America has been a fortunate land, as Will Rogers noted. If we needed to build a house, there was all the wood at hand; if we wanted coal or iron, there was aplenty for the scratching, or if we sought oil, all we had to do was stick a pipe in the ground. But, as he said, we would find out how smart we were when all that came to an end. And that is what is happening. Nothing lasts forever except change, and denial that the future will be different is simply dysfunctional. There is Global Warming, pollution, and running out of resources, which will come to control us painfully if we will not face up to them. Altered Visions are not an option.

There is no question that every person will have a dream at one point or another. Some will even have visions. Bestselling author Stone answers readers questions regarding the symbolism of dreams and what they mean.

"A comprehensive look at the work of 100 contemporary photographers who capture the impact of human activity on natural landscapes. The Altered Landscape is a provocative collection of photographs representing a wide range of artists, techniques, visual styles, subjects, and ideological positions. Organized chronologically, the more than 150 images-by artists such as Andy Goldsworthy, Chris Jordan, Catherine Opie, and Edward Burtynsky-reveal the ways that individuals and industries have marked, mined, toured, tested, developed, occupied, and exploited landscapes over the last fifty years. From Robert Adams and Lewis Baltz, two of the most influential photographers to document environmental destruction in the American West, to Richard Misrach and Mark Klett, who examine abuse of natural resources, these moving images reveal the diversity of voices within the field of contemporary photography. In Association with the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno."--Publisher's website.

The confessions of Isobel Gowdie are widely recognised as the most extraordinary on record in Britain. Using historical, psychological, comparative religious and anthropological perspectives, this book sets out to separate the voice of Isobel Gowdie from that of her interrogators.

Consuming Visions explores the relationship between cinema and writing in early twentieth-century Brazil, focusing on how the new and foreign medium of film was consumed by a literary society in the throes of modernization. Maite Conde places this relationship in the specific context of turn-of-the-century Rio de Janeiro, which underwent a radical transformation to a modern global city, becoming a concrete symbol of the country's broader processes of change and modernization. Analyzing an array of literary texts, from journalistic essays and popular women's novels to anarchist treatises and vaudeville plays, the author shows how the writers' encounters with the cinema were consistent with the significant changes taking place in the city. The arrival and initial development of the cinema in Brazil were part of the new urban landscape in which early Brazilian movies not only articulated the processes of the city's modernization but also enabled new urban spectators--women, immigrants, a new working class, and a recently liberated slave population--to see, believe in, and participate in its future. In the process, these early movies challenged the power of the written word and of Brazilian writers, threatening the hegemonic function of writing that had traditionally forged the contours of the nation's cultural life. An emerging market of consumers of the new cultural phenomena--popular theater, the department store, the factory, illustrated magazines--reflected changes that not only modernized literary production but also altered the very life and everyday urban experiences of the population. Consuming Visions is an ambitious and engaging examination of the ways in which mass culture can become an agent of intellectual and aesthetic transformation.

William Blake is acknowledged as a poet of opposition and contradiction: a writer who, from Songs of Innocence and Experience to his last epic Jerusalem, ceaselessly explored the conflicts between limitation and possibility, reason and energy, torment and joy. But the contradictions within Blake's own 'visionary' poetics are less often considered. Throughout his work, Blake powerfully dramatises the energies and agonies of his own poetic labour.

'Weekend' is a collection of 12 simple, modern knits for women, men and children. Knits you can live in on the weekend; knits you can create in a weekend. Knit using bulky and super bulky yarn, these sweaters and accessories exude comfort and ease. My mission is to create casual, contemporary, wearable handknits that can serve as foundation pieces in anyone's wardrobe. Approachable patterns that aren't too complex, making knitters say, "I want to make that " I'm a minimalist at heart and I truly believe less is more, and simple is good. To me, simple equals wearable. Simple equals doable. And there's no greater satisfaction than finishing a hand-knit piece, trying it on and falling in love with it. My goal as a knitter is to make go-to pieces that feel just right, like my favorite soft gray pullover from college. If you spend precious time knitting a garment, you want to love it and wear it a lot. It's as simple as that. That, to me, is the definition of hand-knit success. And that's what I hope to share with you in this collection.

Gnostic texts are filled with encounters of strange other worldly beings, journeys to visionary heavenly realms, and encounters with the presence and spirit of the divine. In Gnostic visions, author and Gnostic scholar Luke A. Myers presents evidence demonstrating how Gnostic visions were created and the connection these visions have to naturally occurring visionary compounds that are still in existence today. The culmination of more than ten years of research, Gnostic Visions advances the understanding of classical ethnobotany, Gnosticism, and the genesis of early Christian history. In this book the author discusses the prehistoric foundations of early human religion as well as the visionary religious traditions of the classical Greeks and Egyptians. Using these as a foundation, the book presents new and never before seen research explaining how Gnostic visions were created and what types of compounds were used by these ancient people to create them. Gnostic Visions presents evidence directly linking visionary Ayahuasca analogs with the creation of Gnostic and Hermetic visionary experiences. Gnostic Visions also describes the decline of Gnosticism, other visionary practices used in the Dark Ages and gives a brief tour of the visionary plants of the new world. In Gnostic visions, Myers tells of his personal experience with the divine and includes some of his own reflections of the importance of mankinds relationship to the natural world. He communicates that altered states of consciousness have been responsible for many of the most profound mystical religious experiences in human history.

In Warring Visions, Thy Phu explores photography from dispersed communities throughout Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora, both during and after the Vietnam War, to complicate narratives of conflict and memory. While the visual history of the Vietnam War has been dominated by American documentaries and war photography, Phu turns to photographs circulated by the Vietnamese themselves, capturing a range of subjects, occasions, and perspectives. Phu's concept of warring visions refers to contrasts in the use of war photos in North Vietnam, which highlighted national liberation and aligned themselves with an international audience, and those in South Vietnam, which focused on family and everyday survival. Phu also uses warring visions to enlarge the category of war photography, a genre that usually consists of images illustrating the immediacy of combat and the spectacle of violence, pain, and wounded bodies. She pushes this genre beyond such definitions by analyzing pictures of family life, weddings, and other quotidian scenes of life during the war. Phu thus expands our understanding of how war is waged, experienced, and resolved.

The Druid's Peace & the Sorcerer's Eye The practice of magical arts requires a mind trained in the ability to produce altered states of awareness at will. Magical work is supported by the ability to calm the heart and mind, to work with the energies of the Inner World, and to see and journey among the spirits. The Book of Visions provides lessons in the skills of meditation and vision. The methods are presented in a series that can serve as progressive lessons, or stand alone. Presented within a Pagan Druidic framework, the methods are easily adaptable to other Pagan systems. The lessons include: - Meditation - Finding Your Peace - The Two Powers; Underworld and Heavens - The Threshold Realm, & the Vision Journey; - The Inner Grove; a personal place of power. - The Nineteen Working: a spiritual practiced based firmly on Gaelic lore. Ian Corrigan is an Archdruid Emeritus and a Senior Priest of Ar nDraiocht Fein (ADF.