Ancient Writings

Join author and Japanologist Beth Kempton on a sacred journey to uncover the secrets of fearless writing which have lain buried in Eastern philosophy for two thousand years. In a radical departure from standard advice and widely held assumptions about the effort and suffering required for creative success, The Way of the Fearless Writer will show you there is another way to thrive—a path of trust, ease, freedom and joy.

With impressive examples von Däniken illustrates some of the numerous cities that were dug underground as safe harbors from the destructive boulders. Miles and miles of underground passageways have been discovered around the world as they made space for villages and entire cities. To end the book, von Däniken presents his newest discoveries of an event: In 2017, the author was informed that strange mummified creatures were found near the Peruvian village of Nazca. One of the mummies, apparently several thousand years ago, had been implanted with a metal plate under the skin.

Walton and Walton offer in The Lost World of the Torah a restorative vision of the ancient genre of instruction for wisdom that makes up a significant portion of the Old Testament. In the ancient Near East, order was achieved through the wisdom of those who governed society. The objective of torah was to teach the Israelites to be wise about the kind of order needed to receive the blessings of God's favor and presence within the context of the covenant. Here listeners will find fresh insight on this fundamental genre of the Old Testament canon.

Along with Egypt, the cultural and geographic region known as Mesopotamia was home to some of the world’s earliest civilizations and also the first known form of writing, cuneiform. Many different ethnic groups vied for power in ancient Mesopotamia over the course of antiquity--spanning about 3,000 years--and many of them spoke different languages. Despite these differences, the people in Mesopotamia shared many cultural attributes including similar religious practices, a common art and architecture style, and a shared use of the cuneiform script.

A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers, and the "old ones" still have powers beyond our understanding. In this moving narrative, we travel through the lands of the Lakota and the Ojibwe, where we encounter a strange little girl with an unnerving connection to the past, a forgotten asylum that history has tried to hide, and complex, unforgettable characters.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma or 'duty' and moksha or 'liberation') takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'self') and the workings of karma.

At just over 5,000 years old, writing is actually a relatively recent invention. It has become so central to the way we communicate and live, however, that it often seems as if writing has always existed. But the question remains: Who invented writing, and why?In these 24 fascinating lectures, you'll trace the remarkable saga of the invention and evolution of "visible speech," from its earliest origins to its future in the digital age.

Following up on the first volume, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2 takes up the challenge of providing a clear and useful guide to those wanting a better understanding of the Old Testament, including its cultural and historical background, as well as discussions on contentious topics like violence and genocide, and whether the Exodus was a real historical event. Volume two also covers the narrative of the Old Testament, from the conquest to the divided monarchy, and a brief history of Egypt to help situate the biblical text within agreed historical events.

Papyrus rolls and Twitter have much in common, as each was their generation's signature means of "instant" communication. Indeed, as Tom Standage reveals in his scintillating new audiobook, social media is anything but a new phenomenon. From the papyrus letters that Roman statesmen used to exchange news across the Empire to the advent of hand-printed tracts of the Reformation to the pamphlets that spread propaganda during the American and French revolutions, Standage chronicles the increasingly sophisticated ways people shared information with each other....

Renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson leads us through space as much as time: From the river's mystical sources (the Blue Nile which rises in Ethiopia, and the White Nile coursing from majestic Lake Victoria); to Thebes, with its Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Luxor Temple; the fertile Delta; Giza, home of the Great Pyramid, the sole surviving Wonder of the Ancient World; and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile.

In our modern age the biblical Genesis flood account has been probed and analyzed for answers to scientific, apologetic, and historical questions. It is a text that has called forth flood geology, fueled searches for remnants of the ark on Mount Ararat, and inspired a full-size replica of Noah's ark in a biblical theme park. Some claim that the very veracity of Scripture hinges on a particular reading of the flood narrative. But do we understand what we are reading? Longman and Walton urge us to ask, what might the biblical author have been saying to his ancient audience?

Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul lies at the centre of the most pressing challenges of our time. With environmental decay, rapacious development and tightening authoritarianism straining its social fabric to breaking point, it represents the precipitous moment civilizations around the world are currently facing. In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller meets people who are experiencing the looming crisis and fighting back, sometimes triumphing despite the odds.

This is a collection of 12 essays on a variety of occult-themed topics, covering the full spectrum of classic esoteric and related subjects, which include Hermeticism, magic, ancient wisdom and philosophy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Theosophy, spiritualism, metaphysics, and New Thought by some of the most notable and prominent names in the history of those subjects.

A report of a fascinating find in India: an ancient manuscript, large enough to fill a library, containing prophecies concerning the lives of millions of individuals yet unborn. A careful and unbiased account, this booklet might unsettle the confidence of a few listeners in the absoluteness of our modern understanding of reality. The Book of Bhrigu, its origins hidden in the mists of time, can predict events with uncanny accuracy. Swami Kriyananda explores the origins of this incredible manuscript, including his own adventures with Bhrigu readers in India.

Violence in the Old Testament has long been a stumbling block for Christians and skeptics alike. God Is a Man of War offers a fresh interpretation of Old Testament accounts of violence, by exploring them through the twofold lens of Orthodox tradition and historical context. Father Stephen De Young examines what these difficult passages reveal about the nature of Christ and His creation, bearing witness to a world filled not only with pain and suffering - often of human making - but also with the love of God.

This audiobook explains why Gentiles have never been bound by kosher food laws, Jewish temple rituals, or the Saturday Sabbath.

This famous work by Lucretius is a masterpiece of didactic poetry, and it still stands today as the finest exposition of Epicurean philosophy ever written. The poem was produced in the middle of first century B.C., a period that was to witness a flowering of Latin literature unequaled for beauty and intellectual power in subsequent ages. The Latin title, De Rerum Natura, translates literally to On the Nature of Things and is meant to impress the reader with the breadth and depth of Epicurean philosophy.

At the age of 32, on an assignment to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world – the Camino de Santiago, in northern Spain – Phoebe Smith somehow lost her way. Having spent a lifetime exploring unfamiliar places, she quit her dream job, ended her long-term relationship and headed home to North Wales to discover the point to…everything. In her search for answers she found herself – quite by accident – walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim paths. And in following these old ways, she ended up confronting past traumas that she thought she had laid to rest.

A thorough examination of the Synoptic Gospels reveals that the Kingdom of God is the very first message that Jesus taught, and the only subject he instructed his disciples to teach. This book provides a plausible, evidence-based connection between the Kingdom taught by Jesus and the Kingdom found in the esoteric Jewish teaching of Kabbalah.

It started with a boy, of course. Seeking solace from the pain of heartbreak and her father's illness, Laura Coffey embarks on what was meant to be a simple holiday. But her newfound fascination with ancient Greek myths transforms her trip into a six-month odyssey, around tiny archipelagos and mystical Mediterranean islands thought to be the setting of Odysseus's epic journey. As she chases one of the most conflicted, flawed and yet beloved heroes through his fantastical sea-kingdoms, looking for the places where geography and mythology collide, she discovers the wild beauty of the islands.