Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico

Paul Barber

Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality

In this engrossing book, Paul Barber surveys centuries of folklore about vampires and offers the first scientific explanation for the origins of the vampire legends. From the tale of a sixteenth-century shoemaker from Breslau whose ghost terrorized everyone in the city, to the testimony of a doctor who presided over the exhumation and dissection of a graveyard full of Serbian vampires, his book is fascinating reading. "This study's comprehensiveness and the author's bone-dry wit make this compelling reading, not just for folklorists, but for anyone interested in a time when the dead wouldn't stay dead."--Booklist "Barber's inquiry into vampires, fact and fiction, is a gem in the literature of debunking... [and] a convincing exercise in mental archaeology."--Roy Porter, Nature "A splendid book about the undead, illuminated by the findings of morbid anatomy.... The main value of this most interesting book is to remind us how far we have come in our ability to explain the world and how this has released us from at least some terrors."--Anthony Daniels, Spectator "This book is fascinating reading for physicians and anthropologists as well as anyone interested in folklore."--R. ...

Peter Levenda

Sinister Forces-The Manson Secret: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft

The roots of coincidence and conspiracy in American politics, crime, and culture are investigated in this examination of the connections between religion, political conspiracy, and occultism. Readers are presented with detailed insight into how Charlie Manson became a national bogeyman as well as startling connections between Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung, and synchronicity; serial killers, multiple personality disorder, and demonic possession; and magic, surrealism, and mind control. Not a work of speculative history, this third volume of a three-part set is founded on primary source material and historical documents. Fascinating secrets are divulged involving Hollywood icons such as Marilyn Monroe, David Lynch, and Jane Fonda as well as links between the Cotton Club murders, the Bluegrass conspiracy, and the Son of Sam cult.

Carl A. P. Ruck

Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult That Civilized Europe

This illustrated book traces the history of an unlikely force in the shaping of Western civilization: the use of psychedelic mushrooms, namely by a secret society called the cult of Mithras. Nero was the first emperor to be initiated by the group's "magical dinners," and most of his successors embraced the ritual as a source of spiritual transcendence. The cult was officially banned after the Conversion, but aspects of their rituals were assimilated or co-opted by Christianity, and the brotherhoods persist today as secret societies such as the Freemasons. This is a fascinating exploration of a powerful force kept behind the scenes for thousands of years.