(Part 2) Best products from r/Thetruthishere

Pick up mathematics. Now if you have never done math past the high school and are an "average person" you probably cringed.

Math (an "actual kind") is nothing like the kind of shit you've seen back in grade school. To break into this incredible world all you need is to know math at the level of, say, 6th grade.

Intro to Math:

1. Book of Proof by Richard Hammack. This free book will show/teach you how mathematicians think. There are other such books out there. For example,
   
   

• How to Prove It: A Structured Approach by Daniel Velleman
  
  
• Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics by Gary Chartrand et al
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Susanna Epp
  
  These books only serve as samplers because they don't even begin to scratch the surface of math. After you familiarized yourself with the basics of writing proofs you can get started with intro to the largest subsets of math like:
  
  Intro to Abstract Algebra:
  
  
• Linear Algebra: Step by Step by Singh
  
  
• Abstract Algebra: A Student-Friendly Approach by the Dos Reis
  
  
• Numbers and Symmetry: An Introduction to Algebra by Johnston/Richman
  
  
• Discovering Group Theory: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics by Barnard/Neil
  
  
• A Friendly Introduction to Group Theory by Nash
  
  
• Linear Algebra Done Right by Sheldon Axler
  
  There are tons more books on abstract/modern algebra. Just search them on Amazon. Some of the famous, but less accessible ones are
  
  
• Algebra: Chapter 0 by Aluffi
  
  
• Algebra by Maclane/Birkhoff
  
  
• Algebra by Lang
  
  
• Advanced Linear Algebra by Steven Roman
  
  Intro to Real Analysis:
  
  
• The Real Analysis Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Understand Proofs by Grinberg
  
  
• Understanding Analysis by Abbot
  
  
• Writing Proofs in Analysis by Kane
  
  
• The Lebesgue Integral for Undergraduates by Johnston
  
  Again, there are tons of more famous and less accessible books on this subject. There are books by Rudin, Royden, Kolmogorov etc.
  
  Ideally, after this you would follow it up with a nice course on rigorous multivariable calculus. Easiest and most approachable and totally doable one at this point is
  
  
• Vector Calculus, Linear Algebra and Differential Forms: A Unified Approach by the Hubbards
  
  At this point it's clear there are tons of more famous and less accessible books on this subject :) I won't list them because if you are at this point of math development you can definitely find them yourself :)
  
  From here you can graduate to studying category theory, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, more advanced texts on combinatorics, graph theory, number theory, complex analysis, probability, topology, algorithms, functional analysis etc
  
  Most listed books and more can be found on libgen if you can't afford to buy them. If you are stuck on homework, you'll find help on [MathStackexchange] (https://math.stackexchange.com/questions).
  
  Good luck.

"Zoso" is the folkloric name / pronunciation of Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album. It's how people—teenaged boys in the 1970s, mostly—pronounced the sigil of guitarist/songwriter Jimmy Page. (Each member of the band had a sigil or symbol for that record.) The symbol is based on one from the 16th Century that represents the planet Saturn; Jimmy Page apparently chose it because his astrological sign is Capricorn. http://symboldictionary.net/?p=1340

Page had a longstanding interest in British occultism, especially the life and works of Aleister Crowley. It became part of the lore of the very successful album, and suburban teens from the '70s until today have found great mystery and romance in the record. The author Erik Davis wrote a fantastic book, part of the 33-1/3 series, about the influence of this album. Over time, amongst both Zeppelin fans and the fundamentalist Christian movement that was thriving at the same time, "Zoso" became a name that meant black magick—mostly with people who knew little about modern occultism or its interesting history.

There is another pop-culture reference from the 1970s that may have combined with Zoso to create the popular idea of a demon spirit named "ZoZo": It is the ancient Mesopotamian demon king Pazuzu. This demon appears in both the novel and movie The Exorcist (1971 and 1977, respectively), and in counter-culture literature including books by William S. Burroughs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazuzu#In_modern_popular_culture

And here we see a historical demon entity from at least 3,000 years ago getting a big boost from popular culture of the late 20th Century. Whatever it is we contact when we successfully use a Ouija board or spirit board—whether something created by our collective consciousness or actual intelligences that exist in another realm—a consistent part of this experience is that the entities commonly claim to be what you want them to be: a dead relative, a historical figure, or a demon you've heard about from rock music or movies or the Internet. These entities are dishonest by nature. It's weird. [Edited to add link to Erik Davis' book & correct a typo.]

Sure. :) I was trying not to hijack the thread, but I'll just put the list here and that way anyone can have it. Keep in mind, these aren't all collections of stories, some of them are research topics, but none of them that I've browsed through look like bad reads. The ones I have read I've tried to note.

Iroquois Supernatural: Talking Animals and Medicine People - Michael Bastine, Mason Winfield - most closely related to thread topic

Life After Life - Raymond Moody - Very good intro to Near Death Experience research

Reunions: Visionary Encounters with Departed Loved Ones - Raymond Moody

Journey of Souls - Michael Newton - Read this one, it was great, changed my views on reincarnation

The Day Satan Called - Bill Scott

Hunt for the Skinwalker - Colm Kelleher, George Knapp - read parts of, need to finish

The Vengeful Djinn - Rosemary Ellen Guiley - I've read this one, it's really good too, has a large "slow" section in the middle that quotes the Q'uran a lot, but some good creepy Djinn stories.

The Djinn Connection - Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Ghost Culture: Theories, Context, and Scientific Practice - John Sabol

Zones of Strangeness - Peter A. McCue

Lost Secrets of Maya Technology - James O'Kon

The Mythology of Supernatural - Nathan Robert Brown - this one might sound cheesy, but I've read a book on world mythology by the same author, and apparently the writers of the show did their research

Holy Ghosts: Or How a (Not-So) Good Catholic Boy Became a Believer in Things That Go Bump in the Night - Gary Jansen

Mothman is going to be tricky because it's a huge amount of information to sift through, most of it eye-witness. The best starting resource is probably https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Mothman-James-Beichler/dp/B004BVS2C2 , but I suggest taking the "Curse of Chief Cornstalk" section at the beginning with a huge grain of salt.

The Dyatlov Pass Incident wiki page is a pretty good starting resource https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident because there's been very open access to the condition of the bodies, it's the interpretation where things start getting interesting.

Likewise, most of the interesting material on Wilhelm Reich is publicly available court materials, so again the facts are very straightforward it's the interpretation of fact that gets interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich