http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com
For anyone exploring "spirituality" or seeking the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, and wondering what to do... meditation is the best place to begin. These are the best and most practical resources on meditation that I know of, all recommended highly:
Slow Love: A Polynesian Pillow Book
by James N. Powell
The chapter "On Doing Nothing" is one of the best writings on practical meditation I've come across in a long time. This book is also one of the best on romantic and sexual relationships as well.
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality
by Brad Warner
Funny and educational autobiography of an 80s hardcore punk bass player (for Zero Defex) who went to Japan to work on Japanese monster movies and wound up becoming a Soto Zen priest. Funny and insightful, this book also has practical instructions for traditional zazen practice.
Zen without Zen Masters
by Camden Benares
Discordian Zen, with an extensive section on practical meditation "how-to"s. Lots of Discordian stories and paradoxically insightful nonsense, all with an introductory commentary by Robert Anton Wilson.
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
by David Lynch
Yeah, the same David Lynch... the prolific filmmaker behind Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and a lot of other films... and, at one time, weather reporter in LA. Not a "how-to", more of a brilliant autobiographical exploration of meditation and the creative process.
While reading about meditation can teach you a lot, nothing compares to the experience you have when you really do it! I'd love to read about your experiences... dennis@dennisgeorgerudolph.com.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com
Copyright 2011 by Dennis George Rudolph. All rights reserved.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com
A lot has been written and taught about energy healing. Some is good, some is not so good. What follows are notes on what I consider to be the best, most practical books on hands-on healing out there, with links to help you when you want to find them on Amazon. The first two are practical guides to doing the stuff, and the third can help you steer clear of a lot of the traps that some have set to mislead sincere seekers. These are the real deal.
So here's the best of the good stuff so far:
Now Reiki: Universal Energy and the Stillness of Now
by William Welton
The best in hands-on healing, simple and direct. This one not only teaches energy healing, it could transform your view of reality if you actually practice the meditations and follow the suggestions on applying healing energy. It combines the practical teachings of classic Usui Reiki with the insights of Eckhart Tolle. To get the most out of this, it is best to get it with the Now Reiki Meditations
CD. It is also available as a complete Now Reiki Audio Course
.
Quantum-Touch: The Power to Heal (Third Edition)
by Richard Gordon
An excellent book teaching effective hands-on healing with many practical variations.
Reiki False Beliefs Exposed For All Misinformation Kept Secret By a Few Revealed
by Steve Murray
A Reiki Master debunks a lot of crap that's been put out about hands-on healing generally and Reiki in particular. If you've been around the Reiki community for a while, be prepared to have some myths shattered. If you're new to it, this can save you a lot of time and money that might otherwise be spent chasing manipulative fantasies.
These three resources can put you on the road to truly effective energy healing... that is, if you get them and, most importantly, sincerely apply what they teach.
Please let me know how you use them! I can be reached at dennis@dennisgeorgerudolph.com.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com
Copyright 2011 by Dennis George Rudolph. All rights reserved.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com
Recently a good friend of mine agreed to write a review of The Psychic Experimentalist, a collection of articles and essays from the last couple of years. I'm amazed that he liked it as much as he did, and consider his words true praise. I hope you agree...
A few weeks ago Dennis George Rudolph published a collection of his tirades online as what he called a "free ebook". The title of this volume is The Psychic Experimentalist. To call it an "ebook" may be a bit of an exaggeration, as it weighs in at a mere 45 pages... maybe more of an "epamphlet". Most, but not all, of the essays that constitute this screed have been previously published as blog posts. Although I am acquainted with the author, I only got around to reading it recently. Once I started telling him what I thought of it, he asked to write this review. I'll try to be kind.
It attempts, rather directly, to change the perspective of the reader in a way that enables the reader to see beyond the words to something-or-other beyond them. The author particularly enjoys the "finger pointing to the moon" analogy from Zen, and yet the words themselves seem to point in all kinds of different directions. One moment he seems to be raving about the oneness of everything, and the next he's saying that reality is incomprehensible beyond models of reality. He capitalizes words that he feels have some "cosmic" importance, then tells us again to "look beyond the words" as if that's easy to do when you're laughing at his preposterous inconsistencies. Sometimes it's hard to tell when he's joking, or whether he considers his pretentious "jokes" to be significant somehow.
In the self-serving bio at the back, which he tacitly admits he wrote, he never mentions his Wiccan priesthood, his background teaching shamanism and European Faerie Tradition, or his experimental blues death punk band in the 1980s. Nor does he mention whether or not he went to any college beyond a couple of semesters at the Calvary Chapel Bible School... and he doesn't even admit to that! He says he's a minister without mentioning that he was ordained by the Universal Life Church when he was 14, after reading about them in Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book. When I confronted him with this he told me he had also been ordained by another church as well, although he couldn't remember its name. This dubiously eclectic background is ignored while he emphasizes things he'd rather people notice.
His logic is inconsistent at best, his stories are erratic, and the quotations he chooses are so contradictory I almost wonder if he's somehow laughing at himself while raving about the futility of "belief systems" and such. The way he capitalizes words in the middle of sentences is intended to make some kind of point, I know, but I'm not sure they don't just bring up the reader's own preconceptions about "All That Is" or whatever pompous crap he's ranting about.
Sure, I laughed out loud reading it, and I told him I was laughing with him, not at him. I think he wanted to believe me, however much he harangues me about not truly believing anything. So would I recommend this book? Sure, if you want to spend some time having your mind turned inside out and shaken out over a cosmic dustbin. Honestly, I don't agree with everything he says, but then again he doesn't ask for agreement, so I guess that's okay. He seems sincere while asking people to disagree with him, so how could I not question this stuff? That's what he wants!
Anyway, the price is right, it's free from his website http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com . I'm glad I finally read it, even if it's hard to tell whether its a complicated joke masquerading as a true sutra, or a true sutra camouflaged as a complicated joke. Just get it, read it, and decide for yourself.
I wonder if he's going to have the balls to print this. And I wonder if he really thinks anyone will believe he didn't write this review himself.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com/
Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph. All rights reserved.
by Alan Watts
by Tim Freke
by Eckhart Tolle