“A genius . . . a writer who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine.” — The New YorkerBrave New World author Aldous Huxley on enlightenment and the "ultimate reality."In this anthology of twenty-six essays and other writings, Aldous...

Explores the relationship between religion and authority across civilizations and cultures

A new view of Jesus as a Buddha-like wisdom teacher who taught the transformation of consciousness—includes traditional meditative practices you can do yourselfIf you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for...

Mary Magdalene is one of the most influential symbols in the history of Christianity—yet, if you look in the Bible, you’ll find only a handful of verses that speak of her. How did she become such a compelling saint in the face of such paltry evidence? In...

Qigong is an integrated mind-body healing method that has been practiced with remarkable results in China for thousands of years. The Chinese have long treasured qigong for its effectiveness both in healing and in preventing disease, and more recently...

Reiki is an ancient and profoundly simple system of “laying on of hands” healing derived from Tibetan Buddhism. In the West, Reiki has been kept highly secret for many years. ESSENTIAL REIKI presents full information on all three degrees of this healing...

Conventional wisdom holds that attempts to combine religion and politics will produce unlimited violence. Concepts such as jihad, crusade, and sacrifice need to be rooted out, the story goes, for the sake of more bounded and secular understandings of...

Headlines from France suggest that Muslims have renewed an age-old struggle against Jews and that the two groups are once more inevitably at odds. But the past tells a different story. The Burdens of Brotherhood is a sweeping history of Jews and Muslims...

Frequent reports of honor killings, disfigurement, and sensational abuse have given rise to a consensus in the West, a message propagated by human rights groups and the media: Muslim women need to be rescued. Lila Abu-Lughod boldly challenges this...

For much of the past two centuries, religion has been understood as a universal phenomenon, a part of the "natural" human experience that is essentially the same across cultures and throughout history. Individual religions may vary through time and...

From the National Book Award-winning and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels comes a dramatic interpretation of Satan and his role on the Christian tradition. "Arresting...brilliant...this book illuminates the angels...

Though contemporary European philosophy and critical theory have long had a robust engagement with Christianity, there has been no similar engagement with Buddhism—a surprising lack, given Buddhism’s global reach and obvious affinities with much of...

C. S. Rodd invites his readers to engage with this first century text and to read it as a continuous narrative rather than broken up into small sections. Yet Mark's Gospel does not remain a first century text but becomes a matrix through which we can...

A blueprint for a life of mindfulness, dedicated to the easing of suffering both for oneself and for othersThe story of Shakyamuni Buddha’s epic journey to enlightenment is perhaps the most important narrative in the Buddhist tradition. Tenzin...

A sweeping exploration of religion and the history of human violence—from the New York Times bestselling author of The History of God • “Elegant and powerful.... Both erudite and accurate, dazzling in its breadth of knowledge and historical detail.” —The...

An introduction to the core of Buddhism by its greatest teacher, An Open Heart is the successor to the bestselling The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama's clear and simple guide to finding compassion and happiness.25 photos. (World Religions)

A concise, jargon-free guide to learning what Buddhist meditation is—and isn't—with advice on how to start a meditation practiceIf you want to meditate but have no idea where to begin, then best-selling author and Buddhist teacher Susan Piver is here to...

 A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR“Vivid, compelling... An embrace of moral and spiritual contemplation.” –The New York Times“A remarkable piece of writing. If read with humility and attention, Kathleen Norris's book...

In this gripping narrative history, Lesley Hazleton tells the tragic story at the heart of the ongoing rivalry between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.“Fascinating. . . . Lively and engaging. . . . Anyone seeking to understand today’s Middle East...