Written in the Stars will lead you through the heavens above as you discover the scientific facts, legends, and myths that surround the 88 constellations of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Uncover the patterns in the stars through the richly illustrated pages of this charming book as each entry brings each constellation to life in the magical artwork of this book. Beautifully packaged, stars are included throughout along with key information of where to spot each constellation in the night sky to help you to identify the celestial bodies above us. Visually stunning, Written in the Stars captures the beauty of the stars and is the perfect gift for novice stargazers and armchair astronomers alike.

    Recently, ancient magic has hit a high in popularity, both as an area of scholarly inquiry and as one of general, popular interest. In Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds Daniel Ogden presents three hundred texts in new translations, along with brief but explicit commentaries. This is the first book in the field to unite extensive selections from both literary and documentary sources. Alongside descriptions of sorcerers, witches, and ghosts in the works of ancient writers, it reproduces curse tablets, spells from ancient magical recipe books, and inscriptions from magical amulets. Each translation is followed by a commentary that puts it in context within ancient culture and connects the passage to related passages in this volume. Authors include the well known (Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny) and the less familiar, and extend across the whole of Greco-Roman antiquity.

    Perilous quests, true love, and animals that talk. The traditional stories of Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, and Wales transport us to the fantastical world of Celtic folklore. These timeless tales brim with wit and magic, and each on is brought to life with elegant silhouette art in this special illustrated edition.

    Here is the Creator who nearly destroys his chief creation; the bloodthirsty warrior and the protector of the downtrodden; the lawless law-giver; the scourge and the penitent. Profoundly learned, stylishly written, the resulting work illuminates God and man alike and returns us to the Bible with a sense of discovery and wonder.

    I fear that, without it, I would feel invisible.   BABA YAGA: When you seek others this way, you are invisible nonetheless. Yr shawl is covered in mirrors in which others admire themselves; this is why they greet you so passionately. It is good to be seen, but it is better to see. Find a being to look hard into, & you will see yrself and what is more than you.  In age-old Slavic fairy tales, the witch Baba Yaga is sought out by those with a burning need for guidance. In contemporary life, Baba Yaga—a dangerous, slippery oracle—answered earnest questions on The Hairpin for years. These pages collect her most poignant, surreal, and humorous exchanges along with all-new questions and answers for those seeking her mystical advice.

    Each goddess possesses her own strengths and traits that every woman can draw on for daily inspiration and guidance in their own life’s journey. In Find Your Goddess, you’ll learn the mythical origins of these powerful female figures and how their stories relate to modern times. From Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and fertility, to Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy and compassion, you’ll discover the history of each unique goddess and how they can manifest their virtues into your own life. Whether you’re looking for guidance in relationships, your career, personal development, or physical and emotional wellness, Find Your Goddess can help you identify and draw strength from the ancient wisdom of famous goddesses. Call on the power of divine femininity and let your own goddess shine!

    In this path-breaking collection of Greek and Roman writings on magic and the occult, Georg Luck provides a comprehensive sourcebook and introduction to magic as it was practiced by witches and sorcerers, magi and astrologers, in the Greek and Roman worlds. In this new edition, Luck has gathered and translated 130 ancient texts dating from the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE. Thoroughly revised, this volume offers several new elements: a comprehensive general introduction, an epilogue discussing the persistence of ancient magic into the early Christian and Byzantine eras, and an appendix on the use of mind-altering substances in occult practices. Also added is an extensive glossary of Greek and Latin magical terms. In Arcana Mundi Georg Luck presents a fascinating -- and at times startling -- alternative vision of the ancient world. "For a long time it was fashionable to ignore the darker and, to us, perhaps, uncomfortable aspects of everyday life in Greece and Rome," Luck has written. "But we can no longer idealize the Greeks with their 'artistic genius' and the Romans with their 'sober realism.' Magic and witchcraft, the fear of daemons and ghosts, the wish to manipulate invisible powers -- all of this was very much a part of their lives."

    In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large.  In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.”   But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments.   More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives.Praise for God   “Breathtaking in its scope and controversial in its claims, God: A Human History shows how humans from time immemorial have made God in their own image, and argues that they should now stop. Writing with all the verve and brilliance we have come to expect from his pen, Reza Aslan has once more produced a book that will prompt reflection and shatter assumptions.”—Bart D. Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God   “Reza Aslan offers so much to relish in his excellent ‘human history’ of God. In tracing the commonalities that unite religions, Aslan makes truly challenging arguments that believers in many traditions will want to mull over, and to explore further. This rewarding book is very ambitious in its scope, and it is thoroughly grounded in an impressive body of reading and research.”—Philip Jenkins, author of Crucible of Faith

    Here is a masterful reconstruction of Celtic Mythology and Arthurian Legend combined into a program of practical instruction in Mythical Thinking and Magical Techniques. The 21 Lessons of Merlyn is a complete introductory course in Celtic Druidism, packaged within the framework of 21 authentic and expanded story-lessons.

    He begins with a mystery: Why is the most important god in the Rg Veda, the oldest of India's sacred texts, known by a secret name--"Ka," or Who?What ensues is not an explanation, but an unveiling. Here are the stories of the creation of mind and matter; of the origin of Death, of the first sexual union and the first parricide. We learn why Siva must carry his father's skull, why snakes have forked tongues, and why, as part of a certain sacrifice, the king's wife must copulate with a dead horse. A tour de force of scholarship and seduction, Ka is irresistible.

    Sergio Magaña’s dreaming teacher predicted that, after the eclipse on July 11, 2010, Sergio would be one of the spokespeople to carry the teachings of this rich spiritual tradition, which has been closed to outsiders until now. The original holders of this secret knowledge, the Chichimeca, were considered to be masters, with a deep understanding of the dream state and a working knowledge of how our perceptions form our reality, as well as the capacity to influence matter. In this extraordinary work, Sergio shares the wisdom and practices that inspired Carlos Castaneda to write about nahual and tonal reality, and explains the deep power of dreaming, altered states of perception, and expanded consciousness that will enable you to: • become lucid in your dreams • heal and rejuvenate your body and send healing to others while in the dreaming state • communicate with your ancestors • develop different types of perception to see energy and altered reality • use the mysterious obsidian mirror for cleansing and healing yourself and others • see your teyolia, or path of the soul, to learn who you were in past lives and release parts of yourself that are trapped in old experiences.

    English authors such as J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, and J.K.Rowling, dominate the world of magic in fiction, but from the earliest times, England has also acted as home to generations of eccentrics and scholars who have researched and explored every conceivable kind of occult art. Most people are torn between a fascination with magic and an almost instinctive fear of the occult, of a world redolent with superstition and illusion. And yet more people now practice magic in England than at any time in her history. The Book of English Magic explores this hidden story, from its first stirrings to our present-day fascination with all things magical. Along the way readers are offered a rich menu of magical things to do and places to visit.

    This is the guide for the structure-less, and rule book for the revolutionaries. New ways are embraced with the old; what it really means to be a modern Witch is revealed; how to practice authentic Witchcraft now to live a deeply fulfilled life is explained.The Art of Witch is a manifesto – a code of ethics and principles – partnered with revealing real-life anecdotes explaining how to anchor the magickal theory in everyday life.Live your most magickal lifeMaster the art of true transformationPerfect the craft of Witches’ resilienceKnow the Witch you areTrust the magick inside you."So on the pulse point of modern witchcraft that it is frightening" --Tonya Brown,Editor, Witch Way Magazine

    "Brilliant, vivid, entertaining."--R. D. Laing

    The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin. The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). However, some Welsh and Breton tales and poems relating the story of Arthur date from earlier than this work; in these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown. Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for later stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who defeated the Saxons and established an empire over Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul. In fact, many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's birth at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann and final rest in Avalon. The 12th-century French writer Chretien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table. Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media. The Sir James Knowles version of King Arthur is considered as the most accurate and well known original story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.