Quest Magazine

by John Daido Loori
Dharma Communications: Mt. Tremper, New York, 1992; paperback.

If you still don't know what Zen is, it's your own fault. Library shelves are stuffed with books a bout Zen, and we probably don't need more of the kind that describe what Zen is. But a new kind of book has made its appearance in recent years and it is of equal or greater interest. That is the kind of book that reflects the actual experience of the first generation of Western Buddhist teachers. Such books are display cases for Zen students who have practiced for several decades, achieved some degree of spiritual realization, and have received Dharma transmission and permission to teach from their teachers. These books are valuable for not only the teaching we read but also for their tacit witness to the fact that spiritual attainment is still a reality.

John Loori has been a student of Taizan Maezumi Roshi of the Zen Center of Los Angeles for many years. He is now the teacher and abbot of his own monastery at Mount Tremper, in the Cat skill Mountains in southern New York. The Eight Gates of Zen is not a “this-is-what-Zen-is” kind of book but rat her is ostensibly a description of what spiritual t raining involves at a no-nonsense monastery run by a teacher who knows that Zen is a religious path and not a hobby. His monastery is hard to get into and the life there is challenging once one is accepted. For those who are accepted and who settle in for long-term practice, the monastery offers eight “gates,” or entrances into the spiritual life of Zen. These are Zen meditation (zazen), individual study with the teacher, liturgy, ethical and moral self-education, art practice, body practice, academic study of Buddhism, and work as spiritual practice. These approaches to, and expressions of, Zen are followed over ten stages, which Loori likens to the ten stages of the well-known “Ten Ox-herding Pictures.” The structure of the eight gates and ten stages, which includes the elaborate and rigorous koan study that is part of this form of Buddhism, leaves no doubt as to the rigor of practice at Mount Tremper.

But The Eight Gates of Zen is more than a mere description of the course of practice at one American Buddhist community, as interesting as that may be for students of religion , sociologists, and the like. Loori uses the structure of the eight gates as a device for exploring and commenting on the importance and relevance of each of the eight gates from the perspective of his own under-standing. To mention just three of the gates, I find that he speaks convincingly of the necessity of liturgical practice, academic study of Buddhism, and moral and ethical grounding. This is particularly important because Americans (and perhaps Europeans) who follow Buddhism are, as a group, abysmally ignorant of the teachings of Buddhism, and don't see the relevance of bowing, chanting, and other practices. They do not practice Buddhism as a spiritual path and often lack authoritative guidelines for conduct. It is little wonder that fundamentalist Christian preachers see Zen as cultlike and a refuge for hippies.

Another area of discussion that will interest members of the Buddhist community is that of the nature of monk and nun practice and its relationship to lay practice. Loori insists on making a sharp distinction between the two forms of practice, observing correctly that in our culture we don't really know what a Buddhist monk or nun is, with the result that in many communities, “monks” have families, work in the secular world part or full time, accumulate property, and so on, so that beyond the robes that they wear, they are indistinguishable from lay students. Loori makes the distinct ion and discusses the importance of both kinds of practice and their interdependence.

Still, Loori's permitting couples to live together or at least have a physical relationship as long as the couple does not have children, leads me to question whether he has completely settled the question of what a monastic is as opposed to a lay person. Should renunciation of worldly cares and attractions be extended to the greatest of all distraction s and attract ions? Is sex incompatible with a true commitment to a spiritual way? (Ancient Buddhism thought so.) Is the traditional Buddhist negative attitude towards sex simply outmoded and irrelevant today? And if it is all right to have a satisfying sex life, why can't one also own a Mercedes? Eventually the American Buddhist community needs to settle this issue.

Loori 's book will be of interest to American Buddhists and to scholars and professionals who are interested in American religion. The book is well written and produced, thanks both to the literacy of the author and the excellent editorial work by Bonnie Myotai Treace and Conrad Ryushin Marchaj.

-FRANCIS DOJUN COOK

Autumn 1993

A Secret History of Consciousness

By Gary Lachman
Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Books. Paperback, xxxv + 314 pages.

Gary Lachman, whom many readers of The Quest will recognize as a contributor to this magazine, is at once a highly successful popular musician, a much published writer, and a serious student of psychology and philosophy. It is in the last capacity that he has produced this ambitious and wide-ranging work. A Secret History of Consciousness is both a history of consciousness and a history of ideas about the history of consciousness.

The history of consciousness takes us back to the Paleolithic emergence of a distinctive human mode of awareness. The history of the history of consciousness presented here offers an admirable mix of philosophers usually considered mainstream, including Kant, Hegel, James, and Bergson, together with others, such as Steiner, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and Blavatsky, often put into a special "esoteric'' category. Lachman's way of enabling representative's of the two sets to dialogue with each other is one of the great strengths of this work; we do not understand consciousness so well that we can afford to neglect any significant perspective on it.

Theosophists will be particularly happy to see that this study is highly appreciative of Helena Blavatsky's importance in that conversation, presenting her work as the first major post-Darwinian response to nineteenth-century scientific materialism. Her picture, often mythopoeic, of convergent physical and spiritual or "consciousness" evolution, showed how the sterile impasse of religious and scientific dogmatism could be transcended through reference to an ancient wisdom in which mind and matter coexist and evolve together.

It is jean Gebser (1905-1973), however, who is the culminating figure in this book and clearly the scholar with whom Lachman feels the deepest affinity. In Gebser's view of the history of consciousness, archaic magical and mythical ways of thinking "mutated" into a "mental-rational" structure and finally are reaching an "integral" stage. We are now transiting into integralism, in which all previous modes of consciousness will be brought together more perfectly than before. Amid the tension of change, however, there is always the danger of “atavistic" relapse into modes of consciousness whose time is past, which is what Gebser saw happen around him as perverted forms of magic and myth returned in Europe in the form of fascism and other antirational ideologies. In passing, it may be noted that Gebser was highly regarded by Theosophical intellectuals such as Fritz Kunz well before he became the widely recognized thinker he now is.

A Secret History of Consciousness is highly recommended to all serious readers of philosophy and intellectual history.

-ROBERT ELLWOOD

March/April 2004

by John Anthony West
Viking Arkana. New York, 1991; hardbound, 500 pages including Appendix, Bibliography, and Indices.

First published in England in 1970, The Case for Astrology was originally intended as a survey of astrological practice from ancient to modern times, with an emphasis on the diverse, present-day endeavors to ensconce astrology into the respectable ranks of science.

John Anthony West and Jan Toonder, who collaborated on the first edition of this work, carefully outlined the statistical studies of Dr. Michel Gauquelin on the relationship of planetary angularity to profession, and on planetary heredity. At the time, Gauquelin's studies looked promising for astrology's adherents, finding a higher than expected incidence of correlation between planetary phenomena and birth time for particular professions.

This new edition not only updates the state of the art twenty years later, but also tells the unfortunate and epic story of scientific objections to astrology, which have increased in recent years. Gauquelin's work has been singled out for attack by critics of astrology. The critics, West contends, have been guilty of "evasion, abuse, calumny, neglect, deliberate lies and finally, in all probability, fraud."

This chronicle of astrology's encounter with modern science, narrated in West's typically acerbic style, is a no-holds-barred report of the increasing hostility of vested interest science toward serious scientific astrological research. It is unfortunate that the Case for Astrology turns out to be the Case Against Modern Scientific Method, but this may be a fortuitous turn of events in the collision between science and metaphysics.

West is mindful of the ploys of modern science, and points out the distinguishing features of legitimate methodology and the spurious posturing that have alternately made up the objections and attacks on astrology for the last two decades. He is also watchful of the pitfalls of the scientific mindset , and indicts "the true Inquisitorial nature of the Church of Progress and the general level of disregard in which the search for truth is held by many eminent scientists and academics."

West, a scholar and Pythagorean, is known in the bastions of orthodox science as an academic maverick and troublemaker (see The Quest, Winter 1991 for an article by and interview with West). The updating of this valuable work, which has become a classic on shelves of practicing astrologers, exhibits West's analytical strengths and insights into the philosophical dilemmas of our time. Truth, by whatever means it is presented, may be apprehended when the pride and prejudice of traditional scientific inquiry is abandoned. In the words of the English astronomer Dr. Percy Seymour, scientific pride "also can shackle the creative imagination of scientists and impede scientific progress."

-ROSEMARY CLARK

Summer 1993

Reading The Pentateuch

By John J. McDermott
Mahwah, N. J.; Paulist Press, 2002. Paperback, 250 pages.

Recently, I have been reading the works of the French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil. By some she is considered to be a Catholic, but she was never properly baptized into its church. Today, scholars consider her and her work closer to the Middle Age Christian Gnostics, known as the Cathars, in part because of her rejection of much of the Old Testament. (Catharism rejected all of the Old Testament.) However, she accepted the first five books commonly known as the Pentateuch. I thought that if I could find an up to date, easy to read, scholarly book on the Pentateuch without a large number of footnotes, perhaps I might figure out why Simone Weil accepted these five books and the Cathars did not. McDermott's book satisfied all of my requirements, and may even have personally answered some of my posed questions.

Professor McDermott teaches the Old Testament at Loras College. He received his biblical licentiate at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. I felt comfortable as I read the book, knowing he had years of experience in the classroom. The organization of the material in the book reflects the seasoning of classroom teaching.

The first two chapters begin with how the Pentateuch was written and its overall history. The remaining chapters are the details of the first five books in the Old Testament. One thing that makes each chapter easy to follow is the consistency of McDermott's presentation, He always begins with an overview of what material he will discuss, and the generalities of that material. Thus, I always knew where the following Bible chapters and verses were headed. Because there are a number of inconsistencies in the biblical material, this turns out to be important and very helpful.

For the true Bible scholar, McDermott provides all the references to other books of the Old Testament when needed, but this is done skillfully so the story line is not scattered. Fortunately, he spends very little time trying to explain how certain miracles occurred, but instead suggests that myths would provide better explanations in some cases.

Be prepared for some shocking revelations. In Numbers 5:11-30, he discusses The Test for an Unfaithful Wife. The test implies an induced miscarriage, or as we would say today: an abortion. In today's social climate, this can be a very difficult topic, but McDermott handles it very well. Another topic that is difficult to understand is the Biblical acceptance of the existence of slavery (Exodus, 21:1-11). Once again, McDermott. treats this in a very professional manner. I even found reading about the religious laws in Leviticus to be of interest.

For Theosophists who have labored mightily to get through Geoffrey Hodson's three volumes of The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible, Dr. McDermott's book is here to ease the way. Keep in mind that Hodson, after three volumes, only gets up to Exodus, Chapter 17. Reading about Simone Weil’s life will give you an outlook from a Christian Gnostic view while McDermott's book will give you the depth to better understand her writings.

-RALPH HANNON

January/February 2004