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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Occult studies > General
The supernatural has become extraordinarily popular in literature,
television, and film. Vampires, zombies, werewolves, witches, and
wizard have become staples of entertainment industries, and many of
these figures have received extensive critical attention. But one
figure has remained in the shadows - the female ghost. Inherently
liminal, often literally invisible, the female ghost has
nevertheless appeared in all genres. Subversive Spirits: The Female
Ghost in British and American Popular Culture brings this figure
into the light, exploring her cultural significance in a variety of
media from 1926 to 2014. Robin Roberts argues that the female ghost
is well worth studying for what she can tell us about feminine
subjectivity in cultural contexts. Subversive Spirits examines
appearances of the female ghost in heritage sites, theater,
Hollywood film, literature, and television in the United States and
the United Kingdom. What holds these disparate female ghosts
together is their uncanny ability to disrupt, illuminate, and
challenge gendered assumptions. As with other supernatural figures,
the female ghost changes over time, especially responding to
changes in gender roles. Roberts's analysis begins with comedic
female ghosts in literature and film and moves into horror by
examining the successful play The Woman in Black and the legend of
the weeping woman, La Llorona. Roberts then situates the canonical
works of Maxine Hong Kingston and Toni Morrison in the tradition of
the female ghost to explore how the ghost is used to portray the
struggle and pain of women of color. Roberts further analyzes
heritage sites that use the female ghost as the friendly and
inviting narrator for tourists. The book concludes with a
comparison of the British and American versions of the television
hit Being Human, where the female ghost expands her influence to
become a mother and savior to all humanity.
" P.D. Ouspensky s] yearning for a transcendent, timeless
reality one that cancels out physical disintegration and death
figures into science at some fundamental level.
Einstein found solace in his theory of relativity, which
suggested to him that events are ever-present in the space-time
continuum. When his friend Michele Besso passed on shortly before
his own death, he wrote: 'For us believing physicists the
distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion,
even if a stubborn one.'" from Magic, Mystery, and Science
The triumph of science would appear to have routed all other
explanations of reality. No longer does astrology or alchemy or
magic have the power to explain the world to us. Yet at one time
each of these systems of belief, like religion, helped shed light
on what was dark to our understanding. Nor have the occult arts
disappeared. We humans have a need for mystery and a sense of the
infinite.
Magic, Mystery, and Science presents the occult as a "third
stream" of belief, as important to the shaping of Western
civilization as Greek rationalism or Judeo-Christianity. The occult
seeks explanations in a world that is living and intelligent quite
unlike the one supposed by science. By taking these beliefs
seriously, while keeping an eye on science, this book aims to
capture some of the power of the occult. Readers will discover that
the occult has a long history that reaches back to Babylonia and
ancient Egypt. It proceeds alongside, and frequently mingles with,
religion and science. From the Egyptian Book of the Dead to New Age
beliefs, from Plato to Adolf Hitler, occult ways of knowing have
been used and hideously abused to explain a world that still tempts
us with the knowledge of its dark secrets."
Telepathy, thought transference, unconscious communication. While
some important early psychological theorists such as William James,
Frederic W. H. Myers and Sigmund Freud all agreed that the
phenomenon exists, their theoretical approaches to it were very
different. James's and Myers's interpretations of and experimental
investigations into telepathy or thought transference were an
inextricable part of their psychical researches. Freud's insistence
on the reality of thought transference had nothing to do with
psychical research or paranormal phenomena, which he largely
repudiated. Thought transference for Freud was located in a theory
of the unconscious that was radically different from the subliminal
mind embraced by James and Myers. Today thought transference is
most commonly described as unconscious communication but was
largely ignored by subsequent generations of psychoanalysts until
most recently. Nonetheless, the recognition of unconscious
communication has persisted as a subterranean, quasi-spiritual
presence in psychoanalysis to this day. As psychoanalysis becomes
more interested in unconscious communication and develops theories
of loosely boundaried subjectivities that open up to transcendent
dimensions of reality, it begins to assume the features of a
religious psychology. Thus, a fuller understanding of how
unconscious communication resonates with mystical overtones may be
more deeply clarified, articulated and elaborated in contemporary
psychoanalysis in an explicit dialogue with psychoanalytically
literate scholars of religion. In Legacies of the Occult Marsha
Aileen Hewitt argues that some of the leading theorists of
unconscious communication represent a 'mystical turn' that is
infused with both a spirituality and a revitalized interest in
paranormal experience that is far closer to James and Myers than to
Freud.
The untold account of the countless Americans who believe in, or
personally experience, paranormal phenomena such as ghosts,
Bigfoot, UFOs and psychics Given the popularity of television shows
such as Finding Bigfoot, Ghost Hunters, Supernatural, and American
Horror Story, there seems to be an insatiable public hunger for
mystical happenings. But who believes in the paranormal? Based on
extensive research and their own unique personal experiences,
Christopher Bader, Joseph Baker and Carson Mencken reveal that a
significant number of Americans hold these beliefs, and that for
better or worse, we undoubtedly live in a paranormal America.
Readers will join the authors as they participate in psychic and
palm readings, and have their auras photographed, join a Bigfoot
hunt, follow a group of celebrity ghost hunters as they investigate
claims of a haunted classroom, and visit a support group for alien
abductees. The second edition includes new and updated research
based on findings from the Baylor Religion survey regarding
America's relationship with the paranormal. Drawing on these
diverse and compelling sources of data, the book offers an engaging
account of the social, personal, and statistical stories of
American paranormal beliefs and experiences. It examines topics
such as the popularity of paranormal beliefs in the United States,
the ways in which these beliefs relate to each other, whether
paranormal beliefs will give rise to a new religion, and how
believers in the paranormal differ from "average" Americans.
Brimming with fascinating anecdotes and provocative new findings,
Paranormal America offers an entertaining yet authoritative
examination of a growing segment of American religious culture.
Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as
pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible.
Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events
beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in
the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J.
Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred
and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of
Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical
study of religion.
Kripal grounds his study in the work of four major figures in the
history of paranormal research: psychical researcher Frederic
Myers; writer and humorist Charles Fort; astronomer, computer
scientist, and ufologist Jacques Vallee; and philosopher and
sociologist Bertrand Meheust. Through incisive analyses of these
thinkers, Kripal ushers the reader into a beguiling world somewhere
between fact, fiction, and fraud. The cultural history of
telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the
occult dimensions of science fiction; cold war psychic espionage;
galactic colonialism; and the intimate relationship between
consciousness and culture all come together in "Authors of the
Impossible," a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal
bridges the sacred and the scientific.
The Ouija board jury incident of 1994 is one of the most
disconcerting in English legal history, possibly (says the author)
'the nadir of reported juror misbehaviour in the 20th-century'.
But, as Professor Jeremy Gans shows, in an era of soundbites it has
been distorted by the media whilst even eminent lawyers have
sometimes got the story wrong. In this first full-length treatment
he emphasises the known facts, the constitutional dilemma of
investigating even bizarre jury misbehaviour and how the trial
involved one of the most serious murder cases of the decade in
which two people were shot in cold blood. Stephen Young's
conviction after a re-trial is still claimed to be a miscarriage of
justice by some people, as to which Gans puts forward his own
ingenious solution. But quite apart from analysing the facts of R v
Young, this book is a tour de force on jury misbehaviour in which
the author also examines the implications for example of winks and
nods, research by jurors, speaking or listening out of turn, going
to sleep during the hearing or falling in love with one of the
advocates. Amusing at first sight, such events involve deep
questions of law, practice and democratic involvement in the
Criminal Justice process. Far from being a mere anecdote, the case
of the Ouija board jurors, the misconceptions about it and the
issues it leads to deserve close study by anyone who is even
remotely interested in jury trial. The first full length treatment
of an iconic case. Dispels the myths that have built-up around it.
Looks at other instances of jury misbehaviour. Shows how the courts
and Parliament have wrestled with problems of this kind. A
first-rate analysis of a baffling double murder.
Bettina E. Schmidt explores experiences usually labelled as spirit
possession, a highly contested and challenged term, using extensive
ethnographic research conducted in Sao Paulo, the largest city in
Brazil and home to a range of religions which practice spirit
possession. The book is enriched by excerpts from interviews with
people about their experiences. It focuses on spirit possession in
Afro-Brazilian religions and spiritism, as well as discussing the
notion of exorcism in Charismatic Christian communities. Spirits
and Trance in Brazil: An Anthropology of Religious Experience is
divided into three sections which present the three main areas in
the study of spirit possession. The first section looks at the
social dimension of spirit possession, in particular gender roles
associated with spirit possession in Brazil and racial
stratification of the communities. It shows how gender roles and
racial composition have adapted alongside changes in society in the
last 100 years. The second section focuses on the way people
interpret their practice. It shows that the interpretations of this
practice depend on the human relationship to the possessing
entities. The third section explores a relatively new field of
research, the Western discourse of mind/body dualism and the wide
field of cognition and embodiment. All sections together confirm
the significance of discussing spirit possession within a wider
framework that embraces physical elements as well as cultural and
social ones. Bringing together sociological, anthropological,
phenomenological and religious studies approaches, this book offers
a new perspective on the study of spirit possession.
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