Abraham Joshua Heschel was a Polish-American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, authored a number of widely read books on Jewish philosophy and was a leader in the civil rights movement.
The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, first published in 1830 by Joseph Smith as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. According to Smith's account and the book's narrative, the Book was originally engraved in otherwise unknown characters on golden plates by ancient prophets; the last prophet to contribute to the book, Moroni, had buried it in what is present-day Manchester, New York and then appeared in a vision to Smith in 1827, revealing the location of the plates and instructing him to translate the plates into English. The more widely accepted view is that Smith authored the Book, drawing, consciously or subconsciously, on material and ideas from his contemporary 19th-century environment, rather than translating an ancient record.
Spiritual evolution, also called higher evolution, is the idea that the mind or spirit, in analogy to biological evolution, collectively evolves from a simple form dominated by nature, to a higher form dominated by the spiritual or divine. It is differentiated from the "lower" or biological evolution.
Vril: The Power of the Coming Race, originally published as The Coming Race, is a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published anonymously in 1871.
James Redfield is an American writer, lecturer, screenwriter, and film producer. He is notable for his 1993 novel The Celestine Prophecy.
Mayanism is a non-codified eclectic collection of New Age beliefs, influenced in part by Pre-Columbian Maya mythology and some folk beliefs of the modern Maya peoples.
The Historian is the 2005 debut novel of American author Elizabeth Kostova. The plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Țepeș and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula. Kostova's father told her stories about Dracula when she was a child, and later in life she was inspired to turn the experience into a novel. She worked on the book for ten years and then sold it within a few months to Little, Brown and Company, which bought it for US$2 million.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church had its roots in the Millerite movement of the 1830s to the 1840s, during the period of the Second Great Awakening, and was officially founded in 1863. Prominent figures in the early church included Hiram Edson, Ellen G. White, her husband James Springer White, Joseph Bates, and J. N. Andrews. Over the ensuing decades the church expanded from its original base in New England to become an international organization. Significant developments such the reviews initiated by evangelicals Donald Barnhouse and Walter Martin, in the 20th century led to its recognition as a Christian denomination.
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Ph.D. is a Sufi mystic and lineage successor in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Sufi Order. He is an extensive lecturer and author of several books about Sufism, mysticism, dreamwork and spirituality.
The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision is the second novel in the Celestine Series, beginning with The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield. It was published in 1996.
The White Castle is a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.
The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight is the third book in The Celestine Prophecy series by James Redfield.
In the Book of Mormon, Zenock is a prophet who predates the events of the book's main plot and whose prophecies and statements are recorded upon brass plates possessed by the Nephites. In the narrative, Zenock is a descendant of Joseph, and he is also an ancestor of the Nephites. Narrators of the Book of Mormon and Nephite prophets quote or paraphrase Zenock several times in the course of the text, including Nephi, Alma, son of Alma, Amulek, Nephi, son of Helaman, and Mormon. Zenock's teachings as referenced in the Book of Mormon include prophesying about the Messiah, describing his death and aligning that with something that Mormons believe is like the Christian doctrine of salvation, and rebuking people who reject that message. In the Book of Alma, Alma reports that Zenock was stoned to death for preaching that the Messiah would be the "Son of God."
Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795–1871) was a free Black woman, best known for her religious feminism and activism and for her autobiography, Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Cox Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress, which was published in 1981 and edited by Jean McMahon Humez. Jackson worked as a seamstress and cared for her brother's children until she had a religious awakening in 1830. She divorced her husband when he failed to teach her how to read and write, but gained literacy as one of the spiritual gifts she believed were given to her by God; these gifts also included healing people, seeing the future, having visions, hearing God's voice, and acting as a medium. After leaving her husband, she joined the Shaker movement, which shared her values of egalitarianism and celibacy. Jackson began writing her autobiography in 1830 and completed it in 1864, describing her womanist theology and feminism, visions, and other religious experiences, as well as her accounts of her experiences of sexism, racism, and discrimination. She and her protégé and lifelong companion Rebecca Perot founded a Shaker community of Black women in Philadelphia in 1859. Jackson's relationship with Perot, which lasted for 35 years until Jackson's death in 1871, has been called "perhaps the most controversial element of Jackson’s autobiography".
The Birthgrave is a 1975 science fantasy novel by British author Tanith Lee. The novel was Lee's first published novel for adults, and also the first novel in The Birthgrave Trilogy. Inspired by Lee's own personal dreams from her early twenties, the story follows a nameless protagonist through various towns on a journey to discover who she really is and what she is capable of. The Birthgrave received mostly positive reviews and was nominated for the 1975 Nebula Award for best novel.
The Celestine Prophecy is a 2006 American film directed by Armand Mastroianni and starring Matthew Settle, Thomas Kretschmann, and Sarah Wayne Callies. The film is based on James Redfield's best-selling novel of the same name. Because the book sold over 23 million copies since its publication and has thus become one of the best-selling books of all time, Redfield had expected the film to be a success. However, the film was widely panned by critics and was a box office failure, with a total worldwide gross of $1.5 million.
The Return of the Prodigal Son is an oil painting by Rembrandt, part of the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It is among the Dutch master's final works, likely completed within two years of his death in 1669. Depicting the moment of the prodigal son's return to his father in the Biblical parable, it is a renowned work described by art historian Kenneth Clark as "a picture which those who have seen the original in St. Petersburg may be forgiven for claiming as the greatest picture ever painted".
Propinquity is a 1986 novel by Australian author/journalist John Macgregor. The manuscript won the Adelaide Festival Biennial Award for Literature; the novel was short-listed for The Age Book of the Year. Its author was compared by critics with PG Wodehouse, Don DeLillo, Julian Barnes, Umberto Eco, and Australian Nobellist Patrick White. Despite its critical success, the collapse of the original publisher meant that Propinquity did not reach a wide audience, although in 2013 it was released on Amazon as a Kindle e-book and a CreateSpace print-on-demand paperback.
Visionary fiction is a fiction genre with New Age or mind, body, spirit themes and perspectives, including consciousness expansion, spirituality, mysticism, and parapsychology. It is sometimes classed as a subtype of speculative fiction. Examples include the novels The Celestine ProphecyThe Alchemist, and Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. The Book Industry Study Group's BISAC subject heading FIC039000 is "FICTION / Visionary & Metaphysical".
John Michael Greer is an American writer and druid who writes on ecological overshoot, ecological economics, appropriate technology, oil depletion, societal collapse, ecocentrism, pantheism, and the occult.
