"Ecstasy is a force to be reckoned with--sometimes creative, sometimes destructive. Eigen argues that there is an ecstasy that comes through the ever-necessary confrontation of our psychic cores with suffering and degradation and he shows that when we can learn to be present with these feelings, they add to the tone and texture of our lives, and help us to feel real."--Page 4 of cover.

This critical text considers Jack Kerouac as writer-shaman, exploring the content and ecstatic technique of the novels and two experimental volumes that represent critical phases of his development. Thomas Bierowski also examines the reception of Kerouac's work, arguing that his rise and fall reflect not only the usual changes in literary taste but the precarious position of the shamanic figure in modern America.

This book – the first collection of studies on Byzantine dreams to be published – aims to demonstrate the importance of closely examining dreams in Byzantium in their wider historical and cultural, as well as narrative, context. The remarkable number of dream narratives in Byzantine hagiography, historiography, rhetoric, epistolography, and romance attests to the cardinal function of dreams as vehicles of meaning in politics, religion and literature. The essays provide a broad variety of perspectives, exploring gender, eroticism, Greco-Roman and Islamic influences, psychoanalysis and anthropology.

Though modern astronomers and astro-phycisists like Stephen Hawking have their doubts about interstellar travel there are countless references to inter-dimesional travel in mostly ancient Indian texts: The 'Kandha Puranam' (nearlly 17 million years ago)mentions that the Asura (Titan) King 'Sooran' ruled over 1008 universes and had 'vimanas' or flying crafts that could in an instant travel all over space cutting across dimensions at tremendous speed,that could hover in mid-air,over water,disappear and re-appear all of a sudden and had a host of stealth-weapons,even 'nuclear-winter' is mentioned for it is said that the entire world was enveloped in darkness caused by Sooran during the war; Lord Muruga possessed the 'Peacock Craft' that could circumvent the '14 worlds' and fly beyond in a micro-second and his "missile with the lengthy flame"(nedunchudar Vel) was 'voice-activated' and re-useable and was so powerful that it blew up into smitherns the 'Kraunja' mountain which even our modern day nuclear weapons cannot do according to scientists; The Ramayana(1.7 million years ago) mentions that Emperor Ravana's 'Pushpaka vimana' which he captured from 'Kubera' the Lord of riches in heaven could host "as many passengers as it takes",there were stun-weapons and stealth-technology; In the Mahabharata war(3500 b.c.) nuclear weapons like the 'brahmastra' were used and there is mention of numerous flying crafts of the Lords (Angels) of Asuras (Titans) and Rakshasas (Demons) who all travelled to and fro from the upper and lower worlds; The 'Sri Linga Purana' mentions that Lord Brahma's 'Swan Craft' flew and transcended the seven upper worlds while Lord Vishnu's 'Boar Craft' 'tunnelled' though the seven lower worlds and went even beyond 'Baathala' the lowest plane which all reminds us of blackholes being portals and shortcuts to parallell universes which is being theoretically proved today!; More than 2500 years ago the Japanese Royal Family's ancestors met with the 'Sun God' who landed on Mount Fuji and were presented with a sword and an orb which are still in the Imperial Palace in Japan; The native Indian's forefathers living on 'sun Island' on lake Titicaca in South America were visited by the Sun God; The Dogon tribes of Mali have a tradition that their forefathers had sailed on a great ship that flew down form Sirius the star,but what is interesting is that they don spacesuit-like gear and celebrate their home-coming once every fifty two years which is when sirius comes in direct alignment with our world!

The explosive story of the discovery and development of psychiatric medications, as well as the science and the people behind their invention, told by a riveting writer and psychologist who shares her own experience with the highs and lows of psychiatric drugs. Although one in five Americans now takes at least one psychotropic drug, the fact remains that nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, not even their creators understand exactly how or why these drugs work -- or don't work -- on what ails our brains. Lauren Slater's revelatory account charts psychiatry's journey from its earliest drugs, Thorazine and lithium, up through Prozac and other major antidepressants of the present. Blue Dreams also chronicles experimental treatments involving Ecstasy, magic mushrooms, the most cutting-edge memory drugs, placebos, and even neural implants. In her thorough analysis of each treatment, Slater asks three fundamental questions: how was the drug born, how does it work (or fail to work), and what does it reveal about the ailments it is meant to treat? Fearlessly weaving her own intimate experiences into comprehensive and wide-ranging research, Slater narrates a personal history of psychiatry itself. In the process, her powerful and groundbreaking exploration casts modern psychiatry's ubiquitous wonder drugs in a new light, revealing their ability to heal us or hurt us, and proving an indispensable resource not only for those with a psychotropic prescription but for anyone who hopes to understand the limits of what we know about the human brain and the possibilities for future treatments.

Concentration is a choice. It excludes all except its object of concentration; it is a narrowing. If you are walking on the street, you will have to narrow your consciousness in order to walk. You cannot ordinarily be aware of all that is happening because if you are aware of everything that is happening you will become unfocused. So concentration is a need. Concentration of the mind is a need in order to live–to survive and exist. That is why every culture, in its own way, tries to narrow the mind of the child.