Old ideas about mind and spirit, read with fresh eyes.
Hermeticism, New Thought and the research on consciousness, explained plainly. The classic texts, where the ideas came from, and how far the evidence reaches.
Latest articles
- Mind and Research
The Placebo Effect: What It Shows About Mind Over Body, and What It Does Not
What the placebo effect really shows: Beecher's 1955 claim, open-label placebos, nocebo, the Cochrane reviews, and why expectation eases pain but not disease.
- Foundations
Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy: Where the Term Spiritual Science Came From
Who Rudolf Steiner was, how he coined spiritual science, and what the evidence says about Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming and anthroposophic medicine.
- Mind and Research
William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Psychologist Studies the Sacred
How William James studied religious experience in his Gifford Lectures: healthy minds and sick souls, the four marks of mysticism, mind-cure and psychical research.
- New Thought
A Short History of the New Thought Movement
A short, balanced history of New Thought, from Phineas Quimby and Emma Curtis Hopkins to Unity, Religious Science and the self help books it later inspired.
- Foundations
Synchronicity: Carl Jung's Idea and How to Think About It Clearly
What Carl Jung meant by synchronicity, where the idea came from, what probability and psychology say about meaningful coincidences, and how to hold both views.
- Mind and Research
Reincarnation Research: The Ian Stevenson Case Studies and Their Critics
A fair look at Ian Stevenson's reincarnation case studies at the University of Virginia, what his method was, and the strongest criticisms of his work.
Sections
Foundations
Where to start: what spiritual science means, where its big ideas came from, and how to tell a meaningful pattern from a coincidence.
Hermeticism
The Hermetic tradition and its most popular modern text, The Kybalion: what the principles say, who wrote them, and how to read them today.
New Thought
The American movement that taught that thought shapes life, from Quimby and Atkinson to the law of attraction, with its claims and its critics.
Mind and Research
What scientists have actually found about consciousness, near-death experiences and reincarnation claims, including where the evidence runs out.
- The Placebo Effect: What It Shows About Mind Over Body, and What It Does Not
- William James and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Psychologist Studies the Sacred
- Reincarnation Research: The Ian Stevenson Case Studies and Their Critics
- Near-Death Experiences: What Researchers Have Actually Found
- Consciousness and the Brain: What We Know and What We Don't
Practice
Concentration and meditation methods, old and new, with what the research says about what they can and cannot do.