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The Angels (The Entities Trilogy)
Edited with an Introduction by Robert Sardello (1994)

On October 9, 1918, Rudolf Steiner presented a lecture in Zurich called "The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body."...We need only to reflect for a moment on the very large difficulties culture now faces within the three areas of sexuality, medicine, and technology to know that Steiner saw in 1918 the possibility of our refusal of the angels. I introduce these concerns here, at the start of these papers, to indicate something all of the essayists feel: the concern for angels at this particular time is serious business. We live in a time of great change, a period in which it is possible to make preparations for the forming of a new culture...The following essays contribute to the development of that larger sense of reality and point toward the creation of a spiritual culture that does not abandon the material world. Perhaps I can assist your reading of the papers by offering an Adriadne's thread to hold on to as you go through the labyrinthine worlds of psychology, science, literature, and art in search of the angels. What most characterizes the following, I believe, is an attempt to work out of the present circumstances of consciousness so as to seek break-through points indicating the presence of the angels. - from the editor's Introduction ( Dallas Institute Publications)



The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and the Sacred Geography of the Body
J.Nigro Sansonese (1994) 369pages

In The Body of Myth, J. Nigro Sansonese compares Greek myths as well as those of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the yogic practices of India and concludes that myths are esoteric descriptions of what occurs within the human body, especially the human nervous system, during trance. The author shows how the human body is an atlas of mythic locale. In that light, myths provide a detailed map of the shamanic state of consciousness that is our natural heritage. In the concluding section, the author shows the extent to which the laws of physics share a common ground with myth in the framework of consciousness and physiology. The author noted in his introduction: "Science, we shall see, is ultimately a systematic description of the human organism. Myth properly interpreted, is the key to unlocking that description. A grand synthesis of science, consciousness, and myth - by means of yoga - is the goal of this book. (Inner Traditions)



The Grail: Quest for the Eternal
John Matthews (1981/1994) 96pages

'Here begins the Book of the Sangreal, Here begins the terrors, Here begins the miracles.' The scene is set for the quest of the Holy Grail, to whom all the knights of King Arthur's Round table (but particularly Galahad, Paerceval and Bors) pledge themselves. As a sacred vessel, the Grail has strong links with Celtic myth and with the Hermetic vessel and Philosopher's Stone of alchemy. Cup, stone or jewel, however it is portrayed, the Grail has remained a symbol of spiritual wholeness leading to union with the divine, which has been the aim of seekers after truth in every land and every century. It is a symbol 'whose home is properly in the uncharted country of the soul.' - A title in the Art and Imagination series, with 118 illustrations, 15 in colour. (Thames & Hudson)



The Homeric Hymns
translated by Charles Boer (1970) 182pages





The Journey to the West (in four volumes)
Translated & edited by Anthony C. Yu
vol 1 (1977) 530pages; vol 2 (1978) 438pages
vol 3 (1980) 453pages; vol 4 (1983) 469pages

The Journey to the West is Anthony C. Yu's four-volume translation of Hsi Yu Chi, one of the most beloved classics of Chinese literature. The fantastic tale recounts the sixteen-year pilgrimage of the monk Hsuan-tsang (596-664), one of China's most illustrious religious heroes, who journeyed to India with four animal disciples in quest of Buddhist scriptures. For nearly a thousand years his exploits were celebrated and embellished in various accounts, culminating in the hundred-chapter Journey to the West, which combines religious allegory with romance, fantasy, humor, and satire. (University of Chicago Press)



The Muses (The Entities Trilogy)
Edited with an Introduction by Gail Thomas (1994) 131pages

This book of ten essays by Fellows of the Dallas Institute is part of a series we have come to call, with some amusement, "The Entities Trilogy": The Angels, The Muses, and The Olympians. This particular book has a special relationship to the city of Dallas. it is being published in celebration of the opening of Pegasus Plaza, a public park in the epicenter of Dallas...As you read the following papers by the Fellows of the Dallas Institute, I suggest that you engage in a bold act: allow yourself to see through the present conditions in the centers of our urban cities; take the risk of seeing with a new and inspired perspective - one that imagines the center city as once again vibrant and whole, alive with life, with people, festivity, song, dance, food, gaiety, ritual, and celebration. Give over to the "willing suspension of disbelief and see with new eyes. Perhaps when the hoof of Pegasus hits the ground, there will come a wellspring, and the Muses will appear... - from the Editor's preface (Dallas Institute Publications)



The Myths and Gods of India: The Classic Work on Hindu Polytheism from the Princeton Bollingen Series
Alain Danielou (1964) 441pages

This study of Hindu mythology explores the significance of the most prominent Hindu deities as they are envisioned by the Hindus themselves. Referred to by its adherents as the "eternal religion," Hinduism recognizes for each age and each country a new form of revelation - and for each person, according to his or her stage of development, a different path of realization. This message of tolerance and adaptability, the very heart of Hindu polytheism, resounds clearly throughout Alain Danielou's work. Thirty-three photographic plates by Raymond Burnier further illustrate the many facets of Hindu teaching and trace the significance of the Gods of the Vedas, as well as Vishnu, Siva, Linga, Brahma, Kali, Sakti, and many other deities. (Inner Traditions, 1991)



The Olympians (The Entities Trilogy)
Edited with an Introduction by Joanne H. Stroud (1995)157pages

On your first exposure to Homer in school, you may have been as confused as I was by the interaction of Olympian deities and mortals. Why were some humans favored by the gods, while others aroused their ire? Why did this teeming pantheon of gods and goddesses behave in such unpredictable, capricious, and even human ways? Why almost three thousands years after Homer described their antics, are they still so alive to us today in a markedly dissimilar age? At a conference in 1990, twelve Fellows of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture sought answers to these questions. With unanimity, they concluded that the Olympian legacy is still valuable as an image for understanding human motivations, longings, and desires. Viewed through disciplines as dissimilar as literature, physics, art history, and psychology, the consensus was that these presences can serve as mythical mirrors, reflecting the depths and convolutions of being human. Paraphrasing Daniel Noel, they can teach us how to imagine the mythic elements in our own lives. -from the Editor's Preface ( Dallas Institute Publications)



Ovid's Metamorphoses
Translated by Charles Boer (1989) 359pages

This is a poem of grotesque injustices, of fierce emotion and frightening political inuendo (no matter how apolitical the poet himself may have been), all besetting the darker aspects of human personality. Ovid pathologizes these aspects through the mythical images of metamorphosis. Many of the metamorphososes, like Io's, Dryope's, or Scylla's, are terrifyingly downward to a sub-human state in plant's and animals, not upward into stars or Gods. Some, like Actaeon's, culminate in the most gruesome deaths imaginable. Yet it all comes wrapped in a deceptively smooth and polished Latin verse, and narrated by a remarkably cool mythographer who keeps intruding himself coyly into the narrative, constantly qualifying, reminding us that he is writing all this with ancient myth handbooks open before him as if he were only some edit-as-you-go scholar or, at best, a detached and gentle onlooker like ourselves. The posture is, as so much with Ovid, treacherous, and the reader should beware of falling into the conventional literary trap of thinking this "high comedy." It is most certainly sprightly, but ever so deadly. The radiant humor, the endless irony, Ovid's famous charm, all sit gracefully on a stage of murders, rapes, tortures, plagues, starvations, and universal heartache, with the horror of metamorphosis itself only a welcome (or unwelcome) denouement. - from the translator's Introduction (Spring Publications)



The Speech of the Grail: A Journey Toward Speaking That Heals and Transform
Linda Sussman (1995) 272pages

The structure of this study is as follows: A "Prelude" discusses Wolfram's opening paragraphs in detail. In Chapter 1, I explore the first two books of Parzival ( twelfth-century epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach) as background for the quest and for the speech of the Grail. The next seven chapters each examines two of Wolfram's books. Each retelling of an episode from Parzival is followed by two commentaries: "Initiatory Themes" draws directly upon the text for general initiatory steps relevant to the speech of the Grail; then in "Toward Speech of the Grail" I improvise on these themes as they suggest specific practices for a person who feels called to the speech of the Grail. The "Epilogue" elucidates the overall labyrinthine pattern that represents the journey. - from the author's Introduction (Lindisfarne)



Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art
Lewis Hyde (1998) 417pages

...and the best way to describe the trickster* is to say simply that the boundary is where he will be found - sometimes drawing the line, sometimes crossing it , sometimes erasing or moving it, but always there, the god of the threshold in all its forms... My own position, in any event is not that artists** I write about are tricksters but that there are moments when the practice of art and this myth coincide. I work by juxtaposition, holding the trickster stories up against specific cases of imagination in action, hoping that each might illuminate the other. If the method works, it is not because I have uncovered the true story behind a particular work of art but more simply that the coincidences are fruitful, making us think and see again. Such goals are in keeping with the trickster's spirit, for he is the archetype who attacks all archetypes. He is an "eternal state of mind" that is suspicious of all eternals, dragging them from their heavenly preserves to see how they fare down here in this time-haunted world.
* Hermes/Greece, Eshu/West Africa, Krishna/India, Coyote/North America, among others
** Picasso, Duchamp, John Cage, and Frederick Douglas - from the author's Introduction (North Point Press)



Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through Writing and Storytelling
Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox (1973/1989) 129pages

To be a person is to have a story to tell. We become grounded in the present when we color in the outlines of the past and the future. Mythology can add perspective and encouragement to your life. Within each of us there is a tribe with a complete cycle of legends and dances, songs to be sung. We were all born into rich mythical lives: we need only claim the stories that are our birthright. - from Chapter One: To Tell a Story (Jeremy P. Tarcher)


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