Best psychoanalysis books according to redditors
We found 388 Reddit comments discussing the best psychoanalysis books. We ranked the 120 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 388 Reddit comments discussing the best psychoanalysis books. We ranked the 120 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Texts and Reference Books
Days in the Lives of Social Workers
DSM-5
Child Development, Third Edition: A Practitioner's Guide
Racial and Ethnic Groups
Social Work Documentation: A Guide to Strengthening Your Case Recording
Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond
[Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life]
(https://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Feelings-Harbinger-Self-Help-Workbook/dp/1608822087/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3ZW7PRW5TK2PB0MDR9R3)
Interpersonal Process in Therapy: An Integrative Model
[The Clinical Assessment Workbook: Balancing Strengths and Differential Diagnosis]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534578438/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_38?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ARCO1HGQTQFT8)
Helping Abused and Traumatized Children
Essential Research Methods for Social Work
Navigating Human Service Organizations
Privilege: A Reader
Play Therapy with Children in Crisis
The Color of Hope: People of Color Mental Health Narratives
The School Counseling and School Social Work Treatment Planner
Streets of Hope : The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood
Deviant Behavior
Social Work with Older Adults
The Aging Networks: A Guide to Programs and Services
[Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society: Bridging Research and Practice]
(https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415884810/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change
Ethnicity and Family Therapy
Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Perspectives on Development and the Life Course
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work
Generalist Social Work Practice: An Empowering Approach
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook
DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents
DBT Skills Manual
DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets
Social Welfare: A History of the American Response to Need
Novels
[A People’s History of the United States]
(https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1511070674&sr=1-1&keywords=howard+zinn&dpID=51pps1C9%252BGL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Death Class <- This one is based off of a course I took at my undergrad university
The Quiet Room
Girl, Interrupted
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Flowers for Algernon
Of Mice and Men
A Child Called It
Go Ask Alice
Under the Udala Trees
Prozac Nation
It's Kind of a Funny Story
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Yellow Wallpaper
The Bell Jar
The Outsiders
To Kill a Mockingbird
Even before 1949
In diesem sehr guten Portrait von und mit Zizek von Jstor, empfiehlt Zizek selbst Bücher. Seiner Meinung nach beschreiben die Bücher "Absolute Recoil" und "Less Than Nothing" sein philosophisches System bzw. Denken am umfassendsten.
Das beste Buch um sein Werk zu verstehen, ist seiner Meinung nach "Ethics of the Real", von seiner slowenischen Kollegin Alenka Zupancic, die auch Teil von Zizeks Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis ist.
Eine Warnung von mir vorweg: Zizek schreibt zwei verschiedene Arten von Büchern. Die philosophisch-wissenschaftlichen Werke (die er hauptsächlich in seiner frühen Laufbahn geschrieben hat, und die auch oben empfohlen wurden) und populärwissenschaftliche politische Bücher, die um einiges einfacher zu verdauen sind. Ich würde an deiner Stelle damit anfangen, denn die "ernsten" Werke sind ohne Vorkenntnisse von Lacan, Hegel und Marx schwer bis gar nicht zu verstehen.
Die Streitschriften ("Blasphemische Gedanken" und "Der neue Klassenkampf"), die bei Ullstein erschienen sind, haben relativ wenig Seiten und lesen sich ziemlich einfach. "First As Tragedy Then As Farce" ist auch ziemlich kurzweilig. Wär also mein Tipp, um mal einen kleinen Zeh ins kalte Wasser zu setzen :D
For those interested:
I love reading and hearing about model cities. Here's some other media if you like this sort of stuff.
[Book]
One of the most engrossing biographies I've ever read, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is the story of a power hungry paperclip maximizer but instead of prioritizing paperclips over everything, Moses prioritizes wildly expensive highways. His fall, around the late 60s, lead to renewed interest in public transit and a counter-revolution articulated in Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Seeing Like a State A condemnation on the central planners infatuation with the top-down and observable over the bottom-up and functional.
[Article]
Reports of the death of China's vacant cities may be [greatly exaggerated.](
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-16/china-s-manhattan-sheds-ghost-town-image-as-towers-begin-to-fill)
Seeing Like A State: Book Review A fun review of the book mentioned above.
[Podcast]
Every city planner has a plan until they get doused with a squatter's bucket of piss.
For those further interested in charter cities, see recently-ousted world bank chief economist Paul Romer's conversation on charter cities.
On Usonia, Flank Lloyd Wright's stab at an affordable model US town.
Si quelqu'une voudrait un recommandation pour une livre sur cette topique, je pense que cette une, "Escape From Freedom" (Version Francais "La Peur de la liberté"), c'est un bon explication du la phénomène du nazisme et l'idéologie radical dans les Etats Unis. C'est créé après le deuxième guerre mondial, mais c'est malheureusement pertinent de nos jours.
(Je ne peu pas écrit en francais avec beaucoup compétence, désolée )
That's the most french I can manage. A brief summery of the book above (or at least my interpretation) is that, due to continual erosion of economic stability and psychological well-being by market forces, people more often than not turn to anything which could restore their belief in their own power. You cannot control or affect the market, but you can choose to participate in a group that embellishes your potency, or claims you are of a particular chosen people. This submission into a collective, ideologically motivated mass, 'restores' an existential sense of potency, but at the cost of individual liberty and freedom.
A really detailed analysis of the most common 4-digit pin numbers. More than 10 percent of all passwords are 1234.
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This four-square graph plants Slatestarcodex in the realm of “insightful/serious” and places Reddit at “boring/trolling.” So, where does that place a subreddit devoted to SSC, then?
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At the recommendation of several people in this sub, I bought James C. Scott’s Seeing Like the State and wow, it is indeed fantastic.
A good review by J Bradford Delong here
Some highlights for me so far:
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I haven't made up my mind as to whether this post about "egregores" is profoundly insightful or silly or something else.
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Subjects are surprisingly bad at judging their own proficiency in recognizing faces
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The medieval oaks of Blenheim
Bonus: Why so many English taverns are called “The Royal Oak"
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Study: Human changes, especially fire suppression, have had greater impact on Eastern forest than climate change.
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Study: Student evaluations are poor measures of teaching effectiveness.
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"Baby Hands May Belong to Lizards"
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Noam Chomsky's new book on language is drawing skepticism.
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A crash course on black science fiction
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I know that Scott is a fan of the Civilization PC strategy series, as am I. Here’s [a good article on Sid Meiers] (http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/3/4/11158134/the-man-who-made-a-million-empires), the man behind the Civilization series.
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George Martin died last week. [Does he deserve more credit than being just the so-called “fifth Beatle”?] (http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/colby-cosh-dont-call-george-martin-the-fifth-beatle-he-might-have-been-more-than-that)
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The people who cannot stop making puns. There’s another name for folks who cannot resist puns…
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This is a long quiz about music preferences. It starts out a bit bland but it gets interesting.
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This 10-part series about destroyed items of cultural significance is good albeit depressing.
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Milton Friedman’s thermostat.
>It’s not even a very complicated idea. You can explain the gist of it using words and simple examples.
>But it's a really really important idea. Both theoretically important, and practically important.
>So why does such an important idea need to keep on being reinvented? Why are (almost all) economists unaware of this idea?
>It's not as though Milton Friedman were some no-name economist that everybody ignored. Every economist is very aware of lots of Milton Friedman's other ideas. Those other ideas are taught to all economics students. Why not this idea?
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The mysterious iconography of the 2000-year-old Portland Vase, the best known piece of Roman cameo glass.
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The time that existentialist Jean Paul Sartre wrote a French-language film version of Arthur's Miller The Crucible.
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In the 1850s, along the banks of the Delaware there was a floating church.
Article
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European buildings on the (literal) edge.
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1910. Nine kings sitting for a photo. No word as to whether they were given rings of power.
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An impressive work-in-progress: a taxonomy of space opera cliches
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Don’t trust the pretty people. Short version and long.
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Moloch! Moloch!
Moloch! Moloch!
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What professions are most attractive on Tinder?
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Oklahoma now has more <3.0 earthquakes than California.
I have a prediction that a fracking-induced earthquake is going to cause a major lawsuit in the next five years.
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Tips for doing a PhD efficiently.
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This historical homerun hitters gif is mesmerizing and reinforces to me what an phenomenon Babe Ruth was.
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Washington Post had a fun quiz that tries to determine your marital status, age, and income by the apps you have on your phone. The quiz thought I was much younger than I am, so I am kindly disposed towards it.
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The story of Saint Wilgefortis, the bearded lady saint, is all sorts of fascinating. Experts surmise that crucified images of Jesus depicted in a tunic that, through various corrupted and crude reproductions, eventually made Christ look like a bearded woman in a dress. Mystified believers then came up with a story to explain this figure:
>According to the narrative of the legend, sometimes set in Portugal, a teen-aged noblewoman named Wilgefortis had been promised in marriage by her father to a pagan king. To thwart the unwanted wedding, she had taken a vow of virginity, and prayed that she would be made repulsive. In answer to her prayers she sprouted a beard, which ended the engagement. In anger, Wilgefortis's father had her crucified.
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A very detailed graphic exploring the question: why is my TV bill so high?
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A good post exploring unpaid parking tickets in NYC by diplomats to the United Nations. The post also explains why the number of unpaid tickets by diplomats plunged dramatically in 2003.
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May 16 is the 50-year anniversary of Pet Sounds, which for my money is the best pop music album of all time. Good retrospective interview with the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson here.
Listen to the album.
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Why upscale retailers are hiding their cash registers from customers.
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“Why Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is Actually Way Better Than The 2016 Deadpool“. Heh.
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The design evolution of soda cans since 1948 Neat.
Agricultural collectivism as seen in the USSR and PRC and so on has been an enormous failure, but that's not an indictment of "communism" as such as it is an indictment of dogmatic Stalinism. There are other regimes of land ownership that a communist society might employ. The article itself (let's assume it's entirely accurate) points to one:
>They agreed to break the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land, local People's Commune, into family plots.
Each plot was to be worked by an individual family who would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective whilst at the same time agreeing that they could keep the surplus for themselves.
Compare this to a passage from James Scott's Seeing Like A State, quoted in Kevin Carson's Communal Property, a Libertarian Analysis:
>Let us imagine a community in which families have usufruct rights to parcels of cropland during the main growing season. Only certain crops, however, may be planted, and every seven years the usufruct land
is distributed among resident families according to each family's size and its number of able-bodied adults. After the harvest of the main-season crop, all cropland reverts to common land where any family may glean,
graze their fowl and livestock, and even plant quickly maturing, dry-season crops. Rights to graze fowl and livestock on pasture-land held in common by the village is extended to all local families, but the number of animals that can be grazed is restricted according to family size, especially in dry years when forage isscarce.... Everyone has the right to gather firewood for normal family needs, and the village blacksmith and
baker are given larger allotments. No commercial sale from village woodlands is permitted.
>Trees that have been planted and any fruit they may bear are the property of the family who planted them, no matter where they are now growing.... Land is set aside for use or leasing out by widows with
children and dependents of conscripted males.... After a crop failure leading to a food shortage, many of these arrangements are readjusted. Better-off villagers are expected to assume some responsibility for poorer relatives—by sharing their land, by hiring them, or by simply feeding them. Should the shortage persist, a council composed of heads of families may inventory food supplies and begin daily rationing.
Carson goes on to say that:
>The village commune model traced its origins, in the oldest areas of civilization, back to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, when humans first began to raise crops in permanent village settlements. Before that time, the dominant social grouping was the semi-nomadic hunter-gather group. As hunter-gatherers experimented with saving a portion of the grain they'd gathered, they became increasingly tied to permanent settlements.
> In the areas where communal tenure reemerged in Dark Age Europe, after the collapse of Roman power, the village commune had its origin in the settlement of barbarian tribes. (Even in Europe, the village commune was actually the reemergence of a social unit which had previously been partly suppressed, first by the Roman Republic in Italy and later by the Empire in its areas of conquest). In both cases, the hunter-gather group or the clan was a mobile or semi-mobile social unit based on
common kinship relations. So the village commune commonly had its origins in a group of settlers who saw themselves as members of the same clan and sharing a common ancestry, who broke the land
for a new agricultural settlement by their common efforts. It was not, as the modern town, a group of atomized individuals who simply happened to live in the same geographic area and had to negotiate the
organization of basic public services and utilities in some manner or other.
Now, consider the following examples, two real, one hypthetical:
One: I lived for a time in Boulder County, Colorado. In an attempt to keep suburban sprawl (Denver) out, the county owns a lot of farmland, which it leases to local tenants for $100/acre/year (which is enormously cheap). You don't own the land and have to abide by certain restrictions, but you are free to farm it however you like. I worked for an elderly couple who grew organic raspberries on 5 acres, for sale at the farmer's market. Next door there was a five acre plot that was run by a CSA whose members all participated in the working of the land. We can imagine other ways to work farmland of this kind, based on different sorts of collectives-- CSAs, communes, families. But I can't imagine an "individual" trying to be a farmer on more land than a tiny garden.
Example two: A friend of mine recently bought into a land trust in the mountains nearby. The trust consists of 380 acres, which is divided into 12 5 acre plots; the remaining 320 acres form a common which is cooperatively managed by the land trust council (consisting of one representative from each of the individual plots). Buying in doesn't buy you ownership of "your" five acres; it buys you a 99 year lease. At the end of this time, the council will decide whether and how to reapportion the land.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Example three, hypothetical: In a given community, all land is understood to be either owned in common or not owned at all, but is under management of the community as a whole. This management takes the form of regular distribution/redistribution of the land between smaller units. These units may be families (of any shape and structure), collectives or communes, religious communities, small businesses, homesteaders, or whatever. They have a right to live on their (however many) acres as they please provided they follow certain environmental guidelines agreed on by the community. Common land, including common buildings, would be managed by the community after a manner of its choosing. Land redistribution and matters of "taxation"-- or what individual units owe to the whole-- can be decided by the community as they see fit.
This is a model of communal land ownership which has nothing to do with that found in Stalinist theory and practice, and much more resembles the "agro-industrial federation" proposed by Proudhon. It also resembles communal land ownership systems found in traditional tribe and village societies throughout the globe, including ancestral European societies. That includes the traditional village mir or obschina in Russia which was destroyed by "collectivization" exactly as and by the same process through which communal land ownership systems practiced by indigenous people in the United States were destroyed and land transferred to enormous land-owning corporations (such as timber, mining, railroad, ranching, and agricultural interests).
Returning to the example of Xiaoging, three things jump out at me:
First, the villagers did not restore "individual ownership" of the means of production. They restored family ownership of agricultural land. What is a family, in this context? A small collective (or commune) of people who share a common identity, a common living space; who work together and regularly participate in "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs"-type interactions. What if the definition of "family" could be extended beyond the two-parent unit or whatever it actually is in Xiaoging?
Second, the villagers redistributed the land owned by the "collective" themselves, through a basically democratic process. They got together and decided which families got what land. That's great! I wish we could do that with land owned by Weyerhaueser. But I am going to suggest that the villagers descendants 100 years from now may wish that their ancestors had built in a mechanism for regularly reconvening-- every 7, 20, or 50 years; whatever-- to reapportion land based on need. And in fact, without knowing it, they may have-- the next time a land tenure crisis turns up, the precedent set in 1978 may provide a solution.
Third, the villagers continued to supply agricultural products to the state and the collective. Of course, they had no other choice-- and in a similar manner, village communes in Western Europe and Russia supplied regular crops to feudal lords, the church, and the tsarist state. These types of organizations are layered parasitically over the collective, but there may be a way to return their better features-- the feature of a collective which can redistribute the products of agriculture as needed-- while democratizing them and eliminating the element of coercion. I don't have a good example of how this might work. What is needed is a mechanism to distribute the agricultural surplus from the country and to get industrial tools to the farmers. The freed market is one such mechanism; voluntary cooperatives are another; local production of tools via 3D printers is another. My point is that the villagers can, under capitalism, act as atomized individuals, but in a postcapitalist society they will be better served by continuing various projects in common, such as maintaining schools, libraries, and other public buildings on their common land.
I'm glad this was interesting! Foucault was pretty aware of religion and what was in the Bible, hence why my account is a bit inaccurate for the sake of simplicity. But Christianity actually plays a pretty prominent role in most of his books. In Sexuality, for example, he is especially interested in the "confession" and how it transforms from a religious idea to an everyday one. I'm not sure what my personal thoughts are on Foucault and whether or not I agree. But if you wanna give him a fair shake I recommend reading one of his books, maybe Discipline and Punishment, because my summary doesn't do him justice.
I'm an outsider to the field also (an enthusiast), but so was Foucault. And I'm doing research in an entirely unrelated field. That said, Foucault has been applied to many other fields. Some are obvious: Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Gay/Lesbian Studies, etc. But, here are a few examples of fairly recent books that either use him directly or gently draw on him:
The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics by Tania Murray Li: an interesting in-depth study on Indonesia
Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China’s One-Child Policy by Vanessa Fong: another study focusing on a particular state, this type how China's One-Child Policy shapes children and families. She probably draws more on Bourdieu than Foucault, but both are in there.
Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity by Ann Ferguson: for those in the education field, Ferguson analyzes how schools are part of the system creating and reinforcing the idea of the Black, male criminal. Note, it's not that schools perpetuate stereotypes, nor that school policies are discriminatory because of the image black males have in American society. She argues that schools CREATE this identity, straight from Foucault.
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott: This one is pretty well known (relative to the others) and it's a pretty fun read. He doesn't draw exclusively on Foucault, but it is a big part.
Pardon the tangent, but I love the underlying themes of Pacific Rim. It touches on so many of the deeper things that give meaning to life, or cause anxiety. I'm going to go a bit wild here, but bear with me... I've been reading this book called Existential Psychotherapy, and it focuses on four key fears that are distinct to the human experience and must be overcome for a person to have a peaceful life. They are: the fear of death, the fear of squandering one's freedom, the fear of isolation (i.e. the inability to connect fully with any other human), and the fear of a meaninglessnes universe. Pacific Rim addresses each of these in exciting ways. The fear of death is often overcome by a simulated sense of immortality gained through personal achievement: a jager pilot definitely gets to tap into this sense of fulfillment. The fear of squandering freedom is overcome by Raleigh when he makes the decision to return to piloting, instead of wasting his life in futility working on the wall. Mako also gets to relish empowerment by exercising her will (an embodiment of freedom) in becoming the pilot she wants to be. The fear of psychological isolation is dealt with in a literal and compelling manner when two pilots get to fuse their minds in the drift. And the fear of meaningless is ameliorated when the entire population of the earth is threatened by a menacing force: what could be more meaningful than pushing back against this threat?
Μπορείς να της πείς
"ξέρεις, διάβασα λίγο Freud (https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Lectures-Psychoanalysis-Sigmund-Freud/dp/0871401185) και λιγο Eric Berne (http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/psychiatry/) . Δεν το ήξερα ότι μία απο τις καταστάσεις του αναλυόμενου είναι να προσπαθεί να παίξει τον ψυχολόγο! Κοίτα να δείς και σε ρώταγα για το επαγγελμά σου, υποσυνήδητα! Αυτό σημαίνει ότι πάει καλά η θεραπεία, έτσι;"
και το κλείνεις εκεί, και τρώει τη φλασιά της γιατι ξέχασε τη θεωρία δυο βασικών ψυχολόγων.
Αν σε ρωτήσει "γιατί τα διάβασες", λες "ειμαι γενικώς του βιβλίου. μετά αφού ενδιαφέρθηκα για το επαγγελμά σου, είπα να δώ τι μπορώ να καταλάβω μόνος μου"
Κλείνει διπλά η συζήτηση και προχωράτε γρήγορα παρακάτω, σε περίπτωση που είναι αδιάβαστη.
Check out The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell if you have not already! It's actually mentioned in the second paragraph in the Wikipedia article you linked. It's one of my favourite books of all-time.
As for why we seem so naturally/innately receptive to these narratives, personally in my opinion I think to some extent we think that's true because of confirmation bias. "Oh look at how so many people love Stars Wars." I think if we look we can see a number of narratives don't follow the Hero's Journey. But for those that do, I think the hero's journey is still so engaging because from one POV it can just be summarized as: a protagonist has a problem, the protagonist goes to solve the problem, they experience challenges in doing so, they receive help as well, and then finally they solve the problem. A story's gotta follow those broad strokes.
But great book from Joseph Campbell nonetheless!
Edit: Whoops, just noticed you asked about other universal plot structures, you didn't ask to read more about the hero's journey. Unfortunately I don't know of other universal plot structures off the top of my head. I'm still gonna leave this comment.
As someone who does a lot of meta and academic literary discussion on comics, I am 100% certain that a paper exists about psychopathy and the Batman universe; it might not be about Bruce and psychopathy (most essays about psychopathy related to Batman that I've read have focused on either the Joker or Two-Face), but there have definitely been papers written about the philosophy, ethics, morality, and psychology of Batman and the Batfamily. You're going to find most of these types of discussions in the field of comics studies and academic historical/literary criticism rather than psychology due to the nature of the topic. For some interesting paper/essay collections, see:
It uh....honestly might also be worth it to read into the 'Seduction of the Innocent' controversy and relevant academic papers about the work, given that it directly involved Batman comics. Books like Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code and The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America would be particularly helpful there.
Edit: Also just as a sidenote, as you mentioned in another comment Batman as a psychopath isn't even a hot take; it's a lukewarm take made by people who don't actually read comics. Batman, as he is generally portrayed in mainverse comics, is decidedly not a psychopath.
Besides the usual books a history/political science student will read, a few really got my attention. On my bookshelf, I currently have:
Political Ethics in an Age of Terror.] (http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7578.html)
I love how your proposed solution to urban poverty in Brazil starts with "literally bulldoze all of their homes."
Yeah. That'll work.
Read as much as you have to to do well in the class, and never stop reading because you disagree. Only stop reading because you are bored/unimpressed.
You should absolutely read "Seeing Like a State". The author is an anarchist, though he doesn't believe anarcho-capitalism is a valid form of anarchism. Despite his dislike for ancaps, his book is valuable to us. He dismantles the state down to the very essence that leads it to act in the overbearing and destructive way that it does.
https://smile.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/949/01/
Page 6
Or, more reliably: https://www.amazon.com/Publication-Manual-American-Psychological-Association/dp/1433805618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487637630&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=apa+manual
Alenka Zupancic: Ethics of the Real
Even if this is supposed to be a part of something larger, it should have its own arc. You know what's supposed to happen as the author, so maybe to you, it seems like its fine. But you need to look and craft these things from the perspective of the audience.
I'll use, say, Cowboy Bebop as an example. It's almost entirely a series of self-contained episodes, save for a few episodes that touch on this relationship between Spike and Vicious. But, the self-contained episodes are often iterating and riffing on some of the same overall themes that these connected episodes are built on. Or, when they aren't, they're carried on pure entertainment value. They feel good. They're flat out fun to watch. Or they revel in the absurd, which ties into the show thematically and also rides pure entertainment value.
Fallout: New Vegas does this as well. Side-quests seem self-contained, more or less, but they build on your understanding of the world and they often build on this theme of nostalgia for the Old World, or Old World Blues, as the game eventually puts it. All of the companion character side-quests riff on this theme of clinging to the past or moving forward, the factions all follow in this theme (whether its the major factions modeling their selves after Old World powers or the Brotherhood of Steel finding that they don't belong in the world anymore, so they either need to adapt or cling to the past and die). All of these side quests are self-contained, thus having their own arc and feel satisfying to complete, but also they build on the overarching theme of the game and give the player something to think about once everything is said and done.
You can do this with your own work. You can figure out what it is that you want it to be about and make build on those themes, even just from the start. If you have ideas and themes you want to explore, you can explore them from the start in whatever way you want, and tie it all into something more grand later if you're telling an overall story, or just keep riffing on them in different self-contained scenarios. The main, best thing to keep in mind though is that if this is intended for an audience, you need to write it with the audience experience in mind. Your ideas could be incredible, but the audience would never know it if you've written it to be impenetrable to them, or just so boring that it's unlikely they'll continue to read to get to the good parts.
As an example, I love the show Eureka Seven. Somewhere towards the middle of its run, it has a small arc with a couple of characters named Ray and Charles that culminates in some of the best TV I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. But, I can almost never recommend this show to anyone. The first ~10 to 15ish episodes are a chore. The show sort of acts like you should know who all the characters are already, or doesn't give you a whole lot to work with in terms of giving you something to come back for. For this reason, it took me from when it aired back in 2005 all the way until 2014 to finally finish the show from front to back. There was a ton of good there, but it was so, so difficult to get to it through the start of the show.
So, Entertainment value. Have you read Fiona Staples' and Brian K Vaughan's Saga? The very first panel of the very first page oozes entertainment value, while also giving some great banter to help establish the characters and introduce us to the world. This is a strong opening, and even if there is some lull to the comic afterwards (which there may or may not be depending on your tastes), its given you a taste of what it is and a promise of what its capable of delivering. This is a really great thing to have. If you're aware of Homestuck, it's the GameFAQs FAQ that serves as the end of the comic's first Act that suddenly shows you how the comic will format itself: Lots of nonsensical goofing around until hitting an emotional climax that re-contextualizes the events you had just seen. This isn't at the start of the comic, but entertainment value carries the comic until that point, assuming you're into programming jokes and goofball shenanigans. But, this scene comes so comparatively late that it's likely you've already dropped the comic before getting to the "good part" if these jokes didn't carry the comic for you.
Actual Advice and Critique
Comics are hard, because, unless you have a writer or have an artist to partner with, you're doing both jobs, and the quality of the thing depends both on being well-written and well drawn (or at least some balance between the two that makes it palatable to read). I think that if you think in an actual episodic way, you could improve your writing a ton. With this comic, the arc would be "how did Lasereye become Lasereye?" It's potentially a pretty good premise, right? You'll establish a character and have plenty of chances to create entertaining scenarios because... It's your story! Lasereye became Lasereye in whatever way you decide he did. Go crazy, tell us a story! How did some young, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid turn into some dude in a slum with one eye glowing brighter than ever and the other dim and jaded? Telling this in three pages would actually be a great exercise.
Your art is rough in that it looks like you could use learning some base fundamental things like human anatomy. Your palette and the food stand itself reminds me of Kill Six Billion Demons though, which is great. You've created a good atmosphere in panels 1, 2, and the last panel on the last page, despite the artwork itself being rough. That's great! You know how a thing should feel. That's a great thing to have down pat that will only continue to be a boon as your technical skill improves (and it will if you work at it!). I think that if you buckle down and grind through learning how to draw, you could make very great, visually appealing work.
There's a problem in page flow on Page 2. Here I've shown how your page directs the eye with red lines. The way the page is laid out, you end up reading the fifth panel before you read the fourth panel, which will cause a reader to have to double back to read things in order. You don't want that. You'll wanna keep an eye out for how your pages read in the future. Just give them a once-over and ask where the eye would naturally go following the lines on the page.
So, if you aren't currently, learning human anatomy would be a great place to start placing effort. If you have access, figure drawing classes and the such would be a great way to start working on that. It helps immensely to have others around who can help you if you aren't sure what you're doing at first. Books on comics in general would be a good place to go as well. Understanding Comics and Making Comics, both by by Scott McCloud, are good introductory texts. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner and Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist also by Will Eisner would be good as well.
For writing, Dan Harmon's Channel 101 guides will be great tutorials as he's one of the best working writers today in episodic TV. I'm aware this isn't directly comics, but the best writing advice is rarely going to come from a comics-focused book. Will Eisner will tell you how to use visuals to your advantage in telling a story, but the nitty-gritty of actually writing will have to come from somewhere else. The Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Cambell may help you understand structure further. This is what Dan Harmon is riffing on and working off of with his Story Circles, but adapted slightly for the sake of episodic television. Film Crit Hulk, an online movie critic/ the Incredible Hulk has a screenwriting book called Screenwriting 101. It's invaluable. I highly recommend it, even if it isn't directly about comic writing. You'll be able to adapt the advice as you work in your own medium.
Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces?
Weight is a combination of diet and exercise, but that doesn't mean that they share an equal part. Most of your weight gain or loss is going to be governed by your diet (think 80%). Keep in mind, you can't outrun your fork.
That's okay though, as eating well is frugal. Start here.
If you don't know what your goals are, you'll likely never change your behavior. Find your maintenance calorie intake, eat at or below this while fulfilling nutritional requirements (MyFitnessPal isn't a bad way to track this), and then use exercise (body weight or otherwise) to increase your calorie deficit even more.
Keep in mind that lean body mass (LBM) will burn more calories than that fatty stuff, so doing body weight or dumbell exercises is always a good path to take. Head over to /r/fitness for some good workout advice that will meet your goals and budget.
Good luck, and if you need a little extra help and motivation, /r/loseit isn't a bad subreddit to frequent.
Here's a worthwhile section to excerpt, in anticipation of those who may feel inclined to write off the writer as some right-wing conservative:
>Let me conclude by returning to the theme I led with: in this highly-polarized political moment, it is generally assumed that if someone is pushing back against a popular left-leaning narrative, or espousing an inconvenient view for the left, then they are de facto aligned with the right, intentionally or not. Beauchamp’s rebuttal attempt provides a great example of this fundamentalist thinking: highlighting systemic political bias or threats to free speech on campus will help the right – regardless of one’s intentions –and so, apparently, we should not talk about these issues (except, perhaps, to deny they are a big deal).
>
>I am deeply familiar with this “logic”: as a Muslim scholar who, until recently, worked exclusively on national security and foreign policy issues, it was regularly *suggested* to me that criticism of the “War on Terror” – especially by “people like me” — provided cover or ammunition for al-Qaeda, ISIS and their sympathizers. In the view of these critics (mostly on the right), I was aiding and abetting “the enemy,” intentionally or not.
>
>There was even an article published in the National Security Law Journal which argued that I, and academics like me (by which the author seemed to mean: Muslim, left-leaning, and politically “radical”) should be viewed as enemies of the state — and could legitimately be targeted by national security and law enforcement agencies. This article was eventually retracted, and its author forced to resign from his position at West Point (as described in the Washington Post here). But suffice it to say, I *get* the kind of narrative Beauchamp is trying to spin here, and I reject it whole-cloth.
>
>I challenge U.S. national security and foreign policy precisely to render it more effective, efficient and beneficent – because I actually have “skin in the game” with regards to how the military is deployed. I relentlessly criticize bad research on Trump and his supporters because it is important for the opposition to be clear-eyed and level-headed about why he won – to help ensure it does not happen again. A similar type of motivation undergirds my critique of Beauchamp and Yglesias:
>
>It does not help the left or academics to respond to distortions and exaggerations on the right by denying that there is any significant problem. It is especially damaging for “wonks” or academics to dress up these kinds of political narratives (essentially, propaganda) as social research – even more so if this “research” suffers from glaring errors or shortcomings like the essays criticized here.
>
>Such a strategy is self-defeating because it is the left, those in humanities and social sciences, those from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups, and those who seek to give voice to these perspectives or to help these populations, who stand to lose the most if the credibility of social research is further eroded due to perceived partisanship.
>
>....
>
>I get why many on the left, especially at elite universities and media outlets, would rather just say “nothing to see here,” than to confront these realities. But it will not do, for all of us to simply close ranks and insist “there is no problem, we will make no changes.” Because there is a problem — and change is coming to institutions of higher learning, one way or another.
Active imagination was the term Jung applied to a method of approaching the unconscious towards engaging in its contents; emotion, dreams and personified images (archetypes), using imagination creatively in response by which a conscious integration process is undertaken thus affecting healing. It is based on what he identified as a function of the psyche he called the 'transcendent function', both a function and a process that brings together opposing and unconscious aspects of ones psyche into a more harmonious and balanced relationship towards a realisation of wholeness (or Self, in a Jungian sense).
>The tendencies of the conscious and the unconscious are the two factors that together make up the transcendent function. It is called “transcendent” because it makes the transition from one attitude to another organically possible.
“The Transcendent Function,” CW 8, par. 145.
>Once the unconscious content has been given form and the meaning of the formulation is understood, the question arises as to how the ego will relate to this position, and how the ego and the unconscious are to come to terms. This is the second and more important stage of the procedure, the bringing together of opposites for the production of a third: the transcendent function. At this stage it is no longer the unconscious that takes the lead, but the ego.
ibid., par. 181.
Means employed to actively engage in this process, entering and being attendant to unconscious imaginative products as they arise, can involve writing, drawing, painting, performance with ones body, clay or sand work, and so on.
The method involves holding and focusing in a particular state, a mood, an emotion or image, and actively, consciously, engaging it, asking questions, drawing it out in some manner, entertaining it imaginatively, towards extending its content, to develop a more consciously grasped relationship to whatever it is and represents; that is to make the unconscious conscious, and thus affect integration.
There's a book called Jung on Active Imagination by Joan Chodorow, that gathers together Jungs separate writings on the subject, and another that contextualises and expands it in relation to the concept of The Transcendent Function. These might be helpful towards further clarification?
The following is from the introduction in Chodorow's book:
>Active imagination has two parts or stages: First, letting the unconscious come up; and, second, coming to terms with the unconscious. As I understand Jung, it is a natural process that may go on over many years. Sometimes it takes a long time to assimilate the material. Jung spent the last fifty years of his life coming to terms with the emotions and fantasies that at first overwhelmed him..
p10
>In his discussion of the first step, Jung speaks of the need for systematic exercises to eliminate critical attention and produce a vacuum in consciousness. This part of the experience is familiar to many psychological approaches and forms of meditation. It involves a suspension of our rational, critical facilities in order to give free rein to fantasy..
ibid.
>There are many ways to approach active imagination. At first, the unconscious takes the lead while the conscious ego serves as a kind of attentive inner witness and perhaps scribe or recorder. The task is to gain access to the contents of the unconscious.
>In the second part of active imagination, consciousness takes the lead. As the affects and images of the unconscious flow into awareness, the ego enters actively into the experience. This part might begin with a spontaneous string of insights; the larger task of evaluation and integration remains. insight must be converted into an ethical obligation - to live it in life.
ibid.
Further, elsewhere in the introduction (it's a really good introduction, summarising what this method is about), it mentions proposed subdivisions of the process developed by Jungian Authors. Marie-Louise Von Franz for example proposed; 1) Empty the 'mad mind' of the ego; 2) Let an unconscious fantasy image arise; 3) Give it some form of expression; and 4) Ethical confrontation; "Later on she adds: apply it to ordinary life." There are a number of other variations from other authors described, more or less covering the same ground and process: The task and approach remains that of bringing unconscious content into consciousness to be confronted and integrated.
There is a caveat to this though:
>The major danger of the method involves being overwhelmed by the powerful affects, impulses and images of the unconscious. It should be attempted only by psychologically mature individuals who are capable of withstanding a powerful confrontation with the unconscious. A well-developed ego standpoint is needed so that the conscious and unconsciousness may encounter each other as equals..
ibid.
There's more to it that could be elaborated on, but that's the gist of it, as far as I understand it and work with presently.
Have you read Jung's Flying Saucers? You should.
You have talent, keep working and you'll be fine.
The harshness,
You're making simple verb-tense errors all over your piece. Is it taking place in past-tense? he fed small grapes into her mouth
Or is it taking place in present-tense? she pouts to him, before he looks to her with an icy scowl
Both are acceptable. I personally prefer present-tense because I feel it adds immediacy and tension, but that's entirely a personal thing and should have no bearing on your own choices, but you need to make a choice and stick with it.
You need to format your writing properly before you show it to people. Things like paragraph breaks and indentations for lines of dialogue, and there are a couple of sentences where meaning completely breaks down, To an outside observer, he might seem slightly schizophrenic with his self affection, and quite considerably moronic of Strel, there was an observer. I have no idea what the second part of this sentence is supposed to convey.
There are a few points where your sentence construction gets a little clumsy, where the words get in the way of meaning or feeling, Strel made a vicious grin as a robed and turban-bound being huddled where it once was. (Made a vicious grin? Where what once was?)
wild were the actions of the people enamored with it (Enamoured with the market? How were their actions wild?)
However, there is a clear sense of creativity in your writing and a sense of determination to put words together in interesting ways that is impressive for someone of your age. If I were your English teacher, and I teach High School English, I'd be encouraging the hell out of you to keep writing because I think there is a lot of potential here.
Right now my suggestions would be to read everything you can. In particular, look beyond fantasy to books which are highly regarded for their literary merit. I'd strongly recommend Salman Rushdie (The Satanic Verses), Orhan Pamuk (My Name is Red), and Hillary Mantel (Wolf Hall).
As a fantasy fan there are things to really like in all of these books, and they're all examples of what writers at the absolute peak of the craft are capable of doing with language.
The second thing I'd suggest is to practice writing short pieces. It's all well and good to leap into a novel, but the ability to structure a beginning, middle, and end to a story is vital. If you can get classic story-structure skills mastered at a young age you're way, way, way ahead of the curve.
Finally, read The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. It's a non-fiction book about what Campbell calls "The Monomyth." A classic mythical story-structure repeated over and over and over again in mythic tales from around the world, and utterly essential reading for anyone who wants to write Fantasy.
Legible in this context means 'able to be brought under the control the state'. This has the full definition and theoretical model in which it plays a role. It also has a few examples you're looking for. Well sort of, you're definition of a state is wrong. But that's not relevant, I can still provide an example: the Berbers
> it would be that I don't trust a woman's brothers and/or father to be all that good at supporting her right to bodily autonomy
I think this is the right critique for you, as a feminist.
The cultures we are talking about here don't see individuals as the fundamental unit of society. They see families in that role. (You could actually think about the metaphor "head of the family" as suggesting the family as an organic body and whole, in fact).
Now, on the one hand, I think that means you're probably missing the mark about men sympathizing with each other, because a person thinking of themselves as a man, with class solidarity with other men, requires a kind of individualist notion about identity that is, in my experience, absolutely alien to people for whom the family is the fundamental unit. They're not a man - they're a father, say. It's their daughter, not a woman. Those are the identities.
If you're sharply committed to Enlightenment notions about individual rights and autonomy, this notion of family and familial obligation and duty are incompatible.
I do think the original observations about the steelmanning of honor culture, above, though, do get at something really crucial in this broader conversation.
Honor culture largely operates at a very local, individually adjudicated level. It's hyper sensitive to the particularities and nuances of individual contexts and relationships and histories. In this sense, it's of a piece with much of the kinds of local, pre-rational social organization that James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State discusses as exactly the kind of rules that are invisible to states, that centralizing states try to sweep away.
And a lot of the infractions (especially sexual harassment) we're talking about here also operate at very, very local levels, with innuendo and ambiguity and uncertain norms and expectations and he-said-she-said situations cropping up. And it's all very fluid and uncertain. Whatever its other flaws, the localness and particularness of honor culture is operating at the same general social level as these infractions.
It seems like all these discussions about getting the state involved about harassment flounder on these issues. No one can really say very clearly what behavior is or is not line crossing, because it's so sensitive to the woman, and her culture, and her history, and her expectations, and how she responds. It's so sensitive to the shared history of the individuals interacting, and how they read each other, too. And meanwhile, the state is very dumb, and very, very powerful. We have a lot of rules to bind the state's hands because it's so powerful and so dumb, such a blunt instrument. A lot of people have complained about the way "innocent until proven guilty" is such an incredibly high bar when it comes to questions of sexual misconduct that it just functionally let's almost all abusers get off the hook unless they are astonishingly egregious. But there's good reason for that - state power has to be used very, very judiciously.
And because women are all so very different from each other, with so many different traditions and cultures and temperaments and expectations and preferences, and because these matters are of the most intimate nature, it's not clear that the quest for more explicit and easily understood and enforced universal rules of the sort that Enlightenment states prefer will ever be completed.
Of course, honor culture historically has also been incredibly violent, and has a nasty habit of spiraling off into Hatfield-McCoy types of vendettas as punishment is met by retaliation is met by retaliation is met by...
Given all that, I think this is why, in the past, as a kind of middle ground, the centralized state didn't play much of a role in these questions, and instead people often navigated their love lifes by participating in voluntary organizations like churches (that don't have access to the monopoly on force that states have) that could make much, much greater and more invasive demands on them and could also filter bad actors out, and that could also rely more heavily on local knowledge and context for adjudicating conflict and setting norms. By being voluntary, people who were unhappy with them could leave. Also by being voluntary, they could make much deeper demands of their members to live up to pro-social ideals, solving a bunch of coordination problems. And, by claiming a kind of communal authority for dispute resolution, they could prevent escalation to violence, a la honor culture.
But none of that is compatible with more atomization, and a focus on loose ties and individual rights, with people freed from those kinds of invasive voluntary communities. It's not compatible with people moving all the time, and not wanting to lock themselves into a smaller, bordered communities.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Like-State-Condition-Institution/dp/0300078153
Has anyone read this and is it good?
!ping READING
If I was going to provide someone with a list of books that best expressed my current thinking on the Political Economy these would be my top ones:
There are, of course many more books that could go on this list. But the above list is a good sampling of my personal philosophy of political economy. It is not meant as a list of books to change your mind but simply as a list of books that are descriptive of my current belief that we should be orientated towards high (sustainable) economic growth & more decentralization.
Some honorable mentions:
As a self proclaimed "Libertarian Crunchy Con" I have to add The Quest for Community & Crunchy Cons
The book The Fourth Economy fundamentally changed my professional direction in life.
Anti-Fragile was another book full of mind blowing ideas and shifted my approach to many things.
The End of Jobs is a great combination of The Fourth Economy & Anti-Fragile (among other concepts) into a more real-world useful set of ideas.
Markets Not Capitalism is a powerful reminder that it is not Capitalism per se that is important but the transformational power of markets that need be unleashed.
You will note that I left out pure economic books, this was on purpose. There are tons of good intro to econ type books and any non-trained economist should read a bunch from a bunch of different perspectives. With that said I am currently working my way through the book Choice and if it stays as good as it has started that will probably get added to my core list.
So many more I could I list like The Left, The Right, & The State or The Problem of Political Authority and on it goes...
I am still looking for a "manifesto" of sorts for the broad movement towards decentralization (I have a few possibilities on my 'to read list') so if you know of any that might fit that description let me know.
People use "brain washing" too freely.
My opinion is, people are too ashamed and scared to admit their own weaknesses.
Let me give you an example;
Bill Clinton. People love the guy. But here's the thing, a ton of people very much dislike his politics.
I forget the exact quote, but one of those people said, "You hate Bill Clinton before you meet him and after he leaves, but while he's there talking to you, you like the guy."
People can blame Scientology all they like, but I think it's exactly what the name sounds like; it's the religion of science. And it uses the science that everyone claims isn't a science, psychology.
Having a degree in psychology, and having had more people than I can count tell me I "should have picked a real degree," I can't help but feel a guilty twinge of happiness when I see people say things like "Scientology brainwashes people!"
No; they're using psychological principles to make you not only accept and like any horse poo they spout, but they change your beliefs. Brain wash? Pfft. They're doing what Bill Clinton does in his interviews.
It actually helps them that you claim they're brainwashing people, because it keeps people from learning the science behind what they're really doing (which just so happens to be my "worthless" degree). Words like brainwashing might as well be the modern day word for "magic," because 99% of people don't actually know what that means, or how people really change other people's minds. Another modern-magical word is "hypnosis." Everyone knows the word, and people are like "Oooo, magic..." but again, 99% of people don't know what it is or how it works. There are literal "magic shows" that have hypnotists, and people call things like that "mental magic."
Calling it brain washing is basically telling 99% of people, "It's not your fault. You couldn't help it. They used magic on you!" And for the people saying they were brainwashed? You notice how they never give real details about what the people actually did to them to "make" them want it? They might as well be saying "They used voodoo on me! I couldn't stop myself!"
Well you can stop yourself, it wasn't "brainwashing," and people want what Scientology has to offer because they're using science to make people want it (like Bill Clinton can control an interview on a supposedly Republican television network, and manage to look good, and make it look like everyone there loves him and he's in control). Even if they crash and burn as a religion, which I doubt, they'll make a ton of money in marketing.
If you're interested in the science, I'd recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Master-Personal-Magnetism-ebook/dp/B005GSZZ24/
and
http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X/
and
http://www.amazon.com/My-Voice-Will-Go-You/dp/0393301354/
and
http://www.amazon.com/Sleights-Mind-neuroscience-reveals-brains-ebook/dp/B003ZDNZYM/
John Fowles The Magus should suit you just fine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magus_%28novel%29
You might also check these out:
Journey to the End of Night- Louis Ferdinand Celine
Sometimes a Great Notion- Ken Kesey
Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song and The Naked and the Dead
Cervantes Don Quixote
T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land"
Lolita- Vladimir Nabokov
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets- Stephen Crane
Anything by Charles Dickens
and I would suggest you read The Freud Reader as he was hugely inspirational for a lot of writers. It helps gain a better understanding of characters.
http://www.amazon.com/Freud-Reader-Sigmund/dp/0393314030/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1370038703&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+freud+reader
If I think of more I will come back. Have a good summer!
This.
Titus Burckhardt - Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul
Jung - Psychology and Alchemy
Jung - Alchemical Studies
Samael Aun Weor - The Perfect Matrimony: The Door to Enter into Initiation, Tantra and Sexual Alchemy Unveiled (don't take this guy too seriously because he's a bit of a nutter, but he is certainly worth a read)
Though it's not a book, also check out this album of images, particularly this image and this one
As for all the symbols, I highly recommend getting a dictionary of symbols and reading it straight through, from A to Z. My favorites are The Herder Dictionary of Symbols and The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols.
> I wonder if humanities curious nature towards mysticism is inevitable and that all paths, no matter how diverse, will always use the same formats and formulas to tell their tales.
This is one of the central tenants of Jung's research (well you know "research") and Joseph Cambell basically wrote the book about it... https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936 sorry if Im being didactic/eg if you already knew that... its a really facinating question/idea. As far as "Embedded in our DNA" eg for a more scientific approach this book is AMAZING https://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072, even though it does veer from the purely scientific, the idea is that our brains have certain regions which act on our spiritual relationship to our "gods" which manifested themselves as voices in our earlier evolutionary states and that as we became more rational our brains still retained these functional but at the same time "disfunctional" anatomy leading to experiances that result for some in uncontrollable states, like schizophrenics for example ... the way he "proves" all of this stuff is a comparison of his experiments in neuroscience with historical texts, legends, sagas, and other implements of earlier humanity like archeological finds. if you are interested in this topic this is an absolutely Mindblowing book right here just saying!
Finally:
"Is this part of our evolutionary growth or yearning for divinity?
Our ego's thirst for magical power or trying to step out of our physical limitations?" I think you are right in that we yearn because, I beleive at least, our evolutionary state has one foot in the past and one in the future, we have evolved beyond our normal need for mere survival and we now use our brains for complex creation and navigation of human institutions but we dont really know "why", we dont really know what meaning is becuase "meaning" is a brand new thing! and without it the universe seems devoid of purpose and therefore I beleive we fill in those gaps with these notions and art, music etc, art and literature helps us define ourselves and music helps us 'engage' with the harmonics/vibrations of the universe on deeper levels (as it is really the only category here that actually relies on the schientific make up of the universe i.e. the ways that ratios of harmonic waves sound pleasing or displeasing based on their relationships in time...). I just love this stuff, am also agnostic but love to celebrate all ideas no matter how objectively "wrong" they may be, thats of c why Im on this sub! Love your questions/keep on searching!!!
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, a Jungian psychoanalyst.
Basically he looks at a bunch of the world's myths and relates it to the hero's journey. Really right down my alley with my dream interpretation and creative pursuits.
Personally I think a better questions is 'how should one read Jung?' I have a friend who studied psychology with a neuroscience concentration, and that area doesn't tend to take Jung or most psychoanalysts seriously, and while that's not my background, I can see why. I used to be someone who took those methods of self-description and analysis very seriously, but in addition to occasionally taking me some weird places, it's really not taken seriously by most professionals in the fields of, say, psychology.
That said, there are a couple reasons to still study psychoanalytics. One is if you're interested in things like art, film or literature, which were all hugely influenced by ideas about the subconscious. I read a lot of James Joyce and Marcel Proust, and those writers can't be fully understood without some decent understanding of the understandings of psychology that fed into those authors works (Joyce even had his daughter be analyzed by Jung). Artists like Picasso and Pollock were heavily inspired by psychoanalysis, and much can be said for numerous filmmakers, and even some interesting religious study has been done with their work (Joseph Campbell comes to mind here). So if you're interested in that angle, I'd say go for it, as they've got a lot of interesting insights into how art, literature and even religion work.
Another way you can read them is for personal growth, rather than as a transmission of analytic information (I'm not sure I'm phrasing that very well; apologies). I have a few authors that I love to read, but would hesitate to use them to back up some assertion made in an academic paper, unless it was for a very specific purpose, or maybe just finding some flowery quote that I put at the front of a chapter to be pretentious. Jung's been great for me to understand myself, but I would be wary of using him in some academic setting (outside of some where it makes specific sense). I read him like I do Joseph Campbell, Peter Sloterdijk and Allan Watts.
TLDR: Yes, but only sorta. Expect personal growth, but not rigorous psychology, and you should find a lot of value in his work. I'd also recommend Joseph Campbell, since he developed a lot of psychoanalytic stuff into some somewhat more accessible work, and even edited some of Jung's work into an anthology.
Historically, human beings have rarely ever been aware of the control exerted upon them. Supposedly, realizing that control exists can be both an empowering and traumatizing event.
>When I became conscious of what my situation was, I thought of the best way to escape without being caught. I knew that if I didn't find that way, I could be killed.
Also, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces can aid readers in recognizing the timeless narrative techniques that are used to shape societies -- one mind at a time.
Okay, I read it all. And here's my critique, Blangy. :-)
While the read is still fresh in my mind, I want to talk about my overall opinion on how your story can improve.
Maybe try Watching the opening scenes of really good movies. Pixar and Disney have it good. They know when to start. You can also (re)read the first chapter of a book you like. Ask yourself: Why does it start here? What is the opening conflict? For a bit more info, I'd highly recommend this video on How to Write a good first chapter and this video on How to write a good first page
Maybe try reading The Hero With One Thousand Faces. It's a classic and is full of information on how to structure stories. :-)
> His belt felt heavy, weighed down by the heavy scabbard in which sat his castle-forged steel sword. He had, like most of things he owned, won it in a brawl with some unsuspecting mercenary or lordsguard.
Mercenary? Lots of them were knights who were paid soldiers. They were highly trained from the age of 14 to 21. If they weren't knights, they would still be tough dudes. How would he encounter them?
> Whilst he seemed somewhat skinny, his height hid his true strength.
Lots of guys were tall. This gap of logic made me lose interest in the story.
Maybe try Giving him some training in swordsmanship. Maybe a relative could have helped him..? For giving Peter training, you'd have to work on a word building bible because I don't think there were that many opportunities in medieval times to get sword training that wasn't second-rate. I'd recommend this video on making a world-building bible I just wanna say that I love this girls' videos and I'd recommend all of her other ones, too. :-)
5)
>The dying fire flickered weakly as it clung to its last few embers.
Right off the bat, I expected the entire chapter to be about the feeling of... well... something dying. The first sentence of a chapter is important. A good deal of the time, it can set the tone of the chapter. But I was disappointed when that didn't happen.
Hmm... that's all I can think of right now for improvements. There are some sentence structure tidbits, too. But those are minor. I just want to focus on the big picture.
Now, on to things I liked about it.
> He could only remember her long auburn hair that he had buried his face into on countless nights when nightmares stopped him from sleeping.
Then later,
> The last thing he had seen of his mother was just a brief moment of her kicking and scratching at the guards as they forced her away from her son, pulling her from the auburn hair that had kept Peter so safe.
Damn... that association and then that connection later was very poignant. I think that little tidbit can be really useful if it's presented at different times. But yeah, it was beautiful, Bangly! :D
>His fur was matted from the rain and dirt, and looked black where it had once been brown. Peter had forgotten the name the buxom innkeeper from whom he had bought the dog off of had given him, but Mud seemed to be happy no matter what Peter called him, and the name did suit the dog well enough.
This struck out to me because it describes the dog in an interesting way. Well done. :-)
It is confusing, but not something that can be easily summarized in a post.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038192/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_SHufAbVP5DDP8 is still a good breakdown of the modern pagan movement and different groups you might find. http://www.witchvox.com looks like it was designed in the 90s but is still a good resource and is updated, you can find groups there too. http://wildhunt.org is a news blog if you want to see what’s going on today. There are other sites but that’ll get you started.
You can probably tell some folks are a bit sensitive about history. Some swear up and down that their traditions go back unbroken since forever, others will say that all neopagan traditions are reconstructionist and formed in the last century or so (give or take 50 years). The sensitivity comes from people feeling that the newer the tradition the less legitimate it is… but aren’t all religions and spiritual paths made up by someone?
Here’s the thing. You are in charge of your own spiritual journey and your connection to whatever you call your higher power/s is your own and no one else’s. Imho humans are creatures of habit and ritual. It sets the mind to task, even if that’s getting a cup of coffee and reading your email before work to help set up your day. Pagan rituals are a fame work to help you create sacred space, and there’s a psychology to it. What Wiccans call raising a cone of power is similar to what Jim Morrison did in his trancelike long performances where they would speed up and slow down the tempo, ending it in a release. Lots of pagan rituals across many paths use this old technique of syncing heartbeats with music. Other religions use this to a greater or lesser degree but most pagans use it with intent along with myth and symbolism of the wheel of the year which is a death/rebirth myth we re-enact over and over. It’s up to you to figure out what it all means. Beyond historic fact you decide your truth. There’s no dogma really. All the different traditions do is provide structure to work in. There’s no ‘true’ path. Just yours.
If you like more academic reading, I suggest The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_C9ufAbYFREXB5
Out of Your Mind: Tricksters, Interdependence, and the Cosmic Game of Hide and Seek https://www.amazon.com/dp/1622037529/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_G.ufAb9673FJ3
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345409876/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_J-ufAbH37W34C
None of these are ‘pagan’ books, think of them more as companion philosophy/psychology behind myths. The last book is geared more towards women but it’s a good read regarding the female archetype in myth.
Nobody can give you concrete answers. You gotta do what anyone curious must do. Read and figure it out for yourself.
I can't recomend or say this enough.
You need to read three books:
It is important to learn these basics, as you need to learn to walk, before you can fly a fighter jet.
Happy to answer any and all questions for you!!! But these books are a must!!! I read them all, and still have Hero & Power of Myth on my desk.
We really need to make a sticky thread for this topic as it comes up almost weekly. Also, further reading on this topic that is useful includes the following,
Jung on Active Imagination edited by Joan Chodorow
https://www.amazon.com/Jung-Active-Imagination-C-G/dp/0691015767/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RQMWTAA2HM0C&amp;keywords=jung+on+active+imagination&amp;qid=1562245928&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=jung+on+active+im%2Caps%2C143&amp;sr=8-1
Robert Johnson - Inner Work
https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Work-Dreams-Imagination-Personal/dp/0062504312/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=robert+johnson+inner+work&amp;qid=1562245758&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
Barbara Hannah - Encounters with the Soul
https://www.amazon.com/Encounters-Soul-Active-Imagination-Developed/dp/1630513504/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=hannah+active+imagination&amp;qid=1562246007&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-4
https://www.carl-jung.net/active_imagination.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYJqhMAgOcs
CS Jung's book
https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Saucers-Modern-Things-Skies/dp/0691018227
Where the apparitions are real in a sense but also spiritual. Manifestations of the planet's collective psyche that are warning us about the destruction to the planet
Jacques Vallee has written numerous books on the topic. His focus is less on where they might be from but more on the effect it's having on society. He is of the school of thought that they are interdimensional beings of some sort
Seeing Like a State by James C Scott
A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey
I think CelebrityTypes does a great job at outputting accessible writing based on Jung's work. A lot of their best work is in their members section.
The best place is to clear your head of MBTI and start at the source. Then start reading works by his students like Marie-Louise von Franz (look around for her lectures).
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: An amazing look at how civilization was formed
On Killing by Dave Grossman: If your characters kill anyone, know what it will do to them
*edit: Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell: You think Eragon is a rip off of Star Wars, or that Star Wars is a rip off of Jesus, or that Jesus is a rip off of some obscure norwegan god, find out the true origins of just about everything you have ever read and find out why Harry Potter had to die and had to come back from the dead!
Have a read of this.
Basically you need to be living and breathing story structure, to be at the point where an idea naturally slots itself into the pattern, rather than you struggling to work out how to access it.
If you want something a bit more formal read this, it's basically the university textbook version of the blog post I linked.
I mean, Jesus is just all other heroes by the same token. Ancient greek literature, which predates the story of Jesus follows the same archetypes. I'll just leave this here. http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1335360288&amp;sr=8-1
I'm pretty sure Joseph Campbell talked about this. I definitely recommend checking out his book, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936). Also check out the Netflix special based on his lectures, "The Power of Myth," where he touches on this as well. Interesting stuff!
ETA: he specifically does mention the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and how his story fits this paradigm. Enjoy!
John Truby's Anatomy of Story is a great one. Joseph Cambell's A Hero with a Thousand Faces is also where The Hero's Journey comes from and worth a read to see what kinds of universal motifs and beats exist in stories.
Also second On Writing & The Elements of Style! Brandon Sanderson is also great, and he does FAQ Fridays on his blog where he answers questions on writing as well!
Unfortunately I haven't read Silmarillion, so I have to defer that question. But I still suggest looking into The Monomyth and The Hero with a Thousand Faces
The idea is simply that stories have taken very similar forms since the beginning of history. Joseph Campbell noticed how the mythologies of different cultures who could never have interacted were eerily similar: how Hercules or Gilgamesh or Cuchulainn were basically the same guy.
In recent years people have studied the psychology of this phenomena, and now we specifically reference it as a story telling tool. There are plenty of criticisms, saying it's paint by number etc... You can boil any story down to the basic "A hero goes somewhere to do something" which is so generic that it's meaningless. But that's why there is no point in directly comparing your work to LOTR. They will have to have similarities if you dig deeply enough.
Where is the point where they are different enough? Nobody can tell you without reading it. But from what you've already described you sound fine. I personally would draw the line somewhere around characters named "Blundalf the Blue" and "Leafbeard".
In this book the author discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. it explains it all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
(edit: formatting)
There are several. Here’s just a few I’ve enjoyed.
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062506064/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_04ugDbXGHB18G
Iron John: A Book about Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306824264/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_h5ugDb5X2WAJ8
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1577315936/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_y5ugDbNTGC2GM
Oh my dear sweet child.
American movies are so secular?
I mean, how dense are you? American movies are rife with religious connotation, tropes, or just outright straight religion. Have you not watched a movie in a couple decades?
PM me your address and I will literally buy you this book.
I will also illicitly give you a link to The Passion of the Christ.
What I really want to get at is the fact that "government" is not an all-or-nothing deal. There are many actions and interactions that are heavily influenced by the superstition of "government", and there are plenty more that are relatively untouched by that superstition. When you look at a map created by someone who believes in nation-states, it will look like it's all-government, but that image is an illusion that is part-and-parcel of the superstition. By talking about "the territory controlled by governments", you're still seeing like a state.
Once you start seeing "government" as a mental phenomenon rather than a geographical phenomenon, the false reality of the nation-state map fades away. You start seeing things in terms of Jeffrey Tuckerisms, where the simple act of pouring milk into your cereal bowl is a beautiful act of anarchy, despite it happening within a region painted all one color on the map.
I know exactly what you're talking about. Try checking out the book Existential Psychotherapy by Irvin Yalom. It won't make the feelings go away but it will help you understand your feelings and maybe help you better accept them. Also, doing activities that you really love, things that make you lose track of time and get lost in the moment is the best way to cope. It's living rather than the contemplation of the act of living.
http://www.amazon.com/Existential-Psychotherapy-Irvin-D-Yalom/dp/0465021476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1317955267&amp;sr=1-1
Like most have posted already, existentialism wont be a brief experience. You mentioned that clients are seeing the world as meaningless. I would suggest looking at Motivational Interviewing. This would be a brief form of therapy that you can incorporate some existential teachings. I describe existentialism as my cornerstone to therapy but I use CBT/MI as my main voice. There are some good books that will give you some specific means of existential therapy. I have used these:
Skills in Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy: Van Deurzen,
Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice: Van Deurzen,
and dont forget Yalom
There are a lot of existential philosophers that wrote novels like camus and sartre (my favorite) that will help with your understanding of existentialism.
Thank you for that. Just a few months ago i had this exact problem, although you seem to have analyze it a whole lot better than me.
There are books that analyze all possibilities of death and afterlife, and just the meaning of life really, one of them is: http://www.amazon.com/Existential-Psychotherapy-Irvin-D-Yalom/dp/0465021476
"We create answers to these questions to help us stop from feeling afraid.". This is exactly what i did. After months of thinking about it, i decided that i need to believe in something, like you said, humans will become extinct at one point, there is no reason to live if there is no life after death. I won't tell you what i believe in because most likely it won't apply to you. You spoke about legacy, well i believe that what we need to do is to help other people raise these exact questions that you have raised, to help humanity evolve to a point where we find a meaning for us that is more than just a car or a house.
If you reach a state of mind of understanding life and it's meaning, maybe that means that you are ready, i don't know for what, maybe transcendence, but you are ready. We will find out when we die, but until then, we need to question everything, learn as much as possible and help other people to question everything as well.
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Symbolism-Alchemy-Occult-Arts/dp/0486209725
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Occult-Vols-Collected-Extracts/dp/0691017913
Psychological Types, C.G. Jung
Gifts Differing, Isabel Briggs Myers
In my opinion the most essential readings on MBTI. The one flows into the other quite well, contrary to the popular belief that MBTI grew far away from Jung; Myers adapted his work pretty faithfully, it's the recent stuff that strays.
The eight function models are a branch of the original model. Any four function model doesn't necessarily reject the 8-fcts, but the latter is just redundant and imo confusing. The essential reason for this, as I see it, is that the latter sees the e/i movement of energy as momentary while the former, 4-fct, sees it as typical. If Ti, for example, is Thinking typically drawn inwards, then it makes no sense that the same person sometimes typically goes outwards.
Still looking for recommendations, but since posting, I've pulled together a list of books that seemed interesting. Wondering if anyone has any opinions?
MBTI Manual
Jung: A Very Short Introduction
Psychological Types
The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious
Jung's Map of the Soul: An Introduction
It's probably best to start with an overview by someone other than Jung himself. In that case maybe start with Jung: A Very Short Introduction.
If you want to read the man himself but aren't too familiar with him, try this in order:
I started with Man and His Symbols which is branded as a good introduction. But I found it little more than a series of anecdotes and disconnected case studies, and also only one of the five(?) sections was written by Jung himself. I wouldn't recommend it.
If you're interested in reading more about this, Carl Jung (influenced by Nietzsche and Freud) wrote some about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Alchemy-Collected-Works-Vol-12/dp/0691018316
The term for meaningful coincidence is synchronicity. There are psychologists such as Carl Jung who give the concept psychological validity, as well as authors who explore a deeper connection.
The two linked books both keep one foot grounded in modern thought. You're sure to find more mystical explanations as well. But I wanted you to know that there are serious professionals who believe that it is not unhealthy to experience synchronicities as valued facets of our experience.
You should read about Synchronicity if you haven't. Jung wrote on it originally, and David Wilcock has a book called The Synchronicity Key which elucidates many of the concepts surrounding it. I am also writing on this concept myself, as it has been a central part of my experience -- overwhelmingly so. This wouldn't even be remotely surprising if it had happened to me. Synchronicity is my life.
And ... Synchronicistically enough, I'm also more or less an uninitiated Rosicrucian and I dabble in Golden Dawn Magick. I also happen to love Conan Doyle.
So ... where is this story of yours? I'd love to read it.
Pretty fabulous list! I would've tossed in John Berger's Ways of Seeing and some Jung, though. Penrose's Road to Reality has been in my "to read" queue for ages.
Upvote for you, Im a veteran in the exact same situation, though Im doing BS in psych. LEO career goals sort of disappeared due to competition and getting older. I hope to start MSW or related helping profession grad school next year.
I would suggest this book if you are going to do research,
and this one for general writing. Both come in handy for APA formatting, especially the first one.
Oh, yeah. Been through this. Then this book was given to me: http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Psychology-Awakening-Psychotherapy-Transformation/dp/1570628238
Totally changed my perspective on meditation, and inspired me to give therapy a shot for a few months which was tremendously helpful in conjunction with my meditation and yoga practices.
Highly recommend that book for everyone with a meditation practice!
As u/Sampajanna has said, the title of the thread is a bit misleading. My personal experience is that, in the couple of sanghas I have been going too, I have found some people (not too much, but some) that really need therapy and that think they don't need it because they meditate. The most impressive thing for me is that the cases I am refering to are people who tend to want to go to the top positons in the sangha, like coordinators or leaders. Sometimes they sound like "bible-sellers" and this is not good for the community. Big egos. Of course, there is some logic in that: people who really understand the basic concepts of Buddhism and try to live by them tend to be (or try to be) more humble. So, from my experience, I would never say that meditation and psychotherapy do not need each other. I looked for some reading about the subject at some point, and I found this.
Its just shit from a different bull, in that the movement displays quite a lot of cult like traits. The claims it makes about religion are made up and mostly false. The claims it makes about the history of astrology are made up and mostly false. The claims it makes about the international monitory system are ... you guessed it made up and mostly false.
The Venus Project itself is a bad Idea, which will cause quite a lot of suffering and misery if it every gets off the ground, which thankfully seems unlikely. Its manifesto is riddled with internal inconsistencies and downright invalid assumptions. It falls under the banner of High Modernism, which is very well critiqued here.
If you're interested in this, try to find the chapter of Seeing like a State about the development of the metric system-- before the metric system, most people used measurements like "how far you can walk in a day" "how much grain it takes to make a loaf of bread" or "how much land one man can plow in a week." These measurements, naturally, varied depending on terrain and other factors, and were not helpful once large-scale governments existed. But knowing that it's "five kilometers (as the crow flies)" to the nearest town is not helpful if you're a guy with a cart on a winding path in the middle of the alps.
Also, that book is amazing in general. Great stuff about urban planning, the history of Paris, early standardization of agriculture, etc. Very interesting.
considering that none of those books appears to be about organization, management, or institutions, it seems I was right. It is perfectly possible to know a lot about policy without knowing about organizations, the field is criminally neglected in political science. Neustadt is the best example of this, a perennial favorite of undergrad political science, he utterly ignores institutional issues in his magnum opus on presidential leadership. he calls FDR a great leader of men, but ignores the fact that a far larger share of those men than any president since owed their jobs either to him personally or to programs identified with him, and the effect that had on their behavior, that he presided over institutions he was creating, not those created long ago by others.
I commend your reading, but it has little to do with the topics we're discussing. try reading this or this then getting back to me. the first is written by someone on the moderate right the second someone fairly far left. both are massively respected scholars.
> The action to document basic informations about every citizen is essential in my mind in order to properly manage the country
What about the countries where this information isn't kept (e.g. the UK, or most other common law countries)? Are they not properly managed?
It's certainly true that governments tend to want to create these sorts of databases, but that doesn't mean they're essential. Seeing Like A State even makes a compelling argument that such schemes tend to be largely detrimental as they always require squeezing a complex reality into an over-simplified structure.
Yes, that would be amazing! But, the whole problem is that any kind of "certification" of such people is bound to fail in two ways: it will end up certifying inauthentic people, and it will end up failing to certify authentic people. This is because the "eyes of the State" cannot see the crucial factor which is Dao but can only see aspects which can be lineared/imaged ("thou shalt not worship graven images" = "the Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao"). In other words, false positives and false negatives in the certification process—which is already the problem we have, prevasively, with people certiified as psychiatrists and therapists.
The thing about regalia is that it really doesn't matter which mythic figure you dress up as—as I mentioned, a "mythic human" figure such as Wizard or Alchemist is really your best bet for reaching someone in a psychotic mode. The reason is that real trick not dressing up as a mythic figure, but dressing down to prevent the accumulation of projected archetypes upon one's person by the psychotic individual. In other words, authenticity or appearing as a unique, mundane individual is the key to being able to reach someone trapped in an altered state. The donning of cold-blooded attire like white lab coats, business suits, or scrubs only serves to evoke the archetypes of the medical establishment: the alienating/ed psychiatrist, the sadistic surgeon, or Nurse Ratched. The real trick is appearing to the suffering individual as a self-actualized human—this is whom the psychotic naturally trust, and you can't fake that. Furthermore, those attempting to be authentic individuals must not use this power to support a system of imprisonment and abuse of the psychologically disenfranchised—this is why you don't see many authentic people (dressed as themselves) in psychiatric institutions. The best ones usually simply refuse to participate. And the even bester ones sometimes go "into the Death Star" to do their best on the inside—and these are the ones who can most benefit from the thought of Regalia.
"Dressing as yourself" simply means not letting the uniform get you down. A few personal touches—a necklace, or a ring, or an eyebrow piercing—can undo the whole attire and subvert the uniform to the eyes of the psychotic person. This is because, ironically, it is our donning of impersonal, eternal symbols which marks us as unique individuals. More precisely, it is our mastery of the dialogue between us and these numinous symbols in our attire which identify us as such. The doctor who wears nothing but a lab coat, button-up shirt, black pants and shoes is owned by his uniform; but add an earring (for a man) or a non-cliche tattoo and you have someone who has subtly subverted the bland authority of the costume. Of course, these touches must be unique and authentic, freely-chosen—if perhaps inherently, slightly exaggerated—expressions of the individual. Thus, the best costume is not costume but the choosing of one's own attire, with an eye to its evocation of subtle intensities. In other words, regalia is in good taste.
I remember two pieces of regalia which flagged their owners as solid and concrete individuals despite their placement within an inhuman system: one nurse I met had a very interesting belt buckle—and was the only person who really listened to me for the whole month I was imprisoned. In another instance, a psychiatrist wore a stethoscope, which seemed somewhat humorous to me since, as a psychiatrist, he probably didn't really need it—and he ended up also being the most humanizing individual I met in the circumstances. Even the props of the medical establishment can be used as reassuring regalia, if détourned into a disruptive context.
Thus, the signal which is being sent is real a collusion with the subversion of the oppressive institution which is, for the imprisoned psychotic, everywhere present. A marker of distinction which separates out the surface of the individual from the oppressive monotony of fascist engagement which is the flatness of the surface imposed in his surroundings. This is why you do not see programs of regalia in psychotherapy: their very presence subverts or critiques the uniform, and the institution of a program of "official" regalia would also make it invalid as an individual form of expression.
This is why I don't think a certification of regalia-approved practioners would be very helpful: it is not very different from a certification of "authentic individuals" and this is not something that can be judged accurately by an institution or systematic process: only, perhaps, by other authentic individuals or those in a mode of perception particularly sensitive to inauthenticity (psychosis).
Thus, the ability to don regalia is a marker of a true shaman: the ability to, with the same costume, both banish and evoke the numinous archetypes which might be attracted to the surface of that individual. To say, "I am more" and "I am merely human" in the same gesture—this is what reassures people in the belly of the beast, and what instantly confirms you are on their side. In the way that Sophia is said to follow you to the deepest dungeon and then, lifting her metal helmet, suddenly appear and help you out, it is the people who take on this mythic role who must, to fulfill that role, most clearly assert their individual will to help and their rejection of the alterior intentions which have brought them to your presence.
Lol.... This approach is also known as a parable, or simply telling a story... sorry but academia does tend to overthink things sometimes...
In all seriousness, if you are really interested in this type of approach, I'd highly suggest taking a look at some of Milton Erickson's work.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Voice-Will-Go-You/dp/0393301354
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_H._Erickson
> Erickson's secret was his 'teaching tales', not old fairytales but anecdotes about his own family life or the cases of previous patients that carried with them special meaning for a person's problem. They usually involved an element of shock or surprise, and were designed to provoke an 'aha' moment that allowed a person to get outside the normal circularity of their thoughts. Instead of saying, 'I see what's wrong, this is what you should do' Erickson would let the person glean the message from the anecdote, as if they had figured it out on their own.
People are very quick to write off Erickson because he's known as a "hypnotherapist"... but you can pretty much ignore the "hypnotic" aspect and still get plenty of useful ideas by just looking at the different way he used stories in therapy.
Why thank you!
The issue is there are loads of super in depth clinical books (which deal with stuff you will never need to know in this line of work) or the utter rubbish stuff that says it can make your boobs turn into alpacas or whatever. However, once you filter that there are lots of good books out there. Here are a few I suggest:
-The Art of Hypnosis: Mastering Basic Techniques
-Essentials Of Hypnosis (Basic Principles Into Practice)
Also the ASCH Bibliogrpahy has some good article links for you to check out.
And I should plug our very own /r/erotichypnosis while a load of it is pretty advanced it often has some great tips.
Also if there is a group near you go check them out, the people tend to be nice it lets you get personalized advice.
For the follow on, I don't self-hypnotize intentionally. However, I did recently realize how often I trance when doing stuff. When I study or present in front of people I tend to trance out and I recently spotted I do it when I am stressed. I guess its because I have been under so much my brain is just used to it and knows that a trance state is useful for my work and stress levels so just drops me into one as needed.
It is very real and I know a lot of people who use it to great effects, I have just never got into myself, however, that is just personal preference.
Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Existential-Psychotherapy-Irvin-D-Yalom/dp/0465021476
Also, if possible take loan from relative. You can pay it off later but it will save your life now. Did you ask your doctor to refer you to existential therapist? You can also find these kind of therapy in gov hospital. If this is your problem then money shouldn't hold you back. Don't you have anyone to take loan from?
https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Writings-Jung-Modern-Library/dp/067960071X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1549645310&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=basic+writings+of+cg+jung
https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Writings-Jung-Modern-Library/dp/067960071X
https://www.amazon.com/Jung-Evil-C-G/dp/0691026173
These are basically collections of small bits and pieces of his various works. It was a good way for me to be introduced to many different topics he writes about without being completely overwhelmed. Although don’t get discouraged if you don’t understand everything he says. In the beginning I had a lot of trouble understanding him but with practice he became life changing to me.
Any 'scientific" understanding of the self is going to be a generality. Psychology had more occult potential because of its specificity and, if you want to get into it, it's emergence from the occult.
If you are interested in modern theories of the mind and how they interface with the occult the keywords are "cognitive" and "religion"... This text looks a bit more specific but I've never read it, so, at your own risk.
Start at the source:
Psychological Types by C. G. Jung
Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers
>I’m new to this MBTI/Enneagram stuff
brah, y u no show luv for Big Five?
Also I suggest you start at the beginning.
The texts online are slightly dated in their form of expression and the book has been revised. AFAIK it's not available to read online. It's worth buying. There's another online source that also has the Definitions and with links to quickly skip to the interested sections. The new version also contains an appendix with four articles/lectures by Jung about typology.
Some classic young there. Loved this part:
>"But what we have outgrown are only word-ghosts, not the psychic facts which were responsible for the birth of the gods."
While definitely introductory, Patrick Harpur's Daimonic Reality picks up on all these themes via Jung in a really fascinating way.
Really, there is so much to Jung's work that I'm not sure what else I could suggest. You seem to be on a good reading-track. Are you familiar with Jung's lesser-known, and published late-in-life book Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky? That's another good one along the same vein of Daimonic Reality.
You might be interested in Jung's essay on Wotan, and the psychology/archetypal force of this god on the German people precipitating WWII. An interesting, arguably archetypal interpretation of events that happened: Wotan
Lastly, Gary Lachman, a consciousness scholar and researcher, wrote a great biography on Jung that seems up your ally (and many readers here at /r/Psychonaut): Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life and Teachings.
OK I'll stop pulling books out of my library now. Maybe this was useful. :-)
https://www.amazon.com/Alien-Abductions-Creating-Modern-Phenomenon/dp/1573922447
https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Saucers-Modern-Things-Skies/dp/0691018227
Granted I am a believer in the Psycho-Social Theory. So I'm bracing for downvotes.
But give it a chance because it is equally as interesting.
It is not mere debunking as it treats the subject with the respect it deserves but the conclusions are vastly different then the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
And if you want to debate its merits just send me a PM or something and we can talk about it.
Not saying that ET's can't exist, but there is no evidence aliens are coming on a nuts and bolts spacecraft visiting our planet. It's possible that aliens exist, but there is no physical evidence of extra-terrestrial spacecraft with aliens inside visiting our planet.
Sources
Jacques Vallee (Stanford Research Institute)
Carl Jung
Dr. Rick Strassman (University of New Mexico) [DMT: The Spirit Molecule]
Benny Shanon (Hebrew University) [Antipodes of the Mind]
What you're talking about is more or less in line with a psychoanalytic / Jungian interpretation. There's a lot of history and some disagreement^1, but generally the idea is that religion was instituted to codify morality into an easy-to-digest way (ie, making up stories that teach us how to behave morally) and to give a general model of human behavior and interaction, a sort of primitive social science.
I'm coming mostly from Carl Jung (Text 1 / Text 2 / Wiki), Jacques Lacan (Text / Wiki), Joseph Campbell (Text / Wiki), and Erich Fromm (Text / Wiki), but these anthologies give a decent scope of study: Ways of Being Religious and Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis.
There's also an entire sub-genre of what amount to self-help books based on mythology, interpreting myths to teach you how to be a better person: Myths to Live By, Iron John.
^1 One of the big disagreements between Freud and Jung was the role of religion in the mind of a subject. Freud believed it was a fantasy we use to bolster our own sense of importance and impart some sense of order onto the world that isn't there. Jung believed, while that may be true of fundamentalists or the neurotic/pathological, generally speaking it was a positive thing, that it created or strengthened social bonds, that it taught us things about ourselves and humanity.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691018332/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1467751084&amp;sr=8-2&amp;pi=SY200_QL40&amp;keywords=jung+9&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=41tw8iylR9L&amp;ref=plSrch
http://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Connecting-Principle-Collected-Extracts/dp/0691150508
I really recommend this book.
Yeah dude, as someone mentioned. This is an occurence of Synchronicities, or MEANINGful coincidences. He actually wrote a whole book about them and tried to scientifically explain the phenomena even though it's one of the hardest things to do. Here's the book
I'd be very wary of only mentioning the simultaneous rise of Communism and Nazism though. That is in essence Ernst Nolte's thesis ("The European Civil War: 1917-1945", sorry, I don't know what the book's English or German title is), and it's an apologetic and conversative interpretation, as Habermas claims. Just as relevant, if not more so, is the Great Depression which significantly bolstered the ranks of both sides. In fact, as Siegfried Kracauer explains in Murder Trials and Society (1931) (included in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook), it wasn't only political violence that increased, but violence and crime in general. "Life has recently become cheap", he says. In this sense, the need for stability is just as important a factor (Erich Fromm's thesis in Escape from Freedom).
This comment is in no way intended to undermine your excellent political summary, it's just meant to add another layer so as to avoid the Communism/Fascism European civil war argument.
Louis Hartz: The Liberal Tradition in America
Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (both volumes)
Eric Fromm's Escape from Freedom
Chalmers Johnson: The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
Hanah Arendt: Origins of Totalitarianism and On Violence
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Capitalism and Slavery
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
INSIDE THE COMPANY: CIA DIARY
Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism
The Underground History of American Education: A School Teacher's Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling
>I feel like the world needs to believe in their fairy tales because with out it we're left to be accountable for our own actions in this world.
Freedom is scary for most people.
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Freedom-Erich-Fromm/dp/0805031499
Escape from Freedom:
If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm’s work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.
www.amazon.com/Escape-Freedom-Erich-Fromm/dp/0805031499/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426473294&sr=8-1&keywords=Escape+from+Freedom
Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics
This is Yockey's famous masterpiece. It is inspired by Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Imperium advocates the creation of a pan-European empire governed by sound principles or 'absolute politics'. It is divided into five parts, which are concerned with History, Politics, 'Cultural Vitalism', America and the World Situation. Imperium deals with doctrinal matters as well giving a survey of the 'world situation' in the 20th century. "In this book," writes Yockey, "are the precise, organic foundations of the Western soul, and in particular, its Imperative at the present stage." "...What is written here is also for the true America, even though the effective America of the moment, and of the immediate future is a hostile America, an America of willing, mass-minded tools in the service of the Culture-distorting political and total enemy of the Western Civilization." "The mission of this generation is the most difficult that has ever faced a Western generation. It must break the terror by which it is held in silence, it must look ahead, it must believe when there is apparently no hope, it must obey even if it means death, it must fight to the end rather than submit. ...The men of this generation must fight for the continued existence of the West..." "The soil of Europe, rendered sacred by the streams of blood which have made it spiritually fertile for a millennium, will once again stream with blood until the barbarians and distorters have been driven out and the Western banner waves on its home soil from Gibraltar to North Cape, from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals." The book's Chicago-born author, Francis P. Yockey, was just 30 years old when he wrote Imperium in six months in a quiet village on Ireland's eastern coast. His masterpiece continues to shape the thinking and steel the will of readers around the world.
www.amazon.com/Imperium-Philosophy-Francis-Parker-Yockey/dp/061550597X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426473382&sr=1-3&keywords=IMperium
Neither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France
"Few books on European history in recent memory have caused such controversy and commotion," wrote Robert Wohl in 1991 in a major review of Neither Right nor Left. Listed by Le Monde as one of the forty most important books published in France during the 1980s, this explosive work asserts that fascism was an important part of the mainstream of European history, not just a temporary development in Germany and Italy but a significant aspect of French culture as well. Neither right nor left, fascism united antibourgeois, antiliberal nationalism, and revolutionary syndicalist thought, each of which joined in reflecting the political culture inherited from eighteenth-century France. From the first, Sternhell's argument generated strong feelings among people who wished to forget the Vichy years, and his themes drew enormous public attention in 1994, as Paul Touvier was condemned for crimes against humanity and a new biography probed President Mitterand's Vichy connections. The author's new preface speaks to the debates of 1994 and reinforces the necessity of acknowledging the past, as President Chirac has recently done on France's behalf.
http://www.amazon.com/Neither-Right-Nor-Left-Ideology/dp/0691006296/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1426473460&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=neither+left+nor+right
The Birth of Fascist Ideology
press.princeton.edu/titles/5306.html
The Birth of Fascist Ideology
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/49786/fritz-stern/the-birth-of-fascist-ideology
ternhell, a scholar well known for his specialized studies of French right-wing extremism, has extended his work to cover the rise of fascist thought in Italy. He argues -- and who would now deny it? -- that fascism began as a cultural phenomenon, a rebellion against the prevailing political culture of pre-1914 Europe; it became a political force because of the Great War. He distinguishes between fascism and National Socialism and analyzes the work of major creators of fascist thought, especially the French syndicalist Georges Sorel. He recalls that the prewar longing for an alternative to Marxism (discredited in part because the proletariat had become pacifist) and to liberal democracy was combined with a new nationalism and with visions of a new heroism, and that this mixture had captivated many intellectuals and artists. Sternhell's insistence that fascist thought was just as rigorous and coherent as Marxism and liberalism seems controversial, and his account of Mussolini's intellectual and emotional journey from socialism to fascism is persuasive. The book is not particularly original, but by emphasizing the appeals of fascism it is a timely study, given the lamentable revival of fascist fortunes.
Empire
Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society—to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm—the basis for a truly democratic global society.
Imperialism as we knew it may be no more, but Empire is alive and well. It is, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri demonstrate in this bold work, the new political order of globalization. It is easy to recognize the contemporary economic, cultural, and legal transformations taking place across the globe but difficult to understand them. Hardt and Negri contend that they should be seen in line with our historical understanding of Empire as a universal order that accepts no boundaries or limits. Their book shows how this emerging Empire is fundamentally different from the imperialism of European dominance and capitalist expansion in previous eras. Rather, today’s Empire draws on elements of U.S. constitutionalism, with its tradition of hybrid identities and expanding frontiers. Empire identifies a radical shift in concepts that form the philosophical basis of modern politics, concepts such as sovereignty, nation, and people. Hardt and Negri link this philosophical transformation to cultural and economic changes in postmodern society—to new forms of racism, new conceptions of identity and difference, new networks of communication and control, and new paths of migration. They also show how the power of transnational corporations and the increasing predominance of postindustrial forms of labor and production help to define the new imperial global order. More than analysis, Empire is also an unabashedly utopian work of political philosophy, a new Communist Manifesto. Looking beyond the regimes of exploitation and control that characterize today’s world order, it seeks an alternative political paradigm—the basis for a truly democratic global society.
www.amazon.com/Empire-Michael-Hardt/dp/0674006712
This is quite clearly false: https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Failed-Absolute-Slavoj-Žižek/dp/1350043788/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=zizek&amp;qid=1569185708&amp;sr=8-1
Generally, just from what you said your current interests are, I think you may find it interesting to examine the connection between bodily health and psychology by looking the four humors and how that influenced temperament theory and personality theories. You could touch on the basics of these ideas then write about/critically examine how early theories of personality development and progressed evolved over time, up to 1879 (or any point where you see a major change prior to that, it's up to you). This would provide some information/straight history, but would not exclusively be informational since there would be an analytical component to it as well (which, I would think, should be the primary focus on the paper).
Granted, with only 4 pages you'll have to be pretty succinct overall, but it would include some really interesting areas.
Check this for just a basic bit of information on this, and I'm sure further research will help you quite a bit, and there should be no shortage of information available in regard to this.
Another topic you might find to be interesting would be phrenology.
If you're into the history of mental illness, you could look into how ideas progressed over time and even how individuals with illness were treated prior to 1879. This could be quite fascinating as earlier perceptions of psychopathology are VERY different than they are today, and the treatment for disorders was often very cruel. The analytical component of this area could be related to changes through time, dehumanization of the mentally ill, social stigmas, the perceived effectiveness of treatments, how it relates to religion, and the impact treatment could have had on the ill (just for a start, there are many, many directions you could take this!).
Don't worry about the paper being super profound! It's your first "real" paper, as you said, and it's a short one. It NEVER hurts to talk to your professor about topics, too, and see if they will give you some input if they think what you're considering is along the lines of what they're looking for, or maybe even help you find a clear direction to go in.
APA is not too bad learn, and since you're majoring in psychology, you should really invest in the APA manual. Be absolutely sure you get the 6th edition, there were several important changes made in this version. If you're not up for ordering that just yet, Purdue's online writing lab is very helpful with APA, and a lot of students use it. Again, it never hurts to talk to your professor about APA - you can get a feel for exactly how much they are of a stickler for it (it can get absurd with some professors), and if you're struggling with things, they should be more than willing to help - let's face it, it's their job! Since this is one of your first papers, I also suggest that you have an honest proofreader look over this before you submit the final version. It's hard to catch errors sometimes when you write it yourself, plus an outside perspective is definitely a plus.
Also, if you find you have any specific APA (or other) questions, feel free to PM me :)
All of them, really. Absolutely no harm will come from reading all the books out there (for a while). At worst, you'll learn ways of doing things that DON'T work for you but it's still good knowledge to have.
After a while, eventually, you'll start noticing though that all the new books out are just copying and rephrasing the books that came before them. That's when it's time to stop.
Some of the popular ones are syd field's book, Robert McKee's book, Joseph Campbell's book (and imo a book called The Writer's Journey by Christopher something that analyzes Campbell's book and puts it into modern story telling terms). That'll get you started. I have varying opinions of each of those books and none of them should be adhered to by law, but they ALL contain concepts and theories that, as a professional writer, you'd do well to expose yourself to. If for no other reason than that you can be aware of the concepts when others talk about them.
Tangentially, Stephen king's On Writing and William Goldman's books are great reads but don't necessarily apply to the craft of screen writing directly. Also useful to read any interviews or collections of interviews with screen writers. You may also want to check out some podcasts, Jeff goldsmith's interviews with screen writers is great and I have no idea if it's still available or even what it's called but I used to listen to one titled something like Sam and Jim Go to Hollywood (I am positive I got those names wrong) about two guys who up and quit their careers as restaurant owners and moved to Hollywood to become writers and share what they've learned. Ted Rossio and Terry Elliot also run, or ran, a website with forums (which are eh) and and a collection of articles about screen writing which are fantastic.
This was all stuff I was into years ago, so I don't know how much of it is still relevant, because like I said when you get to a certain point you've kind of read everything out there and it all starts repeating itself, and you realize all that's left is to read screenplays and write a ton.
Good luck.
e: back on my computer, here are some links:
Syd Field's Sreenplay (he has several books out, that's the one you should start with as it lays the foundation for basic story structure of nearly all modern movies. IMO, it's also the best one out there because he never says these are rules in any way, he simply analyzed a bunch of movies and lays out his findings for you to do with as you wish)
Robert McKee's Story
Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces
and Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey
Stephen King's On Writing which describes his writing style and, while I don't prefer it, is a very interesting style similar to the Cohen Brothers
William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie did I Tell? two accounts of William Goldman's experiences as one of the top writers in Hollywood, and dealing with the business. Writer of The Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, and many others. Dude's a legend.
Jeff Goldsmith's Q&A podcast he also did the same style podcast while working for a screenwriting magazine, though the name escapes me right now
Sam and Jim Go to Hollywood holy shit I got their names right I can't believe it. Seems to be dead for a few years but it looks like their podcasts are still up.
Wordplay, Ted & Terry's website read every single one of those articles
e: BONUS! Not that useful as an educational resource, but it's fun to read Ken Levine's blog, writer on MASH and Cheers Ken's blog (no, not the guy who made BioShock)
I suggest you stop thinking about finding/dating women and start working on yourself. Who are you, what do you stand for, who do you want to be(come). Focus on yourself. Read this http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
Stop the pity party, take one step forward everyday. Not toward a girl, but toward the man you are.
My response is: study comparative religion, comparative mythology, and comparative mysticism.
I would start with Joseph Campbell
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/
Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces or The Seven Basic Plots?
That's ultimately why, even though I like GRRMs' work, I take his critiques of authors like Tolkien with a grain of salt. Narratively there's only so many stories you can actually tell. And why I don't rate him as highly as Tolkien or Herbert or Jordan.
Like we're seeing with Jon Snow in the show, and probably will in the books, ultimately it's just another hero's journey.
GRRM just added more peripheral stories and used the narrative weights to try to make the story seem more complex – but you can't really escape the structure ultimately.
Or as Christopher Nolan so succinctly summarizes via Harvey Dent's character in The Dark Knight, you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain. That's the tension of anyone making a difference.
The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell sounds like what you're looking for. While it's not a "how to" guide, the book is an artfully written exploration of mythology, psychology, and the concept of "monomyth" -- universal symbolism and meaning structures across cultures and time-periods. It also guided/inspired Star Wars.
edit: lined to book
I second The Hero With a Thousand Faces as a semi-philosophical but very interesting and indirectly spiritual book. Very accessible, and a great gift (I've gifted Campbell numerous times by now).
Pascal's Pensees would be great, being very spiritually oriented and all. Kierkegaard's a bit more dense, but also has a lot of interesting things to say on sprituality. Try Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.
Some solids in my life:
Is it so hard to put up a link? http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/
I am fascinated with both topics as well.
Recommendations on anthropology of religion:
Recommendations on philosophy of religion:
Joseph Campbell - Hero With A Thousand Faces should be required reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Hero-Thousand-Faces-Bollingen/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1261442367&amp;sr=8-1
there's another one called Hero with a thousand faces i totally picked seven randomly because "i heard somewhere that stories..... are based on "n" different themes where n is a real rational integer in R^2 such that f(n) is smooth..." seemed a bit unnecessary but i like that i am goddamn spot on.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
IM BLUE DA BA DEE It is called blue and the artwork is blue! what more could you want!!! its the bluest thing in the world! da ba dee da ba diiii
Summer Rae Her wwe ring name is Summer Rae, which is like summer rays which are what tan us whilst chilling in the summer. She is also hot like the summer!
Watermelon Slicer its like an apple slicer but freaking massive!!! not seen anyone ever use them but i need one in my life for the perfect melons
Elvis Searcher CD this would be for my dad, we havent always had the best of relationships but we are starting to really get along right now, would be nice to treat him with the newest album of his favourite artist that we both love, after all he has done for me recently
Karl Pilkington Book this series was one of the funniest tv shows i have ever seen and this book is just as funny, its a diary of the events and its just so stupid in places that it is sidesplitting!!!
Guitar Picks They are the best pick because they literally are picks ;)
Star Wars Doggo Costume! This is a costume for dogs and fits all sizes! You know it will be funny and cute to see the doggo walk around with a stormtrooper on him!!! ( or her)
Banana Armour I think this is useless because who puts bananas in positions where they are unarmed and need to be protected! i do need it tho
Mulan It is one of the greatest films in the world, it promotes feminism, there is romance, guilt, family honour and values, the moral of not judging a book by its cover as well as you being able to achieve anything you want, its soundtrack is a masterpiece and helped launch the career of Christina Aguilera AND it has Stevie Wonder and Donny Osmond, a panda, a cricket, batman references, a homosexual subplot, and a talking fucking dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy... what more do you want
DIY Enema kit it would be helpful because not only can it make sure your bowel movements are okay, it can be used for sexual pleasure, to help with drug or alcohol intake, it can be used for a punishment on someone who has wronged you and im 90&#37; sure it can be used in some way to benefit the population and aid in childbirth
Nutribullet!!! to help me get healthier and lose weight before my university graduation and cousins wedding in india
Pesky Penguin Bottle Opener Its an add on and its something that Benedrillt Cumberpatch cannot say!
Tottenham Hotspur Scarf! THEY ARE THE BEST AND I LOVE THEM!!! im going to guess you are a fan of the spurs! because tottenham are also called spurs! get it?! sorry im bad at this stuff aha dont know any american teams really
Some rare pokemon haloween plush for this price i hope this is super rare and something that is signed by pikachu himself
Unicorn Poop This is special candy! real unicorn poop, trust me, its real... i promise... i think... i lied
Sweet Candies Yankee Candle this is my fav scent! its what i imagine the wonka factory smells like!!!
Pokedex!!! pokemon was my fav growing up and i used one of these bad boys to go round and try to hunt them down!
The Hero with a thousand faces book this is a book that really shows the basic outline and plot for most films and characters that the world loves! it hellped my dad and his friend when they were writing a screenplay and i feel like its a great place to start and look at !
WWE Seth Freaking Rollins Funko Pop! this is a combination of 2! i love wwe and wrestling and Seth Rollins is my current favourite wrestler! i actually wanan try to become a wrestler! and also funko pops! i am a huge collector and obsessed with them!
Random Ass Bollywood Vinyl This is one of my fav bollywood films and has a banging sountrack, just is funny that it is on vinyl!
This was a lot of fun! thankyou for this!
EDIT: Sorry still getting used to this new reddit and didnt realise the linking has changed!
Possibly (and I personally have issues with his attitude and viewpoints on filmmaking) but that's beside the point. The point is a lot of young filmmakers found/find this book inspiring and empowering, even though it's probably outdated for the Youtube generation.
And to be fair to my housemate (he's a screenwriter, which is what the OP is interested in), it took him a while to come up with a book that he can recommend and at the same time not too technical, after I shot down a couple of other titles (like this, this and this.)
There is a great deal of subjective evidence. When it is analyzed using the tools of comparativism, it becomes much stronger. Overwhelming, I dare say.
But there is objective evidence too. It's important that atheists never stop seeking it out. To that end, here are just a few of the books that I have read that I think every atheist should also read.
https://www.amazon.com/Varieties-Anomalous-Experience-Examining-Scientific/dp/1557986258
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Parapsychology-Harvey-J-Irwin/dp/0786430591
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Knowing-Science-Skepticism-Inexplicable/dp/0553382233
https://www.amazon.com/Outside-Gates-Science-Time-Paranormal/dp/1560259868
https://www.amazon.com/Mysticism-Evelyn-Underhill/dp/1463612354
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Makes-This-World-Mischief/dp/0374532559
https://www.amazon.com/Trickster-Paranormal-George-P-Hansen/dp/1401000827
https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Goddess-Complete-Being-Hughes/dp/0571166040
I'm having a derpy autistic moment, so I can't tell if you're joking or not, but in case you're not joking, somebody [totally has written this book.] (http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936) :D
EDIT: typo
Could it be Ethics of the Real?
> It is sad that none of these people can come up with an original idea
Joseph Campbell would like to have a word with you
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
http://www.youtube.com/user/clickokDOTcoDOTuk/videos
http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_104:_The_Juicy_Details
http://thewritersjourney.com/
Yeah no worries happy to help, definitely PM me. I'm happy to offer you suggestions if that's useful to you.
If you're at all curious about the mechanics of what you're trying to work with your audience, it might help you to understand it based on brain science. The problem with forcing a symbol onto a character or a character into a symbol sets up a battle between your right and left hemispheres of the brain.
The right hemisphere lacks language so it largely works in meaning, symbols, images, and lives in the moment. The left hemisphere (specifically the portion behind your left eye) is constantly trying to generate a story of what it's seeing and make predictions of what will happen next based on what happened before. It also seems to contain language primarily.
So, in my opinion, symbols ideally should be generated by your right hemisphere which is responding to reality but unable to coin it words. From there, your left hemisphere should gather that up and codify it into a storyline. However, by trying to craft the symbol first, that's likely how you got a blockage. You're telling your left hemisphere to create the symbol which is disconnected by meaning because the left hemisphere doesn't really care if things are meaningful or not. It just wants to generate a story to cover it's ass.
There's a good writeup about how they learned all of this mentioned in Jonathan Gottschall's book The Storytelling Animal. Basically, in the early 1960s, a man's corpus callosum (the median between his two hemispheres) was severed and so his hemispheres couldn't talk to each other. Then, they gave the man a divider and began to show each of his eyes different things. So they might show his left eye a picture of chickens and his right eye a field of snow. They'd offer him objects and his immediate reaction came from his right hemisphere, so he'd grab a snow shovel. However, his left hemisphere had to justify why it had done that and so when questioned why he went for the snow shovel, he said "To pick up the chicken poop!"
The point is the right hemisphere is the center you want to trigger deeply in your audience. That's why peculiar symbols and mythic motifs stir people in deep ways. It's the right hemisphere that wants to swing a light saber for example, or responds to conversations in Tarantino films about food. The problem with a lot of screenplays is there's a lack of understanding of these core ideas and as a result, some people just let their left hemisphere generate story thread garbage that doesn't really make sense or work.
Now that's not to say that you have to have an insane understanding of symbolism to write a good screenplay. You don't. We all understand these things deeply in our own right hemispheres. You should, however, be aiming to be inspired by your own deeper meaningfulness but also willing to share your ideas with others to polish your storytelling. This is why oral storytellers are constantly re-working their stories.
The shortcut of course, is to utilize standard mythological motifs. However, there's problems with this as anyone who learned Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey can see. Just because you're using a mythological motif doesn't mean you're utilizing meaningful symbolism. The Hero's Journey is a collection of 12 or so motifs that Campbell saw. Well those aren't the only motifs out there. Vladimir Propp's version has about 31 core motifs (he calls functions) and Stith Thompson's collection has over 46,000 motifs and are quite useful for story generation if you develop an eye for updating old storyforms. (I've done quite a few story creation experiments using Thompson's stuff).
If you don't work from an understanding of meaning and symbolism, it's like creating a person whose bones are all dislocated from each other and therefore can't move. If your story can't move, it definitely can't move your audience. You need meaningful symbolism to pull that off, and it doesn't take much to be honest. Stanley Kubrick would write his films around 6 to 8 meaningful symbolic ideas, which he termed "non submersible units" and then craft the story around that. Ray Bradbury in his book Zen in the Art of Writing describes hiding meaningful moments from his childhood into his stories in order to give them soul as well. You get the idea.
You may have read it already, but I've always found Joseph Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces to be relevant when bridging the gap between philosophy, anthropology, and psychology in debates with friends.
If you're interested in delving deeper, this is the book you want :)
Um well here's the book it's from. I don't know what you want a link to. An explanation of the Hero's Journey, or Harmon talking about it?
>"I identified with Rand/Mat/Perrin"
Beyond how terrible that is, let's jump right in.
>"well, i always liked it because it starts out w/ some young men, far from civilization/cities who are destined to save the world (glossing over the "fated to go insane" part)."
So they are just like Jesus, Anakin and/or Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Superman, the main character of almost every god damn Final Fantasy (and most other RPG/JRPG) game out there, tell me when I can stop.
Now, I'm not going to say the book is unoriginal. It's just going off of the typical Hero Myth that Jospeh Campbell outlined. He has his own story plots and he's not really a thief of ideas (compared to, say, the Eragon books).
However, the WoT series needs an editor more than Tolkien did, and that's saying a lot. Most of the book is a set of useless, ongoing, yet somehow disjointed, amount of side stories that branch so far from the main plot that you are forced to ask why they are there. And when you reach that point, you know you're in need of an editor.
If you're looking for the best fantasy series of the current age, you're going to be weighted down by arguing opinions. However, if you want mine, go pick up Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novel series (I suggest library, they aren't cheap). The Sandman is easily, in my opinion, the best fantasy series to ever be printed.
If you're looking for more of the traditional hero myth, try Bone (another graphic novel, and a good one). For the normal style, I suggest the Dresden Files (which are really fun) or the Dark Tower series.
I'm sure other people can give you examples.
If you're interested in the storytelling side I would recommend The Writers Journey which is based upon The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Also some great YouTube videos from Kal Bashir.
I'm a pretty well-confirmed athiest at this point. I tend to view the current manifestations of religion as following in a long tradition of mythmaking by human cultures.
With that in mind, you might look into some psychology in addition to your religious research. I'm a writer, which is how I came by Jung and Campbell and Booker -- but I think the idea of underlying patterns of thought that guide our own mythmaking is of broader use than simply helping me understand storytelling better.
I've read the following, and suggest you do as well!
Jung
The Basic Writings of CG Jung
Man and His Symbols
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Psychology and Religion
Campbell
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
The Masks of God (Vols. 1 - 3)
Myths to Live By
Booker
The Seven Basic Plots
There are a lot more, but those are the ones I'd start with. As an undergrad, I majored in English and Rhetoric, and minored in both Religion and Poetry -- this cultural storytelling stuff is important to me.
As a library science graduate student, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you can get all of these books from your local library -- and can enlist the aid of the reference desk in finding more material for your research. Believe me, there's nothing a reference worker likes more than an interesting topic -- i.e. something that doesn't involve directing people to the bathroom, or helping people find books on filing their taxes. We're trained to help with real research! Use us!
Suggested reading materials for compiling your course:
http://www.amazon.com/X-Men-Philosophy-Astonishing-Argument-Blackwell/dp/0470413409
http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Philosophy-Knight-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470270306
http://www.amazon.com/The-Avengers-Philosophy-Mightiest-Blackwell/dp/1118074572/ref=pd_sim_b_4/178-6318707-9774312
http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Philosophy-Reality-Blackwell/dp/0470482184/ref=pd_sim_b_3/178-6318707-9774312
http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Philosophy-Rorschach-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470396857/ref=pd_sim_b_8
http://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Philosophy-Inquiry-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470575603/ref=pd_sim_b_9
http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Philosophy-Blackwell-Culture/dp/0470575573/ref=pd_sim_b_13
http://www.amazon.com/Superheroes-Philosophy-Justice-Socratic-Popular/dp/0812695739
http://www.amazon.com/Supervillains-Philosophy-Sometimes-Popular-Culture/dp/0812696697/ref=pd_sim_b_7
http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychology-Superheroes-Unauthorized-Exploration/dp/1933771313/ref=pd_sim_b_12
> Sorry if my quotations are all over the place and if i don't make much sense, i'm pretty beat.
No worries.
> Whoa, isn't Halo 2 like, the worst Halo, according to the fans of the series? Isn't that the one that ends with "i'm finishing this fight"? If so, you have some quaint taste in storytelling :).
I found the difference between the two installments a great idea. In the first HALO you know almost nothing about the enemy. High tech space cult worshiping ancient aliens that has a taste to genocide anything that doesn't agree with them. Stop them. The story is like the first Star Wars movie. Great male hero with a humble beginning teams up with female companion (who is not the damsel in distress anymore), stops an evil Empire and blows up an evil superweapon.
Simple heroic story. ([Have you read The Hero with a Thousand Faces?](
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Hero-Thousand-Faces-Collected-Works-Joseph-Campbell/1577315936/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1500659625&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=the+hero+with+a+thousand+faces) it explains well how many stories get repeated through history just with different characters and updated technology because they appeal to the human condition.)
Than in HALO 2 like in The Empire Strikes Back things get muddied. (They are not the same after that, but there is an arc how Darth Vader goes from a purely evil entity to a victim caught up in his own hatred and thirst for power) The evil Elites turn out to be victims caught up in a crazy ideology that dominated their culture after a long war with the Prophets, in which the two come together into a religious empire. The same is true about The Arbiter he goes from the great human exterminator to one of the heroes who saved the human race and the galaxy from extinction. I just enjoy the Arbiters story as he goes from cult member to a truly honorable warrior.
The same was true for HALO 4, while many grumbled about many aspects of the game. I enjoyed how it was a story about the Mechanical soldier finding his humanity by dealing with a loss of a loved one. He used to stopping Empires, Demons and Gods, yet he fails on saving one person. It is a great story. Of course HALO 5 ruined it, but we don't need to talk about that...
> Oh, you don't need to link me SW:EW, i know the game very well. There's even that Thrawn mod! You're very unlikey to find a bigger Star Wars nerd than me in Romania, btw.
Cool. Always great to meet a fellow Star Wars fan. Just a fun fact: Ian McDiarmid was born in Carnoustie, in Angus. Just 10 minutes drive away from where I live. Basically Palpatine is from Angus! He went to university in Dundee. We don't even have a plaque in Carnoustie to commemorate him, maybe I should ask my council about to get one put up. Such a great actor.
>What the actual fuck. Is that the same LBC that employs James O'Brien, which tore a new asshole to Farage during the Brexit campaign? WTF?
Yes, LBC always tries to get everybody in from the different political spectrum. For Me James O'Brien being on in the morning than have Nigel Farage on the evening is normal.
I followed his career quite closely from early on. I knew from 2009 that he would be trouble and that he has giant sway over politics in the background. Cameron was terrified of him. I even read Farage's books, you need to know exactly what tunes the devil is playing in order to defeat it. (Good quote from Jeeves and Wooster). The episode was about the rich aristocrat getting mixed up with Communists, very funny. (Great comedy series.)
Back to Farage... I remember, I told one of my friends that I read one of his books. He told the entire debate club. They thought I was a mad raving racist. Even after explaining that in order to defeat him politically we should understand his ideology, that was one awkward week. By the way the clip is from Father Ted, a great comedy.
> Yugoslavia is probably a prime example of shit hitting the fan at 60 mph. Putting all those stories together might result into something pretty awesome.
Well off to the library for me. Interesting stories. Scotland produces a lot of video games. Maybe I would be able to find a studio or get UBISOFT involved.
> Ah, never underestimate the average American's love for anything christian.
I am for freedom of religion and I agree with the First Amendment but you cannot go around killing people or setting society on fire just because you think you are God's VIP. Personally Far Cry 3 should have ended with the U.S. Navy dropping off forces capturing the island. (Between 4.00 to 5.00)
Same with Far Cry 5. The killings begin... The National Guard rolls in... Congress passes disaster relief... Joseph who...? We live in the age of the Internet nothing happens on Earth without the N.S.A. knowing. So mass murder in woods wouldn't go unnoticed. I think currently the U.S. government is so scared of terrorism that they would shoot christian terrorists too.
> I know the term "PC" gets a bad rap these days, like, i don't know, "feminism", but i think that's very short-sighted. I see he's dwelling into the psychology of the bible and whatnot, but does he go into our history, as a species? Does he realize that until fairly recently (like the 1800s), the human race was deeply misogynistic and misopedistic?
He surprisingly talks a lot about Evolution. How the Human species had to evolve along with the neurology to understand complicated concepts and solve problems without falling back to violence. He makes a good point about the importance of classical liberalism: "Equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcome" Of course I don't purely listen to him. I respect Bill Nye too. I think one interesting debate is between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. (I know I am treading on dangerous water here) A long listen but an interesting conversation.
I hope you have a nice weekend.
Coming from a writer, gamedesigner, story-designer kind of background I found that most religions, like mere fairytales, behave similar ion their stories.
Two very good books on this topic are:
The Hero with a thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=pd_sim_b_1
and
Archetypes by Carl Gustav Jung.
http://www.amazon.com/Archetypes-Collective-Unconscious-Collected-Works/dp/0691018332
What it basically says it that humans, no matter where they live, follow a rough pattern of storytelling. This leads to the conclusion that our biology and following our psychology works in similar patterns. Therefore we developed similar myths and as you asked, religions.
This of course is additional to what others were writting but it gave me a completely different look on what religion is and what it does with our brain and culture.
Because the Heroes Journey transcends culture and even awareness of itself as a trope. Not Long enough, more details --> Joseph Campbell's writings on this subject.
Ah I remember my EE all too well. It's a lot easier than it might seem right now. I remember I had trouble actually cutting it down to 4000 words. Also here's a source you might find useful. http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1933771313
Is this it?
Okay, so there are a lot of people who say there's "No real guide to writing." I understand why they say that but they're not factually correct. A lot of the best writers I follow all recommend a few key books. I started writing my book with no guides, which was fun, but I set myself up for a TON of rewrites because I didn't know what I was doing. I'm now deep in revisions and V2, and the only reason I'm finding success is I got my hands on some excellent books that showed me where to go from "You have a cool idea that might make a good book."
First, My Story Can Beat Up Your Story. Really good, basic, zero-fluff guide to writing (tailored to screenplays but it works just as well for novels.) I went from a mess of a first draft to a rock solid 10-page outline with this book alone. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00696HIYA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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Second, The Writer's Journey. People like Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) swear by this book. Little more fluff (by which I mean philosophical mumbo jumbo) but still an excellent resource for getting to know your characters, plot, structure, and what makes a story good as opposed to bad. https://www.amazon.com/Writers-Journey-Structure-Storytellers-Screenwriters/dp/0941188132
But all of these are basically just introductory texts to reading the Holy Grail of writing, The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I started here and realized I was way out of my depth in terms of understanding why this book is important for writers, so I'm now backing myself down to Writing 101 rather than the masterclass.
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549390571&sr=1-1&keywords=hero+with+a+thousand+faces
> The hero myth is all about courage tbh..
uhmmm not according to these 3 sources:
It can be interpreted secondarily as courage, but... it's not the main focus.
What sources are you referring to?
HP follows the path laid out for lots of great stories, as identified in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. As summarized in wikipedia, Campbell explores the idea that all the great myths which have survived share certain common tropes:
> Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or "boon"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon).
This formula is a proven winner used time and again, whether in Star Wars or in Frank Herbert's Dune or in numerous other stories.
Is that really how you feel? You don't enjoy any art that consists of fantasy or escapist elements? I've come to enjoy all kinds of surreal art like David Lynch's work, The Twilight Zone, The Leftovers, etc. And there's a lot of logical sense in HP. It's possible to incorporate real-world themes and lessons into fantasy fiction. It's been a talent for millennia. If this is really that new to you I suggest this.
This or Bulfinch's Mythology http://www.amazon.com/Bulfinchs-Mythology-Fable-Thomas-Bulfinch-ebook/dp/B004TPB9CU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414441098&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bulfinch will give you the standard Greek Myths with all the little variations (as the myths tended to change over time )
Joeseph Campbells 'Hero with a Thousand Faces' http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1414441286&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=campbell+mythology will give you an alternative way of looking at the myths, should you still be interested after Hamilton or Bulfinch
All fictions.... well 99.99% of fiction follows the Hero's Journey.
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
Documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093183/
My suggestions -- things that most influenced me:
Gives a full explanation of what different people thought throughout the world at different times and places about economics and how it evolved versus the stagnant theological explanation you are not supposed to question today.
Tells a world history of actual people, their customs, and how they lived. Much more engaging than the endless list of who killed who under which tyrant that we are supposed to worship (if they won) like we get today.
The only book you should read on comparative religion if you were to read just one. An excellent literary analysis of "all" mythology and biblical stories.
On the topic of revisionism, if you want to know more about what really happened instead of just the tired and empty hero worship. People should really know what he did to earn his place in history. To note, not for the faint of heart.
Another book not for the faint of heart. A detailed account of how the World Bank and other groups have made Africa and the Middle East poorer than they were 50 years ago, despite spending over $1.5 trillion dollars trying to fix them.
Two videos I recommend:
Teaches more about economics than any other video of its length, and doesn't even talk about "economics". It is where I heard about Dead Aid.
Title says it all
------
I don't find my list derivative and pedantic. But you're very well entitled to your thoughts.
Not at all. Not even just in fantasy. There are tons of outstanding fantasy stories that don't involve magic or prophecy or pseudoscience of any kind.
I think at its bare bones, a story is about a person's transformation, a change in opinion or perspective. That person doesn't have to be the center of the universe.
In Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, he deconstructs the basic form of the story, and shows how it's a hero's journey. The hero's tribe is in trouble, so he journeys outside his tribe and goes through challenges, and discovers knowledge. He's transformed in the process. He brings this back to his tribe and saves the day. Maybe that's what you're thinking about.
It's totally awesome! I think people are assuming I'm insulting Eragon which I'm not.
If you take a look at most adventure stories you'll notice that while they have different plot points, the stories often follow similar narrative trajectories. This is an idea most famously argued by Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero with 1000 Faces.
In this book, Campbell breaks down the monomyth into parts for example the first plot point is usually called "The Call to Adventure." Campbell describes the Call to Adventure: "The hero begins in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown."
This is usually followed by the "Refusal of the Call" where "Often when the call is given, the future hero first refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances."
It's pretty interesting stuff (to me at least!) and it can help you look at literature/storytelling from a new perspective.
If you're interested in the Monomyth here are some fuuuun places to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/
It depends on what the "hallucination" is, but inherently - no. And that sort of assumption, that if someone is seeing something that most other people aren't, then it must not be there and they must be hallucinating or suffering from some sort of psychosis or schizophrenia etc. is a form of societally conditioned violence, as far as I'm concerned. Of course there are some people who do suffer from hallucinations, but seeing something that others don't - auras, for example - does not automatically mean that it is a hallucination. So I'd just ask what the hallucination itself was.
Buddha:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/812061660X/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_14?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=A2ZNRRJXT0TOB6
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1614290407/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_11?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Joseph Campbell:
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1503795767&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=joseph+campbell
I know more about narrative. I recomend you:
Have you read Hero with a Thousand Faces? Writers study those books, like in Disney, for example, the employees attend seminars on writing and how to put archetypal story structuring in practice.
Classical Myth by Barry Powell is what my favorite classics teacher taught out of. It is a very readable book that is probably 1/3 primary sources -- which I like.
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Myth-7th-Barry-Powell/dp/0205176070/
And then these two classics on mythology from Joseph Campbell also come to mind as very accessible and packed with information from a guy who definitely knows what he is talking about:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/
http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/
lets see...
I've been interested in the development of the english language, and I like Bryson's writing style. I met someone from Korea, and as per my usual habit, when I meet someone out of country I try to learn some of their native history, thus the history book. I like urban fantasy, so Sandman slim looked interesting. I'm a CompE major, so code and The design of everyday things is relevant to me. The others are just things that have been recommended to me.
I think I might get get through half of them at most, especially since I also have a Steam library calling me like the whore it is. This is the first year I have access to a large university library during break, so I'm going to take advantage of it.l
It's funny because I was tempted to correct your initial summation Campbell's work but decided against it since I was also in the process of admitting how shitty it is to correct someone on something that's not even part of the point they were making.
But to say that Campbell's work is a simplification or "plebeian bastardization" of Jung's work is not accurate. It's common practice in academic writing for a scholar to build upon the work of another. So it's more accurate to say that Campbell was influenced by or that he built upon Jung's writing on archetypes and the collective subconscious. But while Campbell is writing on the nature of myths, Jung was a psychologist building upon Freud's earlier work to a completely different end.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that the sentiment in this sub regarding Campbell's work being derivative and therefore less valuable is unfair because it is the nature of academic writing to build upon the writings of your predecessor.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is the seminal work in the field and clearly the source of Harmon's inspiration. I'd also recommend Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey as the best and most succint interpretation and analysis of Campbell's ideas as a framework for contemporary story and writing.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 1 and Volume 2. A classic, but still surprisingly readable and insightful.
Joseph Heath, Enlightenment 2.0 (2014). What we know about the limitations of human rationality, and the implications for politics. I'd also recommend Heath's Economics Without Illusions, which discusses common economic fallacies, half on the right and half on the left. Heath has an amazing ability to explain concepts clearly.
Edit: One more, James C. Scott's Seeing Like a State (1998). Gives examples of large-scale political initiatives which failed, and explained why. An important reminder of the need for humility. Review by Brad DeLong.
Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed introduces a number of these essential concepts and goes a little into the background, and really finds the edges of the thing by finding those cases where they fall apart completely. I also think that it has the right overall tone to not repulse someone with an anarchic bent. There are better surveys from an academic perspective, but legibility is important.
You're starting to have the insights of Seeing Like a State, which is a fascinating book.
Peter Joseph is wrong for a number of reasons, and we can predict with a good degree of certainty that his system would fail in practice, if implemented. The techno-utopian society that forms the dreamscape of the RBE crowd is just a rehash of mid-20th century modernism which gave us the likes of Brasilia. The best book disproving modernism is Seeing Like a State:
> The author builds a persuasive case against "development theory" and imperialistic state planning that disregards the values, desires, and objections of its subjects. And in discussing these planning disasters, he identifies four conditions common to them all: the state's attempt to impose administrative order on nature and society; a high-modernist ideology that believes scientific intervention can improve every aspect of human life; a willingness to use authoritarian state power to effect large-scale innovations; and a prostrate civil society that cannot effectively resist such plans.
What annoys me, though, is the number of ideologues rehashing Peter Joseph's arguments word for word without adding a single meaningful thought or contribution to them.
I got this from this anarchist book. I'm not an anarchist, but the guy did make a lot of interesting and true points. For example: police are heavily fetishized in our society - from the typical TV shows and movie heroes we watch to what we think police do vs. what they actually do. Police are basically armed bureaucrats but are only able to intervene in things they actually have information on, which isn't much. If you drive through town with your license plate not on you'll certainly get that rectified by police. If you beat your wife, though, probably not so much. Same as if you engage in any real consensual activity.
Have you read Jay Rosen's book, "My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson"? Loved it.
Zizek is not a bad person to read for getting into Lacan but really the best thing to do is to read Freud first. Read The Interpretation of Dreams and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, then get The Freud Reader from W.W. Norton and read many of the later papers. You especially want to read Totem and Taboo and Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Now that you've gotten a handle on Freud, pick up the Fink translation of Ecrits and just jump right into "The Seminar on the Purloined Letter" which I think is Lacan's most important piece in many ways (but this is just opinion). Good luck, he doesn't make any sense, and I've been studying him for half a decade now.
People who say Freud has been "debunked" aren't much different than people who say Darwin has been "debunked". It's kind of "wishful thinking". Like Darwin, most things Freud has to say are not flattering.
And people don't like unflattering truths, or unflattering ideas, generally.
The only real way to decide if a thinker's ideas have merit, is to read them for yourselves, and decide for yourself.
Pretty much everything Freud wrote is worthwhile (thought-provoking). If you're interested in psychology/philosophy - you will enjoy it.
One cool thing about Freud is he speculated about everything...his thoughts run the gamut from the everyday (jokes & expressions, verbal slips, day-to-day stuff) to the deepest, inner processes that drive identity and sexuality.
The more of it you read, the more you'll want to read.
You can buy something called the "Freud Reader" that contains a lot of excerpts of his best stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/Freud-Reader-Sigmund/dp/0393314030
His works are also available free on the internet.
(Google "Complete Works of Freud" and you can find a single pdf with everything).
The book you're talking about - "Jokes, and their Relation to the Unconscious" is in there.
I hate any pickle that comes my way. They are gross.
Here is my mandatory linked item =). This is for my own personal practice and work and such. I like reading textbook type things.
Even though I hate pickles, my boyfriend loves them dearly, so I figure we even the pickle hate/love out that way.
You might be able to connect it to existential theories. Yalom discusses people (and especially adolescents) "tempting" death as a means to defend against our innate fear of it (most commonly through things like daredevil behavior or other risky behavior). Prank calls to suicide hotlines might be in that same line of thought. Humor as a defense of existential tension?
Even more excited to read this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067960071X/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
Jung worked with his shadow using a process called Active Imagination. It can be difficult to find legit information online about it, so I’d recommend reading this book: Jung on Active Imagination .
Essentially, he actively pursued imagined conversations with a personified version of his shadow. This helped him both understand and integrate the parts of him that were devious and ignored. Of course, I’m simplifying a very complex process, but if you’re really interested in pursuing shadow work, I would recommend checking out this process.
Active imagination is a technique for letting go of the judgments. Focusing on the emotion that you are feeling and putting it into artistic form (image). For example, you could pick up a pen and start writing first thing that pops into your head when you are focused on this emotion. Or you could draw something. Or you could put it into a dance. This achieves two things. By giving expression to the emotion that troubles you, its hold on you is lessened. Also, you can go back and analyze your end product - a drawing or a writing and it will contain the hints of where your emotion is coming from. You can then consciously confront the uncovered content and find resolution.
If you interested, there's no better authority on the technique than its advocate Carl Jung:
https://www.amazon.com/Jung-Active-Imagination-C-G/dp/0691015767/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1495658525&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=carl+jung+on+active+imagination
I think Memories, Dreams, Reflections is the best one to start with. Jung's writing is so dense that getting to know him and his thinking first is helpful and the auto-biographical form facilitates that. As far as his scholarly works The Archetypes and the Collective Unconsciousness or Psychological Types are excellent places to start to get some idea of the basic outlays of his thinking. My problem as i progressed through some of the other works is i read them "out of order." Reading the collected works straight through isn't necessary but some of the works require you to have read previous works (I'm thinking here mostly of his alchemical works (I tried to read Alchemical Studies without having first read Mysterium Coniunctionis or Psychology and Alchemy...not recommended))
Okay. Here's an MBTI certified master practitioner that teaches a class accredited for practitioner continuing education explaining it:
https://youtu.be/-T9f7b7dOzQ
"Energy," or, "libido," in psychological types also means something different than colloquially used terms. Here's a copy of that book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691018138/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_P3E1DbVVYAWHG
Here is the mobile version of your link
You mean imaginary like demons, fairies and dragons? How do you mean, "manifest"?
There is a whole section of UFO studies that tries to understand UFOs as a psychological phenomena, starting with Carl Jung's Flying Saucers book.
Based on what I've read in this thread and some of your other comments on this subreddit, I don't think you really understand what you believe or what "the occult" entails, and you come off as an uneducated hypocrite. Like it or not, there's a strong metaphysical current associated with UFO and Alien phenomena, from the Ascended Masters of theosophy to Jung's writings on the subject, from the New Age and contactee movement all the way to present-day channelers of "extraterrestrial intelligences."
Educate yourself about the continuation of esoteric thought beyond victorian era occultism, there's a whole world of metaphysics and mysticism that has evolved since the 19th century, and the only way the occult is going to be left behind is if people like you refuse to pay attention.
>The study found these paranormal beliefs about aliens were at least partially motivated by the need for meaning.
Pretty much.
Even my own belief in UFOs is partially rooted in a desire for our species to find a uniting narrative. The cosmic perspective supercedes tribalism.
Further, that could be one reason for the "management" of the myth by the IC.
That's a somewhat loose use of the word, but ok. Also, since, like, half the top level posts are asking for clarification about what you're talking about, you may want to improve your original post.
Anyway, this:
>Why does a cave seem to elicit near-identical responses regardless of culture? What cognitive triggers are these designers tripping, and how? Are they doing it deliberately or are they just tapping a rich vein of hard-wired neural responses without understanding how it works?
isn't actually a question about games. It's a question about cultural anthropology or perhaps psychology. Nor is it a given that your assertion that "a cave seem[s] to elicit near-identical responses regardless of culture," is actually true. Perhaps you should begin with a book that looks at it from a cave studies perspective. Caves also occur symbolically in Jungian psychology, but you can probably trace it through a variety of other works, including mythic use (or, more generally, underworlds).
Well some of the books I read where King Warrior Magician Lover, Iron John, and The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious.
This series on The Art of Manliness in a decent summary of King Warrior Magician Lover and gives brief description of Jungian psychology. Danger & Play wrote some thought provoking posts about it as well, here and here.
This stuff will give you a better intro than I could. And I 100% recommend buying Iron John. The author is professional poet, and as a result it's very easy to read while still touching on some deep stuff.
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious is probably your best bet.
>plus Prometheus Rising and Chrono Trigger should be read by all.
Especially Prometeus Rising...such a great book.
And also The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious by Jung.
Pick up Carl Gustav Jung's Synchronicity, if you have not already.
What's your conception of synchronicity? Do you think deja vu has any relevance to the subject?
It's funny, all those words are made up by a translator, and imbued with a mystique Freud never intended or imagined.
Ego = "I", id = "it": subjective vs objective.
>The terms "id", "ego", and "super-ego" are not Freud's own. They are latinisations by his translator James Strachey. Freud himself wrote of "das Es", "das Ich", and "das Über-Ich"—respectively, "the It", "the I", and "the Over-I" (or "I above"); thus to the German reader, Freud's original terms are more or less self-explanatory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego#Translation
If you're at all interested in Freud, read his Introductory Lectures (or other works) yourself; he's very easy to read and quite self-explanatory. Others' interpretations of him tend to be much less understandable and interesting. Of course you have to view all he says with a contextual lens, but he was nevertheless quite an interesting author and thinker.
Submission statement:
Slavoj Zizek grants a public interview on his new book, Sex and the Failed Absolute. When in Rome, do as the anti-Romans do.
>Im not zizek but if you wanna criticize the source you can read him or see the videos were he explains his filosofy
I know who Slavoj Žižek is.
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I have watched a lot of his Debates and Videos on YouTube. I have watched how he "Debated" the maniacal Transphobic Misogynist Judeo-Christian Fanatic called Jordan B. Peterson.
I have read his books let me Synopsize them for you; Accordingly—
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Slavoj Žižek— is a Capitalist Masquerading as a Communist.
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He is a Modern Stain on Anarchism and Communism, he believes in a lot of ways - that the Revolution will never happen and because he is Depressed he Actively writes Psuedo-Communist Revisionist Literature to discourage Revolution.
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Why do you think he is so popular, so free to "Debate" people, why the Media Corporations aren't trying to Damage his reputation? Not trying to deplatform him? It is because the Capitalist-Class, States/Militaries around the world and Religious Figures aren't afraid of him— because in his works he has never wrote directly against nor outright discouraged Capitalism.
He is a hack, and a Disengenueous Revisionist towards the cause and goal of Cummunism- which is Anarchism. Anarchism is the end Goal of Communism, Communism is just Karl-Marx's "How to" Guide to Achieve Anarchism.
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I've read a lot of Theory on Anarchism and Communism. I'm an Active Anarchist in my part of the World-( Which I will not expose for Safety reasons ) somewhat succeeding in Communal Living.
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If you want real Scientists and Philosphers' views on Anarchism and Communism read Pëtr Kropotkin's—
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Albert Einstein's—
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Read Karl Marx as well— so that you don't fall for bullshit Revisionists of the Modern Times like Slavoj Žižek.
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EDIT:
>And the guys on top dont really wanna control you they just dont want to lose their power
Are you even an Anarchist? I don't think you have any Idea what Power is. You have a very Childish view of Power.
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How does one protect Power? Maintain it? How do Dictators, Kings, Queens, The Pope - Politicians protect their Power? Hm? Do you know the Dynamics of "Power"?
I don't think you do, going by your— description... if we can even call it that.
Do you know the Definition of Control? Please educate yourself before you try to talk about things you don't really understand.
Oh, gue cari buku ini kok http://www.amazon.com/Publication-American-Psychological-Association-Edition/dp/1433805618
Bukunya kecil, dipake ampe mati.
To answer this question you first need to research effective (or caring) nursing communication. You need to know the correct forms of communicating with patients before you can decide what is wrong or right about the situation in the case study.
Are you having problems finding sources of information to write the paper, a hard time with format, or both?
Finding sources:
Does your school give you access to journal articles? There should be tons of journal articles related to communication and nursing. If your school doesn’t give you access even a google or google scholar search for nursing and communication should bring up peer reviewed journal articles you can use and site.
Also, fundamentals of nursing courses usually cover topics like this so if you have a fundamentals book or can find one at the library check there.
If you are still having difficulty, many university libraries have someone who can help you find sources for writing papers. They aren’t going to tell you how or what to write but can help in finding the information you are looking for.
Difficulty with formatting?
I’m going to assume you’re required to write in APA format since most nursing schools require it. If you are having a hard time with APA format you should get the APA manual . It tells you exactly how to write in APA format.
If you don’t have time or resources to buy the manual, check out Purdue Writing Lab website. It’s a great resource for APA format.
If all else fails you can always ask your instructor for guidance.
Good luck, I hope this was helpful.
"Toward a Psychology of Awakening" by John Welwood is amazing. (In my opinion, of course.)
http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Psychology-Awakening-Psychotherapy-Transformation/dp/1570628238
Also, in case you're wondering where the thought process against this sort of MTX design of video games comes from; mine comes from "The Hero with a thousand faces"
https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
Actually, it comes from a knock off book that I read in college, but they're the same thing.
All video games are journeys. Those journeys have specific events and attributes that define themselves. Many MTX designs seek to undermine the narrative or value of a story for monetization. I'll give an example.
Let's say you're playing a game called "Jesus Christ lord and savior". This game goes over the journey of Jesus and you play Jesus. You're carrying your cross on your way to be crucified and a popup comes up. 2.99$ to increase progression and become god faster. 1.99$ for a loot box with cool Jesus swag. Don't forget to preorder the first DLC, Mormon expansion.
In the narrative of Jesus Christ those sort of MTX directly undermine the journey Jesus was on. We can no more separate the progression model of a game from the hero journey, than we can separate the single player campaign. By doing so we compromise the key elements of immersion and undermine the return value of the hero journey. The "sense of pride and accomplishment" we feel is normally in response to a well thought out journey. Cheapening the experience with counter narrative monetization undermines the core tenants of our species story telling and own personal journey.
You and your teacher should look at comparative mythology works by Joseph Campbell such as The Masks of God collection, particularly Vol 4. Creative Mythology, and The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Will make you realize that you can go back to pre-babylonian times to find everything from the adam/eve story to the great flood and more.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Cambell
I understand that it's controversial as to whether or not astrological theory could provide a customized VR experience for an individual. It's an open question that I believe is worth exploring.
Beyond that I wanted to make a few brief points based on interviews with over a hundred professional astrologers.
That all said, there's nothing that I can say or do beyond that to change any minds. Esoteric traditions could be thought of as a religious belief because it gets to perennial philosophy questions that are unanswerable and there are many elements of human consciousness that don't fit into any scientific paradigms.
If you like Star Wars, then you've been influence by Joseph Campell's work on Mythology, which was influence by Jung, who was influenced by all sorts of esoteric traditions -- including astrology.
Archetypes are fundamental to human experience and mythology, and are at the core of why storytelling resonates with us. For me, the study of astrology is a study of these archetypal dynamics and the foundation of good storytelling.
Hero With A Thousand Faces:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936
Writers Journey:
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero%27s_journey.htm
2100+ stage Hero's Journey, Transformation, New World:
http://www.kalbashir.com/
Myth and the Movies:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Myth-Movies-Discovering-Structure-Unforgettable/dp/0941188663
Perfecting Plot:
http://www.amazon.com/Perfecting-Plot-Charting-Journey-Sneaker/dp/0989378926
The Hero's 2 Journeys:
http://www.amazon.com/Heros-2-Journeys-Michael-Hauge/dp/1880717476
When was new to atheism, I found the works if Joseph Campbell to be very valuable.
In his popular works, he essentially deconstructs and compares the great world religions, and shows that in many cases, the underlying messages of them are similar, and point to some truths about the human experience that can be appreciated without having to turn to spirituality or the supernatural.
His seminal work is The Hero of a Thousand Faces and it's probably the best place to start.
I also really enjoyed Reflextions on the Art of Living which is a collection of short pieces.
Much of Campbell's work is generally no longer considered academically sound, but it's still a fantastic read.
That was an unsatisfying answer, I suppose. You want me to make a genuine play before we continue, fine, I'll give it a shot. But the supposed delineation between literal and symbolic is the first thing you'll have to discard. It is entirely wrongheaded. It's not even wrong. On one end a literal interpretation has Christians eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, and you end up painting them as vampire cannibals. Which was probably your agenda anyway. On the other, everything is symbolic and the new testament might aswell be referring to Jesus' covert war against clown reptiles. These answers are silly because the question is silly.
In the early 20th century, mathmetician Kurt Gödel set out to create his incompleteness theorem. The theorem was originally intended to show Russel and Whitehead's system for working with natural numbers as complete. This is important, because what use is an incomplete system? Not only did he end up proving the system as incomplete (humiliating two people he actually admired), he ended up proving no consistent system of logic can ever be complete, and vice versa. Neither can the system prove it's own axioms, any more than you can lift yourself by pulling your hair. Why is this crucial to a debate about religion? Because divinity is complete.
Source: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.
So math and science arrive at what religion already knew. All is one. Duality is false. Symbolic and literal interpretations do not exclude one another, they show aspects of the same complete divine thing. They are shifts in perspective. An unsolved rubix cube does not disprove the solution. One implies the other.
And so the singular divine splits itself into male and female. One becomes two. And the coupling of two will beget a third. But duality is false, division is false. Man is fallible and incomplete, so he stifles the world through his ego. The benevolent king becomes the tyrant. The mighty creator becomes Holdfast, the enemy, the dragon.
It's been awhile since I've actually seen a bible, but as I recall the new testament does not start with Mary or God. It was Herod who called the census and set the whole thing in motion. The bad, unjust king strangles the land in an attempt to secure his reign. Thereby his actions create the very thing he fears most: the hero.
The tyrant-father is just a different face of the holy creator. When the arch-enemy holds the entire world in his stranglehold, new life springs from the void itself. The story of the savior is the story of every single human being. It shows the hero ascending the dominance hierarchy, dethroning the evil tyrant, slaying the dragon and reuniting with the divine. The hero's special weapon is the ability to tell good from evil in all their different guises. And again good and evil are just a perspective shift away from being truth and untruth. What difference does it make if the dragon is an actual dragon, mankind's sin, or the duality of all existance itself? All of it is symbolic. And in the sense that all of us are heroes, all of it is real.
Source: Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell.
>Clearly we can infer the Apostles and many early Christians believed that these things literally happened, and whether or not you think this is zealotry, the number of Christians who believe this literally is greater than those who see this symbolically.
This part brings a particular quote to mind, and besides there's a third book that I can show off as having read:
>The sun signifies first of all gold. But just as philosophical gold is not common gold, so the sun is neither just the metallic gold nor the heavenly orb...Redness, heat and dryness are the classical qualities of the Egyptian Set (Greek Typhon), the evil principle which, like the alchemical sulphur, is closely connected with the devil. And just as TYphon has his kingdom in the forbidden sea, so the sun, as sol centralis has its sea, its "crude perceptible water" and as sol coelestis its "subtle imperceptible water." This sea water (Aqua pontica) is extracted from sun and moon...
>
>We can barely understand such a description, contaminated as it is by imaginative and mythological associations peculiar to the medieval mind. It is precisely this fantastical contamination however that renders the alchemical description worth examining- Not from the perspective of the history of science, concerned with the examination of outdated objective ideas, but from the perspective of psychology, focused on the interpretation of subjective frames of reference...The alchemist could not sperate his subjective ideas from the nature of things, from his hypotheses (emphasis by prof. Peterson)...The medieval man lived in a universe that was moral- where everything, even ores and metals, strived above all for perfection.
Source: Maps of meaning by Jordan Peterson.
As long as you put your desire and hope in the act of writing itself, as opposed to the desire of wanting to have written something, you will do well.
I would suggest a few pieces of light reading, a few pieces of heavy reading, and some listening for you too.
Light reading:
Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" This book is not meant as a book of lessons so much as the formula that assembled one writer. It's short, it's heartfelt, and it has some wisdom in it.
The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. - This is a short book, it gives a good starter set of rules that we accept for communicating with one another in the English language.
Heavy Reading:
Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. - This is a short book but it is very thick with information and esoteric names from all cultures. Why is that? Because it deals with, very succinctly, the fundamental core of nearly all human storytelling, Campbell's "Monomyth" premise can inform you all the way from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Star Wars a New Hope
Writing Excuses This is a Podcast about writing by Brandon Sanderson, of "Mistborn," "Way of Kings," and "Wheel of Time" fame, Howard Taylor, the writer and artist of Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic that hasn't missed a day for a long while, Mary Robinette Kowol, a Puppeteer and Author of "Shades of Milk and Honey" and Dan Wells, from the "I am not a Serial Killer" series It has been going on for more than a decade, and nearly every episode is a wonderful bit of knowledge.
This is a fun one:
https://www.amazon.ca/Psychology-Superheroes-Unauthorized-Exploration/dp/1933771313
I agree that Stalin was a horrible human being, but the problems of the USSR go much further and much deeper than just that. Stalin didn't act alone, he had an entire State structure comprised of hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, journalists, police, soldiers, generals, party members and etc who went along for several reasons, and a civil society that didn't succeed in resisting the worst of his plans. Were all of these people just subjectively "evil" aswell? What factors of their daily lives made them go along with the bullshit?
That's because the problem was not just the evil will of Stalin himself, but the entire political-economic structure of the Soviet Union that gave him such power: What Lenin and Trotsky put in place was not a Socialist society where workers had genuine control over their conditions of labor and social surplus, but a State-Capitalist system where a centralized and hierarchical bureaucracy alienated those from the working classes and tried to brute-force a centralized industrialization with little care for human factors or for complex interdependencies they could not properly manage.
Even before Stalin got close to the highest position of power, there were already mass working class demonstrations, strikes and even insurrections against Bolshevik policies that were violently repressed by Trotsky, and a gradual elimination of Soviet democracy and working class freedom of assembly, unionization and speech. Much of the party bureaucracy could genuinely believe they were doing what was "right" and "necessary" when they were really asserting their own class dominance, as their perspective changed the moment they were put in a position of power over others. Even if Lenin didn't die so early or Trotsky or someone else took power instead of Stalin, the USSR would not have developed much differently.
The real question is, why did Lenin and Trotsky fail so bad at creating Socialism? The reasons are various, from the objective factors that weakened civil society's ability to resist domination and build something truly free (the international isolation of the USSR, the general lack of industrialization and infrastructure in Russia when compared to Western Europe, the enormous amount of enemies that declared war on and attempted to sabotage the USSR at once, the deeply entrenched hierarchies in Russian society, etc) aswell as many Leninist ideas and practices that were deeply flawed and failed to deal with those objective conditions in a way that meaningfully built Socialism (the support for a centralized "vanguard" party dictatorship, the High-Modernist ideology of planning and approach to industrialization, the disregard for direct worker control of production in favor of believing "planning" automatically establishes directly social labor, the maintenance of a standing army and police instead of an armed and self-organized working class, etc).
The stories never really change their substance, just their scenes and characters. Reason offered us a different process, not a new story.
Maybe humans are the gods and these stories are just our unconscious projections giving us a road map to becoming our higher selves. Even if God doesn't exist, how does that invalidate the stories? It seems like I'm not properly conveying the process of how to approach those 'stories'. Try reading this.
You are correct, I am a pretentious shit. Yet I still believe you are uninformed. Check out this article: https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.1kggaiivm
Out of belief in humanity I also used to think anything deemed worthy by academia was of value, but I was sorely mistaken. Check out The Tyranny of Experts and Seeing Like a State.
https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Experts-Economists-Dictators-Forgotten/dp/0465031250
https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153
I do apologize for my aggressive approach, but I don't have the time or the energy to write elaborate essays on reddit anytime I disagree with someone in the name of civility. I do try to attack the idea rather than the person though :/