This book takes a critical look at psychiatric research, factors which compromise its integrity and which may steer us from paths that lead to healing. The lack of informed consent is a major problem in research, in which subjects are in emotional distress. This work suggests an alternative vision, one backed by scientific research and which can be lifesaving for persons going through crisis. Read this work if you want to take an independent look at the science involved, and a more effective way to help people.
As we live our lives, we repeatedly make decisions that shape our future circumstances and affect the sort of person we will be. When choosing whether to start a family, or deciding on a career, we often think we can assess the options by imagining what different experiences would be like for us. L. A. Paul argues that, for choices involving dramatically new experiences, we are confronted by the brute fact that we can know very little about our subjective futures. This has serious implications for our decisions. If we make life choices in the way we naturally and intuitively want to--by considering what we care about, and what our future selves will be like if we choose to have the experience--we only learn what we really need to know after we have already committed ourselves. If we try to escape the dilemma by avoiding an experience, we have still made a choice. Choosing rationally, then, may require us to regard big life decisions as choices to make discoveries, small and large, about the intrinsic nature of experience, and to recognize that part of the value of living authentically is to experience one's life and preferences in whatever way they may evolve in the wake of the choices one makes. Using classic philosophical examples about the nature of consciousness, and drawing on recent work in normative decision theory, cognitive science, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, Paul develops a rigorous account of transformative experience that sheds light on how we should understand real-world experience and our capacity to rationally map our subjective futures.
This work begins by entering a world in which normal things have dissolved and essences appear. With the emergence of a new physicality, mysteries are explored: the body's mineral/spiritual substance, the shape of one's soul/body, opposites joining to make a unity, and the experience of merging with animals and plants. A problematic future is also envisioned, in which factual reality has been deconstructed, and our connection to others is endangered. To help us, we are shown four true essences and four false ones. Come experience the path to the lost world of shared essences from the astronomical to the spiritual world.
Friends since childhood, Zoe and Tod, travel into the mountains of Guatemala where they explore the ways of village life. Invited to witness a Mayan ritual, they enter a deep cave. The New Year is to be brought in by the elders, but time is stopped and the ancient gods demand a sacrifice. In the swirling chaos of un-time, Zoe and Tod have a revelation that will change their lives.
In human prehistory, premature children were the evolutionary future. Kinder is an early child, whose survival depends on a fierce mother. Because the father is absent, she offers her child to the Elements for protection. A second child, Huntress, aids in their survival by helping to make an alliance with a young wolf. Dangers in prehistory abound, as human adults were the size of pre-teens, with predators much larger. Read this story to see how the "New Ones" survived to become the future of humankind.
A spirit-storm causes devastation across a land and the Flower of Life is rent. The quest to find its lost petals and center becomes the basis for this projected trilogy-length work. Drawing upon Southwestern and Eastern Woodland Cosmology, its title Servants of the Flower World, invokes the opposite of Lord of the Rings. It involves the drama of confrontation between good and evil, which takes place in This World and an inverted Flower World, in which the fate of both can go either way. Join us in imagining an alternate world composed of a rich variety of beings, in which the usual pattern of might makes right is upended in unexpected ways, and a coherent, alternative and life-giving vision is offered.
This work documents the surprising logarithmic pacing of human evolution. Starting at 8 million years ago with the first hominin, we keep halving units, revealing a series of distinct leaps in symbolic capacity. Ten major nodes include the first bipedal humans, the making of stone tools, ornaments, and figurines, the ritual burial of the dead, and drawing images in deep caves. We are given considerable cause to wonder about the beauty and meaning of symbols. Read this book if you want to become open to the deepest layers of symbolizing found in our humanity.
This work exposes us to the Amerindian world view, offering six awarenesses and six practices. An awareness, such as being in touch with the "shamanic bone soul" and actions such as "mandalic walking" can gift us with an enriching and complimentary world view. Drawing upon the author's own symbolic experiences and after years of study, he presents the essence of what he has learned. This work also draws upon two recent projects, interpreting markings on a stone tablet found near the Shenandoah River in Virginia, as well as a stone formation at Penn Bluff, Alabama, which resonates with Eastern Woodland symbolism. We are invited to enter into the Indigenous worldview, so that we may expand our sense of possibilities in the universe and live a fuller life.
The protagonist is a Wolf-dog, who after losing his pack, must find new friends to survive. Throughout the story he chooses between two groups, one more ragtag and appearing weak, and another with more power and less freedom. An intriguing class of characters appears, including a "Fire Lion", the Water Spouter, and a Dust Dragon.There's magic loose in this world too, as the Wolf-dog's shape can change, and he finds himself on either side. An array of paradoxes arises, and your boundaries of empathy are stretched. Come, take this fantastic journey in animals, which has a coherent world vision behind it. Reading this, you are invited to become aware of your light and shadow sides, and to find your true soul self.
This work explores the author's encounters with times he almost died. A reflection on such events, in which we approach the razor's edge between life and death, has something to teach us. The author invites you to explore the meaning of your own life's relationship to death. By his reflections he hopes to open a door to the unexpected discoveries of times we companioned with death, and how they might become life-giving.
