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Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs is a great resource for the many, many uses of herbs and other plants in magickal rituals.
Edit: Also, a ttrpg with accurate herbalism mechanics sounds cool as hell, I'd love to play it when it's complete!
So...La Santa Muerte is appealing to almost all Latinx practitioners. Only because she’s a deep part of our culture and of course if you go to Mexico or the latino neighborhoods you’re going to see her.
That being said I personally do not mess with her. She is a death goddess, which means any prayer to her is a prayer to death itself. Ask her to help you find motivation to leave your job and she’ll burn it to the ground. It’s an extreme example, but death gods are not to be worshipped lightly and they are most assuredly not to be trifled with. A healthy respect should be given, and maybe she does need something from you or perhaps she simply is warning you. She is not a malevolent entity, but a force of nature. And like all forces of nature they cause both joy and suffering.
Encyclopedia of Spirits had a small section on her, but it’s very whitewashed.
Edit: I also want to say she is one of the few spirits who can probably not be used as a substitute for the goddess. She is wholeheartedly a natural force of nature, where as the goddess is a force of life and renewal FOLLOWED by death. She could serve as an aspect of the goddess I guess, but she really kind of is just a death spirit.
An accessible work written about this subject is Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth.
More about this subject can be found at the wiki/FAQ pages here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskBibleScholars/wiki/faq
Specifically, numbers 12, 32, and 34.
Welcome! I haven't found any good gnostic Facebook groups. They're either unhelpful, full of conspiracies or weirdly orthodox with some stuff about chakras thrown in. This subreddit is small but good for discussion and learning.
If you don't already have one, get a print copy of the Nag Hammadi Scriptures. The introductions to each text, as well as the footnotes throughout, are invaluable and provide insight that is sometimes lacking when reading online.
For general books, check the list in the sidebar.
Along with everything listed here, your friends may be inclined to listen to Bart Ehrman. He's an atheist New Testament scholar who has written and spoken quite a bit against Jesus mythicism. Be aware that as an atheist he has many claims about both the historicity of certain parts of the bible and the figure of Christ himself that I find problematic, but he does a good job refuting the idea that Jesus never existed period. If you or your friends enjoy reading, his book Did Jesus Exist? is a good presentation a secular case for the historical figure of Jesus. He has also been on the radio show/podcast Unbelievable?
If you like podcasts, then Unbelievable? has a ton of great episodes debating this issue if you search through the archives. (And, might I add, if you're doing any kind of apologetics it's a great resource to listen to Christians having fantastic apologetics discourse with people from all kinds of belief systems.)
Houston Smith's book The World Religions is a classic . https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=zg\_bs\_12783\_20?\_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CYCAGX7Q1SH3NWT07JJP
I think you need to look for the Nag Hammadi Library and the Berlin Codex. You can search around on Amazon for some others; here is a copy of the Nag Hammadi Scriptures
The overwhelming academic consensus is that there was a historical Jesus, the mythicist hypothesis (which is the main competitor) is really fringe (not that there aren't biblical scholars and peer-reviewed papers that support it, but they're treated kind of like climatologists who deny anthropogenic global warming).
Bart Ehrman (an extremely respected NT scholar who generally identifies as an agnostic) wrote a book for non-scholars on the topic, Did Jesus Exist?, but while I recommend Ehrman's work generally, I haven't read that particular book.
Look, I genuinely believe you definitely saw something paranormal. It obviously shook you up pretty bad for you to write an entire long post in such detail. I think people are just trying to make light of the seemingly dark situation by making jokes. Unfortunately, that does not help you or make you feel better.
Though I have never seen or heard anything like what you described, I do know what it feels like to experience something that terrifying,mesmerizing, and well....traumatizing—- and want answers as to what it was and why it did what it did. You’re hoping someone will read this and tell you that they too have seen it...and maybe they can give you more info about it. I totally understand where you’re coming from because I’ve been searching for several years for more info, or answers to the encounters I had.
For your sake, I hope you find answers. I can’t give you answers, but maybe this Book will help. I haven’t personally read it yet, but I’ve ordered it from Amazon because if anything- it certainly looks like a good book to have.
1) the historical consensus is that Jesus did, in fact, exist. Bart Ehrman, the world's leading atheistic Bible scholar, even wrote a book dedicated to explaining to other atheists that Jesus did in fact exist: https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443
2) So what if every religion thinks they're right and the others are wrong. the same is true of political ideologies. That's just how a debate works.
the historical and scholarly consensus is that Jesus did, in fact, exist.
Bart ehrman, the world's leading atheistic Bible scholar, wrote a book dedicated to explaining this to other atheists. https://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062206443
Read a book about Christianity first. The Bible has far too many layers to understand on a cold reading.
I recommend books by Huston Smith. Try this one out - you can get it from your library or probably find a pdf online. It's been a classic for decades and you'll learn a lot about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and a number of other major religions if you want to read those parts, too.
You should check out the book Encyclopedia of Spirits: The Ultimate Guide to the Magic of Fairies, Genies, Demons, Ghosts, Gods & Goddesses by Judika Illes. Here is a link to it on Amazon
But the best deal is the $4.99 paperback. The perfect Christmas gift for all your rabid right wing Christian relatives and co-workers.
This is the one to go for, all the translations in here are pretty reliable and the scholarly commentary for them is spot on and generally quite detailed.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nag-Hammadi-Scriptures-Translation-Complete/dp/0061626007
Not a website or an app, but a scholarly book about what the first five books of the bible mean in context: https://www.amazon.com/Sources-Revealed-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/006073065X
I recommend it, very fun read. A starting point at least.
It's so strange that the same Bart Ehrman wrote a book called Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument <strong>for</strong> Jesus of Nazareth
He argued that the Historical Jesus (i.e. the man, not the religious claims) existed.
>I'm not changing the topic. I'm simply asking how six non-eyewitness writings talking about the beliefs of christians are evidence that Jesus actually existed?
Erhman explains this well in the article above and in his book Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth
You can believe what you want to believe but i am quoting experts not pastors and apologetics. Even the gospel of John wasn't written in the first century. I don't know why you bring in the Muslims like they are the only ones who disagree with Christianity. The Bible has some serious errors and I wasn't talking about spelling mistakes. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0E6loeTlUNQ The link above tells how a group of NT scholars concluded that 82% of what Jesus said according to the Bible is not true. The Tanach is not so innocent either. It's actually worse according to this scholar who wrote about the Torah. https://www.amazon.ca/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353
You can believe what you want to believe but i am quoting experts not pastors and apologetics. Even the gospel of John wasn't written in the first century. I don't know why you bring in the Muslims like they are the only ones who disagree with Christianity. The Bible has some serious errors and I wasn't talking about spelling mistakes. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0E6loeTlUNQ The link above tells how a group of NT scholars concluded that 82% of what Jesus said according to the Bible is not true. The Tanach is not so innocent either. It's actually worse according to this scholar who wrote about the Torah. https://www.amazon.ca/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353
Have you ever read Drawing Down the Moon?
My book club read it a few years ago - a fascinating overview of the history of the pagan movement (or movements) and the rather slippery task of trying to define what a pagan is (or is not). 5 stars.
We have no known contemporary accounts outside of the Gospels. The Jewish historian Josephus talked about it. If you'd like to know more I suggest this book. Hopefully you'll find it to be a good informative read.
Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? has a chart in the Appendix that lets you do just that, with your own book.
To see the Appendix, go here to Amazon's US page. Click the book cover picture to Look Inside. On the left, click the Search magnifying glass, then type Appendix. All of it is there from this preview, page 246-255.
For the Pentateuch, I would definitely recommend the Bible with Sources Revealed by Richard Elliott Friedman. (https://www.amazon.com/Sources-Revealed-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/006073065X)
I refer to it all the time. I'm not sure all of his assignments are undisputed, but it is a great place to start.
For those N=3 of you who are interested in my Biblical history posts, note that Richard Elliot Friedman has recently uploaded a lecture series to Youtube. So far it has around 30 hours of content, mostly concerning the material in Genesis through Deuteronomy, with some lectures stretching into the material of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
R.E. Friedman is the author of Who Wrote the Bible? (1987), a book that outlines the Documentary Hypothesis in the context of the historical/archaeological Israel and Judah c.1200-400 BCE. He is a scholar, and takes a critical view of Biblical origins, but I would characterize him as one of the "kinder" or more "maximalist" scholars. He is willing to claim, for example, that the prophet Jeremiah and the priest Ezra wrote (or edited) significant portions of the Torah.
!ping CHRISTIANITY you might be interested
There are already a lot of good ideas in these comments, so I’ll only add this…
While I don’t believe it is fruitful to try to convince someone that the Bible is inspired by the LORD, I do believe it is fruitful to help them see the New Testament as a reliable source to describe who Jesus is and that his Resurrection happened. There’s a lot of apologetics out there for the historicity of the New Testament. I learned a lot about this from The Case for Christ, but I assume there are more in-depth resources out there.
I would say the goal of any spiritual conversation with a non-believer should be helping them see that Jesus is the risen Lord. Anything else the Spirit will work out when they are a believer.
Never been?
A "Bible" with nothing but Jesus' words from the 1800s.
Then again, you appear to be one of those silly Monarchists, so there's no point in arguing. You like being told what to do.
>there is no record of the Jesus character in any historical record
Then you may be surprised by reading the book I'm currently reading.
>If you reported that experience, that's one thing. It's one person. Compare that to every major religion who universally believe in evil, spiritual creatures, and also that these evil beings sometimes do bad things to people. We are talking about billions of people. It's knowledge that had been handed down over thousands of years.
Yeah, but a LOT of people believe in Jesus.
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>Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, believed in the existence of demons. More than that, He cast them out of people, taught His disciples to do the same, and gave them the power to do it.
Sure -- but he told me they are not involved in Missing 411.
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>As far as good reasons to believe these things, it goes into the realm of philosophy. I'd recommend The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863/ref=redir\_mobile\_desktop?\_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=f2c5ecf76e994ff7ef864f1e2b527999&hsa\_cr\_id=1264584810601&pd\_rd\_plhdr=t&pd\_rd\_r=7300aa9e-a070-4174-b636-c1c90d5a8d74&pd\_rd\_w=ysTX7&am...
Ok, but how do we decide who is right? You are claiming Missing 411 is involved with the supernatural, and Jesus said it's not. More people believe Jesus is honest than have ever heard of you -- so does that make him right?
If you reported that experience, that's one thing. It's one person. Compare that to every major religion who universally believe in evil, spiritual creatures, and also that these evil beings sometimes do bad things to people. We are talking about billions of people. It's knowledge that had been handed down over thousands of years.
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, believed in the existence of demons. More than that, He cast them out of people, taught His disciples to do the same, and gave them the power to do it.
As far as good reasons to believe these things, it goes into the realm of philosophy. I'd recommend The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310345863/ref=redir\_mobile\_desktop?\_encoding=UTF8&aaxitk=f2c5ecf76e994ff7ef864f1e2b527999&hsa\_cr\_id=1264584810601&pd\_rd\_plhdr=t&pd\_rd\_r=7300aa9e-a070-4174-b636-c1c90d5a8d74&pd\_rd\_w=ysTX7&am...