An intellectually nuanced account of a mysterious element of the human experience.
A remarkably thorough tour of the nature of intuition, its important functions, and the means by which it may be sharpened for everyday use.
Nigel Percy and Maggie Percy (Dowsing for Health, 2018, etc.) observe that while everyone experiences some version of intuition, it remains elusive and resistant to rational explanation. Also, it carries connotations of the supernatural as a revelatory epiphany, delivered by seemingly magical means. The authors, with impressive intellectual rigor and subtlety, attempt to provide a scientifically defensible account of intuition that still does justice to how it appears to transcend physical perception. In the interests of clarity, the authors stick to a fairly narrow definition of intuition: any perception that’s not reducible to the five senses or deducible by rational procedure that provides an “immediate insight or knowledge” that’s “associated with a different time or place.” They explore various ways in which intuitive judgment arises—relating them broadly to the “head,” the “gut,” and the “heart” and plumbing the biological science behind these perceptions with admirable caution. They also investigate what they see as the greater cosmic context of intuition, connecting it to concepts from modern quantum physics. In addition, the book includes a series of exercises designed to bolster intuition through the exercise of mindful self-awareness and the use of a proper diet. Overall, the authors contend that intuition is only secondarily an instrument of self-preservation—one that’s better understood as a means to enjoying life that is “happier, richer, deeper, and more fulfilling.” As they develop this conclusion, what finally emerges is a profound image of human life that isn’t reducible to any kind of materialistic conception: “Our common attitude toward ourselves as a purely mechanical set of systems is, however, deeply wrong. It would be difficult to ascribe sensations of a ‘gut feeling’ to such a machine.”
An intellectually nuanced account of a mysterious element of the human experience.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-946014-38-2
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Sixth Sense Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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