Published in a slightly abridged two-book set, this work paints a fascinating and empowering story of the far-reaching effects of one person’s inner determination. Josei Toda’s awakening and transformation, his efforts to teach others the unlimited power of faith, his dedication in leading thousands out of misery and poverty, the efforts of his devoted disciple Shin’ichi Yamamoto—within these stories we find the keys for building lives of genuine happiness.

    This book describes the motivations behind external history, the growth of religious striving, the rise and fall of cultures, and indicates their importance for us today. It reflects the lives and deeds of human beings of extraordinary stature: Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and Jesus.In these pages one witnesses spiritual adventure of a depth and intensity rarely experienced by creative human beings, even in their most exalted moments. This excitement of discovery which breathes through The Great Initiates may well explain its continuing popularity after over a century.

    

    The 70 mysteries are divided into six sections: Myths and legends; Mysteries of the Stone Age; Ancient civilizations; Tombs and lost treasures; Ancient and undeciphered scripts; The fall of civilizations. They include the quest for the Ark of the Covenant, the Turin Shroud, the origin of humans and language, the Mother Goddess cult, the Iceman, the nationality of ancient Egyptians and the Olmecs, Rome's lost legions, Easter Island, Christ's tomb, the origins of the alphabet, runes, the fall of the Minoans and asteroid impacts. The sheer quantity of mysteries discussed means that some questions are inevitably left unanswered but the volume succeeds in its aim to inform the general reader whilst encouraging further research.

    It may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those forty days in the wilderness.  With these words, Philip Goldberg begins his monumental work, American Veda, a fascinating look at India’s remarkable impact on Western culture. This eye-opening popular history shows how the ancient philosophy of Vedanta and the mind-body methods of Yoga have profoundly affected the worldview of millions of Americans and radically altered the religious landscape.   What exploded in the 1960s actually began more than two hundred years earlier, when the United States started importing knowledge as well as tangy spices and colorful fabrics from Asia. The first translations of Hindu texts found their way into the libraries of John Adams and Ralph Waldo Emerson. From there the ideas spread to Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and succeeding generations of receptive Americans, who absorbed India’s “science of consciousness” and wove it into the fabric of their lives. Charismatic teachers like Swami Vivekananda and Paramahansa Yogananda came west in waves, prompting leading intellectuals, artists, and scientists such as Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Allen Ginsberg, J. D. Salinger, John Coltrane, Dean Ornish, and Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass, to adapt and disseminate what they learned from them. The impact has been enormous, enlarging our current understanding of the mind and body and dramatically changing how we view ourselves and our place in the cosmos.  Goldberg paints a compelling picture of this remarkable East-to-West transmission, showing how it accelerated through the decades and eventually moved from the counterculture into our laboratories, libraries, and living rooms.  Now physicians and therapists routinely recommend meditation, words like karma and mantra are part of our everyday vocabulary, and Yoga studios are as ubiquitous as Starbuckses. The insights of India’s sages permeate so much of what we think, believe, and do that they have redefined the meaning of life for millions of Americans—and continue to do so every day.   Rich in detail and expansive in scope, American Veda shows how we have come to accept and live by the central teaching of Vedic wisdom: “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.”

    Whether you were the king's court astrologer or a farmer marking the best time for planting, timekeeping and numbers really mattered. Mistake a numerical pattern of petals and you could be poisoned. Lose the rhythm of a sacred dance or the meter of a ritually told story and the intricately woven threads that hold life together were spoiled. Ignore the celestial clock of equinoxes and solstices, and you'd risk being caught short of food for the winter. Shesso's friendly tone and clear grasp of the information make the math "go down easy" in this marvelous book.BONUS: This book has over 100 illustrations! Click on the Google Preview link to get a glimpse.Excerpt from Math for Mystics: “It’s our collective malaise: Post-Traumatic Math Disorder.“Yet despite how we personally feel about mathematics, our distant ancestors willingly used numbers as pathways into the great patterns of Nature, avenues to understanding the Universe and their own place in it. Many ancient cultures had specific gods and goddesses they credited with inventing mathematical skills. With the aid of divine inspiration and assistance, humans nourished this numerical invention, continually pushing their skills and seeking greater clarity of expression. “Our starting point may seem like a Zero. But for now, before looking at numbers and math, let’s simply see it as a circle. No matter what our spiritual practice, we each live within the circle of creation, each within the circle—the cohesiveness—of our own form...” From John Michael Greer, Grand Archdruid, Ancient Order of Druids in America and author of The Druidry Handbook:“As thoughtful as it is readable, Renna Shesso’s Math for Mystics is the book I wish I had when I first started trying to make sense of the mathematics that underlie so much of modern magic and traditional occult lore. Not the least of its virtues is the way it makes magical number theory accessible even to those who think they don’t like or can’t handle math. It provides a first-rate introduction to a fairly neglected branch of magical lore.”

    Wattles, and many others Following in the footsteps of a little-known group of esoteric seekers from the late-nineteenth century who called themselves “the Miracle Club,” Mitch Horowitz shows that the spiritual “wish fulfillment” practices known as the Law of Attraction, Positive Thinking, “the Secret,” and the Science of Getting Rich actually work. Weaving these ideas together into a concise, clear formula, with real-life examples of success, he reveals how your thoughts can impact reality and make things happen. In this “manual for miracles,” Horowitz explains how we each possess a creative agency to determine and reshape our lives. He shows how thinking in a directed, highly focused, and emotively charged manner expands our capacity to perceive and transform events and allows us to surpass ordinary boundaries of time and physical space. Building on Neville Goddard’s view that the human imagination is God the Creator and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s techniques for attaining personal power, he explores the highest uses of mind-power metaphysics and explains what works and what doesn’t, illuminating why and how events bend to our thoughts. He encourages readers to experiment and find themselves “at the helm of infinite possibilities.” Laying out a specific path to manifest your deepest desires, from wealth and love to happiness and security, Horowitz provides focused exercises and concrete tools for change and looks at ways to get more out of prayer, affirmation, and visualization. He also provides the first serious reconsideration of New Thought philosophy since the death of William James in 1910. He includes crucial insights and effective methods from the movement’s leaders such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Napoleon Hill, Neville Goddard, William James, Andrew Jackson Davis, Wallace D. Wattles, and many others. Defining a miracle as “circumstances or events that surpass all conventional or natural expectation,” the author invites you to join him in pursuing miracles and achieve power over your own life.

     Beginning in what is now Kansas City he joined a caravan headed for Bent’s Fort in southeastern Colorado near the Spanish Peaks, which was known to the Native Americans as Wah-to-Yah. Just before Garrard had arrived in the southwest Charles Bent, who was the recently appointed Governor of the newly acquired New Mexico Territory, was scalped and killed by Pueblo warriors during the Taos Revolt. Garrard’s account is therefore a vivid first-hand account of the Taos Revolt and its aftermath. Through the course of Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail Garrard explains how he came into contact with some of the most famous figures of western history, including Kit Carson, Jim Beckwourth, Ceran St. Vrain, George F. Ruxton, William Bent, and others. Scholars like Robert Gale have highlighted how the book provides “anthropologically accurate” descriptions of the Cheyenne Indians and other Native American tribes in the southwest of America. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the old west, for as the Pulitzer Prize winning author A. B. Guthrie Jr. stated, it is “the genuine article” and brilliantly depicts “the Indian, the trader, the mountain man, their dress, and behavior and speech and the country and climate they lived in.” Lewis Hector Garrard was the son of a prominent family from Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1846 he set out for a ten-month trip to the southwestern United States. While in Taos, Garrard attended the trial of some of the Mexicans and Pueblos who had revolted against U.S. rule of New Mexico, newly captured in the Mexican-American War. Garrard wrote the only eye witness account of the trial and hanging of six convicted men. His book Wah-to-Yah was first published in 1850 and he passed away in 1887.

    When the mind has understood all things and found them to be in harmony with what has been expounded by the teachings, it is faithful and comes to rest in that beautiful faith.”Hermes to AsclepiusThe Corpus Hermeticum, a powerful fusion of Greek and Egyptian thought, is one of the cornerstones of the Western esoteric tradition. A collection of short philosophical treatises, it was written in Greek between the first and third centuries A.D. and translated into Latin during the Renaissance by the great scholar and philosopher Marsilio Ficino. These writings, believed to be the writings of Hermes Trismegistus, were central to the spiritual work of Hermetic societies in Late Antique Alexandria (200-700 A.D.), and aimed to awaken gnosis, the direct realization of the unity of the individual and the Supreme.In addition to this new translation of The Corpus Hermeticum, which seeks to reflect the inspirational intent of the original, The Way of Hermes includes the first English translation of the recently rediscovered manuscript of The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius, a collection of aphorisms used by the hermetic student to strengthen the mind during meditation. With the proper mental orientation,a state of pure perception can be achieved in which the true face of God appears. This document is of enormous value to the contemporary student of gnostic studies for its insights into the actual workings of this spiritual path.Clement Salaman is the editor of the English translation of The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Dorine Van Oyen is a lecturer on Hermetic studies in Amsterdam. William D. Wharton teaches Classical history, languages, and philosophy in Boston. Jean-Pierre Mahe is Correspondent of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris.

    (Except secretly you really do you masochistic, beastly person you.) Illustrated, painfully funny and drop-your-jaw ridiculous, this is trivia from the cesspit of time that you won't be able to stop reading once you start.*To aid childbirth.**They exploded it with 100 times too much dynamite and rained blubber down on unsuspecting people and buildings.***Decency prevents us from answering this one here. You'll have to buy the book to find out.

    Religion and magic permeated their civilization, and this book provides a unique insight into their religious beliefs and practices, from 5000 BC to the 4th century AD, when Egyptian Christianity replaced the earlier customs. Arranged chronologically, this book provides a fascinating introduction to the world of half-human/ half-animal gods and goddesses; death rituals, the afterlife and mummification; the cult of sacred animals, pyramids, magic and medicine. An appendix contains translations of Ancient Eygtian spells.

    In this text, Alister McGrath utilises the successful historic chapters from Christian Theology: An Introduction, Second Edition and builds on them to provide all the material that students will need to understand the development of Christian theology from its beginnings.

    The ideas presented in this Bible reference book are based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and are presented in a cross-denominational format.

     People everywhere have heard of Waldorf schools, Biodynamic farming, Camphill Villages, and other innovations of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Indeed, Steiner-as an architect, artist, teacher, and agriculturalist-ranks among the most creative and prolific figures of the early twentieth century, pioneering work in alternative education, holistic health, and environmental research. While his accomplishments are felt all over the world, few people understand this unusual figure. Steiner's own writings and lectures fill several bookcases, intimidating those who would like to know more. Works on Steiner are often dense and "insider" in tone, further deterring the curious. No popular biography, written by a sympathetic but critical outsider, has been available. Gary Lachman's Rudolf Steiner provides this missing introduction. Along with telling Steiner's story and placing Steiner in his historical context, Lachman's book presents Steiner's key ideas in a readable, accessible manner. In particular, Lachman considers the spread of Steiner's most popular projects, which include Waldorf schools-one of the leading forms of alternative education-and Biodynamic farming-a popular precursor to organic farming. He also traces Steiner's beginnings as a young intellectual in the ferment of fin de si?cle culture, to his rise as a thought leader within the influential occult movement of Theosophy, to the founding of his own metaphysical teaching called Anthroposophy. Finally, the book illustrates how Steiner's methods are put into practice today, and relates Steiner's insights into cosmology to the work of current thinkers. Rudolf Steiner is a full-bodied portrait of one of the most original philosophical and spiritual luminaries of the last two centuries, and gives those interested in the history of ideas the opportunity to discover one of the most underappreciated figures of the twentieth century.

    The creating, supporting, nurturing aspect held by the goddess Ceres, the universal mother, brings us to how we feel nurtured and how we function with our roles of mother-child. She embodies the principle of unconditional love. Pallas Athena is our Warrior Goddess, a woman in a man's world, carrying the principle of creative intelligence. Vesta, our goddess of Focus and Commitment, is our High Priestess. Juno, the Queen of Heaven and Divine Consort, is our capacity for meaningful relationships. Understanding the themes that each goddess holds enriches our understanding of that function and expression in our lives.