Non Fiction Authors

"This is not to draw a direct analogy [to] the overwhelming horrors of the World War II era but to look at some of the conditions and attitudes... that make a people susceptible to demagoguery and political manipulation, and nations easy prey for would-be autocrats. To examine how a disregard for facts, the displacement of reason by emotion, and the corrosion of language are diminishing the very value of truth, and what that means for America and the world."

"For decades now, objectivity—or even the idea that people can aspire toward ascertaining the best available truth—has been falling out of favor. ...This has been going on since a solar system of right-wing news sites orbiting around Fox News and consolidated its gravitational hold over the Republican base, and it's been exponentially accelerated by social media, which connects users with like-minded members and supplies them with customized news feeds that reinforce their preconceptions, allowing them to live in ever narrower, windowless silos."

"Trump and nationalist, anti-immigrant leaders on the right in Europe... would inflame... feelings of fear and anger and , offering s instead of solutions..."

"[I]t's not just fake news either: it's also fake science (manufactured by climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers), fake history (promoted by Holocaust revisionists and white supremicists), fake Americans on Facebook (created by Russian trolls), and fake followers and "likes" on social media (generated by bots)."

"Donald Trump has battled many a journalist, but he has not yet faced as eloquent and coruscating an authority as Michiko Kakutani, the fearless book critic of The New York Times for three and a half decades, who left the paper last year to write The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump."

"Looking back, she draws parallels between the regimes of Hitler in Germany and Lenin in Russia and Trump — particularly regarding their mass appeal, scapegoating and manipulation of language. She references books, such as those by... Anne Applebaum and... Hannah Arendt... In explaining how social media can both be manipulated and manipulate us, she quotes... Jaron Lanier and... . ...She includes novelists... George Orwell for , F. Scott Fitzgerald for greed, Thomas Pynchon for paranoia, David Foster Wallace for irony and insincerity, Tom Wolfe and Philip Roth... The passages she pulls from Zweig about life... during Hitler’s rise are striking. So too is what she takes from Victor Klemperer... on the decay of language in the Nazi era. ...Kakutani lays a surprising measure of the blame for fake news on postmodernism. ...Where she might have tracked money and right-wing think politics ([e.g.,] ’s Dark Money), the role of race and racism ([e.g.,] Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me) or the widening gap between rich and poor (using Capital by Thomas Piketty) — postmodernism is instead in her sights throughout. ...[S]he credits "recruiting a real American to hold a sign depicting Clinton and a phony... quotation attributed to her" to postmodern "Surkovian stagecraft," rather than recognizing... antecedents in Nixon’s dirty tricksters."

"Michiko Kakutani, the New York Times revered chief book critic, announced she was stepping down from her post... after 38 years, marking the end of a career that inspired both admiration and fear in the hearts of the writers whose books she reviewed. Kakutani was America’s most powerful literary critic, someone who... wielded immense influence over the careers of both budding and established novelists."

"Combined with Trump's subversion of long-time alliances and trade accords and his steady undermining of democratic ideals, the carelessness with which his administration treated foreign policy led to world confidence in U.S. leadership plummeting in 2017 to a new low of 30 percent (below China and just above Russia) according to a Gallup pole."

"Some absurd details are unnerving rather than merely comical... Trump's proclivity for chaos has not been contained by those around him but has instead infected his entire administration. ...given his disdain for institutional knowledge he frequently ignores the advice of his cabinet members and agencies, when he isn't cutting them out of the loop entirely."

"The Trump White House's preference for loyalty and ideological lock-step over knowledge is on display throughout the administration. Unqualified judges and agency heads were appointed because of , political connections, or a determination to undercut agencies that stood in the way of Trump's massive deregulatory plans benefiting the fossil fuel industry and wealthy donors."

"[T]he Times chief daily book critic announced that she would be leaving her regular reviewing post after thirty-eight years at the paper, marking the end of a literary era. Her assessments of novels and memoirs, works of history, biography, politics, and poetry have guided generations of American readers, and the prospect of getting a Kakutani review has been the hope and fear of more writers than could possibly be counted... What made her scary to writers made her reliable to readers... Her name long ago entered the lexicon as a verb (“to be Kakutanied”), a signifier of the ultimate cultural prestige."

"The assault on truth and reason that reached fever pitch during the first year of the Trump presidency had been incubating for years on the fringe right. Clinton haters... and Tea Party paranoids who claimed that environmentalists wanted to control the temperature of your home and the color of your cars... hooked up, during the 2016 campaign, with Breitbart bloggers and alt-right trolls. And with Trump's winning of the Republican nomination and the presidency, the extremist views of his most radical supporters—their racial and religious intolerance, their detestation of the government, and their embrace of conspiracy thinking and misinformation—went mainstream."

"Trump, who launched his political career by shamelessly promoting birtherism and who has spoken approvingly of the conspiracy theorist and Alex Jones, presided over an administration that became, in its first year, the very embodiment of anti-Enlightenment principles, reputing the values of rationalism, tolerance, and empiricism in both its policies and its modus operandi—a reflection of the commander-in-chief's erratic, impulsive decision-making style based not on knowledge but upon instinct, whim, and preconceived (and often delusional) notions of how the world operates."

"Trump made no effort to rectify his ignorance of domestic and foreign policy... His former chief strategist Stephen Bannon has said the Trump only "reads to reinforce"... [W]ritten versions of the president's daily brief... he reportedly rarely if ever reads. Instead, the president seems to prefer getting his information from Fox News—in particular, the sycophantic morning show Fox and Friends—and from sources like Breitbart News and the National Enquirer. He reportedly spends as much as eight hours a day watching television..."

"Nationalism, tribalism, dislocation, fears of social change, and the hatred of outsiders are on the rise again as people, locked in their partisan silos and filter bubbles, are losing sense of shared reality and the ability to communicate across social and sectarian lines."

"Theosophy holds that all things, including the human mind, are evolving. We are in the midst of an unfinished world and are ourselves unfinished."

"We are only in the middle of our development, so we still have a great deal to discover."

"The ultimate quest in the Harry Potter books is that of self-discovery. In that respect, these books share a common theme with the great spiritual guidebooks of humanity. Enlightenment is the ability to answer correctly the question Who am I? ... The same question is the principal subject of all the Upanishads and, indeed, of spiritual treatises in all the great traditions. Harry is on a great quest to discover who he is -- in the simplest, most literal sense of learning about his parents -- but also in the deeper sense of discovering his own nature and his mission in life. That great quest is mirrored in a different quest theme in each book of the series."

"Harry Potter began his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the first of seven projected novels: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. In that first novel, Harry was on a quest to find the Philosopher’s Stone, which turns base metal into gold and produces an elixir of immortality. But his real quest in that novel, as in the succeeding books of the series, is for self-knowledge."

"Although this Wisdom has been offered throughout the ages under various names and in many languages, its essence is fundamentally the same, however much its outer aspects and manner of presentation may vary. It especially points to the reality of brotherhood and the imperative necessity of practicing it; but it also gives insight into the unexplained around us and helps the development of our latent powers; and it is the inner harmony of religion, philosophy, and science."

"In his second year, Harry learns, among other things, about the three marks of existence that the Buddha taught, namely (1) that life involves suffering, (2) that we have no enduring separate self, and (3) that everything is constantly changing or transforming. Indeed, transformation is the key theme of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

"Някой беше казал, че хармонията на човека се постига, когато душата и тялото са на едно място. За мен такава ситуация не съществува откак се помня. Май съм повече полифонична личност: живея в няколко измерения и това ми харесва."

"Една страна, в която достойни българи са спасявали евреи, не е имунизирана от антисемитизъм."

"Смятам, че ролята и на журналиста, и на писателя е критичният анализ. Разбира се и писателят, и журналистът плащат съответната цена."

"We, PR experts, are no longer advisers. We should be ready to become final decision makers with all responsibilities...This is happening as a result of the global PR revolution."

"Public Relations is the most dynamic business in the world."

"I have been a vegetarian for more than 40 years and, five years ago, I became a vegan. There are many wonderful gifts that have come out of this way of life. First, not only is it easier to maintain your ideal weight, but physical exercise turns out to be much more joyful, while raising metabolism and in turn making it easier to achieve your desired figure. Most importantly, your zest for life is enhanced … You have more energy, which makes you feel more at ease and puts you in a better mood. … Above all, it is a huge relief to get rid of the misery and torment of the slaughtered animals you otherwise would have eaten and to experience yourself in a free and peaceful manner. … We can meditate and pray for peace, and we can also eat peace. One does not exclude the other; on the contrary, a balanced vegetarian diet promotes deeper meditation which again enhances inner peace which, in my opinion, is a mandatory requirement for external peace."

"When I talk about cosmic laws I am not just referring to the greater contexts, such as the laws of polarity or resonance, but also to ideas like a proper diet and achieving a natural relationship between rest and activity. As humans, we were born omnivores with strong vegetarian tendencies. So we should not be surprised when, as we age, we develop conditions such as arteriosclerosis, rheumatism, etc., due to an exaggerated daily intake of protein. We are not abiding by the laws and have to pay for it. The fact that the majority of people ignores these laws does not change their validity."

"True it is that the so-called enlightenment of our twentieth century civilisation seeks to negate or explain away the unusual powers of these men, but deeper thinkers who have taken the trouble to penetrate behind the veil of superficial knowledge are coming to the conclusion that the old truism " where there is smoke there must also be fire " is applicable to the case in point, and that this negation, and explaining away on the part of so-called civilisation is not the result of real knowledge, but of ignorance instead."

"No supermoralist ever interferes with the liberty of other people- only moralists do that. By all means let men make as many laws as they like if it amuses them, but let them make them for themselves, and not for others. What business have we to go poking our fingers into other people’s pies? Do you think that by forcing our fellows to do this or that, we are furthering their evolution?"

"How would the bulk of fastidious Americans with their legislation against this, that and the other, regard a man who had seven hundred wives and two hundred concubines? Would they consider him the wisest man on this whole continent? I should like to know how even he could find the time to cultivate wisdom, under the stress of such extensive erotic obligations."

"There is only one way to further the evolution of your fellows, and that is by persuading them- not by forcing them, mind you- to alter their motives; for motives is everything, actions are secondary. If you can teach people to think with their hearts as well as with their brains, you’ll have done some good."

"...there are a number of people who may doubt the possibility of attaining to that degree of perfection which he indubitably manifested, thus crediting me with writing romance instead of fact. And yet he does not by any means stand alone at his stage of spiritual evolution, for not only are there many more like him living amongst us at the present time, but if world-history is to be accredited with truth, there have been hundreds as great as and greater than he in the past."

"...to all outward appearance these Adepts are perfectly normal, perfectly human; but it is to outward appearance only... Dressing neither in strange garments nor having in ghost-haunted castles, these men, far from wishing to awaken the curiosity or admiration of their fellows, seek to render themselves as ordinary to the casual observer as they possibly can."

"We are not learning the occult alphabet; most of us have done all that before we came here. I used to read for about three or four hours a day before I met M.H.-not as a duty, but because I liked it. When you’ve extracted all the knowledge you can out of books, then the Master appears."

"Tonight I am going to speak of practically the greatest obstacle to occult Wisdom, spiritual attainment and mystical progress. That obstacle is Conventionality in whatever form it may take, be it in relation to morals or religion. The New Testament writers portrayed the Pharisees as its most typical adherents, and Jesus is reported to have said that the harlots were nearer the kingdom of Heaven than these Pharisees- which, allowing for Oriental hyperbole, is in accordance with fact."

"One of our rules is never to do things in an extraordinary way, when they can be done in an ordinary way. What we do after the disciple and the Master have become closely linked is another matter."

"If we look at the mental bodies of very conventional people we find their outlines hard and rigid, and the bodies themselves small and as it were under - nourished."

"What we do exist for is principally to guide mankind at large and to give forth such moral, spiritual, and ethical ideas as may be required at a particular time. How is this achieved? Through our chelas who moving in the world and using their discretion, spread such portions of our teaching as they seem wise and as opportunity offers... If they are writers, some of that teaching is set forth in their books; if they are poets, it appears in their poetry; if they are musicians, the spirit of it echoes forth from their music."

"Of course, no doubt sensation mongers would much prefer that we miraculously appeared before our prospective pupils and said: ‘I’m your Guru - come and be my disciple.’ But such is not our policy and never will be."

"From what seeds does this weed of conventionality grow? From mental laziness, fear- of what others will think; vanity- or the capacity to be hurt by what they will say; and superstition- or the false notion that what the majority think must be right."

"For the man who writes alone for his friends, and not for his enemies as well, falls short of being a true philosopher, by reason of the fact that all real philosophy has missed its goal unless it brings us Peace."

"...in speaking of religion and perfection we must not forget there are certain unreflective persons who imagine that to be perfect means of necessity to be tedious at the same time; they quite fail to realise that dullness is an attribute of imperfection rather than perfection, and that they might with equal lack of rectitude say... that to live in the Nirvana of perpetual bliss would be to live in the tedium of a perpetual hell."

"A certain point of view... is a prophylactic against all sorrow..and to acquire the right point of view...is the object of all mature thinking. That being so, mental pain is the result of a certain sort of childishness, and a grown-up soul would be as incapable of suffering over the thing you spoke of, as a grown-up person over the breaking of a doll."

"In a word, show people what they cannot understand and immediately they will ascribe it to something they can understand — for that is ever the tendency of the ignorant."

"...if one could erase the many unsatisfactory associations connected with the word saint, and rid the word "Superman" of its equally unsatisfactory ones, Justin... might with perfect right be called either of these, or both. Indeed, my association with this truly wonderful man showed me that a saint could exist without exhibiting an ultra-devotional temperament, carrying itself almost to a degree of unpleasantness, and a superman could exist likewise, without that arrogant love of power which is so characteristic of the Nietzschean ideal."

"Pain belongs to the illusory things of life; and it is a characteristic of children to like illusions; their very games consist in pretending to be kings or soldiers or what not. Contentedness, on the other hand, is one of the qualities of maturity... Jealousy...is also, of course, a form of childishness."

"The supermoralist realizes that when he has acquired a virtue or a faculty, be it truthfulness or ecstatic trance- what matter-then is the time to hide it or indulge in it sparingly, or both, as circumstances dictate."

"...It is absolutely essential that in order to find we must know how to seek, only to him who follows the requisite of this maxim is it possible to discover the truth..."

"If some people are not disposed to believe that morals change with the times, then let them look into the book held most sacred by all the peoples of the West, and read how at one time the idea of Justice was ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ Or look further back still and read of King Solomon, said to be the wisest- which surely also implies the most moral - man who ever lived."