The Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think Paperback - 2012

From the rear cover

SELF-TRANSFORMATION / SPIRITUALITY "This book addresses not just the severely critical concerns of our culture and time, but points toward our capacity and wisdom to go through the 'thick of the world' and discover that right here, in the midst of chaos, is where Spirit is to be recovered." --Robert Sardello, author of The Power of Soul "One of the most important books of the past decade, The Heart-Mind Matrix offers what could become the basis for a new social order, educational system, parenting style, and, ultimately, a world that really works. . . . This masterpiece of mind and heart, science and spirit, could well awaken a movement into new ways of being, nurturing ourselves into lives in which we steward the Earth, companion to the Soul." --Jean Houston, author of A Passion for the Possible Expanding the revolutionary theories of mind explored in the bestselling The Crack in the Cosmic Egg and The Biology of Transcendence, Joseph Chilton Pearce explains how the heart provides the balancing intelligence to the brain's calculating intellect, an innate system of emotional-mental coherence lost generations ago through a breakdown of the nurturing culture of our ancestors. By severing ourselves from our heart intelligence, we are left with our selfish, survival-oriented reptilian brains, which create and reinforce "strange loops" between potential and actual reality, leading to our modern world's endless cycle of self-inflicted disasters and societal crises. Pearce explains that in order to break these cycles and transcend a life focused solely on surviving the results of our own reactive patterns, we must reconnect with the compassionate intelligence of the heart. Offering a rich variety of evidence, Pearce explores neurological research, lost and enduring nurturing cultures, personal experiences, and accounts from the lives and writings of modern sages such as Jane Goodall, Maria Montessori, and Rudolf Steiner. He shows that by activating the original matrix of the Heart-Mind--the engine of our spiritual evolution and our innate connection to the universe--we can teach our brains new ways to think, amend our destructive behavior loops, and enter into a future of peace, spiritual connection, and conscious evolution. JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE is the author of many books, including The Biology of Transcendence, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, and Magical Child. Since the 1970s, he has lectured and led workshops about the changing needs of children and the development of human society. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.