Showing results by publisher "White Crow Books" in Religion & Spirituality

Conversations with Meister Eckhart is an imagined conversation with this 13th-century mystic, around such themes as detachment, which he famously placed above love; spirituality; God; the soul; and suffering. But while the conversation is imagined, Eckhart's words are not; they are authentically his own.

Orthodoxy, first published 1908, is Chesterton's spiritual autobiography. Subtitled, 'The romance of faith', Chesterton declares that people need a life of 'practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.'

Kahlil Gibran's 'The Madman' was the first book he penned in English. Beautifully written, it is a short collection of parables on God, animals, human nature, and life's big questions. Not as well known as his classic: 'The Prophet', but some would say just as inspirational, or possibly more so. Read the first verse here and decide for yourself, or better still, listen to the sample of Arthur Browns' beautiful narration. You ask me how I became a madman.

Intra Muros ('Between the Walls'), or My Dream of Heaven, was written in 1898. It was a vision given to the author during a severe illness. On reflection, she came to understand the short book as a series of basic truths about heaven, offering readers both confidence that God had prepared a place for them and that awaiting them there was a wonderful reunion with loved ones who had gone before.

The idea for the book came to Simon Parke whilst on a train from Edinburgh to London. He had been leading a weekend on the Old Testament's Ten Commandments, and felt uneasy. What had struck him, was the fact that while the commandments demand that we be good, they don't tell us how to be good. 'They tell us what to do,' says Parke, 'but not how to be - and how to be is the more important of the two, as all our doing arises from our being.

Who was Jesus of Nazareth? Many admire his spiritual teachings; some go further and claim him as the messiah, while a few deny he ever existed at all. But everyone has an opinion about this obscure preacher who lived his brief life in one of the less significant regions of the Roman Empire; and who, in being crucified, died the traditional death for criminals and trouble-makers. Jesus lived in turbulent times. Under Roman rule, Judea was a hotbed of nationalist, political and religious interests, all vying for power.

The Prophet is Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece and is one of the most popular spiritual books of all time. It tells the story of the prophet Al-Mustafa who is about board a ship, which will take him home. He enters into a discussion with a group of people on subjects as diverse as self knowledge, death, beauty, good and evil, love, pain, crime, shopping, life, and the human condition. The book is divided into 26 chapters and is essential reading for anyone on a spiritual journey.

Gibran's Jesus: The Son of Man is a portrayal of Christ through the eyes of His contemporaries - men and women who knew him as an enemy, friend, teacher, and Son.

The characters, including Mary Magdalen, Simon Peter, Pontius Pilate, and Barabbas are brought to life against the social, political, and religious realities of Palestine and Rome at that period.

Kahlil Gibrans' Spiritual World is a collection of four of the most important books he wrote in the English language and on which much of his reputation rests. The Madman, The Forerunner, The Prophet, and Sand and Foam are all included here in their entirety. Beautifully narrated by '60s legend Arthur Brown, they are a must for inspiration seekers.

As with The Prophet, Sand and Foam was not only a success on initial publication but was also a must read for many of those in the counter-culture scene in the sixties. John Lennon even borrowed a couplet, with a slight alteration, for his famed song 'Julia'.