"Our stone is made the way the world is made," the old alchemists used to say of their great work, which they called an imitation of nature in her mode of operation. But what is nature? As Rumi put it: First I appeared in the mineral realm; then, I entered the vegetable kingdom. I lived there a long time, forgetting what I had been. Then, I took the path to animal existence, remembering nothing of my plant life. Finally, I became human, forgetting everything." Breaking Through depicts one man's experience of this ancient imagery. Piero Tallini, a cinematographer, is irresistibly drawn to the Paleolithic culture of southern Spain. While exploring the rugged hills in search of a suitable location for the film he wants to make, he finds himself establishing contact with the first human beings to know the world through interiority and language. Guided by powerful presences, he enters the primordial orbit of cave-consciousness and experiences what the cave ancestors experienced. But this is only the beginning of an initiation so profound it must take place within the earth where his journey into the past becomes an adventure in the present as he undergoes the phases of transformation. Regenerated through the realms of nature, Tallini recognizes that consciousness is genesis and perceives himself as Earth-Human becoming cosmos. Ever since Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for claiming that all things exist in consciousness, science has torn mankind from its cosmic home. Alienated from itself, the objective, heliocentric mind has ravaged Earth's soul. In his passage to the center, Tallini learns to seek the source and purpose of life not in some Big Bang still resonating in the farthest reaches of space, or in bones analyzed by paleoanthropologists, but here and now through participation in the interplay of sensation, perception, attention, thought, and language. Breaking Through is a philosophical novel that bears witness to the drama of reality in a way that transcends both philosophy and fiction.

Breaking Through: A Narrative of the Great Work

Literature & Fiction

VandenBroeck, André

United States

City Lights Publishers

Ancient Egyptians and Greeks (up to Euclid) saw in plane geometry much more than land-surveying. For the Greeks, Gaia or Ge (from which our word “geometry” derives) was a universe rather than a planet. Man was the measure of the cosmos and geometry was the expression of this faculty, the discipline through which one studied the unity of cosmic necessity and human thought. For this reason tradition has it that Plato inscribed on the gates of his Academy: “Only geometers enter here.” This aspect of the discipline was lost in modern times until studies such as those of Matila Ghyka rekindled an interest that culminated in R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz’s Pythagorean synthesis. Since it was essentially a rediscovery of unselfconscious modes of thinking, this synthesis did not pose the problem of foundations. Philosophical Geometry originated in the author’s perception of this problem while working with de Lubicz in Grasse, France, in 1960-61. Written in 1972, Philosophical Geometry was conceived as a textbook and took shape in a teaching situation, individual elaboration of theory being the declared aim. Defined as “the activity of establishing a necessary conduct for mind through a set of signs denoting a necessary conduct of facts,” Philosophical Geometry approaches a universal theme to which the existence of every human being contributes a chapter. Philosophical Geometry is, and has been, an avenue toward inscription of such fundamental experience.

Philosophical Geometry

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Inner Traditions

A Memoir: Hermetic, Occult, Political, and Private Aspects of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz
Andrea VandenBroeck
Al-Kemi recounts the story of the eighteen months that Andre VandenBroeck spent in daily contact with the remarkable French philosopher, hermeticist, and Egyptologist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961). It provides a passionately felt, personal, and dramatic introduction to the startling world of this contemporary alchemist.

Al-Kemi: Hermetic, Occult, Political and Private Aspects of R. A. Schwaller De Lubicz

Biographies & Memoirs

Lindisfarne Pr

Al-Kemi recounts the story of the eighteen months that André VandenBroeck spent in daily contact with the remarkable French philosopher, hermeticist, and Egyptologist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961). 
It provides a passionately felt, personal, and dramatic introduction to the startling world of this contemporary alchemist.

Al-Kemi: A Memoir : Hermetic, Occult, Political, and Private Aspects of R.A. Schwaller De Lubicz

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by VandenBroeck, André. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by VandenBroeck, André

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by VandenBroeck, André. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Breaking Through: A Narrative of the Great Work

Philosophical Geometry

Al-Kemi: Hermetic, Occult, Political and Private Aspects of R. A. Schwaller De Lubicz

Al-Kemi: A Memoir : Hermetic, Occult, Political, and Private Aspects of R.A. Schwaller De Lubicz