Author: Obed Simon Johnson Publisher: Martino Publishing ISBN: 9781578986828 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 178
Book Description
Reprint. Paperback.156p. In China as elsewhere, alchemy is a doctrine aiming to afford an understanding of the principles underlying the formation and functioning of the cosmos. The alchemist overcomes the limits of individuality, and ascends to higher states of being; he becomes, in Chinese terms, a zhenren or Authentic Man. Chinese alchemy went through a complex and not yet entirely understood development along its twenty centuries of documented history. The two main traditions are conventionally known as waidan or "external alchemy" and neidan or "internal alchemy". The bulk of the Chinese alchemical sources is found in the Daozang (Taoist Canon), the largest collection of Taoist texts. The cosmos as we know it is conceived of as the final stage in a series of spontaneous transmutations stemming from original non-existence. This process entails the apparent separation of primeval Unity into the two complementary principles, yin and yang. Their re-union generates the cosmos. When the process is completed, the cosmos is subject to the laws of cosmology. The alchemist's task is to retrace this process backwards. Alchemy, whether "external" or "internal," providessupport to the adept, leading one to the point when, as some texts put it, "Heaven spontaneously reveals its secrets." Its practice must be performed under the close supervision of a master, who provides the "oral instructions" (koujue) necessary to an understanding of the processes that the adept performs with minerals and metals, or undergoes within himself. Modern study of the alchemical literature began in the present century, after the Canon was reprinted and made widely available in 1926. Johnson's work, originally published in 1928, remains one of the full book length treatises in English on the subject.
Author: Ghazzālī Publisher: ISBN: 9781903682784 Category : Intention Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
The 37th chapter of the Revival of Religious Sciences, this treatise focuses on the subject of intention--which is of crucial importance in Islam--posing questions such as How can someone ignorant of the meaning of intention verify his own intention? How can someone ignorant of the meaning of sincerity verify his own sincerity? and How can someone sincerely claim truthfulness if he has not verified its meaning? Renowned theologian-mystic Abu Hamid al-Ghazali addresses these questions by expounding the reality and levels of intention, sincerity, and truthfulness and the acts which affirm or mar them. Each of al-Ghazali's responses is based on the Qur'an, the example of the Prophet, and the sayings of numerous scholars and Sufis. As relevant today as it was in the 11th century, this discourse will be of interest to anyone concerned with ethics and moral philosophy.
Author: Sami Al-Daghistani Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108997546 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 337
Book Description
Interrogating the development and conceptual framework of economic thought in the Islamic tradition pertaining to ethical, philosophical, and theological ideas, this book provides a critique of modern Islamic economics as a hybrid economic system. From the outset, Sami Al-Daghistani is concerned with the polyvalent methodology of studying the phenomenon of Islamic economic thought as a human science in that it nurtures a complex plentitude of meanings and interpretations associated with the moral self. By studying legal scholars, theologians, and Sufis in the classical period, Al-Daghistani looks at economic thought in the context of Sharī'a's moral law. Alongside critiquing modern developments of Islamic economics, he puts forward an idea for a plural epistemology of Islam's moral economy, which advocates for a multifaceted hermeneutical reading of the subject in light of a moral law, embedded in a particular cosmology of human relationality, metaphysical intelligibility, and economic subjectivity.