Creative Transformation is really two books. The first is a summary of common knowledge and my unconventional, speculative interpretation of this knowledge. I call this "The Evolutionary Perspective." This summary of physical, biological, and psychosocial evolution represents my thinking and my interactions with my students, from whom I learned much, from 1970 through 1983. It is required to understand the more radical, second part of Creative Transformation.

In the second part, "The Quantum Perspective," I develop a new theory linking biological evolution, personal creativity, and quantum mechanics. I have called this theory "Creative Transformation." It represents new ideas developed since 1983. The main focus of the second part is to provide a practical, easy-to-follow guide, for anyone who wishes it, to maximize his or her personal creativity and that of others through Creative Transformation.

The process of Creative Transformation has been developed by trial-and-error experimentation since 1970 [280]. It was not until 1984 that I understood the process well enough to begin more systematic experimentation. I now give you the results of all these experiments in the hope of accelerating your own creative transformation and helping you avoid many of the mistakes I made along the way.

Throughout the entire book I mix facts with radical extrapolations from facts in order to make sense of the world and achieve a full synthesis. The only measure of this unorthodox approach is how successful it is in increasing objective creativity for those who understand it. I have tried to make the theory and the practice of Creative Transformation as easy to understand as possible. I hope you will use what you can and correct whatever seems wrong to you. I will be astonished if this book has no errors. However, the type of synthesis being made here can still be worthwhile, even if many of the pieces are in partial error. Do not blind yourself to the beauty of the forest merely because a few trees have been inadvertently marred. We cannot create without risking error. Those who risk no errorcreate no new ideas. Truth is something that evolves, not a static edifice. If you can, please improve what is here and make it whole. This book is an attempt to correct the errors and extend the truth in my previous books. My next book will be an attempt to correct the errors and extend the truth in this book.

For many centuries many of the best-educated people in the world believed that the utterances of established authority were the best criteria for truth. The scientific revolution has shown us that authority is almost always wrong about almost everything. In 1600, Giordano Bruno was put to death as a heretic because he speculated that just as the sun was the center of our solar system, the stars were distant suns around which revolved planets with living beings on them. Galileo's much milder restatement of this speculation a few decades later, which was limited solely to our solar system, led to his being threatened with torture and execution by the Pope and his subordinates. Galileo was forced to publicly recant what he believed, and we now know is true, in order to avoid torture and death by authorities threatened by new truth.

In our own time we have seen scientific genetics debased in the Soviet Union because it threatened the authority of the Communist Party. We have also seen the theory of biological evolution under constant attack in the United States by religious fundamentalists and their political allies, including the President of the United States, because they felt it threatened their authority. Even the scientific community, which is supposed to be dedicated to truth, hounds and attacks anyone who threatens its authority. This happened when the American Association for the Advancement of Science, under the leadership of the eminent astronomer, Harlow Shapley, pilloried Immanuel Velikovsky and forced a major publisher (MacMillan) to stop distributing his book under threat of boycott by other scientists. I am no fan of Velikovsky, but I deplore this de facto suppression of ideas no matter how wrong they may be. Today, most scientists disparage and refuse to listen to anything that smacks of mysticism, while mystics disparage scientific method as being irrelevant to their truth. Each authority claims to be the sole source of truth and in the process destroys truth for all humanity.

The lay public does not realize that this happens all the time within the scientific community itself. It happened to Einstein when classically minded physicists, including Nobel laureates, disparaged relativity as "Jewish Physics" and when relativitists disparaged quantum mechanics as "spooky," to use Einstein's own word. It happens today among evolutionary scientists who militantly support one theory of evolution over another. This is the conflict between gradualists and catastrophists. Even so eminent a scientist as Fred Hoyle cannot get other scientists to listen to, let alone consider, his highly original, theoretically plausible, and experimentally testable radical ideas about evolution--which I do not share, butrespect. An equally eminent physicist, David Bohm, has the most coherent and scientifically elegant model for integrating relativity and quantummechanicsthatseemsuniformlysuperiortothecurrentlyfragmentedap-proachestothesesubjects.Yetthescientificcommunityignoresitbecauseit seems a radical, speculative departure from authoritative orthodoxy.

Too many of those who presume to be champions of truth live in fear of being ostracized by their peers for embracing or even considering an idea not sanctioned by the conformist authority of their community. Instead of expanding truth they become guardians of a status quo that destroys truth and punishes those who violate the popular prejudices of their peers.

All civilizations ultimately destroy themselves because too many of their members become afraid of new ideas, instead of playing with them to see whether they may be true. The playful generation and contemplation of new ideas is the basis of creativity. Ever growing creativity is essential for any civilization's survival--including our own.

I have done my best to ignore the popular prejudices of both the scientific-technocratic community and the humanistic-mystical community in a search for an understanding of the basic causes and the interrelationships between creativity, ethics, and evolution. The conclusions I have reached are radically different from what is currently popular or acceptable. However, it meets the only test I have for truth. It presently works and works extremely well in apparently making solely correct predictions with no incorrect prediction of reality. Above all, it leads to an enormous increase in the ability of each human being who wishes it to expand his or her own objective creativity and help all humanity do the same. This does not mean that this general model, which I call the "Theory of Creative Transformation," cannot be improved or that it has no flaws in it. It merely means that all truth is incomplete. Anyone who closes his or her mind to an objectively testable theory and technique for maximizing creativity merely because it goes against current popular prejudice cares little for truth or creativity and lives only for the illusion of security produced by conforming to popular belief. This book is written solely for those who value truth more than happiness and are prepared to stand alone, if necessary, in the pursuit of truth.

Many persons have helped me, including those who opposed me and disagreed with everything I believed. I would like to personally thank those who have been most helpful along the way. At the same time, I do not wish to imply that these persons are in any way responsible for any mistakes I may have introduced into the creative transformation process. I owe them much for what is valid. I alone am responsible for whatever may be invalid. Some of these persons may still disagree with my current work.

For their help in the early part of my work, I wish to thank Sandra Hass, Mary Ward, Michael Meredith, Joe and Betty Demkin, Humberto Fernandez Moran, as well as Prudenzia and Arthur Ceppos. For their helpin the latter part of my work, I would like to thank Amit and Maggie Goswami, Evelyn Lee, Guillermo Sanchez, Joy McKee, Mike Hatton, Susan and Robert Elder, Geoff and Terese Hughes, Janine Offett, Bob and Debbie Sandersfeldt, Cate Coughlin, Gloria Starr, Terry Orbeck, Anne Montgomery, Warren and Sonia Adler, Susan Walden, Jetti and William Alsdorf, Mary Kay Brent, Jeff Melcher, Sharon and Jordan Michels, and Gary and Jeanne Cook. Special thanks go to Ron Wolfe, Mike Allen, Isabel Gomez Cardona, Lorraine Miller, and Sonia Sujo for helping me prepare the manuscript of this book. For their help in editing the manuscript and preparing the book for publication, I give deepest thanks to Peter J. Dorman and Russell Becker. I wish to express my deepest appreciation to my publisher, Tony Parrotto, whose help and support since 1973 have been an essential contribution to whatever is of value in my work. Many other persons have also helped me. I thank you without naming you.

Most of all, I wish to thank my beloved wife, Bernice, whose love and support have sustained me through many difficulties since 1959. Thank you, Bernice, for being both my complementary pair and my catalyst. Thank you for Miriam, Karen, Elizabeth, and Laura, who are our equal and joint creation. You are a part of all I create.

John David Garcia
Fall Creek, Oregon
February 20, 1990