New Books and Media

From the publisher’s website: In Prometheus & Atlas, Dr. Jorjani endeavours to deconstruct the nihilistic materialism and rootless rationalism of the modern West by showing how it was grounded on a dishonest suppression of the spectral and why it has a parasitic relationship with Abrahamic religious fundamentalism. Rejecting the marginalisation of ESP and psychokinesis as "paranormal," Prometheus & Atlas makes the case that psi is only "super Natural" insofar as our reductive modern scientific models have occluded Supernature for practical purposes. At the same time, Jorjani calls for a conscious recognition of the superhumanly empowering archetypes of Prometheus and Atlas, which he argues have unconsciously driven the daring scientific exploration and discovery of all those cultures that adopted and adapted the cosmopolitan promise of the Hellenic heritage. Embracing the Promethean and Atlantic spirit, and a reach for a fiery fusion of the horizons of the Eastern and Western worlds, would mean the dawn of a new age and an integral society wherein the modern barriers between Science, Religion, Politics, and Art have been dynamited.

Reza Jorjani, PhD is a native New Yorker and Iranian-American of Persian and northern European descent. After receiving his BA and MA at New York University, he completed his doctorate in Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Jorjani currently teaches Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

From the publisher’s website: Psychic phenomena such as extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis (‘mind over matter’) have been reportedly experienced by people from all walks of life. But are these phenomena real? And how could they possibly fit into our knowledge of the human brain? In this monograph, Bryan Williams examines some of the latest findings to emerge from efforts that parapsychologists have made to explore how psychic phenomena may be linked to brain functioning. Although they do not yet lead to a fully working theory, these initial findings do point to possible brain correlates that could be a focus for further study using advanced brain wave monitoring and functional neuroimaging techniques.

Bryan Williams is an affiliate with the Psychical Research Foundations. He was a co-recipient of the 2008 Eileen J. Garrett Scholarship Award offered by the Parapsychology Foundation in New York.

Further details can be found on the Australian Institute of Parapsychological Research’s website:

http://www.aiprinc.org/

From the publisher’s website: As individuals bring their raw potentials into existence, the human race evolves.

Trance states are the means through which these transformations take place. Trances are concentrated states of engagement with the world. They occur frequently in the ordinary course of living. Hypnosis is merely one variety of trance, but its study has led to a profound understanding of trance states in general. The idea that trance constitutes the technology for human advance has developed for Dr. Crabtree over a period of some thirty years. Memoir of a Trance Therapist is the story of that development, along with an explanation of the central elements of Dr. Crabtree's vision.

Adam Crabtree, PhD, is the author of books on hypnosis, the history of psychotherapy, and dissociative disorders such as multiple personality disorder. He is on the faculty of the Centre for Training in Psychotherapy, Toronto.

“This is a beautiful book that represents a life of profound thinking, historical scholarship on the "first great human potential movement in the West" (animal magnetism), and countless hours working with spirit possession, multiple personalities, and trance states with suffering and gifted human beings. Part memoir, part philosophical treatise, part how-to-manual, this is the book to go to for anyone interested in trance states, human potential, and the "how to evolve" question. There is even concrete advice here on how to be creative, how to ask or pray, and how to access one's own subliminal resources and astonishing new capacities. The ultimate message is one of hope and, ultimately, one of love.”

—Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Authors of the Impossible.

Geh’ zurück in eine Zeit… / Indizienbeweise für ein Leben nach dem Tod und die Wiedergeburt / Rückführungen in „frühere Leben“ und deren Nachprüfung [Go back in time . . ./Circumstantial Evidence for Life After Death and Rebirth/Regressions to “Past Lives” and Their Verification] by Dieter Hassler is a two-volume book in German which explores the validity of lives recalled in regressions. There are extensive bibliographical references with 37 cases purported to be validated. However, the reports are verified by the persons involved, not by independent researchers. Included is a survey of the history dating from the 18th century. Together with the case-reports this represents the first time such material has been published completely. The book is written for both professionals and laymen. It is well organized and well indexed with a comprehensive table of contents. There are many cross-references and an extensive glossary.

Contents of volume 2a (504 pages):
•12 of 37 verified cases represented in detail
• Further 8 verified cases reported in shorter form
• appraisal of xenoglossy as proof for the interpretation as cases of reincarnation
• professor Wambach’s statistical research of many cases.
• 51 questions and answers • regression techniques and risks of regression
• a tour through the historic development of the method exemplified in 79 “halts”
• 37 unverified cases in short form as examples for specific features.
• list of contents, index, cross-references, glossary

This book was reviewed by Armin Albano-Müller in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 80, No. 3.

From the publisher’s website: The authors´ preoccupation with Indridi Indridason spans several decades. Erlendur Haraldsson first read about him in the 1960s, perhaps earlier. He joined the Psychology department at the University of Iceland in 1973 and, during his course on paranormal phenomena, he would regularly discuss Indridason, Iceland’s most prolific physical medium. Loftur Reimar Gissurarson, one of Haraldsson’s students, soon became interested and wrote his BA thesis on Indridason (Gissurarson, 1984).

Based on their research, they co-authored a monograph entitled The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason, which was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (Gissurarson and Haraldsson, 1989). The monograph was subsequently reprinted partially and in full in Renaitre 2000 in France, Luce e Ombra in Italy, andParapsykologiske Notiser in Norway.

Loftur continued the work and co-authored with William Swatos, the book Icelandic Spiritualism: Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland (Swatos and Gissurarson, 1997), much of it dealing with Indridi and the history of Mediums and Spiritualism in Iceland.

Shortly after the year 2000, two Experimental Society minute books dating back to the Indridason period were unexpectedly found that contained new information (Haraldsson, 2009). Some time later, Haraldsson delved into the new material which resulted in three major articles being published in the Proceedings and the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (Haraldsson, 2011, 2012a) and the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Haraldsson and Gerding, 2010). It soon became obvious that only a book would do justice to Indridi, as he deserved to be known to the wider international public. This is that book.

About the authors

Erlendur Haraldsson is a Professor emeritus of psychology at the Faculty of social science at the University of Iceland who, despite having retired from his former post at the University of Iceland, continues to be an active academic. He has published work in various psychological and parapsychological journals, and done work with Ian Stevenson on reincarnation research and Karlis Osis on deathbed visions. As well as doing work in Iceland, Haraldsson worked in the United States and at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany. While in the United States, he worked with J.B. Rhine.

He has written several books including Modern Miracles: Sathya Sai Baba. The Story of a Modern Day Prophet (2013), At the Hour of Death (1997), and The Departed Among the Living: An Investigative Study of Afterlife Encounters (2012)

Loftur R. Gissurarson studied psychology at the Universities of Iceland and Edinburgh where he obtained his PhD from Robert Morris and John Beloff. He worked as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow sponsored by Trinity College, Cambridge, before taking up a post as Chief Psychologist at the Regional Office for the Disabled in Reykjavik.  Dr. Loftur later joined an Icelandic geothermal development company as Managing Director of Quality, Environment, Health & Safety and is now working for the company mainly in Africa and the Caribbean.