This book is designed to introduce readers to the world of Christian scholarship by way of primary literary sources. It contains the most notable and instructive primary sources from the entire sweep of Christian history, along with accessible introductions, line-by-line annotations, study questions, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading.

Provides an overview of the fundamental history, diverse approaches, and ideas associated with this exciting and relatively new field of study. Each chapter features engaging case studies and ends with summaries and recommendations for further study with suggested readings. Written by leading academics in the field, this will be the go-to introduction to digital religion.

This book describes how anthropologists in the twentieth century went about documenting the religions of those independent peoples who still lived beyond the frontiers of the global economy and the world religions. It begins by examining the enormous popularity of the newly invented field of anthropology in the nineteenth century as a site of multiple intellectual developments. Its climax was Frazer's Golden Bough, which is a pillar of modernity second only to Darwin's Origin of Species. But its notion of religion was entirely speculative. When anthropologists went to see for themselves, they encountered formidable obstacles. How to access a people's most profound understandings of the world and everything in it? Holding fast to the premise that ethnographers have no special powers of seeing inside other people's brains, this book teaches students to proceed slowly, a step at a time, watching how people perform rituals great and small, asking questions that seem stupid to their hosts, and struggling to translate abstract terms in unrecorded languages. Using a handful of examples from different continents, the book shows the potential of an anthropological approach to religion.

Animism' is now an important term for describing ways in which some people understand and engage respectfully with the larger-than-human world. Its central theme is our relationship with our other-than-human neighbours, such as animals, plants, rocks, and kettles, rooted in the understanding that the term 'person' includes more than humans. Graham Harvey explores the animist cultures of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians and eco-Pagans, introducing their diversity and considering the linguistic, performative, ecological and activist implications of these different animisms.

'The Seat of the Soul changed the way I see myself. It changed the way I view the world' Oprah You receive from the world what you give to the world We are constantly evolving within a changing climate and yet always seem to return to the same question: is there more to life? In his iconic bestseller, renowned spiritual teacher Gary Zukav reveals how to become the authority in your own life, how to change the way you see the world and how to interact with others. The Seat of the Soul is the ultimate path to connecting with your deepest spiritual self.

A comprehensive overview of the latest research in religion and conflict resolution, this collection of twenty three essays brings together leading scholars in the field examining the contribution religious actors have made and are making towards peace and resolving. The Ashgate Research Companion to Religion and Conflict Resolution is primarily aimed at readerships with special interest in conflict resolution, international security, and religion and international relations, and will also serve as a valuable resource for policy makers and conflict resolution practitioners. The collection comprises five thematic sections, each with chapters on vital and mainly contemporary topics in the field of religion and conflict resolution. The principal themes include: c

Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy offers mental health professionals of all disciplines and orientations the most comprehensive and rigorous introduction to the art of integrating contemplative psychology, ethics, and practices, including mindfulness, compassion, and embodiment techniques. It brings together clinicians, scholars, and thought leaders of unprecedented caliber, featuring some of the most eminent pioneers in the rapidly growing field of contemplative psychotherapy. The new edition offers an expanded array of effective contemplative interventions, contemplative psychotherapies, and contemplative approaches to clinical practice. New chapters discuss how contemplative work can effect positive psychosocial change at personal, interpersonal, and collective levels to address racial, gender, and other forms of systemic oppression. The new edition also explores the cross-cultural nuances in the integration of Buddhist psychology and healing practices by Western researchers and clinicians and includes the voices of leading Tibetan doctors. Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy offers a profound and synoptic overview of one of psychotherapy's most intriguing and promising fields.

The fast consolidating identities along religious and ethnic lines in recent years have considerably 'minoritised' Muslims in India. The wide-ranging essays in this volume focus on the intensified exclusionary practices against Indian Muslims, highlighting how, amidst a politics of violence, confusing policy frameworks on caste and class lines, and institutionalised riot systems, the community has also suffered from the lack of leadership from within. At the same time, they have emerged as a 'mass' around which the politics of 'vote bank', 'appeasement', 'foreigners', 'Pakistanis within the country', etc. are innovated and played upon, making them further apprehensive about asserting their legitimate right to development. The important issue of the double marginalisation of Muslim women and attempts to reform the Muslim Personal Law by some civil society groups is also discussed. Contributed by academics, activists and journalists, the articles thus discuss issues of integration, exclusion and violence, and attempt to understand categories like 'identity', 'minority', 'multiculturalism', and 'nationalism' with regard to and in the context of Indian Muslims. The volume will be of great interest to those in sociology, politics, history, cultural studies, minority studies, Islamic studies, policy studies, geography, etc.

1) The workbook provides updated, easy-to-understand, ACT-consistent metaphors and exercises for Christian clients working with mental health professionals in a professional context 2) Both mental health professionals and Christian clients will want to buy this corresponding workbook because ACT provides a flexible, evidence-based approach to ameliorating a variety of symptoms and disorders and Christian clients may wish to turn to their own faith tradition for help with psychological suffering; this workbook helps such Christian clients to feel comfortable addressing mental health concerns from within their own worldview 3) Although there are a variety of ACT workbooks for clients, there are no faith-based ACT workbooks on the market that offer Christian-sensitive exercises, strategies, and metaphors for ameliorating psychological suffering in a professional context, doing so from within a Christian worldview.

- timely as it applies Jungian theory to the current cultural crises of the West - potential to become evergreen seller, addressing fundamental concepts of the structure, pathologies, and peculiarities of the human psyche

1) The workbook provides updated, easy-to-understand, ACT-consistent metaphors and exercises for Christian clients working with mental health professionals in a professional context 2) Both mental health professionals and Christian clients will want to buy this corresponding workbook because ACT provides a flexible, evidence-based approach to ameliorating a variety of symptoms and disorders and Christian clients may wish to turn to their own faith tradition for help with psychological suffering; this workbook helps such Christian clients to feel comfortable addressing mental health concerns from within their own worldview 3) Although there are a variety of ACT workbooks for clients, there are no faith-based ACT workbooks on the market that offer Christian-sensitive exercises, strategies, and metaphors for ameliorating psychological suffering in a professional context, doing so from within a Christian worldview.

Author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Learning to Pray on one of the most intriguing events in the New Testament. “this remarkable testimony demonstrates the power of a single Gospel story. This is soul-nourishing and highly recommended.”—Ben Witherington III, author of A Week in the Life of Corinth One of America’s most beloved spiritual leaders and the New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Learning to Pray examines one of the most intriguing events in the New Testament—the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead—and explains its significance for us today. In this wise and thoughtful book, Father James Martin, SJ, analyzes the miracle of Lazarus’s resurrection and asks us to consider what Jesus means when he calls Lazarus—and each of us—to “come forth.” Taking us through the Gospel story verse by verse, he offers deep reflection on the lessons it holds about love, family, sadness, frustration, fear, anger, freedom, and joy. Come Forth combines compelling analysis of the biblical text, insights about the historical setting of the story, meditations on Lazarus in art and the larger culture, as well as stories of Martin’s personal experiences. As he explores these strands in-depth, Martin offers us a deeper understanding of this miracle and its essential message—letting go of the limiting beliefs that prevent us from experiencing God in all His glory. “All of us have things that we need to ‘let die’ in order to follow God more freely, to love more deeply, and to become the people whom God desires us to be,” Martin writes. As this wise and profound book reveals, we need only to open ourselves to the transformative story of Lazarus and trust that God can use it to free us to experience new life—and come closer to Him.

In this sequel volume to his Dark Passages of the Bible (CUA, 2013), author Matthew Ramage turns his attention from the Old to the New Testament, now tackling truth claims bearing directly on the heart of the Christian faith cast into doubt by contemporary New Testament scholarship: Did God become man in Jesus, or did the first Christians make Jesus into God? Was Jesus' resurrection a historical event, or rather a myth fabricated by the early Church? Will Jesus indeed return to earth on the last day, or was this merely the naive expectation of ancient believers that reasonable people today ought to abandon? In addition to examining the exegetical merits of rival answers to these questions, Ramage considers also the philosophical first principles of the exegetes who set out to answer them. This, according to Joseph Ratzinger, is the debate behind the debate in exegesis: whose presuppositions best position us for an accurate understanding of the nature of things in general and of the person of Jesus in particular? Insisting upon the exegetical vision of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as a privileged avenue by which to address the thorniest issues in contemporary biblical exegesis, Ramage puts the emeritus pontiff's hermeneutic of faith into dialogue with contemporary exponents of the historical-critical school. Carrying forth the "critique of the critique" called for by Joseph Ratzinger, Ramage offers the emeritus pontiff's exegesis of the gospels as a plausible and attractive alternative to the mainstream agnostic approach exemplified in the work of Bart Ehrman. As in the case of Benedict's Jesus trilogy upon which he draws extensively, Ramage's quest in this book is not merely academic but also existential in nature. Benedict's scholarship represents the fruit of hispersonal quest for the face of Christ, a quest which involves the commitment to engage, critique, and learn from the most serious challenges posed by modern biblical criticism while affirming the foundations of the Christian faith.

In 1944, C. G. Jung experienced a series of visions which he later described as "the most tremendous things I have ever experienced." Central to these visions was the "mystic marriage as it appears in the Kabbalistic tradition", and Jung’s experience of himself as "Rabbi Simon ben Jochai," the presumed author of the sacred Kabbalistic text, the Zohar. Kabbalistic Visions explores Jung’s 1944 Kabbalistic visions, the impact of Jewish mysticism on Jungian psychology, Jung’s archetypal interpretation of Kabbalistic symbolism, and his claim late in life that a Hasidic rabbi, the Maggid of Mezhirech, anticipated his entire psychology. This book places Jung’s encounter with the Kabbalah in the context of the earlier visions and meditations of his Red Book, his abiding interests in Gnosticism and alchemy, and what many regard to be his Anti-Semitism and flirtation with National Socialism. Kabbalistic Visions is the first full-length study of Jung and Jewish mysticism in any language and the first book to present a comprehensive Jungian/archetypal interpretation of Kabbalistic symbolism.

Accessibly written introduction to a new analytic tradition. Discusses the tensions arising between this emerging school of thought and the existing body of psychoanalytic knowledge. Explores the unique ways in which this approach refers to and understands core analytic issues such as transference, interpretation, psychopathology and psychic development

This innovative book takes the concept of translation beyond its traditional boundaries, adding to the growing body of literature which challenges the idea of translation as a primarily linguistic transfer. To gain a fresh perspective on the work of translation in the complex processes of meaning-making across physical, social and cultural domains (conceptualized as translationality), Piotr Blumczynski revisits one of the earliest and most fundamental senses of translation: corporeal transfer. His study of translated religious officials and translated relics reframes our understanding of translation as a process creating a sense of connection with another time, place, object or person. He argues that a promise of translationality animates a broad spectrum of cultural, artistic and commercial endeavours: it is invoked, for example, in museum exhibitions, art galleries, celebrity endorsements, and the manufacturing of musical instruments. Translationality offers a way to reimagine the dynamic entanglements of matter and meaning, space and time, past and present. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies as well as related disciplines such as the history of religion, anthropology of art, and material culture.

The volumes in this set, originally published between 1978 and 1992, draw together research by leading academics in the area of the occult and provide a rigorous examination of related key issues. The collection examines occultism from a broad range of disciplines, from shamanism and the occult tarot, to the esoteric and spiritualism. It includes volumes across the disciplines of religion, covering new religious movements, spiritualism, ritual and magic practices. The three books that comprise this set include investigations into the evolution of occultism, as well as the history and practices of the occult as a religious movement. This collection brings back into print insightful and detailed books and will be a must-have resource for academics and students, not only of religion and anthropology, but also of history and psychology.

This book chronicles individual perspectives and specific iterations of Muslim community, practice, and experience in the Himalayan region to bring into scholarly conversation the presence of varying Muslim cultures in the Himalaya. The Himalaya provide a site of both geographic and cultural crossroads, where Muslim community is simultaneously constituted at multiple social levels, and to that end the essays in this book document a wide range of local, national, and global interests while maintaining a focus on individual perspectives, moments in time, and localized experiences. It presents research that contributes to a broadly conceived notion of the Himalaya that enriches readers' understandings of both the region and concepts of Muslim community and highlights the interconnections between multiple experiences of Muslim community at local levels. Drawing attention to the cultural, social, artistic, and political diversity of the Himalaya beyond the better understood and frequently documented religio-cultural expressions of the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Anthropology, Geography, History, Religious Atudies, Asian Studies, and Islamic Studies.

Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing Enhancement (MBWE) integrates Mindfulness and Wellbeing to realize human flourishing and the attainment of happiness. This 9-session program, conducted over 8 weeks, enhances wellbeing, happiness and quality of life through self-understanding and self-awareness. The first part of the book is devoted to presenting mindfulness, wellbeing, the happiness paradigm and the curriculum of the Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing Enhancement (MBWE) program. It presents the foundations of mindfulness-based programs, and how mindfulness intersects with wellbeing. The authors argue, with the support of evidence, that mindfulness is well placed to promote human flourishing rather than limiting its relevance to stress reduction and preventing depression relapse. Several chapters are devoted to presenting the MBWE program comprehensively with weekly agendas, homework, handouts, facilitation guides and practice scripts. The second part of the book presents the evidence base of mindfulness, cultural adaptations for different populations, the therapeutic effectiveness of group learning inherent in Mindfulness-Based Programs and the often-untold history of mindfulness. The authors present the often-neglected Asian roots of Mindfulness and justify how secular Mindfulness, as taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is influenced by multiple wisdom traditions as opposed to it being a solely Buddhist practice. This book serves as a hands-on resource for trained mindfulness teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers, practitioners, educators, coaches, and consultants. It is also suitable for anyone who is interested in the appreciation of mindfulness and human flourishing.

Offers a comprehensive view of the emerging fields of secular-scientific mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Teaching and Learning (MBTL) for professionals for use in a range of educational and clinical settings, including preK-12, higher education, adult and community education, social work, workplace education, medicine, psychology, and counselling. Provides intellectual depth, including addressing key critiques, while offering constructive support to practitioners and professionals in the full spectrum of skills and competencies required of secular-scientific mindfulness specialists, including an up-to-date competency framework. Presents a multi-disciplinary approach to secular-scientific mindfulness and its practices, with implications for teacher preparation and continuing education for a range of professions. These multi-disciplinary perspectives provide a fulsome view of mindfulness as it is unfolding in modern contexts, including the continuing dialogue with traditional Buddhist and classical Western philosophical sources; empirical perspectives from psychology and cognitive science, and practice-oriented scholarship from education, medicine, and social work.

Living Folk Religions presents cutting-edge contributions from a range of disciplines to examine folk religions across cultures. This collection embraces the non-elite and non-sanctioned, the oral, fluid, accessible, evolving religion of people (volk) on-the-ground. Split into five sections, this book covers: What is Folk Religion? Spirit Beings and Deities Performance and Ritual Praxis Possession and Exorcism Health, Healing, and Lifestyle Topics include demons and ambivalent gods, tree and nature spirits, revolutionary renunciates, oral lore, possession and exorcism, divination, midwestern American spiritualism, festivals, queer sexuality among ritual specialists, the dead returned, vernacular religions, diaspora adaptations, esoteric influences underlying public cultures, UFOs, music and sound experiences, death rituals, and body and wellness cultures. Living Folk Religions is a must-read for those studying Comparative Religions, World Religions, and Religious Studies, and it will interest specialists and general readers, particularly enthusiastic readers of Anthropology, Folklore and Folk Studies, Global Studies, and Sociology.

The Prayers of the Faithful conclude the Liturgy of the Word. They have a variety of functions, including the opportunity to revisit the principal themes of the readings and the preaching. These particular Prayers of the Faithful provide an opportunity to summarise those themes in a prayer format that alerts the people to what they have heard, reinforcing the teaching, and connecting its message with their lives as disciples of Jesus. The format of the prayers is simple. The first and second prayers relate to the first and second readings of the mass and the third and fourth prayers reflect some teaching from the gospel of the day. The author includes "sense lines" indicating a slight pause at the end of each line, helping the congregation understand the meaning of the prayer. Highlights: -entirely based on the Bible readings -consistency of style and format -ecumenical in tone and emphasis -inclusive language sensitive -Complements the liturgical seasons

Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing Enhancement (MBWE) integrates Mindfulness and Wellbeing to realize human flourishing and the attainment of happiness. This 9-session program, conducted over 8 weeks, enhances wellbeing, happiness and quality of life through self-understanding and self-awareness. The first part of the book is devoted to presenting mindfulness, wellbeing, the happiness paradigm and the curriculum of the Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing Enhancement (MBWE) program. It presents the foundations of mindfulness-based programs, and how mindfulness intersects with wellbeing. The authors argue, with the support of evidence, that mindfulness is well placed to promote human flourishing rather than limiting its relevance to stress reduction and preventing depression relapse. Several chapters are devoted to presenting the MBWE program comprehensively with weekly agendas, homework, handouts, facilitation guides and practice scripts. The second part of the book presents the evidence base of mindfulness, cultural adaptations for different populations, the therapeutic effectiveness of group learning inherent in Mindfulness-Based Programs and the often-untold history of mindfulness. The authors present the often-neglected Asian roots of Mindfulness and justify how secular Mindfulness, as taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn, is influenced by multiple wisdom traditions as opposed to it being a solely Buddhist practice. This book serves as a hands-on resource for trained mindfulness teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers, practitioners, educators, coaches, and consultants. It is also suitable for anyone who is interested in the appreciation of mindfulness and human flourishing.

Examining the developments in the political and religious landscape of Western Europe between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, Power and Faith explores the origins of dominant nation Sates and religious institutions in the West emerged out of the fractured and fragmented post-Carolingian world. As a foundational text for those new to the period, the book offers a clear chronological framework for understanding and analysing the emerging polities of Western Europe and an examination of the influence of the Papacy and the Crusades across Christian life and culture. Mixed with careful consideration of major social and economic themes including urbanisation, rural revolution, and the role of women in politics, religion, and society, the book gives a uniquely comprehensive overview of political and religious developments in Western Europe during a neglected yet fundamentally significant period. The book is divided into six parts, part one sets out the scope and aims of the book and discusses the sources used. Parts two and six provide overviews of the political and religious states of affairs in Europe at the start and end of the period respectively. Framed by these sections, the book is divided into three chronologically-ordered parts each containing three chapters, the first offers a brief account of the main historiography of the period concerned, the second provides a thorough account and analysis of the main political developments across Europe during it and the third explores the main religious changes. Power and Faith is an essential introductory guide for students and researchers interested in politics, religion, and society in Western Europe during the middle ages.