The Eagle's Quest: A Physicist Finds the Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World [Paperback]

Fred Alan Wolf (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0671792911 | ISBN-13: 978-0671792916 | Publication Date: December 1, 1992

Science/Anthropology

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Personal odysseys through shamanic rites lead Wolf to posit links between the Shaman's experience and the "new physics." A captivating, lucid quest for awareness.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Wolf, a theoretical physicist and author of The Quantum Leap ( LJ 11/15/81), focuses on his personal involvement with shamanism. He describes his experiences as a participant in shamanic ceremonies around the world and endeavors to explain shamanic practices in terms of quantum physics. He supports his contention with nine hypotheses that link the two seemingly divergent practices. Unfortunately, his narrative is extremely disjointed and skips back and forth between unrelated episodes. While he includes many fascinating descriptions of shamanic rituals, his finished product is basically a book of reminiscences and musings. His study may be of value to libraries seeking books on personal spiritual experience, but its inherent subjectivity is a limiting factor.
- Elizabeth Salt, Otterbein Coll. Lib., Westerville, Ohio
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone (December 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671792911
• ISBN-13: 978-0671792916
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #526,970 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fred Alan Wolf is a world-renowned physicist, writer, and lecturer who also conducts research on the relationship of quantum physics to consciousness. He is the author of 13 books, 3 audio CD courses and received the National Book Award for "Taking the Quantum Leap". He is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars and was Professor of physics at San Diego State University for twelve years. Dr. Wolf has appeared in many nationally released films including "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and "The Secret." His latest book due out in the Spring of 2011 is "Time-Loops and Space-Twists: How God Created the Universe."
He has been interviewed on several radio and television programs including New Dimensions Radio, Western Public Radio, National Public Radio, and many others. He was the visiting scholar/scientist-in-residence in the Pacific Northwest sponsored by The Institute for Science, Technology, and Public Policy during the spring season, 1994. He has spoken numerous times before The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, and several other prominent organizations and been interviewed on a number of television shows between the years 1995 to the present including: The Discovery Channel's The Know Zone, Sightings, The Thinking Allowed Television Series, The Malone show, The Evidence for Heaven. Star Trek IV, Special Collector's edition, The Fabric of Time, The Case for Christ's Resurrection, Down the Rabbit Hole, and the PBS series Closer to Truth.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic book on shamanism -- a real page-turner!, April 13, 1999

By 

Cynthia Sue Larson "www.realityshifters.com" (San Francisco bay area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Eagle's Quest: A Physicist Finds the Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World (Paperback)

This book stands out as one of the best books on shamanism I've ever seen. The Eagle's Quest is remarkable because it maps concepts from modern physics into the ancient shamanistic world... all the while following the Wolf's very personal true story of his quest for deeper understanding. Because Wolf really wishes to know what's going on in the universe, his book is thorough in its investigations of old world shamanism. This is one of the best books I've ever read combining spirituality and physics: it's full of useful information and well-written. I love all of Fred Alan Wolf's books, and this one is especially enjoyable to me, because it was truly written from his heart. This book is a classic.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not necessarily scientific truth...but still a tale that rings "true", August 29, 2008

By 

Quadradox (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eagle's Quest: A Physicist Finds the Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World (Paperback)

I would have preferred the title stopped with the elegance and simplicity of "The Eagle's Quest", because I don't think the book can deliver as well for finding scientific truth. So why did I rate it as a 5? Because it did something much more useful to me than delivering scientific "truth", a promise more likely conjured by the publicists than by the author.

I appreciated deeply the rare opportunity to "hear" the thought processes of an accomplished scientist and physicist grappling with a group of phenomenon nowdays loosely called "shamanic". It was an intriguing and courageous endeavor to brainstorm outloud about his search for models, hypotheses and vocabulary in order to construct a hair-thin bridge between science and mystic journeys to alternative inner and outer realities, some of which were unsettlingly irrational but still transformative and healing.

Far from hearing his voice as egotistical (as a few other reviewers suggested), I found it to be refreshingly candid, soul-searching and very human. Thus in my view his thoughtful discourse does contain some erroneous logic. At times he also offers some weak examples within which one feature or another of western science and/or medicine is set up as a "strawman" to be sacrificed in the comparison with his idealization of a shamanic mind-view. As he journeys deeper into his global vistations with shamans and ayahuasca -- these start to feel increasingly inflated to magical projections. Now the importance of his personal storytelling rather than pretending to offer an unbiased scientific pronouncement is the redeeming key. His enchantment with magical bias almost becomes intentional, perhaps an inevitable consequence of his immersion/merger with his field of study -- the other consequence of the observer effect in which the state of the observer is also profoundly changed but rarely admitted.

As a both a PhD scientist and a physician, I cannot help but notice some of his oversimplifications of us versus "the other" as irritants. Nonetheless, by the end of his book they don't stand in my memory as major detractors. Since I like to argue -- they may even have spurred me on. Instead I found an engaging personal journey, influenced by both the highs and lows of his intellectual struggle to meet, grasp and take in a discipline radically different from his own educational orientation -- with a willingness to stretch beyond some of the prejudices of our current scientific paradigms in order to establish a path for future dialogue.

While I doubt that very little has been "scientifically established" as truth, especially as truth with a capital "T" ... I think the treasure of this book is the invitation to keep modifying and testing our hypotheses, our search for evidence and our vocabulary in order to create a deeper understanding between the cultures of science and "shamanism".

Nearly 30 years ago, I was trained that the purpose of scientific investigation was to cyclically repeat the mantra of observation, understanding, prediction and control. If we continue to constrict ourselves to this trajectory ... I don't think his book will be very satisfying. If instead we follow the spiralling winds of renewal (even without chemical assistants like ayahuasca) toward observation (witnessing), understanding, prediction, verification and seeking for wholeness in applying this wisdom to our lives, our world and our cosmos -- the immediacy and deepth of his personal disclosure as he thoroughly abandons his preconceptions and opens his heart, body-mind and soul to a different world is indeed inspirational.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, August 27, 2001

By 

Grant Trevithick "texan89" (Long Valley, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Eagle's Quest: A Physicist Finds the Scientific Truth at the Heart of the Shamanic World (Paperback)

Dr. Wolf has accomplished what many cannot, he has written a highly interesting book about his journey to discover the parallelism between quantum physics and the knowledge / wisdom of the ancient shamans -- and has done so without getting lost in the scientific jargon. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it for those who are interested in joining their scientific interest with their spiritual journey.