Topics: History • Personal Development • Philosophy
Purchase Options

 

Universal Awakenings:
Human Culture
and
Enlightenment
by Oscar Ichazo

"This book is concerned with producing an organic view of the history of human culture and Enlightenment, which has culminated in the highest values and attainments of the Spirit."
—Oscar Ichazo

This reissuance of Human Culture and Enlightenment (2015) brings alive its history of philosophy with 350 images and a glossary of 316 listings. The reader is guided further by the addition of subheadings in all 7 chapters.

EXCERPTS

Introduction
"…humanity has survived—from tribal and primitive societies that were without the mature political order that requires moral standards and hierarchical status, to civilized societies that were basically established upon monarchical and hierarchical absolutism, with a monarchical and hierarchical religion."

"These societies were sustained by individuals who were essentially united and identified with their own communities, in which they historically evolved, falling from a monarchic stability into fragile and ephemeral democracies and republics which, in themselves, produced a much bigger organism, that of an empire with claims of power over the known world."

Absolute Reality
"…the linear development of the history of mankind produces an impression of a natural and progressive human society through which, although of different branches geographically and etiologically, we can discover our ancestry in the models of those primitive societies."

"…a heavy–handed Eurocentric point of view….led us to believe that primitive societies were practically infantile or mentally undeveloped people without any ability to transcend the fulfillment of the most basic needs while in brutal and unforgiving parts of the world, deep in the jungles, the steppes or the deserts."

"This direction of analysis and historical investigation changed approaching history scientifically in terms of civilization in order to produce an objective analysis without depending on a centralized point of view."

Ultimate Nature of the Divine
"The natural theology was produced by the philosophers, who inquired as to what was the nature of Ultimate Reality, or the most natural and true reality beyond the appearances and instability of our subjective world, whose real nature and foundation was Transcendent to time and space."

"This ultimate natural reality was of the nature of God or the Divine…Thus, theology was a doctrine about the Ultimate Nature of the Divine."

CONTENTS
Chapter 1    Christian Appropriations
Chapter 2    Foundational Teachings of Enlightenment in Western Culture
Chapter 3    Science, Religion and Philosophy
Chapter 4    Enlightenment as Truth
Chapter 5    Universal Questions
Chapter 6    Pure Enlightened Ideas
Chapter 7    Cultural and Religious Knowledge

Conclusion

"Now, in our turn, we are challenged to produce answers for the survival of our species in the given circumstances of our time…"

"...our most important role as human beings in our time is to….assemble an organized structure that can give us the perspective of the Absolute and the Totality from the point of view of an organized and, consequently, harmonic and practical basis..."

"...philosophical inquiries have to be fundamentally concerned with Transcendental metaphysics and the validation of science."

"We have the double necessity of a descent into the understanding of the lower realms of being and existence and an ascent into the Higher States."
—Oscar Ichazo

REVIEWS

This writing takes a fresh look at ancient western culture and its relationship with enlightenment. A broad review is undertaken historically to understand the drive society has toward spirituality.
—Michael, Austin, Texas USA

This is an astonishingly thought–provoking book. Much of what the author says has been validated by academic scholars but I have never seen a single book pull the entire subject together in this way.
—Richard, Orange, New Jersey USA

I came away from this book with a profound appreciation for the strength and richness of a Western mystical/philosophical tradition from the Egyptian, Greek and Zoroastrian cultures, as well as the existential crisis of our present global culture where #39;national egos'—to use Ichazo's phrase—threaten an existential 'flood' that can only be navigated by a new "Ark of wisdom and knowledge" that will allow us to survive the current materialistic deluge of ignorance and distraction.
—Richard, Los Angeles, California USA