Author: Joseph Dan Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190286172 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
Joseph Dan is one of the world's leading authorities on Jewish mysticism. In this superb anthology, Dan not only presents illuminating excerpts from the most important mystical texts, but also delves into the very meaning of mysticism itself. Dan takes readers through the historical development of Jewish mysticism, from late antiquity to the modern period. He explores the Kabbalah, the esoteric tradition that delves into the secrets delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, the emergence of Hasidism, and much more. He presents the great texts, from Hekhalot Rabbati, "The Greater Book of Divine Palaces," set in the temple in Jerusalem; to the apocalyptic vision of Abraham Abulafia in the thirteenth century; to the Zohar, perhaps the best-known volume of all. For each piece, he offers an extended introduction that deftly places the work in the context of its time and its antecedents. "Mysticism is that which cannot be expressed in words, period," Dan writes. In this remarkable volume, he guides us through that seemingly impenetrable barrier to show how the inexpressible has been expressed in some of the most profound and challenging writing in existence.
Author: Richard Lischer Publisher: Vintage ISBN: 110191047X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
A father’s heartbreaking and hopeful story about his beloved son, in which a young man teaches his family “a new way to die” with wit, candor, and grace. "A book after my own heart, profound, gorgeous, deeply spiritual and human, beautifully written, heartbreaking, but also, because of the writer's wisdom and spirit, triumphant." —Anne Lamott As the book opens, Richard Lischer’s son, Adam, calls to tell his father, a professor of divinity at Duke University, that his cancer has returned. Adam is a charismatic young man with a promising law career, and that his wife is pregnant with their first child makes the disease’s return all the more devastating. Despite the cruel course of the illness, Adam’s growing weakness evokes in him a remarkable spiritual strength. This is the story of one last summer, lived as honestly and faithfully as possible. Deeply moving and utterly lacking in sentimentality or self-pity, Stations of the Heart is an unforgettable book about life and death and the terrible blessing of saying good-bye.
Author: Peter Kelder Publisher: Harmony ISBN: 0307423506 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 126
Book Description
Offering practical instruction on how to perform the Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation, which will take only minutes a day, many practitioners have experienced benefits, including increased energy, weight loss, better memory, new hair growth, pain relief, better digestion, and feeling overall more youthful. Legend has it that hidden in the remote reaches of the Himalayan mountains lies a secret that would have saved Ponce de Leon from years of fruitless searching for the Fountain of Youth. There, generations of Tibetan monks have passed down a series of exercises with mystical, age-reversing properties. Known as the Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation or the Five Rites, these once-secret exercises are now available to Westerners in Ancient Secret of the Fountain Of Youth. Peter Kelder's book begins with an account of his own introduction to the rites by way of Colonel Bradford, a mysterious retired British army officer who learned of the rites while journeying high up in the Himalayas. Fountain of Youth then offers practical instructions for each of the five rites, which resemble yoga postures. Taking just minutes a day to perform, the benefits for practitioners have included increased energy, weight loss, better memory, new hair growth, pain relief, better digestion, and feeling overall more youthful.
Author: Thomas F. Hedin Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press ISBN: 0812298373 Category : Architecture Languages : en Pages : 297
Book Description
Ovid tells the story of Latona, the mother by Jupiter of Apollo and Diana. In her flight from the jealous Juno, she arrives faint and parched on the coast of Asia Minor. Kneeling to sip from a pond, Latona is met by the local peasants, who not only deny her effort but muddy the water in pure malice. Enraged, Latona calls a curse down upon the stingy peasants, turning them to frogs. In his masterful study, Thomas F. Hedin reveals how and why a fountain of this strange legend was installed in the heart of Versailles in the 1660s, the inaugural decade of Louis XIV’s patronage there. The natural supply of water was scarce and unwieldy, and it took the genius of the king’s hydraulic engineers, working in partnership with the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to exploit it. If Ovid’s peasants were punished for their stubborn denial of water, so too the obstacles of coarse nature at Versailles were conquered; the aquatic iconography of the fountain was equivalent to the aquatic reality of the gardens. Latona was designed by Charles Le Brun, the most powerful artist at the court of Louis XIV, and carried out by Gaspard and Balthazar Marsy. The 1660s were rich in artistic theory in France, and the artists of the fountain delivered substantial lectures at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture on subjects of central concern to their current work. What they professed was what they were visualizing in the gardens. As such, the fountain is an insider’s guide to the leading artistic ideals of the moment. Louis XIV was viewed as the reincarnation of Apollo, the god of creativity, the inspiration of artists and scientists. Hedin’s original argument is that Latona was a double declaration: a glorification of the king and a proud manifesto by artists.
Author: Don Cupitt Publisher: SCM Press ISBN: 0334047749 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 105
Book Description
Everywhere, Tradition is collapsing. Local fundamentalist reactions - hailed by some as evidence that 'God is back' - cannot hope to stem the flood. In our time, Don Cupitt says, religion is no longer about gaining immortality, or the forgiveness of our sins: it is about becoming reconciled to our life’s transience, to time and death.
Author: Jane Rule Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1480429406 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 296
Book Description
“A landmark work of lesbian fiction” and the basis for the acclaimed film Desert Hearts (The New York Times). Against the backdrop of Reno, Nevada, in the late 1950s, award-winning author Jane Rule chronicles a love affair between two women. When Desert of the Heart opens, Evelyn Hall is on a plane that will take her from her old life in Oakland, California, to Reno, where she plans to divorce her husband of sixteen years. A voluntary exile in a brave new world, she meets a woman who will change her life. Fifteen years younger, Ann Childs works as a change apron in a casino. Evelyn is instantly drawn to the fiercely independent Ann, and their friendship soon evolves into a romantic relationship. An English professor who had always led a conventional life, Evelyn suddenly finds all her beliefs about love, morality, and identity called into question. Peopled by a cast of unforgettable characters, this is a novel that dares to ask whether love between two women can last.
Author: Josie Litton Publisher: Bantam ISBN: 0553585843 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 386
Book Description
From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "Come Back to Me" comes the second novel in her lush and sensual Fountain trilogy. Original.
Author: Eliza Factor Publisher: Akashic Books ISBN: 1617750360 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 302
Book Description
The Mercury Fountain takes place at the turn of the 20th century in a remote stretch of desert, West Texas. Owen Scraperton, a passionate Yankee, sets out to atone for his misspent youth by starting a utopian paradise in the wilderness. He begins to attract a following within the local population and further afield. Owen founds the economics of this new society upon Mercury mining, lauding its fluidity, beauty and usefulness and disregarding its darker properties. But it isn't long before Owen's utopia begins to unravel...
Author: Joseph Dan
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Author: Richard Lischer
Author: Peter Kelder
Author: Thomas F. Hedin
Author: Don Cupitt
Author: Jane Rule
Author: Josie Litton
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Author: Eliza Factor