Reddit mentions: The best psychology creativity & genius books

Sure. First, let's start out with how I personally define productivity, so that you know where I'm coming from:

1. Get your work (your commitments - job, school, etc.) done first
   
2. Work on your personal projects
   
3. Enjoy guilt-free free time
   
   So that's the basic 3 steps to living a balanced live, productivity-wise: stay on top of what you're on the hook for, make progress on your personal plans, and then goof off stress-free because you're on the ball. Second, we'll divide the books into three sections:
   
   
4. Mental stuff
   
5. Practical-action stuff
   
6. Health stuff
   
   Starting out with practical applied psychology (i.e. the "mental" stuff), in order:
   
   

• Mindset: (Carol Dweck) Introduces the concept that we have one of two mindsets about any given situation: fixed (can't be changed) or growth (can be changed). i.e. "I can't cook" or "I'm great at guitar". You are the gatekeeper to action in your own life. To quote Wayne Gretzsky, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take". Followed up by a Henry Ford quote: "Whether you think you can, or think you can't - you're right." Having a growth mindset means many things, including that setbacks are okay but that you can keep going, that you can change things, that you can improve, that you can get good at things, etc. If you tell yourself no, then you'll never take the first step, and thus you'll never get anything done in whatever specific situation you find yourself in.
  
• Attitude is Everything: (Jeff Keller) A book written in conversational-style English about how much attitude affects literally everything you do in life. A quick read & really enlightens the concepts from the Mindset book, in practice.
  
• Feeling Good: (David Burns) Introduces the concept that thoughts create emotions. Thus, you feel how you think about things. This is hugely important in the world of productivity because we are driven by motivation; the way you feel about things dictates what goals you set & what actions you take. You ever not do something because "I didn't feel like it"? Well, there you go!
  
• Ten Days to Self-Esteem: (David Burns) Companion book to "Feeling Good". It's a 1.5-week workbook that walks you through identifying & auditing what your inner voice is saying. Your inner voice is how you think & we tend to believe everything we think, regardless of whether it's true or not. We have a lot of negative & fixed-mindset things that we say to ourselves throughout the day, which inhibit us from taking action or feeling good about things.
  
  So the takeaways here are: have a growth mindset, have a positive attitude, realize that thoughts create emotions, and audit your inner voice (aka your "thinking" voice) to support your productivity actions. This is really important stuff & I feel like the psychology of productivity is often overlooked, when in fact we're all emotional beings & are driven by various things such as motivation, willpower, determination, commitment, pride, and so on. Getting your mental game in check will enable you to do virtually anything you want to go after.
  
  Next up is the practical implementation (i.e. what do you actually have to DO?) of productivity:
  
  
• Getting Things Done: (David Allen) Also referred to as "GTD". Out of all of the books on this list, I consider this a must-read. This book basically teaches you how to convert wishes ("I want to do this" or "I need to do this" or "I should do this") into reality. Not in a BS way, but by using a concrete workflow, in the form of an off-brain database (as opposed to keeping it all in your head). The core concept is to capture 100% of all of your commitments, process them into concrete, executable "next-actions", and then put reminders of those individual next-actions on a list or on your calendar. This way, you never lose anything, you never forget anything, and you know exactly what to DO next. I can't express how useful this book has been in my life. It's an amazing system. Not easy to adopt, but super easy to maintain once you get going!
  
• Unleash the Warrior Within: (Richard Mack Machowicz) The core takeaway from this book is that if you want to get things done, you need to setup targets, knock them down, and repeat that process. Like if you went out to an archery range: you would setup some bullseye targets, then use your bow & arrow to knock them down, and then go out & setup the targets again. That's how progress is made in life, and more especially, if you want to do anything more than just show up for work & live a reactive life, you have to learn how to setup your own targets, then knock them down, then setup more targets, so that you're making progress over time. Really simple but really brilliant concept!
  
• Grit: (Angela Duckworth) Presents a very simple, yet very powerful concept: the way to be successful is to simply stick with stuff until you've achieved your goal, or if it's something like a lifetime of learning say the piano, simply sticking with it. Failure happens when you quit. Success doesn't mean a smooth road, because you will have lots of setbacks along the way, but sticking with it, even when it's hard or boring or your screw up, is how you achieve success. Before you dive into the book, first, watch this TED Talk by the author. Second, read this inspirational quote by Michael Jordon.
  
• The Talent Code: (Daniel Coyle) The structure behind how talent works & how to develop it. Really amazing for learning how to develop talents you're interested in.
  
• Atomic Habits: (James Clear) The structure behind how habits work & how to develop them, and how to make them work for you.
  
  part 1/3

I feel ya, man :) It sounds like you're really serious about self-exploration, and I gotta commend that. I think when we read about the successes in psychedelic therapy we hope that one trip will be the panacea we need. It's only natural. However, as we're all wound differently, we all need to unwind uniquely, and that involves a lot of confusion and discomfort as we disentangle from everything we've been told, and thought, we are.

I don't know just where you're at, so forgive me if I'm stating the obvious for you. Do you know that the ego is terrified of change? It seems to want predictability even if its predictable schtick is painful. So it doesn't surprise me that your trips feel very unstable. The ego is your habitual world orientation, and ego-lessness is a total reorientation and disidentification. This process is probably already happening in you, but you can only see it in retrospect, as the ego seems to really act up when you start sniffing around to see what it really is.

So as much as I'd like to tell you the one thing to do to make it all come together, you're probably going to have to do some digging to discover the nature of ego, fear, mind etc. You'll probably want to explore something like spirituality (in the broad sense of the word) in whatever ways you're drawn to. Some kind of meditative or contemplative practice is really helpful so that you're more able to be with your experience as it directly presents instead of through the filters of conditioned mind.

Anyway, I'm rambling here. As for the psychedelics, maybe start reading up on the therapeutic literature out there. Stan Grof's LSD: Doorway to the Numinous and Neil Goldsmith's Psychedelic Healing might be good places to start.

As for the spiritual side, you'll have to figure out what you like. I think some of the more helpful ones out there are Mooji, Rupert Spira, Adyashanti, Douglas Harding.... Galen Sharp's What am I? is one of my favourite books for self-exploration, but who knows what will resonate with you?

Anyway, good luck with your explorations. This is challenging work, but the greatest thing a person can explore.

Oh, and I almost forgot...

> With that sort of level, am I to expect strong visuals or... I mean... what's gonna happen?

I don't know. That's the point. Prepare your set and setting, and then let the medicine show you what it needs to show you. It very well could have visual elements, but not necessarily. It might reframe memories and make "important things" seem trivial. Sometimes there's a humbling chapter of the journey where there's an atoning for ways that you've wronged people, and sometimes it can even be a more collective sense of grief and healing. Rest assured, though, the clearer you see the more you realize it's all motivated by love. I'm sure it sounds corny, but it really starts to come across like everything you've ever had to go through (and your current curiosity) are based in a profound love that you're beginning to discover. It can be a very powerful practice to just start to sit and cultivate the feeling of love - not love for anything in particular, just unspecific, undirected love.

I suppose I just don't see his behavior as that of the mindless arsonist and critic. He did try to sincerely make a good game. A niche one, to be sure, and I'm quite certain it wouldn't be to my taste, but nobody makes an Atari 2600 poetry game decades after the console faded from relevance out of cynicism. Nor is the arsonist likely to write a whole book on transferring the joy of games to life. Again, I don't think that book would be thoroughly to my taste, but it strikes me as nothing if not sincere.

As he said: he liked Goose Game. He'd better like games in general, given the amount of breath he's spent praising them and the time he's poured into development. He seems to be genuinely looking to analyze what is remarkable in gaming and apply it elsewhere.

Creation is absolutely harder than destruction, and it sends a much more meaningful signal. That strikes me as a point in Bogost's favor, not against, whether for creating his first game as a labor of love, creating and then destroying a popular entire game just to make a point, or writing a positive book on games as a whole. His works aren't always my style, but they do seem to be about as genuine as creative work can get, and that's my primary request of a creator.

> but to claim that it's a measure of intelligence is pretty far fetched.

I suggest reading The g Factor to get a better understanding of IQ tests insights and limitations.

To summarize, while it's true that some people are better at certain mental tasks than others, there is a strong correlation between a huge subset of mental tasks. If a person is good at, say, mental spatial manipulation, they tend to be good with language, good with pattern recognition, etc.

> IQ is highly dependent on social environnement, family and school education and the subject's personality.

WRONG. That's where you are wrong, kiddo.

1. Attempts by programs like head start to give blacks highly enriched educational environments have failed to produce lasting changes in their IQ’s relative to whites.
   
   
2. Children of black parents that make between $160K and $200K a year are less intelligent than white children from families that make less than $20K a year. Similarly, the IQ difference between rich black kids and rich white kids is even larger than the IQ difference between poor black kids and poor white kids.
   
   
3. Our society has obviously become much less “racist” over the last hundred years. Yet, the black/white IQ gap is basically the same today as it was in 1918.
   
   
4. Genetic theory predicts that the children and grand children of smart people will tend to be ever dumber until they reach the average IQ level of the population. The children and grand children of smart black parents “regress” in this way to a mean IQ of 85 while the children of smart white parents regress to a mean IQ of 100. The only obvious explanation for this comes from genetics.
   
   
5. Whites have larger brains than blacks. This seems to be for genetic reasons since there are also many other muscular and skeletal differences between blacks and whites that are associated with evolving larger brains and because these brain size differences are present at birth. Larger brains are also associated with being more intelligent. Three lines of evidence suggest that this association is causal: first, genes that are associated with being more intelligent are also associated with larger brains. Second, a person’s brain size changes over time ]predict changes in their intelligence over time](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140304141734.htm). And third, smarter siblings have larger brains their their less intelligent siblings who grew up in the same home as them (this suggests that the relationship can’t be explained by any possible confounding variable in the family environment such as nutrition). So it seems that whites have evolved to be more intelligent than blacks partly by evolving larger brains.
   
   
6. Mulattos (people who have a black and a white parent) have higher IQ’s than blacks but lower IQ’s than whites. A genetic explanation would predict this because half of a mulatto’s genes are black and half are white. In fact, even with in black populations those who have lighter skin (because they have more white ancestors) have higher IQ’s.
   
   
7. The Minnesota trans-racial adoption study, which is the best of its kind, found that at age 17 blacks adopted into upper middle class white homes averaged an IQ of 84, Mulattos averaged 93, and whites 102. Thus, being raised in an affluent white family didn’t boost black or Mulatto IQ just as a (mostly) genetic hypothesis would predict.
   
   
8. Some IQ sub-tests are more heritable than others. (That is, twin studies show that differences between individuals on some tests are more due to genetic differences between people than others.) The race IQ gap is largest on those subtests with the highest levels of heritability and the only obvious explanation for this is that the B/W IQ difference is caused by genetics.
   
   
9. Versions of genes associated with intelligence differ in frequency between the races in such a way that favors white people.
   
   
10. Egalitarianism isn’t evolutionarily or genetically plausible. We know that the different environments the races evolved in produced differences in just about every physical trait from bone density to height to muscle size. And we know that the large differences in weather and food availability must have caused people to behave differently. The idea that these different environments selected for intelligence with exactly equal pressure seems incredibly unlikely. Similarly, studies have found that the races differ in the frequency of most (or all) genes and this includes genes that affect brain development. So the races possessing any random single gene in the same frequency is unlikely. In order for them to have to same genetic profile with regards to intelligence, which involves thousands of genes, this would have to happen thousands of times. If we assume that that the probability of the races having the same frequency for some gene is 40% (it’s actually much lower) and that intelligence involves 15 genes (it actually involves thousands) the probability that the races would have the identical frequencies for each of these genes is 0.0001%. Given this, the idea that they would have the exact same frequency for the thousands of genes that affect intelligence is basically impossible.
    

> Placing something on a spectrum doesn't invalidate the application of categories, in this case race, to spots on said spectrum

The application of categories (taxonomy), in general, isn't invalidated. What's invalidated is the use of race, which is primarily defined by a narrow set of phenotypes, in particular skin color, as the method for defining these categories because it obscures greater genotypical similarities between groups and also has less predictive power than groupings based on other genetic differences, such as clines and clusters.

Even if you use continental origin based on AIMs to match self-identified race and ethnicity with most recent ancestry, that doesn't yield a grouping that has any utility whatsoever as a unit of analysis for biology and genomics.

For example Michael Jackson's daughter is self-identified black. So is Barack Obama. Both have one white parent and one black parent, but Obama looks black and Paris Jackson looks white, like really white. Blue eyes and everything. You could trace both of their genetic ancestries to Africa and group them on that basis, and it would match their SIRE 100 percent, but if you put them in the same environment, same SES, etc., Paris Jackson would be treated like a white person.

> By this reasoning you can't distinguish between red and green because there is no clean dividing line as you move through the electromagnetic spectrum from one to the other.

I would say that this is a clever bit of sophistry were it not for the fact that it's totally unoriginal and I've heard it used so many times that it has become cliche.

It's a false analogy. Color is defined by one specific property, i.e. wavelength, that is fixed and uniformly agreed upon to be a set value 510 nm. Phenotypes are influenced by thousands upon thousands of different alleles, most of which—particularly the ones for intelligence— have not even been identified. Even skin color involves hundreds of genes.

A difference on the electromagnetic spectrum between green (510 nm) and red (650 nm) is not analogous to the genetic difference between any given population, even defined in the most narrow sense, i.e. clines, much less in a broad sense using archaic 19th-century folk taxons like Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid.

The genetic difference between any two groups or individuals is less than 10 percent, so a more accurate analogy would be a comparison of two different shades of green at 510 nm and 515 nm, which would be indistinguishable.

> The far ends of the spectrum can't interbreed

Yeah, isolation-by-distance is a thing but it hasn't existed as a phenomenon for long enough to actually result in substantial differences between say Native Americans and Bantus, except for certain specific climate-related adaptations, like sickle-cell anemia.

> So if you want to throw out race because of this you'd have to throw out species too.

No, I don't have to throw out the concept of species or the concept of subspecies but in order to apply the taxonomies in a useful way, biology requires a non-arbitrary genetic threshold for defining them, and race doesn't meet this criteria (between 17 percent and 25 percent genetic difference). Again, there is only one subspecies of Homo sapiens. It's called sapiens and like it or not, we're all part of it.

> It means exactly what I think it means, it's a ratio between genetic and environmental variation. So, yes, it changes in different environments

OK, so if you understand it so well, then you also understand it only applies to differences between individuals in the same population with the same environment and it can't be generalized to apply to average group differences between populations.

To do so is a misapplication of the concept in the same way that Rushton abused r-K selection, using it in a way that no respectable biologist would.

As I already noted elsewhere in the thread, Mackintosh, the author of "IQ and Intelligence," notes that at the lowest SES, heritability approaches zero.

And even Rushton and Jensen, the most vociferous proselytizers of hereditarianism, had to acknowledge: "A high heritability within one group does not mean that the average difference between it and another group is due to genetic differences, even if the heritability is high in both groups."

Of course, that didn't prevent them from trying to push this argument over and over and over and coming up short each time when their theories were put to the test by other more scrupulous researchers.

In fact this statement by Jensen directly contradicts his earlier statement in which he critiqued Lewontin's seed and soil analogy. Jensen said in 1970 that a high heritability increases the probability that genetics play a role in average group differences. And repeated this claim in his 1998 book.

So what happened in between 1998 and 2005 that caused Jensen to qualify his statement?

In a little more than three decades, we see Jensen walk back his position from "differences in IQ are mostly genetic" to "differences in IQ are about half and half" to "differences in IQ are partially genetic but in some unquantifiable amount that can't be 100 percent falsified with existing research methods.

Respectable scientists like Wicherts don't a priori rule out the role of genetics in between-group difference, but that's just good science. In other words you retain a healthy amount of skepticism until empirical evidence can tell you with a degree of certainty the cause of an observed phenomenon.

Race reductionists use this uncertainty to keep the dream alive much like creationists.

> If I control for environment tightly enough to yield a high heritability and I still have a gap, then a large chunk of that gap is likely due to biological factors not the environment.

Now we are getting into the limitations of social science. What I find most ironic about "race realism" is that many of its proponents frequently malign the social sciences as not "real science," yet the entirety of the argument is based on a few psychologists that I can count on one hand all drawing from the same tainted well.

This disdain for the social sciences also manifests in an inability to actually understand social science methodology and interpret the results of research accurately. It also causes them to erroneously assign equal weight to studies that make highly speculative claims that fail to achieve consistency with the bulk of scientific literature (Lynn and Rushton) as studies that do (Nesbitt et. al)

And here's the rub: You're never going to be able to control for the social effects of blackness, such as stereotype threat, stigma and institutional racism/discrimination. And to dismiss those factors offhand as irrelevant or non-existent is unscientific.

Even if you control for SES and differences remain, it doesn't necessarily follow that the basis of those differences is purely genetic.

As anthropologist John Ogbu observed, there is a difference between "caste-like minority groups," such as blacks who immigrated involuntarily and voluntary immigrants like Chinese and Jews who carried with them a culture of self-respect..

In the social sciences, one could conceivably construct an experiment in which you compared the educational outcomes of half-black white-presenting students from similar backgrounds as half-black black-presenting students, and measure the effect of the appearance of blackness on social outcomes. But it would be hard to get a big enough sample size and to replicate.

I much more prefer the relatively straightforward (and falsifiable) tales that genetics tells. Namely that variation within species is very small.

The only way to test differences between races in a concrete falsifiable to determine how much is genetic would be to identify all or most of the thousands of genes that contribute to intelligence and to define get a massive DNA sample that is representative of the various population clusters that exist within the black and white races. Then you would have to compare the samples for allele frequency.

The cost of doing this is prohibitively expensive at the moment even as GWAS costs go down. But given the overall low variation between population groups, the default position has to be that differences in IQ are mostly, if not entirely, environmental.

In order to conclude from your example that our subject has objective knowledge of an objective reality, we must first assume certain things about what it means for senses to "work properly". Consider the case of a cat. My understanding of a cat's vision is that they see very little or no color at all, that they see objects at rest indistinctly, but that objects in motion become more distinct in their field of vision, which is more clear at night than a human's. We can explain those departures from human vision as the result of evolution -- the cat is evolved for night hunting; we're not.

Which points to two salient facts: one, that our senses are not necessarily some norm for experiencing the world -- the cat's sense of vision is not really a departure at all, and we describe it as such only because that's the easiest way we can understand something of what it's like to see as a cat; and two, that the form our senses take is evolved for particular tasks. Objective knowledge isn't necessarily one of those tasks. In fact, it's hard to imagine an evolutionary scenario that would result in senses suited for that purpose. The first chapter of Jacob Bronowski's The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination provides a really concise and readable explanation for why we must assume that our program of understanding the world is at least partially imaginative.

Another problem crops up when you start to think about how a person "forms true beliefs on the basis of observation", or more to the point, how they know that those beliefs are true. That leads to circularity -- rationally, it doesn't make sense to invoke "true beliefs" when attempting to demonstrate our ability to discern what is true (ie. to know), because that implies the very thing you're trying to prove, that we can know that things are true.

Based on how we understand our own faculties, and on how we conceive of an objective reality, the most sound conclusion is that we have no reliable epistemic access to that reality, and that any knowledge we have of it is fundamentally indirect and therefore always interpreted rather than known directly.

The Following list is taken from the Witches & Warlocks FB page. (This is Christian Day's group)

Witches and Warlocks Recommended Reading List
This is a collection of books recommended by our admins and participants in the group. Books must be approved by the admins so if you'd like to see one added to the last, please post it in the comments at the bottom of this list and, if it's something we think is appropriate, we'll add it! We provide links to Amazon so folks can read more about the book but we encourage you to shop at your local occult shop whenever possible! :)


BEGINNER'S WITCHCRAFT BOOKS

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft
by Raymond Buckland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0875420508

Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America
by Margot Adler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038192

Grimoire of the Thorn-Blooded Witch: Mastering the Five Arts of Old World Witchery
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635500

The Inner Temple of Witchcraft: Magick, Meditation and Psychic Development
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738702765

The Kybalion: The Definitive Edition
by William Walker Atkinson (Three Initiates)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1585428744

Lid Off the Cauldron: A Wicca Handbook
by Patricia Crowther
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1861630328

Mastering Witchcraft
by Paul Huson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0595420060

Natural Magic
by Doreen Valiente
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0919345808

Natural Witchery: Intuitive, Personal & Practical Magick
by Ellen Dugan
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738709220

Old World Witchcraft: Ancient Ways for Modern Days
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635055

The Outer Temple of Witchcraft: Circles, Spells and Rituals
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738705314

Power of the Witch: The Earth, the Moon, and the Magical Path to Enlightenment
by Laurie Cabot
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0385301898

Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation
by Silver RavenWolf
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703192

Spirit of the Witch: Religion & Spirituality in Contemporary Witchcraft
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703389

Witch: A Magickal Journey
by Fiona Horne
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0007121326

Witchcraft for Tomorrow
by Doreen Valiente
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0709052448

Witchcraft Today
by Gerald Gardner
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806525932
The Witches' Craft: The Roots of Witchcraft & Magical Transformation
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/073870265X
The Witching Way of the Hollow Hill
by Robin Artisson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982031882

WITCHCRAFT HISTORY AND RESOURCE BOOKS

Aradia or The Gospel of the Witches
by Charles Godfrey Leland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982432356

Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints & Sages: A Guide to Asking for Protection, Wealth, Happiness, and Everything Else!
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062009575

The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca
by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0816071047

Etruscan Roman Remains
by Charles Godfrey Leland
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1494302519

The God of the Witches
by Margaret Murray
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0195012704

The Weiser Field Guide to Witches, The: From Hexes to Hermione Granger, From Salem to the Land of Oz
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578634792

ADVANCED BOOKS ON WITCHCRAFT AND MAGIC

Blood Sorcery Bible Volume 1: Rituals in Necromancy
by Sorceress Cagliastro
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935150812

The Deep Heart of Witchcraft: Expanding the Core of Magickal Practice
by David Salisbury
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1780999208

Teen Spirit Wicca
by David Salisbury
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1782790594

Enchantment: The Witch's Art of Manipulation by Gesture, Gaze and Glamour
by Peter Paddon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936922517

Initiation into Hermetics
by Franz Bardon
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1885928122

Letters from the Devil's Forest: An Anthology of Writings on Traditional Witchcraft, Spiritual Ecology and Provenance Traditionalism
by Robin Artisson
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500796360

Magical Use of Thought Forms: A Proven System of Mental & Spiritual Empowerment
by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowick and J.H. Brennan
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567180841

Magick in Theory and Practice
by Aleister Crowley
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1500380679

The Plant Spirit Familiar
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982774311

Protection and Reversal Magick
by Jason Miller
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1564148793
Psychic Self-Defense
by Dion Fortune
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635098
The Ritual Magic Workbook: A Practical Course of Self-Initiation
by Dolores Ashcroft-Norwicki
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578630452
The Roebuck in the Thicket: An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition
by Evan John Jones, Robert Cochrane and Michael Howard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1861631553

The Satanic Witch
by Anton Szandor LaVey
http://www.amazon.com/Satanic-Witch-Anton-Szandor-LaVey/dp/0922915849
Shadow Magick Compendium: Exploring Darker Aspects of Magickal Spirituality
by Raven Digitalis
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VS0N5K
The Tree of Enchantment: Ancient Wisdom and Magic Practices of the Faery Tradition
by Orion Foxwood
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578634075
The Underworld Initiation: A journey towards psychic transformation
by R.J. Stewart
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1892137038

HERBALISM, CANDLES, INCENSE, OILS, FORMULARIES, AND STONES

A Compendium of Herbal Magic
by Paul Beyerl
http://www.amazon.com/dp/091934545X

Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs
by Scott Cunningham
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0875421229

The Enchanted Candle: Crafting and Casting Magickal Light
by Lady Rhea
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806525789

The Enchanted Formulary: Blending Magickal Oils for Love, Prosperity, and Healing
by Lady Maeve Rhea
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0806527048

Incense: Crafting and Use of Magickal Scents
by Carl F. Neal
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738703362

Magickal Formulary Spellbook Book 1
by Herman Slater
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0939708000

Magickal Formulary Spellbook: Book II
by Herman Slater
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0939708108


SPELLCASTING AND SPELLBOOKS
Crone's Book of Charms & Spells
by Valerie Worth
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567188117

Crone's Book of Magical Words
by Valerie Worth
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567188257

Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061711233

Everyday Magic: Spells & Rituals for Modern Living
by Dorothy Morrison
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567184693

Pure Magic: A Complete Course in Spellcasting
by Judika Illes
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578633915
Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions
by Dorothy Morrison
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0979453313
The Voodoo Hoodoo Spellbook
by Denise Alvarado
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635136

The Voodoo Doll Spellbook: A Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Spells and Rituals
by Denise Alvarado
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578635543


THE ANCESTORS AND WORKING WITH THE DEAD
The Cauldron of Memory: Retrieving Ancestral Knowledge & Wisdom
by Raven Grimassi
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738715751

The Mighty Dead
by Christopher Penczak
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0982774370

Speak with the Dead: Seven Methods for Spirit Communication
by Konstantinos
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0738705225
The Witches' Book of the Dead
by Christian Day
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578635063
_____
TAROT

78 Degrees of Wisdom
by Rachel Pollack
http://www.amazon.com/dp/157863408

That is exactly what I am interested in doing! So since I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about this I believe I can help. As for what to read: I started with Your Inner Fish because it brings human evolution back to when we first got out of the water and explains very, very early brain evolution and development of the brain in utero. Also an easy read. Next I have been tackling "Evolution of the Human Brain" by Lieberman (can't find an amazon link for it, sorry). I'll admit it is not an easy read and it is not impeccably edited but I believe all the facts are there and it is very comprehensive. You can learn a lot from this book. I will also suggest The Brain. Now, I can't speak to the quality of this one because it has just come out, but the guys who wrote it are incredibly smart and I expect nothing but great material from them.

As for schools: you must know now that it really all depends on the person you want to work with. They could be anywhere in the world. I mentioned before, this is my thing, so I can tell you that the schools I have interest in because they have one or more people researching this area are: UC San Diego, George Washington U, possibly NYU if you can tie it into neuroscience and work with the medical center, then there are people abroad as well if that's something you would consider.

Hope that helps.

edit: the book is called "Evolution of the Human Head" not Brain.

I initially followed the principles of Stoicism, which is a philosophy that's very close to the principles of CBT. So my first resource was /r/Stoicism, where you can find things like this and this that have direct correlation with CBT principles. Greek and Roman literature might be hard to get into, but there are very readable translations and the principles are applicable.

Of course, not everyone is interested in philosophy, so my recommendation would be to find something along the lines of Judith Beck's Cognitive Therapy, or other similar resources that are based on research. I can't really recommend else because I haven't read much from other authors.

But in general I would recommend reading about cognitive biases in general, along the lines of this, this, this, or this. Being conscious of how everybody thinks might help you see some negative spirals in your life, and can help you change the environment that might lead you to that negativity.

But again, professional help can be very useful, so definitely consult a professional who is maybe better for you. Good luck!

I've had good luck with Alan Watts (yeah, cliché I know, but he is good fun to read), Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe, and Stanislov Grof's LSD: Doorway to the Numinous.

EDIT: Talbot refers to David Bohm quite a bit. Never checked him out but I think he has some rather interesting ideas about the nature of reality, from a quantum mechanical perspective. Still have to look into this.

Not specifically about LSD, but good:

Anything by Aldous Huxley (Doors of Perception in particular)

About LSD and great:

LSD: Doorway to the Numinous

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD

four ever and a day
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0922915660/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=23YFG25KSNSBU&coliid=IX5DCQHT3XZ5R

It is a little over $4 if you buy the used one.

I hope you have a great cakeday!
You are awesome for being on here for so long!

I bestow upon you the title of "Elder"

My perspective on drugs: I like them. I think they can be valuable tools and provide wonderful experiences.

I currently have a good reading list I'm working through for a planned project that will require a lot of LSD. I'm interested in LSD and MDMA psychotherapy to help solve some deep-seated problems (you have no idea how far from normal I am) and for general self-improvement. Fascinating subject, particularly the works by Stanislav Grof.

The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys: http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic/dp/1594774021

LSD Psychotherapy: Exploring the Frontiers of the Hidden Mind
http://www.amazon.com/Psychotherapy-Healing-Potential-Psychedelic-Medicine/dp/0979862205

LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious
http://www.amazon.com/LSD-Numinous-Groundbreaking-Psychedelic-Unconscious/dp/1594772827

Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures
http://www.amazon.com/Tripping-Anthology-True-Life-Psychedelic-Adventures/dp/0140195742

The Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell
http://www.amazon.com/The-Doors-Perception-Thinking-Classics/dp/1907590099

Through the Gateway of the Heart (about MDMA)
http://www.maps.org/gateway/

Thanatos To Eros, 35 Years of Psychedelic Exploration
http://www.maps.org/t2e/

Had to do a lot of searching and reading just to find what was worth reading, avoiding pseudoscience and quasi-religion. Oi, this is going to be a lot of work, but that's probably what it will take to sort out the trainwreck of my mind.

Buy this IQ test for $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/Self-Scoring-IQ-Tests/dp/0760701644/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=IQ+test&qid=1559161312&s=gateway&sr=8-2

​

You and your GF take it and make sure you bomb the test.

​

Then a couple of days later share this link with her so she will not leave your dumb ass thinking your kids will grow up stupid. Then tell her how glad you are that she is the smart one.

https://reachmd.com/news/children-inherit-intelligence-from-their-mother-not-their-father/1475149/

​

Problem solved and it will be the best $1.99 you ever spent.

​

For such a smart guy, you are kinda stupid.

Please feel free to name your first born after me "someguy92614" and you are welcome

OK so I'm going to assume for the sake of argument that everyone's got the materialistic worldview. And I think you're correct on the evidence front for the most part.

I have 4 fronts that I'm stubborn about.

So here we go. I will try to be as succinct as possible.

1. Life is but a sophisticated biochemical mechanism that started completely randomly that it is only a matter of time before we can recreate in a lab. My problems with this:
   
   A) If it happened randomly, I think we would have observed it in nature by now. If you use the argument that it's simply rare, you're using the same argument UFOlogists use to explain why there is a lack of physical evidence. I have read up on abiogenesis and the Millier-Urey experiment but again, something feels extremely incomplete about this. It's like saying that it's only a matter of time before an orchestra spontaneously appears because we saw nature create a single note.
   
   B) If it's completely biochemical we should be able to create it in a lab where there was no life before. The efforts I've seen in this area are light-years from actual abiogenesis.
   
   C) If it's completely biochemical we should be able to model life in a computer. Unfortunately every effort I've sought out in this regard, even the simplest organism, has been a letdown. I know that we are at the level of simulating things like DNA folding and other biological processes but I think this is light-years from a simulated life. I have a second problem with the idea of simulated life, by the way- it would imply simulated intelligence is possible also and that means Terminator 2 is possible. :O
   
   
2. There is no way to prove that what you see as "red" is not what I see as "blue". This is the concept of Qualia and frankly, it bothers me like hell. I cannot come up with any kind of conventional mechanism that would explain experiential qualities like "redness" or "somber timbre" or "life satisfaction/joy/fulfillment" other such things that I guess live inside this thing we call "consciousness," and I can't remotely see a way that "experiential" things could be emergent from simple measuring mechanisms like our senses. Our eyes see frequency and wavelength, the signals get transmitted as neuron pulses, but there is a really big gap between that and the actual experience we all have every moment. I guess this would be considered a mind body problem. I challenge any atheist to meditate on this problem for a while and see if you also fail to find it fully explainable via a current or future materialist worldview.
   
   
3. Thousands of people report some very odd and unexplained experiences, sometimes very elaborate/sophisticated and often in concordance with others that they haven't spoken to, that they have no physical evidence of. In a court of law, their combined testimony would act as strong evidence in lieu of physical evidence, but in atheism, it seems that such reports are way too easily dismissed. For example, I challenge any atheist to read 100 NDE accounts (easily obtainable) without at least scratching their head about the conclusion that it's all just residual brain chemistry or DMT. There is an entire book dedicated exclusively to NDE's that people blind from birth have had, for example, where they see extremely vivid and complex things despite claiming that they have never ever dreamed in vision, all while clinically brain-dead. I think that atheists come into this with a certain lack of interest and a preconceived notion that it's mostly hogwash so the full impact of that testimony-as-evidence never really gets to be challenged. As humans we are all guilty of this problem to some degree, we tend to only consume evidence that supports our worldview, but I think that any person who wants to claim they maintain a valid objective worldview should be readily consuming the media of the enemy (and not just the Bible).
   
   
4. The creative process does not feel completely mechanical or process-driven to me. I have tried to explain all creativity as a sort of extremely fast mental simulation of cause-effect gedankenexperiments which would explain the kind of creativity as seen in the monkey banana problem. But then there is... music. Not only can an organism get by just fine without a lick of music comprehension, I fail to see why I am taken to such highs from a certain arrangement of auditory frequencies. Or colors on a canvas, for that matter. As a web developer, I've often gone through creative possibilities in my head, but anyone whose job entails some creativity knows that sometimes it just seems like an idea comes out of "thin air". One more note on music, I was in basic training for 6 weeks once upon a time without any music whatsoever, and I found I craved it. I have some stories around that which I cherish.
   
   My conclusion currently is that life is simply "weird", is not like regular matter, and my beliefs fall somewhat along the line of Vitalism. I go no further with trying to explain it as a soul, that comes from some God, etc... I just think it extremely strange. I would like to emphasize that I do not believe in biblical creation or creationism, but I am only saying that some property of life strikes me as extremely odd, and I'm arguing that it's fairly plain to see. I'm open minded to any alternative viewpoint but from where I'm sitting, it requires just as much faith that all this is explainable with describable biomechanism as it does that a huge God-finger came down and touched the ocean and poof, there was life.

> do you think that someone born with 100% biological potential for intelligence who doesn't read books will have the same intelligence as someone, with half the potential, who does?

Intellectual stimulation has been found to not affect GMA: https://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036

Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842948

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0099519852

Outliers: The Story of Success https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930

My analogy is one way for the theist to kinda explain the mind/brain relationship. Obviously It wasn't meant to provide proof. The only type of evidence theists and atheists have to work with are people who report near death experiences (NDEs). An interesting book that might offer you some proof is Mindsight: Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind. As the title states, it deals with NDEs of blind people. Once the blind people "cross over" it seems that they are able to observe their surrounding and can give detailed visual accounts of their surrounds during their NDE. I'm not saying this is proof of a soul or afterlife but it's definitely interesting. Thanks

Yeah, but I prefer it that way.

Read The Satanic Witch sometime(even if you're a gentleman) and you'll learn a great deal about managing(and manipulating) people's expectations of you.

I know what the anthropologists say but I really do not believe them in the slightest.

I can't really seem to find anything to back up "adopted children perform less well in school" theory so the study is pretty conclusive it's simple biology.

If you really think it's not biological still then you did not actually read anything I posted in an unbiased matter.

Also:

Source 1: http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index012209_p.html

Source 2: https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/why-ses-does-not-explain.pdf

Source 3: Is from this book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve) page 288

Source 4: Is from this book (https://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453624876&sr=1-1&keywords=the+g+factor) page 358

First, I have to ask, what is the significance of potatoes and oatmeal?

Now for suggestions:
If she has a mac or a light colored laptop you could get her one of these

I don't know what a child life specialist is, but this book was awesome

This book looks cool

A wallet/coin purse with her favorite disney character

LSD Psychotherapy is for people who are well-versed in the jargon of psychotherapy and psychology. If you don't belong to that group, I recommend Realms of the Human Unconscious (recently re-released under the title Doorway to the numinuous)

Edit: You can decide if LSD Psychotherapy is ok for you by reading these excerpts from the book. If you can understand those excerpts, then I recommend LSD Psychotherapy as it goes much deeper than the other book.

This is one of a pretty good series on all things occult.

A great book on writer's block is 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice Weaver Flaherty. It investigates the link between neurology/psychology and creativity, with a particular focus on writing. There's a whole chapter specifically on writer's block. The author is a neurologist who has bipolar disorder and, obviously, is a writer. It's an amazing read, I'd highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Disease-Drive-Writers-Creative/dp/0618230653

I don't think life is completely fair, just as it's not fair to short people, people that are unattractive, etc. But the question is, is the "unfairness" the primary cause of the problems in the African American community or is it something else?

This is difficult to talk about, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. There are certainly many very smart people of every race and each individual has to be judged on their own merits.

But many of the problems facing the black community may be explained by that graph. That is a horrible thought but that doesn't make it an untrue thought.


The gap exist, even when one controls for socio-economic status. I'm not saying the SES isn't relevant, only that it doesn't explain the difference. Roughly speaking, caucasians in the poorest 1/5 of the country score about the same as African American's in the richest 1/5 of the country. So I don't know that your "redneck" analogy is accurate, or at least I would ask for evidence.

Here is a 2nd hand graph taken off researcher Arthur Jensen's book showing the effect of SES on IQ. The same stats exist for SES and SAT scores.

It's not clear whether or not anything can be done about all of this. But if there is, that would seem like it would be the first thing we should do, because none of the other issues are going to go entirely away if that one isn't solved.

Wow. Well I apologize for being lazy and posting an unreliable source. However I think you wasted your time "debunking" that article. Firstly, both of your sources are the same thing. Secondly here and here: "http://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(01)73890-5/abstract" are two more reliable sources. The purpose of these studies are to explain why African American men are at a dramatically higher risk for prostate cancer.

That was not my main point anyways. My point was "pseudo-science" is called when it involves racial differences, even if the reasoning is sound.

> IQ is heritable. It is also influenced by numerous other factors, as listed in your wiki link, such as access to education, health, nutrition, pollution, socio-economic status, etc, etc, etc.

Of course it is. It is influenced by environment and also genetics.

> There is a shitton of studies showing this. However, there is not a single credible study which remotely concludes in any way that race and IQ share a causal relationship.

Have you heard of The Bell Curve and The g Factor?

> Never heard of the guy. Sounds interesting. I'll look into it.

Oh are you familiar with most human genetics professors? Yes, do look into it. I provided you two sources.

> But that doesn't mean big brains = big smarts.

It addresses that in the article

LaVey wrote a whole book on it. The Satanic Witch is useful for both sexes and includes an extensive suggested reading list that should be seriously considered by anyone interested in delving into Deep Satanism.

This isn't really the examples you're asking for but a chapter in David Bohm's Science, Order, and Creativity has some interesting discussion about this exact topic.

If you're really interested read "The g factor"

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0275961036?pc_redir=1408889026&robot_redir=1

Then tell your friends who say it's all whitey's fault to shove it.

Do you want to post the link again? Sure beats quoting a passage from it that proves your straw man?

Here I'll post it too.
https://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036

This is an interesting read. I got it at an AMS/MAA conference.

This book can be of help

https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Magick-Manual-Freestyle-Shamanism/dp/1869928571

Highly recommended if a bit of a slog: https://www.amazon.com/Master-His-Emissary-Divided-Western-dp-0300245920/dp/0300245920/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

Yes it is an actual mental retardation IMHO, but completely expected from a tyrannical left-brained mediated worldview that can't appreciate context, nuance, duality, shades of grey, or relation and only sees in terms of categories, abstractions, all-or-nothing, and the literal

The short answer: The Satanic Witch is a thing that exists ;)

Just in case you want to know more about the design on his shirt.

You might want look up Dr Kenneth Ring's research documented in his book "Mindsight"...in it he describes people blind from birth having NDE's (and OBE's as part of these) and describing visual like sensory phenomena, even though they have never used or been able to use such a sensory modality once before in their lives.

https://www.amazon.com/Mindsight-Near-Death-Out-Body-Experiences/dp/0595434975

> Which is?

The ones I directly linked to in his thread. The collected academic papers of experts put together by Nyborg, the summary of the entire field by Haier, the work on the g factor by Jensen, I even directly linked to the American Psychological Association which makes the same claim.

When the APA comes out and takes your stance on the issue, I'll 100% retract my claim.

https://www.amazon.com/LSD-Numinous-Groundbreaking-Psychedelic-Unconscious/dp/1594772827

Please read this book then stfu.

I don't hold onto references. Why would I?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Factor-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036

https://iq-research.org/en/page/average-iq-by-country

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve

I know of a book on neurology and writing if that counts! A mesh-mash of various non-fiction done by a neurologist who was also a psych patient.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Midnight-Disease-Writers-Creative/dp/0618230653

I remember picking up a self-scoring IQ test at a Barnes & Noble a few years ago... These booklets are mad cheap

https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Magick-Manual-Freestyle-Shamanism/dp/1869928571

http://libgen.io/ads.php?md5=58508975BEA05645EE09477BDDDCE557

Leaning to Chaos Magick. His other books on runic and celtic magick's good too.

I just opened reddit for the first time today, nd this is the first post I see. I spent the majority of yesterday researching this very topic so this is highly synchronistic for me.

On Jung's deathbed he had some relatively apocalyptic visions for the future. All that being said, it seems to me that Jung's work was very much informed by this transition. In fact, he may in fact have been the Herald of this coming age.

Our spiritual life is dead. Hence Nietzsche's proclamation that God is dead. The coming age should see a reinvigoration of the spirit. Instead of our spiritual life being determined by mass religions, by clergy, and by the collective, there will be a responsibility of the individual water bearers for said spiritual life.

I found this text yesterday and was quite enthralled... It's available on Kindle Unlimited, and I found it quite interesting even if it doesn't necessarily align with Jungian Orthodoxy:

ARS NOVA: Understanding the Alchemical Mystery in the Age of Aquarius

Anyone that's read much of The g Factor will immediately dismiss the notion that Jensen was some racist crank. You can borrow it here, not sure how that works.

Proof:

Intelligence
http://www.amazon.com/The-Factor-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289610001340

Genetics
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18212819
https://www.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/Caspi_SCI_02.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25082653
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369574/
http://www.antoniocasella.eu/archipsy/Beaver_2013.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16801953
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A#Aggression_and_the_.22Warrior_gene.22
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2756753

Tool to study crime in the US
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/

Also I never claimed inferiority of peoples. Don't try to strawman me. I claim big genetic differences lead to violent conflicts.

(continued)

>In a Raven Standard Progressive Matrices test, the subject is tested with patterns and geometric figures which are culture-independent and a computer calculates the score.
http://books.google.com/books/about/A_question_of_intelligence.html?id=5ggRAQAAIAAJ

>These tests correlate significantly (over .50) with IQ
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1996reviewRushton.pdf

>And as expected, despite having no cultural bias, they continue to show the large, measurable, and significant intelligence gap between Whites and Blacks.

>To date, despite claims that IQ tests are biased, not one single intelligence test has ever displayed equal scores for Blacks and Whites; one must either make the test so difficult that nobody can manage to get the questions correct or so easy that everyone obtains a perfect score to show testing equality, yet that would make the test meaningless and invalid.
http://charlesdarwinresearch.org/Intell03Ravens.pdf
http://charlesdarwinresearch.org/Intell00Ravens.pdf
(down?)

>Trillions of dollars have been spent in attempt to erase this Black-White IQ gapand all have failed.
http://books.google.com/books/about/A_question_of_intelligence.html?id=5ggRAQAAIAAJ
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/2006 PSnew.pdf


>In fact, "public schools now spend more per capita on black children than on white." Also, "Contrary to environmentalist predictions, intervention beginning at age three makes no difference to the intellectual development of blacks [into adulthood]."
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Race-Matters-Michael-Levin/dp/0965638359

>The famous Milwaukee Project which spent $14 million in attempt to prove that the IQ gap could be removed with improved environment ended with the principal investigator "convicted and imprisoned for large-scale abuse of federal funding for private gain. Two of his colleagues were also convicted of violations of federal laws in connection with misuse of project funds… However, the project received uncritical acceptance in many college textbooks in psychology and education."
http://tinyurl.com/ygneat8 (Google)

>As Albert Einstein famously wrote, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." All of the excuses for Black underachievement have been refuted ad nauseam yet egalitarians refuse to budge, persisting that race doesn't exist and that this gap is the fault of White racism.
http://menghusblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/understanding-human-history.pdf

>Egalitarians often suggest that White racism lowers Black self-esteem and causes an inferiority complex. However, "Past research indicates that black adolescents consistently have higher self-esteem than white students. Other research demonstrates that self-esteem has positive effects on academic achievement. However, black students have lower academic achievement than white students while concurrently exhibiting higher self-esteem."
http://web.archive.org/web/20100722165055/

>Indeed, even the psychologist Claude Steele who coined the term "Stereotype threat" (anxiety or concern to conform to a negative stereotype) admitted that it does not explain the gap between Whites and Blacks through personal email. One study reports that "research is widely misinterpreted… as showing that eliminating stereotype threat eliminates the African American-White difference in test performance."
http://tinyurl.com/cpnt8q6

>IQ gaps between Whites and Blacks are observable at the age of three, prior to cultural influences or potential effects of racism.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Race-Matters-Michael-Levin/dp/0965638359

>Blacks mature faster than Whites
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf

>The IQ gap reflects this; the gap is 0.7 standard deviation (1 SD is 15 points) at early childhood, 1 SD at middle childhood, and 1.2 SD into early adulthood.
http://www.amazon.com/Factor-Science-Evolution-Behavior-Intelligence/dp/0275961036

>About 37% of Blacks have an IQ below 80, while only 9% of Whites do. Blacks are 6x as likely to have an IQ of 70 or less as Whites, 12% of Blacks compared to 2% of Whites. Half of Whites have an IQ over 100 (average) but only 16% of Blacks do. Only 1% of Blacks have an IQ over 120, but 9% of Whites do.
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/retard.htm

>The ASPM gene of Chromosome 1 has been shown to effect brain morphology and defects lead to smaller brains and low IQ.
http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/5/489.abstract

>A new ASPM allele arose in Eurasia and has been suspected at increasing intelligence and has been demonstrated to be absent in Blacks.
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/26/10944
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5741/1720.abstract

>The MCPH1 gene of Chromosome 8 with alleles known as "microcephalin" partly determine brain size and morphology
http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/11/1131.short

>Beneficial alleles are common in Eurasians but rare in Blacks. The MCPH1 and ASPM gene correspond with the development of hand-crafts and the development of sophisticated cities which were common in Eurasian populations but unheard of in sub-Saharan Africa.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5741/1717.abstract

>The DCDC2 gene of Chromosome 6 effects brain morphology and the ability to read.
http://www.v-weiss.de/majgenes-full.html

>One alelle results in dyslexia
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/47/17053

>"The allele frequency of the A allele rs2274305 of the dyslexia-gene DCDC2 is about 0.28 among Eurasians and 0.99 among Yorubas from Nigeria, about 0.80 among African-Americans."
http://www.v-weiss.de/majgenes-full.html

>The DTNBP1 gene has also been linked to intelligence, specifically the rs:760761, rs:2619522 and rs:2619538 alleles. For rs:760761, 18% of Whites carry the T allele, which takes off 8 IQ points, compared to 37% of Blacks. For rs:2619522 carrying the G allele takes off 7 points, and is found in 18% of Whites and 35-36% of Blacks. The rs:2619538 T allele increases IQ by 6.5 points and 61% of Europeans carry it vs 67% of Blacks.
http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/3/1/19
http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/11/dtnbp1-gene-and.html

Crime by Race
Because of the obscure way in which the FBI reports the race and ethnicity of offenders, we had to make several approximations. First off, Hispanic data is separated from race data and is broken down to "Hispanic" or "not Hispanic" for the entire dataset. While it is safe to assume that most Hispanics were classified as white because of the colour of their skin, we didn't want to make any assumptions. To figure out the percentage of Hispanic offenders and separate it from the white, black, asian etc. race categories, we used Census data on how Hispanics identify themselves racially. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of them identify as white, and very few consider themselves black. Given the very low percentage of black Hispanics, we counted "Some Other Race" as white. Another problem with the FBI dataset was the vast number of "Unknown" reported offenders. Because we couldn't make any reasonable assumptions about the race of the unknown offenders, we used the arrest tables as a proxy for the distribution of crime by race.
https://www.fbi.gov/...n-the-u.s.-2014
http://www.census.go...-04.pdf#page=15

2014 City Crime Data:
City data from the U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
City Crime data from the FBI: https://www.fbi.gov/.../tables/table-6

Historical Crime
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/

Unemployment
http://www.bls.gov/c...013.pdf#page=43

Poverty and Welfare
http://cis.org/Welfa...tive-Households
http://www.cam.ac.uk...-prevents-crime
http://www.dailymail...sity-study.html

Single Mothers and Divorce
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss.htm
https://www.census.g...a/families.html

Intelligence
http://www.amazon.co...e/dp/0275961036
http://www.sciencedi...160289610001340

Genetics
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18212819
https://www.soc.umn....aspi_SCI_02.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/25082653
http://www.ncbi.nlm....cles/PMC4369574
http://www.antonioca...Beaver_2013.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16801953
https://en.wikipedia...Warrior_gene.22
http://www.ncbi.nlm....cles/PMC2756753

Spanking Prevalence
http://www.childtren...toward-spanking
http://www.nbcnews.c...hildren-n221171
http://www.scienceda...90924231749.htm