Filled with transformative stories of powerful women from legend and history--as well as rituals, spellcraft, and workings for you to try--this book explores themes that rebels, witches, warriors, and heretics confront as they make their way in a patriarchal world. Each chapter examines a topic like standing tall in your beliefs, finding your voice, embracing your sexuality, and loving your body, and shares hands-on practices designed to inspire and support you as you connect with your inner witch, heretic, and warrior. Within these pages, you will find stories and exercises based on Circe, Anne Boleyn, Marie Laveau, Mary Magdalene, Jeanne D'Arc, Salome, Boudicca, Moving Robe Woman, and Harriet Tubman.
Build Powerful, Transformative Rituals for a Deeply Meaningful Life Rituals are a part of our breath, blood, and bone. They're a part of our human makeup, and they provide us with confidence, reassurance, and stronger social bonds. A ritualist with nearly thirty years of experience, Phoenix LeFae teaches you how to build a solid foundation of ritual practice while also leaving room for your own creative exploration. She covers not only how to craft rituals, but also why they are important. This inspiring book walks you through every step of ritual work, from setting your intentions to creating sacred space to closing the ceremony. You will find a variety of exercises, meditations, and activities, as well as guidelines for making unique rituals from scratch. Phoenix helps you design solitary and group rituals that are the perfect fit. Includes a foreword by Laura Tempest Zakroff, author of Anatomy of a Witch
Meet Circe, feared goddess of Homer's Odyssey, who used her knowledge of nature and sorcery to transform those who displeased her into animals and monsters. Author Irisanya Moon reveals the Goddess in her ancient Greek context, and offers unique insight to and explanations of her relationships, deeds, and desires while offering practical advice on how to meet with this engaging Goddess today.
Coursing deep within every witch are currents of magick that ebb and flow along with the moon's rhythms. When you combine this powerful energy with your inner shadow, you can create real, positive change and transform your life through the mysteries of the dark moon. In the Shadow of 13 Moons offers a rich variety of new, in-depth ways to practice dark moon witchcraft. Kimberly Sherman-Cook guides you step by step through the process of dark moon magick and ritual work while taking you down the path of self-discovery. She seamlessly blends the art of shadow work with magickal practice to form a gentle yet empowering journey. Learn the sacred dance of the shadow as you follow a 13-moon cycle of meditations, rituals, spellwork, craft projects, and other practical exploratory techniques, which will connect you with your inner self and deepen your understanding of shadow craft. Bring about self-healing and inner balance Confront your shadow • Cast a circle of power Work with dark moon deities • Draw down the dark moon Ideal for solitary practitioners as well as coven members of all skill levels, In the Shadow of 13 Moons evolves with you on your path of personal transformation and spiritual growth. "In the Shadow of 13 Moons takes you on a journey into the shadow and back out again, helping you face what is unseen in a thoroughly open and non-dogmatic way. Kimberly is an excellent guide, continuing the tradition of torchbearers in this important work of the psyche."—Christopher Penczak, author of The Temple of Shamanic Witchcraft and The Witch's Coin
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
A collection of authentic tales brimming with mythical characters from diverse times, places, and cultures--each connected to the universal lore of the Moon--this book weaves past, present, and future in classic stories that entertain and inform.
Advancing to higher levels of ritual magic with purpose and power requires an exaltation of consciousness-a spiritual transformation that can serve as an antitode to the seeming banality of modern life. Based on Kabbalistic techniques, the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and an Hermetic tradition spanning nearly two thousand years, this innovative new work introduces the history of the Golden Dawn and its mythology, the Tree of Life, Deities, demons, rules for practicing magic, and components of effective ritual. A comprehensive course of self-initiation using Israel Regardie's seminal Golden Dawn as a key reference point, Kabbalah, Magic and the Great Work of Self-Transformation guides you through the levels of the Golden Dawn system of ritual magic. Each grade in this system corresponds with a sphere in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and includes daily rituals, required reading, written assignments, projects, and additional exercises. Knowledgeable and true to tradition, author Lyam Thomas Christopher presents a well-grounded and modern step-by-step program toward spiritual attainment, providing a lucid gateway toward a more awakened state. Finalist for the Coalition of Visionary Resources Award for Best Magick/Shamanism Book
Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
For the past three decades, many history professors have allowed their biases to distort the way America’s past is taught. These intellectuals have searched for instances of racism, sexism, and bigotry in our history while downplaying the greatness of America’s patriots and the achievements of “dead white men.” As a result, more emphasis is placed on Harriet Tubman than on George Washington; more about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II than about D-Day or Iwo Jima; more on the dangers we faced from Joseph McCarthy than those we faced from Josef Stalin. A Patriot’s History of the United States corrects those doctrinaire biases. In this groundbreaking book, America’s discovery, founding, and development are reexamined with an appreciation for the elements of public virtue, personal liberty, and private property that make this nation uniquely successful. This book offers a long-overdue acknowledgment of America’s true and proud history.
When Mao and the Chinese Communist Party won power in 1949, they were determined to create new, revolutionary human beings. Their most precise instrument of ideological transformation was a massive program of linguistic engineering. They taught everyone a new political vocabulary, gave old words new meanings, converted traditional terms to revolutionary purposes, suppressed words that expressed "incorrect" thought, and required the whole population to recite slogans, stock phrases, and scripts that gave "correct" linguistic form to "correct" thought. They assumed that constant repetition would cause the revolutionary formulae to penetrate people's minds, engendering revolutionary beliefs and values. In an introductory chapter, Dr. Ji assesses the potential of linguistic engineering by examining research on the relationship between language and thought. In subsequent chapters, she traces the origins of linguistic engineering in China, describes its development during the early years of communist rule, then explores in detail the unprecedented manipulation of language during the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976. Along the way, she analyzes the forms of linguistic engineering associated with land reform, class struggle, personal relationships, the Great Leap Forward, Mao-worship, Red Guard activism, revolutionary violence, Public Criticism Meetings, the model revolutionary operas, and foreign language teaching. She also reinterprets Mao’s strategy during the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, showing how he manipulated exegetical principles and contexts of judgment to "frame" his alleged opponents. The work concludes with an assessment of the successes and failures of linguistic engineering and an account of how the Chinese Communist Party relaxed its control of language after Mao's death.
