"Darkness will not last forever. Together we can climb toward the light. They were as troubled as we, our ancestors, those who came before us, and all for the very same reasons: fear of illness, a broken heart, fights in the family, the threat of another war. Corrupt politicians walked their stage, and natural disasters appeared without warning. And yet they came through, carrying us within them, through the grief and struggle, through the personal pain and the public chaos, finding their way with love and faith, not giving in to despair but walking upright until their last step was taken. My culture does not honor the ancestors as a quaint spirituality of the past but as a living source of strength for the present. They did it and so will we. In the same voice that has comforted and challenged countless readers through his daily social media posts, Choctaw elder and Episcopal priest Steven Charleston offers words of hard-won hope, rooted in daily conversations with the Spirit and steeped in indigenous wisdom. Every day Charleston spends time in prayer. Every day he writes down what he hears from the Spirit. In Ladder to the Light he shares what he has heard with the rest of us and adds thoughtful reflection to help guide us to the light. Native America knows something about cultivating resilience and resisting darkness. For all who yearn for hope, Ladder to the Light is a book of comfort, truth, and challenge in a time of anguish and fear."

Mark L.Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet reveal the lives of the ascended masters and their cities of light in the heaven-world. In the many mansions of the Father's kingdom there are many masters--wayshowers, guides and teachers who have come to show us the way home. Some are the great avatars and prophets of history--Jesus, Gautama, Elijah, Confucius. Some are the unknown saints who have kept the flame through dark eras of earth's history. Some are great cosmic beings--Elohim, archangels and others--come to help the planet in a time of transition. They are known as the ascended masters of the Great White Brotherhood--the saints of all races and religions who have found that point of the white light from which all the rays of God emerge. In The Masters and Their Retreats, you will read the stories of their lives and the special message that each one brings. Learn about their retreats--temples and cities of light in the heaven-world where the unfed flame yet burns as it did in ancient golden ages. From Afra to Zarathustra, each one has a unique offering of the Christ consciousness that they have realized.

Zen master, monk, poet, and peace advocate, Thich Nhat Hanh is a true spiritual master of the twentieth century. Through his writings and retreats he has helped innumerable people of all religious backgrounds to live mindfully in the present moment, to uproot the sources of anger and distrust, and to achieve relationships of love and understanding. This volume, which draws on more than twenty books by Thich Nhat Hanh, is the essential introduction to his inspiring teaching.

Given the significance of spiritual direction in modern Christianity, surprisingly little attention has been given to the tradition upon which today’s spiritual direction is built. This book delinates the history of spiritual direction for women and by women within the larger context of the history of Christian spirituality and its understanding of human perfectibility. By examining the ways in which women practiced spiritual direction, this study reveals the degree to which women influenced society by using an avenue of influence previously overlooked by scholars.

Now I find myself in late August, with the nights cool and the crickets thick in the fields. Already the first blighted leaves glow scarlet on the red maples. It’s a season of fullness and sweet longings made sweeter now by the fact that I can’t be sure I’ll see this time of the year again....
— from Learning to Fall

Philip Simmons was just thirty-five years old in 1993 when he learned that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and was told he had less than five years to live. As a young husband and father, and at the start of a promising literary career, he suddenly had to learn the art of dying. Nine years later, he has succeeded, against the odds, in learning the art of living.

Now, in this surprisingly joyous and spirit-renewing book, he chronicles his search for peace and his deepening relationship with the mystery of everyday life.

Set amid the rugged New Hampshire mountains he once climbed, and filled with the bustle of family life against the quiet progression of illness, Learning to Fall illuminates the journey we all must take — “the work of learning to live richly in the face of loss.”

From our first faltering steps, Simmons says, we may fall into disappointment or grief, fall into or out of love, fall from youth or health. And though we have little choice as to the timing or means of our descent, we may, as he affirms, “fall with grace, to grace.”

With humor, hard-earned wisdom and a keen eye for life’s lessons — whether drawn from great poetry or visits to the town dump — Simmons shares his discovery that even at times of great sorrow we may find profound freedom. And by sharing the wonder of his daily life, he offers us the gift of connecting more deeply and joyously with our own.


From the Hardcover edition.

This comprehensive anthology contains writings vital to all the major non-Western religious traditions, arranged thematically. It includes colourful descriptions of deities, creation myths, depictions of death and the afterlife, teachings on the relationship between humanity and the sacred, religious rituals and practices, and prayers and hymns.Mircea Eliade, a recognized pioneer in the systematic study of the history of the world’s religions, includes excerpts from the Quran, the Book of the Dead, the Rig Veda, the Bhagavad Gita, the Homeric Hymns, and the Popol Vuh, to name just a few. Oral accounts from Native American, African, Maori, Australian Aborigine, and other people are also included.

While the modern science of medicine often seems nothing short of miraculous, religion still plays an important role in the past and present of many hospitals. When three-quarters of Americans believe that God can cure people who have been given little or no chance of survival by their doctors, how do today's technologically sophisticated health care organizations address spirituality and faith? Through a combination of interviews with nurses, doctors, and chaplains across the United States and close observation of their daily routines, Wendy Cadge takes readers inside major academic medical institutions to explore how today's doctors and hospitals address prayer and other forms of religion and spirituality. From chapels to intensive care units to the morgue, hospital caregivers speak directly in these pages about how religion is part of their daily work in visible and invisible ways. In Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine, Cadge shifts attention away from the ongoing controversy about whether faith and spirituality should play a role in health care and back to the many ways that these powerful forces already function in healthcare today.

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The Myth and Ritual Theory" provides the first sourcebook for one of the most influential theories of myth, the theory which connects myth to rituals. Both classic and contemporary readings are brought together in this unique volume. The selections cover the theory from the origin in biblical and classical studies to its spread to the study of religions worldwide and to its extension to literature and the social sciences. Critics as well as exponents of the theory are well represented. In his lucid introduction, Robert A. Segal, a leading authority on the theories of myth, systematically charts the history of the theory from its beginnings to the present.

The follow-up to his award-winning book THE KNOWLEDGE SEEKER, Blair Stonechild's LOSS OF INDIGENOUS EDEN AND THE FALL OF SPIRITUALITY continues to explore the Indigenous spiritual teachings passed down to the author by Elders, examining their relevance in today's world. Exploring how the rise of civilisation has been antithetical to the relational philosophy of Indigenous thinking -- whereby all things are interrelated and in need of care and respect -- Stonechild demonstrates how the current global ideology of human dominance, economic growth, and technological progress has resulted in all-consuming and destructive appetites that are damaging relationships between humans and the natural world. Most troubling is the loss of respect for spirituality so fundamental to Indigenous stability. There must be international reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, their culture and spirituality, Stonechild insists, if humanity itself is to survive.

In a world dominated by secular values, where science claims a monopoly on knowledge and truth, it often seems that there is little place for the spiritual explanation. But to reject the religious worldview is to deny answers to questions where science has so far given none. Although it can provide many truths, science, with its varying levels of precision, and continually changing theories, often contains many philosophical and metaphysical dogmas, and does not have the capacity to make a coherent and true worldview. Either implicitly or explicitly, it presents an image of an exclusively material universe, where everything happens by accident, and seems no more than a philosophical extrapolation gleaned from a few selectively chosen pieces of data. It is as a counterweight to this "blind universe" that The Scientist and the Saint, quoting both a wide array of scientists and the revelatory testimonies of centuries of saints and truth-seekers, provides a more nuanced knowledge of the heart of existence. It is a call to the inward dimension, to the mysticism that reflects the heart and the deepest meaning of every religion, and above all a way out of the confusion and lack of direction in today's troubled world.

Incredibly, the ingredients of a hugely successful life cost nothing at all. In fact, we mass-produce 60,000 of them every day. These are the thoughts that our mind creates. They are responsible for the happiness and distress we experience. They are the precursors of all we do. We grapple with improving our actions, only to find our attempts undone by impure thinking. If we focus on transforming our thoughts instead, incredible results will accrue from a fraction of the efforts. Since all aspects of our life are so strongly linked to our thoughts, we have much to gain by deepening our understanding of them. In this book, Swami Mukundananda, a world-renowned spiritual teacher from India and an internationally acclaimed mind-management authority, will teach you about watching your thoughts, directing them, dismantling harmful thought structures, creative thinking, meditation and much more. When you focus on revolutionizing your thoughts-the most fundamental aspect of inner personality-you will discover yourself evolving to divine heights to fulfil the purpose of your life.

JOURNEY BEYOND WORDS was given as a companion to A COURSE IN MIRACLES. A COURSE IN MIRACLES has set in motion a tidal wave that continues to change the contours of all the spiritual shores on which it beats. And with its spread there arise new needs among

Many have used the term 'tragic' to refer to African American religious and cultural experience. After a studied meditation on and articulation of the 'tragic vision,' Johnson argues that African American Christian Consciousness is an expression of the tragic and a tragic expression of the Christian Faith.

This is the world bible for mystics, with entries from hundreds of men and women saints from all ages and religions. This volume stresses the beauty of religious language and mystical experience, including hundreds of entries from the greatest poets and mystics of all time. Included are selections from William Blake, Ramakrishna, Rumi, St. John of the Cross, Osho, Tagore, Chuang Tzu and another 150 more mystics from the Christian, Sufi, Hindu, Jewish, Taoist and Buddhist traditions.