READING, WRITING, AND RAISING THE DEAD When Chess Putnam is ordered by an infamous crime boss—who also happens to be her drug dealer—to use her powers as a witch to solve a grisly murder involving dark magic, she knows she must rise to the challenge. Adding to the intensity: Chess’s boyfriend, Terrible, doesn’t trust her, and Lex, the son of a rival crime lord, is trying to reignite the sparks between him and Chess. Plus there’s the little matter of Chess’s real job as a ghost hunter for the Church of Real Truth, investigating reports of a haunting at a school in the heart of Downside. Someone seems to be taking a crash course in summoning the dead—and if Chess doesn’t watch her back, she may soon be joining their ranks. As Chess is drawn into a shadowy world of twisted secrets and dark violence, it soon becomes clear that she’s not going to emerge from its depths without making the ultimate sacrifice.

This volume contains a series of provocative essays that explore expressions of magic and ritual power in the ancient world. The strength of the present volume lies in the breadth of scholarly approaches represented. The book begins with several papyrological studies presenting important new texts in Greek and Coptic, continuing with essays focussing on taxonomy and definition. The concluding essays apply contemporary theories to analyses of specific test cases in a broad variety of ancient Mediterranean cultures. Paul Mirecki, Th.D. (1986) in Religious Studies, Harvard Divinity School, is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. Marvin Meyer, Ph.D. (1979) in Religion, Claremont Graduate School, is Professor of Religion at Chapman University, Orange, California, and Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity.

Set in the war-ravaged world of Mordredica, ancient battlefield of the Gods and prison of the Forty Sorcerers, the BattleAxe RPG takes players to a deep fantasy world steeped in mystery and lore.Fully revised and reformatted in a 6"x9", printer-friendly pdf.Includes the complete supplement, The Creeping Dead, and both versions of the hero record sheets.

A comprehensive illustrated reference guide with more than 400 entries on the subjects of magic and alchemy.

Sacrificial Limbs chronicles the everyday lives and political activism of disabled veterans of Turkey’s Kurdish war, one of the most volatile conflicts in the Middle East. Through nuanced ethnographic portraits, Açiksöz examines how veterans’ experiences of war and disability are closely linked to class, gender, and ultimately the embrace of ultranationalist right-wing politics. Bringing the reader into military hospitals, commemorations, political demonstrations, and veterans’ everyday spaces of care, intimacy, and activism, Sacrificial Limbs provides a vivid analysis of the multiple and sometimes contradictory forces that fashion veterans’ bodies, political subjectivities, and communities. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in anthropology, masculinity, and disability.

One treasure down, two to go … Three months ago, I nearly lost my best friend while retrieving the first instrument of assassination. I also inadvertently released a rival who was definitely unhinged, way more powerful than me, and obsessed with harnessing the deadly power of the artifacts I’d been tasked by the guardian dragons to collect. Add a sexy sentinel and a nearly immortal vampire to the mix, and what could possibly go wrong? Knowing my luck, I was about to find out. Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic is the fifth book in the Dowser series, which is set in the same universe as the Oracle, Reconstructionist, Amplifier, Archivist, and Misfits of the Adept Universe series. While it is not necessary to read all the series, in order to avoid spoilers the ideal reading order of the Adept Universe begins with Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1).

In the cursed town of Catori Springs, the dead can never rest. Amid spine-chilling visions of ghosts and disembodied voices warning her about the upcoming Homecoming dance, Marceline Lees fears she’s gone insane. On her seventeenth birthday, Marceline awakens a magical power to see and talk to ghosts. As the mysteries of the small town unravel, Marceline may be the only one who can break the curse which traps all ghosts within the Catori Springs’ boundaries. Navigating high school is hard enough dealing with the living. Add in a vengeful teenage ghost, and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. Lives, and afterlives, hinge on one teen witch. Can Marceline break the town's curse and set the trapped spirits free as lives hang in the balance? Don't miss out on book one of this spell-binding YA paranormal fantasy series. Get your copy now.

Scope: theology, philosophy, ethics of various religions and ethical systems and relevant portions of anthropology, mythology, folklore, biology, psychology, economics and sociology.

In all religions of the world which maintain sacrificial rituals and in which the portion offered to Gods is given to fire, that portion is normally offered raw except in Vedic India, where its previous cooking is necessary.