Also by Matthew Fox
Letters to Pope Francis: Rebuilding a Church with Justice and Compassion
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (with Adam Bucko)
Hildegard of Bingen, a Saint for Our Times: Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and What Can Be Saved
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & the Transformation of Christianity
Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life (formerly On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear)
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing From Global Faiths
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Passion for Creation, The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart (formerly
Breakthrough) Wrestling With the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood For Our Time
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and The Birth of a Global Renaissance
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Meditations with Meister Eckhart
A Spirituality Named Compassion
Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest
Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works, Songs & Letters
Whee! We, Wee All the Way Home: A Guide to Sensual, Prophetic Spirituality
Religion USA: Religion and Culture by way of TIME Magazine
Manifesto for a Global Civilization (with Brian Swimme)
Passion for Creation: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality (formerly Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation)
In the Beginning there was Joy (children’s book, illustrated)
Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes, editor
Also by Rupert Sheldrake
A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation
The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature The Rebirth of Nature: The Greening of Science and God
Seven Experiments That Could Change the World
Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home
The Sense of Being Stared At
Science Set Free / The Science Delusion
Also by Matthew Fox
and Rupert Sheldrake
Natural Grace
We gratefully acknowledge permission from The Shrine of Wisdom, Fintry, Near Godalming, Surrey, England, to quote from their English translation of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, and from Cambridge University Press to quote from the English translation of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, originally published by Blackfriars, in conjunction with Eyre and Spottiswoode, London. We thank Tom Barnes for translating many of Hildegard of Bingen’s texts.
The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet. Copyright © 1996, 2014 by Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For information contact publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing Company, 22 East Market Street, Suite 304, Rhinebeck, New York, 12572
Originally published in trade paperback by HarperCollins in 1996. Monkfish Book Publishing trade paperback edition, 2014. First ebook edition, Monkfish Book Publishing, 2014.
Cover image: “ White Light ” © 1999 by Alex Grey, acrylic on wood.
Book and cover design: Danielle Ferrara
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Fox, Matthew.
The physics of angels : exploring the realm where science and Spirit meet / Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake.
eISBN 978-1-939681-29-4
1. Angels. 2. Angels—History of doctrines. 3. Physics—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Photon—Miscellanea. 5. Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite—Contributions in doctrine of angels. 6. Hildegard, Saint, 1098-1179—Contributions in doctrine of angels. 7. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274—Contributions in doctrine of angels. I. Title.
BT966.2.F68 1996
235’.3—dc20
96-12696
Monkfish Book Publishing ISBNs:
Paperback: 978-1-939681-28-7
Ebook: 978-1-939681-29-4
Printed in the United States of America
Monkfish Book Publishing
22 East Market Street, Suite 304
Rhinebeck, New York 12572
www.monkfishbookpublishing.com
To the Angels
In the hope that they return to guide us
Angel
1. A ministering spirit or divine messenger; one of an order of spiritual beings superior to man in power and intelligence, who are the attendants and messengers of the Deity; hence b. one of the fallen spirits, who rebelled against God; c. a guardian or attendant spirit; d. figurative, a person who resembles an angel in attributes or actions.
2. Any messenger of God, as a prophet or preacher; a pastor or minister of a church; poetical, a messenger; figurative, in angel of death.
3. transferred, A conventional figure with wings.
(The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1975)
Photon
A corpuscle or unit particle of light.
(The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1975)
A quantum of electromagnetic radiation that has zero rest mass and energy equal to the product of the frequency of the radiation and the Planck constant. In some contexts it is convenient to regard the photon as an elementary particle.
(The Penguin Dictionary of Physics, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1975)
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