This legendary underground classic contains absolutely everything worth knowing about absolutely anything. Discordianism is the religion for these screwed-up times, and Principia Discordia reveals it here for your enlightenment, confusion and entertainment.

    Graced with opening words by His Holiness The Dalai Lama, the Penguin Deluxe Edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead is "immaculately rendered in an English both graceful and precise." Translated with the close support of leading contemporary masters and hailed as “a tremendous accomplishment,” this book faithfully presents the insights and intentions of the original work. It includes one of the most detailed and compelling descriptions of the after-death state in world literature, practices that can transform our experience of daily life, guidance on helping those who are dying, and an inspirational perspective on coping with bereavement.

    The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society. Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future.  This is no peep show or academic treatise but a highly personal and often humorous account of one woman’s journey to better understand Arab society at its most intimate and, in the process, to better understand her own origins. Rich with five years of groundbreaking research, Sex and the Citadel gives us a unique and timely understanding of everyday lives in a part of the world that is changing before our eyes.

    It includes hands-on information for modern celebrations, spells and divination, recipes and crafts, invocations and prayers, and more!Yule—also known as Midwinter—is when nighttime has reached its maximum length, but there is a promise of brighter days to come as candles are lit and feasts are enjoyed. This guide to the history and modern celebration of Yule shows you how to perform rituals and magic to celebrate and work with the energy of the winter solstice.

    This is a book I would be delighted to recommend to my students, to members of my Druid order, and to anyone interested in Celtic spirituality as a living path for today.” —John Michael Greer, former Grand Archdruid, Ancient Order of Druids in America and author of The Druidry Handbook The Druids were the mystics, philosophers, and magicians of the ancient Celtic world. Their spirituality was borne from their near-worship of poetry and music, their warrior prowess, and the world of nature. The Mysteries of Druidry reveals this mystical romanticism as it was in ancient times, and shows various ways to bring it to life today. It includes:A professionally researched survey of Druidic history, tradition, and customs.Detailed descriptions of the mysteries of Celtic spirituality, including the Sacred Truth, the Great Marriage, the Hero’s Journey, and the Otherworld.Practical guidance for meditation and ceremony, for individuals and for groups.The Celtic story of the creation of the world, presented together with a plan for re-enacting the story in ritual.

    The Red Goddess takes you through a tale of sex, drugs and violence.This is an ecstatic journey through the unheard history of BABALON from Revelations, back through the Ishtar Gate and forward into a living modern magickal current.This is an explicit and challenging vision of a very modern goddess coming into power.This is more than a history, it is a passionate account of living magick and the transcendent power of Love.The Red Goddess answers the fundamental questions:Who is BABALON?Why should we care?Where did She come from and where is She going?Does Revelations have anything to tell us?Is there a hidden western tradition of sacred sex?The epic sweep of the text takes us from Babylon to Jerusalem to Rome, and onwards to Apocalypse.It looks at the angelic work of renaissance mage John Dee.It delivers a devastating exegisis on the excesses of Aleister Crowley, and unlocks the secrets of Waratah Blossoms.It explains the immolation of the Californian antichrist-superstar Jack Parsons and his relationship with Scientology founder L.Ron Hubbard.There is also a full supporting cast of Solomon, Simon Magus, St John the Divine, Earl Bothwell, the Templars, Mary, the Magdalene and countless others.This is the missing history of the Holy Whore.Thirteen essays conclude the book on subjects including: roses, mirror magick, BDSM, aphrodisiac drugs, the information age, love vs lust, and the meaning of apocalypse.Those working with Ishtar, Inanna, Lilith, Kali, Sekhmet, Bast, Freya, Pomba Gira, Erzulie, witchcraft, tibetan tantra, sacred sex and transgression will find much here to intrigue and inspire them.The Red Goddess is suitable for anyone with blood in their veins, regardless of tradition, background or experience.It is a Love story.

    The myths and legends of the ancient worlds, from Greece, Rome and Egypt to the Norse and Celtic lands, through Persia and India to China and the Far East, the Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology is a comprehensive A to Z of the classic stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and mythical beasts, wizards and warriors.

    And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories.Now, in Pandora’s Jar, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Greek creation myths as her starting point and then retelling the four great mythic sagas: the Trojan War, the Royal House of Thebes, Jason and the Argonauts, Heracles, she puts the female characters on equal footing with their menfolk. The result is a vivid and powerful account of the deeds – and misdeeds - of Hera, Aphrodite, Athene and Circe. And away from the goddesses of Mount Olympus it is Helen, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Antigone and Medea who sing from these pages, not Paris, Agamemnon, Orestes or Jason.

    In Lost Goddesses of Early Greece, Charlene Spretnak recreates, the original, goddess-centered myths and illuminates the contemporary emergence of a spirituality based on our embeddedness in nature.

    Purity rings, purity pledges, and purity balls came with a dangerous message: girls are potential sexual “stumbling blocks” for boys and men, and any expression of a girl’s sexuality could reflect the corruption of her character. This message traumatized many girls—resulting in anxiety, fear, and experiences that mimicked the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder—and trapped them in a cycle of shame. This is the sex education Linda Kay Klein grew up with. Fearing being marked a Jezebel, Klein broke up with her high school boyfriend because she thought God told her to, and took pregnancy tests though she was a virgin, terrified that any sexual activity would be punished with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When the youth pastor of her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a twelve-year-old girl, Klein began to question the purity-based sexual ethic. She contacted young women she knew, asking if they were coping with the same shame-induced issues she was. These intimate conversations developed into a twelve-year quest that took her across the country and into the lives of women raised in similar religious communities—a journey that facilitated her own healing and led her to churches that are seeking a new way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality. Sexual shame is by no means confined to evangelical culture; Pure is a powerful wake-up call about our society’s subjugation of women.

    His theories, which the French press has termed "l'hypothèse girardienne," have sparked interdisciplinary, even international, controversy. In The Scapegoat, Girard applies his approach to "texts of persecution," documents that recount phenomena of collective violence from the standpoint of the persecutor--documents such as the medieval poet Guillaume de Machaut's Judgement of the King of Navarre, which blames the Jews for the Black Death and describes their mass murder.Girard compares persecution texts with myths, most notably with the myth of Oedipus, and finds strikingly similar themes and structures. Could myths regularly conceal texts of persecution? Girard's answers lies in a study of the Christian Passion, which represents the same central event, the same collective violence, found in all mythology, but which is read from the point of view of the innocent victim. The Passion text provides the model interpretation that has enabled Western culture to demystify its own violence--a demystification Girard now extends to mythology.Underlying Girard's daring textual hypothesis is a powerful theory of history and culture. Christ's rejection of all guilt breaks the mythic cycle of violence and the sacred. The scapegoat becomes the Lamb of God; "the foolish genesis of blood-stained idols and the false gods of superstition, politics, and ideologies" are revealed.

    By popular demand—study guides to two of Bishop John Shelby Spong's bestselling and controversial works, including questions, reflections, and summaries for group and individual use.

    Appearing as goddess and demon, gate and pillar, garden and tree, hovering sky and containing vessel, the Feminine is seen as an essential factor in the dialectical relation of individual consciousness, symbolized by the child, to the ungraspable matrix, symbolized by the Great Mother.

    Then, in a dramatic change, described by scientists as 'the greatest riddle in human history', all the skills & qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as tho bestowed on us by hidden powers. In Supernatural Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious before-&-after moment & to discover the truth about the influences that gave birth to the modern mind. His quest takes him on a detective journey from the beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain & Italy to rock shelters in the mountains of S. Africa, where he finds extraordinary Stone Age art. He uncovers clues that lead him to the Amazon rainforest to drink the hallucinogen Ayahuasca with shamans, whose paintings contain images of 'super-natural beings' identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves. Hallucinogens such as mescaline also produce visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other dimensions. Could the supernaturals 1st depicted in the painted caves be the ancient teachers of humankind? Could it be that human evolution isn't just the meaningless process Darwin identified, but something more purposive & intelligent that we've barely begun to understand?AcknowledgementsPart 1: Visions 1: Plant that enables men to see the dead 2: Greatest riddle of archeology 3: Vine of souls Part 2: Caves 4: Therianthropy5: Riddles of the caves6: Shabby academy 7: Searching for a Rosetta Stone8: Code in the mind 9: Serpents of the Drakensberg10: Wounded healer Part 3: Beings 11: Voyage into the supernatural 12: Shamans in the sky 13: Spirit love 14: Secret commonwealth15: Here is a thing that will carry me away16: Dancers between worlds Part 4: Codes 17: Turning in to channel DMT18: Amongst the machine elves19: Ancient teachers in our DNA?20: Hurricane in the junkyard Part 5: Religions 21: Hidden Shamans22: Flesh of the GodsPart 6: Mysteries 23: Doors leading to another world Appendices Critics & criticisms of David Lewis-Williams' Neuropsychological theory of rock & cave artPsilocybe semilanceata-a hallucinogenic mushroom native to Europe / Roy Watlng Interview with Rick StrassmanReferences Index

    It has exerted a living influence in China for 3000 years and interest in it has spread in the West. Set down in the dawn of history as a book of oracles, the Book of Changes deepened in meaning when ethical values were attached to the oracular pronouncements; it became a book of wisdom, eventually one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, and provided the common source for both Confucianist and Taoist philosophy. Wilhelm's rendering of the I Ching into German, published in 1924, presented it for the 1st time in a form intelligible to the general reader. Wilhelm, who translated many other ancient Chinese works and who wrote several books on Chinese philosophy and civilization, long resided in China. His close association with its cultural leaders gave him a unique understanding of the text of the I Ching. In the English translation, every effort has been made to preserve Wilhelm's pioneering insight into the spirit of the original.This 3rd edition, completely reset, contains a new forward by Hellmut Wilhelm, one of the most eminent American scholars of Chinese culture. He discusses his father's textual methods and summarizes recent studies of the I Ching both in the West and in present-day China. The new edition contains minor textual corrections, bibliographical revisions and an index.