Lilith is the mythological seductress that has been repressed since Biblical times. She is the representative of the essentially motherless form of the feminine Self that arose as an embodiment of the neglected and rejected aspects of the Great Goddess. Written by a Jungian analyst, this material can help modern men and women come to terms with this aspect of the feminine within.

This book shows how the discovery of the asteroids Ceres, Pallas Athena, Juno, and Vesta coincided with the shift of a woman. The creating, supporting, nurturing aspect held by the goddess Ceres, the universal mother, brings us to how we feel nurtured and how we function with our roles of mother-child. She embodies the principle of unconditional love. Pallas Athena is our Warrior Goddess, a woman in a man's world, carrying the principle of creative intelligence. Vesta, our goddess of Focus and Commitment, is our High Priestess. Juno, the Queen of Heaven and Divine Consort, is our capacity for meaningful relationships. Understanding the themes that each goddess holds enriches our understanding of that function and expression in our lives.

About 16 centuries ago, an unknown Indian author or authors gathered together the diverse threads of already ancient traditions and wove them into a verbal tapestry that today is still the central text for worshippers of the Hindu Devi, the Divine Mother. This spiritual classic, the Devimahatmya, addresses the perennial questions of the nature of the universe, humankind, and divinity. How are they related, how do we live in a world torn between good and evil, and how do we find lasting satisfaction and inner peace?

These questions and their answers form the substance of the Devimahatmya. Its narrative of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by the family he loves, and a seer whose teaching leads beyond existential suffering sets the stage for a trilogy of myths concerning the all-powerful Divine Mother, Durga, and the fierce battles she wages against throngs of demonic foes. In these allegories, her adversaries represent our all-too-human impulses toward power, possessions, and pleasure. The battlefields symbolize the field of human consciousness on which our lives' dramas play out in joy and sorrow, in wisdom and folly.

The Devimahatmya speaks to us across the ages of the experiences and beliefs of our ancient ancestors. We sense their enchantment at nature's bounty and their terror before its destructive fury, their recognition of the good and evil in the human heart, and their understanding that everything in our experience is the expression of a greater reality, personified as the Divine Mother.

Kali, The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar by Elizabeth U. Harding provides a wealth of information about the worship of the Goddess Kali. This book gives an intimate and detailed description of Kolkata's famous Dakshineswar temple and Ma Bhavatarini, the form of Kali worshipped there. Learn about the temple's festivals & daily rituals, and discover inspiring accounts of some of this traditions ecstatic saints. A great introduction to Kali worship.

In this definitive introduction to the work of C. G. Jung, Dr. Robertson explains how Jung reintroduced Westerners to the world of archetypes--the imagery of the collective unconscious, of mythology, and the symbols in nature. He discusses the structure and dynamics of the psyche, the meaning of dreams, the shadow, the anima/animus, and the mysterious figure of the Self. This practical yet inspiring introduction can make Jung's exciting philosophy/psychology part of your life.

Jeff Raff has written about the ally (which has been called many different names in different traditions) in his books Jung and the Alchemical Imagination, Healing the Wounded God, and The Wedding of Sophia. Here, he shares with readers the techniques he has developed and taught in his workshops and lectures for achieving intimate contact with the divine.

The ally is a divine being, a face of God, that is unique to every being. It appears in the imaginal realm to partner with a specific person/ but it has to wait for its human partner to seek it. The person has to learn how to enter the imaginal realm to meet and relate with the ally, and to that effect, Raff has designed a progressive series of exercises. Starting with imagination-building practices, he takes you through learning how to identify your ally, learning its name, and obtaining guidance from it. Intermediate and advanced exercises teach you how to deepen your relationship with the ally and bring it into everyday life.

A relationship with your ally is a two-way street in that your attention to its existence in the imaginal realm makes it manifest in the material world, while the ally helps you achieve self-realization and gnosis in the literal sense of the word.

Jung and the Alchemical Imagination illustrates the spiritual nature of Jungian psychology and the debt it owes to the tradition of esoteric religion. Unlike other books on Jung and alchemy which contain a psychological interpretation of alchemical material, this work uses alchemy to understand the three cornerstones of Jungian spirituality--the self, the transcendent function, and active imagination. Through the interpretation of alchemical imagery, Raff explains the nature of these three concepts and illustrates how together they form a new model of contemporary Western spirituality. This book is also unique in selecting alchemical texts for analysis that are relatively unknown and which, for the most part, have never been interpreted. In addition, he presents two new concepts--the ally and the psychoid realm. Through the addition of these ideas, and the new understanding that they offer, it is possible to apply alchemical imagery to transpsychic experience/ that is, to a world of spirits which may not be reduced to psychological concepts. By including this realm in the study of alchemy and Jungian thought, it is possible to gain insights into the nature of visionary and ecstatic experiences that form part of the path of individuation--the road to completion.

Elisabeth Goldsmith begins Ancient Pagan Symbols with a poetic description of the creative forces of life and the metaphysical love affair between men and women, lingham and yoni, sun and moon-sex. When first published in the 1920s, this book was thought scandalous, but it has endured generations to become one of the most important references for Pagan spiritualists.

Goldsmith examines symbols found in the art and artifacts from across cultures and throughout history. Explanations reveal the symbolism of the elements, the lotus, the Tree of Life, the cross, the swastika, the trisula, and many more, fully illustrated and indexed for easy referral.

House as a Mirror of Self presents an unprecedented examination of our relationship to where we live, interwoven with compelling personal stories of the search for a place for the soul. Marcus takes us on a reverie of the special places of childhood--the forts we made and secret hiding places we had--to growing up and expressing ourselves in the homes of adulthood. She explores how the self-image is reflected in our homes/ power struggles in making a home together with a partner/ territory, control, and privacy at home/ self-image and location/ disruptions in the boding with home/ and beyond the house as ego to the call of the soul.

As our culture is swept up in home improvement to the extent of having an entire TV network devoted to it, this book is essential for understanding why the surroundings that we call home make us feel the way we do. With this information we can embark on home improvement that truly makes room for our soul.

Everyone who is born is someday going to die. Some of us will die peacefully in our sleep, some will die in accidents, and some as the result of diseases, cancer or AIDS. Because we do not usually know when we are going to die, most of us are frightened of death. We do not want to talk about it, do not want to face it, and we run from it as long as we can. And some of us die a lonely death--in a hospital, surrounded by strangers and white sheets, while family and loved ones are kept out of the room at the final moment. Anya Foos-Graber believes that death, like birth, should be a shining, light filled, conscious moment. Death is not a disease. It is the most natural passage we will make since birth. Looking at death before the time comes is like learning about natural childbirth before having a baby. Just as women are choosing to be conscious participants in the birth process, Foos-Graber feels that all of us should be conscious as well of our eventual death--that we should prepare for it the way the Tibetan Buddhists and American Indians used to do. The author calls this process of conscious preparation and practice deathing. The book presents two teaching stories, illustrating both a conscious death and an unconscious one. The second half of the book is a step-by-step manual, containing complete instruction and simple exercises--such as breathing, visualization, and the all important, 6th technique, or your chosen Name and form of God to which you direct your attention in life and the death transition. You can use the formless LIGHT itself as referent, an absence of any belief structure. A support person rather like the father's presence in natural childbirth can assist in the event of coma, or accident death. Other books have been written about grief, about wills, about taking care of your affairs. This is a book about taking care of yourself, and how to be helpful to someone you care for. Deathing has two aims: to make sure that the dying are comfortable and comforted as they die, and to help all of us prepare for the greatest adventure we will face since birth.

Author, psychologist, and astrologer Monika Wikman has worked for decades with clients and their dream symbols and witnessed the presence of the divine hand at work in the psyche. In The Pregnant Darkness, Wikman shows readers that the best way to cope with their darkest hours is by fostering a connection to the deeper current of life, those mysteries that give life form and meaning. Wikman's analysis of dream material leads readers into a practical explanation of alchemical symbolism. Far from being a quaint, ancient practice, The Pregnant Darkness shows that alchemy is at work in contemporary, everyday life. Alchemical symbolism, properly understood, can be applied to unraveling the meaning of visions in meditation, active imagination, and dream work. Wikman shows how readers can participate in the divine energies to help miraculous changes occur in their lives.

Wikman writes: In Greek mythology, Pegasus, upon taking to the air, pushed hard with a back hoof and penetrated the earth. A spring rose up where his hoof dashed the earth, and in this hole . . . the muses reside. One of the roles of the religious function of which Jung speaks is to bring us toward that inner spring of the muses where something beyond ego resides, instructs, and inspires. Like a hole created from Pegasus' leaping foot, contact with this inner spring often entails a crack in our field of ordinary consciousness. In the inner world, the spring of living symbols and accompanying presences is the source of dreams and visions, as well as the fountain of inspiration at the heart of poetry, art, ritual, mythology, and even religion.