Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come

Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come PDF Author: Norman Cohn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300090888
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
All over the world people look forward to a perfect future, when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate, and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration, through the world-views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth. Until around 1500 B.C., it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods, it was in essence immutable. However, it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought, famine and plague, defeat in war, and death itself, demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C., the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view, reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster, the world was moving, through incessant conflict, toward a conflictless state--"cosmos without chaos." The time would come when, in a prodigious battle, the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever, and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups, notably the Jesus sect, with incalculable consequences. Deeply informed yet highly readable, this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.

Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come

Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come PDF Author: Norman Cohn
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300090888
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book Here

Book Description
All over the world people look forward to a perfect future, when the forces of good will be finally victorious over the forces of evil. Once this was a radically new way of imagining the destiny of the world and of mankind. How did it originate, and what kind of world-view preceded it? In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium takes us on a journey of exploration, through the world-views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, through the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, to the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth. Until around 1500 B.C., it was generally believed that once the world had been set in order by the gods, it was in essence immutable. However, it was always a troubled world. By means of flood and drought, famine and plague, defeat in war, and death itself, demonic forces threatened and impaired it. Various combat myths told how a divine warrior kept the forces of chaos at bay and enabled the world to survive. Sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C., the Iranian prophet Zoroaster broke from that static yet anxious world-view, reinterpreting the Iranian version of the combat myth. For Zoroaster, the world was moving, through incessant conflict, toward a conflictless state--"cosmos without chaos." The time would come when, in a prodigious battle, the supreme god would utterly defeat the forces of chaos and their human allies and eliminate them forever, and so bring an absolutely good world into being. Cohn reveals how this vision of the future was taken over by certain Jewish groups, notably the Jesus sect, with incalculable consequences. Deeply informed yet highly readable, this magisterial book illumines a major turning-point in the history of human consciousness. It will be mandatory reading for all who appreciated The Pursuit of the Millennium.

Climate Chaos

Climate Chaos PDF Author: Brian Fagan
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1541750888
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A thirty-thousand-year history of the relationship between climate and civilization that teaches powerful lessons about how humankind can survive. Human-made climate change may have begun in the last two hundred years, but our species has witnessed many eras of climate instability. The results have not always been pretty. From Ancient Egypt to Rome to the Maya, some of history’s mightiest civilizations have been felled by pestilence and glacial melt and drought. The challenges are no less great today. We face hurricanes and megafires and food shortages and more. But we have one powerful advantage as we face our current crisis: the past. Our knowledge of ancient climates has advanced tremendously in the last decade, to the point where we can now reconstruct seasonal weather going back thousands of years and see just how people and nature interacted. The lesson is clear: the societies that survive are those that plan ahead. Climate Chaos is a book about saving ourselves. Brian Fagan and Nadia Durrani show in remarkable detail what it was like to battle our climate over centuries and offer us a path to a safer and healthier future.

Comet Venus

Comet Venus PDF Author: Gary Gilligan
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 9781848763098
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
In the 1950s, Immanuel Velikovsky propounded catastrophism in several popular books including the bestselling Worlds in Collision. He speculated that the ‘planet’ Venus was in fact a former comet which had been ejected from Jupiter. Subsequently, 3,500 years ago, it made two catastrophically close passes by Earth 52 years apart. It later interacted with Mars, which had a series of near collisions with Earth ending in 687 BCE, before finally settling into its current orbit.Was Velikovsky correct, did Venus appear as a gigantic comet in ancient times? Comet Venus is the second book in the God King Scenario Series. The first book, An Ancient World in Chaos, presented a fascinating model whereby Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon played havoc with Earth for an incredible 3,000 years, coming so close they loomed larger than the Sun. In support of such incredible claims, Gilligan calls upon the most fascinating civilisation of ancient times – the Ancient Egyptians. He proposes that the divine god-kings of Pharaonic Egypt were first and foremost guises of planetary bodies as they appeared to move back and forth to Earth. He further proposes that these heavenly monarchs were represented by human ‘doubles’ – mortal Pharaohs who were believed to be earthly manifestations of god-king planets.The primary objective of Comet Venus is to vindicate Velikovsky and conclusively demonstrate that the comet images on the front and back covers of this book have nothing whatsoever to do with the Sun! They are exact physical representations of the planet Venus as it took on the attributes of a comet in the skies above Earth only a few thousand years ago.

Chaos and Order in the World of the Psyche

Chaos and Order in the World of the Psyche PDF Author: Joanne Wieland-Burston
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317404173
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me – everything’s upside down; the whole world seems chaotic’ Chaos may erupt in our lives in many different ways – through death, divorce, conflict with family, friends or colleagues. It is a frightening and negative experience, destabilizing the individual and provoking feelings of insecurity. Originally published in English in 1992, the author, through her work as a Jungian analyst, frequently acted as a companion, support and guide to those whose lives were in chaotic turmoil. She describes how therapy helps people to meet chaos, to accept and see it in a different way – as a starting point for a new kind of order in their lives. This ‘organic’ order is better suited to their own personal needs and personality and provides the strong and flexible basis necessary to meet the chaos that belongs to life. Drawing upon the myths, tales and rites of ancient cultures, upon modern chaos theory, and upon her experience as an analyst the author shows the way through the chaos to a fuller, happier and more satisfying life.

The Buried

The Buried PDF Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher:
ISBN: 0525559566
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
The president -- The coup -- The president.

Chaos in Wonderland

Chaos in Wonderland PDF Author: Clifford A. Pickover
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312127749
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Describing the biology, sociology, and technology of the fictional Latoocarfian civilization of Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, this book includes a cornucopia of curiosities--games played on fractal boards, instructions on creating globular star clusters using personal computers, and puzzles to stimulate the imagination.

The Hero and the Sea

The Hero and the Sea PDF Author: Donald H. Mills
Publisher: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers
ISBN: 0865165084
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Ancient myths about watery chaos uniquely transcend time and culture to speak to the universal human condition as expression to the hopes, aspirations and fears that have defined--for ancient thinkers as well as modern scientists--what it means to be human in a chaotic world. "The Hero and the Sea examines the mythological pattern of heroic battles with watery chaos in the "Gilgamesh Epic, the "Iliad, the "Odyssey, and the Old Testament, in the light of anthropology, comparative religion, literature, mythology, psychology, and modern chaos theory; how mythic patterns of heroic battle with chaotic adversaries respond to the cultural needs, religious concerns, and worldview of their audience. The last chapter explores points of contact between the ancient mythic patterns and the discoveries of modern scholars engaged in the theoretical study of chaos and chaotics.

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos PDF Author: R. L. LaFevers
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618756384
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Theodosia Throckmorton has her hands full at the Museum of Legends and Antiquities in London. Her father may be head curator, but it is Theo--and only Theo--who is able to see all the black magic and ancient curses that still cling to the artifacts in the museum. When Theo’s mother returns from her latest archaeological dig bearing the Heart of Egypt--a legendary amulet belonging to an ancient tomb--Theo learns that it comes inscribed with a curse so black and vile that it threatens to crumble the British Empire from within and start a war too terrible to imagine. Intent on returning the malevolent artifact to its rightful place, Theo devises a daring plan to put things right. But even with the help of her younger brother, a wily street urchin, and the secret society known as the Brotherhood of the Chosen Keepers, it won’t be easy . . . she quickly finds herself pursued down dark alleys, across an ocean, through the bustling crowds of Cairo, and straight into the heart of an ancient mystery. Theo will have to call upon everything she’s ever learned in order to prevent the rising chaos from destroying her country--and herself!

Ancient Civilizations

Ancient Civilizations PDF Author: Dr. Brian Fagan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317350332
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
Drawing on many avenues of inquiry: archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and on both historical and ethnohistorical records; Ancient Civilizations, 3/e provides a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world’s first civilizations and a brief summary of the way in which they were discovered.

Sword of Fire and Sea

Sword of Fire and Sea PDF Author: Erin Hoffman
Publisher: Pyr
ISBN: 1616143746
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Captain Vidarian Rulorat's great-grandfather gave up an imperial commission to commit social catastrophe by marrying a fire priestess. For love, he unwittingly doomed his family to generations of a rare genetic disease that follows families who cross elemental boundaries. Now Vidarian, the last surviving member of the Rulorat family, struggles to uphold his family legacy, and finds himself chained to a task as a result of the bride price his great-grandfather paid: The priestess Endera has called upon Vidarian to fulfill his family's obligation by transporting a young fire priestess named Ariadel to a water temple far to the south, through dangerous pirate-controlled territory. Vidarian finds himself at the intersection not only of the world's most volatile elements, but of the ancient and alien powers that lurk between them...