What is the basis and purpose of esoteric religion, and what is the self? Self and Spirit answers these questions in depth and in a way true to the spirit of traditional wisdom. This latest book by Robert Bolton illuminates from a new angle the non-dualistic conceptions that have become influential through the work of many modern traditionalist and perennialist authors. For Bolton, a practicing Catholic, gnostic ideas usually taken to support pantheistic religion are shown to be able to provide a foundation for belief in a personal God. Religion is not forced into a preconceived system, because no attempt is made to evaluate all religious doctrines by the standard of one doctrine. Instead, certain profound ideas common to many traditions are invoked, these ideas being of a kind that cannot be identified with any one confessional origin. This in turn sheds new light on the dividing-line between the esoteric and the exoteric, allowing these ideas to combine in ways that are natural and free. The key to this new departure is the true nature of the individual self, a subject largely ignored by non-dualist thought. Here it is given its full weight, however, and its impact on all other realities is made clear. The relation of the self to its world is also here connected significantly to the cosmic role of religion, illustrating how a conversion from worldly to spiritual priorities can have consequences far beyond the personal concerns of those involved. Throughout, Bolton's thinking is daring, yet true to traditional spirituality.
Language
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-1-59731-057-4 (9781597310574)
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Schweitzer Classification
Robert Bolton was educated in the sciences and developed a strong interest in traditional metaphysics, obtaining from Exeter University the degrees of M.Phil and Ph.D. He is the author of The Order of the Ages: The Hidden Laws of World History, The Logic of Spiritual Values, Self and Spirit, The One and the Many: A Defense of Theistic Religion, Foundations of Free Will, and Person, Soul, and Identity: Philosophy and the Real Self. All these books are written from the point of view of traditional wisdom, and not tradition for its own sake-for in a world where wisdom is disregarded in favor of power, this point of view keeps all of its relevance. Bolton also contributed regularly to the journal Sacred Web, in which unfolded epistolary exchanges with traditionalist author Charles Upton that may be found in the latter's book, Knowings in the Arts of Metaphysics, Cosmology, and the Spiritual Path. Bolton was a member of the Church of England until the 1960s, when, having observed how willingly that Church was accepting the changes demanded by modern secularism, he converted to the Catholic Church, and to the reality of sacred tradition, which gave him the confidence to write the kind of philosophy he believed the modern world sorely needed. Well-known author Stratford Caldecott credits his first steps toward conversion to Catholicism to Robert Bolton.
Author
Rutgers University
