Ancient Cults

Mystery cults are one of the most intriguing areas of Greek and Roman religion. In the nocturnal mysteries at Eleusis, participants dramatically reenacted the story of Demeter's loss and recovery of her daughter Persephone; in the Bacchic cult, bands of women ran wild in the Greek countryside to honor Dionysus; in the mysteries of Mithras, men came to understand the nature of the universe and their place within it through frightening initiation ceremonies and astrological teachings.

A world abandoned by the gods, mystifying cosmic forces, unimaginable power for those willing to ascend, and a hero who would rather . . . go fishing??? When summoned to a fantastical world and granted powers by a broken System, most freshly minted protagonists would strap on their big-boy boots...

Power is returning to the world after millennia, ancient constructs are stirring back to life, and one man is doing his best to ignore all that noise. Fischer has everything he needs in life: blossoming friendships, a menagerie of cute animal companions, a waterfront property with easy access to...

Where did God come from? What do the bible stories really tell us? Who or what was Jesus Christ? This audiobook challenges everything we think we know about the nature of religion.

Mystery. Manipulation. Murder. Cults are associated with all of these. But what really goes on inside them? More specifically, what goes on inside the minds of cult leaders and the people who join them? Based on the hit podcast Cults, this is essential reading for any true crime fan. Cults prey...

An empire has fallen, another blooms in its wake, and one man— who would rather be fishing, thank you very much—has finally accepted his role as its leader. Thanks to overwhelming might, a cadre of violent animals, and a weaponized fish or two, Tropica has wiped Gormona's royal forces from...

In a world where godhood is within reach for those willing to claw their way to the top, only one man has the resolve to reject power and go . . . fishing? Again? Try as he might, Fischer still can't catch a break. Tropica's forces have just perpetrated the fantasyland equivalent of crashing the...

An “engrossing, unputdownable” (Amanda Montell, New York Times bestselling author) pop history that explains why the eccentric doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders are still driving American culture today, contextualizes the current rise in far-right extremism as a natural result of our...

A long time ago, in a suburban high school not so far away, a closeted nerd (me) and a closeted soccer star (Hutch) fell in love and planned to make their public debut at prom. Until Hutch bailed at the last minute, leaving me with a broken heart and unworn tuxedo. Tale as old as time, right? I spent the past ten years working to forget Hutch, returning to our old high school to teach and make new memories that could erase ones of him. I thought Hutch was ancient history, off living his professional athlete life. 

Part of the popular Fundamentals of Philosophy series, Ancient Philosophy is an ideal resource for beginning students as well as for advanced students wishing to hone their understanding of the philosophies of the ancient world. Clear and engaging, this book covers a representative selection of major ancient thinkers, movements, and schools of thought, including the Sophists and other significant Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, the Stoics, the Skeptics, and early Judeo-Christian philosophy up to Augustine. 

The city of Heliopolis was one of ancient Egypt’s most important religious centers, the focus of the civilization’s solar cult, and a destination for pilgrims for nearly 3,000 years. Heliopolis’ origins were quite humble though, and it does not appear that it was ever planned to be a great city. The city began as a small settlement in the late 4th millennium BC, but within a couple of hundred years it became the center of Egypt’s solar religion, due to several fortuitous circumstances.

From the national best-selling author of Racing Weight, Matt Fitzgerald exposes the irrationality, half-truths, and downright impossibility of a "single right way" to eat and reveals how to develop rational, healthy eating habits.

In the early Roman Empire, as Christianity struggled to gain a foothold and survive in the polytheistic pool of Roman theology, its greatest rivals weren't the Caesars or the Roman aristocracy but rather the faith and devotion of the common Roman legionary. The faith of these men was centered on the god Mithras, who, they believed, led them to victory upon the field of battle and had done so for nearly four centuries.

This program includes an introduction read by the author. "Pulls you into the depths of a secret world from the first page. Ian Smith’s novel is unmissable." —Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Missing You Spencer Collins thinks his life at Harvard will be all about...

Sarah Wright has a job to die for. She never asked for it, never even filled out an application. To be fair, she didn’t ask to die either. Ever since she woke up as a vampire, she only wanted to unlive in as ordinary a way as possible. Alas, the realities of undeath and awakening to the greater existence of the supernatural made certain demands of the family. Now Sarah runs errands for the vampire boss of Seattle. It isn’t such a bad gig when she’s not being shot at, chased, clawed up, thrown around, or scrambling to keep her family safe.

When Toru Narazaki's girlfriend, Ryoko, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of a private detective he's hired to find her. Ryoko's past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue leads him to a compound in the heart of Tokyo, with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru's brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn't what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence beneath its surface.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

From the author of the global bestseller The Secret History of the World comes an epic new history of Genius, Madness and Mysticism. 'A panoramic study… told with wit and gusto' Daily Mail We are taught that science is a question of fact and logic. But what if it isn't? What if, instead, the...

Bloomsbury presents Shadows Linger by Glen Cook, read by Toby Longworth. From international bestseller Glen Cook comes the second book in the chronicles of the Black Company — the series that forever changed the face of fantasy. The Black Company stands against the rebels of the White Rose...

Historians Cameron Thorne and Amanda Spencer-Gunn discover a fourteenth-century journal which confirms a long-rumored historical heresy: The medieval Church outlawed the Knights Templar because the warrior monks were secretly worshiping the ancient Goddess. The journal also sucks Cam and Amanda into the orbit of a ruthless cabal of modern-day pagans intent on pushing America into the loving arms of the Goddess—whether America wants succor there or not.