Inside The Mind Of God: Images And Words Of Inner Space

Exhilarating photographs and inspiring words take us on a microscopic tour of a miraculous phenomenonthe human bodyleading to a sense that our existence is no accident. This photographic journey into inner space utilizes microscopic imagery to document the beautiful and mysterious realm of the tiniest components of human lifebrain waves, nerve endings, cell structures, acid crystalsrevealing a symmetry, a perfection, and, ultimately, a revelation.

Illuminating quotes from the finest literary and scientific mindsPasteur, Tolstoy, Einstein, St. Augustine, Thoreau, Darwin, just to name a fewsupport the idea that science may prove to be a path to God and that the human brain itself, through what researchers are now calling its "spirituality circuit," is wired to lead us to that path.

With an introduction by Wall Street Journal science editor Sharon Begley, Inside the Mind of God promises to provide further insight into the abiding question: why is there something, rather than nothing?

Three years ago Michael Reagans best-selling book The Hand of God juxtaposed photographs of spiraling galaxies, shimmering nebulae, and luminous stars with the words of great scientists and philosophers to suggest the profound link between the scientific and the spiritual. Inside the Mind of God, continues this journey, now into inner space. The stunning photographs and inspiring quotes create a sense of wonder and awe in the miraculous evidence of Gods hand in the smallest details of our existence.

For example, a gentle blue photograph of a breast cancer cell appears beside a quote from Mother Teresa: "I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much."

This book not only offers a glimpse inside the human body and related "landscapes," but also a glimpse of great thinking. I found myself marveling at the photographs and mulling the ideas that appear with them.


Beautiful pictures, lovely words, but . . .   December 14, 2002
 11 out of 13 found this review helpful

The idea of this book, if I understand it, is "to suggest the profound link between the scientific and the spiritual" through the juxtaposition of beautiful pictures of "inner space"--in this case of cells, organs, and crystals--with quotes about faith, mystery and belief.

The book starts with a fine essay by Sharon Begley, science editor of the Wall Street Journal. She discusses the thesis that God must exist because of the perfection of the workings of nature--the famous argument from design. She presents some of the arguments for and against it with considerable balance. She also writes about the concept of "biological evil"--the implications of the existence of "evil" things such as disease-causing organisms and cancer cells. She goes on to describe brain-scanning experiments that may help explain how the brain of a meditator or Sufi dancer might create a sense of loss of self and unity with the universe. She concludes by inviting the reader to "see the sacred in the science of life," hoping that the book's microphotographs will bring life's "sacred depths ... to the surface for everyone to appreciate."

The photographs, of neurons and sperm cells, DNA molecules and chromosmes, stem cells and embryos, are remarkable and beautiful. To me they made many of the scientific findings I read about far more real. And the quotes, from spiritually minded scientists like Einstein, poets, philosophers, writers and mystics, were also beautiful. I particularly liked one from Annie Dillard. "The extravagent gesture is the very stuff of creation... The whole show has been on fire since the word go!"

I consider myself to be fascinated with science, and more than casually interested in the great questions that religion addresses as well. I'm as prone to feeling awe at the night sky, the grandeur of the Sierra Nevada or the inner workings of a cell as the next person. Still, for reasons I can't quite figure out, this book didn't bring those two areas any closer for me. I almost feel apologetic, as if I should have felt the awe and mystery that Begley and editor Michael Reagan set out to evoke. In the end, I found the book more puzzling than enlightening, more frustrating than inspiring.

It seems like such a good idea, however, that I hope it will work better for other readers than it did for me.

Robert Adler, author of Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation (Wiley, 2002).