After Spirituality: Studies in Mystical Traditions is the first volume in a new series of the same name. The book is devoted to the comparative study of contemporary mysticism, bringing together papers presented as part of the 2008-2009 research group on the sociology of contemporary Jewish mysticism in comparative perspective, convened at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. Chapters written by leading scholars of Jewish, Buddhist and Christian Mysticism address the dramatic global proliferation and transformation of mystical traditions in recent decades. The volume seeks to establish the study of contemporary mysticism on a sound scholarly basis, employing the analytical tools of the social sciences, and using comparative methods in order to gain global perspective. This important volume will be suited for courses on contemporary or classical mysticism, comparative religion, sociology and anthropology of contemporary culture, psychology of religion, Jewish studies and Buddhist studies and social theory.

Move closer to God one day at a time by reading the Psalms and practicing prayer in ways you may not have imagined before. This is a prayer book for every day of the year for people who don't usually think about using a prayer book. Drawing on a wide variety of resources—lives of saints and sages from every age, psalms, guides for personal reflection and suggestions for practice—Rev. Larry J. Peacock offers helpful guidance for anyone hungry for a richer prayer life. Each day's reading has four parts: Remember a notable person of faith or a significant event Read a psalm or another scripture passage Ponder that day's scripture or person of faith Practice a variety of ways to pray, including prayer through play, music and physical movement This new edition features the addition of ancient and modern sages from inside and outside the Christian tradition as well as updated resources for deepening your spiritual life throughout the year.

Newly revised and updated, the definitive guide to planning a Jewish wedding, written by bestselling novelist Anita Diamant-author of The Red Tent and The Boston Girl-and one of the most respected writers of guides to contemporary Jewish life. This complete, easy-to-use guide explains everything you need to know to plan your own Jewish wedding in today's ever-changing world where the very definition of what constitutes a Jewish wedding is up for discussion. With enthusiasm and flair, Anita Diamant provides choices for every stage of a wedding-including celebrations before and after the ceremony itself-providing both traditional and contemporary options. She explains the Jewish tradition of love and marriage with references drawn from Biblical, Talmudic, and mystical texts and stories. She guides you step by step through planning the ceremony and the party that follows-from finding a rabbi and wording the invitation to organizing a processional and hiring a caterer. Samples of wedding invitations and ketubot (marriage contracts) are provided for inspiration and guidance, as well as poems that can be incorporated into the wedding ceremony or party and a variety of translations of traditional texts. "There is no such thing as a generic Jewish wedding," writes Anita Diamant, "no matter what the rabbi tells you, no matter what the caterer tells you, no matter what your mother tells you." Complete, authoritative, and indispensable, The Jewish Wedding Now provides personalized options-some new, some old-to create a wedding that combines spiritual meaning and joyous celebration and reflects your individual values and beliefs.

Salvific space is one of the central ideas in the Hindu traditions of pilgrimage, and concerns the ability of space, especially sites associated with bodies of water such as rivers and lakes, to grant salvific rewards. Focusing on religious, historical and sociological questions about the phenomenon, this book investigates the narratives, rituals, history and structures of salvific space, and looks at how it became a central feature of Hinduism. Arguing that salvific power of place became a major dimension of Hinduism through a development in several stages, the book analyses the historical process of how salvific space and pilgrimage in the Hindu tradition developed. It discusses how the traditions of salvific space exemplify the decentred polycentrism that defines Hinduism. The book uses original data from field research, as well as drawing on main textual sources such as Mahabharata, the Puranas, the medieval digests on pilgrimage places (tirthas), and a number of Sthalapuranas and Mahatmyas praising the salvific power of the place. By looking at some of the contradictions in and challenges to the tradition of Hindu salvific space in history and in contemporary India, the book is a useful study on Hinduism and South Asian Studies.

Members of many religions live alongside one another in sprawling urban centers and isolated rural communities, and conflict and misunderstanding among religions are widespread. From a Christian and Anglican perspective, this book searchingly examines the nature of such encounters and explores the meaning of religious dialogue and terms like conversion, syncretism, salvation, and pluralism. Tightly focused historical chapters discuss expanding twentieth- and twenty-first-century Catholic and Protestant views about other religions and conclude with a fresh interpretation of the formative Asian contribution to contemporary interfaith encounters. Three established, successful examples of on-the-ground religious interaction are also presented, including the work of Muslim leader Eboo Patel in Chicago, Episcopal Bishop William E. Swing in San Francisco, and Anglican Bishop Tim Stevens in Leicester. Ultimately, interfaith religious dialogue benefits from the prayerful use of visual symbols in addition to written commentaries. Several important, innovative Anglican figures are considered, including Kenneth Cragg, Alan Race, David F. Ford, Keith Ward, Desmond Tutu, Ian S. Markham, and Rowan Williams. The Anglican document "Generous Love" (1998) is presented as a wider, inclusive discussion of possibilities for interfaith dialogue. The author concludes by reflecting on the importance of the old hymn, "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy" in the evolution of his own views and as a foundational statement welcoming the interfaith future. This book is a solid, lively, and lucid introduction of a volatile issue rippling its way through the contemporary Anglican Communion.

By practicing different types of meditation, teachers, students, or employees can gain personal strength and character. Miller describes the techniques of meditation taught in the great world religions and shows how they can be adapted to student and professional life. He describes the lives of five great contemplatives--Buddha, St. Teresa, Merton, Gandhi, and Emerson--and relates their spiritual practices, doubts and tests to the individual growth of ordinary students and citizens.

The reader is taken on a journey to Dolpo, one of Nepal's remotest Tibetan enclaves with a large community that follow the Bon religion. The present ethnography regards the landscape of Dolpo as the temporary result of an ongoing cumulative cultural process that emerges from the interaction of the natural environment and the communities that inhabit it and endow it with meaning. Pilgrimage provides the key to structuring the book, which is based on anthropological research and the study of the textual legacy. Along the extensive and richly illustrated Bon pilgrimages through Dolpo, the various strands of the written and the oral, the local and the general, the past and present are unrolled step by step and woven into a pattern that provides a first insight into the partial shift from a landscape inhabited by territorial deities to a Bon landscape. In addition, it presents an overview of the main protagonists who discovered the sacred sites, opened pilgrimages, founded monasteries and disseminated the crucial Bon teachings. A number of well-known Tibetan figures emerge among these players thanks to translations of biographies that have survived in rare and unpublished manuscripts. This book sheds light on how Bon religion emerged in Dolpo and has remained alive.

The movement was Hasidism, the cataclysmic force that wiped away the narrow intellectualism that had estranged the Jewish masses from their heritage. Hasidism focused upon fundamental Judaism, on sublimely simple principles that stressed the joy of life, love of man, and sincerity in word and deed, qualities that the common people potentially possessed in full measure. The hasidic link with the Land of Israel is strong indeed. Apart from the United States of America, Israel now has the largest number of hasidim, probably numbering more than two hundred thousand. They are known by the dress they wear, by the way they speak, and by the melodies they hum. This is the first work of its kind to study the history and development of the hasidic community in Israel, from its foundation in the eighteenth century to the present.

"Cultural Blending in Korean Death Rites" examines the cultural encounter of Confucianism and Christianity with particular reference to death rites in Korea. As its overarching interpretive framework, this book employs the idea of the 'total social phenomenon', a concept first introduced by the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1872-1950).
From the perspective of the total social phenomenon, this book utilizes a combination of theological, historical, sociological and anthropological approaches, and explores Korean death rites by classifying them into three categories: ritual "before" death (Bible copying), ritual "at" death (funerary rites), and ritual "after" death (ancestral ritual). It focuses on Christian practices as they epitomize the complex interplay of Confucianism and Christianity. By drawing on a total social phenomenon approach to the empirical case of Korean death rites, Chang-Won Park contributes to the advancement of theory and method in religious studies.

The events surrounding the holidays molded the foundation of the Jews as a nation and are related to their continuity and survival as Jews throughout history. In The Jewish Holidays: A Journey through History, author Larry Domnitch contends that there is a cyclical nature to the events of Jewish history. He writes, "The events that make up the themes of the Jewish holidays did not occur in a vacuum but have recurred throughout history. The actual Israelite exodus from Egypt, or the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai as celebrated on Shavuot, may have occurred once, but in a sense the themes conveyed by those momentous events have been repeated over the centuries. This book attempts to give the reader an appreciation of the cyclical nature of Jewish history and a greater appreciation of the holidays and their relevance throughout Jewish history."

Bodh Gaya in the North Indian state of Bihar has long been recognized as the place where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. This book brings together the recent work of twelve scholars from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, art history, history, and religion to highlight their various findings and perspectives on different facets of Bodh Gaya s past and present.

Through an engaging and critical overview of the place of Buddha s enlightenment, the book discusses the dynamic and contested nature of this site, and looks at the tensions with the on-going efforts to define the place according to particular histories or identities. It addresses many aspects of Bodh Gaya, from speculation about why the Buddha chose to sit beneath a tree in Bodh Gaya, to the contemporary struggles over tourism development, education and non-government organizations, to bring to the foreground the site's longevity, reinvention and current complexity as a UNESCO World Heritage monument. The book is a useful contribution for students and scholars of Buddhism and South Asian Studies.

Scholars of classical history and literature have for more than a century accepted initiation' as a tool for understanding a variety of obscure rituals and myths, ranging from the ancient Greek wedding and adolescent haircutting rituals to initiatory motifs or structures in Greek myth, comedy and tragedy.
In this books an international group of experts including Gloria Ferrari, Fritz Graf and Bruce Lincoln, critique many of these past studies, and challenge strongly the tradition of privileging the concept of initiation as a tool for studying social performances and literary texts, in which changes in status or group membership occur in unusual ways. These new modes of research mark an important turning point in the modern study of the religion and myths of ancient Greece and Rome, making this a valuable collection across a number of classical subjects.