Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st Century (BK Currents)

Book Description

Revolutions are generally thought of as large-scale, bloody upheavals involving whole countries and societies. But there are quieter revolutions that begin in the individual mind and create the kind of change that may be even more significant. By deliberately changing their internal image of reality, people are transforming the world. Right now we are living through one of the most fundamental shifts in history -- a change in the actual belief structure of Western industrial society.

Customer Reviews:

Key to Humanity's Transformation.......2005-08-03

This book is essential reading for anyone thinking about any major transformation in our society...Harman nails the key to any major shifts, changing the way we humans think. It reminds me of Einstein's warning that we'll never solve our problems using the same consciousness with which we created them.

This book, in advance of all others, has served to inspire my own work including ten books and many articles.

A Solid Effort!.......2001-04-21

From Galileo to the Wright Brothers, mankind's most significant scientific discoveries have come from thinkers who challenged the assumptions of the day, often earning the scorn - or worse - of their contemporaries. Esteemed futurist Willis Harman reminds us of this fact early and often in the second edition of Global Mind Change, which is enhanced by a foreword by acclaimed author, Hazel Henderson, but otherwise maintains the original's insights and flaws. In terms of insight, Harman speaks eloquently about the changes in human perspective that accompanied - and he says ultimately caused - such radical shifts as the fall of the Roman Empire and the demise of slavery in the United States. He extends this analysis to modern scientific thought, which he identifies as a societal foundation currently in the first stages of a paradigm shift in which many concepts now viewed as "New Age" will gain acceptance. We [...] recommend this book to any armchair futurist, but urge all readers to bear in mind one caveat: For every free thinker who upended science with brilliant insight, there have been untold thousands of quacks, madmen and charlatans.

Tragedy of Scientific Myopia, Portal to the Future Paradigm.......2001-02-11

This is a wonderful indictment of the Western scientific tradition, less comprehensive than Voltaire's Bastards but more readable and more focused as a result. The author shows a clear connection between existing global problems (ethnic violence, water scarcity, pollution, poverty, criminalization of society) and the earlier Western decisions to adopt scientific objectivity (with all of its inherent bias and ignorance) as well as the primacy of economic institutions such as have given rise to the consumerist society, regardless of the external diseconomies, the concentrations of ill-gotten wealth, and the cost to the earth resource commons. The author is especially strong on the need to restore sprituality, consciousness, and values to the decision-making and information-sharing architecture of the world--only in this way could community be achieved across national and ethnic and class lines, and only in this way could environmental sustainability and justice (economic, social, and cultural) be made possible. This is not a "tree hugger" book as much as it is a "master's class" for those who would be master's of the universe. It is a very fine portal into the growing body of people who wish to be cultural creatives, and easily one of the guideposts toward the next major paradigm shift, away from scientific materialism and toward a new communitas in which people really matter.

lfootemd.......2000-04-04

As a physician trying to bridge the gulf between western and eastern medicine, this has been a wonderful book. The western paradigm, while successful in it's own right, has vast "blanks" to explain certain phenomenon, particularly in the realm of human consciousness. The author has adeptly created a vision from which we can grasp and incorporate a new paradigm. It is so welcoming to read such a scholarly tome that honors the human spirit while embracing the human journey thus far traveled. This is one of the best books from the IONS (Institute of Noetic Sciences) collection.

Willis Harman's finest book.......1999-12-28

Willis Harman's "An Incomplete Guide to the Future" started me on future studies, and his writings have helped focus my studies since. "Global Mind Change" is a powerful statement, digging deep into our language and assumptions as he explores the history and current thought in humanity's attempts to define reality through science. A must read for the new century, and an excellent text for interdisciplinary social and scientific studies.

The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (Communication and Society (New York, N.Y.).)

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A Laudable Extension of McLuhan: Cool, Seminal & Involving!
a shameful posthumous misrepresentation of McL.'s thought.
FIGURING OUT THE GROUND

The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (Communication and Society (New York, N.Y.).)
Marshall McLuhan , and Bruce R. Powers
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Future of Computing | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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Cognitive | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 019505444X

Book Description

Extending the visionary early work of the late Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village, one of his last collaborative efforts, applies that vision to today's worldwide, integrated electronic network. When McLuhan's groundbreaking Understanding Media was published in 1964, the media as we know it today did not exist. But McLuhan's argument, that the technological extensions of human consciousness were racing ahead of our ability to understand their consequences, has never been more compelling. And if the medium is the message, as McLuhan maintained, then the message is becoming almost impossible to decipher. In The Global Village, McLuhan and co-author Bruce R. Powers propose a detailed conceptual framework in terms of which the technological advances of the past two decades may be understood. At the heart of their theory is the argument that today's users of technology are caught between two very different ways of perceiving the world. On the one hand there is what they refer to as Visual Space--the linear, quantitative mode of perception that is characteristic of the Western world; on the other hand there is Acoustic Space--the holistic, qualitative reasoning of the East. The medium of print, the authors argue, fosters and preserves the perception of Visual Space; but, like television, the technologies of the data base, the communications satellite, and the global media network are pushing their users towards the more dynamic, "many-centered" orientation of Acoustic Space. The authors warn, however, that this movement towards Acoustic Space may not go smoothly. Indeed, McLuhan and Powers argue that with the advent of the global village--the result of worldwide communications--these two worldviews "are slamming into each other at the speed of light," asserting that "the key to peace is to understand both these systems simultaneously." Employing McLuhan's concept of the Tetrad--a device for predicting the changes wrought by new technologies--the authors analyze this collision of viewpoints. Taking no sides, they seek to do today what McLuhan did so successfully twenty-five years ago--to look around the corner of the coming world, and to help us all be prepared for what we will find there.

Customer Reviews:

A Laudable Extension of McLuhan: Cool, Seminal & Involving!.......2000-12-09

Powers says that this book is not about "final answers." By God he's right! And he proceeds to effloresce a wondrous garden wrought of the print medium brimming over with fresh probes, "osmic space," brains "astonied," the secret lives of "sense ratios," and other electrific, outsized insights and invitations into the futurepresent. One could readily argue and effectively so that "The Global Village..." is indeed a worthy extension of the medium of Professor McLuhan himself, ringing true and resonating orchestrally with the spirit and vivacity of that bright, iridescent, warm and radiant bulb which, tragically, went out suddenly and left us in darkness on New Year's Eve, 1980.

Feed forward 9 years. Powers'/McLuhan's "tetrad" is a mesmerizingly rich metaphor lending clarity and intensity to McLuhan's seminal 1964 probicon, "Understanding Media--The Extensions of Man." This "new" 1989 book is a MUST-read, a reverent continuance of McLuhan's oeuvre, a virtual channeling of his spirit, and in various ways easier to grasp perhaps, more accessible even, than the monumentally revolutionary/visionary UMTEOM.

The beauty of McLuhan and by protraction Dr. Bruce Powers here is that these men are not pedants but facilitators. Their goal, much like that of Carl Rogers or George B. Leonard or Joseph Campbell, is not to pound stuff into brainpans, but to gently yet insistently open up minds to possibilities, perils, challenges, potentialities and joys imperative in the present reality/"reelity?" or whatever one wishes to term the agardish within which each of us swims, breathes, eats, creates, dances, defecates, procreates and seethes.

If McLuhan is the sorcerer, Bruce Powers is his worthy apprentice, now successor. In fact he veritably invites all of us to be successors (McLuhanatics?), to become involved (the essential definition of "cool"). This book is exciting, invigorating, pulsating, intensely involving and above all, highly rewarding. We need more extensions of McLuhan like this one. This is a superb nonbook, a hybrid medium, and a seamless read. TGV will get your probing juices flowing. It's as revitalizing as pure MDMA (as far as "the mdma is the message" goes). Buy this deceptively modest paperback, and step into it like a hot bath.

a shameful posthumous misrepresentation of McL.'s thought........2000-06-09

I'm surprised this travesty is still in print. "Not in McLuhan's style" is a kind understatement; Powers demonstrates flagrant misunderstanding and confusion of basic McLuhanesque ideas. Try 'Laws of Media' or 'Understanding Electric Language' instead.

FIGURING OUT THE GROUND.......1998-09-14

This book is for the McLuhan enthusiast who would like to figure out the ground on which McLuhan stands. It is chock full of McLuhan's ideas, but not presented in McLuhan's typical style. Published 9 years after McLuhan's death, it seems likely that co-author Bruce Powers assembled the material for publication.

If you are not already very familiar with McLuhan's thoughts and earlier writings, this book is not for you. If you are already very familiar with McLuhan's words, you won't find anything new, but you will find some of McLuhan's basic ideas amplified and extrapolated.

Book Description

The Reader is the first comprehensive history of the noosphere and biosphere. Drawing on classical influences, modern parallels, and insights into the future, the Reader traces the emergence of noosphere and biosphere concepts within the concept of environmental change. Reproducing material from seminal works, both past and present, key ideas and writings of prominent thinkers are presented, including Bergson, Vernadsky, Lovelock, Russell, Needham, Huxley, Medawar, Toynbee and Boulding, and extensive introductory pieces by the editors draw attention to common themes and competing ideas.

The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader includes an introduction by former Sovier Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

Customer Reviews:

Vindicating Teilhard.......2002-05-20

Coined in 1922 by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881-1955), in association with Edouard Le Roy and Vladimir Vernadsky, the word and notion of the NOO-SPHERE were introduced to the English-speaking world by Vernadsky's paper on "The Biosphere and the Noosphere" published in 1945 in "American Scientist" (Vol.33, pp.1-12). In "Fundamentals of Ecology" (1962:26; 1971:35) Eugene Odum said, "This is dangerous philosophy, because it is based on the assumption that mankind is now wise enough to safely take over the management of everything!" In fact, Teilhard assumed nothing about the wisdom of HOMO SAPIENS. But, whether we like it or not, we ARE increasingly responsible and accountable for the management and husbandry of everything, starting with Planet Earth but already extending to the nearest "islands" of outer space. As Mikhail Gorbachev said in 1999 in his foreword to this Reader, "We have reached the phase in cultural evolution where we must assume full responsibility for our power... Knowing and reaching our fullest potential within the constraints of the BIOSPHERE must be the ultimate goal - the driving vision of the 21st century. And the NOOSPHERE concept suggests a philosophy for such a necessary balance" (p.x).

With the possible exception of Blessed John Duns Scotus, no one since St John of Damascus has surpassed Teilhard in his reverence for the "stuff" of creation and of our incarnation. He was fascinated at the many forms of matter, culminating thus far in our genes and the brains that stem thereform. In the known {and knowable?) universe, they are unsurpassed in molecular complexity and reflective competence. Potentially linked together globally by a world-wide-web or internet of communications media, our brains constitute that form of reflective or "thinking" matter that Teilhard called "the NOO-SPHERE." It is concentric with the solid, liquid, gaseous and reproductive or "living" forms of matter, which Edward Suess described as Earth's lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere.

In this excellent collection of readings, Paul Samson and David Pitt have largely vindicated Teilhard's vision of the NOOSPHERE and will have opened the eyes of many to the depths that are yet to be seen in the mysteries of the universe.

A great contribution.......2000-09-14

This book has come to fill a gap and to present to students and lecturers an excellent tool for the handling of this subject in a serious and responsible way. I strongly recommend the book, particularly for ecology and environment courses in the social sciences.

Beyond 2012: A Shaman's Call to Personal Change and the Transformation of Global Consciousness

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Beyond 2012: A Shaman's Call to Personal Change and the Transformation of Global Consciousness
James Endredy
Manufacturer: Llewellyn Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Shamanism | Earth-Based Religions | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0738711586

Book Description

War, catastrophic geologic events, Armageddon . . . The prophecies surrounding 2012—the end of the Mayan calendar—aren't pretty. James Endredy pierces the doom and gloom with hope and a positive, hopeful message for humankind.

For wisdom and guidance concerning this significant date, Endredy consults Tataiwari (Grandfather Fire) and Nakawe (Grandmother Growth)—the "First Shamans." Recorded here is their fascinating dialog. They reveal how the evolution of human consciousness, sustaining the earth, and our personal happiness are all interconnected.

Discover what you can do to spur the transformation of human consciousness. See how connecting with our true selves, daily acts of compassion and love, focusing personal energy, and even gardening can make a difference. Endredy also shares shamanistic techniques to revive the health of our planet . . . and ourselves.

Average customer rating:

Here I go again. ;-(

Earth Changes Bible: A Personal Guide to the Coming Global Transformation
Dianne Tessman
Manufacturer: Inner Light - Global Communications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Prophecy | Divination | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0938294539

Book Description

A personal guide to the coming global transformation. Aliens, angels, and time travelers as well as the forces of naturejoin together to offer a final survival guide to the coming global transformation described by Cayce, Nostradamus and others.

Customer Reviews:

Here I go again. ;-(.......2001-12-13

I have been interested in HUNA for many years. and bought this book in hopes of expanding my HUNA knowledge. I didn;t find it here. ;-(

Page 13. "They were very religious and worshiped the elements" (I have taken the HUNA course from HRI (HUNA Research Inc.) and read every HUNA related book I could lay my hands on.) The Hawaiians knew of a creator but considered anything above the Akua (gods and godesses) to be beyond comprehension. Most hawaiians only went to their Aumakua or po'e Aumakua for assistance The Akua were only called on in times of extreme emergency.

Page 15. "The Real authority on the kahuna is Max Freedom Long, a scientist and archaeologist." I have read almost every book Max Freedom Long wrote "Recovering The Ancient Magic", "The Secret Science Behind Miracles", "The Secret Science At Work", "What Jesus Taught In Secret", Growing Into Light", "Mana", The Huna Code In Religions", and can speak to what I read in those volumes. "Max Freedom Long went to the Hawaiian Islands in 1917 to teach school. Later; Max ran a camera store in Honolulu, and nearly lost his business in the 30s during the great depression. It is true that Max was a tireless researcher and spemt 52 years trying to reclaim what the Hawaiian kahunas did; but that does not qualify him as a scientist and archaeologist. Max was a ha'ole, and the hawaiians would not tell him their secrets. He gathered what he knew of the HUNA system by taking the chants apart to understand the root meanings of the words in the chants and prayers.

Max had been raised "christian" and in a few places he made errors in logic. Especially in Max's statememts that Jesus was an initiated Kahuna. and the HUNA knowledge goes from Hawaii, to Israel, to Egypt, and back to Lemuria before that.

Page 22. "The natives began stealing from Cook's stores, little things at first and then more and more until the items stolen represented quite an enormous loss." I find this offensive. People that would steal are spiritually sick, and the Hawaiians were anything BUT spiritually sick. They were able to modify the weather. walk on red hot lava without being burned, and heal all sorts of health problems.

Page 25-26. "I have had the great fortune to know one of the greatest authorities of all the mystery of the kahuna. His name is Brad Steiger". I also know Brad Steiger, and have read his book "Kahuna Magic" about HUNA. From what I have been able to learn, His HUNA knowledge came about through a friendship with Max Freedom Long, and Mr. Steiger's HUNA material suffers from the same flaws that Max introduced.

Page 30. "The Aumakua is called the high self, and is actuallt the highest god the kahuna dealt with." Page 52. "The almighty Keaue is the supreme being. Spirit energy flows from his temple of the sun in the blue mists of heaven." Am I the only one to see this contradiction? The Kahunas generaly worked with the Aumakua, the Po'e Aumakua, and the Akua (gods and godesses like Kane, Kanaloa, Hina, Pele, etc. and thought anything above the Akua to be beyond human comprehension.

Page 53. "The Rising Sun is Ku, the setting Sun is Hina". Ku amd Hina are two of the Akua acknowledged by hawaiians; but Hina was the goddess of the moon.

I would recommend that you allow this book to collect dust.

I encourage questions and comments about my reviews via E-Mail; Two Bears.

Book Description

In the tradition of the bestselling Aquarian Conspiracy comes the first scientific basis for New Age thinking from one of the nation's most widely recognized thinkers, and the author of Higher Creativit and An Incomplete Guideto the Future.

Customer Reviews:

Provacative and engaging.......2004-04-24

A great read for anyone interested in gaining a peek into the emerging worldview of the global village. Very informative and challenging on multiple fronts

Book Description

Outlines an approach for describing and evaluating external governance in a multi-organizational system of education, training, and professional development.

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All My Meadows
Patricia Penton Leimbach
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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Rural Life | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Harvest of Bittersweet

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Patricia Penton Leimbach
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Patricia Penton Leimbach
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All My Meadows
Patricia, Illustrated by Homesley Penton Leimbach
Manufacturer: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc. 1977
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Patricia P Leimbach
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ALL MY MEADOWS A HARVEST OF COUNTRY WISDOM
Patricia Penton, Illustrated by Jack Homesley Leimbach
Manufacturer: New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1976
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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