Search results for ""Collective""

Our times of crumbling structures and decaying social bonds are often depicted as apocalyptic. This book takes the apocalypse as a metaphor to help us in the search for meaning in our everyday realities. Yes, the apocalypse is when social structures and institutions fall apart and we are terrified and suffocated by the debris raining down upon us. But “apocalypse" also means “revelation”. The very collapse reveals what dissipating institutions were constructed upon: where there ought to have been foundational common values, most often there is violence and raw power. Yet the values are there, too, and they can be found. This book is a guide to these values, showing how they can be of help to organizers and organizational dreamers.

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Using a range of 'case studies' from Critical Theory to Candy Crush, 'Gangnam Style' to Game of Thrones and Football Manager to Hieronymus Bosch, this book argues that we need to rethink our enjoyment. Inspired by psychoanalysis, the book offers a new way of thinking about how we talk about what we enjoy and how we enjoy what we talk about.

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This is a book about angels and angelic verification. It contains a true story and a channelled vibration of comfort and love. It has been channelled and written to assist with the realignment and the post-2012 'great shift' we are currently undertaking. This is also a book about the process of being able to channel messages and verify them, to have faith and surrender. It is about being on a spiritual path, about finding your life's work, about being free but also having fun; it is about taking responsibility, to be able to laugh at absurdity and not taking all of this too seriously on the one hand and taking it very seriously indeed on the other. For being on a spiritual path is a journey to integration and joy, a journey in which we are the hero or heroine, however unlikely a label that may seem. And if it is as serious as that it is also as joyous and wild as that. The Gift of An Angel will inspire and assist anyone setting out on their own spiritual journey, especially if this includes the desire to connect to angelic realms.

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Capitalism has become strange. Ironically, while the 'age of work' seems to have come to an end, working has assumed a total presence - a 'worker's society' in the worst sense of the term - where everyone finds themselves obsessed with it. So what does the worker tell us today? "I feel drained, empty - dead." This book tells the story of the dead man working. It follows this figure through the daily tedium of the office, to the humiliating mandatory team building exercise, to awkward encounters with the funky boss who pretends to hate capitalism and tells you to be authentic. In this society, the experience of work is not of dying...but neither of living. It is one of a living death. And yet, the dead man working is nevertheless compelled to wear the exterior signs of life, to throw a pretty smile, feign enthusiasm and make a half-baked joke. When the corporation has colonized life itself, even our dreams, the question of escape becomes ever more pressing, ever more desperate.

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In today's secular society, many people struggle with terms like love and happiness. Few consider that these vital concepts are connected with worshipping God, but we know equally that they have little to do with how much we earn and possess. Maybe the answer lies in relationships, but these can be changeable and troublesome. Is there a larger story we can be part of again? A framework within which our lives can make sense? Where can we get good advice? In the style of "The Road Less Travelled", Larry Culliford tells stories of his work as a psychiatrist. Through these, he shows us how to face adversity, protect ourselves and others from self-destructive acts and temptations, and grow in maturity. We have more than our own resources to draw on. Bringing together East and West, ancient and contemporary traditions, he sees his patients using their "wisdom mind" to reach wholeness. This intuitive faculty connects us again with the universe, which science and materialism have rendered remote and uncaring. This is the route to a new sense of belonging and a meaningful life. It is our path to emotional health, happiness and maturity. Much more than self help is involved. Larry shows how, following this path, we will also be helping the world.

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With huge changes in the world, like the collapse of the Soviet empire and the hostility of much of the Muslim world towards the West, understanding the very nature of civilization is more key today than ever. In this, the most monumental study of the history of civilization for several generations, Nicholas Hagger describes them as a response to the spiritual vision of God as Light. This outworking passes into their religions and expresses itself in culture, particularly in buildings. They decline through progressively secularizing stages when their central idea of the Light is lost. Cathedrals, temples, mosques, the "stones", eventually become tourist attractions, like the Pyramids and Stonehenge, as their original meaning diminishes. Unlike Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee, Hagger focuses on the genesis of civilizations rather than their decline. But he also offers some pointers to the future. The metaphysical vision in our time is being revived, and it could lead to the culminating stage of Western civilization; that of a world government.

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From Baja California to the Arctic pack ice, Eyes of the Wild takes the reader on an epic, personal journey to meet whales and wolves, bears and wild horses, guided by outstanding biologists and other observers who are renewing an ancient way of connection with the wild. Their scientific research meets the indigenous wisdom which understands the animals as guides to deeper relationship with life.

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A fresh look at the World Heritage Site that includes Avebury henge, West Kennet long barrow and Silbury Hill. Mann combines archaeology, astronomy and anthropology to offer an original and convincing account of the building of these extraordinary Neolithic monuments. The ancient Britons were inspired by a profound knowledge of the heavens when they erected the monumental stones of Avebury. Mann throws light on the motive behind the creation of its awe-inspiring mounds and megaliths by demonstrating that they were aligned to the cycles of the Sun, Moon and stars. This book will help visitors and readers to see Avebury in a wholly new light - the light of the heavenly bodies that guided its Neolithic builders. Avebury Cosmos will reawaken our ancient reverence for the stars and deepen our respect for the extraordinary abilities and forgotten knowledge of our prehistoric ancestors.

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"Thacker's discourse on the intersection of horror and philosophy is utterly original and utterly captivating..." Thomas Ligotti, author of The Conspiracy Against the Human Race The world is increasingly unthinkable, a world of planetary disasters, emerging pandemics, and the looming threat of extinction. In this book Eugene Thacker suggests that we look to the genre of horror as offering a way of thinking about the unthinkable world. To confront this idea is to confront the limit of our ability to understand the world in which we live - a central motif of the horror genre. In the Dust of This Planet explores these relationships between philosophy and horror. In Thacker's hands, philosophy is not academic logic-chopping; instead, it is the thought of the limit of all thought, especially as it dovetails into occultism, demonology, and mysticism. Likewise, Thacker takes horror to mean something beyond the focus on gore and scare tactics, but as the under-appreciated genre of supernatural horror in fiction, film, comics, and music.

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Christina Bjergo reveals the tarot as keeper of the secret Taoist practice of Qigong and the 'Way' to health, happiness, and spiritual truth. Woven within the major arcana cards are little known wisdom teachings for inner cultivation through the body-minded practice of Qigong. Spiral Qigong is an easy-to-learn and empowering meditative exercise for enhancing vitality and harmonious living for people of all spiritual faiths. For the unsuspecting author, the practice of Qigong activated sacred dreaming and a kundalini/alchemical transformation. Tarot dream images appeared leading her through stages of psychological growth and initiation. The tarot ultimately showed Dreaming as a potent tool for transcending duality and a practice for personal and global rebirth. "The Tao of Tarot" shares the author's mythical journey through different spiritual traditions; at the same time, it creates a practical guidebook to teach others how to explore dream symbols to unity consciousness and enhance intuitive connection to the divine.

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'Everything shifts in the Caucasus, blown by some of the strongest winds on earth. Even the ground moves, splintered by fault lines. In early Georgian myths, it is said that when the mountains were young, they had legs - could walk from the edges of the oceans to the deserts, flirting with the low hills, shrouding them with soft clouds of love' - "Griffin", 2001, p.2. But what about those aspects of life which remain relatively constant - the traditional practices of the people, the practices that are reflected in their folktales and their folklore? It is these constants that this study concentrates on. Find out about the land with which the earliest folklore of Europe is connected - the land where Noah's Ark is said to have settled, the land of the Argonauts and of Prometheus.

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"Militant Modernism" argues for a Modernism of everyday life, immersed in questions of socialism, sexual politics and technology. It features new readings of some familiar names - Bertolt Brecht, Le Corbusier, Vladimir Mayakovsky - and much more on the lesser known, quotidian modernists of the 20th century. The chapters range from a study of industrial and brutalist aesthetics in Britain, Russian Constructivism in architecture, the Sexpol of Wilhelm Reich in film and design, and the alienation effects of Brecht and Hanns Eisler on record and on screen. Against the world of 'there is no alternative', this book talks about things we haven't done yet, in the past tense.

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"Spirit Release" covers psychic attack, curses, witchcraft, spirit attachment, possession, soul retrieval, haunting, soul rescue, deliverance, exorcism and others. The term is used by healers and psychics of all religions and traditions to define the work they do in releasing and rescuing entities found with people, on land, in buildings and objects which are then redirected to somewhere more appropriate. This comprehensive guide has been developed over many years and used as course material in the College of Psychic Studies in London. Taking a responsible and careful approach to the subject, it stresses that the process should be carried out in a compassionate way, without blame or judgment of the spirit or of the individual who is seeking help.

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After 1989, capitalism has presented itself as the only realistic political economic system. What effects has this 'capitalist realism' had on work, culture, education and mental health? Is it possible to imagine an alternative to capitalism that is not some throwback to discredited models of state control? FOREWORD BY ZOE FISHER, INTRODUCTION BY ALEX NIVEN AND AFTERWORD BY TARIQ GODDARD.

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Our Eternal Existence takes the many disparate scientific, religious, and metaphysical principles into account and answers the questions: Who are we? Where are we? and Why are we here? In so doing, it provides a much-needed ethical philosophy to guide mankind - and a personal methodology to improve our lives.

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Spirituality Rekindled: The Quest for Serenity and Self-Fulfillment explores the attainment of serenity and self-fulfillment through a rational spirituality, which author Nassir H. Sabah posits is a quality of being predicated on a sense of connection to The Almighty. Incontrovertible, science-based, and objective evidence for the existence of The Almighty is derived from the Quran, which for non-Muslims is to be regarded as a stand-alone text that should be judged on its own merits, without prejudice or bias. Based on this, and on cognizance of the limitations of present-day science, Dr. Sabah makes the case for a spirituality that provides the foundation for a continual, immensely beneficial, and comprehensive self-development - spiritually, psychologically, morally, and intellectually. Spirituality Rekindled: The Quest for Serenity and Self-Fulfillment presents a detailed roadmap for this spirituality.

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Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices From Pagan Cloisters is an anthology of writings from the forefront of the first wave of experimental monastic spirituality in the modern polytheist-animist revival. In this groundbreaking anthology, contemplative practitioners tell their stories of exploring classic monastic disciplines such as eremitic life, asceticism, retreat, service, and simplicity.

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This short and vigorous book consists of a penetrating collection of interrelated essays whose defining characteristic is that they pin down, magnify and mirror back to us, with embarrassing clarity and force, our most dysfunctional yet unexamined ways of thinking, living and relating to each other in the early 21st century. Our ills are diagnosed with x-ray vision and laser precision. The book assesses our situation from a neutral vantage point outside the cultural echo chamber of values, opinions and beliefs in which most of us find ourselves immersed. In doing so, it reveals what most of us can’t see. It confronts us with unpleasant truths about ourselves, the acknowledgement of which is imperative if we are to heal and improve our lives. The book also points to sane ways forward, and the appropriateness of these ways become self-evident once they are elucidated.

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Sacred Art - A Hollow Bone for Spirit: Where Art Meets Shamanism tells the story of sacred art across cultures, continents and historical periods and makes a plea for sacred art to once again take its rightful place in our perception. Making sacred art means stepping outside the realm of ego-led consciousness to become a hollow bone for spirit so art becomes a mystery school process. When we connect to Divine forces greater than ourselves, creative blocks do not exist and healing occurs naturally. The greatest piece of art we will ever make is our own life!

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A Western Marxist reading of contemporary art, focusing on the question of the continued presence (or absence) of the avant-garde’s transgressive impulse. Taking art’s ability to contribute to radical social transformation as its point of departure, Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen's new title from Zero Books analyses the relationship between the current neoliberal hegemony and contemporary art, including relational aesthetics and interventionist art, new institutionalism and post-modern architecture. '...a trenchant critique of neoliberal domination of contemporary art.' Gene Ray, author of Terror and the Sublime in Art and Critical Theory

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The mystery, magic and myth of Manannán. The sea is a powerful, driving force for many people, a source of sustenance as well as danger. It is no surprise that Manannán, the Celtic God of the sea, should be an important figure but one who is also as ambiguous as the element he is associated with: a trickster, a magic worker, an advisor and a warrior. In this book you will get to know the many faces of Manannán, called the son of the ocean, and learn of his important place in mythology and the pivotal role he plays in many events. 'This highly intelligent but accessible book belongs on the shelves and nightstands of lovers of Celtic myth.' Courtney Weber, author of Brigid: History, Mystery, and Magic of the Celtic Goddess

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Modern Machiavelli will teach you smart, social tactics to advance your career and improve your relationships. This book explains how to successfully manage conflict, influence others, and understand the overt and covert dynamics of interpersonal power. It challenges false but commonly held beliefs that undermine personal and career success. Master the unwritten rules of the social game that few understand.

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Mindfulness is all the rage - and now it can sort out your wardrobe! Wouldn't it be wonderful if every day you could feel happy, calm and in control, simply by choosing the right colours to wear? What could be more fabulous than that? This book tells you how and reveals the secrets of how colours can make you radiate with happiness and well-being, and how you can achieve calm in a frantic world. This is the essential guide to mindful dressing, full of practical tips and advice to enhance all areas of your life through your wardrobe.

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Recent years have seen a revival of the heated culture wars of the 1990s, but this time its battle ground is the internet. On one side the "alt right" ranges from the once obscure neo-reactionary and white separatist movements, to geeky subcultures like 4chan, to more mainstream manifestations such as the Trump-supporting gay libertarian Milo Yiannopolous. On the other side, a culture of struggle sessions and virtue signalling lurks behind a therapeutic language of trigger warnings and safe spaces. The feminist side of the online culture wars has its equally geeky subcultures right through to its mainstream expression. Kill All Normies explores some of the cultural genealogies and past parallels of these styles and subcultures, drawing from transgressive styles of 60s libertinism and conservative movements, to make the case for a rejection of the perpetual cultural turn.

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An in-depth manual for practicing Fairy Witchcraft including theology, fairy lore, rituals, holidays, and magical practices. This book aims to pick up where Pagan Portals - Fairy Witchcraft leaves off and teach interested people the comprehensive practice of this system of honoring the Fair Folk and liminal Gods by blending the old Fairy Faith with modern paganism.

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The subject of fairies in Celtic cultures is a complex one that seems to endlessly intrigue people. What exactly are fairies? What can they do? How can we interact with them? Answering these questions becomes even harder in a world that is disconnected from the traditional folklore and flooded with modern sources that are often vastly at odds with the older beliefs. This book aims to present readers with a straightforward guide to the older fairy beliefs, covering everything from Fairyland itself to details about the beings within it. The Otherworld is full of dangers and blessings, and this guidebook will help you navigate a safe course among the Good People.

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What is the human body? Both the most familiar and unfamiliar of things, the body is the centre of experience but also the site of a prehistory anterior to any experience. Alien and uncanny, this other side of the body has all too often been overlooked by phenomenology. In confronting this oversight, Dylan Trigg's The Thing redefines phenomenology as a species of realism, which he terms unhuman phenomenology. Far from being the vehicle of a human voice, this unhuman phenomenology gives expression to the alien materiality at the limit of experience. By fusing the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and Levinas with the horrors of John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and H.P. Lovecraft, Trigg explores the ways in which an unhuman phenomenology positions the body out of time. At once a challenge to traditional notions of phenomenology, The Thing is also a timely rejoinder to contemporary philosophies of realism. The result is nothing less than a rebirth of phenomenology as redefined through the lens of horror.

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This collection of writings by Mark Fisher, author of acclaimed Capitalist Realism, argues that we are haunted by futures that failed to happen. Fisher searches for the traces of these lost futures in the work of David Peace, John Le Carré, Christopher Nolan, Joy Division, Burial and many others. THIS BRAND NEW EDITION FEATURES A NEW INTRODUCTION BY MATT COLQUHOUN AND NEW AFTERWORD BY SIMON REYNOLDS.

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Melancology addresses the notorious musical genre black metal as a negative form of environmental writing that 'blackens' the cosmos. This book conjures a new word and concept that conjoins 'black' and 'ecology': melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. Black metal resounds from the abyss and it is precisely only in relation to its sonic forces that the question of intervention in the environment arises in the articulation of melancology with ethics. That is, in deciding 'which way out' we should take, in deciding with what surpluses to dwell, with what waste, what detritus or decay in a process of unbinding with sonic forces that traverse an earth choking in wealth and death. The book thus provides a provocative and challenging contribution both to popular and intellectual debates on ecology.

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"I Am With You will bring peace and consolation to all who read it." Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster During his work as a hospital chaplain, John Woolley received many words of divine encouragement from the Lord during prayer. He has passed on these words in a series of titles which have inspired and uplifted tens of thousands, even changed their lives. I Am With You was first published in 1985 as a hardback, and since 2005 has been published in paperback. This is the first in the series of devotional books of "heart whispers" which John Woolley received. Companion volumes published by O-Books are Abide in My Love, I Am With You; for Young People and the Young At Heart, Many Mansions and My Burden is Light.

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This is book is for those who have been genuinely searching and longing for awakening or truth. Die to Love directly points the reader to the end of the spiritual search once and for all: I am not trying to help you. If you read this book I will simply destroy you. And who am I? I am you. I am Life itself. Die to Love explores the desperate longing for love and surrender that so many people feel. But are we willing to lose everything that is familiar and safe in order to know that love that we long for? Are we willing to die for love? This is the death, not of the body, but of the identity called 'me'. Unmani looks at what it is to fall in love and how in moments of intimacy there is no separation. Two merge and become one. Two separate individuals know that they can never be separate. There are also chapters on relationships and the madness of love as well as unconditional and conditional love, and what compassion really is.

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What is flametending, and how can a simple devotional practice be engaged with as a transformational spiritual path? The devotional practice of flametending for Irish Goddess and Christian St. Brighid, traditionally kept once every twenty days, can become a daily spiritual practice for transformation when combined with twenty spiritual inquiries as an inner journey of reflection. Brighid is a goddess of the fires that transform ore into tools, plants into medicine, and inspiration into poetry. Through guided meditations, energy work, contemplation, and journaling, you will learn how to open yourself to Brighid so her torch of illumination can guide you in transforming your fear and pain into power and joy! You will also discover how Brighid can walk with you through the seasonal cycle of the year and bless your personal endeavors. Let Brighid become your daily companion so her light can lead you to wisdom and wholeness.

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In the world of Fringe (or Off-Off Broadway) theatre, a strong debate has been raging for years - when you're producing a low/no-budget production, how on earth can you make it happen and still treat everyone involved in an open, honest and ethical manner? Where do you stand with profit-share productions when you can't afford to pay Union minimums? Open Book Theatre Management, along with its free online resources of instructional budget spreadsheets, is the first book ever to show you exactly how to mount a theatre production without losing either your integrity or your shirt. It is aimed at actors, directors and producers in the early stages of their careers; drama schools; and further and higher education establishments. The methodologies outlined in the book are transferable across all countries in which arts funding is difficult to secure. The time for going to the Establishment with the begging bowl is over. There need be no more excuses. The author will even show you how to start your own theatre company for only a tenner...

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Nik Morton has been writing for over forty years, honing his craft. He writes genre fiction, whether that s science fiction, horror, crime, thriller, romance or westerns. To date he has 15 books under several pseudonyms. His westerns are usually written under the name Ross Morton. Within these pages you can discover how to write a western from the initial ideas, through the preparation and research, to those all-important character studies and plots. And you can do it in 30 days!

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This book raises probing questions meant to pierce your assumptions and change your paradigm on the way to heal all disease. Written with compassion and clarity, Maureen Jones's healing technique Modus Operandi provides a deep understanding of what sparks disease and how it can be healed. For anyone who wants to free themselves from the shackles of disease, this book reveals a brave new approach that has helped people get better without drugs or surgery. Using case studies featuring both celebrities and ordinary people, Maureen Jones shows how to tap into the power of unconditional love to build pathways through stress and open hearts and minds. Soul-based work represents such an amazing shift that the entire medical world should perk up and take notice. This book should be on the desk of every healer and indeed in every home.

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Creativity is a gift that each one of us has. This book will give you guidelines to having creative power in your hands. That way you will stop being a shipwreck at the mercy of your habits, circumstances, others and time, to be the one who is at the helm of your life. This book will accompany you in discovering what your helm is, how to take a strong hold on it and allow it to guide your life; it will open you to listen to your intuition, your inner teacher that stimulates true creativity. It will give you guidelines in order to go from intention to action, from theory to experience. Discover the creativity that gives you the strength to get you out of the prison of a wrong dream. It is a healing and creating energy of a new paradigm. Personal health, the health of the planet and the health of humanity depend on us all working creatively. You can be more creative. Dare to.

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"The Friend" brings a unique perspective to the science of happiness. It gives a fresh, simple understanding of happiness as a state of Being, and unhappiness as a reflection of our distance from our own Being. In modern language, it shows how we have come to be separated from our own being, and how this process happens so commonly that we hardly recognize it. Then the book offers the heartskills necessary for reconnecting with our Being. "The Friend" is both guide book and a Journey book. It teaches skills and understanding for navigating through the personality self to find the core states of Being. It also is a Journey book where we are invited to go into the inner world and discover what happens as the self responds to our own heartful attention. In the journey we find challenges, tasks, learning, and the precious inner treasures that open to our willingness to be with our self.

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A light look at the Star Sign Pisces. Have you ever wondered what goes on inside the head of a Pisces? Has your life ever been challenged by one that you know or knew? Are you at your wits end trying to get one to understand you? This insider information will guide you through the process of easily making a chart using on-line resources. Thereby gleaning enough information to avoid the common mishaps relating to knowing the last sign of the Zodiac. Discover how to make a chart, how to find the 3 key points that will help you understand one better and how to make the best of the Pisces you know...and the ones you have yet to meet. Drawing on her extensive client files and using real-life examples Mary English guides you in learning "How To Survive a Pisces".

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This small volume contains a powerful message for these times of global capitalism, environmental destruction, and religious intolerance. In his first title, this controversial author focuses on achieving spirituality without the dogma and control of organised religion, using apt sources from across the globe to reinforce his points. The core teachings of Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Buddha, Lao Tzu or any of those who were enlightened are exactly the same - they are about the nature of man, the nature of the universe and the nature of God. This book brings together the author's view of life combined with eclectic teachings from thoroughout the world, in an attempt to bridge the religious divide.

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Why are ignorant people so confident? How do politicians utilize conflation to influence groups? Why do scientists fall for similar mistakes? How is complexity managed? Why does culture effortlessly shape what we can do? This book argues: Because of approximations! Incompleteness pervades our interactions with the world. Its effects on individual and group behaviors can foster creativity or create invisible prisons. We navigate incompleteness with approximations and, too often, end up on the ‘dark side’. This book resembles a tourist’s trip much more than a scientist’s expedition, and is for anyone interested in a broader understanding of an individual’s mental life and how identities, incompletenesses, and social contexts shape it. As we examine approximations and think about their origins and the problems they can create, the reader will encounter glimpses from physics, biology, philosophy of science, management, marketing, politics, systems theory, fuzzy logic, geometry, design and creativity, culture, and neuro-science and more... Fuzzy on the Dark Side is a book about incompleteness, creativity, thinking, identities, and systems. Roughly - it is an approximation of the 'Approximate Thinking' super idea.

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Three Legs in the Evening comes from the Sphinx's riddle in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in which Oedipus is asked what creature walks on all fours in the morning, on two legs in the afternoon, and three in the evening. The answer, which Oedipus gets right, is Man, who crawls as a baby, walks upright as a man, and leans on a cane in his old age. Received wisdom, in other words, can be unreliable. Enter the story of Sally B, an over-sixty widow about to retire from her successful greeting card business in the aftermath of 9/11. She has a devoted family who relies on her wit and wisdom. But suddenly all hell breaks loose — her best friend dies, she falls into an open grave and she breaks her ankle. As this is happening, her children’s marital lives are unraveling, her grandchildren are in turmoil, and a man she has known from a time before comes back in her life. Taking place over a year, this is a story of love in a time of horror, as well as the profound and surprising ways in which everything Sally thought she knew changes. Sexy, funny and heart-wrenching, and much like Kent Haruf's Our Souls At Night, Three Legs in the Evening speaks about people running out of steam, running out of time, and finding solace and wisdom even in the finality of all that. A life carefully built can crumble in a moment, but what happens then? Sally B. plays it out as best she can.

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Situated in broader science-and-religion discussions, The Creation of Self is the first book-length defense of a creationist view of persons as souls. This book therefore serves as both a novel argument for God’s creation of selves and as a critique of contemporary materialist and emergent-self alternatives, critically examining naturalistic views that argue for a regular, law-like process behind the emergence of personhood. Author Joshua Farris argues on the assumption that persons are fundamentally unique individuals that look more like singularities of nature, rather than material products grounded in regularity or predictability from past events. By extending the basic intuition that we are unique and mysterious individuals, Farris develops a sophisticated analytic defense of the soul that requires a sufficient explanation not found in nature but made by a Creator who has intentions and the power to bring about novel entities in the world. The Creation of Self gives philosophers, theologians, and the lay intellectual grounding for thinking about persons as religious beings. It aims to help readers understand why recent scientifically motivated objections to the soul are unsuccessful, and why we must consider a religious conception of persons as souls as a common starting point.

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The Jesus Puzzle: Challenging intellectual uncertainty about Jesus shares the question of knowledge of the historical Jesus, in order to refute sceptics who consider that we can know very little about Him - and to encourage Christians to have more confidence in relating to what is said about Jesus in the gospels.

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