mason brought the boy around to Moore, the surgeon's eyes became wide with astonishment when he saw the boy's arm.

It was then that Moore told Mason the boy was suffering, not from warts, but from an incurable and lethal genetic disease called congenital ichthyosis erythroderma. By reversing the symptoms using only the power of the mind, Mason and the boy had accomplished what had until that time been considered impossible. Mason continued the hypnosis sessions with further stunning results, and the boy, who had been mercilessly teased in school because of his grotesque skin, returned to his classes with healthy skin and went on to lead a normal life.

Mason published his case study in the British Medical Journal, one of the world's most widely read medical journals.— Word of his success spread, and Mason became a magnet for patients suffering from the rare, heretofore- incurable and lethal disease. But hypnosis was, in the end, not a cure-all. Mason treated many other ichthyotic patients, but he was never able to replicate the results he had had with the boy.

Mason attributed his failure to his own belief about the treatment. After the first patient, Mason was fully aware that he was treating what everyone in the medical establishment knew to be a congenital, incurable disease. Mason tried to pretend that he was upbeat, but he was not able to replicate his cocky attitude as a young physician who thought he was treating a bad case of warts. As he told the Discovery Health Channel in regard to his later patients, “I was acting? —

When we consider the astounding power of belief—and disbelief~to affect physical conditions, we must ask: "Might beliefs held in the mind be an area of untapped healing potential?" Put another way: "Could the power of belief produce results without costly drug trials, hugely expensive hospital facilities, or even medical insurance?ⁿ

As we will see, there are those who say that this potential for impacting the invisible field is inherent in human culture and might even be in一are you to a changing environment一per Lamarck.

We now know that stressed, non-dividing bacteria can purposely engage a unique error-prone DNA-copying enzyme to make mutated copies of genes associated with a particular dysfunction. Through this process of generating genetic variants, the organism attempts to create a more functional gene that will allow it to overcome the environmental stressors. Think of this mutation mechanism as a sloppy photocopy machine that intentionally makes mistakes.

Using this DNA-synthesizing enzyme to produce a large number of randomly mutated gene copies enables cells to accelerate their mutation rate in order to enhance their survival. Referred to as somatic hypermutation一 rapid or excessive alterations of the genes in cells that form the physical body 一this mechanism, which purposefully generates random mutations, represents the Darwinian part of the process.

The stressed bacteria end up with a large number of duplicated genes, each expressing a different variation of the genetic code. When one of these gene variants is able to produce a protein product that can effectively resolve the organism's stress, the bacterium cuts the original ineffective gene out of its chromosome and replaces it with the newly minted version. This is the Lamarckian part of the mechanism, the step in which an instructive interaction between the environment and the cell leads to the selection of the best version of the new gene.

Cairns^, work and subsequent studies introduced the reality that organisms not only adapt to an environment but that they intentionally change their genetics to enhance the adaptation of future generations. In other words, science is coming to realize that evolution is not simply an accident of blindly rolling Darwinian dice but a coordinated Lamarckian dance between an organism and its environment, a dynamic process in which organisms can continuously adapt to stressful circumstances.

Technologists have already taken advantage of this mutation mechanism by engineering bacteria to digest oil spills or to extract certain minerals from raw ore. Meanwhile, medical science has also been confounded and outmaneuvered by this same genetic mechanism that enables microbes to learn how to become resistant to our most powerful antibiotics.

So in regard to the question, “Does evolution occur by intention, or does evolution occur by chance?" the answer is a resounding "yes!" As with so much we are now learning, polar opposites, such as intention and chance, appear to operate simultaneously. Without getting too anthropomorphic— bacteria hate it when we do that—it would seem that bacteria have an intention to survive.

In fact, all life forms exhibit this inherent drive, which biologists identified as the will to survive. At the cellular level, this survival mechanism can unleash a cascade of random mutations until one hits the jackpot. No matter how many times these Caimsian experiments have been repeated, researchers have found no consistent pattern within the DNA sequences of the successful mutations. So, in that regard, the process is random.

And, yet, it's not. Consider the interesting parallel between the process of hypermutation and the human endeavor of brainstorming. Imagine a group trying to come up with a name for a new product. By the rules of brainstorming, ideas are thrown out at random and put up on a board without editing or judgment. The brainstorming process allows for many supposedly wrong answers before someone suggests a name that resonates with everyone. Even though no one knows if five, ten, or one hundred ideas will be listed before the right one shows up, this eureka! is the expected一or intended一eventuality. And numerous different brainstorming groups, given the same task, will likely each take a different random path to ultimately reach the best possible resolution.

So, yes, evolution is a random process, but the randomness seems to have a purposeful destination. How do we know? Because in the case of the bacteria, when the appropriate adaptive mutation is found, the process stops. It's like the witticism: why do you always find a lost item in the last place you look? Because when you find it, you stop looking.

IN PRAISE OF TYPING MONKEYS

Applying pure randomness to the origin of life only makes sense in a purely material world where the notion of causative fields is ruled irrelevant. In this regard, recall the difference in appearance between iron filings haphazardly strewn on a sheet of paper and the patterned arrangement of those influenced by an invisible magnetic field. Is it possible that a similar influential field is involved with shaping single-celled organisms into elegant and coherent forms such as a tree, a dog, or one of us? Who or what told those cells what to do in order to do that?

As we've already learned, physics acknowledges that the nonmaterial field is, in fact, the sole governing agency of matter, which, of course, includes cells and people. So what, or possibly who, governs the field? Perhaps, as the greatest minds in quantum physics have historically remarked, we will soon discover that the Universe, like Descartes, thinks and, therefore, is. Perhaps we will come to realize that thoughts一more than inherited traits— o, indeed, manifest our reality.

However, for people who don't consider themselves creationists, questions regarding the origin of life and the biosphere must be predicated on the dynamics of a random Universe in which we humans somehow acquired our current form purely by chance. Unfortunately, dogmatic worship of the god of meaninglessness is just as disempowering as dogmatic belief in a God who is all-controlling. In either case, we surrender our power to something completely outside ourselves.

In a Universe derived from randomness and meaninglessness, the selfish gene would surely thrive. Why? First, because the moral authority inherent in a loving, harmonic presence in the Universe would be missing. Second, because, if there is no purpose to anything, it would certainly be permissible to create yourself as number one in order to justify treating everyone and everything else as number two.

Having bought into the ultimate realization that our Universe is an impersonal machine and that we were assembled accidentally, it is no wonder humans seem so docile when the machine commands that we compete, consume, be quiet, and obey. By telling ourselves, subliminally and audibly, that life is meaningless, we allow machine consciousness to transform our desire for personal improvement into some sort of naive idealism. Over the past two postmodern generations, apathy and cynicism have become hip. These attitudes have squelched our quest for betterment, kept us from awakening to our positive role in the co-evolution of the planet, and blinded

The difference between randomness and chaos is readily distinguished in the following scenario: imagine looking down on the main floor of New York's Grand Central Station at the busiest time of day. Throngs of people seem to be hurrying and scurrying in a random fashion, and yet, with very few exceptions, each individual has a specific destination. Had we access to the universal intelligence to read each person's mind, we would understand the purposefulness behind each of their stops, starts, and changes in direction. While appearing random, the traffic flow is actually chaotic because every individuaFs movement is based on an inherent plan.

However, imagine what would happen if, in the midst of that rush hour traffic, someone were to yell, “FIRE!" At that moment, chaos would instantly transform into random pandemonium as people fled in all directions without really knowing where they're going.

The terms randomness and chaos, along with order, can be used to describe organizational complexity within a system. As illustrated below, randomness and order represent polar extremes with chaos as the midpoint of organizational structure.

In this continuum of life, randomness and order are on the extremes, with chaos as the midpoint. On a scale of predictability, uncertainty relates to randomness, and determinismrelates to order.

System Organization

Randomness

Random systems are rife with uncertainty and, therefore, cannot support life because they lack the organization needed to provide a regulated and integrated physiology.

At the other extreme, life cannot arise out of a rigid crystalline system because it does not offer the dynamism necessary for living organisms. As with Goldilocks and the Three Bears, life requires a system that is just right 一and finds it in the fertile predictability of dynamic, controllable chaos. antibody proteins did not exist in their specialized form prior to the vaccination. Rather, they were shaped through the same adaptive process of somatic hypermutation described above. Scientists specifically direct the mutation of an antibody gene and, in the process, control the immune system's evolution. Similarly, industrial microbiologists shape evolution when they introduce bacteria into specific environments in order to generate mutant forms that can digest oil spills and other contaminating toxins.

Working from the assumption of a deterministic Universe, MIT professor Edward Lorenz, an early pioneer in chaos theory, designed his own weather toy in 1960 using a set of relatively simple Newtonian physics equations. His goal was to mathematically model weather systems in order to make weather prediction more scientifically accurate. When Lorenz programmed the computer to solve his equations to an accuracy of seven decimal places, the printouts revealed a consistently predictable model.

However, Lorenz's most significant discovery came when he was pressed for time and he rounded off his data to four decimal places in order to speed processing time. On this particular run, the computer printed out a completely different result than what he had come to expect. In changing his data by less than a thousandth of a unit, Lorenz ended up with a vastly different conclusion. He observed that what appears to be an infinitesimal difference at start up could make all the difference in the world in regard to the result.

By using the rounded values, Lorenz accidentally stumbled on the concept of sensitivity, one of the most important insights concerning inherent behavioral patterns in complex dynamic systems. Sensitivity emphasizes that extremely small differences in initial conditions can lead to major consequences that are perceived as random changes. Consequently, much of what we have come to attribute to random events actually turns out to be quite predictable—if there is enough sensitivity in acquiring initial data.—

Lorenz's concept has become popularly known as the Butterfly Effect, which states, "A butterfly stirring the air today in Beijing can transform storm systems next month in New York." While such phenomena may be hard to imagine, Lorenz's discovery actually tells us that dynamic systems, which include weather patterns, ocean currents, and the evolution of the biosphere, while appearing to behave randomly are actually deterministic and, therefore,

predictable.—

GOD THROWS DICE ... AND THEY'RE NOT
LOADED: WERNER HEISENBERG

Before you bet the farm on a vision of a deterministic Universe, it is necessary to temper that surety with a little insight from the eminent quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg. The classical view, put forward by Laplace, was that the future motion of particles was completely determined, if one knew their positions and velocities at one time.— This view had to be modified when Heisenberg's uncertainty principle revealed that it was not possible to accurately know both a particle's position and its speed because, in measuring one parameter, the observer distorts the other.

The uncertainty principle contradicts the surety implied in Newtonian determinism. Quantum mechanics does not negate Newtonian determinism; it does, however, temper it with the quality of probability. While one may never be able to accurately predict the future, with enough information the probability of a guess being correct can be extremely high.

For millennia, humans have observed that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. One could predict that on a Monday one year from now, the sun will again rise in the east and set in the west. The odds for that are so good that no one is likely to bet against that feat of prognostication. However, although it's an improbable reality, a comet could hit Earth before then and cause the planet to spin in the reverse direction. The significance of our story is that the future is based on probability, not on surety. Einstein, very uncomfortable with the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, chose to believe that ^uGod does not play dice with the Universe.”

Darwinian theory emphasizes that evolution occurs through a series of infinitely gradual transformations over eons of time wherein one species evolves into another. In contrast, paleontologists Gould and Eldredge verified that evolution actually results from long periods of stability that are periodically interrupted by catastrophic upheavals. In the wake of each catastrophe, extinctions are followed by an explosive increase in the number of new species. The rapid origin and evolution of the new species occurs at a externalized, and eternalized: violence has been declared a character of human nature for now and forever.

Human Nature or Inhuman Nature?

A major flaw in the mythos of an evil human nature becomes apparent when anthropologists assess prehistoric cultures and find quite the opposite is true. In her important contribution The Chalice and the Blade macro-historian Riane Eisler cites remarkable discoveries by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas of prehistoric societies in which no weapons were unearthed among thousands of discovered artifacts.—

Furthermore, as British archaeologist James Mellaart discovered in his excavations of the Neolithic site at Catal Huyuk, in what is now Turkey, early agrarian societies appear to have been egalitarian. Mellaart found that the sizes of their houses, the contents inside, and the funerary gifts buried in graves indicate few, if any, differences in class hierarchy and social status.—

As Eisler emphatically points out, these societies were not matriarchies, but egalitarian cultures. The title of her book, The Chalice and the Blade, comes from the distinction between the chalice, which is the vessel that represents life-generating and nurturing feminine powers, and the blade, which represents masculine rule.

Modern conventional wisdom would have us believe that, in a one-on-one, chalice-versus-sword contest, the smart money would be on the sword because, apparently at some point, sword-bearing warriors would overrun self-sustaining chalice-sharing cultures. However, as we are discovering, survival and thrival of our planet may yet depend on reawakening, revitalizing, and reinstating the nurturing chalice paradigm.

Unfortunately, in the wake of civilization's trek into materialism, that chalice has become dry. The rise of the sword and the loss of the chalice have been encouraged by society's two most recent basal paradigms, monotheism and scientific materialism, each of which has clearly valued the yang over the yin, the active over the passive, and the masculine over the feminine. The cost of this imbalance is so steep that it now threatens the very existence of our species.

Let's return for a moment to America's Founding Fathers. When Ben Franklin and his peers adopted the political structure of the Iroquois Nations, they left out one key element of Native American culture that would never have been accepted by their own tribe. As far as we know, no one ever proposed that Betsy, Martha, and Dolly serve on a Council of Grandmothers. As enlightened as our founders were and even though they embodied the feminine in the Declaration of Independence by declaring their respect and understanding for “the laws of Nature and Nature's God," the idea of actually handing women the moral authority to approve war or impeach chiefs was inconceivable—clearly the consequence of a European bias, not to mention nearly 5,000 years of discounting and disempowering the feminine.

From Lamb-o to Rambo

Yet, consider the consequences of a culture devoid of feminine power. Remember the bonobo chimps we talked about in Chapter 7, It's in Your Genes ? Unlike other chimp societies in which males bond and bully smaller males and females, bonobo females bond with each other and, in the process, eliminate communal bullying altogether. It's not that the females dominate the males, but rather that they use their collective solidarity to counterbalance male power.

In The Real Wealth of Nations, Riane Eisler offers an enlightening quote from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an American social activist and leading figure in the early women's rights movement: "The world has never yet seen a truly virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at the source/— That poison can be seen and felt in present- day American society where meanness is not only tolerated, but also cultivated so that the meek really don't stand a chance. Poor Jesus. If he returned now, he wouldn't recognize himself. Over the last two centuries, the religious right has managed to transmogrify his image from Lamb-o to Rambo. From Biblical accounts, we know that Jesus actually embodied a balance of masculine and feminine traits. Jesus was forceful enough to overturn the moneychangers' tables, steadfast enough to endure crucifixion, and yet he preached love and blessed the peacemakers. In contrast, those Christians who adopt the “God, Guns, and Guts" posture spend more energy indicates that it was as much about protecting America's empire in the Pacific Ocean as anything else.

The same American empire also contributed to the Nazis' rise to power in the first place. The German war machine was fueled by American industry and financed, in part, by American bankers including Averell Harriman and Prescott Bush, the father of U.S. President George H. W. Bush and grandfather of U.S. President George W. Bush,—

At the end of World War II, the United States emerged as the world's predominant super power. Unlike European states and nations of the Far East, the American mainland had suffered no bombing, no invasion, and no damage to its infrastructure. But perceived peace and tranquility was short lived because on July 14, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb. America's response to that event launched the Cold War and set the U.S. on a karmic course that has led us to where America is today—armed to the teeth, ten trillion dollars in debt, and feeling less safe than ever.

That atomic test, plus the fact that the U.S. had actually used two atomic bombs to kill 220,000 Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, created a tension unlike any that the world had ever borne. It was one thing for soldiers to battle soldiers with clubs, spears, or bayonets, and quite another for a mindless leader or reckless general to press a button and unleash a global nuclear holocaust. Or, as Albert Einstein succinctly stated, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

So, let's look at the decision factors facing post-World War II President Harry S. Truman. Shortly after the war, aircraft manufacturers wrote letters to colleagues in the State Department, expressing their concern about their own economic fate in a postwar economy. State Department officials then convinced Truman that pumping money into military industry would avert another Great Depression.— Not that the convincing involved much debate. According to Noam Chomsky, "It wasn't really a debate because it was settled before it started, but the issue was at least raised一should the government pursue military spending or social spending?^,—

Meanwhile, when it came to drafting policy, Truman was receiving conflicting advice from two of Secretary of State Dean Acheson's key

advisers. One, George Kennan, had developed a reputation as an anticommunist diplomat assigned to the Soviet Union, but he did not see that nation as a military threat to the United States. Kennan concluded that the Soviet Union, under the rule of Joseph Stalin, was struggling to rebuild after the war and had no expansionist aims, and these facts were confirmed by CIA National Intelligence Estimates.—

The other adviser, Paul Nitze, had been a Wall Street investment banker and believed the key to America's economic and political security lay in creating a military-industrial state. On October 11, 1949, less than three months after the Soviets exploded their bomb, Kennan presented his view that the United States should forge an agreement with the Soviet Union that neither state would ever use the weapons. On that very same day, Nitze presented his own viewpoint. He said it would be "necessary to lower rather than raise civilian standards of living in order to produce arms."如

In early 1950, Truman directed Paul Nitze to fashion an elaborate blueprint for a Cold War economy. The document was titled "NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security." And the rest is history一a sad history sustaining a precedent set by a document Nitze later called ^appropriate for the mind of 195O.^,，2i

According to the aptly named illustrated expose ^uAddicted to War," written by college professor Joel Andreas, since 1948, the U.S. has spent $15 trillion on the military-industrial complex, an amount of money greater than the value of all the factories, machinery, roads, bridges, water and sewage systems, airports, railroads, power plants, office buildings, shopping centers, schools, hospitals, hotels, and houses in the country added together.—

And for those of you who want to zero in on what $15 trillion looks like to an accountant, well, it's a number with a lot of Os and commas— $15,000,000,000,000. That will buy a lot of bullets!

No wonder things seem a tad out of balance.

Gobble-ization

Undoubtedly, there are forces who seek to destroy American power, but

But the alliance between money and power has an even darker side. Perkins explained, “Economic hit men are sent in first with plenty of money to grease the wheels." If the officials in question turn down the so-called opportunity, the situation is then “explained to them^,, by the other hit men, that is, CIA- sanctioned assassins whom Perkins called “the jackals.^,^—

What might George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin think about U.S. participation in this turn of events? Would they wonder how a populace of free men and women could possibly turn their precious rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness over to the jackals?

Well, it happened at a very vulnerable moment in U.S. history. Emerging from the horror of World War II, goaded by the fear of communism, and kept in even greater fear by bomb shelter drills and threats of nuclear war, the American people were leveraged into agreeing to a mutual-denial pact. In a precursor to the U.S. military's policy of "don't ask, don't tell" in regard to sexual orientation of its soldiers, the public promised not to ask what was being done to keep them safe, and the government promised not to tell them.

In no way do we mean to suggest that totalitarian Marxist regimes were not a genuine threat. The most conservative estimates are that 20 million Russians died for political reasons during the Stalin regime and twice that many Chinese during the reign of Chairman Mao Tse-tung in China. But hiding behind those Marxist threats and taking unfair advantage of their manufactured fears were those same profiteers who have benefited from all wars.

So what is the good news? The good news is that no person or society has ever restored disease and disorder to ease and order without first acknowledging and diagnosing the malady's existence. As spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle wrote in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, “The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness.”四

Congratulations! You have now taken the first small, but necessary, step toward healing一recognizing that something is wrong. Next, we will visit one very sick situation in which healing has already begun to occur.

 

regulate the level of cholesterol in the blood. Over the last decade or two, increasing pressure has been put on the public to have their cholesterol levels measured and to do something about them if they are elevated above the FDA's guidelines. High cholesterol levels are a potent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which can ultimately lead to unwanted and potentially fatal events, such as heart attack and stroke.

When first introduced, statins, which include brand medications such as Lipitor, Crestor, and Zocor, were prescribed primarily to people with heart disease. Over time, advertising to the public and heavy marketing to medical professionals have led us to believe that statins are appropriate for all people. As a result, statins have become a $20 billion a year worldwide market. While a huge stash of cash has been made on these drugs, is the touted lifesaving reputation of statins really deserved?

An editorial in the premier medical journal The Lancet presented results of eight heart disease prevention trials that revealed statin therapy was not effective in reducing overall risk of death. The study found that risk of cardiovascular events was only minimally reduced by statin therapy. The data revealed that 67 individuals would need to be treated for five years for just one medical event to be prevented. One of the most startling findings of this review was that there was no apparent statin benefit seen in women of any age.—

In addition to their ineffectiveness, statins are quite dangerous. For example, the warning that comes with a prescription for the statin drug Zocor is 19 pages long, and, of course, it is all in fine print! The information is so lengthy that most users, as well as the doctors writing prescriptions, never read it.

Why is the fact that statin drugs are shown to be largely ineffective and potentially dangerous for the majority of people who take them ignored by medical authorities? Could it be politics and money? In 2004, the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), an expert panel assembled by the National Institute of Health, recommended that previously acceptable levels of cholesterol be lowered.

A scientific assessment of the NCEP's recommendations, subsequently published in the “Annals of Internal Medicine" in 2006, revealed: "we found was impressed by the war propaganda created by that committee and with the newly emerging mass media's power to persuade and influence. In addition to the official advertising slogan, “Making the world safe for democracy, World War I propagandists gave us the classic poster that depicts a menacing German soldier and the caption, “Beat Back the Hun with Liberty Bonds.ⁿ—

Propaganda poster that helped sell the American public on World War I

 

 

An important part of every war is to dehumanize the foe to such an extent that killing them is of no greater consequence than stepping on a roach.

The CPI invented atrocities and recycled lies from previous wars. They understood, as present day purveyors of negative political ads know, that negative ads and stories are powerful because they mobilize an inner rage about anything and everything then focus that rage on a handy human target. That's why America engaged in a Cold War against the "Red Commies," and fought hot wars against the vile “Huns," "Japs," "Slopes," "Gooks," and “Rag Heads.”

After the war, Bemays turned his attentions to the problems of peace. In his book Propaganda, he wrote, "It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind."急 Bemays would have called himself a progressive, but nonetheless considered the masses a “herd that needed to be led" and wrote frankly about his mission to "control the masses without their knowing about it? —

Have you seen a woman light up a cigarette lately? You can thank the genius of Edward Bernays for that, too. In the 1920s, a woman smoking was considered to be scandalous. Recognizing an untapped market in changing times, American Tobacco Company, the makers of Lucky Strike, hired Bernays to do something about it. Bernays, always a great self-promoter, called the result one of the greatest PR events of the century.

For the 1929 Easter Parade in New York and elsewhere, Bernays hired attractive young debutantes to parade as suffragettes while smoking, thus associating the modern and then-rebellious act of smoking with being fashionable and freedom-loving. Newspapers and newsreels ate this up, and it stood as a turning point in the acceptance of women as smokers. To Bemays^, credit, however, once the toxic effects of smoking were known, he led the lobbying effort—unsuccessfully—to get the Public Relations Society of America to agree not to work on behalf of tobacco companies.应

One thing Bernays was not apologetic for, however, was his campaign a generation later on behalf of the United Fruit Company. He was hired by that company in 1951 to help them with a problem in Guatemala. The problem? Democracy. Newly elected president Jacobo Arbenz had vowed to initiate land reform, thus returning national wealth to the citizens of Guatemala. As the largest landowner in Guatemala, United Fruit took exception to even the most moderate reforms and hired Bernays to lobby the U.S. government on their behalf.—

Clearly believing his own propaganda, he framed the new Guatemalan government as a "Communist menace." In reality, President Arbenz was not a Communist; he was a reformer who vowed in his inauguration speech to turn Guatemala into a "modern capitalist country /— Nonetheless, Bernays arranged junkets for journalists to visit Guatemala, at United Fruit's expense, continuously employ impaired judgment and reasoning would be operationally defined as being insane.

In a collective culture, judgments and reasoning are predicated on the perceived truths of the basal paradigm. Consequently, if the paradigmatic beliefs of a culture were untrue or flawed, then the population that knowingly operated under those faulty beliefs would collectively express unsound judgments and reasoning. In such a case, an entire population can be technically judged to be insane.

For example, let's say you hold an old belief that you are genetically destined to contract breast or prostate cancer. In light of today's new knowledge of epigenetics and psychoneuroimmunology, the reasoning you used to reach that conclusion would be deemed unsound― r totally insane. Fortunately, your condition would only be a temporary insanity because, with an awareness of how environment, personal perceptions, and lifestyle influence genetic activity and the immune system, you would be afforded the opportunity to actively influence and manage your health.

As illustrated in this example, cultural myth-perceptions can be personally disempowering and can lead to the collective insanity that currently threatens our survival. As we've suggested, however, civilization's insanity is only a temporary state, based on conditioning. As the population becomes aware of new-edge science's revisions of the Four Myth-Perceptions of the Apocalypse, they will be offered an opportunity to use judgment and reasoning that are more harmonious and supportive of our individual and collective survival.

Quantum physics reveals that despite our unconscious Newtonian belief in separation, which would have us believe one particle is a separate entity from another particle, everything in the Universe is actually connected in ways we can hardly imagine. The things we think of as solid and tangible, like matter and time, are nothing more than a set of relationships that only seem to become reality when experienced through our perceptions.

As we will see shortly, the patterns of Nature and, indeed, the patterns of the Universe repeat themselves at different levels of complexity. This means that our health doesn't end at our skin or, for you more metaphysical folks, at the outer edge of the aura. Just as there are 50 trillion cells in our bodies, each of us is a cell in the body of humanity. As above, so below. Healthy cells, healthy organs, healthy organisms, healthy organizations, healthy biosphere. Now, those are consequences of primal sanity.

Sanity cannot exist in an isolated pocket that conveniently denies the presence of the rest of the world. True sanity must face and embrace the insanity of today's world and, in the process, offer to the temporarily insane a new awareness and a pathway to achieve harmony.

As we encourage outbreaks of sanity everywhere, we add more power to a coherent morphogenetic field that has already begun to change the shape of the world. A new operating principle for a sane world might be this: life is a cooperative journey among powerful individuals who can program themselves to create joy-filled lives.

To take the connection theme a step further, sanity is about integrating opposites rather than taking refuge in one polarity or the other. Imagine living life with only half your wits about you! No wonder our institutions seem so half-witted. Sanity means full-wittedness, and that means bringing forth the holism hidden in the dueling dualities. For example, we may need to return to real old-time religion, a path that only makes sense when we evaluate the root meaning of the word religion.

As British political writer David Edwards points out in his book, Burning All Illusions the word religion derives from the Latin religare, which means "to bind together." The joining character of ligare is expressed in the word ligament, the structure that binds muscle to bone. While traditionally this binding has been linked to obligation一and some would say bondage— Edwards chooses a more sane interpretation. To him, religare means to rejoin the individual with society, the world, and the cosmos. This fundamental meaning of religion has nothing to do with a personal god, theology, or dogma. It is, above all, a term that implies coherent connection, a connection that doesn't necessarily require a priestly intercessor.²

Unfortunately, this deeper meaning of religion got buried under a pile of dogma-doo. Any spiritual or philosophical ligaments that remained to connect humanity to the world and cosmos were severed when scientific materialism superseded monotheism.

Instead of extracting the loving wisdom from both earthly and theistic

Reframing sin as learning creates compassion for ourselves and for others. It allows us to focus on the consequences of our lessons, take responsibility, and then take better aim.

Evolution of human culture, as well as individual humans, is a lot like the trial-and-error process employed by bacteria. Each step, whether we judge it as a brilliant breakthrough or a devastating error, is a mutation along the evolutionary pathway. Consider that Thomas Edison was only successful in inventing the light bulb through the process of trial and error. We move from victims to conscious participants when we learn from our errors and then apply our wisdom to act accordingly.

Alternative 3. Move from Victim to Free and Willing Participant: Princeton physicist John Wheeler, a colleague of Albert Einstein, when wrestling with the concept of humankind's role in the world came to this conclusion: "We had this old idea there was a universe out there, and here is man the observer safely protected from the universe by a six-inch slab of plate glass. Now we learn from the quantum world that even to observe so miniscule an object as an electron we have to shatter that plate glass . . . so the old word observer simply has to be crossed off the books, and we must put in the new word participator.'咀

Through these words, Wheeler is telling us that the implications of quantum physics emphasize that we create reality through our perceptions.

Extending Wheeler's notion to its logical conclusion reveals that no particular future is a certainty. There are some future scenarios that are probabilities and many more that are mere possibilities. The entangled field we all create with our collective thoughts influences all potential outcomes. What theologians identified as free will really represents our power as cocreating participants.

Ours is not a top-down Universe where reality is predetermined and dictated from on high, but a bottom-up Universe where collective thoughts assemble until they have the coherence to create one reality—r another. As a pertinent example, the dire condition known as Armageddon is neither an eventuality nor inevitability; it's a choice. If enough people on the planet believe Armageddon will happen, then, either directly or indirectly, they will likely find a way to make it happen. However, the same is true for the

alternative reality of "Disarmageddon," if enough people choose that future.

So does God or some Divine Presence have any influence in this world? Theologian David Ray Griffin suggested that there is, indeed, a divine influence—and it emanates from our own hearts. Through our own free willingness to express love一through the simple practice of the Golden Rule —a loving God is made manifest on Earth. We don't even have to know what this loving God looks like or if He or She or It exists somewhere out there.

The hellish manifestation of the Holocaust, as well as the countless examples of collective compassion it inspired, are all expressions related to human choices. What we call the Messiah一“the promised and expected deliverer”一may be a do-it-yourself project, not a done deal from above. It comes down to what we collectively choose. As theologian Griffin said, “God is persuasive, not coercive.'哇

Alternative 4. Move from Separation to Connection: The Buddhists describe loving participation in the world as compassion, a word that is often misunderstood by the Western mind. We tend to think of compassion as a nice sentiment, like taking the time to feel bad about people hwo are starving somewhere. But in the Buddhist tradition, compassion is far more sophisticated in that it shows a deep understanding of both quantum physics and cellular biology.

In her book A Call to Compassion, Aura Glaser refers to compassion as the ''practice of enlightenment." In other words, enlightenment is something we cultivate in daily life based on a sane understanding of the world and our relationship to it. The Bodhisattva, one dedicated to awakening heart and mind, Glaser said, cultivates the “two-pronged mind,^,, the understanding that love of self and love of others are one and the same. "Compassion," she wrote, "is an expression of human freedom, flowing from a sound intuition of the unity of life and all living things/-

As we will see, this understanding of the relatedness of all things, as well as acting from that relatedness, offers the key to spontaneous evolution. Writer and lecturer Gregg Braden, author of The Divine Matrix, traveled to Tibet in search of a way to connect quantum physics and ancient wisdom. Through a translator, he asked the head of a Buddhist monastery, “What connects us with one another, our world, and our universe? What is the 'stuff' that travels beyond our bodies and holds the world together?'坦

The geshe, or teacher, answered in only six words: "Compassion is what connects all things.ⁿ The next day, another monk further clarified this statement. "Compassion,” he said, “is both a force in the universe as well as a human experience.^,，9 In other words, compassion is both the field and the intention we put into that field.

To Buddhists, the freely willing choice of any individual to act in a particular way directly impacts humanity as a whole. The reverberation of our actions through time and space is called karma. The perception of selflessness sometimes associated with Buddhist compassion is actually a divine selfishness where two selves are served simultaneously. There is the small self of the individual and the greater Self of collective existence. This ancient belief fully conforms to our evolving awareness that each individual human is a sentient cell in the body of humanity and must simultaneously act in the self-interest of the individual and of the whole system. No wonder Glaser refers to Bodhisattvas as "citizens of the universe."—

Science has brought the world untold gifts. The fact that Gregg Braden and other citizens of Western civilization have been able to board an airplane and visit an ancient culture half a world away is only one example of the benefits of technology. While many shun technology, we see it is an inherent and fundamental element of evolution, Consider the fact that cells, in creating the human body, developed many technologies that are far more sophisticated than those yet derived from modern science.

The true wisdom dawning today is the realization that science devoid of spirit is limited. We must honor and acknowledge humanity's technological prowess. However, more importantly, we must also embrace our individual and collective power of compassion in order to use technology more wisely and with appropriate humility. This insight is illuminated in the classic scenario in which a scientist climbs the Mountain of Knowledge, finally reaches the top and sees Buddha quietly sitting at the peak.

“What are you doing here?" asks the scientist.

^uWhat took you so long?,^, replies the Buddha, smiling.

personal good fortune in isolation. It makes no sense to have a congruent life but not a congruent world. In fact, it's time for the self-empowerment movement to take an emergent leap front and center to test spiritual principles in collective reality.

Some 80 years ago, a 32-year-old would-be businessman stood ready to end his life. He had gone bankrupt, had failed at every venture, and had come to believe that his wife and family—and the world一would be better off without him. As he contemplated throwing himself into Lake Michigan, a wild thought crossed his mind. It seemed like a waste to throw away his life. Because he was about to discard it anyway, why not donate his life to science? Why not give his life to the world and live it as a scientific experiment?

That young man was Buckminster Fuller, and he lived another 55 years after that epiphany. He became a noted inventor and philosopher who gave the world the geodesic dome and the concept of Spaceship Earth. Perhaps in his life there is a cue for the rest of us. Maybe we are given our lives not just to live them, but to donate them to the world in a grand experiment to see if, together, we can achieve thrival. Like the bacteria's race against time, the human race is racing, too. The question is, “Will we achieve critical mass before we reach critical massacre?”

If the physicists are right, the only thing we can be certain of is uncertainty. Reality doesn't happen until we decide to make it happen through our collective beliefs. But we can be certain of our own loving intention. Our grand experiment involves applying that loving intention in our lives and our world. Put another way, the best way to accept the uncertainty in the world is with certainty in our hearts. We cannot be certain about the results, but we can be certain about our intentions, which, in turn, will affect the results. As Descartes didn ^}t say, “I love, therefore I am.^,,

As ancient spiritual traditions, from the Vedas to the cabala, reveal, the everyday world we think we see is an illusion. And as quantum physicists are coining to realize, there is, indeed, a field that projects what we call reality onto matter. The separation between us and them or between us and Nature that we so vividly experience in our reality is an illusion held in place by our beliefs.

NOW THAT WE⁹RE HERE, HOW DO WE MAKE THE
BEST OF IT? THE HOLISTIC VIEW

We make the best of life by making the best life we can一for ourselves, for others, and for our planet. For insight on how to accomplish that, we need only look within our own bodies: a model community of 50 trillion individual cells that have learned to live and work in harmony. We humans can direct our conscious awareness to learn how to do what our cells already do一create a civilization endowed with health, harmony, and bliss.

Our destiny as human beings at the fulcrum of Earth's seesaw is to use our awareness to create sustainable technologies that enhance our survival and lessen our environmental impact. In Chapter 12, Time to See a Good Shrink, we will take a journey beneath our skin and observe exactly how societies of cells have created successful, life-enhancing communities. Human hubris would have us believe that we are Earth's most highly intelligent creatures and that all other organisms are less intelligent. In fact, many scientists might argue that primitive organisms, such as cells, display no intelligence at all.

This might be a good place to recognize this important fact: cellular technology created us! In designing the human body, cellular communities developed amazing technologies that were needed to manipulate, regulate, and precisely control their environment. Interestingly, most of the advanced technologies created by cells are still beyond the grasp of human science and awareness. Therefore, we argue, in contrast, that we have a lot to learn from cells.

Technology is an integral element in the evolutionary process. Considering that we are following an evolutionary path similar to the one taken by our cells, we are also destined to use technology to ensure our survival. This is counter to the arguments of Luddites who would have us forsake all of our technological know-how and return to the Garden as hairless pets.

Actually, our evolutionary destiny is to re-inhabit the Garden, only this time in full awareness of our journey. In the same manner that cellular technology provided for the success of cellular communities in a human body, we must recognize that human technology will provide for the success of human communities on our planet.

The chart below compares the beliefs of the current basal paradigm of scientific materialism with that of the evolving paradigm of holism. As is evident, the answers to the perennial questions are profoundly different, and the consequence is that civilization, as we know it, is about to divert from its present course of apparent self-extinction.

The perennial questions, as answered by the scientific materialism paradigm and the holism paradigm

Perennial Question	Scientific Materialism	Holism
How did we get here?	Random acts of heredity	Via a combination of creation and adaptive evolution
Why are we here?	No other reason than to go forth and multiply	To tend the Garden and acquire awareness for humanity's evolution
Now that we're here, how do we make the best of it?	Live by the law of the Jungle	Live in balance with Nature recognizing that all is connected

 

When civilization evolves into the paradigm of holism, we will have come full circle to reacquire the awareness once held by our animistic forebears. We will once again realize oneness with our earthly environment, and, at the same time, we will honor the influence of what we call field, or spirit, that shapes our material existence in every moment.

The human population is awakening with a rapidly growing awareness that the key to a healthy, happy life in a thriving Garden requires us to recognize that we are each and all cells in the body of humanity, that we are conscious and conscientious caretakers and cultivators.

The Universe appears to be in an ever-unfolding spiral of evolutionary

The One Suggestion: Maybe Ten Commandments are too many. Maybe all we need is one suggestion: "We're all in this together." Chapter 13 is an exploration of the field, the mysterious and invisible shaping force that connects us all, which reveals that we truly are all entangled particles in the same field of dreams. This chapter affirms that humanity's survival in a holistic paradigm is predicated on adopting the Golden Rule as a universal operating system.

A Healthy Commonwealth: We are cells in the body of humanity as well as citizens of the biosphere. Consequently, we must declare that economy and ecology are one and the same. In fact, the English words economy and ecology both originate from the Greek oikos_f which means ''household, house, or family^,, and was, as it relates to both financial and environmental wellness, the basic unit of society in most ancient Greek city-states.

Chapter 14, A Healthy Commonwealth, provides new science and sustainable trends that offer a promise of a new economics that is harmonious with the planet and with true human needs. That's good oikos.

Healing the Body Politic: Chapter 15, Healing the Body Politic, prescribes a holistic treatment that contrasts the conventional Newtonian approach of temporarily masking symptoms through practices such as political repression. Instead, we consider a new system of justice一a balance一that stops us from wasting energy by suppressing symptoms and, instead, liberates that energy for actually solving problems. By accessing the healthy central voice of We the People, we bring to light vital, life-affirming elements that have been missing in our political conversations.

A Whole New Story: Chapter 16, A Whole New Story, focuses on the processes needed to release and complete the old story so that we can begin a new one. The new story integrates opposing polarities to maximize the benefit of each position while moving beyond static positions to solve problems at a higher level.

As we free ourselves from limiting and self-destructive programs on both the individual and cultural level, we become free to write a new story. What would our world look like if we declared an end to the old story of domination, greed, fear, and hatred? What if we dismissed all old grievances in a worldwide ceremony and declared ourselves healed? What if we finalized the old story by concluding, "and they lived happily ever after?"

Well... we could begin living happily ever after right now—immediately 一by bringing our own happiness with us.

The possibilities we could unleash are beyond imagination!

 

CHAPTER 11

FRACTAL EVOLUTION

⁴⁴Once we understand the math of evolution, we will understand the aftermath as well."

—Swami Beyondananda

IS THERE A FUTURE IN FUTUROLOGY?

In Part I, What If Everything You Know Is Wrong, and Part II, Four Myth- Perceptions of the Apocalypse, we provided a brief history of Western civilization as seen through the lens of an evolving basal paradigm. Our focus was on the nature of how personal beliefs influence our biology and how a culture's paradigmatic beliefs shape the fate of a civilization. In Part III, we leave the old stories behind as we weave the elements of a new story that will guide us through the uncharted territory of a truly new millennium.

When compiling the story of how we got here, we were afforded the armchair opportunity of assessing history through the lens of 20/20 hindsight. But Part III introduces a completely different kind of story一a vision into the future. Offering information as to what will be is clearly a different endeavor than providing an historical analysis. We are now entering into the domain of prediction, or, more formally, Futurology: a systematic forecasting of the future based on an assessment of societal trends.

A prediction may range from an outright guess to an astute inference. By its nature, a guess is based on insufficient information and, consequently, represents a chancy prediction. In contrast, an inference is based on evidence and reasoning and, therefore, represents a prediction that has a greater probability of being correct. Yet, the accuracy of an inference is dependent on perceived evidence and reason. Obviously, a presumably solid inference can totally miss the mark if the beliefs upon which it is founded are inaccurate or distorted.

The Ford Motor Company provided a powerful example of envisioning the

we see that that prediction was an Edsel of a guess!

WHEN IT COMES TO INVENTION, NECESSITY IS
A MOTHER

In the face of global crises, new-edge science is introducing a new lifesustaining story, a different way of looking at the world. When we replace civilization's current faulty paradigmatic myths with the revised awareness offered by modem science, a whole new world of possibilities emerges. Seen through a corrected paradigm lens, unrecognized patterns come into sharp focus.

For example, consider the question of humanity's evolution in light of new scientific insights. In contrast to the Darwinian assertion that evolution is driven by random mutations, Cairns described beneficial mutations that certainly seem to be intentional. The hypersomatic mutation process provides a mechanism of evolution through which organisms are innately capable of adapting to dynamic changes in the environment by actively changing their genetic code.

Leading-edge evolution theorists have recently revived the 19th century concept of ecological speciation, which suggests the evolution of new species is driven by ecological pressures. These theorists point out that narrow, regional variations in an environment, such as in microclimate zones, influence an organism to rapidly adapt and change its biological shape and behaviors as well as its ability to survive and thrive in that altered environment. For example, we can split an identical population of either fish or snails into two groups and introduce each group into separate but identical environments. If we introduce predators that feed off fish or snails into one of the environments and follow the fate of both populations, we can observe how environmental alterations一the predators一profoundly influence the course of evolution within the fish or snail species. Similar results have been observed in natural ecosystems.-

Fish or snails in the altered environment will mature and reproduce earlier, and consequent changes in their structure and behavior will likely lead to different behavior patterns than those expressed by their unchallenged cohorts in the safe environment. The two subpopulations of species could even further disconnect from one another if some are forced by predation to live and feed in formerly unfrequented parts of their environment. Regardless of whether these changes are introduced by epigenetic mechanisms or by adaptive mutations, environmentally induced alterations may lead to such divergent developmental paths that organisms may no longer be able to recognize or breed with other members of the, previously, same species.-

The influence of environment in shaping evolution was recently demonstrated in long-term genetic studies on microbes. Trying to determine the role of chance in evolutionary development, researchers asked, “If the history of life could be replayed from the same starting point, would it unfold differently?" After introducing genetically identical bacteria into separate test tubes, each of which contained the same stressful environment, they followed the evolution of bacteria in each tube through 24,000 generations.

Researchers found that “these miniature adaptive radiations unfold in the same way every time, governed by the available environmental niches."3 In some experiments, adaptations in different cultures were derived from different types of genetic processes. In other studies, the adaptations in different cultures were surprisingly reproducible, right down to the specific pattern of alterations in ATCG sequences in DNA.

Regardless of the path they took, microbes in each tube ultimately adapted to the same environment, generally using the same pathways. This indicates that identical populations faced with similar conditions follow parallel courses of evolution. Therefore, through this experiment and the otliers described above, new-edge science reveals that evolution is directly influenced by environmental determinants and, apparently, is not random.

If evolution is shaped by environmental conditions, as these experiments suggest, then, with enough awareness of environmental conditions, we should be able to envision the course of evolution. The question then becomes, "Can we predict environmental conditions in a dynamic world?"

While dynamic systems appear to behave randomly, Lorenz revealed that, with enough resolution of environmental data, even these systems are predictable. Dynamic systems express deterministic chaos, or, simply, chaos. In contrast to systems that display random behaviors, the fates of chaotic systems are predictable and, as Lorenz experienced, highly sensitive to initial influences.

dejA vu all over again

In addition to sensitivity, dynamical, or chaotic, systems are also characterized by another fundamental trait: iteration. Iteration simply means repetition of a pattern, be it a physical structure or a behavioral process. For example, if you take pictures of a coastline from a satellite, from an airplane, from a boat, and from standing on the shore, then if you trace the shape of the coast's outline in each image, all the tracings will exhibit a self-similar pattern. Likewise, at any level of its organization, a tree is made out of repeating self-similar patterns in a range of different sizes: the shape of the trunk is similar to the shape of a branch, which is similar to that of a twig.

In mathematics, iteration represents the repeated application of the same function or formula in which the output of each step is used as the input for the next repeated, or iterated, step. For example, consider this iterated equation:

The length of a line《2= 

For example:

12 inches -2 = 6 inches

Repeat the process:

6 inches -2 = 3 inches

3 inches - 2 = 1.5 inches

1.5 inches < 2 = .75 of an inch

.75 of an inch - 2 = ,375 of an inch

And so on with each resulting line being one-half the length of the previous line until such point as your pencil point is too large to draw the smaller and smaller lines. Yet, the iterating equation can still continue. You could use a microscope to see even smaller lines. And, if you were to use a computer you could iterate一repeat—this equation infinitely, creating infinitely smaller and smaller lines.

In this iterated equation, the use of a one-dimensional line merely produces a simple line of shorter length. However, if we apply an iterated equation to a two-dimensional object, such as a triangle, the results of iterating even a simple formula produce great complexity.

The creation of a more complex, two-dimensional Koch Snowflake is built by starting with a simple equilateral triangle and then applying this iterated equation:

On each surface, attach a new equilateral triangle; the perimeter of that triangle is equal to the length of the surface on which it sits.

By repeating this formula indefinitely, we can add smaller and smaller triangles to each newly created surface.

The Koch Snowflake illustrates that a simple geometric shape, such as an equilateral triangle, repeated multiple times, creates other figures of increasing complexity.

WW 厂七

▼ -亨▼

A B C D E

In the illustration above, the initial seed triangle A is light gray. The shading of the triangles becomes successively darker in each of the next three iterations (Figures B, C, and D). The complexity of the process is revealed in Figure E in which all the triangles are merged into a single image. As is evident by comparing the simple starting triangle with the result of each repeat of the equation, subsequent iterations vastly increase the complexity of the form.

The Koch Snowflake expresses an iterated pattern created by using a two- dimensional object. But dramatically more complex structures are produced when the iterated formula utilizes three-dimensional objects.

Consider the fact that all the variations of animals on this planet, from worms to sperm whales, represent multi-dimensional systems built from essentially iterated patterns of self-similar cells. These complex systems of

living organisms, as well as the environment in which they are evolving, are chaotic. Yet, because of mathematical modeling, they are also一are you ready for this?一predictable!

This concept of predictable chaos is apparently what Galileo had in mind when he penned, “Mathematics is the language with which God has written the Universe.^,,

FRACTALS—MATH AND AFTERMATH

Consequently, all we need to do is find out which mathematics was used to create the Universe and we will be able to understand how we got here and where we are bound. Because we are trying to discern environmental patterns, specifically as they relate to the biosphere, we need to discover the math Nature used to put physical structure into space.

Such a mission invokes the use of geometry because, by definition, this branch of mathematics is specifically concerned with the properties, measurement, and relationships of structure in space. Geometry is so fundamental to the organization of the Universe that long before Galileo's realization, Plato concluded, “Geometry existed before creation."

Until 1975, the general public was only familiar with the principles of Euclidean geometry, summarized in the 13-volume ancient Greek text, The Elements of Euclid, written around 300 B.C.E. This is the geometry most of us learned in school to plot structures such as cubes and spheres and cones onto graph paper. Euclidian geometry has enabled us to project the movement of heavenly bodies, construct great edifices and gardens, and even build spaceships and sophisticated weapons.

However, the mathematical formulae of Euclidian geometry are not readily applicable to Nature. For example, what kind of tree can you create using the standardized perfect forms of Euclidean geometry? Think back to the tree you drew in kindergarten, a circle sitting atop an elongated rectangle. Your kindergarten teacher, no doubt, recognized it as a representation of a tree, but in no way does it describe what a tree really is, no more than a stick figure describes a human.

With Euclidean geometry and a compass, you can draw a perfect circle. But you cannot use Euclidean geometry to draw a perfect or, at least, a realistic tree. Nor can Euclidian geometry describe the structure of a beetle, a mountain, a cloud, or any other familiar patterns found in Nature. Euclidean geometry falls short when it comes to describing the structure of life. So where do we find the type of mathematics referred to by Plato and Galileo, the math that describes the design principles inherent in Nature?

We were offered a clue about 90 years ago when a young French mathematician named Gaston Julia published a paper on his work with iterated functions. His was a relatively simple equation that used only multiplication and addition, repeated ad infinitum. To actually visualize the image encoded in his mathematical formula, Julia would have had to solve millions of iterations of the formula, a process that would have taken him decades. Therefore, even though he conceived of a fractal in mathematical terms, Julia never actually saw one.

The profound implications of Julia's formula were only revealed when his equation was solved with the aid of computers in 1975. Benoit Mandelbrot, a French-American mathematician who analyzed patterns in chaotic systems at an IBM computing lab, was the first person to observe what Julia could only imagine. Mandelbrot was awestruck by the strikingly beautiful organic and infinitely complex images generated by fractal formulae. He was the first to observe that fractal images possessed repeated self-similar patterns, regardless of the scale on which they were examined. The more he magnified the images, the more the structure appeared to be the same.

Inherent within the chaotic complexity of fractal images is the presence of ever-repeating patterns, nested within one another. The internationally popular toy, hand-painted Russian nesting dolls, provides a rough idea of the nature of a fractal's repetitive images. Each smaller version of the doll is similar to, but not necessarily an exact version of, the larger doll in which it is nested. Mandelbrot introduced the term self-similar to describe such objects that he observed in the new math, which he called fractal geometry.

Russian nesting dolls represent a fractaFs repetitive image.

 

 

Within the complexity of his fractal images, Mandelbrot observed vivid patterns that resemble shapes common in Nature, such as insects, seashells, and trees. Historically, science had frequently documented the presence of self-similar organizational patterns at different scales of Nature's structure. However, until Mandelbrot introduced fractal geometry, these self-similar patterns were deemed to be merely curious coincidences.

Fractal geometry emphasizes the relationship between the patterns in a whole structure and the patterns seen in its parts. Recall the examples of the coastline and of the twigs, branches, and tree trunks cited earlier. Self-similar patterns are found throughout Nature and especially within the structure of the human body. For example, in the human lung, the pattern of branching along the large bronchus air passages is repeated in the branching structure of the smaller bronchi and even smaller bronchiole passages. Arterial and venous vessels of the circulatory system as well as the body's network of peripheral nerves also display repetitive, self-similar branching patterns.

Because fractal geometry is truly the design principle of Nature, the biosphere inherently reveals nested self-similar patterns at every level of its organization. Consequently, as we observe and become aware of patterns at higher or lower levels of an organization's structure, we can use fractals in the same way we use maps. Fractals can help us gain insight into the organization at any other level. In the biosphere, the fractal pattern of human evolution can inherently display a self-similar pattern of evolution experienced by structures at other levels of Nature's organization.

Ernst Haeckel, a famous embryologist and contemporary of Darwin, inadvertently reported the first inkling of a self-similar, fractal-like pattern in evolution in 1868. Haeckel published a now famous sequence of microscopic images that compares the stages of embryonic development of a number of species with that of the human. He noted that all vertebrate embryos, including the human embryo, pass through a series of similar structural stages. Haeckel argued that, in transitioning through their early development, organisms actually retrace every stage of their evolutionary ancestry.

HaeckePs theory, cryptically defined as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, literally means "development is a replay of ancestry." Unfortunately, when promoting his ideas, an overzealous Haeckel fudged his drawings to make the early stages of embryos appear more alike than they actually are.

Regardless of his flawed presentation, human embryos do morph through a variety of shapes before acquiring human form. In these transitions, the human embryo assumes a sequential series of self-similar structural patterns wherein it resembles embryos from earlier stages of vertebrate evolution.

The developing human embryo shape-shifts from one that resembles a fish embryo to one that resembles an amphibian embryo. It continues morphing until it takes on the appearance of a reptilian embryo and, later, that of a mammal before finally assuming a human shape. Evolving through the embryonic stages of its biospheric ancestors, human embryos offer a dynamic example of fractal-like self-similarity.

EVOLUTION DECODED

Is Nature really an expression of fractal geometry? Introducing simple

mathematical equations into a fractal computer program and creating realistic landscapes and images of biological organisms provides evidence but does not prove that Nature is truly fractal in character. The appearance of selfsimilar patterns throughout the biosphere may, in fact, be merely a coincidence. The question then becomes, “Is there any functional reason as to why the evolution of the biosphere would be driven by fractal geometry?"

Nature is a dynamic system, founded on iterated processes and chaos mathematics, and subject to sensitivity. The fact that fractal geometry is the specific mathematics to model such a chaotic system supports, that Natuare should be fractal, but it does not necessarily provide a reason as to why. However, there is another compelling reason, based strictly on mathematics, that suggests why the observed parallels between fractal geometry and the structure of Nature are more than coincidence.

Historically, Lamarck described evolution as transformation, a linear process that starts with primitive organisms and progresses upward toward what he described as “perfection." In his model, Lamarck envisioned evolution as an ascending ladder. Darwinists also acknowledged an upward progression in evolution, but they compared the process to a tree. They recognized that most random variations that generated new organisms are similar to a tree's lateral branches in that they do not necessarily contribute to vertical ascension of the species.

As a more current consideration, we would like to suggest that the path of evolution most closely resembles the shape of an exploding chrysanthemum. Species evolve in every direction with the innate drive to inhabit all available environmental niches. Organisms have evolved to live in glacier ice, at volcanic vents under the ocean, in bedrock many kilometers beneath the ground, and everywhere in between.

In the chrysanthemum model, it makes no sense to ask, “Where is evolution going?" It's going in every direction at once. To track the course of evolution, we must first define a parameter to be used as a yardstick to measure evolutionary advances. For example, the path of evolution of life in the sea has a different meaning than the path of evolution of life on the land or in the air. Humans do not rank very high in the evolution of waterbreathing organisms or in the evolutionary hierarchy of egg-laying animals or flying animals. So what do humans excel at, evolutionarily speaking?

As both observers of and participants in evolution, we have selected a petal of the evolution-chrysanthemum to represent a trait we feel distinguishes us from lower organisms, and that trait is awareness. This is the same characteristic that Lamarck used when he emphasized the development of the nervous system as his evolutionary yardstick. Darwinists, likewise, illustrate their tree of evolution in a hierarchical ascendance of nervous system development.

Unfortunately, as summarized in Chapter 1, Believing Is Seeing, and in more detail in The Biology of Belief, conventional science's understanding of evolution has been significantly distorted by its faulty misperception that the celfs nucleus and its enclosed genes represent the celFs nervous system.- Hence, science currently has a myopic preoccupation with measuring an organism's genome as representative of its evolutionary advancement.

As described earlier, the true brain of the cell is its membrane. Built into the membrane's structure are receptor proteins and effector proteins that serve as switches and which represent a measurable unit of perception. Consequently, an organism's awareness can be physically quantified by calculating the number of perception proteins it possesses.

In Chapter 12, Time to See a Good Shrink, we provide evidence that, because of physical restrictions, perception proteins can only form a monolayer in the membrane. This physical restriction means that an increase in the population of perception proteins is directly tied to an increase in the organism's membrane surface area. In other words, for an organism's awareness to multiply and to increase its brain power, it would have to increase its membrane power.

Simply, these insights reveal that mathematicians can calculate evolutionary advancement by mapping an organism's membrane surface area.⁵ And how would that be done? According to William Allman, author of the "Mathematics of Human Life,ⁿ an article in U.S. News & World Report, "Mathematical studies of fractals reveal that the repetitive branching-within- branching structure of a fractal represents the best way to get the most surface area within a three-dimensional space ..Modeling evolution demands the use of fractal geometry because evolution wouldn't occur without it. Consequently the appearance of self-similar patterns in Nature is not a coincidenc; it is a reflection of evolutionary mathematics.

The strikingly beautiful, computer-generated pictures of fractal patterns, such as those adorning the butterfly's wings on the cover of this book, should remind us that, despite our modern angst and the seeming chaos of our world, there is order in Nature. And because this order is inherently comprised of self-similar fractal patterns, there is nothing truly new under the sun.

The esoteric world of fractal geometry provides a mathematical model that suggests the arbitrariness, planlessness, randomness, and accidents that underlie Darwinian theory are outmoded. We believe that continued support of these outdated ideas represents a fundamental threat to the survival of humanity and should, as rapidly as possible, go the way of the pre- Copernican, Earth-centered Universe.

PURPOSEFUL PUNCTUATION

The fact that the biosphere is fractal in nature is no longer a question. The more important question before us now is, “Did biological organisms acquire their fractal character by accident or intention?^,, Conventional Darwinian theory suggests that evolution is driven by random mutations and Nature has taken on its current structure and organization simply by accident. However, the recent discovery of somatic hypermutation mechanisms reveals a process by which cells purposefully mutate their genes to actively engage in evolution.

Studies by Cairns and others on bacterial evolution, presented earlier, demonstrate that living systems have an inherent ability to induce evolutionary change to support their survival in a dynamically changing environment. This newly discovered gene-altering mechanism is variously referred to as adaptive, directed, or beneficial mutations. Regardless of the term, the meaning is the same: evolutionary changes appear to be purposeful, not random.

There is an inherent underlying plan to evolution in the form of Nature's fractal environment. Evolution is marked by periodic mass extinctions that were apparently caused by environmental upheavals, also known as punctuations, that disturbed periods of evolutionary stasis. Following these environmental alterations, life managed to survive, evolve, and, once again, flourish because of adaptive mutation mechanisms. The ability to intentionally mutate genes enabled surviving organisms to actively change their genetics so that they could survive by complementing and harmonizing with new environmental patterns.

The previous five mass extinctions were evolutionary punctuations that radically altered life on this planet. Just as suddenly as old life forms disappeared due to these catastrophic events, amazing varieties of new life forms came into existence.

This insight on the nature of punctuated equilibrium challenges another fundamental assumption of Darwinian theory: the belief that evolution from one species to another occurs through a series of infinitely gradual transformations over eons of time.

As mentioned earlier, paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge have verified that evolution results from long periods of stability that are periodically interrupted by catastrophic upheavals. In their evolution theory, called Punctuated Equilibrium, Gould and Eldredge claim that each catastrophe is followed by an explosive increase in the number of new species at a rate faster than can be accounted for by plodding Darwinian mechanisms. In other words, evolution occurs by sudden leaps, not gradual transitions.-

The insights of Gould and Eldredge are absolutely pertinent to the current moment in our evolution, especially because scientists have now established that we are deep into the planet's sixth mass extinction.- Uh oh.

Will we make it? We are betting on the fact that when evolution theory is updated and the public becomes aware of the amazing insights offered by punctuated equilibrium, adaptive mutations, and epigenetics, civilization's evolutionary punctuation will turn out to be a highly positive and life proclaiming exclamation point!

If bacteria can evolve purposefully, then why not us? Can we evolve with intention? The answer is yes! And that is what this book is all about.

FROM HUMAN TO HUMANITY

Before we look forward to see where fractal evolution might be taking us next, let's go back in time and take a deeper look at the history of evolution in terms of punctuated equilibrium. By assessing evolution as a series of repeating periods of stasis punctuated by upheavals and followed by evolutionary leaps, we can identify four fundamental punctuations that drastically changed the course of evolution. The recognition of these fractal punctuation patterns offer important insight into resolving the crises precipitated by our current punctuation.

This figure traces the major evolutionary leaps that led to human beings. A: Individual, free-living prokaryotes. B: Community of prokaryotes within a biofilm. C: Single eukaryoteevolved from a biofilm-like life source. D: Primitive colonial organisms, a simple community of eukaryotes. E: Differentiated multicellular community of eukaryotes.

 

 

Prokaryote Period: The first leap occurred within the first half billion years of Earth's fiery origin. This was when the first primitive cellular citizens evolved and began to colonize the planet's oceans. Called prokaryotes, these primal bacterial cells are generally the smallest and simplest cells, consisting of what could be called a bag of membrane filled with a soupy cytoplasm. Most prokaryotes are physically supported and protected by a somewhat rigid sugar-based capsule that envelops their fragile cytoplasmic bodies. External capsules physically constrain the size of prokaryotic cells and limit their ability to expand their membrane surface area.

Seemingly, the prokaryote's inability to acquire more membrane surface area and, consequently, more awareness-providing membrane perception proteins would signal the end of evolution. However, Nature had a bigger plan up its evolutionary sleeve. In response to increasing environmental pressures generated by exploding populations of cells, the biological imperative, the innate will to survive, served as a driving force to further prokaryote evolution.

At a moment in time, in what would amount to a spontaneous evolution, individual prokaryotes upgraded the mechanism of evolutionary advancement. Rather than trying to further increase the size and intelligence of the individual cell, prokaryotes assembled into communities to collectively share both an enlarged surface area and awareness. As communities, prokaryotes effectively became a group of species occupying the same environment.

While we generally perceive bacteria to be free-living cells, it is now recognized that unicellular prokaryotes live in functionally integrated but highly dispersed communities wherein free-living cells enhance their awareness by long distance exchange of chemical information.

Over time, different species of bacteria acquired the ability to physically band together and create life-sustaining, controllable microenvironments by enveloping the entire community within a single protective membrane. This was Nature's equivalent of a gated community wherein the environment was maintained by the prokaryote population. The inhabitants of these membrane- encapsulated communities were a functionally complex and cooperative society of different bacterial species. Prokaryote citizens in the community enhanced their survival by collectively sharing their specialized functions and their DNA.

Within their encapsulated communities, called biofilms, bacteria were protected from antibiotics and other toxic elements in the external environment, the agents that would kill their free-living relatives who didn't have the good fortune to find residence in a biofilm.- The resistive and protective nature of the biofilms enabled these cellular communities to become the first life forms to leave the ocean and live on the land.

As a footnote, we want to point out that the bacteria that form tooth cavities are actually biofilm communities that resist our efforts to scour them from our teeth.

Eukaryote Period: The second punctuation that precipitated an evolutionary leap occurred when, over time, prokaryote biofilm communities evolved into a more advanced life form called eukaryotes. To do this, the former biofilm microbes transformed into cellular organelles, such as mitochondria and nuclei, that characteristically populate the cytoplasm in the large eukaryotic cells. Many biologists believe this organizational advance from a biofilm community to a eukaryotic community is one of the most significant events in evolutionary history; that's because Nature changed the strategy of evolution. Previously, evolution was mediated by influencing the amount of awareness in a single cell. The new strategy was based on collectively combining the awareness of a community into one new organism.

In her book Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, American biologist Lynn Margulis expanded on the notion that larger, more advanced eukaryotes initially derived from colonies of microbes.^ Margulis contended that symbiosis, which is the assembly of individuals based on mutually beneficial relationships, is a major driving force behind evolution.

She suggests that Darwin's notion of evolution, driven by the survival of the fittest in a continual competition among individuals and species, misses the mark. In her opinion, cooperation, interaction, and mutual dependence among life forms allowed for the global expression of life. According to Margulis, "Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking? —

Stop for a moment and consider what a magnificent and paradigmshattering advancement the evolution of eukaryotes was, and consider the awesome possibilities that a similar quantum shift, based on human cooperation and symbiosis, holds for our world today.

The evolution of eukaryotes diverged into two major paths: mobile animal protozoa, such as the amoeba and paramecium, and plant cells, represented by single-celled algae.

The animal versions evolved an internal flexible cytoskeleton for physical support and mobility. Unlike the more primitive prokaryotes whose size is limited by a constraining capsule, eukaryotes, equipped with an internal mechanical structure, were able to grow and expand their membrane in a manner similar to an inflated balloon. With internal cytoskeletal support, large eukaryotic cells have thousands of times more membrane surface area and a far greater awareness potential than individual prokaryotic cells.

However, even eukaryote size is ultimately limited because of an inherent fragility in the enveloping cell membrane. If a eukaryote grows too large, the pressure generated by the mass of its internal cytoplasmic content causes its fragile membrane to rupture, which leads to the cell's death. Ultimately, the eukaryote, like its primitive prokaryote ancestor, reached a size limitation and was unable to further expand its membrane-based awareness without jeopardizing its survival. The limits on expanding membrane surface area created a situation that represented another potential evolutionary endpoint.

Multicellular Period: For almost three and a half billion years, the only organisms on this planet were free-living prokaryotes and the more advanced eukaryotic cells. The third evolutionary leap occurred about 700 million years ago when individual eukaryotic cells, like their prokaryote precursors, began to share awareness by physically assembling into communities.

The first multicellular communities were simply colonial organisms, groups of identical cells hanging out together en masse to, we might say, "save on rent.” But, because each cell represents a unit of awareness, the more cells in a community, the more potential awareness that community possessed.

However, as the population density of these eukaryotic communities increased, there came a time when it was no longer efficient for all the cells to do the same thing. The workload was subdivided, and eukaryotic cells in the community began to express specialized functions, such as muscle, bone, and brain.

Over time, the collective awareness within eukaryotic communities led to the evolution of highly structured and altruistic multicellular organisms capable of supporting the survival of communities consisting of trillions of cells.

Variations in the traits and functions expressed by these cellular communities led to the creation of cellular organizations with different structures, so that each multicellular organism had its own distinctive anatomy. Scientists use these anatomical characteristics to classify each

version of multicellular community as a unique species. When we observe trees, jellyfish, dogs, cats, and humans, although we normally perceive of them as individual entities, in truth, they are complex multicellular communities.

Societal Period: The current emergent version of evolution is characterized by a still higher order of communal assembly. This time, individual members of certain species—each of which is a multicellular community of eukaryotic cells, which, in turn, are each communities of prokaryotic cells一began to band together into social organizations to enhance their survivability. Fish assemble into schools, dogs into packs, bison into herds, geese into flocks, and humans into tribes, nations, and states. Social evolution provides for communities of species that take on a life of their own as super-organisms.

While, from our perspective, we tend to think of evolutionary leaps as producing new species, what we're really seeing is an evolution of increasing levels of communal complexity and interrelationships. This pattern suggests that the next phase of human evolution will not so much be about changes within individual human beings but about how human beings assemble into community.

Humans evolved millions of years ago. What lies before us now is the evolution of the next higher level, the community humans一humanity.

Apparently, the path of evolution is not a continuous ramp of gradual progress. Rather, its history is marked by long periods of nominal advancement, followed by quantum leaps wherein nested patterns of communal assembly provide for the emergence of properties or traits that could not have been anticipated before.

We see this in prokaryotes, the fundamental life forms that gave rise to individualized, membrane-bound communities called eukaryotes. Then, the communities of communal eukaryotes provided for multicellular species, such as plants and animals. Then, plants and animals subsequently assembled into higher order communities that we define as societal organizations.

If we were to illustrate this new perspective, we would see four tiers of gradual progression, with each tier distinguished from its evolutionary neighbor by a quantum jump:

1. Prokaryotes => Eukaryotes (evolution of single-cell communities)
2. Eukaryotes => Multicellular organisms (evolution of plants, animals, and humans)
3. Multicellular organisms => Societal organizations (evolution of humanity)

Evolution is not a steady slope but periods of stasis or gradual progression followed by quantum jumps.

 

 

We believe that human civilization, as a society, is struggling with its very existence. The pattern of evolution, as illustrated here, shows that we are on the threshold of experiencing the next evolution, the true expression of humanity.

NO NEW STORIES: OUR FUTURE THROUGH A
FRACTAL LOOKING GLASS

Based on Nature's fractal character, the pattern of structures within any one tier of organization is self-similar to the pattern expressed by structures at higher or lower tiers of organization.

Consequently, the structures, functions, and behaviors of a prokaryotic cell in Tier 1, a eukaryotic cell in Tier 2, a human in Tier 3, and society in Tier 4 express self-similar patterns in their evolution and organization.

The inherent nature of fractal self-similarity is the key reason why knowledge gained from studying the biology of cells can be applied to understanding human biology as well as communal society. More importantly, fractal evolution implies that an awareness of the organization and dynamics employed by cells in the community that comprises the human body can provide insight into the patterns required to create a similar harmony among the human cells who collectively contribute to human society.

Through millions of years of evolution, cellular citizens within multicellular organisms have worked out an effective peace plan that enables them to enhance their survival as well as the survival of other organisms in the biosphere. Consider the remarkable harmony among the trillions of individual cells living within the skin of a healthy human body. Our cells have apparently resolved any issues that would hinder cooperation so that our tissues and organs, which are the cellular community's equivalent of nation states, tend to support rather than compete and fight with each other. For example, nowhere in medical literature is there documentation of the liver invading the pancreas in order to capture the Islets of Langerhans!

In coherence with fractal self-similarity, the assembly of humans into multicellular humanity expresses a similar pattern formerly used by cells to create a multicellular human body. The path of human evolution parallels the earlier path of animal evolution in which the animal kingdom progressed through two distinct phases: the primitive invertebrate phase followed by the more-advanced vertebrate phase.

As we shall see, the fundamental difference between invertebrates and vertebrates is the mechanism by which they support themselves. Likewise, the fundamental difference between early humans and advanced humans is also the latter's ability to support themselves and their societies.

Invertebrates: Multicellular invertebrate organisms, such as shellfish and insects, resemble prokaryotes in that they lack an internal skeleton and rely on external exoskeletal support, such as that provided by mineral shells or rigid chitin capsules.

In regard to the character of support, the earliest human civilizations were tantamount to invertebrates in that they relied on external support from Mother Nature. If She provided, they survived.

Vertebrates: In regard to support, vertebrate organisms, like their constituent eukaryotic cells, are physically supported from within by a rigid backbone.

The evolution of the vertebrate phase of human civilization correlates with the origin of technologies that enabled humans to support themselves through the prowess of their internal intelligence mechanisms. When civilization evolved to its internally supported vertebrate level, humans no longer relied on handouts from Nature~ r so it seemed.

Similarly, vertebrate animals evolved through an increasingly more complex sequence that led from fish to amphibians, to reptiles, to birds, and to mammals prior to the origin of humans. Consequently, we can assume that, in a fractal Universe, the human community will likely evolve through a sequence of self-similar developmental stages that express the character of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Fish: The fundamental character of fish is their dependence on a water environment.

Likewise, the earliest stages of self-sustaining human communities were fish-like in that they were physically restricted to the immediate vicinity of water. These mariculture societies flourished by harvesting food from oceans and water from lakes and nearby wetlands. Their highways were waterways, and they spread their civilizations by paddling or sailing from one coast to another.

Amphibians: While amphibians are birthed in the water, they are able to venture onto the land by acquiring mechanisms to take water with them.

Similarly, human civilization entered the amphibian phase and moved inland when people developed methods to convey water from lakes and waterways or extract it from subterranean aquifers. Through the rise of agriculture, these civilizations created and employed technology that enabled them to sustain and thrive in their new land-based environment.

Reptiles: From amphibians, which are relatively sluggish and vulnerable on land, came reptiles, which traded in the aquatic skills of their amphibian ancestors in favor of a superiorly designed, land-based physiology. Through

adaptation, reptiles honed hardened bodies of great strength, speed, and dexterity suitable for their purely terrestrial environment. The digital character of a lizard's darting eyes and tongue and its mechanized gait attest to this machine-like nature.

The evolution of human civilization followed a self-similar path when the Industrial Revolution provoked humanity's transition from its earlier agrarian phase, which is comparable to the amphibian environment, to a more sophisticated, mechanized Industrial Age, which is reptilian in nature.

Dinosaurs: A unique branch of highly successful reptiles eventually evolved when Nature enlarged the blueprint of a 5-inch lizard to make a 50- foot dinosaur. While the lizard is a relatively small organism, a dinosaur was a giant killing machine. Interestingly, dinosaur is a Greek word that means “terrifying monstrous lizard."

But, while the dinosaur's body grew to massive size, its brain didn't. Consider that, if a 5-inch lizard requires ten muscle cells to move its leg in a certain way, the massive 50-foot dinosaur might necessitate 10,000 muscle cells to make the same movement. However, the brain of each creature requires only one nerve to activate that movement.

The point is this: as dinosaurs^, bodies became enlarged, their brains remained quite small. The fact that lizards are still here today and dinosaurs are extinct suggests that the dinosaurs^, undersized brain, although able to support amazing reflex behaviors, wasn't adequate to sustain survival of their massive bodies during times of environmental upheaval.

Bringing that situation forward in time, the successful nature of the Industrial Age enabled human industry to evolve from small mom-and-pop shops into giant international corporations. Analogous to dinosaurs, corporations have large bodies of administrative bureaucracies commanded by decision-making executives with small, reptilian brains.

Be forewarned: the patterns expressed in humanity's corporate dinosaurs are a reiteration of the same life-threatening flaws that led to the extinction of animal dinosaurs.

As was the case with dinosaurs, the so-called brains of conventional corporations are effective when controlling the reflexive behavior and growth of their organizations一as long as the environment stays stable. However, giant corporations lack the neurological ability to control and adapt their massive bodies to survive in environments that are in upheaval.

One example is the U.S. auto industry in which executive brains continue to push gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles on consumers who recognize the world is facing a global oil crisis. An indication of their threatened extinction is the current junk bond status of General Motors' once-valuable stock.

We can only imagine that the final dinosaurs might have gone on a feeding frenzy when they witnessed others of their species running amuck and collapsing into tar pits of extinction. Similarly, we see colossal entities today engorging themselves at the expense of others, as was the case in October 2008 when the U.S. banking institution, a fiscal dinosaur, quickly and easily consumed $700 billion of U.S. taxpayers' money.

Another interesting similarity between the corporate dinosaurs of humanity today and real-life一er, real-extinct— inosaurs of yore is the fact that modern civilization is fueled by oil, which is often referred to as the blood of the dinosaurs. As industrial organizations drink the last of the dinosaurs^, blood, current dinosaurian corporations are facing their own imminent extinction and, if we're not careful, the extinction of civilization as we know it.

Fortunately, we can also find hope within the fractal parallels of biological evolution.

While dinosaurs were the first reptile descendents to rule the world, two other paths of evolution一birds and mammals一were arising in the shadows.

Birds: Birds evolved as a direct spin-off from the ground-bound dinosaurs.

A self-similar pattern of evolution expressed itself in human history when inventors and entrepreneurs, still at the growing-lizard size of industrialization, paved the path for humanity's bird phase. The first key event in this evolutionary path was the flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright over the sands at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

Mammals: At the same time that birds evolved from the dinosaur lineage, a new species also branched from small reptiles. These novel furry species, called mammals, represented the origins of a new class of neurologically sophisticated organisms. In reference to the way they raise their young, mammals are characterized as nurturers who encourage growth, development, and thriving.

Until 65 million years ago, small reptiles and meek mammals were at the mercy of the ruthless monstrous lizards. At that time, a planetary upheaval led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and, for a short time, birds ruled the world. However, in the absence of those mammoth killing machines, the more sophisticated mammals seized the opportunity to evolve and become masters of the biosphere.

EARTH—FROM THE BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Just as with the emergence of bird species, the advent of aviation radically altered the development of human civilization.

Prior to aviation, Earth's massive size, with its terrestrial and maritime barriers, seemed to be a formidable obstacle that made integration of the world's population unimaginable. However, within a decade of the Wright Brother's flight, and, by the end of World War I in 1918, aircraft were capable of flying high over mountains, deserts, and oceans. Technological advancements continued, and, with today's jets, physical distance between continents and nations is no longer a relevant factor whether engaging in business or personal travel, whether waging war or peace.

Humanity's bird phase reached its peak in the late 1960s when aviation technology provided civilization with a new, bird's-eye perspective of Mother Earth.

In October 1968, the crew of the Apollo 7 space mission beamed back the first pictures of our planet, one of which appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in January 1969. Another, titled "Earthrise—Apollo 8," taken in December 1969, is a dramatic image of Earth rising over the lunar surface.

But humanity's ingenuity toward flight reached an even higher summit in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed their Apollo 11 spacecraft on the moon. When Armstrong, clad in a bulky space suit, alit on the lunar surface and uttered, “One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind," he was making a statement both profound and prophetic in the course of human evolution.

These events marked the first time that every citizen in the world could actually experience the finite nature of our beautiful planet and its isolation in space.

When birds, aviators, and astronauts fly above the surface of Earth, they gain a greater perspective of the planet than their water-based and land-based predecessors. When astronauts transmit their view of Earth as a blue-green gem suspended in the black emptiness of space back to people on the planet, they share that new perspective with the rest of humanity as well.

And those images, from that perspective, have had such a powerful effect on civilization that they have caused a change in the course of human evolution. Those images fostered and concretized the hippie notion, professed by visionaries such as Buckminster Fuller, that we are all one people traveling through the galaxy on tiny, fragile Spaceship Earth.口

Those images of our Nest in the Stars induced a quality of selfconsciousness in humanity that kindled and ignited an innate mammalian desire in responsive people to support survival by taking care of the environment; keeping our food and bodies healthy; and raising our children, families, and communities in an atmosphere of love and harmony.

Inspired by those initial photos from space, visionary John McConnell created the Earth Flag in 1969. In 1970, the United States celebrated the inaugural Earth Day and initiated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And the 1970s saw the enactment of five major pieces of legislation to protect the nation's air, water, and land.

Simply stated, in response to the perspective provided by astronauts, an ever-increasing number of former reptilian-phase humans experienced an emergent leap in evolution wherein they became aware that survival is contingent on nurturing the planet and all species as well as our individual selves. These awakened persons become the seeds of our next evolutionary leap, the emergence of humanity's mammalian phase.

In that regard, the current state of civilization resembles the fractal iteration of a self-similar pattern that occurred millions of years ago in animal

50 trillion cellular citizens to successfully create the human body, we can learn valuable insights that can be directly applied in our quest to sustain human civilization.

CELLq-US

Throughout our journey, we have emphasized that the human body is not merely a single entity, but a conglomeration of trillions of cells. Cells are the individual units of life, and our body is the cell's expression of community. Because we are made of cells, our body's life requires that we also care for our cells' survival.

Therefore, simple logic says that our body and our cells have the same needs: oxygen, water, nutrients, a controlled environment to insulate life processes from the extremes of surrounding elements, and protection from other life forms, such as viruses, that would deplete energy and resources. Likewise, humans and cells have to work, that is, expend energy, in order to survive. People go to work to provide for their families, and cells work together for the health of the body.

Why? What is it that drives all life forms, from the first bacterium to human beings, to perpetuate this cycle of life? That mysterious force is the biological imperative, the inborn mechanism that unconsciously motivates organisms, regardless of their size, to survive.

A species' ability to fulfill its innate drive to survive is predicated on the following basic factors: energy, growth, protection, resources, efficiency, and awareness.

If we were to create a Survival Index formula to assess the survivability of an organism, the equation would look like this:

see = (tX-F'USryxGJSSSOx )

Total Energy: Total energy represents the total amount of energy available to drive the organism's life's processes. Energy generates the body's behaviors and movements. In fact, a body without energy is called a cadaver.

In light of current global crises, it is apparent that human survival skills are questionable, at best. As mentioned earlier, energy is required to sustain life, and the loss of energy manifests in weakness, illness, and death. In contrast to human beings, all other organisms are proven models of energy conservation and efficiency. We know this because organisms that failed to properly manage their life energy reserves are extinct.

Humans, who are vastly more wasteful than any other organism in the environment, are facing the same eventuality. Unfortunately, humanity's destruction of the biosphere could also lead to the mass extinction of even those more intelligent and more efficient organisms that have lived in harmony with the environment for millions of years.

The Survival Index reminds us that we are asleep, inefficient, and expending too much energy on wanton, unwarranted growth and protection. Consider the exorbitant expense of security, whether of the in-home or homeland variety.

A consideration of the factors that contribute to the Survival Index emphasizes that, in order to survive, we must reduce our protection expenditures, switch to renewable resources, become considerably more efficient, and wake up.

Government and financial leaders, trying to mend the current global economic system by applying bandages here and loans there and a big dollop of bailout to boot, are behaving like stewards on the Titanic, arranging the deck chairs as the ship is going down.

Perhaps, as Einstein suggested, it is time to resolve our problems through new thinking. Perhaps, in pursuit of vital knowledge, we must learn from ancient sages who advised, "The answers we seek lie within.^,, Einstein echoed that wisdom when he wrote, “Look deep, deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."』

So, as we descend into the inner workings of biology, we will focus on the factors listed in the Survival Index. We expect to find that an awareness of social and economic patterns expressed by successful eukaryotic cells and multicellular organisms, such as our own human bodies, can help us create a template to promote a healthier, more-successful version of humanity.

We can learn far greater insights regarding the nature of successful communities when we focus our vision even deeper and observe the lives of cells on a more intimate level.

Consider the awesome job our cells do to bring us into the world every day. Then compare that with the mediocre job humans do in the category of "works and plays well with others." With that self-assessment, we might actually have to adjust our self-aggrandized intelligence downward a few notches and recognize that our cells are smarter than we are. Observing the day-to-day operations of our cellular citizens may come as a blow to our collective ego because just about everything we humans do, including the development of technology, our cells did first and, to this very day, still do better.

For example, cells have:

• A monetary systemthat pays cells according to the importance of the work they do and stores excess profits in community banks.
• A research and development systemthat creates technology and manufactures biochemical equivalents of steel cables, plywood, ferroconcrete, electronic circuitry, and high-speed computer networks.
• An environmental systemthat provides air and water purification treatment that is more technologically advanced than humans have ever imagined. Ditto for the heating and cooling system.
• An exceedingly complex and extremely fast communications system, like the Internet, that sends zip-coded messages directly to individual cells.
• A criminal justice systemthat detains, imprisons, rehabilitates, and, yes, in a Kevorkian way, even assists with the suicide of destructive cells.
• Full health-care coveragethat makes sure each cell gets all it needs to stay healthy.
• An immune systemthat protects the cells and the body like a dedicated National Guard.

TECHNOLOGY: CELLS HIT THE INDUSTRIAL

AGE AGES AGO

As human technological innovations were introduced to the world, biologists frequently equated each new emerging technology with the mechanisms displayed by the body's systems. The steam engine led pioneering physiologists to compare pressure-creating pneumatics with the body's mechanical operation. When physicists first understood and harnessed electricity, biologists of that day equated the electrical power grid with the nervous system. More recently, neuroscientists have compared supercomputers with the brain. And computer scientists are so enamored with cell's information processing technology that they are currently incubating nerve cells on computer chips to meld their technologies.

It is important to recognize that there is a lot more to the marvels of the body's technology than just the cells. In the same manner that humans utilize engineered materials to construct buildings to house themselves and their enterprises, cells do the exact same thing. Here are a few examples.

Approximately one half of the body's mass is comprised of extracellular matrices, known as collagen. Collagen is a thread-like protein secreted by the cells into their surrounding environment. In much the same manner that a spider spins a web from its body to outside its body, the cells construct this extracellular structure around themselves. The shape of every organ, blood vessel, nerve, muscle, and bone is maintained by this supporting matrix of woven collagen protein fibers. In fact, if all the cells were removed from a human body, the extracellular collagen would maintain the body's structure intact as though it were a flexible, fibrous sculpture.

Collagen proteins are an engineering tour de force: these organic filaments can be woven into a fabric with the softness of silk, a trait characterized by a baby's bottom. But changing the weave pattern creates collagen textiles with the bullet-resistance of Kevlar. To gain an appreciation of the body's technological skill, collagen filaments spun into rope-like fiber, such as those that comprise tendons and ligaments, have vastly more strength, flexibility, and far less weight than equal-sized filaments of steel.

The collagen secreted by specialized bone-forming, body-architect cells, called osteoblasts, is like magnificent steel girders that shape massive skyscrapers. In the assembly process, osteoblasts decorate their collagen girders with proteins that cause the spontaneous formation of crystallized

and linkages, and self-regulating feedback and feed-forward information loops.

A more familiar technical innovation first created by the body's cells is color television. Human eyes are endowed with the same fundamental red- green-blue color system that creates full-color images on human- manufactured TV sets.

In the short history of computer science, electrical engineers have introduced transistors, capacitors, and batteries to high-speed, parallelprocessing information networks, stereoscopic 3-D vision, and computergenerated imagery. And while these are amazing technological advancements, we must recognize that eukaryotic cells first put those systems into motion millions of years ago.

Perhaps the most amazing feat of the body's collective cellular citizens is the human brain, the most powerful computer system designed and created .ever! In an ongoing zealous endeavor to adapt human physiology to the human environment, building an information processing system that can rival the power of the human brain is the ultimate mission of every driven computer engineer.

In fact, scientists in the emerging field of biomimicry are reverse engineering biology's age-old technological advances in an effort to create new technologies that will sustain life on the planet.

THE CELLULAR ECONOMY: NO CELL LEFT

BEHIND

The movements of protein molecules that provide bodily functions require energy to empower their actions. We become personally aware of the body's energy expenditures through the heat it both generates and, conserves to keep the system at the proper operating temperature.

Cells in the body manage their energy needs by exchanging molecules of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an adenosine molecule with three phosphate chemical groups attached to it. ATP is the molecular equivalent of a rechargeable battery, similar to the battery used in a mobile phone. Cells tap the energy from ATP molecules to empower cellular functions.

ATP molecules release a unit of energy when one of their three phosphates is clipped off. Discharging the energy in an ATP molecule causes it to become adenosine diphosphate (ADP), an adenosine molecule with only two phosphates. Through the efforts of their work, cells can recharge the ADP molecule by reattaching another phosphate and turning it back into an energized ATP molecule. Cells work to make ATP and expend ATP to do work.

ATP molecules are exchanged, like a currency, among the body's cells. Interestingly, biology textbooks often refer to ATP as the "coin of the realm," a reference to the fact that energy in human society is equated to money. The more dollars one has, the more energy one has to create and support life.

Insights into managing a sound economy are available if, as economists might say, we "follow the ATP." In exchange for ATP salaries, cells work for the system and pool their productivity. Cells can bank extra energy savings by storing ATP coins in their cytoplasm. ATP salaries are commensurate with the cell's contribution to the body. Cells whose efforts are more vital to the community get paid more ATP and may even be provided with cellular entourages that support their specialized functions. While cells are on different pay scales, every cell is provided with the basics of life: food, shelter, health care, and protection.

Excess energy, the equivalent of cellular profits, is stored in what might be called regional and national banks, physically represented by reserves of adipose, or fat cells. By their nature, energy reserves are true deposits. However, savings are not stored in individual accounts. Rather, all energy reserves are available for use by the entire community. At the behest of the body's government—which we will describe later in this chapter一energy reserves can be sent anywhere in the system where they are needed to build, upgrade, or repair the body's infrastructure. With this system of equity, cells freely contribute their efforts to the community and never have to worry about where their next ATP paycheck will come from.

In regard to ATP/ADP exchange, the body is a closed system, which means there's no external lending mechanism or procedure from which the body can borrow energy. Because there is no Federal Reserve Bank with power to coin ATP, when the system needs emergency funds, that energy must come from resources that already exist within the community. This means that cells cannot charge debt on an Ascended MasterCard to be repaid in a future lifetime—with or without interest. Therefore, true fiscal conservatives will be happy to know that the body's energy budget is always balanced.

A HEALTHY CENTRAL VOICE: THE CELLULAR
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Every cell that comprises the human body is an independent, intelligent, sentient being that, when given a proper environment, is self-sufficient and can survive on its own. However, a multicellular organism is not simply a bunch of self-serving eukaryotic cells crowded together under one skin; functionally, they form a community.

Community, by its nature, represents an organization of individuals who share common interests, attitudes, or goals. The key word is share. As a member of a community, a cell defers its own personal interests and agrees to support the whole. In return, the celPs survivab山ty is enhanced by increased awareness and energy efficiency that comes from the cooperative community.

Survival is predicated on one's ability to accurately assess and respond to environmental information. Dispersed primitive prokaryotes in the first level of the biosphere's evolution communicated information across distances by releasing signals into the environment, and other prokaryotes received and responded to these signals.

Information exchange was enhanced in the next level of evolution when closely packed eukaryotes acquired membrane junctions that enabled them to physically connect, or plug in, to one another. Cell junctions are functionally analogous to computer cables used to create a network among a number of individual computers.

Increasing the population density in multicellular organisms led to many cells existing in the organism's internal regions without direct access to external environmental cues. This created a need for cells on the interior to receive messages from cells on the exterior.

Therefore, through differentiation, a new breed of eukaryotic cells, the nerve cells, formed in the skin where they could perceive environmental conditions and relay that information inward. This subsequently led to development of the nervous system, which is an information network that interconnects the cells in the community, regardless of their location, and enables two-way communication from internal organs to the skin and from the skin to the organs.

This flow of information between the external environment and internal cells makes the nervous system's regulatory function tantamount to the body's government.

The governing nervous system does not tell the other body cells how to do their jobs. The heart cells beat and cells of the digestive system process food because of their own built-in intelligence. Distributed within each organ system are clusters of nerve cells called ganglia. Ganglia resemble state governments that process local organ-related information, as distinct from the brain, which functions as the central government and manages what might be called the affairs of the "Federation of Organs."

As an example, if we were to remove the entire digestive system, mouth to anus, from the body and place food into the esophagus, the local nerve ganglia would move that food through the entire digestive process to the elimination of waste without any input from the central nervous system.

In addition to coordinating the functions within an organ system, ganglia exchange information with the brain, which integrates and coordinates data derived from the body's other systems. As the central information processing system, the brain trusts that the organs and organ systems will regulate their own functions, and it continues to operate under that protocol until it receives an indication that a job isn't being performed properly.

The allocation of management responsibility is analogous to the original intent of the U.S. Constitution, which states that anything not specifically designated as a power of the federal government is left to the regional authority of the states.

The nervous system not only perceives and organizes the body's response to environmental stimuli; it also learns and remembers information from past experiences. The efficiency gained by working in community enabled the

body to invest significant energy to support an amazingly large population of nerve cells specifically dedicated to processing and memorizing learned perceptions. The enhanced information-handling capacity provided by the networking of a trillion cells in the brain enabled humans to learn how to rub two sticks together to create fire and, subsequently, to use fire to propel a rocket to the moon.

It is profoundly important to emphasize that the nervous system is not a top-down means of authoritarian control but, rather, an interactive communication system. In the same manner that a nation's government can generate rules and legislation for the populace, the brain can regulate certain bodily functions. In much the same manner as news networks, the brain broadcasts the perceptions of the day to every one of the body's 50 trillion cellular citizens.

But, again, good governments and healthy bodies operate with a two-way information exchange. Citizens can express their opinions by making telephone calls or sending letters to their legislators, by voting, or by protesting in the streets. Likewise, cellular citizens respond to information stimuli within the body by voicing their opinions to the central nervous system via communications that we perceive as emotions and symptoms一 some of them gentle and some of them violent.

If the brain engenders wise and supportive governance, it will respond to the cellular community's feedback with leadership that offers each cellular citizen a life of healthful bliss. But, as is frequently demonstrated in our own world, if the brain is uninformed, out-of-touch, and unresponsive, it can stress a cellular community to the point of breakdown, disease, and death, which are the body's equivalent to anarchy, destruction, and warfare in civil society.

GROWTH, PROTECTION, AND THE BALANCE OF
LIFE

For the last 150 years, Western civilization has chosen material science as its source of truth and wisdom about the mysteries of life. Allegorically, we may picture the wisdom of the Universe as resembling a large mountain. We scale the mountain in order to acquire knowledge, and our drive to reach the periodic table exhibit profoundly different physicochemical properties. Referred to as polar and non-polar molecules, their differences are best understood in terms of water and oil.

Water molecules are polar, which means they have localized regions of positive and negative charges. In that regard, they are analogous to magnets, which are also distinguished by their opposing north and south polarities. Because opposite charges attract and form tight bonds, polar molecules can physically assemble into large, rigid structural complexes.

Even though the chemical bonds that hold the atoms of an oil molecule together are highly energized, lipid molecules are non-polar because their polarizing charges are evenly distributed throughout the molecule and, consequently, do not possess localized sites of positive and negative charge.

Chemical bonds that hold atoms together in a non-polar lipid molecule possess six to ten times more energy than chemical bonds in an equal weight of polarized protein and carbohydrate molecules. This means that Nature uses non-polar lipid molecules to store biological energy, a fact that is reflected in the body's accumulation of fat. The relative absence of localized sites of attractive and repulsive forces in non-polar molecules allows them to form fluid communities. However, the same non-polar character prevents lipids from assembling into rigid structures.

Filling a beaker with non-polar molecules is like filling it with atom-sized ping-pong balls. Because they do not bind to one another, each ball is free to move and form fluid-like associations. In contrast, a beaker of polar molecules more closely resembles a beaker filled with nano-sized magnets that automatically assemble into a solid, tightly packed mass in which molecules align and couple their polar charges.

Upon throwing a mixture of ping-pong balls and bar magnets into the same beaker, the tightly coupled polarized magnets would clump together and separate from the loosely organized ping-pong balls. This molecular imagery reveals why water's polar molecules physically separate from oil's non-polar molecules and why water droplets bead up while oil droplets flatten to a thin film.

Interestingly, the first differential between masculine and feminine traits is manifest in the difference between polar and non-polar molecules. Non-polar

In the next chapter, we will play in the playing field where this integration will take place.

 

Conventional physics courses suggest that the principles of quantum mechanics that govern wave-particle interactions only apply at the level of atoms. By restricting quantum physics to the subatomic world, it has become a general assumption that quantum mechanisms do not apply to our personal lives and world affairs. Therefore, today's physicists have completely failed to inform the public of the purely mental nature of the Universe.

Fortunately, leaders in the field, such as Johns Hopkins University physicist Richard Conn Henry, are addressing the misperceptions about the perceived primacy of the material world. Henry offered an elegantly simple definition on the true nature of the Universe, "The Universe is nonmaterial—it is mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy?-

Our minds actively co-create the world we experience. Consequently, by changing our beliefs, we have an opportunity to affect world change. While this profound insight represents a soundly grounded scientific principle, the questions remain: "Does it work in practice? Are there studies or observations that actually demonstrate that quantum mechanical principles apply to people and society? Does the energy field of the human mind truly influence the physical character of our world?^,,

Theoretical physicist Amit Goswami sought an answer to these questions by designing an experiment to see if human behavior is influenced by quantum mechanical activities. Goswami chose to work with the quantum principle of nonlocality, a fundamental property displayed by subatomic particles such as photons and electrons. As defined by this principle, the physical traits of particles become intimately connected, or entangled, once they interact with one another. If a characteristic of one of a pair of entangled particles is altered, for example, the change of its rotational spin from clockwise to counter clockwise, the other particle instantly responds with a complementary change of its spin—ven though vast distances may separate the particles. Einstein referred to nonlocality as “spooky action at a distance."

Goswami's experiment was designed to see if the operation of the human mind expressed the quantum property of nonlocality. Specifically, he asked whether human brains could behave as entangled particles so that a change in activity of one subject's mind would induce a complementary change in the mind of an entangled partner. Goswami had pairs of subjects engage in a

meditative interaction in which they were instructed to maintain direct communication, that is, to feel each other's presence at a distance.

The subjects were separated by a distance of 50 feet and placed in electromagnetically shielded Faraday chambers where their EEG activity was monitored. Goswami flashed a strobe light into one of the subject's eyes, inducing an evoked potential, which is a distinctive electrical pattern that reveals the brain's response to a sensory stimulus.

When individuals were mentally linked by meditation, eliciting an evoked potential in one partner instantly induced an identical evoked potential in the entangled partner's brain even though the second individual did not physically experience the stimulus. This experiment demonstrates that activity in one person's brain can influence the activity in the brain of a separated entangled partner. The non-local transfer of potentials from brain to brain reveals that the brain has a quantum nature that operates at the macro leveL-

Large numbers of studies have observed that the minds of presumably frail and powerless humans consciously and measurably influence the field, which, in turn, shapes our world. In this chapter, we will explore further evidence that, in the real world of human actions and events, an invisible moving field does, indeed, exist—and that our thoughts, emotions, and actions are important in how that field is shaped. We will provide information regarding how our thoughts, empowered by feelings in our hearts, can be harnessed to bring about peace and harmony in our world.

We end the chapter with a suggested path of action—a human operating system, if you will—that will support the success of our species. The one suggestion that we suggest is based on information that has been handed down by spiritual teachers throughout the ages, information that is now resoundingly confirmed by new-edge science.

THE FIELD EXPERIMENTS

History acknowledges that the Wright Brothers flew a heavier-than-air aircraft in 1903. But it wasn't until seven years later, when people actually saw a photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt in an airplane that the average American finally realized that flight was possible. If you had the opportunity to ask the typical person on the street up to the moment that picture appeared, “When will humans fly?" the answer would likely have been, “When pigs fly!" In a similar way, the average person today is unfamiliar with the new sciences that incontrovertibly demonstrate the existence of an invisible energy field that influences life.

Since the founding of modern science, researchers have been on a mission to understand the domain of the observable and measurable Universe. That which could not be seen—and could not be measured一was, by definition, outside the realm of science. While mystical and religious thought has always expressed belief in what physicists named the field, it is only in the past century that science has developed the instrumentation to definitively measure the field's existence and its influence.

Biomedical scientists bold enough to explore outside the bounds of conventional Newtonian explanations are now discovering a vast and uncharted playing field that seems to defy the conventional laws of the physical Universe. That this playing field is also a praying field indicates that experience and knowledge are leading us into a domain where science and spirit merge to become cooperative evolutionary forces.

Just as surely as we are aware of the presence of an invisible field when we observe iron filings arranging themselves around a magnet, we can now actually see the presence of life-influencing invisible energy fields through use of advanced medical scanning technologies such as CAT scans, MRI scans, PET scans, and sonograms.

While scanned images may reveal cancers and symptoms of other diseases, it is important to realize that scans are not actual photographs of physical tissues and internal organs; if they were, the images would show only external skin. Rather, scan images are visualizations of invisible radiant energy fields, and the characteristics of the invisible field are an energy complement of the body's physical reality.

Most scan technologies are employed to read the character of energy fields within the body. However, there are a number of new technologies that actually read energy fields that radiate from our bodies into the environment. Instruments have been designed that detect a beating heart's powerful electric and magnetic fields meters away from its source. Field-influencing electromagnetic messages broadcasted from our hearts have been shown to entangle with the hearts of others in the field.

Similarly, a new scanning system, magneto-encephalography (MEG), actually reads the brain's neural energy patterns through a probe that is some distance from the body. MEG technology provides physical proof that brain activity is broadcast into the environment in the same way that a tuning fork radiates a sound through the field.

TIME ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE

Just as surely as we humans thought we knew a century ago that we couldn't fly, most of us today have been programmed to believe that time is an absolute that moves in only one direction. Well, maybe. Maybe not.

As startling as it may seem, researcher Dean Radin, author of Entangled Minds, and journalist Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field and The Intention Experiment, offer proof that sometimes we respond to future events ahead of time. Consider the experiment where subjects are wired to biometric equipment that registers emotional reactions. They are shown a succession of slide images, the vast majority of which are peaceful and pleasing. But about 3 percent of the pictures一randomly interspersed一are shocking images portraying sex or violence. Subjects registered an emotional response to the disturbing images seconds before those pictures actually appeared on the screen. How can this be, given our current concept of linear and progressive time?⁵

Or, consider Dr. Radin's surprising studies with random number generators, which are computers programmed to continuously generate sequences of numbers in an erratic fashion. When graphically mapped out, the computer's number sets display a random pattern—except on rare occasions. Exceptions are distinguished by the fact that, at those times, the number sets are no longer random but unexpectedly express pattern and coherence.

The amazing part of the story is that the loss of randomness usually occurred when there was a global event that simultaneously captured the attention of a vast number of people. Apparently, it doesn't seem to matter what or how people think or feel about the event, only that their attention is coherently focused on the same event. This commonly occurs each year at the time of the Super Bowl, but it has also been noted during three events that had the world's focused attention: the O. J. Simpson trial, the funeral of Princess Diana, and the attack on the World Trade Center.-

Now here is where Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" becomes even spookier. When the pattern of spikes in global coherence is mapped on to a graph, it creates a typical bell-shaped curve. Nothing unusual about that, except that, in this case, the devices that plot the bell-shaped graph over time reveal that numbers begin to get more coherent at a particular time before the event. Thus, it was that two hours prior to when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11, the number generators were already responding to pre-verberations of the shocking moment !-

Helmut Schmidt, a German-born physicist and psi researcher of purported psychic abilities, had long been interested in the relationship between the observer and the observed phenomenon. Having observed that the observer could influence random events through intention, Schmidt posed a deliciously intriguing question: could an observer influence the outcome of that event   ven if it had already happened?³

Schmidt connected his random number generator to an audio device that would record a click in either the left or right ear of a set of headphones. He then made a number of recordings of the number generator's left-right output; making sure that no one, including himself, could observe the results. A day later, a volunteer was given a recorded tape and told to mentally influence the outcome so that more clicks would occur on one side than the other.

Schmidt compared the distribution of left-right clicks on influenced tapes with those on uninfluenced control recordings. While control tapes showed purely random results, to his surprise, Schmidt found that his subjects influenced the distribution of clicks on tapes recorded two days earlier!

Interestingly, this time travel experiment only worked if the recorded clicks went unobserved until after the volunteer had a chance to influence them. If anyone observed the original results before the time the experiment was conducted, their observations could not be subsequently influenced.

The implications of this experiment are mind-boggling and paradigm busting. Sometimes psychic healers report healing a condition by going back to a time before the condition existed. While this sounds like a bunch of woo- woo hoodoo, the laws of quantum mechanics suggest it may, in fact, be possible. If nothing else, Radin's and Schmidt's experiments provoke us to seriously reconsider the commonly accepted idea of linear time because that concept now appears to be a bit shaky. And what is it that exists beyond time? The field.

THE PLAYING FIELD AS A PRAYING FIELD

Not only do these studies challenge our concept of time, this research also calls into question our notions of distance and space. Interestingly, some of the most far-out, woo-woo experiments have been in the service of the most practical matters—like national defense. In his book Miracles of Mind, physicist Russell Targ describes his participation in CIA-SPONSORED remote viewing experiments at the Stanford Research Institute.

Remote viewing is a specialized practice of clairvoyance that was developed by the military to explore enemy installations halfway around the globe. Persons adept at remote viewing are told a latitude-longitude coordinate. "Adepts," as they are called, then enter into what amounts to be a deep meditation. While in that altered state, the adept can actually describe landscapes and structures at the provided location even though they have never been there.

According to Targ, one of the more gifted remote viewers was Pat Price, who had been the Police Commissioner of Burbank, California. In an experiment sponsored by the CIA, Price was given only the latitude and longitude of what turned out to be a Soviet nuclear weapons laboratory in Siberia. With nothing but those coordinates to go on, he was able to sketch the plant with incredible precision. Satellite photos later confirmed the remarkable accuracy of his sketches.-

These and similar remote viewing experiments demonstrate that the field transcends distance as well as time. The implications are profound, not only for long-distance spying but also for long-distance healing.

means not having attachment to the outcome or how that outcome must manifest. Interestingly, the secret to successful prayermaking leaves us with a crazy-making paradox: ^uIn order to have something, you must at once desire it, yet not be attached to getting it.ⁿ—

Braden offers a thoughtful reason behind the necessity of detachment when he suggests that most prayers are ego-based wishes for individual selves who are rarely aware of the consequences that realizing those personal desires may have on the lives of other individuals or on the greater good. The intelligence of the field, expressed Biblically as "Thy will be done," often has a much bigger plan up its very, very big sleeve.

The second caveat of the Bible's injunction on creative praying reads, “be surrounded by your answer.This simply means to physiologically and emotionally experience the desired intention as if it already has occurred. This is precisely the activity of Buddhist monks and Native American shamans who pray by internally creating the experience of what they desire, as if it already existed. Modem physicists offer the same insight on prayer and manifestation, even though they prefer to consider it in terms of fields influencing matter.

Engaging an emotional experience plays an important physiologic role in the manifestation of prayer. Emotions link consciousness with the experiential physical realm because they represent the bridge between thought and the chemistry of feelings. Now we truly come to the heart of the matter—for the heart is the mind's powerhouse that amplifies and broadcasts our emotional information into the Universe.

THE SACRED HEART AND COHERENCE

In the world of scientific materialism, the heart is merely a muscle一a very important muscle, but a muscle and nothing more. However, in Chinese medicine, the heart is considered the center of wisdom, and, in the ancient Vedic tradition, the heart is the mediator between Heaven and Earth.

Ancient Ayurvedic philosophy contends that the body possesses seven chakras, which are force centers considered to be focal points for the reception and transmission of the body's vital energies. The powerful heart

HeartMath researchers confirmed what religion, poetry, and our own intuition have been telling us since the beginning of human awareness. The heart is the interface between consciousness and the physiologic responses that generate emotions. What's more, they found that the impact of love, itself, is real and biochemically measurable.

Childre and Martin's research led to specific techniques for accessing what they refer to as coherent heart intelligence. When subjects focus their attention on the heart and activate a core heart feeling, such as love, appreciation, or caring, these emotions immediately shift their heartbeat rhythms into a more coherent pattern. Increasing heartbeat coherence activates a cascade of neural and biochemical events that affect virtually every organ in the body.

Studies demonstrate that heart coherence leads to more intelligence by reducing the activity of the sympathetic nervous system一our fight or flight mechanism一while simultaneously increasing the growth-promoting activity of the parasympathetic nervous system. The relaxation response produced by heart coherence reduces production of the stress hormone cortisol and redirects its chemical precursors to produce the anti-aging hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Cultivated feelings of love, compassion, caring, and appreciation influence our physiology so as to provide us with healthier, happier, and longer lives.迎

Science has actually tracked the pathway by which love heals! By focusing attention on our heart, we increase synchronization between the heart and brain, which, in turn, calms our nervous system and deactivates the stress response. When operating in a state of heart coherence, the body conserves vital energy for growth and maintenance.

The heart's influence on the field is empowered by its own electromagnetic activity that is 5,000 times more powerful than the brain's electromagnetic field. Current technology can read the heart's energy field up to ten feet away from the body. Feelings such as love generate measurable, quantifiable heart field coherence, while negative emotions create incoherence and disharmony in the heart's field.

The heart broadcasts our emotions into the world around us and is, likewise, influenced by emotions broadcast by others. When an individual connects with another person through either physical touch or simply by caring, the electrical activity of the two communicating hearts and brains become entangled and begin to entrain with one another. This research offers even more profound implications for activating a coherent worldwide healing field because it reveals that the healing coherence of love is contagious and can rapidly spread throughout a population.

These observations suggest that the emotional coherence or incoherence of large groups of people can profoundly influence the greater field. The Institute of HeartMath has recently launched a worldwide experiment to test this hypothesis by enlisting the efforts of large numbers of participants across the planet. Their Global Coherence Initiative is a science-based initiative designed to assess the coordinated influence of millions of people who consciously practice what they define as “heart-focused care and intention to shift global consciousness from instability and discord, to balance, cooperation and enduring peace.^,,—

Can our intentions purposefully change Earth's field? Please stay attuned.

ENTRAINING WHEELS FOR THE NEXT CYCLE

HeartMath's Global Coherence Initiative is not the first study to measure the impact of focused coherent concentration by large numbers of people on the physical world. Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation (TM), a technique brought to America by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, launched an experiment in two dozen American cities in the early 1970s. The Maharishi claimed that when the square root of one percent of a given population practiced this form of meditation, there would be a reduction in crime in the surrounding area.—

While this might seem like an outrageous claim by someone who supposedly was the subject of the Beatles^, song "Fool on the Hill,” it turns out that the Maharishi Effect is, indeed, real. Interestingly, not only is crime significantly reduced while these studies are going on, but other markers of coherence, including a decline in emergency room visits, are experienced as well.

In a well-documented 1993 study, TM practitioners converged on

Washington, D.C., during the hot summer months of June and July. Despite a near-record summer heat wave一something that statistically correlates with a higher crime rate一crime began to decrease and continued to decrease throughout the duration of the experiment. When the experiment was over and the meditators went home, curiously enough, the crime rate immediately began to rise again! The observed decrease in crime in that area, as substantiated by FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, could not be accounted for through analyses of any other known variables. Statistically, the likelihood that these results could be attributed to coincidence is less than two chances in a billion.—

Are these results something that can only be achieved through Transcendental Meditation, or are there other ways and techniques for impacting field coherence?

Two different coherence-creating projects, Lynne McTaggart's Intention Experiment— and Common Passion,— are seeking answers to that question.

Joe Giove, executive director of Common Passion, wrote: "Imagine a massive global collaborative of peace-creating groups whose purpose is social harmony, comprised of members from every religion, meditation practice, and indigenous group. They would come together locally and globally, learn how to apply the findings of prior social studies, and develop an open-source technology that validated the social harmonizing effects of their combined efforts.*

Giove proposes an ambitious, yet worthy, undertaking that offers individuals the opportunity to gather and focus human love under one big intent. As is often the case when a new context emerges, evidence of the phenomenon begins to appear everywhere.

In his recent book, Awakening into Oneness, Arjuna Ardagh reports on what he named the Oneness Blessing, a practice referred to as deeksha in India. According to Ardagh, the blessing is a form of coherence that can be transferred from one individual to another. Ardagh reports that the Oneness Blessing, based on the work of Sri Bhagavan and his wife Sri Amma, founders of Oneness University in India, produced a profound local transformation in the vicinity of the university that is strikingly similar to the Maharishi Effect.

in that water grew noticeably taller and more rapidly than plants from control seeds grown in psychically untreated water. In another of his studies, Grad had psychiatric patients, including one severely depressed man, hold beakers of water that would later be used to sprout seeds. The water held by the patients and, in particular by the depressed man, clearly inhibited the plants' growth.— Further studies showed that healers actually produced a physical change in the structure of water that was assessed by studying its spectroscopic absorption of infrared light.— These changes demonstrated greater structural coherence of the water molecules after it was exposed to the hands of the healer and a lesser coherence when the depressed man influenced the water. Grad extended these studies and found that healers could also provoke a slowing of the growth of tumors in laboratory rats.

Further evidence that thoughts and emotions can alter cellular reality is provided in the work of physician and healer Leonard Laskow. Like so many of those who find themselves at the forefront of this new paradigm, Laskow began his career in traditional medicine. It was a twist of fate that changed his direction and led him to a healing experience so profound that his life work took off in a totally unpredictable direction. In 1971, Laskow was a successful OB/GYN and surgeon with a thriving practice in Northern California. A pain in his shoulder led to x-rays that revealed a lesion, which is often an indication of bone cancer.

As a doctor, Laskow already knew the treatment protocol was amputation. And, while there had been a one-armed outfielder who played major league baseball when everyone else was in the military service during World War II, it's exceedingly difficult to perform surgery single-handedly. While awaiting his test results, Laskow accepted that, even with one arm, he could still be of service as a health counselor.

A few weeks later, the test results showed the lesion to be a simple benign cyst. However, over the interim, Laskow pondered his fate and decided that a change was in order. He left his stressful medical practice and focused his attention on studying the mental and emotional facets of healing.

A short while later, Laskow received the following message while in a meditation: "Your work is to heal with love." The message left him awestruck and humbled. He realized that his decision to go into medicine in visual imagery to the intention, the healing effect doubled.—

So, what's love got to do with it? As Laskow reports in his book Healing With Love, his intention was not to destroy the cancer cells but to allow them to exist as part of universal creation. Love, he explained, is the "impulse toward unity, non-separation, wholeness. While love can take many forms, its essence is relatedness.''³³ Laskow believes that the opposite of love is not hate but separation. While there are many different modes for accessing and using healing energy, Laskow's protocol involves connecting with the condition instead of separating from it.

When we experience an illness or a life condition that we would prefer not to have, our first impulse is to cast it out. We tend to think of illness as a foreign invader that attacks us rather than something we co-create. However, when we truly own our participation in the condition, even if we don't understand the reason, we become responsible participants in directing our fate.

With the awareness that our mind shapes our biology, we can recognize that we have the opportunity to change our minds and, thus, create a healthier biology. Given what we now know about the intelligence and functionality of our cells, maybe we can begin by humbly apologizing to our inner citizens and thank them for putting up with us! When we take the step of consciously loving our cells, we affirm that we are co-creating participants, not victims of life.

An illness or disharmonious condition occurs when something is misformed or deformed. Healing, therefore, involves transformation to change the dysfunctional form. Here is Laskow's simple four-step transformational healing process:—

• Step One: Informyourself about what has already materialized in form. Telling the truth is the first step toward responsibility.
• Step Two: Conformto the condition by loving it rather than creating separation. Resonating with the form allows us more influence over its organization.
• Step Three: Unformthe condition by releasing it. "It is the observer's intent,ⁿ said Laskow, “that converts particulate matter to its wave form and its wave form back into matter."
• Step Four: Reformthe released energy to conform to our purpose and desire. This is the letting go part where we send our intention into the Universe without attachment.

Even when releasing the diseased condition, there is connection and not separation. Laskow wrote: "When you accept and love the parts of yourself you want to reject or change, you create an opportunity to discover the positive life force behind them/ — That old Biblical word atonement can be reinterpreted as at-one-ment through which we make ourselves at one with whatever condition we would have otherwise rejected.

In the quantum Universe where everything is connected, love is the glue that holds things together. Said Laskow, “Love is a universal pattern of resonant energy?— In this sense, two or more tuning forks vibrating together are in love with each other, just as two or more humans can resonate in a palpable field of connectedness, joy, and even ecstasy. Love, he said, "is the universal harmonic.

Leonard Laskow's work brings up an intriguing and transformational question. If we can "love a cancer cell to death," or at least to the point of relative harmlessness, can we also love terrorists and other human sociopathogens and render them harmless, too? Can embracing these individuals, groups, and even nations as a manifestation of our own need to heal be the key to a new quantum politics?

THE ONE SUGGESTION

Science suggests that the next stage of human evolution will be marked by awareness that we are all interdependent cells within the super-organism called humanity. And just as surely as the seeker who climbs Mount Awareness and finds Buddha patiently waiting at the top with his words of wisdom, there is an equally valuable one suggestion waiting for us when we boil most religious thought down to its golden essence. The nearly universal suggestion offered by most of the world's spiritual systems is to practice some version of the Golden Rule.

Cited below are a few examples of how the Golden Rule has been incorporated into the world's major religions:—

• Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful, (Udana-Varga 5,1)
• Christianity: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law of the prophets. (Matthew 7:1)
• Confucianism: Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state. (Analects 12:2)
• Hinduism: This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you. (Mahabharata 5:1517)
• Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. (Sunnah)
• Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow-man. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. (Talmud, Shabbat 3id)
• Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss. (Tai Shang Kan Yin P'ien)
• Zoroastrianism: That Nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself. (Dadis-ten-I-dinik, 94:5)

Could these spiritual practices be trying to tell us something? Perhaps the most profound difference between children of God and adults of God is that children of God worship the lawgiver while adults of God strive to live the law.

Again, while the Golden Rule is only a suggestion, it is based on experience. Robert Thurman, Professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, emphasized, “Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a practice."翎 What makes the practice practical, said Thurman, is that it works.

Thurman stated that Buddhism is based on rationalism because Buddhists believe human fate is not determined by God, but by a causal system called karma. Thurman said, “In the karmic system, one kind of action is systematically more successful than another in enhancing a being's existence.^,—

As we come to understand the relatedness of all things, we see that actions are related to consequence. The Buddhist understanding of karma resonates with both Jesus' message to love thy neighbor and the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, “the healing of the world."

CHAPTER 14

A HEALTHY COMMONWEALTH

*7n Nature's economy, the Golden Rule overrules the Rule of Gold."

—Swami Beyondananda

The original draft of this chapter warned of a pending financial meltdown and the potential for global economic collapse. In the fall of 2008, before the manuscript was completed, this negative potential exploded into reality as our house-of-credit-cards economy, based on unlimited borrowing and a diluted dollar, began its precipitous collapse.

While the financial crisis can understandably feel life-threatening, we will come to see that it is a necessary adjustment, a convulsive labor pain that will propel us to birth a higher evolutionary version of humanity   ne that operates on the one suggestion that we're all in this together.

This chapter explores the exciting domain offered by a truly natural economy in contrast to the current economic structure that is based on outdated, irrelevant paradigms of only matter matters and survival of the fittest.

But, to begin transforming our crisis into opportunity, some long-standing and unquestioned myth-perceptions about economics must first be set aright.

Just hearing the word economics might cause brain fog for those who recall a mystifying subject never fully grasped in high school or college. For others, the complexities of economics might be boiled down to the simple description offered by comic faux priest, Father Guido Sarducci, "You buy something for less一you sell it for more."

Aristotle first defined economics as the science of household management, Additionally, the body's economy has proven to be durable and flexible enough to support human adaptation to the widest range of environmental challenges. Consequently, understanding economic exchanges among the body's cellular community will, logically, help us design a more successful model of human economic management.

At its most basic level, cellular economics is simply the study of how living systems apportion and use energy in order to work and produce. While the units of exchange may range from dollars to donuts, all economies are based on an exchange of work, which, of course, equates to energy.

To maintain itself and empower its functions, a body expends energy as it works to procure and process food, as we learned in Chapter 12, Time to See a Good Shrink. Cells, then, extract energy from that food and store it in the form of stable ATP molecules, which is the cellular equivalent of money. ATP coins are exchanged among the community's cells as salaries to cover the cost of expended energy for operations such as digestion, respiration, neural processing, movement, reproduction, and waste elimination.

Energy produced in excess of the body's needs, by definition, represents wealth. The body transforms surplus energy into energy-rich oil molecules that are banked as fat deposits, which are the body's equivalent of a financial savings account. The body deposits and withdraws fat molecules to keep ATP money circulating and to fund the cellular community's functions, growth, and maintenance.

A healthy economy can only exist when a community of individuals generates wealth by creating more energy than it consumes. For example, before a farmer can contribute to the village economy, he must first grow enough food to sustain his own household. When he produces extra food, the farmer generates surplus, which, by definition, represents wealth. Circulation of the fanner's wealth facilitates production, consumption, and transfer of energy by and among others with various other skills within the village.

Considering our culture's preoccupation with the material realm, it is not surprising that we measure wealth in terms of physical possessions, particularly money. Aristotle recognized an inevitable problem of equating money with wealth over 2500 years ago when he wrote, "He who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food.^,, In other words, Aristotle understood that people who become avaricious and pursue money for the sake of merely having money confuse the instrument of wealth一money— with wealth itself.

So what is wealth, really? The term wealth is derived from the old English word weal, which means "well-being.'' In its original context, wealth literally represents comfort, health, happiness, or satisfaction. The Founding Fathers were clearly aware of the meaning of wealth when they penned in the Declaration of Independence that individuals "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.^,,

By contrasting the successful cellular economy with the failing global fiscal economy, we can identify four fundamental principles of economics in which human policies profoundly differ from cellular practices. These deviations are in regard to our human perception of wealth and how it relates to well-being, ecology, efficiency, and currency stability.

PRINCIPLE ONE: WEALTH IS WELL-BEING

In his treatise on human economics, Aristotle wrote that a city originates for the sake of basic survival, but it exists for the sake of living well. The same consideration holds true for the human body. The cellular community that is our skin, bones, blood, and so on originated for the sake of the basic survival of individual cells, but it exists for the sake of the body's entire wellbeing.

A fundamental difference between successful cellular economics and the failing human economy concerns a polar opposite perception of the meaning of well-being. When cells assembled into communal life forms, the economic emphasis was not on the wealth of the individuals but on the well-being of the collective,that is, the common, or shared, wealth of all.

Even though America's Founding Fathers valued individual freedom, they understood that a healthy commonwealth一the governmental form in which power is held by the people一would be essential if individual cells were to thrive. Unfortunately, after a century and a half of scientific materialism and Darwinism, the concept of commonwealth has fallen by the wayside,

surprising results of a 2003 World Value Survey of people in 65 nations, published in the British magazine New Scientist. The data revealed that Puerto Rico and Mexico, although economically deprived, were the world's happiest countries, populated by the world's most satisfied citizens. The proudly prosperous Americans scored an embarrassing 16th on the list! Clearly, economic prosperity does not directly translate into well-being.-

One factor shared by all the happiest nations in the survey is a strong sense of community, a true representation of what is meant by commonwealth. Furthermore, research suggests that when an individuaPs basic needs for security, safety, and health are met, their happiness and satisfaction with life is most significantly impacted by the quality of their personal relationships一 with themselves, their partner, family, friends, and community.

The survey data was bad news for consumption-oriented Westerners because it revealed that consumerism, instead of facilitating the pursuit of happiness, might actually be chasing happiness away. Prosperity-driven cultures are working longer hours than ever before to earn enough to buy the stuff they think they need to make themselves happy. In the process, they become so busy chasing money they don't have the time to invest in the personal relationships that actually generate well-being.

PRINCIPLE TWO: ECOLOGY AND ECONOMY
ARE THE SAME

For the past 1200 years, Western civilization has been conditioned to believe that humans are separate and distinct from the environment in which they live. That's because, according to the perceived truths offered by the previous monotheistic paradigm, humans arrived on this planet in a separate act of Divine intervention after the creation of all animals and plants.

When scientific materialism commandeered civilization's basal paradigm, Darwinism offered a completely different story of origins but with essentially the same conclusion: we arrived on the planet for no other reason than sheer accident, the result of an improbable lineage of random mutations.

The distorted perceptions of origins promulgated by both monotheistic creation and scientific evolution imply that human beings exist separate from the environment in which they are immersed. While monotheism teaches that mankind was given dominion over the biosphere, scientific materialism contributes to our separation from the environment by suggesting that the mission of science is to govern and control Nature.

Our misperceived detachment from the environment introduced lifethreatening flaws into the way we manage our economy. Specifically, we have failed to acknowledge the reality that the environment is the primary source of wealth. Our monetary wealth originates from the sun's energy, which fuels the growth of all life in our biosphere. Our further monetary wealth comes from the finite resources of Earth and through processes that lie outside the human economic marketplace and are not funded by, or considered part of, the human economy.

In the words of scientist-turned-economist Frederick Soddy, "Chlorophyll was the original capitalist."3 Chlorophyll molecules are responsible for photosynthesis, the process through which the sun's energy transforms water and carbon dioxide into nutritional sugar molecules. Plant cells harvest their solar-powered sugar molecules and use them for both metabolic building blocks and life-sustaining energy.

The growth of a cornstalk, from a sprout to the height of an elephant's eye, is made possible by the accumulated nutritional wealth manufactured by the plant's chlorophyll. Almost all life on this planet, including our own, is dependent upon photosynthesis-created sugar molecules.

Economists Carl H. Wilken and Charles Walters demonstrated how all wealth enters an economy as raw materials provided by Nature. Wilken declared, “All new wealth comes from the soil.ⁿ- Whether fruit on trees, berries on bushes, crops in fields, animals raised or in the wild, or minerals from the earth, everything of tangible value can be found on, in, or coming from the ground. Even in today's cyber economy, without the production of goods from the soil, life would perish.

Charles Walters offers a powerful example of how Nature produces wealth in his book Unforgiven. Imagine one spring you place a kernel of corn in the ground. With proper sun and rainfall, in a few months the resulting com plant will yield several ears of com, each bearing hundreds of kernels with the those in America, we would need five planets to support us/-

The natural limit to this unnatural growth comes when an organism finds that it has devoured all its available food. The scientific term for this situation is extinction.

Human beings are the most wasteful organisms on the planet. In contrast to sanely pursuing a more harmonious relationship with the environment, profit- driven corporations actually encourage greater inefficiency as a boon to their own short-term profits. Consider, for example, the pirates of the petroleum industry who plunder Nature's oil reserves while simultaneously coercing automakers to manufacture bigger gas-guzzling SUVs一good for profits, bad for life.

On the other hand, we can diminish or even balance our debt through the development of technologies that enhance efficiency. We have only to think back to our lives before the days of computers, the Internet, cell phones, and answering machines to see how technology has improved efficiency in the workplace while making a less-demanding demand on the environment.

A fundamental drive behind the creation of community is to promote wellbeing, or what the Founding Fathers identified as “the pursuit of Happiness.^M In contrast to that beneficent concept and to support their own well-being at the expense of the rest of the world, corporate interests have programmed the public to believe that life satisfaction depends on possession and accumulation of material wealth. All we really need to be happy is a Ferrari, a Rolex, and a diamond-studded, 18 karat gold beer can opener. None of these, in themselves, represents, let alone ensures, being well. And if you spend your money to buy them, you're not likely to be wealthy, either.

As the ads exhorted, “What better way to show you love her than to buy a diamond ring?" In the end, we will find that writing love letters or poems may be more heartfelt and life-sustaining than a diamond ring that, on a simple, functional level, is primarily useful only for cutting glass or playing old phonograph records.

Maybe what we are after isn't so much the goods, but the goodness we think these things will provide. Once we acquire this awareness, the most efficient economy w山 be one that provides the greatest happiness and wellbeing bang for the energy buck.

Function 3, Store of Value: ATP is also a store of value, which means it's a commodity or form of currency that can be reliably saved, stored, and retrieved, and, upon retrieval, it is predictably useful. The energy value of an ATP molecule stored for a million years is exactly the same today as it was when first created. In contrast, the dollar, franc, euro, and yen change value almost every minute.

ATP represents commodity money, which is a currency based on the value of the commodity out of which it is made. In contrast, the principal currency in human civilization is representative money, which is currency that stands in direct and fixed relation to the commodity that backs it, while not itself being composed of that commodity. An example of representative money is the U.S. dollars that, at one time, were known as silver certificates because they represented a dollar's worth of silver, even though the notes were made out of paper.

Today, the U.S. dollar, like most currencies, is fiat money, which is a form of paper or coin currency whose value is determined by a government order, a fiat. The usefulness of fiat money comes not from any natural value or guarantee that it can be converted into silver, gold, or other precious metal, but is derived from a legal decree that it must be accepted as a means of payment.

In most countries, fiat currency is no longer backed by silver or gold and has become a medium of exchange with no intrinsic value. If you doubt this, try eating your money. While it might be high in fiber, it is very low in nutritional content. And, even more amazing一a hundred dollar bill has no more nutritional value than a one dollar bill!

Thomas Jefferson expressed concern regarding the value of representative money when he wrote: "Paper is poverty, . . . it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.淄 Jefferson recognized that the nation would face an ill fate if it used representative money because they who issue that money, and they alone, would control its availability and determine its value.

It is important to remember here that the colonial script we referred to in Chapter 9, Dysfunction at the Junction, was, indeed, paper money, and that this fiat currency—intrinsically worthless—was nonetheless an important key to the colonies' prosperity. Why is that? While it didn't have the backing of

silver or gold, it had something ultimately more valuable than precious metals; it had the genuine value of the natural goods and productive services the American colonies were ready, willing, and able to produce. To understand the difference between this natural prosperity and the economic situation we are in today, we have to follow the money.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

So, where does money一be it in dollars, pounds, francs, or euros—ome from? Why, from the Federal Reserve Bank, the Bank of England, the Swiss National Bank, and the European Central Bank, respectively. The titles of these money-issuing entities sound very impressive and give the notion they are government institutions whose mission is the well-being of the commonwealth. Not so. Each of these banks is a privately held corporation imbued with the primary corporate mission to make a profit for its fortunate shareholders!

To understand how a bank brings money into existence, consider what happens when you go to a bank for a loan. Perhaps you think the money you borrow is another person's savings, invested in the bank to earn interest. That is not the case at all. Money-issuing banks operate on a fractional reserve system, which means they can print a quantity of bank notes equal to nine times the value of their customers^J deposits. They literally create 90 percent of the money out of thin air!

How do privately owned banks fulfill their corporate mission to make a profit? They loan money for which they charge interest—10 percent interest equals 10 percent profit.

So, let's say you borrow $1,000, the privilege for which you must repay the bank $1,100. Where do you get the extra $100? Well, from selling your goods or services to other people. True—but where do they get the money to pay you? Oh, yes一they borrow from the same bank, which, of course, charges them interest, too.

Let's say a country has a population of one million people and each citizen borrows $1,000 from the bank to create an economy based on currency exchange. Collectively, the bank loans the country $1 billion in bank notes.

In return, the country owes the bank $1 billion dollars for the loan's principal, plus another $100 million for the interest. So where does the country get the extra $100 million in currency to pay the bank? It doesn't. It can't.

That's because the country can only borrow and repay money一not create it —and because only banks can create money.

This issuing of a national currency solely by private banks results in a debtbased economy in which there is never enough money in circulation to pay both the principal and the interest. It's only through continual economic growth一and the demand for new loans一that enough money can be created to repay the original loan. In other words, borrowing can only beget more borrowing.

Inevitably, the compounding of the debt leads to a situation in which creditor insolvency motivates banks to foreclose on loans. The debtor's property, used as collateral for the loan, is confiscated and distributed to the bank's shareholders. Because the money loaned by the bank was never equal to the value of the collateral, the shareholders happily accept foreclosures.

This persistent pattern in the money game can be traced back to ancient Babylon. Centuries before Jesus cast the moneychangers from the temple, the priests of Baal had their own money racket. Each spring, they would extend credit to farmers to plant their crops. At harvest time, the priests expected payment. However, because the priests also regulated the money supply, they made sure there was never enough money in circulation for all the farmers to repay their loans.- This led to more credit being extended, which meant that, at the next harvest, the debt was even greater. Repeating the same game plan over a number of years inevitably led to the farmers becoming indentured servants to the priests, who produced nothing. The Babylonian civilization eventually collapsed when the productive elements of their society were reduced to little more than slaves.

Visionary economist Richard Kotlarz recognized that the same pattern of exploitation, that is, "borrowing money into circulation, then withholding more money to make debt service impossible,reverberated throughout ancient societies of Persia, Greece, and Rome with the same effect.— The practice later found resurgence in the era of colonialism and empire. It can be seen today in the monetary policies of the World Bank, the International currency was truly a store of value, the value of farm production would not have been reduced by half.—

The variable nature of our money's value has profoundly undermined our natural economy and given rise to a totally unnatural one. David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy, bluntly described our current financial system as a “money game in which the players use money to make money for people who have money, without producing anything of value/ —

Citing Kevin Phillips book, Bad Money, Korten compares the economy of America at its peak of global power in 1950 with the economy today. In 1950, manufacturing accounted for 29.3 percent of the United States gross domestic product (GDP). By 2005, manufacturing was down to a mere 12 percent, while so-called financial services, meaning money invested into money markets, accounted for more than 20 percent of the GDP.—

Hedge funds, an example of a financial service that was barely a shrub on the economic landscape 20 years ago, have now grown to over $1.8 trillion in assets. These risky ventures, which essentially use borrowed money to borrow more money, totaled some $14 trillion in 2006.—

The new word for borrowing is leverage, and the now defunct and discredited Lehman Brothers was leveraged 35 to one, meaning that it had borrowed $35 on every dollar of its equity! Lehman's bankruptcy has left its unsecured creditors with over $200 billion in losses.—

In the world of money marketing, Wall Street's short-term gain ends up as Main Streefs long-term loss. Korten reported that, over a period of roughly three decades, “the benefits of productivity gains in the Main Street economy were captured by Wall Street players as interest, dividends, and financial service fees.ⁿ—

In an attempt to make ends meet in an economy where the real value of the dollar was plummeting, the American consumer began to borrow money to pay for their consumable goods. Why, you can even use your credit card to purchase fast food, adding debt while you add calories. Financial institutions were all too willing to extend credit, and, by 2007, personal household mortgage and credit card debt stood at $13.8 trillion, which is roughly the equivalent of that year's GDP! Time for another round of foreclosures!

BEYOND THE OLD NEEDY-GREEDY: REAL
MONEY BASED ON REAL WEALTH

In the sobering light of where we are today, it's natural to ask who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs. Do we blame the bankers, the capitalists, the corporations, or politicians? Certainly, the money machine called the corporation bears some responsibility because corporations have conveniently disconnected profits from the environmental cost of those profits. But, if we just identify one or two or three villains, we've missed the real lesson: essentially, we humans are collectively responsible for these conditions because, time after time, we have agreed to them.

This is particularly true in modern society where the poor dream of winning the lottery, the middle class uses credit to pay for instant gratification, and the rich accumulate far more wealth than they will ever need.

Thanks to survival of the fittest programming, the fear of not having enough一which we call “scare-city"—is so pervasive that it's difficult to imagine any other state of life. Programs of scarcity have compounded, like interest on debt, as materialistic science and Darwinists gathered abundant historical evidence that neediness and greediness are, so they say, part of human nature.

Human civilization has been following the money for 3,000 years. What would it be like to have money follow human life for a change? While we are at it, what would we like to have instead of the old needy-greedy? Fortunately, a large number of imaginal cell economists have come forward to help us see outside the money matrix and design something new.

As one example, Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute has proposed a monetary reform platform that would likewise resonate with populist conservatives, libertarians, and America's founders:—

1. End the private creation of money by the Federal Reserve Bank and replace it with debt-free money that reflects the value of the general wealth of the nation.
2. End the fractional reserve banking system and allow banks to make money by lending only money they have on hand.
3. Add new money to the system, not as debt, but as national grants to

rebuild the infrastructure and thus create jobs that create real value.

Zarlenga's plan may sound radical, and it is. However, the situation we face is grave, and, as with any emergency, everything is on the table. While we're awakening to and dismantling our other no-longer-useful paradigms and programming, we might as well do the same with our obsolete beliefs about what money is and what money does.

As long as the discussion of making big changes is in the air, Richard Kotlarz suggests we also reinstitute the Jubilee. In the Old Testament, every 50 years marked a Jubilee Year when debts were forgiven and slaves freed. This was done to make sure the fabric of society didn't unravel due to vast discrepancies in wealth.

A Jubilee today might create some much-needed jubilation. Without the burden of debt, imagine the worldwide potential for self-sufficiency, creativity, and genuine, life-promoting enterprise. It is conceivable that we might actually be able to free up the resources to actually re-grow the Garden.

In addition to long-term monetary reform, we can adopt three short-term strategies that will bring about a healthier commonwealth: create and use alternative currencies, increase local self-sufficiency, and empower an economy based on growing happiness.

Alternative Currencies: Valueless, debt-based representative money is a major contributor to the current global economic crisis. To paraphrase Einstein: We cannot solve the economic problems with the same money that created them. A more functional currency must evolve before a sustainable economy can be established. Toward that end, creative economists are coming forward with revolutionary ideas regarding new units of exchange to transform the world's current currency dilemma.

In his book Access to Human Wealth: Money beyond Greed and Scarcity, Bernard Lietaer, a Belgian economist who helped design the euro, offers a short-term solution for our economic problems in the form of yin currency. Yin currency is designed as a complement to the dominant money, yang currency, represented by the dollar, the yen, the franc, the euro and so on.—

Lietaer emphasizes that the nature of what constitutes workable, beneficial money is defined by agreement within a community. Therefore, people are begins with every community having access to this abundance.

Even in the most urbanized and ghettoized areas of our country, food can be grown locally and provide a thriving business opportunity. When inner- city residents have access to vacant lots, rooftops, or a comer of a schoolyard or park, they also acquire the possibility to grow, process, sell, and deliver food up the economic food chain.

Growing Happiness: To take the garden notion one step further, in a sense, each neighborhood, community, city, state, and nation is a garden with the potential to grow not only food but also other forms of renewable wealth, including intangibles like happiness. Perhaps we need to follow the lead of the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, where, back in the 1970s, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck decided the true measure of wealth is Gross National Happiness (GNH).

And what exactly is happiness? To the Bhutanese, it's a change in perspective. "The underlying message,^w according to an article in Developments Magazine, “is that the country should not sacrifice elements important for people's happiness to gain material development." In short, GNH takes into account not only the flow of money but also access to health care, free time with family, conservation of natural resources and other noneconomic factors 举

In keeping with the Buddhist idea that the ultimate purpose of life is inner happiness, the Bhutanese society has decided to curtail the excessive use of consumer goods, essentially eliminating the corporate middle man, and cultivate the greatest good of all—happiness. Bhutan's lead begs the curious question: what if each nation, each region, and each community had a mission for maximizing happiness in the world, in its own unique way? Yes, what if?

We cannot underestimate the economic impact of well-being intangibles like love, happiness, imagination, and awareness. In an evolving economy, these are the multipliers that help us achieve what Buckminster Fuller would have termed a dymaxion economy, which means an economy based on “deriving maximum output from a minimum input of material and energy."

As we learned in the previous chapter, indices of well-being一love, happiness, peace, and equanimity一are contagious. For example, one person

That attitude exemplifies politics as a self-serving endeavor that, as we now know, has been shaped by Newtonian and Darwinian philosophy.

But, delving deeper into the dictionary, we find a less common usage of the term that aligns with our emerging holistic paradigm: "politics is the total complex of relations between people living in society.^,, With that definition, we can see that our 50 trillion cells are a model community. And the wisdom of our cells to create harmonious politics within can be applied as new rules in the creation of a healthy body politic in which we organize, relate, and act together.

As we learned in Chapter 11 Fractal Evolution, and Chapter 12 Time to See a Good Shrink, cellular politics is characterized by:

• Unity combined with diversity through which each of the body's 200 different cell types perform diverse functions for the benefit of the collective whole
• A central intelligence system that coordinates all of the body's physiologic systems with the needs of individual cells
• A healthy balance between beneficial growth systems and occasionally necessary protection systems, both of which consume energy resources

These principles of unity and diversity, central intelligence, and balance between growth and protection, as expressed within the body, can be applied to the body politic to provide a new, more holistic definition: politics is how we organize, relate, and act together to promote the health of the whole of humanity and every individual in it.

And, by contrasting the social well-being of cellular politics with the crises generated by dysfunctional forms of human political organizations, it is obvious that a political evolution is in order.

So, how do we evolve politically? To explore this question, we first consider the obsolete and harmful consequences of Newtonian-Darwinian politics practiced today. Then we, once again, revisit the wisdom of America's Founding Fathers who set an example for a better way.

NEWTONIAN-DARWINIAN POLITICS accounted for 15 percent of the casualties in World War I, 65 percent in World War II, and, now, more than 90 percent of the casualties in Iraq.- If this trend continues, the only way to assure personal safety will be to enlist in the military.

Conventional political policy conforms to the machinelike nature of a Newtonian-Darwinian Universe—and a Laurel and Hardy comedy一and encourages cyclic action-reaction responses to community disturbances. From a reductionist perspective, we tend to perceive each occurrence of civil unrest as a separate and unrelated event, merely the natural consequence of an eternal struggle to survive. But, in a holistic world in which we are all part of an interrelated Oneness, this is simply not true.

Consider how the destructive policies of the U.S. government's so-called war on terror would play out within the human body: Terrorist cells reported in the liver? Well, bomb the liver! They are too deeply entrenched? “Well, then, nuke the liver and radiate those terrorists! That'll teach the liver to harbor terrorist cells. Oh一the gall bladder and the pancreas are the liver's allies, part of an axis of evil. Nuke them, too!" And so on, until every last radical terrorist cell is dead. The unfortunate side effect of this strategy is that it would kill 90 percent of the innocent civilian cells in the process and, essentially, destroy the body. How's that for collateral damage?

The Newtonian-Darwinian Universe emphasizes a mechanism of distinct independent physical elements. In contrast, the quantum mechanical Universe demonstrates that everything is connected and that separation is an illusion.

In a Newtonian-Darwinian Universe, a cancer is perceived as an enclave of deviant cells living irresponsibly among normal body cells. To fight a cancer, medical doctors employ nuclear radiation, a military-like shock-and-awe response that releases chemotherapeutic poisons into the general cellular population. And, in the character of the military, the conventional medical paradigm dismisses the fact that many innocent, healthy cells will become collateral damage as an unavoidable side effect of these hostilities一this nuking of radical, irresponsible cells.

Because Western medicine equates the body with a machine, it is, therefore, concerned with dominating and controlling that machine. But Eastern medicine takes a completely different approach. Ayurvedic and

traditional Chinese medicine see the body as a quantum holistic system. Rather than attacking a cancer with the intention of killing it, Eastern medicine first attempts to restore natural balance and harmony to the body. When an individual's internal environment is in a state of well-being, the biological terrain simply does not encourage nor support disease-producing disturbances.

Had the United States responded to the attack on the World Trade Center by using the cellular approach of simultaneously isolating the sociopathogens while encouraging greater health and harmony within the world environment, humanity might have taken an evolutionary step forward.

Following the lead of holistic practitioners, holistic politicians would have first tended to the several causes of the imbalance that inevitably precipitated the symptom一the attack. They would have regenerated harmony by dealing with grievances before they could manifest as grievous, retaliatory anger.

It is important to note that a symptom, whether in civil society or a cellular civilization, is not the cause, but a consequence. Failure to appreciate that distinction is the inherent folly in modern politics and modern medicine, both of which focus on eliminating, covering up, or masking the consequence while ignoring the cause. Reacting to the consequence without understanding the cause is the first step toward an inevitable escalation of continuous Newtonian-Darwinian, action-reaction responses.

Terrorist violence is a symptom of a much deeper social problem. In the case of The Iraqi Horror Picture Show, Western civilization's manipulation of and interference with Middle Eastern culture has created a tremendous social imbalance. The West's imperialistic attitude that those people are living on that sand above our oil has generated a deep sense of humiliation among Arabs and great disrespect for their invaders. The foolish attempt to eradicate terrorists has actually caused more terrorists and more terror, which is a situation that political leaders must address if there is to be a resolution.

Regarding the two current hotspots, Iraq and Iran, the U.S. seems to be suffering from a self-serving case of political Alzheimer's, conveniently forgetting that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was responsible for manipulating politics and leadership in both countries. The CIA masterminded the regime change in Iraq in 1963 that brought Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party into power while making him head of Iraq's secret service.- The CIA literally put the fox in the hen house—until he was no longer an asset— then abetted President George W. Bush and his top aides who contrived an illegal invasion to fetch him out.

Similarly, the CIA overthrew Iran's popular and democratically elected ruler, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953 and installed its own candidate, General Mohammad Fazlollah Zahedi, and reinstated the monarchy of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as the Shah of Iran.-

The Shah, who was pro-West, remained in power until 1979 when he was overthrown by a fed-up populace. The nerve of those Iranians to take back control of their own country! But, in a Newtonian-Darwinian political world built on opposing forces and counterforces, it is not surprising that the new leader, Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, the Ayatollah, proved to be an equally onerous political despot.

In addition to destabilizing Iran, Iraq, and other Middle East nations, Western political self-interests have equally disrupted the social systems of Central America, South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. A century of Newtonian-Darwinian, push-pull political polarities have created such global tensions that civilization is now on the verge of a spontaneous combustion.

Fortunately, in the light of emerging new awareness, we have an opportunity to dissipate these political tensions and, instead, redirect their forces toward a spontaneous evolution. A major key to help us manifest a healthy order and a balanced body politic is embedded in America's founding documents.

THE AMERICAN EVOLUTION ARIES AND A
NEWER WORLD ORDER

America's founders, as evolutionaries, intuitively understood the animistic worldview—the beneficial relationship of the individual, the collective, and the field一that new-edge science is beginning to realize and confirm. If we, as members of modern society, set aside the harmful practices of Newtonian- Darwinian politics in favor of a newer form of those original Native American beliefs, we can continue the evolution engendered by the men and women who transformed 13 individual colonies into a Constitutional nation designed to generate and safeguard the common good of all.

Influenced by the enlightenment philosophy of John Locke and Jean- Jacques Rousseau, the perennial wisdom of hermetic spiritual traditions, and interactions with Native Americans, the deistic founders sought to live in harmony with Nature.

Likewise, they perceived tyranny as an unnatural imbalance and, therefore, sought a positive political structure that ensured individual freedom along with that of a healthy, thriving society. In America's founding documents, they specifically emphasized four traits they believed were necessary to accomplish their goal: liberty, justice, truth, and equality.

• Liberty: As deists, the Founding Fathers understood liberty to be the free will of life that encourages growth and evolution. However, they also realized that, in order to sustain survival, liberty must be balanced with justice.
• Justice: Justice balances liberty because it tempers domination and recognizes each individual as free, equal, and worthy of fair treatment, a situation that justly secures the freedom of the whole. In short, justice is the Golden Rule codified by law.
• Truth: Truth preserves and nourishes justice both within the body and the body politic. Just as immune cells must correctly read internal signals and properly distinguish false threats from real danger, We the People, need clear, un-spun information to accurately assess global situations and make decisions that are life-sustaining and not lifethreatening.
• Equality: Equality is the balance between each and all combined with the lasting change that emerges from a critical mass of enlightened individuals.

Our forefathers recognized the value of the commons, an area within communities set aside for discussion in which the voice of each individual counts as much or as little as another's and where wealth and status are not used to judge one's worth. Through observation and participation in such discussions, they knew that creating a nation in which citizens respect each other as equals increases the chances that healthy individuals will voluntarily work together to benefit the entire commonwealth.

America's motto, e pluribus unum, “out of many, one," serves as a reminder that the one is not created through top-down imposition or kingly whimsy in a hierarchy of power but, rather, from the coherent effort of healthy, cooperative, sovereign individuals. It is an organization that is voluntary, not coercive.

THE CENTRAL VOICE OF DEMOCRACY:
UNCOMMON COMMON WISDOM

Just as America's founders understood the animistic worldview, as described in the previous pages, they also believed in the power of free individuals to call forth a more coherent order. Today, more and more people are also recognizing the combined benefits of greater individual freedom and common wisdom.

Here are examples of how professionals, from journalists to software designers, from business executives and management consultants to therapists and faithkeepers, are applying or documenting that philosophy and changing the world's perspective.

American journalist James Surowiecki opens his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, with the tale about British anthropologist Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, the science of genetic defects and presumed undesirable inheritable traits. As a scientist who had spent his life measuring human capabilities, Galton had concluded that humans simply didn't measure up. He found “the stupidity and wrongheadedness of many men and women being so great as to be scarcely credible.”'

In 1906, the 84-year-old Galton was at an agricultural fair near his native Plymouth, England, when he observed a weight-judging competition in which individuals placed wagers and guessed what would be the total weight of an ox after it was slaughtered and dressed. While the bettors included butchers and farmers, most were average citizens with no familiarity of the meat packing business. Cynically, Galton described these people as a typical

cross-section of the public who cast ballots in elections.

He decided to conduct an investigation that he ostensibly believed would prove the incompetence of the average individual who seemed so incapable of self-governance. After the contest was over, Galton assembled the 787 legible entries, added the contestants* estimates, and calculated the mean estimate, which was the average weight guessed by the crowd as a whole. Galton was completely surprised by the result. The average guessed weight was 1,197 pounds, only one pound less than the actual dressed weight of 1,198 pounds!

While not even the individual whose ticket won the wager came that close to guessing the actual weight, there was something about the collective guesses of average people that provided an awareness that not even an expert could match. Interpreting this phenomenon, Surowiecki suggests that each individual has limited knowledge, but when "aggregated in the right way, our [collective] intelligence is often excellent.

Just as certain statistics, when charted, tend to plot as a bell-shaped curve, we might reasonably imagine that, when the judgment and perspective of a large enough sample of individuals are combined, their mean estimate would approximate the real answer or the best possible solution to any given problem.

Another example of mass common wisdom occurred during the aftermath of the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. Because the launch was televised, people saw it as it happened and news of the disaster spread instantly. When reports of the accident hit the Dow Jones newswire, investors immediately began unloading stocks in the four companies responsible for building the Challenger and its engines: Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Rockwell, and Morton Thiokol. But by the end of the day, all the companies * stocks had begun to rebound except Morton ThiokoPs, which remained 12 percent down.-

This market reaction indicates that traders sensed Morton Thiokol was responsible for the accident, even though no one really knew which company's part had failed. Six months later, investigators of the crash determined that faulty O-ring seals on the booster rocket caused the Challenger disaster. Morton Thiokol made those seals. How on Earth一or, how in space一did the investment public intuit that result months before the experts released their findings?

Surowiecki's research led him to conclude that three factors influence the accuracy of a crowd's common wisdom: diversity, independence, and decentralization.

Diversity: In Newtonian-Darwinian thinking, the political atrocity of ethnic cleansing is considered to be good because it rids a nation of persons— thers —who might look different or disagree with our way of thinking. The same misperception applies to blackballing an individual from a group. In contrast, the evolving holistic view realizes the benefit of diversity.

In decision-making or problem-solving situations, the perspectives of a diverse group offer more accuracy than a homogeneous group of specialists. That's because people who are more intelligent or knowledgeable about a particular issue tend to think alike, whereas a group with a variety of perspectives will exhibit a broader range of wisdom.

Surowiecki concluded, ^uAdding in a few people who know less, but have different skills, actually improves a group's performance.''8 In other words, a large group that includes individuals with different life experiences will generate more precise forecasts and make more intelligent decisions than even those considered to be skilled decision makers.

Independence: The second factor that influences crowd accuracy is independence. When groups talk among themselves, they tend to prematurely come to consensus and conform to a norm. Generally, however, agreement on what are perceived to be normalized responses does not imply that the conclusion is right, proper, or beneficial. In situations where an individual or individuals have a higher standing within a group, members of that group tend to follow the leader. And the more people in a group who conform to an opinion, the harder it becomes for those with minority views to have their opinions considered.

In contrast, consider the independent thinking of the people who guessed the weight of the ox. Individually, each offered an answer, secretly scribbled on a piece of paper, without conversation and without expert testimony from those who—apologizing in advance for a very bad pun—had some kind of ox to grind. The result was a common wisdom, generated by independent thought, collectively stated through what was, in effect, a ballot process.

Decentralization: Conventional thinking holds that ownership and control of solutions is good. This applies to businesses seeking greater profit or to individuals desirous of higher status or praise on the job or recognition within their families or social groups. To that end, corporations, for example, often sequester a group of in-house specialists to work on a specific problem, to the exclusion of external points of view. And individuals may retain secrets they believe will give them an edge.

In contrast, decentralization demonstrates that collective problem solving is actually a better process for health and wealth of both the individual and the community.

All three of these factors一diversity, independence, and decentralization一 are found in the concept of shared awareness, which has inspired the profoundly efficient and effective wiki Internet software that allows collaborative editing of Webpage content and structure by all members of a population. This facilitates awareness and rapidly accelerates the learning curve for all. The best-known wiki Website is Wikipedia, the constantly expanding living encyclopedia.

In Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Canadian business executive Don Tapscott and consultant Anthony D. Williams described wikis as, "self-organizing, egalitarian communities of individuals who come together voluntarily to produce a shared outcome."9 Thanks to the power of computers and the reach of the World Wide Web, problems can now be exposed to the expertise and wisdom of a whole world of independent minds.

Tapscott and Williams tell the remarkable story of Goldcorp, a small Toronto-based gold mining company that defied precedent by making its proprietary information public and offering $575,000 in prizes to those who could best help them locate “the next 6 million ounces of gold.^,, This open source strategy provided so much awareness that Goldcorp transformed from a $100 million company to a business worth over $9 billion.—

Surowiecki cites another wiki success in the story of Linux, the highly productive open source software system designed by Finnish software designer Linus Torvalds in 1991. Rather than holding on to the proprietary rights of his system, Torvalds revealed his code to the world and sought feedback for improvements from all interested computer scientists. Almost immediately, he received suggestions from programmers around the world. Thanks to the common wisdom offered by individuals working in their areas of interest, Linux has become an ever-learning, growing, and increasingly robust system.项

Open source wisdom offered by wikis may, in fact, provide the key to solving society's most challenging problems that have, until now, been exacerbated by the secrecy of a for-profit-first—rather than a for-the-good- of-all—mentality. What better way to think globally and act locally than to have ideas from one place tried elsewhere with both successes and failures reported for everyone to see? After all, life itself is open source.

How can open source systems influence our collective political wisdom? Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute and author of The Tao of Democracy, confirmed and expanded on Surowiecki's findings that the crowd tends to be wiser than its wisest members. Atlee suggested that specific skills can be cultivated that help extract wisdom from groups. Not surprisingly, these skills invite openness and suppress domination by an individual or an idea.

Atlee cited an experiment reported by management consultant Marilyn Loden in her book, Feminine Leadership. Small groups of executives were given a simulated wilderness problem to solve. Teams comprised only of females arrived at better solutions than all-male teams, not because the women were smarter individually but because their natural collaborative style made them collectively smarter. In contrast, male groups were hampered by individuals who asserted their own solutions and inhibited access to group wisdom.—

And what exactly is wisdom in regard to political situations and collective decision-making? Atlee defined it as "seeing beyond immediate appearances and acting with greater understanding to affirm the life and development of all."坦 Perspective offers wisdom. Therefore, communities have greater potential for wisdom than do individuals. ''Communities are wise," Atlee explained, “to the extent they use diversity well in a cooperative, creative

interplay of viewpoints that allows the wisest, most comprehensive and powerful truths to emerge."只

Atlee said the tool to access wisdom is co-intelligence, which he defined as, ''integrating the diverse gifts of all for the benefit of all."臣 Clearly, our body, our organs, and our cells are co-intelligent, a trait that enables them to coevolve with their environment. Likewise, when applied, co-intelligence enables ordinary people to access extraordinary wisdom through which we can, hopefully, practice evolution and reach transcendent solutions.

TRANSCENDENT SOLUTIONS: PRACTICING
EVOLUTION

A primary function of politics is to develop policies that preempt conflict. Conflict is a natural part of human life and social interactions and should not be confused with violence, which is the most dysfunctional way to handle conflict. Conflict derives from incompatibilities between two or more opinions, principles, or interests. Because conflict usually involves contradictory goals, resolution can occur when something一the goals or expectations regarding those goals一is changed.

In the classic book on negotiation, Getting to Yes, authors Roger Fisher and William Ury suggested that breakthroughs in conflicts come when positions are deconstructed and transformed into expressions of legitimate interests. Once disagreeing parties clarify their interests, they can reframe the conflict as a shared problem and, thus, see each other as colleagues working together to resolve that problem.—

Careful and respectful listening by all participants is required for this process to occur, continue, and be successful. When a party to the discussion makes an emotional statement or raises an objection, it is an opportunity to ask, “What is your concern?" The response may be rational or irrational, but either way, it must be heard and recognized as an insight that could lead to a key breakthrough.

The result of this process, whether resolving conflict or developing a policy to preempt conflict, is often an emergent solution that could not have been believe anything一creates another level of self-disempowerment. Because nothing seems to be true, why bother to exercise discernment or integrity? Philosopher Aldous Huxley offered an important insight on the negative consequence of this ideology when he wrote: "Cynical realism—it's the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation/ —

Thus, we see that the current political dysfunction is kept in place by our own disempowering developmental programming and the politicians, corporations, and media moguls who benefit from that programming.

While We the People could rightly be faulted for apathy, the truth is that the average adult is far busier nowadays than his or her counterpart half a century ago. How ironic that back in the '50s, people imagined that by now we'd be living a paradise, working a three-day week. In the United States today, the average family needs two breadwinners working full-time . . . to barely make it. Civic life? Who has time for it? Consequently, in the transition from town hall to global village, the resonant central voice of We the People has been drowned out by the massive media voice of we, the very, very select people.

THE SYSTEM IS THE PROBLEM

To evolve the revolutionary vision of America's Founding Fathers one evolutionary step further, we must now wake up our minds and see the light of our new awareness, the need for an intelligent central voice, and the inherent wisdom of the crowd.

A key to that wake-up call comes from business consultant Jim Rough, author of Society's Breakthrough! Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People. Rough uses a technique he named Dynamic Facilitation to replace mutual stuckness with common wisdom. To demonstrate how to transcend the current political structure, which is designed for battling, he asked an audience to select a contentious issue and assured them he would facilitate a resolution within 30 minutes. The group chose the highly charged topic of abortion.

At first, participants expressed the usual binary pro-life and pro-choice positions that demand a divisive this-or-that resolution. Once all the either-or positions had been stated and written on a board for all to see, Rough asked for other possible suggestions. A period of silence ensued as the group pondered unfamiliar territory outside the box.

Thus, Rough motivated them to look beyond the symptom, that is, abortion, and seek the cause of the dispute. At the end of 30 minutes, despite having voiced sharply different views, the group came to a breakthrough question that defined the real problem: "How can we achieve a society where all children are conceived and bom into families who want and love them?" Rough stated, “This kind of consensus, a pulling together of what everyone thinks, can always be reached.ⁿ—

However, in order to truly understand the power of Rough's process and how it can transform politics in America and elsewhere, let's begin with the universal conclusion arrived at in every one of his group sessions: the system is the problem.

This is not intended to slough off personal responsibility but, rather, to acknowledge that, in the absence of a coherent voice of We the People, a heartless, soulless, self-perpetuating system persists.

In order to understand how America arrived at this position, let's go back to the radical notions of America's Founding Fathers. While they believed that government must serve the people, the new government they created stopped short of actually giving power to the people. Instead of a democracy, they actually created a republic.

The subtle, yet profound, distinction between these two terms can be traced to their etymologic roots. The word democracy comes from the Greek demos, which means “the people,ⁿ and kratia, which means "power." And the word republic comes from the Latin res, which means “thing," and publica, which means “of the people.,^, The distinction is that a democracy is ruled by the power of the people while, in a republic, people empower a thing to rule them.

Participatory democracy is a government in which people govern directly, and decisions, such as starting or ending a war or raising or lowering taxes, require a vote of the people. In subtle contrast, a republic is an indirect democracy in which decisions are made by the peoples^, elected representatives. In this manner, America's founders carefully crafted a balance of power that not only protects the many—We the People—from the few who would control but protects the few from the many who might transform into a rebellious mob.

That is all well and good, but the problem today is that the system, as it has evolved toward Newtonian-Darwinian thinking, no longer holds elected representatives accountable. Consequently, they are no longer obligated to govern and vote on behalf of the people they were elected to represent, and they can just as easily vote to further the interests of special interest groups, big corporations, or even themselves.

This is why the Constitution, as it has been amended and interpreted over the decades, no longer defines the country as being either a democracy or a republic. Rather than ensuring that We the People govern through our representatives, it now allows our representatives to govern us and make decisions detrimental to the common good.

Fortunately, thanks to the instant global communication through the Internet, more functional ideas and individuals are coming to the fore and gathering support.

THE SHAPE OF POLITICS TO COME?

At the beginning of this chapter, we posed the question: "So, how do we evolve politically?" To answer that, we compared Newtonian-Darwinian politics with the beneficent formula of politics established by America's Founding Fathers. We also showed a comparison between the intentions of the founders and the extent to which their intentions have devolved.

Here's another comparison that will help us answer that question and understand the shape of politics to come.

Jim Rough suggests that, throughout history, civilizations have employed some form of governance that can be depicted by geometric shapes: triangle, box, and circle.—

Triangle: The first form of governance is top-down: rule by chiefs, kings, or emperors. Rough depicts this form of governance as a triangle, which represents dependence.

As a form of leadership, the triangle is elementary, if not infantile. Just as children depend on parents for sustenance, order, and discipline, an uninformed populace depends on an appointed leader to do the same for them.

This is the form of governance imposed by historical English kings and queens on their subjects and colonies around the world.

Box: The second form of governance involves a set of rules and agreements created by the populace rather than the arbitrary rule of a top-down hierarchy. Rough depicts this form of governance as a box, which represents the metaphorical container into which the rules, such as the U.S. Constitution, are placed and held sacred. This form of governance relies on the will of free people and therefore represents independence.

Just as adolescents break loose from parental authority to explore their own power and resources, our Founding Fathers offered their fellow colonialists the wherewithal to be independent individuals, an offer that broke loose as the American Revolution.

While America's founders offered a vast improvement over King George's monarchy, their republic was still a thing. Yes, it was created by independent, sovereign citizens and codified by the Constitution and the rule of justice, but it was still a machine that had no inherent moral authority. Like any machine, it could be used for purposes dictated by those who sit in the driver's seat. Over the last two centuries, We the People have gotten so far away from the actual driver's seat that we are now hostages in the back seat, if not locked in the trunk. The thing that the people created is being driven by the self interests of those who perceive themselves as the politically fittest in the struggle for survival.

More distressing is the fact that the machine called government is now being ruled by itself to perpetuate itself. This situation is eerily similar to that in Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the spaceship's on-board computer, HAL, takes over control of the ship and locks out the crew to pursue its own machine-like interests. Our own box-like creation, a self-serving and self-perpetuating unaccountable government has likewise locked out and disenfranchised the American public. Things feel so out of control because the intrinsic moral values of 95 percent of Americans have been overridden by the sociopathic values of a mere 5 percent of the population. Two hundred years ago when the founders were designing this government, their fear was mob rule. Thanks to the absence of the central voice, the new threat is mobster rule.

Circle: Fortunately, there is a third shape of governance—a circle—that can enable our species to achieve "humanifest destiny." Every point on a circle is equidistant from the center and is equally important to maintain the shape of the circle. Therefore, the circle represents interdependence. Not to be confused with co-dependence, interdependence means a community of capable, diverse, and co-equal individuals who recognize that self-interest and mutual interest are one and the same.

And, while both James Surowiecki and Jim Rough view independence as something good to be appreciated, we must also recognize it as merely a necessary stepping stone on our path of evolution that has led us from the triangle's political childhood to the box's political adolescence and is now leading us to the circle of political adulthood.

The power of the circle as an access point to a field of higher wisdom was first recognized by Earth's indigenous people. Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Iroquois, described tribal council sessions during which everyone sits in a circle this way, "We meet and just keep talking until there's nothing left but the obvious truth."迎

A Native American elder, storyteller, and author named Manitonquat, whose name means Medicine Story, uses the same circle to turn around the lives of hardened criminals. Manitonquat runs a highly successful program in New England prisons. He wrote: "Our people noticed long ago that the circle is the basic form of Creation. In the circle, all are equal; there is no top or bottom, first or last, better or worse.ⁿ—

Manitonquat stated that the golden key in this process is respect. He said, “Most of these prisoners have never in their lives been listened to with respect. Very few have persons in their experience who have shown them respect in any manner at all."

To ensure respect, Manitonquat employs a talking stick, held by the person speaking, to empower and liberate that person to speak freely and to remind others in the circle to listen intently. He tells prisoners, “No one was ever like you in all of the universe, and there will never be another one like you again. Therefore, only you have your special gift, and you are the only one who can give it away . . . the rest of us need to receive your gift and hear your story.”²⁵

Only 5 to 10 percent of convicts who complete Manitonquat's program ever return to prison as compared to a recidivism rate of 65 to 85 percent for the general prison population. This wildly effective rehabilitation program is amazingly inexpensive. As a volunteer, Manitonquat serves 120 to 150 inmates in seven state prisons for only $100 a month in travel expenses.

Many convicts who complete the program return to their home neighborhoods with the desire to, as Manitonquat described, "replace the pyramid of domination with the circle of equality and respect? —

Box in Circle: The next evolutionary form of governance may be represented by a box within a circle. Under this visionary plan, inside-the-box governmental paradigms would still hold elections and make and enforce laws. However, the box, which contains our Constitutional independence, would exist inside the interdependent circle of We the People.

To encircle the box of government with collective wisdom and cointelligence, Tom Atlee, Jim Rough and others propose citizen deliberative councils or citizen wisdom councils. These or similarly named groups of randomly selected persons focus on issues and policies that are mired in conflict then glean common wisdom and make it available to the entire community or nation.

These councils are holistic in two ways: First, they seek input from the broadest range of information and points of view, even ideas that seem outside the box. Second, they seek solutions that address the well-being of the whole versus that of special interest groups. In contrast to the static positions that typify binary politics where one party is pitted against another, citizen deliberative councils offer dynamic, emergent solutions.

One example occurred in 1997 when 15 citizens who represented Boston's diverse population convened to consider that city's telecommunications policies. The group's membership included a high-tech business manager, a homeless person, and people of various other social and financial strata. The group spent two weekends becoming familiar with the issues and, then, two days listening to expert testimony.

After deliberating, they came up with an impressive consensus statement, which they presented to the public. Even though none of these individuals were experts一or, perhaps, because of that fact一they were able to process the testimony into workable policy. Dick Sclove, the lead organizer, reported that, by the end of the process, these average citizens knew more about telecommunications issues than their elected representatives who vote on them.—

Jim Rough says that wisdom councils that employ the principles of Dynamic Facilitation can provide "a nonjudgmental, heartfelt, energy-driven creative thinking process in which people seek to invent new options that work for everyone. Instead of negotiating agreement on particular points or discussing ideas back and forth, people seek breakthroughs everyone can support? —

While such councils have the inferred power of moral authority and could recommend new solutions to the public, they do not possess coercive powers associated with the authority to pass legislation. Yet, Tom Atlee reports that citizen deliberative councils have been used by the Canadian government and by the Danish Parliament to generate recommendations for legislation and new policy.套

Regardless of the level of government or community in which they are used, such councils and their evolutionary principles offer society a vision of what a healed body politic might look like. And with that vision, we will hopefully see that new form of governance, the box that is the rule of law inside the circular, coherent, central voice of We the People.

Then, the next questions become: How do we get there from here? How do we bring mistrustful and long-separated parties together? How do we lift ourselves from the habits of separation, mistrust, hatred, and retribution? And what is the new organizing principle for the body politic?

HEARTLAND SECURITY

In the final chapters of the book, and particularly this chapter, we have used our cellular community to reflect on the body politic. However, there is one body part that we have not yet addressed in Part III, and it is now time for the discussion to get to the heart of the matter—or, more accurately, the matter of the heart.

We have seen how a body politic that has lost connection with its heart and soul can lose its way. To emerge a new political order in which each individual is viewed as an equally valuable cell in the body of humanity involves shifting our focus from a fear-based homeland security to a lovebased heartland security.

In her aptly titled book Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love, author and therapist Anodea Judith wrote that “the rite of passage into the future" is through an awakening of the global heart. If future generations are alive to tell the human story, “it will only be because the best of humanity prevailed and pulled together with a love so profound that the seemingly impossible was achieved.”³⁰

The best of humanity to whom Judith refers isn't some righteous elite but, rather, the potential that each of us holds within. Perhaps love—the invisible force that can induce a cancer cell to slow its growth一is humanity's secret peaceful force that will enable us to transcend survival and live into thrival. If so, it's the most underutilized tool in our political toolbox and the one ripest for development. As discovered by HeartMath researchers, coherent hearts entrain with one another. Consequently, it is feasible that we can entrain our hearts to collectively focus love energy into a coherent healing force.

Indigenous cultures and medieval villages often had a communal hearth at the center of the village. Initially, the fire was used to keep predators away. Over time, it came to represent the presence of spirit looking over the community. In Western culture, where tending the spiritual fires has been left to religious authorities, people have become disconnected from their common spiritual bonds. The only time the masses experience a collective connection is when an extraordinary event occurs, such as a man walking on the moon, or when tragedy strikes, as in New York on September 11, 2001.

What would it be like to have a preemptive secular, yet spiritual, connection in every neighborhood, city, and nation to affirm the values that the vast majority of people have in common?

Such a network has been quietly evolving in Reno, Nevada. Launched in 2003, an organization called the Conscious Community Network (CCN) brings together diverse elements of the city and surrounding region to improve the communal, economic, and spiritual quality of life in the area. Without fanfare一but with lots of fans一CCN has based its work on what it called “the universal spiritual virtues of Love, Integrity, Courage, Service, and Respect/ —

The CCN organization and its leadership mobilized local and state governments to establish Independents Day, an awareness campaign to encourage the public to buy local goods and services. They created a Local Food System Network of local producers and consumers that birthed an alliance of persons with diverse religious beliefs who share a common desire for organic produce.

By weaving together common sense traditional values with the global understanding that we're all in this together, the Conscious Community Network created what is termed a third force, a political entity that more closely resembles the circle than the conventional American political box. CCN's work supports transpartisanship, which acknowledges the validity of truths across a range of political perspectives and seeks to synthesize them into an inclusive, practical unity outside of conventional political dualities.

CCN relies on grassroots volunteers who work directly with people, thus sidestepping the government or other established institutions. This completely organic and non-coercive, self-generating project offers an evolutionary model for non-governmental governance that expands awareness by creating community.

Business owner Richard Flyer, the organization's visionary founder, described this new awareness network as "an intentional community without walls, with a desire to open hearts and build bridges between people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds.'遂 Flyer sees himself and his organization as a weaver of health-enhancing, life-affirming, joy-producing elements in the community.

Flyer's communal matrix offers a largely invisible infrastructure of relationships that support individual, community, and planetary health. Flyer suggested, “By connecting the dots between 'like-hearted people' who want to uplift humanity—people found within every local community and in all social groupings—we release the 'creative intelligence^, to grow a new society within the old.^,,—

People in Reno and in countless other communities where wisdom councils, world cafes, and other active listening groups form are discovering two profound truths. First, the connection in the heart is far more powerful than divisive beliefs in the head. Second, the circle of inclusion is much more beneficial than the box of separation.

The heart of humanity is calling for a safe, generative environment of respectful communication, which is the foundation for a healthy and sane political structure. As with so many other aspects of this new, transformational story, We the People are being called upon to release our either-or polar positions and embrace both-and opportunities.

LIFE IS PROGRESSIVE ... AND CONSERVATIVE

Here's another reason why true security originates in the land of the heart. As modern life becomes more stressful and overwhelming, people tend to over-identify with their beliefs. When these beliefs are polarizing, inaccurate, or downright false, they are even more problematic because they become lifethreatening.

Consider the commonalty as well as the distinction between progressive and conservative. Both are natural impulses and elemental components of life. However, when they become beliefs—and rigid ones at that一they can harden into opposing polarities that keep the system from growing.

Since the cultural upheaval that followed the war in Vietnam, Americans have divided themselves into two combative factions: blue-tribe progressive Democrats and red-tribe conservative Republicans. Locked in a dysfunctional conflict, these two groups spend much of their vitality and energy arguing about whether it's more wrong to kill the born or to kill the unborn. Meanwhile, survival of both the born and the not-yet-born is in danger because planetary web-of-life-threatening issues aren't being addressed.

If we rise above and beyond these dueling dualities, we see that both progressive beliefs and conservative beliefs align with the natural forces of growth and protection. Fundamentally, life is progressive because it is ever- growing and ever-evolving. Life is also conservative, as evidenced by a husk that protects its vulnerable seed. A seed in its husk, like an egg in its shell, represents the harmonious and collaborative integration of progressive and conservative functions. Both are necessary for life to successfully move forward.

However, in our society, progressive and conservative factors are profoundly out of balance. The old story of domination has been so pervasive in our culture that the structures of protection that we've built now endanger the progression of life. The social imbalance we are afflicted with might appropriately be diagnosed as MIC, Military-Industrial Complex. MIC is a self-destructive auto-immune disorder that is threatening the well-being of civilization.

As emphasized earlier, Nature intends for us to use protection behaviors as little as possible. That's because, while protection provides life-saving responses, it also consumes massive wealth and compromises the system's life-sustaining growth processes.

That is why when we learn to rise above opposing polarities and create a state of "emergent seeing,ⁿ we'll recognize that, by enhancing community awareness, we reduce the need for protection. This is the exact motivation that led six Native American tribes to form the Iroquois Confederacy and 13 American colonies to form the United States. And please note the words they chose to describe those entities: confederacy means "an alliance for a common purpose,^w and united means "a single entity in harmony.^,,

While life and evolution seek to progress toward greater common purpose —harmony and community一there is a conservative impulse bom of the American Revolution that wants to ensure that freedom of the individual doesn't become overwhelmed by the needs of the collective. Moreover, in the past century, conservatives have become overly sensitive to the utopian dreams of Soviet and Chinese communism that devolved into dystopian totalitarian nightmares. In the face of worldwide financial and military power,

conservatives are rightly concerned about the notion of an even more horrific new world order based on the same top-down control by the powerful elite.

However, the new holistic world order would be circular and profoundly different because it would arise from the bottom up as a functional matrix for mutual benefit, connection, and community. It would be an evolved perspective that would actually enhance individual freedom. The less we need to protect ourselves from one another, the more freedom and wealth we will have to pursue happiness. And the wonderful side effect is that more happiness on the planet will mean less need for protection from each other.

To build on the work of imaginal political philosophers and activists such as Tom Atlee, Jim Rough, Richard Flyer, and other healers of the body politic, we will find ourselves cohering around the new moral authority of we're all in this together. From this perspective, progressive and conservative will shift from being two opposite polarities, seeking to dominate, and, instead, become fully empowered dance partners, working in concert. Imagine what it would be like were we to collectively ask and answer the questions: "How do we wish to progress?" and "What do we choose to conserve?^,,

Thanks to the Internet's ability to connect the global village, these conversations are already underway. Politics is, indeed, on the cusp of achieving its highest purpose: to promote and sustain a healthy humanity on a wealthy planet where every cellular soul thrives. All that is needed now is the willingness of a critical mass of humanity to participate in changing our story.

 

CHAPTER 16

A WHOLE NEW STORY

"It's time we put our energy into fruitfully re-growing the Garden instead of fruitlessly scrapping over the scraps."

—Swami Beyondananda

We have now come full circle. Our journey began with a story about the power of stories, particularly invisible ones that permeate our consciousness and filter our experiences without our even being aware of their existence. Myth-perceptions distort our stories and have led us down the road to societal dysfunction and destruction of our sacred habitat.

Now that we have explored suggestions for a new story based on newedge science and perennial wisdom, we are presented with a challenge: How do we change the old story and write a new one? How do we shift from a way of life based on obsolete understandings to one based on truer truths? How do we participate in the conscious evolution of the new super-organism humanity?

As the name implies, humanity is a life form defined by the trait of being humane. Throughout history, there have been exemplary humans who lived by the humane values of compassion, philanthropy, kindness, tolerance, benevolence, charity, and generosity. However, as a consequence of developmental programming, profoundly influenced by myth-perceptions, too many humans live lives characterized by indifference, intolerance, cruelty, spitefulness, and even barbaric behavioral traits that are far from humane. Today's civilization, by strict definition, more accurately represents inhumanity than humanity.

From an evolutionary standpoint, we can no longer point to the best among us as evidence of our fitness. As we find our civilization precariously perched on the Endangered Species List, our biological imperative is unconsciously driving us to adopt humane traits so that humans may fully evolve into the life-sustaining organism defined as humanity.

Great idea, but how?

It is evident that the current basal paradigmatic beliefs offered by scientific materialism, yet disproved by new science, are not able to meet our challenges. Given this understanding, the first step is to collectively detach from the limiting beliefs that prevent us from realizing our true human potential.

What if we changed our beliefs? After all, as we have seen, we are living in a world of make believe, that is, we make what we believe. To make something different, we must believe something different. Consider the alternative realities that might arise by releasing the collectively agreed upon conventional beliefs that only matter matters, that the law of the jungle rules, that we are frail and powerless slaves to our genes, and that we are here because of a random throw of the evolutionary dice.

Not only must we dismantle the obsolete story and replace it with a more viable one, we must also heal the wounds the old story has inflicted over the ages. Reprogramming and healing must occur on both an individual level and collective level. In a fractal一as above, so below—reality, there cannot be an evolved organism without first having evolved cells.

The intention of this final chapter, titled A Whole New Story, is not to provide a detailed version of civilization's new story. We offer, instead, an outline based on new insights from new-edge science with the hope that it will serve as the foundation for an evolving wiki on humanity's evolution. This wiki will inevitably be written and rewritten a great many times over the next decade as we evolve into the new millennium. This whole new story will not be only about ourselves or our tribe or our nation, not even only about humanity, but about the whole of existence. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, let's review what we now know as well as the implications of that knowledge, in other words, “What's so!^w and "So what?”

WHAT'S SOI—SO WHAT?

Once, a friend stopped by while on a pilgrimage from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Our friend and six other seekers were en route to a New Age mega-conference that featured wisdom luminaries such as Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and Louise Hay, among others. As is our habit, we greeted and hugged our friend and each in his entourage as they exited their van. One of the women in the group, with furrows between her eyes as deep as the Grand Canyon, was so stiff that, when hugged, she elicited a response from us that she should relax. That sparked an immediate and irritated response, “ I am relaxed!^J, and anger at the very suggestion that she was not.

After we gently reminded her of the negative physiologic consequences of tension, she rattled off a laundry list of comments about stress, tension, and health. Had this been an oral exam for a New Age wisdom course, this woman would have received an A+ grade. However, because of the anger she generated in her defense, she would have failed the experiential laboratory portion of such a course.

Similarly, we have been to environmental and sustainability conferences where the trash cans were filled to the brim with empty plastic water bottles.

The point is that, while our conscious minds may easily learn new life enhancing-information, that information may never make it below the neck and into the domain of action. This is understandable when we remember that subconscious programs control 95 percent of our behavior.

If this book were part of an academic course in school, we might say, "Okay, close your text and take out a pencil and paper for a quiz." Clearly, many of you would score an A by rehashing the scientific data we have provided. But, while this book offers interesting new insights to ponder, the relevance of this information is predicated on the reader's consideration of this fundamental question: "How would my life be different if I incorporated this awareness into my behavioral programming?"

Civilization is now confronted with major scientific upheavals that profoundly impact our story and our lives. The new insights are not matters of supposition; they are matters of fact. Consequently, the story offered by new-edge science does not suggest that we change our collective behavior; it demands that we change it!

The scientific principles that necessitate behavioral change are derived from

many disciplines. The new science of holism emphasizes that, in order for us to transcend the parts and see the whole, we must acquire an understanding of Nature and the human experience.

The conventional idea that biology, physics, and mathematics represent entirely different fields of knowledge has become an evolution-limiting misperception. All systematic studies on the structure and behavior of the natural world are intimately entangled and fall under the one roof of science. The knowledge accumulated under that roof can be assembled into a structure that resembles a multi-tiered building, with each floor built upon the scientific foundation provided by the supporting lower levels.

The floors of the building, as illustrated below, represent the basic scientific disciplines. The ground level is mathematics, upon which is assembled physics. Built upon physics is chemistry. Chemistry serves as the platform for biology, which is the basis for psychology, the building's fifth and, currently, top level.

Each level of science is based upon previously established levels of science.

 

 

This hierarchical structure illustrates that a science on a lower level is more fundamental than a science on a higher level. As an example, Newton created the science of physics only after he evolved the branch of mathematics known as differential calculus.

This structural organization reveals an important insight: if the belief system within a lower level of science changes, it is imperative that the belief system on the higher levels change accordingly. However, when the belief system of a higher science changes, those changes may not apply to lower levels.

Civilization's current awareness and, consequently, its behavior are shaped by truths postulated under the roof of scientific materialism. The insufficiencies of these truths are contributing to and, in many cases, are solely responsible for the crises that currently threaten human survival. In the waning days of our civilization, the emergence of revisionary science is leading us to a more evolved science, holism一a structure built on a much firmer foundation.

In children's education, students are provided with a curriculum that requires them to tell, “What's so," by reciting memorized facts. As students mature, however, they learn to ask the more valuable question, “So what?" They begin to consider, "If such-and-such is so, what are the implications and applications of this knowledge in regard to my life?"

Likewise, the question before civilization now is, “What do new scientific revisions mean to humanity on Earth?^,, Listed below, are several relevant new science facts about “What's so” along with the more relevant question, “So what?”

Mathematics: What's So: The principles of fractal geometry describe the structure of Nature. So What?: Fractal geometry, the scientific foundation for fractals一as above, so below一emphasizes that self-similar patterns of organization are found at every level of the Universe's structure. In light of the success of Nature, the survival and thrival of human civilization is assured if we consciously follow her lead.

Physics: What's So: Matter and energy, that is, spirit, are inseparable. So What?: Everything in the quantum Universe一be it physical or non-physical, for example, energy waves or thoughts一is entangled and embedded within an invisible energy matrix called the field. The field's forces influence the shape of the physical Universe similar to the way a magnet rearranges iron filings. No structure, from a drop of water to a human being, can ever be separated from the field, which is the Source, All That Is, or, to some, God. What's So: Quantum mechanics acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. So What?: We co-create reality with our beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.

Biology: What's So: Epigenetics controls genetics. So What?: Epigenetic molecular mechanisms represent a physical pathway along which consciousness makes us masters of our own health and well-being. Our field of beliefs and perceptions, individually and collectively, determine our biology and our reality. What's So: Evolution is derived from adaptations that provide Earth with an integrated, balanced, and harmonious ecological community. So What?: Human evolution is not an accident. We are here to tend the Garden through our cooperation with each other and the environment.

Psychology: What's So: The subconscious mind controls 95 percent of our behavior and gene regulating cognitive activity through programs obtained primarily from the field of beliefs. So What?: When we take command of our own subconscious beliefs and emotions, individually and collectively, we take back creative control over our lives.

To summarize the really big “So what?" question about “What's so," we find that the story we tell ourselves and each other about reality and our place in it profoundly impacts not only human civilization but the planet itself. Even though we perceive ourselves as small and insignificant, our collective conscious and unconscious beliefs are actually arranging the particles of matter that we call reality.

We referred to the field's influence on matter through the example of invisible magnetic fields that organize the distribution of sprinkled iron filings. However, the field's influence over the particle is not the whole story because the iron particles actually alter the shape of the magnet's field as well. Even though the influence of each miniature iron particle is negligible, the individual filings, if compressed into one, solid iron bar, will measurably distort the field.

Similarly, throughout evolution, Earth's energy fields have shaped the organization of primitive biological organisms and also influenced the fate of humans. In turn, individual persons, like iron filings, have had a small, perhaps seemingly negligible, impact on the field through their unique spheres of influence.

However, the origin of human self-consciousness represents a profound change in the story of evolution. Self-consciousness is the neurological mechanism that endows individuals with the choice to respond or not respond to environmental fields. Freedom of choice translates as human free will. So, while iron filings have no capacity to self-assemble into an iron bar, human beings can consciously pursue coherence and create a field-impacting unity called humanity.

Also, an iron bar's influence on a magnetic field is static. In contrast, humans have the ability to dynamically and creatively change Earth's field through conscious intention. Through collective consciousness, civilization can transform crises into a new sustainable reality. We can truly re-grow the Garden and create Heaven on Earth.

How do we create that coherence that will enable us to realize our “humanifest destiny?” How do we become participants in evolution, rather than mere bystanders?

The first step is to rewrite the fundamental story that civilization currently uses to create reality. That starts, not with a story imposed from the top down, but with an outline from which the new story can emerge from the bottom up. It happens by looking at promising directions through which we can realize our evolutionary destiny.

HEALING THE OLD STORY

Self-similar fractal patterns of organization reverberate throughout the Universe. As part of Nature, human culture is also built on repetitive patterns. One such pattern that has repeated itself throughout human history is that of violent domination, exploitation, and warfare. Almost every ethnic group has been both victim and perpetrator in this long-playing tragedy.

While we can find numerous examples of courage and selflessness in these war stories, the patterns of suffering expressed in both our conscious story and our subconscious memory are the ones that seem to have most influenced our culture. In reflecting this reality, human development researcher Joseph Chilton Pearce defined culture as “a set of beliefs and practices centered on physical survival,ⁿ which he bluntly called, "a mutually shared anxiety state.

Thanks to thousands of years of dominator programming一and lots of historical evidence with visual reminders一we viscerally believe it's us versus them. And, when push comes to shove, we inevitably resort to pushing and shoving. While paying lip service to the love-based Golden Rule with our conscious mind, the Rule of Gold rules in the profoundly more dominant subconscious, particularly when it is fueled by fear and backed by coercion. How do we address this seemingly overwhelming programming?

By making the unconscious conscious. When we recognize we can be programmed by fear, we are less susceptible to manipulations by those who benefit from mass conflict. Nazi leader Herman Goering acknowledged this quite plainly at the Nuremberg trials when he testified, “Naturally the common people don't want war . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country/-

Those words should hold a particular relevance in the United States after the preemptive war in Iraq failed to accomplish its touted goal of finding weapons of mass destruction and brought the country to the brink of financial and moral bankruptcy. We can rightfully refer to the eight-year Bush-Cheney Administration as an intense fear-based educational experience for which both the U.S.A, and the world paid a very high tuition.

Evolution is synonymous with learning, and learning is based on pattern recognition, which is why we derive awareness by recognizing patterns and understanding their meaning. Situations perceived as problems or puzzles only exist until their underlying patterns are identified and understood.

But once we acquire information from a learning experience, we can memorize it and take it into our consciousness so that former or similar problems or puzzles need not be re-experienced. And with that learning, we are free to release the old story.

One reason that history repeats itself is that humans have consistently insisted on not learning the lessons. Instead, we opt for blame and vengeance, which is why it is not enough to merely debunk or dismantle old limiting or destructive stories with new learning. We must also come to an understanding—ven an appreciation—that the victims and villains who have played roles in this drama have acted out of their own programming. The culprit isn't necessarily the individual, but the repeating pattern of behavior.

The suggestion that we release the actors from their drama is, for many, untenable and may even provoke anger. That's because these stories, while intellectually perceived in the mind, are simultaneously encoded with bodily emotions. Joseph Chilton Pearce emphasized that emotions that hold stories in place must be addressed before the stories can be released, and that resolution requires us to acknowledge and heal the spiritual, psychological, and emotional wounds.

History also reveals that forgiveness doesn't come easily. It seems as if an 18th century couplet by poet Alexander Pope, "To err is human; to forgive is divine," is deeply implanted in our collective consciousness. Lacking a perception of our own divinity, most people conveniently leave forgiveness in the hands of God and neighborhood divinities, such as Jill, who is acclaimed as a saint for forgiving Jack!

However, new-edge science reveals we are intimately entangled and one with All That Is. Being fruit of the Divine, forgiveness is truly within our domain. The Biblical injunction, "Forgive them; they know not what they do," is reaffirmed by the new science that tells us that 95 percent of our behavior is unconscious. With that in mind, ponder this thought: if either party in a personal dispute were conscious, the whole affair would have never occurred. When we truly become aware that most of our behavior is invisible to ourselves and that our perceptions can be distorted by our beliefs, we can logically forgive others who, like us, honestly know not what they do. While forgiveness can be based on truth and logic, healing is driven by love.

Earlier, we documented some extraordinary feats of ordinary human beings, such as lifting cars and helicopters to save a loved one's life. Then, in Chapter 13, The One Suggestion, we examined Leonard Laskow's experiments in which love shrunk cancer tumors. In our need to metabolize the political toxins that have accumulated from our histories of mutual perpetrations, might we be able to once again call on love to do the heavy lifting?

One of the most visionary experiments of the past two decades was the use of love, truth, and forgiveness to heal centuries of colonialism in South Africa. In 1989, Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, which was the revolutionary movement to end apartheid in South Africa, was freed after 27 years in prison. While spending more than a third of one's life behind bars might breed bitterness and rage in most people, Mandela managed to transmute his experience into spiritual wisdom and compassion. Upon his release, Mandela vowed to create a peaceful and respectful transition from apartheid to multiracial rule.

As president of South Africa in 1994, Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) because, in his words, “Only the truth can put the past to rest." The purpose of this commission was to acknowledge political crimes committed by both the government and revolutionary forces and to allow perpetrators to confess these crimes and seek amnesty in exchange for their truthful testimony. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Africa's foremost spiritual leader and proponent of the traditional tribal philosophy of ubuntu was chairman of the TRC.

Ubuntu in the Bantu language represents the connection between the individual, humanity, and the world, which is reminiscent of the interpretation of religare, as described in Chapter 10. African historian and journalist Stanlake J. W. T. Samkange lists three maxims that characterize ubuntu:^

1. We affirm our own humanity by recognizing the humanity of others.
2. When faced with the choice of human life or wealth, we choose life.
3. The king owes his status to the will of the people under him.

Hmm. That sounds a lot like the Golden Rule, Jesus overturning the moneychangers * tables, and government empowered by sovereign citizens. Traditional ubuntu philosophy clearly contributed to the creation of the African reconciliation movement with its intention to repair the fabric of the community.

While citing the South African state as the primary culprit for apartheid, the TRC's final report acknowledged and condemned atrocities on both sides. The commission's evolutionary mission, driven by the healing intentions of both Mandela and Tutu, paved the way for a peaceful transfer of power in South Africa. The love and forgiveness that the commission advocated was not nicey-nicey sentimentality; rather, it required real courage and spiritual fortitude.

The intent for reconciliation was tested even before Mandela was elected president when his African National Congress associate Chris Hani was assassinated in 1993. With the country on the brink of retributive violence, Mandela addressed the nation with these words: "Tonight I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin . . . Now is the time for all South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for一the freedom of all of us.ⁿ-

Imagine how different the world would be today if an American President had given this kind of address in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. Might it have precipitated reverberations of love and functionality at a time when America had the world's sincere compassion? We think so.

Mandela's spiritual leadership prevented a new nation from dying in childbirth. In spite of its limitations, the truth and reconciliation process enabled an entire nation to participate in forgiveness. The TRC also inspired other projects and ventures to bring love into the political sphere.

In 2000, Dr. Fred Luskin, director of the Stanford Forgiveness Project and author of Forgive for Good, brought a small group of Protestants and Catholics, all of whom had lost loved ones in the war in Northern Ireland, to California as part of a project he called HOPE一an acronym for Healing Our Past Experience.

For some, their loss had occurred more than 20 years earlier, but their grief had never gone away. The first breakthrough came as both Catholics and Protestants recognized that the grief they shared in common transcended the oppositional sides on which they found themselves. When the week-long project ended, participants filled out questionnaires to assess emotional and physiological change. The participants reported that they felt lower levels of

hurt, anger, and depression. In addition, they experienced a 35-percent reduction in physiological symptoms of emotional stress such as irregular sleep patterns, unusual appetite, low energy levels, and physical aches and pains.-

While these results are heartening, the question still remains, "Can love really heal toxic emotions, particularly the malignancy of hatred?" Leonard Laskow's loving cancer cells in a petri dish is one thing, but what happens in the real world when hatred is actually at your doorstep?

In Not by the Sword, Kathryn Watterson tells the story of Michael Weisser, a Jewish cantor, and his wife, Julie.- They had recently moved to their new home in Lincoln, Nebraska, in June 1991 when their peaceful unpacking was interrupted by a threatening phone call.

Shortly afterward, they received a package of racist flyers with a card that announced: "The KKK is watching you, scum.^,, The police told the Weissers it looked like the work of Larry Trapp, a self-described Nazi and local Ku Klux Klan grand dragon. Trapp had been linked to fire bombings of African American homes in the area and a center for Vietnamese refugees. The 44- year-old Trapp, leader of the area's white supremacist movement, was wheelchair bound and had diabetes. At the time, he was making plans to bomb B'nai Jeshuran, the synagogue where Weisser was cantor.

Julie Weisser, while frightened and infuriated by the hate mail, also felt a spark of compassion for Trapp, who lived alone in a one-room apartment. She decided to send Trapp a letter every day with passages from Proverbs. When Michael saw that Trapp had launched a hate-spewing TV series on the local cable network, he called the Klan hotline and kept leaving messages: “Larry, why do you hate me? You don't even know me."

At one point, Trapp actually answered the phone and Michael, after identifying himself, asked him if he needed a hand with his grocery shopping. Trapp refused, but a process of rethinking began to stir in him. For a while, he was two people: one still spewing invective on TV; the other talking with Michael Weisser on the phone, saying, "I can't help it, I've been talking like that all my life.”

One night, Michael asked his congregation to pray for someone who is “sick from the illness of bigotry and hatred.^,, That night, Trapp did something he'd never done before. The swastika rings he wore on both hands began to itch, so he took them off. The next day, he called the Weissers and said, “I want to get out, but I don't know how.^,, Michael suggested that he and Julie drive to Trapp's apartment so they could “break bread together.^J, Trapp hesitated, then agreed.

At the apartment, Trapp broke into tears and handed the Weissers his swastika rings. In November 1991, he resigned from the Klan and later wrote apologies to the groups he had wronged. On New Year's Eve, Larry Trapp found out he had less than a year to live, and, that same night, the Weissers invited him to move in with them. Their living room became Trapp's bedroom, and he told them, “You are doing for me what my parents should have done for me."

Bedridden, Trapp began to read about Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to learn about Judaism. On June 5, 1992, he converted to Judaism一at the very synagogue he had once planned to blow up. Julie quit her job to care for Larry Trapp in his last days, and when he died on September 6th of that year, Michael and Julie were holding his hands.

The lifting of cars, the lifting of karma. With love, both are possible. Both are extraordinary examples that point the way to spontaneous evolution. We 一and the power of love we possess一are bigger than our stories. Yet, it takes more than good intentions to activate the power of love. While a worldwide healing ceremony to metabolize the accumulated toxins of human history would be a breakthrough, each of us一like a little piece of iron一must individually confront our own programming in order to transform evolutionary possibility into reality.

CHANGING THE INNERSPHERE

Civilization's quest for freedom has permeated the history of the world and, specifically, America for the last two centuries. Over that time, citizens in Western society have acquired unprecedented freedom to travel, to experience, to explore, and to learn.

Now, a different type of freedom is evolving. This one is more internal than external, more at the heart of humanity's evolution. It is freedom from limiting and unwanted subconscious programming.

New science is echoing the ancient truth that the human mind is the ultimate prison. Programmed in the mind's information field are behaviors that bind and restrain us like manacles and chains. Like the baby elephant that inaccurately learns it cannot break its tethering rope, we, too, are often tied up in “nots," a matrix of negative beliefs that we are incapable of achieving our dreams or fulfilling our destiny.

Many people seek personal freedom by consciously and diligently devouring self-help book after self-help book, only to end up feeling more discouraged and helpless. Somehow, great ideas on paper too often fail to materialize in life. The problem relates to the fact that, while the contents of the books are read and understood by the conscious mind, the information rarely integrates into or modifies preexisting behavior-controlling programs in the subconscious. What can we do about that?

The first hugely liberating step is to truly realize that each of us, regardless of how spiritually evolved we may imagine ourselves to be, engage in largely invisible shadow behaviors. Consider the number of gurus, politicians, and self-proclaimed moral guardians who have been literally caught with their pants down. Our clearest path to learning is not to make such people either villains or victims but to use the opportunity to cultivate humility and forgiveness. Once we understand how much of our behavior is unconsciously controlled by the beliefs of others, each of us can legitimately be released from the shackles of blame and shame.

Another step is to own responsibility for the stories in our lives. Denying responsibility for our participation acknowledges victimization, which, by definition, makes our situation one of helplessness. Only when we own responsibility do we have an opportunity to cultivate processes and practices that empower us to respond differently the next time we are revisited by previous stressful situations. Life success is predicated on navigating our actions with conscious decisions rather than engaging in reflexive, preprogrammed subconscious behaviors.

Those seeking conscious control over their lives are finding support for their efforts from both ancient and modem resources. While an in-depth exploration of processes for consciously managing our lives is beyond the subject of this book, we suggest that the pathway for change involves at least three fundamental elements: intention, choice, and practice.

Intention: Intention serves as a great declaration of purpose and direction. As the old saying goes, "If you don't know where you are going, you are likely to end up there." In the case of our personal evolution, a suitable intention would be to weave our talents, loves, and mission to support the newly emerging butterfly organism. Ancient and modern spiritual teachers collectively recognize that setting an intention draws new experiences to us like a magnet. If necessity is the mother of invention, intention is most likely the father.

Choice: Setting intentions may set things in motion on the subconscious plane, but, for true change, intentions must also be reflected in our daily conscious choices. By accepting the implication within Spontaneous Evolution that we are all cellular souls in an evolving superorganism called humanity, we need to ask, "What daily choices can I personally make to reinforce this emergent worldview?" For some, the answer might mean changing careers. For others, it might mean growing a garden or performing a kind act each day. Each individuafs choice will be unique and represent the highest form of self-expression in these transformational times.

Practice: As suggested earlier, Heaven isn't a destination, it's a practice. To facilitate our maturation from children of God to adults of God, we can engage in practices and exercises that create congruency between our inner selves and our outer expression. We can support our evolution by selecting a practice or process that harmonizes the outer world with our inner well-being.

Fortunately, there are many very old and very new resources and processes to support conscious transformation. The variety of approaches simply reflects the fact that no one size fits all. Selecting a practice to maximize our potential is truly a matter of personal choice.

One of the most ancient practices to regain conscious control over one's life is Buddhist mindfulness. Fundamentally, mindfulness is a training exercise to reign in the conscious mind's wandering into the past and future in order to focus on the present moment and make aware choices in the now. Essentially, mindfulness disengages automatic subconscious programs so that the

conscious mind, the seat of our personal wishes and aspirations, can generate behavior that is coherent with our intentions.

While mindfulness generates harmony by focusing on mental exercises, some harmonizing practices specifically focus on bodily sensations and movement. Meditation, yoga, breath work, relaxation, tai chi, and qigong cultivate inner harmony and coherence.

A classic, but generally insufficient, approach of modifying sabotaging subconscious behaviors invokes various forms of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is talk therapy that provides a mirror for observing, understanding, and altering limiting subconscious programs. Recently, a very effective new practice called Body Centered Therapy has evolved from the integration of talk therapy with the meditative physical practices.

Other modalities that facilitate rewriting of subconscious programs include affirmations, conventional clinical hypnotherapy, and a number of new energy psychology modalities. Energy psychology is an exciting innovation that helps manage limiting beliefs. Interventions are based on recognition and manipulation of the human vibrational fields derived from the interactions of the neural and cardiac biofields, the chakra energy centers, and the energy pathways that include acupuncture meridians. Most amazingly, energy psychology practices— f which there are many, including Holographic Repatteming, the BodyTalk System, as well as the one with which we are most familiar PSYCH-K一have been shown to make lasting behavioral changes, frequently in a matter of minutes. A partial list of belief-changing modalities is included in the Appendix.

Meanwhile, organizations like the Institute of HeartMath are developing new practices to entrain brain and heart functions that reduce stress while profoundly enhancing neurological processing powers. Similarly, the Oneness Blessing described by Arjuna Ardagh represents a prototype for group practices that create healthier, more coherent human fields worldwide.

The power of group coherence was illustrated on May 20, 2007, a date designated as Global Peace Meditation and Prayer Day.- More than one million people in 65 countries meditated and prayed for peace at a synchronized moment in time. The results were similar to those random number generators (RNGs) that shifted into coherence during events like Princess Diana's funeral or the attack on the World Trade Center. In fact, Global Coherence Initiative researcher Roger Nelson reported that monitors around the world recorded measurable increases in the coherence of RNGs while the meditation was in process. Yes, coherent consciousness impacts Earth's fields!

The implications of these initial findings are profound. Could meditations and group intentions such as these provide a template for creating a human awareness strong enough to influence the planetary field in the same way that iron filings compressed into an iron bar can influence the force field of a magnet? Could the vision of a coherent civilization whose collective consciousness is focused on love, health, harmony, and happiness truly create a field strong enough to manifest Heaven on Earth?

Yes, we think so. In fact, they are.

But it's important to keep in mind that these changes aren't happening on the level of cosmic consciousness alone. Rather, this connection and coherence manifests daily as millions of random and not-so-random acts of kindness and functionality. Like the multiplying of loaves and fishes, each of these acts, in turn, ripples outward and creates more of the same.

But what if you have no interest in meditation or spiritual practice, believe that therapy is good only for strained muscles, and have no compulsion to go poking around your own subconscious for beliefs to reframe? Research reveals that you can still manifest positive results by simply changing your story.

That story we tell ourselves can have direct bearing on the quality of our lives and our health. Dr. Gail Ironson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Miami, found that HIV patients who believed in a loving universal power remained healthier longer than those who believed in one that was punishing.- Sounds like a prescription for creating our own placebo to counteract the prevailing nocebo generated by our culture's negative stories.

Problems arise in this intellectually based freedom story when seemingly bad things are happening to you. At such times, it is difficult to experience the world as a friendly place. How can one generate positive feelings when there is no reason to be happy?

Author Marci Shimoff offered a provocative suggestion in the title of her book Happy For No Reason. Shimoff wrote: "When you're happy for no reason, you bring happiness to your outer experiences rather than trying to extract happiness from them.^,-

If this seems like simplistic let-a-smile-be-your-umbrella happy talk, consider this scientific reality: Your facial expression actually triggers bodily production of emotional chemistry that is related to both happiness and unhappiness. Emotions specifically shape physiological and physical responses that accompany our behaviors. Conventionally, we tend to perceive that emotions are the driving force behind our behavioral experiences. However, new science has revealed an amazing discovery that our physical expressions can drive emotional responses.

French physiologist Dr. Israel Waynbaum discovered that frowning triggers the secretion of the stress hormones cortisol, adrenalin, and noradrenaline, which are neurochemicals that inhibit the immune system, raise blood pressure, and increase susceptibility to anxiety and depression. Smiling, on the other hand, reduces secretion of stress hormones and raises the production of endorphins, which are the body's natural feel-good hormones, while simultaneously enhancing the function of the immune system by increasing T-cell production,—

When downloading learning experiences into memory, the brain links emotions with behavioral responses. The biological reactions involved with this process can generally flow both forwards and backward, which means that an emotion can drive an experience and an experience can elicit an emotion. This is an important characteristic relative to memory-capture.

Scientists have recently identified a particular class of visuomotor nerve cells called mirror neurons. Research involving monkeys shows that these nerve cells fire both when a monkey does a particular action and when it observes another individual, be it a monkey or a human, doing a similar action. Identical mirror neurons are also found in human brains. Have you ever squirmed while watching a movie in which a giant spider is crawling on an actor? Have you ever cried in response to someone else's tears or laughed when they did? If so, you were responding to the function of mirror neurons, which replay learned personal responses derived from our own experiences when we observe others having similar experiences. —

When we act, we intend to reach a goal. Conversely, when we observe someone else act, mirror neurons translate their behaviors so we can often infer their intentions. Neuroscientists listening in on brain cells suggest that mirror neurons are at the root of empathy, which is the ability to discern others^, thoughts and intentions.

Mirror neurons play a major role in the creation of coherence in an evolving human population. Consider the consequences of seeding individuals in a population who express love, joy, happiness, or gratitude. Mirror neurons in the brains of the observing public would stimulate them to experience the same sensations. These neurons would initiate a neurological chain reaction through which an entire population would catch the healthy vibe of positive feelings. This is why charismatic leaders, such as Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., have such a profound effect on the public's emotions and attitudes.

The "So what?" component of these insights is that our attitude and our interpretation of circumstances profoundly influence the outcome of our experiences. According to Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, optimistic responses can be learned. A self-described bom pessimist, Seligman maintains that modern society reinforces victimhood and learned helplessness. He suggests that helplessness can be reprogrammed by choosing a healthier perspective in the face of challenges. For example, Seligman recommends reframing bad events as temporary setbacks, isolated to particular circumstances that can be overcome by one's efforts and abilities.—

Marci Shimoff offers her own re frame prescription. She advises that, when plagued by a persistent negative thought, lean into an equally true positive thought about the same situation. To seek equanimity, she suggests repeating the advice of Zen masters who pray: "Thank you for everything. I have no complaints whatsoever.^,y—

We chose not to fill this chapter with information on techniques for addressing the innersphere because the accelerated evolution in this field would necessitate frequent revisions. Like rapidly mutating bacteria seeking to adjust to environmental challenges, human cells in the newly forming

organism called humanity are actively experimenting with practices to secure freedom from limiting beliefs. Such practices are topics ideally suited for a dynamic worldwide wiki. The Web's platform offers the public access to the best, latest, and most helpful transformative practices that are being tried, tested, and continuously revised.

FROM DUELING DUALITIES TO DYNAMIC DUO

Beyond the need for individual and societal reprogramming, spontaneous evolution necessitates at least one more significant cognitive leap. We have been programmed with the myth-perception of the world as a battleground for eternally dueling dualities: progressive versus conservative; competition versus cooperation; science versus religion; creation versus evolution; growth versus protection; spirit versus matter; wave versus particle, and eagle versus condor, among many, many more versuses.

For millennia, the polarization of life's traits has fractured civilization by forcing individuals and groups to take sides. And, while this list of polarized pairs could go on for many pages, the few examples here emphasize that the world is derived from the integration of opposing tendencies.

Evolutionary unity now necessitates that we own the awareness that opposing characters are actually cooperative partners in evolution's dynamic dance. At no time is this “up-wising" needed more than when resolving the perceptual dysfunction that masculine and feminine represent oppositional forces. After 5,000 years of dominator programming, the battle of the sexes is taken as a given, with, of course, the man on top.

Conventional biology still perceives of Nature in terms of the Darwinian nightmare of a world eternally engulfed in life-threatening competition. Geneticists apply this perception when they refer to battles of dominance waged between male genes and female genes. But the dominator story makes no biological sense at all. When a sperm and egg unite to create a new life, does one defeat the other? In Glynda-Lee Hoffmann's groundbreaking book, The Secret Dowry of Eve: Woman ^fs Role in the Development of Consciousness, she wrote: "There is no hierarchy between a germ and a husk. They work together or they don't work at all."M

Scientific insights from physics and biology on the nature of polarized traits reveal that, while these traits appear to be separate and opposing entities, they are actually rooted together in a unity. Interestingly, Eastern philosophers grasped the truth of this unity almost 4,000 years ago when they defined the relationship between yin and yang.

The yin-yang symbol contains two separate, but entangled, entities: one white and one black. However, a black spot resides in the white entity, and a white spot resides in the black entity, an indication that both entities are made out of the same elements. Externally, we see males and females, regardless of species, as being physically different, but, internally, both males and females have masculine and feminine hormones.

The yin-yang symbol consists of two separateentities, black and white, yet each entity contains the seed of the other.

 

 

In recognition of this inherent equality portrayed by yin and yang, the notion of masculine primacy makes absolutely no sense. Hence, the entire concept of a battle of the sexes makes as much sense as a battle between the particle and the wave. The integrated worldview in which both the masculine and feminine principles are in full balanced power is the key to the birth of a new humanity.

CAN HUMANS ACHIEVE HUMANITY?

There are those who insist that human consciousness is not up to this evolutionary task. Spiritual determinists, for example, insist we are hopelessly flawed sinners who can only be saved through Divine intervention. Intellectual elitists point to massive ignorance on the part of the masses and to our all-too-obvious failings as a humane species.

Yet, indications suggest we may have underestimated the extent of the current state of awakening. In Our Own Words 2000, a comprehensive research project published by the Fund for Global Awakening in 2007, reported that 85 percent of Americans believe, "underneath it all, we're all connected as one." A whopping 93 percent agree that "it's important to teach our children to feel connected to the earth, people, and all

Perhaps the most important sign that humanity is actively evolving is the election of Barack Hussein Obama as President of the United States. Obama's campaign rose above dueling dualities and spoke to the inherent humanity in all of the world's citizens. His vision of hope, change, and global communal cooperation are fundamental elements necessary for creation of a sustainable holistic paradigm. The election of Obama, as the voice of imaginal cells everywhere, is a sign that we have withdrawn our investment of time, energy, attention, and intention from the caterpillar and are now casting our fate with the butterfly. As a world leader, Obama's words echoed the conclusion in Chapter 13, The One Suggestion: "We're all in this together."

There is one more factor in Obama's election that has evolutionary significance, and that is his background as a community organizer. The very trait disparaged by those who cling to an obsolete paradigm represents the pathway to humanity's spontaneous evolution. Remember, all evolution moves forward by increasing community and expanding awareness.

If this evolutionary step toward planetary coherence seems huge, perhaps we need an even bigger perspective: The evolution of humanity is not an ending; it is a beginning. This stage of humanity's development completes the evolution of our planet. Through the evolution of humanity, we will come to see Earth not as a physical planet but as a living cell. What happens when a cell fulfills its evolution? It assembles into colonies with other evolved cells to share awareness.

Upon completing its evolution, Earth will connect with other aware Earthlike planets to continue the process of expanding awareness about who we are, what we are, and the nature of the Universe in which we live.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, we are the leaders we've been waiting for. Although we may be inspired by the election of Obama and basking in the warm breeze of political climate change, at this evolutionary crossroads, the emphasis is not on individuals who lead from the top. The emphasis is on the awakening of all cellular souls who create a coherent loving field so empowered leaders can be attuned to the healthy central voice of the super-organism that is humanity.

Consequently, the real challenge for the individual is to practice evolution, to learn the lessons of the old stories so we no longer need to repeat them, and to remind ourselves that the critical mass of humanity involved with this evolution will change the world from the inside out. We are living in a positive future, practicing Heaven, and designing a bridge across which the whole of humanity will walk.

This is our love story—a universal love story for the entire Universe: you, me, everyone, and every living organism, too. And, now, on to Act V!

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Collective Acknowledgments:

We want to express our love and appreciation to Mountain of Love Productions, Inc., whose generous support and encouragement transformed our vision into this book. Margaret Horton, president, and Sally Thomas, office manager, were wonderful midwives. Their mental, emotional and spiritual support facilitated the birth of this work.

The spirit of this book would not have been fully realized without the superior editorial skills of Robert Weir. We have come to see word craft as a performance art and honor Robert for the maestro he is. We are also thankful that he maintained the patience of Job and a sense of humor for all those times we tested him. http://www.robertmweir.com/

Robert Mueller the brilliant artist who created the beautiful cover art for The Biology of Belief has provided us with another masterpiece. Robert fully absorbed the content of this book and magnificently translated its essence into a collage of art and science. Robert's commentary on the story behind the art is appended at the end of the book, www.lightspeeckdesign.com

We wish to express our deepest appreciation to our agent, Ned Leavitt, and to Reid Tracy, president-CEO, Patricia Gift, director of acquisitions, and Laura Koch, acquisitions editor from Hay House. It is a true pleasure working with Hay House for they are an exemplar of the cooperative conscious corporations needed to revitalize civilization.

To our beta readers, colleagues, and friends who contributed their valuable time to review the manuscript, we extend our heartfelt appreciation. Their questions, comments, and critiques were major contributions in refining this book so that its message is loud and clear: Nicki Scully, Diana Sutter, Robert Mueller, Thea and Vaughan Wiles, Omri Sitton, Terry and Christine Bugno, Patricia Gift, Theodore Hall, Rob Williams, Mary Kovacs, Ben Young, Shelly G, Keller, Brian Kelly, Russel Walder, Sherill Burton, Georgia Kelly, E. Carroll Straus, Margaret Carswell, and Aura Glaser.

 

Bruce's Acknowledgments:

Spontaneous Evolution is a grand synthesis derived from the people I have known and places I have been, so the book is as much other people's stories as it is mine. Everyone in my life has contributed to the creation of Spontaneous Evolution, and I would love to cite them all, but practicality necessitates a more abbreviated listing.

I want to thank some good friends whose wisdom and insights contributed to this book: Curt Rexroth, Ted Hall, Rob Williams, Ben and Millie Young, Shelly G. Keller, and Terry and Christine Bugno.

A special place in my heart and mind is reserved for my dear friend and spiritual brother, Gregg Braden. I have had the joy of sharing the stage with Gregg in public and the honor of being privy to his wisdom in private. Margaret and I are blessed to be recipients of his Light and Love.

I want to thank the visionary Board of Trustees of the New Zealand College of Chiropractic and, especially, President Brian Kelly for including me in their bold new vision of academia. Their program is a powerful testament to the power of community.

A special thank you to my friends and landlords Stuart and Carol Roscoe, for hosting my extended visits to beautiful New Zealand. Their home, nestled between the wild Tasman Sea and a "dinosaur" rainforest, offered the ideal backdrop for writing a book about Mother Earth.

To Steve and Trudy Bhaerman . . . we laughed, we cried, and then we laughed some more. It has been a fabulous adventure as we have evolved from friends to family.

Speaking of family, as I evolved along this journey, I was delighted to find that when I turned around, my own family had evolved right along with me. If we can do it一there is hope for the whole world! With love for my mother, Gladys, my brother David, his wife, Cindy and son, Alex, my sister, Marsha and my brother Arthur—survivors one and all!

This book was especially written for my lovely daughters, Tanya and Jennifer, and their families. They will inherit this world, and I hope this contribution will leave it a better place for them.

Most importantly, I want to acknowledge my beloved Margaret Horton, my best friend, my life partner, my love. You inspire and fulfill me, darling. I love you.

Steve's Acknowledgments:

First of all, I want to thank the Universe for giving us this assignment, and the grace to complete it.

Next, I wish to acknowledge all of the people who supported this endeavor in any and all ways, offered us encouragement, and kept us nourished with their enthusiasm. I'd also like to thank those who gave their time and expertise, in particular Brian Bogart for his historical perspective and Richard Kotlarz for his economic wisdom. Thanks to Ruth Harris who took on research assignments, my office manager Annette Toivonen, and my friends who have been wondering when Fll be able to come out and play.

My deepest appreciation goes to my colleague Bruce Lipton and his partner, Margaret, for their friendship, perseverance, and good humor in taking on this joint venture—that really took us on. Finally, I am especially grateful for my wife, Trudy, and her steadfast support for this book since the beginning, for her love and faith, and for always bringing out the best in me.

 

BELIEF CHANGE MODALITIES

This is a partial listing of effective belief change modalities. Please check the Web for a full listing and description of these and other belief change processes.

PSYCH-K

www.psych-k.com

Your subconscious beliefs establish the limits of what you can achieve! Learn to rewrite the software of your subconscious mind and change your life! From Bruce Lipton: "I teach with Rob Williams the originator of PSYCH-K. This is the modality that we use personally and with which we are most familiar.ⁿ

THE HENDERICKS INSTITUTE

www.hendricks.com

Resources for conscious living and loving. An International Learning Center that teaches core skills for conscious living. Assisting people in opening to more creativity, love, and vitality through the power of conscious relationship and whole-person learning.

CORE HEALTH

www.corehealth.us

Advancing from studying disease to understanding Health, this innovative process moves beyond treating symptoms to Truly Freeing each individual by internal energetic decisions.

 

BODY TALK SYSTEMS

www.thebodytalkcenter.com

BodyTalk is an astonishingly simple and effective form of therapy that allows the body's energy systems to be resynchronized so that they can operate as Nature intended.

HOLOGRAPHIC REPATTERNING

www.repatteming.org

Quantum Change made easy. The Resonance Repatterning System is an energy process which can help identify and clear the patterns of energy underlying any issue, problem or pain you are experiencing.

CLINICAL HYPNOSIS

www.asch.net www.bsch.org.uk

Hypnotherapy is a valuable therapy with which to release past trauma and decondition established habits. The Websites listed above for the American and British professional societies aim to promote and assure high standards in the practice of hypnotherapy.

INNER RESONANCE TECHNOLOGIES

www.inneiTesonance.com

IRT has 7 brief steps that facilitate you in making certain inner agreements that set the conditions to allow your own automatic system to rebalance and harmonize itself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, transforming all parts of your life.

INSTAND EMOTIONAL HEALING

www.instantemotionalhealing.com

Instant Emotional Healing: Acupressure for the Emotions, by Peter T. Lambrou, Ph.D. and George J. Pratt, Ph.D. Drs. Pratt and Lambrou have created a book that explains the foundations of a new branch of therapy call energy psychology.

NEUROLINKS NEUROLOGICAL INTEGRATION SYSTEM (NIS) www.neuroimkglobal.com

NIS is based upon the neurophysiology principle that the brain governs optimum function of all the body systems. Learn to leverage the brain's profound ability to restore the body and all its systems to full potential.

SILVA ULTRAMIND SYSTEM

www.silvaultramindsystems.com

Learn how to identify your mission in life and to use the power of your creative mind, to propel you toward this goal.

EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUE

www.emofree.com

Based on discoveries regarding the body's subtle energies, Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) have proven successful in thousands of clinical cases.

 

THE HEALING CODES

www.thehealingcode.com

Discover how to: super charge your immune system; help your body heal itself; and turn on your natural healing systems to heal your pain, stress, fear, depression and disease.

 

ABOUT THE COVER ART

In the creation of the Vitruvian Man (late 1400s), Leonardo da Vinci attempted to illustrate humanity's link to the cosmos and the divine using geometry, symmetry and proportion. He used Euclidean geometry, the highest mathematics available to him at the time. Da Vinci based his iconic drawing on the writings of Vitruvius (27 B.C.E.), a Roman architect and engineer who was greatly influenced by Pythagoras (580-500 BC).

Over the centuries, Vitruvian Man has become unarguably one of the most powerful symbols of humanity as a whole—male and female alike (even though the image is overtly male). What's more impressive is that to this day it immediately and effortlessly conveys to the viewer the sense that there is more going on "behind the scenes" than meets the eye!

What I like is taking that centuries-old iconic image and adding imaginative wings to it一because the visual metaphor so readily implies a natural metamorphosis of all of humanity, as well as a positive, beautiful future for us all. Moreover, I like to think that da Vinci himself might even appreciate the use of fractal geometry to "extend" his creation in this way, since his vision embraced mathematics as a clue to our divine origin, and this modern- day branch of mathematics was not available to him.

Finally, the addition of the two flowing symmetrical golden mean (phi) spirals emanating from Vitruvian Man's navel and gracing the tips of his evolutionary "wings" not only bridges the two mathematics, but supplies a visual metaphor for time and evolution itself. The golden mean ratio was an enigmatic and "divine" geometric concept in Leonardo's time. Today we recognize that the Fibonacci sequence upon which the golden mean spiral was based is actually an iterative fractal equation.

As a fractal, this "divinely proportioned^,, self-similar spiral extends forward and backwards without end. Trace the spirals back through humanity's navel and you find we were born of the cosmos itself . . . and the white light of creation. Trace them forwards, out beyond our now-sprouting evolutionary wings and you will find ... blue skies. And yes, you can call me optimistic.

bOB September, 2009

Chapter 1: Believing Is Seeing

• Matthew 17:2, Bible: New International Version.
• A. Brown, “The placebo effect: should doctors be prescribing sugar pills?” Scientific American,no. 278 (1998): 90-95; Discovery Channel Production, “Placebo: Mind Over Medicine?^,, Medical Mysteries Series, Discovery Health Channel, 2003, Silver Spring, MD; Maj-Britt Niemi, “Placebo Effect: A Cure in the Mind,ⁿ Scientific American Mind (Feb-March 2009): 42-49.
• Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam,(London, UK: E. Moxon, 1850), Canto 56.
• Kevin Crush, "Hotfoot It: Walking on red-hot coals is all about the energy", Grande Prairie Daily Herald Tribune,June 17, 2005, 4. Article can be read online for free at http://www.firewalks.ca/Prvss Release.html (accessed March 17, 2009).
• Cecil Adams, "SuperMom: Could a mother actually lift a car to save her child?" Interview and news story about Angela Cavallo, The Straight Dope, January 20, 2006, http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2636/supeiTnom(accessed March 2, 2009).
• J. DiRita, "Genomics Happens,ⁿScience, no. 289 (2000): 1488-1489.
• E. Schwarz, “Ordeal by serpents, fire and strychnine,ⁿPsychiatric Quarterly, no. 34 (I960): 405-429.
• Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing, (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company, 2005), 37.
• Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe,(New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1992), 72-78.
• Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Gregory E. Miller, “Psychological stress and the human immune system: A meta-analytic Study of 30 years of inquiry," Psychological Bulletin130, no. 4 (2004): 601-30.
• Pennisi, "Gene Counters Struggle to Get the Right Answer,ⁿScience, no. 301 (2003): 1040-1041; M. Blaxter, “Two worms are better than one,” Nature, no. 426 (2003): 395-396.
• H. Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,(Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 161.
• B. Harvey, "A comparison of the development of nucleate and nonnucleate eggs of Arbacia punctulata," Biology Bulletin,no. 79 (1940): 166- 187; M.K. Kojima, "Effects of D₂O on Parthenogenetic Activation and Cleavage in the Sea Urchin Egg," Development, Growth and Differentiation 1, no. 26 (1984): 61-71; B. H Lipton, K. G. Bensch and M. A. Karasek, "Microvessel Endothelial Cell Transdifferentiation: Phenotypic Characterization,ⁿ Differentiation, no. 46 (1991): 117-133.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,
• C. Willett, "Balancing Life-Style and Genomics Research for Disease Prevention,ⁿScience, no. 296 (2002): 695-698.
• Ikemi, S. Nakagawa, “A psychosomatic study of contagious dermatitis,ⁿKyoshu Journal of Medical Science 13, (1962): 335-350.
• Daniel Goleman, Gregg Braden and others, Measuring the Immeasurable: The Scientific Case for Spirituality,(Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2008), 196.
• D. Gluckman, M. A. Hanson, “Living with the Past: Evolution, Development, and Patterns of Disease/* Science,no. 305 (2004): 1733-1736; Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, 177.

 

Chapter 2: Act Locally .…Evolve Globally.

• Watters, “DNA is Not Destiny," Discover(November 2006): 32.
• Schmucker, J. C. Clemens, et al, “Drosophila DSCAM Is an Axon Guidance Receptor Exhibiting Extraordinary Molecular Diversity,ⁿCell, no. 101 (2000): 671-684.
• A. Waterland, R. L. Jirtle, “Transposable Elements: Targets for Early Nutritional Effects on Epigenetic Gene Regulation,ⁿMolecular and Cell Biology 15, no. 23 (2003): 5293-5300.
• Mario F. Fraga, et al, "Epigenetic differences arise during the lifetime of monozygotic twins,ⁿProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102, no. 30 (July 26, 2005): 1064-1069.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,
• Gordon G. Gallup Jr., "Chimpanzees: Self-Recognition,ⁿScience 167, no. 3914 (2 January 1970): 86-87.
• Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 126, 161.
• Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, “Mysteries of the Mind: Your unconscious is making your everyday decisions,ⁿS. News & World Report, February 28, 2005, http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050228/28think.htm (accessed March 13, 2009).
• Sue Gerhardt, Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain, (London, UK: Brunner-Routledge, 2004), 32-55.
• Laibow, "Clinical Applications: Medical applications of neurofeedback," In J. R. Evans, A. Abarbanel, Introduction to Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback,(Burlington, MA: Academic Press Elsevier, 1999).
• Fred Luskin, Forgive For Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness(New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), p viii.
• Colin C. Tipping, Radical Forgiveness: Making Room for the Miracle, (Marietta, GA: Global Thirteen, 2002), 123-27.

Chapter 3: A New Look At the Old Story

• “Radio Listeners in Panic, Taking War Drama as Fact," TheNew York Times, October 31, 1938, 1-2.
• Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2001), 49-54; Laura Westra, T.M. Robinson, The Greeks And The Environment,(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 11.
• Susan Jane Gilman, “Five Star Mystic,” Washington City Paper(Aug. 2-8, 1996), http:〃www・com/display.php?id=10843 (accessed March 12, 2009).
• H. Silverman, “Rethinking Genetic Determinism: With only 30,000 genes, what is it that makes humans human?^,,The Scientist (2004): 32-33.

 

Chapter 4: Rediscovering America

• Thom Hartmann, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class- And What We Can Do About It, (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2006), 74-75.
• Thom Hartmann, What Would Jefferson Do? A Return to Democracy, (New York: Harmony Books, 2004), 53.
• , 52.
• , 53.
• , 67.
• Sharon A. Lloyd, Susanne Sreedhar (eds), "Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy,ⁿStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, first published February 12, 2002, substantive revision August 23, 2008, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/ (accessed March 19, 2009).
• John Locke, "Two Treatises of Government (1680-1690),Lonang Library, http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/(accessed March 19, 2009).
• Robert Hieronimus, America's Secret Destiny: Spiritual Vision & the Founding of a Nation, (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1989), 6-9.
• , 8.
• Carol Hiltner, "The Iroquois Confederacy: Our Forgotten National Heritage,^,,Freedom and National Security 2, (May 2002), Spirit of Ma'at spiritofmaat.com/archive/may2/iioquois.htm (accessed March 12, 2009).
• Hieronimous, America's Secret Destiny: Spiritual Vision & the Founding of a Nation, 9.
• Hartmann, What Would Jefferson Do? A Return to Democracy, 25.
• Nancy Shoemaker, ed., American Indians, (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 2001), 112.
• Hieronimus, America's Secret Destiny: Spiritual Vision & the Founding of a Nation, 12.
• , 11.
• , 11-12.
• , 17.
• , 18.

13 Ibid., 16.

• , 29-36.
• , 23.
• , 26.
• , 41-42.
• , 42.
• , 93-99.
• Hiltner, “The Iroquois Confederacy: Our Forgotten National Heritage,” Freedom and National Security 2.
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
• ; Original Source for this reference in Hiltner article: Sally Roesch Wagner, Sisters in Spirit: Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists, (Summertown, TN: Native Voices, 2001).
•  
• Alverto Taxo, Friendship with the Elements, (LittleLight Publishing, 2005), 3.
• Melissa McNamara, "Diet Industry is Big Business/³CBS Evening News, Dec. 1, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stoTies/2006/12/01/evening- news/main2222867.shtml, (Accessed March 12, 2009).
• Aura Glaser, A Call to Compassion: Bringing Buddhist Practices of the Heart into the Soul of Psychology, (Berwick, ME: Nicholas-Hays, 2005),

116.

• John Perkins, Confessions of An Economic Hit Man, (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004), 210.

 

Part II The Four Myth-Perceptions Of The Apocalypse

1 1. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1999), 1-2.

 

• com, “What are mothers' rights during childbirth?^,,Debate revived over pregnant woman's choice of delivery, The Associated Press, May 19, 2004, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5012918/ (accessed March 9, 2009).
• Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography, “Kelvin, Lord William Thomson (1824-1907)^,,_J1996-2007, http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Kelvin.html (accessed March 5, 2009).
• Faye Flam, “The Quest for a Theory of Everything Hits Some Snags," Science, 256 (1992): 1518-1519.
• Adam Crane, Richard Soutar, MindFitness Training: The Process of Enhancing Profound Attention Using Neurofeedback,1st edition, (Lincoln, NE: AuthorHouse, 2000), 354.
• Mili apek, The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics,(New York, NY: Van Nostrand, 1961), 319.
• Lynne McTaggart, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,(New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 23-24.
• , xvi-xvii.
• David Brown, Rupert Sheldrake, "Perceptive Pets: A Survey in North-West California,ⁿJournal of the Society for Psychical Research 62 (July 1998): 396-406.
• Rupert Sheldrake, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals,(New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 23-24.
• McTaggart, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,54- 63.
• Gregg Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief,(Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2007), 116-117.

 

Chapter 6: Myth-Perception Two: Survival of the
Fittest

• B. de Lamarck, Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considerations relatives a Phistoire naturelle des animaux, (Paris, France: J.B. Bailliere, Libraire, 1809).
• Thomas R. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population,(Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004), 44-45.
• Doug Linder, “Bishop James Ussher Sets the Date for Creation,ⁿUniversity of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, 2004, http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/ussher.html (accessed March 10, 2009).
• Bailey, Charles Lyell,(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 86.
• , 117.
• de Lamarck, Philosophie zoologique, ou exposition des considerations relatives a Phistoire naturelie des animaux.
• Leonard Dalton Abbott, ed., Masterworks of Economics—Digests of 10 Great Classics,(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1946), 195.
• Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin,(New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005), 196.
• Charles Darwin, “Letter 729-Darwin, C.R. to Hooker, J・,” Darwin Correspondence Project,11 January 1844, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwinletters/calendai7entry-729.html (accessed March 15, 2009).
• Arnold Brackman, The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace,(New York: Times Books; 1st edition, 1980), 22.
• Bailey, Charles Lyell,(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 61.
• Brackman, The Strange Case of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace,
•  
• Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe一Darwin, Evolution, and the New Biology,(New York: Meridian, 1982), 172.
• M. Lenton, “Gaia and natural selection.ⁿNature, no. 394 (1998): 439- 447.
• James Greenberg, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,^,,The Hollywood Reporter, April 20, 2005, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hi7search/article display.jsp? vnu content id=1000789841 (accessed March 12, 2009).
• Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 43.

 

• T. Avery, C. M. MacLeod, M. McCarty, “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type The Journal of Experimental Medicine,no. 79 (1944): 137-156.
• Erwin Schrodinger, What is Life?,(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1945), 76-85.
• H. C. Crick, “On Protein Synthesis,ⁿSymposia of the Society for Experimental Biology: The Biological Replication of Macromolecules 12, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 138-162.
• Howard M. Temin, "Homology between RNA From Rous Sarcoma Virus and DNA from Rous Sarcoma Virus-infected Cells,^wProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 52, (1964): 323-329.
• F. Nijhout, “Metaphors and the Role of Genes in Development, BioEssays12, no. 9 (1990): 441-446.
• Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene,(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).
• , 2-3.
• Svante Paabo, “Genomics and Society: The Human Genome and Our View of Ourselves,” Science291, no. 5507 (16 February 2001): 1219-
• Pennisi, “Gene Counters Struggle to Get the Right Answer,ⁿScience, no. 301 (2003): 1040-1041.
• Silverman, “Rethinking Genetic Determinism: With only 30,000 genes, what is it that makes humans human?^,,32-33.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,(Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 49; K. Powell, ^uStem-cell niches: Ifs the ecology, stupid!,ⁿ Nature, 435 (2005): 268- 270.
• Robert Sapolsky, "Emergence of a Peaceful Culture in Wild Baboons,

 

PloS Biology, April 13, 2004, http:〃biology.plosjoumalsorg/perlserv/? request=get-dociiment&doi=10.1371/jcuiTial pbio.0020124&ct=l (accessed March 12, 2009).

•  
• Frans B. M. de Waal, “Bonobo Sex and Society,” Scientific America (March, 1995): 82-88.
• Matt Kaplan, “Why Bonobos Make Love, Not War,” New Scientist192, no. 2580 (2 December 2006): 40-43.
• American Cancer Society, Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Facts & Figures 2005,(Atlanta: American Cancer Society, 2005), 1, http://www.cancer.org/downloads/STT7CPED2005v5PWSecured.pdf (accessed March 10, 2009).
• Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture
• , 108; Ibid., 115.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,(Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 75-89.
• , 123-124.
• A. Mason, “A Case of Congenital Ichthyosiform Erythrodermia of Brocq Treated by Hypnosis,ⁿBritish Medical Journal 30, (1952): 442-443.
• Discovery Channel Production, “Placebo: Mind Over Medicine?”

 

Chapter 8: Myth-Perception Four: Evolution Is
Random

• Ben Waggoner, ^uJean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829),” University of California Museum of Paleontology, 25, 1996, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/larnarck,hUnl(accessed March 5, 2009).
• Freeman G. Henry, “Rue Cuvier, rue Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, rue Lamarck: Politics and Science in the Streets of Paris,^J,Nineteenth Century French Studies 35, no. 3&4 (2007),

http://muse.jhu.edu/joumals/nineteenth century french studies/v035/35.3hen (accessed March 3, 2009).

• Graham Cannon, Lamarck and Modern Genetics,(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), 10-11.
• Isaac Asimov, Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 328.
• E. Luria, M. Delbriick, "Mutations of Bacteria from Virus Sensitivity to Virus Resistance," Genetics28, no. 6 (1943): 491-511.
• John Cairns, J. Overbaugh, S. Miller, “The Origin of Mutants/* Nature, 335 (1988): 142-145.
• Lewin, “A Heresy in Evolutionary Biology,Science,no. 241 (1988): 1431.
• Pierre Simon Laplace, Theorie Analytique des Probabilites,1st edition, (Paris, France: Mme. Ve Courcier, 1812).
• Tim Appenzeller, "Evolution: Test Tube Evolution Catches Time in a Bottle," Science284, no. 5423 (25 June 1999): 2108.
• N. Lorenz, "Three Approaches to Atmospheric Predictability,ⁿBulletin of the American Meteriological Society 50, no. 5 (1969): 345-351.

H E. N. Lorenz, "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow,^,, Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, no. 20 (1963): 130-141.

• Dantzig, J. Mazur, Number: The Language of Science,(New York, NY: Plume, 2007), 141.
• Iain Couzin, Erica Klarreich, "The Mind of the Swarm," Science News Online170, no. 22, November 25, 2006, 347-49, quoted in The Free Library, http:〃thefreelibrary.com/The+mind+of+the+swarm:+math+ explains+how+group+behavior+is+more+than...-a0155569993 (accessed March 12, 2009).
•  

 

Chapter 9: Dysfunction at the Junction

• Donald L. Bartlett, James Steele, “Monsanto's Harvest of Fear,” Vanity Fair,May 2008, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805 (accessed March 12, 2009).
• Percy Schmeiser, “Monsanto vs Schmeiser,^,, http://www.peicyschmeiser.com/ (accessed March 19, 2009).
• Bartlett, Steele, “Monsanto's Harvest of Fear,” Vanity Fair,May 2008,
• Jeffrey M. Smith, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods YouYe Eating, (Fairfield, IA: Yes! Books, 2003), 1.
• Bartlett, Steele, “Monsanto's Harvest of Fear,” Vanity Fair,May 2008.
•  
• Morgan Adams, “LaDuke Sows Seeds of Reclamation,ⁿBerea College, BC Now, March 21, 2007, http://www.berea.edu/BCNow/story. asp? ArticleID=981 (accessed March 15, 2009).
• Andreades, History of the Bank of England,(London, UK: P.S. King & Son, 1909), 157, 177, 184. Read online at The Open Library, http://openlibrary.Org/b/OL7098867M/History-of-the-Bank-of-England (accessed March 19, 2009).
• Benjamin Franklin, Liberty-Tree.ca, http:〃libnrty- tree.ca/quote/benjamin_franklin_qiiote_8fb0(accessed March 10, 2009).
• Stephen Zarlenga, The Lost Science of Money,(Chicago, IL: The American Monetary Institute, 2002). 372-375.
• Hartmann, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class - And What We Can Do About It,100-102.
• , 101.
•  
• , 102.
• Woodrow Wilson, TheNew Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918), 201.
• Michael Hodges, “America's Total Debt Report,ⁿGrandfather Economic Reports, March 2008, http://www.opndnews.com/populum/imkframe. php? linkid=70454 (accessed March 12, 2009).
• The New Economics Foundation, "Happy Planet Index,The New Economics Foundation,http://www.happyplanetiiidDx.org/index.htm (accessed March 12, 2009).
• Matthew White, “Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm,^,,1999, http://users.eiols.com/rnwhite28/warstatl. htm (accessed March 12, 2009).

13 Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1987, 1995), 17-18.

• , 25.
• Riane Eisler, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2007), 73.
• The Library of Congress, “The Pinkertons,” Today in History: August 25, http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/aug25.html(accessed March 19, 2009); Charles Siringo, source for, “Telling Secrets Out of School: Siringo on the Pinkertons,ⁿ History Matters, City University of New York, George Mason University, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/ci/5312/ (accessed March 19, 2009).
• Jeremy Brecher, Strike!: Revised and UpdatedEdition,(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1997), 22, 47-48, 71-75, 77.
• Automobile in American Life and Society, “Hairy Bennett," University of Michigan, Benson Ford Research Center, http://www.autolife.umdumich.edu/Design/Gartman/D_Casestudy/Harry_Ben
• Smedley D. Butler, War Is a Racket,(Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 1935, 2003),21.
• Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush,(New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2004), 38-

39, 190-195.

• Frank Kofsky, Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948_f(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995).
• Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, (New York: The New Press, 2002), 74.
• Central Intelligence Agency, “CIA's Analysis of the Soviet Union, 1947- 1991," (Please note specific document 4 on possibility of direct Soviet military action in 1949.), https://www.cia.gov/library/csnter-for-the-stiidy-of- intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cias-analysis-of-the- soviet-union-1947-1991/ore 46 49.pdf(accessed March 14, 2009). ORE 46- 49, May 1949, Possib山ty of Direct Soviet Military Action During 1949
• David Callahan, Dangerous Capabilities: Paul Nitze and the Cold War, (New York, NY: Harper-Collins, 1990), 66-67.
• , 106-107.
• Joel Andreas, Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism, (Oak-land, CA: AK Press, 2004), 44. “
• Amy Goodman, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions," Democracy Now!,November 9, 2004, http://www.democracynow.Org/2004/ll/9/confessions_of an economic hit i (accessed March 12, 2009).
• Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life'sPurpose,(New York: The Penguin Group U.S.A., 2005), 14.
• Zlatica Hoke, “U.S. Health Care: World's Most Expensive,ⁿVoice of America , 28 February 2006, http:〃voanews.com/eriglish/a\chive/2006- 02/2006-02-28-voa59.cfm?

CFID=139027910&CFTOKEN=45495346&jsessionid 二 de308335ce2d9fbab9 (accessed March 13, 2009).

• Barbara Starfield, “Is US Health Really the Best in the World?,” Journal of the American Medical Association284, no. 4 (July 26, 2000): 483-485.
• Gary Null, et al, "Death by Medicine,ⁿLife Extension Magazine, August

1, 2006, http://www.lef.org/rnagazine/mag2006/aug2006 report death 01. htm (accessed March 13, 2009).

• Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture, (New York: Bantam Books, 1983) 137-38.
• Jacky Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda,(New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2006), 15
•  
• Catharine Paddock, “47 Million Without Health Insurance, Census Reports,ⁿMedical News Today, 29 August 2007, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80897.php (accessed March 13, 2009).
• Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda,169-175.
• Melissa Ganz, “The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, & Modernization Act of 2003: Are We Playing The Lottery With Healthcare Reform?,ⁿ10/1/2004, Duke Law & Technology Review, http://www.law.duke edu/journals/dlti7articles/2004dltrt)011.html (accessed March 19, 2009).
•  
• Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies:How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It by, (New York, NY: Random House, 2005), 11.
• Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda,
• J Abramson, JM Wright, "Are lipid-lowering guidelines evidencebased?,ⁿThe Lancet, 369 (2007): 168-169.
• A. Hayward, et al, "Narrative review: lack of evidence for recommended low-density lipoprotein treatment targets: a solvable problem,ⁿ Annals of Internal Medicine,no. 145 (2006): 520-530.
• Dean Ornish, et al, ''Intensive Lifestyle Changes for Reversal of Coronary Heart Disease,” Journal of the American Medical Association280 (1998): 2001-2007.
• Stephen R. Daniels, Frank R, Greer and the Committee on Nutrition, “Lipid Screening and Cardiovascular Health,^,,Childhood Pediatrics, 122 (July 2008): 198-208.
• Law, Big Pharma: Exposing the Global Healthcare Agenda,
• Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s,(Los Angeles, CA: J. P. Tarcher, 1980), 23-43.
• David Edwards, Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom,(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1996), 207.
• Edward L. Bemays, Propaganda: with an Introduction by Mark Crispin Miller,(Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing, 2004), 9-15.
• , 54
• , 71.

5Z Ibid., 25.

• Larry Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations,(New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1998), 156-170.
• Jerboa Kolinowski, “Edward L. Bernays,ⁿEverything2, July 3, 2002, http://eveiything2.com/title/Edward%2520L.%2520Bemays (accessed March 13, 2009).
• Ron Chemow, "First Among Flacks, Edward L. Bernays created many a public relations image, starting with his own," August 16, 1998, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/16/reviews/980816.16chemot.html?

r=l (accessed March 19, 2009); Tye, The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations, 163-184.

• Kolinowski, “Edward L. Bernays," Everything2,July 3, 2002.
• Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 177.

 

Chapter 10: Going Sane

• Erich Fromm, The Sane Society,(New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1955), 15.
• David Edwards, Burning All Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom,(Boston, MA: South End Press, 1996), 62.
• Michael Lerner, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right,(New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2006), 15-36, 41-75.
• Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity_f(New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1951), 23.
• Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism,(Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1975), 141.
• Steve Bhaerman, "Unquestioned Answers: Nonconspiracy Theorist Takes Aim at the Official 9-11 Story,ⁿNorth Bay Bohemian, June 14-20, 2006, http://www.bohemiaii.com/bohemian/06.14.06/davidTay-griffiri-0624. html (accessed March 13, 2009).
• Aura Glaser, A Call to Compassion: Bringing Buddhist Practices of the Heart into the Soul of Psychology _f(Berwick, ME: Nicholas-Hays, 2005), 11.
• Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief, 84-85.
• , 87.
• Glaser, A Call to Compassion: Bringing Buddhist Practices of the Heart into the Soul of Psychology_f

 

Chapter 11: Fractal Evolution

• Matthew R. Walsh, David N. Reznick, "Interactions between the direct and indirect effects of predators determine life history evolution in a killifish," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (2008): 594-599.
• Steven M. Vamosi, “The presence of other fish species affects speciation in threespine sticklebacks,ⁿEvolutionary Ecology Research, 5 (2003): 717- 730.
• Appenzeller, “EVOLUTION: Test Tube Evolution Catches Time in a Bottle," Science, 284, no. 5423 (25 June 1999): 2108.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,(Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 65.
• , 197.
• William Allman, “The Mathematics of Human Life，'‘ S. News & World Report114, 1993, 84-85.
• Eldredge, S.J. Gould, "Punctuated Equilibria: an Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism,ⁿIn T.M. Schopf, (ed.), Models in Palaeobiology, (San Francisco, CA: Freeman Cooper, 1972), 82-115.
• Christiane Gaius, "La sixieme extinction des especes peut encore etre evitee/* Le Monde,14 August 2008, http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi- bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?

offre二ARCHIVES&type item二ART ARCH 30J&objet id=1047018&clef=i TRK-D 01, English version, http://www.truthout.org/article/sixth-species- extinction-can・still-be-avoided (accessed March 1, 2009).

• W. Costerton, Philip S. Stewart, E. P. Greenberg, “Bacterial Biofilms: A Common Cause of Persistent Infections," Science284, no. 5418 (21 May 1999): 1318-1322.
• Margulis, Symbiosis in Cell Evolution,(New York, NY: W.H. Freeman, 1993).
• Margulis, D. Sagan, Microcosmos,(New York, NY: Summit Books, 1986), 14.
• Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth,(Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, Reprint of 1969 edition, 1976).

 

Chapter 12: Time To See A Good Shrink

• Albert Einstein, quote, to Margot Einstein, after his sister Maja's death, 1951, from Hanna Loewy in A&E Television Einstein Biography, VP1 International, 1991, http://www.asl-associates.com/einsteinqcotes.htm(accessed March 4, 2009).
• Arnold J. Toynbee, David C. Somervell, A Study of History,(New York: Oxford Press, 1946, 1974), 575-577.
• Lipton, The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles,(Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2005), 146.
• , 148-153.
• Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future,(New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1987, 1995), 43.

 

Chapter 13: The One Suggestion

• C. Henry, “The mental Universe,ⁿNature, no. 436 (2005): 29.
•  
•  
• GrinbergZylberbaum, M. Delaflor, L. Attie, A. Goswami, “The EinsteinPodolskyRosen paradox in the brain: the transferred potential,ⁿ Physics Essays,no. 7 (1994): 422-428.
• Dean Radin, Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences In a Quantum Reality,(New York, NY: Paraview Pocket Books, 2006), 164-170.
• , 195-202.
• , 203.
• McTaggart, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,101- 109.
• Russell Targ, Jane Katra, Mir acles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing,(Novato, CA: New World Library, 1998), 40-44.
• The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, 181-196.
• Larry Dossey, M.D., Prayer is Good Medicine,(New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1996), 55.
• Braden, The Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief,
• Gregg Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer: The Hidden Power of Beauty, Blessing, Wisdom and Hurt,13-18.
• , 167-69.
• Dossey, M.D., Prayer is Good Medicine,
• Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer: The Hidden Power of Beauty, Blessing, Wisdom and Hurt,
• Doc Childre, Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution(New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1999), 6.
• , 10-11.
• , 11.
• , 13-16.
• Global Coherence Initiative. To learn more about the Global Coherence Initiative, go here http://www.glcoherence.org/about-us/about.html(accessed March 12, 2009).
• Braden, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer: The Hidden Power of Beauty, Blessing, Wisdom and Hurt,115-16.
• “Science, Spirituality and Peace," CommonPassion.org, http://www.commonpassion.org/index.php?

option二com content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=58 (accessed March 13, 2009).

• The Intention Experiment, http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/(accessed March 13, 2009)
• org, http://www.commonpassion.org/(accessed March 13, 2009).
•  
• Arjuna Ardagh, Awakening Into Oneness: The Power of Blessing in the Evolution of Consciousness,(Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2007), 135-148.
• The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, 184-85.

22 Targ, Katra, Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing, 110.

• Leonard Laskow, Healing With Love: A Breakthrough Mind/Body Program for Healing Yourself and Others,(M 山 Valley, CA: Wholeness Press, 1992), 20.
• , 20-21.
• , 303-307.
• , 2.
• , 4-10.
• , 77.
• , 65.

32 “The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions,ⁿ Teaching Values.com http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrcle.htinl (accessed March 13, 2009)

• Glaser, A Call to Compassion: Bringing Buddhist Practices of the Heart into the Soul of Psychology,
•  

 

Chapter 14: A Healthy Commonwealth

• Chen, Shaohua, Martin, Ravallion, "The Developing World Is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight against Poverty,^,,World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series, Social Science Research Network, August 1, 2008, http:〃com/abstract=1259575 (accessedMarch3.2009)
• Meg Howe, Graeme Young,According to Survey Statistics Happiness of Wealthy People is No Greater!,ⁿSmall Farm Permaculure and Sustainable Living, 5, 2009, http:〃www.small-farm・pennacLiltiire・and-SListain・able- living.com/statistics_happiness.of _wealthy_people.html(accessedMarch5,20(
• Charles Walters, Unforgiven: The American Economic System Sold for Debt and War,(Austin, TX: Acres, U.S.A., 1971, 2003), 37.
• , ix.
• , 31.
• Robert Costanza, et al, “The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital," Nature387, (15 May 1997): 253-260.
• “Living Planet Report 2006 outlines scenarios for humanity's future,ⁿ Global Footprint Network,

http://www.fcotprintnetwork.org/newsletters/gfn blast 0610.html (accessed March 13, 2009).

• Thomas Jefferson, “Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government: Money and Banking,^vThe University of Virginia Archives, http://etext.virgmia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeffl325.htm (accessed March 14, 2009).
• Richard Kotlarz, personal interview with Steve Bhaerman, March 14, 2008.
•  
• Thomas Jefferson, quote, The Quotations Page, http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/37700.html(accessed March 14, 2009).
• Walters, Unforgiven: The American Economic System Sold for Debt and

War, 239.

• David C. Korten, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth,(San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2009), 26.
• , 49-50.
• , 50.
• , 51.
• , 53.
• Stephen Zarlenga, “The 1930s Chicago Plan and the American Monetary Act,” AMI Reform Conference,October 2005,

http://www.monetary.org/chicagoplan.html(accessedMarchl4,2009)

• Ravi Dykema, "An Interview with Bernard Lietaer: Money, Community and Social Change,^MNexus, July-August, 2003.
•  
•  
• James Taris, Global Quest for Local LETS,(E-book, 2002), http://www.jamestaris.com/TTW-Contents.htm (accessed March 14, 2009).
• Civic Economics, “The San Francisco Retail Diversity Study,ⁿCivic Economics, May, 2007, 1-28, http://www.civiceconomics.com/SF/ (accessed March 14, 2009).
• Civic Economics, Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study, Local Merchants vs. Chain Retailers,(Austin, TX: Civic Economics, 2002), 1-16. http://www.bigboxtoolkit.com/index.php/Economic-Impact-of-Local- Businesses-vs.-Chains.html (accessed April 15, 2009).
• “The San Francisco Retail Diversity Study," Studies in Economics, Sonoma County GoLocal Coop, April 2007, http://sonomacounty.golocal.coop/?page_id-61(accessedMarch 14.2009)
• Kencho Wandi, “Bhutan - where happiness outranks wealth, Developments,http://www.dsvelopments.org.uk/articles/bhiitaivwhere- happiness-outranks-wealth/ (accessed March 14, 2009).

 

Chapter 15: Healing The Body Politic

• Jim Rough, Society's Breakthrough: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People, (Port Townsend, WA: Jim Rough, 2002), 55-56.
• Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, 281.
• Richard Sanders, "Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power,ⁿCoalition to Oppose the Arms Trade Quarterly, Press for Conversion!, 24 October 2002.
• Malcolm Byrne, “The Secret History of the Iran Coup, 1953,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book 28, http:〃gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/(accessedMarchl9.20C
• James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2004), xi-xii.
• , xiv.
• , 7-11.
• , 28.
• Don Tapscott, Anthony Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass-Collaboration Changes Everything, (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2006), 67.
• , 7-10.

H Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, 140-145.

• Tom Atlee, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All, (Eugene, OR: World Works Press, 2003), 55.
• , 5.
• , 107.
• , 1.
• , 85., Original Source for this reference in Atlee book: Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreements without Giving In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1981)
• , 9.
• Alice Gavin, ''Conflict Transformation in the Middle East: Dr. Johan Galtung on Confederation in Iraq and a Middle East Community for Israel /Palestine,ⁿPeace Power 2, no. 1, Winter 2006, http://www.calpeacepower.org/0201/galtung_transcend.htm (accessed March 14, 2009).
• Atlee, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All, 182.
• Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have A Stop, (Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1998), 45.
• Rough, Society's Breakthrough: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People, 11-12.
• , 19-38.
• Atlee, The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All, v.
• , 24-28.
• , 25.
• , 28.
• , 128-129.
• , 233.

22 Ibid., 130-143, 156-157.

• Anodea Judith, Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage From the Love of Power to the Power of Love, (Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books, 2006), 18.
• Richard Flyer, personal interviews by Steve Bhaerman, January 3, 2008 and February 5, 2009; For more information see: Richard Flyer, "Interview With Richard Flyer,ⁿThe Conscious Media Network, Network, http://www.consciousmedianetwork.ccm/rnembers/rflyer.htm (accessed March 12, 2009).
• ; For more information see: Conscious Community Campaign, http://www.itstimereno.org/(accessed March 12, 2009).
•  

 

Chapter 16: Whole New Story

• Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit,(Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2002), 119.
• Hermann Goering, quote, com, http:〃thinkexisLcom/quotation/naturally_the_common people_ don- t_want_wai7339098.html(accessed March 14, 2009).
• K. Asante, Y. Miike, J. Yin, editors, The Global Intercultural Communication Reader,(New York, NY: Routledge, 2007), 114-117.
• Nelson Mandela, “1993 Address to the Nation,ⁿBlack

Past. Org,http:〃www・blackpast.org/?q=1993Tielson・mandela-address-nation (accessed March 19, 2009).

• Luskin, Forgive For Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness,89-101.
• Kathryn Watterson, Not by the Sword: How a Cantor and His Wife Transformed a Klansman,(Boston, MA: Northeastern University, 2001).
• Ervin Laszlo, Jude Currivan, CosMos: A Co-Creator's Guide to the Whole World,(Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2008), 93.
• Marci Shimoff, Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy From the Inside Out,(New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 40.
• , 21.
• , 151.
• Kiyoshi Nakahara and Yasushi Miyashita, ''Understanding Intentions: Through the Looking Glass,” Science308, (2005): 644-645.
• Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life,(New York, NY: Pocketbooks, 1998).
• Shimoff, Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy From the Inside Out,
• Glynda-Lee Hoffman, The Secret Dowry of Eve: Women ^fs Role in the Development of Consciousness,(Rochester, VT: Park Street Press, 2003), 16.
• Alexander S. Kochkin, Patricia M. Van Camp, A New America: An Awakened Future on Our Horizon(Stevensville, MT: Global Awakening Press, 2000-2005), 7-11.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority in bridging science and spirit and a leading voice in new biology. A cell biologist by training, he taught at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine, and later performed pioneering studies at Stanford University. Author of The Biology of Belief, he has been a guest speaker on hundreds of TV and radio shows, as well as keynote presenter for national and international conferences.

Steve Bhaerman is an author, humorist, and political and cultural commentator, who's been writing and performing enlightening comedy as Swami Beyondananda for over 20 years. A pioneer in alternative education and holistic publications, Steve is active in transpartisan politics and the practical application of Spontaneous Evolution.

 

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