It is readily acknowledged that our time has surpassed all epochs in history for the accumulation of technical knowledge, physical power over our environment, and economic might. It is less often pointed out, however, that our age has generated, and continues to generate, mythical material almost unparalleled in quantity and quality in the rich records of human imagination.

More precisely, people have very frequently reported the observation of wonderful aerial objects, variously designated as flying saucers, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and so on; among these narratives descriptions of landings made by these craft are commonplace; and that quite a few accounts purport to inform us of the physical characteristics, the psychological behaviour, and the motivation of their occupants. But investigators have neglected to recognize one important perspective of the phenomenon: the fact that beliefs identical to those held today have recurred throughout recorded history and under forms best adapted to the believer's country, race, and social regime. If we take a wide sample of this historical material, we find that it is organized around one central theme: visitation by an aerial people from one or more remote, legendary countries. The names and attributes vary, but the main idea clearly does not. Magonia, heaven, hell, Elfland - all such places have in common one characteristic: we are unable to reach them alive, except on very special occasions. Emissaries from these supernatural abodes come to earth, sometimes under human form and sometimes as monsters. They perform wonders. They serve man or fight him. They influence civilizations through mystical revelation. They seduce earth women, and the few heroes who dare seek their friendship find the girls from Elfland endowed with desires that betray a carnal, rather than purely aerial, nature.These matters are the subject of Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallee's seminal master-work that changed our understanding of the UFO phenomenon. An instant classic when first published in 1969, the book remains a must-have resource for anybody interested in the topics of UFOs and alien contact, as well as those fascinated by fairy folklore and other paranormal encounters.

Too many cases of accidental alien contact...UFO cults praying to the skies...secret psychotronic weapons for bending the human mind. The evidence Jacques Vallee reveals, after many years of scientific investigation, adds up to something more menacing than monsters from outer space. Messengers of Deception documents the growing effect of UFO contact claims on our lives and of the belief systems prevalent in our society. It explores the hidden realities of the cults, the contactees, the murky political intrigues and the motivations of the investigators. As suspenseful as a Hitchcock Thriller, brilliantly argued . . . a smashing achievement. - Robert Anton Wilson

It is readily acknowledged that our time has surpassed all epochs in history for the accumulation of technical knowledge, physical power over our environment, and economic might. It is less often pointed out, however, that our age has generated, and continues to generate, mythical material almost unparalleled in quantity and quality in the rich records of human imagination. More precisely, people have very frequently reported the observation of wonderful aerial objects, variously designated as flying saucers, unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and so on; among these narratives descriptions of landings made by these craft are commonplace; and that quite a few accounts purport to inform us of the physical characteristics, the psychological behaviour, and the motivation of their occupants. But investigators have neglected to recognize one important perspective of the phenomenon: the fact that beliefs identical to those held today have recurred throughout recorded history and under forms best adapted to the believer's country, race, and social regime. If we take a wide sample of this historical material, we find that it is organized around one central theme: visitation by an aerial people from one or more remote, legendary countries. The names and attributes vary, but the main idea clearly does not. Magonia, heaven, hell, Elfland - all such places have in common one characteristic: we are unable to reach them alive, except on very special occasions. Emissaries from these supernatural abodes come to earth, sometimes under human form and sometimes as monsters. They perform wonders. They serve man or fight him. They influence civilizations through mystical revelation. They seduce earth women, and the few heroes who dare seek their friendship find the girls from Elfland endowed with desires that betray a carnal, rather than purely aerial, nature. These matters are the subject of Passport to Magonia, Jacques Vallee's seminal master-work that changed our understanding of the UFO phenomenon. An instant classic when first published in 1969, the book remains a must-have resource for anybody interested in the topics of UFOs and alien contact, as well as those fascinated by fairy folklore and other paranormal encounters.

From flying saucer crashes to underground alien bases, a number of modern mythologies have come into being since the advent of the UFO era in the 1940s. But how much of these myths is real, versus being the invention of either government agencies or deluded conspiracy theorists? Saucers, Spooks and Kooks provides an eye-opening survey of the history behind these stories, and the individuals promoting them.

Using a slew of disciplines - including archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnobotany, biology and other fields - The Long Trip strips bare the evidence for the psychedelic experiences of various prehistoric societies and ancient, traditional cultures. It is probably the most comprehensive single volume to look at the use of mind-altering drugs, or entheogens, for ritual and shamanistic purposes throughout humanity's long story, while casting withering sidelong glances at our own times - as Paul Devereux points out, our modern mainstream culture is eccentric in its refusal to integrate the profound experiences offered by these natural substances into its own spiritual life. The Long Trip is a fascinating study of an influential yet still under-explored experience, and is revelatory in its findings, invaluable in its research, and important in its attempts to address many deep questions confronting our culture.

The Contemplative Brain offers a comprehensive exploration of the cultural neurophenomenology of contemplation. The book is written by a neuroanthropologist who spent years as a Tibetan Tantric Buddhist monk and who has practiced many different traditions of contemplation, including Buddhist vipassana, Tantric arising yoga, Zen Buddhist zazen, Husserlian transcendental phenomenology, Western Mysteries esoteric Tarot, dream meditation, shamanic journeys, and other approaches to self-discovery. Over the course of half a century of contemplative experience, the author has learned to separate the practices and experiences of meditation traditions from their cultural, ideological, and religious trappings. He discovered that the brain-mind that seeks truth about the external world can be redirected to an exploration of the vast world of the inner Self-the truth-seeking brain in its contemplative mode. The book explains how the brain works to penetrate, understand, and eventually realize its own internal processes. This includes a detailed account of how the brain's sensorium portrays the world and the Self to itself in various alternative states of consciousness. A cross-cultural examination of methods and institutions used by contemplatives in the past and present to achieve self-awareness shows that humans have been interested in phenomenology for thousands of years. Methods for calming, centering, focusing and realization may or may not involve the use of entheogens (psychoactive drugs), ordeals, quests, ascetic lifestyles, hyper-awareness in dream states, and pursuit of mystical episodes, but all involve inherent capacity of the contemplative brain to discover its own nature.

Talking With the Spirits is a cross-cultural survey of contemporary spirit mediumship. The diverse contributions to this volume cover a wide-range of ethnographic contexts, from Spiritualist séances in the United Kingdom to self-mortification rituals in Singapore and Taiwan, from psychedelic spirit incorporation in the Amazonian rainforest, to psychic readings in online social spaces, and more. By taking a broad perspective the book highlights both the variety of culturally specific manifestations of spirit communication, and key cross-cultural features suggestive of underlying core-processes and experiences. Rather than attempting to reduce or dismiss such experiences, the authors featured in this collection take the experiences of their informants seriously and explore their effects at personal, social and cultural levels.

The Powers of Ancient and Sacred Places provides an informed, wide-ranging survey of a variety of intriguing properties of ancient sites, ranging from the material to the subtle. These enigmatic monuments are where we come face to face with our human story through time, and where we can also sometimes even catch the whispers of our planet itself - the places of power that gave us our first sense of the holy.

While searching for a legendary treasure believed to have been buried at a rural Virginia location, Jack Atkins is given a fresh lead at an estate sale. Among the rare volumes in the library of the family's patriarch, Grumble, is a dusty copy of Sir Francis Bacon's unfinished utopian work entitled 'New Atlantis'. Jeremy Pye, a fellow seeker of fortune that Jack befriends, is convinced that a finished copy was spirited away in the past and still remains concealed in a hidden vault, and that what this 'perfected' version reveals is infinitely more valuable than a hoard of gold.

While exploring the connections between a Maonic allegory embedded in cipher texts and those ingeniously encoded in the works of Shakespeare - in particular the bard's swan song, 'The Tempest' - they unmask a cabal of illustrious figures known as The Good Pens. Meanwhile, Jack is smitten with Grumble's great granddaughter, Callie, who is in possession of a family 'heirloom' - an artifact of unfathomable antiquity that, at times, appears to be sentient. This might explain why shadowy government types watch their every move, along with a mysterious presence that attempts to guide them on their quest with visions whose meaning they struggle to grasp.

Soon, the three are drawn to a private island near Bermuda, whose enigmatic owner is inclined to pleonexia - an insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others. Living in a paradise that contains parallels with the enchanted isle of 'The Tempest', they are witness to undreamed of things that enduring myths of fantastic events in distant times give only a faint penciling thereof.

Anthropology has long resisted becoming a nomothetic science, thus repeatedly missing opportunities to build upon empirical theoretical constructs, choosing instead to back away into a kind of natural history of sociocultural differences. What is required are methods that focus the ethnographic gaze upon the essential structures of perception as well as sociocultural commonalities and differences. The anthropology of experience and the senses is a recent movement that may be amenable to including a partnership between Husserlian phenomenology and neuroscience to build a framework for studying the essential structures of consciousness, and the neurobiological processes that have evolved to present the world of experience as adaptively real. The author shows how the amalgamation of essences (sensory objects, relations, horizons, and associated intuitions) and the quest for neural correlates of consciousness can be combined to augment traditional ethnographic research, and thereby nullify the it's culture all the way down fallacy of constructivism.

Communing with the Gods presents the most comprehensive account of culture and dreaming available in the anthropology of dreaming, and is written by an anthropologist who is also trained in neuroscience, and who is himself a lucid dreamer and Tibetan Tantric dream yoga practitioner. ¬The book examines the place of dreaming in the experience of peoples from diverse cultures and historical backgrounds. ¬Communing with the Gods surveys anthropological theories of dreaming, what we know about how the brain produces dreams and why, and lucid dream research and how the notion of lucidity applies to dreaming of traditional societies. It explores the ways that societies encourage, evoke, experience and interpret dreams, as well as how people act in response to information obtained in the dream state. A comprehensive theory of brain, culture and dreaming is presented that explains the neurobiological functions of sleep and dreaming, the evolution of dreaming, the universality of, and cultural variation in dream elements, and the role of dreaming as a system of intra-psychic communication. ¬This theory is then applied to an examination of dreaming in modern society. The book discusses how modern dream-work may ameliorate wide-spread alienation, spiritual exhaustion and despair in modern society.

The Power of Ritual describes the characteristics of ritual from which its power and efficacy in the world and in human bodies and minds derive. This book is about ritual itself-what it is, how it works to influence human belief and behavior, what makes it powerful, what makes it dangerous, and most of all, what makes it useful to contemporary humans. The authors draw often on their own personal experiences with ritual to illuminate its potential for generating and perpetuating group belief and individual transformation, making the book an engaging read. Professors teaching about ritual will find this to be a useful resource, while students and scholars seeking to study ritual will find much to interest them, as will all those interested in designing and performing rituals, and understanding the rituals they choose to participate in or perform.

Stranger Than Fiction brings together, for the first time, Mike Jay's distinctive and immensely readable forays into the twilight zones of history, culture and the human mind.

Among them are his trademark investigations into the hidden histories of drugs, from the lotus eaters of Homer's Odyssey to the laughing gas escapades of the Romantic poets and Sherlock Holmes' cocaine habit; his reports from the disputed territories of mesmerism, brainwashing and mind control; fantastic beliefs from the birth of the Illuminati conspiracy to futuristic scenarios of human evolution; and global travel tales from megalith cultures of Borneo to ancient temples of Peru, the 'cargo cult' ceremonies of Melanesia to Britain's most anarchic bonfire night.

Beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated, Stranger Than Fiction is a unique compendium of forgotten histories, untold stories and unexplored worlds.

Did Steve Jobs have a vision of the afterlife on his death-bed? Does quantum physics suggest that our mind might survive the physical death of our body? How do some near-death experiencers 'see' outside of their bodies at a time when they are supposed to be dead? In 'Stop Worrying There Probably is an Afterlife', author Greg Taylor covers all these questions and more. From Victorian seance rooms through to modern scientific laboratories, Taylor surveys the fascinating history of research into the survival of human consciousness, and returns with a stunning conclusion: that maybe we should stop worrying so much about death, because there probably is an afterlife.

Forget your 3D cinema and TV, and your virtual cyber-worlds - these are but pale electronic imitations of what you can access through your own mind. This book shows you how to dream lucidly, which means waking up inside dreams while still physiologically asleep. Lucid dreaming is a genuine altered state of consciousness, not merely vivid dreaming, in which you can find yourself in other realities that seem as real as waking consciousness. There is no limit to the creations you can explore, because the biological wonder that is your brain is the most complex thing we know of. You can have fun, meet departed friends and relatives as if they were still alive, rehearse actions you have to undertake in the normal world of daily reality, experience mystical and paranormal mind states, and much more. A third of our life is spent asleep, and in an average lifetime we experience about half a million dreams. Yet for most of us that part of our existence is like a closed book. We might remember an occasional vivid dream, but usually our dreams are just vague, fragmented shadows that evaporate in our minds as soon as we open our eyes. This book explains the history and nature of dreams and lucid dreams, and then presents a uniquely comprehensive range of techniques, tools and aids for attaining lucid dreaming. So leave your 3D glasses behind and train yourself to plunge into the inner virtual worlds that lie beyond your dreams.

Incorporating a magical vocabulary and nightside symbolism, IJYNX is a unique collection of occult prose-poems by an author who has been studying, experimenting, and writing about the western esoteric tradition for over twenty years. While some of the mystical verses attempt to convey ritually-machined hyperdimensions of consciousness (including encounters with the transmundane entities that inhabit these parallel continua), others contain, rather inexplicably, detailed knowledge of a higher Arcanum involving the alchemical entelechy of the dead. And still others challenge even the author's initiated interpretation of things perceived in the ontological spectrum of a 'Magizoth', other than to suggest, upon a closer examination of the cryptic word play, that they are anti-apotropaic in nature, and offer, at the very least, rare fleeting glimpses of the Grand Dreaming of a Treasured Eye.

Growing up in Southern Illinois in the 1960s, Addison Albright appears to be a typical mischievous teen - even though the manner in which birds flit from branch to branch in the placid suburb troubles him. Oddities in his childhood memories also cause him to wonder if things are really as they seem in Little Egypt? The one person who might know is the town villain, Maxx Molewhisker Schaufler - a former undertaker with a hotrod hearse who Addison encounters in a private cemetery with curious grave markers. Not only is the old codger's appearance unusual, there's something peculiar about his ramshackle Victorian that Addison soon comes to realize.

As a series of perplexing events has him teetering on the brink of insanity, someone else is attracted to Molewhisker's afflicted mirror: a scholarly biker named Zerrill who claims to be a member of an epigraphic society. After involving himself in the strange relationship between the enigmatic Schaufler and the boy struggling to free himself from his mysterious control, his true agenda is called into question. Exploiting the town folk to achieve his cryptic objective, the narrative darkens when Addison becomes infatuated with a gorgeous college girl with esoteric interests. As the three match wits while attempting to unravel a local legend that could revise world history, their lives will be forever changed when they discover the shocking truth revealed in the othering.

Did you know that many of America's Founding Fathers were not Christians, but were members of a well-known secret society? Or that the two mainstream Presidential candidates in the 2004 election were both initiated into the same exclusive secret organization, which goes under the name of 'Skull and Bones'? And how exactly did the esoteric symbolism on the dollar bill come to be put there? 'The Guide to Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol' is the ultimate source for further information on the intriguing topics discussed in the long-awaited sequel to 'The Da Vinci Code'. The Guide will reveal to readers the fascinating truth about the hidden history of America and influence of Freemasonry upon the founding of the nation, the bizarre modern research unveiling the mysteries of the human mind, and the esoteric traditions from the ancient world which continue to influence some of the world's most powerful individuals.

When cryptic messages begin to appear in the blog threads of a noted skeptic of fringe-ologists (especially the pseudoscientific ideas of ancient astronaut theorists), at first the cyber-attacks are dismissed as esoteric jabberwocky trumpeted by the latest Bay Area cult. Before long, podcasts debunking UFO super-believers are also breached with a strikingly futuristic aesthetic that's as puzzling as the abstruse content. While dealing with these intrusions, there are further problems to contend with at his Silicon Valley condo: the teenage son of his live-in girlfriend has transhuman aspirations and his gorgeous bae (who likes to wear silver spandex bodysuits and perfumes with curious metallic notes) is constantly feeding him a series of mind-melting scenarios, including rumors that his geneticist mom is engaged in covert experiments involving more radical edits to the human genome than are included in Cellectech's glossy brochure for designer babies. Add to this the shadowy secret society that's convinced the phantom web messages pertain to forbidden knowledge redacted from the condensed Garden of Eden myth. For reasons known only by the inner circle of Phoenix Orientum, they suspect the zealously guarded means for rejuvenating humanity has been implanted in the skeptic's head, secured by a nearly impenetrable mind-lock. Being pursued by those with a sinister veneer, while at the same time looking for more prosaic explanations for the paranormal episodes that now plague his daily existence, it's while reluctantly participating as the balance in a documentary by startup Paragon Makings that high strangeness challenges any rational interpretations. What awaits is a fateful discovery that even the blogsite weirdies, paleo-contact luminaries and a mischievous pair of bio-hackers could never have imagined.