BACKGROUND
Key Works from 1900 to the Sixties
My preferred selection for entry 27. Native American lore and ritual with the strong emphasis on shamansim played a huge role in this period. I find Lame Deer more authentic than Black Elk. Richard Erdoes lived in Santa Fe and we crossed paths from time to time.
Paths of Authenticity
When the modern spiritual movement emerged in the Sixties in the United States, it already had considerable momentum driving it. The background of the moment that came to be defined globally in the “New Age” was practically unknown to the multitudes who flocked to the trend, however. Counter-culture in the Sixties was spiritual largely in style (bells and incense, remember?), while the true spirit of the times coalesced in two rather more down-to-earth socio-political motives: to resist authority and reject conformity. How well I remember a black-and-white poster of Bob Dylan scowling with his lean mongrel charm, under the notice, “Resist the Rising Tide of Conformity.” This circa 1965. Having miraculously survived into the first year of the 21st Century, I often wonder if anyone uses the word “conformity” any more. (Sheep do not think of themselves as being woolly, do they?) And I wonder even more who would understand the word “non-conformity” if the rare occasion arose to apply it to anything.
For the most part, personal commitment to the Sixties’ revolt was short-lived and shallow. Very few people I knew were able to sustain the fervent revolutionary pitch of that astounding era, yet its echo persists in the collective mentality, a stray signal but an unmistakable one. I am convinced that the young revolt against their elders in every generation. What made the Sixties such a resounding episode of the perennial pattern was the rise of global media. By a unique convergence, the generational revolt of one particular group of long-haired adolescents assumed the dimensions of a global statement.
The Fate of Metaphysics
The term “metaphysics” used to serve for an umbrella concept covering all sorts of marginal, esoteric and mystical interests. I recall buying some of the first books of my collection at the Metaphysical Town Hall off Union Square in San Francisco. The sticker in my battered copy of The Serpent Power gives the address, 345 Mason Street, and notes, “Formerly 30 Yrs. On Powell St.” The equivalent in Los Angeles until 1980 was Gilbert’s Metaphysical Bookstore, improbably located near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Both places were establishments of long standing. Some of their regular clientele would have been born before 1900. These establishments no longer exist, and nothing like them exists, either. They represent the forgotten background of the modern spiritual movement. Metaphysics links the Sixties back to the occult revival (E25) at the close of the 19th Century. When the New Age took off, metaphysics dropped away like the booster rockets off the space shuttle. By the time this celestial vehicle reached the limit of our solar system, Shirley MacLaine was at the helm.
Today the words metaphysics and metaphysical have a quaint ring. One can only wonder, Is there an equivalent to metaphysics in the 21st Century? Or to phrase it otherwise, How will the wisdom of the ages be absorbed by a world running on Pepsi, Sony and Microsoft? (In the summer of 1989, an editor for Harper Collins in San Francisco told me that The Seeker’s Handbook was like The Perennial Philosophy (L34), written for the Pepsi Generation.) The answer depends on the need for people currently drawn into the spiritual quest to understand its background. It also depends enormously on the works available, both in printed form and electronic form, to orient the 21st century journey through the labyrinth. Pathfinding is the challenge of our time, because the massive legacy of spiritual teachings of all former ages and cultures is now at our fingertips. Yet whatever may be available, the writings of the formative period 1900-1960 will always stand apart. They mark the trajectory of the modern spiritual movement, and they set the tone and direction of the movement, whatever its future unfoldment may be. These books are offerings of true spiritual pioneers, writings of primary definition and enduring influence. A single one of them can contain as much substance as dozens, or even hundreds, of more recent books. Metaphysical writing of more recent authorship (especially since 1985) exhibits an awful lot of rehashing, redundancy and sheer imitation. What has already been said once and said well is not easily surpassed.
Authenticity at Stake
The key works in the background, located chronologically between 1900 and 1960, still reach us with remarkable clarity and power. They resonate with the tone of conviction unique to the pioneers of modern alternative spirituality, who in their time entertained no such pretence. What they anticipated now reveals itself in countless trends and digressions. These works exemplify the driving and shaping influences behind the present-day quest for spiritual awakening, and link us back to the originating agents who gave it definition even before it assumed name and form in the popular mind.
Authenticity matters as much in experiments of occult-spiritual-metaphysical searching as it does anywhere else — in science, business, sports, or the arts. Certainly, this is an understatement, because who can imagine an area of human endeavor where authenticity matters more than it does in “spirituality!” Yet authenticity in this area is not easy to establish. After all, how can the guidelines be set and who is there to set them? What, if any, are the criteria for authenticity in spiritual teachings and practices? How do we tell the real from the phony, the solid from the specious, in the realms of mysticism, magic, channeling, reincarnation, et cetera? Just because what we call spirituality encompasses the widest spectrum of human possibilities, it stands wide open to the permissive, undiscriminating attitude that anything goes. And it seems as if almost anything does go. In modern spiritual studies and practices, there do not yet exist any reliable criteria for distinguishing what is authentic from what is phony or delusory; although we are, given the hindsight of some twenty or more years in the movement, beginning to allow that fraudulence, brainwashing, and downright exploitation can be perpetrated with outrageous audacity in some areas of what passes for “spirituality.”
A Generous View
The New Age, if it means nothing else, is a time of exceptional speculation concerning the possibility of certain individuals initiating an enormous experiment in personal and cultural transformation. For centuries going back through history to the earliest roots of human culture, there is evidence of systematic spiritual training (i.e. initiatory disciplines). This training was perpetuated in the Mystery Schools of all high civilizations as well as in indigenous cultures recognized not to have achieved a high level of urban social organization. In Asia and the European West, initiation into the Mysteries qualified an individual to teach others, and the same remains true in “primitive” and native cultures today, such as the Australian Aborigines and the American Indians. To initiates fell the responsibility for directing and inspiring the culture of the populace at large. They safeguarded moral criteria and preserved the arts of survival. Nothing like this exists today and the challenge ahead is perhaps not to reconstruct the Mysteries but internalize them. In the New Age, following the example of Parzival, we face a massive transition toward self-initiation. For this there are no precedents, no reliable rules or fixed guidelines set down in stone.
Considering the sea-change taking place in modern spiritual life, I would say with some caution that alternative pathfinding can lead to internalization of the Mysteries. To assume a generous view, I would endorse the spiritual quest but not each and every formulation of it. In many respects, modern humanity is still quite naive spiritually, quite innocent as well as indiscriminate. The eventual expansion of the New Age movement into a socio-cultural revolution has been proposed by some of its advocates. (This prospect is discussed ahead in a number of places, including the review of book L48, Essay 2 and the Afterword.) Whether or not this is feasible depends on grounding the revolution in individual efforts that are authentic and soundly inspired. But to meet individual needs for spiritual development, we need to understand what those needs are in the framework of independent pathfinding.
There is no better way to identify and evaluate our needs for spiritual growth and self-direction than by reference to the key works that have given definition to the current era, this New Age of free-form, progressive self-initiation. These works are touchstones to authenticity. A good many of the principles of clear seeking presented throughout the Handbook, although they derive from my own experiences, have been clarified and corroborated by the directive wisdom found in these books.
Criteria and Design
The selections for Background are highly varied in theme and content, yet they all share a common feature: each is the first of its kind, and not a single one of them has been superseded by anything written to this day. This is the main criterion for selection in this category.
Chronologically, the books are listed as they appeared in print, or as the first English translation appeared. Women authors are now showing up, at last, although they are not fairly represented. Again, I am sure there are some books by women of the 20th century that belong in this list but I have to date failed to locate them.
Certainly there were crucial contributions from women in the area of Meta-history, well before the outbreak of the Script Wars (as I like to call them) in the wake of Sixties’ Feminism. Someday I may be able to write an article to supplement this section of the book, listing the formative works of women in diverse areas of the modern spiritual movement and assessing the significance of their contribution.
The Essential Spiritual Library: Background, Books 23 – 38
23. Cosmic Consciousness (1899) by Maurice Bucke. In this pioneering work on the evolution of human consciousness, Bucke proposes a typically Western model of advance or spiritual progress. He indicates three great shifts of mental capacity in homo sapiens, advancing from mere sense awareness to self-consciousness and then to super-consciousness. His theory is supported by thirty-six case histories of mystics, writers, artists, and ordinary folk who have experienced the life-changing moment of spontaneous cosmic consciousness. Bucke is familiar with some sources of Asian wisdom, including a sliver of Buddhism, James Legge’s gruesome translation of the Tao Te Ching, and some of the Upanishads, but his thesis is slanted largely toward Eurocentric culture with a strong Christian coloring. Like almost everyone else in his epoch, he is also biased by the Darwinian virus. In spite of its few glaring flaws, Bucke’s masterwork is worth reading today. The case histories surpass his theoretical framework for them. One of the great testaments to the wonders of independent seeking.
24. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) by William James, who met Bucke and called his book “an addition to psychology of first-rate importance.” The first American psychologist who interprets conversion, near-death experiences, sainthood, madness, mysticism, and altered states. Varieties covers the gamut of spiritual adventures in a clearheaded way that has yet to be surpassed for its sheer readability. This is a masterful study in the psychology of religion that offers basic orientation to many of those strange experiences people are having, nowadays, in the holy aisles of the spiritual supermarket.
25. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by M. D. Herter Norton or Stephen Mitchell). This slim, eloquent work is short enough to read in a couple of hours but so fabulously compressed in life-wisdom and long-range insight that it calls for years of rereading. The German lyric poet gives incomparable advice on “living the questions” which strew the pathways of the spiritual maze, and he encourages our fidelity to the incidental current of life, although warning that we cannot let the engaging pattern of the outer world preclude the intensity of what arises within us. Nurture your secret resources, Rilke advises, and life will ultimately respond. It is a long shot which the poet himself lived to the max, not without moments of cruel desperation. Letters is a charmed book, indispensable especially for those who believe that spirituality involves commitment to a creative calling.
26. The Prophet (1923) by Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese poet and mystic in the Sufi guise. Another book to be read in an afternoon and savoured for years. Here is a beautiful, universally stated collection of inspiring aphorisms and deep reflections on all aspects of human experience — love, suffering, childbearing, commerce, wrongdoing, the necessity of patience. Gibran’s distillation of life-wisdom is deceptively simplistic. His phrases read like banal, even superficial formulas, but they are surprisingly resistant to analysis and they can ripple the surface of the mind long after they have disappeared into its depths.
27. Black Elk Speaks (1932), written with John G. Neihardt. This “book of visions” inspired and partially dictated by Black Elk, a medicine man of the Oglala Sioux, is perhaps the most universal expression of the human quest to come out of the American Indian tradition, as attested by its translation into a dozen foreign languages. It anticipated the present revival of shamanism by a good fifty years, and it has contributed significantly to the recovery of indigenous wisdom, the future-oriented sacred calling noted in the preface to this category of the Essential Library. Black Elk’s vision throbs with pathos and splendor. It inspires awe, humility and wonder, three primary marks of the native mind.
Having said that, I would add that I personally prefer another book of a similar nature, Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions, published by John (Fire) Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes in 1972. Chronologically, the Black Elk/Neihardt classic belongs on the Background, and since the Lame Dear/Erdoes book is from the identical genre, I did not include it in the following category, Breakthrough, where it belongs chronologically. It would be remiss not to include Lame Deer here, but I cannot exclude Lame Deer from the Breakthrough without making note of the omission. The two native sages are quite different characters, Lame Deer being the scoundrel and trickster, stealer of pick-up trucks, dreamer of thunder. Seeker of Visions is steeped in a wild mystique of maverick spirituality, contrasted to the traditionalist sobriety of Black Elk. It is delightful for its irreverence, the guise of a deeper, inexpressible reverence. Black Elk reveals the lofty cloud-born vision that unites all nations, and we are lifted into what we behold, but Lame Deer gives us a glimpse of White Buffalo Woman as if he were turning back the flap of his tepee. Seeker of Visions thrusts a luminous arrow into the dark heart of our spiritual abandonment. A mighty healing arrow.
28. Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1932) by Alexandra David-Neel. Thrilling firsthand account of the Frenchwoman, the first European known to have entered the forbidden city of Lhasa (in 1923). She describes an unspoiled paradise of magical and mystical wonders encountered among the lamas of the hidden kingdom at the top of the world. Everything that Madame Blavatsky was supposed to have seen and done (E31) in her alleged encounter with the Himalayan Masters, Madame David-Neel actually did, and she describes it all in a vivid, credible way. The author was prolific, living to nearly a hundred years and writing many books on Buddhist philosophy. This biographic account is a pioneering work, one of its kind. David-Neel introduced Tibet to the West just five years after the first Oxford edition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, was published by Evans-Wentz (L8).
29. Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933) by C. G. Jung. Originally given as lectures in the early thirties when Europe was darkening under the black cloud of Bolshevism, this collection of careful, inquiring essays brings attention to psychotherapy as the modern spiritual alternative to traditional and revealed religion. Beyond Jung’s argument for his own cause, the questions raised and approaches defined here are still relevant to a wide spectrum of pathways in the maze. Jung’s life and work represent the unique case of an individual whose own spiritual quest became the model for a huge following. Jung popularized the word individuation, applied in this book to self-initiation after Parzival, although not in the exact Jungian sense. He also worked with Evans-Wentz on commentaries for the Tibetan Book of the Dead and other Tibetan texts in the Oxford series. Unfortunately, Jung’s personal charisma and the compelling mystique of his writings (often obscure to the point of hair-pulling) combined to turn him into a cult leader. The so-called “myth of meaning” proposed by Jung as a paradigm for modern spirituality readily devolves into a quest hook, introducing the risk that exploring the labyrinth will become an end in itself, rather than an adventure that leads us to consecrated activity. The act of looking for a sacred calling in life cannot be taken for a sacred calling. To do so is to succumb to the hook.
30. The Candle of Vision (1935) by, Æ, pen name of George Russell [1867 – 1932], Irish mystic, painter and social activist, key figure in the Celtic Revival (E6). Deep, absorbing account of visions experienced spontaneously by Russell in his late teens, plus his later reflections on cosmic reception and the Dream of Vishnu. Written with transparent simplicity, readable in a few hours, this slim volume communicates a sense of intimacy with long-forgotten dreams and lost senses. It invokes the memoria naturae, the memory of nature, as a kind of pictorial wellspring of the Dreamtime. Several acute clues converge in Russell’s life: his pen-name AE is taken from the Gnostic term Aeon which he discovered in a book after having dreamed the word, his view of the Aquarian Age circa 1900 provides a crucial link in the Great Transmission (E2.3), his self-effacing role in the Occult Revival in Europe (E25) was perhaps decisive of its outcome, his interpretation of avatars who appear in each Zodiacal Age to guide humanity implies that he himself was one, or took himself for one. Subtitled “The Autobiography of a Mystic,” this book contains what is probably the most vivid account ever written of spontaneous clairvoyance. A testament to the power and mystery of the waking dream.
31. The Little Prince (1936) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French aviator and author of several lyrical memoirs. Naive charm and timeless sagacity combine in this fable by a pioneer of transcontinental flight whose gift of childlike imagination enabled him to produce a parable for children of all ages. Saint-Exupéry’s dauntless little adventurer leads us to the discovery of primal magic in the simple things. This book is a reliable touchstone to how honestly and clearly adults can see themselves, free of deviation by pretence and self-importance. It weighs in with the heavies like gold dust against ingots of bouillon. The Little Prince is one of the earliest and most noble representatives of the inner child so widely and fervently sought since the mainstreaming of the quest.
32. Slavery and Freedom (1944) by Nikolai Berdyaev [1874 – 1948], Russian existentialist and religious (Orthodox) visionary. One of the best-kept secrets of modern philosophy, Berdyaev’s work in its entirety forges entirely new approaches to fundamental questions of freedom, choice, “God’s intentions” for us, personality, love, destiny and the creative act. This book in particular is an exposé of the various forms of enslavement to which human beings will submit themselves, including slavery to God and religious ideologies. Berdyaev is a master who tackles difficult equations with astonishing deftness, writes in a style that pulverizes all previous assumptions. Truly radical and provocative, he is also extremely, almost diabolically subtle. Freedom and Slavery contains a bold indictment of the notion of cosmic harmony (“a false and enslaving idea”) and highlights Berdyaev’s unique philosophy of “personalism,” which ascribes sanctity to human conscience. This is a Neo-Gnostic manifesto of uncompromising defiance (“Humanity is a microcosm and therefore is not part of the cosmos”), a challenge to elitist and collective assumptions alike. Line by line, the most shocking work of philosophical ethics written in the 20th Century, or any century. “God is in the child which has shed tears, not in the world order by which those tears are said to be justified.” [Translation by R. M. French.]
33. The Autobiography of a Yogi (1945) by Paramahansa Yogananda. A warm, intimate account of the life of an Indian yogi. The prime example in the 20th Century of the age-old lineage of spiritual masters in the Hindu tradition, and the first of such masters to reside in the West, Yogananda founded the Self-realization Fellowship in 1937. With his long dark tresses and soft-eyed androgynous look, he became an icon of the modern saint who communes openly with Divinity. This is the book that gave me the initial lead on the spontaneous awakening of Kundalini I experienced in my teens (See Introduction, I). I was sitting in the gauze of twilight outside the courtyard of a Sikh temple in Alor Star, Malaya, when the clue registered. Yogananda’s famous account of visionary union with God in the moment of samadhi (Ch. 14) needs to be added to Bucke’s case-histories, perhaps at the top of the list. Important work in the dissemination of Eastern teachings in the West, and a best-seller in its time.
34. The Perennial Philosophy (1945) by Aldous Huxley, British novelist, literary sage and advocate of the psychedelic experience in The Doors of Perception. Original, one-of-a-kind anthology covering the great religious themes and questions of the ages, citing source-materials from a wide spectrum of world cultures and woven together by a keen, highly readable commentary. Huxley treats many variations of mystical experience and God-seeking, putting them all in perspective, but unfortunately, the testimony of Gnosticism is missing from his inventory, due to the scarcity of materials previous to 1945. Nevertheless, the book skillfully outlines the Asian perspective of radical immanence which characterizes the core of Gnostic teaching, contrasted to absolute transcendence, the dominant paradigm of Judaeo-Christian religion. A companion volume to The Varieties of Religious Experience (L24).
35. Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson by (after 1950) by G. I. Gurdjieff, maverick guru and master of sacred dance (his own stated pretence). A mythical figure whose influence is hard to discern yet impossible to ignore, Gurdjieff [1872 – 1949] is the bête noire of modern occultism. His teachings by content represent a huge intellectual challenge, yet by intent they propose the total meltdown of intellect into impersonal cosmic will, achieved through “intentional suffering.” Variously reported by disciples such as P. D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, and J. G. Bennett, Gurdjieff’s message comes across first-hand in this bizarre, thousand-page fairy-tale, a supernatural account of the human condition. Loaded with outrageous neologisms like “saliakooriap” (water), “Kundabuffer” (Kundalini) and “being-partkdolgduty” (dedication to the conversion of the force of attention), this book reads like science fiction written by an illumined mystic, which is exactly what it is. Gurdjieff insisted that it must be read three times, but even once will produce extraordinary effects at the subliminal level. Despite its sexist bias (Gurdjieff was Greek-Armenian-Russian) and smattering of adolescent banter, Beelzebub’s Tales deliver a terrific boost to higher intelligence.
36. The Journey to the East (1956) by Hermann Hesse, Swiss writer with mystical instincts and a deep connection to the occult side of life. Prevented from living out the rage that nearly drove him to suicide in his teens, Hesse seems to have internalized and transmuted it, yet his works remain largely a testimony of adolescent genius. If Demian and Narcissus and Goldmund were required reading for teenagers, how different the world might be. This selection is a book to be read in an afternoon and remembered for a lifetime. All of Hesse’s works contributed immensely to fostering the new spirituality in the West, and this fabulist novella from his late period is by far the most magical. Cryptic and elusive, yet strangely direct in communicating the wonder and confusion of the eternal quest. Magical realism at its best, the rare breed of story that irresistibly merges life and fiction. “It was my destiny to join in a great experience….”
37. The Murder of Christ (1952) by Wilhelm Reich, renegade psychologist who died in an American penitentiary, under suspicious circumstances, perhaps simply of a broken heart. Consistent with the spirit of all Reich’s work, this is a brilliant, daring probe into the sickness of modern humanity, the emotional plague. It re-invents Christ as the model of someone who totally embraces and embodies the cosmic life force, orgone in Reich’s terminology), but who is murdered for it, because society is organized against life. Aligned in some ways with Berdyaev (L32), Reich exposes the many forms of self-enslavement endemic to our species, but unlike the Russian heretic he focuses on sexuality and sexual taboo, rather than metaphysical perversion. Like a Gnostic and a Hindu tantrika, Reich sees in sexual rapture immediate contact with Divinity. A deliberate response to Freud’s notion of the death wish, this book shows how traditional religion in the West has failed, and thus asserts the urgent need for some kind of non-traditional spiritual revival in our time. I share Reich’s calling to oppose mystification (Introduction, II), which he defines as “worshiping in the mirror the image of an unreachable, tantalizing, unlivable and untouchable and therefore unbearable reality within oneself.”
38. Love in the Western World (1956) by Denis de Rougemont, French scholar and keen analyst of cultural psychology. An exploration of romantic love, delving into the lore of the Troubadours, the revival of Gnostic heresy among the Cathars in Southern France, amor courtois, erotic mysticism, the liebestod (L16), the Sufi theophany with woman as lens, Don Juan and De Sade, Wagnerian orgasms, and much more. The best companion volume for a deep reading of Tristan and Isolde, not to mention a critical reassessment of Pretty Woman (immensely successful film with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts). Fragrant with taboo-lifting insights, this high-browed inquiry runs from carnal rapture in the Middle Ages to the cliché of romance-versus-marriage, and takes a gentle swipe at conventional union along the way. Sophisticated as a Corinthian courtesan flirting with Socrates, De Rougemont remains sober on passion and strangely conservative in the final reckoning. He seems to have anticipated the trend of popular interest in dilemmas of intimacy by a good thirty years, and his mature conclusions (thoroughly European in flavor) may still be way ahead of the game.
Fittingly, the selection so meagre in female authors concludes with a book on the mystique of Womanhood. De Rougement equates amor courtois among the Troubadours with sexual Tantra (E29) in the Indian-Asian tradition. Citing both Tristan and Parzival as exemplars of the romantic path, he asserts that She, muse and consort, carries the primary force in the Western path of Erotic spirituality. Invented in the 12th Century from a Gnostic heresy revived by wandering poets, romantic love remains the single and fateful determinant of virtue, the seal and signet of moral authenticity in our time.
Ma dame me met à l’essai et m’éprouve
Pour savoir en quelle guise je l’aime.
– Guillaume IX [1071 – 1127], the first troubadour to openly recite les lois de con, the principles of sexual intimacy.