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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Aspects of religions (non-Christian) > Religious experience > Mysticism
From the earliest centuries there has existed a Christian theology
of mysticism, defining the state which Bernard Lonergan called a
"being in love with God." St. John of the Cross wrote such a
theology for the sixteenth century, calling it "the science of
love." Now, William Johnston, one of the great spiritual writers of
our time, attempts to do the same for the twenty-first century.
In Part One of Mystical Theology Johnston surveys Christian
mysticism through the centuries. Johnson shows that such a theology
today must dialogue with modern science and with Eastern religions.
Part Two provides this dialogue, where Johnston engages Einstein's
theories as well as Zen Buddhism. In Part Three, it becomes clear
how the "science of love" is no longer an esoteric discipline for
monks and nuns. In Johnston's writing it becomes accessible to all
modern people grappling with problems of sexuality, social justice,
world peace, and the protection of the environment.
Mystical Theology is indispensable to all those seeking guidance
as well as intellectual and historical foundations of the Christian
mystical experience today.
The Holy Quran presents an irrefutable basis and belief system for
the establishment of a stable and harmonious life in this world,
and a triumphant return to Paradise in the Next. There are
misunderstandings about the very source-springs of human well-being
the belief in the spiritual realities of existence, the infinite
love for the Holy Messenger, and the unity regarding the
implementation of the divinely revealed programme for human
society.Young people all over the world, Muslim as well as
non-Muslim, are brought up and educated in an environment permeated
by scientific materialism. It is modern learning which programmes
their minds and causes them to reject anything they find
incompatible with what they have been taught about man and life on
the earth. This book will clarify the misunderstandings and
confusions about Islamic spirituality on scientific
grounds.Scientific orthodoxy refers to magnetic sensitivity in
human beings, electromagnetic energies that permeate our
atmosphere, the flow of positive and negative ions in the
atmosphere affecting human brain activity, the function of the
pineal gland and many other empirical sources of transcendent
experience that are yet to be investigated. This magnetic energy
basis of spiritual experience, which the scientific camp has been
forced into revealing, has proved to be a welcome development of
modern science from the point of view of Islamic spirituality.The
younger generation of modern times will have their belief
reconfirmed by the study of the scientific facts cited in this
book. The scientific reality of Islamic spirituality is
demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt.
The Accidental Immigrant is the capstone work of world-renown
author Professor Kyriacos C. Markides, based on his over
fifty-year-quest for an authentic understanding of the true nature
of Reality. As a teenager he arrived at the docs of New York in
1960 with the purported aim of earning a business degree and
returning to his native Cyprus. Thanks to a string of uncanny
coincidences he soon realized that the real meaning and purpose of
his Atlantic crossing was not the acquisition of practical skills
but the development of his social awareness and spiritual
consciousness. This is the story, among other things, of his
valiant struggles to assimilate within American society and
culture, of his peace activism to help heal the wounds of ethnic
strife in his native Island, and of his relentless quest for
spiritual fulfillment within the challenging confines of the
secular and agnostic world of modern academia. As a sociologist and
a field researcher he shares with us his encounters with a variety
of remarkable people that include colorful Christian shamans and
healers possessors of paranormal gifts as well as charismatic monks
and ascetics who exposed him to the magnificent spiritual wisdom of
Eastern mystical Christianity. It is, among other things, these
kinds of experiences that step by step led him to realize that
there is a deeper Truth over and beyond our physical and sensate
universe that is the foundation and wellspring of everything that
happens in our lives within the three-dimensional world. And it is
this awareness that could eventually lead towards the integration
of the best of science with the best of religion for the long-term
survival of the human race.
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