The Flying Witches of Veracruz

The Flying Witches of Veracruz
Author: James Endredy
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2011-12-08
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738731145

Waking up in Mictlan, the underworld entrance of the North, nearly dead from an evil witch's attack—this is where James Endredy's gripping true account of his experience with the witches of Veracruz begins. As the apprentice of a powerful curandero, or healer, Endredy learns the dangerous magic and mystical arts of brujería, a nearly extinct form of Aztec witchcraft, and his perilous training is fraught with spiritual trials and tests. Taught how to invoke spirits of the underworld for assistance and use dream trance to "fly," Endredy is subjected to the black magic of a brujo negro and left alone in the graveyard of the brujo masters to fight for his life. He is also called upon to do battle with the most sinister of all witches—el Brujo de Muerte, the Witch of Death. Upon becoming a curandero himself, Endredy takes on harrowing real-life cases: healing a young man possessed by the spirit of an Aztec warrior, rescuing a teenage girl from a Mexican drug cartel, and hunting down a vampire witch terrorizing a small community.

On the Job

On the Job
Author: Margo DeMello
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021-01-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This one-volume encyclopedia examines jobs and occupations from around the world that are unique and out of the ordinary, from bike fishermen in the Netherlands and professional wedding guests in South Korea to elephant dressers in India. It's not surprising that the first question we are asked by strangers often has to do with what we do for a living. It's another way of asking, "Who are you, and what are you about?" But what happens when the answer to that question is "I am a gondolier" or "I am an Instagram influencer?" This book tries to answer that question, focusing on approximately 100 unusual occupations around the world. Arranged alphabetically, entries define the jobs and detail their historical, social, and cultural significance. Entries also examine where the job is located, how it came to be, how people get into the position, and what the economic and future outlook is for that job. While the entries focus on contemporary jobs, the encyclopedia also includes sidebars that highlight unique jobs from history to give the reader a sense of how unusual (and often terrible!) some jobs once were. Students will find this book useful in looking at cultures around the world.

Shamanic Alchemy

Shamanic Alchemy
Author: James Endredy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1591433185

A hands-on guide to advanced spiritual transformation through the combined sacred arts of alchemy and shamanism • Recasts the 7 stages of the alchemical “Great Work” as a transformative shamanic journey and initiatic experience • Provides step-by-step instructions for 18 shamanic alchemy practices for inner transformation, including vibrational energy work, consciousness-altering techniques, the creation of mirrors of the mind, and sacred ceremonies tied to the four elements • Explores the alchemical plant-medicine techniques of spagyrics, as well as recipes for basic tinctures and “plant-stones” Offering a unique, hands-on guide to advanced self-transformation, James Endredy shows how traditional shamanic techniques offer a doorway into the sacred art of alchemy, the inner transformation of the soul. Revealing the practical and intuitive connections between shamanism and alchemy, including not only Western alchemy but also alchemical practices from the East, Endredy recasts the 7 stages of the alchemical “Great Work” as a transformative shamanic journey and initiatic experience. He provides step-by-step instructions for 18 shamanic alchemy practices for inner transformation, including vibrational energy work, consciousness-altering techniques, the creation of mirrors of the mind, shamanic viewing, and sacred ceremonies tied to the four elements. Exploring the healing art of spagyrics, the author shows how this alchemical plant-medicine practice is receptive to the energetic work of traditional shamanic techniques. He details formulations for distilling shamanic spagyric remedies, as well as recipes for basic tinctures and “plant-stones.” He also discusses the creation of sacred space, altars, and shamanic distillation lodges. Comparing shamanic and alchemical cosmologies, the author explains how both shamanism and alchemy employ direct experience of the numinous and invisible worlds, also known as gnosis, to impart wisdom, invoke peace of mind, and increase creativity and vitality. Showing how the practical vibrational science of alchemy and the consciousness-transforming techniques of shamanism directly enhance and expand upon each other, Endredy also reveals how they have the same ultimate goals: to allow the practitioner to transmute spiritual lead into gold and to penetrate the deep secrets of life and of nature.

Advanced Autogenic Training and Primal Awareness

Advanced Autogenic Training and Primal Awareness
Author: James Endredy
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2016-07-18
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1591432464

A step-by-step guide to optimize health, reconnect with Nature, and access the vast knowledge of the universe through autogenic training • Provides step-by-step instructions for 40 autogenic and primal mind techniques • Explains how to add healing affirmations and visualizations to autogenic practice as well as work with colors and chakras • Includes techniques to restore our primal connection to the world of Nature through practices such as Forest Bathing, Nature’s Breath, and Feeling in the Dark Developed by German doctor Johannes Schultz in the early 20th century, autogenic training teaches you how to use the mind-body connection to influence and regulate the body’s normally involuntary autonomic functions by passively tapping into your central and peripheral nervous systems. Often used for stress relief, autogenic training can also be used for asthma, chronic pain, migraines, constipation, anxiety, panic attacks, and a host of other conditions. In this book, James Endredy takes autogenic training to a new level, revealing how to use AT practices to optimize health as well as reawaken your senses, reconnect with Nature and tap into the vast knowledge and power of the universe. Beginning with the 7 standard formulas of AT, the author provides step-by-step instructions for 40 AT and primal mind techniques. He explains how to add specific healing affirmations and visualizations to your AT practice as well as how to work with colors and the chakras. He offers advanced trainings to rekindle your primal touch sensitivity, experience enhanced sight and hearing, and awaken your primal sense of smell. He reveals how to use AT to restore our primal connection to the world of Nature through practices such as Forest Bathing, Nature’s Breath, and Primal Fire Connection. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience living and working with indigenous cultures, including the Huichol, Iroquois, Sioux, Maya, and Hopi, Endredy shows how, much like a vision quest, this unique combination of AT and primal mind awareness offers rites of passage sorely missing from modern life. It gives you the tools to go deeper into your physiological being, to directly experience how we relate to the world, and to reconnect with the ancient wisdom within each of us.

Witches of the Atlantic World

Witches of the Atlantic World
Author: Elaine G. Breslaw
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 535
Release: 2000-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 0814798519

Breslaw (history, U. of Tennessee) has created a fascinating reader--for undergraduate classes in history, anthropology, religious studies, or women's studies--surveying the subject of witches, witch hunts, and the larger political context of both. The sections, which cover Christian perspectives, non-Christian beliefs, diabolical possession, issues of gender, and a lengthy section on the Salem witch trials, each include an introduction by Breslaw, primary sources, then secondary commentaries on the sources. The latter are excerpts from books and articles. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs and Disease

Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs and Disease
Author: Homayun Sidky
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1725228254

Long before the political mass-murders witnessed in the present century, western Europe experienced another kind of holocaust--the witch-hunts of the early modern period. Condemned of flying through the air, changing into animals, and worshipping the Devil, over a hundred thousand people were brutally tortured, systematically maimed and burned alive. Why did these persecutions take place? Was it superstition, irrationality, or mass delusion that led to the witch-hunts? This study seeks explanation in the tangible actions of human actors and their worldly circumstances. The approach taken is anthropological; inferences are grounded on a wide spectrum of variables, ranging from the political and ideological practices used to mystify earthly affairs, to the logical structure of witch-beliefs, torture technology, and the role of psychotropic drugs and epidemic diseases.

Natural Histories

Natural Histories
Author: Stephen Lyn Bales
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781572335615

Accompanied by the author's striking line drawings, each chapter in Natural Histories showcases a particular animal or plant and each narrative begins or ends in, or passes through the Tennessee Valley. Along the way, historical episodes both familiar and obscure-the de Soto explorations, the saga of the Lost State of Franklin, the devastation of the Trail of Tears, and the planting of a "Moon Tree" at Sycamore Shoals in Elizabethton-are brought vividly to life. Bales also highlights the work of present-day environmentalists and scientists such as the dedicated staffers of the Tennessee-based American Eagle Foundation, whose efforts have helped save the endangered raptors and reintroduce them to the wild.

Mexican Days

Mexican Days
Author: Tony Cohan
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2008-11-19
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0307488195

Tony Cohan’s On Mexican Time, his chronicle of discovering a new life in the small Mexican mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, has beguiled readers and become a travel classic. Now, in Mexican Days, point of arrival becomes point of departure as—faced with the invasion of the town by tourists and an entire Hollywood movie crew, a magazine editor’s irresistible invitation, and his own incurable wanderlust—Cohan undertakes a richer, wider exploration of the country he has settled in. Told with the intimate, sensuous insight and broad sweep that captivated readers of On Mexican Time, Mexican Days is set against a changing world as Cohan encounters surprise and adventure in a Mexico both old and new: among the misty mountains and coastal Caribbean towns of Veracruz; the ruins and resorts of Yucatán; the stirring indigenous world of Chiapas; the markets and galleries of Oaxaca; the teeming labyrinth of Mexico City; the remote Sierra Gorda mountains; the haunted city of Guanajuato; and the evocative Mayan ruins of Palenque. Along the way he encounters expatriates and artists, shady operatives and surrealists, and figures from his past. More than an immensely pleasurable and entertaining travel narrative by one of the most vivid, compelling travel voices to emerge in recent years, Mexican Days is both a celebration of the joys and revelations to be found in this inexhaustibly interesting country and a searching investigation of the Mexican landscape and the grip it is coming to have in the North American imagination.

The New England Grimpendium

The New England Grimpendium
Author: J. W. Ocker
Publisher: The Countryman Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2010-09-20
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1581578628

An insider’s guide to wicked, weird, and wonderful New England. A rich compendium of macabre and historic New England happenings, this travelogue features firsthand accounts of almost 200 sites throughout New England. This region is full of the macabre, the grim, and the ghastly—and all of it is worth visiting, for the traveler who dares! Author J. W. Ocker supplements directions and site information with entertaining personal anecdotes. Topics include: Legends and personalities of the macabre Infamous crimes and killers Dreadful tragedies Horror movie locales Notable cemeteries and gravestones Intriguing memento mori Classic monsters