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In this enlightening book, anthropologist Manvir Singh offers a new explanation for one of the most misunderstood religious traditions. Travelling from Indonesia to the Amazon, living with shamans and observing music, drug use and indigenous curing ceremonies, he journeys into the origins of shamanism. Fundamentally, shamans are specialists who use altered states to engage with unseen realities and provide services like healing and divination. As Singh shows, shamanism’s ubiquity stems from its psychological resonance.

In this short sequel to his acclaimed memoir, the legendary filmmaker and global cultural icon explores one of his favourite topics: the nature of truth. At the heart of the book lies Werner Herzog’s concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ – a truth that is often hidden behind the facts and our conceptions of reality but can be gleaned through the poetic imagination, in art, literature and cinema, when we open ourselves up to an aesthetic experience.

Rhetoric once sat at the centre of elite education. Alexander the Great, Shakespeare and Martin Luther King, Jr. used it to build empires, write deathless literature and inspire democracies. Here, Heinrichs shows us how these persuasive tools, honed over more than three thousand years of use persuading others, can be turned on our most difficult audiences – ourselves. Using techniques invented by the likes of Aristotle and Cicero and deployed by some of history’s most persuasive characters, we see how rhetoric can convert the gloomiest of situations into positive ones.

In a world overflowing with abundance and information, the calm and clarity of stoicism has never been more necessary. In this book, bestselling author Ken Mogi explores the ancient Greek philosophy as well as its resonance with other cultures around the world, not least his own Japanese perspective.