Customer Reviews
A Great Mind at Work:
This book is the best example of a fine mind at work that I know of. Although I first read it in the 1980s, it still is current and continues to convey complex and timeless knowledge about the mind in an understandable, non-polemic, yet in an eclectic and fresh way.
The volume is dense but segmented into bite-sized frames with diagrams and pictures that intentionally take the content out into the third dimension and makes it less formidable. And although it is segmented into bite-sized frames, the reader’s appetite for learning about the concepts of psychology — from Gregory Bateson, Freud, Rollo May to Ernest Becker and Otto Rank — will be more than satisfied.
The leitmotif of the volume is the idea of connectedness. There are three messages: Humanity is about wholeness; survival of the planet is about wholeness; and living a rich and full life is about self-knowledge and wholeness.
It covers the waterfront of what we knew about human psychology and the mind up to the 1980s. And although the frontiers of psychology have moved ahead somewhat, the book was so far ahead of its times that even 25 years later it remains fresh and current.
It is an academic tour de force that leaves a deep impression on the reader and is a book that has been an invaluable companion to me in my writings. Ten stars.
Maps of the Mind (Charles Hampton-Turner):
I began reading “Maps of the Mind” in the mid-eighties, and have found this to be the most important, inspiring and influential books I’ve ever read. The authors’ suggestions of possible appliations of hemispheric specialization upon biblical, historical and mythological events are facinating and insightful. This book makes a geunine attempt at reassemling “humpty dumpty”. No other publication (that I’ve read) even dares to attempt to “make sense of” and “unify” practically every religions, philosophical, political, mythological and acedemic “ideas”, “concepts” and “phenomena”. This is my #1 choice of books, and I’ve both recommended it to others, and given several copies away to friend. Read this book!
Contents::
This book, essentially collates, combines, and compares theories of how the human mind works, finding parallels, offering interpretations, and finding intersections of ideas. Beginning with historical and religious ideas, it differentiates among more than 50 main concepts including those of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Marx, Erikson, Piaget, Maslow, Russell, Buber, Chomsky, and Marcuse. It’s an amazing trip through explanations of “us,” and serves as an introduction to concepts of cybernetics and feedback in mental and information systems.
Completely indespensible to anyone interested in the mind:
I encountered this book in the late 80’s, and it became one of the most influential books in my life.
This book, essentially collates, combines, and compares theories of how the human mind works, finding parallels, offering interpretations, and finding intersections of ideas. From Frued to Marx, Jung to Blake, it’s an amazing trip through explanations of “us,” and served as my first introduction to concepts of cybernetics and feedback in mental and information systems.
If you’re involved in psychology, social work, programming, writing, anything that touches on the mind and information, get it and read it. You’ll be a much richer person for it.
Magnificent essays summarising thinking about mind:
I bought this book years ago, and now need to replace it. With a brilliant layout of a cartoon, an abstract, and then a one or two page essay, Charles describes how people have thought about mind from very early times. His summaries are absolutely brilliant, and the insights from Freud to de Bono to … are illuminating.
