Download or read book Ecstasy Ritual and Alternate Reality written by Felicitas D. Goodman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologist and spiritual explorer Felicitas Goodman offers a "unified field theory" of religion as human behavior. She examines ritual, the religious trance, alternate reality, ethics and moral code, and the named category designating religion. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Download or read book The Mayan Code written by Barbara Hand Clow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Barbara Hand Clow shows how the Mayan Calendar is a bridge to galactic wisdom that fosters personal growth and human evolution • Unearths the meaning behind the calendar, its message for modern civilization, and what will happen when the calendar ends • Reveals how time acceleration is a manifestation of the acceleration of consciousness • By the author of The Pleiadian Agenda The Mayan Code is a deep exploration of how, as we approach the end of the Mayan Calendar, time and consciousness are accelerating, giving us a new understanding of the universe. Using Carl Johan Calleman’s research, as well as the ideas of other Mayan Calendar scholars, Barbara Hand Clow examines 16.4 billion years of evolution to decode the creative patterns of Earth--the World Mind. These great patterns culminate in 2011, and then during 2012 major astrological influences will inspire us to attain oneness and enlightenment. The Mayan Code shows how the time cycles of the Calendar match important periods in the evolutionary data banks of Earth and the Milky Way Galaxy. These stages of evolution are converging during the final stage of the Calendar, the period between 1999 and 2011. War and territoriality, resource management and separation from nature, are all part of daily events we must process during these few short years: evidence of the tightening spiral of time that we experience as time speeding up. Barbara Hand Clow counsels that our own personal healing is the most important factor as we prepare to make this critical leap in human evolution--now referred to as the awakening of the World Mind.
Download or read book The Character of Human Institutions written by Michael Egan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume celebrates the life and work of Robin Fox and the idea of a biosocial science. From his early studies of kinship, primates, the brain, evolution, the incest taboo, and aggression, to his later work on literature, politics, civilization, law, the Bible, Shakespeare, and the history of ideas, Robin Fox inspired many with an evolutionary vision of humanity that goes beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries and embraces the universal history of mankind. Fox's work represents an independent biosocial science stream of thinking that accepts the Darwinian mandate while avoiding reductionism by recognizing culture as a natural phenomenon. The essays cover Fox's life and his contributions, and address topics as diverse as the meaning and function of laughter; the unforgiving discipline of writing popular anthropology; extreme drinking rituals among young men training for the British army; Darwin and close-cousin marriage; the universal essence of the epic form as a super-attractor; anthropologists' autobiographies; the conflict between science and anti-science; and the decline of British imperial education. This engaging collection on a mainstream maverick has been edited by Michael Egan. It includes essays by Sir Antony Jay, Lionel Tiger, Howard Bloom, Michael McGuire, Kate Fox, Melvin Konner, Alan Macfarlane, Adam Kuper, Dieter Steklis, Alexandra Maryanski, Bernard Chapais, Jonathan Turner, Linda Stone, Charles Macdonald, Anne Fox, David Jenkins, Frederick Turner, Robert Trivers, and an essay by Robin Fox himself.
Download or read book Scripturalectics written by Vincent L. Wimbush and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book ,Vincent Wimbush seeks to problematize what we call "scriptures," a word first used to refer simply to "things written," the registration of basic information. In the modern world the word came to be associated almost exclusively with the center- and power-defining "sacred" texts of "world religions." Wimbush argues that this narrowing of the valence of the term was a decisive development for western culture. His purpose is to reconsider the initially broad and politically charged use of the term. "Scriptures" are excavated not merely as texts to be read but understood as discourse: as mimetic rituals and practices, as ideologically-charged orientations to and prescribed behaviors in the world, as structures of relationships and social formations, as forms of communication. Wimbush is naming and constructing a new transdisciplinary critical project, which uses the historical and modern experiences of the Black Atlantic as resources for framing, categorization, and analysis. Using Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart as a touchstone, each chapter offers a close reading and analysis of a representative moment in the formation of the Black Atlantic, regarded as part of a history of modern human consciousness and conscientization. Such a history, Wimbush says, is reflected in the major turns in what he calls scripturalectics, part of the construction of the modern world, defined as efforts to manage or control knowledge and meaning.
Download or read book The Pragmatics of Defining Religion written by Platvoet and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume promotes a pragmatic, anti-essentialist and anti-hegemonic approach to the problem of the definition of religion. It argues that definitions of religion are context-bound strategies for pursuing a variety of purposes, extra-academic as well as academic. Religions being immensely varied, complex and multi-functional phenomena, they need to be studied by several academic disciplines from many different perspectives. It is, therefore, legitimate and useful that many definitions of religions are developed. The volume has contributions from scholars in Philosophy of Religion, the Comparative Study of Religions, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion and Psychology of Religion. It has chapters on the polemics of defining religion in modern contexts, the history of the concept of religion, and the methodology of its definition; it includes several definition proposals.
Download or read book The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe written by E. Bever and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-06-11 with total page 627 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the elements of reality in early modern witchcraft and popular magic, through a combination of detailed archival research and broad-ranging interdisciplinary analyses, this book complements and challenges existing scholarship, and offers unique insights into this murky aspect of early modern history.
Download or read book Wonder written by Robert C. Fuller and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The attempt to identify the emotional sources of religion goes back to antiquity. In an exploration that bridges science and spirituality, Robert C. Fuller makes the convincing case that a sense of wonder is a principal source of humanity's belief in the existence of an unseen order of life. Like no other emotion, Fuller argues, wonder prompts us to pause, admire, and open our hearts and minds. With a voice that seamlessly blends the scientific and the contemplative, Fuller defines wonder in keeping with the tradition of Socrates--as an emotion related to curiosity and awe that stimulates engagement with the immediate physical world. He draws on the natural and social sciences to explain how wonder can, at the same time, elicit belief in the existence of a more-than-physical reality. Chapters examining emotions in evolutionary biology and the importance of wonder in human cognitive development alternate with chapters on John Muir, William James, and Rachel Carson, whom Fuller identifies as "exemplars of wonder." The writings and lives of these individuals express a functional side of emotion: that the very survival of life on earth today may depend on the empathy, compassion, and care that are aroused by a sense of wonder. Forging new pathways between the social sciences, philosophy, belief, and cultural history, Wonder deepens our understanding of the complex sources of personal spirituality and fulfillment.
Download or read book How About Demons written by Felicitas D. Goodman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1988-05-22 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the Exorcism of Anneliese Michel “is to be commended for a stimulating and wide-reaching treatment of a compelling and much-debated subject” (Journal of Folklore Research). As part of a series that strives to introduce new or previously unrecognized folkloric phenomena—as well as new approaches and theories that result from discovery and investigation—How About Demons? provides an overview of a topic that has for many years captured the imagination of people from all walks of life. Rich in detail derived from the author’s fieldwork and anthropological literature, this work contemplates possession and exorcism in a holistic manner—discussing their effects on both the body and soul. How About Demons? paints a picture of possession as a usually positive experience occurring in a wide variety of cultures and religions around the globe. It also details the ritual of exorcism which is applied when things go wrong. “Quite an interesting book.”—Religious Studies Review “It is by far superior to anything else on demons we have seen in the past few years.”—The American Rationalist
Download or read book Jesus the Galilean Exorcist written by Amanda Witmer and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amanda Witmer presents an investigation of exorcism in the activities of the historical Jesus, particularly the connection between spirit possession and exorcism on the one hand and the socio-political context of first-century Galilee on the other. Witmer draws on research from the areas of sociology, anthropology, archaeology and biblical studies to illuminate this aspect of Jesus' career, as well as the broader social implications of spirit possession in those he treated and the exorcisms themselves. Evidence found in the strands underlying the Synoptic Gospels is evaluated using the criteria of authenticity and comparative analysis in order to establish early and historical material. Questions posed and answered concern the historical plausibility of Jesus' role as exorcist, the possibility that his own career began with a period of spirit possession, and the meaning that his exorcisms conveyed to his first-century audience. Thus, the methodology includes textual analysis, sociological analysis of general cultural patterns within which first-century Palestine can be fitted, and anthropological analysis of the plausible functions of both spirit possession and exorcism in agrarian societies.
Download or read book Historically Responsive Storytelling written by Eleanor Chadwick and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-11-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the notion that the emergent language of contemporary theatre, and more generally of modern culture, has links to much earlier forms of storytelling and an ancient worldview. This volume looks at our diverse and amalgamative theatrical inheritance and discusses various practitioners and companies whose work reflects and recapitulates ideas, approaches, and structures original to theatre’s ritual roots. Drawing together a range of topics and examples from the early Middle Ages to the modern day, Chadwick focuses in on a theatrical language which includes an emphasis on the psychosomatic, the non-linear, the symbolic, the liminal, the collective, and the sacred. This interdisciplinary work draws on approaches from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, historical and cognitive phenomenology, and neuroscience, making the case for the significance of historically responsive modes in theatre practice and more widely in our society and culture. Eleanor
Download or read book The Hammer and the Flute written by Mary Keller and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-04-14 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award for the Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion Feminist theory and postcolonial theory share an interest in developing theoretical frameworks for describing and evaluating subjectivity comparatively, especially with regard to non-autonomous models of agency. As a historian of religions, Mary Keller uses the figure of the "possessed woman" to analyze a subject that is spoken-through rather than speaking and whose will is the will of the ancestor, deity or spirit that wields her to engage the question of agency in a culturally and historically comparative study that recognizes the prominent role possessed women play in their respective traditions. Drawing from the fields of anthropology and comparative psychology, Keller brings the figure of the possessed woman into the heart of contemporary argument as an exemplary model that challenges many Western and feminist assumptions regarding agency. Proposing a new theoretical framework that re-orients scholarship, Keller argues that the subject who is wielded or played, the hammer or the flute, exercises a paradoxical authority—"instrumental agency"—born of their radical receptivity: their power derives from the communities' assessment that they no longer exist as autonomous agents. For Keller, the possessed woman is at once "hammer" and "flute," paradoxically powerful because she has become an instrument of the overpowering will of an ancestor, deity, or spirit. Keller applies the concept of instrumental agency to case studies, providing a new interpretation of each. She begins with contemporary possessions in Malaysia, where women in manufacturing plants were seized by spirits seeking to resacralize the territory. She next looks to wartime Zimbabwe, where female spirit mediums, the Nehanda mhondoro, declared the ancestors' will to fight against colonialism. Finally she provides an imaginative rereading of the performative power of possession by interpreting two plays, Euripides' Bacchae and S. Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, which feature possessed women as central characters. This book can serve as an excellent introduction to postcolonial and feminist theory for graduate students, while grounding its theory in the analysis of regionally and historically specific moments of time that will be of interest to specialists. It also provides an argument for the evaluation of religious lives and their struggles for meaning and power in the contemporary landscape of critical theory.
Download or read book Negotiating a Presence Centred Christian Counselling written by Simon Shui-Man Kwan and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Christian is Christian counselling? In what ways should one’s counselling practice be conducted in order to fulfil one’s role as a Christian counsellor? Is there a counselling practice that truly penetrates into the secular approaches while remaining faithful to the Christian traditions of healing? What are the theological roots of secular counselling? How may secular counselling both reinforce and challenge the Christian faith? In answering these questions, this book engages readers to navigate between two frames of reference: one Eastern, secular, social scientific, and modern; the other Western, Christian, theological, and traditional. At levels of both theory and practice, this book undertakes to integrate, synthesize, hybridize, revise, dichotomize and antagonize the two. It proposes a revised presence-centred counselling approach which may serve as a perspective that helps us to see things in more depth as we shuttle back and forth between the two frames. This book thus negotiates a revised presence-centred form of counselling that is theologically grounded, social scientifically informed, and cross-culturally sensitive. As the author’s counselling practice proceeds mainly in societies where Chinese is the majority, the cross-cultural examinations and proposals offered in this book have been bred in a space where Chinese culture meets the Christian (Protestantism in particular) West. This book is an outgrowth of the author’s experience teaching Christian counselling courses for 17 years and his 30-year clinical practice experience in places where East meets West, namely Hong Kong and South China (Guangdong Province).
Download or read book Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances written by J. Harold Ellens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-10-28 with total page 883 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can drugs be used intelligently and responsibly to expand human consciousness and heighten spirituality? This two-volume work presents objective scientific information and personal stories aiming to answer the question. The first of its kind, this intriguing two-volume set objectively reports on and assesses this modern psycho-social movement in world culture: the constructive medical use of entheogens and related mind-altering substances. Covering the use of substances such as ayahuasca, cannabis, LSD, peyote, and psilocybin, the work seeks to illuminate the topic in a scholarly and scientific fashion so as to lift the typical division between those who are supporters of research and exploration of entheogens and those who are strongly opposed to any such experimentation altogether. The volumes address the history and use of mind-altering drugs in medical research and religious practice in the endeavor to expand and heighten spirituality and the sense of the divine, providing unbiased coverage of the relevant arguments and controversies regarding the subject matter. Chapters include examinations of how psychoactive agents are used to achieve altered states in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism as well as in the rituals of shamanism and other less widely known faiths. This highly readable work will appeal to everyone from high school students to seasoned professors, in both the secular world and in devoted church groups and religious colleges.
Download or read book Experiencing Flow in Jazz Performance written by Elina Hytönen-Ng and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The term 'flow' refers to experiences where the musician moves into a consciousness in which time seems to be suspended and perception of reality is blurred by unconscious forces. An essential part of the jazz tradition, which often serves as the foundation of the musician's identity, flow is recognised within the greater jazz community as a critical factor in accomplished musicianship. Flow as a concept is so deeply embedded in the scene that these experiences are not generally discussed. It contributes to the musicians' work motivation, providing a vital level of satisfaction and accomplishment. The power of the experience, consciously or unconsciously, has given rise to the creation of heroic images, in which jazz musicians are seen as being bold, yet vulnerable, strong and masculine, but still capable of expressing emotions. In this discourse, musicians are pictured as people constantly putting themselves on the line, exposing themselves and their hearts to one another as well as to the audience. Heroic profiles are richly constructed within the jazz scene, and their incorporation into narratives of flow suggests that such images are inseparable from jazz. It is thus unclear how far the musicians are simply reporting personal experience as opposed to unconsciously perpetuating a profoundly internalised mythology. Drawing on eighteen interviews conducted with professional jazz musicians from around the world, Elina Hytönen-Ng examines the fundamentals of the phenomenon of flow in jazz that has led to this genre's popularity. Furthermore, she draws on how flow experiences are viewed and constructed by jazz musicians, the meanings they attach to it, and the quality of music that it inspires.
Download or read book Memory Music and Religion written by Earle H. Waugh and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Showing how the powerful tradition of music nurtures the Muslim soul, Waugh brings new insights to the study of the religious function of memory.
Download or read book The Ecstatic Experience written by Belinda Gore and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-27 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trance-inducing postures for shamanic journeying, initiation, healing, divination, and transformation of the soul • Provides practices from Mayan, Egyptian, African, Native American, Sumerian, and other ancient and indigenous traditions • Shows how these practices can detoxify the energy body The human need for ecstasy--the ability to be free of the limitations of ordinary consciousness--is as imperative as the need for food. Renowned anthropologist Felicitas Goodman claimed that being deprived of ecstasy was the fundamental cause of all forms of addiction. Indigenous cultures and the civilizations of antiquity were aware of this and developed specific rituals to induce and channel trance energies to detoxify and nourish the subtle body in order to experience the ecstatic reality that gives life to matter. The body postures seen in ancient art from Mayan, Egyptian, African, Native American, Sumerian, and other ancient and indigenous traditions are a doorway to inducing this kind of ecstatic trance. People who assume these postures in a ritual context are able to experience expanded and transformative states of consciousness. Following up on the groundbreaking introduction of this practice in her first book, Ecstatic Body Postures, Belinda Gore provides a new series of 20 sacred postures and exercises that allow for a deeper understanding and utilization of these shamanic practices. She shows how to use the energy awakened by these practices for healing, shapeshifting, initiations into the mysteries of death and rebirth, divination, spirit journeying, and restoring balance to the cosmic patterns disrupted by destructive human activity.
Download or read book The Impact of Bodily Experience on Paul s Resurrection Theology written by Kai-Hsuan Chang and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kai-Hsuan Chang engages with the longstanding scholarly debate concerning the development of Paul's resurrection theology, by investigating the correlation between his bodily experiences and his diverse articulations about resurrection. Drawing on insights from cognitive linguistics, Chang considers Paul's ideas about resurrection as fundamentally grounded in recurrent patterns of bodily experience, arguing that such experience of some religious activities in Paul's time-death rites, spirit possession, and baptism-contributed to the formation and development of his resurrection theology. Chang demonstrates that developments in Paul's ideas about “bodily transformation at resurrection” - reflected in 1 Corinthians 15 - resulted from a change in the experiential patterns on which his new idea is constructed, rather than “transformation during heavenly ascent” as seen in Jewish traditions of resurrection. He thus applies cognitive linguistic tools to two considerations; first, whether Paul had contextual reasons to generate his innovation in 1 Corinthians 15, and second, whether Paul's innovation recurred or had continual effects in Christian groups. In so doing, Chang shows that Paul's innovation directly addressed a contextual issue of death rites in Corinth and exerted a continuing effect on Paul's later ideas of transformation, spirit possession, and baptism.
