Oracular Transmissions' weaves together three of the most recent collaborative projects Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby have completed through processes of exchange and translation: 'Back, Back Again to Paris' (2013), 'The Alhambra' (2016), and 'Transmissions' (2017). 00Etel Adnan is a Lebanese, Paris-based artist, essayist, and poet who was a longtime resident of Marin County and is known for her works inspired by her relationship to Mount Tamalpais. 00Lynn Marie Kirby is a San Francisco-based artist who makes films, videos, and site-responsive installations, often with text-based components. 00The book also includes poems by Denise Newman, a friend to both Adnan and Kirby, and an introduction by KADIST curator Jordan Stein presenting their works and performances. 00Design and typography by Brian Roettinger bring these numerous transmissions ? video, performance, photography, email and other texts ? together in one volume.

Oracular Transmissions weaves together three of the most recent collaborative projects Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby have completed through processes of exchange and translation: Back, Back Again to Paris (2013), The Alhambra (2016), and Transmissions (2017). Etel Adnan is a Lebanese, Paris-based artist, essayist, and poet who was a longtime resident of Marin County and is known for her works inspired by her relationship to Mount Tamalpais. Lynn Kirby is a San Francisco-based artist who makes films, videos, and site responsive installations, often with text based components. The book also includes poems by Denise Newman, a friend to both Adnan and Kirby, and an introduction by Kadist Foundation curator Jordan Stein presenting their works and performances. Design and typography by Brian Roettinger bring these numerous transmissions - video, performance, photography, email and other texts - together in one volume.

Throughout history, the uncertainties of life have driven people to seek counsel from prophets, seers, and oracles on everything from love to livelihood: people want to talk to their lost loved ones, heal old family traumas, find out about work, and determine what the future will bring. In The Way of the Oracle, bestselling author, scholar, and priestess Diana L. Paxson offers a broad overview of the traditions of famous oracles in history: from the pythia at Delphi, the son of Beor, the Irish druidess, and the Greenland völva, to today’s modern seers who are resurrecting ancient skills to serve their communities. Paxson identifies the core elements of prophetic practice, her belief in probability rather than predestination, and offers exercises and examples to demonstrate how anyone can be trained to do oracle work. Her methods focus on trance skills and improving communication between one’s unconscious and conscious mind to encourage selfknowledge and decision making. The Way of the Oracle introduces the practice of oracle work to a wider audience, and shows how exploring the potential of other minds can expand our own.

Annotation A study of the phenomenon of prophecy as documented in ancient Near Eastern texts and the Hebrew Bible as well as Greek sources, from the twenty-first century BCE to the second century CE.

This book traces the belief in oracles back to Orpheus, the legendary poet-prince, who travelled with Jason, charmed the sirens, and descended into Hades trying to save his Eurydice. Orpheus is one of those figures like Theseus, somewhat historical, fascinating, the subject of 27 operas. Orpheus may be the first Kristos, 'anointed one,' said to be a pioneer, a preacher (of apparently very persuasive talents), who preached a belief in metempsychosis, forbade sacrifice, murder, or the eating of meat - went against the mainline of belief and was said to have been assassinated during a Dionysian ceremony. Orphic writings, while mentioned by Plato and others, are lost, but his ideas have come down to us through a succession of Christos -Zoroaster, Krishna, Gautama, Jesus, Mani, Muhammad - not all of whom found martyrdom to be sure: Zoroaster was said to have been consumed by a flash of lighting, and there is Muhammad, suspended between heaven and earth. The lost poems of Orpheus are said to be oracular in nature and Bakkids and Sybils roamed the byways reciting them. This was before temple building, and on of the earliest of these was the shrine at Delphi. Of course belief in oracles goes hand in hand with a belief in any immaterial and parallel world inhabited by spirits or 'souls' where the future is as clearly perceived as the past. The priest of the shrine - or the shrine itself - provided mortals some access to that other world and its foreknowledge - the ancient Greeks believed. The author wants to demonstrate, not the truth (necessarily) of oracles but the power of belief in them, and in the attempt to show the influence of Orpheus on oracular belief we must also acknowledge his influence on spiritual or "Orphic religions," and how we have traded an entire world of the spirit for something more efficient but far less 'soul-satisfying.' Nostradamus emerges somewhere out of the Middle Ages to show that belief in oracles had not yet died. After all, the spirit was still with us in almost universal belief. The author interprets one of Nostradamus' quatrains that seems to presage the Gulf War and Norman Schwartzkopf.