A Different Christianity - Abridged by Robin Amis (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

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, explaining their spiritual psychology, which underlies the spirituality of the Greek church. The book helps to show links between that patristic spirituality and the present-day understandings of living monks and abbots on Mount Athos.

A Different Christianity is useful to the practitioner, as well as to the scholar, providing new insights into the problems of studying and following the spiritual path outside a monastery.

"The tradition is one," says Boris Mouravieff in his book Gnosis: Study and Commentaries on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. And today, despite claims to the contrary, my observations have convinced me that this links with the fact that Christianity possesses and always has possessed an inner tradition: not a system, but what might be called a discipline. To those with sufficient experience in investigating this field, I believe that this book will convey the same conviction. In addition, I would add to the idea that the inner tradition is one--although with local variations--certain other observations about it:

1. All the major religions of the world possess a complete tradition of inner knowledge (or a version of the one tradition), although it has only reached a small percentage of the most able individuals within that faith.
2. Many or all of the great civilizations of the world are formed by the great faiths of the world.
3. In each case of a civilization formed by one of the great faiths, the inner tradition is a fundamental element in the structure of the associated civilization.

[from T. Nottingham's 2002 review: ] "The process of awakening [to this inner knowledge] presented in A Different Christianity includes inner separation, the watch of the heart, metanoia, remembrance of God, magnetic center, self-observation, dispassion, and theosis (God-realization) and other foundational methods. Part of the discipline of the Royal Way (the inner tradition of the early Church) is to perceive without prejudgement, an effort that requires the development of transcendent self-control. This process is one that does not go against one's nature as happens with misguided asceticism but rather uncovers one's true nature."

"A key idea in this teaching is Diakrisis (discrimination) which enables us to change our attitudes to ourselves and to detect influences acting upon our minds. 'Effective diakrisis is nothing more than clear psychological perception...given form by real knowledge of our human nature.' This implies the development of profound and brutally honest self-knowledge, a critical step to spiritual evolution. Here we find direct links between the ancient wisdom of the early Fathers of the desert and the contemporary teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, known as the Fourth Way, dealing with inner work on oneself. These efforts contribute to the goal of esotericism which Amis defines as 'inner autonomy of spirit.' "

"One of the most important contributions of this work comes with the author's presentation of noetic prayer. This 'method' is at the heart of the Royal Way. But it little resembles what usually passes for prayer. 'Prayer as it progresses depends more on a relinquishing of control than on its intensification...Directed prayer involves what one can only call a kind of effortless effort'."

"This book offers us the missing pieces that can revive a teaching of great power, which has the potential of revitalizing the spirituality of the Western world."

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.