Haunted by the Holy Ghost is a geographical, chronological and spiritual autobiography. The author describes the place of his birth: a farm in semi-arid Swisher County in the Texas Panhandle in depression/Dust Bowl days. He describes his schooling at a two-room rural school through elementary years, and his years at a small town high school. The author reflects upon the richness as well as the poverty of those days. He describes his struggles with his call to ministry as a haunting by the Holy Ghost. The reader is taken on a travelogue of the places in which the author and his wife ministered. The spiritual aspect of their lives is always on or just below the surface. At times the author waxes homiletical and theological, with occasional narrations of humorous incidents.

In this remarkable true story, the haunting of a Long Island household forces a respected writer and editor to reevaluate the mysteries of life and death as he struggles with the frightening truths of his childhood home and his town's past. Growing up in Rockville Center, Long Island, Gary Jansen never believed in ghosts. His mother-a devoutly Catholic woman with a keen sense for the uncanny-claimed that their family house was haunted. But Jansen never found anything inexplicable in how their doorbell would sometimes ring of its own accord; or in the mysterious sounds of footsteps or breaking glass that occasionally would fill their home; or even in his mother's sometimes unsettlingly accurate visions of future events and tragedies. Though he once experienced a supernatural encounter in a Prague church as a young man, Jansen grew up into a rationalist, as well as a noted writer and editor. Decades later, in 2001, Jansen moved back into the very same house where he had once grown up to raise a family with his wife. One day in 2007, he encountered a strange physical sensation in his toddler son's bedroom: As I reached into his dresser drawer, I felt something very strange behind me. Startled, I quickly turned around, but there was nothing there. I shrugged it off, grabbed the socks and, as I was walking to the doorway, experienced an odd phenomenon-sort of like an electrical hand rubbing the length of my back. I stopped and stood transfixed. "What the hell is that?" I said to myself. The pressure then seemed to break apart and, for a brief moment, I felt like I had a million little bugs crawling all over my back. Within seconds, however, the sensation was gone. This became the first step in uncovering a frightening, fullblown haunting in his home-a phenomenon that lasted an entire year and eventually included unveiling the identities of the spirits who occupied his house; discovering the chilling story of a century-old murder in his hometown; encountering mind-boggling coincidences between local history and events in his own family; and finally engaging in a climactic exorcism with the help of Mary Ann Winkowski, the real-life inspiration for TV's The Ghost Whisperer. The events of that year-in which Jansen's family was terrified of and terrorized by ghosts in their own home-forever changed how he viewed the mysteries of life and death. Holy Ghosts is not only a gripping true-life ghost story but a funny and touching memoir, as well as a meditation on the relationship between religion and the paranormal, which are often considered at odds with each other but which the author shows are intimately linked.

Haunted by the Holy Ghost is a geographical, chronological and spiritual autobiography. The author describes the place of his birth: a farm in semi-arid Swisher County in the Texas Panhandle in depression/Dust Bowl days. He describes his schooling at a two-room rural school through elementary years, and his years at a small town high school. The author reflects upon the richness as well as the poverty of those days. He describes his struggles with his call to ministry as a haunting by the Holy Ghost. The reader is taken on a travelogue of the places in which the author and his wife ministered. The spiritual aspect of their lives is always on or just below the surface. At times the author waxes homiletical and theological, with occasional narrations of humorous incidents.

Do you believe in ghosts? When doors and windows open on their own, when footsteps echo down an empty hall, when shadows move in the darkness and voices whisper when no one is around...what is going on? These are the experiences that stick with us, frighten us, incite our imaginations, and, ultimately, connect us to the past. Skeptics and believers alike are sure to be captivated by author David J. Schmidt's case study of Point Loma Nazarene University, a private Christian college in California that is filled with tales of poltergeists and apparitions. Originally built by a mysterious group of enigmatic Occultists known as the "Theosophists," the college is said to be haunted by the group's leader, Madame Tingley. Schmidt's retelling of these chilling stories both terrifies and lifts the shroud of mystery behind the hauntings as he compares them to other spectral stories from around the world. In coming to understand the ghosts of one college, the author hopes to broaden our understanding of hauntings as a worldwide phenomenon. You are invited to join him in his search...if you dare.

A “thought-provoking and powerful” study that reframes everything you’ve been taught about addiction and recovery—from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Myth of Normal (Bruce Perry, author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog). A world-renowned trauma expert combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to offer a holistic approach to understanding addiction—its origins, its place in society, and the importance of self-compassion in recovery. Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with people with addiction on Vancouver’s skid row, this #1 international bestseller radically re-envisions a much misunderstood condition by taking a compassionate approach to substance abuse and addiction recovery. In the same vein as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts traces the root causes of addiction to childhood trauma and examines the pervasiveness of addiction in society. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout—and perhaps underpins—our society. It is not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects but rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs and behaviors of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. Dr. Maté argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and how they perpetuate the War on Drugs. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

THE STORY: Seeking to retrieve his runaway wife (and the possessions she has taken with her), Coleman Shedman arrives at the rural meeting house of a southern pentecostal sect with a lawyer in tow. But his wife, Nancy, is unwilling to forsake the l

In this literary gem Vigen Guroian chronicles not merely the changing seasons but the course of his own life as he and his family move from Maryland to a new home near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Leaving the old garden behind and cultivating another garden become an emblem of our journey through life, marked as it is by both bitter losses and sweet new blessings. While deeply personal, The Fragrance of God vividly unfolds the great biblical themes of the grandeur of God s creation, the senses as paths to experiencing God, and the garden as a place of birth, death, and renewal. Laced throughout with quotations from Guroian s beloved church fathers and replete with theological reflection, The Fragrance of God will lead readers down a path of deeper insight into the creation and the Creator.