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 681 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 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 Seeking the Sacred with Psychoactive Substances written by J. Harold Ellens and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sacred Bliss written by Mark S. Ferrara and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important relationships that human beings have with plants is changing our consciousness—consider the plants that give us coffee, tea, chocolate, and nicotine. Sacred Bliss challenges traditional attitudes about cannabis by tracing its essential role in the spiritual and curative traditions in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas from prehistory to the present day. In highlighting the continued use of cannabis around the globe, Sacred Bliss offers compelling evidence of cannabis as an entheogen used for thousands of years to evoke peak-experiences, or moments of expanded perception or spiritual awareness. Today, the growing utilization of medical cannabis to alleviate the pain and symptoms of physical illness raises the possibility of using cannabis to treat the mind along with the body. By engaging sacred and secular texts from around the world, Sacred Bliss demonstrates that throughout religious history, cannabis has offered access to increased imagination and creativity, heightened perspective and insight, and deeper levels of thought.
Download or read book Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space written by Aaron French and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-07 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on the connection between modern design and architectural practices and the construction of "sacred spaces." Not only language and ritual but space, place, and architecture play a significant role in constructing "special" or "religious" spaces. However, this concept of a constructed "sacred space" remains undertheorized in religious studies and the history of art and architecture in general. This volume therefore revisits the question of a "modern sacred space" from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on religion, space, and architecture during the emergence of the modern period and up until contemporary times. Revisiting the ways in which modern architects and artists have endeavored to create sacred spaces and buildings for the modern world will addresses the underlying questions of how religious ideas--especially those related to esotericism and to alternative religiosities--have transformed the way sacred spaces are conceptualized today.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Study of Mysticism written by Richard H. Jones and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title The purpose of this book is to fill a gap in contemporary mystical studies: an overview of the basic ways to approach mystical experiences and mysticism. It discusses the problem of definitions of “mystical experiences” and “mysticism” and advances characterizations of “mystical experiences” in terms of certain altered states of consciousness and “mysticism” in terms of encompassing ways of life centered on such experiences and states. Types of mystical experiences, enlightened states, paths, and doctrines are discussed, as is the relation of mystical experiences and mysticism to religions and cultures. The approaches of constructivism, contextualism, essentialism, and perennialism are presented. Themes in the history of the world’s major mystical traditions are set forth. Approaches to mystical phenomena in sociology, psychology, gender studies, and neuroscience are introduced. Basic philosophical issues related to whether mystical experiences are veridical and mystical claims valid, mystics’ problems of language, art, and morality are laid out. Older and newer comparative approaches in religious studies and in Christian theology are discussed, along with postmodernist objections. The intended audience is undergraduates and the general public interested in the general issues related to mysticism.
Download or read book High Culture written by Christopher Partridge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is littered with evidence of humanity's fascination with drugs and the pursuit of altered states. From early Romanticism to late-nineteenth-century occultism and from fin de siècle Paris to contemporary psychedelic shamanism, psychoactive substances have playedcatalyzing people. Yet serious analysis of the religious dimensions of modern drug use is still lacking. the use of drugs and the pursuit of transcendence from the nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with the Romantic fascination with opium, it chronicles the discovery of anesthetics, the psychiatric and religious interest in hashish, the bewitching power of mescaline and hallucinogenic fungi, the more recent uses of LSD, as well as the debates surrounding drugs and religious experience. This fascinating and wide-ranging sociological and cultural history fills a major gap in the study of religion in the modern world and our understanding of the importance of countercultural thought, offering new and timely insights into the controversial relationship between drugs and mystical experience.
Download or read book Mindapps written by Thomas B. Roberts and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 203 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 A History of Mysticism written by Richard H. Jones and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-04-01 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a historical overview of mysticism in the world's major religious traditions. Beginning with a chapter on the nature of mystical experiences, A History of Mysticism then turns to a discussion of mysticism's prehistory in shamanism and the early use of psychedelics. The possible role of mystical experiences among early Greek philosophers (including Socrates and Plato) is subsequently addressed, followed by chapters on mysticism in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and a variety of present-day iterations, including New Age mysticism, secular mysticism, and the scientific study of mystical experiences. An appendix covering popular misunderstandings of mystical experiences and mysticism is also included. Written in a clear, accessible style, this book is suitable for students of religion and philosophy as well as general readers interested in mysticism and the world's variety of mystical traditions.
Download or read book Listening to Ayahuasca written by Rachel Harris and published by New World Library. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When National Geographic Adventure published an article in 2006 about the powerful antidepressant effects of ayahuasca, the piece received a phenomenal reader response. That article struck a chord with psychotherapist Rachel Harris, who had encountered many clients unresponsive to traditional therapy and antidepressant protocols. Used for more than 8,000 years in the Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is a powerful, and illegal, psychedelic that has distressing gastrointestinal side effects. Yet Harris found many willing to try it, so deep was their suffering. Harris here shares her original research (the largest study of ayahuasca use in North America) into its effects on depression, anxiety, and PTSD, along with her own personal experiences. By detailing ayahuasca's risks and benefits, she aims to help those driven to investigate ayahuasca to do so safely and to give their psychological caregivers a template for transformative caring and healing.
Download or read book Grandmother Ayahuasca written by Christian Funder and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Examines how ayahuasca affects the brain from a neuroscientific perspective and how its effects on consciousness relate to ancient esoteric texts • Shares interviews with people who have experienced ayahuasca’s powerful “spirit doctor” effects and the author’s own ayahuasca journey from suicidal depression to a soul at peace • Investigates how ayahuasca is interwoven with the ancient practices of Amazonian shamanism Brewed from a combination of two plants--the leaves of Psychotria viridis and the vine stalks of Banisteriopsis caapi--ayahuasca has been used for millennia by indigenous tribes throughout the Upper Amazon for healing and spiritual exploration. The shamans of the Peruvian Amazon call the plant spirit within the vine Abuela Ayahuasca, Grandmother Ayahuasca. Exploring the history, lore, traditional use, psychoactive effects, and current scientific studies, Christian Funder reveals how Grandmother Ayahuasca is a profound healer, wise teacher, and life-changing guide. Examining ayahuasca from a neuroscientific perspective, the author looks at recent research on the effects of DMT--one of the psychoactive compounds in ayahuasca--as well as fMRI studies of brain activity during altered states. He explores these fi ndings as they relate to the teachings on unified states of consciousness in ancient esoteric texts and to Aldous Huxley’s theory of psychedelics inhibiting the “reducing valve” mechanism of the brain. Sharing interviews with people who have experienced ayahuasca’s powerful “spirit doctor” effects, Funder also details his own revolutionary ayahuasca healing journey from suicidal depression to a soul at peace. He explores ayahuasca’s relationship to indigenous Amazonian shamanism, including an inside look at the Shipibo tribe and the healing songs known as icaros. Offering a holistic picture of ayahuasca--from science to spirit--the author shows that this venerated hallucinogenic tea has immense therapeutic potential and just might be the long-lost shamanic connection to the sacred Gaian mind.
Download or read book Ralph Metzner Explorer of Consciousness written by Cathy Coleman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-10-01 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • Includes contributions from Rick Doblin, Charles S. Grob, Stan Grof, Stanley Krippner, Dennis McKenna, the late Christian Rätsch, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Claudia Mueller-Ebeling, Dorothy Fadiman, Luis Eduardo Luna, and others • Explores Ralph’s childhood, his time at Harvard with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), his work with Agni Yoga and transpersonal psychology, his development of ecopsychology, and his in-depth psychedelic research Renowned as a pioneering psychologist, psychedelic elder, alchemical explorer, and shamanic teacher, the late Ralph Metzner (1936–2019) contributed profoundly to consciousness research, transpersonal psychology, and contemporary psychedelic studies across his more than 50-year career. Celebrating the life and legacy of Ralph Metzner, this book explores how Ralph touched the lives of those around him in extraordinary and remarkable ways, recasting people’s worldviews and inspiring the flowering of creativity, personal growth, and spiritual transformation. There are recollections from the pivotal years of the Sixties, when Ralph conducted research with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass). Other contributors describe Ralph’s involvement in the School of Actualism in the 1970s and the profound impact that Agni Yoga had on Ralph’s explorations of consciousness and his healing therapies. We also learn about Ralph’s development of Green Psychology, or ecopsychology, his mystical work exploring prenatal realms of consciousness and channeling, and his healing and transformative “Vision Circles.” Academic colleagues and a who’s who of fellow psychedelic researchers share stories from their work with Ralph, illuminating his depth of knowledge and broad impact. This book paints a complete portrait of Ralph Metzner in his well-known roles as therapist and psychedelic pioneer and as an intrepid explorer of consciousness until the very end of his life.
Download or read book American Druidry written by Kimberly Kirner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaching Druidry as an emerging religious movement that offers an alternative to the mainstream materialist, consumerist culture of the United States, Kimberly Kirner analyses her own life as a Druid through the lens of her profession as a cultural anthropologist. Interweaving lively stories of her life as a Druid with accessible analytical essays drawing from an unusual array of literature from the anthropology of religion, the anthropology of consciousness, organizational anthropology, cognitive anthropology, and ethnoecology, she leads the reader into an experiential and conceptual understanding of Druidry as a way of life and as a contemporary Western new religious movement that challenges Christo-centric definitions of religion. Reflecting on three domains of the Druidic life, the author describes the Druidic worldview (place, time, and the body), community (relational spirituality), and vocation (ethics and action). These descriptions are punctuated with reflective essays that question the boundaries and nature of religion as it is generally understood in the Western world by examining how Druidry might be understood using concepts more appropriate to Druids' conceptualizations of themselves.
Download or read book Mystai written by Peter Mark Adams and published by Scarlet Imprint. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I have read Mystai with admiration of both your insights and their presentation by the publisher. I have loved all these characters for years. To treat them as mnemonic solves at a stroke the intrusion of mythical beings among contemporary Romans that has stymied other interpreters." Joscelyn Godwin “A meticulous study of this book will most likely feel like a daydream transporting the reader to the ancient world of the Mysteries and their gods initiated by Adams’ eloquent writing and personal insights supported by beautiful images of the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries and other ancient iconographies and artefacts. The functional combination of text and imagery is what makes Mystai such a potent and inspiring book ... I wholeheartedly recommend that those interested in the Mysteries, both in theory and practice, should indulge in Mystai seeking within every page an epiphany and a celebration of the great god Dionysos immersing oneself into the ritually-centred visuality of the Villa of the Mysteries to generate a beautiful and untamed constellation of theurgic experiences” Damon Zacharias Lycourinos “Peter Mark Adams has done it again just like his prior book ‘The Game of Saturn’, Mystai is a feast for the eyes, the mind and the senses. Its a beautifully designed book: the colours, the materials, the printing, the fonts, the imagery and of course the content itself is tremendously enjoyable and extremely enlightening ... His analysis of the imagery and its meaning, how this would have been utilised in a ritual context, has given us a graduate level course in the ancient Greek mysteries. Peter Mark Adams has quickly become one of my favourite authors in this genre. His work is extremely unique and insightful he has a way of revealing historical mysteries that no one else has elucidated” Greg Kaminsky, The Occult of Personality Podcast “Peter Mark Adams has done it again just like his prior book ‘The Game of Saturn’, Mystai is a feast for the eyes, the mind and the senses. Its a beautifully designed book: the colours, the materials, the printing, the fonts, the imagery and of course the content itself is tremendously enjoyable and extremely enlightening ... His analysis of the imagery and its meaning, how this would have been utilised in a ritual context, has given us a graduate level course in the ancient Greek mysteries. Peter Mark Adams has quickly become one of my favourite authors in this genre. His work is extremely unique and insightful he has a way of revealing historical mysteries that no one else has elucidated” Greg Kaminsky, The Occult of Personality Podcast The Dionysian themed frescos of Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries constitute the single most important theurgical narrative to have survived in the Western esoteric tradition. No other practitioner account of the ritual process for conducting a mystery rite has survived down to today. The frescoes’ vivid and allusive imagery illuminates both the ritual activity of the participants as well as its esoteric import. The frescoes, created in the most private rooms of the extensive Roman villa, were never meant to be seen by anyone other than the members of the all-female Bakkhic thiasos who conducted their most secret rites within them. Buried and preserved for posterity by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, these stunning proto-Renaissance images guide the viewer through the consecutive stages of a theurgic rite of initiation into the mysteries of Dionysos. Arising from within the unique interface between Greek and Roman culture in Southern Italy, the frescoes attest to the survival of an unbroken initiatic tradition of Bakkhic mystery rites on the Italian peninsula stretching back to the fifth century BCE. The recent restoration of the frescoes has provided a fresh opportunity to elucidate the ritual processes hidden in plain sight. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Peter Mark Adams draws on current scholarship on dithyrambic performance; the ritual dress of Greco-Roman priestesses; classical philology and the comparative ethnography of rites of higher initiation. With the same attention to detail which he demonstrated in The Game of Saturn, Adams reveals the stages of initiation encoded and accomplished in dance, gesture, ordeal and sign. Adams interprets the frescoes through the distinct performative lens of the ritualist, throwing light, for the first time, on the significance of the ritual vocabulary and the phenomenology of ritual participation. We are pulled into the dance ourselves, and emerge transfigured by the experience.
Download or read book Ayahuasca Between Cognition and Culture written by Ismael Eduardo Apud Peláez and published by PUBLICACIONS UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book summarizes Ismael Apud’s ethnographic research in the field of ayahuasca, conducted in Latin America and Catalonia over a period of 10 years. To analyze the variety of ayahuasca spiritual practices and beliefs, the author combines different approaches, including medical anthropology, cognitive science of religion, history of science, and religious studies. Ismael Apud is a psychologist and anthropologist from Uruguay, with a PhD in Anthropology at Universitat Rovira i Virgili.
Download or read book Spirit Tech written by Wesley J. Wildman, Ph.D and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring a Foreword by Mikey Siegel, founder of Consciousness Hacking. Technology can now control the spiritual experience. This is a journey through the high-tech aids for psychological growth that are changing our world, while exploring the safety, authenticity and ethics of this new world. We already rely on technology to manage our health, sleep, relationships, and finances, so it’s no surprise that we’re turning to technological aids for the spiritual journey. From apps that help us pray or meditate, to cybernauts seeking the fast track to nirvana through magnetic brain stimulation, we are on the brink of the most transformative revolution in the practice of religion: an era in which we harness the power of “spirit tech” to deepen our experience of the divine. Spirit tech products are rapidly improving in sophistication and power, and ordinary people need a trustworthy guide. Through their own research and insiders’ access to the top innovators and early adopters, Wesley J. Wildman and Kate J. Stockly take you deep inside an evolving world: - Find out how increasingly popular “wearables” work on your brain, promising a shortcut to transformative meditative states. - Meet the inventor of the “God Helmet” who developed a tool to increase psychic skills, and overcome fear, sadness, and anger. - Visit churches that use ayahuasca as their sacrament and explore the booming industry of psychedelic tourism. - Journey to a mansion in the heart of Silicon Valley where a group of scientists and entrepreneurs are working feverishly to bring brain-based spirit tech applications to the masses. - Discover a research team who achieved brain-to-brain communication between individuals thousands of miles apart, harnessing neurofeedback techniques to sync and share emotions among group members. Spirit Tech offers readers a compelling glimpse into the future and is the definitive guide to the fascinating world of new innovations for personal transformation, spiritual growth, and pushing the boundaries of human nature.
Download or read book LSD and the Mind of the Universe written by Christopher M. Bache and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A professor of religious studies meticulously documents his insights from 73 high-dose LSD sessions conducted over the course of 20 years • Chronicles, with unprecedented rigor, the author’s systematic journey into a unified field of consciousness that underlies all physical existence • Makes a powerful case for the value of psychedelically induced spiritual experience and discusses the challenge of integrating these experiences into everyday life • Shows how psychedelic experience can take you beyond self-transformation into collective transformation and help birth the future of humanity On November 24, 1979, Christopher M. Bache took the first step on what would become a life-changing journey. Drawing from his training as a philosopher of religion, Bache set out to explore his mind and the mind of the universe as deeply and systematically as possible--with the help of the psychedelic drug LSD. Following protocols established by Stanislav Grof, Bache’s 73 high-dose LSD sessions over the course of 20 years drew him into a deepening communion with cosmic consciousness. Journey alongside professor Bache as he touches the living intelligence of our universe--an intelligence that both embraced and crushed him--and demonstrates how direct experience of the divine can change your perspective on core issues in philosophy and religion. Chronicling his 73 sessions, the author reveals the spiral of death and rebirth that took him through the collective unconscious into the creative intelligence of the universe. Making a powerful case for the value of psychedelically induced spiritual experience, Bache shares his immersion in the fierce love and creative intent of the unified field of consciousness that underlies all physical existence. He describes the incalculable value of embracing the pain and suffering he encountered in his sessions and the challenges he faced integrating his experiences into his everyday life. His journey documents a shift from individual consciousness to collective consciousness, from archetypal reality to Divine Oneness and the Diamond Luminosity that lies outside cyclic existence. Pushing the boundaries of theory and practice, the author shows how psychedelic experience can take you beyond self-transformation into collective transformation, beyond the present into the future, revealing spirit and matter in perfect balance.
