Best of
Esoterica

1980

Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism


Valentin Tomberg - 1980
    Written anonymously and published posthumously, as was the author's wish, the intention of this work is for the reader to find a relationship with the author in the spiritual dimensions of existence. The author wanted not to be thought of as a personality who lived from 1900 to 1973, but as a friend who is communicating with us from beyond the boundaries of ordinary life.

Annotations to Finnegans Wake


Roland McHugh - 1980
    Each page of the Annotations corresponds directly with a page of the standard Viking/Penguin edition of Finnegans Wake and contains line-by-line notes following the placement of the passages to which they refer. The reader can thus look directly from text to notes and back again, with no need to consult separate glossaries or other listings.McHugh's richly detailed notes distill decades of scholarship, explicating foreign words, unusual English connotations and colloquial expressions, place names, historical events, song titles and quotations, parodies of other texts, and Joyce's diverse literary and popular sources. The third edition has added material reflecting fifteen years of research, including significant new insights from Joyce's compositional notebooks (the "Buffalo Notebooks"), now being edited for the first time.

The Light of Egypt: Volume Two, the Science of the Soul and the Stars


Thomas H. Burgoyne - 1980
    In 'The Light of Egypt', vol.2, Burgoyne reveals how to attain the spiritual wisdom described in vol.1., with special reference to astrology.

Temple and Contemplation


Henry Corbin - 1980
    Henry Corbin himself outlined the plan for this book, whose title implies a common centre for these diverse studies. The two essays that open this collection might appear out of place in the perspective of the Temple; yet Corbin included them precisely to point out that Shiite hermeneutics necessarily leads to a theosophy of the Temple -just as the Temple itself has no meaning, if we have not the method and ontology to lead us there. From a consideration of the philosophy of colours in Islam, followed by a study of the metaphysical and mystical foundation of the science of correspondences, "The Science of the Balance", the author proceeds to reflect on the role of the heavenly Temple, or the archetype of the Temple, in the spiritual traditions of the Religions of the Book. No other work of Corbin brings out more clearly the hermeneutic correspondences among spiritual visions belonging to these religions. Thus we understand why Corbin wished to link the themes of "Temple" and "Contemplation": the theory of visionary perception allows for the emergence of the Temple, but the processes of visionary knowing are themselves based on the eternal presence of the Imago Templi.

Mackeys Jurisprudence of Freemasonry


Albert G. MacKey - 1980
    Especially important for its treatment of landmarks and Ancient Constitutions. Covers the Law for Lodges, for Candidates, for Individuals and for Grand Lodges.