"A tremendous talent. Every page fizzes with vitality." --Kevin Barry, author of Beatlebone A young man in a dark depression roams the vast, formless landscape of a Dublin industrial park where he meets a vagrant in the grip of a dangerous ideology. A woman fleeing a breakup finds herself taking part in an unusual sleep experiment. A man obsessed with Nietzsche clings desperately to his girlfriend's red shoes. And whatever happened to Killian Turner, Ireland's vanished literary outlaw? Lost and isolated, the characters in these masterful stories play out their fragmented relationships in a series of European cities, always on the move; from rented room to darkened apartment, hitchhiker's roadside to Barcelona nightclub. Rob Doyle, a shape-shifting drifter, a reclusive writer, also stalks the book's pages. Layering narratives and splicing fiction with non-fiction, This is the Ritual tells of the ecstatic, the desperate and the uncertain. Immersive, at times dreamlike, and frank in its depiction of sex, the writer's life, failed ideals, and the transience of emotions, it introduces an unmistakable new literary voice.
Successful working of any of these devotions will enable you to share consciousness with the Angel of Death as well as becoming 'one' with your own death.
This stirring collection presents spiritual rituals from around the world and offers guidance on bringing the powerful practices into modern life. Filled with fascinating details on the history and meaning behind a wide range of sacred rituals for love, awareness, joy, and so much more, this timeless handbook guides readers through more than 40 empowering practices—including a candlelight ritual for renewal, a soothing ritual for unwinding, and a tea ceremony for fostering connection and gratitude. With evocative watercolors throughout, this book is a lovely invitation to nourish the mind, body, and soul through enduring rituals for well-being.
A mad surrealist’s art threatens to rip open the fabric of reality, in this twisted tale of eldritch horror and conspiracy, from the wildly popular world of Arkham Horror. Aspiring painter Alden Oakes is invited to join a mysterious art commune in Arkham: the New Colony. When celebrated Spanish surrealist Juan Hugo Balthazarr visits the colony, Alden and the other artists quickly fall under his charismatic spell. Balthazarr throws a string of decadent parties for Arkham’s social elite, conjuring arcane illusions which blur the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Only slowly does Alden come to suspect that Balthazarr’s mock rituals are intended to break through those walls and free what lies beyond. Alden must act, but it might already be too late to save himself, let alone Arkham.
PLAGUEBORNE contains the first two books in the epic Plagueborne Trilogy. THE RITUALA devastating plague is sweeping the continent of Greater Virren...Its origin is unknown, its dominance of the land near complete. In times of grim desperation, pestilence has given way to superstition, and the citizenry are now more divided than ever.Yet the city of Rothenberg remains inexplicably untouched...The Council has grown convinced of their immunity, even as their neighbours are consumed before them. As the world teeters on the brink of collapse, a zealous religious order has re-emerged. They claim to have discovered the source of the plague... but can they be trusted?The plague will never reach Rothenberg... Katarina Lorenz, a noble of the city and veteran of the civil war that shook the continent, remains unconvinced. She conspires to leave the city with her companion Tannhauser, to find out what's really going on beyond its walls.THE RITUAL is the first in a trilogy of gripping high-fantasy novelettes. The debut possesses all the beloved hallmarks fans of the genre will recognise, but is distinguished by its gritty atmosphere and confrontation with some of the most unsettling chapters of human history.THE ZEALOT Greater Virren teeters on the brink of collapse...The continent writhes in the throes of a deadly plague. Great cities have fallen into ruin, and bands of godless marauders stalk the lands unopposed. As the survivors emerge, it seems the whole world has taken one final breath before the plunge into darkness absolute.The Whispered Words of a Witch...Far afield from the fires of Lunburrow, its intended victim vanished, Katarina and Tannhauser bear west in search of "the source." With the stakes higher than ever, they must contend with cunning members of the provinces' crumbling upper crust, the threat of infection, and forces altogether more ancient and powerful than they can as yet conceive.The Wolf at Their Heels...Wrenched from the jaws of death, Ezekiel lives. With renewed vigour, and an unlikely companion, he dogs their every step in relentless pursuit of vindication-and vengeance.The sequel to The Ritual, the gripping inauguration of Mitchell Lüthi's Plagueborne Trilogy, The Zealot builds upon the intrigue, suspense, and gritty realism that made the debut so enjoyable. The latest addition to an exhilarating fantasy series, The Zealot is a must-read for fans of character-driven stories and heart-racing action sequences.
In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner examines rituals of the Ndembu in Zambia and develops his now-famous concept of "Communitas." He characterizes it as an absolute inter-human relation beyond any form of structure.The Ritual Process has acquired the status of a small classic since these lectures were first published in 1969. Turner demonstrates how the analysis of ritual behavior and symbolism may be used as a key to understanding social structure and processes. He extends Van Gennep's notion of the "liminal phase" of rites of passage to a more general level, and applies it to gain understanding of a wide range of social phenomena. Once thought to be the "vestigial" organs of social conservatism, rituals are now seen as arenas in which social change may emerge and be absorbed into social practice.As Roger Abrahams writes in his foreword to the revised edition: "Turner argued from specific field data. His special eloquence resided in his ability to lay open a sub-Saharan African system of belief and practice in terms that took the reader beyond the exotic features of the group among whom he carried out his fieldwork, translating his experience into the terms of contemporary Western perceptions. Reflecting Turner's range of intellectual interests, the book emerged as exceptional and eccentric in many ways: yet it achieved its place within the intellectual world because it so successfully synthesized continental theory with the practices of ethnographic reports."
If you think money can’t buy happiness, you’re not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smarter spending. If you think money can’t buy happiness, you’re not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smarter spending. Happy Money offers a tour of new research on the science of spending. Most people recognize that they need professional advice on how to earn, save, and invest their money. When it comes to spending that money, most people just follow their intuitions. But scientific research shows that those intuitions are often wrong. Happy Money explains why you can get more happiness for your money by following five principles, from choosing experiences over stuff to spending money on others. And the five principles can be used not only by individuals but by companies seeking to create happier employees and provide “happier products” to their customers. Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton show how companies from Google to Pepsi to Crate & Barrel have put these ideas into action. Along the way, the authors describe new research that reveals that luxury cars often provide no more pleasure than economy models, that commercials can actually enhance the enjoyment of watching television, and that residents of many cities frequently miss out on inexpensive pleasures in their hometowns. By the end of this book, readers will ask themselves one simple question whenever they reach for their wallets: Am I getting the biggest happiness bang for my buck?
The stories within these books have the poignancy of new discoveries as well as the unworn imagination of the ancestors. The commentary has the sharp edge of modern thought and the intricacy which results from the intellect being woven through the ritual complexities of tribal life. The purpose of constructing thresholds that bring this world together is to find the powers that can heal the rends in tribal as well as modern communities.? --Michael Meade, from the Introduction Versed in the languages of psychology, comparative literature, as well as ancient mythology, healing, and divination, Malidoma Patrice Some bridges paths between the ancient tribal world of the West African Dagara culture and modern Western society. Ritual is written with wild imagination, careful critical reflection, and intuitive insights that will force the reader to encounter the world anew.
Today, China's classical antiquity is often studied through recovered artifacts, but before this practice became widespread, scholars instead reconstructed the distant past through classical texts and transmitted illustrations. Among the most important illustrated commentaries was the Sanli tu, or Illustrations to the Ritual Classics, whose origins are said to date back to the great commentator Zheng Xuan. Design by the Book, which accompanies an exhibition at Bard Graduate Center Gallery, discusses the history and cultural significance of the Sanli tu in medieval China. The Sanli tu survives in a version produced around 960 by Nie Chongyi, a professor at the court of the Later Zhou (951-960) and Northern Song (960-1127) dynasties. It is now mostly remembered--if at all--for its controversial entries and as a quaint predecessor of the more empirical antiquarian scholarship produced since the mid-eleventh century. But such criticism hides the fact that the book remained a standard resource for more than 150 years, playing a crucial role in the Song dynasty's perception of ancient ritual and construction of a Confucian state cult. Richly illustrated, Design by the Book brings renewed focus to one of China's most fascinating medieval works.
