The Reign of the Departed

The Reign of the Departed
Author: Greg Keyes
Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2018-06-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1597806277

A young man looking for death finds purpose in a world beyond our own in this sweeping fantasy from Greg Keyes (The Briar King, Newton’s Cannon). Errol Greyson hadn’t intended to commit suicide. Or so he told himself. But waking up after his “cry for help” in the body of a wood-and-metal construct magically animated by Aster?the strange girl from school?was not a result he could have imagined. Aster’s wild explanations of a quest to find the water of health that would cure her father seemed as unreal as her description of Errol’s own half-dead existence, his consciousness stuck in an enchanted automaton while his real body was in a coma from which it might never wake. And of course, they would need to recruit a girl?a virgin, no less?who had been dead for thirty years, to lead them through something called the Pale, beyond which a bunch of magical kingdoms existed. Plus, the threat that Aster could turn him off like a light switch, sending him into a hellish oblivion, was a convincing incentive to cooperate. It all seemed quite mad: Either Aster was nuts, or Errol was hallucinating. But if it meant a new chance at life, he reckoned it was worth playing along.

The History of the Devil

The History of the Devil
Author: Paul Carus
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2021-08-03
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1513223828

The History of the Devil (1900) is a philosophical study by Paul Carus. A lifelong Monist, Carus sought to apply a scientific analysis to the principles of humanity’s religions. Credited with bridging the gap between Eastern and Western beliefs, Carus believed that the dualism rampant in the West could be replaced in order to establish a more equitable world where difference and diversity would be accepted and nurtured, rather than suppressed. “This world of ours is a world of opposites. There is light and shade, there is heat and cold, there is good and evil, there is God and the Devil. The dualistic conception of nature has been a necessary phase in the evolution in human thought.” Recognizing the need for dualism in the history of humanity, Carus sought to promote the principles of Monism in the West, believing it could lead to a universal worldview capable of uniting East and West. A positivist and pantheist, Carus believed that by pursuing “in religion the same path that science travels, [...] the narrowness of sectarianism [would] develop into a broad cosmical religion which shall be as wide and truly catholic as is science itself.” To lay the groundwork for this “cosmical religion,” he investigates the figure of the Devil and the historical evolution of the concept of evil, which he saw as predating belief in goodness and God. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Paul Carus’ The History of the Devil is a classic of philosophy reimagined for modern readers.