Novalis Books

an excellent resource for Novalis readers who don't speak/read German. a thoughtful and focused selection of writings- adds depth and background to his enigmatic aphorisms and his mystical poetry.

The author of this book was my professor. She is the kindest woman I know. I true Humanitarian! This book shows you that two people from different worlds can actually be very similar. A very enlightening book and heartwarming

This handbook is perfect for the second year psychiatric resident on an inpatient service, or the mental health practicum/intern student in a community mental health center. The authors review basic concepts of psychotherapy and then apply them to the individuals with serious mental illnesses seen in these settings.

As a teaching attending, I found this book to really fill the gap left by the residents' overly abstract "Introduction to Psychotherapy" course. Many interactions with patients/clients are potentially psychotherapeutic and this book gives readers numerous examples.

From the publisher: (text on the back of the book):

"DAG HAMMARSKJOLD - Breaking the Deathly Silence...

On 17 September 1969 Dag Hammarskjöld died in a mysterious plane crash near Ndola in Zambia (the northern Rhodesia). In hindsight the Swede, born in 1905, appears to have been a beacon of light in an otherwise murky morass of international post-war politics.

He remains so far the only person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously- as an upholder of human rights, the initiator of UN-peace troops, an advocate for the Third World during the process of de- colonisation. After the publication of his diary `Markings', that took the world by storm, professional obituary writers had to re-assess Dag Hammarskjöld's legacy. In it Dag Hammarskjöld revealed himself to be a modern day visionary, whose holistic and progressive political vision of a new ethic for humanity formed the basis of all his actions- until he fell victim to an insidious plot designed by western secret services in cahoots with an international mining company with its headquarters in Brussels.

Stephan Mögle-Stadel began in 1994 to decipher Hammarskjöld's esoteric life-work. With the help of hitherto unpublished material and conversations with former co-workers he succeeded in unraveling the background of the plot of 1961. He also succeeded in tracing Hammarskjöld's path of inner development, relating to his public offices and activities. A still tangible reminder of these activities is the meditation room in the UN building in New York designed by him and executed by his artist friend Bo Beskow."
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With black-and-white photographs. Includes Bibliography and Notes, plus an Epilogue to the 3rd Ed. of the German edition. In English translation.

The Face of Friendship written by a Canadian Jesuit Bill Clarke takes place on a farm in Ontario and describes the community that existed there among the Jesuit Priests and religious Sisters and both laymen and laywomen. I have not finished the book as yet, but basically it focuses on the special friendship that ensues between Bill Clarke the Jesuit and one of the members of the community, Byron Dunn, as they share the same small room in one of the buildings on the property. Byron has his own unique background, gifts and difficulties, but the friendship is one where each influences the other on an equal plane. This book was chosen by a study/prayer group of which I am part, and I expected it to be a dry, boring type of experience. But thus far, it is the type of book that I can't wait to continue reading.

Angelika Rauch's "The Hieroglyph of Tradition" is a detailed engagement with major German philosophical thinkers, among them, Kant, Novalis, Freud, Benjamin, and Gadamer; these are brought into relation with French thinkers like Lacan, Kristeva, Lyotard, and Derrida. The topic that aligns these thinkers is the question of affective memory and how it is preserved, shaped, and interpreted by (literary) language. Rauch argues that tradition is part of an ongoing epistemological process in which language, the body, experience, imagination, desire, and affect are closely related to tradition as a formative process. She argues that in the case of figures like Kant, Novalis, Benjamin, and Freud we can see the importance that memory plays in terms of processes of cultural signification and how tradition is mediated by questions of subjectivity. Tradition in Rauch's theory concerns a transference of experience into language in which language is an interface between personal mind and cultural history. Fundamental to her work is a psychoanalytic examination of affect and the body and how both get translated into rhetorical figures of language that allude to forgotten experiences and fantasies. Her reading of the prostitute as an allegory of modernity in the context of Benjamin shows how the use of gender and the body are crucial to an understanding of history, allegory, and experience. Her interpretations of Lacan via Gadamer and Derrida via Benjamin are among the many highlights of this very informative book that, at bottom, tries to take a second look at a conventional notion like tradition by analysing how it actually works on the mind as a handing over of experience from the past to the present, from one generation to another, from an other to the self.

I bought this book knowing nothing about it or the author. Quite unusal for me, but I had time constraints and just did it. I have rarely been so wonderfull rewarded for taking a chance on a book, a top 3 of its kind, and the author, whose writing and poetry are masterful. If you have any issues with forgiveness buy this book.

In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision for Today's World

Sister Joan has provided anyone who is a sincere seeker of the Truth (God, Supreme Being, etc.) a unique opportunity to reflect on his/her spiritual journey through this dimension. Her vision transcends her orthodox Roman Catholic background to include anyone and everyone who believes that all humans are created through the incomprehensible goodness of the Creating Force, the Force which sustains us and leads us to be our best selves in this world and to view each and every creature as a unique expression of that Love which surpasses human understanding.

Brother Albert + OSB

"The context is the text," or so a wizened old prof of mine used to say. There could be no more apt a description of Father Michael Demkovich's new Introducing Meister Eckhart. Demkovich places Eckhart squarely in the midst of a late thirteenth and early fourteenth century cultural, historical, and theological context. Eckhart is, for Demkovich, no New Age Gnostic or esoteric mystic, but a concrete man of action; a pastor, confessor, spiritual director, and administrator whose life and ministry was fueled by the most practical of mysticisms, and so continues to serve as a model for the most practical people.

The book is divided into the three parts: the first a sketch of Eckhart the person, the second, an exploration of Eckhart's concept of the soul, and the third, a series of ten very practical Exempla, or teachings, accompanied by the captivating illustrations of Demkovich's fellow Dominican, Father Robert Staes. The sections are complete enough to stand on their own, but they are related so strongly as to form a clearly cohesive whole.

Demkovich begins with Eckhart's personage and history as a way of contextualizing the Meister. As a Dominican, Demkovich has a particularly piercing insight into the life and world in which Eckhart was socialized. He chooses as the prevailing themes of Eckhart's personal life his membership in the Dominican Order, his trial and subsequent exoneration, and his life as a preacher and teacher. From the outset, Demkovich seeks to dispel three common errors that many people hold about Eckhart: first, that he was a heretic; second, that Eckhart was an anti-institutionalist; and thirdly, that he was a Gnostic. Without being in the slightest polemical, Demkovich points out that a provincial administrator and widely respected teacher in Catholic circles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries simply could not have gotten way with being any of these things. He also points, as Eckhart did himself, to the Meister's life as a witness to his orthodoxy and loyalty to the Church. Demkovich presents compelling arguments which largely parallel Eckhart's own, that the teachings which caused the most controversy were not in fact heretical, but were just being misunderstood. The key both to the misunderstanding and the proper understanding of Eckhart's more difficult writings is the topic of the second part of the book.

Part II of Demkovich's work deals with Eckhart's decidedly Christian anthropology, and in particular, his teaching on the nature of the soul. This section is largely what squashes the contention that Eckhart was some sort of a closet Gnostic. As Demkovich points out in the introduction, "While all mysticism shares neo-Platonic roots, Christian mysticism has always enjoyed the corrective of the Incarnation." Eckhart's anthropology, like all Christian anthropology, is profoundly Incarnational. As a Dominican, it is also decidedly Thomistic. He points out the centrality of the body in relation to the soul and the unity of being. A body without a soul is a corpse, and a soul without a body is a ghost. A person, though, a person is a body-soul composite, a terribly Aristotelian and Thomistic sort of a concept for a supposed neo-Platonist to hold. At the same time this is central to Eckhart's understanding of the soul's relationship to God. The soul's relationship to the body is as God's relationship to the soul. The soul is the vital, animating force of the body, and God is the vital, animating source of the soul. The very nature of the soul's relationship to God and the body, therefore, can teach us something about the nature of God. The three great powers of the souls, then; intellect, will, and memory, mirror the relationship between the persons of the Blessed Trinity, which is the ultimate end of all of the actions of the soul. The soul for Eckhart, Demkovich points out, is not some esoteric spirit opposed to the body, but that which gives it life and particularity.

The third and final section of Demkovich's Introduction offers ten exempla or illustrations (which are also fully illustrated) to demonstrate the practical implications of Eckhart's spiritual vision. These are not pie-in-the-sky koans for the enlightened contemplative, but snippets of sermon bites accompanied by a picture with reflection questions and commentary. Eckhart, like Aquinas and any other great spiritual writer is not meant simply to be read, but rather to be dialogued with and about. This section gives the reader an opportunity to implement much of what Eckhart and Demkovich have together proposed, and allows the reader to enter into the conversation.

In his conclusion, Demkovich acknowledges that there are many other possible interpretations of Eckhart's spiritual vision; some probably legitimate, and others probably not. He compares the plethora of readings to a many-handled mug, with each handle being suitable for the holding, each version being legitimate for the proposing. And yet he responds: "However, I can't help but believe that while true, this might not be right. It seems to me that one can drink more fully of Eckhart if one grasps his concept of soul, the handle of his anthropology, his sense of wherein lies our truest self." Demkovich has clearly absorbed much of this Christian anthropology, and has learned much from Eckhart's vision of the soul. Would that this book help all of us to better incorporate the Incarnation into our own distinct anthropologies, and so help us to likewise find the ground of our truest selves as well.

This wonderful book fills the gap between the visit of the magi and the finding in the temple without creating fictious events. I recommend this book to parents so children become familar with what Jesus's everyday experiences as a child must have been like. This prepares children to hear the parables. It also gives parents a model of early religious education by showing them how the events of everyday life shape our adult image of God.