This book takes a look at mankind's religious needs by exploring the origins of religious beliefs, the evolution of religion, the spread of religious beliefs around the world, and some of the questions of ethics, morality and logic that religion does not, and indeed cannot answer. Mr. Shaw maintains that is not necessary to believe in a Creator in order to derive meaning out of life. Good and bad events will happen whether or not we believe in a God, and the fight against evil can be won without religious beliefs. The author concludes that mankind's religious beliefs have become entirely inappropriate, and that humans have outgrown their need for the supernatural. The survival of the human species depends upon mankind's own inner strengths and resources, and not upon any gods or spirits.

1929. A collection of essays and works selected from the writings of such authors as: Thomas Henry Huxley; Charles Darwin; Sir Oliver Lodge; John Dewey; Samuel Butler; F. Nietzsche; Albert Bigelow Paine; Mark Twain; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Matthew Arnold; Thomas Hardy; George Santayana; Lucian; Omar Khayyam; Plato; William Blake; John Keats; Alfred Edward Housman; Christina Georgina Rossetti; and many more.

A refreshingly honest spiritual exploration from the New York Times bestselling author of the Anna Pigeon novels.
Actor, adventuress, seeker of truth, and author of the New York Times bestselling Anna Pigeon mystery series, Nevada Barr beckons readers to share her spiritual search for meaning in life.
Hat by hat, step by step, Barr leads readers down her path to enlightenment by sharing personal episodes, some of them funny and revealing, others painfully honest. Each chapter offers a truth or an answer forged through experience and deep reflection, and a nugget of insight certain to encourage thought and discussion among readers, who may, in turn, find their own spiritual language.

Jean Meslier, a Roman Catholic Priest, who, after pastoral service of thirty years wholly abjured religious dogmas left as his last will and testament to be published after his death this book originally entitled Common Sense. The book includes a biography of Meslier by Voltaire.

1) A Previewlite is a Child of God, serving God to the best of his/her ability, given his/her experiences. 2) A Saint is a Child of God, serving God to the best of his/her ability, given his/her ex

The I Ching is the written spiritual language of the Stone Age. Ten thousand years ago the subtle energies of life were widely understood by an enlightened neolithic priesthood, and eventually recorded to pass on to succeeding generations. Stone Age people also had an instinctive understanding of the magnetic currents that run through the earth. They used dowsing and rock art to interpret and pass on this knowledge of metaphysics. The author unifies the ancient earth energies from 3000 B.C. and their connection to the I Ching, connecting the 64 hexagrams to the 64 codons of DNA. Thus he accesses a flash of opened consciousness, past, present and future, as time and space momentarily combine to answer the eternal questions What is God' and Who am I

One of the peculiarities of Bulwer was his passion for occult studies. They had a charm for him early in life, and he pursued them with the earnestness which characterized his pursuit of other studies. He became absorbed in wizard lore; he equipped himself with magical implements, -- with rods for transmitting influence, and crystal balls in which to discern coming scenes and persons; and communed with spiritualists and mediums. The fruit of these mystic studies is seen in _Zanoni_ and A strange Story, romances which were a labor of love to the author, and into which he threw all the power he possessed, -- power re-enforced by multifarious reading and an instinctive appreciation of Oriental thought.

Claiming Sacred Ground
Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona

Adrian J. Ivakhiv

A study of people and politics at two New Age spiritual sites.

In this richly textured account, Adrian Ivakhiv focuses on the activities of pilgrim-migrants to Glastonbury, England and Sedona, Arizona. He discusses their efforts to encounter and experience the spirit or energy of the land and to mark out its significance by investing it with sacred meanings. Their endeavors are presented against a broad canvas of cultural and environmental struggles associated with the incorporation of such geographically marginal places into an expanding global cultural economy.

Ivakhiv sees these contested and "heterotopic" landscapes as the nexus of a complex web of interestes and longings: from millennial anxieties and nostalgic re-imaginings of history and prehistory; to real-estate power grabs; contending religious visions; and the free play of ideas from science, pseudo-science, and popular culture. Looming over all this is the nonhuman life of these landscapes, an"otherness" that alternately reveals and conceals itself behind a pagenant of beliefs, images, and place-myths.

A significant contribution to scholarship on alternative spirituality, sacred space, and the politics of natural landscapes, Claiming Sacred Ground will interest scholars and students of environmental and cultural studies, and the sociology of religious movements and pilgrimage. Non-specialist readers will be stimulated by the cultural, ecological, and spiritual dimensions of extraordinary natural landscapes.

Adrian Ivakhiv teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, and is President of the Environmental Studies Association of Canada.

April 2001
384 pages, 24 b&w photos, 2 figs., 9 maps, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, index, append.
cloth 0-253-33899-9 $37.40 s / 28.50

Contents

I DEPARTURES
1 Power and Desire in Earth s
Tangled Web
2 Reimagining Earth
3 Orchestrating Sacred Space

II Glastonbury
4 Stage, Props, and Players of Avalon
5 Many Glastonburys: Place-Myths
and Contested Spaces

III SEDONA
6 Red Rocks to Real Estate
7 New Agers, Vortexes, and the
Sacred Landscape

IV ARRIVALS
8 Practices of Place: Nature and
Heterotopia Beyond the New Age"

Recent years have seen a spectacular rise of the New Age movement and an ever-increasing interest in its beliefs and manifestations.
This fascinating work presents the first-ever comprehensive analysis of New Age Religion and its historical backgrounds, thus providing the reader with a means of orientation in the bewildering variety of the movement.
Making extensive use of primary sources, the author thematically analyses New Age beliefs from the perspective of the study of religions. While looking at the historical backgrounds of the movement, he convincingly argues that its foundations were laid by so-called western esoteric traditions during the Renaissance. Hanegraaff finally shows how the modern New Age movement emerged from the increasing secularization of those esoteric traditions during the 19th century.
This ground-breaking publication is compulsive reading for all those involved or interested in the New Age movement.

New religious movements - popularly know as 'cults'- arouse strong public opinion and most books on the subject are polemical, giving hostile reaction rather than informed exploration. Exploring New Religions provides an account of a wide variety of new religions, focusing on their origins, beliefs and practices, which are set out in a compelling but dispassionate way, leaving readers to form their own judgements. Chryssides provides important analysis of the 'killer cults' - the Jonestown Peoples Temple, Waco, the Solar Temple and Heaven's Gate - and examines the factors that made their followers willing to die for their cause. Older groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) are discussed, and the author traces the development of a variety of strands of spirituality, ranging from New Thought to Transcendentalism and Theosophy. Subsequent chapters include: the Baha'i, The Family (formerly Children of God), the Hare Krishna Movement (ISKCON), The jesus Army, the Rastafarians, the Church of Scientology , Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Unification Church ('the Moonies').Some less well-known groups are also featured: est (Erhard Seminar Training), the new Kadampa Tradition, Brahma Kumaris, Sai Baba, Subud and the Western Buddhist Order. Also included is a study of the New Age phenomenon, and an account of responses to new religions, at religious, societal and political levels. This is an important new study of new religious movements, which should prove invaluable to scholars,students and clergy as well ak to those whose lives have been affected by new religions. George D. Chryssides is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He has had many years of direct acquaintance with new religions, and has written extensively on the subject. His definitive work on the Unification Church, The Advent of Sun Myung Moon, was published in 1991.

These 41 chapters explain the dynamics of how the sadhu appeared in the pure mind for Ramakrishna and acted as teacher. Includes: The Cultic Mindset, The Guru Dilemma, Spiritual Solutions to Psychological Equations, and more.

Contents: How is Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Attained; The Stages of Initiation; Some Practical Aspects; The Condition of Training; Some Results of Training; The Transformation of Dream Life; The Continuity of Consciousness; The Partition of Human Personality During Spiritual Training; The Guardian of the Threshold; The Second Guardian of the Threshold; Appendix.

In the era of globalization, change is the order of the day, but the conventional view of the Arab Middle East is that of a rigid and even stagnant region. This book counters the static perception and focuses instead on regional dynamics. The international team of contributors evaluate the development of Arab civil society; examine the opportunities and challenges facing the Arab media; link the debates concerning Arab political thought to the evolving regional and international context; look at the transformation of armed Islamist movements into deradicalized factions; assess how and to what extent women's empowerment is breaking down patriarchy; and analyze the rise of non-state actors such as Hizbollah and Hamas that rival central political authority.

In this history of the development of human consciousness, Steiner makes the startling announcement that the world actually ended in the fourth century A.D. Since then we have been living in an increasingly spiritual world on a disintegrating, dying earth. We have simply been asleep to this spiritual reality around us.

In his first major book since the phenomenal bestseller The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav reveals a revolutionary new path for spiritual growth. A great transformation is taking place. We are evolving beyond the limits of our five senses and increasingly able to access data that we could not previously detect. A new and surprising world is emerging, around us and within us. If we choose to realize its potential, we will forever alter our experiences of ourselves, our relationships and our surroundings. Gary Zukav explains how a powerful new dynamic is at play in human relationships. By focusing attention on the interior rather than the outer causes of suffering or joy, we can reach our full potential and generate authentic power, co-creating rewarding partnerships of substance and depth for the purposes of our mutual spiritual growth. Filled with fascinating examples as well as practical guidance, this remarkable book is the roadmap to profound change, pointing towards a fulfi lling, joyful way of life for us all.