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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any English translation worth reading?
There should be but I don't have the name handy right now. Check out translations of Advaita and other Hinduism scriptural books by the Ramakrishna Math.
Leslie Kean's UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record. Reading this started my deep dive into the rabbit hole of high strangeness phenomena. Can't say one way or another if it's all just bunk or not, but at least it's entertaining.
Have you paid any attention to Skinwalker Ranch?
Unfortunately what it all comes down to is experiential testimony, and I still believe that without physical evidence or extraordinary film footage of some kind (which apparently exist but haven't been released due to "reasons"), all attempts to rationalize the existence/non-existence of this phenomenon will remain speculative (I'm aware it's not exactly easy to prove non-existence).
I actually find this whole topic a wonderful epistemic exercise; initially everything is trivially dismissible so you Bayes weight to impossible and crazy, but as you dive into all the accounts throughout history you really can't be so sure of your initial assessment anymore.
What will move the needle to improbable is if we "solve" physics (QM vs gravity, theory of everything etc) and definitively rule out all mechanisms in support of high strangeness phenomena (i.e., there really is only 4 fundamental forces, no extra physical dimensions, etc).
Until then my head cannon for all this might just be we're being toyed with by unthinkingly scientifically advanced entities.
Or.. spirits and the supernatural is real and is entirely non physical, the phenomenon is itself intelligent, and thus cannot be studied by conventional scientific methods (but even then I'd think the scientific process should work).
Ah well, see how fun it is to speculate :). Hopefully with the recent shift in government attitude towards UAP we'll see some hard data released soon and make more accurate assessments.
“The Beginning of Infinity” from David Deutsche. Even if you are a die-hard pessimist it will open some cracks and plant seeds on your mind. Disguised as a physics book - not an easy read - this is a treaty on optimism.
"The Dawn of Everything" by the Davids, Graeber and Wengrow. It's a little dense and a bit meandering at times, but the core idea behind it: we have a strong bias in believing that civilization comes in stages. We believe we go 'hunter/gatherer/primitive' -> agriculture -> 'real' civilization. Basically, this is totally false. Not only is it totally false, but one of the reasons we might have this bias is because, wh…
The Enlightenment came from native Americans?
"The Dawn of Everything" by the Davids, Graeber and Wengrow. It's a little dense and a bit meandering at times, but the core idea behind it: we have a strong bias in believing that civilization comes in stages. We believe we go 'hunter/gatherer/primitive' -> agriculture -> 'real' civilization. Basically, this is totally false. Not only is it totally false, but one of the reasons we might have this bias is because, wh…
The Enlightenment came from native Americans?
“The Mind Illuminated” by Culadasa (John Yates). Completely changed my life.
In what ways? I'm in the third stage and there are many good changes. But are the next stages "more of the same" or are they qualitatively different?