100 Books Like A Course in Miracles

This book had me laughing from the first paragraph.

I had no plan to write novels then. I just wanted to write in a beautiful leather journal a good friend gave me to record my thoughts on my trip to Greece. It was a trip I’d planned with others, one in particular. But when he decided to leave, I went anyway. Alone.

A friend of mine knew the trip would be emotionally and technically difficult. Travelling alone in a non-English-speaking country can be dicey. She hoped that this book would provide relief from the debris of my personal life. And it did.

My mum had this book on her bookshelf for many years, and one day, I decided to read it, hoping it would help me learn to paint and draw. I didn’t learn anything about drawing or painting but instead learned how to slow down a bit and regather my energy.

This is an inspiring yet practical guide that helped me put aside my critical, doubting, worrying ‘adult’ self and allow myself to explore what I love and value in life. I found Cameron’s tools, such as the Morning Pages and Artist’s Date, so life-changing that I recommend them to many of my patients, especially those struggling with chronic illnesses, fatigue, or burnout.

I recommend this book because it’s a crayon box of creative and practical ideas and insights. This is a great read for someone who wants to be entrepreneurial, l but isn’t yet in the I-have-to-dominate-the-market-and-own-Silicon-Valley- stage. I guess I’d call it approachable entrepreneurship. The author gives you ideas for how to be “joyfully jobless” including multiple profit centers and marketing on a shoestring. I love authors who can give you creative hope, no-nonsense ideas, and specific creative ideas like “find all the ways to put raspberry and chocolate together.”    

I’m obsessed with the theme of living your calling to pay your bills, rather than exclusively chasing money. When I write books, I write to shift readers, rather than writing according to formulas that could sell more copies. So, I love Masumoto’s book on growing peaches that burst with flavor and sensual magic, even when others suggest he grow peaches that offer more sturdy shelf life. An artist-farmer, he takes the stand for one-of-a-kind quality and reveals a truly abundant life. Taking us directly into his intimate thoughts and decisions, this book is about living your destiny, choosing to work with natural forces, being insanely tenacious, and transforming your own life in the process. He “listens to his farm” and his writing is so beautiful we listen to it, too.  

"Don't take yourself so personally" says Ram Dass. His humor, his insights, his ability to capture great lessons and truths in one line. This book made me think and laugh at the same time = quite a feat! I so appreciate his fun look at life with his deep sense of spiritual understanding. Fantastic read.

This book is the number one book I’d bring along if stranded on a desert island. Like my magickal friend Stephanya once said, “I rejoice that such a beautiful thing can spring from the brain of a human being!” I couldn’t agree more. This book begins with a story documenting the author’s psychedelic research as a Harvard professor (then known as Richard Alpert), as well as his adventures in India, where he met his mountaintop Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass would soon become a Guru himself and help introduce Western spiritual seekers to deep mysticism and Eastern philosophy.

So, why is this relevant to empaths, even those who aren’t into psychedelics? The reason is simple: every part of this book, most especially the profoundly artistic “brown pages,” deeply, acutely, and spiritually reminds us that separation is an illusion, that we are all one, and we need to live in… show more.

This book changed my life when one of my first holistic healers/life coaches I ever worked with recommended it to me. The practices blew me away and helped me to start cultivating an awareness of my sensitivities and subtle energetic perceptions. I can’t recommend this enough especially for someone just starting out on their path of empath empowerment. The simplicity in exercises is incredible – reminds me that the most simple practices can lead to the most potent transformation.

This is one of those books you don’t find–it finds you. At least, that’s what happened to me. When my friend first recommended it, I remember reading part of the first chapter captivated. But for whatever reason, I failed to continue reading it.

Years later, it fell off the shelf while I was trying to decide which of the books on my bookshelf was the one to read. Boy, did it catapult me into a wildly evolved level of consciousness. It ripped me open (in a gentle and inviting way) cleared me of fears and beliefs I didn’t even know I had and transformed me from being a human being reaching for spirituality to a spiritual being reaching out to humanity. 

This guy tells rip-roaring stories while skewering all the spiritual hucksters you’re likely to meet. I was locked into a spiritual mystery school when a member of the group recommended McKenna as the real thing.

Most spiritual books are boastful; this guy comes off as completely ordinary, except he happens to have freed himself from emotional suffering. Most of the time. The rest of the time, he’s making fun of the bliss bunnies, chanters, philosophizers, charlatans, and sheeplike followers who populate the New Age landscape.

Exploring a spiritual tradition that predates by many centuries the fall/redemption ideology of mainstream Christianity (which Gandhi referred to as a "Christianity without Christ"), Fox presents an alternative quest for wisdom based on the fundamental conviction that we are, each one of us, born into this world not as blotches on creation but as blessings, precious, beloved and of enormous worth and promise.

Fox's theology eventually won him the ire of the Roman papacy and eventually expulsion from the Catholic Church. His response? "Sometimes you have to take your praise any way you can get it!"