Since Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, some scholars have privately suspected that King's "dream" was connected to Langston Hughes's poetry. Drawing on archival materials, including notes, correspondence, and marginalia, W. Jason Miller provides a completely original and compelling argument that Hughes's influence on King's rhetoric was, in fact, evident in more than just the one famous speech. King's staff had been wiretapped by J. Edgar Hoover and suffered accusations of communist influence, so quoting or naming the leader of the Harlem Renaissance-who had his own reputation as a communist-would only have intensified the threats against the civil rights activist. Thus, the link was purposefully veiled through careful allusions in King's orations. In Origins of the Dream, Miller lifts that veil and shows how Hughes's revolutionary poetry became a measurable inflection in King's voice. He contends that by employing Hughes's metaphors in his speeches, King negotiated a political climate that sought to silence the poet's subversive voice. By separating Hughes's identity from his poems, King helped the nation unconsciously embrace the incendiary ideas behind his poetry.

You could be the target of a spell or curse and not even know it.

Everyone, whether they practice witchcraft or not, is susceptible to unwanted spells and curses. The difference is that witches and magicians can do something about it. Now you can too. Protection & Reversal Magick is a complete how‑to guide to prevent, defend against, and reverse magickal attacks of any kind.

Here, renowned scholar and magick practitioner Jason Miller shows readers how to master these techniques:

• Setting up early‑warning systems
• Appeasing angry spirits through offerings
• Performing banishings and making amulets that will prevent most attacks
• Making magical “decoys” to absorb attacks against you
• Summoning guardian spirits or gods for help
• Binding, confusing, or expelling a persistent enemy who will not leave you be

These are techniques for witches, wiccans, ceremonial magicians, root doctors, and anyone else who puts magick to practical use. Like the cunning men and women of old, you can now defend yourself and your loved ones against even the strongest attacks.

This edition features a new introduction by the author and updates to the chapters.

In both politics and art in recent decades, there has been a dramatic shift in emphasis on representation of identity. Liberal ideals of universality and individuality have given way to a concern with the visibility and recognition of underrepresented groups. Modernist and postmodernist celebrations of disruption and subversion have been challenged by the view that representation is integral to social change. Despite this convergence, neither political nor aesthetic theory has given much attention to the increasingly central role of art in debates and struggles over cultural identity in the public sphere. Connecting Hegelian aesthetics with contemporary cultural politics, Jason Miller argues that both the aesthetic and political value of art are found in the reflexive self-awareness that artistic representation enables. The significance of art in modern life is that it shows us both the particular element in humanity as well as the human element in particularity. Just as Hegel asks us to acknowledge how different historical and cultural contexts produce radically different experiences of art, identity-based art calls on its audiences to situate themselves in relation to perspectives and experiences potentially quite remote-or even inaccessible-from their own. Miller offers a timely response to questions such as: How does contemporary art's politics of perception contest liberal notions of deliberative politics? How does the cultural identity of the artist relate to the representations of cultural identity in their work? How do we understand and evaluate identity-based art aesthetically? Discussing a wide range of works of art and popular culture-from Antigone to Do the Right Thing and The Wire-this book develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the representation of cultural identity that affirms art's capacity to effect social change.

This book is about real magick, effecting real change, in a real world. There are some books on magick that teach it purely as spiritual advancement. There are others that teach it as a form of psychological self-help that affects only inner change. While magick can and should be both of these, it is something more. Real Sorcery is about success in practical magick; it is a book that aims at change in both the outer and inner worlds.

Beyond a mere spell book or training course, Real Sorcery is a field manual on successful sorcery written by a professional sorcerer. The first part of the book lays out the qualities, concepts, and exercises necessary to attempt practical magick. The second part presents clear strategies for tackling almost any type of issue with sorcery.

In this book you will learn how to:

• Attack problems from multiple angles, not just by casting a spell
• Blend mundane and magical action to ensure success
• Figure out whether what you are doing is working, and fix it if it isn’t
• Go beyond readings, into magical intelligence-gathering
• Influence the minds of other people
• Work most effectively on behalf of others

This book was previously published as The Sorcerer’s Secrets by New Page Books in 2009. This edition features a new introduction from the author, one new chapter, and updates throughout.

In both politics and art in recent decades, there has been a dramatic shift in emphasis on representation of identity. Liberal ideals of universality and individuality have given way to a concern with the visibility and recognition of underrepresented groups. Modernist and postmodernist celebrations of disruption and subversion have been challenged by the view that representation is integral to social change. Despite this convergence, neither political nor aesthetic theory has given much attention to the increasingly central role of art in debates and struggles over cultural identity in the public sphere. Connecting Hegelian aesthetics with contemporary cultural politics, Jason Miller argues that both the aesthetic and political value of art are found in the reflexive self-awareness that artistic representation enables. The significance of art in modern life is that it shows us both the particular element in humanity as well as the human element in particularity. Just as Hegel asks us to acknowledge how different historical and cultural contexts produce radically different experiences of art, identity-based art calls on its audiences to situate themselves in relation to perspectives and experiences potentially quite remote-or even inaccessible-from their own. Miller offers a timely response to questions such as: How does contemporary art's politics of perception contest liberal notions of deliberative politics? How does the cultural identity of the artist relate to the representations of cultural identity in their work? How do we understand and evaluate identity-based art aesthetically? Discussing a wide range of works of art and popular culture-from Antigone to Do the Right Thing and The Wire-this book develops a new conceptual framework for understanding the representation of cultural identity that affirms art's capacity to effect social change.

Jaded by his parents' divorce and the countless marriages unraveling around him, Mathew Boggs was a young man who'd lost all belief in lifelong love. Roped into chauffeuring his grandma and dying grandfather on weekly adventures, he realized that, sixty-three years later, they were still madly in love."Now, that's the marriage I want!" he said to himself.

Fired up to find more success stories, Mat talked his best friend, Jason Miller, a clueless commitmentphobe, into joining him on a cross-country search for America's greatest marriages, which they called "Project Everlasting." The two bumbling bachelors jumped in an RV and embarked on a 12,000-mile adventure, encompassing the beaches of Los Angeles, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the bayous of Louisiana, and the mountains of Montana, to discover what it takes to make love last -- not from Ph.D.s or therapists but from more than 200 real couples who had walked the walk to more than forty years of marriage.

In "Project Everlasting," they share their wisdom. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the pressing quest ions the bachelors asked the couples, such as:

"How do you know you've found The One?" "What's missing from today's marriages?" "How do you keep the romance alive?" "What's the most important ingredient for a solid marriage?"

The couples opened their hearts and homes to Mat and Jason to reveal intimate and authentic portraits of fulfilling marriage. Couples like the Byrds, in New Orleans, who lost nearly everything they owned in the devastation of Katrina -- except their love and commitment to each other. Or ninety-somethings Ruth and Eddie Elcott in Los Angeles, who spent the first two years of their marriage separated by World War II and the later years of their marriage reading their wartime love letters to each other at bedtime.

Along the way, Mat and Jason began to understand why their own relationships hadn't worked out quite as planned. They also realized that what they were learning from their wise new friends could change everything for them and -- through "Project Everlasting" -- show their generation and generations to come how to build a marriage to last.