What if your trauma, your pain--what if that was your greatest strength? Worth The Fight is a book about hope and healing. About what is possible if we heal trauma on an individual and collective level and come together by embracing a more sane way of living in relation to our fellow earthlings and the natural world. Generously shared, are insights and tools to overcoming trauma or tools for majorly up-leveling your game, psychedelics not required. Worth The Fight calls for a love revolution that is fueled by forgiveness, compassion, kindness and selfless service to others: May we love more fiercely ourselves, our neighbors and the natural world! A peaceful movement that starts with the reader, a slow march to restore what has been withheld to our times that are defined by fear, discord, and conflict. A bold book of potentially viable, progressive solutions open-sourced and gifted to a world starved of love. Worth The Fight tells a story about what might be possible if we adopt a more sane approach towards mental health on an individual and collective level. This book provides a hopeful look at how psychedelics, meditation, and flow might impact a world starved of love that suffers too much. Worth The Fight will; -Show you how to heal and overcome trauma with psychedelic medicines, meditation, and flow. -Empower through education by examining all aspect of these misunderstood healing agents of transformation and change. -Challenge all of your limiting beliefs by inspiring you to look within for a deeper purpose and calling in service to your fellow earthlings. -Invite you on a revolutionary journey of transformation into a world where anything is possible. -Guide you on the spiritual path, helping you find peace and more meaning in this remarkable human experience.

Imagine that you had no ill effects from past trauma: no depression, no addiction, no thoughts of suicide. Imagine there are substances that have been used as healing medicines for centuries – substances which have been illegal in the U.S. and around the world for more than 5 decades because of questionable politics of the War on Drugs. Thousands of research studies regarding the potential benefits of psychedelic medicines have now been produced (both from before the ban and from more recent times) – and the results are astounding. Soldiers healed from the traumas of war (PTSD), adults healed from childhood intergenerational traumas from parents and grandparents; abuse survivors relieved of their guilt, shame, anger; depression-sufferers released of their prison of sadness and the need to take antidepressant medications; agnostic people discovering spirituality. What you’ll find in this book is all the information you need to begin your journey of discovery into whether one or more of these psychedelic medicines may help you. You’ll find several chapters covering all the basics of psychedelics, from their fascinating history to how these medicines work to how and what you need to move forward with intentionally using psychedelic medicines. Find yourself in one or more of the 23 stories that people from all spectrums of life graciously share here. These stories range from people seeking clarity about their future to wanting to heal from their pain to freeing themselves from addiction to diving deeply into the Divine. These tremendous stories will move you to places you may have never visited – where you’ll find self-love and acceptance – and perhaps a path for your own transformation. Finally, while macrodosing (full-on hallucinogenic experience) with these psychedelic medicines for healing is the major focus of the book, there is also a chapter and several stories on microdosing for healing; the advantage of microdosing is that the dose is too small to produce any perceptible effects.

Buddhism and psychedelic experimentation share a common concern: the liberation of the mind. Zig Zag Zen launches the first serious inquiry into the moral, ethical, doctrinal, and transcendental considerations created by the intersection of Buddhism and psychedelics. With a foreword by renowned Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor and a preface by historian of religion Huston Smith, along with numerous essays and interviews, Zig Zag Zen is a provocative and thoughtful exploration of altered states of consciousness and the potential for transformation. Accompanying each essay is a work of visionary art selected by artist Alex Grey, such as a vividly graphic work by Robert Venosa, a contemporary thangka painting by Robert Beer, and an exercise in emptiness in the form of an enso by a 17th-century Zen abbot. Packed with enlightening entries and art that lie outside the scope of mainstream anthologies, Zig Zag Zen offers eye-opening insights into alternate methods of inner exploration.

The Mind Illuminated is a comprehensive, accessible and - above all - effective book on meditation, providing a nuts-and-bolts stage-based system that helps all levels of meditators establish and deepen their practice. Providing step-by-step guidance for every stage of the meditation path, this uniquely comprehensive guide for a Western audience combines the wisdom from the teachings of the Buddha with the latest research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Clear and friendly, this in-depth practice manual builds on the nine-stage model of meditation originally articulated by the ancient Indian sage Asanga, crystallizing the entire meditative journey into 10 clearly-defined stages. The book also introduces a new and fascinating model of how the mind works, and uses illustrations and charts to help the reader work through each stage. This manual is an essential read for the beginner to the seasoned veteran of meditation.

Now on Netflix as a 4-part documentary series! “Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured.” —New York Times A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research. A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both suffering and joy, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives.

A vivid portrait of both the traumas of war and the shamanic healing ceremonies of ayahuasca • Explains how our culture lacks rites of passage and how shamanic ritual can fill this gap • Reveals how ayahuasca frees your consciousness from inherited beliefs, fears, and traumatic experience, allowing healing from PTSD, enabling genuine growth, and offering an enlightening path out of the malaise, discontent, and dissatisfaction that life in a modern world often brings • Details the author’s experiences in Afghanistan, sailing on the Amazon river with a shaman, and the many ayahuasca ceremonies he experienced in the jungle After returning from a tour of duty during the war in Afghanistan, Alex Seymour needed a way to cope with the extremes he experienced as a member of the Royal Marine Commandos, losing 7 men in his unit, and having his best friend critically injured by a Taliban bomb. Drawing upon his pre-deployment experiences, Alex knew that entheogens could help him release his fears and traumas. But he also knew that simply taking psychedelics wasn’t enough--he needed ceremony, something sacred to draw meaning from his experiences, to help him reassess not only the war and his role in it, but his entire life. So he set out for the Amazon in search of the hallucinogenic brew known as ayahuasca and a shaman to guide him. The result is a crazy, page-turning adventure where he journeys deep into the jungle and himself. Alex soon finds himself deep within the jungle on an incredible adventure, sailing on the Amazon river with an ayahuasca shaman and his troop of 8 female shamanas, whose ethereal songs help guide participants during the nightly ayahuasca ceremonies. Accompanied by others seeking wisdom and a redemptive experience from their First World professional lives, Alex finds his core beliefs fundamentally challenged, replaced by the power of direct experience of the sacred, which allows him to release his fears from the war and set an inspiring path for the future. Painting a vivid portrait of both the anguish of war and the transcendent world of shamanic ritual, the author shows how young people often enlist in the military to satisfy our human need for a rite of passage into adulthood, a ritual sorely missing in our culture. He explores how ayahuasca can offer a way to help soldiers prepare for war and help combat veterans heal from war and overcome PTSD--as well as alcoholism and addiction. From Afghanistan to the Amazon, the author shows how ayahuasca frees your consciousness from inherited beliefs and fears, offering a truly transformative rite of passage.

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.