The Reading Room began as a shelf in the upstairs room where the fellowship first met. It is now a set of short booklets, written by the keepers over the years and revised as we learned better. They are offered here to be read online; nothing is for sale and nothing is to be downloaded. Each booklet gathers pages from this site into a single course of reading with a few words of introduction, so that a student who prefers a book to a website may still have one.
The ancient writers tell us that the Essenes studied the writings of the ancients with great zeal, choosing from them whatever would benefit soul and body. That is our rule for this room as well.
The Booklets
- A Lamp for the Morning Watch
- By Miriam Vale. The fellowship's practical handbook: how to keep the Morning and Evening Watch, how to sit in the Still Lamp, how to make the Communions and the Noon Peace, and what to do on the mornings when none of it seems to work. Begin with The Way of Practice and read the practice pages in order.
- The Holy Ones of the Desert
- By Anselm Harrow. A plain history of the Essenes drawn from the ancient witnesses and the scrolls, with a frank account of what we know and what we guess. Begin with The Essenes in History and continue through the history pages and the article Who Were the Essenes?
- Eight Teachings in a Nutshell
- By the keepers together. The key teachings, each with its roots in the old texts and its fruit in practice. Read the Key Teachings page and the eight teaching pages that follow it.
- Reading the Scrolls
- By Tobias Renn. An introduction to the sectarian texts of the Dead Sea for students who are not scholars, with a method for reading any ancient text honestly and devotionally at once. Begin with How We Read, then The Dead Sea Scrolls.
- The Lections of the Morning Watch
- Compiled by Hesper Lind from the fellowship's shared readings. Short passages in the voice of the tradition for the hours of the day and the seasons of the year. Read them at The Lections.
- Letters to a Continuing Student
- By Hesper Lind. For those who have walked the way long enough to grow tired of it. On dryness, doubt, plateaus, the loss of first fervor, and why none of these is a reason to stop. Read at For Continuing Students.
- The Two Branches
- By Anselm Harrow. On the Nazarenes and the Ossaeans, Mount Carmel and Qumran, and the traditions that distinguish a marrying northern branch from a celibate southern one. Read at The Two Branches and Mount Carmel.
How to Use the Reading Room
Read one booklet at a time, and read it slowly. The fellowship's experience is that a page a day, read twice, does more than a chapter read once. Keep a notebook. Write down the sentence that stopped you, not the one you agreed with. Return to the booklet after a year and see which sentences stop you then.
If you must choose only one, choose A Lamp for the Morning Watch and do what it says for forty days. The rest will follow.
The Ancient Shelf
For the ancient texts themselves the student should seek out good modern translations, which are easily found. We do not host them here, partly for reasons of copyright and partly because a text deserves to be read in a book, with a pencil. The pages in our Scriptures room tell you what each text is, why it matters, and how we read it. They will not tell you what to think of it. That is your work.