The 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

This volume makes a contribution to understanding pilgrimage, not as a transient activity at the margins of daily life, but as an event grounded firmly in the physical, symbolic and social experience of the everyday world. The vital relationship between pilgrimage and society is explored via a focus on a specific pilgrimage – the Kanwar pilgrimage of Bihar and Jharkhand in India and the southeast Terai of Nepal. The rising popularity of this old but relatively unknown pilgrimage is striking and reflects profound changes in caste, class and gender relation­ships, subjectivity and notions of work in a modern economy. Through the lens of pilgrimage and pilgrims, the book explores the everyday context of life in parts of rural Bihar and southeast Nepal, questions about agency and desire in Hinduism, and the meaning given to symbolic life in a changing world. This requires an integrative approach looking beyond the performance of the pilgrimage to the historical, economic and social-cultural context. The volume underscores the role of popular and local history in understanding the life and popularity of a complex phenomenon, such as the pilgrimage today. Equal importance is given to the geography and climatic conditions, for natural rhythms such as that of rains, rivers, planetary movements, were and still are, intimately entwined with the agricultural, socio-economic and ritual cycles. The particular experience of the world that this engenders and its relationship to the pilgrimage is described through the active voice of the pilgrims and descriptions of rites, some new and many fast disappearing. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka