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Recommended Reading

Religion

A Dictionary of Angels:
Including the Fallen Angels

In the midst of the remarkable revival of interest and belief in angels comes this handsomely illustrated reference work, the fruit of 16 years of research in Talmudic, gnostic, cabalistic, apocalyptic, patristic, and legendary texts. A wacky and wonderful compendium of angelic lore.
--Time.

A Dictionary of Angels

A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies
Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits

Divert your gaze from our contemporary misrepresentations of demons and find out the ancient roles demons were originally assigned to play. From the Tommyknockers to the Mbulu that waits in the river for lone travelers.

The book classifies these creatures by their domains (water, mountain, forest) rather than in alphabetical or cultural order, dishing out antique and contemporary lore on these most misunderstood of spirits.

A Field Guide to Demons

And Now, and Here:
On Death, Dying and Past Lives

This book takes a look at the mysteries of life and death and has helped many feel the death experience through meditation. It is thought that the fear of death is a reason why some people can't meditate.

Those who are afraid of death can never enter into samadhi. Samadhi is a voluntary invitation to death. “Come, I am ready to die. I want to know whether or not I will survive after death. And it is better that I know it consciously, because I won't be able to know anything if this event occurs in an unconscious state.”

And Now, and Here

Authorized King James Version With Apocrypha Bible

Some people prefer this version because it reminds them of the way the bible is tought at their particular church. Other people prefer this version because they like the way the English language is used in it. Because this contains the Apocrypha, it is suitable for Catholics, Protestants, and other Christian denominations.

This is a translation of the bible that contains words like Thee and Thou. It might be hard to follow if you want an easy to understand version in plain english. If you are looking for an easy to read version of the bible, get something like the Good News Bible

A little note, King James was the king of England hundreds of years ago. At the time there was no complete English translation of the bible. So he had scholars translate Hebrew and Greek biblical text into English. The result was The King James Bible.

Authorized King James Version

Basic Psychic Development:
A User's Guide to Auras
Chakra & Clairvoyance

A complete learning system for would-be psychics. While the premise of Basic Psychic Development is to advance awareness, understanding, and control over one's psychic abilities, the ultimate goal is owning one's identity, something more valuable than any psychic ability.

Basic Psychic Development

Be Here Now

It's easy to dismiss Be Here Now as the relic of a whacked-out '60s acid tripper. Then you turn to the first page of the book, and you are suddenly sucked into the story of a Harvard psychiatrist who has reached the pinnacle of success, discovers the mind-expanding powers of acid, and ends up trooping through India.

Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), the author, was one of the group of 3 who worked together and started the acid age, along with Tim Leary and Ralph Metzner. While Leary continued with his use of LSD, Ram Dass found his peace in Buddhism and Hinduism.

The book was published in 1971, but stands the test of time, and if you can entertain the center section in a retro kind of a spirit, it might be just what you're looking for. It contains sections on the authors life, and the way he practices his religion.
--Brian Bruya

Be Here Now

Celtic Goddesses:
Warriors, Virgins, and Mothers

A path through myth, legend, history, and archeology to present us with a fairly brief, but overall comprehensive portrait of the divine feminine in the Celtic world.

Drawing on sources as diverse as Welsh lore and ancient shrines buried beneath modern-day cathedrals, she illustrates the influence of goddesses in this ancient world, how their power was transmuted to that of saints with the dominance of Christianity.

Celtic Goddesses

Chakras for Beginners:
A Guide to Balancing Your Chakra Energies

An inspired text with highly practical information. Provides the reader with rich information on the history and background of chakras while making this ancient healing system apply directly to the current cultural climate.

He guides the reader playfully and honestly through each chapter in the ascending order of the chakras so the reader can build up with useful exercises and hands on material.

Chakras for Beginners

Devils, Demons, and Witchcraft:
244 Illustrations for Artists and Craftspeople

A collection of images representing the dark forces. The collection spans centuries and will give a good idea of how people saw the forces of evil during the time and culture in which they lived.

Because paper and art supplies were so rare at different times, some of the pictures are less than perfect, but they will help you get a sense of how evil has been artistically expressed over the course of history.

Devils, Demons, and Witchcraft

Encyclopedia of Hell

A comprehensive survey of the underworld, drawing information from cultures around the globe and eras throughout history.

Organized in a simple-to-use alphabetic format, entries cover representations of the dark realm of the dead in mythology, religion, works of art, opera, literature, theater, music, film, and television.

Sources include African legends, Native American stories, Asian folk tales, comic books, video games, and other more obscure references, in addition to familiar infernal chronicles from Western lore.

Encyclopedia of Hell

Facing Death:
Where Culture, Religion, and Medicine Meet

This profound and eloquent book brings together health professionals and distinguished authorities in the humanities to reflect on medical, cultural, and religious responses to death.

Physicians and other care givers describe their experiences witnessing death, and theologians, historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, and pastors tell how other cultures and religions perceive death and mourn. This collection affirms that death is less an adversary than a defining part of life.

Facing Death

Fallen Angels...and Spirits of the Dark

A fairly thorough book that looks at infamous angels and other evil beings. Includes accounts of the exploits of fallen angels, demons, werewolves, witches and warlocks, vampires, poltergeists, and ghosts, along with spells and incantations, legends, and verse.

Fallen Angels...and Spirits of the Dark

Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia:
An Illustrated Dictionary

A good reference of the myths that the people of Ancient Mesopotamia followed, very interesting, with pictures to help better understand how the people thought of these things.

Gods, Demons and Symbols

Good News Bible:
Today's English Version

This popular Bible is now available in the new revision of the Today's English Version (TEV), which clarifies the message of the Bible and carefully brings gender inclusiveness to the Bible text. Includes book introductions and outlines and a Bible Word List.

It is recommended for people who are new to the bible and/or people who don't want to get lost in Thee and Thou versions of the bible (King James Versions). This is written in plain, easy to understand english.

Good News Bible

Good News Bible:
Good News With Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha
Today's English Version for Catholics

This is the same easy to read version as the Good News Bible above, but it contains two extra sections, one of them is the Apocrypha. The main difference between Catholic and Protestant bibles is the fact that the Catholic bible includes the Apocrypha.

The Apocrypha section was excluded from the bible that Protestants read. Other than that both bibles are the same. You won't go to hell for reading this version of the bible if you are any denomination of christian.

Good News Bible for Catholics

Guide to the I Ching

One of the best books that I have purchased on the subject of the I Ching. Its translations are quite extensive and give in depth interpretations of the hexigrams and changing lines.

Be prepared to read its translations with patience. There is a lot of information about all aspects of the hexagram and most hexagrams have 4 or 5 pages of text devoted to them.

Guide to the I Ching

Hathor Rising:
The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt

Follows the evolving role of the solar serpent goddess known as Hathor through the reigns of such famous pharaohs as Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun.

The book is lavishly illustrated with black and white photographs and drawings, all clearly explained and tightly woven into the narrative.

Hathor Rising

How Different Religions
View Death & Afterlife

Includes chapters on 19 different religions, will be of enormous value to everyone who would like to obtain a better understanding of the various ways that different faiths understand death and what happens afterward.

Each chapter is written by a different expert or scholar, each of whom is an internationally recognized authority on a particular faith.

A practical Questions and Answers chapter offers readers a quick way to find out what each faith believes about specific issues, including: If there is a heaven, what is it like? Who will go to hell? Does your faith believe in reincarnation? What happens to people who commit suicide?

How Different Religions...

In Search of the Ultimate High:
Spiritual experience through psychoactives

A book for people who want to know more about the spiritual uses of psychoactives. The focus is on exploring the spiritual quest through the use of psychoactives, rather than focusing on the psychoactives themselves.

Personal accounts from people who have had a spiritual experience induced by a drug are combined with factual information on entheogens (drugs used for spiritual purposes), well researched background material and contacts.

Includes information on drugs and spirituality, world religions, shamanism for westerners, psychoactive explorers, rave spirituality, medical information and first aid, and more.

In Search of...

Layayoga:
The Definitive Guide to
the Chakras and Kundalini

An excellent and detailed guide to the chakras and to some extent the nadis (of which there is no complete guide in publication).

It is of great practical assistance to those interested in kundalini yoga and will particularly assist those who follow unreliable New Age methods.

Layayoga

Life After Death

By Tom Harpur. Tom is the bomb (he's hip) when it comes to religion. He was an Anglican Minister who hung up his robe to help all people of all faiths understand GOD a little better. He even has even employed a wicca in his office.

The book is a fresh, open-minded, and eclectic look at the topic of life after death. It explores how science, psychology, the bible, and world religions view what happens after we die.

Harpur searches not for proof, but for evidence. And he finds it in remarkable places, from fifty-thousand-year-old graves, to the science of brain-mind functioning and the extraordinary near-death experiences of ordinary people.

Life After Death

Liltih's Cave

A great collection of supernatural tales, both long and short. The general reader will appreciate the writing style, while folklore specialists will be glad he has included notes and references.

Liltih's Cave

Lilith-The First Eve:
Historical and Psychological
Aspects of the Dark Feminine

Written by Siegmund Hurwitz, Gela Jacobson, and Marie-Louise von Franz. The book includes lots of information on the Lilith belief, and goes into a fairly detailed etymology of her name.

Lilith-The First Eve

Lure of the Sinister:
The Unnatural History of Satanism

Although packaged as a cultural history of Satanism, it is more of a work that seeks to debunk accusations against Pagan practices by the uneducated and ignorant, both medieval and modern.

This well researched and informed investigation of Satanism first addresses the origins of Satanism and the idea behind the existence of Satan (Lucifer, etc.).

Then it analyzes the cases most often cited as reliable instances of historical Satanism and devil worship, both ancient and modern.

The book debunks the many myths that have grown up around this subject and gives a balanced and interesting accounting of them.

Lure of the Sinister

Myths from Mesopotamia:
Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others

These ancient stories from the cradle of civilization, ancient Mesopotamia, stand alongside the Odyssey in their popularity.

The collection includes the great literary composition, The Epic of Gilgamesh, a story of a heroic quest for fame and immortality. mortality.

Myths from Mesopotamia

New American Standard Ryrie Study Bible:
Navy Regular

A large study bible recommended for serious study.

New American Standard Ryrie Study Bible

99 Answers to Questions About Angels, Demons & Spiritual Warfare

Not a sensationalist book written with the intention to give you goose-bumps at night. Written with the express purpose of providing readers with discernment regarding the spirit world.

As a scholar in biblical theology, the author examined what the Bible, what Jewish literature, and what post-biblical Christian literature say about angels and demons.

99 Answers to Questions About

Passionate Enlightenment

The crowning cultural achievement of medieval India, Tantric Buddhism is known in the West primarily for the sexual practices of its adherents, who strive to transform erotic passion into spiritual ecstasy.

Historians of religion have long held that the enlightenment thus attempted was for men only, and that women in the movement were at best marginal and subordinated and at worst degraded and exploited.

Miranda Shaw argues to the contrary, presenting extensive new evidence of the outspoken and independent female founders of the Tantric movement and their creative role in shaping its distinctive vision of gender relations and sacred sexuality.

Passionate Enlightenment

Spirit of Tao Te Ching

2,500 years ago Lao Tzu rode off into China's wild frontier, never to be seen again. Before he left, he wrote the Tao Te Ching. It gives us simple truths about peace, joy and harmony; and practical wisdom for life, work and relationships.

This book has influenced the lives of millions with a universal message that transcends culture and time. Second to the Bible, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching is the world's most translated book. This poetic rendering of the Tao Te Ching may help eliminate the confusion caused by some other translations.

Spirit of Tao Te Ching weaves in literary allusions from Aztec poet-king Ixtlilxochitl, medieval mystic Julian of Norwich, songwriters Gilbert and Sullivan, poets TS Eliot and Stephen Vincent Benét, and others.

Spirit of Tao Te Ching

Stairways to Heaven:
Drugs in American Religious History

From Native Americans' use of tobacco for solemnizing oaths to the spread of New Age religious beliefs in Haight Ashbury coffee houses, drugs have been intimately associated with American spirituality.

Stairways to Heaven illustrates how such substances as peyote, jimsonweed, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD, marijuana, wine, and coffee have stimulated ecstatic revelations of spiritual truth and strengthened the social bonds that sustain communities of faith.

Stairways to Heaven

The Book Of The Books:
Discourses On The Dhammapada Of Gautam the Buddha

Commentaries on the Dhammapada is amazingly appropriate for the modern man. As the Buddha says, truth is that which works. This helps unravel these old teachings to serve us today. With amazing wit, and depth of understanding Osho gives life to the Buddha's teachings.

His revolution (revolt as he calls it) is not violent nor social, but inner and individual. Basically, the book proposes that if you want change to happen, better start by changing yourself. All the rest follows.

The Book Of The Books

The Case for Christ:
A Journalist's Personal
Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus

The Case for Christ records Lee Strobel's attempt to determine if there's credible evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really is the Son of God. Each interview is based on a simple question, concerning historical evidence.

For example, Can the Biographies of Jesus Be Trusted?, scientific evidence, Does Archaeology Confirm or Contradict Jesus' Biographies?, and psychiatric evidence Was Jesus Crazy When He Claimed to Be the Son of God?.

Together, these interviews compose a case brief defending Jesus' divinity, and urging readers to reach a verdict of their own.

The Case for Christ

The Complete Book of Devils and Demons

This engrossing collection of anecdotes and illustrations attempts to define evil throughout the years. Demons are courted for power and feared for disease. Princes of Hell and the undead walk by night to prey upon the living.

Here is the story of how evil has been conceived, embraced, and combatted over time, including the rise and fall of black magicians, astrology, spiritualism, and more.

This is a complete history of the dark side that may be hard to follow at first, after you understand how the author put the book together, it will be easier to navigate.

The Complete Book of Devils and Demons

The Complete I Ching:
The Definitive Translation
by the Taoist Master Alfred Huang

One of the better, if not best, translations of the I Ching ever produced. Gives a lot of information about the hexagram text, as well as individual lines.

The Complete I Ching

The Devil:
A Visual Guide to the
Demonic, Evil, Scurrilous, and Bad

Whether you call him Lucifer, Satan, Leviathan, Beelzebub, or the Prince of Darkness, the Devil gets his due in this wickedly entertaining, informative and mysteriously alluring volume.

The book is a history of satan and hell, the flip side to the immensely popular subject of saints and angels. Over 100 illustrations, some in beautiful full color, make this book worth getting just for the images.

The Devil

The Four Agreements:
A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
A Toltec Wisdom Book (Ruiz, Miguel, Toltec Wisdom Book.)

Sit at the foot of a native elder and listen as great wisdom of days long past is passed down. In The Four Agreements shamanic teacher and healer Don Miguel Ruiz exposes self-limiting beliefs and presents a simple yet effective code of personal conduct learned from his Toltec ancestors.

Full of grace and simple truth, this handsomely designed book makes a lovely gift for anyone making an elementary change in life, and it reads in a voice that you would expect from an indigenous shaman.
--P. Randall Cohan

The Four Agreements

The Hebrew Goddess

This cult of the feminine goddess, though often repressed, remained a part of the faith of the Jewish people.

Goddesses answered the need for mother, lover, queen, intercessor. Even today, lingers cryptically in the traditional Hebrew Sabbath invocation.

The Hebrew Goddess

The Lost Soul Companion

Susan Brackney writes with quirky candor and a sense of humor. But more than that, she writes with great warmth and compassion for those who may feel like a square peg in a round-hole world. The Lost Soul Companion is a book of honesty, hope and promise, and it will make you smile.

Includes personal anecdotes; short biographies of Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, and John Kennedy Toole; recipes; discussions of suicide, depression, creativity, poverty, hope; and much more. Also includes illustrations.
---Bob Zaltsberg, Editor, The Herald-Times

The Lost Soul Companion

The Reluctant Shaman:
A Woman's First Encounters With
The Unseen Spirits Of The Earth

This is a candid account of the experiences of a young mother and student who was chosen by two South American shaman to learn and carry the light of their teachings.

This book speaks to the heart, the gut, the deep portions of one's being. Not in a sentimental way, but in a way that enkindles the spirit to grow. This is a book for the seeker, who'll come out more spiritually grounded than expected. I *highly* recommend it.
---lscherer@mindspring.com

This book recounts the first steps in the making of a modern-day shaman. An honest account of a woman trying to make sense of experiences that are not comprehensible to most people living in our present society. As such it is very useful to those wanting to know about shamanism and to those who contemplate traveling this path.

The Reluctant Shaman

The Sacred Art of Dying:
How World Religions Understand Death

Views of how different religions teach their members about death.

The Sacred Art of Dying

The Silver Wheel:
Women's Myths & Mysteries
in the Celtic Tradition

An excellent book, unlike many other books on the market, this one was well researched with reputable sources, and contains a great deal of wisdom that could help many women (even if they don't have Celtic leanings).

Heavy focus is placed upon Jungian psychology and mythological analysis, a little heady in places, but is well written and not too difficult.

The Silver Wheel

The Tao of Pooh - The Te of Piglet

Who would have though that Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, A.A. Milne's beloved storybook characters, would cause such a stir demonstrating the fundamentals of Taoist philosophy? Maybe tigger, but not I.

These two phenomenal paperback bestsellers are available in an elegantly packaged boxed set. Illustrated throughout.

The Tao of Pooh...

The Witch in Every Woman:
Reawakening the Magical Nature of
the Feminine to Heal, Protect, Create, and Empower

Cabot brings more than forty years of experience as a spiritual counselor and practicing Witch to cultivate and celebrate the secret, magical side of every woman's nature.

Laurie shows you how ancient truths can empower you during many of life's dark moments and lead you on a path of success and personal fulfillment.

Through story, ritual activity, and spiritual communion, you will learn how to use your instinctual nature to achieve your goals and feel energized, strong, and capable in your daily life.

The Witch in Every Woman

The World's Religions

A standard introduction to its eponymous subject since its first publication in 1958.

Criteria for inclusion and analysis of religions in this book are relevance to the modern mind and universality, and his interest in each religion is more concerned with its principles than its context.

The book avoids cataloging the horrors and crimes of which religions have been accused, and attempts to show each at their best.
--Michael Joseph Gross

The World's Religions

This Very Moment:
A Brief Introduction to Buddhism
and Zen for Unitarian Universalists

By James Ishmael Ford.

This Very Moment

Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

This book is fascinating, but how much is truth is up to the reader to decide. It spotlights the feminist underpinnings of myth, religion, and culture.

It tells us that before being lionized as zaftig Norse angels who guided strong warriors to Valhalla, Valkyries may have offered rebirth through cannibalization. Little Red Riding Hood was based on Diana, goddess of the hunt.

Marriage was once considered a sin, not a sacred union: St. Bernard once proclaimed it was easier for a man to bring the dead back to life than to live with a woman without endangering his soul. A few of the other topics expounded upon are the Milky Way, Cinderella, the moon, and males giving birth.

Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

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