Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world’s fastest growing religion, with millions of members and huge financial holdings. Celebrity believers keep its profile high. Teams of volunteer ministers offer aid at disaster sites like Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a very closed faith, harassing journalists and others thru litigation & intimidation, even infiltrating high levels of the government to further its goals. Its attacks on psychiatry & its requirement that believers pay as much as tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars for salvation have drawn scrutiny and skepticism. Ex-members use the Internet to share stories of harassment and abuse. Reitman offers the first full journalistic history of the Church of Scientology, in an evenhanded account that establishes the truth about the controversial religion. She traces Scientology’s development from the birth of Dianetics to today, following its metamorphosis from a pseudoscientific self-help group to a global spiritual corporation with profound control over its followers and ex-followers. Based on five years of research, unprecedented access to Church officials, confidential documents and extensive interviews with current and former members, this is a defining book about a little-known world.

    Drawing on years of research & on thinkers from Plato to Jung, Tarnas explores the planetary correlations of epochal events like the French Revolution, the world wars & 9/11. Whether read as astrology updated for the quantum age or as a contemporary classic of spirituality, Cosmos & Psyche is an important work of sophistication & learning. importance.Preface1 The transformation of the cosmos. The birth of the modern selfThe dawn of a new universe Two paradigms of historyForging the self, disenchanting the worldThe cosmological situation today 2 In search of a deeper order. Two suitors: a parableThe interior quest Synchronicity & its implicationsThe archetypal cosmos3 Through the archetypal telescope. The evolving traditionArchetypal principlesThe planets Forms of correspondence Personal transit cycles Archetypal coherence & concrete diversityAssessing patterns of correlation 4 Epochs of revolution. From the French Revolution to the 1960sSynchronic & diachronic patterns in historyScientific & technological revolutionsAwakenings of the DionysianThe liberation of natureReligious rebellion & erotic emancipationFilling in the cyclical sequence The individual & the collectiveA larger view of the sixties5 Cycles of crisis & contraction. World Wars, Cold War & 9/11Historical contrasts & tensionsConservative empowermentSplitting, evil & terror"Moby Dick" & nature's depthHistorical determinism, realpolitik & apocalypseMoral courage, facing the shadow & the tension of oppositesParadigmatic works of artForging deep structures 6 Cycles of creativity & expansion. Opening new horizons Convergences of scientific breakthroughsSocial & political rebellions & awakeningsQuantum leaps & peak experiencesFrom Copernicus to DarwinMusic & literatureIconic moments & cultural milestonesGreat heights & shadowsHidden births 7 Awakenings of spirit & soul. Epochal shifts of cultural visionSpiritual epiphanies & the emergence of new religionsUtopian social visions Romanticism, imaginative genius & cosmic epiphanyRevelations of the numinous The great awakening of the Axial Age The late 20th century & the turn of the millennium8 Towards a new heaven & a new earth. Understanding the past, creating the futureObservations on future planetary alignmentsSources of the world orderEpilogueNotesSourcesAcknowledgmentsIndex

    Exploring the entire range of "contrary positions"—from noble dissident to gratuitous nag—Hitchens introduces the next generation to the minds and the misfits who influenced him, invoking such mentors as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, and George Orwell. As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. No other writer has matched Hitchens's understanding of the importance of disagreement—to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress, to democracy itself.

    This legendary underground classic contains absolutely everything worth knowing about absolutely anything. Discordianism is the religion for these screwed-up times, and Principia Discordia reveals it here for your enlightenment, confusion and entertainment.

    He lives in Canberra. In 1858, fourteen-year-old French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier was aboard the trader Saint-Paul when it was wrecked off the eastern tip of New Guinea. Scrambling into a longboat, Narcisse and the other survivors crossed almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of Far North Queensland. If not for the local Aboriginal people, Narcisse would have perished. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their Uutaalnganu world. Then, in 1875, his life was again turned upside down.Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.

    Shenon uncovers startling new information about the inner workings of the 9/11 Commission & its relationship with the Bush White House. The Commission will change the understanding of the 9/11 investigation & of the attacks themselves.

    Or April, the Neo-Nazi bringing up her twin daughters Lamb and Lynx (who have just formed a white-power folk group for kids called Prussian Blue), and her youngest daughter, Dresden. For a decade now, Louis Theroux has been making programs about offbeat characters on the fringes of U.S. society. Now he revisits the people who have most intrigued him to try to discover what motivates them, and why they believe the things they believe. From his Las Vegas base (where else?), Theroux calls on these assorted dreamers, schemers, and outlaws--and in the process finds out a little about the workings of his own mind. What does it mean, after all, to be weird, or "to be yourself"? Do we choose our beliefs or do our beliefs choose us? And is there something particularly weird about Americans? America, prepare yourself for a hilarious look in the mirror that has already taken the rest of the English-speaking world by storm: "Paul Theroux's son writes with just as clear an eye for character and place as his father.... And he's funny.... Theroux's final analysis of American weirdness is true and new." -- Literary Review (England)

    They thought there was no way you could possibly unmask the sick things they have been hiding. They were wrong. Now, thanks to the incredible revelations in this amazing book, you can discover their innermost secrets. You can identify the members of the Illuminati and unravel their astonishing plan to control and manipulate. You can crack the Illuminati code. Codex Magica is awesome in its scope and revelations. It contains over 1,000 actual photographs and illustrations. You'll see with your own eyes the world's leading politicians and celebrities-including America's richest and most powerful-caught in the act as they perform occult magic. Once you understand their covert signals and coded picture messages, your world will never be the same. Destiny will be made manifest. You will know the truth and everything will become clear.

    With clarity, perspective, and cumulative impact, Professor Quigley examines the nature of that transition through two world wars and a worldwide economic depression. As an interpretative historian, he tries to show each event in the full complexity of its historical context. The result is a unique work, notable in several ways. It gives a picture of the world in terms of the influence of different cultures and outlooks upon each other; it shows, more completely than in any similar work, the influence of science and technology on human life; and it explains, with unprecedented clarity, how the intricate financial and commercial patterns of the West prior to 1914 influenced the development of today's world.

    They face monumental decisions in unpredictable times; their actions have implications far beyond their own organizations; and they are judged mercilessly and incessantly by both their constituents and the media. Professionals, then, would do well to study the leadership traits that made Kennedy one of the most respected, beloved, and influential world leaders in modern history. John F. Kennedy on Leadership analyzes what made Kennedy, both before and during his Presidency, a unique and dominant force who would serve as the standard by which future leaders would be judged. Readers will learn the value of: * Planning and decision making: Consult widely, then act. * Crisis management: Don’t let events manage you. * Building a team: Find your own "Bobby." * Independence: Don’t follow the crowd. * Mistakes: Learn from them and move on. This timely (and timeless) book will be of interest to anyone involved in leadership.

    Siljander takes us on an eye-opening journey of personal, religious, and political discovery. In the 1980s, Siljander was a newly minted Reagan Republican from Michigan who joined Congress in the same generation as Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, ready to remake the world. A staunch member of the Religious Right, he once walked out of the National Prayer Breakfast when a speaker quoted from the Qur'an.But after losing reelection, Siljander dove into the Bible to look for the passage in which the Bible says it is our job as Christians to convert others in order to save them from eternal damnation. He couldn't find it; in fact, he couldn't even find a passage saying that Jesus set out to form a new religion. This discovery was the first step on a spiritual and political journey that started with an in-depth linguistic study of the Bible and led to the discovery that Christianity and Islam share many base words and concepts. In his role as ambassador to the United Nations Siljander began sharing his insights on the connections between Islam and Christianity, with surprising results. A Deadly Misunderstanding recounts Siljander's amazing discoveries as he travels to some of the most remote and hostile places in the world—deep into Libya, Sudan, Pakistan, and India—forging deep ties with both heads of state and religious leaders. What he has learned could radically shift the contemporary religious landscape and help heal the rift between Islam and the West. No Christian or Muslim will be unaffected after reading this book.

    The story continues to unfold, with the reputations of some of America’s best-loved literary figures—including Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Richard Wright—tarnished as their work for the intelligence agency has come to light.Finks is a tale of two CIAs, and how they blurred the line between propaganda and literature. One CIA created literary magazines that promoted American and European writers and cultural freedom, while the other toppled governments, using assassination and censorship as political tools. Defenders of the “cultural” CIA argue that it should have been lauded for boosting interest in the arts and freedom of thought, but the two CIAs had the same undercover goals, and shared many of the same methods: deception, subterfuge and intimidation.Finks demonstrates how the good-versus-bad CIA is a false divide, and that the cultural Cold Warriors again and again used anti-Communism as a lever to spy relentlessly on leftists, and indeed writers of all political inclinations, and thereby pushed U.S. democracy a little closer to the Soviet model of the surveillance state.

    Coming at the controversial subject of transsexualism from several angles–historical, sociological, psychological, medical–Rudacille discovered that gender variance is anything but new, that changing one’s gender has been met with both acceptance and hostility through the years, and that gender identity, like sexual orientation, appears to be inborn, not learned, though in some people the sex of the body does not match the sex of the brain. Informed not only by meticulous research, but also by the author’s interviews with prominent members of the transgender community, The Riddle of Gender is a sympathetic and wise look at a sexual revolution that calls into question many of our most deeply held assumptions about what it means to be a man, a woman, and a human being.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    By Way of Deception is the true story of an officer in Israel's most secret agency:Author's ForwardPrologue: Operation SphinxRecruitmentSchool DaysFreshmenSophomoresRookiesThe Belgian TableHairpieceHail & FarewellStrellaCarlosExocetCheckmateHelping ArafatOnly in AmericaOperation MosesHarbor InsuranceBeirutEpilogueAppendicesGlossary of TermsIndex

    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.