Lachrymology Courses

Supplemental coursework serving as a companion to The Joyful Guide to Lachrymology.

Lachrymology is a religion that tells the path a person must take to an enlightened life; it is the experience of sorrow, and of their tears healing in nature. Let it be said that the pains of living, be they physical or mental, are the means to a broadened understanding and appreciation of the sensical and metaphysical realms. This text explains the process by which Lachrymology considers cheerless feelings and thoughts and changes them to joy in a person who, as they cry, grow nearer to enlightened consciousness and righteousness, and are brought to their highest state of being.

What religion does not serve as a theater of tears? Holy Tears addresses this all but universal phenomenon with passion and precision, ranging from Mycenaean Greece up through the tragedy of 9/11. Sixteen authors, including many leading voices in the study of religion, offer essays on specific topics in religious weeping while also considering broader issues such as gender, memory, physiology, and spontaneity. A comprehensive, elegantly written introduction offers a key to these topics. Given the pervasiveness of its theme, it is remarkable that this book is the first of its kind--and it is long overdue. The essays ask such questions as: Is religious weeping primal or culturally constructed? Is it universal? Is it spontaneous? Does God ever cry? Is religious weeping altered by sexual or social roles? Is it, perhaps, at once scripted and spontaneous, private and communal? Is it, indeed, divine? The grief occasioned by 9/11 and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere offers a poignant context for this fascinating and richly detailed book. Holy Tears concludes with a compelling meditation on the theology of weeping that emerged from pastoral responses to 9/11, as described in the editors' interview with Reverend Betsee Parker, who became head chaplain for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City and leader of the multifaith chaplaincy team at Ground Zero. The contributors are Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Amy Bard, Herbert Basser, Santha Bhattacharji, William Chittick, Gary Ebersole, M. David Eckel, John Hawley, Gay Lynch, Jacob Olúpqnà (with Solá Ajíbádé), Betsee Parker, Kimberley Patton, Nehemia Polen, Kay Read, and Kallistos Ware.

The very first book about the Anglo-American metal band Tool explores not only their uncompromising music but also their unsettling, self-made image based on mythological symbols and arcane theories. The quartet of master musicians – Maynard James Keenan, Danny Carey, Justin Chancellor and Adam Jones – emerged from the club scene in Los Angeles in 1990 alongside their friends Rage Against the Machine, grabbing the concept of heavy music and then completely redefining it. With a sixties-style commitment to art and agit-prop, they have now attained a level of artistic complexity and depth which makes their enduring success a miracle in today’s culture of bland, corporate entertainment. Their rise to glory has been one of the stranger rock tales of our time. Joel McIver leaves no detail omitted as he delves into the mystery behind Tool’s music

Written by internationally established scholars of Thomas Moore’s music, poetry, and prose writing, Thomas Moore and Romantic Inspiration is a collection of twelve essays and a timely response to significant new biographical, historiographical and editorial work on Moore. This collection reflects the rich variety of cutting-edge work being done on this significant and prolific figure. Sarah McCleave and Brian Caraher have contributed an introduction that positions Moore in his own time (1800-1850), addresses subsequent neglect in the twentieth century, and contextualises the contemporary re-evaluation of Thomas Moore as a figure of considerable interdisciplinary artistic and cultural significance. The contributions to this collection establish Moore’s importance in the fields of Neoclassical and Romantic lyricism, musical performance, song-writing, postcolonial criticism, Orientalism and biographical writing— as well as defining the significance of his voice as an engaged social and political commentator of a strongly cosmopolitan and pluralistic inclination.

Hemorrhage is the story of Ben Weiss and Charlotte Green. Part Bukowski, part 8 ½, and part Dante’s Inferno, the book follows Ben and Charlotte’s romance, alternating between their voices for every chapter. Ben is a tall, funny Jewish writer and Charlotte is a clairvoyant, puppeteer, with a magic cat that talks, though never to her. Charlotte has three predictions for the future. She will marry Ben, she will have a son, and civilization will end in her lifetime.

How Alex Grey’s visionary art is evolving the cultural body through icons of interconnectedness • Includes over 200 reproductions of Grey’s artwork • Contains spectacular photos of Grey’s collaboration with the cult band TOOL plus his worldwide live-painting performances • Offers Grey’s reflections on how art evolves consciousness with a new symbology of the Networked Self • Winner of the 2013 Nautilus Silver Book Award in Photography and Art Revealing the interwoven energies of body and soul, love and spirit that illuminate the core of each being, Alex Grey’s mystic paintings articulate the realms of consciousness encountered during visits to entheogenic heaven worlds. His painting Net of Being--inspired by a blazing vision of an infinite grid of Godheads during an ayahuasca journey--has reached millions as the cover and interior of the band TOOL’s Grammy award–winning triple-platinum album, 10,000 Days. Net of Being is one of many images Grey has created that have resulted in a chain reaction of uses--from apparel and jewelry to tattoos and music videos--embedding these iconic works into our culture’s living Net of Being. The book explores how the mystical experience expressed in Alex Grey’s work opens a new understanding of our shared consciousness and unveils the deep influence art can have on cultural evolution. The narrative progresses through a successive expansion of identity--from the self, to self and beloved, to self and community, world spirit, and cosmic consciousness, where bodies are transparent to galactic energies. Presenting over 200 images, including many never-before-reproduced paintings as well as masterworks such as St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution and Godself, the book also documents performance art, live-painting on stage throughout the world, and the “social sculpture” called CoSM, Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, that Grey cofounded with his wife and creative collaborator, artist Allyson Grey.