Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations with Terence McKenna, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, John Lilly, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Laura Huxley, Robert Anton Wilson, and others… Read Online Free
Author: David Jay Brown, Rebecca McClen Novick
included in this edition of the book.
The interviews from Mavericks of the Mind have been translated into Japanese, Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German. An award-winning Web site (www.mavericksofthemind.com) was created out of the book by Joseph Wouk--son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Herman Wouk, and author of Google LDN . Joe designed the Mavericks of the Mind Web site after reading the book, and then relocating himself and his family from Israel to Northern California, in order to be closer to the community of people that Rebecca and I interviewed.
My interview with British biologist Rupert Sheldrake in this book lead to years of fruitful collaboration. I worked closely with him for three years, doing the California-based research for two of his books-- Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At --and we coauthored three scientific papers together. The second book of interviews that Rebecca and I did, Voices from the Edge , lead to my collaboration with ex-porn star Annie Sprinkle, and we taught a series of workshops together about the science of combining sex and drugs.
In addition to including the UCLA and UCSC roundtable discussions, this edition of the book also contains new photos, new artwork by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, an additional interview with Timothy Leary, and links to internet resources so that one can learn more about the interviewees, and new directions for human evolution.
The Future Evolution of the Human Species
Ten thousand years ago, on the southern tip of Africa there lived a species of human-like primates that were about our size in height, only their heads were much larger and their faces were much smaller. They possessed brains that were around thirty to thirty-five percent larger than human brains--with a frontal cortex approximately fifty-five percent larger--and faces that were around a fifth smaller. They were more highly evolved than us in the sense that, compared to us, they were more neotenous.
The term “neoteny” refers to the mechanism in evolution whereby a new organism evolves from an existing species by retaining juvenile or larval characteristics into adulthood. The result is a sexually mature organism with juvenile appearance that goes on to become a new species. Neoteny--also know as “pedomorphosis”--can be seen in many animals, and it is a common occurrence in the domestication of animals as pets. This is why, for example, dogs resemble juvenile wolves. According to evolutionary biologists, vertebrates evolved in this way from invertebrates, and amphibians in this manner from fish. Humans tend to resemble young, relatively hairless apes. With this evolutionary trend in mind, isn’t it interesting that many of the descriptions of extraterrestrials--in both the alien abduction phenomenon and in science fiction films--often resemble young human children, or even human embryos?
Advanced extraterrestrials are often envisioned in science fiction, and reported in alien encounters, as having unusually large heads, big eyes, rudimentary noses, and small faces. These descriptions almost sound as if they could be in an intuition about ourselves in the future--or, perhaps, a memory from our past. The faces of these creatures bare an uncanny resemblance to those of a species that has already evolved and perished (or vanished) on this planet. We have abundant fossil evidence that almost exactly this type of advanced primate lived in a region in South Africa known as “Boskop” between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The “Boskops,” or Homo capensis as they are known in anthropology, had much bigger brains than we do, and they were less ape-like than we are. According to neuroscientists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger in their book Big Brain , the Boskops likely had cognitive abilities that far outperformed our own. They probably had much greater intelligence than us, and because their
The interviews from Mavericks of the Mind have been translated into Japanese, Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German. An award-winning Web site (www.mavericksofthemind.com) was created out of the book by Joseph Wouk--son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Herman Wouk, and author of Google LDN . Joe designed the Mavericks of the Mind Web site after reading the book, and then relocating himself and his family from Israel to Northern California, in order to be closer to the community of people that Rebecca and I interviewed.
My interview with British biologist Rupert Sheldrake in this book lead to years of fruitful collaboration. I worked closely with him for three years, doing the California-based research for two of his books-- Dogs That Know When Their Owners are Coming Home and The Sense of Being Stared At --and we coauthored three scientific papers together. The second book of interviews that Rebecca and I did, Voices from the Edge , lead to my collaboration with ex-porn star Annie Sprinkle, and we taught a series of workshops together about the science of combining sex and drugs.
In addition to including the UCLA and UCSC roundtable discussions, this edition of the book also contains new photos, new artwork by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, an additional interview with Timothy Leary, and links to internet resources so that one can learn more about the interviewees, and new directions for human evolution.
The Future Evolution of the Human Species
Ten thousand years ago, on the southern tip of Africa there lived a species of human-like primates that were about our size in height, only their heads were much larger and their faces were much smaller. They possessed brains that were around thirty to thirty-five percent larger than human brains--with a frontal cortex approximately fifty-five percent larger--and faces that were around a fifth smaller. They were more highly evolved than us in the sense that, compared to us, they were more neotenous.
The term “neoteny” refers to the mechanism in evolution whereby a new organism evolves from an existing species by retaining juvenile or larval characteristics into adulthood. The result is a sexually mature organism with juvenile appearance that goes on to become a new species. Neoteny--also know as “pedomorphosis”--can be seen in many animals, and it is a common occurrence in the domestication of animals as pets. This is why, for example, dogs resemble juvenile wolves. According to evolutionary biologists, vertebrates evolved in this way from invertebrates, and amphibians in this manner from fish. Humans tend to resemble young, relatively hairless apes. With this evolutionary trend in mind, isn’t it interesting that many of the descriptions of extraterrestrials--in both the alien abduction phenomenon and in science fiction films--often resemble young human children, or even human embryos?
Advanced extraterrestrials are often envisioned in science fiction, and reported in alien encounters, as having unusually large heads, big eyes, rudimentary noses, and small faces. These descriptions almost sound as if they could be in an intuition about ourselves in the future--or, perhaps, a memory from our past. The faces of these creatures bare an uncanny resemblance to those of a species that has already evolved and perished (or vanished) on this planet. We have abundant fossil evidence that almost exactly this type of advanced primate lived in a region in South Africa known as “Boskop” between 30,000 and 10,000 years ago.
The “Boskops,” or Homo capensis as they are known in anthropology, had much bigger brains than we do, and they were less ape-like than we are. According to neuroscientists Gary Lynch and Richard Granger in their book Big Brain , the Boskops likely had cognitive abilities that far outperformed our own. They probably had much greater intelligence than us, and because their
Readers choose
Ellie Danes
Kai Strand
Nadine Gordimer
Margiad Evans
Kirsty Dallas
L. V. Lewis
Chris Knopf
Julie Johnstone
Boualem Sansal