Magick Matters

“Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness” by Alva Noe

"Alva Noë is one of a new breed―part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist―who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: do away with the two-hundred-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain. Our culture is obsessed with the brain―how it perceives; how it remembers; how it determines our intelligence, our morality, our likes and our dislikes. It's widely believed that consciousness itself, that Holy Grail of science and philosophy, will soon be given a neural explanation. And yet, after...>>

“How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason” by Lee McIntyre

"Can we change the minds of science deniers? Encounters with flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, coronavirus truthers, and others. "Climate change is a hoax—and so is coronavirus." "Vaccines are bad for you." These days, many of our fellow citizens reject scientific expertise and prefer ideology to facts. They are not merely uninformed—they are misinformed. They cite cherry-picked evidence, rely on fake experts, and believe conspiracy theories. How can we convince such people otherwise? How can we get them to change their minds and accept the facts when they don't believe in facts? In this book, Lee McIntyre shows that anyone can fight back against science deniers, and argues that it's important to do so. Science denial can...>>

“The Practical Guide to Crystal Healing: Harnessing the Power of Gemstones to Enhance Health and Well-being” by Simon Lilly and Sue Lilly

"The ultimate handbook on the use of crystals for healing, with expert guidance on how to achieve results – this is a great addition to every crystal enthusiast’s library and a must-have for beginners. Crystals have been used as a complementary therapy to combat both physical and emotional ailments for centuries; their unique vibrational resonances able to restore balance to the body’s energy systems and enhance spiritual, mental and physical wellbeing. Alongside guidance on the most important crystals to use for specific illnesses and situations, whether it be insomnia, migraines, depression or the upheaval of moving house, crystal therapy experts Simon and Sue Lilly provide practical tips on how to use these precious stones to restore...>>

“Yeats and the Occult” by George Mills Harper

"This volume of the Yeats Studies Series is devoted to the study of Yeats and the occult. The time has passed when it was necessary, in order to preserve intellectual respectability, to express either astonishment or dismay at the nature of Yeats's intellectual pursuits. The "occult" means literally the covered, the hidden, the veiled; and during his life Yeats was concerned with the hidden significance underlying the appearances of the universe and of human life. He was, as he said himself, a religious man, and deprived of a comfortable belief in orthodox Christianity by the lively skepticism of his father, he sought in many quarters and opened up many veins in his quest for the...>>

“Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There Is No Death and Fathom Answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything” by Bernardo Kastrup

"The present framing of the cultural debate in terms of materialism versus religion has allowed materialism to go unchallenged as the only rationally-viable metaphysics. This book seeks to change this. It uncovers the absurd implications of materialism and then, uniquely, presents a hard-nosed non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by skepticism, hard empirical evidence, and clear logical argumentation. It lays out a coherent framework upon which one can interpret and make sense of every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities of human consciousness, without materialist assumptions. According to this framework, the brain is merely the image of a self-localization process of mind, analogously to how a whirlpool is the image of a self-localization...>>