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Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism
A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience.
While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos. From the Hardcover edition..
Price: $8.44
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Breaking the Idols of Your Heart: How to Navigate the Temptations of Life
In our thirst for significance we, like the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, give our lives our time, talents, strength, heart to anything we think will give us worth and purpose: Power. Relationships Money. Pleasure Work. But worshiping these idols has a high cost and still doesn't bring the fulfillment we long for. In Breaking the Idols of Your Heart Dan Allender and Tremper Longman illuminate for us the Teacher's warnings and, after all his activities, his final radiant conclusion: Meaning and purpose come only when God is truly the center of our life and the object of our hope. Using a compelling fictional narrative at the start of each chapter to encourage reflection on our own life and the lives of family and friends, the authors lead us through Ecclesiastes to help us recognize and exchange cheap pursuits for the only One worth pursuing. Ecclesiastes is not an easy book to read, because transferring our worship from money, power and fame to God is not an easy road to travel. But as the Teacher discovered and wrote down for us, it leads to one conclusion: life lived abundantly, in freedom, hope, purpose, meaning. Market/Audience- Laypeople
- Accountability groups
Endorsements"Dan and Tremper and ancient wisdom are a winning team! This book dethrones idols, and points us toward what is worth giving our life to." JOHN ORTBERG, author and pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church "This book uses the category of 'idols' as a creative way to understand not only a difficult biblical book (Ecclesiastes) but also the very way our hearts work. It brings a great deal of clarity where there has been confusion. Recommended." TIM KELLER, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City Features and Benefits- Authors bring experience as a psychologist and a Bible scholar to bear
- Fictional narrative follows a Bible study group, and group discussion questions are included
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Price: $8.90
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The Half-Empty Heart: A Supportive Guide to Breaking Free from Chronic Discontent
Finally, help for the millions of people suffering from low-grade depression, also known as dysthymia or chronic discontent. Frustrated. Irritable Discouraged. Fed up. These are among the feelings experienced by millions of people suffering from low-grade depression. Often erroneaously attributed to a negative attitude or laziness, this common condition saps feelings of happiness, contentment, and passion, and frequently goes undiagnosed. The Half-Empty Heart is a powerful and practical book that explains how the condition takes hold--and presents simple yet profound ways to overcome it for good. Using anecdotes from his private practice as well as quizzes, checklists, exercises, and a complete five-week plan for achieving lasting results, clinical psychologist Alan Downs, Ph.D., shines light into the dark corners of this isolating and debilitating condition. You can feel good again. The Half-Empty Heart shows the way. .
Price: $4.99
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Breaking the Heart of the World
The fight over the League of Nations at the end of World War I was one of the great political debates of the American twentieth century President Woodrow Wilson, himself a key architect of the League, was uncompromising in his belief that the United States would rise to a position of leadership in the peaceful union of states that he had envisaged. A masterful politician and distinguished theorist, Wilson was unprepared for the persuasiveness of his opponents and the potency of their argument. Though he struggled tirelessly in the summer of 1919 to drum popular and political support for the League, he could not keep pace: he suffered a disabling stroke in July. The United States Senate ultimately rejected membership in the League, and the League failed to realize its diplomatic potential. In this engaging narrative, John Cooper relates the story of Wilson's battle for the League with sympathy, accuracy, and a deep understanding of the times. John Milton Cooper, Jr., is E. Gordon Fox Professor of American Institutions at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has held Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and served as a Fulbright Professor at Moscow University. His previous books inlcude The Warrior and the Priest (Harvard University Press, 1985) and Pivotal Decades (Norton, 1992). Cooper is Chief Historian of the forthcoming biography of Woodrow Wilson on American Experience, which will be broadcast by PBS in 2002..
Price: $44.14
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Campus Chaos - Why the Game I Love is Breaking My Heart
In his 20 seasons on ESPN and ABC, Dick Vitale has been synonymous with college basketball. Through his passion and devotion to the game, Vitale has earned an ever-growing following with an enthusiasm for the game, its players and coaches never before seen in television. Having coached at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. Vitale brings an insider's perspective to each broadcast, and his lifelong relationships with the administrators, coaches and players provide him a wealth of knowledge few can equal. Behind every "get a TO, baby" and the "slam, jam, bam" resides in Vitale a growing concern for the sport that reels when yet another misguided underclassman announces he's going pro or a new recruiting or academic scandal arises. As much as Vitale is a fan courtside, he's also a champion of the game away from it, spending countless hours lobbying for rules changes or talking with athletic directors about ways to improve the game. Being so close to the sport, Vitale is infinitely aware of the big-business pressures that affect it today, from the billions of dollars spent by television networks to the controversy surrounding the entrance exam requirements. And having played and coached basketball, he truly cares about the kids and knows that the success of the sport rides on the shoulders of those student-athletes who proudly wear their school colors into battle. Here are Vitale's heartfelt thoughts on how to halt the off-court technical fouls of the sport he loves so deeply. In short, discusses the following: * clean up gambling * control agents and boosters * keep players in school * reform recruiting * restructure NCAA rules.
Price: $1.90
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A Heart Breaking is not a quiet thing... (The Divorce Diaries, Book One)
This unique "diary" is the beginning of one woman's journey through the sadness and heartbreak of betrayal and infidelity ..from the first painful moments of discovery...through the shock and despair of the truth...Anyone who has ever loved and lost will find themselves somewhere on these pages...and every step of the way is shared...with you...in Book One of "The Divorce Diaries" series....
Price: $14.00
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Breaking Hearts: The Two Sides of Unrequited Love
Throughout history, unrequited love has inspired ballads, arias, poetry, drama, and literature. Almost always, however, the tale of the "star-crossed lovers" has been told from the point of view of the heartbroken pursuer. This illuminating new work explores unrequited love from both sides--that of the aspiring and eventually brokenhearted lover, and more unusually, that of the beloved, unwilling rejector. Based on systematically collected first-person accounts, BREAKING HEARTS shows how radically different and often contradictory the two experiences actually are.
Blending scientific research with vivid narrative, the book utilizes current psychological theories about relationships, interdependence, attachment, and communication to provide careful analysis of the sometimes amusing and often heartrending stories people tell about their love lives. The central focus is the subjective experience: What it feels like to love someone who does not love you in return, and what is it like to be pursued by someone whose attentions you wish to discourage. Demolishing pat theories about human fulfillment coming from loving or being loved, this valuable counterweight to traditional studies explores the other, darker side of love to show that it is the mutuality of affection that is crucial to happiness.
A particularly valuable feature of BREAKING HEARTS is its unprecedented treatment of the rejector's experience. Known only from the unreliable perspective of the would-be lover, the elusive "heartbreaker" has remained an enigma. Here, perhaps for the first time, rejectors tell what it is like to be loved in vain. They describe their inner turmoil, pervasive uncertainty about how to act, and distressed reluctance to inflict harm. They grapple with the paradox of believing themselves to be morally innocent yet feeling profoundly guilty, and describe powerful feelings of exasperation and helplessness when the admirer refuses to take no for an answer. Contrary to stereotypes, the rejectors describe their experiences more negatively than the heartbroken lovers. For the would-be lover, the encounter was a high-stakes gamble, with possible outcomes ranging from tortured pain and humiliation to ecstatic bliss and fulfillment. To the rejector, it was a no-win proposition that offered only vexation and trouble.
Throughout, chapters deal with the separate roller-coaster ordeals of two people--the ups and downs of self-esteem, struggles over guilt and justification, and the systematically discrepant versions of what actually occurred. Lessons people learn from being either willing or unwilling participants in unrequited love are discussed, as are the ways in which they change following such episodes.
BREAKING HEARTS presents careful research in an engaging style that will be accessible to all. Social scientists interested in marriage, family issues, emotion, self esteem, guilt, and human coping will find the book illuminating. It will obviously be of interest to anyone who has experienced unrequited love, and is fascinating reading for those seeking new insights into the tragicomic mystery of romance.
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Price: $26.10
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The Heart of the Matter : Breaking Codes and Making Connections Between You and Your Dog or Your Cat
From the authors of Smarter Than You Think, the revolutionary book on teaching and understanding your dog in hours rather than months, The Heart of the Matter takes the next step in addressing dog and cat behavioral problems and nutritional needs--with detailed explanations of the health benefits of fresh food and the health and behavioral problems possibly caused by some commercial foods for pets. The authors have created an innovative and eye-opening approach to living in greater harmony with our beloved dogs and cats. Forget obedience school, forget the choke chains. Paul Loeb and Suzanne Hlavacek eschew even the word training with its negative connotations of crates, muzzles, cages, and other devices of animal cruelty and control. They explain "The Magic Touch," a simple method of creating immediate and positive behavior change without gadgets, practice, or pain. They take a very thorough look at nutrition and its ramifications for pets' health and behavior, and debunk numerous "well-known truths" of animal care and behavior. The goal is to acknowledge and understand your pets' personalities, enjoy each other's company, and not end up with a furry robot-pet. This is a refreshing and unusual approach, and the book entertains with stories of the authors' and others' hilarious adventures and misadventures with dogs and cats. --Mark A. Hetts.
Price: $1.98
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