This is a collection of works by internationally recognized women leading the field of dance research and spirituality across the globe. Building on current soulful research scholarship in the discipline, these authors offer extensive and detailed research into spirituality, dance, gender, religion, somatics and women-centred dance research. Written by women dance scholars in higher education, this evocative and illuminating work highlights a growing discourse on gendered leadership in dance research. Spiritual Herstories provides new pathways and innovative research methods that respond to the educational needs of women emerging in male-centric socio-historic research traditions.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries secular French scholars started re-engaging with religious ideas, particularly mystical ones. Mysticism in the French Tradition introduces key philosophical undercurrents and trajectories in French thought that underpin and arise from this engagement, as well as considering earlier French contributions to the development of mysticism. Filling a gap in the literature, the book offers critical reflections on French scholarship in terms of its engagement with its mystical and apophatic dimensions. A multiplicity of factors converge to shape these encounters with mystical theology: feminist, devotional and philosophical treatments as well as literary, historical, and artistic approaches. The essays draw these into conversation. Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary range of contributions from both new and established scholars, this book provides access to the melting pot out of which the mystical tradition in France erupted in the twenty-first century, and from which it continues to challenge theology today.

This historical ethnography from Central Sudan explores the century-old intertwining of zar , spirit possession, with past lives of ex-slaves and shows that, despite very different social and cultural contexts, zar has continued to be shaped by the experience of slavery.

In this comprehensive guide to empathing and energetic protection, energy worker and psychic empath Suzanne Worthley explores all of the ways one can feel and perceive energies from human energy fields, places, paranormal situations, and across dimensions as well as how to energetically protect yourself and your loved ones. She looks at the different types of empaths and empathing, including sensitive empaths, psychic empaths, quantum empathing, and multidimensional empathing. Explaining how multidimensional energy works, Suzanne reveals how it affects each of us, including through our chakras and the auric field. She discusses how learned and programmed beliefs trigger empathic behavior and explores how to identify and release different types of limiting beliefs to evolve from fear-based empathing to love-based empathy. She examines the differences between empathy and sympathy--and why one is truly helpful and the other, limiting. She shows how to identify energy fields that may be risky alongside advanced strategies for protecting yourself, including how to prevent unwanted energy transference. She also details the Four Discernment Practices, techniques that demonstrate how our empathic behaviors are connected to the health of our energy field. Sharing extraordinary client case studies from her professional energy healing and psychic empath work, Suzanne explores the practices of quantum empathing, paranormal empathing, and empathing places and the natural world. She also looks at soul contracts, the Akashic Records, the energetic stages of dying, and healing people, places, and objects in the present, the past, and the subtle energetic dimensions. Teaching empathic readers how to understand their abilities and energetically protect themselves, this guide shows how empaths can live an empowered life and contribute in a responsible and meaningful way to creating a more positive, life-affirming reality.

Eduard von Hartmann (1842 1906) had expected to follow his father's military career, but an injury forced him to reassess his ambitions. Torn between music and philosophy, he settled on the latter and in 1869 published his first book, The Philosophy of the Unconscious, which proved a great success. Published in 1885 as the period saw an enormous rise in the popularity of spiritualism, this work attempts to give psychological explanations for all occult phenomena, including subjective delusions as well as 'objective' physical manifestations, without resorting to hypotheses of ghosts, demons or trickery. C. C. Massey, a leading theosophist and translator of the work, wrote, 'Now for the first time, a man of commanding intellectual position has dealt fairly by us as an opponent.' This work will appeal to anyone with an interest in the growth of spiritualism and the philosophical and metaphysical debates of the nineteenth century.

First published in 1869, this book describes the spiritualist activity of Scottish-born Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-86), who emerged as a medium in the United States in the wake of the Fox sisters' alleged 'spirit rappings' in the mid-nineteenth century. Written by the Irish journalist and politician Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin, Lord Adare (1841-1926), who befriended Home in 1867, the book records Adare's observations of seventy-eight spiritualist sittings over two years, and reports verbatim the conversations between Home and the spirits with whom he was allegedly in contact. Adare also describes Home's supernatural interactions away from the formal setting of a seance. The accounts were originally written as private reports to Adare's father, the landowner and archeologist Edwin Wyndham-Quin, third Earl of Dunraven. Dunraven was deeply interested in spiritualist activity and wrote the introduction to this work, which also includes a classification of all spiritualist phenomena.

Discover your unique gifts and dare to be different with this companion study guide from #1 New York Times bestselling author and renowned Bible teacher, Joyce Meyer. God has given you gifts so you can fulfill His purpose for your life, but if you're like a lot of people, you may not have recognized your talents yet. Start asking God to show you something special about the way He's made you. To some people, He's given a very tender, compassionate heart, and some He has wired to lead others effectively. Others, He has given a gift of being able to communicate clearly, to teach, to make scientific discoveries, or to write beautiful music. Only you can discover all the dynamic gifts He's placed in you. God is never going to help you be anyone but yourself, so learn to become Authentically, Uniquely You with the practical teaching formats in this companion study guide. God loves you just as you are! Let Him use you, with all your strengths and weaknesses, and transform you from the inside out to do something powerful beyond your wildest dreams.

Published in 1874, this collection of reports by the chemist and scientific journalist Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) describes his controversial research into psychic forces. In 1870, Crookes decided that science had a duty to study preternatural phenomena associated with spiritualism, and he spent the next four years carrying out experiments which tested famous mediums including D. D. Home, Kate Fox and Florence Cook. This fascinating work describes Crookes' witnessing of the movement of bodies at a distance, rappings, changes in the weights of bodies, levitation of individuals and automatic writing. Although he was strongly criticised by his contemporaries, Crookes would not be deterred from his psychical research, demonstrating that he thought all natural phenomena worthy of scientific investigation. A great experimentalist, Crookes refused to be bound by tradition and convention, and his story reveals one of the important episodes in the history of the spiritualist movement.

Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin (1805-71) is often called the father of modern conjuring. His name was later adopted by magician and escape artist Harry Houdini, whose highly sceptical expose of Victorian spiritualism is also published in this series. The best-known magician of his time, Robert-Houdin toured France, England and Germany, performed for Queen Victoria, and was sent to French Algeria by Napoleon III to demonstrate the perceived superiority of French magic to the local shamans. This book, originally published in 1868, is devoted primarily to coin and card tricks, but Robert-Houdin also describes many other magical tricks and includes a history of conjuring. In 1877 the book appeared in this English translation by Louis Hoffmann (1839-1919). Hoffmann (real name Angelo John Lewis, a barrister) had published his own guide to magic in 1876, and both books caused controversy for revealing the secrets of stage magicians in such unprecedented detail.

In this 1917 publication English physicist Sir William Fletcher Barrett (1844 1925) purports to rescue psychical research from the scorn of his colleagues and provide indisputable evidence for the existence of psychic phenomena. A successful scientist (he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society and was honoured with a knighthood), Barrett was better known for his psychical work and his attempts to reconcile it with his scientific pursuits. Certain that the human spirit could linger after bodily death, in this book Barrett examines a wide range of spiritualist practices including levitation, spirit photography, mediumship, automatic writing, the ouija board, clairvoyance, and telepathy, carefully considering the evidence for each phenomenon in the hope that they will in time be recognised as scientifically established facts. This book is a much-revised edition of Barrett's 1908 publication On the Threshold of a New World of Thought, republished to include more 'trustworthy' evidence.

John W. Edmonds (1799-1874), a prominent New York judge, and George T. Dexter, a New York physician, met though their shared interest in the spirit world. They were both dabbling in the spiritualist movement - first with scepticism - and decided to join forces in their investigations of such phenomena as 'spirit-rappings'. Dexter eventually found himself 'fully developed as a writing medium', with his pen controlled by unseen forces. Their conclusions, published in 1853 in Spiritualism, which went into numerous editions and was followed in 1855 by a second volume, caused much controversy. Drawing from their observations, the work gives examples of the authors' purported interaction with the spirit world and their journey from doubt to belief. Volume 1 includes detailed introductions by both authors explaining their experience with spiritualism, which are followed by the letters from two spirits - nicknamed 'Sweedenborg' and 'Bacon' - who communicated their thoughts through Dexter.

John W. Edmonds (1799-1874), a prominent New York judge, and George T. Dexter, a New York physician, met though their shared interest in the spirit world. They were both dabbling in the spiritualist movement - first with scepticism - and decided to join forces in their investigations of such phenomena as 'spirit-rappings'. Dexter eventually found himself 'fully developed as a writing medium', with his pen controlled by unseen forces. Their conclusions, published in 1853 in Spiritualism, which went into numerous editions and was followed in 1855 by a second volume, caused much controversy. Drawing from their observations, the work gives examples of the authors' purported interaction with the spirit world and their journey from doubt to belief. Volume 2 sees Dexter develop as a 'speaking medium' and includes transcriptions taken by Edmonds of what the spirits relayed through his co-author during the meetings of their circle of spiritualists.

Lionel Weatherly (1852 1940) was a respected psychiatrist who advocated a more modern and sympathetic approach to mental illness than many of his contemporaries. In this work, first published in 1891, he discusses a variety of supernatural phenomena, seeking scientific and rational explanations for ghostly apparitions and paranormal experiences. Weatherly scrutinises stories of mirages, prophetic dreams and the experiences of historical figures like Joan of Arc. Also included is a chapter by famous illusionist and inventor J. N. Maskelyne. Maskelyne famously exposed the fraud of a number of spiritualists, and created illusions which are still performed today. His witty and colourful chapter examines the truth behind a number of famous Eastern magical illusions, sharing insights on trade secrets. Maskelyne also delves into mediumistic fraud, questioning the credibility of figures like D. D. Home and Madame Blavatsky, in an entertaining and carefully argued investigation of phenomena which have mystified for centuries.

A founding member of the Fabian Society and a prominent member of the Society for Psychical Research, Frank Podmore (1856 1910) occupied a unique position in British political and scientific society. From his undergraduate days at Oxford until his untimely death in 1910, he harboured a fascination for the supernatural, hallucinations and mesmerism. Published in the final years of his life, during a period of prolific writing and introspection, this 1908 work was the result of exhaustive personal research and first-hand observation. Although fascinated by his chosen subject, Podmore never abandoned his scientific stance and demonstrates a level of scepticism rarely found among the more committed Victorian spiritualists. The result is a scholarly but entertaining series of case studies, which remains one of the most authoritative works on the phenomenon of spiritualism.