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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies
Suppose you could ask God the most puzzling questions about existence--questions about love and faith, life and death, good and evil. Supose God provided clear, understandable answers. It happened to Neale Donald Walsch. It can happen to you. You are about to have a conversation. Walsch's fascinating three-year conversation with God about every aspect of life and living began in 1992, Walsch says, when he was struggling financially and his health and relationships were suffering. Out of frustration, he composed an angry, passionate letter to God demanding to know why his life was in such turmoil. To his amazement, when he was finished, he was moved to continue writing as God answered back. The book that grew from that first experience addresses the real life issues we all face at work, at home, and out in the world, as well as the larger questions of the nature of God and his relationship to man. How does Walsch know that God was actually talking to him? "The book contains concepts and information beyond anything I've ever thought of," says Walsch. "But more importantly, I've found out through other readers that there are hundreds of people that have had this same experience. This book has allowed them to speak out." Walsch claims that God speaks to everyone all the time, that we're just not listening. "Have you ever been struck by a song lyric or the cover story of a magazine you suddenly pass on a newsstand that seems to answer a question you've had? Have you ever met someone for the first time and had that person mention something out of the blue that's been on your mind? Have you ever gone to church and thought the minister must have read your mail, because he seems to be talking directly to you? We often write things off to coincidence that we should give God credit for."
This is the first ethnography of the Uganda Martyrs Guild [UMG], a
lay movement of the Catholic Church, and its organized witch-hunts
in the kingdom of Tooro, Western Uganda. This book explores
cannibalism, food, eating and being eaten in its many variations.
It deals with people who feel threatened by cannibals, churches who
combat cannibals and anthropologists who find themselves suspected
of being cannibals. It describes how different African and European
images of the cannibal intersected and influenced each other in
Tooro, Western Uganda, where the figure of the resurrecting
cannibal draws on both pre-Christian ideas andchurch dogma of the
bodily resurrection and the ritual of Holy Communion. In Tooro
cannibals are witches: they bewitch people so that they die only to
be resurrected and eaten. This is how they were perceived in the
1990s when a lay movement of the Catholic Church, the Uganda
Martyrs Guild [UMG] organized witch-hunts to cleanse the country.
The UMG was responding to an extended crisis: growing poverty, the
retreat and corruption of the local government, a guerrilla war, a
high death rate through AIDS, accompanied by an upsurge of occult
forces in the form of cannibal witches. By trying to deal, explain
and "heal" the situation of "internal terror", the UMG reinforced
the perception of the reality of witches and cannibals while at the
same time containing violence and regaining power for the Catholic
Church in competition for "lost souls" with other Pentecostal
churches and movements. This volumeincludes the DVD of a video film
by Armin Linke and Heike Behrend showing a "crusade" to identify
and cleanse witches and cannibals organized by the UMG in the rural
area of Kyamiaga in 2002. With a heightened awareness and
reflective use of the medium, UMG members created a domesticated
version of their crusade for Western (and local) consumption as
part of a "shared ethnography". Heike Behrend is Professor of
Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Cologne,
Germany, the author of Alice Lakwena and the Holy Spirits [James
Currey, 1999], and co-editor of Spirit Possession, Modernity and
Power in Africa[James Currey, 1999]
The creative nature of the "Soul": On its own plane, the soul knows
no separation, and the factor of synthesis governs all soul
relations. The soul is occupied not only with the form that the
vision of its objective may take, but with the quality or the
meaning which that vision veils or hides. The soul knows the Plan;
its form, outline, methods and objective are known. Through the use
of the creative imagination, the soul creates; it builds
thought-forms on the mental plane and objectifies desire on the
astral plane. It proceeds then to externalize its thought and its
desire upon the physical plane through applied force, creatively
actuated by the imagination of the etheric or vital vehicle. Yet
because the soul intelligence, motivated by love, it can (within
the realized synthesis which governs its activities) analyze,
discriminate and divide. The soul likewise aspires to that which is
greater than itself, and reaches out to the world of divine ideas,
and thus itself occupies a midway position between the world of
ideation and the world of forms, This is its difficulty and its
opportunity. This compilation from the books of Alice Bailey seeks
to increase understanding of the immortal soul, addressing it's
many aspects under sixty two headings.
New collection of essays promising to re-energize the debate on
Nazism's occult roots and legacies and thus our understanding of
German cultural and intellectual history over the past century.
Scholars have debated the role of the occult in Nazism since it
first appeared on the German political landscape in the 1920s.
After 1945, a consensus held that occultism - an ostensibly
anti-modern, irrational blend of pseudo-religious and -scientific
practices and ideas - had directly facilitated Nazism's rise. More
recently, scholarly debate has denied the occult a role in shaping
the Third Reich, emphasizing the Nazis' hostility to esoteric
religion and alternative forms of knowledge. Bringing together
cutting-edge scholarship on the topic, this volume calls for a
fundamental reappraisal of these positions. The book is divided
into three chronological sections. The first,on the period 1890 to
1933, looks at the esoteric philosophies and occult movements that
influenced both the leaders of the Nazi movement and ordinary
Germans who became its adherents. The second, on the Third Reich in
power, explores how the occult and alternative religious belief
informed Nazism as an ideological, political, and cultural system.
The third looks at Nazism's occult legacies. In emphasizing both
continuities and disjunctures, this book promises to re-open and
re-energize debate on the occult roots and legacies of Nazism, and
with it our understanding of German cultural and intellectual
history over the past century. Contributors: Monica Black; Jeff
Hayton; Oded Heilbronner; Eric Kurlander; Fabian Link and J.
Laurence Hare; Anna Lux; Perry Myers; John Ondrovcik; Michael E.
O'Sullivan; Jared Poley; Uwe Schellinger, Andreas Anton, and
Michael T. Schetsche; Peter Staudenmaier. Monica Black is Associate
Professor and Associate Head of the Department of History at the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Eric Kurlander is J. Ollie
Edmunds Chair and Professor of Modern European History at Stetson
University.
Given the upsurge of interest in complementary therapies and
treatments, medical researchers are gradually being pressured to
reassess and expand existing knowledge about the structure and
organization of the human body. But in spite of the advances in
modern technology, there are vast areas of human physiological
activity, which continue to remain undetectable. Such processes,
indicates Rudolf Steiner, are connected to spiritual forces. In
these revealing lectures Steiner concentrates on the relationship
of such forces to the physical organs. In particular, he discusses
the organs, which make up our digestive and respiratory systems;
the significance of 'warmth' in the function of the blood and its
effects upon the ego; and the evolutionary process implicit in the
formation of the spinal column and brain. All are dealt with in a
scientific manner that will appeal equally to doctors and
therapists, as well as students of Steiner's spiritual philosophy.
At the same time they are remarkably accessible to the general
reader.
A general introduction to medieval magic, containing a little-known
handbook from the late Middle Ages.
Preserved in the Bavarian State Library in Munich is a
manuscript that few scholars have noticed and that no one in modern
times has treated with the seriousness it deserves. Forbidden Rites
consists of an edition of this medieval Latin text with a full
commentary, including detailed analysis of the text and its
contents, discussion of the historical context, translation of
representative sections of the text, and comparison with other
necromantic texts of the late Middle Ages. The result is the most
vivid and readable introduction to medieval magic now
available.
Like many medieval texts for the use of magicians, this handbook
is a miscellany rather than a systematic treatise. It is
exceptional, however, in the scope and variety of its contents --
prayers and conjurations, rituals of sympathetic magic, procedures
involving astral magic, a catalogue of spirits, lengthy ceremonies
for consecrating a book of magic, and other materials.
With more detail on particular experiments than the famous
thirteenth-century Picatrix and more variety than the Thesaurus
Necromatiae ascribed to Roger Bacon, the manual is one of the most
interesting and important manuscripts of medieval magic that has
yet come to light.
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Wiccan Candle Spells Book 2
- Wicca Guide To White Magic For Positive Witches, Herb, Crystal, Natural Cure, Healing, Earth, Incantation, Universal Justice, Love, Money, Health, Protection, Diet, Energy
(Paperback)
Sebastian Collins
1
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R190
Discovery Miles 1 900
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The untold account of the countless Americans who believe in, or
personally experience, paranormal phenomena such as ghosts,
Bigfoot, UFOs and psychics Given the popularity of television shows
such as Finding Bigfoot, Ghost Hunters, Supernatural, and American
Horror Story, there seems to be an insatiable public hunger for
mystical happenings. But who believes in the paranormal? Based on
extensive research and their own unique personal experiences,
Christopher Bader, Joseph Baker and Carson Mencken reveal that a
significant number of Americans hold these beliefs, and that for
better or worse, we undoubtedly live in a paranormal America.
Readers will join the authors as they participate in psychic and
palm readings, and have their auras photographed, join a Bigfoot
hunt, follow a group of celebrity ghost hunters as they investigate
claims of a haunted classroom, and visit a support group for alien
abductees. The second edition includes new and updated research
based on findings from the Baylor Religion survey regarding
America's relationship with the paranormal. Drawing on these
diverse and compelling sources of data, the book offers an engaging
account of the social, personal, and statistical stories of
American paranormal beliefs and experiences. It examines topics
such as the popularity of paranormal beliefs in the United States,
the ways in which these beliefs relate to each other, whether
paranormal beliefs will give rise to a new religion, and how
believers in the paranormal differ from "average" Americans.
Brimming with fascinating anecdotes and provocative new findings,
Paranormal America offers an entertaining yet authoritative
examination of a growing segment of American religious culture.
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