Sacred Web 14
Editorial: The Principle of Verticality
by M. Ali Lakhani
The traditional outlook is premised on the principle of verticality. The editorial outlines and elaborates on this important principle and reflects on its implications for modernity. Read more ...
Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy: The Matrices of Conceptual Transfer
by Rusmir Mahmutcehajic
In this seminal essay, the author (a leading European intellectual, politician and traditionalist) grapples with a fundamental difference between traditional and modernist conceptions underlying civil society, the issue of conflicting identities and the need to reconcile these on the basis of a principled pluralism. Focusing on the context of Bosnian society, and in particular, the Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox religious communities, the author examines the basis of translating identities through a metaphysic that transcends ossified images of identity by rooting it in the Reality of the transcendent Self. Read more ...
Capitalism, Tradition and Traditionalism
by Rodney Blackhirst
Capitalism is an ideology of quantitaiiveness that is based on both abstraction and objectification. The author argues that it is a world-devouring monster in its anti-traditional character, and contrasts its effect on labor and society with that of traditional conceptions of work and organization. Read more ...
Science, Scientism and Self-Destruction
by Kenneth (Harry) Oldmeadow
In this is revised and expanded version of an article which appeared in The Australian Orthodontic Journal, 14:3, 1996, Dr. Oldmeadow reflects on the ideology of scientism, "an autonomous and self-validating pursuit, answerable to nothing outside itself", and on the limitations of its materialistic and quantitative outlook. Read more ...
The Minbar: Symbol of Verticality and of Elevation
by Naima Chikhaoui; revised, translated and edited by Fatima Jane Casewit
This is an outline of the sacred symbolism of the mosque in Islam, with a particular focus on the verticality of the minbar or pulpit. The article ends with an appreciation of the famous minbar of the Kutubiyya mosque in Marrakesh. Read more ...
The Metaphysical Underpinnings of Prayer
by Philip Connaughton
"Prayer, being the active affirmation of continuity, is opposed to worldliness which is passivity in relation to transience." This essay explores the meaning of prayer as the coincidence of humility and Transcendence, an affirmation of the inward dimension of reality, which is a flight from worldliness to Immanence. Read more ...
The Metaphysics of Ecology
by Peter Milward
Proceeding from the etymology of the term 'ecology', Father Milward draws on his knowledge of metaphysics and his love of poetry to convey the spirit of ecology as the participative creativity of love in the sacred edifice of the divine. Read more ...
A Passage Out of Time; A Selection of Poems
by Barry McDonald
Barry McDonald's poems are distillations of spiritual wisdom, conveyed through images that are spare and resonant, in language that is lucent and lyrical. This is a small sampling of his recent poems. Read more ...
Book Review: Music of the Sky, An Anthology of Spiritual Poetry. Edited by Patrick Laude and Barry McDonald
Reviewed by John Herlihy
Book Review: Prayer Fashions Man: Frithjof Schuon on the Spiritual Life. Selected and edited by James S Cutsinger, Foreword by Philip Zaleski
Reviewed by Alvin Moore, Jr.
Book Review: Returning to the Essential: Selected Writings of Jean Biés. Introduced by Patrick Laude
Reviewed by Alvin Moore, Jr.
Book Review: The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology: Contemporary Science in Light of Tradition by Wolfgang Smith
Reviewed by Marilyn Prever
Notes on Contributors
