A spirited memoir by artist Aviva Rahmani, offering a relatable narrative to discuss trigger point theory and the importance of eco-art activism. Divining Chaos is an intimate personal memoir of unparalleled transparency into the moments in Rahmani's life that shaped her as an artist and activist. Detailing the history that led her to two seminal projects-Ghost Nets, restoring a coastal town dump to flourishing wetlands, and The Blued Trees Symphony, which applied her premises to challenge natural gas pipelines with a novel legal theory about land use-Rahmani shares the decisions that shaped her life's work and thinking. Her discussions about trigger point theory argue for how to predict, confront, and determine outcomes to the ecological challenges we face today.

The Holy Science is a book of theology written by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri in 1894. The text provides a close comparison of parts of the Christian Bible to the Hindu Upanishads, meant "to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions...and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures."

Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri was born Priya Nath Karar in 1855 to a wealthy family. As a young man, he was a brilliant student of math and science, astrology and astronomy. He joined a Christian missionary school where he studied the Bible and later spent two years in medical school.

After completing his formal education, Priya Nath married and had a daughter. But he continued his intellectual and spiritual pursuits, depending on the income from his property to support himself and his family.

After the death of his wife, he entered the monastic Swami order and became Sri Yuktesvar Giri, before becoming a disciple of famed guru Lahiri Mahasaya, known for his revitalization of Kriya Yoga. Then in 1894, Sri Yuktesvar Giri met Mahavatar Babaji, an ageless wise man who is said to have lived for untold hundreds of years. At this meeting, Mahavatar Babaji gave Sri Yuktesvar the title of Swami, and asked him to write this book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian Bible. Swami Sri Yuktesvar obeyed.

He also founded two ashrams, including one in his ancestral home. He lived simply as a swami and yogi, devoted to disciplining his body and mind, and thus to liberating his soul. Among his disciples was Paramahansa Yogananda, credited with bringing yoga and meditation to millions of Westerners.

The Holy Science consists of four chapters. The first is titled "The Gospel," and is intended to "establish the fundamental truth of creation." Next is "The Goal," which discusses the three things all creatures are seeking: "Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss."

Chapter three, "The Procedure," is the most practical of the sections. It describes the natural way to live for purity and health of body and mind. The final chapter is called "The Revelation," and discusses the end of the path for those who are near the "three ideals of life."

Swami Sri Yukteswar also displays his impressive knowledge and understanding of astrology by proposing his theory of the Yuga Cycle.

Each yuga is an age of the world that tracks the movement of the sun, Earth, and planets. Each age represents a different state of humanity. There are four yugas:

- Satya Yuga is the highest and most enlightened age of truth and perfection.

- Treta Yuga is the age of thought and is more spiritually advanced than Dwapara Yuga and Kali Yuga.

- Dwapara Yuga is an energetic age, although not a wise one. During this yuga, people are often self-serving and greedy. The age is marked by war and disease.

- Kali Yuga is the age of darkness, ignorance, and materialism. This is the least evolved age.

Today, The Holy Science is highly respected among those seeking to understand the relationships between world religions and cultures. While some still believe that we are in Kali Yuga, many others believe that Swami Sri Yukteswar was accurate, and that his calculations correct previous errors that artificially inflated the length of the Yuga Cycle.

Consciousness and the Study of Society: Towards a New Perspective on Sociology introduces students to the fundamentals of sociology while also emphasizing the idea that perceptions based on one's level of consciousness shape the world in which we live. The text is organized into five distinct sections. The chapters in Unit 1 discuss the theoretical, analytical, and methodological groundwork for the study of sociology, including a brief consideration of the human constitution. Unit 2 examines the basic ideas that underscore sociology including culture, society, socialization, and how we make sense of everyday life. In Unit 3, students learn about issues of social identity that can perpetuate social differentiations and, at times, conflict between groups. These chapters cover social stratification and class, race, ethnicity, gender, deviance and social control, and sexuality. Unit 4 investigates the six primary social structures that provide the foundation of any society: family, politics, economics, religion, education, and health and medicine. The final unit looks to the future, proposing that upheavals in our current society will lead to an evolution of our society and a new cycle of human experience. Compelling, comprehensive, and designed to help students better understand themselves and the world around them, Consciousness and the Study of Society is an excellent textbook for foundational courses in sociology.

In his Treatise on the Virtues, Aquinas discusses the character and function of habit; the essence, subject, cause, and meaning of virtue; and the separate intellectual, moral, cardinal, and theological virtues. His work constitutes one of the most thorough and incisive accounts of virtue in the history of Christian philosophy. John Oesterle's accurate and elegant translation makes this enduring work readily accessible to the modern reader.

Logic Made Easy: A Concise Introduction to Informal and Formal Logic is designed to help students expand their ability to think and reason. The text underscores the importance of logical thinking in professional and personal contexts. It demonstrates how the ability to understand the arguments of others, and formulate solid arguments, can make or break business negotiations, contracts, job offers, personal relationships, and more. The opening chapter provides readers with a concise introduction to logic. Additional chapters cover the basic concepts of an argument, the various types of meaning, and informal fallacies. Students learn about categorical propositions and categorical syllogisms. The final chapter examines propositional logic. The text is written in a highly conversational tone and connects concepts related to logic to everyday scenarios to encourage greater student understanding and engagement. Throughout, learning outcomes, reflection questions, key terms, summaries, and Exercise Your Brain activities reinforce key learnings and support retention of the material. A concise and approachable introduction, Logic Made Easy is an exemplary resource for philosophy, business, pre-law, and computer science programs, as well as any course with an emphasis on understanding and developing logical arguments.

When our smartphones distract us, much more is at stake than a momentary lapse of attention. Our use of smartphones can interfere with the building-blocks of meaningfulness and the actions that shape our self-identity. By analyzing social interactions and evolving experiences, Roholt reveals the mechanisms of smartphone-distraction that impact our meaningful projects and activities. Roholt's conception of meaning in life draws from a disparate group of philosophers - Susan Wolf, John Dewey, Hubert Dreyfus, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Borgmann. Central to Roholt's argument are what Borgmann calls focal practices: dinners with friends, running, a college seminar, attending sporting events. As a recurring example, Roholt develops the classification of musical instruments as focal things, contending that musical performance can be fruitfully understood as a focal practice. Through this exploration of what generates meaning in life, Roholt makes us rethink the place we allow smartphones to occupy in the everyday. But he remains cautiously optimistic. This thoughtful, needed interrogation of smartphones shows how we can establish a positive role for technologies within our lives.

Collecting together numerous examples of Augustine's musical imagery in action, Laurence Wuidar reconstructs the linguistic laboratory and the hermeneutics in which he worked. Sensitive and poetical, this volume is a reminder that the metaphor of music can give access not only to human interiority, but allow the human mind to achieve proximity to the divine mind. Composed by one of Europe's leading musicologists now engaging an English-speaking audience for the first time, this book is a candid exploration of Wuidar's expertise. Drawing on her long knowledge of music and the occult, from antiquity to modernity, Wuidar particularly focuses upon Augustine's working methods while refusing to be distracted by questions of faith or morality. The result is an open and at times frightening vista on the powers that be, and our complex need to commune with them.

Distinguished metaphysicians examine issues central to the high-profile debate between philosophers over how to classify the natural world, and discuss issues in applied ontology such as the classification of diseases.Leading metaphysicians explore fundamental questions related to the classification and structure of the natural worldAn essential commentary on issues at the heart of the contemporary debate between philosophy and scienceInterweaves discussion of overarching themes with detailed material on applied ontology