Description: This book presents the esoteric original core of Christianity, with its concern for illuminating and healing the inner life of the individual. It is a bridge to the often difficult doctrines of the early church fathers, explains their spiritual psychology, and provides new insights for studying and following the spiritual path outside a monastery.
Brief description: Robin Amis was a British author, poet, publisher, editor and translator. Although he had studied a wide range of spiritual traditions, including Kabbalah, the Fourth Way and Hindu teachings, it was his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church and his relationship with Mount Athos, the ancient monastic republic in Greece, that ultimately defined his life and work. Over a thirty-year period, between 1982 and 2013, he made more than 60 visits to Mount Athos, where he was recognised as a "synergatis", a fellow worker and equal of the monks. Amis documented the results of his research in A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought (SUNY 1995, Praxis 2003), and recounted his experience on the Holy Mountain in Views from Mount Athos (Praxis 2014). As founder of Praxis Institute Press, he translated, edited and published the three volume English language edition of Gnosis by Boris Mouravieff as well as books on Hesychasm and the spiritual tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. He was married to the American artist Lillian Delevoryas and in the last years of his life lived in Bristol, England. In the early 1960s Amis joined the Study Society in London, which was led by one of P. D. Ouspensky's former students, Francis Roles. By the late 1960s, Amis was leading study groups in various parts of England, including Bristol, Birmingham, Sussex and Gloucestershire. In 1979, Amis took a group of his students to meet with Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. This meeting, in turn, led to Amis' interest in Orthodoxy and the ancient monastic tradition that had been preserved on Mount Athos. Amis first visited Athos in 1982 and by chance met with Gerald Palmer, a former student of Ouspensky who had converted to Orthodoxy in 1950. Palmer's spiritual teacher on Athos was Father Nikon who encouraged Palmer to acquire, translate and publish the Philokalia, the compendium of teachings of the Church Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This translation was started by Gerald Palmer and E. Kadloubovsky, and continued by Palmer, Kallistos Ware and Philip Sherrard. It was begun at a time when very few Orthodox books were available in the English language. Amis' initial visits to Mount Athos in turn led to his own conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1983. Between 1987 and 1993, Amis and a small team that included Lillian Amis, Sergei Kadleigh and his wife Leslie, translated, edited and published the three volume work, Gnosis, A Study and Commentary on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy by Boris Mouravieff. Originally published in France between 1960 and 1963 Gnosis was based on the course entitled "An Introduction to esoteric philosophy according to the esoteric tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy" that Mouravieff had taught at the University of Geneva. In his later years Amis concentrated on writing, lecturing and teaching. He continued to make regular bi-annual visits to Mount Athos, establishing a close relationship with Osiou Gregoriou monastery, its Abbot, Archimandrite George Kapsanis, and the brotherhood of monks there. During those visits, Amis placed himself under obedience with an elder, Saint Paisios of Mount Athos. At one of these meetings St. Paisios told him: "You English have served man very well with your intellect, giving him many things he needs, the solutions to many problems that have made life easier for everyone. Now you should do another work - to understand and tell the world of the inner truth, the truth of the heart as well". In many ways this instruction defined the latter part of Amis's life, which he devoted to this task. He formed Praxis Research Institute (www.praxisresearch.net) and working with a small number of associates and students around the world through video conferencing he developed his ideas for bringing Hesychasm to spiritual seekers who have to live and work in the world. Amis died in Bristol, England, aged 82 on 13 June 2014.
Review Quotes: A Masterpiece of Spiritual Insight - Theodore J. Nottingham, November 2002 A Different Christianity is a masterpiece of spiritual insight, bringing together for the first time in a stunning feat of metaphysical detective work the mystical teachings of early Christianity with Perennial esoteric wisdom. Here we find the thread that connects Gurdjieff and the hermits of third century Egypt, John of the Cross and Isaac the Syrian, Hesychia (inner tranquility) and Hindu Advaita (non-duality), ancient monastic spiritual practices and the holistic insights of the New Age. Author Robin Amis, a long-time teacher of the path to conscious evolution, offers a world desperate for inner transformation a treasure map to the house of the soul. This book has the potential of revolutionizing contemporary assumptions about the Christian Faith and providing the missing links in esoteric teachings such as the Fourth Way. A masterwork of synergy and understanding, A Different Christianity is potent food for the serious reader's transformation of being. The author's fundamental thesis is that Christianity possesses an inner tradition that has never been common knowledge in the Western world. This Esoteric Christianity was once known as the "Royal Way" and has barely survived except in places like the monasticism of the Eastern Church. The author claims that we can find traces, in some of the great spiritual texts, of teachings that deal with experiential transformation and go back to the first centuries of the Church. But from the time of Clement of Alexandria, one of the beacons of this inner wisdom, various factors have caused the "unplanned but effective censorship" and forgetfulness of these powerful ideas. Amis clearly differentiates between Christian gnosis and the gnostic sects. Gnosis, as used here, is a special kind of inner knowledge handed down unwritten by the Apostles and is quite different from the mythologies of the later sects. Along with his scholarly research, Mr. Amis shares his own personal experiences in seeking out this lost teaching. He details his visits to Mount Athos where this spiritual wisdom has been passed on for a thousand years. He describes the island as a "place that can help one discover the eternal within oneself." His conversation with a pneumaticos (spiritual hermit) is particularly striking for he is given a message to the West: "You English have served man very well with your intellect...Now you should do another work: to understand and to tell the world of the inner truth, the truth of the heart." This book is the fulfillment of that extraordinary charge. In another sharing of his experience on the Greek peninsula, the author describes the psychosomatic impact of liturgy: "I began to understand what was really possible for a human being." Later, under a pine tree overlooking the Aegean Sea, he encounters the inward stillness that is the apex of hesychast wisdom. "Within that stillness emerged a presence I can never describe." Amis proceeds to detail the psychological phenomenon of spiritual awakening as expressed by the inner tradition. He writes extensively of the Greek philosophical concept of the nous which he understands as the cognitive power at the center of our being. The author provides numerous quotes from sources of wisdom rarely found in the West, including the second century work of Clement and of the nineteenth century Russian starets (spiritual teacher) Theophan the Recluse. Such teachings may be found in classic texts like The Philokalia and Unseen Warfare but virtually no one has integrated them with modern esoteric thought.