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Arthur Versluis, Wisdom's Book: The Sophia Anthology, (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2000), cloth and paper, 282 pp.

"This book marks a significant event in the study of Christian esotericism. For the first time, we have a volume of primary sources that articulate the deep, passionate spirituality of a hidden Sophianic tradition. Arthur Versluis gives the reader an invaluable set of texts that open a new horizon of historical investigation into an underground of visionary narratives centered on the image of the divine Sophia. This unique collection of texts reveals the complexity and power of a whole series of Christian movements whose history can now be mapped from the early 17th to the opening decade of the 21st century. A landmark volume who impact will certainly change the conventional history of Christianity and which lays a foundation for substantive future research." -Lee Irwin, Professor of Religious Studies, College of Charleston

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Friedemann Horn, Schelling and Swedenborg: Mysticism and German Idealism, G. Dole, trs., (West Chester, PA.: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997), paper, 209 pp.

Horn, who is editor of Swedenborg Verlag in Zurich, studied under Ernst Benz and has edited a Swedenborgian journal for many years. In this book, originally his doctoral dissertation, Horn discusses Friedrich Schelling's engagement with the works of Swedenborg and in particular Schelling's concept of the afterlife as developed in Clara, his own response to the untimely death of his wife. Horn argues that in Clara, Schelling produced a work similar to that of Swedenborg, even though Schelling kept some critical distance. Antoine Faivre writes that Schelling and Swedenborg is a "combination of superb scholarship, lucid writing, and stimulating discourse. . . It has remained an unmatched and frequently cited reference work on both Swedenborg and Schelling." Much on Schelling in this book does not appear elsewhere in English.

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David Appelbaum, The Delay of the Heart, (Albany: SUNY, 2000), paper, 167 pp.

The Delay of the Heart is the last in Appelbaum's three-volume series that between with The Stop and Disruption. This book explores the theme of initiation and "initiatory ethics" in relation to a theme of "the heart's delay" that Appelbaum sees as central to the experience of spiritual initiation. I offer this selection from the chapter "Initiation:" "The secret of the reticence of time, mora, the delay, is that into which the subject is initiated. Inasmuch as a secret is a discernment, initiation involves knowledge into the separation of one tempo from the other, the inner tempo that lags from that of manifest time. Initiation repeats the story I have told of the triune deity and the original design of the heart's delay (48)." Appelbaum, editor of the SUNY series in Western esotericism and of Parabola magazine, approaches the themes of esotericism from a perspective infused by phenomenology and contemporary critical thought rather than from an historicist perspective. This is a difficult work in that it deliberately frustrates the reader's expectations, and about it Antonio de Nicolás wrote, "This book is a return to the origins of philosophy as opposed to the continuation of unquestioned ideology."

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Pavel Florensky, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters, Boris Jakim, trs., (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1997), cloth, 595 pp.


Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) is one of the most remarkable and tragic of the great Russian theologians in the past century. Along with Bulgakov, Soloviev, and above all, Berdyaev, Florensky (who was murdered in a Soviet Gulag) represents the meeting of Russian Orthodoxy with Western esotericism under the aegis of the Divine Sophia. The Pillar and Ground of the Truth is Florensky’s masterwork, consisting in twelve letters to a brother and friend, each of the letters preceded by an Hermetic, symbolically rich image. Among the primary chapters of Florensky's book is that on "Sophia," in which he writes directly on Soloviev and his relationship on the one hand to Boehmean theosophy, on the other to Polish and other Russian theosophers whose work to this day remains unknown, at least in English-speaking countries and probably in their homelands as well. Florensky’s book is one of the more unusual productions of the Russian theosophers; for those with an interest in Orthodoxy or theosophy, it is a major work well worth purchasing.

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Christopher Bamford, The Voice of the Eagle: The Heart of Celtic Christianity, (Great Barrington, Mass.: Lindisfarne, 2000), paper, 335 pp.

In this new and expanded edition of Bamford's The Voice of the Eagle, he offers a introduction to, translation of, and commentaries on John Scotus Eriugena's Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John. The homily itself is rather brief, so the bulk of the book is taken up with Bamford's commentaries, which themselves take on the form of homilies. In his foreword, Thomas Moore suggests that Bamford's book has the quality of a fugue, interweaving as it does the voices of Bamford, Eriugena, and St. John. Bamford's commentaries are suffused with references to Boehme and other major figures or currents in the Western esoteric traditions, making this fascinating reading as a contemporary manifestation of Christian esotericism.

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Paul Davies, Romanticism and Esoteric Tradition: Studies in Imagination, (Hudson: Lindisfarne, 1998), paper, 207 pp.

The relationships between the Romantic poets and Western esotericism is one that certainly could bear exploration. Particularly of interest are the works of Novalis, which bear considerable indebtedness to Kabbalah and Jacob Boehme, to name only two influences. In Davies' book, he focuses on Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Blake, but if the book is strong on the English Romantics, it is weak on what the author terms the "esoteric science" or "esoteric tradition," since it is impossible to say what Davies means by these terms. There is no single "esoteric science" or tradition; there are, rather, currents that include Boehmean theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and so forth. One longs for links in this book to contemporary scholarship on esotericism or to the history of such movements as Ranterism, but there remains not a trace of such references here.

Kenneth Oldmeadow, Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of Perennial Philosophy, (Colombo: Sri Lanka Institute of Traditional Studies, 2000), cloth, folio, 225 pp.

In this oversize book, Kenneth Oldmeadow outlines the major figures in the movement known as 'Traditionalism,' among them René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, and Titus Burckhardt. But this is not merely an overview of these and other lesser-known figures' works; it is also a defense of the perennialist approach to religious studies. Chapter headings in later sections include "The Critique of Modernism," "Criticisms of Traditionalism," "The Phenomenology of Religion," and "Religious Pluralism and the Study of Religions" as well, of course, as "The Transcendent Unity of Religions." Oldmeadow takes the position of Traditionalism in the book; this is an approach to perennialism from the inside out, as it were. It does not take into account the methodological critiques of European scholars, notably Wouter Hanegraaff, but it does seek to address questions of methodology. One still awaits an academic analysis of the emergence and nature of Traditionalism; for such a work, Traditionalism will be a valuable primary source.