Exit The Cave

Most people will say something feels terribly wrong...with reality, the world, life. Why is that? Because something is wrong. This whole experience called "life on Earth" is a falsified lie. Standard spirituality, religion and the New Age tell us that we live in a wonderful world, made by a creator who loves us, and who is always waiting for our prayers. Yet some groups, such as the Gnostics and Cathars, believed that we live in a virtual reality simulation, fashioned by an evil creator, with the purpose of consuming our energy and keeping our soul trapped. Plato created the allegory of the Cave to present that we live in a non- real reality, and in fact, are prisoners in it. Exit the Cave takes a candid exploration into the reincarnation trap, by unpacking a plethora of diverse information from ancient texts and near death experiences, to movies such as Dark City and Westworld in an attempt to deconstruct and understand Plato's Cave allegory. Most significant of it all, is how important it is to be prepared at the moment of one's death - our only true "guaranteed experience." What awaits us on the other side of turning our back on constant incarnations in a pit of suffering? Perhaps it is what our soul has been dreaming of for eons... going Home.

Redeem your story, redefine your creativity, and make a life that truly matters Sometimes the greatest gift you can receive is for your life to fall apart. After years stuck in a painful cycle fueled by past abuse and ongoing addiction, actor, artist, and director Blaine Hogan finally hit rock bottom. No longer able to hide behind the veneer of success or find comfort in the shadows of compulsion, Blaine was forced to look at the story his life was telling and realize he'd lost the plot. Desperate to find hope, he gave up a budding career and took a major life detour where he discovered that facing his past was the key to unlocking a new kind of creativity. In Exit the Cave, Blaine shares the stories that shaped him while exploring how our relationship to our past defines how we imagine the future and live in the present. Through powerful personal revelations, he invites you to take up the practices of radical imagination and real creativity so you can tell a better story with your life. If you've ever been stuck, addicted, ashamed, discontented, or lost, take courage--a richer, more imaginative, and meaningful life is waiting for you just outside the cave. "A tender but fierce story of survival, reckoning, and redemption. Blaine manages to somehow weave themes of acting, allegory, addiction, family, and faith into one beautifully written account of his own healing. This is the kind of story that will redeem you."--Laura McKowen, bestselling author of We Are the Luckiest "Blaine Hogan has inspired me for many years with his unique way of seeing the world. In this book you'll find a blast of inspiration and a trusty guide to help you exit the cave and enter a world that is real and beautiful and vital."--Brad Montague, New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of The Circles All Around Us, Becoming Better Grownups, and Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Stranger Than Kindness is a journey in images and words into the creative world of musician, storyteller and cultural icon Nick Cave. This highly collectable book invites the reader into the innermost core of the creative process and paves the way for an entirely new and intimate meeting with the artist, presenting Cave’s life, work and inspiration and exploring his many real and imagined universes. It features full colour reproductions of original artwork, handwritten lyrics, photographs and collected personal artefacts along with commentary and meditations from Nick Cave, Janine Barrand and Darcey Steinke. Stranger Than Kindness asks what shapes our lives and makes us who we are, and celebrates the curiosity and power of the creative spirit. The book has been developed and curated by Nick Cave in collaboration with Christina Back. The images were selected from ‘Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition’, opening at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen in June 2020.

"War is coming to Bronze Age Greece. It's time to skill up. There's only one arrow, but you only have to shoot one man. I know you won't miss. Odysseus's challenges are mounting. Can he find his grandfather's hidden gold? Find the strength to string and shoot the Great Bow of Eurytos, which no man has done for generations? Toughest of all, can he persuade a girl to love him? Win some, lose some."- -Back cover.

An unassuming family struggles to keep up with the ruthless pace of progress in “a genuinely brilliant novel” from a Nobel Prize winner (Chicago Tribune). A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Marçal in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and offices. Marçal works there as a security guard, and Cipriano drives him to work each day before delivering his own humble pots and jugs. On one such trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. People prefer plastic, apparently. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, and Cipriano and Marta set to work—until the order is cancelled and the penniless trio must move from the village into The Center. When mysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their new apartment, Cipriano and Marçal investigate; what they find transforms the family’s life, in a novel that is both “irrepressibly funny” (The Christian Science Monitor) and a “triumph” (The Washington Post Book World). “The struggle of the individual against bureaucracy and anonymity is one of the great subjects of modern literature, and Saramago is often matched with Kafka as one of its premier exponents. Apt as the comparison is, it doesn’t convey the warmth and rueful human dimension of novels like Blindness and All the Names. Those qualities are particularly evident in his latest brilliant, dark allegory, which links the encroaching sterility of modern life to the parable of Plato’s cave . . . [a] remarkably generous and eloquent novel.” —Publishers Weekly Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

Diving Science...Revisited is like no other diving text, including its predecessor, Diving Science. Amplified with figures, tables, and photos in color, this book includes four unique and innovative parts amplified by nine contributors. - Medical problems of diving (MPD) are discussed from stimulus-response perspectives in the phase of a dive in which they are likely to occur. - MPD are explained by how they affect the human diver whether physical, physiological, psychological, and/or lack of awareness. - A variety of diving types and situations from breath-hold to rebreather, from children to women to older aged adults, from cold water to cave, and from deep altitude to diving with handicaps are described in individual chapters with their merits, hazards, and necessary precautions for safe diving. - Part IV contains a concise summary of the MPD from seven different perspectives ranging from the significance of the problem to when to return to diving. - Part V consists of a rhetorical question for each of the first four parts with bullet points that recap the subjects covered in each chapter. This book describes the positive as well as undesirable ways divers' interact with the aquatic environment. It is especially recommended for the following: -Diving instructors and supervisors - Those involved with clinical applications of hyperbaric oxygen therapy - Those engaged in diving-associated marine biology and underwater missions - All divers, whether novice or advanced, who want to advance their knowledge about the science and medical challenges of diving.

"...you can't hide from a part of reality just because you may not like it." In this wide-ranging spiritual journey, Howdie Mickoski weaves together Zen, Shamanism, Nonduality, Advaita, Gnostic Christianity, Alchemy, Ancient Egypt, Hollywood films, and the teachings of Richard Rose to tell a story of spiritual awakening with a message for all. Full of practical details as well as wisdom gained from the realities of daily living. Howdie's story is an engaging and surprising read.