A translation of the Kabbalah for the layperson includes a compact presentation of each primary text and features a practical analysis and vital historical information that offer insight into the various aspects of Jewish mysticism.

    Hundreds of the beliefs passed down through the generations have their foundations in ancestry's efforts to ward off evil, which they blamed for hardship, illness, and injustice in times when life was, as often as not, "nasty, brutish, and short." Black Cats and Evil Eyes sets these superstitions in their historical and social context, explaining how fear of the devil, demons, evil spirits, and witchcraft drove people to arm themselves with rituals and talismans to repel dark forces and allow them to live long and healthy lives. In examining many of our common superstitions, this book illuminates the customs, beliefs, and practices of an ancient, and often darker, human past.

    A laboratory scientist and chemist, Robert Allen Bartlett provides an overview of the history of alchemy, as well as an exploration of the theories behind the practice. Clean, clear, simple, and easy to read, Real Alchemy provides excellent directions regarding the production of plant products and transitions the reader-student into the basics of mineral work--what some consider the true domain of alchemy. New students to practical laboratory alchemy will enjoy reading Real Alchemy and hopefully find the encouragement needed to undertake their own alchemical journey. Bartlett also explains what the ancients really meant when they used the term "Philosopher's Stone" and describes several very real and practical methods for its achievement. Is the fabled Philosopher's Stone an elixir of long life or is it a method of transforming lead into gold? Judge for yourself.

    There are still witches who whisper upon tied knots to curse or heal, sorceresses who shapeshift into animals or household objects, magicians who cast spells for love or good fortune, and common folk who seek their aid for daily problems big and small. Sharing the extensive knowledge she inherited from her mother and grandmother, including spells of the “Old Believers” previously unknown to outsiders, Natasha Helvin explores in detail the folk history and practice of Russian sorcery and Eastern Slavic magical rites, offering a rich compendium of more than 300 spells, incantations, charms, and practical rituals for love, relationships, career success, protection, healing, divination, averting the evil eye, communicating with spirits and ancestors, and a host of other life challenges and daily situations, with complete step-by-step instructions to ensure your magical goals are realized. She explains how this tradition has only a thin Christian veneer over its pagan origins and how the Slavic pagan gods and goddesses acquired new lives as the saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church. She details how the magical energy for these spells and rituals is drawn from the forces of nature, revealing specific places of power in the natural world as well as the profound power of graveyards and churches for casting spells. She explores the creation of amulets and talismans, the importance of icons, and the proper recital of magical language and actions during spells, as well as how one becomes a witch or sorceress. Offering a close examination of these two-thousand-year-old occult practices, Helvin also includes Slavic folk advice, adapted for the modern era. Revealing what it means to be a Slavic witch or sorceress, and how this vocation pervades all aspects of life, she shows that each of us has magic within that we can use to take control of our own destiny.

    This prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between the years 980 and 1010, tells the story of pre- Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century. As a window on the world, "Shahnameh" belongs in the company of such literary masterpieces as Dante's "Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, the epics of Homer- classics whose reach and range bring whole cultures into view. In its pages are unforgettable moments of national triumph and failure, human courage and cruelty, blissful love and bitter grief.In tracing the roots of Iran, "Shahnameh" initially draws on the depths of legend and then carries its story into historical times, when ancient Persia was swept into an expanding Islamic empire. Now Dick Davis, the greatest modern translator of Persian poetry, has revisited that poem, turning the finest stories of Ferdowsi's original into an elegant combination of prose and verse. For the first time in English, in the most complete form possible, readers can experience "Shahnameh" in the same way that Iranian storytellers have lovingly conveyed it in Persian for the past thousand years.

    He produces a wonderfully skillful synthesis of the available material—one that sees the occult in the light of reason and reason in the light of the mystical and paranormal. The result is a wide-ranging survey of the subject that provides a comprehensive history of magic, an insightful exploration of our latent powers, and a journey of enlightenment. “I am very impressed by this book, not only by its erudition but…above all for the good-natured, unaffected charm of the author whose reasoning is never too far-fetched, who is never carried away by preposterous theories.”—Sunday Times

    Illustrated with visual artifacts of the period. With the long-awaited publication of this book, we have for the first time in any modern literary form one of the most vital and important of ancient myths: that of Inanna, the world's first goddess of recorded history and the beloved deity of the ancient Sumerians.The stories and hymns of Inanna (known to the Semites as Ishtar) are inscribed on clay tablets which date back to 2,000 B.C. Over the past forty years, these cuneiform tablets have gradually been restored and deciphered by a small group of international scholars. In this groundbreaking book, Samuel Noah Kramer, the preeminent living expert on Sumer, and Diane Wolkstein, a gifted storyteller and folklorist, have retranslated, ordered, and combined the fragmented pieces of the Cycle of Inanna into a unified whole that presents for the first time an authentic portrait of the goddess from her adolescence to her completed womanhood and godship. We see Inanna in all her aspects: as girl, lover, wife, seeker, decision maker, ruler; we witness the Queen of Heaven and Earth as the voluptuous center and source of all fertile power and the unequaled goddess of love.Illustrated throughout with cylinder seals and other artifacts of the period, the beautifully rendered images guide the reader through Inanna's realm on a journey parallel to the one evoked by the text. And the carefully wrought commentaries providing an historical overview, textual interpretations, and aannotations on the art at once explicate and amplify the power, wonder, and mystery embedded in these ancient tales.Inanna--the world's first love story, two thousand years older than the Bible--is tender, erotic, frightening, and compassionate. It is a compelling myth that is timely in its rediscovery."A great masterpiece of universal literature."--Mircea Eliade

    In this work, MacCulloch attempts to rebuild Celtic paganism and to guess at its inner spirit. He portrays the Celt as a seeker after God, linking himself by strong ties to the unseen and eager to conquer the unknown by religious rite and magic art. The earliest aspect of his religion was the cult of nature spirits and of life manifested in nature.

    From the time of the Greeks and the Romans onwards volumes have been written about every people who in their turn have filled the stage of history. The political institutions, the religious beliefs, the social and domestic manners and customs have all been analyzed and catalogued, and countless works in many tongues record for our benefit the march of progress. Further, it must be remembered that of the history of this Fifth Race we possess but a fragment-the record merely of the last family races of the Keltic sub-race, and the first family races of our own Teutonic stock.

    This guide offers a comprehensive introduction to the rich religious tradition of the Celts. Contents include:• Historical and mythological roots of Celtic spirituality• Important Celtic holy days and their rituals• The powers of Celtic Goddesses and Gods• Easy guidelines for setting up a Celtic altar• Instructions for creating and using Celtic divination tools such as Runes and Ogham Sticks

    Honoured for their gifts and feared for their wrath, the fairies remind us to respect both the world we live in and forces we cannot see.In Meeting the Other Crowd, Eddie Lenihan presents a book about a hidden Ireland, a land of mysterious taboos, dangers, other worldly abductions, enchantments and much more. It is a world which most Irish people acknowledge exists, but which few of them, except the very oldest or professional folklorists, know much more about.Eddie Lenihan opens our eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a great storyteller. In doing so he provides one of the finest collections of Irish folklore in modern times.

    ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSIONscreamed the headline of the Los Angeles Times. John Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform the rocket from a derided sci-fi plot line into a reality, was at first mourned as a scientific prodigy. But reporters soon uncovered a more shocking story: Parsons had been a devotee of black magic. George Pendle re-creates the world of John Parsons in this dazzling portrait of prewar superstition, cold war paranoia, and futuristic possibility. Fueled by childhood dreams of space flight, Parsons was a leader of the motley band of enthusiastic young men who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a cornerstone of the American space program. But Parsons's wild imagination also led him into the occult- for if he could make rocketry a reality, why not magic? With a cast of characters including Howard Hughes, L. Ron Hubbard, and Robert Heinlein, Strange Angel explores the unruly consequences of genius.

    For two and half thousand years the Celts have continued to fascinate all who have come into contact with them. THE ANCIENT CELTS presents an absorbing account of the tribes whose origins and identity still provoke heated debate. Exploring the archaeological reality of the Iron Age inhabitants of barbarian Europe, Professor Cunliffe traces the emergence of chiefdoms,patterns of expansion and migration, and the development of Celtic ethnicity and identity.

    This "grounded approach" will be of keen interest to witches and conjure folk regardless of where they live. Readers will be guided in how to build relationships with the spirits and other beings that dwell around them and how to use the materials and tools that are readily available on the land where one lives.This book also provides instructions on how to create a working space and altar and make conjure oils and powders. A wide array of tried-and-true formulas are also offered for creating wealth, protecting one from gossip, spiritual cleansing, and more.

    Spanning 5,000 years of world history it covers every major civilization and includes sections on alchemy, the Devil, witchcraft, the cabala, astrology, the tarot, the Rosicrucians, Nostradamus, and vampires. Profusely illustrated with nearly 170 black-and-white illustrations.