Collection: Spirituality & Religion

We live in an age when younger African-American Christians are asking tough questions that previous generations would dare not ask. This generation doesn't hesitate to question the validity of the Scriptures, the efficacy of the church, and even the historicity of Jesus. Young people are becoming increasingly curious about what role, if any, did people of African descent play in biblical history? Or, if the Bible is devoid of Black presence, and is merely a book by Europeans, about Europeans and for Europeans to the exclusion of other races and ethnicities? Dr. Theron D. Williams makes a significant contribution to this conversation by answering the difficult questions this generation fearlessly poses. Dr. Williams uses facts from the Bible, well-respected historians, scientists, and DNA evidence to prove that Black people comprised the biblical Israelite community. He also shares historical images from the ancient catacombs that vividly depict the true likeness of the biblical Israelites. This book does not change the biblical text, but it will change how you understand it.This Second Edition provides updated information and further elucidation of key concepts. Also, at the encouragement of readership, this edition expands some of the ideas and addresses concerns my readership felt pertinent to this topic.

Structured around a series of lectures presented at the Jung Institute of Chicago in a program entitled "Jungian Psychology and Human Spirituality: Liberation from Tribalism in Religious Life," this book-length essay attacks the related problems of human evil, spiritual narcissism, secularism and ritual, and grandiosity. Robert Moore dares to insist that we stop ignoring these issues and provides clear-sighted guidance for where to start and what to expect. Along the way, he pulls together many important threads from recent findings in theology, spirituality, and psychology and brings us to a point where we can conceive of embarking on a corrective course.

Traditional doctrinal and historical interpretation both rely heavily on rational analysis. But from the disciples at Emmaus to the beginnings of the present century, it has been the impact of scripture upon the human heart that has changed human lives. In recent decades, this impact has been strengthened by advances in linguistic and literary theory, by such disparate influences as feminism, structuralism, Jungianism, deconstructionism, the analysis of archaic imagery and myth, the recovery of Gnostic texts, and finally an openness to pluralism, whether ethnic, geographic, religious, or interpretive. All of these factors are treated here with a brevity and comprehensiveness which convincingly show that the reader of scripture has a creative and not merely passive role.

"If you would understand the deepest roots of terrorism, greed, and religious fanaticism, read Facing the Dragon. But be forewarned: you may find some offshoots in your own garden."-June Singer, Jungian analyst, author of Boundaries of the Soul

Robert Moore, Phd was an internationally recognized psychotherapist and consultant in private practice in Chicago. He was considered one of the leading therapists specializing in psychotherapy with men because of his discovery of the Archetypal Dynamics of the Masculine Self (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover). He served as Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality at the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary, and has served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is Co-founder of the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy.

In 365 Days of Art in Nature, Lorna Scobie, invites the reader to take a closer look at the natural world - whether that's outside on location, or inside their own home - reminding us all that regardless of whether we live in the city or the countryside, wildlife is just on our doorstep.

Observe the slow, constant pace of the nature that surrounds you every day, and use it to inspire you in your art and creativity. Activities may include visiting a particular tree four times in the year and drawing it. How has it changed? Study the colors you find in autumn leaves. Explore drawing them in different materials.

Featuring nature-inspired quotes, breakaway activities to get you outdoors and plenty of supportive prompts and tips, this book will spark your imagination and help you to open your eyes and appreciate the natural beauty in our world.

Prayers for Healing demonstrates the transformative nature woven through the power of prayer and wisdom, drawing from a select collection of influential spiritual leaders, philosophers and thinkers of our time that include The Tao Te Ching, Rainer Maria Rilke, The Torah, Rumi, Native American texts and more.

In the hands of Jonathan Star, the eighty-one verses of the Tao Te Ching resound with the elegant, simple images and all-penetrating ideas that have made this ancient work a cornerstone of the world's wisdom literature.

A ** NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! ** IF YOU WERE FREE FROM FEAR, WHO WOULD YOU HAVE THE FREEDOM TO BE?

In Happy Days, #1 New York Times best-selling author Gabrielle Bernstein charts a clear path to releasing inner child wounds, unlearning fear, and remembering love so you can enjoy inner peace every day.

What if you could wake up every day without anxiety? View your past with purpose, not regret? Live happy, peaceful, and free from fear? You can be the happiest person you know--and Gabrielle Bernstein will show you how.

Gabby has long been loved as a spiritual teacher speaking to tens of thousands in sold-out venues throughout the world, and catalyst for profound inner change. Happy Days presents her most powerful teaching yet: a plan for transforming the pain of your past traumas, whatever that may be, into newfound strength and freedom.

In this empowering book for releasing trauma, you'll learn:

• Why most people feel frozen in mental health patterns that make them unhappy--and what to do about it
• 9 transformational, yet untapped, techniques for peace and genuine happiness--from "reparenting" yourself to bodywork practices that work for freeing the stuck energy of past unprocessed trauma from your body
• The mindset shift that can do more for you than decades of personal work
• How to speak the unspeakable and go into the places that scare you--and come away with peace of mind and freer than ever before!

"This book is a game-changer filled with honesty and openness. The vulnerability Gabby offers within the pages of Happy Days will make you feel less alone."
-Dr. Shefali Tsabary
New York Times bestselling author and clinical psychologist

Chapter Titles Include:

• Willing to Become Free
• Become Brave Enough to Wonder
• Why We Run
• Hiding behind the Body
• Speaking the Unspeakable
• Don't Call Me Crazy
• Love Every Part
• Freeing What's Frozen
• Reparenting Yourself

Happy Days Ahead
"This book is my gift to you," Gabby writes. "It will answer your questions about why you feel blocked, scared, anxious, depressed, or alone, and it will liberate you from the belief system that has kept you small for so long. . . . By taking this path you will become the best version of yourself. You will become new."

No matter what you've been through in life, you can have a future filled with freedom, inner peace and happy days.

Learn about the primal beliefs to the world's great faiths in The Religions Book.

Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Religions in this overview guide to the subject, great for beginners looking to learn and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Religions Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in.

This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Religions, with:

- Each of the world's five major faiths - Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism in its own, dedicated section
- Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts
- A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout
- Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding

The Religions Book is the perfect introduction to the world's most widely practiced religions, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you'll find the ideas behind ancient and modern faiths and spiritual philosophies, and the place of religion in the world.

Your Religious Questions, Simply Explained

This book explores the beliefs that underpin religious traditions around the globe, and how they developed. If you thought it was difficult to learn about the world's main faiths, The Religions Book presents key information in a clear layout. Learn the primal beliefs to the world's great faiths and the continuing quest for spiritual meaning in our complex world, and get to the heart of what it means to believe in God, and religion's place in society, with fantastic mind maps and step-by-step summaries.

The Big Ideas Series

With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Religions Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of S ren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kierkegaard's thought. Kierkegaard counted Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death among "the most perfect books I have written," and in them he introduces two terms--"the absurd" and "despair"--that have become key terms in modern thought. Fear and Trembling takes up the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore a faith that transcends the ethical, persists in the face of the absurd, and meets its reward in the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice, while The Sickness Unto Death examines the spiritual anxiety of despair.

Walter Lowrie's magnificent translation of these seminal works continues to provide an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard. And, as Gordon Marino argues in a new introduction, these books are as relevant as ever in today's age of anxiety.

The now-classic tale of a sixteenth-century miller facing the Roman Inquisition.

The Cheese and the Worms is an incisive study of popular culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, the miller known as Menocchio, who was accused of heresy during the Inquisition and sentenced to death. Carlo Ginzburg uses the trial records to illustrate the religious and social conflicts of the society Menocchio lived in.

For a common miller, Menocchio was surprisingly literate. In his trial testimony he made references to more than a dozen books, including the Bible, Boccaccio's Decameron, Mandeville's Travels, and a "mysterious" book that may have been the Koran. And what he read he recast in terms familiar to him, as in his own version of the creation: "All was chaos, that is earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and of that bulk a mass formed--just as cheese is made out of milk--and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels."

Ginzburg's influential book has been widely regarded as an early example of the analytic, case-oriented approach known as microhistory. In a thoughtful new preface, Ginzburg offers his own corollary to Menocchio's story as he considers the discrepancy between the intentions of the writer and what gets written. The Italian miller's story and Ginzburg's work continue to resonate with modern readers because they focus on how oral and written culture are inextricably linked. Menocchio's 500-year-old challenge to authority remains evocative and vital today.

Your Body, Your Yoga goes beyond any prior yoga anatomy book available. It looks not only at the body's unique anatomical structures and what this means to everyone's individual range of motion, but also examines the physiological sources of restrictions to movement. Two volumes are provided in this book: Volume 1 raises a new mantra to be used in every yoga posture: What Stops Me? The answers presented run through a spectrum, beginning with a variety of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive resistance. Examined is the nature of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments, joint capsules, bones and our extracellular matrix and their contribution to mobility. The shape of these structures also defines our individual, ultimate range of movement, which means that not every body can do every yoga posture. The reader will discover where his or her limits lie, which dictates which alignment cues will work best, and which ones should be abandoned. Volume 2 will take these principles and apply them to the lower body, examining the hip joint, the knee, ankle and foot, and will present how your unique variations in these joints will show up in your yoga practice.

Discover the world of divining the future in this enchanted, illustrated introduction to the magical art of fortune telling.

Uncover your own inherent magical powers as you explore the mystical realm of divination. Learn to read the signs of what the future holds through introductory chapters and sample rituals using tarot and playing cards, tea leaves, runes, and more. Explore the future and expand your magical practice in this illustrated mini guide to these ancient arts.

The Tarot Spellbook is a journey through the 78 cards of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, providing a unique spell that corresponds with each card.

Connecting with the 78 cards of the tarot in a meaningful way can be overwhelming, which can lead to scouring reference books and memorizing meanings rather than actually using the cards themselves. The Tarot Spellbook gives you a fun way to learn the cards--and a practical way to work with them beyond divination and reading.

Each of the 78 spells in The Tarot Spellbook is categorized into one of eight popular spell categories: self, change, love, money, career, wellness, protection, and home. Because the lessons taught by tarot cards are those that apply to all aspects of life, from karmic soul lessons to the smaller daily events, the spells in The Tarot Spellbook cover everything you need for a variety of common life situations.

Looking to manifest your desires? See the Magician card and spell.
Need to find clarity? Work with the Moon card and spell to dispel illusion.

Each entry outlines the card's overall meaning, and provides 2-3 journal questions to aid in introspection, reflection, and further connection to the tarot card. Each spell connects to a dominant theme of the card, helping you connect to the card on a personal level, and furthering your knowledge of witchcraft. From candle magick, to spell jars, to ritual baths, and more, The Tarot Spellbook utilizes spellwork of all kinds to truly aid you in expanding your magickal practice on all fronts.

The Te of Piglet . . . in which a good deal of Taoist wisdom is revealed through the character and actions of A. A. Milne's Piglet from the bestselling author of The Tao of Pooh

Piglet? Yes, Piglet. For the better than impulsive Tigger? or the gloomy Eeyore? or the intellectual Owl? or even the lovable Pooh? Piglet herein demonstrates a very important principle of Taoism: The Te--a Chinese word meaning Virtue--of the Small.

This book describes the embodiment of enlightened intention as manifested by a Tibetan Buddhist Bon practitioner who is living a good spiritual life. Those who have perfected this enlightened intention are believed to be able to transform into a, which can then culminate with a rainbow body during the dying process [delete - matter is transformed into light]. For those who study the Tibetan Bon tradition, this book provides access to two important texts not previously available in English. In particular, it includes a translation of "The Four Manners of Dying to Accomplish Rainbow Body," a short text by the revered Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen Rinpoche, as well as a translation of the "Blue Lotus Flower," a biography of Shardza's successor, Dawa Dragpa written by Kalsang Tempa Gyaltsen. These two texts present an extensive discussion about the advanced (and esoteric) practices that can manifest a "rainbow body" a few days after dying where the residual substantiality of the physical body transforms into a light body similar in appearance to a rainbow. The book elucidates the four methods used to attain a rainbow body: first, from the text written by Shardza Rinpoche, and then, with a more extensive discussion found within the biography of Lama Dawa Dragpa, whose exemplary life ended with the full manifestation of the rainbow body. The biographical translation beautifully describes Dawa Dragpa's spiritual life of intense devotion to his teacher, to the advanced Bön Great Completion practices, and to his commitment to serving and teaching others. These two texts were translated under the guidance of His Holiness, the 33rd Menri Trizin (33rd Abbot of the Menri Monastery in India) by Geshe Sonam Gurung and Daniel P. Brown.

This book takes the reader into the heart of the mystery of the 99 sacred Names of Allah. It is a vehicle for understanding the infinite nature of God, and for discovering the divine potential in every soul. It is also a guidebook for progressing through the stages of the spiritual path and an instruction manual for teachers on how to work with students more wisely, as physicians of the heart.

In the process of this voyage to discovery, the reader is systematically exposed to the universal mysticism encoded in the Qur'an and in the classical Sufi traditions, as well as to a modern psychological approach that works with the 99 Names to achieve individuation and wholeness.

The Hikam, or Wisdom, of the great Sufi Master Ibn Ata 'Allah al-Iskandari has long been acknowledged as an essential and classic masterwork of the Islamic science of enlightenment. Ibn Ata 'Allah exemplified the ultimate model of a Sufi master possessed of a deep foundation in the sciences of the Qur'an, the way of the Prophet and the Universal Laws of the Islamic way of life, both outer and inner.

Short but immensely thought provoking, dense in their significance and insightfulness, crisp and sharp in their elucidation, the aphoristic Hikam are a true manifesto for those who are sincerely on the path of knowledge and awareness. This wisdom strips away our conventional responses to events, actions and phenomena, and encourage us to concentrate on the only true Reality.

With the publication of Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri's new translation and with the aid of his accompanying commentary, students and adepts alike can now gain a profounder understanding of these timeless teachings from the wellspring of the heart of Islam.