Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity [Hardcover]

Richard Smoley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2008

Though love is a perennial topic for writers of all kinds, much of what is written aboutlove is simplistic and unsatisfying. In Conscious Love, Richard Smoley—an expert on the esoteric traditions of mystical Christianity—incorporates insights and wisdom about love from noted thinkers in literature, art, philosophy, sociology, cultural criticism, and even neurology. This remarkable book offers a blueprint for infusing conscious love into human relationships.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Smoley, former editor of the journal Gnosis and author of Inner Christianity and Forbidden Faith, is adept at unknotting the paradoxes of spiritual traditions and making new connections across centuries and languages. In his newest book, he tackles the vexed question of love, which he avers has a unique place at the center of Christian spirituality yet eludes precise classification-as most know, there are at least four words translated as "love" in New Testament Greek alone. Smoley has written that rare book that should exert a strong appeal for Christian and non-Christian readers alike. Highly recommended." - (Library Journal,July 2008)

From the Inside Flap

Conscious Love

"No subject in human life shows up one's limitations quite as much as love. Its universality exposes the limits of one's vision, even of one's soul. The monk grasps love from his perspective, the romantic from another; even whores and libertines have their insights. But the very fervor with which they clutch at their own little corners of this immeasurable continent suggests that they may not be able to raise their eyes and see the whole vista."
—From the Introduction

Though love is a perennial topic for writers of all kinds, much of what is written about love is simplistic and unsatisfying. In Conscious Love, Richard Smoley—an expert on the esoteric traditions of mystical Christianity—incorporates insights and wisdom about love from noted thinkers in literature, art, philosophy, sociology, cultural criticism, and even neurology. This remarkable book offers a blueprint for infusing conscious love into human relationships.

As Smoley explains, among the world's religious traditions Christianity has a distinctive focus on love at the very center of all its teachings—love of God and love of neighbor. Although love has existed as long as the human race itself, it was Christ who posited this mysterious force as being the center of experience. Yet what that love means and requires is not altogether clear—even to Christians. Richard Smoley reveals that a true understanding of love requires exploration of the deepest teachings of Christian mystery and the unconditional love at the heart of the universe. In Conscious Love he reflects on how that kind of love can transcend the bargains and negotiations that are characteristic of what he calls transactional love.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (April 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787988707
• ISBN-13: 978-0787988708
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #907,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard Smoley is one of the world's most distinguished authorities on the mystical and esoteric teachings of Western civilization.

Richard was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1956. He attended the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, and entered Harvard in 1974. As an undergraduate, Smoley was managing editor of the university's venerable literary magazine, The Harvard Advocate, and edited an anthology entitled First Flowering: The Best of the Harvard Advocate, 1866-1976. Featuring prefaces by Norman Mailer and Robert Fitzgerald, the book was published by Addison-Wesley in 1977.

After taking a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in classics at Harvard in 1978, Richard went on to the University of Oxford in the U.K., where he edited The Pelican, the magazine of Corpus Christi College. He took another B.A. in the Honour School of Literae Humaniores (classics and philosophy) in 1980, and received his M.A. from Oxford in 1985.

The most important part of his stay at Oxford came from his contact with a small group that was studying the Kabbalah, one of the mainstays of the Western esoteric tradition. It was here that he was first introduced to many of the ideas he has discussed in his books and articles.

After two years at Oxford, Richard moved to San Francisco in 1980. During this time he continued his spiritual investigations, working with teachings ranging from Tibetan Buddhism to A Course in Miracles. He was also a member of the board of directors of the San Francisco Miracles Foundation, an organization sponsoring the work of A Course in Miracles.

In 1986, Richard started writing for a new magazine called Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions. After four years of writing for Gnosis and a brief stint as managing editor, he came on board as editor in November 1990. In his eight years as editor of Gnosis, he put together issues of the magazine on subjects as diverse as Gnosticism, Freemasonry, G.I. Gurdjieff, and the spirituality of Russia. In 1998 Gnosis won Utne Reader's award for best spiritual coverage. In May 1999, Richard's book, Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions, coauthored with Jay Kinney, was published by Penguin Arkana. (A revised edition was issued by Quest Books in 2006.)

Richard's book Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition, was published in fall 2002 by Shambhala Publications. An audio version read by Richard is available from Berkshire Media Artists Inc. The award-winning literary magazine The Sun featured him in a lengthy interview on Christianity in its September 2003 issue.

Richard has also worked as editor for Faith.com, a Web site on religion and spirituality, and as managing editor of Lindisfarne Books, a highly respected publisher of titles on the spiritual traditions. He is a consulting editor and frequent contributor to Parabola: The Journal of Myth and Tradition. He has served as guest editor of Science of Mind magazine, and works as a consultant for the New Century Edition of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, sponsored by the Swedenborg Foundation in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He is a frequent contributor to the Australian magazine New Dawn. He presently lives in western Massachusetts, where he teaches philosophy as an adjunct professor at Holyoke Community College. He is also editor of Quest Books, operated by the Theosophical Society in America.

In January 2006, Tarcher/Penguin published The Essential Nostradamus, Richard's guide to this fascinating but elusive prophet. The Essential Nostradamus contains fresh and accurate new translations of Nostradamus's key prophecies, as well as an evaluation of his work -- and of prophecy in general.

In April 2007, Harper San Francisco (now Harper One) released the paperback edition of Richard's Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism (originally published in hardcover in 2006). This is an accessible and engaging history of the secret currents of Western civilization -- including Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Catharism, the Rosicrucian legacy, Freemasonry, Theosophy, and much more. It also explores how these currents have shaped modern trends and thinkers ranging from William Blake to C.G. Jung, and, in more recent times, Philip K. Dick, Harold Bloom, and A Course in Miracles.

Richard's book,Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity was published in April 2008 by Jossey-Bass.

He has also written a novel entitled The Gospel of Matthias, which tells the story of Christ in the context of esoteric Christianity. It's currently unpublished; if you'd like to get a copy, please contact Richard by e-mail.

Currently he works as editor of Quest Books and executive editor of Quest magazine, both published by the Theosophical Society in America.

Richard has appeared on several History Channel documentaries on prophecy and religious history. He lectures and gives workshops throughout the United States. Organizations that have sponsored his talks and workshops include:
* The New York Open Center
* The Friends of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, New York
* The California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco
* The Kabbalah Society, London
* The Theosophical Society in America, Wheaton, Illinois
* Krotona School of Theosophy, Ojai, California,
* Nine Gates Mystery School
* Zen Mountain Monastery, Mount Tremper, New York
* The Lumen Foundation, San Francisco
* The Krotona School of Theosophy, Ojai, California
*The Bodhi Tree Bookstore, West Hollywood
* The Swedenborg Foundation
* East-West Books, New York
* Pioneer Valley Anthroposophical Society, Hadley, Massachusetts
* The Kabbalah Society of East Tennessee
* The Seven Rays Institute Conference, Mesa, Arizona
* The Mythic Journeys conference in Atlanta, sponsored by the Joseph Campbell Foundation
* Friends of Jung, Kansas City

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I'd written that!, July 24, 2008

By 

John White (Cheshire, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity (Hardcover)

I nearly used up a full highlighter reading Conscious Love. It's a really fine discussion of love in its various aspects and guises from infancy to maturity, from sexuality to sagehood, from self-love to Self-love, from egoic desire to self-transcendent or conscious love. For me, just about every page has an important insight or a thoughtful connection between topics which I'd not considered before as being connected. Sentence after sentence grabbed me as insightful, even stunning. It is also very well written. Smoley's narrative style is just plain engaging, with phrasing and constructions which gratify the literary sensibilities and the poet's inner eye. When I finished reading the book, I found myself thinking, "Damn, I wish I'd written that!"

5.0 out of 5 stars Explore Conscious Love, December 16, 2011

By 

Lesley Ann Crossingham (Gold Coast, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity (Hardcover)

Richard Smoley is an expert on the esoteric traditions of mystical Christianity. In this book he examines our traditional view of love and delves into the wisdom of noted thinkers in literature, art, philosophy, sociology, cultural criticism and even neurology.

Amongst the world's religious traditions, Christianity has a distinctive focus on love. Even non-Christians will remember the famous words written in the New Testament quoting Jesus enjoining us all to "love one another." It is the very heart of Christian teachings to love God and our neighbour. Whilst it is clear that love has existed for as long as the human race itself, it was Christ who posited this mysterious force as the centre of fully conscious human experience. Yet exactly what conscious love means and what it requires of us, is not altogether clear, even to Christians, and some might say, especially to Christians.

In Conscious Love, a full understandingrequires exploration of the deepest teachings of Christian mystery which points to an endless source of unconditional love at the heart of the universe. Of course, one of the greatest misunderstandings of love comes via sexual interaction. We often refer to the sex act as "making love" when in fact the experience does not necessarily enhance or engender love. Richard Smoley explores the sexual evidence from early Christian practice and from tantra exercises which are based on raising sexual energy from the genitals to the heart.

Any person seriously pursuing the goal of spiritual enlightenment must surely realise that all experiences of fear, restriction, and negativity must be replaced with love. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, if we continue to view love as a mechanical, or sexual, or obligatory, we become blind to conscious love.

In his well written book, Richard Smoley deftly takes the reader along the many pathways to love, examines the tempting detours and finally outlines the only true path. In so doing, he deepens our own capacity to love and be loved. Conscious Love is wise, provocative and deeply informing on humanity's stickiest and yet overwhelming emotion, but the reader must be warned --- it will make your examine all your relationships! Perhaps you will discover that you have never truly loved or been loved, and that can be pretty confrontational. Be prepared to be shocked but also be prepared to see the real pathway revealed at last

0 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GoodService, February 23, 2010

By 

Go(r)d "amature mathematical theologian" (S F Bay) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity (Hardcover)

Received this book ahead of schedule, in great condition. I would but from this vendor again.