Having a phrenological 'head reading' was one of the most significant fads of the nineteenth century - a means for better knowing oneself and a guide for self-improvement. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) had a lifelong yet long overlooked interest in phrenology, the pseudoscience claiming to correlate skull features with specialized brain areas and higher mental traits. Twain's books are laced with phrenological terms and concepts, and he lampooned the head readers in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He was influenced by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who also used his humor to assail head readers and educate the public. Finger shows that both humorists accepted certain features of phrenology, but not their skull-based ideas. By examining a fascinating topic at the intersection of literature and the history of neuroscience, this engaging study will appeal to readers interested in phrenology, science, medicine, American history, and the lives and works of Twain and Holmes.

In times of crises, be it about climate change, the pandemic corona virus, or democratic struggles, there is an unwaning interest worldwide in the end of times and related themes such as apocalypticism, messianism, and utopianism. This concerns scholarship and society alike, and is by no means limited to the religious field. The present volume collates essays from specialists in the study of apocalyptic and eschatological subjects. With its interdisciplinary approach, it is designed to overcome the existing Euro-centrism and incorporate a broader perspective to the topic of end time expectations in the Christian Middle Ages as well as in East Asia and Africa. Contributors include: Gaelle Bosseman, Wolfram Brandes, Matthias Gebauer, Jurgen Gebhardt, Vincent Goossaert, Klaus Herbers, Matthias Kaup, Bernardo Bertholin Kerr, Thomas Krumpel, Richard Landes, Zhao Lu, Rolf Scheuermann, and Julia Eva Wannenmacher.

Receive guidance, healing, protection and love from the archangels by working with this divine oracle deck from ascension expert Diana Cooper. Angels are highly evolved spiritual beings. They are here right now to offer guidance, answer your questions, accelerate your ascension journey and bring balance, joy and peace into your life. Each of the 44 stunning cards in this deck depicts an archangel, angel or Seraphim who is reaching out to support and strengthen you. Within the accompanying guidebook, you'll discover the role and gifts of each angel and receive the wisdom and guidance they have to offer. The angels are all here to light you up with the qualities you need for peace, happiness, balance and joy, and they will work to accelerate your spiritual journey and help you on your ascension path.

From Amenti Oracle author Jennifer Sodini, and the founders of the spirituality and wellness platform Modern Nirvana: actress, singer, and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Kat Graham, four-time Emmy-winning journalist and energy healer Frank Elaridi, and master breathwork instructor Bryant Wood-comes a deck for finding clarity around the gradients of love, loss, levity, and each chapter of the human experience. Life provides plenty of existential questions, both big and small. As we traverse the mysterious human journey, we often seek external guidance through another person or a medium beyond our own power. But the answers we're looking for actually exist within each of us, and now, through The Modern Nirvana Oracle Deck, we can unlock our inherent power and inner-guidance to achieve clarity and greater self-awareness. A sensory experience inspired by avant-garde '80s fashion, The Modern Nirvana Oracle Deck includes a guidebook and 50 beautifully illustrated cards by renowned artist Natalee Miller inside an elegant, easy-to-travel, metallic gold box with lifting ribbon and a magnetic closure. Each card will provide an inspiring quote, ageless wisdom for our modern lives, breathwork and meditations, and a mantra designed to further activate the intentions within the cards. Let this powerful oracle deck help you to tap into the wisdom and insight that lies within. Use it as a gateway away from suffering and illusion, and a connection to nirvana in the here and now.

Since diabetes cannot be cured, the only way to deal with it is to learn to control it. With this clear objective in view, the book offers a complete guide on the ways and means to go about it. Beginning from the structure and functions of different organs of the digestive system, the types of diabetes, its causes and symptoms, it goes on to explain in detail the complications it can cause, the diagnosis and tests involved in detection, the caloriereckoner of different food items and the recommended diet for different types of patients. Where the book scores over others is that it doesn't just confine itself to Allopathic treatment but offers a complete 'controlling mechanism' covering Ayurveda, Yoga, Nature Cure, Acupressure, Feng Shui through conventional and nonconventional ways. This book is a must not only for those affected by diabetes, but everyone above forty who could run the risk of getting it.

"Superbly organized and researched, this book by Block provides a comprehensive presentation about parapsychology." -Library Journal, Starred Review The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology covers the history of parapsychology, key international figures, and a decade-by-decade annotated bibliography of research. It includes find information on early psychical researchers from around the globe and how the work of those psychical researchers inspired the creation of the modern field of parapsychology. Alongside biographical entries about key figures are sketches of those at the center of psychical inquiry, like mediums and others who seemingly have the ability to manifest strange phenomena. The Encyclopedia covers the Spiritualism era which influenced early psychical inquiry and how it influenced psychical thought around the globe. More contemporary coverage includes biographical entries for current international researchers who continue to investigate the depths of psi phenomena. In order to provide comprehensive coverage of historical and modern research into psi phenomena, the Encyclopedia features a decade-by-decade bibliography of resources that highlight the shifting theories and experiments of the field, starting from the 1870s and going through the 2020s. This section includes a wide variety of research into topics such as psychokinesis, hauntings, poltergeists (also known as recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis), near-death experiences, extrasensory perception, remote viewing, and much more. Appendices provide information on international parapsychological research organizations and a quick start research guide. With information on key figures and research on an international scale, The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology provides an approachable yet comprehensive compendium of information.

Learn the secrets of The Witch of the Forest in this stunning follow-up to Natural Magick, and channel the elemental forces which are all around you to master the practice of earth magick. Earth magick is all about understanding the elements which govern the world around us, connecting with the Earth and using its powers to thrive. From using the four elements - fire, air, water and earth - in spells, to learning about the powers of crystals and mastering the art of divination, this book will teach you everything you know about this ancient form of magick. Discover how to use simple witchcraft to boost your wellbeing, keep yourself grounded in the 21st century, and connect to your own natural 'seasons' in your life as well as in your craft. Perfect for budding beginners new to the spellbinding world of witchcraft, learn about: Casting a circle and ritual basics, Crystals and their magickal properties and uses, Divination techniques such as using runes and divination dice, Connecting with the energies of the four seasons, the four elements, and harnessing their power, Connecting to your own natural 'seasons' in your life through your craft, Reconnecting with your craft after a break, Caring for your magickal energy if you're an empath, or are feeling drained, Embracing your darker energies, and using shadow work for personal growth and transformation, Wellbeing techniques for witches to help you manage your energy ... and more! Suitable for every type of witch and witchling - including those practicing in the broom closet - this book also includes a runes board on the back of the jacket that you can remove to help answer all your questions. The Earth is bursting with magickal energies and lessons to be learnt, and connecting with these can help your relationship with yourself, the people around you, and the natural world, blossom. Discover how to use witchcraft to connect more deeply with yourself, and and learn from the Earth how to bloom and thrive at your own pace! The Witch of the Forest's Guide to... series are a collection of guides to different areas of witchcraft, focusing on the relationship between magic, the natural world and the self. Each book discusses completely different elements of the natural world, and Earth Magick is full of techniques not mentioned in Natural Magick.

We all know the moon. We all have a relationship with it. The earliest people obeyed her orbit, timed their months and holidays and celebrations and agriculture to the moon. The echos of that system are still visible today, though the connection to the moon is often forgotten. Sarah Faith Gottesdiener is the leader of a movement to remind us of that lineage, guiding our rhythms and our sleep, our energy and our emotions, reminding us of our humanity and our magic. In her self-published Many Moons Workbooks and Lunar Journals, as well as her sold-out classes, she has guided over 50,000 readers to a deeper relationship with the moon, and through it, with themselves. This evergreen book will be an informative and comprehensive guide to lunar living, incorporating radical, self-empowering, and magical tools and resources for the beginner and experienced lunar-follower alike. Depending on where we are in our lives, depending on what we are feeling or what is happening around us, the moon allows us a space to invite ritual into our daily lives. This book will provide a framework on how to utilize the entire lunar cycle holistically, while offering ways for the reader to develop a personal relationship with their own cycles-energetic, personal, and emotional-through the lens of the moon's phases.

Two-time Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet and USA TODAY bestselling author amanda lovelace presents believe in your own magic, a stunning new oracle deck based on her celebrated poetry series, women are some kind of magic. With art by fairy tale illustrator Janaina Medeiros, each card offers daily messages of empowerment to stir your inner princess, witch, or mermaid, while the highly accessible guidebook offers further insight. Whenever you're in need of some inspiration or validation, this deck will be there to help you believe in your own magic. Perfect for beginners and suitable for practitioners at every skill level. Contains: Compact box 45 full-color cards Illustrated guidebook

Activate your cosmic energy and awaken the whispers of your soul through the lost lands, energy portals and ancient sites of this beautiful 53-card oracle card deck. Have you always had a longing for home without really knowing what that meant? If so, you could be a Starseed Soul - one who has incarnated elsewhere in the cosmos before your time on Earth. The Starseed Oracle is a sacred collaboration between Rebecca Campbell, bestselling author of Light Is the New Black and Rise Sister Rise, and creator of the Work Your Light Oracle, and Danielle Noel, visual artist, creator of the renowned The Starchild Tarot, The Moonchild Tarot, and illustrator of the Work Your Light Oracle. "Rebecca Campbell is a grounded spiritual teacher here to awaken and call in a new age." Sonia Choquette, New York Times best-selling author The 53 oracle cards in this deck are designed to support you on your healing journey and soul's path and to embody your true purpose here as who you truly are. They guide you to connect with the portal to your heart, remember who you are at soul level and unlock your soul's gifts. In the accompanying oracle card guidebook, you'll find instructions for attuning to your Starseed Oracle cards, to your inner guidance and to the cosmic energy beyond. Each card interpretation includes a Starseed call to action to help you to unlock your soul gifts, connect with your cosmic origins and remember who you truly are. The innovative triangle box design is a technology in itself, providing interactive card reading options, and can also be used as a beautiful altar piece. "The Starseed Oracle was created for all souls who are interested in the mystery of the human experience. My deepest prayer is that it supports you in remembering who you are from a soul perspective, in clearly hearing the whispers of your soul, and turning these whispers into grounded action. May these cards support you on your soul's path." Love, Rebecca and Danielle x

The philosophy found in the I Ching was created by the ancients from their careful observaton of nature. We 'moderns' can use the sixty-four hexagrams found in the I Ching as a predictive tool to enhance our lives and reconcile our spiritual and physical selves. When one consults the 'I CHing', the hexagram gives the general background of the situation, while the lines indicate the correct way in which to handle the specific circumstance. This masterful translation by Hua-Ching Ni is popular throughout the world.

Have you lost an important object? Are you taking on a new job? Looking for buried treasure? "The Art and Practice of Geomancy" teaches readers how to divine the answers to life's everyday questions, such as health, luck, new jobs, and love, as well as the less mundane: finding buried treasure, predicting the weather, being released from prison, identifying secret enemies. Greer delivers to readers an ancient system of divination in an easy-to-use form, requiring little more than a pen and piece of paper.Using a system of odd and even numbers, from a deck of cards, roll of the dice, or even by hitting sand with a stick to generate patterns, the reader learns to cast their own geomantic chart. And for those who wish to take the practice further, he offers deeper exercises for geomantic meditation, and geomantic ritual magic. "The Art and Practice of Geomancy" will appeal to pagans, followers of the Western Mystery Tradition, scholars of folk-magic and divination, and anyone who wants to take their past, present, and future into their own hands. Each geomantic chart is, in a certain sense, a snapshot of one set of possibilities arising from the dance of the four elements in the anima mundi, and a sense of the dance itself - even if that sense is imperfect, as it may be, and wordless, as it must be - provides the context for every geomantic reading.

A vibrant oracle deck that allows new and current young fans of divination to continue growing their practice. This adaptation of Nikki Van De Car's The Junior Astrologer's Handbook is the perfect tool for young mystics looking to harness the energies of the cosmos as they figure out the role astrology plays in their every day life. The 44-card deck complements our stunning handbook, while also serving as a standalone deck for users who may be coming to divination on their own. A 96-page companion booklet offers a variety of ways to use the deck to help users as they navigate difficult situations (with friends, at home, or at school), while offering them a better understanding of the power they have over their own life/decisions. Whether looking to do a daily pull for inspiration or in need of answers to specific questions, users will learn what the elements, planets, moon phases, and signs all mean in a reading.

In Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth-Century Culture, first published in 2001, Lucy Hartley examines the emergence of physiognomy as a form of popular science. Physiognomy posited an understanding of the inner meaning of human character from observations of physical appearances, usually facial expressions. Taking the physiognomical teachings of Johann Caspar Lavater as a starting-point, Hartley considers the extent to which attempts to read the mind and judge character through expression can provide descriptions of human nature. She argues that the writings of Charles Bell, and the Pre-Raphaelites establish the significance of the physiognomical tradition for the study of expression whilst also preparing the ground for the rise of new doctrines for the expression of emotion by Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer. She then demonstrates how the evolutionary explanation of expression proposed by Spencer and Charles Darwin is both the outcome of the physiognomical tradition and the reason for its dissolution.

Fons Vitae is dedicated to preserving in print for future generations the extraordinarily important work of Titus Burckhardt, who devoted his life to the exposition of Universal Truth, that wisdom "uncreate" in the realm of metaphysics, cosmology, and sacred art. In addition to Burckhardt's Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Letters of a Sufi Master, and Moorish Culture in Spain, Fons Vitae is honored to add to the series Sacred Art, East and West, Mystical Astrology according to lbn 'Arabi, and Mirror of the Intellect.

An eminent Swiss metaphysician and scholar of oriental languages, Titus Burckhardt (1908-1984) devoted his life to the timeless and universal wisdom present in Sufism, Vedanta, Taoism, Platonism, and the other great esoteric and sapiential traditions. Though an art historian like his great uncle, the renowned Jacob Burckhardt, his main interest was the spiritual use and meaning to be found in Eastern and Western art and architecture, and the expression of the sacred in the lives of saints.

A unique work, providing the underlying spiritual principles (from the point of view of one of the greatest Sufi masters who ever lived) lacking in most modern books of astrology. It will complement and deepen anyone's personal library or collection of works on astrology.

Having long been stigmatized as an immoral and even illegal "superstition", the popular practice of divination is experiencing a revival in contemporary China. Fate Calculation Experts explores how diviners attempt to achieve legitimation in a society which identifies strongly with modernity, science, and rationality. As well as associating with modern knowledge production systems, diviners build a positive social image for their occupation via claims to moral authority and appeals to "tradition". Beyond matters of image management, diviners' efforts towards legitimation also figure in the social relationships and fundamental cultural values they develop in their practice.

This book is intended to be a users' manual, not a reference book, and so has charts, diagrams, tables and cross-references to enable the interested practitioner to incorporate the Western Herbal Tradition into their practice. It synthesises and elaborates on all the extant information on the Western Healing Tradition as recorded by William Lilly and Nicholas Culpeper in the 17Cth and from the author's own herbal practice. It shows how using planetary energies and the wheel of the year deepens our understanding of the action of medicinal plants on the body and establishes the practitioner within their environment, allowing them to use planetary energies to determine the peak times to harvest and use herbal remedies and to locate health and sickness within the holistic paradigm of Western Traditional Herbal Medicine.For ease of use, the book is divided into two sections. The first details the philosophical framework within which traditional western herbalists can operate; looking at the four humours, and seven planets and the use of the diagnostic tool of the decumbiture chart. The work is so organised that the humoral system can be used without astrology, should that be the preference. The second part covers the practical application of the philosophy, how to collect, make and administer herbal remedies according to the planetary days and hours and the decumbiture chart. Examples of decumbiture charts will be included to show how the philosophy is used in practice. Lastly, a materia medica of common herbs is included. This fascinating new title by the best-selling Elisabeth Brooke will be of interest to anyone involved in the theory or practice of herbal medicine, particularly those who have been inspired by her other classic works including A Woman's Book of Herbs and Herbal Therapy for Women.

In Physiognomy in Ming China: Fortune and the Body, Xing Wang investigates the intellectual and technical contexts in which the knowledge of physiognomy (xiangshu) was produced and transformed in Ming China (1368-1644 C.E.). Known as a fortune-telling technique via examining the human body and material objects, Xing Wang shows how the construction of the physiognomic body in many Ming texts represent a unique, unprecedented 'somatic cosmology'. Applying an anthropological reading to these texts and providing detailed analysis of this technique, the author proves that this physiognomic cosmology in Ming China emerged as a part of a new body discourse which differs from the modern scholarly discourse on the body.

Reading Russian Fortunes examines the huge popularity and cultural impact of fortune-telling among urban and literate Russians from the eighteenth century to the present. Based partly on a study of the numerous editions of little fortune-telling books, especially those devoted to dream interpretation, it documents and analyses the social history of fortune-telling in terms of class and gender, at the same time considering the function of both amateur and professional fortune-telling in a literate modernizing society. Chapters are devoted to professional fortune-tellers and their clients, and to the publishers of the books. An analysis of the relationship between urban fortune-telling and traditional oral culture, where divination played a very significant role, leads on to a discussion of the underlying reasons for the persistence of fortune-telling in modern Russian society.