There is something about a shapeshifter--a person who can transform into an animal--that captures our imagination; that causes us to want to howl at the moon, or flit through the night like a bat. Werewolves, vampires, demons, and other weird creatures appeal to our animal nature, our "dark side," our desire to break free of the bonds of society and proper behavior. Real or imaginary, shapeshifters lurk deep in our psyches and remain formidable cultural icons. The myths, magic, and meaning surrounding shapeshifters are brought vividly to life in John B. Kachuba's compelling and original cultural history. Rituals in early cultures worldwide seemingly allowed shamans, sorcerers, witches, and wizards to transform at will into animals and back again. Today, there are millions of people who believe that shapeshifters walk among us and may even be world leaders. Featuring a fantastic and ghoulish array of examples from history, literature, film, TV, and computer games, Shapeshifters explores our secret desire to become something other than human.

This travel guide combines the history and lore of America's most famous highway with sixty-six spine tingling tales of ghostly encounters. From spooky roadhouse honky-tonks to haunted hotels, what could be more fun than a good ghost story? Includes maps, photographs, addresses and phone numbers of all the spectral sites along the route.

A compelling blueprint for deep healing in the 21st century. Dr. Robin Kelly draws from current science and 30 years of experience in conventional medicine to show that our bodies are truly human antennae, bound together by connective tissue that acts as a conductor of information from the universe around us.

Spooky Stories to tell even after the campfire burns out! Unfold a camp chair, huddle close to the fire, and get ready for thirty creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences from times past. Set deep in the woods where no sane person would dare to go, along murky bottomless lakes, and on cobblestone streets that empty before sundown, the
stories in this entertaining and compelling collection will have you looking over your shoulder again and again.
Bone-chilling, frightful folklore traditions are kept alive in these expert retellings by master storyteller S. E. Schlosser and through artist Paul Hoffman's evocative illustrations. You'll meet ghosts and witches, hear things that go bump in the night, and feel an icy wind on the back of your neck even as you inch
closer to the crackling, glowing embers. Whether read in a group around the campfire on a dark and silent night or alone with a flashlight from the safety of your sleeping bag, this is a collection to treasure.

A New Kind of Travelogue Take an unusual, sometimes spooky, but always fun trip through the Golden State with this little travel companion-perfect for toting on an impromptu road trip or long-planned vacation. Visit the haunted Star of India and USS Hornet. Find out who is really living in a mysterious ghost town and wandering the halls of the "stateliest ship afloat." Experience the electrifying ghosts of Universal Studios and the invisible inmates who forever roam "the Rock." Ten popular and easy-to-access locations will show readers what a dark vacation is all about. From Alcatraz to the Calico Mountains to San Diego's Old Town, California is a haunted paradise ready for you to explore . . . if you dare!

How could multiple ancient cultures, spanning both years and geography, have strikingly similar creation myths and cosmologies? Why do the Dogon of Africa and the civilizations of ancient Egypt, India, Tibet, and China share sacred words and symbols? Revealing the existence of a long-forgotten primal culture and the world's first center of higher learning, Laird Scranton shows how the sophisticated complex at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is the definitive point of origin from which all the great civilizations of the past inherited their cosmology, esoteric teachings, and civilizing skills, such as agriculture, metallurgy, and stone masonry, fully developed. Scranton explains how the carved images on Gobekli Tepe's stone pillars were the precursors to the sacred symbols of the Dogon, Egyptians, Tibetans, and Chinese as well as the matriarchal Sakti cult of ancient Iran and India. Scranton reveals how Gobekli Tepe's enigmatic "H" carvings and animal symbolism, symbolic of stages of creation, was presented as a kind of prototype of written language accessible to the hunter-gathers who inhabited the region. He shows how the myths and deities of many ancient cultures are connected linguistically, extending even to the name of Gobekli Tepe and the Egyptian concept of Zep Tepi, the mythical age of the "First Time." Identifying Gobekli Tepe not only as the first university but also as the first temple, perhaps built as a civilizing exercise, Scranton definitively places this enigmatic archaeological site at the point of origin of civilization, religion, and ancient science.

14 lectures, Munich, May 22- June 6, 1907 (CW 99) The work of Rudolf Steiner is unique in the way it combines esoteric teaching with practical suggestions for the development of social life. Indeed, we know Steiner today mostly because of the various applications of his ideas in such areas as education, medicine, and agriculture. However, society could not have developed any of these without the coherent and profound body of spiritual knowledge at the core of Steiner's work. In Rosicrucian Wisdom--one of Rudolf Steiner's most complete introductions to modern spirituality--he speaks from the very stream of Rosicrucian teaching. Rather than borrowing old ideas from historical tradition, however, he presents a wholly new contribution that arises from the results of his own experiential, spiritual research. Steiner discusses of the Rosicrucian path as the one appropriate for modern spiritual seekers in the West. He warns the reader that Rosicrucian teaching should not be taken as abstract theory; rather than remaining in the head, or even in the heart, spiritual ideas should reach into daily action and transform all aspects of life. He goes on to describe many facets of spiritual truth, including the law of destiny, the fact of life after death, means of developing spiritual vision, humanity's past and future evolution, and much more. This volume contains one of the best lecture courses for gaining a deeper understanding of the spiritual principles behind Anthroposophy. Rosicrucian Wisdom is a translation from the German Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers (GA 99). A previous translation was titled The Theosophy of the Rosicrucians.

A collection of investigations into strange and mysterious phenomena from around the world. * Explores ancient and modern sacred sites, places of power, natural wonders, altered states, UFO encounters, and the afterlife * Investigates sites and phenomena in Egypt, China, Ireland, and throughout North America, including Oak Island, Florida's Coral Castle, Wisconsin's UFO hot-spot, and giant-built constructions in Illinois * Examines the forgotten or suppressed work of extraordinary personalities, including Jules Verne, Sir Francis Bacon, and the real-life Indiana Jones, Count Byron de Prorok Sharing his personal investigations into a wide range of ancient mysteries and paranormal enigmas in America and abroad, Frank Joseph takes us on a journey into the high strangeness of our world. Beginning with the work of the master builders of antiquity, the author examines Old World connections with New World sacred centers, such as the similarities between Ohio's Mound City and the pyramids and tombs of the Giza Plateau, as well as ancient American cities of the Sun, China's Great Pyramid, and the possibility of a Templar treasure on Oak Island. He explores modern sacred sites, such as Iowa's Grotto of Gems, Tennessee's Greek Temple of the goddess Athena, and Florida's Coral Castle. He investigates pre-Columbian sites and underwater pyramids in the Midwest, Wisconsin's UFO hot-spot, lost Aztec Cities of Gold in Kansas, and giant-built constructions in Illinois. He details how the intriguing acoustics of Newgrange in Ireland are echoed in its spiral carvings. Exploring spiritual uses of altered states, he looks at the practices of Minoan snake handlers, Mayan shamans, and prophets through the ages.

'A major work ... an extraordinary tour de force, [this book] will materially help to bring both sides (science and paranormal studies) together in a way which could lead to real and important advances in our view of the universe' - New Scientist First published in 1978, Mysteries is the powerful and enlightening sequel to The Occult, continuing Colin Wilson's investigations into the paranormal, the occult and the supernatural. The experience of his own panic attacks gave Wilson his insight into the concept of the ladder or hierarchy of selves with which we are all associated. In this book he fully explores this idea of multiple selves, explaining how our lower, childish selves are linked to depression and anxiety. The book offers an optimistic message to counteract our contemporary tendency towards pessimism and nihilism: purposeful activity will always allow us to call on our higher selves and bring concentration, control and a sense of meaning into life. Wilson uses the concept of the multi-personality to explain a wide range of paranormal phenomenon, from dowsing and demonic possession to precognition and spoon-bending, and he analyses the work of all the big names in 20th-century supra-rational research (from T C Lethbridge to Margaret Murray to Carl Jung) from this perspective. The story ranges widely, from the stone circles to 1960s LSD adventures, and Wilson's analysis is woven with hundreds of entertaining paranormal anecdotes and case studies taken from throughout history, including his own experiences of dowsing at the Merry Maidens stone circle and of visions and lucid dreaming.

Throughout the ages, people have given the fairy kingdom various names. To some it was Paradise, to others Tir-nan-Og, Avalon, Country Underneath the Sea, Fairy Land, World of Immortal Youth, Land of Heart's Desire, Land of Life, or the Middle Kingdom. Fairy tales - the stories of this kingdom - are not only folk literature but also accounts of the subtler layers of fact clothed in poetic imagery. Rudolf Steiner was a close observer of the fairy kingdom and gave many lectures that describe the work of its inhabitants, whom he called elementals. It was clear to Steiner that these elementals were of great importance to the Earth, charged not only with the maintenance of Nature's household, but also with her evolutionary plans. He also spoke of how vital it is that we get to know these fairy workers and honor the work they do, so that their efforts prosper to carry the Earth forward in its evolution. Written and illustrated by two insightful women who experienced the fairy kingdom directly, this book offers a profound, yet simple introduction to fairy worlds and workers. Includes Ingrid Gibb's color paintings of the four races of Little People: Undines (water spirits), Gnomes (earth spirits), Sylphs (air spirits), and Fire-Spirits.

One of the most trusted reference works ever published on the Cabala, now available in a deluxe hardcover edition. This book is a complete guide to Cabalistic magic in which every demon, angel, power, and name of God every Sephirah, Path, and Plane of the Tree of Life and each attribute and association is fully described and cross-indexed by the Hebrew, English, and numerical forms. An invaluable reference tool for all Cabalists, pathworkers, magicians, and scholars, Godwin s Cabalistic Encyclopedia explores the most important terms from the Hebrew language, Freemasonry, the Cthulhu mythos, the Aurum Solis, and much more.

EGYPT / MYSTICISM"Erudite, rigorously developed, impeccably supported, observing all scholarly ground rules, yet revolutionary in its implications. This book should engage serious readers the world over." John Anthony West, author of The Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt"A splendid melding of fine scholarship and passionate engagement with themes that are vitally important to us today. It is must reading not only for lovers of Egypt, students of shamanism and religion, and modern practitioners of soul travel, but for all of us who hunger for the real history of humanity's encounters with the more-than-human." Robert Moss, author of Dreamgates: An Explorer's Guide to the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death "A fabulously convincing piece of work." Normandi Ellis, author of Awakening Osiris To the Greek philosophers and other peoples of the ancient world, Egypt was regarded as the home of a profound mystical wisdom. While there are many today who still share that view, the consensus of most Egyptologists is that there is no evidence that a mystical tradition existed in ancient Egypt. This book presents the evidence by radically reinterpreting the Pyramid Texts--the earliest body of religious literature that has survived from ancient Egypt--and the ritual context to which these texts belonged. Until now, the Pyramid Texts have been viewed primarily as royal funerary texts that were used in the liturgy of the dead pharaoh or to aid him in his afterlife journey. Jeremy Naydler argues that they are mystical texts that speak of the experiences not of the dead but of the living king. Thrust into extreme psychological and existential predicaments, and undergoingperilous encounters with alternate realities, the experiences of the king are remarkably similar to those described in the literature of shamanism. Far from expressing ancient Egyptian funerary beliefs, the Pyramid Texts are revealed as initiatory texts that give voice to a potent shamanic wisdom, which provides the key to understanding both the true nature of these experiences and the basis of ancient Egyptian mysticism.JEREMY NAYDLER, Ph.D., is a philosopher who has for many years been interested in the religious life of ancient cultures, receiving his doctorate in religious studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He is the author of Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred and Goethe on Science. He lives in Oxford, England.

... SWIRLED NEWS FROM THE FRONT LINE ... Michael Glickman has increasingly lived and breathed crop circles since his first exposure to them over 15 years ago. This is his hilarious crop circle journal or occasional blog - adapted, edited and compiled from columns in various underground crop circle journals, including the legendary Cereologist, the highly subversive Sussex Circular and the eclectic Swirled News. Witty, incisive, and profoundly thought-provoking, Cornography throws a special light on to that old chestnut, more important today than ever: How does mankind deal with miracles? "The funniest book I've read for decades" Ofmil C. Haines Jnr. "I love this book" God

EXPLORE A STRANGE LAND KEPT HIDDEN FROM THE PUBLIC - HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME IS THE SECRET DIARY OF ONE OF THE GREATEST ADVENTURERS WHO HAS EVER LIVED. - PLUS PROOF THAT THERE IS A VAST, UNCHARTED, CIVILIZATION EXISTS INSIDE THE PLANET -- IN the year 1947 Admiral Richard E. Byrd made a flight into the South Polar region of the world. Before he started on the venture, Byrd made a mysterious statement: "I'd like to see that land beyond the Pole. That area beyond the Pole in the center of the great unknown." In the cockpit of his plane was a powerful, two-way radio. When Byrd and his scientific companions took off from their base at the South Pole, they managed to fly 1700 miles beyond it. That's when the radio in Byrd's plane was put into use to report something utterly incredible. There was a strange great valley below them. For some unknown reason, the valley Byrd saw was not ice-covered as it should have been in the frigid Antarctic. It was green and luxuriant. There were mountains with thick forest of trees on them, there was lush grass and underbrush. Most amazing, a huge animal was observed moving through the underbrush. In a land of ice, snow and almost perpetual "deep-freeze" ...here was a stupendous MYSTERY. Byrd had discovered a strange great valley just beyond the South Pole, where the weather temperature, believe it or not, was evidently something like 75 degrees. Suddenly the press and radio were "hushed up." After the first brief messages leaked through to newspapers, no further confirmation of the big discovery was given. Was it merely a hoax? Some newsman's joke? I think not. I believe that Byrd came upon the location of a great doorway or entrance leading deep into the unknown interior of the Earth The "Great Door" at the South Pole region. Having found that, it is believe he guessed no longer. He then KNEW beyond the shadow of a doubt that this secret "Door" must open into the Cavern world. He would go there and find out...see for himself the wonder and everlasting mystery of the unknown INNER Earth. Here is the long rumored "missing" diary of Admiral Byrd which tells exactly what Bryd and his men discovered. Why have we not been permitted this information? Why is it that some have been warned not to talk about what has been discovered? TWO BOOKS IN ONE In addition to the text of Admiral Byrd's diary is a rare, "long lost" manuscript by William Reed who puts forward his theory that we live on the outside of a hollow globe. Based upon the journals of various seafarers who have explored the regions around the poles, Reed puts forward the following questions: 1.Why is the earth flattened at the poles? 2.Why have the poles never been reached? 3.Why does the sun not appear for so long in winter near the supposed poles? 4.Assuming that the earth is hollow, the interior should be warmer. 5.We must now resort to the compass. Does it refuse to work when drawing near the supposed poles? 6.Meteors are constantly falling near the supposed poles. Why? 7.The next query is concerning the great quantities of dust constantly found in the Arctic Ocean. What causes this dust? 8.What produces the Aurora Borealis? 9.Icebergs are next in order. Where are they formed? And how 10.What causes tidal waves? 11.What causes colored snow in the Arctic region? 12.Why are the nights so long in the polar regions? 13.What causes the great ice-pressure in the Arctic Ocean during still tide and calm weather? 14.Why is the ice filled with rock, gravel, and sand? This is a book that will intrigue and fascinate. It is like nothing you have ever encountered before

Weave the Enchanted Realm of Faeries into Your Life

Working with the Faery realm is not about escaping from reality--it is about engaging with it on every level. Prepare to embark on a spiritual journey unlike anything you've ever known Faery Craft is a comprehensive guide to the modern Faery lifestyle and an essential handbook to human-faerie relations. Brimming with practical and spiritual advice, you'll discover how to use Faery magick, create altars, and find a Faery ally. Learn about proper etiquette, find your unique gifts, use the Faery zodiac, explore Faery festivals around the globe, and much more.

Enjoy nearly 200 beautiful photographs alongside original art, poetry, and meditations, as well as interviews with renowned Faery authors, artists, and musicians. R. J. Stewart, John and Caitlin Matthews, Brian and Wendy Froud, Linda Ravenscroft, S. J. Tucker, and Charles de Lint are all featured in this glittering introduction to the fae and the people who love them.

Praise: "This book shows us that to connect with Faery is to connect not only with nature, spirit, and the world around us, but perhaps most of all to ourselves."--Wendy and Brian Froud, authors of The Heart of Faerie

"Faery Craft opens doors into other worlds and allows its readers to pass though them and experience the wonders beyond . . . This is a tremendous book."--John Matthews, author of The Sidhe and How To See Faeries

"Carding invites you to find the real power in the woods and forgotten ways."--Caitlin Matthews, author of Celtic Visions and Singing the Soul Back Home

Fact or Fiction? Vampires, aliens, psychics, and fallen angels are taking up more and more space in the public imagination as well as in popular movies and TV shows. Encounters with the paranormal, and darker stories of unexplained phenomena can attract our attention in ways we don t always understand. This revised and expanded edition of The Dark Side of the Supernatural provides a riveting and up-to-date investigation of all things paranormal. Bill Myers and David Wimbish bring the power of biblical guidance---as well as years of research, interviews, and encounters with supernatural topics---to help open your eyes to what is real and what is fantasy. If you re curious about these subjects or who have friends that are caught up in them, this book will help you uncover the truth about: * Vampires * Witches and Wicca * Satanism * Ghosts * Angels and demons * And much more Bill Myers has spent years researching supernatural phenomenon, and has even made movies about it. In this book, he ll share his research, along with interviews and true-life experiences of psychics, Satanists, people who have been possessed, and even abducted by aliens. The stories he shares may sound like Hollywood movies, but they are based on real events. His encounters with a variety of supernatural topics will open your eyes to what is real and what is fantasy. You ll learn more about: * Wicca and witches * Reincarnation * UFO s * Ouija boards * Angels and demons * Ghosts and near-death experiences * Satanism * Vampires, and more If you re curious about these issues, or have friends who are caught up in them, The Dark Side of the Supernatural will uncover the truth and explain how to help."