'Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down... I forgot my name, my humanness, my thingness, all that could be called me or mine. Past and future dropped away... Lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around.' Thus Douglas Harding describes his first experience of headlessness, or no self. First published in 1961, this is a classic work which conveys the experience that mystics of all times have tried to put words to.

'Reason and imagination and all mental chatter died down... I forgot my name, my humanness, my thingness, all that could be called me or mine. Past and future dropped away... Lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around.' Thus Douglas Harding describes his first experience of headlessness, or no self. First published in 1961, this is a classic work which conveys the experience that mystics of all times have tried to put words to.

In this book the author of On Having No Head investigates the most poignant problem our life poses - what lies at the end of it. He asks us to check four things. First, that to discover whether we are perishable, we must first discover what we are. Second, that outsiders are in no position to tell us this: they can only tell us what we look like at a distance. Third, that what we are is obvious as soon as we dare to look. And fourth, that we turn out to be in all respects the opposite of what we had been told. This revolutionary conclusion is arrived at by doing the nine tests for Immortality that form the backbone of the book. Then, our identity and immortality having been firmly established, we apply this knowledge to the fact of ageing and of dying itself, thus realizing their infinite potential for joy. Finally, the book explores in detail the true resurrection life - life lived in a Heaven which is none other than this earthly scene perceived as it is. 'The open secret is no longer secret. Douglas Harding's Little Book of Life nd Death makes the insights of the sages accessible to all. Courageous, personal and inspiring, this book asks the most difficult questions about life and death, and to our - and apparently even the author's - amazemnt, answers them. Like Harding's classic book On Having No Head, this work is written in a down-home, heartfelt syle. Read this book. Do the experiments which are Harding's unique and powerful contribution to what might be called the technology of enlightenment. Get ready to die, and to live anew.' Rober W. Fuller. Former president, Oberlin College. 'The literature on dying will never be the same again.' Ram Dass

This book is about the heart of religious experience, namely Enlightenment (which is finding the truth concerning oneself), and about science (which is finding the truth concerning other things), and about the relationship between them.

It claims that Enlightenment is more truly scientific than science itself; and that, without Enlightenment, science is only half the story and therefore full of contradictions, of insoluble problems both theoretical and practical. It shows how, when at last one turns one's attention round and ceases to overlook the Looker--the 1st Person at the near end of one's microscope or telescope or spectacles--these contradictions are resolved. Some 37 examples are given, taken from such diverse fields as physics, mathematics, semantics, epistemology, and psychotherapy, to show how nothing less than Enlightenment makes sense and works out.

The Reader will find that Enlightenment is not, after all, an unattainable mystery, but perfectly natural and instantly accessible to anyone who carries out the simple test--the basic experiment of the Science of the 1st Person-- which this book describes.

Of Harding's numerous works, the most comprehensive is The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth: A New Diagram of Man in the Universe, the best-known is On Having No Head: The Rediscovery of the Obvious, and the most thorough and rigorous is The Science of the 1st Person: Its Principles, Practice and Potential.

An infallible guide to eliminating stress by Douglas Harding, author of On Having No Head. When we come up against stressful situations in our everyday life our automatic reaction is to turn away and escape. If, on the other hand, we can accept stress, allow it to become part of us, the conflict disappears. The secret lies in seeing that either we are the No-thing that overcomes stress by excluding it or the Every-thing that overcomes stress by including it. This method of coping with stress applies to its many manifestations in our lives. It can turn boredom into joy and despondency into deep contentment. Learning to head off stress takes no time at all and is impossible to forget. All it requires is tht we dare to take a fresh look at ourselves. Revolutionary in its ease and directness, its simplicity and penetration, this approach is guaranteed to turn our preconceptions upside down.

This book begins with the question 'Who am I?' and immediately sets off in an astonishingly original direction. Why didn't anyone before Harding think of responding to this question like this? It's so obvious, once you see it. Harding presents a new vision of our place in the universe that uses the scientific method of looking to see what is true. It turns out that the truth about ourselves is not only true but also very good, and breathtakingly beautiful. We live in a sacred, many-layered, living universe - or rather it lives in us. Though it was completed in 1950, this book is still ahead of its time. One day it will surely be widely recognised for its greatness: its all-encompassing vision, its originality and freshness, its depth of insight, its wide-ranging knowledge, the clarity and poetry of its language, its humanity. It is a world-view not dependent on local culture or religion, but on universally verifiable facts. It is also a world-view that respects our manifest differences whilst celebrating our underlying unity - the unity not just of oneself with other people but with all of life, indeed with the whole universe. Harding died in 2007 aged 97, leaving behind him an impressive body of work. He was a highly creative person who was passionate about - he was in love with - this living universe and the immortal treasure that abides at its centre - at our centre. A work of the highest genius. C. S. Lewis.

The Hidden Gospel presents an exciting new interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. In this workshop manual Douglas Harding invites you to do his breakthrough experiments and experience, directly, the Reality that Jesus was talking about.

In the Hidden Gospel Harding shows how the teachings of Jesus make sense in scientific terms - including some teachings that sound plainly untrue, or at best metaphorical. When Jesus spoke about having a 'single eye' and of his body being 'full of light', what did he mean? Anyone looking at him would have seen he had two eyes and his body was not made of light. But carry out Harding's 'single eye' experiment and within a few moments all is clarified, not through debate but by seeing - seeing that your eye is single, that your body is made of light. Now the words of Jesus make sense.

The Hidden Gospel, completed in 1974 but published now for the first time in paperback, is for anyone, from whatever tradition, who wishes to find out what Jesus really meant, not by debating his teachings but by experiencing for themselves the boundless core of their own being, and then seeing how clearly and beautifully Jesus described this experience, this Reality. This book does not appeal to Jesus as a religious authority who tells you what to believe but as a fellow traveller who found 'the pearl of great price' and, with great courage, did his best to share it with others.

From the Foreword by Douglas Harding: This book has three essential components. (1) A lot of words, plus the points they make. (2) Pictures and diagrams of mine to help make sense of those points. (3) Half a dozen experiments or tests or exercises designed to reveal what you can see you are, in sharp distinction from what you think you are and are told you are. These experiments are the backbone of the whole. I can't stress too strongly that they are for doing, and just reading about them is worse than useless. Yes, much worse

Since at Root every chapter is about the same Thing--or rather No-thing--it matters little if you find some chapters obscure of incomprehensible. Just read on, and you will come to other parts of the book that are quite clear and easy going.

I conclude on a warning note--to believe anything you read in this book without testing it to the limit is to condemn yourself to bondage and slavery.

This book is about the heart of religious experience, namely Enlightenment (which is finding the truth concerning oneself), and about science (which is finding the truth concerning other things), and about the relationship between them.

It claims that Enlightenment is more truly scientific than science itself; and that, without Enlightenment, science is only half the story and therefore full of contradictions, of insoluble problems both theoretical and practical. It shows how, when at last one turns one's attention round and ceases to overlook the Looker--the 1st Person at the near end of one's microscope or telescope or spectacles--these contradictions are resolved. Some 37 examples are given, taken from such diverse fields as physics, mathematics, semantics, epistemology, and psychotherapy, to show how nothing less than Enlightenment makes sense and works out.

The Reader will find that Enlightenment is not, after all, an unattainable mystery, but perfectly natural and instantly accessible to anyone who carries out the simple test--the basic experiment of the Science of the 1st Person-- which this book describes.

Of Harding's numerous works, the most comprehensive is The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth: A New Diagram of Man in the Universe, the best-known is On Having No Head: The Rediscovery of the Obvious, and the most thorough and rigorous is The Science of the 1st Person: Its Principles, Practice and Potential.

This remarkable work by the author of On Having No Head is didactic fiction in the English tradition of More, Bunyan, Butler, Orwell and Huxley. Taking the form of a court case in the year 2003 AD in which a man is tried for blasphemy, the book dramatises Harding's highly original techniques for Seeing Who We Are, and gauges our myriad ideas about our relationship with the Divine. It is also an indictment of the cruel sport of heresy hunting and a passionate plea for tolerance and forgiveness in our time.

This is arguably D.E. Harding's finest work and likely to astonish and delight his growing readership. It shows that old age can be transformed from a liability into an asset. Moving and exciting, The Trial of the Man Who Said He was God grips you as only a trial by jury has the power to grip.

This wide-ranging selection of essays by the author of On Having No Head points directly back to you, the Reader. It is a heartfelt challenge to awaken to your True Identity which, as Harding demonstrates, is more wonderful than any of us can imagine, easier to see than anything in the world, and the paradigm of sanity and health. These essays show you exactly how and where to look to find this Treasure, and indicate the immense personal and global implications of this Awakening. Harding's work represents a breakthrough in communicating the experience and meaning of our True Identity. Combining insight and humour in his characteristic fashion, Harding leads us Home in a manner that is always fresh and authentic.

Douglas Harding wrote The Face Game in the late 1960s, then put it away in a cupboard. After Harding died in 2007 his friends found the typescript. Now, fifty years after he wrote it, we have the honour of publishing this book in paperback for the first time.

The Face Game is 'classic Harding' - taking a fresh look at our identity, it is original, profound and beautifully crafted. And whilst Harding quotes extensively from tradition - he had a deep understanding of all the great religions - he appeals to our experience over and above all authority.

Harding saw who he really was in 1943. In The Hierarchy of Heaven & Earth (1952) Harding explored how the discovery of our central Reality changes our understanding of our place in the universe. In The Face Game Harding extended that exploration further in terms of how consciously being the Self transforms our personal lives.

Harding was a pioneer, a trailblazer guided by the Light he found at his Centre. Walk with him as he discovers the power of awakening to who we are - ceasing to play 'the face game', the game of being a separate person, we are healed at the deepest level.

This wide-ranging selection of essays by the author of On Having No Head points directly back to you, the Reader. It is a heartfelt challenge to awaken to your True Identity which, as Harding demonstrates, is more wonderful than any of us can imagine, easier to see than anything in the world, and the paradigm of sanity and health. These essays show you exactly how and where to look to find this Treasure, and indicate the immense personal and global implications of this Awakening. Harding's work represents a breakthrough in communicating the experience and meaning of our True Identity. Combining insight and humour in his characteristic fashion, Harding leads us Home in a manner that is always fresh and authentic.

We all want the same things - to be happy and at peace, to be free from fear and anxiety, to be loved and to love, to live meaningful lives. But we have very different ways of going about getting them. Judging by results, few of us have found the way, and those few who have done so have found the Source of these good things deep within themselves, at their very Centre. This book explains how to uncover and tap this Infinite Core or Centre. If it is to become real and effective in our lives we must see it clearly (in fact more clearly than anything else), trust it, and consciously live from it. This sounds terribly difficult, but the difficulties are of our own manufacture. All we have to do is go by what we see instead of what Big Brother and language and convention tell us is going on. The result is that all the important things we had been told about ourselves are exposed as a pack of lies A life-changing and quite remarkable book. Practical, accessible, eminently readable, and while revealing fundamental and extraordinary truths, always imparts a sense of joy and even fun.

Visible Gods is an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and four fictitious modern-day characters. Socrates' worldview is of a living cosmos with man only half-way up the hierarchy of all beings; above him reign suprahuman beings of great majesty and power - the visible gods. The moderns with whom Socrates converses disdain his ancient Greek cosmos as primitive and false. Yet as Socrates questions them in typically ironic fashion about the discoveries of science, it's not at all clear that the scientists' view of a dead universe populated here and there with rare accidents of life is right. Indeed, the more the moderns argue their case, the more Socrates shows they are arguing his... Douglas Harding completed Visible Gods in 1955. But the 'living universe' does not go out of date Join this conversation and discover - rediscover - the brilliant, shining, truly majestic life that is within you and without you. Put aside modern preconceptions and see the world with fresh, innocent, truthful eyes, and be amazed

Seeing Who I am is a strangely physical experience. It is like an energy; it is like an empowering, a physical tone, an uplift, a rootedness, courage, a faring forth into the world. It is enlivening.Douglas Harding

Douglas Harding (1909-2007), author of On Having No Head, saw Who he really was in 1943. He then spent the rest of his long life sharing the experience and the meaning of Who we really are.

Harding's unique method of awakening to the Source, of seeing your True Self, appeals first and foremost to your own unmediated experience of yourself. It is original, effective, direct, and practical.

The quotations in Open to the Sourceare selected by Richard Lang, a close friend of Harding's for more than forty-five years. The artfully designed arrangement of beautiful photographs and inspiring words invite the reader to see the Source and to live from the Source.

Open this book whenever the spirit moves you and be inspired

Sometimes people criticised Douglas Harding, author of On Having No Head, by saying he was like a record whose needle had got stuck. His reply was that at least his needle was stuck in the Centre The Centre being the eternal, all-embracing Heart of oneself, one's True Self, the Stillness which is the hub of the turning world, the infinitely small Point that is all the while exploding into Everything. No bad place to be stuck

The articles in this book, arranged in chronological order, span the period of Harding's life (1909-2007) from the early 1940s to the late 1990s. And though they are the sound of a needle stuck on one subject--the changeless subject of our true identity--the only Subject --they reveal something of the wide repertoire Harding composed, inspired by that single, silent, mysterious, nearer-than-near, nothing-that-is-everything. These writings also demonstrate how Harding's understanding developed over many years as he explored in different contexts the meaning of what he saw himself to be, in contrast to what others made of him.

These writings are selected by Richard Lang, a long-time friend of Harding's.

I'm a traveller from a very long way off. It's not that I'm lost. But it's a long story...

And then, suddenly, from the side pocket of his long overcoat, he produced that fabulous thing. It came out small, a mere bud which immediately opened out in his hand like a flower. He set it up on the table between us. It was a flower with curious and gorgeous petals, an onion with bright painted skins and a crystal core, a ship-a-sailing with all eight spinnakers bellying in the wind. He called it his Deep Map, in contrast to the at maps people use, and said that without it we wouldn't follow his adventures at all. He explained that it showed clearly where he came from and was going to, and the scenes of his adventures with the terrible Wormwolf. It revealed a living Space-dweller the regular astronomers hadn't discovered yet, and gave glimpses into the lands of the Gnomes and the Goblins and the Elves. And in fact it was a record of his great Space Probe, his journey to the very Centre of the world. He called this strange chart of his Youniverse, spelt Y o u n i v e r s e; and he said it was his Magic Tool Chest, or Wizard's Bag of Tricks. Armed with this device, why anyone could ...

And so begins a story that takes you all the way to the centre of the Youniverse. It is a story that transforms you in the process and reveals the greatest of all treasures, hidden in plain sight.

This is a dramatic story, a wild dream, at times a nightmare, at times a hilarious and subversive satire. It involves a quest, a monster and a shape-shifting hero, strange characters and dangerous goings-on, and an end that is a beginning--the tightest corner of Hell opening out into the widest smile of Heaven, the darkest of nights turning into the early morning freshness of the world. Are you prepared to wrestle with the angel till dawn? Only those that go the whole way will find the Whole.

I'm a traveller from a very long way off. It's not that I'm lost. But it's a long story...

And then, suddenly, from the side pocket of his long overcoat, he produced that fabulous thing. It came out small, a mere bud which immediately opened out in his hand like a flower. He set it up on the table between us. It was a flower with curious and gorgeous petals, an onion with bright painted skins and a crystal core, a ship-a-sailing with all eight spinnakers bellying in the wind. He called it his Deep Map, in contrast to the at maps people use, and said that without it we wouldn't follow his adventures at all. He explained that it showed clearly where he came from and was going to, and the scenes of his adventures with the terrible Wormwolf. It revealed a living Space-dweller the regular astronomers hadn't discovered yet, and gave glimpses into the lands of the Gnomes and the Goblins and the Elves. And in fact it was a record of his great Space Probe, his journey to the very Centre of the world. He called this strange chart of his Youniverse, spelt Y o u n i v e r s e; and he said it was his Magic Tool Chest, or Wizard's Bag of Tricks. Armed with this device, why anyone could ...

And so begins a story that takes you all the way to the centre of the Youniverse. It is a story that transforms you in the process and reveals the greatest of all treasures, hidden in plain sight.

This is a dramatic story, a wild dream, at times a nightmare, at times a hilarious and subversive satire. It involves a quest, a monster and a shape-shifting hero, strange characters and dangerous goings-on, and an end that is a beginning--the tightest corner of Hell opening out into the widest smile of Heaven, the darkest of nights turning into the early morning freshness of the world. Are you prepared to wrestle with the angel till dawn? Only those that go the whole way will find the Whole.

The Face Game was written in the late 1960s. Harding places the experience of headlessness in the context of Transactional Analysis, and shows how under all the games people play, is a master game, the Face Game. When we see through this game -- seeing we are faceless -- then we find our way through to freedom from psychological game-playing. We find our way through to Liberation.