Ancient Spirituality

Listen to this audiobook to embark on your mystical journey today!

A condition as old as the ancients, despondency thrives in today's culture of leisure, anxiety, and digital distraction. Time and Despondency is a penetrating synthesis of ancient theology, spiritual memoir, and self-help practicality. It envisions despondency as the extension of a broken relationship with the experience of time.

Tracing the migrations of the Denisovans and their interbreeding with Neanderthals and early human populations in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, Andrew Collins and Greg Little explore how the new mental capabilities of the Denisovan-Neanderthal and Denisovan-human hybrids greatly accelerated the flowering of human civilization over 40,000 years ago. They show how the Denisovans displayed sophisticated advances, including precision-machined stone tools and jewelry, tailored clothing, celestially-aligned architecture, and horse domestication.

The monsters of ancient mythology, folklore, and more contemporary urban legend have long captured the popular imagination. While most people in America today relegate monsters to just that - our imaginations - we continue to be fascinated by the unknown. Linda Godfrey is one of the country's leading authorities on modern-day monsters and has interviewed countless eyewitnesses to strange phenomena.

Belief and Cult argues that belief isn't uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, Jacob Mackey shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices—emotions, individual and collective cult action, ritual norms, social reality, and social power. In doing so, he also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions.

In Everywhere Present, popular blogger and podcaster Fr. Stephen Freeman makes a compelling case for becoming aware of God's living and active presence in every moment of our lives here and now. Learning to practice your Christian faith in a one-storey universe will change your life and make possible the living, intimate relationship with God you've always dreamed of.

Despite a long and noble ancestry stretching back to 1500 BC, Freemasonry has enjoyed mixed fortunes in recent times. Banned in some places while flourishing in others, the brotherhood has been vilified and applauded in equal measure. This book explores its fascinating history and examines the laudable aims espoused by its founding fathers.

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

Modern Physics and Ancient Faith argues that the great discoveries of modern physics are more compatible with the central teachings of Christianity and Judaism about God, the cosmos, and the human soul than with the atheistic viewpoint of scientific materialism.

This is a comprehensive beginner's guide to all things conspiracy! Learn how to decode Illuminati symbolism that's hidden in plain sight with the help of an expert in spotting occult secrets. Conspiracy theorists like David Icke got you confused? Wondering how a reptilian can live among us and shape shift in and out of our dimensions? Are your favorite entertainers part of a transhumanistic alien agenda with mind control signals coming from Saturn and the Moon?

Much has been written about the similarities and differences between the Orthodox and Evangelical faiths. In this book, Fr. Lawrence Farley provides a concise and non-confrontational summary of the major issues that divide the two. Evangelicals inquiring into Orthodoxy, Orthodox Christians who want to speak knowledgeably with evangelical friends, and Orthodox Christians who simply wish to understand and appreciate their own tradition more fully will find this book useful and accessible.

Richard Carrier, Ph.D., philosopher, historian, blogger, has published a number of papers in the field of ancient history and biblical studies. He has also written several books and chapters on diverse subjects, and has been blogging and speaking since 2006. He is known the world over for all the above. But here, together for the first time, are all of Dr. Carrier's peer reviewed academic journal articles in history through the year 2013, collected with his best magazine articles, research papers, and blog posts on the same subjects.

This sharp commentary on the rise and current decline of Western Civilization touches on historical moments - including the building of early universities in the Middle Ages and the American Revolution - and figures - including Augustine, Acquinas, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith - that exemplify the faith-reason synthesis at the heart of Western Civilization, as well as the modern villains that threaten to destroy it.

There is a growing movement among young Christians returning to historic, creedal, and liturgical reflections of Christianity. Filled with stories illustrating the joy young adults have found in these ancient expressions of Christianity, Winfield Bevins introduces practices and principles that help the church engage our postmodern world.

The Holy Psalter contains the Psalms and other scriptural Odes that are used throughout the Orthodox Church's liturgical life. It uses the Greek Septuagint ("LXX") Old Testament, the scripture used by the Apostles and the early Christians, and by the Orthodox Church today.

I and II Kings provide a record of Israel's history from the beginning of the movement to place Solomon on David's throne through the end of the reign of Zedekiah, Judah's last king. There are great lessons to be learned from Israel's desire to be "like those around us" and its consequences.

Esoteric scholar Manly P. Hall covers a lot of areas relating to the ancient mysteries, including common roots in religious and ritual practices, the practices of the Druids and how they relate to Masonry, the rites of Mithras, Simon Magus and the Gnostics, Abraxas, the Egyptian Serapis, the Odinic mysteries and how they compare, the rites of Eleusis, the Orphic mysteries, Bacchus, Dionysos, and much more.

Mount Athos: The History of the Greek Mountain and the Center of Eastern Orthodox Monasticism looks at the unique region and what life has been like there since medieval times. You will learn about Mount Athos like never before.

This book describes over 500 biblical prophecies in the order of when they were fulfilled. These include pre-flood times though the first coming of Jesus and into the Middle Ages. The heart of this book is the 53 prophecies fulfilled between 1948 and 2008. The last 11 prophecies between 2008 and the Great Tribulation are also given. All these are documented and interpreted from the ancient Church fathers. The Ancient Church Fathers, including disciples of the 12 apostles, were firmly premillennial, pretribulational, and very pro-Israel.

In order to become a healing presence for others, we must first be healed ourselves through an active relationship with the great healer, Christ. Drawing on the teachings of the fathers and saints of the church, Dr. Rossi gently points the way toward deepening our love for God and for each other so that others may experience Christ through us.