Pearce (Foreword, Preface, and Chapter 1-3)

The Crack in the Cosmic Egg is definitely my kind of book! Right away in the foreword, Tom Hartman eloquently explains what Pearce means by the Crack in the Cosmic Egg.
"The crack in the egg is a mode of thinking and action through which creative imagination can escape through this mundane shell and open us to, and create within us, a new cosmic egg" (Pearce, Preface, pg xiv)

In the first chapter, Pearce describes his self-injury with cigarettes during a trance like state as a youngster. I have to admit this section turned me off a bit. Unlike his colleagues, I believe his accounts (because I've had friends who have done the same kind of things), but geez, that is terrible.

In the group discussions, just about everyone in the group, is skeptical when it comes to the idea of the power of the mind, in relationship to healing or blocking pain. I enjoyed reading Pearce's account of his wife's story. Also, I was happy that he mentioned the doctors who perform surgery with no anesthesia. These are real documented cases, that demonstrate just a little bit of the minds power.

I also like how he stated, "Our imaginations cannot set out to find the cracks in the cosmic egg until someone lays the egg". It's almost like saying, you cant solve the problem until you first recognize the problem.

In Chapter 2, Pearce mentions A-thinking. He also claims that maturing is a modifying procedure that represses and largely eliminates. This illumination (in a larger sense enlightenment) that Pearce mentions is truly the essence of the altered state. It enables one to see clearly, even when he or she returns to a "normal" state.

I love how Pearce had his AHA moment in the tree, like so many other great thinkers. He was in the tree with his children, when all of his fragmented parts suddenly fused. He was one step closer toward enlightment. Even more impressively, he endeavored (and succeeded) to put his realizations into words, which ultimately culminated into this text.

I was intrigued with his claim that psychedelics fracture the structure of the world view. He writes that under LSD, colors literally dissolve (reality breaks down). Literally, they merge and flow together. Even faces might run across the floor.

The account of the two trapped miners seeing the stair case was rather fascinating. I do remember reading about that, but I never thought about them as hallucinating. I'd like to agree with Mckellars claim that all mental experiences are related to and originate in learned or subliminal information gained from experience.

In Chapter 3, Pearce makes mention of the molding of our children to be conditioned and prepped for the common human experience. When that process does not take place, strange things happens, as in the case of feral children. I have seen many documentaries on feral children, and the whole subject really fascinates me. In particular, I recall the heart wrenching story of Oxana Malaya, the Ukrainian girl who lived with dogs since she was a very young girl. She barked, and walked on all fours. It was very similar to the story of the child who was found in the Irish chicken house described in this chapter. I thought it was pretty messed up that he referred to him as "chicken-child". It was also pretty deep to refer to Kamala's rescue as "captivity— or rescue". This guy seems pretty wild.

I was also intrigued by the hypothetical peeling of the unconscious, all the way down to the psychology of the amoeba.

I've given it a lot of thought over the years and I can see why humans only perceive this reality. We are trained to see the things that are "real"— the things that can actually cause us harm. It would do an archaic man very little good to see his food, his enemy, his mate, and then EVERYTHING else that existed outside his plane of existence. I think humans naturally evolved into narrow minded beings, because that was the safest thing to do. It was also a side-effect of mans need to find order in a chaotic world.