Rene Waflow's Blog (25)

Gary Lachman

Revolutionaries of the Soul:

Reflections on Magicians, Philosophers, and Occultists

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2013, 304pp.)

The development of a deeper or higher consciousness has often been compared to a journey toward an ultimate goal with steps along the way and with entries into an inner dimension of the person, called by some 'the Spirit', by others 'the Soul.' Plato uses the image of the passage from the shadows of a cave to the sunlight of…

Andrei Znamenski

Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2011, 257pp.)

         Red Shambhala is a lively historical account of Soviet geopolitics in Central Asia in the first decade of the Communist government.  Znamenski tells the story through portraits of key protagonists, drawing on newly opened archives in Russia and new Russian publications. Znamenski, who now teaches in the USA,…

Robert Epstein

The Quotable Krishnamurti

(Wheaton, IL : Quest Books, 2011, 176pp.)

         There is the true story of the Westerner who goes to India and is asked to give a short talk at a conference. “How long?” he asks. “Not more than two hours” was the reply.  Thus J. Krishnamurti’s short talks were nearly all two hours in length. I used to attend them at Saanen in the Swiss mountains.  Usually one got the point that was to be made in the first 15…

Arnaud Desjardins: Cultural Bridge-builder Toward the East

Rene Wadlow

            Arnaud Desjardins (1925-2011) was a leading figure in introducing the broader French public to the philosophies and religious practices of Asia.  His films devoted to Tibetan Buddhist leaders, Indian religious teachers, Japanese Zen philosophers, and Afghan Sufis were widely shown on French television in the 1960s and early 1970s when such…

Robin Robertson

Indra’s Net : Alchemy and Chaos Theory as Models for Transformation

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2009, 182pp.)

            The most important lesson

            but one that’s seldom adequately learned

            is that, like sub-atomic particles,

            everything with life exists

            within a field of force

            in which all affect and are…

Non-violence : In Tune With The Infinite

Rene Wadlow

            I do not believe that the spiritual law works in a field of its own.  On the contrary, it expresses itself only through the ordinary activities of life.  It thus affects the economic, the social and the political fields.       Mohandas K. Gandhi

             For Mahatma Gandhi, non-violence…

The Inner Light and the Focused Mind

Rene Wadlow

Mitch Horowitz

Occult America

(New York: Bantam Books, 2010, 290pp)

            Mitch Horowitz tells in a lively way the American path to the New Age.  As he writes “Most people, thought schools, or movements identified as New Age from the 1970s through the early twenty-first century shared these traits:

1)      Belief in the…

Paul R. Smith

Integral Christianity : The Spirit’s Call to Evolve

(St Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2011, 381pp)

         Paul R. Smith has written a lively reminder that in all religious traditions “there are many mansions” and that the role of faith is to unite and enlarge rather than to divide and build wall of defense.  Paul Smith has been a pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Kansas City, Missouri as well as teaching in Protestant seminaries elsewhere…

The Faiths of the Past and the Challenges of the Future: The Start of Interfaith Efforts

Rene Wadlow

         There has always been interaction and borrowing of ideas among spiritual and religious groups.  Early Christianity took ideas and rituals from the Jewish milieu of its early members including its founder, Jesus.  However, ideas from the mystical traditions of the Middle East and Greece were…

Jean Houston

The Hero and the Goddess

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2009, 470pp)

            Homer’s Odyssey is a journey through personal transformation to wholeness.  During this journey, there is an interplay between the masculine and feminine principles.  Masculine and feminine principles are part of the psyche shared by both sexes.  In fact, as the masculine principle dominates in many societies, the masculine dominates in many women as well as men, and…

                                   Freedom From Fear : For All The Citizens of The World

                                                                       René Wadlow *

            When President Franklin Delano  Roosevelt, the 32^nd President of the United States (1933-1945) in his January 6, 1941 State of the Union address  to Congress presented the “Four Freedoms”, much of the world was at war: German troops were advancing  in Europe as were…

Robert Frager

Sufi Talks:Teachings of an American Sufi Sheikh

(Wheaton, IL:  Quest Books, 2012 )

         “Sufism focuses on the inner effects of our practice.  The Sufi path, or tariqa, means in Arabic, an unmarked path, through the desert, where the sands shift, and there are no clear markers.  Following the tariqa requires judgement and sophistication.  It also requires a guide who knows the way…Sufism is practice.  It is not theory or…

         Richard Smoley

         Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition

         (Boston: Shambhala, 2002, 292pp.)  

         At this time of transition from the Piscean Period to the Age of Aquarius, there is an evaluation going on within all systems of belief to sort out those aspects of value for the New Age and to let dry up those thought forms and processes which were appropriate only for the passing period. …

            David W. Augsburger

            Conflict Mediation Across Cultures : Pathways and Patterns

            (Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, 310pp)

                                                           Rene Wadlow

            John Paul Lederach tells the story of one of his intercultural mediation workshops in Panama where “someone said that mediators were like guides leading…

Gary Lachman

Politics and the occult : the left, the right and the radically unseen

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2008, 261pp.)

            Gary Lachman has written a very useful and sober book on esoteric current in modern political thought — modern meaning here from the Protestant Reformation to the present.  A sober book is necessary as the internet is filled with wild speculation about the role of the Illuminati on the political and financial system. The…

            Creativity and World Citizenship: Insights from J. Krishnamurti

The function of education is to give the student abundant knowledge in the various fields of human endeavour and at the same time to free his mind from all tradition so that he is able to investigate, to find out, to discover.  Otherwise the mind becomes mechanical, burdened with the machinery of knowledge.  Unless it is constantly freeing itself from the accumulations of tradition, the mind…