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The Fringes of Reason: A Whole Earth Catalog
From the frontiers of science to crystals and channeling, The Fringes of Reason is devoted to the hundreds of strange and exciting beliefs flourishing in New Age America. 250 photos and illustrations. (Metaphysics/Philosophy)
- GenresScience
223 pages, Paperback
First published December 12, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 19, 2015
A collection of articles about fringe science, metaphysics, and New Age spirituality, written in a very nice "friendly but unconvinced" style that's not too credulous but not openly hostile. At worst the author of some article may veer into gentle half-mockery, but only because the idea being discussed is so preposterous... and it is usually the idea at fault, or the person only if they are pretty clearly out to bilk the gullible.
Published in 1989, it's a nice window into the peak of the New Age movement. Plenty of citations/references, too, for more reading (both of the skeptical and the credulous variety). The overall attitude is more of a bemused "Huh, people have a lot of strange beliefs!" which I do appreciate.
Oh, and the Whole Earth Catalog website has a free web version (here: http://wholeearth.com/issue-electroni...) or a pdf version for just 2 bucks. How very nice of them!
Published in 1989, it's a nice window into the peak of the New Age movement. Plenty of citations/references, too, for more reading (both of the skeptical and the credulous variety). The overall attitude is more of a bemused "Huh, people have a lot of strange beliefs!" which I do appreciate.
Oh, and the Whole Earth Catalog website has a free web version (here: http://wholeearth.com/issue-electroni...) or a pdf version for just 2 bucks. How very nice of them!
January 9, 2019
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!
April 2, 2025
STILL AN EXCELLENT RESOURCE FOR ‘UNORTHODOX’ IDEAS
Editor Ted Schultz wrote in the Introduction to this 1989 book, “This is not a book about Orthodoxy. Instead, this is a book about tinkerers who spend their lives in basements perfecting perpetual motion machines, contactees who converse on a first-name basis with entities from outer space, and reincarnationists who remember past lives as royalty on the lost continent of Atlantis. This is, in fact, a book about people so fed up with Orthodoxy and the mundane bit part it handed them that they did something about it. Something imaginative. Something colorful. Something… DIFFERENT.
“This book is above all a celebration of the strange beliefs and eccentric theories that these people have created. Their unconventional world-views constitute a highly entertaining, subterranean art form that has for the most part been ignored by the mainstream media. Whether or not these peculiar notions are literally true, tales of flying saucer abductions, spontaneous human combustion, astral travel, inner-earth civilizations, and pyramids on Mars possess a haunting surreality and an arcane aesthetic that communicate directly to the unconscious mind.
“But ARE they literally true? In addition to appreciating these modern mythologies for their own sakes, in the pages that follow we attempt to answer this question. Whenever possible we include a diversity of opinion, ranging from the extravagant enthusiasms of true believers to the earthbound pronouncements of hard-nosed skeptics. Experts on these neglected subjects (eccentric scholars themselves) present the elusive histories and backgrounds of oddball ideas. And, in true ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ tradition, we’ve gone to considerable trouble to supply complete access information---names, addresses, titles and sources of books and periodicals---so that you can get directly in touch with outré organizations that you won’t find listed in the yellow pages. Write away and experience the unparalleled thrill of a potential secret of the universe arriving in the mail.
“So step right up, dear reader, and enter the carnival sideshow of Unorthodoxy, where page after page of peculiarity makes clear that despite our cocksure age of science, rationalism, and homogeneous mass media, mutant ideas continue to spawn, fission, and multiply. Perhaps the reason for this unexpected fact was provided most succinctly by novelist and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey at a ‘Summer of Love Twentieth Anniversary Celebration’ held in San Francisco in 1987, where he proclaimed, ‘Facts are dull. Stories are interesting. We’re up to our noses in facts. We want Story… we need Story.’ As you’ll soon see, fringe theorists may not always provide us with a lot of facts to substantiate their claims, but they sure as hell deliver Story.”
Nearly 40 introductory/explanatory articles are included---some by very noteworthy figures: e.g., Lawrence Jerome on ‘Crystal Power’; Charles Tart on ‘Parapsychology’; Susan Blackmore on ‘Confessions of a Parapsychologist’; Joe Nickell on ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’; William R. Corliss on ‘An Encyclopedia of Anomalies’; John Keel on ‘The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers’; Robert Anton Wilson on ‘Beyond True & False’; Lyall Watson on ‘’The Hundredth Monkey’; Rev. Alan Stang on ‘Your Pathway to Cosmic Truth---By Mail!’, and more.
To give you an example, Lyall Watson’s response to Ron Amundson’s critical article on the ‘Hundredth Monkey’ concept argued, “I based none of my conclusions on the five sources Amundson uses to refute me. I was careful to describe the evidence for the phenomenon as strictly anecdotal and included citations in [his book] ‘Lifetide’… in accordance with my usual practice of providing tools, of giving access to useful background information. I freely acknowledge a tendency to get excited by ideas… but I remain convinced that there is something like the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon in action in nature, even if it remains unproven on Koshima. There seem to me to be mechanisms in evolution other than those governed by traditional natural selection, and a growing need to identify and describe such processes. The Hundredth Monkey is my way of drawing attention to the possibility of critical mass in social behavior and of stimulating discussion about it… What is usually ignored in such discussion is the point that the scientific definition of reality is a theory, not a fact. We don’t know exactly how things work. All we have is a reasonably good hypothesis. There is no need to force a choice between rival sets of facts…. All that is at stake is the validity of a working hypothesis… The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon is a plea for a broader definition of reality… It is… an admission that being alive is being a part of something very much larger---a global ecology of mind in which even Japanese macaques are small, albeit well-washed, potatoes.” (Pg. 181)
At the time this book was published (in the pre-Internet age), the various ‘Access To…’ sections listing both ‘pro’ and ‘con’ books and periodicals were extremely helpful, to those who wanted to explore these ideas further.
Of course, with the Internet we can now access loads of information and misinformation about all of these topics. But seldom on the Internet does one find such a ‘balanced’ listing as one finds in this book.
This book is still of great interest to those studying such “esoteric” matters.
Editor Ted Schultz wrote in the Introduction to this 1989 book, “This is not a book about Orthodoxy. Instead, this is a book about tinkerers who spend their lives in basements perfecting perpetual motion machines, contactees who converse on a first-name basis with entities from outer space, and reincarnationists who remember past lives as royalty on the lost continent of Atlantis. This is, in fact, a book about people so fed up with Orthodoxy and the mundane bit part it handed them that they did something about it. Something imaginative. Something colorful. Something… DIFFERENT.
“This book is above all a celebration of the strange beliefs and eccentric theories that these people have created. Their unconventional world-views constitute a highly entertaining, subterranean art form that has for the most part been ignored by the mainstream media. Whether or not these peculiar notions are literally true, tales of flying saucer abductions, spontaneous human combustion, astral travel, inner-earth civilizations, and pyramids on Mars possess a haunting surreality and an arcane aesthetic that communicate directly to the unconscious mind.
“But ARE they literally true? In addition to appreciating these modern mythologies for their own sakes, in the pages that follow we attempt to answer this question. Whenever possible we include a diversity of opinion, ranging from the extravagant enthusiasms of true believers to the earthbound pronouncements of hard-nosed skeptics. Experts on these neglected subjects (eccentric scholars themselves) present the elusive histories and backgrounds of oddball ideas. And, in true ‘Whole Earth Catalog’ tradition, we’ve gone to considerable trouble to supply complete access information---names, addresses, titles and sources of books and periodicals---so that you can get directly in touch with outré organizations that you won’t find listed in the yellow pages. Write away and experience the unparalleled thrill of a potential secret of the universe arriving in the mail.
“So step right up, dear reader, and enter the carnival sideshow of Unorthodoxy, where page after page of peculiarity makes clear that despite our cocksure age of science, rationalism, and homogeneous mass media, mutant ideas continue to spawn, fission, and multiply. Perhaps the reason for this unexpected fact was provided most succinctly by novelist and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey at a ‘Summer of Love Twentieth Anniversary Celebration’ held in San Francisco in 1987, where he proclaimed, ‘Facts are dull. Stories are interesting. We’re up to our noses in facts. We want Story… we need Story.’ As you’ll soon see, fringe theorists may not always provide us with a lot of facts to substantiate their claims, but they sure as hell deliver Story.”
Nearly 40 introductory/explanatory articles are included---some by very noteworthy figures: e.g., Lawrence Jerome on ‘Crystal Power’; Charles Tart on ‘Parapsychology’; Susan Blackmore on ‘Confessions of a Parapsychologist’; Joe Nickell on ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’; William R. Corliss on ‘An Encyclopedia of Anomalies’; John Keel on ‘The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers’; Robert Anton Wilson on ‘Beyond True & False’; Lyall Watson on ‘’The Hundredth Monkey’; Rev. Alan Stang on ‘Your Pathway to Cosmic Truth---By Mail!’, and more.
To give you an example, Lyall Watson’s response to Ron Amundson’s critical article on the ‘Hundredth Monkey’ concept argued, “I based none of my conclusions on the five sources Amundson uses to refute me. I was careful to describe the evidence for the phenomenon as strictly anecdotal and included citations in [his book] ‘Lifetide’… in accordance with my usual practice of providing tools, of giving access to useful background information. I freely acknowledge a tendency to get excited by ideas… but I remain convinced that there is something like the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon in action in nature, even if it remains unproven on Koshima. There seem to me to be mechanisms in evolution other than those governed by traditional natural selection, and a growing need to identify and describe such processes. The Hundredth Monkey is my way of drawing attention to the possibility of critical mass in social behavior and of stimulating discussion about it… What is usually ignored in such discussion is the point that the scientific definition of reality is a theory, not a fact. We don’t know exactly how things work. All we have is a reasonably good hypothesis. There is no need to force a choice between rival sets of facts…. All that is at stake is the validity of a working hypothesis… The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon is a plea for a broader definition of reality… It is… an admission that being alive is being a part of something very much larger---a global ecology of mind in which even Japanese macaques are small, albeit well-washed, potatoes.” (Pg. 181)
At the time this book was published (in the pre-Internet age), the various ‘Access To…’ sections listing both ‘pro’ and ‘con’ books and periodicals were extremely helpful, to those who wanted to explore these ideas further.
Of course, with the Internet we can now access loads of information and misinformation about all of these topics. But seldom on the Internet does one find such a ‘balanced’ listing as one finds in this book.
This book is still of great interest to those studying such “esoteric” matters.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews