On this page you’ll find, as you scroll down, some of my favourite (or most relevant, in light of my book) websites, books, YouTube documentaries and talks, great movies and anything else that comes to mind.
In Print……
From A Prison for the Mind, Bibliography
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, David D. Burns m.d., Harpercollins Publishers, New York, 1980
The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power and Profit, Joel Bakan, Constable & Robinson Ltd., London, 2004
The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, Second Edition 1968
The Power Of Myth, Joseph Campbell, Doubleday, New York, 1988
The Active Side Of Infinity, Carlos Castaneda, Harpercollins Publishers, New York, 1998
Aeon Byte, Gnostic Radio, Miguel O Conner, https://thegodabovegod.com
Jungian Spirituality, Vivianne Crowley, Harpercollins Publishers (Thorsons), London, 1998
Experiencing God’s Reflection: The Role Qi Gong Plays in the Transformation of Consciousness, Lyn Dilbeck, Spiraling Life Force Press, Sedona, 2012
Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl, Hodder And Stroughton Limited, London, 1987
The Jesus Mysteries: Was The Original Jesus a Pagan God? Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy, Harpercollins Publishers Limited, Hammersmith, London, 2003
The Pagan Christ: Recovering The Lost Light, Tom Harpur, Thomas Allen Publishers, Toronto, 2004
Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism And Socialism From Rousseau To Foucault, Stephen R. C. Hicks, Ockham’s Razor Publishing, 2011
Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking The Curse of Evil, Paul Levy, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, California, 2013
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, Random House, New York, 1979
The Daemon: A Guide To Your Extraordinary Secret Self, Anthony Peake, Arcturus Publishing Ltd., London, 2012
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, Jordan Peterson, 1999, Routledge, New York, 1999
The Cloud Of Unknowing, Ira Progoff, Penguin Random House, 1989
The Secret Behind Secret Societies, Jon Rappoport, Truth Seeker Co., Inc., San Diego, 1998
Science Set Free, Rupert Sheldrake, Random House Inc., New York, 2012
Seven Simple Steps To Personal Freedom, Gerry Spence, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2001
The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harper & Row Publishers Inc., New York, 1976
Messengers Of Deception: Ufo Contacts And Cults, Jacques Vallée, Daily Grail Publishing, Brisbane, Australia, 1979
The Mind Parasites, Colin Wilson, Monkfish Book Publishing Company, Rhinebeck, New York, 1967
On the Web……
Wayne Becker, Wordgems. A veritable encyclopedia of knowledge and wisdom. Wayne is a true scholar and a good friend. The site is well laid out and easy to navigate. There is hardly a topic that Wayne has not researched and opined upon. I often refer to it. Wayne is the author of several books.
Visit the home page of award winning investigative journalist and film maker John Pilger. The site is a great guide to John’s documentaries and books. Get the news behind the news. Just a note, many of John’s DVD’s are UK format and therefore will not work on North American players. You can, however, play them on your computer or laptop.
The site of Miguel O Conner, the go to guy for all things Gnostic. Visit this “virtual Alexandria”, a “red pill cafeteria” of books research and interviews with Gnostic authors. Hit the “What is Gnosticsm?’ tab for the inside story on Gnosticism.
Web of Debt is the website of Ellen Hodgson Brown. J.D., a trial attorney and advocate for public banking. If your eyes gloss over when someone mentions banking, then visit Ellen’s site or read her book Web of Debt. Perhaps the most compelling issue of our time.
Visit the website of Dr. Joanna Kujawa, prolific author, mythologist, counsellor and scholar of gnosticism, specializing in the divine feminine. Restoration of the divine feminine is vital to escaping the prison for your mind.
I highly recommend both the books and podcasts of Dr. Cyd Ropp, PhD, author, speaker, and Gnostic sage of the first order. Cyd holds degrees in Psychology, Education, Counseling and a PhD in Classical Rhetoric. Her papers have been published in both academic and popular journals, and she taught at university before launching her own career as a writer and podcaster.
asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com
YouTube Documentaries/Clips……
This documentary, The Milgram Experiment, referred to in my Mask of Piety post, examines a psychological experiment testing obedience to authority.
This is a talk by Jordan Peterson and Bruce Pardy, Professor of law at Queen’s Universty, Kingston, Ontario. The title of the talk is The Rising Tide of Compelled Speech. The talk, which is held in at an historic hall at Queens, is invaded by (so-called) SJW’s seeking to disrupt. Later they surround the building pounding on the windows (at least one of them breaks). Nevertheless, the talk continues and is very informative .
Essential Movies……
Recent Releases
Official Secrets is very well aligned to a central theme of my book. The parasites create false narratives to further their objectives, protecting those narratives with words of denunciation such as witch or racist in this case, traitor. Based on a very significant legal case involving a British intelligence agent who tried to stop the war in Iraq. Is it a breach of The Official Secrets Act when government secrets are leaked to protect the country and not to harm it (as in selling military secrets to the highest bidder)? Every now and then a significant legal case arises which defines our values as a civilization. This is one of them. Review below.
Dark Waters is supportive of my chapter on the corporation. It also illustrates the role of the courts where government agencies have been bought off.
The Man Who Knew Infinity illustrates the power of integration, in particular, the integration of subjective revelations with objective scientific validation and the proper relationship between the two (postmodernism and Enlightenment values). Subjective revelations should not be dismissed and neither should the scientific method.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematical genius with very little formal education. His profound mathematical insights came to him, full blown, but lacking the necessary proofs, sometimes revealed in dreams by Hindu deities. He attracted the attention of the famous mathematician, G.H. Hardy, who invited him to Cambridge where their collaboration provided the necessary proofs to a skeptical scientific community. After overcoming many obstacles, Ramanujan was finally recognized as a true mathematical genius.
Classics
Little Big Man (1970) Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George (Canada’s treasure)
A tragic comedy about life on the American frontier. A powerful anti-war message.
The Mission (1986) Robert De Niro
Jesuits protect South American natives from slaveowners. True spirituality survives within politicized religion. Haunting musical score.
Groundhog Day (1993) Bill Murray
A delightful comedy about a TV weatherman who keeps living the same day over and over again, each time making better decisions. Someone thought of this before. The philosopher Nietzsche called it the “eternal return” and believed it to be true as did other philosophers (detailed examination of this in The Labyrinth of Time, Anthony Peake).
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Jack Nicholson) 1975
Attempting to avoid prison labour, a crafty prisoner (McMurphy) fakes insanity for what he believes to be a cushy assignment in a mental home. This brings him into conflict with the tyrannical hospital administration. The more he reacts the worse it gets but life improves dramatically for the inmates. This raises the question, who is more normal, the administrators or the inmates? Hilarious!
Based on a book by Ken Kesey (1962). Ken wrote the novel based on his observations working as an orderly in a mental institution. The book was banned in various states following numerous complaints. The complaints varied, some saying it was “vulgar”, others that it corrupted the youth or it was “filth”- the usual suspects. Mostly though, it challenged the status quo. Yet the status quo may shift from one thing to its polar opposite while the totalitarian substrate remains unmoved (a major theme of mine). See my latest post“The Mask of Piety”. The book was banned when it was conservatives who were censorious (1962). The political left and the political right have now changed places. The defense of free speech is now deemed to be a conservative position. I didn’t like censorship back then any more than I do today. People sometimes want to know if I’m conservative or liberal? The short answer is — I’m both and I’m neither; but also — what year is it? Warning! This movie “calibrates very low” (see my chapter New Age Fundmentalism).
On a similar theme….
What About Bob? (Bill Murray) 1991
A delightful comedy.
A psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin, becomes increasingly neurotic when a patient (Bob) makes a surprise and unanticipated visit to his vacation home. It doesn’t help that his entire family prefer Bob’s company to Dr. Leo’s. Bob even teaches Dr. Leo’s son, who is scared of water, how to swim.
Einstein and Eddington (2008)
Two great scientists, Einstein and Eddington, one German and one English, collaborate during WWI to verify the truth of Einstein’s theory. They are opposed in this by a scientific establishment steeped in nationalism and orthodoxy.
Autonomy Now: 