What books have had a big impact on you in a spiritual way?

[FallenAngel]

27 minutes ago, devin said:

The Collected Letters of Alan Watts had quite an effect on me. Particularly his writings dealing with Christianity as a form of high non-dualism. Some may not realise this, but Watts was an ordained Episcopalian/Anglican for a while. Reading through his correspondences led me to realise that the man had a lot more depth than I'd previously given him credit for.

 

 

 

I love that book. I cannot for the life of me understand why some accuse the man of fostering apathy toward injustice, personal and social.

 

 

You reminded me about some recordings I listened to, of talks that Alan Watts gave. It's in a collection called 'Out of Your Mind' and I managed to get it as part of a free trial on Audible. I find it hard to read his books, but much easier listening to him.

 

In terms of Viktor Frankl - I'd not heard people saying that about him.  I wonder how they came to that conclusion?! I didn't get that from the book at all 🤔

[TheLoracular]

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was something my mother read to me when I was just 5-6 yeas old and I think it helped shape who I became as a person; I re-read it every couple of years. 

Watership Down likewise just strikes deep into the sacred and spiritual for me without being a novel necessarily intended that way. 

A Spirituality Named Compassion by Matthew Fox keeps a spark of Christianity in my humanist heart 🙂

Notes To My Children  A Simplified Metaphysics by Ken Carey and its something I need to re-read to see what I think as 50 year old vs. a 30 year old

Nothing In This Book is True But It's Exactly How Things Are by Bob Frissel is so bizarrely quirky and something makes sense 

and finally If Life Is A Game, These Are the Rules by Cherie Carter-Scott

[Grandma]

18 hours ago, FallenAngel said:

Not necessarily 'spiritual' per se, but Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' really impressed upon me the strength of the human spirit and the ability to gain meaning from such an awful situation.

 

That is EXACTLY spiritual.

 

From the Oxford English Dictionary, the first definition of spiritual is "relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things."

 

The second definition is "relating to religion or religious belief."

[FallenAngel]

52 minutes ago, Grandma said:

 

That is EXACTLY spiritual.

 

From the Oxford English Dictionary, the first definition of spiritual is "relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things."

 

The second definition is "relating to religion or religious belief."

 

Ah, thank you 😄

[Wyrdkiss]

On 6/28/2021 at 4:56 PM, vulprix said:

I personally get a lot out of the Bible and its exegesis, and I also learned a lot from reading the Book of Mormon. Sacred Fragments by Rabbi Gillman helped me to really think critically about my understanding of the divine. I also really like Shusaku Endo’s A Life of Jesus, and Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ. Huge fan of Dion Fortune’s work—pretty much any and all of it.

 

Fiction that has helped me develop my faith/relationship with nature broadly speaking includes

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

Silence by Shusaku Endo

The Pisces by Melissa Broder (if you’re into the secular-pagan nihilist ecstatic kinda thing)

 

Mary Oliver’s poetry speaks to me on the most sublime level that I have come across, as far as poetry goes 🙂 She is not flashy but she is very clear and humble in the face of nature.

 

I feel like I’ve got to be forgetting something but this is a topic I really like, so thank you for the thread, GreatDane!

Secular-Pagan Nihilistic?  Now my tails wagging...thanks for the recommend

[Marina]

On 7/29/2021 at 6:17 PM, FallenAngel said:

Not necessarily 'spiritual' per se, but Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search for Meaning' really impressed upon me the strength of the human spirit and the ability to gain meaning from such an awful situation.

I love this book! My copy is all highlighted because there are so many amazing parts in it, despite the terrible situation it describes. Frankl was vital in how I developed my views on Free Will and purpose.

 

Other books that were important in my spiritual path:

 

- “Demian” by Hermann Hesse: one of my all-time favourites, that introduced me to Gnosticism; 

 

- “The Mists of Avalon” and “Firebrand” by Marion Zimmer Bradley: laugh if you want but these two were very important books in my younger years and helped shape much of my view of paganism.

 

- Hilda Hilst’s poetry: she was a Brazilian poetess, my absolute favourite. She has a book of poems in which she talks to “God”, and it’s hauntingly dark and at the same time sensuous… for me, it helps me get in touch with the darker side of the divine.

 

- Fernando Pessoa’s poetry: another one that I love! He has many poems related to occultism which I enjoy reading out loud during rituals and meditating on;

 

- Also Anne Sexton, Yeats, Blake, Neruda… tbh, poetry is a huge part of my spiritual practice and vision.

 

Honestly, I can think of many many books that were incredibly important in my spiritual journey. But if I list them all my answer will become too long, lol!

Edited September 24, 2021 by marinaoracles

[MuninnMissinHuginn]

Stevie Smith - The Airy Christ (poem)

[Jasmine]

Great suggestions in this thread.  I'm going to add some to my reading list. 

 

My suggestions are:
Anthony De Mello-Awareness
Byron Katie - A thousand names for joy
Tao Te Ching
Leonard Cohen's poetry
Pema Chodron - all of her books
Thich Nhah Nanh - Peace is every step (and many other of his books) 
Rumi poetry 
 

[FindYourSovereignty]

29 minutes ago, Jasmine said:

My suggestions are:
Anthony De Mello-Awareness
Byron Katie - A thousand names for joy
Tao Te Ching
Leonard Cohen's poetry
Pema Chodron - all of her books
Thich Nhah Nanh - Peace is every step (and many other of his books) 
Rumi poetry 

Yes, these are so good, IMHO!

 

There are so many books that have shifted my perspective for the better and many have been listed in this thread. I’ll add a few more.

• Tosha Silver - all her books
• Carol Tuttle - It’s Just My Nature and Remembering Wholeness

• Florence Scovel Shinn - all of her books

• Transurfing in 78 Days  

 

So many more…

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by FindYourSovereignty

[Jasmine]

I'd never heard of Tosha Silver. I like the look of her teachings. I'm putting Outrageous Openness on my reading list. 

[and_it_spoke]

Beautiful to see this thread resurrected. 

 

I'll throw out another one:

 

'The Case for God' by Karen Armstrong. It's much less a defense of the existence of God, than it is a crash course in the history of human religious thinking. It's fascinating and insightful. She's such an incredible mind. This book - or at least it's introduction - should be required reading.

[FindYourSovereignty]

 

6 minutes ago, Jasmine said:

I'd never heard of Tosha Silver. I like the look of her teachings. I'm putting Outrageous Openness on my reading list.

Shifted my perspective - so good!
 

6 minutes ago, and_it_spoke said:

'The Case for God' by Karen Armstrong. It's much less a defense of the existence of God, than it is a crash course in the history of human religious thinking. It's fascinating and insightful. She's such an incredible mind. This book - or at least it's introduction - should be required reading.

Thank yo for sharing the details. I’ve seen this recently at a secondhand shop. I’ll look to see if it is still there. 
 

[Flaxen]

1 hour ago, and_it_spoke said:

Beautiful to see this thread resurrected. 

 

I'll throw out another one:

 

'The Case for God' by Karen Armstrong. It's much less a defense of the existence of God, than it is a crash course in the history of human religious thinking. It's fascinating and insightful. She's such an incredible mind. This book - or at least its introduction - should be required reading.

Her book ‘Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life’ is also worth reading. Full of practical advice. 

[devin]

17 hours ago, and_it_spoke said:

'The Case for God' by Karen Armstrong. It's much less a defense of the existence of God, than it is a crash course in the history of human religious thinking. It's fascinating and insightful. She's such an incredible mind. This book - or at least it's introduction - should be required reading.

 

100% It's an eye opening insight into how our ancestors were a lot more subtle and intelligent on matters religious than we often give them credit for. Her Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence is also good.... if a bit more grim.

[FindYourSovereignty]

2 hours ago, devin said:

It's an eye opening insight into how our ancestors were a lot more subtle and intelligent on matters religious than we often give them credit for.

I find this compelling.

I’ve come across her work often, but I wasn’t able to get into her writing style. Maybe I will give it another go.

 

[devin]

2 hours ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

I find this compelling.

I’ve come across her work often, but I wasn’t able to get into her writing style. Maybe I will give it another go.

 

I completely understand this. There are some books I really, really want to read but just can't (no matter how hard I try) get into. Meditations on the Tarot is one of them.

[and_it_spoke]

2 hours ago, FindYourSovereignty said:

I’ve come across her work often, but I wasn’t able to get into her writing style. Maybe I will give it another go

 

Oh, her writing is 'chewy' for sure. It really is best to take your time with what she lays out, and going back and re-reading (or re-re-reading if you're a bit slow like me 🙂 ) when necessary. She does not "dumb it down", and that's part of the appeal for me. It challenges me, but rewards the effort to learn and understand quite richly.

[Guest]

The Bible of course. We have four hefty KJV/NKJV study bibles, none of which I've finished yet heh. Still they're so fascinating, and inspiring too. I was surprised that there were some stories there which I remember were taught quite differently in catechism class.

 

I also learned a bit about resilience in Peck's The Road Less Traveled. I haven't read the sequels though. 

 

I learned to develop a philosophical prism through which I can contextualize (and therefore effectively tackle) this ruthless world through the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

 

Even if it's a fictional autobiography, I'm going to have to include Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian here. 

[Nocturnal_Starseed]

Journey of Souls  and Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton 

[Misterei]

Meetings with Remarkable Men by Gurdjeff

Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson by Gurdjieff

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The Bhagavd Gita

Temporary Autonomous Zones by Hakim Bey

Dune, Lord of Light, the Amber Series, and Tolkein’s LoTR

Pretty much everything by Annie Besant or Taimini

The Hidden Life in Freemasonry by CW Leadbeater

Commentaries by Maurice Nicholl

The Man Who Would be King by Kipling

Currently reading The Mahatma Letters

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Misterei

[Mediolanum]

Rumi, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, the Tibetan Book of the Living and the Dying

[2dogs]

Roger Zelazny’s very imaginative Amber novels (again @Misterei) for the story of the hero waking up to a world much larger, stranger and more beautiful than he’d previously believed, his search to find himself and discover his powers, the ever bigger pictures revealed, the ideas of distorted reflections of the truth, and even a form of Tarot cards.

 

Colin Wilson’s Gerard Sorme trilogy of novels exploring the nature of the sexual impulse and the search for meaning in a serious philosophical way while entertaining the reader with stories of murder, occultism, detection and literary history.

 

Krishnamurti’s Notebook for giving an impression of what actually goes through the mind of a person with no sense of self or other delusions.

[Wyrdkiss]

On 6/28/2021 at 5:11 PM, GreatDane said:

 

The Magus John Fowles  - first fictional book I read that had a psychological impact.  Don't know you would call it spiritual, but it made me think - I was about 17.    

 

     

The Magus is one of my favorite fiction books. It was a book report / analysis option my Freshmen year of college.  A deeply impacting novel.

[Silverlotus]

I hope it is okay to post to an older thread. Dune by Frank Herbert has had a very big spiritual impact on my life. I first read it in high school (a long, long time ago), and I've read it close to 15 times now. I feel that it, and the whole original six book series, are very deeply spiritual. I found it at a time I was questioning my faith, and it helped me to see other paths.

[DanielJUK]

It's fine to post in older threads here @Silverlotus We welcome thread necromancy 🙂