5 books that change one's way of thinking

My five favourite books would have to be...

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Way of the Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman
The Bhagavad Gita
Conversations with God - Neale Donald Walsch
The Sky Of the Heart: Jewels of Wisdom from Nityananda - Swami Chetanananda

The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle
Holy Blood Holy Grail - Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln
(and the second Messianic Legacy)
The Gods of Eden - William Bramley
The Hiram Key - Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

1. Phantoms of the Mind - Dr. V.S. Ramachandran
2. Paradise Lost - John Milton
3. Operation Trojan Horse - John Keel
4. The Kybalion - Three Initiates
5. A tie between The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil and The Emperor's New Mind by Sir Roger Penrose.

I see alot of David Icke and Steven Greer books, are these books legit or are they like the zeitgeist movie?

Oooh I almost forgot...The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
Classic..

Wow, this is super hard....JUST five?? I can't do it. I will do the top 2 for sure and I'll have to peruse my library to pick the other favorites. Most of my collection is philosophical/esoteric in nature.

1. The Secret Teachings Of All Ages - Manly P. Hall
2. The Bible - but ONLY after having read enough esoteric materials to see it in a new way. People who don't "get" the Bible in a fascinating way, outside of literal interpretations, haven't read enough other materials first!

Anyone else care to add to the list?....Thanks again for everyone's input, I've created a list and plan on reading every book posted here..Right now I'm reading Alas Babylon, I recommend it to anyone on this site it's definitely something I think members of this site would enjoy reading.

Here is a list of some of the books that have made a significant impact in my life and I recommend for others to read.

1. Embraced by the light By Betty J. Eadie
2. The Laws of Eternity By Ryuho Okawa
3. The Third Eye By T. Lobsang Rampa
4. Chapters of Life By T. Lobsang Rampa
5. The Rampa Story By T. Lobsang Rampa

Bonus: Talking to Heaven: A Medium's Message of life After Death By James VanPraagh

I almost forgot! Another must read is: Journey of Souls By Michael Newton

You won't see life the same after you read these books.

Blessings, light, love, joy and abundance to all of you.

I wanted to add one more that just occurred to me days later.

The Evolution of Desire by David Buss

It's based on studies and research by evolutionary psychologist David Buss that really illuminates how profoundly evolution, particularly sexual selection, has shaped our so-called "uniquely human" behaviors that most consider the product of reason, higher thought, etc. Buss analyses everything. He explains the reason men and women find certain traits attractive — even traits you didn't know mattered but have serious predictive power, like finger length and the shape of one's ear — presents the shocking results on data about infidelity and why it happens (something like 1 in every 100 children is raised by a man who earnestly believes he's the father, but is genetically unrelated to his supposed child), and very clearly outlines how the process of sexual selection animates virtually every aspect of culture and society. It's not necessarily a novel insight that sex motivates many things in life, but Buss really breaks it down and gets beyond folk psychology and cliche social commentary and into the science of human social behavior and its origins in sexual selection.

The origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - Julian Jaynes

The Illiad and the Odyssey ( I'll take as 1 book) - Homer

The Faerie Queen - Edmund Spencer

Have Space Suit - Will Travel - Robert Heinlein

The Bull of Minos: the Great Discoveries of Ancient Greece - Leonard Cottrell

1. The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
2. The Hunt for Zero Point by Nick Cook
3. Alien Agenda by Jim Marrs
4. Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken
5. The United States Army Survival Manual by The Department of the Army

Got most of em off Ebay...Anyone else have any books they would like to add...By the way, I'd take Mityamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings off my list, the 1st half was great and applied to all aspects of life..However, It seems like he kinda of gave up half way through writing the book...Never experienced that before..

Thanks in advance..

The Seekers - The Story of man's continuing quest to understand his world

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SUN TZU - The Art of War

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The Many Colored Land (Trilogy) - Two warring alien race's crash land on earth 6 million years ago and meet time traveling humans from earth 2100 AD. The dominant alien race uses alien technology to, enslave the time travelling humans to give them an edge, over thier alien brothers, and create a stratified (but controlled) society.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/727dfe309849.jpg[/atsimg]

Finger Prints of the Gods

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I found a 5th book that I was gonna read that could have changed my understanding of the world, but I lost it before I had a chance to read it. It was old and at the time I didn't have the money to purchase such a rare book. Since that time I have lost track of it.

It was printed in the late 1800's - early 1900's and was about the stars, our mythological past and our known universe.

It may have been suppressed by the ruling elites, because there weren't many copies circulating at the time that I was looking at it.

1.) Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney
2.) The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung
3.) Human Action by Ludwig von Mises
4.) Answer to Job by Carl Jung
5.) Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

Brave New World - Huxley
Animal Farm - Orwell
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Graham Smith (or something like that)
The Long Walk - Bachman (King)

annnnnnnnddd

Zombie Survival Guide

just in case





Runner up: Art of War... I use the stuff i learned in this book in EVERY Video Game i play; especially the Madden games

First of all I want to recognize those exceptional books that members have listed that aren't on my list but I agree are important books. I was ecstatic to see people have read The Book of Five Rings, as this book is a key to understanding success, and to understanding Japanese culture. I'm happy to see Mere Christianity mentioned a few times, I see people like to go deeper into the thinking of C.S. Lewis's works than just his novels.

And now for my list, while some people have said picking their 5 books was impossibly difficult and their 5 books are constantly changing, these 5 books have always been my top 5 as they all immediately had a profound effect on me. I included 5 completely different types of books covering 5 different topics including philosophy, science, military, politics to an extent, wisdom, and adventure. These books are all very readable as I read them all in high school, you should be able to breeze through all of them except The Fabric of the Cosmos, becuase this book is very long and will probably take a while to grasp all of the abstract scientific concepts. Enjoy..

1) Bushido, The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe

This book covers the former unwritten code of the samurai, and connects it to the western world around the time of Theodore Roosevelt. My favorite book of all time, here's a quote from the book:

"Men have divided the world into heathen and Christian, without considering how much good may have been hidden in the one or how much evil may have been mingled with the other. They have compared the best part of themselves with the worse of their neighbors, the ideal of Christianity with the corruption of Greece or of the East."

To me this book is a must read for everyone, even if you aren't interested in studying the samurai, it's also a study of yourself. Here is a link to the full online version of the book: www.sacred-texts.com...

*Shout out to The Book of Five Rings, that is an excellent follow up book to this book.

2) The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

This book explores the boundaries of modern physics and explains our current understanding of physical reality. For someone not familiar with the abstract laws of cosmology and quantum physics, this book will shake your world view, and expand every aspect of your philosophy on life. quote from the author:

"When you learn these different features of the universe, it changes your perspective on what it means to be alive. What it means to be part of the universe, since the whole notion of the universe is so beyond what experience would lead you to believe."

3) Absolutely American by David Lipsky

This book explores the lives of several cadets going through 4 years at West Point. It shows how cadets who are deprived of the freedoms that normal college kids enjoy are often just as happy or happier than the typical college student, both during their stay at West Point and after they are commissioned as an officer. This book will also explain the multitude of different reasons why Americans are joining the U.S. Officer Corps, and shows that young men and women don't necessarily have to have fun in order to be happy.

"They seem mentally fit, mentally scrubbed; I've never seen less depressed kids. It turns out that dressing like everyone else, sharing identical experiences, and being told you're on a mission of importance to the whole country does wonders for the teenage soul."

4) Ecclesiastes

I am not religious, and I am not particularly a fan of the Bible, but I am a fan of this one book in the Bible. This book is often referred to as the book of wisdom, as it takes a wise person to understand and internalize what this book says. There is a continuing theme throughout this short book, that "there is nothing new under the sun," and once you can accept what this book says you certainly will be a wiser person.

"the race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise, or wealth to the brilliant, or favor to the learned, but time and chance happen to them all."

5) The Well of Eternity by Richard Knaak

Well how about I throw a novel in here, and a novel you probably haven't heard of at that. This book is about the journey back in time of a dragon mage, a human wizard, and a veteran orc warrior into the world of Azeroth at the height of Night Elven civilization. In case you haven't caught on, this is a book based on Warcraft, but when I read it, I was surprised to find how profoundly it affected my thinking. This book explores the careless and ignorant nature of Night Elven civilization right before the invasion of the Burning Legion, and you can draw immediate connections between Night Elven civilization and America today. This book also makes you think about the concept of time travel, the conflict between good and evil if there is such a thing, and it raises the point that maybe Gods are not so invincible after all. The book summary:

"In the first chapter of this epic trilogy, the outcome of the historic War of the Ancients is forever altered by the arrival of three time-lost heroes: Krasus, the dragon mage whose great power and memories of the ancient conflict have inexplicably diminished; the human wizard Rhonin, whose thoughts are divided between his family and the seductive source of his now-growing power; and Broxigar, a weathered orc veteran who seeks a glorious death in combat. But unless these unlikely allies can convince the demigod, Cenarius, and the untrusting night elves of their queen's treachery, the burning Legion's gateway into Azeroth will open anew. And this time -- the struggles of the past may well spill over into the future... "

Originally posted by ATLien
Got most of em off Ebay...Anyone else have any books they would like to add...By the way, I'd take Mityamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings off my list, the 1st half was great and applied to all aspects of life..However, It seems like he kinda of gave up half way through writing the book...Never experienced that before..

Thanks in advance..

Read the book I posted Bushido: The Soul of Japan and then read the Book of Five Rings again and it might make some more sense. The Book of Five Rings is a book you cannot just read once and completely understand. It is also not a book you can just pick up and understand without understanding the workings of Japanese culture and Japanese history.

reply to post by ATLien


Just one from me..."Many Wonderful Things" It is a small publication, fairly obscure book written by a Robert W.Huffman and Irene Specht.

reply to post by ofhumandescent


i did something like that a while back.
ATS recommended reads