Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book of great originality and scholarship serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also encompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence.

    Includes a chart on the colors of the visible spectrum and their correlations to musical notes, planets, and attitudes.

    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.

    He realized that it is easier for the unconscious to understand the language of dreams than that of rationality. Illness can even be seen as a physical dream that reveals unresolved emotional and psychological problems. Psychomagic presents the shamanic and genealogical principles Jodorowsky discovered to create a healing therapy that could use the powers of dreams, art, and theater to empower individuals to heal wounds that in some cases had traveled through generations. The concrete and often surreal poetic actions Jodorowsky employs are part of an elaborate strategy intended to break apart the dysfunctional persona with whom the patient identifies in order to connect with a deeper self. That is when true transformation can manifest. For a young man who complained that he lived only in his head and was unable to grab hold of reality and advance toward the financial autonomy he desired, Jodorowsky gave the prescription to paste two gold coins to the soles of his shoes so that all day he would be walking on gold. A judge whose vanity was ruling his every move was given the task of dressing like a tramp and begging outside one of the fashionable restaurants he loved to frequent while pulling glass doll eyes out of his pockets. The lesson for him was that if a tramp can fill his pockets with eyeballs, then they must be of no value, and thus the eyes of others should have no bearing on who you are and what you do. Taking his patients directly at their words, Jodorowsky takes the same elements associated with a negative emotional charge and recasts them in an action that will make them positive and enable them to pay the psychological debts hindering their lives.

    The Golden Bough" describes our ancestors' primitive methods of worship, sex practices, strange rituals and festivals. Disproving the popular thought that primitive life was simple, this monumental survey shows that savage man was enmeshed in a tangle of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Revealed here is the evolution of man from savagery to civilization, from the modification of his weird and often bloodthirsty customs to the entry of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values.

    This pictorial key contains a detailed description of each card in the world's most popular 78-card Rider-Waite tarot deck, along with regular and reversed meanings.

    In Generation Hex, editor Jason Louv assembles a collection of dispatches from the edge—a generation of young adults who are inventing and imagining radically new directions for spirituality and human evolution.Arising from the magical and occult underground of the early twenty-first century, the authors, artists, thinkers, and magicians assembled in Generation Hex collectively point the way to a future in which fanaticism and dogma have disappeared, in which human beings are free to realize their own destinies, and where the theory and practical applications of magic—the psychic ability of all human beings to engage and participate with the creative energy of the universe itself—-saturate and regenerate this troubled planet.Through critical essays and practical demonstrations of how a positive interaction with the occult, esoteric, and psychic undercurrents of human life can radically alter one’s existence, the young magicians collected here provide a collective snapshot of a dramatically new way forward for global culture as it emerges from the fringes and into the mainstream, from counterculture to ultraculture.Generation Hex offers the reader an excursion into the lives and practices of real-life Harry Potters, young men and women who practice real magic, here stripped of its sinister trappings and revealed to be what it truly is—the key to human evolution. Generation Hex provides a blueprint for escaping the suicidal rut of modern life and the radical redesign of the very essence of what it means to be human.Jason Louv is a New York-based writer and editor. He has spent the last six years researching and practicing magic, being initiated into various questionable secret societies, traveling around the Near East, and learning how to cloud minds. This is his first book.

    This is called "initiation" or "vision quest" in many traditional societies and ... a dangerous variety of self-psychotherapy in modern terminology. I do not recommend it for everybody... the main thing I learned is that "reality is always plural and mutable." — From the Preface

    But the CD-ROM in this new edition allows the reader to cast his or her chart in just a few minutes by inputting the date, time and place of birth into the computer, producing a personalized astrological chart in just a few minutes. In addition to revealing the planets' influence on romance, health, and career, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need takes a closer look at the inner life of each sign. Celebrated astrologer Joanna Martine Woolfolk offers abundant insights on the personal relationships and emotional needs that motivate an individual, on how others perceive astrological types, and on dealing with the negative aspects of signs. Readers will also welcome the inclusion of new discoveries in astronomy.

    An examination of the nature of power that offers creative alternatives for positive change in our personal lives, our communities, and our world.

    Coomaraswamy. This extraordinary text unveils the cosmological meanings of root symbols organized under such general headings as: The Center of the World, Cyclic Manifestation, Symboic Weapons, Axial Symbolism and the Symbolsim of Passage, The Symbolism of Building, and The Symbolism of the Heart. Far more than a simple catalogue of myths and symbols from many traditions, Symbols of the Sacred Science lays the foundation for a universal esoteric symbology. In this work, Gunon demonstrates the fundamental unity-across all cultures and ages-of the images with which the Absolute clothes itself in its cosmic self-revelation.

    Bob Frissell reminds readers that they create their own reality through their consciousness and that improving this reality and living a fuller life is simply a matter of broadening one's perspectives. In this book, he shows people how to reconnect with their multidimensional selves and remake their lives.

    In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.

    The highly readable texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol’s psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image—all these factors are taken into consideration.Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche’s unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance.The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.

    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.