Sun of gOd: Discover the Self-Organizing Consciousness that Underlies Everything

by Gregory Sams, Graham Hancock (Foreword)

In Sun of gOd, cultural pioneer and philosopher Gregory Sams takes a fresh look at our solar benefactor. As Sams sees it cultures throughout the ancient world were right to recognize the Sun as a living, conscious being. The implications of a conscious provider in the sky are startling, though often obvious -- and in harmony with science, logic and common sense.

Sun of gOd explores exciting new ground, adding a crucial piece to the jigsaw-puzzle picture we have of the cosmos. In the light of a conscious Sun, Sams looks at our hard-wired tendency for religion, notions of god and divinity, our place in the firmament, star formation, intelligent light, electromagnetism, feedback, chaos theory, free will, the four elements, and the near-universal self-organization of systems from the bottom up.

"Could it really be that the universe waited 13.7 billion years -- until we came along -- to manifest the phenomenon of consciousness and made ours the only type of vessel able to experience it?" Sams thinks not. Citing David Bohm's discovery that even on the subatomic level of electrons there appears to be intention and choice, Sams goes on to suggest that creative intelligence may be a bot-tom-up system in which "everything, from a molecule of water to a neuron in our brain to the Sun itself, is a part of the bottom that is subtly steering a greater whole." From this perspective, he smoothly joins the microcosm to the macrocosm, revealing a Universe incorporating both intelligence and design, with no need for an Intelligent Designer.

Genres: Philosophy, Spirituality, Science

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Gregory Sams has been changing the culture from the age of 19, when he co-founded SEED, the UK’s first natural and organic restaurant in 1960's London. For more on his part in the introduction of green living, vegeburgers, chaos theory, solar awareness, and the power of freedom visit him at http://gregorysams.com

Reviews

[Kitap Yakıcı · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Our ancestors worshiped the Sun, and they were far from foolish. And yet the Sun is an ordinary, even a mediocre star. If we must worship a power greater than ourselves, does it not make sense to revere the Sun and stars?" - Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Good-humored and well-intentioned collection of loosely related meditations ("an unpretentious book of wisdom," according to John Allen's back cover blurb) on various New Agey subjects, oriented around the notion that consciousness, mindedness, and even intelligence are hard-wired into the nature of the cosmos. The author rants about organized religion while discussing the proto-religious, animist orientation of our human ancestors, in which the entire world is experienced as alive and intentional. He discusses various discoveries in astronomy, physics, and mathematics that underscore the interconnectedness and miraculousness of the natural world we take for granted. He calls for a re-orientation of our values, from a selfish and shallow consumerist materialism to a worldview in which everything (from bacteria to water to fire to the Sun itself) is seen as sacred, living, and loving, and to which gratitude and reverence are the sanest responses. Even if the reader does not accept as factual an animist worldview, it is hard to deny the benefits of living as if the world was suffused with love, mind, and meaning.

Alas, the title is misleading, which is why I had to finally give the book two instead of three stars. The author only dances around the subject of the sentience of the Sun and never really provides any evidence in support of his conjecture that it is a living, thinking being. That said, whether the Sun knows it or not, it IS the source of all our light and life, and it wouldn't hurt if we said thanks once in a while.

As is my wont, I would like to share a few exemplary quotes with the reader of this review:

On the practice of gratitude to the Universe:

Perhaps all the effort that primitive men and women put into saying "thank you" for the blessings of life was not a total waste of time. This sort of "superstitious" behavior went on for thousands of years and just might have been sustained for so long because people noticed the difference that it made to their lives and to the world around them....

Gratitude is good, whatever lies at the receiving end. Of course, we should not let ritualized gratitude detract from the enjoyment of that for which we are being grateful, since that enjoyment is probably the best feedback we can give. (165)

On the difficulties of understanding intelligence with intelligence:

One of the most difficult types of intelligence for our rational intelligence to understand is, ironically, our own, based as it is upon the free interaction of hundreds of billions of independent neurons distributed throughout our brain. They organize and make associations with whatever other neurons they choose and nowhere is there any sign of central control.

If we cannot even understand our own process of intelligence, how can we be expected to understand how trillions upon trillions of drifting hydrogen and helium atoms in a pre-stellar cloud managed to engineer their own amazing feat of star formation? But they did it, as we and a bright Universe are able to witness. It is time to acknowledge other vehicles of intelligence that are beyond our comprehension, and not just the incomprehensible version that we personally experience and accept. (174-5)

On a "third way" between Creation-ism and Darwin-ism:

Six years into this book, the whole Intelligent Design vs. Evolution story was going off big-time, with lawyers and conflict and lots of headlines. After reading the positions of both sides, I couldn't help thinking that each side of the argument seemed as blinkered and chained to their positions as the other. It was high time that another option was thrown into the current either/or debate. Intelligence from the bottom up is that other option--a system in which everything, from a molecule of water to a neuron in our brain to the Sun itself, is a pat of the bottom that is subtly steering a greater whole. (179-80)

On the specialness of being human:

We are special--can't you feel it? But can you accept as possible that otters and eagles, butterflies and cats, trees and dolphins all feel it too[?] Maybe mice and worms and sardines do not feel special, but for all we know they might be thinking the same thing about ticks and lice. But my interest is declared, I am a human and naturally biased. If any blue whales are reading this, then please forgive my arrogance in taking such a position. (224)

Gregory Sams - Is the Sun a Conscious Being?

Gregory Sams' Homepage

[Diane Kistner · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a child in Sunday School (a Georgia Southern Baptist church, no less), I learned the words "omniscient" and "omnipresent." I was taught that the spirit of God dwells within us, underlying and pervading the entire creation. Even as a young child, I understood this to mean that a part of God is inside everything in the creation, not just white Southern Baptists as many I encountered fiercely maintained.

Later, when I read that we are made in the image of God, I took that to mean that we each hold a spark of God's light; that God's light shines on all of us; that we are illuminated (both literally and figuratively) by that light. As an adult studying world religions, trying to discover the essence--the truth--they held in common, I came to understand that "God" is consciousness--the omniscient, omnipresent consciousness that pervades the universe--more huge and more wise, more all-encompassing, than any part of the creation is able to know. But the parts are all part of the consciousness some call God and, so, are partially conscious (partially God, if you will) themselves. In short, I believe that everything in the universe is conscious to a degree.

Therefore, the views expressed in "Sun of gOd: Discover the Self-Organizing Consciousness That Underlies Everything" are not alien to me. In fact, they express my understanding and beliefs quite well. The pantheists, I believe, were much closer to and understood more about the majesty of creation than today's religious dogmatists who anthropomorphize God as some Big Daddy Up in the Sky who's going to beat up anybody and everybody who disagrees with them.

Whatever your religious perspective, get this book and read it with a willingness to shift the frame of your thinking a little. Even if you don't subscribe to much of what the author presents, I think you will be surprised at the insights that will spring forth into your consciousness.