This one-volume guide to occult history and practices is an excellent resource and introduction to the subject. Dostoevsky said that if the Devil did not exist, mankind had created him in our own likeness. The author does not believe in a Devil, but he does believe that there are evil forces in the world arising from the dark side of human nature, which we have denied and disowned by projecting them onto the mythical figure of Satan. Duality is at the centre of the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but there is another way, that of the occultist. Starting with conceptions of Satan in the Talmud, Kabbalah, Book of Revelation, and Koran, the author moves on via the Templars and the Malleus Maleficarum to witchcraft, discussing famous instances such as the Salem witch trials, Aleister Crowley, whose voracious sexual appetite and sadistic streak finally discredited him, and the King of the Bexhill-on-Sea witches Alex Sanders, who was initiated into Wicca and never looked back after he inadvertently stepped into a coven led by his grandmother. Societies such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn included famous people among the membership, and the author examines the exercises promoted by the Dawn's megalomaniac founder who insisted on going by the name of McGregor Mathers, Comte of Glenstrae, based on a mixture of Rosicrucianism, eastern yoga, Egyptian ceremonial magic, and Kabbalah. Hitler and the Nazis used occult practices to reinforce their evil, including the quasi-religious rites of the Nuremberg rallies. The author also discusses H. P. Lovecraft, Dennis Wheatley and occultist rock bands such as Led Zeppelin. 256pp, paperback, illus.

With over 60 stunning plates of original art, this is a bold and glorious rendering of the life of the Buddha by author Ranchor Prime who brings to life the inspired work of award-winning artist B. G. Sharma with a sensitive, immensely readable and rarely seen biography of the Buddha. From his birth as a prince to his final lesson in achieving nirvana, Sharma captures it all. Ornamented throughout are quotes from A Dhammapada for Contemplation by Ajahn Munindo. "An exquisite rendering of the Buddhist story. As if the beauty of the Blessed One could step out of modern India's best paintings into your hands." - Jack Kornfield. What do we really know about the life of Siddhartha, who later became known as the Buddha? What challenges did he encounter along his path to the Bodhi Tree? He lived in northern India in the 5th century BC as a Hindu prince who fled a life of luxury to live an ascetic life as a wandering monk. During his lifetime he established a substantial following and was known for performing miracles and traditionally his teachings have emphasised compassion and forbearance, summarised in his sermons and in the Dhammapada. His life is reflected within these ornately illustrated pages. 30.48cm squared, first edition, 208pp. Modern Moghul-inspired exquisitely colourful illustrations throughout this glamorous publication.
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With exemplary Cases From Russia, Ukraine, and Poland, the author starts this compelling study with the story of her grandfather Morris Greenfield and the way he survived the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. Somehow he finally made it to the United States in 1930, fleeing from the onset of the Holocaust. Morris was not a rebel, but put his talents to adapting. Anti-semitism was a fact of his life, but it failed to crush him. Jewish children were excluded from the school in his Russian village, but the Orthodox priest sneaked him into class. In 1907 he was drafted and found himself in Vladivostok, where the antisemitism he encountered prompted him to desert and head for America, travelling by train and crossing to Shanghai, then taking a German ship to Naples and New York. He was supported by his brother who was already there and had sent him money, but returned to visit his widowed mother and found himself in a military prison. Morris got away during the civil war and survived a series of picaresque adventures hand to mouth, supplying authorities with commodities in return for protection, and finally with his wife returned to America for good. In the main part of the book the author considers three more cases in which anti-semitism constituted a challenge not only to Jews but also to gentiles confronted with its extreme consequences. Frequently Jews were caught up in the bind between fighting for civil rights within their native country, and asserting the right to their own communal and cultural identity within the nation state. The first of the author's three examples focuses on the resistance of early 20th century Russian intellectuals against discrimination, in partnership with Jewish leaders and the newly created state Duma. The second follows the 1927 Paris trial of Russin-born Sholem Schwarzbard who shot and killed the ex-Ukrainian leader as an act of vengeance on behalf of Jews. The trial focused on whether this was justified. Finally the author examines reactions to the legacy of Andrzej Bobkowski when his memoirs were revealed to have had anti-semitic elements edited out. 260pp, paperback.

The two famous stories of Dhruva and Prahlad tell of the difficulties of the spiritual path and the determination necessary to achieve God-realisation and self-realisation. They contain universal truths applicable to all times and ages and are well known to adults and children throughout India. Dhruva was a young, first-born prince, neglected by his father the King. He resolves to attain an elevated position in the universe not even his father or grandfather could aspire to and transforms his wounded pride into genuine self-realisation. Prahlad was a saintly boy who happened to be born the son of a powerful demon king who tried everything to convert the boy who held fast to his faith in Vishnu. The author Swami lectures on the essence of divine love as experienced through bhakti yoga. 157 page paperback with beautiful pencil illustrations.

From the invasion of the Franks and Mongols, this remarkable collection of artifacts and structures tells the story of the conflicts which shaped the nature of the Western World we know today, both in spiritual and geographical terms. Throughout almost the entire Medieval period, the Catholic church sanctioned military campaigns against what it perceived as its enemies. The rise of Islam and its spread across large parts of the Middle East, Asia, North Africa and even the peripheries of Europe saw Muslim warriors seize the Holy Land, occupy Jerusalem and threaten Constantinople. In response, Pope Urban II called for a crusade to retake the Holy Land, the first of nine military campaigns that continued for the next 200 years. Other lesser-known crusades were mounted with the aim of Christianising the more remote regions of northern and north-eastern Europe, as well as against the Cathars in Southern France. The advance of the Ottomans into the Balkans saw further crusades to halt the Muslims in Bosnia and Serbia, the reconquest of Spain from the Muslim Moors, and such diverse theatres of conflict have resulted in an equally diverse number of relics still to be found. Artillery, coats of arms, Crusader-struck coins, the pen boxes of prolific Muslim writers, Yemen and Saladin's bolt holes, camels carrying projectile weapons in Afghanistan, the invention of trebuchets, reliquary caskets decorated with colourful rock crystal, beautifully decorated minbars in the Court of the Mosque, Karak Castle in Jordan, Pisa Cathedral, Europe's oldest active synagogue in Prague, the Bayeux tapestry showing Duke William leading a charge of his Knights, the murder depicted from a 14th century illuminated manuscript and the Great Mosque of Córdoba, we enter a world of emperors, caliphs and sultans. Beautifully written by an acknowledged expert of the period, 100 objects of never seen before. 251 glossy pages, over 200 colour images.

Get out your extra powerful magnifying glass or read under any standard microscope this Bible reduced 250 times! The Itty Bitty Bible can be carried on you at all times - just open the teeny colourful doors to find faith, hope and love, sending blessings the whole day through. 'Through its small window a heavenly view', which is the teeniest print on a Perspex sheet, over 1200 pages reduced 250 times through a special photographic process. An extraordinary pocket sized book. A companion to the King James Bible code 93198.

By the author of the bestselling 'The Tutankhamun Prophecies', this book was originally published in 2006 as 'The Celtic Chronicles: The True Story of the Holy Grail'. Using the same knowledge that enabled him to break the codes of the Mayas, Peruvians, Egyptians, and Chinese, Maurice Cotterell now follows the migration of the Celts 4,000 years ago from Asia, across Europe, to Ireland. His account of this epic journey together with his knowledge of the secret codes help him identify and locate the Holy Grail, the actual cup used by Christ and his disciples at the Last Supper. Cotterell explains the true story of the Grail and how it contains the secret super-science of the Sun and the higher orders of spirituality; how it was carried to England by Joseph of Arimathea; how in AD453 it was found by King Arthur who engraved it with the same esoteric information found on the Pyramid of Inscriptions in Palenque, Mexico, and the Gateway of the Sun at Tiahuanaco in Ancient Peru. His discoveries reveal that the Grail does actually radiate light, in accordance with the Arthurian legends, proving that the so-called legends are actually based on facts. Cotterell goes on to show how the holy cup was passed for safe keeping to the Monks of Lindisfarne, who copied the secrets of the Grail into the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells. Fleeing from Viking raids, the monks carried their treasures to Ireland, explaining how the cup found its way to the Dublin Museum, where it rests today. 241pp in large softback with many illustrations and dozens of colour images.

Great Britain and Ireland are particularly well endowed with cathedrals and abbeys and it is estimated that there were almost 1,000 built during the Middle Ages. When Cromwell closed the majority of them during the dissolution of the monasteries, many were left in ruins, plundered or survived because their local communities adopted them as parish churches. The outstanding example is St Albans which begins this beautifully illustrated collection. We go to Bath Abbey, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Chelmsford, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, St Davids, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glastonbury, Gloucester, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Oxford, St Patrick's Dublin, St Paul's, Peterborough, Rochester, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey, Truro, Wells, Westminster Abbey, Winchester, Worcester to York Minster with a bolt of lightning and walls of glass and it rebellious Yorkshireman. Discover tales of an English pope, a martyred archbishop, secrets and troublesome spies, stained glass wonders and castle-cathedrals, famous memorials and spectacular architectural feats in a rich heritage and fascinating collection. 144 well illustrated pages.

Ambitious engineering, brilliant colour from new forms of stained glass, murals and sculpture, the architects whose work is included here range from Basil Spence and Edward Maufe, designers of major cathedrals, to the radical Gillespie, Kidd and Coia whose brutalist seminary lies abandoned near Dumbarton. This superbly well produced Batsford publication has one or more colour photographs on every page together with architect, location, year completed, denomination and whether grade 1, 2 or A listed. Each church or chapel has been built in the UK since 1914, in a period in which concrete and steel gave a new freedom to construction while new ideas about congregations changed assumptions about traditional layouts, bringing celebrants and people closer together. The book provides biographies of major designers, articles on glass, fittings, and on the synagogues, mosques and temples that play an intrinsic part in worship in Britain today. Leading architectural historians give a fine brief description for each such as the 'massive brick piers supporting the ring beam, light spilling down a flared concrete funnel from a lantern into a regular space...as a result of divine laws of geometry, mechanics and proportion, timeless laws' about Abbey Church of Our Lady Help of Christians in Worth, Sussex. Clifton Cathedral in Bristol is a hexagonal space, superbly lit by roof lights and rising to the three-part thrusting spire, presumably symbolic of the Trinity. It was built in 1973 to a remarkably low budget of £600,000. Organised by date 1914-29, 1930-45, 1946-59, 1960-69 and 1970 and after and with special chapters on stained glass, art and artefacts. With useful glossary, 208pp, 19.6 x 25.5cm, packed with colour photos.
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Arranged by Ancient including Confucious, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurius and Augustine of Hippo, Medieval including St Anselm, Hildegard of Bingen, and Ibn Rushd, Early Modern including Erasmus, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke and Voltaire; Modern including David Hume, Adam Smith, Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, Goethe, Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche; and into the 20th century with Edmund Husserl, George Santayana, Bertrand Russell, Ortega y Gasset, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Simone Weil, Barthes, Iris Murdoch, Phillipa Foot, Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag. 'The only thing I know is that I know nothing.' (Socrates). Illuminating more than 80 of the world's most important thinkers, this magnificent large fully illustrated publication by Dorling Kindersley explores the fascinating stories of their lives, loves and pioneering ideas. Thus the book provides us the means to understand ourselves and our world with wisdom from the earliest writings onwards that we now recognise as philosophical works. We are invited to revisit and interrogate their blueprints for living because Confucious, the Buddha and Plato answered that call in different ways and with different emphases. Each of the 100 constructive systems of thought, some of which endure and all share the conviction in the importance of philosophical understanding, is lavishly illustrated with photographs and paintings of philosophers, their homes, friends, studies and personal belongings together with pages from original manuscripts, first editions and correspondence. 360 large quality pages, 22 x 25.8cm.