The gap between theoretical ideas and messy reality, as seen in Neal Stephenson, Adam Smith, and Star Trek. We depend on-we believe in-algorithms to help us get a ride, choose which book to buy, execute a mathematical proof. It's as if we think of code as a magic spell, an incantation to reveal what we need to know and even what we want. Humans have always believed that certain invocations-the marriage vow, the shaman's curse-do not merely describe the world but make it. Computation casts a cultural shadow that is shaped by this long tradition of magical thinking. In this book, Ed Finn considers how the algorithm-in practical terms, "a method for solving a problem"-has its roots not only in mathematical logic but also in cybernetics, philosophy, and magical thinking. Finn argues that the algorithm deploys concepts from the idealized space of computation in a messy reality, with unpredictable and sometimes fascinating results. Drawing on sources that range from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash to Diderot's Encyclopedie, from Adam Smith to the Star Trek computer, Finn explores the gap between theoretical ideas and pragmatic instructions. He examines the development of intelligent assistants like Siri, the rise of algorithmic aesthetics at Netflix, Ian Bogost's satiric Facebook game Cow Clicker, and the revolutionary economics of Bitcoin. He describes Google's goal of anticipating our questions, Uber's cartoon maps and black box accounting, and what Facebook tells us about programmable value, among other things. If we want to understand the gap between abstraction and messy reality, Finn argues, we need to build a model of "algorithmic reading" and scholarship that attends to process, spearheading a new experimental humanities.

Scholars have long believed that the first civilization on Earth emerged in Sumer some 6,000 years ago. However, as Michael Tellinger reveals, the Sumerians and Egyptians inherited their knowledge from an earlier civilization that lived at the southern tip of Africa and began with the arrival of the Anunnaki more than 200,000 years ago. Sent to Earth in search of life-saving gold, these ancient Anunnaki astronauts from the planet Nibiru created the first humans as a slave race to mine gold--thus beginning our global traditions of gold obsession, slavery, and god as dominating master. Revealing new archaeological and genetic evidence in support of Zecharia Sitchin's revolutionary work with pre-biblical clay tablets, Tellinger shows how the Anunnaki created us using pieces of their own DNA, controlling our physical and mental capabilities by inactivating their more advanced DNA--which explains why less than 3 percent of our DNA is active. He identifies a recently discovered complex of sophisticated ruins in South Africa, complete with thousands of mines, as the city of Anunnaki leader Enki and explains their lost technologies that used the power of sound as a source of energy. Matching key mythologies of the world's religions to the Sumerian clay tablet stories on which they are based, he details the actual events behind these tales of direct physical interactions with "god," concluding with the epic flood--a perennial theme of ancient myth--that wiped out the Anunnaki mining operations. Tellinger shows that, as humanity awakens to the truth about our origins, we can overcome our programmed animalistic and slave-like nature, tap in to our dormant Anunnaki DNA, and realize the longevity and intelligence of our creators as well as learn the difference between the gods of myth and the true loving God of our universe.

Badass Victorian Women"Wild Women is a delightful collection of riveting stories about our independent, iconoclastic, and utterly outrageous foremothers." - Vicki Leon, author of Uppity Women of Ancient Times. #1 New Release in Politics & Social Sciences, Reference Enjoy a fascinating and sometimes humorous glimpse into the lives of over one hundred, 19th-century Victorian era American women who refused to whittle themselves down to the Victorian model of proper womanhood. Included in Wild Women are 50-black-and-white photos from the era. During the Victorian era a woman's pedestal was her prison. "Women should not be expected to write, or fight, or build, or compose scores. She does all by inspiring man to do all." Ralph Waldo Emerson "There is nothing more dangerous for a young woman than to rely chiefly upon her intellectual powers, her wit, her imagination, her fancy." Godey's Lady's Book magazine But, scores of nineteenth-century American women chose to live life on their terms. In this book you will meet women who refused to remain on a Victorian pedestal. In San Francisco a courtesan appeared as a plaintiff in court, suing her clients for fraud. In Montana a laundress in her seventies decked a gentleman who refused to pay his bill. A forty-three-year-old schoolteacher plunged down Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. A frail lighthouse keeper pulled twenty-two sinking sailors out of the ocean off Rhode Island. A pair of Colorado madams fought a public pistol duel over their mutual beau. Two lady lovebirds were legally wed in Michigan. An ad hoc abolitionist spirited away scores of slaves on the Underground Railroad. A Secessionist spy swallowed a secret message as she was arrested, claiming that no one could capture her soul. Readers of books for women such as Women Who Run with the Wolves or Badass Affirmations will love this book about Victorian women who refused to accept the gender roles of their day.

Synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist and science historian, Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. Using sensory data that flow in through the senses, the brain naturally looks for and finds patterns - and then infuses those patterns with meaning, forming beliefs. Once beliefs are formed, our brains subconsciously seek out confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop. In The Believing Brain, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not our belief matches reality.

For forty years and in nine previous books, scholar and religious commentator Tom Harpur has challenged church orthodoxy and guided thousands of readers on subjects as controversial as the true nature of Christ and life after death. Now, in his most radical and groundbreaking work, Harpur digs deep into the origins of Christianity. What he has discovered will have a profound effect on the way we think about religion.
Long before the advent of Jesus Christ, the Egyptians and other peoples believed in the coming of a messiah, a madonna and her child, a virgin birth, and the incarnation of the spirit in flesh. The early Christian church accepted these ancient truths as the very tenets of Christianity but disavowed their origins. What began as a universal belief system based on myth and allegory became instead, in the third and fourth centuries A.D., a ritualistic institution headed by ultraconservative literalists. "The transcendent meaning of glorious myths and symbols was reduced to miraculous, quite unbelievable events. The truth that Christ was to come in man, that the Christ principle was potentially in each of us, was changed to the exclusivist teaching that the Christ had come as a man."
Harpur's message is clear: Our blind faith in literalism is killing Christianity. Only with a return to an inclusive religion will we gain a true understanding of who we are and who we are intended to become. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Gerald Massey and Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Tom Harpur has written a book of rare insight and power.

Why is it that Tony Blair always wore the same pair of shoes when answering Prime Minister's Questions? That John McEnroe notoriously refused to step on the white lines of a tennis court between points? And that President-elect Barack Obama played a game of basketball the morning of his victory in the Iowa primary, and continued the tradition the day of every following primary? Superstitious habits are common. Do you ever cross your fingers, knock on wood, avoid walking under ladders, or step around black cats? Sentimental value often supersedes material worth. If someone offered to replace your childhood teddy bear or wedding ring with a brand new, exact replica, would you do it? How about GBP20 for trying on a jumper owned by Fred West? Where do such feelings come from and why do most of us have them? Humans are born with brains designed to make sense of the world and that need for an explanation can lead to beliefs that go beyond reason. To be true they would have to be supernatural. With scientific education we learn that such beliefs are irrational but at an intuitive level they can be resistant to reason or lie dormant in otherwise sensible adults. It now seems unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernatural beliefs or superstitious behaviours will be completely successful. This is not all bad news - such beliefs are a useful glue that binds us together as a society. Combining brilliant insight with witty example Hood weaves a page-turning account of our 'supersense' that navigates a path through brain science, child development, popular culture, mental illness and the paranormal. After reading SuperSense, you will realize why you are not as reasonable as you might like to think - and why that might be no bad thing.

"Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand."
--Neil Armstrong
Were Atlantis and Lemuria factual places?
Who built the pyramids and for what purpose?
How advanced was the technology of ancient cultures?
All this and more is covered in Exposed, Uncovered, & Declassified: Lost Civilizations & Secrets of the Past--the latest in the all-original series that is already sparking lively debate.
Erich von Daniken, best-selling author of "Chariots of the Gods," examines the Egyptian pyramids, studying their astronomical implications and what message they were meant to convey. Thomas G. Brophy, PhD, focuses on the mysterious Nabta Playa site in southern Egypt and its connection to African history.
Intrepid explorer of ancient America Frank Joseph covers archeological scandals and attempts to suppress evidence, including the Smithsonian's "loss" of Maya skulls discovered in the Aleutian Islands. Researcher Steven Sora, author of The Lost Colony, delves into evidence that Scotland's Picts originated in North America and were connected to the ancient Micmac tribe of the Americas.
Philip Coppens of the History Channel's "Ancient Aliens" explores an ancient Celtic network of roads that may be connected to a 4,000-year-old land-based reproduction of Atlantis. Scholar and mystery explorer Oberon Zell-Ravenheart brings together the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, the great deluge, and the sinking of Lemuria.
Marie D. Jones & Larry Flaxman (11:11: The Time Prompt Phenomenon) explore what ancient civilizations knew about sound and resonance, and how they may have used them to build megaliths and pyramids, and achieve altered states. Journalist Nick Redfern reveals the U.S. government's abiding interest in our ancient past, religious mysteries, and enigmatic artifacts.
Evidence of these ancient mysteries is everywhere--if you know what to look for. Whether you're a believer, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, Exposed, Uncovered, and Declassified: Lost Civilizations & Secrets of the Past is sure to entertain and educate.

Since earliest times, human beings have pondered the incomprehensible questions of the universe, life . . . and the afterlife. Where did mortal man go to join the immortal Gods? Was the immense and complex structure at Giza an Egyptian Pharaoh's portal to immortality? Or a pulsating beacon built by extraterrestrials for landing on Earth?

In this second volume of his trailblazing series "The Earth Chronicles," Zecharia Sitchin unveils secrets of the pyramids and hidden clues from ancient times to reveal a grand forgery on which established Egyptology is founded, and takes the reader to the Spaceport and Landing Place of the Anunnaki gods--"Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came."

Can psychedelic drugs help us tackle the biggest problems we face globally? Can they heal the cultural, spiritual, and political wounds we’re wrestling with? Psychedelics have hit the mainstream as powerful new mental health treatments. But as clinicians explore what these molecules can do for our individual minds, The Bigger Picture goes further to illuminate how psychedelics can help us find new ways to make sense of and come through the crises we face around the world. Drawing on the latest research, as well as his unique experience as a participant in a ground-breaking clinical trial investigating the potent psychedelic DMT, Alexander Beiner reveals: - the role of psychedelics in addressing global issues such as global warming, geopolitical instability, and political polarization - the dark side of the ‘psychedelic renaissance’ and ‘psychedelic capitalism’ - what it takes to elicit huge personal and cultural transformation through psychedelics Embark on a journey into The Bigger Picture – a new era of science and spirituality with the potential to radically transform our perceptions of ourselves, one another, and our life on this planet.

The Lost Key - The Supranatural Secrets of the Freemasons contains revelations that only an initiate of the highest orders of esoteric Freemasonry is in a position to make. Here is the truth behind the hints in Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol that Freemasonry is concerned to reawaken the hidden potentialities and powers of the human mind.The thrilling narrative of this new book follows a candidate for initiation as he rises through the different grades of initiation, taking part in ceremonies that are sometimes terrifying but always revealing of new knowledge and presenting new mysteries which will only be solved when the next stage of initiation has been achieved. Dramatic episodes include the re-enacting of an ancient murder from 3,000 years ago in full gory detail, lowering the candidate on the end of a rope into a dark vault under the floor of the temple, holding a dagger to the candidates naked breast, and making the candidate attend his own funeral.In the secret teachings revealed to some high-level initiates, there is a type of instruction which seems curiously similar to religious and mystical teachings. Astrology, angels, chakras and the powers of the mind to operate independently of the body, such as in remote viewing, are all a part of Freemasonic lore.Here Lomas, co-author of the international bestseller The Hiram Key, reveals to a wider public and also explains these secret teachings for the first time. He shows that while they are dismissed as superstitious by campaigners for atheism such as Richard Dawkins, they are very much part of the strange, paradoxical world opened up by the latest thinking in quantum physics. This is why he prefers to call them 'Supranatural'.

The "New York Times" bestseller about the strange history of NASA and its cover-ups regarding its origins and extraterrestrial architecture found on the moon and Mars is even more interesting in its new edition.

Authors Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara include a new chapter about the discoveries made by ex-Nazi scientist and NASA stalwart Wernher von Braun regarding what he termed "alternate gravitational solutions," or the rewriting of Newtonian physics into hyperdimensional spheres.

This is an innovative and wide-ranging study of the myth of 'The Last of the Race' as it develops in a range of literary and non-literary texts from the late seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries. The perennial fascination with the end of the world has given rise to many 'last men', from the ancient myths of Noah and Deucalion to contemporary stories of nuclear holocaust. Endangered peoples such as the Maasai or Bush People, continue to attract intense interest. Fiona Stafford begins with Milton and ends with Darwin, exploring the myth-making of their texts in the light of contemporary literary, scientific, political and religious views. Chapters on Milton, Burnet, Defoe, Ossian, Cowper, Wordsworth, Byron, Mary Shelley, Fenimore Cooper, Bulwer-Lytton, and Darwin combine to form an important account of the traces of this most resonant of cultural preoccupations, providing a distinguished contribution to cultural history as well as to literary studies.

Our contemporary global digital society is not always a good place to live. Authoritarianism, hatred, false news, post-truth culture, the COVID-19 anti-vaccination movement, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and political polarisation are organised via the Internet. The public sphere is highly polarised. Today, many humans tend to think of other humans mainly in terms of friends and enemies. Robots and Artificial Intelligence-based automation have created new challenges for the world of work. Decades of neoliberalism have increased inequalities. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the vulnerability of humanity to viruses and health crises. Humanity and society are in a major crisis and digitalisation mediates this crisis. Digital Humanism explores how Humanism can help us to critically understand how digital technologies shape society and humanity, providing an introduction to Humanism in the digital age. Fuchs introduces the approach of Digital Humanism and outlines foundations of a Radical Digital Humanism, analysing what decolonisation of academia and the study of the digital, media and communication means; what the roles are of robots, automation, and Artificial Intelligence in digital capitalism, and how the communication of death and dying has been mediated by digital technologies, capitalist necropower, and digital capitalism. In order to save humanity and society, we need Radical Digital Humanism now.

Beliefs in mysterious underworlds are as old as humanity. But the idea that the earth has a hollow interior was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1691 by Sir Edmond Halley (of comet fame), who suggested that there might be life down there as well. Hollow Earth traces the surprising, marvellous, and just plain weird permutations his ideas have taken over the centuries. From science fiction to utopian societies and even religions, Hollow Earth travels through centuries and cultures, exploring how each era's relationship to the idea of a hollow earth mirrored its hopes, fears, and values. Illustrated with everything from seventeenth-century maps to 1950s pulp art to movie posters and more, Hollow Earth is for anyone interested in the history of strange ideas that just won't go away.

After a hall of records was discovered beneath the Romanian Sphinx in 2003, an ancient parchment surfaced in the highest mountains of Tibet. This book tells the story of the detailed political intrigues behind these remarkable finds and also how these matters have been subject to intervention by superior spiritual forces. While the parchment presents five invaluable techniques for spiritual advancement, its very presence in the world has ignited a series of quantum events, one of which is a mysterious antenna-like structure that reveals itself as a result of melting ice near a secret American base in Antarctica. Acting as some sort of cosmic buoy, it has an energy signature connecting both to Jupiter's moon, Europa, and an area of Transylvania where the remains of an ancient civilization were uncovered in 1990 amidst vast tunnels of solid gold. This gold is revealed to facilitate super-consciousness as well as lead to the nexus of the Inner Earth where "all the worlds unite."

Popular Lost Cities author David Childress opens the door to the amazing world of ancient technology, from the computers of ancient world to the "flying machines of the gods." Technology of the Gods explores the technology that was allegedly used in Atlantis and the theory the Great Pyramid of Egypt was originally a gigantic power station. Childress also uncovers many other mysteries, including:
-- the technology of ancient flight
-- how the ancients used electricity
-- megalithic building techniques
-- the use of crystal lenses and the fire from the gods
-- ancient evidence of high-tech weapons, including atomic weapons
-- the role of modern inventors, such as Nikola Tesla, in bringing ancient technology into modern use
-- impossible artifacts, and more, much more.

Childress has done it again! From beginning to end, Technology of the Gods is filled with facts, keen observations and tales that challenge modern assumptions in a humorous, intelligent and compelling way that is quintessential Childress.

Throughout the twentieth century, from the furor over Percival Lowell's claim of canals on Mars to the sophisticated Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherworldly life has often intrigued and occasionally consumed science and the public. The Biological Universe provides a rich and colorful history of the attempts during the twentieth century to answer questions such as whether "biological law" reigns throughout the universe and whether there are other histories, religions, and philosophies outside those on Earth. Covering a broad range of topics, including the search for life in the solar system, the origins of life, UFOs, and aliens in science fiction, Steven J. Dick shows how the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence is a world view of its own, a "biophysical cosmology" that seeks confirmation no less than physical views of the universe. This book will fascinate astronomers, historians of science, biochemists, and science fiction readers.

From the bestselling author of "Communion" comes the mysterious true story of how an unknown visitor barged into Streiber's hotel room late one night--and imparted extraordinary lessons in personal development and man's fate that challenge us to rethink every assumption about the meaning of life.
At two-thirty in the morning of June 6, 1998, Whitley Streiber was awakened by somebody knocking on his hotel room door. A man came in, and everything he said was life-altering.
This is the unsettling and ultimately enlightening narrative of what happened that night. Strieber was never really sure who this strange and knowing visitor was--a "Master of Wisdom"? A figure from a different realm of consciousness? A preternaturally intelligent being? He called him the Master of the Key. The one thing of which Strieber was certain is that both the man and the encounter were real.
The main concern of the Master of the Key is to save each of us from self-imprisonment. "Mankind is trapped," the stranger tells Strieber. "I want to help you spring the trap." In a sweeping exchange between Strieber and the stranger--which takes the form of a classical student- teacher dialogue in pursuit of inner understanding--the unknown man presents a lesson in human potential, esoteric psychology, and man's fate. He illuminates why man has been caught in a cycle of repeat violence and self-destruction--and the slender, but very real, possibility for release.
In its breadth and intimacy, "The Key" is on par with contemporary metaphysical traditions, such as "A Course in Miracles," or even with the dialogues of modern wisdom teachers, such as D.T. Suzuki and Carl Jung.

Pursues the residue of the Montauk Project leading to the discovery of a quantum relic. This relic opens the door to understanding the greatest mysteries of history and heralds a new time period once prophesied by native elders as the Second Coming of the Pharoahs. The artifacts of history point to a Blue Race which founded the Egyptian culture and honored the feminine principle through the star Sirius. THe descendants of these people are the Tuareg, or Blue People, who reside in one of the most mysterious and intriguing strongholds left on Earth: the Ahaggar Mountains in southern Algeria. Ancient artifacts and doctrines reveal the occult biology of the Virgin Birth and many more remarkable discoveries.

This is the amazing story of how a quest to try to crack the mystery of the Megalithic Yard - an ancient unit of linear measurement - led to the discovery of compelling evidence pointing to the existence of an unknown, highly advanced culture which was the precursor to the earliest known civilizations such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians. There must have been a Civilization One. Knight and Butler reveal the secrets of an extraordinary integrated measuring system which might have been lost to the world for ever. It was a system, far more advanced than anything used today, which forms the basis of both the Imperial and Metric measure systems! These ancient scientists understood the dimensions, motions and relationships of the Earth, Moon and Sun - they measured the solar system and even understood how the speed of light was integrated into the movements of our planet. Their conclusions fly in the face of everything that we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world - but the evidence is incontrovertible. And the implications of these revelations go far beyond the fascination of the discovery of a 'super-science' of prehistory; they indicate a grand plan which will have far reaching theological ramifications!

Also known as dowsing, pendulum magic is a technique for seeing into the future, whether for information about romance, luck, reincarnation, or the psychic causes of disease. Step-by-step instructions are given for making pendulums with everything from gemstones and rings to buttons and fishing weights. The author also explains how questions should be asked as well as how the answers should be interpreted.

The author charts the rituals involved in divination, explains how to use pendulums in conjunction with tarot cards, crystals, astrology, and mediation.

"Carl Sagan once spoke of the need to balance the scientific method with pure, unadulterated wonder. Scott Alan Roberts picks up that mantle by examining the Nephilim, the hybrid offspring of the intercourse between human women and ancient extraterrestrials. If only for just a moment, kick out the props of science and religion and let Scott take you to that place where sometimes the questions tell us far more than the answers."
--George Noory, Coast to Coast AM
"If you've gone to Sunday school and read Genesis, you've no doubt encountered the mystery of the
Nephilim, the strange giants whose offspring mated with the offspring of Adam and Eve. Who were these creatures and how did they get here? The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim... is sure to challenge your beliefs and get you to look at the other side of Creation."
--Bill Birnes, publisher, UFO magazine; The History Channel's "Ancient Aliens"
The ancient books of Genesis and Enoch tell us that sprit beings known as the Watchers descended to the Earth, had sex with women, and begat a hybrid race of offspring known as the Nephilim.
Such tales are as old as humanity itself. These histories and accounts of visitations and subsequent mixed-blood, alien-human races comprise the bulk of the world's myths, legends, religions, and superstitions.
The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim examines:
Elohim and the Bene Ha Elohim--God and the Sons of God
The Watchers: UFOs, extraterrestrials, angels, infiltrators, and impregnators
Biblical and apocryphal sources from Enoch to Moses
The role of the Fae, Elves, Elementals, and ancient gods
What if the old spiritualities and religions weren't just legends?
What if there was something living and breathing beneath the surface, a tangible interlinking of religious thought and spirituality, science and myth, inter-dimensionality and cold, hard fact?
The Nephilim walked among us... and still do today.