The preoccupation with “depth” and its relevance to cinema and media studies For decades the concept of depth has been central to critical thinking in numerous humanities-based disciplines, legitimizing certain modes of inquiry over others. Deep Mediations examines why and how this is, as scholars today navigate the legacy of depth models of thought and vision, particularly in light of the “surface turn” and as these models impinge on the realms of cinema and media studies. The collection’s eighteen essays seek to understand the decisive but evolving fixation on depth by considering the term’s use across a range of conversations as well as its status in relation to critical methodologies and the current mediascape. Engaging contemporary debates about new computing technologies, the environment, history, identity, affect, audio/visual culture, and the limits and politics of human perception, Deep Mediations is a timely interrogation of depth’s ongoing importance within the humanities. Contributors: Laurel Ahnert; Taylor Arnold, U of Richmond; Erika Balsom, King’s College London; Brooke Belisle, Stony Brook University; Jinhee Choi, King’s College London; Jennifer Fay, Vanderbilt U; Lisa Han, UC Santa Barbara; Jean Ma, Stanford U; Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College-SUNY; Susanna Paasonen, U of Turku, Finland; Jussi Parikka, U of Southampton; Alessandra Raengo, Georgia State U; Pooja Rangan, Amherst College; Katherine Rochester, VIA Art Fund in Boston; Karl Schoonover, University of Warwick (UK); Jordan Schonig, Michigan State U; John Paul Stadler, North Carolina State U; Nicole Starosielski, New York U; Lauren Tilton, U of Richmond.

This is a challenge: Money is perhaps the next most powerful force after God, and the way this energy is utilised is actually critical to world peace. The use of money by countries for weapons and military armament and the amounts spent on weapons of mass destruction will only lead to further conflict. Yet when used for societal benefit, for the development of third world countries and for the helping of poor and needy, then this energy takes one towards a Godlier path a path of love and peace. It is a challenge that if we follow this path then there will be no more wars in the future. If there is only one God, and God has no religion, we are worshipping our own self made techniques. Thats why there is so much fighting and conflict amongst humanity. If we study all the scriptures and religious texts then it becomes clear that the universal religion of mankind and the attainment of God is through the Love and devotion to God. In fact, it is a very simple path where one lives a life in constant and loving remembrance of Gods Name, earning an honest living and sharing with the poor and needy. The author, a well known interfaith writer and poet emphasises that above all religions and spiritual methods is that God, who belongs to all, is ONE. He believes love, affection and peace is the simplest yet most desirable form of meditation. Meditation is not about sitting with your eyes closed, but about how you live your life from moment to moment, and a rhythmical part of your very being, as is your breath. Translated by Jasvinder Singh Dooa & Kamaljit Kaur Dooa

In this bold rewriting of visual culture, Brooke Belisle uses dimensionality to rethink the history and theory of media aesthetics. With Depth Effects, she traces A.I.-enabled techniques of computational imaging back to spatial strategies of early photography, analyzing everyday smartphone apps by way of almost-forgotten media forms. Drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Belisle explores depth both as a problem of visual representation (how can flat images depict a voluminous world?) and as a philosophical paradox (how do things cohere beyond the limits of our view?). She explains how today's depth effects continue colonialist ambitions toward totalizing ways of seeing. But she also shows how artists stage dimensionality to articulate what remains invisible and irreducible.

Featuring contributions from a range of significant voices in the field, this volume renews the conversation around what it means to speak of the 'queer' in the context of architecture, and offers a fresh take on the methodological and epistemological challenges this poses to the discipline of architectural theory. Architecture as a discipline, a profession and an applied practice is always subordinate to its own conceptual framework, which is one of orderliness. It refers to buildings, but also to infrastructures of thought and knowledge, to conventions and taxonomies, to structures of governance, hierarchies of power and systems of administration. How, then, can one look at queering architectural discourse when the very term 'queer', celebrated for its elusive nature, resists and attacks such order? Divided into four subsections, the essays in this anthology each pursue a distinct line of inquiry – methods, practices, spaces and pedagogies – in order to help particularize the proposed queering of architecture. They demonstrate the paradoxical nature of the endeavour from a diverse range of perspectives – from questions of mapping queer theory in architecture; to issues of queer architectural archives, or lack thereof; to non-Western challenges to the very term queer, and the queering of basic assumptions across affiliated disciplines. Queering Architecture not only provides a bold challenge to the normative methods employed in architectural discourse but also addresses how establishing 'queer' methodologies is a paradox in itself.

According to the Holy Scriptures, in the beginning, Adam felt very alone and deeply longed to have a partner like him. God therefore caused him to fall into a deep sleep, took one of his ribs, and fashioned woman from it. Notably, there is no mention in the Holy Bible that he later awoke. In Adams Dream, author Joseph Romanella presents a strong and very compelling argument that Adam, as the universal man (or mind), is still sound asleep and has progressed to dream of humankind as his direct off spring. He believes that with this new revolutionary knowledge gained through Divine Grace, the self-centered mentalities of human beings along with their narrow points of view concerning life and the outside world will also have to undergo corresponding changes. In fact, by comprehending that we are currently living inside of a very realistic fantasy as imaginary personal figures, we are immediately placed in the proper perspective to significantly change the way that we think, feel, perceive, will and behave. As a result, with this Holy Knowledge we are in a position to attract many good things into our earthly lives, not only to prosper us spiritually, but also in every other way. Moreover, with this new light a clearer awareness and a deeper acceptance of Gods Intimate Love for each one of us, automatically arises. And, contrary to popular religious beliefs, we also come to the realization that by faith all of our sins, past, present and future have already been forgiven and we have been empowered to enter into the Glorious Freedom, Rest, Life, Joy, Wisdom, Righteousness and Eternal Embrace of our Heavenly Father, without the need for any good works or sacrifices on our part.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the turn to sleep -- Sleep must be protected -- Into the dark -- Exiting and entering early cinema -- Somnolent journeys -- Insentient intimacies -- The regressive thesis -- Narcotic reception -- A little history of sleeping at the movies -- Zoning out -- Circadian cinemas.

This volume contains all three books of theoretical and practical use by Franz Bardon. Franz Bardon needs no introduction in the field of Magic, Evocation, occultism, practical use of the first three tarot cards, use of magical words and letters. A Course of Instruction of Theory & Practice of Magic+ Magical Evocation + Magical Words Anyone who should believe to find in this work nothing else but a collection of recipes, with the aid of which he can easily and without any effort attain to honor and glory, riches and power and aim at the annihilation of his enemies, might be told from the very inception, that he will put aside this book, being very disappointed. Numerous sects and religions do not understand the expression of “magic” otherwise than black art, witchcraft or conspiracy with evil powers. It is therefore not astonishing that many people are frightened by a certain horror, whenever the word “magic” is pronounced. Jugglers, conjurers, and charlatans have discredited this term and, considering this circumstance, there is no surprise that magic knowledge has always been looked upon with a slight disregard. Even in the remotest times the MAGUS has been regarded as one of the highest adepts and it might be of interest to learn that, as a matter of fact, the word “magic” is derived from this word. The so called “sorcerers” are by no means initiates but only imitators o the mysteries, who counting partly on the ignorance and partly on the credulity of the individuality or a whole nation in order to reach their selfish aims by, lies and fraud. The true magician will always despise such practices. In reality, magic is a sacred science, it is, in the very true sense the sum of all knowledge because it teaches how to know and utilize the sovereign rules. There is no difference between magic and mystic or any other conception of the name. Wherever authentic initiation is at stake, one has to proceed on the same basis, according to the same rules, irrespective of the name given by this or that creed. Considering the universal polarity rules of good and evil, active and passive, light and shadow, each science can serve good as well as bad purposes. Let us take the example of a knife, an object that virtually ought to be used for cutting bread only, which, however, can become a dangerous weapon in the hands of a murderer. All depends on the character of the individual. This principle goes just as well for all the spheres of the occult sciences. In my book I have chosen the term of “magician” for all of my disciples, it being a symbol of the deepest initiation and the highest wisdom. Many of the readers will know, of course, that the word “tarot” does not mean a game of cards, serving mantical purposes, but a symbolic book of initiation which contains the greatest secrets in a symbolic form. The first tablet of this book introduces the magician representing him as the master of the elements and offering the key to the first Arcanum, the secret of the ineffable name of Tetragrammaton*, the quabbalistic Yod-He-Vau-He. Here we will, therefore, find the gate to the magician’s initiation. The reader will easily realize, how significant and how manifold the application of this tablet is. Not one of the books published up to date does describe the true sense of the first Tarot card so distinctly as I have done in my book. It is – let it be noted – born from the own practice and destined for the practical use of a lot of other people, and all my disciples have found it to be the best and most serviceable system. *Tetragrammaton literally means “the four-letter word”. It was a subterfuge to avoid the sin of uttering the sacred name YHVH (Yahveh) or Jehova as it later became when the vowels of another word were combined with the consonants of YHVH. But I would never dare to say that my book describes or deals with all the magic or mystic problems. If anyone should like to write all about this sublime wisdom, he ought to fill folio volumes. It can, however, be affirmed positively that this work is indeed the gate to the true initiation, the first key to using the universal rules. I am not going to deny the fact of fragments being able to be found in many an author’s publications, but not in a single book will the reader find so exact a description of the first Tarot card. I have taken pains to be as plain as possible in the course of the lectures to make the sublime Truth accessible to everybody, although it has been a hard task sometimes to find such simple words as are necessary for the understanding of all the readers. I must leave it to the judgment of all of you, whether or not my efforts have been successful. At certain points I have been forced to repeat myself deliberately to emphasize some important sentences and to spare the reader any going back to a particular page. There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely. The Author.