 | Stealing Fire from the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model for Writers and Filmmakers by James Bonnet
Buy used from: $4.14 Movies are modern literature. Every epic and every good screenplay cycles us thru rites of passage: separation, initiation, integration, reward, attachment, regression, alienation, and misery/death.
|
 | The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Bollingen Series, No. 17) by Joseph Campbell
Buy used from: $2.59 Rites of passage essential to every epic, every religion's basis: call, refusal, trials, atonement, boon, perilous return, mastery of 2 worlds. Explains how the Good News is common to other religions.
|
 | How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $0.01 The dark ages erased culture from illiterate, Goth-ridden, feudal Europe, as disused libraries disintegrated. Irish scribes preserved Western civilization's Greek, Roman, and Celtic literature.
|
 | Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $1.99 One of the best Jungian analysts in the tradition of Joseph Campbell examines Wild Woman trials, issues and lessons in fairy tales and oral tradition (a form of literature to survive Dark Ages).
|
 | The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $0.95 Draws from epic tales of women's rites of passage: identification with the masculine, reconnection with the feminine, healing the mother/daughter split, duality, and finding the prince with a heart.
|
 | Tarot and the Journey of the Hero by Hajo Banzhaf
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $8.95 Tarot is a literary form to survive the Dark Ages. Take Tarot readings not for fortunetelling, but for meditation on issues we (or our characters) face. The Tower has special meaning after Sept. 11.
|
 | Tarot and the Tree of Life: Finding Everyday Wisdom in the Minor Arcana by Isabel Kliegman
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $3.79 Where Tarot and the Journey of the Hero focused on the Major Arcana, this focuses on the minor arcana. Good for writing minor characters, side plots, etc.
|
 | The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker
Buy new: $25.16 / Used from: $6.46 Ignore the obvious feminist bias and questionable scholarship. This book features absorbing readings on global, "prepatriarchal origins" of customs, attitudes, and ideas!
|
 | Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning by Edward Carpenter
Buy new: $18.96 / Used from: $12.95 From origin of self consciousness and community, to tribal taboos (sin), to the magic of expiation and redemption, to totems and sacrifices/sacraments, to initiation/rebirth and celebrating holidays.
|
 | Heresy: Heretical Truth or Orthodox Error? a Study of Early Christian Heresies by Joan O'Grady
Buy used from: $6.36 Christianity fought for survival against heretics, cults, and apologists so that the Church's orthodox canon can provide for the masses. Some folks still struggle with the resulting inconsistencies.
|
| The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby
Buy used from: $5.91 Talmudic scholar has Pharisee bias: he argues that Rabbi Jesus was Pharisee, that Paul was an ambitious converted Gentile priest thug, & New Testament authors disguised truth for Roman political gain.
|
 | TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis
Buy used from: $2.80 3000-year history traces technology's influence on human thought and expression, regarding self, spirit, soul, and society: writing, alchemy, gnosticism, freemasonry, advertising, cyberspace, AI, etc.
|
 | Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimens ion by Michio Kaku
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $3.00 An extremely readable science writer illustrates modern physics for the non-scientist. In aside, Haku intimates that what we know as God may exist in the 10th dimension or so.
|
 | Carl Sagan: A Life by Keay Davidson
Buy used from: $0.41 You may have read Sagan's works or seen the Cosmos series, but biography traces the evolution of Sagan's thought and his struggles with pseudoscience and religious skepticism.
|
 | The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough
Buy new: $13.59 / Used from: $5.45 Some people's idea of "going to church" is fishing in the quiet wilderness. This book finds reverence in the mysteries of the origins of the universe, life, evolution, emotions, sexuality, and death.
|
Listmania!
