3 X 5's: Index Card Wisdom from Best of Books

PROMISED LAND H. L.Goodall, Jr. (1989). Casing a Promised Land:                                                    The Autobiography of an Organizational                                                           Detective as Cultural Ethnographer. Goodall was a professor of Communication. This is the first of his trilogy of books...the other two books are Living in the Rock n' Roll Mystery , and Divine Signs . I read and took notes on Casing a Promised Land in May of 2003--20 years ago, and now (2023) i'm reading and documenting the best of the "best parts." Some of the many gems: 1)Academics need to get out of the office and into the world to hear stories, to b...

FACULTY X Gary Lachman (2016). Beyond the Robot:                                             The Life and Work of Colin Wilson. Lachman is a spiritual seeker and writer that chronicles the life of Colin Wilson, especially the ideas from the books Wilson wrote and the circumstances of publishing them.  The central question occupying most of Wilson's life was: how to transform consciousness at will. There are hints along the way, sensory deprivation, dreams, breaking the habitual robot mentality, using sex to intensify consciousness to obtain more energy and activate the imagination, occult practices...AND my main criticism is Wilson does not, in Lachman's book (he may in his own books which i have not read), get down to pragmatics, to method, to what one should DO to facilitate intentional shifts in consciousness. This is disappointing...after an entire l...

HEAVEN Todd Burpo (2010). Heaven Is For Real. Todd is the father of Colton who at 4 years of age underwent a surgery for a ruptured and over the course of time Colton reports what he experienced about heaven during the surgery.  One has to consider : the medical report did not include a "near death" experience, Colton's upbringing of 4 years with his father being a pastor, Sunday school, and media exposure are all potential sources of experience that he may be drawing on, possible distortions in memory recall, expectancies effects when parents ask children questions, and the role of childhood imagination. Colton says he was above his body looking down at the doctor performing surgery on him...he could see his father in another room praying, and his mother in a separate room on her phone and praying (both of these facts were confirmed by the parents).  Colton recounts his experience of being in heaven sitting on Jesus' lap--Jesus was dressed in white with a purple sash...