Tag Archives: Mysticism

BOOK: “The Pocket Rumi” ed. / trans. by Kabir Helminski

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The Pocket Rumi (Shambhala Pocket Library)The Pocket Rumi by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Shambhala

This is a selection of writings (mostly poetry) of Rumi (formal name: Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.) Rumi was a mystic of Sufi Islam, and so the poems tend toward the devotional — though with more reference to the experience of intoxication than one might expect from a 13th century Islamic poet.

This selection consists of three sections organized by poetic form, each section progressively longer than the preceding one. The first section is ruba’i, the second is ghazals, and the last is from Rumi’s Mathnawi.

The “Pocket” of the book’s title and series is figurative as the paperback is too big of both format and thickness for any pocket I own, personally, but the point is that it’s a quick read at only about 200 pages of (mostly) poetry [meaning white space abounds.]

I enjoyed reading this selection. I can’t say how true to message the translations are as I have no knowledge of Persian. I can point out that the translators opted to abandon form in favor of free verse. Hopefully, this gave them the freedom of movement to approach the message and tone of the originals.

If you are interested in a short, readable English translation of Rumi’s poetry, this book offers a fine place to start.

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BOOKS: “Live Like a Philosopher” by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz

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Live Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy LifeLive Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy Life by Gregory Lopez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Hachette / Headline Press

This book is for a person in the market for a philosophy of life, but who only knows that they want a system rooted in Ancient Greece. While the coauthors are all Stoics, the book explores twelve additional philosophies and gives each roughly equal consideration. In addition to the expected systems, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Platonism, and Skepticism, there are also several lesser known or defunct philosophies such as Cyrenaic hedonism, Cynicism, Pyrrhonism, and Megarianism.

The book is organized into four parts. The first examines schools that value pleasure (Cyrenaicism and Epicureanism,) the next investigates schools that focus on virtue and character (Aristotelian Peripatetics, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Political Platonism,) the penultimate focuses on systems encouraging doubt or caution in knowledge (Socratic philosophy, Academic Skepticism, Sophism, and Pyrrhonism,) and the last set are posed as questionable candidates for a life philosophy (i.e. those of the Pythagoreans, Megarians, and Neoplatonists.) The last three schools are questioned on various grounds, including: is enough known about what its practitioners believed, did they live their philosophy or just ruminate on it, and could the system be considered a full-fledged philosophy (as opposed to a stance on a specific issue or issues.)

The book is presented in self-help fashion, with each chapter ending in a set of exercises designed to help the reader build practical understanding of each school. The goal of these exercises (as comes together in an appendix) is to help the reader determine which philosophy is best suited to their disposition and inclinations.

I enjoyed this book. The authors use stories to convey ideas and the book’s readability is kept inviting to general readers. If you’re interested in better understanding Greek schools of philosophy, I’d recommend the book as quick and easy way to get a better grasp.

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BOOKS: “The Varieties of Religious Experience” by William James

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The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human NatureThe Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by Dr. William James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Project Gutenberg — Free Online

This book is now more than 120 years old and yet is still widely read and is still provoking thought about the nature of religious experiences and how they should be considered by academia. The book is a write-up of a series of twenty lectures that the famous American Philosopher-Psychologist, William James, delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1901-02.

There are a few things that impressed me about this book. First, James was skilled with language and clever in conveying ideas, resulting in a good bit of quotable material and stimulating ideas.

Second, James’s writings about Eastern practices and philosophies were impressively clear and faithful. In those days, there wasn’t a lot translated from Sanskrit, Pali, etc. and what had been translated was frequently done by outside academicians with no firsthand experience with Eastern systems — e.g. Hinduism or Buddhism. This meant that the writings about Eastern Philosophy and practices from those days were often contorted by a Western / Abrahamic frame in a way that distorted the true nature of those traditions. James seems to have gained at least some of his understanding from someone with enough practical experience to produce accurate descriptions. Furthermore, James avoids spewing myths and misapprehensions by being humble in stating what is merely his understanding. It should be noted that James does write much more about Abrahamic traditions (as one would expect given his direct experience,) but it’s hard to plumb the depths of mysticism without looking to the East where such practices reached such advanced states.

Finally, I was impressed with James’s ability to walk the line of believer and scholar in a way that was fair both to religion and the religious but also to the scientifically-minded rational sceptic. So much of what I read on the subject takes a vitriolic tone of strict opposition and often unfairly depicts the positions of the other side (to be fair, usually this seems to be because the critic doesn’t understand the views of the other side and so produces an interpretation of the opposing ideas conforming to their own worldview, rather than just lying to win.) [As was attributed to James as well as others, “…people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”]

I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in philosophy of religion and the psychology of religious experience.

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BOOKS: “Sweet Hunter” by Teresa of Avila; Trans. by Dana Delibovi

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Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila (Bilingual Edition)Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila by St. Teresa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Website

This is a bilingual collection of the poems of Teresa of Avila, one of history’s most influential Christian mystics, newly translated by Dana Delibovi. The collection contains about thirty poems, some ecstatic and some philosophic, in both English the original Spanish.

The book also offers an overall introduction and commentaries on each of the five sections by which the poems are grouped. This provides the reader, particularly a neophyte to the history and theology that inform these poems — such as myself — with background useful to better experiencing the poems. I do enjoy bilingual editions even when they are in a source language that I don’t read because they do allow some insight into rhyme, metering, and other considerations of sound. One can observe to what degree the translator emulates form, even if one remains ignorant of the degree to which meaning is captured.

I enjoyed this collection. If you are interested in the poetry of Christian mystics, I’d recommend you give it a read.

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BOOKS: “Teachings of the Christian Mystics” ed. by Andrew Harvey

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Teachings of the Christian Mystics (Shambhala Pocket Library)Teachings of the Christian Mystics by Andrew Harvey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Acquired at Blossom Bookhouse

This book gathers a collection of short writings (mostly paragraph to a few page excerpts as well as a few poems) on mystic Christianity from the time of the Gospels through the twentieth century. While the bulk of the pieces are (if not from scriptures) the work of clergymen and / or theologians, there are some by individuals known elsewise (e.g. poets William Blake and Gerard Manley Hopkins.) The book is arranged somewhat, but not perfectly, chronologically — enough that all the Biblical excerpts are lumped together at the beginning to form about the first quarter of the selections. While there are a number of one-off contributors, there are several pieces from each of: Gregory of Nyssa, the Desert Fathers, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Eckhart von Hochheim.

One nice feature of this book is that it does include selections from a wide range of sources (Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant) over a range of time periods, and from scriptures both canonical and “apocryphal.” So, there are many varied ideas of the mystical experience and the path thereto. The flipside of this fact is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cohesiveness to the collection. It isn’t always clear why Harvey (the editor) thought a given excerpt was representative of mystic teachings versus of mainstream Christianity. There is a substantial introduction, but otherwise the selections are left to speak for themselves.

Still, it was a quick read, dense with insights, and I found — particularly some of the scriptural selections — to be among the most profound statements of Christian philosophy that I’ve seen.

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BOOK: “The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded” by Dana Sawyer

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The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclinedThe Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclined by Dana Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: July 9, 2024

The good news is that this book does a thorough, clear, and balanced job of discussing Perennial Philosophy along a number of dimensions including metaphysics, psychology, theology, and aesthetics. The bad news is that it can lead one to believe there IS NO Perennial Philosophy, just a hodge-podge of (often disparate) assumptions about the grand metaphysical questions of life, the universe, and everything, assumptions that are usually Eastern, mystical, or both and which appeal to the kind of person who likes to say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” but which are all over the place, intellectually speaking. We learn more about the varied metaphysical perspectives that can be lumped under rubric Perennial Philosophy, than we learn of any internally consistent set of beliefs which distinguish the Philosophy from others. Sawyer does acknowledge that there is not a unified worldview that is Perennial Philosophy and that, instead, one must think in terms of “family resemblance.” The problem is that Perennial Philosophy displays the kind of family resemblance seen in a foster home. One can believe in a god or not, believe in a soul / persistent self or not, one can hold any number of beliefs about time, causation, creation, and other aspects of metaphysics. Sawyer does solidly distinguish Perennial Philosophy from Materialism, but it’s not clear why we needed it, given we already had various permutations of Idealism.

The book does provide a lot of food-for-thought, if often frustratingly so. The most important thing it does is lay out the various questions at the fore of Perennial Philosophy, how they’ve been addressed by different thinkers, and the crux of discord.

I did find myself disturbed by the arguments on occasion. A prime example is when Sawyer writes about students who describe themselves as non-spiritual but who enjoy going hiking. Because Sawyer couches the experiences that are had on a good hike in spiritual terms, he believes the students are wrong to describe themselves as “non-spiritual.” However, it’s far from clear why they need to twist their interpretations into line with his worldview. I suspect that his “non-spiritual” students, like me, see in “spiritual” types a need to escape the surly bonds of nature, to have magic exist in their worlds, something above and beyond nature. I see “spiritual” people as having a craving like the proverbial true-believer / flood victim whose neighbors come by in a truck and a boat to rescue him (and then rescue services come by with a helicopter,) but he turns them all down because “God Will Save Me!” Then he dies and goes to heaven and berates God for letting him drown, to which God says, “I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What do you want from me?” Well, he wanted a divine golden light to levitate him not some mundane solution based in the natural world; he wanted magic, rapturous rescue.

If you are interested in the various debates between Materialism and Idealism, this book is well worth reading, and if you describe yourself as “Spiritual, but not religious,” you’ll probably really love it.

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When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]

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When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
 When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
 When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
 When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
 How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
 Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
 In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
 Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Mystic Limerick

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A mystic sought to be one with all things,
but couldn't make it, allowing no strings,
"I'm a little bit torn:
one with rose equals thorn,
and one with bees invites many a sting."

BOOK REVIEW: Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide by Maggie Hyde

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Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide (Introducing...)Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide by Maggie Hyde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

I find Jung’s ideas fascinating. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t believe most of said ideas have scholarly merit, but they’re brilliantly creative and eccentric. Some will say this would’ve been a radically different book if it’d been written by a psychologist or the like (rather than by an astrologer.) I don’t disagree. It’d likely have focused more on his work in personality types and on the unconscious mind (i.e. the work that people in psychology still talk about, whether they like it or not,) and also probably would’ve barely footnoted his ideas about “the uncanny,” synchronicity, and astrology. In short, its priorities would’ve been reversed, and it’d be a book that’s more boring but more relevant to those who are interested in Jung’s long-run influence on psychiatry / psychoanalysis.

For my purposes, I prefer the book as it is. I shouldn’t give the false impression that the author only addresses Jung’s mysticism, or that she completely avoids pointing out where Jung’s ideas were controversial and what critiques were leveled against him. The book comes across as a serious description of Jung’s work (albeit focusing relatively intensely on dream analysis, collective consciousness, and the more out-there aspects of his work.) I will say, I’ve read a few books from this series now, and Hyde does seem more a cheerleader (less a dispassionate scholar) than most of the other authors. It’s fascinating to read about Jung’s criticism of Freud. Don’t get me wrong, I’d agree that Freud was sex-obsessed, but Jung’s accusations of Freud being too concerned with one ill-supported idea does create a bit of a pot / kettle situation.

I enjoyed this book. I found the descriptions of Jung’s ideas compelling, if unpersuasive. However, I’d argue that if you specifically want to know about what ideas are still being talked about in classrooms (mainstream, not the New Age-y ones,) there’re probably better books. However, if you’re curious about Jung the mystic, this is a great place to start.


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POEM: Bone-joy Resonance

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A sage, throughout his cave days,
whiles away the summer nights
in a darkness within darkness.

The tomb-like silence fades into
a faint resonance.

Musty earthen scent becomes
the dominant sensation.

A tomb within a tomb within rocky ground.

And — slowly, at first — his mind spills out,
and spirals beyond the bounds of all constraints.

Until it reaches the cave rock,
and then it sets into the stone.

Whether the rock starts vibrating
at the frequency of bone,
or bone oscillates from contact with rock —

I don’t know —

All I know is that this cave
that was empty save some flesh and bone
is now full.