All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings

This is a very accessible guide to the complicated work of Henry Corbin. Even this isn't an easy read but if you're interested in subjects such as this you are probably a good reader. I am thankful to Mr Cheetham for this primer on Corbin.

An extraordinary and unique book. Tom Cheetham's four volume work on Henry Corbin provides perspectives and insights that effectively establish Cheetham as a philosopher in his own right. But not your typical philosopher. Cheetham's works shed not only new and enlightening perspectives on Corbin, but they creatively explore themes in philosophy, depth psychology, theosophy, and the ontology of art in extraordinary unique ways. A scholarly work (the four volumes) that should launch Cheetham as an original think run his own right. Must reads.

In the last year, I've been reading a lot of James Hillman, and naturally Corbin's name came up a lot, but though Hillman is obviously indebted to Corbin, he never really makes clear to what extent he & C are really on the same page. So I bought a copy of Corbin's "Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth" to see for myself, but could barely make it through the first chapter. I found the rest so dense and impenetrable with complex references to medieval Islamic angelology that I soon gave up.Cheetham's book is maybe the first book I've ever bought to explain another book. And I must admit that I found it enormously helpful, and accessible, especially in making it clear where Corbin's approach differs from Jung & Hillman.That said, it's now abundantly clear to me why Hillman was so oddly fuzzy in his praise for Corbin. And why Corbin is of such limited use in understanding either Jung or Hillman.However beautiful and elegant Corbin's cosmology may be, it's really just another monotheistic belief system, and not all that different from what you'll find in Mormonism, with its endless regress of angels, and its offer of salvation through the possibility of individual divinity.Cheetham concludes, summarizing Corbin's view of Eternity: "We must be forever unsettled and in exile. Any home we make is temporary... Corbin speaks of a "perpetual hermeneutics" to combat the forces that would trap us in idolatry and the bondage of certainties."I don't buy this notion of perpetual combat, and eternal exile from the Deity. All that struggle to overcome what? Uncertainty? Like one Tibetan Buddhist teacher always used to say, "Find comfort in the discomfort." Make a home in uncertainty, be present in each moment, and you are always at home, forever. As the great theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, to whom Cheetham acknowledges his own debt as a student, puts it, in even simpler, more pragmatic terms: "Only God can fortell the future. We can only do our local, level best." Why isn't that more than enough?

We read this in a Spirituality Book Group. It is hard to read. Terms are used that are not defined. Unless you're an academic in the field, you're left up the creek. Some mystifying things are explained in future chapters--too late to matter. There are good ideas; we enjoyed learning about Henry Corbin. It could have been written more clearly.

This is suppose to be Tom Cheetham's last book in his Henri Corbin series (a final coda to the trilogy?) but I have a feeling there may be more coming. (At least, I hope so.) The book is a brilliant distillation of Tom's understanding of Corbin's work and will be of particular interest to those interested in exploring the relationship between Jung, Corbin and James Hillman and the formation and founding of the lineage of Archetypal Psychology.

What an amazing affirmation to the singular importance of the imagination looking for God in all creation! The hermeneutics of love reaching into and beyond what is seen and experienced.

Tom Cheetham has interpreted a complex man and his theology for us all. He introduces us to the divine Person in us all through Henry Corbin's brilliant message.

Brilliant book making Henri Corbin more accessible for me.

Tom Cheetham é um especialistista na obra de Henry Corbin, mas tem brilho próprio.

Wonderful, inspiring!

Profound, extremely well written, highly under-rated given the number of reviews here. This is a jewell of a book, reflecting extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. A lot of what humanity needs to remember is right here in this book, hidden in plain sight.

Massa, um livro fascinate e arual sobre o pnensamento do grande Henry Corbin e o mundus imaginalis de Ibn Arabi

hard read