Magick Matters

“Moon’s Breath and Magick: A Semiautobiographical Anthology of International Goddesses” by Lynn Capani-Czebiniak

"Lynn Capani-Czebiniak is passionate about bringing the living goddess into the lives of all who may know of her, but have not yet found a way to integrate her love and compassion into their lives. Within a semiautobiographical presentation, Lynn shares original goddess creations accompanied by explanations and details of her own intimate experiences with each goddess, including Abuk, Morpheus, Gaia, Kwan Yin, Mare-Mayde, and many more. While encouraging others to invite the Goddess presence into our beings to learn everything we can about her and the gentler way of life she exemplifies, Lynn also provides ways our studies of goddesses can guide us to implement positive changes through meditation, mindful purpose, and reverence—ultimately letting...>>

“Lucid: How to Start Lucid Dreaming Even if You Never Remember Your Dreams” by Max Trance

"As human beings, we typically live for about 80 years and during those years most of us spend 6 to 10 hours every night sleeping. That's more than 20 years of our lives lost! But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if there was a way that we could retake the time that we lose to sleeping every night? As it turns out, there is just such a way. Inside this book, you'll find a guide and step-by-step instructions on exactly what to do to go from not remembering your dreams at all, to being able to shape them, control them, become fully aware inside them so that they become an...>>

“Trance Mediums and New Media: Spirit Possession in the Age of Technical Reproduction” edited by Heike Behrend, Anja Dreschke and Martin Zillinger

"Ongoing debates about the "return of religion" have paid little attention to the orgiastic and enthusiastic qualities of religiosity, despite a significant increase in the use of techniques of trance and possession around the globe. Likewise, research on religion and media has neglected the fact that historically the rise of mediumship and spirit possession was closely linked to the development of new media of communication. This innovative volume brings together a wide range of ethnographic studies on local spiritual and media practices. Recognizing that processes of globalization are shaped by mass mediation, the volume raises questions such as: How are media like photography, cinema, video, the telephone, or television integrated in seances and healing rituals?...>>

“Cinema, Trance and Cybernetics” by Ute Holl

"We've all had the experience of watching a film and feeling like we've been in a trance. This book takes that experience seriously, explaining cinema as a cultural technique of trance, one that unconsciously transforms our perceptions. Ute Holl moves from anthropological and experimental cinema through nineteenth-century psychological laboratories, which she shows developed techniques for testing, measuring, and classifying the mind that can be seen as a prehistory of cinema, one that allows us to see the links among cinema, anthropology, psychology, and cybernetics."...>>

“The Creative Trance: Altered States of Consciousness and the Creative Process” by Tobi Zausner (full book)

"In those moments when focus on creative work overrides input from the outside world, we are in a creative trance. This psychologically significant altered state of consciousness is inherent in everyone. It can take the form of daydreams generating scientific or creative ideas, hyperfocus in sports, visualizations that impact entire civilizations, life-changing audience experiences, or meditations for self-transformation that may access states beyond trance, becoming gateways to transcendence. Artist and psychologist Tobi Zausner shows how creative trance not only operates in scientific inventions and works of art in all media, but is also important in creating and recreating the self. Drawing on insights from cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychology and post-materialist psychology, this book investigates...>>