Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman’s three greatest revelations while writing The Miraculous from the Material.

The advent of the telescope punctured our ideals about the nighttime sky.

Several years ago, I attended a Buddhist retreat in which I was introduced to the idea of the “retinue,” a constellation of influential and supportive people whom one imagines in an enveloping cloud as one meditates. Mentors. I took the concept one step further and decided to create an actual photo montage that I could […]

Vitalism in the age of modern science.

From a childhood hallucination to the halls of theoretical physics.