I’m not going to post the usual ones that are likely to be common to us, so here goes:
1} MJ Adler~***How to Read a Book ***(Because it’s useless to read if you can’t think critically)
2} G. Cerminara~***Handbook for Religious Sanity ***(The actual title is awful, but the contents vital.)
3} F Merrell-Wolff~***The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object ***(Because Christians/Catholics generally have no clue of what non-dualism is about and put their foot in their mouth about it all the way through.)
4} D Ladinski~***Love Poems from God ***(Because it anthologizes 12 Poets, 6 of them Catholic, 6 not, and they have an astounding congruency; have Kleenex handy.)
5} K. Wilbur~***A Brief History of Everything ***(Because it synthesizes much and demonstrates neglected connectivities, sequences, and categories.)
6} Dr. R. Smothermon~***Winning Through Enlightenment *** (Because it is the best thing I’ve ever read on personal responsibility, whatever you initially think about the title.)
7} PK Howard~***Thee Death of Common Sense ***(Because it gives concrete examples of how law is suffocating America.)
8} J Jacobs~***Dark Age Ahead ***(Because prophecy can be prophylactic; her analysis of why our culture is dying is both brilliant and unusual in perspective.)
9} B Katie~***A Thousand Names for Joy ***(Because it is good to feel how someone who embodies the Golden Rule thinks.)
10} T Harpur~***The Pagan Christ ***(Because, like it or not, it is good to know how some think of our Church and what their logic is. Don’t react to it; just read it. Be a good pathologist.)
11} Dr. KG Mills~***The Key: Identity ***(Because it is just so beautifully provocative.)
12} H Benjamin~***Basic Self Knowledge **
(Because if you don’t know yourself, who or what do you know?
13} D Bohm~
Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Because our language has inherent pitfalls that distort our clarity of understanding, our experience, and our world. There are more than 70 fallacies commonly used in every day speech that lead to lack of clarity before even examining the structure of our grammar itself and whether it corresponds to actuality.)
14} WA Henry III~
In Defense of Elitism (Because it treats of egalitarianism and the deliberate dumbing down of America)
- Interesting story about this book. An acquaintance who is an acknowledged genius, wanted to join a group that was studying this book. The first requirement, of course was to read it. He did, and reported to the group. He was told to go and read the book. Miffed, he read ti again, and again reported. He was again told to go and read the book. His ire was raise, but he did it. But once again he was told to go and read the book. He got really angry this time, and, true story, he ended up reading the book 26 times. Good thing it is very short. The thing was, it took him that many times to understand that he didn’t impartially understand the viewpoint of the book, whether he agreed with it or not. Once he saw that, he was a useful member of the discussion.
I tell that story because it impressed me. It impressed me because it reminds me of how adamantly habituated I am to my own perspective, to the point that it is remarkably difficult to clearly understand what someone from another perspective is saying, good, bad, or indifferent. Yet in the mean time, my brain is telling me “but you know that,” or “That’s wrong.” So I’ve already judged without having actually heard. And I think it is important for me to know that about myself, as I’m not exempt from the over-arching imperative of the human mind to make itself right at almost any cost. Hopefully all of you are way beyond that detriment. I find that I’m still not.
