Tag Archives: Nicolas Hays

Hasan-i-Sabah

Hasan-i-Sabah: Assassin Master [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher] by James Wasserman, introduction by Tobias Churton, from Nicolas-Hays and Ibis Press.

James Wasserman Hasan-i-Sabah Assassin Master Ibis Press

This publication includes the first English translation of the 1310 biography of Hasan-i-Sabah by Rashid al-Din: The Biography of Our Master (Sar-Guzasht-i-Sayyidna)

Hasan-i-Sabah was born in northern Persia around 1050 and died in 1124. He was an Ismaili missionary (or dai) who founded the Nizari Ismailis after the usurpation of the Fatimid Imamate by the military dictator of Egypt. It may be said that Hasan founded and operated the world’s most successful mystical secret society, while building a political territory in which to maintain his independence. The small empire he created would be home to him, his followers, and their descendants for 166 years.

Today, under the leadership of the Aga Khan, the Nizari Ismailis are one of the preeminent Muslim sects in the world, numbering some twenty million members in twenty-five countries.

The medieval Nizaris were also known as Assassins or Hashishim. They became embedded in European consciousness because of their contact with the Knights Templar, and other Crusaders and visitors to the Near East. Several Europeans reported back with strange (and largely false) tales of the Assassins. In the fourteenth century, they were widely popularized by the famed Venetian traveler and writer Marco Polo in The Travels of Marco Polo. He added a whole new level of myth in his account of the sect (included in this volume along with extensive commentary).

Of greatest interest is the idea that the Assassins were the spiritual initiators of the Knights Templar. If this is true, Hasan-i-Sabah would be in part responsible for the European Renaissance that would reclaim the spiritual centrality of the Hermetic writings and the Gnostic/Esoteric trends that continue to this day.

Essential reading for an understanding of modern esoteric secret societies and today’s headlines coming from the Middle East.

About the Author

James Wasserman is a lifelong student of religion and spiritual development. His writings and editorial efforts maintain a focus on spirituality, creative mythology, secret societies, history, religion, and politics. He is a passionate advocate of individual liberty. An admirer of the teachings of Aleister Crowley, he has played a key role in numerous seminal publications of the Crowley literary corpus. A book designer by trade, Jim is the owner of Studio 31. He has appeared on The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Coast to Coast Radio and numerous podcasts, and has addressed National Press Club.

Beginner’s Guide to Revelation

Beginner’s Guide to Revelation: A Jungian Interpretation by Robin Robertson, from Nicolas-Hays, distrubuted by Samuel Weiser, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Robin Robertson Beginner's Guide to Revelation

“For eighteen hundred years, the prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation have captured the collective Western imagination. In Beginner’s Guide to Revelation, Robin Robertson uses his unique skills as a Jungian-oriented therapist to reinterpret this magnificent document as a saga of changing human consciousness. Robertson follows a spiral path around the central issues of our times, drawing from Jung’s psychology, neurophysiology, shamanic rituals, and modern mathematics. The author reveals how the Book of Revelation expresses in symbolic language our collective ability to experience within us the spiritual depths of the universe. This exciting new material from the author of Beginner’s Guide to Jungian Psychology offers a sensitive journey into the meaning of death, transformation, and changing consciousness.” — back cover

Blake, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious

Blake, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious: The Conflict Between Reason and Imagination by June Singer, introduced by M Esther Harding part of the Jung on the Hudson book series, a 2000 paperback from Nicholas-Hays, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Amusingly, I also have a previous version of this same book, which I purchased on a separate occasion, but that has a different, more provocative, title and from another publisher: The Unholy Bible: Blake, Jung, and the Collective Unconscious by June Singer, introduced by M Esther Harding, a 1986 paperback from Sigo Press, is also part of the collection at the Reading Room.

June Singer M Esther Harding Blake, Jung and the Collective Unconscious from Nicolas-Hays

“More than ever, the time is ripe for June Singer’s penetrating commentary on William Blake’s work. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. For even the most devout literary scholars and art historians, much of Blake’s mystical visions and writing are perplexing. With his pen and brush, he gave birth to mythological figures and fantastic metaphors. Singer shows us that Blake was actually tapping into the collective unconscious and giving form and voice to primordial psychological energies, or archetypes, that he experienced in his inner and outer world. Blake’s writing and art was his personal dialogue between God and his own inner self—a reconciliation of duality—in which we can find clues to contemporary issues.

In the 18th century, Blake was a pioneer in finding, nurturing, and celebrating his personal connection with the divine, a search that still appeals to people who are coming to terms with the contemporary struggle between science and spirituality—the conflict between reality and imagination. With clarity and wisdom, Singer examines the images and words in each plate of Blake’s work, applying in her analysis the concepts that C. G. Jung advanced in his psychological theories. There is no more perfect lens with which to look at Blake’s work than that of Jung’s concept of the archetypes, the process of individuation, and the mysterium coniunctionis, in which consciousness and the unconscious are united.

This edition includes a new preface by Jung [sic!] Springer and a reproduction of 24 pages from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” — back cover


 

June Singer M Esther Harding The Unholy Bible from Sigo Press