Buy new:
-16% $21.03$21.03
This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Save with Used - Good
$15.67$15.67
This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location.
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: BekahsBookshelf
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Follow the author
OK
Human Heart, Cosmic Heart: A Doctor’s Quest to Understand, Treat, and Prevent Cardiovascular Disease Hardcover – November 3, 2016
Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.
View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.
Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.
Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Purchase options and add-ons
"[This book] deserves to be in everyone’s library. . . . It’s loaded with great information, and it can save your life or the life of someone you love."―Dr. Joseph Mercola
"This book is life-changing for those trying to understand their own bodies, or those of loved ones, and it’s truly transformative in the hands of medical professionals, especially young doctors."―Foreword Reviews
Thomas Cowan was a 20-year-old Duke grad―bright, skeptical, and already disillusioned with industrial capitalism―when he joined the Peace Corps in the mid-1970s for a two-year tour in Swaziland. There, he encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner and Weston A. Price―two men whose ideas would fascinate and challenge him for decades to come.
Both drawn to the art of healing and repelled by the way medicine was―and continues to be―practiced in the United States, Cowan returned from Swaziland, went to medical school, and established a practice in New Hampshire and, later, San Francisco. For years, as he raised his three children, suffered the setback of divorce, and struggled with a heart condition, he remained intrigued by the work of Price and Steiner and, in particular, with Steiner’s provocative claim that the heart is not a pump. Determined to practice medicine in a way that promoted healing rather than compounded ailments, Cowan dedicated himself to understanding whether Steiner’s claim could possibly be true. And if Steiner was correct, what, then, is the heart? What is its true role in the human body?
In this deeply personal, rigorous, and riveting account, Dr. Cowan offers up a daring claim: Not only was Steiner correct that the heart is not a pump, but our understanding of heart disease―with its origins in the blood vessels―is completely wrong. And this gross misunderstanding, with its attendant medications and risky surgeries, is the reason heart disease remains the most common cause of death worldwide.
In Human Heart, Cosmic Heart, Dr. Thomas Cowan presents a new way of understanding the body’s most central organ. He offers a new look at what it means to be human and how we can best care for ourselves―and one another.
- Print length176 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherChelsea Green Publishing
- Publication dateNovember 3, 2016
- Dimensions5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
- ISBN-101603586199
- ISBN-13978-1603586191
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

Related Climate Pledge Friendly items
Sustainability features for this product
Sustainability features
This product has sustainability features recognized by trusted certifications.Organic contentProduct contains at least 95% organic material.As certified by
USDA Organic
USDA Organic is protected by law, inspected by experts, traced from farm to store, and shaped by public input. USDA develops and enforces the organic standards, which require products to be produced using farming practices that maintain and improve soil and water quality, minimize the use of synthetic materials, conserve biodiversity, and avoid genetic engineering, among other factors. Crops can be certified organic if they’re grown without prohibited substances such as most synthetic fertilizers and pesticides for three years prior to harvest. Livestock are raised on pasture and treated humanely without growth hormones or antibiotics. Organic products do not contain GMOs or artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. Products that contain a minimum of 95 percent organic ingredients and use the USDA Organic seal are part of Climate Pledge Friendly.
Sustainability features for this product
Sustainability features
This product has sustainability features recognized by trusted certifications.Packaging efficiencyReduced air and/or water in the product or packaging for more efficient transportation.As certified by
Compact by Design (Amazon-developed Certification)
Compact by Design identifies products that, while they may not always look very different, have a more efficient design. By reducing water and/or air in the product or packaging, these become more efficient to ship. At scale, these small differences in product size and weight lead to significant carbon emission reductions.
Sustainability features for this product
Sustainability features
This product has sustainability features recognized by trusted certifications.Safer chemicalsMade with chemicals safer for human health and the environment.As certified by
OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100
STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX requires every component of a textiles product—including all thread, buttons, and trims—to be tested against a list of more than 1,000 harmful regulated and unregulated chemicals which may be harmful to human health. The assessment process is globally standardized, independently conducted, and updated at least once a year based on new scientific information or regulatory requirements. Certification focus: #ProductSafety and #ChemicalsUsed.Certification Number14413CIT
Editorial Reviews
Review
"There’s only a few books a year that I think really deserve to be in everyone’s library. This is one of them. . . . It’s loaded with great information, and it can save your life or the life of someone you love.”--Dr. Joseph Mercola, founder and director, mercola.com
Foreword Reviews-
"Heart disease is a national crisis, and the most common treatments don’t lower the risk of death in most cases. Rather than despair, Thomas Cowan meets these devastating realities with the firm belief that there must be another solution. Through many years of research and medical practice, he challenges the common notion of what the heart is for―to pump blood. Through observation, geometry, and scientific insight, he proposes that the heart is a hydraulic ram rather than pump because it uses suction rather than force to build the momentum of the blood. And he makes it clear that this change of perspective makes all the difference by exploring heart attacks, what they aren’t and what they are. The treatment Cowan advises in Human Heart, Cosmic Heart is personal and holistic (whole-body remedies), driven by the patient’s own life story in order to show the whole of the nervous system. The result is a refreshingly balanced approach focused on responding to the needs of the body rather than reacting to the problem experienced in the heart. Throughout the book, Cowan shares his personal journey of learning, making the book approachable and warm as well as logical and authoritative. By sharing his learning process, he conveys a deep understanding of the cardiovascular system and its needs. Cowan, a self-proclaimed doubter and nonconformist, brings a voice of skepticism and hope into a genre packed with dry, black-and-white thinking. His insights are relentlessly rooted in research, and he explains medical science in an accessible way, including clear diagrams and step-by-step explanations that move at just the right pace for educated adults without moving too slowly for medical professionals. This book is life-changing for those trying to understand their own bodies, or those of loved ones, and it’s truly transformative in the hands of medical professionals, especially young doctors.”
“This book blew my mind. I will admit . . . I thought I was simply going to be reading an interesting memoir of a good physician. Instead, I discovered the most groundbreaking, unorthodox, outside-the-box treatise on the heart I have ever stumbled upon. If you have a heart and you want to live a long time, you must, must read this book.”--Ben Greenfield, author of the New York Times bestseller, Beyond Training; founder and owner, Greenfield Fitness Systems; www.bengreenfieldfitness.com
“What happens when the medical profession views the heart as a mechanical pump? We get ghoulish surgeries, medications with horrible side effects, and soulless low-fat diets. Tom Cowan asks us to look anew at the heart; first step is the demonstration that the blood pumps the heart, not vice versa. From this observation comes a way of treating heart disease that is more effective, more gentle, more felicitate than conventional protocol. Part biography, part wisdom, part practical advice, Human Heart, Cosmic Heart will change the way you look at the process of healing and the miraculous world of the human body.”--Sally Fallon Morell, President, The Weston A. Price Foundation
About the Author
Thomas Cowan, MD, has studied and written about many subjects in medicine, including nutrition, homeopathy, anthroposophical medicine, and herbal medicine. He is the author of Cancer and the New Biology of Water; Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness; and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart; principal author of The Fourfold Path to Healing; and coauthor (with Sally Fallon) of The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Child Care. Dr. Cowan has served as vice president of the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and is a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation. He also writes the “Ask the Doctor” column in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts (the Weston A. Price Foundation’s quarterly magazine), has lectured throughout the United States and Canada, and is the cofounder of two family businesses, Dr. Cowan’s Garden (drcowansgarden.com) and Human Heart, Cosmic Heart (humanheartcosmicheart.com). He has three grown children and currently resides in San Francisco with his wife, Lynda Smith.
Product details
- Publisher : Chelsea Green Publishing; First Edition (November 3, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 176 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1603586199
- ISBN-13 : 978-1603586191
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #51,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #23 in Cardiovascular Diseases (Books)
- #25 in Cardiology (Books)
- #47 in Heart Disease (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book amazing, fascinating, and enjoyable. They say it's inspiring, enlightening, and loaded with wisdom about the heart. Readers also mention the book is readable by the layman, understandable, and beautifully written.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book amazing, fascinating, and enjoyable. They say it's a life changer, the best book on the heart, and full of medical information in an easy-to-understand way. Readers also mention the memoir is interesting and worth their money and time.
"This is an amazing book that can improve your health and change your life. In his..." Read more
"...I found it to be a fascinating read and plan to order some of his other books." Read more
"It is a good product." Read more
"This newly released book is an exceptionally great read on "how the heart works and what to do about improving it." I think this is an..." Read more
Customers find the book enlightening, interesting, and loaded with wisdom about the heart. They say it offers a clear and concise holistic perspective outside the current one. Readers also mention the book delivers an extremely important message and inspires love of life.
"...to our particular lifestyles. It inspires the love of life, and making choices that can..." Read more
"...It is so logical, so pragmatic, and so sensible.Tom Cowan is unparalleled in my world...." Read more
"...he is not correct in every particular because it offers a clear and concise holistic perspective outside the current, critically-flawed medical..." Read more
"Love the physiology lesson. Imaginative. Sensible. Turns a few assumptions on their head...." Read more
Customers find the book very readable and understandable. They appreciate the sensible explanation and simple guidance.
"...forward thinking pioneers in the heart health field, but his book is a very easy read!..." Read more
"...It is innovative and beautifully written...." Read more
"...I love the way he writes. Even though there is a lot of medical information, he writes in a way that brings it all together...." Read more
"...This is a short book, and an easy read...." Read more
Customers find the book innovative, intriguing, and imaginative. They say it's refreshingly different and challenges the current paradigm by explaining other theories.
"I think he should be thought in med schools. It is innovative and beautifully written...." Read more
"...Books like this are important because they challenge the current paradigm by explaining other theories that have been swept under the carpet because..." Read more
"...So this is a refreshingly different and possibly enlightening perspective from an "outside the box" physician and healer." Read more
"Love the physiology lesson. Imaginative. Sensible. Turns a few assumptions on their head...." Read more
Reviews with images
Book misprinted. Starts with Appendix A on page 121. Actual page one is 40 pages in.
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
book, “Human Heart, Cosmic Heart”, Dr. Thomas Cowan speaks to you with such
straight forward honest candor and compassion.
This enlightening book will guide you on a true path of wisdom in how to keep our
central organ, the heart, healthy and the body as well. Dr. Cowan shares this
inspired teaching with a lifetime of knowledge in medicine and holistic health.
As you will discover, Dr. Thomas Cowan is dedicated in seeking the truth, the true
cause, underlying a medical illness in efforts to not only improve the quality of our
lives, but to facilitate a permanent change. He brings to life the essential foundation
for healing with refreshing insight to the incredible function and healing pathways
of the body. He shares the how and why our body is meant to work synergistically
and in balance with sunlight, and the energy forces of the earth, and proper nutrition.
Dr. Cowan states in this book: “Life is, always, more than the sum of its parts”; and
from early on in his medical training, he set out to learn everything he could about
the dynamics of the human body and its relationship to our environment and
how to encourage healing and maintain optimal health.
As he guides you on this journey, you can let go of preconceived notions and open up
to new higher levels of understanding…from the internal circulation and flow
and workings of the body, to how connected our heart rhythms and our health is
to our particular lifestyles. It inspires the love of life, and making choices that can
have a major impact on your health and the health of your family and friends.
You will find the teaching in this book an invaluable resource of knowledge and a
means to finally have a way to take control over some of the most important
health decisions of your life. It is such a privilege to read, and there are new
revelations and insights that can have the most positive impact on your health and longevity.
I’ve been working on my own health for years now, and have come to many of the same conclusions as Dr Cowan. I expect his prescription for a healthy diet and lifestyle will help the people who follow it, as I’ve seen the results first-hand.
But I also found much that was new to me, from an exploration of how the structure of the heart is shaped by its function, ideas about how the heart really works and integrates with blood transport, a description of the mechanics of heart attacks that is very different from mainstream concepts, but which makes total sense and fits with everything else I’ve learned. The book speaks to more than the mechanics of how our bodies work, also talking about our spiritual nature and our connections to other people and the nature that surrounds us. The book leads naturally to more questions, and new paths to explore, and I am much indebted for these signposts!
Highly recommended.
My take is that Dr. Cowan, is an extremely smart and broadly educated MD so he can draw on information (scientific, personal, and experiential) from several areas in the broad topic of heart health. His logic and research track with other forward thinking pioneers in the heart health field, but his book is a very easy read! He can discern and explain what works, what doesn't work, and why from both a medical and a chemical/biological perspective.
I gave him 5 starts because the book and information is that good, but he does briefly rant against the industrial age which I am quite happy to be a part of! If you do a search on his name you can also find papers and podcasts while the information is much more fully developed in his book.
Top reviews from other countries
Das Herz-Kreislaufsystem ist nicht so, wie man das im Allgemeinen angenommen wird, ein komplizierter Mechanismus, wie das Blut in die Gefäße gelangt (Arterien) und von dort aus wieder zum Herzen gelangt (Venen), wird hier erklärt.
Von zentraler Bedeutung ist hierbei die Beschaffenheit das Blutes und der Einfluss elektromagnetischer Wellen (5G und ähnliche) auf dieses.
Ebenso wird einem klar, welche Bedeutung reines Wasser auf unseren Körper hat.
Man wird aber nicht nur auf die Zusammenhänge hingewiesen, sondern man bekommt auch Tips, wie man seine eigenen Bedingungen selbst verbessern kann.




