Books (Jan 2012)

McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven: Yale 2009.  544 pp.$25

This is an amazing collection of research on right and left brain functions, with wonderfully erudite and detailed discussions on how humans shape their world through their perceptions and understanding of reality – as perceived, processed and comprehended by each of the specialized hemispheric functions. Wonderful discussions of how these shape our lives, and how we – through our R or L hemisphere preferences – shape our world.... And now, how we endanger our world... McGilchrist is also a historian, and discusses the influence of LH and RH through recorded history.

See an expanded discussion of this book in the Editorial Musings of this issue of IJHC.

 

Anodea Judith. Waking the Global Heart: Humanity’s Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love. Santa Rosa, CA: Elite Books 2006.   400 pp   $17.95

In this book, Anodea Judith takes us on a fascinating journey through the twists and turns of our collective history and provides a new vision for humanity based on cooperation rather than competition, co-creation rather than procreation, networks rather than markets, and sustainability rather than exploitation. In particular, the author focuses on the balance between masculine and feminine in society, indicating that achieving this balance is one of the most necessary social healings that we can make at this time. The content of this book is rich and dense as it follows the evolution of civilization from the Paleolithic period, 80,000 to 100,000 years ago to the present day.

Well known for her work in describing individual development through the lens of the chakra system, Anodea Judith extends this lens to collective evolution.  For example, in the individual, the root chakra awakens at birth when the task of consciousness is to learn to survive in a physical body. The Paleolithic era or era of the Great Mother, as she calls it, corresponds to humanity’s first chakra development.  The first chakra is associated with the element, earth, and with Mother Nature.  The first humans depended entirely upon Mother Nature for nourishment, just as an infant child depends upon her mother for food, shelter and support. 

To move from the first chakra to the second chakra is to expand consciousness of a child beyond its mother; to learn about the dualities of the world. In this Neolithic period of history, humans learned to farm, domesticate animals and develop village life. Images of male gods began to appear.  The expanding population required more food, water, land, and most of all, greater social organization. This pressure stimulated the awakening of the next era, namely the third chakra phase of power and will which in individuals is associated with the ego-identified individual self. Society shifted from a culture in which people were dominated by Nature to one in which people dominated each other.  As power fell to males, the reverence for birth was replaced by its opposite: the fear of death. Cultures that had been peaceful established armies for defence.  Social order became established through the creation of laws.

For the past 5,000 years, the central organizing principle for human culture has been built on force, measured by the amount of damage that can be done. The author states that as a collective, we are now ready to come of age in the heart, the fourth chakra, to enter a rite of passage that can transform the ego-centred self-interest into an embodied expression of love, relatedness and a more transcendent consciousness.  As we individually reclaim our disconnected parts such as the wounded child and bring our inner masculine and feminine into balance, our collective task now is to face our hidden shadow of violence, greed, and domination; to balance the powers of masculine and feminine; and to emphasize emotional intelligence, nurturance and wisdom.  This involves developing the upper chakra realms of communication, vision and spirituality, and integrating them with the lower chakra attributes of emotion and personal power.  However, the heart remains the key to our survival as a collective. The heart, as the centre of love, provides the primordial force that calls things into relationship. With modern technology, especially the internet, we now have the potential to awaken the global heart as a new organizing principle for the planet.  This book gives me hope that we can learn from our past and transform the opposites from the love of power to the power of love. It may be our last chance to do so. 

Review by Vera Lagasse
Student in the Wholistic Transformational Therapy course
Integrative Energy Healing Program
Langara College, Vancouver, BC