Believe Not 21

From 1400 through 1700, the number of reports of demonic possessions among European women was extraordinarily high. During the same period, a new type of mysticism—popular with women—emerged that greatly affected the risk of possession and, as a result, the practice of exorcism. Many feared that in moments of rapture, women, who had surrendered their souls to divine love, were not experiencing the work of angels, but rather the ravages of demons in disguise. So how then, asks Moshe Sluhovsky, were practitioners of exorcism to distinguish demonic from divine possessions? Drawing on unexplored accounts of mystical schools and spiritual techniques, testimonies of the possessed, and exorcism manuals, Believe Not Every Spirit examines how early modern Europeans dealt with this dilemma. The personal experiences of practitioners, Sluhovsky shows, trumped theological knowledge. Worried that this could lead to a rejection of Catholic rituals, the church reshaped the meaning and practices of exorcism, transforming this healing rite into a means of spiritual interrogation. In its efforts to distinguish between good and evil, the church developed important new explanatory frameworks for the relations between body and soul, interiority and exteriority, and the natural and supernatural.

The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.

The only way in which anyone can become a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ is to exercise a divinely-given faith in the once crucified but now glorified Son of God, a faith that quickens the soul, fills it with the mind of Christ, and so unites them to Jesus forever. Murray & Andrews well know that the means for arriving at faith is the Word of God. It is the question often asked by the Master, Jesus Christ, which brings us to the title of the book, “If I speak the truth, why do you not believe?” (John 8:46). Assured like the apostle Paul, as taught by the Lord, that the only mode for receiving forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified, is “faith” in Christ (Acts 26:18). Therefore, Murray & Andrews concentrate their writings on the anxious soul onto the Savior, on the one hand, and the necessity and power of faith in his own heart, on the other. By this means, they expect that under the working of the Spirit through the Word of God, the reader will be led to more fully live their life in faith, ‘the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself up for you.” (Gal. 2:20) This little book will play a valuable part in our modern Christian faith, no doubt, with its lessons helping Christians to grow spiritually. This book will awaken the need for a vital bond between Christ and the readers, leading them to a stronger faith, which is so richly needed today.

This book focuses on the key issues that affect military families when soldiers are deployed overseas, focusing on the support given to military personnel and families before, during and after missions. Today’s postmodern armies are expected to provide social-psychological support both to their personnel in military operations abroad and to their families at home. Since the end of the Cold War and even more so after 9/11, separations between military personnel and their families have become more frequent as there has been a multitude of missions carried out by multinational task forces all over the world. The book focuses on three central questions affecting military families. First, how do changing missions and tasks of the military affect soldiers and families? Second, what is the effect of deployments on the ones left behind? Third, what is the national structure of family support systems and its evolution? The book employs a multidisciplinary approach, with contributions from psychology, sociology, history, anthropology and others. In addition, it covers all the services, Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force, spanning a wide range of countries, including UK, USA, Belgium, Turkey, Australia and Japan. At the same time it takes a multitude of perspectives such as the theoretical, empirical, reflective, life events (narrative) approach, national and the global, and uses approaches from different disciplines and perspectives, combining them to produce a volume that enhances our knowledge and understanding of military families. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, war and conflict studies and IR/political science in general.

The idea of administrative justice is central to the British system of public law, more embracing than judicial review, or even administrative law itself. It embraces all the mechanisms designed to achieve a proper balance between the exercise of public and quasi-public power and those affected by the exercise of that power. This book contains revised versions of the papers given at the International Conference on Administrative Justice held in Bristol in 1997. Forty years after the publication of the Franks Committee report on Tribunals and Inquiries, the conference reflected on developments since then and sought to provoke debate about how the future might unfold. Participants included policy makers, tribunal chairs and ombudsmen, other decision-takers as well as academics - a formidable combination of expertise in the operation of the administrative justice system. Among the themes addressed in the papers are the following: the effect of the changing nature of the state on current institutions; human rights and administrative justice; the relationship between decision taking, reviews of decisions, and the adjudication of appeals; and the overview of administrative justice, taking into account lessons from abroad. The new millenium provides an opportunity for the reappraisal of the British system of administrative justice; this volume presents an indispenable repository of the ideas needed to understand how that system should develop over the coming years. Contributors: Michael Adler, Margaret Allars, Dame Elizabeth Anson, Lord Archer of Sandwell, Michael Barnes, Julia Black, Christa Christensen, David Clark, Gwynn Davis, Godfrey Cole, Suzanne Day, Julian Farrand, Tamara Goriely, Michael Harris (Ed), Neville Harris, Tony Holland, Terence Ison, Christine Lally, Douglas Lewis, Rosemary Lyster, Aileen McHarg, Walter Merricks, Linda Mulcahy, Stephen Oliver, Alan Page, Martin Partington (Ed), David Pearl, Jane Pearson, Paulyn Marrinan Quinn, John Raine, Andrew Rein, Alan Robertson, Roy Sainsbury, John Scampion, Chris Shepley, Caroline Sheppard, Patricia Thomas, Brian Thompson, Nick Wikeley, Tom Williams, Jane Worthington, Richard Young.

This interdisciplinary collection places corporate security in a theoretical and international context. Arguing that corporate security is becoming the primary form of security in the twenty-first century, it explores a range of issues including regulation, accountability, militarization, strategies of securitization and practitioner techniques.