Christianity Before The Sands
By Max Gorman
It is often said these days that we live in a ‘post-Christian culture’ - whatever that means. But if you told the
average man in the street that he was not a Christian, the chances are that he would not be particularly pleased. I
have tried this myself with a native of these islands who I knew for a fact had never opened a bible, nor set foot
inside a church - and only narrowly escaped physical violence!
On the other hand if I had actually called this man (and there are many like him) a Christian, I am fairly sure he
would not have been happy with this either. So what is going on? Almost everyone you ask, however, no matter how little
they know about Jesus, will tend to say he was an exceptional, a great, man, whose influence upon humanity has been a
good one, that the world is ‘better’ for his having been here.
April 22 2007 in Articles | Read More | Comments [0]
The Islamic Space
A few days ago I felt an urge to read a book that I have not read for about 20 years. This was a bit odd because I have thousands of books and I didn’t really ever like this book so I hadn’t thought so much about it - although at the time I read it I was very into ‘ecstatic’ aspects of Sufism and felt in the over-imaginative way that one sometimes can that it had engendered some sort of ‘mystical experience’.
Anyway, this book, The Islamic Space
August 26 2005 in Reviews | Read More | Comments [2]
More Dome Stuff
I was looking around for some photos of the Dome of the Rock decorations and also some other palm-tree info and I found some interesting (to me) stuff. Firstly there is a great article by William Dalrymple (again) entitled A Christmas Palm Tree.
August 24 2005 in Articles | Read More | Comments [2]
Gnostic Elements in the Dome of the Rock
I’ve been reading a lot of Gnostic stuff recently and also many of the Gnostic blogs that are springing up in the Palm Tree Garden - as regular readers will know, my main focus is on interfaces with Islam and Christianity (in terms to the esoteric aspects of each rather than the orthodox) and I’ve been thinking a bit about the Palm Tree symbolism and Gnosticism in an Islamo-Christian context - specifically in relation to the building known as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
August 23 2005 in Articles | Read More | Comments [4]
The Magus
It is a strange characteristic of mystical matters that very often the things which are the most obviously ‘esoteric’ are often the furthest from it (many things with the label ‘Sufi’ attached included - from traditional orders to non-traditional newsgroups for example) and conversely, many things which have no apparent connection with Sufis or developmental work are in fact of this nature.
I have known of this contention for a long time since reading it first in the works of Idries Shah but it was still difficult for me to accept. After pondering a while, I concluded that perhaps this was the case in order that one might develop the capacity to ‘see beyond appearances’ and indeed, this is one of the functions of Sufi teaching stories. Later, I spoke about this to a friend of mine Aubrey Wolton who also knew Shah and he told me that Sufis do not use that name any more and that the teaching must be found ‘elsewhere’.
Where this ‘elsewhere’ actually is, it is not my intention to discuss but, by definition, it is not where one would expect to find it and (if one is not to be a literalist) may even be something other than what one expects if and when one does. Perhaps it is even an ‘attitude’ one may develop that enables one to extract the Sufi content from anything and everything in life. Be that as it may, there are numerous things in life which I believe have developmental content minus any form of overt mystical or Sufi projection - the book Life of Pi is one of them and so is another book I thought it might be interesting to look at, John Fowles’s The Magus
As Fowles’s book is much older than Pi and perhaps less read now, I thought it would be good to give a rough outline of the work rather than a review. I am totally useless at this sort of thing so have delegated this task to my good friend Mr X - to whom gratitude of sorts is due for forwarding me the subject matter below - this also has the added benefit of being manifestly nothing to do with me!
August 13 2005 in Reviews | Read More | Comments [0]
Life of Pi
A while back, some guy on AppleInsider (there’s really nowhere better if you’re looking for a good old-fashioned bar-room brawl) recommended in a thread there that had (de)evolved into the usual religious rant/bashfest that people read Yann Martell’s Life of Pi
I didn’t take it too seriously at first because I have been a bit disillusioned with modern fiction for some time but recently I was in a bookshop here in Barcelona and I saw it so I picked it up for the beach. All I can say is Wow! A life changing book (for me) and so I feel duty bound to credit Midwinter and AI as the source of my revelation.
I don’t really intend to post a review here (there’s plenty at the Amazon link above) but rather explore what I see as the esoteric themes of Martell’s book. I will focus on the Islamic/Sufi/Fortean aspects as this is what I am most familiar with but I’m sure those knowledgeable about Hinduism and Buddhism could find equally interesting parallels.
August 08 2005 in Reviews | Read More | Comments [10]
Beelzebub’s Tales
I’ve decided to do some book reviews as a lame attempt to fill up post-space while waiting during the Muse’s increasingly prolonged absences and, of course, to feebly try to drum up some Amazon affiliate action so I can start making inroads into my languishing Wish List.
With that in mind I thought I’d start with a suitably obscure ‘review’ of Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson
July 29 2005 in Reviews | Read More | Comments [2]
Categories
Archives
Recent Entries
- Christianity Before The Sands
- The Islamic Space
- More Dome Stuff
- Gnostic Elements in the Dome of the Rock
- The Magus
Meta
