How can we deal with the rapidly increasing pace and complexity of life, fear of terrorism and the threatening state of world affairs, climate breakdown, the confusions of personal relationships-without succumbing to stress, depression and illness? Halliday provides a way to assimilate the shocks of life experiences, so that we might live a more balanced life. The way to achieve this is through reconnecting with the centre of our own being, our consciousness. Halliday sets out not only the nature of this consciousness, but also its relation to the world of phenomena, to the nature of being, and in particular, to mankind. He begins by examining the meaning of terms such as sentience, consciousness and awareness. They are to some degree interchangeable and refer to, `That in and by which we know what we know, and that we know.' If we ask ourselves what this statement means, we can only say that, `We know what we mean. Consciousness is its own evidence', and thus we cannot indicate what we mean by one of these consciousness-related words, `without appealing to that in us, which corresponds with their significance, that is, to that in us which knows that it knows'. Halliday sees a complex structure such as the brain, as `a vehicle for the expression of the complex processes of an [already existing] sentience'. He posits that the ultimate source and origin of our being resides in an absolute field of sentience, and states that the true nature of the self is `consciousness itself'. But, as beings with physical bodies, we are tyrannised by the limitations of our sense organs; by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, by emotional charges in the records of our experiences, so that we often behave in a reactive manner-as if we were no more than animals with no free choice. But, if we remember the nature of our true self, and our source in consciousness, we can free ourselves from this enslavement and become human, that is, capable of free choice and action.

Carl Albrecht: Psychology of Mystical Consciousness is the first English translation of the ground-breaking study by the German medical doctor, psychotherapist and mystic Carl Albrecht (1902-1965), first published in 1951 as Psychologie des Mystischen Bewusstseins. The book, reprinted in Germany in 1976, 1990 and 2018, has remained untranslated to date and is now made available to international scholarship in an annotated English edition. The book offers the results of Albrecht's meticulous long-term empirical research into mystical consciousness. Albrecht's results are unique in that they derive from a pioneering methodological approach based on 'Autogenic Training', which enabled a practitioner to verbalize spontaneously what he/she is experiencing while immersed in an altered state of consciousness. These spontaneous utterances of mystical (and non-mystical) experience were concurrently recorded by Albrecht (supplemented by his own utterances recorded by a confidante) and provided him with invaluable empirical data for his detailed phenomenological analyses. The outcome was a most comprehensive, systematic psychological phenomenology of mystical consciousness informed by long-term empirical research, which is unique as regards authenticity, immediacy and scope. Unlike other empirical studies in this field, which are either based on records of mystical experience retrieved retrospectively, or derived from behaviorist research, or both, Albrecht's empirical data originate from immediate (not rationally mediated) verbal testimonies spoken by subjects while transported into a mystical state, in addition to records of great mystics from Eastern and Western mystical traditions. Psychology of Mystical Consciousness is now accessible to English-speaking scholars and scientists world-wide and will surely provide a new impetus to interdisciplinary enquiries into mysticism and the spiritual nature of man.

Three particular themes are basic to this study. First, that the human race and its environment are involved in a slowly progressive process of revelation and understanding of its inherent features. And that we are all participating in this ongoing evolutionary cycle. Second, and closely related to the first tenet, man is not separable from his environment. We all share in this cyclic development. Third, that our egoic structures, with the data and experiences they involve, can play a key role in our personal understanding of this ongoing developmental process. The role of the ego is paradoxical. It can be a relatively stable reference used to enhance personal insight concerning its own dynamic structure and similar aspects of its environment. Or it can be maintained with a rigidity that hinders progressive learning. That is, the ego unit has the dual possibilities of affording a focus aiding progressive insight, or becoming a barrier that temporarily diminishes it. The aim of this study is therefore to reduce possible restrictive rigidity as we investigate the role of the egoic unit in seeking greater understanding of its own dynamic structures and their similarly dynamic environment. To pursue this aim we refer to insights from medical practice, philosophy and science. The underlying awareness of an evolving consciousness means that the insights and ideas presented are shared in the expectation that they too will be modified in due course. But if they help provoke interest and insight concerning the paradoxical nature o f our personal processes, they will have served their purpose.

"Know thyself," a precept as old as Socrates, is still good advice. But is introspection the best path to self-knowledge? What are we trying to discover, anyway? In an eye-opening tour of the unconscious, as contemporary psychological science has redefined it, Timothy D. Wilson introduces us to a hidden mental world of judgments, feelings, and motives that introspection may never show us.

This is not your psychoanalyst's unconscious. The adaptive unconscious that empirical psychology has revealed, and that Wilson describes, is much more than a repository of primitive drives and conflict-ridden memories. It is a set of pervasive, sophisticated mental processes that size up our worlds, set goals, and initiate action, all while we are consciously thinking about something else.

If we don't know ourselves―our potentials, feelings, or motives―it is most often, Wilson tells us, because we have developed a plausible story about ourselves that is out of touch with our adaptive unconscious. Citing evidence that too much introspection can actually do damage, Wilson makes the case for better ways of discovering our unconscious selves. If you want to know who you are or what you feel or what you're like, Wilson advises, pay attention to what you actually do and what other people think about you.

Showing us an unconscious more powerful than Freud's, and even more pervasive in our daily life, Strangers to Ourselves marks a revolution in how we know ourselves.

Few dilemmas in the history of human thought have aroused debates so exciting as that on consciousness. In the past, few scholars recognised scientific dignity to the issue, perhaps because of its subjective nature. Conditioned by limitations of the introspective method and by the unnatural opposition between conscious and unconscious, the study of consciousness has been the exclusive prerogative of philosophy, literature and theology, strengthening the prejudice that separates humanistic and scientific culture. Mauro Maldonato sets out to establish a fruitful dialogue between different disciplines, investigating consciousness from points of view that shape awareness of ourselves and of the world. For every one of us, consciousness is a primary, immediate, permanent fact the core of life itself. Why, then, are we so far from forming any definitive picture of what it is, and what it means for us? The study of the biological bases for consciousness has shown how physics is incapable of providing credible solutions; the lack of means to describe the interactions between neuronal structures and qualitative experiences leads to an investigative dead end. But this explanatory shortfall does not authorise us to postulate the existence of an inaccessible sancta sanctorum. A scientific project to naturalise consciousness attempting to ground our relational life and human action in biology has to recognise issues of complexity, and the irreversibility and historical contingency of our individual phenomenalistic experience. The ground-breaking Archipelago of Consciousness: How Biology invents Culture follows the author's well received writings on Natural Logic, Decision Making and the Predictive Brain.

Unleash Your Creative Mindset is a simple, daily method designed to reprogram your mind by tapping into your creative mindset, which will unleash an unlimited supply of new ideas, eliminate writer's block, motivate the user to overcome procrastination, to see their vision to completion. Learn the secret to turning on the creativity switch within your own mind, stay motivated 24/7, and become successful doing what you love. This is the same program used by author, Jaime Vendera has used to author and produce dozens of books, set a glass-shattering world record, and appear on television shows around the world. Regardless of your goals, Mindset teaches you how to program your mind, (just like a computer) through a simple mind/body process, a four-minute meditation, and by answering five simple questions every day. Are you ready to change your life by unleashing your creative mindset? The answer lies within.

What is consciousness? Does it exist? Is it a physical phenomenon or somehow beyond the physical? Does it have any real influence on your behaviour? Can you be sure that you are the only consciousness arising from your brain? Stuff and Consciousness is a fascinating philosophical exploration into the forest of questions surrounding consciousness, encountering along the way many thickets and creepers including randomly firing brains and multiple copies of your own brain and body. Although these are questions that cannot yet all be answered, Pereira sets out the possible solutions being considered in the field of philosophy, assesses their plausibility and argues towards a stance from which the remaining answers may be found.

Decomposing The Shadow presents a psychological model for the experience of the magic psilocybin mushroom. It explores what the experience of this psychedelic medicine exposes to us about the nature of mind, emotion, society, psychospiritual maturity, and reality itself. This book is about facing the darkness within each of us, developing the courage of emotional honesty, and investigating how the unacknowledged aspects of self, the shadow, can make the grounds of personal growth fertile again. The psilocybin mushroom offers us the opportunity to experience life from a point of amplified emotional, psychological, and spiritual significance. It unlocks a perspective of self and other that is naturally occurring within us, but culturally suppressed to the point of nearly complete omission. When we begin to navigate the vastly novel experiences this substance can provide us, we further enable its potential for not only exposing, but healing the unconscious narratives that hold us back from being our fullest, most courageous, most honest self.

Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. And it is ignorance-not knowledge-that is the true engine of science. Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. In fact, says Firestein, more often than not, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. The process is more hit-or-miss than you might imagine, with much stumbling and groping after phantoms. But it is exactly this "not knowing," this puzzling over thorny questions or inexplicable data, that gets researchers into the lab early and keeps them there late, the thing that propels them, the very driving force of science. Firestein shows how scientists use ignorance to program their work, to identify what should be done, what the next steps are, and where they should concentrate their energies. And he includes a catalog of how scientists use ignorance, consciously or unconsciously-a remarkable range of approaches that includes looking for connections to other research, revisiting apparently settled questions, using small questions to get at big ones, and tackling a problem simply out of curiosity. The book concludes with four case histories-in cognitive psychology, theoretical physics, astronomy, and neuroscience-that provide a feel for the nuts and bolts of ignorance, the day-to-day battle that goes on in scientific laboratories and in scientific minds with questions that range from the quotidian to the profound. Turning the conventional idea about science on its head, Ignorance opens a new window on the true nature of research. It is a must-read for anyone curious about science.

What is consciousness? How does the subjective character of consciousness fit into an objective world? How can there be a science of consciousness? In this sequel to his groundbreaking and controversial The Conscious Mind, David Chalmers develops a unified framework that addresses these questions and many others. Starting with a statement of the "hard problem" of consciousness, Chalmers builds a positive framework for the science of consciousness and a nonreductive vision of the metaphysics of consciousness. He replies to many critics of The Conscious Mind, and then develops a positive theory in new directions. The book includes original accounts of how we think and know about consciousness, of the unity of consciousness, and of how consciousness relates to the external world. Along the way, Chalmers develops many provocative ideas: the "consciousness meter", the Garden of Eden as a model of perceptual experience, and The Matrix as a guide to the deepest philosophical problems about consciousness and the external world. This book will be required reading for anyone interested in the problems of mind, brain, consciousness, and reality.