Jacob Needleman’s Books
Specials from Browser Books
The American Soul and Money and the Meaning of Life are available at a 20% discount from Browser Books in San Francisco. Call (415) 567-8027 to order.
The Essential Marcus Aurelius
Authors Jacob Needleman and classics scholar John P. Piazza retain the depth of Marcus’s perspective on life. They have carefully selected and faithfully rendered those passages that clarify Marcus’s role as someone who stood within the great religious and ethical traditions that extend throughout every culture in human history. Learn more…
Why Can’t We Be Good?
Jacob Needleman embarks on his most gripping and broadly appealing work, asking the ultimate question of human nature: Why do we repeatedly violate our most deeply held values and beliefs? Learn more…
The American Soul
At the heart of The American Soul is a call to rediscover the timeless truths hidden within the founding vision of the American nation. Learn more and read excerpts…
The Wisdom of Love
This philosophical examination of love asks the meaning of sustained love and the source and intention of love in the world. Previously published as “A Little Book on Love”. Learn more…
Time and the Soul
Time is the greatest modern scarcity. What used to be considered signs of success—being busy, having many responsibilities, being involved in many projects or activities—are today being felt as afflictions. Learn more…
A new paperback edition of Time and the Soul is now available — with a new introduction by the author and foreword by John Cleese.
Money and the Meaning of Life
This remarkable book combines myth and psychology, the poetry of the Sufis and the wisdom of King Solomon, along with Needleman’s searching of his own soul and his culture to explain how money can become a unique means of self-knowledge. Learn more…
Heart of Philosophy
In Heart of Philosophy, Needleman explores philosophy and how our human search for meaning is integral to our lives. Needleman documents his experiences teaching courses in philosophy at a high school, and shows to us how real philosophy, the love and search for meaning, is a fact of human nature. Learn more…
Real Philosophy (co-authored by David Appelbaum)
Our primary drive as humans, say the authors of this anthology of religious and philosophical writings, is not sexual or to do with any biological or socially conditioned impulse: It is hunger for meaning.
It is only in addressing the huge, fundamental questions such as “Who am I?”, “Why death?” and the like that humankind finds itself capable of withstanding the worst and abiding in the best. Learn more…
A Sense of the Cosmos:
The Encounter of Modern Science and Ancient Truth
Western science has operated for centuries on the assumption that we can understand the universe without understanding ourselves. We are just now seeking to make the necessary connection between the general laws of nature the those of our own (inner) nature. But the job won’t be done with “massive injections of the new consciousness”; we cannot democratize the sacred by cheapening its demands. Learn more…
The Way of the Physician
“A good doctor is a good person.” But today, Needleman argues, the physician has become the dispirited pawn of a “medical arms race” in which financial considerations are taking precedence over the welfare of patients. Cut off from great ideas and awakening experiences, doctors are either complacent or riddled with tension. Addressing them directly, the author mourns: “You are dying in your tracks, and you know it.” Learn more…
Lost Christianity
Has the true heart and essence of Christianity become obscured during its progress across the centuries and through diverse cultures?
In his personal account of his quest for ‘the lost religion of love’, Needleman explores the concepts of soul, prayer, meditation, and spirituality. He reconsiders ancient Christian writings, and demonstrates that a contemplative tradition existed in the early church, a tradition which continues today in the lives of certain extraordinary individuals. Learn more…
This inspirational book will speak directly to all who seek genuine religious experience. Learn more…
The New Religions
This book describes the teachings and practices of the new, predominantly Eastern religions that are rapidly gaining influence in America. In remarkably lucid and informative terms, Jacob Needleman examines the specific areas in which traditional Western religions have failed modern man, and the ways in which the Eastern religions offer their followers the practical means for improving the quality of their lives. Learn more…
Modern Esoteric Spirituality (edited by Jacob Needleman and Antoine Faivre)
This book explores one of the most illusive, mysterious, and misunderstood spiritual traditions in the modern world. It is the tradition, or more accurately, family of traditions subsumed under the term “esoteric.” Learn more…
Sorcerers (a novel)
Part mystery, part spellbinding tale, Sorcerers sweeps us into a world of mysterious powers and extraordinary human possibilities; it suspends us between the struggling forces of light and darkness.
On the threshold of maturity and yearning for something he cannot name, Eliot Appleman is welcomed into The Sorcerer’s Apprentices, a circle of young state magicians. Learn more…
February 27 2009 03:15 pm