Equinox Books

Childrens book, but even for that, din motivate stuff appropriately. I had to give it half heartedly to the kid having thrown money :-((

THIS GUIDE IS VERY USEFUL AND INTERESTING. WE ARE TOTALLY BEGINNERS AND FACINATED AT THAT.

I bought this for our science homeschool since it had a children's award and we just got a telescope. I was disappointed that the first page covers the Big Bang theory - an explosion formed the sun and earth - as well as on page 25. Then on pages 46-47 it covers extraterrestrials. It says "most people believe we are not alone", and "most of us would like to believe that we are not alone in this vast universe". Although he states there is no scientific evidence of alien life, he goes on to fantasize about what aliens could be like, ending with the statement that they would be so far ahead of us technologically, that they may have seen us and since we look primitive they decided not to contact us! I'm going to return the book. Although the other information is well written and the pictures are helpful, I find his big bang and alien assumptions improper food for the minds of my young. I feel sorry for the author, for he would not feel so alone in the universe if he realized there is a God.

I bought this for our science homeschool since it had a children's award and we just got a telescope. I was disappointed that the first page covers the Big Bang theory - an explosion formed the sun and earth - as well as on page 25. Then on pages 46-47 it covers extraterrestrials. It says "most people believe we are not alone", and "most of us would like to believe that we are not alone in this vast universe". Although he states there is no scientific evidence of alien life, he goes on to fantasize about what aliens could be like, ending with the statement that they would be so far ahead of us technologically, that they may have seen us and since we look primitive they decided not to contact us! I'm going to return the book. Although the other information is well written and the pictures are helpful, I find his big bang and alien assumptions improper food for the minds of my young. I feel sorry for the author, for he would not feel so alone in the universe if he realized there is a God.

My eight-year-old grandson practically ate up this book, he was so excited and interested. He had gotten a telescope for Christmas and this book brought his explorations of the night sky to life.

It would be nice to have the whole collection, which I plan to do for my granddaughters. Either to read to them, or have them read on their own, as it's easy to understand. I enjoyed reading it myself.

These Equiox and the Solstice books are cute and fun to read, at the end of the book are crafts and ideas to do with your children for the Equinox. I also like all the history it has in it, I learned quite a bit myself!! :)

My son has family members that celebrate both Christian and Pagan holidays. I found this book and others are a great way to put all of our traditions in a historical and equal light. We've been reading it since he was four but I recommend it for 1st graders and older doing a few pages a night.

Another reviewer said this book has crafts or ideas at the end. NOPE!!! It is a set of 1 page stories about how different cultures in the past waited for the suns return. I liked the short tale at the end and the page that explains the science of what makes the seasons change.
Overall, I found this book too boring to hold the attention of my kids. I expected some fun ideas for the season and the book didn't include any.

Some of the facts were fun and the author nicely tied them to modern day.
"Romans gave presents to their friends and relatives, like we do now at Christmas." The pictures were also nice and bright.
This book is completely non-denominational, which is a nice change but not what I expected from the title and description. Sadly, I was kind of hoping that this book would be a good introduction to Yule for kids. It is not!
The part about sacrificing llamas made my kids angry. I don't really like that they now have to bring that one point up every time we mention Yule.
While this book isn't a total waste, it is not at all what I had hoped for. I look forward to seeing good books that will actually explain the old holidays to kids. This book just doesn't do it.

great way to explain pagan rites to Children. We will use this in our children's circle. Also briefly mentions Christianity in relation to pagan symbols

Joseph Campbell's entire contribution to this piece consists of a few pages at the beginning--basically, Campbell seems to have written an intro to Roberts' book, and Roberts decided to gravytrain on the Power of Myth phenomenon by adding Campbell's name to the author list.

The book that Roberts wrote is a moderately interesting examination of the Waite-Rider arcana through a Jungian lens, but I was so ticked off that I'd been sold a book that perported to be by Campbell and yet had finished the portion written by Campbell in about fifteen minutes that I didn't get much out of it. My problem, I know, but the bait-and-switch thing REALLY bothered me!

I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone interested in the interperetations of the Tarot cards and how they relate to the initiatory Magickal systems of organizations like the Golden Dawn and even Freemasonry. Joseph Campbell (who needs no introduction!) writes on the French Mersailes deck, and Richard Roberts does a wonderful job with the Waite-Rider deck, including an explanation of his "Magic Nine" arrangement that is probably the most revealing layout of the cards. The authors focus less on the divinitory aspects of Tarot and more on the individuals journey through the mysteries of the Cosmos as outlined by the symbolism of the Tarot. Get this book! You will be glad you did.

a uniquely elegant and informative look inside the world of Tarot by a powerful collaboration indeed.

Tarot from a Jungian and mythological perspective is what you will get with this highly interesting work.

For years, I ignored the Tarot because I thought it was a frivolous card game and that material written about it was cultish at worst and childish at best. It did not help that Tarot cards on the market were manufactured by American Games. I became interested in the Tarot cards because Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell, and as Moyers had never struck me as a kook, I thought perhaps Campbell was worth getting to know. Getting to know Campbell led me to TAROT REVELATIONS.

Much of my formal education concerns the social sciences including ethnography and the study of religion, myths, belief systems, etc. As a professional social scientist in a job that deals with ethnic issues, I have struggled to operationally define and measure ethnicity, and view cultural elements including myths as the basis of belief systems around which various ethnic groups organize their societies. I have arrived at the conclusion that most of the smaller systems are doomed, but fortunately, anthropologists and others have recorded enough material that we may still study the myths of our ancestors. Joseph Campbell points the way.

Mark Twain is purported to have said, don't let school get in the way of your education. Like Twain, Campbell--a highly educated man and a college professor--was able to break out of the mold of formal education and develop a fresh viewpoint concerning the world and what makes it tick. In other words, he was able to get past the mental censorship of academe.

In TAROT REVELATIONS, Campbell takes a leaf from Sir James Frazier's book 'The Golden Bough' and suggests a core set of concepts underlie all belief systems. He suggests Jungian psychologists have their own terms for these mythical elements which Jung recognized ages ago. As an empirical test of his idea that mythical elements have universal meanings, he compares the Tarot cards of the Major Arcana with the works of Dante and notes their similarities. He also demonstates how the cards can be used to illustrate the "ideal life, lived virtuously according to the knightly codes of the Middle Ages."

In the remainder of the book, Richard Roberts, a student of Campbell, shows how the cards reflect the various mythological belief systems of historical peoples in the ancient world--Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Keltoi, Iberians, etc. Roberts uses a deck designed about 100 years ago by A.E.Waite, a member of a group interested in arcane matters that included many illustrious members including W.B.Yeats. Waite did not invent the cards, he merely redesigned them using historical sources such as Tarot decks from the Middle Ages. Waite hired Pamela Coleman, an artist and fellow New Dawn member to illustrate the cards. Coleman, a Jamaican by birth with occult interests of her own was later "discovered" by Afred Stigliz who arranged for a showing of her works in New York City.

Roberts compares the elements in the Tarot deck with various myth based and arcane systems including alchemy, astrology, and Hermetic teaching. The Tarot deck is absolutely loaded with connections to all these systems. One could argue that some very educated folks constructed this deck, but the elements of the Tarot cards are recorded back to the mid-1300s thanks to Church Inquisitors who took an interest in the Cathars. Folks in the 1300s did not have had the expertise required to "construct" the cards from scratch because the cards reflect the heavens (arrangement of constellations, solstices, equinoxes, etc.) in about 2000 B.C.E. No one in the 1300s understood astronomy well enough to deduce how the heavens might have looked 3500 years earlier and if s/he did they sure kept it hidden--as in occult knowledge. Since Europeans in the 1300s were struggling with establishing the dates for the moveable feasts (they could not figure out when Easter would come 10 years hence) it strikes me that if anyone could have provided an answer they would have provided an answer--depending on how they felt about the church.

Information about the heavens between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C.E. can be found in the ruins of the ancient world--Stonehenge, the Azetec temples, the Pyramids so there is a great deal of evidence that the ancients understood their moment in time. Events moved too slowly for them to understand that 4,000 years after they lived the spring equinox would not fall in the sign of Taurus. However, Roberts suggests the ancient Persians figured out many things about the heavens and incorporated this knowledge into their belief systems. After all, those Magi who found Christ were onto something. Much of the knowledge of ancient Persia was locked away in Constantinople to be discovered years later by prying minds.

So, the Tarot cards are very old because the knowledge in them is very old. The Tarot cards represent the distilled knowledge of ancient peoples including the Persians who had a Mithraic code that still manifests itself in Zoroastrianism today (number one religion on Islam's hit list in Iran). Archeologists have long argued diffusion versus spontaneous theories regarding the spread of cultural elements including creation tales. Roberts does not take sides, but suggests the information in the cards could support either view point. Whether the information captured in the Tarot cards was discovered by many people in different places at different times or in one place and later spread across the world does not matter. The truth is, humans have been stuggling with the meaning of life for a long time, and while no one has the final answer the Tarot cards are a leading competitor.

Though praised as one of Crowley's better works, it is actually his most mundane. I got it because I found it at a really low discount price and I was looking to get the few actual books by Crowley on the market I don't already own. This is because I know almost all there is to know about Crowley and his beliefs and practices so it made for easy reading. Still though a solid and well written book for those seriously interested in the teachings of prophet Crowley. The book is easy reading because the chapters all are only about one half of a page each.

This book has some real character to it. Its topics and generalities are sometimes predictable. although the book was written in an olde english sort of manner, its delivery is stellar. One should expect nothing short of stunning insight, being you provide the patience and correctly aligned will. In the end i found myself uplifted by the random and cohesive nature that crowley presents for the reader. If you have never read any Crowley works this may be a good start. Philosophy and eastern mysticism in 208 chapters of occult wisdom

Crowley's Book of Wisdom and Folly must certainly be taken with pinches of salt here and there, and the reader must be prepared to skip parts altogether as nonsense. The reader must also be male - women are likely to throw the book away after the first page.

That said, The Book must be read for some of the magnificent insights, found elsewhere in Crowley's writings, but not in 'standard' books of 'philosophy'... this is not a philosophical work; neither is it Satanic, or any other label people have given it.

It is impossible to write a brief review of The Book, partly because of its 'heterogeneous' composition, lacking any central theme- seen from the point of view of a non-gnostic. For the general reader interested in finding - there is no other word for it but 'magnificent'- magnificent insights into ... into? This reviewer cannot even say insights into what.

The tone of authority here will be appreciated by some and criticized by others.

This reviewer is being as rambling as Crowley is in The Book- but if one cares to look through the rambling, the insights- indeed, truths- have the power to transform people's attitudes to philosophy, even people's philosophies.

Read The Book if you will to do so. Those readers who are struck by the first declaration of 'The Law' - and possibly only those readers- must read The Book: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

This volume is handsome and visually appealing, but its contents are a disappointment. The appellation "atlas" is entirely inappropriate for a work that contains only a handful of maps scattered across hundreds of pages and pays almost zero attention to regional variations. The work also spoke little about "culture," choosing to zero in on specific historical anecdotes, generalizations about historic ties with China, and the most cursory information on the life of the modern Japanese. I was very, very disappointed. It's a nice book, but it's not at all what I expected.

I'm a Japanese and I had some troubles when I explain about Japanese things in English at my web. I got several dictionaries and encyclopedias on Japanese culture in English, but they won't do when I want to explain in depth.

This Cultural Atlas has detailed descriptions and full of beautiful photos and graphics. Interesting to read and joy to eyes.

If you are interested in Japanese culture or history, this book will be a good companion.

This is a wierd story, but very affecting. I loved reading it and hope you will too.

Originally published in 1951, and then appearing in English translation in 1973, this slim Indonesian novella seems a rather unlikely candidate for paperback reissue some 55 years later. The story, what little there is of it, is very elemental -- the eldest son in a family travels from the big city (Djakarta) back to his home village to sit by his father's deathbed. And while there are bits and pieces of ethnographic detail for those interested in such matters, the book's main concern is the son's attempt to find some meaning in his schoolteacher father's life, and thus derive some meaning to his own life. There's a lot of sighing and weeping about the troubles of war (the Japanese occupied Indonesia from 1942-45) and colonial rule (following the Japanese expulsion, it took another four years before the Dutch relinquished control of the country) -- which contributed to the father's current illness and the son's lengthy stint as a political prisoner.

Toer wrote this when he was around 25, and one gets the sense that it's very much autobiographical (he was imprisoned by the Dutch for anti-colonial views). In the end, it's hard to know what to make of the novella, which runs to about 70 pages once you account for the blank pages. It's a familiar existential crisis, albeit enacted in a setting far removed from our own -- but one that left me relatively unmoved. Although readers may be tempted (as I was) by its brevity, the book probably isn't the best introduction to Toer's work. Readers interested in this major figure of world literature may be more engaged by his WWII novel The Fugitive, or may wish to dip into his short story collection All That is Gone. Truly intrepid souls can embark on his masterpiece, the 1,500+ page Buru Quartet (The Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, House of Glass), set during the Dutch colonial era and composed while Toer was imprisoned for 14 years as a Communist sympathizer.

Note: The English translation of this novella was originally published in the academic journal Indonesia and the full text of that article (including the introduction) is available as a free 7MB download at the journal's web site.

Note that this book is a collection of excerpts from six of the Seth books. The excerpts were taken straight from the books by a man named Richard Roberts (no relation to Jane) who added a brief introduction on the History of Channeling.

I've rated this book highly for three reasons:

Firstly, because the Seth material in itself is so valuable. If you want to get a brief tour through a few of the many dense books in which this philosophy is laid out, start here, along with Seth Speaks.

Secondly, because Richard Roberts cut out the copious interjections and footnotes which add to the density of the Seth books. These notes were written by Jane's husband, Robert Butts, who transcribed the channeling sessions. Though useful, they can be distracting (especially to a new reader).

And thirdly, because even long-time collectors of the Seth material can use this Reader for quick reference or as an introductory book to lend curious friends.

You should be aware, however, that this is not a comprehensive collection of excerpts, as there are more than six books to the Seth material. Most notably missing is The Nature of Personal Reality, which was the first Seth book I ever read, and which turned me on for life.

This is a nice selection of Seth's writings. As the other reviewer said, most of the extraneous comments have been omitted -- altho he left a good number in. I happen to like the comments because they gave me some idea of what these people were like. No one I know does anything like this.

My problem with this book is the number of typos in it. I found THEM distracting. It wasn't just that no one ran the finished manuscript thru a spell check, no one carefully read the finished manuscript -- some of the words are wrong, not just misspelled.

But, on the whole, it's a good overview of the material.

Richard Witts succeeds in providing a lot of information about The Velvet Underground in this book. However, it is an academic exercise, not a flowing narrative. A good purchase if you'd like theories and analysis of this influential band. Not reccommended if you're looking for an interesting biography of The Velvet Underground.

It must be a near impossible brief to write something aimed at both music undergrads and the `general reader', which this book claims to do but I think Richard Witts pretty much manages to pull it off. `The Velvet Underground' is the first in a series of books on pop icons, (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and others are to follow) which not only examines the musical, social and cultural influences on `The Velvets' but which proves to be at one and the same time a downright enjoyable read.

Although set against the background of Manhattan's down town drug culture, this is no seedy romp through the under belly of the 1960s New York music scene. This is a serious book in which just about every aspect of the band's genesis, demise and subsequent influence on punk, post punk and rock music is covered. Each Velvet in turn is subjected to detailed scrutiny in terms of background, his/her gravitation to New York City, musical interests and experiences, influences felt, and contribution to the band and its radical sound-world.

Cale's Experimentalism and his association with the avant-gardist La Monte Young and The Theatre of Eternal Youth, probably receives the most overtly academic analysis, but Reed, Morrison, Tucker, Nico, Warhol and Morrissey are also fully scrutinized in a clear, cogent and well argued challenge to much of the myth and hyperbole which has grown up around this `confluence of misfits' (Witts).


Serious it might be, but anecdotes a-plenty and some sharp comments stop it slipping into too-dry academic commentary. (There's a very funny Witts-ism following a Nico quote which I won't reveal. You can read it for yourself.) So, as long as the general reader who picks up this book has a somewhat serious interest in music or The Velvets, I doubt he will be disappointed. And if the undergrads ever get around to opening the cover, even they might come away having learned something pertinent :-)

Keith Negus has written a very short but very informative book about Dylan. Hard core Dylan fans won't learn anything from it. It's just not THAT kind of book. For that, you want Michael Gray, Clinton Heylin, Greil Marcus, etc.

But given its modest ambitions, it's probably the best book available for someone who's just getting into Dylan's music and wants a complete overview without investing in a college course. The best thing about it is that Negus is interested as Dylan the MUSICIAN, rather than Dylan the poet or Dylan as the voice of his generation. If you've wondered why anyone would take Bobby Zimmerman seriously as a musician, here's the book to read.

A very good read. Ryan and his group end up near Moscow in an old American embassy. However, the gateway is damaged, and they require some tools which they don't have to return to the Deathlands. Ryan, Kristy, and a character introduced in the previous novel go to Moscow in the hopes of finding the necessary equipment to fix the gate. Their presence is noticed by the same Russian Commander and his tracker introduced in the second novel, and its a race against time and the enemy to return to the gate, and get out of Russia, where the hatred of Americans burns brighter than ever...