Magick Matters

30.01.2022

“Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James” by Ann Taves

Magick Matters
"Fits, Trances, and Visions: Experiencing Religion and Explaining Experience from Wesley to James" by Ann Taves
"Fits, trances, visions, speaking in tongues, clairvoyance, out-of-body experiences, possession. Believers have long viewed these and similar involuntary experiences as religious—as manifestations of God, the spirits, or the Christ within. Skeptics, on the other hand, have understood them as symptoms of physical disease, mental disorder, group dynamics, or other natural causes. In this sweeping work of religious and psychological history, Ann Taves explores the myriad ways in which believers and detractors interpreted these complex experiences in Anglo-American culture between the mid-eighteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Taves divides the book into three sections. In the first, ranging from 1740 to 1820, she examines the debate over trances, visions, and other involuntary experiences against the politically charged backdrop...>>
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30.01.2022

“Ecstatic Trance: New Ritual Body Postures. A Workbook” by Felicitas D. Goodman and Nana Nauwald

Magick Matters
"Ecstatic Trance: New Ritual Body Postures. A Workbook" by Felicitas D. Goodman and Nana Nauwald
"Ritual body postures found in prehistoric cave paintings and early effigies have their origins with the hunger-gatherer tribes. The oldest posture discovered to date is believed to be approximately 32,000 years old. It was in the agricultural societies that followed, however, that the practice of these postures flourished. Prof Felicitas D. Goodman and Nana Nauwald collaborated in researching the effects of close to 60 different ritual body postures. The book contains in-depth information on shamanic practices, detailed background on recently researched postures and brain research, and instructional photographs, providing a complete manual for the ecstatic trance postures. Rhythmic stimulation of your body, combined with ritual body postures, can produce a profound change in consciousness, enabling you...>>
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30.01.2022

“Peak States of Consciousness: Theory and Applications, Volume 2: Acquiring Extraordinary Spiritual and Shamanic States” by Grant McFetridge and Wes Gietz

Magick Matters
"Peak States of Consciousness: Theory and Applications, Volume 2: Acquiring Extraordinary Spiritual and Shamanic States" by Grant McFetridge and Wes Gietz
"Breakthrough in understanding the biology of consciousness, this textbook covers fundamental discoveries about the biological basis for spiritual and shamanic states, transpersonal experiences, and consciousness itself. Derived from explorations into the very earliest prenatal development, this book describes how consciousness is based on biology inside the cell. Developmental Events: Spiritual and shamanic states are a legacy of our earliest prenatal growth stages. The Primary Cell: Consciousness extends from just one cell of the body. Triune Brains: The cell organelles are the basis of the ‘subconscious’ triune brains. Transpersonal Biology: Spiritual, shamanic, and psychic phenomena are based on access or perception of biological...>>
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30.01.2022

“Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions” edited by Hilary Marlow, Karla Pollmann and Helen Van Noorden

Magick Matters
"Eschatology in Antiquity: Forms and Functions" edited by Hilary Marlow, Karla Pollmann and Helen Van Noorden
"This collection of essays explores the rhetoric and practices surrounding views on life after death and the end of the world, including the fate of the individual, apocalyptic speculation and hope for cosmological renewal, in a wide range of societies from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Byzantine era. The 42 essays by leading scholars in each field explore the rich spectrum of ways in which eschatological understanding can be expressed, and for which purposes it can be used. Readers will gain new insight into the historical contexts, details, functions and impact of eschatological ideas and imagery in ancient texts and material culture from the twenty-fifth century BCE to the ninth century CE. Traditionally, the study of...>>
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