Meet and work with animals as totems and spirit guides by learning the language of their behaviors within the physical world.Animal Speak shows you how to:Identify, meet, and attune to your spirit animalsDiscover the power and spiritual significance of more than 100 different animals, birds, insects, and reptilesCall upon the protective powers of your animal totemCreate and use five magical animal rites, including shapeshifting and sacred danceThis beloved, bestselling guide has become a classic reference for anyone wishing to forge a spiritual connection with the majesty and mystery of the animal world.

    It’s also the best thing we’ve ever written about Minimalism and will likely serve as the cornerstone to our work for years to come. It took us a year to write this book—a year of creating the best material possible and finding ways to relate it back to our lives so you would have practical ways to relate the subject matter to your life.Chapter Themes:Do you jump out of bed every morning excited about the day in front of you? Do you live a life defined by deep meaning, endless passion, excellent health, empowering relationships, and constant growth?You can.Ultimately, the eight chapters and ninety-eight sections inside this book are meant to help you take small actions each day that will radically improve your life over a short period of time.This book’s foreword and first chapter go into vast detail on our personal backgrounds, our troubled pasts, our depression, and how we made changes that transformed our lives over two years. These chapters discuss why didn’t feel fulfilled by our careers and why we turned to our society’s idea of a meaningful life: we bought stuff, we spent too much money, and we lived paycheck to paycheck trying to purchase happiness in every trip to the shopping mall or luxurious vacation we could find. Instead of finding our passion, instead of searching for our mission, we pacified ourselves with ephemeral indulgences, inducing a crack-cocaine high that didn’t last far past the checkout line.The subsequent chapters move on the the five dimensions that comprise a meaningful life:1. Health2. Relationships3. Passions4. Growth5. ContributionThese are the things we changed in our lives that had the most impact. These changes resulted in more meaningful lives for the two of us. These five chapters discuss each of these concepts in depth, much more than our website. Throughout these chapters we consider why these areas are the most important dimensions of our lives and how minimalism allowed us to focus on these areas. We give you personal examples of how we changed everything in our lives over two year span. We left our big corporate jobs, changed our diets, started exercising regularly, got healthy, strengthened our core relationships, made great new relationships, started pursuing our passions, contributed to more people than we ever had, and found ways to be happy and content with our lives.The final chapter of this book, "The Confluence of Meaning," binds together the five dimensions and asks the reader important questions about their life. These questions are not rhetorical, they are meant to make you think. The entire book is designed to help you actively engage in each chapter by reading the content more than once, taking notes, highlighting meaningful passages, making lists, and, most importantly, taking action.

    In fact, the English word “rune” comes to us from the Norse word runa, which means “a secret,” or “to whisper.” As symbols, the runes mean little to the untrained eye, yet the magical energies they activate can be used for positive, impactful change in your everyday life. But what are runes, exactly? On the surface level, runes are the characters in a writing system used by the ancient Germanic peoples of Europe. But unlike our modern letters, the runic symbols had been used for magical purposes long before they were fashioned into an alphabet. This is known from runic inscriptions found on ancient artifacts as well as Germanic myth and lore handed down over the centuries. Indeed, those who work with the runes today are taking part in an age-old magical tradition established by our Northern European pagan ancestors. In Runes for Beginners, best-selling author Lisa Chamberlain shines the light on these ancient symbols, showing you how to discover and utilize their unique magical energies. With both an eye toward tradition and a multicultural spirit, Lisa combines an appreciation for the Germanic roots of the runes with a more eclectic Neopagan approach. Unlike many other books on the topic, Runes for Beginners is completely accessible to those with no experience in Northern European magical traditions, yet it doesn’t ignore those traditions altogether. You will emerge from this guide with a basic understanding of the runes’ role in ancient Germanic paganism, as well as a solid foundation of knowledge to build your own runic practice, regardless of your religious or spiritual path. Foundations in Runic Magic and Divination The runes represent various aspects of the human experience of the Universe—both tangible and intangible. Each runic symbol embodies a natural force, or type of energy, which the rune worker can attune to and then manipulate in various ways. Runes can be sent out into the Universe to manifest a magical goal, or they can be used to consult with the unseen realms about a situation at hand. In Runes for Beginners, you’ll learn all you need to know to start working with runes, including: The history of the runes and their role within the framework of the Germanic magical worldview The origins of runic wisdom in Norse mythology An overview of the Elder Futhark, the oldest-known runic alphabet and most widely used rune system in contemporary Neopaganism Basic techniques of rune magic, including rune scripts, bind runes, and creating runic talismans How to make your own runes Instructions for traditional rune-casting as well as contemporary rune spreads Tips for successful divination The divinatory meanings and magical uses of each rune in the Elder Futhark A suggested reading list for further exploring the runes and the magical and spiritual traditions of the ancient Germanic peoples Detailed tables of correspondence for a handy condensed magical and divinatory guide By the end of this guide, you will have a working knowledge of the runes that will enable you to use them with confidence in magic and divination.

    In the West, Reiki has been kept highly secret for many years. ESSENTIAL REIKI presents full information on all three degrees of this healing system, most of it in print for the first time. Teaching from the perspective that Reiki healing belongs to all people, Diane Stein breaks new ground in her classic guide to this ancient practice. While no book can replace the directly received Reiki "attunements," ESSENTIAL REIKI provides everything else that the healer, practitioner, and teacher of this system needs.

    A laboratory scientist and chemist, Robert Allen Bartlett provides an overview of the history of alchemy, as well as an exploration of the theories behind the practice. Clean, clear, simple, and easy to read, Real Alchemy provides excellent directions regarding the production of plant products and transitions the reader-student into the basics of mineral work--what some consider the true domain of alchemy. New students to practical laboratory alchemy will enjoy reading Real Alchemy and hopefully find the encouragement needed to undertake their own alchemical journey. Bartlett also explains what the ancients really meant when they used the term "Philosopher's Stone" and describes several very real and practical methods for its achievement. Is the fabled Philosopher's Stone an elixir of long life or is it a method of transforming lead into gold? Judge for yourself.

    Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

    Already over 100,000 people are using it.Author Donald Michael Kraig wrote this after teaching the information in classes for ten years. It is refined, tested, and easy to understand. It is filled with exercises, techniques, and rituals to help you. It is presented in a series of eleven lessons. Follow the lessons, practice the rituals and techniques, and by the end of your work you will be a magician. What does it cover? Rituals, healing, initiation, talismans, astral travel, creative visualization, psychic self-defense, evocation of spirits, the Kabalah, physical exercise, and magical tools such as wands.Want more? You'll also learn the secrets of true meditation, how to use the Tarot, how to remember your dreams, how to do the rituals of Western Magick, including rituals of the Pentagram, Hexagram, Middle Pillar, Rose Cross, and Watchtower. You'll learn how to manipulate magical energy, secrets of relaxation, Wicca, pathworking, Tantra, and sex magick.Once you have finished working your way through this book you will be an accomplished magician. You will be able to perform real magick. Then this book will become the most valuable reference tool in your collection of books.What if you want to know even more about a subject? No problem. Each chapter has a bibliography so you can go even deeper into any topic. There is an annotated bibliography at the end with even more resources.In the new, second edition the contents pages contain more information so it is even easier to find what you need, but there is also an entirely new appendix with answers to many of the most frequently asked questions that Kraig has received over the years. This book is a must!

    Following in the footsteps of Christopher Hitchens, Roger Penrose, and even Stephen Hawking, Jim Holt now enters this fractious debate with his lively and deeply informed narrative that traces the latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. The slyly humorous Holt takes on the role of cosmological detective, suggesting that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to Yahweh vs. the Big Bang. Tracking down an eccentric Oxford philosopher, a Physics Nobel Laureate, a French Buddhist monk who lived with the Dalai Lama, and John Updike just before he died, Holt pursues unexplored angles to this cosmic puzzle. As he pieces together a solution--one that sheds new light on the question of God and the meaning of existence--he offers brisk philosophical asides on time and eternity, consciousness, and the arithmetic of nothingness.“The pleasure of this book is watching the match: the staggeringly inventive human mind slamming its fantastic conjectures over the net, the universe coolly returning every serve.... Holt traffics in wonder, a word whose dual meanings—the absence of answers; the experience of awe—strike me as profoundly related. His book is not utilitarian. You can’t profit from it, at least not in the narrow sense.... And yet it does what real science writing should: It helps us feel the fullness of the problem.” (Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine)" Jim Holt leaves us with the question Stephen Hawking once asked but couldn't answer, ‘Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?’” (Ron Rosenbaum, Slate )

    One of the most extraordinary books written in recent years about the subject of religion.

    Here, for the first time and in detail, Zimbardo tells the full story of the Stanford Prison Experiment, the landmark study in which a group of college-student volunteers was randomly divided into “guards” and “inmates” and then placed in a mock prison environment. Within a week, the study was abandoned, as ordinary college students were transformed into either brutal, sadistic guards or emotionally broken prisoners. By illuminating the psychological causes behind such disturbing metamorphoses, Zimbardo enables us to better understand a variety of harrowing phenomena, from corporate malfeasance to organized genocide to how once upstanding American soldiers came to abuse and torture Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib. He replaces the long-held notion of the “bad apple” with that of the “bad barrel”—the idea that the social setting and the system contaminate the individual, rather than the other way around.

    Learn what it's like to take an astral journey to the realm of spirit, where loving guides and higher beings of light provide instruction and warm encouragement.Following in the footsteps of Dr. Michael Newton's bestselling books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, this book provides profound spiritual insights and lessons that will help you connect to your own inner wisdom and gain a new perspective on your life challenges. Within these pages, you will read amazing stories of people whose Life Between Lives(R) experiences helped them manage family conflicts, cope with health issues, improve their romantic relationships, advance their careers, and resolve debilitating anxiety and depression. Compiled by members of the Michael Newton Institute for Life Between Lives Hypnotherapy, Wisdom of Souls provides breathtaking evidence of the life that awaits in the realms of spirit.

    Using translation as his lens, David Bellos shows how much we can learn about ourselves by exploring the ways we use translation, from the historical roots of written language to the stylistic choices of Ingmar Bergman, from the United Nations General Assembly to the significance of James Cameron's Avatar.Is That a Fish in Your Ear? ranges across human experience to describe why translation sits deep within us all, and why we need it in so many situations, from the spread of religion to our appreciation of literature; indeed, Bellos claims that all writers are by definition translators. Written with joie de vivre, reveling both in misunderstanding and communication, littered with wonderful asides, it promises any reader new eyes through which to understand the world. In the words of Bellos: "The practice of translation rests on two presuppositions. The first is that we are all different: we speak different tongues, and see the world in ways that are deeply influenced by the particular features of the tongue that we speak. The second is that we are all the same—that we can share the same broad and narrow kinds of feelings, information, understandings, and so forth. Without both of these suppositions, translation could not exist. Nor could anything we would like to call social life. Translation is another name for the human condition."

    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.

    A translation of the Kabbalah for the layperson includes a compact presentation of each primary text and features a practical analysis and vital historical information that offer insight into the various aspects of Jewish mysticism.

    Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art form.