The Tao Is Silent


Raymond M. Smullyan - 1977
    Neither alone is adequate; a purely passive serenity is kind of dull, and an anxiety-ridden awareness is not very appealing."This is more than a book on Chinese philosophy. It is a series of ideas inspired by Taoism that treats a wide variety of subjects about life in general. Smullyan sees the Taoist as "one who is not so much in search of something he hasn't, but who is enjoying what he has."Readers will be charmed and inspired by this witty, sophisticated, yet deeply religious author, whether he is discussing gardening, dogs, the art of napping, or computers who dream that they're human.

Erotism: Death and Sensuality


Georges Bataille - 1957
    He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade, from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss, and Dr. Kinsey; and the subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is "a psychological quest not alien to death."

The Way of the Shaman


Michael Harner - 1980
    Ten years after it was first published, this is still the leading resource and reference for all those interested in cross-cultural and current forms of shamanism: now with a new introduction and a list of current shamanic resources.

Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole


Robert Moss - 2012
    Moss teaches that our dreams give us maps we can use to find and bring home our lost or stolen soul parts. He shows how to recover animal spirits and ride the windhorse of spirit to places of healing and adventure in the larger reality. We discover how to heal ancestral wounds and open the way for cultural soul recovery.You’ll learn how to enter past lives, future lives, and the life experiences of parallel selves and bring back lessons and gifts. “It’s not just about keeping soul in the body,” Moss writes. “It’s about growing soul, becoming more than we ever were before.” With fierce joy, he incites us to take the creator’s leap and bring something new into our world.

The Commanding Self


Idries Shah - 1994
    The book serves to illustrate and amplify Idries Shah's preceding (over 20) books on the Sufi Way.

The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning


Iain McGilchrist - 2012
    In particular, McGilchrist suggests, the left hemisphere's obsession with reducing everything it sees to the level of minute, mechanistic detail is robbing modern society of the ability to understand and appreciate deeper human values. Accessible to readers who haven't yet read "The Master and His Emissary" as well as those who have, this is a fascinating, immensely thought-provoking essay that delves to the very heart of what it means to be human.

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases


Daniel Kahneman - 1982
    Individual chapters discuss the representativeness and availability heuristics, problems in judging covariation and control, overconfidence, multistage inference, social perception, medical diagnosis, risk perception, and methods for correcting and improving judgments under uncertainty. About half of the chapters are edited versions of classic articles; the remaining chapters are newly written for this book. Most review multiple studies or entire subareas of research and application rather than describing single experimental studies. This book will be useful to a wide range of students and researchers, as well as to decision makers seeking to gain insight into their judgments and to improve them.

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change


Jennifer Aaker - 2010
    But no book addresses how to harness the incredible power of social media to make a difference. "The Dragonfly Effect" shows you how to tap social media and consumer psychological insights to achieve a single, concrete goal. Named for the only insect that is able to move in any direction when its four wings are working in concert, this bookReveals the four "wings" of the Dragonfly Effect-and how they work together to produce colossal resultsFeatures original case studies of global organizations like the Gap, Starbucks, Kiva, Nike, eBay, Facebook; and start-ups like Groupon and COOKPAD, showing how they achieve social good and customer loyaltyLeverage the power of design thinking and psychological research with practical strategiesReveals how everyday people achieve unprecedented results-whether finding an almost impossible bone marrow match for a friend, raising millions for cancer research, or electing the current president of the United States"The Dragonfly Effect" shows that you don't need money or power to inspire seismic change.

The Nag Hammadi Library


Unknown Nag Hammadi
    It is a collection of religious and philosophic texts gathered and translated into Coptic by fourth-century Gnostic Christians and translated into English by dozens of highly reputable experts. First published in 1978, this is the revised 1988 edition supported by illuminating introductions to each document. The library itself is a diverse collection of texts that the Gnostics considered to be related to their heretical philosophy in some way. There are 45 separate titles, including a Coptic translation from the Greek of two well-known works: the Gospel of Thomas, attributed to Jesus' brother Judas, and Plato's Republic. The word gnosis is defined as "the immediate knowledge of spiritual truth." This doomed radical sect believed in being here now--withdrawing from the contamination of society and materiality--and that heaven is an internal state, not some place above the clouds. That this collection has resurfaced at this historical juncture is more than likely no coincidence.--P. Randall Cohan