Mind and Brain Studies

Risking Being Alive is a collection of ideas, experiments and readings which introduce psychological tools that can be used to increase the sharpness with which you see and relate to the world. Used properly they will enable you to enrich your life and become master of your fate.

2 Books in One Volume : The Kama Sutra, which means "Sex Science", is the earliest surviving example of a written Hindu love-manual. It was compiled by the Indian sage Vatsyayana sometime between the second and fourth centuries A.D. His work was based on earlier Kama Shastras or "Rules of Love" going back to at least the seventh century B.C., and is a compendium of the social norms and love-customs of patriarchal Northern India around the time he lived.

Man's interest in character is founded on an intensely practical need. In whatsoever relationship we deal with our fellows, we base our intercourse largely on our understanding of their characters. The trader asks concerning his customer, "Is he honest?" and the teacher asks about the pupil, "Is he earnest?" The friend bases his friendship on his good opinion of his friend; the foe seeks to know the weak points in the hated one's make-up; and the maiden yearning for her lover whispers to, herself, "Is he true?" Upon our success in reading the character of others, upon our understanding of ourselves hangs a good deal of our life's success or failure.

Careful studies of offenders make group-types stand out with distinctness. Very little advancement in the treatment of delinquents or criminals can be expected if typical characteristics and their bearings are not understood. The group that our present work concerns itself with is comparatively little known, although cases belonging to it, when met, attract much attention.

The words "dream interpretation" were and still are indeed fraught with unpleasant, unscientific associations. They remind one of all sorts of childish, superstitious notions, which make up the thread and woof of dream books, read by none but the ignorant and the primitive.

We no longer want merely to believe; we want to know. Belief demands the acceptance of truths which we do not fully comprehend. But things we do not fully comprehend are repugnant to the individual element in us, which wants to experience everything in the depths of its inner being. The only knowledge which satisfies us is one which is subject to no external standards but springs from the inner life of the personality.

The contrast between Individual Psychology and Social or Group1 Psychology, which at a first glance may seem to be full of significance, loses a great deal of its sharpness when it is examined more closely.