“Pearce was an inspirational figure, a small giant. He soared higher than I aspire, or most people can.”
Dr. Gabor Maté

“The Life and Insights of Joseph Chilton Pearce, edited by Michael Mendizza, reveals how Pearce, a modern-day sage, endowed with the courage, strength and perseverance to challenge conventional world views, offered humanity original and penetrating insights into our transcendent nature and vast creativity. Joe’s brilliant and original works represents a profound and important contribution toward healing our global dysfunction and ensuring the healthy development of future generations.”

Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., stem cell biologist, epigenetic science pioneer,
and author of The Biology of Belief, The Honeymoon Effect and many others.

Introduction

Most of human existence is habitual, sleep walking in a dream cast by culture. Excluded from this semi-alert state are vast fields of insight and meaning that exist beyond these limited borders. Being habitual, reflexive and mechanical, our sleep-walking appears in the dream as normal and necessary, no reason here to wake up. Drugged by our lazy habits of mind, we comfortably repeat tomorrow what we did yesterday, mother and daughter, father and son, calling this conditioning parenting and education. While great technological innovations were being made, human beings remained stuck, like a wagon wheel in deep, sticky mud, repeating. Joe recognized and rebelled against this life-wasting pattern early.

Much of Joe’s life was spent exploring what he called ‘cracks,’ those very real phenomena that manifest, plain as day, but should not, given the limitations of our day-dreaming reality. Joe used the ancient Vedic image of a Cosmic Egg to describe what is allowed, and therefore possible, in our sleep-walking reality, the images and beliefs that cast our self-world-view. When a crack opens in the egg, excluded potentials slip through, illuminating the true nature of our nature, much of which has been excluded by the egg. Hallelujah, we shout. A miracle!

Living in our egg, excluded capacities are, indeed, miracles. Dissolve or crack the egg and potentials we call miracles are seen for what they are, simply the way nature, which is our nature, works. Exploring this core insight, splits our quest in two dimensions, what are the astonishing capacities that are mostly excluded, and what forms and sustains the limiting egg, our self-inflicted limitations.

None of this matters while dreaming, save the sixth great extinction approaching at avalanche speed. Technology, being part of the dream, enshrined within the egg and therefore oblivious to what is excluded, continues to expand exponentially, creating a blinding force that excludes even more, a self-replicating and expanding reciprocal loop. A problem can’t be solved by the source that created the problem.

To break this suicidal pattern demands first that we, at least partially, awaken from the dream, now turned nightmarish, which means a ‘crack,’ a sliver of free attention that is not completely enchanted by the dream. Like a file in the hand of a prisoner, all of Joe’s writings scrape at the bars of our self-imposed jail, inviting this crack. The more we file, the weaker the egg becomes, until, Hallelujah, excluded potentials pour in illuminating the darkness which sustains the dream. What happens next is up to each of us. As he knew, with every particle of his being, this awakening is our only hope.
Joe gave us the file. Please savor Astonishing Capacities and Self-inflicted Limitations, the Life and Insights of Joseph Chiton Pearce.

    Michael Mendizza

“For many of us, Joseph Chilton Pearce's 1971 book Crack in the Cosmic Egg was an early introduction to the mystery and awe of creation. The journey he took through his subsequent books is even more astonishing.  This brilliant recap and summary of his work is a must-read for anybody interested in finding the deeper meaning of life and life's experiences.
Thom Hartmann, author, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight
“Joe Pearce's rare genius was the way he applied his multidimensional wisdom to a deeper understanding of a child’s total development. In my case, he was literally the teacher's teacher. I will never forget him once telling me, “Teachers teach who they are, not what they know.”
Chris Mercogliano, author of In Defense of Childhood: Protecting Kids’ Inner Wildness
“What a gift to have this distillation of so many of Joe's insights in one place! Being with him was an experience of ‘the model imperative’ that we all must have. His writings represent a unique contribution to the deepening challenges we all face today.”
Rahima Baldwin Dancy, Waldorf educator and author of You Are Your Child's First Teacher
“Joe remains a giant. The Life and Insights of Joseph Chilton Pearce is priceless. Joe validated, enriched and added practical substance to my lifelong quest to better understand the critical importance of play. Without Joe’s clear descriptions, that ‘play is learning,’ my explorations would have been less complete. Joe was inspiring, a role model and mentor.”
Stuart Brown, M.D., founder and president of the National Institute for Play
“Joseph Chilton Pearce’s insights into what human beings ‘can be’ inspired the founding of Kindred World. Michael guides us through Pearce’s decades of synthesized, cross-cultural fields of science and deeply integrated wisdom toward a welcome and truer vision of humanity’s amazing capacities. This book describes the New Story we all need, right now.”
Lisa Reagan, founder of Kindred World
“When I first found Pearce’s work, after training as a psychological researcher, I was enthralled. As I moved away from a rigid mindset, oriented toward material measurement and control, and back to an interdisciplinary perspective, where all truth exists, the seeds planted by Pearce are now bringing to fruition at EvolvedNest.org. I am forever grateful that he had the courage to share his wisdom and that Michael Mendizza has kept it alive.”
Darcia Narvaez, professor of Psychology Emerita, University of Notre Dame and author Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality

He Changed My Life

  • A rare soul....he shaped my word view.
    Martin
    He guided me in profound ways!
    Alison
  • One of the leading lights of our time.
    Stus
    He touched so many in ways that cannot be measured.
    Tony
  • His book has truly changed my approach to life.
    Tera
    He changed my life.
    Missy
  • One of the true giants of understanding and facilitating healthy life-long human potential. He set a great example.
    Robert
    A prince among men, the finest example of a great human being. My life has been touched deeply by his work.
    Ceri
  • OMG. I have given his books to countless people - Cosmic Egg, Magical Child are my two favorites. Cosmic Egg changed my worldview in college and it's always been with me. Pearce was greatness personified.
    Alison
  • Of the most important teachers in my life. I'm profoundly grateful I found his books when I was a young mom as they helped me find my way. I was lucky enough to hear a lecture of his in the 1980s and still find myself quoting wisdom from it to others--it was that memorable!
    Nikoletta
  • He was the most influential man in my life. His writings guided my parenting as well as my personal development. His wisdom will forever live in my heart as well as the lives of my children and students.
    Tera
  • I still have my old water-soaked, tattered, well underlined paperback of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, one of the most enlightened and enlightening books I have read. It's a book you want to always have with you to cherish and read again.
    Cheryl
  • This man's book, Magical Child, became the cornerstone of my own attachment parenting commitment. I now teach in the California penal system, and this man's precious, courageous work is part of what our (EPP) curriculum brings to those incarcerated, most of who struggle from all sorts of devastating attachment disorders.
    Suzanne
  • Reading his books, listening to him speak, or working with Joe impacted the lives of so many people who then went on in service to others- helping to create a powerful ripple of growth and transformation in the world.
    Barbara
  • Joseph Chilton Pearce was my inspiration to entering the field of early childhood education. The Magical Child is one of my favorite books of all time. He changed my life forever.
    Anjaneya
  • I'm so grateful to have been in a world where I could read his books and share his wisdom. He's had a profound influence on my life though I never had the opportunity to meet him in person.
    Cynthia
  • Joe introduced us to new ideas and ways of thinking that will benefit humanity far into the future.
    Mark
    Joe was a heart on fire whose passion and light will burn with eternal Love.
    Maria

Brief Bio

An expert in child development, Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-2016) devoted his life to exploring the optimum development and astonishing capacities within each individual human being. Across his 12 visionary books and thousands of lectures, he blended cutting-edge science with spirituality and explored the amazing power of imagination for both children and adults--the space where we are able to play with our reality--inspiring millions to discover the human birthright of a more magical world.

In this guide to Pearce’s complete vision of transcendent human potential, Michael Mendizza explores 7 of his most influential books, sharing insights and expertise from Pearce’s full range of interests, from child development and conscious parenting to psychic phenomena and altered states to the power of the mind to shape reality.

Offering essential passages interwoven with Pearce’s own commentary, drawn from personal conversations and unpublished material, this book shows how Pearce’s key insights break down core assumptions about reality and human potential. We see the importance of imagination and empathic, non-verbal forms of wisdom, which have been long overshadowed by verbal-intellectual skills.

Pearce’s life-changing insights into why we have become what we are, contrasted with the miracle nature intends us to be, allowing each of us to break through our self-inflicted limitations and realize our amazing and magical potential.

22 Interviews with Joe > My Journey

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#1 - Our amazing capacities

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#2 - The self-organizing structure of the brain

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#3 - The Savant and Fields of Intelligence

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#4 - Non-local fields of intelligence, brain

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#5 - What can parents do

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#6 - The new model of education, parenting

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#7 - Development is experience dependent

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#8 - The most important step we can make

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#9 - A woman’s right of a nurturing mother

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#10 - Stages of Brain Development

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#11 - Nature’s Agenda for Brain Development

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#12 - Intellect is Not Intelligence

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#13 - Quality of life vs. Standard of living

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#14 - Do we really understand empathy?

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#15 - Dramatic cultural changes

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#16 - Changing perception of women

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#17 - Two dramatic expressions of culture change

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#18 - Symbolic and metaphoric processing

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#19 - The importance of storytelling

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#20 - Can the child trust the world?

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#21 - Technology and the developing brain

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#22 - Continuing Adult Development

Available on Amazon

A comprehensive guide to social visionary Joseph Chilton Pearce’s work on the transcendent and magical potential of the human mind

• Explores Pearce’s most influential books, including Magical Child, sharing his life-changing insights into why we have become what we are, contrasted with the miracle nature intends us to be

• Features essential passages interwoven with Pearce’s own commentary, drawn from personal conversations and unpublished material

• Shows how Pearce’s key insights build across his books and break down core assumptions about reality and human potential

An expert in child development, Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-2016) devoted his life to exploring the optimum development and astonishing capacities within each individual human being. Across his 12 visionary books and thousands of lectures, he blended cutting-edge science with spirituality and explored the amazing power of imagination for both children and adults--the space where we are able to play with our reality--inspiring millions to discover the human birthright of a more magical world.

In this guide to Pearce’s complete vision of transcendent human potential, Michael Mendizza explores 7 of his most influential books, sharing insights and expertise from Pearce’s full range of interests, from child development and conscious parenting to psychic phenomena and altered states to the power of the mind to shape reality.

More of Joe's Amazing Journey in the Academy

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