N.B. I revised this review on 13 January 2024, trimming a few words here and there, but leaving it basically unchanged. Although many people I know and esteem intensely disliked this […]

This interesting hardcover book won’t tell you what the Lord looked like, but it will tell you five things about his appearance: (1) what he most probably wore; (2) what […]

There is a little-known, but very interesting book called John Who Saw by the English lawyer Adrian Howell North Green-Armytage (who must be deceased by now). It is admittedly a layman’s […]

Chapter VII of Newman’s Rise and Progress of Universities is titled “Athenian Schools: Influence.” This entire post is devoted to it, because Newman makes the invaluable point that we need virtue […]

In 2001, Gracewing and Notre Dame jointly published Rise and Progress of Universities and Benedictine Essays, being vol. III in the Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition of the Works of Cardinal John Henry […]

Bennett’s next topic was “Procreation and Parenthood”. His view of human conception is mystical and sublime: it is a cosmic process, which provides an opening for the creative force which […]

I wonder if the title of Bennett’s fourth chapter, “Negative Sex” may not have been influenced by Ouspensky’s idea of infra-sex (see chapter XII in A New Model of the […]

Bennett’s Introduction Bennett’s two page introduction to his book, Sex: the Relationship between Sex and Spiritual Development, sets the parameters of his discussion and introduces many of the key concepts. […]

For anyone with an interest in Gurdjieff’s ideas, this volume is not just useful but valuable. For those attempting to put his ideas and methods into practice, it is indispensable, […]

I recently came across a reference to Robin Amis’ book A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought, published in 1995 by the State University of New York Press. […]