Ronin Books

I absolutely love "The James Bond Lifestyle Seminar," but this audiobook fell short. The plot was decent, but nothing better than you'd expect based on the synopsis. The main character is supposed to be 33 years old, yet his voice sounds like an old man. He sounds very unsure of himself. Also, a lot more could have been done with the sound effects. They did not immerse me in the scenes, as another reviewer claimed.

Wow! My sister pointed me to this audio book and I couldn't believe my ears. I just relaxed on my bed to listen and was absolutely delighted with the movie-quality of the sound effects. Not only is this a masterful, well-written plot, it's also a quality production. The best I've heard.

And those stars that the magnificent author/director Paul Kyriazi lined up for this special version of his book!!! Well, all I can say is that I remember swooning each time I saw any of them on the big screen. (I hope my hubby doesn't read this.) But when I saw Rod Taylor--who narrates this story, with such a come-hither voice--starring in The Birds with that gorgeous Tippi Hedren, I almost fainted. Yes, he was that much of a hunk ... and still is, according to my sister!

Incidentally, people used to say I looked like Tippi. Ah-hhh, memories ... But getting back to this audio book, I loved it to pieces.

Keep up the excellent work, Mr. K. You're terrific, and almost as handsome as the great Rod! Ciao, baby ...

Mr Kyriazi's production of Hard Rock Lovers was just fantastic! I was on the edge of my seat on a daily basis! I put the audio book on my iPod and listened while I jogged. I gotta say it motivated me to get out there and I am so sad it is over! I cannot wait for his next Audio production!

The story is fantastic, gripping and sexy. I absolutely loved it!

Bravo!!!!

The "Hard Rock Lovers" audio book was not at all what I expected, but what a wonderful surprise! It's a twisted, tangled web of events played out by a handful of multi-leveled, intertwined characters. The story is well written, beautifully told and convincingly enacted centering on the heights of a successful rock star and the terrible costs that are paid when that success is abused. People and events are manipulated by all the characters to satisfy their own needs and agenda.


"Good" and "evil" are blurred. "Life" and "death" are blurred. Relationships are blurred, but the irony of fate is boldly presented and it's made abundantly clear that our "next" existence offers another chance to hopefully do better. The inevitability of change, the subtle and sometimes dramatic interrelationships between cause and effect as well as the ever-present, ever-looming scales of divine and poetic justice are persistent threads. A beautiful blending of drama and melodrama are used to develop both the story and the characters. The audio presentation is top-notch entertainment, particularly when you consider that all acting is accomplished solely through vocal artistry. The actors do a fantastic job of inviting the listener into their world and moving you effortlessly through the story.


I really enjoyed listening to this audio book. It is wonderful from start to finish and my congratulations go out to all involved. It's a winner on all levels.

From the moment Hard Rock Lovers comes on ... it takes you by the hand and mind, and immediately draws you into this intriquing story, narrated by the imcomparable Rod Taylor, of revenge, love, lust, cold reality and spiritual enlightenment.

Robert Culp kept me laughing with his perfect low-life agent performance, always the best! James Darren was the perfect rock star, mean, talented but sad, his performance was # 1. Ishtar Uhvana was great as Medusa, she added the sweetness to keep some reality in the rock world and her ending dialoque brought tears to my eyes. Loved Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris was brilliant as the evil Reynaldo, and Nefta Perry as Connie played the perfect Rosie Perez.

The ending gives you hope and leaves you with happy feelings. You will want to play it again and again; it only gets better each time you listen.

Paul Kyriazi is my hero. I am his BIGGEST fan.

Thank you Paul for the fun and exciting adventure!

The ideal audience for this book really has a large range; it is ideal for anyone wanting to experience a "trip" from a hallucinogenic drug without the actual drug. High Priest is an excellent piece of art, it is an encyclopedia of Leary's 16 most life changing "trips" when under various forms of hallucinogens. It is filled with strong imagery to support Leary's want to tell the world about the wonderful hallucinogenic "trip". His style is very unique in that especially in a series of short stories, he can in essence connect them, just as he does in his life with situations. He uses a very intense tone, and style becomes rapid as he submerges into a hallucinogenic state, almost as if you where there with him. Then as he's coming out of it his style loosens and becomes slower, and drowsy. Its almost as if there were two extremes one is cold and gray, and the other is vibrant and full of life. This book will definitely stir your interest about psychedelic drugs and the life behind it. Leary's intense flavor and swirling style can sometimes almost be frightening especially when he discusses his inner emotions about death, and his chilling way of expressing his views on the "life changing trips". I think this book is very educational depending on your view of education, and can teach people, things about other cultures that may not be their own, a counterculture if you will. I recommend High Priest to anyone with a thirst for knowledge and an open mind.

I'm sad to finish this book, as I have walked with Leary with his first mushroom encounter in Mexico, walked with his colleges and friends, from Dick Albert (Ram Dass), Robert Metzner, Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Walter Clark, Walter Puhnke, Michael Hollingshead, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg - I love Ginsberg - , Gordon Wasson, Frank Barrons and even William Burroughs. From his Millbrook estate to his Harvard studies, prison studies, first LSD trip, to his religious experiential studies and the amazing internal transformations that for myself are greatly superior to static intellectualism. And yet using such intellectual insights coupled with subjective encounters - in allusive non-categorical observance - brings forth the dynamics of Leary's story.

There is far too much information to relate here, the book is enlightening.
All together 16 trips or stories along with various quotes from magazine articles, short thoughts, to excerpts from other books from Ginsberg, Hollingshead, Wasson, Walter Houston Clark, Huxley and others make this book not only informative, but really do capture what is intended to be conveyed - the mystical- religious - subjective - internal - experiential - magical/irrational experience of psychedelics and most importantly, their beneficial use in social, psychological, ontological, neurological, rehabilitative, and spiritual uses. There is no doubt in my mind as to the benefits of psychedelics for the human race.

"Everyone who isn't tripping himself because he's too scared or tired is going to resent our doing it. Sex, drugs, fun, travel, dancing, loafing. You name it. Anything that's pleasurable is going to bring down the wrath of the power-control people. Because the essence of ecstasy and the essence of religion and the essence of orgasm (and they're all pretty much the same) is that you give up power and swing with it. And the cats who can't do that end up with the power and they use it to punish the innocent and the happy. And they'll try to make us look bad and feel bad." P. 79


This quote (and others) reminds me of Ray Manzarek's story in his book, Light My Fire, of visiting a Las Vegas style rat pack record executive who literally flipped out after hearing a tape of The Doors, hearing that they were psychedelic orientated music. The power people can never accept surrender and vulnerability that comes with the internal search as opposed to the external control.

"The threshold of adult game life is the ancient and natural time for the rebirth experience, the flip-out trip from which you come back as a man. A healthy society provides and protects the sacredness of the teen-age psychedelic voyage. A sick, society fears and forbids the revelation." p. 133


Trip 1 is Leary's non-chemical death and rebirth of a physical sickness.


Trip 2 is the story of Leary's discover of the mushroom in Mexico with some substantial quotes from Gordon Wasson on mushrooms.


Trip 3 has Dick Albert, Jack and Timothy Leary flying in Dick's plane. It also contains Leary's Playboy interview, other magazine quotes and quotes from Albert Cohen and Shiller's LSD.


Trip 6 has Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky walking around naked, Ginsberg telephoning his pal Jack Kerouac and some great Ginsberg quotes! The movement to turn on the world - well intentioned, but naive, the power people would never submit nor allow such conscious expansion beyond the control principal to continue.


Trip 7 talks about the rational thinking of Arthur Koestler's verses the irrationality of a LSD - religious experience and how the two don't see eye to eye.


Trip 9 shows the benefits of incarcerated prisoner rehabilitation and recidivism rate decrease from LSD therapy.


Trip 11 touches on William Burroughs and how he thinks on another tribal level, as we all come from different tribal evolutionary thinking. In the end Burroughs drops out of the clan and disapproves of the way Leary, his fellow Harvard and other constituents handle the mushroom therapy - Leary's got a monopoly on love.
Trip 12 is about Michael Hollingshead's famous mayonnaise jar of LSD and Leary's first experience along with the Jazz musician and his wife, Maynard and Flo Ferguson. And amazing account, really. And Leary, as Huxley has written in 1953, was forever a changed man. He had seen the games, the roles played, the human fallibility of truths, statistics, ideals and so forth from an objective standpoint, from the ultimate subjective standpoint.


Trip 15's Good Friday experiment under the coaxing of the intellectual and scholar Walter Pahnke is also an incredible story and ultimately Leary admits that the mind expansive consciousness is not a rational Descartes mind set, but a religious experience and of course, not under any particular religious structure - in this case Christianity is very constraining, limiting and restraining.


I love the explanation in Trip 16 that Leary related from Pat Bolero to a fellow psychologist who not only became fearful when hearing of "drugs" but could not comprehend her words that attempted to point to the clarity outside of the discursive mindset.


This book has some great Allen Ginsberg quotes and stories, great Burroughs stories, Leary's family, Dick Albert, Michael Hollingshead and many other intellectuals, scholars, divinity school students, the Good Friday experiment, artists, poets, theologians. I love his daughter's, Susan Leary, account of her growing up and observing the LSD sessions, of Alan Watts and others. The trip in Tim's place with Dick Albert, both erroneously thinking the pet dog was dying and other stories make this a very entertaining book to read. But ultimately, its the beneficial attributes from the psychedelic sessions weighted against the opposition that really make this book totally worthwhile.


"Reality and the addiction to any one reality is a tissue-thin neurological fragility. At the height of a visionary experience it is crystal-clear that you can change completely. Be an entirely different person. Be any person you choose. It is a moment of rebirth . . . . It is habit, fear and laziness that keep people from changing after an LSD experience. It's so much easier to doubt your divinity, drift back to speaking English, wearing ties, playing the old game. p. 334


"There comes a point in every lifetime when the blinders are removed and the individual glimpses for a second the nature of the process. This revelation comes through a biochemical change in the body. A Twist of the protein key and you see where you are at in the total process. p. 336


One thing I've learned as a prison psychiatrist is that society doesn't want the prisoner rehabilitated, and as soon as you start changing prisoners so that they discover beauty and wisdom, God, you're going to stir up the biggest mess that Boston has seen since the Boston Tea Party. . . sooner or later, as soon as they see the thing you do is working, they're going to come down on you 0- the newspaper reporters, the bureaucrats, and the officials. Harvard given drugs to prisoners! p. 18

I had seen enough and read enough of the anti-vision crowd, the power-holders with guns, and the bigger and better men we got on your team the stronger our position. p. 128


We even ran sessions for parole officers and correction officials (they tripped). Some of them had unhappy trips. People committed to external power are frightened by the release of ecstasy because the key is surrender of external power. One chief parole officer flipped out paranoid at my house and accused us of a Communist conspiracy and stormed around while Madison Presnell curled up on the couch watching, amused at the white folks frantically learning how to get high. He grinned at me. So you call it the love drug? p. 208

essential reading for the humanist, the individualist, the psychedelicist and the lover of freedom.

Tim Leary reminds us what it means to be American.

I never met Dr. Leary. We corresponded by mail, I talked with him once via phone during the time he was petitioning for asylum in Switzerland, and I subsequently calligraphed and co-edited the Terra II manuscript for him. This latter bit of collaboration got my mug and a write-up about my work for Dr. Leary on the front page of the daily newspaper here--sort of a "local boy does strange" story. I saw him from a bus window during assembly for one of the mammoth marches against the war in Vietnam, in DC (1970). That's the extent of my contact and involvement with the man.

Living as we do during the insanity of "the war on drugs," "the war on terrorism," and the rise of the commercial-political police state in our country, this book seems a long-ago, far-off relic of an age that has little if anything to do with ours. There is nothing groovy about the liars, murderers, and criminal minds who today run Camp America.

So, why bother at all with this book? For one thing, it is evidence of hope--that a hopeful life is possible with eyes, mind, and heart all open to the possibility that something new can enter our lives. It is a chronicle that directly addresses the question of despair, as Tim describes approaching his own breaking point and his subsequent epiphany. It is not a journal of pretense such as one finds in typical media accounts of Leary's journey, but of encounter and reflection upon what is "high"--true, meaningful, and worthy of furthering through the medium of one's own life.

In sum, this book is for the voyager and explorer, those who are not entirely shackled by convention and fear. It is a chronicle of transformation and an opening upon the living questions that form the basis of our existence.

I wrote this first paragraph to another of Ace's negative reviews for Alan Watts but I feel my response can be applied with validity to his review here as well. I haven't read this Alan Watts book but how can you criticize Alan Watts for possibly, (I'm not going to take your word for it and I have little interest in whether this great man may have been an alcoholic at one point), having been a drunk in his youth when in another review you call Charles Bukowski, one of the world's most renown drunks, the greatest writer ever. Bukowski is known for having written great poems and being a complete alcoholic, I like his poetry it's good, but Alan Watts almost single handedly BROUGHT EASTEN RELIGIONS TO THE WEST! Watts was a Zen Buddhist and Taoist master. Alan Watts in one of the great heroes of humanity for opening up the close minded consciousness in America during a time when it was readily accepted by the masses to the loving heart of the Buddha's teachings and The Way of Kindness. Stop blaming others for your failings Ace and start being accountable for your own life choices. I don't care if being homeless was a purposeful decision or an accidental one but it's not Alan Watts, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, or Terence Mckenna's fault. You are trying to help people with your how to be homeless book just as those men tried to help the world to be a better place during very troubling times. I feel your negativity is misguided, if you really want to blame somebody for the world being so difficult and unfair I suggest you aim your resentment at corrupt power hungry close minded money grubbing greedy politicians, dictators, fascists, and CEOs of corporations and others among us in this global community that would take more then their share without ever any concern for if or how others survive if they can and not harbor anger at those who tried to create and/or maintain freedom in this country while increasing awareness and intelligence.

Sadly Timothy Leary's first wife Marianne, Susan's Mother suffered from depression and took her own life, something Ace neglected to mention here, and as we know depression can be genetically passed down from a parent to a child. I also think it's important to add Marianne's suicide took place before Timothy Leary had ever taken or was even introduced to LSD and her death was completely unrelated to his experimentation with the substance.

The Warhammer Book of Corruption is easily one of the best RPG books I've ever read. I would compare it to Monte Cook's Book of Vile Darkness, or either of D&D's fiendish codices in terms of horrific, otherworldly weirdness, but the Book of Corruption seems to go beyond even those volumes. The author is unafraid to list, hint at, or describe in detail when necessary, the sort of strange and disturbing things, cults, items, mutations, and monsters present in the Old World; which goes far to portray the setting as the frightening place that it is, so that the reader can see why and how the peasantry have the unsettling superstitious customs that they do (which are also talked about throughout the book). It also does the task of revealing clearly WHY any otherwise normal person might be tempted or coerced into joining a cult, and provides numerous adventure hooks for how an adventuring team would encounter one. All of these aspects seem to flow together perfectly - without spending too many pages on any one facet - to provide a very realistic, believable, and dark setting.
With all of the information on mutations (176 results on the primary table), and on the nature of chaos, corruption, and evil itself, this book certainly has philosophical and literary value suitable for other roleplaying games as well; and it can easily be used as a sourcebook for D&D, Ravenloft, Dark*Matter, World of Darkness, or any other RPG that has darkness, evil or fear at its core.
As a collector my opinion is that this is simply one of the best books out there. To portray realistic, alienistic horror is often a difficult thing, and the Tome of Corruption does the job flawlessly.

This book provides so much info on things gamemasters need to know to to write a cool Chaos adventure. Norsca, daemons, beastmen, more nasties, and mutations and cults. So much fun. Great to read and slightly disturbing. Highly recommended.

This vile tome is packed with foul goodness. The massive list of mutations alone is worth the price of the book. All kinds of foul things for the fiendish GM to throw at their players! Be warned though as just a brief glimpse at the pages of this thrice damned work will cause you the loss of your sanity!!!!

I have read most if not ALL the books about Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy. I read the two tomes of Realms of Chaos. I also read Complete Liber Chaotica, WHFB Beast of Chaos and WHFB Hordes of Chaos. This one is by far the most complete on the topic and the most pleasant and interesting to read followed closely by Complete Liber Chaotica. I cannot recommand you this book enough for every fan of Warhammer Fantasy (RPG players or NOT). Even the readers interested by Fantastic universe could find this reading interesting.

Tome of Corruption add also a lot of new content concerning Chaos that have never been written so far in other Warhammer books. It push the topic much more further and embrace it widely. It cover in detail many old and new aspects.

You will find in this book the following chapters:

A first Part: The Enemy Within

1- Chaos in the Old World

2- The lost and the damned

3- Catalogue of Change (MORE than 150 mutations. A general random table and 4 random tables adapted for each Chaos Gods.)

4- Cults of Chaos (It feature also cultist career for each four Chaos Gods)

5- Objects of Chaos


A second Part: Shadows of Chaos

6- The Places between: Life in the wilderness

7- Beasts of Chaos (and the template to play one as PC...)

8- Menagerie of the Strange

9- Defenders of the Empire (Some words about the Witch Hunters and the other enemies of Chaos)


Part III: The Chaos Wastes

10- The Chaos Wastes (The Landscape of Chaos)

11- Norsca (The Norsca region and his folks and their culture are explain in details. Template are given to play a norse and specific career related to norse people are also offered.)

12- Hordes of Chaos (A distinction is made between the Norsemen and the other people who follow more directly and specificaly the Chaos Gods. Template are presented to play a men of the Hordes of Chaos such as the Kurgan)

13- Slaves to Darkness (This chapter have the following section that every Chaos worshiper is looking for: Champion of Chaos, Chaos Sorcerers, Rewards of Chaos, Retinues. Basicly, this section explain the path followed by those who worship the Chaos Gods. It give the career associated to this path and the advantages and dangers it represent.)

14- Chaos Armory


Part IV: Realm of Chaos

15- The Ruinous powers (The four Gods of Chaos)

16- Beyond the Wastes of Chaos (Walk toward the Eye like no other book have brought you before. Then enter into the Realms of Chaos themselves. Sanity is for the weaks!)

17- Chaos Sorcery (New spells, tables and background diging about magic)

18- Legion of Chaos (The stats blocks about the Major and Lesser Chaos Gods Daemons... Your player will be able to fight for the best and the worst the Bloodthirster, the Keepers of Secrets, the Horror of Tzeentch and all the other classic Daemons commonly associated to the Chaos Gods. This section also explain how to design your own new Daemons and give you the proper random table to build them)

19- Masters of Chaos

Tome of Corruption is all about flavor. The book is long on setting material and mercifully short on rules and even those still amount to flavor and setting material. Running a long-term game with many of the rules included would be difficult or downright impossible. The amount of raw power that is available to the players and GMs is huge. Some of the more powerful features, in an effort to reflect their abilities in the tabletop version of Warhammer, would slaughter an entire army of PCs. Many of the careers are also ridiculously powerful.
Gamemasters are going to want to be extremely careful in what they allow players to take from the book, but for anyone who wants to run a high-powered epic game the Tome of Corruption provides everything and more.

The Tome of Corruption is also a great read. For those who don?t like rules the mechanics are presented in such a manner as to be almost totally separated from the setting material. Unlike many supplements the point of the book is not just to create more rules but to add to the setting.

If you can't use it in a WFRP game then it is a great idea mine for other games or for pleasure reading.

The book is awesome as the previous book, Lilith. It took me out of balance the mixture of imagination, hermetic knowledge and action. After seeing Lilith I ordered the next episode Ronin. I am shocked that for whatsoever reason Mr. Heeley did not continue with the last part of the saga. That was years ago, but as far he is alive, the book and their characters are so in some part of his mind. I really hope they will prevail and live again.

Both Darkness and Light books (Lilith and Ronin) are excellent. I wrote the Author, D. Heeley, several years ago to inquire about Magus, the third and final book in the trilogy, because like the others that have posted before me, when I finished book 2, I couldn't wait to read book 3. I was told by the author, that Llewellyn had apparently decided - for whatever unknown reason - not to proceed with the third and final book. I've been heartsick ever since, but like a trooper, continue to scout the shelves of the bookstores and online lists hoping that Magus will prevail, and one day make it to the shelf.

I loved this series. After I finally got around to reading it, I was hooked. The story, the characters, everything is amazing. I scoured for the second book and was not let down. Where is the third book? If the author is still around, we need to hunt him down and get him to work!

AWESOME Metaphysical, Magic, Martial Arts and Swordsmanship: A TOTAL PACKAGE in both books. The author keeps you interested in the main characters by their flaws and "humanity" even when they transcend the norm. Where's the third Book?? I can't wait.

Although I liked the first one better, this is still a excellent piece of literature. The characters are believable in both their actions and emotions. The plot and story line flow really well which makes it hard to put down. Its based on actual teachings of the Qaballah which makes it even more fascinating.
And if the above review is correct, and Llewellen doesn't plan on publishing the 3rd book, shame on them. I'm going to write them today and find out. =)

Dr. Leary maintains a high ground in his defense of the value of the psychedelic. This is the early work and a must have.

Wow! What a book! Leary is a real psychedelic guru, not in the orthodox sense, but really a man ahead of his time, a Galileo in the charter exploration of the mind and consciousness. He started off as a conservative Harvard professor, yet not so conservative, as he had his own ideas. But after his religious experience, and that's what psychedelics do - the expanding of your consciousness to a religious experience - he became aware of the societal and cultural chessboards - the games - and here became outspoken apart from the Harvard rationalistic mindset which rests on only one static frame of a multi-dimensional, dynamic existence.

I read this book smiling, over and over again. I walked down the street with a smile, mostly for Leary's optimism, then his frank and bold statements, which in most part I agree with. His style sometimes just makes you laugh and smile and say to yourself "I wish I had the guts enough say this." And although his predictions did not come true, you can't help but subjectively comprehend the 60's atmosphere, enveloped with the baby boomers in their youth taking up the majority of the population and their experiential drug use in psychedelics, which in turn, brought forth all the femininity of creativeness, patience, tolerance, peacefulness and artistic development that was permeating the entire American culture and spreading around the world and thus brought on the male dominated aggression of control and police power. So Leary's optimism and predictions were really a good assessment of the time despite their failure to come true. And nothing makes me sadder than to see his predictions fail from the creative mind expanding youth to our current male power, controlling and agressive society.

You can write Leary off as a kook from the conservative's point of view, the rationalist who never "experienced," and that's the KEY here - never experienced a trip under favorable circumstances and environment. Leary is the same as other heretics and kooks of history, a Galileo of mind exploration and conscious expansion, a Guttenberg of exoteric enlightenment, as in this book as well as one who clearly recognizes the need for new symbols that relate the esoteric experience of LSD, of cellular memories, of DNA language outside the mind, of experiential journeys that can only be told under a new language, as the microscope discovered new world had brought forth, as quantum physics brought forth and every other new fields of exploration that can only be described outside the current symbols we currently use.

Leary on page 141: The lesson I have learned from over 300 sessions, and which I have been passing on to others, can be stated in 6 syllables: Turn on, tune in, drop out. "Turn on" means to contact the ancient energies and wisdoms that are built into your nervous system. They provide unspeakable pleasure and revelation. "Tune in" means to harness and communicate these new perspectives in a harmonious dance with the external world. "Drop out' means to detach yourself from the tribal game. Current models of social adjustment - mechanized, computerized, socialized, intellectualized, televised, Sanforized - make no sense to the new LSD generation, who see clearly that American society is becoming an air-conditioned anthill. In every generation of human history, thoughtful men have turned on and dropped out of the tribal game and thus stimulated the larger society to lurch ahead. Every historical advance has resulted from the stern pressure of visionary men who have declared their independence from the game.

On page 196: My philosophy of life has been tremendously influenced by my study of oriental philosophy and religion. Of course, what the American, regardless of his religious belief, doesn't understand is that the aim of oriental religious is to get high, to have an ecstasy, to tune in, to turn on, to contact incredible diversity, beauty, living, pulsating meaning of the sense organs, and the much more complicated and pleasurable and revelatory messages of cellular energy. To a Hindu, the spiritual quest is internal.

Different sects of oriental religion use different methods and different body organs to find God. The Shivites use the senses; the followers of Vishnu are concerned with cellular wisdom, contacting the endless flow of reincarnation wisdom which biochemists would call protein wisdom of the DNA code; Buddhist manuals on consciousness expansion are concerned with the flash, the white light of the void, the ecstatic union that comes when you're completely turned on, beyond the senses, beyond the body.

On page 202-203: What we're doing for the mind is what the microbiologists did for the external science 300 years ago when they discovered the microscope. And they made this incredible discovery that life, health, growth, every form of organic life, is based on the cell, which is invisible.

You've never seen a cell; what do you think of that? Yet it's the key to everything that happens to a living creature. I'm simply saying that same thing from the mental, psychological standpoint, that there are wisdoms, lawful units inside the nervous system, invisible to the symbolic mind, which determine almost everything.

And I don't consider myself that mystical - unless you'd call someone who looks through a microscope a mystic, because he's telling you about something for which you don't have the symbols. Or the astronomer who detects a quasar and speculates about it.

On page 208: Every time you take LSD you completely suspend - you step outside of - the symbolic chessboard which you have built up over the long years of social conditioning. And you whirl through different levels of neurological and cellular energy, continually flowing and changing.

Your symbolic mind is flashing in and out. You never love your mind during and LSD session. It's always there, but it's one of a thousand cameras that are flashing away. Of course, the LSD freak-out, or paranoia, is where the symbolic mind freezes any aspect of the LSD session and defines a new reality, which can be positive or negative.

Read this book.

This is the single most influential book I have ever read. Completely legitmizes and encourages religious experiences through psychedelic means. Anyone currently using psychedelic drugs or interested in them should read this to gain greater understanding of their power. Learn why LSD and other are really illegal, the government knows they free minds!

...if you wish to stay the same because believe me, once you read it, you never will be. I got this book when I was about 26-27 years old when I felt as though I was just passing through life and not really living it. I felt like everything was "ho-hum". All of my senses were set to dull. Inside of me there was just this gnawing ache that there has got to be something more...not just "out there"...but "in here"...in my heart, in my soul, in my mind...

And then along comes Timothy.

Irreverent, Rebellious,Smart-Ass Timothy Leary espousing the Truth that all advancement in life is already in our very DNA. It dwells deep within the very marrow of our bones because we, as a species, were not meant to stand still...we were not meant to live lives of quiet desperation...we were meant to behold a world that burns and sparkles with Light.

People tend to think one is hallucinating when one sees vibrant colors, when everyday things seem to shine with a new brilliance, when even the song from a songbird feels like a musical triumph, but this is how life really is, boys and girls! We are hallucinating when we think that the world is dull and thick and leaden...we are hallucinating when we think that we are just these heavy clods of biodegradble clay that stalk the earth. We are here to discover...or should I say, uncover the paradise that is already within the invisible realms of the ancient mind that dwells within us and we in it.

Does this mean you have to take LSD in order to experience the jewelike radiance that all of life is made in and out of? Not neccessarily and I am not advocating that you do. What I am advocating is that you allow yourself to get enthused about life. Enthusiasm literally means to be filled with God. God wants to know Itself as you...as me...in each and every moment of creation.

Read Timothy Leary. Marvel at his excitement for life, join him in the mind & soul rebellion against flaccid governments and soul controlling religions and their warped politics and dissapointing creeds both of which are more than happy to think and decide for you, laugh in joyful relief that you are not a body with a soul, but you are a soul with a body,and be willing to stray from the pack of lemmings that's headed for the edge of the cliff only to drown in the shallow seas of mediocrity.

Open your eyes.
Open your mind.
Open your soul.
Open your heart.
Open this book and let the tingling in each of your 40 trillion cells remind you are here to do more than exist, you are here to LIVE and to LIVE WELL.

Peace & Blessings to this this place we call the world.

This work is a hallmark for questioning authority, pursuing individual freedom and happiness, and working to build a more enjoyable and enriched world. Lovers of liberty would be well-advised to study this work thoroughly, and then pass it along to the nearest religious extremist. It will surely get a reaction.

_Why'd I buy it?_
I've been looking for material to spruce up the religious aspect of my campaign. Clerics and Paladins seems to be rife with role playing opportunity and adventure hooks, and yet the material I've seen so far was lacking (like WotC: Defenders of the Faith). I was especially interested in the "Holy Warrior" new core class and in how a "complete description of each god's church" would look like. I was not disappointed...in fact, I was very pleasantly surprised.

_Overview_
This book can be used in many different ways: it's a complete patheon and mythology of gods, it's a "pick-and-choose" box of common gods plus detailed churches, and it's a "do-it-yerself" tool-kit for making the gods of your campaign world relevant to your players. It succeeds at all of these things...and if you think about it, that's pretty amazing.

The book prose is tight and entertaining. Rule changes are clearly spelled out, and are repeated where relevant. The game mechanics seem simple and balanced (although I've not yet play-tested it myself). (And a further note to all of those crunch-lovers out there, like me: There are game mechanics in here where there needs to be.) Overall, a very well written and insightful book.

_The Complete Pantheon and Mythology_
I loved reading this section -- it reminded me of Greek, Norse, and Native American myth. It's good story, and it tempts me to include it, lock, stock, and barrel, into my home brew campaign. And it's probably pliable enough for me to tweak it here and there and then do just that.

_Plug n' Play gods and their churches_
What I'm more likely to do, however, is take the gods and their churches out and plug them in where they fit into my existing home-brew. The book gives quite a bit of help for this sort of thing. The churches are well laid out, and yet they can be self-contained; that is, the churches don't wholy depend on the mythology presented in the book. Useful, that.

Kudos, BTW, on the structure of the book with respect to churches, clerics, "paladins", and new PrC. It's all wrapped up in a seamless whole, so that the relationships between the clerics, "paladins" (holy warriors, a superior concept, IMO), and the secret orders (PrCs) is believable and very playable. Makes me (almost!) want to play a goody-two-shoes Holy Warrior.

_Cosmography Tool-kit (or "how the gods, the universe's creation, and the Planes of Existence fit together")_
The thing this book is best at, IMO, is how it opens up Myth and the Gods for you to tinker with. Paired with the excellent WotC offering, Manual of the Planes, I'm not sure there's anything else you need to come up with a compelling and logical cosmography. How the universe is created => how the gods act => how their churches are structured => how PC clerics et al. act. It's all there, so that if the PC asks....well, he'll get at least one answer....
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_Conclusion_

Production: 5 - Excellent. Fonts, headers, and spacing is very good. Layout and organization is excellent. I was very happy with both the table of Contents and the index. Note to publishers: this is how it should be done for all products!

Art: 4 - Good. The art work quality is good, most of the time, and the art work is very topical to the text on the page.

Game Mechanics: 5 - Excellent. The new core class (Holy Warrior) is expecially good.

"Cool" Factor: 5- Excellent. Even the name is good (shout "Book of the Righteous!" a couple o' times...you'll get what I mean). The mythology and churches are especially inspiring.

Overall: 5 - Excellent. If you are a DM with a home-brew world, you're a fool for not having this book. It's that good.

This book is without a doubt one of the best game books to come out in some time. It has totaly changed the way my group has played the game in reguards to Clerics.

This is a very nice book, containing everything a priest or holy warrior could want. I especially like the addition of the holy warrior as a base class, not limiting it to just paladins. Highly recommended!

Wow, what a book. It gives you everything you need to put the affiars of your Celestial world in order. It had a great story of creation, it explains all you need to know for each god. The Great church what a great idea, put together properly. I got through about the 1st 20 pages and realized this is "The Pantheon" for the new D20 fantasy genre. It explains the how and why of things.. Why is this god the god of Valor, how did he become this. The best part of all, is all the stuff the PCs should know, but we don't take the time to create. How the church interacts with the world, and the other churches; it's holy days and why, The Gods' view of the church. With over 300 pages of information it is worth every penny. What a resource. I have been a DM for 20 +years and this book is a must have for every GM. The Bar has been raised and Green Ronin Publishing is the new standard. Great Job Guys.

>>"If you own Defenders of the Faith, Deities and Demigods, and/or Faiths and Pantheons you are wasting your money on this. Way too generic to be useful. NOT the best money I've spent... "

On the contrary, this book renders all of those others completely redundant. What's more, this book is far, far more interesting to read, and far, far easier to incorporate piecemeal, or whole into any campaign. Of every RP book on my shelf--and I probably have a few hundred--this is by far the best money I have ever spent on an RP product as far as useability. Ignore the nay-sayer. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Absolutely, and completely, well worth the price. See the lengthy review below for more info on the book.

I eagerly bought it as soon as I discovered it. Really fun book and worth getting it (esp used) for the insight into Timothy Leary and early 90's "Cyber" edge culture.

a variety of the treasured libertarian-laden articles and essays of Dr. Tim, displayed with interesting graphics and text. A little color with so many photos would have been nice but for twenty bucks you get a lot of Leary in a big book.

A great synopsis that should turn on a few more people to the Leary magic.

Essential for the Leary collection.

i like tim leary's style. he keeps jumping in time, changing moods. one minute he's an entertainer, the next a philosopher. the next, a psychologist talking about his harvard psychedelic research project. he must have been at least 70 when he wrote this book, and it's very up-to-date. i can identify with a lot of what he's talking about it. somehow, being a very old man has not affected his abilities to see the spice in life. there are pitfalls of course. he gets monotonous at times, repetative. but overall it's a good book. . .also, i don't think it's intended to be read from cover to cover. feel free to jump around. jump around.

A wonderful feast for the mind and soul. If more of our books were like this, we wouldn't need--or even want--television!

Leary does it again! That brilliant Irish neuronaut has once again travelled far into the future of humanity and come back to the past to tell us all about it. It is the first fun and scientific analysis of cyber-culture ever written. What's astounding about this book is that Leary conceptualizes Cyberia like no one before or since has done, with crystal-clear vision, irreverent wit, and razor-sharp insight. Many of his ideas in this book, and it was written a few years ago, have already diluted into the popular culture through magazines, television, and movies. This book is not just about psychedelic drugs, virtual reality, and questioning authority. It epitomizes the philosophy of the future which we are creating in the present. It is a manual of the future written by one man who has seen it. Forget Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Esther Dyson, when we look at computers today, and what they are fast becoming, remember that Tim Leary has been telling us all about it decades ago.

I tried a lot of this type stuff. Subliminals didn't work for me. At least this one makes sense and actually when I think of a past experience that I want to forget, it's not so bad. In fact, according to this tape all experiences remain in your mind, so better to release the bad feeling attached to it. So I tried to do that and I do feel more free about it. Maybe the tape or maybe just me facing it, either way, I'll take it. Good tape. I use it to sleep sometimes, too.

I used this for about a week just for relaxing, but then I got serious and released a bad experience during the hypnosis and then forgave a pushy friend. The next time the friend came to visit, I was surprised that I was more comfortable and the frustration didn't come. So after that I released some more bad things. Seems to help a lot.

I have tried meditation for years. Sitting alone and attempting to focus on a single subject always ended with my mind flitting about onto various tangent subjects with no real progress being made. Clearing the Subconscious for 00 Agents Daily Hypnosis Session is different. The Author gently guides you through the meditation at all times, helping you focus on the main goal of the meditation. I have found that this tape has helped me gain a newfound respect for meditation and the ability to clear away past events that have held me back. If you have not tried a guided meditation session, this one may help you clear the past and open your future, I highly recommend this simple but effective resource.

An excellent meditational resource, either with or without author Paul Kyriazi's LIVE THE JAMES BOND LIFESTYLE audiotape/book, CLEARING THE SUBCONSCIOUS FOR 00 AGENTS makes few references to James Bond but contains an excellent relaxation and visualization technique, strongly enhanced by Kyriazi's deep and calming voice.

Having used numerous such self-help tapes throughout the years I found myself surprised at the power of the technique and the equal power of Kyriazi's presentation.

I also recommend Kyriazi's JAMES BOND LIFESTYLE SEMINAR which can be life-changing. Many people can teach you the secrets of their success---Kyriazi makes you believe in your own success.

Though this meditation is in the author's book, The Complete James Bond Lifestyle Seminar, it helps to listen to this 30 minute explanation and meditation. Though you or a friend could record this mediation yourself, author Paul Kyriazi has a great and calming voice. The sound effects were nice too.

I have read several books on this subject and by far, this is the best I have read so far. This is not your typical ufo book with just information about the subject. This book goes very deep into every aspect of it. It demostrates not only what ufo's are trying to show, but also what they are trying to hide. This book is excelent. I would recomend it to serious readers.

Vallee is a true visionary in the UFO field, asking the big questions and nearly always taking the larger view. That UFOs and the "contacts" they make will humans do not fit well into the current picture of interstellar Space Brothers, based purely on observational evidence is a view that most, if not all, UFO buffs will initially reject. However, a careful reading of this book reveals Vallee's painstaking thoroughness in investigating a baffling phenomenon- a phenomenon of contradiction and deception.

The deception goes further than the oft-contradictory message of the aliens: many on Earth are willing messengers of deception as well. The information gap caused by scientific, military, and governmental refusal to seriously consider the phenomenon's true nature have caused all manner of charletons and manipulators to fill the vacuum created by the willful refusal to acknowledge the reality of UFO incidents.

Many of Vallee's fears have already come to pass- the leaders of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult are chronicled nearly twenty years before their mass death. Vallee's observation that whoever is able to eventually control the UFO phenomena may well be coming true before our eyes, yet tragically most are unwilling to see the truth objectively.

This is a complex book that really needs careful reading more than once. If you do this, you'll never look at the UFO phenomena in the same way again.

Vallee has written one of the best, first-person-experienced revelations regarding the true nature (deceptive, tricky and harmful) of our supposed "spacebrothers". For everyone who has read "Communion" or other such tomes, BE SURE to get ahold of 'Messengers of Deception' - it's the other side of the coin that needs so desparately to be told...and heeded. Well-written, action-packed and sincerely offered, this author's book should be a 'required reading' for all earthlings- who seem to be nothing but a fruitful field for mischief and deception in the eyes of, and for, the 'aliens'. Some REAL SPOOKY real goings-on here...a true-to-life "X" file. One of the very first books (and authors) to hit on the true intentions of those 'not from this world' and thier human allies.CONTACT THE PUBLISHER AND ASK FOR A RE=RELEASE! This is probably much of whatALBERT K. BENDER KNEW before his untimely and highly controversial death. Betcha.

Jacques Vallee's Messengers of Deception (1979) is an intelligent, complex, and prescient exploration of the UFO phenomenon that focuses specifically on its social aspects and the mysterious UFO cults which have arisen globally around it.

By the time he came to write Messengers of Deception, Vallee had produced five earlier books on the subject, and was fairly confident that UFOs did not represent extraterrestrial craft of any kind ("I believe that UFOs are physically real. They represent a fantastic technology controlled by an unknown form of consciousness...they may not be from outer space.").

Almost thirty years later, Vallee, who contributes a new foreword to the current edition, is, like everyone else in the field, still in the dark about the exact nature of the specific subject in question.

What makes Messengers of Deception particularly fascinating is that Vallee cautiously sketches out his belief that some agency with enormous power of various kinds is and has been "staging" thousands of technologically complex, essentially 'fake' UFO sightings around the world with the pointed intention of manipulating and guiding civilization, and man himself, in a very specific direction.

The apparent goal of this agency is to encourage mankind, via a belief in the impending arrival from the heavens of the benevolent 'space brothers,' to become anti-scientific, irrational, infantile, dependent, and endlessly hopeful that the essential problems of man---including his mortality---can be permanently overcome through the multi-prismed salvation the [false] "space brothers" offer.

Other goals include 'the reversal of the scale of values,' "leading to a new understanding of social good, the abolition of borders, and the death of nationalism," 'goals' which are certainly becoming the reality in today's American.

Which raises the question: who or what has such enormous, organizational God-like power?

Basing his argument on his own observations, experiences, firsthand investigations, contacts within the military-industrial complex ("Major Murphy"), and excellent brain, Vallee suggests a somewhat complicated two-pronged solution.

The 'real' UFOs are apparently solid objects (or objects of an essentially psychoid nature, able to move between solidity and non-solidity), sometimes lit and sometimes not, frequently observed flying or hovering above the ground, which, while probably not of extraterrestrial origin in the sense that they are interstellar craft, are of a yet-indefinable nature.

They may or may not represent some kind of a "control system," Vallee's term for a sort of spontaneous cosmic socio-evolutionary barometer that acts directly and indirectly on the psyche of man.

The second prong of Vallee's thesis focuses on the 'Manipulators,' which is Vallee's term for the (most likely human) agency which understands the genuine UFO phenomena enough to exploit it, duplicate its effects, and use those effects to control and corral mankind (initially through UFO cults and occult groups, but also by infiltrating civilian UFO investigatory organizations) by methodically reducing it to an irrational, dependent mob without recourse to country or nationality, and, by extension, without recourse to family, community, financial solvency, or spirit of independence.

The 'Manipulators' use "psychotronic" weapons, which harness electromagnetic energy that acts on the subconscious mind, creating hallucinations of aerial and landed 'flying saucers,' visitors from other planets, 'alien abduction,' and amnesia. Some of these weapons are loaded onto flying machines shaped like classic 'flying saucers,' while other such "psychotronic" devices actually create the illusion of the 'flying saucer' itself.

Again: who--or what--has the sort of scientific, technological, financial, and organizational resources required to pull off such a decades-long stratagem?

Vallee again offers two hypothetical scenarios: one in which a secret cabal composed of military personnel of various Western nations are attempting to convince the masses that an invasion from space may be imminent; their goal is to unify the nations of the earth against a common enemy and thus prevent further catastrophic wars. If this hypothesis is correct, then what should be made of the 'alien abduction' phenomenon that has replaced the 'peaceful space brother' visitations since the mid-Eighties?

The second, very different scenario Vallee offers is a sketchy version of the demonological argument that has been put forth by John Keel, among others.

However, Vallee rules out very few possibilities completely, so the 'Manipulators' might also be a hidden, non-human race coexisting with man on Earth, or time travelers, while the actual source of the genuine, "control system" UFOs might be an actual deity ['God'].

Towards the end, Vallee weakly addresses the subject of cattle mutilations, which he considers part of the stratagem of "the Manipulators." Numerous investigations on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and the National Geographic Channel (the same channels that have influentially been promoting the idea that UFOs are either 'space craft from other planets, or simply nonexistent' for ten years) over the succeeding decades have shown that for every 'expert' who can be found to validate "cattle mutilations" as a legitimate unexplained phenomenon, another can be found to officially discount it, with both sides offering convincing arguments and 'evidence' to support their positions.

As Vallee's treatment of "cattle mutilations" is rather cursory and poorly integrated into his argument, potential questions can be raised about the accuracy of his judgment and other conclusions.

Vallee also raises the question of synchronicity: are energy and information actually transmitted via association rather than within a space/time continuum framework? Vallee makes an example of a receipt he received from a taxi driver bearing a highly unusual but extremely significant last name: unfortunately, the reproduced document is not printed on official company letterhead, and is thus useless as evidence of any kind. Vallee himself, or anyone else, could have composed it.

Lastly, since Messengers of Deception contains a decidedly conspiratorial bent, it's worth asking if Vallee himself hasn't been manipulated and deceived by "Major Murphy," who subtly steers much of Vallee's thinking throughout the book, or if Vallee himself isn't an active agent of misinformation and misdirection.

Conspiracy thinking and theory are like all-encompassing quicksand, and once suspicions and paranoia become constellated, they are capable of expanding and echoing endlessly ---and irrationally.

Very good supplement for M&M. Complete city, with tons of locations, plots hooks and plenty of superheroes and bad guys to put in your campaign.

This books is a good complement for the game, with a city completely designed and ready for play.

To say that this book goes into detail on the inner workings of the largest setting in the game is an understatement of mammoth proportions. The book opens up with the history of Freedom City, with a detailed history of the city covering nearly 300 years, with information about the site going all the way back to prehistoric times.

In modern times, it details 19 seperate areas/neighborhoods of Freedom City, including the entire transit system break down for the city, from taxi cabs to airports to the ships at the piers. Day to day living within the city is complete with lists and descriptions of major retail chains, banks, schools, entertainment centers, hospitals, religious centers, right down to nightclubs and local sports teams. The level of detail here is breathtaking, and even a little overwhelming at times.

For those that are more intrested in mechanical aspects, there are full writeups and statblocks for each member of the Freedom League, along with other hero groups such as the Atom Family, Next-Gen, as well as a number of solo heroes. And of course, there are numerous villians and evil groups to oppose the heroes. There are a total of 10 seperate supervillian organizations presented, each with a number of individual villians making them up, all with complete stat blocks. Not to mention a list of free-lance villians for those one shot game needs.

And don't think that this book is limited to just this one city. There is an entire chapter devoted to nothing but world-wide groups and organizations, including a breakdown of each major continent and the prevalance of super powered individuals they host. It also includes all of the major "secret" locations of the Mutants & Masterminds universe, from Atlantis to Kaiju Island, to galactic locations such as Far City, and groups like the Star Knights and the Grue Unity. And beyond even that are locations such as Terminus, the Zero Zone, and multiple alternate-Earths detailing everything from Ani-Earth and the Furry League to Earths that never saw the fall of the Roman Empire, or where Germany won the second world war.

Not only is it the definative guidebook for anything and everything having to do with Freedom City, it is indespensible as a resource for the entire Mutants and Masterminds 2e universe.