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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Contemporary non-Christian & para-Christian cults & sects
A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts
in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the
lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported
communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement
- and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in
mystery.
In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox - sisters aged 11 and 14 -
anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing
strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of
knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from
beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born.
"Talking to the Dead" follows the fascinating story of the two
girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating
with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of
thousands of Americans were flocking to seances. An international
movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the
sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted
spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story
and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world. Weisberg traces
not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including
their mysterious Svengali-like sister Leah) but also the social,
religious, economic and political climates that provided the
breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough,
compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an
incredible ghost story.
An entertaining read - a story of spirits and conjurors,
skeptics and converts - "Talking to the Dead" is full of emotion
and surprise. Yet it will also provoke questions that were being
asked in the 19thcentury, and are still being asked today - how do
we know what we know, and how secure are we in our knowledge?
The thrilling new novel, inspired by the events at Jonestown in the 1970s.
It’s the summer of 1968, and Evelyn Lynden is a woman at war with herself. Minister’s daughter. Atheist. Independent woman. Frustrated wife. Bitch with a bleeding heart.
Following her conscientious-objector husband Lenny to the rural Eden of Evergreen Valley, California, Evelyn wants to be happy with their new life. Yet she finds herself disillusioned with Lenny’s passive ways ― and anxious for a saviour. Enter the Reverend Jim Jones, the dynamic leader of a new revolutionary church …
Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Beautiful Revolutionary explores the allure of the real-life charismatic leader who would destroy so many. It follows Evelyn as she is pulled into Jones’s orbit ― an orbit it would prove impossible for her to leave.
A beautifully written sequel to the inspirational Emmanuel's Book,
with an introduction by Ram Dass. The Choice For Love offers
insight into difficult relationships, aging, illness and healing,
learning from AIDS and much more.
The authors' preoccupation with Indridi Indridason spans several
decades. Erlendur Haraldsson first read about him in the 1960s,
perhaps earlier. He joined the Psychology department at the
University of Iceland in 1973 and, during his course on paranormal
phenomena, he would regularly discuss Indridason, Iceland's most
prolific physical medium. Loftur Reimar Gissurarson, one of
Haraldsson's students, soon became interested and wrote his BA
thesis on Indridason (Gissurarson, 1984).Based on their research,
they co-authored a monograph entitled The Icelandic Physical Medium
Indridi Indridason, which was published in the Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research (Gissurarson and Haraldsson, 1989).
The monograph was subsequently reprinted partially and in full in
Renaitre 2000 in France, Luce e Ombra in Italy, and
Parapsykologiske Notiser in Norway.Loftur continued the work and
co-authored with William Swatos, the book Icelandic Spiritualism:
Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland (Swatos and Gissurarson, 1997),
much of it dealing with Indridi and the history of Mediums and
Spiritualism in Iceland.Shortly after the year 2000, two
Experimental Society minute books dating back to the Indridason
period were unexpectedly found that contained new information
(Haraldsson, 2009). Some time later, Haraldsson delved into the new
material which resulted in three major articles being published in
the Proceedings and the Journal of the Society for Psychical
Research (Haraldsson, 2011, 2012a) and the Journal of Scientific
Exploration (Haraldsson and Gerding, 2010). It soon became obvious
that only a book would do justice to Indridi, as he deserved to be
known to the wider international public. This is that book.
Heaven and hell - are they real places, or are they fantasies
invented to inspire good behavior and overcome our fear of dying?
In this book Stafford Betty, a university professor and
international expert on afterlife research, answers these
questions. He allows deceased human beings speaking through
authentic mediums to describe their actual worlds. And what they
tell us would revolutionize the world's religions if they would
listen. Our brothers and sisters in the afterlife are not
"resting," as Christian theology often asserts. They live in a
world of infinite possibility, and their wills are as free over
there as they are here. They are busy beings, and some are climbing
toward higher realms while others languish. Suffering in the
afterworld, not just joy, can be intense; it exists to awaken souls
to their errors so they will enter into the happiness of those
higher spheres, where corruption can't enter. Professor Betty
explores those heavens, those places where love reigns unchecked -
as well as those unhappy places where it doesn't. The religions
we've fashioned here on earth could all use an upgrade. They are
moons that derive their light from the central sun. This book is
about that sun.
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