I've only gotten half way through it but this is a wonderful book! Dr. Pearce writes with authority and grace, and has read widely and compiled the most essential findings from the ongoing revolution in the biology of intelligence. Surprisingly, it turns out that our hearts are largely composed at the cellular level of glia and neurons, and connections with our brain and nervous systems are so extensive that one could refer to the heart as the fifth brain. I've read in the other reviews where one reader refers to the author as a "psychopath". This is really hard to swallow, especially considering Dr. Pearce's straightforward honesty, humility and humour in describing some extraordinary experiences from his quite extraordinary life. It's also rather ironic that such slander should be thrown at a person who has devoted a lifetime to investigating and exposing how our industrial, materialist society twists our youth's natural processes of intellectual and emotional growth... and spurs instead, at a biological and neurological level, the deformity of violence against self and others.