A Seminal Work of Visionary Hope, Updated for the 21st Century In this era of government gridlock, economic and ecological devastation, and seemingly intractable global violence, our future is ever more ripe for — and in need of — fresh, creative reimagining. With her clear-eyed, inspiring, and sweeping vision of a possible global renaissance in the new millennium, Barbara Marx Hubbard shows us that our current crises are not the precursors of an apocalypse but the natural birth pains of an awakened, universal humanity. This is our finest hour. Conscious Evolution highlights the tremendous potential of newfound scientific knowledge, technological advances, and compassionate spirituality and illustrates the opportunities that each of us has to fully participate in this exciting stage of human history. As we do, we will bring forth all that is within us and not only save ourselves, but evolve our world.

We are now faced with environmental, social and economic demands beyond anything human beings have ever experienced in the past. But a revolution in thought is occurring. Humankind is now on the brink of an evolutionary leap in consciousness that will change the way we think, the way we act towards each other and the very fabric of life as we know it. Yet before this transformation can take place, it will be necessary to shed our cultural psychophobia-fear of the possibilities of the human mind. Conscious Evolution analyses the blocks holding us back from further progress, including rational science with its reliance on Darwin and Freud, fundamentalist religion, our self-oriented materialistic consumerism, and our failure to acknowledge and accept the scientifically verified extrasensory abilities of telepathy, precognition and telekinesis. Once we can accept the spiritual dimension of our existence and explore the treasures of our inner space, Janet Lee Mitchell shows how we will be able to release the vast potential inherent in all of us, and regain our human spirit and greatness.

With deep reading in myth and literature, ones cognition becomes as a rich mother loam wherein spirit can dwell and build that interior castle, from which the indwelling spirit begins to speak through the imagination, the body, and the intellect of the individual. Over time, body, mind, and spirit become one. Then this one can and often does experience the merging within the One. Through the merging of intuition and intellect, we will comprehend the acceleration of consciousness that is overtaking us. Functioning within a state of universal awareness of our oneness will, in the long run, prove to be much easier than defining ourselves into small groupings of discordant persons and nations. The education and evolution of vibrant communities is our beginning task. The creation of a world with a universal consciousness of oneness is our ultimate realization. To act in accord, to make a bridge to new ways of thinking, and in the belief that the reported experiences of individual journeys in our studies, and in our consciousness, can be of great significance nowat this point in time with the world in a general state of confrontation and conflictwe offer this report from our own research and from within this frame of reflection.

Conscious Evolution is a thought provoking combination of scientific and spiritual knowledge, integrated poetically with the kind of insights that come only from deep personal introspection and contemplation. Conscious Evolution gives a unique view into the nature of personality, reality, consciousness, biology, and the incredible, untapped potential that sits right within each person at all times. This is a great resource for those who are looking for deep and action-packed contemplation.

In addition to the apocalyptic prospect of global nuclear destruction, there are other dismal scenarios involving resource and environmental issues that are less imminent but still serious in the long term. Past analyses, seeking remedies, have focused on symptoms rather than causes. They represent extensions and expressions of the same philosophies and strategies that created these situations. This book brings a fresh and optimistic perspective to the problem area. It explores modern consciousness research and transpersonal psychology for practices that accelerate the development of consciousness. It covers a wide range from laboratory techniques of experimental psychiatry, transpersonal psychotherapies, and Jungian psychology to the Oriental and Western mystical traditions.

Based on a comprehensive review of human and societal evolution the book develops an approach to conscious, self-guided evolution. In the course of the evolutionary journey of our species, there have been three seminal events. The first happened some seven million yeas ago, when our humanoid ancestors entered on the evolutionary scene. Their journey toward the second crucial event lasted over six million years when - as the greatest event of our evolutionary history - homo sapiens sapiens, started the revolutionary process of cultural evolution. Today, we have arrived at the threshold of the third major event, `the revolution of conscious evolution,' when it becomes our responsibility to enter into the evolutionary design space and guide the evolutionary journey of our species. The book tells the story of the first six million years of the journey in just enough detail to understand how evolution had worked in times when it was primarily biological, driven by natural selection. With the human revolution some fifty thousand years ago, with the emergence of self-reflective consciousness, the evolutionary process transformed from biological into cultural. From this point on, the book follows the journey with detailed attention, in order to learn how cultural evolution works. The book is organized in three parts. Part One commences with an exposition of a brief history of the evolutionary idea through time with a focus on a review of the science of general evolution and specifically social and societal evolution. Next, the book unfolds the `evolutionary story' of our species from the time when the first humanoids entered the evolutionary scene to our current era. Part Two develops a systems view of evolution, explores the ways and means of how evolution works, characterizes evolutionary consciousness and develops the idea of conscious evolution. Part Three builds upon the knowledge developed in the first two parts and sets forth the key conditions of conscious, self-guided evolution, elaborating the core condition, which is the acquisition of evolutionary competence through evolutionary learning. The focus of this part is on an approach to the design of evolutionary guidance systems that our families, neighborhoods, communities, organizations, social and societal systems can use to design the future they aspire to attain. The work is set aside from other statements in three important ways. It provides: (1) a comprehensive review of how evolution has worked with a focus on socio-cultural evolution, (2) an explanation of evolutionary consciousness and the conditions of engaging in conscious evolution, and (3) most significantly, it develops a detailed approach and a methodology to the design of evolutionary guidance systems.

Few issues have revealed deeper divisions in our society than the debate between creationism and evolution, between religion and science. Yet from the fray, Reverend Michael Dowd has emerged as a reconciler, finding faith strengthened by the power of reason. With evidence from contemporary astrophysics, geology, biology, anthropology, and evolutionary psychology, Thank God for Evolution lays out a compelling argument for how religion and science can be mutually enriching forces in our lives. Praised by Nobel laureates in the scientific community and religious leaders alike, Thank God for Evolution will expand the horizon of what is possible for self, for relationships, and for our world.