Download or read book Witches written by Erica Jong and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author of Fear of Flying celebrates witches in a gorgeously illustrated brew of witchcraft lore, potions, secrets, and myth. With a mix of genuine fascination, passionate enthusiasm, and keen feminist insight, Erica Jong wades through a bog of myths, misinformation, historical hysteria, and contemporary Halloween costumes to offer a generous exploration and celebration of witches. From their origins as descendants of ancient goddesses to contemporary practitioners of the craft, the evolution of the concept of “witch” has been as changeable as the centuries themselves. From evil crone to sexual seductress, they are the embodiment of both light and dark, fertility and death, divinity and paganism, baleful curses and healing cures. They have been scapegoated as the object of men’s worst fears and embraced as heroines of female empowerment. As muses, they have influenced popular culture from Shakespeare and Yeats to Anne Sexton and Ken Russell. With reverence and a hint of mischief, Jong reveals witches’ rites, rituals, and magical recipes, including authentic spells and incantations. “A steaming cauldron of beautifully illustrated prose, poetry, love potions and flying lotions” (Glamour) from the renowned author of Fanny, Witches is “nothing less than a complete transformation of our concept of witches . . . accomplishe[d] with panache in this sumptuously and provocatively illustrated book" (Publishers Weekly). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erica Jong, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
Download or read book Monstrous Bodies written by June Pulliam and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-07-15 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent works of young adult fantastic fiction such as Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga have been criticized for glamorizing feminine subordination. But YA horror fiction with female protagonists who have paranormal abilities suggests a resistance to restrictive gender roles. The "monstrous Other" is a double with a difference, a metaphor of the Western adolescent girl pressured to embody an untenable doll-like feminine ideal. This book examines what each of three types of female monstrous Others in young adult fiction--the haunted girl, the female werewolf and the witch--has to tell us about feminine subordination in a supposedly post-feminist world, where girls continue to be pressured to silence their voices and stifle their desires.
Download or read book The Witches Ointment written by Thomas Hatsis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-17 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the historical origins of the “witches’ ointment” and medieval hallucinogenic drug practices based on the earliest sources • Details how early modern theologians demonized psychedelic folk magic into “witches’ ointments” • Shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation • Examines the practices of medieval witches like Matteuccia di Francisco, who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations In the medieval period preparations with hallucinogenic herbs were part of the practice of veneficium, or poison magic. This collection of magical arts used poisons, herbs, and rituals to bewitch, heal, prophesy, infect, and murder. In the form of psyche-magical ointments, poison magic could trigger powerful hallucinations and surrealistic dreams that enabled direct experience of the Divine. Smeared on the skin, these entheogenic ointments were said to enable witches to commune with various local goddesses, bastardized by the Church as trips to the Sabbat--clandestine meetings with Satan to learn magic and participate in demonic orgies. Examining trial records and the pharmacopoeia of witches, alchemists, folk healers, and heretics of the 15th century, Thomas Hatsis details how a range of ideas from folk drugs to ecclesiastical fears over medicine women merged to form the classical “witch” stereotype and what history has called the “witches’ ointment.” He shares dozens of psychoactive formulas and recipes gleaned from rare manuscripts from university collections from all over the world as well as the practices and magical incantations necessary for their preparation. He explores the connections between witches’ ointments and spells for shape shifting, spirit travel, and bewitching magic. He examines the practices of some Renaissance magicians, who inhaled powerful drugs to communicate with spirits, and of Italian folk-witches, such as Matteuccia di Francisco, who used hallucinogenic drugs in her love potions and herbal preparations, and Finicella, who used drug ointments to imagine herself transformed into a cat. Exploring the untold history of the witches’ ointment and medieval hallucinogen use, Hatsis reveals how the Church transformed folk drug practices, specifically entheogenic ones, into satanic experiences.
Download or read book The Comic Art Collection Catalog written by Michigan State University. Libraries. Special Collections Division and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1993 with total page 1458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the most comprehensive dictionary available on comic art produced around the world. The catalog provides detailed information about more than 60,000 cataloged books, magazines, scrapbooks, fanzines, comic books, and other materials in the Michigan State University Libraries, America's premiere library comics collection. The catalog lists both comics and works about comics. Each book or serial is listed by title, with entries as appropriate under author, subject, and series. Besides the traditional books and magazines, significant collections of microfilm, sound recordings, vertical files, and realia (mainly T-shirts) are included. Comics and related materials are grouped by nationality (e.g., French comics) and genre (e.g., funny animal comics). Several times larger than any previously published bibliography, list, or catalog on the comic arts, this unique international dictionary catalog is indispensible for all scholars and students of comics and the broad field of popular culture.
Download or read book The Holistic Inspirations of Physics written by Val Dusek and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While many books have claimed parallels between modern physics and Eastern philosophy, none have dealt with the historical influences of both Chinese traditional thought and non-mechanistic, holistic western thought on the philosophies of the scientists who developed electromagnetic field theory. In The Holistic Inspirations of Physics, R. Valentine Dusek asks: to what extent is classical field theory a product of organic and holistic philosophies and frameworks? Electromagnetic theory has been greatly influenced by holistic worldviews, Dusek posits, and he highlights three alternative scientific systems that made the development of electromagnetic theory possible: medieval Chinese science, Western Renaissance occultism, and the German romantic traditions. He situates these "alternative" approaches in their social context and background, and traces their connection with components of "accepted" physical science in relation to a number of social movements and philosophical theories. Readers will learn of specific contributions made by these alternative traditions, such as the Chinese inventing the compass and discovering the earth's magnetic field and magnetic declination. Western alchemical ideas of active forces and "occult" influences contributed to Newton's theory of gravitation force as action at a distance, rather as a result of purely mechanical collisions and contact action. Dusek also describes the extent to which women's culture supplied (often without credit) the philosophical background ideas that were absorbed into mainstream field theory.
Download or read book Shirley Jackson and Domesticity written by Jill E. Anderson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shirley Jackson and Domesticity takes on American horror writer Shirley Jackson's domestic narratives – those fictionalized in her novels and short stories as well as the ones captured in her memoirs – to explore the extraordinary and often supernatural ways domestic practices and the ecology of the home influence Jackson's storytelling. Examining various areas of homemaking – child-rearing and reproduction, housekeeping, architecture and spatiality, the housewife mythos – through the theoretical frameworks of gothic, queer, gender, supernatural, humor, and architectural studies, this collection contextualizes Jackson's archive in a Cold War framework and assesses the impact of the work of a writer seeking to question the status quo of her time and culture.
Download or read book Sins of the Flesh written by Rod Preece and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike previous books on the history of vegetarianism, Sins of the Flesh examines the history of vegetarianism in its ethical dimensions, from the origins of humanity through to the present. Full ethical consideration for animals resulting in the eschewing of flesh arose after the Aristotelian period in Greece and recurred in Ancient Rome, but then mostly disappeared for centuries. It was not until the turn of the nineteenth century that vegetarian thought was revived and enjoyed some success; it subsequently went into another period of decline that lasted through much of the twentieth century. The authority-questioning cultural revolution of the 1960s brought a fresh resurgence of vegetarian ethics that continues to the present day.
Download or read book Culture and Horticulture written by Wolf D. Storl and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Various studies have shown time and again that small organic farms and home gardens are capable of producing more food per acre with less fossil energy than large-scale commercial agricultural installations dependent on machines and toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This classic book by Wolf D. Storl, a respected elder in the practice of permaculture, details how food is grown holistically and beautifully by traditional communities around the world, and shows how to apply their ancient wisdom to our own gardens. With interest in natural, sustainable, organic and local food at an all-time high, people are looking beyond their farmers markets and CSA cooperatives to hyperlocal ways of growing healthy, delicious produce in urban gardens and their own backyards. Culture and Horticulture details time-tested methods that are as effective today as they were hundreds of years ago. On the practical front, the book works as a manual for creating and maintaining a bountiful harvest. It explains how to build the soil to maintain fertility; how to produce compost; how to plant, sow, and tend the various fruit and vegetable plants; how to rotate crops and practice companion planting; how to set up a favorable microclimate; how to deal with so-called weeds and pests; how to harvest at the right time; and finally how to store vegetables and herbs. Special emphasis is given to the art and science of composting, the compost being the "heart" of any self-sufficient garden and a model for the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. At the same time the reader is introduced to the wider aspects of horticulture, to its historical, philosophical, and cosmological contexts and social relevance. Gardening is a cultural activity, shaped by peoples' thoughts, wishes, and needs as well as by their cultural traditions. The author, an anthropologist by profession who has investigated the gardening practices of indigenous people throughout the world and worked for many years on biodynamic farms and in his own food garden, will introduce the reader to Rudolf Steiner's vision of the garden as an organic unit, embedded in the context of terrestrial and cosmic forces. Storl explains the importance of cosmic rhythms (solar, lunar, and planetary), the role of biodynamic herbal preparations as "medicines" for the garden organism, and the so-called "etheric" and "astral" forces. The book presents a vision of the garden as seen through the eyes of "Goethean science," a magical place where alchemical transformations of material substances take place.
Download or read book On Our Best Behavior written by Elise Loehnen and published by Dial Press. This book was released on 2023-05-23 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking exploration of the ancient rules women unwittingly follow in order to be considered “good,” revealing how the Seven Deadly Sins still control and distort our lives and illuminating a path toward a more balanced, spiritually complete way to live Why do women equate self-denial with being good? We congratulate ourselves when we resist the donut in the office breakroom. We celebrate our restraint when we hold back from sending an email in anger. We feel virtuous when we wake up at dawn to get a jump on the day. We put others’ needs ahead of our own and believe this makes us exemplary. In On Our Best Behavior, journalist Elise Loehnen explains that these impulses—often lauded as unselfish, distinctly feminine instincts—are actually ingrained in us by a culture that reaps the benefits, via an extraordinarily effective collection of mores known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Since being codified by the Christian church in the fourth century, the Seven Deadly Sins—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth—have exerted insidious power. Even today, in our largely secular, patriarchal society, they continue to circumscribe women’s behavior. For example, seeing sloth as sinful leads women to deny themselves rest; a fear of gluttony drives them to ignore their appetites; and an aversion to greed prevents them from negotiating for themselves and contributes to the 55 percent gender wealth gap. In On Our Best Behavior, Loehnen reveals how we’ve been programmed to obey the rules represented by these sins and how doing so qualifies us as “good.” This probing analysis of contemporary culture and thoroughly researched history explains how women have internalized the patriarchy, and how they unwittingly reinforce it. By sharing her own story and the spiritual wisdom of other traditions, Loehnen shows how we can break free and discover the integrity and wholeness we seek.
Download or read book Magia Sexualis written by Hugh B. Urban and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-10-04 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sexuality and the occult arts have long been associated in the western imagination, but it was not until the nineteenth century that a large and sophisticated body of literature on sexual magic—the use of sex as a source of magical power—emerged. This book, the first history of western sexual magic as a modern spiritual tradition, places these practices in the context of the larger discourse surrounding sexuality in American and European society over the last 150 years to discover how sexual magic was transformed from a terrifying medieval nightmare of heresy and social subversion into a modern ideal of personal empowerment and social liberation. Focusing on a series of key figures including American spiritualist Paschal Beverly Randolph, Aleister Crowley, Julius Evola, Gerald Gardner, and Anton LaVey, Hugh Urban traces the emergence of sexual magic out of older western esoteric traditions including Gnosticism and Kabbalah, which were progressively fused with recently-discovered eastern traditions such as Hindu and Buddhist Tantra. His study gives remarkable new insight into sexuality in the modern era, specifically on issues such as the politics of birth control, the classification of sexual "deviance," debates over homosexuality and feminism, and the role of sexuality in our own new world of post-modern spirituality, consumer capitalism, and the Internet.
Download or read book The Surplus Woman written by Catherine L. Dollard and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first German women’s movement embraced the belief in a demographic surplus of unwed women, known as the Frauenüberschuß, as a central leitmotif in the campaign for reform. Proponents of the female surplus held that the advances of industry and urbanization had upset traditional marriage patterns and left too many bourgeois women without a husband. This book explores the ways in which the realms of literature, sexology, demography, socialism, and female activism addressed the perceived plight of unwed women. Case studies of reformers, including Lily Braun, Ruth Bré, Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne, Helene Lange, Alice Salomon, Helene Stöcker, and Clara Zetkin, demonstrate the expansive influence of the discourse surrounding a female surfeit. By combining the approaches of cultural, social, and gender history, The Surplus Woman provides the first sustained analysis of the ways in which imperial Germans conceptualized anxiety about female marital status as both a product and a reflection of changing times.
Download or read book Bioarchaeological Analyses and Bodies written by Pamela K. Stone and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-16 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume features bioarchaeological research that interrogates the human skeleton in concert with material culture, ethnographic data and archival research. This approach provides examples of how these intersections of inquiry can be used to consider the larger social and political contexts in which people lived and the manner in which they died. Bioarchaeologists are in a unique position to develop rich interpretations of the lived experiences of skeletonized individuals. Using their skills in multiple contexts, bioarchaeologists are also situated to consider the ethical nature and inherent humanity of the research collections that have been used because they represent deceased for whom there are records identifying them. These collections have been the basis for generating basic information regarding the human skeletal transcript. Ironically though, these collections themselves have not been studied with the same degree of understanding and interpretation that is applied to archaeological collections.
Download or read book The Publishers Weekly written by and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 1662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Morals of Monster Stories written by Leslie Ormandy and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The simplicity of children's picture books--stories told with illustrations and a few well chosen words or none at all--makes them powerful tools for teaching morals and personal integrity. Children follow the story and see the characters' behaviors on the page and interpret them in the context of their own lives. But unlike many picture books, most children's lives don't feature monsters. This collection of new essays explores the societally sanctioned behaviors imparted to children through the use of monsters and supernatural characters. Topics include monsters as instructors, the normalization of strangers or the "other," fostering gender norms, and therapeutic monsters, among others.
Download or read book Water Witchcraft written by Annwyn Avalon and published by Weiser Books. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible in-depth guide to Celtic water lore, including spells, rituals, water spirits, and merfolk Let Annwyn Avalon, a practicing water witch herself, take you into the world of water magic. The water magic and lore in this book focuses on the Celtic tradition, but draws on other water magic traditions as well, and features rainwater, as well as lakes, rivers, oceans, canals, swamps, and other watery locations, together with the folk and magical customs that have been and are still practiced at these places. The book teaches the reader how to set up a water altar at home, how to connect with water spirits, and how to gather or create water witch tools. Readers are encouraged to visit local water sites but will also find an abundance of material to perform at home. Included are practical examples, visualizations, and exercises so any reader can start to take up spell work and establish their spiritual connection to water.
Download or read book The Movement written by Clara Bingham and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-07-30 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes—from former Newsweek reporter and author of the “powerful and moving” (New York Times) Witness to the Revolution. For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade, when women rejected thousands of years of custom and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be. This engaging history traces women’s awakening, organizing, and agitating between the years of 1963 and 1973, when a decentralized collection of people and events coalesced to create a spontaneous combustion. From Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, to the underground abortion network the Janes, to Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign and Billie Jean King’s 1973 battle of the sexes, Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first class citizens, and in the process, changed the fabric of American life.
Download or read book Enchanted Hunters The Power of Stories in Childhood written by Maria Tatar and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-04-20 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highly illuminating for parents, vital for students and book lovers alike, Enchanted Hunters transforms our understanding of why children should read. Ever wondered why little children love listening to stories, why older ones get lost in certain books? In this enthralling work, Maria Tatar challenges many of our assumptions about childhood reading. Much as our culture pays lip service to the importance of literature, we rarely examine the creative and cognitive benefits of reading from infancy through adolescence. By exploring how beauty and horror operated in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, and many other narratives, Tatar provides a delightful work for parents, teachers, and general readers, not just examining how and what children read but also showing through vivid examples how literature transports and transforms children with its intoxicating, captivating, and occasionally terrifying energy. In the tradition of Bruno Bettelheim’s landmark The Uses of Enchantment, Tatar’s book is not only a compelling journey into the world of childhood but a trip back for adult readers as well.
