First in a series of entirely new fantasy/science fiction, Changeable Worlds: Deliverance is a detailed tale of drama, redemption and deceit. In a distant galaxy, the planet Pri is home to the historic Shaler people. Towards the end of the Third Era, Emperor Serenus as leader is proud of their achievements, but this is not what interests him. When chance comes from ethereal beings born in the Synthetic Domain and known as the Lightbearers, Serenus triggers a bloody and long war against people that were once his own -- the merciless Kaidis. They are obsessed with the destruction of the Shaler after the emperor's pursuit of change. Focused on an entire continent, Deliverance travels from mountainous blizzards to temperate forests to inside a harsh volcano. With cities, outposts and other exotic locations, cut-throat and violent wars, ingenious science and existential discoveries, these playgrounds are ripe for corruption, honesty and betrayal.
Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil traces the ancient Greek God Pan, who became distorted into the image of the Devil in early Christianity. When Pan was demonized, the powerful qualities he represented became repressed, as Pan’s visage twisted into the model of the Devil. This book follows a Jungian analysis of this development. In ancient Greek religion, Pan was worshipped as an honored deity, corresponding to an inner psycho-spiritual condition in which the primitive qualities he represented were fully integrated into consciousness, and these qualities were valued and affirmed as holy. But in the era of early Christianity Pan “dies,” and the Devil is born, a twisted inflation, possibly due to an underlying repression. In the Jungian system, repressed psychic contents do not disappear, as proponents of the new order tacitly assume, but distort and grow more powerful, or “inflate,” to cripple the psyche that refuses to incorporate these split-off elements. Repressed contents will expand to explosive force as the repressed elements eventually return regressively from below. It becomes important then, to understand what qualities the primitive Goat God carried, to appreciate what was repressed in the Western psycho-spiritual system, and what subsequently needs reintegration.
"The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD marked the beginning of a new era in Christianity. For the first time, doctrines were organized into a single creed. The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers did most of their writing during and after this important event in Church history. Unlike the previous era of Christian writing, the Nicene and Post-Nicene era is dominated by a few very important and prolific writers. In Volume VIII of the 14-volume collected writings of the Nicenes and Post-Nicenes (first published between 1886 and 1889), readers will find Saint Augustines extensive treatment of the Psalms. Augustine took this book from the Old Testament and wove into it the revelation of Jesus as the savior of humanity. Through the skill of Augustine, it seems as though the Psalms had been written by an oracle who knew that eventually the messiah would come and wrote to pave the way. This volume is a valuable reference book for any Christian wishing to have the psalms illuminated and explained."
Philip Schaff’s classic work colloquially known as The Early Church Fathers is an invaluable resource filled with the primary documents and early theological building blocks for the Christian church. Comprised of thirty-eight volumes, it is broken into three parts: the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First and Second Series.
A rich display of the Christian tradition's reading of Scripture Though well-known and oft-repeated, the advice to read the Bible "like any other book" fails to acknowledge that different books call for different kinds of reading. The voice of Scripture summons readers to hear and respond to its words as divine address. Not everyone chooses to read the Bible on those terms, but in Reading Sacred Scripture Stephen and Martin Westerholm (father and son) invite their readers to engage seriously with a dozen major Bible interpreters -- ranging from the second century to the twentieth -- who have been attentive to Scripture's voice. After expertly setting forth pertinent background context in two initial chapters, the Westerholms devote a separate chapter to each interpreter, exploring how these key Christian thinkers each understood Scripture and how it should be read. Though differing widely in their approaches to the text and its interpretation, these twelve select interpreters all insisted that the Bible is like no other book and should be read accordingly.
Buddhism is a religion practiced by an estimated 495 million in the world, as of the 2010s, representing 9% to 10% of the world's total population. China is the country with the largest population of Buddhists, approximately 244 million or 18.2% of its total population. They are mostly followers of Chinese schools of Mahayana, making this the largest body of Buddhist traditions. Mahayana, also practiced in broader East Asia, is followed by over half of world Buddhists. The second largest body of Buddhist schools is Theravada, mostly followed in Southeast Asia. The third and smallest body of schools, Vajrayana, is followed mostly in Tibet, the Himalayan region, Mongolia and parts of Russia, but has been disseminated throughout the world. Buddhism was almost entirely unknown in western countries until the 19th century. European diplomats and scholars who travelled and lived in Asia collected Buddhist texts to have them translated into English, German and French. Awareness of Buddhism arrived in the United States around the 1840's when the first Chinese immigrants settled in the western part of the country. Still, in general Buddhism remained poorly understood in the west until the 1960's when the first Buddhist teachers started arriving and quickly found thousands of followers. However curious westerners without serious study tended to view Buddhism as more of a mystic movement, rather than an encompassing spirituality involving meditation. Buddhism gained more popularity across Western culture by the end of the 20th century, when celebrities and other well-known people like Steve Jobs, Richard Gere or Phil Jackson openly talked about the positive influence Buddhism has had on their lives. The author of this book has joined the debate and examines the issues bringing fresh insights on the subject. In this book the author seeks to prove that the consciousness of the individual and individuality, which at the empirical level involves the rise of private property, family and the state, finds its most sophisticated and rational expression in early Buddhism.
Vedanta is an astika or one of the sixth school of Hindu philosophy meaning "the end of the vedas". This beautiful book takes you on a spiritual journey to get an in depth learning of Vedanta. It begins with the basics of Vedanta, its aim and objectives, people who qualify to study it, its authentic sources and esoteric and exoteric doctrine of vedanta. It further takes a deep route into the Theology or the doctrine of Brahaman, Cosmology or the doctrine of the World, Psychology or the doctrine of the soul, Samsara or the doctrine of transmigration of the soul and finally ends at "Moksha" or the teaching of liberation
