Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred [Paperback]

Victor Mansfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2002

This unusual book tells the story of an astrophysicist's search for meaning from psychological, philosophical, and spiritual points of view. Mansfield weaves personal memoir with clear scientific discussion and quotes such famous thinkers and writers as Steven Weinberg, Jane Goodall, Joseph Campbell, C. G. Jung, Nelson Mandela, Robert Frost, and the Sufi poet Rumi. In plain language, Mansfield explores radio astronomy, the nature of time, relativity, cosmological expansion, and quantum mechanics with personal examples of meditation, dreams and synchronicity to show that spiritual experience offers a fundamentally different window into reality than that given by science. And he tackles these questions: What is invisible matter? Am I merely a complex tangle of atoms and molecules controlled by the laws of physics? What is the nature of soul? How is modern science a form of religion? You will be charmed by Mansfield's anecdotes to dramatize his own struggles with such questions. In a culture where the relationship between science and spirituality continues to be strained, he offers hope for a higher synthesis that embraces dissenting worldviews and encourages compassionate action in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

As a university-based astrophysicist, Mansfield risks much in this attempt to bridge the centuries-old chasm separating the science of quantified reality from the intuition of sacred meaning. As he ranges through Christianity, Buddhism, and beyond, he risks incurring the wrath the devout often pour upon curious interlopers. As he unfolds his extended analogy between modern cosmology and Jungian psychology, he risks exciting the scorn his academic colleagues usually heap upon cranks. He even risks losing sympathetic readers by analyzing astrology as a potentially valid way to reach synchronicity. Even the bizarre forays into astrology and parapsychology, however, cannot obscure Mansfield's courage in exposing the sterility of a strictly scientific perspective that entirely divorces intellect from emotion. As Mansfield probes his own waking and dream-world experiences, he is sure to mystify some readers, but his utterly candid narrative compellingly illustrates the fundamental but oft-neglected need to search for truth through personal introspection, not merely objective science. Even readers who reject Mansfield's often-quirky answers will find themselves haunted by his questions. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 295 pages
• Publisher: Quest Books; 1 edition (July 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0835608174
• ISBN-13: 978-0835608176
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bridge to a Brave New World, March 4, 2003

By 

Dr. Jean B. Raffa "author and seeker" (Maitland, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred (Paperback)

As one who writes about Jungian psychology and the feminine principle, I am very taken with this unique and brave book. Mansfield, an astrophysicist who is as scholarly and logical as they come, is also a spiritual warrior at the vanguard of a new breed of men who understand the need for uniting the objective, scientific masculine mind with the personally meaningful sacred wisdom of feminine heart. It takes an unusual degree of consciousness to avoid the trap of taking sides over this, one of the most deeply ingrained splits in the Western mind, and Mansfield is a rare scientist with the wisdom and courage to bridge the gap. In this book, which is an artful blend of personal story and scientific theory, he begins by differentiating between the masculine and feminine principles to illustrate their value as metaphors for head and heart, science and the sacred. In Part II he demonstrates how these opposites meet and interact in such controversial and mysterious phenomena as astrology and synchronicity. Having experienced many synchronistic events myself, I found this section especially interesting and affirming. Finally, in Part III he discusses ways of relating head and heart. The result is a subtle weave of the latest findings of science with the progressive thinking of today's most sophisticated philosophers, psychologists, and authentic spirit persons into a harmonious, balanced, and unified theory about the nature of reality. This book is a must read for serious seekers and deserves to be placed alongside those of our most advanced and enlightened thinkers.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Meditation on Science and the Soul, April 14, 2008

By 

Andrew Cort, author of "Symbols, Meaning,... - See all my reviews

This review is from: Head and Heart: A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred (Paperback)

In "Head and Heart", Victor Mansfield explores the relationship between the objective rationality of science and the noetic revelations of religion. Mansfield is that rare combination: a scientist of impeccable credentials (he is a Professor of Physics at Colgate University), and a deeply spiritual man who is well-versed in eastern and western religious traditions. His book is about the crucial need for harmony between these two aspects of life that are usually at war with each other, and he recognizes that they must be harmonized internally (head and heart) as well as externally (science and spirit). This very rewarding book lets the reader share in Mansfield's remarkable personal quest.