For centuries, from the earliest legends of the man on the moon, mankind has fantasized and speculated about other life in the universe. With the discovery of biochemical evolution - which showed how life could evolve out of simple compounds - those speculations took on a new dimension. Most scientists now believe that it is possible that there is other intelligent life in the universe.
What are the possibilities of our making contact with ETIs in the profound vastness of space (a problem, as Isaac Asimov notes, too easily dismissed by cultists)? What will be the consequences to our images of ourselves and our world of the first proven contact with beings from another planet, since they are likely to be of superior intelligence? Could we still believe in the value of life as we live it? How would it affect mankind's religions, both Western and Eastern? Would it in fact mean, as Arthur C. Clarke has said, an end to mankind's childhood?
These and other questions are explored in Extraterrestrial Intelligence - from the most practical issues, such as how the news of contact should be handled, to the most exciting and troubling questions of philosophy, religion, and science.
Extraterrestrial Intelligence begins the search for a cosmic context for mankind. It leads the way in reflecting on the next stage in our gradual self-discovery.

spirit and matter water and stone is smoke less real than fire? than wood? Small poems that celebrate big themes, written especially for those who appreciate the sacred in the ordinary. These short Zen-inspired poems, crafted with heart, humor and insight, explore both the folly and glory of what it is to be a spiritual seeker deeply involved in the human experience.

As one of America's most haunted cities, Wilmington and its many ghosts make the Cape Fear region of North Carolina truly worthy of its name. With wit and style, ghostlore expert John Hirchak leads readers on a journey down Wilmington's back alleys and docksides, urging them to listen to the lingering whispers of generations long dead.

'Heather Atkinson is my no.1 author. She keeps you glued to her books from beginning to end.' Edinburgh 1880. When Amy Osbourne's parents are lost at sea, she is forced to leave her London home and is sent to live with her aunt and uncle at the opposite end of the country. Alardyce House is depressing and dreary, her aunt haughty and cruel. Amy strikes up a friendship with her cousin Edward but his older brother Henry is just as conceited as his mother, and a mutual loathing develops between him and Amy. As her weeks of mourning pass, the realisation begins to dawn on Amy that her aunt has designs on her inheritance and the candidate she favours to be her niece's husband fills Amy with horror. Struggling in this strange, unwelcoming environment, Amy begins to suspect that something isn't right at Alardyce House. There are rumours below stairs of a monster on the loose, local women are being brutally attacked and her cousin Henry is the prime suspect. Alardyce House is full of dark secrets and Amy isn't sure who she can trust... If you love Emily Organ, Kate Saunders and Ann Granger, you'll loveThe Missing Girls of Alardyce House. Discover bestselling author Heather Atkinson and you'll never look back... Please note this book was previously published as Sins of a Father. What readers are saying about Heather Atkinson: 'What a story. This book I think is the best yet from Heather Atkinson and I have read all hers so far.' 'Another brilliant book from Heather...she really is one the best in the business. ' 'I have read ALL Heather Atkinson's books. They are all fantastic.' 'I stumbled upon Heather's books and I'm so glad I did, characters excellent and storylines are great, I find myself searching the book stores for more of them to read the minute I finish one.'

During April 1574, an aspiring London barrister named Robert Brigges was possessed by Satan. For three weeks, Brigges shouted, raged, and sobbed; suffered from sensory deprivations; and engaged in impassioned disputes with his invisible adversary. Although Brigges's case was considered significant in its time, it is virtually unknown today, with modern scholars rarely mentioning and never analyzing it. The case, however, is very unusual--perhaps unique among English cases--in its first-person, spontaneous, highly detailed documentation of the afflicted person's experience and in its sociocultural details. Sands challenges the prevailing notion that cases of early modern English demon possession occurred only among the socially impotent.

The manuscript sources of this episode (published here for the first time) bombard the reader with an accretion of detail that is never connected to any broad assertion of what really happened, never connected to any larger historical significance. It is this connection that Sands's study aims to establish through an analysis of the cultural context of Brigges's experience. The case affords us a rare glimpse into the dark, private, unedited side of an intelligent, articulate, educated, early modern mind. A serious attempt to understand the workings of that mind requires us to understand and accept (for the purposes of analysis) the concepts that furnish it. Only through this approach can we hope to bridge the cultural gap between that mind and ours--thus experiencing, even if only momentarily, the common humanity of present and past.

This book is the thesis of Dr.Abdelfattah Badawi for doctoral degree in comparative religions and mysticism with special reference to the Indian mystic Satya Sai Baba .The book focus on scientific reasoning and study of other great world religions in light of sufism, the mystic part of Islam for universal love beyond the boundry of Islam religion. The book analyzes the sufi doctorine combined with scientific logic with love of God to include war and peace within man, spiritual and divine alchemy, sufism, non-violence, the Self-Peace Path and Divine Discourse of Bhagavan Sri Satya sai Baba .. Passage to India-From Paris to Brindavan..A journey to Sai Baba..The interview..Symptoms of Self-Pea

The amphibious cult classic: a magical tale of a suburban housewife's affair with a frogman ... 'Disturbing but seductive ... Wonderful.' Margaret Atwood 'Perfect.' Max Porter 'Still outpaces, out-weirds, and out-romances anything today.' Marlon James 'A feminist masterpiece: tender, erotic, singular.' Carmen Maria Machado ''Genius ... A broadcast from a stranger and more dazzling dimension.' Patricia Lockwood 'Kind of weird and cool. ' Irvine Welsh 'Genius ... Like Revolutionary Road written by Franz Kafka ... Exquisite.' The Times 'Incredibly liberates readers from the awfulness of convention to a state where weirdness and otherness are beautiful.' Sarah Hall 'A devastating fable of mythic proportions ... Wondrously peculiar.' Irenosen Okojie (foreword) Dorothy is a grieving housewife in the Californian suburbs; her husband is unfaithful, but they are too unhappy to get a divorce. One day, she is doing chores when she hears strange voices on the radio announcing that a green-skinned sea monster has escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research - but little does she expect him to arrive in her kitchen. Muscular, vegetarian, sexually magnetic, Larry the frogman is a revelation - and their passionate affair takes them on a journey beyond their wildest dreams ... Rachel Ingalls's Mrs Caliban is a bittersweet fable, a subversive fairy tale, as magical today as it was four decades ago 'A miracle . A perfect novel.' New Yorker 'Every one of its 125 pages is perfect ... Clear a Saturday, please, and read it in a single sitting.' Harper's What Readers Are Saying: 'Maybe the most gorgeous, lyrical book ever written'***** 'A fantastic wee novel, strange and brilliant, and absolutely the inspiration for The Shape of Water.'***** 'Wonderful, sharp minimal prose offers big truths. Superb - brilliant, in fact.'***** 'Absolutely incredible. It's weird, funny, and heartbreaking, like a Richard Yates novel except with lizardman sex.'***** 'One of the best tongue-in-cheek social satires that I've ever read. It delves into gender politics. It takes a long, hard look at mental health. It addresses female sexual freedom and agency. It asks the reader to examine what it means to be human ... Genius.'***** 'Really brilliant: a deconstruction of suburbia by way of monster movies that examines sad realities with hilarious verve ... Sometimes you need a sexy frog person to break you out of the ties that bind. '***** 'Hooked me so deeply I picked it up and finished it the same night ... Beautiful ... Will stay with me.'***** 'What the hell just happened?'*****

Step into the unknown Tales of the paranormal have seduced us and spooked us for centuries, passed around from person to person and frequently retold and reimagined in books, films and TV. Whether they're based on real events or they're simply urban legends which have taken on a life of their own, the strange happenings, unexplained events and unsolved mysteries in this book will take you on a frightening journey to the outer limits of plausibility, and dare you to believe the unbelievable. Ranging from the mysterious to the macabre, the stories in this book span a broad range of supernatural subjects including ghosts, spirits and the undead, witchcraft and occultism, extraterrestrial life, mythical creatures, and much more. Whether you're a believer or a sceptic, a paranormal junkie or an interested observer, let these stories spark your imagination, capture your curiosity and perhaps even send a shiver down your spine.

The study of the Solar system, particularly of its newly discovered outer parts, is one of the hottest topics in modern astrophysics with great potential for revealing fundamental clues about the origin of planets and even the emergence of life. The three lecturers of the 35th Saas-Fee Advanced Course, which have been updated and collected in this volume, cover the field from observational, theoretical and numerical perspectives.

Green ladies, grey ladies, spectral kings and queens, mischievous ghosts, whispering ghosts, calm poltergeists, wailing washerwomen, phantom dogs, and other assorted ghosts and stories fill this book. Scotland's vibrant storytelling tradition is captured here, with tales of sightings, noises, furniture in disarray and spectres past and present.

The strange cries heard at night in a dilapidated penitentiary, the glimpse of a `White Lady' floating through a graveyard, the face at the window in a room that has been locked for decades - stories of hauntings never cease to intrigue us. From palaces to prisons, from an 11th century chateau in France to 'The Island of the Dolls' in Mexico City, Haunted Places features the world's most fascinating spooky locations. Some hauntings are recent, others are ancient, but all the stories are striking: from the deceased monks who pace the boundaries of a ruined former priory, to the lift operator in a Canadian hotel still working his shift decades after he died, to the infamous Vlad the Impaler, who haunts a Romanian castle where he was imprisoned for seven years. With tales of the `Mad Old Woman' who searches Highgate cemetery in London for the children she supposedly murdered to strange laughter heard at night, from apparitions to floating orbs to radios suddenly changing station, Haunted Places features 150 outstanding photographs of haunted sites. Each eerie photograph is accompanied by a caption explaining the story of the haunting, from tragic accidents to brutal murders, from executions to disease and other sorrowful endings.

Features . . .

• Bigfoot
• Sea Serpent Chessie
• The Snarly Yow
• The Bunnyman
• Other stange beasts, including goatmen, swamp monsters, and others