Nowhere else in its genre have I found Novak's artistry equaled.
-- Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions

It's time to reconsider our devotedness to secular social science and to rediscover the world's many profound religious traditions as our best guides back to a life of heart and meaning. Philip Novak's loving and imaginative presentation of key texts from several traditions offers an excellent resource for this new/old direction, showing that all the wisdom we need is already available to us in abundance.
-- Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and Soul Mates

A book to savor slowly, not only as a companion volume in the study of relgion, but in the living of one's life. The selections are organized in a way that helps to make the familiar scriptures of the West fresh again, and the scriptures of the East more accessible and understandable.
-- Jacob Needleman, author of The Heart of Philosophy and Money and the Meaning of Life

A superb collection from the most entrancing literature ever to find expression in human language, literature that emerges from the mysterious depths of the soul where the primordial world of the sacred manifests itself most clearly. We can no longer be guided spiritually in any adequate manner nor can we claim to be properly educated without having some acquaintance with these texts.
-- Thomas Berry, author of the The Dream of the Earth and co-author of The Universe Story.

Sample entries:

Cold Turkey

[from the gooseflesh that is one of the Withdrawal Symptoms of Heroin or Morphine] abrupt withdrawal from narcotics, when Physical Dependence is present, so that the addict goes through the withdrawal symptoms. . .

Dexamyl

[d-amphetamine sulfate and amobarbital, Smith Kline & French Laboratories] a central nervous system stimulant of the Amphetamine type combined with a central nervous system depressant . . .

mind detergent, the.

LSD

Frisco speedball

mixture of Heroin, Cocaine and LSD-25

Speedball

Heroin and Cocaine or Ampetamine (Desoxyn is most common) injected as a mixture. The cocaine or amphetamine enhances the Rush, while the heroin tempers the unpleasant extremes of the cocaine exhilaration and perhaps prolongs the Kick . . .