Topic: Magick & Spirituality

The second edition of Spirituality for Dummies (Wiley, January 2008, 366 pages) explains how to use practices like contemplation, meditation, yoga, and prayer to understand and improve your life.

Looking for straightforward advice on spirituality? The second edition of Spirituality for Dummies explains how to use practices like contemplation, meditation, yoga, and prayer to understand and improve your life. The book shows how these simple practices can help you nourish the soul, thrive through adversity, and view the world with realistic optimism. There's even a bonus audio CD with over an hour of inspirational music from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions, featuring the author and other artists.

Here in the U.S., a healthy sexuality is often looked upon with suspicion. In India, however, sex is seen as something that can be very sacred.

Many traditions see desire of all kinds, but sexual desire in particular, as negative, as something that must be suppressed. Desire is certainly complex. It can overwhelm us and interfere with our better judgment. In this society, we are conditioned to be ruled by our desires; desires that are replaced by new ones just as soon as they are fulfilled. And yet desire is a powerful force, a force that can motivate and inspire us. Suppressing desire entails suppressing our fundamental humanity, and most people pay a heavy price for doing this.

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A writer consults the Taoist deity Kwan Yin for advice, to be told that 2008 will be the year of our discontent.

I just can't help but ask about the future. Everyone seems to be interested in it. I guess it's hardwired into human nature to want to know what is coming down the line. Although I now understand that we have a very great ability to influence the future, I still look around online for any new predictions to check out.

Celtic Christianity is a unique blend of Christianity with indigenous religions such as druidism, according to Linda McKinnish Bridges, professor at the Wake Forest Divinity School. The two faiths mixed easily in the early centuries, and today remnants of the druidic tradition still remain within the practice of Christianity in Ireland.

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, the legend will be retold of how the Christian missionary Patrick banished all the snakes from Ireland. However, zoologists say there never were snakes in Ireland, and historians suggest that the snakes refer instead to the druids, who had their own non-Christian religion. Over time the Christian church incorporated elements of the druids’ traditions into its own religious practices in Ireland.

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Linda McKinnish Bridges, professor of ministry studies in the Divinity School at Wake Forest University

Most of us know something about our astrological sun sign. However, as this article illustrates, the moon plays an important role in astrology as well.

Many people believe that astrology only concerns the sun. This is due to the Western world view of astrology, which has taken on the form of Zodiac horoscopes. However, in truth the study of astrology goes well beyond sun signs.

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Photo © by Ilmari Karonen

We live in a "find it and forget it" world. We're also bombarded by so much information, that it's a wonder that we can develop an understanding of anything, especially something as fleeting as spiritual concepts. The common sense advice in this article will help.

The fundamental aim of spiritual study is to get facts and principles into the heart's fertile ground. Ideas must get through habitual and familiar filters; otherwise, the information is diverted from having its full power. It's not how much you read or hear that counts, but how much you take in and make your own.

New book reveals the secret meaning of ancient prophecies. Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation are all covered.

In the new book The Last Days of Tolemac, author Allan Colston reveals in plain English the secret meaning of ancient prophecies. Colston reinterprets the prophecies of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, and paints a clear picture of what is actually happening to the planet, and where the modern civilization is headed.

With astral projection you get into the astral plane direct from your physical body. When you have a lucid dream, you have simply "missed" the initial projection.

With astral projection you get into the astral plane direct from your physical body. When you have a lucid dream, you have simply 'missed' the initial projection. They are just two different ways of entering the astral realm. In either case you are still conscious in the astral, however, as there are degrees of lucidity in dreaming, you may or may not be fully in control of your experience. But this is highly unlikely in an astral projection. There is still a difference, whether more slight or obvious.

Author Barbara Bode Snyder exposes Thomas as more than a skeptic in her new book, "Thomas the Apostle."

Thomas the Apostle by Barbara Bode Snyder offers an inside look into the real life of one the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. Many know about The Gospel of Thomas, but few know about the man.

Being a Wiccan is wonderful and knowing the two most common beliefs within our tradition helps us find love and live a happy and healthy life. That is what these two beliefs do, they helps us understand that when we take responsibility for our actions we can achieve all of our desires.

One of the best parts of being Wiccan is that we all follow our own path. However, there are a couple of common beliefs that, as Wiccans, we live by to make our lives happy and healthy.