One day in 1599, in the Spanish village of Saria, seven-year-old Maria Angela Astorch fell ill and died after gorging herself on unripened almonds. Maria's sister Isabel, a nun, came to view the body with her mother superior, an ecstatic mystic and visionary named Maria Angela Serafina. Overcome by the sight of the dead girl's innocent face, Serafina began to pray fervently for the return of the child's soul to her body. Entering a trance, she had a vision in which the Virgin Mary gave her...

This is the extraordinary story of Knight and Lomas's fourteen year quest to uncover the secret teachings buried beneath Roslin Chapel near Edinburgh. Their quest ends with extraordinary revelations about early human history - the origins of Christianity, of Freemasonry and of science. They show that all were charged with a belief in a secret cosmic code, linking, for example, the Exodus from Egypt, the founding of Solomon's Temple and the Star of Bethlehem. This book reveals for the first...

This is a complete English translation of the famous Ethiopian work The Kebra Nagast - The Glory of the Kings of Ethiopia. Complied by a Coptic priest in the 6th century AD from much older material, The Kebra Nagast is a remarkable mixture of legends and traditions, some historical and some of a mythic quality, derived from the Old Testament and the later Rabbinic writings and from Egyptian (both pagan and Christian), Arabian and Ethiopian sources. The principle theme is the descent of the...

Contains The Cloud of Unknowing, The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis, The Book of Privy Counselling, and An Epistle on Prayer. Against a tradition of devotional writings which focussed on knowing God through Christ's Passion and his humanity, these texts describe a transcendent God who exists beyond human knowledge and human language. These four texts are at the heart of medival mystical theology in their call for contemplation, calm, and above all, love, as the way to understand the Divi...

A remarkable medieval woman's life and the earliest surviving autobiography in English, now updated with new materialThe story of the eventful life of Margery Kempe - medieval wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the ...

Coming from a society where women were barred from serious writing and teaching, Julian, an anchorite of the great medieval city of Norwich, nevertheless uses her womanlines and the English vernacular of the day to describe a series of revelations which she received from God in the year 1373. She identifies the female nature of Christ's suffering and the motherhood of God, using images from domestic daily life, emphasizing the homeliness of God's love. She writes in a lively and unpretenti...

Benedictine nun, poet and musician, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She undertook preaching tours throughout the German empire at the age of sixty, and was consulted not only by her religious contemporaries but also by kings and emperors, yet it is largely for her apocalyptic and mystical writings that she is remembered. This volume includes selections from her three visionary works, her treatises on medicine and the natural world,...

Suggests that Jesus survived the crucifixion, went to Egypt, then settled in France• Reveals new discoveries that show the beginnings of Christianity in Egypt• Presents historical and archaeological research that proves a connection between Jerusalem, Egypt, and Rennes-le-Château in the south of France• Posits Rennes-le-Château as the actual location of Jesus Christ’s tomb, and that writings by him will be found thereJesus did not die on the cross. He surviv...

An overview of Mithraism, the ancient Roman mystery religion popular in the Roman Legions• Provides a comprehensive history of Mithraism, including its influence on Christianity and Islam• Includes rituals, meditations, and teaching tales for readers who wish to follow the Mithraic path• Studies the evolution and divergence of the Eastern (Persian) and Western (Roman) forms of MithraismThe Mysteries of Mithras presents a revival of the magical pract...

Jesus was an initiate and adept of the ancient Judaic mysteries who strove to reinstate the tradition of the bridechamber sacrament in his time• Shows that Jesus sought to establish equity of masculine and feminine in both spiritual practice and social traditions, particularly in the sacrament of marriage• Reinterprets Jesus’ key teachings in light of the ancient tradition of sacred consortship• Reveals what happened to the gnostic heart of Christianity that Jesus e...

More than two decades have passed since Chicago published the first volume of this groundbreaking work in the Religion and Postmodernism series. It quickly became influential across a wide range of disciplines and helped to make the tools of poststructuralist thought available to religious studies and theology, especially in the areas of late medieval and early modern mysticism.Though the second volume remained in fragments at the time of his death, Michel de Certeau had the foresi...

Bernard McGinn's The Presence of God series is one of the most respected histories of Christian mysticism in print today. In this new book, Bernard and Patricia McGinn draw from the series to take a closer, personal look at the mystical vision of 12 great spiritual masters living before the Reformation. What were the deep insights of these early mystics? How can we apply their wisdom to our lives today? Chapters include Hildegard of Bingen on cosmic vision, John Cassian on prayer and purit...