The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit

by Joseph Chilton Pearce

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Rochester, VT: Park Street 2002    279pp    8pp refs    $22.00

Pearce has a true gift of engaging discussion that crosses the boundaries of science and spirit. This book is full of gems that bring together brain physiology, psychology, Christianity and personal spirituality.

Pearce is well known from his earlier books about the magical child. Here, he writes of his personal spiritual development and of his views on the difference between transcendence and religion. 

His personal experiences include periods during his life when he was able to activate intuitive/psychic abilities to scan masses of data accurately; to sell sterling silver to everyone (including an unscheduled, in-home sale at midnight); and impossible physical feats (e.g. climbing a high, crumbly cliff with an overhang).

He points out that the need to honor, nurture and develop our transcendent awareness  is not a trivial or unimportant difference, because 

… Our violence toward ourselves and the planet is an issue that overshadows and makes  a mockery of all our high aspirations… (p.1)

…What are the actual, tangible results of those lofty religious institutions that we have known throughout history?  If we examine them by the fruits they produce, rather than by creeds, slogans, concepts, and public relations that sustain them, we would see that spiritual transcendence and religion have little in common.  In fact, if we look closely, we can see that these two have been the fundamental antagonists in our history, splitting our mind into warring camps. (p. 1-2)

Our transcendence has been sidetracked - or derailed altogether-by our projection of these transcendent potentials rather than our development of them.  We project when we intuitively recognize as possibility or tendency within ourselves but perceive this as a manifestation of capacity of some person, force, or being outside of ourselves.  We seem invariably to project onto each other our negative tendencies (“…if it weren’t for the likes of you…that government….those people…”), while we project our transcendental potentials onto principalities and powers “out there” on cloud nine or onto equally nebulous scientific law.  The transcendence we long for, then, seems the property of forces to which we are subject.  Like radar, our projections bounce back on us as powers we must try to placate of with which we must struggle.  Perennially our pleas to cloud nine go unheeded, our struggles against principalities and powers are in vain, and we wander in a self-made hall of mirrors, overwhelmed by inaccessible reflections of our own mind.  Handed down through millennia, out mythical and religious projections take on a life of their own as the cultural counterfeits of transcendence. (p. 2)

Pearce presents a strong case for interpreting the teachings of Christ in the light of personal spiritual development, rather than adherence to a ritualized liturgy. Pearce suggests that Christ’s teaching were not intended to enthrone Jesus and the apostles, and certainly not the later established church, as the primary purveyors of spiritual wisdom, nor as the primary focus for spiritual observance. Christ taught that each of us has a direct connection to God.

…Once open to the heart, we recognize the universe as benevolent and our personal self to be the center of that benevolence. The moment we place that center outside ourselves, as onto some group, person, or invisible deity, we have betrayed and denied our heart. The intelligence of the heart, as it moves for well-being, is not just a figure of speech; it is the only intelligent function. (p. 207)

Pearce has a gift for reviewing diverse materials in an engaging manner. He includes a helpful discussion on the brain and transcendent awareness, but this is nowhere near as compelling as his discussions on spirituality.  This book is worth a good chew.

See also:
Pearce, Joseph Chilton, Magical Child, New York: Bantam, Inc. 1980.
Pearce, Joseph Chilton, Magical Child Matures, New York: E. P. Dutton, Inc. 1976.

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