3 comments about Cracking the Symbol Code: Revealing the Secret Heretical Messages within Church and Renaissance Art.

1. 
   This informative work deals with the history and significance of symbolism in Christian art, explaining how and why heretical ideas were hidden from the church hierarchy right under its nose. The author points out the indicators of hidden symbolism and explores the manifold layers of meaning conveyed by it.
   
   Section I covers the birth and development of sacred symbolism and the legacy of ancient Egyptian gnosis, while Section II discusses the Bible, the supposed Egyptian origins of Judaism, and two conflicting views of the life and ministry of Jesus. The connection between Atenism and Judaism has been made before and is not convincing.
   
   Section III examines early Christianity, St Paul, the foundations of Christian symbolism, the consolidation of Christian Europe and the glory of the Gothic. The last section discusses the hidden streams coming to the surface in issues like the Black Madonna, Sacred Geometry, Chartres Cathedral, the Grail, the Templars, the Tarot, symbolism in Rosslyn Chapel and in renaissance paintings and the craft of Freemasonry.
   
   In the epilogue, the author brings the reader up to the present with discussions of the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, relevant TV programmes of recent decades, the book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and discoveries at Amiens.
   
   The book contains 30 beautiful plates of sculptures, carvings, pillars, stained glass windows and paintings, plus photographs of features at Rennes-le-Chateau. There are also black & white figures throughout the text. Thirteen pages of source notes, a bibliography and index conclude the book.
   
   Although interesting and not without merit, the book has some major flaws, one of which is its unthinking embrace of the Magdalene Myth. His claim that Jesus was married is based on dubious scholarship. One of his sources is a certain Margaret Starbird - an investigation of her work triggers the alarm. It is pure speculation and fantasy along the flakier shores of the imagination.
   
   These Da Vinci Code spin-offs are highly entertaining and even thought-provoking as in this case, but beware of the wild claims about early Christianity. The notion that Jesus Christ was gradually made divine in a process of syncretism with pagan religions has been thoroughly disproved by Larry Hurtado in his landmark work Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity.



2. I was disappointed with this work by one of my favorite authors. For one thing, the subtitle of this book, "Revealing the Secret Heretical Messages within Church and Renaissance Art" is very misleading. In almost three hundred pages of material, exactly ten pages are dedicated to the mystery of Renaissance art, and that adds up to a few mentions of certain DaVinci works. The rest is alternative Bible history and an examination of Gothic Cathedral art in stone. Mr. Wallace-Murphy misses the mark with this one.



3. Cracking The Symbol Cone: Revealing The Secret Heretical Messages Within The Church An Renaissance Art by British author, lecturer, and historian Tim Wallace-Murphy is among the most informative explanations to the mysteries left behind of the Knights Templar, Leonardo Da Vinci, King Solomon, and the metaphorical art of the medieval Christian era. Explore a culture and time of mystery, until recent time not at all understood, and now publicly understood. Never before has a book revealed all that Cracking The Symbol Code depicts to its readers. Informed and informative, Tim Wallace-Murphy's Cracking The Symbol Code is very highly recommended for general readers, but particularly those following the Da Vinci mystery's progression.

No comments about Son of Man: Volume III, King of Kings (Son of Man).

No comments about Theology and the Arts: Encountering God Through Music, Art, and Rhetoric.

2 comments about Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity.

1. Surprisng that this book has only one review here, considering most everyone i know has a copy in their library, and considers this book a cornerstone of their collection.
   
   This book provides detailed, concise info regarding what the different yantras represent and how they work. I would have appreciated more information about the pecularities of use for different traditions. In any case i can't recommend this book enough. Thank goodness this book has not gone out of print.



2. This book details all kinds of historical Yantras as revealed in various Vedas (historic Hindu scriptures). Yantras are cosmic machines which directs energies to the human body/mind to attain various psychic states. The author dwells deeply in to the philosophy behind it, which in essence is Hinduism. Understanding the Hindu concept of the world, the cosmos and the human being is the key to unlocking the power of Yantra. A reader who is not exposed to Eastern religious philosophies will find it difficult to comprehend the description of concepts behind the Yantra.

   This book has many illustrations of historic Yantras and details of the significance of its geometric drawings. I liked this book for the depth of analysis and the description of underlying concepts. Please note that this is NOT an instruction work book on Yantras which details about how to make a Yantra.

   One disappointing fact is that the author uses little space to describe Occult Yantras which are commonly used by ordinary people for protection, healing and power. The Sri Yantra, which enables a person to attain higher states is described in detail. Overall this book gave me indepth knowledge about the working of a Yantra - the energized cosmic machine.

3 comments about Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest (Campion Book).

1. Eventhough my studies do not allow me a great deal of time to read books of my choice, I could not deny the work of Dr. "Cliffy-baby" Edwards. His book, "Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest" was just that. It was, in every sense of the phrase, a creatively spiritual page turner. His language and content captures the reader's mind and by doing so, captures the reader's spiritual core. Once mesmerized by the life, work, and creative madness of the artist, the reader becomes smoothly inundated with the thorough biographical information that Dr. Edwards so eloquently puts to page. At the risk of sounding mildly educated, I had never realized the influence Zen Buddhism had on the artist until reading Dr. Edwards' book. I did, of course, realize the "oriental" aspect of Van Gogh's approach to painting but I never knew of his "Zen Buddhist" approach to living. Sometimes the samurai leaves the monarchy and spends his life in caves painting. Congratulations Dr. E. for a fine work indeed.



2. I recently heard the author of Van Gogh and God, Dr. Cliff Edwards, speak about Vincent. At this particular gathering, he also showed wonderful slides of the artist's work. As a result of that encounter with Dr. Edwards and Vincent Van Gogh, I bought Dr. Edwards' warm and accessible book, Van Gogh and God. While reading it, much like the disciples who spoke to Christ without recognizing him on the road to Emmaus, I felt my heart burn within me while Vincent's life opened up before me like a lotus flower. I especially connected with Van Gogh's insistence that he was "not an admirer" of biblical subjects (to paint). Apparently he felt that paintings such as The Nativity and Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane avoided getting to the "reality of things" and gave him "a powerful feeling of collapse instead of progress." To paint biblical material must have felt inauthentic to Vincent as he journeyed on his spiritual quest. Lois Lowry in her book, The Giver, addresses this very issue of authenticity. Jonas, the hero, lives in a community where sameness and conformity are valued. Jonas sees things differently, though, and is chosen to become the one who acts as receptacle and transmitter of the community's collective memory. Jonas receives these memories/stories from the Giver, someone who currently has the task of holding memory. One of the questions the book raises in the reader's mind is, "When does a story become MY story?" People in Jonas' community lived without authenticity because the locus of memory was institutionalized within an individual. I couldn't help but think that Vincent, striving for authenticity, wanted to show that those sacred memories (institutionalized in the Church and in biblical paintings) gave him "a powerful feeling of collapse instead of progress." For a story (either word or image) to have meaning, it must first connect with an individual's experience. Vincent Van Gogh, like Jonas, saw things differently. Both struggled in a world that would have preferred their acquiesence to the status quo. Dr. Edwards convincingly shows that Vincent imaged God outside the parameters and conventions of the Church. Dr. Edwards suggests that "[p]erhps such profound power revealed through one's life task was a more accurate description of the divine than the word 'God.' " Another powerful image is "the child in a cradle as best evidence for God." As Dr. Edwards points out, "Vincent experiences God in the concreteness of his own most intense and significant personal history." We all do. Vincent found meaning in his life's work, his care and concern for the prostitute Sien, her daughter, and newborn son, and also in nature--wheat, flowers, olive groves, cypress trees. To image and paint a Christ that has no personal connection is, again, to live inauthentically. It would appear that Vincent would have none of that. One of my favorite parts in Dr. Edwards' book is in the Preface. "[M]ost Judeo-Christian scholars...[take] the unyielding position that religion must be expressed primarily as hearing and obeying, and cannot be expressed significantly as seeing and creating. Dr. Edwards shows how Vincent navigated those waters. It gives hope to those of us who have felt stifled by the Church's insistence that memory/story resides within its embrace.



3. The author misleads the reader by perpetuating two myths about van Gogh's religious life 1) that he was raised Calvinist and 2) that he was Buddist. If the author had taken the time to research van Gogh's biography, he would have found that van Gogh's family rejected Calvinism entirely, particularly the notions of sin and limited salvation, for a more liberal theology, favoring universal salvation and the belief that God dwells within us all. The author continues his false representation of van Gogh by arguing that he became a Buddist after he left the Christian ministry. This is based on one simple painting that van Gogh made for his friend, Gauguin, with his head shaven like a Buddist monk. Although van Gogh was thoroughly fascinated with Oriental culture, he never visted the Far East, never studied Buddism, nor did he show any real understanding of its basic ideas. In fact, all he learned of Asian culture and religion came from what he saw in the Japanese woodblock prints that came into Europe in the late 19th century and also what he garnered from reading 19th century French novels. Mr. Edwards only clouds our understanding of van Gogh with his own personal interests. For example, his discussion of van Gogh's famous work, "Crows over the Wheatfield," reads "The painting itself enters the mode of being of all things in their impermanence yet transformation, becoming a koan that poses the Zen Master's question: 'If you call this wheat you cling to it; if you do not call it wheat you depart from the facts, so what do you call it then?'" (What does this have to do with van Gogh?) The reader is best to stay away from this book entirely.

No comments about The New Testament: Through 100 Masterpieces of Art.

5 comments about The Faces Of Jesus: A Life Story.

1. This slim volume is vintage Buechner. Six short chapters provide a gentle challenge to meditation for those who are grieving or suffering life's distresses.



2. Frederick Beuchner seldom dissapoints. This is true of this delightfully poetic view of Jesus' life. Based on some of the more famous pictures of Jesus by various artists, the paper back edition, while handy to have and easily portable lacks the charm of the larger hard cover original edition which contains reproductions of the art work. Typical of Buechner's immently readable style, this book delights the senses while deepening the faith.



3. Following TELLING SECRETS, this is definitely relief! Reading this biographical material as being heavier. More often his sermons surely lend a hint to his uniquely human, more emotional approach to stories of The Nativity, Ministry, Last Supper, Crucifixion, and Resurrection are quotations of his faith and theology. In the Intro to THE FACES of JESUS Fred begins "He set his face to go to Jerusalem..." One other statement of Fred Buechner's Theology comes in Resurrection, he includes words of a hymn spoken by Jesus at Acts of John. I am deeply impressed by this most mature, fascinating creation of Fredrick Buechner! Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood



4. Most of us learned the old, old stories of the Bible as children from our parents or in Sunday school. If we still attend church, the critical few are repeated on an annual basis. And the common scripture readings again cover these moments.
   
   In this book these stories are again repeated. But this time they are combined with a historical view that helps to present a more human view of Jesus, one where we might can view what the man had to go through. In the section on the crucifixion for instance, he talks of how this was a Roman punishment. He adds understanding to the whipping administered beforehand. The Mel Gibson showed this most graphically. But the author points out that the condemned often died under this preliminary punishment, thus being spared the greater one to follow.
   
   Of the crucifixion itself, the whole thing was designed to be as cruel as possible. Death often took two or three days to occur. Jesus was 'fortunate' in surviving only a few hours. And remember that in John, the people involved didn't want the event to continue so the soldiers were instructed to break the legs of the three on the crosses. This put all the weight on the arms and caused suffication to occur quickly.
   
   This little book provides a view that fills in background information to those told in the Bible



5. 
   If occasionally you find that the stories of Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have become so familiar they fall flat, this book will help you experience the wonder of reading them again as if for the first time.
   
   The faces of Jesus, his "ways of being and being seen" are illuminated in six chapters: Annunciation, Nativity, Ministry, Last Supper, Crucifixon, and Resurrection.
   
   The focus of the faces of Jesus is that whatever else he may have been, he was a man once and had a "man's face, a human face."

No comments about Marvellous to Behold: Miracles in Illuminated Manuscripts.

4 comments about Celebrations of Faith: 60 Banner Designs.

1. Unfortunately, this book has too many cartoon-like drawings and not enough actual designs to use. The concept for each banner is fairly good but the designs were just too childish. Banners that contain just words aren't useable. Anybody can cut and glue words to a piece of fabric.



2. When I ordered this book, I thought I would be getting a set of simple banner designs. I was disappointed, however, to find that these designs were not just simple--they were simplistic. The designs are so simple that they verge on cartoonish and did not have the elegance and dignity that I was looking for in a banner for a sacred space. Some of designs were so simple as to be illegible as symbols. There was one design of a light coming through an open door (at least this is what the book said it was) that I couldn't figure out without an explanation. The other thing that made this book impractical for me was that it wasn't designed with a liturgical church (or a church that follows the church year) in mind. I was looking for banner designs for Lent, Palm Sunday, and Easter. This book had a few Easter banners, but nothing that was servicable for a banner to hang during the season of Lent. It did, however, have quite a few designs for personalized banners--for baptism, confirmation, graduation, and ordination. If you're looking for ideas for those events, or your church is not particularly liturgical and your worship space is more casual, this might be a servicable book for you.



3. This is one of the best church banner books I had used.
   The designs are beautiful yet simple and flexible. The "tips and extras" included --suggestions on color and presentation are very helpful.

   I would definitely recommend this book.




4. This book contains banner designs that are clear and contemporary and range from simple/easy to more complex. They are great to look at for ideas and can be easily adapted for different sizes or formats (banners, bans, posters, signs, etc.) I especially liked the fact that they are contemporary but not too abstract. Not as much "how-to" as some other books, but definitely a great addition for ideas for all church occasions.

1 comments about Dante's Paradiso.

1. I adore the Divine Comedy-- and all of the Modern Library translations of the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. I tried out these books by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders because they looked appealing. They're definitely great reads. No, they're not perfect, and some of it is a little strange to read, but overall, I think you can't really go wrong in trying them out. It keeps all of Dante's main points, it just presents them in a different, more modern way. Anyone interested in Dante's work, would should at least read these for experimentation.