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Author’s note: Cited passages are taken from the 1988 Stephen Mitchell translation, London, Macmillan.
Tao Te Ching, the “Book of the Way,” was ostensibly composed by the pseudonymous Lao Tzu, about whom next to nothing is known, sometime around the time of Confucius (551-479 BC). It’s things like this that add even more irresistible mystique to this slender volume, (more…)
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As the Chinese “silent invasion” of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada continues, you may want to learn something about the Western academics who lay the intellectual groundwork for this invasion. In a prior article, “The Transcendental Mind of Europeans Stands Above the Embedded Mind of Asians,” we met two influential scholars calling upon whites to abandon their “failed” attempts to formulate transcendental truths for the sake of the more “profound” contextual approach of Chinese philosophers with their demonstration that all thinking is “embedded” to a time and a place. (more…)
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Inspired by the unique revaluation of Alan Watts on Counter-Currents, I want to share my reflections on two decades of studying the “wisdom of the East” which Watts helped to popularize in his lifetime.
Indeed, I remember when I read Psychotherapy East and West
7,833 words
Alan Watts–Here and Now: Contributions to Psychology, Philosophy, and Religion
Ed. Peter J. Columbus and Donadrian L. Rice
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2012
“It is the peculiar nature of my adolescent explorings of the Devon countryside . . . that made me what I am—and in many other ways besides writing. . . . I have never gained any taste for what lies beyond the experience of solitary discovery. . . . (more…)
The relationships of microcosm and macrocosm as illustrated in Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi Historia, 1619
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Part 2 of 2
An inquiry into the doctrine of the “center” in the West would indeed be of much interest for the purposes of a further comparison, but it presents special difficulties because esoteric knowledge in the West has taken the form of cryptograms, and has been clothed in abstruse symbols and myths of many meanings to which a uniform interpretation, such as modern critical thought desires, cannot always be given. We shall therefore only make a few references.
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Part 1 of 2
On first receiving Karlfried Graf Dürckheim’s book, Hara: Man’s Terrestrial Center,[1] we had thought of writing one of the usual reviews, calling attention to it as an interesting contribution to our knowledge of the psychology, the behavior, and the “existential morphology” of the Far Eastern, or rather of the Japanese, man; (more…)
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The theme of an original duality or polarity related to that of the sexes occurs in the traditions of almost all cultures. This duality is sometimes expressed in purely metaphysical terms, sometimes in that of divine or mythological figures, cosmic elements, principles, gods, and goddesses.
It seemed evident to the early historians of religion of recent times that this was due to anthropomorphism. In their opinion, as man had created his gods in his own image, (more…)
Crow Screen, Japan, 17th century, Seattle Art Museum
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Translator anonymous, ed. by Greg Johnson
Zen may be regarded as the last discovery of Western spiritualistic circles in sympathy with Oriental wisdom. (more…)
2,963 words
Part 1 of 2
Translation anonymous, edited by Greg Johnson
Editor’s Note:
The following essay was originally published in English in East and West, vol. 9, no. 4 (1958): 349–55. This is chapter 15 of Julius Evola, East and West: Comparative Studies in Pursuit of Tradition, ed. Greg Johnson, (more…)
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1. Introduction
Le livre d’Alain de Benoist Comment peut-on être païen ?[1], comme son titre le suggère, est un appel pour un retour au paganisme. Beaucoup plus exactement, c’est un appel pour un nouveau paganisme. « Paganisme » est un terme inventé par les chrétiens pour désigner les religions qu’ils souhaitaient supplanter. Le « néo-paganisme » est la tentative pour revenir à ces religions préchrétiennes indigènes. (more…)
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Alan Watts is one of my favorite writers. Born in Chislehurst, Kent, England, Watts was raised an Anglican, but became a Buddhist at age 15. In 1941, while Watts was living in New York City, his first wife Eleanor had a mystical vision of Jesus. This led him to return to Anglicanism.
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French translation here
Alan Watts
Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality
New York: Vintage, 1971
2,744 words
Part 3 of 6. For the whole series, click here.
2. The Nature of Man
As we have seen, Lawrence believes that men (most men) need to have a woman in their lives. Their relationship to a woman serves to ground their lives, and to provide the man not only with a respite from the woes of the world, but with energy and inspiration. (more…)
Japanese Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
1,657 words
Translation anonymous, edited by Greg Johnson
Eugen Herrigel
Zen in the Art of Archery
New York: Vintage, 1999
[Zen nell’arte del tirar d’arco (Turin: Rigois, 1956)]
Kakuzo Okakura
The Book of Tea
Stone Bridge Press, 2007
[II Libro del Te (Rome: Fratelli Bocca, 1955)]
