Are extraordinary abilities latent within everyone? Are the limits of human growth fixed? Is there evidence that all humanity has unrealized capacities for self-transcendence? Are there specific practices through which ordinary people can develop these abilities? Michael Murphy has studied these questions for more than thirty years, and he here presents compelling evidence of the human capacity for metanormal perception, cognition, movement, vitality, and spiritual development. Further, Murphy suggests that we can identify the activities that typically evoke these capacities, and assemble them into a coherent program of transformative practice. Such practice, he says. would constitute a crucial next step in the world's evolutionary adventure. The Future of the Body is a major monumental, and magnificent testament to the greatness of humankind. It points the way toward a new lexicon of the human spirit and is seminal to a new image of who we are and why we are here. It lifts us beyond petty. divisive, sectarian, and inherited beliefs on the one hand. and the deadly confines of academic-scientific assumptions on the other, and points beyond the 'biological constraints' of our all-too fragile flesh." -- Joseph C. Pearce, author of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, Magical Child, and Evolution's End Once in a generation, an idea so new, so bold, bursts forth that it shatters our neat categories and changes the way we view the human condition. The Future of the Body transforms our understanding of the body, the psyche, and the spirit." -- Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly Rarely does a book come along that changes the shape of our thought and perceptions. The Future of the Body is such a book. Michael Murphy turns our consideration of human evolution from the distant past to a vivid present and future. In measured words, he challenges us to move boldly toward a previously unimagined destiny." -- George Leonard, author of The Transformation, The Silent Pulse, and Mastery