From the acclaimed author of over 20 popular books, "Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves serves up a smorgasbord of subjects designed to bend reality and stretch the reader's mind. Musing over everything from humanity's place in the universe to movie closing credits, Clifford A. Pickover contemplates such topics as fugu sushi, zombies, French writer Marcel Proust (not to mention cartoon guides to Proust), parallel universes, hallucinogenic worms, religious states, uncommon psychiatric disorders, Albert Einstein, shamanist Terence McKenna, Burning Man, the business of book publishing (including famous rejected books), quantum theory, and the humming toadfish, whose incessant underwater droning at a perfect A-flat was a mystery for years. Complete with illustrations, Pickover's book entertains, informs, and invites his readers -- old and new -- to test their powers of lateral thinking and to see the world in a fresh way.

A Beginner's Guide to Immortality is a celebration of unusual lives and creative thinkers who punched through ordinary cultural norms while becoming successful in their own niches. In his latest and greatest work, world-renowned science writer Cliff Pickover studies such colofrul characters as Truman Capote, John Cage, Stephen Wolfram, Ray Kurzweil, and Wilhelm Rontgen, and their curious ideas. Through these individuals, we can better explore life's astonishing richness and glimpse the diversity of human imagination. Part memoir and part surrealistic perspective on culture, A Beginner's Guide to Immortality gives readers a glimpse of new ways of thinking and of other worlds as he reaches across cultures and peers beyond our ordinary reality. He illuminates some of the most mysterious phenomena affecting our species. What is creativity? What are the religious implications of mosquito evolution, simulated Matrix realities, the brain's own marijuana, and the mathematics of the apocalypse? Could we be a mere software simulation living in a matrix? Who is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and Emanuel Swedenborg? Did church forefathers eat psychedelic snails? How can we safely expand our minds to become more successful and reason beyond the limits of our own intuition? How can we become immortal?

“A thrilling, fast-paced excursion through the history of physical discovery . . . from silly putty to string theory” (Dr. Paul Halpern, author of Collider). Following his previous volumes, The Science Book and The Math Book, acclaimed science writer Clifford Pickover returns with a richly illustrated chronology of physics, containing 250 short, entertaining, and thought-provoking entries. In addition to exploring such engaging topics as dark energy, parallel universes, the Doppler effect, the God particle, and Maxwells demon, The Physics Book extends back billions of years to the hypothetical Big Bang and forward trillions of years to a time of “quantum resurrection.” Like the previous titles in this series, The Physics Book offers a lively and accessible account of major concepts without getting bogged down in complex details.

Cultural Writing. Introduced by Timothy Leary, this collection of essays, photographs and research seeks to establish the scientific legitimacy of psychedelic studies. Important, very informative, and an additional valuable contribuition to the psychedelic movement --Dr. Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD-25. As Hakim Bey writes in the Foreword: The 'doors of perception' --that's the first step. The second step is opening the doors of perception. Then --going through. Next --learning that there are no doors of perception. Then --going back outside and alerting everyone else to the wonders beyond the doors.

The Neumann Prize–winning, illustrated exploration of mathematics—from its timeless mysteries to its history of mind-boggling discoveries. Beginning millions of years ago with ancient “ant odometers” and moving through time to our modern-day quest for new dimensions, The Math Book covers 250 milestones in mathematical history. Among the numerous delights readers will learn about as they dip into this inviting anthology: cicada-generated prime numbers, magic squares from centuries ago, the discovery of pi and calculus, and the butterfly effect. Each topic is lavishly illustrated with colorful art, along with formulas and concepts, fascinating facts about scientists’ lives, and real-world applications of the theorems.

One of the most important books written on the effects of LSD on the human psyche. • Its authoritative research has great relevance to the current debate on drug legalization. • Prolific authors Robert Masters and Jean Houston are pioneer figures in the field of transpersonal psychology and founders of the Human Potentials Movement. The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience was published in 1966, just as the first legal restrictions on the use of psychedelic substances were being enacted. Unfortunately, the authors' pioneering work on the effects of LSD on the human psyche, which was viewed by its participants as possibly heralding a revolution in the study of the mind, was among the casualties of this interdiction. As a result, the promising results to which their studies attested were never fully explored. Nevertheless, their 15 years of research represents a sober and authoritative appraisal of what remains one of the most controversial developments in the study of the human psyche. Avoiding the wild excesses taken by both sides on this issue, this book is unique for the light it sheds on the possibilities and the limitations of psychedelic drugs, as well as on the techniques for working with them. With drug legalization an increasingly important issue, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience provides a welcome and much needed contrast to the current hysteria that surrounds this topic.

A Beginner's Guide to Immortality is a celebration of unusual lives and creative thinkers who punched through ordinary cultural norms while becoming successful in their own niches. In his latest and greatest work, world-renowned science writer Cliff Pickover studies such colorful characters as Truman Capote, John Cage, Stephen Wolfram, Ray Kurzweil, and Wilhelm Rontgen, and their curious ideas. Through these individuals, we can better explore life's astonishing richness and glimpse the diversity of human imagination. Part memoir and part surrealistic perspective on culture, A Beginner's Guide to Immortality gives readers a glimpse of new ways of thinking and of other worlds as he reaches across cultures and peers beyond our ordinary reality. He illuminates some of the most mysterious phenomena affecting our species. What is creativity? What are the religious implications of mosquito evolution, simulated Matrix realities, the brain's own marijuana, and the mathematics of the apocalypse? Could we be a mere software simulation living in a matrix? Who is Elisabeth Kobler-Ross and Emanuel Swedenborg? Did church forefathers eat psychedelic snails? How can we safely expand our minds to become more successful and reason beyond the limits of our own intuition? How can we become immortal?

Naturally occurring DMT may produce prophecy-like states of consciousness and thus represent a bridge between biology and religious experience • Reveals the striking similarities between the visions of the Hebrew prophets and the DMT state described by Strassman’s research volunteers • Explains how prophetic and psychedelic states may share biological mechanisms • Presents a new top-down “theoneurological” model of spiritual experience After completing his groundbreaking research chronicled in DMT: The Spirit Molecule, Rick Strassman was left with one fundamental question: What does it mean that DMT, a simple chemical naturally found in all of our bodies, instantaneously opens us to an interactive spirit world that feels more real than our own world? When his decades of clinical psychiatric research and Buddhist practice were unable to provide answers to this question, Strassman began searching for a more resonant spiritual model. He found that the visions of the Hebrew prophets--such as Ezekiel, Moses, Adam, and Daniel--were strikingly similar to those of the volunteers in his DMT studies. Carefully examining the concept of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, he characterizes a “prophetic state of consciousness” and explains how it may share biological and metaphysical mechanisms with the DMT effect. Examining medieval commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, Strassman reveals how Jewish metaphysics provides a top-down model for both the prophetic and DMT states, a model he calls “theoneurology.” Theoneurology bridges biology and spirituality by proposing that the Divine communicates with us using the brain, and DMT--whether naturally produced or ingested--is a critical factor in such visionary experience. This model provides a counterpoint to “neurotheology,” which proposes that altered brain function simply generates the impression of a Divine-human encounter. Theoneurology addresses issues critical to the full flowering of the psychedelic drug experience. Perhaps even more important, it points the way to a renewal of classical prophetic consciousness, the soul of Hebrew Bible prophecy, as well as unexpected directions for the evolution of contemporary spiritual practice.

Be Successful is your Manual for Getting the Most out of Life. It is combining the innate human desire to achieve a purposeful life with management principles and methods to facilitate personal fulfillment. The author is convinced that knowledge alone, as acquired by formal education, has to be complemented by Life skills (social competence) and Wisdom to accomplish private and professional life objectives successfully. What does it mean for you to be successful and how can you reach your goals? Be Successful gives you the answers and provides you with tools and techniques to achieve your purpose in life: Learn to understand the WEB of Success and to define what success means for you personally; Get a better insight of yourself through a guided Self-discovery process; Follow the Cycle of Success, from your Wishes and Dreams to Visions and Missions, leading you to find and formulate your personal Goals in all areas and roles of your life; Learn to manage and optimise your scarce personal Resources: Time, Money and Energy. Be Successful assists you on your way to success and gives you 34 Mind maps visualizing individual topics, and more than thirty Forms and Worksheets for immediate use, to improve your performance and to effectively and efficiently find the path to realise your own dreams.

Connects a diverse range of new and existing theories about the Anunnaki, offering a definitive guide to the Anunnaki while exploring their possible connection to humanity's past, present, and future. Over 6,000 years ago, the world's first civilization, the Sumerians, were recording stories of strange celestial gods who they believed came from the heavens to create mankind. These gods, known as the Anunnaki, are often neglected by mainstream historians. The Sumerians themselves are so puzzling; scholars have described their origin as "The Sumerian Problem." With so little taught about the ancient Sumerians in our history books, alternative theories have emerged. This has led many to wonder, What is the true story behind the Sumerians and their otherworldly gods, the Anunnaki? In The Anunnaki Connection, Heather Lynn connects a diverse range of new and existing theories about the Anunnaki, offering a definitive guide to Mesopotamian gods while exploring what role they might have played in engineering mankind. The Anunnaki Connection traces the evolution of gods throughout the Ancient Near East, analyzing the religion, myth, art, and symbolism of the Sumerians, investigating: Who are the Anunnaki? How accurate are the current Sumerian text translations, and how do we know for sure who to believe? Is there a connection between the Anunnaki and other ancient gods? What about demons? Where are the Anunnaki now? Will their possible return spell the end of our world?