Recent Books Received

Tom Cheetham, The World Turned Inside Out: Henry Corbin and Islamic Mysticism, (Woodstock: Spring Journal, 2003), 210 pp.

"Tom Cheetham does an absolutely splendid job of opening up Corbin's thought to the general reader. Corbin's work addresses our contemporary situation in a most direct way as this book shows, and the author has made an important contribution to both the philosophy of religion and the history of religions. This is an interesting, careful and important piece of work that I hope will gain the recognition that it deserves."
Charles Adams, Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies, McGill University

Cheetham's book provides us with a bracing and stimulating overview of Corbin's important work and its implications: this is a book for all who suspect that, to paraphrase Plato, there is more to life than that which can be grasped in one's hands.

Lester Ness, Written in the Stars: Ancient Zodiac Mosaics, (Warren Center, Pa.: Marco Polo Monographs, 1999), 258 pp.

For those interested in archaeology and the history of astrology, this is a valuable work, copiously illustrated and extensively documented. Where the author is less familiar with some forms of astrology, notably Far Eastern ones, he humbly notes this.

François Favre, Mani: Christ d'Orient, Bouddha d'Occident, (Tantonville: Editions du Septenaire, 2002), 666 pp.

A well-produced general interest book on Mani, with color illustrations of some of those beautiful Manichean images. One cannot help but be fascinated by the religion of light of the prophet Mani.

Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Swedenborg: A Hermetic Philosopher, (Charleston: Arcana, 2003), 219 pp.

Ethan Allen Hitchcock remains one of the most remarkable figures of nineteenth-century America. Both a military leader and a scholar of esoterica, he wrote this volume on Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century scientist and visionary, and analyzed the Hermetic aspects of Swedenborg's thought. The book includes a biographic introduction by Andrei Vashestov.

Michael Besack,Which Craft? W. A. Mozart and The Magic Flute, (Oakland: Regent P., 2001), 311 pp.

A book on freemasonry and Mozart, among other subjects, by an independent scholar, and evidently one in a series of related works.