I understand that a lot of the content of this (audio)book was published in another book many years back. This book starts with Edgar Mitchell’s interest in space since his early years, then moves on to his career as an astronaut and later his founding of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). This is deeply philosophical in a brave attempt at combining the analytical approach of science with traditional wisdom in spiritual practice.

His experience with outer space itself is less than a quarter of the book, and the rest of the book is devoted to his involvement with Noetic Sciences. Edgar’s lunar mission was a great success and the team stayed on the lunar surface for a few hours, bringing back a lot of lunar samples. As he saw the beauty of the Earth from the moon, and while on his return, he felt something change within him. Based on the reading he did after that, he says the best explanation for what he experienced is the concept of “Savikalpa Samadhi” in the Hindu tradition. He had this simultaneous feeling of experiencing the oneness of everything, while not entirely losing his individuality. He mentions that many astronauts experienced a change of perspective after space missions, and many of them subsequently took up creative pursuits (such as painting, craft, music etc) as hobbies or careers.

The urge to explore this further, without losing the scientific temper he had developed prompted him to start IONS. Incidentally, IONS features prominently in Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol”. The IONS had exploring consciousness as its most important goal. This led to his involvement with several interesting experiments, many of which the scientific community tended to dismiss outright. He mentions Uri Geller (his abilities appear quite controversial based on my casual reading on the net) and Norbu Chen as having strengths, which were definitely out of the usual. He also mentions a fascinating episode with his mother who had failing eyesight and improved remarkably with healing sessions. His mother asked Edgar if the healer was Christian and when told reluctantly that he was not, convinced herself that her improvement came from evil powers. This internalized self-belief then caused her eyesight to deteriorate again. Edgar says that this was a close personal experience of the power of what we believe. We see the world based on the beliefs we have accumulated over time and are never truly objective, though we think we are.

There is very detailed content covering our learnings from science – relativity & quantum mechanics, as also wisdom from tradition. Much of the content on the universe is what you would find in many other books, but the correlation to the internal experience is new.

If you have the aptitude for deep and detailed content, this is an excellent book. The audio narration by Charles Constant was very good.

My rating: 4.5 / 5.

This was a great audiobook and was certainly very interesting to read. I really loved the first half of the book learning about the authors preparation for his trip to space. The second half was very thought-provoking, looking at the authors studies of consciousness. Also, all different subjects around this as he set up support fun for research. It was certainly very interesting and well wrote. I also like the narrator. He was very fitting for this book and kept my attention. I really enjoyed reading this book and how it had me thinking. I definitely recommend reading this book if you enjoy space travel and consciousness.

Many thanks to the author and publishers for bringing us this very interesting book that I thoroughly enjoyed

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog today https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/from-outer-space-to-inner-space-by-dr-edgar-mitchell-tantor-audio-4-stars under ladyreading365

From Outer Space to Inner Space: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds by Dr Mitchell was an intriguing expose into looking at your inner self from an outer viewpoint. The orator to this book was very engaging and I felt put as much emphasis as the author did on certain spots in the book but once or twice per chapter.

The book starts off talking about his childhood a little bit as an adopted child and going forth into his relationship and getting married and having a family while trying to get the job of his dreams. He then transitions into speaking to you about what it was like applying to NASA, waiting for phone calls, and eventually being called up for the Apollo mission he endeavored upon.

His description of traveling to the Moon and what happened inside of the space shuttle not just his shall we say secret mission, but also his true mission of getting to the moon and completing his task. His further chapter is talking about what he learned from not just exploring space but also exploring the space of his mind, we're capturing and very easy for me to adapt my thoughts too.

Yes he's speaking about extraterrestrial and paranormal influences, but I felt the gist of the book was about realizing how small we are in such a large world and not to give so much meaning to things that we don't believe in.

This book was a genuinely great read and or listen and I highly suggest.

This book is part autobiography, part quantum physics, and part parapsychology. It's interesting, and does offer possible explanations for paranormal phenomena, but it's not exactly persuasive. Still, it's worth reading if you're interested in the topic and willing to keep an open mind.

The audiobook narration was well-down and easy to understand.

Thanks ,NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.