For roughly two thousand years, the veneration of sacred fossil ammonites, called Shaligrams, has been an important part of Hindu and Buddhist ritual practice throughout South Asia and among the global Diaspora. Originating from a single remote region of Himalayan Nepal, called Mustang, Shaligrams are all at once fossils, divine beings, and intimate kin with families and worshippers. Through their lives, movements, and materiality, Shaligrams then reveal fascinating new dimensions of religious practice, pilgrimage, and politics. But as social, environmental, and national conflicts in the politically-contentious region of Mustang continue to escalate, the geologic, mythic, and religious movements of Shaligrams have come to act as parallels to the mobility of people through both space and time. Shaligram mobility therefore traverses through multiple social worlds, multiple religions, and multiple nations revealing Shaligram practitioners as a distinct, alternative, community struggling for a place in a world on the edge.

En mystiker er en person som baserer sin forstaelse av virkeligheten kun pa sin egen erfaring. Kabbalah er en av de eldste mysterietradisjoner i vesten, og er et skattkammer, et speil og et veikart for dem som soker sannheten om seg selv, skapelsen og det Guddommelige. Det er en levende tradisjon av fortellinger og symboler, diktet for a sette mennesket i stand til a gjennomtrenge sjelens take og apenbare de hemmeligheter som er forvart i det aller helligste rom. Dette er den ensommes vei: for dem som ikke kan tro, men enten vet, eller ikke vet. Dette er de levendes vei: som aldri gir etter for verdens sorg, men soker sitt opphavs mysterier.

Menahem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994) was the seventh and seemingly last Rebbe of the Habad-Lubavitch dynasty. Marked by conflicting tendencies, Schneerson was a radical messianic visionary who promoted a conservative political agenda, a reclusive contemplative who built a hasidic sect into an international movement, and a man dedicated to the exposition of mysteries who nevertheless harbored many secrets. Schneerson astutely masked views that might be deemed heterodox by the canons of orthodoxy while engineering a fundamentalist ideology that could subvert traditional gender hierarchy, the halakhic distinction between permissible and forbidden, and the social-anthropological division between Jew and Gentile.

While most literature on the Rebbe focuses on whether or not he identified with the role of Messiah, Elliot R. Wolfson, a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and the phenomenology of religious experience, concentrates instead on Schneerson's apocalyptic sensibility and his promotion of a mystical consciousness that undermines all discrimination. For Schneerson, the ploy of secrecy is crucial to the dissemination of the messianic secret. To be enlightened messianically is to be delivered from all conceptual limitations, even the very notion of becoming emancipated from limitation. The ultimate liberation, or true and complete redemption, fuses the believer into an infinite essence beyond all duality, even the duality of being emancipated and not emancipated--an emancipation, in other words, that emancipates one from the bind of emancipation.

At its deepest level, Schneerson's eschatological orientation discerned that a spiritual master, if he be true, must dispose of the mask of mastery. Situating Habad's thought within the evolution of kabbalistic mysticism, the history of Western philosophy, and Mahayana Buddhism, Wolfson articulates Schneerson's rich theology and profound philosophy, concentrating on the nature of apophatic embodiment, semiotic materiality, hypernomian transvaluation, nondifferentiated alterity, and atemporal temporality.

Rowdy, ecstatic, and sometimes stern, these teaching stories and fables reveal new and very human properties in Rumi's vision. Included here are the notorious "Latin parts" that Reynold Nicholson felt were too unseemly to appear in English in his 1920s translation. For Rumi, anything that human beings do--however compulsive--affords a glimpse into the inner life.

Here are more than 40 fables or teaching stories that deal with love, laughter, death, betrayal, and the soul. The stories are exuberant, earthy, and bursting with vitality--much like a painting by Hieronymus Bosch or Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." The characters are guilty, lecherous, tricky, ribald, and finally possessors of opened souls.

Barks writes: "These teaching stories are a kind of scrimshaw--intricately carved, busy figures, confused and threatening, and weirdly funny.

This is an entertaining collection from one of the greatest spiritual poets of all time, rendered by his most popular translator.

Denne boken peker leseren mot en vei, som ikke er en vei, men heller en vei mellom veiene. Det er en fortelling som er blitt fortalt ved klokkens trettende time, fra en mental posisjon mellom sannhet og logn, virkelighet og drom, i et sjelelig sted som forener alle ting i et punkt uten sentrum eller utstrekning. Tradisjonen som denne boken henviser til, har en systematisk forskende tilnaerming til religionens mal, det vil si forlosning eller frelse. Denne tradisjonen tar utgangspunkt i Bibelens fortellinger om opphavstiden, om Guds natur, om hvordan vi havnet her, og hvordan man igjen skal kunne gjenerobre det tapte ved a stole pa egne krefter, beholde var uavhengighet og tro pa det vi erkjenner. Dette er veien som av mange er blitt kalt gnostisisme

The first readable and accurate translation of twenty of the most authoritative Hindu documents pertaining to ascetic ideals and the ascetic way of life, this text opens to students a major source for the study of the Hindu ascetical institutions and of the historical changes they underwent during a period of a thousand years or more. Beginning with an analysis of the historical context that gave rise to Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies, Patrick Olivelle moves on to elucidate the meaning of renunciation-the central institution of holiness in most Hindu traditions-and the function and significance of the various elements that constitute the rite of renunciation. The Samnyasa Upanisads will be an unparalleled source of information and insight for students of Hinduism and Indian asceticism, mysticism, and holiness.

The Shaykh Amad al-'Alawi (d. 1934) was one of the most famous Sufi saints of the last century with many followers both in the Middle East and in Europe. Dr Martin Ling's bestselling biography of the Shaykh, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, brought him to the attention of the English-reading public. The Qur'an and the Prophet in the Writings of the Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi presents for the first time in English all the collected works of the Shaykh on the two guiding principles of Islam. The Shaykh al-'Alawi had embarked on a full commentary on the Qur'an but only completed an introduction explaining his approach to Qur'anic exegesis and commentaries on three chapters. All these pieces are included here with an additional appendix of answers to questions that the Shaykh's disciples had put to him on the Qur'an. The Qur'anic commentaries are followed by a treatise on the meaning of the invocation of blessings on the Prophet. This extremely profound treatise delves into the spiritual nature of the Prophet explaining how he represents both the summit of spiritual attainment and the example for all those seeking enlightenment. Also included in the appendix are answers that the Shaykh gave his disciples on sayings of the Prophet. The Qur'an and the Prophet in the Writings of the Shaykh Ahmad al-'Alawi is a treasury of Sufi commentary by an author whose stunning interpretations and penetrating insights are rare, even among the most renowned of Sufi authors. Moreover, there is very little in English on Quranic exegesis, especially Sufi exegesis, and readers with an interest in Sufism, Islamic studies and spirituality in general will find much here that is unique.

Ibn al-'Arabi (d. 1240) was one of the towering figures of Islamic intellectual history, and among Sufis still bears the title of al-shaykh al-akbar, or "the greatest master." Ibn al-'Arabi and Islamic Intellectual Culture traces the history of the concept of "oneness of being" (wahdat al-wujud) in the school of Ibn al- 'Arabi, in order to explore the relationship between mysticism and philosophy in Islamic intellectual life. It examines how the conceptual language used by early mystical writers became increasingly engaged over time with the broader Islamic intellectual culture, eventually becoming integrated with the latter's common philosophical and theological vocabulary. It focuses on four successive generations of thinkers (Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Jandi, 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashani, and Dawud al-Qaysari), and examines how these "philosopher-mystics" refined and developed the ideas of Ibn al-'Arabi. Through a close analysis of texts, the book clearly traces the crystallization of an influential school of thought in Islamic history and its place in the broader intellectual culture. Offering an exploration of the development of Sufi expression and thought, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Islamic thought, philosophy, and mysticism.

What are the origins of Ottoman Islam in the 15th century? From what soil did it grow, and what nourished its development? This study follows the lives and ideas of the Yaz?c?o?lu brothers Mehmed Yaz?c?o?lu and Ahmed Bican, Sufis of the frontier city of Gelibolu and authors of the most popular religious writings in Ottoman Turkish.It places the Yaz?c?o?lus' durable religious vision within their dynamic historical moment on the contested Ottoman borderlands. Examining how these non-elite writers deployed their own intellectual resources, it considers how they approached the religious sciences of the wider Islamic world, and how they created a religious synthesis appropriate for their own community, the growing Turcophone Muslim population of the Balkans and Anatolia.

A guide to living by the great truths of Christianity--the simplest and most practical work of Teresa of Avila.

Die Geheimnisse der oberen und der unteren Welt (The Secrets of the Upper and the Lower World) is a substantial new collection of essays on magic in Islamic cultural history. Both comprehensive and innovative in its approach, this book offers fresh insights into an important yet still understudied area of Islamic intellectual history. The seventeen chapters deal with key aspects of Islamic magic, including its historical developments, geographical variants, and modern-day practices. The general introduction identifies and problematizes numerous sub-topics and key practitioners/theoreticians in the Arabo-Islamic context. This, along with terminological and bibliographical appendices, makes the volume an unparalleled reference work for both specialists and a broader readership. Contributors: Ursula Bsees, Johann Christoph Burgel, Susanne Enderwitz, Hans Daiber; Sebastian Gunther, Mahmoud Haggag, Maher Jarrar, Anke Joisten-Pruschke, Fabian Kas, Ulrich Marzolph, Christian Mauder, Tobias Nunlist, Khanna Omarkhali, Eva Orthmann, Bernd-Christian Otto, Dorothee Pielow, Lutz Richter-Bernburg, Johanna Schott & Johannes Thomann.

The twelfth century CE was a watershed moment for mysticism in the Muslim West. In al-Andalus, the pioneers of this mystical tradition, the Mu'tabirun or 'Contemplators', championed a synthesis between Muslim scriptural sources and Neoplatonic cosmology. Ibn Barrajan of Seville was most responsible for shaping this new intellectual approach, and is the focus of Yousef Casewit's book. Ibn Barrajan's extensive commentaries on the divine names and the Qur'an stress the significance of God's signs in nature, the Arabic bible as a means of interpreting the Qur'an, and the mystical crossing from the visible to the unseen. With an examination of the understudied writings of both Ibn Barrajan and his contemporaries, Ibn al-'Arif and Ibn Qasi, as well as the wider socio-political and scholarly context in al-Andalus, this book will appeal to researchers of the medieval Islamic world and the history of mysticism and Sufism in the Muslim West.

What is Sufism? Contemporary views vary tremendously, even among Sufis themselves. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture brings to light the religious frameworks that shape the views of Sufism's friends, adversaries, admirers, and detractors and, in the process, helps readers better understand the diversity of contemporary Sufism, the pressures and cultural openings to which it responds, and the many divergent opinions about contemporary Sufism's relationship to Islam. The three main themes: piety, politics, and popular culture are explored in relation to the Islamic and Western contexts that shape them, as well as to the historical conditions that frame contemporary debates. This book is split into three parts: * Sufism and anti-Sufism in contemporary contexts; * Contemporary Sufism in the West: Poetic influences and popular manifestations; * Gendering Sufism: Tradition and transformation. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the challenges of contemporary Sufism as well as its relationship to Islam, gender, and the West. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate students, teachers and lecturers can explore Sufism today.

In the sixteenth century, the famous kabbalist Isaac Luria transmitted a secret trove of highly complex mystical practices to a select groups of students. These meditations were designed to capitalize on sleep and death states in order to effectively split one's soul into multiple parts, and which, when properly performed, permitted the adept to free oneself from the cycle of rebirth. Through an in-depth analysis of these contemplative practices within the broader context of Lurianic literature, Zvi Ish-Shalom guides us on a penetrating scholarly journey into a realm of mystical teachings and practices never before available in English, illuminating a radically monistic vision of reality at the heart of Kabbalistic metaphysics and practice.

This sweeping study of mysticism by Jess Hollenback considers the writings and experiences of a broad range of traditional religious mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Black Elk, and Gopi Krishna. It also makes use of a new category of sources that more traditional scholars have almost entirely ignored, namely, the autobiographies and writings of contemporary clairvoyants, mediums, and out-of-body travelers. This study contributes to the current debate about the contextuality of mysticism by presenting evidence that not only are the mystic's interpretations of and responses to experiences culturally and historically conditioned, but historical context and cultural environment decisively shape both the perceptual and affective content of the mystic's experience as well.

Hollenback also explores the linkage between the mystic's practice of recollection and the onset of other unusual or supernormal manifestations such as photisms, the ability to see auras, telepathic sensitivity, clairvoyance, and out-of-body experiences. He demonstrates that these extraordinary phenomena can actually deepen our understanding of mysticism in unexpected ways.

A unique feature of this book is its in-depth analysis of "empowerment," an important phenomenon ignored by most scholars of mysticism. Empowerment is a peculiar enhancement of the imagination, thoughts, and desires that frequently accompanies mystical states of consciousness. Hollenback shows its cross-cultural persistence, its role in constructing the perceptual and existential environments within which the mystic dwells, and its linkage to the fundamental contextuality of mystical experience.

In this new collection, Gnostic gospels collide with the Oxford Happiness Test and Buddhist treatises on emptiness; Beasley talks extensively about his son; and both Schopenhauer’s philosophical nihilism and The Purpose Driven Life are brought to bear on the horrors of the Sandy Hook massacre. At once fascinating, disturbing, and humorous, this collection begins with a "shamanic healing" pamphlet offering insights into reuniting one's "soul parts" following "soul retrieval" and leaves no spiritual stone unturned delving into those rich concepts. Beasley ultimately uses strong Catholic ideology and philosophy to richly investigate, question, and challenge these ideas. This collection continues Beasley's postmodern spiritual meditations in the tradition of John Donne, George Herbert, Emily Dickinson, and T.S. Eliot. He is known as a foremost poet writing at the intersection of faith, science and poetry. Beasley is the recipient of the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series Award; the Colorado Prize for Poetry; the Ohio State University Press/Journal Award; three Pushcart Prizes; and fellowships from the NEA and the Artist Trust of Washington. Beasley's previous BOA book, Theophobia was named a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, a "Top Ten Best Books of 2012" by Image Journal, a "Notable Book of 2014" by Poetry Northwest.

The Armenian-born mystic, philosopher, and spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) is an enigmatic figure, the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation, but not easily fitting into any of the common categories of "esoteric," "occult," or "New Age." Scholars have for the most part passed over in silence the contemplative exercises presented in Gurdjieff's writings. Although Gurdjieff had intended them to be confidential, some of the most important exercises were published posthumously in 1950 and in 1975. Arguing that an understanding of these exercises is necessary to fully appreciate Gurdjieff's contribution to modern esotericism, Joseph Azize offers the first complete study of the exercises and their theoretical foundation. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also the development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could to some extent be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. Azize contends that Gurdjieff had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular and supra-denominational guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, however, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation.

Focusing on the Maijbhandari movement in Chittagong, south-eastern Bangladesh, which claims the status of the only Sufi order originated in Bengal and which has gained immense popularity in recent years, this book provides a comprehensive picture of an important aspect of contemporary Bengali Islam in the South Asian context. Expertise in South Asian languages and literatures is combined with ethnographic field work and theoretical formulations from a range of disciplines, including cultural anthropology, Islamic studies and religious studies. Analysing the Maijbhandaris tradition of Bengali spiritual songs, one of the largest popular song traditions in Bengal, the book presents an in-depth study of Bengali Sufi theology, hagiography and Maijbhandari esoteric songs, as well as a discussion of what Bengali Islam is. It is a useful contribution to South Asia Studies, as well as Islamic Studies.

The Kizilbash were at once key players in and the foremost victims of the Ottoman-Safavid conflict that defined the early modern Middle East. Today referred to as Alevis, they constitute the second largest faith community in modern Turkey, with smaller pockets of related groups in the Balkans. Yet several aspects of their history remain little understood or explored. This first comprehensive socio-political history of the Kizilbash/Alevi communities uses a recently surfaced corpus of sources generated within their milieu. It offers fresh answers to many questions concerning their origins and evolution from a revolutionary movement to an inward-looking religious order.

Le but de ce livre est de fournir une image vritable de la Kabbalah authentique. L'tude de la Kabbalah implique une bonne comprhension de son ide gnrale, aussi bien que de ses concepts. La Kabbalah nous explique, souvent allgoriquement, le dbut de la cration, les systmes dynamiques qui sont mis en place pour interagir avec l'homme, ainsi que ceux qui font la direction des mondes. Ces systmes nous font comprendre le but de nos actions, leurs interactions avec les dimensions suprieures, ainsi que les messages et significations cachs dans la Torah. Dans ce livre, le lecteur trouvera la plupart des concepts de base ainsi que d'autres plus avancs, afin d'tre sur le bon chemin pour vritablement comprendre la Kabbalah.