Psychology Philosophy

A thrilling exploration of how Carl Jung found the equation for realizing the divine through personal consciousness. In 1951, Carl Jung published what he considered the highest synthesis and exposition of the transformation of Self and the discovery of the divine in one of his latest and most difficult works, Aion. The equation’s complexity and uncharacteristic elements of mysticism have caused it to fall by the wayside in traditional Jungian and psychological analysis. No major work has tackled this fascinating concept until now.

John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.

From one of America's greatest minds, a journey through psychology, philosophy, and lots of meditation to show how Buddhism holds the key to moral clarity and enduring happiness. In Why Buddhism Is True, Wright leads listeners on a journey through psychology, philosophy, and a great many silent retreats to show how and why meditation can serve as the foundation for a spiritual life in a secular age.

Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain, three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece, give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain.

This program is read by the author.

Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University’s Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an “emotion scientist”, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults - a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel.

Why Don't Students Like School? (2nd Edition) features 25 percent updated material while still honoring the classic, beloved approaches of the original. The second edition will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn and reveals the importance of story, emotion, memory, context, and routine in building knowledge and creating lasting learning experiences.

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.

Respect, trust, and commitment are the cornerstones of a dedicated relationship between a teacher and a student. For a passionate student yearning to learn and understand the essence of a subject, they must demonstrate these traits before a teacher will take them under their wing. In this case, the teacher was Thomas Troward of Cornwall England and the student was Genevieve Behrend. He imparted his personal insight to the one and only pupil who could perpetuate this knowledge and share it with the world.

Any conversation about effective teaching must begin with a consideration of how students learn. However, instructors may find a gap between resources that focus on the technical research on learning and those that provide practical classroom strategies. How Learning Works provides the bridge for such a gap. Distilling the research literature and translating the scientific approach into language relevant to a college or university teacher, this book introduces seven general principles of how students learn.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide.

The Antidote is a series of journeys among people who share a single, surprising way of thinking about life. What they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that it’s our constant effort to eliminate the negative that causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. And that there is an alternative "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid.

Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.

Journey alongside professor Bache as he touches the living intelligence of our universe - an intelligence that both embraced and crushed him - and demonstrates how direct experience of the divine can change your perspective on core issues in philosophy and religion. Chronicling his 73 sessions, the author reveals the spiral of death and rebirth that took him through the collective unconscious into the creative intelligence of the universe.

Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference - many of which can be put into practice in a single class period.

Are human beings immortal? Are apples conscious? Do our legal systems make assumptions about free will that are just plain wrong? Of all the terrific books on quantum physics—from Stephen Hawking to Brian Greene—the questions they never seem to satisfy are the implications of the science. We know that quantum physics is real—our phones and computers wouldn’t work if the science wasn’t right. But what does it all mean?

How does the brain—a three-pound wrinkly mass—give rise to intelligence and conscious experience? Was Freud right that we are all plagued by forbidden sexual desires? What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude, and shame? Renowned psychologist Paul Bloom answers these questions and many more in Psych, his riveting new book about the science of the mind.

Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.

Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness emphasizes how the teacher's personal familiarity with mindfulness plants the seed for an education infused with attention, awareness, kindness, empathy, compassion, and gratitude. The book follows a teacher from morning to night on a typical school day, at home, during the commute, and before, during, and after class.

In Free to Learn, developmental psychologist Peter Gray argues that our children, if free to pursue their own interests through play, will not only learn all they need to know but will do so with energy and passion. Children come into this world burning to learn, equipped with the curiosity, playfulness, and sociability to direct their own education. Yet we have squelched such instincts in a school model originally developed to indoctrinate, not to promote intellectual growth.

The authors of the best-selling Bold and The Rise of Superman explore altered states of consciousness and how they can ignite passion, fuel creativity, and accelerate problem solving, in this groundbreaking book in the vein of Daniel Pink's Drive and Charles Duhigg's Smarter Faster Better.