When I was in my twenties I read a book called Cosmic Consciousness by a 19th-century psychiatrist named Richard M. Bucke. Dr Bucke had had an amazing vision that descended on him out of the blue. It only lasted a few moments, but he spent the rest of his life trying to understand what had happened. In his book he described it as an overwhelming sense of "oneness with the cosmos", utter "exaltation", and "intellectual illumination" that felt absolutely real yet completely blissful... read full aricle.

This was an exciting and extraordinary book for me to take on.  At the very moment I discovered Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams’ cool new book The New Universe and the Human Future, I was also discovering Big History and working on a book project that relates exactly to the ideas in this book.  So it was a lucky coincidence for me to find this book and even better to have the chance to speak with the authors.  My first two-author interview also, which was fun, not the least because Joel and Nancy work brilliantly together... read full aricle & listen here.

By weight, we are 90 per cent stardust and 10 per cent hydrogen. The iron atoms in our haemoglobin came mostly from exploding White Dwarfs. When we look up at the light from distant galaxies we are seeing something that has not existed for perhaps a billion years.

In terms of physical size, everything there is has to be about the size it is, because of how physical laws act on objects. We humans are at the centre of all possible sizes. We are at the centre of several other things, too. We are halfway through the lifetime of our sun, and at the midpoint of the existence of complex life on earth. Biological complexity has been around for about a billion years. It will last about another billion years, and then the earth will become a desert. We are uniquely positioned to appreciate our own place in the cosmos. This is the best time that there ever has been or ever will be for astronomical observation. Never again will there be so many galaxies visible. The expansion of the universe has accelerated, and the most distant galaxies will shortly vanish for ever over the horizon.

We're exhilaratingly favoured and yet we carry on shuffling, with our eyes to the ground. Some cling desperately to old models of existence, as hopelessly out of date as the ancient Egyptian notion that the god Geb, whose body is the flat earth, is prised by the sky from his sister-lover Nut, whose body is embedded with the stars. But most have no model at all, or a model so eclectic that there is no one to share it with.

Our cosmological conservatism is striking. Until very recently it was thought that the Milky Way was the Universe. The eighteenth century astronomer William Herschel mapped it. It was all very cosy. And then something vertiginous happened. In 1924 Edwin Hubble discovered that some of the nebulae that Herschel had placed in the Milky Way were actually galaxies massively far outside it. Our galaxy was suddenly just one amongst billions. There was every reason to feel small and afraid.

By and large, however, we do not. That, perhaps, is because we do not allow ourselves to feel anything at all, or to look hard enough at the queasy facts that would force us to feel. If we try to justify ourselves, we typically say that fact and meaning are separate. Religion conspires in this deception. This is historically understandable. When Galileo was persecuted by the church for his cosmological observations, scientists (for instance Descartes) adopted a policy of non-interference with religion. This was to save their own skins, not because they had reasoned their way to the conclusion that science and religion were non-overlapping magisteria. This suited the religious establishment too: it protected religion from the embarrassment of its assertions being contradicted by scientific advance.This convenient but cowardly detente persists. But it can no longer be sustained.

Humanity is in an unusual position. The old certainties of literalistic religion have, for most people, evaporated. In the past, everyone knew how he fitted into the big cosmic picture. Now there is either semi-sublimated doubt or sheer wackiness. This is the background of Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack's magnificent, passionate and urgent book. They contend that knowledge of our context — of our intimate relations with the stars, of the immense antiquity of the visible universe, of the mysterious interplay of the invisible Dark Matter and Dark Energy that shape everything, of our privileged place on this very special planet - can make us feel properly at home 'in the universe; can give us a sense of belonging and relevance. For them, it is not that myth and fact can and should co-exist: it is that they are, vitally and liberatingly, one and the same. For them, cosmology and ontology cannot be divided without great and damaging violence. But this is no reductionist tract. There is no call to sling out the religious mindset, but simply to inform it with the facts. The book is suffused with awe, humility and concern.

The descriptions of immensely complex scientific ideas are always lively and accessible. They are supplemented by superb illustrations. If this were simply a textbook of modem cosmology, it would be splendid. But it is much more than that. It is a call (not a hectoring, preachy call, but a call nonetheless), to act on what we know, before it is too late. For there is yet another reason why this is a crucial time in human history: for the first time ever we have the power to destroy our planet. Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack give us some good reasons why we should not do so, and suggest some mechanisms for avoiding disaster. H.G. Wells once wrote: 'Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' Quite right. Catastrophe seems at the moment to be ahead, but this book can help to narrow the gap.

I am becoming more and more aware that the key movement in these times is the expansion of our thinking and awareness – on many levels.  Don’t miss the two videos in this post-  they are definitely mind stretching – or is mind blowing !

Keep your eyes open for articles about new discoveries, experiments and explorations in space.  The photos coming from NASA – like this Nebula pictured here – are beautiful and haunting.  New theories about our Cosmology are all over the main-stream newspapers, but are not often translated into what these discoveries mean to us as human beings or our understanding of who we are and where we are!

According to one blog that I read, “We are currently experiencing a paradigm shift in scientific thinking and explanation, away from reductionist and constructivist approaches. This shift is the result of the introduction of computers and the internet. Scientific researchers are now capable of collecting and processing much more information than ever before, and advanced modeling techniques allow them to develop and test scientific theories in ways that were simply not possible 20 or even 10 years ago.”

Joel R. Primack & Nancy Ellen Abrams gives us some clues about all this in their highly acclaimed books. I have only read articles about their work but have been fascinated with it since 2008. Their new book  The New Universe and the Human Future  gives us a fresh and exciting view of the beauty of the Universe and the potential role that we, as humans, have in these times.  The website for this book is full of fascinating articles, interviews, reviews and stunning photographs from outer space.  It is worth spending some time there.  You will leave amazed and refreshed. A review of the book calls it poetic, demanding, grounded, soaring, empowering, and always awe-inspiring ...read full article