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Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality
A new generation of scientists is emerging with startling discoveries and theories that have much in common with the ancient teachings of many spiritual traditions. In interviews with some of our greatest contemporary minds, mythologist John David Ebert explores the newest insights in the ongoing exchange of ideas between science and religion. Provocative, sophisticated interviews with Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, Ralph Abraham, Lynn Margulis, Terence McKenna, Stanislav Grof, Deepak Chopra and William Irwin Thompson allow these cutting-edge thinkers in disciplines ranging from mathematics, biology, cosmology, medicine and psychology to present their theories in their own words. Ebert places these challenging ideas in a clear context and within a greater historical overview.
- GenresPhilosophyReligion
Hardcover
First published May 1, 1999
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
John David Ebert
37 books61 followersJohn David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books. He has a series of videos and audio albums on various philosophers posted on YouTube, Google Play and two websites: cinemadiscourse.com and cultural-discourse.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 22, 2012
Great beginners book. I was introduced to a lot of engaging concepts. Not all interviews resonated with me, but I learned something nevertheless. A great intro to the modern fusion between science and religion, without being a "new-age" approach.
July 24, 2019
Pretty title
Some of this is New Age babble of the most annoying sort, the usual concoction of pseudo science and nineteenth century vitalism. Ebert, who conducts the "conversations" with eight current New Age illuminati that form the bulk of the book, is a pretty fancy babble master himself, proving without half trying that he can speak pseudobabblese with the best of them. Consider this formulation as he converses with Rupert Sheldrake on page 46: "So your theory that information can be transmitted by these non-material morphic fields makes plausible a paradigm in which phenomena such as telepathy or ESP can be understood. Can you explain how your paradigm makes sense out of this type of phenomena?"
Note that Ebert is incorporating into his talk scientific-sounding terminology shorn of any scientific meaning. It's a sort of sly of mouth that lends a "scientific" gloss to the babbling. Ebert's "non-material morphic fields" (from Sheldrake), for example, sounds good since we have "field theory" in physics. Sheldrake chimes in with talk of "fields of perception." Note especially, however, the killer word "paradigm." For the last couple of decades or so, one way to test a book's BS content has been to count the number of times the word "paradigm" appears. Once every ten pages or so is tolerable. More than that should start your BS-detector to crackling. New Age babblers never use the word "construct" or "idea" or such a phrase as "body of knowledge" when they can throw in "paradigm" instead. In general they like to spice up their discourse with a plethora of scientific sounding words and phrases such as "psychokinetic influence," "fusion," "quantum events," "cultural hybrids," etc., as Ebert and Sheldon do on, for example, page 48. On pages 94 and 95, in the space of nine sentences, Ebert manages to use the New Age shibboleth "resonance" six times.
There's also the patterning of words to imitate a reasoned discourse, a weighing and choosing of plausibilities as though weighing evidence or comparing experimental results. Thus Sheldrake says on page 47, "...[S]ome...phenomena of parapsychology are hard to explain from the point of view of morphic fields and morphic resonance. For example, anything to do with precognition or premonition doesn't fit into an idea of influences just coming in from the past. So, I don't think this is going to give a blanket explanation of all parapsychological phenomena, but I think it's going to make some of it, at least, seem normal rather than paranormal." Notice how this mumbo jumbo makes it seem like something is being explained.
Not all of this is annoying, thankfully. The conversation with psychedelic guru Terence McKenna is interesting and invigorating, and the chat with Deepak Chopra is uplifting and admirable, which is what New Age thought in general tries to be. The New Age movement itself, which is easy to make fun of (it takes itself so seriously, I can't resist), is actually a noble enterprise engaged in trying to free us from the shackles of antiquated religions and the limitations of scientific materialism. The New Age in fact is a new religion in the making. In view of the stupidity and intolerance of some world religions, this is a welcome development. The problem is that many New Age apostles in skirting scientific materialism, skirt the scientific method as well. Much of the conversation in this book wants to substitute pronouncements for trial and error experiments. Thus Sheldrake can postulate morphic fields and morphic resonance, and continue on as though such notions had been experimentally verified and independently confirmed. And the terrible thing is I really don't think a lot of the New Agers really know the difference between asserting something and presenting an idea in a scientifically verifiable manner. Ebert is perhaps aware of this criticism because on page 92 he pays considerable homage to the scientific method, but then continues on as if it didn't matter.
In short, this book has a beautiful title, but it's a little after the fact since quantum mechanics killed the clockwork god a long time ago. Instead we have the god who plays dice, a much more sophisticated god who can Be or Not Be in the twinkling of a probability function. To find out more about this god we need the kind of speculation sometimes found in New Age thinking, but more than that we need the scientific method, a process that Ebert and friends would prefer to ignore.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
Some of this is New Age babble of the most annoying sort, the usual concoction of pseudo science and nineteenth century vitalism. Ebert, who conducts the "conversations" with eight current New Age illuminati that form the bulk of the book, is a pretty fancy babble master himself, proving without half trying that he can speak pseudobabblese with the best of them. Consider this formulation as he converses with Rupert Sheldrake on page 46: "So your theory that information can be transmitted by these non-material morphic fields makes plausible a paradigm in which phenomena such as telepathy or ESP can be understood. Can you explain how your paradigm makes sense out of this type of phenomena?"
Note that Ebert is incorporating into his talk scientific-sounding terminology shorn of any scientific meaning. It's a sort of sly of mouth that lends a "scientific" gloss to the babbling. Ebert's "non-material morphic fields" (from Sheldrake), for example, sounds good since we have "field theory" in physics. Sheldrake chimes in with talk of "fields of perception." Note especially, however, the killer word "paradigm." For the last couple of decades or so, one way to test a book's BS content has been to count the number of times the word "paradigm" appears. Once every ten pages or so is tolerable. More than that should start your BS-detector to crackling. New Age babblers never use the word "construct" or "idea" or such a phrase as "body of knowledge" when they can throw in "paradigm" instead. In general they like to spice up their discourse with a plethora of scientific sounding words and phrases such as "psychokinetic influence," "fusion," "quantum events," "cultural hybrids," etc., as Ebert and Sheldon do on, for example, page 48. On pages 94 and 95, in the space of nine sentences, Ebert manages to use the New Age shibboleth "resonance" six times.
There's also the patterning of words to imitate a reasoned discourse, a weighing and choosing of plausibilities as though weighing evidence or comparing experimental results. Thus Sheldrake says on page 47, "...[S]ome...phenomena of parapsychology are hard to explain from the point of view of morphic fields and morphic resonance. For example, anything to do with precognition or premonition doesn't fit into an idea of influences just coming in from the past. So, I don't think this is going to give a blanket explanation of all parapsychological phenomena, but I think it's going to make some of it, at least, seem normal rather than paranormal." Notice how this mumbo jumbo makes it seem like something is being explained.
Not all of this is annoying, thankfully. The conversation with psychedelic guru Terence McKenna is interesting and invigorating, and the chat with Deepak Chopra is uplifting and admirable, which is what New Age thought in general tries to be. The New Age movement itself, which is easy to make fun of (it takes itself so seriously, I can't resist), is actually a noble enterprise engaged in trying to free us from the shackles of antiquated religions and the limitations of scientific materialism. The New Age in fact is a new religion in the making. In view of the stupidity and intolerance of some world religions, this is a welcome development. The problem is that many New Age apostles in skirting scientific materialism, skirt the scientific method as well. Much of the conversation in this book wants to substitute pronouncements for trial and error experiments. Thus Sheldrake can postulate morphic fields and morphic resonance, and continue on as though such notions had been experimentally verified and independently confirmed. And the terrible thing is I really don't think a lot of the New Agers really know the difference between asserting something and presenting an idea in a scientifically verifiable manner. Ebert is perhaps aware of this criticism because on page 92 he pays considerable homage to the scientific method, but then continues on as if it didn't matter.
In short, this book has a beautiful title, but it's a little after the fact since quantum mechanics killed the clockwork god a long time ago. Instead we have the god who plays dice, a much more sophisticated god who can Be or Not Be in the twinkling of a probability function. To find out more about this god we need the kind of speculation sometimes found in New Age thinking, but more than that we need the scientific method, a process that Ebert and friends would prefer to ignore.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
May 16, 2024
I'll admit, I did not quite look into what this book was going to be about when I decided to pick it up. I have an interest in the spirituality of science, and I saw Lynn Margulis's name, and I just didn't think twice.
That being said, I did enjoy Lynn Margulis's interview because she often has great insights to share, and I've been a fan of her symbiosis theory. William Irwin Thompson's interview was also a good read.
However, my least favorite by far had to be Stanislav Grof's interview. I've never been a fan of Freud, for one, but nearly all of his opinions and ideas were ones that I disliked to such an extent that I could hardly stand to read anymore of it. Rupert Sheldrake's interview was also tough. This book has a lot of pseudoscience, but it was especially thick with these two gentlemen.
Most important in my review, I just do not agree with a lot of the points that the author tried to make throughout the book. There were good things here and there, such as that science and religion can learn from each other, and I do support compatibility between the two, but I just cannot get behind any of the pseudoscience (of which there is a lot presented in this book, such as astrology and respectfully whatever Sheldrake was talking about). I am not religious by any means, but I think that those who are religious can and should delve into science because it can easily be done in a compatible way, unlike what popular belief may hold. This, however, is starkly different from indulging in pseudoscience, which I stress that I do not approve of.
Overall, I'm still glad to have read this book, despite the fact that, had I looked a little harder into what it was really going to be about, I would have never picked it up. But still, in the end, it is simply not my cup of tea.
That being said, I did enjoy Lynn Margulis's interview because she often has great insights to share, and I've been a fan of her symbiosis theory. William Irwin Thompson's interview was also a good read.
However, my least favorite by far had to be Stanislav Grof's interview. I've never been a fan of Freud, for one, but nearly all of his opinions and ideas were ones that I disliked to such an extent that I could hardly stand to read anymore of it. Rupert Sheldrake's interview was also tough. This book has a lot of pseudoscience, but it was especially thick with these two gentlemen.
Most important in my review, I just do not agree with a lot of the points that the author tried to make throughout the book. There were good things here and there, such as that science and religion can learn from each other, and I do support compatibility between the two, but I just cannot get behind any of the pseudoscience (of which there is a lot presented in this book, such as astrology and respectfully whatever Sheldrake was talking about). I am not religious by any means, but I think that those who are religious can and should delve into science because it can easily be done in a compatible way, unlike what popular belief may hold. This, however, is starkly different from indulging in pseudoscience, which I stress that I do not approve of.
Overall, I'm still glad to have read this book, despite the fact that, had I looked a little harder into what it was really going to be about, I would have never picked it up. But still, in the end, it is simply not my cup of tea.
June 16, 2025
At the turn of the millennia Chaos invades the halls of stolid academia - But how much spirituality is the right addition?
December 31, 2016
John David Ebert is the best thing about this book. His introduction and conclusion, eloquently riffing on the death and rebirth of modern cosmology, sizzle with scintillating and sweeping insight. F. David Peat's preface is also outstanding. I wish Ebert had had the courage and vision to write the entire book himself, as he has a very clear, meaningful, and sophisticated message.
The interviews that constitute the main content, while good introductions to a few fascinating progressive thinkers (particularly Abraham, Margulis, McKenna, Grof, Thompson, Swimme), are not focused on the cosmological transformation that Ebert frames as the crux of the book. They drift and don't hang together. Without a robust skeleton, the book falls apart. I believe in the book's premise, that we are witnessing "The Twilight of the Clockwork God." But I never found in the interviews the fulfillment of this premise. In the interviews, I didn't come across many substantial theories or arguments about the invalidation of the old or intimations of the new.
I suspect Chopra was included as a ploy to increase book sales. He didn't have much to add and felt out of place here.
TOTCG is a worthy read but disappointing in its lack of focus and failure to fulfill its premise.
The interviews that constitute the main content, while good introductions to a few fascinating progressive thinkers (particularly Abraham, Margulis, McKenna, Grof, Thompson, Swimme), are not focused on the cosmological transformation that Ebert frames as the crux of the book. They drift and don't hang together. Without a robust skeleton, the book falls apart. I believe in the book's premise, that we are witnessing "The Twilight of the Clockwork God." But I never found in the interviews the fulfillment of this premise. In the interviews, I didn't come across many substantial theories or arguments about the invalidation of the old or intimations of the new.
I suspect Chopra was included as a ploy to increase book sales. He didn't have much to add and felt out of place here.
TOTCG is a worthy read but disappointing in its lack of focus and failure to fulfill its premise.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews