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American Gurus
Versluis shows how the convergence of Asian religions and Western mysticism produce the contemporary phenomenon of "spontaneously enlightened" gurus in America.
The New Inquisitions
"In The New Inquisitions, Arthur Versluis conducts an investigation into the intellectual origins of totalitarianism. He traces totalitarianism's beginnings to the early and medieval Christian idea of heresy - the idea that there is one correct set of doctrines, and that dissent from them is a dangerous evil to be severely punished and eradicated by the Church. This idea would receive its fullest expression in the Catholic Inquisition. The organization and criminal proceedings of the Inquisition, Versluis believes, laid the foundation for later totalitarianism."--BOOK JACKET.
Platonic Mysticism
Restores the Platonic history and context of mysticism and shows how it helps us understand more deeply the humanities as a whole, from philosophy and literature to art. In Platonic Mysticism, Arthur Versluisclearly and tautly argues that mysticism must be properly understood as belonging to the great tradition of Platonism. He demonstrates how mysticism was historically understood in Western philosophical and religious traditions and emphatically rejects externalist approaches to esoteric religion. Instead he develops a new theoretical-critical model for understanding mystical literature and the humanities as a whole, from philosophy and literature to art. A sequel to his Restoring Paradise...
The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance
Here, Arthur Versluis breaks new ground, showing that many writers of the American Renaissance drew extensively on and were inspired by Western esoteric currents. Thus he demonstrates that Alcott and Emerson were indebted to Hermeticism, Christian theosophy, and Neoplatonism; Fuller to alchemy and Rosicrucianism; Hawthorne to alchemy; and Melville to Gnosticism. In addition to offering a detailed analysis of the esoteric elements in the writings of figures from the American Renaissance, Versluis presents an overview of esotericism in Europe and its offshoots in colonial America. This innovative work will interest students and scholars of religion, literature, American studies, and esotericism."--Jacket.
Esotericism, Art, and Imagination
Originally published: East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, c2008.
Wisdom's Children
Provides an in-depth introduction to the Christian theosophic tradition that began with Jacob Bo¬hme, bringing us into a startling new world of Christian experiential spirituality that is the Christian equivalent of Sufism and Kabbalism.
American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions
Arthur Versluis offers a comprehensive study of the relationship between the American Transcendentalists and Asian religions. He argues that an influx of new information about these religions shook nineteenth-century American religious consciousness to the core. With the publication of ever more material on Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, the Judeo-Christian tradition was inevitably placed as just one among a number of religious traditions. Fundamentalists and conservatives denounced this influx as a threat, but the Transcendentalists embraced it, poring over the sacred books of Asia to extract ethical injunctions, admonitions to self-transcendence, myths taken to support Christian doctrines, and manifestations of a supposed coming universal religion.
Restoring Paradise
Focusing on how spiritual initiation takes place in Western esoteric religious, literary, and artistic traditions from antiquity to the present, Restoring Paradise provides an introduction to Western esotericism, including early modern esoteric movements like alchemy, Christian theosophy, and Rosicrucianism. The author argues that European and American literature and art often entail a written transmission of spiritual knowledge in which writing itself works to transmute consciousness, to generate, provoke, or convey spiritual awakening. He focuses on several important figures whose work has not received the attention it deserves, including American writer and Imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and British painter Cecil Collins, among others. While Arthur Versluis presents a new way of understanding Western esotericism in a contemporary light, above all he has crafted a book about knowing, and about how we come to know, and what "knowing" by way of literature and language actually means.
