Download or read book Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms written by F. Kent Reilly and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between AD 900-1600, the native peoples of the Mississippi River Valley and other areas of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States conceived and executed one of the greatest artistic traditions of the Precolumbian Americas. Created in the media of copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood, and incised or carved with a complex set of symbols and motifs, this seven-hundred-year-old artistic tradition functioned within a multiethnic landscape centered on communities dominated by earthen mounds and plazas. Previous researchers have referred to this material as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (SECC). This groundbreaking volume brings together ten essays by leading anthropologists, archaeologists, and art historians, who analyze the iconography of Mississippian art in order to reconstruct the ritual activities, cosmological vision, and ideology of these ancient precursors to several groups of contemporary Native Americans. Significantly, the authors correlate archaeological, ethnographic, and art historical data that illustrate the stylistic differences within Mississippian art as well as the numerous changes that occur through time. The research also demonstrates the inadequacy of the SECC label, since Mississippian art is not limited to the Southeast and reflects stylistic changes over time among several linked but distinct religious traditions. The term Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere (MIIS) more adequately describes the corpus of this Mississippian art. Most important, the authors illustrate the overarching nature of the ancient Native American religious system, as a creation unique to the native American cultures of the eastern United States.
Download or read book Sacred Realm written by Steven Fine and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1996 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautiful illustrations and maps transport the reader into the remains of synagogues as far afield as North Africa, Italy, Asia Minor, Israel, and Syria. Sacred Realm complements an exhibition organized by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. The exhibition brings together archaeological artifacts and manuscripts from museums in North America, Europe, and Israel, most of which have never before been displayed in the Unites States.
Download or read book Spirit Medicine written by Henry Barnard Wesselman and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rediscovery that each one of us can achieve the direct, transformative connection with the sacred realms lies right at the heart of the spiritual reawakening sweeping the Western world—a phenomenon explored by anthropologist Hank Wesselman, Ph.D., in his widely read book The Journey to the Sacred Garden. In Spirit Medicine, Dr. Wesselman is joined by his wife, transpersonal medical practitioner Jill Kuykendall, RPT., to present us with a cross-cultural consideration of illness, healing, and health care from the ancient wisdom of the traditional peoples. Spirit Medicine opens a window into a universal worldview that will help you: • understand the classic causes of illness—-an essential step in true healing; • work with the four levels of spiritual healing; • expand your connections to inner sources of wisdom and power; and • deepen your contacts with your helping spirits and healing masters. Spirit Medicine will provide you with the singular key to success that energy medicine by itself lacks. It will also provide you with a perspective derived from the Hawaiian kahuna tradition in which knowledge of the soul cluster, as well as the multileveled nature of reality, forms the foundation. Included is an experiential CD of shamanic drumming and rattling to be used with specific exercises and meditations designed to enhance your healing practice for yourself and others. Spirit Medicine reconsiders and reworks the time-tested techniques pioneered by the shamans of the indigenous peoples, providing nontribal Westerners with extraordinarily effective insights into healing and problem solving.
Download or read book The Journey to the Sacred Garden written by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D and published by Hay House, Inc. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of spiritual awakening lies the discovery that each of us can achieve the direct, transformative connection with the sacred realms—a connection that defines the mystic. The Journey to the Sacred Garden guides us along a well-traveled path into this extraordinary experience and includes an experiential audio download of shamanic drumming and rattling, providing us with an effective, easily learned technique for expanding awareness and shifting consciousness safely. The first goal: to find our Sacred Garden, a place for personal empowerment; as well as physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual restoration. Once there, we learn through direct experience that the garden can be used as a gateway into the other levels of the inner worlds. Anthropologist Hank Wesselman, Ph.D., reveals that our garden operates by four primary rules: • Everything in the garden is symbolic of some aspect of ourselves or our life experience. • Everything in the garden can be communicated with, enhancing understanding. • The garden can be changed by doing work. • When you change your garden, some part of you or your life will change in response.
Download or read book The Shaman and Ayahuasca written by Don Jose Campos and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More and more Ayahuasca has come to the attention of the Western media. Used by the shamans of Peru, the rituals and practices around this psychoactive plant-based brew date back 50-70,000 years as evidenced by rock and cave paintings found the world over. Through their use of Ayahuasca, Shamans establish contact with the spirit world which they call upon to aid them in their healing practices, understanding of the cosmos, and how to live well in the world. In "The Shaman & Ayahuasca," internationally respected Peruvian shaman Don Jose Campos illuminates the practices and benefits of Ayahuasca with grace and gentleness, while expressing respect and gratitude for the gifts Ayahuasca has bestowed on him throughout the 25 years he has been a practicing shaman. He takes the reader on a journey through his own discovery of other worlds, other dimensions, alien entities and plant teachers. "The Shaman & Ayahuasca" gives an overview of an entire cosmology with the potential to benefit all of mankind. It is the perfect book to introduce readers to the profound experiences of Ayahuasca."
Download or read book Visualizing the Sacred written by George E. Lankford and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-05-23 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The prehistoric native peoples of the Mississippi River Valley and other areas of the Eastern Woodlands of the United States shared a complex set of symbols and motifs that constituted one of the greatest artistic traditions of the pre-Columbian Americas. Traditionally known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, these artifacts of copper, shell, stone, clay, and wood were the subject of the groundbreaking 2007 book Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms: Interpretations of Mississippian Iconography, which presented a major reconstruction of the rituals, cosmology, ideology, and political structures of the Mississippian peoples. Visualizing the Sacred advances the study of Mississippian iconography by delving into the regional variations within what is now known as the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere (MIIS). Bringing archaeological, ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and iconographic perspectives to the analysis of Mississippian art, contributors from several disciplines discuss variations in symbols and motifs among major sites and regions across a wide span of time and also consider what visual symbols reveal about elite status in diverse political environments. These findings represent the first formal identification of style regions within the Mississippian Iconographic Interaction Sphere and call for a new understanding of the MIIS as a network of localized, yet interrelated religious systems that experienced both continuity and change over time.
Download or read book Sacred Realms written by Richard L. Warms and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2009 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred Realms is a collection of classic and contemporary articles that introduce religion from an anthropological perspective. It is designed to give students the tools to understand and analyze religion as well as to consider its important role in world affairs. The book is divided into twelve major topics in faith, religion, and belief; it concludes with a unique section written by the editors that describes fundamental aspects of five of the world's most influential religions.
Download or read book Journeys to the Underworld and Heavenly Realm in Ancient and Medieval Literature written by John C. Stephens and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-02-14 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concepts of heaven and hell are among the oldest, most widespread religious beliefs in history. In Western literature, they are frequently embedded in stories of underworld explorations and celestial journeys—stories examining the nature of the universe, life on earth and the existence of the gods. The author analyzes tales of wonder in both ancient and medieval European literature. Other-worldly narratives appeared in literary contexts in the ancient world, including mythology, poetry and philosophical writings. In medieval times, they remained a popular form of literary expression. These stories are primarily religious in nature, describing fantastic worlds filled with miracles and supernatural beings.
Download or read book Japanese Mandalas written by Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1998-11-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first broad study of Japanese mandalas to appear in a Western language, this volume interprets mandalas as sanctified realms where identification between the human and the sacred occurs. The author investigates eighth- to seventeenth-century paintings from three traditions: Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and the kami-worshipping (Shinto) tradition. It is generally recognized that many of these mandalas are connected with texts and images from India and the Himalayas. A pioneering theme of this study is that, in addition to the South Asian connections, certain paradigmatic Japanese mandalas reflect pre-Buddhist Chinese concepts, including geographical concepts. In convincing and lucid prose, ten Grotenhuis chronicles an intermingling of visual, doctrinal, ritual, and literary elements in these mandalas that has come to be seen as characteristic of the Japanese religious tradition as a whole. This beautifully illustrated work begins in the first millennium B.C.E. in China with an introduction to the Book of Documents and ends in present-day Japan at the sacred site of Kumano. Ten Grotenhuis focuses on the Diamond and Womb World mandalas of Esoteric Buddhist tradition, on the Taima mandala and other related mandalas from the Pure Land Buddhist tradition, and on mandalas associated with the kami-worshipping sites of Kasuga and Kumano. She identifies specific sacred places in Japan with sacred places in India and with Buddhist cosmic diagrams. Through these identifications, the realm of the buddhas is identified with the realms of the kami and of human beings, and Japanese geographical areas are identified with Buddhist sacred geography. Explaining why certain fundamental Japanese mandalas look the way they do and how certain visual forms came to embody the sacred, ten Grotenhuis presents works that show a complex mixture of Indian Buddhist elements, pre-Buddhist Chinese elements, Chinese Buddhist elements, and indigenous Japanese elements.
Download or read book From the Sacred Realm written by Valrae Reynolds and published by Prestel Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging from the 11th to the 20th century, and covering all forms of art from ceremonial silver objects to prayer wheels and sculpture, this book provides an overview of the Newark Museum's holdings of Tibetan art.
Download or read book Rambles Into Sacred Realms written by Krish Krishnan and published by Shanti Arts LLC. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rambles into Sacred Realms is the beautiful and inspiring chronicle of author and artist Krish V. Krishnan's travels around the globe as he explores and portrays places of awe-inspiring divinity through writing and artwork. Krishnan recounts his experiences at places like the stunning rocky red desert of Petra, Jordan, replete with the ruins of shrines, palaces, and tombs; the ancient and holy city of Varanasi, India, where sacred chants waft in the breeze as funeral pyres consume the dead; and the ruins of Sukhothai, Thailand, teeming with temples, monuments, shrines, and watchful statues of Buddha as far as the eye can see. Krishnan's writings offer adventure, drama, and bits of humor, and his extensive collection of artwork, in watercolor, scratchboard, acrylics, pencil, and pastel, is superbly executed and captivatingly impassioned. Rambles into Sacred Realms offers a compelling invitation to the reader to vicariously enjoy and experience, through both words and images, the stunning power of some of the world's most incredible and sacred places.
Download or read book Sacred Realms written by Richard L. Warms and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred Realms is a comprehensive introduction to the anthropology of religion that presents and defines key concepts with fifty-five classic and current essays by leading specialists. The anthology has wide geographical scope and presents balanced accounts from anthropologists throughout the world. Divided into seventeen subject areas that cover major topics in faith, religion, and belief, Sacred Realms concludes with descriptions of five of the world's most influential religions. Features of Sacred Realms: * This anthology presents several of the classics of the literature on religion (such as Malinowski, Harris, Miner, Wallace, and Gmelch) while introducing current work in the field. The majority of essays included were originally published in the past fifteen years. * The book's six Parts are introduced by essays that concisely provide the critical concepts and key points students require. * Each essay is introduced by head notes that supply context and discuss the principal points that it makes. Each head note includes several questions for students to consider while they read the essay. * Many essays are by authors either native to or living in the societies they describe. * Essays are readable and cover a wide breadth of topics that are both interesting to students and fit well with subjects that professors commonly teach. * The world religions section (Part Six) is not found in any other anthropology of religion book. It presents highly readable, basic accounts of the largest and historically most important world religions in a balanced fashion.
Download or read book Sacred Smokes written by Theodore C. Van Alst and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians.
Download or read book Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland written by Vincas P. Steponaitis and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is one of the largest pre-Columbian mound sites in North America. Comprising twenty-nine earthen mounds that were once platforms for chiefly residences and public buildings, Moundville was a major political and religious center for the people living in its region and for the wider Mississippian world. A much-needed synthesis of the rapidly expanding archaeological work that has taken place in the region over the past two decades, this volume presents the results of multifaceted research and new excavations. Using models deeply rooted in local ethnohistory, it ties Moundville and its people more closely than before to the ethnography of native southerners and emphasizes the role of social memory, iconography, and ritual practices both at the mound center and in the rural hinterland, providing an up-to-date and refreshingly nuanced interpretation of Mississippian culture. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Download or read book Cosmologies of Pure Realms and the Rhetoric of Pollution written by Yohan Yoo and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-05-30 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collaboration between two scholars from different fields of religious studies draws on three comparative data sets to develop a new theory of purity and pollution in religion, arguing that a culture’s beliefs about cosmological realms shapes its pollution ideas and its purification practices. The authors of this study refine Mary Douglas’ foundational theory of pollution as "matter out of place," using a comparative approach to make the case that a culture’s cosmology designates which materials in which places constitute pollution. By bringing together a historical comparison of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions, an ethnographic study of indigenous shamanism on Jeju Island, Korea, and the reception history of biblical rhetoric about pollution in Jewish and Christian cultures, the authors show that a cosmological account of purity works effectively across multiple disparate religious and cultural contexts. They conclude that cosmologies reinforce fears of pollution, and also that embodied experiences of purification help generate cosmological ideas. Providing an innovative insight into a key topic of ritual studies, this book will be of vital interest to scholars and graduate students in religion, biblical studies, and anthropology.
Download or read book India in the Persianate Age written by Richard M. Eaton and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 'Remarkable ... this brilliant book stands as an important monument to an almost forgotten world' William Dalrymple, Spectator A sweeping, magisterial new history of India from the middle ages to the arrival of the British The Indian subcontinent might seem a self-contained world. Protected by vast mountains and seas, it has created its own religions, philosophies and social systems. And yet this ancient land experienced prolonged and intense interaction with the peoples and cultures of East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa and, especially, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Richard M. Eaton's wonderful new book tells this extraordinary story with relish and originality. His major theme is the rise of 'Persianate' culture - a many-faceted transregional world informed by a canon of texts that circulated through ever-widening networks across much of Asia. Introduced to India in the eleventh century by dynasties based in eastern Afghanistan, this culture would become thoroughly indigenized by the time of the great Mughals in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This long-term process of cultural interaction and assimilation is reflected in India's language, literature, cuisine, attire, religion, styles of rulership and warfare, science, art, music, architecture, and more. The book brilliantly elaborates the complex encounter between India's Sanskrit culture - which continued to flourish and grow throughout this period - and Persian culture, which helped shape the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and a host of regional states, and made India what it is today.
Download or read book Celtic Myth and Religion written by Sharon Paice MacLeod and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of Celtic mythology and religion, encompassing numerous aspects of ritual and belief. Topics include the presence of the Celtic Otherworld and its inhabitants, cosmology and sacred cycles, wisdom texts, mythological symbolism, folklore and legends, and an appreciation of the natural world. Evidence is drawn from the archaeology of sacred sites, ethnographic accounts of the ancient Celts and their beliefs, medieval manuscripts, poetic and visionary literature, and early modern accounts of folk healers and seers. New translations of poems, prayers, inscriptions and songs from the early period (Gaulish, Old Irish and Middle Welsh) as well as the folklore tradition (Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, Breton and Manx) complement the text. Information of this kind has never before been collected as a compendium of the indigenous wisdom of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose traditions have endured in various forms for almost three thousand years.
