Known as the `four horsemen' of New Atheism, these four big thinkers of the twenty-first century met only once. Their electrifying examination of ideas on this remarkable occasion was intense and wide-ranging. Everything that was said as they agreed and disagreed with one another, interrogated ideas and exchanged insights - about religion and atheism, science and sense - speaks with urgency to our present age.

Questions they asked of each other included:

• Is it ever possible to win a war of ideas?
• Is spirituality the preserve of the religious?
• Are there any truths you would rather not know?
• Would you want to see the end of faith?

The dialogue was recorded, and is now transcribed and presented here with new introductions from the surviving three horsemen. With a sparkling introduction from Stephen Fry, it makes essential reading for all their admirers and for anyone interested in exploring the tensions between faith and reason.

The number of non-religious men and women has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Yet scholarship on the non-religious is severely lacking. In response to this critical gap in knowledge, The Nonreligious provides a comprehensive summation and analytical discussion of existing social scientific research on the non-religious. The authors present a thorough overview of existing research, while also drawing on ongoing research and positing ways to improve upon our current understanding of this growing population. The findings in this book stand out against the corpus of secular writing, which is comprised primarily of polemical rants critiquing religion, personal life-stories/memoirs of former believers, or abstract philosophical explorations of theology and anti-theology. By offering the first research- and data-based conclusions about the non-religious, this book will be an invaluable source of information and a foundation for further scholarship. Written in clear, jargon-free language that will appeal to the increasingly interested general readers, this book provides an unbiased, thorough account of all relevant existing scholarship within the social sciences that bears on the lived experience of the non-religious.

While scholars, media, and the public may be aware of a few extraordinary government raids on religious communities, such as the U.S. federal raid on the Branch Davidians in 1993, very few people are aware of the scope and frequency with which these raids occur. Following the Texas state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints in 2008, authors Stuart Wright and Susan Palmer decided to study these raids in the aggregate-rather than as individual cases-by collecting data on raids that have taken place over the last six decades. They did this both to establish for the first time an archive of raided groups, and to determine if any patterns could be identified. Even they were surprised at their findings; there were far more raids than expected, and the vast majority of them had occurred since 1990, reflecting a sharp, almost exponential increase. What could account for this sudden and dramatic increase in state control of minority religions? In Storming Zion, Wright and Palmer argue that the increased use of these high-risk and extreme types of enforcement corresponds to expanded organization and initiatives by opponents of unconventional religions. Anti-cult organizations provide strategic "frames" that define potential conflicts or problems in a given community as inherently dangerous, and construct narratives that draw on stereotypes of child and sexual abuse, brainwashing, and even mass suicide. The targeted group is made to appear more dangerous than it is, resulting in an overreaction by authorities. Wright and Palmer explore the implications of heightened state repression and control of minority religions in an increasingly multicultural, globalized world. At a time of rapidly shifting demographics within Western societies this book cautions against state control of marginalized groups and offers insight about why the responses to these groups is often so reactionary.

Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets provides an ethnographic study of varmakkalai, or "the art of the vital spots," a South Indian esoteric tradition that combines medical practice and martial arts. Although siddha medicine is officially part of the Indian Government's medically pluralistic health-care system, very little of a reliable nature has been written about it. Drawing on a diverse array of materials, including Tamil manuscripts, interviews with practitioners, and his own personal experience as an apprentice, Sieler traces the practices of varmakkalai both in different religious traditions-such as Yoga and Ayurveda-and within various combat practices. His argument is based on in-depth ethnographic research in the southernmost region of India, where hereditary medico-martial practitioners learn their occupation from relatives or skilled gurus through an esoteric, spiritual education system. Rituals of secrecy and apprenticeship in varmakkalai are among the important focal points of Sieler's study. Practitioners protect their esoteric knowledge, but they also engage in a kind of "lure and withdrawal"--a performance of secrecy--because secrecy functions as what might be called "symbolic capital." Sieler argues that varmakkalai is, above all, a matter of texts in practice; knowledge transmission between teacher and student conveys tacit, non-verbal knowledge, and constitutes a "moral economy." It is not merely plain facts that are communicated, but also moral obligations, ethical conduct and tacit, bodily knowledge. Lethal Spots, Vital Secrets will be of interest to students of religion, medical anthropologists, historians of medicine, indologists, and martial arts and performance studies.

This book is the first ethnographic account of the global spiritual movement headed by John of God, a Brazilian faith healer. Renowned for performing surgeries using rudimentary tools such as kitchen knives and scissors, without anesthetics or asepsis, John of God is allegedly inhabited by "entities," or spirits, and goes into a trance-like state in order to heal his visitors and afterwards, when he regains consciousness, does not remember the operations. Visited by thousands of the desperately ill; the wealthy; celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Ram Daas, Wayne Dyer, and Shirley MacLaine; and an increasing array of media, John of God has become an international faith healing superstar in just over a decade. Books about him have been translated into several languages, from Russian to Ukrainian to Japanese; ABC, the Discovery Channel, and the BBC have made documentaries on his healing center; tour guides advertise package trips; and John of God himself travels to conduct healing events in the US, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, and many other countries. More recently, a transnational spiritual community has developed around John of God, comprised of the ill, those who seek spiritual growth, healers, and tour guides, and according to followers, even spirits whose powers transcend national boundaries. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in Brazil, the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand, Cristina Rocha examines the social and cultural forces that have made it possible for a healer from Brazil to become a global "guru" in the 21st century. Rocha explores what attracts foreigners to John of God's cosmology and healing practices, how they understand their own experiences, and how these radical experiences have transformed their lives.

Children born and raised on the religious fringe are a distinctive yet largely unstudied social phenomenon -they are irreversibly shaped by the experience having been thrust into a radical religious culture by birth. The religious group is all encompassing. It accounts for their family, their school, social networks, and everything that prepares them for their adult life. The inclusion of a second generation of participants raises new concerns and legal issues. Perfect Children examines the ways new religious movements adapt to a second generation, how children are socialized, what happens to these children as they mature, and how their childhoods have affected them. Amanda van Twist conducted over 50 in-depth interviews with individuals born into new religious groups, some of whom have stayed in the group, some of whom have left. She also visited the groups, their schools and homes, and analyzed support websites maintained by those who left the religious groups that raised them. She also attended conferences held by NGOs concerned with the welfare of children in "cults." The main groups she studies include the Bruderhof, Scientology, the Family International, the Unification Church, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Children born into new religions often start life as "special children" believed to be endowed with heightened spiritual capabilities. But as they mature into society at large they acquire other labels. Those who stay in the group are usually labeled as "goodies" and "innovators". Those who leave tend to be labeled as "baddies" or seen as "troubled." Whether they stay or leave, children raised on the religious fringe experience a unique form of segregation in adulthood. Van Twist analyzes group behavior on an organizational/institutional level as well as individual behavior within groups, and how these affect one another. Her study also raises larger questions about religious freedom in the light of the State's responsibility towards children, and children's rights against the rights of parents to raise their children within their religion.

In 1636, residents at the convent of Santa Chiara in Carpi in northern Italy were struck by an extraordinary illness that provoked bizarre behavior. Eventually numbering fourteen, the afflicted nuns were subject to screaming fits, throwing themselves on the floor, and falling abruptly into a deep sleep. When medical experts' cures proved ineffective, exorcists ministered to the women and concluded that they were possessed by demons and the victims of witchcraft. Catering to women from elite families, the nunnery suffered much turmoil for three years and, remarkably, three of the victims died from their ills. A maverick nun and a former confessor were widely suspected to be responsible, through witchcraft, for these woes. Based primarily on the exhaustive investigation by the Inquisition of Modena, The Scourge of Demons examines this fascinating case in its historical context. The travails of Santa Chiara occurred at a time when Europe witnessed peaks in both witch-hunting and in the numbers of people reputedly possessed by demons. Female religious figures appeared particularly prone to demonic attacks, and Counter-Reformation Church authorities were especially interested in imposing stricter discipline on convents. Watt carefully considers how the nuns of Santa Chiara understood and experienced alleged possession and witchcraft, concluding that Santa Chiara's diabolical troubles and their denouement -- involving the actions of nuns, confessors, inquisitorial authorities, and exorcists -- were profoundly shaped by the unique confluence of religious, cultural, judicial, and intellectual trends that flourished in the 1630s. Jeffrey R. Watt is professor of history at the University of Mississippi.

Daughters of Hecate unites for the first time research on the problem of gender and magic in three ancient Mediterranean societies: early Judaism, Christianity, and Graeco-Roman culture. The book illuminates the gendering of ancient magic by approaching the topic from three distinct disciplinary perspectives: literary stereotyping, the social application of magic discourse, and material culture.
The volume challenges presumed associations of women and magic by probing the foundations of, processes, and motivations behind gendered stereotypes, beginning with Western culture's earliest associations of women and magic in the Bible and Homer's Odyssey. Daughters of Hecate provides a nuanced exploration of the topic while avoiding reductive approaches. In fact, the essays in this volume uncover complexities and counter-discourses that challenge, rather than reaffirm, many gendered stereotypes taken for granted and reified by most modern scholarship.
By combining critical theoretical methods with research into literary and material evidence, Daughters of Hecate interrogates gendered stereotypes that are as relevant now as for understanding antiquity or the early modern witch hunts.

This is Laurence Gardner's final book, written shortly before his death in 2010 and is the accompanying book to his Origin of God (published 2011 by dash house publishing). Together with Origin of God, this book outlines an irrefutable and searing indictment of conventional belief and exposes the evils and absurdities perpetuated over the millenia in the name of Christianity. In Revelation of the Devil, Laurence Gardner traces the history of the Devil, from its roots in Mesopotamia and the Old Testament all the way up to the modern world of today. Travelling through the New Testament, as well as the Koran, and then passing in turn through the Inquisitions, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, he unmasks what he has called "the myth of evil and the conspiracy of Satan." For nearly 2,000 years a supernatural entity known as the Devil has been held responsible by Church authorities for bringing sin and wickedness into the world. Throughout this period, the Devil has been portrayed as a constant protagonist of evil, although his origin remains a mystery and his personality has undergone many interpretive changes, prompting questions such as: If God is all good and all powerful, then why does evil exist? How can it exist? If God created everything, then where did the Devil come from? If the Devil exists, then why does he not feature in any pre-Christian document? Revelation of the Devil follows the Devil's sinister history, in the manner of a biography, from his scriptural introduction to the dark satanic cults of the present day. In a strict chronological progression, we experience the mood of each successive era as the Devil's image was constantly manipulated to suit the changing motives of his creators in their bid for threat-driven clerical control.

The Kingdom of the Occult takes Dr. Walter Martin's comprehensive knowledge and his dynamic teaching style and forges a strong weapon against the world of the Occult-a weapon of the same scope and power as his phenomenal thirty-five-year bestseller, The Kingdom of the Cults

Chapters include: Witchcraft and Wicca, Satanism, Pagan Religions, Tools of the Occult, Demon Possession and Exorcism, Spiritual Warfare, etc.

Features include:

• Each chapter contains: Quick Facts; History; Case Studies; Theology; Resources

Restoring Africa’s Spiritual Identity, authored by African Hidden Voices and inspired by the revelations of Inkosi Yomoya Imboni Dr. Uzwi-Lezwe Radebe, delivers a powerful critique of the spiritual displacement caused by colonialism and religious imposition. The book reveals how the forced introduction of foreign religions severed Africa’s access to the masculine energy—the upward spiritual dimensions—disconnecting the continent from its highest spiritual authority and divine guidance.

African Hidden Voices argues that African Indigenous Spirituality (AIS), once centered on direct knowledge through revelations, was systematically replaced by belief-based systems that undermined Africa’s spiritual sovereignty. This disconnection resulted in the erosion of indigenous institutions that once guided African societies. The book also seeks to illuminate the role played by African Initiated Churches (AICs) in asserting their attempts to merge Christianity with African practices. They failed to restore the continent’s true spiritual identity, as they remained bound by the very religious frameworks that displaced them. Politics through the rise of Pan Africanism also failed to restore Africa to its authentic spirituality as it was fused with religious dogmas.

Restoring Africa’s Spiritual Identity calls for a return to authentic spiritual institutions, guided by the revelations of genuine spiritual guiders, to reclaim Africa's spiritual sovereignty. It presents a scholarly and visionary blueprint for restoring the continent’s cosmic balance and reconnecting with its original spiritual essence.

Crop circles are the finest, most beautiful and original art forms of modem times, and they are totally mysterious. Behind the crop circle phenomenon is an evident purpose. Some intelligence, human, alien or spiritual, is in the process of communication. It is exposing us to a course of re-education, beginning with the symbols of sacred knowledge and wisdom. The most striking evidence for this view is the amazing formation that appeared at Crooked Soley in Wiltshire on the 27th August 2002. Clearly expressed in its design are certain numerical symbols that are known esoterically as the 'Keys to Creation'. They are also keys to that universal science associated with the Holy Grail. From time to time it is revealed again, and when that happens, culture and the human spirit are renewed and life on earth is restored to its natural state as a reflection of paradise.

This is an accessible response to the contemporary anti-God arguments of the 'new atheists' (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Grayling, etc). Atheism has become militant in the past few years, with its own popular mass media evangelists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. In this readable book, Christian philosopher Peter S. Williams considers the arguments of the 'new atheists' and finds them wanting. Williams explains the history of atheism and responds to the claims that: 'belief in God causes more harm than good'; 'religion is about blind faith and science is the only way to know things'; 'science can explain religion away'; 'there is not enough evidence for God'; 'the arguments for God's existence do not work'. Williams argues that belief in God is more intellectually plausible than atheism.

A sigil is an intensely powerful magickal tool that any modern witch should consider adding to their repertoire. Sigils can help manifest your desires, ward off evil, and add deeper levels of meaning to your spells. You don’t have to be an artist to create a sigil—anyone can do it. Sigil Craft is Lia Taylor’s must-have guide to creating sigils, including step-by-step instructions using various methods including the Magic Square and Austin Osman Spare, as well as an overview of sigils throughout history, from Agrippa to modern chaos magick, from medieval grimoires and prehistoric cave paintings to the graphic novels of Grant Morrison. Taylor shares how to charge your sigils, incorporate them into your creative endeavors, and heighten the power of your sigils through the shoaling technique. This immensely useful book is fully illustrated with Taylor’s art, and is a fascinating guide to an increasingly popular practice. 

A unique essay about Science and Metaphysics in which the author Alex Red Kenaton shifts the readers awareness by disclosing precious information. It is a stream of consciousness depicting many reflections and dialogues revealing a loose interior monologue connection characterised by some associative leaps in thought. This uncommon book is held together by the author's passion for science, spirituality and an unrelenting search for truth. Alex Red Kenaton is a multifaceted scholar working in different fields of study: Humanistic Social Sciences, Physical Natural Sciences, and Metaphysical Philosophical Sciences. These areas have allowed him to acquire a broad interdisciplinary understanding of human life. As a new author, he compares the latest scientific discoveries in physics to spiritual and religious texts, often finding commonalities. One of his deeps beliefs is that people have been searching for a way to understand if they have power in their lives for centuries. He thinks that this mastery exists, is real, and is located, not just metaphorically, in our hearts. Alex Red Kenaton inspires people to step into joy, to live fully and with life's presence, without fleeing or getting caught in protective bubbles. He trusts that by assuming responsibilities, it is possible to live all the aspects of life without separation, always knowing that the external reality reflects our consciousness and nothing more.

In a time unremembered, this author was found washed up on the shores of Lake Titicaca. In his possession was this book. This book is a map, it tells you where you've come from, it tells you where you're going, it tells you where you are. It tells you what is hidden and what will be revealed, and it tells you how to get out alive if only youa d remember