In 1965 English scientist James Lovelock had a flash of insight: the Earth is not just teeming with life; the Earth, in some sense, is life. He mulled this revolutionary idea over for several years, first with his close friend the novelist William Golding, and then in an extensive collaboration with the American scientist Lynn Margulis. In the early 1970s, he finally went public with the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that everything happens for an end: the good of planet Earth. Lovelock and Margulis were scorned by professional scientists, but the general public enthusiastically embraced Lovelock and his hypothesis. People joined Gaia groups; churches had Gaia services, sometimes with new music written especially for the occasion. There was a Gaia atlas, Gaia gardening, Gaia herbs, Gaia retreats, Gaia networking, and much more. And the range of enthusiasts was—and still is—broad.

           

In The Gaia Hypothesis, philosopher Michael Ruse, with his characteristic clarity and wit, uses Gaia and its history, its supporters and detractors, to illuminate the nature of science itself. Gaia emerged in the 1960s, a decade when authority was questioned and status and dignity stood for nothing, but its story is much older. Ruse traces Gaia’s connection to Plato and a long history of goal-directed and holistic—or organicist—thinking and explains why Lovelock and Margulis’s peers rejected it as pseudoscience. But Ruse also shows why the project was a success. He argues that Lovelock and Margulis should be commended for giving philosophy firm scientific basis and for provoking important scientific discussion about the world as a whole, its homeostasis or—in this age of global environmental uncertainty—its lack thereof.

           

Melding the world of science and technology with the world of feeling, mysticism, and religion, The Gaia Hypothesis will appeal to a broad range of readers, from students and scholars of the history and philosophy of science to anyone interested in New Age culture.

As a child, Grant Schnarr was haunted (as many children are) by a fear of the dark, a fear of the unknown, of monsters in his closet. But more than that, he was haunted by a real ghost—a dark presence that lingered in his family’s house, occasionally moving objects, making noises, or even appearing to unsuspecting family members and guests.

As an adult, Grant had almost forgotten about the ghost until a series of brushes with death began to awaken old memories. Over the course of several months, a series of “coincidences” led him to dig deeper and deeper into a long-buried family tragedy. Forced to confront his deepest fears, armed with the lessons he learned from the spiritual warriors in his life, he finally learns the truth on a dark night in the woods of Wisconsin.

Anyone who has suffered a loss or struggled with fears will relate to this real-life tale of facing your inner—and outer—demons, told from Grant’s uniquely Swedenborgian perspective.

“In the top corner of the window a pale, milky-white wisp is rising almost to the top of our ten-foot ceiling…. I am startled but not afraid…. Mostly, I am engrossed; I have never seen anything like this before (or since) and it fascinates me.”

Dennis Waskul writes these lines—about his first-hand experience with the supernatural—in the introduction to his beguiling book Ghostly Encounters. Based on two years of fieldwork and interviews with 71 midwestern Americans, the Waskuls’ book is a reflexive ethnography that examines how people experience ghosts and hauntings in everyday life. The authors explore how uncanny happenings become ghosts, and the reasons people struggle with or against a will to believe. They present the variety and character of hauntings and ghostly encounters, outcomes of people telling haunted legends, and the nested consequences of ghostly experiences.

Through these stories, Ghostly Encounters seeks to understand the persistence of uncanny experiences and beliefs in ghosts in an age of reason, science, education, and technology—as well as how those beliefs and experiences both reflect and serve important social and cultural functions.

Through this vivid study, Jean-Claude Schmitt examines medieval religious culture and the significance of the widespread belief in ghosts, revealing the ways in which the dead and the living related to each other during the middle ages. Schmitt also discusses Augustine's influence on medieval authors; the link between dreams and autobiographical narratives; and monastic visions and folklore. Including numerous color reproductions of ghosts and ghostly trappings, this book presents a unique and intriguing look at medieval culture.

"Valuable and highly readable. . . . [Ghosts in the Middle Ages] will be of interest to many students of medieval thought and culture, but especially to those seeking a general overview of this particularly conspicuous aspect of the medieval remembrance of the dead."—Hans Peter Broedel, Medieval Review

"A fascinating study of the growing prevalence of ghost imagery in ecclesiastical and popular writing from the fifth to the fifteenth century."—Choice

"The Greek magical papyri" is a collection of magical spells and formulas, hymns, and rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt, dating from the second century B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Containing a fresh translation of the Greek papyri, as well as Coptic and Demotic texts, this new translation has been brought up to date and is now the most comprehensive collection of this literature, and the first ever in English.

The Greek Magical Papyri in Transition is an invaluable resource for scholars in a wide variety of fields, from the history of religions to the classical languages and literatures, and it will fascinate those with a general interest in the occult and the history of magic.

"One of the major achievements of classical and related scholarship over the last decade."—Ioan P. Culianu, Journal for the Study of Judaism

"The enormous value of this new volume lies in the fact that these texts will now be available to a much wider audience of readers, including historians or religion, anthropologists, and psychologists."—John G. Gager, Journal of Religion

"[This book] shows care, skill and zest. . . . Any worker in the field will welcome this sterling performance."—Peter Parsons, Times Literary Supplement

Minister Grant Schnarr draws together the voices of young people he has met and counseled to weave a fictional tale of love, fear, and hope.

Sixteen-year-old Nicole Bealart is a typical teenager, living in a world of homework, school plays, and her own imagination—a world turned upside-down when she is diagnosed with brain cancer. Her father, who never dealt with her mother’s death from lung cancer six years before, begins drinking heavily; she is left trying to care for herself and her younger brother, Luke, while juggling school and her growing fears about her own mortality. Seeking answers, she begins writing a journal that becomes a vehicle for her to communicate with her guardian angel. As she approaches the date of an operation that may either save her life or end it, her inner and outer worlds collide and combine to give her a new understanding of family, friendship, and life.