The Spirit and the Sword

Book excerpt: Martial arts are not a distinctly Eastern phenomenon. The West has had numerous fighting forms that have developed sufficiently to be considered Martial arts. However, the vast majority of these Martial disciplines have not survived the advancement of the West toward technological combat. In this fascinating and highly instructive volume, John Michael Greer reveals a little known living tradition of swordsmanship that has survived into the twenty-first century behind the sealed doors of small and secretive fraternal lodges. Greer integrates these techniques of the sword with the development of the whole person along Qabalistic evolutionary principles that will be familiar to many Western esotericists. What emerges is a highly important component of the Western secret tradition, the nearly lost Art of the Sword. If you have ever longed to feel the power of live steel in your hand, face to face with a worthy adversary on the field of honorable combat, then this is the book for you.