Showing results by author "David Christopher Lane" in All Categories

It is not too often that a brilliant scientist is also a wonderfully gifted writer. Sir Arthur Eddington was both. Brought up as a Quaker (he was a pacifist during World War One), Eddington was by all accounts a brilliant mathematician and physicist, who eventually became a professor of astronomy at Cambridge University. Sir Arthur Eddington is perhaps most famous for partially confirming Albert Einstein's theory of relativity back in 1919.

Since Yogananda’s Autobiography is now in the public domain and freely available on the Internet for download, I thought it might be very helpful to skeptically analyze a number of the more extraordinary stories within the text. This book takes a hard look at Yogananda's Autobiography from a critical perspective. Also included are three helpful appendices.

August Weismann is regarded by many biologists, including Ernst Mayr from Harvard University, to be second only to Charles Darwin for progressing our understanding of evolution by natural selection. In this book, excerpted from the larger commemorative tome Darwin and Modern Science, edited by A. C. Seward and others, Weismann tackles many of the difficult questions confronting natural selection. In the process, Weismann offers a penetrating critique of Lamarck and provides the listener with rich and robust understanding of evolutionary theory.

This small, illustrated book focuses on how virtual reality technology is a progressive tool for understanding the mystery of consciousness. It utilizes the insights of David Chalmers and Nick Bostrom to elaborate on how our brains are really virtual reality rendering machines that give us in-sourcing options before out-sourcing them to a Darwinian world of eat or be eaten.

This is a book focusing on ecstatic states of consciousness, with a special focus on the work of Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, and the notion of cosmic consciousness....

This audiobook contains a series of essays that provide arguments for a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. We have included several chapters from books published in the 19th century which shows that the idea of a non-meat diet is not new in America, even if it has never been widely adopted. Keep in mind that these earlier writings didn’t have the scientific knowledge at their disposal that we have today.

This is a series of essays penned by Professor David Christopher Lane which were first published on the Integral World website in Europe. Each article emphasizes why focusing on a materialist science is actually helpful for anyone interested in a trans-rational worldview. Professor Lane provides a critical analysis of John White, Brad Reynolds, Ken Wilber, and others concerning the nature of science and its relationship with spirituality.

This collection contains short essays, each written by different authors, on the following agnostic thinkers: Charles Darwin, John Dewey, Lynn Margulis, Leo Szilard, Isaiah Berlin, Thomas Kuhn, Enrico Fermi, Herbert Spencer, David Hume, G.E. Moore, Karl R. Popper, Bertrand Russell, Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Thomas Henry Huxley. The long introduction is by David Christopher Lane, Professor of Philosophy at Mt. San Antonio College. The appendix is a famous essay on agnosticism by the famed trial lawyer, Clarence Darrow. The entire book has been edited by Roberto Allende.

This book contains a critical essay/preface on the cultic nature of censorship in Roman Catholicism by David Christopher Lane, professor of philosophy at Mt. San Antonio College. The main body of the book is on the Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books, which banned such texts as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and all books by David Hume. This text includes a list of banned books up to 1966. This is a fascinating glimpse into Catholic apologetics about how they justified censorsing books that are now considered classics.

This small book contains the essence of the "Yoga of Unknowing" which is the realization that as humans we will always have limited knowledge and following the lead of Nicholas of Cusa we should learn to be cognizant of our ignorance and thereby become more enlightened in the process. Also included is the essay "The Mystery of the Eight Realms" which touches upon how virtual reality technology is our own technological Plato's Cave and how understanding VR, MR, and AR can help us better understand consciousness.

This small book focuses on why understanding neuroscience and evolution can be helpful in understanding why thoughts arise (as virtual simulators) during meditation. Includes a pointed discussion on the importance of science in mapping our interior quests of consciousness.

This small audiobook contains the remarkable recollections of Kehr Singh who was the first person from India to bring the teachings of Radhasoami Satsang Beas to America in the early part of the 20th century. Because of his influence, the Great Master, Sawan Singh, became known and hundreds and eventually thousands came to be initiated into surat shabd yoga. Also contained within this audiobook are excerpts from Professor Andrea Diem-Lane's pioneering work on the early history of Radhasoami and Sant Mat in America and how it influenced several new religions.

This small book explores how the Radhasoami tradition via three distinctive branches (Agra, Beas, and Hoshiarpur) view science. Includes a close examination of the life and work of Rai Salig Ram, Jaimal Singh, and Faqir Chand.

For the past 45 years I have been researching the history of Radhasoami, as founded by Shiv Dayal Singh in Agra, India, back in the mid part of the 19th century. I am particularly fascinated by the early days of the movement and how it evolved from a relatively small and obscure satsang to a world-wide faith with millions of adherents. In this collection, wach author has provided us with an early interpretation of how Radhasoami developed and has also given us a summation of the group’s theology.

This is a small book on the great mystic-sage, Maharishi Shiv Brat Lal, who authored hundreds of books in Urdu, Hindi, and English. He is most famous today as the guru of Baba Faqir Chand, the unknowing sage of Hoshiarpur. Touches upon shabd yoga and Radhasoami and gives an outline of Maharishi's biography.

This edited collection of essays about cosmic consciousness was selected and edited by Professor David Christopher Lane. Includes excerpts from Yogananda, Bucke, St. Teresa of Avila, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Huxley, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and more. With an introduction and conclusion by Dr. Lane.

This book, edited by Professor David Christopher Lane from Mt. San Antonio College, contains 13 distinct essays each written by a different author on famous skeptics such as Brian Cox, Sam Harris, Phillip J. Klass, and more.

This book contains an introduction by Professor David Christopher Lane on why the feeling of free will is an evolutionary hack. It contains judicious selections from the writings of Bertrand Russell, William James (for free will), Arthur Schopenhauer, and other philosophers and scientists on the issue of free will and determinism.

Promissory materialism is one of the standard canards that has been frequently used against science, particularly in the study of consciousness. This two-word invective gets repeatedly invoked whenever researchers argue that we will understand self-awareness in the future because then we will have a more robust and comprehensive neuroscience. Yet, anti-materialist critics (usually of a spiritual or religious bent) are anxious to know how long we have to wait for an answer, since this type of assurance has been trotted out for decades without any foreseeable payoff.

In our postmodern age, with all things socially mediated, we often forget those wise sages of years past, who had deeper insights about how to live life, than we might have imagined. We may consider ourselves more educated and more skeptically resistant to those myths that trapped our ancestors centuries ago, but that is not always the case.