Parabola's Winter 1998 issue:
Birth and Rebirth The physical form, the body of the individual, is made new at birth, but the soul is ancient, the stuff of stars. --from "Kheperi, Ra, Atum"
Cover: Detail from Ascension to the Empireum by Hieronymus Bosch Palazzo Ducale, Venice Copyright Scala/Art Resource, NY
In this issue:
- "Kheperi, Ra, Atum" by Normandi Ellis - The ancient Egyptian vision of transformation
- "Cauldron of Changes" by Mara Freeman - Shifting from form to form
- "Who Lives, Who Survives?" by Wendy Doniger - Karma and reincarnation in Hindu texts
- "By Whom Is Wisdom Sown?" from the Hermetica - Teachings of Hermes Trismegistus
- "In the Dark Places of Wisdom" by Peter Kingsley - The incubation of initiates
- "Blessed Are the Birth-Givers" by Miranda Shaw - A Buddhist celebration of motherhood
- ARCS: "The Living Come from the Dead"
- "The Night Journey of Nicodemus" by Philip Zaleski - Baptism into a new life
- "How Our End Will Be" from The Gospel of St. Thomas - On the undying self
- "Circulation of the Light" from The Secret of the Golden Flower - The Taoist doctrine of the reverse current
- "The Serpent That Bites Its Own Tail" by William A. McIntosh - Symbol of death and revival
- "Birth and the Witness" by Elizabeth N. Brower - A midwife's perspective
- "Radiant Gravity" by Anne Farber - The survival of a teaching
Epicycles - Traditional stories from around the world
- "The Rebirth of Inanna" / Sumerian - retold by Diane Wolkstein
- "Letao and the Chief" / Marshall Islands - retold by Daniel A. Kelin, II
- "The Voice in the Tree" / Jewish - retold by Howard Schwartz
- "How Long Until Freedom?" / Hindu - from the Kurma Purana
- "Hina and the Eel" / Polynesian - retold by Caren Belle Loebel-Fried
- "Anat and Baal" / Ugaritic - retold by Philip Randal Jensen
- "The Magic Drum" / Inuit - retold by Laura Simms
- "The River" / Tlingit - retold by Jane Hughes Gignoux