Magic and Mystery in Tibet - by: Alexandra David-Neel (1932, 2014)

This is one of those rare books that exposes another culture in a way that really opens it up an lets the reader glimpse for themselves what is there, instead of telling you. I was especially interested in the phenomena of "tulpas", which are like ghosts that our mind creates, consciously or unconsciously, and then they take on a life with consciousness of their own. I wonder if these "tulpas" are far more common than we think. Maybe, in a strange sense, we are all tulpas living in our own minds! (I am referring to the idea that maybe our egos are just an illusion that our minds create in order to rationalize what we experience.) Very interesting and "enlightening" stuff! 😀 

The Real Men in Black - By: Nick Redfern (2011)

I believe it is very possible that there are beings in this world who have knowledge of the possible futures of our planet, and these beings appear at times in our myths and legends as such icons as the Men in Black. I also suspect that such beings have actively interfered with my life for reasons I may never fully know or even guess. That is why I read this book, looking for some evidence or indication that my suspicions could come true. I found no new information here, but I did learn that I'm not the only one who believes as I do, and that made it an interesting read. I know I will never know the truth of the matter, but that's okay. It's still fun to contemplate.

Thank you, My Love!

The Truth About Jesus: Is He A Myth? --- by: M.M. Mangasarian (1909)

It took me a while to read this book even though there wasn't very much in it that I wasn't already aware of. It does however very clearly assert all the hypocritical and utterly ridiculous contradictions of the Christian's belief in the historicity of Jesus. I liked especially that the author took the time at the end of the book, in several appendixes, to address several of the prominent attempts by various Christian clergymen to critique the arguments and facts set out in this book. The author thus exposes the nonsensical attemps at reasoning the Christians use to "defend" their beliefs, which ultimately boils down to, "blind (un-reasoned) faith" in something that is clearly non-historically based (i.e. there is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus at all, and there never was, which the church is ultimately forced to admit even while its clergy continue to ignorantly proclaim the opposite by asserting invented facts and rumors that have no basis in reality or history at all).

It totally amazes me that someone could read a book like this and yet continue to "believe" in the physical existence of Jesus! The author himself was a formally educated Christian Minister, until he could no longer sustain the delusion of Christ's existence in the face of reason and historical evidence. I personally think his only "error" is assuming that reason and evidence should be considered the only reliable source of knowledge and truth. This presumes that human intelligence is sufficient for determining the nature of our existence/reality (or what I call simply "experience"). Reason itself will tell us that reason is not enough. But, he is correct to use reason to demonstrate where reason fails. In other words, we can use reason to help us realize the errors of reason, and in this case the errors of Christian beliefs. But, we cannot use reason to assert some other "truth" or "explanation" (such as science) because as soon as we do we are falling back into the same intellectual "trap" that put Christians where they are today - the trap of presuming that human intellect is sufficient to comprehend the Ultimate Truth of our existence. It is not, and never will be.

I Know My First Name Is Steven - by: Mike Echols (1991, 1999)

"The true story of the Steven Stayner abduction case." I never heard about this case until I saw a documentary about it on 20/20 (or something) several weeks ago. Because it all happened around the same time that I myself was learning first hand about sex hysteria in the U.S. (the 1970s), I decided to check it out. I think the interesting thing about "true crime" books from over 20 years ago is that they usually read like a porn novel, and this book was no exception.

For example: "[Steven] tried to pull away from his captor's grip. Brusquely, though the kidnapper shoved the little boy's head down over his exposed, erect penis, Steven's copious tears and entreaties to Parnell to take him home not deterring the aroused pedophile as he repeatedly ejaculated inside the trembling child's mouth."

Really? I mean, REALLY? That's what happened? Is that how Steven remembers it? Or the kidnapper, Parnell? I seriously doubt if that's how it happened at all! It's far too dramatic. But it sure does sell books, doesn't it?

As an experienced "child rapist" and "rape victim" myself I could tell that neither Parnell's nor Steven's accounts of events were very close to the truth. And the author clearly obscured events even further by adding such dramatic flair. In ways, no doubt, what really happened was much worse, but could never be expressed with words. For example, the author never once mentions blood or shit, even after very graphically detailing the first time Parnell anally raped Steven face down on a bed. It was all just lust and orgasm, even referring to the boy as Parnell's "young sex partner".

I learned something though. I realize now more than ever that my own "crime" against the 14-year-old boy that I "raped" (orally) when I was just sixteen myself was more the result of a morally corrupt social system and the "messages" it sends than it ever was my own confused attempt to find a place in this world. In other words; yes, I was a "confused kid" acting out of my misguided need for some sense of sexual identity (as demanded hormonally by nature), but the confusion I felt and acted on did not come from within me as much as it came from the kind of hypocritical social-sexual messages that this book so brusquely illustrates.

Of course it's never as simple as that either, which I will always insist. It is much more complex, so much so that all our attempts to "understand" and "fix" the problem (and/or "the System") are futile. As I've said so many times before, the only cure for crime is love; everything else is just more crime. And this book is nothing more than child porn for the kind of person who condemns child porn in order to tell themselves and everyone else how morally righteous they are.

[J.D. March 15, 2019] 

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things - by: J.T. LeRoy (2001, 2016)

I stumbled upon this book on a prison book cart here in the SCU ("death row"). I think it's brilliant the way it shows the connection between a child's experiences and adult "perversion". I also like the way it seems to dismissively depict the way our social system only pretends to help and to care, not to mention the profoundly hypocritical religious "solutions". I felt like crying at the end for the same reason that the dedication drew me in...

"And when this happens to you, 

you believe nobody knows and nobody cares."

Beyond Good And Evil - by: Friedrich Nietzsche (1886)

I read this as apart of a discussion I've been having with my fiancée about the way society judges and condemns so much so ignorantly. I personally think Nietzsche is clearly brilliant and well informed, but I can't help but also think that he doesn't carry his own ideas far enough. His conclusions seem premature and self-serving. I respect his intelligence, but I don't like his perspective... it's quite "scary" to me in fact, not only because of the damage it has already caused (particularly in the 20th century), but because of the damage this sort of "conclusive" thinking will continue to cause in the future. It prevents people from seeing a broader, more inclusive truth/reality. It limits our "will to power" to mankind's ignorant and incapable hands (and minds). To me there is so much more!

The Awakening of Intelligence - by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1973, re-issued 1987)

This book took me over a month to read, not because it was dull or uninteresting (which is usually the reason it takes me a long time to read a book), but because it fascinated me so much that I wanted to relish every section for days before I continued.

Krishnamurti comes closer than anyone I have ever read to expressing exactly what it was that I realized that caused me to stop killing and turn myself in, the "epiphany" as I usually call it. What he calls "intelligence", I call "the Living Truth". It is the very real and infinitely meaningful source of our Being, which we can never know anything ABOUT, but can know completely and intimately, by simply forsaking the illusions (or "images" as Krishnamurti calls them in this book) that our mind creates in a desperate and delusional attempt to save itself from "death".

It was this illusion that, for reasons I will never fully fathom, I was allowed to see past as my entire delusional world came crumbling down. And, it has been my hope and my belief ever since, that the same will happen, and happen soon, for the rest of us, because if it doesn't, then we will all be doomed (destroyed) by the consequences of our delusional thinking.

On Fear - by Jiddu Krishnamurti (1995)

This book was a gift from my fiancée, and it shows how much she really loves and understands me. She first introduced me to Jiddu Krishnamurti less than a year ago, so I never knew of him or his thinking before. And yet he almost perfectly reflects my own thinking and understanding. Of course, Jiddu is far more astute in his ability to convey and practice what he understands as the Truth, which he refers to as a living thing the same way I do. He was clearly a brilliant man and teacher, though he himself would probably deny such claims. Fear, he says, is the root of all suffering; and, like me, he sees the current social systems of our world (government, religious, even academic) as corrupted by fear, which they propagate ignorantly in desperate pursuit of illusory power, control, and order that they will never achieve. Also, like me, he sees the possibility for real and meaningful change only when enough people in this world look within for the truth, and stop seeing themselves as separate from what they observe (both inside themselves and outside). And perhaps more importantly, he emphasizes that we must find the "answers" (a.k.a. "salvation") for ourselves, and never under any circumstance let another person or institution tell us what we need to do, think, or believe in order to be happy.

Excerpts:

• "Where there is comparison, there must be fear." (pg.2)
• "To live with a living thing such as fear requires a mind and heart that are extraordinarily subtle, that have no conclusion and can therefore follow every movement of fear." (pg. 11)
• "When you see that you are a part of fear, not separate from it - that you are fear - that you cannot do anything about it; then fear comes totally to an end." (pg. 11)
• "There is no 'individual' mind at all - we are all totally related." (pg. 13)
• "To learn about myself I cannot follow anybody. If I follow anybody, I am not learning [about myself]." (pg. 34)
• "... society and the [elders] think fear is necessary to keep you in right behavior." (pg. 45)
• "Though all religions preach love, though they preach brotherhood, though they talk about the unity of mankind, they all subtly, or very brutally, grossly, maintain this sense of fear." (pg. 45)
• "A [system] based on fear of any kind is a rotten [system]; it should not be." (pg. 45)
• "None of these problems of fear can be resolved through will - saying to oneself, 'I will not be afraid.' Such acts of will have no meaning." (pg. 53)
• "... fear is the other side of the coin that is called pleasure." (pg. 55)
• "The self-interest in our life is the cause of fear." (pg. 86)
• "... in every religion, self-interest is dominant." (pg. 86)
• "Self-understanding is the awakening and ending of fear." (pg. 93)

The End Of Alice - by: A.M. Homes (1996)

This was by far the most frightening book I have read in a very long time. I enjoyed it thoroughly. But, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone except an avid connoisseur of insanity like myself, and my beloved.

The History of Sexuality - Volume 1: An Introduction --- by: Michel Foucault (1976, 1978 English, 1990 Vintage Books Edition)

My fiancée bought me this entire set (three volumes) on "sexuality" by Foucault, showing how well she knows me and understands my thirst for understanding "sex" and so-called "sexuality". Foucault explains that the whole concept of sexuality did not even exist before the industrial revolution when the power structure began using it as a means to further its control over the masses. The first volume is an explanation of the basic philosophical concepts and ideas that are necessary to understand Foucault's more in depth look at the history (and development) of "sexuality" by studying social attitudes toward sex going all the way back to Greek and Roman times. He gives words and expression to a lot of basic ideas that I have long been acutely aware of, especially the way most people are deceived by the commonly held social and pseudo-science of sex ("scientia sexualis" as Foucault calls it) and "sexuality". This false view supports a very distorted and "perverted" (as Foucault himself says) social order that corrupts our children, our morals, and our natural ability to think and fend for ourselves, all to support and justify the power structure (a.k.a. "authorities").

Anyone who really wants to understand why I did what I did (rape/murder) should read this book. It's an excellent "introduction" to the cultural and social history that lead to my type of crimes, and continues to do so. Except Foucault takes it much further than that. He explains that the real "perverts" in our culture are all the so-called "experts" telling us who the "perverts" are. We live in a perverted culture of perverts telling us all the ways everyone else is perverted. (Of course I'm over-simplifying Foucault's philosophy in my own interest. So you'll have to read these books for yourself to appreciate Foucault's real genius.)

Karius og Baktus - av Thorbjørn Egner (2005)

 Another valuable gift from much more than a friend that I must also surrender due to the five-book-limit for BOP prisoners regardless of the deeply sentimental value it has for me. It is a "children's book" written in Norwegian, which I am translating to help me learn the language. So in a way it is my "first book" (in Norwegian) and as such has special meaning to me; not to mention that the fact that it was also a gift from the love of my life.

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy - Alejandro Jodorowsky (2004) Translation by: Rachael LeValley (2010)

Another gift from a good friend in Germany. This book strikes home in a lot of very "synchronistic" ways. It has not only shed light on the nature of my dreams, but it has also reinvigorated my hope in a better and enlightened future for us all.

Norwegian Folktales: From the Collection of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (1812-1885) (Translated by: Pat Shaw and Carl Norman; Pantheon Books, N.Y. 1960)

A valuable gift from much more than a close friend. It breaks my heart that I must surrender this book from my possession because of the five-book-limit for U.S. Federal prisoners. It was a pleasure to read made fleeting by the whimsical delusions of "power" and "control" in the minds of those who know nothing about such things.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – by Haruki Murakami (translated from Japanese by Jay Rubin, 1997)

Three books in one, a deeply “spiritual” or synchronistic and metaphorical story about a man's struggle within himself to find his lost wife. I took my time reading this book as it was a savory feast that saddened me to finish. Murakami is brilliant, and clearly “sees” what few people can “behind the scenes” of reality. Every character was “real” and well fleshed out. A very enjoyable read.

The Pigeon – by: Patrick Suskind (translated from French by John E. Woods, 1988)

This book was another gift from a philosophically-minded friend of mine. It was a very short day-in-the-life sort of story with Kafkaesque undertones. An enjoyable light read.

The Little Prince --- by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943, 2010)

This is a "children's book" for adults. It was ordered for me as a gift from a thoughtful friend. Most adults would do well to let a book like this remind them of the important lessons only their inner child can teach.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge --- by: Matt Ridley (2015)

This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. Ridley has derived many of the same insights and conclusions I have regarding the importance and power of the evolutionary process to not only shape our world, but our very thoughts and ideas, even art. Well-researched and well-written; a critical read for anyone interested in where human thought is going (i.e. what our general understanding will be about our world and our experiences in the near future). Ridley calls evolution one of the «most corrosive concepts in all philosophy», which is interesting, and very true. It corrodes the ignorance of relgion and superstitions like acid. I really like this book.

Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality --- by: Edward Frenkel (2013)

This is the last of three books that I'd asked my attorney, and friend, Joe, to order for me from amazon recently because I've been getting excessively bored with the T.V. in my cell lately and wanted something intellectually stimulating to read. I consider reading books like this --- that challenge me mentally --- as good entertainment. And while I was indeed entertained, as this book provides a look at what you might call the "intimate side of mathematics", I was also frustrated throughout most of it, and on occassion even outrightly insulted for my lack of ability to grasp what Frenkel was talking about as he discusses his advanced research and theories in the relationship between various "continents of science" (as Frenkel calls them) such as theoretical math and quantum physics. At one point he sums up the basic principles of differential equations (i.e. Calculus) in just a few paragraphs, as if this should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it.

But, I was entertained nonetheless by his roundabout expression of math as something that not only exists in its own right as a kind of non-material reality of pure relationships, but that it is in itself infinitely more complex and "alive" than what we commonly experience here in the material and even intellectual worlds we call reality. I suspect Frenkel is alluding to none other than my own realizations that consciousness itself is somehow the product of infinite probability, which I have attempted to write about elsewhere in this blog.

The Synchronicity Key: The Hidden Intelligence Guiding the Universe and You --- by David Wilcock (2013)

I first learned about synchronicity directly from the writings of Carl Jung. So I never really understood how it has been adopted by mystics, spiritualists, and others as a way to try to explain things that it was never meant to explain. The “Synchronicity Key” is one of those books.

I understand now why Jung is so often accused of being a mystic (he wasn't, he was an intellectually rigid scientist who followed the scientific evidence even when it contradicted common sense, as any true scientist should). This book makes a lot of far-fetched claims that most would consider pseudoscience at best. And it claims outright that synchronicity is “the key that unlocks the greatest mystery of all time”. Jung himself was very adamant about not trying to explain synchronicity, or suggesting that it could be used to explain anything. He simply and meticulously documented what it was, and the evidence of its existence.

Nonetheless, I found this book interesting, even though Jung humself would probably wince at the title alone. It strongly supports my own beliefs in a single Universal Intelligence that is the source of all being, and a coming “Golden Age”. Though I didn't come to these beliefs in anything like the way Wilcock does (i.e. through intellectual analysis of patterns in history). I don't completely dismiss Wilcock's discussion; but I don't think it is as convincing as a simple honest look within ourselves can be.

Waking, Dreaming, Being: self and consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy --- by Evan Thompson (2015

I found out about this book from a book review. It appeared to be exactly the kind of book I have been hoping to find for a long time, and it turned out to be better than I hoped. Thompson does an excellent and thorough job of analyzing, comparing, and contrasting modern science with (mostly Eastern) philosophy. He brings out numerous subtle points that will --- I believe --- have a profound impact some day (as more people come to realize the significance of this understanding, and hence "waking up" from the "dream" of self-ish existence) on all aspects of our culture, from crime to politics.

[J.D. Nov. 18, 2015]