I was in my teens when I discovered that if I focused on something hard enough I could manifest it. During my investigations into whether others had experienced this, I discovered the Adyar Bookstore in the Strand Arcade in Sydney, and that I had an insatiable thirst for all texts metaphysical, historical, and quantum theory. Turns out that many of the greatest thinkers in history believed that humans hold sway over many of the events and occurrence of their own lives, including Einstein, Plato, Tesla, Carl Sagan, and more. My books are the product of my exploration into the nature of personal reality, spirituality, and the meaning of life.
The Education of Oversoul Seven is the only fiction book on my list.
Most of my books deal with time travel, reincarnation, and karmic themes, and my understanding of simultaneous time came from this gorgeous little novel.
It also opened my eyes to the fact that we don’t necessarily always reincarnate into a future time.
This story tells of four characters, in four different historic periods, and the oversoul responsible for guiding them all. I have such a character in my new book also, whom I call the Inter-dweller.
When people ask for other books like mine, this is one I always recommend.
The Education of Oversoul Seven. Jane Roberts, channel of the Seth material, wrote the fictional Oversoul Seven series to further illuminate the ideas described in her nonfiction books. The Education of Oversoul Seven is a playful parable of time and space that opens up a whole new vision of life.
Tina Proffitt is a former educator in love with writing romance novels, who believes there’s nothing more romantic than reincarnating with those she loves. After her first one-on-one past life reading with Dr. Doris E. Cohen, she was hooked and has never looked back. (Pun intended) She wants to share her passion for living a life free from fear and full of love. She writes reincarnation romance novels in the genres of mystery, science fiction, contemporary, and YA.
While James Van Praagh’s book titled Unfinished Business: What the Dead Can Teach Us About Life is not strictly dealing with reincarnation, but rather, what those who have passed over want us to know, it is founded on the same principle—that life and death are not about punishment and reward but compassion and love. Told on a case-by-case basis, the book aims a spotlight on just how important our earthly relationships are. And those souls, who have moved out of their bodies, are determined to have their messages heard, whether to right wrongs, settle debts, or, as in most cases, to ask for simple forgiveness from those they wronged on earth.
“He helps a lot of people. He really is a healer. I think he’s basically on this earth right now at this time and place to heal. He is the real thing. I can’t tell you how many times he’s been right with me.” — Shirley MacLaine
“It has such a hopeful message. Even though he’s telling stories of the dead, it’s really about living your life better and inspiring people to not have unfinished business.” — Jennifer Love Hewitt
James Van Praagh, world-famous medium, co-executive producer of the primetime series Ghost Whisperer, and author of the New York Times…
I've had a deep passion for the esoteric world since childhood. I read books on everything to do with ghosts, magic, and astral travel, and began drawing up astrology charts from books I had borrowed from the library as a teenager. I studied astrology back in the mid-1980s when the new age was in full swing. Ten years later I went back to university and studied to become a psychologist. I am a firm believer that an understanding of personality through depth psychotherapy, and the hidden wisdom found in alternative schools of knowledge, can enhance one’s personal and spiritual growth in the difficult times we face today.
When I read his expose of the Saturn Return I knew that I had hit upon a hidden gem. His description of how to read and use the conflicts of planets, signs, and houses within the chart changed the way I approached my readings, and to Stephen, I am eternally grateful.
This insightful and original book focuses on the understanding and use of astrology as a tool for spiritual and psychological growth. In contrast to traditional prediction-oriented astrology, this new approach to the most ancient of all sciences is based upon the law of karma and the urge toward self-transformation. Especially emphasizing the transformative and karmic significance of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, this book places all astrological techniques in a growth-oriented perspective. It is especially pertinent for those whose interest in astrology is based on a recognition of its spiritual significance and its value for enhancing self-knowledge. Included are chapters…
I love morally complex sci-fi noir books because they tend to ask the hard questions that I find interesting. What is the point of seeking justice in an unjust world? How can we judge others when we ourselves are corrupt? Often, we think of noir as being dark—and it is—but it’s the pinpricks of light that make the shadows fascinating to me. I try to blend this complexity into my own writing, whether it’s in a tense relationship with religion, rampant corruption, or a struggle to do the right thing when there just aren’t any options left.
I love this book because it perfectly blends the surreal with noir and science fiction and comes together with its own brand of dark humor. While parts of this book are unsettling and strange, there’s a solid throughline of the investigator seeking the truth in a broken world.
Of all the books here, I think this one has the most damaged society, and the main character, Conrad Metcalf, is a match for it. Drugs that make you forget everything and be complacent. Baby heads. Uplifted animals. The book is never afraid to get stranger, but it also tackles some pretty heavy themes. This is a world where asking questions is taboo, and the moral and ethical implications of that shape the entire world in which Metcalf lives.
The first novel by Jonathan Lethem (author of the award-winning Motherless Brooklyn) is a science-fiction mystery, a dark and funny post-modern romp serving further evidence that Lethem is the distinctive voice of a new generation.
Conrad Metcalf has problems. He has a monkey on his back, a rabbit in his waiting room, and a trigger-happy kangaroo on his tail. (Maybe evolution therapy is not such a good idea). He's been shadowing Celeste, the wife of an Oakland urologist. Maybe falling in love with her a little at the same time. When the doctor turns up dead, Metcalf finds himself caught…
This is the perfect thriller. It has a good mystery, of course, and you can’t trust anybody, but for me, the real coup lies in the hero.
The author achieves the most difficult trick of all – a hero you don’t like but whom you nonetheless root for. I think the last time I felt like this was reading Jane Austen’s Emma. A twisty plot and perfect pacing help to make this a really satisfying read.
I once had a girlfriend back in Scotland, Lorna, who was into astrology, karma, healing crystals and all that shite. She always said the universe had a way of knowing when you needed something and providing for you. In my experience, what it generally provides is a kick in the bollocks.
Tommy Chisholm is in trouble.
His dream life in Barcelona is unravelling. He’s broke, his writing career has stalled, and maybe it’s time to pack up and go home.
When he’s recruited by an organised crime gang to help them rob an art gallery, he thinks his financial worries…
Tina Proffitt is a former educator in love with writing romance novels, who believes there’s nothing more romantic than reincarnating with those she loves. After her first one-on-one past life reading with Dr. Doris E. Cohen, she was hooked and has never looked back. (Pun intended) She wants to share her passion for living a life free from fear and full of love. She writes reincarnation romance novels in the genres of mystery, science fiction, contemporary, and YA.
Finally, Repetition: Past Lives, Life, and Rebirth written by clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, Doris Eliana Cohen, Ph.D. is a book focused on healing. Whether the reader is interested in learning how to heal from past-life traumas that are hindering their growth or move on from dysfunctional relationships, this book offers professional help and support. It also illuminates the nuts and bolts of different ways a soul can reincarnate. Most surprising of all may be how much free will is involved in the process, not at all the never-ending cycle of death and rebirth or the mislabeled karma of punishment for previous wrong-doings. This book offers the hope of taking responsibility for one’s life and the possibility of healing many past lives in one’s own current lifetime.
This fascinating book by Doris Eliana Cohen was written to help us create a shift in our own consciousness as well as that of humanity. In order to heal from traumas, we unknowingly repeat the stories of our lives again and again, reliving them in different scenarios in this life as well as in other lifetimes. This repetition of our behaviour patterns is neither neurotic nor pathological. It is absolutely necessary, because painful though it may be, repetition offers us multiple opportunities for facing our issues, making new choices, and healing ourselves at last. All of us have a God-given…
After retiring from a career in climate science, I reinvented myself as an English teacher, a yoga instructor, and a writer. I write personal essays about my life experiences, in particular my time teaching in Thailand. Before I traveled to Thailand, while I was there, and when I returned home to the US, I devoured every book I could find that could help me make sense of Thai culture and manage as a farang (foreigner, Westerner) in the Land of Smiles. Here are my five picks for helping other farangs understand Thailand.
The “many lives” in this series of linked short stories are those of eleven passengers who perish when a Bangkok-bound boat capsizes in a fierce storm.
I relished each story of each life, both as a literary gem and as an insight into something fundamental about Thai society, such as the importance of social class, the role of urban migration in altering provincial life, the potentially stifling aspects of intergenerational family obligations, and the overriding role of karma in Thai conceptions of life and death.
To me, Many Lives is to Thai culture what Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town is to American culture.
"That night, the rain poured and wind howled, raindrops crashing like solid objects onto the ground and water. A passenger boat from Ban Phaen to Bangkok, packed with people, pressed on through the current amidst the rising clamor of the rain and storm. . . ." The boat capsizes in the torrent, and washed up on the shore the next morning are the sodden bodies of the many passengers who lost their lives.
Thus begins M. R. Kukrit Pramoj's classic novel set in the Thailand of the early 1950s and first published in 1954. The life of each passenger who…
To experience another's thoughts and emotions, one first has to feel them. Eyes, lips, tongue, and teeth are involved before the brain/heart can engage. Translation of poetry is the same. My mother has sung Chinese poetry to me since forever, and English poetry came alive for me through verse speaking. I studied and taught as I wrote for many years. I cannot say I find my way into every poem I come across, but the poems I translate are ones I know and love. That is why I am passionate about translation. For me, it is not a secondary experience but a primary, primal performance art!
I read this English translation before I even read the book in Chinese, even though Chinese readers in Hong Kong where I grew up all read it as teenagers or young adults. The popular title of the novel is Dream of the Red Chamber, in both English and its original Chinese, but I immediately agreed with Hawkes that The Story of the Stone, one among its many titles, is much more expressive and fitting.
The eighteenth-century aristocratic family is a hugely complex world we are introduced to, but Hawkes’ faithful, resourceful, and unpretentious translation makes getting to know the multitude of characters easy and unforgettable.
Even though it is set in eighteenth-century China, for a twentieth/twenty-first-century English reader like myself, the family dynamics, tragedy, and romance here are palpable thanks to Hawke’s understanding and translation.
The Story of the Stone (c.1760) is one of the greatest novels of Chinese literature. The first part of the story, The Golden Days, begins the tale of Bao-yu, a gentle young boy who prefers girls to Confucian studies, and his two cousins: Bao-chai, his parents' choice of a wife for him, and the ethereal beauty Dai-yu. Through the changing fortunes of the Jia family, this rich, magical work sets worldly events - love affairs, sibling rivalries, political intrigues, even murder - within the context of the Buddhist understanding that earthly existence is an illusion and karma determines the shape…
I have spent the last 50 years exploring the intersection of Eastern and Western thought and spirituality. Along the way, I experientially learned the details of three of my former lifetimes: as a rabbi in 3rd-century Alexandria, as a tantric yogini and follower of Achi Chokyi Nyima in China, and as the legendary courtesan Lady Mori, who became the disciple and lover of the Zen master Ikkyu in 15th-century Japan. Studying the ways my previous incarnations are interconnected has taught me much about how the principles of karma and reincarnation function in real-time in the actual world, and I treasure the opportunity to share these insights with you.
Sadhguru has become an international star in the world of spirituality, with adherents ranging from Deepak Chopra to Tony Robbins to Tom Brady. In his New York Times bestseller, Sadhguru illuminates the meaning of karma—not as an external system of rewards and punishments but as an internal cycle generated by the individual.
This book helped me restore my understanding of karma to its original potential for freedom and empowerment instead of a source of entanglement.
NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER “Full of valuable insights to guide you.”—WILL SMITH “Thoughtful and life-affirming . . . a must-read.”—TONY ROBBINS “This book will put you back in charge of your own life.”—TOM BRADY
A new perspective on the overused and misunderstood concept of “karma” that offers the key to happiness and enlightenment, from the world-renowned spiritual master Sadhguru.
What is karma? Most people understand karma as a balance sheet of good and bad deeds, virtues and sins. The mechanism that decrees that we cannot evade the consequences of our own actions. In reality, karma…
I’m an American author and writing teacher for both Harvard and Oxford’s online writing programs. I am also a mother of two who lived three years in a tiny backyard guest house with my family in an effort to focus more on what we love. Editing books is a practice I have honed over decades, and when my family was stuck in a living situation that felt unsustainable, the clearest way forward was for me to ask myself how I might edit our way out of it. It worked! In this book, I share the most valuable eight principles that we learned through the process.
A candid look at how we spend and how we feel about our spending. Vanderkam braids examples from her own life with deep research and statistics on the relationship between happiness and money. A memorable, practical read that I refer to often.
I love all of her books—she is definitely my continuing education for adulthood—but this one is probably my favorite.
How happy would you be if you had all the money in the world? The universal lament about money is that there is never enough. We spend endless hours obsessing over our budgets and investments, trying to figure out ways to stretch every dollar. We try to follow the advice of money gurus and financial planners, then kick ourselves whenever we spend too much or save too little. For all of the stress and effort we put into every choice, why are most of us unhappy about our finances?
According to Laura Vanderkam, the key is to change your perspective.…
