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Mysticism and Experience: Twenty-First-Century Approaches embarks on an investigation of the concept of mysticism from the standpoint of academic fields, including philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, mysticism studies, literary studies, art criticism, cognitive poetics, cognitive science, psychology, medical research, and even mathematics. Scholars across disciplines observe that, although it has experienced both cyclical approval and disapproval, mysticism seems to be implicated as a key foundation of religion, alon with the highest forms of social, cultural, intellectual, and artistic creations. This book is divided into four sections: The Exposure, The Symbolic, The Cognitive, and The Scientific, covering all fundamental aspects of the phenomenon known as mysticism. Contributors, taking advantage of recent advances in disciplinary approaches to understanding mystical phenomena, address questions of whether progress can be made to systemically enrich, expand, and advance our understanding of mysticism.
The culmination of 34 years of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, this book offers ground-breaking insights into fundamental principles of Huichol shamanism and ritual. The scope and length of Fikes's research, combined with the depth of his participation with four Huichol shamans, enable him to convey with empathy details of shamanic initiation, methods for diagnosis and treatment of illness, and motives for performing funeral, deer and peyote hunting, and maize-cultivating rituals.
"This volume consists of twenty-four chapters containing a collection of selected original sources of Mongolian Buddhism, composed either in Tibetan or Mongolian language. This collection brings new material that has not yet been available in any of European languages. Translated sources serve as a lens through which to examine Mongolian Buddhism in its variety of literary genres and styles and religious and cultural ideas and practices. Each chapter includes a translation of a shorter text or a selected section of a longer text, and each contributor also provides the introduction to a translated text or texts, which contextualizes text, references and endnotes. The volume contains twenty-fo...
In this visionary memoir, author Michael Drake recounts his spiritual journey into shamanism. Drake's engaging narrative moves from his first ecstatic experience as a youth at a church revival to his mystical shamanic awakening, transformational pilgrimages to sacred places, working with indigenous wisdom keepers, to the experiences that prompted his writing, particularly his trance experiences "riding the drum" or Spirit Horse. Studying with Native elders and shamans, Drake discovered his shamanic gifts as a drummer, storyteller and ceremonialist. Riding Spirit Horse takes readers on a transcendent pilgrimage of the soul through birth, death, rebirth, ritual and ceremony to the frontiers of expanded consciousness.
Mirrors of Clay: Reflections of Ancient Andean Life in Ceramics from the Sam Olden Collection features photographs and descriptions of sixty ceramic vessels from ancient Andean American cultures, including the Cupisnique, Chavín, Vicús, Nazca, Moche, Tiwanaku, Lambayeque, and Chimú, which flourished between 1200 BCE and 1550 CE. These distinctive ceramic vessels, selected from the collection of Sam Olden, were given to the Mississippi Museum of Art and are included in a special exhibition presented by the museum and Jackson State University. The pieces reveal each culture's stylistic aesthetics, religious ideologies, and political roles. The Pre-Columbian ceramic vessels presented in this...
New perspectives on an important era in Mesoamerican history This volume examines shifting social identities, lived experiences, and networks of interaction in Mexico during the Mesoamerican Formative period (2000 BCE–250 CE), an era that helped produce some of the world’s most renowned complex civilizations. The chapters offer significant data, innovative methodologies, and novel perspectives on Mexican archaeology. Using diverse and non-traditional theoretical approaches, contributors discuss interregional relationships and the exchange of ideas in contexts ranging from the Gulf Coast Olmec region to the site of Tlatilco in Central Mexico to the often-overlooked cultures of the far wes...
This book represents a germinal effort that urges all religious and world leaders to savor the mystical spirituality, especially the cosmology and spirituality of sacred sustainability of the indigenous peoples. The power of indigenous spirit world is harnessed for the common good of the indigenous communities and the regenerative power of mother earth. This everyday mysticism of the world as spirited and sacred serves to re-enchant a world disillusioned by the unsustainability of destructive economic systems that have spawned the current ecological crises. Author Jojo Fung offers insight from his lived-experience and this book represents his effort to correlate the indigenous spirit world with Catholic Pneumatology and articulate the activity of God’s Spirit as the Spirit of Sacred Sustainability.
Divination is an important feature of cultures all over the world. While some may still question the efficacy of divination systems, they continue to serve their communities by diagnosing ailments, prescribing healing treatments, and solving problems. Yet despite their universality, there are relatively few comprehensive studies of divination systems. This volume seeks to fill this gap regarding the use of divination in healing. Here some of the world’s leading authorities draw on their own fieldwork and participation in ritual to present detailed case studies, demonstrating that divination rituals can have therapeutic effects. As the contributors examine the systems of knowledge that divi...
Drawing from ethnographic examples found throughout the world, this revised and updated text offers an introduction to what anthropologists know or think about religion, how they have studied it, and how they have interpreted or explained it since the late nineteenth century. Robert Winzeler’s balanced consideration of classic topics, basic concepts, and new developments in the anthropological study of religion moves beyond cultural anthropology and ethnography to gather information from physical anthropology, prehistory, and archaeology. Written as a sophisticated but accessible treatment of the issues, Anthropology and Religion is a key text for upper-division courses.
Exploring the phenomenon of socio-religio-magico reality in Java called wong pinter, this study is a pioneering academic work based on a first hand data. By interviewing 108 practitioners within the framework of anthropological and ethnographical approaches and putting the discussions in the context of shamanism study, this work is also a unique inquiry on Javanese culture conducted by a native. Wong Pinter delineates significant connectivity between Javanese shamanism and Asian or Southeast Asian shamanism. It also describes various aspect of shamanism practices in Java and assesses the sustainability and challenges of this phenomenon vis-a-vis the suppression of religious and political establishment. Above all, this book is an outstanding report valuable to those who are interested to delve into the core of Javanese culture and to the deliberation of social science in general.