First post

Hopefully there will be a lot of posts.

The blog is named after a student group that existed in a small college in 2006. The contributors to this blog were founding members of this group, who were at that time briefly attending the same school. When Eric Brooks and I launched the organization with the name "Gravitas" we meant that we were launching a "study / discussion" group that would make forays into depths and vastnesses including the comparative religious and metaphysical, in a way that ranged widely over world history. I think now that we were trying to constitute a self-contained "curriculum" that we would build up, as a small group of students, as we went along, hopefully gaining lasting insight while sharing studies and discussions in one tradition at a time. As "Gravitas" developed and more students became regular participants we were all enabled to sound these "gravities" more deeply and broadly.
I have beautiful memories of the group's sessions, many of which took place in the pleasant outdoor setting of the school's grounds, into mid-spring. Someone would begin each session by introducing a text, often a sacred text, and then its history, the tradition in its background, and of course its contents. People I hardly knew would soon be sharing with me the pearls of their own quiet strivings in a way uncommon in the general run of things. In fact, for me and other participants this was the last semester before graduation, and I was sorry to leave off a project that had been so consistently successful and rewarding, and wished that it could have gone on longer, that it could have started earlier.

What we intend for this blog now is not exactly to continue the efforts of the old "Gravitas," but for all that this project basically descends from our fellow-travelling in 2006. Eric has already explained what my first contributions here will be. I hope that these will engage readers and speak to some of their "graver" spritual soundings and stirrings like the old group could do, and I hope that many will be moved to follow these posts and publications as friends and fellow-travellers towards truth in its depth and vastness.

Welcome to our blog!

Greetings!
This is the official blog of Gravitas Press.
We are a new small press dedicated to printing novels, essays, short stories, and poetry combating modernism and promoting traditional philosophy and ethics. This blog is for our authors to provide information about upcoming books, thoughts, reflections, answer questions, or anything else.

You can visit our official website at http://sites.google.com/a/gravitaspress.com/gravitas to learn about our upcoming publications. Online ordering will become available sometime in November.

This business is just getting off the ground, but we will have several books and pamphlets available in upcoming months.

Near mid-December we will be releasing three booklets/pamphlets:

1. A defense of metaphysical enquiry by Eric Brooks. This short reflection, written in an easy to understand question-and-answer form, defends the study of philosophical metaphysics against various skeptical arguments. Leaving aside theological questions, metaphysics is defended as a legitimate branch of natural knowledge within the grasp of all people by virtue of the same intellect that allows us to pursue math and science. An excellent primer for someone just beginning to look into these questions, or a good way to invite materialists into reasonable even-handed discussion.
2. A reflection on the decline of the West by Chris Taylor, summarizing in brief but penetrating words the political, moral, esthetic, and spiritual decline of modern civilization.
3. A criticism of violence in modern horror movies, by Sean Kater. This booklet bypasses the silly statistical questions about the effects of media violence on children, and instead cuts right to the moral and philosophical heart of the question. Drawing on a wealth of knowledge of classical and medieval literature, Mr. Kater differentiates several forms of graphic violence. Thus he is able to avoid any blanket condemnation of violent stories in general, praising the virtues of some, but ultimately showing the total corruption of violence in horror movies.

In February 2010 we will be bringing you our first two full-length books:

1. The Legend of St George by Eric Brooks. The simple and iconic legend of St George the dragon slayer is retold as a 'return of the king' myth. The knight and martyr miraculously marches again, toppling our civilization and establishing a bizarre and fairy-like new Christendom. George's triumph is told by a variety of voices from the new civilization including poets, essayists, and storytellers from the oral tradition.
2. The Minaret and Other Poems by Sean Kater and Eric Brooks. The Minaret is Sean Kater's long-in-the-making narrative poem about a journey through a labyrinth of strange dangers and self-doubts, all moving toward an ever-distant tower at the center of both the inner and outer landscape of the poem. Also included are short poems by both authors treating subjects legendary and philosophical, as well as a preface discussing the nature and importance of poetry.

We hope to have you along as friends and readers. In addition to these print publications, this blog should be updated several times a week.