Why am I passionate about this?

I learned the Western Canon at school and from various teachers during my youth; all along, I was yearning for something other, different, and, possibly, truer. Since my early twenties I've been exploring another canon, which exists in opposition to the Aristotelian-Euclidean-Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian/Spencerian one. While the western world in the 21st century is free from alacritous canon-enforcing enterprises such as the Holy Inquisition, it nevertheless operates by a canon that remains very much the mentioned Aristotelian-Euclidean-Cartesian-Newtonian-Darwinian/Spencerian one, inculcated into us all from kindergarten to the grave, echoed not only by schools of all levels, but by governments, the media, official institutions and nonofficial entities, and, last but not least, by the entertainment industry. 


I wrote

Forbidden Fruits: An Occult Novel

By Joscelyn Godwin, Guido Mina di Sospiro,

Book cover of Forbidden Fruits: An Occult Novel

What is my book about?

Forbidden Fruits is a long-awaited follow-up to Godwin’s and Mina di Sospiro’s first co-authorship, The Forbidden Book. After eight…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization

Guido Mina di Sospiro Why did I love this book?

Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods was written, as a successful breakthrough, with the technique of fiction rather than nonfiction, and as a result, is a very engaging read. In a way, one could state that Hancock is the pioneer of narrative non-fiction, which already is and will continue to be the literary medium of choice of the twenty-first century. Some of the book’s claims are... odd (Atlantis in Antarctica!), others, for example the actual occurrence of the Great Flood, have been since confirmed by various other open-minded scholars. If you are amenable to having your hard-earned assumptions challenged, start here.

By Graham Hancock,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Fingerprints of the Gods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Could the story of mankind be far older than we have previously believed? Using tools as varied as archaeo-astronomy, geology, and computer analysis of ancient myths, Graham Hancock presents a compelling case to suggest that it is.
 
“A fancy piece of historical sleuthing . . . intriguing and entertaining and sturdy enough to give a long pause for thought.”—Kirkus Reviews
 
In Fingerprints of the Gods, Hancock embarks on a worldwide quest to put together all the pieces of the vast and fascinating jigsaw of mankind’s hidden past. In ancient monuments as far apart as Egypt’s Great Sphinx, the strange Andean…


Book cover of Forbidden Archeology

Guido Mina di Sospiro Why did I love this book?

Forbidden Archaeology is useful in revealing in a very methodical and indeed scientific way to what extent mainstream science has gone in suppressing the evidence pointing to the reality that humans have inhabited this planet for much longer than we are told. In Chapter 1.11, for example, there is a very lucid explanation of the “Phenomenon of Suppression”: the different stages by which an anomalous finding is either ignored, explained away, ridiculed, dismissed, or suppressed. Quite an enterprise from an activity—science—that originally set out to explain the unexplained or the seemingly unexplainable. While the ponderous tome of 914 pages doesn’t make for the liveliest reading, it is nevertheless an impressive contribution to the extra-canonical.

By Michael A. Cremo, Richard L. Thompson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Forbidden Archeology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over the centuries, researchers have found bones and artifacts proving that humans like us have existed for millions of years. Mainstream science, however, has suppressed these facts. Prejudices based on current scientific theory act as a 'knowledge filter', giving us a picture of prehistory that is largely incorrect.

Scientific Establishment Found Guilty of Witholding Evidence

The evolutionists’ “knowledge filter” at work over the last 200 years has left us with a radically altered view of our human origins and antiquity. Since 1993, when the controversial book, Forbidden
Archeology, was first published it has shocked the scientific world with its extensive…


Book cover of True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise

Guido Mina di Sospiro Why did I love this book?

More on the wacky side, and far more entertaining, is Terence McKenna’s True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise. For those who will never try “heroic doses” of psilocybin mushrooms deep in the Colombian jungle, this is a wild, vicarious ride, an amalgam of science, literature, myth, and exotica from an adventurer whose genuine inquisitiveness in things psychedelic goes hand in hand with mythomania—what an exuberant explosion of literary and philosophical high kitsch! If not persuaded, there follows the endorsement from The New York Times: “The polysyllabic sentences he lards with intellectual references are an attempt to lend credibility to the otherwise debunked subject of drugs.” Yes, a hatchet job from The New York Times could not make for a more valuable endorsement.

By Terence McKenna,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked True Hallucinations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Describes the search for a mushroom that could reveal the secrets of consciousness.


Book cover of The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena 2nd Edition

Guido Mina di Sospiro Why did I love this book?

With scholarly discipline but also with a decidedly English sense of humor, The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena 2 takes a path along that shadowy territory between the known and the unknown, between the dogmas of mainstream scientists and the reality of phenomena that happen regardless of (or even in spite of) such dogmas, much as, in a dramatic reversal, Galileo said centuries ago, after being forced to recant his claim that the Earth moved around the immovable sun: “And yet it moves.” (Back then, science, in its nascent state, was based on unbiased inquiry and rejected dogmas de facto. Today, mainstream science has morphed into a scientific priesthood.) The late John Michell was the author of, among others, View over Atlantis, one of the cult reads of the 1970s; Bob Rickard is the founder and editor of the Fortean Times.

By John Michell, Bob Rickard,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena 2nd Edition as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena is an exploration of the zone that lies between the known and the unknown, a shadowy territory that's home to the lake monsters, combusting people, teleporting frogs and man-eating trees. Taking a Fortean path between dogmatic scientists and credulous believers, the authors trace tales of wonder back to their sources, drawing from a huge archive of observations, opinions and discussions. This updated second edition boasts new illustrations and plenty of intriguing new sections from near death experiences to ghosts, haunted houses and mysterious mass deaths. There are many things which are not yet known…


Book cover of Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga

Guido Mina di Sospiro Why did I love this book?

Of the trinity of essential, prescient works that describe the decadence of the West—Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, René Guenon’s The Crisis of the Modern World, and Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World—I would pick the latter, with Hermann Hesse’s warning that it is a “really dangerous” book. And so it is. It is difficult not to be swept away by this radical rethinking of history. Only later does one begin to realize that it is, after all, a phenomenally well-built... fantasy. But its Wagnerian scope and intrinsic power make it one of the most disruptive books ever written, particularly because it’s so well constructed and so profoundly erudite. I would recommend it, but with the caveat: to be read cum grano salis by a mature, Apollonian reader, not by an impressionable, Dionysian youth.

By Julius Evola,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Revolt Against the Modern World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

No idea is as absurd as the idea of progress, which together with its corollary notion of the superiority of modern civilization, has created its own "positive" alibis by falsifying history, by insinuating harmful myths in people's minds, and by proclaiming itself sovereign at the crossroads of the plebeian ideology from which it originated. In order to understand both the spirit of Tradition and its antithesis, modern civilization, it is necessary to begin with the fundamental doctrine of the two natures. According to this doctrine there is a physical order of things and a metaphysical one; there is a mortal…


Explore my book 😀

Forbidden Fruits: An Occult Novel

By Joscelyn Godwin, Guido Mina di Sospiro,

Book cover of Forbidden Fruits: An Occult Novel

What is my book about?

Forbidden Fruits is a long-awaited follow-up to Godwin’s and Mina di Sospiro’s first co-authorship, The Forbidden Book. After eight years they have released a novel that will be a favorite among readers of esotericism as scholarship, authentic insights into ancient and modern occult practices and suspense meet in the alchemical retort of the “Society of Harmony.” With “the entheogenic key” as its focus, Forbidden Fruits provides insight into ancient practices and visions, with the island of Malta being the focal point of a near Lovecraftian evil. Complete with psychedelic journeys, therapeutic blasphemy, and child seers, Forbidden Fruits is a voyage into the unknown that will leave readers questioning the nature of reality—and how to know the real from the unreal.

Book cover of Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization
Book cover of Forbidden Archeology
Book cover of True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise

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The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

By Kathryn Betts Adams,

Book cover of The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Kathryn's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

The Pianist's Only Daughter is a frank, humorous, and heartbreaking exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.

Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her mother, an English scholar and poet, and her father, a pianist and music professor. Their vivid emotional lives, marital instability, and eventual divorce provided the backdrop for her 1960s and ‘70s Midwestern youth.

Nearly thirty years after they divorce, Adams' newly single father flies in to woo his ex-wife, now retired and diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Their daughter watches in disbelief…

The Pianist's Only Daughter: A Memoir

By Kathryn Betts Adams,

What is this book about?

Grounded in insights about mental health, health and aging, The Pianist’s Only Daughter: A Memoir presents a frank and loving exploration of aging in an aging expert's own family.

Social worker and gerontologist Kathryn Betts Adams spent decades negotiating evolving family dynamics with her colorful and talented parents: her English scholar and poet mother and her pianist father. Their vivid emotional lives, marital instability, and eventual divorce provided the backdrop for her 1960s and ‘70s Midwestern youth.

Nearly thirty years after they divorce, Adams' father finds himself single and flies in to woo his ex-wife, now retired and diagnosed with…


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