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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies
Unlock the mysteries of the heart... Love is at the heart of
everything we do. It is the intensity and ferocity with which we
give ourselves to another. It is the unlimited, uncomplicated
affection we have for our friends. It is the respect and small
kindnesses we show ourselves each day. It is the magical essence
that nourishes and animates all things. Featuring stunning
illustrations by the author, this little guide will teach you to
honour love's divine magic through spells, rituals and enchantments
that will nurture your innate intuition, cultivate self-love and
promote sensual well-being. The magic of an open heart will
encourage your relationships to flourish by strengthening true
bonds and healing old wounds. The Little Book of Love Magic enables
you to connect and draw on love in its many guises to truly find
the happiness you seek. Only through love can you take your
spiritual practice to another level.
Witchcraft violence is a feature of many contemporary African
societies. In Ghana, belief in witchcraft and the malignant
activities of putative witches is prevalent. Purported witches are
blamed for all manner of adversities including inexplicable
illnesses and untimely deaths. As in other historical periods and
other societies, in contemporary Ghana, alleged witches are
typically female, elderly, poor, and marginalized. Childhood
socialization in homes and schools, exposure to mass media, and
other institutional mechanisms ensure that witchcraft beliefs are
transmitted across generations and entrenched over time. This book
provides a detailed account of Ghanaian witchcraft beliefs and
practices and their role in fueling violent attacks on alleged
witches by aggrieved individuals and vigilante groups.
In The Chain of Things, Eric Downing shows how the connection
between divinatory magic and reading shaped the experience of
reading and aesthetics among nineteenth-century realists and
modernist thinkers. He explores how writers, artists, and critics
such as Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, and Walter Benjamin drew
on the ancient practice of divination, connecting the Greek idea of
sympathetic magic to the German aesthetic concept of the attunement
of mood and atmosphere. Downing deftly traces the genealogical
connection between reading and art in classical antiquity,
nineteenth-century realism, and modernism, attending to the ways in
which the modern re-enchantment of the world-both in nature and
human society-consciously engaged ancient practices that aimed at
preternatural prediction. Of particular significance to the
argument presented in The Chain of Things is how the future figured
into the reading of texts during this period, a time when the
future as a narrative determinant or article of historical faith
was losing its force. Elaborating a new theory of magic as a
critical tool, Downing secures crucial links between the governing
notions of time, world, the "real," and art.
Bringing together leading historians, anthropologists, and
religionists, this volume examines the unbridled passions of
witchcraft from the Middle Ages to the present. Witchcraft is an
intensely emotional crime, rooted in the belief that envy and spite
can cause illness or even death. Witch-trials in turn are
emotionally driven by the grief of alleged victims and by the fears
of magistrates and demonologists. With examples ranging from Russia
to New England, Germany to Cameroon, chapters cover the
representation of emotional witches in demonology and art; the
gendering of witchcraft as female envy or male rage; witchcraft as
a form of bullying and witchcraft accusation as a form of therapy;
love magic and demon-lovers; and the affective memorialization of
the "Burning Times" among contemporary Pagan feminists.
Wide-ranging and methodologically diverse, the book is appropriate
for scholars of witchcraft, gender, and emotions; for graduate or
undergraduate courses, and for the interested general reader.
This book gives the beginner and experienced practitioner alike a
modern, 21st century view into the powerful and often misunderstood
magical current called 'Chaos Magick'. Written in a clear and
easily accessible style it examines the theory behind many
techniques used in magical, artistic, religious and scientific
systems of thought; then links and applies them towards desired
goals. Separated into two volumes the book can be used by the
reader as a workbook with rituals, techniques and exercises to be
followed, as a window into contemporary magical thought at the turn
of the century or simply as a rollercoaster of a good read! However
you choose to use it, this book will leave you feeling positive,
inspired and ready to apply any of the methods presented to your
own life.
Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan (1809-1892) was the wife of the
mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan and mother of the
celebrated ceramicist William De Morgan. In this book, published in
1863, De Morgan, writing as 'CD' - with a preface by her husband
signed as 'AB' - acknowledges that alleged spirit manifestations
have faced much criticism and scepticism, but argues that it was a
little-understood phenomenon that merited further investigation.
She spent a decade on this research, and focused on the role of the
mediums, people who were believed to communicate with the spirit
world. She was aided in this by the arrival of a medium who lived
with the De Morgan family for six years. Her chapters also examine
in depth the process of dying and ideas about the afterlife. A
first-hand account of the nineteenth-century spiritualist world,
this book provides a fascinating glimpse into Britain's changing
religious landscape.
This book will guide you if you wish to read more about hedge
witchcraft as a pathway, or are already following such a path and
wish to progress. It only has a little about hedge riding as this
book has too small a scope to include it. Please read the
accompanying book in the Pagan Portal series, Hedge Riding.
Who is Lucifer? The orthodox Christian view tells us that he
challenged God, fell from Heaven, tempted Eve and created death and
suffering. Then he became Satan, horned king of Hell. Yet as Lynn
Picknett explains, Devil was only a new incarnation of the old
woodland deity Pan, while Lucifer was a personification of the
Morning Star, the planet Venus and its goddess. 'He' was therefore
originally 'she', and a divine representation of love, beauty and
human warmth. Indeed, many ancient goddesses were known as
Lucifera, or 'Light-bringer' - an honour extended to Mary Magdalene
in her true role as goddess-worshipping priestess and Christ's
successor. While thousands follow Lucifer in order to achieve
earthly wealth and power, Picknett explains that such misguided
behaviour is far from true Luciferan principles - the audacious
pushing ever outwards of the limits of human knowledge, startlingly
exemplified by the little-known heresies of Leonardo da Vinci.
Ironically, controversial modern scientists, who see no proof of a
God, much less of a Devil, may possess the key to the existence of
the old archetypal adversaries.; Urging a radical shift in both
religious and scientific paradigms, Pi
Surrealist artist Max Ernst defined collage as the "alchemy of
the visual image." Students of his work have often dismissed this
comment as simply a metaphor for the transformative power of using
found images in a new context. Taking a wholly different
perspective on Ernst and alchemy, however, M. E. Warlick
persuasively demonstrates that the artist had a profound and
abiding interest in alchemical philosophy and often used alchemical
symbolism in works created throughout his career.
A revival of interest in alchemy swept the artistic,
psychoanalytic, historical, and scientific circles of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Warlick sets Ernst's
work squarely within this movement. Looking at both his art (many
of the works she discusses are reproduced in the book) and his
writings, she reveals how thoroughly alchemical philosophy and
symbolism pervade his early Dadaist experiments, his foundational
work in surrealism, and his many collages and paintings of women
and landscapes, whose images exemplify the alchemical fusing of
opposites. This pioneering research adds an essential key to
understanding the multilayered complexity of Ernst's works, as it
affirms his standing as one of Germany's most significant artists
of the twentieth century.
This volume investigates the physical evidence for magic in
medieval and modern Britain, including ritual mark, concealed
objects, amulets, and magical equipment. The contributors are the
current experts in each area of the subject, and show between them
how ample the evidence is and how important it is for an
understanding of history.
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