Saturday February 9, 2013
10:00 AM COMMUNION
Chapel of The Holy Child
RR Gene Savoy Jr.
Lector: RC Elizabeth Reece
Cantor: Rev. Greg Klinedinst
Reader: Rev. Larry Coesens
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

 Sunday, February 10, 2013
6:50 AM SUNRISE DIVINE SERVICE
Church of New Epiphany
Leave: 6:00
Gate: 6:35
Sunrise: 7:05
RR Gene Savoy, Jr
Concelebrant: RR Sean Savoy
Assistants:
RC Roger Weld
RC Robert Petrovich
Rev. Barbara Whitney
Organist: RC Gary Buchanan

OPEN-AIR COMMUNION
Church of the Christian Churches                    RC Gary Buchanan
Church of the Golden Age of Light                   Rev. Amanda Buchanan
Church of the Universal Theocracy                   Rev. Dorothy Kubiak

Wednesday, February 13, 2013
12 N COMMUNION
Chapel of the Holy Child
Rev. Francine Petrovich

Friday, February 8, 2013
9:00 AM PRAYER & FELLOWSHIP
Chapel of the Roses
Rev. Ted Staver

Alfred Russel Wallace (1913) near the end of his life.

General Theory of Natural Selection Applied to Homo sapiens sapiens

Wallace theorized that moral and ethical refinements are the ultimate object of Man’s future spiritual developments and that these refinements will be evidenced in the flesh of Man’s animal nature in the head and face alone. I intend in this note to suggest how Wallace’s General Theory of Natural Selection ¹ can be taken further yet, in a direction which he never stated himself and of which he probably never conceived.

Wallace’s General Theory of Natural Selection allows us to extrapolate from it another, one that applies specifically to the present varieties of the human species, Homo sapiens sapiens. By simply adding to Wallace’s General Theory of Natural Selection a few more details from Wallace’s other statements on Man for clarity and explanation, ² we arrive at what we may call Wallace’s General Theory of Natural Selection Applied to Homo sapiens sapiens:

There is a general tendency in nature which will cause a certain variety of the human to survive the parent species of Homo sapiens sapiens, and to give rise to successive variations departing further and further from that original type, variations of a spiritual nature superadded to the animal nature and capable of progressive development under favorable conditions, ³ and which also produces, in those varieties induced by the guiding influence of some higher intelligent beings, ⁴ that is, spiritual forces of a superior intelligence acting through natural and universal laws ⁵ (the modern equivalent of angels and archangels, spirits and demons), the tendency to return to the parent form by means of some more subtle agencies than we are acquainted with. ⁶

The statement of the theory is complex and may at first seem hyperbolic—especially to the natural scientist, the skeptic, the agnostic, the atheist, the “nonbeliever.” Yet a careful perusal of Wallace’s published statements on the evolution of man as a distinct order of being will show that the General Theory of Natural Selection Applied to Homo sapiens sapiens is nothing more than a précis, a concise expression, of what Wallace has said elsewhere, and everywhere, regarding the spiritual nature of Man and the future evolution of the human—no matter that it produces unexpected results.

This theory is stated generally enough to be applicable even beyond our third-dimensional world of time and space. I ask that you take a moment to consider it, for example, in relation to and in the context of one of the universal doctrines on the cosmic and spiritual nature of man. A summary statement of the doctrine should suffice to provide the context ⁷ : “There are two separate and substantial Creations, one of Light and one of Darkness, and man’s life in this transitory world, and this world itself, is an outgrowth of the Worlds of Darkness; man’s mutable material fate is a miscarriage of his spiritual destiny, a counterfeit of another life in the immortal Worlds of Light.” ⁸ Wallace imagined that we may be growing in countenance more and more like the Angels who guide our development, and who are our spiritual ancestors. Yet Wallace, avowedly ignorant of spiritual cosmology, simply could not conceive of the possibility that man may be able to form another kind of body, a solar body, the light body of our nearest spiritual ancestors, the Dark Angels; nor could he conceive that man is consciously able to develop a body of a yet higher form, the immortal spiritual body, the body of Divine Light, a body like that of the Angels of Light, the Heavenly Host.

Some will consider this doctrine, especially in collaboration with Wallace’s theory, to be absurd or overwrought or unfounded. For them, there are the doctrines of the atheist or the fundamentalist or the conventionally orthodox. You who recognize the validity of this doctrine will find that Wallace’s theory, examined thus in the light of the eternal as well as the historical, gives scientific expression to the continuity that exists between the developments of Man’s physical nature and the development of Man’s spiritual natures, and you will find as well a new and refreshed understanding of the old Hermetic principle recorded in The Emerald Tablet: “As above, so below.” ⁹

Robert G. Petrovich 2010

< PART 6A >

FOOTNOTES

1. See Part 4: “First Theory of Natural Selection Applied to the Animal Nature of Man.”

2. For reference, see Part 2: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Destiny” and Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.”

3. For identification and discussion of this phrase, see Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.”

4. For identification and discussion of this phrase, see Part 2: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Destiny.”

5. For identification and discussion of this phrase, see Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.”

6. For identification and discussion of this phrase, see Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.”

7. This summary originally appeared in an earlier note, “The Human Face of A.R. Wallace.”

8. In the same note, I summarized the history of this doctrine: “This is one of the universal doctrines restored by Zoroaster to the righteous of Persia in the first millennium B.C.E. and recorded nearly a thousand years later in the Gathas of the Zend Avesta. It was not the only time immortal Spirit made such an observation. That doctrine was also restored by Buddha to the righteous of India, by Mani to the righteous of Babylonia, by Jesus and his forerunners to the righteous of Israel, and by other Teachers of Light to the righteous of China, Greece, Northern Europe, Egypt, Arabia, Oceania, the Americas. Oral tradition, and the sacred literature derived from that tradition, abounds in allegories on the spiritual origin and evolution of man.”

9. The first lines of The Emerald Tablet as rendered into English by Isaac Newton (with modern spelling):

(1) ’Tis true without lying, certain most true.
(2) That which is below is like that which is above, that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing.

A contemporary rendering of the same lines from the Latin text of Chrysogonus Polydorus (Nuremberg, 1541):

(1) True it is, without error, certain and most true
(2) That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below, to perform the miracles of the one thing

Participants in the 2013 Sunrise Vigil. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Pannuches Meal Rite
The 75th Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. Jubilee Sunrise Divine Service was held in Sanctuary the following morning.

The 76th Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, January 5, 2012, at 6:00 p.m. Since the cycle of the Pannuches Meal corresponded with Epiphany Eve this year, the two events were celebrated together at the Rectory-Abbey. An abbreviated Pannuches meal and prayer opened the traditional banquet held on the twelfth night of the Christmas-Epiphany Vigil. Jubilee Sunrise Divine Service was held in Sanctuary the following morning.

Bishop Gene Savoy Jr. addresses congregation at Epiphany Eve banquet. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Christmas-Epiphany Vigil
The Twelve Days of Christmas are observed by tradition in the Second Advent Church. Beginning Wednesday December 25, and continuing through the morning of Epiphany Eve, January 5, Sunrise Divine Services were scheduled to be held in Consecrated Sanctuary each morning at the Church of New Epiphany during these days of special blessing. On the thirteenth day, January 6, which is Epiphany Day, a special morning service at sunrise was held at the Consecrated Sanctuary

The traditional Christmas Day Service of Communion, Candle Lighting, and Remembrance was held on Wednesday December 25, at 11:00 a.m. in The Chapel of The Holy Child. Members of the congregation were asked to bring a bouquet of flowers to place beneath the communion table prior to the service and a loaf of bread to place on the communion table for special blessing.

Gingerbread village constructed for the Children's Tea held during the 2013 Vigil. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Families and friends gather at the 2013 Children's Tea. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Rev. Shinobu Uwataki officiates Communion Service during Vigil days. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Epiphany Eve Banquet
The annual Epiphany Eve Banquet and festivities took place at the Rectory-Abbey on Saturday January 5, 2013, from 6:00  to 9:00 p.m. Members of the Community, their families, and special guests of the Bishop were invited to attend this special seasonal banquet. The after-meal following the ritual Pannuches Meal was designed around a Spanish theme. By tradition, the meal was followed by a visit from Santa and his reindeer and gift-giving.

Revs. Robert Anderson and Amanda Buchanan after service during Vigil at the Church of New Epiphany. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

Epiphany Day
The thirty-second anniversary of Epiphany in the Second Advent Church is a day of special blessings and revelation in the Church and the day on which the Church commemorates the True Baptism of Jesus by God the Father. The Message given on January 6, 1981, is related in the Prophecy of the New Covenant:

“On this hallowed day of God’s Appearance, bountiful blessings manifest to the Holy Ones of Light of the Church of the Second Advent founded by His Word. To those unified in Community and holding to The Law, God sends forth the Comforting Spirit of His Image. As the Church has been restored, God will restore those blessings given to the First Church—now in apostasy—and make sacred those Holy Days that are kept in remembrance by the old Churches, but which are not alive with God’s blessings.

“In commemoration of this Day let The Community gather together once each year in remembrance and in fellowship. God will baptize all assembled in the Spirit of His Holiness. God gives an unmistakable Sign from Heaven in the New Sun as a mark of His Advent and Divine Presence. Let all behold the Signs of God manifest in the Heavens and know that their New Ministry is by God’s Authority, and that He has come to Judge the world. This Day is a day of confirmation of God’s Appearance, a day of blessing to strengthen the Good against the Powers of Darkness, and to empower them to teach.” Prophecy of the New Covenant, pp. 913-914

View to the north at sunrise at Church of New Epiphany. PHOTO: Stephan Fuelling

The 2013 Community Calendar will be in the mail to all Community members before the end of the Advent Vigil.

The calendar follows the traditional monthly format beginning with January, but it contains all the important dates of The Community’s Sacred Calendar year, which begins on February 2nd (See Jamil: Child of Light, chapter 27).

In addition to dates for liturgical observance or remembrance, the calendar also indicates the moon phases for the year and, in relation to these moon phases, the optimal days to view sunrise or sunset according to the Lunar/Solar Cycle Generative Technique familiar to Cosolargists who have advanced through The Cosolargy Papers.

This year’s calendar includes several original paintings done by Canadian artist and Consociate Frieda Nelson. Each of the paintings was inspired by her visits to The Community sanctuary in recent years. Frieda has agreed to make full color prints of these works available to fellow Community members. These will be produced in 5×7, 8×10 and 11×14 standard sizes for framing and in popular sizes of postcards and personal note cards. All are reasonably priced. Please refer to the order form enclosed with your printed calendar or click on the PDF of the order form below. Her paintings are sensitive and inspiring. We encourage you to encourage her to continue her creative work.

Our thanks goes to Deacon Dr. Stephan Fuelling for compiling and designing the calendar in consultation with the publishing, editing, and liturgical departments and with Bishop Gene Savoy Jr. We also thank the Rev. Ben Hubbard, who prints the calendar using our Toshiba e-Studio printing system at our production facilities located at the Steamboat Hot Springs Priory.

We expect you will find this year’s Community Calendar useful and that the full-color format and beautiful photography will be an inspiration to you throughout the year. When you receive your print copy of the calendar, please remember to make the suggested donation of $15.00 to help defray costs.

< Click here for order form in PDF format. >

James Lewis Humphrey

Jim Humphrey (1944-2013), crew member of the Feathered Serpent II (FSII) expedition and one-time Consociate of the Community, made his transition January 19, 2013. A celebration of his life for family and friends was held at Washoe County Golf Course on Friday, February 1, 2013 at 11:00 AM. Bishop Gene Savoy Jr., who knew Jim as a child while Jim was pilot of the FSII, and Shane Grady, Jim Humphrey’s sometimes golf partner, were in attendance at the life celebration as representatives of the Second Advent Church Community.

The printed program for the celebration of Jim’s life referred indirectly to the FSII expedition in this way:

“Besides being a track star, well known and respected golfer, and pilot, Jim had a personal life mission of understanding the meaning of love, life, and spirituality. His sailing trip in 1978 to Central and South America was one of his many pursuits in finding the truths that defined life and the world around him.”

Alfred Russel Wallace (1913) near the end of his life.

First Theory of Natural Selection Applied to the Animal Nature of Man ¹

Wallace’s First Theory of Natural Selection ² is expressed thus:

There is a general tendency in nature which will cause a certain variety to survive the parent species, and to give rise to successive variations departing further and further from that original type, and which also produces, in those varieties induced by the guiding influence of men, the tendency to return to the parent form. (“On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” 1858)

In order to discuss the application of the principles of this theory to the nature of Man, the theory itself must be restated in a more general form. Wallace’s First Theory of Natural Selection, as it was originally conceived in 1858, does not account for the genus Homo—Man—but only for the purely animal and plant species. Wallace himself, however, suggests the means by which his original theory may be modified to accommodate Man. In “Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man” (1870), Wallace points out the similarity between domestication, the influence of men on certain species of plants and animals, and the influence of spiritual forces on Man, forces of “a superior intelligence” that have “guided the development of man in a definite direction, and for a special purpose, just as man guides the development of many animal and vegetable forms.” He also makes this additional point of clarification: “The essentially human portions of man’s structure and intellect may have been determined by the directing influence of some higher intelligent beings, acting through natural and universal laws.” Thus to arrive at a version of Wallace’s First Theory of Natural Selection that applies as well to plants and animals as it does to humans, we may modify the first theory by simply replacing the term men with the term some higher intelligent beings :

There is a general tendency in nature which will cause a certain variety to survive the parent species, and to give rise to successive variations departing further and further from that original type, and which also produces, in those varieties induced by the guiding influence of some higher intelligent beings, the tendency to return to the parent form.

The statement of the theory of natural selection in this more general form, which presumes only that Wallace considered men to be higher intelligent beings than plants and animals, will allow us to discuss the application of this theory, and the principal statements of the law of natural selection which it contains, to the nature of Man.

The first proposition of this general theory, that nature tends to produce a certain variety of a species that will not only survive its original type but also give rise to a succession of varieties that depart further from the original parent type, when it is applied to the genus Homo, states the principle behind a tendency that has been in operation upon the physical nature of Man over millions of years and through various species—Homo habilis (2.3 to 1.4 million years ago), Homo ergaster (1.9 to 1.4 million years ago), Homo erectus (1.8 to 1.3 million years ago), Homo antecessor (1.2 million to 800,000 years ago), Homo heidelbergensis (600,000 to 400,000 years ago), Homo neanderthalensis (130,000 to 30,000 years ago)—until the present time and up to the development of the present recognizable variations of Homo sapiens sapiens (600,000 years ago to the present). ³ Wallace himself describes this tendency in the history of Man’s physical evolution. An abridgement of his description follows:

We know positively that man was contemporaneous with many extinct animals, and has survived changes of the earth’s surface fifty or a hundred times greater than any that have occurred during the historical period. . . . But while these changes had been going on, his mental development had, from some unknown cause, greatly advanced, and reached that condition in which it began powerfully to influence his whole existence, and would therefore become subject to the irresistible action of natural selection. This action would quickly give ascendancy to mind . . . and from that moment man, as regards the form and structure of most parts of his body, would remain stationary. But from the moment that the form of his body became stationary, his mind would become subject to those very influences from which his body had escaped. . . .
We may trace back the gradually decreasing brain of former races, till we come to a time when the body also begins to materially differ. There we shall have reached the starting-point of the human family. Before that period he had not mind enough to preserve his body from change, and would, therefore, have been subject to the same comparatively rapid modifications of form as the other mammalia. . . . Man may continue to exist through a series of geological periods which shall see all other forms of animal life again and again changed . . . while he himself remains unchanged, except in two particulars—the head and face, as being immediately connected with the organ of the mind and as being the medium of the most refined emotions of his nature. (“The Development of Human Races Under the Law of Natural Selection,” 1864)

I wonder what you think of this proposition. To me, it seems impossible to deny, for it has the integrity of a statement ipso jure, an outgrowth of the law of natural selection itself. And, of course, it is just that. Wallace’s formula reconfigures clearly an event that is evidently complex: the face expressing a mind developed in a culture that manifests, however imperfectly, an expression of spirit. In “The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man” (1870), Wallace suggests that man is gradually moving or evolving toward participation in the Eternal: Wallace contemplates the possibility that the development of the specifically human portions of man’s structure and intellect have been determined by the directing influence of more highly intelligent beings, perhaps encompassing layers of them, and that some more general and fundamental law underlies the law of natural selection. (I see behind Wallace’s idea the general and ancient idea of the Fall of Man and the generations of humans who long for redemption. It may be that the writers of scripture who recorded the Fall of the Heavenly Host inspired Wallace to respond to the significance of that allegory with courage and science.)

With this description, Wallace offers not only support to the first proposition of the General Theory of Natural Selection applied to Man, but also an explanation for many of the physical changes which anthropologists have categorized and catalogued in their taxonomy of the species and types of the genus Homo that have gone extinct thus far. For our own present varieties of the species Homo sapiens sapiens, Wallace’s proposition predicts the possibility of continued existence through coming series of geological periods, with physical changes to occur only in the head and face. These changes, according to Wallace, will occur in response to further developments within Man’s human nature, the higher nature of Man, which Wallace speaks of elsewhere as having its source in Man’s spiritual nature. ⁴

Wallace’s image of the evolution of Man, as he intended it to be understood, accounts for the refinements of Man’s animal nature, in the flesh and its concomitant unconscious processes, as humans tend towards what Wallace calls “higher existences than ourselves” ⁵—it goes that far and no further.

Robert G. Petrovich 2000, 2010

FOOTNOTES

1. All the essays of Wallace quoted herein may be found in Natural Selection (1891).

2. For a discussion of this theory, see Part 1: “First Theory of Natural Selection.”

3. The list here provides conventional naming and dating and does not intend to promote one taxonomic subtheory related to Man’s development over another.

4. For discussion, see Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.”

5. For discussion of this tendency, see Part 3: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin.” Wallace is not alone in the recognition of the evolutionary process that he was the first to notice. At least two twentieth-century variations of this same theory may be found: one in the observations of this same tendency by the historian Oswald Spengler, the other in those of the paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. They are traced out in my note “The Human Face of A.R. Wallace.”

< PART 5 >

Local officials and religious representatives gathered to recognize Rajan Zed. PHOTO: Debbie McCarthy

A reception was held on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at the India Kabab & Curry Restaurant to celebrate the recent participation of local Hindu leader Rajan Zed in the “World Economic Forum,” which was held last month in New Delhi, India. The Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland, brought together 500 global and regional leaders in the fields of business, government, education and religion. The mayor of the city of Sparks, Geno Martini, presided over the gathering of more than one hundred regional leaders and representatives. The renowned Indian sitar player “Chakrapani” provided music. Bishop Gene Savoy Jr., President of the Nevada Clergy Association, moderated the two-hour event. Also in attendance from the Second Advent Church were Bishop Sean Savoy and the Reverends Francine and Robert Petrovich.

Rajan Zed with acting master of ceremonies of the event, Bishop Gene Savoy Jr. PHOTO: Debbie McCarthy

 Read more about the event online at the Reno Gazette-Journal web site.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1913) near the end of his life.

A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Origin ¹

If man has a spiritual destiny, it stands to reason that man also has a spiritual origin. Toward the end of his first essay on man, “The Development of Human Races under the Law of Natural Selection” (1864), Wallace cautiously extends this proposition: “If the views I have here endeavored to sustain ² have any foundation, they give us a new argument for placing man apart, as not only the head and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in some degree a new and distinct order of being.” (Bearing on the Dignity and Supremacy of Man, p. 181) In the conclusion to this same essay he states: “I am forced to conclude that it is due to the inherent progressive power of those glorious qualities which raise us so immeasurably above our fellow animals, and at the same time afford us the surest proof that there are other and higher existences than ourselves, from whom these qualities may have been derived, and towards whom we may be ever tending.” (Conclusion, p. 185) ³

In a footnote appended to the fifteenth chapter of his second essay on man, “The Limits of Natural Selection as Applied to Man” (1870), Wallace further predicates the initial proposition he made in 1864 by identifying a direct influence: “Now, in referring to the origin of man, and its possible determining causes, I have used the words ‘some other power’ – ‘some intelligent power’ – ‘a superior intelligence’ – ‘a Controlling intelligence,’ and only in reference to the origin of universal forces and laws have I spoken of the will or power of ‘one supreme Intelligence.’ These are the only expressions I have used in alluding to the power which I believe has acted in the case of man, and they were purposely chosen to show that I reject the hypothesis of ‘first causes’ for any and every special effect in the universe, except in the same sense that the action of man or of any other intelligent being is a first cause. In using such terms I wished to show plainly that I contemplated the possibility that the development of the essentially human portions of man’s structure and intellect may have been determined by the directing influence of some higher intelligent beings, acting through natural and universal laws.” (Summary of the Argument as to the Insufficiency of Natural Selection to Account for the Development of Man, note 1, pp. 205–206). Earlier in the same footnote, no doubt to exonerate his proposition in the eyes of scientific readers, Wallace exhibits the incapacity of the modern cultivated mind to realize the existence of any higher intelligence between itself and Deity: “Angels and archangels, spirits and demons, have been so long banished from our belief as to have become actually unthinkable as actual existences, and nothing in modern philosophy takes their place.”

But Wallace had prepared his readers to accept the existence of Angels in a previous chapter, where he asks a pointed question, one that calls attention not only to man’s spiritual nature but to man’s spiritual guidance and, therefore, man’s destiny: “How could natural selection, or survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, at all favour the development of mental powers so entirely removed from the material necessities of savage men, and which even now, with our comparatively high civilization, are, in their farthest developments, in advance of the age and appear to have relation rather to the future of the race than to its actual status?” (The Origin of Some of Man’s Mental Faculties, by the Preservation of Useful Variations, Not Possible, p. 199). To this question Wallace appends a footnote that refers the reader to the extended argument and new illustrations given in his book Darwinism. The argument appears in his 1889 essay “Darwinism Applied to Man.” It should suffice to quote two points: (1) “The point to which I wish specially to call attention is, that to prove continuity and the progressive development of the intellectual and moral faculties from animals to man, is not the same as proving that these faculties have been developed by natural selection” and (2) “I purpose to show that certain definite portions of [man’s intellectual and moral nature] could not have been developed by variation and natural selection alone, and that, therefore, some other influence, law, or agency is required to account for them.” (The Argument from Continuity, pp. 463–464).

Wallace’s argument, which is extended over pages 461–471, discusses the metaphysical faculty and the peculiar faculty of wit and humor in addition to the three primary faculties— the mathematical, the artistic, and the musical—and prepares his readers for the hypothesis stated on page 474, one which Wallace had developed over a period of more than twenty years: “The special faculties we have been discussing clearly point to the existence in man of something which he has not derived from his animal progenitors—something which we may best refer to as being of a spiritual essence or nature, capable of progressive development under favourable conditions. On the hypothesis of this spiritual nature, superadded to the animal nature of man, we are able to understand much that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible in regard to him . . . .“(The Interpretation of Facts, p. 474) The essay concludes: “The Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man.” (Concluding Remarks, p. 478)

From this array of Wallace’s general statements on the spiritual nature of man, which Wallace himself identifies with the essentially human portions of man’s nature, it is possible to derive his postulate on man’s spiritual origins. The postulate itself is deep and complex, and shows surprising connections between areas seemingly disparate—the physical and the nonphysical, the natural and the supranatural, visible and invisible dimensions—yet it is simple to state:

Man represents a new and distinct order of being, whose essentially human portions—a spiritual essence or nature, superadded to the animal nature of man and capable of progressive development under favorable conditions—may have been derived from higher intelligent beings.

Robert G. Petrovich 2000, 2010

FOOTNOTES

1. All the essays of Wallace quoted herein may be found in Natural Selection (1891), with the exception of “Darwinism Applied to Man,” which may be found in Darwinism (1889). The emphasis added to the passages quoted is my own.

2. The views Wallace mentions are enumerated and discussed in Part 2: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Destiny.”

3. This passage is discussed further in Part 2: “A Postulate on Man’s Spiritual Destiny.”

< PART 4 >

Rupert Sheldrake. PHOTO: sheldrake.org

Rupert Sheldrake spoke at the 2013 Electric Universe Conference on the theme of his latest book, which was published in January 2012 in the United Kingdom under the title The Science Delusion, and in the U.S. in September 2012 as Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery. The book summarizes much of his previous work and encapsulates it into a broader critique of modern materialism.

The British title of Sheldrake’s book apparently mimics the title The God Delusion, written by one of Sheldrake’s critics, the avowedly atheist biologist Richard Dawkins; but Sheldrake, in an April 2012 interview, insisted the title was his publishers’ idea. In the interview with Fortean Times, Sheldrake commented, “Dawkins is a passionate believer in materialist dogma, but the book is not a response to him—although I do object to his dumbed-down representation of science.”

In his book, Sheldrake proposes a big question as the theme of each chapter, each of which seeks to elaborate on his central premise that science is predicated on the belief that the nature of reality is fully understood with only minor details needing to be filled in. This “delusion” is what Sheldrake argues has turned science into a series of dogmas, rather than a genuinely open-minded approach to investigating phenomena.

Watch the two-part presentation of Ruper Sheldrake’s talk at the Electric Universe 2013 conference on YouTube:

Click here to watch PART 1 (30 minutes)

Click here to watch PART 2 (28 minutes)

To find out more about Dr. Sheldrake, visit his web site: http://www.sheldrake.org

links submitted by Robert Petrovich