As Ansalon struggles to recover from the war that has plagued it for so long, the world is suddenly threatened by the arrival of powerful dragons who wreak havoc on the land. Original.

Guinness offers a compelling analysis of current culture along with profiles of historic individuals of model character, based on modern society, other faiths and 3,000 years of history. He illustrates how character is built and tested, presenting practical help for bringing about change in personal character.

How-and why- were UFOs so prevalent in both conspiracy theories and the New Age milieu in the post-Cold War period? In this ground-breaking book, David G. Robertson argues that UFOs symbolized an uncertainty about the boundaries between scientific knowledge and other ways of validating knowledge, and thus became part of a shared vocabulary. Through historical and ethnographic case studies of three prominent figures-novelist and abductee Whitley Strieber; environmentalist and reptilian proponent David Icke; and David Wilcock, alleged reincarnation of Edgar Cayce-the investigation reveals that millennial conspiracism offers an explanation as to why the prophesied New Age failed to arrive-it was prevented from arriving by malevolent, hidden others. Yet millennial conspiracism constructs a counter-elite, a gnostic third party defined by their special knowledge. An overview of the development of UFO subcultures from the perspective of religious studies, UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age is an innovative application of discourse analysis to the study of present day alternative religion.

Hess examines the arguments of people who accept the paranormal as part of a spiritual quest, parapsychologists who are seeking scientific explanations for a narrow range of paranormal phenomena, and skeptics who pooh-pooh the very notion. He finds that, despite their disagreements, they are forging a shared culture. Written for the nonspecialist. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Character Theology provides a natural, universal way for the world to engage God through his chosen cast of characters. As the media eras continue to change (oral to print to digital-virtual), too many Bible scholars, and consequently pastors and Bible teachers in the West and beyond, lack capability to effectively communicate Scripture to Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. These generations find little if any relevance in the Christianity promoted by those stuck in modernity’s sticky abstract systematic theology. Character Theology relates, sticks, and transforms these generations. Why? Because people grasp and engage God most naturally and precisely through his interaction with biblical characters and their interaction with each other! Characters communicate the Creator’s characteristics. The roadmap to the recovery and expansion of Christianity in the twenty-first century will be through Bible characters.

Most scholars would agree that there is an epochal threshold between the world of the Middle Ages and the modern world. Agreement on the nature and dynamic structure of that threshold is harder to come by. Hans Blumenberg's original and compelling account of the transition from medieval to modern, given in his 1966 work The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, has received wide attention. Elizabeth Brient begins her own account of the transition with an extensive, critical assessment of central aspects of Blumenberg's work. She elucidates his "dialogical" method of historical explanation, then discusses the shortcomings of his defense of the "legitimacy" of modernity. The transition to the modern world is marked by the process of making infinite the finite medieval cosmos. Whereas Blumenberg focused on the spatial infinitization of the universe, Brient claims that the process must be understood intensively as well as extensively. In the now-infinite universe of the new science, the problem of finding a measure for man's self-assertive activity, and for human knowledge, comes to the fore. The second half of the book focuses on the way in which this difficulty is addressed with conceptual resources developed in the tradition of late medieval Neoplatonism, in particular in the speculative thought of Meister Eckart and Nicholas of Cusa. Specific attention is given to the way in which Cusanus' notion of the immanence of the infinite in the finite responds to the need for a regulative ideal for human knowing. This is the first book-length treatment of Blumenberg to appear in English and will be a most welcome resource for readers engaged by debates concerning the status of modernity. It will be of equal interest to students of Eckhart and Cusanus, and to those generally concerned with the transition between the medieval and the modern world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Brient is Assistant Professor of philosophy at The University of Georgia. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "Blumenberg could not have wished for a more reverent critique of his achievements or a more exacting textual exegesis regarding the sources of their philosophical content, all written in a lucid style that is forthright in the defense of the depth of thought during the Middle Ages but also pleasing in its subtle irony with respect to Blumenberg's and the author's own metaphysical creed."- Walter F. Veit, Speculum "Brient's analysis of Blumenberg's philosophy sheds significant light in the debate concerning modernity. . . ." --Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, German Studies Review