Part oracle, part meditation book, and part Aladdin's cave of Middle Eastern myth and sacred story, Desert Wisdom offers a fresh way to hear the ancient visionary voices of the Middle East that generated three (or more) of the world's great religions.
Renowned Sufi scholar and teacher Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of The Sufi Book of Life and Prayers of the Cosmos, has revisioned his acclaimed 1995 classic for the 21st century. Praised by scientists, poets and mystics alike for its ecological approach to "hearing" the native wisdom of the Middle East on its own terms, Desert Wisdom takes us on a journey from ancient Egypt throughout the Middle East to Sufi poets like Rumi and Hafiz. In between, we spend time hearing Genesis the way a storyteller might have told it and sit at the feet of the Aramaic-speaking prophet, Yeshua of Nazareth. Through it all, Desert Wisdom presents us with ancient wisdom about life's biggest questions like:

"Why am I here? Who am I? And how do I love?"

"Eternal greatness! You made yourself low and small to make mankind great." While in an ecstatic trance, St. Catherine of Siena dictated The Dialogue. In this intense and searching work, she offers up petitions to God, filling her conversation with instruction on discernment, true and false spiritual emotion, obedience and truth, and revealing her famous image of Christ as the Bridge. Catherine's brilliant insights into the nature of the spiritual life have motivated Christians for centuries to unite a life of prayer with a life of action. "This have I told you, my sweetest daughter, that you might know the perfection of this union-producing state, when the eye of the intellect is ravished by the fire of my charity, in which it receives supernatural light. With this light the souls in the state of union love me, because love follows the intellect, and the more it knows the more it can love." (from the book)

Originally published in 1975, Experience of the Inner Worlds is a classic magical textbook of the Western Mystery Tradition. Covering a wide range of topics within a Christian-oriented Qabalistic framework, Gareth Knight explains the difference between magic and mysticism, natural and revealed religion, monism and theism. He also covers the practicalities, examining methods of inner plane communication, contact with the Masters, the 'consciousness' approach of Carl Jung, the vision of Dante and the archetypal power of the Hebrew alphabet - all within the context of the Qabalistic Tree of Life. The book also contains powerful visualisation exercises and examples of communication with angelic and elemental contacts. While this book can be used as a course of self-instruction, it is also an important modern reference book of magical theory and practice, and has been used for decades by students of Western Qabalah and magic.

Here is the clearest possible exposition of the life and teachings of the diminutive Carmelite Friar whose influence has been so very profound. This book argues that St John of the Cross as a multifaceted, 'myriad minded man' is an Outstanding Christian Thinker. Within this book we shall encounter many facets of his genius for living the spiritual life: John as mystic, artist, theologian, psychologist and initiator of dialogue with other faiths, concluding that John can best be understood for Christians today as a 'practical theologian' par excellence who offers clear and practical help to contemporary Christians in their journey to encounter with the Living Lord. John is the inheritor of the medieval tradition and he is our contemporary. Like John's leap onto the city walls of Toledo, high above the perilous cliffs of the Tajo, so, the saint says, the Christian life must be a similar leap of faith 'in darkness and unknown' as we take a deep breath, place our trust in God and let go into the full clear air alone at last and in terrifying wonder of God's loving embrace. Series Editor: Brian Davies OP, Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York. This series offers a range of authoritative studies on people and movements who have made an outstanding contribution to Christian thought and understanding. The series ranges across the full spectrum of Christian thought, to include Catholic and Protestant thinkers, to cover East and West, historical and contemporary figures.

Jakob Boehme (1575-1624) was one of those remarkable teachers, like Meister Eckhart, who pushed language to its limits to describe an experience that happens above and beyond rational thought. He was a Bohemian shoemaker who, in response to the overwhelming visionary experiences he began to undergo as a teenager, wrote a series of theosophical treatises that explored the relationship between the One and the many, existence and nonexistence, the inner process of divine emanation toward self-consciousness, the relationship of good and evil, and the personal and cosmic urge toward reintegration. Some hear in him resonances with alchemy, kabbalah, and Platonism. His influence is seen in the Quakers, the German Romantics, Pietism, various American utopian experiments, and in the European mystics who came after him. The great scholar of mysticism Evelyn Underhill called him "one of the most astonishing cases in history of a natural genius for the transcendent."
Michael Birkel and Jeff Bach's translation liberates Boehme into modern English. Previous editions have tended toward the academic, or have been couched in intentionally archaic language reminiscent of the King James Bible. This collection includes five essential texts, among them "Life Beyond the Senses," Boehme's explanation of the relationship between God and the soul.

Called in a special way to listen to God's whispers, the mystics amplify not only what it means to be baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 'and to having the Trinity living in them 'but also what is deepest in the human spirit. Mystics experience themselves as an infinite question to which only God is the answer; as an immense longing that only Love can quench; as a nothing in the face of the No-Thing. They are God's fools, troubadours 'the great artists and poets of the interior life whose learned ignorance" articulates the art of loving God, neighbor, self, the Church, and the world.

In "Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition" Harvey Egan draws on fifty years of reading and teaching the mystics to sketch the varieties and passion of the mystical life across more than two millennia. Through their stories and words Egan reveals that al were conscious of the paradox of human identity 'supremely and unsurpassably manifested in the God-Man 'that the genuinely human is disclosed only through surrender to God and that the search for God cannot bypass the genuinely human.

"Harvey D. Egan, SJ, is the author of numerous works on Christian mysticism and the thought of Karl Rahner. He is currently professor of systematic and mystical theology at Boston College.""

In reading Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity you will learn about the early life and mission of Marthe Robin, and how she gradually became paralysed and was confined to bed. The book also has details of how she received the stigmata in 1930, and began to live Christ's passion every week, as well as how she met Fr Georges Finet and they founded the First Foyer in l936. Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity also has fascinating details of the witness of some of the 100,000 visitors she received over 50 years, including what prominent figures thought of her. These include Jean Guitton, Marcel Clement, Fr Marie-Dominque Philippe OP, the founder of the Community of St John, and Fr Jacques Ravanel, the immediate successor of Fr Finet as the head of the Foyer movement, and Marthe's first postulator. There are now 75 Foyer communities throughout the world, and their work involves a priest, the Father of the Foyer, giving 5 day retreats in silence, during which the members of the community look after the needs of the retreatants and pray for them. If you want to learn about the life of this amazing French mystic, then Marthe Robin and the Foyers of Charity is the perfect introduction.

Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), one of the greatest philosophers of the nineteenth century, was the founder of a tradition of Russian spirituality that brought together philosophy, mysticism, and theology with a powerful social message. A Platonist and a gnostic visionary, as well as a close friend of Dostoevsky, Solovyov was also a prophet who was granted three visions of Sophia, Divine Wisdom. A poet and a profoundly Christian metaphysicist, his works include The Justification of the Good; War, Progress, and the End of History; and The Meaning of Love. This unique, timely book - the first in-depth, full-length portrait of Soloviev as a mystic to appear in English - is the rich fruit of Dr. Allen's lifelong interest in the cultural and spiritual achievements, the mysticism, and the esoteric work of the Russian people during Tsarist times leading up to the twentieth century.

The pearlers we meet in this book were early monks of Syria, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran), They saw themselves as pearl-divers and pearl-merchants searching, through asceticism and prayer, for the precious pearls of mystical experience. Their quest led them into the wilderness, to a state of silent solitude in remote caves and hermitages. Working from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum and the Vatican Library, and from the Greek monastery of Saint Catherine in the wilderness of Sinai and the Coptic monastery of the Syrians (Der es-Suriani) in the Egyptian desert, Brian E. Colless has produced a volume which draws modern readers into this little known world.

Heaven and hell are from the human race. All who have ever been born men from the beginning of creation, and are deceased, are either in heaven or in hell. The Last Judgment must be where all are together; therefore in the spiritual world, and not on the earth. The Last Judgment exists when the end of the church is; and the end of the church is when there is no faith, because there is no charity. All the things which are predicted in the Apocalypse are at this day fulfilled. The Last Judgment has been accomplished. Babylon and its destruction. The former heaven and its abolition. The state of the world and of the church hereafter. The subject of the Last Judgment is continued, principally that it may be known what the state of the world and the church was before the Last Judgment, and what the state of the world and the church has become since; also, how the Last Judgment was accomplished upon the Reformed.

The Ascent of Mount Carmel is the third major work of St. John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic and major figure in the Catholic Reformation in the 16th century. This book is a systematic treatment of the ascetical life in pursuit of mystical union with Christ and is considered to be the introductory work on mystical theology. This books begins with an allegorical poem and the rest is a detailed explanation and interpretation of the poem.

St. John of the Cross was considered to be one of the greatest Spanish poets. Collected here are twenty of his amazing poems including The Dark Night, A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ, Love's Living Flame, By the Waters of Babylon, and many others.

If you're open to hearing God even when you're sleeping, your dreams can be a rich source of revelation and insight.

One man's dream saves his family from what could have been a deadly fire.

A fifty-two-year-old woman finally understands a dream she's been having since she was thirteen.

A policeman's dream warns a friend of a dangerous encounter with a suspect.

Church elders have the same dream about a change in the church's leadership.

A strange and frightening dream warns a mother of a potentially dangerous relationship in her son's life.

A dream confirms an East Indian man's decision to become a Christian.

As you read the details of these and other dreams that Dr. Greg Cynaumon describes you will find that they and the circumstances that surrounded them were more than conincidental. You will be convinced that God, who is concerned and involved in the lives of individuals, has somehting to say through dreams. And you won't want to miss His messages.

Dr. Cynaumon examines dreams from a perspective that is both scientific and biblical. He explores dream interpretation, explains some common dream symbols, and answers questions about dreams and their occurrences in Scripture. He also corrects several popular myths about dreams.

If you desire to unravel one of life's great mysteries but are wary of secular approaches to this subject, then you'll want to explore with Dr. Cynaumon how God still speaks through dreams.

While women's contribution to spirituality has often been overlooked or minimized in the past, there is a vital and growing interest in it today. "Medieval Women Mystics" presents essential writings of 4 women of the 13th and 14th centuries. This is essential reading for anyone interested in medieval and/or women's spirituality, church history, as well as persons associated with the religious orders represented by these mystics (Benedictines, Franciscans, and Brigettines).

Jacob Boehme was born in 1575. He received little if any formal education and was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Goerlitz in Saxony. From an early age he seems to have been devoted to the study of the Bible as well as to have had a growing, inner, sense of the reality of God. Walking one day in the fields, when he was twenty-five years old, the mystery of creation was suddenly opened to him, of which he later said that "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years at the university . . . and thereupon I turned my heart to praise God for it." As experiences of this kind came more frequently, he puzzled much as to why such knowledge should be given to him, of all men, who sought only the love of God and was quite unlearned in the ordinary sense. Some ten years later he began to record what he received, as a help to his own memory, and thus was born The Aurora, his first book, finished in 1612. From then on he found both friends and enemies of his work. Due to persecution in his hometown, Boehme later settled in Dresden, where he died in 1624. Mysterium Magnum, written by Boehme the year before he died and at a time when his powers of expression had developed to their full, is perhaps central to his work in some thirty-one or thirty-two original volumes. Taking the general form of an interpretation of Genesis, it far outstrips such apparent confines, touching among other matters upon the meaning of the New Testament and, from the first sentence, leading to the heart of the universal experience of all mystics: When we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible, spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world as the soul in the body; and we see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all and through all, and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. Among those who have acknowledged the spiritual stature of Boehme are Hegel, William Law, St. Martin (le Philosophe Inconnu), Dean Inge, and Nicolas Berdyaev.

Jacob Boehme was born in 1575. He received little if any formal education and was apprenticed to a shoemaker at Goerlitz in Saxony. From an early age he seems to have been devoted to the study of the Bible as well as to have had a growing, inner, sense of the reality of God. Walking one day in the fields, when he was twenty-five years old, the mystery of creation was suddenly opened to him, of which he later said that "in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years at the university . . . and thereupon I turned my heart to praise God for it." As experiences of this kind came more frequently, he puzzled much as to why such knowledge should be given to him, of all men, who sought only the love of God and was quite unlearned in the ordinary sense. Some ten years later he began to record what he received, as a help to his own memory, and thus was born The Aurora, his first book, finished in 1612. From then on he found both friends and enemies of his work. Due to persecution in his hometown, Boehme later settled in Dresden, where he died in 1624. Mysterium Magnum, written by Boehme the year before he died and at a time when his powers of expression had developed to their full, is perhaps central to his work in some thirty-one or thirty-two original volumes. Taking the general form of an interpretation of Genesis, it far outstrips such apparent confines, touching among other matters upon the meaning of the New Testament and, from the first sentence, leading to the heart of the universal experience of all mystics: When we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible, spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world as the soul in the body; and we see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all and through all, and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. Among those who have acknowledged the spiritual stature of Boehme are Hegel, William Law, St. Martin (le Philosophe Inconnu), Dean Inge, and Nicolas Berdyaev.

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - Strange rumors reached the ears of the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding country. It was reported that a new prophet had appeared in the valley of the lower Jordan, and in the wilderness of Northern Judea, preaching startling doctrines. His teachings resembled those of the prophets of old, and his cry of "Repent Repent ye for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," awakened strange memories of the ancient teachers of the race, and caused the common people to gaze wonderingly at each other, and the ruling classes to frown and look serious, when the name of the new prophet was mentioned. The man whom the common people called a prophet, and whom the exalted ones styled an impostor, was known as John the Baptist, and dwelt in the wilderness away from the accustomed haunts of men. He was clad in the rude garments of the roaming ascetics, his rough robe of camel's skin being held around his form by a coarse girdle of leather.

The fourth volume in the universally-acclaimed The Presence of God series, "The Harvest of Mysticism" is a tour-de-force study of medieval German mysticism from Thomas Aquinas and his master, Albert the Great to Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and including Jan van Ruusbroeck, Meister Eckhart, and John Tauler.

THE MYSTICAL JOURNEY FROM JESUS TO CHRIST Discover the ancient Egyptian origins of Christianity before the Catholic Church and learn the mystical teachings given by Jesus to assist all humanity in becoming Christlike. Discover the secret meaning of the Gospels that were discovered in Egypt. Also discover how and why so many Christian churches came into being. Discover that the Bible still holds the keys to mystical realization even though its original writings were changed by the church. Discover how to practice the original teachings of Christianity which leads to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Contained within this volume is the first part of "Abandonment to Divine Providence" by Jean-Pierre De Caussade, a treatise on the practice of total abandonment to Divine Providence, or in other words, completely giving yourself over to God's will. A spiritual classic, "Abandonment to Divine Providence" will delight readers of all faiths as they discover the spiritual guidance that this volume has to offer.

Drawing from both her published writings and her private journals, this compilation presents a candid look at the extraordinary journey of Evelyn Underhill. For the many readers who have been moved by the writings of Evelyn Underhill, and for those who are merely intrigued by mysticism or captivated by a good memoir, this book presents a vivid and deeply personal rendering of a life that was, both intellectually and spiritually, radiant.

St. Francis de Sales' classic guide to the Christian life using allegories of plants and flowers, illustrated with contemporary woodcuts of the plants and flowers themselves.

Visionary, mystic, poet, musician, naturalist, healer, theologian-the Rhineland nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Renaissance woman long before there was a Renaissance. This is the first book in English to offer a representative selection of writings from all of her amazing range of work.
Hildegard wrote many volumes on subjects from mystical vision to sexuality, from theology to natural medicine--in letters, treatises, poetry, and songs--all in an age when few women wrote more than an occasional letter. She was a woman of extraordinary influence whose work not only surpassed that of her male contemporaries in its range, but also outshone them in visionary beauty and intellectual power. This collection includes a brief biography of Hildegard, and selections from the following works:
- "Scivias" (literally, "know the ways"), the record of Hildegard's visions and her commentary on them
- "The Book of Life's Merits, " visionary work
- "The Book of Divine Works, " a work of cosmology and anthropology
- "Natural History, " a record of plants, animals, and minerals, translated here into English for the first time
- "Causes and Cures, " a compendium of her writing on natural medicine
- "Symphonia, " her songs and poetry
- Biographical works
- Selected letters

A biographical introduction to the spiritual psychic and his most influential readings discusses how he regarded himself as a healer and Christian mystic, introducing his major contributions to today's popular spiritual practices that draw on both eastern and western traditions. Original. 15,000 fir