This book changed my life. It is the story of a young man who cannot see or hear. Yet he goes to college, lives on his own, orders pizza and decides to take an airplane flight to a foreign country unassisted. Can one imagine? For anyone wanting to overcome personal challenges, large or small, this book will help put things into perspective.

Since the 1960's the West seems more interested in the Eastern Spiritual traditions than its often neglected own (kind of a reverse on the Western secular culture that is making inroads in the East!). The authors/editors of this book had their first go at at least making Westerners aware of their rich tradition native to their own culture with their magazine Gnosis. In each issue of Gnosis a particular theme was taken be it "Paganism" "Freemasonry" "Esoteric Christianity" or somethig else. In that issue they collected articles, book reviews and interviews dealing with that subject. The issue would be an excellent survey, complete with resources if one wanted to learn more on their own. Unfortunatley the magazine fell on hard times, and is no longer being produced, but the authors have hardly been hibernating -- this book is a fitting legacy to the magazine - with themes and traditions explored and written about in greater depths, generally, than the magazine.

Anyone who is interested in learning about the various Western traditions, some of which are right in front of us, and some are hanging on a thread -- this is just about you only resource! Grab on to it!

This is a surprisingly smart and on-the-mark book for a book - ANY type of book - on this subject matter.

Just as an aside, that it references Nicoll, Mouravieff, and Evola (to pick just three writers that are never mentioned or even usually known about in books of this nature) and even goes beyond by actually discoursing with understanding on these writers and their works is actually astonishing.

This is basically an extremely well-written and organised reference book on all that would fall, fairly or not, under the heading of 'new age' religion or spirituality or seeking or etc. It brings all of the various western branches - old and new - of all things 'new age' into clear perspective. The authors accomplish this with a very helpful objective approach (as well as the above-mentioned understanding of the various subject matter).

If you are someone with knowledge of one or two or three areas of esoteric study and practice and tend to look down on everything else in the esoteric realm as 'new age inanity' this book will at least give you a foundation and perspective on all the other various new age movements so that you'll at least know what you're talking about, short of actually reading the various movement 'bibles' or becoming fully initiated into them all.

I can't stress enough that the authors of this book have really achieved an impressive accomplishment here, they know their subject, and their writing is clear and to-the-point. Each section reads like a well-written, informative magazine article and it brings it all into perspective from Theosophy to crystals, Alice Bailey to A Course in Miracles, Gurdjieff to Neo-Paganism, Sufism to Ascended Masters, Secret Societies to Kabbalah, esoteric Christianity to the Astral Light of magicians......Edgar Cayce to transpersonal psychology to holistic medicine to the human potential movement to etc., etc. etc... (If listing all those subjects like that makes the book sound scattered it isn't, it brings all those various subjects - and scores more - into perspective, chronological perspective as well as 'type' perspective...if that's an actual phrase...)

And they give extensive lists of book recommendations at the end of each chapter, with descriptions of each book. A very successful book for what it was meant to do.

The authors have accomplished a rare feat by being simultaneously sympathetic yet impartial in describing such a broad range of spiritual teachings. They provide succinct but nuanced descriptions of these teachings, along with each's history and relationships to other teachings. Also included is much sage advice for those who may wish to pursue these paths, and annotated references for additional reading. This has clearly been a labor of love on Smoley & Kinney's part. It is well worth reading for anyone with the slightest bit of interest in spiritual matters, whatever their religious preference.