The most profound emotions, the deepest experiences of the human spirit may be evoked by the sound of a heavenly choir. There has often been debate about which is the greatest musical instrument. And of course each of us will have different favourites. It has been said, for instance, that the grand pipe organ isContinue reading “The Heavenly Choir, Voices of Lothlorien, and Glimpses of Eternity”
Category Archives: religion
Beyond The Scream of Edvard Munch, into Reflections on Identity
The other day I was reading through the typescript of the novel I wrote about my university life, finished a few years after I graduated: it was called “A Degree Without Honour“. I had some astonishing shafts of self-knowledge from it… things I was entirely unconscious of whilst writing it. I was trying to seeContinue reading “Beyond The Scream of Edvard Munch, into Reflections on Identity”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 7 – Arriving Where You Started and Knowing The Place For the First Time
Throughout this series, mountains have been an important image for me. And now we arrive at the end of my mini-series, we find ourselves on a mountain again. And this mountain is on the opposite side of the world to the mountain where I had my first childhood experience – in Australia. I’ve told thisContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 7 – Arriving Where You Started and Knowing The Place For the First Time”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 5 – Secret India: The Land of the Gods and Neel Kanth, Mountain of Light
Does an experience of joy and spiritual upliftment only count as a mystical experience if it changes your life? I believe these experiences gather significance cumulatively, over the course of a lifetime, through the repetition of events grouped around a similar theme – just as in a recurring dream. And for me the recurring themeContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 5 – Secret India: The Land of the Gods and Neel Kanth, Mountain of Light”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 4 – Cottingley Fairy Photographs and Esoteric Teachings
I want to be a very serene loving being in tune with the universe. So said a fellow-member of my study group at The Theosophical Society, at 50 Gloucester Place, London W1. She spoke those words in answer to a question from my next inspirational figure. He had asked, “Why are you here? What doContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 4 – Cottingley Fairy Photographs and Esoteric Teachings”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 3 – Sir Laurens Van Der Post, Explorer of the Spirit
We shall not cease from exploration wrote TS Eliot in his poem “Little Gidding”. And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. These words seem very appropriate for author and explorer Sir Laurens Van Der Post (1906-1996), whom I first cameContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 3 – Sir Laurens Van Der Post, Explorer of the Spirit”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 1: Stirred By A Scientist to Share a Childhood Religious Experience
What’s the difference between nature or music appreciation… and a mystical experience? When does “being moved by something beautiful” become a religious experience? Surely the criterion for a mystical experience is that it changes your life? In my case, it did. My early childhood mystical experiences ultimately led me on a spiritual journey of manyContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 1: Stirred By A Scientist to Share a Childhood Religious Experience”
“Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 2 – The Curious Case of the Kindly Professor and the Cunning Cult Leader
This sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson, doesn’t it? The kindly professor in question is: Dr Raynor Johnson, Physicist, and Master of Queen’s University Melbourne – scientist turned spiritual seeker. And the cunning cult leader is: Anne Hamilton-Byrne,a “self-appointed mystic” who led a cult proclaiming herself to be a reincarnationContinue reading ““Mystical Experiences and Glimpses of Eternity” Mini Series Part 2 – The Curious Case of the Kindly Professor and the Cunning Cult Leader”
Musings From a Saxon Sanctuary – A Lesson of History: Success or Failure Turns on Quirks of Fate
Hidden in the heart of rural Warwickshire is a Saxon Sanctuary I only recently discovered. It’s in St Peter’s Church at Wootton Wawen, situated between Henley-in-Arden and Stratford-upon-Avon. In the Lady Chapel, an exhibition tells the story of Wagen’s woodland village in the Forest of Arden. Wagen was a Saxon lord who owned the landContinue reading “Musings From a Saxon Sanctuary – A Lesson of History: Success or Failure Turns on Quirks of Fate”
The Novels of Susan Howatch, Love, Miracle Wine and the Language of Invitation
“Do you want to be well-integrated, do you want to feel whole, happy, or in tune with your deeper self?” These are the questions that novelist Susan Howatch asks her readers in her Starbridge series of novels, and her St Benets Trilogy. And then, when her readers respond to this question, they find stories withContinue reading “The Novels of Susan Howatch, Love, Miracle Wine and the Language of Invitation”
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