Customer Reviews

The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit

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It is not often that lifelong spiritual seekers are ever open to new possibilities rather than being content to believe that they have arrived and/or becoming gurus. Likewise most spiritual seekers are inimical to scientific research and knowledge. However, Joseph Chilton Pearce does not fit that bill. Here in this remarkably comprehensive synthesis he demonstrates that even as he nears 80 years of age he is still seeking, still exploring, and still being the humble visionary that he has been for almost 50 years. (He started writing his first book, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, in the late 1950s). In this brilliant book he points out the pitfalls of how we raise, educate and enculturate our children and more often than not short circuit their fullest possible development. Similarly, he presents methods of overcoming those errors and of moving ourselves into an ever-present spiritual mode of perception and behavior. Do we dare? Let's hope so!

This is an excellent and important book - a must read for those who have noticed the incongruence immanent in our culture, and are concerned about well being of the planet and themselves.

I was raised an evangelical Christian and realized in my late teens that there was a deep disconnect between what Jesus said and how some Christians behaved. They didn't suspend judgment as Jesus said, "Judge not", but condemned and punished those that didn't fit the prescribed norms of the community. The response I got when I addressed that issue was, "We are all sinners: we were born sinners and we need Jesus in our lives to save us from sin. This is what everyone must do if they don't want to go to hell."

It was a steady diet of fear, fear and more fear. Someone handed me a small brochure this morning that asked me on the front cover, "Where will you spend Eternity?" It goes on, "1. You have sinned against God. 2. God is a holy, sin-hating God. 3. God's holy nature demands that all sin must be punished. 4, Though God hates sin and has to punish it, He loves you so much that He came down to earth and received the punishment that you as a sinner deserved when He suffered and died on the cross." There is more but I've quoted you enough to get the drift of my early enculturation.

Chilton Pierce contrasts the Paul oriented culture of Christianity, as we know it, the church that espouses damnation, guilt and fear, and Jesus as the Model of the transformed life. Chilton says, "Christianity turned Jesus from our evolutionary model into the greatest tool of culture. Converted into the Christ, Jesus became the Mediator. No longer the model of higher development, the one who draws toward him through lifting us up, Jesus as the Christ became a go-between, mediating between the wrath of that same old tyrant Jehovah and the same old sinful, victimized, and helpless human". He says elsewhere, "The Christian accusation of sin is part of the very fabric of our culture, and the more subtle its presence, the more powerful its effect." "By their fruits you will know them" is the one observation no power system can tolerate, above all the institution of Christianity."

Chilton speaks with the clarity of someone who understands deeply the unrealized birthright of humanity, built into our brain, which he beautifully and concisely describes. He created for me a scientific basis for spiritual truth describing the natural development cycle of the quadrants of the brain as an evolution into transcendence.

After teaching 36 years at the college level, a persistent trend has become obvious to my colleagues and me: the ever-diminishing capacity of our students over the years to do assignments. While I have been very consistent with my core content, students are proving to be less and less capable on average. Much conversation and debate about this perceived problem in its many forms (I was recently told that over 30 percent of our students have a clinically diagnosed psychological or learning disorder) has consumed many hours of our academic lives. Until this book I had no clue as to "real" causes behind the student's diagnosed disorders. With the breadth and insight Mr. Pierce brings to the dialogue, I now have a more substantial understanding of the issues we face. What I once saw as the possibility of transcendence for everyone became far more real when I realized that it is built right into the "hardware", the brain. The "software", enculturation, is at the root of our unrealized potential.

Before you can get somewhere you have to know where you are. This book provides a very accurate description of where we are and where we can possibly get to as a society. I'd like to recommend Ariel and Shya Kane's books, "Working on Your Self Doesn't Work" and "Working On Your Relationship Doesn't Work" as compliments to Mr. Pierce's work. You will find that what they offer works as a catalyst for "transformation" as they put it. What Chilton describes as our present state and possible transcendent state are the meat and potatoes of the Kanes' work. They support those who are willing to take a look at their lives and their enculturation. By simply observing behavior, without shame or judgment, lives transform. I have found their books a great resource for living a transcendent life. I have found that working with them in New York and spending time with them their workshops has been the best thing I've done for myself in the 67 years I've been on this planet. "By their fruits you will know them." can be applied to the Kanes who walk their talk. They are the real thing!

Thank you Chilton for an excellent book.

Have you ever had the feeling that you were missing something, that something big was supposed to happen but didn't? Have you ever been in love and literally felt it in your heart? Would you like to overcome your fear reaction and use your highest powers to deal with stressful situations? Would you like to know how we can stop the damage to our children's minds? These things and many more are explained. This book is a roadmap for immediately re-starting human evolution. It bridges biology and meta-physics. If you aren't familiar with Pearce, be forewarned, he will rock your world. Even if you are familiar, you may want to buy an extra copy for a literate friend because you will NEED to talk to somebody about this book. You may not want to give up your copy. I'm re-reading mine and will be indefinitely. In my opinion, this is Pearce's best, a fine distillation of remarkable experiences and work.

Reviewed by Elliot A. Ryan and Charles O. Bubar

Many books have one or a handful of fundamental concepts. This book has dozens, woven together in a powerful fabric to provide intelligent clothing for a new paradigm of transcendence. A major argument of this book is that transcendence, the ability to go beyond limitation and restraint, is our biological birthright, built into us genetically, and blocked by enculturation. It is an inspired and heretical work as all great truths are heretical in the context of the culture that encounters them.

Depending on your cultural and religious background, it will be either joyful or somewhat disturbing to read. Nevertheless, for those who deeply understand its profound implications, The Biology of Transcendence can be a blueprint for a new paradigm in child development.

In this powerful work, Pearce draws on research from a wide range of the physical, social, biological, and medical sciences. His bibliography contains over 100 sources from Frederick Leboyer on birth and bonding to Paul MacLean on the brain, Jean Piaget on development, John and Beatrice Lacey on the heart, the Holy Bible on religion, David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake on science, and Rudolph Steiner on spirituality.

Joseph Chilton Pearce reveals the biological and neurological underpinnings that help us discover the underlying principles of our own deepest nature.

This is a book which can be productively read numerous times, each time grasping more of the interrelationships among the fundamental concepts and understanding their implications for our own lives and those of our children.

This book deserves to be a best seller, yet even as the Bible is a best seller, the Bible is often not read by those who own it - or if read, may be fundamentally misunderstood. In the same way that the Bible is a profound affirmation of spiritual possibility and an indictment of "the world", The Biology of Transcendence is an affirmation of our transcendent birthright and an indictment of cultures which oppose this birthright.

An important goal of culture is to inhibit destructive impulses and behaviors. Unfortunately, culture can result in a failure in nurturing and a consequent failure in the brain development of the child's prefrontal cortex - the brain system which, when developed and integrated, internally inhibits the same destructive impulses and behaviors in children and adults which culture has failed to externally control.

Pearce offers evidence of the growing failure in nurturing of children in the United States and the increase in destructive impulses and behavior. By the end of the 20th Century, 6000 American children and teens were being killed annually by their peers. Further, suicide has become the third highest cause of death by youth between ages 5 and 17, with suicide attempts in this age group occurring on the average every 78 seconds.

Pearce shares many of the transcendent experiences of his own life of 83 years, which provided his powerful personal motivation to understand the true nature and source of these experiences and the framework of child development principles which can open this potential to our children.

In explanation of "unconflicted behavior" he describes two such instances from his own life that occurred due to his discovery in his early 20s of how "to bypass my body's most ancient instincts of self-preservation, which resulted in a temporary absence of all fear and subsequent abandonment of all caution. This enabled me, at particular times, to accomplish things that would have been considered impossible under the ordinary conditions of the world," (1) such as sleep and operate a check-proofing machine at the same time plus take customary coffee breaks and (2) climb a sheer cliff straight up from the ocean with an overhang at the top. His implicit trust in the force of unconflicted behavior operated the check-proofing machine and propelled his body up through an avalanche of dust and debris. Unconflicted behavior allows no space for doubt.

Pearce sees these fundamental concepts as part of the process of building lifeboats to ferry humankind out of a growing chaos and into a new realm of transcendent possibility. These concepts provide affirmation of the innate intelligence of mothers who possess strength and self-confidence, who are deeply spiritual in a personal sense, who exhibit freedom, and who exude inner security, confidence, and the intelligence of the heart. For fathers, their most important role is to provide mothers with a safe space, free from fear during pregnancy, childbirth, and their son's or daughter's early childhood years, so that the child's safe space is never in question. After the first three years, the father provides the model for bridging between the nest and the world.

I've only gotten half way through it but this is a wonderful book! Dr. Pearce writes with authority and grace, and has read widely and compiled the most essential findings from the ongoing revolution in the biology of intelligence. Surprisingly, it turns out that our hearts are largely composed at the cellular level of glia and neurons, and connections with our brain and nervous systems are so extensive that one could refer to the heart as the fifth brain. I've read in the other reviews where one reader refers to the author as a "psychopath". This is really hard to swallow, especially considering Dr. Pearce's straightforward honesty, humility and humour in describing some extraordinary experiences from his quite extraordinary life. It's also rather ironic that such slander should be thrown at a person who has devoted a lifetime to investigating and exposing how our industrial, materialist society twists our youth's natural processes of intellectual and emotional growth... and spurs instead, at a biological and neurological level, the deformity of violence against self and others.

This book will make you giggle with glee if you've ever had a major Ah ha! or Eureka! in your life. He shows scientifically and tells philosophically how consciousness elevates. Included in this thesis are the landmarks of development of the brain and then the consciousness -- and then he tells you how to really turn on the juice to uplift your consciousness. It's theory, no doubt, but there's enough credence that it's very interesting reading. As in all things, each of us comes to the world from a particular point of view. This one struck me as fantastically interesting.

Pearce's The Biology of Transcendence has the ability to transform the reader's mind, and ultimately, life. This compelling novel shows why humans are stuck in a realtiy of violence and hatred, and how we can transcend that reality. Pearce explains the different parts of the human mind scientifically, but in a way any reader can understand. The importance of the heart is revealed, and Pearce discusses the field effect and the model imperative. In the second section, the book gives a stunning description of where we have gone wrong, and that one of the main problems is Christianity. The last part of the book tells us how the world can change for the better, and how we can be part of that transformation. Although The Biology of Transcendence can be difficult for a reader not well-versed in science and philosophy, no one should put this one down before the last page. Pearce explains everything and gives us a good picture of modern man.

This is a very good book for anyone who believes in Jesus and admires his example, but questions our cultures interpretation of him. A fresh point of view for the higher thinking person.

There has been a lot of fascinating research recently about the biology of transcendence. But you won't find it in this book. What you will get is a personal reconciliation of his Christianity. Not that that's bad--but it is not how the book is represented. A fundamental problem with this book is one that bedevils (so to speak) many works by authors who write on subjects outside of their field of expertise. Pearce is a theologian (apparently). He is not a physician, physiologist, biologist, or anthropologist--and this really shows when he writes about those subjects. The theology is OK. The physiology is ho-hum--the same any intro course would give--except that he strays into details that are unfounded or absurd. As for the anthropology--whew! where does he get this stuff? Ancient cities from 20,000 years ago?! Early Americans that were 7 ft tall?!! This the stuff of fantasy and unfortunately really discredits his attempt to study the phenomenon of transcendence.

Pearce has a true gift of engaging discussion that crosses the boundaries of science and spirit. This book is full of gems that bring together brain physiology, psychology, Christianity and personal spirituality.

Pearce is well known from his earlier books about the magical child. Here, he writes of his personal spiritual development and of his views on the difference between transcendence and religion.

His personal experiences include periods during his life when he was able to activate intuitive/psychic abilities to scan masses of data accurately; to sell sterling silver to everyone (including an unscheduled, in-home sale at midnight); and impossible physical feats (e.g. climbing a high, crumbly cliff with an overhang).

He points out that the need to honor, nurture and develop our transcendent awareness is not a trivial or unimportant difference.

Pearce presents a strong case for interpreting the teachings of Christ in the light of personal spiritual development, rather than adherence to a ritualized liturgy. Pearce suggests that Christ's teachings were not intended to enthrone Jesus and the apostles, and certainly not the later established church, as the primary purveyors of spiritual wisdom, nor as the primary focus for spiritual observance. Christ taught that each of us has a direct connection to God.

Pearce has a gift for reviewing diverse materials in an engaging manner. He includes a helpful discussion on the brain and transcendent awareness, but this is nowhere near as compelling as his discussions on spirituality. This book is worth a good chew.