Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work
By Rupert Sheldrake
Coronet, 336pp, £20/$25
To be a scientist in modern times has generally meant being a materialist: hostile to religion, hostile to the idea of a conscious universe, and adamant that “mind” is just the function of a selfish, self-contained and self-sufficient brain. The most high-profile public spokesman for that point of view is Richard Dawkins. But he has opponents in the scientific world, and one of them is Rupert Sheldrake: a biologist of standing (former Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, Research Fellow of the Royal Society) who believes the mind is porous, open to connection with a deeper, broader consciousness that justifies the term “divine”. This process of connection he calls “spiritual practice”.
