Dead Trees: January 2010 Adoptions –

Adding a pragmatic component to this series, I’d like to track the dead trees we ‘adopt’ each month. I prefer to call it ‘adoption’ because some of them will stay with us for our lifetimes, but others will ‘outgrow’ us and find find solace elsewhere. IMO, a good book makes a great gift – the more worn the better! Anyway, this month was slightly abnormal in that my favourite local bookstore, The Banyen, had its annual sale – 20% off everything. As a result, the sampling that follows is atypically large, but not necessarily unrepresentative.

The yummiest dead tree of the lot is a beautiful leather-bound copy of the ‘Pistis Sophia’:

“The Pistis Sophia is a translation and commentary of a special collection of 2,000 year old Gnostic Coptic manuscripts, derived from ancient Egyptian-Coptic Christian Codexes. In the historic period after the early Church became established as the “official religion” of the Roman Empire (325 C.E.), the Pistis Sophia literature was withdrawn. It remains an inner teaching of the Coptic and African communities.” – (Barnes and Noble)

See also: Wiki: Pistis Sophia

The rest of these are in no particular sequence:

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R. Buckminster Fuller is regarded as one of the most important figures of the 20th century, renowned for his achievements as an inventor, designer, architect, philosopher, mathematician, and dogged individualist. Perhaps best remembered for the Geodesic Dome and the term “Spaceship Earth,” his work and his writings have had a profound impact on modern life and thought.

Critical Path is Fuller’s master work–the summing up of a lifetime’s thought and concern–as urgent and relevant as it was upon its first publication in 1981. Critical Path details how humanity found itself in its current situation—at the limits of the planet’s natural resources and facing political, economic, environmental, and ethical crises.

The crowning achievement of an extraordinary career, Critical Path offers the reader the excitement of understanding the essential dilemmas of our time and how responsible citizens can rise to meet this ultimate challenge to our future. – (Amazon)

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Stanislav Grof, rational mystic and heretic of mainstream psychology, maps out the boundaries of the frontiers of consciousness exploration. Using the halogram (any part of which encodes the whole in its entirety) as a metaphor for consciousness, Grof proposes a new cartography of the psyche, his primary landmarks being those associated with “non-ordinary” states of consciousness, e.g., parapsychology, trance and draginduced states, shamanism, mystic visions, and “psychotic disorders.”

Grof was among the first (and became among the last) to seriously experiment with and map the effects of LSD-25. His most recent experiments bypass the need for LSD, using breathing and music to invoke experiences that emulate descriptions of neardeath and birth recall experiences. – (Whole Earth Review)

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While most of us have moments of loving freely and openly, it is often hard to sustain this where it matters most—in our intimate relationships. Why if love is so great and powerful are human relationships so challenging and difficult? If love is the source of happiness and joy, why is it so hard to open to it fully and let it govern our lives? In this book, John Welwood addresses these questions and shows us how to overcome the most fundamental obstacle that keeps us from experiencing love’s full flowering in our lives. Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships begins by showing how all our relational problems arise out of a universal, core wounding around love that affects not only our personal relationships but the quality of life in our world as a whole. This wounding shows up as a pervasive mood of unlove —a deep sense that we are not intrinsically lovable just as we are. And this shuts down our capacity to trust, so that even though we may hunger for love, we have difficulty opening to it and letting it circulate freely through us. This book takes the reader on a powerful journey of healing and transformation that involves learning to embrace our humanness and appreciate the imperfections of our relationships as trail-markers along the path to great love. It sets forth a process for releasing deep-seated grievances we hold against others for not loving us better and against ourselves for not being better loved. And it shows how our longing to be loved can magnetize the great love that will free us from looking to others to find ourselves. Written with penetrating realism and a fresh, lyrical style that honors the subtlety and richness of our relationship to love itself, this revolutionary book offers profound and practical guidance for healing our lives as well as our embattled world. – (Amazon)

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Tannen, whose field is cross-cultural linguistics, focuses on conversational style rather than psychological content, and explains why good intentions are not enough. We begin all conversations with some expectation of how they will progress. If our expectations differ, unexpected responses seem irrational, and we may accuse each other of being deliberately obstructive. She emphasizes that there are no right or wrong ways to converse, only ways which work or don’t work. By recognizing differences in style, and learning to work with them rather than against them, we can avoid misunderstanding. Tannen’s writing is lively, she states her case clearly, and provides a fresh look at a subject which concerns us all. – (Amazon)

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Fascinating, comprehensive, and eminently readable, this guide explores shamanism—the world’s most enduring healing and religious tradition—in the light of modern medicine, psychology, neuroscience, consciousness disciplines, and religious studies. – (Amazon)

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This volume focuses on Gandhi’s vision of Satyagraha, whereby one appeals to reason and conscience and puts an end to evil by converting the evil-doer. The book begins with an explanation of Satyagraha and proceeds with detailed discussions of self-training and courage necessary for Satyagraha; the use and effectiveness of such techniques as nonpayment of fines and taxes, social boycotts, fasting, sympathetic strikes, and other forms of noncooperation; and many other topics. – (Amazon)

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Upping the Anti is a radical journal of theory and action which provides a space to reflect on the state of political organizing in Canada.

We publish theoretical and critical articles, interviews, and roundtables. Upping the Anti also includes a book review section where activists assess new writing on the Left. “Upping the Anti” refers to our interest in assessing the interwoven tendencies that define the politics of today’s radical left: anti-capitalism, anti-oppression, and anti-imperialism. Although inexact in their proclamations, these positions point toward a radical politics outside of the “party building” exercises of the sectarian left and the dead-end of social democracy. We are interested in stories that reflect these concerns. We publish pieces that actively engage with and intervene in contemporary movement debates.

The journal is aimed at people who already define themselves as activists or revolutionaries. Our primary goal is to elaborate and clarify the political strengths and weaknesses of the contemporary politics of anti-capitalism, anti-oppression, and anti-imperialism. We avoid specialist language and academic jargon. We will not publish your school paper. – (Upping the Anti, number 6)

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Approaching critical theory and psychoanalysis in a recklessly entertaining fashion, Slavoj Zizek’s critical eye alights upon a bewildering and exhilarating range of subjects, from the political apathy of contemporary life, to a joke about the man who thinks he’s a chicken. Tony Myers provides a clear and engaging guide to Zizek’s key ideas including: – What is a subject and why is it so important? – The imaginary, the symbolic and the real – What is so terrible about postmodernity? – How can we distinguish reality from ideology? – What is the relationship between men and women? – Why is racism always a fantasy? Slavoj Zizek is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the thought of the critic whom Terry Eagleton has described as “the most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in Europe for some decades.” – (Libreria Universitaria)

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Pink Floyd’s sound and light shows in the 1960s defined psychedelia, but their later recordings combined rock, orchestral music, literature, and philosophy. Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall ignored pop music’s usual strictures to focus on themes of madness, despair, brutality, and alienation. Here, 16 scholars set delve into the heart of Pink Floyd by examining ideas, concepts, and problems usually encountered not in a rock band’s lyrics but in the pages of Heidegger, Foucault, and Sartre. These include the meaning of existence, the individual’s place in society, the contradictions of art and commerce, and the blurry line between genius and madness. The band’s dynamic history allows the writers to explore controversies about intellectual property, the nature of authorship, and whether wholes, especially in the case of rock bands, are more than the sum of their parts. – (Amazon)

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Is being nice overrated? Are we really just selfish, base animals crawling across Earth in a meaningless existence? Would reading less and watching more television be good for you? Is House a master of Eastern philosophy or just plain rude?

Dr. Gregory House is arguably the most complex and challenging antihero in the history of television, but is there more to this self-important genius than gray matter and ego? This book takes a deeper look at House to reveal the philosophical underpinnings of this popular medical drama and its cane-waving curmudgeon’s most outrageous behavior. What emerges is a remarkable character who is part Sherlock Holmes, part Socratic philosopher, part Nietzschean superman, part Taoist rhetorician, and not at all as screwed up as you might think. With everything from Aristotle to Zen, House and Philosophy takes an engaging look at everyone’s favorite misanthropic genius and his team at Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital. – (Amazon)

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In an ambitious narrative, MacMillan (history, University of Toronto) seeks to recover the original intent, constraints, and goals of the diplomats who sat down to hammer out a peace treaty in the aftermath of the Great War. In particular, she focuses on the “Big Three” Wilson (United States), Lloyd George (Great Britain), and Clemenceau (France) who dominated the critical first six months of the Paris Peace Conference. Viewing events through such a narrow lens can reduce diplomacy to the parochial concerns of individuals. But instead of falling into this trap, MacMillan uses the Big Three as a starting point for analyzing the agendas of the multitude of individuals who came to Versailles to achieve their largely nationalist aspirations. Following her analysis of the forces at work in Europe, MacMillan takes the reader on a tour de force of the postwar battlefields of Asia and the Middle East. Of particular interest is her sympathy for those who tried to make the postwar world more peaceful. Although their lofty ambitions fell prey to the passions of nationalism, this should not detract from their efforts. – (Amazon)

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• Fikes, Jay (1993), Carlos Castaneda, Academic Opportunism, and the Psychedelic Sixties. British Columbia: Mellenia Press.

Additional Rabbit Holes -

• Smriti Mysticism -
• Dead Trees: June 2010 Adoptions +
• Dead Trees: George Reisch’s “Pink Floyd & Philosophy: Careful with that axiom, Eugene!”
• Dead Trees: July 2010 Adoptions +
• Dead Trees: April 2010 Adoptions –

Tags: bibliophile, biographic, buckminster fuller, gnosis, philosophy, psychedelia, psychology, Slavoj Žižek, spirituality