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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Contemporary non-Christian & para-Christian cults & sects > General
In the Afro-Cuban Lukumi religious tradition - more commonly known
in the United States as Santeria - entrants into the priesthood
undergo an extraordinary fifty-three-week initiation period. During
this time, these novices - called iyawo - endure a host of
prohibitions, including most notably wearing exclusively white
clothing.A Year in White, sociologist C. Lynn Carr, who underwent
this initiation herself, opens a window on this remarkable
year-long religious transformation. In her intimate investigation
of the ""year in white"", Carr draws on fifty-two in-depth
interviews with other participants, an online survey of nearly two
hundred others, and almost a decade of her own ethnographic
fieldwork, gathering stories that allow us to see how cultural
newcomers and natives thought, felt, and acted with regard to their
initiation. She documents how, during the iyawo year, the ritual
slowly transforms the initiate's identity. For the first three
months, for instance, the iyawo may not use a mirror, even to
shave, and must eat all meals while seated on a mat on the floor
using only a spoon and their own set of dishes. During the entire
year, the iyawo loses their name and is simply addressed as
""iyawo"" by family and friends. Carr also shows that this
year-long religious ritual - which is carried out even as the iyawo
goes about daily life - offers new insight into religion in
general, suggesting that the sacred is not separable from the
profane and indeed that religion shares an ongoing dynamic
relationship with the realities of everyday life. Religious
expression happens at home, on the streets, at work and school.
Offering insight not only into Santeria but also into religion more
generally, A Year in White makes an important contribution to our
understanding of complex, dynamic religious landscapes in
multicultural, pluralist societies and how they inhabit our daily
lives.
D.M Langdon is a clairvoyant and clairaudient Spiritualist Medium,
who lives in Melbourne, Australia. The wisdom provided in 'A
Treatise on the Soul' is channelled wisdom received from a higher
spiritual source. D.M Langdon insists that she is not the author of
this book, merely the scribe. This will become immediately evident
to you, the reader, as you digest the majestic beauty of the words
and realise the profound, yet simple, wisdom imparted through these
pages. You will gain such comfort as you learn the truth of the
purpose of your life on Earth and the long and arduous journey of
the soul.
The purpose of the wisdom provided in this book is to help ease
the pain and suffering of everyday life, so that your short journey
on Earth is happy, harmonious and spiritually productive. 'A
Treatise on the Soul' touches on such topics as reincarnation,
karma and materialism, to name but a few. On reading this book, you
will discover the secret to happiness, and all the sorrow, pain and
angst of the human condition will pale into insignificance once you
understand its purpose.
This is a book that requires reading again and again, as with each
turn of the page you will become aware of hidden truths that jump
out at you, to settle anew on your heart and soul. The knowledge
will resonate deeply, and you will find that a calmness and
serenity of 'knowing' will envelop you. The journey through life
will be less rocky, and all obstacles on your path will be easier
to navigate.
This book is not to be missed. It will change your life.
What a strange and seemingly contradictory title for the latest
book in the hard-hitting, Pat Regan collection. In this
controversial, no-nonsense attack on fundamentalism Pat Regan
illustrates how the international public has been hoodwinked by the
devious forces of monotheism into blindly accepting alleged truths,
which are in fact nothing of the sort. Myth, Pagan traditions and
the bogus nature of world religions are all dealt with in the
illuminating pages of this book. Even life after death comes within
the exclusive sphere of this revolutionary work. The Devil God's
Best Friend takes us to new heights of spiritual awareness about
Planet Earth, the place we know as our organic home. Pat Regan's
unique Pagan background ensures that he is well-placed to openly
hammer out radical issues, such as the serious likelihood that
Jesus Christ was just a shrewd but extremely fraudulent invention;
created by 1st century myth-makers to promote their sectarian
agenda. The 'Devil' may be in the detail, yet the details are
stripped bare in this ground-breaking work. Also highlighted are
numerous compelling facts, such as how the Bible was a greatly-
adulterated fallacy, expediently finalised during a time when any
old lady living alone was fair game for witch-burning zealots. The
Devil God's Best Friend is an audacious book by a very
controversial author who is never afraid to 'tell it like it is '
This engrossing study will open minds and cut through the fog of
religious propaganda and ambiguity inflicted on humanity by the
self-righteous followers of one-god cults such as Christianity,
Islam and Judaism. The Devil God's Best Friend will potentially
provoke outrage everywhere and bring the fundamentalist lobby out
of the woodwork in droves It will also tell you 'why' the Devil
truly is God's best friend
Norse Revival offers a thorough investigation of Germanic
Neopaganism (Asatru) through an international and comprehensive
historical perspective. It traces Germanic Neopaganism's genesis in
German ultra-nationalist and occultist movements around 1900. Based
on ethnographic research of contemporary groups in Germany,
Scandinavia and North America, the book examines this alternative
Neopagan religion's transformations towards respectability and
mainstream thought after the 1970s. It asks which regressive and
progressive elements of a National Romantic discourse on Norse myth
have shaped Germanic Neopaganism. It demonstrates how these
ambiguous ideas about Nordic myth permeate general discourses on
race, religion, gender, sexuality, and aesthetics. Ultimately,
Norse Revival raises the question whether Norse mythology can be
freed from its reactionary ideological baggage.
Rizwan Qureshi is from Columbus, Texas, USA. He writes all his
personal knowledge, experiences, and 100 percent true information
about demons, pains, painless diseases, and cancer/infection
insects. He writes pure truth and only those things in this and
book 1, whatever he was dealing and experiencing by himself. His
source of knowledge is purely his own experiences with dealing with
supernatural, invisible demons, different kind of invisible pains
and painless diseases. According to him, cancer is a very easily
treatable and curable disease. As he sees it, thousands of demons
are residing in our houses around us. According to him, demons
cannot perform any physical activity by themselves. He explains
that, by nature, demons are very arrogant and extremely negative.
The author suggested several practical ideas, procedures, and
theories for common people, medical and modern science, on how they
can learn and handle demons, pains, painless diseases, and insects
responsible for cancer by themselves. The author is 100 percent
sure that after reading his books, everyone will be aware and will
be able to control the invisible parallel world around them. In
this book, he writes clear instructions for individuals on how they
can communicate and interact with the demons around them, how to
make demons around them their friends, and how to ask demons to do
some stuff for them. Author describes in detail how much stuff we
can expect our demon friends to do for us. Author writes very clear
and very easy instructions for an individual once someone decides
to learn how to communicate with demons. He advices everyone to
start practicing.
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1919 Edition.
This Is A New Release Of The Original 1910 Edition.
Each year thousands of young people serve as door-to-door witnesses
to spread their "restored gospel." Have you ever wondered what you
would do if the Mormon Missionaries knocked on your door? Do you
know enough to carry on a conversation with them? If not, then this
book is for you. In this second and updated edition, author Janis
Hutchinson goes behind the appearances to examine the Mormon
missionary program, from its unorthodox theological beliefs and
political agenda for America, to its carefully planned strategies
to win converts. The book contains updated statistics, and is
heavily researched and documented with 46 pages of endnotes. "A
researcher's dream " stated one reviewer. It also includes a new
chapter not found in the first edition that describes the LDS
Church's present evangelistic manual, Preach My Gospel, in which it
outlines the missionaries' lesson material, pointing out how it
differs from the 1986 Uniform System for Teaching the Gospel, used
up until 2003. "One of the most impressive aspects of this book,"
another reviewer said, "is the respect that Ms. Hutchinson shows
toward members of the Mormon Church."
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