Best books about mysticism according to redditors
We found 43 Reddit comments discussing the best books about mysticism. We ranked the 16 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 43 Reddit comments discussing the best books about mysticism. We ranked the 16 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
EDIT 2: u/valegrete attempted to talk some sense into me. I think he half succeeded? I hope? Whatever, here we go.
If you are Catholic and are shaken by the current stuff going on DO NOT JUMP SHIP TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH. AS AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN, I AM PUTTING THIS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT. Bishops are idiots, like the rest of us. Their mistakes, unlike ours, are writ large, and while I've had quite a few nasty things to say about the Catholic hierarchy on here as of late, that is no excuse to tell someone else to jump ship. The Roman Catholic tradition is extremely rich. Get fed, focus on what you're doing, call out your bishop for being an idiot or heretic if you have to, persevere!
If you are needing an idea of where to start, I heartily recommend the following Roman Catholic works:
The Ways of Mental Prayer. I just flat out recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn to pray, regardless of which Church you're in. It's great.
The Three Ages of the Interior Life: This book is nuts. It's amazing. Read it. Consider it essential.
If, after reading those two giants of modern Roman Catholic theology, you are still dissatisfied, well, that's a different matter. But by that point that's a conversation I'm not going to be a part of, most likely. Regardless, do not despair.
I don't like the article. I think it's insulting and ill-informed. But I left the idea that it's easy to find Truth a very long time ago, out of necessity over a variety if circumstances that are best not gotten into here. The point is, if you're shaken by this, it's a call to deeper investigate the Faith, not a boot out the door. If, after praying about it and coming to the conclusion that God is calling you to the Orthodox Church, know that I sure wouldn't stop you. But do not leave because of all that is going on in Rome. You will never become what God made you to be if bishops determine your life like this, spiritual and otherwise. The rest of what's below are my thoughts on the article. I stand by them. I will continue to stand by them. I sure as hell don't like it. But do not take it as a sign that I want you to leave the Catholic Church. That would do us all a disservice.
ORIGINAL POST
As an Orthodox, I find the article laughable. Peter being the Prince of the Apostles is universally acclaimed and has never been a real issue. The man's entire article misses what Orthodoxy is so fundamentally that it walks into actual hysterics on my end.
EDIT 1: So, a lot of people asked for me to elucidate. Here we are. I do not begrudge the man for going Roman Catholic. I do not understand his heart and I do not know what God put there. I do not pretend to know those things. But what he's written here is just execrable and is an active stumbling block to unity, which I think God not only wants but demands. The world will suffer because of Catholic and Orthodoxy idiocy, and this man is contributing to it. My post will attempt to clear up three things: the point of Orthodoxy, how this point relates to the hierarchy, and thus why the Orthodox hierarchy the way it is. I do not pretend that modern Orthodox ecclesiology doesn't have problems, nor do I think his points about ecclesial unity are wholly without basis. But I do think he missed the point so widely as to make his comments profoundly unhelpful. And that does anger me.
Now onto the actual article.
Primacy is not the same as supremacy. Rome is prime. Yup. I said it. All you uberdox get over it. Rome has the right of final appeal, as the First Ecumenical Council teaches. But Rome's primacy does not mean the supremacy of Vatican I. He cannot shove things down everyone's throat, which is entirely what Vatican I was. No Father that was not a Pope taught the supremacy of Rome. It doesn't exist. Hell, you can't even get St. Jerome to agree to the idea that a bishop and a priest are actually different sacramentally, nevermind whether or not another bishop can be over another! The writer of the article misses how toxic that council was, and that nobody with a conscience would agree with how it was implemented (which included the Pope calling the Melkite Patriarch to sign the document and calling him troublesome for refusing to do so!) Rome can hold a primacy without Vatican I. And, honestly, with more than five minutes of looking at that miserable council, I can't in good conscience agree to it.
The difference of focus in Orthodoxy means that clarity (or the lack thereof) is not an issue. You are there to heal. That is it. You are being drawn into the apophatic Trinity and the idea that there is clarity here in this life is something wholly alien to it. The circumstances for healing shift so greatly between people that saying "there is a universal rule" is something Orthodox are quite loathe to answer quickly (read: a few hundred years). How you heal is going to be different to another person's. It's just the way that it operates, and the writer misses that, egregiously so. By valuing clarity over healing I think a lot of harm is done. I also, personally, find it to be an immature wish for a world that frankly does not exist.
The unity of the Orthodox is far greater than anything I've seen in the Catholic Church. There is no confusion about theosis, or liturgy. It does not exist in the endemic state that has always existed in the Catholic Church. And this is without someone trying to rule the roost. We agree because are there for healing, and certain principles heal everyone, with the rest of it necessarily needing to not be so clear.
If you have any other questions I will update this post, as much as I can.
I personally don't think any sort of cognitive approach can get you closer to awakening other than learning about better ways to meditate. They're just two totally different ways of perceiving the world. That said, though, you should definitely check out Fritjof Capra's Tao of Physics. It's about how science and eastern mysticism (mostly Buddhism) are converging on the same truths. Excellent read.
Yeah, pretty sure Finnegans Wake would be what you're looking for but since I've never gotten past the first few pages I'm gonna have to go with Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson by G. I. Gurdjieff. I read it many years ago but I remember finishing it - god knows why I bothered - in disgust and almost physical pain. Utterly batshit insane, deliberately and tortuously long and impenetrable and probably badly translated to boot.
Exactly, times 1,000. This should be the basis for such a website. Pointing out to people they are the fringe, even in their own churches.
To expand more on your greater points there I want to point you to the following, excellent book;
http://www.amazon.com/Search-Meaning-Life-Reflections-Experience/dp/089243774X
Written by a monk who basically says: "So what if Jesus is made up, let's just like the story and learn from it". Granted he does assert at points the story is likely true, because of his life-calling and all, but cites so much from differing religions to show it's about universal truths about humans - not about god. The reviews say it's about mysticism, and that's mostly true in a way, but it's got a greater reckoning of differing religious beliefs than I've seen elsewhere. I guess the point is that it's normal for humans to want religion (cue the responses... now!) but that the religion isn't important, the introspection is.
Dogma and theology kill the spiritual mind was what I took away from it. Religion is suffocating the religious by being so dogmatic and cites so many people who left their churches because they felt something, but what they were being taught wasn't what they were feeling.
Disclaimer, I'm not religious, but I think it's good to be well versed in these things
According to two of the Amazon reviews, that Mead version is allegedly missing the Asclepius/the last 4 sections of the corpus making it an incomplete compilation of the Hermeticum. I recommend avoiding this version if it is thoroughness that you seek.
 
Perhaps this Mead version represents a more complete rendition, though of this for certain I cannot say.
Owner disabled an app and made it look nice again.
I need to read this Girard guy. Is this what you're referring to?
>^(~)^(Chaos)^(.)
Entropy: Jeremy Rifkin
The Tao of Physics: Fritjof Capra
These two help with a bit of a framework to ford the physicl/metaphysical gulf.
Found it, but a link would have been awfully convenient.
http://www.amazon.com/Create-Your-Own-Religion-Instructions/dp/1938875028/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1367700028&sr=8-1
Looks interesting.
Primordial Traditions Compendium 2009
Here is a complete list of contents -- not all of these articles have been published in Primordial Traditions; some were originally published in larger publications -- the first article mentioned here is the core premise of this group, and that it should be the primary point of reference for all members, as it explains the entire function of this group.
http://www.primordialtraditions.com/
Have heard of it from this self help book that a shop I used to work in sold:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anam-Cara-Spiritual-Wisdom-Celtic/dp/1848270488/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261097218&sr=8-12
Heisenberg, Shrödinger, Einstein, de Brogli, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington all wrote about their thoughts on how science relates to religion and mysticism. ^source
That's weird - many of the greatest physicists somehow managed to somehow think about religion. Its almost like Dawkins is presenting an over-simplified perspective and some people are blindly following it without thinking about it.
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Questions-Mystical-Writings-Physicists/dp/1570627681/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346332354&sr=8-1&keywords=physicists+mysticism
>. Schrodinger didn’t think that a cat could be both alive and dead, he thought that the copanhagen interpretation was flawed.
Erwin Schroedinger was a mystic, who had a copy of The Upanishads in his bedside table, believed Atman is Brahman and wrote extensively on related subjects. He indeed thought the CI was flawed, but most people who point this out apparently have no idea what else he believed.
>The universe doesn’t give a fuck about your decisions
Schroedinger would not have agreed with you.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Quantum-Questions-Mystical-Writings-Physicists/dp/1570627681
I find it interesting that Islam still places such emphasis on the actual audible sounds of the holy books, simply because it was actually a feature of many religious traditions even before Islam. Tantric Buddhism spends a lot of time discussing the power of the syllables themselves and how their recitation has a certain power that can help guide the practitioner. Lama Anagarika Govinda's Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism explores some of this and even makes the connections between Buddhism, Islam, and Gnostic Christianity on this level.
Yeah, well, this is exactly the point where apophatic theology reaches the its culmination point. When saying "God is not a being", or "God is being itself", or "God is outside being" you could change being with language or concept: "God is not a word or a concept", "God is Nous", "God is beyond, God is beyond speech", etc. This is, of course, problematic. If you say "you cannot speak of God", you still refer to God with the word "God" and are effectively speaking about God. This is an interesting theological question. I've read quite a few books about it. One of the most interesting ones was Mystical Languages of Unsaying by Michael A. Sells. (For example, see page 2-3 for this same topic; at least my LookInside shows them!)
My own personal view on this is that a claim that "You cannot speak about God" or "God is outside reality" is not a claim on the superessential = outside-the-existence-being God, but a claim on the borders of language or reality. Saying this shorter: there is a border of reality and language and we can talk about and point to that border and use the term of otherness or beyond-the-border, but this is not a proper concept that would "reach" or "contain" that thing-which-is-not-a-thing-but-outside-thinginess, but simply saying that there is a border of our language.
Of course, classical philosophy (Neoplatonism, to be more exact) and Christian theology in quite a similar fashion claim that this thing-which-is-not-a-thing-but-outside-thinginess (this long phrase is usually simplified with the term super-thing) is the cause of world. Christians go further, still, and name this Cause to be God, and that this God has become man, and that this God is triune, etc.
These, of course, are things that according to this metaphysical ontology cannot be proven, as they are beyond the scope of language, logic and concepts.
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A few months ago I got interested in this topic as well, largely due to reading Ben Morgan's On Becoming God, which talked about identity as something that we do in communities. To do this, Morgan first 'clears the ground' of contemporary thoughts about identity, which are generally isolated objects, and goes back to medieval Europe, and in Meister Eckhart finds a way of doing identity that is more communal. It's a wonderful entry into the subject, as well as a great introduction to religious mysticism as well.
Another book that's arriving in the mail tomorrow is Self, Value and Narrative, which I obviously haven't read yet, but it apparently is going to pick of the lens of Kierkegaard as a means of understanding identity. I'm super excited to read it.
/u/quintessentialaf have you by chance read this? It reminded me of your podcast name. It's interesting for someone who may have just started to question religion.
I strongly recommend The Laughing Jesus by Timothy Freke. Sunday school left a lot out.
https://www.amazon.com/Discourses-Meher-Baba/dp/1880619091
It is one of the most truly mind blowing books I have ever read, I'll say that. There are small sections that are a bit disagreeable, but most of it is incredibly rich.
I felt the same way after I first rediscovered my Catholic faith. I read a lot by the Carmelite mystics, and I even thought about the Carthusians. As I continued to discern my vocation, I eventually saw my attraction to those orders as God growing my interior life rather than a vocation (I'm now happily married with my first child on the way!). Before diving right into St. John of the Cross or St. Theresa of Avila, I recommend reading Fr. Thomas Dubay.
Or better yet, if you have some theology or philosophy background already, read Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange or Fr. Adolph Tanqueray.
Carthusians: http://transfiguration.chartreux.org/
Benedictines in Norcia: https://en.nursia.org/
More Benedictines (I think): https://clearcreekmonks.org/
Fire Within by Thomas Dubay https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Within-Teresa-Gospel-Prayer/dp/0898702631/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486491394&sr=8-1&keywords=thomas+dubay+fire+within
Three Ages of the Interior Life by Fr. Garrigou Lagrange https://www.amazon.com/Three-Ages-Interior-Life/dp/1492390976/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1486491194&sr=8-3&keywords=garrigou+lagrange
The Spiritual Life by Adolphe Tanquerey https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Life-Adolphe-Tanquerey/dp/0895556596
Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Night-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486426939/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486491335&sr=8-1&keywords=dark+night+of+the+soul
The Way of Perfection by St. Theresa of Avila https://www.amazon.com/Way-Perfection-Image-Classics/dp/0385065396
I can actually. Here is a book full of all of the things the fathers of quantum mechanics or einstein said about religion. What he said is that it shows is a kind of universal order that is interconnected in the way we think of the inside of people as interconnected, and so you can consider this order like the soul of the world in the way people have one. And that plato seems to have won out over democritus, since the things within reality function more like abstractions, and since they have to make sense in terms of the system it makes sense to think of things in reality like the thoughts of god.
He was himself somewhat religious, but he admitted that what he means by god in this context isn't something that there's much reason to definitively see as the god "of religion." Just something that implies order within the universe in general.
Quantum Questions is also a great book. It shows that all physicists involved in the discovery of quantum physics and relativity, including Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Planck among others, were all deeply mystic and had a lot of doubts about life and consciousness.
Yup, QM is supernatural. You shouldn't be surprised, given the mystical writings of its founders. What an age to be alive! 😮
https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Questions-Mystical-Writings-Physicists/dp/1570627681
By veridical I mean verified.