Book Recommendations on Spiritual Doctrine from Rev. Susan Snowden

A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume

I found this beautiful blue book in a dusty corner of a used book store in Louisville, Kentucky, shortly after my spontaneous awakening of kundalini. It was "scribed" by Helen Schucman, a Jewish clinical and research psychologist, during her tenure at Columbia University. She says she received the book by a process of inner dictation from a different and clearly distinct voice identifying itself as Jesus. The process took seven years, from 1965 to 1972.

I did the Course. It gave me focus and clarity during a tough transformational time in my life. Even now, each morning when I wake, I think, "Teach only love, for that is what you are." This is singular tenant of A Course in Miracles.

From the Amazon website: "As its title implies, the Course is arranged throughout as a teaching device. It consists of three books: Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers. The order in which students choose to use the books, and the ways in which they study them, depend on their particular needs and preferences.

The curriculum the Course proposes is carefully conceived and is explained, step by step, at both the theoretical and practical levels. It emphasizes application rather than theory, and experience rather than theology

Although Christian in statement, the Course deals with universal spiritual themes. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum. There are many others, this one differing from them only in form. They all lead to God in the end.

The Text is largely theoretical, and sets forth the concepts on which the Course's thought system is based. Its ideas contain the foundation for the Workbook's lessons. Without the practical application the Workbook provides, the Text would remain largely a series of abstractions which would hardly suffice to bring about the thought reversal at which the Course aims.

The Workbook includes 365 lessons, one for each day of the year. It is not necessary, however, to do the lessons at that tempo, and one might want to remain with a particularly appealing lesson for more than one day. The practical nature of the Workbook is underscored by the introduction to its lessons, which emphasizes experience through application rather than a prior commitment to a spiritual goal: Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.

Finally, the Manual for Teachers, which is written in question and answer form, provides answers to some of the more likely questions a student might ask. It also includes a clarification of a number of the terms the Course uses, explaining them within the theoretical framework of the Text. The Course makes no claim to finality, nor are the Workbook lessons intended to bring the student's learning to completion. At the end, the reader is left in the hands of his or her own Internal Teacher, Who will direct all subsequent learning as He sees fit."

The Urantia Book

I stumbled on the Urantia Book in the religion section of the library in seventh grade. It was way over my head then. Still, it is an obscure and at times obtuse manuscript, but filled with ideas that always stretch the limitations of my cosmology and help me expand.

It is a channeled work, long, long before channeling was in the common lexicon. It is difficult to tell who authored it and when, but there are references indicating some if of comes from 1934 and 1935. It has spread worldwide and is still promoted by the Urantia Foundation, established in 1950 to be custodians of the book.

From the Amazon website: "The Urantia Book, first published by Urantia Foundation in 1955, was written in the form of a revelation. The book consists of 196 papers which discuss the nature of Deity, the Trinity, the spiritual organization of the universe, the genesis, history, and destiny of humanity and on our relationship with God the Father. The final section presents a unique portrayal of the life and teachings of Jesus.

The Urantia Book offers a uniquely integrated view of science, philosophy, and religion. Those who read and study it believe that the ideas presented in the book can contribute to the religious and philosophical growth of many individuals worldwide. "

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ

I discovered Matthew Fox when I moved to the Bay Area. At the time, he was a teacher at the College of The Holy Names in Oakland, California. Father Matthew (a Catholic priest) got himself in hot water with the Vatican over his views, his books, and what he was teaching his students.

The Vatican put a gag order on him, decreeing that he cease and desist with the heretical doctrine he was promoting. Father Matthew did observe the vow of silence for a year and kept his mouth shut, but still taught and wrote about Creation Spirituality, the movement he started based on the mystical philosophies of medieval visionaries Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa.

Father Matthew denied original sin, and this really upset the Roman Catholic Church. He was defrocked in 1992 because he refused to denounce his beliefs. He was ordained by the Episcopal Church in 1994 and began holding what he calls Techno Cosmic Mass, a sort of rave party meets communion Eucharist celebration.

I've a great deal of respect and admiration for the man. He is certainly an inspirational role model. I think of him as the Timothy Leary of modern Christianity. I'm sure the Vatican wasn't happy with this book, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, in which Matthew suggests we are ALL Christ. Kinda gets in the way of needing a priest to intercede for us and money in the offering plate.

The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume

Jesus had twelve apostles, yet there are only four gospels in the New Testement of my King James Bible, the story of Christ from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What happned to the other eight viewpoints? They do exist, and are included here.

From the Amazon website: The Nag Hammadi Scriptures is the most complete and up-to-date English-language edition of these sacred texts from Egypt. It is full of treatises, testimonies, and secret books that had been lost for centuries.

In addition to gospels purportedly by the apostles Thomas and Philip, and the revelations of James, Peter, and Paul, this collection also includes the Gospel of Mary and the controversial Gospel of Judas.

The documents have been newly translated by a team of prominent international scholars. This volume also features introductory essays and extensive notes to help readers understand the context and significance of these texts that have revolutionized the study of early Christianity and ancient religious thought.

The Book of Knowledge : The Keys to Enoch

This is a book for serious scholars only, as it can feel cryptic and dense when one first comes to it. I've heard it described as a "spiritual scientific textbook", and I find that an apt assessment. It seems to me to be a continuation of the The Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish religious text, written by a man name Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah.

In some ways, this book is a bridge between the jewish mystic tradition of the Kabbalah and the christian mystic tradition of the Essences. James claims the work is a result of direct experience or divine revelation in the tradition of such mystics.

The book reintroduces the Merkaba, made of sound and light, the vehicle of God's Angels. Through sacred geometry, science and religion become one. The Keys to Enoch seek to provide a map to the coming paradigm shift in consciousness on this planet.

Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation

The oldest extant recorded text of the Kabbalah, the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation, also called the Book of Formation or Rules of Creation), is credited to Abraham, probably written down in the first or second century AD. It is, as the title suggests, devoted to God’s creation of our world. Supposedly, the Sefer Yetzirah holds the exalted mysteries and sublime secrets of our universe and is a coded formula. Abraham's work contains all the spiritual equations concerning our world of time, space, and motion. It conceals all the secrets of existence - from the origins of life to the origins of the chaos that afflict mankind.

Aryeh Kaplan finally translated it into English with serious commentary for the first time in 1997. I happened to read the book just after it was published. At almost 400 pages, it is considered by scholars to be the most complete work on the Sefer Yetzirah in English. The Sefer Yetzirah of Abraham is, itself, short, from 1300 words to 2500 words depending on the version. So short is the text, that one of the earliest fragments appears to have the entire book written on a single page. There is speculation that the original source may have contained as few as 240 words.

The Sefer Yetzirah describes the universe as being created through ten numbers (The Sephirot) and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The numbers and letters produced the material world, for they are real, and are the formative powers of all existence and development. In his account, Abraham states that God gave us step-by-step instructions for such creation. This is difficult for our western mind to comprehend. Our own alphabet is a shallow system of symbols, with no inherent power or such profound qualities. By contrast, the Sefer Yetzirah speaks of the letters and numbers as the “Breath of the Living God" and as living beings that are the hidden depth and dimension to all things.

The Kabbalahists were committed to mastering the meditation and rites set forth in the Sefer Yetzirah. The goal was to do as God did---create a primordial man, or Adam Kadomon. The first step was to craft a golem (meaning embryonic) from clay. Then, following a strict concise practice in speaking the numbers and letters in an exact sequence over several days, the breath of life would enter and animate the golem. There are accounts and anecdotal stories through history that suggest some golems were successfully made. However, it seems none of the golem could be created perfectly, and thus had no souls. As a result, the golems could be very dangerous and were destroyed.

From the Amazon website: "Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan has translated Sefer Yetzirah, the oldest and most mysterious of all kabbalistic texts, and now brings its theoretical, meditative, and magical implications to light.

He expounds on the dynamics of the spiritual domain, the worlds of the Sefirot, souls, and angels. When properly understood, Sefer Yetzirah becomes the instruction manual for a very special type of meditation meant to strengthen concentration and to aid the development of telekinetic and telepathic powers."