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Pagan Celtic Britain by Anne Ross ISBN: 9780094723306 $37.50 MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE |
Although some aspects of pre-Roman and
pre-Christian beliefs remain shrouded in mystery, the author of this
comprehensive, profusely illustrated volume contends that neither the
Roman invasion of Britain nor the coming of Christianity eliminated
pagan religious practice. Dr Anne Ross, who speaks Gaelic and Welsh,
writes from wide experience of living in Celtic speaking communities
where she has traced vernacular tradition. She employs archaeological
and anthropological evidence, as well as folklore, to provide broad
insight into the early Celtic world. She begins by examining Celtic
places of worship, the shrines and sanctuaries in which sacred objects
were housed and from where they could be ritually displayed with various
rites and sacrifices were conducted before the people. Dr Anne Ross
describes the divine warriors with their aquatic, therapeutic and
fertility connection. Dr Anne Ross is truly gripping as she leads the
reader through her evidence from ritual pits and cult sites, votive
wells, sacred precincts and monuments. This is a brilliant piece of
historical and archaeological reconstruction. |
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Pagans and Christians by Robin Lane Fox ISBN: 9780141022956 $29.95 MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE |
How did Christianity compare and compete
with the cults of the pagan gods in the Roman Empire? This scholarly
work from award-winning historian, Robin Lane Fox, places Christians
and pagans side by side in the context of civil life and contrasts
their religious experiences, visions, cults and oracles. Leading up
to the time of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, the book
aims to enlarge and confirm the value of contemporary evidence, some
of which has only recently been discovered.
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Witchcraft and Magic in Europe Volume 1: Biblical &
Pagan Societies by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Frederick Cryer and Marie-Louise Thomsen ISBN: 9780485891034 $106 PLEASE NOTE: SPECIAL ORDER ONLY MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE |
A survey of three crucial aspects of this earliest phase of development in magic. These are the role of magical incantations and rituals against witchcraft in Mesopotamia in the last 3 millennia BC, the attitudes to witchcraft in the Old Testament and beliefs associated with Trolldomor. |
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A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerors, Heretics &
Pagans by Jeffrey B. Russell and Brooks Alexander ISBN: 9780500286340 $29.95 MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE |
For nearly thirty years, Jeffrey B.
Russell's authoritative book has been the one illustrated history to
which anyone interested in this subject could turn with confidence. Now,
in collaboration with Brooks Alexander, who has himself conducted
innovative research in the field, this classic book has been fully
revised, with an updated introduction and bibliography, new information
throughout, and an extended account of witchcraft from ancient times to
the present day. Drawing comparisons between modern sorcery and that of the ancient world, the book shows how the European witch craze in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries developed out of a combination of ancient sorcery and medieval Christian heresy, paganism, folklore, scholastic theology, and inquisitorial trials. Whether the diabolical witchcraft for which men and women went to the stake ever existed is open to question. What matters more is that it was believed to exist by intellectuals and peasants alike. 110 illustrations. About the Authors Jeffrey B. Russell is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Brooks Alexander is the author of Witchcraft Goes Mainstream and has written numerous articles on witchcraft and neo-paganism and their effect on contemporary religious movements. He lives in Texas. |
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Magic & Pagnism in Early Christianity by Hans-Josef Klauck translated by Brian McNeil ISBN: 9780567089625 Hardcover: $105 Paperback: $62.95 PLEASE NOTE: SPECIAL ORDER ONLY MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE MORE BOOKS ON RELIGION HERE |
Many forms of magic and paganism were
practiced at the time of Jesus. What were these practices, and how
did the first Christians react to them?
Hans-Josef Klauck, an expert in the cultic practices of the region, describes this world into which Christianity was born and relates to it the many experiences of the first Christians recorded in Acts. Peter, for example, encounters the Samaritan magician Simon; Paul meets the Jewish magician Bar-Jesus; the people in Lystra want to offer a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas; a soothsaying slave girl is the occasion of conflict in Philippi; in Athens, Paul finds the city full of idols but also discovers an altar 'to an unknown god'; in Ephesus, some burn their books of magic formulae, while others provoke a riot in the name of Artemis. Professor Klauck provides a fascinating account of these phenomena and their significance for Christianity historically and today |
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Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their
Nature and Legacy by Ronald Hutton ISBN: 9780631189466 $80.95 PLEASE NOTE: SPECIAL ORDER ONLY MORE BOOKS ON PAGANISM HERE |
This is the first survey of religious
beliefs in the British Isles from the Old Stone Age to the coming of
Christianity, one of the least familiar periods in Britain's history.
Ronald Hutton draws upon a wealth of new data, much of it
archaeological, that has transformed interpretation over the past
decade. Giving more or less equal weight to all periods, from the
Neolithic to the Middle Ages, he examines a fascinating range of
evidence for Celtic and Romano-British paganism, from burial sites,
cairns, megaliths and causeways, to carvings, figurines, jewellery,
weapons, votive objects, literary texts and folklore. About the Author: Ronald Hutton was educated at Cambridge and then at Oxford, where he held a fellowship at Magdalen College. In 1981, he moved to the University of Bristol, where he is now Reader in British History. He is a historian of wide interests ranging from political affairs and popular culture to topics covering the whole of the British Isles. This is his fifth book. |
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Forbidden Faith: The Gnostic Legacy
from the Gospels to the Da Vinci Code
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Who were the Gnostic Christians? Did they
come closer than the Catholic Church to following the actual teachings
of Christ? And why has the Church historically been so dedicated to
wiping them out? The former editor of Gnosis and the author of Inner
Christianity, Richard Smoley here describes the Gnostic legacy from its
ancient roots in the Gospel of Thomas, the Gnostic communities of the
Roman Empire, and the Manichaeans of Central Asia. Smoley traces Gnostic
influences through the medieval Cathar sect, the Jewish Kabbalists, the
Freemasons, the poetry of William Blake, and modern invocations in films
like The Matrix and The Da Vinci Code. |
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Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore by Bettany Hughes ISBN: 9781400041787 $28 (Hardcover) More books about History are HERE |
As soon as men began to write, they
wrote about Helen of Troy. Hesiod, a poet born around 700 BC and one
of the first named authors in history, called her 'the most
beautiful woman in the world.' Nearly three millennia later Helen
still serves as a paradigm of absolute beauty and a reminder of the
terrible power beauty can command.
Historian and BBC and PBS presenter
Bettany Hughes here unpacks the facts and myths of this most
enigmatic and notorious figure, focusing on the possibility of a
flesh and blood Helen. Hughes re-constructs the Bronze Age Greece of
this prehistoric princess, and describes the many faces and
identities she has worn in centuries since as a symbol of beauty and
earthly desire. |
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Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval
Mediterranean World by Stephen O'Shea ISBN: 9781861975218 $28 (Hardcover) More books about History are HERE |
The sea of faith is the Mediterranean in
the millennium that we, in the west, call the Middle Ages. In that
long and misunderstood era, the lands round what the Romans once
called ‘mare nostrum – ‘our sea’ – witnessed an unceasing struggle
between Christianity and Islam, two siblings sprung from the same
source, over who would inherit the legacy of antiquity. The
collision of the two, however different its manifestations, came to
fashion a wholly novel Mediterranean and, in so doing, a new world.
In a magnificent book Stephen O'Shea evokes the epochal moments of this encounter between the two imperial faiths, bringing to life the instances of conflict and coexistence that were at once the marvel and the talk of an entire world. His story lights on all shores of the Mediterranean and provides a cogent reminder of a shared history. The fall of the Christian Middle East
at Yarmuk, Martel’s ‘wall of ice’ at Poitiers, Byzantium’s rout at
Manzikert, all the way through to Saladin at Jerusalem, Lazar at
Kosovo and the suicidal defence of Malta against the Ottomans –
these and other fragments of our collective memory come alive and
together as part of a huge canvas in this fresh, narrative history.
For all those who care about the present day, and the continuing
coexistence of these two cultures, history has never been so timely. |
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Languages of Witchcraft: Narrative, Ideology and
Meaning in Early Modern Culture edited by Stuart Clark ISBN: 9780333793497 $28 More books about the Occult are HERE |
Different conceptions of the world and of reality have made witchcraft possible in some societies and impossible in others. How did the people of early modern Europe experience it and what was its place in their culture? The new essays in this collection illustrate the latest trends in witchcraft research and in cultural history in general. After three decades in which the social analysis of witchcraft accusations has dominated the subject, they turn instead to its significance and meaning as a cultural phenomenon - to the 'languages' of witchcraft, rather than its causes. As a result, witchcraft seems less startling than it once was, yet more revealing of the world in which it occurred. |
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Mysteries of the Snake Goddess: Art, Desire, and the
Forging of History by Kenneth Lapatin ISBN: 0306813289 $32.90 |
In Mysteries of the Snake Goddess,
Kenneth Lapatin traces the murky origins (and seriously debunks the
authenticity of) "the most refined and precious" surviving object of
Minoan art. The gold-and-ivory figure, now residing in the Boston Museum
of Fine Arts, was discovered in the early 20th century by renowned
archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. Other, related figures (of equally
dubious origin) retain pride of place in several North American and
European museums. They are almost certainly forgeries, according to
Lapatin, or at best, "neither entirely genuine nor fully fake." This is
not a crime story but rather a tale of well-meaning overextrapolation.
Evans, and others, took kernels of evidence to bake a large loaf of an
idealized, matriarchal Cretan civilization. In short, Evans's desire to
believe clouded his scientific caution. As well, Lapatin gently points
out that very often our re-creations of the past are influenced by the
ideas, mores, and, even, inadequacies of our present. His book is one of
calm, inviting erudition that, mercifully, avoids the mean wrangling so
common in academia. |
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The Templars: History & Myth by Michael Haag ISBN: 9781846681486 $45 |
The first official history of the Templars
since the Vatican published its sensational records, clearing them of
heresy. An order of warrior monks founded after the First Crusade to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem, the Templars developed into one of the wealthiest and most powerful bodies in the medieval world. Yet two centuries later, the Knights were suddenly arrested and accused of blasphemy, heresy and orgies, their order was abolished, and their leaders burnt at the stake. Their dramatic end shocked their contemporaries and has gripped peoples' imaginations ever since. This new book explains the whole context of Templar history, including, for the first time, the new evidence discovered by the Vatican that the Templars were not guilty of heresy. It covers the whole swathe of Templar history, from its origins in the mysteries of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem through to the nineteenth century development of the Freemasons. The book also features a guide to Templar castles and sites, and coverage of the Templars in books, movies and popular culture, from Indiana Jones to the Xbox360 game Assassin's Creed. About Michael Haag Michael Haag has written widely on the Egyptian, Classical and Medieval worlds. He is author of the much-admired Alexandria: City of Memory, Rough Guides to Tutankhamun and The Da Vinci Code. |
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The Fated Sky: Astrology in History by Benson Bobrick $29.;90 ISBN: 9780743268950 More books about ASTROLOGY HERE |
In this lively work, historian Bobrick (Wide
as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It
Inspired) takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through the
history of the reading of the stars. As he shows, from astrology's birth
6,000 years ago in Babylonia to the Reagan White House, the stars have
been studied, interpreted and followed: they drove Christopher Columbus
to America, says Bobrick, and their study led to the sciences of
astronomy and chemistry. While he gives a nod to the eastern mystics who
originated astrology, Bobrick mostly traces the many threads of
astrology as they weave through Western thought. Copernicus, Isaac
Newton and even Martin Luther studied the astrology texts of their day,
using them not only for personal guidance but as a tool in their own
remarkable work. Attacked by establishment churches and debunked and
scoffed at by contemporary science, astrology has stayed with us and
flourishes. Not only are 40 million Americans ravenous consumers of
astrology and dedicated followers of horoscopes, but, Bobrick says,
astrology is reappearing in academe. With great passion and clarity,
Bobrick has written the perfect thinking reader's companion to the daily
horoscope. |
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Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits
of Their Texts by Peter T. Struck ISBN: 0691116970 Hardcover with DJ $45 |
Nearly all of us have studied poetry and
been taught to look for the symbolic as well as literal meaning of the
text. Is this the way the ancients saw poetry? In Birth of the Symbol,
Peter Struck explores the ancient Greek literary critics and theorists
who invented the idea of the poetic "symbol." The book notes that Aristotle and his followers did not discuss the use of poetic symbolism. Rather, a different group of Greek thinkers--the allegorists--were the first to develop the notion. Struck extensively revisits the work of the great allegorists, which has been underappreciated. He links their interest in symbolism to the importance of divination and magic in ancient times, and he demonstrates how important symbolism became when they thought about religion and philosophy. "They see the whole of great poetic language as deeply figurative," he writes, "with the potential always, even in the most mundane details, to be freighted with hidden messages." Birth of the Symbol offers a new understanding of the role of poetry in the life of ideas in ancient Greece. Moreover, it demonstrates a connection between the way we understand poetry and the way it was understood by important thinkers in ancient times.
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