THE BOND

New Age guru McTaggart (The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World, 2008, etc.) argues that new scientific evidence shows that humans are hardwired to seek connection and to live in harmony.

The Intention Experiment has been called the science behind the wishing-will-make-it-so bestseller The Secret, and was cited in Dan Brown’s novel The Lost Symbol as the source for a main character’s fascination with mind-over-matter power. Here, the author writes that recent studies in physics, biology and other fields indicate that our individualistic, dog-eat-dog way of living is based on antiquated Darwinian thinking. Cutting-edge science shows that a drive for cooperation and partnership is a fundamental aspect of human nature and should inform our lives. Our present competitive worldview brings economic and ecological crises; the new scientific story told by quantum physics offers “the extraordinary possibility that all of life exists in a dynamic relationship of cooperation.” Thus, humans can look forward to an improved future of living in partnership with the universe. McTaggart relies heavily on the work of biologist Franz Halberg, a founder of chronobiology, who says humans are part of a complex energy system that is acted upon by the universe’s planetary geomagnetic activity. In one study, Halberg and others found that peaks of terrorism in the period between 1968 and 2008 “exactly matched the periods of cycles of solar wind and the Earth’s geomagnetic index.” The author acknowledges that many of her cited findings from a hodgepodge of research are preliminary, circumstantial or unconfirmed, but she capably weaves them into a seemingly certain scientific case for holistic living within a cosmic “Bond.” Upbeat and well-intentioned, but not entirely convincing and often hokey.