Mystical Tradition

Magic, the occult, the mystical - is there anything behind those words? If there is, is it anything beyond horror-movie cliches? People the world over have always known and interacted with these hidden forces. But in our culture, there are very few ways to sort out truth from nonsense. In this book, Richard Smoley, an expert on the occult, delves into the world of mind power, magic, suggestion, and the realms of the unseen. He speaks simply and clearly, in common-sense terms, about these mysterious forces, how they can work for you, and what you need to avoid.

From infancy, Father Keating teaches, we accumulate emotional layers, or programs, as a result of traumatic experiences. The practice of Centering Prayer engages directly with the unconscious and loosens old traumas that hinder your spiritual development. This form of divine therapy draws from a contemplative method that has brought profound inner transformation into the lives of thousands of practitioners. The Contemplative Journey is Father Thomas Keating's great masterwork.

From 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected 60 volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain. In Strassman's volunteers, it consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences.

In The Shamanic Bones of Zen, celebrated author and Buddhist teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel undertakes a rich exploration of the connections between contemporary Zen practice and shamanic, or indigenous, spirituality. Drawing on her personal journey with the Black church, with African, Caribbean, and Native American ceremonial practices, and with Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, she builds a compelling case for cultivating the shamanic, or magical, elements in Buddhism - many of which have been marginalized by colonialist and modernist forces in the religion.

In this in-depth look at occult and esoteric traditions in Russia, Christopher McIntosh explores the currents of mysticism, myth, magic, and the spiritual to which the Russian soul has always been attuned. The author explains how the search for meaning in the post- Soviet era has given rise to a revival of ancient spiritual traditions and a plethora of new movements. He examines the precursors to these movements in the “Silver Age” before the Revolution, when alternative forms of spirituality were finding new life as a reaction to the ongoing climate of violence, revolt, and repression.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas have widespread beliefs related to personal guardian spirits. Natives believe that for any success in life there must be protection by a supernatural power. And, in this, they are absolutely correct. The Natives deified guardian spirits since ancient times; and, as it turned out, not in vain because they are directly related to people, to their psyche. All the guardian spirits of the ancient Natives were part of nature.

Revealing how the ancient spiritual tradition known as the Kabbalah can be applied to the art of writing, award-winning author Sherri Mandell presents a mystical system for developing creativity and harnessing divine inspiration in your storytelling and other written works. Sharing insight from her own spiritual journey and her years of teaching writing, Mandell explains how the characteristics of the 10 sefirot can be used to think about and develop writing in a profound way and give you the power to grow as a person and a writer.