Category: Spirituality

Arthur Versluis: Platonic Mysticism

Contemplative Science, Philosophy, Literature, and Art

State University of New York Press, 2017

SUNY Amazon.com

Publisher’s Description:

Restores the Platonic history and context of mysticism and shows how mysticism helps us understand more deeply the humanities as a whole, from philosophy and literature to art.

In Platonic Mysticism, Arthur Versluis clearly and tautly argues that mysticism must be properly understood as belonging to the great tradition of Platonism. He demonstrates how mysticism was historically understood in Western philosophical and religious traditions and emphatically rejects externalist approaches to esoteric religion. Instead he develops a new theoretical-critical model for understanding mystical literature and the humanities as a whole, from philosophy and literature to art. A sequel to his Restoring Paradise, this is an audacious book that places Platonic mysticism in the context of contemporary cognitive and other approaches to the study of religion, and presents an emerging model for the new field of contemplative science.

Reviews:

“Arthur Versluis’ latest book seeks to reinstate the critical importance of Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought within multiple fields of academic study: literature, painting and fine art, philosophy, religious studies and, importantly, consciousness studies. In pursuit of this central agenda, Versluis provides the reader with an interesting overview of the current state of academia in regard to these fields.”  

Nova Religio

“Arthur Versluis’ brief but powerful, comprehensive and very accessible book is a major contribution to the history and interpretation of Platonic mysticism and a much needed corrective to the tendency to dismiss Platonism in all its forms that has been growing steadily over the past 100-200 years … But overall, this is a beautifully produced book, written by a master scholar who brings a vast amount of knowledge from different traditions to bear upon a really important subject.”

International Journal of the Platonic Tradition

“In Platonic Mysticism, Arthur Versluis clearly and tautly argues that mysticism must be properly understood as belonging to the great tradition of Platonism … this is an audacious book that places Platonic mysticism in the context of contemporary cognitive and other approaches to the study of religion, and presents an emerging model for the new field of contemplative science.”

Magonia Book News

“An important work on the mystical experience delving deep into its history, particularly from the Platonic perspective. An essential text for anyone interested in mysticism and its relationship to philosophy and creative expression.”

Andrew Newberg, author of How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain: The New Science of Transformation

“The present work, the latest from the pen of Arthur Versluis, provides a trenchant, learned, and illuminating analysis of the origins of Western mysticism in the Platonist tradition, relayed through such figures as Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite, down through Meister Eckhart and others, while suitably excoriating the attempts of certain modern philosophers and sociologists of religion to ‘deconstruct’ it from a materialist perspective. I found it a rattling good read!”

John Dillon, author of The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347–274 BC)

About the Author

René Guénon: Les états multiples de l’être

Guy Trédaniel/Éditions Véga, 1984 (1932)

2009:

Toutes les doctrines ésotériques insistent sur les différents états spirituels au travers desquels, par l’initiation, l’être individuel va vers l’Être absolu, origine et fin de la manifestation.

Cet ouvrage est avec Le Symbolisme de la Croix et l’Homme et son devenir selon le Vêdânta, le troisième que René Guénon consacre essentiellement à la métaphysique et notamment à la théorie des états multiples dont il avait fait une démonstration géométrique dans son précédent ouvrage.

Il en est le complément approfondi pour ce qui est de l’Être envisagé sous son aspect humain, tout en rappelant à cet égard que “l’état humain n’est qu’un état de manifestation comme tous les autres et parmi une indéfinité d’autres. Il se situe dans la hiérarchie des degrés de l’Être à la place qu’il lui est assigné par sa nature même (…) sans qu’il soit supérieur ou inférieur aux autres états de l’Être.”

Wikipédia

Arthur Versluis: Perennial Philosophy

New Cultures Press, 2015

Amazon

Blurbs:

“In this lucid explanation of perennial philosophy, Arthur Versluis reveals this tradition – so often described as esoteric and inaccessible – to be closer to our interests and experience than many of us have realized. Versluis has distilled an immense amount of scholarship into this small volume, but its brevity is deceiving. Like the culmination to any alchemical work, Perennial Philosophy is a powerful tincture that – once imbibed – transports receptive readers to a world in which they are part of a spiritual hierarchy that links heaven to earth. Arthur Versluis has distilled an immense amount of scholarship to produce a disarmingly accessible, lucid, and deeply penetrating study of the great philosophic traditions that underlie Western culture. Versluis concisely explains what perennial philosophy is and what it isn’t. The clarity of his prose makes this deep book a pleasure to read. A remarkable achievement!”

Gregory Shaw, author of Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus

“This brilliant little book, written with stunning clarity, offers an entirely new perspective on what “perennial philosophy” actually means and entails. This is a return to the real philosophical quest, almost entirely forgotten by the academic world: a going beyond the limited self, to experience our kinship with the greater world and the deepest levels of reality, which results in a transformation of the self and a realization of our human nature.

For anyone interested in the roots of our philosophical tradition, or what a living philosophy could look like today and in the future – a philosophy that actually inspires and fertilizes culture, art, and human experience – this book is indispensable.”

David Fideler, author of Restoring the Soul of the World and other books and essays

“This book is about transcendence: self-transcendence. It traces a pathway to such self-transcendence from Plato (Pythagoras and the Orphic mysteries), through Plotinus, Damascius, Meister Eckhart and Emerson. Perennial Philosophy unveils a contemplative way often referred to as ‘mysticism’ that leads to a selfless, compassionate caring for all existence, from the animate to the inanimate, since all that exists expresses divine creation. The book has no footnotes and yet is scholarly. It records a perennial way of being-in-the-world that contrasts sharply with the way most of us live and see, and is about a past that offers glimpses of a better future. To read it is to question the contemporary understanding of who we are, and what we are capable of becoming. It is medicine for difficult times.”

Robert E. Carter, Trent University, author of Encounter with Enlightenment, The Kyoto School, and many other books.

“This book is colloquial and conversational. It presents an overview of Platonism from the master himself to Emerson in the context of contemporary debates. The author is a devoted Platonist, and his presentation of their doctrines is perfectly orthodox, above all in the absolute priority he gives to intellectual vision, the Vision of the Good. This emphasis alone is a huge achievement. The book is remarkable also for its generosity of tone. To the enlightened eye, no doubt, everything is full of Being. But it is difficult to maintain at all times that warm dispassion which takes the whole world under its wing. The author achieves this simply through the quality of his discriminations. So sharp and apt are the distinctions he makes between competing contemporary doctrines the book is continually illuminating and never tendentious. This reader was forever saying ‘Ah!'”

Roger Sworder, LaTrobe University, author of Mathematical Plato and Science and Religion in Archaic Greece as well as A Contrary History of the West

About the Author:

Wikipedia

The Enlightenment of the Whole Body

Den bok genom vilken jag 1979 upptäckte Jones.

Akademibokhandelns nyöppnade första butik, den på Mäster Samuelsgatan, hade tagit in den.

(Jag kan minnas fel, men tror att de i början även hade en skivavdelning, och att jag vid mitt första besök våren 1978, strax efter öppnandet, köpte Enos Before and After Science där; om jag minns fel köpte jag den i alla fall samma dag, någon annan, närbelägen stans.)

Bubba Free John: The Enlightenment of the Whole Body