Böcker av Maurice Nicoll

"ALL sacred writings contain an outer and an inner meaning. Behind the literal words lies another range of meaning, another form of knowledge. According to an old¿age tradition, Man once was in touch with this inner knowledge and inner meaning. There are many stories in the Old Testament which convey another knowledge, a meaning quite different from the literal sense of the words. The story of the Ark, the story of Pharaoh's butler and baker, the story of the Tower of Babel, the story of Jacob and Esau and the mess of pottage, and many others, contain an inner psychological meaning far removed from their literal level of meaning. And in the Gospels the parable is used in a similar way." -from the Preface. The New Man is an effort to elaborate the Gospels in light of this inner truth, in order to guide man along the necessary journey he must undertake to avoid violence and self-destruction.

This book is a companion to The New Man by the same author. Nicoll discusses, by way of the Gospels, the idea that real religion is about realizing the potential for spiritual change, latent but unborn, that exists in everyone. "The Mark" is the realization of this transformation. The author explains that in the Gospels the word translated as "sin" means in the literal Greek "missing the mark", as of a spear thrown at some object and failing to hit it. And from meaning to miss the mark it came to mean failing in one's purpose, and so erring or wrongdoing. It is Dr. Nicoll's contention that when a man is overpowered by outer life and influenced only by outside agency that person is machine-driven by his senses, but internally on the wrong road. Such a person is dominated by external life and has no spiritual life. That part of them which is truly real, and from which their own individual existence and growth can begin, is lost. It is in the wrong place. And this is sin. That is, in this sense, everyone has missed the mark, missed the idea of their own true existence. Chapters discuss our spiritual existence, the nature of truth, the meaning of life, human will, and individual growth.

SELECTIONS FROM MEETINGS IN 1953 (Last year of Dr Nicoll''s life)Contents:Introduction March 1 Negative Emotions March 14 End, Cause and Effect March 15 Singing your Song April 4&5 Observation of Moods April 18&19. Some Reflections on Self-Observation April 26 The Middle Divisions May 2&3 The Conjunction of the outer and inner Divisions May 9&10 Notes on the Opening of inner Divisions May 23&24 The Prison of Negative Emotions May 30&31 The Neutralizing Force of the Work June 6&7 Objective Consciousness June 13&14. Memory of the Work and Work-Memory June 20&21 The development of Understanding June 27&28 The Crowd of ''I''s in your Being July 25&26 Reflections on Psycho-Transformism August 9 Growth of Essence August 16 Observation of Attitude towards the Work

About his intention in writing The New Man, Dr Maurice Nicoll said: "The intention is to indicate that all teaching such as that contained in the Gospels and many teachings both old and new, in the short period of known history, is about transcending the violence which characterises mankind''s present level of being. It affirms the possibility of a development of another level of being surmounting violence."