Understanding Gregory Bateson: Mind, Beauty, and the Sacred Earth

Noel G. Charlton

Mar 2010 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980), anthropologist, psychologist, systems thinker, student of animal communication, and insightful environmentalist, was one of the most important holistic thinkers of the twentieth century. Noel G. Charlton offers this first truly accessible introduction to Bateson's work, distilling and clarifying Bateson's understanding of the "mind" or "mental systems" as being present throughout the living Earth, in systems and creatures of all kinds. Part biography, part overview of the evolution of his ideas, Charlton's book situates Bateson's thought in relation to that of other ecological thinkers. This long-awaited volume opens up this challenging thinker's body of work and introduces it to a new generation of readers.

Ratings and reviews

staggeringly beautiful and contempory with the new interest this year in Evolution , psYchedelics, ecology , and economics. Economics or ecology is how to run a household! Are you listening Ameicans?!

About the author

Noel G. Charlton has enjoyed work in commerce and industry, school teaching, small holding and house restoration in Scotland, antinuclear activism, wild species preservation, residential community life, and research and study in university and college settings. These experiences have been unified by a deep concern for the natural world and a growing conviction of the spiritual and religious significance of the whole of the living planet.