"Mysticism After Modernity" offers a truly postmodern interpretation of the great mystics and their writing, thus appealing to readers across a wide range of disciplines. Don Cuppitt argues that extensive modern literature about mysticism has rested on a mistake - the belief that their can be meaningful experience prior to language. The mystics have been perceived as first having had profound experiences that they then put into words. However, in postmodern thought experience does not give meaning to language; on the contrary, language gives meaning to experience. And when the mystics are seen as having been primarily writers, our understanding of them is revolutionized.

Judah Loew, better known as the Maharal of Prague, was a pivotal personality in late medieval European Judaism. Best known from the popular legend that credited him with the creation of a golem - an artificial human with superhuman powers - his true importance lay in his comprehensive exposition of a unique expression of Jewish mystical theology, his call for a reformation of Jewish communal life, and his influence on subsequent Jewish life and thought. Byron Sherwin's lucid exposition of the life, legend, works, and ideas developed in Loew's massive writings 'reveals the concealed' by unravelling the often obscure nature of his mystical theology, his polemical jousts against past and contemporary Jewish scholars, and his innovative programme for social and educational reform.

Over the past generation, scholars have devoted increasing attention to the diverse forms that Jewish mysticism has taken both in the past and today: what was once called "nonsense" by Jewish scholars has generated important research and attention both within the academy and beyond, as demonstrated by the popular fascination with figures such as Madonna and Demi Moore and the growing interest in spirituality. In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah, leading experts introduce the history of this scholarship as well as the most recent insights and debates that currently animate the field in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. From mystical outpourings in ancient Palestine to the Kabbalah Centre, and from attitudes towards gender to mystical contributions to Jewish messianic movements, this volume explores the various expressions of Jewish mysticism from antiquity to the present day in an engaging style appropriate for students and non-specialists alike.

Sayyid Amjad Hussain Shah Naqavi's introduction and annotated scholarly translation of Ayatollah Khomeini's The Mystery of Prayer brings to light a rarely studied dimension of an author better known for his revolutionary politics. Writing forty years before the Islamic revolution, Khomeini shows a formidable level of insight into the spiritual aspects of Islamic prayer. Through discussions on topics such as spiritual purity, the presence of the heart before God, and the stations of the spiritual wayfarer, Khomeini elucidates upon the nature of reality as the countenance of the divine. Drawing upon scriptural sources and the Shi'ah intellectual and mystical tradition, the subtlety of the work has led to it being appreciated as one of Khomeini's most original works in the field of gnosis.

In Sufi Women of South Asia. Veiled Friends of God, the first biographical compendium of hundred and forty-one women, from the eleventh to the twentieth century, Tahera Aftab fills a serious gap in the existing scholarship regarding the historical presence of women in Islam and brings women to the centre of the expanding literature on Sufism. The book's translated excerpts from the original Farsi and Urdu sources that were never put together create a much-needed English-language source base on Sufism and Muslim women. The book questions the spurious religious and cultural traditions that patronise gender inequalities in Muslim societies and convincingly proves that these pious women were exemplars of Islamic piety who as true spiritual masters avoided its public display.

"Come to us you who thirst for the nature of reality. Come you who yearn for yourself. Come brothers of the breach and broken sisters. Come you who cannot find rest, and who can have no peace." -The Book of Specularis. This is the second book in a trilogy on the Sethian Gnostic tradition of today, and it contains a selection of texts from the Charaxio, the holy book of the organization Sodalitas Sanctum Seth. This collection of modern Sethian writings intends to give new perspectives to those who have stumbled upon an encounter with Metanoia, Our Lady of Unexpected Insight and Perplexity, and thus perceived the shape of the Mystery. Consider this entire book as a projective test. As in the field of psychology, such a test has no meaning in itself: It is you; with your background, opinions, cultural frame of mind and self-understanding that determine what you see, or are shown. As in the previous volume, The Key, it is important to remember that as you read this book, the book is also reading you.