Diamonds in the Dust: 366 Sparkling Devotions


Joni Eareckson Tada - 1993
    Joni shows us precious jewels of biblical truth that lie scattered amidst the gravel of life’s dusty road. “The book you hold in your hands is my treasure trove of diamond chips I’ve collected over the years,” says Joni. “I’ve carefully selected favorite gems, ones I’ve often held to the light, turned this way and that to admire their beauty, diamonds that have made me rich in faith and wealthy in hope.” These 366 meditations uncover a wealth of promise, of eternal truths waiting to transform the events of our lives into facets that catch and reflect God’s glory. Written from the perspective of a woman who traverses life in a wheelchair, this book wipes away the surface grit of suffering and circumstances to reveal the radiant hope that each of us can claim. Diamonds in the Dust takes theology and gives it flesh, breath, and emotion. With eloquence, Joni draws from her own trials and triumphs to enrich us all with the wisdom of Scripture. But she’s not the only one whose everyday life holds such potential. “Look down at your feet,” Joni writes. “The path sparkles. God has placed diamonds in the dust of your road too!”

The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler


Thomas Hager - 2008
    Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the world’s scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives. Their invention continues to feed us today; without it, more than two billion people would starve.But their epochal triumph came at a price we are still paying. The Haber-Bosch process was also used to make the gunpowder and high explosives that killed millions during the two world wars. Both men were vilified during their lives; both, disillusioned and disgraced, died tragically. Today we face the other un­intended consequences of their discovery—massive nitrogen pollution and a growing pandemic of obesity.The Alchemy of Air is the extraordinary, previously untold story of two master scientists who saved the world only to lose everything and of the unforseen results of a discovery that continues to shape our lives in the most fundamental and dramatic of ways.

This Dark Endeavor


Kenneth Oppel - 2011
    In the forbidden Dark Library, Victor finds an ancient formula, and seeks an alchemist to recreate the Elixir of Life. With friends Elizabeth and Henry, he scales highest trees in the Strumwald, dives deepest lake caves, and each sacrifices a body part.

The Alchemist’s Kitchen: Extraordinary Potions & Curious Notions


Guy Ogilvy - 2006
    From the revelation of fire to mediaeval quests for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, the alchemical path has attracted many great minds.Packed with recipes for herbal elixirs, soothing balms, heady scents, rich pigments, and potent solvents, The Alchemist’s Kitchen will appeal to anyone fascinated by the past and the occult world.From the legendary Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus and Paracelsus’s spagyric medicine, to the ancient science of the four elements and the symbolic associations of mediaeval pigment recipes, this book—illustrated with old engravings and original art—takes you inside mediaeval laboratories and kitchens to explore the sacred secrets of matter.

The Alchemy of Stone


Ekaterina Sedia - 2008
    With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets -- secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn't sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart -- literally! A steampunk novel of romance, political intrigue, and alchemy, The Alchemy of Stone represents a new and intriguing direction by the author of the critically-acclaimed The Secret History of Moscow:

The Taoist Classics, Volume One: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary


Thomas Cleary - 1999
     - Chuang-tzu: The "Inner Teachings" of a widely influential compendium of wisdom stories, fables, and anecdotes. - Wen-tzu: Understanding the Mysteries: Another core text of Chinese Taoism, containing teachings also attributed to the author of the Tao Te Ching. - The Book of Leadership and Strategy: Lessons of the Chinese Masters: One of the great Chinese teachings on the subtle arts of management and leadership at all levels. - Sex, Health, and Long Life: Manuals of Taoist Practice: The techniques contained in these five texts reveal the transformative influence sex can have when wisely practiced.

The White Road: Journey Into an Obsession


Edmund de Waal - 2015
    From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three "white hills" - sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain's creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history.Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of "the spectrum of porcelain" and the mapping of desire.

Companion for the Apprentice Wizard


Oberon Zell-Ravenheart - 2006
    Unlike his first best-selling book, Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard which focused on the lessons one must learn to become a Wizard, Oberon focuses on taking you to the next level by putting those lessons to use with hands-on magickal training.Chapters are based on the Departments of Oberon's Grey School of Wizardry:AlchemyBeast MasteryCeremonial MagickCosmology and MetaphysicsDivinationHealingLifewaysLoreMathemagicksMetapsychicsNaturePerformance MagicPracticeSorceryWizardryWortcunningInside you will find materials and exercises from the vaults of the Grey School, and instruction from the faculty. Step-by-step instructions are provided for:How to make a Wizard's wandHow to make your own runesHow to make a pocket sundialHow to make and use a firebowHow to make the milky way galaxyHow to make your own amulets and talismansPotions for all purposesHow to conjure illusions and create special effectsAnd many other amazing projects…Companion for the Apprentice Wizard also includes a number of hand-drawn, full-page diagrams of magickal objects to copy, cut out, and assemble, including:Spinners for psychokinesisA Planetary Hour CalculatorThe Mariner's AstrolabeA winged dragonA model of the mystic pyramidA model of Leonardo da Vinci's Ornithopter

The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital: The Masons and the Building of Washington, D.C.


David Ovason - 2000
    David Ovason, who has studied these astrological devices for ten years, now reveals why they have been placed in such abundance in the center of our nation's capital and explains their interconnections. His richly illustrated text tells the story of how Washington, from its foundation in 1791, was linked with the zodiac, with the meaning of certain stars, and with a hidden cosmological symbolism that he uncovers here for the first time.Fascinating and thoroughly researched, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation 's Capital is an engrossing book that raises provocative questions and otters complex insights into the meanings behind the mysterious symbols in Washington.

The Lady Alchemist


Samantha Vitale - 2020
    But when a slip of the tongue lands her in prison with a mountain of straw, even she has to admit that she can’t transmute straw into gold.With the threat of a death sentence hanging over her, she’s forced to make a deal with a conniving magician. Sepha escapes with her life – but at a cost: she has one year to alchemically create a body for the magician, or else her firstborn child will be his.As Sepha’s deadline approaches, she uncovers a deadly secret. How can she save her country when the body she owes the magician will be used to destroy it?

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz


Johann Valentin Andreae - 1616
    Unlike the Rosicrucian manifestoes, which address the transformation of society, The Chemical Wedding is concerned with the inner transformation of the soul. It is a deeply interior work, one which asks the reader to step into its world of symbols and walk with Christian Rosenkreutz along his path of transformation. Despite its importance as a key text of the Western esoteric traditions, this is the first ever contemporary English translation of The Chemical Wedding, made especially for this edition by Joscelyn Godwin. Also included in this edition is an introduction and commentary by Adam McLean, which illuminates the transformative symbolism.

Ægypt


John Crowley - 1987
    He’s still wondering years later when, jilted and newly jobless, he gets off a bus by chance in the Faraway Hills and steps unawares into a story that has been awaiting him there.Does the world have a plot? It’s what Rosie Rasmussen wants to know, too. Will her life have the fearful symmetry of the lives led inside the books she reads? Rosie, newly returned to her childhood environs in the Faraways, is reading the historical romances of dead Fellowes Kraft one after another to see her through the hard realities of a divorce. There is another history in Kraft’s vivid novels: there are angels and Elizabethan magicians and the boy Shakespeare; once upon a time these tales entranced Pierce Moffett too, and teased him with the traces of a very large story indeed…Pierce is on the track of a history he can’t quite believe in; Rosie is losing her place in her own story, forgetting why people love one another. They are two seekers, marked by loss, about to share a discover in Fellowes Kraft’s old house in the Faraway Hills. There is more than one history of the world.

The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook: A Guide to the World's Best Teas


Mary Lou Heiss - 2010
    And every tea, whether a delicately sweet green tea from Japan or a bracing, brisk Darjeeling black, tells a story in the cup about the land that nurtured it and the tea-making skills that transformed it.  In this authoritative guide, veteran tea professionals Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss provide decades of expertise on understanding tea and its origins, the many ways to buy tea, and how to explore and enjoy the six classes of tea (green, yellow, white, oolong, black, and Pu-erh). Additional advice on steeping the perfect cup and storing tea at home, alongside a gallery of more than thirty-fi ve individual teas with tasting notes and descriptions make The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook a singular source of both practical information and rich detail about this fascinating beverage.

The Elixir of Immortality


Gabi Gleichmann - 2012
    Now, after thirty-six generations, the last descendant of this long and illustrious chain, Ari Spinoza, doesn’t have a son to whom to entrust the manuscript. From his deathbed, he begins his narrative, hoping to save his lineage from oblivion.Ari’s two main sources of his family’s history are a trunk of yellowing documents inherited from his grandfather, and his great-uncle Fernando’s tales that captivated him when he was a child. He chronicles the Spinozas’ involvement in some of Europe’s most formative cultural events with intertwining narratives that move through ages of tyranny, creativity, and social upheaval: into medieval Portugal, Grand inquisitor Torquemada’s Spain, Rembrandt’s Amsterdam, the French Revolution, Freud’s Vienna, and the horrors of both world wars.The Elixir of Immortality blends truth and fiction as it rewrites European history through comic, imaginative, scandalous, and tragic tales that prove “the only thing that can possibly give human beings immortality on this earth: our ability to remember.”

The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present


Chris Gosden - 2020
    But magic - the idea that we have a connection with the universe - has developed a bad reputation.It has been with us for millennia - from the curses and charms of ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish magic, to the shamanistic traditions of Eurasia, indigenous America and Africa, and even quantum physics today. Even today seventy-five per cent of the Western world holds some belief in magic, whether snapping wishbones, buying lottery tickets or giving names to inanimate objects.Drawing on his decades of research, with incredible breadth and authority, Professor Chris Gosden provides a timely history of human thought and the role it has played in shaping civilization, and how we might use magic to rethink our understanding of the world.