Peter Russell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Peter Russell M.A., D.C.S. (born May 7, 1946) is a British author of ten books and producer of three films on consciousness, spiritual awakening and their role in the future development of humanity. He has designed and taught personal development programs for businesses, and been a popular public speaker.
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[edit] Early Life and Education
Peter Russell was born in London, England. He attended Steyning Grammar School and Maidstone Grammar School. In 1965 he was awarded an Open Exhibition to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to study Mathematics. In 1969, he gained a First Class Honours in Theoretical Physics and Experimental Psychology. He then went to Rishikesh, India, where he trained as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In 1971, he gained a post-graduate degree in Computer Science. From 1971 to 1974, he studied for a Ph.D. on the psychophysiology of meditation at Bristol University.
In 1975, he began working with Tony Buzan teaching mind maps, and memory skills to various European corporations. In the eighties, he expanded this work to include personal development tools and mindsets, teaming up with Roger Evans to run programs on creativity enhancement.
[edit] Principal Books
In The Global Brain Awakens (2000), an update of The Global Brain (1983), Russell's most popular book, he opens with part one on the Gaia Hypothesis. In part two, he discusses orders of evolution going from the evolution of the early universe during the Big Bang, through biological evolution, and finishing with "the emerging social superorganism." In part three, he discusses "inner evolution" and the "high-synergy society". In some ways, this book echoes the optimistic dot-com zeitgeist.
The White Hole in Time also took an evolutionary perspective on human affairs, arguing that the current global crisis is a result of our mental development not having kept up with our technological development. He suggested that we are heading towards an evolutionary singularity, which he equated with Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point. This is not the same as Raymond Kurzweil's subsequent notion of a technological singularity. A new edition of this book was published as Waking Up in Time.
In From Science to God, Russell evokes Thomas Kuhn's paradigm shift to argue that science is on the threshold of a new superparadigm1. Russell disputes scientific materialism and likens current efforts to explain consciousness in terms of neuropsychology to the convoluted epicycles before the Copernican revolution in astronomy. Russell's views are in sharp contrast to materialists like Daniel Dennett, author of Consciousness Explained. The view is similar to views held by nonmaterialist thinkers like Plotinus, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Ken Wilber.
[edit] Bibliography
- The TM Technique (1976) -- on Transcendental Meditation.
- Meditation (1978) based on radio series produced for BBC
- The Upanishads (illustrated 1978), (2003), with Alistair Shearer. Translation and commentary on the Upanishads.
- The Brain Book (1979)
- The Creative Manager (1992) with Roger Evans
- Waking Up in Time: Finding Inner Peace in Times of Accelerating Change (1992). Updated edition of The White Hole in Time (1992).
- The Global Brain Awakens: Our Next Evolutionary Leap, (1995). Updated version of The Global Brain (1983) which was published as The Awakening Earth (1982) in the UK.
- The Consciousness Revolution (1999), with Stanislav Grof and Ervin Laszlo.
- From Science to God: A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness, (2002).
[edit] External links
- Peter Russell's home page
- 1 A New Superparadigm? - arguing for a new spiritual basis for reality to supersede current scientific materialism
- Peter Russell MP3 audio - from Shift in Action, sponsored by Institute of Noetic Sciences
- [1] (2008)Leap! The Documentary explores our reality.
