Tag: Books
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H. Rider Haggard’s The People of the Mist
Leonard Outram and his older brother Tom should have inherited their family’s grand estate, with the hall lined with portraits of their ancestors. But their father, Sir Thomas Outram, was a drunk and a gambler. He went bankrupt and shot himself, leaving his two sons to sell off Outram Hall and all its possessions. The…
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The Plumed Serpent: D.H. Lawrence on the Pagan Revival
We must change back to the vision of the living cosmos; we must.The oldest Pan is in us, and he will not be denied. The Plumed Serpent is the story of an Aztec pagan revolution that spreads through Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution (the 1910s). Published in 1926, it also has themes of…
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Julius Evola’s The Doctrine of Awakening: Book Review
Julius EvolaThe Doctrine of Awakening: The Attainment of Self-Mastery According to the Earliest Buddhist TextsInner Traditions, 1996 In The Yoga of Power, Julius Evola wrote about the alchemical “wet path” based on esoteric Hinduism. In The Doctrine of Awakening he turns his attention to the “dry path,” an intellectual and ascetic path of detachment based on Theravāda Buddhism. This post…
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The Star Rover: Jack London’s Must-Read Novel on Astral Travel
Jack London’s last published novel before his death tells the story of a prisoner in solitary confinement who escapes the pain of a straitjacket by astral travels. Despite some critics’ assertion that it’s his greatest book, The Star Rover has never been very popular. It was written in 1913-14, when London was probably the most famous writer in…
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Pentti Linkola’s Can Life Prevail?: Book Review
Pentti LinkolaCan Life Prevail?Arktos Media, 2011 Pentti Linkola is an environmentalist who practices what he preaches. Born in Helsinki, Finland, in 1932, he lived most of his life in a small cabin and, before his retirement, supported himself by catching fish and selling them from a horse cart. He has no car, running water, computer,…
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Tom Wolfe on Why Modern Architecture Is so Awful
Have you ever wondered why in the so-called “Dark Ages,” a cathedral like Notre Dame was constructed . . . but after hundreds of years of innovations in engineering, technology, and construction methods, the bulk of modern architecture today is glass-and-steel constructions that all resemble office buildings? This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through…
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Spartan Women by Sarah B. Pomeroy: Book Review
Sarah B. PomeroySpartan WomenOxford University Press, 2002 Ancient Sparta is known not only for its great warriors, but also for its unusual treatment of women. Further north in democratic Athens, modest women were rarely educated and mostly kept sequestered indoors. But in the militarist state of Sparta, the government insisted that both boys and girls be…
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Camille Rose Garcia’s Hip Take on ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’
Lewis Carroll and Camille Rose GarciaAlice’s Adventures in WonderlandNew York: Harper Design, 2010 The renowned artist Camille Rose Garcia is the perfect choice for revamping Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic fairy tale with a modern spin. For one, much of Garcia’s existing work has the look of a twisted fairy tale, with images of decidedly surreal young girls,…
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Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman: Book Review
Jean Shinoda BolenGoddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of WomenNew York: HarperCollins, 1984 Most of us think of goddesses only as characters from myth—as images entirely unrelated to modern life. In Goddesses in Everywoman, Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen explores how the stories from ancient mythology can be relevant to women today. It’s a Greek mythology…