Stan Gooch – Cities of Dreams

"I stand in awe of your greater scholarship."

Lyall Watson

"We cannot but admire Stan Gooch’s massive and challenging endeavour."

Los Angeles Times

"His brilliance is undeniable."

Books and Bookmen

"But the primary value of Gooch’s vision lies in his ability to advance and inspire the reader."

Singularities

"All Stan Gooch’s books are infused with his amazing thinking. I have read them with delight."

Brian Aldiss

“One of the most exciting and original thinkers to appear in many years.”

Colin Wilson

"An abstract does no justice to the richness of material, live writing and exceptionally clear thinking which Stan Gooch commands."

Jacquetta Hawkes, Sunday Times
(Personallity and Evolution was made one of the nine books of the year in the Sunday Times)

“Stan Gooch is a brilliant, bold and original thinker.”

Robert Temple

“Myself and several colleagues are passionate followers of your work.”

John Lash, Marion Foundation (Metahistory)

“How I have adored Cities of Dreams.”

Michael Baldwin, Marion Foundation (Metahistory)

“We at Crow Street Press are all great admirers of your work.”

Bridget McKenna

I have been an avid admirer of your work for several years. In particular many of your themes in relation to female sexuality have preoccupied me intellectually, professionally and personally. Yours in genuine admiration,

Professor Pretuska Clarkson, D.Litt. et Phil., Ph.D, Ph.D,C. Psychol, FBPS, FBACP, MIMC,
Harley Street, London

“One provocative idea after another.”

Stanley Kripper

To Chief Librarians:
Dear Sir or Madam, I have been trying to obtain books by Stan Gooch for Public Libraries, and am not a little dismayed at the lack of comprehensive coverage of his work. This man is a true towering ground-breaking genius: but it seems the received wisdom of academia at this point is to side-line him.

Geoffrey C Dale

“Stan Gooch is a splendid advocate of the open-minded approach to the world lying beyond ordinary senses – this fascinating book.”

Manchester Evening News

“This important book will surely provoke wide-ranging debate.”

Science of Thought Review

“The Paranormal is a book that even the sceptic can read with profit and enjoyment.”

British Journal of Psychology
(This was the first book on the paranormal ever reviewed favourably by the B J Psych)

“Gooch has here a fascinating book replete with stimulating ideas, and enough challenges in the realm of the paranormal to keep you busy for a lifetime.”

News and Press

“Its exploration will fascinate layman and scholar alike.”

Library Journal

“Stan Gooch was the first person to state that Neanderthal had red hair, confirmed by the Oxford Institute for Molecular Biology in 2001. He was also the first to say, back in 1980, that Roger Sperry’s ‘split-brain theory’, for which he received a Nobel Prize, was fundamentally flawed. Sperry’s theory was discredited by the scientific establishment in 2002.”

Progress

"Stan Gooch is a careful and passionate researcher. We need him. For we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge but not of the Tree of Life, and as Joseph Campbell used to say, wouldn't you like a bite of that? Cities of Dreams is a book of daring, of insight, of imagination. A book of the timeless and a book of our time."

Research Into Lost Knowledge Organisation

Reader's Letters to Stan Gooch

Dear Stan,
What a wonderful experience it has been for me to discover that a classmate of mine from Colfe's is now described as one of our most original thinkers! I stumbled across your name on the Web and have since explored all the links and sites and started to read your work. I am loving it!

What an extraordinary life you have had, and how sad it is that your dedication to a truly visionary experience has led to your current circumstances. In 2003 you were sitting in a trailer in Swansea with a broken arm and Colin Wilson was scolding you for not getting a computer. All I can say is that it wasn't for my computer I wouldn't have the pleasure of being able to write you this letter with my hopes that things are taking a turn for the better. Tilting at orthodoxy has never been a popular occupation, but look on the bright side. My copy of Cities of Dreams appears to be spanking new so my hope is that the book sales are turning around. Particularly as much of what you have outrageously hypothesized is now receiving increased confirmation.

Albert Einstein said that 'different' minds would have required to solve the problems that our current minds have created, and I sincerely believe that you have come to possess one of the different minds he was hoping for. Tough luck. I empathize with your feeling of exhaustion as I have ventured along that path somewhat myself and feel fortunate to have ended up hidden from view on an almost adequate pension. I think Beaky Southern should have warned us . . . not that it would have made any difference of course.
Sincerely, W G, Canada

Dear Dr Gooch,
Your Book Cities of Dreams is one of the most important books I have read. It cuts a swathe through the weeds. This is a wonder and a pleasure for me to ponder. I plan to read all your books.
W.E

Dear Mr Gooch,
On rare occasions I read an exceptional book that has a profound effect on my life and thinking. Cities of Dreams was such a book. You answered a number of questions I've struggled with for years, namely: Who are we? What are we doing? Why? Thank you for sharing your knowledge and intellectual insight. I assure you I'm deeply grateful.
J.A.

Dear Mr Gooch,
Nothing is the same since I read Cities of Dreams - not even a casual phrase like 'the web of life'. I am so impressed by your vision and your quest.
R.E.A.

Dear Stan Gooch,
I have now read Cities of Dreams twice. It would be presumptuous of me to offer congratulations, but I thank you for it, and for the erudition and sheer hard work which has produced it. Thank you also for your previous ground breaking work.
J.W.

Dear Mr Gooch,
I wish to thank you for the enormous help you have given me in your writings. I have studied many great thinkers-Freud, Jung, Fromm, Reich-but you have it all together. Again much gratitude.
J. F-W.

Dear Stan Gooch,
So much of the material contained in your enthralling book Cities of Dreams resonated with my own particular ideas, that I thought I would forward you a copy of a letter I recently sent to author John Michell. Thank you for the many insights contained in your book.
J.R.

Dear Mr Gooch,
For several reasons I have vacillated about penning a letter to you. Now I'm taking the plunge. Your work has come to my attention only in the last 2/3 years. I have since read avidly those of your books which I have been able to obtain, including Cities of Dreams. For the first time in a longish life I have found myself-despite my ignorance-nodding in agreement and astonishment about what I was reading. The vast expertise and lateral thinking which you bring to bear on these subjects has at long last provided support for my own beliefs. I should like to form a group to study your books and their implications.
G. L-F

Dear Stan,
I was in Glastonbury recently and obtained one of your books Cities of Dreams, which was fascinating. I plan to begin collecting all your writings, since I take people to sacred sites in Britain to do transformational work. Thank you for your time-and keep writing!
N.S.

Dear Stan,
Your style, wit and intelligence are marvellous. You are one of the few wise writers in print today. You must have a large fan club here in the States. Several weeks ago I was reading an excellent article on evolutionary forces and all of a sudden the author was saying 'Stan Gooch, my favourite writer'. Us Neanderthal nerds need our dose of Gooch every two or three years and you're the only one that can supply it. Cities of Dreams is a wonderful book.
E.G.

Dear Stan,
The ideas you outline in Cities of Dreams are still reverberating in my head. It is selling well for us and we've nearly run out of the first batch we ordered from Aulis. Many favourable comments [are] coming back from the readers.
J.M. (bookseller)

Dear Mr Gooch,
I recently finished your book Cities of Dreams and upon finishing the last page I immediately turned back to the beginning and started over. You have written a truly unique and amazing book. I'm anxious to incorporate its ideas into my work. In the meantime I will be seeking out your other books.
J.C.

Dear Sir,
I have just finished reading your Cities of Dreams and am still somewhat overwhelmed by the ideas and imageries contained therein. Thank you for a most exciting book.
I.T.P.

Dear Stan,
I've been enjoying a renaissance of your writing of late. It has taken me some time to study your wonderful book Cities of Dreams - working through it and saying: 'This is it!' I now have two copies of Cities of Dreams, one of them specially to be lent to my grandchildren and their friends, because I think it is such required reading for all intelligent young people.
P.V-S

Dear Stan Gooch,
I stumbled on your book Cities of Dreams some four or five months ago and read it over the Easter period with an almost unbearable excitement. When I reached the end I did something I have never done with a book before-I turned straight back to the beginning and started it all over again. I am currently reading it for the third time, sharing it in all its detail with my analyst. I am also very excited with your style of writing, with the passion of your presentation of facts and ideas, the openness and humour of your partisanship, the way you emphasise the most surprising and the most horrific discoveries and acknowledge your feeling reaction to them instead of treating them with academic dryness and reserve. This is the passion of curiosity and the humaneness of civility.
R.G.

Dear Stan,
I was very impressed with Cities of Dreams, as indeed I have been with all your previous works, having read everything from Total Man onwards. It is impossible to read your books without feeling that the answers to human origins and destiny are about to be revealed on the next page. This at a time when increasingly if I start to read one book I immediately tend to feel I should be reading something else.
J.C.

Dear Mr Gooch,
I have been an admirer of your books since first reading Cities of Dreams. I discovered it in a Glastonbury occult bookshop catalogue, which seems poetically appropriate. Reading it transformed my world. The way I looked at history, culture, society and myself changed radically. I then began to hunt down all your earlier publications. All of these books have been wonderful and always leave me thirsting for more. Your books have given me tremendous enjoyment and I hope there are a few more out there that I haven't yet come across. If not I hope you will soon be setting your typewriter rattling again, waking up slumbering orthodoxy with your alternative ideas.
T.W.

Dear Stan Gooch,
I should like to congratulate you on your unique contribution to the study of man. It is so refreshing to find an author who can enter the world of 'alternative thinking' without losing his objectivity. Your feeling of wonder about life in general and human life in particular is clearly communicated in your books but your thinking remains logical and precise. These qualities, needless to say, are very precious indeed. This is why I find your work so satisfying. When I read your factual books I experience a thrill of excitement which would normally be expected from reading a good novel. Anyway, please excuse my flattery. I am sure you are aware of your unique status.
S.M.

Dear Mr Gooch,
Some twelve to fifteen years ago your book Double Helix of the Mind was recommended to me by a hypnotherapist/psychologist who failed in his efforts to stop me smoking and preferred a reading list instead. This book was quite unlike any other I had ever read before, since it appeared to fall into the 'scientific' category which for me at the time, was foreign territory. I had not heard your name again during these years until just recently, when I started an anthropology class. J.W. mentioned your name and I said it back to him-in recognition. He has found me copies of Personality and Evolution, The Neanderthal Question, and Guardians of the Ancient Wisdom. I have recently ordered Cities of Dreams which should arrive any day now. I have never attempted a letter to a genius before . . .
C.G.

Beyond coincidence, the evidence of globally social origin. As the book unfolds layer upon layer of detailed social research from around the world, the inevitable questions arise. The beauty of Stan Gooch's thesis is that there may be no definitive answers only strong conviction that all of mankind had a common origin that spread with human expansion to cover the whole world. Stan Gooch has presented a clear set of colours and textures to apply to that first beginning and has shown that the richness of our global history is still there for us to see today. A well written and enthralling book for the merely interested all the way to the deeply academic.
W.I.

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