Fiery the angels fell; slow thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.' Whether in recent popular culture, or back across countless centuries, angels have perpetually enthralled, mystified and even terrified us. 'Every single angel is terrible,' wrote the German Romantic poet Rilke: 'and so I hold myself back from the dark bird-cry of my anguished sobbing.' For some in the sceptical, post-Enlightenment West, angels may be no more than metaphors: poetic devices to co...

A collection of Gnostic texts spanning centuries, geographical locations, and cultural traditions—“a wonderful achievement” (Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels)Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE—with earlier antecedents and later flourishings—whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience. Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Chr...

Of all the New Testament characters, few - other than Jesus himself - have exerted such an enduring fascination as Mary Magdalene, believed by the Church to have been a reformed prostitute. Yet her never-ending appeal is odd for one who appears so briefly - and then so elusively - in the Bible: so what has made her so entrancing to generations of Christians and non-Christians alike? Was she, as many now argue, actually Jesus' wife and the mother of his children? And why is she intimately c...

This groundbreaking book looks at one of the greatest cover-ups in history and dares to think the unthinkable about Christianity – that it was in fact a Jewish Mystery School modelled on the ancient Pagan Mysteries.The myth of Dionysus bears startling resemblances to the the story of Jesus Christ. It compares with the biblical story in the following ways:• Dionysus is God made flesh and is hailed as the ‘Saviour of Mankind’ and the ‘Son of God’• His father is God and ...

In her new account of an old religion, Lynn Picknett explains that Lucifer means 'the light bringer' and was a personification of the Morning Star, the planet Venus and its goddess. 'He' was originally 'she' -- a divine representation of love, light and human warmth. The early Christian Church appropriated the name Lucifer, and it became synonymous with darkness and the Devil. Yet many great thinkers have covertly followed the old Luciferan way, most famously Leonardo da Vinci, who encrypt...

A radical, ground-breaking examination of the role of ancient myth in the origins of Christianity, challenging the idea of the Gospels as historical truth - it will change the way many think about religion, faith, history, myth and belief. For centuries, the church has taught us that the Bible is a literal representation of actual events and people from millennia ago. But is it possible that the events in the Bible never occurred - that all those people never existed? In a work sure to rat...

The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles - throughout history the Prince of Darkness, the Western world's most powerful symbol of evil, has taken many names and shapes. Jeffrey Burton Russell here chronicles the remarkable story of the Devil from antiquity to the present. While recounting how past generations have personified evil, he deepens our understanding of the ways in which people have dealt with the enduring problem of radical evil.After a compelling essay on the nature of evil, R...

The Jesus Prayer is the most popular devotional prayer in the Orthodox Church and increasingly popular in the West. A simple and direct method of invoking the mercy of Jesus Christ by repeating his Holy Name, it is a way of obeying St Paul’s instruction to “pray always”. In an increasingly noisy and frenetic world, the Jesus Prayer offers us an oasis of inner peace and a lifeline back to God.

A comprehensive, scholarly accessible study, in which the authors draw upon poetry and mythology, art and literature, archaeology and psychology to show how the myth of the goddess has been lost from our formal Judeo-Christian images of the divine. They explain what happened to the goddess, when, and how she was excluded from western culture, and the implications of this loss.

Explore the rich lore of every angel from Abaddon to Zutu’el with this detailed reference that covers all facets of angel arcana, including history, religious interpretations, subcategories, modern adaptations, and much more!Angels have appeared in nearly every religion across the globe. But who—or what—are they? In Angels A to Z, Matthew Bunson, author of The Pope Encyclopedia, presents an abundance of angelic arcana and details the roles that an...

Elizabeth Clare Prophet examines controversial questions being asked today: What was Jesus relationship with Mary Magdalene? Who is the Divine Mother? Is God male only? Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine explores the archetypal role of the Divine Feminine in Eastern and Western spirituality and helps to clarify the position of Mary Magdalene in biblical history. Early Church leaders denied Jesus message on reverence for Woman and on the inner feminine potential of both man and woman. As ...

Anyone interested in the feminine face of God throughout the ages will find Sophia an illuminating experience. Caitlin Matthews' scholarship connects us to past, present, and future in the very depths of our femininity. ----Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst and author of Bone: Dying into Life. Sophia, or "wisdom" in Greek, has been revered in many forms throughout history--from the Dark Goddess of ancient Anatolia; to her Egyptian, Greek, Celtic, and Cabalistic manifestations; to he...