2019 Templeton Prize Nominee! "Gregg Braden is a rare blend of scientist, visionary and scholar with the ability to speak to our minds, while touching the wisdom of our hearts." — Deepak Chopra, M.D.
We’ve all seen examples of turning points in our lives or those of friends and family. They can happen spontaneously, or they may be created intentionally. It’s entirely possible that we’ve experienced both kinds without recognizing what we were seeing. So how do we know when one appears?
A familiar example of a turning point would be when a friend or family member undergoes successful surgery to correct a dangerous condition in his or her body. Whether it’s the removal of a life-threatening tumor or the repair of a vital organ, when such things happen, it’s commonly said that the surgery has given our loved one a “second chance.” In other words, Continue Reading
In each moment of every day, a conversation is taking place inside us that’s one of the most vital we will ever find ourselves engaged in. It’s the silent, often subconscious, and never-ending conversation of emotion-based signals between the heart and the brain. The reason this conversation is so important is that the quality of the emotional signal the heart sends to the brain determines what kind of chemicals are released into our bodies. When we feel what we would typically call negative emotions (for instance, anger,hate, jealousy, and rage), the heart sends a signal to the brain that mirrors our feelings. Such emotions are irregular and chaotic, and this is precisely what the signals they send to the brain look like. Continue Reading
It’s not just the emphatic warnings of overzealous environmentalists that tell us we’re in a time of climate extremes. It’s not just the elders of the world’s indigenous communities sharing the wisdom and warnings of their ancestors regarding our era. It’s the data itself that tells the story. And the data tells us that we’re living in a rare era of Continue Reading
After leaving the corporate world in 1990, I was living temporarily in the San Francisco area developing seminars and writing books by day.
In the evenings, I would work with clients who had asked for my help in understanding the role of belief in their lives and relationships.
One evening I scheduled an appointment with a client whom I’d worked with many times before.
Our session began as usual. As the woman relaxed into the wicker chair in front of me, I asked her to describe what had happened in the week since we’d last talked.
She began telling me about her relationship with her husband of 18 years. For much of the marriage they’d fought, sometimes violently. She had been on the receiving end of daily criticism and invalidation of everything from her Continue Reading
In 1955, H. K. Beecher, the chief of anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, published a landmark paper entitled “The Powerful Placebo.”1 In it, Beecher described his review of more than two dozen medical case histories and his findings, documenting that up to one-third of the patients healed from essentially nothing. The term used to describe this phenomenon was the placebo response—or, as it is more commonly known, the placebo effect.
Placebo is used to describe any form of treatment where patients are led to believe that they’re experiencing a beneficial procedure or receiving a curative agent, while in reality they’re given something that has no known healing properties.
The placebo can be as simple as a sugar pill or common saline solution or as complex as an actual surgery during which nothing is done. In other words, while the patients have agreed to participate in a medical study, they may not know precisely what their role in it will be. To test the placebo effect, they may undergo all of the experiences of surgery—including anesthesia, incisions, and sutures—while in reality nothing is added, taken away, or changed. Continue Reading
Just a couple of days after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, our local newspaper printed a story that rekindled my fascination with patterns. While I was moved by the life, ambition, and vision of Kennedy himself, the story was about the curious circumstances that surrounded his death. I read it and reread it.
The title of the article was “History Repeats Itself.” Its focus was on the eerie set of “coincidences” that connect the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy to another that had occurred nearly 100 years before—that of Abraham Lincoln. While I had always been interested in patterns and cycles, I had never really thought of them in terms of things like the deaths of Presidents.
At first I simply skimmed the statistics out of curiosity. While they were interesting, they seemed so generalized that I was unconvinced that there was any great mystery.
The visions of a world-age transition, and what follows it, extend far beyond the ancient and indigenous worldviews into the era of recorded history. For more than 400 years such visions of the future have fallen into the realm of prophecy, and the word itself has been nearly synonymous with the names of great seers such as Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus.
Born in 1503, Nostradamus was fascinated by the profound visions of ancient oracles and studied them to work on his own techniques of prophecy. Using what he learned, Nostradamus developed a gift of second sight that allowed him to peer—to remote-view—well into his future and even beyond ours, to witness events that had yet to occur with extraordinary detail and accuracy. In what is arguably his best-known work, Centuries, he recorded what he saw from his vantage point in the 16th century, through the next ten centuries, and then even beyond our time, ending in the year a.d. 3797. Some scholars believe his future sight may have extended even further. Continue Reading
It’s no secret that our world is in trouble. To many people, the problems just seem too big, and the solutions too unlikely, for them to take any kind of action. When we’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s often easier to deal with it all by ignoring the crises.
A perfect example of this, is what was happening to the world’s economic system in 2007. Even with the warning signs of the analysts blazing and the alarms of the experts blaring, no one wanted to believe what was happening to the financial systems of the world, and where the economy was headed. It’s too big to fail, was the thinking. They [the governments] could never let it break. And precisely this kind of thinking was the basis for the way in which loans were handled, and how money was disbursed and spent in the U.S. at the time.
In July 2008, I was speaking with the financial advisor who was responsible for the life savings of a retired family friend. Continue Reading
By any measure, the 20th century was a wild ride for the people of Earth. Between 1900 and 2000, we went from a world of about 1.6 billion to over 6 billion people, survived two world wars, squeaked through 44 years of the Cold War and 70,000 ready-to-go-at-the-touch-of-a-button nuclear missiles, unlocked the DNA code of life, walked on the moon, and ultimately made the computers that took the first humans into space look like children’s toys. It was 100 years of the most accelerated population growth, and the greatest threat of our extinction, in 5,000 years of recorded history.
In 2010, the hopes of the world were high as we witnessed an unprecedented gathering of world leaders in Denmark to determine how to respond to Earth’s changing climate: the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The purpose of the series of meetings was to discuss, and hopefully agree upon, some kind of action, akin to a treaty, that would address the change threatening the world’s way of life.
As the conference began, there were powerful signs of promise and cooperation among the leaders themselves (rather than their representatives); presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, and dictators alike had gathered to address a problem that transcends our differences of politics and policy.
By the end of the conference, however, hope faded into disappointment, then turned to despair over the outcome. Despite the best minds of the day preparing the research that brought the leaders together, Continue Reading
From the mid 1970s until the early 1990s, I was privileged to work among brilliant scientists and engineers developing some of the most advanced technology in recorded history. For corporations and universities alike, this was a time of tremendous momentum, as our nation was redefining its dependence upon foreign oil, as well as struggling to maintain its superiority during the Cold War and in the space program. Not surprisingly, the period of such intense research was accompanied by equally intense introspection.
In a very real sense, scientists were exploring the limits of their newfound capabilities to alter life and our planet at a level historically left to God and nature. It was the responsibility that comes with such awesome power that often sparked heated debates questioning our moral and ethical right to use such technologies—debates that I enthusiastically joined at every opportunity. Continue Reading
Many “firsts” happened in the 20th century: some good, some not so good, and some simply mind-boggling. Since 1900 the world has witnessed the first airplane and television, the first computers, and the first humans on the moon . . . along with the invention of microchips, the discovery of DNA, and the splitting of the atom. The world has also witnessed explosive, never-before seen growth in population.
It’s not just the emphatic warnings of overzealous environmentalists that tell us we’re in a time of climate extremes. It’s not just the elders of the world’s indigenous communities sharing the wisdom and warnings of their ancestors regarding our era. It’s the data itself that tells the story. And the data tells us that we’re living in a rare era of 
After leaving the corporate world in 1990, I was living temporarily in the San Francisco area developing seminars and writing books by day.
In 1955, H. K. Beecher, the chief of anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, published a landmark paper entitled “The Powerful Placebo.”1 In it, Beecher described his review of more than two dozen medical case histories and his findings, documenting that up to one-third of the patients healed from essentially nothing. The term used to describe this phenomenon was the placebo response—or, as it is more commonly known, the placebo effect.
Just a couple of days after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, our local newspaper printed a story that rekindled my fascination with patterns. While I was moved by the life, ambition, and vision of Kennedy himself, the story was about the curious circumstances that surrounded his death. I read it and reread it.
The visions of a world-age transition, and what follows it, extend far beyond the ancient and indigenous worldviews into the era of recorded history. For more than 400 years such visions of the future have fallen into the realm of prophecy, and the word itself has been nearly synonymous with the names of great seers such as Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus.
It’s no secret that our world is in trouble. To many people, the problems just seem too big, and the solutions too unlikely, for them to take any kind of action. When we’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s often easier to deal with it all by ignoring the crises.
By any measure, the 20th century was a wild ride for the people of Earth. Between 1900 and 2000, we went from a world of about 1.6 billion to over 6 billion people, survived two world wars, squeaked through 44 years of the Cold War and 70,000 ready-to-go-at-the-touch-of-a-button nuclear missiles, unlocked the DNA code of life, walked on the moon, and ultimately made the computers that took the first humans into space look like children’s toys. It was 100 years of the most accelerated population growth, and the greatest threat of our extinction, in 5,000 years of recorded history.
In 2010, the hopes of the world were high as we witnessed an unprecedented gathering of world leaders in Denmark to determine how to respond to Earth’s changing climate: the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The purpose of the series of meetings was to discuss, and hopefully agree upon, some kind of action, akin to a treaty, that would address the change threatening the world’s way of life.
From the mid 1970s until the early 1990s, I was privileged to work among brilliant scientists and engineers developing some of the most advanced technology in recorded history. For corporations and universities alike, this was a time of tremendous momentum, as our nation was redefining its dependence upon foreign oil, as well as struggling to maintain its superiority during the Cold War and in the space program. Not surprisingly, the period of such intense research was accompanied by equally intense introspection.
Many “firsts” happened in the 20th century: some good, some not so good, and some simply mind-boggling. Since 1900 the world has witnessed the first airplane and television, the first computers, and the first humans on the moon . . . along with the invention of microchips, the discovery of DNA, and the splitting of the atom. The world has also witnessed explosive, never-before seen growth in population.