Phantom Power is a book about the intangible. Barbara Diener is fascinated by unexplained phenomena and, in this book, she has used a variety of methods to capture images that convey the ineffable qualities of human existence. Barbara Diener is an award winning lens based artist currently the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago. Allison Grant is a writer, curator, artist, and Assistant Professor in the Art and Art History Department at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Gregory Harris is the Assistant Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

This 2004 book is an accessible introduction to the full range of the philosophy of William James. It portrays that philosophy as containing a deep division between a Promethean type of pragmatism and a passive mysticism. The pragmatist James conceives of truth and meaning as a means to control nature and make it do our bidding. The mystic James eschews the use of concepts in order to penetrate to the inner conscious core of all being, including nature at large. Richard Gale attempts to harmonize these pragmatic and mystical perspectives. This introduction is drawn from and complements the author's much more comprehensive and systematic study The Divided Self of William James, a volume that has received the highest critical praise. With its briefer compass and non-technical style this introduction should help to disseminate the key elements of one of the great modern philosophies to an even wider readership.

This 2004 book is an accessible introduction to the full range of the philosophy of William James. It portrays that philosophy as containing a deep division between a Promethean type of pragmatism and a passive mysticism. The pragmatist James conceives of truth and meaning as a means to control nature and make it do our bidding. The mystic James eschews the use of concepts in order to penetrate to the inner conscious core of all being, including nature at large. Richard Gale attempts to harmonize these pragmatic and mystical perspectives. This introduction is drawn from and complements the author's much more comprehensive and systematic study The Divided Self of William James, a volume that has received the highest critical praise. With its briefer compass and non-technical style this introduction should help to disseminate the key elements of one of the great modern philosophies to an even wider readership.

The second volume of To Fathom the Gist examines in depth how Gurdjieff wrote Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson and discusses the three ways of reading the book in light of how the book was written. It provides useful perspectives on the book by examining the 1931 Manuscript (the earliest edition of The Tales) and comparing it to Gurdjieff's final version. It also analyzes the 1992 revision of The Tales in depth. Finally, this volume investigates the Arch-absurd-Beelzebub's assertion that our Sun neither lights nor heats.

Including a textually long but spiritually endless journey toward insan al-kamil the perfect human this fourth volume approaches Sufism through the middle way, an approach that revives the legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. With an awareness of the social realities of the 21st century, concepts such as tranquility, the truth of divinity, life beyond the physical realm, the preserved tablet, the glorified attributes, and the beautiful names are delicately explained.

The twelfth century CE was a watershed moment for mysticism in the Muslim West. In al-Andalus, the pioneers of this mystical tradition, the Mu'tabirun or 'Contemplators', championed a synthesis between Muslim scriptural sources and Neoplatonic cosmology. Ibn Barrajan of Seville was most responsible for shaping this new intellectual approach, and is the focus of Yousef Casewit's book. Ibn Barrajan's extensive commentaries on the divine names and the Qur'an stress the significance of God's signs in nature, the Arabic bible as a means of interpreting the Qur'an, and the mystical crossing from the visible to the unseen. With an examination of the understudied writings of both Ibn Barrajan and his contemporaries, Ibn al-'Arif and Ibn Qasi, as well as the wider socio-political and scholarly context in al-Andalus, this book will appeal to researchers of the medieval Islamic world and the history of mysticism and Sufism in the Muslim West.

The Origin of Sufism; Self Criticism; Reflection; Privacy & Seclusion; Heart; Hope or Expectation; Asceticism. People follow the Sufi path when they sense that Islam has a deeper dimension. The resulting self-purification leads to this inner dimension of Islamic rituals, a deeper understanding of the Divine acts, and a greater knowledge and love of Him. After this, God draws the novice to Himself. With the help of a spiritual guide, the novice begins the life-long journey back to God. This continual process of spiritual development along a path of the innate human poverty, helplessness, and powerlessness before God is undertaken in the knowledge that everything comes from God. Each novice does what is necessary to grow spiritually, and God bestows the appropriate blessings and stations. The highest aim of creation and its most sublime result is belief in God. The most exalted rank of humanity is knowledge of God. The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and humanity is love of God contained within the knowledge of God; the purest joy for the human spirit and the purest delight for the human heart is spiritual ecstasy contained within the love of God. Indeed, all true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties, and unclouded pleasure are contained within the knowledge and love of God. And Sufism is the school where people can realise the highest aim of creation. Approximate running time: 360 minutes

What is Sufism? Reaching true belief in Gods Divine Oneness and living in accordance with its demands; Heeding the Divine Speech (the Quran), discerning and then obeying the commands of the Divine Power and will as they relate to the universe (the laws of creation and life); Overflowing with divine Love and getting along with all other beings in the realisation (originating from divine Love) that the universe is a cradle of brotherhood; Giving preference or precedence to the well-being and happiness of others; Being open to love, spiritual places and associating with people who encourage the avoidance of sin and striving in the way of God; Being content with permitted pleasures, and not taking even a single step toward that which is not permitted; Struggling continuously against worldly ambitions and illusions, which lead us to believe that this world is eternal. Approximate running time: 660 minutes

An unabridged, unaltered edition to include: The Law of Vibration - Thought Waves - Mental Induction - Mental Concentration - Mental Imaging - Fascination - Hypnotic Influence - Influencing at a Distance - Influencing "En Masse" - The Need of the Knowledge - Magic Black and White - Self-Protection

Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."

Can ecstatic experiences be studied with the academic instruments of rational investigation? What kinds of religious illumination are experienced by academically minded people? And what is the specific nature of the knowledge of God that university theologians of the Middle Ages enjoyed compared with other modes of knowing God, such as rapture, prophecy, the beatific vision, or simple faith? Ecstasy in the Classroom explores the interface between academic theology and ecstatic experience in the first half of the thirteenth century, formative years in the history of the University of Paris, medieval Europe's "fountain of knowledge." It considers little-known texts by William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, William of Auvergne, Alexander of Hales, and other theologians of this community, thus creating a group portrait of a scholarly discourse. It seeks to do three things. The first is to map and analyze the scholastic discourse about rapture and other modes of cognition in the first half of the thirteenth century. The second is to explicate the perception of the self that these modes imply: the possibility of transformation and the complex structure of the soul and its habits. The third is to read these discussions as a window on the predicaments of a newborn community of medieval professionals and thereby elucidate foundational tensions in the emergent academic culture and its social and cultural context. Juxtaposing scholastic questions with scenes of contemporary courtly romances and reading Aristotle's Analytics alongside hagiographical anecdotes, Ecstasy in the Classroom challenges the often rigid historiographical boundaries between scholastic thought and its institutional and cultural context.

In this groundbreaking work of comparative religion, Algis Uzdavinys takes us deeply into the "closed and blessed gardens of myth," showing us the capital importance of the many varieties of "ascent to heaven." From the Pyramid Texts down to Second Temple Judaism and apocalyptic Christian literature; and, in parallel, down the theurgic path of Platonic and Hermetic literature to the sanctum of the Islamic revelation in Mecca, we are vividly presented with the sacramental impact of anagoge: elevation to the domain of the supernal archetypes and heavenly principles. As with other books by the author, the face of antiquity is revealed anew, full of intriguing, challenging and enraptured insights.

This collection of contributed essays challenges the widely accepted interpretation of mystical experience as a constructed and mediated product of previously held beliefs and concepts. Forman and his colleagues argue for the existence of a single type of mystical experience that cuts across cultural and linguistic lines.

Kabbalah the secret is out! From Madonna's controversial conversion to the Dalai Lama's acknowledgment and support, this mystical tradition is gaining unprecedented recognition. But how do we put this powerful and esoteric worldview into practice? With The Ecstatic Kabbalah, Rabbi David Cooper author of God Is a Verb (100, 000 copies sold, Riverhead, 1958), and a renowned leader of the Jewish meditation movement provides practical exercises on the path toward mending the soul, the fundamental Jewish experience that brings union with the Divine. With meditation techniques for both beginning and advanced practitioners, The Ecstatic Kabbalah guides listeners into awareness of the presence of light with experiential practices for touching the four worlds of mystical Judaism;

Man can decree a thing and it will come to pass. In the beginning was the unconditioned awareness of being; and the unconditioned awareness of being became conditioned by imagining itself to be something, and the unconditioned awareness of being became that which it had imagined itself to be; so did creation begin. Stand still in the psychological state defined as your objective until you feel the thrill of Victory, Then, with confidence born of the knowledge of this law, watch the physical realization of your objective. Neville Goddard was an influential New Thought teacher and an early proponent of the Law of Attraction through his belief that one could create one's physical reality through imagining.

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A pioneering scholarly investigation into the intersection of personality and cultural history, this study asserts that Freudian psychology is rooted in Judaism -- particularly, in the mysticism of the Kabbalah. It examines how Freud's Jewish heritage contributed, either consciously or unconsciously, to his psychological theories and clarifies the foundations of modern psychoanalysis.

The Shekinah is the manifestation of the Wisdom Goddess of the Kabbalah, the Old Testament and Merkavah Mysticism. She encompasses the primordial light of creation, the wisdom of the serpent and the inspiration of the dove. She is the beauty of the lily and the embodiment of the Tree of Life. She is also the World soul, heavenly glory, mother of angels, inspiration for prophecy, and source of souls, as well as being the Shabbat Bride and the wife of God. In The Cosmic Shekinah the authors present a concise history of the different influences of earlier wisdom goddesses on the development of the Shekinah. These goddesses include the Sumerian Inanna, the Egyptian Ma'at, the Greco-Egyptian Isis, the Semitic Anat and Astarte and the Canaanite Asherah. They show that from these ancient sources the unnamed Wisdom Goddess and wife of God portrayed in the Old Testament and early Jewish wisdom literature arose. It is this unnamed Wisdom Goddess who would subsequently become the source for the development of the Shekinah as well as the Gnostic Sophia. The influence of the feminine divine as the Shekinah has continued to find expression, with the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit of Christianity and the Sakina of Islam all being shaped by the enduring influence of the Wisdom Goddess. Through tracing her roles, myths and functions the authors show that in addition to her resurgence, the Wisdom Goddess has always been present throughout history, even when she has been suppressed and disguised by deliberate exclusion and mistranslation. Drawing on numerous sources including medieval Kabbalistic works, Hekhalot texts of Merkavah Mysticism, ancient literature such as the Egyptian, Sumerian and Ugaritic myths, the Old Testament, Gnostic texts and recent finds in Biblical archaeology, The Cosmic Shekinah draws attention back to the light of divine feminine wisdom.

The most complete collection of Eckhart's writings: Sermons and Collations; Tractates; Sayings; Liber Positionum; In Collationibus; The Book of Benedictus; Bibliography.