Christopher Moody

Book Review: The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical IntroductionThe Western Esoteric Traditions: A historical introduction, Goodrick-ClarkeNicholas (Oxford University Press2008), 294 pp, £16.99 hbk

Every time one goes to a gallery and looks at religious pictures, listens to carols or read the texts people have chosen for a marriage or a funeral, one is made conscious of how much wider is the range of sources for what we accept as conventional belief than one would imagine. Some of this material eventually enters the circle of orthodoxy. Much of it remains outside as a parallel stream that we are subtly influenced by but never made aware of, unless we cross the line ourselves and dabble in the complexities of esoteric literature and speculation. As the author points out, conventional science and traditional religion each have their own strategies of ‘epistemological exclusion’: in the Church’s case labels such as Gnosticism, mysticism or the occult (cf. p. 177). But esoteric traditions have provided the seedbed of ideas for the development of modern science from chemistry and astronomy through psychology, quantum theory and the rise of new disciplines like ecology, and also for the work of theologians like Tillich. These often attempt to answer questions the guardians of orthodoxy might regard as illegitimate even to ask. Much light is thrown on the whole history of ideas in Western culture by bringing this all into the open. In his ground-breaking work Professor Goodrick-Clarke summarizes a huge amount of research into esoteric literature across more than two millennia, from Plato and Plotinus at one end to Swedenborg, Christian Science, Steiner and Jung at the other, demonstrating in the process the strong family resemblances between them in spite of the claims to new knowledge via direct inspiration and vision, the false genealogies and extravagant terminology unique to each movement. This is brought out especially in his application of Faivre’s six criteria discussed in the introduction (pp. 6–10): correspondences (e.g. between microcosm and macrocosm); living nature (the search for a vital link or sympathies); imagination and mediations (e.g. angelic messages, ascent through different realms of consciousness); transmutation (the claim that there is an actual change of consciousness through the acquisition of secret knowledge); concordance (the idea of a primal or perennial philosophy Book reviews

Book Review: The Contagion of Jesus: Doing Theology as If it MatteredThe Contagion of Jesus: Doing theology as if it mattered, MooreSebastian ed. McCarthyStephen (Darton, Longman and Todd2007), 208 pp, £14.95 pbk

One surprising passage (pp. 89–93) seems to demand that those who have ‘seen the light’ literally abandon the suburbs and return to the city, but the book’s focus is not on specific policies so much as on a renewal of vision. Disillusionment is squarely faced, and the blame placed largely on obsolete Western ideologies and church structures. To rediscover hope will mean an Emmaus epiphany. The author clearly believes that this can happen.

Book Review: Being Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical TraditionBeing Still: Reflections on an Ancient Mystical Tradition, LeloupJean-Yves (Gracewing2002; Paulist Press 2003), 141 pp, £9.99 pbk

The title chosen for the book’s English edition is a little misleading – at once too narrow and too broad. This is not just an introduction to a particular method of meditation, but nor is it an overview of different ways of ‘being still’. Jean-Yves Leloup is an Orthodox theologian, well known in France as a popular author on spirituality and psychology, and this book was originally published as Ecrits sur I’Hesychasme. The hesychast mystical tradition, the Jesus Prayer and the method of attention and breathing connected with it provide the thread for the whole book. But those who are not particularly attracted to this method of prayer will still find much to engage them, because the book sets this method of prayer within the much broader tradition of Orthodox theology and spirituality, beginning with the first fathers of the Church. In the process it draws attention to the theological and psychological presuppositions of the ‘apophatic’ approach, with its emphasis on a more than intellectual understanding, and total attention to God through the mind, heart and senses. The introductory chapter gives (I presume, though this is not directly stated) a brief account of the author’s own initiation into the hesychast tradition by a hermit of Mt Athos, Fr Seraphim. The following chapters introduce us to some of the most influential texts in Orthodox spirituality such as the The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Evagrius’ On Prayer, Cassian’s Conferences, the Philokalia and The Way of the Pilgrim. This is followed by a compressed but suggestive chapter on how hesychasm relates to practices of prayer in other faith traditions and, finally, an extremely well-balanced and illuminating account of the practice of ‘the prayer of the heart’ and its contemporary relevance. As the English subtitle suggests, the book is a series of reflections, rather than a connected exposition – reflections developed over a long period of time, and arising from a deep knowledge of the practice as well as the writings

Apostolicity and the Call of the Kingdom

In arriving at this rather portentous title, I chose the ugly word apostolicity because I wanted to look at what makes the Church apostolic without using words or phrases which immediately imply the language of content or succession; and I chose, rather glibly, the phrase the call of the Kingdom because it alerts us to the future as an imminent reality pressing on the present-the element largely missing from the arguments about the nature and order r>,.~ the Church which invoke its claim to be apostolic. I have a feeling of impatience with many of the arguments between Protestants and Catholics, liberals and traditionalists, precisely because they are arguments about different interpretations of the past, rather than reflections on present need and the demand for obedience from God who constitutes our future. This is reinforced by the heavy-handed biblicism of the modern liturgies, with their emphasis on salvation history and continuity with the past, often expressed at the expense of a sense of the Churchs present dependence on God the Spirit, and the life of the Church as in travail in the Spirit in order that Gods future might be brought closer (cf. Rom. 8.18-25).