$14.95 • 250 pages (approx.) • Origin Press/Celestia

Available April 2012
50 percent off advanced orders (through March 2012)!
For advanced orders, please email us: byron@originpress.com
or call: 888-267-4446

“Let us grow together. Let us spread the wings of our minds. Let us be humble in this awareness that we are in the midst of God’s creation, for it is enormous and profound and subtle and powerful, and yet gentle and loving and supporting beyond any measure.”
—Mother Spirit

“I wish you to appreciate to the fullest extent the importance of experience—an absolute cosmic reality that is being created moment by moment…No being whatsoever, not even God, has yet experienced this reality being formed, moment by moment, throughout the entire realm of time and space. This is what you are involved in.”

—Christ Michael

Radical Therapy: Surrender to love and heal yourself in seven sessions, not seven years
Allen Roland, Ph.D.
October 2003 • 280 pages • hardcover • 1-57983-006-4

To purchase or to learn more about this book, go to the author’s website: allenroland.com

The Whole-Brain Path to Peace
The Role of Left- and Right-Brain Dominance
in the Polarization and Reunification of America
James Olson

To purchase, or for much more information on this book, please go to its official website: http://www.thewholebrainpath.com/

MEETINGS WITH PAUL:
An Atheist Encounters His Guardian Angel
Phillip H. Krapf

Price: $15.95
Our discounted price: $11.95

Spirituality/Angelic encounters
eBook price: $6.95
220 pages | Trade Paperback
Publication date: September, 2008
Origin Press | 978-1-57983-021-2

Phil Krapf spent thirty years in the newspaper business and worked for twenty-five years as an editor on the Metro copy desk of the Los Angeles Times, where he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

Angels

“An enlightening account that reveals how spirituality does not absolutely necessitate belief in God.”
— Midwest Book Review

“A well-written, interesting story. Krapf finds himself in unexpected, sometimes hilarious situations. I can’t help thinking that Paul is related to Phil’s earlier contacts.”
— George LoBuono, author of Alien Mind

Imagine a reporter’s dialogue face to face with his guardian angel . . .

. . . a dialogue that’s not mired in religious dogma, and one that is rich with wisdom, intimacy, and humor

. . . resulting in a resounding challenge to the “new atheism.”

Phil Krapf, a lifelong atheist and veteran mainstream newspaperman—and one of the most prominent persons ever to claim ET contact—now reports on an equally astonishing and often hilarious series of encounters, this time with Paul, his guardian angel. Examine your own relationship with the world of spirit as you read this stunning account of Paul’s dramatic materializations, all narrated with Krapf’s trademark journalistic clarity. Here is the true story of an otherworldly teacher who consoles a professed unbeliever during the most difficult time of his life. The author slowly overcomes his skepticism as he gratefully learns how our angels serve us over our lifetime–and how vital they are in our daily lives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, PHIL KRAPF

Phil Krapf spent 30 years in the mainstream newspaper business as a reporter, photographer, editor and editorial writer. He worked for 25 years as an editor on the Metro copy desk of the Los Angeles Times. During that time, he shared in a Pulitzer Prize as a member of the Metro team that won the award for the newspaper’s coverage of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. Prior to joining the Times staff in 1968, Krapf was a staff member of the community newspaper of San Fernando, California, eventually serving as its managing editor, and winning a variety of journalism awards. Krapf is the acclaimed author of The Contact Has Begun (Hay House: 1998), and The Challenge of Contact (Origin Press: 2002), controversial accounts of his contacts with an extraterrestrial race.

Observations by Paul—a guardian angel

It is not a sign of weakness for a drowning person to call for help or to accept a helping hand.

The universe contains wonders beyond imagination, but there is no such thing as a perfect mortal.

Invisible things exist as surely as empty space itself.

The nonbeliever who acts as though God is watchingis nobler than the believer who pays no heed.

An honorable stranger makes better company than a questionable friend.”

To be truly appreciated, music must be heard with the heart as well as the ears.

The entire list of Paul’s sayings

BOOK EXCERPTS:
Author’s Preface
Foreword
Chapter 1
Excerpt from Ch. 3
Postscript

BACKGROUND MATERIALS FOR THE MEDIA

Press Release for Meetings with Paul

Publisher’s Weekly Coverage

Chapter Summaries

Phil Krapf’s Special Note to Ufologists

Interviewers Q&A Sheet

Krapf’s 1998 book
Krapf’s 2002 book

Buy Now

Toward A Well-Governed World:
A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law
A DVD produced by Byron Belitsos
Sept 2005
$15.00 (limited supply, contact us directly to purchase)

1. “Toward a Well-Governed World” (59:50)
Featuring Lucille Green, Bob Gauntt, Garry Davis, Andrew Strauss, Tad Daley, and Robert Muller.
(A reissue of “Toward a Governed World”—1988)

2. Jerry Tetalman, coauthor of One World Democracy (3:56)
Keynote presentation in San Francisco, June 25, 2005.

3. Byron Belitsos, coauthor of One World Democracy (4:08)
Keynote presentation in San Francisco, June 25, 2005.

4. Walter Cronkite, 1999 speech to the World Federalist Association (8:23)

The Challenge of Contact**
A Mainstream Journalists Report on Interplanetary Diplomacy
By Phillip H. Krapf
October 2002 • 240 pages • paperback • 1-57983-009-9

**This title is temporarily out of print

“I ask that people regard the revelations in Phillip Krapf’s book with the same attention they directed to the Pentagon Papers in 1971.”
—Daniel Sheehan
Chief counsel for civil litigation in the Iran-Contra affair and chief counsel, Karen Silkwood case.

“There was just something about Phillip Krapf that rang true, I guess that’s all I can say. Over several hours the story held up—he held up.”
—Art Bell, Coast to Coast Radio

AN EPIC STORY OF CONTACT
The Challenge of Contact is Krapf’s continuing story of the secret deliberations between a race of alien observers called the Verdants, and some 850 world leaders known as “ambassadors”—an interplanetary liaison that had been planned to lead to a formal and public announcement of contact. This book chronicles the dramatic events of Krapf’s second period of sojourn on the Verdant craft that occurred in 1999. It also reports key events of “ground contact” with a Verdant representative, with two unnamed ambassadors—including a former editorial executive at the L.A. Times—and with his own guardian angel.

This amazing yet true story narrates how the author then agrees to become the official chronicler of the Verdant/human contact mission, a vast and heretofore secret project that also includes hundreds of other human “ambassadors” who have also been recruited for specialized roles. The Contact Has Begun reveals unprecedented information about an extraterrestrial civilization whose benign plans for planet Earth are later derailed by the events of September 11, 2001—as narrated in Mr. Krapf’s sequel, The Challenge of Contact, also available from Origin Press.

The Contact Has Begun
The True Story of a Journalist’s Encounter with Alien Beings
By Phillip H. Krapf
$11.95

Hay House, 1998 / Origin Press, 2004
1-57983-014-3

Abridged Audio Version
Two tapes, read by Tom Plant
$16.95

About Phillip Krapf
Phillip H. Krapf worked for 25 years as an editor on the Metro copy desk at the Los Angeles Times. During that time, he shared in a Pulitzer Prize as a member of the Metro team that covered the L.A. riots of 1992. Before his retirement in 1993, Krapf had spent a total of 30 years in the newspaper business, starting out as a cub reporter and eventually becoming the managing editor of a suburban newspaper in the San Fernando Valley, before moving on to the L.A. Times. He has remained active in retirement as a freelance writer, and lives with his wife in Southern California.

Kuby authored Faith and the Placebo Effect after her own experience of a healing of breast cancer through faith. Writing with the power of first-hand experience, Kuby raises a prophetic voice against the excesses of modern medicine, offering a radical and passionate polemic in favor of self reliance. The raw power of her brilliant and sustained argument will inspire your own quest for healing through the mind alone. 

2002 Health Book of the Year (finalist)
Foreword Magazine Awards

Faith and The Placebo Effect
An Argument for Self-Healing
by Lolette Kuby, PhD
2003 • 324 pages • Hardcover
1-57983-005-6
Buy Now

“An engaging, well-written page turner that makes an inspirational argument for self-healing. Faith and the Placebo Effect is uplifting and informative, offering hope without flaky claims or pompous discourses Kuby’s stark, powerful writing and conclusions offer resounding rings of truth.”
—New Age Retailer

“Lolette Kuby writes with masterful, incisive clarity… This book is a brilliant and important guide to encourage us to accept full responsibility for our thoughts.”
—Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of Conscious Evolution

“Lolette Kuby has written a brilliant book that will alter forever the way you look at illness and wellness, indeed life itself. The reader is taken on a journey that smoothly and intelligently alternates between an intensely personal story of recovery and fascinating, deeply researched factual material. Our world needs Faith and the Placebo Effect.”
—David S. Alexander, author of Spiritual Abundance

“…clear, compelling, and insightful.”
—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Reinventing Medicine

“By incorporating and validating all forms of healing, Kuby neatly reveals the common link: the placebo effect. . . She presents information on healing industry case histories of non-medical cures, and, most pivotal of all, how to trigger the placebo effect, so that freedom from illness can be within anyone’s reach.”
—NAPRA Review

“Faith and the Placebo Effect is challenging, informative, and highly recommeded reading for students of alternative medicine and the psychology of healing.”
—Midwest Book Review

“Very interesting: engaging, intelligent, clear, challenging.”
—John Algeo, President, Theosophical Society in America

“Your personal story is a classic example of healing through grace or the placebo effect, as you call it. May this book touch hearts and heal bodies.”
—Richard Moss, author of The Black Butterfly

“The magnitude and passion of Dr. Lolette Kuby’s story of profound healing from cancer has long filled me with gratitude and awe. May her gripping message and deep wisdom touch your soul and facilitate your own healing.”
—Joan Gattuso, author of A Course in Love, A Course in Life

About the Author:
Previous to the unusual events that led up to the writing of this book, Lolette Kuby, Ph.D. was a widely published poet, critic, political activist, and university English teacher. Uncertain in her beliefs, there was very little in her previous way of life that prepared her for the healing epiphany and spiritual revelation that led her to develop the radical argument of Faith and the Placebo Effect.

An Overview of this Important Book
Faith and the Placebo Effect is a passionate argument for self-healing, a many-sided account of an inner potential well-known to medicine that has yet to be properly presented in popular literature. Readers will learn that placebos work, and why they work. They will also understand the cultural, historical, and political reasons why this great truth has been ignored or trivialized.

In this book, author Lolette Kuby—a poet, cultural critic, activist, and one-time professor of literature — raises a prophetic voice against the excesses of conventional medicine, arguing powerfully for the key role of the placebo response. Her argument may one day give the phrase “triggering the placebo effect” a place in popular parlance.

The placebo effect is perhaps the best-documented fact in the history of medicine, and placebos come in an infinite variety. In the annals of humankind, just about anything can and has triggered the placebo effect; and when such cases are closely examined, the only remaining common denominator to be found is our innate self-healing capacity, and not the myriad of external agents.

For those who want to consciously trigger this effect, the use of external objects or even healers can be left behind, but an advanced understanding of the forces at work can be a key factor. And Kuby supplies such an understanding through the argument that underlies Faith and the Placebo Effect. Faith in the divine endowment of health and healing that we all possess is the central requirement, says the author — but the support provided by the contextual understanding her book uniquely presents makes the task far simpler. The problem is that the placebo phenomenon is subtle. Discerning its reality requires courage and insight, for it usually occurs spontaneously and unconsciously, and is usually unacknowledged as such. The healing effect is erroneously attributed to external causes, when the true source is within.

In order for this mystical truth to be fully grasped and directly applied for healing, the author discovered that a space must be cleared through the obfuscations of medicine and the “culture of illness.” It is not enough to simply appeal with beautiful phrases to the power of faith; nor is it enough to critique the tyranny of materialistic medicine and to cite the scientific evidence for placebos. These threads of understanding must be marshalled all at once, in a coherent argument, if we are to break through the cultural conditioning that convinces us that something or someone external to us is the agent of our healing. But once the truth of this argument hits home, readers’ lives will be changed forever. Many who read and accept Lolette Kuby’s argument for self-healing will be able to consciously trigger the placebo effect, through simple faith.

In Faith and the Placebo Effect, Lolette Kuby leaves no stone unturned — ranging widely into history, medicine, folklore, mysticism, and religion—in her quest to instill the faith required to believe, in the face of medical and cultural propaganda, that through the power of the divine spirit within we can free ourselves of any illness.

The Unfolding Self
Varieties of Transformative Experience
By Ralph Metzner
[This book is now exclusively handled by Pioneer Imprints]

“Revelatory . . . lucid. . . thorough . . . scholarly . . . harvests the riches from a lifetime of intrepid and discerning spiritual research.”
—Publishers Weekly

*A OneSpirit Book-of-the-Month Club Selection

Ralph Metzner is world-renowned as a pioneer in the study of consciousness and transformative experience. He worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert on psychedelic research at Harvard, where he received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He has since practiced psychotherapy and pursued research in consciousness studies in a variety of settings. Today he is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he was academic dean for ten years. His other books include The Psychedelic Experience, Maps of Consciousness, and The Well of Remembrance.

Book Reviews

“In addition to the wonderful text, Metzner provides ample notes, a fabulous and diverse bibliography and a helpful index. By revealing some of the most powerful dynamics and archetypes of transformative experience, Metzner provides fellow seekers reliable guidance along their own spiritual paths. The inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural variety of experience is an amazing and insightful contribution to spiritual understanding. I highly (pun intended) recommend this book.”
—Maerian Morris, Green Egg, Vol. 30, No. 124, 1998

“As the guru of consciousness and transformative experience, Ralph Metzner takes readers around the globe to dissect cross-cultural metaphors, religious archetypes and primordial images. Readers are asked to draw parallels to their own lives in order to better understand their personal journeys of self-discovery. In doing so, Metzner claims, one can examine “something of humanity’s common language.” The exploration of self begins with a thorough explanation of the naturalness of transformation, and how our sense of being is molded by our respective realities – including self-esteem, self-acceptance and self-love. World-renowned in his field, Metzner, an Oxford graduate with a Harvard Ph.D. in clinical psychology, has written several books and been published prolifically in various journals on consciousness studies and psycho-spiritual transformation. Over the course of several decades, he has earned great respect for his ambitious research and ability to inspire others to make connections between the whole of human evolution and their own spirituality.”
—Today’s Librarian, May 1999

“Symbols and metaphors are the connecting links between states and levels of consciousness bridging the different domains of reality. In this book, Metzner, a leading pioneer of transpersonal psychology and transformative experience, spreads out a lustrous 12-course banquet, drawing on the riches of many times and cultures to illuminate the 12 central metaphors that are found in most great spiritual and philosophical traditions. These are the universal structures of transformation, a rich heritage for contemporary study and practice. “Awakening from the ‘dream of reality,’ moving from captivity to liberation, purification by inner fire, integrating the inner wild animal, journeying to the place of vision and power, prayers, myths, teachings, therapies, learnings from altered states of consciousness – all weave together seamlessly. Originally published in 1986, this completely reworked edition reflects the continuing richness of a long and distinguished career. It’s a book to savor.”
—NAPRA, Vol. 9, No. 3

“Ralph Metzner’s well-written, beautifully organized book gathers a lifetime of academic research in clinical psychology and religion, while reflecting his deeply personal search into the depths of the human psyche. Drawing from multiple disciplines and ranging across the world’s cultures, The Unfolding Self uncovers universal structures of spiritual transformation.”
—Noetic Sciences, Spring 1998

“Genuine breadth of vision in this revelatory book restores magic and depth to a subject too often reduced to banality and unreality by self-improvement gurus. Psychotherapist Metzner (Well of Remembrance), who worked on psychedelic drug research with Timothy Leary at Harvard in the 1960s, harvests the riches from a lifetime of intrepid and discerning spiritual research. In this updated version of his Opening to the Inner Light (1986), Metzner focuses on the ‘transformation of consciousness’ from 12 clearly defined perspectives represented by metaphors frequently appearing in religious, mythological and psychological writings. Drawing upon an enormous store of works, including those of Freud, Jung, Huxley, Homer, William James, D.T. Suzuki, Mircea Eliade and many others, as well as on ancient Hindu, Buddhist and Christian texts, the author provides a thorough, scholarly and vivid description of images and experiences from literature, life and psychedelic ‘trips.’ While extensively documented and suitable for professional study, Metzner’s lucid, well-organized presentation makes this book attractive to anyone interested in cosmic consciousness or transformative human experience. Examining such compelling universal metaphors as awakening, the restoration of wholeness, death and rebirth, the hero’s journey and the return to the source, Metzner ultimately concludes with the classically Platonic notion that we are each individually, and all collectively, on ‘a homeward journey’ to ‘the world of spirit and light from whence we came.’ 40 b&w illustrations. (Apr.)”
—Publisher’s Weekly, March 2, 1998

“Here’s a much-needed tonic for the intellectual anemia that too often afflicts contemporary spirituality. The author is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, and has been a pioneering scholar of consciousness since his days as a graduate student under the tutelage of the legendary Timothy Leary. In this fascinating study Metzner collects and describes some of the most compelling ‘metaphors of transformation’ throughout history, including the ideas of inner death and rebirth, piercing the veils of illusion, going through the fires of purification, reconciling with the shadow, and integrating our animal nature. For anyone who has unexpectedly entered into one of these daunting processes of inner change, this book could serve as a helpful road map to some challenging territory.”
—D. Patrick Miller, FearlessBooks.com

More Praise for The Unfolding Self:

The Unfolding Self describes the universal metaphors for transformation that one can encounter in a spiritual journey. This is an excellent book for any individual to see and understand which metaphors of transformation appear in their personal, professional, and inner lives.
—Angeles Arrien, author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life

In The Unfolding Self, Ralph Metzner offers evolutionary metaphors for the transformations that occur as the mind sinks into the heart. A book well worth reading on the journey toward oneself.
—Stephen Levine, author of A Year to Live

This book is a treasure house of ancient and modern wisdom offering a wealth of stories and metaphors that nourish the soul. It is essential reading for anyone exploring spiritual growth and transformation.
—Frances Vaughan, author of Shadows of the Sacred

Read this book if you want to wake up to your full ecstatic potential. It presents profound insights and new pathways that will empower you to live your life ecstatically.
—Margo Anand, author of The Art of Sexual Ecstasy and The Art of Sexual Magic

To hold images of transformation in one’s mind is transformational in itself. Therefore, this book is magic and its author, with his depth of knowledge and wisdom, a high Magician! If studied and allowed to impress the mind, Metzner’s work will quicken you into an acceleration of your unfolding. This book should be required reading for all seekers of Truth.
—Jacquelyn Small, author of Awakening in Time and Rising to the Call

PRESS RELEASE:

Metzner’s “Summa” on Transformative Experience

When Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner, and Richard Alpert launched the psychedelic revolution from Harvard in the early 1960s, few foresaw the explosion of interest in transformative experience so soon to follow. Like his colleagues Leary and Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), Ralph Metzner went on to become a key spokesperson for the consciousness movement. The collected wisdom of Metzner’s thirty-five year journey since those legendary days is now available in The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience, a Spring 1998 release from Origin Press. This new edition of the original (Opening to Inner Light: Human Nature and Consciousness, Jeremy Tarcher/St. Martin’s Press, 1986) is rewritten and enlarged, including two new chapters and 40 illustrations. Its reintroduction in the late 1990s reflects the continuing surge of interest in the spiritual revolution Metzner helped launch three decades ago.

In The Unfolding Self, Metzner draws from multiple disciplines and ranges across the world’s cultures to uncover universal structures of spiritual transformation. As the “summa” of a long career of inquiry into the psychology of religion, it must be classed in the same lineage as William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, the century’s first comprehensive study of inner transformation. Also like James, Metzner’s approach is both soulful and scholarly. The Unfolding Self gathers a lifetime of academic research in clinical and transpersonal psychology and comparative religion, yet reflects Metzner’s own experimentation with transformative disciplines — his own deeply personal search into the depths of the human psyche.

Much has been written in recent years by Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, and others about the centrality of myths, dreams, and metaphors in the unfolding of the inner life. Metzner provides intellectual coherence to this discussion by identifying a dozen of the most salient images of inner transformation. This achievement led Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., anthropologist, educator, and author of The Four-Fold Way, to call Metzner’s work “…a classic in understanding turning points in the spiritual journey.”

In the years since his work with Leary and Alpert at Harvard, Metzner has published numerous groundbreaking works, while practicing psychotherapy and teaching consciousness studies. Says his academic colleague Robert McDermott, Ph.D., author of The Essential Aurobindo and president of the California Institute of Integral Studies, where Metzner is Distinguished Professor of Psychology: “The reader of The Unfolding Self can benefit from wise guidance concerning the realms of non-ordinary consciousness based on the author’s vast learning, purity of purpose and more than thirty years of testing the many varieties of transformative experience.”

Table of Contents

Introduction: From Caterpillar to Butterfly
Symbols and Metaphors of Transformation
Theories of Human Transformation
Variations on the Theme of Self-Transformation

1. Awakening from the Dream of Reality
Ordinary Awareness as Dreamlike
Dreaming, Sleeping, and Waking in Everyday Life
Transformation as an Awakening

2. Uncovering the Veils of Illusion
The World Perceived as Maya
The Transformation of Vision
Unmasking the Self

3. From Captivity to Liberation
Body and Form as Prison
Knots, Ties, Nets, and Bonds in Relationships
Strategies of Escape and Liberation

4. Purification by Inner Fire
Fire Deities and the Spirit of Fire
Hell, Purgatory, and the Fire of Purification
Kundalini and the Yoga of Fire
The Mystical Fire of Union

5. From Fragmentation to Wholeness
Psychic Fragmentation in Ordinary Awareness and in Madness
Shamanic Dismemberment: Osiris and Dionysus
Alchemical Separatio in Meditation and Psychotherapy
Approaches to Wholeness

6. Reconciling with the Inner Enemy
On Integrating the Shadow
Accepting the Unacceptable
From Denial to Affirmation
Purification and Elimination
From Inner Warfare to Inner Peace
On Facing One’s Demons

7. On Dying and Being Reborn
Conscious Death and Intentional “Dying”
Nearness to Death as Transformative Experience
Thanatos and Psychic Death
Alchemical Mortificatio
The New Birth and the Eternal Child

8. From Darkness to Light
Enlightenment of the Physical Body
The Illumination of the Mind
The Self as a Being of Light

9. Integrating the Inner Wild Animal
Remembering Our Evolutionary Ancestry
Animals in Folklore, Mythology and Religion
Tales of Animal Transformations

10. Unfolding the Tree of Our Life
The Tree as a Symbol of Self-Unfoldment
Climbing the Tree, Straightening the Pillar
The World Tree and the Inverted Tree
The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge

11. Journey to the Place of Vision and Power
The Myth of the Wanderer
Departure and Threshold Crossing
Descent into the Depths
“Flying” and the Upper Realms
Journeys into Nonordinary Reality
Returning Home

12. Returning to the Source
Man as Stranger, Life as Exile
The Outgoing Path and the Returning Path
The Homeward Journey