Rupert Sheldrake on THE SCIENCE DELUSION

Rupert Sheldrake on THE SCIENCE DELUSION

The FORTEAN TIMES did a report on radical British biologist RUPERT SHELDRAKE‘s new book, The Science Delusion (Deepak Chopra, 2012).

I profiled Rupert Sheldrake in my first book, Piercing Time & Space (ARE Press, 2005). His ideas are brilliant, unorthodox, iconoclastic. Sheldrake’s body of work on morphic resonance is–well, brilliant, unorthodox, and iconoclastic. It’s a way of looking at species as participating in a dynamic field of information that informs and includes all individual members of the species.

His work fascinates me because I started as a physics major at college and I respect science–but I ground myself in a paradigm that transcends the Newtonian, clockwork universe that still forms the backbone of ‘respectable’ science.

I trained as a healer and spent many years disciplining myself to a practice of meditation, so I have experienced, and continue to experience, phenomena that traditional western science can not tolerate nor acknowledge. There is an intellectual lineage for my experiences. Recently, people like Carl Jung, John Pierrakos, Wilhelm Reich, Ian Stevenson, and Brian Weiss contribute to the body of work in this paradigm that explores high sense perception and the immortality of the soul; the ancient lineage can be found in works like the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

But how do I reconcile my respect for western science–which works, and works well–with my knowing that there is more to reality?

Sheldrake’s work is one path to integration. He’s willing to investigate phenomena rather than simply dismiss them out of hand. And Rupert Sheldrake is a really smart man. I’ve seen him speak and he’s fascinating, both grounded and brilliant. He’s also suffered for his work: a crazed fan stabbed him in the leg. Science isn’t as easy path, especially the way Sheldrake follows it.

Check out the article here.

Rupert Sheldrake

 

Jen’s Corner Spot
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Jen’s Corner Spot

Jen’s Corner Spot review site gave an enthusiastic review to COLD LIGHT.

“I can not wait to read the next part of the story…” she writes. Check out the review here.

I haven’t read the first book in the After Trilogy, but after reading Cold Light I have already ordered it on my kindle and will be reading it within the next few days. The way Traci L. Slatton has created the After world is amazingly real to a reader. I can picture it easily in my mind without even trying too hard. The characters in the book are very easy to  relate to  as well. The way people have to live now really hits home and makes me wonder if I would even be able to do that. Life without phones and computers and even tvs…kinda scary. As I previously stated I haven’t read the first book but the way the author fills us in at different places in the book tells some of what I missed in the book. I didn’t feel lost at all.

I have to say that I can only imagine how Emma must feel to be so deeply in love with Arthur and yet be married to Haywood. She does love Haywood as we know since she leaves with him and Beth her daughter to go back where they came from. She is deeply saddened to be leaving Arthur though and my heart goes out to her. I cannot wait to read the next part of the story to find out if Haywood survives and if so then does she still stay with him or does she go with true love and leave him and be with Arthur?

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Sex in literature today

Reviewer Katie French of Underground Book Reviews sent me a smart list of questions for a blog interview that will run in the new year.

 
One of her questions was what I thought about sex in literature. Here’s part of my answer.

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Well, that’s complicated. I like sex in literature. I like sex in general, you know, with my husband (or myself). Sex is good.
 
In fiction, I prefer intelligent sex, that is, well-written and truthful to the human experience. Kinky, sure, bring it; silly and implausible, no. 

If you are asking my take on Fifty Shades of Grey, I admit that I think it’s a stupid piece of crap that does nothing to help women’s sexuality be understood or embraced. The protagonist is a male fantasy: an inane virgin who climaxes effortlessly, no matter what he does to her. Why have women accepted this ridiculous character as some version of themselves? I do not understand, nor do I approve.
 
I’m not saying that sex has to be politically correct. The best sex I’ve ever had was extremely politically incorrect. It’s an unfortunate part of the human experience that sex that transgresses can be so darn good.

I also think that, for most women, to fall off the cliff into bliss requires surrender. Surrender is difficult, especially in the current climate, in which women are supposed to be star neurosurgeons as well as perfect mothers raising perfect kids and, at the same time, loving wives with the bodies of 23 year olds, because of all the time spent at the gym. That’s a pretty butch expectation of women. It sucks. So here we are supposed to be superwomen, yet one of the deep truths about our sexuality is that it requires surrender.
 
I’m not talking about climbing on top, throwing a leg over, and riding real hard. I’m talking about something else: an internal state of surrender. The payoff is huge, but the stakes are high, and this is difficult. 
 
For one, our culture often confuses surrender with submission, and the two couldn’t be further apart. For two, a man has to be strong enough to be a top, and gentle enough for a woman to trust him to be a top; that seems to be a big request to make of men. 
 
For three, our culture still has issues with female orgasm. It’s partly the residue of Victorian puritanism. It’s partly about control, because men seem to find the female orgasm mysterious and uncontrollable. They fear it; they fear not bringing it about; they fear what it says about their own manhood. And, my god, what if another man gave the woman they own an orgasm???
 
I think Wilhelm Reich was on to something: a healthy organism has a healthy orgasm. Is it any wonder he was imprisoned, when he was saying something so revolutionary as that women too should have orgasms? How could the male establishment let him run around freely spreading ideas like that?
 
But the plain truth is that women like to have orgasms. So Fifty Shades, which is very much, despite its stupidity, pro female orgasm, struck a chord with women. The gorgeous sexy kinky wounded billionaire spanks the heroine into orgasm: yay! It’s not her fault she had an orgasm, he spanked her into it. Or tweaked her nipple, or whatever. She can have her orgasm and enjoy it too.
 
Isn’t that something every woman wants?
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Re-reading my response, I think I have an answer to my final question. 

What women want is to own their own sexuality, and to be able to surrender freely, as they choose.

That’s one of the problems I have with Fifty Shades. It appears, superficially, to empower women by allowing them to imagine non-vanilla sex. But what it actually does is deprive them of the power to surrender themselves into orgasm from inside themselves.
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Vote for COLD LIGHT and the After Series in the PRG Best of 2012
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Vote for COLD LIGHT and the After Series in the PRG Best of 2012

Vote for COLD LIGHT in the PRG Best of 2012

I am delighted to share the news that my novels are up for two awards with the noted Paranormal Romance Guild.

COLD LIGHT has been nominated for Best Reviewer Read of 2012 in the Sci Fi genre;
FALLEN/COLD LIGHT, eg, The After Series, has been nominated for Best Reviewed Series of 2012.

It would be great to win! Vote here

Many thanks!

PRG Best of 2012

 

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Prayer for the families of victims in Newtown, CT

May God grant you peace as you face a loss that makes other people shake with fear.
May you be blessed with joy of memory, so that you see the faces of your dear ones as they laughed and played, joked and teased; so that you hear their voices soft with tender connection; so that your arms feel always their solid wholeness of spirit.
May you stay open to receive the gentle good wishes of kin and of strangers alike.
May it comfort you to know that your beloveds are with you always.
May you, every day, stand in the truth of love, and may that truth lead you through suffering back to your own wholeness.
respectfully,
Traci L. Slatton