Rebirth : A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World by Roger Jackson

In Kurukulla: Goddess of Bewitchment, author Verónica Rivas combines academic research with personal experience to offer a theoretical-practical study of Kurukulla, the goddess in Hinduism related to desire, lust, magic, and witchcraft.

Many of these aspects were left aside, however, as her importance and popularity within Tantric Buddhism continued to grow. In Kurukulla, we have a goddess of tribal origins, initially venerated as a protector by various nomadic clans who related her to fertility and material affairs, yet also considered her dangerous and fearsome. Progressively, the goddess was incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon, and during this process, Kurukulla acquired different roles and lost others. Many practices were developed related to issues such as protection against animals and certain diseases, obtaining influential positions in society, love affairs, and even getting rid of one’s enemies.

Kurukulla: Goddess of Bewitchment offers a tantric perspective on a deity considered the goddess of eroticism, the mistress of enchantments and bewitchment, who uses desire as a weapon for transcendence. Practicing with Kurukulla allows us to reach our true nature by making our daily life, our fears and weaknesses, the very source of liberation.

The goddess of the red body represents the pure manifestation of intrinsic wisdom, the primordial energy that nourishes all realms of existence, as well as life and death as complementary opposites.

The rituals and devotionals presented in this book are intended to openly and freely establish a deep connection with the deity. They are shared in a simple and understandable way that will allow practitioners to integrate them into their life easily and completely.

We like to think we understand what's happening around us; that we can determine the path our life takes. But often, things don't go that way - in fact, they rarely do.

What helps us respond to life as it unfolds? To live freely, stay humble and find comfort in difficult times?

In the Swedish sensation I May Be Wrong, former forest monk Björn Natthiko Lindeblad shares his advice on how to face the uncertainty and doubt that is a natural part of life. We don't choose our thoughts. We don't control the shape they take, or what pops into our minds. We can only choose whether or not to believe them.

Infusing the everyday with heart, grace and gentle humour, this is a book to help us all navigate the realities of modern life.

Limited hardback edition

T. Lobsang Rampa’s autobiography, The Third Eye was an international bestseller in 1956, but the author had to face some awkward questions from critics. There were two possibilities; either he really was a Tibetan lama whose third eye had been physically opened (and who could reveal secrets of levitation, invisibility, gilded extraterrestrials, giant temple cats, etc), or he was really the eccentric son of a plumber from Plympton in Devon.

Rampa would explain himself by discussing transmigration, and over the next quarter of a century (and in another eighteen books) he would reveal the secrets of the human aura, astral travel, UFOs, life on Venus, and the hollow Earth (and hollow Moon), among many other alternative, New Age ideas. For Rampa, there was no wild, left-field belief that was not true.

R.B. Russell has written the first definitive biography of Rampa (also known as Cyril Henry Hoskin). The identity of Rampa may have been conclusively debunked by anybody who knew anything about Tibet, Buddhism, or basic scientific principles, but he would always claim that everything he wrote was true, and until his death in 1980 he doesn’t ever seem to have come out of character.

Russell’s biography of Rampa is accompanied in this volume by three further studies of alternative belief systems that have fascinated him over the years.

Following the biography of Rampa, Russell writes about the Millenarian church, the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, who believed their leader was Christ and immortal, and that the world would end in 2000. (Spoiler alert: we are still here, and nobody has seen the leader for several years.)

A further essay is a brief look at one of the Church of Scientology’s techniques for recruiting members, the Oxford Capacity Analysis test. Russell argues that the test is based on a series of small, apparently innocuous lies, but he shows that they are indicative of Scientology’s complete disregard for honesty or integrity.

The final essay looks at the Temple of Psychic Youth, the knowing attempt by Genesis P-Orridge to create a modern cult. Was it exploitative and manipulative, or simply an ironic experiment? And how did it backfire when the 1980s tabloids created the Satanic Panic?

The painting on the boards of this book is by Les Edwards. It was first published on the cover of As It Was!, T. Lobsang Rampa, Corgi, 1976.