Overview: Venturing beyond the inter-faith literature on ancient wisdom, Transcendental Spirituality, Wisdom and Virtue: The Divine Virtues and Treasures of the Heart, identifies and explores the meaning of 36 Divine Virtues or Universal Ethical Principles shared across the world’s religions, providing the reader with a pathway to a higher spiritual understanding.

Verdict: In the face of potentially cataclysmic challenges and existential threats to both humanity and the planet, it is timely for this generation to recall and then live by forgotten or ignored universal ethical principles and virtues.

Transcendental Spirituality, Wisdom and Virtue: The Divine Virtues and Treasures of the Heart by author Douglas Charles Hodgson, identifies and explores 36 such principles that represent divine virtues or universal ethical principles.

Supported by relevant scriptural passages from various faiths such as Baha’i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Indigenous spiritual beliefs, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Taoism and Zoroastrianism, each chapter is devoted to exploring and synthesizing the essence of the scriptural meaning and scope of one Divine Virtue.

As the author himself states from the off, in these times differences and divisions appear to consume us on a daily basis. In a post-secular and increasingly technological and digitalized world which is now exploring possibilities in A.I., ancient wisdom and virtue appear to have been cast aside as unfashionable and irrelevant.

As knowledge exponentially increases, application of the wisdom of the elders recedes. But why must this be so? Can we not explore and affirm what unites and binds humanity together, and what has brought us to this point in human history?

Hodgson also adds that due to these questions and more that he has searched the sacred scriptures of the most prominent religions and belief systems with a view to determining not what divides or differentiates them, but to identify and celebrate the common spiritual and ethical foundations upon which they are all based.

Furthermore, it is his hope that the readers who consider themselves spiritual and/or religious, that those who are interested in interfaith dialogue and those who may still be searching for their own truth will be able to identify with and embrace in their lives the Divine Virtues and Universal Ethical Principles which bind these religions together like an ethereal mortar.

And so, in closing, and whilst previous works have focused generally on ancient wisdom, this must-read book extends beyond wisdom to include 35 additional virtues or spiritual principles that underpin these great and diverse religions.

About the Author - Douglas Hodgson’s involvement with legal education and university administration has spanned over four decades in Canada, England, Australia and New Zealand. As a lawyer, teacher, researcher, author and human rights advocate, his interest in religious discrimination and religious fundamentalism issues motivated him to engage in the study of the scriptures of the world’s religions, ultimately inspiring him to write Transcendental Spirituality, Wisdom and Virtue: The Divine Virtues and Treasures of the Heart. He lives in Perth, Australia.

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