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| Touchstones of the Spirit: Essays on Religion, Tradition and Modernity |
| “Touchstones of the Spirit: Essays on Religion, Tradition and Modernity” - Description, contents, reviews, more |
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Click cover for larger image.
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Author(s):
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Subjects(s):
Comparative Religion
Modernism
Perennial Philosophy
Tradition
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Price: $22.95
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ISBN: 978-1-936597-03-1
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Book Size: 6" x 9"
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# of Pages: 298
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Language: English
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Description
Touchstones of the Spirit explores three general themes: the timeless messages of Tradition; the obscuration of this perennial wisdom in the modern world; and the spiritual intercourse between East and West which holds out some hope that we may yet recover something of what we have lost. Amongst this wide-ranging collection are essays on metaphysical and cosmological doctrines of the East, the spiritual heritage of the Australian Aborigines, the reigning ideologies of modernity, and on several key figures in the East-West encounter including Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Abhishiktananda, and Huston Smith.
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Touchstones of the Spirit explores three general themes: the timeless messages of Tradition; the obscuration of this perennial wisdom in the modern world; and the spiritual intercourse between East and West which holds out some hope that we may yet recover something of what we have lost. Amongst this wide-ranging collection are essays on metaphysical and cosmological doctrines of the East, the spiritual heritage of the Australian Aborigines, the reigning ideologies of modernity, and on several key figures in the East-West encounter including Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Abhishiktananda, and Huston Smith.
This collection of essays covers many topics which, Oldmeadow notes in the book’s “Introduction,” have “preoccupied me in the thirty-five years since I first discovered the great traditionalist writers — René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon and Titus Burckhardt, and those who came after… Despite the diversity of subjects, readers will discern a persistent set of underlying concerns, related to the themes already mentioned… Taken as a whole, these essays comprise so many attempts, no doubt with varying degrees of success, to consider a variety of phenomena in the light of the principles so magisterially affirmed by the traditionalists.” Thus, the strength of this book is its demonstration of how a perennialist/traditionalist perspective can be applied across a wide range of intellectual and cultural subjects that often confront — and possibly confound — us in the confusion that is the modern world.
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Harry Oldmeadow was co-ordinator of Philosophy and Religious Studies at La Trobe University in Australia and author of the acclaimed Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of the Perennial Philosophy (2000), an authoritative introduction to the perspective of Perennialism. Prof. Oldmeadow's contributions to World Wisdom books & DVDs include:
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“Touchstones of the Spirit: Essays on Religion, Tradition & Modernity explores three general themes: messages of tradition, the obscuring of this wisdom in modem times, and the spiritual dialogue between East and West which holds out hope for better incorporation of spiritual wisdom into modem paths. Essays cover metaphysical and cosmological doctrines of the East and other cultures around the world, offering scholarly assessments of images, metaphors, and the ideas which connect experience with spirituality. Any new age or general spirituality holding [that specializes] in scholarly dialogues will find this a winner!”
—California Bookwatch (a monthly review magazine from The Midwest Book Review)
“Never before have there been so many counterfeit spiritualities, nor has spirituality previously been turned into a business as it has today, and in no other time have we witnessed the massive destruction of traditional societies, something that has become a global pandemic. Paradoxically, there are more tangible points of contact with the sacred than ever before. How is one to make sense of this? …[In Touchstones of the Spirit] Professor Oldmeadow takes no prisoners in critiquing the errors of the modern and postmodern mindset, yet he also supplies the principles that permit us to move beyond the current impasse. For all those seeking to reclaim the sacred in the midst of the ambiguity and confusion in the present age, Touchstones of the Spirit offers an impressive spectrum of pointers to assist in this search.”
—Network Review, from a review by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
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Introduction
I. Echoes of Tradition
“Melodies from the Beyond”: The Spiritual Heritage of the Australian Aborigines
Metaphysics, East and West
Sankara’s Doctrine of Maya
“The Last Blade of Grass”: The Bodhisattva Ideal in Mahayana Buddhism
“Grass upon the Hills”: Traditional and Modern Attitudes to Biography
Joseph Epes Brown’s The Spiritual Legacy of the American Indians
II. The Wastelands of Modernity
The False Prophets of Modernity: Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche
Frankenstein’s Children: Science, Scientism and Self-Destruction
Computers: An Academic Cargo Cult?
Frithjof Schuon on Culturism
The Past Disowned: The Political and Postmodern Assault on the Humanities
Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now
III. East and West
Ananda Coomaraswamy and the East-West Encounter
Frithjof Schuon on Eastern Traditions
Ex Oriente Lux: Eastern Religions, Western Writers
Huston Smith, Bridge-Builder Extraordinaire: A Tribute
Swami Abhishiktananda on Sannyasa and the Monk’s Vocation
Across the Great Divide: Some Christian Responses to Religious Pluralism
Acknowledgments
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