Siege Of The Spirits

What happens when three hundred alleged squatters go head-to-head with an enormous city government looking to develop the place where they live? As anthropologist Michael Herzfeld shows in this book, the answer can be surprising. He tells the story of Pom Mahakan, a tiny enclave in the heart of old Bangkok whose residents have resisted authorities’ demands to vacate their homes for a quarter of a century. It’s a story of community versus government, of old versus new, and of political will versus the law. Herzfeld argues that even though the residents of Pom Mahakan have lost every legal battle the city government has dragged them into, they have won every public relations contest, highlighting their struggle as one against bureaucrats who do not respect the age-old values of Thai/Siamese social and cultural order. Such values include compassion for the poor and an understanding of urban space as deeply embedded in social and ritual relations. In a gripping account of their standoff, Herzfeld—who simultaneously argues for the importance of activism in scholarship—traces the agile political tactics and styles of the community’s leadership, using their struggle to illuminate the larger difficulties, tensions, and unresolved debates that continue to roil Thai society to this day.

You never know what can be lurking in the cemeteries you casually drive by. Such was the case in the Fall of 1993, when Linda McLaughlin and her innocent six-year-old daughter Kelly passed by Easton Connecticut's Union Cemetery. Kelly didn't even know such spirits existed when an apparition materialized and tapped into her consciousness. Nothing could have prepared her for the suffocating terror that she would soon experience when it followed her home. The merciless spirit didn't stop with Kelly. It targeted each and every family member and their friends when they were alone and when they were most vulnerable. Then it targeted the alpha of the family, the wealthy, Real Estate Broker father, who was a natural skeptic and the last person to believe in ghosts. In this tale of real haunting phenomena, a Connecticut Family is plagued by evil spirits who infest their home. Will they ever get their lives back? Will these evil spirits continue to haunt them or will the family find help in ridding them of this terror from beyond the grave? This book explains in detail the process of investigating a 'haunted house' and what can be done about it. It explains the dangers involved with the negative occult and how dabbling in it can summon darkness and ruin into our lives which could last forever despite our every attempt to stop it.

Facing Fearful Odds is based on interviews and correspondence gathered from more than seventy of Wake's American defenders and on research in archival and printed sources. The book covers the planning and political struggles that began Wake Island's transformation into a naval air station and submarine base, the U.S. Navy's eleventh-hour efforts to garrison and fortify Wake, and the various air, sea, and land attacks that resulted in the atoll's capture by the Imperial Japanese Navy. This study attempts to correct the myths that shroud what happened on the atoll. - from preface.

Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by "The New York Times Book Review, The Siege" is Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental--the Nazi's 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed 600,000--but her focus is heartrendingly intimate.

Eli Monpress is vain. He's cocky. And he's a thief. But he's a thief who has just seen his bounty topped and he's not happy about it. The bounty topper, as it turns out, is his best friend, bodyguard, and master swordsman, Josef. Who has been keeping secrets from Eli. Apparently, he's the only prince of a rather feisty country and his mother (a formidable queen who's every bit as driven and stubborn as he is) wants him to come home and do his duty, which means throwing over personal ambitions like proving he's the greatest swordsman who ever lived. Family drama aside, Eli and Josef have their hands full. The Spirit Court has been usurped by the Council of Thrones and someone calling herself the Immortal Empress is staging a massive invasion. But it's not just politics -- the Immortal Empress has a specific target in mind: Eli Monpress, the greatest thief in the world.

Through case studies that include paranormal, physical, and psychiatric investigation, discover the differences between loving spiritual presences and those with an agenda to incite chaos and destruction. Find out the symptoms of spirit communication and hauntings, as well as a seven-step process for attaining spiritual protection and disarming negative energies. Through firsthand accounts, examples, and research, gather insight as to the impact ghosts and demons have on humanity and how to protect yourself and your family. Learn through a variety of divine concerns to help and heal others by accessing spiritual gifts that will provide a feeling of empowerment in life. Are ghosts and demons real? Is it possible for negative energies to erode the physical, mental, and spiritual well being of an individual? Find out by using this resource for those dealing with both paranormal or spiritual issues.

A light-hearted, fun, fantasy adventure. Perfect for young adults or those young at heart! An epic fantasy series with a slight sci-fi twist. Reads like a combination between Avatar: The Last Air Bender and Lord of the Rings. If you love journeys filled with magic, danger, and intergalactic travels, you’ll be enchanted with Spirit’s Entwined! It’ll take you on the adventure of a lifetime with young friends Kylie and Mory as they discover an astonishing secret about Kylie’s past, which catapults them into a thrilling future. Growing up in a world where magic is weakened, Kylie never thought there was anything special about her, until her home is attacked by forces beyond reckoning. Now, she has a long road ahead to understand who and what she is. Let’s go with her and keep her safe, because the fate of the entire universe hangs in the balance. With the twists of fate unknown to even the greatest of seers, the Spirit Master and comrades will not only have to battle creatures, dangers, and trials beyond their wildest dreams, but their own inner demons as well. Adventuring in an unknown and beautiful land filled with various sources of magic, they will take their first steps towards saving not only the worlds they know but worlds they have only just discovered, all the while finding love and forging the deepest of friendships. The stories and books they have read and dreamed about while staring into the stars cannot come close to their actual experience once they’ve begun their journey. Time will halt, as it does when its passing no longer has meaning, and strengths far beyond those of the physical sense will manifest in all who undertake this prophetic quest.

Although instances of deliberate skin-cutting are recorded as far back as the old and New Testaments of the Bible the behavior has generally been regarded as a symptom of various mental disorders. With the publication of Bodies Under Siege, a book described in the New York Times Magazine (July 17, 1997) as "the first to comprehensively explore self-mutilation," Dr. Armando Favazza has pioneered the study of the behavior as significant and meaningful unto itself. Drawing from the latest case studies from clinical psychiatry he broadens our understanding of self-mutilation and body modification and explores their surprising connections to the elemental experiences of healing, religions, salvation, and social balance. Favazza makes sense out of seemingly senseless self-mutilative behaviors by providing both a useful classification and examination of the ways in which the behaviors provide effective but temporary relief from troublesome symptoms such as overwhelming anxiety, racing thoughts, and depersonalization. He offers important new information on the psychology and biology of self-mutilation, the link between self-mutilation and eating disorders, and advances in treatment. An epilogue by Fakir Musafar, the father of the Modern Primitive movement, describes his role in influencing a new generation to "experiment with the previously forbidden 'body side' of life" through piercing, blood rituals, scarification, and body sculpting in order to attain a state of grace. The second edition of Bodies Under Siege is the major source of information about self-mutilation, a much misunderstood behavior that is now coming into public awareness.