Force Cultivation The Heavenly Throne Book 1 A Lit

Includes music.

This volume traces the backgrounds, origin, and development of early Jewish and Christian speculation about the heavenly realm - where it is, what it looks like and who its inhabitants are.

"This new book by photographer Shaobai Li explores the still mysterious ancient temple grounds of the Forbidden City. Once the secluded realm of emperors and court officials, the Forbidden City retains a hold on the imagination. Now open to the public, it must rank as one of the most photographed places in the world. This collection, however, shows a different face to the Forbidden City and is a deeply personal evocation of the hidden and mysterious corners of the place. Li focuses on the minute details of the Forbidden City, not only showing familiar objects in a new light, but also finding a near spiritual beauty suffused through the ancient structures. The book includes discussions of the architecture of the Forbidden City and describes some of the incredible events that transpired here throughout its long history. In Chinese and English."

This is a narrative commentary on the Book of Revelation which provides fascinating new look at John's Apocalypse. The symbolic and theological significance of setting, rhetoric, point of view, character, and plot are throughly discussed in this volume.

Few visit Beijing without going to the Ming Tombs, the burial grounds of the Ming dynasty who ruled China from 1368 to 1644. This book gives a concise and up-to-date description of one of China's most important archaeological sites. It explains the beliefs underlying Chinese burial practices and the significant symbolism of the stone monuments lining the spirit road--the avenue leading to the first tomb in the valley--with its animals and stone officials in fifteenth-century court costume.

This is the first comprehensive study in English of Czech society and politics in the High Middle Ages. It paints a vivid portrait of a flourishing Christian community in the decades between 1050 and 1200. Bohemia's social and political landscape remained remarkably cohesive, centered on a throne in Prague, the Premyslid duke who occupied it, a society of property-owning freemen, and the ascendant Catholic church. In decades fraught with political violence, these provided a focal point for Czech identity and political order. In this, the Czechs' heavenly patron, Saint Vaclav, and the German emperor beyond their borders too had a role to play. An impressive, systematic dissection of a medieval polity, Hastening Toward Prague is based on a close rereading of written and material artifacts from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Arguing against a view that puts state or nation formation at heart, Wolverton examines interactions among dukes, emperors, freemen, and the church on their own terms, asking what powers the dukes of Bohemia possessed and how they were exercised within a broader political community. Evaluating not only the foundations and practice of ducal lordship but also the form and progress of resistance to it, she argues in particular that violence was not a sign of political instability but should be interpreted as reflecting a dynamic economy of checks and balances in a fluid, mature political system. This also reveals the values and strategies that sustained the Czech Lands as a community. The study honors the complexity and dynamism of the medieval exercise of power.