**This groundbreaking work by Richard Smoley, author of fourteen books including Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism and Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition, presents the Jewish mystical teaching in a fresh new light.Kabbalah: Treasure House of Secret Wisdom**offers a guide to the esoteric tradition that will serve as a concise introduction for beginners. But it also presents never-before-published insights on the Sefer...

Scholar Richard Smoley reveals the secret history of the religious doctrines of Gnosticism in Forbidden Faith.The success of books such as Elaine Pagels's Gnostic Gospels and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code proves beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous thirst today for finding the hidden truths of Christianity—truths that may have been lost or buried by institutional religion over the last two millennia.In Forbidden Faith, Ric...

In this fascinating book, Richard Smoley examines the roles God has played for us and reconciles them with what we today know through science and reason. In the process, he shows that consciousness is the underlying reality beneath everything in the universe.In one of Hinduism’s great myths, Shiva plays a dice game with his consort, Parvati, and loses consistently. If he is the greatest god, why does he lose? Through this story, Richard Smoley explores the interplay between conscio...

An eclectic, spicy smorgasbord of philosophical food forthought.- KIRKUS REVIEWSLife can seem to be a serious business. We could also look at it as a game—or a series of games.They include survival, love, power, pleasure, courage, creativity, and the Master Game!In this insightful book, Richard Smoley gives a lively but profound account of these games. He talks about how we play them, the mistakes we make, and how we can play them best....

Magic, the occult, the mystical—is there anything behind those words? If there is, is it anything beyond horror-movie clichés? 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-sen...

Magic, the occult, the mystical—is there anything behind those words apart from horror-movie clichés? People the world over have always known and interacted with these hid¬den forces. But today there are very few ways to sort out truth from nonsense.In this book, Richard Smoley, an expert on the occult, delves into mind power, magic, suggestion, and the realms of the unseen. He speaks simply and clearly, in common-sense terms, about these mysterious forces, how the...

This gem-like, concise anthology provides thoughtful people with both an introduction to the paranormal and a reason to take a fresh look at it.Nostradamus...channeling...Atlantis...divination. Most serious people consider such topics nonsense. But look again. Writing with intellectual verve and a deeply critical mind, religious thinker Richard Smoley explores and reconsiders the supernatural in history and today.We are often conditioned to think of the Judeo-Christian trad...

Early Christianity held secrets equal to those of other great religions, says Annie Besant. Its first followers guarded them as priceless treasures. After an increasingly rigid hierarchy began to bury these truths in the early centuries A.D., they were known only to a few initiates, who communicated them privately, often in obscure language. In Esoteric Christianity, Besant's aim is to restore the secret truths underlying Christian doctrine. As public interest grows in the Gnostic...

An eye-opening introduction to the complex world of esoteric Christianity—perfect for the general readerThis guide to mystical and esoteric Christianity speaks from a nonsectarian point of view, unearthing insights from the whole of the Christian tradition, orthodox and heretical, famous and obscure. The esoteric tradition has traditionally searched for meanings that would yield a deeper inner knowledge of the divine. While traditional Christianity draws a timeline...

This issue of the Rosicrucian Digest presents a compendium of materials that provide a solid introduction to the most important aspects of Gnosticism.

This epic, thrilling journey through Bible scholarship and ancient religion shows how much of Scripture is historically false--yet the ancient writings also resound with theologies that crisscrossed the primeval world and that direct us today toward a deep, inner, authentic experience of the truly sacred.From a historical perspective, the Bible is shockingly, provably wrong--a point supported by today's best archaeological and historical scholarship but not well un...

The Growth of the American Republic tells the story of how an insignificant string of colonies on the Eastern Seaboard transformed itself into the richest and most powerful nation in history.This account, by renowned historians Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, gives a full, sweeping overview of the United States between 1763, the end of the French and Indian War, and World War I. First published in 1930, it remains unsurpassed for the range ...