Download or read book Mysticism and Madness written by Zvi Mark and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-07-21 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two hundred years since Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav's demise, his philosophical writings and literary creation remain lively and provocative materials in both Jewish culture and the New-Age movement. Key elements of Rabbi Nachman`s magic and magnetic force are illuminated in this research, which presents Bratslavian mysticism as a unique link in the history of Jewish mysticism. The mystical worldview is the axis of this book, but its branches stretch out to key issues in the Bratslavian world such as belief and imagination, dreams and the land of Israel, melodies and song.
Download or read book Anton Boisen written by Sean J. LaBat and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Anton Boisen: Madness, Mysticism, and the Origins of Clinical Pastoral Education, Sean J. LaBat provides a critical re-assessment of Anton Boisen’s life and work. Based in thorough archival research, LaBat argues that Boisen, who suffered from intermittent severe mental illness, was a creative visionary, a mystic who re-imagined pastoral care and envisioned possibilities for the institutionalized other than shame and stigma. He shows how Boisen elucidated new possibilities in patient-centered health care, community care for the mentally ill, and reconciliation and dialogue between religion and science. Boisen explored the borderland of madness and mysticism, illness and inspiration, and practiced an interdisciplinary approach to his craft that is surprisingly modern and more relevant to the practice of medicine and the practice of religion than ever before.
Download or read book When God Talks Back written by Tasha E. Mansfield and published by Centauro Publishing. This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Philosophy of Madness written by Wouter Kusters and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-12-01 with total page 769 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophy of psychosis and the psychosis of philosophy: a philosopher draws on his experience of madness. In this book, philosopher and linguist Wouter Kusters examines the philosophy of psychosis—and the psychosis of philosophy. By analyzing the experience of psychosis in philosophical terms, Kusters not only emancipates the experience of the psychotic from medical classification, he also emancipates the philosopher from the narrowness of textbooks and academia, allowing philosophers to engage in real-life praxis, philosophy in vivo. Philosophy and madness—Kusters's preferred, non-medicalized term—coexist, one mirroring the other. Kusters draws on his own experience of madness—two episodes of psychosis, twenty years apart—as well as other first-person narratives of psychosis. Speculating about the maddening effect of certain words and thought, he argues, and demonstrates, that the steady flow of philosophical deliberation may sweep one into a full-blown acute psychotic episode. Indeed, a certain kind of philosophizing may result in confusion, paradoxes, unworldly insights, and circular frozenness reminiscent of madness. Psychosis presents itself to the psychotic as an inescapable truth and reality. Kusters evokes the mad person's philosophical or existential amazement at reality, thinking, time, and space, drawing on classic autobiographical accounts of psychoses by Antonin Artaud, Daniel Schreber, and others, as well as the work of phenomenological psychiatrists and psychologists and such phenomenologists as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He considers the philosophical mystic and the mystical philosopher, tracing the mad undercurrent in the Husserlian philosophy of time; visits the cloud castles of mystical madness, encountering LSD devotees, philosophers, theologians, and nihilists; and, falling to earth, finds anxiety, emptiness, delusions, and hallucinations. Madness and philosophy proceed and converge toward a single vanishing point.
Download or read book The Spiritual Gift of Madness written by Seth Farber and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become. As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride. Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it. Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad--by seeding new visions for our future--can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.
Download or read book Weird Mysticism written by Brad Baumgartner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-11-17 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weird Mysticism identifies and evaluates a new category of theoretical inquiry by showing the influence of speculative writing on three intersecting critical categories: horror fiction, apophatic mysticism, and philosophical pessimism. Exploring the work of Thomas Ligotti, Georges Bataille, and E. M. Cioran, Baumgartner argues that these “weird mystics” employ an innovative mode of negative writing that seeks to merge new conceptions of reality. While exploring perennial questions about “the absolute,” the Outside, and other philosophical concepts, these authors push the limits of representation, experimenting with literary form, genre-bending, and aphoristic discourse. As their works reveal, the category of weird mysticism both conjoins and obscures the link between traditional mysticism and philosophical horror fiction, with weirdness itself being the central magnet that draws the seemingly disparate realms of horror fiction, philosophy, and mysticism together. Highlighting the theoretical stakes of the horror genre, Baumgartner’s study reveals how the mystical potentially recuperates the limits of philosophical thinking, enabling reflection on—and possibly challenging—the limits of human understanding.
Download or read book Muses Mystics Madness The Diagnosis and Celebration of Mental Illness written by Anna Klambauer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-07-22 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Book of Margery Kempe written by Margery Kempe and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 1985 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the eventful and controversial life of Margery Kempe - wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her visions and uncontrollable tears, the struggle to convert her husband to a vow of chastity and her pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her remarkable story late in life. It remains an extraordinary record of human faith and a portrait of a medieval woman of unforgettable character and courage.
Download or read book Mythology Madness and Laughter written by Markus Gabriel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-10-02 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mythology, Madness and Laughter: Subjectivity in German Idealism explores some long neglected but crucial themes in German idealism. Markus Gabriel, one of the most exciting young voices in contemporary philosophy, and Slavoj Žižek, the celebrated contemporary philosopher and cultural critic, show how these themes impact on the problematic relations between being and appearance, reflection and the absolute, insight and ideology, contingency and necessity, subjectivity, truth, habit and freedom. Engaging with three central figures of the German idealist movement, Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte, Gabriel, and Žižek, who here shows himself to be one of the most erudite and important scholars of German idealism, ask how is it possible for Being to appear in reflection without falling back into traditional metaphysics. By applying idealistic theories of reflection and concrete subjectivity, including the problem of madness and everydayness in Hegel, this hugely important book aims to reinvigorate a philosophy of finitude and contingency, topics at the forefront of contemporary European philosophy. MARKUS GABRIEL is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research, NY. He has published a number of books and journal articles in German, including Der Mensch im Mythos (De Gruyter, 2006), and Das Absolute und die Welt in Schellings Freiheitsschrift (Bonn University Press, 2006).
Download or read book Martyrdom Mysticism and Dissent written by Asghar Seyed-Gohrab and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-08-23 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first extensive research on the role of poetry during the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988). How can poetry, especially peaceful medieval Sufi poems, be applied to exalt violence, to present death as martyrdom, and to process war traumas? Examining poetry by both Islamic revolutionary and established dissident poets, it demonstrates how poetry spurs people to action, even leading them to sacrifice their lives. The book's originality lies in fresh analyses of how themes such as martyrdom and violence, and mystical themes such as love and wine, are integrated in a vehemently political context, while showing how Shiite ritual such as the pilgrimage to Mecca clash with Saudi Wahhabi appreciations. A distinguishing quality of the book is its examination of how martyrdom was instilled in the minds of Iranians through poetry, employing Sufi themes, motifs and doctrines to justify death. Such inculcation proved effective in mobilising people to the front, ready to sacrifice their lives. As such, the book is a must for readers interested in Iranian culture and history, in Sufi poetry, in martyrdom and war poetry. Those involved with Middle Eastern Studies, Iranian Studies, Literary Studies, Political Philosophy and Religious Studies will benefit from this book. "From his own memories and expert research, the author gives us a ravishing account of 'a poetry stained with blood, violence and death'. His brilliantly layered analysis of modern Persian poetry shows how it integrates political and religious ideology and motivational propaganda with age-old mystical themes for the most traumatic of times for Iran." (Alan Williams, Research Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Manchester) "When Asghar Seyed Gohrab, a highly prolific academician, publishes a new book, you can be certain he has paid attention to an exciting and largely unexplored subject. Martyrdom, Mysticism and Dissent: The Poetry of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is no exception in the sense that he combines a few different cultural, religious, mystic, and political aspects of Iranian life to present a vivid picture and thorough analysis of the development and effect of what became known as the revolutionary poetry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This time, he has even enriched his narrative by inserting his voice into his analysis. It is a thoughtful book and a fantastic read." (Professor Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona)
Download or read book Madness Rack and Honey written by Mary Ruefle and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural criticism meets poetry memoir--a contemporary master reflects on a life dedicated to poetry.
Download or read book The History of Reason in the Age of Madness written by John Iliopoulos and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-27 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Reason in the Age of Madness revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, History of Madness. Foucault's exploration of the origins of psychiatry applies his own theories of power, truth and reason and draws on Kant's philosophy, shedding new light on the way we perceive the birth and development of psychiatric practice. Following Foucault's adoption of 'limit attitude', which investigates the limits of our thinking as points of disruption and renewal of established frames of reference, this book dispels the widely accepted belief that psychiatry represents the triumph of rationalism by somehow conquering madness and turning it into an object of neutral, scientific perception. It examines the birth of psychiatry in its full complexity: in the late eighteenth century, doctors were not simply rationalists but also alienists, philosophers of finitude who recognized madness as an experience at the limits of reason, introducing a discourse which conditioned the formation of psychiatry as a type of medical activity. Since that event, the same type of recognition, the same anthropological confrontation with madness has persisted beneath the calm development of psychiatric rationality, undermining the supposed linearity, absolute authority and steady progress of psychiatric positivism. Iliopoulos argues that Foucault's critique foregrounds this anthropological problematic as indispensable for psychiatry, encouraging psychiatrists to become aware of the epistemological limitations of their practice, and also to review the ethical and political issues which madness introduces into the apparent neutrality of current psychiatric discourse.
Download or read book Mysticism and Spirituality written by Panikkar, Raimon and published by Orbis Books. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of this Opera Omnia has been divided into two books, one dedicated to mysticism, intended as the supreme experience of reality, and the second dedicated to spirituality, intended as the path toward such an experience. There are different paths, because they depend not only on tradition and worship but also on the different sensitivities of human beings and historical periods. What kind of spirituality is appropriate to our times? ... The book starts with two booklets in which some lines of argument, developed in the context of Christian religious retreats, were spelled out in the plain language of everyday speech. The second section deals with a spirituality practiced by monks, although not confined to institutional monasticism, but seen rather as a universal archetype to be found in very human being (the search for monos, union with the Divine). There follows a description of the ascetic tradition in India and, as an example of the encounter of western (Christian) spirituality with Indic spirituality, an article dedicated to my friend Henri Le Saux, who is an example of the fertile encounter between the two traditions. The last section is dedicated to wisdom as the goal of a positive spirituality. (from the Introduction).
Download or read book Modern Mysticism written by Michael Gellert and published by Nicolas-Hays, Inc.. This book was released on 1994-01-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gellert takes us on a moving journey to explain modern mysticism and the highest religious experience.
Download or read book The Psychology of Religious Mysticism written by James H. Leuba and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 1999. This is Volume III of six of a series on the Psychology of Religion. Written around 1925, this book is a psychological study of human nature. It includes a philosophical chapter and also one in which are set forth the practical consequences to religion of some of its conclusions. But, whatever may be the importance of these two chapters, the book is to be judged primarily as a psychological study of aspects of human nature conspicuous in mystical religion.
Download or read book Layl and Majn n written by Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Nezāmī's romance Laylī and Majnūn (1188). It examines key themes such as chastity, constancy and suffering through an analysis of the main characters. Majnūn's asceticism, kingship, love-madness, poetic genius, ill-fate, and love-death are treated in separate chapters. The patriarchal society in which Laylī lives, her anxieties and dilemmas, incarceration, secret love, imposed marriage and finally her death are discussed in detail. One chapter is devoted entirely to the different ways parents raise their children and the consequences. Finally, the book gives an analysis of Nezāmī's style, the narrative structure of the romance and the symbolism of time and setting.
Download or read book The Silent Cry written by Dorothee Sölle and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, a kind of Rdemocratized mysticismS of those without much religious background flourishes. This mystical experience is not drawn so much of the tradition as out of contemporary experiences. In that sense, each of us is a mystic, and Soelle's work seeks to give theological depth, clarity and direction. This work conveys Soelle's deep religious knowledge and wisdom with her passion for social justice.