This extraordinary book shows how specific musical tones and intervals are related to color, periods of time, the sun, the planets and all the natural cycles and rhythms we find in the universe around us. Cousto reveals how music is truly the language of the cosmos and of the natural world.

With Wilde's Salome (1893) as an exemplary text, this book examines the conditions under which speech «constructs» ecstatic experience. The author considers Wilde's text as a complex Symbolist «system» of relations between rhetorical devices and attitudes toward language. By identifying the components of the system, the book provides a theoretical model for understanding the power of language to «construct» specific emotional states. The dramatic nature of Wilde's play further indicates that, contrary to popular perception, ecstasy is not «beyond» language but in it. Rapture possesses a «voice», but this voice emanates from a communication system which is actually «outside» of the body which speaks it. Movement toward ecstasy is therefore not a release from system but a supreme manifestation of it.

Investigating sufi-inspired spirituality in the modern world, this multi-faceted and interdisciplinary volume focuses on Beshara, a spiritual movement that applies the teachings of Ibn ‘Arabi in a non-Muslim context. It traces the movement's emergence in sixties Britain and analyses its major teachings and practices, exploring through this case-study the interface between sufism and the New Age, and the encounter between Islam and the West. Examining from a global perspective the impact of cultural transformations associated with modernization and globalization on religion, this timely volume concludes by tracing possible futures of sufi spirituality both in the West and in the Muslim world.

In modern philosophy of nature the World is unified and holistic. Cosmic Universe and Human History, microcosm and macrocosm, inorganic and living matter coexist and form a unique unity manifested in multiple forms. The Physical and the Mental constitute the form and the content of the World. The world does not consist of subjects and objects, the “subject” and the “object” are metaphysical abstractions of the single and indivisible Wholeness. Man’s finite knowledge separates the Whole into parts and studies fragmentarily the beings. The Wholeness is manifested in multiple forms and each form encapsulates the Wholeness. The rational explanation of the excerpts and the intuitive apprehension of the Wholeness are required to combine and create the open thought and the holistic knowledge. This means that the measurement should be defined by the ''measure'', but the responsibility for determining the ''measure'' depends on the man. This requires that man overcomes the anthropocentric arrogance and the narcissistic selfishness and he joins the Cosmic World in a friendly and creative manner.