This website currently has only one function - a place to publish expert consensus documents on evolutionary spirituality topics. Other functions may be added in the future. -- Tom Atlee

Expert consensus documents

Expert consensus is currently a loose standard for establishing "what is known" in the field of evolutionary spirituality at a given time.

Selected experts in evolutionary science, spirituality and social vision are asked to use the evolutionary spirituality wiki to discuss a specific topic for a specific period and challenged to agree on a statement that summarizes the "state of the art" knowledge for that topic. That summary may involve not only clearly stating what is agreed on, but also agreeing on and articulating remaining areas of disagreement across the spectrum of opinion on that topic.

When the experts arrive at their consensus statement, the resulting document is posted elsewhere on the web in a more permanent non-wiki environment. For expert consensus statements coming from the Great Story perspective, that website is this one, EvolutionarySpirituality.org. People coming from other perspectives can use their own websites to post expert consensus statements (or other favorite wikipage versions) they wish to preserve.

It is desirable and likely that an expert consensus will evolve over time, either through small obvious edits by individual experts with access to this (or another) permanent website, or by a new convening of diverse experts in the wiki environment to establish a new consensus.

The intention of this innovation is to satisfy both those who want to have some sort of authoritative source on this subject and those who want to co-create the field in a more freewheeling fashion. The expert consensus provides a snapshot of a high-quality moment in the history of an evolving wiki page -- until (what is perceived to be) a better snapshot comes along.

Here are the current expert consensus statements posted on this site:

Read more here:
Evolutionary Spirituality Homepage

Bunk

I was highly disappointed when I read this book. Napoleon Hill is dead on on some very obvious and commonsensical things but way off on tons of others. Yes, autosuggestion & visualizing your outcomes are good exercises but are common sense for most people unless you have super low self-esteem. Nothing new here. Tips on how to write a resume and apply for a job are helpful to the would-be job applicant, but that isnt why you bought this book. My biggest bone of contention is due to the metaphysical/new-age overtones throughout the book. Napoleon Hill espouses a concept called infinite intelligence, but never defines it. It is something more like an omnipresent god-force or life force. This is total hogwash, and wont solve any MAJOR problems. You dont hear of scientists tapping into infinite intelligence to seek out a cure for cancer. How come I can't tap into this mysterious force, to say, tell me the winning lotto numbers or pick winning stocks? Maybe because it is total nonsense. Hill also commits the sunk cost fallacy in the story he tells where somebody stopped digging just three feet short from striking gold. While I see his point that many times just a little more effort will result in a sizeable payoff, sometimes one must know when to stop a futile endeavor. Hill advocates being persistent, but says nothing about how to identify situations when it should be stopped and a new goal should be sought. Hill is a strong advocate of positive thinking. Who isnt? Did I have to read this book to find out that it is better to think positively than negatively? No way. While positive thinking is good for many things, it cannot cure Parkinson's Disease or Alzheimers. Napoleon Hill says you can be anything you want to be. Total bunk. If this is true, why didn't he become the next Carnigee or Rockefeller? Does this statement not apply to him, and if it doesn't apply to him, why should it apply to others? Hill also commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which is Someone did x to become successful, therefore x caused their success. You can't use an example of one person who achieved sucess against tremendous odds and say that therefore anyone can surmount these odds. We hear of the few who are successful against the odds but not of the many who fail. That is how the real world works. Not everyone can be a Bill Gates or a Micheal Jordan. Hill mentions nothing about realistically assessing your skillsets against your goals. He just says go for it. That is stupid. Better advice is to try lowering your standards a bit and you will find you can achieve your goals much easier. Maybe you cant build a huge software corporation but you can have a thriving small consulting firm. I don't care how positive you are, there's some things you can't do because of lack of competency. Thats the sober truth, and it won't sell books.

13 out of 42 people found this review helpful.

More here:
Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill | 9781604591873 ...

Early Life

Eckhart Tolle was born Ulrich Tolle, in Germany in a town near Dortmund, to a matter-of-fact mother and an eccentric, head-in-the-clouds father; they fought, then divorced, and his father left the country for Spain.

At the age of 13, he abruptly refused to go to school - "I hated having to study things that were not compatible with my inner being" he said later.

His exasperated mother eventually sent him to live with his father in Spain. "My father said: 'Do you want to go to school here?' I said, of course, 'No.' Then he said: 'Well then, don't. Do what you like. Read.'" Tolle credits his unconventional upbringing with broadening his mind. "Spain at that time was very different than Germany, almost medieval. So I didn't get totally conditioned by one culture. If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it. My conditioning got completely broken, so there was an opening to other world views.

He did not attend formal schooling after age 13, but rather took language and other courses. Later, he attended night colleges to obtain the necessary entrance requirements for studying in a university in England.

In his early 20s he moved to England to study there at the University of London.

Spiritual Transformation

In 1979, at the age of 29, he was a near-suicidal graduate student living in Belsize Park in London, England.

Tolle had just completed a degree in languages and history at the University of London, graduating with a first, yet he was anything but happy.

He said about that:

Read this article:
Eckhart Tolle - Gurusfeet.com | a meeting place for spiritual ...