This insider¿s autobiography exposes secret Buddhist practices, both traditional and current. Expect to learn things you couldn¿t imagine. After this ride that you¿ll always remember, reality will never look the same again.
What led scientists to have acrobats copulate inside an MRI machine? Why do wordless patterns of sound send shivers down our spines and tickle ancient parts of our brains? How did a chemist's quest to create a drug to ease the pain of childbirth result in the creation of LSD? And did it change our understanding of the brain forever? From tortoiseshell condoms to superstar athletes on hallucinogens, science writer Zoe Cormier dissects these and other burning questions, amplifying them with insights from some of the world's bravest, cleverest, and downright weirdest scientists. Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll explores science at the edge, where scientists ask big, strange questions -- and sometimes experiment on themselves to find answers. It shines a light into the lesser-known corners of scientific research to gain insight into the nature of consciousness, happiness, and humanity. Not to mention our parties. Here are stories of unconventional scientists, innovative inquiries, hedonistic impulses -- and how the renegades of science have illuminated the secrets of our baser impulses.
Parents want to know more about how to help their children succeed. Help Your Child Excel at Reading is full of information to help parents knowledgeably guide their children as they learn how to read and write so their children can achieve their full potential while feeling great and believing in themselves. Helpful for parents with children from 4 to 14 years and written by a teacher especially for parents empowers parents, it gives accurate information about the latest methods for teaching literacy links reading and writing strategies encourages the transfer of skills to new topics and developmental levels. Explaining how to help children achieve real reading success making reading something instinctive, as well as something they learn to love doing, the book discusses a consistent theme of developing all aspects of the child the emotional, social, and educational. It emphasizes the importance of the partnership between home and school, and discusses the different approaches to help children connect sounds, sound patterns in the written form and to use a variety of strategies to obtain meaning from reading, and to write meaningfully. Studies have proved the significance of early informal reading and writing before children begin school and the critical values of them understanding phonemic awareness early in the educational experience.
An award-winning journalist’s extraordinary account of being kidnapped and tortured in Syria by al Qaeda for two years—a revelatory memoir about war, human nature, and endurance that’s “the best of the genre, profound, poetic, and sorrowful” (The Atlantic). In 2012, American journalist Theo Padnos, fluent in Arabic, Russian, German, and French, traveled to a Turkish border town to write and report on the Syrian civil war. One afternoon in October, while walking through an olive grove, he met three young Syrians—who turned out to be al Qaeda operatives—and they captured him and kept him prisoner for nearly two years. On his first day, in the first of many prisons, Padnos was given a blindfold—a grime-stained scrap of fabric—that was his only possession throughout his horrific ordeal. Now, Padnos recounts his time in captivity in Syria, where he was frequently tortured at the hands of the al Qaeda affiliate, Jebhat al Nusra. We learn not only about Padnos’s harrowing experience, but we also get a firsthand account of life in a Syrian village, the nature of Islamic prisons, how captors interrogate someone suspected of being CIA, the ways that Islamic fighters shift identities and drift back and forth through the veil of Western civilization, and much more. No other journalist has lived among terrorists for as long as Theo has—and survived. As a resident of thirteen separate prisons in every part of rebel-occupied Syria, Theo witnessed a society adrift amid a steady stream of bombings, executions, torture, prayer, fasting, and exhibitions, all staged by the terrorists. Living within this tide of violence changed not only his personal identity but also profoundly altered his understanding of how to live. Offering fascinating, unprecedented insight into the state of Syria today, Blindfold is “a triumph of the human spirit” (The New York Times Book Review)—combining the emotional power of a captive’s memoir with a journalist’s account of a culture and a nation in conflict that is as urgent and important as ever.
From the zeniths of ecstasy to the dark depths of despair, one man's search for peace will lead him across a colorful landscape of strange adventures, through valleys of darkness, and high up into heavenly realms. After attempts to escape his mysterious past through sex, drugs, and violence; things end up in ruin. Life seemed hopeless. But then, a series of profound mystical experiences compel him along a different path. An unfoldment of the spiritual sciences opens up before him and leads the way to self-discovery, knowledge, and the tools to realize lasting happiness. In Sex Drugs and OM: An Autobiography of an American Yogi, a journey of a hundred lifetimes is undertaken by one man. It is a tale of the dark night of the soul that leads us into enlightenment. It speaks to all of us in search of something more from this life. And it lights the way to unraveling the secrets within.
In this refreshing look at economics and its relevance, the author shows how to apply economic principles to headline issues from sex, drugs, arms, and music to energy, movies, farming, the Internet and AIDS.
Buddhism and psychedelic experimentation share a common concern: the liberation of the mind. Zig Zag Zen launches the first serious inquiry into the moral, ethical, doctrinal, and transcendental considerations created by the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics. With a foreword by renowned Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor and a preface by historian of religion Huston Smith, along with numerous essays and interviews, Zig Zag Zen is a provocative and thoughtful exploration of altered states of consciousness and the potential for transformation. Accompanying each essay is a work of visionary art selected by artist Alex Grey, such as a vividly graphic work by Robert Venosa, a contemporary thangka painting by Robert Beer, and an exercise in emptiness in the form of an enso by a 17th-century Zen abbot. Packed with enlightening entries and art that lie outside the scope of mainstream anthologies, Zig Zag Zen offers eye-opening insights into alternate methods of inner exploration.
We don’t have to look to the East for the secrets of awakening—the wisdom and peace we seek is available right here, in our ordinary daily lives If you want to find inner peace and wisdom, you don’t need to move to an ashram or monastery. Your life, just as it is, is the perfect place to be. Here Jack Kornfield, one of America’s most respected Buddhist teachers, shares this and other key lessons gleaned from more than forty years of committed study and practice. Topics include: • How to cultivate loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity • Conscious parenting • Spirituality and sexuality • The way of forgiveness • Committing ourselves to healing the suffering in the world Bringing Home the Dharma includes simple meditation practices for awakening our buddha nature—our wise and understanding heart—amid the ups and downs of our ordinary daily lives.
Sex, Drugs & Magick can be considered a "scholarly" appraisal of both the historical and modern use (and misuse) of drugs in conjunction with sex and "occult" practices. But don't let the word "scholarly" put you off. Done in Wilson's inimitable style, this is a book filled with humor, cynicism, wonder and essential information for those who would pursue what can be an immensely rewarding path, potholed with an array of social and physical dangers.
Gaines is a self-described "bourbon-guzzling, pill-popping, penis-addicted, workaholic, tattooed Jew" with a Ph.D. and a pistol permit. "A Misfit's Manifesto" is about living with the contradictions. This is how she did it, and found God in all the unlikely places--like Ramones songs.