Supernatural
Writings on an Unknown History
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
This gem-like, concise anthology provides thoughtful people with both an introduction to the paranormal and a reason to take a fresh look at it.
Nostradamus...channeling...Atlantis...divination. Most serious people consider such topics nonsense. But look again. Writing with intellectual verve and a deeply critical mind, religious thinker Richard Smoley explores and reconsiders the supernatural in history and today.
We are often conditioned to think of the Judeo-Christian tradition as the only valid, historically accurate, and rational spiritual philosophy. Occultism, magic, and the esoteric are, by contrast, considered illegitimate, delusional, and lacking in intrinsic worth. Supernatural challenges this prejudice, revealing that Western occult traditions are richer and more historically impactful than most of us imagine. The book reveals hidden diamonds and neglected ideas that characterize the magical tradition in the West.
For any reader, at any level of experience, who has ever been curious about an arcane subject – from psychical powers to secret societies – here is a book that gives a complete yet precise, critical, yet serious, and always respectful account of topics from the unseen world. Supernatural is a brilliant primer to the occult and magical traditions of the West.
Praise for RICHARD SMOLEY
“I have a standing rule: I read anything Richard Smoley writes.” —Larry Dossey, M.D.
“Smoley . . . is adept at unknotting the paradoxes of spiritual traditions and making new connections across centuries and languages.” —Library Journal
“He is one of the liveliest, most intrepid, and most gifted explorers of the spiritual landscape writing today.”
—Ptolemy Tompkins, author of Paradise Fever
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The religious world is, and has always been, populated by both traditional practitioners and those who seek outside the halls of respectability for insights and wisdom that come only from a sincere search for what has been called "ancient wisdom." Smoley, an editor for Quest Books and for Quest: Journal of the American Theosophical Society, has compiled a fascinating series of brief glimpses into the lives of some of the major players and their ideas and beliefs. Some are recognizable: Nostradamus and the Masons, for instance. But others will be less familiar. Taken as a whole, this short work offers the reader an easy to understand introduction to traditions and ideas that have informed the world for centuries. From the ancient Hellenistic thinkers to the modern phenomenon known as "A Course in Miracles," as Smoley shows, religious adventurers have been discovering their own paths to the Infinite.