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Author: Richard H. Jones Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438486340 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 398
Book Description
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.
Author: Richard H. Jones Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438486340 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 398
Book Description
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.
Author: Richard H. Jones Publisher: State University of New York Press ISBN: 1438461208 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 440
Book Description
This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones's inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism.
Author: Alex S. Kohav Publisher: Lexington Books ISBN: 9781498599375 Category : Languages : en Pages : 330
Book Description
"This book embarks on scholarly investigations of mystical phenomena, including shamanism, near-death experiences, and the paranormal. Contributors address queries such as why religious experiences are ineffable, what the explanatory mechanisms of altered states of consciousness are, and how literature and art express the mystical"--
Author: Liam Peter Temple Publisher: Boydell & Brewer ISBN: 1783273933 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Mysticism in Early Modern England traces how mysticism featured in polemical and religious discourse in seventeenth-century England and explores how it came to be viewed as a source of sectarianism, radicalism, and, most significantly, religious enthusiasm.
Author: John Butler Publisher: Shepheard-Walwyn ISBN: 0856833568 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 502
Book Description
A personal account of searching for spiritual understanding initially outside Christian teaching, this book takes the position that there are as many ways to God as there are paths up a mountain. Interpreting his own spiritual breakthroughs, the author describes them as "windows of realization" and likens them to the sensation of being made whole. The book describes his journey from Eastern mantra-style meditation to the Orthodox "prayer of the heart" and details how a love of nature and a desire to do good played an important part in his spiritual unfoldment.
Author: Dr Kevin Magill Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN: 1409480496 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 292
Book Description
This book introduces students to Christian mysticism and modern critical responses to it. Christianity has a rich tradition of mystical theology that first emerged in the writings of the early church fathers, and flourished during the Middle Ages. Today Christian mysticism is increasingly recognised as an important Christian heritage relevant to today's spiritual seekers. The book sets out to provide students and other interested readers with access to the main theoretical approaches to Christian mysticism – including those propounded by William James, Steven Katz, Bernard McGinn, Michael Sells, Denys Turner and Caroline Walker-Bynum. It also explores postmodern re-readings of Christian mysticism by authors such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-François Lyotard. The book first introduces students to the main themes that underpin Christian mysticism. It then reflects on how modern critics have understood each of them, demonstrating that stark delineation between the different theoretical approaches eventually collapses under the weight of the complex interaction between experience and knowledge that lies at the heart of Christian mysticism. In doing so, the book presents a deliberate challenge to a strictly perennialist reading of Christian mysticism. Anyone even remotely familiar with Christian mysticism will know that renewed interest in Christian mystical writers has created a huge array of scholarship with which students of mysticism need to familiarise themselves. This book outlines the various modern theoretical approaches in a manner easily accessible to a reader with little or no previous knowledge of this area, and offers a philosophical/theological introduction to Christian mystical writers beyond the patristic period important for the Latin Western Tradition.
Author: Kenneth Rose Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1472571703 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Contemplative experience is central to Hindu yoga traditions, Buddhist meditation practices, and Catholic mystical theology, and, despite doctrinal differences, it expresses itself in suggestively similar meditative landmarks in each of these three meditative systems. In Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism, Kenneth Rose shifts the dominant focus of contemporary religious studies away from tradition-specific studies of individual religious traditions, communities, and practices to examine the 'contemplative universals' that arise globally in meditative experience. Through a comparative exploration of the itineraries detailed in the contemplative manuals of Theravada Buddhism, Patañjalian Yoga, and Catholic mystical theology, Rose identifies in each tradition a moment of sharply focused awareness that marks the threshold between immersion in mundane consciousness and contemplative insight. As concentration deepens, the meditator steps through this threshold onto a globally shared contemplative itinerary, which leads through a series of virtually identical stages to mental stillness and insight. Rose argues that these contemplative universals, familiar to experienced contemplatives in multiple traditions, point to a common spiritual, mental, and biological heritage. Pioneering the exploration of contemplative practice and experience with a comparative perspective that ranges over multiple religious traditions, religious studies, philosophy, neuroscience, and the cognitive science of religion, this book is a landmark contribution to the fields of contemplative practice and religious studies.
Author: F. Samuel Brainard Publisher: Penn State Press ISBN: 9780271041810 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
Responding to our modern disillusionment with any claims to absolute truth regarding morality or reality, this book offers a conceptual approach for discussing absolutes without denying either the relevance of divergent religious and philosophical teachings or the evidence supporting postmodern and poststructuralist critiques. Case studies of mysticism within Advaita-Vedānta Hinduism, Mādhyamika Buddhism, and Nicene Christianity demonstrate the value of this approach and offer many fresh insights into the metaphysical presuppositions of these religions as well as into the nature and value of mystical experience. Like Douglas Hofstadter's Gōdel, Escher, Bach, this book finds ultimate reality to be rationally graspable only as an eternal fugue of pattern and paradox. Yet it does not so much counter other philosophical views as provide a conceptual tool for understanding and classifying incommensurable views.
Author: Thomas Cattoi Publisher: Springer ISBN: 331979096X Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 299
Book Description
Since the late 19th century, when the “new science” of psychology and interest in esoteric and occult phenomena converged – leading to the “discovery” of the unconscious – the dual disciplines of depth psychology and mysticism have been wed in an often unholy union. Continuing in this tradition, and the challenges it carries, this volume includes a variety of inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of depth psychology, mysticism, and mystical experience, spanning the fields of theology, religious studies, and the psychology of religion. Chapters include inquiries into the nature of self and consciousness, questions regarding the status and limits of mysticism and mystical phenomenon, and approaches to these topics from multiple depth psychological traditions.
Author: Richard H. Jones
Author: Richard H. Jones
Author: Richard H. Jones
Author: John Butler
Author: Alex S. Kohav
Author: Liam Peter Temple
Author: John Butler
Author: Dr Kevin Magill
Author: Kenneth Rose
Author: F. Samuel Brainard
Author: Thomas Cattoi