Social sciences

Banned after promising research in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, the use of psychedelics as therapeutic catalysts is now being rediscovered at prestigious medical schools, such as Harvard, Johns Hopkins, NYU and UCLA. Through clinical trials to assess their use, entheogens have been found to ease anxiety in the dying, interrupt the hold of addictive drugs, cure post-traumatic stress disorder and treat

Atlantis has held a perennial place in the collective imagination of humanity from ancient Greece onward. Many of the great minds of the occult and esoteric world wrote at length on their theories of Atlantis - about its high culture, its possible location, its ultimate demise and their predictions of a return to Atlantean enlightenment or the downfall of modern society.Beginning with a review of

Shri Mahant Swami Ganeshanand Saraswati Giri (ca. 1895–1988) was known to all who loved and studied with him simply as Ganesh Baba. At the age of four, he was brought back from death through an initiation by Lahiri Mahasaya and through this initiation descends from the same Kriya Yoga lineage as Paramahansa Yogananda. He became a swami under his guru Sivananda and later went on to run the Anandama

The underground realm of Agarttha was first introduced to the Western world in 1886 by the French esoteric philosopher Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre with his book Mission de l'Inde, translated here for the first time into English. Saint-Yves's book maintained that deep below the Himalayas were enormous underground cities, which were under the rule of a sovereign pontiff known as the Brahâtma. Th

Stanislav Grof's first 17 years of research into the non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles – the perinatal domain, which holds memories of the v

In the Amazon, shamans do not talk in terms of hallucinogens but of tools for communicating with other life-forms. Ayahuasca, for example, is first and foremost a means of breaking down the barrier that separates humans from other species, allowing us to communicate with them. The introduction of plant-centred shamanism into the Western world in the 1970s was literally the meeting of two entirely

Of all forms taken by the undead, the vampire wields the most powerful pull on the modern imagination. But the countless movies and books inspired by this child of the night who has a predilection for human blood are based on incidents recorded as fact in newspapers and judicial archives in the centuries preceding the works of Bram Stoker and other writers. Digging through these forgotten records,

After completing his groundbreaking research chronicled in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Rick Strassman was left with one fundamental question: What does it mean that DMT, a simple chemical naturally found in all of our bodies, instantaneously opens us to an interactive spirit world that feels more real than our own world? When his decades of clinical psychiatric research and Buddhist practice were un

Many today find themselves being called toward greater leadership on behalf of the Earth, toward leadership sourced from their inner authority and inspired by what they love and are dedicated to protect, transform and strengthen. Those successfully heeding this call have embraced the qualities previously relegated to the “feminine” - inner awareness, collaboration, relational intelligence, respect

While fast, hot, orgasm-driven sex can bring momentary satisfaction, in the long run it can become boring and mechanical, causing many couples to lose interest and stop making time for physical intimacy. The first step to revive a waning sex life or make a healthy one more fulfilling, says author Diana Richardson, is to make sex a conscious decision rather than an accidental encounter. Focusing on

Exploring the role of cannabis in medicine, politics, history and society, THE POT BOOK offers a compendium of the most up-to-date information and scientific research on marijuana from leading experts, including Lester Grinspoon, Rick Doblin, Paul Armentano (NORML) and Raphael Mechoulam. Also included are interviews with Michael Pollan, Andrew Weil and Tommy Chong as well as a pot dealer and a far

Great thinkers and researchers such as Carl Jung have acknowledged the many broad similarities that exist between the myths and symbols of ancient cultures. One largely unexplored explanation for these similarities lies in the possibility that these systems of myth all descended from one common cosmological plan. Outlining the most significant aspects of cosmology found among the Dogon, ancient Eg

Toward the end of his fifties, Christopher Gray took, for the first time in years, a 100-microgram acid trip. So extraordinary, and to his surprise so enjoyable, were the effects that he began to take the same dose in the same way - quietly and on his own - once every two to three weeks.In THE ACID DIARIES, Gray details his experimentation with LSD over a period of three years and shares the start

· Explores the shamanic use of healing songs, psychoactive plants and vision quests at the heart of the Odyssey and the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien· Examines odysseus's encounters with plant divinities, altered consciousness, animal shapeshifting and sacred topography - all concepts vital to shamanism· Reveals how the Odyssey emerged precisely at the rupture between modern and primal conscio

· Explores the use of crystals throughout history, including their role in Atlantis and in alien technology· Offers step-by-step instructions to successfully use crystals in scrying, meditation and Enochian magic· Includes never-before-published scientific findings on the author's crystal skull as well as other crystal skulls researched at the British Museum· Explains how the Space-Time Crystal Ma

It has been more than 50 years since sacred mushrooms were plucked from the shamanic backwaters of Mexico and presented to the modern world by R. Gordon Wasson. After sparking the psychedelic era of the 1960s, however, the divine mushroom returned underground from whence it mysteriously originated. Yet today, the mushroom's extraordinary influence is once again being felt by large numbers of peopl

Before the conversion of Europe to Christianity in the Middle Ages, Germanic tribes roamed the continent, plundering villages and waging battles to seek the favour of Odin, their god of war, ecstasy and magic. Centuries later, predatory Viking raiders from Scandinavia carried on similar traditions. These wild 'barbarians' had a system of social classes and familial clans with complex spiritual cus

To Live with the Fairy Folk is a guide to changing one's surroundings inside the house and in the garden to attract the elusive sprites seen frolicking and dancing in folklore of cultures as widely separated and diverse as Japan, Ireland, Spain, Denmark, and the Americas. "To be surrounded by cheerful Folk," writes Marina Stern, "is to be cheerful, buoyed up by the laughter of Nature Herself. To

In People Who Don't Know They're Dead, Gary Leon Hill tells a family story of how his Uncle Wally and Aunt Ruth, Wally's sister, came to counsel dead spirits who took up residence in bodies that didn?t belong to them. And in the telling, Hill elucidates much of what we know, or think we know, about life, death, consciousness, and the meaning of the universe. When people die by accident, in viol

In this compelling book, Colin Wilson argues that thousands of years before ancient Egypt and Greece held sway, there was a great civilization whose ships traveled the world from China to Antarctica. Their advanced knowledge of science, mathematics, and astronomy was passed on to descendants who escaped to Egypt and South America. From Atlantis to the Sphinx bases this assertion on a true fact: t