Atman. A Reconstruction of the Solar Cosmology of the Indo-Europeans
Alexander Jacob's 2005 boldly pioneering book, now available
from Georg Olms Verlag,
for the first time lays out before scholars and others eager to
know more about the religions of the ancient Near East, a synoptic,
holistic schema of understanding.
The Spanish edition of Dr. Jacob's book
With painstaking attention to details, backed up by a wealth of
documentation from the widest possible array of sources, Jacob
manages to cut across the fragmented picture given by the "each in
his small corner" approach of traditional scholarship in each
of the various disciplines and give the reader a vibrant sense of
the powerful, overall spiritual vision which shaped "the religion
of the ancients."
By his careful examination of the texts of the Puranas, the
Vedas, the Avesta, the Brahamanas, together with the records of the
religions of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Egypt, as well as the
theogonies of the Hittites, the early Stoic and Orphic Greeks, and
the ancient Germans, he convincingly argues for a mono-mythical,
high range of spirituality based deeply on the birth and earliest
evolution of the cosmos itself.
Those who still naively assume that old somehow means primitive
will be profoundly surprised to see how rich and how reality-based
this vision of the life of the spirit is when compared with
the now rapidly fading spiritual vision of traditional
Christianity in the modern world.
The Hermetic principle of "as above so below" and the
"organic correspondence between the macrocosm and the human
microcosm" are shown as the key to a proper understanding of the
esoteric philosophy behind it all.
As Jacob points out in his acknowledgements, it is impossible to
be categorically certain about every aspect of a religious outlook
that is "at least 8,000 years old." But, undoubtedly, his is as
close to a perfect "take" on the subject as we are ever likely to
get.
Personally, I found the book both a challenge and an
enlightenment, as well as strong confirmation of many of my own
positions in my own highly controversial book; The
Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light.
I recommend Atman strongly to anyone either working in or deeply
interested in religion in general and near-eastern religious
sources in particular.
***
Tom Harpur M.A.
(Oxon.) M.Div. Best-selling author of The
Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light, 2004.