The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature

In the oral & written histories of all cultures, there are records of persons who've displayed extraordinary physical, mental & spiritual capacities. In modern times, those records have been supplemented by scientific studies of exceptional functioning. Are metanormal attributes latent within everyone? What's the evidence that all humanity has unrealized capacities for self-transcendence, that the limits of human growth aren't fixed? Are there specific practices that people can do to develop these abilities? Murphy has studied these questions for decades. In The Future of the Body, he presents evidence for metanormal perception, cognition, movement, vitality & spiritual development from over 3000 sources. Surveying ancient & modern records in medical science, sports, anthropology, the arts, psychical research, comparative religious studies & other disciplines, he's created an encyclopedia of exceptional functioning of body, mind & spirit. He paints a convincing picture of the possibilities of further evolutionary development of human attributes. By studying metanormal abilities under a wide range of conditions, he suggests we can identify those activities that typically evoke these capacities & assemble them into a coherent program of transformative practice. Such practice, if embraced by enough people, would constitute a next step in evolution.

In 1961 Michael Murphy cofounded, with Richard Price, the Esalen Institute, a learning center in California that fosters change in individuals and society, and has hosted thousands of human potential workshops and conferences led by such notables as Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, Joan Borysenko, Allen Ginsberg, and Linus Pauling, to name a few. In 1980, he helped create the Esalen Institute’s Soviet American Exchange program, which, among other things, initiated the first live television space bridges and hosted president of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin during his first visit to the United States. Murphy is the author of The Future of the Body, Golf in the Kingdom, and An End to Ordinary History, and the coauthor of The Psychic Side of Sports. He lives in San Rafael, California.