Download or read book Prem Rawat and Counterculture written by Ron Geaves and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ron Geaves demonstrates how the convergence of Prem Rawat, formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji, and Glastonbury Fayre in 1971 was a key event in understanding the jigsaw that came to be known as 'New Age' spirituality. The book charts the discovery of Prem Rawat in India in 1969 by a small number of British and North American 'hippies', and explores how his arrival in Britain in June 1971, as well as his speech from the pyramid stage at the Fayre at just 13 years old, escalated his activities to make him one of the key influencers of 1970s counterculture spirituality. Both Glastonbury and Prem Rawat have gone on to re-emerge in significantly different identities to the ones presented in 1971. The meeting between the two demonstrates how alternative spiritualities were being formed in the 1960s and how some strands went on to develop into the 'New Age' counterculture that eventually permeated mainstream cultures in Britain and the USA.
Download or read book Prem Rawat and Counterculture written by Ron Geaves and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-12 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ron Geaves demonstrates how the convergence of Prem Rawat, formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji, and Glastonbury Fayre in 1971 was a key event in understanding the jigsaw that came to be known as 'New Age' spirituality. The book charts the discovery of Prem Rawat in India in 1969 by a small number of British and North American 'hippies', and explores how his arrival in Britain in June 1971, as well as his speech from the pyramid stage at the Fayre at just 13 years old, escalated his activities to make him one of the key influencers of 1970s counterculture spirituality. Both Glastonbury and Prem Rawat have gone on to re-emerge in significantly different identities to the ones presented in 1971. The meeting between the two demonstrates how alternative spiritualities were being formed in the 1960s and how some strands went on to develop into the 'New Age' counterculture that eventually permeated mainstream cultures in Britain and the USA.
Download or read book Peace Is Possible written by Prem Rawat and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global peace ambassador Prem Rawat has spent his entire life travelling the world to deliver one timeless message: Peace is Possible. Conflict, he explains, takes place at three levels: between countries, between people, and finally within each of us as individuals. These levels are all interconnected. Hence the conflict that rages within a person will lead them to seek out conflict with another. Similarly, conflict between people of one nation is likely to result in conflict between many nations. So the first step to world peace is a simple one: we must first find peace wtihin ourselves. Peace is Possible draws together age-old stories which, as they have been passed down over generations, inspired and transformed the lives of millions. From the power of adaptability, to the importance of trust, to the sticking-place of courage, these are the messages that will change the world. For good.
Download or read book Without the Guru written by Michael Finch and published by Booksurge Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 30 years Mike Finch gave his total allegiance, his energy, his devotion, his dreams, and his love to Guru Maharaji (the Lord of the Universe, Prem Rawat). He also gave Maharaji and his organizations two inheritances, a house, and hundreds of thousands of dollars. As Maharaji's former chauffeur Mike was close to him personally; he lived as a renunciate in Maharaji's ashrams, and was authorized to reveal Maharaji's secret teachings. The book is a narrative of Mike's time with Maharaji, and his struggle to surrender his life to Maharaji, and to achieve the liberation that Maharaji promised. It is a story of being confined within a rigid belief system, realizing it, and learning how to break out from it. It is a story of how he came to live, think, feel, behave, and love, without 'the Guru', meaning both Maharaji, as the actual guru in his life; and in a more general sense of learning to face oneself and the world without any intermediary or negotiator, of any kind, in between. Recommendation from Steve Hassan I have recently made the time to finally read this fine book, although I was sent a review copy over a year ago. I am glad that Mike followed up and sent me another copy, and that we had the chance to sit down for lunch, along with a brief addition of his lovely life-partner Gail. I have been doing my 'work' of helping former members and raising awareness since I left my own involvement with the Unification Church (yes, the Moonies) back in 1976. I say this here, because it is rare that I get to learn from a fellow traveler, a former member from another totalistic group, with insights and perspectives that dovetail with some of my own conclusions, but from a somewhat different orientation. I heartily recommend this book for people to read. Not just former members of Guru Maharaji (aka Prem Rawat), not just former members of other eastern 'guru' groups, nor even other cult groups of every shape size and orientation. It is a book that the general public can benefit from reading - especially the last fifty or so pages. I also think people who have been devoted to a religion of any kind who have left it would find this insightful - but particularly former long term members of high demand groups and cults. In my cult experience, my recruitment and indoctrination to have utter and complete belief in Sun Myung Moon as the Lord of the Universe paralleled Mike Finch's. They achieved my total submission to Moon and his beliefs and practices and organization within a few months. I dropped out of college, donated my bank account, turned my back on poetry, art, my family, friends to work for the Messiah and to 'save the world.' I was prepared to die or be killed for Moon. I was also absolutely sure I would spend the rest of my life doing his 'will.' That ended abruptly when I fell asleep while driving a fundraising van, and my family did an intervention and rescued me. When I learn about Lifton and brainwashing, Jonestown and other cults - like Scientology, Krishna, TM, Children of God, DLM - it became clear that all of these groups were deceptively recruiting and using social influence techniques and other mind control methods to enslave people. And so I began my crusade which has lasted these several decades. Mike Finch: He walked out on his own, with the help and prodding of his life-partner Gail, who had woken up herself to the realization that not only was Maharaji not the Lord incarnate, but also that he was extremely abusive and harmful. She helped him see what he knew from his experience was true. This book, and his web site where he continues his exploration, restarts his life and continues to evolve, surely is a very important guide for the multitudes of people who are still in cult groups after twenty or thirty years. He also offers them hope, that you can come out, and reclaim your personal power and move forward. Read this book and share it with others! Steve Hassan
Download or read book Atheism and Agnosticism written by Peter A. Huff and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An overview essay and approximately 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries explore the background and significance of atheism and agnosticism in modern society. This is the age of atheism and agnosticism. The number of people living without religious belief and practice is quickly and dramatically rising. Some experts call nonreligion, after Christianity and Islam, the third largest "religion" in the world today. Understanding the origins, history, variations, and impact of atheism and agnosticism is crucial to getting a grasp of the meaning of the present and gaining a glimpse of the future. Exploring some of the most extraordinary people, events, and ideas of all time, this book provides a fair, comprehensive, and engaging survey of all aspects of contemporary atheism and agnosticism. An overview essay discusses the background and social and political contexts of unbelief, while a timeline highlights key events. Some 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries follow, with each providing fundamental, objective information about particular topics along with cross-references and suggestions for further reading. The volume closes with an annotated bibliography of the most important resources on atheism and agnosticism.
Download or read book The Guru Papers written by Joel Kramer and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2012-06-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of “the most comprehensive, erudite, and timely” explorations of power dynamics and authoritarianism in religions, institutions, relationships and even personal struggles (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review) Authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. Authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think—hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by. In The Guru Papers, authors Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad unmask authoritarianism in areas such as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion, and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their power, and how others get and maintain it.
Download or read book Handbook of Hinduism in Europe 2 vols written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-07-27 with total page 1677 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Hinduism in Europe portrays and analyses Hindu traditions in every country in Europe. It presents the main Hindu communities, religious groups, forms and teachings present in the continent and shows that Hinduism have become a major religion in Europe.
Download or read book Mindapps written by Thomas B. Roberts and published by Park Street Press. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of “mind design” technologies and practices--mindapps--that boost intellectual capacity and enable new ways of thought and action • Reveals how mindapps transform the patterns of our mind-body complex and help generate new ideas by enabling access to new mind states • Examines the singlestate fallacy--the myth that useful thinking only occurs in our ordinary awake mental state • Explores a wealth of mindapp practices and techniques, including microdosing with psychedelics, yoga and martial arts, hypnosis, breathing techniques, lucid dreaming, rites of passage, biofeedback and neurofeedback, and transcranial brain stimulation Just as we can write and install apps in our electronic devices, we can construct “mindapps” and install them in our brain-mind complex, and as just as digital apps add capabilities to our devices, mindapps can expand our mental powers and creative abilities, allowing us to intentionally redesign our minds. Using psychedelics as the prime example, Thomas B. Roberts explores the many different kinds of mindapps, including meditation, other psychoactive plants and chemicals, sensory overload and deprivation, biofeedback and neurofeedback, hypnosis and suggestion, sleep and lucid dreaming, creative imagery, transcranial brain stimulation and optical brain stimulation, rites of passage, martial arts and exercise routines, yoga, breathing techniques, and contemplative prayer. He also looks at the future of mindapps, the potential for new mindapps yet to be invented, and how installing multiple mindapps can produce new, yet to be explored mind states. Drawing on decades of research, he shows how psychedelics in particular are “ideagens”--powerful tools for generating new ideas and new ways of thinking. Uniting the many forms of mindapps into one overall Multistate Mind Theory, Roberts examines the singlestate fallacy--the myth that useful thinking only occurs in our ordinary awake mental state--and demonstrates the many mind-body states we are capable of. He shows how mindapps not only allow us to design and redesign our own minds but also offer benefits for artistic performance, mystical and spiritual experience, and scientific research by improving creativity, open-mindedness, problem solving, and inner-brain connections. Reformulating how we think about the human mind, Mindapps unveils the new multistate landscape of the mind and how we can each enter the world of mind design.
Download or read book Individualized Religion written by Claire Wanless and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-08 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on ethnographic research, this book explores individualized religion in and around Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. Claire Wanless demonstrates that counter to the claims of secularization theorists, the combination of informal structures and practices can provide a viable basis for socially significant religious activity that can sustain itself. The subjects of this research claim a variety of religious identities and practices, and are suspicious of religious institutions, hierarchies, rules and dogmas. Yet they participate actively in an overlapping and cross-linking informal network of practice communities and other associations. Their engagements propagate and sustain a core ideology that prioritizes subjectivity, locates authority at the level of the individual, and also predicates itself on ideals of sharing, mutuality and community. Providing a new theory of religious association, this book is a nuanced counterpoint to the secularization thesis in the UK and points the way to new research on individual religion.
Download or read book New Religions 2 volumes written by Eugene V. Gallagher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A valuable resource for students and general audiences, this book provides a unique global perspective on the history, beliefs, and practices of emergent faith communities; new religious traditions; and religious movements worldwide, from the 19th century to the present. New Religions: Emerging Faiths and Religious Cultures in the Modern World provides insightful global perspectives on the emergent faith communities and new traditions and movements of the last two centuries. Readers will gain access to the information necessary to explore the significance, complexities, and challenges that modern religious traditions have faced throughout their history and that continue to impact society today. The work identifies the themes and issues that have often brought new religions into conflict with the larger societies of which they are a part. Coverage includes new religious groups that emerged in America, such as the Seventh-day Adventists, the Latter-day Saints, and the Jehovah's Witnesses; alternative communities around the globe that emerged from the major Western and Eastern traditions, such as Aum Shinrikyo and Al-Qaeda; and marginalized groups that came to a sudden end, such as the Peoples Temple, Heaven's Gate, and the Branch Davidians. The entries highlight thematic and broader issues that run across the individual religious traditions, and will also help students analyze and assess the common difficulties faced by emergent religious communities.
Download or read book Hinduism Today written by Stephen Jacobs and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-22 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Hinduism today requires an understanding of how it is practised in the contemporary world. Stephen Jacob's new introduction tackles these central issues, beginning with case studies of the grassroots practice of Hinduism in India and in diaspora communities. He covers issues of singular importance in the modern study of Hinduism, including the importance and role of mass media to this essentially orally transmitted religion. Other major areas covered include the concept of Hindu dharma, particularly in relation to caste, gender and Hindu nationalism, key and often controversial concepts in Hinduism.
Download or read book From Slogans to Mantras written by Stephen A. Kent and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maintains that the failure of political activism led many former radicals to become involved in such groups as the Hare Krishnas, Scientology, Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, the Jesus movement, and the Children of God, and argues that numerous activists turned from psychedelia and political activism to guru worship and spiritual quest both as a response to the failures of social protest and as a new means of achieving social change. [book cover].
Download or read book Radical Departures written by Saul V. Levine and published by San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. This book was released on 1984 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Senior year is over, and Lucy has the perfect way to celebrate: tonight, she's going to find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist whose work appears all over the city. He's out there somewhere--spraying color, spraying birds and blue sky on the night--and Lucy knows a guy who paints like Shadow is someone she could fall for. Really fall for. Instead, Lucy's stuck at a party with Ed, the guy she's managed to avoid since the most awkward date of her life. But when Ed tells her he knows where to find Shadow, they're suddenly on an all-night search around the city. And what Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Swami Rama of the Himalayas written by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and published by Himalayan Institute Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The biography of Swami Rama complete with over 300 photographs.
Download or read book The Occupied Clinic written by Saiba Varma and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Occupied Clinic, Saiba Varma explores the psychological, ontological, and political entanglements between medicine and violence in Indian-controlled Kashmir—the world's most densely militarized place. Into a long history of occupations, insurgencies, suppressions, natural disasters, and a crisis of public health infrastructure come interventions in human distress, especially those of doctors and humanitarians, who struggle against an epidemic: more than sixty percent of the civilian population suffers from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or acute stress. Drawing on encounters between medical providers and patients in an array of settings, Varma reveals how colonization is embodied and how overlapping state practices of care and violence create disorienting worlds for doctors and patients alike. Varma shows how occupation creates worlds of disrupted meaning in which clinical life is connected to political disorder, subverting biomedical neutrality, ethics, and processes of care in profound ways. By highlighting the imbrications between humanitarianism and militarism and between care and violence, Varma theorizes care not as a redemptive practice, but as a fraught sphere of action that is never quite what it seems.
Download or read book Hinduism and the 1960s written by Paul Oliver and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The West has drawn upon Hinduism on a wide scale, from hatha yoga and meditation techniques, to popular culture in music and fashion, yet the contribution of Hinduism to the counter-culture of the 1960s has not been analysed in full. Hinduism and the 1960s looks at the youth culture of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the way in which it was influenced by Hinduism and Indian culture. It examines the origins of the 1960s counter-culture in the Beat movement of the 1950s, and their interest in Eastern religion, notably Zen. When the Beatles visited India to study transcendental meditation, there was a rapid expansion in interest in Hinduism. Young people were already heading east on the so-called 'Hippie Trail', looking for spiritual enlightenment and an escape from the material lifestyle of the West. Paul Oliver examines the lifestyle which they adopted, from living in ashrams to experimenting with drugs, sexual liberation, ayurvedic medicine and yoga. This engaging book analyses the interaction between Hinduism and the West, and the way in which each affected the other. It demonstrates the ways in which contemporary Western society has learned from the ancient religion of Hinduism, and incorporated such teachings as yoga, meditation and a natural holistic lifestyle, into daily life. Each chapter contains a summary and further reading guidance, and a glossary is included at the end of the book, making this ideal reading for courses on Hinduism, Indian religions, and religion and popular culture.
Download or read book The Book of Do In written by Michio Kushi and published by Kodansha. This book was released on 1979 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in the ancient traditions of the Far East, Do-In is a series of exercises that can lead you to experience emotional serenity and to reach new spiritual heights. Steeped in the Tao of Shin Sen - a way of breaking the conceptual bonds of physical illness, mental torpor, and social chaos - Do-In can help you liberate your spirit and "find your emotional self" as you achieve unity and balance between your inner self and the world without. Now you can master these exercises through this helpful book. A clear text, step-by-step photographs, and the author's own original drawings guide you expertly through the process. Anyone can practice Do-In at any time; it does not require partners or special techniques. Highly popular in the West, Do-In has spawned such well-known, universally practiced offshoots as Shiatsu massage, acupuncture, yoga, and various meditations. This book will not only show you how to become adept at Do-In, it will enable you to benefit from the natural, healthful lifestyle that Do-In promotes - and it will light your path to inner peace, joyous harmony, and true happiness.
