Inprint - New Books of interest by Jeanne Spiro

Jesus for the Non-Religious by John Shelby Spong. (Harper San Francisco , $24.95, Hardcover.)

Writing from his prison cell in Nazi Germany in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a young German theologian, sketched a vision of what he called “religionless Christianity.” In this book, John Shelby Spong puts flesh onto the bare bones of Bonhoeffer’s radical thought. The result is a strikingly new and different portrait of Jesus, a Jesus for the non-religious.

Spong challenges much of the traditional understanding that has for so long surrounded the Jesus of history, from the tale of his miraculous birth to a virgin, to the account of his cosmic ascension into the sky at the end of his life. He questions the historicity of the ideas that Jesus was born in Bethlehem , that he had twelve disciples, and that the miracle stories were meant to be descriptions of supernatural events. He also speaks directly to those contemporary critics of Christianity who call God a “delusion” and who write letters to a “Christian nation” and describe how Christianity has become evil and destructive.

Spong invites us to look at Jesus through the lens of both the Jewish scriptures and liturgical life of the first-century synagogue. Dismissing the dispute about Jesus’ nature that consumed the church’s leadership for the first five hundred years of Christian history as irrelevant, he proposes a new way of understanding the divinity of Christ: as the ultimate dimension of a fulfilled humanity. Traditional Christians who still cling to dated concepts of the past will not be comfortable with this book, however skeptics of the twenty-first century will not be quite so certain that dismissing Jesus is the correct pathway to walk. Jesus for the Non-Religious may be the book that finally brings the pious and the secular into a meaningful dialogue, opening the door to a living Christianity in a post-Christian world.

Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul by Caroline Myss. (Free Press, $15.99, Paperback.)

Carolyn Myss has created a work of unique insight and revelation in Entering the Castle. This new teaching of contemporary mysticism is a synthesis of the psychology of consciousness and of Eastern and Western mystical traditions. Myss provides an original inner path to self-knowledge, which is also the road into a spiritual knowledge of God and your own soul, as she reveals a necessary external path. It takes you out into the world to serve God and others as a mystic without a monastery and without having to retreat into total silence, self-denial, or isolation.

Myss uses Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle as her main template. She adapts Teresa’s vision of the soul as a beautiful crystal castle with many floors, or mansions, and many rooms within those mansions. Myss guides us from room to room, helping us meet different aspects of our self, our soul, and our spirit, preparing us for the ultimate encounter with God and our own divinity. Through intense practices and methods of spiritual inquiry adapted for contemporary life, she helps us to develop our personal powers of prayer, contemplation, and intuition and to ascend the seven levels of soul knowledge that build an ever stronger interior castle of our own, a soul of strength and stamina.

This is Myss’s most personal, compassionate, and transforming book yet. It is a comprehensive guide for the journey of your life, a journey into the center of your soul. There, peace, God, and a fearless bliss wait for you do discover them and claim them for your own.

Excited Light by Lynn Voedisch. (ASJA Press, $14.95, Paperback.)

Ten-year-old Alex Griffin has plenty of secrets. At night, from his third floor bedroom in a drafty Victorian mansion, he surveys the world and dreams about how life would be if he weren’t taking care of his single, alcoholic mom. He confides his secrets to his beat-up toy duck, Dudley . Dudley answers him.

Exicited Light is a tale of magic and second chances. Young Alex, guided by Dudley and the mysterious entities who visit him, endures his mother’s drinking, waiting for a time when she can hear her own spiritual guides. When she rushes into a reckless romance and gets entangled in a wild lifestyle of nightclubbing, sex, and false promises, Alex attempts to work a miracle to set his mother free from her addiction.

Fries, Thighs, and Lies: The Girlfriend’s Guide to Getting the Skinny on Fat by Deborah Arneson. (Basic Health Publications. $14.95, Paperback.)

Choose whether to feed the size of your gut or the size of your butt. In this lively, contemporary book aimed squarely at women, Deborah Arneson fixes her sights on fat and the lies surrounding it. Her purpose is to put fun in nutrition, and she makes the case that many of the dictums of dieting are just plain wrong.

This direct, no-nonsense approach to what works and what doesn’t makes for an entertaining take on a deadly serious subject: the ineffective at best, disastrous at worst methods being promoted for dieting and weight loss. Fries, Thighs, and Lies is written to demystify what Arneson refers to as myth-information, from the food pyramid, to the wrongheaded low-carbohydrate, high-protein craze, or the amount of water you should drink. This is easy to access, easily understood information. It includes insights, hints, and tips to empower women in their battle against the bulge. Included are case histories of those who found success by following Arneson’s program, a detailed glossary on subjects in the book, and precise, helpful food logs for intakes of 800 to 2500 calories daily. This short, pithy book won’t waste your time, but it might just help you waste your excess fat.

Math for Mystics: from the Fibonacci Sequence to Luna’s Labyrinth to the Golden Section and Other Secrets of Sacred Geometry by Renna Shesso. (Wiser Books, $16.95, Paperback.)

$ORDER THIS BOOK$ Math for Mystics unveils and demystifies some of the many concepts our distant ancestors knew and used based on many generations of observation and record keeping, sky watching, folk wisdom, and ever more complex calculations.

A large portion of math history comes to us directly from early astrologers who needed to be able to describe and record what they saw in the night sky. Everyone needed math. Whether you were the king’s court astrologer or a farmer marking the best time for planting, timekeeping and numbers really mattered. Mistake a numerical pattern of petals and you could poison yourself and your loved ones. Lose the rhythm of the sacred dance or the meter of a ritual story and the intricately woven threads that hold life together would be spoiled. Ignore the celestial clock of equinoxes and solstices, and you’d risk being caught short of food for the winter.

Renna Shesso is a former math-phobe who previously viewed the “M” word with fear and loathing, but gave numbers a second chance. Through her search, she discovered their contemporary use as magical tools and as vital components of esoteric heritage. Math for Mystics is for readers, like her, who have viewed math with trepidation, but have an interest in numbers as a practical tool for magical, esoteric, or spiritual purposes.

The Face Reader: Discover Anyone’s Personality, Compatibility, Talents, and Challenges through Chinese Face Reading by Patricia McCarthy. (Dutton, $27.95, Hardcover.)

Face Reading tells a person’s story. Whether it becomes an impetus for personal insight or a tool for reading the qualities of others, The Face Reader is a manual for determining the potential of nearly everyone you know, including yourself.

Chinese Face Reading, or Mien Shiang, is an ancient art form that has been used for 2,500 years. At its heart is the belief that our faces are a map of our past, present, and future. A man’s ears might suggest his ability to take risks. A woman’s nose might show how ambitious she is. Our eyes may tell the story of how we respond to the world around us. A face shape shows if a person is a natural leader, or prefers to be a team player. Facial markings may reveal something about one’s relationship with his parents or even how he expresses love. More than that, the sum of all of these features shows us a person’s greatest strengths, and biggest challenges.

Patricia McCarthy is the first Mien Shiang expert to translate this ancient science for the mainstream American public. Her book offers an accessible and enlightening introduction to this time-honored tradition of solving the mystery of personality, compatibility, and even destiny.

Wisdom Walk: Nine Practices for Creating Peace and Balance from the World’s Spiritual Traditions by Sage Bennet, Ph.D. (New World Library, $14.95, Paperback.)

We delight in an array of foods from Middle Eastern tabouli to Mediterranean shish kabob, but when it comes to the beliefs of the same traditions from which these foods originate, many are far less willing to take a bite. According to Sage Bennet, sampling from the banquet table of wisdom from the world’s great traditions can nourish our souls, provide tools to transform our fear and disillusionment, and help us to overcome prejudice and misunderstandings regarding other religions.

Wisdom Walk explores practices from nine different religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Native American, Taoism, and the New Thought tradition. Bennet’s friendly and inviting writing style makes each of the practices accessible without diminishing their substance. She also shows the power they hold to bring personal peace and balance, and awareness about the needs of others. Each chapter includes quotes and personal stories from each of the spiritual traditions and suggests action steps for applying the various wisdom practices. Whether we are in a dark night of the soul, desire a more fulfilling life, or simply want to learn more about spirituality, Wisdom Walk is an easy to follow guide for bringing the world’s spiritual traditions into our lives.