Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Climbing Jacob's Ladder
Author: Alan Morinis
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2007-05-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0834826054

“A compelling portrait of the relationship between a student and a teacher,” this spiritual memoir “raises important questions about the meaning of Judaism and the search for spirituality in this world” (Los Angeles Times) Jewish by birth, though from a secular family, Alan Morinis explored Hinduism and Buddhism as a young man. But in 1997, in the face of personal crisis, he turned to his Jewish heritage for guidance. In his reading he happened upon a Jewish spiritual tradition called Mussar. Gradually he realized that he had stumbled upon an insightful discipline for self-development, complete with meditative, contemplative, and other well-developed transformative practices designed to penetrate the deepest roots of the inner life. Eventually reaching the limits of what he could learn on his own, he decided to seek out a Mussar teacher. This was not an easy task, since almost the entire world of the Mussar tradition had been wiped out in the Holocaust. In time, he found an accomplished master who stood in an unbroken line of transmission of the Mussar tradition, and who lived in the center of a community of Orthodox Jews on Long Island. This book tells the story of Morinis’s journey to meet his teacher and what he learned from him, revealing the central teachings and practices that are the spiritual treasury and legacy of Mussar.

The Temple of High Witchcraft

The Temple of High Witchcraft
Author: Christopher Penczak
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2007
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0738711659

Penczak invites witches to continue their spiritual evolution by exploring the ceremonial arts. Learn how these two traditions intersect in history and modern magickal practice.

The Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual

The Alchemical Keys to Masonic Ritual
Author: Timothy Hogan
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1435704401

This is the first book which establishes a direct link between the rituals of Freemasonry and the practice of both chemical and spiritual alchemy. Albert Pike understood that the symbolic degrees of Freemasonry contained alchemical secrets, but he never put the whole pattern together and showed how. This book shows these connections for the first time. This book is a must for any Freemason who wants to understand the secret meanings behind the Symbolic "Blue Lodge" ritual. Tim Hogan is a PM, 32*KCCH, KT, FRC, PSM-AMD, and Knight RC of the Royal Order of Scotland. He lectures extensively both inside and outside of the United States on Freemasonry.

The Way of Kabbalah

The Way of Kabbalah
Author: Warren Kenton
Publisher: Weiser Books
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1976-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780877283058

This work proposes that the biblical accounts of slavery in Egypt and the Promised Land are allegories of the basic human condition and struggles of inner growth. The individual's search for a spiritual teacher follows, introducing the theory and practice of Kabbalistic knowledge.

Who Is God?

Who Is God?
Author: Richard Bauckham
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-07-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781540961907

Internationally respected scholar Richard Bauckham offers a brief, engaging study of divine revelation in Scripture. He probes the deep meaning of well-known moments in the biblical story in order to address the key question the Bible is designed to answer: Who is God? Accessible for laypeople and important to scholars, this volume begins by exploring three key events in the Bible in which God is revealed: Jacob's dream at Bethel (the revelation of the divine presence), Moses at the burning bush (the revelation of the divine Name), and Moses on Mount Sinai (the revelation of the divine character). In each case, Bauckham traces these themes through the rest of Scripture. He then shows how the New Testament builds on the Old by exploring three revelatory events in Mark's Gospel, events that reveal the Trinity: Jesus's baptism, transfiguration, and crucifixion. This book is based on the Frumentius Lectures for 2015 at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa and on the Hayward Lectures for 2018 at Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia.

Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge

Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge
Author: Maryanne Cline Horowitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1997-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400843774

In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking study, Maryanne Cline Horowitz explores the image and idea of the human mind as a garden: under the proper educational cultivation, the mind may nourish seeds of virtue and knowledge into the full flowering of human wisdom. This copiously illustrated investigation begins by examining the intellectual world of the Stoics, who originated the phrases "seeds of virtue" and "seeds of knowledge." Tracing the interrelated history of the Stoic cluster of epistemological images for natural law within humanity--reason, common notions, sparks, and seeds--Horowitz presents the distinctive versions within the competing movements of Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity, Augustinian and Thomist theologies, Christian mysticism and Kabbalah, and Erasmian Catholicism and the Lutheran Reformation. She demonstrates how the Ciceronian and Senecan analogies between horticulture and culture--basic to Italian Renaissance humanists, artists, and neo- Platonists--influence the emergence of emblems and essays among participants in the Northern Renaissance neo-Stoic movement. The Stoic metaphor is still visible today in ecumenical movements that use vegetative language to encourage the growth of shared values and to promote civic virtues: organizations disseminate information on nipping bad habits in the bud and on turning a new leaf. The author's evidence of illustrated pages from medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment texts will stimulate contemporary readers to evaluate her discovery of "the premodern scientific paradigm that the mind develops like a plant."

Liberation Theology Along the Potomac

Liberation Theology Along the Potomac
Author: Edward F. Terrar
Publisher: CWPublisher
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780976416845

Explores the particular beliefs of Maryland's Catholic laborers, who were at odds with the traditional English Catholic gentry, in opposition to their crown, parliament, clergy and papacy, and sympathetic to the Protestant Antinomians seeking to challenge the established order of Maryland's church and state. The economic, intellectual, legal and social history of the Maryland Catholics during the English Civil War is compared to related developments in Europe, Latin America, and Africa.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent

The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Author: Saint John (Climacus)
Publisher: Paulist Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1982
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780809123308

John Climacus (c. 579-649) was abbot of the monastery of Catherine on Mount Sinai. His Ladder was the most widely used handbook of the ascetical life in the ancient Greek Church.