SEAN MARTIN

Gnosticism - derived from the Greek word gnosis, to know - is the name given to various religious schools that proliferated in the first centuries after Christ and, at one time, it almost became the dominant form of Christianity. Yet some Gnostic beliefs derive from the older Mystery traditions of Greece and Rome, and the various Gnostic schools came to be branded as heretical by the emerging Christian church. Indeed, although some Gnostic beliefs are close to mainstream Christianity Gnosticism also held that the world is imperfect as it was created by an evil god who was constantly at war with the true, good God; that Christ and Satan were brothers; that reincarnation exists; and that women were the equal of men As a result, the Gnostics held the Feminine Aspect of God - whom they addressed as Sophia, or Wisdom - in very high regard. They also stressed that we each have a spark of the Divine inside us which, when recognised and developed, will ultimately liberate us from the prison of the material world. Although largely stamped out by the Church by the sixth century, Gnosticism survived underground through groups such as the Bogomils and the Cathars, and influenced the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the psychologist Carl Jung, the Existentialists, the New Age movement and writers as diverse as William Blake, W.B. Yeats, Albert Camus and Philip K. Dick. In this book, Sean Martin recounts the long and diverse history of Gnosticism, and argues for its continued relevance today.

El presente volumen profusamente ilustrado com más de 130 imágenes, narra la historia de los cátaros del Medievo desde su aparición en el siglo XII hasta su exterminio a manos de los albigenses y la Inquisición en el siglo XIV. En su interior se abordan tanto las prácticas y creencias de los cátaros como las historias que envuelven su legendario tesoro y sus relaciones con los templarios.

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 70s Sean Martin considers the whole of Tarkovsky s oeuvre from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin across the full length films to the later stage works and Tarkovsky s writings paintings and photographs Martin also seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a difficult director whilst also celebrating his radical aesthetic of long takes and tracking shots which Tarkovsky was to dub imprinted or sculpted time and to make a case for Tarkovsky s position not just as an important filmmaker but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time

El origen de este estudio sobre Paseal y Leibniz es una herencia. Ha sido emprendido con la idea de que la verdadera manera de honrar a los muertos es seguir su estela, como Pascal se lo recomendaba a su hermana tras la muerte de su padre. Mi bisabuelo había escrito una memoria sobre Pascal y Leibniz, publicada en su momento entre los trabajos de una academia provincial. Este estudio, escrito con gusto, pero en un género oratorio que ya no está vigente, no podría, hoy por hoy, satisfacemos. Se inspiraba, sin embargo, en un método correcto. Y, después de haber recordado lo que tantas veces ha sido intentado sobre Aristóteles y Platón, Demóstenes y Cicerón y Virgilio y Racine, el señor Ancelot añadía que "no había solamente un verdadero ejercicio de estilo en los paralelos cuidadosamente establecidos" y que "la meditación podía hacer que brotara de ellos, además de las luces directas de un examen aislado, la luz reflejada que entre sí se proyectaban los dos sujetos puestos en presencia uno de otro '. Fue este texto, conocido en el umbral de mi adolescencia, el que sin duda me predispuso a hacer comparaciones entre parejas de espíritus-. Todavía me parece que habría que volver a honrar, despojándolo de la retórica, aquel viejo ejercicio de poner en paralelo, con el fin de examinar, con la atención más pura, las profundas diferencias que caracterizan a los seres que se asemejan.

Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. Flourishing principally in the Languedoc and Italy, the Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting and non-violence. They believed themselves to be the heirs of the true heritage of Christianity going back to apostolic times, and completely rejected the Catholic Church and all its trappings, regarding it as the Church of Satan; Cathar services and ceremonies, by contrast, were held in fields, barns and in peoples homes. Finding support from the nobility in the fractious political situation in southern France, the Cathars also found widespread popularity among peasants and artisans. And again unlike the Church, the Cathars respected women, and women played a major role in the movement. Alarmed at the success of Catharism, the Church founded the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East, the Albigensian Crusade was the first Crusade to be directed against fellow Christians, and was also the first European genocide. With the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1244, Catharism was largely obliterated, although the faith survived into the early fourteenth century. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever, and Sean Martin recounts their story and the myths associated with them in this lively and gripping book.

The Black Death is the name most commonly given to the pandemic of bubonic plague that ravaged the medieval world in the late 1340s. From Central Asia the plague swept through Europe, leaving millions of dead in its wake. Between a quarter and a third of Europes population died. In England the population fell from nearly six million to just over three million. The Black Death was the greatest demographic disaster in European history.In this Pocket Essential, Sean Martin looks at the origins of the disease and traces its terrible march through Europe from the Italian cities to the far-flung corners of Scandinavia. He describes contemporary responses to the plague and makes clear how helpless was the medicine of the day in the face of it. He examines the renewed persecution of the Jews, blamed by many Christians for the spread of the disease, and highlights the bizarre attempts by such groups as the Flagellants to ward off what they saw as the wrath of God. His book is a vivid and dramatic account of one of the great catastrophes of history.

Often alchemy is seen as an example of medieval gullibility and the alchemists as a collection of eccentrics and superstitious fools.Sean Martin shows that nothing could be further from the truth. It is important to see the search for the philosophers stone and the attempts to turn base metal into gold as metaphors for the relation of man to nature and man to God as much as seriously held beliefs.Alchemy had a self-consistent outlook on the natural world and mans place in it. Alchemists like Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus were amongst the greatest minds of their time and the history of alchemy is both the history of a spiritual search and the history of a slowly developing scientific method. Sir Isaac Newton devoted as much time to his alchemical studies as he did to his mathematical ones.This book traces the history of alchemy from ancient times to the 20th century, highlighting the interest of modern thinkers like Jung in the subject, and in the process covers a major, if neglected area of Western thought.

The term New Wave conjures up images of Paris in the early 1960s: Jean Seberg and Jean Paul Belmondo, the young Jean-Pierre Leaud, the three protagonists of Jules and Jim capering across a bridge, all from the films of French filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.The impact of the French New Wave continues to be felt, and its ethos of shooting in real places, with non-professional actors and small crews would influence filmmakers as diverse as John Cassavetes and Martin Scorsese to Lars von Triers Dogme 95 movement, all of whom sought to challenge the dominance of traditional Hollywood methods of both filmmaking and storytelling.But the French were not the only new wave, and they were not even the first. In New Waves in Cinema, Sean Martin explores the history of the many New Waves that have appeared since the birth of cinema, including their great forebears the German Expressionists, the Soviet Formalists and the Italian Neorealists. In addition, Martin looks at the movements traditionally seen as the French New Waves contemporaries and heirs, such as the Czech New Wave, the British New Wave, the New German Cinema, the Hollywood Movie Brats and Brazilian Cinema Novo. The book also covers other new waves, such as those of Greece, Hungary, documentary - Cinema Verite and Direct Cinema - animation, avant garde and the so-called No Wave filmmakers.New Waves in Cinema also explores the differences - and similarities - between the concept of a new wave and a national cinema, citing, among others, the example of the new Iranian cinema, which has given us directors as important as Abbas Kiarostami and the Makhmalbaf family, examines resurgent trends in the national cinemas of Mexico, Japan, American independent cinema and concludes with an examination of the most celebrated movement of the 1990s and 2000s, Dogme 95.New Waves in Cinema makes a convincing case for the necessity for the continued existence of new waves and national cinemas in the face of Hollywood and American cultural imperialism.

Disease has plagued human civilisations throughout history, claiming more lives than natural disasters and warfare combined. The Black Death took the lives of one third of Europes population in the fourteenth century. The conquest of the New World was accompanied by devastating waves of smallpox. The Industrial Revolution happened in a world blighted by the diseases of urbanisation and overcrowding, typhoid and cholera, typhus and TB. New diseases such as AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19 present further challenges to medical science and healthcare.A Short History of Disease chronicles the historical and geographical evolution of infectious and non-infectious diseases, from their prehistoric origins to the present. It offers a comprehensive guide to ailments and the medicines developed to combat them. Analysing case studies - including the Black Death, Spanish Flu, cholera, leprosy, syphilis, cancer, and Ebola - Sean Martin maps the growth of our understanding of disease. The book offers a fascinating insight into an important area of social history, providing an accessible introduction to disease and the ongoing quest to protect human health.

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 70s.Although he made only seven features, each one was a major landmark in cinema, the most well-known of them being the mediaeval epic Andrei Rublev - widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time - and the autobiographical Mirror, set during the Russia of Stalins purges in the 1930s and the years of stagnation under Brezhnev. Both films landed Tarkovsky in considerable trouble with the authorities, and he gained a reputation for being a tortured - and ultimately martyred - filmmaker. Despite the harshness of the conditions under which he worked, Tarkovsky built up a remarkable body of work.He burst upon the international scene in 1962 with his debut feature Ivans Childhood, which won the Golden Lion at Venice and immediately established him as a major filmmaker. During the 1970s, he made two classic ventures into science-fiction, Solaris, regarded at the time as being the Soviet reply to Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey and later remade by Steven Soderbergh, and Stalker, which was thought to have predicted the Chernobyl disaster. Harassed at home, Tarkovsky went into exile and made his last two films in the West, where he also published his classic work of film and artistic theory, Sculpting in Time. Since his death in Paris in 1986, his reputation continued - and continues - to grow.Sean Martin considers the whole of Tarkovskys oeuvre, from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin, across the full-length films, to the later stage works and Tarkovskys writings, paintings and photographs. Martin also seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a difficult director, whilst also celebrating his radical aesthetic of long takes and tracking shots, which Tarkovsky was to dub imprinted or sculpted time, and to make a case for Tarkovskys position not just as an important filmmaker, but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time.

The Knights Templar were the most powerful military religious order of the Middle Ages. Formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, they participated in the Crusades and rapidly gained wealth, lands and influence and were answerable to none save the Pope himself.In addition to having a fearful military reputation, they were also Christendoms first bankers, and played a large part in inventing the modern banking system. They were also involved in developments in navigation, architecture, medicine, and engineering, amongst others.Seemingly untouchable for nearly two centuries, the Templars fell from grace spectacularly after the loss of the Holy Land. In 1307, all Templars in France were arrested on charges of heresy, homosexuality, denial of the cross and devil worship. The order was suppressed by the Pope in 1312, and Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master, was burnt at the stake as a heretic two years later.The myth of the Templars was born and in the ensuing centuries, they have occupied a unique position in European history. Orthodox historians see them as nothing more than soldier-monks whose arrogance was their ultimate undoing, while others see them as occultists of the first order, the founders of Freemasonry, possessors of the Holy Grail and the Turin Shroud.Sean Martin considers both the orthodox and conspiratorial version of events, and includes the latest revelations from the Vatican Secret Archives.