100 Books Like Embracing Our Selves

This book helped me shift my mindset, and I first picked it up during a stressful phase of my life. I gave myself some time to simply breathe and take it in. It reminded me that the “now” is not just a passing second, but a sacred space where peace and clarity live.

I love how it helped me stop living in the echo of yesterday or the fear of tomorrow. I remember closing my eyes and whispering, “This moment is enough,” and feeling my shoulders relax for the first time in weeks. It helped me feel more connected with myself, my son, my clients, and in doing so, intentionally live every moment with more compassion, stillness, and supremacy.

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 gave language to something I had long practiced intuitively: doing less, but better. McKeown’s concept of “the disciplined pursuit of less” is critical in a world where distractions are disguised as opportunities. It reminds us that focus isn’t just a tactic—it’s a strategy.

I often recommend this book to leaders and individuals who feel overwhelmed and are struggling to regain control of their time.

Ken Keyes Jr.'s Handbook to Higher Consciousness is a masterful guide in transforming complex spiritual ideas into practical wisdom.

The book's simple format makes profound concepts accessible. For me, the most transformative idea was viewing our 'addictions'—not to substances, but to outcomes or behaviors—and learning to elevate these to preferences, and ultimately to a state of pure curiosity.

This perspective shift, from insistence to preference, and then to open curiosity, has opened a world of surprises and potential. It taught me to embrace life's uncertainties with a sense of wonder rather than a need for control.

This book is a treasure for anyone looking to explore deeper consciousness and live in a more relaxed, curious state, welcoming life's myriad possibilities.

World-renowned neuroscientist Anil Seth has spent over twenty years researching the brain, and presents his theory of consciousness and self.

Unlike our book, which approaches the topic from a spiritual perspective, Anil breaks down brain function into its constituent parts and explains how the integration of these constituent parts creates consciousness. 

He makes a complex subject easy to read and engages the reader with his ideas.

It is possible to understand a fact intellectually while being unable to viscerally believe it, such as the proven reality that time slows down in conditions of extreme velocity or gravity (thanks, Dr. Einstein). In a scholarly yet friendly and appealing manner, Bentov explains and illustrates some of these surreal realities, including the myth of linear time, the existence of multiple dimensions, and the infinitude of the psyche.

This is a cognitive scientist and neurologist who stopped me in my tracks. The title felt like a whisper of a profound truth I’ve always sensed: each of us is not merely in the world, but a world unto ourselves. The book lives up to its promise.

Koch offers luminous reflections that bridge neuroscience with some of life’s most ungraspable questions. He explores consciousness not just through science, but also through psychedelic experiences, mystical states, near-death experiences, and even artificial intelligence.

What excites me most is the book’s courageous breadth, refusing to limit consciousness to mere circuitry or dogma. Koch straddles the line between materialism and mystery, between what can be measured and what must be felt. For anyone deeply interested in the soul’s terrain and the evolving relationships between mind, machine, and mortality, this book serves as a map—not one that gives answers, but better questions.

It affirms my… show more.

I found that reading this book was challenging but ultimately extremely valuable. I really appreciate the opportunity to be guided through a tour of my own beliefs, so that I can come to more fully distinguish what's real from what everyone else has told me is real. The idea that the self is ultimately a conceptual construction without a basis in reality blew my mind wide open, in the sense that my entire conception of what is real was built on top of this basic misunderstanding. This is why I call my book list the best books to help us understand human beings.

We tend to picture an observer inside our heads experiencing consciousness as if watching a movie. But that just pushes explanation back a level: What’s inside that observer? The prolific philosopher Daniel Dennett dismantles many common intuitions about awareness, showing them to be illusions hiding the intricate and deceptive mechanics of the mind and brain. This was one of the first books on consciousness I read. I don’t agree with everything Dennett has to say on the matter, but he’s a great guide to think with.

When I first dipped my toes in the psychedelic pool, I was motivated by curiosity—I just wanted to experience new “flavors” of consciousness. I had no need of healing (or so I thought), and as a science-minded skeptic I certainly was not hunting spiritual experiences.

Two things changed my mind. The first was psychedelics themselves, which upon the first dose proved to be powerful agents of transformation. The second was this insightful gem of a book, which made me realize that “spirituality” need not conflict with science or rationality. Indeed, one of the great values of psychedelics is to provide irrational experiences that transcend our limited notions of what is true, possible, or real.

Alan Watts was a brilliant speaker and philosophical entertainer whose talks about spiritual topics have inspired millions. In The Joyous Cosmology, published at the beginning of the psychedelic Sixties, he distilled the psychedelic experience down to… show more.