The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (Sacred Activism)

I absolutely love what Charles Eisentein is saying in this new book! I'm not seeing what exactly there is for me to do to get from here to there and I like that I'm being pointed inside to figure that out for myself. As it happens once started on this journey its easy to find companions for the trip. I think its worth a read.

The author addresses the most important issue our society faces today: why are we not living the beautiful world we know is possible? He goes straight to the heart of the matter and looks at societal change from the viewpoint of inner transformation. How can we separate the two? We cannot.

Yes, here's to our story of interbeingness. I loved this book and Charles' invitation. And one of the very best things about it is that I've been writing it all along and am delighted to be doing it more purposefully now than ever.

There is almost no content here. It's well written enough but there is nothing to take away from this book. This book is just an empty claim that love and kindness will provide all the answers but that doesn't explain how we can keep the lights on, feed a massive population or transition to a hugs-n-hope based economy. The arguments here are no more valid than claims that Jesus will provide. I gave up on it 75% through because it felt like reading the same chapter over and over.

I am a Christian and engaged in daily Bible Studies, Prayers, and Meditations. While I saw some parallels to my belief system with this book, others I differ. The author uses the story of separation and inner being throughout the book. As a follower of Christ, I attempt to be separate from the world in view of eternity. Regarding inner being, as a believer in Christ, I have the Holy Spirit in dwelling in me, helping me toward my More Beautiful World in Heaven.

There are important points in this book, and I admire the author’s passion about doing all we can to reduce suffering and make the world a better place. The author humbly writes that he is not speaking from a higher place than the reader, that like us, he is working toward the immense challenge of making the world a better place.

MY CONCERN is that the author makes a SERIOUS mistake that affects his message…

On pages 222 - 224 the author talks about a vice president of a large corporation. He was impressed by the VPs "...sincerity... patience, her attentive listening and lack of animosity in the face of what must be frequent attacks." The author lists a number of offenses the corporation was accused of... marketing infant formula to indigent mothers, over pumping from mineral springs, buying cacao from farms using child labor, and more. The author goes on to make deeper points we can learn from this VP and her corporation's side of the story. He finds the VP to be "very human, highly intelligent, [she] deeply and truly believes in her company and her work."

SURELY A VP OF THIS CORPORATION IS WELL AWARE that child trafficking and enslavement of children is widespread in the cacao industry they depend upon, and that the corporation she works for signed an agreement to "reduce the worst forms of child labor by 70% by 2020". Just the *worst* forms of child labor... by 70%... by 2020... and that's if they don't miss the agreement date, again. We cannot possibly know whether every item we buy was produced by an enslaved or suffering child or adult, but chocolate is not a necessity, and Fair Trade chocolate is available in any health food store. What about accusations of marketing infant formula to the poor? Highly processed GMO soybean formula, in place of breastmilk which is superior nutrition and costs nothing.

It's ironic and worrisome that the author (after allowing himself to be mislead by this intelligent, articulate VP) goes on to say, "What that VP did to justify her corporation, others can do to justify our whole civilization… as long as we…”

Back on page 71 the author stated “I am calling for a kind of naiveté… to be naive is to trust in the goodness of others when there is scant evidence of it…

THIS BOOK. I am totally in awe of Charles Eisenstein's brilliance ONCE AGAIN. As I read this my old paradigm is being gently dismantled as my intellect is being nourished by Charles' absolute brilliance. Eloquent, precise, SO well-written, grammatically beyond perfect...truly, a dream come true. I bid farewell to "The Story of Separation" as I welcome in a complete remembrance of our INTERBEING. Thank you, Charles. You are a true beacon of light in this quickly shifting world.

This is simply a brilliant book and, even more to the point, it is a book with heart that can transform the quality of our lives. I am not a student of philosophy or religion and I have nothing to teach, especially to Mr. Eisenstein whose work I am in awe of.

One thing, however, that I would ask you as the author to consider if indeed you are reading this comment. In the process you call: “What’s True? pp.244-46, there is one story you omitted. It is a third story in which you alone created and are responsible for the fact that your book was rejected.

Looking at it from this perspective, the payoff might have been that you needed the universe to validate and provide concrete evidence that your work wasn’t very good, or, on the other hand, that you needed evidence to prove to yourself and others that the world is unable to appreciate you. In either case, you needed to be right and make yourself/others wrong, an exercise that is simply not nurturing.

I hope you will consider this point of view and are not offended by my comment.

A recent survey found that one in four young people experience significant depression at some stage. Though similar data for a century ago do not exist, it seems uncontroversial that depression is on the rise despite the increase in affluence in the western world. To probe for the reason behind the modern malaise, and why the More Beautiful World of Our Hearts has not been realized yet, is therefore a commendable inquiry.

Eisenstein admits that his beliefs about holistic medicine, qigong, water memory, crop circles, psi phenomena and over-unity devices (whatever that may be) could be considered unscientific, but professes not to be anti-science, nor has he been taken in by "New Age puffery", and assures us that "I am no dupe of such a thing; I am on the side of hardheaded realists". The materialist and reductionist ramifications of science and technology are at the heart of the problem, he asserts, and laments the "claim of science to have explained away any phenomenon we might call spiritual". (It would be instructive to know who has made this claim on behalf of science; I do not believe even Richard Dawkins, given to hyperbole, would venture such a view.) Everything in the universe is intelligent, Eisenstein maintains, and when the path of a photon appears random, "the obvious intuitive answer is that the photon chooses its course". Here the author, who is careful not to appear unscientific, perhaps ought to provide some motivation for his belief. He asks, "Perhaps you disagree with me about the efficacy of acupuncture or the authenticity of crop circles. Is it just an intellectual disagreement, or are you a little bit angry?" If we react emotionally, he will not take offence, he says, for we are all wounded by the toxic fallout of science and technology. He gracefully concedes, "None of this is to imply that if you respond emotionally to my unconventional statement, you are proved wrong ... All it implies is that your rejection has little to do with evidence or logic." It might however prove frustrating to engage in an intellectual debate with someone who believes in the authenticity of crop circles: what sort of counter-evidence would qualify as sufficient?

In fact, to take issue with Eisenstein on any topic would be a daunting task: every quotation from his book can be countered with an equal and opposite quote (possibly some new Law of Conservation of Opposites, a useful technique to afford flexibility to one's discourse). "I'm talking about a situation where the practical is insufficient. That is where the planet is right now." - but then: "Scientists have come up with a solution to climate change, many solutions. They are right in front of our faces: conservation, permaculture, renewable energy, simple living, bicycles ...".

Besides technology, money is stated as a further root cause of our problems:
"The scarcity of money draws from the scarcity of love."
"When money is created as interest-bearing debt, as ours is, then always and necessarily there will be more debt than there is money." (Work that one out if you can!)
"Ironically, money is the one thing we can produce in unlimited quantities; it is mere bits in computers."

Three seeds have been sown in the past to solve our predicament in the present. Firstly: "wisdom keepers, Sufis, Zen masters, Kabbalists, Taoist wizards, Christian mystics, Hindu swamis ...", secondly: "myths, legends, fairy tales, folklore ..." and thirdly: indigenous tribes, whose "mission was simply to survive long enough to provide living examples of how to be human". (In `The Better Angels of our Nature' Steven Pinker presents abundant empirical evidence to show that over millennia humankind has become less violent: hunter-gatherer and prehistoric man was much more likely to be killed by his fellow man. The author will not be flummoxed by this, I am sure ... he quotes a Nigerian shaman: "There are no facts. There are only stories.")

What are we to do practically then to save ourselves? Eisenstein warns that to follow his path may have consequences: "It is not that you won't lose your marriage, your money, your job, or your health. In fact, it is very likely that you will lose one of these things." So what then is the advice that seems so ominous? Technology is not the answer. "Given that all of these efforts are likely to produce unintended consequences even worse than the problems they intend to solve, it is not hard to see the wisdom of doing nothing." "At some point, we are just going to have to stop. Just stop, without any idea of what to do." "We enter the space between stories. I am drawing here on the Taoist principle of wu-wei." "You don't have to do anything - why? Not because nothing needs to be done. It is that you don't have to, because you will do it." A comforting thought indeed; we are saved, and with so little effort! Hallelujah!

Yes, it is easy to quote someone out of context (it will be alleged). Maybe I have been a bit too hard on Eisenstein. One reviewer commends his modesty. It could be tempting for some scoundrel to facetiously insinuate that the author has much to be modest about (he won't mind: it would just be a symptom of wounds inflicted), but that would be unfair. The book is a great self-help resource for the needy (despite the author's modest protestations to the contrary); nothing is left unsaid, Seek and ye shall find. The reviews of his book enthuse with a messianic fervour, with only one Iscariot among twelve apostles. He tries hard. It is just that the answers to why we feel so alienated and depressed in spite of our material well-being still elude us. We are not built for the complexity of modern life with its associated stress. I don't have the answers - that's why I bought the book - but it appears neither does Eisenstein.

I confess that I gave up halfway through the book, at what I thought was page 446 but then discovered was in fact page 146. Maybe the answers are in the second half of the book. My advice to any reader would be to skip right to the second half; you won't miss much and, given the style of the author, everything is likely to be repeated anyway. Especially recommended for readers who are into crop circles, Mayan bread nuts and nature devas (whatever that may be).

Charles speaks the truth.
Even if we are not ready to hear it.
This book is must read for anyone who is truly open to possibility that our current economic system is not going to last forever.
And that this is not a horrible thing.. but actually an opening for spiritual and societal healing.
Keep writing books Charles!
I can't wait to read the next one.

-Jesse

Although much of the subject matter is good and thought provoking, unfortunately the author has chosen to present his thoughts in a very long winded and incoherent manner (in my opinion) which made it very difficult to follow. I have been in a private book group for almost 20 years reading over 200 books in that time and this book ranks in the bottom 5 % for satisfaction. Sorry ... but that's how I honestly see it.

Definitely one of the most important book I have ever read and natural continuation of Charles previous books. But if this your first book of him I strongly recommend you read "Ascent..." and "Sacred Economics.."; the first of them is just a nice introduction to "The More Beautiful World.." Well written and very readable. Philosophical and spiritual content is of the highest class.

The author uses fables and anecdotes to make his points, a main one of which is that the world is in pain due to our “separateness.” Early on he likens “us” to a little girl whose chiropractor permanently adjusted a spinal misalignment to stop her headaches so that now she was able to laugh for the first time. His assessment is that we’re all in pain and need healing.

The author’s attitude toward climate change is hard to grasp. He writes: "The conventional narrative about global warning . . . lends itself too easily to centralized solutions . . . and subordinates all the small, local things we need to do to create a more beautiful world. . . " OK, but when you feel closer to the trees, and so on, as he suggests, what about the harm being done to the environment by short-sighted economic, political, and, yes, personal decisions?

Some of Eisenstein’s amateur insights strike me as just plain silly. As when a fellow at a men’s retreat shared with the group his penis’s burn scars that he got as a punishment from a foster parent when he was five. Eisenstein writes: "In a flash, I perceived that his reason for being here on Earth was to receive and heal from this wound, as an act of world-changing service to us all."

How very Jesus-like. And irrational. And even patronizing of this fellow’s sorry past.

When his ankle was hurt, Eisenstein writes, having his meridians cleared healed him quickly. He cites anecdotal evidence involving shamans and qigong and their inexplicable successes. He writes that resistance to such events is part of the old story and we ought to be letting that story go.

I knew I could no longer take Eisenstein’s conclusions seriously when he began discussing “morphic resonance,” an idea of Rupert Sheldrake’s that has been widely dismissed by scientists. Basically it says that “once something happens somewhere, it induces the same thing to happen elsewhere,” or natural things inherit a collective memory. He also firmly believes in the utterly debunked theory that water has a memory.

He wonders why there is so much hostility to such ideas. For one, it’s utterly frustrating that no matter how irrational an idea, no matter how often it’s been disproven, or at least unproven, so many gullible and vulnerable folks will still spend money and hope on alternative medicines based on such wild theories.

At base, then, Eisenstein seems to believe everything is spiritual, and that by ignoring that aspect, you’ll never change society. I remember these arguments from the 60s, 70s, and later, You think too much, try these other ways of knowing, of learning. Up to a point, I could appreciate all that, as, after all, I’d once been attracted to Alan Watts and Krishnamurti and other Eastern ways of experiencing the world. And then I chose to fold those ways of thinking into a generally more rational way of living my life.

When it comes to health and making the world a safer, saner place for as many people as possible, that takes thoughtful research and science combined with rational thinking. No, you shouldn’t unskeptically accept everything the so-called establishment promotes. Nor do you flick it all away and take, instead, the words of alternative practitioners with few credible credentials.

So comes another trust fund baby writing a screed about his hatred. In this case the rage is directed at capitalism, Western Civilization, colonialism, racism and, of course, white men. Overpopulation is strangely absent which is odd because for most environmentalists that is the root problem of "ecocide." But I digress to The Story of the World (also known as history) versus what Eisenstein The Story of Interbeing (which is new age puffery for become one with Gaia). Anyway, his 'visions' are all about control of people, the elimination of technology and profit. The earth is really secondary, his profit primary.

Here is what he has in mind- "We could live is an earthly paradise...where no new technologies are needed." However, according to this oracle we need "to remove all legal, social and economic impediments to change." One can imagine just what that means. But it would "require" a different economic system and also would "require millions of people going back to the land." Eisenstein believes these "requirements" are "technologically feasible" but once again "require a wholesale shift..."from capitalism. Translation: he is a ecotopian socialist dressed in drag or, as he rightly calls it, "new age puffery". He "requirements" would be mandatory and, more than likely, a bloody mess.

At some point he asks the reader to consider his 2 reasons for why he has trouble getting published. The first is that his writing is not that good or original (both true). The second is that he is writing on a broad topic in which he has no expertise and no track record of success(again both are true). But the real reason is that no major publisher, or literary agent felt it worth their while. This is why it is a non-profit, 3rd rate publisher picked it up.

This is also why I recommend doing what I did and get it at a library. It is not worth the paper it is printed on and is barely worth the time. It is not written on a deep level and while I'm no masochist exposing fraud does have it lighter moments. On a certain level it is rather comedic

Lastly, from his own words it is apparent that Eisenstein would surely love his work printed on fine velum with an imprint from a major publisher. Why? Because as he states, he does "likes it". The attention, his travel and his talks to the converted fellow travelers and the true believers. All the rest is window dressing for this run-of-the-mill socialist and 3rd rate intellectual gadfly.
Here's the kicker-someone actually classified this piece of work as non-fiction which is an indicator of a larger failure of scholarship. But that's another issue for another book.