In a world where demons walk among mortals, Chuz, the master of madness, manipulates an ambitious king, with disastrous results.

This open access book offers an exploration of delusions—unusual beliefs that can significantly disrupt people’s lives. Experts from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, including lived experience, clinical psychiatry, philosophy, clinical psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, discuss how delusions emerge, why it is so difficult to give them up, what their effects are, how they are managed, and what we can do to reduce the stigma associated with them. Taken as a whole, the book proposes that there is continuity between delusions and everyday beliefs. It is essential reading for researchers working on delusions and mental health more generally, and will also appeal to anybody who wants to gain a better understanding of what happens when the way we experience and interpret the world is different from that of the people around us.

The first comprehensive account of delusions, the forms they take clinically and the mysteries behind what causes them.

Including nine new translations from the first thousand years of Zen, this collection of sacred Buddhist texts with refreshed commentary is made to be carried with you Dating from the middle of the second century B.C. to the middle of the ninth century A.D., Zen Roots includes the Heart, Diamond, and Platform sutras; selections from the Vimalakirti and Lankavatara sutras; Bodhidharma's Principles & Practice; Sengcan's Trusting the Mind; Yongjia’s Song of Enlightenment; and Huangbo's Transmission of the Mind. These translations are accompanied by introductions and enough notes to explain what needs explaining but not so many as to get in the way. Zen Roots is the perfect companion for travel, to accompany one to the higher elevations, or just to read in the backyard.

“Today, as in the time of the South Sea Bubble, human nature is drawn like a moth to a flame by the speculative fads of the marketplace. The excitement of new glamour issues in electronics or medical technology and the general euphoria over a rising market can lure even the most experienced investors. Their optimism overcomes their better judgment. They abandon critical analysis of the investment’s fundamental value. Like gamblers in a casino, they play against the odds, paying inflated prices and dreaming of quick profit.” —from the foreword by John Marks Templeton. Mackay’s classic, first published in 1841, studies the psychology of crowds and mass mania throughout history, including accounts of classic scams, grand-scale madness, and deceptions. Some of these include the Mississippi scheme that swept France in 1720, the South Sea Bubble that ruined thousands in England simultaneously, and the tulip mania of Holland when fortunes were made and lost on single tulip bulbs. Other chapters deal with fads and delusions that often spring from good ideas or causes, many of which still have their followers today: alchemy and the philosopher’s stone, the prophecies of Nostradamus, the coming of comets and judgment day, the Rosicrucians, and astrology. Time and again, we can avoid disastrous pitfalls and learn to profit by seeing how history repeats itself. Fascinating, mesmerizing, strikingly strange, and amazingly wise, this book will never be forgotten and cannot be ignored.

A classic compendium of spiritual wisdom from ancient China’s greatest philosopher. The Analects present the detailed code of morality, behavior, and belief espoused by Confucius. Stressing virtue, integrity, and respect within families and communities, Confucius explains how certain principles of living can apply to all aspects of society from education to political systems. One of the most influential books in world history and a foundational text in the study of ethics, sociology, and philosophy, The Analects elucidates a path for an honorable and rewarding life. More than two millennia after it was written, this collection of wisdom from ancient China’s best-known thinker is still admired and studied today.