My Selection of Must Read World Religious and Spiritual Literature

I thought I'd start off a sharing of my most appreciated books from the literature of 'spirituality', but also sources on the web for out of copyright material. So here goes, not in a particular order, but trending from those most influential to those I still value.

I would love it if readers would add to my list with their suggestions. I will keep this up to date on Facebook and my Blog - this is just a starter.

First - contemporary writers and novel format material :

Kahil Gabril - The Prophet and other works: http://leb.net/~mira/
Paulo Coelho - particularly The Alchemist and the Zahir
Good Compilation of English "Spiritual poets" from Bede to the 1920s - The English Spirit (The Little Gidding Anthology of English Spirituality) DLT

Film - to be added

e.g The Matrix, Avatar

Books I have in my Library:
Radical Amazement - Judy Cannato ["Awareness of the Divine begins with wonder" - a Herschel quote]
Integral Life Practice - Ken Wilbur and others: http://www.integralinstitute.org/?q=node/1
Ken Wilbur - A brief History of Everything
David Tacy - The Spirituality Revolution
Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations with God - and many more

Christian Writers:

Marcus Borg - Reading the Bible Again for the First Time & Meeting Jesus Again for the first time (and almost everything else he has written)
John Shelby Spong: Liberating the Gospels, A new Christianity for a New World (and most of his books since - including Jesus for the NOn Religious and Eternal Life - A new Vision.
Adrian B Smith - Tomorrow's Christian (O Books) and lots more
Deepak Chopra - Quantum Healing and lots more
John Hetherington - Booklet "Reshaping Christianity - Mysticsm. Spirituality and Global faith" - avilable from Free to Believe: http://www.freetobelieve.org.uk/booklets2.html

Christian Scriptures - Psalms, Wisdom, Proverbs, Gospel of John and early Pauline genuine epistles. Gospels of Mary (see: http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm)
and Thomas (see: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html)
and the Pistis Sophia (http://www.gnosis.org/library/pistis-sophia/index.htm).

Also see: http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/index.htm

Other Christian writings: St Augustine - The City of God - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.toc.html
Also The Confessions of St Augustine - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.html
Julian of Norwich - Revelations of Divine Love (14th Century): http://www.ccel.org/ccel/julian/revelations/
William Law - (17/18 C) - A serious Call to a devoit and holy life: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/serious_call.html
Thomas A Kempis - The Imitation of Christ: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/kempis/imitation.html

For the whole corpus visit and search in http://www.ccel.org/ and http://www.sacred-texts.com/

World Religions:
Taoism - The Book of the Way: http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm
Zoroastrian: http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm
The Vedanta (Indian Religious Scriptures): http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/
Covers: Vedas (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/index.htm),
Upanishads (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/upan/index.htm)
Bhagavad Gita (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/gita/agsgita.htm)

Buddhism: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/index.htm

Islam: http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/index.htm [Includes a full range of Sufi material - Rumi poetry can be found here: http://allspirit.co.uk/rumi.html
Bahai: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bhi/index.htm [Also see: http://www.bahai.org/]

Sites cover not just English translations - but references more general text.

[TO BE UPDATED - so keep popping back, please and add your own lists.]

Copyright © 2009: Rev John Hetherington. All rights reserved. Permission is granted for this content to be reproduced upon condition that full acknowledgements of author and copyright details are made. John Hetherington - January 2010