It's all about the journey...

1. Bible (The fundamentalist version - every few pages there would be a box beside one of the scriptures explaining to the reader what the passage was "really saying." I recieved this book back in 2001 from my hairdresser who "saved" me.)

2. Embraced by the Light by Betty Eadie (A taxi driver gave me this book in 2002, and it was exactly what I need to hear: A Christian who had a near-death experience and realized the big picture was a lot more complicated than she previously thought. This helped me put the healings that my hairdresser was performing in perspective.   

3. Conversations with God book 2    by Neale Donald Walsh. I think I read this in 2003. I ended up reading five of his other books afterwards. This book really opened my eyes. I know now that there was some disinformation in there, but it really helped me move forward during some tough times. The idea that I was God really appealed to me.

4. Spontanious fulfillment of desire by Deepak Chopra. This book got me into meditation and creating reality. It teaches you how to do a twenty minute breathing exercise with a mantra. I was able to create amazing coincidences in my life when I would do the meditation with an intention.     

5. Real MAGIC by Wayne Dyer. read in 2004. This book really helped me spiritually. It also persuaded me to start doing his 30 second hold- breath meditation at 3 AM in the morning for an hour for many days of the week that year. He said that 3am was the best time to connect to the source. And he was right. The coincidences that manifested were mind-blowing.

6. the BHaGavad Gita Walkthrough for westeners by Jack Hawley. I bought this book while at the book store in an airport, getting ready to go on vacation in Mexico. This turned my spring break 2005 into a profound spritual experince.

7. A new Earth ,  the Power of now, and [i]Stillness Speaks        [/i] by Eckhart Tolle.

8. Rebooting. Defeating depression with the power of the Kabalah By Yehuda Berg. This book made me buy it. While in the book store, I couldn't put it back on the shelf even though my ego wanted me to. Thank "God" I didn't listen to "me." 

9. The Three Only Things (tapping into the power of dreams, coincidence and imagination)  by Robert Moss. This is a well-written book. I only mention it because it gave me a practical perspective on some things. It also gave me some insight on imagination that I am now utilizing in my life with some success.

10. The Art of Redemption    by Stuart Wilde. Within the first twenty pages, I started to get goose bumps. It is the current book I am reading. I can't put it down. I'm really resonating with the material. A few coincidences brought me to this book, and I am very grateful. Thank you.

Honorable mention

1. Cosmic Ordering by Jonathan Cainer

2. Eyes of an Angel by Paul Elder

2. The Book fo Secrets by Deepak Chopra

Three biggest let-down books

1. Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts

I was really excited to read this book as I heard many good things, but I just couldn't get past the first thirty pages: And I never had a desire to pick it up again. It didn't make me feel good when I read it...whenever I tried to read it, it just felt souless and dark. The info is very advanced for its time but something about "Seth"  just didn't sit well with me. I can't explain it. It felt like I was consuming a bowl of metaphysical truths laced with poison. It was like my mind was liking it but my heart was rejecting it.

2. A course in miracles by I forget

Not my style.

3. Tales from the time loop BY mR. iCKE

Too much info, and I don't know...boaring, maybe

...and the journey never ends...

aNDRE dILOn

Cheers

Also with quality fictional books authors can get ideas accross in ways that make them easier to understand and more relative and in more context to reality via the characters or situations in the stories.

Then, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Poetry by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson
Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (This picture book fascinated me and made me look at things differently when I was just out of college.)
The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler
Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Memories, Dreams and Reflections as well as Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung
Pretty much anything by Joseph Campbell
and Stuart Wilde
And of course, Montalk's writings have opened my eyes in a whole new way.

I'm a diehard Tolkien fan. The man was a poet. Then more recently, Neil Gaiman's novels and Patricia McKillip's, too.

Cheers

Fictional books by Michael Moorcock, i got my signature from a character in one of his books

A book history sure seems to be a journal of one's journey, doesn't it seem?  Yours especially appears this way to me: a path.

1. The Prophet by Kahil Gibran

Then I was smacked in the face by:

2. The law by Frederic Bastiat

While in basic training (mega vulnerability to imprinting) I was exposed to:

3. Behold a Pale Horse by William Cooper

The following all count as players in my references:

4. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield

5. The Emperor wears no clothes by Jack Herer

6. The Holy Bible

7. The Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Henry Cornelius Agrippa 

8. The essentials of Kahbbalah by Daniel C. Matt

9. The Koran (while in Iraq)

10. The best money democracy money can buy by Greg Palast

If you're into Toltec, an EXCELLENT introduction and starting book would be:
"The Complete Idiots Guide to Toltec Wisdom" by Sheri A. Rosenthal who was trained under Miguel Ruiz. It is a very very good book on Toltec as it describes the different lineages - Theun Mares, Ruiz, and others. It also discusses the main concepts and practices. Highly recommended for Toltec lovers.

I would take anything Shirley Mc Laine says with a grain of salt too.  The bookshelf story may or may not have happened.  Either she may have been trying to associate herself with a classic so it would rub off on her, or if it did happen, it may have been to give her an opportunity to tread the real path.  Either way it takes nothing away from "A Dweller on Two Planets".

As for the Lemurian Adepts operating hidden in the earth plane i am sure it is true, that's why i recommended the book.  They are far more than "not normal humans" i can attest but i cannot attest to them still operating out of Mt Shasta.  I believe the UFO's hang around Mt Shasta because the UFO cults have plaigerised virtually everything the true brotherhood have given in the esoteric field in the last 130 years or so.  So they want us to believe it is them who people like F.S Oliver have contacted not the true Adepts or that the UFO occupants are the true Adepts.  The Lemurian Brotherhood have retreats in the Himalayas, North America, South America, the Middle East and other mountainous regions of the world.  They are not to be confused with 'middle earth' civilisations.

The only way to judge the value of a book is to read it for yourself.  This one didn't dissapoint me to say the least about it.

Ps.  See if your interest is piqued by first reading the Emanuensis' Preface.  Oliver explains his relationship with Phylos and how the book was written.  His explanation is better than mine.

"A Dweller on Two Planets" by Phylos the Thibetan and Frederick Spencer Oliver. [free ebook @ sacred texts archive]

This looks interesting.  The introduction at sacred-texts states:

I am not sure that is true.   Perhaps the source of that idea is the ACTUAL existence of some group of not-normal-humans that reside within Mount Shasta.    Sacred-texts also says that Shirley Maclaine had this book literally jump off a shelf into her hands, which is very interesting to those who have read Karla Turner's "Masquerade of Angels" about her and Ted Rice's encounters with inner-earth "people" and UFOs.     

I'd recommend Alec Maclellan's "The Lost World of Agharti" as an engaging and fun-to-read primer on the connections between Atlantis, Inner Earth, and the occult.

"Life before Life"  Dr Helen Wambach interviews dozens of people she "guided" to remember their conscious life before this incarnation.  Recognising prior relationships and choosing one's parents were highlights.  Almost no- one wanted to return to physical embodiment.   

"Edgar Cayce on Dreams" by hugh lynn cayce.  An essential understanding on how to consciously relate with our dreams.

"Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda.  Relates the unusual spiritual life of an authentic eastern saint.  You could laugh and cry over this book.  [Free ebook on the internet @ ananda.com]

"A Dweller on Two Planets" by Phylos the Thibetan and Frederick Spencer Oliver. [free ebook @ sacred texts archive] 

18 year old F. S Oliver was contacted in the 1880s by the adept Phylos and "automatically" wrote what phylos transferred to him mentally.  The book was far beyond the teenager's then current life experience but revealed a story of Atlantis 4000 yrs before it sank in cataclysm.  Again it is a true story packed with ancient history, high tech devices [predicted to return in 20th century America which they since have] and metaphysical gems.  It reveals the relationships between several people involving love, betrayal, a black magician posing as a true "son of the solitude" and intrigue in the royal court.   It is no Mills and Boon treatment that's for sure but it is very personal.  Phylos was then incarnate as a man called Zailm in that Atlantean drama and he relates his mistakes and his atonement in subsequent incarnations.  It is a cautionary tale of how karma follows one down the millenia until it is balanced and expiated through relationships with the same souls with which the karma was created.   A true story unlike anything you will find.

oh yeah!

The secret of letting go  --Guy Finley

Some of the very first "alternative" books I read back 14 years ago.  Gave me a good foundation for this long journey of self sculpture.