Using occultism to understand the paranormal sounds like diluting water or burying earth, but in this thoughtful and unusual book Duncan Barford draws on a deep familiarity with modern magick to provide a valuable toolbox of concepts for exploring the relationship between consciousness and the paranormal. Writing in an accessible and humorous style, Barford examines intriguing first-hand accounts of poltergeists, telepathy, communication with the dead, religious phenomena and astral projection. The essence of his unique exploration is that the paranormal does not happen only to special people and on rare occasions. In fact, to experience the paranormal we need simply turn our attention to the nature of our consciousness itself.

The traditional dating of the origin of psychoanalysis to 1900, when Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, ignores the massive body of work he produced well before this date. Covering fields as diverse as neurology, physiology, philosophy, and pharmacology, this wealth of unjustly neglected material was to have a profound influence upon the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique. This fascinating study of the hidden roots of psychoanalysis features contributions from an international panel of authorities on Freud's early writings, and highlights the unparalleled originality of his pre-analytic work. Seeking to restore the openness that originally existed between psychoanalysis and the other sciences, these papers consider Freud's outstanding scientific achievements within neurology and his achievements as a psychologist. Freud's early fascination with cocaine and his substantial monograph on the coca plant are reconsidered in the light of research that places the episode in its historical context. The influence of philosophical writings upon Freud's thought is demonstrated careful consideration of the origins of Freudian concepts in the works of Aristotle, Brentano and John Stuart Mill.

Learning is the most basic means by which we can change oursleves. Of all the activities of the mind, learning is perhaps the most fundamental, yet one of the most provocative and difficult to understand. In this fourth volume of the Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis, ten new essays by an interdisciplinary array of educationalists, psychoanalysts and academics confront head-on the many problems associated with the mystery of learning. What is learning? How are ideas 'transmitted' from the mind of one person to the mind of another? What makes a good teacher? Like all the preceding volumes in The Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis, ideas and opinions are presented from a contrasting variety of viewpoints within contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Individual chapters are devoted to the theories of learning implicit in the work of Freud, Jung, Klein, Bion, Winnicott, and Lacan. Other topics explored in this extremely comprehensive and thought-provoking collection include: how to teach 'psychoanalytically'; the relationship between learning difficulty and 'writer's block'; and the problems inherent in teaching psychoanalysis itself.