{"id":72,"date":"2007-09-14T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2007-09-14T01:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html"},"modified":"2007-09-14T01:01:01","modified_gmt":"2007-09-14T01:01:01","slug":"is-religion-dying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Religion Dying?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Friday is Book Day on the blog, when we take a look at books \u2013 old and new &#8212; that I highly recommend you not miss. This week\u2019s recommended reading:<\/em> <strong>The Death of RELIGION and the Rebirth of SPIRIT<\/strong>, by Joseph Chilton Pearce.<br \/>\nOne of the more remarkable books I have read recently is the extraordinary offering from the author of <em>The Crack in the Cosmic Egg<\/em>, <em>Magical Child<\/em>, and <em>Evolution&#8217;s End<\/em>, Joseph Chilton Pearce.<br \/>\nTitled <em>The Death of RELIGION and the Rebirth of SPIRIT<\/em>, this book carries the subtitle: A Return to the Intelligence of the Heart. It is at once scholarly and accessible, informative and imperative, insightful and inspirational. It is imperative because the insights in this book could truly change the world. For Joseph Chilton Pearce here argues persuasively that only through heart-awareness can humanity&#8217;s culture be saved.<br \/>\nLet us be clear here. This book is about love unconfined. Indeed, love <em>as the basis<\/em> of life and evolution itself. As Pearce himself puts it, &#8220;This great force is evolution&#8217;s <em>raison d&#8217;etre<\/em>.&#8221;<br \/>\nLove rules all, it seems, and it may only be humanity that does not know it &#8212; until it does, which is often at the end of physical life. This raises in my mind an interesting question: Do we have to die to know how to live? In this remarkable book, Pearce offers us an anecdote about an experience of the great explorer David Livingston, who was once seized by a huge lion &#8220;who jaws actually met through Livingston&#8217;s shoulder as the great beast began to shake him violently.<br \/>\n&#8220;Livingston knew full well his end had come. He reported, however, that at that instant he went into a sublime state of ecstatic bliss. His accompanying guides arrived just in the nick of time to save Livingston&#8217;s life and, like the discomfort in the shoulder that was with him the rest of his life, that ecstatic state never fully left him and confirmed his already firm spiritual anchor.<br \/>\n&#8220;Livingston&#8217;s mind and heart were one, and heart takes care of its mind.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe idea being expressed in this tome by Pearce is that&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n&#8230;the heart is more than a simple organ of the body. It is a Center and Container of Divine Intelligence (as is every cell of the body) and the producer and creator of energy waves of a certain characteristic that can alter (read that: heal) negative forces all around it. Says Pearce: If we open to the &#8220;intelligence of the heart&#8221; and the practices to which such intelligence leads us, eventually those practices become habit &#8220;and we will see the world anew.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe death of religion and the rebirth of spirit pointed to in the title of this book is about a cultural shift and life alteration on the earth that will return us to our only possibility for long-term survival. <em>Conversations with God<\/em> has long claimed throughout the nine books of its cosmology that only a change in humanity&#8217;s cultural story can save humanity itself, <em>from<\/em> itself. Joseph Chilton Pearce agrees completely.<br \/>\nThere is much here about the latest in brain science, and much, too, about what Pearce calls the mind\/brain-heart connection. All far too deep to get into in a brief review such as this, the material here is very much worth your exploring in depth. It could change your worldview&#8230;and change your life. If a sufficient number of human begins read and &#8220;got&#8221; Pearce&#8217;s message, it could change the world.<br \/>\n= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =<br \/>\nIf you would like to discuss these and other<br \/>\nimportant spiritual and temporal matters with<br \/>\nNeale Donald Walsch, and, indeed,<br \/>\nif you would like to become a messenger of<br \/>\nthe New Spirituality, join Neale in the<br \/>\nMessengers&#8217; Circle, a subscription-based<br \/>\narea of the author\u2019s website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nealedonaldwalsch.com\">www.nealedonaldwalsch.com<\/a><br \/>\nNeale personally responds in that location<br \/>\non his website to many of the Comments<br \/>\nposted here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday is Book Day on the blog, when we take a look at books \u2013 old and new &#8212; that I highly recommend you not miss. This week\u2019s recommended reading: The Death of RELIGION and the Rebirth of SPIRIT, by Joseph Chilton Pearce. One of the more remarkable books I have read recently is the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is Religion Dying? - Conversations with God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Religion Dying? - Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Friday is Book Day on the blog, when we take a look at books \u2013 old and new &#8212; that I highly recommend you not miss. This week\u2019s recommended reading: The Death of RELIGION and the Rebirth of SPIRIT, by Joseph Chilton Pearce. One of the more remarkable books I have read recently is the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Conversations with God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-14T01:01:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Neale Donald Walsch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Religion Dying? - Conversations with God","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Religion Dying? - Conversations with God","og_description":"Friday is Book Day on the blog, when we take a look at books \u2013 old and new &#8212; that I highly recommend you not miss. This week\u2019s recommended reading: The Death of RELIGION and the Rebirth of SPIRIT, by Joseph Chilton Pearce. One of the more remarkable books I have read recently is the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html","og_site_name":"Conversations with God","article_published_time":"2007-09-14T01:01:01+00:00","author":"Neale Donald Walsch","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html","name":"Is Religion Dying? - Conversations with God","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-09-14T01:01:01+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-14T01:01:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/59dec2a2c0645950921b5cb7864ffc64"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/2007\/09\/is-religion-dying.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is Religion Dying?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/","name":"Conversations with God","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/59dec2a2c0645950921b5cb7864ffc64","name":"Neale Donald Walsch","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/27b\/27bce5d8beddfd11309a88e8e70a1ef3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/27b\/27bce5d8beddfd11309a88e8e70a1ef3x96.jpg","caption":"Neale Donald Walsch"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/author\/ndwalsch"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/conversationswithgod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}