Customer Reviews

Cosmic Conversations: Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe and the Search for Reality

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Cosmic Conversations is an exciting book featuring interviews of a number of prominent authors and leading professional thinkers of creative consciousness and the nature of the universe. It was written in 2009 and begins with scientific findings, continues with spirituality and ends with modern cultural concepts on emerging consciousness in our world and universe today. I found this incredibly interesting as well as challenging to consider the variety of topics in Martin's interviews.

Cosmic conversations explores cosmos from different perspectives. Author and astronomer Stephan Martin interviews scientists, spiritual practitioners and other authors, speakers, thinkers etc. This format invites us as readers to further explore any of the people interviewed that we personally find to have particularly enlightening ideas. The book is divided into three parts where part 1 is called "The view from science", part 2 "The view from spirit" and part 3 "The view from culture". Central topics discussed include the idea that science and spirituality is coming toghether, the fundamental interconnectedness of all things and the nature of the universe as purposeful evolution

The book is full of various ideas and perspectives of the universe, there should be something in here for everyone. The fact that the book is transcribed from dialogue interrupts the flow of reading in some parts. It doesn't have the same streamlining purely written books may have, but this is to be expected given the format and doesn't take away anything of the books ability to adress topic or my overall enjoyment of reading it.

Presented as a collection of interviews from three very distinct perspectives, Cosmic Conversations explored the universe in both outer space and our inner selves. It's fairly easy to identify one interpretation of our lives and the universe as a whole when so many differing viewpoints are offered. I personally connected with a Native American understanding of life and it's place in the cosmos. You don't need to be a physicist to appreciate the scientific assessments nor be a spiritual leader to understand the mystic journeys explored in this book. We are Universe. What does that mean? You'll have to read the book to find out!

The author interviewed a number of people on what the universe is. Their answers and views range from the honest, intelligent kind (based on knowledge and good reasoning -- eg, "most leaves are green because of chlorophyll, a green pigment"), to the utterly idiotic (based on silly, dishonest reasoning -- eg, "most leaves are green because the Andover train was late yesterday and my aunt's name is Mary". But, of course, this is a politically correct book by a politically correct author (he agrees with and is even deeply moved by the insights provided by both types of contributions!), with the term "politically correct" encompassing the notion that human judgement is seemingly an evil thing and should not be used, and that all sorts of views are equally valid (except when politically correct people board a plane, which they want to be built and piloted by experts, not just anybody, or enter as patients an operating room, where they demand that a highly-qualified surgeon be in charge, not just anybody or a mushroom-intoxicated shaman, for that matter!).

Haisch, Primack & Abrams, Gardner, Mitchell, Horn (biased but lucid, and with a most original view on forgiveness), Dowd, and Radin are, for instance, on the valuable side of the book. Zavala (a most egocentric speech on western egocentrism), Ali & Johnson (new agey, money-making nonsense), and Tarnas (an insult to intelligence and the history of psychology, with even Grof being considered on a par with Freud and Jung) are on the down side.

All in all, the book has good contents enough to make it worth the while and price IMO, and reading these two types of contributions together in one volume is certainly a good exercise to train discernment, which is always a positive endeavour.

Cosmic Conversations: Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe and the Search for Reality features interviews with Peter Russell, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and other leading thinkers of our times and considers astronomy, philosophy, and spirituality regarding the nature of the universe. It examines key concepts to be gained from new scientific findings and cosmological thinking and is a fine addition to any new age collection.

A chance to see from others points of view, as to the realities formed from their concepts of belief.

Reading the pages provided by the Look Inside link is enough for me. The last word in the title, Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe and the Search for Reality, is just a placeholder for a less sophisticated word; namely, something. The authors, blinded by new age mush-think, are searching for something and their conclusions reveal they haven't found anything more than what a second-grader knows. Take this gem, found on page 272: "Conversely, suggesting that the universe is ultimately nonmaterial and denying the physicality of the world is not only philosophically naive, but potentially dangerous (especially when trying to cross a busy intersection)." Well, I might be mistaken, even a first-grader knows that. Their pronouncements are simply embarrassing to read and suggests that for these authors, there is an inverse relationship between academic credentials and enlightenment. However, make no mistake, the words are golden, but the soup, thin. This book presents an ideological underpinning that is utopian and the result - like all utopian thinking - is failure.