Sacred Web 43
Editorial:
The Transhumanist Fallacy
By M. Ali Lakhani
The editorial examines the ideas of transhumanism and posthumanism, concepts which seek to redefine what it means to be ‘human’. Aided by new technologies, these modernistic ideas are gaining hold among those who are in a position to influence our future. But as the ‘Transhuman Era’ dawns, what are the ethical challenges that its worldview and inventions pose? And how sound are their philosophical underpinnings? This survey offers a traditionalist critique of the foundations of transhumanism. Read more...
The Impossible Concurrence: The Continuing Legacy of Ockham’s Razor
By Mehrdad Mahmoudi Zarandi
The scission between science and faith is in large part what has created the worldview that prevails today. Faith and religion have been practically reduced to moral and ethical attitudes which, at best, are seen as supports for the alleviation of human suffering. At the same time, rationalistic science has been elevated to the level of the highest source of what humankind can know with certainty. This essay explores some of the history of the science-faith scission and its far-reaching consequences. It goes much farther in presenting the traditional worldview, in which science finds its legitimate place in a hierarchy of values determined by objective spiritual realities. Read more...
Rudiments of a Pros Hen Hermeneutics
By Justin Cancelliere
How can pluralism negotiate a safe passage between dogmatism and relativism? One attempt to chart such a course is found in the interpretive philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, particularly in his work, Truth and Method. This essay offers a critique of some aspects of Gadamer’s philosophy ‘before outlining an alternative approach to hermeneutics—one both based on the Absolute and sensitive to the kaleidoscopic nature of Its cosmic self-disclosure.’ Read more...
New Light on Black Elk and The Sacred Pipe
By Michael Fitzgerald
This article (a revised version of an essay first published in 2017 by the American Indian Studies Center, UCLA) provides new information that obliges readers to reassess the legacy of Black Elk (1863-1950), including excerpts from recently discovered unpublished letters written by Joseph Epes Brown while he was living with the Lakota holy man (1947-1949). The author provides insights into Brown’s personal philosophy, his relationship to Frithjof Schuon and a clearer context for the role he played in recording and editing The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. Brown’s letters also help to illuminate Black Elk’s role in attempting to restore the sacred ‘religion of the Pipe’ among the Sioux and to clarify controversies that include Black Elk’s dual participation in Catholicism. Read more...
Titus Burckhardt: A Great Friend of the American Indians
By Michael Fitzgerald
This is a short appreciation of Titus Burckhardt’s contributions to native Indian spirituality. Read more...
The Dream of Leah and Rachel: Art and Purification in Dante’s Purgatorio
By Andrew Frisardi
In the understanding that Dante was heir to, art is an intellectual virtue. Artistic making requires that the mirror of the artist’s intellect be clear and receptive, enabling him or her to glimpse the nature of the thing to be made or represented. But such lucidity is inaccessible to the soul that has not been liberated to some extent from the illusions and aberrations of the ego. This essay explores how several of the cantos in Purgatorio can be read as an account of artistic purification, culminating in the full realization of art in its most profound sense in the Earthly Paradise. The essay is the revised text of a lecture given at the Temenos Academy, London, in November 2018. Read more...
Faery Lands and Meeting Places: Imagination, Intelligence and Negative Capability in the Poetry of John Keats and Martin Lings
By Adib Faiz
This essay explores the use of ‘negative capability’ (a Keatsian concept) in the poetry of Keats and Lings, highlighting the similarities and differences between their works, in particular in Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and Lings’ ‘The Meeting Place’. Read more...
Cover Illustration: Adam and Eve in Paradise
By Nigel Jackson
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Book Reviews
The City of the Heart: Yūnus Emre’s Verses of Wisdom and Love
Translated by Süha Faiz
Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
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