Topic: Culture & Society

Way back in the early days of the New Age, the teenage son of a psychic healer returns home, only to be greeted at the door by a person who had a strange resemblance to Lurch from "The Addams Family."

It was late July.

The summer mangoes had dropped from the trees and were lying rotting on the ground, ripped open by feasting bugs and birds. Their intoxicating, sweet smell mixed with the heaviness of the nightblooming jasmine. This languid perfume created a thick, rarefied atmosphere that at times made breathing difficult. In Miami nature is often a mix of colorful abundance and dark decay.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, one of America's best-known New Age religious leaders, writes candidly about her childhood: the onset of epilepsy, her father's alcoholism, and the beginning of her own spiritual quest.

Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease ten years ago, Elizabeth Clare Prophet was in the process of completing a childhood memoir. That memoir was published Wednesday, according to her legal guardian and conservator, Erin Prophet. Now age 69, Mrs. Prophet is in the late stages of the illness.

100% of every dollar given to the TD Foundation is used directly to help war-struck children in the Middle East. The foundation makes it simple for all Internet users to donate online or to send products directly to needy children in the Middle East.

The TD Foundation, with the active leadership of founder Tom Deierlein, a veteran of the Iraqi war, is making a big difference in the lives of those children whose living conditions are of sub-poverty levels due to the war in the Iraqi region. Tom's story is unique in many aspects; he was called in to serve during the Iraqi war from his job as an executive in Manhattan. Upon arrival in Iraq, he was shocked by the circumstances in which war-struck Iraqi children were living. "Envision the most destitute, and poorest and dirtiest of slums that you have either ever seen or seen on TV or imagined" says Tom in a recent MSNBC Interview.

New documentary, "Hope for a Change," presents a hopeful message among all the environmental and economic doom and gloom.

Toronto-based documentary producer John Wilson announced the release of his new 60-minute documentary today, Hope for a Change. Wilson says his documentary "presents a refreshingly hopeful message for the future" that if Canada followed a model employed in Germany, it would be the first country to be 100% powered by renewable energy (such as hydro, wind and solar). At the same time 250,000 new jobs would be created while allowing Canada to meet climate change commitments.

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Hermann Scheer in documentary Hope for a Change.

New novel highlights importance of family storytelling and pride in black culture.

In her new novel, Sprouting Seeds, Jamila D. Smith champions the lost art of storytelling as an important means for honoring cherished ancestors and sharing pivotal episodes in family history. Through the recollections of an elderly family matriarch, Smith reveals a compelling perspective of black culture as it developed during segregated America.

These days, it seems easy. Just hang out your shingle and you're an accepted psychic healer. It wasn't always so, as former GQ managing editor Philip Smith remembers from his childhood in Miami.

One day, back in the early 70s, my father suddenly discovered that he had the astonishing ability to talk to the dead and heal the sick (for real!).

Snakes win over terrorism; children still make us happy. In spite of world and economic conditions, Americans say they're happy and look to get even happier.

During the last 2 weeks of November 2008, Precision Opinion, a market research services firm in Las Vegas, set out to find the answers to those and other pressing questions. Using a random digit dial methodology, Precision Opinion completed 1,385 telephone interviews on a national basis with adults 18-years of age and older. The statistical results of a poll this large deliver a margin of error of 3.5% at a 99% confidence level. The poll consisted of 47% male and 53% female respondents. In other words - these results are considered very accurate.

Stone carvings and rock art found in an exposed seaside cave and on other sites in the Borders area could have been created as memorials to King Arthur, Merlin, Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table.

Author Kaye D. Hennig and photographer Terrance Hennig have discovered and photographed ancient art, unusual, sculptured images, that they believe can be connected to a historical King Arthur and his lost kingdom. Their book King Arthur Lord of the Grail is a coffee-table style book that relates the story of the couple's search for the truth about Camelot. The book contains photographs of giant sculptures that the couple believes were created as a record of a historical dark-age people who became known as the Arthurians. The photographs reveal royal figures and helmeted faces, images carved in stone that appear to be portraits of real individuals. According to author Kaye Hennig, "This is a book that could turn legend into history!"

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"The Grapes of Wrath" is not the only Depression-era work worth taking a second (or a first) look at from our current perspective in what some are calling the New Depression. “If it’s true that adversity and hardship can bring out creativity,” said Miles Orvell, professor of English and American studies at Temple University, “then the Great Depression was one of the great creative periods of our time.”

“If it’s true that adversity and hardship can bring out creativity,” said Miles Orvell, professor of English and American studies at Temple University, “then the Great Depression was one of the great creative periods of our time.”

Jackdawg's self titled release on SonicPast Music is previously unreleased recordings from former members of Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Doobie Brothers.

SonicPast Music announces the release of Jackdawg , the self-titled release from classic rock heroes John McFee (Doobie Brothers/Clover), Stu Cook (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and the late Keith Knudsen (Doobie Brothers.) The never-before-released album includes 13 original tracks penned by McFee, Cook and Knudsen as well as two covers including Roky Erickson's "Cold Night for Alligators" and Van Morrison's classic, "Wild Night."