What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join - and more importantly, stay in - extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has.

The trauma that our world experienced in recent years—as result of both the pandemic and societal tensions that threaten to overwhelm us—has been unprecedented and is not going away anytime soon. It is clear that existing political and economic systems are not enough to bring the change that the world needs. In this book, Rainn Wilson explores the possibility and hope for a spiritual revolution, a “Soul Boom” in order to address today’s greatest issues—mental health, racism and sexism, climate change, and economic injustice.

Demystify mysticism and learn techniques to move yourself beyond emotional and intellectual blocks into a realm of clear insight and inner peace. In this complete curriculum for self-investigation Shinzen Young - one of America's foremost meditation teachers - covers traditional teachings, scientific insights, and practical instruction to show you exactly how enlightenment works, and how to begin your own journey to inner liberation. Topics include concentration, awareness, and merging techniques to explore the self and the world around you, how spiritual practices work in Buddhism, Christianity, Jewish mysticism, Sufism, Hinduism, shamanism, and many other mystical traditions, as well as 6 complete guided meditation sessions and a host of insights on how to choose and establish your own meditation practice.

When dealing with metaphysics and the paranormal, there are no degrees or certified experts. Each person writing on these subjects has developed their expertise through their experiences, personal research, and learning over many years. This compilation combines six books of mine into one compendium: Enlightenment for Newbies; Removing Illusions to Find True Happiness; Immortality: A History and How-to Guide; Prophecy: A History and How-to Guide; Using the Scientific Method to Study the Paranormal; and God Like Powers & Abilities.

From Harvard psychology professor Richard Alpert to psychedelic and spiritual icon, Ram Dass tells here, for the first time, the full arc of his remarkable life. Populated by a cast of luminaries, this intimate memoir chronicles Ram Dass’ life across nine decades of cultural and spiritual transformation that resonate with us to this day.

Buddhism is more than a religion. It’s a way of life that will help you learn how to live a stress free life. Buddhism, is all about learning how to let go and find your place in the universe. But, with all the books out there, it’s very hard to learn where to start down the path of Buddhism. At least, it was until now. In this book, you will find the answers to everything you have always wanted to know about Buddhism from the perspective of an absolute beginner.

If you want to focus on personal spiritual development and strive for a deep insight into the true nature of life, then continue reading.... "We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." -Buddha If our present suffering is the result of bad karma from a prior life, what is the real present remedy for suffering in this life? Who is the karma judge? And why mindfulness and meditation? If you don't understand the immediate answers to the above, you're not alone.

Almost 40 years since its original publication, Drawing Down the Moon continues to be the only detailed history of the burgeoning but still widely misunderstood Neo-Pagan subculture. Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this revised edition, Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.

For the past 20 years, Stuart Wilson and Joanna Prentis have been explored the early Essene community, the life of Jesus, and the power of the teachings of Mary Magdalene through the use of past life regression. Expanding on the information conveyed in their first two books, The Essenes and Power of the Magdalene, Wilson fully explores, with the assistance of the Essenes, the ancient mystery teachings of Mary Magdalene and Jesus that have never been revealed before.

The long-awaited, compelling sequel of the best-selling book The Essenes - Children of the Light. What is the secret of Mary Magdalene s power? Who were the female disciples of Jeshua? Did Jeshua and Mary Magdalene have a child? How can we understand the New Children now being born? What changes will the New Consciousness bring into our lives? This is the story of the Essenes and the female disciples of Jeshua who were deliberately marginalized and written out of the record.

Who was the mysterious man called Neville? In this concise work, PEN Award-winning author and historian Mitch Horowitz explores one of the most radical, finely developed, and intriguing intellects in modern metaphysics: Neville Goddard (1905-1972). Neville issued the ultimate challenge: your imagination is God. He had an ethic of empowering self-responsibility and boundless mental creativity. Neville's ideas are compelling and beautifully congruent with quantum physics and scholarly psychical research. As Mitch describes, Neville is modern mysticism's most penetrating voice.

A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages labeled "primitive" or "advanced". What counted as a family, a good meal, or even common sense was a product of history and circumstance, not of nature.

The book The Way of Zen Buddhism & Zen Mind for Beginners goes beyond teachings of spirituality. The main focus of the book is to empower you to reach your full potential as an individual. Here, you’ll be introduced to Zen minimalist aesthetics, which will help you go from zero to abundance in no time.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is generally regarded as the most authoritative yoga book. This consists of a set of 196 Indian sutras("threads") composed 1,700 years ago. Such threads or aphorisms have been collected by the Indian sage Patañjali and offer advice for a positive and purposeful existence.

Are you a beginner, seeking to understand what this wonderful, Kabbalistic way of life is all about? Perhaps you're seeking more information about Jewish mysticism? Whatever the case, this audiobook will show you the very basics about Kabbalah, the essential philosophies that form the foundations of Jewish mysticism, and how you can apply this knowledge to your life.

Almost 40 years since its original publication, Drawing Down the Moon continues to be the only detailed history of the burgeoning but still widely misunderstood Neo-Pagan subculture. Margot Adler attended ritual gatherings and interviewed a diverse, colorful gallery of people across the United States, people who find inspiration in ancient deities, nature, myth, even science fiction. In this revised edition, Adler takes a fascinating and honest look at the religious experiences, beliefs, and lifestyles of modern America's Pagan groups.

The question-and-answer format makes this introduction to Zen especially easy to understand - and also to use as a reference, as you can easily look up just the question you had in mind. The esteemed Zen teacher Norman Fischer and his old friend and teaching colleague Susan Moon (both of them in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) give this collaborative effort a playful tone: Susan asks a question on our behalf, Norman answers it, and then Sue challenges him.

As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little interest in the religious aspects of Buddhism, and the practice occurs within secular contexts such as hospitals, schools, and the workplace. Is it possible to recover from the Buddhist teachings a vision of human flourishing that is secular rather than religious without compromising the integrity of the tradition?

In God and the Evolving Universe, James Redfield and Michael Murphy present an important message of hope and a vision for the future. The authors contend that thousands of years of human striving have delivered us to this very moment, in which each act of self-development is creating a new stage in planetary evolution and the emergence of a human species possessed of vastly expanded spiritual experience.

Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities.

A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests, and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age.

A century ago, everyone knew that people were fated by their race, sex, and nationality to be more or less intelligent, nurturing, or warlike. But Columbia University professor Franz Boas looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Racial categories, he insisted, were biological fictions. Cultures did not come in neat packages labeled "primitive" or "advanced". What counted as a family, a good meal, or even common sense was a product of history and circumstance, not of nature.

The co-editors of Gnosis magazine explore the many esoteric traditions that Western culture has to offer. While terms from Eastern spiritual practices such as Zen, mantra, and karma have become part of our daily lexicon, the traditions of Western spirituality have been largely unexplored by people searching for non-mainstream routes to spiritual experience. But for those who identify with Western culture, Western religious traditions have their own wisdom teachings that are more suitable to their needs and expectations.

On the surface, this is a biography of an accomplished seeker who mastered the practices of yoga and brought a system for understanding the mysteries of body, mind, and spirit to students in the West. But, like the life of Swami Rama, this audiobook offers more than a sequence of astonishing events. As you read the stories of authentic guru-disciple relationships Swami Rama had both with his master and with his own students, you will see how the spiritual wisdom is transmitted through generations. This book also serves as a guide to advanced practices of yoga and tantra not commonly understood in modern times.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.

Do you feel at home right now? Or do you sense a hovering anxiety or uncertainty, an underlying unease that makes you feel just a bit uncomfortable, a bit distracted and disconnected from those around you? In The Road Home, Ethan Nichtern, a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, investigates the journey each of us takes to find where we belong.

In Reconnecting to the Source he unpacks the science behind spiritual experience, investigating the ways in which we can access realms of experience beyond the everyday. It is in these moments, when our conscious minds are in contact or perhaps even overridden by our unconscious selves, that we can explore the depths of spiritual meaning. In addition to a foreword by Deepak Chopra, the book includes new, never before published contributions from a long list of well-known writers and public figures.

The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity.

Within the concentric circles of Trump's regime lies an unseen culture of occultists, power-seekers, and mind-magicians whose influence is on the rise. In this unparalleled account, historian Gary Lachman examines the influence of occult and esoteric philosophy on the unexpected rise of the alt-right.

Consisting of fewer than 200 verses written in an obscure if not impenetrable language and style, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is today extolled by the yoga establishment as a perennial classic and guide to yoga practice. As David Gordon White demonstrates in this groundbreaking study, both of these assumptions are incorrect. Virtually forgotten in India for hundreds of years and maligned when it was first discovered in the West, the Yoga Sutra has been elevated to its present iconic status.