Places Beyond Belief

Book Two of the One Giant Leap Trilogy

by Michael K. Yen


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Softcover
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Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 8/13/2020

Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 204
ISBN : 9781982249540
Format : Hardcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 204
ISBN : 9781982249564
Format : E-Book
Dimensions : N/A
Page Count : 204
ISBN : 9781982249557

About the Book

In 2017, Michael completed the first book in his planned trilogy, From Physical to Metaphysical in Four Steps and One Giant Leap where he explored how we can separate from our materialistic attachment by seeing past our bodies, our emotions, and our thoughts. After these three "steps," Michael illustrated how by enhancing and refining our life energy, we can take "one giant leap" into metaphysical consciousness. In Places Beyond Belief, he expands on the concepts raised in the first book and also details some of his out-of-body experiences (OBE) that offer direct evidence of how the non-physical envelops our material reality. Michael also tells the story of how encounters in material reality with ghosts, qigong masters, psychics, a "living Buddha," and extraterrestrials prepared him for having OBEs. Building on the events covered in the first book, Michael recounts how in trying to uncover the true nature of his UFO experiences, he turned to using OBEs as a way to find answers about the reality of the beings he encountered. What he found was not what he expected and lead to his discovery of the field of spirit-release therapy and the large body of psychological literature that the subject has produced since William Baldwin’s Spirit Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual was published in 1995. While disclosing intimately personal experiences to illustrate his points, Michael also takes time to discuss the big issues of the day, highlighting how personal and spiritual development is intricately linked to how well we live in the material world. Coming three years after his first book, Places Beyond Belief follows Michael's journey deeper into the metaphysical world that he was only first discovering when he wrote One Giant Leap. By daring to let direct experience be the guide, Michael went to places beyond belief, and came back to write about it.


About the Author

About the Author Michael Yen was born in Hong Kong when it was still a British Crown Colony. At the age of three, his parents emigrated to the United States, but he remained in Hong Kong at the insistence of his paternal grandfather who wished him to learn some Chinese culture before emigrating. He went on to teach Michael to recite Tang poetry, play Chinese chess and the basics of Taoism. After joining his family in Los Angeles at the age of 10, Michael discovered a love for science fiction and started a UFO club in junior high. At the age of 18, he surprised everyone and joined the US Army Reserves without telling his family in advance. A more mature man returned from military training and he began studying at San Francisco State University. During the last year of his graduate studies in International Relations, Michael passed the Foreign Service exam and was offered a position by the State Department in the diplomatic corps in 1990. After serving in Washington, DC, and overseas in Taiwan, Japan and the People’s Republic of China, Michael was posted to the US Consulate-General in Hong Kong where he declared as a member of the Bahá’í Faith. While in Hong Kong, Michael was elected to the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Southern District and later the Main Spiritual Assembly of Hong Kong. After meeting his future mentor, Professor Heyong Shen, at a diplomatic function to celebrate the professor’s achievement of becoming the first internationally certified Jungian analyst in China and the visit of a US delegation of leading psychologists, Michael became interested in psychology. Invited to join the applied psychology doctoral program at Professor Shen’s university in 2002, Michael leapt at the chance, and was permitted to become the only active duty foreign diplomat to concurrently hold international scholar status in the history of the PRC. In 2005, Michael resigned from the Foreign Service to take care of his disabled mother and to focus on his doctoral dissertation. In 2006, Michael completed the oral defense of his dissertation in China and was awarded the degree Philosophiae Doctor. After working as a therapist in Guangzhou, and as consulting psychologist for the Zhuhai International School, Michael settled back in San Francisco with his wife, where they live with and care for his mother. In 2017, Michael completed the first book in his planned trilogy, From Physical to Metaphysical in Four Steps and One Giant Leap. Places Beyond Belief is the second book and expands on many of the concepts raised in the first book and also details some of Michael’s out-of-body experiences. Michael is very clear that his out-of-body experiences can only be considered real in the sense that he perceived them as he describes, and that they have psychological validity for personal growth and as a catalyst for spiritual evolution.