Book Reviews – Spiritual

Book Review – The Alaskan Eskimos, Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24

    There is a bit of background to this book that is needed to place it properly into perspective: In the works of Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God, there is a quotation from the first volumn that has had great meaning to me: “sila ersinarsinivdlugo – Be Not Afraid of the Universe” When […]

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Book Review – The Book of Job, The Anchor Bible

  The most thought provoking book of the Bible. First off, The Anchor Bible itself requires a bit of an introduction: This is from the Wikipedia: The Anchor Bible Commentary Series, created under the guidance of William Foxwell Albright (1891–1971), comprises a translation and exegesis of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Intertestamental […]

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Book Review – Sacred and Profane Beauty: the Holy in Art, van der Leeun

Published 1963, a translation from the German. This was a hard read. The thoughts here are deep and make one work for understanding. I read parts of it and then had to start all over….but it was worth the effort. Some notes: P 68 – There is dancing in heaven P 61 – The 144th […]

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Book Review – The Sacred Fire, B. Z. Goldberg

The Story of Sex in Religion Published in 1930 so the language is a bit odd perhaps and it would fail all kinds of “political correctness” tests The last 2 sentences in the book: “All religious ceremonies of today are expressions of that intimate relationship that love introduced into religion. They who know religion know […]

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Book Review – St Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury, Lionel Lewis

This is one of the books I picked up as a consequence of reading the book “The Da Vinci Code”. I’ve had a long interest in this general subject and this was a nice addition to the collection. Joseph of Arimathea has the distinction of being mentioned in all 4 of the New Testament Gospels, […]

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Book Review – The Other Bible, Willis Barnstone

For the first time in one volume: Ancient esoteric texts including: Jewish Pseudepigrapha Christian Apocrypha Gnostic Scriptures Kabbalah Dead Sea Scrolls Contents: Creation Myths Histories and Narratives Wisdom Literature and Poetry Gospels Infancy Gospels Acts Apocalypses Diverse Gnostic Texts Manichaean and Mandaean Gnostic Texts Mystical Documents It is not possible to write an extract of […]

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Book Review – The Serpent and the Goddess, Mary Condren

Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland Read this some time ago, not sure when and not sure where I got the book. As the author states in the preface: “This book will trace the development of the patriarchal mind-set and the sexual political struggle in Irish cultural history.” Some quotes: “History is not the […]

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Book Review – The Lost Books of the Bible, Bell Publishing

Title: Lost books of the Bible – Bell 1979 edition – 293 pages The documents in this book were written soon after Christ’s crucifixion, during the early spread of Christianity. But when the Bible was compiled these text were not among those chosen, were suppressed for 1500 years, shrouded in secrecy. By and about many […]

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Book Review – Woman Defamed and Woman Defended

An Anthology of Medieval Texts, Edited by Alcuin Blamires From the back cover: Despite the recent surge of investigations into women’s situation, however, no one book has sought to collect the key voices of medieval antifeminism, let alone to present the voices sometimes raised, even at that epoch, in defence of women. This new volume […]

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Book Review – The Diamond – Thich Nhat Hahn

Commentaries on the “Prajnaparamita Diamond Sutra” This Sutra is in the form of a dialog between the Buddha and his disciple Sughati. We are taught in Western civilization to look at the world, and life, in terms of dualities: left/right, good/evil, rich/poor, black/white…etc. While this may be convenient in some ways and perhaps ‘efficient’, it […]

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Book Review – Shamanism, Archaic Techniques Of Ecstacy, Mircae Eliade

From the forward: “To the best of our knowledge the present book is the first to cover the entire phenomenon of shamanism and at the same time to situate it in the general history of religion.” Not a bad summary of this book. If you have any interest in the topic, this is a must […]

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Book Review – Patterns In Comparative Religion, Mircae Eliade

I liked the way the author was described in the title page – Sometime Professor in the University of Bucharest This is the second or third book I’ve read by the same author. The book itself is in somewhat ratty condition with someone elses notes and lines…looke like Gai Eaton, London Feb, 1953 (French Edition […]

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Book Review – Shambhala – The Sacred Path of the Warrior

For a tiny little book which gave me fits to understand, this sure did generate a lot of notes….LOL “Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan ‘pavo‘, which literally means ‘one who is brave.” Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness”. “The key to warriorship […]

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Book Review – The Myths of the North American Indians, Lewis Spence

This is a reprint of a book originally published in 1914. That original publication data needs to be kept in mind as language, customs and what is ‘politically correct’ have evolved. I found the book rather interesting for the most part but a little redundant at times. This is due to the fact that many […]

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Book Review – The Myth of the Great Secret, Toby Johnson

A Search for Spiritual Meaning…An Appreciation of Joseph Campbell Not at all sure where or when I picked this up but I recall that it sat on the shelf for quite a while before I finally read it. An interesting book, written by a man who knew Campbell reasonably well and worked with him. Generally […]

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Book Review – A Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night, The Dalai Lama

A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life From the back cover: Compassion is the guiding principle of the bodhisattvas, those who vow to attain enlightenment in order to liberate all sentient beings from the suffering and confusion of imperfect existence. To this end, they must renounce all self-centered goals and consider only the well-being […]

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