Point Reyes Books

Living the Question – The Work of Jacob Needleman.

With Jacob Needleman and John Gouldthorpe

While reading Jacob Needleman’s books a chord is often struck that awakens and feeds the longing to remember ourselves, to breathe to life our humanity. His work is as much a calling as a teaching. He gives the mind a way to speak what our hearts have always known. A key to his work is bringing into our lives a deep relationship with soul and the soul’s sensibility:
“The principal power of the soul, which defines its real nature, is a gathered attention that is directed simultaneously toward the spirit and the body. This is ‘attention of the heart.’ And this is the principal mediating, harmonizing power of the soul.” P. 162 Lost Christianity

With Jacob Needleman’s guidance we will immerse ourselves in three of his early books, A Sense of the Cosmos, Lost Christianity, and The Heart of Philosophy. When taken together these works provide the context for a necessary and extraordinary way of making soulful sense of our selves and our world. We will meet roughly every two weeks for two hours and occasionally for longer afternoon and evening sessions. Jacob, as his schedule allows, will be with us every second or third meeting. John Gouldthorpe will guide our times together. Each time we meet there will be a 30 minute presentation on the readings followed by a group discussion.

In our initial meeting with Jacob and John we will explore the relationship between thinking and feeling, between ideas and eros and we will demonstrate the intimate, serious and playful style in which we will pursue our study of Jacob Needleman’s work. We will pursue the practice of asking questions in a way that palpably generates a force; a force that allows us to connect with our true interests. The readings for the initial meeting will come from the introduction and first chapter of The Heart of Philosophy. These readings will be available after July 22.

The first meeting is on Tuesday, August 3 and it is free of charge.

The following meetings will be structured in groups of four meetings. Each group of four meetings will be $50, payable at the time of the first meeting.

Jacob Needleman is the author of countless books and a Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. Kevin Starr of the San Francisco Examiner describes him in this way:
“Needleman is someone who beautifully fulfills Hilaire Belloc’s description of a great don or college professor: a scholar for whom the life of learning, teaching, writing, and living is a continuous act. For many, academic inquiry is a narrow field of specialization. For Jacob Needleman, it is a pilgrimage, a search, a journey into the world where he might find and serve others, and find and serve himself.”
Point Reyes resident John Gouldthorpe is a longtime adult educator, and a thoroughly enthused advocate of the work of Jacob Needleman.

For more information on the study group contact John at 663- 8188 or john_gouldthorpe@yahoo.com.