A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK In this exquisite book of personal reflections on a woman’s life as a child, wife, and mother, Kathryn Harrison, “a writer of extraordinary gifts” (Tobias Wolff), recalls episodes in her life, exploring how the experiences of childhood recur in memory, to be transformed and sometimes healed through the lives we lead as adults. At the heart of Seeking Rapture is the notion that a woman’s journey is a continuous process of transformation, an ongoing transcendence and re-creation of self.

“A highly personal, richly informed and culturally wide-ranging meditation on the loss of meaning in our times and on pathways to rediscovering it.” —Gabor Maté, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction A neuroanthropologist maps out a revolutionary new practice—Hedonic Engineering—that combines the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology. It’s an intensive program of breathing, movement, and sexuality that mends trauma, heightens inspiration and tightens connections—helping us wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all. This is a book about a big idea. And the idea is this: Slowly over the past few decades, and now suddenly, all at once, we’re suffering from a collapse in Meaning. Fundamentalism and nihilism are filling that vacuum, with consequences that affect us all. In a world that needs us at our best, diseases of despair, tribalism, and disaster fatigue are leaving us at our worst. It’s vital that we regain control of the stories we’re telling because they are shaping the future we’re creating. To do that, we have to remember our deepest inspiration, heal our pain and apathy, and connect to each other like never before. If we can do that, we’ve got a shot at solving the big problems we face. And if we can’t? Well, the dustbin of history has swallowed civilizations older and fancier than ours. This book is divided into three parts. The first, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, takes a look at our current Meaning Crisis--where we are today, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, what might be coming next, and what to do about it. It also makes a case that many of our efforts to cope, whether anxiety and denial, or tribalism and identity politics, are likely making things worse. The middle section, The Alchemist Cookbook, applies the creative firm IDEO’s design thinking to the Meaning Crisis. This is where the book gets hands on--taking a look at the strongest evolutionary drivers that can bring about inspiration, healing, and connection. From breathing, to movement, sexuality, music, and substances--these are the everyday tools to help us wake up, grow up, and show up. AKA--how to blow yourself sky high with household materials. And the best part? They’re accessible, by anyone anywhere, no middleman required. Transcendence democratized. The final third of the book, Ethical Cult Building, focuses on the tricky nature of putting these kinds of experiences into gear and into culture—because, anytime in the past when we’ve figured out combinations of peak states and deep healing, we’ve almost always ended up with problematic culty communities. Playing with fire has left a lot of people burned. This section lays out a roadmap for sparking a thousand fires around the world--each one unique and tailored to the needs and values of its participants. Think of it as an open-source toolkit for building ethical culture. In Recapture the Rapture, we’re taking radical research out of the extremes and applying it to the mainstream--to the broader social problem of healing, believing, and belonging. It’s providing answers to the questions we face: how to replace blind faith with direct experience, how to move from broken to whole, and how to cure isolation with connection. Said even more plainly, it shows us how to revitalize our bodies, boost our creativity, rekindle our relationships, and answer once and for all the questions of why we are here and what do we do now? In a world that needs the best of us from the rest of us, this is a book that shows us how to get it done.

The idea of "The Rapture" -- the return of Christ to rescue and deliver Christians off the earth -- is an extremely popular interpretation of the Bible's Book of Revelation and a jumping-off point for the best-selling "Left Behind" series of books. This interpretation, based on a psychology of fear and destruction, guides the daily acts of thousands if not millions of people worldwide. In The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing argues that this script for the world's future is nothing more than a disingenuous distortion of the Bible. The truth, Rossing argues, is that Revelation offers a vision of God's healing love for the world. The Rapture Exposed reclaims Christianity from fundamentalists' destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God's beloved community.

Will sinful humanity have to endure the reign of the beast before the full wrath of God falls upon them?

“Luminous and affecting . . . [Exposure] examines the often fine line between art and abuse. . . . Taut in plot, beautifully realistic, and intelligently disturbing.” –Harper’s Bazaar Ann Rogers appears to be a happily married, successful young woman. A talented photographer, she creates happy memories for others, videotaping weddings, splicing together scenes of smiling faces, editing out awkward moments. But she cannot edit her own memories so easily–images of a childhood spent as her father’s model and muse, the subject of his celebrated series of controversial photographs. To cope, Ann slips into a secret life of shame and vice. But when the Museum of Modern Art announces a retrospective of her father’s shocking portraits, Ann finds herself teetering on the edge of self-destruction, desperately trying to escape the psychological maelstrom that threatens to consume her. “Astounding . . . told in prose as multifaceted as a diamond, crystalline and mesmerizing. ‘Remarkable’ hardly goes far enough.” –Cosmopolitan “Impossible to put down . . . Kathryn Harrison is an extremely gifted writer, poetic, passionate, and elegant.” –San Francisco Chronicle “Exquisite, exhilarating, and harrowing.” –Donna Tartt, author of The Secret History and The Little Friend “A breathless urban nightmare not easy to forget. Stark, brilliant, and original work.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The end times contain many exciting events we are all familiar with and think we fully understand. The appearance and domination of the Antichrist throughout the world. The rise and global domination of the "Revised Roman Empire," resulting in a One World Government. The Mark of the Beast that makes trade impossible anywhere on the Earth. The universal devastation wrecked by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The appearance of the spiritual harlot of Mystery Babylon, and the end time false religion. However, consider the following: - What if the Antichrist will not become the universal or worldwide leader? - What if the Mark of the Beast is regional, rather than global? - What if there is no "Revised Roman Empire"? - What if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have already been loosed? - What if Mystery Babylon could never be the Roman Catholic Church? - Who did Jesus identify as the Mystery Babylon of Revelation? - What if the Twelfth Imam, the Islamic Messiah, is slain in the rebuilt Jewish Temple? - Why is it impossible to know the identity of the Antichrist until certain events unfold? - Why are the dates of the Rapture and that of the Second Coming both "unknowable"? - Who is left to enter into the Millennial Kingdom if there's a Post-Tribulational Rapture? - Why are the identities of the two end-time prophets "unknowable"? - What country is poised to play a major role within these end-time events? In a detailed and thorough analysis of Scripture, The Great Tribulation! explores these and many more questions related to the end-time events in a step-by-step approach. Using a literal interpretation of Scripture, this eschatological study is unsurpassed in detail for the knowledgeable Bible student and yet remains basic and straightforward for the novice.