Earth-Based Religions Books - Page 4

Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation

Silver RavenWolf

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 124 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

I didn't realize that I was a teenager.... 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I detest this book.
First of all, I do not appreciate reading a book with such a condescending tone. I mean, spells to make your parents happy? Locker protection spells?
Secondly, through cross referencing, I have found many errors in the tables of correspondences. There's too many to list here, but look it up. You'll be suprised at what you see.
And, as usual, there is the constant undertone of "Christians will never understand you. Practice the Craft in seeeeecret, like a good little liar." I hate that. Be proud of what you've chosen. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't be open in your beliefs. It's a choice you have to make for yourself. Don't let "Mama Silver" make that choice for you.
Avoid this book if you're looking for information on actual Wicca.

Editorial Review:

This book has everything a teen Witch could want and need between two covers: a magical cookbook, encyclopaedia, dictionary, and grimoire. It relates specifically to today's young adults and their concerns, yet is grounded in the magical work of centuries past. It is organised so that readers can skip over the parts they already know, or read each section in alphabetical order.

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Carlos Castaneda

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 99 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Reading Between The Lines 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Don Juan possesses the wisdom of the ancients . Getting away from your babbling inanities and shutting down the internal dialog, you might just ask the question?" What is the Matrix"?

Enter the world of the sorcerer 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

An excellent book about the first steps of Carlos Castaneda to become a man of knowledge. A book that has it all. Funny, enlightening and mysteries.

Entertaining but false 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Having read several of Castanedas books and been strongly influenced by them as a youth, it was with great sadness that I subsequently found them to be almost completely imaginary. If you care to research Castaneda you will find that most of his experiences of flying through the air, encountering supernatural Mexican wisemen, receiving transcendental illumination etc etc happened while he was sitting in the library at UCLA. Many of the dates in the books are contradictory, much of the alleged herbal knowledge is potentially dangerous and essentially the bottom line is that you would be well advised to take all these books with a very large grain of salt. However that being said, they are fairly well written, quite entertaining and do contain some measure of truth after all. So go figure...

Editorial Review:

Forty years ago the University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, it is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.

Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings From the Northumbria Community

The Northumbria Community

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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Worship & Devotion -> Prayerbooks

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

More than a prayer book, Celtic Daily Prayer is a gift from the Northumbria Community of northeastern England. This devout religious community, with members scattered around the world, is joined together by the teachings of traditional Celtic Christianity dating back to the sixth century. In assembling this collection of prayers, they offer Christians ancient Celtic devotional writing as well as contemporary sources of wisdom, such as Anne Morrow Lindbergh, T.S. Eliot, and even Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul, and Mary. The focal point for this prayer book is the daily office, although the book also includes additional meditations and daily readings. It offers two complete years of reading, so it should last a while (the publisher also promises follow-up books). Although many of these prayers come from the ancient monastic tradition, they easily speak to Christians contending with everyday things like jobs, childcare, dinners, and house cleaning. In his introduction Richard J. Foster (Celebration of Discipline) claims that this prayer book is most often found "in kitchens with bread baking and tea brewing or in living rooms crammed full of that cozy lived-in feel." --Gail Hudson

Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions

Dorothy Morrison

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 42 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Hexes, curses and other unsavory notions. Most magical practitioners won't even discuss them. Why? Because they'd much rather find a positive solution that benefits all concerned. And, there's nothing wrong with that. Occasionally, though, our problems are such that nothing in the positive solution arena will handle them. It's time to make a decision to stand tough, be strong, and take definitive action to defend ourselves. And, if you're ready to do that-if you're ready to own that action and take responsibility for it-then Utterly Wicked is the book for you! Jam-packed with more than one hundred rituals, incantations, hexes and curses, this book is the quintessential primer for learning all those magical tricks that no one wants to talk about. Do you know the proper way to enter a cemetery? Utterly Wicked tells you how, as well as the proper methods for collecting and using graveyard dirt. Explore the little known secrets of the 11" fashion doll and see why it's become such a valuable magical tool. Then learn to prepare Hot Foot Powder, Four Thieves Vinegar, Goofer Dust, and other magical components specifically designed to obliterate your toughest problems. Most important, though, you'll also find the tools to protect yourself, your family, and your home from ever being bothered with these sorts of difficulties again. A must have for any Witch's bookshelf!

Modern Magick: Eleven Lessons in the High Magickal Arts (Llewellyn's High Magick)

Donald Michael Kraig

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 126 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Modern Magick is the most popular, most complete, step-by-step instruction manual on how to do real magick that has ever been published. 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!

Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

John O'donohue

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

John O'Donohue (Anam Cara), a Celtic poet, scholar, and philosopher with an Irish brogue, speaks to the deepest calling of our soul: the longing to belong. "To be human is to belong," he explains. "Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word 'belonging' holds together the two fundamental aspects of life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing." Although this may sound like an elaborate Celtic circle knot, O'Donohue has nevertheless woven a solid and easy-to-grasp book that speaks to the soul's constant yearning. Every passage is a delight for the senses, as O'Donohue shares his lilting poetic language, his Celtic imagery and stories, and his fireside-chat wisdom. This is a broad-reaching yet highly focused book that dares to explore the realm of legitimate angels, the meaning of suffering, and, most poignantly, how life on earth may never quench the soul's thirst for belonging. --Gail Hudson

Shamanism: As a Spiritual Practice for Daily Life

Thomas Dale Cowan, Tom Cowan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Shamanic journeying for Americans 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

As the author makes clear, becoming a Shaman is a rare, intensive, dedication to a way of life few modern Americans (or any other culture) would embrace. The Shamanic Journey for power animals and guides is quite another matter. My own experience closely corresponds to Cowan's. My teacher, co-Director of the Fire and Wind Institute ([...])was also a student of Michael Harner. The practice has opened new and wonderful vistas for me. Highly recommended.

cat's cradle 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I enjoyed reading this book. As with some of the other books on neo-shamanism, there is a finely-tuned good humour and sensitivity to aspects of nature seen through the windows of the imagination. An open and childlike awe of life is psychologically healthy and it is as it should be. I do find, with regard to New Age shamanistic books, that it helps to use what is said opens ways to expand your mind and perspectives, that the message to take from one's reading is that there are ways to live more fully. To read in such a way is to develop one's understanding of one's own mind and how to develop it more fully. Nonetheless, I would not like to see anyone take as a message from this book that there are actual fairies at the bottom of their gardens.

Editorial Review:

This inspirational book blends elements of shamanism with inherited traditions and contemporary religious commitments.

Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide

Christian Rätsch, Claudia Müller-Ebeling

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

An examination of the sacred botany and the pagan origins and rituals of Christmas

• Analyzes the symbolism of the many plants associated with Christmas

• Reveals the shamanic rituals that are at the heart of the Christmas celebration

The day on which many commemorate the birth of Christ has its origins in pagan rituals that center on tree worship, agriculture, magic, and social exchange. But Christmas is no ordinary folk observance. It is an evolving feast that over the centuries has absorbed elements from cultures all over the world--practices that give plants and plant spirits pride of place. In fact, the symbolic use of plants at Christmas effectively transforms the modern-day living room into a place of shamanic ritual.

Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling show how the ancient meaning of the botanical elements of Christmas provides a unique view of the religion that existed in Europe before the introduction of Christianity. The fir tree was originally revered as the sacred World Tree in northern Europe. When the church was unable to drive the tree cult out of people’s consciousness, it incorporated the fir tree by dedicating it to the Christ child. Father Christmas in his red-and-white suit, who flies through the sky in a sleigh drawn by reindeer, has his mythological roots in the shamanic reindeer-herding tribes of arctic Europe and Siberia. These northern shamans used the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, which is red and white, to make their soul flights to the other world. Apples, which figure heavily in Christmas baking, are symbols of the sun god Apollo, so they find a natural place at winter solstice celebrations of the return of the sun. In fact, the authors contend that the emphasis of Christmas on green plants and the promise of the return of life in the dead of winter is just an adaptation of the pagan winter solstice celebration.

The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World

John Demos

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Editorial Review:

A cultural history of witch-hunting, from the Romans through McCarthy

The term “witch-hunt” is used today to describe everything from political scandals to school board shake-ups. But its origins are far from trivial. Long before the Salem witch trials, women and men were rounded up by neighbors, accused of committing horrific crimes using supernatural powers, scrutinized by priests and juries, and promptly executed. The belief in witchcraft--and the deep fear of evil it instilled in communities--led to a cycle of accusation, anger, and purging that has occurred repeatedly in the West for centuries.

Award-winning historian John Demos puts this cultural paranoia in context. He takes readers from the early Christians persecuted in Rome through the Salem witch trials, McCarthy’s hunt for communists, and the hysteria around child sex-abuse cases and satanic cults in the 1980s.

An original and fascinating look at the cultural, societal, and psychological practice of witch-hunts, The Enemy Within illuminates the dark side of communities driven to rid themselves of “evil,” no matter what the cost.

Maya Cosmogenesis 2012: The True Meaning of the Maya Calendar End-Date

John Major Jenkins, Terence McKenna

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The 'Zero Time' Is Upon Us 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Overall this book is pretty solid I think as far as the research.

The main point is that we are very close to the end of what people call "The Platonic Year". This is a 25,800 year period of time during which our solar system travels through the 12 signs of the zodiac.

On 12/21/12 a strange astronomical alignment will occur where our solar system will get lined up with the super massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The "black sun". I think I read somewhere else that an energy beam is emanating from the black sun and this beam will strike the earth on that date.

The author doesn't really say exactly what's supposed to happen on that date. Perhaps the change that occurs will be within all of us I don't know.

Another re-occuring point is the Mayan shamans' use of mind altering substances such as certain mushrooms. To avoid the upset stomach that these concoctions could cause they would sometimes inject the mixture directly into their intestines.

In appendix 6 he critiques some other books on this subject and compares them to his own research. He disagrees with others that the ancient Egyptians were more advanced that the Mayans. My own take is both cultures have a common source (Atlantis). The pyramid of Kukulcan compares very well to the other pyramids around the world. However the pyramids at Giza, especially when they were in their original condition, stand alone.

Nobody really knows how these pyramids were built by the way, much as traditional Egyptologists like to make us think they know.

He is correct that people in our modern world today may in some cases tend to underestimate the knowledge that these ancient cultures possessed.

Many people today have a feeling that something strange is going to happen soon. I do anyway. Perhaps a lot of people like to read those 'left behind' books because that's a Christian response to this feeling.

There are some truly tragic desecrations and destructions of culture and knowledge that stand out in human history. Here's my short list:

1) the Muslims destroying the surfaces of the pyramids at Giza in Egypt so they could use the limestone for their palaces for Mohammed

2) the burning of the library at Alexandria by the Christians

3) the Spanish burning all of the Mayan's ancient codex booklets and melting down all of the Aztec's priceless gold artifacts

So we see that no single religion or country had any monopoly on destroying knowledge and history.

Jeff Marzano

The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls: Unlocking the Secrets of the Past, Present, and Future

The Giza Power Plant : Technologies of Ancient Egypt

The Giza Death Star

Edgar Cayce's Egypt: Psychic Revelations on the Most Fascinating Civilization Ever Known

Edgar Cayce's Atlantis and Lemuria: The Lost Civilizations in the Light of Modern Discoveries

Lemuria & Atlantis: Studying the Past to Survive the Future

The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology

Initiation

Initiation in the Great Pyramid (Astara's Library of Mystical Classics)

Editorial Review:

While researching the 2012 end-date of the Maya Calendar, John Major Jenkins decoded the Maya's galactic cosmology. The Maya discovered that the periodic alignment of the Sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy is the formative influence on human evolution. These alignments also define a series of World Ages. The fourth age ends on December 21, 2012, when an epoch chapter in human history will come to an end. Maya Cosmogenisis 2012 reveals the Maya's insight into the cyclic nature of time, and prepares us for oue own cosmogenesis--the birth of a new world.