This novel will keep you glued to the pages from start to finish as it takes many unexpected turns. Dawie van der Heifer was born into an extremely poor family, the third eldest of twelve living children. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother died giving birth to her umpteenth stillborn child. After running away from home he found work on a rich man’s farm and soon became the nymphomaniac wife’s lover and student, learning the ways of the world, following her around the European houses of ill repute, as well a the casinos where he made enormous amounts of money. Seeking a life of his own he returns home with a great deal of money and teaches his siblings what he has learnt from the French brothels. Together they turn their derelict farm house into a magnificent spa, attracting the rich from across the world. During this time Amanda Jooste and Andries van Aswegen, both rich and powerful people, have an affair and produce a child, Elizabeth. This causes their relationship to sour. Elizabeth, a naive clean-living farm girl, never knows her true identity and when she dies in a motor accident her astral being drifts around the universe for ten years looking for a cadaver into which she can be reincarnated. Amanda, Elizabeth’s mother, worked hard for the community but like the rest of them looked down on the Van der Heifer’s. This perception she passed onto Elizabeth. The mortal remains that Elizabeth’s astral soul chose to inhabit is, unbeknown to her, none other than that of Magriet, the eldest of Dawie’s sisters. When she discovers this, and also who some of the clients are whom she is expected to service, things become a dilemma for the virgin Elizabeth.

What is a religious or spiritual delusion? What does religious delusion reveal about the difference between good and bad spirituality? What is the connection between religious delusion and moral failure? Or between religious delusion and religious terrorism? Or religious delusion and despair? The Abraham Dilemma: A Divine Delusion is the first book written by a philosopher on the topic of religious delusion - on the disorder's causes, contents, consequences, diagnosis and treatment. The book argues that we cannot understand a religious delusion without appreciating three facts. One is that religiosity or spirituality is a part of human nature, whether it takes theistic or non-theistic forms. Another is that religious delusion is something to which we are all vulnerable. The third is that the delusion is not best understood by reducing it to brain chemistry, or by insisting that it is empirically false. It is best understood by examining its harmful personal and moral consequences - consequences that nearly unfolded when the biblical patriarch Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac in response to a command, he thought, from God. The book presents a fascinating and profound exploration of a phenomenon as old as mankind itself.

Life at the Ranoa University of Magic suddenly gets more interesting when Rudeus discovers the mysterious Fitz's true identity. What will this unforeseen reunion bring? And what if it is too late for him and his long-lost friend to repair the bond they once had?

With Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small scale indigenous societies of West Africa, Melanesia, and North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritiative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth.

With Imagining Karma, Gananath Obeyesekere embarks on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small-scale societies of West Africa, Melanesia, traditional Siberia, Canada, and the northwest coast of North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar, and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth. As Obeyesekere compares responses to the most fundamental questions of human existence, he challenges readers to reexamine accepted ideas about death, cosmology, morality, and eschatology. Obeyesekere's comprehensive inquiry shows that diverse societies have come through independent invention or borrowing to believe in reincarnation as an integral part of their larger cosmological systems. The author brings together into a coherent methodological framework the thought of such diverse thinkers as Weber, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche. In a contemporary intellectual context that celebrates difference and cultural relativism, this book makes a case for disciplined comparison, a humane view of human nature, and a theoretical understanding of "family resemblances" and differences across great cultural divides.

Book one of The Reincarnationist series. A bomb in Rome, a flash of bluish-white, and photojournalist Josh Ryder's world explodes. As Josh recovers, thoughts that have the emotion, the intensity, the intimacy of memories invade him. But they are not his. They are ancient…and violent with an urgency he cannot ignore—pulling him to save Sabina…and the treasures she protects. But who is Sabina? Desperate for answers, Josh turns to the Phoenix Foundation—a research facility that scientifically documents past-life experiences. He is led to an archaeological dig and to Professor Gabriella Chase, who has discovered an ancient, powerful secret that threatens to merge the past with the present. Here, the dead call out to the living, and murders of the past become murders of the present. Previously published.