The Medium And The Light

Say the name Marshall McLuhan and you think of the great discover's explorations of the media. But throughout his life, McLuhan never stopped reflecting profoundly on the nature of God and worship, and on the traditions of the Church. Often other intellectuals and artists would ask him incredulously, Are you really a Catholic? He would answer, Yes, I am a Catholic, the worst kind -- a convert, leaving them more baffled than before. Here, like a golden thread lining his public utterances on the media, are McLuhan's brilliant probes into the nature of conversion, the church's understanding of media, the shape of tomorrow's church, religion and youth, and the God-making machines of the modern world. This fascinating collection, gathered from his many and scattered remarks, essays, and other writings, shows the deeply Christian side of a man widely considered the most important thinker of our time, a man whose insights into media and culture have revolutionized the field of media study and the way we see the world.

Say the name Marshall McLuhan and you think of the great discover's explorations of the media. But throughout his life, McLuhan never stopped reflecting profoundly on the nature of God and worship, and on the traditions of the Church. Often other intellectuals and artists would ask him incredulously, "Are you really a Catholic?" He would answer, "Yes, I am a Catholic, the worst kind -- a convert," leaving them more baffled than before. Here, like a golden thread lining his public utterances on the media, are McLuhan's brilliant probes into the nature of conversion, the church's understanding of media, the shape of tomorrow's church, religion and youth, and the God-making machines of the modern world. This fascinating collection, gathered from his many and scattered remarks, essays, and other writings, shows the deeply Christian side of a man widely considered the most important thinker of our time, a man whose insights into media and culture have revolutionized the field of media study and the way we see the world.

If anyone had good reason to join the league of the “Nones,” the “Dones,” and the deconstructionists, it would be Zach Hoag. After growing up and out of the compound walls of a Texas cult, and becoming a failed church planter in one of the most post-Christian cities in America, Zach was faced with both a crisis and a choice. He loved Jesus, yet questioned: If the church is such a broken system, is it really worth belonging to anymore? The viral upswing of the “spiritual but not religious” trend has cast religion as going rapidly out of style. Yet even in his own desert of deconstruction, Zach couldn’t shake his desire for a spiritual home. His search ultimately led him to look behind the statistics, where Zach found an astonishing undercurrent subversively at work. The truth, as Zach discovered, is that we are in a cultural moment of apocalypse. Not an end-of-the-world apocalypse, but in the very literal sense of the word which translates simply, “a revealing.” Perhaps the downtrend of Christian faith in America is just the kind of Great Revealing we need to show us who we really are as American Christians, who Jesus really is in our midst, and how we can step into the flourishing faith he has always intended for us. For anyone who is anxious about the future of the church and their place in it, The Light Is Winning rallies to an unexpected, unshakeable hope: Could it be that we’ve made religion out to be the culprit when in fact, religion is just what we need to revive us? Could it be that our struggle for relevance must come to a necessary end, so that we can get to the real? After all, isn’t this the essence of the story of God: death paves the way for a resurrected, deeply rooted, flourishing faith. Such faith can be yours. The Light Is Winning will show you how.

Although aimed at keen amateur photographers who wish to break into the professional market, the superb images and technical expertise offer something for all levels of skill and will also inspire those just becoming interested in photography and more established photographers who need to re-focus their photographic motivation. The book's primary goal is to draw the attention of readers to the absolute importance of light and how to make the best use of it, with an emphasis on being in the right place at the right time, anticipating fine light and ensuring that for the short duration that those qualities are present, they are successfully recorded to film or pixel. However, composition and technical expertise are also vitally important and Ian outlines the best field techniques for choosing the correct exposure, discusses depth of field, hyper-focal focusing, exposure bracketing and the use of appropriate filters.

Described by Professor Hans Holzer, a leading authority in America on the paranormal, as the greatest medium of our time, Philip Solomon shares his amazing story, from his childhood psychic experiences of been born into a mediumistically gifted family with show business connections, through his many strands of spiritual and psychical development, to the finely honed, highly attuned state of awareness he has achieved. For those of you who think that mediumship is merely passing on messages from beyond the grave to members of a Spiritualist church or theatre audience, then your eyes are about to be opened, as this book covers predictions, meditation, hypnotism, sports psychology, guides and angels, ghosts and the paranormal, healing, astrology, leylines and UFOs, with an emphasis on the innate ability in each and every one of us to develop psychic awareness. With a fitting foreword by respected fellow-medium, Derek Acorah, this book will definitely challenge your perceptions and broaden your outlook on life, both on the earth plane and in the spirit world beyond. In this and his many previous books, Philip Solomons intentions and convictions are clear. He has been chosen by Spirit to walk a sometimes difficult pathway on a mission to prove beyond doubt the existence of life after death and other-worldliness and to assure those that have lost loved ones that death is not the end.

"Laura Lynne Jackson is a psychic medium and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Light Between Us. She possesses an incredible gift--the ability to communicate with loved ones who have passed, convey messages of love and healing, and impart a greater understanding of our interconnectedness. Though her abilities are exceptional, they are not unique, and that is the message at the core of this book. Understanding "the secret language of the universe" is a gift available to all. As we learn to ask for and recognize signs from the other side, we will start to find meaning where before there was only confusion, we will see light in the darkness. We may decide to change paths, push toward love, pursue joy, and engage with life in a whole new way. In Signs, Jackson is able to bring the mystical into the everyday. She relates stories of people who have experienced these uncanny revelations and instances of unexplained synchronicity, as well as those drawn from her own experience. There's the producer whose lost child appears to her as a deer that approaches her unhesitatingly at a highway rest stop; the name tag of an ER nurse that lets a terrified wife know that her husband will be okay; the Elvis Presley song that arrives at the exact time of her own father's passing; and many others. This is a book that is both inspiring and practical, deeply comforting and wonderfully motivational in asking us to see beyond ourselves to a more magnificent universal design"--

Rescue mediums make up the rarest form of mediumship and are highly trained in the art of spirit rescue--fighting to free souls separated from the light. With constant conflict between positive and negative forces, rescue mediums work with spiritual teams to provide guidance to the lost. Written in an easy-to-understand style, this comprehensive and instructive guide provides an in-depth supplementary process for mastering what is required to enhance your mediumship skill in rescue situations, which consists of four main components when interacting with earthbound spirits--communication, counseling, clearing, and guidance--these abilities, and more, must be developed and enhanced to form a strong link with spirits. Some of the topics covered are how to assist direct and indirect rescue techniques, spirit attachment detection and removal, spiritual doors and vortexes, residual energy clearing, how to build your spiritual team, and differences between negative spirits and demonic entities. Rescue mediumship is not easy, but now you have another tool to light your way!

National Book Award Finalist From the dazzlingly original Pulitzer Prize-winning poet hailed for her “extraordinary range and ambition” (The New York Times Book Review): a quietly potent memoir that explores coming-of-age and the meaning of home against a complex backdrop of race, faith, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter. The youngest of five children, Tracy K. Smith was raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But just as Tracy is about to leave home for college, her mother is diagnosed with cancer, a condition she accepts as part of God’s plan. Ordinary Light is the story of a young woman struggling to fashion her own understanding of belief, loss, history, and what it means to be black in America. In lucid, clear prose, Smith interrogates her childhood in suburban California, her first collision with independence at Harvard, and her Alabama-born parents’ recollections of their own youth in the Civil Rights era. These dizzying juxtapositions—of her family’s past, her own comfortable present, and the promise of her future—will in due course compel Tracy to act on her passions for love and “ecstatic possibility,” and her desire to become a writer. Shot through with exquisite lyricism, wry humor, and an acute awareness of the beauty of everyday life, Ordinary Light is a gorgeous kaleidoscope of self and family, one that skillfully combines a child’s and teenager’s perceptions with adult retrospection. Here is a universal story of being and becoming, a classic portrait of the ways we find and lose ourselves amid the places we call home.