I recently completed reading The Secret Life of Nature by Peter Tompkins. It has to be one of the most influential books I've ever read regarding the nature of man and the universe. Its precepts will be hard to swallow for many but for those with an open mind and a belief that there is much more to the universe than what current science would have us believe, it will resonate like few other scientific and esoteric works can. Tompkins writes in the epilogue that "[t]here is little or no scientific knowledge about either the universe or humanity as far as origin, purpose, goal, and mutual relationship is concerned. From acceptable scientific sources, humans have no idea why the universe exists with all its contents, where it came from, who created it, whither it is tending, and whether it is guided or just continues in a haphazard way... A right attitude toward science ... will recognize that its knowledge is illusion (Tompkins, Peter). He goes on to quote Geoffrey Hodson who said "[m]ore knowledge, more wisdom, and more truth are to be found in genuinely old myths, fairy tales and legends than in the abstract erudition and science of the present day."
