Mythologies Religions

Drawing on the expertise of twenty-four renowned practitioners, this book features contemporary folk traditions from all over North America. Diverse as the landscapes they thrive on, these authentic practices will expand your worldview and inspire you to enrich your own spirituality. Explore the history, tools, and spiritual beliefs of many different paths of folk magic from Mexico, the United States, and Canada.

In The Heretic’s Handbook, the internationally bestselling author of The Secret History of the World has collected and codified ancient, secret wisdom from around the world, formulating a complete philosophy on how to live a happy and successful life. An acclaimed author and public speaker, Black shows how this body of knowledge has been declared ‘heretical’ both by the established church and by today’s atheistic intellectual elite.

Walk down the streets of Chinatown in any American or western European city and look around. She is there. Walk through the downtown streets, look in a shop window. She is there. Go to any city in China and open your eyes. She is there, too. Kuan Yin is the most ubiquitous Chinese deity - and the most loved. She is the living expression of compassion whose gentle face and elegant figure form the center of devotion in most Chinese homes and workplaces. Until relatively recently, she was barely known in the West, and few studies had been made of her.

Santa Muerte (Holy Death or Saint Death) is considered to be the female personification of death. This powerful and mysterious folk saint provides blessings including safe passage to the afterlife. Hailed as a potent and powerful protector, she is also the patron saint of those who live on the fringes of society as well as those who face violence and death. Santa Muerte is a complete ritual guide to working with this famous - and infamous! - Mexican folk saint. It takes us beyond the sensational headlines to reveal the truth about why Santa Muerte is so beloved by so many.

If you're looking for a collection of Celtic myths that speaks to all ages then keep reading… Giants and fairies, druidical magic, impossible deeds done by heroes: all of these are features of Celtic myths and legends. In this book, you will discover heroic stories about gods and goddesses and epic tales of love and betrayal all filled with spiritualism and even occasional humor. The Celtic myths will be brought to life so all the details are more than merely a bunch of dry facts.

As you learn about the Fenians, Finn, Conan, and Dermot, you can become engaged in a story full of drama, clever thinking, and causes and consequences, both foreseen and unforeseen. Fights, love, and betrayal play a role in the Celtic stories and the Irish folklore from the past. Aside from the fictional stories to entertain and inspire you, there will be chapters devoted to a historical background to enlighten you about the cultural way of thinking, the settings in which these tales evolved, and the belief system they embraced at the time.

Have you ever heard about the old mother of waters? How about Miao Shan? Or the medicine god?The Chinese had so many gods that it's probably a huge task to remember or memorize them all. For almost everything, there was either a god or a goddess. But a simple list of all the gods wouldn’t suffice to satisfy your appetite for the mystery of religious history in this massive country. So, to help you enjoy this audiobook, the intricate stories of betrayal, supernatural powers, love, and hatred are described in detail in this guide.

Exploring the diverse and dynamic ancestral veneration rites of the ancient Mesoamericans as well as those practiced in contemporary curanderismo, Erika Buenaflor shows how we can draw from these traditions to reconnect with our ancestors, deepen our healing journeys, and shape our lives. She explains how ancestors contain sacred energy that can continue in their direct physical heirs, be reborn in the landscape at sacred sites, or manifest in other beings that inhabit the same lands.

Do you know what lies behind every door? There are certain buildings which can be unsettling, disturbing, and downright terrifying. Even in seemingly normal homes, the strange and mysterious can help to create a sense of unease and ill-feeling. But there are certain buildings which scream strangeness from every surface. A coldness, an eerie atmosphere, or even the half caught sight of something moving in the corner of your vision. Some homes breathe paranormal activity and can leave you scared before you've even stepped over the threshold.

Tarot Deciphered is an in-depth voyage into the esoteric roots that underlie the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot, the Thoth Tarot, and the myriad of decks that share their symbology. This card-by-card analysis reveals detailed insights drawn from the multi-layered traditions of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the magical order that most strongly influenced modern tarot.

"The Other Crowd", "The Good People", "The Wee Folk", and "Them" are a few of the names given to the fairies by the people of Ireland. Honored for their gifts and feared for their wrath, the fairies remind us to respect the world we live in and the forces we cannot see. In these tales of fairy forts, fairy trees, ancient histories, and modern true-life encounters with the Other Crowd, Eddie Lenihan opens our eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a seanchai, a true Irish storyteller.

Are you ready to be scared? Pennsylvania is filled with phenomena science cannot explain. Houses in which the floorboards creak and door open on their own, battlefields where fallen soldiers walk again, strange sounds coming from the forest, spooky lights in the sky, and much more. Renowned paranormalist Tony Urban has collected over 25 tales of the unexplained from one end of PA to the other.

This collection features such stories as "Passenger Train Number 9"; "The Little People"; "The Phantom Rider of the Confederacy"; "The Demon of Wizard Clip"; "Room for One More"; "Tavern of Terror"; "The Surrency Ghost"; "The King's Messengers"; "The Haunted Gold Mine"; "The Singing River"; "The Gray Lady"; "Railroad Bill"; and "The Haunted Car".

Secrets of Greek Mysticism is the first spiritual book about the Greek gods and goddesses written by a native, practicing priest of Hellenic Polytheism. It goes beyond the simplistic and archetypical representation of the Greek pantheon and reintroduces the gods and goddesses from a theological perspective. Rather than presenting the gods and goddesses as symbolic, lifeless figures one can use to embellish spiritual practice, Secrets of Greek Mysticism teaches listeners how to find each god or goddess within them.

The God Agni, the holy Fire, is the primary expression of consciousness. He is the ultimate, unchanging, and inextinguishable consciousness that endures through and beyond all changes, the flame that never dies, even in the deepest darkness; he is the force that moves everything, the fundamental light and energy that lies behind all transformations. In this book we introduce the reader to the spiritual and theological significance of Agni, and examine select verses from the Rig Veda dedicated to him.

Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh - these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom.

We think of fairies as little winged people with magic wands, but Irish fairies were flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials who towered over humans. We knew them as angels, demons, phantoms, mermaids, fairies, gods and not-gods, and the Gentry. Giant, chalk-white humanoids with piercing blue eyes, and flaming red or golden-yellow hair cascading in curls over their shoulders, that’s the true appearance of the ancient fairies of Ireland who came down from the cosmos thousands of years ago.

According to Thomas Moore, people today have lost the deep, direct, and vivid sense of what it means to live with passion and with originality and that beneath the ideas of who we are and who we should be lies an original self. The fifty meditations in this collection offer fresh interpretations of living with that original self rather than conformity.

Embark on an enlightening journey through the rich tapestry of Hindu mythology with Hindu Mythology Simplified: Vishnu, Shiva, and the Great Epics of India. This comprehensive guide demystifies the complex narratives and profound philosophies that have shaped Indian culture for millennia, making them accessible to modern listeners seeking spiritual insight and cultural understanding.

For many centuries the figure of the witch has haunted our imagination and our nightmares. There have been many attempts to quash our fascination with these wielders of forbidden powers, but all have failed. We invite you now on a journey through a moonlit world, where every shadow tells a tale of magic, persecution and persistence. In this fascinating volume, discover witches real and legendary, who once terrorized, devoured, helped or empowered their communities, but who are now largely forgotten.