Anyone who has trawled through this large list of “books I have read” will notice that there are some authors who appear frequently – Neal Stephenson, Terry Pratchett, Robert Harris – and others – and amongst the ‘serious” books are many by Rupert Sheldrake. There is a lot of repetition and cross-over within his books – but that is not surprising as what he is really outlining in all of them is his journey towards a very original worldview – and one that I, for one, can take on board as being not too far from my own.
Of course. there is a significant risk of bias here – specifically confirmation bias – in that I enjoy reading his books – and get a lot from them simply because they help reinforce my own ideas of “how the world works”. Fortunately, he has the education and the science to back up his ideas – something which to a large extent I rely on others for.
This book explores seven spiritual practices and shows how they are relevant – whether or not you count yourself as a religious person. It can be difficult in today’s society to espouse the idea that you are a spiritual person – many would ridicule that idea. What Sheldrake tries to show is that many actions and behaviours which are practiced by people on all parts of the religious spectrum from the most devout to the most sceptical are driven by “spiritual” needs. To combine some of the practices in a ‘worldly’ example – many people make ‘pilgrimages‘ each week to support their football team where the take part in the set of ‘rituals‘ which form part of the event and they ‘sing and chant‘as part of the crowd and are ‘grateful‘ for every win that their team delivers – some may well off some form of ‘prayer‘ when one their players steps up to take a penalty.
I could probably have worked in the other two – ‘connecting with nature‘ and ‘relating to plants‘ but I decided that I had probably pushed the envelope far enough.
A book to be recommended though.