The Cosmic Web:
Hope For Our World
Through Science and Spirituality
with forward by Cynthia Bourgeault, reminds us that we are all connected. Mystics have told us this for ages, and now physicists are seeing that too. This beautiful interweaving brings hope for our world: as we offer the fruits of the spirit: Love, joy, peace, etc, our world is nourished.
About the Book
This enlightening book weaves together current physics, in easy-to-grasp descriptions, with the words of Wisdom teacher Jesus and the writings of many other mystics from the world's spiritual traditions. The author shows how, with an open contemplative heart, you might access cosmic assistance so needed in these chaotic times. With an engaged spirituality, in alignment with science, you will begin to see the oneness of all things, and how you might change the world.
Using personal experience and narrative, as well as research from top scientific journals, the author uses images and humor to encourage you to see how science and spirituality both provide lenses to help you participate in a dynamic, creative, and relational reality. You will be encouraged to open your mind and think about what all of this might mean. A deeply feminine, personal, and invitational book, The Cosmic Web is a roadmap to help recognize resources, anchor yourself in embodied wisdom, and encourage you to come together with others with synergetic wholeness.
Reviews
BookLife review:
Scientist and seeker Hayter’s debut tackles quantum physics and mysticism to explain our world with a refreshing tour beyond our perceptions. It’s a challenging endeavor she meets with grace. She started this journey, young, after reading Capra’s The Tao Of Physics, which piqued her curiosity. Then, while enrolled in a physical chemistry PhD program, she immersed herself in contemplative practices, and ever since has sought the truth through scientific foundation while simultaneously experiencing her spiritual side to discover how the two worlds connected. Now, she invites readers to explore those intersections, to “play” with physics, entanglement, and more “in a friendly way and begin to unpeel the congealed edges around our hearts, awaking the mystic within our being who can begin to sense its meaning for us.”
The good news is that, in Hayter’s hands, understanding the full complexities of string theory, M Theory, the Luminous Web of Barbara Brown Taylor, or Indra’s Net, isn’t required to appreciate the hyper dimensional interwoven universe. Her explanations dig into these topics, expanding the mind, but also explore what she has found in her “‘extracurricular’ Wisdom studies,” drawing from a host of spiritual and religious traditions, to make the case that teachings like “I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” suggest that Jesus knew more about quantum physics than most of the world today. In her Cosmic Web of Life, there is no separation between the spiritual and the scientific.
While some science-first readers may balk at the mysticism, Hayter stands as a clear, impassioned, open-minded guide, demonstrating throughout the value of setting aside preconceived notions. This bold, compact book asks probing questions (“What events in your life remind you of the glistening “spider’s web” of connection, beyond limitations of time and space?”) while arguing, with warmth and in inviting clarity, that science only bolsters the conviction that we share “an inherent oneness with all beings, and with the Source.”
Takeaway: A scientist’s inviting uniting of the quantum and the mystic.
Comparable Titles: Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics, Tara Swart’s The Source.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
“In his final conference at the interreligious gathering in Bangkok in 1968, Thomas Merton said “Brothers and Sisters, we are all one. We just don’t know that yet.” Joy helps us to see in The Cosmic Web in an ongoing integrative way, that the insights from both spirituality and science will help to bring us to an ever-deeper oneness and unity with all that is."
- Father Bill Sheehan, OMI
"The Cosmic Web is an invitation to dance. Joy Andrews Hayter invites us to enter the still point of contemplative practice which then is partnered with the insights of science. This dance unfolds in mystery; both the mysteries of quantum physics and the mysteries of the spiritual life. Her writing is clear and accessible, and deeply grounded in the depths of her own scientific training and spiritual practice."
- Mary Grace Orr, Meditation Teacher; Founder of Insight Santa Cruz
"Joy weaves together the ineffable of the spiritual with the indeterminate of the quantum worlds with her characteristic tenderness and grace. Read and be enlivened!"
- Will Watkins, PhD, VP of Medicinal Chemistry, Gilead Sciences