The Mind Field
Robert Ornstein
Notes from the Author:
“The Mind Field is a book of its time and should be read as such, as much an historical document (since history speeds up these days) as it is for the content. I haven’t edited it, as I could, since to do so would mix understandings from different eras. Better to get a look at the scene in the mid-1970s and to think, as I said, how far we’ve come!”
Robert Ornstein
October 1995
The Mind Field
Robert Ornstein
“For genuine enquirers this book is a must!”
—Doris Lessing
For years, Americans have been seeking rational, analytical answers to despair and anxiety. But now, this rational Western perception of consciousness has been challenged by an Eastern discipline which brings into sharp focus the travesty and deception underlying many of the contemporary awareness movements.
Yet, it is also the author’s intent to combat the easy criticisms of the super-rationalists who dismiss every new development as the irresponsible invention of the “guru-of-the-month club.” He offers not only the findings of extensive scientific research on the brain but the valuable discoveries of personal experience as well. There is no one who is better qualified to assess modern America’s approach to matters of the mind than Robert Ornstein, and he does so with clarity and with utter persuasiveness.
“Perhaps the distinguishing feature of Sufism is that it is truly contemporary. None of us is about to discard the very real advance of Western culture to become imitation twelfth-century Indians or Genuine Replicas of thirteenth-century Zen monks. Nor are many about to accept the get-rich-quick mysticism of the Sunday supplements. (What’s your sign, trait, type?) Absurd and often bizarre ideas have caused many sensible people to discount mystical teachings as a whole. When electricity was first introduced, all kinds of stories were told about it. Some thought the new invention would rob them of individuality, others that they would immediately be transported to paradise. Others ignored it. So too with extended knowledge of psychology.” —from The Mind Field
“Works with cool logic and scientific skepticism to point up the potential of intuitional, inductive, and holistic modes of thought, while separating out the voguish chaff.”
—The New York Times
