A guide to personal discipline and social ethics from a classical Sanskrit scholar, designed for the modern yoga practitioner. Students of yoga are introduced to the ancient teachings of classical Indian literature in abundant workshops and teacher trainings. But amidst this abundance there is a hunger for more insight into how practitioners can integrate this wisdom into their modern lives. In today's complex world, how is it possible to truly live as a yogi? Drawing from his deep insight into ancient (...) Sanskrit texts, Dr. Shankaranarayana Jois connects yogic philosophy to how we approach food, work, education, relationships, and much more to support our deepest longings for true peace and happiness. The Yoga Journey focuses on the yamas and the niyamas, the personal disciplines (or restraints) and social ethics that represent the first two limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. Rather than offering a set of esoteric practices and disciplines, Dr. Jois offers clear and practical guidance to help us both understand and experience for ourselves why yogic practices are meaningful. Dr. Jois's central message underscores the benefits we can gain from adopting a yogic way of life in the modern world. His unique teachings show us the ultimate goal of yoga, and he clearly directs us toward the tools available to us for reaching that goal. Rather than suggesting that we blindly follow some prescription from the past, Jois challenges us to use our analytical mind to assess their usefulness and benefit in our daily lives. His teachings honor ancient traditions, going beyond the information and teachings being offered (and recycled) by many Western teachers. (shrink)

The dictionary definition of tradition refers to beliefs and practices that have been transmitted from generation to generation, however, 'tradition' can rest simply on the claim that certain cultural elements are rooted in the past. Claim and documented historical reality need not overlap. In the domain of religion, historically verifiable traditions coexist with recent innovations whose origins are spuriously projected back into time. This book examines the phenomenon of 'invented traditions' in religions ranging in time from Zoroastrianism to (...) Scientology, and geographically from Tibet to North America and Europe. The various contributions, together with an introduction that surveys the field, use individual case studies to address questions such as the rationale for creating historical tradition for one's doctrines and rituals; the mechanisms by which hitherto unknown texts can enter an existing corpus; and issues of acceptance and scepticism in the reception of dubious texts. (shrink)

This essay gives an account of how traditional morality is best understood and also why it is worth defending (even if some reform is needed) and how this might be done. Traditional morality is first contrasted with supposedly more enlightened forms of morality, such as utilitarianism and liberal Kantianism (i.e., autonomy-centered ethics). The focus here is on certain sacred values that are central to traditional morality and which highlight this contrast and bring out the attractions of traditional morality. Next, (...) this essay explores and offers support for the convergence thesis to which traditional morality, understood as common morality, is committed. This thesis states that although there are diverse moral traditions, insofar as they are in good order we should expect them to converge upon a common or universal morality, even if there remain some differences in the details. The defense of this thesis provides justification for the validity of traditional morality as it suggests an objective basis. (shrink)

Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia. Edited by Juliane Schober. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu 1997. xi, 366 pp. ISBN 0-8248-1699-4; Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 2002. Rs 495. ISBN 81-208-1812-1.

The aim of this article is to present a personal reflection regarding the theoretical/philosophical relation between the generally accepted theological grounding of icon painting and other contemporary artistical endeavours to integrate the religious feeling – of Christian-Orthodox inspiration. This reflection is based on a mixture of ideas from different thought-frameworks which have as common ground the need for speculating on issues such as ‘tradition understanding’, ‘personal expression’, ‘art and religiousness’, exactly those key-themes that are constituting the fundamental threads of (...) my argumentation. Hence, my appeal to authors like Lucian Blaga, Leonid Uspensky, Martin Heidegger, Paul Evdochimov, and Christos Yannaras. The point of departure for my study is the powerful and unavoidable conflict between the need for personal artistic interpretations of religious themes – expressed through contemporary artistic techniques and the application of contemporary metaphysical modelings – and the need for attaching oneself to an ‘authentic’ tradition of religious experience and to a community with deep roots in history. My all-round thesis is that this conflict cannot be, at least, clarified by choosing, from the artistic point of view, between two extremes: contemporary secular art on the one hand, and sacred, canonical art on the other hand, but by finding conceptual common pathways. (shrink)

A vibrant example of living literature, the Bhagavata Purana is a versatile Hindu sacred text written in Sanskrit verse. Finding its present form by the tenth century C.E., the work inspired several major north Indian devotional (bhakti) traditions as well as schools of dance and drama, and continues to permeate popular Hindu art and ritual in both India and the diaspora. Introducing the Bhagavata Purana's key themes while also examining its extensive influence on Hindu thought and practice, this collection (...) conducts the first multidimensional reading of the entire text. Each essay focuses on a key theme of the Bhagavata Purana and its subsequent presence in Hindu theology, performing arts, ritual recitation, and commentary. The authors consider the relationship between the sacred text and the divine image, the text's metaphysical and cosmological underpinnings, its shaping of Indian culture, and its ongoing relevance to contemporary Indian concerns. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the ways in which certain representative feminists from each of the Abrahamic religions have argued that patriarchal religious traditions have systematically excluded women from contributing to traditionally accepted interpretations of their sacred texts. It shows how, in response to this exclusion, feminist theologians from each of these religions have observed a need to interpret the scriptures of their traditions from the standpoint provided by their own experience as women–thus offering new interpretations which they perceive (...) to constitute a powerful tool with which to mount a critique of the theological traditions that had excluded them. The article concludes that, as women achieve greater opportunities for assessing their sacred texts themselves, this will have a growing effect on how the texts are read, on the religious institutions that claim to be justified by them and on the core religious concepts, such as ‘God’, that lie at the heart of those texts, whether their tradition be Jewish, Christian or Islamic. (shrink)

In Sacred Nature Jerome Stone gives us an informative, earnest introduction to religious naturalism with a focus on its relevance for environmentalism. Environmentalism today often dwells upon warnings about the dire consequences if certain prescribed actions are not taken. Stone takes a different tack. He quotes Aldo Leopold: “Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind; I have no hope for a conservation born of fear.” Stone’s approach—an engaging one, in my view—is to connect environmentalism with the hope (...) and passion of religious feeling. But Stone’s religious vision does not entail belief in the personalistic, supernatural deity of traditional monotheism. Rather, a sense of the sacred is discovered within... (shrink)

Sacred Rituals and Humane Death critically analyzes the civilizing nature of the underlying fundamental concept of "humaneness" in contemporary discourses around modern meat and animal ethics. As religious methods of animal slaughter, such as the halal method in Islam, as well as the practice of religious animal sacrifice, are sometimes categorized as barbaric in recent debates, the civilizing narrative of progress leads supposedly to more humane adaptation of methods and practices of animal curation and slaughter. This volume argues that (...) the shift toward modern meat does not constitute a shift toward less pain and suffering as purported by supporters of contemporary methods, particularly mass agriculture. Rather, it is a shift in what is considered as acceptable versus unacceptable pain and suffering. In this work, the author analyzes the concealment and distancing that characterize modern meat production, uncovering the "acceptable" pain and suffering involved in these procedures heralded as "progress" and advocating for a retrieval of earlier, tradition-bound practices rooted in religious, cultural, and ethical respect of animals and their important and sacred roles in sacrifice. (shrink)

Traditional sacral function of religion in the modern globalized and secular era is undergoing increasing transformation, that research in this article the following issues shows: human dignity as the highest value – anthropocentric and theistic dimension; development of secular Europe: Catholic and Orthodox opinion; the conception of permanent worlds’ development and «ecological spirituality» instead of theology of individual salvation.

Josef Pieper's Tradition: Concept and Claim analyzes tradition as an idea and as a living reality in the lives and languages of ordinary people. In the modern world of constant, unrelenting change, tradition, says Pieper, is that which must be preserved unchanged. Drawing on thinkers from Plato to Pascal, Pieper describes the key elements and figures in the act of tradition and what is distinctive about it. Pieper argues that the handing down of tradition is (...) not the same as discussing or teaching, despite its similarities to those activities. It means accepting something as true and valid with the intent of handing it down again, unmixed with alien intrusions and yet kept alive for each new generation via imaginative reformulations. In the beginning, there is sacred tradition, founded on a revelation of God to man, yet secular tradition is important too. Tradition offers liberation from the prison of the present." Understanding what tradition really means makes one free and independent in the face of conservatisms," notes Pieper. At the same time, it links us to the past and is essential for a meaningful future. Book jacket. (shrink)

This article argues for a version of sacred naturalism within the framework of a processual metaphysics that characterizes the cosmos as an interplay between Chaos (disunity) and Logos (unity). I argue that although creativity is highly valuable from the perspective of life and humanity, at a cosmic scale it is overshadowed by the universal tendencies toward conservation and destruction. Within this metaphysical picture I develop a naturalist notion of the sacred as a phenomenological object inspiring particularly intense feelings (...) of inner harmony but functioning eudaemonically to strengthen mind, body, and soul against forms of Chaos, whether anomie, stress, or personal conflict. After developing some criteria for a sacred but immanent meta-unity in contrast to the transcendental unities of traditional religion, I describe how the unity of the cosmos might be experienced as a sacred object by emphasizing its heterarchical, aesthetic and life-affirming dimensions. (shrink)

Buryats are a community that is a tribe of Mongols and lives in the Altay geography, has encountered various religions throughout history. Although Lake Baikal is located within the borders of the Irkutsk Autonomous Region, it has a very important place for the Buryat community. For the Buryat community, which adheres to their traditional beliefs, Olkhon Island, located in Lake Baikal, is seen as a legacy and sacred place left by their ancestors. According to the belief, Olkhon Island is (...) considered one of the most important global poles of shamanic energy for the Buryat community, thought to provide a connection with the metaphysical realm through the special areas it contains. Olkhon Island, including various mythological elements and legends, has been home to Altay communities. Some of beliefs about Olkhon Island are considered valuable in terms of showing the common elements of the Mongolian and Turkish communities that have lived together throughout history and being able to reveal their interaction with each other. In this article, the relationship of Olkhon Island with the sacred and its importance in terms of world cultural heritage is evaluated by using descriptive and comparative methods. Olkhon Island will provide valuable data on the basis of the beliefs of the mentioned communities when evaluated in the context of their interaction and connection with the outside world being quite limited, the preservation and maintenance of the traditional beliefs of the Turkish and Mongolian communities. (shrink)

With In Focus Sacred Geometry, learn the fascinating history behind this ancient tradition as well as how to decipher the geometrical symbols, formulas, and patterns based on mathematical patterns. People have searched for the meaning behind mathematical patterns for thousands of years. At its core, sacred geometry seeks to find the universal patterns that are found and applied to the objects surrounding us, such as the designs found in temples, churches, mosques, monuments, art, architecture, and nature. Learn (...) the fundamental principles behind: Interpreting the sacred symbolism and principles behind shapes Calculating numbers used in sacred geometry Applying the golden ratio and Fibonacci’s Sequence to objects Translating symbolic and geometrical letters and alphabets This accessible and beautifully designed guide to sacred geometry includes a frameable poster of the main sacred geometrical shapes and their unique, innate arrangements. The In Focus series applies a modern approach to teaching the classic body, mind, and spirit subjects. Authored by experts in their respective fields, these beginner's guides feature smartly designed visual material that clearly illustrates key topics within each subject. As a bonus, each book includes reference cards or a poster, held in an envelope inside the back cover, that give you a quick, go-to guide containing the most important information on the subject. (shrink)

Early twentieth-century Italian poetry experiences a crisis in confidence concerning the expressibility of rhythm. Dino Campana's writings exemplify the processes the poet goes through in order to write rhythm. Rhythm is difficult to deal with because it is both sacred and tired. These two incarnations of rhythm lead Campana to different modes of expression; from more traditional definitions through to more fluid definitions. Two strands of analysis reveal themselves as central to understanding Campana's theoretical stance, namely fluidity and movement. (...) These point to a careful veiling of rhythm which opens up new spaces for the articulation of something that, whilst difficult, remains the essence of poetry. (shrink)

This book evaluates a range of contemporary social and political questions in light of Catholic social teaching, philosophy, great political thinkers, and America's founding tradition. It is a strong and focused defense of traditional Catholic approaches to the questions of our time, and the vast array of material covered makes this book an invaluable reference for anyone interested in contemporary politics.

This paper builds on Max Charlesworth’s evolving interest in aboriginal spirituality by reflecting on potential affinities, as well as great differences, between the notion of the indigenous songline and sacred texts. In particular I suggest possible parallels between the travels of a spirit ancestor along a particular route, and the account of the journey of a specific early Irish saint, itself modelled on the motif of the pilgrim within Jewish and Christian Scripture. Charlesworth always insisted that religion could never (...) be studied as an abstraction, outside its specific manifestation in a culture. I argue that a core element of any religious tradition is constituted not by belief, but by song. Sacred texts themselves record oral traditions, transmitted through song or chanted recitation. While songlines and sacred texts delineate the sacred in very different ways, they both can provide maps of reality, relating to sacred geography and the values of a community. They can be described, in Charlesworth’s phrase as ‘religious inventions’, providing a cultural code necessary for survival, perhaps in a similar way to genetic code within a living organism. (shrink)

An alternative to the traditional religious and religious art was the time, which, especially in the XX century, began to intensively transform the entire arsenal of sacred art into the art at a fast pace. All changed - architecture, fine arts, music, literature... There were new types of art, and traditional ones, under the pressure of socio-economic changes and globalization processes, experienced significant deformations in both form and content. Extrapolation of these tendencies to the life of the Christian church (...) and its sacred inspiration in religious art caused a violent reaction, opposition and confusion. Christianity also had to face similar processes, to adapt to the demands of time, but the scale of change that life in the 20th century required was completely different. (shrink)

The paper opens by recounting the beginnings of Buddhism in Dawei as preserved in local chronicles and sustained in stupas marking the episodes of the chronicle narrative. The chronicles start with a visit of the Buddha whose arrival triggers a series of events bringing together pre-existing tutelary figures, weiza, a hermit and offspring born of a golden fish, culminating in the establishment of the first Buddhist kingdom circa the eighth to tenth century CE. The enshrinement of sacred hairs gifted (...) by the Buddha also includes patronage by a king of the ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ lineage. Associated with the monks Sona and Uttara from Sri Lanka sent by King Asoka's son Mahinda, ‘Suvaṇṇabhūmi’ literally can refer to the archaeology of Thaton, a walled site in the present day Mon State, or, as is the case here, more widely to the missionary tradition associated with Asoka (Sao Saimong Mengrai 1976). The third story in the establishment of the Buddhist king at Thagara is the longest of the chronicle, the tale of a royal hunter who failed to capture a golden peacock for the queen. The hunter became a hermit living by a pond with a golden fish and as he urinated in the pond, two children were born from the fish. The boy becomes the first Buddhist king of Thagara, 11 km north of Dawei, where artefacts from survey and excavation confirm the chronology of the chronicle, with the closest archaeological parallels found not at the ancient sites of the Mon State but to the first millennium CE Buddhist ‘Pyu’ heritage of Upper Myanmar which is notably absent in the chronicle compilation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among (...) vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations. (shrink)

"Healing the past helps restructure the present, which then becomes the hope for the future." As we approach a new millennium, many of us are fearing for the future while hungering for a vision of our place in a sacred whole. The immense changes of the last hundred years have severed our sense of connection to a spiritual lineage that gave past generations the strength to meet life's challenges and bequeath wisdom to their descendants. In this inspirational yet down-to-earth (...) book, renowned healer and lecturer Denise Linn draws on her own story, as well as her Native American heritage and other ancient cultures, to guide you through acts of personal power that can reopen the wellspring of ancestral wisdom within you. By finding your roots and honoring your forebears--biological or adoptive, ethnic, cultural, mythological, and spiritual--you take your place as both a descendant and an ancestor. Defining who your ancestors are is a journey of self-discovery. Discovering who you are helps you break free from negative family patterns, embrace the positive, and create your own unique traditions. By fashioning a spiritual legacy through loving acts, you create energy to empower your future descendants. This fascinating guide teaches you to - Get in touch with the strength and spirit of your ancestors - Explore your personal myth - Restructure your past - Heal the family tree - Speak to your descendants through the art of giving - Revive rituals and create traditions for the twenty-first century With real-life stories and practical, easy-to-use exercises and meditations, Sacred Legacies shows how the choices we make in our own lives--however small--can forge a link with the future and help create a powerful new reality for all humanity and the planet. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Sacred and the Myth: Havel's Greengrocer and the Transformation of Ideology in Communist Czechoslovakia Marci Shore University ofToronto There is nothing a free man is so anxious to do as to find something to worship. But it must be something unquestionable, that all men can agree to worship communally. For the great concern ofthese miserable creatures is not that every individual should find something to worship that (...) he personally considers worthy ofworship, but that they should find someming in which they can all believe and which they can all worship in common; it is essential that it should be in common. And it is precisely that requirement ofshared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another.Fyodor Dostoevsky (306) Thus the conflict between the aims of life and the aims of the system is not a conflict between two socially defined and separate communities; and only a very generalized view (and even that only approximative) permits us to divide society into the rulers and the ruled. Here, by the way, is one of the most important differences between the post-totalitarian system and classical dictatorships, in which this line of conflict can still be drawn according to social class. In the post-totalitarian system, 1 64Marci Shore this line runs defacto through each person, for everyone in his or her own way is both a victim and a supporter ofthe system. Vaclav Havel (37) The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia arrived as a symbolically gentle conclusion to a half-century long era ofharrowing violence and totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. It was an era that saw the emergence ofNazism, Stalinism, and various indigenous fascisms, effecting a startling demonstration of the potency of ideology to co-opt minds and to wreak violence. The existence of communist ideology as a myth cohering communist totalitarian societies has been widely enough asserted. Yet this analysis can be taken to a further level through the aid oftwo paradigms. The first is a theory of human relationships developed by René Girard, which blends the disciplines ofliterary criticism, anthropology, philosophy, and political science. The second is a model arising from Vaclav Havel's parable of the greengrocer, told in "The Power ofthe Powerless" (1979). Girard's model posits the existence ofthe sacred, that locus of power that was once the pole of primitive religions. The core of the sacred is transfigured human violence. Girardian scholar Robert Hamerton-Kelly explains the process by which the sacred comes into being: Girard tells us that [the sacred] is a mendacious representation of human violence; "it is the sum ofhuman assumptions resulting from collective transferences focused on a reconciliatory victim at the conclusion of a mimetic crisis." The element of "the overwhelming" defines the Sacred...but its primary content is violence understood as being...outside ofnormal human control. (142) The sacred is established as the result of a crisis, one which finds resolution in the purging ofa relatively arbitrary scapegoat. Following this catharsis, three expressions sustain the sacred: myth, ritual, and prohibition. An examination ofthe evolution ofthese expressions in Czechoslovakia from the Stalinist period through normalization (the so-termed "posttotalitarian " period described by Havel in his essay) reveals much about the paradoxical dynamics ofideologically-based totalitarianism—which Havel defines most poignantly by suggesting that at the essence of ideological totalitarianism is the collapsing of the traditional dichotomy between victim and oppressor. The Sacred and the Myth: Havel's Greengrocer165 A Girardian deconstruction of Stalinism A political space for Stalinism developed in Czechoslovakia through the tumultuous period of Nazi occupation and the communist nature of anti-Nazi resistance. By the eve ofthe 1948 communist coup, the communists had claimed thirty-eight percent ofthe popular vote in free elections. Milan Kundera describes the coup as a usurpation of power "not in bloodshed and violence, but to the cheers of about half the population" (1986, 8). Defining this initial fanaticism was its honesty, especially among the younger generation. A young Stalinist later to become a reformist, and still later a dissident, Zdenek Mlynár, explains... (shrink)

The exegesis of sacred rites in the Talmud is subject to a restriction on the iteration and composition of inference rules. In order to determine the scope and limits of that restriction, the sages of the Talmud deploy those very same inference rules. We present the remarkable features of this early use of self-reference to navigate logical constraints and uncover the hidden complexity behind the sages? arguments. Appendix 11 contains a translation of the relevant sugya. 1Hebrew and Aramaic transliteration (...) approximates traditional Sephardic pronunciation, which is closer to academic standard transliteration than the various Ashkenazic pronunciations, yet is legible. Specific references follow the convention of folio (number), side (a or b), number of lines from the top or (if negative) bottom of the page. (shrink)

How is modern psychotherapy impacted when it is approached from the presence and understanding of the unconditioned mind? What happens when therapists are able to function as a sacred mirror for their clients' essential nature, reflecting back not only the contents of awarenessùthoughts, feelings and sensationsùbut awareness itself? Informed by their direct experience as well as by nondual teachings from both eastern and western wisdom traditions, the authors take a fresh look at what psychotherapy can be. These seminal essays (...) will challenge and inspire readers to approach psychotherapy in a new wayùas a potential portal for experiencing their deepest nature as free and joyful beings.Seasoned clinicians, Dan Berkow, Stephan Bodian, Dorothy Hunt, Sheila Krystal, Lynn Marie Lumiere, Richard Miller, John Prendergast, John Welwood, Jennifer Welwood and Bryan Wittine, and innovative western spiritual teachers, Adyashanti and Peter Fenner, explore critical issues at the interface of psychology and spirituality from a nondual perspective. (shrink)

From sacred texts of the world's religions, scholars find resources for interreligious dialogue. In this book a diverse group of religious scholars representing many faith traditions propose a text that they have found valuable in their work as interreligious bridge-builders and share reflections about its context, its message, and how it inspires or informs their own work in the field.

The mid-19th century marked a pivotal transition in Chinese society from a predominantly feudal structure to a more complex semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. This transformation was paralleled by the introduction of Western musical philosophies, including concepts of self-discipline and heteronomy, which began to permeate the Chinese cultural landscape. As these Western ideas took root, they significantly influenced the development of China's traditional vocal music, leading to a distinctive dichotomy between the musical traditions of the North and the South—epitomized by the (...) emergence of four renowned singers and four notable Xusheng in the North, and the Nantong Linggong Society and Qipai styles in the South. This paper delves into the impact of foreign musical philosophies on Chinese vocal traditions, exploring the profound synthesis of spirit and material in music philosophy. It posits that vocal music represents a unique amalgamation of human anatomical structure and the spiritual world. By examining how these philosophical influences merged with the social milieu of the time, the study reveals how modern Chinese vocal music not only encapsulated the characteristics of the era and national identity but also echoed the populace's aspirations. These interactions underscored the music's role in reflecting spiritual and philosophical undercurrents, thereby laying a foundational stone for the resurgence of national vocal music in contemporary times, imbued with both secular and sacred resonances. (shrink)

My thesis in this essay is that the Sacred Heart, reinterpreted, can speak powerfully of the Church's birth from the world's suffering. It can serve as symbol of a new ecclesiology based on a model Jon Sobrino calls "a church of the poor" (1984, 125). Perhaps the form that devotion to the Sacred Heart has taken since the seventeenth century, with its litanies and first-Friday Masses, is outmoded; nevertheless, the symbol itself lives. It deserves a new articulation rather (...) than a simple dismissal. (shrink)

Ambiguous Adventure, one of the most iconic novels in Senegalese history, recounts the plight of a traditional African society in the face of an encroaching western modernity, with its main character, Samba Diallo, as the face of this momentous struggle. The captivating story inspired numerous critiques that address the text from sociological, religious, and philosophical perspectives. Not surprisingly, most of the interpretations are based on the textual connection to Islam, the religion embraced and practiced by the Diallobé community in the (...) novel, and deal with universal topics such as death, identity, colonialism, initiation, tradition, and modernity. Building on the work done before me on Samba’s own search for identity within the Muslim context, I look to pre-Islamic Fulani traditions articulated by Amadou Hampaté Bâ, which better illuminate the process of initiation that leads the human being to transform into a self-realized person. I argue, based on this Fulani metaphysical context, that from the very beginning, Samba Diallo’s journey is initiatic in itself, in the traditional Fulani conception of the term, one that is connected to the sacred dimension. In this sense, the Fulani indigenous traditions anticipate Samba’s journey toward a sacred identity, highlight a clear roadmap to that very process, and, contrary to many critics, lead the initiate to success. (shrink)

Restoring our biological cycles to heal ourselves, our culture, and our planet Shows how, just like the tides and the moon phases, both women and men have biological cycles of growth and renewal necessary for healthy bodies and minds. Explains how the seclusion of women during menstruation and of men during vision quests offers a cleansing process for body and mind to awaken innate creativity and sensitivity, re-attune us with the deeper rhythms of the body and nature, and restore harmony (...) between the divine feminine and divine masculine. Reveals how the need for sacred retreat was forgotten when the divine feminine was suppressed by patriarchal culture. All of life is interwoven into a living system of cycles, from Earth's seasons to the enzymatic pathways that provide energy to a cell. Waxing and waning from times of growth to times of rest, renewal, and healing, cycles map the most auspicious time for everything in life. Both women and men have biological cycles of active growth and quiet renewal, led by our hormones. By understanding how everything in life moves in cycles, you can become more aware of and comfortable with your own cyclic nature, something that has been forgotten by the modern world's linear views of time. Drawing on the wisdom of ancient cultures, the natural cycles of life, and her own groundbreaking research, Pia Orleane, Ph.D., offers a template for how we can restore balance to our emotions and health, ease tensions between the sexes, and heal our fractured culture by honoring divine feminine consciousness and re-embracing natural cycles, including our innate need for rest and retreat. She explains the biology of how our bodies operate by hormones released in cycles and shows how balanced hormones help eliminate anger, depression, insomnia, anxiety, and fatigue. Exploring ancient traditions and rituals surrounding blood and sacred retreat, she explains how the seclusion of women during menstruation and of men during vision quests offered a cleansing process for body and mind, alone time to clear suppressed emotions, awaken our innate creativity and sensitivity, re-attune us with the deeper rhythms of the body and nature, and restore harmony between the genders and balance between the divine feminine and masculine. Outlining the sacred retreat process, the author explores dream cycles, divine sexuality, and practices for reconnecting to nature, increasing creativity and intuition, and clearing suppressed emotions. She also looks at the benefits for women and men of separate sleeping during menstruation. Through this wisdom, we can restore our natural cycles, allow the divine feminine to once again blossom alongside the divine masculine, and, with the return of balance, heal our world and our hearts. (shrink)

Knowing someone personally centrally involves engaging in various patterns of affective response. Inasmuch as humans can know God personally, this basic insight about the relationship between personal knowledge and affective response also applies to God: knowing God involves responding to him, and to the world, in various affectively toned ways. In light of this insight, I explore how one particular practice might contribute to human knowledge of God: namely, engaging with sacred music – in particular, sacred music in (...) the Western, classical tradition. In investigating this topic, I tackle an issue at the interface between the philosophy of religion and aesthetics: sacred music’s capacity to arouse religious emotions. I use as a springboard Peter Kivy’s view that ‘music alone’ can only arouse emotions about itself. This view, I argue, has a counterintuitive consequence: the music in sacred works would play no part in arousing emotions with religious objects. In contrast, I develop an account of how music combines with religious factors to arouse religious emotions. I then draw out two consequences for how music can facilitate understanding between religious and non-religious outlooks. The upshot of all this, I suggest, is that by expanding the listener’s religious-emotional landscape, sacred music can enrich her knowledge of God – and that this is possible whether or not the listener subscribes propositionally to God’s reality or to any other religious doctrines. (shrink)

Man is a "homo theologicus." The dominion of the cyberculture is determining the oblivion of the Sacred in a new fashion, creating fictional transcendences that replace traditional reality with cyberconstructions. We aim to show how man is essentially a theologal being and how the Byzantine notion of ϑέωσις (deification) as expressed in sacred arts can be a way of preserving human essence from its alienation in the fictional transcendences of cyberbeing. We approach cyberculture as a process of ontological (...) desubstantiation via artificial "intelligence" and virtual reproductions. We explain the dual phenomenon of the implanting of a decentered, networked techno-hedonism and the spread of the "avatar syndrome" as a cyber-disease that inhibits in man his responsibility to be real. By contrast, we underscore the importance of the fact that in cyberbeing the "enchantment before beings" as anticipation of radical freedom is especially safeguarded. While the modern aesthetic is mostly deprived of mystic origin and transcendental telos and proves useless against cyberbeing's desubstantiating power, Byzantine aesthetic as an ontological healing way can contribute to the de-oblivion of human essence. This implies that sacred Byzantine arts as aesthetic therapy open the horizon in which man experiences his essence as perpetual bliss in the meaning of Being. (shrink)

Recent studies have been increasingly interested in the connections between popular culture – cinema in particular – and religion, and most particularly in how traditional mythologies and religious frameworks and practices are recycled and reinterpreted within modern media. These interactions can be ranged from opposition to dialogue and move towards appropriation and even replacement, in terms of functions and impact. Departing from a series of theories – mainly that of “implicit religion”, coined by Bailey but also developed by theorists like (...) Lyden – the article examines the issue of recycled myth and religious pattern in contemporary cinema, focusing on the Russian “New Wave” and more specifically on discussing Zvyagintsev’s Vozvrashchenie [The Return]. The article aims to decode the religious layers and symbolism of the film, which can find a coherent explanation in Eliade’s theories on the pattern of initiation, but also in those on the sacred camouflaged into the profane and most particularly on the hierophanies and initiation religious patterns. The paper also focuses on the function of religious archetypes and rituals as employed by contemporary storytellers like cinema, especially when such religious scripts are as articulated, although implicit, as in Zvyagintsev’s narrative. The article concludes that this return to religion and the sacred as worldviews and manners of understanding of the world can be explained as employed for their persistent function of myth structures as meaning and coherence providers. (shrink)

Presenting a thorough examination of the sacred forests of Asia, this volume engages with dynamic new scholarly dialogues on the nature of sacred space, place, landscape, and ecology in the context of the sharply contested ideas of the Anthropocene. Given the vast geographic range of sacred groves in Asia, this volume discusses the diversity of associated cosmologies, ecologies, traditional local resource management practices, and environmental governance systems developed during the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods. Adopting theoretical perspectives (...) from political ecology, the book views ecology and polity as constitutive elements interacting within local, regional, and global networks. Readers will find the very first systematic comparative analysis of sacred forests that include the karchall mabhuy of the Katu people of Central Vietnam, the leuweng kolot of the Baduy people of West Java, the fengshui forests of southern China, the groves to the goddess Sarna Mata worshiped by the Oraon people of Jharkhand India, the mauelsoop and bibosoop of Korea, and many more. Comprising in-depth, field-based case study, each chapter shows how the forest's sacrality must not be conceptually delinked from its roles in common property regimes, resource security, spiritual matters of ultimate concern, and cultural identity. This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of indigenous studies, environmental anthropology, political ecology, geography, religion and heritage, nature conservation, environmental protection, and Asian Studies. (shrink)

Josef Pieper's Tradition: Concept and Claim analyzes tradition as an idea and as a living reality in the lives and languages of ordinary people. In the modern world of constant, unrelenting change, tradition, says Pieper, is that which must be preserved unchanged. Drawing on thinkers from Plato to Pascal, Pieper describes the key elements and figures in the act of tradition and what is distinctive about it. Pieper argues that the handing down of tradition is (...) not the same as discussing or teaching, despite its similarities to those activities. It means accepting something as true and valid with the intent of handing it down again, unmixed with alien intrusions and yet kept alive for each new generation via imaginative reformulations. In the beginning, there is sacred tradition, founded on a revelation of God to man, yet secular tradition is important too. Tradition offers liberation from the prison of the present." Understanding what tradition really means makes one free and independent in the face of conservatisms," notes Pieper. At the same time, it links us to the past and is essential for a meaningful future. Book jacket. (shrink)

People everywhere search for answers by using the resources of their traditions. They wish to do so in a legitimate way, and so they consult official institutions, specialists, and skilled individuals for their opinions; regardless of religious or cultural contexts, the common aim of these experts is to produce security, unity, and trust. Therefore, the norm-finding processes in Islamic and Western contexts share fundamental similarities: the problem of finding a final ground for judgment, the strategies of constructing coherence and of (...) organizing consensus, and the difficulties of obtaining legitimacy. What makes one debate "Islamic" and the other one "Western" is the different semantic materials, the different authorities, the different languages, and the different juridical frameworks. In my comparison of Muslim and Western discourses and practices, I conclude that Muslim and non-Muslim scholars tend to overemphasize the uniqueness of Muslim legal and practical responses to bioethical challenges, because they restrict their purview to legal opinions, ignoring larger dynamics of legitimization. (shrink)

The Midewiwin is the traditional religious belief system central to the world view of Ojibwa in Canada and the US. It is a highly complex and rich series of sacred teachings and narratives whose preservation enabled the Ojibwa to withstand severe challenges to their entire social fabric throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It remains an important living and spiritual tradition for many Aboriginal people today. The rituals of the Midewiwin were observed by many 19th century Euro-Americans, most (...) of whom approached these ceremonies with hostility and suspicion. As a result, although there were many accounts of the Midewiwin published in the 19th century, they were often riddled with misinterpretations and inaccuracies. Historian Michael Angel compares the early texts written about the Midewiwin, and identifies major, common misconceptions in these accounts. In his explanation of the historical role played by the Midewiwin, he provides alternative viewpoints and explanations of the significance of the ceremonies, while respecting the sacred and symbolic nature of the Midewiwin rituals, songs, and scrolls. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of what it terms the ‘Heideggerian-deconstructive’ reading of Kant’s “Analytic of the Sublime” and develops an alternative ‘genealogical’ interpretation of it. It is argued that the ‘Heideggerian-deconstructive’ reading of Kant’s text emphasises the ‘question of presentation’. By contrast, the concerns of the ‘genealogical’ interpretation of Kant’s sublime are affective and ‘libidinal’ in character. The underlying issue concerns the prioritisation of the orders of presentation and affectivity respectively and the balance between them in Kant’s text. The (...) paper begins with an appreciative overview of the ‘Heideggerian-deconstructive’ reading of Kant’s sublime as found in texts by Derrida, Escoubas, Lacoue-Labarthe, Lyotard, Nancy and Sallis. In the ensuing sections the ‘genealogical’ alternative is developed. It is suggested that such a ‘Nietzschean’ reading has two phases, oppositional and immanent respectively. The first phase exposes the evaluative economy of Kant’s text and identifies themes within it which endorse the constitutive values of the ‘Platonic-Christian’ tradition. Kant’s sublime appears to be a ‘moral’ response to the a-symmetry between ‘raw nature’ and the transcendent aspirations of rational-moral humanity. However, due to its oppositional character, this form of ‘genealogical’ critique does not execute a sufficiently radical critique of Kant’s text. A second, immanent form, of ‘genealogical’ reading is required. This focuses on the theme of ‘negative pleasure’ in Kant’s text and argues that it has priority over that of ‘negative presentation’. Kant’s sublime no longer appears to be ‘moral’ in orientation but advocates passionately the pleasures of a specific, non-universalisable, ‘affective-libidinal’ economy. The task arising concerns the evaluative comparison of different aesthetic sensibilities, the ‘negative pleasure’ of Kant’s sublime and the Nietzschean alternative of a ‘tragic joy’ that affirms precisely the ‘contrapurposiveness’ of ‘raw nature’ from which Kant turns away. This is a contrast between a teleological and dysteleological sublime, ‘human’ and ‘post-human’ aesthetic sensibilities. (shrink)