Art Study

The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom. The book was placed in the coffin or burial chamber of the deceased, and was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. A number of the spells which make up the Book continued to be separately inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as the spells from which they originated always had been.

The Dark Night of the Soul explores not only the torments and elations of a soul’s spiritual journey, but also expounds on man’s relationship with God and the natural longing for union with the Creator. Known as a doctor of mysticism, St. John of the Cross uniquely and profoundly delves into the intimidating world of spirituality and Christianity. In this work there are ideas explored that bring light to the deep afflictions of the soul as well as the true exaltation and joy that occurs closer on the path to communion with God.

Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses show the beloved author and theologian bringing hope and courage in a time of great doubt. "The Weight of Glory", considered by many to be Lewis’s finest sermon of all, is an incomparable explication of virtue, goodness, desire, and glory.

“Buy the ticket, take the ride,” was a favorite slogan of Hunter S. Thompson, and it pretty much defined both his work and his life. Fear and Loathing at Rolling Stone showcases the roller-coaster of a career at the magazine that was his literary home.

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

For two thousand years, the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia—a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries—have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them: slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labor, epidemics, and warfare. This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless.

Many people believe that if they were only wealthy then they could finally be truly happy. However, most soon realize that money and wealth are not the cause of happiness but rather the by-product of it. True peace is like a wheel and money is just one of the many spokes.

If I were a ballerina, I would wear pointe shoes. I would stretch my legs and leap across the stage! Dream big, and see what fun it is to be a ballerina.

Drawing on the diaries of one woman in 18th-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Between 1785 and 1812, a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine.

From its first publication in 1992, Men, Women, and Chain Saws has offered a groundbreaking perspective on the creativity and influence of horror cinema since the mid-1970s. Investigating the popularity of the low-budget tradition, Carol Clover looks in particular at slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films. Although such movies have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasures to their mostly male audiences, Clover demonstrates that they align spectators not with the male tormentor, but with the females tormented.

In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism.

Most all tarot books present card-by-card interpretations as well as an instruction on how to read spreads. This book takes the next logical step inward by presenting the art of reading in a workbook format and helps you learn to interpret the cards intuitively. The book falls into two parts. The first part concerns learning about the cards and includes exercises for each card that teaches you to trust your interpretation of the card. The second part helps you develop that ability, a skill that Reed calls “intuition”.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

Read by the author. Discover how to live freely and release your burdens with gospel meditations that turn your focus to the God who cares deeply for you. Are you looking for a new way of living? A way to stop anxious thoughts and release heavy burdens you aren't meant to carry? In The Way of...

Discover the marriage you've always hoped for. With practical tools to help you communicate more effectively, you'll learn to speak the language of love and grace that will encourage and strengthen your husband at every turn. Ann Wilson spent more than a decade longing for a better marriage and...

Today the Quran is used by some to justify war and acts of terrorism, the Torah to deny Palestinians the right to live in the Land of Israel, and the Bible to condemn homosexuality and contraception. The significance of scripture may not be immediately obvious in our secular world, but its...

At the center of The Dark Night of the Soul (La noche oscura del alma) is a poem written by the 16th century Spanish poet and mystic St John of the Cross. Consisting of eight stanzas, each of five lines, the poem outlines the journey in pursuit of divine union, within which the only source of light comes from the soul. This recording in English includes the poem itself and St John's two accompanying treatises (1584-1585), essentially commentaries, which offer line-by-line explanations of the poem. Many modern listeners have found guidance and consolation in this work.

To be heard as complaining is not to be heard, writes Sara Ahmed. In her sweeping exploration of complaint as a means of resistance, Ahmed attunes her "feminist ear" to those who seek to challenge powerful institutions. She shows how complaints can unbury past complaints, getting them out of filing cabinets or from behind closed doors, allowing us to see institutions more clearly—how they work, and for whom they work.

Drawn from more than two decades of pathbreaking writing, the iconic and bestselling David Graeber's most important essays and interviews. "The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently," wrote David Graeber. A renowned...

For over two decades, Donald Michael Kraig's Modern Magick has been the world's most popular step-by-step guide to working real magick. Tens of thousands of individuals and groups have used this course as their primary instruction manual. Now, greatly revised and expanded, this set of lessons is more complete and relevant to your life than ever. Modern Magick will safely guide you-even if you know little or nothing-through a progressive series of practical exercises and rituals, complemented by the knowledge, history, insights, and theory you need to become a successful ceremonial magician.