From the bestselling author of The Secret History of the World, an exploration of the mystical forces that shape and protect us The Sacred History is an account of the workings of the supernatural in history. It tells the epic story of angels, from Creation, to Evolution through to the operations of the supernatural in the modern world. This tale of how people and peoples have been helped by angels and other angelic beings is woven into a spellbinding narrative that brings together Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Elijah, Mary and Jesus, Mohammed, Joan of Arc, the angels who helped Hungarian Jews persecuted by the Nazis, and stories from African, Native American and Celtic traditions. Told from the spiritual point of view, The Sacred History relates every betrayal, every change of heart, every twist and turn, everything that looks like a coincidence, every portent, every clue, every defeat, every rescue moments before the prison door clangs shut. This is the angelic version of events.

Sacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective. Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern present a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two separate but complementary religious tendencies, immanentism and transcendentalism, which mold kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. Whereas immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence turns the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives. Secular modernity does not end the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but only displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals. After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that ranges from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book contains chapters on religion and kingship in settings as far-flung as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS. Sacred Kingship in World History sheds new light on how religion has constructed rulership, with implications spanning global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.

The first geographically broad, comparative survey of early modern 'sacred history', or writing on the history of the Christian Church, its leaders and saints, and its internal developments, in the two centuries from c. 1450 to c. 1650.

For 250 years, the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr—the vast desert region to the northwest of Tibet—have led an uneasy existence under Chinese rule. Today they call themselves Uyghurs, and they have cultivated a sense of history and identity that challenges Beijing’s official national narrative. Rian Thum argues that the roots of this history run deeper than recent conflicts, to a time when manuscripts and pilgrimage dominated understandings of the past. Beyond broadening our knowledge of tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government, this meditation on the very concept of history probes the limits of human interaction with the past. Uyghur historical practice emerged from the circulation of books and people during the Qing Dynasty, when crowds of pilgrims listened to history readings at the tombs of Islamic saints. Over time, amid long journeys and moving rituals, at oasis markets and desert shrines, ordinary readers adapted community-authored manuscripts to their own needs. In the process they created a window into a forgotten Islam, shaped by the veneration of local saints. Partly insulated from the rest of the Islamic world, the Uyghurs constructed a local history that is at once unique and assimilates elements of Semitic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic traditions—the cultural imports of Silk Road travelers. Through both ethnographic and historical analysis, The Sacred Routes of Uyghur History offers a new understanding of Uyghur historical practices, detailing the remarkable means by which this people reckons with its past and confronts its nationalist aspirations in the present day.

Rescued from being a lost book, this history's last manuscript lay deep within the Vatican Archives, this classic historical text is now, for the first time, being published for the modern reader. Sulpicius Severus is best known for his biography of St. Martin of Tours and his Sacred History (also known as the Chronicle.) Sacred History is a brief history of the world from the beginning to his own time and in the latter portions focuses on the Priscillianist heresy that disordered his home province of Aquitaina which is in modern day France, as well as the Arian controversy. Severus prefers a purely historical interpretation of the scriptures in reaction to the gnostic philosophy that entrenched his region that reduced the sacred history to mere allegory. The Sacred History is written in classic style, such as what is found in Tacitus, and is intended to introduce lovers of history to the histories of the Bible.

"Sacred Sites honors the power and beauty of our indigenous heritage and homeland. By knowing our history we better understand the present and our journey into the future."---Anthony Morales, tribal chair, Gabrielino Tongva Council of San Gabriel --

In his utopian novel Hiera Anagraphe (Sacred History) Euhemerus of Messene (ca. 300 B.C.) describes his travel to the island Panchaia in the Indian Ocean where he discovered an inscribed stele in the temple of Zeus Triphylius. It turned out that the Olympian gods (Uranos, Kronos, Zeus) were deified kings. The travels of Zeus allowed to describe peoples and places all over the world. Winiarczyk investigates the sources of the theological views of Euhemerus. He proves that Euhemerus’ religious views were rooted in old Greek tradition (the worship of heroes, gods as founders of their own cult, tombs of gods, euergetism, rationalistic interpretation of myths, the explanations of the origin of religion by the sophists, the ruler cult). The description of the Panchaian society is intended to suggest an archaic and closed culture, in which the stele recording res gestae of the deified kings might have been preserved. The translation of Ennius’ Euhemerus sive Sacra historia (ca. 200 - ca. 194) is a free prose rendering, which Lactantius knew only indirectly. The book is concluded by a short history of Euhemerism in the pagan, Christian and Jewish literature.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "all relevant illustrations from the book, arranged in alphabetical order according to mythological character. To increase the usefulness of the [CD-ROM], supplementary images not in the book have been added[.]"--P. xv.

This collection of stories and illustrations—all about the wonders of the spiritual realm—takes you on a captivating ride from the great myths of ancient civilization to astounding discoveries of the modern era. Written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret History of the World, The Sacred History takes you on a captivating journey through the great myths of ancient civilizations to the astounding discoveries of the modern era. The Sacred History is the epic story of human interaction with angels and other forms of higher intelligence, starting from Creation all the way through to the operations of the supernatural in the modern world. What emerges is an alternative history of great men and women, guided by angels or demons, and the connection between modern-day mystics and their ancient counterparts. This spellbinding historical narrative brings together great figures—such as Krishna, Moses, Buddha, Elijah, Mary and Jesus, and Mohammed—and stories from African, Native American, and Celtic traditions. Woven into this is an amazing array of mystical connections, including the surprising roots not only of astrology and alternative medicine but also of important literary and artistic movements, aspects of mainstream science and religion and a wide range of cultural references that takes in modern cinema, music and literature. This is a book of true stories, but it is also a book about stories. It shows how they can tell us things about the deep structure of the human experience that are sometimes forgotten, revealing mysterious and mystic patterns, and helping us to see the operation of the supernatural in our own lives.