Do miracles really happen? What is the evidence for paranormal phenomena that demonstrate divine power, and what alternative explanations can be offered for such apparently miraculous occurrences? How does the earnest inquirer assess the conflicting evidence and reach a conclusion? These and related questions are answered in this illuminating examination of miracle claims by respected historical, paranormal, and forensic investigator Joe Nickell. Not a critique of religion but rather a careful examination of the evidence relating to specific claims of the miraculous, Looking for a Miracle investigates a panoply of strange events, powers, and objects that are at the center of the controversy between so-called miraculists and confirmed skeptics. Among the phenomena studied are "Miraculous Pictures", like the Shroud of Turin, the Edessan Image, and the Image of Guadalupe; seemingly "Magical Icons", such as weeping, bleeding, and otherwise animated paintings and statues; "Mystical Relics", including "burning handprints", the liquefying blood of St. Januarius, and ostensibly "incorruptible" corpses of saints; "Pentecostal Powers", such as speaking in tongues, the gift of prophecy, taking up serpents, and other powers and immunities; "Faith Healing", including the reported miracle cures at Lourdes and the practices of evangelists, Christian Scientists, and "psychic surgeons"; "Ecstatic Visions", like the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fatima and Medjugorje; and such "Sanctified Powers" as luminosity, levitation, bilocation, stigmata, inedia (the going without food); and the ability to produce objects out of thin air. Looking for a Miracle is a wide-ranging investigative study of acontroversial topic that has all too often been approached either with excessive credulity or a dismissive attitude. Religious believers and rationalist thinkers alike have much to learn from this revealing examination of the evidence for the miraculous.

Restore your spiritual balance and unleash the healing powers you never knew were inside you Chakras are your body’s spiritual centres of vibrant, healing energy, and with the right tools you can tap into their power to regain mental, emotional and physical health. This beginner’s guide explains the seven major chakras in the system, from root to crown, and the physical function and emotional and spiritual aspects of each. Discover the ways to awaken each one and how to channel their energy for optimum health, well-being and balance. Exploring the mental and physical aspects of each chakra, the chapters inside this book reveal how diet, yoga and meditation can bring balance and harmony to your daily life. To complete this holistic treatment, the sections on crystals and essential oils show further ways of boosting vitality and cleansing mind, body and spirit. Let the information in these pages be the starting point on your path to effective chakra healing.

Get to know healing crystals with this beginner-friendly deck. Learn about the 50 most popular healing crystals and how to use them to improve your life. Crystals have been used to improve our wellbeing through meditation, manifestation and crystal healing for millennia. The Crystals for Beginners deck is your introduction to exploring crystals and familiarizing yourself with their various properties in order to create lasting change in all areas of your life. This beautifully illustrated 50-card deck will introduce you to the most popular crystals, such as Amethyst, Blue Lace Agate and Jade. Each card features an image of a crystal along with the associated key words and properties so that you can start to identify and explore which crystals you are drawn to. Once you have learnt the basics, the cards can be turned over to delve further into the healing properties of the crystal, with a focus on either Body, Mind or Spirit. Along with the deck is a short introductory guide to essential crystal basics, how to meditate with crystals, using affirmations and exploring physical healing. Working with the Crystals for Beginners deck can help you to discover which crystals suit your needs and resonate with you most, before you start a physical crystal collection. Discover how crystals can help you focus, live a more mindful life, banish dis-ease, protect you from negativity and improve your wellbeing.

Encouraging Words For Women, is a wonderful uplifting and encouraging book for women. Also an excellent resource and motivational guide. Women young and old, will find this book to be inspirational and thought provoking.

HUMANITY HAS REACHED A DANGEROUS TIPPING POINT of potential self-destruction because our technical and scientific achievements have out distanced our spiritual realization. We must develop a new understanding of who we are, centered on the realization of oneness with all of creation. This realization can only be achieved by the combination and integration of rational logical thinking and mystical internal awareness.

Humanity has now reached the point where the two separate understandings of reality must be combined into a holistic understanding of existence. "Peace Is Oneness" addresses the dangers of accepting the separation that results from our egos, along with the ways that separation can be healed. Both science and evolutionary religion define the same reality. We must awaken from our dream state of separate selves and realize the oneness that is our true self of unconditional love.

Western culture has largely lost most of its connection to myth because of the dominance of material science. We have what the ancient Greeks called logos, but we have lost what they called mythos. This is about to change, as science and religion begin to define reality in the same way. Will it happen quickly enough to save us from our own self destruction? Your individual consciousness is essential in determining the outcome.

The Hundredth Monkey takes its title from philosopher Ron Amundson's expose of the "Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon," a claim about collective consciousness. Forty-three essays by thirty-nine authors, including Isaac Asmov, Martin Gardner, Carl Sagan, Ray Hyman, Paul Kurtz, and James Randi, examine aspects of paranormal and fringe-science beliefs from an authoritative, scientific point of view. The penetrating and entertaining essays, many with timely postscripts, are grouped into nine categories: - Understanding Human Need - Examining Popular Claims - Encouraging Critical Thinking - Medical Controversies - Evaluating the Anomalous Experience - Astrology - Considering Parapsychology - Crashed Saucer Claims - Controversies Within Science Scientists and scholars discuss the burden of skepticism and the delicate balance between a creative openness to new ideas and the relentless scrutiny of new claims. A classic source book for scientifically responsible explanations of controversies, hoaxes, bizarre mysteries, and popular cultural myths.

Gerald A. Larue examines the scriptural underpinnings of occult and supernaturalistic notions that survive in contemporary society. The book is based on the author's thorough knowledge of the history of ancient Near-Eastern cultures and their mythology.

This book paints a clear picture of what hypnosis is and is not, what it can and cannot accomplish, and how it can be misused and abused. Baker describes its potential for preventing or arresting pain and outlines future directions for the role of suggestion in the clinic and the laboratory. This engrossing, factual book is a definitive study of hypnosis that illuminates this very unique aspect of creative human behaviour.

Is there more to our existence than modern science can measure? For more than a hundred years, parapsychology - the scientific study of paranormal phenomena - has tried to find the answer to this question. Psychologist James E Alcock presents a critical evaluation of parapsychological research and reviews the current status of the evidence.

For centuries both primitive and sophisticated societies have been spellbound by persons who claim to have 'psychic' power. Those who present a case for the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP) - mediums, spiritualists, telepaths, clairvoyants, psychokinetics, and others - insist that their unique abilities stand outside the realm of conventional scientific evaluation; that parapsychology offers new hope for understanding the richness and diversity of the human mind and its relationship to the world. In fact, much has been done in recent years in an attempt to convince the scientific community that such phenomena are legitimate and credible. What challenges do these parapsychological claims pose to science? What support is given for the existence of these phenomena? Have the advocates of ESP established their case? In this revised and updated edition of his powerful volume "ESP and Parapsychology: A Re-evaluation", C.E.M. Hansel, one of the first internationally known scholars to evaluate the evidence for ESP, returns once more to the trenches to reassess, rethink, and reconsider some of the major battlefields of this ongoing debate. Undaunted by persistent claims for newly discovered psychical energies and capacities, Hansel remains dedicated to the view that if ESP is to be scientifically established there must be demonstrable proof in the form of replicable experiments. This fascinating volume recounts the scientific community's efforts to provide, test, and analyze such evidence, while at the same time seeking to expose the confusion, trickery, and deception that has permeated the search for psychic power.

"In Karma, Mind, and Quest for Happiness," Dr. Susmit Kumar seeks to explain certain facts of Tantric philosophy, such as the constituent parts of the mind, the effect of mantra on the mind, and how karma may be scientifically defined and explained.

Until recently, people considered units of time and distance in terms of 100-200 years and 100-200 miles; astronomers now measure time and distance in billions of years and trillions of miles. Even so, science can study the scientific laws of only 4 percent of the materials in the universe, as it cannot "see" the remaining 96 percent, referred to as "dark matter" and "dark energy."

Great individuals-such as Christ, Buddha, Moses, Prophet Muhammad, and Krishna-knew something about the workings of the Universe that is not common knowledge; this is why we claim their actions to be miracles or religious dogma.

Furthermore, during the last 10,000 years, many saints in Asia have explored the human mind and its relationship with the Infinite. Most of them did it after first having established the limitations of physical pleasure and intellectual knowledge. When they started to explore the functioning of their minds and how everything around them was created, they developed a theory called Tantra.

"In Karma, Mind, and Quest for Happiness," Dr. Kumar will explore how Tantra is free from the distorting influences of time and place.

Are crystals alive? Were the great pyramids of ancient Egypt capped with giant crystals? Do crystals repel fleas and other pests? Can crystals record thoughts and heal human ills? Crystals - the ubiquitous symbol and tool of trade for the growing New Age movement - have had many powers attributed to them, ranging from the physical (improving gas mileage) to the psychic (increasing ESP powers and channeling). This book critically examines the claims of crystal power from a variety of viewpoints: historical, scientific, theoretical and experimental. The book explores the history of crystal use in witchcraft, shamanism and mysticism and the many uses of natural and manufactured crystals in technology.

This book critically examines claims of crystal power from a variety of viewpoints: historical, scientific, theoretical and experimental. The book explores the history of crystal use in witchcraft, shamanism and mysticism and the many uses of natural and manufactured crystals in technology.

No Reason for Goodbyes - Messages from Beyond Life is a compilation of over one hundred instances of messages or contacts from the departed, submitted by the men and women who experienced them, contributors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and as far away as Australia. There is Colleen who, during the Arlington National Cemetery memorial service for her father, a veteran of World War II, saw him standing tall and erect in the distance for the playing of the Marine Corps Hymn. And Jacki who, as she knelt to pray the Rosary before bedtime, felt a presence beside her and heard the voice of her late father: "Teach me how to say it." And Tyler's sister, Robyn, who'd died in infancy, sending a message during a television show that she liked the new athletic shoes he'd just bought. Incidents such as these leave no doubt of the continuation of life beyond physical death and the assurance that our loved ones remain with us still.

Transcripts and detailed messages from the departed, courtesy of well-known psychic mediums during group and one-on-one readings offer further proof of continued life after death. And from Patti Sinclair, a professional psychic medium, along with Dr. Bhrett McCabe, a licensed clinical psychologist and his mother, Mary Jo McCabe, a professional psychic intuitive, we are given sage advice for those among us who are skeptical or grieving.

No Reason for Goodbyes strongly suggests that we rethink everything we have believed about the finality of death. It confirms that those who have departed from our physical world can and do "reach out and touch," in some cases, quite literally, and that love is indeed eternal. If there was ever a time for a paradigm shift about the way we view death, that time is now.

The New Thought movement of the turn of the twentieth century combined Christian spirituality with paranormal power in an effort to give practical expression to the forces of the universe. Or so its proponents believed. One of the most influential thinkers of this early New Age philosophy promises here, in this 1913 book, to show the reader how to develop your personality and how to develop a dominating influence through such exercises as: Projecting Nerve Force Mental Radiation The Positive Aura The Magnetic Duel Magnetic Self-Defence The Power of Controlling OthersThe roots of today s groundswell for self-help, personal empowerment, and pop spirituality can be explored in this one small, highly entertaining book.Also available from Cosimo Classics: The Advanced Course in Personal Magnetism, by Theron Q. Dumont.THERON Q. DUMONT is an alias and pen name of American writer WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON (1862-1932), editor of the popular magazine New Thought from 1901 to 1905, and editor of the journal Advanced Thought from 1916 to 1919. He authored dozens of New Thought books under numerous pseudonyms, including Yogi, some of which are likely still unknown today.