Friday 24 February 2012

Sheldrake's masterpiece?

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I refer to the new, 2011, edition of Rupert Sheldrake's The Presence of the Past : Morphic resonance and the habits of nature.

I bought this book when it was first published in 1988, but didn't properly engage with it and indeed I seem to have lost my copy.

Instead of continuing to wait in hope of its turning-up, I recently bought a copy of the new edition which I have been reading over the past couple of weeks.

It is a superb achievement. Over 500 pages, yet without any padding: clearly yet densely written, scrupulously honest, reliable, careful and fair.

The book is, inter alia, a magnificant example of intellectual history - a crash course in the history of metaphysics and science.

Anyway - I found that all my questions and concerns generated by Sheldrake's other books were answered by Presence of the Past.

It is not the easiest of his books - and maybe it should not be the first book a reader tackles - but PotP is probably the best.

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2 comments:

Stephen Gustav said...

What book would you recommend for someone new to Sheldrake?

Bruce Charlton said...

Take a look at this:

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

and see what takes your fancy.