A spirituality based on love, not fear

* Shares key, inspiring teachings from A Course in Miracles as well as Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and the Sefer Yetzirah, the oldest known Kabbalistic text

* Cites philosophical wisdom from Kant, Blake, Jung, and Gurdjieff, alongside cognitive science, to reveal how the world is not difficult and flawed, but our fear-based mind-sets lead us to see it that way

* Offers a path to help you regenerate from the “fallen” state and experience God as infinite love and light

In the West, theology has almost always meant Christian theology–a hodgepodge of beliefs that are hard to make sense of. Why, for example, should an all-loving, merciful God have gotten mad at the human race because someone ate a piece of fruit six thousand years ago? And why would he send part of himself down to earth to be tortured to death? These beliefs, stated baldly, are nonsensical. Millions of people are realizing this and losing their faith. The time has come to reenvision Christian theology without contradictory teachings laced with fear. It is time for a theology of love and miracles.

Richard Smoley reframes Christian theology using logical, consistent, and easy-to-understand teachings of unconditional love and forgiveness. He draws inspiration not only from the Bible, but also from Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, and from esoteric and mystical teachings, such as A Course in Miracles and the Sefer Yetzirah, the oldest known Kabbalistic text. He explains how the “fallen” state of the human condition, not one of sin but of oblivion, leads us to experience the world as flawed and problematic–not wholly evil, but not wholly good.

Citing philosophical wisdom from Kant, Blake, Jung, and Gurdjieff, alongside cognitive science, Smoley reveals how it is not the world that is flawed, but the way we see the world. Sharing key teachings from A Course in Miracles, he shows that our fear-based mind-sets–often filled with anxiety, suffering, and shame–lead us to feel separated from God when, in fact, we are all extensions of a God of infinite love and light.

Offering a path to help you regenerate from the “fallen” state and see the real spiritual world and loving God that lies behind it, the author provides ways for each of us to craft our own self-consistent theology. He also lays out a vision for the future of spirituality, a path for present-day religion to transform into something higher and more universal.

The success of books such as Elaine Pagels’s Gnostic Gospels and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code proves beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous thirst today for finding the hidden truths of Christianity-truths that may have been lost or buried by institutional religion over the last two millennia.
In Forbidden Faith, Richard Smoley narrates a popular history of one such truth, the ancient esoteric religion of gnosticism, which flourished between the first and fourth centuries AD, but whose legacy remains even today, having survived secretly throughout the ages.

Here is the greatest “deal” you will ever find: This concise, deeply practical guide shows how to forgive anyone who has ever hurt you and to receive a payback of enormous personal satisfaction and inner peace.

“What I am offering you in this book is the best deal you have ever gotten in your life, or ever will. Even though I know nothing about you, I’m willing to make this claim with complete certainty.”
With elegance and absolute persuasiveness The Deal explains how forgiveness – rather than being a squishy, eat-your-vegetables virtue – is actually the key, perhaps the sole key, to a happy life.
If you perform the one simple but vital forgiveness exercise in The Deal, you will forgive and be forgiven. You will be free. You will enter a new phase of life.
A widely respected spiritual writer and thinker, Richard Smoley doesn’t hand you the standard promise that this book will change your life. When you finish it, he concludes: “It already has changed your life.”
This is the simple, radical truth of The Deal.

Magic, the occult, the mystical-is there anything behind those words? If there is, is it anything beyond horror-movie cliches? People the world over have always known and interacted with these hidden forces. But in our culture, there are very few ways to sort out truth from nonsense.
In this book, Richard Smoley, an expert on the occult, delves into the world of mind power, magic, suggestion, and the realms of the unseen. He speaks simply and clearly, in common-sense terms, about these mysterious forces, how they can work for you, and what you need to avoid. This trip through unseen worlds could be most exciting adventure of your life, and possibly the most important, as you learn about: meditation; the colors of magic; the life force; the astral light; thought power; prophecy; psychic powers; astrology;
the Tarot; ghosts, angels, and spirits; life after death; evil; witchcraft and Satanism; Atlantis and lost civilizations; the Last Judgment; the Kingdom of God; healing; reincarnation; the Brotherhood; psychedelics; and spirituality.