The Powers of Mind: An Introduction to the Mystery of the Cosmic Egg
My introduction to how mysterious and seemingly magical the human mind is came from a reading of POWERS OF MIND , at one time a national bestseller written by Adam Smith (a pseudonym for George Goodman, a high-end journalist and editor). I read this book in the mid-1970s. Powers of Mind was basically a long set of straightforward descriptions of everything from biofeedback and memory quirks to meditation, rolfing, and psychedelics. I was 17 at the time. From there I devoured books by Carlos Castenada, Aldous Huxley, John Lilly, and Ram Daas. My favorite -- then and now -- was THE CRACK IN THE COSMIC EGG , by Joseph Chilton Pearce. Needless to say, like so many people back then, I did my own experiments with consciousness, going as far as I felt comfortable on the outskirts of Mind and Reality. This experimentation lasted about six years. By the time I was 22 I just didn't have the emotional strength and intellectual stomach to run around on the frontier of psychology anymore. That...