For the first time the lives of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Saul, David and Solomon are examined from an historical perspective, as David Rohl explores their cities, palaces and tombs.

    Within these pages discover a wealth of hands-on tips and techniques to begin your journey into the realm of Traditional Witchcraft. Learn to weave a powerful personal practice that is informed by folklore and grounded in your own location and natural landscape. Along the way you will find valuable information regarding the tools, rituals, and spells of this fascinating tradition, together with lessons on connecting with deities, familiar spirits, ancestors, and the spirits of place. With supportive advice and encouragement, Kelden provides everything you need to successfully navigate your own path, helping you master even advanced practices such as hedge-crossing as you transform your day-today experience into a life filled with magic and spirit.

    Larrington)The runes are mysterious and powerful magical keys to the primal forces of nature that shaped Norse and Northern European culture. These twenty-four unique and inspiring symbols of the Elder Futhark (first runic alphabet) each possess powerful energies, identities, meanings, and sounds. The runes are invoked and harnessed to create change through inspiration, healing, protection, knowledge and divine wisdom from the Norse gods.Odin’s Gateways is a practical guide to using the runes in our lives, in magic and in divination – a unique journey into the mysteries hidden within the runes, filled with the information and practices necessary to developing a deep personal understanding and relationship with them. By focusing on how to directly harness and channel the energy of the individual runes, the author guides the reader along the path to self knowledge and empowerment. With a deft hand and lucid style, Katie Gerrard cuts to the heart of the runes, combining the wisdom of the Norse Sagas and Rune Poems with practical advice and techniques gained through living and experiencing their powers.The practical magic of the runes is demonstrated through numerous examples of Galdr (incantation), bindrunes (composite runic sigils) and spellcraft for purposes such as protection, healing, childbirth, creating a sacred space, fertility, sleep, battle and cursing. The divinatory meanings of the runes are given, with a range of different reading methods, and advice on how to cast and interpret them. Woven among the manifold techniques and practices contained in her work, the author also explores the history of rune use, providing the highlights from Tacitus and Snorri Sturluson to the modern European and American rune masters who have revived their use."Odin’s Gateways is a practical guide to using the runes in our lives, in magic and in divination – a unique journey into the mysteries hidden within the runes, filled with the information and practices necessary to developing a deep personal understanding and relationship with them. With a deft hand and lucid style, Katie Gerrard cuts to the heart of the runes, combining the wisdom of the Norse Sagas and rune poems with practical advice and techniques gained through living and experiencing their powers."

    The traditions of Celtic-speaking communities in particular offer a highly effective method, expressed through mythology (as in the symbolic apple branch) and implemented through seasonal rituals.Alexi Kondratiev outlines rules for Celtic-circle membership and shows how to become conversant with Celtic culture and mythology, and at least one of the surviving Celtic languages. He also provides the actual formula of words given for each of the Celtic rituals and visualization sequences. These rituals are closely connected with the passage of time, especially the four seasons, as well as other feast days. In this book the ancient traditions of all six Celtic nations are brought to life. Alexi Kondratiev, who knows sixty-four languages well enough to teach them, conducts classes in a variety of Celtic subjects at the Irish Arts Center in New York City, and has been a contributor to a number of magazines and journals, including Keltoi, Carn, and Keltria.

    Secrets unfold in the official companion book to the new exhibition cosponsored by National Geographic, opening in Philadelphia in May 2010 and touring the United States for several years. Written by the inimitable Zahi Hawass in collaboration with underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, this richly illustrated book chronicles the life of Cleopatra and the centuries-long quest to learn more about the queen and her tumultuous era, the last pharaonic period of Egyptian history. For the crowds nationwide who will visit the blockbuster exhibit—as well as the huge readership for popular illustrated histories such as this—Cleopatra and the Lost Treasures of Egypt holds rare glimpses and stunning revelations from the life of a star-crossed queen.

    We see the relentless propaganda, the cut-throat politics, the brutality and repression that lay behind the appearance of unchanging monarchy.

    It focuses squarely on the inherent irrationality of religion, and reveals its utter irreconcilability with science. Offering several "reconciliation theories" to people of faith, it forces every reader to make a choice.Contents The Reason Revolution in historical context Questioning belief Reasons for skepticism Secular humanism as an alternative worldview Political implications of atheism The collapse of religion Hopeful predictions Reconciliation theories Comments by clergyCall to action

    Written with humor, warmth, and practicality, Ellen offers a fresh twist on ways to honor each season, along with insightful journal notes about her enchanted gardens. Her magickal lessons and stories about her own coven--how they celebrated, changed, and grew over the course of the year--will inspire you. Enjoy sabbat-themed spells, rituals, herbal magick, and holiday recipes that will motivate you to make your own seasons of witchery more unique and meaningful.Midsummer Faery Garden Blessing Butterfly Magick Jack-o'-Lantern Spell The Wild Hunt at Yuletide An Imbolc Spell to Celebrate the Goddess Brigid Perfect Eggs for Ostara Herbal Bouquets and Tussie-Mussies

    A learned and serious manual to Witchcraft for the mature practitioner, by one of the craft's leading teachers.

    Included are popular myths and legends from all six Celtic cultures of Western Europe-Irish, Scots, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Here for the modern reader are the rediscovered tales of cattle raids, tribal invasions, druids, duels, and doomed love that have been incorporated into, and sometimes distorted by, European mythology and even Christian figures. For example, there is the story of Lugh of the Long Hand, one of the greatest gods in the Celtic pantheon, who was later transformed into the faerie craftsman Lugh-Chromain, and finally demoted to the lowly Leprechaun. Celtic Myths and Legends also retells the story of the classic tragic love story of Tristan and Iseult (probably of Cornish origin-there was a real King Mark and a real Tristan in Cornwall) and the original tale of King Arthur, a Welsh leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons. In the hands of Peter Berresford Ellis, the myths sung by long-dead Celtic bards come alive to enchant the modern reader. "The casual reader will be best entertained by ... the legends themselves ...colored with plenty of swordplay, ... quests, shape-shiftings, and druidic sorcery."-Publishers Weekly

    It draws on the latest findings in archaeology and history to explain the meanings of rituals, rites, auspices, and oracles, to describe the uses of temples and sacred ground, and to evoke the daily patterns of religious life and observance within the city of Rome and its environs. The text is usefully organized around major themes, such as the origins of Roman religion, the importance of the religious calendar, the structure of religious space, the forms of religious services and rituals, and the gods, priests, and core theologies that shaped religious observance. In addition to its clear and accessible presentation, Roman Religion includes quotations from primary sources, a chronology of religious and historical events from 750 B.C. to A.D. 494, a full glossary, and an annotated guide to further reading.

    Omm Sety’s EGYPT contains never-before-seen episodes from her life, and important, previously unknown details of Egyptian history. “Omm Sety was a controversial character... an example of a soul so consumed with a purpose that it focused the arc of her life - not in one incarnation only, but in at least two. She knew things she could not have known without some extraordinary extension of consciousness."– Stephen A. Schwartz, Director of Research, Rhine Research Center, Durham, North Carolina and author of Opening to the Infinite "With access to Omm Sety's secrets, diaries and riveting private conversations, the authors navigate this explosive material with elegance, sincerity, and sympathy. Readers may have trouble putting this book down once they start it."– John Anthony West, author of The Serpent in the Sky

    J. Conway. WICCA: THE COMPLETE CRAFT offers a comprehensive overview of Wiccan philosophy, dispels the common misconceptions, and is a useful primer for practicing Wicca as a spiritual lifestyle. Included are chapters on sacred space, ritual tools, holy days, meditations and visualizations, spells and the art of spell casting, as well as terminology.

    With this second edition bringing the books completely up to date with analysis of recent work in the area, A History of Pagan Europe is the first comprehensive study of its kind, and establishes Paganism as a persistent force in European history with a profound influence on modern thinking.From the serpent goddesses of ancient Crete to modern nature-worship and the restoration of the indigenous religions of Eastern Europe, this wide-ranging book offered a rewarding - often provocative - new perspective on European history.This second edition includes:expanded discussion of the significance of the Olympian pantheon and the interrelationship of Greece and the Near East, and of the synthesis of paganism and Christianity new analysis of twentieth-century paganism and the coherence of paganism across time a new glossary and chronology.A History of Pagan Europe is essential for all readers interested in the development of religions across the centuries and around the globe.

    This is the definitive study of the Egyptian tarot and is used as a key to all Western mystery disciplines. Color plates of eight cards.