Customer Reviews

2 reviews

• Dr Judith Schneider

  Ecocide – a thought-provoking read!
  
  Through a wonderfully extensive review of literature, from ancient Greek to contemporary thought, John Wilson discusses how the notion of soul, synonymous with immortality but also, insidiously, with disembodiment, snuck into our belief systems through Plato’s lofty persuasions, leading us to devalue our physicality. The effects, Wilson asserts, are vast, including impacting our social order, our mental health, and our sense of interdependence with our biological source, Planet Earth.
  
  Demonstrating the transfer of ideas, religious and philosophical, with a focus on exchanges that outlasted earlier contexts, Wilson provides an excellent springboard from which to question ‘facts’ we might hold dear. I was aware that religions such as Christianity were syncretic (incorporating ideas from other backgrounds), but the degree to which they were I found unexpectedly new.
  
  Ultimately, with ecological implications in mind, Wilson explores what comprises the human person (are we animal, mind, soul, self, agent, ecosystem?) and shows how we choose to describe ourselves contributes to, or threatens, the biological order we are embedded in. Particularly satisfying are his psychoanalyses surrounding Plato, and discussions on contemporary conceptions of self.

• Dr. Robert Proctor

  In this remarkable book author Dr. John Wilson has produced a work of architectonic scope documenting the evolution of the western concept of the soul from earliest Orphic times, promoted by Plato and endless numbers of philosophers and religious figures over the last couple of millennia. He details how the concept of the soul has devastated western civilisation and is leading to ecocide, the end of the world as we know it. Totally without any proof or supportive evidence the concept of the soul is an idea, a belief, which struck root and has influenced western culture with devastatingly toxic effect.

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