Sun of gOd: Discover the Self-Organizing Consciousness That Underlies Everything [Paperback]

Gregory Sams (Author), Graham Hancock (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

In Sun of gOd, cultural pioneer and philosopher Gregory Sams takes a fresh look at our solar benefactor. As Sams sees it cultures throughout the ancient world were right to recognize the Sun as a living, conscious being. The implications of a conscious provider in the sky are startling, though often obvious -- and in harmony with science, logic and common sense.

Sun of gOd explores exciting new ground, adding a crucial piece to the jigsaw-puzzle picture we have of the cosmos. In the light of a conscious Sun, Sams looks at our hard-wired tendency for religion, notions of god and divinity, our place in the firmament, star formation, intelligent light, electromagnetism, feedback, chaos theory, free will, the four elements, and the near-universal self-organization of systems from the bottom up.

"Could it really be that the universe waited 13.7 billion years -- until we came along -- to manifest the phenomenon of consciousness and made ours the only type of vessel able to experience it?" Sams thinks not. Citing David Bohm's discovery that even on the subatomic level of electrons there appears to be intention and choice, Sams goes on to suggest that creative intelligence may be a bot¬tom-up system in which "everything, from a molecule of water to a neuron in our brain to the Sun itself, is a part of the bottom that is subtly steering a greater whole." From this perspective, he smoothly joins the microcosm to the macrocosm, revealing a Universe incorporating both intelligence and design, with no need for an Intelligent Designer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Sun of gOd presents a perfectly outrageous hypothesis: The sun is a conscious, living organism residing in a thriving galactic community, thinking stellar thoughts that span the entire universe. Surely this is nonsense. Except that the more you read the more a conscious universe begins to make sense. Gregory Sams' book is a clearly written and persuasively reasoned argument to think about the sun in a radically new and refreshing way." -Dean Radin, PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences

"Modern science has confirmed a belief held by many ancient cultures: solar activity is closely linked with human behavior. Moreover, Gregory Sams asserts that the Sun is endowed with intelligence and consciousness. In the brilliantly articulated chapters of this remarkable book, he also provides a provocative paradigm for understanding the self-organizing capacities of the entire Universe." -Stanley Krippner, Ph.D., Co-editor, "Varieties of Anomalous Experience"

"I was prepared to dislike this book. "The sun is a conscious being." -- what a preposterous notion! Yet if you are prepared to entertain this peculiar hypothesis, Gregory Sams will entertain you with unusual and engaging justifications for an apparently preposterous hypothesis. Someday when scientists are able to directly connect with non-human consciousnesses, they may discover that the sun is indeed a conscious being, and that Gregory Sams (and numerous cultures of sun worshippers) had anticipated this discovery by purely philosophical means." -Nick Herbert, author of "Quantum Reality", "Faster than Light", and "Elemental Mind"

"Simply one of the wisest, most lucid, and thoughtfully written books that I've ever read on spirituality. Gregory Sams illuminates and clarifies my vague intuition about the cosmos being a living organism, and adds flesh to my childhood hunch that every aspect of the universe is imbued with spirit. An unusually insightful and well-integrated exploration of the origins of religion and the evolution of consciousness that radically refreshes our view of the world." -David Jay Brown, co-author of "Mavericks of the Mind and Conversations at the Edge of the Apocalypse"

"Gregory Sams' "Sun of gOd" is one of those most rare books, an unpretentious book of wisdom. On consciousness; on bizarre restrictions and outrageous interpretations loaded on it by profiteering exploiters of humans' instinctive reverence for cosmos' interconnections so brilliantly discovered by courageous astronomers; and, in a revelatory and touching way, on the beauty and sublimity of awareness which manifests in all animals and humans and all artistic-scientific revelations of subtle matter-energy transforms. Acute, apt quotations from sages and philosophers alone justify the book. But best of all, Gregory Sams allows us to experience his pellucid perceptions and exhilarating joie de vivre. Be careful! They might be catching." -John Allen, Chairman, Global Ecotechnics and Inventor, Biosphere 2 Project

"A thousand snorkelstonkers for illuminating my existence with this turbo blasting whizz into the infinite and back. What a monumental rip tide of thought - truly a marvellous book. A page turner...a life enhancing, mind provoking brain tickler...always entertaining and enlightening." --Raja Ram, Musician

About the Author

Gregory Sams is a pioneer of food for the body and food for the mind. He co-founded, with brother Craig, Seed restaurant, the first natural and organic eatery in the UK, followed by Ceres Grain Store in the Portobello Road because people wanted to cook this food at home, and then Whole Earth foods, the all-organic brand. In 1982, he launched the first VegeBurger, a product he developed and christened. His brother Craig went on to found Green and Black’s chocolate. Aged 18, Greg founded Harmony Magazine in 1968 to which John Lennon dedicated an 8-frame cartoon, and later co-published Seed: The Journal of Organic Living. He founded Strange Attractions, the world’s first ever shop dedicated to chaos theory. His interest in chaos led to an interest in consciousness that led to writing this book. He is the author of Uncommon Sense: The State is Out of Date. Visit Sams at www.gregorysams.com. He lives in London.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Weiser Books; First Edition edition (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578634547
• ISBN-13: 978-1578634545
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6.3 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The story of Gregory Sams is the remarkable story of a British counter-cultural change agent and health food pioneer from the 1960's. In 1967, with his brother Craig, he founded Seed restaurant, the first natural and organic eatery in the UK, whose regulars included John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Marc Bolan and the core of London's flower-power generation. Ceres Grain Store in the Portobello Road was founded soon thereafter because people wanted to cook this food at home. Then came Harmony Magazine, and Seed, the Journal of Organic Living because people wanted to read about these new 'natural foods' followed by Harmony/Whole Earth foods in 1970, distributing the first organic foods in the UK. In 1982, Gregory made history with another first when he created and christened the VegeBurger. The world's first commercially available vegetarian burger, he was soon selling over 250,000 of them a week and established the market for vegetarian foods. "Vegeburger" entered the language and is now a common item on menus throughout the world.

In the 80's, the ever-exploratory Gregory became fascinated with the new scientific ideas of 'chaos theory'. So inspired was he by its implications that he founded Strange Attractions, the world's first ever shop dedicated to chaos theory. Trading as chaOs worKs, he went on to produce and license fractal images worldwide on everything from posters to jigsaw puzzles to book covers to fashion fabrics. Gregory's fascination with chaos theory however, was not just for the mesmerizing images but for the important social lessons inherent in the discovery of self-organizing systems throughout the world. This led him to write his first book, Uncommon Sense - the State is Out of Date (1998), It was well received and changed many lives.

Sams' lifelong passions: health, culture and consciousness culminated in the writing of Sun of gOd. From 2000 - 2007 Gregory worked on this book, in which, as he puts it, "the biggest elephant-in-the-room that you could ever imagine is unveiled.

website: www.gregorysams.com
Sun of gOd, was published by Weiser Books in the summer of 2009 and is available in bookstores across the English-speaking world and from online bookstores worldwide. ISBN 978-1-57863-454-5


Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars great contribution to conscious evolution June 14, 2009

By Julie Clayton VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

"People might look at you strangely if you tell them you believe that the Sun thinks and that it truly is a celestial being..."

So begins Son of gOd, a journey with author Gregory Sams into the mysteries of the universe, from microbes and molecules to galaxies and Universal Mind. One might think, from the opening line, that this book was another new age spin on an old theme, and that we were being encouraged to jump on the bandwagon and hail Sun as our divine essence of the month. Not at all; although the marketing for this book gives that spin.

Although Sams makes a point of reminding us of the provocative paradigms of our solar origins and our solar-based existence, his view of Sun as "intelligent" or conscious of itself and its place in the Universe is no less radical than the idea that Earth is an organizing, interdependent living system. His point is that to omit Sun from our consideration as having and being part of a conscious universe is a strange omission and one that he intends to illuminate. And he does, with engaging depth and reverence.

Sun of gOd, however, is epic in scope and subject, diving into such unruly subjects as creative intelligence from a `bottoms up" perspective, free will, notions of divinity, the four elements, electro-magnetism, the intelligence of light and photons, God, feedback, gods, microbes; in short the self-organizing force that seems to be apparent everywhere. Sun of gOd is wise, persuasively reasoned, and thoughtfully written--not light reading, but rich, provocative, and worth savoring, like a fine meal. By the time we finish, Sams has served up a feast, moving fluidly between the micro and the macro, exploring self-organizing principles within the cosmos with resounding logic and common sense, and making great contributions to the global shift in consciousness.

Coined as a "cultural pioneer and bootstrap philosopher" (his life is as unusual and intriguing as this book) author Gregory Sams summarizes Sun of gOd by saying:

"If we cannot even understand our own process of intelligence, how can we be expected to understand how trillions and trillions of drifting hydrogen and helium atoms in a pre-stellar cloud managed to engineer their own amazing feat of star formation? But they did it, as we and a bright Universe are able to witness. Perhaps it is time to acknowledge other vehicles of intelligence that are beyond our comprehension, and not just the incomprehensible version that we personally experience and accept.

...This universe is, I would suggest, assembling and utilizing the vibration and intelligence of its myriad individual components and synthesizing them into a unified universal intelligence--a single mind. Whatever the nature of such a Universal Being at the beginning of time, it is now infinitely more substantial, evolved, enlightened and enlightening than the infant universe. And we are all playing a part in that cosmic evolution--every star-studded galaxy, each planet, person, butterfly, microbe and molecule of Us that has the honor to exist--to be. Enjoy, appreciate, care."

Review by Julie Clayton

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sun as "Other-Than-Human" Person August 12, 2009

By Lance M. Foster VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

As a monotheistic animist raised in both my traditional Native American traditions and as a Roman Catholic who finds little to no conflict in those two paths, I applaud Gregory Sams' work on this subject, reminding people of the place of the Sun in the foundations of world religious thought, and that the Sun is a Being in its own right, as the Ojibwa say, "an other-than-human person." Look at all the ancient and modern depictions of the Sun with eyes and a smiling face. Others also are looking at reviving the ancient worldview of the animist in new ways, notably Graham Harvey in his book Animism: Respecting the Living World.

Sams is not an academic scholar, but a man searching, recognizing and wrestling with an ancient and forgotten truth...that the Sun is alive, that it has sentience, and is the generator/center of life in our solar system. In trying to find common ground with the mainstream folks who were not brought up in an animist tradition, but are generally JudeoChristian and/or scientific materialists/secularists, he constructs the book as a developing dialogue with self. He considers the implications and looks at religion and history to figure out how the sun lost its age-old status as lifegiver and solar spirit/deity. Sams adds into the mix his thoughts about how science also might work with this idea of the Sun as a Being. Sadly however, in this he is doomed to failure, as the thoroughly immaterial spirit/soul is not liable to study by science, which is thoroughly empirical/materialist. It's apples and hammers :-)

Certainly recognizing that recognition of the Sun's role and being as a sentient being is also reflected in the JudeoChristian/ancient Near Eastern idea of the Shining Host of spirits/intelligences/angels/stars arrayed around the Throne of the Most High, YHWH, and joining that with the animist idea that everything is alive, and that life would not be without the light and warmth of the Sun, that is not worship. Just because there is a recognition of spirits ("gods") greater than man does not mean we "worship" them. Do you worship your mother for cooking the meal that sustains you, even though she did not create the food the meal was made from? No, you thank, appreciate, respect, and love her. Catholicism differentiates between "Worship" of God and "veneration" of the saints for example.

Animism is not a religion, but a system of thought, that all things are alive and are part of a web of relationship. There really should be no grounds for dissonance between animism and Christianity. The real problem is that in our society, materialism and Christianity have somehow become strange bedfellows.

Now, certainly dogmatic materialism will have dissonance with this idea, given that materialists even have trouble granting the concept of souls to animals or trees, and even human beings in some extremist views. How can scientists see the Sun as a spirit when many scientists do not really believe in the existence of ghosts/spirits... or God Himself, except as an abstraction or a electrochemical "ghost in the machine"? Animism might be more acceptable to scientists if they remember that we are adapted irrevocably as social beings, and that we are hardwired genetically to create social relationships. We see this as children talking to stuffed animals and even the Sun; only gradually are we weaned away from this innate approach to Creation, as we are told to "put away childish things." Indigenous people continue to interact socially with everything in nature, as the Lakota say, "all my relatives."

Sams ends his book with eight "afterwords" -principles- which evolved out of his ruminations.

1. Intelligent evolution
2. The importance of the small --seemingly "insignificant" bacteria
3. Water too is living
4. Centrality/transformative nature of fire
5. Importance of food and health
6. The perception and enjoyment of beauty is not limited to humans
7. The question of human exceptionalism/centrality on earth
8. Humanity's curiosity and innate search for meaning

I particularly like Sams' use of quotes in his journey through thinking out his argument. For example he notes Einstein saying: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind."

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Is this so hard to believe? June 17, 2009

By Diane Kistner TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

As a child in Sunday School (a Georgia Southern Baptist church, no less), I learned the words "omniscient" and "omnipresent." I was taught that the spirit of God dwells within us, underlying and pervading the entire creation. Even as a young child, I understood this to mean that a part of God is inside everything in the creation, not just white Southern Baptists as many I encountered fiercely maintained.

Later, when I read that we are made in the image of God, I took that to mean that we each hold a spark of God's light; that God's light shines on all of us; that we are illuminated (both literally and figuratively) by that light. As an adult studying world religions, trying to discover the essence--the truth--they held in common, I came to understand that "God" is consciousness--the omniscient, omnipresent consciousness that pervades the universe--more huge and more wise, more all-encompassing, than any part of the creation is able to know. But the parts are all part of the consciousness some call God and, so, are partially conscious (partially God, if you will) themselves. In short, I believe that everything in the universe is conscious to a degree.

Therefore, the views expressed in "Sun of gOd: Discover the Self-Organizing Consciousness That Underlies Everything" are not alien to me. In fact, they express my understanding and beliefs quite well. The pantheists, I believe, were much closer to and understood more about the majesty of creation than today's religious dogmatists who anthropomorphize God as some Big Daddy Up in the Sky who's going to beat up anybody and everybody who disagrees with them.

Whatever your religious perspective, get this book and read it with a willingness to shift the frame of your thinking a little. Even if you don't subscribe to much of what the author presents, I think you will be surprised at the insights that will spring forth into your consciousness.