In The Real Middle-Earth, explore the magically enchanting early-English civilization on which Tolkien based his world of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien readily admitted that the concept of Middle-earth was not his own invention. An Old English term for the Dark Age world, it was always assumed that the importance of magic in this world existed only in Tolkien's works; now Professor Brian Bates reveals the vivid truth about this historical culture. Behind the stories we know of Dark Age kings and queens, warriors and battles, lies the hidden history of Middle-earth, a world of magic, mystery and destiny. Fiery dragons were seen to fly across the sky, monsters haunted the marshes, and elves fired poisoned arrows. Wizards cast healing spells, wise trees gave blessings, and omens foretold the deaths of kings. The very landscape itself was enchanted and the world imbued with a life force. Repressed by a millennium of Christianity, this belief system all but disappeared, leaving only faint traces in folk memory and fairy tales. In this remarkable book Professor Brian Bates has drawn on the latest archaeological findings to reconstruct the imaginative world of our past, revealing a culture with insights that may yet help us understand our own place in the world.

This essential collection on maternal and child health focuses on the rites of giving birth from a cross-cultural perspective. The distinguished list of contributors describe the many customs surrounding birth through infancy, highlighting a wide range of variation in practices across cultures. They discuss attitudes and techniques in childbirth, the interaction between human evolutionary form and birthing procedures, the influence of societal factors that differentiate Western from non-Western maternal birthing positions, and the art of midwifery. Also treated are less well-known areas of birthing such as the imagery of birthing, placenta rituals, and popular beliefs about the amniotic membrane called a caul. In addition, the authors explore the humoral medical tradition used in birthing, the possible influence of cultural practices on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), customs and beliefs regarding breastfeeding, weaning, swaddling, and finally a sociobiological perspective on early infant behavior. This book will be valuable for courses in medical sociology and anthropology, public health or behavioral sciences, psychology and psychiatry, and for pre-med students.

This essential collection on maternal and child health focuses on the rites of giving birth from a cross-cultural perspective. The distinguished list of contributors describe the many customs surrounding birth through infancy, highlighting a wide range of variation in practices across cultures. They discuss attitudes and techniques in childbirth, the interaction between human evolutionary form and birthing procedures, the influence of societal factors that differentiate Western from non-Western maternal birthing positions, and the art of midwifery. Also treated are less well-known areas of birthing such as the imagery of birthing, placenta rituals, and popular beliefs about the amniotic membrane called a caul. In addition, the authors explore the humoral medical tradition used in birthing, the possible influence of cultural practices on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), customs and beliefs regarding breastfeeding, weaning, swaddling, and finally a sociobiological perspective on early infant behavior. This book will be valuable for courses in medical sociology and anthropology, public health or behavioral sciences, psychology and psychiatry, and for pre-med students.

A palimpsest is at once easy to define and, at the same time, so infinitely various as to defy all denotation. A thrifty technique employed by the ancients to recycle scarce resources? Or a metaphor for the human mind? A text that overwrites another text? Or a culture that overwrites another culture? This concise, readable volume examines texts written by such figures as William Blake, Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, and Frederick Douglass, in order to explore the dualistic thinking involved in the creation of literary palimpsests during the tempestuous eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Contributors to this collection analyze the alienation and disorientation caused by the tremendous social and political revolution going on throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the United States and Great Britain. Writers and philosophers of the time were charged with the task of reorienting themselves and their readers within the ever-changing social and political constructs that characterized their lives. Double Vision shows how these writers employed the use of the palimpsest in their attempts to strike a balance between preserving old ways and privileging new innovations.

Charles E. Robinson, Professor Emeritus of English at The University of Delaware, definitively transformed study of the novel Frankenstein with his foundational volume The Frankenstein Notebooks and, in nineteenth century studies more broadly, brought heightened attention to the nuances of writing and editing. Frankenstein and STEAM consolidates the generative legacy of his later work on the novel's broad relation to topics in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Seven chapters written by leading and emerging scholars pay homage to Robinson's later perspectives of the novel and a concluding postscript contains remembrances by his colleagues and students. This volume not only makes explicit the question of what it means to be human, a question Robinson invited students and colleagues to examine throughout his career, but it also illustrates the depth of the field and diversity of those who have been inspired by Robinson's work. Frankenstein and STEAM offers direction for continuing scholarship on the intersections of literature, science, and technology. Published by the University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Charles E. Robinson, Professor Emeritus of English at The University of Delaware, definitively transformed study of the novel Frankenstein with his foundational volume The Frankenstein Notebooks and, in nineteenth century studies more broadly, brought heightened attention to the nuances of writing and editing. Frankenstein and STEAM consolidates the generative legacy of his later work on the novel's broad relation to topics in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM). Seven chapters written by leading and emerging scholars pay homage to Robinson's later perspectives of the novel and a concluding postscript contains remembrances by his colleagues and students. This volume not only makes explicit the question of what it means to be human, a question Robinson invited students and colleagues to examine throughout his career, but it also illustrates the depth of the field and diversity of those who have been inspired by Robinson's work. Frankenstein and STEAM offers direction for continuing scholarship on the intersections of literature, science, and technology. Published by the University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

The compelling cult classic, now reissued in a brand new edition with a new introduction by Brian Bates. This bestselling fictionalized account of an Anglo-Saxon sorcerer and mystic is based on years of research by psychologist and university professor Brian Bates. Sent on a mission deep into the forests of pagan Anglo-Saxon England, Wat Brand, a Christian scribe, suddenly finds his vision of the world turned upside down. The familiar English countryside is not what it seems; threatening spirits, birds of omen and plants of power lurk in this landscape of unseen terrors and mysterious forces. With Wulf, a sorcerer and mystic, as his guide, Wat is instructed in the magical lore of plants, runes, fate and life force until finally he journeys to the spirit world on a quest to encounter the true nature of his own soul. An authentic and deeply compelling insight into the spiritual world of the Anglo-Saxons, it has inspired thousands of people to learn more about the ancient northern tradition. A spiritual classic!

J.R.R. Tolkien claimed that he based the land of Middle Earth on a real place. "The Real Middle Earth" brings alive, for the first time, the very real civilization in which those who lived had a vision of life animated by beings beyond the material world. Magic was real to them and they believed their universe was held together by an interlaced web of golden threads visible only to wizards. At its center was Middle Earth, a place peopled by humans, but imbued with spiritual power. It was a real realm that stretched from Old England to Scandinavia and across to western Europe, encompassing Celts, Anglo Saxons and Vikings. Looking first at the rich and varied tribes who made up the populace of this mystical land, Bates looks at how the people lived their daily lives in a world of magic and mystery. Using archaeological, historical, and psychological research, Brian Bates breathes life into this civilization of two thousand years ago in a book that every Tolkien fan will want.

For thousands of years, in traditional societies around the world, actors were seen as the guardians of intuitive wisdom, and the way of the actor was a path to knowledge and power. Brian Bates believes that this is still the case today--that actors and actresses fulfill an important function in our culture as modern-day seers and shamans. He portrays the actor as a creator of visions who transports spectators out of their habitual ways of being and leads them on a journey of self-discovery. Personal magnetism and charisma, intense body awareness, and psychic sensitivity are among the special powers that contribute to the actor's mystique. Citing the observations and experiences of more than thirty famous performers--including Meryl Streep, Marlon Brando, Glenda Jackson, Liv Ullmann, Jack Nicholson, and Shirley MacLaine--the author also draws on extensive research in science, psychology, parapsychology, and Eastern and Western mysticism to explore the significance of the dramatic art. He not only shows how the magical world of stage and screen mirrors our lives, but also reveals how actors and actresses point the way to self-transformation for everyone. For, as he writes, "the way of the actor is not an esoteric discipline divorced from everyday life. It "is" everyday life, heightened and lived to the full, with an awareness of powers beyond understanding."