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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Syncretist & eclectic religions & belief systems > General
It's easier than you may think to make intelligent replies to
skeptics - with a little training. Answering Skeptics covers all
the major objections in chapters that are both compact and
compelling, with helpful summaries. If you find yourself reaching
out only to lapsed Christians, your horizons are about to broaden.
Engage agnostics, atheists, and members of the world religions with
confidence.
In 1996, a revered Hawaiian elder befriended an American
anthropologist, and from their rare and intimate rapport, something
miraculous emerged. Through the words and teachings of the kahuna
wisdom-keeper Hale Makua, Dr. Hank Wesselman was gifted with an
enhanced perspective into the sacred knowledge of ancient Hawaii.
Before his passing, elder Makua encouraged Dr. Wesselman to convey
much of what had passed between them to the wider world, giving him
permission to share his spiritual knowledge. Now, with The Bowl of
Light, you are invited to share in the sacred wisdom of one of the
world's most powerful indigenous traditions, including:
- The Bowl of Light how we can restore
our natural divine radiance
- The three directives of the spiritual
warrior love with humility, live with reverence, and know with
self-discipline
- Rituals for communing with nature,
receiving wisdom from the spirit world, purifying our
consciousness, and more
- The Ancestral Grand Plan exploring the
path our ancestors set in motion millennia ago, and how the Plan is
playing out across the world today
"
In this title, Katherine Tingley appeals to the heart in simple,
direct language, emphasising the dignity of the individual and the
power within each person to shape his own character and life. To
her, theosophy is a practical and inspirational philosophy for
daily living. This book is compiled from talks and writings on
theosophy and its applicability to living the mystic life, to
education, prison reform, and the problems of society and human
relationships. Tingley's objective throughout the varied activities
she undertook was to make theosophy 'immensely serviceable' to all.
This collection explores the role of innovation in understanding
the history of esotericism. It illustrates how innovation is a
mechanism of negotiation whereby an idea is either produced
against, or adapted from, an older set of concepts in order to
respond to a present context. Featuring contributions from
distinguished scholars of esotericism, it covers many different
fields and themes including magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism,
Theosophy, Tarot, apocalypticism and eschatology, Mesmerism,
occultism, prophecy, and mysticism.
Takes a novel approach by using the presence of living martyrs in
the historical record to challenge the centrality of death to
martyrdom.
Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal explores
the history of mental health in Senegal, and how psychological
difficulties were expressed in the terms of spiritualism, magic,
witchcraft, spirit possession, and ancestor worship. Focused on the
effervescent and fruitful early post-colonial years at the Fann
Hospital, situated at the famed University of Dakar, Cheikh Anta
Diop, this book reveals provocative treatment innovations via case
studies of individuals struggling for health and healing, and thus
operates as a suspension bridge between scholarship on witchcraft
and magic on the one side and the history psychiatry and
psychoanalysis on the other. Through these case studies, this book
creates a new route of exchange for healing knowledge for a broad
array of West African spiritual troubles, mental illness, magic,
soul cannibalism, witchcraft, spirit possession, and psychosis.
This is a book of encouraging insights pertinent to our times and
needs. It covers hundreds of subjects relating to today's important
issues, making this a book every student will treasure. It deals
with such timely topics as: Where are the Sages and Seers, Shifting
our Centre of Consciousness, Altruism, The Guardian Angel, Rules of
Conduct, and Misuse of the Free Will and Kindness. The short,
brilliant articles are gems of esoteric teaching that can be easily
assimilated.
This engaging and accessible textbook provides an introduction to
the study of ancient Jewish and Christian women in their
Hellenistic and Roman contexts. This is the first textbook
dedicated to introducing women's religious roles in Judaism and
Christianity in a way that is accessible to undergraduates from all
disciplines. The textbook provides brief, contextualising overviews
that then allow for deeper explorations of specific topics in
women's religion, including leadership, domestic ritual, women as
readers and writers of scripture, and as innovators in their
traditions. Using select examples from ancient sources, the
textbook provides teachers and students with the raw tools to begin
their own exploration of ancient religion. An introductory chapter
provides an outline of common hermeneutics or "lenses" through
which scholars approach the texts and artefacts of Judaism and
Christianity in antiquity. The textbook also features a glossary of
key terms, a list of further readings and discussion questions for
each topic, and activities for classroom use. In short, the book is
designed to be a complete, classroom-ready toolbox for teachers who
may have never taught this subject as well as for those already
familiar with it. Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient
Mediterranean is intended for use in undergraduate classrooms, its
target audience undergraduate students and their instructors,
although Masters students may also find the book useful. In
addition, the book is accessible and lively enough that religious
communities' study groups and interested laypersons could employ
the book for their own education.
It is often claimed that belief in God is based on faith, while
non-belief is grounded in rationality. This claim is inaccurate.
Moral philosopher Carlo Alvaro takes the reader through his
philosophical journey-a journey taken with the absolute absence of
faith. Through reasoning alone, and with an objective assessment of
the classical theistic arguments, Deism takes the reader from
disbelief to a particular version of deism. Deism discusses such
arguments as the Kalam Cosmological, the asymmetry against the
evil-god challenge, the anthropic principle, and the moral. Such
arguments lead to the undeniable conclusion that there exists a
timeless, space-less, wholly good, and infinitely powerful being
endowed with freedom of the will, who brought the universe into
existence a finite time ago. An objective appraisal of such
arguments leads to the conclusions that atheism is an irrational
philosophical position, that God does not interact with humans, at
least not during our physical existence on earth, and that God is
the best explanation of the objectivity of moral value and duty.
This book examines the shifting moral and spiritual lives of white
Afrikaners in South Africa after apartheid. The end of South
Africa's apartheid system of racial and spatial segregation sparked
wide-reaching social change as social, cultural, spatial and racial
boundaries were transgressed and transformed. This book
investigates how Afrikaners have mediated the country's shifting
boundaries within the realm of religion. For instance, one in every
three Afrikaners used these new freedoms to leave the traditional
Dutch Reformed Church (NGK), often for an entirely new religious
affiliation within the Pentecostal or Charismatic churches, or New
Religious Movements such as Wiccan neopaganism. Based on long-term
ethnographic fieldwork in the Western Cape area, the book
investigates what spiritual life after racial totalitarianism means
for the members of the ethnic group that constructed and maintained
that very totalitarianism. Ultimately, the book asks how these new
Afrikaner religious practices contribute to social solidarity and
integration in a persistently segregated society, and what they can
tell us about racial relations in the country today. This book will
be of interest to scholars of religious studies, social and
cultural anthropology and African studies.
This volume offers the most comprehensive survey available of the
philosophical background to the works of early Christian writers
and the development of early Christian doctrine. It examines how
the same philosophical questions were approached by Christian and
pagan thinkers; the philosophical element in Christian doctrines;
the interaction of particular philosophies with Christian thought;
and the constructive use of existing philosophies by all Christian
thinkers of late antiquity. While most studies of ancient Christian
writers and the development of early Christian doctrine make some
reference to the philosophic background, this is often of an
anecdotal character, and does not enable the reader to determine
whether the likenesses are deep or superficial, or how pervasively
one particular philosopher may have influenced Christian thought.
This volume is designed to provide not only a body of facts more
compendious than can be found elsewhere, but the contextual
information which will enable readers to judge or clarify the
statements that they encounter in works of more limited scope. With
contributions by an international group of experts in both
philosophy and Christian thought, this is an invaluable resource
for scholars of early Christianity, Late Antiquity and ancient
philosophy alike.
In this book, Henrik Lagerlund offers students, researchers, and
advanced general readers the first complete history of what is
perhaps the most famous of all philosophical problems: skepticism.
As the first of its kind, the book traces the influence of
philosophical skepticism from its roots in the Hellenistic schools
of Pyrrhonism and the Middle Academy up to its impact inside and
outside of philosophy today. Along the way, the book covers
skepticism during the Latin, Arabic, and Greek Middle Ages and
during the Renaissance before moving on to cover Descartes'
methodological skepticism and Pierre Bayle's super-skepticism in
the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, it deals with
Humean skepticism and the anti-skepticism of Reid, Shepherd, and
Kant, taking care to also include reflections on the connections
between idealism and skepticism (including skepticism in German
idealism after Kant). The book covers similar themes in a chapter
on G.E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then ends its historical
overview with a chapter on skepticism in contemporary philosophy.
In the final chapter, Lagerlund captures some of skepticism's
impact outside of philosophy, highlighting its relation to issues
like the replication crisis in science and knowledge resistance.
Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange
creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his
powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the
demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and
theologians at different times and places answered these questions
differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in
medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors
from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to
which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight
against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what
it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities
were constructed out of battles against them - or against those who
granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the
history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a
threatening figure - who made pacts with human allies and appeared
bodily - through to the comprehensive but controversial
demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European
witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential
reading for all students and researchers of the history of the
supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.
The Indigo Child concept is a contemporary New Age redefinition of
self. Indigo Children are described in their primary literature as
a spiritually, psychically, and genetically advanced generation.
Born from the early 1980s, the Indigo Children are thought to be
here to usher in a new golden age by changing the world's current
social paradigm. However, as they are "paradigm busters", they also
claim to find it difficult to fit into contemporary society. Indigo
Children recount difficult childhoods and school years, and the
concept has also been used by members of the community to
reinterpret conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder (ADHD) and autism. Cynics, however, can claim that the
Indigo Child concept is an example of "special snowflake" syndrome,
and parodies abound. This book is the fullest introduction to the
Indigo Child concept to date. Employing both on- and offline
ethnographic methods, Beth Singler objectively considers the place
of the Indigo Children in contemporary debates around religious
identity, self-creation, online participation, conspiracy theories,
race and culture, and definitions of the New Age movement.
Theology has a rich tradition across the African continent, and has
taken myriad directions since Christianity first arrived on its
shores. This handbook charts both historical developments and
contemporary issues in the formation and application of theologies
across the member countries of the African Union. Written by a
panel of expert international contributors, chapters firstly cover
the various methodologies needed to carry out such a survey.
Various theological movements and themes are then discussed, as
well as biblical and doctrinal issues pertinent to African
theology. Subjects addressed include: * Orality and theology *
Indigenous religions and theology * Patristics * Pentecostalism *
Liberation theology * Black theology * Social justice * Sexuality
and theology * Environmental theology * Christology * Eschatology *
The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament The Routledge Handbook of
African Theology is an authoritative and comprehensive survey of
the theological landscape of Africa. As such, it will be a hugely
useful volume to any scholar interested in African religious
dynamics, as well as academics of Theology or Biblical Studies in
an African context.
Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange
creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his
powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the
demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and
theologians at different times and places answered these questions
differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in
medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors
from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to
which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight
against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what
it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities
were constructed out of battles against them - or against those who
granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the
history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a
threatening figure - who made pacts with human allies and appeared
bodily - through to the comprehensive but controversial
demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European
witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential
reading for all students and researchers of the history of the
supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.
The Witchcraft Reader offers a wide range of historical
perspectives on the subject of witchcraft in a single, accessible
volume, exploring the enduring hold that it has on human
imagination. The witch trials of the late Middle Ages and the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have inspired a huge and
expanding scholarly literature, as well as an outpouring of popular
representations. This fully revised and enlarged third edition
brings together many of the best and most important works in the
field. It explores the origins of witchcraft prosecutions in
learned and popular culture, fears of an imaginary witch cult, the
role of religious division and ideas about the Devil, the gendering
of suspects, the making of confessions and the decline of witch
beliefs. An expanded final section explores the various "revivals"
and images of witchcraft that continue to flourish in contemporary
Western culture. Equipped with an extensive introduction that
foregrounds significant debates and themes in the study of
witchcraft, providing the extracts with a critical context, The
Witchcraft Reader is essential reading for anyone with an interest
in this fascinating subject.
There has been a dramatic increase in the percentage of the US
population that is not religious. However, there is, to date, very
little research on the social movement that is organizing to serve
the needs of and advocate for the nonreligious in the US. This is a
book about the rise and structure of organized secularism in the
United States. By organized secularism we mean the efforts of
nonreligious individuals to build institutions, networks, and
ultimately a movement that serves their interests in a
predominantly religious society. Researchers from various fields
address questions such as: What secularist organizations exist? Who
are the members of these organizations? What kinds of organizations
do they create? What functions do these organizations provide for
their members? How do the secularist organizations of today compare
to those of the past? And what is their likely impact on the future
of secularism? For anyone trying to understand the rise of the
nonreligious in the US, this book will provide valuable insights
into organized efforts to normalize their worldview and advocate
for their equal treatment in society.
Peter B. Clarke's in-depth account explores the innovative
character of new religious movements and new forms of spirituality
from a global vantage point. Ranging from North America and Europe
to Japan, Latin America, South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, it
is the perfect introduction to NRMs such as Falun Gong, Aum
Shirikyo, the Brahma Kumaris, the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood,
Sufism, the Engaged Buddhist and Engaged Hindi movements, Messianic
Judaism and Rastafarianism. Charting the cultural significance and
global impact of NRMs, he discusses the ways in which various
religious traditions are shaping, rather than displacing, each
other's understanding of notions such as transcendence and faith,
good and evil, of the meaning, purpose and function of religion,
and of religious belonging. He then examines the responses of
governments, churches, the media and general public to new
religious movements, as well as the reaction to older, increasingly
influential religions, such as Buddhism and Islam, in new
geographical and cultural contexts. Taking into account the degree
of continuity between old and new religions, each chapter contains
not only an account of the rise of the NRMs and new forms of
spirituality in a particular region, but also an overview of change
in the regions' mainstream religions.
The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts
analyzes a large corpus of early Christian texts and
Pseudepigraphic materials to understand how the authors of these
texts used, abused and silenced enslaved characters to articulate
their own social, political, and theological visions. The focus is
on excavating the texts "from below" or "against the grain" in
order to notice the slaves, and in so doing, to problematize and
(re)imagine the narratives. Noticing the slaves as literary
iterations means paying attention to broader theological,
ideological, and rhetorical aims of the texts within which enslaved
bodies are constructed. The analysis demonstrates that by silencing
slaves and using a rhetoric of violence, the authors of these texts
contributed to the construction of myths in which slaves functioned
as a useful trope to support the combined power of religion and
empire. Thus was created not only the perfect template for the rise
and development of a Christian discourse of slavery, but also a
rationale for subsequent violence exercised against slave bodies
within the Christian Empire. The study demonstrates the value of
using the tools and applying the insights of subaltern studies to
the study of the Pseudepigrapha and in early Christian texts. This
volume will be of interest not only to scholars of early
Christianity, but also to those working on the history of slavery
and subaltern studies in antiquity.
Using Spirituality in Psychotherapy: The Heart Led Approach to
Clinical Practice offers a means for therapists to integrate a
spiritual perspective into their clinical practice. The book
provides a valuable alternative to traditional forms of
psychotherapy by placing an emphasis on purpose and meaning.
Introducing a new spiritually-informed model, Heart Led
Psychotherapy (HLP), the book uses a BioPsychoSocialSpiritual
approach to treat psychological distress. When clients experience
challenges, trauma or attachment difficulties, this can create
blocks and restrictions which result in repeated patterns of
behaviours and subsequent psychological distress. Based on the
premise that everyone is on an individual life journey, HLP teaches
clients to become an observer, identifying the life lesson that
they are being asked to understand or experience. The model can be
used whether a client has spiritual beliefs or not, enabling them
to make new choices that are in keeping with their authentic
selves, and to live a more fulfilled and peaceful life. Illustrated
by case studies to highlight key points, and including a range of
practical resource exercises and strategies, this engaging book
will have wide appeal to therapists and clinicians from a variety
of backgrounds.
In studies of early Christian thought, 'philosophy' is often a
synonym for 'Platonism', or at most for 'Platonism and Stoicism'.
Nevertheless, it was Aristotle who, from the sixth century AD to
the Italian Renaissance, was the dominant Greek voice in Christian,
Muslim and Jewish philosophy. Aristotle and Early Christian Thought
is the first book in English to give a synoptic account of the slow
appropriation of Aristotelian thought in the Christian world from
the second to the sixth century. Concentrating on the great
theological topics - creation, the soul, the Trinity, and
Christology - it makes full use of modern scholarship on the
Peripatetic tradition after Aristotle, explaining the significance
of Neoplatonism as a mediator of Aristotelian logic. While
stressing the fidelity of Christian thinkers to biblical
presuppositions which were not shared by the Greek schools, it also
describes their attempts to overcome the pagan objections to
biblical teachings by a consistent use of Aristotelian principles,
and it follows their application of these principles to matters
which lay outside the purview of Aristotle himself. This volume
offers a valuable study not only for students of Christian theology
in its formative years, but also for anyone seeking an introduction
to the thought of Aristotle and its developments in Late Antiquity.
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