Pinchbeck Returns with Notes from the Edge Times

I am delighted to announce the upcoming publication of Notes from the Edge Times. My new book collects essays written in the three-and-a-half years since the release of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, my last work. The book covers a wide range of subjects, some of them familiar to readers of my earlier works, and some of them ventures into strange new territories. In essence, however seemingly diverse, all of the chapters revolve around a single subject: How do we confront the current mega-crises of species extinction, global financial collapse, and resource depletion and initiate a new planetary culture that integrates the physical and psychic aspects of our being, while meshing harmonically with our planet's fragile ecology?

If you enjoyed my other work, I hope you will take the plunge and pre-order this new book before its official release on October 14. Apparently, in today's anxious publishing climate, pre-orders from Amazon and other sites determine how much attention the publisher's sales and marketing departments will give to a book. If you plan to pick up a copy of this book in any case, please pre-order it now so that Tarcher/Penguin, my publisher, gets behind it and gives it a push, thereby helping the ideas and initiatives I explore -- the subjects we cover daily on Reality Sandwich and Evolver.net -- to creep and slither deeper into the mainstream.

While the book is a collection of essays, organized chronologically, I believe that, taken in total, it makes a coherent argument. The antidote to the suicide system we have unleashed requires a systemic, whole systems approach, along with a new underlying paradigm on which to base our individual and collective actions. As the back cover quote states, "If our consumer-based, materialism-driven model of society is dissolving, what can we offer in its place? Why not begin with the most elevated intentions? Why not offer the most imaginatively fabulous systemic redesign?"

Notes from the Edge Times proposes that the new paradigm for the next epoch includes a reinvented financial system. We will reject the domination by one single form of money, controlled by a cabal of private banking interests, and adopt a range of currency instruments that support collaboration over competition. In many areas, we will take a design science approach to solve our current problems. We will also integrate a new understanding of the psyche and accept the existence of paranormal capabilities. I offer the thesis that our evolution as a species has shifted from the physical to the psychic level, and we could transition rapidly from a post-everything culture of information overload to a "Wisdom Age" where art has replaced money as the ruling value. 

While scanning many indicators that our post-industrial civilization is hitting the skids and could collapse as resources become scarce, Notes from the Edge Times remains optimistic about the transformation. The book proposes that we can overcome cynicism and defeatism -- forms of cultural programming -- in order to participate creatively in our rapidly changing world.

Advance readers tell me that Notes from the Edge Times is my most accessible work, with the potential to reach both old and new audiences. I know, as well as anyone, how distracting our current culture is, and how difficult it is to separate out signal from noise. I believe my little book contains crucial new ideas and nuggets of information that will help people grasp our situation and prepare for what may soon come. I hope that you feel inspired to join me on this modest foray into the fringes of thought and the edge-realms of possibility.