Fans pick 100 books like Not in His Image

The experience of past life regression therapy is so impactful on your understanding of life on earth and in the thereafter that it transformed Michael Newton from an atheist into the spiritual believer he is today.

Through Newton's research and case studies, I found solace in knowing that our souls continue to evolve and learn between lives and that the trauma of past lives can often follow us into the present. The book's detailed accounts of the afterlife and soul’s journey provided deep insights, expanded my understanding of existence, and ignited a sense of purpose and interconnectedness that resonated deeply with me.

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten is a great book on the real teachings of the ancient Gnostics and how they differed from Judeo-Christianity two thousand years ago.

Since this book was published, lost Gnostic texts were discovered in 1947 that support Mead’s earlier conclusions.

Bringing back the importance of Gnostic beliefs as Roman Catholicism collapses is a core theme in my book. Because the Catholic Church defeated the Gnostics and destroyed their great library in Alexandria, Egypt, almost all current information on the Gnostics is derogatory.

Mead’s work is a deep and balanced presentation of what they actually believed.

Carl Jung’s discoveries in psychoanalysis and alchemy caused a revolution in 20TH Century psychotherapy, and the breakthroughs he made have had a huge influence on contemporary spirituality.

My book is deeply based on Jung’s research in general, and then this is his greatest book.

Ancient alchemists were supposedly trying to turn lead into gold, yet now we know they were activating many dimensions in their consciousness to attain the gold—personal transformation, even transfiguration of their souls—Jung’s fundamental discovery.

The main author of this book, Father Thomas Doyle, served at the Vatican Embassy in the 1980s and became an expert in the canonical and pastoral dimensions of priestly sexual abuse.

He has worked with the victims and their families, the abuser priests, the bishops, and superiors, and has developed policies for dealing with cases of sexual abuse by the clergy.

His advocacy work for the victims has resulted in large settlements for many of them, and his exposure of this ugly problem has caused huge financial and psychological stress for the Catholic Church worldwide.

At this point, most people in the world realize priestly sexual abuse is a critical threat to the integrity of Catholicism, and this book is the best source on this deep-seated problem.

This deep book reveals the Church has grappled with this devastating internal problem from its earliest years.

Every book needs an antagonist. 

To oppose my ancient Master I needed an ancient evil. And what better place to find an uncensored account of one of the oldest creation myths than to reference Gnostic (early Christian) texts, buried for thousands of years and re-discovered in a cave nearby the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt 1945. 

A good hunk of these texts tell the creation myth of ‘Sophia and the Archons’ - the ultimate creator who gave birth to the ultimate destroyer. Sophia goes on embodying the earth to nurture and protect the golden seed of consciousness of mankind. 

Her evil offspring, who is not of the physical world, is hell-bent on destroying humanity. So what if these Archons had found the means to manifest on Earth plane?

I read this wonderful coming-of-age tale when I was in my teens, but its magical mood remained with me ever since.

Reading the story of Emil Sinclair meeting the enigmatic Demian at school–who not only freed him from bullies but showed him that there was another world usually invisible to the common senses–set me on a life-long journey in search of the miraculous. 

I consider myself a very spiritual person and I believe that it is a person’s responsibility to question what it means to be spiritual in order to better understand one’s own faith.

As I am, Philip K. Dick was obviously obsessed with wanting spiritual answers. Valis is very entertaining, but it also made me question all that I believe in a way that expanded and made my spirituality stronger.

For those with a religious upbringing like mine, Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s book, Reincarnation: The Missing Link in Christianity, may prove a fascinating read. And for those many brought up in the Southern Baptist culture of fear and punishment like I was, the idea of living other lives can be a frightening one or a welcome one, particularly when seen as a second chance, instead of through the lens of the Biblical concepts of judgment and Hell. It is a scholarly read, in that the more you know about the Bible, the more you will get out of reading it.

I chose this book for its interesting exploration of spiritual resurrections that were common throughout ancient civilizations including the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greek, Persian, and Indians. Silva says these mystical rituals lead initiates (including Plato and Socrates) onto a path of self-empowerment and spiritual awakening. Silva includes the gnostic teachings practiced by the Cathars, who claimed the literal resurrection of Jesus was a lie, and were persecuted by the Church to suppress such gospel teachings by Mary Magdalene and Phillip.

This well-researched and in-depth account has been translated from French and discusses the various occult movements which inspired the art and ideas of the surrealists. It covers a diverse range of topics including divination, astrology, myth, voodoo, Gnosticism, freemasonry, alchemy, secret societies, and Celticism and shows how various artists and writers took inspiration from these systems. The book contains a selection of images, copious notes, a substantial bibliography, and a good index making this an indispensable research tool for aspiring scholars of surrealism and the occult.