Axis Mundi

'Eric Rhode takes on some of the most fundamental aspects of human experience, thought, and meaning. He journeys into fascinating corners of "monsoon Asia" - and into areas in mind and spirit that are both knowable and unknowable. He conveys the thrill of a personal quest to understand some of the meanings that come together in Plato's vision of the axis mundi. He interprets the axis mundi not as an expression of a perennial and unchanging pivot of the cosmos, but as an enabler of revelations of a sort that cannot be acquired through experience. His familiarity with ancient mythologies and cosmologies enables him to make clear that axiality involves the crossing of a threshold between human relations and a range of meaning that can be conjectured without reference to experience. He enters the many dimensions of myth, art and artefact, geology, geometry, the human mind and body, ritual and ceremonial, philosophy, psychology, and religion. This book examines "the truth of the mind and the truth of experience". It is truly a tour de force.' - Margot Waddell