When Matthew Fielding, the four-year-old son of a San Diego telecommunications mogul, turns up missing, the psychic skills of P.I. Elizabeth Chase are requested. The stakes are raised soon after Elizabeth begins her investigation when a wildfire breaks out in Rancho Santa Fe, the secluded community where Matthew and his family-and Elizabeth's own parents-live. Aided and abetted by the Santa Ana winds, flames rage out of control, consuming thousands of acres and dozens of homes. Before the ashes can be cleared away, another fire blazes through everything in its path. Are the kidnapper and arsonist one and the same? Will Elizabeth be able to find the clues she needs in the dying embers around her? It's a race against time itself as man and nature combine to wreak destruction on Elizabeth's community and keep a little boy lost forever. In the fifth installment of a series Sue Grafton referred to as "a natural...and a supernatural as well," Martha C. Lawrence once again combines the quirky and the familiar as her smart, resilient and endearing heroine uses her psychic ability and incomparable detecting skills to hunt down a killer.
Just one hundred years ago, Americans almost universally condemned cremation. Today, nearly one-quarter of Americans choose to be cremated. The practice has gained wide acceptance as a funeral rite, in both our private and public lives, as the cremations of icons such as John Lennon and John F. Kennedy Jr. show. Purified by Fire tells the fascinating story of cremation's rise from notoriety to legitimacy and takes a provocative new look at important transformations in the American cultural landscape over the last 150 years. Stephen Prothero synthesizes a wide array of previously untapped source material, including newspapers, consumer guides, mortician trade journals, and popular magazines such as Reader's Digest to provide this first historical study of cremation in the United States. He vividly describes many noteworthy events—from the much-criticized first American cremation in 1876 to the death and cremation of Jerry Garcia in the late twentieth century. From the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era to the baby boomers of today, this book takes us on a tour through American culture and traces our changing attitudes toward death, religion, public health, the body, and the environment.
Aimed at helping the reader use natural gifts from the earth and develop their own intuitive talents, here is a comprehensive guide to the world of Wicca, and the practices, principles, tools, and elements used by modern witches in their daily lives: -- Magick and candles -- Divination (scrying, runes, pendulums and dowsing, astrology, numerology, Tarot) -- Ritual and visualization (including astral circles) Included is a cross-referenced, encyclopedic listing of spell-craft uses for hundreds of herbs, plants, stones, and crystals.
Packed with a year-and-a-half of daily predictions and special features, these 12 horoscope guides include a message for each sign of the zodiac, hints to find a mate, moon tables, fishing & planting guides, rising signs, and lucky numbers. Original.
The horoscope is a map of the heavens at any particular time, usually at the birth of a person. An important aspect to consider when creating charts is the Midheaven. Before computers it was a vital computation in setting up horoscopes. Curiously, many astrologers ignore this point in their interpretations. During over twenty-five years as a professional astrologer, Stephanie Jean Clement, Ph.D., has emphasized that no point of a chart is unimportant. She reveals what she has learned in The Power of the Midheaven. Attention to the Midheaven can revolutionize your understanding of astrology. If you are an astrologer, you need the information in this book to make your readings more complete and to have a full understanding of a chart. The Midheaven indicates what we know about ourselves. The primary form of analysis is to examine the sign the Midheaven is in. For example, people with Leo Midheavens set their goals high and have the staying power to achieve them. They want to rise to the top socially (Jacqueline Kennedy is an example, as is Grace Kelly). They are self-confident, generous, know they are fine leaders, and have organizational capability — but may not be able to admit their own shortcomings. A Leo Midheaven is the master of control and free will, and achieves spiritual enlightenment by knowing that the physical body is necessary. Dr. Clement points out that both Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler have a Leo Midheaven (they were born within days of each other). She gives quotes showing how they used their wills to control people, and both worked hard to eventually reach the top. Obviously, they were quite different people, but the way they achieved their goals was similar. Chaplin actually experienced his first movie-making disappointment with "The Little Dictator," a film about Hitler. This book covers the Midheaven through all the signs. It also includes planets in aspect, transits, and much more. If you are an astrologer, or if you are at all interested in your horoscope, you need this book.
An Ecofeminist Perspective on Ash Wednesday and Lent develops a conversation between classical historical Lenten practices and contemporary Christian ecofeminism. Building on David Tracy's definition of a religious classic, it includes a historical examination of the development of Lent and the Ash Wednesday rites beginning from wellsprings in the early church traditions of penance, catechumenal preparation, and asceticism through medieval and reformation expressions of the rite to their twentieth-century Episcopal iteration in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. In the discussion of ecofeminism, women's death experiences and current ecofeminist writings are used to develop an ecofeminist hermeneutic of mortality.
This book documents todays rising rates of cremation in the West, and notes that these rates now include many deceased Christians, a stark contrast to Christians in the past who had consistently rejected cremation from their earliest years in pagan Rome to the mid-1960s. Christians opposed and spurned cremation for a number of reasons, discussed in this book. By mid-fourth century, Christianitys rejection of cremation influenced pagan Rome to abandon cremation. Earth burial became the only acceptable way to dispose of deceased humans, resulting in a major cultural change in the West. Converts to Christianity had to promise they would never be cremated. Graveyards were named coemeteria, Latin for where dead people sleep; from which we get the word cemetery, a name now contradicted by cremation. This book is a clarion call to Christians. Dr. Schmidt has amassed historical, biblical, theological, and practical evidences that the modern Christian church will only refuse to hear to its great loss, both now and at the judgment Seat of Christ where we each shall receive what is due to for things done while in (might we add to) the body (2 Corinthians 5:10). Craig A. Parton, M.A., J.D. United States Director, International Academy of Apologetics, Santa Barbara, California. This powerful apologetic clearly establishes that cremation fails to find endorsement in the inspired Holy Scriptures. Dr. Schmidts research will prove invaluable for those who might query the need for burial rather than cremation. Hopefully, this book will have a wide influence on Christian thought and practice. Donald Howard, Pastor Emeritus, Anglican Church, Diocese of Sydney, NSW, Australia. Author of Burial or Cremation: Does It Matter? I heartily recommend Dr. Schmidts excellent book Cremation, Embalmment, or Neither?A Biblical/Christian Evaluation to clergy and faithful laypeople alike concerned with the increasing rates of cremation among Christians. This will be in keeping with the Apostle Pauls admonition: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world (Romans 12:2). Archpriest Victor S. Potapov, Rector, Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Washington, DC. This book provides an excellent opportunity for Christians to engage in deep theological thought regarding end of life decisions. Dr. Schmidt has thoroughly documented the historical roots for Christian burial. A must read for all Christians. Beth Hoeltke, Ph.D., Librarian, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO.
The winner of the Man Booker Prize, this "expertly written, perfectly constructed" bestseller (The Guardian) is now a Starz miniseries. It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to stake his claim in New Zealand's booming gold rush. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of 12 local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: a wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous cache of gold has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is at once a fiendishly clever ghost story, a gripping page-turner, and a thrilling novelistic achievement. It richly confirms that Eleanor Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international literary firmament.
