How To God:

What to do with all that New Age stuff

A Book Proposal

By Dennis R, Mannisto
106 E. Kingsley, Apt. 1 (due to change Aug. 25, 2003)
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Ph (cell) 734-709-0158 (remains the same)

EMAIL: @ yahoo .com, address me as denmanni - ASK AND I'LL SEND THE MSWord FILE.

(trying to impede spammers)

Length est.:    60-80,000 words
    Footnoted with bibliography
    Few illustrations, if any

CONCEPT: God is a verb, not just a name/noun. So it makes sense to ask what “godding” is, how it is done, and if we can do it. This book gives the history and explains the what, why, and how of learning “to god.” It reminds us that we are built for it, and encouraged to do so.

Proposal Table of Contents

Concept
About the Book
About the Author
About the Market
Competition Details
Production Details
Promotion
Contents-Outline, & Chapter Summaries
    How To God: 1st (working) outline
    How To God: A Synopsis
Sample Chapters
(Sample) Chapter 1: How To God, Or, “But You Never Asked” - draft
    This Book’s Organization
    This Book Claims …
(Sample) Chapter 8: The Names of God Mean … What? - draft
    Major Religions’ Deity Names & Key Words
    Minor Religions’ Names & Clues
    Clues from the New Age of Spirituality
    Taken Together
    Counter Arguments
Appendices
    Your Expressed Interest in the Book
    Author Web Links
    “Idea Tree” of the Book

Concept

New Age books cover “spiritual journeys,” past lives, near death experience, channeling, ancient wisdom, the physics and the physiology of consciousness, and disparate versions of universal truth. Now this huge audience seeks a prescriptive manual rather than more description; the proof is Ruiz’s Four Agreements and its collaterals. The proposed book will offer an answer to the question that’s never asked but implicitly motivates the entire genre’s audience: What, in some sensible way, am I to do with all this weird stuff?

How To God takes the next logical step in a New Age reader’s library: it prescribes rather than describes. A saturated reader will ignore another near-death-experience (NDE) or private spiritual journey. They’ve read several already. And savvy readers need more than Don Miguel Ruiz’s best-selling Four Agreements or Gary Zukav’s anecdotal Heart of the Soul. They need facts, evidence, counter-argument, and a well-reasoned basis for attempting any method of applying so-called “wisdom” to their lives. They rejected mainstream religion’s “faith” argument and have no intention of falling into the same nonsense, regardless how attractive the new promised land may be. They acknowledge spirituality but in their hearts cling to stronger beliefs in hard science. But those readers – like me – keep looking and reading, feeling only a vague longing: we want an answer but can’t even form a proper question.

The quantum linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford’s web pages gave me an answer that helped me recognize and form the question that had driven much of my own search, and that ultimately crystallized into the proposed book.

Alford’s web pages about Native American language (First Nation in Canada) provide a Cherokee word that is usually translated into English as “God,” or Great White Spirit. However, he says, their word is more accurately translated as “think-breathe-create.” He says that “god” is a verb in Cherokee, not a thing or a being.

With that tidbit the New Age literature’s unasked question became clear: Can I “god” and if so, how do I ‘god’?

About the Book

Dr. Alford died almost to the day that I sent an email asking about Native American mathematics. As a linguistics scholar he had spent years researching their various languages. As a self-described quantum linguist he had followed and contributed to an online discussion among physicists about New Physics – non-Newtownian, nonclassical, often non-Einsteinian physics {see, e.g., Dr. J. Sarfatti’s web site http://www.stardrive.org/title.shtml} – that I, a non-physicist, also followed. One day it occurred to me that Native people who use a language unlike any European tongue might think very differently about quantities and have a completely different kind of mathematics. In the context of physics, where math is the ultimate tool of understanding, and in a discussion about the physics of consciousness and creation, my question seemed especially important. Sadly he could not answer. But the question needs an answer.

How To God coalesced after many years of private reading and research devoted to consciousness as a scientific and as a spiritual and philosophical subject. It crystallized into the working title because Alford reports that Native languages, Cherokee in particular, use words for “god” that are not names, pronouns, or nouns but verbs. Their word is translated by Alford into English as “think-breathe-create.” His web pages include one titled “God is a Verb.” After all my reading it clicked: if “god” is a verb, an action, then it can be learned, practiced, and taught. I knew that sacred texts held subtle anomalies, but Alford’s tidbit exposed a concurrence across cultures that has eluded every other writer: “god” is always a verb, and we can learn “to god,” and were meant to do so. Surprisingly, a string theorist’s remark about the fundamental levels of matter seems to unintentionally agree.

Superficially “godding” seems only to be a variation of visualization popularized by author Shakti Gawain. While visualization plays a role, it is only a useful stepping stone. In addition to visual thinking, “godding” also requires breathing and creating. To be able “to god” – to know how-to – also requires some serious examination of those three components. Just for example, almost all deity names in all traditions have linguistic roots that are verbs, not nouns. It takes a chapter (see the sample chapter) to cover only some of those names. Thus I propose a book rather than an article.

How To God uses research originally intended for a doctoral thesis on consciousness and language, inspired by Michael Talbot’s popular 1991 book The Holographic Universe. My intended professor suggested writing a book rather than spending money on a Ph.D. that would offer only paltry financial gain, if any at all, to a 50 year old student (the author.) To see preparatory work for that thesis, two old (1999) versions of my rough bibliography remain at my banner-plagued freebie web site: See either http://denmanni.tripod.com/biblintz.htm or http://denmanni.tripod.com/biblio.html Much, but not all, of that old bibliography will support my argument that “god” is a verb and is a technique that anyone can learn.

The thesis/book changed form and direction almost daily until it clicked last fall. My original synopsis’s draft ran to 8,300 words. That draft came from a single page “idea tree” of circles and arrows, included in the Appendix to this proposal (hardcopy only.) Briefly:

Cherokee language suggests that activeness, not beings or things, created the universe
Other major and minor sacred traditions seem to say the same thing
String theory in current physics explicitly reduces the universe to action rather than objects
New Age prescriptive works dance around the obvious implication of these facts:
- “God” is an action, a fundamental” activeness” that repeats, multiplies, and combines in complexes that appear to be matter endowed with volition
- Because it is an action, and both sacred and scientific literature encourages us, it behooves us to learn how “to god.”

The argument is not ironclad. But the facts presented encourage us to draw a general conclusion from the disparate facts.

Assuming that my existing and planned source material bear fruit, How To God will take one of two forms. My first, and preferred, option is to write a very thorough, well researched and footnoted book supporting every step of my argument. This is not a doctoral thesis, but it should present a general reader with thorough information that they would expect from a serious nonfiction author. Structurally it will follow the general form of

Claim – reason – evidence – counter-claim – restricted claim

This form comes from The Craft of Research. Sample chapter 8 (below) broadly uses this form. Whenever and wherever possible the argument will provide anecdotes and examples. Although narrative form – an overall story line a la fictional technique – would make the reading fun, a reader would find it cumbersome and / or frivolous. Simply telling the author’s story of discovery would make it just another ho-hum, narcissistic journal. How To God will use research format but address it to general readers.

How To God also introduces some new ideas. First, of course, is its assertion that “god” is a verb. Within the book’s argument I also introduce the idea that action can be mathematically rigorized, but not with standard formulae. Instead I suggest creating a kind of “active math” to counterbalance existing object oriented math. Elsewhere in the book I introduce a counterbalance to complexity theory’s notion of “complex adaptive systems.” I suggest that string theory requires a corresponding “complex adaptive action.” Both of these ideas deserve books of their own to persuade scholars; but this book merely introduces the ideas to support the main argument.

As an alternative to thorough research and argument I’d write – with mass-market audiences in mind – a straight 30-40,000 word how-to. Reasoning, argument, and supporting evidence are minimized in this variation, and How To God begins to look like Ruiz’s short but clear and successful Four Agreements, or Gary Zukav’s Heart of the Soul. In other words, explain step one adding that it involves “x” because of “y,” then cover the next step, etc. Wrap it up with exercises, anecdotal examples of success, and provide a plan for the reader’s future use of the skill. This is faster to write, but difficult to defend.

About the Author

Who can tell you How To God? The author is the first and only person to recognize that this question, this particular “how to,” is the goal of most “spiritual searching.” He is the first to assemble the puzzle of scientific, physiological, psychological, linguistic, and sacred evidence for that claim, and share it. Obviously a 100 generations of Native American speakers understood their language’s god-as-action, but they offer no hard evidence to support or explain the activeness of spirit, much less supplement it with theoretical physics. Their reported shamanic / spiritual practices seem disconnected from hard evidence that I believe exists both in other languages and in science. Similarly, many writers address the links between science and spirit; Zukav and physicists Fred Alan Wolfe and Amit Goswami are just three. But science has burdened them with constraints that even they have overlooked: Science depends upon math that, in turn, lacks a precise definition of action and activeness.

This is the author’s first general nonfiction book. It follows years of business, corporate, and small press writing. A resume and portfolio of prior work are available online at his business website, http://www.freewebs.com/reliablewriting/. Most prior work is available for review if needed, but is generally unrelated to the proposed book.

About the Market

The enormous New Age market already exists. Barnes and Nobles’s website says it “found 2,635 titles with keywords ‘New Age.’” Amazon reports “26,695 results.” Don Miguel Ruiz’s little trade paperback (see next section) was a runaway success (506,867 sold in 2002, its second year of sales) because, I believe, it was prescriptive rather than descriptive, do-able rather than complex, and clear. Another older best-selling prescriptive new age title – Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization has sold regularly since 1979 and is now (2002) in a new edition.

Publisher’s Weekly’s 7/14/03 forecast of new titles in religion includes four prescriptive new age books. In PW’s 6/30/03 “Religion Update” it said, “the subcategory of religious or spiritual self-help continues to be the backbone of … many publishing programs.” Indeed, the spiritual seeker’s market has demanded prescriptive how-to’s for millennia. The ancient Gnostic version of Jesus’s “Gospel of Peace” (trans by E. B. Szekely [I..B.S., Nelson, B.C., Canada] but abridged by mainstream Christianity as the “Sermon on the Mount”) itself begins with a plea for advice.

All of those readers want something, and all those books give readers valuable information. But even the best miss the mark because they don’t ask the proper question, and lack scientific support them. Without a deliberate intent to hit a specific bulls-eye – a target that no one but the author has identified ? readers only notice a hole in the center of the spiritual self-help genre. Only the author’s book approaches this bulls-eye, offering to fill the hole. But, some books do come close.

Competition Details

Don Miguel Ruiz scored a marketing bulls-eye with his huge hit The Four Agreements and then followed it with several related books. How To God refers to Ruiz because he provides one of the clues that agree with Alford’s explanation of Cherokee godding. Ruiz practices Toltec shamanism and teaches its core principles. At a lecture he explicitly said that the word “toltec” translates as, or means, “artist” in the sense of creator. His work is, therefore, both direct competition to How To God and support for its thesis. Without realizing it he gives readers his method for doing what How To God calls “godding.” His books never acknowledge the explicit correspondence of his tradition to others, and certainly never connect his prescription to mainstream Western science. Four Agreements hardly indicates the profound depth of what it is that he teaches. Ruiz gave a great prescription from a shaman’s perspective, but missed the similarity of his work to other spiritual traditions.

Astrid Fitzgerald’s recent (2002), but less successful, Mind Consciousness Bliss provides a much weightier prescription for living life. The bulk of the book provides a wonderful compilation of quotations from acknowledged major and minor masters from many spiritual traditions. The final third explicitly gives her prescription. One reader’s online review of her book bluntly said that her final section was the most useful. However her volume provides only a method and cheerleading from ancient Masters. It never presents an arguable reason for, or evidence in support of, the recommended practices. While useful for uncritical readers who are content with assertions from gurus and promises of rewards, Mind Consciousness Bliss misses the common thread, misses the reason for that thread, and ignores a rational explanation for the successes that it claims a reader can achieve.

26,000 titles make competitive analysis difficult, but the two above are prescriptive like the proposed book, and demonstrate successful sales by competitors. Gawain’s new edition reinforces the demand for books like the author’s, while revealing that the hole that it will fill still exists.

Production Details

Length est.: 60-80,000 words (note: an alternate, simple version, is 30-40,000 words.)

BUDGET: Interviews, some books, expenses to live, some travel
Footnoted with bibliography
A few illustrations: illustrators include www.mishaanton.com (successful commercial artist), and http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/index.html (commercially successful book illustrator and life-long friend.)
- An essential illustration is a variation of Newsweek’s cover for Feb. 19, 1996.
Editing and proofreading by other freelancers; the author works with experienced academic editors and published authors (e.g., Fred Alan Maxwell wrote Bad Boy Ballmer.)
Indexing by professional indexer.

Having created an idea tree / bubble plan, and an outline from it, then drafting an 8,300 word synopsis (reduced to 2,200 below), it became clear that How To God needed additional research above and beyond the work done during the past 5-10 years.

The book’s current sources are all published: books, magazines, and journals. Some finer points will require the primary research of interviews with specialists in many fields: string theory physicists, linguistic specialists, scholars of Native and aboriginal languages, mathematical physicists, philosophers, psychologists, and physiologists studying consciousness, as well as non-scholars engaged in shamanistic, spiritual, and similar activities. Potential interviewees include competitive author-shaman Don Miguel Ruiz, physicist-authors Fred Alan Wolf (Spiritual Universe) and Amit Goswami (Physics of the Soul), mathematical physicist Roger Penrose (Shadows of the Mind), string theorist Gordon Kane (conveniently a physics professor at the U. of Michigan Ann Arbor, where the author lives), and lesser known specialists in Hebrew, Arabic, and Native American languages.

This primary research can, the author hopes, occur with phone calls and emails rather than expensive travel. Such work does, however come with costs for phones and tapes and taping equipment. Some research will require travel; for example, there are few or no local speakers of Native American languages, regardless the Indian reservations in the author’s home state of Michigan. Travel to meet with Cherokee and other native speakers and teachers can be minimized by driving rather than flying; but it cannot be eliminated.

Additional published source material is also needed. The enormous research library at Univ. of Michigan, is six blocks away and inter-library loans fill blank spots. Photocopying and gas mileage is the largest expense. Some books will require purchase to allow mark-ups during the writing.

Production expenses, while nominal, include funding for all of life’s normal needs during a full time effort to produce a significant work rapidly. Six months of unflagging work, plus some brief and cheap travel, plus incidental costs (copies, basic office support, ISP, etc.) amount to little more than an average office job costs a straight employer.
Bare bones* budget, basic living:

$700 rent/mo
$290 utilities& related + internet / mo
$400 automobile + insurance / mo + gas
$100 books + copying, printing /mo
$200 travel [/mo based on $1000 est. total]

            SubTOTAL EST/mo    $1690
                  TOTAL [6 mo]    $10140
    *”barebones” means food is extra*

The author will teach part time (ESL) to supplement this budget, and will do freelance work as it appears. This budget is low: $1690 equates to earning only about $10/hr. before taxes.

Production and completion are almost guaranteed: freeing the author from life’s financial demands eliminates work would leave little time to write. A budgeted advance accelerates a publisher’s recovery of the investment in the book; otherwise, it delays the payoff. “Almost guaranteed,” acknowledges the reality that research can alter what is proposed.

Promotion

The author can be available 100% of the time, anywhere. Divorced with one child (a senior in pre-med), nothing impedes promotional work or travel. Nothing except the lack of a budget. And complete availability only accompanies unemployment. With that caveat the author can:

Prepare and offer excerpts to magazines and newspapers. One likely newspaper is Phenomenews, a free monthly paper serving about 25,000 readers in southeast Michigan and beyond. The editors also do a weekly new age AM radio show (WPON in the Detroit area) on which the author could appear.
Seek radio interviews, such as above, elsewhere. NPR’s syndicated talk show “The Todd Mundt Show,” for example, is produced within walking distance of the author’s current home.
Appear at bookstores for signings and brief introductory talks. Borders Books’ corporate headquarters is also in Ann Arbor, but the region also includes a number of stores specializing in New Age material, e.g., Crazy Wisdom Books is two blocks from the author.
Give short lectures, seminars, and the like, and prepare simple advertising materials for them. Again, the budget will restrict or expand the author’s chances to speak publicly, but a very large church consistently invites New Age speakers (Church of Today, until recently led by best selling new age author Marianne Williamson).
Travel extensively as needed if affordable. Expenses can be minimized during summer weather because the author loves camping much more than hotels.

In short, the author is ready and eager to fully promote the published work within his financial constraints, and aggressively with a modest promotional budget.

Contents-Outline, & Chapter Summaries

How To God: 1st (working) outline

    [An alternate outline is simply: Who What How When Where Why]

1.    How To God, or ‘But You Never Asked’ {alt.: “The title is correct”}
2.    A little history of “Reality”
    2.1.    Religion and what seems to work
    2.2.    Science seeks something that works better
    2.3.    Science & physics in particular
    2.4.    String theory and vibratoriness
3.    Complexity theory
    3.1.    Complexity theory in a nutshell
    3.2.    Complexity yields CASs
4.    More Science: Consciousness Studies
    4.1.    Astonishing Hypothesis reduces ‘All’ to lifelessness
5.    Science rests on philosophy
    5.1.    How did this conundrum – object vs. action –occur?
6.    Science’s Problem
    6.1.    Math’s problem: it lacks verbs
    6.2.    Math’s value: linguistic verbs lack precision
    6.3.    Language generally
    6.4.    Math of verbs
    6.5.    Linguistics: Alford on “Processy” Native American Language
    6.6.    Steiner & the ‘New Isis’
7.    Alternatives to Science
8.    Hints from the Names of God
    8.1.    Mainstream “religion”
    8.2.    Non mainstream and Minor “religion”
    8.3.    New Age “religion”
    8.4.    Taken Together
    8.5.    Counterarguments
9.    Science, Reprise
10.    This is Godding: Think-Breathe-Create
    10.1.    Isn’t “Godding” just “Visualization”? or Why visualization fails
    10.2.    Thinking and what it means in the context of Godding
    10.3.    Breathing in the context of Godding
    10.4.    Creating in the context of Godding
    10.5.    Practice Makes Perfect, but you can’t become God
11.    Huna from Strings: How it works & Why
    11.1.    Why do this?
    11.2.    Does this Usurp God?
    11.3.    Practical Applications
    11.4.    Risks, dangers, failures, and forewarnings from Experience
12.    Godding and God vs. Religion & Politics
    12.1.    Godding vs. Science
    12.2.    Value of “Godding” this way
13.    The Point
14.    Epilogue – what prompted me
15.    Notes
16.    Bibliography / References
17.    Index

How To God: A Synopsis

The book begins by telling the reader “God” is a verb. Here I try to defer misunderstanding and distinguish this book about the word from books about the “word of god,” and from books about how to “do God’s work.” This book is about language; the meaning of this one word indicates that we, ordinary people, can also do great things. I touch on the book’s organization, and conclude with the section “This Book Claims.” This chapter is included as a one of the samples; see below.

Chapter 2 provides a brief history of “reality” as we Western people have understood it. The Church largely dominated European thought for a thousand years until the Renaissance. The rise of science replaced the Church’s obviously failing worldview with a far more useful one. Science has brought us from old notions of a Creator to today’s Big Bang and String theory. The latter itself now hypothesizes that a fundamental vibratoriness – without an actual thing doing the vibrating – underlies all of physical reality. From there I touch on the other sciences, on engineering’s spectacular successes – since the Church’s view was replaced – and end with computer science and complexity theory.

Chapter 3 presents an extreme simplification of complexity theory and complex systems. Those scientists now routinely refer to a special kind of complex system as a complex adaptive system (CAS), something that becomes a whole and adapts as needed. These CASs form not from a predetermined plan, but rather from the simple actions of millions of simple similar components: a person consists of trillions of simple cells. Generically CASs self-organize as a consequence of simple “agents” (the components) obeying their own rules; there is no boss, no planner, no king, it (a CAS) simply “emerges.” Despite the brilliance of complexity theory and its amazing usefulness, every CAS depends upon an object – or “agent” – taking action. Physicists in the same departments at the same universities concurrently assert that no fundamental object exists at the bottom of reality; only action becomes an object. Worse yet, quantum physicist Roland Omnes explicitly says that “we do not know what ‘action’ is or where it comes from.” I present the radically new notion that science needs to add another concept to its artillery: a CAA, a “complex adaptive action,” an emergent large action involving myriad concurrent small acts. My notion evolved from reading in another hot scientific field: Consciousness Studies.

Chapter 4 introduces the scientific study of consciousness as a new effort to rigorize what has traditionally fallen into the hands of philosophers. I provide a brief overview of the field, the wealth of technical literature on mind, brain, psychology, and such. Some of the major names in the field are philosophers David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, and Ken Wilbur. Scientists generally include psychologists, neauroanatomists, neuro-psychologists, and biochemists. Chalmers posed a well known question called “the hard problem.” He asked, “How does a brain give rise to consciousness?” The field also produced Newburg’s book Why God Won’t Go Away in which he concludes we are anatomically hardwired for mystical experience. Wilbur has offered a rough “integral theory of consciousness,” but lacks details to support it. Other scientists simply assert and justify claims that consciousness is an illusion, among them Nobel Laureate Francis Crick.

Continuing in this chapter I consider biochemist Crick’s assertion that what seems to be our consciousness and feelings actually consists of nothing more than “the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” At personal risk of making an amateur’s challenge to a professional I criticize Crick. He reaches his conclusion logically, but his logic depends upon a faulty premise.

Thus, Chapter 5 reviews the philosophy of science. Science’s great success springs from an insistence upon observing only things that can be observed; generally this only concerns objects. Although people may consider consciousness real, science cannot observe it. And although action obviously occurs, and science studies the actions of objects, it ignores action itself. Remember string theory’s fundamental activeness and Omnes’s reminder of science’s ignorance about action. Scientists like Crick effectively presume that only objects exist, and that they are inexplicably endowed with activeness. By ignoring action as a core feature of our universe Crick cannot study or conclude anything about the complex action that consciousness itself actually is except to call it an illusion or, as others say, an epiphenomena of the objects composing the brain.

But I continue. Mathematician Alwyn Scott wrote Stairway to the Mind. In it he notes that as scientists make the transition from atoms to molecules, then to cells, then organisms, they accept approximations rather than exact numbers. This, he says, is because the mathematics become physically impossible to perform at transitional phases; you need to perform more calculations than there are atoms in the universe just to explain the jump from atoms to molecules. Unintentionally he gives biochemist Crick an excuse for his obviously wrong “astonishing hypothesis.” I conclude the chapter with a transitional bit that asks how the conundrum of object vs. action occurred. Nineteenth century philosopher August Comte laid the philosophical ground for today’s science – observation of observables – and mathematics empowered science with powerful intellectual tools. But math itself has a problem.

Chapter 6 is called “Science’s Problem” and argues for expanding the limits of mathematics. I claim that math, for lack of active verbs, reduces “all that is” to inanimate objects. Yet we plainly see animation (action) at all levels of ordinary reality. Math effectively dismisses action and activeness despite its ability to describe an action of an object. Understandably mathematicians cannot make unwieldy active verbs precise so they rigorously eliminate verbs in favor of precise, static formulae and logic. However, I assert the new idea that mathematics could easily add a “second leg” upon which to stand simply by supplementing the fundamental identity equation (A=A, a thing is itself) with a corresponding fundamental postulate that “Action Acts.” From that beginning, a complete mathematical system could be derived from string theory’s vibratoriness; it permits precise study of action and complex action and complex active systems like consciousness. Rather than replace existing mathematical point-set theory (upon which all modern math is based and which reduces everything to infinitesimal, indestructible, inanimate objects called points), a mathematic of action and activeness would empower string theorists and consciousness scholars and complexity researchers with precise tools for studying action apart from objects. But does it make sense to do so, to rigorize activeness apart from objects?

The chapter continues by (re)introducing quantum linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford and his study of Native American languages. The late Alford describes many native languages as “process-y.” The linguistic systems use no nouns, preferring verbs and verb forms (gerunds, participles, and more) for everyday language. Despite radically different languages (some are as different as Chinese is from English), many native tongues share this feature. Some speakers say they can converse for hours without nouns. Thus, existing languages show that mathematics could, if it chose, achieve a similar dynamic intelligence with applicability to the real world. The languages show not only that it could be done, but that such systems give the mind a radically different worldview. This worldview, despite its uniqueness, resembles what string theorists are struggling to achieve: a precise understanding of object-less action. With this in mind, I bring in the old psychic Rudolf Steiner and his “new Isis.” Steiner explicitly predicted that his new (reborn) Isis would be found in the coffin of science. Did science, in its trashing of the Church’s cosmology, lose something valuable?

Chapter 7 is called “Alternatives to Science” because reductionist science and math have reached a failing point that requires attention, just the same as the point at which it challenged the Church’s failed views. In other words, what value did religion and spirituality have that science dismissed? I reprise string theory, quantum uncertainty, Bohm’s holographic universe (his “implicate order”), and the linguistic origins of quantum mechanics. (Alford reported that relativity and quantum mechanics reveal a thread of personal connections back to the 19th century linguist Benjamin Whorf {this needs confirmtion}). This chapter also asks if consciousness, NDEs, and OBEs deserve science’s rejection. They are subjectively observable, and temptingly explicable if science adopts my notion of a precise mathematics of activeness and complex action leading to an integrated complex adaptive system of action. Here I suggest we take a look at traditional “non-observables” in religion and spirituality to determine if they offer any hints for us about what current science’s object-oriented world lost.

Chapter 8 (see sample chapter) looks for hints about new truths about action and activeness by merely reviewing the names of god in various languages. I introduce the subject then offer three main sections: names from mainstream religions, names from minor traditions, and additional hints about action from current new age literature. From these I conclude that a single underlying notion pervades the world: all forms of deities are not beings so much as “they” are actions or events. Then I ask if anything would contradict me, and answer that only our grammatical habits inflict gods as beings on us; the ancient wisdom itself says god is activeness and action.

Chapter 9 wraps much of the foregoing material together. Both physics and mysticism put action and activeness at the bottom (beginning) of the universe. If we make action precise and its logic rigorous and repeatable (like mathematics of points and objects), then we can redraw our understanding of the universe. The “things” of which it is made (atoms, quarks) and which it becomes (planets, complex thinking feeling organisms) permit us to scientifically acknowledge aliveness and study it (vs. merely assuming it.) This idea explicitly solves Chalmers’ “hard problem” of consciousness. It also allows the possibility that aliveness can exist independently of an object with which it is associated. It also suggests we can manipulate immaterial activeness as easily as we manipulate material objects. And this essentially is what ancient religious, mystical language indicates we can and should do.

Chapter 10 addresses the book title with the title “This is Godding: Think, Breathe, Create.” How to God now means something like this: Trust Chi/Isis/Jesus/Athena’s breath (activeness) to act as it will regarding what you are thinking. Trust universal breath (string theory’s vibration) to act as it pleases, i.e., without my conscious control.

Think: means conceptualize. I refer here to Bonewits’ book and his description of the “center of the universe.” This gives you access to the vibration underlying “all that is;” use “light” like clay in your mind, forming it into an image. Gawain’s popular visualization method will be covered here.
Breathe: empower it, let emotion feed it. Note that both Bonewits and Monroe assert that emotion is required; Gawain & Long do not. While you breath, emote: endow your thought with heart and emotion. Jesus, in Meurois’s “Way of the Essenes” asserts that the “heart is all powerful … [and] rebels against control.” Do this as you breathe in; it empowers your concept.
Create: release the empowered thought so that it can be created. Note that you are NOT the creator, merely the “asker.”

The chapter gives the method in simple terms, but then explains each in more detail. I provide a quasi-scientific explanation: Allow the “string” to hum, however it pleases. Trust string theory’s fundamental activeness, the free will underlying the universe. Trust in fundamental activeness is the apparent meaning of Western religion’s demand to “trust the will of God.” The basic activeness is the willfulness that creates, and godding requires trusting its urge more than one’s own.

I continue with five more sections. “Isn’t Godding Just Visualization?” distinguishes the two similar techniques. “Thinking and What it Means in Godding” draws the reader’s attention to verbal vs. visual thought, and mere pictures from fully form images made of light. “Breath in the Context of Godding” adds details and distinctions from normal breathing. “Creating in Godding” explicitly gives creation to the universe rather than the individual. Surrender and release are critical. I also mention the self-harm that follows any attempt to cause harm. And finally, “Practice Makes Perfect” provides obvious advice.

Chapter 11 goes on to address some related issues. “Huna From Strings” explains how and why this technique works by referring to Max Long’s work. Sections include “Why Do this?”, “Does This Usurp God?”, “Practical Applications”, and “Risks, Dangers, and Forewarnings from Experience.”

Chapter 12 is titled “God and Godding Versus Religion and Politics.” As summarily as possible, the chapter will put godding up against science, religion, and politics. It will conclude with a statement about the value of this technique. In this I will try to divert fanatics by reiterating that the technique came from religion, and does not contradict it. Jesus himself, e.g., said in John 14:12 that his followers can and will do all that he did and more.

Chapter 13 is called “The Point.” After the science, the linguistic history, my speculations, it remains that we are, as Newburg said, hardwired for this technique. We may as well learn how.

Chapter 14’s Epilogue gives a summary, for interested readers, of the long path I took to produce this little book. It began as a letter about active verbs to a communications professor, mutated into a Ph. D. proposal, then into this book for mainstream readers. I never sent the letter, and the Ph. D. advisor suggested writing this book instead of a doctoral thesis. Here it is. I hope it helps someone advance on their path in life, but most of all I hope it brings harmony to science and mysticism in a practical and useful day-to-day manner.

How to God ends with the Footnotes & References section, a Bibliography, and an Index. No nonfiction book deserves publication without an index. No appendices are planned, but writing usually changes the plan.

Sample Chapters

Sample Chapter 1, “How To God, or But You Never Asked” begins immediately below.
Sample Ch. 8, “Names of God Mean … What?” follows Ch. 1..

(Sample) Chapter 1: How To God ? Or, “But You Never Asked” - draft

Even non-believers know that God, although fictional to them, is God, the Supreme Being. This includes the Wiccan Supreme Goddess as well as the multiple gods of yore. But few people know that “god” is also a verb, an action, something that is done by someone. With this in mind, you probably presume that only God does “godding.”

Wrong.

Only faulty logic will prematurely conclude that God has exclusive rights to that ability. It certainly makes sense that if God exists, then he/she knows how to god and does so. But logic does not allow concluding that His/Her abilities are exclusively His/Hers (footnote 1.1.) “God can move mountains,” the saying goes. God can move rocks; but so can you and I. “God created the universe” many say; but a storyteller also creates a universe that its inhabitants consider real. If “godding” can be done by God, then we must ask if we have the same ability, even if reduced from mountain moving to pebble plucking. In other words, we know we can perform actions similar to those attributed to God and the gods, so we have good reason to ask if we can also perform other more profound actions attributed to God or Mother Nature.

footnote 1.1: The logical fallacy can be either the non sequitur of “Denying the Antecedent” in which someone says “If A then B, Not A, thus Not B.” For our purposes we would wrongly argue that “If God, then ‘godding’ is occurring, but we’re not God, thus, we cannot ‘do godding.’” Or it may be the fallacy of distraction known as “from ignorance,” in which something is not known to be true, so it is inappropriately assumed to be false. For us, we do not know that we can “god,” so we prematurely assume we cannot. In case you think I’ve selected the wrong type of logical fallacy, Stephen Downes’s website offers a concise “Guide to Logical Fallacies” at http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/. You can search the web for “logical fallacies” or ask your local library for an introduction to logic text from among the philosophy books. Regardless, it is obvious that the everyday logic suffers from flawed reasoning: God “gods,” but so might we.

This is a claim derived from logic, more than a claim based on observations of fact. It applies equally to agnostics and atheists who believe in a spontaneous, self-generating universe of which we are part. Although generated by logic, a host of facts support the idea that a profound skill exists that can be learned and practiced; those bits of evidence simply require a fresh perspective.

Knowing how to do something will not make you a Master of the skill, any more than a book about violin playing will make you a maestro. The logic only says you can, if you study and practice, learn “how to god.” The logic also does not say that you should, nor why, nor provide a purpose, nor give any ethics about use of the skill. It only says that you can, and only offers possibilities; there are no guarantees of success.

This book shows that the act of godding [note, I will omit the quotation marks on “godding” for the rest of the book] has both a mystic and possibly a scientific history. It reviews a lot of accepted knowledge, ? accepted, but not necessarily well known? in order to awaken us to a skill that we can learn, and to which we are physically predisposed, and that seems worthy of learning.

Despite extensive reference to religious source material, this book makes no religious argument; only technique interests us here. The religious and spiritual background provides us with a reason to ask the question, especially about the unusual idea that “god” is a verb.

No, this does not pretend to show you how to “do God’s work” (a literalist Christian notion.) And it definitely makes no claim that you can become or replace God. That would be similar to claiming you can become the universe simply because your body obeys the same laws of physics as quasars. Knowledge and insight from religious and spiritual traditions only give clues for the direction this book takes; evidence gives stepping-stones to an answer to the question that spirituality raised in my mind.
Just for your curiosity’s sake, the question – How do I god? – came to me only after I stumbled upon the answer. This book offers you that answer, even though you, like I, may never have asked.

This Book’s Organization

Nonfiction books usually provide a wealth of information and reason that lead to the author’s conclusion. You typically get an introduction, some chapters about background and theory that raise a question, then some investigations into possible answers, and so forth. Books try to put that extensive background into a kind of story leading to the writer’s satisfying conclusion. This book takes a different approach.

I provide material containing the reasons behind my contention. I provide what I consider evidence that supports the reasons, then my interpretation of the bits of evidence assembled. My interpretations can be argued, so I included them for your critical eye. I include some counter arguments and examples just to be fair. For the most part, the bulk of the book leads to the method for how you can “god.”

This Book Claims …

“God” is a verb, an action, and a learnable skill. Ancient wisdom contains linguistic clues that support this notion. Current science offers evidence that we can learn and perform this skill, and that we are built to do so. Hard science, that is, physics, provides evidence that the universe itself may exist as a result of such action; however, science, as a result of a simple but fundamental logical error, can’t see that it has the answer concealed within its own domain. By combining scientific evidence, correct logic, and ancient linguistic clues, godding makes sense. We can learn how to god, so let us.

{Ch. 1 = ~800 words [incl titles & footnote]}

(Sample) Chapter 8?: The Names of God Mean … What? - draft

NOTE: Chapter is incomplete; but intends to show writing skill and planned content.

“None of the great religious traditions … has a single and uniform understanding of the ultimate, supreme, and most real reality … the Tao, the Absolute, … God. The difference in names already indicates that the term God is often not … understood in the same way even within a single tradition.”
-- Kung and Chang in “Christianity and Chinese Religions” (1989.)

The names of God(s) in the various ancient traditions and cultures point to agreement with Alford’s translation of “god” in his commentary on Native American Cherokee as a “process-y” language; see his web pages at {ref}. Sometimes a god’s name has linguistic roots suggesting action of some sort despite subsequent use as merely a name. In other cases – especially those whose roots I’ve been unable to trace – the characteristics of the deity or some of the associated sacred literature reveal a clear reference to action (by the deity and by people.) They often characterize the deity as a fundamental active principle behind or within human and other action. In at least one case – the Bhagavad-Gita – this is explicit. All of these clues point to a pervasive but unnoticeably implicit assertion that the universe, all that it is and all that created it, consists of action rather than of things or beings.

Thousands of words of sacred text that have many millions of associated words of commentary and interpretation require that I present only the clues I’ve unearthed, and only some of them. That puts me, and this book, at risk. Any scholar or serious student of a given tradition will have a wealth of knowledge with which to argue against my points. But this book cannot address those individual criticisms, nor should it veer from its purpose. My and our only interest is to amass many possible clues about the meaning of ”god.” Then, with these clues, we will find a single central idea that probably suffuses all sacred beliefs. Because one idea seems pervasive we must recognize it and examine it. The clues follow below. The totality of clues, rather than any specific clue, should interest us most. They expose a common idea. In the next chapter current science will give its opinion.

Guide to the Gods, by Marjorie Leach, a book published in 1991, lists the known names of all gods of all cultures. Ms. Leach does not give linguistic background for the names, nor an encyclopedic essay about each. She only gives a few lines about each and the culture from which it comes. Her book is just short of a thousand pages, each page containing about 20 names, or about 20,000 gods total. Seven pages concern only “Primordial Beings,” and 57 more concern “Supreme Beings, Great Spirits.” Again, those are only the names. For the book in your hand now I have only selected some important gods and a tiny few of lesser-known deities.

Let’s begin with mainstream material, move through some minor traditions, and finish with hints about the meaning of “god” from so-called New Age books.

Major Religions’ Deity Names & Key Words

1.1 I Am. Because, but only because, it is the oldest of the three branches of the Western World’s dominant monotheism we’ll begin with the Hebraic god. Other traditions are older, and larger but not dominant among this book’s readership.

This particular god has names that include Elohim, Jahweh, Jehovah, and variations thereof. But in the sacred literature {ref.} this god himself gives us his name: “I am” is the translated Hebraic name that Moses reports this god gives himself. We do not need to review 6,000 years of scholarly and philosophical discussion of this name. Regardless the name that is applied to the god, the one chosen by the deity deserves preference. It differs from Jesus’s Aramaic Allah and Islam’s identical Arabic Allah. The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (Rev. Ed., Paul J. Achtemeier, 1996, NY, NY) says that the Old Testament “God” is translated “from a root [for deity] denoting power or strength.”

In translation, “I am” seems to have a very clear meaning. The millennia of philosophical discussion fascinates me, but this god simply asserts conscious existence before any thing existed or any event happened. It carries a sense of waiting, of anticipation, expectation, and possibility. The Hebraic deity asserts awareness before creation; this implicitly conveys the possibility of the deity acting or not. But choosing one option or another (action or not) only bears fruit after choosing an intention that leads to a willful act. This god is awareness itself, capable of taking action out of simple choice and intent, and without any need for a body through which to perform the willed act. The will is the act of the deity’s choice. Another word, however, has special importance in relation to the Hebraic deity.

A café waiter named Matt had dropped out of Catholic seminary school (that is, “priest school”) to chase his ideal woman across the country. He’d talked with me one night as I drank Costa Rican coffee. Matt’s studies had made him familiar with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He told me the accepted English translation of a key Hebrew word that is often disputed; it’s the word for “word.” He claimed the original text used the Hebrew word “debhar,” “dabar,” or “davar” (transliterated the from Heb. characters [insert Heb. char.] to English.)

Disputes arise because that particular Hebrew word changes meaning depending upon the context of the sentence in which it is used. The texts often lack sufficient context to choose the appropriate meaning. “Dabar” {insert Heb. characters} could mean either “word” or “will” or “way” in the sense of “roadway” or direction, possibly “method.” In Psalm 33:4, for example, “…word …” is the translation for the transliterated Heb. “debhar.” But two lines later in Ps. 33:6 “word” is translated from a different Heb. word.

Most important to us is simply that three kinds of action characterize the Hebrew god’s (“I am’s”) activities, and those are all conveyed by the Hebrew word “debhar.”

1.2 Christianity: the Word was God. Mainstream Christianity {compare Gr. “Logos” to Heb. Davar / Dabar = word/will/way}
The first English line of the disciple John’s mainstream Christian sacred writing starts with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1.) Thus, this New Testament Christian begins his work by equating god with the act of speaking, and intelligence. John asserts that the deity is an action, and the action is the deity; but the particular action to which this writer refers is more than simply “word.” The Greek word “logos” is translated as “word” in English; but logos typically conveys much deeper significance.

{ref., quote “Encyclopedia of Religions”}

John, then equates the Christian deity not merely to a word, or to speaking, but to a fundamental intelligent force behind all that exists.

1.21 Gnosticism, The Perennial Philosophy. {cf. Gosp Peace; & Essene Jesus: heart is omnipotent}
The Gnostic Christians asserted direct experience of the deity; they claimed direct experience of God him/her/itself. The ancient manuscripts that survived mainstream Christianity’s repression of Gnostic Christians offer many clues about the nature of god (see footnote 1.2.)

Footnote 1.2: Imperial Rome assembled its choosy, self-serving version of Christianity then aggressively crushed mystic Christianity. This is well-documented and well known. Mainstream Christians, however, rarely know that a pagan Roman Emperor, Constantine, chose those sacred works according to what he found suitable for his purposes, i.e., to remain in power over the political empire that now masquerades as Catholicism. He created the New Testament five centuries after Christ, then viciously destroyed both books and people professing Jesus’s message differently that Constantine’s version.

One Gnostic manuscript is the Trimorphic Protennia [or Protennoia.] This text reports what its author heard spoken by his or her deity. “I am Protennia, the thought that dwells in the light. I am movement that dwells in the All, She in whom the All takes its stand … I am the Word who dwells in ineffable Silence.” {ref.} Other translations have been published in books, but this translation was found at www.gnosis.org; another Gnostic website is www.kamakala.com/history.htm. The text, even in translation, explicitly makes movement, thought, and word fundamental characteristics of the universe, its creation, and creator.

{Other texts are “Pistis Sophia” and the "sheepman” text.}

1.3    Islam, Allah [both in Arabic and in Jesus’s Aramaic]. “The association of [a] personality with god … is deadly sin,” asserts a pamphlet supplied by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. {ref.} Generally, Muslim theology asserts that their deity simply cannot be known due to its/his surpassing incomprehensibility. So instead they “divide their definitions of God under the seven attributes of Life, Knowledge, Power, Will, Hearing, Seeing, and Speech” (Hastings, Encyc. Relig., p.300.)

Some linguistic history offers additional information. “The [pre-Islamic Arabic] word [for ‘god’] ilah [has a] verb derived from it [ilahaiha] which means ‘to god’, ‘to take refuge with,’ or ‘to serve’ … and from that comes laha, “to shine’” (ibid., p.248.)

1.4    Bhagavad-Gita [Hindu theology] I could find no linguistic history for Hindu’s god Krishna. But Krishna’s teaching that action is inescapable is central to the entire Gita, according to translator Barbara Stoler Miller, p. 156. Krishna says “… creative force, known as action, is the source of creatures’ existence. [8th Teaching, v.3.]} In Sanskrit, “Brahma” is the Hindu creator, “Brahman” is the infinite sprit, and Krishna supersedes both.

1.5    I Ching / Tao [Dao] = {”the Way;” cf. "non-duality"}    The very ancient Chinese (3 – 4,000 years ago) used words commonly translated today as “god” or as “heaven.” Research by Ruth Chang and published by Sino-Platonic Studies specifically focused on the historical meaning of the Chinese words now translated as god and heaven. She covers their changing meanings through the ages, and underscores the ambiguity of possible meanings. The word “di” [a transliteration into English, sometimes transliterated as “ti”] usually becomes “god” in the West, but carries a historical sense of power and force.

She says, “Originally, di was a supreme deity [in] the Shang dynasty” [1766-1045 B.C., 2,700 years ago.] {ref. P. 47} Earlier she had noted (p. 5) that “Some scholars hypothesize that di was a force of nature.” Referring to another researcher she says: (Robert) “Eno demonstrates … that the ‘root meaning of di may have been tied to an image of … family.’” Despite this she adds that “Eno believes that di referred to an ‘intelligent force’ … that was unpredictable [as] to its action” (p. 7-8).

Lao Tzu wrote (in the I Ching) about the deific quality that preceded creation: “Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone (37.)” Elsewhere he says: “The sage manages affairs without action and spreads doctrines without words … By acting without action, all things will be in order (3.)” David Loy summarizes [in Nonduality, Humanity Books] that the Tao “acts without acting.”

1.6    Buddha. {YET TO BE WRITTEN. no god/deity, it’s “all just flames;” i.e., there are no “things” much less gods, only a rule-set for action exists.}

Minor Religions’ Names & Clues

2.1 Native Americans: Cherokee. As I said earlier, the Cherokee word {insert Cher. word} that is usually translated into English and other European languages as “Great White Spirit,” or as “God” actually has another translation. Alford explained that a more accurate translation of their word is “think-breathe-create.”

This “name” of god is not the only word in their language that would require a verb for more accurate translation into English. Alford reports, and a Native teacher’s published textbook (Beginning Cherokee, U. Oklahoma Press) agrees, that Cherokee words convey action (verbs), rather than things (nouns.) For example, the thing we call earth or ground has a Cherokee word that means “supports/supporting the moccasin [shoe.]” For them, and for most other native people in the Algonquinian family of languages, words indicate action rather than things, even when referring to things. Consequently one Cherokee speaker says that when he thinks in English he thinks in pictures but when he thinks in Cherokee he thinks in motion. {reference} For such people there are no “things,” only actions. “Objects” seem to be perpetual actions; they continue dependably or forever just as English’s physical earth dependably supports your feet.

The indigenous North American people’s languages do not support the pervasive misconception (pervasive even among scholars who should know better) that natives “think everything is alive.” Instead their language shows us that there are no “things” at all, only actions of brief, long, or perpetual duration. To them a thing is not endowed with action or activeness; instead, action of some type only appears solid. A spinning airplane propeller looks like a solid disk. Imagine this then realize that in Cherokee language there is no propeller, there is just “spinning” that appears like a disk, and some other action that appears like a propeller. Similarly, “supporting” looks like the ground, and finally “thinking-breathing-creating” looks like the universe.

This simple and fundamental difference – seeing objects as ongoing actions instead of as inert matter – has profound implications not only in language, but also in psychology, cosmology, and physics. For this book it suffices to know that “God” in Cherokee and related tongues is not a person, a being, a thing, nor even an ethereal being endowed with deific universal power. “God” is, instead, a perpetually ongoing triple action: thinking AND breathing AND creating. Some subtle nuance in Cherokee may elude me, but nothing in the language suggests that a being lurks behind that triple action. The triple action itself begins the Cherokee universe.

Related to the Cherokee are other tongues of the Algonquinian language tree. Two more examples of the meaning of words for “god” from other Native American languages are:

Chickasaw -- Ababinili – “dwells above”
Cheyenne -- ma?heo?o, “large animate mystery,” and ma?heono, “spirits of directions;” the suffixes o?o/ono are both animate plural markers [meaning] “Great Mysteriousing.”

Footnote 1.3: the punctuation in the midst of words give clues about pronunciation.

Both of these are reported by the late Dr. Dan Moonhawk Alford; see his page http://www.enformy.com/dma-verb.htm. On another of his pages he notes that a sign language gesture occurs in the same way regardless which language the Native American spoke: “Plains Indian Sign Language, [is] where I found the gloss for ‘God’ as 3 signs: ‘large’ plus ‘medicine’ (a spiritual meaning in Native America) plus ‘up!’” (http://www.enformy.com/dma-ls24.htm)

2.2    Athena. The ancient Greek goddess after whom the city of Athens is named was called Pallas Athena. The name Athena has generally always been considered merely a name. In almost every reference you cannot find a derivation, a root, or source meaning for the name. Athena simply means Athena; it’s her name, nothing more. But I stumbled upon a root.

A few years ago a beautiful young Greek-American woman, a waitress who had served me many thousands of cups of coffee in the restaurant that her father owned, finally found and married her dream man. She is a child of parents who left Greece in the late 1960s during political turmoil. She is natively bilingual in American English and in contemporary Greek. Her husband to be, however, came from Albanian parents, as a similarly first generation American Albanian. Prior to getting married she asked if I would find her a book from which she could learn Albanian. She wanted help understanding her new mother-in-law and his extended family. Naturally I complied on my next trip to the library.

I found Spoken and Written Albanian: a practical handbook, by Nelo Drizari. Out of curiosity I read his introduction. Drizari offered (page ix) a reference to Wassa Effendi’s 1879 book {ref.} about this Balkan language that provides the linguistic root for Athens, and Pallas Athena. Drizari says Effendi “contended that the ancient Greek gods were borrowed from the Pelasgians, ancestors of the Albanians [a prehistoric people that … (settled) … the Balkan peninsula in the dawn of recorded history.]” Drizari continues: “He [Effendi] cited … the name of the goddess Athena whose meaning cannot be explained in Greek language but can easily be explained in … Albanian. It means ‘speech, saying, and that which has been willed [his italics.]’” (Note: Wassa Effendi is a pen name for Vaso Pasha, a Roman Catholic Albanian linguist and a governor of Lebanon for the Ottoman Empire.)

Drizari’s book does not give the Albanian word. However, a Balkan-born friend who now teaches in Detroit sent me this e-mail with his best guess: “There is a word … in Geg dialect, it is "E thana" or " E thena" which means a spoken word or saying.” {personal communication from Ekrem Sarkic, Thu, 31 Jul 2003 11:31:57.}” Half an hour later he added: “Athene has the meaning of “A” (anti) and “THE” (from thena or thana both Albanian dialects which means ‘saying’ or the verb to say (tha, the, thoti, thot), also the old Illiarian God – ‘THOT’ has the same stem ) plus the morphological suffix. … Athene would be Anti-thene or disagreement or contradiction.” {personal communication from Ekrem Sarkic, Thu, 31 Jul 2003 12:29:36.}”

Later scholars agreed with Effendi, and my friend gave the details that Drizari omitted. Now we know what ancient Greece’s primary deity’s name meant. As for “Pallas,” it comes from the myth that in Athena’s childhood she accidentally killed a friend then took on that friend’s name as a tribute. Although the story explains the source of the goddess’s other name it has no direct use here, but it’s interesting that “Pallas” resembles our “pallid.” I’ve wondered if the first part of this deity’s name refers to white or whiteness, but can’t find data to confirm my suspicion.

2.3    Egypt, ancient. – {INCOMPLETE.} {Ra, Osiris, and Isis were the principle deities in old Egypt.}

2.4    Toltec – {INCOMPLETE.} Don Miguel Ruiz (Four Agreements): says that “toltec” means “artist.” This is a creator, and Ruiz asserts that a Toltec master creates reality {ref. – lecture in winter 2001 in Detroit}; also cf. Maya/Inca

2.5    Zoroaster: The “First Prophet.” {INCOMPLETE.} {ref. In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet & the Ideas That Changed the World, Paul Krivvaczaek, $25. Poss. refer again to Olga Kharatidi}

2.6    Japanese, Shinto & related. {INCOMPLETE.} Linguistic research says that the “Japanese word for ‘god’ is Kami. Its derivation is uncertain … [but possibly] … mean[s] ‘to look at,’ ‘to decide.’ … [The] generally accepted derivation … is traced in [a] modified meaning of … ‘above’ or ‘superior’ … [A] Belief in Heaven as the Supreme Force … [is almost] universal [in old Japan.]” (Hastings, p. 294.)

The original, ancient intended meaning of divinity’s name Kami connects the divine to decisiveness and action.

2.7    Occult. One of the essential ancient texts in Western occult traditions – I’m including all the varieties of magic, wicca (itself misnamed as “witchcraft”), and related “hidden” knowledge – is called “The Emerald Tablet.” Engraved in a green stone tablet, it is attributed to an ancient master, possibly a creator himself, called Hermes Trismegistus. It’s Latin version and some translations of it are now easy to find in books and online; see, for example , www.kheper.auz.com/topics/cosmology/emerald.htm.    Author note: Author’s note: with permission the entire text could be included on one page in the book's appendix.

The master’s name concerns us most. “Hermes” is the Greek messenger god, the one who conveys words, wisdom, and meaning. Sometimes Hermes is the word or meaning being conveyed. “Trismegistus” is a Latin term translated as “of triple meaning.” In short: the “word of triple meaning” teaches us, via the details on the tablet, how to create. Because occult traditions claim the Emerald Tablet for themselves, and no one disputes the claim, we will return to its creative process later for some additional clues about creation. Then I’ll refer to the only book that succinctly – without mumbo jumbo – cuts to the core of so-called magical traditions (Real Magic by Issac Bonewits.)

2.8    Shamans: Hawaiian Huna. – {INCOMPLETE.} {ref. To Maxwell Freedom Long’s 11 books: he explains Huna creation as a sequence: imagine, breathe, release}

2.82    Shamans: Australian Aborigines. The Australian indigenous peoples’ myths of creation are usually called “Dreamtime” or “dreaming” in English; some tribes call it the “Time of Great Power” or a variant term or phrase. According to Anna Voigt & Nevill Drury this term (dreaming/dreamtime) implies “a meaning more akin to the quintessence of existence itself …“ (Wisdom from the Earth, Shambala, Boston, 1998; p. 25.) It always includes reference to a preexisting primordial mass – “all was like jelly,” the myth says – endowed with possibility but only with such possibility. Creation begins when the Australian Aboriginal deity begins moving.

2.91    Shamans: Other, – {INCOMPLETE.} misc., e.g., Altaic Siberians {ref. To Olga Kharatidi’s books [e.g., Entering the Circle]}

2.92    Grimm's Tales and folklore, – {INCOMPLETE.} {“The Twelve Brothers,” and "beauty" [cf. Robt. Bly’s Iron John] and the Al Laddin stories, and the Kalevala.} Although so-called fairy tales are considered stories for children, a close reading of them reveals a hidden, or at least unspoken, mythology of creation itself. They reveal a dream-like assortment of characters and events that attracted the psychologist Carl Jung. Jung wrote persuasively about such tales as indicators of deep, common characteristics all humans share. Symbols common to cultures around the world suggested to him that a “collective unconscious” resides within us all and is shared by all.

However, viewing the symbols reveals pervasive belief in motion as a fundamental feature of the universe: spirals, wavy snakes, and labyrinths all indicate motion. Motion precedes creation. Fairy tales deserve a re-reading with this in mind as they delve even deeper than Jung’s psychology.

Clues from the New Age of Spirituality

3.1    OBEs of Robert A. Monroe. In his final book about out of body experience and travel (OBE), and his adventures out there, the late Robert A. Monroe describes a meeting with an “entity” composed of innumerable individuals who were actually the sum of many consciousnesses. His book reports on his search for some fundamental understanding of life that will enable him to “become complete.” He meets a profoundly impressive being at the edge of what the being calls “the Emitter for the energy that creates….” He went there to learn about the source of existence compelled by his deep desire to rejoin “the Whole,” the sum of all his lives: he wants to go Home.

Before his visit to the creative Emitter ended, the being gave him a summary of what it means to be complete. It starts, “There is no beginning, there is no end, there is only change.” Further on it says “There is no stasis, there is no entropy, there is only motion.” It concludes with “There is only a plan.” (Ultimate Journey, Doubleday, 1994; ppk. ed. by Main Street Books, 1996, p. 217.) Although he was not necessarily seeking a Creator, he claims that he now knows there is one. However, he reminds us that, “Acceptance [of the existence of a creator] is not the same as Knowing.”

His journey and book give eight simple characteristics of this unknowable Creator; one is that it/he/she “establishes simple laws that apply to everyone and everything.” It is clear to Monroe that motion, which is the essence of action itself, is fundamental. And this is apparently one of the unavoidable simple laws pervading the universe.

3.1    Rudolf Steiner. The early twentieth century mystic and teacher Rudolf Steiner is credited with a wide variety of talents, and with a view of spirituality that radically diverged from mainstream beliefs; he sometimes gets credit as a father or grandfather of today’s new age interest in alternate spirituality.

He wrote {lectured?} more than once about what he called the "new Isis," a reborn third version of her. The sequence is: Isis - Sophia - New Isis. Steiner specifically claimed that anyone seeking this new version of the ancient Egyptian creator goddess can find her in the “coffin of science.” – {INCOMPLETE.} {more …}

3.2    Altaic & Afghans / – {INCOMPLETE.} see Olga Kharatidi {Entering the Circle}

3.3    Physicist Fred Alan Wolf's Mind into Matter – {INCOMPLETE.}

3.4    Mer-Ka-Ba, flower of life, Melchizedek? {& poss. ref. to Shirley McLain’s Camino} – {INCOMPLETE.}

3.5    … – {INCOMPLETE.}

Taken Together

No specific detail about “god” overrides the overall comprehension offered by its tradition, much less any other. But together these bits of information reveal a single underlying notion. They suggest that all forms of deities are not beings so much as “they” are actions or events. This is true even if the tradition lacks a deity, as in Buddhism. The names themselves indicate action, but the names or traditions also reveal that the single act has three characteristics.

Triplicity in sacred traditions has been examined repeatedly throughout history as well as by many contemporary academic researchers. {citation(s)?} For us, the critical feature is not the triple nature of the creator(s). Instead the critical triplicity is a single tripartite action, a singularity that implicitly quashes any notion of a three-step series of actions.

We want to understand this triple act in order to learn how to execute it, then spend some hours, days, or years – whatever it takes – to master it in this life. After death it may be easier, but the greatest value in spirituality – best “bang for your buck” – is and always has been to use its “secrets” here and now.

This book attempts to give you more than enough information to learn how “to god.” But just like books about guitar or piano playing, it cannot make you a master. It can only make you an informed student. Doing the work is the only way to actually learn. In an old master’s words “When I hear, I forget. When I see, I remember. When I do, I understand.” {ref.}

Counter Arguments

Does any evidence contradict the foregoing assertion derived from hints in the sacred literature? Does anything “prove” that “god” is not a verb, that the term is restricted only to a being?

No. Today’s common usage of the term restricts the meaning and qualities of the term “god” to a name or noun. We have simply acquired a bad linguistic habit. No sacred literature says that “godding” does not exist, nor that it is not a process. The preceding material shows otherwise. Furthermore, no sacred text says that we cannot do what is attributed to deities. Indeed the contrary is true. Jesus explicitly agreed (in John 14:12) with my contention that we can learn to do what he did. The Buddha’s path to Enlightenment for his followers includes similar encouragement of peoples’ abilities. Islam considers the association of any deity or personality with God as a deadly sin.{ref.} but does not appear to prohibit a follower from doing as their Prophet did. The ancient pre-Greeks and the Native people of the Americas demonstrate through their language a fundamental belief in an individual’s ability, even if ignored or undeveloped, to do what is translated into English most accurately as ”godding.”

Before we attempt to do what appears mystical we need to let modern science speak. Science is the belief system that now pervades and dominates the Western world and much of the rest of it as well. Science dutifully explodes and dismisses myths and mysticism in its pursuit of Truth. If we can find any shred or thread of a similar notion – action or activeness as a fundamental creative or causal force in the universe – then we just might have found a bit of truth upon which every one can agree.

So, does science do anything more than dismiss God and human souls as a delusion, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick asserts?

{Ch. 8 = ~ __4487__ words, to date}

Appendices

Author Web Links

Bibliography. The author’s original annotated draft bibliography, not all of which will necessarily be included in the book’s final bibliography is viewable online at a free website; please excuse the pop-up ads. The URL is http://denmanni.tripod.com/biblintz.htm.

Portfolio. The author’s portfolio of prior work follows on the next page, but it is viewable online at the website for his freelance writing business. This has no pop-up ads. It shows a long history of writing, albeit almost all of it for employers. The URL is http://www.freewebs.com/reliablewriting/portfolio.htm.

Resume. The author’s resume is online at a free site cluttered with pop-up ads. The URL is http://denmanni.tripod.com/Vita.html.

Synopsis Draft. The synopsis in this proposal abbreviates the original rough synopsis for How to God; it runs over 8,000 words. It’s very rough, but shows the depth of the proposed book. The author will put it online for reference when working away from home; contact me to see that draft.

“Idea Tree” of the Book

This proposal grew from an “idea tree,” a bubble diagram, scribbled at a café in August 2002. The tree yielded the 8,300 word synopsis, that has become this proposal & short synopsis. A photocopy is available by snail mail – transcription would waste time – simply for history or curiosity’s sake.

### end of book proposal ###

In-progress bibliography, annotated

Willed Light Word - Bibliography

/*\/*\*/*\ -- 4. February. 2001 STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION --/*\/*\*/*\

Bibiliography for

"How to God, a.k.a., Essential Consciousness":

A reading and yet-to-read list

This page is http://members.tripod.com/~denmanni/biblintz.htm Here is the INDEX page for all my pages.

Copyright © 1998-2006 by Dennis R. Mannisto; all rights reserved. Text, graphics, and HTML code are protected by US and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied, reprinted, published, translated, hosted, or otherwise distributed by any means without explicit permission; quoted passages from other authors are "fair use" under copyright law. Republishing, printing, copying, reprinting, and other rights available by negotiated fee. Contact me with expressions of interest. Unauthorized use of this or anybody's materials, trademarks or any other intellectual property without the express consent of its owner is governed by both international and U.S. law...and misuse is generally stupid and self-defeating.

The books that I've read or intend to read are listed below as the "references" part of a book length project on which I am working. Most citations also have my off the cuff remarks; comments begin with the year that I read, or discovered the book.

Generally the Univ. of Michigan (one of the very first parts of the internet itself) library system provided my details, although some sit on the shelves of other Big Ten universities with online catalogs. Bibliographic data was simply cut ’n’ pasted from online library data (I started at www.umich.edu for the MIRLYN online catalogue, then used 'Guest' login.) "Call numbers" use the the Library of Congress (LC) system #’s and/or Dewey Decimal #’s from source libraries; numbering is usually consistent throughout the U.S. Some new books' details come straight from bookstore data.

My comments & notes follow each citation... in this smaller font.

Arrangement of titles is, on this date, ~~8. Oct. 1998.,~~ [updated 4. February. 2001] random. I’ll get to sorting sooner or later. For now the list contains my notes for the work-in-progress I variously call an essay, a book, a thesis, or simply an extended thought. Hence my copyright notice. Other complete pages (yet to be html’d) contain somewhat more coherent thought coming soon (I hope.) Clicking bookstore links might help me pay for this silly project. If time and energy allow, then I will hyperlink things, and present a simple list of authors and/or of titles.

True Bibliography...

For a true bibliography by an actual working scholar in the field of Philosophy of Mind, look at Dr. David Chalmers's big bibliography and it's 5,000+ (!) citations and occasional comments, or at his more limited Consciousness site. It shows how the field has exploded with research and implies that it fascinates more people than merely me. It also indicates hardcore scientific work, not just diaries of drug induced or crackpot episodes, fills the literature of consciousness studies.

** NOTE: My book search links all go to Barnes & Nobles, but do NOT necessarily go to the correct book. Give me a little time. ** Here's a general link to the Barnes & Noble.com Bookstore, but also see their Rare and Out of Print Books link. If the B&N search fails try www.bookwire.com, www.borders.com, www.amazon.com, or best of all visit your local library ... they can request interlibrary loans for out of print books.

Remember, the order of books is currently random.

[1996-7 (=the year I read the book)]: I was directed to this book by a writer’s magazine article listing “hot topics” that book publishers currently want; he was an example of “mind/body integration” as a subject of interest to publishers. The body as mind fit very neatly into my thinking at the time I read him. I’ve been meaning to get back to him, but the workaday world, etc. etc. Replaces http://members.tripod.com/~denmanni/bib_1.html.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0380726475

Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, Holy blood, Holy Grail / Published London, Eng., : Jonathan Cape, ©1982. Description xvi, 445 p., [24] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm. Subjects Knights Templar (Masonic order) Grail. France--History--Miscellanea. Rennes-le-Château (France) Contributors Leigh, Richard. Lincoln, Henry. Notes: Includes index. Bibliography: p. 395-405. ISBN 0224017357 Call No: DC40 .B15

(1989) This I read at a friend's suggestion, without the slightest foreknowledge of its content. It challenges the christian church's version of history. In particular the authors dismiss Jesus' immaculate birth & celibacy by providing a detailed history of a geneology that begins with contemporary European royalty and goes back to a son born to Jesus. I hadn't had any initial interest in it, but the book effectively made me interested. It also had the very relieving effect of reminding me that I had no need to believe the church's peculiar version of history and of the man himself.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0440136482.

MacLaine, Shirley,1934- Dancing in the light / Shirley MacLaine. Published: Toronto ; New York : Bantam Books, ©1985. Description: 421 p. ; 24 cm. Subjects: MacLaine, Shirley, 1934- Entertainers--United States--Biography. Spiritualists--United States--Biography ISBN: 055305094X Call No: 808.29 M162O A31

(1988-9) An audio engineer/mixer with whom I worked “discovered” MacLaine in his private little search for what he called “spiritual software” that would round out his life; he has since been taken in by TV evangelists and is now a Bible-thumper Baptist Christian. I doubt it is the end of his story as he tends to be extremely logical though exceedingly opinionated as well. For now it’s helping him. As for MacLaine, this book offered a few tidbits of useful information. Example, the Philippine healer who took her hand and plunged it into one of his patient’s bodies; she described a sensation of nothing more than warm fog, rather than ooze & goo.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0553275577 (ppk.)

(1992?) A book club (QPB) selection that fascinated me, though I thought he "lost it" in dubious speculation in the last few chapters. His premise hinged on work by the physicist David Bohm (a student then colleague of Einstein's) & neurospychologist Karl Pribram (whom I’d seen lecture in ~1975 with my psych prof who had done his grad work under Pribram.) Talbot’s work provided a kernal around which, or from which, I reached some conclusions about consciousness, in particular as a system and more especially as a stand-alone system of energies. In my picture, Talbot’s hologram that is the universe, "begat" a hologram that is consciousness that can and does, like any child, seek congenial independence from its parent(s), to stand apart but nearly equal to and close to the parent. Each mind, then, is a universe in the making or becoming. This universe responds to us as a doting parent, or equally possibly as a mother to the child in her belly, with each our minds being mere cells of a larger organism of consciousness. Naturally as holograms each and every piece contains the whole picture. Thus, the whole picture from the beginning to the end of time resides in each of us; all we need to do is sharpen our perception!

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060922583.

O'Hara, Nancy, Just Listen: A Guide to Finding Your Own True Voice Publisher: Broadway Books, October 1998, Paperback, 288pp., ISBN: 0767900235

(2000) I've only begun this meditation book, but met her at her promotional book signing last year.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0767900235

Scott, Alwyn C., Stairway to the Mind: The Controversial New Science of Consciousness: The Controversial New Science of Consciousness. Publisher: Copernicus Books, January 1995, Hardcover, 229pp., ISBN: 0387943811

I've scanned but haven't yet finished this mathematician's book that is credited with starting the "emergentist" theories of consciousness. To quote him (p. 3) "consciousness is an emergent phenomena, one born of many discrete events fusing together as a single experience." My emergentist version came to me independent of Dr. Scott before finding his book a year later in '96. Sigh ... he beat me to my claim to fame.

Nonetheless, to distinguish my view from his, he focuses on the actions of agents rather than, as I do, on the actions themselves. In other words he, like all Western scientists, depends upon the actor, a thing of some kind acting. Like everyone, he assumes discrete physical things lay at the root of all that is, and presumes they take action, but then never examines action itself. But by referring to string theory (see B. Greene elsewhere on this page, and the quote from Kane) it is scientifically reasonable to assert that action precedes the very existence of things. From this point on, then, I would argue that activeness accounts for everything that emergently leads to high consciousness. In a way, the actor/agent/matter itself is merely a marker, a place holder, an epiphenomena of action. Elsewhere I've begun essays challenging mathematics itself as an inadequate "thing based" description of reality (thus including consciousness.) Math lacks verbs, thus it insufficiently describes reality. Before "a=a," activeness acts. The spectacular successes of math thus requires a reminder that while it may be necessary and even critically necessary to an understanding of the universe, it remains insufficient; to use math's phrase, "necessary but not sufficient.". Emergence of consciousness, then, moves through levels of actions, from string vibrations to chemical binding, to organism autonomy to consciousness that can (& in OBE & NDEs does) exist/occur independent of the corresponding materially emergent "actor." Also see my remarks under B. Greene's book elsewhere on this page.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0387943811

Greene, Brian, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. Publisher: Vintage Books, Pub. Date: March 2000, Paperback, 464pp. ISBN: 0375708111

For a potential string theory of consciousness? An alumni newsletter from U. Mich. ("Michigan Today," Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 2000) included a long article by Gordon Kane about string theory because the school had just (July 2000) hosted a major international conference on the subject. A physicist wrote it for intelligent laymen (university alumni) so it provided a succinct explanation from a working expert that prepared me for Greene's very thorough book. For my personal notion of consciousness, the alumni article specifically said exactly what I had mentally determined sat at the root of mind: the universe has at its most fundamental level a vibration, but "[there] are not strings of anything" that vibrate. Action or activeness is, to me, the root or element that proceeds through stages of complexity and eventually yields consciousness. String theory, therefore, and this well known book (sales rank 324 out of millions) constitutes essential reading.

The full paragraph in Kane's alumni news article that led me to buy Greene's book is: "Now we have learned that it is possible to make a quite remarkable theory in nine space dimensions. It seems to be consistent with the rules of quantum theory, to contain both gravity and the supersymmetric Standard Model, and to require only the forces that have been observed. In this theory the particles are the same ones we know—the particles of the Standard Model and their superpartners-but they are represented not as point—like quanta of fields but as tiny vibrating strings, so tiny they would appear point-like in any experiment we could do. They are not strings of anything; if they were, then that stuff would be more basic than the particles of the Standard Model. When we say they are strings, we mean their behavior is described by the same kinds of equations that would describe idealized everyday strings-thus, "string theory." Different patterns of vibration of the strings—the sort of changes that produce different notes from vibrating violin strings—correspond to different particles."

Search for Greene's book at B&N by title or by ISBN: 0375708111

Powelson & Riegert, The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Saying of Jesus. Thomas Moore (Intro), Mark Powelson (Editor), Ray Riegert (Translator) Publisher: Ulysses Press, October 1996. Hardcover, 128pp., ISBN: 1569751005. Call No. BS2555.2.1.66 1996

If you dislike the Church (Christian) as do I (despite my essentially Christian upbringing), but you have no real dispute with Jesus, then this extremely small book is exactly what you need. It conveys the man's words with only the least bit of dogma, and gives a picture of a warm, witty, yet profound teacher. For example, a footnote in this work points out that Jesus used the Aramaic word "Abba" and church-types mis-translate it as the very formal word "father." But in fact it means "papa" or in American English, "daddy." So much for the "fear of god!" Easily the only book really needed to understand him.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 1569751005

Rumi, Jelalludin, Coleman Barks (Translator) The Essential Rumi, With John Moyne, with A. J. Arberry, with Reynold Nicolson, introduction by Reynold Nicholson. Publisher: HarperTrade, June 1996. Paperback, 310pp., ISBN: 0062509594

(1998) This was a wonderful book; it's filled with all kinds of things I found experientially on my own. I hadn't heard of (or at least paid attention to) Rumi before this came as part of a "spiritual" set from the book club (qpb.com, isbn=0965064871, ©1998.) Despite my enormous pleasure reading it, and deep appreciation for its profound levels, someone else who read and reviewed it on the B&N website considered it shallow and inadequate to Rumi's technical precision. That reviewer recommends, instead, translations by Idries Shah, whom I have not read. Make your own choice, but this is an extremely easy to read version and would at least give you a pleasant, sometimes raucously fun, introduction to this 13th century mystic master whose work changed the course of Islam.

Search B&N's bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0062509594

Billy, Dennis J., The Way of the Pilgrim: Complete Text and Reader's Guide (Many editions exist of this 19th century Russian Christian classic; it's available in many libraries. My edition comes from qpb.com and is translated by R. M. French, intro. by Huston Smith, QPBC, ©1998, from the Harper Collins Publishers. Avoid confusion with a sci-fi work of the same title.)

(2000) Another spiritual/religious classic from qpb.com that occupied my spring 2000. Considered a Christian classic it provides a Russian peasant's life of wandering while endlessly repeating a single line prayer. A readable translation until the last chapter (the style changes so completely that I doubt it was the same author.) Luckily the preaching and moralizing so popular among Christians is minimal. Readers must include this in their reading of spiritual texts, if only for thoroughness. But it's not bad.
One anecdote in the pilgrim's travels describes a farmer's treatment for the traveler's debilitating gout or arthritis. Oddly the method described corresponds (differs, but has similarities) to a currently living physician's "newly discovered" method for treating arthritis; Dr. Joel Wallach uses what he called the "chicken bone pig arthritis cure" and has formulated and marketed a food supplement derived from his research. The book's pilgrim had been treated by someone who collected any sort of bone laying around, then boiled them, and applied the resulting fluid to a rag wrapping the pilgrim's leg.

Bhagavad Gita is the "core ancient text of the Hindu tradition." My bookstore search found 164 available versions. My copy was translated by Barbara Stoler Miller, intro. by Huston Smith, ©1998, QPBC, New York, from the Harper Collins Publishers edition; it is part of a set from qpb.com.

(2000) This ancient classic occupied my summer 2000. A readable translation from qpb.com, I made numerous notes in the margins, especially as the lessons about action were given. For example, the Sixth Teaching, stanza 2, "no man is disciplined / without renouncing willful intent." Then in the 8th Teaching, stz. 3, "Eternal and supreme is the infinite spirit; / its inner self is called inherent being; / its creative force, known as action / is the source of creatures' existence." And the the 16th Teaching, stz. 7, "Demonic men cannot comprehend / activity and rest; / there exists no clarity, / no morality, no truth in them." Finally, in the 18th, stz. 16, "a man ...[who] ... sees himself as the only agent, / cannot be said to see." And stz. 18, "Knowledge, its object, and its subject / are the triple stimulus of action; / instrument, act, and agent / are the constituents of action."
Readers who include this, as I did, in reading ancient religious texts will no doubt find just as many similarities to other ancient work as I found. Read it (it's short) for any reason at all, but read it.

Lao-Tzo (auth.), Victor Mair (Translator), Tao TE Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way. Publisher: Bantam Books, Incorporated: August 1990. Paperback, 192pp., ISBN: 055334935X
Described as "A new translation of one of the world's most popular and oldest books based on the newly discovered Ma-wang-tui manuscripts." My copy is included as part of a set from qpb.com, intro. by Huston Smith, ©1998, QPBC, New York, from the Harper Collins Publishers edition.

(2000) I read this, including the informative intro, just to be thorough. It surprised me how similar, if not identical, some of its message is to other ancient texts; the QPBC ed. in fact quotes the Hindu Bhagavad Gita in the frontispiece. This probably contains the root notion that it ALL reduces to nothing more than action and rest. The Bhagavad Gita echoes this but emphasizes the importance of action over moralization about the type of action.
Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 055334935X

The Essential Kabbalah, Another spiritual classic; my copy is an edition translated by Daniel C. Matt, part of the book club set from qpb.com, intro. by Huston Smith, ©1998, QPBC, New York, from the Harper Collins Publishers edition.

This is another "yet-to-read" ancient classic sitting on my shelf. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of books about Hebraic Kabbalah have been written. This simply begins the trip to the source. NOTE that transliteration from Hebrew varies: kabbalah, cabbalah, chabballah, etc.
Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN 0785808701 (note the hardcover is cheaper than the ppk. at B&N.)

Tibetan Book of the Dead, Another "yet-to-read" spiritual classic in my book club set; part of the book club set from qpb.com, translated by Robert A. F. Thurman, intro. by Huston Smith, ©1998, QPBC, New York, from the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. edition. Many other editions by many other translators and editors are available.

This is a "yet-to-read" and another ancient classic sitting on my shelf. It's in the set available from qpb.com.

I haven't yet read the first of his three books, having started with his 2nd. For his Monroe Institute, and introductions and details about their research, check their multi-lingual Institute web site. To purchase tapes and CDs designed to assist you in achieving out-of-body (OBE) experiences of your own go to their commercial sales site.
Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0385008619

Monroe, Robert A. Far Journeys (2nd of his books) Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated: September 1987; Paperback, 290pp. ISBN: 0385231822

(1987-8-9?) This is where I started in terms of OBE, NDE, RV and similar reading. I discovered Monroe by reading an article on lucid dreaming in one of Playboy’s magazines, which is still outside in my storage shed, but also by a reference in a New Age magazine article. This, his second book, "Far Journeys" provided some wonderful tidbits of value to me. One was his description of a previous life as a high priest. His total surrender and the apparently miraculous result fall within an essay I wrote & rewrote called "Devastation." Similar thoughts to Monroe's experience are echoed by a footnote in Cyril Scott's book elsewhere in this bibliog. You may doubt the value of his work & his claims, but it is easily and desevedly readable.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0385231822 Also see his Institute web site.

(1996) Read large sections of the book standing in bookstores, but waited to actually complete it cover to cover (no money) 2 years later in '98. I had a spectacular dream one night shortly after reading his passage about some sort of cosmic million-person consciousness. In it I'd had a quite "normal" conversation with an enormous "star" that filled my field of vision. I only recall the image and it’s/his last words before I woke: "You’ll see the message many times in your life." To which my just awaking conscious mind asked, "But will I ever GET the message?" (understand it.) This book is the one in which Monroe describes the formation of clusters and multiple clusters of minds/souls into grander entities; I have taken this as definitive, although anecdotal, evidence that consciousness is a system built of smaller components and actions. My personal caveat, though, is to remember that Monroe prided himself in his storytelling ability; to fabricate it all would be highly unlikely, but possible, thus worth remembering.

Search B&N bookstore by author: Robert Monroe, by title, or by ISBN: 0385472080 (ppk.) Also see his Monroe Institute web site.

Buhlman, William. Adventures beyond the body : how to experience out-of-body travel / William Buhlman. Published: HarperSanFrancisco, ©1996. Edition: 1st ed. Description: xi, 292 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Subjects: Astral projection. Physics--Philosophy. Quantum theory--Miscellanea. Notes: "A Tree clause book"--T.p. verso. Includes index. ISBN: 0062513710 Call No: No call number available} {replaces http://members.tripod.com/~denmanni/bib_4.html

(1996) I met him literally at the end of a rainbow after a thunderstorm at one of his book signings; he lived nearby at the time. He seemed a nice, articulate and intelligent man. He signed my copy after pausing a moment to stare into space to think, "You have the power." Despite his book's instruction and Monroe’s, and my work with Monroe Institute OBE self-induction tapes, I’ve never had, nor come close to, a conscious OBE. However, I have enjoyed some interesting dreams like the one (similar to one of his OBEs) from which I awoke saying quite decidedly "I'm tired of being a German officer." His website LINK with CDs & similar training materials & seminars is: Buhlman's Adventures Beyond the Body.

Search B&N by author, by title, or by ISBN: 0062513710

Hall, Manly Palmer, The lost keys of Freemasonry : or, The secret of Hiram Abiff / Hall, Manly Palmer, 1901- Published: Richmond, Va. : Macoy Pub. and Masonic Supply Co., ©1968. Description: xxiv, 100 p., 6 leaves of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. Call No: HS425 .H18 1968

[1995 [(est.)] Perused this in a bookstore, reading large sections, but did not study it. It got my attention as a mental link to Baigent, et al's book Holy Blood... My only note is that he quotes his source of the translation of the occult Emerald Tablet as Wm. Eiser in "Universal Language of Caballah." Hall's book appears to be a reprint of a 1981 book, and is one of over a dozen re-released in one year (1999) by this author's publisher; I should have noticed this, obviously, based on his 1901 birthdate.

Search B&N by author: Manley Hall by title or by ISBN: 0893148385

(1994?) Read a chapter at a time in bookstores until I finished it; was referred to it by an article in "Worth" financial mag. Subsequently I did a short (500 wd?) article for the local new age monthly paper extending the notion by referencing the ancient Egyptian "Law of Amra" and others. (Amra's law requires regular anonymous generosity, unlike the very public Judeo-Christian tithing.) He followed this book with many sequels which (for me) add little to his very popular, but weak, first book. In fact, he and his wife seem to have formed an entire Celestine empire from books, tapes, lectures, radio and TV appearances, and the like; it is vapid, commercial expansion of simple truths contained in this first book.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0446671002 (ppk.)

Meurois-Givaudan, Anne and Daniel. English. Title: The way of the Essenes : Christ's hidden life remembered Uniform Title: De mémoire d'essénien. / Anne and Daniel Meurois-Givaudan. Published: Rochester, Vt. : Destiny Books : Distributed to the book trade in the U.S. by American International Distribution Corp., ©1992. Edition: 1st U.S. ed. Description: ix, 364 p. ; 23 cm. Subjects: Essenes--Miscellanea. Jesus Christ Miscellanea. Contributors: Meurois-Givaudan, Daniel. Notes: Translation of: De mémoire d'essénien. Includes index. Call No: BF1999 .M4951 1993 ISBN: 0892813229

(June 1996) Absolutely some of the best philosophy (& flat out information if you accept regressions) I’ve ever read. Who cares if past-life regression makes the source dubious? The master is reported to have made the most profound statement I’ve ever heard. Asked by a follower about all the healings of the others, Jesus said "What others?" Distinctly pantheistic, all-one, Aussie aboriginal Oneness, etc. Amazing. Read this if you read nothing else ... ever. My copy is heavily underlined, with many pages full of notes, etc.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0892813229

Wolf, Fred Alan The eagle's quest : a physicist's search for truth in the heart of the shamanic world / Author Wolf, Fred Alan. Published New York : Summit Books, ©1991. Description 318 p. ; 25 cm. Subjects Shamanism. Occultism and science. Quantum theory--Miscellanea. Notes Includes bibliographical references (p. [301]-304) and index. ISBN 0671675346 : Call No: BF1611 .W84 1991

(1998) Read this after a friend said she couldn't deal with the technical depth (physics) even though written for non-physicists. It was my first contact with Dr. Wolf's work, but it prompted me to e-mail him and to stay tuned to his ongoing work. Later I learned that he knows and has worked with a psychologist whose work I also admire, that of Karl Pribram (see reference elsewhere on this page.) At this date (Dec. 2000) his book Spiritual Universe is the latest version of his thinking. Quite a thinker, quite a writer, and very much in the public eye with lectures and the like. Despite his very thorough work, there are as many academic scholars who disagree as who agree with his quantum physics version of mind and soul. Nonetheless, he deserves attention/reading by everyone interested in mind, consciousness, spirit, soul, and such.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0671792911 (ppk.)

Abraham, Ralph / Chaos, gaia, eros : a chaos pioneer uncovers the three great streams of history. Published: Harper San Francisco, ©1994. Description: xiii, 263 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. Call No: BF 1999 .A2241 1994

(1996) A birthday gift from my son signed "for your quest for enlightenment." In this book a mathematician takes a shot at the big picture, mostly about history & the history of history (not my favorite subject.) True to his field (math), it's carefully but lifelessly written, fraught with passive verbs; nothing ever "happens." This makes it tiring to read, but ok material.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0062500139

Brinkley, Dannion / Saved by the light : the true story of a man who died twice and the profound revelations he received. Published: New York : Villard Books, ©1994. Description: xii, 161 p. ; 22 cm. Call No: BF 1045 .N4 B751 1994

(1996) Another that I perused in the bookstore. Didn’t make a big impression, but seems to offer support for some of my thought.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0061008893

(1991) Fabulous book, wonderful poet/writer. The 11 page fairy tale is at the end of his very long social-psychological literary analysis. I picked it up in the bookstore after hearing a lot about it (including a magazine article in New Age magazine) & skipped right to the tale at the end. Standing in the store I read it & almost cried. A couple tiny points Bly made have lingered many years: the "girl" princess’s name in the story is Beauty. Mulling that over all this time has made much clear to me. It is the source of my conclusion that Grimm’s &other tales are not children’s nor psychological (a la C. Jung) literature but are the fundamental secret sacred "hidden" mysticism people have sought for thousands of years. If you’re going to hide a message across centuries & cultural upheavals, where better than in a kids story? Nobody will ever burn that book! Want the "secrets of the universe?" 15 bucks at the bookstore! Beauty refers to the Source that we who are human (divine) animals (beasts) loves: Beauty &the Beast. Sleeping Beauty, similarly, and Cinderella [ash-girl] clues us in that Beauty lurks in the dirt beneath our feet. Paramahansa Yogananda: "Any time you become fascinated by some material creation, close your eyes, look within & contemplate its Source." This is an idea I’ve wanted to present in some decent written form for years, while somehow acknowledging the need to keep it secret.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0679731199

Moore, Robert L., King, warrior, magician, lover : rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine / Moore, Robert L., and Douglas Gillette. Edition 1st HarperCollins paperback ed. Published [San Francisco] : HarperSanFrancisco, ©1990. Description xix, 160 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Subjects Men--Psychology. Masculinity (Psychology) Archetype (Psychology) Contributors Gillette, Douglas. Notes Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-159). ISBN 0062505971 or 0062506064: Call No: HQ1090 .M66 1990 {replaces http://members.tripod.com/~denmanni/bib_5.html}

(1991-2) This was a book club selection, but I took & read it on the heels of Robt. Bly’s more powerful Iron John." Added a little depth to my personal mythology, and personality structure. In the context of my view of fairy tales, it brought the balance of internal power into sensible shape but didn’t really extend it. There was another book, too, in this vein neither the title nor author of which comes to mind. But now that I think of it, Bly’s book and this one provided a basis for my "extension" of interpreting so-called fairy tales. Worth reading.
Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0062506064

Nhât Hanh, Thích. Peace is every step : the path of mindfulness in everyday life / Thich Nhat Hanh ; edited by Arnold Kotler. Published New York, N.Y. : Bantam Books, ©1991. Description xv, 134 p. ; 22 cm. Subjects Religious life--Buddhism. ISBN 0553071289 or ISBN: 0553351397 Call No: BQ 5410 .N46 1991

(1990-91) I read a book on "mindfulness" that I think was this one by Thich Nhat Hanh. (A former business client/employer stole all my books from our joint office so I can’t pull it off the shelf.) During my reading I noticed his content dealt with the very thing I’d been trying to refine in my own behavior. A synchronistic reading of material I needed at the time, a la "when the student is ready…." I had arrived at his central theme by myself but he "gave me the details" more clearly than I could have explained them to anyone else. My personal choice of words was "attentiveness" but his choice carries a richer sense of healthy mental process. Sooner or later he will show up as a reference in something I write; may as well give him the credit now.

However, what I read might have been his "Touching peace : practicing the art of mindful living" / Published: Berkeley, Calif. : Parallax Press, c1992. Or possibly the book "Moment by moment : the art and practice of mindfulness"-- / Author: Braza, Jerry. Published: Salt Lake City, Utah: Healing Resources, c1993. Another in the same vein is: "The miracle of mindfulness! : A manual of meditation" / Thich Nhat Hanh ; trans. by Mobi Warren ; with drawings by Vo Dinh. Uniform Title Phép la cua su’ tinh thu’c. English. Author Nhât Hanh, Thích. Published Boston : Beacon Press, c1976. Description ix, 108 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Subjects Meditation--Buddhism. Buddhist meditations. ISBN 0807011185 0807011193 Call No: BQ5612 .N48 1976

{Something else that I have not read that falls in line with the many other traditions that address breath, and may come in handy when I do the piece on mitochondria / chloroplasts as the masters of our fate. Not read: "The sutra on the full awareness of breathing" : with commentary by Thich Nhat Hanh / Published: Berkeley, Calif. : Parallax Press, ©1988.}

Search B&N by ISBN: 0553351397 or by title Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

(1969 [for my high school English comp class]) This is the classic writer's handbook, known throughout the American English world of writers, the ultimate and sometimes only book you need to write well. In Strunk's tiny book I found the fundamental rule of style that has guided me for years in writing and speech and in thinking came from : "Use the active voice." To me, having mulled it over for decades, it offers profound impact on living life. Every politician has mastered the passive voice, and manipulates people with it against all common sense. Convert political (or any other) utterance into the active voice & it forces you to assign responsibility, exposes bizarre thinking, and brings life to life. Many times I’ve written the same essay over & over arguing exactly that point, complete with scholarly references to linguistic & psychological literature. He also gave the second most important rule of style: "Use the positive voice" (i.e., eliminate "not.") It eventually leads to profound weight in the statement "I am that I am," timelessly existent identity, and the corresponding rule to avoid frivolous usage of the phrase "I am."

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 020530902X

Kozminsky, Isidore, The magic and science of jewels and stones. Published: New York and London, G. P. Putnam's sons, ©1922. Description: xv, 434 p. col. front., illus., plates (part col.) 21 cm. Call No: QE 392 .K88

(1987) I wanted to make a belt buckle using the 12 stones of Aaron’s breastplate, the Ephod described in Exodus. Unfortunately, nobody has ever successfully identified the stones! The Hebrew original &the cultural milieu confound things: "saphhire" at the time referred to any stone that was blue, and anything green was "emerald." Kozminsky provided the only sensible alternative: consider the astrological correspondences to the 12 signs. I have a dozen stones now (not all Kozminsky’s choices), and an ounce of silver, but extremely limited skill with either! So I’ve meanwhile settled for a synthetic alexandrite in a gold forefinger ring; it’s a deliberate affront to Caesar’s ring on the Pope’s hand. The Roman Empire never died; it just changed hands and put on a disguise: the "whore of Rome."

This is not generally available, but a link to used and other book dealers begins with a search of the B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0961587563.

Sagan, Carl, The dragons of Eden : speculations on the evolution of human intelligence / Carl Sagan. 1934- Edition 1st ed. Published New York : Random House, ©1977. Description 263 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Subjects Intellect. Brain. Genetic psychology. Subjects (Medical) Brain. Intelligence. Evolution. Genetics, Behavioral. Notes Bibliography: p. 241-249. Includes index. ISBN 0394410459 or (ppk.) 0345346297: Call No: BF431 .S2

(1981-2-3) This I read a long time ago, but remember feeling comfortable with his cross-discipline approach to explaining life. Don’t recall anything in particular that has stuck with me, though. At this point his scientific information may be out of date due to the research work during the 2 decades since he wrote it.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0345346297

Regis, Edward, Nano : the emerging science of nanotechnology : remaking the world-molecule by molecule / Author: Regis, Edward, 1944- Published: Boston : Little, Brown, ©1995. Description: 325 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: T 174.7 .R441 1995

(1995) Pulled a publisher’s preview copy out of the trash at a library and read it. It certainly held my attention, as I had not too much earlier finished reading Cannon’s Nostradamus. It’s disappointing feature is that it reads more like a biography of one clever MIT engineer, rather than as a thorough covering of the field of nanotech.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0316738522

Phelan, Laurel: Guinevere: The True Story of One Woman's Quest for Her past Life Identity and the Healing of Her Eternal Soul. Publisher: Pocket Books: June 1997; Paperback, 32pp. ISBN: 0671526154

This book was simply given to me by someone who had no interest in it and was about to throw it away. It is another past-life regression, adequately, but over dramatically written. In it a real-life 21 year old secretary traces the source of her nightmares to a past life 1500 years ago as the medieval Queen, wife of the legendary Arthur. To me her description of the queen reads like a headstrong, selfish, spoiled brat of a girl who was lucky enough to marry the local gandlord, Arthur. But if you can accept regression work as valid, then it offers some useful bits of information about the source of the legends. As to the writing, it is adequate but disappointingly nothing more. It shows up as number 300,000 on the B&N bestseller, which shows what others think of it.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0671526154, Guinevere: The True Story

Pribram, Karl H., Languages of the brain : experimental paradoxes and principles in neuropsychology / Author: Pribram, Karl H., 1919- Published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J : Prentice-Hall, ©1971 Description: xiv, 432 p. : illus. ; 24 cm. Call No: QP 360 .P94

(1975) My favorite psych prof at Michigan did his grad work with Pribram. For a paper for class he pulled Pribram off the shelf, handed it to me, suggested some chapters and expected a term paper. Later on he took me to a lecture Pribram was giving locally, at which Pribram presented a convincing display of data from electrodes in monkey brains that appeared to prove that brains at the cellular level organize incoming information even when no organization exists among the input! I.e., the brain will "make sense" of complete randomness. But, aware of the obvious conclusion, he deliberately refused to state the conclusion as it would make him guilty of adding meaning that might actually be absent. The critical importance of "context" in Pribram’s book has stuck with me for two decades now. I hope I get to help some bright young lawyer someday by pointing out that any and every case, statement, whatever, in a court that denies admission of the surrounding context contradicts the proven cellular basis our brains use to determine truth; thus denial of context makes truth impossible. The entire notion of context has served me well throughout life, from guessing the meaning of a word in a sentence to the implication of Grand Consciousness or God in relation to me/us as an essential feature of grasping Truth.

You are extremely unlikely to find this outside a serious academic library, and will probably never find a new copy in the bookstore. But you can search B&N by title or by ISBN: 0913412228. for used book links of the '82 edition.

Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity: the emerging science at the edge of order and chaos / M. Mitchell Waldrop. Published: New York : Simon & Schuster, ©1992. Description: 380 p. ; 24 cm. ISBN: 0671767895 : Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [360]-363) and index. Call No: Q 175 .W2581 1992 Subjects: Science--Philosophy. Complexity (Philosophy)

(1997) The only book anybody needs to read who doesn’t want to dive into the volumes of technical literature. It is often recommended by even the most important scholars in the field. This gives the essential underpinnings, the principles, of what has become overly mechanistic new versions of artificial intelligence offer some real hope of understanding. Many current complexity aficionados lean towards the computational/mechanistic end. But the idea of phenomena, systems, organisms, and independent animacy "emerging" without preplanning overrides, for me, the computationists who are distracted from the truth under their noses. Despite mechanistic analogies, the thinking has profound implications and offers clear understanding for consciousness as a stand-alone entity (a system, if you will) that came into being according to complexity principles from, but now apart from, the physical universe. For more links on complexity and chaos try this.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0671872346 (ppk.)

White, John Warren, Pole shift : predictions and prophecies of the ultimate disaster / Author: White, John Warren, 1939- Published: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, ©1980. Description: xx, 410 p., 4 leaves of plates : ill. ; 22 cm. Call No: NON-FICTION 133.3 W584p 1988

(1996) I read the bulk of this sitting in the store. His bottom line: don’t worry, it’s unlikely. It contradicts D. Cannon’s Nostradamus, though, which is why I picked it up.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0876041624.

Cannon, Dolores, Conversations with Nostradamus : his prophecies explained / Author: Cannon, Dolores, 1931- Published: Huntsville, AR : Ozark Mountain Pub., ©1997. Description: 365 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

(1995) For what it is, it’s an excellent text, in 3 volumes costing about $45US in ppbk. I started with vol. 2, then 1 & 3. The woman could not possibly have made up this stuff. Her transcripts of past-life regression of her subjects, who act as go-betweens for her & Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame), indicate that she, forgive me, isn’t smart enough to make this up. Besides, the guy has an Attitude, with a capital A, that I find refreshing and honest. The interpretations of the prophecies also all just make plain sense, once translated by the man himself. Some of my favorite reading of the last few years. CAUTION: Read this book with a large measure of healthy skepticism. It is, after all, past life regression therapy by a woman with minimal credentials other than late life experience. Even if you accept that notion then you probably also accept the OBE and remote-viewer reports which, logically could be the "true" sources of any alleged past-life experience. But I repeat that it is some of my favorite material. Even includes a drawing of the so-called Anti-Christ born in Jerusalem in 1962.

Search B&N bookstore by title, or search by author, Dolores Cannon or ISBN Vol.1 1886940002 , or ISBN Vol.2 0963277618, or ISBN Vol.3 0963277634.

Bonewits, Philip Emmons Isaac, Real magic : an introductory treatise on the basic principles of yellow magic. Author: Bonewits, Philip Emmons Isaac. Published: York Beach, Me. : S. Weiser, ©1989. Description: xxi, 282 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Call No: 133 B653ra 1989 [And another ed.] - Real magic : an introductory treatise on the basic principles of yellow magic, Bonewits, Philip Emmons Isaac. Author: Bonewits, Philip Emmons Isaac. *Published: Berkeley, Calif. : Creative Arts Book Co., ©1979. Description: xix, 282 p. ill. ; 22 cm. [Yet another ed.] - Real magic; an introductory treatise on the basic principles of yellow magic. Author: Bonewits, Philip Emmons Isaac. *Published: New York, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan ©1971 Description: xix, 236 p. illus. 22 cm. Call No: DESK R 133 B653r

(1996) Three eds. of one book, none of which are the ppk. ed. I have. This, and only this, book will suffice to teach anyone everything of value in all the magic mumbo-jumbo books out there. He includes a passage by someone else describing a specialized kind of visualization technique, allegedly based on physics principles. Of particular importance, he talks about emotional content as an essential ingredient to effectiveness. Considering my experience, Monroe’s, C. Scott’s, and some implicit suggestions from Grimm, emotion alone may very nearly suffice ... used correctly. He provides a simple seven step, universally applicable "spell" which even I have tried and found mildly effective (there are additional considerations.) Don’t waste a penny on anybody else’s magic crap; read this book by a magician who has discovered it’s all 99% crap anyway then gives you the 1% leftover gold.

Incidentally 5 years after reading it, I picked up a U.S. government remote viewer's new book, (W. Adam Mandelbaum's Psychic Battlefield: A History of the Military Occult Experience ) about psychic viewing. The government's "top-secret" method turned out to be what I always thought would be very practical: they used this author's (Bonewits's) technique, first published (thus, not secret) in 1971! Now I am convinced this is the only so-called "magic" book anyone needs.

Search B&N bookstore by title: Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic or by ISBN: 0877286884.

Welburn, Andrew: Gnosis, the mysteries and Christianity : an anthology of Essene, Gnostic and Christian writings / selected and edited by Andrew Welburn. Published: Edinburgh : Floris Books, ©1994. Description: 348 p. ; 25 cm. Call No: BR 129 .G56 1994 $31.45@Borders.com

(1996) Stumbled across this in the New Age section at Borders Books in Ann Arbor. No particular motivation to read it except that I had only just finished Pagels’s book. Did not completely read it, but did find some intriguing texts: alleged translations of long forgotten gnostic literature. Most interesting to me (that I recall) was the apparent OBE of the ancient author talking to a sheep-man (shepherd?) who clearly describes the writer’s place in the grand scheme of things. The editor, Welburn, seems to be a literary type (his other books deal with Rudolf Steiner), so scientific (vs. literary) scholarship may challenge him or urge us to dismiss him altogether. I’ve done no follow up, and haven’t the cash to buy it among all the others I want. But I’d dearly love to get my hands on it. For reference, though, see translated a lot of (into English) gnostic literature online at http://home.online.no/~noetic/libe.htm.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0863151833. note: if you search by author, B&N (mis)spells his name differently for his different books; must be a proofreading problem.

(1995-6) Saw this somewhere along the line, can’t quite recall what led me to her. But I found it a worthwhile read. Her historical perspective I’ve heard called (by a bright Catholic Seminary dropout friend) "revisionist history." Seems to me it was better than that, but at the moment I can only recall that her work had value to me at the time. F.Y.I., this author seems to have continued with commentary on gnostic works, see e.g., her "The Gnostic Paul," "Adam, Eve, and the Serpent," and "The Origin of Satan."

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0679724532 (ppk.)

Bellinzoni, Arthur J., The sayings of Jesus; Published: London, Gay & Bird, ©1903. Description: xi, 149, (1) p. 16 cm. Call No: BT 306 .R65 Also see: The sayings of Jesus in the writings of Justin Martyr, Author: Bellinzoni, Arthur J. Published: Leiden, E. J. Brill, ©1967. Description: vii, 157 p. 24 cm. Call No: BS 2280 .N6 v.17

(1996) A direct search based on Pagels’ references. I perused a paperback current edition of these sayings in the bookstore, also known as the "Gospel of Thomas the Twin" (Thomas means twin.) Best direct information from and about the teacher available. I also picked up a forgotten (by me) book that discussed the historical Jesus as possibly one of those from the original school of Cynics who deliberately dressed in rags and badgered people with phenomenally clever and insightful truths. Jesus was, if nothing else, a master of his language. Some things attributed to him I personally "reconfigure" according to what would have made sense for him to say. For example, his benediction about "this is my body, my blood..." is an unfortunately obvious misconveyance of words which were more likely to have been: "This is the body of the ‘One I Am’" referring to the Genesis God’s name, I am that I am, and also indicating there is only one of them, and thereby explicitly professing pantheism in that everything, even the wine you drink is part of the body of the one and only who calls itself "I am." A man of Jesus' stature would be exceptionally careful about his choice of words; his followers obviously less so.

I have a book club edition (qpb.com), edited by Marcus Borg, of the Q Gospel, which is essentially the same thing. The editor points out the early churchmen’s mis-translations; my favorite is their note that Jesus never used the very formal "Father" for God, but instead called God "Daddy" ("Abba" in the Aramaic.) It fits nicely with my personal picture of the universe and my enormous fondness for it and its Source.

Many, many editions now exist of this work. To find the Borg version [no, not the Star Trek Borg!] that I use, search B&N's bookstore by title: Q Gospel or others by the alternate title: Sayings of Jesus or another alternate title: Gospel of Thomas the Twin or specifically for Borg's edition by ISBN: 1569751897, "The Lost Gospel: The Original Sayings of Jesus."

Drizari, Nelo, Spoken and written Albanian; a practical handbook. Author: Drizari, Nelo, 1900- *Published: New York, Ungar Pub. Co., 1975, ©1947, Description: xviii, 188 p. 24 cm. Call No: ALBANIAN 491.99 D833s Also see: Spoken and written Albanian; a practical handbook. Author: Drizari, Nelo, 1900- *Published: New York, Hafner Publishing Co., (1947) Description: xviii, 188 p. 24 cm. Call No: PG9523 .D7

(1996) A Greek beauty & friend found her perfect man (body builder, movie star clone, & nice guy) who is American-Albanian. Being bilingual herself, & marrying a bilingual husband she asked me to find her some books to help her talk with her mother-in-law. Although I did not read this book, I read the Introduction. In it Drizari points out that there is no known etymological source for "Athena." However, in Alb. there is such a source and it means something like a willfully spoken word, or that which is willed. Aha! Identical to Hebraic "davar" which (I’m told) alternately means word or will or way. My Big Insight is that the word (either davar or Athena) conveys triple meaning, not, I repeat not, contextually dependent meaning. Immediately I recall Hollywood’s Native Americans referring to the Great White Spirit, all the near-death "lights," and the first half of the Greek goddess’s name: Pallas Athena. Thus, White Willed Word! I’ve written an essay to myself about this several times, too. The essay of course goes on to Jesus’s triplicity, and the Emerald Tablet's & Hermes (word) Trismegistus (of triple meaning.)

I posted as much to the NewPhysics listserv back in Aug. ’98 but it seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Just to get the word out, I also sent a note about the footnote to the Oxford English Dictionary so they can examine the etymology of the English word "attention."

If you search B&N's bookstore, you must search by author, which still won't find this book; but this will then allow you to connect to the out-of-print network. It is better simply to search a local library and request an interlibrary loan. Nonetheless, here's a link to search B&N by author: Drizari.

Vygotskii, L. S.: Thought and language / Author: Vygotskii, L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 1896-1934. Published: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1986. Description: lxi, 287 p. : port. ; 21 cm. Call No: P 105 .V983 1986

(1974) Referred to it by a physical therapist at whose gym I worked out twice weekly during college. One of the principle roots of all of Soviet-Russian psychological work in this century (like Freud in the West); his main student became a huge force in Russian psychology named Alexander Luria (see, e.g., Luria’s "Mind of the Mnemonist") who did mostly child development studies. One of Luria’s research papers studied the acquisition of negation in language development. Turns out it takes a full year, from age 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 to acquire the ability to use "not" successfully. I use this reference in my argument for the active positive voice (see Wm. Strunk in this biblio.) Vygotsky acquired some fame among American psych and language people a decade or two ago, but is not cited very often that I know of. The physical therapist wound up screwing my wife, precipitating our divorce (though it turned out she’d made herself freely available to many), so I don’t know whatever happened to him. It is enough to bite the bullet and forgive them without having to give a shit about their current well-being. Meanwhile, I mentally carry a few tenets professed by Vygotsky with me.

Search B&N's by title or for a new edition of "this 1930's classic of cognitive science," search by ISBN: 0262720108 (ppk.)

Kharitidi, Olga: Entering the circle : a Russian psychiatrist's journey into Siberian Shamanism. / Author: Kharitidi, Olga. Published: Albuquerque, NM : Gloria Press, ©1995. Description: xiii, 233 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. Call No: BL2370.S5 K473 1995 C.1

(1996) This book indirectly led me to joining and making some postings to the NewPhysics listserv. I found some value in the work, especially due to to my psych major, but also by her reference to time travel (she mentions an important, unnamed nuclear physicist studying A. Kosirev’s work on "time as a substance.") This subsequently led me to Georgii Ryazanov’s New Physics "sincretic science" website & also to current Russian "temporological" work. My only written notes from the book are a list of the five things "you must always satisfy:" Light, Health, Happiness, Beauty, and Truth. Her shaman also encouraged her to ask her spirit guide for assistance whenever she needed it, noting there are only seven kinds of guides (hers was a healer) and that we each have only one.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0062514172 (ppk.)

Morehouse, David, Psychic warrior: inside the CIA's Stargate program : the true story of a soldier's espionage and awakening / David Morehouse 1954-. Edition: 1st ed. Published: New York : St. Martin's Press, ©1996. Description: viii, 258 p., <8> p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN: 0312147082; Call No: BF1027.M67 A3 1996 C.1

[1997 (early Jan.-Mar?)] In July ‘98 I made a posting to the Newphysics listserv about this book that elicited a prompt reaction from someone who basically called this author an asshole. To which someone else responded that Morehouse was given short shrift. My reading was done in various bookstores over a period of several days. I made clear mental note of his obvious "common man" perspective, lacking the riches that my academic education has provided to me. He describes what he couldn’t call either a dream, a hallucination, or an unwanted remote view. This actually supports the Army case against him in that it shows him failing to distinguish reality from whatever. One "dream" that he describes involves a red river which turns out to be blood. All the people happily stand in line to wait to get their throats cut & drained into the river. He offers no interpretation. I’ve paid close attention to dreams since childhood, and have read much on dreams, their interpretation, symbolism (including literary), etc. To me it’s a blatantly obvious message describing the world today: everybody stands in line eagerly obeying the status quo requirement to spend your life working to make money, only to find out at the end that you’ve devoted your life’s energy (blood) to someone who merely collects it and spills it. My socio-political interpretation is that working for a living for money is an utter and total waste, that his dream was intended as a warning to give your life’s blood/energy to something more worthwhile. It gives the command to "get out of line" with it's pun-intenional. Wilhelm Stekel first noted puns in dreams back in the 1930s-‘40s. {see Stekel elsewhere on this page} Personally I think that wealth is acceptable, but devoting one’s life energy to acquisition ends in death (Faust?) The current mechanism for the blood spilling by the pig is nothing more complicated than interest on loans. Outlaw interest! in order to "let my people go."

Other books covering the same material about government sponsored "remote viewing" include one by Jim Schnable (considered "disinformation" by the others), another by the head of the Army program, Jim McMoneagle, and yet another by a lawyer / CIA viewer / etc, named W. Adam Mandelbaum. You can learn how to do it online at rviewer.com.

Search B&N by title or by ISBN: 0312964137 (careful to choose Morehouse's nonfiction, not the sci-fi book by another writer with the same title.)

Myss, Caroline M. Anatomy of the spirit : the seven stages of power and healing / Caroline Myss. Edition: 1st ed. Published: New York : Harmony Books, ©1996. Description: xiv, 302 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-298) and index. ISBN: 0517703912 Call No: R726.5 .M97 1996

(1998) I scanned this at the store and attended one of her book signings. An excellent study of cross-tradition, cross-discipline correspondence. Her current work is “Why People Don’t Heal, and How they Can." On her website I posted my thought about fairy tales being the "secrets of the universe." I did so because at her signing she talked at length about how Princess Diana’s untimely death finally and, in her opinion, happily destroyed a useless myth from fairy tales. My posting agreed that the Hollywood version, the superficial version, deserved destruction. However, I pointed out that the woman who became Princess Di was still the girl in the ashes. The physical human is the animal human, the dirt-thing in which lives Awareness. Physical death is the transition to royalty. Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead because it begins to sound like simple medieval apologist Christianity, promising that the "next" world will be better. That may be so, but I’m in This world, and I like it and I want royalty to come pay a visit Here. Another essay I often consider writing is "IBE’s: IN the Body Experience" vs. OBEs. Myss’s health work might come in handy in that regard.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0609800140.

Long, Max Freedom, Growing into light / Author: Long, Max Freedom, 1890- Published: Santa Monica, Calif. : DeVorss, ©1955. Description: x, 177 p. ; 22 cm. Call No: BF1999 L56 1955. *Also see Title: The Huna code in religions. Author: Long, Max Freedom, 1890- Published: Vista, Calif. : Huna Research Publications, [©1965]. Call No: BF1999 L565 1965. *Also see Title: The secret science behind miracles. Author: Long, Max Freedom, 1890- Published: Santa Monica, Calif. : DeVorss, [c1954].

(1996) I actually only read "Growing into Light," the shortest of his 11(?) books. Very thorough books, in the style of his generation (died old in 1955?). He presents innumerable obvious -- once he explains them -- meanings for much of judeo-christian texts’ inner meanings, heavily dependent upon language. The triplicity in Long’s work equates to the subconscious, waking conscious, and super-conscious or collective unconscious, as three levels of the Self. Again we stumble across the "I Am" but with another perspective derived from Hawaiian shamanism of the first half of this century. Try some of his exercises, they work pretty well. He focuses heavily on christian meaning no doubt because of his very obvious Christian American roots, and the context of his time period, making Huna palatable to the American midwesterner. If no one else has noticed, the "hu" rush of air syllable occurs almost ubiquitously in mystic and religious traditions all over the planet. Take that into account when I mention respiration as the guiding force of all life on our planet, as well as being central to Chi energy, Qi Qong, etc. His general methodology, by the way, also matches the essence of witchcraft described by Bonewits, later used by government remote viewers. Thus the principles, the method, has little to do with ethics; those come from elsewhere.

Search B&N by title or by ISBN: 0875160433

Plichta, Peter, God's secret formula: deciphering the riddle of the universe and the prime number code/ Peter Plichta,1939-. Published: Shaftesbury, Dorset ; Rockport, Mass. : Element, ©1997. Description: 218 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Subjects: Plichta, Peter, 1939- Science--Philosophy. Religion and science. God--Proof. Scientists--Germany--Biography. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 1862040141 (pbk. : alk. paper) Call No: Q 143 .P635 A32 1997

(1997) Another serendipitous find on the shelves at the bookstore, on one of my random follow-the-wind days. I admit I did not read it, but scanned it looking for the essence rather than the supporting material of his book. To Plichta, it all comes down to prime numbers, and despite any mathematician’s claim to the contrary he says that primes are predictable. A German chemist who of necessity acquired a load of mathematic & physics skill, he yet seems to present a cogent argument and does so well. This is a book I’d like to give a thorough reading because I skipped straight to his main argument.

Search bookstore by title or by ISBN: 1862040141.

Scott, Cyril,1879-1970. The initiate; some impressions of a great soul, by his pupil. Published: New York, S. Weiser ©1971, Description: xv, 380 p. 19 cm. Subjects: Occultism. Contributors: His pupil. Notes: "First published 1920." reprinted, 1973. Call No: BF1411 .S427 1971

(1999) A quote from the book: "’Now I am utterly forsaken and alone.’* [author's footnote, p.368]: *"This agony of desolation precedes attainment in all mystic literature." This quote & its footnote I jotted down while I scanned the book in the store. As I said in my comments on Robt. Monroe’s work, I had already learned (from painful personal experience) that devastation was "required coursework" in the living of life’s learning. In my often rewritten essay to myself on the subject of emotional wreckage I viewed sado-masochism as a misguided attempt to forcefully precipitate the lesson (& relief) that devastation entails. However, as with so much of my reading, I read large passages in the store but never gave it the cover-to-cover it deserves. It seemed to offer much of value in anyone's quest for enlightenment ... and written by a musician!

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN ISBN: 0877283613.

Grimm, Jacob, The complete fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm / Published: Toronto ; New York, N.Y. : Bantam, ©1987. Description: xxxiv, 733 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Location: UNDERGRADUATE--Call No: PT921 .K5613 1987 23. - *Also see Title:The complete Grimm's fairy tales. Author: Grimm, Jacob, 1785-1863 Published: New York : Pantheon ; ©1972. Description: 865 <8> p. : illus. (part col.) ; 24 cm. Call No: GR 25 .G831 1972 *Also see Title: Fairy tales. Published: London, Routledge and Paul (1948) Description: 863 p. illus. (part. col.) 23 cm. Call No: GR 25 .G831 1948 *Also see Title: Grimms' tales for young and old : the complete stories / Published: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, ©1977. Description: x, 633 p. ; 24 cm. Call No: GR25 .G831 1977

(1995) Pick one, just make it a complete version, rather than one of the sanitized editions that misguided puritans have butchered beyond recognition. My ppbk. ed. is an Engl. trans. from Ger. by a guy named, I think, Mannheim; it’s in storage now. As I’ve said elsewhere (Myss, e.g.) so-called fairy tales present the hidden secrets of the universe that so many alchemy and witchcraft & mysticism students wish they could find. Read ‘em, you’ll see. Or at least you will when you translate the images to their proper levels: physical man is the beast in which is the princely soul/Awareness. Man is not the prince over animals; he is the animal (look how we behave, killing our food, fucking anything that moves.) Beauty is not the pretty girl, but the Source hiding within the dusty physical stuff called a body. Ultimate Beauty which I personally have learned to love as much or more than a woman, resides even within the ashes in my ashtray. (Yes, I smoke, and enjoy it.) Have any doubts? In my edition, the last piece is a two paragraph story called "The Key." Briefly, a kid found a key, paused to think, then started digging furiously because "where there’s a key, a lock is nearby." That’s it, the whole story. Besides, if you had to hide the secrets of the universe but simultaneously pass them down through the generations, and protect them from censors, book-burners, politicians, and the like for centuries to come, what better place to "hide" them? Who would ever burn a fairy tale? Disney, that’s who! I’m convinced Jung was close but missed the mark. They may provide psychological insight, they may carry collective unconscious images, but they primarily convey fundamental cosmic Truth. The Church’s destruction of the Cathars no doubt sought to destroy their clear understanding of the stories. The European stories, I’d bet, are the Cathars’ legacy to us. Literary types who study folklore across cultures have found clear and obvious kinships among stories, but have limited their explanation of the similarities to lack of originality or imagination (!) on the part of "illiterate storytellers." Again. the secrets of the universe cost 15 bucks, just about anywhere ... which is where they belong, everywhere! I asked a Jordanian friend if he would supply or direct me to a good translation of the Al’Laddin stories. He said there are none, and a little background research in the library confirms that our English versions are bastardized things by self-important 19th century British "explorers." Sigh. I live near the largest American population of Arab speaking people (who are in Dearborn, MI.) You’d think one of them would want to take the trouble to share the tales in their true glory.

Search B&N bookstore by title .

Helmstetter, Shad. What to say when you talk to yourself / Shad Helmstetter. Published: Scottsdale, Ariz. : Grindle Press, ©1986. Description: 228 p. ; 24 cm. Subjects: Self-help techniques. Change (Psychology) Psychology--popular works. ISBN: 0937065056 Call No: 158.1 Hel -

(1988?) I saw Helmstetter on a late night info-mercial around 1983 promoting his subliminal tapes. Yes, I did pick up several subliminal persuasion tapes by others. But I also finally got hold of his book. Despite his raw commercial purpose, he has many valid points reiterated by many others in other books (or perhaps originally stated elsewhere & "used" by him.) To me, it all falls into line with Long’s three selves, the High, Low, & Middle selves. Subliminals work because the Low self, the subconscious, believes every word it hears, like a child or an ingenuous naive soul. I wrote (in ‘94) & published (in "Touchstone" a Detroit area new age mag in 1996) a derivative essay which I called "Talking to Your Parts." In that piece I came dangerously close to a recent (July ‘98) essay I wrote about proprioception as a means of understanding one’s own unity with the universe at large. But both essays began essentially with Helmstetter’s crass commercial application of a Truth. To be fair, though, I crassly availed myself of the purported benefits of such tapes; they work unless you have no need for them. A smoke cessation subliminal, in other words, has no effect on a non-smoker, nor on a smoker who enjoys tobacco, but overcoming procrastination won’t let you sit down.

Search bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0671708821 (current ppk. ed.)

Gawain, Shakti,1948- Creative visualization / Shakti Gawain. Published: San Rafael, Calif. : New World Library, 1990, ©1978. Description: 152, [6] p. ; 22 cm. Subjects: Visualization. Success. Affirmations. Self-actualization (Psychology) Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [154-157]). ISBN: 0931432022 Call No: BF367.G34 1990

(1987) For years, now, I've practiced her techniques. Amazing the results you can get, but it took a significant amount of other reading (a lot of this bibliog.!) to make it effective & understand why. It was worth the read, and the practice. It irks me, though, that she has taken a single technique and turned it into a career, and mini-industry, like the Redfield's; but I still recommend at least this one book of hers.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0553270443, or for the new edition isbn: 1880032627.

Dossey, Larry: Healing words : the power of prayer and the practice of medicine / Author: Dossey, Larry, 1940- Published: Harper San Francisco, ©1993. Description: xxi, 291 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: BL65.M4 D67 1993 C.1

(1996) Nice book by a nice man about effective non-standard healing. I kept his address on a scrap of paper for almost a year because I’d intended to write to him. But, the reason for the letter eludes me now, as does recollection of the details of the text. I remember liking it and finding it of value, but returned it to the library. In May 2000 he gave a small lecture on healing & prayer at the U. Mich. I attended it, but only added a few research references to what he had already said in his book(s): i.e., any kind of prayer, by anyone, anywhere, has a scientifically measurable effect, especially when the two parties (pray-er and pray-ee) have no knowledge of one another.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by isbn: 0061043834

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly: Finding flow : the psychology of engagement with everyday life / Author: Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Published: New York : Basic Books, ©1997. Description: ix, 181 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Location: UMich GRADUATE LIBRARY--Call No: BF 575 .H27 C8481 1997

(1998, Sept.) Just finished it. Wonderful. A quote per the book club (QPB) promo: "The way to happiness lies not in mindless hedonism, but in mindful challenge" He takes decades of many people's research, extracts the common man’s view of it, then compiles it into a convincing argument to get off your ass and do something for a reason other than money, i.e., innately satisfying for you (& possibly only for you.) Check my comments under Morehouse’s book, and then consider Marlo Morgan’s Australian Aborigines behavior (see "Mutant Message"), then Csikszentmihaly makes more sense than even he claims. When talking to friends I paraphrase his advice as "tackling a challenge that you're up to," neither easy nor overwhelming.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0465024114 (mine is the slightly older Perseus books ed., isbn 0465045138.) For more of his many works, search by author: Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly: Evolving Self, HarperTrade, June 1994, Paperback, 384 Pages, ISBN: 0060921927

(2000) Given to me as a gift after I praised his book Finding Flow (see above.) This is a heftier version of his thinking. It adds details and references and some additional ideas; for general readers, his Finding Flow will suffice.

Search bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060921927.

Goodman, Linda: Linda Goodman's Star Signs : the secret codes of the universe: forgotten rainbows and forgotten melodies of ancient wisdom. Uniform title, Star signs. Author Goodman, Linda. Edition 1st ed. Published New York : St. Martin's Press, ©1987. Description xli, 477 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. ISBN 0312013523 Subjects Occultism. Parapsychology--Research. Astrology. New Age movement. Other Title: Star signs.

(1988-9) Much to say, but I’ll limit it to the simple statement that I did and continue to ignore all her other work because this is better, more comprehensive, and more interesting. A wonderful intro to many things. She suggested trying something she called "purple plates" which I’ve found intriguing, and occasionally effective. Worth having on the shelf.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0312192037 (1998 ppk. edition.)

Gardner, Martin, Relativity for the million. Illustrated by Anthony Ravielli. Author Gardner, Martin, 1914- Published New York, Macmillan (1962) Description 182 p. illus. 24 cm. Subjects: Relativity (Physics) Notes Rev. ed. published in 1976 under title: The relativity explosion. Call No (Dewey Decimal): 530.11 G175r

(1962-3-4? Childhood reading around age 10-12 yrs old, as follow up to several biographies of Einstein & several of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, & Tschaikovsky.) I learned early in life to consider time as if it were a spatial thing, and have enjoyed endless years of musings about the nature of time, escape from time, directionality of it, and so forth. Russian physicist Kosirev’s (alt. transliterations: Kosyrev, Kosireev) notion of time as a substance fits neatly and intuitively into much of my many years of mental play, as does Geo. Ryazanov’s "arrows" (directions) of time. To me such "insights" seem mundane because I found the notions myself in childhood. I have a theory on physically escaping the "surface" of time, not just non-physically disconnecting as in OBEs and RVs and past-life regression. I suppose I owe one of my biggest debts to Gardner’s very understandable explication of Einstein. I moved on to more detailed, but still laymen level, reading in physics and nuclear physics, etc., and retain a nagging appreciation for the value of nuclear reactors, and a peculiar love for the beauty of (but not the consequences of) the power of an H-bomb. Didn’t take me long to recognize that fission was a tiny problem compared to the problem of lax operating companies and hungover personnel working the damn things. If Time intrigues you as it has me since I read Gardner, then check out the scholarly Russian (Moscow) Institute for Temporology.

The book: I was a kid, so I know it's good for kids (ok, maybe a precocious or presumptuous kid, but still only a 6th grade kid.)

Search B&N by re-titled book or by ISBN of that newer 1976 version, 0394721047, which may still be unavailable except from a library; try an interlibrary loan.

Ruiz, Don Miguel, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom: Amber-Allen Publishing / November 1997; "A Toltec Wisdom Book" (ppk.)

(summer 2000) A very popular best seller, but I read it anyway. This work by a surgeon-turned-shaman sounded interesting. Once I read it -- and I assume when anyone else reads it -- there is no need to remember anything but the simple, proverbial rule-set he presents. They are:

[*] Take nothing personally. [*] Make no assumptions. [*] Be true to your word, or impeccable with your word. [*] Always do your best.

Before presuming that you know what these rules mean, I strongly suggest reading his very easy book; however, you may then pass it along to a friend without great loss. Comparing this "nagual" shaman to C. Castaneda, I'd choose this guy. He has a web site, and offers workshop (in the West and Southwest), expensive seminars, and expeditions for the rich and well-to-do. A philosophy instructor who reviewed this on B&N also recommended: 'Castle of Wisdom' by Rhett Ellis.

Search B&N by title, or by ISBN: 1878424319.

Morowitz, Harold J. and Singer, Jerome L.: The Mind, the brain, and complex adaptive systems / editors, Harold Morowitz, Jerome L. Singer. Published: Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., ©1995. Description: xii, 237 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Series: Proceedings volume in the Santa Fe Institute studies in the sciences of complexity ; v. 22. Subjects: Cognitive neuroscience--Congresses. Adaptive control systems--Congresses. Contributors: Morowitz, Harold J. Singer, Jerome L. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 0201409887(hrdbk.) 0201409860 (pbk.) Call No: QP 360.5 .M561 1995

(1996) Technical material, by scientists for scientists, found when I looked at the Santa Fe Institute’s page of new books on its website. Didn’t get through it before the inter-library loan period came due & they refused to renew it. Oddly, over a year later I awoke from a dream with the single clear statement: "Jerome Singer." Huh?! I asked myself. My subsequent review of Singer’s work reveals that he has extensively studied daydreams. This naturally lends itself to material like Gawain’s visualization techniques, and the witchcraft "center of the universe" technique (see Issac Bonewits), and Maxwell Long’s Huna method, and another dream 2 years later about Moses. But, for this text, I shall return to it for technical thoroughness. At the time, I made this note on a scrap of paper:

INCLUDES Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic, p. 53, "…prefrontal cortex has a specialized function that is replicated in … its … subdivisions and … these memory centers … constitute the brain’s machinery for higher-level cognition." MY comments from & about this: Redundancy is implied — this is consistent w/ nature’s habit; redundancy also suggests the capacity to compare for differences faster than serial processing; e.g., stereo vision, per Keith (my brother), is hard-wired for this instantaneous subtraction algorithm. MORE: the "difference set" yielded by parallel [or binoc] proceses is the new information (stereo vision, e.g., or possibly the difference between love and fear); optic chiasm [crossover] partially crosses data stream, partially diverts it, divides it to permit comparison between two data sets from two eyes.

Search B&N bookstore by ISBN for "The Mind, the Brain, and Complex Adaptive Systems."

Weiss, Brian L.: Only Love Is Real: A Story of Soulmates Reunited / Author: Weiss, Brian L. (Brian Leslie), 1944- , Publisher: Warner Books, Incorporated; Pub. Date: February 1997. Descr.: Paperback, 1st ed., 192pp. ISBN: 0446672653

(1997) I read this in the store (a week of visits around town) and enjoyed it. Wrote down his address from the back of the book, then wrote him a good letter with a question or two. I never heard a word from him or his staff, nary a postcard of acknowledgement, despite the book’s statement of interest in hearing from people. Oh well. Maybe I’ll be the same way if I ever get published, but I hope to behave otherwise.

Search B&N bookstore by ISBN: 0446672653, for Only Love Is Real: A Story of Soulmates Reunited

Keen, Sam: Inward bound : exploring the geography of your emotions / Sam Keen. Published New York, N.Y. : Bantam Books, ©1992. Description xii, 228 p. ; 21 cm. Subjects Boredom. Depression, Mental. Meaning (Psychology) Contributors Keen, Sam. What to do when you're bored and blue. Notes Rev. ed. of: What to do when you're bored and blue. 1980. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0553353888 Call No: BF575.B67 K43 1992

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0553353888

Morgan, Marlo Mutant Message from Down Under / Author: Morgan, Marlo

(1998) A friend insisted I read this & I was pleased I did. Their behavior matches my vague sense of preferred human behavior, especially as regards spontaneity and freedom (e.g., from money) to be spontaneous. Now I think of Csikszentmihaly’s work, too (elsewhere on this page.) The aboriginal notion of speaking to the all-one also corresponds, for me, to Maxwell Long’s method the Huna, to Bonewits’ center of the universe, and so forth. I believe their behavior would support my "thesis" of consciousness as an independent child/system of the universe’s underlying consciousness.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060926317.

Carlos Castaneda: The Art of Dreaming Publisher: HarperTrade: May 1994; Paperback, 1st ed., 260pp. ISBN: 006092554X

(Aug. 2000) Another book suggested by someone. I have ignored Castaneda since his first work in the early '70s because so many people talked about it that I felt no need to get any additional information his work might contain. That is, they told me all I needed to know. But this one was an easy read, and in view of my other reading, pretty straightforward. Personally I would encourage readers to choose the nagual D. Ruiz's "Four Agreements" over the nagual Castaneda; however, Castaneda is more fun because he dramatizes his story like fiction.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 006092554X.

Chu, Chin-Nin: Do Less, Achieve More: Discover the Hidden Power of Giving In, Regan Books, April 1998, Hardcover, 224 Pages; ISBN: 0060392703; paperback ISBN: 0060988754

(2000) A book club book that sounded useful. I read it in my favorite coffeehouse, Brazil. It offered some useful practical advice that adds a pragmatic flavor to my more nebulous notion of devastation as a necessity of personal success. I suppose it would be better said, to allow loss allows success.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060988754.

Nelson,Jr., Robert Finnish Magic, Llewellyn's World of Magic & Religion Series; Llewellyn Publications, February 1999 Paperback, 192 Pages, ISBN: 1567184898

(spring 2000) A book stumbled upon as I walked out the door at Borders books. Coming from Finnish heritage myself I simply had to buy and read it. As it turns out the psychologist author comes from that heritage, and his geneology includes the first woman (a Finn) prosecuted (put on probabtion) for witchcraft in the colonies. A wonderful and informative book showing the eminently practical nature of Finnish magic, of the major role that musicians play in the tradition, and (thankfully) extremely little mumbo-jumbo. But despite its emphasis on the history of the tradition, those who are acquainted with other spiritual-magical-occult threads of the world will find clues and commonalties.

My notes from the book include: (p.90) "The mage seeks power in order to benefit the universe." And, p. 94, "'singing' is synonomous with magic." And (no page number) "Awareness of changes and changing facilitates harmony with, and power over change." (This last one might be my own note rather than the author's; but I'll give him the credit.)

Search B&N bookstore by title: Finnish Magic: A Nation of Wizards, A World of Spirits or by ISBN: 1567184898.

Millman, Dan: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives Publisher: Starseed Press: March 1984. Paperback, 1st ed., 210pp. ISBN: 0915811006

(1999) A friend named Heidi insisted I read this, even though I had known about and steadfastly ignored it for the 15 years since it was first published. I was pleased not because it offered much, but that it tended to confirm or at least correlate to some of my life experience. Although not specifically a book on consciousness, it provided one of the early published works of "New Age" thinking and living and lifestyle. An easy read intended to (it seems) dramatize experiential work for a mass audience. It is still #5,172 in sales ranking (out of a million(?) books in print); people seem to find continuing value in the work. The same writer has numerous subsequent books that extend the lessons he learned in this early book. For myself, glancing at those later books' tables of contents will suffice after reading this one.

Search B&N bookstore by title or for the 2000 ed. by ISBN: 0915811898.

Gerard, Philip, Creative Nonfiction: researching and crafting stories of real life: / Philip Gerard. Cincinnati, Ohio : Story Press Books, ©1996. Description 216 p ; 24 cm. Subjects: Authorship. Feature writing. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-210) and index. ISBN 1884910076 Call No (Dewey Dec.): 808.02 G357c

(1998) This I read at the insistence of a literary magazine editor friend. When I shared a piece I'd done with her, she tore it apart as being the opposite of what Gerard suggests. To which I answered that her criticisms negated all that I was trying to do. This book by Gerard can obviously lead two people to opposite understandings of the literary form of "creative nonfiction." However, I encourage any writer to read it.

Search for the current ed., ISBN: 1884910432 (mine is the slightly older edition, ISBN: 1884910076.)

Stekel, Wilhelm, The interpretation of dreams; new developments and technique. Author: Stekel, Wilhelm, 1868-1940. Published: New York, Liveright publishing corporation. [1943] Description: 2 v. 22 cm. Call No: BF1078 .S68 c.2

(1967 in high school) Some high school reading after reading Freud’s work of the same title. Stekel made much more sense than Freud, having paid so much more attention to the practical outcome. He, for instance, noticed that his patients acquired the ability to dream in the ways he expected, thus suggesting deeper layers. Despite his attempt to turn all dreaming around religious, rather than Freud’s sexual, meaning Stekel was a clever fellow who deserves much more attention than he gets. Not necessarily the easiest thing a teenager could find for amusing reading!

Currently out of print, but available from used book dealers. Search B&N's Rare and Out of Print Books

ALSO READ [unrelated, but I enjoyed]

Brand, Stewart: How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, Viking Penguin, October 1995;Paperback, 256 Pages, ISBN: 0140139966

(2000) This and some related books serve my perpetual (and so far unsuccessful) desire to get or preferably to build a home of my own ... rather than renting and enriching some landlord who already has more than me. Brand's book gives a perspective on buildings that no architecture, nor do-it-yourself handyman book ever will give: buildings perpetually change rather than remain permanent structures for years or centuries to come. Thus, he seems to say, build for change and adaptability rather than presumptuously assuming that once it's built, it's built. Any structure will begin to fail to meet the occupant's needs the moment people move into it because the occupants are moving changing living beings, not permanent fixtures. I finished this a long time after reading Waldrop's Complexity but believe the two unrelated books should be taken together for a complete picture of deep inner principles of succesful building. Actually a number of architects have in fact embraced the notions of Complexity Studies, but I think they should read Brand's book before continuing their misguided misapplication of the principles Waldrop elucidates.

Cf. In this vein (building / living) I've also picked up these titles:

Home Tree Home: Principles of Treehouse Construction and Other Tall Tales by Peter N. Nelson and Gerry Hadden; Viking Penguin, June 1997 Paperback, 192pp. ISBN: 0140259988

Straw Bale House: A Real Goods Independent Living Book by Athena Swentzell Steen with David Eisenberg and Bill Steen, Chelsea Green Publishing Pub. Date: October 1994, Paperback, 297pp., ISBN: 0930031717

Storey's Basic Country Skills by M. John Storey, Deborah Burns; (Editor) Martha Storey. Storey Communications, Inc., September 1999, Paperback, 576pp. ISBN: 1580172024

Complete Book of Cordwood Masonry Housebuilding: The Earthwood Method by Rob Roy; Sterling Publishing Company, Incorporated Pub. Date: March 1992; Paperback, 264pp. ISBN: 0806985909. Also see the cordwood web site.

Wildwood Wisdom Ellsworth Jaeger Lloyd Kahn (Introduction); Shelter Publications, Incorporated, January 2000, Paperback, 2nd ed., 491pp. ISBN: 0936070129. "The tools you need not only to survive in the great outdoors."

Search B&N bookstore ... (generic search link.)

Clark, Hulda R.: The Cure for All Diseases, Revised, ProMotion Publishing, August 1995, paperback, 604 Pages ISBN: 1887314024 {hard to find} or see Publisher: New Century Press Pub. Date: March 1997, paperback, 604pp. ISBN: 1890035017.

(2000) Practical, useful, but unusual health stuff from a Ph.D. physiologist.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 1890035017.

Miyamoto Musashi (auth), Thomas Cleary (translator): The Book of Five Rings, Publisher: Shambhala Publications, Incorporated; Pub. Date: April 1994 Format: ppbk., 1st ed., 151pp. ISBN: 0877739986.

(Feb. 2001) Translation into English of a classic 16th century martial arts manual; it is usually found among business books. Author was an undefeated 16th century Japanese swordmaster. This was recommended by a coffeehouse friend who is also a police martial arts instructor. In my reading, I realized I must stretch the mind to see how one's grip on a sword has anything to do with business or life. However, so many current readers insist on the relationship that I make the effort. I find the connection tenuous.

Search B&N bookstore by title: The Book of Five Rings or by ISBN: 0877739986.

YET TO READ [possibly useful]

Holland, John H.: Emergence: From Chaos to Order. Publisher: Perseus Books Group Pub. Date: April 1999 Format: Paperback, 248pp. ISBN: 0738201421.

(2001) I've read half of this most recent work; included it for completeness of this hugely important complexity scientist's early works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0738201421

Holland, John H.: Adaptation in natural and artificial systems : an introductory analysis with applications to biology, control, and artificial intelligence / Author: Holland, John H. (John Henry), 1929- Published: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1992. Description: xiv, 211 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Call No: QH 546 .H74 1992

Not read; included for completeness of this hugely important complexity scientist's early works. Search B&N bookstore by title or for the 1994 ed. by ISBN: 0262581116

Holland, John H.: Hidden order: how adaptation builds complexity / Author: Holland, John H. (John Henry), 1929- Published: Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, ©1995. Description: xxi, 185 p. : ill. ; 22 cm. Call No: TJ 217 .H641 1995

Not read. Holland's later book Emergence says he focused on the notion of an "agent" in this book. Clearly I need to read this.

Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN 0201442302.

Holland, John H.: Hierarchical descriptions, universal spaces and adaptive systems : technical report / Author: Holland, John H. (John Henry), 1929- Published: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Computer and Communication Sciences Dept., (1968) Description: 53 p. : ill. ; 28 cm. Call No: UMR2009

Not read; included for completeness of his early works. This is strictly an academic piece; I found nothing searching the B&N bookstore; better try libraries.

Dossey, Larry: Prayer is good medicine : how to reap the healing benefits of prayer / Author: Dossey, Larry, 1940- Published: San Francisco, CA : Harper San Francisco, ©1996. Description: xix, 249 p. ; 20 cm. Call No: BL65.M4 D674 1996

Not read; included because another of the doctor/author's works caught my attention, and because I attended one of his lectures. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0062514245.

Talbot, Michael: Beyond the quantum: A Journey to God and Reality in the New Scientific Revolution / Author: Talbot, Michael, 1953- Published: New York : Macmillan ; London : Collier Macmillan, ©1986. Description: xiii, 240 p. : ill. ; 23 cm. Call No: QC174.12 .T351 1986

Not read; included for completeness of author's works. This preceded his much more popular Holographic Universe. I was told that this author has died, but have not confirmed this. Searching B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0026162105 reveals that it is out of print, but available through used booksellers.

Hameroff, Stuart R.: Ultimate computing : biomolecular consciousness and nanotechnology / Author: Hameroff, Stuart R. Published: Amsterdam ; New York : North-Holland ; New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Sole distributors for the U.S.A. and Canada, Elsevier Science Pub. Co., ©1987. Description: xxi, 357 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: QH603.C96 H361 1987

Not read; an older work included for completeness of scientist's earlier works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0444702830.

Pribram, Karl, editor: Origins : brain and self organization / ed. = Pribram, Karl Published: Hillsdale, N.J. : L. Erlbaum, ©1994. Description: 716 p. : ill. ; 28 cm. Call No: QP 360 .O7351 1994 Notes: "This, the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, focuses on the problem of 'order,' its origins, evolution and future"--Foreword. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 0805817867

Not read; I accidentally saw this on a library shelf. Included it because the editor's (Pribram's) works are central to my thinking and that of many others. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0805817867; it is a VERY expensive academic work at $135US.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter: Complexity and the function of mind in nature / Peter Godfrey-Smith. Published: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, ©1996. Description: xiii, 311 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Series: Cambridge studies in philosophy and biology Subjects: Philosophy of mind. Cognition. Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-308) and index. ISBN: 0521451663 Call No: BD 418.3 .G631 1996

Not read; in 1997 I saw the title of this work in philosophical biology and it simply intrigued me. At $70US / $25 ppk., I'll go to the library (you can also probably get an inter-library loan.) But search the B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0521646243. A note: it is number 248,000 on B&N's best seller list.

Mitchell, Edgar D.: The way of the explorer : an Apollo astronaut's journey through the material and mystical worlds / Author: Mitchell, Edgar D. Published: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, ©1996. Description: vi, 230 p. ; 24 cm. Call No: TL 789.85 .M57 A32 1996

Actually I read large parts of this in the store, but haven’t given him his thorough reading. The Kirkus reviews suggest his book makes a valiant attempt to reinvent the wheel, bridging science and religion in ways that others already have done.Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0399141618.

Pinker, Steven: How the mind works / Author: Pinker, Steven, 1954- Published: New York : Norton, ©1997. Description: xii, 660 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Location: GRADUATE LIBRARY--Call No: QP 360.5 .P561 1997 /

An obvious choice based on my interest in consciousness studies. It sits on my shelf, ready to read, but is so hefty that it makes me procrastinate. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0393318486.

Not read; included for completeness of this author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060976519.

Pinker, Steven: Language learnability and language development / Author: Pinker, Steven, 1954- Published: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, ©1984. Description: xi, 435 p. ; 24 cm. Call No: P118 .P551 1984

Not read; included for completeness of author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0674510534.

Pinker, Steven: Learnability and cognition : the acquisition of argument structure / Author: Pinker, Steven, 1954- Published: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©1989. Description: 411 p. ; 24 cm. Call No: P 118 .P555 1989

Not read; included for completeness of author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0262660733.

Not read; I included it as follow up reading to her Creative Visualization. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 1882591046.

Not read; included to refresh old classwork from 1974-75. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0898625157.

Beaumont, J. Graham: Understanding neuropsychology / Author: Beaumont, J. Graham. Published: Oxford, UK ; New York, NY, USA : Basil Blackwell, ©1988. Description: x, 150 p. : ill. ; 26 cm. Call No: QP360 .B4171 1988

Not read; intended to refresh a class I took in 1975. They say it is not stocked, but search B&N's bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0631157212.

Baigent, Michael: The elixir and the stone : a history of magic and alchemy / Author Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Published London ; New York : Viking, ©1997. Description xxv, 453 p., [24] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. Subjects Occultism--History. Hermetism--History. Contributors Leigh, Richard. Notes Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 0670862185 Call No: BF 1411 .B35 1997

Not read; included as follow up reading to Holy Blood, Holy Grail (above.) Amazingly, when I search the B&N bookstore by title NOTHING but children's books come up, and searching by either author, I also find nothing, even though the book does exist. Searching by ISBN I also find nothing. Same thing at borders.com. So, you must search the Rare and Out of Print Books, or a good library that handles inter-library loans.

Not read; but it sounded like interesting follow up reading to the scholar Dr. Pagels's Gnostic Gospels (elsewhere in this biblio.) Search the B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0679731180.

Not read; sequel to Celestine Prophecy. Included for completeness. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 074291268X for the hardcover ed., cheaper than the newer (1998) ppk. ed.

Not read; included for completeness of author's older works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0671657860.

Abraham, Frederick David: A visual introduction to dynamical systems theory for psychology / Author: Abraham, Frederick David. Published: Santa Cruz, CA : Aerial Press, (1990?) Description: 1 v. (various pagings) : ill. ; 26 cm. Call No: QA 614.8 .A2711 1990

Not read; title simply intrigues me. It is also by the same author as Chaos, Gaia. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 094234409X; note this will NOT yield the book, but a link to someone else with it.

Not read; included due to author's reference to it in another work. Search B&N bookstore by title: Gooberz or by ISBN: 1571740600.

His newest book, not read; included for completeness of author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0966132769.

Wolf, Fred Alan: The dreaming universe: a mind-expanding journey into the realm where psyche and physics meet / Author: Wolf, Fred Alan. Published: New York : Simon & Schuster, ©1994. Description: 413 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Call No: BF1078 .W55 1994

Not read; included for completeness of author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0684801590.

Wolf, Fred Alan: Parallel universes : the search for other worlds / Author: Wolf, Fred Alan. Published: New York : Simon and Schuster, ©1988. Description: 351 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: QC6 .W68 1988 --Note: DUE 03-12-96

Older work, not read; included for completeness of author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN 0671696017.

Wolf, Fred Alan: The spiritual universe : how quantum physics proves the existence of the soul / Author: Wolf, Fred Alan. Published: New York : Simon & Schuster, ©1996. Description: 367 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: BD421 .W65 1996

I've begun reading this, his second most recent book on consciousness (Momentum is newest.) Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0684812002.

Wolf, Fred Alan: Star wave : mind, consciousness, and quantum physics / Author: Wolf, Fred Alan. Published: New York : Macmillan, ©1984. Description: x, 342 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Call No: QC174.13 .W65 1984

Not read; included for completeness of author's works, like his 1986 thoughts on quantum consciousness. Although not in stock, you can search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0020940807 (out of print.)

Wolf, Fred Alan: Taking the quantum leap : the new physics for nonscientists / Author: Wolf, Fred Alan. Published: San Francisco : Harper & Row, ©1981. Description: 262 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Call No: QC174.12 .W64

Not read; included for completeness of this author's works. Search B&N bookstore by title or by ISBN: 0060963107 (new ed.)

QUR'AN, (Alternate title: Koran). trans. Ahmed Ali, Book of the Month Club ed., 1992, from the Princeton U. Press ed; intro by Jaroslav Pelikan; vol. 3 of "Sacred Writings," series ed. Jaroslav Pelikan.

Yet to read in its entirety. A search of the bookstore by title yielded 365 versions &/or books. Here's a link to the edition I have, using the ISBN: 0691020469.

Wise, Michael C., Dead Sea Scrolls, trans. Michael C. Wise, Martin G. Abegg, Jr. (ed.), & Edward Cook. New York, Harper Collins, 1996; A Tree Clause book, 1st Ed.. ISBN 006069201 [pbk. 528 pp.] BM487.A3W57 1996

Yet to read in its entirety. A search of the bookstore by title yielded many books. Here's a link to the one from which QPB's ed was taken using the ISBN: 0060692014 .

Matthews, Caitlin & John, Celtic Wisdom, Encyclopedia of, Rockport, Mass, Element Books, 1994, published for Book of the Month Club, NY. ISBN 1852305614

Yet to read in its entirety. Here's a link to the 1996 B&N edition (identical covers) by ISBN: 0760701466.

Web page and site Copyright © 1998-2001 by Dennis R. Mannisto; first version 10/30/98 @ 6:05 PM; this page last updated 2/4/2001.
Also see B&N's search for Rare and Out of Print Books or use this general search box:

Reliable Writing, LLC

'Clear Precedes Clever'