The Spirits Up

Warm, witty, and unsettling all at once, here is an unforgettable story of a family desperate for something to believe in. Benedict is an inventor whose life’s work is a clean energy machine. It has just made him an overnight sensation and his family is suddenly wealthy. Benedict’s wife, Karen, and his teenage daughters, Charlotte and Poppy, are proud of him. But there are problems Benedict is too busy to see: Karen is deeply unhappy in the marriage and contemplating an affair, Charlotte, who is dealing with a chronic illness, is growing more and more distant, and Poppy is cracking under the pressures of her social circle. And there’s another problem. Benedict holds a rather terrible secret about his clean energy machine. Then, on Halloween night, an accident threatens to make everything far worse for the family. The accident kicks off a series of hauntings in their beautiful, historic home in affluent Belgravia, and the ghosts make it clear that they want something from them. Karen has to save her daughters — and herself. Meanwhile, Benedict is consumed by the knowledge that he has to achieve the impossible by Christmas. As time ticks ever closer to the revelation of his secret, he spirals further into despair . . . The Spirits Up is the story of a family haunted by the charmlessness of middle age and the cruelties of modern teenage life. Part social satire and part contemporary ghost story (with a hint of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol), it is an exploration of a timeless question: what happens when there’s nothing to believe?

The author of Manifesting Miracles and Money “gives readers a profound inspiration and a vibrational ‘boost’ to magnetize dramatic transformation” (UpJourney). Change is hard. But like the ever-changing, ever-expanding Universe, our ability to consciously alter ourselves, to grow, to evolve is what sets human souls apart from all other living things. And like the Universe, our best and most fruitful changes come when we expand beyond ourselves, blossoming into new and better creations with each passing day. Yes, change is hard—but it doesn’t have to be. Keep Your Spirits Up: A Simple Guide to Lift Your Vibes Sky-High Without Struggle or Pain is the third book in an ongoing series of teachings by spiritual channel and bestselling author Michelle Paisley Reed. Within the pages of this book, find the profound inspiration you’ve been searching for to expand your soul and galvanize a dramatic transformation in your life. This book can be read as a stand-alone instructional volume on spirituality or in conjunction with the first two bestselling volumes: Manifesting Miracles and Money: How to Achieve Peace, Purpose, and Plenty Without Getting in Your Own Way and Peace Is Power: A Course in Shifting Reality Through Science and Spirituality. Read this book if you want to learn about: Spiritual growth Souls Human evolution Vibrational energy Inspiration Embracing change Don’t wait: the next level of your spiritual journey starts on Page One.

What happens when three hundred alleged squatters go head-to-head with an enormous city government looking to develop the place where they live? As anthropologist Michael Herzfeld shows in this book, the answer can be surprising. He tells the story of Pom Mahakan, a tiny enclave in the heart of old Bangkok whose residents have resisted authorities’ demands to vacate their homes for a quarter of a century. It’s a story of community versus government, of old versus new, and of political will versus the law. Herzfeld argues that even though the residents of Pom Mahakan have lost every legal battle the city government has dragged them into, they have won every public relations contest, highlighting their struggle as one against bureaucrats who do not respect the age-old values of Thai/Siamese social and cultural order. Such values include compassion for the poor and an understanding of urban space as deeply embedded in social and ritual relations. In a gripping account of their standoff, Herzfeld—who simultaneously argues for the importance of activism in scholarship—traces the agile political tactics and styles of the community’s leadership, using their struggle to illuminate the larger difficulties, tensions, and unresolved debates that continue to roil Thai society to this day.

In the 1860s a turbulent and battered Mexico fought for its survival against a French invasion. For a moment in time, the world order as we know it today was in question. The nascent United States, an independent Mexico, Europe the worlds balance of power hung in the balance in a chaotic swirl of plots and intrigues.Yet from this struggle was born a deep national pride and sense of confidence as Mexico, too long a nation taken for granted, rose to the challenge and united in heroic resistance. Follow the action as the interests of Mexicans, Confederates, Unionists, French, and English collide. Emperors scheme and flail, soldiers fight and die, nations clash and in the vortex, one young boy follows his heart to defend his country and become a man.

Focuses on the problem of communication with the other world: the phenomenon of spirit possession and its changing historical interpretations, the imaginary schemes elaborated for giving accounts of the journeys to the other world, for communicating with the dead, and finally the historical archetypes of this kind of religious manifestation—trance prophecy, divination, and shamanism.Recognized historians and ethnologists analyze the relationship, coexistence and conflicts of popular belief systems, Judeo-Christian mythology and demonology in medieval and modern Europe. The essays address links between rites and beliefs, folklore and literature; the legacy of various pre-Christian mythologies; the syncretic forms of ancient, medieval and modern belief- and rite-systems; "pure" examples from religious-ethnological research outside Europe to elucidate European problems.

- Xlibris Podcast Part 1: http://www.xlibrispodcasts.com/the-battle-for-the-spirits-of-mankind-1/ - Xlibris Podcast Part 2: http://www.xlibrispodcasts.com/the-battle-for-the-spirits-of-mankind-2/ - Xlibris Podcast Part 3: http://www.xlibrispodcasts.com/the-battle-for-the-spirits-of-mankind-3/ - Xlibris Podcast Part 4: http://www.xlibrispodcasts.com/the-battle-for-the-spirits-of-mankind-4/ - Xlibris Podcast Part 5: http://www.xlibrispodcasts.com/the-battle-for-the-spirits-of-mankind-5/

In Walking with Spirits, I share my process for connecting and working with spirits that enables you to get consistent results, while building collaborative relationships with the spirits you work with. Working with spirits doesn’t have to involve the coercion of spirits that you find in conventional approaches to spirit work. What I share is an alternative approach that enables you to develop a friendly relationship with the spirits you work with and allows you to get results. Instead of trying to force a spirit to do something for you, you’ll learn the following: How to create a rapport with spirits that allows you to become allies. Why a co-equal relationship with spirits is better than any other type of relationship you could form. What the problems are with conventional Western spirit work techniques such as what you find in the grimoires. How to use experiential embodiment to connect with spirits. How to use a simplified approach to invocation and evocation that allows you to work with spirits and get results. If you’re ready to learn a different approach to working with spirits, where you don’t create enemies, and instead have life long relationships where you and the spirits from working with each other, Walking with Spirits will show you a different path for working with spirits that gets you results.

• Mongolian shamaness Sarangerel provides a hands-on guide for serious students of the shamanic path. • Includes complete directions for traditional Siberian rituals, meditations, and divination techniques never before published. • Shows how to recognize and acknowledge a call from the spirits. • Offers traditional wisdom for nurturing a working relationship with personal spirit helpers to promote healing and balance in a community. The shaman's purpose is to heal and restore balance to his or her community by developing a working relationship with the spirit world. Mongolian shamanic tradition maintains that all true shamans are called by the spirits--but those who are not from shamanic cultures may have difficulty recognizing the call or nurturing the essential shamanic relationship with their helper spirits. Buryat shamaness Sarangerel has written Chosen by the Spirits as a guide for both the beginning shaman and the advanced practitioner. Although raised in the United States, she was drawn to the shamanic tradition, and in 1991 returned to her ancestral homeland in the Tunken region of southern Siberia to study with traditional Buryat shamans. Her first book, Riding Windhorses, provided an introduction to the shamanic world of Siberia. Chosen by the Spirits delves more deeply into the personal relationship between the shamanic student and his or her "spirit family." Sarangerel recounts her own journey into shamanic practice and provides the serious student with practical advice and hands-on techniques for recognizing and acknowledging a shamanic calling, welcoming and embodying the spirits, journeying to the spirit world, and healing both people and places.