Books published by Inner Traditions Bear and Company

Explores the living spiritual tradition surrounding birds in Native American culture.

The most comprehensive guide to the botany, history, distribution, and cultivation of all known psychoactive plants.

SECRET SOCIETIES / HISTORY "A provocative book detailing who among our Founding Fathers participated in such clandestine activities as piracy, drug running, smuggling, slave trading, and multinationalism, and those in our nation's highest office who have also practiced and benefited from these same illegal activities right up to the 21st century. . . . An intriguing view of some of the planet's puppeteers." --Robert R. Hieronimus, Ph.D., author of America's Secret Destiny Secret Societies of America's Elite exposes the dark and critical role secret societies play within the ruling families in America and their tremendous influence on American democracy, current events, and world history. Secret societies have always been a major force in the history of Western civilization. The alliances formed in the Knights Templar, the Knights of Christ, and the Freemasons transcended patriotism and religious beliefs and had a powerful influence on the establishment of the United States of America. Masonic cells are credited with smuggling in the democratic ideals inspiring the American Revolution. Yet while these secret associations of merchants, smugglers, occultists, gamblers, spies, and slavers succeeded in freeing the United States from foreign domination, the dark side is that the elite used their connections to further their own wealth and power. These secret cells did not hesitate to sponsor the assassination of a president and even attempted to break up the union on several occasions when it was deemed expedient. From the Sons of Liberty and the Essex Junto to the Ku Klux Klan, secret societies have played critical roles in building the fortunes of America's most powerful families. Now Steven Sora reveals in alarming detail how these societies continue to wield power even today as organizations such as Yale's Skull & Bones unite America's modern ruling families as strongly as Masonic Lodges once connected the Astors, Livingstons, and Roosevelts. Their immense power and wealth allow this elite to control America to an even greater degree than the Templars once dominated Europe. STEVEN SORA has been researching historical enigmas since 1982 and is the author of The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar. He lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, and maintains a website at www.templarlegacy.com.

DESIGN / HINDUISM What makes a house a home, a place of renewal and refuge, a place of balance and peace? It is vaastu, the Indian art of environmental design, a practice that helps you create a home that is in harmony with the natural and spiritual energies surrounding it. Vaastu, like holistic medicine, focuses on addressing underlying issues for the health of the entire system--the people as well as the physical structures and property on which they live. The Vaastu Workbook not only provides the blueprint for a perfect vaastu home but also fully explains the tradition within its Indian context. It presents vaastu as it was meant to be understood--as an interconnected part of the great Indian tradition of sacred knowledge, along with ayurveda, yoga, and vedic astrology. Using more than 140 line illustrations, along with charts for scoring the vaastu of a particular site, The Vaastu Workbook allows you to apply this knowledge to quickly assess the pros and cons of any building situation. The author, who is the director of the foremost vaastu center in India, takes you through every conceivable vaastu situation, exploring the dos and don'ts of window and door placement, interior design, street focus, directional facing, landscaping, and much more, in order to maximize the potential of a given property. He shares his own personal experiences and the circumstances of others to illustrate the power of vaastu in action. Introductory chapters provide a thorough grounding in the basics of Indian astrology, the five elements, and the healing tradition of ayurveda, all of which are necessary to truly understand the importance of angles and quadrants in vaastu. He also discusses the difference between vaastu and feng shui and reviews frequently asked questions about vaastu principles. With this knowledge in hand, even a beginner can quickly learn how to design a new home--or renovate an existing one--in order to bring peace, prosperity, and happiness to those who live there. DR. TALAVANE KRISHNA practiced medicine in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for twenty years before returning to India. He now directs the Indus Valley Ayurvedic Center (IVAC) in Mysore. The center is situated on fifteen acres, with an accompanying eight acres of gardens containing over eight hundred species of medicinal plants. In April 2001, the center was recognized as the Best Global Model in Alternative Medicine--Ayurveda, and the center is now certified for a Ph.D. program in Yoga Ayurveda. Dr. Krishna spends part of each year in the San Diego area with his wife and family. In addition to his work at the IVAC, he gives vaastu consultations and lectures around the world.

HEALTH / MASSAGE Robert Calvert's History of Massage is a groundbreaking and innovative contribution to bodywork culture. I enthusiastically recommend it to all practitioners. --Robert K. King, Founder and president, Chicago School of Massage Therapy Robert Calvert provides a unique, exhaustive, and invaluable study of massage. The History of Massage should be required reading for every student of massage therapy. --D. Van D'Elia, Director, Onondaga School of Therapeutic Massage A pioneering contribution from one of the pivotal figures in the contemporary massage movement. This volume stands as the foundation upon which the past chronology of massage will be interpreted and its future identity as a profession will be built. --David Palmer, President, TouchPro Institute of Chair Massage The History of Massage is an example of outstanding research and scholarship. Massage is often referred to as a trade and an industry; it will not be a profession until massage therapists learn the history of what they do. Robert Calvert has made it possible for massage to be a profession in the full sense of the word. --Albert Schatz, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Temple University Editor, Journal of Spiritual Bodywork From the people of ancient Greece to the tribes of the Pacific Ocean and the Americas, massage has been a significant element in medicine, midwifery, folk healing, and athletics. Yet the rich presence of healing touch is rarely present in the telling of human history. Now Robert Noah Calvert, founder and president of Massage Magazine, offers the first comprehensive history of massage, one that spans the globe in its exhaustive exploration of the important role of touch therapy in the life of the world's people. With rich use of anecdote, historical reference, and illustration the author details the cross-cultural applications of massage, the development of anatomical knowledge and attendant massage technologies, the origin of movement cure systems and their relationship to massage, and the emerging trends of massage in the twenty-first century. Teachers will find The History of Massage an important educational resource for perspective on the massage profession's development and critical background for discussion of current issues in the field. For practitioners of touch therapies, The History of Massage provides the first comprehensive analysis of the cultural practices and historical currents that coalesced into contemporary massage and the trends that continue to influence its direction into the future. Massage therapists, educators, and somatic practitioners of all kinds will want to have this important reference book in their libraries. ROBERT NOAH CALVERT, founder and president of Massage Magazine, has been a leader in the field of massage for more than twenty years. Author of the International Massage and Bodywork Resource Guide, his work has appeared in numerous publications including Body, Mind, & Spirit magazine and the Journal of Higher Education.

DIVINATION / INDIGENOUS CULTURES The Santeria, or Lucumi, faith is not a static religion but a living conduit for connecting the spirit world to our own. One of the paths to the spirits within Santeria is through a divination technique known as Obi, the coconut oracle, which gives the petitioner access to the orisha of the same name. The orisha Obi began as a mortal human who ascended to become an orisha as a reward for good deeds done on Earth, then fell from grace because of excessive pride. When he descended back to Earth, his spirit was embodied in the coconut palm. Though he no longer has a tongue, he can answer questions posed to him through the random patterns made by four pieces of coconut shell cast as a divination tool. Obi Oracle of Cuban Santeria is the first book to fully explore the patakis of Obi, the sacred body of lore surrounding him, as well as his particular rituals and customs. Hands-on divination instructions include opening considerations, specifics on casting and interpreting the basic oracle, and employing advanced methods of divination. Also explained are the previously unpublished secrets of closing the oracle properly so that any negative vibrations will be absorbed by the coconuts and permanently removed from the diviner's home. Author of The Secrets of Afro-Cuban Divination, oCHA'NI LELE has been immersed in the underground culture of Orisha worship since 1989. By 1995 he had received several initiations in both Santeria and the Congo faith Palo Mayombe and in 2000 he made Ocha and was crowned a Santeria priest. He lives in Florida.

SHAMANISM In traditional Mongolian-Buryat culture, shamans play an important role maintaining the tegsh, the "balance" of the community. They counsel a path of moderation in one's actions and reverence for the natural world, which they view as mother to humanity. Mongolians believe that if natural resources are taken without thanking the spirits for what they have given, those resources will not be replaced. Unlike many other cultures whose shamanic traditions were undermined by modern civilization, shamans in the remote areas of southern Siberia and Mongolia are still the guardians of the environment, the community, and the natural order. Riding Windhorses is the first book written on Mongolian and Siberian shamanism by a shaman trained in that tradition. A thorough introduction to Mongolian/Siberian shamanic beliefs and practices, it includes working knowledge of the basic rituals and various healing and divination techniques. Many of the rituals and beliefs described here have never been published and are the direct teachings of the author's own shaman mentors. SARANGEREL, which means Moonlight in Buryat, was trained in the traditional Mongolian and Buryat shamanic traditions by native teachers who are free to practice again following the collapse of the Soviet Union. She was the foreign outreach representative of the Golomt Center for Shamanist Studies and the Mongolian Shamans' Association. Born in the United States after her family had been forced to flee Siberia following the Russian Revolution in 1917, she returned to her ancestral homeland in the Tunken region of southern Siberia in 1991 to rediscover the shamanic knowledge of her ancestors.

HEALTH / AYURVEDA "Harish Johari is Ayurveda's Renaissance man." --Yoga Journal Over the past twenty-five years Harish Johari's books and workshops on India's Ayurvedic traditions of healing, cooking, massage, numerology, gemology, and meditation have changed the lives of countless individuals in the West and have established Johari's reputation as the foremost ambassador of the Ayurvedic life. Now Johari's vast knowledge on Ayurveda has been distilled into one convenient volume. Dhanwantari, named for the classical Indian god of medicine, is a complete guide to living the Ayurvedic way. Chapters focus on diet, breathing, bathing, meditation, sleeping, exercising, medicine, jewelry, and sex. Anyone seeking a spiritual, scientific, and practical set of principles for daily life will discover an excellent guide in this time-tested system. By improving the health of their bodies and minds, individuals will find that a greatly expanded breadth of life experiences is suddenly open to them. Composer, artist, and Tantric scholar, HARISH JOHARI began his training in Ayurveda at an early age, studying with several traditional practitioners. He is the author of Ayurvedic Massage, The Healing Power of Gemstones, The Healing Cuisine, Tools for Tantra, Chakras, Numerology, and Breath, Mind, and Consciousness. He divides his time between India, Germany, and the United States.

ASTROLOGY "A lucid and penetrating foray into the mysteries of Taoist natural science. The material is presented with a dynamic animism that breathes such life into the characters that they virtually leap from the page. Levitt and Tang have clearly created the reference standard for anyone interested in the profound study of Asian astrology, medicine, and psychology." --John Mini, Chinese medicine practitioner and licensed acupuncturist "Clear, thorough, and beautifully written, this book will satisfy anyone from the beginner to the most accomplished scholar." --Seann Xenja, Feng Shui consultant and educator The ancient Chinese people developed a sophisticated science of astrology that continues to have profound influence in China today. Rooted in the fundamentals of Taoism, which sees life as the play of opposing forces and cycles, it evolved into a system vastly different from Western astrology. In Taoist astrology the year in which you are born determines your character. The years form a cycle of sixty unique signs, each with distinct strengths and weaknesses. Taoist Astrology provides in-depth descriptions of each of the sixty signs and offers important advice for making life decisions. It gives valuable insights into personality, relationships, child-parent dynamics, and rising and falling fortunes. Special sections on yin and yang, Confucianism and Buddhism, and Taoist alchemy return this Chinese tradition to its ancient sources. Explanations of rising signs and of the connection between Taoist astrology and Western astrology give you all the background you need for understanding one of the oldest systems of divination known to mankind. SUSAN LEVITT is a professional astrologer and Tarot consultant. Her articles have appeared in New Age Journal, Gnosis, and Magical Blend. JEAN TANG, a native of Taiwan, is a lifelong student of Chinese history, literature, and metaphysics. Both authors reside in the San Francisco Bay Area.