The Vortex of Life

An updated version of this extraordinary book first published in 1993. Lawrence Edwards conducted pioneering work of on bud shapes, which he then developed to include the forms of plants, embryos and human organs. Following in the footsteps of Goethe, Steiner and (although not mentioned, Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson) he analyses the geometry of living forms in terms of what he calls path curves. These arose from simple and elementary mathematical thought-forms, which technically minded readers can study in the appendix. As the author states, the phenomena he describes would lead to a very different picture of the world from the one which is usually held -- 'a world in which the activities of plant and planet are inextricably bound together in intermingling rhythms, a world behaving like a giant organism.' his work will form one of the bases of our new holistic science.