The Fall of Arthur
Tolkien, J R R
Houghton Mifflin Company

The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur, king of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skillful achievement in the use of Old English alliterative meter, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur's expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere's flight from Camelot, of the great sea battle on Arthur's return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle.

Unhappily, The Fall of Arthur was one of several long narrative poems that Tolkien abandoned. He evidently began it in the 1930s, and it was sufficiently advanced for him to send it to a very perceptive friend who read it with great enthusiasm at the end of 1934 and urgently pressed him, "You simply must finish it!" But in vain: he abandoned it at some unknown date, though there is evidence that it may have been in 1937, the year of publication of The Hobbit and the first stirrings of The Lord of the Rings.

Years later, in a letter of 1955, he said that he "hoped to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur," but that day never came. Associated with the text of the poem, however, are many manuscript pages: a great quantity of drafting and experimentation in verse, in which the strange evolution of the poem's structure is revealed, together with narrative synopses and significant tantalizing notes. In these notes can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion, and the bitter ending of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was never written.

Edited by his son Christopher Tolkien, who also provides detailed commentary and notes.

Price: $25.00

America Bewitched: Witchcraft After Salem
Davies, Owen
Oxford University Press

The infamous Salem witch trials of 1692 are etched into the consciousness of America. Nineteen people executed, one tortured to death, four others perished in jail--the tragic toll of Salem remains a powerful symbol of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. As time passed, the trials were seen as a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its benighted past. Yet the story of witchcraft did not end in Salem. As Owen Davies shows in America Bewitched, a new, long, and chilling chapter was about to begin.

Davies, an authority on witches and the supernatural, reveals how witchcraft in post-Salem America was not just a matter of scary fire-side tales, Halloween legends, and superstitions: it continued to be a matter of life and death. If anything, witchcraft disputes multiplied as hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured into North America, people for whom witchcraft was still a heinous crime. Davies tells the story of countless murders and many other personal tragedies that resulted from accusations of witchcraft among European Americans -- as well as in Native American and African American communities. He describes, for instance, the impact of this belief on Native Americans, as colonists -- from Anglo-American settlers to Spanish missionaries -- saw Indian medicine men as the Devil's agents, potent workers of malign magic. But Davies also reveals that seventeenth-century Iroquois -- faced with decimating, mysterious diseases -- accused Jesuits of being plague-spreading witches. Indeed, the book shows how different American groups shaped each other's languages and beliefs, sharing not only our positive cultural traits, but our fears and weaknesses as well.

America Bewitched is the first book to open a window on this fascinating topic, conjuring up new insights into popular American beliefs, the immigrant experience, racial attitudes, and the development of modern society.

Price: $34.95

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind
Chodron, Pema
Sounds True

When we look for a meditation teacher, we want someone who has an intimate knowledge of the path. That's why so many have turned to Pema Chodron, whose gentle yet straightforward guidance has been a lifesaver for both first-time and experienced meditators. With How to Meditate, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun presents her first book that explores in-depth what she considers the essentials for an evolving practice that helps you live in a wholehearted way. <> More and more people are beginning to recognize a profound inner longing for authenticity, connection, compassion, and aliveness. Meditation, Pema explains, gives us a golden key to address this yearning. This comprehensive guide shows readers how to honestly meet and openly relate with the mind to embrace the fullness of our experience as we discover:

• The basics of meditation, from getting settled and the six points of posture to working with your breath and cultivating an attitude of unconditional friendliness
• The Seven Delights-how moments of diffi culty can become doorways to awakening and love
• Shamatha (or calm abiding), the art of stabilizing the mind to remain present with whatever arises
• Thoughts and emotions as "sheer delight"-instead of obstacles-in meditation

Here is in indispensable book from the meditation teacher who remains a first choice for students the world over.

Price: $19.95

The Life and Ideas of James Hillman, Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist
Russell, Dick
W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.

Considered to be the world's foremost post-Jungian thinker, James Hillman is known as the founder of archetypal psychology and the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling title The Soul 's Code. In The Making of a Psychologist, we follow Hillman from his youth in the heyday of Atlantic City, through post-war Paris and Dublin, travels in Africa and Kashmir, and onward to Zurich and the Jung Institute, which appointed him its first director of studies in 1960.

This first of a two-volume authorized biography is the result of hundreds of hours of interviews with Hillman and others over a seven-year period. Discover how Hillman 's unique psychology was forged through his life experiences and found its basis in the imagination, aesthetics, a return to the Greek pantheon, and the importance of soul-making, and gain a better understanding of the mind of one of the most brilliant psychologists of the twentieth century.

Price: $35.00

Arcanum Bestiarum: Of The Subtil And Occult Virtues Of Divers Beasts
Fitzgerald, Robert
Three Hands Press

Written in the great tradition of the medieval bestiaries, Robert Fitzgerald's long-awaited new work Arcanum Bestiarum re-imagines the animal menagerie in the context of bestial mystery and atavistic power. Written for the modern magical practitioner and zoophile, the 272-page volume examines the occult virtues and totemic majesties of fifty animals, theriomorphs, and their kindred. Correspondences with deific powers, atavistic wisdom, and mythopoetic emanation are examined, especially in light of the tutelary powers all animals possess.

The Tetramorph -- essentially an animalic ‘crown of creation’ -- is here transformed into the far broader and innovative concept of the ‘Theriomorph’, or, the Zodiak Entire of Creation as an apotheosis of the animal form and zoötype… One of the greatest of virtues possessed by the Human is its bestial heritage, both spiritually and genetically. These attributes are often seen as primitive, chaotic and dangerous to civilized culture by the custodians of moralism and religion today, but the fact remains that it is our animal heritage that makes us what we are, or, more accurately, what we should and can be.

Special attention is given to the zoomorphic aspects of alchemy, which historically used the bestial emblemata as veils of the stages of the Great Work, as well as shamanism and witchcraft, bodies of knowledge particularly rich in the lore of animals as spirit-helpers. The work is an emergent strand of magical investigation long part of the author’s private life, where he has worked in the ecological field of wildlife rehabilitation, especially raptors.

The text is graced with fifty-five original woodcut illustrations by artist Liv Rainey-Smith, prepared especially for this title in close collaboration with the author. Amongst the more ambitious renderings in the work are the occult cryptofauna Homunculus, Manticore, Ouroboros, and Basilisk, as well as animals prominent in the ancient dawn of magick: the Bear, Goat, Viper, Peacock, and more. Completing the design elements is an original typeface designed for the work by calligrapher Gail Coppock, serving to illuminate this grimoire of the Magician’s Primal Eden.

The book is 272 pages, printed in two colour ink on heavy stock, and illustrated throughout.

Standard Edition: 1400 copies, in hardcover with dust jacket.

Price: $75.00

The Spellbook of Marie Laveau: The Petit Albert, translated from the French
Feli, Talia
Hadean Press

The Petit Albert is a collection of recipes, talismans, and occult secrets attributed to several authors, chief among them Paracelsus, and compiled by a pseudonymous narrator who stresses that the secrets contained therein “do not in any way surpass the occult powers of nature; that is to say, of any of the known beings that are scattered throughout this vast universe, which are in the skies, in the winds, on the land and in the waters.” This cautious reminder did not change the opinion of the Catholic Church in regards to the Petit Albert -- it was a book of black magic and therefore to be avoided at all costs, an attitude which assured the book’s popularity among nobles, farmers, and priests alike.

From its first printing, the Book of the Fantastical Secrets of the Petit Albert made its way into the most rural of French hamlets and eventually to the colonies beyond, where it became a great success in the Caribbean and North America -- especially in Quebec in the north and in New Orleans in the south. It is there that the Petit Albert was almost certainly used by the hoodoo and voodoo practitioners of the nineteenth century, including the Voodoo Queen herself, Marie Laveau.

In The Spellbook of Marie Laveau: The Petit Albert, translator Talia Felix presents the full text of the Petit Albert in the English language, and offers a compelling argument that the Petit Albert was most likely one of the spellbooks in Laveau’s arsenal, if indeed she was literate at all. At the very least, as Ms. Felix states in her introduction to the book, “it presents a period-correct view of the sort of magical knowledge that was likely to have influenced the real and genuine life and works of the famous Marie Laveau, and of New Orleans Voodoo as a whole.”

Talia Felix was born and raised in Hermosa Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her childhood dream was to study art in Paris. A chance encounter with etymology in high school led her to begin studying historical French language. Felix is also a practitioner of American hoodoo style folk magic and has authored the occult subject books The Conjure Cookbook, Conjurin’ Ole Time and Death and Destruction.

Price: $39.95