Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I
My Personal Odyssey

1. Tripping the Night Fantastic

Exercise 1: Who—and What—Am I? .

2. The Journey Home

Exercise 2: Take Me to the River

Part II
The Being Human

3. White Crows: Mystics, Savants, and Other Harbingers of Human Potential

Exercise 3: Mystic Mind (or How to Crack Open the Cranium)

4. Wake Up! Greek Philosophy Breaks the Trance

5. The Ultimate Cage Match: Philosophy, Science, and Religion (or Togas, Bibles, and Microscopes: Why Can't We All Just Get Along?)

6. Homo Anxious: I Think, Therefore I Worry

7. Newsflash: Science Declares God Is Dead— But Can't Prove It! (or The Scientific Atheism Fallacy)

Exercise 4: Mindfulness Walk: “Being” Without Thinking.

8. Why Philosophy Matters

Exercise 5: Am I a Neuron in the Mind of God?

Part III
Reality Bites

9. The Physical World: The Tip of the Reality Iceberg

Exercise 6: More to Reality Than Meets the Eye

10. Real Deal Reality: Beyond Sense and Beyond Reason

Exercise 7: Beyond Logic: Riddles and Paradoxes

Part IV
Pythagoras, the Big Beat, and Cosmic Consciousness

11. Pythagoras Squared: Who Was This Mystic Mathemagician?

Exercise 8: Infinity: The Ultimate Mind Trip

12. Good Vibrations: Pythagoras and the Big Beat

Exercise 9: The Cosmic Symphony: Music from the Universal Orchestra

Part V
Escaping Plato's Cave

13. Plato's Retreat—from the Material World

Exercise 10: The Universe as One Big Thought

14. On the Nature of Change: The More Things Change

Exercise 11: Change: The Great Illusion

15. Death: The New Birth

Exercise 12: Incubation (or How Death Can Transform Your Life)

Part VI
Yes, But.. What Does It All Mean?

16. New Science and Old Wisdom

17. Musings From My Dissertation

18. Some Final Thoughts

References