Indigenous Cultures

Everything you ever wanted to know about 2012 is packed into this handy little guidebook by 2012 expert Geoff Stray. With illustrations, diagrams and concise text, Stray takes us on a journey from our past to our future with Mayan prophecies, hints from ancient Egypt, Shamanism, solar cycles, the Galactic alignment and so much more. Learn how our past is speaking to us about what lays ahead. What will the world be like after December 21, 2012? This pocket-sized guide gives the answer.

The Mayan Calendar has taken on special prominence with the imminent arrival of 2012, a date that many claim is the end of that calendar. However, as Mayan elder and daykeeper, Hunbatz Men, shows, the cosmological understanding of his ancestors was so sophisticated that they had not one, but many calendars, each based on the cycles of different systems in the cosmos. In this book, he reveals, for the first time, the Tzek'eb or Pleiades, Calendar of 26,000 years, which charts the revolution of our solar system around Alcyone, the central star of the Pleiades system. He, also, discusses the K'uuk'ulcan Calendar of the 4 seasons of the solar year and the wheel of the K'altunes Calendar, which is composed of 13 cycles of 20 years each that form a calendar of 260 years. In traditional Mayan culture the computation of time was not determined by simple economic or social motives. The calendars served the higher purpose of synchronising the lives of human beings and their societies to the great cosmic pulsation, to the rhythm of the annual seasons and to the other cycles that dictate changes upon Earth. Mayan understanding of the cosmic cycles was so exact that this knowledge could be used to influence all stages of life - from planning when to conceive (parents could choose not only the sex of their child but its vocation and future destiny) to plotting out the course of the entire society. Pyramids played a crucial role in applying this wisdom because, as Hunbatz Men shows, they were able to produce and transform energy in accordance with the cosmic cycles charted by the calendars. This book reveals for the first time the wisdom of the multi-calendar Mayan system and how it can help guide our modern world. · The first book to reveal the secrets of the Mayan Pleiades calendar: the Tzek'eb · Explains how the Maya used their astronomical knowledge to guide their lives on Earth

One of Australia's most eminent anthropologists details the secret and sacred practices of Australian Aboriginal shamans, documenting a rapidly vanishing indigenous culture.

Orishas are gods and myths from an ancient magic transformed through time and continents and are still alive today. This Tarot opens a path to the beneficial and natural forces of the orishas that can be drawn upon for cures meditations or rituals. The divinities of Brazilian Santeria unite with the Tarot archetypes with surprising ease.

Here, in this sequel to their best-selling underground classic, The Pleiadian Agenda, the Clow's outline their theory of nine dimensions of human consciousness and how those nine dimensions have become essential to our evolutionary survival. In this new edition, the Clow's incorporate the insights of the Swedish biologist Carl Calleman, demonstrating how recent scientific discoveries validate their theories. They also explore and offer startling insights into the Mayan Calendar and crop circles and offer new insight into the 2011/2012 prophecies.

Among the many controversial theories in this book is that December 21, 2012 is not the date of the new era, as previously thought. The real date, based on a re-examination of the Mayan texts and new scientific research, is October 28, 2011, at which point, the Clows assert, an era of a new and expanded consciousness will be ushered in.

Previous isbn: 9781571744203

All over the world and throughout history amulets have offered protection against negative forces, whether witchcraft, the evil eye, enemies, sickness, or accidents. Intricately beautiful or starkly simple, they come in an astonishing variety of guises: from stones, shells, and seeds, through animal tails, teeth, and claws, to beads, mirrors, needles, and bells. With over 400 lavish color photographs, this book explores amulets from every angle, including their symbolism and the diverse material used to craft them as well as the people and objects they protect. Sheila Paine traveled all over the world--from Afghanistan, Russia, and Albania, to Cameroon, Tunisia, and Mexico--to research the form, properties, and use of amulets, whether for health and safety or as channels for spiritual or magical powers. Worn as necklaces, sewn to clothing, painted on buildings, or hung in vehicles, amulets guard babies and brides; warriors, hunters, and travelers; livestock, crops, and homes through magical, not physical, means. Malign spirits and hobgoblins at crossroads have been feared since ancient times, but modern dangers--car crashes, new diseases, even cell phones--have ensured an abiding faith in the magical protection that amulets afford us that is still widely evident today.

Traditional Egyptologists have long resisted the notion that the architectural achievements of the Ancient Egyptians required the existence of a much more sophisticated technology than would have existed at that time. Yet, no records exist explaining how, why or who built Egypt's megalithic monuments and statues. The ancient Egyptians did, however, record that their civilisation resided in the shadow of a kingdom of “gods” whose reign ended many thousands of years before their first dynasty. What was this Civilisation X that antiquity's most accomplished people revered as gods?

The recent discovery of a large stone at one of Egypt's oldest ruins presents physical evidence that clearly and distinctly shows the markings of a machining process far beyond the capabilities of the Ancient Egyptians. Likewise, experimental modeling of the Great Pyramid's subterranean chambers and passageways gives scientific evidence to further support the theory that the civilisation responsible for such magnificent monuments is much older than presently believed. ANCIENT EGYPT 39,000 BCE examines this evidence from historical and technical points of view, explaining who these prehistoric people were, what happened to them, why they built their civilisation out of granite and why they built a series of pyramids along the west bank of the Nile.

Shows how a desecrated tomb in the Valley of the Kings holds the key to the true history of the destruction of Atlantis • Reveals that Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings was designed not to keep intruders out, but to trap something inside • Provides forensic evidence proving that the mask believed to be the face of Tutankhamun is actually that of his elder brother Smenkhkare In Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt, Graham Phillips explores the excavation of a mysterious and ritually desecrated tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Tomb 55, which he contends holds the key to the true history of the destruction of Atlantis. Unlike other Egyptian tombs designed to keep intruders out, Tomb 55 was constructed to keep something imprisoned within, specifically Smenkhkare, the older brother of Tutankhamun who was deemed responsible for the ten plagues in Egyptian history, to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again. The forensic findings from this tomb coupled with compelling new evidence from the polar ice caps provide sensational evidence that the parting of the Red Sea, the deaths of the first born, and the other plagues that afflicted Egypt were all actual historical events. Core samples from the polar ice caps indicate that a gigantic volcanic eruption took place in the eastern Mediterranean around the time of Amonhotep’s reign. Other research suggests this to have been the time of the eruption that destroyed the Greek island of Thera, one of the likely locations of Atlantis, and that the subsequent cataclysm may explain the unusual lack of resistance to the new religion installed by Amonhotep’s son, Akhenaten, when he took power several years later.

Ayahuasca is a sacred drink used for millennia by numerous indigenous groups primarily in the Upper Amazon and Orinoco basins for divination healing& other cosmogonic/shamanic purposes. The Ayahuasca Reader is a panorama of texts translated from nearly a dozen languages on the ayahuasca experience. These include indigenous mythic narratives and testimonies religious hymns as well as narratives related by western travelers scientists and writers who have had contact with ayahuasca in different contexts. Some of the material in this Reader has been published before in difficult to find journals and books in a variety of languages. In many cases the authors have produced their contributions expressly for this anthology. The many contributors include Françoise Barbira Freedman Wade Davis Philippe Descola Allen Ginsberg Jean Langdon Peter Matthiessen Dennis McKenna W.S.Merwin Richard Spruce and Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff. The Ayahuasca Reader represents the most comprehensive collection of authoritative writings on the subject ever published. Edited by Dr. Luis Eduardo Luna Colombian-born anthropologist author of Vegetalismo Shamanism Among The Mestizo Population Of The Peruvian Amazon and co-author with Pablo Amaringo of Ayahuasca Visions and Dr. Steven F. White who teaches in the Caribbean and Latin American Studies Program at St. Lawrence University. This book with its anthropoliterary perspective is a must for anyone interested in learning about the fascinating properties and effects of the Amazon´s most sacred vine. Obviously the finest collection on the subject and a must-read for anybody interested in ayahuasca. Jeremy Narby

In the late nineteenth century French explorer Augustus Le Plongeon after years of research in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula concluded that the Mayan and Egyptian civilisations were related - as remnants of a once greater and highly sophisticated culture. The discoveries of modern researchers over the last two decades now support this once derided speculation with evidence revealing that the Sphinx is thousands of years older than Egyptologists have claimed that the pyramids were not tombs but geomechanical power plants and that the megaliths of the Nabta Playa reveal complex astronomical star maps that existed 4000 years before conventional historians deemed such knowledge possible. Much of the past support for prehistoric civilisation has relied on esoteric traditions and mythic narrative. Using hard scientific evidence from the fields of archaeology genetics engineering and geology as well as sacred and religious texts Malkowski shows that these mythic narratives are based on actual events and that a highly sophisticated civilisation did once exist prior to those of Egypt and Sumer. Tying its cataclysmic fall to the mysterious disappearance of Cro-Magnon culture BEFORE THE PHARAOHS offers a compelling new view of humanity's past.