Return of the Bird Tribes by Ken Carey

Evidently this lyrical and mythological tale has a cult following. For me, it was a hard book to read because I am not fond of fantasy and don't like the idea of angels (which in this case are birds.) I can admit to unknown forces in the universe, but to anthropomorphize them seems silly. However, beneath the mythological fluff of Carey's work there is a solid base of spiritual insight, summed up nicely on p. 169: "... all creatures inhabit and live within a single field of shared consciousness ... all are projections of a single Being ... all of us ... are differentiated aspects of one conscious and coherent whole." I am glad I pushed myself through Return of the Bird Tribes, but will probably not recommend it to others because the mythology is a little too woo-woo (not to say distasteful) to me.

Quantum Enigma; Physics Encounters Consciousness by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner

Thank goodness for physicists who make the effort to communicate the implications of their research to the rest of us. Rosenblum and Kuttner teach a course called Quantum Enigma which is designed for liberal arts majors at the University of California at Santa Cruz. In it they brave the frontier between physics and philosophy where most physicists refuse to go. One of their colleagues told them that "Though what you're saying is correct, presenting this material to nonscientists is the intellectual equivalent of allowing children to play with loaded guns."

Simply put, the quantum enigma is that observation actually creates the physical reality observed. As one Nobel laureate put it: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness." This situation, in which the act of measurement or observation affects the outcome of an experiment, is referred to by physicists as "the measurement problem."

Quantum Enigma gives a great summary of the development of quantum theory and elucidates the controversy surrounding its various interpretations. Its conclusion is that the origin of energy in the universe can probably not be understood without reference to life and consciousness. And this has made me re-think my opinions about the nature of human life. It seems we really are (as an Episcopal priest once told me) co-creators of the universe.

The God Theory by Bernard Haisch

Subtitled Universes, Zero-Point Fields, and What's behind It All, Haisch's personal take on the nature of God is typical of a spiritual man of science. His answer to "What's behind it all" is consciousness; God is an infinite, timeless consciousness. But he also honors the Kabbalah in noting that "all descriptions of God are necessarily wrong, because an infinite, timeless consciousness can have no characteristics that can be properly translated into physical terms. Love, light, and bliss come the closest."

Haisch is an astrophysicist and Catholic seminary drop-out; currently he says he's an independent Christian who occasionally attends a Unity Church. He believes that scientists who rigidly adhere to a reductionist materialism are as dogmatic as religionists who ignore the principles of science.

Mystics of all religious traditions invert science's assumption that consciousness is a byproduct of the material brain and its neurochemistry. They say that matter does not create consciousness; consciousness creates matter. Quantum mechanics is coming close to agreeing. "In the physics laboratories of today, we acknowledge an enigmatic, but undeniable, relationship between consciousness and the outcome of quantum experiments."

Excellent book for pulling science and spirituality together.

The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami

Many people believe that the Universe is consciousness. In The Self-Aware Universe Amit Goswami comes up with a coherent theory of how quantum mechanics melds with ancient philosophy and modern psychology to show that "consciousness creates the material world." It is only a theory and I sometimes had trouble following the physics and philosophy, but here is my understanding of what Goswami was saying.

When physicists look closely at particles, they find that sometimes they are in wave form and sometimes in particle form (which has caused at least one writer to refer to them as "wavicles.") Before they express themselves as either a wave or a particle they exist as a bundle of potentialities in "superposition." Then, when measured or observed, they "collapse" into one form or the other.

These terms, "superposition" and "collapse," are standard quantum jargon. Wikipedia says that "collapse" is less popular these days than "decoherence" which means a gradual leakage of stuff into the environment even while its source (the quantum) maintains its superposition (chunk of potentiality) which is by nature unmeasurable. However, the January 2008 issue of Discover says that for the first time ever physicists have been able to watch this process of collapse as it happened in a photon.

If we're not "getting" this, I think it's because the physicists are still a little fuzzy about it.

Anyway, Goswami goes on to apply the "collapse into reality" idea to the nature of human consciousness. He sees our minds as having two modes of functioning: the classical mode which holds our memories, logic, and conditioning; and our rarely accessed quantum mode from which we get creativity. He suggests meditation to better access our quantum mode better.

Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke

In 1901 a physician named Richard Maurice Bucke published a book that attempts to analyse and classify the mystical experience of connecting to the divine. He refers to this experience as "Cosmic Consciousness" and uses the term as the title of his book. Known as a classic in the study of human consciousness, the book is in some ways quaintly out-of-date (occasionally pure hogwash.) However, it makes a good effort to capture in words an ineffable experience that is far beyond anything that can be understood or expressed with our limited human capabilities.

Bucke looks at 47 cases of what he calls cosmic consciousness, including those of Buddha, Jesus, St. Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, Dante, Blake, Balzac, Moses, Socrates, Pascal, Spinoza, Swedenborg, Emerson, Tennyson, and Thoreau. His favorite seems to be Walt Whitman (whom he knew personally) and he makes many references to "Leaves of Grass." There are also examples of unknown people born in his own era and usually identified only by initials. These cases are told in the words of the person who lived through the experience.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of Moses and the burning bush, the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus after his Baptism, and St. Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. In various ways, lesser known people have tapped into divine consciousness and Bucke seeks out the common denominators among them. He concludes that they are people who are serious and of good moral character.

"...there comes to the person an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Like a flash there is presented to his consciousness a clear conception ... of the meaning and drift of the universe.... he sees and knows that the cosmos, which to the [common] mind seems made up of dead matter, is in fact far otherwise -- is in very truth a living presence."

The person sees that all life is eternal, that the universe is alive and works for the good of everyone, that the universe is God and its essence is love, that the happiness of every individual is in the long run absolutely certain. The distinction between good and evil falls away and the newly enlightened person sees that all is good in some cosmic way that is not yet available to simple human understanding.

Bucke goes further by postulating that people who have experienced this consciousness are the forerunners of an evolutionary change in the human race. Like the author of The Celestine Prophecy, he thinks we are evolving spiritually and future generations will be more easily in touch with the nature of the divine.Maurice Bucke