Download or read book Creation and Chaos written by JoAnn Scurlock and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hermann Gunkel was a scholar in the generation of the origins of Assyriology, the spectacular discovery by George Smith of fragments of the “Chaldean Genesis,” and the Babel-Bibel debate. Gunkel’s thesis, inspired by materials supplied to him by the Assyriologist Heinrich Zimmern, was to take the Chaoskampf motif of Revelation as an event that would not only occur at the end of the world but had already happened at the beginning, before Creation. In other words, in this theory, one imagines God in Genesis 1 as first having battled Rahab, Leviathan, and Yam (the forces of Chaos) in a grand battle, and only then beginning to create. The problem with Gunkel’s theory is that it did not simply identify common elements in the mythologies of the ancient Near East but imposed upon them a structure dictating the relationships between the elements, a structure that was based on inadequate knowledge and a forced interpretation of his sources. On the other hand, one is not entitled to insist that there was no cultural conversation among peoples who spent the better part of several millennia trading with, fighting, and conquering one another. Creation and Chaos attempts to address some of these issues. The contributions are organized into five sections that address various aspects of the issues raised by Gunekl’s theories.
Download or read book Interpreting Masonic Ritual written by Oscar Patterson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-11-28 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting Masonic Ritual endeavors to addresses the depth of the ritualistic experience through a discussion of what ritual means to man as well as what man means to ritual. Ritual teaches us about reality but we will not come to a full understanding of it if we disparage what others do and view their actions from a position of pseudo-intellectual or cultural superiority. Ritual is the core of Freemasonry and is that thing which sets it apart from so many organizations. It is the key to the Freemason’s “secrets” and the manner through which they transmit our “beautiful system of morality.” It is something to be treasured, maintained, taught, elevated, evaluated, and, above, reinforced through proper performance, decorum, and setting.
Download or read book Ritual written by Robbie Davis-Floyd and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed for both academic and lay audiences, this book identifies the characteristics of ritual and, via multiple examples, details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. These include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural—or individual—beliefs and values. It also shows what happens when ritual fails.
Download or read book The Ahuman Manifesto written by Patricia MacCormack and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question. It is against this context that Patricia McCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman”. An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn't dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning. In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes: · Identity · Spirituality · Art · Death · The apocalypse Collapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of 'zombiedom', The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.
Download or read book Religious and Social Ritual written by Michael Bjerknes Aune and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines particular rituals (social and religious) as a special kind of cultural performance or interaction in a wide variety of traditions and locations.
Download or read book The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism written by Michael David Kaulana Ing and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Ing's The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism is the first monograph in English about the Liji--a text that purports to be the writings of Confucius' immediate disciples, and part of the earliest canon of Confucian texts called ''The Five Classics,'' included in the canon several centuries before the Analects. Ing uses his analysis of the Liji to show how early Confucians coped with situations where their rituals failed to achieve their intended aims. In contrast to most contemporary interpreters of Confucianism, Ing demonstrates that early Confucian texts can be read as arguments for ambiguity in ritual failure.
Download or read book A Brief Guide to Secret Religions written by David V. Barrett and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging book explores the diversity of esoteric and occult beliefs. Neo-Paganism is one of the fastest-growing new religions in the western world where witchcraft or Wicca, Druidry, and Urban Shamanism are thriving. Alongside this there has been an upsurge in New Age ideas of an even wider variety, including astrology, Tarot, numerology, and many others. And then there are members of various schools of occult science, practising High Magic. Why this new interest in old beliefs? Why are millions of educated people today abandoning both the established religion of their parents and 21st century scientific rationalism and turning to magic and esoteric teachings? In their search for spirituality those who follow these paths claim to be applying ancient wisdom to the modern world. The Brief History of Secret Religions, a companion book to The Brief History of Secret Societies, looks at the history and variety of these esoteric movements, where they came from and what they tell us about the world today. Praise for The New Believers: 'an excellent guide to fringe religions that juxtaposes "respectable" movements and those conventionally dismissed as cults.' The Telegraph. 'no-nonsense, comprehensive survey packed with non-judgmental information about the beliefs, aims and activities of such movements. Daily Mail.
Download or read book Why Fish Don t Exist written by Lulu Miller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work.
Download or read book Stitches written by Anne Lamott and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller from the author of Dusk, Night, Dawn, Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Almost Everything “Lamott’s …most insightful book yet, Stitches offers plenty of her characteristic witty wisdom…this slim, readable volume [is] a lens on life, widening and narrowing, encouraging each reader to reflect on what it is, after all, that really matters.”—People What do we do when life lurches out of balance? How can we reconnect to one other and to what’s sustaining, when evil and catastrophe seem inescapable? These questions lie at the heart of Stitches, Lamott’s profound follow-up to her New York Times–bestselling Help, Thanks, Wow. In this book Lamott explores how we find meaning and peace in these loud and frantic times; where we start again after personal and public devastation; how we recapture wholeness after loss; and how we locate our true identities in this frazzled age. We begin, Lamott says, by collecting the ripped shreds of our emotional and spiritual fabric and sewing them back together, one stitch at a time. It’s in these stitches that the quilt of life begins, and embedded in them are strength, warmth, humor, and humanity.
Download or read book Tracing the Ritual Body written by Ada Taggar Cohen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-09-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume utilizes Catherine Bell's ritual theory to shed new light on the many rituals reflected in ancient Mediterranean texts. In recent decades scholars of religion have come to realize that ritual and bodily practices are just as important for religion as beliefs and doctrine. With the development of ritual studies in the 1990s there arose a critical framework for investigating ritual and practice. Only recently, however, has Bell's theorizing been employed to study the rituals portrayed in ancient texts. This cross-disciplinary examination assesses the utility of Bell's theorizing for studying the textual evidence for rituals of the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and other early Christian literature. The contributors to this volume illustrate a path away from regarding rituals as inert and fixed and toward a more complex and vibrant interactive model of ritual behaviour. In this volume, as each scholar works to recover the traces of long-past rituals in a particular set of materials, these and other concepts are consciously employed to guide or challenge the investigation, pushing beyond previous conclusions about ancient rituals. The contributors' attention to theory, and especially the social context, practical function, and symbolic interpretation, set this collection apart from studies that consider the rituals in more traditional textual ways.
Download or read book The Master Works of Chaos Magick written by Adam Blackthorne and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heart of this book is magick that works. Chaos Magick can give you quick fixes, emergency solutions, direct results and rituals that can be tailored to your exact and immediate circumstances. Ideal for beginners, or a new direction for the experienced occultist. This book presents a revolutionary style of Chaos Magick. These ideas are original, direct and above all, practical. You will discover:The secrets of Instant Alchemy, Emotional Crafting and The Fire of Gnosis.How to generate Magickal Chaos Energy, to empower all your workings. Influence Magick, Thoughtforms and an alternative form of Sex Magick.Sigil Magick Remastered - a completely new way of tapping into the essence of magick.Contacting Spirits - detailed instructions for contacting and commanding entities.There's nothing quite like doing magick and seeing it work, so that's what lies ahead of you. If it doesn't work, it isn't magick.
Download or read book Ritual and Deference written by Robert Cummings Neville and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2008-06-13 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings Confucianism and Daoism into conversation with contemporary philosophy and the contemporary world situation.
Download or read book Evil in Modern Myth and Ritual written by Richard Stivers and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Stivers’ concern is with the social construction of evil, that is, with how modern societies, in a partly unconscious way, create evil as a category of the sacred and how symbols, myths, and rituals of evil are related to this. He is interested, moreover, in how modern societies provoke individuals to commit evil actions. This fascinating and stimulating book is the first attempt to work out in detail how the concepts of the sacred, symbol, myth, and ritual form a cultural configuration in modern technological societies, and not just in traditional societies.
Download or read book The Ideology of Ritual written by Frank H. Gorman and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the Priestly writers, ritual was a fundamental form of theological reflection. This study analyses the conceptual categories of space, time and status in an effort to clarify the larger cultural and conceptual categories operative in the Priestly ritual system. Drawing on interpretative models derived from cultural anthropology, the author argues that Priestly creation theology forms a necessary context for understanding the Priestly rituals.>
Download or read book The Ritual Practice of Time written by Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calendars of Mesoamerican civilisations are subjected to what is categorised as “ritual practices of time”. This book is a comparative explication of rituals of time of four calendars: the Long Count calendar, the 260-day calendar, the 365-day calendar and the 52-years calendar. Building upon a comparative analytical model, the book contributes new theoretical insights about ritual practices and temporal philosophies. This comprehensive investigation analyses how ritual practices are represented and conceptualised in intellectual systems and societies. The temporal ritual practices are systematically analysed in relation to calendar organisation and structure, arithmetic, cosmogony and chronometry, spatial-temporality (cosmology), natural world, eschatology, sociology, politics, and ontology. It is argued that the 260-day calendar has a particular symbolic importance in Mesoamerican temporal philosophies and practices.
Download or read book Rituals for Life written by Isla Macleod and published by Laurence King Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-06 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rituals are among the most powerful tools we have to create meaning and cultivate wellbeing in our lives. In Rituals for Life, you can learn to live a more intentional life, enriched by your connection with nature. The book explores the essential components of ritual and how to use them to bring happiness and inner peace into your every day life. Includes instructions for twenty rituals, some for every day and others for specific moments and occasions, that you can adapt for your own needs, as well as an exploration of the roots and purposes of ritual. Beautifully illustrated by Luisa Rivera, this inspiring book is a guide more authentic and soulful way of living.
Download or read book Write for Life written by Claudia Grace and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Write for Life is a creative writing process grounded in the movement of our lives. Twelve steps of background theory and exercise provide tools to access both your personal stories and social and cultural narratives. Techniques amplify psychosocial dynamics and perception to work as powerful tools across genres, empowering writers to structure the content of their lives with meaningful form. An antidote to fear of the blank page, inoculation against writer's block--this is Write for Life.
