Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: making brothers, conjugial love, selfish serpent, The Cosmic Human, The Selfish Serpent, The Special Function (more...)

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)

Product Description

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass (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 (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,233 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 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)

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!"