Books To Grow Your Mind

I have always created opportunities to share my excitement about interesting books.

After reading a fantastic book, I would immediately find someone to tell about it. Captive audiences were best (people at work, during lunchtime).

At social gatherings I always managed to bring the subject around to my most recent interesting book. Since these were never "fiction" books, my listeners soon excused themselves to get their drink freshened (read that as, "looked elsewhere for more interesting conversation").

I hope that these books will excite your interest. If not, just click the "Back Button," for instant relief.

Now, let me tell you about some fascinating books!

A COLLECTION OF MIND STRETCHING BOOKS

SCIENCE AND SANITY - Alfred Korzybski

First Edition 1933. My copy, 4th Ed. 1958. Library of Congress 58-5260. Pub. by The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company, Lakeville, Conn.

Recommended to me by Prof. Townsend when I was a freshman at NYU (1942). The book's thesis is that language is a map of the world. The more we understand the limitations of our "language maps," the more we can understand why people can have honest differences in their views of the world. Korzybski was the founder of the Institute of General Semantics. (1938)

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CYCLES: THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT TRIGGER EVENTS - Edward R. Dewey (with Og Mandino)

Copyright 1971 by the Foundation for the Study of Cycles. A Manor Book, 1973. Library of Congress 70-130730.

I read an earlier version of this book that I believe was Dewey's "Cycles: Key To the Future." I got it as a small pocket book, distributed by the Army to us soldiers in the field, during World War II. I was fascinated by the way the book presented it's extensive array of cyclical phenomena, which appear in such diverse observables as weather, war, pig-iron prices, marriage rates, manufacturing, sunspots, mob behavior, stock prices, etc.

The mystery is, "Why do so many unrelated phenomena have such similar cyclic periodicity's?"

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MAINSPRINGS OF CIVILIZATION - Ellsworth Huntington

Copyright 1945. A Mentor Book, (MT248). Hardcover originally published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Here was another book that told a larger story about how cycles influence our lives. The book collected evidence of the many interactions between climatic cycles, geography and cultural pressures, that jointly produced the "forces" which molded the evolution of our several civilizations.

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SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DYNAMICS (Volumes I to IV) - Pitrim A. Sorokin

The Bedminster Press, New York, 1962. (On library shelf as HM 101.S752).

I never went beyond Volume I which dealt with "Fluctuations of Forms of Art," (Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, Literature, and Criticism). Apparently Soroken detected a 500 year cycle during which the basis of our belief systems move between the "Sensate" ("I believe what my physical senses tell me" - Science), and "Ideational" ("I believe in what is revealed by higher authority" - Religion).

As the belief systems shift from one form to the other, we experience our wars and social upheavals.

We are currently in a transition from Sensate to Ideational belief systems. Notice any impending upheavals? The period we just passed through, between the extremes, is called the Idealistic period.

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THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES - Jose Ortega y Gasset

Published in Spanish 1930. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York, 1957 (In English).

"Ortega" was a philosopher who saw things coming! He was concerned about the fact that the masses (i.e., average persons) had achieved complete social power. The problem, as he saw it, was that "the masses neither should or could direct their own personal existence, and still less rule society in general." His position is that society depends upon special competencies that are not found in the average person, yet today they claim equal access to positions of power.

Ortega's views provide a stimulating perspective for understanding the problems of our times. Unfortunately it is difficult to discuss his views, which are definitely not "PC" (politically correct).

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BODY TIME - PHYSIOLOGICAL RHYTHMS AND SOCIAL STRESS - Gay Gaer Luce

A Bantam Book, Pantheon Books, Inc. New York, 1971

Gay Gaer Luce must live with frustration. Her book provides a comprehensive description of hundreds of biological cycles that affect each of us, and how they should be considered in timing medical treatments, or understanding our personal experiences.

Yet, even recently, doctors have told me that they will believe it when they see it in their medical journals. If you are not yet interested in your body cycles, this book can show you why you should be!

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GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD - Mortimer J. Adler, Editor in Chief

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952

This 54 volume series is in most libraries. It's for people like myself who always felt that they were "uncultured." It contains material on 102 of the major ideas that have been addressed by the world's best minds. The first volume lays out a series of selected readings for a ten-year reading program, although the series can provide stimulating reading for the rest of your life.

If you find yourself pondering a "great question," check out these books to see what other thinkers have had to say about the subject (art, being, courage, love, nature, soul, philosophy, law, happiness, etc.)

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