Fans pick 100 books like The Origins and History of Consciousness

I love Carl Jung’s ability to see into the nature of consciousness and make the connection between the experience of being a being on Earth and the true nature of our being. He is one of the first scientists to describe the near-death experience and to see it as another trick of the dualistic world.

Jung explains how, during his heart attack, he died and was transported above the earth to a doorway guarded by a cosmically dangerous spike. Jung’s observations as a scientist and doctor about what makes us tick are a foundation for people realizing their true nature through people like David Bingham today.

Campbell, to me, is the dean of writers on myth. I met him once, through a professor at Hollins University who, at her graduation, had awarded Anna, my wife-to-be, the first three volumes of The Hero of a Thousand Faces, as a prize in English Literature (the fourth, Creative Mythology, was yet to be published).

After we met, I learned that Campbell had edited the Penguin Portable Jung – and it is that book that set me on a course of study and writing on myth and literature that I have pursued ever since.

As a final note, Campbell also co-authored A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, a book that many years later led me into James Joyce’s masterwork, Finnegans Wake – to me, the apotheosis of mythic literature.

At about 10,000 BC, there appeared in Mesopotamia female statuettes, clearly privileging fertility. They came to be associated with the bucranium – the head and horns of the wild bull aurochs, and, over time, the pair took on the unmistakable stamp of a goddess and her consort, a bull.

Jacques Cauvin, who conducted their excavation, was able to link the pair with the birth of agriculture, and in so doing he found that the individual came, for the first time, to stand in a worshipful posture toward an other-worldly existent – bringing about for humanity thereby an entirely new cultural orientation. Indeed, the pair bore “all the traits of the Mother-Goddess who dominated the oriental pantheon, “right up to the time of the male-dominated monotheism of Israel” (p. 31).

Cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald posited that, at the most fundamental level, humans have a hybrid mind, one that consists of a gene-based mammalian, analogue brain, onto which is grafted a culture-based, symbolic brain. The former, the primitive mammalian brain, is a space where “the lines between consciousness and the mind’s inaccessible unconscious modules are drawn very deep in the sand” (p. 286).

As to myth, Donald noted that virtually all hunter-gatherer societies observed in the modern era have or had elaborate mythological systems, all structured along the same lines, in which myth informs every aspect of life: “myth permeates and regulates daily life, channels perceptions, determines the significance of every object and event in life. Clothing, food, shelter, family – all receive their ‘meaning’ from myth” (p. 215).

This book, more than any other on the subject, surprised and fascinated me.

Its thesis is deceptively simple. It suggests that the two hemispheres of the human brain were “strangers” to each other early in our evolutionary history (three millennia ago). The left hemisphere received the information from the right as a message from an unfamiliar source (an unseen “voice”).

Jaynes proposed that this was the basis for all religious experience. It was our intuitive right hemisphere that supplied the “voices” of the gods. True human consciousness only arose when this bicameral mind “broke down” and the “voice of God” was replaced with what had been speaking to us all along, the other more intuitive half of ourselves.

Jung proposed many fascinating ideas about the inner workings of the mind. His concept of the archetypes and of the collective unconscious are two of his best-known contributions, and both are intimately tied to his conceptualization of dreams. The idea that dreams not only emanate from our personal unconscious, but also from our collective unconscious (a deep stratum of the unconscious common to all humankind) and contain universal patterns, images, and dispositions, has helped countless people develop a deeper understanding of their dreams.

What’s more, this book exposes Jung’s view of dreaming as a wholesome, natural process that can give rise to creative—even transcendent—experiences featuring personal challenges, unmapped potentials, and elements of one’s personality. Not always the easiest of reads, but highly rewarding. 

When I read this book, I felt much the way I did as a teenager when I discovered astrology and began to appreciate there were patterns of behavior found in humans that were reflected in the vastness of the cosmos -- and vice versa. Who would have thought that what I considered idiosyncratic tendencies within myself and others actually were a part of a much bigger pattern that had existed for millennia in the form of ancient goddesses? I was astounded to see the personalities of my sisters, friends, mother, aunties, as well as celebrities, accurately depicted by Greek goddesses. 

In this book, Shinoda-Bolen brings to life many dimensions of the archetypal feminine that get played out in our modern lives, our individual psyches, and in our relationships.

Marian Woodman has been my shero ever since I attended a workshop of hers. I recall sitting in the audience listening to her speak and blinking my eyes. How could it be that she could shape-shift from a coy flirtatious maiden, into a warm nurturing mother, and then moments later appear as a regal, confident, and sovereign queen and then a deeply wise crone? She clearly understood and embodied the full range of the conscious feminine in its various aspects.

Of her many books, this is the one I love the most because, in this collection of interviews with her, the passion of her speaking voice comes through the written word loud and clear. Her phrasing is so delicious, my tattered copy is underlined throughout.

This is a must-read for me to understand the archetypes inherent to women. I have not only read it but also reread it and studied it with other women. 

I love anything wild, and so does Dr. Estés. She believes that within every woman, there lives a powerful force filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. The wild is instinctual and endangered. Civilization demands women become rigid in roles contrary to the life-giving messages of our own souls. I have always believed this, and this book reinforces my beliefs.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés uses mythology, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories to assist the reconnection to our wild nature. Her interpretations are so rich, just reading the forward from time to time makes me weep with recognition of truth.

This has very strong and life-giving implications for me as a writer, but it truly is an astounding book… show more.

Although I was familiar with Harvard Business School professor George Serafeim’s research and work on impact weighted accounting before I read this book, I still found it informative and inspiring.

The first half of this book is a primer on ESG and sustainability highlighting societal shifts and why purpose and impact have moved to the forefront. And the second half details how impact and outcomes can be achieved. 

This book is an excellent introduction for people new to purpose – or questioning its real value financially – as well as for those of us who have long been in this space.

Drawing extensively on his research and that of colleagues, Serafeim emphasizes how doing good creates competitive advantage.