Book picks similar to
Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenomena by William R. Corliss
science
non-fiction
reference
parausual
Weird Virginia: Your Travel Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
Jeff Bahr - 2007
And it's precisely this offbeat sense of curiosity that led the duo to create Weird N.J. and the successful series that followed. The NOT shocking result? Every Weird book has become a best seller in its region! This best-selling series has sold more than one million copies...and counting! Thirty volumes of the Weird series have been published to great success since Weird New Jersey's 2003 debut.
Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics (Perennial Classics)
Gary Zukav - 1979
Like a Wu Li Master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking of gravity, Zukav writes in beautifully clear language—with no mathematical equations—opening our minds to the exciting new theories that are beginning to embrace the ultimate nature of our universe...Quantum mechanics, relativity, and beyond to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect and Bell's theorem.At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further: The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it. The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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.
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Stephen Jay Gould - 1995
With black and white illustrations. "Here is a new collection of Gould's unexpected connections between evolution and all manner of subjects, literature high among them. Gathered from his monthly column in "Natural History" magazine, these articles should delight, surprise, and inform his vast readership, as have his six prior volumes of essays. Somehow the light bulb pops on every month as his deadline approaches, some glowing fact pulled out of memory--often a line from Shakespeare or Tennyson--that illumines a generality Gould wishes to discuss. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" (Lord Alfred's line) induces dilations on the extent science can inform moral matters (not much, Gould believes); a remembrance of the infamous Wansee protocol prompts Gould's denunciation of the genocidal looting of evolutionary theory and, by extension, its vulnerability to ignoramuses in general. These two examples of the Gouldian essay method, fortunately, don't foreshadow a gloomy parade of topics: Gould can as easily alight at the fun house where mass culture absorbs ideas about evolution through movies of monsters run amok from Frankenstein to Jurassic Park. In other essays, he plunges directly into matters of evolutionary interpretation but customarily employs a literary twist: who else but Gould could link Edgar Allan Poe with his own area of professional eminence, the paleontology of snails? A discovery awaits in every essay--in every haystack--which solidifies Gould as one of the most eloquent science popularizers writing today."--"Booklist"
Red Star Over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin
David King - 2009
The book's urgent, cinema verite style plunges the reader into the shattering events that brought hope, chaos, heroism, and horror to the citizens of the world's first workers' state.The Russian Revolution produced some of the most important advances in the fields of art, photography, and graphic design in the 20th century. More than 550 of these widely influential materials are reproduced here to the highest quality, accompanied by author David King's accessible text. Zooming in from the epic to the particular, King rescues from obscurity many lost heroes and villains through the work of the most brilliant Soviet artists, many of them anonymous or long forgotten.
An Outline of Esoteric Science:
Rudolf Steiner - 1910
Outline of the processes of cosmic evolution, including detailed exercises for attaining higher conscious states.
The Flying Saucers Are Real
Donald Edward Keyhoe - 1950
Keyhoe states that while Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials for centuries, the Air Force was actively investigating these cases & hiding them. He researched sightings, concluding the saucers are interplanetary. Keyhow, who had some access to original military files, didn't believe in space visitors before starting this book. He examines the most prominent UFO cases up to 1950: the Kenneth Arnold sighting, the Mantell Crash, the Chiles-Whitted UFO sighting etc, offering his own views. After checking every other possible answer thoroughly, he saw that they didn't fit with the reports. This is a must for anyone who wants to know the truth about UFO phenomena. It wasn't only one of the 1st, but also one of the best reports ever written on the subject. There is no sensationalism in its pages, just cold, hard, well-researched facts. Keyhoe was one of the most prominent figures in the early history & development of UFO studies in the USA. His book established him as a leading figure in the field. Over the next two decades he'd be frequently interviewed on tv & radio. In '57 he became the leader of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), the largest, most influential civilian UFO research group of the '50s & 60s. He remained its leader until 1969.
Edgar Cayce on Atlantis
Edgar Evans Cayce - 1968
Drawing on his readings, and placed within the context of reincarnation, Edgar Cayce offers evidence of the civilisation of Atlantis - showing how its achievements and failures directly relate to the conflict and confusion of today.
The Seventh Sense: The Secrets of Remote Viewing as Told by a "Psychic Spy" for the U.S. Military
Lyn Buchanan - 2003
Now, for the first time, Lyn Buchanan -- a world-renowned expert on remote viewing and its potential -- tells the complete, candid story of his experiences. Assigned for nearly a decade to a clandestine U.S. Army intelligence group, Buchanan trained military personnel who utilized their inherent psychic abilities as a data-collection tool during the Iran hostage crisis, the Chernobyl disaster, and the Gulf War. In this incredible account, Buchanan tells how he was selected for his unique psychic abilities, and how he was transformed from an ordinary soldier into one of our nation's leading psychic spies. Working on top-secret government and military projects using "mental espionage" created permanent, life-altering changes within Buchanan. Now, after many years of analysis and interpretation, he reveals the techniques and mental exercises used to train remote viewers, and demonstrates that each of us carries a dormant psychic ability that we can explore and use ourselves. For anyone interested in a hard, scientific look at the reality of psychic covert operations in the world today, or anyone who has ever wondered if he or she could have the inherent skills to become a remote viewer, this fascinating chronicle of life as a psychic spy will reveal the answers.
A.D. After Disclosure: The People's Guide to Life After Contact
Richard M. Dolan - 2010
A.D. After Disclosure is all about what might happen after an announcement is made that UFOs are real.Someday soon, possibly this decade, our leaders may admit that people who have seen UFOs aren't crazy or liars, but honest, decent witnesses who have seen something extraordinary.Will Disclosure lead to social panic? Undermine religion? Destroy the stock market? Or will it lead to revolutionary new technologies, extended life spans, and world peace?If other civilizations have sent their own explorers across the universe to visit us, who are they? What do they want? And why would some of our own people have kept the news of their arrival from the rest of us? What will unmasking a truth of this magnitude do to our society, our way of life, our very reality?
Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives
Michael Newton - 2000
Michael Newton takes you once again into the heart of the spirit world. His groundbreaking research was first published in the bestselling Journey of Souls, the definitive study on the afterlife. Now, in Destiny of Souls, the saga continues with 70 case histories of real people who were regressed into their lives between lives. Dr. Newton answers the requests of the thousands of readers of the first book who wanted more details about various aspects of life on the other side. Destiny of Souls is also designed for the enjoyment of first-time readers who haven't read Journey of Souls. Explore the meaning behind your own spiritual memories as you read the stories of people in deep hypnosis, and learn fascinating details about: —Our purpose on Earth—Soul mates and spirit guides—Spiritual settings and where souls go after death—Soul travel between lives—Ways spirits connect with and comfort the living—The soul-brain connection —Why we choose certain bodies
Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory
Michael A. Cremo - 2003
Such anomalous evidence, contradicting Darwinian evolution, catalyzed a global inquiry: “If we did not evolve from apes then where did we come from?”Human Devolution is Michael A. Cremo’s definitive answer to that question: “We did not evolve up from matter; instead we devolved, or came down, from the realm of pure consciousness, spirit.” Basing his response on modern science and the world’s great wisdom traditions, including the Vedic philosophy of ancient India, Cremo proposes that before we ask the question, “Where did human beings come from?” we should first contemplate, “What is a human being?” For much of the twentieth century, most scientists assumed that a human being is simply a combination of ordinary physical elements. In Human Devolution, Cremo says it is more reasonable to assume that a human being is a combination of three distinct substances: matter, mind, and consciousness (or spirit). He shows how solid scientific evidence for a subtle mind element and a conscious self that can exist apart from the body has been systematically eliminated from mainstream science by a process of “knowledge filtration.”
Discover Atlantis: A Guide to Reclaiming the Wisdom of the Ancients
Diana Cooper - 2005
With guidance on how to understand the profound truths of the Atlantean culture, the fascinating and inspiring lives of these ancients are fully divulged—from their social structures, beliefs, and practices to their extraordinary technological knowledge. Special chapters devoted to crystals—from their essences and remedies to the crucial role they played in Atlantis—are also included.
Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred
Jeffrey J. Kripal - 2010
Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred. By tracing that history thru the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical study of religion. Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic Myers; writer Charles Fort; astronomer, computer scientist & ufologist Jacques Vallee; & philosopher & sociologist Bertrand Mheust. Thru incisive analyses of these thinkers, Kripal ushers readers into a beguiling world somewhere between fact, fiction & fraud. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation & UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of sf; cold war psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; & the intimate relationship between consciousness & culture all come together in Authors of the Impossible, a look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred & the scientific.