Your Reading List for Enlightenment

FOF Sophy Burnham is one of the foremost spiritual seekers and writers of our generation. Her books about everyday experiences with angels, including A Book of Angels and Angel Letters, have sold millions of copies and changed the way the world looks at the afterlife. Her most recent book, The Art of Intuition, explains how each of us can tap into our own connection to the spiritual world.

We asked Sophy to put together a short list of titles that will help you get started on your own spiritual search…Here, her essential “reading list for the soul”. . .

The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James (Penguin Classics)
This is a classic: A brilliant mind exploring what it means to be hit by the Holy Spirit–what happens, what happens afterwards. It was taken from a series of lectures at the University of Edinburgh and was immediately acknowledged as the best joining of psychological, philosophical, and spiritual thought. I can’t be more enthusiastic about it. Anyone interested in “the self” should read it.

Autobiography of a Yogi, by Yogananada (Self-Realization Fellowship) is from the Eastern point of view. Chatty, readable, wise. It will lift your heart.

The Way of a Pilgrim (Image Books). An unknown 19th-century Russian peasant wrestles with Christ’s teaching to  “pray without ceasing.” There are so many brilliant works on Christianity that it is hard to pick one, so I choose this most unusual little classic about a man who tried to live like the Master at every moment.

The Cat Who Went to Heaven (Aladdin Books), winner of the Newbery Medal for Children’s books, by Elizabeth Coatsworth. This is the story of a Japanese painter who is trying to paint the story of the Buddha.  I read this every year and sometimes more because in its little 60-page tale is all the wisdom and kindness and goodness of all the books ever written. Perhaps my favorite, I keep this one by my bedside.