The Seven Mysteries of Life [Paperback]

Guy Murchie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

"All life in all worlds" -this was the object of the author's seventeen-year quest for knowledge and discovery, culminating in this book. In a manner unmistakably his own, Murchie delves into the interconnectedness of all life on the planet and of such fields as biology, geology, sociology, mathematics, and physics. He offers us what the poet May Sarton has called "a good book to take to a desert island as sole companion, so rich is it in knowledge and insight."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Guy Murchie writes with exceptional skill and encyclopedic depth about the nature of life. The author, by turns a schoolteacher, pilot, journalist, and photographer, seems to have absorbed facts over a long lifetime like the proverbial sponge. Assuming the perspective of an observer outside earth, he explores all nooks and crannies, marveling at the diversity and abundance of life forms. His first sections are Aristotelian - a natural history of animals highlighting the extremes of physiological adaptation that have enabled creatures to live at the depths of ocean trenches, in the deepest caves, at high altitude or in desert heat and drought. The reader, cued by the magic seven and the mysteries of the title, will not be surprised that Murchie looks beyond appearances to find a guiding hand or immanent presence. These possibilities are explored in the latter half of the huge book. Progressing from the first mystery, the abstract nature of the universe; the second, the interrelatedness of life; third, its omnipresence; fourth, the polarity principle; Murchie moves on to mysteries five, six, and seven: transcendence (including a discussion of death), the germination of the world, and the ultimate mystery - divinity. Connecting the sections is the dynamism of life, a Heraclitean theme that all things change. Here lies the source of growth and development and of numerous analogies between living and non-living forms. Skeptics or strictly rationalist readers ought not to be put off by Murchie's frank mystical bent, for the references to particular orthodox schools or leaders are not intrusive. Instead there is a steady amassing of observations in science and often striking comparisons (a splatter of milk and the movement of a jellyfish, for example). Whether tuned to Murchie's particular music of the spheres or not, readers perusing the volume can come away with a refreshing array of natural lore, analogies, and insights often quite eloquently expressed. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Guy Murchie, the author of Song of the Sky, Music of the Spheres, and The Soul School, won the John Burroughs Medal.

Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395957915
• ISBN-13: 978-0395957912
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #338,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE MOST INSPIRED AND INSPIRING VISIONS OF REALITY, February 22, 2000

By 

Patrick Gunkel (Princeton, NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science and Philosophy (Paperback)

Guy Murchie was an amazing man and "The Seven Mysteries ofLife" was his most astonishing and magnificent book. It presentshis comprehensive, systematic, and brilliant vision of the worlds of matter, life, mind, and spirit in extraordinarily beautiful, simple, poetic, and apt language, with an endless series of absorbing and inspired illustrations that are mostly drawn, with noble erudition, from the scientific literature. It is a work of genius - a masterpiece of ideonomy - and I feel little hesitation in declaring it one of the 200 greatest books that have ever been written.

- Patrick Gunkel

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Merely the turning point of a long life..., April 13, 2002

By 

John V. Hilberg (Laconia, NH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Seven Mysteries of Life (Paperback)

...is what Guy Murchie's Seven Mysteries of Life has been to me. Avid, ardent reader forever. Almost 20 years ago, happened upon Murchie after my father died. You need a supple mind - not a brilliant one - to take in what Murchie says; a sustained spell of selective sci-fi, cosmology, or alternate-history reading might help. This book is science. But it is true knowledge that you have not previously seen marshalled this way. I have never been able to discredit any of the amazing assertions of fact that this remarkable polymath makes. Now, having also read Murchie's autobiography i understand the care with which Seven Mysteries was composed. By the end of the long, easy, pleasant book, you may have forgotten an enormous amount of detail, but you'll be left with an impression of awe at the organization of nature.

For me, this single mind-opening experience began a journey of intellectual and spiritual discovery which has transformed my life. Heretofore out of print, i have bought a half-dozen or so used copies for very careful giving to family and friends whose curiosity, openness, and capacity seem to make them good candidates for reading Murchie - including both a Jesuit priest and a seminary drop-out now a professing agnostic.

I've been wondering whether this only review i have put online was inspired as a thank-you to Guy Murchie. Maybe. But mostly i take the time to do so in the hope, and even confident expectation, that if you read and reflect on this book you may breathe up your own thank-you to its author.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow., May 28, 1999

By 

AlexO (Salt Lake City, Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Seven Mysteries of Life: An Exploration in Science and Philosophy (Paperback)

If you don't believe that the real physical world we live in is incredibly fascinating, complex, and heart-breakingly beautiful, you need to read this book.

When I was a kid and believed in god and heaven and all that, I used to imagine that heaven was this beautiful, quiet, sunny library filled with books that clearly explained the mysteries of the universe. When I read Seven Mysteries of Life, I felt that this was a book that I would have found in the library of heaven.

Imagine a book that could explain practically everything in the natural world- how the various senses work, how sand is deposited on beaches, how sonar in bats works, how closely related we all are to other humans, to chimpanzees, to everything, how different creatures reproduce, how a tree is constructed, what a muscle is made out of, why the moon appears the way it does on the horizon- and yet somehow be an incredibly fascinating page turner of a book at the same time. That is this book.

You may not agree with everything Murchie writes (some of the mystic argument-from-design stuff toward the end doesn't work for me), but you can't help but feel that you've somehow fallen in love with the world after reading this book.