Amazon.com
Sometimes a writer has to revisit the classics, and here we find that "gonzo journalism"--gutsy first-person accounts wherein the author is part of the story--didn't originate with Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. Aldous Huxley took some mescaline and wrote about it some 10 or 12 years earlier than those others. The book he came up with is part bemused essay and part mystical treatise--"suchness" is everywhere to be found while under the influence. This is a good example of essay writing, journal keeping, and the value of controversy--always--in one's work.
Book Description
Two classic complete books -- The Doors of Perception (originally published in 1954) and Heaven and Hell (originally published in 1956) -- in which Aldous Huxley, author of the bestselling Brave New World, explores, as only he can, the mind's remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness. These two astounding essays are among the most profound studies of the effects of mind-expanding drugs written in the twentieth century. These two books became essential for the counterculture during the 1960s and influenced a generation's perception of life.
Customer Reviews:
Purple Haze..........2007-07-26
I have wanted to read Huxley's THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION for quite some time and purchased it from Amazon about a year ago. However, I didn't get around to reading it until this past week, when it made its way to the top of my book stack. Not knowing if I was "ready" for the subject of hallucinogen use, I opened the thin volume and it hooked me immediately.
What was most impressive to me - others have described Huxley's clinical/intellectual approach to the drug experience - was how this work delicately projected the difference of drugs being used to escape TO something, rather than FROM something. This seems key to Huxley's "experience" versus other's entertainment, excitement, boredom, or addictive purpose for experimenting.
The second book of this thin volume, HEAVEN AND HELL, was, I'm quite sure, directly impacted by Huxley's previous drug experiences, as he argues, somewhat circularly, that drug use inspires appreciation of things produced via drug use.
I enjoyed both of these short works, presumably published together because of the William Blake connection in their titles. Despite reviews to the contrary, the ideas presented within seemed entirely accessible, if somewhat dated.
A gifted writer sheds light on a difficult subject.......2007-06-16
The Doors of Perception
This book is written in the form of an essay and recounts the experiences of the author after taking mescalin for the first time. It is a fairly short read, about 80 pages, but the philosophical reflections require time to fully grasp. Huxley volunteers to be the guinea pig in a controlled experiment to observe the effects of mescalin. The resulting experience gave cause for Huxley to reflect deeply on the nature of reality and how humans shape this reality through perception. What is perceived in one state of consciousness as real can indeed become something altogether different in another. Huxley explores this intertwined relationship and places it in a larger historical context recalling the works and deeds of the visionaries and mystics of the past.
This work is a must for anyone interested in boundless possibilities that arise from hallucinogenic substances. The fact that Huxley is a very intelligent scholar as well as a gifted writer allow him to tackle a difficult subject and tell it in words that lend themselves to the initiated. Those interested in the remote frontiers and the unmapped areas of human consciousness would do well to read this.
*Side note: The band the Doors took their name from the book. The title of the book actually refers to a line in the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, written by William Blake in 1793. "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
Heaven and Hell
Another rather short essay (about 100 p.) from Huxley in the vain of The Doors of Perception. In it Huxley takes on the fast unknowns of Mind at Large, examining the basic properties and functions of visionary experience. This essay is basically a philosophical discourse on the possibilities that exist for visionary experience. The contrast between the positive and negative experience are characterized in the contrasting realms of Heaven and Hell. What makes this an incredibly interesting read is that all arguments made are based on plausible grounds and quite often on scientifically sound grounds. Although written over a half century ago, this work has proved a classic that stands out in a field that is still insufficiently investigated. Together with The Doors of Perception, Heaven and Hell shows that Huxley is as much a force in the world of nonfiction thought as he is in fiction. Read what this man has to say and think about it. There is a lot there to digest.
Not easy.......2007-05-12
I had an idea to find out about the use of drugs and its effect on the consiousness. I have found Aldous Huxley on the Wikipedia and bought this book. I am not native english, and it took me quite long to get through the book, because its language is so difficult to understand. It is obvious that Huxley is a writer with a very broad range of vocabulary to express things. If you are not native, prepare yourself with a huge dictionary to read the book However the contect was fabulous.
Aldous Huxley and mescaline.......2007-02-15
Huxley is a very erudite individual, and hallucinogenics were novel for the time (1950's). What we can say now is that even well educated and intelligent individuals are not very far from psychotic thinking.
Good book for anyone intersted in the psychedelic movement.......2006-12-27
Huxley reveals his thoughts on psychedelics and philosophy in "The Doors of Perception"--all while experimenting with mescaline. This book is not for the uneducated and brain-dead stoner, though. Huxley, an accomplished novelist ("Brave New World" and "The Island"), was the father of the psychedelic movement. He laid the foundation for philosophical experimentation and had an enormous influnce on later advocates like Timothy Leary, Ken Kesy, and (more recently) Daniel Pinchbeck. Those who are fans of "The Doors" will be interested to know that this is where the band recieved its name. The reading can be arduous at times but well worth the effort for anyone who is researching psychotropic drugs.
Average customer rating:
- Always new
- A fine translation if some fine thinking
- A wonderful companion to A Thousand Names for Joy
- mini tao
- I love audio books!
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Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Perennial Classics)
Lao Tzu
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ASIN: 0061142662
Release Date: 2006-09-05 |
Book Description
In eighty-one brief chapters, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao—the basic principle of the universe.
Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been widely acclaimed as a gift to contemporary culture.
Download Description
Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living, and one of the wonders of the world. In eighty-one brief chapters, the Tao Te Ching looks at the basic predicament of being alive and gives advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit. This book is about wisdom in action. It teaches how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao (the basic principle of the universe) and applies equally to good government and sexual love; to child rearing, business, and ecology.
Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been widely acclaimed as a gift to contemporary culture.
Customer Reviews:
Always new.......2007-09-16
This book can be read over and over. Every time it is a fresh new experience.
A fine translation if some fine thinking.......2007-09-15
A fine translation. For the new entrant, perhaps seeking that second book to follow the Tao of Pooh, or for an old friend of the Master, Stephen Mitchell's contemporary English translation get's it right. From the comfortably blended gender pronoun usage, to it's succinct but engaging notes, Mitchell's translation carries Lao-tzu's wisdom to 21st century English speakers with grace. The pocket edition is entirely sufficient to the task.
A wonderful companion to A Thousand Names for Joy.......2007-09-03
The author is Byron Katie's husband, and she used this version of his book to provide the structure for her wonderful, poetic muse on life and The Work, her brilliant take on how to accept reality and set yourself free (first described in Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life.)
My wife and I read the section from the Tao, then the corresponding chapter from Katie's book (most are less than a page to 3-4 pages) every morning at breakfast. Always leaves us with a smile of insight and wonder, even in those times when we don't exactly know how we'd live the way she describes in a given chapter.
Unless you insist on a literal translation from the Chinese as mentioned above, this is a fresh and clean way to experience the Tao, and, if you get Katie's book (I'm buying both today for my daughter), you'll get a nice synergistic reward from experiencing the two together, day by day.
mini tao.......2007-09-01
A personal library must-have. Small enough to carry everywhere. Simple wisdom. Prerequisite to Wayne Dyer's "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life"
I love audio books!.......2007-05-22
I like to listen in my car and always hear something new. What a beautiful book. thanks!
Book Description
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer -- the first and most famous of his books -- was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences.Completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today, The True Believer is a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.
Customer Reviews:
Understanding followings1.......2007-10-09
This is a very good book for anyone wanting to know why people follow mass movements or if they want to try and start a mass movement!
To Believe.......2007-09-19
Read this book in 1992...changed the way that I looked at the world and organized religion. Really helps in understanding anything that deals with politics, religion, and any other mainstream ideology.
The Optimistic Jew.......2007-08-31
This is a companion piece to Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom". It is an analysis of fanatics - human beings that are compelled to join causes no matter what the cause. By extension it is an investigation of mass movements from early Christianity up to Fascism and Communism. This book is a cautionary against dangerous trends in the Zionist Enterprise (notice I use the term Enterprise and not Movement). Fanatic selfless idealism - whether of right wing settlers or of leftwing social reformers is dangerous. The arrogant self-righteousness of both can justify corruption, breaking the law and horrendous crimes.
As Hoffer puts it: "It is only when the movement has passed its active stage and solidified into a pattern of stable institutions that individual liberty has a chance to emerge". In the Jewish context we are not post-Zionist we are post Zionist Movement and well into the Zionist Enterprise. I celebrate the maturing of Zionism from a Movement into an Enterprise. The so called solidarity of the past stifled individual self-actualization. Today the Zionist Enterprise offers many opportunities to individuals to actualize themselves as human beings and as Jews. I believe this is admirable and not to be regretted. My book "The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century" reflects this view.
An Essential Book for Educated People.......2007-05-24
Hoffer's 150-page book is a classic that applies perfectly to our times. Hoffer hits the mark again and again with "Machiavellian detachment" as one reviewer said. Of fanatics, Hoffer wrote:
"The effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is."
"The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude."
"It is obvious, therefore, that in order to be effective a doctrine must not be understood, but has to be believed in. We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength." (quotations from page 76)
Very powerful and convincing reasoning!
Hoffer at The Eye of the Storm.......2007-04-07
Here is the first thing anyone needs to know about reading "The True Believer": Eric Hoffer is not on your team, whatever your team may be, whether right, left, moderate, secular or non-secular, or whatever. If anyone ever attempts to sell you on an ideology with a quote from "The True Believer", please know that Hoffer is tumbling in his grave.
If you are looking to pump your fist in the air at the moment that Hoffer skewers the ideology you oppose, yes, you will have that moment, but please know that you're going to turn the page and find Hoffer is skewering your ideology on the next. There's no escape from "The True Believer" because Hoffer seems to demand that we be something more than de -politicized know-nothings, but makes the additional demand that we not become ideological sheep in the process.
This may, in part, be why "The True Believer" may be the most popular book of its kind that no one has ever heard of. (Oxymoron intended.) No writer is objective, but Hoffer gets as close to it as anyone and then pulls off something quite amazing; he throws bombs everywhere, reducing any kind of ideological proponent to what they really are; an individual caught up in a phenomena larger than themselves. There are great metaphysical implications in this, but Hoffer doesn't entertain them. He's reporting from a rowboat at the peaceful eye of an ideological hurricane of mass movements, and he's not happy about what he sees and he let's it be known.
"The True Believer" is not wordy in the least, and it's quite short, about 120 pages, but it's a bit hard to get through if you're unprepared because Hoffer writes in a manner that makes one feel they should be scribbling each line down as a quotation to keep in mind. It's a very assertive book and Hoffer doesn't say things, he proclaims them, in almost every sentence. You're just recovering from the impact of one sentence, and then you find you've had a head on collision with the next. You quickly realize that you understood every word, very much so, but you're boxing with a tough s.o.b. This also makes the book very quotable for someone looking to sell an ideology, a practice which indicates that they've read the book, but not understood it.
It's important to keep in mind that Hoffer isn't looking for a good guy or bad guy. Hoffer's subject is "Mass Movements". If you read the book with the "eye of the storm" perspective in mind, you'll find it fascinating and compulsively readable. If you read it seeking an affirmation of your own worldview, you're likely to find yourself shipwrecked at page 30 or so.
Amazon.com
At an Esalen Institute meeting in 1976, tai chi master Al Huang said that the Chinese word for physics is Wu Li, "patterns of organic energy." Journalist Gary Zukav and the others present developed the idea of physics as the dance of the Wu Li Masters--the teachers of physical essence. Zukav explains the concept further:
The Wu Li Master dances with his student. The Wu Li Master does not teach, but the student learns. The Wu Li Master always begins at the center, the heart of the matter.... This book deals not with knowledge, which is always past tense anyway, but with imagination, which is physics come alive, which is Wu Li.... Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li Masters know that they are only dancing with it.
The "new physics" of Zukav's 1979 book comprises quantum theory, particle physics, and relativity. Even as these theories age they haven't percolated all that far into the collective consciousness; they're too far removed from mundane human experience not to need introduction. The Dancing Wu Li Masters remains an engaging, accessible way to meet the most profound and mind-altering insights of 20th-century science. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
With its unique combination of depth, clarity, and humor that has enchanted millions, this beloved classic by bestselling author Gary Zukav opens the fascinating world of quantum physics to readers with no mathematical or technical background. "Wu Li" is the Chinese phrase for physics. It means "patterns of organic energy," but it also means "nonsense," "my way," "I clutch my ideas," and "enlightenment." These captivating ideas frame Zukav's evocative exploration of quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Delightfully easy to read, The Dancing Wu Li Masters illuminates the compelling powers at the core of all we know.
Customer Reviews:
understandable to normal people.......2007-07-27
Read this book a few years ago and just bought it recently for my wife so she could understand what I was talking about sometimes, and to tie in with other reading she is doing that mentions quantum physics. It explains the basic concepts in clear terms, making much more sense out of a VERY abstract field. If you want to understand what it is about, this is a good place to start.
I have mixed feelings (former scientist review).......2007-03-31
I think the virtue of this book is that it challenges the established scientific paradigm that the universe is made of discrete particles. In other words, that matter is as solid as it seems and somehow energy is separate from matter. It also makes it clear that there are plenty of mysteries left to explore about the nature of the universe, even the physical universe. In addition, it stresses the interrelationships between things and what the implications might be with respect to different subject areas such as psychology.
While it's true Zukav doesn't explain the physics in depth, it does give a layman a sense of the physics is about, what it may mean and good food for thought about how this might relate to spirituality. The book is not a science text, it is a flight of imagination and a pretty good one. Much of the contents is highly speculative, but it is thought provoking and easy to follow.
If you are a scientist or a well-read layman in the area of physics, you might be disappointed. Also, if you have a deep knowledge of Eastern religion you might find it superficial and perhaps even a bit annoying. I think this books makes a sacrifice in terms of accuracy for depth and wonder. As such, it doesn't quite captivate either major audience. However, it is a useful starting point for many people into these often difficult to understand areas.
With respect to organization, I would agree that there is room for improvement. However, it not meant to be a textbook. I can give the author some wiggle room on this because in some ways, it is rather poetic and its value is to convey a sense of awe and wonder. In the regard, I think the author achieved his purpose, but sometimes at the expense of accuracy.
Splendid and readable account of QM.......2007-03-27
I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by the author's point of view, but he certainly succeeds in giving you a better understanding of QM and the philosophical questions involved in it.
No Strings Attached.......2007-02-24
This dated book simplifies the historical journey of discovery that became quantum physics. The author proposes interrelationships among: science/scientists, Jungian psychology, eastern mysticism, philosophy & logic, & languaging. Readers vary greatly, finding the physics (even w/o math): daunting, wonderfully enlightening, or boring, depending on the reader. The author simplifies physics mostly in layman's terms, but esoteric ideas are the nature of modern physics--outside the box. As a former physicist, I find his attempt quite admirable; as a former electronics engineer, I wish he'd addressed the error factor. As for accuracy, I cannot personally say, but Jack Sarfatti (whom I highly respect) stated that he'd created/reviewed the physics. Zukav's definitions of technician vs. physicist are relevant too--technicians may be challenged by the open-minded, brain-storming nature of physicists. Many (e.g. Bohm) approach (if not reach) Buddhist viewpoints. I've extensively studied Buddhism & agree with Zukav overall--indeed, he quotes Bohr, Stapp, et al in support of an interrelated universe--but some of his extrapolations are hyperbolic overstatements--reminding me of Gershom Scholem, the historian who popularized Kabbalah. Neither kabbalist nor mystic, his historical analysis was superb; his personal opinions weren't.
IMHO great value lies in exploding the either-or way people tend to view Reality (even in Buddhist philosophy!) which, per Zukav, Einstein, Heisenberg, et al, is only our View of actuality. Unreality has been defined as reifying former conclusions--i.e. forming a conclusion, forgetting it was only a conclusion, & taking it as the truth. This resembles psychological neuroses which are often a child's ways of coping with the world unconsciously continued into the present. Conclusions are analogies & all analogies are wrong--or they'd be identities. Thus, the periodic table, phyla of biology, concepts of waves & particles ...are all inherently incorrect--an error factor must be invoked. If so, the platypus won't upset the biologist & light won't upset the physicist. If water can be gas, liquid, or solid, why can't light be multi-stable? As Zukav states: p. 134: "We often discredit what we know when it contradicts what we have been taught is possible," p. 311: Henry Stapp "Everything we know about nature is in accord with the idea that the fundamental processes of nature lie outside space-time," & p. 313-4 fn: "According to Sarfatti's theory, the wave function of the photon pair is at a `higher level of reality' than the wave function of the separate photons...Every step up to a new level of reality is a step to a new order--that is the definition of a level of reality. of our multilevel hierarchical reality, i.e. the wave functions of events which are `separate' on one level of reality are correlated at the next level up: `separate events' at that level are, in turn, correlates at the next level up, & so on." This definitely parallels the four worlds of Kabbalah & reasonably correlates with the "kayas" (bodies or dimensions) of Tibetan Buddhism.
Join the dance.......2007-02-04
What a pity the two responses to "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" chosen as "spotlight" reviews are both cynical and derogatory. I hope they don't deter others from reading further. Neither reviewer seemed to grasp the fact that Gary Zukav was not writing about physics: He was writing about mental mastery in the *context* of physics, going to great lengths to explain the implications of "Wu Li." The whole book, in fact, is based on five of the many representations of "Wu Li." Zukav even says in the introduction, "This is not a book about physics or eastern philosophies."
All the same, Zukav checked his facts out with "five of the finest physicists in the world" and footnotes their comments where they "punctuate, illustrate, annotate and jab at everything in the text." What more can you want? Those physicists even allowed themselves to be named, surely professional suicide if Zukav is substantially incorrect - as some reviewers maintain. Zukav also warns the reader that knowledge in physics at the time of writing was set to progress rapidly. What was accepted then would soon be made redundant as more information arose.
I feel really sorry for those who get no joy out of this book. I, for one, will go back to it again and again out of sheer delight. Zukav puts it this way: "Most people believe that physicists are explaining the world. Some physicists even believe that, but the Wu Li masters know they are only dancing with it."
All I can say is that, with this book, I danced too.
Book Description
The Perennial Philosophy is defined by its author as "The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds." With great wit and stunning intellect, Aldous Huxley examines the spiritual beliefs of various religious traditions and explains them in terms that are personally meaningful.
Customer Reviews:
Why Does the Concept of a "Perennial Philosophy" Matter? .......2007-04-15
We live in the age of information, but information without purpose to us individually, while perhaps interesting, is also useless. Information takes on real value only when it answers a question or solves a problem. Uncertainty about our place in the universe clearly qualifies as a problem, arguably mankind's most significant and persistent problem. Solving it provides us with both a foundation and a purpose. "The Perennial Philosophy" answers the extremely pertinent questions, "Can man know God, and if so, how?" Not only does Huxley's classic work answer these questions, it does so from the perspective of experiential "knowing" that cuts across all imagined boundaries of time and space. Since humans have historically agreed on so very little, it is of no minor importance that the same basic ideas can be found in spiritual thought gathered from all cultures and times. While we believe that each of us must follow our own path, all serious seekers can benefit from the collected wisdom contained it this volume.
Huxley's purposeful quotations make it clear that intellectual gymnastics, rituals, systems, good works, or even faith cannot replace experiential knowing. Throughout the book, he emphasizes that those who have found God have done so "one on one." They have approached God with a "pure heart" and a "poor spirit." These terms are often misunderstood and have led many seekers to become distracted by the means and miss the goal of Oneness. A pure heart does not petition, it seeks God for no other reason than the pure joy of knowing God. It knows that in seeking God it will find the Self. Huxley points out that the poor in spirit are not those who deprive themselves of material possessions and pleasures, but their "poverty" is that of non-attachment and selflessness. The seeker first releases all preconceived notions and personal perceptions and then allows God to tell them who God is. Such surrender terrifies the ego/self and will be resisted until we understand that our will and God's will are one. In this knowledge lies the end of all suffering.
The path outlined in "The Perennial Philosophy" is not popular, but as Huxley states, "All are called, but in any given generation few are chosen, because few choose themselves." Never the less, as Huxley emphasizes, God wants to be found. The only thing necessary to our success is our willingness. Huxley's masterwork can certainly help us to make that choice and avoid many of the pitfalls the ego finds so attractive. Lee & Steven Hager are the authors of Quantum Prodigal Son: Revisiting Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal Son from the Perspective of Quantum Mechanics
Universality of the mystical experience.......2007-03-08
Culled from Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist sources, Huxley makes the case for the universality of certain religious doctrines grounded in a common mystical experience. This work by Huxley established him as one of the greatest lay theologians. It is a work of syncretism of the highest order. Huxley was raised as a Christian, yet was a mystical seeker across religious traditions. His quest included experiments with psychedelics, studying vedanta and other religious traditions.
This book is a must read for the mystical seeker, who wants confirmation that the mystical experience is real. This text was also highly influential within the academic study of religion. Huston Smith, who has written the most widely used textbook on the world's religions, has cited it numerous times in his writings as shaping his own views on the commonality of all religious traditions.
Beauty Stands And Waits.......2007-02-11
About twenty or so years ago, I had an awakening of sorts. Strange how life can be. One minute you're slicing a banana atop your corn flakes, and the next minute you're looking straight into the Light that all things are created in and out of. And after I had that experience of "knowing" that life was something more than this external form, I went on a rather mad search to see if I could find anything that would back up my experience and one of the first books I bumped into was the Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley.
After reading this book, I was angry. Not at dear Mr. Huxley who beautifully pointed out why all religions and traditions have strands of the same Truth and Wisdom flowing through them, but I was angry that I belonged to a species that was so obviously stupid.
I frequently sat outside at the local coffee shop in my black beret, my black sunglasses, and black overcoat on chilly 90 degree days looking at the people walking to and fro with complete disdain. I often grumnbled, "Don't these people realize how beautiful and wondrous life truly is? The poor slobs."
And what I was doing was in complete opposition to the Perennial Philosophy. I was no better than the overexcited religionist who wants to "prove" that his religion is better than yours/that her God is the "True God" and I one day I took my blinders off and looked in the mirror. I looked in the mirror until the form before me dissolved and the Light that I was created in and out of came forth.
And I found myself rejoicing at the happy fact that all of us live in such a state of amazing grace. That this is the beauty of life; that it waits and it waits and it waits for us to notice it and when we turn to it, it races with joy and with love and with beauty to give us everything that it has and the Truth is, it NEVER withheld anything from us in the first place.
Does that kind of sound like the parable of the Prodigal Son? Well it should. Jesus knew that God was not withholding; that God is Love and is Love all the time.
Religions stress sin, evil, repentance, and separation but the revealer behind the religion knows in a beautifully innocent way that the One Life of God...of Spirit...of whatever you want to call it, is in and through everything seen as well as all that is unseen and this is the common thread that runs through every mystical experience and every individual who was daring enough to have one. It is the knowledge that is within you right now and is waiting for you to simply "wake up". You are the prophet you've been wating for. You're already "saved" why are you resisting the procedure? The Kingdom of God is now at hand within you and around you now.
My cynicism has softened over the years and even though there are times where I can easily (too easily) see things as black or white, I know that there is a stretch of gray that is as big as eternity itself, where beauty and grace reside waiting for me to rememember over and over and over again, that all there really is, is Life Itself and Life needs no one to defend it or protect it or be saved for it. It stands on Its own Formless, Real, and Perfect moving into and through all, as all.
Buy this book. Buy a cup of coffee. Have an experience. Read, assimilate, drink, enjoy. Here's hoping your intellectual experiences transcend themselves into something much, much more.
Peace & Blessings
What are the basics of all religion? Huxley answers!.......2006-08-05
"Perennial Philosophy" by Aldous Huxley
Religion generally, can puzzle anyone. That's why Huxley wrote this book to sum up the basics of all religions. Huxley identifies their points of basic agreement and states these common points as basic principles, because they are PERENNIAL to all religion.
The great fact, the one which is most pragmatic and expedient in Huxley's writings on the Perennial Philosophy, arrives in the Second Doctrine (here quoted from his Introduction to the Vedanta Society paberback edition of the Baghavad Gita):
The second doctrine of the Perennial Philosophy--that it is possible to know the Divine Ground by a direct intuition higher than discursive reasoning--is to be found in all the great religions of the world. --Aldous Huxley
If mankind generally would grasp that Divinity is reached by subjective intuition, rather than by objective reasoning, it would clear up much of the bad air that is exchanged between the fields of religion & science, and sort out a great deal of the confusion that we face as individuals.
It is unfortunate that mankind does not practice a more generalized religion, for religion used as a "spiritual toolkit" rather than righteous dogma, will set us free.
leaves you speechless.......2006-02-28
I am an avid reader of philosophy and philosophical fiction, and not one inclined to gush over a particular work. That being said, I feel if every CEO, politician, pastor, and parent were to read and truly ingest the ideas laid out so brilliantly through excerpt and example by Huxley in this book, the world could not help but be better off for it. This is the sort of book you have to move through slowly and carefully to enjoy, and the sort of book that would offer new insights with repeated readings. Amazing that scarcely 300 pages of text could, if read well, give one a sound general idea about the basic ideas behind virtually every significant school of religious thought.
The author's breadth and scope of knowledge is astounding, he has managed to harness the most simple and profound insights from both Eastern and Western religious thought over the course of the last two millenia. Huxley shows us that theologians of all faiths have struggled and continue to struggle with the same fundamental problems, that of maintaining what is traditionally thought to be the Oriental idea of a focussed detachment from all worldly things and desires. The author challenges us to a attempt a difficult, if not impossible, task - to seek out God without desiring him, to focus on neither ends nor means, to act with righteousness but keep a complete disregard for the reward it may bring.
Amazon.com
Simone Weil is an outsider's saint. The daughter of an agnostic French family of Jewish descent, Weil was never baptized ("God does not want me in the Church," she wrote), and her conversion to Christianity at the age of 23 took her by surprise. Until then, she had been a solemn, committed leftist intellectual. Now she was moving toward a life of divine encounters whose desolate ecstasy, as described by the journals, letters, and essays excerpted in Waiting for God, bear comparison to St. John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. As Leslie Fiedler writes in her introduction to Weil's book, "She speaks of the problems of belief in the vocabulary of the unbeliever, of the doctrines of the Church in the words of the unchurched." The book is most notable for Weil's lengthy letter titled "Spiritual Autobiography" and for her "Meditation on the Pater Noster," which is the discursive record of a spiritual process that led to her almost daily attainment of a mystical vision of God. This is not pretty writing; it is an agonized record of amazement. --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
Emerging from thought-provoking discussions and correspondence Simone Weil had with the Reverend Father Perrin, this classic collection of essays contains her most profound meditations on the relationship of human life to the realm of the transcendant. An enlightening introduction by Leslie Fiedler examines Weil's extraordinary roles as a philosophy teacher turned mystic. "One of the most neglected resources of our century ", Waiting for God will continue to influence spiritual and political thought for centuries to come.
Customer Reviews:
Life changing.......2007-04-13
I guess when one is ready for certain changes in one's life God leads us to those things that will best facilitate that change. Simone Weil has been a catalyst for a major change in my life. Her writings have struck a responsive chord in my life. Although some of her writings are difficult for me to understand, the underlying message is powerful. I found myself relating to her desire to discover the love of God in her life. I appreciated her soul searching honesty is wanting that encounter to be completely without deception, pretense or even pride. She so wanted to guard against a false religious experience, or siimply a social religious experience. Her descriptions of what it is to truly love another are profound. Her life is a journey that I want to follow. I looked up the meaning of her name in the dictionary. It means "one who hears." Certainly, she is one who sought to hear the voice of God. I, too, want to hear the voice of God without deception or pride. I honor Simone as a true religious teacher for me.
a bit unorthodox, to say the least.......2006-02-10
I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. I was hoping to give this book to my brother-in-law, someone with a Catholic upbringing but a Marxist philosophy now- a bit of the reverse of Simone Weil. The theology in this book is so individual, however, as to make me uncertain that it could even be called Christian. In any case, I'm not sure it's a life-path that would inspire any other than a very select group. Because it is different, and because there probably are some people that it might speak to I give it 2 stars, but it wasn't for me.
by a modern saint.......2005-05-10
Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a remarkable saint of the modern era. After being raised in a Jewish middle class family and graduating from the finest schools, she went to work in the inner city as a blue-collar factory worker. She once complained to the supervisor about a coal drill: "This drill was designed to break rocks. It was not designed for human hands" while illustrating the vibrating effects with her arms. She reportedly debated Trotsky on the living conditions of the proletariat into the ground.
Weil died of physical and mental exhaustion at age 34 after an arduous life of fasting, writing, and working in solidarity with the most downtrodden of society. Besides her amazing solidarity with the working class, it is Weil's profound writings that have established her legacy. Contemporary Albert Camus called her "the only great spirit of our time." T.S. Eliot wrote in his forward to one of her books: "We must expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of a saint." In his essay titled, "The Importance of Simone Weil," Czeslaw Milosz wrote, "France offered a rare gift to the contemporary world in the person of Simone Weil." Waiting for God (Harper Perennial, 2001) is the best introduction to her spiritual writings, and what follows are some highlights from that work.
The first few chapters consist of letters she wrote to her friend, Father Perrin. Though one gets a better sense of how she felt and struggled daily living out her ideas, it is her four essays in the latter half of the book that show the most profundity and coherence of thought. Every page, nearly every paragraph has such significance, one cannot finish reading an essay without being ravished through the direction of one who knew the spiritual life as deeply as she did.
When I first read the essay "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God," I was having trouble picking up a case to read for law school. It seemed pointless especially since I had already decided to become a pastor rather than an attorney. But Weil showed me that "the key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention." (p.58). She states, "Students must therefore work without any wish to gain good marks, to pass examinations, to win school successes; without any reference to their natural abilities and tastes; applying themselves equally to all their tasks, with the idea that each one will help form in them the habit of that attention which is the substance of prayer." (p.59) This explains why Weil mastered several languages including Sanskrit and a wide range of academic subjects: they helped her to pray more effectively. She exhorts, "Whoever goes through years of study without developing this attention within himself has lost a great treasure." (p.64)
In another application, Weil insightfully states that studying also helps one love his neighbor. She explains, "Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention." (p.64) Hence studying helps enable the soul to "[empty] itself of all its contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth." (p.65) The immeasurable help that studying can bring to others is captured in this thought: "The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle." (p.64)
In the next essay "The Love of God and Affliction," Weil writes:
"The great enigma of human life is not suffering but affliction. It is not surprising that the innocent are killed, tortured, driven from their country, made destitute . . .since there are criminals to perform such actions. It is not surprising either that disease is the cause of long sufferings, which paralyze life and make it into an image of death, since nature is at the mercy of the blind play of mechanical necessities. But it is surprising that God should have given affliction the power to seize the very souls of the innocent and to take possession of them as their sovereign lord. At the very best, he who is branded by affliction will keep only half his soul." (p.69)
Weil defines affliction as the experience of "physical pain, distress of soul, and social degradation, all at the same time." (p.81) She analogizes it to a nail that God uses to pierce the center of one's soul, to leave the person as it were crucified, where he or she can experience God most intimately as Job and Christ did in view of God's apparent absence.
But Weil warns that amidst affliction, if one does not strain to hear an absent God in silence, or feel the beauty of God in the world's absolute obedience to Him, then the person remains like a slave with half a soul. For "sin is not a distance," according to Weil, "it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction." (p.73) In other words, losing hope is a greater sin than acknowledging one's feelings of abandonment by God. She elaborates that just as two strangers may be near but not together and two friends may be apart but still near, "God can never be perfectly present to us here below on account of our flesh. But he can be almost perfectly absent from us in extreme affliction. . . . That is why the Cross is our only hope." (p.75)
In her essay "Forms of the Implicit Love of God," Weil comments on four loves: of neighbor, the order of the world, religious practices, and friendship. Regarding love for our neighbor, she profoundly states, "The Gospel makes no distinction between the love of our neighbor and justice." (p.85) She explains that "the supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship." (p.85) Thus a believer cannot show love to his poor neighbor if he assumes that he is reaching down or doing the impoverished person a favor.
Instead a believer must seek to reaffirm the dignity of this person made in God's image before seeking to help him. (p.88) Weil comments that "[i]t is not surprising that a man who has bread should give a piece to someone who is starving. What is surprising is that he should be capable of doing so with so different a gesture from that with which we buy an object. Almsgiving when it is not supernatural is like a sort of purchase. It buys the sufferer." (p.91) The beauty of the inseparability of justice and love is that it creates solidarity between rich and poor, and allows the coexistence of generosity and respect. In this way of "creative attention" we become God-like. Weil elaborates:
"God alone has this power, the power really to think into being that which does not exist. Only God, present in us, can really think the human quality into the victims of affliction, can really look at them with a look differing from that we give to things, can listen to their voice as we listen to spoken words. Then they become aware that they have a voice, otherwise they would not have occasion to notice it. . . . God is present at the point where the eyes of those who give and those who receive meet." (p.93-4)
Regarding love of the order of the world, Weil writes, "[T]he soul's natural inclination to love beauty is the trap God most frequently uses in order to win it and open it to the breath from on high." (p.103). She describes the beauty of the world as "Christ's tender smile for us coming through matter." (p.104) Weil however laments that too many treat the dim reflections of God's beauty on earth as the final and only reality (as manifested in luxury, art, science). (p.106-8) This locating the absolute in pleasure is the "crime of idolatry." (p.111)
On the love of religious practices, the thought most associated with Weil's contribution to spirituality is that "one of the principal truths of Christianity, a truth that goes almost unrecognized today, is that looking is what saves us." (p.125) She offers the illustration: "The bronze serpent was lifted up so that those who lay maimed in the depths of degradation should be saved by looking upon it." (p.125) Weil is adamant that "the will cannot produce any good in the soul." (p.126) She writes:
"That we have to strive after goodness with an effort of our will is one of the lies invented by the mediocre part of ourselves in its fear of being destroyed. Such an effort does not threaten it in any way . . . not even when it entails a great deal of fatigue and suffering. For the mediocre part of ourselves is not afraid of fatigue and suffering; it is afraid of being killed." (p.127)
To the contrary, Weil emphasizes that "the effort that brings a soul to salvation is like the effort of looking or of listening; it is the kind of effort by which a fiancée accepts her lover. It is an act of attention and consent." (p.126) In other words, "[t]he crucifixion of Christ is the model of all acts of obedience." (p.126) Thus, Weil exhorts, "it is at those moments when we are, as we say, in a bad mood, when we feel incapable of the elevation of soul that befits holy things, it is then that it is most effectual to turn our eyes toward perfect purity. For it is then that evil, or rather mediocrity, comes to the surface of the soul and is in the best position for being burned by contact with the fire." (p.125)
She distinguishes between morality, which depends on the will, and religion, which consists of desire, and concludes, "It is desire that saves" and again "to long for God and to renounce all the rest, that alone can save us." (p.127-8) Acknowledging the counterintuitive nature of true sanctification that is contrary to the commonly held view of it being a matter of sheer strenuous will power, Weil nevertheless exclaims: "There is an easiness in salvation which is more difficult to us than all our efforts" and "this waiting for goodness and truth is . . . something more intense than any searching." (p.127-8) She perceptively observes that "the notion of grace, as opposed to virtue depending on the will, and that of inspiration, as opposed to intellectual or artistic work, these two notions, if they are well understood, show the efficacy of desire and waiting." (p.129)
Weil's comments on friendship are brief, so I will be brief. She defines it as "a supernatural harmony, a union of opposites." (p.132) She explains, "In all human things, necessity is the principle of impurity. All friendship is impure if even a trace of the wish to please or the contrary desire to dominate is found in it." (p.135) Thus "in a perfect friendship . . .the two friends have fully consented to be two and not one, they respect the distance which the fact of being two distinct creatures places between them. Man has the right to desire direct union with God alone." (p.135)
She concludes her essay on the four loves with a few more precious insights only one of which I'll mention. She encourages people to cherish the certainty of one's hunger for God as invaluable even if one is uncertain of His presence. For the greatest argument for the existence of God, as with bread or water, is hunger and thirst. (p.138)
In her essay "Concerning the Our Father," Weil explicates the Lord's Prayer sentence by sentence. His prayer had special meaning for her because through it, she once wrote in her diary, Christ daily "descended and took her." I leave it to the reader to discover its riches.
the Gospel message loved and lived!.......2003-07-17
Everything that Simone Weil teaches is taught in the Christian gospels. If you think the Gospel message goes to extremes, is too precious in its tenderness, too self-sacrificing, too far over on the side of the poor, the imprisoned, and the broken-hearted, then you will surely think the same of Simone's life and writing. If you know, follow, and love the beatitudes, if you understand the way of the cross, the vision of the saints, you will treasure every chapter of WAITING FOR GOD. It is the best of Weil's books, and therefore the best place to begin reading her essays -- even among the writings of the saints, this book is unique in its overwhelming love and faithfulness to the Gospel teaching of unconditional love.
WAITING FOR GOD.......2003-03-06
I first tried to read this book decades ago, but could not get far with it. Then I read Iris Murdoch's, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, in which IM refers to Simone Weil and her philosophy. That took me back to SW, and now I find myself re-reading parts several times. For example, read what she says about carnal love and its several levels, from the purest to debauchery. Simone Weil answers the question that so many ask: Why do we? Simone Weil has one of the most penetrating minds one can meet, and her writings are a result.
Book Description
Essential reading for students and anyone interested in the great philosophers, this book opened up appreciation of Martin Heidegger beyond the confines of philosophy to the reaches of poetry. In Heidegger's thinking, poetry is not a mere amusement or form of culture but a force that opens up the realm of truth and brings man to the measure of his being and his world.
Customer Reviews:
A must read for students of Heidegger, but not a good intro........2002-08-25
_Poetry, Language, Thought_ is a collection of seven of Heidegger's essays collected from other works originally written or delivered as lectures between 1935 and 1951. These essays all revolve around "art" in the broadest sense possible -- Heidegger meditates upon the poetry of Rilke and Holderlin and the paintings of Van Gogh.
These purposes shouldn't be understood, however, as art or literary criticism. These essays serve as examples of Heidegger's broader project of the investigation of Being in a totalizing sense. He sought to understand Being in the sense that it is common to rock, trees, animals, and people by an examination of the human mode of being, Dasein, being that questions the nature of its own being.
Heidegger believed we have so completely forgotten about being that we have even forgotten that we have forgotten -- and as a result, we need to pay special attention to the times when Being, via our Dasein, calls attention to the fact of its own hiddenness. In everyday human experience this can happen through the experience of anxiety or boredom or, in the case of _Poetry, Language, Thought_, it can happen through art.
Heidegger examines art in this collection of essays as it unveils the hiddenness of Being.
As you can see from my brief description, a bit of a background in Heidegger would be helpful before reading this book. If you're really interested, read his _Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics_ first (Indiana University Press). Then read _Being and Time_. If you still want to read Heidegger after that, then turn to _Poetry, Language, Thought_ as an application of his philosophy to the understanding of art, to how we are to understand art and what we should allow it to reveal to us.
Heidegger is difficult most times (FCOM is his least difficult), and impossible at others, and _Poetry, Language, Thought_ is no exception. In one essay he seems to especially talk in circles. But don't let that discourage you from reading this book if you're serious about understanding Heidegger -- it will add nuance to the development of his ideas about language and the uncovering of Dasein in our everyday experience.
The ontology of Art and Truth.......2001-02-08
Heidegger does not address the issue of poetry and truth from the vantage point of a traditional or academic art historian; nor does he employ conventional terms and classifications. Instead, he arrives at his subjects experimentally and tangentially and firmly grounds them on the approach of "ontological knowledge" which has made him famous. His highly idiosyncratic style, however, often playing with the cognate forms of the words of the original German, and which eludes translation, may make his arguments seem imprecise and willfully obscure. Though "Poetry, Language, Thought" is a collection of essays collected from Heidegger's miscellaneous later writings, it is no less formidable than "Being and Time", his masterpiece of ontological enquiry, published in 1927. The most beautiful formulation in the book is that truth is, by its very nature, poetic and this for Heidegger, does not imply a polarity between verse and prose, but actually includes prose as well. In "The Origin of the Work of Art", he defines the truth of the art work as being the setting-up of the art work in relation to the undisclosedness of Being, a conclusion which he argues up to at great length and with much skill and profundity. Like Wittgenstein and Derrida, Heidegger is not a philosopher in the traditional sense who aims to provide an all-embracing theory that would explain ultimate reality. He does not pretend to a First Philosophy which is based on some abstraction such as Reason, the Proletariat or the World Spirit. Rather, he is something of an exegete and experimentalist, probing the assumptions behind people's habits of speech and thought in a way of clarifying central misconceptions and errors. The volume also includes essays titled "What are Poets For?", "Building Dwelling Thinking" and a discourse on "The Thing", "thingness", or "thinghood". Heidegger's own poems, which are prefixed to the edition, may be flawed as art, but they serve, at least, to adumbrate the problems that occupy him in the following chapters.
The Thing.......2000-06-12
One of the clearer expositions of Heidegger's later thought is Das Ding, anthologized in this volume. You are free to read the other selections ("the essence of language is the language of essence" ad nauseum) but das Ding begins with a phenomenological description of a Krug (a cup) that became rarer as Heidegger got older. The emptiness in the cup is the origin, like the hand that reaches out (from the past and the future) of being and the world. The Krug which pours out its offering (Gift: poison and present) from the emptiness of the Krug: the emptiness is the absent center (the eccentric core) of being and world. The Krug offers its gift, but not the krug, but its emptiness, and it is that gift which is the gift of world.
Book Description
The essential companion to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenom of Man, The Divine Milieu expands on the spiritual message so basic to his thought. He shows how man's spiritual life can become a participation in the destiny of the universe.
Teilhard de Chardin -- geologist, priest, and major voice in twentieth-century Christianity -- probes the ultimate meaning of all physical exploration and the fruit of his own inner life. The Divine Milieu is a spiritual treasure for every religion bookshelf.
Customer Reviews:
Le Milieu Divin.......2007-01-22
Sublime and poetic are appropriate ways by which one may begin to classify this foundational text by the great Jesuit thinker, Teillhard de Chardin. While his ponderings were controversial in his time, they were only controversial insofar as they were taken out of context by those who existed in a philosophical milieu that was perhaps a bit ossified. In the end, Le Milieu Divin stands as a staunchly orthodox work which expresses the sublime role of sub-creational man in rigorously Catholic terms.
Firstly, the text appropriates the relationship between mankind's passivities and activities and how they are divinized. In the end, such divinization becomes possible by the transcending of the self in the Other, an act which is wholly possible in truly engrossing activity as well as the passive reception of the Other in suffering and openness. Beyond this, the brilliant Jesuit reflects on that Milieu which is the center of all Creation, in which creation finds its orientation and motion. This ultimately leads to important exposition of the Eucharist as the center of creation, as the force which lifts it up and gives it the ever-needed orientation. Chardin acknowledges the fact that the Eucharist is that very power which pulls the Earth upward to Divinity, the force in which all passivities and activities find their fulfillment.
I highly recommend this text to all who are willing to struggle with a highly "poetical" text. Chardin's thought is indeed lofty but not impractical. Indeed, the very mission of Love is at stake in this text, and a true desire to be an apostle of Love is all that is require of the reader.
To Build the Pleroma.......2005-06-07
A very readable theology of the divinisation of our activities and passivities.
The basic idea is that most Christians see their lives, their work, their play, their interests, as separate from the sanctification and unification with God that they desire. We feel like the living of our everyday lives is nonproductive (or even counterproductive) to the life in Christ that bring us to maturity and wholeness in Him. We hold faith and life in two different hands. Many believers actually begrudge their occupations, their interests, as enemies of the life of God being formed in them. This has been true in my own life. For years I would not read any fiction because I felt that life was short and I had no time for "trivial" matters like literature and poetry. My reading was self-limited to nonfiction and theology. Some people will only listen to "Christian" music. Some will watch only "Christian" television.
Teilhard de Chardin was well aware of the anxiety of dualism in our understanding of life and activity. For Chardin, the main point was for us to simply see things as they really are. Teilhard believed that each soul exists for God, and each soul is linked in mystical union to the Incarnate Word. The universe, says Teilhard, exists for the soul. "Everything forms a single whole" and exists for the glory of God. "We must perceive the existence of links between us and the Incarnate Word" and the "interconnections revealed to us in every order of the physical and human world."
Through this interconnectedness (sounds really Zen-like, doesn't it?), God is fulfilling St Paul's words in Romans 8.18-23. "The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." Teilhard says, "In each soul, God loves and partly saves the whole world..." And God does this through our activities! "Owing to the interrelation between matter, soul and Christ, we bring part of the being which he desires back to God in whatever we do" (emphasis his). We do this "to build the Pleroma." (The consummation of "the mystery of the creative union of the world in God," i.e., the kingdom of God in its completed form).
This is the divinisation of our activities. If we but see that we are workers together with God in all that we do, that vision brings an excitement and joy to our everyday, mundane, ordinary lives. Through living those lives God saves the world. "But it is essential to see - to see things as they are and to see them really and intensely."
"By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see."
"Right from the hands that knead the dough, to those that consecrate it, the great and universal Host should be prepared and handled in a spirit of adoration."
Our lives have divine responsibility. We are to give them wholly to God. Not by making them religious, but by truly seeing that there is no such thing as a division between religious and secular. The universe is the Lord's, and "the Christian knows that his function is to divinise the world in Jesus Christ." As we do this, a transparency occurs. We learn to see in all things the continual creation of God and the beauty of the ultimate unity in Christ.
[He planned] for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and consummate them in Christ..." (Ephesians 1.10 AMP)
"...in him all things were created...and in him all things hold together..." (Colossians 1.16-17 NRSV)
Magnificent.......2004-09-07
Over thirty years ago, my father tried to introduce me to Teilhard de Chardin. I found myself lost in the abstractions. Only a few days ago I picked this book off the shelf of my own library and discovered in it absolutely sublime writing! Instantly my sense of the Incarnation was deepened and more fully realized, as this man spoke about the meaning of everything each individual human experiences in this world. This is a treasure. I'm not qualified to say much more except read this! And allow me to add that the writing is beautiful and utterly pure. I'm not sure what I mean by pure. Perhaps I mean that it is uncompromising in its vision. This is what I search for, what I long for. I love this.
Intense, Intense--This Can Change Your Life.......2004-09-03
Annie Dillard's "For the Time Being" is a meditation on the problem of evil and the nature of love, and in that eclectic book she features the life of Pier Teilhard De Chardin, particularly the way this guy lived so passionately despite persecution and oppression by a church he loved. Dillard's beautiful vision of this man and the exerpts from his works that she quoted really got me interested in this great priest. So, when I ran onto The Divine Milieu on the clearance shelf at the bookstore, I bought it, ran home, and read it that night. It didn't disappoint.
There's no way I can do justice to the book. Teilhard was one of the most passionately loving men to live on this earth, and that comes through even in his prose. It's an intense experience reading it. This is not because it's particularly difficult but because there such an urgency, such an intensity of feeling behind it. Teilhard wants action. He wants the reader to get out of his/her seat and throw his/herself passionately into the human endeavor. I don't think you can read this work and not feel the urge to do so. Even his images are astounding. This isn't what you think of when yo think of theological writing. His is the best sort of theological writing--reaching to poetic heights.
Of course, the theology is wonderful, too. It's not just rhetoric divorced from life. In fact, that is Teilhard's primary point. Behold, the kingdom of God is here all around us, in the surrounding lives and, in fact, in all the surrounding world, and we must be working for that kingdom. We must be working in and for unity with God. Read Teilhard's work and just dive in to life.
An intense, moving work.......2004-02-19
Written during a difficult period of Teilhard's life (and published long after its completion, like most of his works), this book weaves together a thirst for knowledge and a burning devotion. It is the result of intense self-scrutiny, and it exemplifies the power and scope shared by many texts suspected of heresy: while wishing to remain squarely within the bounds of orthodox Christianity, Teilhard stays entirely true to his vision from beginning to end and as a result dares to walk on a tightrope; it makes his effort even more moving. The Divine Milieu has its share of tensions - between activity and passivity, immanence and transcendence, involvement and detachment, sacred and profane - but every level ultimately blends in one another. In many ways, this profoundly ethical work is an extension of Teilhard's more science-minded writings, and it draws a lot of its impact from what it has been criticized for: a consideration of activities and passivities universal in its reach, since perfecting the world goes beyond exclusively Christian intentions, even as it strongly relies on Christianity's premises (this is also true of Teilhard's thoughts on evil and 'communion through diminution'). His prose, especially in such an evocative and religious work, is carried by an irresistible flow that may not completely survive in translation.
Book Description
This anthology of 61 readings by leading twentieth-century writers gives students a solid introduction to traditional philosophical problems. Centering on 12 basic issues, Philosophy provides contrasting perspectives on the issues and demonstrates the relevance of philosophical inquiry in contemporary times.
Book Description
In this international bestseller, originally published in 1959, Jacques Barzun, acclaimed author of From Dawn to Decadence, takes on the whole intellectual -- or pseudo-intellectual -- world, attacking it for its betrayal of Intellect. "Intellect is despised and neglected," Barzun says, "yet intellectuals are well paid and riding high." He details this great betrayal in such areas as public administrations, communications, conversation and home life, education, business, and scholarship.
In this edition's new Preface, Jacques Barzun discussess the intense -- and controversial -- reaction the world had to The House of Intellect.
Customer Reviews:
Ist Edition is NOT a paperback book!.......2006-04-01
If this is a paperback then it is not a 1st edition copy of this book. The first edition is a hardcover cloth bound book. Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York. 1959
lucid, cogent and erudite.......2004-12-28
Anything written by Jacques Barzun is worth reading. This polymath of nearly 100 years old is a national treasure. His breadth of knowledge and understanding are astounding. More than this, Barzun has the all too uncommon ability to assess the evidence of a situation and to draw a principle from it. This he did so marvelously in 'From Dawn to Decadence', and the book in question shows that his mind was busily engaged in the same when he wrote The House of Intellect. Barzun had decades of experience teaching and administrating in the university, so when it comes to the state of acedemia, he knows whereof he speaks.
Read It!.......2003-12-07
I recently read Barzun's book "Critical Questions" in search of some better understanding of my reactions to some contemporary art. I have rediscovered one of the most incisive thinkers and clearest writers I have ever had the pleasure to read.
I have a strong memory of reading "The House of Intellect" as a college student. It is one of the very few books that I can remember from those long ago days when I was only learning to learn. "The House..." had a positive and long lasting effect on my desire to study and study well.
I am in the process of rereading "The House..." Barzun points to example after example in the world around him (50 years ago) of prominent critics and public opinion molders who are merely aping current fashions in thought and who are simply bending and arranging facts to support their pet opinions.
You will learn from Barzun why "The House..." must have scholarly discipline which alone can offer us a shot at truth. Those who are labor in the intellectual vineyards are failing themselves and the public if they allow themselves to shortcut their research, report merely what is acceptable or just plain manipulate their facts.
The points Barzun makes are just as true today as they were in the 1950's. The trends in faulty thinking and reporting on certain topics continue up to 2004. Reading Barzun at least will help you to view what you read and what you hear with a more reliable filter.
Barzun rocks the house.......2003-11-23
I came upon this book when reading reviews for Barzun's more recent "From Dawn to Decadence". The very positive reviews about "The House of intellect" are absolutely right...this is a masterpiece. Where "From Dawn to Decadence" is a wonderful historical panorama, "The House of Intellect" instructs how the intellect should properly be used. He starts with a criticism of the misuse of intellect by the educators of his day, and then moves on to cover the proper use of intellect in all our modern affairs. Most insightful was his admonition to understand how truly dangerous ideas can be! Finally, he even applies intellect to the romantic side of mental life, including affairs of the heart. Ideas, intellect, intellectual, ideologue--don't be confused about what these mean. Read it...it will change how you think!
Buy two of this classic!.......2002-03-01
This is a book that should be bought two at a time (one to lend to friends). Serious students should return to it every few years along with George Orwell's essay on politics and the English language and C Wright Mills' appendix on intellectual craftsmanship in "The Sociological Imagination".
Barzun approached his special field of cultural history in a refreshingly irreverent manner. "You may like to think of culture - I often do - as an enormous pumpkin, hard to penetrate, full of uncharted hollows and recesses for cultural critics to get lost in, and stuffed with seeds of uncertain contents and destiny."
Early in his career he produced a connected series of books, starting with 'The French Race" (1932) and 'Race: A Study in Superstition" (1937 and 1965), moving on to "Darwin, Marx, Wagner" (1941) and "Romanticism and the Modern Ego" (1943). The major themes that connect these studies are (a) the appeal to race, class or nation to supply a new motive power for social change and (b) the an attempt to inject new life into the idols of Progress and Fatalism.
A subsequent theme in his work is the parlous state of learning and especially the widespread lack of understanding of the "house rules" for productive intellectual activity. The relevant books here are "The House of Intellect" (1959), "Science: The Glorious Entertainment"(1964) and "The American University" (1968).
The message of "The House of Intellect" is that its inhabitants, the intellectuals themselves, have trashed the house. The blame cannot be placed with the crassness or greed of big business, the shallowness of a consumer society, or the ignorance of the uneducated. The major malign influences are distorted perceptions of the nature and function of Art, Science and Philanthropy. These things have their value and their place, but Barzun shows how they have become diverted from their proper ends to impose in a destructive manner upon the conditions of scholarship and the life of the mind.
His comments on art later grew into a whole volume, "The Uses and Abuses of Art" and his views on the uses and abuses of science expanded into a whole book as well. The spirit of Philanthropy is expressed though the well-meant allocations of funds from the great foundations. However Barzun details how the net effect of this funding, especially that provided for conferences, is to dissipate rather than to concentrate thought, to take up time and effort on apparent novelties at the expense of solid and genuine but not superficially exciting or "relevant" work. A whole "grant application" industry emerged, engaging time and talents for trivial purposes, often enough dedicated to outright hokum, to the detriment of the proper function of intellectuals and intellect.
This book has "white dwarf" status because there is more in it each time it is re-read. Further online commentary on Barzun's achievement can be found with a google search Barzun + Rathouse.
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