A Fools Pilgrimage

Stephan Hoeller's handbook for heightening consciousness is unrivaled for its clarity in explaining the ancient mystical Kabbalah in relation to the Tarot's Major Arcana. On the new enclosed CD, Dr. Hoeller narrages twenty-two meditations to guide the reader easily into a contemplative state.

Archetypes in various guises can be found among the twenty-two Tarot trumps. Above them stands the Fool as the archetype of an eternal pilgrim, who in this fantasy novel threads his way through the labyrinth of the world.

The Kanwar is India's largest annual religious pilgrimage. Millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganga and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Śiva shrines. These devotees--called bhola, gullible or fools, and seen as miscreants by many Indians--are mostly young, destitute men, who have been left behind in the globalizing economy. But for these young men, the ordeal of the pilgrimage is no foolish pursuit, but a means to master their anxieties and attest their good faith in unfavorable social conditions. Vikash Singh walked with the pilgrims of the Kanwar procession, and with this book, he highlights how the procession offers a social space where participants can prove their talents, resolve, and moral worth. Working across social theory, phenomenology, Indian metaphysics, and psychoanalysis, Singh shows that the pilgrimage provides a place in which participants can simultaneously recreate and prepare for the poor, informal economy and inevitable social uncertainties. In identifying with Śiva, who is both Master of the World and yet a pathetic drunkard, participants demonstrate their own sovereignty and desirability despite their stigmatized status. Uprising of the Fools shows how religion today is not a retreat into tradition, but an alternative forum for recognition and resistance within a rampant global neoliberalism.

Now in a fully corrected edition, one of the true spiritual classics of the twentieth century. Published for the first time with an index and Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar’s afterword, this new English publication of Meditations on the Tarot is the landmark edition of one of the most important works of esoteric Christianity. Written anonymously and published posthumously, as was the author’s wish, the intention of this work is for the reader to find a relationship with the author in the spiritual dimensions of existence. The author wanted not to be thought of as a personality who lived from 1900 to 1973, but as a friend who is communicating with us from beyond the boundaries of ordinary life. Using the 22 major arcana of the tarot deck as a means to explore some of humanity’s most penetrating spiritual questions, Meditations on the Tarot has attracted an unprecedented range of praise from across the spiritual spectrum.

The Path of the Holy Fool: How the Labyrinth Ignites Our Visionary PowersThe Path of the Holy Fool summons each of us to become a Holy Fool: one who is accountable, stands for equality and social justice, embraces an ecological vision, and encourages community spirit. Lauren Artress, who established the two permanent labyrinths at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, is a leading force in the Labyrinth Movement. Her new book The Path of the Holy Fool: How the Labyrinth Ignites Our Visionary Powers expands upon her earlier work in Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice. Through the Parsifal story Artress suggests the labyrinth serves as a Grail that is discovered in the invisible, imaginative, in-between world symbolized by the Grail Castle. Most importantly this book invites readers to explore and reflect upon their own uniquely configured imaginations. It is through the imagination that self-reflection and raw experiences of the Holy occur. Once we navigate our imaginative processes without fear, the labyrinth experience ignites our creativity, heals our wounds and opens our big picture vision that nurtures empathy and gives us eyes to see and ears to hear-even through the sorrows of the pandemic-the call for a life-enhancing future. The labyrinth offers the Holy Fool an unwavering path as we learn to takes risks, create new modalities and find a way to contribute to our evolving world. ISBN (eBook): 978-1-7359188-0-8

A Journey of Singular Courage by a True Spiritual Master When financial disaster forces Mark David Gerson out of his Portland home with everything he owns packed into the back of his car, he launches an open-ended road odyssey that will carry him from the Pacific to the Mississippi and back again, never knowing from one day to the next whether he can muster the faith to keep going. "I don’t know anyone who has regularly risked more, given up more, to be a writer." – Will Reichard, author of Evertime Mark David Gerson is not only a master of the word, but also a master of the heart. – Joan Cerio, author of Heartwired to Heaven: Unlocking the Power of the Creative Heart “If they accomplish nothing else, I hope these writings reassure at least one of you that you’re not alone, that you needn’t be ashamed of feeling scared, that you needn’t be afraid to acknowledge your fear, and that your vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness…is a sacred gift to the world, not a liability.”

Tracing the evolution of the newly emerging iconographical patterns of fools and folly, this book sheds light on the original and innovative invention that was an exclusive creation of northern Renaissance art and culture. The novel theme of the fools' journey, as expressed mainly through prints in Germany and later in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century is revealed as an ironical paraphrase, parodying the well established Christian topos, the Pilgrimage of Life or the Pilgrimage of the Human Soul, which offered the believer the opportunity to travel on the road toward redemption. The new mythical image of the fools' journey, however, confronts the contemporary reader/viewer with the image of the fool on his voyage that leads him, instead, to his doomed fate, thereby reflecting a pessimistic world-view. The newly emerging visual vocabulary is considered in relation to analogical contemporary didactic and satirical theatrical performances such as the rederijkers plays, the sotties, and also carnival processions. Proposing a new reading of Sebastian Brant's The Ship of Fools (Das Narrenschiff, Basel 1494), a landmark in the new iconography of the allegorical journey, this study recognizes as well the power of the visual image employed in the woodcuts-illustrations accompanying the treatise as a tool of moral teaching, used as a means of influencing the larger urban audience for whom word and image were sometimes interchangeable. Concomitantly, the divergence between verbal expression and visual language may be seen to define the inherent codes of the visual expressions. It is precisely the gap between literary sources and visualization, the very moment when visual vocabulary crystallizes, and image departs from word creating its own autonomous expression and language, that attracts our attention. The range and diversity of visual material related to the fools' journey topos, addresses a wide spectrum of audiences. This study also takes into consideration the strategies of communicating meanings and values to various publics. Addressing the wider urban public that was not necessarily lettered, notably women, illustrated-books and images were envisaged first of all as didactic tools. In accordance, the painters-engravers attended their public with rather simple visual elaborations that could be easily deciphered. Paintings, drawings, and prints intended for highly cultivated elite circles of urban society, among them works by Albrecht Durer and Hieronymus Bosch, demanded greater intellectual involvement on the part of the beholder, challenging the sophisticated viewer to re-create a meaningful ensemble out of the various scenes and motifs presented within complex compositions.

Whenever we hear the word Pilgrimage in religious settings, the first thing that comes to mind is a trip to the 'holy' land by the name of Jerusalem for Christians or Mecca for Muslims or other such places for other religions. Let me say this upfront: "I'm not really interested in religious discussions, so you know that I'm not about to spend time discussing trips to ‘holy’ lands. True, pilgrimage is a journey, and whenever we hear the word “Journey” from a preacher or when it is read in a book, we tend to convert it straight away to mean the religious pilgrimage. Many have even term it to be what Jesus was talking about when he said that the road is narrow in Matthew 7:13-14. And because we have misinterpreted the journey, too many of us (children of God) go through the ‘journey’ wrongly. This journey has led to the frustration of many and they are still bringing many more people into frustration. God can’t get it wrong, He said His people are destroyed, frustrated, deceived, and duped because they lack knowledge. This book reveals what pilgrimage really is and how to go through it in God's way, and how to enjoy every step of the journey.

An "enlightening but also very funny" (Paul Theroux) account of one woman's personal quest to find the roots of belief among modern religious pilgrims.