The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (Ecology & Justice) [Hardcover]

Brian Swimme (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996 | Series: Ecology & Justice

Following the most recent scientific discoveries about the birth of the universe, this text shows how these new insights replace outmoded ways of seeing the world, bridging the chasm between science and spirituality, the physical realm and the soul. This book will help readers to grasp the larger significance of the human enterprise in this evolving universe.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 115 pages
• Publisher: Orbis Books (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570750580
• ISBN-13: 978-1570750588
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Swimme is a professor of cosmology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco. His department, "Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness" (PCC), is the only graduate program in the western world that places equal emphasis on contemporary science, indigenous spirituality, classical philosophy, and feminist thought for its masters and doctoral programs. He and his colleagues at CIIS have created this program in order to re-imagine the human species as a mutually enhancing member of the Earth community.

The heart of Brian Swimme's work is his focus on knowledge that is transformative--of ourselves and of our civilization. His graduate program attracts intellectually engaged women and men who are in varying degrees dismayed by what they see happening in industrial societies and who are striving to find meaningful ways to develop their gifts to serve the future of the world. Keeping in mind Alfred North Whitehead's view that the function of the university is to enable the future to appear, first in conceptual thought, the PCC faculty and graduate students hold in mind three fundamental goals:

1. To open our consciousness, through learning and imagination, to those creative and evolutionary energies suffusing the Earth, the universe, and the deep psyche that will enable us to participate fully in the regeneration of human communities and their enveloping life systems.

2. To analyze the current devastation of planetary life and to strive to liberate ourselves and our communities from the underlying causes of alienation, consumerism, militarism, androcentrism, and unsustainable modes of life.

3. To draw from the deep wells of philosophical and religious wisdom together with other scholarly and scientific insights in order to bring forth a profound vision of a vibrant planetary era.

Brian Swimme's work joins with those scientists, scholars, and visionaries who recognize that the Earth community is facing an unprecedented evolutionary challenge, the most severe degradation of life in the last 65 million years. This multifaceted crisis requires a fundamental reorientation of our civilization, one in which a compassionate humanity becomes a mutually enhancing presence within Earth's complex systems of life. Cultural historian Thomas Berry, who is co-author of "The Universe Story", has called this task "the Great Work."

Brian Swimme's work, both as a writer and a professor in the PCC program, is committed to shaping the leadership necessary for profound, progressive transformation of social institutions and individual consciousness. Drawing upon some of the most powerful ideas of Western intellectual and spiritual traditions, together with insights from Asian spiritual philosophies and indigenous world views, Swimme and the faculty of PCC have constructed a multidisciplinary course of study to help accelerate each student's journey into his or her particular leadership role within this work.

Brian Swimme was born in Seattle, Washington, earned his Bachelor's degree in California, his doctoral degree in mathematics at the University of Oregon, and now teaches in San Francisco.

Photo Credit: Caroline Webb.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A much needed vacation from humanities molded reality, January 6, 2000

By 

Jamie Housholder "seriously nobody" (Falgstaff, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (Paperback)

I personally found this book both extremely inspiring and enjoyable to read. Swimme's method of unveiling the truth about advertisments and consumerism and how they shape our veiw of reality is ingenious. At the same time, the book takes you on a scientific journey of the universe that incorporates feelings of mystical awe and wonder that many books fail to acomplish. I have read everything from Fred Wolfe to Brian Greene. However, Swimme envokes a deeper feeling of appreciation for science, the workings of our universe, and humanity in general. All his books, especially this one, have something new to say and add a human touch to science that is long overdue. This is definitely not your run-of-the-mill new age book and I recommend it to anyone who is passionate about preservation of the environment or just plain curious about new ideas concerning reality and the world we live in.

44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DEATH TO CONSUMERISM, January 27, 2001

By 

Joel Brown (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (Ecology & Justice) (Hardcover)

Brian Schwimme has an archaic nostalgia. For thousands, even millions, of years, people have united together to marvel at the mystery of the cosmos and contemplate the essence of it all. It was the same macrocosm that each and everyone of the primitive cave dwellers to modern man have directly experienced. But nowadays, we don't do that. We disenchant the world by scientific explanations that view the universe as a machine, to the point where the mathematical explanations of phenomena are more significant than phenomena itself. You might be thinking, no way, the majority of the world is religious, and contemplate such things regularly. He points out that the problem with modern day religious thought is that when we ponder the deep questions of meaning in the universe, we do so in a context fixed in the time when the classical scriptures achieved their written form, rather than worshiping in the context of the universe as we have come to know it over the recent centuries. Such knowledge is restricted to "science" which is at odds with religion. It shouldn't be like this. The Scientific Revolution was an age of this separation. The current cosmology calls for an age of integration. I am all for this goal of striving for a new consciousness. Within our Newtonian minds, we've built such tiny worlds like this, which resulting from the machine view of a dead universe, we apotheosize and deify consumerism. This book doesn't bicker about God or anything that people don't want to hear, it's just saying, "Wake up from this man made world, cast back the veil from your eyes, be at one with this LIVING fecund universe!" You will truly be LIVING in the world once you appreciate the heart of the cosmos, which all though is around 15 billion light years away, is also every where at once. There is no restriction to science. The new cosmology is what has mystified the men of all ages, what they spoke of as the Tao, or the Logos - the emanating source of all creation.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very positive and healthy vision of the universe, February 25, 2007

By 

Patrick D. Goonan "see profile for URL" (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story (Paperback)

Brian Swimme is a very passionate man who is well-versed in science and cosmology. At the same time, he is a deeply intuitive man and deep feeler. This book is an introduction to his point of view on man's nature to the cosmos and the necessity for not becoming disconnected to nature and the wonder and awe of the universe. It stresses the interdependence of everything and focuses on the mystery and awe of the universe and the world of nature. This is something most of us have been taken for granted at least at times. In short, it is an invitation to step of the treadmill of the daily grind to look at the big picture and be inspired by feeling our way into the improbability of it and the heart that is ultimately at the center of the universe. Brian believes every child should be introduced to the story of the cosmos and his unique place in it as the culmination of billions of years of evolution. He espouses a return to feeling part of the creation rather than acting on it as an object. If more people did this kind of reflection, I'm sure the world would be a better and safer place.