A BOOK FOR THOSE WHO ARE CURIOUS ABOUT TANTRA, ASTROLOGY, SELF HEALING AND THE DEEP NATURE OF ORGASM. A HANDBOOK FOR THOSE WHO PURSUE TANTRIC REALISATION AND PLANETARY RECREATION AS A MISSION OR A PROFESSION Cosmic Engineering And Orgasmic Continuum’ is the brainchild of Arun Webber, a software engineer and former student of Narayana Gurukulam from Bangalore. Arun is also the Founder of the popular websites: eduladder.com and arunsyoga.in. Born into a family that has passed tantric knowledge down from generation to generation, he compiled this book based on knowledge he gained whilst travelling across India, as well as talking to diverse people across the globe. The book is presented in the form of four dialogues with experts in their fields, namely Betsy B. Murphy, Dr Thomas, Ben Lawson, and Jem Ayres. It concludes with four examples of tantric meditation Techniques. The first dialogue with Dr Thomas, entitled, ‘Tantric Enlightenment In World Religions’ explores tantric influences on various philosophies, including historical materialism, and suggests Mary Magdalene was the tantric concert of Jesus. The second dialogue, with Betsy B Murphy, ‘Beyond Orgasm’, is also an open discussion. Betsy is a Hollywood filmmaker, born and raised in the States, who has received much acclaim for her book, “An Autobiography Of Orgasm”, which explores (tongue in cheek) how women are treated in the bedroom and why they resort to faking orgasms. Betsy has journeyed throughout India and Africa in search of orgasmic experiences and she shares her insights here into what is beyond orgasm and how one can achieve this. The third discussion is with Ben Lawson, a tantric adult filim maker and a feminist sex worker. Ben’s work is motivated by his frustration with how modern day adult movies present human beings as preverts in their bedroom practices, often ending with rape on their counterparts. In this chapter, the discussion examines the feminine-oriented worshipping yantra – ‘kali yantra’ – and what it symbolises and Represents. The book’s final discussion is with Jem Ayres – a sex coach based in the UK. Jem describes how she miraculously healed her body of lung cancer using the power of tantra. The final section of the book outlines four tantric meditation techniques that can be used in everyday life for empowerment and healing. Throughout the book, there are beautiful images of philosophers, various meditation techniques and a variety of tantric symbols, such as the biblical interpretations of the seed of life, the flower of life and the three dimensional kali yantra. It aims to offer a subjective, existential meaning to enhance the depth of it’s reader’s life. While using this book as a guide for your Tantric expedition, always remember. “If you know That, you don’t have to seek! If you don’t know That, then you don’t know what to seek!! If you think you know That, then you actually don’t know That!!!” -Isavasya Upanishad

Global Nomads provides a unique introduction to the globalization of countercultures, a topic largely unknown in and outside academia. Anthony D’Andrea examines the social life of mobile expatriates who live within a global circuit of countercultural practice in paradoxical paradises. Based on nomadic fieldwork across Spain and India, the study analyzes how and why these post-metropolitan subjects reject the homeland in order to shape an alternative lifestyle. They become artists, therapists, exotic traders and bohemian workers seeking to integrate labor, mobility and spirituality within a cosmopolitan culture of expressive individualism. These countercultural formations, however, unfold under neo-liberal regimes that appropriate utopian spaces, practices and imaginaries as commodities for tourism, entertainment and media consumption. In order to understand the paradoxical globalization of countercultures, Global Nomads develops a dialogue between global and critical studies by introducing the concept of 'neo-nomadism' which seeks to overcome some of the shortcomings in studies of globalization. This book is an essential aide for undergraduate, postgraduate and research students of Sociology, Anthropology of Globalization, Cultural Studies and Tourism Studies.

Previously published in 2016 under title: Tantra: discover the path from sex to spirit.

Fiftieth anniversary reissue of the founding media studies book that helped establish media art as a cultural category. First published in 1970, Gene Youngblood’s influential Expanded Cinema was the first serious treatment of video, computers, and holography as cinematic technologies. Long considered the bible for media artists, Youngblood’s insider account of 1960s counterculture and the birth of cybernetics remains a mainstay reference in today’s hypermediated digital world. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes a new Introduction by the author that offers conceptual tools for understanding the sociocultural and sociopolitical realities of our present world. A unique eyewitness account of burgeoning experimental film and the birth of video art in the late 1960s, this far- ranging study traces the evolution of cinematic language to the end of fiction, drama, and realism. Vast in scope, its prescient formulations include “the paleocybernetic age,” “intermedia,” the “artist as design scientist,” the “artist as ecologist,” “synaesthetics and kinesthetics,” and “the technosphere: man/machine symbiosis.” Outstanding works are analyzed in detail. Methods of production are meticulously described, including interviews with artists and technologists of the period, such as Nam June Paik, Jordan Belson, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Carolee Schneemann, Stan VanDerBeek, Les Levine, and Frank Gillette. An inspiring Introduction by the celebrated polymath and designer R. Buckminster Fuller—a perfectly cut gem of countercultural thinking in itself—places Youngblood’s radical observations in comprehensive perspective. Providing an unparalleled historical documentation, Expanded Cinema clarifies a chapter of countercultural history that is still not fully represented in the arthistorical record half a century later. The book will also inspire the current generation of artists working in ever-newer expansions of the cinematic environment and will prove invaluable to all who are concerned with the technologies that are reshaping the nature of human communication.

The very idea that the teachings can be mastered will arouse controversy within Buddhist circles. Even so, Ingram insists that enlightenment is an attainable goal, once our fanciful notions of it are stripped away, and we have learned to use meditation as a method for examining reality rather than an opportunity to wallow in self-absorbed mind-noise. Ingram sets out concisely the difference between concentration-based and insight (vipassana) meditation; he provides example practices; and most importantly he presents detailed maps of the states of mind we are likely to encounter, and the stages we must negotiate as we move through clearly-defined cycles of insight. Its easy to feel overawed, at first, by Ingram's assurance and ease in the higher levels of consciousness, but consistently he writes as a down-to-earth and compassionate guide, and to the practitioner willing to commit themselves this is a glittering gift of a book.In this new edition of the bestselling book, the author rearranges, revises and expands upon the original material, as well as adding new sections that bring further clarity to his ideas.

Virtual Futures explores the ideas that the future lies in its ability to articulate the consequences of an increasingly synthetic and virtual world. New technologies like cyberspace, the internet, and Chaos theory are often discussed in the context of technology and its potential to liberate or in terms of technophobia. This collection examines both these ideas while also charting a new and controversial route through contemporary discourses on technology; a path that discusses the material evolution and the erotic relation between humans and machines. Virtual Futures brings together diverse fields such as cyberfeminism, materialist philosophy, postmodern fiction, computing culture and performance art, with essays by Sadie Plant, Stelarc and Manuel de Landa (to name a few). The collection heralds the death of humanism and the ride of posthuman pragmatism. The contested zone of debate throughout these essays is the notion of the posthuman, or the possibility of the cyborg as the free human. Viewed by some writers as a threat to human life and humanism itself, others in the collection describe the posthuman as a critical perspective that anticipates the next step in evolution: the integration or synthesis of humans and machines, organic life and technology. This view of technology and information is heavily influenced by Anglo American literature, especially cyberpunk, Pynchon and Ballard, as well as the materialist philosophies of Freud, Deleuze, and Haraway, Virtual Futures provides analyses by both established theorists and the most innovative new voices working in conjunction between the arts and contemporary technology.

This classic exploration of the Goddess through time and throughout the world draws on religious, cultural, and archaeological sources to recreate the Goddess religion that is humanity’s heritage. Now, with a new introduction and full-color artwork, this passionate and important text shows even more clearly that the religion of the Goddess--which is tied to the cycles of women’s bodies, the seasons, the phases of the moon, and the fertility of the earth--was the original religion of all humanity.