Recommended reading? (Quantum/universal consciousness, psychedelics, religions etc)

Well... I'm diving into a bit of reading and am wondering if anyone has any tips on books to look for or if anything I'm looking at is a waste of time :sunny:

Ordered:

Other things I'll be putting my hands on once I get through a good portion of the above:

 

Recommended: Be Here Now, by Ram Dass.
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream, by Jay Stevens.
Food of the Gods, by Terrence McKenna.

 

Thanks... I actually thought I had ordered both Be Here Now and Food of the Gods... but looking back through my list it seems I must have missed them - ah well... will get them sorted and have a look at the other one you mention

 

A. Watts The Book is quite possibly the one I'm going to be reading first

I've been watching / listening to quite a few of his lectures on youtube... I love how he thinks

I'll have a look at the others you mention, thank you.

 

Ken Wilber "No Boundary" and "The Atman Project"
Clifford Pickover “Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves”
Elaine Pagels "The Gnostic Gospels"
Brother Lawrence/Frank Laubach "Practicing His Presence"
Brother Lawrence/John J. Delaney "Practicing the Presence of God"

Everything about and by Ramana Maharshi, Muktananda, Paramahansa Yogananda

so many more....
Michael
http://www.itisallone.org

 

Wow.

Me and you have like eggzaktly the same taste in literature.

My email is chadr04@gmail.com. Feel free to get ahold of me anytime if you wanna chat

One suggestion I could offer; ditch the Deepak Chopra books. The guy is well known for taking established scientific theory (take for example quantum mechanics) and cherry-picking the data and spinning it in a way that supports his own New Age self-help agenda and completely manipulates and pollutes the original scientific data that he is claiming to be explaining...

There's not much to be learned from Chopra... those types of "spiritual leaders" are a dime a dozen, and what they offer should be taken with a boulder of salt.

I would check out:

"Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom" by Andy Letcher - This is the most complete and definitive history of psilocybin containing fungi that you are likely to find out there. One of Letcher's central thesis's however, is that ritualistic/shamanistic use of psilocybin containing fungi is in fact very modern, and he argues against the likelihood of psilocybin using cultures thousands of years in the past. I've read the book and I'm not sure I'm convinced he is right about that, but regardless, this is still probably the most comprehensive and scholarly examination of psychedelic fungi. You're guaranteed to come away from the book with a whole new wealth of information about psychedelic fungi.

"Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties and Beyond" by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain- This is the definitive book on the discovery of LSD and the subsequent craze it spawned. Everything is extraordinarily detailed and meticulously researched... It is also a highly compelling read and once again you're bound to learn a ton of new information about LSD and the history and culture which surrounds it.

"Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens" by Gordon Wasson, Peter T. Furst, Richard Evans Schultes, Weston LeBarre, et al- This is an older book, but still a comprehensive field-study of hallucinogens in the Western hemisphere and beyond. Among the plants included are; Cannabis, Tobacco, the tropane-containing plants (like Datura), Peyote, Psilocybe mushrooms, and Tabernanthe Iboga...

I would also highly recommend all of Terence McKenna's books. I would start with "True Hallucinations" which is his firsthand account of him and his brothers trip to the Amazon in search of DMT containing snuffs, which lead them to an encounter with a mushroom which would forever thereafter alter the course of his life, work, and study. It's an easy read and a fascinating account of these so-called "primitive" societies. From there I would go to his book "Food of the Gods: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution," in which he lays out the "Stoned Ape" hypothesis of human evolution (a multi-faceted theory which basically states that our proto-hominid ancestors encountered psilocybin containing mushrooms in the dung of ungulate cattle during a time of encroaching ice-age and evolutionary pressure on the diet, and that this is what caused us to evolve out of animal organization) and also a pretty wide-ranged and sweeping history of drugs; right down to rum and sugar. From there, I would go to his book "The Archaic Revival" which is a bunch of his collected essays, interviews and lectures reprinted in book form... this is personally my favorite of McKenna's books, but its chock full of wild and pseudo-scientific/woo-woo ideas so if thats not you're thing I'd tread lightly here.

I could go on and on, but it seems you've got your work cut out for you with that list already. Also, feel free to contact me privately and we can exchange some books in digital form

 

I'm surprised you don't have anything from Charles T. Tart in those lists. I'm sure he ranks higher in peer credibility than some of people on that list.
He was one of the early pioneers in this area of research.
take a look;
http://www.paradigm-sys.com/index.html

 

You might find some of Sri Aurobindo's works interesting. 'The Life Divine' is probably his philosophical magnum opus. Tends a bit towards prolixity, but does contain some different ideas.