From Ritual to Romance is a landmark, intensely academic in its style, describing the Holy Grail legend. Anybody would be fascinated by the essay's examination of various folklore and Christian elements to provide parallels between the legend and certain cults' symbolism.

Studies on druidry, Jungian psychology, politics, history and the time ahead In 2003 John Michael Greer became the seventh Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), an initiatory organization teaching Celtic nature spirituality which was founded in 1912. The outcome was that his writings began to stray into territory very far from the Hermetic occult philosophy that had been the previous focus of his career. The essays included in this volume chronicle some of the themes he explored as a result: Druidry, Jungian psychology, politics, history, and the shape of the future in a society in decline.

The essays in this anthology seek to look at the multiple gestures of tradition in relation to our own times and in som doing they have a relevance for the continuing debate on modern and post modern era.

It is commonplace to regard many great works of literature—poems, dramas, works of fiction—as in some sense philosophical. Yet ever since Plato, there has been a tension between the kind of abstract theorizing that goes on in philosophy and the focus on concrete particulars that occurs in poetry and fiction. Beyond Words: Philosophy, Fiction, and the Unsayable elaborates on and addresses this Platonic tension, asking in what sense, if any, literature in the form of poetry, drama, short stories, and novels can contribute significantly to our philosophical understanding. Timothy Cleveland suggests there is something in certain poems, novels, and stories that makes them especially suited to expanding our awareness and understanding into the nature of things otherwise unsayable and unconceived. Such literary works show us something that a theoretical—scientific or philosophical—discourse cannot literally say.

Beyond Literary Theory is not representative of any particular school of criticism. Its purpose is to demonstrate the scope and limits of critical theories based on logic, scientism, and psychoanalysis. Eduard H. Strauch allows readers to explore beyond literary theory to discover dimensions of human experience that define timeless literature.

Influential minorities have existed in some form in all human societies. Throughout history, such elites have evoked varied responses--respeet. hos-tility, fear. envy, imitation, but never indifference. While certain elite groups have been of only passing historical importance, strategic elites, whose mem-bers are national and international leaders, today are ultimately responsible for the realization of social goals and for the continuity of the social order in a swiftly changing world. This volume, which first appeared in 1963, markeda major advance in our theoretical understanding of these elites, why they are needed, how they operate, and what effect they have on society. Drawing upon the work of such classical writers as Saint-Simon. Marx. Durkheim. Mosca. Pareto. and Michels, and such modern scholars as Mann-heim. Lasswell, Aron. Mills, and Parsons, the author presents a challenging theory of elites that provides the framework for her examination of their co-existence, their social origins, and their rise and decline. The elites discussed here include political, diplomatic, economic, and military, as well as scientific, cultural, and religious ones. Systematically, the author surveys available em-pirical data concerning American society, and selected materials on Great Brit-ain. Germany, the Soviet Union, and the developing nations of Asia and Africa. Written with clarity and distinction. Beyond the Ruling Class remains a thorough and provocative treatment, rich in empirical insights, of a subject that will compel the attention of political scientists, sociologists, and historians concerned with themes of power, influence, and leadership in national and international life. Her new introduction to Beyond the Ruling Class is at once an appraisal of the current status of elite studies and a careful self-evaluation of her efforts.

This chronological survey of major influences on T.S. Eliot's worldview covers the poet's spiritual and intellectual evolution in stages, by trying to see the world as Eliot did. It examines his childhood influences as well as the literary influences that inspired him to write his earliest poetry; his life as an American expatriate living in London from 1915 to 1930, including his ill-fated marriage and his intellectual engagement with the literary traditions of his new country; and the ways in which his intellectual pursuits fostered a spiritual rebirth that simultaneously reflected his past and revealed his future, demonstrating how the early Romantic revolutionary became a staunch defender of tradition.