Book picks similar to
The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds by Edgar D. Mitchell
non-fiction
science
nonfiction
philosophy
The God Theory: Universes, Zero-Point Fields and What's Behind It All
Bernard Haisch - 2006
Minimal shelfwear. No markings. Pages are clean and bright. Binding is tight.
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge
Jeremy Narby - 1998
This adventure in science and imagination, which the Medical Tribune said might herald "a Copernican revolution for the life sciences," leads the reader through unexplored jungles and uncharted aspects of mind to the heart of knowledge.In a first-person narrative of scientific discovery that opens new perspectives on biology, anthropology, and the limits of rationalism, The Cosmic Serpent reveals how startlingly different the world around us appears when we open our minds to it.
Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
Michio Kaku - 2004
Kaku skillfully guides us through the latest innovations in string theory and its latest iteration, M-theory, which posits that our universe may be just one in an endless multiverse, a singular bubble floating in a sea of infinite bubble universes. If M-theory is proven correct, we may perhaps finally find answer to the question, “What happened before the big bang?” This is an exciting and unforgettable introduction into the new cutting-edge theories of physics and cosmology from one of the pre-eminent voices in the field.
The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena
Dean Radin - 1997
An articulate, engaging communicator, he wields impeccable credentials, a healthy skepticism & a meticulous scientific method to put psi phenomona like telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition & psychokinesis to hard scientific tests. His manifesto makes a persuasive case for the truth of psychic phenomena & places us on the cusp of what may well be the next great paradigm shift. Uniting the latest in high-tech experiments, including irrefutable data from his own groundbreaking research, with teachings of mystics & theories of quantum physics, he explores myriad phenomena from ESP to ghosts to psychokinesis. He reveals the remarkable extent to which psi is already tacitly acknowledged & exploited by Fortune 500 corporations & government, then analyzes how the inevitable mass acceptance of the mind-matter link will affect social, economic, academic, health & spiritual issues. At once visionary & pragmatic, The Conscious Universe recalls Godel, Escher, Bach & The Holographic Universe, yet transcends mere experiments to offer a bold vision.
Astrology of the Seers
David Frawley - 1990
It possesses a precise predictive value as well as a deep interpretation of the movement of life, unfolding the secrets of karma and destiny. Astrology of the Seers, first published in 1990, is regarded as one of the classic modern books on Vedic astrology, covering all the main aspects of its philosophy, background and practice. The present edition has been thoroughly revised and updated.
What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America
Tony Schwartz - 1995
At the height of his career as a journalist, Tony Schwartz hit an unexpected wall. Why did success suddenly feel so empty? How could he add richer meaning to his everyday life? What guides could he trust on the road to wisdom?During the next five years his search for answers took him from a meditation retreat in the mountains of Utah to a biofeedback laboratory in Kansas, from a peak-performance workshop at a tennis academy in Florida to a right-brain drawing course in Boston. Blending the hunger of a seeker with a journalist's hard-headed inquiry, he discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way. What he found dramatically changed his life. It may change yours as well.
The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality
Joseph Chilton Pearce - 1971
This logical universe creates a vicious circle of reasoning that robs our minds of power and prevents us from reaching our true potential. To step beyond that circle requires a centering and focus that today's society assaults on every level. Through the insights of Teilhard, Tillich, Jung, Jesus, Carlos Castaneda, and others, Joseph Chilton Pearce provides a mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell of current construct reality and leap into a new phase of human evolution.This enormously popular New Age classic is finally available again to challenge the assumptions of a new generation of readers and help them develop their potential through new creative modes of thinking. With a masterful synthesis of recent discoveries in physics, biology, and psychology, Pearce reveals the extraordinary relationship of mind and reality and nature's blueprint for a self-transcending humanity.
The 12th Planet
Zecharia Sitchin - 1976
Over the years, startling evidence has been uncovered, challenging established notions of the origins of life on Earth - evidence that suggests the evidence of an advanced group of extraterrestrials who once inhabited our world.The first book of the revolutionary Earth Chronicles series offers indisputable documentary evidence of the existence of the mysterious planet of Nibiru and tells why its astronauts came to Earth eons ago to fashion mankind in their image.The product of more than thirty years of meticulous research, The 12th Planet treats as fact, not myth, the tales of Creation, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and the Nefilim who married the daughters of man.
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
Carl Sagan - 1997
These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions as how did the universe originate and how will it end, and how can we meld science and compassion to meet the challenges of the coming century? Here, too, is a rare, private glimpse of Sagan's thoughts about love, death, and God as he struggled with fatal disease. Ever forward-looking and vibrant with the sparkle of his unquenchable curiosity, Billions & Billions is a testament to one of the great scientific minds of our day.
Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
Daniel L. Everett - 2008
Everett, then a Christian missionary, arrived among the Pirahã in 1977–with his wife and three young children–intending to convert them. What he found was a language that defies all existing linguistic theories and reflects a way of life that evades contemporary understanding: The Pirahã have no counting system and no fixed terms for color. They have no concept of war or of personal property. They live entirely in the present. Everett became obsessed with their language and its cultural and linguistic implications, and with the remarkable contentment with which they live–so much so that he eventually lost his faith in the God he’d hoped to introduce to them. Over three decades, Everett spent a total of seven years among the Pirahã, and his account of this lasting sojourn is an engrossing exploration of language that questions modern linguistic theory. It is also an anthropological investigation, an adventure story, and a riveting memoir of a life profoundly affected by exposure to a different culture. Written with extraordinary acuity, sensitivity, and openness, it is fascinating from first to last, rich with unparalleled insight into the nature of language, thought, and life itself.
The All-American Boys
Walter Cunningham - 1977
'The All-American Boys' is a no-holds barred candid memoir by a former Marine jet jockey and physicist who became NASA's second civilian astronaut.
Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey Into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism
Daniel Pinchbeck - 2002
While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe.Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival.Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.
Flight: My Life in Mission Control
Christopher Kraft - 2001
The first NASA flight director, Kraft emerged from boyhood in small-town America to become a visionary who played an integral role in what would become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It's all here, from the legendary Mercury missions that first sent Americans into space through the Gemini and Apollo missions that landed them on the moon. The great heroes of space are here, too-Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Buzz Aldrin-leading the space race that would change the course of U.S. history. From NASA's infancy to its greatest triumphs . . . from the calculated gambles to the near disasters to the pure luck that accompanied each mission, Flight relives the spellbinding events that captured the imagination of the world. It is a stirring tribute to the U.S. space program and to the men who risked their lives to take America on a flight into the unknown-from the man who was there for it all. "A highly readable memoir." (The New York Times Book Review) "A rewarding look at the brief, shining moment when space pathfinders held sway over space warriors." (The Washington Post)
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe
Laura Lynne Jackson - 2019
She possesses an incredible gift: the ability to communicate with loved ones who have passed, convey messages of love and healing, and impart a greater understanding of our interconnectedness. Though her abilities are exceptional, they are not unique, and that is the message at the core of this book. Understanding "the secret language of the universe" is a gift available to all. As we learn to ask for and recognize signs from the other side, we will start to find meaning where before there was only confusion, and see light in the darkness. We may decide to change paths, push toward love, pursue joy, and engage with life in a whole new way.In Signs, Jackson is able to bring the mystical into the everyday. She relates stories of people who have experienced uncanny revelations and instances of unexplained synchronicity, as well as others drawn from her own experience. There's the lost child who appears to his mother as a deer that approaches her unhesitatingly at a highway rest stop; the name written on a dollar bill that lets a terrified wife know that her husband will be okay; the Elvis Presley song that arrives at the exact moment of Jackson's own father's passing; and many others. This is a book that is inspiring and practical, deeply comforting and wonderfully motivational, in asking us to see beyond ourselves to a more magnificent universal design.
The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
Sean Carroll - 2016
Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Does human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview?In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level--and then how each connects to the other. Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique.Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning.The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.