Through it you can change your circumstances, live according to a developing sense of personal responsibility, effect change around you, and stop living as a helpless cog in some clockwork universe. All acts of personal/collective liberation are magical acts. Magic leads us into exhilaration and ecstasy; into insight and understanding; into changing ourselves and the world in which we participate. Through magic we may come to explore the possibilities of freedom.

    It is a collection of essays, observations and rituals, and outlines LaVey's Satanic ideology. It contains the core principles of the Church of Satan and is considered the foundation of the philosophy and dogma that constitute LaVeyan Satanism.

    Just as Russ Kick's Guides focusing on secrets and lies from the mainstream media, government, and other establishment institutions rethought what a political science book could look like and whom it would appeal to, Book of Lies redefines occult anthologies, packaging and presenting a huge array of magical essays for a pop culture audience. Just some of the contents:An introduction by comics genius Grant Morrison, who also contributes a threepart article on Pop Magick.Mark Pesce, author of The Playful World, compares computer programming and spellcasting.Genesis POrridge, father of Industrial Music and Rave culture explains how samples in a rave song can have magical consequences.Paul Laffoley discusses his magical artistic strategies (Metzger compares Laffoley to Merlin the Magician).Magical Thinking--an extended excerpt from Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head.William Burroughs and the occult.Nevill Drury, Australia's most noted occult writer, tells of Dion Fortune, Austin Spare, and Rosaleen Norton.Why Does Aleister Crowley Still Matter?Donald Tyson's "The Enochian Apocalypse Working." Were the seeds of the end of the world sown in the Elizabethan era?.The first ever biographical essay on Marjorie Cameron, the fascinating character from Los Angeles' occult and beatnik scene.Hitler and the occult--Peter Levenda interview by Tracy Twyman.Robert Temple on how his book The Sirius Mystery's, controversial thesis (for which he was ridiculed) was proven by the Hubble telescope twentyfive years late.An exclusive Anton LaVey interview by Michael Moynihan, author of bestselling book Lords of Chaos.Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis, looks at H. P. Lovecraft's Magick Realism.

    A collection of herbal formulas and magical prayers, The Long-Lost Friend draws from the traditional folk magic of Pennsylvania Dutch customs and pow-wow healers.This is authentic American folk magic at its best--household remedies combined with charms and incantations to cure common ailments and settle rural troubles. The most well-known grimoire of the New World, this work has influenced the practices of hoodoo, Santeria, Paganism, and other faiths. In this, the definitive edition, you'll find:Both the original German text and the 1856 English translation More than one hundred additional charms and recipes, taken from the pirated 1837 Skippacksville edition and others Extensive notes on the recipes, magic, Pennsylvania Dutch customs, and the origin of many of the charms Indices for general purposes and ingredients Explanations of the specialized terminology of illnesses Whether your interest lies in folklore, ethnobotany, magic, witchcraft, or American history, this classic volume is an essential addition to your library.

    Positive, practical, and easy to use, Green Witchcraft brings together the best of both modern Wicca and the author's family heritage of herb craft and folk magic.Green Witchcraft explores the fundamentals of the Wiccan religion, providing magical training for the independent thinker. Step-by-step instructions on a wide variety of magical techniques as well as basic rules of conduct make this the ideal book to get you started. Green rituals for self-initiation, rites of passage, seasonal celebrations and activities provide an excellent foundation for your own magical tradition.Discover the fine art of spellcasting, the magical uses of herbs, divination with the tarot and more. Explore the Sabbats, Esbats, and other rituals attuned to the cycles of nature and the universal powers. Find out for yourself what this organic approach to Witchcraft is all about.

    Their supposed author, a mythical figure named Hermes Trismegistus, was thought to be a contemporary of Moses. The Hermetic philosophy was regarded as an ancient theology, parallel to the revealed wisdom of the Bible, supporting Biblical revelation and culminating in the Platonic philosophical tradition. This new translation is the only English version based on reliable texts, and Professor Copenhaver's introduction and notes make this accessible and up-to-date edition an indispensable resource to scholars.

    This concise guide offers a modern interpretation of the doctrine, distilling its teachings with seven compelling principles that can be applied to self-development in daily life.

    What is certain is that this 1899 classic has become a foundational document of modern Wicca and neopaganism. Leland claimed his "witch informant," a fortune-teller named Maddalena, supplied him with the secret writings that he translated and combined with his research on Italian pagan tradition to create a gospel of pagan belief and practice. Here, in the story of the goddess Aradia, who came to Earth to champion oppressed peasants in their fight against their feudal overlords and the Catholic Church, are the chants, prayers, spells, and rituals that have become the centerpieces of contemporary pagan faiths. American journalist and folklorist CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (1824-1903) was editor of Continental Monthly during the Civil War and coined the term emancipation as an alternative to abolition, but he is best remembered for his books on ethnography, folklore, and language, including The Gypsies (1882), The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria (1892), and Unpublished Legends of Virgil (1899).

    . .* there were absolutely no evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus?* for thousands of years Pagans had also followed a Son of God?* this Pagan savior was also born of a virgin on the twenty-fifth of December before three shepherds, turned water into wine at a wedding, died and was resurrected, and offered his body and blood as a Holy Communion?* these Pagan myths had been rewritten as the gospel of Jesus Christ?* the earliest Gnostic Christians knew that the Jesus story was a myth?* Christianity turned out to be a continuation of Paganism by another name?

    Includes the teachings and a structural analysis.

    With practical tips for incorporating Pagan spirituality into every aspect of life, To Walk a Pagan Path teaches readers how to:•Have a meaningful Pagan practice by following seven simple steps.•Develop a sacred calendar customized for your beliefs, lifestyle, and environment.•Make daily activities sacred with quick and easy rituals. Connect with the earth in a very real way by producing a portion of your own food—even if you live in an apartment!•Express Pagan spirituality through a variety of craft projects: candles, scrying mirrors, solar wreaths, recipes, and more.

    Drawn into a netherworld of rituals and celebrations, Davis penetrated the vodoun mystique deeply enough to place zombification in its proper context within vodoun culture. In the course of his investigation, Davis came to realize that the story of vodoun is the history of Haiti—from the African origins of its people to the successful Haitian independence movement, down to the present day, where vodoun culture is, in effect, the government of Haiti’s countryside. The Serpent and the Rainbow combines anthropological investigation with a remarkable personal adventure to illuminate and finally explain a phenomenon that has long fascinated Americans.

    Embodying a ritual to be performed for the dead, with detailed instructions for the behavior of the disembodied spirit in the Land of the Gods, it served as the most important repository of religious authority for some three thousand years. Chapters were carved on the pyramids of the ancient 5th Dynasty, texts were written in papyrus, and selections were painted on mummy cases well into the Christian Era. In a certain sense it stood behind all Egyptian civilization.In the year 1888 Dr. E. Wallis Budge, then purchasing agent for the British Museum, followed rumors he heard of a spectacular archaeological find in Upper Egypt, and found in an 18th Dynasty tomb near Luxor "the largest roll of papyrus I had ever seen, tied with a thick band of papyrus, and in a perfect state of preservation." It was a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, written around 1500 B.C. for Ani, Royal Scribe of Thebes, Overseer of the Granaries of the Lords of Abydos, and Scribe of the Offerings of the Lords of Thebes.The Papyrus of Ani, a full version of the Theban recension, is presented here by Dr. Budge, who later became perhaps the world's most renowned Egyptologist. Reproduced in full are a clear copy of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, and interlinear transliteration of their sounds (as reconstructed), a word-for-word translation, and separately a complete smooth translation. All this is preceded by an introduction of more than 150 pages. As a result of this multiple apparatus the reader has a unique opportunity to savor all aspects of the Book of the Dead, or as it is otherwise known, the Book of the Great Awakening.

    Americans all, they were among the famous figures whose paths intertwined with the mystical and esoteric movement broadly known as the occult. Brought over from the Old World and spread throughout the New by some of the most obscure but gifted men and women of early U.S. history, this “hidden wisdom” transformed the spiritual life of the still-young nation and, through it, much of the Western world.Yet the story of the American occult has remained largely untold. Now a leading writer on the subject of alternative spirituality brings it out of the shadows. Here is a rich, fascinating, and colorful history of a religious revolution and an epic of offbeat history. From the meaning of the symbols on the one-dollar bill to the origins of the Ouija board, Occult America briskly sweeps from the nation’s earliest days to the birth of the New Age era and traces many people and episodes, including:•The spirit medium who became America’s first female religious leader in 1776 •The supernatural passions that marked the career of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith •The rural Sunday-school teacher whose clairvoyant visions instigated the dawn of the New Age •The prominence of mind-power mysticism in the black-nationalist politics of Marcus Garvey•The Idaho druggist whose mail-order mystical religion ranked as the eighth-largest faith in the world during the Great Depression Here, too, are America’s homegrown religious movements, from transcendentalism to spiritualism to Christian Science to the positive-thinking philosophy that continues to exert such a powerful pull on the public today. A feast for believers in alternative spirituality, an eye-opener for anyone curious about the unknown byroads of American history, Occult America is an engaging, long-overdue portrait of one nation, under many gods, whose revolutionary influence is still being felt in every corner of the globe.

    Helplessness in the face of disease and human disaster helped to perpetuate this belief in magic and the supernatural. As Keith Thomas shows, England during these years resembled in many ways today's underdeveloped areas. The English population was exceedingly liable to pain, sickness, and premature death; many were illiterate; epidemics such as the bubonic plague plowed through English towns, at times cutting the number of London's inhabitants by a sixth; fire was a constant threat; the food supply was precarious; and for most diseases there was no effective medical remedy. In this fascinating and detailed book, Keith Thomas shows how magic, like the medieval Church, offered an explanation for misfortune and a means of redress in times of adversity. The supernatural thus had its own practical utility in daily life. Some forms of magic were challenged by the Protestant Reformation, but only with the increased search for scientific explanation of the universe did the English people begin to abandon their recourse to the supernatural. Science and technology have made us less vulnerable to some of the hazards which confronted the people of the past. Yet Religion and the Decline of Magic concludes that if magic is defined as the employment of ineffective techniques to allay anxiety when effective ones are not available, then we must recognize that no society will ever be free from it.