The Embodied Mind
“The human mind is broader than the brain, bigger even than the body. In this fascinating book, our guide takes us on a journey into the fully embodied nature of mental life, reviewing the cutting-edge science revealing how the body responds to and encodes experience into its structure and function. Filled with exciting summaries of the empirical support for the important view that our feelings, thoughts, and memories are shaped by physiological functions beyond those of our head-encased brain, this book invites us to “think outside the box” and consider the body more than a transport vehicle for who we are, but rather one part of a much larger story than previously believed by contemporary scientific views of mind and self.”
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
New York Times Bestselling Author
IntraConnected; Mind; Mindsight, and Aware
Executive Director, Mindsight Institute
A wonderful book. Truly inspiring, and I am impressed by Dr. Verny’s very thorough literature research. He has conquered a complex topic, and reading The Embodied Mind is literally a mind-changing experience. Dr. Verny has a unique talent to inspire new ideas and challenge scientific orthodoxy. I heartily recommend The Embodied Mind to both scientists and lay readers.
Prof. Dr. Gerlinde A.S. Metz
Tier 1 Board of Governors Research Chair
Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience
Department of Neuroscience
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Dr. Thomas Verny is a genius scientist who courageously challenges the limitation of our psyche and consciousness. He is a visionary giving us a direction for our bright future answering R.D. Laing's question from "The Facts of Life" with his unprecedented research.
In this book, Dr. Verny examines in detail and proposes that environmental influences over several generations are linked to the expression of the genes that make us human, that each cell forms a network and influences each other, and that the location of memory must move away from the classical cortical focus and be integrated with quantum laws in the future. I am convinced that this book is undoubtedly one of the most important works in our history. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to reclaim sovereignty over their lives.
Dr Akira Ikegawa, author of seven books on prenatal memory.
The most valid of all sciences, quantum physics, acknowledges that “Consciousness creates our life experiences.” Convention perpetuates the illusion that only organisms high in the “Tree of Life,” such as humans and other vertebrates, possess “consciousness.” However, consciousness has been a fundamental characteristic of life since the origin of the planet’s most primitive organisms, single-celled prokaryotes (e.g., bacteria) and eukaryotes (e.g., amoebas).
The Embodied Mind by Thomas Verny is a profoundly important synthesis revealing how cells utilize consciousness to not only manifest their life functions, but as importantly, to create a distributed nervous system that coordinates and supports life-sustaining behavior in multicellular communities, such as those comprising the human body. Verny’s insights on collective cellular consciousness and the role of epigenetics challenges the prevailing concept of reductionism and emphasizes the need for a more holistic, systemic approach in understanding human biology. I highly recommend The Embodied Mind as a compendium of knowledge that offers readers an opportunity to move beyond misperceived limitations in an effort to promote planetary health and harmony.
Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D., stem cell biologist, epigenetic science pioneer, and author of the bestselling books, The Biology of Belief, Spontaneous Evolution (with Steve Bhaerman) and The Honeymoon Effect.
The Embodied Mind, by Thomas Verny, is a thought-provoking exploration of the penumbra of brain science, illuminated by a brilliant and provocative synthesis that highlights the mind and body as an intimately integrated system.
R. Douglas Fields PhD, author of Electric Brain
This is a superbly radical book, deeply researched and exquisitely
clearly written. Even more so The Embodied Mind stands as a guideposted pilgrimage through nearly five decades' experience,
introspection and explorations as a practicing psychiatrist and researcher whose best-selling The Secret Life of the Unborn Child,
first published in 1981, still resonates today.
The Embodied Mind a terrific read, not least because Verny’s profound curiosity regarding the nature of human memory dovetails with the notion he rigorously advances: our bodies and mind, our emotions and our ruminations, our rational thought and culturally-endowed beliefs—all are of a piece, a complex of networked information, subject to free will and the environments we occupy, from a genetic fragment inside the individual cell’s DNA all the way to the most abstruse thinking humans can attain.
We are, in stunningly elegant fashion, Verny maintains, not the result of predetermination but rather of a kind of genetic
kaleidoscope, a kaleidoscope of genetic interplays subject to a degree of voluntariness and emotional influence most readers will
find remarkable.
It’s early days yet but the outlines of a very different view of the human animal as a feeling creature who thinks and whose thoughts
and emotions may well govern the threads of genetic expression is emerging. The Embodied Mind is a compelling journey into who we
think we are (we aren’t); its destination is nothing less than who we might become.
Brendan Howley is an investigative reporter, novelist and screenwriter. Presently, his focus is on leading HUME WORKS of which he is founder and President.
“Remarkable. And it makes sense!
Thomas, you have written – and potentially given the world – a remarkable book which can impact so much of how we understand ourselves and each other, and improve so many lives.
Congratulations and I look forward to “The Embodied Mind” being a Canadian – a world – best seller. Thank you.”.
Ray Harsant, Stratford, ON, Canada