Category: Spirituality

Julius Evola: The Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism

Arktos, 2018 (Maschera e volto dello spiritualismo contemporaneo, 1932)

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From the Back cover:

A survey of the present currents in esoteric studies, and an unmasking of their true relation to Traditional spiritualism, The Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism is a guidebook for the spiritual seeker through the bewildering labyrinth of disciplines and dead-ends of contemporary spirituality.

Julius Evola, one of the foremost Traditionalists of the past century, brings his inimitable analysis to everything from spiritism and anthroposophy to Satanism and Catholicism, tackling as he goes Freudianism, Nietzscheanism, the fiction of Dostoevsky, and figures as diverse as Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Steiner and Anton LaVey. At once metaphysical and practical, this book offers the priceless perspective of an author who dedicated decades to his own profound investigations into the “supersensible,” culminating in a thorough critique of contemporary spiritualism – and a masterful revelation of higher teachings.

Biografi över Tage Lindbom

Tage Lindboms son, Frankrikekännaren Tomas Lindbom, har på egna förlaget Tomas Lindbom Relation publicerat en “personlig biografi” över sin far, I otakt med tidsandan. Den är utmärkt välskriven, med stor förståelse för faderns tänkande, dess bakgrund och dess relevans (som sonen framhåller är mer uppenbar idag än tidigare), och med omsorgsfullt och skarpt återgivna händelser och detaljer av alla slag.

Ingen annan skulle ha kunnat ge denna rundmålning av Lindboms hela sociala och kulturella värld. Boken är oavbrutet fascinerande, på ett sätt som inte störs av ens de kortaste svagare och mer likgiltiga partier.

Tage Lindbom var en av Sveriges viktigaste tänkare, och bokens utgivning är i sig en händelse. Rimligen kommer den också åtföljas av något offentligt releaseevenemang. För min del blir det givetvis nödvändigt att återkomma till den.

I samband med biografin publicerar Tomas Lindbom också nya upplagor av två av faderns viktigaste böcker, Efter Atlantis (1951) och Sancho Panzas väderkvarnar (1962). Alla titlarna kan beställas på www.tagelindbom.se.

Bubba Free John: Breath and Name

The Initiation and Foundation Practices of Free Spiritual Life

The Dawn Horse Press, 1977

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All the ancient traditions agree that the most sublime possibility for any human being is a direct relationship to a living Spiritual Master.

Bubba Free John is such a Master, a Western-born man of God-Realization. His original Teaching, the Way of Divine Ignorance, or Radical Understanding, revives and fulfills the great spiritual expression initiated by Jesus, Gautama, and Krishna in ancient times. The Way itself is uniquely accessible to modern men and women. To all who truly hear his liberating argument and prepare themselves as he recommends, Bubba Free John offers himself in relationship as Divine Master, the transforming function of God.

Breath and Name communicates the Way of Divine Communion, the first stage of practice in the Way of Divine Ignorance. This Way is a path of preparation of body, emotions, and mind for higher or more radical spiritual practice. But as indicated in the introduction and Part I, even this level of practice is priorly enlightened, intelligent, and free of childish and adolescent habits and illusions.

Part II is the heart of the book. Here Bubba presents the dynamic principles of devotion, sacrifice, and dependence on Grace. He shows how the practice of ordinary life-discipline as intentional service to the Spiritual Master and all living beings leads naturally into simple but profound enjoyment of specific spiritual disciplines which he has called the Breath of God and the Name of God. The foundation of the whole Way of spiritual awakening is heart-felt Communion with God as all-pervading Presence, which is Gracefully and spontaneously initiated in the Company of the Spiritual Master.

Even by reading these essays, you may come to enjoy a more intelligent and illumined approach to ordinary life. But the Way itself remains to be realized in practice. Part III of Breath and Name is an instructive commentary on the practical and spiritual disciplines. And the book closes with an invitation to all readers to take up this Way themselves, and make the transition from the usual, deluded, mortal destiny to the purifying fire of life in God.

Kusum Sarovar, Govardhan

Kusum Sarovar Govardhan

Foto: Willy Pfändtner

Det tycks ofta vara svårt att fotografera Indien. Platser av historiskt och i synnerhet andligt intresse förefaller i allmänhet så fyllda av människor att övrigt innehåll i motivet inte fullt kommer till sin rätt. Man måste exempelvis göra ganska skarpa avgränsningar till delar av arkitekturen. I vissa miljöer och interiörer blir vad många uppfattar som basar- och kitschestetiken ofta ett problem. Av dessa skäl verkar det svårt att fånga något slags visuella motsvarigheter till de stora djupen och perspektiven i Indiens andliga tradition, och de distinkta värdena i dess historiska kultur som är förbundna med dessa. Här har dock Pfändtner lyckats väl. Den enda svagheten hos denna bild är att ingenting syns av vattnet.

Annie Besant

Besant (1847-1933) skrev bl.a Why I Am a Socialist (1896), Why I Became a Theosophist (1889), Annie Besant: An Autobiography (1893), Karma (1895), In the Outer Court (1895), Man and His Bodies (1896), The Ancient Wisdom (1897), Dharma (1898), Evolution of Life and Form (1898), Avataras (1900), The Religious Problem in India (1901), Esoteric Christianity (1901), Thought Power: Its Control and Culture (1901), A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology (1904), Theosophy and the New Psychology: A Course of Six Lectures (1904), Death – and After? (1906), An Introduction to Yoga (1908), Elementary Lessons on Karma (1912), A Study in Karma (1912), Initiation: The Perfecting of Man (1912), Giordano Bruno (1913), Man’s Life in This and Other Worlds (1913), Theosophy and Life’s Deeper Problems (1916), The Doctrine of the Heart (1920), The Future of Indian Politics (1922), The Life and Teaching of Muhammad (1932).

Paul Brunton: The Sensitives

Dynamics and Dangers of Mysticism

The Notebooks of Paul Brunton

Volume Eleven

Larson, 1987

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Back Cover:

The psychical is concerned with imaginations, visions, voices, thoughts, and feelings which originate beneath the surface of the ego’s mind, whereas the spiritual is concerned with the higher self. The two are not the same but utterly different in quality and character…the mediumistic…is the same as the psychical but influenced or possessed by what purports to be someone else’s ego, often someon unknnown and usually unseen, or even by what purports to be from the realm of the spiritual itself.

– Paul Brunton

The Sensitives is a timely, informed evaluation of mysticism, “paranormal” experience, sects and cults. Grounded in a clear distinction between productive spiritual practice and dangerous fascination with the occult, it reports on

– How to distinguish self-flattering illusion and spiritual intuition.

– What draws people (leaders and followers) to religio-mystical cults and practices.

– How to distinguish authentic spiritual teachers from self-deluded cult leaders and dogmatic religionists.

– How to incorporate the mystical and the rational in creative harmony.

The Sensitives is the eleventh volume in The Notebooks of Paul Brunton.