For more than five centuries the shamanistic fox cult has attracted large portions of the Chinese population and appealed to a wide range of social classes. Deemed illicit by imperial rulers and clerics and officially banned by republican and communist leaders, the fox cult has managed to survive and flourish in individual homes and community shrines throughout northern China. In this new work, the first to examine the fox cult as a vibrant popular religion, Xiaofei Kang explores the manifold meanings of the fox spirit in Chinese society. Kang describes various cult practices, activities of worship, and the exorcising of fox spirits to reveal how the Chinese people constructed their cultural and social values outside the gaze of offical power and morality.

A Harvard psychiatrist, the author of A Prince of Our Disorder, presents accounts of alien abduction taken from the more than sixty cases he has investigated and examines the implications for our identity as a species. These mesmerizing and thought-provoking stories of alien encounters from a Harvard professor take you through actual case studies of people from all walks of life and ages who have had challenging, sometimes disturbing, and in every case, life changing experiences of alien abduction. “John Mack explores evidence of nonhuman intelligence like an attorney preparing for the ‘trial of the century’—interviewing witnesses, examining physical evidence, consulting with experts in related fields, constantly questioning his own assumptions…As a story of one man’s determination to bear witness to cosmic mysteries with extraordinary implications for the human future, Abduction is bound to become a modern classic” (Keith Thompson, author of Angels and Aliens)

Embark on an interstellar adventure with this riveting bundle from the acclaimed Project Enterprise series. Journey through alien landscapes, overcome formidable foes, and discover profound romance in the vast expanse of the cosmos. Award-winning author Pauline Baird Jones offers you a compelling trio of tales: "Found Girl," "Lost Valyr," and "Maestra Rising," each pulsating with heart-stopping action, emotion, and romance. In "Found Girl," experience a cosmic battle of wills when an alien farm girl, Arian Teraz, defies tradition and loveless marriage. Her daring flight from home leads her into the path of Captain Jackson "Coop" Cooper. Together, they unravel her destiny while facing looming threats and intense passion. "Lost Valyr" plunges you into a future fraught with peril and heart-pounding chemistry. When Dr. Rachel Grant, a brilliant scientist, inadvertently thaws the alien Valyr from cryosleep, a web of destruction unravels. Together, they must face relentless robotic foes and ignite an unexpected spark. In "Maestra Rising," Nivi, a gifted scientist, and Moose, a robot with a human consciousness, race against time to save a lost ship. As they grapple with their blossoming desires and a ruthless enemy, the stakes for humanity's survival have never been higher. If you love breathtaking adventures, captivating characters, and riveting romance, grab Project Enterprise Bundle 3 today, and immerse yourself in three extraordinary interstellar escapades.

Embark on an intergalactic journey with Found Girl, the sixth standalone book in the awe-inspiring Project Enterprise sci-fi romance series by Pauline Baird Jones. This mesmerizing blend of cosmic battles, human-alien love tales, and inventive future worlds is sure to leave you breathless. Meet Arian Teraz, an alien farm girl who's not ready to spend her life bound by loveless arranged marriage and tethered to rocky farmland. Her life takes a dramatic turn when a mysterious ship appears, presenting a chance for an exciting adventure. But hostile forces attack her ship, forcing her through a wormhole and into a fateful meeting with a handsome soldier. Captain Jackson "Coop" Cooper has been biding his time, longing for a slice of action in the monotonous vastness of space. The arrival of an alien ship via a wormhole finally brings the action he craves. He leaps at the opportunity to make first contact, rescuing the injured alien beauty, Arian, and her peculiar shipmate. But as new threats arise, Arian and Coop find themselves thrust into a mysterious sanctuary, with no apparent way out. They must unravel the secrets of Arian's hidden destiny if they're to survive the challenges that lie ahead. Grab your copy of Found Girl: Project Enterprise 6 today and dive headfirst into an intoxicating interstellar romance that will whisk you across galaxies!

The Aqua Valley Incident is the story of a UFO that is seen playing tag with a flight from Munich, Germany that is coming into land at London's Heathrow Airport.The air traffic controllers are alarmed at what they have witnessed and inform the MOD who send out a team of army investigators to see if they can track the UFO and where it has gone.They aren't alone however as three men in a black car follow their every move.Meanwhile the UFO itself has crashlanded in a large lake in the small village of Aqua Valley. The beings on board the UFO are trying their best to keep the humans away while the humans want to know what's at the bottom of the lake and why people keep disappearing seemingly without trace.This exciting science fiction thriller is the fourth novel by Justin Tully.

Two science fiction novels, written during the nineteen thirties, chronicle the future of civilization, foretelling such events as the worldwide fuel shortage and man's exploration of space

CONSCIOUSNESS Consciousness is a thought-provoking collection of classic and contemporary philosophical literature on consciousness, bringing together influential scholarship by seminal thinkers and the work of emerging voices who reflect the diversity of the field. Editors Josh Weisberg and David Rosenthal have selected discussions that animate modern debates and connect consciousness to broader philosophical topics. Providing an expansive view of the philosophical landscape of consciousness studies, this carefully calibrated reader features classic work from the past four decades by seminal thinkers such as Thomas Nagel, David Lewis, Ned Block, Gilbert Harman, and Daniel Dennett, as well as important recent work from David Chalmers, Fiona Macperson, Joseph Levine, Kathleen Akins, and other contemporary philosophers. Divided into five parts, Consciousness explores the nature of consciousness, consciousness and knowledge, qualitative consciousness, and theories of consciousness. A final section on agency and physicalism includes work by Galen Strawson and a previously unpublished article by Myrto Mylopoulos. Philosophically challenging yet accessible to students, Consciousness is an ideal reader for many undergraduate and graduate courses on consciousness or philosophy of mind, as well as a useful supplementary text for general classes in philosophy and a valuable reference text for philosophers of mind, cognitive scientists, and psychologists.

UFOs. Aliens. Strange crop circles. Giant figures scratched in the desert surface along the coast of Peru. The amazing alignment of the pyramids. Strange lines of clouds in the sky. The paranormal is alive and well in the American cultural landscape. In UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens, Donald R. Prothero and Tim Callahan explore why such demonstrably false beliefs thrive despite decades of education and scientific debunking. Employing the ground rules of science and the standards of scientific evidence, Prothero and Callahan discuss a wide range of topics including the reliability of eyewitness testimony, psychological research into why people want to believe in aliens and UFOs, and the role conspiratorial thinking plays in UFO culture. They examine a variety of UFO sightings and describe the standards of evidence used to determine whether UFOs are actual alien spacecraft. Finally, they consider our views of aliens and the strong cultural signals that provide the shapes and behaviors of these beings. While their approach is firmly based in science, Prothero and Callahan also share their personal experiences of Area 51, Roswell, and other legendary sites, creating a narrative that is sure to engross both skeptics and believers.

Discusses contemporary medievalism in studies ranging from Brazil to West Africa, from Manila to New York. Across the world, revivals of medieval practices, images, and tales flourish as never before. The essays collected here, informed by approaches from Global Studies and the critical discourse on the concept of a "Global Middle Ages", explore the many facets of contemporary medievalism: post-colonial responses to the enforced dissemination of Western medievalisms, attempts to retrieve pre-modern cultural traditions that were interrupted by colonialism, the tentative forging of a global "medieval" imaginary from the world's repository of magical tales and figures, and the deployment across borders of medieval imagery for political purposes. The volume is divided into two sections, dealing with "Local Spaces" and "Global Geographies". The contributions in the first consider a variety of medievalisms tied to particular places across a broad geography, but as part of a larger transnational medievalist dynamic. Those in the second focus on explicitly globalist medievalist phenomena whether concerning the projection of a particular medievalist trope across borders or the integration of "medieval" pasts from different parts of the globe in a contemporary incarnation of medievalism. A wide range of topics are addressed, from Japanese manga and Arthurian tales to The O-Trilogy of Maurice Gee, Camus, and Dungeons and Dragons.

In this significantly expanded new edition of his acclaimed exploration of the four Alien movies, Stephen Mulhall adds several new chapters on Steven Spielberg’s Mission: Impossible trilogy and Minority Report. The first part of the book discusses the four Alien movies. Mulhall argues that the sexual significance of the aliens themselves, and of Ripley’s resistance to them, takes us deep into the question of what it is to be human. At the heart of the book is a highly original and controversial argument that films themselves can philosophize. Mulhall then applies his interpretative model to another sequence of contemporary Hollywood movies: the Mission: Impossible series. A brand new chapter is devoted to each of the three films in the series, and to other films by the relevant directors that cast light on their individual contribution to it. In this discussion, the nature of television becomes as central a concern as the nature of cinema; and the shift in generic focus from science fiction to thriller also makes room for a detailed reading of Spielberg’s Minority Report. On Film, Second Edition is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, film theory and cultural studies, and in the way philosophy can enrich our understanding of cinema.