Overview
Here is the long-awaited final work of one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers. In this groundbreaking book, Gregory Bateson and his daughter, the eminent anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, offer a radically new theory of science, supernaturalism and the sacred -- and their relationship with the biological world. Building on the theories in Bateson's classic Mind and Nature, Angels Fear goes beyond that milestone work, incorporating Bateson's last essays and a series of imagined father-daughter conversations -- "Metalogues" -- to further explore the universal "pattern which connects" all living things.Playful, witty, always profound, Angels Fear ranges from thoughts on the meaning of Bach's Goldberg Variations and limericks, to otters playing in the zoo and the nature of love. It delves into the mysteries of myth, science and religion to affirm a new understanding of the sacred that accepts the integral relationship of mind, body and nature. In pursuit of a harmonic theory of thought and life, Angels Fear is the culmination of a unique quest to find a new view of the mind and the universe that is neither supernatural nor mechanistic, but recognizes the vital importance of man's instinctual and rational yearning towards the sacred.
The final work of one of the century's greatest thinkers and his daughter, an eminent anthropologist. Offers a new theory of science and the sacred.