{"title":"Jean Markale","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"women-of-the-celts-book-jean-markale-9780892811502","title":"Women of the Celts","description":"Historian Markale takes us deep into a mythical world where both man and woman become whole by realizing the feminine principle in its entirety. 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It was also one of the richest, despite its knights' vow of poverty. Yet not a penny of their immense treasure was ever found. The hunt for this lost treasure has centered on a number of locations, among which is the medieval city of Gisors, a site on the Normandy and French border that is honeycombed with complex underground passageways and chambers. Mysteriously, all attempts to discover what may be concealed in these subterranean corridors are rigorously discouraged by contemporary authorities.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The enigma of the treasure is but one of the many unsolved mysteries concerning this order that continues to haunt our imaginations. Who were these \"poor knights of Christ\" who made denial of Jesus a requirement of acceptance into the order? What were their true purposes and what was the nature of their secret that drew the wrath of the king of France down on their heads? Was there really a treasure and, if so, what was it--material wealth or something more powerful, such as the Holy Grail or the secret to the philosopher's stone? Was there a secret order within the order that authorized the heretical practices for which they were condemned? 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Historians have tended to accord the Celts a place of minor significance in comparison to the Romans when, in fact, the shamanic, mythical, and spiritual traditions of the Western world have their roots in Celtic culture. Regarding myth as an indispensable branch of history, Markale has thoroughly explored Celtic mythology to reveal the culture that gave rise to it. The Celts, one of the most comprehensive treatments of this subject ever written, firmly aligns the Celtic peoples as the primary European precursor to Greco-Roman sovereignty, restoring Celtic culture to its true importance in the development of European civilization. The new historical vision that emerges is both convincing and exciting.Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller, JEAN MARKALE has spent a lifetime researching Celtic civilizations. He is the author of numerous books on pre-Christian peoples, including Women of the Celts. 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Gerber, Yoshiko Kobayashi, Adite Nafde, Tamara Per z-Fernndez, Wendy Scase, Karla Taylor, David Watt.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49894942441745,"sku":"CIN0860330451A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50122575151377,"sku":"GOR002339555","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51698400493841,"sku":"CIN0860330451VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51703803937041,"sku":"GOR005680813","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0860330451.jpg?v=1750850699"},{"product_id":"cathedral-of-the-black-madonna-book-jean-markale-9781594770203","title":"Cathedral of the Black Madonna","description":"RELIGION \/ HISTORY The great cathedral of Chartres is renowned the world over as a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture and for its remarkable stained glass and mystical labyrinth. But the foundations of this sanctuary go back to a time long before Christianity, when this site was a clearing where Druids worshipped a virgo paritura, a virgin about to give birth. Now at this ancient meeting place, where all the Druids in Gaul gathered once a year, there stands Chartres cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and home to one of the most venerated Black Madonnas in Europe: Our Lady of the Pillar. Coincidence? Hardly, says Jean Markale, whose exhaustive examination of the site traces the appeal of the Black Madonna back to the ancient, widespread worship of mother goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. In fact, Markale contends that the mother and child depicted by the Black Madonna are not merely descendants of the Druid's spiritual image of the virgin forever giving birth, but that the statue seen in Chartres today represents a theological notion of great refinement: The Virgin gives birth ceaselessly to a world, a God, and a humanity in perpetual becoming. Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller JEAN MARKALE has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian and medieval culture and spirituality. He is the author of more than forty books, including The Church of Mary Magdalene, Montsegur and the Mystery of the Cathars, The Templar Treasure at Gisors, The Druids, The Celts, Merlin, and Women of the Celts. 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In this provocative survey of all the known literary and historical sources, Jean Markale pieces together a compelling story of who and what Merlin might have been. Combining his investigation of the sources with fragments of Celtic mythology, Druidic culture, and the esoteric tradition, Markale draws an enlightening portrait of the archetypal Wild Man and shaman known as Merlin, who lived in the Lowlands of Scotland late in the sixth century, some fifty years after the reign of King Arthur.In a state of divine madness Merlin sought refuge in the forest, where he inherited the gift of prophecy. With him was his companion, Vivian, an essential element of the Merlin legend. Their sacred clearing in the woods--described in some legends as an invisible castle of glass or air--was the site of their ecstatic journey of enlightenment and union with nature. From his place in the Cosmic Tree and outside of time, Merlin the enchanter challenges us to reexamine our way of life.When the Merlin legend resurfaced in the twelth century, his message of the universal brotherhood of all beings and things called out to a rapidly urbanizing society that was losing touch with nature. His warning, which went unheeded, is no less relevant to us today than it was at the dawn of the modern era.Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller, JEAN MARKALE has spent a lifetime researching Celtic civilizations. 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Because of the oral nature of Celtic civilization our understanding of its spiritual truths and rituals is necessarily incomplete. Yet evidence exists that can provide the modern reader with a better understanding of the doctrine that took druidic apprentices 20 years to learn in the remote forests of the British Isles and Gaul.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Using the descriptions of the druids and their beliefs provided by the historians and chroniclers of classic antiquity--as well as those recorded by the insular Celts themselves when compelled, under Christianity's influence, to utilize writing to preserve their ancestral traditions--Jean Markale painstakingly pieces together all that is known for certain about them. The druids were more than simply the priests of the Celtic people; their influence extended to all aspects of Celtic life. \u003ci\u003eThe Druids\u003c\/i\u003e covers everything concerning the Celtic religious domain, intellectual speculations, cultural or magical practices, various beliefs, and the so-called profane sciences that have come down from the Celtic priesthood.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50593942569233,"sku":"GOR005008156","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50936503435537,"sku":"CIN0892817038VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51712944996625,"sku":"CIN0892817038G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53407504433425,"sku":"GOR005231220","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0892817038.jpg?v=1750819903"},{"product_id":"great-goddess-book-jean-markale-9780892817153","title":"The Great Goddess","description":"MYTHOLOGY \/ WOMEN'S STUDIES In ancient Babylon she was Anat, in Egypt, Isis and Hathor, Dana in Celtic Ireland, Rhea and Demeter in Greece, and in India, Anapurna the Provider. She is the Great Goddess, the symbol of earth and the giver of life, the Vast Mother, who represented all the powers and mysteries of creation for our ancestors. In this comprehensive exploration of the Goddess figure, Jean Markale, one of today's foremost Celtic historians, examines how over time patriarchal societies tried to force the preeminent power of the feminine into an obscure and sub-servient position, shifting her solar association onto masculine deities and discrediting those of her symbols, like the serpent, that could not be easily assimilated. With its extensive investigation of all the myths, sites, and sanctuaries devoted to this influential figure, The Great Goddess provides us with abundant evidence of the extraordinary permanence of her worship--even at the heart of those religions that tried to destroy her. Markale explains how the Goddess did not simply disappear when her position was usurped, but went underground, resurfacing time and again in altered but distinctly recognizable forms. The great solar goddess of Celtic culture reappears as the mythical Grainne and in the well-known legend of Tristan and Iseult. Features of the primordial Lilith, relegated to darkness in rabbinical tradition, can be discerned in the incomprehensible Black Virgins of Christian sanctuaries. And one of the key figures of modern Christianity, the Virgin Mary, possesses all the characteristics of the ancient Mother Goddess: wisdom, beneficence, nurturance, and sacred sexuality. Whether in Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, Celtic Europe, or the present day, the goddess played, and continues to play, an integral part in society's need to connect with the source of all creation. Poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller, JEAN MARKALE has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian civilizations. 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