The “Joyful Light of the World” is once again available to the reading public after fifteen years. This is its definitive edition. The text remains unchanged. The abundant typographical errors of the original edition and some awkward expressions have been corrected, with the meaning being minimally affected.

This prologue serves as a self-commentary, and an index of topics and names has been added, which I owe, along with the overall editing of the text, to the tireless care of Dina Samothraki.

Today's reader will discover along the way that they are reading the book simultaneously in the field of the subject and in the horizon of the evolution of my ideas. I would like to propose a third level with this note, so that we can comprehensively follow the reflections on the difference of the decisions and the interpretation of this difference.

All my works consist of chapters, appendices, and footnotes of an imaginary book, of a single inquiry: I selectively attempt to identify and highlight the vital forces of interiority that the Greek culture embodies in practice or potential, to contribute to the creative modernization of its neo-Hellenic offshoot by drastically reducing the margins of vital losses.

As long as such vital forces exist, there are also substantial prerequisites for meeting with the advanced societies of our time, despite the anachronistic structures and mentalities that still prevail in today's Greece. The times offer opportunities for historical choices, which, if utilized, may positively influence critical parameters of our lives.

[...] (from the preface of the 2nd edition)