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25 Big Ideas / Robert Matthews BOOK
OF THE MONTH
This is not an alternative science book but one that looks at the 25 central components of 21st century orthodox science, including quantum mechanics, parallel universes and GM crops. Matthews is one of the best science writers around and tackles even the hardest of topics with lucid alacrity. He also shows himself to be a true open-minded scientist by not having a knee-jerk need to defend too much orthodox thinking. This book is a must for anyone who really wants to understand the foundation ideas of modern science — where they came from, how they evolved and where they are headed. |
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The Body Electric /
Robert Becker & Gary Selden
In almost every text book on the human body, its
bioelectric aspect is almost completely ignored in
favour of chemical and biological perspectives. Electricity,
however, is a fundamental component of all living cells,
organs and organisms, and a thorough understanding
of its role in our bodies will undoubtedly be central
to future medicine and methods of healing. Berker's discoveries
are pointing to the day when human limbs, spinal cords
and organs may be regenerated after they have been damaged,
and equally fascinating is the story of his struggle
to do this original research, and the government's resistance
to funding it. |
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Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible
Plagiarist / Christopher Jon Bjerknes
If you think that Albert Einstein was a genius
who single-handedly invented the physics of Relativity,
which smashed the scientific paradigm at the beginning
of the 20th century, you have fallen for one of the
biggest and most outrageous masquerades. This book
undeniably documents Einstein's prolific plagiarism
and paints a picture of him as a second-rate scientist
who conned his way to the pinnacle of physics. Nearly
every formula and theory attributed to him, including
the famous E=mc2 and
Relativity, was invented by others that remain largely
unacknowledged. The core of the physics community knew
this, which was why he never received the Nobel Prize
for these discoveries. |
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The Fabric of the
Cosmos / Brian Greene
This is one of the best books that gives a
highly readable synopsis of twenty-first-century physics,
including the multidimensional nature of reality and
the ambitious claims of String Theory. Greene takes
on the deep questions on existence: What is reality?
Could we exist without space and time? Can we travel
to the past? What are the limits of the universe?
Greene's gift is to bring fundamental physics alive
with his entertaining, imaginative and highly readable
style, in a way that Hawking was never quite able.
(The book's only fault is Greene's Einstein-worship when in fact Einstein was a plagiarist
and did not originate Relativity.) |
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Supernatural / Graham Hancock
Hancock highlights the work of palaeoanthropologist David Lewis-Williams which puts forward the theory that the ancient cave paintings around the world (the most famous of which are in France and Spain and are more than 50,000 years old) were the work of shamans in altered states of consciousness. He takes the conclusions much further than Lewis-Williams, however, and shows a connection with modern day shamanism and UFO/fairy folklore, which both indicate that there are other "objective" dimensions our minds can experience in altered states in which other beings reside. Hancock is no dry academic, however, and describes his own experiences with psychedelic plants. This is an astonishing book. |
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Science and Sanity / Alfred Korzybski
Few people manage to get through this tome of a
book, but it is well worth the effort as those who
manage to stumble through find themselves seeing the
world in a completely different light. Korzybski's
book is more to do with the limits of perception and
the assumptions endemic in the language. He presents
a quantum mechanical alternative which canters around
our use of the verb "to be", for this verb
makes the huge and unjustified assumption that what
what we use it on has an objective reality independent
of our perception. |
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The Field / Lynne McTaggart
The book is a marvellous introduction to some of
the most important alternative scientific research
that has been conducted over the last century in the
area of an all-pervading field of quantum energy called
the zero-point field which connects everything in the
universe, and neatly presents a single theory for such
diverse systems as the workings of DNA, homeopathy
and ESp. Although it sounds far out, this theory is
backed by some brilliant minds and first class research.
This thoroughly researched book will change your perception
of the world forever. |
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The Seven Mysteries of Life / Guy Murchie
This book is encyclopaedic: if you were to take
a single book on science, society and everything with
you to a desert island, this would have to be it. As
the San Francisco Review of Books commented, "One
could spend four years in college and probably not
encounter all of the information found in these pages." Murchie
not only has a huge scope, but writes eloquently and
poetically, presenting a noble vision of the world
and our place in it. |
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The Cosmic Serpent / Jeremy Narby
The Peruvian Indians recipes for healing concoctions
with many steps that, if just one step was missing,
or the wrong amount of a particular ingredient was
used, would render the final product extremely toxic.
Ask them how then did discovered these recipes and
they will tell you that the forest told them. Narby
takes an open-minded journey into the heart of their
culture where he is invited to partake in their hallucinogenic
ceremonies. There he discovers the source of their
wisdom, consciousness infinitely wiser than human consciousness
and this takes him on to the theory that knowledge
may be being transmitted by our DNA itself. |
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The Biology of Belief / Bruce Lipton
This book turns much of orthodox biology on its head: instead of having immutable genes controlling the cell, which is the orthodox biological model, genes have been found to merely be an information copy for the sole purpose of reproduction — a bit like a disk drive in a computer. Lipton shows how genes are constantly being changed by the environment (including our thoughts), and that the cell's real brain is actually the membrane — the interface between the environment and the cell itself. What is so exciting about this book is that Lipton was an orthodox scientist who was changed his views on the basis of recent discoveries in orthodox science. Darwin is out and Lamarck is back in vogue! |
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The Conscious Universe / Dean Radin
Tired of reading those unconvincing "proofs" of
psychic phenomena? This is perhaps the most scientifically
convincing book for the existence of psi or psychic
phenomena that has so far been written. The author,
Dean Radin, is an academic parapsychologist, and he
has meticulously compiled overwhelming scientific evidence
in this well-written book, giving short change to both
New Agers and professional skeptics. If you are a person
who needs scientific validation, this is the book for
you. If, on the other hand, you are more New Age inclined,
you might find it a little pedantic. There is a great
chapter on the methods used by skeptics and one on
the implications of psi. |
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From Science to God / Peter Russell
A clear and concise account by a gifted science
writer and philosopher into how we need to reexamine
the role and place of consciousness in the reality
that we experience. Russell himself went from being
an atheist, studying maths and physics at Cambridge,
to a man able to blend the mystical with the scientific.
This gives him the perfect credentials to lead the
reader into a more profound vision of reality, whilst
not falling into any of the pat spiritual teachings
of either most conventional religion or New Age philosophy.
This is definitely an important book to read. |
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Sync / Steven Strogatz
In this fascinating read, mathematician Steven Strogatz
gives us a compelling and first-hand account of the emerging
science of sync — self-organization across time.
Sync explains many startling phenomena such as how fireflies
are able to flash in unison and why the moon's spin is
precisely in sync with its orbit so we only ever see
the same side. In fact, when you start looking for sync,
it seems to be everywhere. What is also interesting are
systems where there is no sync. Heart pacemaker cells
are in sync to generate heartbeats whereas brain cells
are not — otherwise we would be having an epileptic
fit. |
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The Holographic Universe / Michael
Talbot
Talbot shows us, step by step, how modern physics
is leading us to the conclusion that the entire universe
is actually a giant 3-D image projected into space — a
hologram. Using this model, he manages to neatly include
paranormal experiences such as telepathy, out-of-body
experiences and mystical experiences. The scope of
this book is daunting indeed, and has the potential
to completely change our perception of reality. It
is such a breath of fresh air to read something scientific
that is inclusive of human experience and not so exclusive
of it. |
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Secrets of the Soil / p.Tompkins & C. Bird
When this book was published in 1989, it firmly
put soil management at the forefront of ecological
revival. Tompkins and Bird introduce the revolutionary
methods of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic agriculture,
showing how they could be used to revitalize previously
barren areas and to achieve amazing feats of productivity,
before moving on to other systems of ecological agriculture
that present solutions to our current ecological /
farming crises. Soil sounds boring, but this book actually
moves on at a fast and fascinating pace. Well worth
a read. |
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