This book provides a new sociological account of contemporary religious phenomena such as channelling, holistic healing, meditation and divination, which are usually classed as part of a New Age Movement. Drawing on his extensive ethnography carried out in the UK, alongside comparative studies in America and Europe, Matthew Wood criticises the view that such phenomena represent spirituality in which self-authority is paramount. Instead, he emphasises the role of social authority and the centrality of spirit possession, linking these to participants' class positions and experiences of secularisation. Informed by sociological and anthropological approaches to social power and practice, especially the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, Wood's study explores what he calls the nonformative regions of the religious field, and charts similarities and differences with pagan, spiritualist and Theosophical traditions.

"This is a new and scholarly study of William Michael Rossetti's seance diary, which is a fascinating first-hand source for the Rossetti brothers in the 1860s and offers a new perspective on the relationship between the Pre-Raphaelite circle and the spiritualist world." (Jan Marsh) "As quirky and unsettling as the table-turnings it documents, this meticulously edited and annotated seance diary features guest-appearances from the spirits of John Polidori, Elizabeth Siddal and Gabriele Rossetti, among many notable others. Essential reading for anyone interested in the Pre-Raphaelites, Spiritualism, and the Victorian paranormal." (Dinah Roe, Reader in Nineteenth Century Literature, Oxford Brookes University) William Michael Rossetti's seance diary is a remarkable document in both the history of Pre-Raphaelitism and nineteenth-century spiritualism. In this previously unpublished manuscript, Rossetti meticulously recorded twenty seances between 1865 and 1868. The original motive was the death, in 1862, of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth Siddal. He felt a profound sense of guilt about her and began these seances to reassure himself that she was happy in the afterlife. Messages came from many spirits within the Pre-Raphaelite circle and provide an unprecedented record of spiritualist activity in the late nineteenth century. Questions and answers fill the pages of the diary, many of them communicating uncannily accurate information or details that could be known only to the participants. This book also includes another unpublished document showing spiritualism in action. It comprises a long letter to Dante Gabriel Rossetti written in 1856 from the artist and spiritualist medium Anna Mary Howitt recounting her interactions with the spirit world and her (sometimes violent) experiences as she became aware of the extent of her psychic powers. Both sections of this book provide an original insight into the cult of spiritualism and throw considerable light on the interactions between members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and beyond.

This book argues that moral theology has yet to embrace the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council concerning the ways in which it is to be renewed. One of the reasons for this is the lack of consensus between theologians regarding the nature, content and uniqueness of Christian morality. After highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the so-called autonomy and faith ethic schools of thought, Mealey argues that there is little dividing them and that, in some instances, both schools are simply defending one aspect of a hermeneutical dialectic. In an attempt to move away from the divisions between proponents of the faith-ethic and autonomy positions, Mealey enlists the help of the hermeneutical theory of Paul Ricoeur. She argues that many of the disagreements arising from the Christian proprium debate can be overcome if scholars look to the possibilities opened up by Ricoeur's hermeneutics of interpretation. Mealey also argues that the uniqueness of Christian morality is more adequately explained in terms of a specific identity (self) that is constantly subject to change and revision in light of many, often conflicting, moral sources. She advocates a move away from attempts to explain the uniqueness of Christian morality in terms of one specific, unchanging context, motivation, norm, divine command or value. By embracing the possibilities opened up by Ricoeurian hermeneutics, Mealey explains how concepts such as revelation, tradition, orthodoxy and moral conscience may be understood in a hermeneutical way without being deemed sectarian or unorthodox.

Explores how bodies of knowledge developed, concerning folkloric beliefs, magic, sorcery, and witchcraft from the 12th -18th century which allows students to see how culture was exchanged across Europe leading up to the witch-trials of the 17th century and offers an explanation of why the witch-hunts and trials became so prevalent due to a strong belief in the existence of witchcraft in the popular conscious. The collection looks at a range of sources which crossed the religions, political and linguistic boundaries such as objects, legal documents, letters, art, literature, the oral tradition and pamphlets providing students with a range of case studies to deepen their understanding of the period and to inform their own research. Includes examples from across Europe from England to Italy, Norway to France and the Netherlands to Spain. Allowing students to see how these cultural exchanges crossed geographical boundaries to form a collective phenomenon.

Explores how bodies of knowledge developed, concerning folkloric beliefs, magic, sorcery, and witchcraft from the 12th -18th century which allows students to see how culture was exchanged across Europe leading up to the witch-trials of the 17th century and offers an explanation of why the witch-hunts and trials became so prevalent due to a strong belief in the existence of witchcraft in the popular conscious. The collection looks at a range of sources which crossed the religions, political and linguistic boundaries such as objects, legal documents, letters, art, literature, the oral tradition and pamphlets providing students with a range of case studies to deepen their understanding of the period and to inform their own research. Includes examples from across Europe from England to Italy, Norway to France and the Netherlands to Spain. Allowing students to see how these cultural exchanges crossed geographical boundaries to form a collective phenomenon.

Human Interaction with the Divine, the Sacred, and the Deceased brings together cutting-edge empirical and theoretical contributions from scholars in fields including psychology, theology, ethics, neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy, to examine how and why humans engage in, or even seek spiritual experiences and connection with the immaterial world. In this richly interdisciplinary volume, Plante and Schwartz recognize human interaction with the divine and departed as a cross-cultural and historical universal that continues to concern diverse disciplines. Accounting for variances in belief and human perception and use, the book is divided into four major sections: personal experience; theological consideration; medical, technological, and scientific considerations; and psychological considerations with chapters addressing phenomena including prayer, reincarnation, sensed presence, and divine revelations. Featuring scholars specializing in theology, psychology, medicine, neuroscience, and ethics, this book provides a thoughtful, compelling, evidence-based, and contemporary approach to gain a grounded perspective on current understandings of human interaction with the divine, the sacred, and the deceased. Of interest to believers, questioners, and unbelievers alike, this volume will be key reading for researchers, scholars, and academics engaged in the fields of religion and psychology, social psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and health psychology. Readers with a broader interest in spiritualism, religious and non-religious movements will also find the text of interest.

Does science argue against the existence of the human soul? Many scientists and scholars believe the whole is more than the sum of the parts. This book uses information and systems theory to describe the "more" that does not reduce to the parts. One sees this in the synapses"or apparently empty gaps between the neurons in one's brain"where informative relationships give rise to human mind, culture, and spirituality. Drawing upon the disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, general systems theory, pragmatic philosophy, and Christian theology, Mark Graves reinterprets the traditional doctrine of the soul as form of the body to frame contemporary scientific study of the human soul.

Utilizing contemporary scholarship on secularization, individualism, and consumer capitalism, this book explores religious movements founded in the West which are intentionally fictional: Discordianism, the Church of All Worlds, the Church of the SubGenius, and Jediism. Their continued appeal and success, principally in America but gaining wider audience through the 1980s and 1990s, is chiefly as a result of underground publishing and the internet. This book deals with immensely popular subject matter: Jediism developed from George Lucas' Star Wars films; the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, founded by 26-year-old student Bobby Henderson in 2005 as a protest against the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools; Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius which retain strong followings and participation rates among college students. The Church of All Worlds' focus on Gaia theology and environmental issues makes it a popular focus of attention. The continued success of these groups of Invented Religions provide a unique opportunity to explore the nature of late/post-modern religious forms, including the use of fiction as part of a bricolage for spirituality, identity-formation, and personal orientation.

Originally published in 1974, Ritual in Industrial Society is based on several years' research including interviews and observations into the importance of ritual in industrial society within modern Britain. The book addresses how identity and meaning for people of all occupations and social classes can be derived through rituals and provides an expansive and diverse examination of how rituals are used in society, including in birth, marriage and death. The book offers an examination into the use of symbolic action in the body to articulate experiences which words cannot adequately handle and suggests that this enables modern men and women to overcome the mind-body splits which characterise modern technological society. In addition to this, the book examines ritual as a tool for articulating and sharing religious experiences, a point often overlooked by more intellectual approaches to religion in sociology. In addition to this, the book covers an exploration into ritual in social groups and how this is used to develop a sense of belonging among members. The book will be of interest to sociologists as well as academics of religion and theology, social workers and psychotherapists.

Whilst accounting for the present-day popularity and relevance of Alan Watts' contributions to psychology, religion, arts, and humanities, this interdisciplinary collection grapples with the ongoing criticisms which surround Watts' life and work. Offering rich examination of as yet underexplored aspects of Watts' influence in 1960s counterculture, this volume offers unique application of Watts' thinking to contemporary issues and critically engages with controversies surrounding the commodification of Watts' ideas, his alleged misreading of Biblical texts, and his apparent distortion of Asian religions and spirituality. Featuring a broad range of international contributors and bringing Watts' ideas squarely into the contemporary context, the text provides a comprehensive, yet nuanced exploration of Watts' thinking on psychotherapy, Buddhism, language, music, and sexuality. This text will benefit researchers, doctoral students, and academics in the fields of psychotherapy, phenomenology, and the philosophy of psychology more broadly. Those interested in Jungian psychotherapy, spirituality, and the self and social identity will also enjoy this volume.

This book examines the relationship between transcendence and immanence within Christian mystical and apophatic writings. Original essays from a range of leading, established, and emerging scholars in the field focus on the roles of language, signs, and images, and consider how mystical theology might contribute to contemporary reflection on the Word incarnate. This collection of essays re-examines works from such canonical figures as Eckhart, Augustine, Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicolas of Cusa, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, along with the philosophical thought of Iris Murdoch, Jacques Lacan, and Martin Heidegger, and the contemporary phenomena of the Emerging Church. Presenting new readings of key ideas in mystical theology, and renewed engagement with the visionary and the everyday, the therapeutic and the transformative, these essays question how we might think about what may lie between transcendence and immanence.

Originally published in 1982 The Awakening Earth explores the idea of the Earth as a collective, self-regulatory living organism, and considers in this context, the function of the human race. The book provides an exploration of humanity's potential and explores the possibility of mankind's evolutionary future. Drawing on the work of physicists, psychologists, philosophers and mystics, the book argues that humanity is on the verge of another evolutionary leap and explores evolution in the context of spiritual growth, arguing that widespread inner awakenings could lead to a more analogous society, functioning as a single social super-organism, much in the way cells in a body function as a biological organism.

With its promise of personal improvement, physical well-being and spiritual enrichment, yoga is enjoying a resurgence in popularity at the turn of the third millennium. To unravel the mystery of the discipline, its philosophies and relevance in contemporary life, the original text of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali must be explored. This book offers the first accessible translation and commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. An introductory section examines the multidimensional aspects of yoga as philosophy, psychology, science, and religion, as well as exploring popular versions of yoga in the West. The core of the book offers a new translation of the entire text of the Yoga Sutras, in a language that is clear and comprehensible to students. Commentaries are presented to highlight the meaning of various statements (sutras) and key themes are outlined via sectional summaries. A full glossary of key words and names is also provided. Concluding chapters look at yoga in contemporary life, revealing the popularity of yoga in the 21st century through Star Wars, and exploring yoga's connection to health and science, contrasting yoga's holistic view of healing with that of the limited view of present day medical science. Sample physical, breathing and meditation exercises are provided. An Introduction to Yoga Philosophy offers a comprehensive introduction to the Yoga Sutras text of Patanjali to all students and interested readers of Indian philosophy and religion, world religions, east-west psychology, and mysticism.

Goddess as Nature makes a significant contribution to elucidating the meaning of a female and feminist deity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Bridging the gap between the emergent religious discourse of thealogy - discourse about the Goddess - and a range of analytical concerns in the philosophy of religion, the author argues that thealogy is not as incoherent as many of its critics claim. By developing a close reading of the reality-claims embedded within a range of thealogical texts, one can discern an ecological and pantheistic concept of deity and reality that is metaphysically novel and in need of constructive philosophical, thealogical and scholarly engagement. Philosophical thealogy is, in an age concerned with re-conceiving nature in terms of agency, chaos, complexity, ecological networks and organicism, both an active possibility and a remarkably valuable academic, feminist and religious endeavour.

'Mystical theology' has developed through a range of meanings, from the hidden dimensions of divine significance in the community's interpretation of its scriptures to the much later 'science' of the soul's ascent into communion with God. The thinkers and questions addressed in this book draws us into the heart of a complicated, beautiful, and often tantalisingly unfinished conversation, continuing over centuries and often brushing allusively into parallel concerns in other religions. Raising fundamental matters of epistemology, representation, metaphysics, and divine reality, contributors approach the mystical from postmodern, feminist, sociological and historical perspectives through thinkers such as Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, William James, Evelyn Underhill, Ernst Troeltsch, Rudolf Otto, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chretien. Medieval and early modern radical prophetic approaches are also explored. This book includes new essays by Sarah Apetrei, Tina Beattie, Raphel Cadenhead, Oliver Davies, Philip Endean, Brian FitzGerald, Ann Loades, George Pattison, Simon D. Podmore, Joel D.S. Rasmussen, and Johannes Zachhuber.

Originally published in 1978 Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America is an incredibly diverse and comprehensive bibliography on published works containing ethnographic data on, and analysis of, spirit possession and spirit mediumship in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and in some Afro-American communities in the Western Hemisphere. The sources on Western Afro-American communities were chosen to shed light on the African continent and the Americas. The bibliography, while not exhaustive, provides extensive research on the area of research in spiritualism in Africa and Afro-America. The bibliography also provides unique sources on spirit cults, ritual or ethnic groups and will be of especial interest to researchers. Although published in the late 70s, this book will still provide an incredibly useful research tool for academics in the area of religion, with a focus on spiritualism and non-western religions.

Originally published in 1992, Channeling is a comprehensive bibliography on the subject of channeling. The book defines channeling as any message received or conveyed from transcendent entities and covers material on the history of channeling, those that have claimed to transcend death, contact with UFOs and contemporary channeling groups. The book acts as a research guide and seeks to outline the historical roots of channeling, explaining its major teachings and considers its significance as a spiritual movement. It provides sources from books, booklets, articles, and ephemeral material and offers a comprehensive list of both primary and secondary materials related to channeling, the bibliography takes the most diverse and useful sources of the time. This volume although published almost 30 years ago, still provides a unique and insightful collection for academics of religion, in particular those researching spiritualism and the occult.

Originally published as an English translation in 1981, The Middle English Mystics is a crucial contribution to the study of the literature of English mysticism. This book surveys and analyses the language of metaphor in the writings of such mystics as Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich, and in such anonymous works as The Cloud of Unknowing and the Ancrene Wisse. The main emphasis of this comparative and stylistic study is not theological but rather the means by which theological concepts are communicated through language. The book sets the English mystics in perspective by establishing their place in the European mystical movement of the Middle Ages. It shows how intricate the relationship between English, and continental mysticism really is. The book suggests that there is clear links between English and German female mysticism, yet the mysticism is in the main due not so much to specific influences as to the common background of Christian theology and mysticism.

Spirit Possession and Communication in Religious and Cultural Contexts explores the phenomenon of spirit possession, focusing on the religious and cultural functions it serves as a means of communication. Drawing on the multidisciplinary expertise of philosophers, anthropologists, historians, linguists, and scholars of religion and the Bible, the volume investigates the ways that spirit possession narratives, events, and rituals are often interwoven around communicative acts, both between spiritual and earthly realms and between members of a community. This book offers fresh insight into the enduring cultural and religious significance of spirit possession. It will be an important resource for scholars from a diverse range of disciplines, including religion, anthropology, history, linguistics, and philosophy.

This book brings together the historically separate domains of mental health and spiritual awareness in a holistic framework called InnerView Guidance. Building on strength-based and solution-oriented approaches to therapy, the InnerView model offers a unique psychospiritual approach which can be applied in any of the helping professions. InnerView recognizes the individual's need for internal cohesion between psychological growth and spiritual development. It is a principle-driven paradigm that foregrounds 'soul work' as a central evolutionary task. The book presents the core concepts and methodology involved in the alignment of ego with soul. Chapters explain the theoretical roots of the model, explore practical applications in therapeutic settings, and introduce InnerView as a rich synergy of psychotherapy and spiritual guidance. Taking an original and cutting-edge approach, this valuable text will be essential reading for scholars and students, as well as practitioners in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, life coaching, social work, and spiritual care.