HPB Presents: An Evening with Metaphysics and Spirituality Authors

HPB presents an evening with Metaphysics and Spirituality authors. Join us on Friday, June 5 at 6 p.m. Acclaimed artist and filmmaker Sanjay Patel will discuss and sign his latest book, Mahabharata, a bold, modern retelling of India’s greatest epic.

Following Sanjay's presentation, Joan Ranquet, author of Animal Chakra Healing , Maja D’Aoust, author of Shadow Seer Tarot and Thumper Forge, author of The Chaos Apple will also discuss and sign their books.

Event includes Indian Chai and samosas and Henna art. Paid tickets include a copy of Mahabharta. Animal Chakra Healing, Shadow Seer Tarot and The Chaos Apple will be available for purchase at the event.

About Mahabharata

Adapted and illustrated with both humor and heart for a contemporary audience, this stunning visual retelling of the Indian epic the Mahabharata features more than 400 pages of illustrated text in Academy Award-nominated animator Sanjay Patel’s iconic style.

Ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, the Mahabharata is astonishingly vast in both scope and size, a library of ancient Indian culture and knowledge. In this thrilling modern adaptation, Patel has condensed over 200,000 lines of the original Sanskrit verse into a single volume that is easy to understand for those new to the story. Patel’s engaging artwork imparts multiple layers of meaning in a groundbreaking visual presentation that allows readers to fully immerse themselves in the Mahabharata and all its wonders.

About Sanjay Patel

Sanjay is an animator and illustrator who worked at Pixar for 20 years, contributing to many of their most beloved films. In 2015, he wrote and directed the short film Sanjay’s Super Team, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Film. In 2018, he launched Ghee Happy Studio and began producing the Netflix animated preschool series Ghee Happy, which won Best Animated Television/Broadcast Production for Preschool Children at the 51st Annie Awards. He is also the author of Ramayana: Divine Loophole, The Little Book of Hindu Deities, Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth, and many other books for children and adults.

About Animal Chakra Healing

Little is known about the chakra system of animals, yet the chakras of our beloved companions hold valuable clues for their health and well-being. Chakras can reveal what is at the core of our animal’s desires and challenges: why they behave the way they do, how they process negative or traumatic experiences, and where they store these in their body.

For each of the seven main chakras, expert animal healer Joan Ranquet discusses key characteristics and chakra-related organs and systems as well as shows how to harmonize common imbalances. Tuning into the animal’s aura and connective ecosystem, their eighth chakra, she highlights the effects of household environment and collective and cosmic fields on your animal. Ancestral influences become evident in domestic animals’ systems, as Joan traces their descendance from wild forebears.

When chakra dynamics play out in your household, it’s important to know how to release pressure, ground, and balance your companions’ chakras, so you become the emotional leader of your home and a healing presence for your animals. Animal Chakra Healing offers techniques and resources to understand the subtle energetics of our companions and harmonize with them for increased health and well-being—not only for our animals but ourselves as well.

About Joan Ranquet

Joan Ranquet is an animal communicator, energy healer, TEDx speaker, and founder of Communication with All Life University (CWALU), an experiential learning platform for animal communication, energy healing, nature, and wildlife. The author of Emotional Freedom Technique for Animals and Their Humans, Joan lives with her animal family of 4 horses, 3 dogs, and 3 cats on a ranchette in Southern California.

About Shadow Seer Tarot

As a tool for shadow work and divination, the Shadow Seer Tarot deck and guidebook give methods to see through the blind spots of ordinary tarot readings into the heart of what is often hidden. Using Hermetic principles, Maja D’Aoust defines oppositional energies as they relate to the cards of the tarot. With the alchemical method of reconciliation through opposition, she looks deeper into the familiar meanings of the Major and Minor Arcana to give readers insight into the shadow energies at work in their lives to reveal a path toward wholeness. By inverting the archetypes and revealing their shadow side, or “darchetypes,” Maja opens portals of understanding to the bad behaviors that we often attempt to conceal, repress, or deny. For example, shadow forms are represented in the suit of Cups by cards such as the Toxic Family, the Glutton, Addiction, and Betrayal. In the suit of Wands, the dark side of our drives and passions are exposed in cards like Propaganda, Slander, the False Martyr, and the Avoidant. Working with our secret shadows, rooted to the underworld and our ancestors, reveals deeper truths and a more balanced perception of the world.

About Maja D'Aoust

Maja D’Aoust is a practicing Witch and scholar of alchemy and occult lore who has been reading tarot professionally for more than 20 years. She is the author of Familiars in Witchcraft, The Occult I Ching, Astrology of the Shadow Self, and creator of The White Witch Tarot. She lives in Los Angeles.

About The Chaos Apple

Join Thumper Forge, a Chaos Witch extraordinaire and Gardnerian Wiccan, on the wildest magical ride this side of the multiverse. He serves as your witty tour guide through the topsy-turvy realms of Chaos Witchcraft and Discordianism, where you can dance with Eris, the cosmic trickster herself.

Learn to bend belief like a spoon, craft sigils that make the universe giggle, and summon parking spots with the grace of a sorcerer. With a wink and a cackle, Forge teaches you to embrace the absurd, harness the power of paradigm parkour, and discover why sometimes the most powerful magic comes with a side of laughter.

About Thumper Forge

Thumper (Horkos) Marjorie Splitfoot Forge is a Gardnerian High Priest, an initiate of the Minoan Brotherhood, a Discordian Episkopos, a recovering alcoholic, and a notary public from Houston, Texas. His first book, Virgo Witch: Divining the Details, co-authored with Ivo Dominguez, Jr., was released by Llewellyn Publications in November 2023.

By day, he manages a leather and fetishwear shop, and by night, he dabbles in chaos magic, offers geomantic and lithomantic readings, and blogs irreverently. His essays have previously appeared in The Gorgon’s Guide to Magical Resistance (Revelore Press, 2022) and Modern Witchcraft with the Greek Gods: History, Insights & Magickal Practice (Llewellyn Publications, 2022).