Praised as "a spiritual treasure" by Huston Smith, The Way of Selflessness is an authoritative guide for anyone who wishes to walk a mystical path and discover directly the truth testified to by the mystics of the world's spiritual traditions. Drawing from the universal teachings and essential practices of the mystics from all the world's major religious traditions, distilled and presented in generic terms suitable for all seekers, The Way of Selflessness is appropriate for both those who belong to an established religion and those who do not.

Bringing Home the Mountain: Finding the Teacher Within unveils an intimate account of a path to awakening. The author tells of her retreat experiences as well as pilgrimages to the Sacred Mountain Arunachala in India, revealing both the struggles and rewards faced on the search for enlightenment. Heart opening insights, teachings, and specific meditation practices are weaved into the book to help the reader develop or deepen their own spiritual practice.

This book is designed to help committed spiritual seekers prepare for death. It summarizes the basic teachings found in the major spiritual traditions of the world on how to pass through death as selflessly and effortlessly as possible. In particular, it contains three fundamental spiritual practices to help you transform your own death from a terrifying ordeal into what the Sufi poet Rumi called our "wedding with eternity."

The Greek word "gnosis," defined as direct spiritual knowledge or insight, has its origins in historical offshoots of Christianity in late antiquity. But the terms "Gnosticism" and "gnosis" have become widespread in many other contexts. They are common in contemporary scholarship on religion and in popular usage among magical, religious, and spiritual practitioners. And they have entered popular usage in contemporary society, with applications in numerous political, religious, and cultural contexts. Gnosis and Gnosticism have become leitmotifs in popular culture, in films such as The Matrix and Dark City, as well as in anime and other popular art forms. In American Gnosis, Arthur Versluis explores the fascinating connection between the Gnostic tradition and contemporary American spirituality, politics, and popular media. Versluis surveys themes of Gnosticism and gnosis in American culture, both within the United States and in global contexts. Versluis shows that gnosis is key to understanding a wide spectrum of global syncretic religious and intellectual movements-some sensational, even wild, but all fascinating. American gnosis, he argues, is a defining feature of hybrid new religious forms in the twenty-first century. Versluis provides case studies of major contemporary figures and texts that are emblematic of neo-gnosticism, offering a comprehensive framework of gnosis and an understanding of gnostic trends in modernity. He explores how neo-gnostic memes recur in social media and shows how American gnosis has manifested as spiritual independence, reflecting the ever-growing demographic category "spiritual but not religious." In delving into the intersection of contemporary American spirituality, politics, and literature, American Gnosis uncovers the remarkable prevalence of neo-gnostic elements today.

This is a memoir of the life of Franklin Fowler Wolff, whose pen name was Franklin Merrell-Wolff. It is about his inner and outer journey through his life of ninety-eight years. His time at Stanford and Harvard developed his keen intellect in philosophy and mathematics, which in turn led him to seek a deeper meaning. This book follows Wolffs participation and then abandonment of available spiritual groups of the early 1900s. He considered his marriage to Sarah Merrell a spiritual partnership, between the two of them developed a relationship with several students and associates who were also spiritually oriented.

In The Secular Religion of Franklin Merrell-Wolff: An Intellectual History of Anti-intellectualism in Modern America, Dave Vliegenthart offers an account of the life and teachings of the modern American mystic Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887–1985), who combined secular and religious sources from eastern and western traditions in order to elaborate and legitimate his metaphysical claim to the realization of a transcendental reality beyond reason. Using Merrell-Wolff as a typical example of a modern western guru, Vliegenthart investigates the larger sociological and historical context of the ongoing grand narrative that asserts a widespread anti-intellectualism in modern American culture, exploring developments in religious, philosophical, and psychological discourses in North America from 1800 until the present.

In this dramatic and engaging spiritual autobiography, Joel Morwood candidly shares the struggles and insights of his remarkable journey to spiritual Awakening. Joel Morwood is also the author of The Way of Selflessness: A Practical Guide to Enlightenment Based on the Teachings of the World's Great Mystics and Through Death's Gate: A Guide to Selfless Dying. Since 1987, Joel has served as spiritual director of the Center for Sacred Sciences, a non-profit organization based in Eugene, Oregon. The Center for Sacred Sciences is dedicated to helping individual seekers on their spiritual paths, as well as fostering the creation of a new worldview, founded on the mystical teachings of The Great Tradition, but presented in terms appropriate to our present scientific age.