Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Quest for Mary Magdalene - History & Legend by Michael Haag
Extract: “A woman who needed to earn an income could extend her domestic activities into the marketplace where she could sell clothing, farm produce and bread (the bakers were men)or she could be an innkeeper, letting out rooms in her house. Hairdressers, midwives, and professional mourners were traditional occupations for women. But a woman’s earnings were for the benefit of her family. She was not free to dispose of her money herself.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: Tarot of A Moon Garden by Karen Marie Sweikhardt. Boxed set of 78 cards and full colour Guidebook and layout for Wheel of the Year Spread. Published by U S Games Systems Inc. $31.95
Marvellous! Purple gilt edging on these cards is a delight, and they have highly ornamental artwork! These are 78 borderless paintings - all the better to see the beauty of the flora and fauna, mythic creatures, angels and fairies, and natural settings. And, if the images alone don’t thoroughly excite you, the write ups on the cards definitely will. These are an unusual size, long and thin and easy to shuffle and deal. The written explanations are divided into Renderings, Readings and Ritual, providing 250 words for each card. The Appendix provides Garden Runes, Garden Recipes, and a recipe for Honey Mead.
Bruce Nixon writes: We are in a situation we have never been in before – an environmental crisis that threatens our very existence. Essentially, it results from our failure to live in harmony with the earth on which all life depends and each other. With another global economic crisis now unfolding, it is frightening.
"It is a time of breakdown but the good news is that breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. We have survived thorough history by learning and adapting. Human beings are enormously creative. We are capable of rapid mobilisation, as World War 2 showed. "The trouble is that political and corporate leaders appear wedded to ideologies that have not worked and they don’t see that whole system change is needed. Continuous growth defies common sense when we’re already consuming 30% more than the earth can provide and population may rise from 7bn to 10bn by the end of the century. They also think short term and fight with each other rather than collaborating.
"We know what needs to be done. We need total system change. A vision of a better way of life will inspire and bring hope to everyone. We need a Great Transition (as proposed by the New Economics Foundation). We need to find a new Prosperity - without growth (explored by Tim Jackson in his book of that title). Such a transition offers massive work opportunities, a better balance of work and leisure and better health for all. It can be achieved through fairer, sustainable taxation; tackling corporate tax evasion; principled foreign policies; investment in conflict resolution to save lives and release the vast sums spent on war; providing funds for green investment; and shifting subsidies from industries that accelerate climate change and harm lives to those that are sustainable. Comprehensive monetary reform is needed giving reserve banks the sole right to issue money. A citizen’s income, partly funded by land value taxation, can reduce the humiliation and cost of administering complex benefits.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: Chinese Fortune Reading Cards by Sharina Star, published by Rockpool Publishing, comprises of a set of 36 high quality cards and instruction book, both full colour, packaged in a magnetic flip top box. The book includes information on how to read the cards, with two simple layouts. Each card has a number, a title and an image, and the book provides keywords, a general interpretation, a career/finances aspect, relationship advice and a Feng Shui tip. The interpretation of the cards is advice based, very modern. It is ideal for a first ever oracle card deck; it is a young person's deck, suited to online dating user age group.
The cards feature a brush script from the Oracle Bones Script, discovered in the Anyang capital and date to the Shang Dynasty of 1,100 years ago. They have an authentic Chinese look about the images, reds and golds predominate, and have a Chinese script on each card. Titles are, for instance, Renewal, Forgiveness, Heaven, Abundance, Wisdom, Reunion, and images feature fishing, candles, flowers, brush writing, dragon, lanterns, a Buddha image.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: I Ching Oracle Cards by Lunaea Weatherstone, published by Lo Scarabeo, 64 cards with multi lingual instruction booklet. £15.99 Lunaea Weatherstone has exceptional credentials - she is a Pagan Priestess and ex-owner of Sage Woman Magazine, author of Tending Brigid's Flame and a contributor to several books and card decks. You can sense the power of these cards when you see the fabulously gold embossed black card box. It looks classy and speaks of luxury. This deck is well produced and excellent value! The I Ching, also know as The Book of Changes, is a Chinese philosophical system, one of the oldest books of philosophy in the world and thought to be over 4,000 years old. Originally, the oracle was divined with yarrow sticks, coins or stones, but these cards make a suitable and easy way of working.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: The Chinese Five Elements Oracle by Vicki Iskandar, illustrations by Candice Soon. Boxed set of 60 Cards and Guidebook. Published by Hay House. Date: 10/10/2023 RRP US $29.99 : Can $39.99 : UK £15.99
60 cards represent the cycle or pillars of 10 Heavenly Stems of Yin and Yang qualities and the 5 elements of wood, fire, metal, water, and earth, which are the foundation of the Tao. 12 Earthly Branches depict animals, rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, bird, dog and pig.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: The Visual I Ching - A New Approach to the Ancient Chinese Oracle, Boxed set of Cards and guidebook by Oliver Perrottet, published by Brockhampton Press
In the distant past, the sages of China designed a system to enable understanding that life, so full of challenges and changes, is an interaction of two opposition forces, described as Yin and Yang. These are shown as a circle , half light and half dark, with a dot of light within the dark and a dot of dark within the light. These are portrayed not only as opposing and interacting energies, but the mutual attraction between them. In writing, these are shown as a broken line for Yang and an unbroken line for Yin. A series of 6 lines is called a ‘hexagram’.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: I Ching for Beginners by Kristyna Arcarti published by Headway.
The I Ching is an ancient method of divination, sometimes called The Book of Changes. It was written about 5000 years ago and is one of the oldest books in the world, and contains wisdom provided in old Chinese poetry of the feudal Mandarin era. Though highly complex, this book presents the matter very simply. The philosophy relates to the opposing energies that exist in the world, but shows that within every polarity is a part of the opposing force that creates eventually balance and harmony. ☯️
Mind Body & Soul Book Review: Feng Shui - The Traditional Oriental Way to Enhance Your Life by Stephen Skinner I liked this well illustrated full colour book which explains simple, and clearly, what this ancient (from 3000BC) Chinese philosophy of geomancy offers to the modern person. It is based on harmonising your environment with good health and wellbeing. Included in the book are all aspects of Feng Shui - Chi, directions, celestial animals, invisible landscape energies, currents and polarities, yin & yang, elements, trigrams, personal magic numbers, your homeand garden. The author, Stephen Skinner (PhD in Classics) is an Australian expert in this field and has written extensively about Feng Shui, shamanism, magic, sacred geometry and alchemy and . Recommended as an ideal gift or coffee table book!
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: The Archangel Metatron Self-Mastery Oracle by Amanda Ellis with artwork by Jane Delaford Taylor. Quality boxed set of 55 cards and full colour guidebook. Published by Schiffer Publishing. US RRP : $29.99 : UK RRP £27.99
Amanda Ellis channels Archangel Metatron, the Gate Keeper, with sacred geometry, the elements, colour and inspirational paintings commissioned by Scottish artist Jane Delaford Taylor which are now all in private collections. The oracle is not intended for fortune telling but is designed to empower, comfort, and heal. Amanda Ellis also authored Christ Consciousness Oracle.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Card Deck Review: The Time Changer’s Tarot by Caitlin Matthews. Quality boxed set of 78 cards and guidebook. Published by REDFeather Publishing. US RRP: $34.99
Reading for Yourself, Your Community, and Your World with the Waite-Smith Tarot.
We are living in post pandemic, post elite corruption times and Caitlin Matthews brings the meanings of the tarot cards up to date for all kinds of readings. This is more than just a Tarot for individual readings, it encompasses personal development, taking us to the big picture, with chapters on Groups, institutions and Collectives, Peace and Reconciliation, Community, and planetary issues, as cards step forward to be seen and heard, to provide a lantern in times of despair and confusion.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Secret Scroll - by Andrew Sinclair. With colour photos and hand-drawings, acknowledgements and notes. Introduction biography of the author by the author. 218 pages. 2002
I received this book in the post with a request for an honest review! It begins with a beautiful story from 1330 and of the heart of Robert the Bruce, being taken to Jerusalem for burial by an ancestor of the author. Much of the St Clair family history goes back far beyond 1,000 years to the lands of the river Epte in Normandy. We read of the Gnostics, and the connection between the Templars and Freemasons, hidden knowledge, mysticism, hermetic and cabalistic knowledge, and how the Kirkwall scroll of Orkney, now in a Masonic lodge on an island in the North Atlantic, holds the key to many of the greatest mysteries, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Garden of Eden, and the Grail itself and how geometric designs were learnt from mosques in the holy land. The remains of Templars were often interred in the position of the skull over crossed leg bones, a position which I found extraordinary, like much else in this book.
The author connects the Christian Templars with the Freemasons who are not Christians. I was shocked that the author criticised Jacques de Molay for “ruining his sect by ordering it to surrender and confess” even under excruciating torture, peine forte et dure! I notice the author has changed the title of the Order from The Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon to the Order of the Temple, thereby cutting out both the oath of poverty and duty to Jesus Christ. This says a lot about the intention of the book and the way it presents the lives of the Templars especially, and the emphasis of the text on heresy whilst ignoring the New Testament!
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: 'The Secret Founding of America - The Real Story of Freemasons, Puritans & the Battle for the New World', by Nicholas Hagger, published by Watkins Publishing, Paperback 352 pages, £9.99 Kindle: £5.03 Visit http://www.nicholashagger.co.uk/ This book charts the role of the Knights Templars, the Jacobites, Freemasons and the Illuminati in the discovery of America, and Bartholomew Gosnold's role in the founding of the British colonies. Nicholas Hagger takes us on a broad journey of discovery. This book is well researched and offers new points of view, discoveries and connections on this fascinating, controversial and enjoyable subject. You will definitely find something new here! One of a trilogy, see below.
Mind, Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: Rosslyn Revealed - A Library in
Stone by Alan
Butler and John Ritchie, Hardback at £19.95
Rosslyn
Chapel is a most extraordinary building but so much is known about it already: I wondered what Alan Butler and John Ritche would be able
to add to my knowledge. Alan Butler is a Templar expert and an astrologer, and he joined forces with a
local expert on Rosslyn, John Ritchie to explore the chapel.
Mind Body & Soul Book Review: Events Psychology - How to
Understand Yourself and Other People by Dr Silvia
Hartmann Paperback: £24.97 Published by
DragonRising Publishing Author website: www.silviahartmann.com
Dr Silvia
Hartmann is a researcher and innovative therapist who has extensive interest in
modern psychology. She is at the forefront of the development of brand new
therapeutic methods. Every major event, both good and bad, results in inner self
talk when patterned beliefs are formed. Events Psychology is a simple, person
centred technique to uncover past trauma that can be used by therapists,
counsellors and healers. In this training manual, Dr Hartmann details her Events
Psychology method. It provides a series of questions, to home in on past events
to gently approach painful memories so that relaxation can be achieved. These
key events are then used as stepping stones, to turn negative into positive, and
bring resolution. The introduction of new healing events to counter-balance the
negative can then be introduced.
Mind, Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Sign And The Seal - A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant by Graham Hancock.
Graham Hancock is a wonderful story-teller and I love his writing, especially on this fantastic adventure.
He visited Ethiopia in 1983, a few years after the overthrow and assassination of the reigning ancestral monarch, Haile Salasse. The Red Terror had unleashed death squads which executed people and then claimed the cost of the bullets before the corpses were released to their relatives for burial! Haile Salassie claimed he was the 225th generation in an unbroken line of succession from the Queen of Sheba who visited Jerusalem and returned to Ethiopia bearing King Solomon's son, Menelik. Menelik visited his father and is said to have returned to his mother with the Ark of the Covenant which is guarded in the Church of St Mary of Zion in Axum. The original measurement defined in Exodus is 2.5 cubits x 1.5 cubits x 1.5 cubits (a cubit thought to be 18 inches). Many Ethiopians have similar religious practices to the ancient Jews, and celebrate their sabbath on Saturdays. In every church throughout Ethiopia, a replica of the Ark is positioned in the holy of holies. The Ark is said by the guardian to have raised massive stone blocks with the aid of celestial fire.
Mind, Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Hiram Key - Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas
Written in an easily understandable style with a summary every few pages. This book of discovery and expose took six years of research and unravels the story of Jesus and the earliest Jerusalem church. Were there initiations practised by early Christians that were similar to Freemasonry initiations? Could these initiations originated in Egypt? Did the early Christians have connections to other religious groups such as those mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls? There are secrets of Freemasonry initiations and their possible connections to Gnostics and Templars. Parallels between Mithras, Attis, Indra, Adonis, Dionysius and others. And revelations of the origins of the Hiram Abiff story.
The lost story of Jesus is described. Was he from a town called Nazareth, or was he a Nazorean, a word meaning 'fish'? Was he the Messiah? What do the apocryphal Gnostic books state? Who was Jesus Barabbas? Was Jesus a rebel who was an Essene of the Qumran Community and what power had they in the Jerusalem Church? What is special about the white robe? What is the association with the rebuilding of Solomon's Temple, the Essenes, the Knights Templar and Freemasonry?
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: The Sword and the Grail - The Story of the Grail, the Templars and the True Discovery of America by Andrew Sinclair. This book describes the formation of the Templars and the fortunes of the survivors after the inquisition in 1307. Rosslyn Chapel was built as the Grail temple with many indications of possible Templar treasure buried there. Could America have been discovered almost a hundred years before Columbus by Venician Zen brothers and St Clair family, who arrived in Nova Scotia and New England? The St Clair family history is fascinating, from its earliest time - by a healing well in Normandy - to become the Earls of Orkney and other high offices in Scotland.
Mind Body & Soul Ezine Book Review: Tarot for Lovers by E W Neville. Published by Schiffer Publishing £13.99
The retired author, Ed Neville hails from Southern California and spent 28 years working in top management in government whilst combining studies on the Occult, Astrology and Tarot. This book was first published in 1987 - but don’t be disheartened - people haven’t changed, and the information is just as good today as it always was!
Love is so extremely important throughout our life, from cradle to the grave, but fraught with so many serious difficulties and who, as a reader, hasn’t had numerous questions about relationships? If relationship questions are your weakness, then this is the Tarot book for you! Covering the Majors, Minors and Court Cards, you can not only read for others but read for yourself!
