Their startling and unexpected conclusions are presented here—backed by rigorous analyses of ancient Egyptian records, the Old and New Testaments, early Christian and Rabbinical texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rituals of Freemasonry.

    Using Carl Johan Calleman’s research, as well as the ideas of other Mayan Calendar scholars, Barbara Hand Clow examines 16.4 billion years of evolution to decode the creative patterns of Earth--the World Mind. These great patterns culminated in 2011, but subsequent astrological influences have continued to inspire us to attain oneness and enlightenment. The Mayan Code shows how the time cycles of the Calendar match important periods in the evolutionary data banks of Earth and the Milky Way Galaxy. These stages of evolution converged during the final stage of the Calendar, the period between 1999 and 2011. Evidence of the tightening spiral of time that we experience as time speeding up--war and territoriality, resource management and separation from nature--are all part of daily events we must process during the coming years. Barbara Hand Clow counsels that our own personal healing is the most important factor as we prepare to make this critical leap in human evolution--now referred to as the awakening of the World Mind.

    The Hopis have kept this view a secret for countless generations, and this book was made possible only as a result of their desire to record for future generations the principles of their "Road of Life." The breaking of the Hopi silence is significant and fascinating because for the first time anthropologists, ethnologists, and everyone interested in the field of Indian study have been given rich material showing the Hopi legends, the meaning of their religious rituals and ceremonies, and the beauty of a conception of life within the natural world that is completely untouched by materialistic worlds."Only a person as deeply steeped in Hopi mysticism as the Hopis themselves could have produced this volume. Mr. Waters and Mr. Fredericks have approached the task of combining Hopi art, history, tradition, myth, folklore, and ceremonialism with dignity and authority.... Deserves to be part of the library of any student of the American Southwest."—American Anthropologist

    David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged.Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements.

    Now, with a new introduction and full-color artwork, this passionate and important text shows even more clearly that the religion of the Goddess—which is tied to the cycles of women’s bodies, the seasons, the phases of the moon, and the fertility of the earth—was the original religion of all humanity.

    Explore the mythologies of Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Learn what makes these stories so important, distinctive, and able to withstand the test of time. Discover how, despite geographical implausibilities, many myths from across the oceans share themes, morals, and archetypes.Listening Length: 31 hours and 35 minutes

    A few years ago, Mark Adams made a strange discovery: Everything we know about the lost city of Atlantis comes from the work of one man, the Greek philosopher Plato. Then he made a second, stranger discovery: Amateur explorers are still actively searching for this sunken city all around the world, based entirely on the clues Plato left behind. Exposed to the Atlantis obsession, Adams decides to track down these people and determine why they believe it’s possible to find the world’s most famous lost city and whether any of their theories could prove or disprove its existence. He visits scientists who use cutting-edge technology to find legendary civilizations once thought to be fictional. He examines the numerical and musical codes hidden in Plato’s writings, and with the help of some charismatic sleuths traces their roots back to Pythagoras, the sixth-century BC mathematician. He learns how ancient societies transmitted accounts of cataclysmic events—and how one might dig out the “kernel of truth” in Plato’s original tale.Meet Me in Atlantis is Adams’s enthralling account of his quest to solve one of history’s greatest mysteries; a travelogue that takes readers to fascinating locations to meet irresistible characters; and a deep, often humorous look at the human longing to rediscover a lost world.

    Reveals how the earth's crust shifted in 9600 BCE, dragging Atlantis into the polar zone beneath miles of Antarctic ice. Examines ancient yet highly accurate maps, including the Piri Reis map of 1513, which reveals a pre-glacial Antarctica. Shows how myths of floods and disaster from around the world all point to a common source. In this completely revised and expanded edition of When the Sky Fell, Rand and Rose Flem-Ath show that 12,000 years ago vast areas of Antarctica were free from ice and home to the kingdom of Atlantis, a proposition that also elegantly solves the mysteries of ice ages and mass extinctions, the simultaneous worldwide rise of agriculture, and the source of devastating prehistoric climate change. Expanding upon Charles Hapgood's theory of earth crust displacement, which was championed by Albert Einstein, they examine ancient yet highly accurate world maps, including the Piri Reis map of 1513, and show how the earth's crust shifted in 9600 BCE, dragging Atlantis into the polar zone where it now lies beneath miles of Antarctic ice. From the Cherokee, Haida, and Okanagan of North America to the earliest records of Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and Japan, they reveal that ancient myths of floods, lost island paradises, and visits from advanced godlike peoples from all corners of the globe all point to the same worldwide catastrophe that resulted in Atlantis's demise. The authors explain how the remaining Atlanteans, amid massive earthquakes and epic floods, evacuated and spread throughout the world, resulting in the birth of the first known civilizations. Including rare material from the archives of Charles Hapgood, Albert Einstein, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Flem-Aths explain how an earth crust displacement could happen again in the future, perhaps in correspondence with high solar activity. With new scientific, genetic, and linguistic evidence in support of Antarctica as the location of long-lost Atlantis, this updated edition convincingly shows that Atlantis was not swallowed by the sea but was entombed beneath miles of polar ice.The fascinating truth about Atlantis leads to a chilling conclusion about the environmental catastrophe that destroyed it. Now you can find out how the forces that shattered the first great civilization on Earth can happen again, bringing the end of the world to us all.Contents:Memorandum for the President --Adapt, migrate, or die --The wayward sun --Atlantis in Antarctica --The lost island paradise --Aztlan and the polar paradise --Atlantean maps --Embers of humankind --The ring of death --Broken paradigm --Finding Atlantis --City of Atlantis --Why the sky fell --Appendix. A global climatic model for the origins of agriculture and the sequence of pristine civilizations.Previous edition: published as When the sky fell. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.,

    The so-called divinities of Olympus have not a single worshipper among living men. They belong now not to the department of theology, but to those of literature and taste. There they still hold their place, and will continue to hold it, for they are too closely connected with the finest productions of poetry and art, both ancient and modern, to pass into oblivion.

    Her name is Wild Woman, but she is an endangered species. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Jungian analyst and cantadora storyteller shows how women's vitality can be restored through what she calls "psychic archeological digs" into the ruins of the female unconsious. Using multicultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, Dr. Estes helps women reconnect with the healthy, instinctual, visionary attributes of the Wild Woman archetype.Dr. Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.

    In Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, Owen Davies illuminates the many fascinating forms these recondite books have taken and exactly what these books held. At their most benign, these repositories of forbidden knowledge revealed how to make powerful talismans and protective amulets, and provided charms and conjurations for healing illness, finding love, and warding off evil. But other books promised the power to control innocent victims, even to call up the devil. Davies traces the history of this remarkably resilient and adaptable genre, from the ancient Middle East to modern America, offering a new perspective on the fundamental developments of western civilization over the past two thousand years. Grimoires shows the influence magic and magical writing has had on the cultures of the world, richly demonstrating the role they have played in the spread of Christianity, the growth of literacy, and the influence of western traditions from colonial times to the present.

    Here Ehrman reveals what scholars have unearthed:•The authors of the New Testament have diverging views about who Jesus was & how salvation works•The New Testament contains books that were forged in the names of the apostles by Christian writers who lived decades later•Jesus, Paul, Matthew & John all represented fundamentally different religions•Established Christian doctrines—such as the suffering messiah, the divinity of Jesus & the trinity—were the inventions of still later theologiansThese aren't idiosyncratic perspectives of just one scholar. They've been the standard widespread views of scholars across a full spectrum of denominations & traditions. Why is it most people have never heard such things? This is the book that pastors, educators & anyone interested in the Bible have been waiting for—a compelling account of the central challenges faced when attempting to reconstruct Jesus' life & message.

    The workbook formats includes exam questions at the end of each lesson, so you can build a permanent record of your spiritual and magical training.

    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

    Whether the diabolical witchcraft for which men and women went to the stake ever existed is open to question. What matters more is that it was believed to exist by intellectuals and peasants alike.