Overly audacious ruminations about the lost civilization of Atlantis from two Canadian librarians, based on disparate facts and near-facts derived from mythology, literature, geology, and cartography. Pointing to the striking similarity of myths of a disastrous flood among widely dispersed peoples (Indian tribes of the Americas and peoples of the Middle East, for instance), evidence of transcontinental mass extinctions approximately 11,000 years ago, profound changes in world climate since prehistoric times, and the pervasiveness of the myth of a lost civilization of Atlantis in Plato and in Egyptian lore, the Flem-Aths draw the conclusion that an advanced maritime civilization, based in Antarctica, predated the last Ice Age. The Flem-Aths rely heavily on the theories of the late Charles Hapgood, a historian of science whose ideas once won Albert Einstein's praise. In several books, Hapgood made two arguments critical to the authors' thesis: that at some point in the distant past the Earth's crust was abruptly torn asunder (rather than gradually shifting apart, as plate tectonic theory would have it) and that accurate, ancient maps existed, particularly the so-called Piri Re'is from 1513, that showed Antarctica centuries before it was discovered by European explorers. Weaving together Hapgood's crust displacement theory, the flood myths, and evidence of sophisticated ancient cartography, the authors speculate that the Antarctica-based Atlantean civilization was destroyed by geological catastrophe and attendant flooding. The shattered survivors cultivated agriculture in the mountaintops that alone survived the great floods (the authors point out that the grains that have been staples in the human diet originate in the highlands) and, as the floodwaters receded, founded cultures that in turn became the basis for civilization. Fun, yes, but it isn't science. The Flem-Aths go well beyond their evidence to locate Atlantis in Antarctica, and the basis of their speculations, including the ancient sea maps and Hapgood's theory of catastrophic crust displacement, must await a more sober and rigorous assessment. (23 maps and line drawings)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13620-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
If Charles Reich is your bag, then this may be your book. If you want your neuroscience qua science, then head over to where...
A head-spinning guide to supercharged meditation.
If life is like a box of chocolates, to quote the philosopher Forrest Gump, then, to quote Siegel (Clinical Psychiatry/UCLA; Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, 2016, etc.), “consciousness is like a container of water”—undrinkable if a tablespoon of salt is put into an espresso cup but just fine if the container is a bathtub. And why is it like a container of water? That’s never quite explained, except to say that cultivating the mind to maximize awareness makes our experience of things different. That heightened experience can be a deeply positive thing, for, as the author points out, neural integration makes problem solving easier, and “open awareness” boosts the immune system. Siegel delivers a “Wheel of Awareness” to visualize the process, with attention as the spoke, knowing or awareness as the hub, and “knowns” on the rim. But those knowns can be awareness-inhibiting prejudices as well as hard-won knowledge of how the world works. Siegel favors a murky, circular style: “When we open awareness to sensation, such as that of the breath, we become a conduit directing the flow of something into our awareness.” Well, yes, that’s how breath works, but Siegel means something different—“enabling the sensation of the breath at the nostrils to flow into consciousness.” Further along, the author complicates the picture: “And so both focal attention involving consciousness and nonfocal attention without consciousness involve an evaluative process that places meaning and significance on energy patterns and their informational value as they arise moment by moment.” Can there be meaning without consciousness? That’s a question for Heidegger, but suffice it to say that it’s a clear if empty statement relative to the main, which is laden with jargon, neologisms (“plane-dominant sweep”; “SOCK: sensation, observation, conceptualization, and knowing”), and lots of New Age cheerleading.
If Charles Reich is your bag, then this may be your book. If you want your neuroscience qua science, then head over to where Damasio and Dennett are shelved.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-99304-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
A moving account by renowned English medium Altea of her life, her preternatural gifts, and the meaning that she sees in these for herself and others. From earliest childhood, Altea heard strange voices and saw terrifying faces at night. Lonely and rejected by her unhappily married parents, who often beat her, she was haunted by the fear that she was mad. She grew up in poor health with the one desire to pass as a normal person. Even this was finally denied her when, toward the end of her own disastrous marriage, she came into contact with Spiritualists in 1980 and learned to develop rather than resist her psychic powers. The turning point came in her first encounter with Grey Eagle, her Apache spirit guide. Altea recounts many fascinating stories of contact with the dead that seem to defy ordinary understanding. She explains that in a trance the medium vacates her body so that it can be used by a spiritual entity. The purpose is not only to console the living but also to help the departed, who somehow need to communicate and, in extreme cases, to relive and accept their actual death experience, as in the case of a woman who had been buried alive. Although Altea reproduces many of the stock themes of Spiritualist literature and sometimes lapses into moralizing, her true contribution here is the heroic story of her own ``blossoming'' into life and establishing centers where people can receive spiritual and psychic healings. The author's simplicity and patent sincerity will warm the hearts of readers who reserve judgment on Spiritualist phenomena. (Book-of-the-Month Club featured alternate; Quality Paperback Book Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: May 19, 1995
ISBN: 0-446-51969-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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