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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies
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'Deliverance is an intriguing, strangely comforting book that
shines a light into a world that's little talked about' - The Mail
on Sunday
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I turned towards the door. It was closed, but I sensed there was
something - someone - standing on the other side, staring straight
at me. A prickling sensation ran through me... I was absolutely
terrified, rooted to the spot and unable to breathe. His name is
Jason Bray. He's your quintessential vicar: that guy in the long
dress and poncho who stands at the front of the church and tells
you God loves you. He's the person who will baptise your children,
take your wedding, and conduct your Auntie Beryl's funeral. But
then he's also the person you will call in when Auntie Beryl still
keeps appearing on the landing in her nightie, or when things go
bump and rattle and your shoes start moving on their own, or when
you think your mother-in-law might be possessed. Jason is a
deliverance minister, and this is a story of oppression and
possession, of ghosts, poltergeists and other paranormal phenomena,
and how to deal with them. He is the first Anglican deliverance
minister to write a book about this ministry for the general
reader. A warm, sympathetic and humorous character who sees it as
his mission to serve the community and help families in distress,
each true-life adventure is like a detective story. At times, it's
a case of mental illness. At others, an energy or memory that has
latched itself onto a place or property. Sometimes, he's even
encountered fraud! Welcome to his world.
What is a grimoire? The word has a familiar ring to many people,
particularly as a consequence of such popular television dramas as
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. But few people are sure
exactly what it means. Put simply, grimoires are books of spells
that were first recorded in the Ancient Middle East and which have
developed and spread across much of the Western Hemisphere and
beyond over the ensuing millennia. At their most benign, they
contain charms and remedies for natural and supernatural ailments
and advice on contacting spirits to help find treasures and protect
from evil. But at their most sinister they provide instructions on
how to manipulate people for corrupt purposes and, worst of all, to
call up and make a pact with the Devil. Both types have proven
remarkably resilient and adaptable and retain much of their
relevance and fascination to this day. But the grimoire represents
much more than just magic. To understand the history of grimoires
is to understand the spread of Christianity, the development of
early science, the cultural influence of the print revolution, the
growth of literacy, the impact of colonialism, and the expansion of
western cultures across the oceans. As this book richly
demonstrates, the history of grimoires illuminates many of the most
important developments in European history over the last two
thousand years.
Telepathy, thought transference, unconscious communication. While
some important early psychological theorists such as William James,
Frederic W. H. Myers and Sigmund Freud all agreed that the
phenomenon exists, their theoretical approaches to it were very
different. James's and Myers's interpretations of and experimental
investigations into telepathy or thought transference were an
inextricable part of their psychical researches. Freud's insistence
on the reality of thought transference had nothing to do with
psychical research or paranormal phenomena, which he largely
repudiated. Thought transference for Freud was located in a theory
of the unconscious that was radically different from the subliminal
mind embraced by James and Myers. Today thought transference is
most commonly described as unconscious communication but was
largely ignored by subsequent generations of psychoanalysts until
most recently. Nonetheless, the recognition of unconscious
communication has persisted as a subterranean, quasi-spiritual
presence in psychoanalysis to this day. As psychoanalysis becomes
more interested in unconscious communication and develops theories
of loosely boundaried subjectivities that open up to transcendent
dimensions of reality, it begins to assume the features of a
religious psychology. Thus, a fuller understanding of how
unconscious communication resonates with mystical overtones may be
more deeply clarified, articulated and elaborated in contemporary
psychoanalysis in an explicit dialogue with psychoanalytically
literate scholars of religion. In Legacies of the Occult Marsha
Aileen Hewitt argues that some of the leading theorists of
unconscious communication represent a 'mystical turn' that is
infused with both a spirituality and a revitalized interest in
paranormal experience that is far closer to James and Myers than to
Freud.
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Glass Coffin
(Paperback)
Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
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R286
R235
Discovery Miles 2 350
Save R51 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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The tyrannous Huntsmen have declared everyone in one village to be
outlaws, since they insist on supporting the magical beings of
neighbouring Darkwood. Why won't they accept that magic is an
abomination? Far from being abominable, the residents of Darkwood
are actually very nice when you get to know them, even Snow the
White Knight, who can get a bit tetchy when people remind her she's
a Princess. In order to stop the Huntsmen from wiping out all
magical beings, Snow and her friends have to venture into the
Badlands of Ashtrie, and seek the support of the Glass Witch - but
she has plans of her own, and let's just say they're not good ones.
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