Taming Demons For Beginners

Meet Robin Page: outcast sorceress, mythic history buff, unapologetic bookworm, and the last person you'd expect to command the rarest demon in the long history of summoning. Though she holds his leash, this demon can't be controlled ... but can he be tamed?

Demons are evil. That's what Robin's textbooks say, but when it comes to Zylas, nothing is simple. He's cold, ruthless, and temperamental. . . but is he heartless? Robin needs to figure it out, or they'll destroy each other before the real monsters get a chance.

Meet Tori. She's feisty. She's broke. She has a bit of an issue with running her mouth off. And she just landed a job at the local magic guild. Problem is, she's also 100% human. Oops.

When a demon is loosed in the city, guild bartender Tori gets a crash course in Demonica magic--and it's about to get ugly.

I promised to avenge my parents. But their killer is still on the loose, and he's stolen more than my parents' lives. Now, as he draws closer to his mysterious goals, he's poised to destroy what little I have left. I promised to translate an ancient grimoire. But it holds the secrets of my family--and the secret history of demon summoning. I fear its answers as much as I need them. Who was the foremother of Demonica...and who am I? I promised to send my demon home. But the way he watches me, the way he protects me, the way he touches me--how can I cast him away forever? I swore I would do this for him, but can I? Should I? But I promised--and I will keep my promises even if they cost me my heart, my soul, and my life.

I thought I'd seen evil, but with each step closer to my parents' murderer, I'm uncovering a different sort of villainy, piece by hidden piece. I've stumbled into an insidious web that silently, secretly ensnares everything it touches. My demon and I came as the hunters... but I think we might be the prey.

The Taming of the Demons examines mythic and ritual themes of violence, demon taming, and blood sacrifice in Tibetan Buddhism. Taking as its starting point Tibet's so-called age of fragmentation (842 to 986 C.E.), the book draws on previously unstudied manuscripts discovered in the "library cave" near Dunhuang, on the old Silk Road. These ancient documents, it argues, demonstrate how this purportedly inactive period in Tibetan history was in fact crucial to the Tibetan assimilation of Buddhism, and particularly to the spread of violent themes from tantric Buddhism into Tibet at the local and the popular levels. Having shed light on this "dark age" of Tibetan history, the second half of the book turns to how, from the late tenth century onward, the period came to play a vital symbolic role in Tibet, as a violent historical "other" against which the Tibetan Buddhist tradition defined itself. -- Georges Dreyfus

Struggling with depression, anxiety, illness, an eating disorder, a difficult relationship, fear, self-hatred, addiction or anger? Renowned Buddhist leader Tsultrim Allione explains that the harder we fight our demons, the stronger they become. Offering Eastern answers to Western needs, Tsultrim seamlessly weaves traditions from Tibet and the Western world to offer a new and unique answer to the problems that plague us: that rather than attempt to purge them, we need to reverse our approach and nurture our demons. This powerful five-step practice forms a strategy for transforming negative emotions, relationships, fears, illness and self-defeating patterns. This will help you cope with the inner enemies that undermine our best intentions.