Delve into the mysterious animal kingdom with 44 beautifully drawn oracle cards on black background of animal and mythical archetypes that focus on the four Earthly elements. Through the included easy-to-use guidebook, allow these majestic creatures to assist you with their messages, lessons, and advice as you follow your own spiritual path. Find your totem animal spirit guide, and experience how animal wisdom adds to your day-to-day circumstances, questions, and long-term growth. Explore self-awareness and emotional and energetic diversity and understand the importance of Mother Nature. Pick a card a day to meditate on, use the cards as stand-alone pieces within simple to complex spreads, or add them to other oracle and Tarot decks to expand the messages from Spirit. Find that primal, core piece of you that is waiting to be reawakened with the powerful connection to your animal allies with wild elements!

In the midst of the religious ferment, foreign invasions, and internal political strife that beset Italy before the full effects of the Counter-Reformation, the powerful and humble alike turned to popular prophecy for guidance and solace. Ottavia Niccoli examines here the forms of these prophecies--including interpretations of natural disasters, abnormal births, floods, and planetary conjunctions--and gives examples of how they were transmitted from the lower classes to the elite through street singers, apocalyptic preachers, astrologers, and printers. By tracing the ongoing revision of the prophecies, Niccoli reveals them as an indication of how various levels of society viewed events of the time, as a form of propaganda for such causes as anti-Lutheranism, and as a reflection of the interaction between "high" and "low" culture.

Based on popular leaflets, diaries, civic chronicles, and iconographic sources, this book explores the expression of a culture in which nature, religion, and politics formed a unified system with a uniform code of interpretation. It connects the decline of prophecy in Italy with the end of the Italian wars and the beginning of the Counter-Reformation, when popular preaching was banned and charismatic religion discouraged.

Since ancient times, divination has been an important tool for seeking guidance from the gods. Fortunately, several ancient divination systems are available to us today. The Oracles of Apollo shows how to use two surviving divination systems-the Alphabet Oracle (dating from early third century Greek culture) and the Counsels of the Seven Sages, which were inscribed on tablets at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. There are several different techniques for consulting each oracle. This book provides rituals based in ancient practice for consecrating your divinatory tools and for conducting the most effective divinations. You will also discover important insights into the history and mythology of ancient divinatory practices.