| List of Illustrations | x |
| Foreword | xi |
| Preface | xiii |
| I. | Introduction and Background | |
| 1. | The Debate about "Orientalism" | 3 |
| The West's Encounter with the East since Antiquity | |
| What do we mean by "Orientalism"? | |
| Edward Said and the Critics of Orientalism | |
| Alternative Perspectives | |
| The Traditionalist Outlook | |
| 2. | Ex Oriente Lux: the 19th Century Background | 20 |
| Romanticism and the Orient | |
| The American Transcendentalists | |
| Modernism and Cultural Crisis | |
| The 1893 World's Parliament of Religions | |
| II. | Western Engagements with Eastern Traditions | |
| 3. | Five Bridge-Builders between West and East | 37 |
| Sister Nivedita | |
| Rudolf Otto | |
| Giuseppe Tucci | |
| Gary Snyder | |
| Huston Smith | |
| 4. | Theosophy and Western Seekers in the Sub-continent, 1900-1950 | 63 |
| Theosophy and the "White Buddhists" | |
| Annie Besant and Krishnamurti | |
| A Miscellany of Early Western "Converts" to Hinduism | |
| Fictional Passages to India | |
| Californian Proselytes and the Appeal of Vedanta | |
| A Note on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda | |
| Theravadin Buddhism and White Buddhists in Ochre Robes | |
| Christmas Humphreys | |
| 5. | Eranos and the Comparative Mythographers | 95 |
| Myth and Depth Psychology | |
| Carl Jung and the East | |
| Eranos | |
| Heinrich Zimmer | |
| Joseph Campbell | |
| Mircea Eliade | |
| Reflections on Jung and Eliade | |
| 6. | The Western Quest for "Secret Tibet" | 125 |
| A. | Pathfinders and Mythologizers | |
| Desideri, de Koros, Waddell, Taylor | |
| B. | In Search of "Secret Tibet" | |
| Madame Blavatsky | |
| Alexandra David-Neel | |
| W.Y. Evans-Wentz | |
| Heinrich Harrer | |
| Marco Pallis | |
| Anagarika Govinda | |
| C. | Tibet and the West in the Contemporary Era | |
| Later Travelers and Seekers in Tibet | |
| Counterfeit Tibetan Esotericism: the Lobsang Rampa Case | |
| Tibet, Western Esotericism and New Age Orientalism | |
| 7. | The "Floating Worlds" of China and Japan | 155 |
| A. | China | |
| European Perceptions | |
| Arthur Waley | |
| Richard Wilhelm and Carl Jung | |
| John Blofeld | |
| Rene Guenon | |
| Joseph Needham | |
| B. | Japan | |
| Ernest Fennellosa and the Late 19th Century | |
| D. T. Suzuki and Western Zen in the Inter-war Years | |
| Europeans in Japan | |
| A Note on Shin and Other Japanese Traditions | |
| 8. | Traditionalism and the Sophia Perennis | 183 |
| Introduction | |
| Rene Guenon, Tradition and Oriental Metaphysics | |
| Ananda Coomaraswamy, Scholar and Dharma-Warrior | |
| Frithjof Schuon and the Religio Perennis in East and West | |
| Other Traditionalists | |
| 9. | Christian Missionaries, Monks and Mystics in India | 215 |
| Christian Missionaries and Monks in India | |
| Jules Monchanin | |
| Henri le Saux | |
| Bede Griffiths | |
| A Note on the Christian Ashram Movement | |
| Thomas Merton and Eastern Spirituality | |
| Jottings on other Christian Missionaries | |
| A Closing Reflection on Monasticism | |
| 10. | Dharma Bums: Beats, Hippies and the Counter-culture | 245 |
| A. | The Beats and Hippies Turn East | |
| Jack Kerouac | |
| The San Francisco Be-In and the "Armies of the Night" | |
| B. | To a Buddhist Beat | |
| Allen Ginsberg on Politics, Poetics and Spirituality | |
| Politics, Poetics and the Encounter with Eastern Spirituality | |
| C. | "Pop Gurus," "New Consciousness" and Drugs | |
| Ram Dass | |
| Alan Watts | |
| "New Consciousness," New Universalism? | |
| A Note on Drugs, Mysticism and Spirituality | |
| Closing Reflections | |
| 11. | Eastern Teachings, Western Teachers, 1950-2000 | 270 |
| A. | Hinduism/Vedanta in the West | |
| The Ramakrishna Movement | |
| Yogananda and the SRF | |
| ISKON | |
| Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and TM | |
| Ananda Marg | |
| Western Gurus with Hindu Affiliations | |
| Reflections on Hinduism in the West | |
| B. | Theravada Buddhism | |
| Sangharakshita and the FWBO | |
| The Forest Tradition | |
| Western Vipassana Teachers | |
| C. | Tibetan Buddhism | |
| The Diaspora and American Vajrayana | |
| Western Vajrayana Teachers | |
| D. | Zen in the West in the Post-War Period | |
| Japanese Masters | |
| Western Teachers | |
| Scholar-Adepts | |
| A Note on Some Key Issues for Western Teachers and Practitioners | |
| III. | Eastern Influences on Western Thought | |
| 12. | The Not-So-Close Encounters of Western Psychology and Eastern Spirituality | 307 |
| A. | Religion and Psychology | |
| The Goldstein-Kornfield Disagreement | |
| Western Psychology and Religion | |
| A Traditionalist Perspective on Psychologism | |
| The Traditionalist Critique of Jung | |
| B. | Eastern Spirituality and Western Psychology | |
| Erich Fromm and Zen | |
| Existentialism, Herman Hesse, Hubert Benoit | |
| Hans Jacobs on Western Psychotherapy and Hindu Sadhana | |
| Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology: Ken Wilber and others | |
| Mystical Experience, Meditation and Biofeedback | |
| C. | The Lessons of the East | |
| 13. | Eastern Currents in Western Philosophy and Science | 335 |
| A. | Conditions for a Meaningful Comparative Philosophy | |
| S.H. Nasr | |
| The Traditionalist Perspective on Metaphysics and Philosophy | |
| B. | Existentialism and the East | |
| Nietzsche | |
| Heidegger | |
| Buber | |
| Tillich | |
| C. | The Bankruptcy of Modern Science | |
| D. | Eastern Influences on New Scientific Paradigms | |
| 14. | Orientalism, Ideology and Engagement | 364 |
| A. | Orientalism, Fascism and the "Mystic East" | |
| Zen and Japanese Nationalism and Militarism | |
| Orientalism, Racial Theory and the Allure of Fascism | |
| B. | Gandhi's Legacy | |
| C. | Thich Nhat Hanh and Engaged Buddhism | |
| D. | The Meeting of Buddhism and Feminism | |
| IV. | Notes on Inter-religious Re-visionings | |
| 15. | "The Translucence of the Eternal": Towards a Cross-cultural Religious Understanding of the Natural Order | 393 |
| Traditional Cosmogonies and Cosmological Principles | |
| Maya and the Putative "World-Denial" of the East | |
| The Sacred and Profane, and the Human Situation | |
| The Symbolism of Natural Forms and the Cosmological Sciences | |
| Beauty: Divine Rays | |
| The Western Desacralization of Nature | |
| 16. | Dialogue, Pluralism and the Inner Unity of Religions | 420 |
| The Collision of Religions in the Contemporary World | |
| The Western Pursuit of Inter-religious Understanding | |
| Religious Dialogue and Spiritual Practice | |
| The Case of Christian Zen | |
| Jesuits in Japan | |
| The Traditionalist Perspective on the Formal Diversity and Inner Unity of Religions | |
| Religion, Revelation and Orthodoxy | |
| The Exoteric and Esoteric Domains | |
| The Limits of Religious Exclusivism | |
| A Note on the Exposure of Esoteric Doctrines | |
| Traditionalism, Interfaith Encounters and Comparative Religion | |
| Appendix | A Checklist of Eastern Teachers in the West | 450 |
| Sources | 455 |
| Acknowledgments | 490 |
| Biographical Notes | 491 |
| Index of Persons | 492 |
