Instead of endlessly doomscrolling and video streaming your way through your evenings, consider picking up books on meditation, past lives, goddesses, divination and other mystical topics. Many of the books I’ve been searching for to learn more about spirituality and women’s history are pretty hard to find at my local library. Luckily, the Internet Archive has a vast collection of scanned books in addition to the repository of web pages (The Wayback Machine) that they are known for.
Some of the many classics and spiritual and metaphysical books I’ve been able to read include:
- Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes which explores the Wild Woman archetypes
- The Nature of Personal Reality (a Seth Speaks Book) by Jane Roberts
- Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch
- Codependent No More by Melody Beattie
- The Essential Rumi
- The Journey of Awakening by Ram Dass
- Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood by Merlin Stone
- Reading Tea Leaves by Highland Seer, a classic book on the subject
- Some of Dolores Cannon’s books from her between lives hypnotism like Between Life and Death
How to Borrow a Book
Simply go to Internet Archive and create an account in order to borrow books. Then search or browse for a book you are interested in. Check my favorites list out if you need help picking one. The first few pages and the table of contents will usually be visible. Click the “Borrow for 1 Hour” or “Borrow for 14 Days” button. Normally you are instantly granted access to the item within the web reader, but sometimes you have to wait for a copy to become available.
Tips for Easier Reading
The site loads well in tablet browsers and on laptops. In order to get the most screen space for reading, click the box in the very bottom right corner of the screen which allows a more fullscreen mode. You can alternate between single page or two page up viewing depending on how small the text is.
How to Adjust the Brightness
Click the three dots icon on the right side of the screen to access adjustments to brightness, contrast, and change to greyscale viewing. This area also allows you to zoom in and out, as does the slider on the bottom right of the screen. The resolution will adjust as you zoom in for more clarity.
How to Save Bookmarks and Notes
Click the bookmark on the left to leave bookmarks and notes within that page of the text. The bookmarks and notes are saved to your account so that they remain next time you borrow the book. I typically use one color for marking the page I stopped on and another for notes and highlights that I want to refer back to.
Search the Text of the Book
You can use the magnifying glass on the left to search within the text of the book you are reading. You even have the ability to search the contents of book collections as well. It’s pretty powerful. Then you’ll be taken to the pages within the book that have that word or phrase. I use this when I am searching my library for quotes about specific themes in preparing for a women’s circle or post.
Check out my list of favorite spiritual and metaphysical books over at Internet Archive (and a few bread baking books).
Other Places to Find Spiritual Books and Free Reading Material
- Your Local Library, at the Physical Location or via the Libby app and Overdrive. You’ll be shocked at how many magazines, audiobooks and digital books are available.
- Project Gutenberg, named after the inventor of the printing press, has over 60,000 free ebooks.
- If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber you can access Prime Reading which includes books and magazines
- Free Little Libraries
- PaperbackSwap is a book trading site via the postal mail for those of you who prefer the printed book to an ebook. If you use my link to sign up I get free trading credits.
- Openculture.com keeps track of free audio courses, recordings and cultural content.
- Z-Library is the world’s largest free ebook archive.
