By first observing the difference in critical faculty between Eastern and Western thought, Frithjof Schuon considers the use of truisms in religious literature as they affect religious thought and action. The hyperbolic nature of religious writings and truisms contain more than moral lessons particular to a certain faith, but also include implications that relate to a wider realm of faith and belief. The impracticalities of religious teachings, in such parables as the camel passing through the eye of a needle or the spiritual man who is perfect to the point of disappearance speak less about spiritual effort then about the Divine existence. The tendency in religious practice to interpret these sayings as literal is derived from a tendency toward intellections and therefore results in religious moralism. Schuon explores the balance between this intellectualism and more typically Eastern thought.

Using the Arabic language as the tool for his case study, Burckhardt explores its influence on Islamic art and spirituality. The nomadic life of the Arabs contributed to the consistency of the Arab language because it is when a culture settles into one place that its language becomes attached to things and institutions and therefore finds its decay. He describes Arab linguistically as having an “auditive intuition”. It is based in active association, instead of static imagery. This relates to Islamic art as it is manifested by images and calligraphy that evoke rhythm and movement and stories that are formed from logic and rhetoric instead of the sedentary nature of a statue or a painting of a different culture and language. All of these things contribute to illustrating the spiritual nature of Islam in its incantations and litanies and Burckhardt uses these observations to draw conclusions regarding the theology and practice of the Islamic faith.

Guenon offers a linguistic introduction to the symbolism of the cave, the heart and the mountain as they function as spiritual metaphor. He describes the heart and the cave as "the place of the 'second birth'" because its eternal movement inward suggests the beginning of development. He continues on to explore the paradoxical nature of existence, which encourages the unity between opposites. Specifically, Guenon examines the example of this paradox in the etymological roots of the words heart, cave and mountain as they exist in various languages. This article is meant as an introduction to a deeper exploration of the symbolic nature of these images.

Lings discusses spiritual alchemy as it is affected by the seven deadly sins. By first playing with the opposite significance of the numbers seven and eight—seven representing life and holiness, eight representing death—Lings illustrates how the seven deadly sins are both holy and evil. He suggests that the sources of these sins are latent spiritual energy and when one sets out on a spiritual journey, one awakens these desires. For instance, the passion of anger is able to become holy anger as it is to become sinful anger. Lings makes the point that in the case of sincerity, the object of sincerity is just as important as the subject, for to be sincere about the wrong thing is more dangerous that general insincerity. He illustrates that the danger of the spiritual journey is that one is as likely to become a miser as one is to become a saint.

Lord Northbourne examines the education system as a means to evaluate the state of our society and its access to intellectual freedom. He states that scientific formulas have overtaken the common ways of knowing, depending on empirical evidence as a means of knowing truth. This mode of knowledge views religion as an “obstacle to progress” since faith implies that truth is known intuitively. Therefore, it removes religion as a framework for the education and knowledge. Northbourne describes the nature of religion and the presence of the spiritual in the world with all of its questions and complexities, concluding that children are ultimately the ones who experience faith most purely. By deducing religion to information and not experience, children are neglected the opportunity to participate in their spiritual natures. He concludes that while science can be true it can only be partly true. Northbourne advocates that people should be educated based on how to think and not what to think.

The goal of this essay is, as author Harold Talbott puts it, that by "sketching a few features of the first lesson in Dharma as a Lama might present it using the device of the Round of Existence, we can describe the first activity of the path, hearing Dharma expounded." The other two activities of the Buddhist spiritual path, Pondering and Meditation, also are treated in passing, but the focus of this piece is on the means by which the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition utilizes the "teaching presence of realized masters" as the necessary catalyst in all spiritual learning, or "hearing." This means that whether the activity be the study of scripture or the contemplation of sacred art, the influence of a Lama is, in the end, central to the efficacy of the activity. Talbott uses the traditional Tibetan diagram of the "Round of Existence" as the organizing scheme by which he explains the precepts, principles, and virtues that the aspirant must actualize on the path to Wisdom in the Vajrayana tradition.

In reviewing this book, Seyyed Hossein Nasr gives high praise to the translator, stating that "serious students of Sufism…must be…grateful for [Titus Burckhardt's] having turned to this much lesser known category of Sufi writings consisting of letters, addresses and table-talks of Sufi masters, an excellent example of which is found in these letters of Shaikh ad-Darqawi. Dr. Nasr notes that these letters from a renowned Sufi master deal less with doctrine and more with "concrete problems and questions of the spiritual life and are often answers to specific questions posed by disciples. Hence they represent a precious treasury of instructions that are of value particularly to those who aspire to walk upon the path of realization and whose interest in Sufism and the spiritual life in general is more practical than theoretical." Since its initial publication, this book has become a classic of Sufi studies.

Reviewer J. C. Cooper finds this book by Arnaud Desjardins to be a well-balanced mix of background on Buddhism (with "an excellent exposition on some of the misunderstandings of Tantrayana and of its true meaning"), and the observations of author Desjardins upon the cultural differences between the traditional Tibetan culture that he encountered there during the course of making a film, and the West. The reviewer seems particularly impressed with the observations on the temperament of children and the differences in their respective educational formation.

Readers will not be surprised to find reviewer Whitall N. Perry once more brandishing his ever-sharp critical pen to expose errors in a book on religion. This time, he highlights errors in a book on Pope Pius XII. The book, The Silence of Pius XII, by Carlo Falconi, purports to be an impartial investigation into whether or not Pope Pius XII ignored the atrocities of the Nazis and whether or not he, and the Church, could have done more to stop them. Perry contends that the investigation's results are, in fact, very weighted in the negative, and ignore contrary evidence showing the Pope's efforts on behalf of the persecuted Jews. Perry suggests that the conclusions of Falconi, and others, are probably colored by motives stemming from opposition to traditional Catholicism, and thus to a pope known for his adherence to tradition.

J. C. Cooper, in this review of Science is God, sums up its virtues with "The book is eminently readable and contains a great deal of sense." She highlights several fundamental points that the author, Professor David F. Horrobin, makes in the book, covering the correct limits of science, its inability to prove or disprove religious phenomena such as miracles, its appropriate place in education and reforms that must be implemented to assure this, and the expanding of "science" to such inherently subjective disciplines as Economics, Sociology and Education.

This is another review by J. C. Cooper. Here, she examines a book that is an account of its author's archaeological travels, and whose purpose is to "bring to us a sense of meaning of the past and give awareness of man's striving toward fulfillment and a valid communion between the dead and the living, correlating the past and the present." The reviewer suggests that the musings of the author might make this book one that traditionalist/perennialist readers would enjoy for its approach towards ancient peoples.

Rather than reviewing The Cipher of Genesis, by Carlo Snares, J. C. Cooper merely summarizes the main thesis of the book. This thesis is that the chapter of Genesis is entirely symbolical and must be interpreted accordingly. It is, says Carlo Snares, part of the Cabala. The reader is left to guess that Cooper is either undecided or is skeptical on whether or not the entire chapter of Genesis is in a sort of "code" and nothing means what it seems to mean. In other words, we do not know from this review if Snares' deciphering of this "cipher" can be reconciled with traditional Jewish or Christian hermeneutics or whether it is a view that reflects a fantastical interpretation of just one busy mind.

J. C. Cooper summarizes some new books received by the journal: God's First Love by Friedrich Heer; Introducing Psychology, edited by D. S. Wright and Ann Taylor; Behavior Therapy in Clinical Psychiatry, by V. Meyer and Edward S. Chesser; Youth Holds the Key, by H. W. Heason; and A Chime of Windbells: A Year of Japanese Haiku in English Verse, a translation of Japanese poems by Harold Stewart.