Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place, 500-1500, focuses on the unique ways that natural materials carry the spirit of place. Since early Christianity, wood, earth, water and stone were taken from loca sancta to signify them elsewhere. Academic discourse has indiscriminately grouped material tokens from holy places and their containers with architectural and topographical emulations, two-dimensional images and bodily relics. However, unlike textual or visual representations, natural materials do not describe or interpret the Holy Land; they are part of it. Tangible and timeless, they realize the meaning of their place of origin in new locations. What makes earth, stones or bottled water transported from holy sites sacred? How do they become pars pro toto, signifying the whole from which they were taken? This book will examine natural media used for translating loca sancta, the processes of their sanctification and how, although inherently abstract, they become charged with meaning. It will address their metamorphosis, natural or induced; how they change the environment to which they are transported; their capacity to translate a static and distant site elsewhere; the effect of their relocation on users/viewers; and how their containers and staging are used to communicate their substance.

Can there be God-conscious organizational behaviour in the real world of today's capitalist corporations and the alternatives? In this overview of God-consciousness as a moral-awareness model of preference formation, functions, structures, and programs of organization within the purview of institutions and society, the authors explain and compare the major ethical issues of organizational behaviour and structure in Islamic economic theory and application. By analysing the nature of inclusive organizations and institutions, and the ethical preferences in Islamic choice framework, the authors from Saudi Arabia, Australia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Canada, Indonesia and the UK, can highlight individual aspects to show whether capitalist organizational behaviour is sustainable. They describe how The Tawhidi epistemological framework governing conscious moral decision-making by institutions and organization, are used to establish the meaning and potential application of the concept of sustainability, and whether organizational moral objectives achieve their goals of life-fulfilment development, Poverty alleviation and the equitable distribution of wealth and resources.

The practice of walking to a sacred space for personal and spiritual transformation has long held a place in the British imagination. Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain examines the intersections of the concept of pilgrimage and the visual imagination from the years 1790 to 1850. Through a close analysis of a range of interrelated written and visual sources, Kathryn Barush develops the notion of the transfer of 'spirit' from sacred space to representation, and contends that pilgrimage, both in practice and as a form of mental contemplation, helped to shape the religious, literary, and artistic imagination of the period and beyond. Drawing on a rich range of material including paintings and drawings, manuscripts, letters, reliquaries, and architecture, the book offers an important contribution to scholarship in the fields of religious studies, anthropology, art history, and literature.

No controversy is too big and no subject is off limits. Unafraid of being politically incorrect, CBN founder and chairman Pat Robertson will tackle all of the issues of our culture that most Christians shy away from. Derived from the actual questions answered on his "700 Club" television segment of the same name, "Bring It On" gives real answers to Christians with tough questions. Questions include:

• How Can We Do Greater Things than Jesus?
• What Makes a Worship Service?
• Do Clones Have Souls?
• Should a Christian Avoid Using Medicine?
• Do Miracles Really Happen?

Earth is a School presents the case for the material world as a spiritual school, specifically tailored to develop consciousness and bring the human soul closer to recognition of its divine source. William Willdblood discusses how our planet serves as a training ground for the soul, with particular reference to the present time as one of decision and a kind of end of term examination. It can be hard to discern spiritual purpose behind the upheavals in many areas of contemporary life, but it is there if one knows how to look.

This book looks at the relationships between geography and religion. It represents a synthesis of research by geographers of many countries, mainly since the 1960s. This book takes a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, and features a variety of detailed case studies. Examples and case studies have been drawn from all the major world religions and from all continents - from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Major themes covered in the book include the distribution of religion and the processes by which religion and religious ideas spread through space and time. Some of the important links between religion and population are also explored. A great deal of attention is focused on the visible manifestations of religion on the cultural landscape, including landscapes of worship and of death, and the whole field of sacred space and religious pilgrimage. The author has also published "Tropical Rainforests" (Routledge, 1992); and "Caring for Creation: a Christian Way Forward" (Marshall Pickering, 1992).

"Sacred Sites, Sacred Places" explores the concept of "sacred" and what it means and implies to people in differing cultures. The book focuses especially on the sacred nature of certain places. It looks at why people regard some parts of the land as special and why this ascription remains constant in some cultures and changes in others. Archaeologists, legislators and those involved in heritage management sometimes encounter conflict with local populations over sacred sites. With the aid of over 70 illustrations the book examines the extreme importance of such sacred places in all cultures and the necessity of accommodating those intimate beliefs which are such a vital part of ongoing cultural identity. "Sacred Sites, Sacred Places" therefore aims to be of help to those who wish to be non-destructive in their conservation and excavation practices. This book attempts to describe the belief systems surrounding the existence of sacred sites, and at the same time bringing such beliefs and practices into relationship with the practical problems of everyday heritage management. The geographical coverage of the book is wide.

Holy men, both pagan and Christian are persistent and puzzling figures in the religious life of the Roman Empire. In this first historical study of Holy Men for more than half a century, Dr Anderson applies techniques of literary analysis to throw light on the lifestyles and behaviour of these figures, from Jesus Christ to Peregrinus Proteus to dio Chrysostom, stressing their individuality as much as their common features.
Sage, Saint and Sophist examines the variety of services, real or imaginary, that these colouful figures had to offer and how they maintained their credibility to become the objects of successful religious cults.

This is the Volume Three in a three volume series which was written for all who have freed themselves of orthodox religious thinking and for those who are ready to do so. The books serve as a springboard to greater spiritual heights, wherein we appreciate more than ever the message of Sat Gurus, the Saviours, the Avatars, and the Christs, of whom Jesus Christ was one. Dr Thind analyses the teachings of this Saviour of the western world and compares them with the teachings of all the great religions.

The object of this book, first published in 1928, is a study of the ways in which those who were once called 'primitives' conceive of their own individuality. The author inquires into the notions they possess of their life-principle, their soul, and their personality, often encountering that many peoples only had 'pre-notions' of such concepts.

Fragments of ancient belief mingle with folklore and Christian dogma until the original tenets are lost in the myths and psychologies of the intervening years. Hilda Ellis Davidson illustrates how pagan beliefs have been represented and misinterpreted by the Christian tradition, and throws light on the nature of pre-Christian beliefs and how they have been preserved. The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe stresses both the possibilities and the difficulties of investigating the lost religious beliefs of Northern Europe.

The world’s great religious and philosophical traditions often include poignant testimonies of spiritual turmoil and healing. Following episodes of harrowing personal crisis, including addictions, periods of anxiety and panic, and reminders of mortality, these accounts then also describe pathways to consolation and resolution. In Making Peace with the Universe, Michael Scott Alexander reads diverse classic religious accounts as masterpieces of therapeutic insight. In the company of William James, Socrates, Muslim legal scholar turned mystic Hamid al-Ghazali, Chinggis Khan as described by the Daoist monk Qui Chuji, and jazz musician and Catholic convert Mary Lou Williams, Alexander traces the steps from existential crisis to psychological health. He recasts spiritual confessions as case histories of therapy, showing how they remain radical and deeply meaningful even in an age of scientific psychology. They record the therapeutic affect of spiritual experience, testifying to the achievement of psychological well-being through the cultivation of an edifying spiritual mood. Mixing scholarly learning with episodes from his own skeptical quest, Alexander demonstrates how these accounts of private terror and personal triumph offer a model of therapy through spiritual adventure. An interdisciplinary consideration of the shared terrain of religion and psychology, Making Peace with the Universe offers an innovative view of what spiritual traditions can teach us about finding meaning in the modern world.

Thousands are seeking enlightenment but few achieve this ultimate spiritual goal. "Passage To Freedom, A Path To Enlightenment" is an inspirational book with practical techniques to help the reader attain true happiness through spiritual growth. Dawn Mellowship's book provides meditations and healing techniques that work on a physical, emotional and spiritual level, to provide the perfect remedy for finding happiness and spiritual fulfilment. They combine visualisation, intention, affirmations, controlled breathing, universal energy and healing to assist you to manage your anger, release guilt and worry, let go of the past, boost your self-esteem and love yourself and others unconditionally. You can learn how to connect to your intuition to make better and healthier choices in life, and ultimately to find inner peace and balance.

'That in our times a kind of supernumerary person is appearing who is egoless, who in reality is not a human being, is a terrible truth.' - Rudolf Steiner -- Are there people on earth today who do not have a self - a human ego or 'I'? The phenomenon of 'egolessness' - the absence of a human being's core - was discussed by the spiritual teacher Rudolf Steiner in lectures and personal conversations. An egoless individual, he intimated, is an empty sheath through which other spiritual entities could operate. Erdmuth J. Grosse brings together many little-known quotations from Rudolf Steiner's spiritual research and supports them with a wealth of disquieting reports, testimonies and examples from literature and politics. He places these insights within the broader context of the riddle of the human self, throwing light on the spiritual development of the individual and humanity as a whole. In this thought-provoking study, Grosse goes on to discuss the role of comets, the effects of cyanide on the human constitution - especially in the light of the Holocaust - and the hidden effects of ceremonial magic, occult lodges, cults and sects. In conclusion, he offers positive solutions to humanity's present predicament by describing the healing impulses of social threefolding, the invisible spiritual beings seeking to help humanity, the role of the gods, the Christ impulse and the true goals of human evolution.

In 1977, Kenneth Leech wrote the book Soul Friend, which quickly became one of the classic contemporary explorations of the Christian practice of spiritual direction. Out of print for many years, a revised edition of this book, mildly updated to include changes in the spiritual climate since 1977, is now available. Leech's scholarly, yet accessible, exploration examines the climate in which spiritual direction takes place today-the influence of the drug culture of the 1960's, Eastern influences on prayer and spiritual practice, the Pentecostal movement, and others. He then provides background on the history of spiritual direction, both Protestant and Catholic, from the earliest Church through the twentieth century. Leech also explores other questions of interest to directors and those seeking out direction: the relationship between counseling and direction; the practice of prayer in Christian spiritual tradition; and the prophetic role of the spiritual director, not just for the individual but for the larger society. An excellent course book, and a fascinating book for those contemplating direction, Soul Friend will continue to be a classic for years to come.

`There is a physical world, which we all accept as real, but there is also a spiritual world, which interpenetrates this material world and is its cause and foundation. Between these two worlds exists a threshold that can be felt, seen clairvoyantly, traversed and passed through by anyone with a real desire to do so... At this threshold there is a guardian, whose task is to stop humans from passing across it unprepared...' - From the Introduction. Based on first-hand knowledge, Are Thoresen offers insights into the meaning of the threshold to the spiritual world. He describes his own experiences in encountering this threshold and going beyond it. But there are many thresholds to the spiritual world, he says, and many ways to pass them - as there are many aspects to the `guardian of the threshold' and versions of the so-called `animals at the threshold'. The worlds beyond, too, have a variety of different constructions - or, as the Bible says: `In my Father's house are many mansions'. The author describes the methods and techniques for opening the spiritual sense organs required to cross the threshold, and clarifies the differences between Imagination (seeing spiritual `pictures'), Inspiration (understanding those pictures) and Intuition (living `inside' the spiritual reality). Structuring the book on his own biography, Thoresen conveys many of the lessons he has learnt through decades of familiarity with the invisible dimensions. However, he warns that there is only one good reason to attempt to cross the threshold, and that is to serve God and humanity in the name of love. If we do it out of curiosity, or to enhance our personal development, it would be better not to try.

Foreword INDIES 2020 Book of the Year Award (SILVER Winner for Religion) 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award (Inspirational) 2021 Midwest Book Award (Silver Winner for Religion/Philosophy) Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her Potawatomi identity both informs and challenges her faith. Curtice draws on her personal journey, poetry, imagery, and stories of the Potawatomi people to address themes at the forefront of today's discussions of faith and culture in a positive and constructive way. She encourages us to embrace our own origins and to share and listen to each other's stories so we can build a more inclusive and diverse future. Each of our stories matters for the church to be truly whole. As Curtice shares what it means to experience her faith through the lens of her Indigenous heritage, she reveals that a vibrant spirituality has its origins in identity, belonging, and a sense of place.

We are born with our hearts and arms open wide-trusting, confident, and brimming with vibrant life energy. Over time, though, the challenges of life constrain that flow, leaving us unbalanced. We often find ourselves stuck in inertia, exhausted by overdoing, or strained and preoccupied with trying to control everything. Roaming Free Inside the Cage will help you identify your unique pattern of imbalance and reclaim your inborn freedom so that you can move forward with clarity of vision, confidence in your own power, and composure in the face of life's adversities.

"There is much to digest and absorb here, principles and practices, history, symbolism, and poetic expression. This work requires only the caution that, as in much that is written about the Enneagram, we are dealing with subjective internal experience rather than objective external measurement. This is a book on experience of, rather than knowledge about. Come to it with a willingness to use the principles of optimal learning, be receptive and grounded in order to open your heart and mind with curiosity, and have the expectation of benefit. Then you will indeed benefit greatly from this fundamental, deep and penetrating work on the Enneagram and the Dao."

-David Daniels, M.D., September 2009, Clinical Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stanford Medical School

"The truest help one can render a man bent with the burdens of life, is to call out his best energies and efforts, so that he himself by himself may raise his sagging spirit, and not only cope with conditions, but come out triumphant in the highest spiritual sense of the word". This quotation from the Exhortation is an expression of what Dr. Thind hoped to accomplish with this book. The chapters include: Union with God; the Unknown Is in the Known; Ego vs. Individuality; Unification and Reunion; Sikh Religion Made Plain; and, The Song of the Soul Victorious.

After being the subject of many studies up until 1914, totemism seemed to disappear from the literature. The publication of Freud's work Totem and Taboo was initially greeted with silence, and subsequently with critical and hostile reactions. C. Levi-Strauss was one of the few to devote a book to totemism but considered it as an illusion, although a number of prominent members of the English school of Social Anthropology contested this view, describing the direction adumbrated by Freud's enquiry as "highly pertinent". Totemism appears in Freud's work as a way of dealing with one of the canonical forms of human destructiveness, namely parricide. Why did eminent men find it impossible to utilise Freud's book and those studies that followed it in the interwar period? The mass murders in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, however different they may have been, both generated a profound sense of horror that made their consequences largely unrepresentable for Europeans for more than thirty years. Did this delay, and the attitudes of the following generations towards authority, result from an unconscious logic of "resistance" aimed at re-establishing refusals that did not take place at the time? The Western world seems to have forgotten the strength of the mixed family ties of tribes, casts, and religions that are in fact at work in the psychic life of a great number of men and women in the world.

Tested Universal Science of Individual Meditation implies a greater whole being, whole knowledge and whole-power is needed to weld all into a greater unity of whole life. Each individual must have a high and strenuous mental and moral ideal controlling and uplifting the vital and the physical man in us and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his inner being. In order to know the part, one must have the knowledge of the whole it forms a part of. The soul is larger than the ego, and larger than the unconscious, the subconscious, and the super conscious. There is the back lying power of God which co-ordinates and correlates all into unity and synthesis; its name is Nam. This self awareness of Nam is only received by the Grace and power of His Holy Nam, whose knowledge is vouch-safed by the gracious Guru. The eight lessons presented in this book by the author Pooran Avatar Sat-Guru Bhagat Singh Thind to the truth seekers of the world give guidance, truth, and wisdom to all who are ready for self and God realisation. Dr. Thind's words stimulates and renders active those powers which are normally latent, and which the seeker unassisted cannot evoke.

This book will interest clinicians who have wondered what professional practice would be like in the corporate setting and want to learn more about the psychological and organizational dynamics that 'drive' executive behavior. Based on the premise that leadership effectiveness is a function of both leader productivity and health, this book reviews the latest information and research data and offers case studies to illustrate specific strategies for maximizing executive health. Len Sperry has been consulting to executives and organizations for 30 years and has written numerous articles and several books on executives and workplace dynamics.