Hidden within age-old classic stories lie the hermetic teachings of alchemy and Freemasonry • Explains how the stages of the Great Work are encoded in both little known and popular stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood • Reveals the connection between Mother Goose and important esoteric symbols of the Western Mystery tradition • Demonstrates the ancient lineage of these stories and how they originated as the trigger to push humanity toward higher levels of consciousness In his Mystery of the Cathedrals, the great alchemist Fulcanelli revealed the teachings of the hermetic art encoded in the sculpture and stained glass of the great cathedrals of Europe. What he did for churches, his disciple Bernard Roger does here for fairy tales. Through exhaustive analysis of the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm, Perrault, and others, Roger demonstrates how hermetic ideas, especially those embodied in alchemy and Freemasonry, can be found in fairy tales, including such popular stories as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Red Riding Hood as well as the tales attributed to “Mother Goose.” The goose has long been an important esoteric symbol in the Western Mystery tradition. The stories told under the aegis of Mother Goose carry these symbols and secrets, concealed in what hermetic adepts have long called “the language of the birds.” Drawing upon the original versions of fairy tales, not the sanitized accounts made into children’s movies, the author reveals how the tales illustrate each stage of the Great Work and the alchemical iterations required to achieve them. He shows how the common motif of a hero or heroine sent in search of a rare object by a sovereign before their wishes can be granted is analogous to the Masonic quest for the lost tomb of Hiram or the alchemist’s search for the fire needed to perform the Great Work. He also reveals how the hero is always aided by a green bird, which embodies the hermetic understanding of the seed and the fruit. By unveiling the secret teachings within fairy tales, Roger demonstrates the truly ancient lineage of these initiatory stories and how they originated as the trigger to push humanity toward higher levels of consciousness.

Linking literature, philosophy, art, and personal experience, a moving exploration of the wooded landscape’s power. In 1985 Boria Sax inherited an area of forest in New York State, which had been purchased by his Russian, Jewish, and Communist grandparents as a buffer against what they felt was a hostile world. For Sax, in the years following, the woodland came to represent a link with those who currently live and had lived there, including Native Americans, settlers, bears, deer, turtles, and migrating birds. In this personal and eloquent account, Sax explores the meanings and cultural history of forests from prehistory to the present, taking in Gilgamesh, Virgil, Dante, the Gawain poet, medieval alchemists, the Brothers Grimm, Hudson River painters, Latin American folklore, contemporary African novelists, and much more. Combining lyricism with contemporary scholarship, Sax opens new emotional, intellectual, and environmental perspectives on the storied history of the forest.

" Explores the historical rise of the literary fairy tale as genre in the late seventeenth century. In his examinations of key classical fairy tales, Zipes traces their unique metamorphoses in history with stunning discoveries that reveal their ideological relationship to domination and oppression. Tales such as Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and Rumplestiltskin have become part of our everyday culture and shapers of our identities. In this lively work, Jack Zipes explores the historical rise of the literary fairy tale as genre in the late seventeenth century and examines the ideological relationship of classic fairy tales to domination and oppression in Western society. The fairy tale received its most "mythic" articulation in America. Consequently, Zipes sees Walt Disney's Snow White as an expression of American male individualism, film and literary interpretations of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz as critiques of American myths, and Robert Bly's Iron John as a misunderstanding of folklore and traditional fairy tales. This book will change forever the way we look at the fairy tales of our youth.

Reveals the Hermetic underpinnings of modern scientific theories • Offers a full reconsideration of the history of science from Newton to the present day as well as a Platonic-Hermetic perspective on modern technology • Examines Hermetic resonances among the ideas of Gurdjieff, Robert Fludd, Marsilio Ficino, and cybernetics; Einstein and the Tibetan Bardo; Neoplatonism and artificial intelligence; and Rosicrucianism and the internet • Shows how Hermetic doctrine is at the heart of what modern physics is now rediscovering: that consciousness permeates everything Contemporary scientific disciplines such as chaos and complexity theory, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science treat themselves as new fields of inquiry, but many of these ideas can be traced back to Hermeticism, the European intellectual tradition sparked by the rediscovery of the Corpus Hermeticum and Platonic texts in the 15th century. Building a map of the progression of scientific thought across centuries and continents, Leon Marvell examines the ancient roots of Hermeticism, its rise during the Renaissance, and its suppression during the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment. He reveals how three main Hermetic ideas--the divine spark within each individual, the subtle body, and the anima mundi or world soul--have continually emerged at the cutting edge of science and philosophy throughout the ages because these ideas represent universal truths recognized by each era of human civilization. Marvell examines Hermetic resonances among the ideas of Gurdjieff, Robert Fludd, Marsilio Ficino, and cybernetic theory; Einstein and the Tibetan Bardo; and Neoplatonism and the work of AI scientist Christopher Langton. He reveals how the Rosicrucian description of the Invisible College also describes the instant availability of knowledge via the Internet, and he shows how Hermetic thought is at the heart of what modern physics is rediscovering: that consciousness permeates everything and the universe cannot be reduced to the random play of matter. Offering a full reconsideration of the history of science from Newton to the present day as well as a Platonic-Hermetic perspective on modern technology, Marvell reveals the pattern that connects the sciences, philosophy, and ancient knowledge and opens a potentially rich field of inquiry for 21st-century science.

he theatrical culture of Tibet is probably the last to remain virtually unknown to the outside world, and to the West in particular. As well as describing the current situation of studies on Tibetan theatre, the current volume also provides an essay on imagination and how it is concretely manifested by the Tibetan people and their actors. Recent decades have seen radical change for Tibetan theatre, ache lhamo, now performed by a diaspora for whom a declining artistic and technical change derives from an uncertain politics concerning secular and popular culture, as well as the ongoing cultural genocide caused by China’s subjection of Tibet.

A surrealist exploration of the marvelous in ancient, classic, and modern works from around the world • Long considered one of the most significant and original books to have come out of the surrealist movement • Reveals the “marvelous” in works from William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, William Shakespeare, Chrétien de Troyes, and Arthur Rimbaud; legends and folktales from around the world; classics from Ovid, Plato, and Apuleius; Masonic ritual texts, Mesopotamia’s Epic of Gilgamesh, the Popol-Vuh, Lewis Caroll’s Alice through the Looking Glass, Solomon’s Song of Songs, and Goethe’s Faust First published in French as Miroir du merveilleux in 1940, Mirror of the Marvelous has long been considered one of the most significant and original books to have come out of the surrealist movement and Anaïs Nin suggested it as a source of inspiration, far ahead of its time. Drawing on sacred and modern texts that share a quality of the marvelous, Pierre Mabille defines “the marvelous” as the point at which inner and outer realities are joined and the individual is simultaneously one with himself and with the world, thus recovering the true sense of the sacred. He shows how “the marvelous” goes beyond simply being a synonym for “the fantastic” to engage the entire emotional realm. Mabille cites a far-reaching range of texts, from the classic to the obscure, from Egyptian myth to Voodoo initiation ceremonies, from the ancient epic to the modern poem, from the creation myth to more contemporary visions of apocalypse. He includes surrealist analyses of works from William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, William Shakespeare, Chrétien de Troyes, and Arthur Rimbaud; legends and folktales from Egypt, Iceland, Mexico, Africa, India, and other cultures; classics from Ovid, Plato, and Apuleius; Masonic ritual texts, Mesopotamia’s Epic of Gilgamesh, the Popol-Vuh, Lewis Caroll’s Alice through the Looking Glass, Solomon’s Song of Songs, and selections from Goethe’s Faust. Mirror of the Marvelous actively defines the flame of the marvelous by showing its presence in those works where it burns the brightest.

We are in the midst of an epic evolution in consciousness that involves a radical shift in orientation from the ego to the heart and soul. This transformative process requires a breaking down of the old form, which we are witnessing personally and collectively, to create the space for something new to emerge. As we live from the soul and express our deepest truths, we actively participate in this change. Life experiences may seem as though they're random, but in fact they have an intention, deeper meaning, and purpose, which is to facilitate this transformation within us. Everything is occurring to free us from our old beliefs, outdated ways of living, and any limiting ideas we have about life and ourselves. In INITIATION OF THE SOUL, Dr. Pamela Alexander explores the soul's journey through myth and classic fairy tales. In the initiatory mythic story of "Psyche and Amor," the goddess of love orchestrates events in order to awaken the soul from its slumber. The heroine faces challenging tasks that draw the deeper truth of the soul's inherent wholeness, freedom, and power out of the unconscious and into an embodied awareness. Dr. Alexander proceeds from there to explore fairy tales that speak to the issues that arise during the soul's emergence. These stories symbolically instruct us as to how to resolve our fears and open to love. As inner restrictions are resolved, we can embody expanded versions of ourselves and become more stable in a chaotic and uncertain world. The stories guide us to free the soul from an egoic identification, which is buffeted by the winds of change and the opinions of others, to the unshakeable ground of being within. Then, we are empowered to live in freedom and wholeness as we participate in the creation of a new world.