Self and Self-transformation in the History of Religions

Self and Self-transformation in the History of Religions
Author: David Dean Shulman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2002
Genre: Electronic books
ISBN: 0195148169

This book brings together scholars of a variety of the world's major civilizations to focus on the universal theme of inner transformation. The idea of the "self" is a cultural formation like any other, and models and conceptions of the inner world of the person vary widely from one civilization to another. Nonetheless, all the world's great religions insist on the need to transform this inner world. Such transformations, often ritually enacted, reveal the primary intuitions, drives, and conflicts active within the culture. The individual essays study dramatic examples of these processes in a wide range of cultures, including China, India, Tibet, Greece and Rome, Late Antiquity, Islam, Judaism, and medieval and early-modern Christian Europe.

Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions

Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions
Author: David Shulman Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2002-03-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199760845

This book brings together scholars of a variety of the world's major civilizations to focus on the universal theme of inner transformation. The idea of the "self" is a cultural formation like any other, and models and conceptions of the inner world of the person vary widely from one civilization to another. Nonetheless, all the world's great religions insist on the need to transform this inner world. Such transformations, often ritually enacted, reveal the primary intuitions, drives, and conflicts active within the culture. The individual essays study dramatic examples of these processes in a wide range of cultures, including China, India, Tibet, Greece and Rome, Late Antiquity, Islam, Judaism, and medieval and early-modern Christian Europe.

Self and Self-Transformations in the History of Religions

Self and Self-Transformations in the History of Religions
Author: David Shulman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2002-04-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195349334

This book brings together scholars of a variety of the world's major civilizations to focus on the universal theme of inner transformation. The idea of the "self" is a cultural formation like any other, and models and conceptions of the inner world of the person vary widely from one civilization to another. Nonetheless, all the world's great religions insist on the need to transform this inner world, however it is understood, in highly expressive and specific ways. Such transformations, often ritually enacted, reveal the primary intuitions, drives, and conflicts active within the culture. The individual essays--by such distinguished scholars as Wai-yee Li, Janet Gyatso, Wendy Doniger, Christiano Grottanelli, Charles Malamoud, Margalit Finkelberg, and Moshe Idel--study dramatic examples of these processes in a wide range of cultures, including China, India, Tibet, Greece and Rome, Late Antiquity, Islam, Judaism, and medieval and early-modern Christian Europe.

The Great Transformation

The Great Transformation
Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2009-02-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0307371433

From one of the world’s leading writers on religion and the highly acclaimed author of the bestselling A History of God, The Battle for God and The Spiral Staircase, comes a major new work: a chronicle of one of the most important intellectual revolutions in world history and its relevance to our own time. In one astonishing, short period – the ninth century BCE – the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity into the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China; Hinduism and Buddhism in India; monotheism in Israel; and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Historians call this the Axial Age because of its central importance to humanity’s spiritual development. Now, Karen Armstrong traces the rise and development of this transformative moment in history, examining the brilliant contributions to these traditions made by such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Ezekiel. Armstrong makes clear that despite some differences of emphasis, there was remarkable consensus among these religions and philosophies: each insisted on the primacy of compassion over hatred and violence. She illuminates what this “family” resemblance reveals about the religious impulse and quest of humankind. And she goes beyond spiritual archaeology, delving into the ways in which these Axial Age beliefs can present an instructive and thought-provoking challenge to the ways we think about and practice religion today. A revelation of humankind’s early shared imperatives, yearnings and inspired solutions – as salutary as it is fascinating. Excerpt from The Great Transformation: In our global world, we can no longer afford a parochial or exclusive vision. We must learn to live and behave as though people in remote parts of the globe were as important as ourselves. The sages of the Axial Age did not create their compassionate ethic in idyllic circumstances. Each tradition developed in societies like our own that were torn apart by violence and warfare as never before; indeed, the first catalyst of religious change was usually a visceral rejection of the aggression that the sages witnessed all around them. . . . All the great traditions that were created at this time are in agreement about the supreme importance of charity and benevolence, and this tells us something important about our humanity.

Exploring the Spirituality of the World Religions

Exploring the Spirituality of the World Religions
Author: Duncan S. Ferguson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2010-06-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 144116054X

This book is an insightful guide to the diverse ways that religious faith is practiced and spirituality is understood. Discussing contemporary issues such as post-modernism and the emergence of a "new paradigm," the new realities of geopolitics, globalization and global warming, this book explores the importance of religion in people's lives to provide direction in the society today. This book demonstrates the common quest among the world religions for a deeper and more profound spirituality. Describing the spiritual pathways of the various world religions, it assesses the ways that the beliefs, values and practices of these traditions can be life-giving, leading to personal and social responsibility and transformation, but also sometimes harmful and divisive, even used for dangerous purposes. Promoting constructive engagements between the world's religions, this book will connect social justice and ethical engagements with core religious practices and spiritualities. This is an ideal introductory text for students of world religions, spirituality and interfaith relations, broadening their understanding of these lived faiths.

Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions

Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions
Author: Jan Assmann
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 460
Release: 1999
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9789004113565

This collection of essays deals with anthropological rather than theological aspects of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions from the archaic period to Late Antiquity. Part one focuses on "Confession and Conversion," part two on "Guilt, Sin and Rituals of Purification."

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion
Author: Lewis R. Rambo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 829
Release: 2014-03-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199713545

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamics of religious conversion, which for centuries has profoundly shaped societies, cultures, and individuals throughout the world. Scholars from a wide array of religions and disciplines interpret both the varieties of conversion experiences and the processes that inform this personal and communal phenomenon. This volume examines the experiences of individuals and communities who change religions, those who experience an intensification of their religion of origin, and those who encounter new religions through colonial intrusion, missionary work, and charismatic and revitalization movements. The thirty-two innovative essays provide overviews of the history of particular religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous religions, and new religious movements. The essays also offer a wide range of disciplinary perspectives-psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, political, feminist, and geographical-on methods and theories deployed in understanding conversion, and insight into various forms of deconversion.

Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology

Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology
Author: Tyson L. Putthoff
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2016-11-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004336419

In Ontological Aspects of Early Jewish Anthropology, Tyson L. Putthoff explores early Jewish beliefs about how the human self reacts ontologically in God’s presence. Combining contemporary theory with sound exegesis, Putthoff demonstrates that early Jews widely considered the self to be intrinsically malleable, such that it mimics the ontological state of the space it inhabits. In divine space, they believed, the self therefore shares in the ontological state of God himself. The book is critical for students and scholars alike. In putting forth a new framework for conceptualising early Jewish anthropology, it challenges scholars to rethink not only what early Jews believed about the self but how we approach the subject in the first place.

Running with the Fairies

Running with the Fairies
Author: Dennis Gaffin
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2012-04-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443839345

Running with the Fairies: Towards a Transpersonal Anthropology of Religion is a unique account of the living spirituality and mysticism of fairyfolk in Ireland. Fairyfolk are fairyminded people who have had direct experiences with the divine energy and appearance of fairies, and fairypeople, who additionally know that they have been reincarnated from the Fairy Realm. While fairies have been folklore, superstition, or fantasy for most children and adults, now for the first time in a scholarly work, highly educated persons speak frankly about their religious/spiritual experiences, journeys, and transformations in connection with these angel-like spirit beings. Set in academic and popular historical perspectives, this first scholarly account of the Fairy Faith for over a hundred years, since believer Evans-Wentz’s 1911 published doctoral dissertation The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, integrates a participatory, “going native” anthropology with transpersonal psychology. Providing extensive verbatim interviews and discussions, this path-breaking work recognizes the reality of nature spirit beings in a Western context. Through intensive on-site fieldwork, the PhD cultural anthropologist author discovers, describes and interviews authentic mystics aligned with these intermediary deific beings. With an extensive introduction placing fairies in the context of the anthropology of religion, animism, mysticism, and consciousness, this daring ethnography considers notions of “belief”, “perception”, and spiritual “experience”, and with intricate detail extends the focus of anthropological research on spirit beings which previously have been considered as locally real only in indigenous and Eastern cultures.