Best of
Spiritualism

2019

The Hidden Power of Gayatri Mantra


Om Swami - 2019
    Since ages, seers and householders have used its sublime energy to realize their material and spiritual dreams. Also known as Vedmata or Savitri, correct invocation of goddess Gayatri has remarkable effects on your emotional and psychical wellbeing. Following on from his bestseller, The Ancient Science of Mantras, Om Swami brings to you a simplified method of unleashing the power of the Gayatri mantra. Razorsharp intuition or penetrating wisdom, working the law of attraction or gaining immense willpower, absorption and practice of Gayatri bestows it all.Full of firsthand experiences, reallife stories and insightful passages, The Hidden Power of Gayatri Mantra offers you the most authentic and yet practical method of invoking the mantra.Om Swami is a mystic living in the Himalayan foothills. He has a Bachelor’s degree in business and an MBA from Sydney, Australia. Prior to his renunciation of this world, he founded and successfully ran a multimilliondollar software company. He is the bestselling author of A Fistful of Wisdom, The Ancient Science of Mantras, A Million Thoughts, Kundalini: An Untold Story, A Fistful of Love and If Truth Be Told: A Monk’s Memoir.

Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action


Michael A. Singer - 2019
    Singer has realized an important truth: “In trying to achieve happiness by ‘getting what you want,’ you’re actually limiting your happiness. You end up struggling with life instead of experiencing it. True happiness comes only when your inner energy is free to flow.” Living from a Place of Surrender was created to help you welcome that unhampered flow in your own life.In this eight-session program adapted from Singer’s online course of the same name, you’ll learn about your relationship both to the world unfolding around you and to the thoughts and emotions arising within you. You will come into touch with the real “you”—the indwelling consciousness that is witnessing it all. And you’ll see firsthand why the most effective personal growth technique is to use life to remove your inner blockages, not compensate for them.

Hellebore #1: The Sacrifice Issue


Maria J. Pérez CuervoPaul Watson - 2019
    Associated with the water element, it is known for opening up portals to the Underworld and the subconscious.Hellebore is a collection of writings and essays devoted to British folk horror and the themes that inspire it: folklore, myth, history, archaeology, psychogeography, witches & the occult.The Sacrifice issue examines the role of human sacrifice in folk horror. From The Wicker Man to Blood on Satan's Claw. Delve into a world of witchcraft, megalithic monuments, and pagan survivals in hidden rural areas.Featuring words by Ronald Hutton, Katy Soar, Verity Holloway, David Southwell (Hookland), Dee Dee Chainey, Mercedes Miller, John Reppion, and Maria J. Pérez Cuervo. Artwork by Paul Watson and Eli John.

The GLAM Witch: A Magical Manifesto of Empowerment with the Great Lilithian Arcane Mysteries


Michael Herkes - 2019
    Today, she has found a place of elevation as a quintessential goddess in an array of occult practices, revered for her fierce independence, carnal appetite, and thirst for equality. THE GLAM WITCH plants the practice of modern witchcraft in Lilith's garden of glittery fruit. Laid out over a sparkling assemblage of chapters, a modern mystic will explore the theory, practice, and lifestyle of the Great Lilithian Arcane Mysteries (GLAM). Learn Lilith's story and how to apply her archetype to a magical path. Open your third eye to intuition with signs and synchronicity. Discover Lilith's astrological significance to help navigate the shadow self. Witch-craft a glamour poppet for attraction and beauty. Embrace your sexuality to harness power through orgasm. Neutralize negativity with the application of bitchcraft. Loaded with spells and rituals to cultivate confidence, sizzle with sensuality, and stand up to adversity, THE GLAM WITCH is a guide to spiritual empowerment and establishing unapologetic authenticity through magical means.

Everything is Connected


Jason Gruhl - 2019
    A magical meditation on the powerful idea that we are connected to everything and everyone.Playful illustrations and funny, rhyming text show readers all of the many ways we are linked to every big, small, hairy, slimy, snuggly, scaly, floppy, flappy, bristly, buzzy, beautiful creature on Earth.

The Shiva Sutras


Ranjit Chaudhri - 2019
    When Sage Vasugupta went there the next day, the Stone turned over at his touch, and on its face were inscribed the Shiva Sutras. These sutras were to be revealed to those fit for grace as per Lord Shiva instructions. Explaining our true nature and the illusion were living in, The Shiva Sutras guides us as to how we can set aside the illusion and experience ultimate reality. The sutras with their transformative message have the power to end our suffering and open up a whole new world for us.

The Spectacle of Illusion: Magic, the paranormal & the complicity of the mind


Matthew L. Tompkins - 2019
    Page after page of utter joy: I can't tear my eyes away' - Derren BrownIn The Spectacle of Illusion, professional magician-turned experimental psychologist Dr. Matthew L. Tompkins investigates the arts of deception as practised and popularised by mesmerists, magicians and psychics since the early 18th century. Organised thematically within a broadly chronological trajectory, this compelling book explores how illusions perpetuated by magicians and fraudulent mystics can not only deceive our senses but also teach us about the inner workings of our minds. Indeed, modern scientists are increasingly turning to magic tricks to develop new techniques to examine human perception, memory and belief. Beginning by discussing mesmerism and spiritualism, the book moves on to consider how professional magicians such as John Nevil Maskelyne and Harry Houdini engaged with these movements - particularly how they set out to challenge and debunk paranormal claims. It also relates the interactions between magicians, mystics and scientists over the past 200 years, and reveals how the researchers who attempted to investigate magical and paranormal phenomena were themselves deceived, and what this can teach us about deception.Highly illustrated throughout with entertaining and bizarre drawings, double-exposure spirit photographs and photographs of spoon-bending from hitherto inaccessible and un-mined archives, including the Wellcome Collection, the Harry Price Library, the Society for Physical Research, and last but not least, the Magic Circle's closely guarded collection, the book also features newly commissioned photography of planchettes, rapping boards, tilting tables, ectoplasm, automata and illusion boxes. Concluding with a modern-day analysis of the science of magic and illusion, analysing surprisingly weird phenomena such as ideomotor action, sleep paralysis, choice blindness and the psychology of misdirection, this unnerving volume highlights how unreliable our minds can be, and how complicit they can be in the perpetuation of illusions.

Speaking with the Dead in Early America


Erik R. Seeman - 2019
    In the early sixteenth century, the Reformation abolished purgatory, as its leaders did not want attention to the dead diminishing people's devotion to God. But while the Reformation was supposed to end communication between the living and dead, it turns out the result was in fact more complicated than historians have realized. In the three centuries after the Reformation, Protestants imagined continuing relationships with the dead, and the desire for these relations came to form an important--and since neglected--aspect of Protestant belief and practice.In Speaking with the Dead in Early America, historian Erik R. Seeman undertakes a 300-year history of Protestant communication with the dead. Seeman chronicles the story of Protestants' relationships with the deceased from Elizabethan England to puritan New England and then on through the American Enlightenment into the middle of the nineteenth century with the explosion of interest in Spiritualism. He brings together a wide range of sources to uncover the beliefs and practices of both ordinary people, especially women, and religious leaders. This prodigious research reveals how sermons, elegies, and epitaphs portrayed the dead as speaking or being spoken to, how ghost stories and Gothic fiction depicted a permeable boundary between this world and the next, and how parlor songs and funeral hymns encouraged singers to imagine communication with the dead. Speaking with the Dead in Early America thus boldly reinterprets Protestantism as a religion in which the dead played a central role.

Real Enlightenment and the Energy Body: Kundalini Kindling in OKC/ Zen in Dallas/ Tao in Texas/ Advaita California Style/ The Gnani Robert Adams


Kym Chaffin - 2019
    Learn to distinguish between real enlightenment and pseudo-enlightenment.

Atheopaganism: An Earth-honoring path rooted in science


Mark Alexander Green - 2019
    Clearly, there is something inherent in humanity about religiosity: it must fulfill certain needs that evolved with us as our modern brains developed.ATHEOPAGANISM explores how the evolution of proceeding brain systems contributed to the belief systems, value sets and religious practices that characterize cultures all over the world. And then it implements this understanding of the nature of religion in a science-consistent religious practice that fulfills the human need for meaning, connectedness,  inspiration and purpose.

Afoot and Lighthearted: A Journal for Mindful Walking


Bonnie Smith Whitehouse - 2019
    . . I'd like to give a copy of this smart, fetching book to everyone I know."--Susannah Felts, BookPageAfoot and Lighthearted will teach readers how to harness the power of walking to cultivate and nourish attention, inspiration, and determination, as well as to combat distraction, anxiety, and the dreaded creative block.Organized around thematic prompts designed to help makers take a break from digital life and tap into the transformational magic of creative journaling, Afoot and Lighthearted introduces us to innovative walkers throughout literature, art, philosophy, and history, and it offers encouragement in the form of inspirational quotes. Supported by light illustrations and evidence from recent research on the compelling connection between walking and well-being, Afoot and Lighthearted offers a fresh perspective every step of the way, much like a walk itself.

The Familiar Dead: Spiritualism and Ghosts in American Culture


Megan Weiss - 2019
    The current problem in this field of study is the lack of attention paid by scientists, historians, and biblical scholars to the presence and influence of ghosts throughout history. The reality, however, is that every culture across the world believes in some form of the paranormal. In America alone, three out of four people will admit to having at least one paranormal belief. In analyzing the available literature on ghosts and the history of the Spiritualist movement from historians, scientists, psychologists, writers, and anthropologists, this study has discovered that belief in the paranormal tends to align with popular trends or beliefs in culture. Considering the impact that the paranormal has had on mainstream culture over the last 500 years, this research intends to display that ignoring a topic that seems silly at first can in fact be harmful to increasing our understanding of human agency, cultural change, and the capabilities of the human mind and body.