In the Zone: Transcendent Experience in Sports (Arkana)
This work is an updated edition of the authors' The Psychic Side of Sports (1978) and purports to define the frontiers of human potential. Murphy reports the experience of mystical sensations and altered sensory perceptions by athletes during extraordinary physical achievements. Countless subjective oral accounts are quoted with little skepticism; all seem to be taken at face value. The last section of the book contains White's well-executed 1500-item bibliography updated from the 1978 edition. The breadth of athletic achievement surveyed in both text and bibliography is extremely wide, ranging from Charles Lindbergh to Michael Jordan to Tibetan lung-gom-pa runners. Even Carlos Casteneda, Barbra Streisand, fire-walking, and sword-swallowing somehow make it into the text. Although this study is a bit too subjective and offers too many pat answers, it will likely find an audience in large sports collections.John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, N.J.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.