Tuesday, January 09, 2007

the ten most influential books i have read..............

some the most influential books i`ve read are as follows;

the cosmic trigger by robert anton wilson.

wings of illusion by john f. schumaker.

filters against folly by garrett hardin.

artists, craftsmen and technocrats by patricia pitcher.

the prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.

frogs to princes by richard bandler.

games people play by eric berne.

The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History by terence mckenna.

journey to ixtlan by carlos castenada.

let`s talk about ufos by peter bros.


The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts.

there are many other titles that could replace each of the titles on this list and tomorrow i would choose differently, but i think this is a good sampling of some of the insightful thinking that i`ve read over the years.

i`ve refrained from including much of the classics because i think that the majority of the writers above have either synthesised those who went before or rejected them outright.

several of the writers named above have been teachers of mine through thier work. richard bandler and bob wilson have been tutors through thier audio and video work which i`ve had the privelege to listen to and watch.

i cheated. there are eleven books on my list.

3 comments:

Charles Bergeman said...

Thanks for this list. As soon as I get through my current set of books I will pick something from this list to enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks alistair!
Curious what you found profound about Machiavelli. Have you read Plato's Republic, or Hobb's Leviathan?

It would seem very interesting to find out how these three books differ in their insight into pre-industrial human political thought ... but I've only read Plato and snippets of the other 2.

BTW you commented on a post of mine at Tim's awhile back, and i tho't I should clarify my bit about dutifully separating out "paper from plastics." Rather than being literal (and yes, most municipal recycling makes this unnecessary) I was trying out a sarcastic way to illustrate the well intended yet short sighted efforts on western culture to say "It's all good," when so many in the world are trapped in survival mode, and labor constantly to get basic needs met. I wasnt sure, but it seemed you took it to mean I was satisfied recycling is the all the effort necessary.

Dr.Alistair said...

charles, you are welcome. the reading gets a little thick in there at times, and, well............. esoteric.

greg, i haven`t read the plato and my brush with hobbes was a while ago. my recollection was that he was justifying the function of police in an emerging civic society.
macciavelli intrigued me when i was a child plainly because people moralised against him. that tripped the alarm for me. what i found was a short guide to dealing with bullshit. it was no wonder there was such an uproar amongst the redundant............
i find that the status quo in most fields don`t like effective solutions.