P.D. Ouspensky

Total similar authors (23)

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  Osho

  Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.
  
  In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy.
  
  Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization.
  
  In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex gu

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  Immanuel Velikovsky

  Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-born American independent scholar, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950. Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a respected psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.
  
  His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources (including the Bible) to argue that Earth has suffered catastrophic close-contacts with other planets (principally Venus and Mars) in ancient times. In positioning Velikovsky among catastrophists including Hans Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly, and Johann Gottlieb Radlof[2], the British astronomers Vi

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  Plato

  Plato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
  Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, H

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  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister

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  Fernando Pessoa

  Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a poet and writer.
  
  It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they h

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  Norman Vincent Peale

  Dr. Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) was a minister and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of the theory of "positive thinking".
  
  Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio. He graduated from Bellefontaine High School, Bellefontaine, Ohio. He has earned degrees at Ohio Wesleyan University (where he became a brother of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta) and Boston University School of Theology.
  
  Raised as a Methodist and ordained as a Methodist minister in 1922, Peale changed his religious affiliation to the Reformed Church in America in 1932 and began a 52-year tenure as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. During that time the church's membership grew from 600 to over 5000, and he became one of New Yo

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  James Allen

  The James Allen Free Library
  
  Allen was 15 when his father, a businessman, was robbed and murdered. He left school to work full-time in several British manufacturing firms to help support the family. He later married Lily L. Allen and became an executive secretary for a large company. At age 38, inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy, he retired from employment. Allen — along with his wife and their daughter, Nohra — moved to a small cottage in Ilfracombe, Devon, England to pursue a simple life of contemplation. There he wrote for nine years, producing 19 works. He also edited and published a magazine, "The Light of Reason".
  
  Allen's books illustrate the use of the power of thought to increase personal capabilities. Although he never achieved

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  Erich Fromm

  Erich Fromm, Ph.D. (Sociology, University of Heidelberg, 1922) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
  
  Fromm explored the interaction between psychology and society, and held various professorships in psychology in the U.S. and Mexico in the mid-20th century.
  
  Fromm's theory is a rather unique blend of Freud and Marx. Freud, of course, emphasized the unconscious, biological drives, repression, and

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  Joseph Campbell

  Joseph Campbell was an American author and teacher best known for his work in the field of comparative mythology. He was born in New York City in 1904, and from early childhood he became interested in mythology. He loved to read books about American Indian cultures, and frequently visited the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he was fascinated by the museum's collection of totem poles.
  
  Campbell was educated at Columbia University, where he specialized in medieval literature, and continued his studies at universities in Paris and Munich. While abroad he was influenced by the art of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, the novels of James Joyce and Thomas Mann, and the psychological studies of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Thes

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  Manly P. Hall

  Canadian born, Manly Palmer Hall is the author of over 150 published works, the best known of which are Initiates of the Flame, The Story of Healing, The Divine Art,Aliens Magick and Sorcery The Secret Teachings of All Ages, and An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy.
  He was also the author of a masonic curiosity, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry in 1923, more than thirty years before he joined a lodge. The preface of later editions states "At the time I wrote this slender volume, I had just passed my twenty-first birthday, and my only contact with Freemasonry was through a few books commonly available to the public." Later, in 1944, he wrote The Secret Destiny of America which popularized the

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  Ágota Kristóf

  Ágota Kristóf was a Hungarian writer, who lived in Switzerland and wrote in French. Kristof received the European prize for French literature for The Notebook (1986). She won the 2001 Gottfried Keller Award in Switzerland and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2008.
  
  Kristof's first steps as a writer were in the realm of poetry and theater (John et Joe, Un rat qui passe), which is a facet of her works that did not have as great an impact as her trilogy. In 1986 Kristof’s first novel, The Notebook appeared. It was the beginning of a moving trilogy. The sequel titled The Proof came 2 years later. The third part was published in 1991 under the title The Third Lie. The most important themes of this trilogy are war and destructio

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  G.I. Gurdjieff

  Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev, or Gurdjiev) was an influential Greek-Armenian mystic, spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century, and a self-professed 'teacher of dancing'.
  
  He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awa

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  Truman Capote

  Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
  
  Truman Capote was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels and plays are recognised literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and In Cold Blood (1965), which he labeled a "non-fiction novel." At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.
  
  He was born as Truman Streckfus Persons to a salesman Archulus Persons and young Lillie Mae. His parents divorced when he was four and he went to live with his mother's relatives in Monroeville, Alabama. He was a lonely child who learned to read and write by himself before entering school. In 1933, he moved to New York City to live wi

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  J. Krishnamurti

  Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on 11 May 1895 in Madanapalle, a small town in south India. He and his brother were adopted in their youth by Dr Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society. Dr Besant and others proclaimed that Krishnamurti was to be a world teacher whose coming the Theosophists had predicted. To prepare the world for this coming, a world-wide organization called the Order of the Star in the East was formed and the young Krishnamurti was made its head.
  
  In 1929, however, Krishnamurti renounced the role that he was expected to play, dissolved the Order with its huge following, and returned all the money and property that had been donated for this work.
  
  From then, for nearly sixty years until his death on 17 February 1

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  Albert Camus

  Works, such as the novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel Prize of 1957 for literature.
  
  Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work.
  
  He also adapted plays of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Dino Buzzati, and Requiem for a Nun of William Faulkner. One may trace his enjoyment of the theater back to his membership in l'Equipe, an Algerian group, whose "collective creation" Révolte dans les Asturies (1934) was banned for political reasons.
  
  Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectu

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  Alan W. Watts

  Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker, who held both a Master's in Theology and a Doctorate of Divinity. Famous for his research on comparative religion, he was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness. In his books he relates his experience to scientific knowledge and to the teachings of Eastern and Western religion and philosophy.

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  Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

  Krishna Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, also known as Vyāsa or Veda-Vyāsa (वेदव्यास, the one who classified the Vedas into four parts) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is traditonally regarded as the author of the Mahābhārata, although it is also widely held that he only composed the core of the epic, the Bhārata. A significant portion of the epic later was only added in later centuries, which then came to be known as the Mahābhārata. The date of composition of this epic is not known - It was definitvely part of the traditions in Indian subcontinent at the time Gautam Buddha (~500 BCE) which would suggest it having been already around for atleast a few centuries. It was chiefy put down in the written form only somewhere betwee

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• 

  Osho

  Rajneesh (born Chandra Mohan Jain, 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990) and latter rebranded as Osho was leader of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic.
  
  In the 1960s he traveled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi, and Hindu religious orthodoxy.
  
  Rajneesh emphasized the importance of meditation, mindfulness, love, celebration, courage, creativity and humor—qualities that he viewed as being suppressed by adherence to static belief systems, religious tradition and socialization.
  
  In advocating a more open attitude to human sexuality he caused controversy in India during the late 1960s and became known as "the sex gu

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• 

  Jeanne de Salzmann

  Jeanne de Salzmann was born in 1889 in Reims, France and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. She married Alexandre de Salzmann, a well-known Russian painter, in 1912 and returned to his home in Tiflis in the Caucasus mountain region of southern Russia. She met Gurdjieff in 1919 in Tiflis, became committed to his work, and remained close to him until his death in Paris thirty years later.
  
  Before he died Gurdjieff charged Mme. de Salzmann to live to be "over 100" in order to establish his teaching. He left her all his rights with respect to his writings and dance exercises called the "Movements."
  
  During the next forty years she arranged for publication of his books and preservation of the Movements, and established Gurdjieff centers to practice the

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  John Anthony West

  Author, lecturer and guide, John Anthony West delivered a seismic shock to archaeology in the early 1990's when he and Boston University geologist Robert Schoch revealed that the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, showed evidence of rainfall erosion. Such erosion could only mean that the Sphinx was carved during or before the rains that marked the transition of northern Africa from the last Ice Age to the present interglacial epoch, a transition that occurred in the millennia from 10,000 to 5000 BC.

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• 

  Jeanne de Salzmann

  Jeanne de Salzmann was born in 1889 in Reims, France and raised in Geneva, Switzerland. She married Alexandre de Salzmann, a well-known Russian painter, in 1912 and returned to his home in Tiflis in the Caucasus mountain region of southern Russia. She met Gurdjieff in 1919 in Tiflis, became committed to his work, and remained close to him until his death in Paris thirty years later.
  
  Before he died Gurdjieff charged Mme. de Salzmann to live to be "over 100" in order to establish his teaching. He left her all his rights with respect to his writings and dance exercises called the "Movements."
  
  During the next forty years she arranged for publication of his books and preservation of the Movements, and established Gurdjieff centers to practice the

  Buy books on Amazon
• 

  G.I. Gurdjieff

  Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev, or Gurdjiev) was an influential Greek-Armenian mystic, spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century, and a self-professed 'teacher of dancing'.
  
  He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep," but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method." According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awa

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• 

  Fritz Peters

  Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Arthur Anderson “Fritz” Peters was the author of both novels and memoirs, which touched on themes of spirituality, mental illness, homosexuality, self and society, always through the lens of an unrelenting individuality and nonconformism. Peters’ most successful novel was Finistère, published in 1951, which sold over 350,000 copies and was an influential and unapologetic work of early gay literature. Due to instability in his family life, Peters spent his childhood between Europe and the United States, often nurtured by those adults who were able and willing to assist. Central to his upbringing was his aunt Margaret Anderson and her partner Jane Heap, creators of The Little Review literary magazine, along with ot

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