Download E-books West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief PDF

By Steven Kotler

A religious and medical surf quest, West of Jesus tracks a modern browsing fantasy and appears on the neuroscience that connects spirituality and excessive threat game.

After spending years in mattress with Lyme illness, Steven Kotler had misplaced every thing: his well-being, his activity, his woman, and, he used to be commencing to suspect, his brain. Kotler, now not a spiritual guy, without warning chanced on himself interested in the game of browsing as though it have been the cornerstone of a brand new religion. Why, he puzzled, whilst there has been not anything left to think in, may he start to think in whatever as not likely as browsing. What used to be trust besides? How did it paintings within the physique, the mind, our tradition, and human history?

Into this mixture got here a wierd tale. In 2003, on a surf journey via Mexico, Kotler heard of "the conductor," a legendary surfer who may perhaps keep watch over the elements. He'd heard this similar story 8 years previous, in Indonesia, yet this time anything clicked. With the aid of all people from insurgent surfers to rocket scientists, Kotler undertakes a 3 12 months globetrotting quest for the origins of this legend. the implications are a startling mixture of massive waves and larger principles: a surfer's trip into the organic underpinnings of trust itself.

Show description

Read Online or Download West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief PDF

Similar New Age books

The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe

During this groundbreaking vintage, investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart unearths a thorough new paradigm—that the human brain and physique usually are not break away their surroundings yet a packet of pulsating energy consistently interacting with this gigantic strength sea, and that recognition should be critical in shaping our global.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61)

Together with his bestselling non secular advisor the facility of Now, Eckhart Tolle encouraged thousands of readers to find the liberty and pleasure of a lifestyles lived "in the now. " In a brand new Earth, Tolle expands on those strong principles to teach how transcending our ego-based country of awareness is not just necessary to own happiness, but in addition the foremost to finishing clash and discomfort through the international.

The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity: A Modern Practical Guide to the Ancient Way

With a close creation to the traditional philosophical, moral, and non secular chinese language perform of Taoism, The Tao of wellbeing and fitness, intercourse, and toughness is a special, complete, and functional self-help advisor to reside a balanced and optimistic Taoist way of life. Written through a Westerner for the Western brain, The Tao of future health, intercourse, and toughness is ideal for the trendy reader attracted to exploring the balanced and holistic healthiness care method utilized by chinese language physicians, martial artists, and meditators for over 5,000 years.

Spirits Out of Time: True Family Ghost Stories and Weird Paranormal Experiences

I've got continually been fascinated with secrets and techniques. .. So starts Annie Wilder's choice of real kinfolk ghost tales, accrued from outdated letters and kin family tree books or informed round the dinner desk. From her Irish great-grandpa outsmarting the dying trainer to her German great-great-grandma seeing a falling superstar every time one in all her kids died, those own vignettes remove darkness from the mysteries of the spirit global.

Additional info for West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief

Show sample text content

That is what i am telling you," stated Tom. Then he began to snort, and that i began to snort, and he positioned his arm round my shoulder and stated, "Welcome to Hawaii. " forty four Hunter Thompson as soon as got here to Hawaii to hide the Honolulu Marathon and ended up so strung out on surf and acid and the entire vibe that he got here to think he used to be possessed via the god Lono. Historians think that Lono started as Ro'o, a cloud-floating deity from the Tahitian canon. by the point Lono drifted over to Hawaii, he had come to manage storms of all types, together with either fertility and the nice Dr. Thompson. Lono wasn't the one little bit of strength majeure to float over. "Wind imprisonment via famous magicians happens in different South Sea areas," writes Martha Beckwith in her vintage Hawaiian Mythology. within the cook dinner archipelago, the excessive priest had a calabash containing a miniature universe. there have been thirty-two holes drilled into this calabash, one for every of the winds of the compass. those have been the holes within the horizon during which the wind god Raka performed the area like a suite of panpipes. while an open-water voyage was once being undertaken, the excessive priest might conceal all of the holes however the one for the wind required by means of the voyage's trajectory. while that trajectory eventually pointed the Polynesians towards Hawaii, Raka's magic calabash had turn into the wind gourd of La'amaomao. to appreciate how one managed the winds with a gourd is to appreciate the strange own nature of Hawaiian magic. The neighborhood observe for religious energy is mana, the existence strength that flows via every thing. humans may have nice mana—and nice mana could be cultivated via deeds or practice—but it is just on personal loan from the universe right. "It's just like the strength in superstar Wars," Tom Stone acknowledged. while boats shipwreck within the waters close to Molokai, corpses wash up on Sandy seashore in Oahu. In older instances, fishermen prized fishhooks formed from the femurs of drowned sailors. simply because Hawaiians think person's mana is saved of their bones—and as the energy will be squandered if these bones weren't effectively cared for—having one's femur changed into a fishhook used to be one of many issues that stored humans conscious at evening. La'amaomao's mana was once kept in her bones, and her bones have been saved within the wind gourd. through the early 15th century, within the period of kings, while Keawenuia'umi ran the express at the enormous Island, the wind gourd was once given to his royal wayfinder Paka'a. In Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii Samuel Kamakau describes Paka'a's navigational talents: "He knew how you can inform whilst the ocean will be calm, whilst there will be a tempest in ocean, and while there will be nice pillows. He saw the celebrities, the rainbow colours on the edges of the celebrities, the best way they twinkled, their crimson sparkling, the dimming of the celebs in a typhoon, the reddish rim of the clouds, the way in which which they movement, the decreasing of the sky, the heavy cloudiness, the gales, the blowing of the ho'olua wind, the a'e wind from less than, the whirlwind, and the towering billows of the ocean. " It used to be Paka'a's mom who gave him the gourd and taught him the names of the winds.

Rated 4.25 of 5 – based on 47 votes